Johhny Bravo's Blog

Ideologue

2011-03-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

ideologue n. an adherent to or advocate of some ideology
source: Webster Dictionary.org

My last US based location before my move was Wisconsin. Having lived there 6 years I have become connected with with it and its politics much more than I am with either Michigan or Alabama. The recent backlash against the progressive answer to our nation’s ills produced an unprecedented sweep of conservative minded leadership. The result of this has been placed on the national stage by a feverous battle of wills between fiscal conservatives and progressive pro union groups. As I have some inside insight and continue to keep abreast of the situation via various sources I find it amazing in this day and age of twitter, Facebook, 24/7 cable news, and instant publishing local newspaper websites that so much misinformation, misinterpretation, and outright lies were incubated and delivered with fervor not seen since the LA riots after the Rodney King police brutality verdict.

It is no secrete I am conservative minded, politically of course. I have passed another milestone lately the years and experiences have added another layer, or ring, to my life. As we age we tend to filter what we see and hear. This is a self protection mechanism really, one that selectively validates our world view therefore giving us comfort and psychological support we, and our views, are right and correct. As we have years invested on our particular paths we need this comfort in order to ensure our dividends will pay out a positive return. Every so often we meet cross roads that test and shake our world views and these are dangerous events as we tend to filter our views, see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear. The only real way to inoculate oneself from these pitfalls is to; A) identify the cross road B) approach the situation with healthy cynicism C) use logic and past experiences to check your initial conclusion D) view the alternatives before dismissing them. Sound complicated? Its easy, think of all the situations we use this process in our everyday life to survive. What to wear, what to eat, what tasks to undertake, what priority each event in our lives takes, when to go to bed. So why is it that this process has broken down and started to falter so much in the last 2 years in America?

Of course people will say this criticism of my culture and society is viewed through tinted glasses, perhaps, but I am aware of my slants and views and make no excuses for them… placing me ahead of those unaware of their views as I am more guarded to keep as much of an objective take as I can. Call it an “Emperor’s New Clothes” aversion, but surrounding yourself with “yes men”, even if they are in your head, only leads to disaster. So what does all this have to do with ideology or political gridlock? If you have to ask this you are a new reader or have forgotten my style of approaching a topic.

The Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill has widened the chiasm between the political left and right in the state. Passions overflowed like the waters over Niagara Falls, and just like the Falls, it overflowed in just one direction and from one side. Watching the players and theater over the last month has been frustrating and at time comical. From the 14 Democrat senators who fled the state to deny a quorum, for 3 weeks, to the tens of thousands of protesting teachers and doctors giving out notes so they could claim a sick day off work, it all made for a comedy of errors. Oh, and now one of the 14 is proposing a state constitution amendment to make it illegal to do this again, why??? The more troubling aspect was despite the tragic events of the beginning of the year with Democrat Repressive Giffords being shot along with numerous people at a local event, the rhetoric had again raised to soaring levels of hate and anger with death and violence taking center overt reoccurring themes against the governor and GOP members with no press scrutiny and that spoke volumes to what has been unfolding over the past 2 years. How can I exaggerate chalk outlines on the Madison square and live ammunition from a high powered rifle casually strewn over the capital grounds?

The larger picture is much more interesting than the smaller micro view of the bill’s dissolving of collective bargaining for public state employees or pension and healthcare benefit contribution levels. The problems with this political theater is it falls into the trap of losing the forest for the trees. The battle is not over union “rights” (a grotesque misnomer by every rational stretch of the definition) but over power and preserving the status quo. Despite all the hype, promise, and aspirations of our 44th president the reality is he and his administration are a rehash of the same old same old, just updated in a post millennium exterior. Has he instituted a new era of transparency within government that has restored faith in American politics? Has he created a new era of accountability that has restored pride and honor to American politics? Has he or his party delivered on anything substantive to correct the path of decades of debt and out of touch political processes separating the masses from the bedrock principles and foundations of American politics?

No, and that was evidence at the November thumping the DNC took ushering in one of the largest swings in political landscape in both federal and state/local governments. His policies, practices, and tactics gave birth to the largest and strongest grass roots political movement seen in generations. The proverbial sleeping giant of fundamental belief in the nation’s core founding principles has risen and taken charge of the political debate, to the chagrin of the main stream media and their political party of choice darling Democrats. So what does this have to do with anything? Follow the money. The macro view of the fight, and real fear of the DNC is a domino effect where public sector unions, the largest financial contributors to DNC campaigns, begin to lose their status quo power in numerous states. Its always about the money in politics.

The reasoning for this is simple, and logically induced. For one collective bargaining is NOT a right. If it were then Federal employees would have it, and they do not. Why is there little to no mention or marching on the White House demanding Federal union workers have collective bargaining? Second, rights are guaranteed in the constitution, those that are deemed important enough are placed in the Constitution and they are granted to ALL citizens, not just some public sector union members in one state and not private sector unions or public sector unions in another state. Lastly collective bargaining has resulted in public sector unions establishing and maintaining legacy pensions and health care benefits long extinct in private sector jobs (except the auto industry and we all saw how well that is working out). Add this together with how public sector unions in the states that have them operate; statue union laws in many of the union states prohibit non-union workers, state payroll collects union dues and delivers to the union head office automatically, tenure rules keeps only longer serving and more invested union members in the rank and file, union leadership is drafted from pensioners and true believers to keep unwavering front office support, political clout and contributions are leveraged against local governmental board members who negotiate contracts. Horsepucky I hear, hogwash I reply! If this were not the case why is it public sector unions in Wisconsin are rushing to sign contract extensions for 2 years now while the WI Democrat Secretary of State delays and stalls the law publication giving unions and friendly local districts 10 days to get extensions in place knowing they can’t raise taxes or increase any local fees to make up the looming state aid cuts to education coming (resulting in all the new teachers not tenured to bear the brunt of the layoffs retaining the older and higher paid true believers)? The tactics are dirty, the money is dirty, and the power if corrupting. The progressive left rails against big corporation contributions and influence in the private sector, yet they turn a blind eye to the facts 36.2% of the work force comprising of public sector unions make up the largest groups of DNC donors with $87.5 million funds handed over in 2010 (by contrast outspending all RNC contributors by $31.5 million) . By contrast private sector unions make up only 6.9% of the work force and while slanted DNC they act more responsibly and conduct business more civilly (which yells volumes when the teamsters are tame compared to teachers, bus drivers, and janitors).

