Is There Any Backbone Left In DC

On Election Day, Barack Obama and the Democrats won control of Washington DC. Since the inauguration of Barack Obama, the President and the Democrat controlled Congress have set forth legislation that actually delivers on a campaign promise. They promised to change the country, and they are well on their way to accomplishing that feat. The problem, of course, is that the change will remake the United States into a country that is far from what our founders had intended. The Republicans in Washington DC and the party leadership seem to be more concerned about offering a “lite” version of the disastrous policies of the left. They appear to be more focused on not angering their political opponents or the media, than actually offering true conservative alternatives.

The current political season is ripe with opportunity for a strong, truly conservative leader to point out the lies and fallacy of the Democratic agenda. The massive stimulus bill was just the beginning and the Republicans in the House did unite against that bill, as well as the majority of the Senate Republicans, but merely voting against the earmark laden stimulus bill is only half the battle. What happened to educating the voting public about why you are against the historic demolition of our economy? Then there was the bank bailouts, the Chrysler and GM debacle, numerous appointees that were incapable of paying their taxes, Obama’s magical apology tour of the world, Iran’s and North Korea’s defiance of Obama and the world, the monstrosity that will be universal/socialist healthcare, and now even his pick for the Supreme Court. All of these are sitting ducks for a conservative response from the Republican leadership.

Instead, what we have seen is attitudes of appeasement settle over the leadership. There have been a few bright spots of conservative Congressman standing up and fighting, but from the elites of the party we are told we need to be a “Big Tent” party. Colin Powell, who has voted for more Democrats in Presidential elections than Republicans, lectures the party that we need to be more moderate and inclusive. Isn’t that what he got in the last election with John “Amnesty” McCain? The same group of elitist Republicans is now preaching that we cannot oppose Sonia Sotomayor because we will be seen as anti-Hispanic because of her Puerto Rican heritage. First of all, were the Democrats seen as anti-Hispanic for their opposition to Miguel Estrada? Secondly, the Republicans received very little of the Hispanic vote last year, why would anyone believe that if we support Sotomayor for the Supreme Court that the numbers would change? Sotomayor is an easy target for criticism based solely on her judicial philosophy. She is on record stating that it is the role of the court to make policy. She is on record stating that she believes that a “woman of color” would more often make better judicial decisions that a white man. Her judicial decisions have been overturned 60% by the very court to which she has been nominated. I believe it is telling that her supporters are touting her inspiring life story as a great reason to confirm her, but yet the very same people were vehemently opposed to Justice Thomas whose story is equally compelling. A supreme Court Justice should be considered based on their record of opinions and their judicial philosophy, not whether their life story would make for a great Lifetime movie of the week.

I don’t expect that the Republicans to be able to stop all of the Marxist plans for our country, but they have an excellent opportunity to stand up voice their opposition and educate the American people on why these plans are bad for our country. Ronald Reagan was able to push his tax cuts through a Democrat controlled Congress, with a hostile media covering the news, and no Internet to aid in the dissemination of the facts. The Republican leadership needs to wake up and realize that the Tea Parties on April 15 were just as much a protest of their lack of leadership as it was a protest of Obama’s spending spree in Washington.

Pelosi Changes Her Story Yet Again On Torture

For the past several weeks, the media and the Democratic leadership in Congress have screamed and yelled about the enhanced interrogation techniques employed after the September 11 attacks. These techniques have been attributed to saving lives by their proponents, and have been condemned as torture by their opponents. Probably the most out-spoken opponent of the EIT’s in the past few weeks has been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Ms. Pelosi initially feigned outrage at the news that techniques, such as “waterboarding”, had been used against the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. She claimed that she did not know that these techniques were even being considered. Then the reports came out about numerous congressional briefings by the CIA, to which Pelosi responded that they never told her about any techniques. As more staffers, congressman, and CIA reports came out, Pelosi proceeded to change her story as quickly as Arlen Specter changers political affiliations.

At one point, she claimed that she did know about the interrogations but did not object at the time because she wanted to follow the “legislative process”. As the heat continued to increase, she decided to try to claim that the CIA lied to her and the rest of Congress. She now claims that the CIA deliberately misled her and Congress by withholding the information about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. She sounds like a child caught in a lie, and instead of owning up to the truth when questioned, she continually piles lies upon lies.

With Pelosi flailing about with her myriad of stories of what she knew and when she knew it, the Democrats were having a bad enough week on national security, but then just before the 40 some pictures of the “torture” of detainees were to be released, President Obama reversed course and decided not to release them. I applaud Obama for not releasing the pictures. The only purpose it would serve would be to incite our enemies. For the record, I am not saying I am opposed to the use of EIT’s, but you can guarantee that Al Qaeda would propagandize the pictures and use them against us. Another surprising twist arose this week when the Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration is considering leaving the Bush administration policy of detaining enemy combatants indefinitely intact. Can you hear the screeching from MoveOn.org?

The fate of Speaker Pelosi is still unknown, but I do believe that if she continues down this self-destructive path she will be forever politically damaged and her days as Speaker will be numbered. As for the Obama administration’s national security policy, it will be very interesting how they proceed. The calls for a defined Afghanistan policy have begun from they typical cast of characters, led by PA Representative John Murtha. Will Obama be able to hold his party’s anti-war elements in line? Will Obama choose to appease his rabid anti-war followers or choose a competent national security policy? I pray, for the sake of our country and all of our safety, that he chooses the latter.

Who Is Watching How Our Money Is Spent?

Back in February, after President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus bill, we were told no to worry about massive fraud and waste because they government was going to closely monitor where the money was going. Vice President Joe Biden even went out and threatened the local and state government officials that if they spent the stimulus money unwisely, he would personally go out and name names of the wasteful spenders. We were assured that the government would set up a website so that we could check for ourselves where the money was going. Shockingly, the truth is that the government has no clue as to where the money is going and the elected representatives who signed the check don’t seem to care.

This week the House subcommittee tasked with oversight of the massive amounts of money hemorrhaging from the Treasury Department, held a hearing to get an update on the progress of the website and other tracking methods. The chairman of the Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board, Earl Devaney, told the panel that the website is not ready and probably will not be ready until maybe next year. One would think that this news would raise some eyebrows of the Congressman on the panel, but unfortunately the most of the members decide dthat it was not important to even show up for the hearing. Of the 10 members only 3 showed up in the beginning, with 1 other member showing up late. I suppose that this should not be surprising, especially when you consider that no one in either chamber of Congress actually read the “stimulus” bill before voting on it.

At least we can count on the President to follow through on his promise of going through the federal budget line by line to find areas to cut the spending. This week the President did come out and announce his proposed budget cuts from his $3.55 trillion budget. He plans to make more than 100 cuts in his budget that will save the taxpayers $17 billion. To put it in perspective, if the federal budget were just $355, the President’s cuts would equate to $0.17. How excited would you be if you were buying a new TV and the salesman told you that he could save you 17 cents? Obama’s proposed budget cuts out of his budget amount to less than .5% of his total budget proposal. Do you feel that the government is effectively watching out for your hard earned money?

With a Federal budget deficit forecasted to be more than $9 trillion by the Congressional Budget Office over the next decade when can we expect the President’s promise of fiscal responsibility to be fulfilled? I suppose we could just hope that Congress and the President will change the drunken sailor spending habits. Then again, didn’t thousands of people show up in cities across the country to protest the ludicrous spending and overbearing taxation? Maybe elected officials will take notice of the groundswell of discontent over the tax and spend policies of the current administration. I believe members of both parties need to wake up and see the disastrous future they are preparing for our children. Otherwise they will all find themselves out of work in 2010.

Apparently I Am A Bigger Threat Than Al Qaeda

President Barack Obama is apparently unable to make a decision and stand by it. Last Thursday the President promised that no officials from the Bush administration would be prosecuted for the practice of enhanced interrogations. Just a few short days later; he reopened the door to prosecuting officials who wrote memos detailing the legality of enhanced interrogations. What could have caused the President to so quickly change his mind? Of course, he created a political fall guy if the public outcry against any prosecution is too great. He firmly planted the Attorney General, Eric Holder, in the political line of fire.

The legal questions surrounding enhanced interrogations gained attention last week when the Obama administration declassified CIA memos detailing which methods could be legally defended. The various methods included the now infamous water boarding, but also included such methods as a facial grab, facial slap with an open hand, serving the terrorists a bland, but nutritious diet, and threatening to place a terrorist in a confined space with a caterpillar.

These methods have been called torture by some, but have been called highly valuable by Clinton appointee George Tenet. Tenet said during a 60 minutes interview that he knew that these methods provided valuable information that allowed law enforcement officials to prevent a 9/11-style attack in Los Angeles. In fact, the Bush administration briefed members of Congress on the techniques used during interrogations in 2002. Of course, the hypocritical congressional leaders created a stampede to get in front of the cameras to feign their outrage about such practices when they became public knowledge.

Now that it is public knowledge, what have we lost in terms of national security? Now that the murderous terrorists know what methods we use and now will not use, how can anyone expect the CIA or military to be able to effectively interrogate the captured terrorists? All that they are authorized to use now for interrogations is the Army Field Manual, which will not allow such harsh tactics as insults or name calling. I guess all that is left is to serve them Prime Rib without a proper salad beforehand.

The Obama administration has taken a stance that seems to indicate that what other countries think about us is more important than preventing another terrorist attack on our country. They are more afraid of “right wing extremists” than they are of a terrorist attack from Al Qaeda.

The Department of Homeland Security has added that dangerous group of people, known as conservatives, to their watch list. Apparently they believe that if you are Pro-life, support the second amendment, oppose government expansion and regulation of every aspect of our lives, want our borders secured, oppose higher taxes that stifle economy, any combination of the above, or the worst kind of hate monger, a veteran, then you are a risk to Homeland Security.
The investigation into the enhanced interrogations will take years and will probably include a few indictments of lawyers who wrote the memos, but it will do nothing to prevent another terrorist attack and I guarantee it will not quell the desire on the left to see Cheney and Bush brought up on charges. Cheney and Bush will not be charged simply because, although this investigation has no merit from the beginning, Obama does not want to open the door on any future investigations into anything he does while in office.

Is Obama Leading Us Into Socialism?

I have taken a bit of criticism over the past few weeks because I have defined President Obama’s proposals as socialist. In the interest of fairness, I have decided to explore socialism and it’s definition to see how closely aligned Obama’s proposals are to socialism.

To begin we must first define socialism. According to Yahoo, socialism is defined in one of two ways. First it is “any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.” It is also defined as “the stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.”

I am tempted to just end this article now because I believe that those 2 definitions sum up what the Obama administration has proposed in just their first few weeks in office, but what would be the fun in that? Let’s take a look at some of the proposals to come out of Washington since January 20 and see if they fit the socialist mold. One last note before my liberal minded friends begin the catcalls about Bush, Bush definitely started the socialist ball rolling with his own meddling in the free markets, but he is gone now and we are dealing with this President and his socialist agenda.

The automotive industry bailout, while passed during Bush’s last days, has shown some true socialist tendencies. Since the bailout, the White House has fired the CEO of General Motors and the new CEO has been given notice of what the administration expects him to do. The White House insists that they do not want to run the auto industry, but yet they have fired the CEO of GM and they are demanding that the auto industry manufacture the least profitable models. A report has come out of GM showing that the most profitable models that they manufacture and sell are Sport Utility Vehicles and trucks, but yet they are being told to come up with a plan to manufacture more hybrids and electric vehicles. Shouldn’t the free market decide which vehicles it wants the auto makes to manufacture?

President Obama recently made a terrifying statement, at least to anyone that was paying attention. He stated that they will change the laws to allow the government to “seize control” of troubled companies and sell of their “toxic assets” to other companies to save the financial markets. Exactly how would the omniscient government decide which companies to seize? What right does the government have to swoop in and seize control of a company that a private citizen has built? What constitutes a troubled company?

The last proposal that I want to analyze is his proposal for reforming health care. He has proposed universal health care for all Americans. The argument is that there are too many uninsured Americans and because they are uninsured, they are not receiving proper medical treatment. First of all, it is illegal for a hospital to turn away a patient in need of medical care. If you do not have insurance and you are involved in a car accident, do you really believe that the ambulance will not deliver you to an emergency room for medical treatment? Secondly, why does anyone believe that the same inefficient government who runs the Social Security Administration will do a better job with you health care? Does anyone love going to stand in line at a government institution? When was the last time that you were pleased at the service you received when you called the IRS? The same government that was so upset with the AIG bailouts, even though they specifically approved them in the stimulus bill that they never read, you want to decide whether or not you deserve cancer treatment after the age of 65?


Socialism has been tried around the world and it continually fails to deliver on its promises of equality. Mark J. Perry, of the Foundation for Economic Education has cited what he believes to be the fatal flaw of socialism. He says, “It is a system that ignores incentives.” Margaret Thatcher once quipped that the result of Britain’s socialist agenda was they eventually “run out of other people’s money.” Winston Churchill saw the differences between Capitalism and Socialism this way, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, Ben Franklin is reported to have responded to the question of what type of government do we have, with “A Republic, if you can keep it.” It has taken more than 200 years of politicians slowly chipping away at our freedoms to get to this point, but I think we can safely say that we are now on the verge of losing the Republic in favor of Socialism.

Hypocrisy, Is It The New Kool Aid Flavor?

Over the past few weeks I have focused on the hypocrisy of President Obama and the rest of the political class in Washington DC. After reading the responses I have come to an interesting conclusion. There is just as much hypocrisy among his breathless devotees. Before I begin to detail the duplicity of those experiencing chills running up their legs, allow me to explain that not all of those who support the President’s socialistic agenda are hypocrites. There are some that support Obama and his misguided policies because they truly believe that socialism, for the first time in human history, will actually work. There are others, those of which I am referring to as hypocrites, which were vehemently opposed to various policies under the Bush administration, but are jumping to their feet to applaud the very same policies under an Obama administration.

During the summer of 2007, President Bush and members of both political parties were pushing for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” that would grant amnesty to more than 12 million illegal aliens. The public outcry against the ill-conceived legislation was swift and fierce. Congress quickly folded under the public pressure and defeated the measure. The opposition to the amnesty bill was made up of conservatives, liberals, and moderates. Last week President Obama spoke of the need for immigration reform that would again grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. Yet the silence from the Kool Aid drinking followers of the President was deafening. Why would someone oppose amnesty when proposed by Bush but yet support it when proposed by Obama?

During the 8 years of the Bush presidency, the screams against deficit spending came again from both conservatives and liberals alike. Conservatives railed against foolish legislation that added to the deficit spending. We opposed the expensive Medicare Prescription Drug plan because of the outrageous cost of the measure. We opposed the reluctance of Bush to veto any spending measure sent to his desk from Congress. Now that President Obama is in office, the some of the same people screaming at Bush’s deficit spending are strangely silent about President Obama’s budget plans that will increase the federal deficit by 4 times to $9.3 trillion. Why is it evil when Bush spends more than the government collects in tax revenue, but it is perfectly fine when Obama quadruples the deficit spending in his first 8 weeks in office?

When the news reports came out about the problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the outrage at Bush was immense. The anger was aimed at Bush because of the treatment of our country’s bravest men and women. President Obama even campaigned on better treatment for our veterans. Unfortunately this was yet another campaign pledge that was nothing more than empty campaign rhetoric. Last week the leaders of the American Legion reported on the President’s proposal to force the private insurance companies of combat injured veterans to pay for the medical costs associated with treating their combat related injuries. Again there was no cry from the swaying masses of the Obama acolytes. Why would they not care about the treatment of veterans by the Obama administration?

The answer to the above questions is obvious to anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty, hypocrisy. If you have the courage of your convictions, it will not matter who is proposing a policy. If the policy is at odds with your core beliefs then you will oppose it regardless of which political party is proposing it. I have been accused of being blinded by my partisanship, but if you read anything I wrote over the last year it would become obvious that my conservatism has remained steady. If a Republican, such as Bush, proposed something with which I disagreed, I voiced my opposition. On the same token, when Obama has said or done something with which I have agreed, I voiced my support. The only question that I have for those incapable of being honest with themselves is what flavor is the Obama Kool Aid?

Obama's Hypocrisy On Earmarks

During his Presidential campaign, President Barack Obama promised to end the era of earmarks in Washington. Sadly for the American taxpayer, his promise has turned out to be nothing more than empty campaign rhetoric.

After Congress passed the $787 billion “stimulus” bill, President Obama stood before a joint session of Congress and proclaimed, “I’m proud that we passed the recovery plan free of earmarks, and I want to pass a budget next year that ensures that each dollar we spend reflects only our most important national priorities.” Either Obama suffers from short-term memory loss or his understanding of what constitutes an earmark is severely warped.

One of the many spending measures in the “stimulus” bill was $1 billion measure for one specific “zero emissions power plant” in the former Senator’s home state of Illinois. The same power plant was removed from a program last year because after years of government funding it had produced no results. After several years of trying to capture carbon emissions and turn them into liquid to return to the earth, and $1.8 billion, they were unable to show any progress. Instead of spending taxpayer money on a project that might actually stimulate the economy, Congress and the President saw fit to waste approximately 1/18th of the amount spent on all earmarks last year on a proven failure.

