A Tsunami Coming?

I have opined before that I thought the Democrats would lose the House of Representatives in the coming election, and that they stood a chance of losing the Senate. I'm going to go out on a limb now and predict a political tsunami--the loss of both houses of Congress for the Democrats. I've been watching this election very closely, and while I think it's a done deal the Republicans will take the House, I think they will also take the Senate, and here is how I think they'll do it.
In the Colorado Senate race, Ken Buck has been up in every one of the last several polls except for one outlier from PPP where he was down one point. Buck is starting to pull away in this race. This is the first Republican pickup. They need ten to capture control of the Senate.
The second pickup for the Republicans will come from Barack Obama's home state, where Mark Kirk will defeat Alexi Gianoulias. Kirk has been up in the last two polls, possibly due to his decision to focus on the economy and what the Democrat policies have wreaked.
In Nevada, Sharon Angle will defeat Harry Reid. The mainstream media have done their best to portray Angle as a kook, but when you listen to her, she sounds very credible and rational, and she has a long resume and history of serving the people. Her TV ads countered a late Reid surge which had come on the strength of his own TV ads. Angle is up three in the latest poll.

In the state of Washington, Patty Murray will lose to Dino Rossi. Rossi is up one in the latest poll and the race is a dead heat. However, I feel that the excitement of the Republican voter will propel him over the top, as it will in many races.
The fifth pickup will come from, surprisingly, West Virginia. Here Joe Manchin, a popular governor following in the footsteps of Harry Byrd, seemed a shoe-in to win. But, like in many other states, the people just plain don't want Obama to have a rubber stamp in Congress. Whether national Democrats will admit it or not, this election is all about a referendum on Barack Obama's policies, and West Virginia will be another casualty for the party.
So, I feel that the Republicans will take all five RCP "toss-ups". It looks like the Republicans will take two races that used to be rated toss-ups but moved into the "lean Republican" column some time ago. These two states are Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey leads by considerable margins in every recent poll over Joe "the White House offered me a job" Sestak. He will take this Senate seat. In Wisconsin, long time senator Russ Feingold finds himself down in every poll, and down twelve in the most recent. It seems that even the power of long term incumbency can't stop this wave.

With Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the Republican pick-ups total seven. Three to go for Senate control. Enter Arkansas, Indiana, and North Dakota. Arkansas and North Dakota are both rated "safe" Republican in the RCP averages. In Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln, who recently polled the lowest approval rating for a sitting senator, is on her way to losing to John Boozman, trailing in the polls by anywhere from fourteen to twenty-seven points. In North Dakota, the seat of retiring senator Byron Dorgan is up for grabs, and the Republican John Hoeven leads Democrat Tracy Potter by upwards of forty points. Indiana's currently Democratic seat will become Republican thanks to Dan Coats and his decision to come out of retirement. He leads by double digits in every recent poll.
So, there are ten races the Democrats will lose in less than one month. Could there be more? In New York, Kirsten Gillibrand is only up by one in the latest poll. This could be an outlier. We'll see. Also, I want to see the polling in Connecticut which will take into account the debate between McMahon and Blumenthal, so it will be interesting to look in a couple of days. Right now, Blumenthal leads by anywhere from three to twelve points. Lastly, could something be happening in California. After Barbara "call me Senator" Boxer ran a slew of commercials, it looked as if she was starting to pull away. However, Carly Fiorina ran a few commercials of her own, and apparently did pretty well in their debate. The last three polls show Boxer leading by four, four, and three points, all close to statistical ties. Could the momentum be shifting the other way? This one will be fun to watch.
So there you have it--why I think the Republican tsunami of 2010 will sweep away the Democrat party and remove them from power. They will have only themselves to blame, along with the wrong headed policies they foisted on the American people.

Who Wrecked the Car?

Barack Obama has taken to uttering a metaphor over and over again that Republicans wrecked the economy with their policies, and he has likened their stewardship to driving a car into a ditch, the car being, of course, the economy. He says he took the keys and straightened everything out, and now "Republicans want the keys back." He finishes his speeches with the punch line, "Well, you can't have them back. We've seen this movie before."
I have a different take on it. With his work with Acorn and the Community Reinvestment Act, and the Democrats' refusal to investigate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, you could make the case that it was the Democrats who sawed off the tie rods on the "car", causing it to wreck.
They then used the "wreck" to take the keys away, but look what has happened since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, and since the election of 2008, when they got super majorities. High unemployment, the housing sector crashed, runaway government spending, trillions of dollars in debt, a world that, even after multiple apologies, still doesn't respect us, and a pall of malaise which hangs over the nation.
So, yes, Mr. Obama, you took the keys. But you and your party are the ones who sabotaged the "car" in the first place. Now almost everyone agrees that you are driving the car off a cliff. It looks like voters are going to take the keys away in November and give them to the party they overwhelmingly trust more on a wide range of issues--the Republican party. The Democrats have now shown their true colors, and what they want to do to this country. They view themselves as an elite class of people who are the only ones who know what's "good" for the nation. The voters will decide in November which way they want to go. The Democrats are going to get wiped out.