Speaking of money, do you know who the highest paid Wisconsin state employees are? If you think its the governor or elected official you are dead wrong. In 2009 the highest paid WI employees were buss drivers, coming in at $159,258 is John E. Nelson or which $109,892 was overtime pay. His co-worker, Greg Tatman, earned $125,598 putting them among the city’s top 20 earners in 2009. In fact 7 bus drivers made over $100,000 that year. Speaking of over time, just the Madison WI bus system alone drummed up $1.94 million in overtime. Who are the rich and who are the middle class in Wisconsin? When the highest paid public workers are bus drivers making more then 2.5 times his annual salary in overtime, well we have a problem. Don’t think the schools or other public sectors are any more sane. Given a choice to not be in the union, forcing the unions to collect their own dues, take a majority certification vote annually, therefore jeopardizing their largest political leverage, money. Yep, its all about the money, for money buys access and ensures favors for friendly and symbiotic relationships ensuring a friendly environment cementing the status quo. How does that look for the change ushered in with all fan fare in 08?

Who is wearing rose colored glasses now? Have I selectively filtered through all my fiscal conservative bias and out all the wimpy, hypocritical, and lily livered biases to validate my world view and self image? Have I shut down my objectivity or cynicism with prejudice? Actually that wouldn’t be any fun. Regurgitating bumper sticker talking points and nationally outlined emotional bullet points is rather boring and repetitive. In all honesty both sides are manipulating the 20% of the population that swings the election cycles from one extreme to the other. We are in a time when they will be most likely running from one extreme to the other. This is troublesome because it resembles a run away diesel engine. Anyone familiar will know unless you choke and slow down the cycles the engine will speed up to the point of tearing itself apart. I am smart enough to see through the GOP smoke and mirrors as well as the DNC set. Still the GOP side is much milder as its actually trying to fix the fiscal mess of Wisconsin with a real solution combating the real problem, high taxes and too much spending. Just as the UAW found out the GM and Chrysler union won gains during flush with cash times can’t be sustained forever. Seeing the public sector unions only grabbed more and more and never conceded or restrained themselves they set the stage for a radical and painful solution we see today.

As for the overall argument at the very kidney of the matter, remember money is the heart of this situation, the relevancy of unions in America. Most of the DNC propaganda concerning pro union relevancy is actually just the opposite, irrelevant. Oh, here come my politically slanted opinions again. Well, consider this. First, child labor laws nationally and in all 50 states prevent people under 16 from working without a permit and limit the hours and days they can work, so union protections against child labor is mooted. Second, 40 hour work weeks, overtime pay, holiday pay, and shift limitations are all outlined by labor laws both nationally and in all 50 states. Third, OSHA oversees workplace safety and laws ensure safe, productive, and standards for work place environments nationally and in all 50 states. Forth, national and state laws enforce equality in the work place by outlawing discrimination based on sex, age, religion, and even offer workers with disabilities avenues to work. Fifth, federal and state laws prevent environments where corporations set up environments where they own the factory, town, and company store setting up indentured servitude conditions. Lastly, if unions were the only thing standing in the way between freedom and oppressive working conditions, why do they only make up 6.9% of the private working sector? Remember union membership has been falling steady for 12 years, yet pay and benefits have not fallen, why is that? Why do companies provide company match for 401k, group medical plans, insurance options, vacation days, sick days, etc.? Because their competition does, not because the 7% of union work places (mainly factory, construction, and auto workers) do. In order to attract and retain top talent companies have to provide incentives, both financial and life quality.

For the public sector unions, they make up 5 times the number of employees but still are restricted to less then half of the US states. Do public employees in the majority of the US States suffer or have worse working conditions then the minority working in states like Wisconsin? Besides the tax payer funded plush fringe benefits no. Remember, all because of payroll, pension, and lavish healthcare (sold by the unions) and role over sick days with insane overtime (remember the Madison bus driver), it takes several private sector employees to pay for just 1 public sector employee. How much? Good questions and it varies from state to state and city to city. State and local taxes are small compared to FICA and income tax rates. These state and local taxes pay for all services, including civil servant payrolls and benefits. Property taxes pay for schools and other city services (renters have this tax added into their monthly rent so they pay it too). While the Federal government does help pay for roads, schools, medical and safety through matching or granted funds the majority comes from tax payers. Civil servants collected taxes are a wash as they can’t really count their taxes due to their pay it comes from is actually collected from their private sector neighbors. If your total state and local taxes come to 14% of gross pay you can bet the majority covers civil servant payroll and pension funding. Speculation would state 5%, so it would take 20 tax payers to fund 1 employee’s pay with the remaining taxes to pay for the building, lights, vehicles, mass transit, sewer, garbage, parks, etc. (remember property taxes pay for schools, police, and fire). At least private sector unions costs are held in check with company health, if the costs spiral out of control the company goes bankrupt and fails or re-structures. Government does not go bankrupt.