Next came the $400+ billion Omnibus spending measure that was pushed through Congress last week. This bill contained more than 8000 separate earmarks from members of both political parties. President Obama tried to deflect the criticism by saying that this bill was actually drawn up before he was inaugurated. The truth is that it was written back in December before Obama became the current resident of the Oval Office, but a deeper look shows that Obama is far from innocent on the earmark case in this bill. The former Senator had submitted his own earmarks that were included in the Omnibus.

For my readers who are intellectually challenged, the timeline is as follows: Obama campaigns on ending earmarks, he gets elected in November, in December the Omnibus bill is written including his earmarks, he becomes President and signs the “stimulus” bill and the Omnibus spending bill, he then proclaims his pride that they were able to pass the recovery measure without any earmarks.

After the political fallout started to become clear to the White House, the President claimed that they would be fiscally responsible in the future. He went on to say that they would make it clear who had requested the earmark and where the money would go. With his stellar record of the truth on earmarks, I suppose we are expected to take him at his word. After his drunken spending spree is completed, all we will have left is his word. Maybe I am just cynical, but that doesn’t give me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

Rookie Mistakes By An Inexperienced Politician

As I begin to write this week’s article, I can already hear the cacophonous cries from my left leaning friends that we just need to give the new President a chance, a chance for his policies to work, a chance for him to show the world how he will lead. After all, he has only been in office about 45 days. How could we possibly know what direction he will take our country?

If we look at what he has accomplished over the past 45 days it provides part of the picture. He has pushed through an earmark laden $800 billion “stimulus” package, all the while claiming that there were no earmarks in the bill. He has nominated several tax cheats to high-level cabinet positions, including the current Treasury Secretary. His administration has attacked members of the media who have questioned his policies. They have thrown money at virtually every area of government with the promise that this will fix the economy, while claiming that they will control spending.

If we examine what he has proposed the picture becomes a bit clearer. He has proposed the largest increase in spending in the form of a federal budget at the cost of $4 trillion. He is proposing a government take over of the health care system. He is proposing drastic cuts in funding for our military and the research programs that help keep them alive. He has proposed to end the development of any type of missile defense system to prod Russia into working to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions; after all, Vladimir Putin is exuding honor and trust.

Finally an inspection of the results of his accomplishments and proposals will bring the entire picture into focus. The President has said that he does not pay any attention to the “gyrations” of the stock market. His belief is that it is akin to a daily tracking poll. If that is the case, a drop of more than 33% since the election should show weakening confidence in his administration’s ability to lead us out of this recession. I know he has only been in office since January, but investors are not going to invest in the stock market if they are not confident that the government will stay out of the way of the private sector. Every company that the government has “bailed” out is doing worse now than before the government opened their coffers to “help”. Citibank, GM, and AIG, to name but a few, have all seen a continual slide since the government stepped in to help. Obama and his team believe that we need to continue down the same failed road.

In the past 45 days, Obama has shown his true liberal colors in the form of spending like a drunken sailor on a 24-hour shore liberty. Along the way he has even managed to disrespect our closest ally. When a foreign leader visits the White House for the first time after a new President is inaugurated, the 2 leaders exchange gifts that portray a mutual respect. When British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the White House, he brought with him a first edition biography of Winston Churchill and a penholder made from the timbers of the HMS Resolute, the same timbers from which the desk in the Oval Office was made. Obama’s gift to Brown was a set of 25 DVD’s of Classic movies. This is on top of returning a bust of Winston Churchill that was presented to President Bush by the British government after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

It has been a fast and furious 6 weeks since the transition of power took place and the pace at which the new administration has spent taxpayer money and destroyed wealth has taken many by surprise. Now that the true socialist colors have been shown, many of his one-time supporters are starting to protest. The question is, will there be any economy to turn around by the time the full effect of the failure of his policies is known?

President Obama, The $4 Trillion Man

Earlier this week, President Obama addressed both chambers of Congress to discuss the economy and his plans for the coming years of his administration. During his speech and throughout his campaign, the President promised to end the era of earmarks and deficit spending. He went as far to promise to go line by line through any spending measure and publicize all earmark spending and which congressman had requested it. Just one month into his administration, we have seen massive pork barrel spending and non-stop “the sky is falling” rhetoric.

The ink from President Obama’s pen had not had time to dry on the $800 billion “stimulus” bill, before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through another $400 billion spending bill. The newest spending bill from Congress contains more than 8000 earmarks. This is on top of the countless earmarks in the “stimulus” bill. The new administration and Congress have signed on to spend more than $1.2 trillion in the first 30 days since the Inauguration. To put that into perspective, that is more than half of the federal budget for 2004, or almost half of what the federal government received in tax revenue for all of 2008. We are more than $1.2 trillion more in debt and we are not even into March yet. Of course, Obama’s breathless supporters in the media would tell us to wait until his budget comes out to see where he has made the cuts to pay for the massive deficit spending, but his budget calls for a more than $1 trillion increase in spending over this years’ budget.

The President has released his budget proposal and it totals over $4 trillion, with about $1.75 trillion in projected deficit spending. This is the largest increase in federal spending in our history. In 2008 the federal budget was a paltry, by comparison, $2.978 trillion with total revenue received at $2.523 trillion. That budget had about $450 billion in deficit spending, but to jump to $1.75 trillion in deficit spending and then claim that you are going to control spending is laughable.

The $4,000,000,000,000.00 budget includes tax increases for those making more than $250,000. My friends in the class envy camp applaud this notion of taxing the rich, but they fail to see that a majority of small businesses will now see tax increases. Allow me to ask one simple question. How will your life improve if some nameless “rich” person is taxed more? The Bill Gates and George Soros’ of the world will not pay any more in taxes; they will simply shift their money around to avoid the taxes. The small business owners are the ones that will bear the brunt of the tax increase. After this plan fails to raise the revenue that the “experts” in Washington project, they will be forced to either raise taxes on the rest of us, after all it is the patriotic thing to do, or hopefully they will see the error of their ways and cut taxes across the board. This budget is equivalent to $11,833 for every American.

President Obama was elected on a platform of hope and change; the first indicators of his administration definition of that campaign slogan are beginning to become clear. They are desperately hoping that the voting public will not notice that the change is the unprecedented spending and power grab in Washington. I believe that the voting public is very aware of what affects their wallets and they have a very long memory when it comes to their own financial well being.

Pelosi Returns From The Vatican Wood Shed

Last August, at the height of the political season, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the following statement regarding abortion. “I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. And Senator–St. Augustine said at three months. We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose.” Ms. Pelosi went on to say that she understood that her opinion was at odds with what the Catholic Church teaches, but that she felt her opinion was correct because the church had changed their view over the years.

Immediately following the statements by Pelosi, several leaders of the Catholic Church in the United States issued their rebuttal to the Speaker’s assertions. "Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception…Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable." (Catechism, 2270-2271)

I can hear some of your complaints already; this is old news from last summer. The reason this is news again now because the Speaker has just visited the Vatican and met with Pope Benedict XVI. This papal visit was starkly different than any other visit with dignitaries. There were no pictures taken, and the comments released by the Vatican were short and to the point. The Vatican issued the following statement, “His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.”

Of course, Ms. Pelosi made no mention of the Pope’s comments on the sanctity of life. I believe that she expected the Pope to have ignored her drastic misrepresentations of the Catholic Church’s teaching. She was undoubtedly hoping for a photo opportunity with the Pope so she could gain political capital at home. She surely did not expect to be taken to the wood shed for a quick lesson in the history and beliefs of the Catholic Church. The question moving forward for Pelosi, and all professing Catholic politicians, how does the Pope’s statement affect their political stand on abortion? Will the priests and bishops here in the United States continue to serve Holy Communion to politicians who are consistently at odds with Catholic teaching? My prediction is that the Pope’s statements will have zero effect on the abortion stance of Pelosi and other politicians. After all, for some political power is the most important thing in life.

The Unconstitutional Road To Socialism

Since the election in November, there has been a myriad of proposals and statements from a whole host of liberal groups and politicians that if enacted will change our way of life in the United States. The problem being that many of the proposals bear very little resemblance to what the Constitution states is the role of government. The framers of the Constitution made it very clear that the role of the federal government is to be a limited one. They did not envision that the politicians of today would be creating a government that would have a hand in controlling virtually every facet of our lives.

The arguments for the nanny style government range from, “The framers couldn’t understand what our world is like today, so certain aspects of the Constitution are not relevant any longer”; to “The government should provide everything for us, because their job is to protect and provide for us”. The founders of our great nation realized that they were fallible men and could not possibly realize all of the trials that would face us as a nation in the future. That is precisely why they included a process to amend the Constitution to account for the changing times.

As a Christian, I believe that the Bible is the written Word of God and as such is not susceptible to being rewritten. Some professing Christians say that portions of the Bible are not relevant today, because our world is a much different place than it was during the time of Jesus. These Christians want to pick and choose what to believe out of the Bible, but completely ignore the parts that seem to hard for them to live in their everyday lives. The principles taught in the Bible are just as applicable in today’s world as it was 2000 years ago.

The logic of those who want to “cherry pick” what is applicable from the Bible is the same logic of those who want to reshape our country into something vastly different from what was intended. Once you start down the road of silencing your critics on the radio, or nationalizing our nation’s health care system, or our banking system, it becomes even more difficult to turn the process around. How do we decide which parts of the Constitution are no longer applicable today? Do we say that freedom of speech is not applicable on talk radio but is fine in the newspapers? At what point do we say that critical speech in the newspapers is no longer legal? The same holds true for the Bible, if the biblical prohibition of adultery is not applicable in our times, then what about stealing? Or murder? Of course a cursory look at the headlines will reveal that many politicians are knee-deep in scandal and corruption, which line their pockets with someone else’s money.

Our Constitution was a written more than 200 years ago with the idea that our government would be as silent as possible. The founders allowed future generations to legally change the Constitution to keep up with the changing of the times. Unfortunately, those in power have decided that they can circumvent the process and strip certain freedoms from all of us. If they truly believe that these changes need to be made, they should follow the constitutionally mandated process of amending the Constitution. For those that want to change the Bible, you can try to rewrite the Bible, but the absolute truth of the Bible and it’s Author will be the final judge.

The Congressional Plan To Lengthen The Recession

This week the House of Representatives passed the latest, pork laden “stimulus” package that will cost a little more than $800 billion. The bill, written entirely by congressional Democrats, passed with no Republicans voting for the measure. The Republican opposition to the bill stemmed from the inclusion of billions of dollars in earmarks and pork projects that have absolutely nothing to do with stimulating the economy. For example, there is about $75 million for smoking cessation programs. Aren’t we going to need more people smoking, and paying cigarette taxes, to pay for this massive spending bill?

For most of Americans, the sheer size of an $800 billion spending bill is beyond our understanding. Let’s put it into terms that we can understand a bit easier. The government could send every household with children under the age of 18 a check for $22,445 and that would be equal to what they are proposing to spend on this “stimulus” bill. If we expanded to every family in the U.S., each family would receive a check for $10,520. How much would the economy be affected if they sent the taxpayers a check, instead of sending billions to their cronies?

Republicans are not the only ones raising serious questions about this farce known as a stimulus package. The Congressional Budget Office has weighed in with their analysis, and have questioned why we need to rush to pass this bill, when more than 75% of the spending takes place in 2010 and beyond. If this bill is so desperately needed to pull us out of the economic doldrums, why is the majority of the money being spent in the future and not now? Could it be that they know that this package will have a zero effect on turning the economy around? The President claims that this proposal will create as many as 4 million jobs, but if you do the math those 4 million jobs will cost the taxpayers more than $206,000 each.

Last year about this time, Congress and the Bush administration decided to send us all “stimulus” checks that cost the taxpayers about $325 million. That plan provided a small blip on the economic radar, but it was not enough to stave off the economic downturn. Then in the early fall congressional leaders pontificated about how hard they were working to save our economy. They then passed a $700 billion bailout of the financial markets. The net effect of that bailout was that the markets continued to tank. After several smaller bailouts, Congress has decided that printing more money and throwing it at a problem will fix the economy. So with a sagging economy and uncertainty on the horizon, Congress has decided that spending nearly a trillion dollars of money we don’t have on projects that we don’t need will fix the problem. This proposal will cause all of our taxes to go up, because they simply cannot afford to throw money up in the air without a way to pay for it. To steal a famous line from the campaign, “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.” The proposal has so much pork hidden throughout it, it can only be labeled a pig.

The Fall Of Bernie Madoff Has Political Implications

If the roller coaster ride on Wall St. was not enough to give investors nightmares, the news of the Ponzi style scam of Bernard Madoff is sure to cause many a sleepless night. Madoff made a name for himself as an investment advisor to the ultra-rich, who promised and fulfilled double-digit returns in either a bear or a bull market. His con lasted for more than 4 decades before his historic $50 billion swindle came to an end.

The scam is a relatively simple idea of taking money from investors and instead of legally investing the funds; he would pay returns to other investors, after keeping a portion for himself. The Ponzi scheme is named for Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant, who took millions of dollars from thousands of investors in 1920. His lie was based on buying and selling of international postal reply coupons. Basically, he promised to buy these coupons in foreign countries and redeem them here in the U.S. for a huge profit. In a matter of months he went from being broke to a millionaire before he was shutdown for mail fraud.

Madoff’s customers included some of most influential people in the country, as well as billion dollar hedge funds, and Sterling Securities, the owner of New York Mets. The fallout from this scandal will be long and painful for many financial institutions, charitable organizations, and corporations, but the question remains of how could Madoff had such a long run without ever bringing the scrutiny he deserved. Records have shown that several times over the past 40 plus years, questions arose as to how Madoff could consistently produce double-digit returns for his clients, even in down markets. The SEC chief has admitted that his agency did not properly perform their duties for at least the past decade.

Congressional leaders have called for hearings and an investigation into how and why the SEC missed all of the signs of misconduct of Madoff. Interestingly enough, the congressmen who will be investigating the SEC and Madoff are some of the same politicians who benefited from Madoff’s political contributions. Open Secrets, the non-partisan group that tracks political contributions, has listed the political contributions and lobbying efforts of Madoff and his wife for the past 15 years. Madoff has given nearly $1 million to campaigns, committees, and lobbying efforts since 1992. Now we can expect the politicians on high to pass their hypocritical judgment down, so that we may sleep well knowing they are watching over us. I realize that the shock of a $50 billion scam has dominated the headlines, but why have we not heard from any of these politicians about receiving the ill-gotten gains from Madoff? I believe that the political implications of this scandal will get swept under the rug to prevent any embarrassment on Capitol Hill.

The Culture Of Corruption In Illinois Politics

President –elect Barack Obama’s magical victory tour through the transition process was sidetracked this week by the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on charges of corruption. Blagojevich is accused of attempting to sell the now vacant Senate seat of the President-elect. He was caught on tape by FBI wiretaps discussing the potential for his personal and political profit off of the appointment of Obama’s replacement. The U.S. Attorney that is prosecuting this case is Patrick Fitzgerald, the same Patrick Fitzgerald of Scooter Libby fame.

Fitzgerald, you may recall, investigated the Valeria Plame leak and found that Richard Armitage was the original source of the leak. Fitzgerald learned it was Armitage during the first few weeks of the investigation and continued to investigate until Libby was charged 2 years later with a process crime. Now that Fitzgerald is on the case of corruption in the Governor’s mansion, how far will he take the investigation? The complaint documents against Blagojevich mention convicted “slum lord” Tony Rezko more than 100 times. Rezko is rumored to be talking to Fitzgerald in order to shorten his prison sentence. Rezko was very well connected within Chicago politics and the heat is now on anyone who may have had dealings with the convicted felon.

Obviously, President-elect Obama was asked what he knew about the scandal and his statements of shock, outrage, and innocence were to be expected. What was unexpected was his declaration that he had not spoken to the Governor concerning his replacement. On November 5, the day after Obama’s election victory, a Chicago news station reported that Obama’s first order of business was to meet with the Governor to discuss his replacement in the Senate. The news station is now claiming on their website that they have not verified that the meeting ever took place. Then on November 23 David Axelrod, Obama’s chief advisor, stated that he “knew” that Obama and the Governor had spoke to discuss the vacant Senate seat. After Blagojevich was arrested, Axelrod quickly claimed that he misspoke. The Huffington Post has a long article that has chronicled the news events related to the appointment of a replacement for Obama in the Senate. Several times over the past month, there have been reports of Obama advisors talking to Blagojevich about the Senate seat. I do not believe that Obama would be stupid enough to discuss any type of payment for an appointment to his Senate seat, but why did he so unequivocally state that neither he nor any of his staff had any idea of the scandal before the arrest?