Stopping the Madness

This November, voters will deliver a referendum on Barack Obama and his policies. As every major news organization has reported, it doesn't look good for the Democrats. Given how destructive and coercive their policies are and have been, is this a surprise? I have been following the impending elections very closely, and I think Republicans will control both houses of Congress when the dust settles. While I'd like to post my reasons for the House, the sheer number of races makes it too cumbersome. So, let me give you my reasons why I think the Senate will switch parties come November.
First of all, as it currently stands, Democrats control 57 seats, Republicans 41, and there are two Independents--Joe Lieberman (CT) and Bernard Sanders (Vermont). Both of these senators caucus with the Democrats, effectively giving the Democrats a 59-41 majority. So, for the Republicans to take the Senate, they need a net of ten seats. Sounds like a tall order, doesn't it? Well, it may not be so far-fetched. First of all, let's look at open Republican seats that are in danger. The only state where an open Republican state is somewhat in danger is in Florida, where Charlie Crist has left the Republican party and is running as an independent. However, his Republican opponent, Mark Rubio, is running a good campaign, and in fact the latest poll shows him turning the tide and running up by five points. This poll may be an outlier, but I don't think so, especially since Rubio is using Harry Reid's Hispanic gaffe to his advantage.
The other open Republican seats appear safe. In Ohio, Rob Portman has consistently polled higher than his opponent, Lee Fisher, and the gap continues to widen in Portman's favor. In Kentucky, Rand Paul's RCP average is +6.5%, but recent polls put him up anywhere from 8-10 points. In New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte enjoys commanding poll leads over Paul Hodes, with her RCP average at +8%, and in North Carolina, Richard Burr is running away from Elaine Marshall. His current advantage stands at +7% and is growing.
Now let's look at open Democrat seats. We have Colorado, where Michael Bennett, appointed by Barack Obama, is trailing Ken Buck, a surprise winner in the Republican primary. This is a close race which will become more clear now that the primaries are over. Buck has enjoyed a lead over Bennett in hypothetical match ups--now the match up is real. Keep an eye on this one. In Illinois, Republican Mark Kirk maintains a 2.3% RCP average over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias. This is within the margin of error of most polls, but it has been consistent, and the failure of Giannoulias' family bank seems to be hurting him, especially since he used the bank to tout his business acumen. (Oops!) This would be a great pickup for Republicans since it is Barack Obama's old seat. In Nevada, Harry Reid (below, right) is in a statistical tie with Sharron Angle, but that has come down from a double digit lead. Reid spent a lot of money running negative TV ads when Angle had none , but now that she has money in the bank and is running commercials of her own, she has stabilized the race and erased that lead. I feel that Reid's stand on immigration vs. Angle's will hurt him greatly in the general election.
In Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak (D) has consistently trailed Pat Toomey, and it appears the gap is widening, as the latest poll puts Toomey up by 6%. In North Dakota, John Hoeven's poll numbers show an advantage anywhere from 43-54% in his bid to replace retiring Democrat Byron Dorgan. In Arkansas, John Boozman is cruising to victory over sitting Democrat senator Blanche Lincoln. He currently enjoys a 25% lead in the polls. In Delaware, Joe Biden's old seat will probably go to Republican Mike Castle over Chris Coons, as Castle is currently polling anywhere from 10-13% ahead.
There are two states where normally Democrats cruise to re-election, but not this year. In Wisconsin, Russ Feingold is locked in a race with Ron Johnson that is statistically a tie, but in which the momentum seems to be going Johnson's way, and in Washington State, Patti Murray is in a similarly close race with Mark Rossi. That brings up two states which, to me anyway, are wild cards. In California, Barbara (call me "Senator") Boxer (top left) is only up 4% in the RCP average against former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, which is within the margin of error of most polls. More tellingly, Fiorina has narrowed the gap consistently over the last few months, despite a bruising primary season of her own. Boxer consistently polls under 50%, which is dangerous for an incumbent. Lastly, in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal leads Linda McMahon by an RCP average of 14%. However, using the Quinnipiac poll as an example, his lead was 33% in March, 25% in May, 20% in June, 17% in July, and currently stands at 10%. McMahon, who once was CEO of WWE and has shown she's not afraid of using her own millions, may be benefiting from Blumenthal's admitted embellishing of his military service. Also, the Republican primary season is now over, and McMahon is now the official candidate, which may help her further. I don't think Republicans will take this seat, but it's not out of the question.
So, here is how I think it will shake out. I think Republicans will take most or all of the currently rated toss ups, plus a couple of open Democrat seats which are definitely going Republican. Specifically, I see Republicans winning in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, North Dakota, Illinois, Nevada, Delaware, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Washington State. These are all open seats that Democrats currently hold, and it would result in a net 10 for the Republicans. Add to this mix the formerly crazy notion that Barbara Boxer could lose her seat to Carly Fiorina and that Linda McMahon might just be able to close the gap in Connecticut, and you see that the chances for a Republican takeover of the Senate is within reach. Wouldn't you just love to see Harry Reid go away?

Insanity is...

It was announced this past week that Christina Romer (left), President Obama's top economic advisor, is leaving her job. This is the same Christina Romer who, when Obama was selling us his snake oil "stimulus", promised that if it passed, unemployment wouldn't exceed 8% and it would have been 7% right now as of this writing. Oops! It actually went over 10%, and is now stuck at 9.5%. Most economists, as I've said before, believe that it is only that low because hundreds of thousands of people have given up looking for work and left the work force. We don't count those people as unemployed for some reason.
In a previous post I linked to a list showing how preposterous some of the "stimulus" spending really was. Collecting ants for study, replacing new sidewalks, and replacing windows in closed visitor centers were just a few of the wasted expenditures. The point is that the massive, almost $1 TRILLION boondoggle didn't target the money correctly. I pointed out that we could have just made up jobs and that we'd have been able to put 7.5 million people to work at $40,000 per year or longer with that money. I also pointed out how ludicrous that would have been--almost as ludicrous as what was passed. How should the "stimulus" have been spent? It should have gone to spur investment, and investment creates jobs. Imagine that! But of course Obama couldn't do that. The left wing would have howled that we were "cutting taxes for the wealthy". They don't want to cut taxes for those who create business and, therefore, jobs. They want to tax them and tax them and tax them some more. That is how Democrats claim they will pay for everything--by taxing the wealthy and making them pay "their fair share". Forget that the wealthy already pay a disproportionally high tax rate and that 49% of Americans pay no tax at all. Logic doesn't enter into Democrats' thinking.
So what do the Democrats want now? You guessed it! Another round of stimulus spending! Don't they get it? Don't they understand that they are bankrupting this country? Under Obama's budget blueprint, the deficit will be almost $20 TRILLION by the year 2020, at which time debt service (i.e. the interest on the deficit) will be the #1 expenditure in our budget. This is, of course, assuming we don't implode like Greece before then. However, chances of that happening grow every day. If that happens, this country will be ruined, millions more will be out of work and will have to turn to government handouts to survive. I believe that is what the Democrats want, and how they plan to control the population. But what I believe isn't relevant. The point is that they want more "stimulus" spending, when the first trillion dollars didn't work at all. I was in business for many years, and there is a saying in business that applies here too. Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So, by this definition, the Democratic party has become the party of the insane..
Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are the ones pushing this agenda. They have been in charge of the US purse strings since 2006. Will the American people continue to let them run things, hoping it will be different as well? If they do, then the American electorate is also trying the same thing and expecting different results. That would also make the American electorate, well...insane.

What a waste!! A better solution...

Now that the "stimulus" is starting to be accounted for, we are beginning to see just what a boondoggle this whole sham really was. The money--your tax money--has been spent on everything from replacing windows in closed buildings to collecting ants. That's right. It was a total waste, and very little of it was used to actually stimulate the economy. It's no wonder it didn't work. A group led by Senator Tom Coburn has been looking into this unbelievably huge waste of taxpayer funds and has compiled a very interesting list. Check out where your money has gone:

http://coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=e1e0624e-d02a-42d4-9dbb-f5b9f21b3572

I've said before that the money should have been spent on things like tax incentives to spur investment--the kinds of things that would have actually created jobs. However, in light of the fact that Democrats are now looking to spend more of your money on more "stimulus", I have a better idea. Let's just make up jobs! Do the math--$900 Billion dollars could put 7.5 MILLION people to work for three years at an average salary of $40000! Actually, since unemployment benefits wouldn't be needed, we could put them to work for longer! We'll task someone with making up job titles. For instance, maybe someone could count the number of commercials on TV (Commercial Counter), and someone else could see just how many potato chips come in each bag depending on brand (Director of Chip Accountability)! These people would spend money, thereby stimulating their local economies, and they would pay taxes as well, thereby bringing some of the money home so Congress can waste it too!
If this sounds ludicrous, that's because it is. This is why government should not get into the business of trying to create jobs--because the list you will access if you click the link above is what you get when you have hundreds of Democrats trying to micro-manage the economy. Let's get it right, cut taxes on capital gains and investment and get this country rolling again. Who cares how mosquitoes breed?

Boy It's FUN To Be President!