We have laws protecting workers and ensuring their real rights, you know the ones in the constitution, are protected. The laws force fair and balanced working environments and go well beyond fairness unions tolerate. Unions have tenure rules forcing a last in, first out policy instead of merit. Speaking of merit, you don’t get paid based on work performance but on years in service. Unions do not allow non-union workers in the same work place. If you no longer want to be in the union you have to quite and most likely move to another state. You have to pay the dues, of which proved above go towards political action campaigns, and if you don’t agree with what your dues go to, well you have to pay anyway and your voice is oppressed. Unions reward loyalty as only those who support and mirror their stance advance and progress up the ranks. Unions have transcended from quasi mob affiliate to full blown legalized mobs ripe with extortion, intimidation, oppression, assaults, and cohesion as well as conspiracies the mob never reached financially. For these reasons unions need to be flushed and allowed to regroup only when they can demonstrate they can operate in similar manners to their private sector brothers and sisters and government spokesmen actually negotiate with the unions instead of being their patsies and giving them what they ask for. The Wisconsin union’s stance is thin, tissue paper thin on all fronts of its arguments. I have not seen 1 articulate and valid point over 3 weeks of heated emotional rhetoric. Notice I didn’t state debate, because just as I learned in the Navy, you can’t rationalize with a drunk, and it seems to apply to liberals as well. They shout, yell, and sound bite and prevent real and honest debate. They can’t stand to hear an opposing view and only wish to restrict free speech, free flow of ideas, alternatives to the status quo, and offer no viable alternative to closing the multi-billion dollar budget gap their own party created over 4 budget cycles. If they would be honest and just state they want to tax corporations (the very vehicles they use to invest their current pension fund pools, IRAs, and receive the overall majority of the tax revenue collected from), the overtime laden rich bus drivers and other with personal income above 100,000/year, small business owners (who’s taxes are based off of gross income before payroll and internal business re-investment), and yes, the poor tax payers and citizens through sales tax, license fees, and other nickel and dime fees. They can’t state this because that 20% of the voting block who decide elections would run from them back into the GOP camp in an instant.

No, my eyes are wide open on this. I admit my biases but can back up my positions. I can offer proof and logically derive my conclusions from facts and unbiased information. I see where the other side is coming from and understand their position and why it is they are doing what they are doing and saying what they are saying. I dare one of those foaming at the mouth teachers to do the same and will compare their argument to mine to see which is more sound and able to stand the test of scrutiny. Their arguments are riddled with half truths and fallacies including straw man, slippery slope, and ad homonym. The telling contrast is the southern neighbor, Illinois. Wisconsin has pledged to close the budget shortfall without raising taxes and improving the tax climate to attract more employers with a target of 250,000 private sector jobs that will bay for the public sector spending (including payroll), and finally to cut state spending. By contrast Illinois has maintained the status quo, raised taxes, issued more bonds taking on more debt (putting off the repayment for years), and increasing state spending. Time will tell which state will be closer to fiscally sound standing and health. I am afraid the only one with blinders on are the ones refusing to talk through the issue, and that includes running away from the state for 3 weeks to grand stand and give the union puppet masters extra time to out maneuver coming budget plans (hamstringing the local communities and forcing them to lay off teachers creating a perceived political plus for them as they can stand the laid off teachers before the crowds and state it was the GOP who caused it). Who has blinders on, time will tell.

Back from vacation, so much to do.

2009-05-05T20:36:00.001-07:00

It will be a busy week but there are things that need to be discussed. Obama celebrated his 100 days with a glowing media circus that reflected more of the main stream media's slobering love fest despite over 100 gaffs and real problems of his 100 days that they would have skewered Bush for but they gave Obama a blind eye and an A+++ with big smiley faces and gold stars despite blinding evidance to the contrary. The H1N1 flu media scare is beyond reason as they try to keep themselves relevant by scaring the crap out of Americans, killing the pork industry, and setting the stage for rushed passage of a failed ideology of the past century farce of nationalized, or socialized for us intelligent people, health care in an attempt to keep the love fest going. All the while it has become taboo to talk bad about Obama. He is the second coming, he is the golden boy, he is the answer to all ills and troubles in our lives. This is not healthy to free speech, free thought, or freedom as a principle and ideal by which we Americans live our lives. The media refuses to hold Obama's feet to the fire, point out the inconsitencies, falicies, double talk, and utter hypocracy of what Obama says and does. This is too important to not address as only bloggers, right wing idiots and talk radio hosts, and those who realize Obama is a false profit are doing this. The NY Times, LA Times, USA Today, Network TV and Cable TV outlets fail to cover, well someone has to be a voice of reason, the more of us conservative who do this time and time and time and time again as it needs to be done as it was for the last 8 years. Where are the Obama daily calendars with Obamaisms? Where is the coverage showing his lack of speech when his teleprompter is off? Where are the hard and real questions about his policies that are impact of them on freedom and free market capitalism that the dismantle and threaten to distroy?

Rant of the Month - April 2009

2009-05-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, its that time again, time for another rant of the month. Thanks to an early holiday break, Labor Day in the Communist world, this rant is coming before the end of the month.