This investigation will not be over quickly and it will include some very high profile names. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who aggressively campaigned for the Senate appointment, has been named as candidate #5. Although, he has said that the prosecutors have told him that he is not the focus of the investigation, the pressure is on him because the Governor is on tape saying that he is certain that he could get at least $500,000 if he appointed candidate #5. Another interesting point is that the Congressman’s father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, has retained legal counsel. Now I can’t help but wonder why would the elder Jackson hire legal counsel; especially when he is not mentioned anywhere in the complaint or the media coverage since the Governor’s arrest? There are only a few certainties in the eventual outcome of this investigation. The first being that Blagojevich will not be the Governor for much longer, it won’t matter if he is ever convicted of any of the crimes for which he is charged. The second certainty is that Fitzgerald has the most secure job in the world right now. There is no possible way that Fitzgerald could ever be fired. Incoming Presidents have in the past fired many of the U.S. Attorneys from the previous administration. Clinton fired all of them the first week, Bush fired a handful after the 2004 election, but there is no possible way that Obama can even consider firing Patrick Fitzgerald until well after the investigation is over.

Why Not A Tax Holiday, Instead Of Another Bailout?

The CEO’s of the big three automakers arrived in Washington to continue to beg for billions of taxpayer dollars to help bail them out of their financial woes. At the same time, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has started talking about another $500 billion “stimulus” package. Cities and states are lining up on Capitol Hill with their hands out claiming that financial ruin is on the horizon without a federal government bailout. Secretary Paulson seems eager to hand out billions, if not trillions, more to any and all corporate takers. By some accounts, the bailout promises of Paulson and Bernanke total $7.7 trillion. It amazes me that very few appear to be asking the obvious question; who is going to pay all of this back?

At least one congressman is appalled by the bailout frenzy that has gripped Washington of late. Texas Representative Louie Gohmert has come up with a cheaper alternative. Gohmert has proposed two options. The first proposal is to make it so no one pays any income tax for 2008. Any income tax that has already been collected would be returned to the taxpayer and they would not pay any income tax for the rest of the year. Gohmert says in his press release, "My idea may sound unconventional, but it is trillions of dollars cheaper than our current course. My proposal actually relies on our nation's founding democratic principles that made us the greatest nation in the world before anyone ever heard of Mr. Henry Paulson!" Gohmert’s philosophy is simple. Why not give the money directly to the consumers who could use it to buy a new car, pay off credit cards, catch up on a mortgage, or make a down payment on a house? We are not talking about a stimulus check of $1000; this would be several thousand dollars for each taxpayer. The estimated tax revenues for 2008 are $1.2 trillion. Contrast that with the promised bailouts of $7.7 trillion, which plan would make more sense?

The Congressman’s second proposal is a bit more realistic. He proposes that we take the $350 billion already allocated for the financial bailout but not yet used, and give everyone a tax holiday for January and February 2009. This would not just be income tax, but also FICA. No one would pay federal income tax or FICA for January and February. Take a gander at your pay stub and calculate how much the government takes from your paycheck for federal income tax and FICA every pay period. How much more money would that inject into your personal budget? It would free up the consumers to pay down debt, make the home renovations they have been delaying, invest, or just take the family vacation that was postponed due to the economy. Surprisingly, the cost for this proposal is below the $350 billion left from the original $700 billion bailout. American Solutions, a conservative think tank, has calculated the numbers and reports that each month the federal government collects $101.6 billion in income taxes, and $65.6 billion in FICA. The 2 month total for Gohmert’s plan is $334.4 billion, a little more than $15 billion less than the Treasury Secretary’s $350 billion.

Representative Gohmert’s proposal of a tax holiday is currently building support in the House, but you can sign the petition to show support for the tax holiday here. Although I wholeheartedly support the tax holiday, I see a few reasons why this will never come to pass. First off, the congressional leadership is too eager to continue the private sector takeover to ever allow them to take control again. Secondly, there would be a tax revolt akin to the Boston Tea Party if the American public ever realized how much money the government took from them each pay period. It is one thing to see empty number on your pay stub, but to hold that money in your hand and then have the government take it away from you is quite another story. Whether or not the tax holiday ever comes to fruition, at least we have one congressman that is willing to think outside the box when it comes to the financial crisis.

What Can We Learn From The Pilgrims?

In remembrance of the first Thanksgiving, I thought that it would be appropriate to take a look back at what the Pilgrims were thankful for and what they had learned in their first few years in “The New World”. The story often told throughout the liberal academia is that the inept Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving by holding a feast in honor of the Native Americans for their help in surviving their new surroundings. A look at the actual writings of Governor William Bradford sheds a slightly different light on the real story of Thanksgiving.

When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, they had entered into a contract that stipulated that they would share everything that was harvested with the community at large. All property was community property. All crops were stored in a central storehouse for the entire community to share. We all know the story of what life was like during that first winter in the “New World”. Many succumbed to disease and the cold temperatures of New England. Bradford realized that the “social experiment” of collectivism had failed. He quickly reorganized the community into a free market society. In his words, “young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without [being paid] that was thought injustice.” Bradford understood that the incentive to work hard to reap the rewards of your labor was lost under a socialist society.

The Pilgrims learned that in order to not only survive but also to succeed in their new home they needed freedom; freedom to work in a vocation of their choosing, that would provide for their families and their futures. The Pilgrims would not sit idly by and watch their neighbors starve to death if their crops did not come in; they would help where they could, but they expected each man to provide for his family. They discovered that the harvest was much greater under the free market system than the harvest seen under the socialist system.

Another aspect of the Thanksgiving story that is conveniently forgotten is the simple fact that the Pilgrims were giving thanks to their Creator for His grace in providing a bountiful harvest and his protection. In our world of political correctness there is a fear of mentioning anything that could resemble a Christian reference. Of course, educators are hamstrung by the notion of separation of church and state. The fear of mentioning God in the classroom has led to the edited version of our country’s origins. The Pilgrims fled England because of religious persecution. They desired a country where they could worship God in a manner that they wanted. This desire is what led to the statement in our Constitution that the government would make no law hindering a religion or establish a state religion. In my copy of our founding documents, I have been unable to find where it prohibits the mention of God’s name in our schools. How does a teacher accurately discuss the Declaration of Independence in class when it mentions the Creator?

This Thanksgiving weekend, take time to relax and reflect on all for which you are thankful, but do not forget where our country came from and the lessons that they learned along the way. In this season of corporate bailouts, I would hope that our leaders in Washington realize what the Pilgrims learned nearly 400 years ago. What incentive will these corporations have to restructure their business if the government consistently bails them out?

Don't Let Congress Turn The Auto Industry Into Another Amtrak

Since early September, when the political elite in Washington informed us of the dire need to bailout the financial markets, we have see a building tide of industries, states, and even cities clamoring for their version of a bailout from the federal government. The “experts” in Congress promised us, that the bailout would shore up the financial markets and we would all be better off. Now that the markets have continued to drop, congressional leaders response is that we need to bailout more companies.

Representative Barney Frank was asked when the bailouts would stop and his response was as confusing as the clamor for government bailouts. Frank claimed that the bailouts would stop when they stopped working. Maybe Mr. Frank has been too busy with his reelection campaign to notice that the bailout has not worked. In fact, most economists believe that the bailout accentuated the problem. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped an additional 3000 points since the bailout that was going to save us all was passed.

This week, executives from the “Big Three” automakers were on Capitol Hill to try to convince lawmakers of their need for a bailout of their own. After the hearings, congressional leaders held a press conference to explain their inability to come to any agreement on a bailout. Their explanation was what we have come to expect from Washington politicians. They shifted the blame to the automakers, not for their failing companies, but for failing to present them a plan on which they could agree. They set a date of December 2 for them to present plans for a bailout on which they could come to a consensus.

Does Congress believe that if they just throw money at the problem that the crisis will just disappear? This has become the normal routine in Washington. Whatever the problem, politicians just throw money at the problem, but don’t change any of the contributing factors that led to the problem. Look at government funded education. For years the public school system has been a breeding ground for failure or mediocrity at best. Government’s answer is to throw more money at the schools but never changing how or what they teach. Then they are surprised when the results are the same.

I realize that this may be a completely foreign concept to Congress, but since when do we reward poor business practice by giving them taxpayer money? I believe that the government should get out of the way of failing businesses. They should do whatever they can in the way of tax relief to aid in the expansion of businesses, but why should they reward those who make poor choices? I believe that after Congress throws money at the auto industry, the automakers will be in the same situation within a few short years. They need to restructure their business so that they can compete with the foreign competition. The process will be painful, but the U.S. auto industry will be better off in the long run. The taxpayers need to let the politicians know that based on their history of failures, we do not want them to meddle in the affairs of private companies.

Conservatives Need To Get Back To Reagan Basics

Over the past week, there has been a constant parade of political “experts” through the news networks to propose their recommendations to the Republican Party to renew the party. The suggestions have all had a familiar ring to them. The “intellectual” opinion is that the Republicans need to jettison their conservative values and ideals. They believe that conservatism is the reason behind McCain’s defeat and the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006. They completely disregard any of the other competing forces weighing on the minds of the voters in the past 2 elections.

It will come as no surprise, but I do not agree with the self-proclaimed experts. I believe that the major problem within the Republican Party is not that they are too conservative, but rather that they have neglected their responsibility in educating the voters on what they believe. Of course, then they have to actually govern as conservatives.

It is not enough to say that as a political party we believe in smaller government. The average voter does not care what that we are for a smaller government unless we explain what a smaller government means and why we believe it is the right choice. Some of my Christian friends have asked how I could be a conservative and a Christian at the same time. They believe that my conservative position on the role of government is in contradiction to Biblical teaching to take care of the poor. I believe that as a Christian we should take care of the poor and downtrodden, but I do not believe that it is the government’s responsibility. I believe that the community at large is better at dealing with those in their own communities. Local churches give more food and aid to the homeless and the poor in their communities than the government could ever dream of helping. The sheer size of the bureaucracy of government makes it inefficient in helping the poor. Jesus did teach that we should help the poor, but I have never read in my Bible that as long as we pay our taxes than our responsibility to the poor is done.

We cannot simply say that we are pro-life and expect that the voters will simply accept it and be with us. The age-old axiom, “you are preaching to the choir” holds a lot of truth in this case. Claiming to be the Pro-life party will bring pro-life voters to you, but it does nothing to educate those who may not have a strong position either way. We need to explain why we are pro-life. We need to explain that the procedure known as partial-birth abortion is a horrific and completely unnecessary procedure. I do not know of any medical condition that would require a pre-term baby to be vaginally delivered to the point of leaving the baby partially in the birth canal, and then piercing the live baby’s skull to suck the infant’s brain out to kill the baby. If an expecting mother is in such a bad physical state that she will not survive a normal delivery, how is she protected by inducing labor only to partially deliver the baby as normal before killing it? We need to explain why we are against government funding for abortion and the readily available abortion on demand for any reason. We do not believe inconvenience is a feasible reason for ending a human life.

Campaigning on lower taxes is great, but it needs to be taken to the next level. We need to explain why we believe lower taxes for everyone is the best option for our economy and for our government. We need to educate the American public about taxes. We need to change the debate from a class envy debate to a debate over taxes themselves. Obama was elected claiming that 95% of Americans would receive a tax cut, but the problem is that roughly 40% of Americans do not pay federal income taxes. We need to educate the public about who actually pays taxes and how much they do pay. The top 1% of income earners pays roughly 40% of taxes. We need stop sitting back and letting the Democrats spin a tax cut for all tax payers into an unfair tax cut for the rich. We need to educate the public why an across the board 2% rate cute for someone making $1 million is still a 2% rate cut. It is the same 2% cut that someone making $40,000.

The Republican Party does not need to move away from conservative values and ideals. We need to take a page out of the Reagan notebook and do what Reagan did. Ronald Reagan was known as the “Great Communicator” because of his ability to explain his conservative policies to the American public. We need to get back to taking our case directly to the people. This election has shown the media’s affinity for liberal ideals and candidates. We need to sidestep the mainstream media and take our message to the public.

Socialism Is Not Called Fairness

Millions of dollars have been spent over the course of this presidential campaign season to persuade the voting public that one candidate is better prepared than the other to lead our nation. The campaign promises have ranged from cutting taxes, to raising taxes only on the rich, and to nearly 1 trillion dollars in new spending. Through it all, the mainstream media has exposed themselves as nothing less than political partisan hacks. From Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews fawning all over the Obama campaign, to the Los Angeles Times reporting that they have a video of Obama toasting the spokesperson for Yassir Arafat in 2003, but not releasing the video. Since the media appears to be intent on carrying Obama into the White House, I thought that I would do their job for them.

On abortion, Senator Barack Obama has an extreme record of voting against the sanctity of life. NARAL, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, has awarded Senator Obama a 100% rating based on his voting record while in the U.S. Senate. Obama is on record as saying that his first priority as President will be to make the Freedom Of Choice Act a law. This bill would go a long way in repealing the abortion laws in virtually every state. Obama also voted twice against a bill before the Illinois state senate that would have required that a baby that was born alive after a botched abortion receive medical attention. The existing law allowed these babies to be left to die in the soiled laundry room. In some cases, these babies lived for several hours, fighting for every breath before finally dying alone in the dark. Obama has tried to deflect the criticism of his extremist abortion record, but his voting record is clearly on the side of killing innocent babies.

On taxes, Obama has campaigned around the country on his promise to raise taxes on anyone making more than $250,000. Then over the weekend he made a comment at a rally that anyone making more than $200,000 would see a tax increase. Now this week, both he and Biden have made references to no one making less than $150,000 would see a tax increase. At this rate, by Election Day the figure will be down to $50,000. He has said that he will let the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010. If the tax rates go back to what they were in 2001, then all taxpayers will see a tax increase. Obama has also said that he will raise the capital gains taxes, even though history has shown that raising capital gains taxes causes the revenues received by the Treasury drop. In this economy, why would anyone want to stifle economic growth?

As we found out this week, Obama has a long held belief that the government should spread the wealth around. A few weeks ago, Joe the Plumber became a household name by asking a simple question of Obama. He asked if Obama’s tax plan would increase his taxes if his plumbing business made more than $250,000. Obama’s reply was that he believed that if we “spread the wealth around”, we will al be better off. The Obama campaign’s reply was not to refute his socialist ideals, but to attack Joe the Plumber. Obama has said that McCain calls his proposal socialism, but he calls it fairness. I believe Karl Marx thought it was fair as well and we saw how that turned out. If Obama is elected, I fully expect to see him come on TV in February, channel Bill Clinton and bite his lower lip, and tell us that he really tried to cut taxes, but could not find any way to do it.

Obama has tried to tie McCain to Bush throughout the campaign, but he fails to recognize that he is inextricably tied to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Reid and Pelosi are presiding over a Congress with the lowest approval rating in at least a century. At times their numbers have dipped into single digits. Their leadership has led a do-nothing Congress into an economic crisis where their party has stood in the way of reforming the 2 major contributing corporations. Obama and his party leadership are on record stating that if they are given the requisite majority, they will bring back the “Fairness Doctrine”. The doctrine simply states that any broadcast must present both sides of every issue. This is a clear and direct attack against conservative talk radio. The left has tried to venture into talk radio with Air America, but that quickly failed. The left has decided that if they cannot compete in the arena of ideas, then they will simply silence their opposition. If they are successful in implementing the “Fairness Doctrine” once again, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity will not disappear from the airwaves, they will simply move into satellite radio where the FCC has no control. That is until the left decides to take over that medium to silence their opposition once again. For all of his rhetoric about change, Obama has voted 96% of the time with his party.

November 4, 2008 will be a historic election day no matter who wins. It is my sincere hope that the American people are intelligent enough to see the difference between empty campaign rhetoric citing change, and proposals that will bring socialism to our doorsteps. Although the media has declared this race over and Obama has already held his first “Presidential address” to the nation, the election is not over until we go vote on Tuesday.

American Workers Do Not Need Democracy

In early April, Senator Barack Obama spoke before a gathering of the AFL-CIO and made a promise to the labor union to ensure that the Employee Free Choice Act becomes “the law of the land”. This bill will strip the rights of employees to cast a private ballot either for or against forming a union. The bill enable union bosses to increase membership by simply having 51% of employees turning in signed cards stating their desire to form a union. This process will be steeped in fraud. It sets up the scenario of union thugs to intimidate employees into signing the cards. The private ballot is a proven effective method of determining each employee’s desire.

Union membership has declined at an astonishing rate over the past 50 years. In 1958, nearly 40% of the American workforce was a member of a union. Last year, the percentage was down to less than 7.5% with a significant number being government employees. The EFCA is a scheme designed to swell the membership rolls of the unions. The Democratic controlled House of Representatives passed the bill last year, but the Senate failed to pass it when the Republican minority blocked the efforts of Obama and the Democratic leadership. Now Obama promises to ensure it’s passage if he becomes President.

Obama claims that this bill will do nothing more than change the process of union forming, but his own past statements continue to haunt him. Obama has said that, the bill “will allow workers to form a union through majority sign-up and card checks”. Why would Obama favor a process that strips the private ballot right from the American worker? I thought that Obama claimed he was the candidate for the little guy? His co-sponsorship of this scheme is a clear indication that he stands with the union bosses and not with the workforce. The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace conducted a survey of union households and the results are clearly at odds with the union bosses and Obama. 80% of all union households surveyed support private ballot elections. When asked specifically about the EFCA, 70% are opposed to the bill.