President Obama was elected almost two years ago. He has been in office for 19 months. He has a lot on his agenda--wars in Afghanistan, where American deaths are sky-rocketing, and in Iraq, where we're trying to disengage while averting disaster. He also has an ongoing recession which, we've been told ad nauseum, is the "worst since the Great Depression." I won't go into what Ronald Reagan inherited--21% prime rate, stagnation, etc., but that is definitely fodder for another post.
On Obama's watch, we also had the catastrophic Deep Horizon oil spill, a disaster he didn't focus on for almost eight weeks, and then only because his poll numbers were plummeting. We've had soldiers captured and held by the enemy--one for almost a year now. We've had unemployment go up from an average under George Bush of 5.2% to over 10%. (It is down to about 9.5% now, mainly, according to most economists, due to the fact that many people have stopped looking for work.) This despite the fact that we were promised that if the huge, almost $1 trillion "stimulus" passed, unemployment wouldn't exceed 8%. Many experts believe when those people are taken into account, as well as those who have taken minimum wage jobs just to get a paycheck, the real unemployment rate is close to 20%! Home foreclosures are happening in record numbers, banks are failing by the hundreds, homelessness is on the rise, several states are on the verge of bankruptcy, there is an economic crisis unfolding in Europe as several nations fall under their crushing debt burdens (a fate which awaits this great country if we don't get our fiscal house in order), and, on the security front, we've had several attacks and attempted attacks on our own soil by terrorists, China has tested anti-satellite weapons and perpetrated several hacking attacks to test our defenses. There are many more problems we need to address as a nation, and a president is supposed to be the executive who organizes all the responses. That's why he has a cabinet and literally hundreds of thousands of federal employees at his beck and call--to handle problems, to organize solutions, and to make life better for the American people.
With all these problems, I have a problem with what's been going on. President Obama, since his inauguration, has played in excess of 40 rounds of golf, over 8 just since the oil rig disaster.
Each time, of course, the president is taken there either by helicopter or in a multi-car motorcade--all at taxpayer expense. (George Bush played 24 rounds in eight years and was accused by the left wing press of being out of touch with the American people. Of course, Obama gets a pass). He has taken countless vacations (at least three since Deepwater alone). He has urged people to vacation in the Gulf, then taken his family to exclusive Bar Harbor, Maine for their vacation. He has vacationed in Hawaii in a house costing $35,000 per week. His wife is on the way to Spain shortly, where she has reserved 30 rooms at a 5-star hotel to house her entourage. He has had numerous parties at the White House, including a recent feting with Paul McCartney and a Tony awards show. In short, the man who purports to be Everyman truly seems to want to vacation and dine everywhere but where the common man goes. When Obama first became president, remember how he told the people how wonderful the cheeseburgers were on Air Force One? Remember how he flew on Air Force One to New York for a dinner date with Michelle at a posh restaurant? Can you count how many times he's gone out to restaurants in the DC area where the price of one dinner is equivalent to many people's salary for a week? All of this is funded by taxpayers--the same taxpayers who are losing their jobs by the millions; the same taxpayers whose taxes are about to skyrocket with the expiration of the tax cuts put through by George Bush.
The point is that this president seems more intent on partying his way through his presidency than being serious about it. Perhaps that is due to the fact that he is still very young (he turns only 49 on August 4th), and his reckless days of partying and cocaine consumption aren't that far behind him. (Hey, he admitted this in his own book!) His administration isn't much better.
I mean, water gun fights between the Chief of Staff and the Vice-President? Please! At any rate, watching this man govern makes me wish I could be elected, because boy, it sure looks fun to be the president!

Back to Bush?

A few years ago, when Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was reading an article about it and there was a link which you could use to email her well wishes. At the time, my wife had already been fighting the disease for a few years, so I knew what this woman was facing and, overcome by compassion, I sent her an email wishing her well. Imagine my surprise when that email immediately landed me on the DCCC email list--I wouldn't have thought Democrats would stoop so low as to use cancer as a tool to increase their sales penetration, but they did, so now I receive the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) emails on a regular basis. At first I was upset and tried emailing back and asking them to take me off the list, but I never got a response. However, after a while I started reading the emails, and I was shocked at some of the hatred and vitriol spewing forth. I mean, after all, this is the official campaign arm for congressional Democrats, not Daily Kos or something.
Anyway, so I'm reading today's DCCC posting, and the headline is, "@Stake: Back to Bush." I got to thinking whether or not this is a smart strategy on the Democrats' part, so I started comparing Bush to Obama. After all, this country, this economy, this deficit, this security situation, it's all Obama's now. He was elected almost two years ago. He owns it. So, let me share with you some comparisons between the two:
For George W. Bush's entire eight years in office, the average unemployment rate was 5.2%. This includes inheriting a recession from Bill Clinton (although did you ever hear him complain about his inheritance as much as Obama has complained about his?), and it includes the aftermath of 9/11. Obama also inherited a recession, but while Bush's tax cuts spurred the economy and got it going, Obama's huge explosion of deficit spending and government intrusion has not done anything to speak of, unless you believe their malarkey about "jobs saved". What a neat, convenient statistic to invent! Obama's average unemployment rate for his entire presidency so far is 9.2%! The numbers get even more stark the more you look.
While President Bush was excoriated by Obama on the campaign trail for running a then-record $450 billion dollar deficit, Obama's first budget contained a deficit of approximately $1.4 TRILLION!! For those who don't know, a trillion is a thousand billions. (A billion is a thousand millions). Now, he has argued that he had to spend these huge sums on a "stimulus" because of Bush, but his budget blueprint calls for deficits in excess of $1 trillion until at least 2020, at which time the total federal deficit will be in excess of $18 trillion dollars! At that point, the number one cost in our budget will be interest on the debt. When Bush left office, the federal deficit stood at $5.8 trillion. If Obama's deficits are because of Bush, why do they run at roughly the same levels for a decade? Do we need a stimulus each year for the next ten years?
After 9/11, which was planned for years, the policies Bush implemented kept this country safe and free of terror attacks. Choosing where to fight the battle (Iraq) was brilliant, because if you choose the battlefield, you are one step up on the opponent. The terrorists all flocked to Iraq, where we killed them by the dump-truck load. Afghanistan was much more hostile territory, so keeping up the hunt for bin Laden there and destroying the Taliban were the objectives. The major battle in the Western civilization vs. Muslim extremists war was Iraq, and all the terrorists said so too. Making them fight over there kept them away from here. Obama has reversed all these policies. He is pulling out of Iraq and intensifying the fight in Afghanistan. He hasn't read many history books, or even talked to many people from the former Soviet Union. Putin could tell him this was a bad idea. Now we're mired in a Vietnam-type war in mountainous, murderous terrain, and our casualties are skyrocketing. Not only that, but we have had a terrorist mass shooting at Fort Hood, and the young Nigerian man who tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit only failed because his bomb didn't ignite properly. Because of Obama's policies, in other words, the terrorists are bringing the fight here.
There are many more comparisons between these two presidents, and the longer Obama is in office, the more Bush's approval ratings go up. I've recounted many of the lies told by this administration, and I remember people accusing Bush of lying all the time. What did he lie about? Certainly not WMD's. Every major intelligence organization on the planet believed Saddam Hussein had them, and he probably did. He probably sent them to Syria or buried them in the desert, but the truth is that even if he didn't have them, Bush didn't lie--he was wrong. What else did Bush lie about? Nothing that I know of. Obama doesn't seem to be able to tell the truth about anything--watch his no new taxes pledge go up in smoke after his "deficit commission" issues its recommendations--a deficit commission formed by him to fix a problem caused by his policies. No wonder government's getting bigger!
Here are a few more differences: Bush throws out the first pitch at a baseball game and looks like a former player. Obama doesn't look nearly as athletic. Did you see his pitch? Bush talked in an optimistic manner about what we were going to do and what we could achieve. All Obama talks about is what a horrible hand he's been dealt. While some foreign leaders might not have liked Bush, they respected him. He was a president who commanded respect, and with whom other nations didn't want to screw around. Obama started his presidency apologizing to Muslims first (his first interview was to Al Jazeera), and then the rest of the world. He's bowed at the waist to everyone from the emperor of Japan to the king of Saudi Arabia. It just isn't becoming for a president.
So you decide. Think long and hard. Lose the hyperbolic rhetoric of the Bush years and remember them for what they really were. Years of growth, of economic expansion, and of security. Years during which this country was respected. Compare that with the Obama record so far. My advice to Democrats? Don't frame the election as an Obama vs. Bush decision. That may make the losses you're going to suffer in November much worse.

