"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.