What I find amazing is that private elections are widely seen as one of the essential elements of our Democratic system, but with this bill, Senator Obama is showing that he believes that private ballots are overrated. If he had simply voiced his support for the bill, it would be bad enough, but the fact that he has co-sponsored the legislation sheds a much brighter light on his ideals. Last week, he admits that he wants to “spread the wealth around”, and now we see that he is willing to throw away the private voting rights of American workers. I would call him a socialist, but we are now told that that term is a racist code word. Should I just call him a Marxist?

Taxes, Lies, and Distortions

As we head in to the final weeks of the campaign, the candidate’s plans for taxation are becoming clear. Both candidates claim that their tax plan will help the middle class, but which one is best for the country as a whole? Which tax plan will help all Americans achieve the American dream? Which proposal will allow small and large businesses to grow, while helping the employees to keep more of their own money? Which plan will encourage capital investments so that companies can grow? Which candidate truly understands that taking money from one person to redistribute to another is nothing more than socialism? Senator Barack Obama this week proved that he is all in favor of bringing socialism into the forefront of our American economy.

This week while campaigning in Toledo, OH, Obama was asked about his tax proposal of increasing taxes on any business making more than $250,000. A plumber from Toledo informed the candidate that he was in the process of buying a plumbing business that would bring in more than $250,000 a year. He also informed Mr. Obama that he would have to work 10 to 12 hours a day to make his business successful. Obama’s response was very enlightening. He said that his purpose was not to punish the man, but to ensure everyone else behind him had a chance at success. He went on to say that he believed that when you redistribute the wealth around to everyone, then we are all much better off. Please tell me, why does Obama believe that he has the right to tell anyone how much that they may earn?

The Obama campaign claims that the $250,000 mark for business would not affect a vast majority of small businesses. Unfortunately the Small Business Administration standards are a bit different than Obama. As an example, the owner of a Tire Fabric Mill can have up to 1000 employees and still be considered a small business. I am not a mathematician, but in order to stay below the $250,000 mark set by Obama and the owners of the mill would have to pay a paltry $250 per employee. Let us not forget that there is equipment and materials to buy out of that $250,000, plus they need to pay for the utilities. I can hear the whining already, how many Tire Fabric Mills are there in the U.S. So to quiet the incessant whining, let’s look at the numbers for a roofing contractor. According to the same standards from the SBA, a roofing contractor can make up to $14 million and still be considered a small business. How can a company make that much and still be considered “small”? Again, $14 million is not all profit that is the amount of their annual receipts. They still have make payroll, pay liability insurance, buy materials, buy tools, pay for any advertising, pay for company vehicles and their maintenance, and lastly pay the local, state, and federal governments.

Obama is fond of saying that under his plan, 95% of Americans will get a tax cut. Unfortunately only 70% of wage earners actually pay federal income tax. We all pay social security and Medicare taxes, but there are about 30% of the low income wage earners that pay virtually zero federal income tax. He plans on sending them a rebate check for taxes that they never paid. He also plans on raising the Capital Gains tax. Even though history has shown that every time the Capital Gains rate has been cut the revenue into the government coffers has increased. In the 1990’s, when the Clinton Administration raised the rate, tax revenue dropped. Obama is betting that the vast majority of the voting public will blindly accept his proposals without doing any real thinking on the matter. Basically, he believes the voters are either stupid or lazy. Sadly, there are plenty of people willing to display the ignorance on this matter.

Corruption By Association

We are in the home stretch of the never-ending campaign season. It is a little more than 3 weeks until election day, when the voting public will decide which candidate will lead our nation either further into the financial abyss or out into the bright shining sun of recovery. The campaigns have pitched their proposals and we have the records of the candidates to aid us in the decision making process. One other tool we have to decipher what a particular candidate will perform is the company that they keep.

The past week has brought a firestorm of media criticism upon the McCain campaign for daring to bring up the relationship between Senator Obama and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. Ayers, for those who do not know, co-founded the radical socialist organization, the Weather Underground. The group under Ayers leadership bombed the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol building, the State Department building, banks, and police stations. They also coordinated jailbreaks and riots during the late 60’s and early 70’s. Ayers has since become a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. On September 11, 2001 the New York Times published an interview with Ayers where he expressed dismay that their bombs didn’t do more to affect the Vietnam War. He expressed no regret or remorse for his terrorist acts.

Barack Obama claims that Ayers is just a man that lives in his neighborhood, but the truth is quite different. Obama held his first political fundraiser at Ayers home in 1995. Also in 1995, Obama was named as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a self-proclaimed school reform organization. Ayers formed this organization, in addition Ayers was the co-chairman of one of the operational arms of the CAC. Obama claims that Ayers was not involved in his hiring as the chairman, but the CAC’s own meeting minutes show Ayers was indeed involved in Obama’s hiring. Obama has said that what Ayers did 40 years ago is irrelevant to their relationship today. If Ayers ugly past were truly in the past then it would not be an issue. The fact that Ayers is stridently unrepentant about what he did 40 years ago. The Obama campaign then claimed that Obama did not know about Ayers past when he held the fundraiser in his home in 1995. Does anyone really believe that Ayers would not be spouting his anti-American diatribes when Obama was in his presence? Even if Obama somehow missed the obvious in 1995, why did Obama serve on the board for the Woods Fund until December of 2002? That would make it more than a year since Ayers interview with the New York Times went public.

Obama’s attendance at Jeremiah Wright’s church made headlines earlier this year until Obama was forced into denouncing Wright. It still does not excuse his sitting in the pew for more than 20 years while Wright ranted and raved against the United States. He also had to distance himself from Father Phleager, another man of the cloth fond of racist rants in the name of Obama.

Obama also has very close ties with the controversial community-organizing group ACORN. ACORN has made news this past week for their fraudulent voter registration drives. In one case, the entire starting lineup for the Dallas Cowboys football team registered to vote in the state of Nevada during an ACORN voter registration drive. Obama and ACORN have worked closely for years, dating back to Obama’s days as a community organizer. He ran the Project Vote campaign in 1992, which is the voter registration arm of ACORN. Obama claims that Project Vote is not part of ACORN, but all major media outlets credit Project Vote as being an arm of ACORN. Obama also paid $800,000 to ACORN to register voters during this election season.

Lastly, Obama has attempted to point the finger of blame for the economic crisis anywhere but back at his economic advisors. Obama has as his advisors Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson of Fannie Mae fame. Raines and Johnson soaked Fannie Mae for millions of dollars while running it into the ground. They exaggerated the value of the mortgages that they held in order to score huge bonuses. To add insult to our injuries, McCain and the Republicans called for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2004 and 2005, but the Democrats blocked that effort. In fact, Barney Franks even went as far to say that there was no evidence to call for reform. He claimed that the reform calls were strictly politically motivated. Now Franks is being touted as a savior of our financial markets because of the colossal $700 billion pork laden bailout.

If Obama had just one or two ties to unsavory people, we could understand, but he has developed a pattern of behavior of cultivating relationships with controversial people. His ties to convicted felon Tony Rezco are yet another example of his lack of judgment. All of these examples have one major thing in common, they all had a unique ability to elevate Obama’s political career. Obama’s reaction to each scandal has developed into a routine for him. He first tries to downplay the relationship. Then he claims he did not know anything about the scandal surrounding his friend. Next he attempts to weakly condemn the act or statement in question. Finally he claims that this “is not the man that I knew 20 years ago”. All of his questionable relationships bring into question his ability to make a sound judgment of one’s character. Are we supposed to trust his judgment while negotiating with Ahmedinejad?

Corruption By Association

We are in the home stretch of the never-ending campaign season. It is a little more than 3 weeks until election day, when the voting public will decide which candidate will lead our nation either further into the financial abyss or out into the bright shining sun of recovery. The campaigns have pitched their proposals and we have the records of the candidates to aid us in the decision making process. One other tool we have to decipher what a particular candidate will perform is the company that they keep.

The past week has brought a firestorm of media criticism upon the McCain campaign for daring to bring up the relationship between Senator Obama and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. Ayers, for those who do not know, co-founded the radical socialist organization, the Weather Underground. The group under Ayers leadership bombed the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol building, the State Department building, banks, and police stations. They also coordinated jailbreaks and riots during the late 60’s and early 70’s. Ayers has since become a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. On September 11, 2001 the New York Times published an interview with Ayers where he expressed dismay that their bombs didn’t do more to affect the Vietnam War. He expressed no regret or remorse for his terrorist acts.

Barack Obama claims that Ayers is just a man that lives in his neighborhood, but the truth is quite different. Obama held his first political fundraiser at Ayers home in 1995. Also in 1995, Obama was named as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a self-proclaimed school reform organization. Ayers formed this organization, in addition Ayers was the co-chairman of one of the operational arms of the CAC. Obama claims that Ayers was not involved in his hiring as the chairman, but the CAC’s own meeting minutes show Ayers was indeed involved in Obama’s hiring. Obama has said that what Ayers did 40 years ago is irrelevant to their relationship today. If Ayers ugly past were truly in the past then it would not be an issue. The fact that Ayers is stridently unrepentant about what he did 40 years ago. The Obama campaign then claimed that Obama did not know about Ayers past when he held the fundraiser in his home in 1995. Does anyone really believe that Ayers would not be spouting his anti-American diatribes when Obama was in his presence? Even if Obama somehow missed the obvious in 1995, why did Obama serve on the board for the Woods Fund until December of 2002? That would make it more than a year since Ayers interview with the New York Times went public.

Obama’s attendance at Jeremiah Wright’s church made headlines earlier this year until Obama was forced into denouncing Wright. It still does not excuse his sitting in the pew for more than 20 years while Wright ranted and raved against the United States. He also had to distance himself from Father Phleager, another man of the cloth fond of racist rants in the name of Obama.

Obama also has very close ties with the controversial community-organizing group ACORN. ACORN has made news this past week for their fraudulent voter registration drives. In one case, the entire starting lineup for the Dallas Cowboys football team registered to vote in the state of Nevada during an ACORN voter registration drive. Obama and ACORN have worked closely for years, dating back to Obama’s days as a community organizer. He ran the Project Vote campaign in 1992, which is the voter registration arm of ACORN. Obama claims that Project Vote is not part of ACORN, but all major media outlets credit Project Vote as being an arm of ACORN. Obama also paid $800,000 to ACORN to register voters during this election season.

Lastly, Obama has attempted to point the finger of blame for the economic crisis anywhere but back at his economic advisors. Obama has as his advisors Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson of Fannie Mae fame. Raines and Johnson soaked Fannie Mae for millions of dollars while running it into the ground. They exaggerated the value of the mortgages that they held in order to score huge bonuses. To add insult to our injuries, McCain and the Republicans called for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2004 and 2005, but the Democrats blocked that effort. In fact, Barney Franks even went as far to say that there was no evidence to call for reform. He claimed that the reform calls were strictly politically motivated. Now Franks is being touted as a savior of our financial markets because of the colossal $700 billion pork laden bailout.

If Obama had just one or two ties to unsavory people, we could understand, but he has developed a pattern of behavior of cultivating relationships with controversial people. His ties to convicted felon Tony Rezco are yet another example of his lack of judgment. All of these examples have one major thing in common, they all had a unique ability to elevate Obama’s political career. Obama’s reaction to each scandal has developed into a routine for him. He first tries to downplay the relationship. Then he claims he did not know anything about the scandal surrounding his friend. Next he attempts to weakly condemn the act or statement in question. Finally he claims that this “is not the man that I knew 20 years ago”. All of his questionable relationships bring into question his ability to make a sound judgment of one’s character. Are we supposed to trust his judgment while negotiating with Ahmedinejad?

The Vice Presidential Debate Highlghted the Deception Of The Obama/Biden Campaign

Last evening, Senator Joe Biden and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin took part in the most widely watched Vice Presidential debate of all time. Nearly 70 million people tuned in to watch the debate. 10 million more than watched the Presidential debate last week between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. In the buildup to the Presidential debate, the media and political pundits lowered the standard by which to measure Obama’s performance. When Obama did not stumble in the debates and most pundits considered the debate a tie, the win was given to Obama because he wasn’t expected to perform well. In the same token, the same experts predicted that Palin was not even in the same league with Biden and did not deserve to be in the same room with such a magnificent statesman as Biden. Last evening Governor Palin performance was outstanding. Focus groups clearly favored Palin in post debate analysis, but the punditry decided that Palin’s obvious control in the debate was a clear win for Biden.

Throughout the debate Biden spewed accusations against John McCain, while Palin pointed out the outlandish statements of Biden and Obama. Palin correctly noted that during the Democratic primaries, Senator Biden rebuked Obama for voting to withdraw funding for our troops and for meeting with rogue dictators without preconditions. Biden falsely claimed that Obama had never said that he would meet with rogue dictators without preconditions. He also feebly attempted to say that McCain voted against funding the troops. Both accusations are utterly false. The precondition video is available for anyone to see on YouTube. Obama clearly says that he, as president, would meet with anyone without any preconditions. Next the vote on funding for the troops issue is clear as well. Obama, and his fellow Democrats in the House and Senate, tried several times to gain political points by voting to withdraw funding for the troops and to set an ill-advised timetable for withdraw. McCain wisely voted against a measure that the Democratic leaders tried to set a defeat and surrender timetable in order for funding for our troops in a war zone.

The debate last night highlighted the differences between the two campaigns. On the one hand, we have a campaign that promises to only raise taxes only the rich and spend a trillion dollars more in new government spending. They plan to socialize health care and expect that only the rich will pay for it. If you think our economy is bad now, just wait until the high tax rates slow the economy to a stand still. Once the economy slows and the revenue drops, the new socialist government will be forced to raise taxes on everyone to sate their appetite for government programs and spending. On the other hand, we have a campaign that promises to cut spending, eliminate earmarks, cut taxes for everyone, and maintain a foreign policy that does not reward rogue dictators with U.S. approval by meeting with them. The choice is clear between the most liberal ticket in American history and a ticket with an actual chance at reform. Palin’s best remark last night was when she admitted that she was an Washington outsider, because she simply did not understand voting for the war and then claiming that you were actually against it. Obama and Biden for all of their platitudes about change and hope, their policies and positions represent more of the same old tired and corrupt Washington politics.

Playing Politics With Race

There are about 40 days left until Election Day and the excuses have started to surface. Last weekend Stanford University released a poll that suggested at least one third of white Democrats have racist tendencies. The poll findings, according to the researchers, could cost Barack Obama the election. Also this week, Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings was quoted as saying, "If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention. Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through." To top it off, a few weeks ago when John McCain was on the morning talk show The View, Whoopi Goldberg asked him if she should be worried about becoming a slave if he is elected President.

These are but a few of the examples of the stage being set for the excuses if Obama loses the election in November. The Obama campaign and its’ surrogates have decided to slyly play the race card in an attempt to guilt potential voters into voting for Obama. They also truly believe that the only reason Obama will not win is because of racism.

They simply cannot comprehend why a majority of Americans does not buy into Obama’s brand of socialism. Why wouldn’t the voting public be flocking to the polls for higher taxes? Obama has said that he will allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. For those with short memories, the tax cuts passed in early 2001 were actually tax cuts for all tax paying Americans. Allowing the tax cuts to expire will be a tax increase on all of us, not just the richest Americans.

Why wouldn’t the masses be eager for a foreign policy of surrender and appeasement? Obama has said that he would negotiate without any preconditions with our enemies. How do you negotiate with someone who has sworn to destroy you? What common ground do you find? Do we agree to let them only destroy certain states?

Who wouldn’t want a “leader” who waits to see which way the public tide is turning before making the hard decisions? Over the past few weeks, every major issue in the news has brought Obama out to try to straddle the fence on what needs to be done. When Russia attacked Georgia, he called on both sides for restraint, while McCain decisively condemned the Russian action. Obama later feebly condemned Russia as well. When the bailout of AIG was announced, Obama waited to announce his thoughts and later scolded his running mate Joe Biden for speaking too soon. Americans need a leader to make decisions instead of weakly voting present.

Why do those of us who do not agree with Obama have to be racists? For a candidate that is claiming to transcend race, why does his campaign seem to focus on race so often? I do not support Obama because of his policies. His race is not a factor. I do believe that Obama will lose in November. Not because of his race, but because of his policies and his inability to think on his feet and speak without the aid of teleprompters.

Why Is Obama Afraid Of Town Hall Debates?

In early June, Senator John McCain invited Senator Barack Obama to attend a series of up to 10 “town hall” style meetings throughout the summer. At the time of the invitation Obama was receptive to the idea of appearing with McCain at the “town hall” meetings, but in early August, the Obama campaign cited a very busy campaign schedule as to why they would not attend the meetings. To date, the candidates have only agreed to the standard 3 presidential debates and 1 vice presidential debate. My question is simple. Of what is the Obama campaign afraid?

Since Obama’s meteoric rise in popularity, he has long relied on the use of teleprompters to deliver his speeches. He has even taken to using them at campaign rallies, such as in a rodeo ring at the Colorado State Fair this week. Obama is a very gifted speaker when delivering his speeches with the aid of electronic devices, but when he is speaking without their help, he stumbles over his words. Much has been said about McCain and Palin, but both of them are able to think on their feet and deliver speeches and answer questions without outside help.