More Lies and Deception

An earlier post listed many of the lies told by this president and this administration, and it also remarked that these lies are told with no regard for what truths might already be out there on YouTube or some other forum, which shows just how stupid this president thinks the people of America are. I ran out of space with that post, so I'm continuing with the "lie listings" in this post. So, here are a few more whoppers told by Mr. Obama:

Lie--"I will be a force to bring the nation together."
Truth--In truth, this is one of the most partisan presidents ever. He consistently refers to Republicans as "them" and, in today's Washington Post is quoted as saying, "Republicans talking about deficits is like an arsonist talking about fire safety." A good sound bite, but is there really a comparison? Obama excoriated George Bush for running a $450B deficit, but his budget blueprint shows deficits well in excess of $1T for at least a decade. The real point, however, is that Obama has absolutely no bipartisan bones in his body. It's his way or the highway. Thankfully, it looks like it's the Democrats who will be taking to the highway come fall.

Lie--"We're doing everything we can to stop the leak."
Truth--The truth is that Obama has played golf at least 8 times since the leak began, and he's taken three vacations since April! He has also had several parties at the White House, including hosting Paul McCartney and, tonight, there will be a show for the Tony awards. In my opinion he doesn't want the leak stopped until it totally destroys the lifestyles of those in the Gulf--then he can put them on the dole and control them better. After all, they don't really like Barack Obama down there. A recent poll shows the people think Bush did a much better job on Katrina than Obama is doing on the oil spill.

Lie--"If you like your current health insurance policy, you can keep it."
Truth--Now that they are starting to write the regulations, we're seeing how much of a lie this actually was. They have put stringent rules on all the grandfathered policies, making it almost impossible that they won't become subject to review and control by the administration. For instance, I don't know the exact numbers, but if your copay rises by 5%, then your policy loses its grandfathered status and comes under control of the bureaucracy. The government itself now estimates that up to 80% of private plans will eventually go away and the people in those plans will be forced into the government insurance program.

Lie--"The individual mandate is NOT a tax!"
Truth--This was another lie told over and over and over again when the sales schtick for health care was at a fever pitch. Now the administration is battling lawsuits over the mandate, for where in the Constitution does it say the government can force anyone to pay for a private service? Their tack in court, however, is that the mandate IS a tax, and therefore the government has the authority to impose it and collect it. He was supposedly a Harvard law professor (wonder if this is true?), so he should have known this up front.

Lie--"I don't want to control the automobile business."
Truth--The fact is that the control of the business was used to great Democrat advantage. On top of that, he installed a car "czar", answerable to nobody, who calls the shots on who gets paid what. The unions were given a huge stake in Chrysler and GM, and the Chrysler dealerships which were closed were done so in a very partisan manner--a recent study shows that almost 100% of the closed dealerships had given money to Republican candidates. This is the kind of thing done by Stalin. Thank you Ford for not taking the money and keeping at least one part of the industry free. Question: if he doesn't want control of the auto industry, why not sell the shares, take the loss or gain, and get the hell out?

OOOPS! I've run out of space again. As I said before, I could literally write for hours about all the lies told by this administration and this president. However, then nobody would read it! So, yes, there will be a future post continuing this train of thought....

More Solutions for Today's Problems

I've written about solutions for energy and immigration in earlier blogs, as well as the need to legalize marijuana and what that would do in many areas, from lowering incarceration rates to creating a new tax base. Today I want to just list a few of the major problems facing this country and what I think should be done about them. We must realize that many of these things and their consequences are intertwined.

1. Job creation: First of all, it is lunacy to think that government can efficiently create jobs. For a decent paying job it takes, say, $40,000 of the taxpayers' money. How much comes back? In the form of tax revenue, I would say that $10,000 is a generous estimate, especially if the person owns a home and itemizes. There are other trickle down amounts, such as the fact that the local businesses will do better because this taxpayer also presumably shops. But the point is that this is an inefficient way to create jobs. Instead of spending all the taxpayers' money in this way, it should be in the form of tax cuts and business incentives. First of all, tax cuts usually are a direct stimulus, since "found" money usually gets spent. By business incentives, I mean a lowering of the capital gains tax, a reduction in the suffocating control of the government, and a lowering of health care costs. If businesses aren't afraid to invest, then jobs will be created. It's been proven over and over. And these are jobs that aren't paid for directly by the taxpayer.

2. Health care: Start by scrapping Obamacare and its $1 TRILLION+ price tag. Then, work on what the problems actually are. Bring down doctors costs for one. I would create a national school for doctors which was free for those who might qualify, with the caveat that, after graduation, they would work for a minimum of six years for essentially low pay, much as the folks who graduate from the service academies give up six years of their lives. We would use these inexpensive doctors to staff huge clinics which would treat the poor. Let's face it. Just saying to everyone, "You have to buy health insurance" doesn't cut it. There are always going to be people who can't afford to pay for the insurance. These are the people who are falling through the safety net. They are the ones who need our help. They come in all colors, genders, and ages. Once we set these clinics up, we can start sending the people choking our emergency rooms there, treat those who need it, and eventually get to the point of offering preventive care.
There are other ways to bring down costs, some of which are being killed by high-powered lobbyists. Tort reform is one way, for instance. The lawyers don't like this one, but we've got to limit liability for doctors. This would lower medical malpractice insurance costs drastically, which would then enable doctors to lower what they charge.
We also need to get all the medical records computerized so we can check for people who are scamming the system. I know this isn't just individuals. Several times I've found the facilities my wife and I have used trying to bill us more than once. It's always explained away as an honest mistake, but what about the people who aren't watching? President Obama sold Obamacare by promising to pay for a lot of it with "500 billion dollars worth of waste and fraud." This is one of the few things I agree with him about--that there is a huge amount of waste and fraud. The difference is that I think we actually ought to do something about it. Nothing is being done right now.
There are many other things associated with this that we need to do, such as lowering crime rates and getting people off dependencies as much as we can. Due to lack of space, I'll tackle this later. Just as an example, though, imagine how much we'd save if we could get even a small percentage of the people on Skid Row off of drugs or alcohol. There are "Skid Rows" all throughout this country. See this short slide show and think about the effect of cleaning up these places and getting these people sober, or at least some of them: http://hub.witness.org/en/node/5335