Domestic issues – guns, guns, guns everywhere! It's the ‘shark attack’ tactic of 2009! You remember the shark attack news blitz of the 2001, every week it seemed someone was getting bitten by a shark, well by the end of the year shark attacks were down significantly from the previous year. This time its guns, and my friends this is no coincidence. The radical left is giddy over their political win and the left wing elite are taking notice. In a time when newspaper sales are slumping and news agencies dropping like flies we are seeing gun violence plastered on page one articles, lead stories in news broadcasts, and linked up to online news services everywhere. First ask why all the coverage. Columbine is holding its big 10 year anniversary since the horrid day of that true tragedy. A filibuster proof and leftist leaning executive branch can offer the best chance to repealing the 2nd amendment in decades. And lastly, in our modern times do we really need firearms? I believe yes. Hunting is a vital economic industry for many states, a good source of food for many citizens, and a way for families to bond with themselves and the land off of which they live. Firearms, when stored and used responsibly, offer property and personal protection until police can arrive, vital in rural, high crime, and suburban areas where it can take a long time for police to respond, or you can’t call them. Lastly, the FACTS about guns tell the real story. Over half of gun incidents, shootings, are self inflicted, yet the deaths from these are reported as gun violence, again ask yourself why. The next largest section comes from accidental discharge, the old unloaded gun cleaning thing. Then we get to gun crimes. You are more likely to get killed by a bee mowing grass then shot to death. You are more likely to get killed by food poisoning at the local restaurant then shot to death. You are more likely to die from medical errors at a hospital then shot to death. Yet the news is telling us all different, why is that? Remember the old cliché, guns don’t kill people, people kill people? Well, its true. If stored and used irresponsibly a gun can lead to a tragic accident or stolen and used to hold up a store, but so can a hammer, baseball bat, kitchen knife, ice pick, pair of sheers, pipe wrench, plumbing pipe, section of 2x4, you get my meaning. Kids will play with anything and everything, run with scissors and lollipops, and ride bikes without hands. Criminals will use anything threatening to commit their crimes. If a criminal wants to kill you access to a gun will not stop them. 90+% of criminals who use guns obtain them illegally, period. The few who use guns in the news lately obtained them legally and there was no way to stop their intent, if they did not have guns they would have used other means, knives, bludgeoning, fire, auto exhaust fumes, poison, people are creative when inspired to be, and the pain and grief people who kill their families or groups of others will just move to the next most lethal alternative. We just need to enforce the laws we have in place better instead of monkeying with the Constitution because of a cause.

Science – It's a Pandemic! So the news is trying to tell us, see above. The current swine flu going around is a major test to see how well the world lives in a post SARS and HN51 (Bird flu) world. What lessons were learned, will it follow the Hollywood script, how will nations and citizens react? Here is Asia is has hit New Zealand and Australia within 48 hours of first being reported in the US. It will be in mainland Asia in 12 hours I predict. China, Japan, and others are better prepared for this due to experience and practical realization. The US response was lethargic, unrealistic, and reminiscent of Katrina, too little too late. Why didn’t we start to monitor our borders better, our ports, get our metro hospitals into alert status quicker? The flu went from 2 locations to over 8 very quickly, why? Returning spring breakers. Of course if spring break had been used for its intended purpose, Easter break, then we would not be in the pickle but that is a different topic. The reality is kids went to Mexico, business men went to Mexico, and Mexicans came to the US. We are hearing the Democrats blaming the GOP for stripping funding, it was the Dems who offered to do this to ‘buy’ GOP support but that is little reported, but we are beyond pointing fingers (3 always point back at you!) and into reality. The US needs to use this opportunity to prove FEMA has learned from its Katrina debacle, the CDC has authority and power to protect the country, and we are better equipped and able to deal with a medical state emergency then others, sadly this is not the case. In China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan every passenger everyday is screened at the airport for fever, international especially. Here in Asia face masks are common year round, and I still see antiseptic gel dispensers in many locations where public gathering occur. In Mexico City public gatherings are postponed, why not in the US? Obama has pledged 3% GDP to science, that is good and well, but we should use more energy to prove we can cope with a global crisis when it occurs, from here it is looking like the news is trying to incite a panic, the president say to stay calm, and the DHS and CDC running in circles and politicians laying blame and not taking real tangible actions.

Sports – Enough with the madness, please! The NFL wants to expand the season 2 weeks now. Come on, give us fans a chance to catch our breath and relax, have some family time, and just gear up for a new season. Currently we have NBA and NHL playoffs going on, MLB season is a couple of weeks old, and the NFL just completed its draft weekend and already pre-season coverage is gearing up. Why, revenue! They all want more and more of our wallets. Cable TV packages, season tickets, parking fees, concessions, memorabilia sales, official licensing rights. Come on, we all know it's a business and people go into business just to make more money but can we stop this before it becomes pure insanity? What is wrong with a 12 game football season? Do we really need over a hundred baseball games to prove who has the best team? Can the atheist’s bodies really take these longer seasons plus harder competition seen these days? Sure, we can all choose to not watch but what fun is that? Sports for us is more then just watching people run around a field, it's a time honored tradition and way to connect with our neighbors and share a sense of belonging. Why must it be manipulated to such a degree? I want shorter seasons, shorter seasons put more emotion into each game because that game means more. Less games means the time is cherished more because it happens less often. It also means we get more opportunity to spend with family and friends outside of the sports area (we started a family because we liked them at one point, better to keep that feeling then the alternative). In design there is a field of thought that has a strong motto, less is more, its time we applied that to our professional sports.