Perhaps Obama is worried about taking questions from those who have not sworn their allegiance to him. The news media has been very loyal and easy on Obama. They have not asked him any of the tough questions that McCain and Palin have faced. Is Obama worried that he may get asked tough questions from the lowly citizens of the United States? Will they ask about his extremely liberal record in the Illinois state senate and the U.S. Senate? Will they ask him about his 2 economic advisors who were part of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers? Advisors Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson were both CEO’s of Fannie Mae during the time frame of scandal, which directly led to the meltdown we have seen over the last week. In fact, Obama is second on the list of recipients of donations from Fannie Mae. Is Obama afraid to be asked about his nearly $1 trillion increase in government spending? Is he hiding from his plan to increase taxes on all taxpayers by not protecting the Bush tax cuts?

I believe that Obama knows that he is very vulnerable when speaking off the cuff. Without his teleprompter or one of his legions of advisors whispering in his ear, he is completely lost. His confusion was on full display this week when he said he wasn’t sure whether or not insurance giant AIG should be bailed out by the government. McCain said it best by noting that Obama needs to realize that as President you cannot simply vote “present” on the tough decisions. I believe that the standard debate format is set up to hide the candidate’s true character from the voting public. The “town halls” allow the citizens to ask the candidates questions without any media bias to either side. Obama is trying to become the next Bill Clinton, but Clinton was able to handle the public’s questions, while Obama is looking to run and hide from their scrutiny.

What is Honor?

On September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked, on our own soil, for the second time in less than 10 years. The terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, hijacked 4 airplanes that morning and successfully crashed them into the World Trade Center towers, causing them to collapse, and the Pentagon. The fourth plane was crashed into a field in Shanksville, PA after the heroic passengers of flight 93 struggled with the cowardly terrorists. This is a day that will long be remembered throughout the United States and the world. This was a day where heroism and honor were truly defined. This was a day when the citizens of the United States awoke to the dangers of terrorism and true evil.

This past week, the political attacks have intensified from both sides of the aisle, and culminated when Senator Barack Obama’s aide Bill Burton accused Senator John McCain of not knowing how to define honor. I believe that on this the seventh anniversary on 9/11, I will help the Obama campaign understand the definition of honor.

I believe that the passengers of flight 93 are excellent examples of men and women of honor. They rushed the cockpit and the hijackers to either wrest control of the aircraft from these cowards or to put the plane down before they reached the terrorists target. They put aside their own fears and concerns to sacrifice themselves for the protection of countless others.

The personnel of the New York City Police and Fire Departments are another perfect example of honor. They rushed into burning buildings to rescue complete strangers. I realize that this is their job, but they continued to do their job in the face of utter confusion and fear. The continued to try rescue people even after the first building fell. They laid down their lives for the sake of others.

The men and women of our Armed Forces display honor on a daily basis. They freely volunteer to put on the uniform of our country and go fight to defend freedom and democracy around the world. The fight even while our own feeble minded politicians falsely accuse them of atrocious crimes. They continue to fight while the same politicians declare their efforts lost and pointless, and try to cut off their funding. They continue to fight even after sustaining injuries to themselves and watching their comrades die.

Lastly Senator John McCain clearly defined honor while sitting in a Vietnamese Prisoner of War camp for 5 and half years. He clearly defined honor by refusing an early release from that camp because he felt fellow prisoners that had been there longer should go home first. He clearly defined honor by refusing to give information to his tormentors while enduring years of torture. John McCain defines honor with his lifetime of public service both in and out of the military.

A 9/11 propaganda film or attempts to cut off funding for troops on the battlefield do not define honor. Calling for surrender and defeat of our own military is not honor it is defeatism. Accusing our armed forces of rape and murder to try to garner political support is not honorable. I believe that trying to gain a political advantage over an opponent by attacking their children is definitely not honorable. We have slightly less than 2 months left of this campaign, and I believe that the attacks from the left will only get worse as they watch their poll numbers continue to slide. Obama had enjoyed a comfortable lead in most polls all summer, but now that the polls show the race either tied or McCain leading, I believe we will see the Obama campaign stoop to new levels to try to win back support.

The Politics Of Pessimism

We are almost halfway through the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Every four years, the world comes together to compete in the Olympic games. The games are marked by national pride, with every nation’s citizenry cheering on their countrymen to gold. The resurgence of pride in the United States has me wondering about the American pride of certain politicians.

Over the past several years, it has become en vogue to espouse a pessimistic view of the United States of America. We have witnessed high profile politicians go to the floor of the Senate and declare that our own troops have lost the war in Iraq. One congressman charged our troops with the cold-blooded murder of civilians in Iraq. These are just two examples of elected officials taking a very dim view of not only our country but also of the brave men and women who are fighting for the very freedom of speech of these politicians. The charges of murder were proven to be completely unfounded, and the defeat in Iraq turned out to be wishful thinking of a politician looking to turn public opinion against the war.

Before the hate mail goes into full swing, I am not questioning the patriotism of anyone opposing the war in Iraq. I am simply pointing out the pessimistic worldview of many on the left. The liberal elites have opined their depressing view of the U.S. on a variety of issues. They believe that we are engaged in an illegal war of aggression in Iraq, even though Congress approved the military action twice. They believe that we are the sole cause of “global warming”, even though they discount the pollution of China and India. They point to our refusal to sign on to the Kyoto protocols, even though the European countries that did sign on have found the infeasibility of the protocols. They believe that we are using more than our fair share of the world’s resources and that we should all learn to live with less, even though the elites preaching conservation fail to live by their own standards.

The presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama has made some very pessimistic comments over the course of his campaign. He has said that as Americans we need to learn to live on less. He has also said to a 12-year-old questioner that he believes America is not great as it once was. He has gone overseas to criticize the country that has enabled him to climb to the brink of the highest office in the world. I realize that his campaign is based on “hope” and “change”, but why does he feel the need to tear down the greatest country in the world?

I am not saying that the U.S. is without any problems, or that we have not made any mistakes. We are the country everyone else in the world looks to in time of crisis. When the Tsunami hit, the U.S. Navy was on the way immediately with supplies and medical help. The citizenry of the United States is the most charitable in the world. In 2006, American citizens gave nearly $300 billion to charity. That is not the government sending money after a disaster, that is your neighbors giving to help those that are less fortunate. I believe Obama is playing a politically dangerous game. He is running the risk that the voting public will grow tired of being told that they are selfish and uncaring. Ronald Reagan in contrast to Obama ran on optimism. He genuinely believed that the United States had unlimited potential because of the citizens. He constantly spoke of how great the U.S. was and how much greater we could be. I believe we are still the greatest country in the world and have the potential to go even higher if the government and it’s pessimistic politicians just stay out of our way.

Happy Anniversary Rush Limbaugh!

Friday, August 1, 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh’s historic career on the radio airwaves. Rush has a reported 20 million loyal listeners to his daily 3 hour radio program. He is beloved by those with a conservative mindset, and hated by those who consider themselves liberal and open minded. Limbaugh’s listeners often refer to themselves as ditto heads, which has brought scorn from the liberal critics. The critics cite that the ditto heads are incapable of thinking for themselves and that they wait to be told what to think by Limbaugh. Unfortunately for the critics, the term ditto heads springs from a caller in the early days of Limbaugh’s program. The caller stated that he loved what Rush stood for and prayed that he never went off the air. The next caller simply said, “ditto to what that other guy just said”.

A Pew Research Center study showed that Limbaugh’s listeners are among the most informed citizens in the country. Those of us who listen to Rush on a daily basis, do indeed tend to agree with him more than we disagree, but Rush’s true secret is the ability to make his listeners think. His monologues and unique perspectives inspire his listeners to research the policies and positions of our elected officials. Rush began his national radio show shortly after President Reagan rescinded the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. The Fairness Doctrine was a government mandate that all programs aired over the public airwaves must provide a balance of opposing views. With the Fairness Doctrine a relegated to the ash heap of broadcast history, radio stations quickly lined up for the opportunity to broadcast Limbaugh’s conservative voice. WABC in New York City made the original bet on Limbaugh and it has more than paid off for both WABC and Rush. Limbaugh’s latest reported contract was around $400 million through 2016, which dwarfs Howard Stern’s latest deal of $100 million for 5 years.

Throughout his tenure of the king of all radio, Limbaugh has remained staunchly conservative. His critics have accused him of being nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Bush administration, but they discount his vehement disagreement with the White House over immigration reform, the Medicare drug plan, the Kennedy “No Child Left Behind” education bill, the Harriett Myers nomination, and numerous other smaller point of conservative contention. Of course when he agrees with the administration he is quick to explain why they are making the right moves. He has been in stalwart support for tax cuts. He has pointed out the fallacy of the media and the liberal politicians that the Bush tax cuts only benefited the rich. Simple math will tell you that if a taxpayer resides in the upper income brackets that any tax cut will be larger in dollar amounts than a taxpayer in the lower brackets. They completely disregard that the bottom bracket was dropped from an oppressive 28% to 15%. In true liberal fashion, they plan to allow all of the tax cuts expire in 2010.

When George H. W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton in 1992, the media pundits and liberal elites expressed their glee that this was the end of Rush. They believed that Rush was defeated along with Bush. The next 8 years saw unprecedented growth in radio for Limbaugh. When Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in 2000, the same “experts” predicted that Rush was done again. They believed that with a Republican in the White House, he would have nothing to talk about. Again, they couldn’t have been more wrong. For the past 20 years, the liberal side of the political spectrum has tried everything they could think of to compete, or at least lessen Limbaugh’s effect on their political aspirations. I believe they have finally come to the conclusion that they simply cannot beat him in the free market of ideas. Recently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has endorsed a plan to bring back the “Fairness Doctrine”. Pelosi is in for long drawn out fight on this issue. Congressman Mike Pence has been working feverishly to obtain enough supporters in the House to permanently bury any form of the “Fairness Doctrine”. Whatever the liberals throw at Limbaugh to shut him up, one thing is certain, at 12:00 P.M. EST Rush Limbaugh will be holding court over the airwaves and millions of faithful listeners will tuning in to hear him.

How Low Will Congress' Approval Go?

The Rasmussen Reports latest congressional approval tracking data has shown that paltry 9% of Americans believe that Congress is doing a good job. A closer exploration of the numbers reveals that the Democrat controlled Congress is getting abysmal marks not just among Republican voters and independents, but also among their own party loyalists. A mere 13% of those identifying themselves as registered Democrats are willing to give the Congress high marks. The Democratic Party leadership will surely attempt to shift the blame upon the Republican minority or the President, but a cursory examination of their legislative accomplishments sheds the light of truth on the real reasoning behind the historic congressional dissatisfaction.

While Congress has passed a few pieces of legislation that have made headlines this year, they have become increasingly belligerent on even attempting anything of substance on the climbing price of oil. The American voting public is most concerned about the high cost of energy. Poll after poll has shown that the citizenry are demanding that something be done to curb the rapid increase in energy costs. While virtually every credible expert on energy has pointed to the ever-increasing demand for oil from countries like China and India, congressional leadership has chosen to play partisan politics as usual. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that there is no shortage of oil and that drilling for oil will not solve anything. Yet she proposed releasing the equivalent of 3.5 days worth of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. If drilling off our own oil will not solve anything, how will sending 3.5 days worth of oil on to the market solve anything? Pelosi is gambling that the vast majority of the public will hear her sound byte on the evening news and discount that the price at the pump never changes.

Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, alluded to the fact that the Democratic leadership would like to use the current high price of gas to move us away from the use of oil. The Democratic Party has decided that the high price of gas is good for us as a country because we will drive less and push for alternative energy sources. The problem with this logic is that the alternative sources are not viable right now. They claim that even if they allowed us to drill in ANWR and offshore we would not see that oil for at least 5 years. At least we would be drilling for our own oil and not be held hostage to the whims of some third world dictator. We would be increasing the supply to meet the increasing demand.

We need to be working on alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar, but we also need to be building more nuclear power plants to meet our own demands. We need to be building new refineries in our own country. It makes virtually no sense that there has been no refinery built in the United States for the past 30 years. It makes no sense that we do not tap into our own wealth of oil in our own country, when we are importing more than 70% of our oil. We have, by some estimates, as much or more oil within our own country than in all of the Middle East. Is it any wonder why we have $4 a gallon gas? The opponents scream about the potential for accidents and the potential damage to the environment, but how much oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina blew into Louisiana and Mississippi? After the worst hurricane in history to land in the Gulf States, there was not one drop of oil spilled due the devastating storm.

A few months ago, Senator John McCain proposed a summer hiatus from federal gas taxes, which is currently about 18 cents a gallon. Most in Congress called it pointless because it would not affect the price at the pump significantly. This week a congressional commission, the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, released their recommendations to Congress. Included in their recommendations is a 40 cent a gallon increase in the federal gas tax to help pay for our bridges and highways. Does anyone actually believe that the increase in taxes will ever make it to the bridges and highways? Did the tobacco lawsuit money ever make it to help those afflicted by smoking? While most on the panel do not believe that this will ever come to fruition, it is just another example of why the public does not approve of the job that Congress is doing.

Is Reverend Jackson Threatened By An Obama Presidency?

Last Sunday, Reverend Jesse Jackson made some comments to a fellow guest on Fox and Friends while they were waiting to go on the air. What Jackson did not realize, was that his microphone was on and caught his remarks on tape. The “good” Reverend asserted his desire to violently remove certain parts of Senator Obama’s nether regions. He made these comments while discussing the presumptive Democratic nominee’s recent remarks on the black community.

First of all, after decades of making television appearances, how could Jackson not realize that his microphone was on? Most media personalities will admit that when the microphone is clipped on to your lapel, you are being recorded. This is event is similar to former President Clinton’s gaffe from a few months ago. Both men made comments from which they had to back away from, and both men did not realize that they were being recorded. Isn’t a comment made while the microphones are perceived to be off, a more credible account of what that person believes? A prepared statement for the cameras is just that, a prepared statement. It is generally a politically correct, sanitized statement to deliver a predetermined message. What a person says in private is a truer representation of their beliefs.

Jackson is not new to critical remarks about Obama. In September of last year, Jackson was caught by a reporter from The State newspaper in South Carolina commenting that Obama is “acting white” in his response to the Jena 6 debacle in Louisiana. Jackson later asserted that the remarks do not accurately reflect his opinion of Senator Obama. He didn’t deny that he made the comments, just that he didn’t recall making them. So what does Jackson think about Obama? His public comments are always full of praise and support, which is not surprising for a political opportunist such as Jackson. His private comments have shown a much different picture of his true feelings for the presidential hopeful.

This will come at quite a shock for many of you, but I actually agree with Senator Obama on an issue. Obama’s comments on Fathers Day in the Apostolic Church of God have one concept that I, and many others from both sides of the aisle have been calling for. That concept is personal responsibility. Obama was speaking about the black community as a whole. He pointed out the prevalence of single parent households, the school dropout rate, the violent crime, and the high rate of unemployment within the black community. His point was that the men in the community needed to take the personal responsibility for their families. He pointed out that studies have shown that a strong family unit is the best deterrent for the rampant problems for which the black community is dealing. I believe that personal responsibility is the answer to many of the problems that the country is dealing with as a whole. This is not just a black community problem it is an American problem. If the citizens of the United States would take responsibility for their own lives and stop expecting the government to fix all that ails them, we would all be much better off. Government does have a role in fixing some of the issues, but it was intended by our founding fathers to be a very limited role. I applaud Senator Obama for challenging the black community and all of us, now if only he would apply the same mentality to the rest of the issues of the day.

Reverend Jackson’s comments have served to highlight his irrelevancy in today’s political and social world. He is quick to criticize Senator Obama, and even Bill Cosby, for a call to action on responsibility, but has done very little to promote personal responsibility with all of the media attention that he has been given over the past few decades. I believe it is time for Reverend Jackson to quietly fade into retirement as a new generation of community activists, with new ideas of responsibility, takes a more prominent role in our society.

carnival of political punditry - August 12, 2007

Welcome to the August 12, 2007 edition of carnival of political punditry.

Troy Stouffer presents Expert Analysis Or Egomania? posted at I'm A Pundit Too, saying, "Each and every time you turn on the local, network, or cable news the “experts” are pontificating over their particular area of expertise. They make predictions about everything under the sun from global warming and the current political campaigns, to the economy and the stock market. The amusing aspect of this nightly “expert” analysis is that a few months or years down the road, the experts are all shocked at the outcome. The shocking aspect is that the same news producers continue to trot out the same shocked experts to provide the “expert” analysis on the topic of the day."




Sammy Benoit presents YID With LID: Democrats Suck up To Daily Kos Hate Site posted at YID With LID.




Chris Moreau presents The Politics Hour posted at ChrisMoreau.com, saying, "I've had it with the left and the right..."

I personally enjoy reading people's gripes about Republicans and Democrats.
If you are sick of it all, this is a good one for you. I don't condone everything Moreau says, but he has a point.




Charles H. Green presents We've All Caught the Detroit Disease posted at Trust Matters, saying, "As the US car industry continues its inexorable decline it's worth looking at why and asking if the rest of the country is also exhibiting the symptoms of the "Detroit Disease"."

This is a good one if you enjoy discussing economics as much as I do. If you don't enjoy it, read this anyways, you may learn something.