3. The size of government: This one is simple, and it affects everything else. Government is too big, period. The Obama budget blueprint through 2020 shows us running deficits in excess of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS each year! This is crazy. We need to immediately cut the government budget by 20% across the board, and immediately impose a hiring freeze. We can then reduce a lot more over the years by attrition. The point is we HAVE to reduce the size of government. A lot of people are under the impression that the deficit has something to do with our economy or with our business relations with other countries such as China. Our deficit has nothing to do with any of that. It is how much comes in versus how much is spent. The bottom line is that government spends too much money. Let's face it--we all know that government wastes money and my proposed 20% reduction will be on everything from Congressional and staff salaries, to weapon systems R & D to, yes, Medicare and Medicaid. Part of this reduction will come with my health care recommendations listed above.
We also need to get rid of certain government agencies outright. The Department of Education, for example, has been a disaster. Despite spending more and more money centralizing control of the nation's education, ever since the inception of this department (created by Jimmy Carter), America's educational results have been slowly sliding. When things don't work, you change them! Let's change this! The same goes for other agencies--why, for instance, do we even need a Commerce Department?
(Department of Education building)

4. BUY AMERICAN. We were once the greatest creditor nation on Earth. We are now the greatest debtor nation. Yet we are trying to hold onto a lifestyle we enjoyed when we were flush. It doesn't work that way, and the bill has to come due sooner or later. I vote for sooner. However, we can also turn the whole problem around by doing one simple thing. Buy American made products. No, don't have the government mandate that you do. Let's just start a movement to buy it only if it's made here. However, you have to think about this. For instance, the Honda I drive is built in Ohio with 90% American made parts, including the engine and drive train. This is, in my opinion, an American made product. I don't care if it doesn't say "Ford" or "GM" or "Chrysler" on it. If we bought American made products, more people would work, prices for American made goods would come down, and we would start running a trade surplus for a change. Also, new industries would be re-created, such as the American television manufacturing industry.

I believe this nation should commit itself to...being kind to Muslims?

John F. Kennedy once inspired a nation and a world with his challenge to America to land a man on the moon: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." I was getting ready to turn eleven when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The awe in which I held the astronauts, the space program, and the country as a whole cannot be described, nor has it ever been forgotten. To this day, when I think of their achievement, or when I am looking up at the moon on a crisp, cool night, I am like that little boy again, impressed with the immensity of space and astounded by its possibilities. I thought as recently as a few months ago that once again, in my lifetime, I would be witness to inspirational deeds. Some time ago President Bush set us on a course for the exploration of Mars. The program, Constellation, would begin with another moon landing, after which the moon would be used as a jump off point for a trip to Mars.
Then, a few months ago, it was announced that Constellation had been killed by the Obama administration. Billions of dollars had already been spent, and a whole new generation of kids was starting to take notice. After all, it is their generation which will make the actual trips. But now, the landing craft are being dismantled, and even as our own heavy lift capability has degraded to the point where we have to depend on the Russians to take material to the International Space Station, we are dismantling the rockets which could complete the mission to Mars and beyond. When this decision was announced, Barack Obama stated that he would be looking to private enterprise to build the rockets we need. Space is one thing that I feel is important enough that we should have a national program, and we should be building our own rockets, not dismantling them.
Now, Obama's own NASA director has, in an interview, stated what Obama's #1 goal is--to create better relations with the Muslim world. HUH?? This is the truth, I'm not making it up! Here's the link to the interview: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/05/nasa-chief-frontier-better-relations-muslims/
Man has always looked beyond his boundaries for new challenges. Climbing Mount Everest, sailing the ocean solo, flying across the Atlantic, circumnavigating the globe, and yes, going to the moon. It is through these endeavors that mankind finds out the best about itself, about what great and wondrous things can be achieved with effort and determination. There is no hill too high to climb. So, JFK once inspired us to look to the heavens and send a man to the moon. Obama is inspiring us to...be kind to Muslims?

Immature?

I'm sure everyone has been following the drama which has unfolded in the last few days concerning General McChrystal and his comments in Rolling Stone, which ended up forcing his resignation and effectively ending his distinguished career. Let me first say that those of you who know me know that I am a former member of the United States Army, so I know a little more about a soldier's responsibilities than, say, Robert Gibbs. That being said, the general was wrong, and he shouldn't have said what he said. Like it or not, Barack Obama is the commander-in-chief of the Unites States' armed forces, and we have a long and proud tradition of civilian control of our military. He had no other choice but to resign, and if he hadn't, Obama would have had no choice except to fire him.
All that being said, I have a few problems with the way it all went down. First of all, the character assassination on the part of this White House was an obvious attempt to make sure that the people would understand what a "rogue" McChrystal was, so his firing would be justified. However, for Robert Gibbs to stand up there in front of the nation and claim that General McChrystal was too "immature" for command not only goes way over the line, but is perhaps one of the most ludicrous things I've ever heard come out of the mouth of a press secretary. Here is a man who has devoted his entire adult life to the service of his country. He is a decorated combat veteran who has expertise in "special ops", or in other words, he's done the dirty stuff. He's seen blood, and he has risen through the ranks until achieving the rank of a general officer. Immature? All I can say to Mr. Gibbs is, "How dare you!" He should be ashamed of himself and he should have apologized to this man who, due to his long and distinguished service should be referred to as a hero. The American people will decide this eventually. Will they support Obama and his cronies, or will they come to realize that it is really this administration which is peppered with immature men who never truly left their adolescence behind them? The first test comes in November, but in the meantime, study the pictures and come to your own conclusion. They depict President Obama in a candid moment, Robert Gibbs, Obama's press secretary, Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, and General McChrystal.

Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste!