Society – All the talk in the news is on Obama’s first 100 days. A media created event from FDR to measure the president’s progress. Realistically its much ado about nothing. Bush played a lot of golf and vacationed a lot in his first 100 days. Obama is busy shifting the country from free market capitalism to government controlled socialism. The media is continuing their slobbering love affair with Obama. From morning news programs praising inauguration paper dolls, cable news lauding his and his wife’s every move and appearance it is still an utter love fest. Why, how many negative news articles can you recall about Obama and his administration since November? Come on you can do it; 5, 10, 15, 20? Criticism of Obama in the main stream media is about as token as Jim Carey was on In Living Color. The media’s glancing over his blunders, they lauded Bush’s incessantly, miss steps, they made Bush’s them week long events, and his policy contradictions, Obama gets a free pass while Bush got grilled, all prove that Obama is their darling and he can do no wrong. The media has a fundamental responsibility to be fair, objective, and apply the same standards to all. Thus far Obama gets softballs, free passes, and allowances no GOP person ever got. From the grilling of Palin and McCain to the Bushisms of W., the media has only showered praise and accolades on Obama. He can do no wrong, from praying in a Muslim temple, smiling with Hugo Chavez and Raual Castro, to pulling a John Kerry on Bush administration memo concerning interrogation tactics he gets accolades and 5 big gold star reviews with smiley faces. Where is the media of 6 months ago? Where is the picking apart of each facet of everything we say 12 months ago? Where is the critique and criticism of all possible bad outcomes imaginable 2 years ago? Where is the ‘sky is falling because of the war’ crowd now? Ask yourself why, it isn’t because Obama is perfect folks, its because he is their perfect answer to their perfect world.

Continuing on the social issue category, Iowa in now proudly gay. Not that there is anything wrong with that, yes Seinfeld rip-off. Now the 3rd state to allow gay marriage the zaniness seen in California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, with Vermont joining the sisterhood in September. This is telling for American society and world events on many levels. First off, sexual alignment is now equal with age, race, religion, and gender. The debate is one of tolerance. How far is American society willing to go toward tolerance? Our Constitution states all men are created equal and free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. The nation was founded out of flight from religious persecution, at first only Protestant Christians were allowed to own land and vote, then eventually Catholics, and then eventually Jews. The only religions never tolerated were my ancestors, not even during or after the Civil Rights movement. The first test of this was recognizing slavery as wrong and contrary to this great document. Next came women’s rights and eventually their right to vote. Then we had civil rights, which only applied to African Americans, Latino descendants had suffrage but not as blatant as others. Native Americans were not allowed many rights until the 1970’s which is the time equal pay for gender was instituted. Now LBGT peoples are achieving the last hurtle, marriage. But what is the meaning of this equality? Civil Unions, identical to Civil Marriages on the books for many decades, granted gays many if not all the same rights as marriage. Marriage is essentially a social contract between a couple explicitly stating sexual union and creating a path of survivorship and family bond as recognized by the church and the state, civil marriages are only recognized by the state as a justice of the peace marries the two, not a person of any church. So, in order for gay marriage to be actual marriage there has to be a church involved, and yes we have gay churches, not that there is anything wrong with that. In this drive for equality it is important to ask, where is the line? Is our discrimination against polygamy next? What about child marriage, both kinds? Sexting, is it to be a juvenile offense or child porn? What about nudists, sadomasochists, and the final big one… d-r-u-g-s. You see, all these fit the same reasons for gay marriage. It's a society question, not a legal one. As our society becomes more and more tolerant we need to step back and ask when does tolerance become deviance? Where is the line and when do you know when you crossed it? What lasting societies before ours has thrived and survived in such a tolerant atmosphere? The reason I ask is that the more we push the envelope the more we paint ourselves into a corner instead of freeing ourselves. Eventually something breaks if you push on it long enough, this could result in anarchy or outright rebellion, which is never good for those in the fringes of society. We need to slow the change bus down a tad to see where it is going, if we are on a cliff on a dark and winding road we may want to exercise a little more caution before turning up the radio and letting all our hair down. There is such thing as changing too fast, that creates a back lash and that ain’t good for anyone.

International – Pirates of the Caribbean they aren’t, scoundrels and a serious threat they are. The Somali pirates finally went and did it, attempted to hijack a US flagged and crewed ship and it did not turn out well for them at all. Since then the crew got publicity, the captain lauded as a hero, the US Navy a saint, and the pirates dejected and sore. The pirates just attempted to hijack a cruise liner, thwarted by onboard armed Israeli paid security forces, mercenaries. The pirates may just provide their own stimulus to the world economy, private navies and high sea mercenaries. Shipping companies refuse to arm their crews and vessels, for good reason, but the need is still there, with hundreds still being held for ransom and millions of tons of cargo and shipping held as well. The navies of the world can’t make a difference, the governments will fumble and stumble their way towards nothing as it is a local problem that can only be solved locally, as usual. Maybe they should all apply for asylum in Iowa. Seriously, this problem is going to get worse before it gets better. The more navies that deal with it as the US Navy did the higher the risk and less attractive the pirate profession becomes. This is only 1 prong in a multi-pronged effort needed. The next is to get security on the ground, with security comes stability and that begets opportunity as business takes root and people can make an honest living. I do not condone killing, but I do applaud consequences for actions, extreme actions call for extreme consequences and if done by the letter of the law. Now the ship’s cook is suing the shipping company for sending them into traitorous waters without proper training. Only in America can you be a hero one minute and then sue your employer for making you one the next, or having your employer fire you to save money, as former US Airways pilot hero Sully. This cook needs a judge to laugh his case out of court, but then again all he needs to do is file in Iowa, I am sure a judge there will treat his case with fairness and respect it deserves.