Alvaro Fernandez presents Training the Aging Workforce posted at SharpBrains: Your Window into the Brain Fitness Revolution, saying, "In the debate about social security and health care, we are often forgetting this important demographic trend and how to turn it in our favor."




Jack Le Moine presents Another Nutty Lawsuit posted at Jack Le Moine's Blog




Jack Le Moine presents Yet ANOTHER Big Bucks Lawsuit posted at Jack Le Moine's Blog




Madeleine Begun Kane presents Bush Growls; Dems Kowtow (Limerick and Poll) posted at Mad Kane's Political Madness.

I think I'm going to have a chat about this one in the discussion forum this week.




Jeremy Hitchcock presents Fruit of the War Crimes posted at WTTF: Welcome to the Future, saying, "A nation united... against underpants."

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carnival of political punditry - July 22, 2007

Welcome to the July 22, 2007 edition of carnival of political punditry.

Wenchypoo presents Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket.

Wenchypoo presents Invasion of the Pod People, Round 2 (L-O-N-G) posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket, saying, ""I see Pod People...they're EVERYWHERE...and they don't even know they're being used!""

Sammy Benoit presents There Was Never a Terrorist Threat, The Check is in the Mail, John Edwards is right about bumper stickers and other great lies. posted at YID With LID.

Sammy Benoit presents Democrats Want a Don't Ask-Don't Tell Terror Policy posted at YID With LID.

Tracee Sioux presents Unrealistic Expectations of Perfection posted at So Sioux Me, saying, "Why can't people apply the same "good enough" role model standards to the female candidate as they do the male candidate? Is it the unrealistic expectations of perfection that keep Conservative women from being on Hillary's team?"

Troy Stouffer presents Equal Opportunity Politics? posted at I'm A Pundit Too, saying, "Race, religion, ethnicity, and gender are all factors that are being put in play by the myriad of presidential candidates. The particular candidates are betting that their gender, or race, or religion, or ethnic background is the ‘X’ factor that will push their candidacy over the top. The majority of the Democratic candidates basically have the same set of core beliefs or positions. The same is true for the Republican candidates. Each campaign is looking for the one thing that sets them apart from the other candidates. Do these “classifications” really matter? Should they?"

Cade Krueger presents Building Your Home Business In A Difficult Political Climate posted at Write To Right.

Ashok presents Rethink.: Greatness and Individualism in Tocqueville posted at Rethink., saying, "Reflection on where the problem with our emphasis on individualism lies: does it make us too proud in some cases? Or is it prone to a fear so deep we don't even realize we are fearful?"

Adam Pieniazek presents Best Political Candidate Ever: None of the Above posted at Adam Pieniazek, saying, "A post about an initiative in Massachusetts to list "None of the Above" as an option on election ballots. If NOTA wins, a new election is triggered with new candidates."

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Yet Another Filibuster Song Parody (The Full-a-Bluster Song) posted at Mad Kane's Humor Blog.

DWSUWF presents Fixing Fairness - A modest technology solution. posted at Divided We Stand United We Fall, saying, "Certainly there is a fairness problem with broadcasters, but if we look at this problem objectively, we see it cannot be solved by dealing with the broadcasters alone. The bigger problem resides in the listeners, watchers, and readers"

Jack Yoest presents The Dreamer Goes To Peru...Without Her Mao Bag. posted at Reasoned Audacity, saying, "I asked the woman why she wanted to work for us.

"The Terrorists are trying to kill me."

I knew this was not to be an ordinary job interview.

Charmaine and I were hiring..."

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Equal Opportunity Politics?

Race, religion, ethnicity, and gender are all factors that are being put in play by the myriad of presidential candidates. The particular candidates are betting that their gender, or race, or religion, or ethnic background is the ‘X’ factor that will push their candidacy over the top. The majority of the Democratic candidates basically have the same set of core beliefs or positions. The same is true for the Republican candidates. Each campaign is looking for the one thing that sets them apart from the other candidates. Do these “classifications” really matter? Should they?

Will Italian-Americans flock to the polls just to vote for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani? Will veterans turn out in record numbers to vote for former Vietnam prisoner of war John McCain? Does the celebrity status of “Law and Order” actor Fred Thompson have enough power to propel him into the nomination? Will members of the Mormon church have enough sway to allow Mitt Romney become the first Mormon President? Will women vote for Hillary just because she is a woman? Will Hispanics feel compelled to vote for New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson? Does Barak Obama have enough support from African-Americans to become the first African-American President?

New York Senator Hillary Clinton is vying to be the first woman President. Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Senator John Edwards, has created headlines this past week by suggesting that Clinton is campaigning more like a man than a woman. It was an obvious attempt to convince women voters that she is not the best choice for President. The Clinton campaign is hoping that women voters will gravitate towards her because of her gender. One thing I don’t understand is that by following that logic, the men will then vote for a male candidate. In my opinion, the campaign strategy is insulting to believe that women voters only look at the gender but men vote on issues.

I believe the idea that African-Americans are going to vote for Barak Obama based on the fact that he is an African-American, or that Hispanics will pull the lever for Bill Richardson because he is Latino is just as insulting. The same holds true for Giuliani’s Italian heritage. Why does anyone believe that a candidate’s ethnicity qualifies or disqualifies them to be President? Isn’t that a bit racist?

On the Republican side, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has fielded questions about his Mormon faith. Aspersions have been made about Romney’s faith and polygamy. First of all, I find it interesting that for all of the polygamy talk, Romney is one of the few Republican candidates that has been married only one time. Secondly, there are many other issues to consider before a candidate’s religion comes into play.

In the workplace, employers are required by law to overlook a person’s race, religion, gender, and many other factors in regards of hiring them for a job. In politics, many candidates are asking us to take a closer look at them because of these same characteristics that we are required to overlook in everyday life. Martin Luther King Jr. wanted an America where all people were judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. I am sure that he would agree that the candidate’s character is more important than their race, religion, or gender. You can make your own decision as to who to vote for in next year’s election, but I hope that your decision is based on more on character and issues than religion, ethnicity, or gender.

Alternative Minimum Tax Hike?

Shortly after the mid term elections last year the newly elected Democratic leadership promised the American taxpayers to “fix” the Alternative Minimum Tax. The AMT is a little known tax that was created almost 40 years ago to force 150 or so wealthy families to pay taxes. These families had not broken any law by not paying taxes, they simply used the tax code to avoid paying any income taxes. The AMT has grown over the 3 plus decades that it has been in existence to include over 3.8 million taxpayers in 2006. The major flaw with the AMT is that it does not take into account inflation or any tax cuts that have been implemented over the years.

I know what many are thinking right now. “This tax does not affect me. I am not in the top 1% or even the top 10% of wage earners.” The sad news is that within the next 3 years at least 26 million more taxpayers will be paying the AMT. The AMT does not take the place of your existing tax rate, it is an additional tax on top of your income tax. Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, show that nearly every family with a total income of $100,000 will be paying $2000 more in taxes next year. Worse yet, many families with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 will see a $1000 increase in taxes.

Some Senate Democrats have proposed a plan that would eliminate the AMT but raise taxes on those with more than $500,000 in income. Many politicians up for reelection next year are afraid to back such a plan, because of being seen as proponents of tax increases. Another plan is to simply postpone the effect of the AMT for 2 years, conveniently after the next election, and then work on tax increases to offset any loss of tax revenue from the AMT. Why does the government always expect the taxpayers to do with less money, but never even consider that they should do with less money?

Let’s not forget that the Republicans were in control of Congress for 12 years and failed to do anything about the AMT. They also failed to act on making Bush’s tax cuts, which by the way have caused an increase in tax revenues over the past 6 years. Whatever happened to Republicans being the party of tax cuts and fiscal responsibility? I am not saying the Democrats have been any better about spending since they have been in power. The political promises of last election season that earmark spending would be transparent, has yet to be accomplished. Both political parties have been severely lacking when it comes to tightening the purse strings in Washington. Isn’t any wonder why congressional approval ratings are at historic lows?

carnival of political punditry - July 8, 2007

Welcome to the July 8, 2007 edition of carnival of political punditry.

When you get a moment, please check out my new home page: http://thenewpundit.com/

Jack Yoest presents Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell Reports: How Liberals Think in War posted at Reasoned Audacity, saying, "The only time a manager should shout or bark out an order demanding instant obedience is if the building is on fire: an emergency. Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell had a few minutes to make a decision and decided to take a vote. It wasn't an emergency, just yet.

"It was the stupidest, most southern-fried, lamebrained decision I ever made in my life," Luttrell writes. "I must have been out of my mind. I had actually cast a vote which I knew could sign our death warrant. I'd turned into a (expletive) liberal, a half-assed, no-logic nitwit, all heart, no brain, and the judgment of a jack rabbit.

Marcus Luttrell tells his story in Lone Survivor and is reported in A war hero from Huntsville rues a decision made in Afghanistan

Sammy Benoit presents Homeland Insecurity posted at YID With LID. A Democrat House Committee secretly ordered the removal of all references to the "Global War On Terror," nonchalantly claiming it wasn't political. Who are they fooling? The Military Times reported that Erin Conaton, a staffer on Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton's House Armed Services Committee, banished the term "Global War On Terror" from the 2008 defense bill, in a Mar. 27 memo to Democrats.

Ashok presents Is Democracy Feasible? (Reflections on the Gettysburg Address) posted at Rethink.Democracy is feasible, but it requires beatitude. Otherwise, it is worse than worthless: it is merely prelude to anarchy. It is truly tragic that awareness of the need for beatitude should come at the expense of so much blood.

Lucynda Riley presents This is why my son is Homeschooled posted at Quietly Into the Night.

Charles Modiano presents History's Hit Job on Thomas Paine posted at CLEAN OUR HOUSE! - Killing the Bigotry in all of US. Thomas Paine was ahead of his time, and this fact gives us iconic options that few know exist. If saddled with the choice of “men of their times” versus “men of our times”, shouldn’t it be a no-brainer who gets the historical love? Shouldn’t our history books make it self-evident that all white men in white wigs were not created equal? Unfortunately, I never did learn anything about Thomas Paine “the abolitionist” or “women’s rights activist” in school.

Wenchypoo presents Who Needs Universal Health Care? posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket. People like Michael Moore, that's who! Did you know he was a third-generation unemployed union auto worker, not to mention a heart attack waiting to happen (have you seen him lately?).

Kathryn Lang presents Division Will Destroy the United States posted at The Peculiar Club. I am all for compassion. I am all for understanding. I am all for celebrating uniqueness. The counterbalance must be that first and foremost we stand united. “United we stand.” Diversity is great – division will destroy.

D presents 43 Famous people who should run for President posted at The Hiller Report, saying, "An amusing list of famous people and things who should run for President in '08. Includes 43 pictures."

Anna - On The Ponderosa presents LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL posted at On The Ponderosa.

Don presents Ron Paul - Who Is Ron Paul And What Is He Smoking? : DirtFromTexas.Com posted at DirtFromTexas.Com, saying, "While others who think they know this Texas Congressman run to jump on his bandwagon, I show people some of the things that Ron Paul does, not says. I happen to live in the district next to his and I get a first hand view of the double talking "see what I say, not what I do" actions."

Kilroy_60 presents George W. Bush and Dick Cheney Are A National Disgrace For America posted at Fear And Loathing - The Gonzo Papers.

Steven Silvers presents WakeUpWalMart defections might mean union-backed activist groups have done all they can do. posted at Scatterbox at stevensilvers.com, saying, "Departing leaders of a prominent political-style anti-Wal-Mart group perhaps think they’ll accomplish more through a well-coiffed multimillionaire populist presidential candidate."

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carnival of political punditry - July 1, 2007

Welcome to the July 1, 2007 edition of carnival of political punditry. I am incredibly tired at the moment, but I promised myself that I would comment on some of the submissions this week.

Hakim Abdullah presents An Islamic View of Suicide Bombing posted at Hakim Abdullah.

Hakim has contributed to this carnival in the past. I read this article and two thoughts come up: We need more Muslims to share this view. We need those who do share this view to be more vocal.

Tracee Sioux presents Who Doesn’t Have a Crush on Barack Obama? posted at Blog Fabulous, saying, "The Latin sex-pot with the dity about having a crush on Barack Obama certainly isn't going to hurt his campaign."

I can honestly say that I do not have a crush on Obama. This brings up an intersting point. Bill Clinton was seen as hot by a lot of women. In 2004, John Edwards was the hot Vice President candidate. And now we have Obama. I wonder how democrats make their decisions.

Tracee Sioux presents Global Gag Rule is Anti-Girl posted at So Sioux Me, saying, "The Global Gag Rule and limitations on the distribution of contraception is blatantly anti-girl and anti-woman."

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Suffering From Bloomberg-Envy ... Or Just an Idiotic Egomaniac? posted at Mad Kane's Political Madness.

Ashok presents Question: Should Political Science Exist? Why? posted at Rethink..

An interesting piece on why we feel the need for debate.

Matt presents Two federal agencies on power grab - why Republicans are like sneaky little kids posted at The Displaced Republican, saying, "I used to think the Republican Party stood for small government. I recently figured it out that when it comes to the big/small government debate, they're actually worse than the Dems...they're like sneaky little kids."

Matt gives one of many good examples for this argument. Republicans need to start acting like Conservatives again.

Wenchypoo presents In Honor of High Milk Prices posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket, saying, "There's nothing more political than farm subsidies that are no longer working thanks to ethanol!"

Big Government at its best. Subsidies for bad ideas.

Sammy Benoit presents Jumping off the Bush Bandwagon? No Bush Jumped off Mine posted at YID With LID.

Did George Bush forget who voted for him in 2004?

Mark25 presents Management vs. Politics posted at HotStrategies.com.

Kyle presents Cheney Inspires Me posted at Nascent Notions, saying, "Cheney Invents his own Branch of government and I follow suite"

Kyle presents Immigration: The Devil's Name is Amnesty posted at Nascent Notions.

Why debate an issue when you can accuse someone of being a racist instead?

Hell's Handmaiden presents More Firepower? Less Crime? hell's handmaiden posted at Hell's Handmaiden.

I don't think the Handmaiden likes guns. This argument will go on forever I think.

Jack Yoest presents Lurita Alexis Doan, GSA Chief: Capitalism Meets Politics posted at Reasoned Audacity, saying, "When a person of note is covered by the media in Your Nation's Capital, three questions are asked by the victim:
1) Is there a picture?
2) Is it above the fold?
3) Is the story running on the weekend?"

It's pretty simple. If Representative Waxman is accusing someone of something, there is a witchhunt in progress.

Charles H. Green presents Trust, Politics and US Health Care Policy posted at Trust Matters, saying, "A Harvard Business School prof uses the standard tools of business analysis to indict US health care - a system that serves neither business nor the public, yet seems impossible to fix so it works for either."

Charles discusses the book "Who Killed Health Care?"

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carnival of political punditry - June 24, 2007

Welcome to the June 24, 2007 edition of carnival of political punditry.

J.C. Wilmore presents The legacy of "Macaca" is alive and well posted at The Richmond Democrat.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents An Arresting Affair posted at Mad Kane's Humor Blog.

Sammy Benoit presents Jimmy Carter's Legacy -Islamic Iran posted at YID With LID.

Tracee Sioux presents Shut Up John Mayer, Stop Waiting On the World to Change posted at So Sioux Me, saying, "Voting for Hillary because she is a woman is a valid and legitimate reason. An argument advocating voting down the genderlines in 2008 to open the potential for all girls in America."

Michael presents Congress Approval All Time Low and Third Parties posted at The Common Virtue.

Hakim Abdullah presents Is Islam Compatible with Democracy? posted at Hakim Abdullah.

Avant News presents Sam Brownback Pregnancy May Put Squeeze On Presidential Bid posted at Avant News.

Lucynda Riley presents And our governemnt wonders why we don't trust them posted at Quietly Into the Night.

Sammy Benoit presents Why We Fight -->A Message for the Democrats posted at YID With LID.

Jon Swift presents Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Ann Althouse* posted at Jon Swift, saying, "Let's subject Ann Althouse's blog to Freudian analysis, since it seems only fair after she put Hillary's new campaign video on the couch."

Madeleine Begun Kane presents The GOP's In For A Rudy Awakening posted at Mad Kane's Political Madness.

vjack presents Ideology Over Competence Revisited: Bush's Nominee for Surgeon General posted at Atheist Revolution.

Lucynda Riley presents This is shocking!!! posted at Quietly Into the Night.

nishant presents North Korea gets 25 million bucks, and a meeting with US envoy posted at OMG Teh World!, saying, "A post with speculation on the whole North Korea dispute."

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carnival of political punditry - June 17, 2007

Welcome to the June 17, 2007 edition of carnival of political punditry.

This is an interesting carnival. We begin with some jabs at the President and the GOP in general with few articles about the Iraq war in the mix. We then move on to some opinions about the current economy. Staying on course with current events, we move on to the Immigration debate. One blogger gives his feelings on JFK. In a bit of contrast, one blogger tells us why we need laws, while another tells that laws do nothing but destroy. In a strong finish, we try to figure out how our planet survives with so many physical poisons, and with so many social poisons, then we end up with some Mitt Romney humor.