I've been thinking a lot about Barack Obama's lackluster response to the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. If you recall, it was almost two weeks before he declared that it was possibly something of "national significance", and as of yesterday it's been over 50 days and he STILL hasn't talked to the CEO of BP. His reason for that was that he felt that the CEO would tell him, "what he wanted to hear", and that he wasn't about "words, but action". Now, as has been pointed out, he had no problem talking to the leaders in the banking industry. He had no problem discussing the automobile industry's woes with the leaders in that field. Yet why wouldn't he talk to the head of a company which, by the administration's own admission, controls the technology with which this disaster might be stopped? Why not coordinate action with this person? After all, aren't these the two executives in charge, one of BP and the other of the United States?
This administration used the crisis of the recession to nationalize the automobile industry. It used the same crisis to basically nationalize the banks and impose huge new taxes on the financial sector. Obama has installed pay "czars" to monitor the pay in the financial sector and in effect decide who makes what. If this isn't Socialism (or even Communism), then what is? Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, was overheard prior to these actions saying that you should, "...never let a good crisis go to waste". This administration didn't let the financial crisis (which may have been overblown for political purposes and got out of hand because of it) go to waste--they used it to nationalize several industries. On top of that, through hook and crook they rammed a health care bill down the throats of Americans which enabled them to grab control of one sixth of the American economy in addition to the fields they had already usurped.
I'm starting to wonder if Obama has let this spiral out of control for the same reason--so the people in his administration can grab more power and control. They are already taking control through executive fiat--banning offshore drilling and the like, and now they are pointing to this disaster as the reason for more intrusive and power-grabbing legislation, the so-called Cap and Trade bill. This bill would impose huge new taxes on the American people and give the Obama administration sweeping new powers to regulate everything from automobile emissions to backyard grills, along with the powers to police those activities.
Take it one step further, however, and you can't help thinking that maybe there is even something more sinister afoot. Think about this: all of the states being affected by the spill are "red" states or, in other words, Republican leaning. By overwhelming majorities the people in these states reject Barack Obama and his policies. Could he be using this crisis to destroy their livelihoods and cause them to become dependent on government? I can't believe that a country which can put a man on the moon and map the human genome and develop vaccines and build aircraft which are invisible to radar can't cap an out of control oil well. Maybe we can. Maybe we just don't want to. Even as the governments of the affected states are calling for a resumption of drilling and a return of the people's lifestyles, the federal government, led by Barack Obama, continues to shut down operations in the Gulf and the financial viability of the people who live there. Maybe they are planning how to set up the soup kitchens or maybe this president hasn't yet decided whose "ass to kick". Whatever the reasons, it's becoming obvious that this administration isn't letting this crisis go to waste either.

"I am not a crook"

Richard Nixon, as most people know, was forced from office by the Watergate scandal. Just as a quick refresher, it was called this because the Democratic National Committee had an office in the Watergate complex which was broken into by operatives of the Republican party. Nixon had nothing to do with the original crime. However, once he found out, instead of coming clean and firing those involved, he became involved in a cover-up, which is a crime also known as obstruction of justice. Presidents can be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors", and Nixon was on the way to having that happen, as the opposition party (the Democrats) hounded him and beat the drums on this story for almost two years. Rather than face that, he decided to resign, and did so in 1974.
Now, 36 years later, another president, Barack Obama, has put himself in danger by possibly engaging in criminal activity. In Pennsylvania, Representative Joe Sestak, who was running against Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, claimed he was offered a job by the White House if he would quit the race. He turned it down, and went on to defeat Mr. Specter. This is a violation of a federal law called the Hatch Act, which among other things specifically prohibits "use of official authority or influence to interfere with an election." However, President Obama isn't foolish, so after months of stonewalling by the President's spokesperson, the White House finally issued a statement saying that it was actually Bill Clinton who offered Sestak the job. Hmmm. Didn't anyone notice it odd that Obama and Clinton had lunch earlier on the same day of this announcement. Is this just coincidence or did they need to get their stories straight?
Now it comes out that Andrew Romanoff, a candidate for the Senate running against the party favorite Michael Bennett in Colorado, was also offered a job to quit the race. "The White House acknowledged Thursday that deputy chief of staff Jim Messina suggested that Romanoff drop his bid against incumbent Michael Bennet, and suggested that he seek one of three possible government jobs." (Russ Britt writing for Market Watch today). So now there are two people who have been offered jobs by the White House. (I wonder how many more there are we don't know about). The president's spokesperson has said the president knew nothing of these offers, although the first one also involved Rahm Emmanuel, the chief of staff, and the second the deputy chief of staff Jim Messina.
That the Hatch Act has been violated is unquestioned. But what was Barack Obama's part in all of this? If he had Bill Clinton cover for him, he is guilty of obstruction of justice. If he knew about either offer, he is guilty of conspiracy to violate a federal law. Both of these are crimes. One is a felony. We have been assured by the president's spokesperson that "nothing inappropriate happened", although he won't be clear on exactly what did happen. But once, long ago, we were also assured by our then president that, "...the American people need to know that their president is not a crook. And I am not a crook." It wasn't true then. Is it true now?

We Have the Death Penalty--Let's Use It

While I think that the budget deficit is the #1 threat to the future of this country, crime isn't far behind. If you look closely at the statistics, they are shocking. A woman is raped every two minutes in this country, someone is murdered every forty-nine minutes. The cost of crime in this country is estimated to be close to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS per year when all the costs are figured in--police costs, trial costs, medical costs, lost wages and the like. But beyond that, crime has changed the way we live. When I was a child, we thought nothing of taking off all day long on our bikes, and our parents' only admonition to us was to "be home by supper." There were no worries. America was a different country then.
Some people will argue that the crime percentages, when looked at on a per capita basis, are very close to where they were 50 or 60 years ago, and that really, then, the dangers were the same then but we just didn't realize it. In one way this is true, but it overlooks one very important factor. If the per capita rate is roughly the same but the population has doubled, well then, that means there are twice as many criminals. Since our land mass isn't increasing, this also means that the number of predators per square mile has doubled as well. Don't believe me? Run a check of registered sex offenders living within a 5 mile radius of your house. After you see that map, you'll lock your children in the house and throw away the key.
There are anywhere from fifteen to twenty thousand murders per year in this country. In a country of 300 million, that's really not a lot, but think of it this way. This means that in three years more Americans are murdered than were killed in all of Vietnam. By any definition, this is a war. There are real casualties. Some people have decided that society is their hunting ground, a place where they can act out their deepest and darkest fantasies of rape and murder.
The point is this. If the density of criminals continues to increase, then all parts of the country will eventually resemble our inner cities as far as how dangerous it is to live there. I have a very simple solution, and it's already in place. It's called the death penalty. We have it and we need to use it.
The people who commit murder and mayhem in this country have, in my opinion, lost any rights they had. We need to give them a fair trial and if they are found guilty of rape or murder, we need to execute them immediately. Oh, we could put in safeguards to make sure they got a fair trial, maybe one appeal to a higher court, but then we need to punish them with the ultimate deterrent--their death.
People will say that if we do this, we will execute an innocent person sooner or later, and they would probably be right. That would be terrible, I agree, and I would hate to be that person. But we could really reduce that by only allowing the death penalty when there is irrefutable evidence, such as DNA, or the perpetrator being caught in the act. Other convictions could be given life in prison with NO parole. We also need to ask how many innocent people are killed each year by repeat offenders. The answer is way more than would accidentally be executed. I know this from personal experience. Many years ago, someone close to me was kidnapped, raped, and murdered. She was kept alive for five days while the freak tortured her and raped her over and over and, after tiring of abusing her, shot her in the face and killed her. It turned out he had been arrested for a previous murder, found innocent by reason of insanity, sent to a mental institution where he was "cured" and released into society. He kidnapped my friend a couple of days after his release. If he had been executed, she would be alive today.
This brings me to another question--why can't we execute someone who is "mentally incompetent"? They were competent enough to commit a heinous crime. If they don't understand they're about to be executed, so what? Then they won't be scared. Sounds humane to me.
These types of violent criminals are a cancer in our society. Like cancer cells, if you root them out and kill them, eventually the cancer will be cured. However, also like cancer, if you allow any to live, sooner or later the problem will grow back and eventually kill the patient. Unfortunately, in my metaphor, the patient is our society.
So if we start executing these maggots, eventually there won't be any more murderers and rapists, and if there are a few left over, they will be too scared to try anything. Our prisons will be emptied of the most violent and depraved, and they can get back to the business of trying to rehabilitate those convicted of lesser crimes.
If I were to ever run for president, one of my platforms would be that there would be a bloodbath if I was elected. However, it would no longer be a bloodbath of the innocent, but one of the guilty. Within three years, I would promise, your wives, sisters, daughters and girlfriends would be able to walk down any street in America at any time of the day or night with no fear. That would be my goal, and I think the people would support it.
One final point. The reason the death penalty doesn't work as well right now is because there is no connection between the crime and the punishment. When a person is executed 15 or 20 years after a crime is committed, there is no linkage, and sometimes the perpetrator actually becomes a "victim" in the eyes of the press.
To support my various contentions, I need only point at Richard Allen Davis.
He is the man who was convicted of kidnapping Polly Klaas from her home during a slumber party. He took the beautiful little twelve year old girl, savagely raped her, then strangled her to death. He had many previous convictions, including kidnapping with the intent to rape, assault, robbery, attempted kidnapping and the like. His rap sheet went back more than twenty years. What was he doing a free man? Had he been executed after the first kidnapping and rape attempt, rather than being sentenced to 25 years then released early, that beautiful girl would be alive. So what did this monster do in court? When his sentence was read, he gave the finger to the court and the judge and intimated that Polly had been sexually abused by her father. Oh, yeah, he abducted and murdered this little girl in 1996. As of this writing, he still has not been executed.