Culture – Counterculture was the term used to describe the extreme left wing liberals in the 1960’s. You know the type, hippies, college campus elites who rebelled against the system and the ‘man’. Well, here we are 40 years later and guess what, they grew up and got real jobs, well most of them anyway. These counterculture people have went from fringe to mainstream. They are now professors, industry leaders, media moguls, politicians, presidents, and policy drivers. The 60’s love children and anti-establishment types are now the man. They are doing their elders and teachers proud, passing socialists and communist policy left and right and dragging the country kicking and screaming into a new liberal nirvana. Those of us on the outside, conservatives, are now the counterculture. We don't know how to do what the lefties where doing for the past 40 years, until this year. The tea parties held across the country demonstrated that there is a groundswell of backlash brewing, pun intended, against the establishment. While the man is getting smitten in his new threads and digging on his rad new gig, we conservatives are picking up the dropped playbook and becoming surprisingly apt at using it. The tea parties were riled against on all fronts, mass media, celebrities, politicians, police, everyone. That goes to show how much fear organizing a dejected group can stir in the new guard. This counterculture is going to result in a new branded conservative group, hopefully not a new GOP. We conservatives need to shed the errors of our past and embrace the change and rise to the challenges of re-branding. Inclusion, tolerance, respect, and intelligence need to be the new ideals to build off of. We all know the liberal arguments for 90% of what they do is flawed, we only need to expose it for what it is, the rest will take care of itself. Stop the in-fighting and get rid of the GOP, where is the Bull Moose, Wigs, and past Sons of Jefferson now. The new counterculture will not be founded on drugs, sex, and rock & roll, but on values like; integrity, honesty, humility, and caring, on ideals like; tolerance, inclusion, intelligent debate, and issue driven policy, and on one last thing, approachability and empathy. We won’t be sticking flowers down gun barrels, we will be buying more guns for hunting and stress relief. We won’t be beating up those who oppose us, but use intelligent and honest debate to let them beat themselves. The greatest lesson we need to learn from them is humility, their lack of it will be their undoing, and if we grow from the grass roots the tea parties came from correctly, it will happen soon and then all things in the world with be right again, yes pun intended. Have a great month and God Bless America, even the lefty liberal insane part, because it shows us where we don’t want to be.

Associated Press: Report: US is ripe for recruiting by extremists

2009-04-22T00:39:00.000-07:00

By EILEEN SULLIVAN – 14 April 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security officials are warning that right-wing
extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the
country's first black president to recruit members to their cause.

In an intelligence assessment issued to law enforcement last week,
Homeland Security officials said there was no specific information about an
attack in the works by right-wing extremists.
The agency warns that an
extended economic downturn with real estate foreclosures, unemployment and an
inability to obtain credit could foster an environment for extremists to recruit
members who may not have been supportive of these causes in the past.

Homeland Security spokesman Sean Smith said the report is one in a series
of assessments issued by the agency's intelligence and analysis unit. The agency
describes these assessments as part of a series published "to facilitate a
greater understanding of the phenomenon of violent radicalization in the United
States."

In February, the department issued a report to law enforcement that said
left-wing extremist groups were likely to use cyber attacks more often in the
next 10 years to further their cause. And in September, the agency issued a
report that highlighted how right-wing extremists over the past five years have
used the immigration debate as a recruiting tool.

And so it begins... Our new Socialist People's Republic of America, lead by Marxists Pelosi, Ried, Frank, and out teleprompter and blunder in chief Obama have put together such a team that is galvanizing power and using their slobbering love affair in the US main steam media to push the country into a new Cuba or old China. Many of you may believe I have fallen off the deep end, drank too much kool-aid, or become so narrow minded and jaded that my views have narrowed to tunnel like fashion seeing only what I want to see. I really wish this were the case. I really wish this were so. I really wish I have become disillusioned and hardened so much that I was seeing things that were not there, the sad truth is that it is not the case. Our liberties, values, and freedoms are under attack now more then they were in the 1700's.

This Department of Homeland Security Report is 8 pages of paranoid, disorganized, and fear mongering drivel I have ever seen come out of our federal government (excluding cover and back page). On the week before massive conservative rallies to voice dissatisfaction and dissent in our leader's passage of massive spending, taxation, and expansion of government that would make Stalin, Mao, and Castro proud. The conservative movement is becoming mobilized and doing so successfully. The conservatives may now finally shed the yoke of the GOP and reshape or form a new party that is more accessible, tolerant of different views but similar ideals, and modernized. But in the light of our movement's reshaping we see the government becoming increasingly paranoid and initiating measures we have seen in previous countries slip into turmoil. Janet Napolitano seems to be laying out battle plans to offset the rising tide of conservative concerns the freedoms, securities, and rights we have enjoyed since 1776 are being eroded, sold, and buried under expanding government and tax burdens.

What is scary is that of all the left wing's noise and left slanted media coverage of the Patriot Act, warrantless wire taps, and excessive executive powers there is slightly a peep of noise over the potential restriction of freedoms suggested of this document. Why? The left only is concerned when 'their' freedoms are questioned, they seem to forget most of us conservatives were worried by these issues as well and voiced our opposition but they care not return the favor. Only the Rolling Stone reporter Tim Dickinson states the report "... is beyond sloppy. It irresponsibly conflates murderous hate-crime-committing white supremacists and homegrown terrorists like Timothy McVeigh with run of the mill right-wingers who, God love ‘em, have every right to vehemently oppose the federal government, abortion, and immigration." is the only voice of concern from the left since the April 7th publication of the report and its immediate release by conservative media outlets, 8 days of little to no coverage, why, because the left only cares about their rights, not the rights of Americans. Seems the ACLU should change their name to the DCLU.