Only Three Notes presents How to become an American President? posted at Only Three Notes, saying, "This is Arnab, the antichrist again. This would be my second post in this blog. I have found quite a few followers but looking for more. I am specifically looking for an american president to be my follower. This post of mine is going to outline how to become an American president."

Madeleine Begun Kane presents GOP Piety Song Parody (Sing to Billy Joel?s Honesty) posted at Mad Kane's Political Madness.

DWSUWF presents End Game: The face of "Victory in Iraq" posted at Divided We Stand United We Fall, saying, "The good news is that we have entered the "End Game" of our military involvement in Iraq. The bad news is that the man making the smart moves on the chessboard is Moqtada al-Sadr, likely future leader of Iraq, and the face of "Victory in Iraq" as defined by United States policy."

Hell's Handmaiden presents Churchill had "Never Surrender" hell's handmaiden posted at Hell's Handmaiden.

Wenchypoo presents Recession or Depression? Either Way, the Sky is Falling on Someone Unprepared posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket.

David Hayes presents Misguided Reform: The Problem of the Guest Worker posted at Frozen Toothpaste.

Tim Abbott presents Don't Fence Me In posted at Walking the Berkshires.

David Mills presents John F. Kennedy speaks posted at Undercover Black Man, saying, "A neat little dose of aural history..."

Mike Netherland presents Rule of Law posted at Mike's Nether Land, saying, "A recent post regarding one aspect of the illegal immigration issue. Thanks for hosting!"

zenofeller presents The Real Deal. posted at zenofeller.com.

Wenchypoo presents If Only There Were Fewer People… posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket.

Rick Sincere presents The Outing of Tyler Whitney posted at Rick Sincere News and Thoughts.

E.P. Wintergreen presents Romney Secures Key Endorsement from the Mentally Ill posted at Absolutely Serious, saying, "this is satirical in nature."

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Maybe We Should Draft This Guy

As all of my loyal readers are aware (both of you), I recently awarded Jim DeMint "Coolest Person In Congress At The Moment." This is a very prestigious award in certain ranks. It just happens that those ranks are very secretive, so chances are you have never heard of them.

I did a little investigation, which means I looked at Senator DeMint's website. I discovered that his push to stop shamnesty isn't the only thing that makes this man a patriot and a great American who should be placed upon a pedestal and have his praises sung to him. Ok, maybe I'm a little overboard.

Senator DeMint also supports a version of the Consumption Tax, or Fair Tax. He calls it the "8.5% Tax Reform Plan." The specifics are on his website. Here are the highlights:

Replace all individual federal income taxes with a flat 8.5% national retail sales tax on new goods and services.

Provide a universal rebate to all Americans so that the poor are not taxed on basic consumption. The rebate is applied through the reduction in payroll taxes.

Replace all corporate income taxes with a flat 8.5% business transfer tax.

He claims that this is revenue neutral. This is a matter of debate. The estimates for a needed consumption tax rate have been between 23% and 35% to ensure that the federal revenues continue to rise to pay for all of the very necessary earmarks for Congressional pet projects that mean nothing to the average taxpayer. However, the argument remains that if we had such bold tax reform, it would increase economical investment in the U.S. to such an extent that tax revenues could possibly increase substantially. Companies and individuals would no longer spend untold billions on tax preparations and the prices of goods and services would decrease. Fewer jobs would be sent overseas. This may or may not be tax neutral, the problem is that we just don't know until we try it. It is all economical theory. Of course, if you added this bold reform to spending reform, it increases your chances of tax neutrality.

Because this is so debatable an issue, we will instead stick to the 45,000 page long IRS tax code that no one understands and which currently allows an estimated 400 billion dollars in tax cheats each year. That is an interesting estimate because if the IRS were collecting it, there would be no federal deficit at the moment. I just thought I would mention that part.

Senator DeMint seems to have a strong position on two very important issues, borders and taxes. This is why I would like to see him have more of a leadership roll in the Republican Party in D.C. right now. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing this guy as a Presidential candidate. I like his stance on both of these very important issues, and he demonstrated an ability last week to play the political game when it was necessary to help stall the horrible shamnesty bill, I mean the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" bill. No, I mean shamnesty. He was able to gain enough support from a handful of Republicans and Democrats to force a vote the stalled the bill. He will now be judged on his ability to finish killing this thing. If he can get it done, it would certainly help him gain popularity with the American public.

Of course there are already ten men running for the GOP nomination. The two most liberal are the front runners because they are popular. Senator DeMint is not popular like McCain and Giuliani, and he isn't an actor. If he jumped into the race, he would lose. And we would probably lose too because he would be focusing on his campaign and his help in defeating shamnesty would be missed.

I do have a compromise however. Maybe DeMint should be Fred Thompson's running mate.

carnival of political punditry - June 10, 2007

Welcome to the June 10, 2007 edition of carnival of political punditry. I don't hide the fact that my blog is a conservative blog. I write conservative opinions and so does the other writer, Troy.

I decided to do a wide open blog carnival, allowing opinions from the left and the write. After a good look, I almost feel like I need to put in a "Opinions do not reflect" disclaimer.

The submissions are all here, I didn't turn away anything that was submitted. I will be doing this each week and I will continue to post so long as the submissions do not push too far. There is one that is off topic, and this is the only time it will be allowed.

Some of this is funny, some of it is cause for concern, and some of it is very informative. I don't agree with it all, but here it is.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Bloody Hell, It?ll Be Bloody! posted at Mad Kane's Political Madness.

Wenchypoo presents Rattling the Political Chain of Command posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket.

Avant News presents George W. Bush to Replace Will Shortz as NYT Crossword Puzzle Editor posted at Avant News.

Sammy Benoit presents Democratic Party Political Correctness Will Get US Killed posted at YID With LID.

Michael Boldin presents Understanding the Constitution and War Powers: Can the Congress end War? posted at Populist Party of America.

Grey Swan presents Iran, Nuclear Weapons, and how to prevent it. posted at Grey Swan, saying, "Brief Blog about the importance of being able threaten your enemies."

Steve Faber presents - The Latest Government Proposal to Waste Your Money, Cost You Money, Invade Your Privacy, and (sadly) More posted at DebtBlog.

Jon Swift presents Scooter Libby's Halloween posted at Jon Swift, saying, "It is an image I will not soon forget: Scooter Libby in a remote military installation scaring children."

vjack presents Democratic Candidates Trade Rationality for Votes posted at Atheist Revolution.

Phantom Pulpit presents - Phantom Daily Blog - Dr. Death goes free posted at Phantom Pulpit.

CapeTownDissentator presents Bill O'Reilly: Ecce Homo, an SOB Who Thinks He's a BFD posted at The Dissentators.

Jack Yoest presents Lurita Alexis Doan: Good Management Meets Bad Politics posted at Reasoned Audacity, saying, "A good female manager leading the GSA is bringing out the worst in Congressman Henry Waxman.

Waxman is conducting hearings investigating the General Services Agency head, Lurita Alexis Doan. The Democratic Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is accusing Doan of sweetheart deals (that never happened), of lack of competence (voiced by ‘reassigned’ personnel), and of violations of the Hatch Act. The accusation of Hatch Act violations is the most serious."

Charles H. Green presents How Marketing Can Destroy Sales Trust posted at Trust Matters, saying, "It was Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, who gave Republicans this advice for dealing with the press: "Never answer the question they ask; only answer the question you want to talk about." If politicians want people to start trusting them, they have to get past this Vietnam-era Republican talking points mindset."

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Who Will Be Fred Thompson’s VP?

Now that Thompson has wrapped up the GOP nomination, the question on everyone's mind is who he will pick to be his running mate. I know we are still months away from the primaries. I am also aware that Fred hasn't actually announced his bid. But let's be honest, he is going to run and he is going to win. He is the most popular Republican in the race, despite the fact he isn't officially in the race.

The Presidential race is more about popularity than politics. Why do you think the two current front-runners are also the most liberal? Rudy and McCain are popular because of their past. The other candidates don't have the same history. Romney is doing well because he knows marketing, or someone on his team knows marketing. But the rest of the candidates, despite their conservative values, have very low poll numbers. Just don't tell the Ron Paul "truthers" that I said that. Internet polls that allow you to vote 100 times don't count, ok.

Fred is popular, mostly because of his time on the television, which interestingly enough started when he played himself. This led to some great movie rolls, and of course his current roll as a conservative prosecutor. All of this has increased his popularity amongst conservatives and has made him a favorite with conservative pundits and blogs. Some trivia for you, part of his inspiration to run was Dick Wolf, the guy who put together the many Law and Order shows.

So, again, now that he has this thing wrapped up, who will he pick as his running mate? We have seen in the past where the candidate picks a former foe from the primaries. There is some speculation that Fred will pick one of the current candidates. Steve Elliott of grassfire.org is expecting a younger governor, thinking that two senators won't play well in the fight against Barack O'Clinton. This is a very good point, especially given the recent record for senators against governors in the presidential race.

I won't speculate myself, but I will tell you what to look for. Look for polls, transformed into pairing people up with running mates. An example: Would you vote for Hillary/Obama or Thompson/Romney or Thompson/Tancredo?

Fred is running because fictional polls that included himself and Newt put the both of them well above other candidates. Fred played this so that he would know whether or not to actually run. He wanted to be certain that the people were tired of the front-running RINOs. And we are tired of them. Fred will find out who makes the best ticket, and he will start this process very soon.

I'm not sure that he can win it all right now. Republicans are very angry, mostly about amnesty, I mean "Comprehensive Immigration Reform"; I mean amnesty. I don't know if this can be saved, but with his popularity, maybe he is the guy who can do it. The pick for VP will play a very important factor here. The democrats will do the same, we could even see another Clinton/Gore ticket believe it or not. My guess is that it will be Clinton/Obama.

Don't screw it up Fred, the country can't afford it right now.

Hillary Announces Her Intent To Turn America Into A Communist Nation

Not only did Hillary Clinton announce that she plans on turning our capitalist system into a communist system, she lied her backside off while doing so.

I’ll go over the highlights. She claimed that family incomes have decreased $1,300 in the past 6 years. New jobs pay on average 21% less than the jobs that have been lost. There has been a 4% increase in the percentage of workers falling below the poverty line. She claims that all of this is due to tax cuts for the rich and other bad economic policies.

The reality is that wages across the board have gone up. It isn’t that her math is wrong, it is that she is manipulating it. The left is making a deal over the rich/poor gap. The top earners have increased their pay at a higher rate than the lower earners. They use this to claim that lower wages have gone down. This isn’t true. All wages have gone up. And private business ownership has also gone up also, 3.7% a year since 2000 compared to about 2.3% from 1991 - 1999. Guess what Hillary, these business owners have caused that gap to increase.

She brought up Social Security and health care. “That's why they want to privatize Social Security and let individuals bear the risks. It's why their answer to the health care crisis is limited to creating health savings account, which allows the healthiest people to get the best deal, with little concern if the sickest get worse.”

This is the woman who applauded the fact that Congress prevented Bush from implementing the Social Security plan that Bill Clinton suggested in 1998, interesting. Although if you really think about it, she applauded the fact that the democrats prevented reform, and the fact that they actually refused to offer any alternatives, but that is a long story that would take a few pages itself. Claiming that the health care answer is limited to health savings accounts makes me wonder if Hillary pays attention when she votes down a measure to allow small business owners to join together in an effort to get group discounts on employee health insurance.

She hammered Bush for his “unfair” corporate tax breaks. “First, I'm going to work to level the playing field and reduce the special breaks for big corporations.”
And let’s see what she said about shipping jobs overseas. “Second, let's once and for all get rid of the incentives for American companies to ship jobs and profits overseas. It is one thing for the marketplace to encourage overseas investment. It's another for our own tax code to do so.”

What this lawyer who apparently never took an economics class failed to mention is the opinion of many economists regarding the best way to bring most of those jobs back to the USA. That would be the elimination of all corporate taxes. Corporations spend hundreds of billions each year not only paying taxes, but paying people to pay those taxes. If you cut them out of the picture, you reduce costs. Those costs get invested back into the corporations in the way of higher wages, increased employment, and lower costs for the good and services they provide. In other words, pay increases and your grocery bill decreases. Then all you need to do to help save the U.S. automobile industry is get rid of corrupt unions.

She hammered Bush for budget deficits. She failed to mention that the deficit is under the 40 year average compared to GDP, which is the way economists measure it. She also failed to mention that much of that money is going to fight wars against terrorist regimes that her husband refused to fight himself. Oh yeah, she also didn’t mention how much is going to increase her favorite liberal causes like Medicare.

“It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an ‘on your own’ society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a ‘we're all in it together’ society.
Now, there is no greater force for economic growth than free markets, but markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed.”

I’m sure that is exactly what Chavez said just before he sent those tanks to the television stations.

“We need to open up CEO compensation to public scrutiny and public challenge and ensure that boards of directors are independent when determining CEO pay. And we need to update our regulations to confront the emerging problems in our sub-prime and private equity markets.”

Sounds like Chavez again, maybe before he took over the oil companies and chased out most of the people in his country who have college degrees.

Free markets need to be free, not bogged down by government controls. What our economy needs is less intrusion by lawyers who get elected. Doesn’t it frighten anyone besides myself that we have so many lawyers in Washington, and so few economists? I’m tired of lawyers making economic policies and trying so hard to tell companies how much they need to pay their people.

Now I would take a moment to look up the transcript for Obama’s recent speeches, but that man is so blatantly stupid that reading them makes me cry. So I’ll leave you all to go find them yourselves. But please, try to get past the hype.

Kennedy Has Good Laugh Over Amnesty Bill

Why Are These Men Laughing About Amnesty While Grassroots America Cries Out?
by Steve Elliott, Grassfire.org

read more digg story

Run Fred Run, But Will Newt Run With You?

Newt Gingrich recently told Diane Sawyer that there was a great possibility that he would run for president. He said sometime last year that he would run if he felt that there was no other strong candidate in the GOP. He seemed to infer that he would run if he thought there was no one strong enough to stop Hillary. Well, there is someone strong enough to beat her; the problem that that someone is Barack Obama.

Newt has been setting himself up for a run for quite some time. He has been very active in politics. You can read his articles at Human Events. He is pretty regular on FoxNews. He has been very active in working for health care reform and has even given testimony in front of Congress on changes that could be made to lower costs for the poorest of Americans without raising taxes. His book, "Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America" is great. If he were able to implement everything in that book while wisely conducting the War on Terror, he would easily go down as one of the greats. He would have to get everything past Congress of course. He is very vocal regarding immigration and the need to secure the border, a hot topic issue with conservatives, and with many liberals also.

So, the problem is this thing with an ex-wife. His past indiscretions are seen as a huge roadblock. Conservatives see it as a betrayal of core values, and liberals see him as a hypocrite for going after Clinton. Granted, Newt didn't commit perjury, so the liberals have little to stand on. But they are convinced that Clinton did nothing wrong, and they won't let facts get in the way of their agenda. Conservatives take issue with Newt because some are concerned that one who cheats on his wife will cheat on his country.

All this aside, Newt is a potential candidate who has been neck and neck with another undeclared potential candidate. Fred Thompson and Newt have both been running 3rd and 4th in the GOP presidential candidate polls despite the fact that they have not declared. Fred is seen by many as the "Reagan" candidate, but probably because they have both been in movies. Fred has quite a bit of support from people who like his attitude, even if they don't know a lot about where he stands and what he would accomplish. He did a great job of making Michael Moore look like a buffoon and has had much to say about things like taxes, security, and immigration. All of this added to his popularity means that he could probably beat Hillary if she ran with Obama as her running mate in the showdown.

So this begs the question, does Newt step aside if Fred declares, say June 12 on the Tonight Show? If Fred runs, many think he will win. The thought is that he fills the gaps left by the current field, and he doesn't have the Newt baggage. Newt wants to run, he wants to be the President of the United States. He wants to prevent another Clinton administration, but he wants to be in the White House for more than that. He has great ideas and can do some good for the country. But can he beat Fred? If Fred keeps this popularity running, and announces soon, he may be unstoppable.

There are issues with the current field. Rudy, the current front runner, won't tell us his real thoughts on abortion. He has the best leadership, but won't get the religious voters. McCain hasn't figured out that conservatives are opposed to amnesty. Romney could be the come-from-behind-to-win guy, and if he wins the primaries, has the potential to steal votes from the democratic candidates. But many don't trust him on abortion, and Baptists think Mormonism is a cult. The other candidates just aren't popular enough. Some of them have good messages, they simply haven't expressed them the way American's like to hear them expressed.

Beating the democrats may be more necessary now than ever before. The Democratic Party has no idea that we are at war. The Republican Party has sold out on too many issues and looks more corrupt every day. There are terrorists looking to sneak nukes across wide open borders. The Republican sell-out handed Congress to the likes of Pelosi, Reid, and Murtha. It could hand the White House to Hillary, Obama, or Edwards. Our country cannot afford to let this happen. We are at war regardless of our inability to accept it and a democratic President will back down in the War on Terror.