In Defense of Barack Obama?

The latest drumbeat is that Barack Obama isn't engaged enough concerning the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which is decimating plant and animal life along the Louisiana and Alabama coasts. It now threatens Florida and possibly the Atlantic seaboard. The argument goes that Obama hasn't shown anger, or he hasn't shown compassion, or he hasn't done enough to "plug the damn hole". I have a problem with this. This is a disaster of the nth magnitude, and it isn't in one man's power to fix it. Oh, yes, he could show more engagement than he has. And he could be a little less politically tone deaf and lay off the parties and the rounds of golf while this is happening. But really, there is nothing he himself can do to go plug the damn hole. Do we expect him to put on a diving suit and descend to 5000 feet and cap the out of control well? Of course not.
The current and growing backlash at Obama himself, however, is of his own making. George Bush could no more stop a category 5 hurricane from destroying New Orleans, a city built BELOW the water level of two great bodies, than Barack Obama can cap an out of control oil well. Yet Obama and the Democrats hammered away at Mr. Bush relentlessly about Mr. Bush's inability to stop that disaster. They portrayed him as a man not up to the job of the presidency if he couldn't handle Katrina's destruction. So Mr. Obama and the Democrats are the ones who set the bar so high that now even things beyond the president's control are considered the president's responsibility. So, looking at it from that perspective, Mr. Obama deserves all the negative press he is now getting concerning his inability to do anything about this catastrophe. It is his Katrina, but only because he defined it that way.
Oh, one other thing. Is the aftermath of Katrina now fixed because Obama became president? Of course not. Do you know how much of the $700 BILLION stimulus bill was earmarked for rebuilding New Orleans? You got it--$0! So, in his bashing of Bush and all that followed, Obama not only set the bar so high that he is now feeling the wrath of the people (and the media--finally!), but he has shown himself to be a hypocrite who can get elected shouting about someone's inability to repair the damage from a natural disaster, but who then does nothing about it himself.

Legalize Pot Now!

If you've read any of my posts, you've probably figured out that I think Obama and all his plans for American are a problem. Now I'm switching gears on this blog and I'm going to start discussing solutions to some of our problems. The first thing I want to talk about is legalizing marijuana. It should be done immediately in my opinion.
If pot were legalized, think of the problems it would cure. First of all, all the drug wars over pot would immediately cease. If the government regulated and taxed it, much as hard liquor already is, then it would be legal if bought in sanctioned stores and illegal everywhere else, much like bootleg liquor. This would lead to a situation where nobody would buy from the cartels anymore, and a huge source of their income would immediately dry up. So you would take a huge bite out of crime, and you would have a taxable commodity which could also be controlled more readily, since presumably people would have to be 21 to buy it. That's not to say kids would never get their hands on it, but this setup would greatly reduce that possibility. So control is a big argument for legalizing pot, but the taxation factor may be even bigger.
In our cash-strapped times, states are looking for any way possible to raise revenue. However, most traditional sources are getting tapped out--there are only so many taxes you can make up to hit the rich with, and sooner or later you'll destroy the wealthy class (maybe that's Obama's plan!). Once that happens, then who's going to pay for all the programs? But with the legalization of marijuana, states would have a new huge revenue stream. So, by legalizing pot, we would solve several big problems our country is facing. We would immediately put a huge hit on the drug cartels and virtually eliminate a whole class of crime. Our jails would then be less full because they wouldn't have to have pot users in them, and they could be used to rehabilitate and incarcerate real criminals. Lastly, we would have a huge new revenue stream to help with eliminating our deficits at the state and county levels.
Pot is also a drug which does little damage. It doesn't make people violent. It doesn't make people steal. It doesn't wreck livers and kidneys. It makes people mellow, and in our tightly wound society, where it seems that many people are living right on the edge and are ready to snap at any moment, that might be the best thing of all.

A Warning From Orwell

Many people are, of course, familiar with George Orwell's 1984 and the warning he was sending about government becoming all powerful. Many people are less familiar with the fact that Orwell's other famous book, Animal Farm, was also a warning. It was a warning about communism under Joseph Stalin and what he was building in Russia. The story is about a group of animals that take over a farm and attempt to rebuild it in their utopian vision. The pigs are in charge of these efforts and are also the beneficiaries of the fruits of society's labor. For instance, when the hungry animals find apples which have fallen from a tree, and when they are wondering what to do with the milk from the cows, the head pig, Napoleon, steps forward and claims the milk and apples for the pigs, on the grounds that their mental powers are needed to run the farm.
Throughout the book, Napoleon clings to power by warning the other animals that if they don't do what they are told, Jones (the former owner of the farm who treated the animals cruelly) might come back. As time moves forward in the book, Napoleon changes from being an elected leader to being a dictator. He rules by fiat, and slaughters anyone who disagrees with him or gets in his way. Even loyal and noble Boxer, who represents the working class, is killed by Napoleon in the end, and the money received from selling his body to the knacker goes to buy whiskey for the pigs.
Now let's look at what is going on under President Obama. The size of the federal government is exploding. Congress is passing laws from which they themselves are exempt. People are getting poorer and yet the government comes out with statistics almost daily to tell us that the recession has ended. Anyone really believe that? The party in charge has rammed legislation down the throats of the American people which will cost over a trillion dollars. Yet what does Obama do at every turn? Blames Bush! Like Napoleon in Animal Farm who always warned the other animals what would happen if Jones came back, Obama is using the former president as a symbol. You don't want the problems back which happened under George Bush, do you? The point is that Obama and his policies, and the "rulers" in Congress are starting to act like the pigs in Animal Farm. Maybe Orwell wasn't just warning the world about Stalin. Maybe he was warning the world about all who would create "utopias" based on collective thought and action.