American Legion's national commander David K. Rehbein, an Army veteran, so outraged that he had to send an open letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano explaining the obvious errors and dangers of using such a broad brush to paint a picture of 'right wing extremists' and suggest law enforcement needing to keep an eye on all right-wing minded individuals for possibility of domestic terrorist actions. As a conservative minded US Navy vet who owns and loves guns, believes in God, and holds strong Libertarian views I feel as though I am now an enemy of the state. The rights of assembly, politically opposition speech, and demands for access to their leaders and to let them know they represent more then just the left wing agenda of their party's affiliation seem to all be enemies of the state as well. Meanwhile the knights and warriors of free speech and demonstrations are curiously absent and silent over these reports. All the media can muster is to point out that the DHS had released a left wing extremist paper in January, that report only outlines the far left wings intent to use computers and computer systems to attack, or use environmental terrorism to mark their goals, all with the minimal of violence. That paper does not stoke the fires of worry and fear that this one does. It seems we were never invited to this free speech party, and are not welcome to use its themes and messages.

If you want to wage war there are a few things you have to accomplish before any actions begin. Define, demonize, and marginalize the enemy is one of them. Establish a propaganda campaign to achieve the messages needed to muster and keep support. According to DHS "Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration." So right wing extremists are in 2 camps, hate groups (right to life, defending religious inclusion in our society and lives, and anti illegal immigration groups) and antigovernment (concerned increasing sizes of government, increasing aid programs, increasing federal taxes and deficit spending). How is it that the obviously broken system of immigration control in our country and voicing concerns on it and fleshing out their views in public debate is now a right wing extremist lumped in with skinheads and the KKK? I and my fellow conservative minded Americans are NOT anti-government, we aganist the ideals and principles of: taxation without representation, ram-rodding extreme liberal agenda legislation without public debate and review, our government representatives ignoring and marginalizing 50% of the country with a first grader's attitude of 'nanny nanny boo boo your side lost so there, deal with it', the total whoring out of our security and future to the Chinese and others just so we can pass measuers, budgets, and plans that have been brewing for 40 years in the rotten minds of people like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Ron Frank, and mostly we are concerned the MOST over an irresposible use of and abuse of power demonstrated in our government since November. No we are not anti-government, we want the government to work and to reflect on the ideals and values of the Constitution that guides it, not seeing the government try to reshape the Constitution into a bastardized rellic by plunging the country into Socialism.

The report states that the economy will help extremists recruit vets who are returning and not able to find satisfaction upon return to the country. Maybe if we didn’t try to spend our way out of debt, signal they want to get rid of guns, and vilify the military the left would not have to worry about vets. Maybe if the left were not trying to pass 40 years of legislation and socialization in 2 years then they would not have to worry about antigovernment sentiment. And as for lack of federal government control, that is what this country was founded on, and our states are sovereign, that is why they all have their own constitutions and we have state's rights in our constitution. As for immigration, we all know we need to do more, and more quickly. We need to open debate on this, and all issues for that matter, because the government is about finding a way forward through debate, not being dictated to by an intellectual elite isolated in Washington and feeling the masses are too ignorant and disinterested to have a voice in this government. This document only helps to paint and increasingly bleak picture of where the country is sliding into, socialism here we come! After 3 years in China I am getting pretty good at living in a totalitarian country. All hail Obama. Pelosi 2016!

1694 redux, “A Time for Choosing” – Ronald Reagan, a must read in these times of rising socialism in America

2009-04-22T00:32:00.000-07:00

Originally Aired October 27th, 1964 in Los Angeles California at the Republican National Convention, speaking Ronald Reagan to delegates.

Thank you. Thank you, and good evening.

The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn't been provided with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own words and discuss my own ideas regarding the choice that we face in the next few weeks.

I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used, "We've never had it so good."

But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn't something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector's share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven't balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We've raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold in our treasury; we don't own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars. And we've just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.

As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.

Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.

And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man.

This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: [up] man's old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.

In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they've been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say, "The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says, "The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state." Or, "Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century." Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as "our moral teacher and our leader," and he says he is "hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document." He must "be freed," so that he "can do for us" what he knows "is best." And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government."

Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government" -- this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.

Now, we have no better example of this than government's involvement in the farm economy over the last 30 years. Since 1955, the cost of this program has nearly doubled. One-fourth of farming in America is responsible for 85% of the farm surplus. Three-fourths of farming is out on the free market and has known a 21% increase in the per capita consumption of all its produce. You see, that one-fourth of farming -- that's regulated and controlled by the federal government. In the last three years we've spent 43 dollars in the feed grain program for every dollar bushel of corn we don't grow.

Senator Humphrey last week charged that Barry Goldwater, as President, would seek to eliminate farmers. He should do his homework a little better, because he'll find out that we've had a decline of 5 million in the farm population under these government programs. He'll also find that the Democratic administration has sought to get from Congress [an] extension of the farm program to include that three-fourths that is now free. He'll find that they've also asked for the right to imprison farmers who wouldn't keep books as prescribed by the federal government. The Secretary of Agriculture asked for the right to seize farms through condemnation and resell them to other individuals. And contained in that same program was a provision that would have allowed the federal government to remove 2 million farmers from the soil.