This leaves a great opportunity for someone who is very popular, and very conservative, to jump in and take the primaries. Newt and Fred are both waiting for conservatives to get tired of the flip-flops and bad answers in the debates. But I don’t think that Newt can beat Fred, and I think Newt knows it. If Fred announces, Newt may wait it out to see what happens and possibly run the next time around.

I do have an alternative though. What do you think of Thompson/Gingrich 2008?

Two Petitions to Prevent Tax Increases -- Will the Ron Paul Supporters digg this one?

Regardless of which candidate you are rooting for, you should get on board for this one.

While scanning the ever expanding internet, I ran across two different petitions demanding the Democratic controlled Congress refrain from raising taxes. These are focused on extending the Bush tax cuts that helped our country get out of the Recession of 2000 and have helped spur millions of new jobs and new businesses since 2003. The other is to urge congress to refrain from adding new excise taxes.

Go to Americans for Tax Reform for the petition to extend tax cuts.

And to Citizens Against Government Waste for the petition against excise taxes.

Sold to the Highest Bidder!! Mexico

In case you haven't yet seen it, here are some links to the all new United States of Mexico.

Here is Malkin with some links and commentary from National Review and NumbersUSA. "It's here: The Bush-Kennedy amnestyReport: Potential cost = $2.5 trillionUpdated with GOP reax"

Brietbart gives some of the details of the sale.

Senator DeMint calls it what it is. "But the little we do know about the bill is troubling. According to reports, the bill contains a new 'Z Visa' that allows those who entered our country illegally to stay here permanently without ever returning home. This rewards people who broke the law with permanent legal status, and puts them ahead of millions of law-abiding immigrants waiting to come to America. I don't care how you try to spin it, this is amnesty."

And here is Mitt, who won some points from me today. "I strongly oppose today's bill going through the Senate. It is the wrong approach. Any legislation that allows illegal immigrants to stay in the country indefinitely, as the new 'Z-Visa' does, is a form of amnesty. That is unfair to the millions of people who have applied to legally immigrate to the U.S. Today's Senate agreement falls short of the actions needed to both solve our country's illegal immigration problem and also strengthen our legal immigration system. Border security and a reliable employment verification system must be our first priority."

Rep. Steve King: "Each one of these Senators should wear a scarlet letter 'A' for amnesty." Thank you Mr. King.

I also found a good post at digg from poster ritad. Does anyone see the irony that we lost 2 pretty good Kennedy boys, now we are left with fat old windbag brother Teddy, who along with El president Bush, and the rest of the scum bags on both the left and the right have just sold our country down the river by voting to reward bad behavior by illegal immigrants with amnesty. We will now for all intents and purposes be a one party country as the stupid Republicans cannot see the fact that all these new illegal citizens will most assuredly vote democratic, and since they will be the majority now, shows the republicans have just effectively shot their own balls off and don't even realize it, oh well if they are that stupendously ignorant, they don't deserve to have a party anyway. I have one question for anyone out here who might be able to answer it, why in the world do we feel we owe amnesty to people invading our country, disrespecting our laws and our sovereignty, the way they are doing? I am sorry, I just don't get it and will never will, if the house reps, are unable to squelch this bill, our country is doomed. Gone our beautiful country, trashed as Mexico is, wonder when there are not enough original Americans left to pay for welfare, food stamps, medicaid and whatever other entitlements these people feel they should be entitled to, what will they do then? Will they "migrate" on up to Canada? God, we could be so lucky! Our, we might just join Iraq, and have our own little civil war, due to the fact that most of our American citizens are strongly against this amnesty!

And let us not forget who it is we are letting into our country.
U.S. soccer team faces chants of 'Osama'
Illegal Immigration And Terrorism

Can Ron Paul Win a 'Scientific' Poll, or Just the Online Polls?

Much has been said online, places like digg and prisonplanet, that Ron Paul is destroying the other candidates in the polls. Interestingly, he only seems to be winning the online polls.

LGF has the story about Prisonplanet's piece claiming that there is no way to fake online polling because they register your IP address. Really guys? This is from one of the websites that claims Bush orchestrated 9-11. Bush managed to cover up 9-11, but Ron Paul supporters can't download one of the thousands of IP programs that allow you to use one of the many proxy servers that are connected to hide your IP address? I'm not buying it kids. Now, I'm only guessing here about those proxy programs of course, I don't have one on my computer. Well, not at the moment. And if you ask me if I have ever had one, I will plead the 5th, being a strict Constitutionalist and all.

Real Clear Politics has run the numbers, and it shows Giuliani to be on top of the polls right now. This is from a combination of a large number of telephone polls from different organizations. If Ron Paul is the clear winner in both debates, why is he only at about 1% in the polls right now? And before you start on the conspiracy theories, allow me to give you one of my own. The conspiracy lies with those who support Ron Paul. You are going online and voting multiple times for him, and if need be, using easy access to proxy servers to hide your IP address. Either my theory is right, or none of you people own telephones. I will be the first to say that I am not a big fan of poll numbers, but how do you explain the huge discrepancy? The best number I have seen yet for Ron Paul in any non-online poll is 3%.

I know that you have a theory to retort. I know you will spout off that Ron Paul is being left out of the polls on purpose, or some other nonsense. But here's the deal. Conspiracy theories are not going to get Ron Paul into the White House. Conspiracy theories aren't going to help our country. Conspiracy theories just make the rest of us think that you are all nuts. I happen to agree with Paul on many things regarding using the Constitution as the litmus test. I love the Constitution and spent 5 years under oath to defend it. I would still pick up a gun to defend it if need be. I absolutely love the fact that lobbyists stay far and away from Paul's office, knowing that he will shoot them down. We need more of that attitude in D.C. I disagree with his stance on isolationism because we exist in a day and age where technology keeps us too tightly knit. But that is a completely different piece that I am not getting into at the moment. The issue I am bringing up here is that people see through this internet escapade. Those who don’t see through it are the ones who don't use the internet that much, so they only see the media polls. This means Ron Paul gets nowhere near the White House. This means you are all wasting your time promoting yet another ridiculous conspiracy that needs to be put down. Do something constructive like supporting border security.

Ken Calvert and the War Against Earmarks

There is a difference between the shady land deals of Harry Reid and the shady land deals of Ken Calvert. The difference is that conservatives are fighting Calvert. Erick Erickson, editor in chief of redstate.com is calling upon conservatives to have Calvert removed from the Appropriations Committee.
"The House Republican Leadership just does not get it and they will not take us seriously until we flex our muscle against them. We must fight the House GOP and we must fight today. Today, I declare war on the Republican Leadership of the United States House of Representatives. We must scalp one member. That member's name is Ken Calvert," Erick declares on his redstate blog. Michelle Malkin has done a good job of covering this story.

Erick is encouraging members of his blog to flood their lawmakers with phone calls every day compiling a list of those who vote for Calvert. He is currently claiming that many Republicans on the Hill support his efforts.

By now you are wondering what this is all about. Well, remember that wide spread story that was front page news for all those months about Harry Reid buying land, and then selling it years later for a massive profit AFTER securing federal earmarks that may have helped the property value? You remember that don't you? Cunningham is in prison for pretty much the same thing. It was all over, no wait; it actually wasn't all over the place. No one really heard much about it. Oh well. The point is that it happened and nothing was done about it. The other point is that this is what Calvert is being accused of doing, and it really looks as though he is guilty. I don't know that what he did was technically wrong, but it doesn't look good and it brings up a bigger point that I will get to in a minute.

In September 2006, Calvert was named one of the "20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress" in a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. He was given this award for his use of earmarks for personal gain. Calvert claims that the earmarks were all used for his district, but the land deals he has engaged in have all been in or near his district. This looks suspicious whether he is guilty or not. A list of his deals can be found at answers.com.

I don't know if he has done anything illegal or technically unethical. But I don't like the way it looks and I don't like the answers he has given. I think that Erickson is doing all Republicans a favor by bringing this out in the open and I hope that Calvert is replaced in the next election. Now if Calvert were a democrat who was caught with a hundred grand in his freezer and the FBI had people admitting to bribing him, that would be one thing. But the republicans are getting tired of their representatives taking advantage of tax dollars.

And that brings us to the root cause of this evil – earmarks. In the last SOTU address, President Bush spoke out against earmarks, calling on Congress to cut them in half. "In 2005 alone, the number of earmarks grew to over 13,000 and totaled nearly $18 billion. Even worse, over 90 percent of the earmarks never make it to the floor of the House and the Senate; they're dropped into committee reports that are not even part of the bill that arrives on my desk.
You didn't vote them into law. I didn't sign them into law. Yet they are treated as if they have the force of law. The time has come to end this practice.
So let us work together to reform the budget process, expose every earmark to the light of day and to a vote in Congress, and cut the number and cost of earmarks at least in half by the end of this session."

Does anyone see a problem with federal tax dollars being spent in this manner? Earmarks are treated as law, yet there is no vote. And this is what Calvert has done. He dropped millions of your dollars into land in his district. He then made personal profits selling the land.

If earmarks receive no vote whatsoever, how are we to trust Congress to use them wisely? Short answer, we can't trust them. Earmarks are the face of much corruption in D.C. The lobbyist drops ten grand into the politician’s campaign; the politician returns the favor with earmarks that benefit the lobbyist. Can you say Jack Abramoff? And beyond lobbyists, we see that politicians are using earmarks to raise the value of their own properties.

The President was almost right to ask for earmarks to be cut in half. He was almost right to have the OMB set up a database of all earmarks for us to see. He would have been completely right to tell Congress to cut earmarks off all together. The absolute best we can expect from them is the constant appearance of impropriety.

This is one more thing that gives Congress too much power, corrupting power. And to use Erickson's line, we must flex our muscle against them. "If they refuse to hear that change is needed, we will wipe them out and replace them with new blood that recognizes that a corrupt party rejected by the voters will not be embraced again by the voters until the corruption is purged."

Illegal Immigration And Terrorism

On Monday, six men were arrested by Federal officers for plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey and slaughter as many soldiers as possible. Law enforcement was tipped off in January of last year when the men took a videotape of themselves in training for a Jihadist attack to a local Circuit City to have it transferred onto a DVD. The store employee notified the police who in turn notified the FBI. The men were then put under surveillance and watched until the arrest early this week.

Three of the six men were in the United States illegally. Two of the men had permanent residency status, and the final man was a citizen. Agron Abdullahu was brought to the U.S. as a refugee from Kosovo in 1999. In just 8 years Abdullahu has gone from refugee that was saved from certain death in his homeland, to Jihad seeking terrorist.

What should be a wake up call to all members of Congress, and the administration, is that three of these terrorists have no record of legal entry into our country. The illegal immigration debate has taken a new turn and can no longer be ignored. Yes, there are millions of illegal immigrants in our country that have come here to work and live peaceful lives. There are others that have come to wreak havoc and kill as many of us as they possibly can.

There are an increasing number of “sanctuary” cities throughout our country, where illegal immigrants are not reported by law enforcement for traffic violations and other minor offenses. In some states the Governors and legislatures have passed or are considering laws that allow illegal immigrants to obtain legal drivers licenses. Maryland has even gone as far to grant illegal immigrants residency status for university admission. These “safe havens” for illegal immigrants do not just attract the peaceful, hard working people; they undoubtedly attract those like the six arrested Monday.

I find it appalling that “well-intentioned” politicians overlook the overwhelming threat against our country in order to placate to a voting block of people. This is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. This is a homeland security issue. Both Republicans and Democrats have their fair share of the blame on this issue. Both sides love the rhetoric of protecting the masses from the terrorists, but neither side has done nearly enough on illegal immigration.

Will this be a wakeup call for Congress and the administration to do more to protect our borders? Will the proponents of open borders continue to preach to us tolerance and multiculturalism? We have laws concerning immigration and they need to be enforced. We need to force our local and state governments to enforce immigration laws. We need to hold our Congressman and the administration responsible for not protecting our borders properly. The administration needs to know that the American people want the illegal immigration criminals punished instead of the border patrol agents guarding our borders.

Did Romney win the Debate of Stupid Questions? -- The Sequel

According to Drudge, Romney took it with 37% of the vote followed by Giuliani with 20%.

Pollster.com gives it to The Mayor with 30% followed by McCain with 17%.

Prisonplanet.com says that Ron Paul had 47% of the vote on MSNBC's poll. I can't find an active link to the MSNBC poll, but yahoo has a US Newswire story with Paul taking 43% of the MSNBC vote.

Interestingly, FoxNews says that McCain won. But the article claiming this was written by Dick Morris. Morris runs vote.com. Vote.com shows the winner to be Ron Paul with 30% followed by Romney with 29%. McCain took only 7%.

With the exception of pollster, these are all online polls, so no one knows how many people voted multiple times. Pollster's survey was limited to California adults, so the fact that the more liberal candidate won probably doesn't reflect the entire country.

More strict Constitutional conservatives now know the name Ron Paul. More conservatives got to compare Giuliani and McCain to Romney. So my question is how long before Romney and Paul are the frontrunners in a field that is currently led by a pro-abortion candidate and a candidate lax on border security? Paul answered a number of questions by saying that something was or was not authorized by the Constitution. He did it so many times that it almost seemed monotonous. But few conservatives will argue with his logic. Romney had some good answers, and I thought his explanation of his abortion views made sense. He said he has always been against it, but believed that it was a choice. After debating the issue, he believes the federal government should pass it to the states. He stood tall and looked good, which won him a lot of points. He looked like a President.

Of course, everyone is still asking about Fred and Newt. If they enter the field, do some of the others drop out? Could Fred and Newt take the frontrunner spots? People like them. Fred is mostly marketing, and Newt has that skeleton out of the closet thing. But people see a lot of comparisons in Fred and Reagan, and not just the acting thing. Newt is probably the smartest of them all when it comes to actually fixing problem. His book Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America is about as good as it gets. If they enter, it changes everything. They may not win, but they certainly make the race more interesting.

What Do The Candidates Really Believe?

As we watch the political season heat up earlier each election cycle, we are treated to the video and audio clips of the candidates making speeches in a variety of locations, before a variety of audiences. One aspect of every speech seems to be the same, no matter where the speech takes place or who it is in front of. Most candidates seem to not only adjust their views, but, in some cases, even their accents.

On March 4 of this year, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both made appearances at churches in Selma, Al. to commemorate the 42nd anniversary of the march for voting rights that led to “Bloody Sunday”. In our politically charged world, we have come to expect politicians to show up at any event to exploit the occasion for their political benefit. Hillary Clinton adopted a southern drawl in her speech that sounded like a bad comedy skit. Barack Obama also adopted a new “dialect” in his speech patterns that gave the impression of a fiery African-American evangelical preacher. Clinton also adopted her “accent” during a speech before Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network on April 20. I realize that she lived in Arkansas for about 20 years, but why would she only speak with southern accent in front of African-American audiences? Why does Obama need to change his speaking style when before African-Americans?

Politicians routinely appear in churches throughout the country to speak to the congregations before elections. You are almost guaranteed to hear the candidates quoting from the Bible as though they just read the scripture that morning during their devotions. I have no doubt that some of these politicians may actually be sincere, but too many times it is all too clear that a speech writer added the scriptural references to try to appeal to the congregation.

John Edwards constantly points out the two Americas that he sees today. Pointing out that there are two distinct classes in our country, the “haves” and the “have nots”. This is almost laughable when you see the pictures of his 28,000 square foot house, complete with an indoor pool, basketball and squash courts. Edwards has every right to have a house this large, but it seems a bit hypocritical. Edward’s wife was quoted as saying their neighbor’s property was “slummy”. That is an odd way to describe a neighbor who definitely would not be considered a member of the “haves”.

Rudy Giulani has emerged as the front runner in many polls for the Republican nomination. He has taken some criticism for his views on abortion and gun control while mayor of New York City. His reaction to the criticism has been to try to explain away his stands on these issues. If he believes in gun control than stand up and say you do and why you support it. Explain to us your reasons for your views on abortion. He is not the only candidate on either side to use this tactic to try to curry favor with the voters, but he is a good example. Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic candidate with whom I disagree on almost every issue, stands behind every view and decision. I believe he is wrong about everything, but I have to respect that he has the courage of his convictions. John Kerry during the 2004 campaign uttered the now famous statement, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.” This one statement epitomizes what most politicians will say or do to win your vote.

Politicians will say or do whatever their audience wants to hear or see, just to get their approval. In every campaign there are instances where a candidate will directly contradict themselves from an earlier speech. The campaign staff will scramble to come up with a “logical” explanation of what their candidate actually meant to say, and we all nod our heads in agreement. Why do we accept politicians that talk out of both sides of their mouths just to get votes? It is a forgone conclusion that a politician will promise you the world, but will never, ever deliver; but yet the voting public sheepishly follows along and hopes that this time it will be different.

I believe it is time we demand more of our candidates. We must realize that their will never be the perfect candidate that we agree with on every issue. We are going to disagree on some issues, we deserve an explanation of their view, and then it is up to us to make an informed decision. We should be calling the candidates on their obvious attempts of patronization. I believe we deserve candidates that have the courage of their convictions, who are willing to take a stand and accept the consequences or rewards for that stand. It is up to everyone of us on both sides of the political spectrum to hold the politicians accountable for the views and opinions.