Lies and Deception?

It came out the other day that the health bill actually has $115 BILLION more in discretionary spending in it than what the CBO estimated before the bill passed just a month ago. While I think it is probably more desirable that we the people should actually have this knowledge when debating a bill, it should probably be considered necessary that the people in Congress have this information. Beyond all that, though, is a far larger problem in my mind. That is the fact that it appears that this administration, and yes, this president, will lie and shade the truth over and over again to get its programs passed. Okay, I realize I can't just say that without giving examples. So, here are some examples:

We will close Gitmo within one year.
Status: Gitmo currently remains open, mainly because nobody thought about what we'd do with the people there. Nobody wants them, and now we're even having an argument about where to try them.

We will pay for health care with $500 Billion dollars in fraud and waste in the Medicare system.
Status: Even if health care hadn't passed, shouldn't we be rooting out a half trillion dollars of fraud and waste? If this was recognized early on, shouldn't we have done something right away? There has been no effort whatsoever to root out a half trillion dollars in "waste and fraud".

I will reach across the aisle to work with the opposition.
Status: A token gesture was made during the health care debate, but it was obvious that it amounted to a photo op, as the mantra seemed to be, "My way or the highway." Listen to today's rhetoric: It is the Republicans' fault, they drove this economy into a ditch. We're not giving back the keys," etc., etc.

We have been on this (oil spill) since day one.
Status: This is blatantly false, as articles in several papers have pointed out.

I never had contact with Governor Blagojevich.
Status: There are literally dozens of pictures of the two in numerous different places and circumstances.

I wasn't there when Reverend Wright spoke of these things:
Status: So the president went to the same church for twenty years and never once heard Wright's vitriolic message? Does anyone really believe this?

I will accept federal campaign money and spending limits.
Status: After John McCain gave his word that he would too, then candidate Obama reneged on his promise and went on to garner almost 3/4 of a billion dollars in campaign contributions. He was also the #1 recipient of money from BP, a company whose oil rigs were then passed over for environmental inspection by the Obama administration. Hmmm...why is nobody investigating this?

And this one today: After announcing steep cuts in the New York City federal terrorism budget, Obama today announced to the city police and firefighters (as reported by CBS reporter Hazel Sanchez), "And we want to make sure that we continue to work with you to get the resources that are needed for you to continue to be effective." In other words, he is talking our of both sides of his mouth once again. This kind of double talk has become commonplace with this president.

I could literally sit here and type for hours with all the lies that have been told by this administration. All administrations tend to fudge the truth sometimes, but when it is done so blatantly and with such little regard for what already might be out there on YouTube or elsewhere, it really shows the disdain with which this administration and this president truly hold the people.

Obama as a dictator?

There have been some remarkable things done and said by President Obama since he's been in office. It's almost as if he wishes he was dictator of this great nation. Remember when he wished he could just order the banks to do what he wanted? How about his demagoguery concerning the financial sector and its pay? Then there's the time he fired the head of a private company, General Motors. Oh, yeah, that's after he nationalized it, um, I mean, after he bailed it out. How do you think the man he fired felt after devoting his life to that company? Lately, he's made the remark that he is going to "keep his boot on the throat of BP." Hmmm. What image comes to mind when you think of someone putting their boot on someone else's throat? Do you think he said that phrase by accident? He parses everything else carefully. So, anyway, I've been thinking about it, and I've realized there is a reason for all this. He's trying to channel a famous person from the past. Seriously! View the pictures connected to this post, and see if they don't bear a resemblance to each other.

Arizona Immigration Law--An Idea Whose Time Has Come!

Okay, I can't take it anymore. Every time I access a web page or turn on the TV, somebody from the left is talking about how "misguided" and "wrong" the new Arizona law on immigration is. Arizona's governor and legislature even backtracked a little and within two days passed a "fix" which makes it a crime to profile. I've seen the signs being held by the protesters calling the law "unfair" and "racist". I think the law is a great idea, for what has been going on is unprecedented in the history of the world. Never has any nation allowed what really is an invasion of their country and survived. We won't survive either unless we do something. Arizona, a state on the front lines of this problem, is trying to do something.
We have, by most conservative estimates, approximately twelve million illegal aliens here in this country. Yes, that's right, twelve million. It's probably more than that, but hey, who's counting? They don't pay taxes because they aren't about to file tax returns--the government would catch them here and send them back. Most get paid in cash by employers who, through their own greed and need for cheap labor, turn a blind eye to their status, and therefore become complicit in this illegal activity. However, they do use the services that all the rest of us taxpayers pay for. They drive on our roads, they attend our schools, which are hamstrung by the fact that they can't ask people their immigration status (is that crazy or what?!), and they suck up services such as free and reduced lunches. If that was the only problem, I feel we could deal with that. However, there is also a very high incidence of crime associated with people here illegally. In my opinion, the main problem is just that--they are here illegally--they have broken the law while hundreds of thousands if not millions of others wait in line like they're supposed to.
It is the federal government's responsibility, as we have heard many times since this story broke, to police this problem. What's wrong with this notion is that the federal government hasn't done that. Pat Buchanan wrote a brilliant op/ed piece on this very issue for World Net Daily. You can read it at:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=146341

So, because the federal government wasn't doing anything, Arizona decided it would. And what is it they have done? They have given the police the power to check when they suspect they are dealing with someone here illegally. How is this racist? How is this wrong? Don't we allow the police the power to check anytime a crime is suspected? Remember, these people are here illegally. A person who is here legally might be checked, as are people who are not guilty of a crime are all the time. That's part of investigating crimes. That person will then be let go. How is it wrong? Is it now wrong to enforce the laws of the United States of America? Is it wrong to want the millions here illegally, who take jobs from those here legally and who use services they don't pay for, to leave and, if they want to return, to wait in line like everyone else? Is it wrong to try to stop the invasion which is happening and to try to protect the safety and security of our great country? I hope it isn't, but to some people you would think so.
This goes back to what I've said before. The Democrats want the votes these people represent. They want to make them legal. They are willing to sacrifice the security of this nation for political gain. I don't say just stop the invasion. I say close the borders, put the military down there if necessary, and send back all those who have broken the law back where they came from. I've heard the argument that these people do the nasty jobs others won't do, but I think that is an invalid argument. There are either Americans here willing to do that, or LEGAL immigrants waiting to get in who will work those positions. The Arizona bill isn't racist, and it isn't anti-Hispanic. It is anti-lawbreaker, however. I just wish that our federal government would get serious about this problem. Then we wouldn't need states like Arizona to assume the mantle of protecting this country, although so far I'm glad they have. Or maybe the left is correct and we should leave the people in these pictures alone. They're not doing anything wrong...