At the same time, there's been an increase in the Department of Agriculture employees. There's now one for every 30 farms in the United States, and still they can't tell us how 66 shiploads of grain headed for Austria disappeared without a trace and Billie Sol Estes never left shore.
Every responsible farmer and farm organization has repeatedly asked the government to free the farm economy, but how -- who are farmers to know what's best for them? The wheat farmers voted against a wheat program. The government passed it anyway. Now the price of bread goes up; the price of wheat to the farmer goes down.

Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. Private property rights [are] so diluted that public interest is almost anything a few government planners decide it should be. In a program that takes from the needy and gives to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a "more compatible use of the land." The President tells us he's now going to start building public housing units in the thousands, where heretofore we've only built them in the hundreds. But FHA [Federal Housing Authority] and the Veterans Administration tell us they have 120,000 housing units they've taken back through mortgage foreclosure. For three decades, we've sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. The latest is the Area Redevelopment Agency.

They've just declared Rice County, Kansas, a depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over 30 million dollars on deposit in personal savings in their banks. And when the government tells you you're depressed, lie down and be depressed.

We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they're going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer -- and they've had almost 30 years of it -- shouldn't we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?

But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we're told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than 3,000 dollars a year. Welfare spending [is] 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We're spending 45 billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you'll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those 9 million poor families, we'd be able to give each family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty. Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running only about 600 dollars per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.

Now -- so now we declare "war on poverty," or "You, too, can be a Bobby Baker." Now do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add 1 billion dollars to the 45 billion we're spending, one more program to the 30-odd we have -- and remember, this new program doesn't replace any, it just duplicates existing programs -- do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in all fairness I should explain there is one part of the new program that isn't duplicated. This is the youth feature. We're now going to solve the dropout problem, juvenile delinquency, by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps [Civilian Conservation Corps], and we're going to put our young people in these camps. But again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we're going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person we help 4,700 dollars a year. We can send them to Harvard for 2,700! Course, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency.

But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who'd come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning 250 dollars a month. She wanted a divorce to get an 80 dollar raise. She's eligible for 330 dollars a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who'd already done that very thing.

Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things -- we're never "for" anything.

Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

Now -- we're for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we've accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.
But we're against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those people who depend on them for a livelihood. They've called it "insurance" to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified it was a welfare program. They only use the term "insurance" to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble. And they're doing just that.

A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary -- his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee 220 dollars a month at age 65. The government promises 127. He could live it up until he's 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now are we so lacking in business sense that we can't put this program on a sound basis, so that people who do require those payments will find they can get them when they're due -- that the cupboard isn't bare?
Barry Goldwater thinks we can.

At the same time, can't we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provision for the non-earning years? Should we not allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn't you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under this program, which we cannot do? I think we're for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we're against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as was announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They've come to the end of the road.

In addition, was Barry Goldwater so irresponsible when he suggested that our government give up its program of deliberate, planned inflation, so that when you do get your Social Security pension, a dollar will buy a dollar's worth, and not 45 cents worth?

I think we're for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we're against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world's population. I think we're against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in the Soviet colonies in the satellite nations.

I think we're for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we're against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We're helping 107. We've spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we bought a 2 million dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n] government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. In the last six years, 52 nations have bought 7 billion dollars worth of our gold, and all 52 are receiving foreign aid from this country.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So, governments' programs, once launched, never disappear.

Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.
Federal employees -- federal employees number two and a half million; and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation's work force employed by government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man's property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury? And they can seize and sell his property at auction to enforce the payment of that fine. In Chico County, Arkansas, James Wier over-planted his rice allotment. The government obtained a 17,000 dollar judgment. And a U.S. marshal sold his 960-acre farm at auction. The government said it was necessary as a warning to others to make the system work.

Last February 19th at the University of Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said, "If Barry Goldwater became President, he would stop the advance of socialism in the United States." I think that's exactly what he will do.
But as a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn't the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration, because back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his Party, and he never returned til the day he died -- because to this day, the leadership of that Party has been taking that Party, that honorable Party, down the road in the image of the labor Socialist Party of England.

Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the -- or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men -- that we're to choose just between two personalities.

Well what of this man that they would destroy -- and in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold dear? Is he the brash and shallow and trigger-happy man they say he is? Well I've been privileged to know him "when." I knew him long before he ever dreamed of trying for high office, and I can tell you personally I've never known a man in my life I believed so incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable thing.

This is a man who, in his own business before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement program, a pension plan for all his employees. He sent monthly checks for life to an employee who was ill and couldn't work. He provides nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by the floods in the Rio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there.

An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas. And he said that [there were] a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. And then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, "Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such," and they went down there, and there was a fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in those weeks before Christmas, all day long, he'd load up the plane, fly it to Arizona, fly them to their homes, fly back over to get another load.

During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said, "There aren't many left who care what happens to her. I'd like her to know I care." This is a man who said to his 19-year-old son, "There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life on that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start." This is not a man who could carelessly send other people's sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I've discussed academic, unless we realize we're in a war that must be won.

Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer -- not an easy answer -- but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.

We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace -- and you can have it in the next second -- surrender.

Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face -- that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand -- the ultimatum. And what then -- when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us.

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin -- just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this -- this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits -- not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.

Thank you, very much.

speech text taken from public domain sources, American Rhetoric website has copyright on their content

Rant of the Month - March

2009-04-22T00:26:00.000-07:00

This has been a busy month, personally, professionally, and hobby wise as well. I have not had much time for my favorite activities but have been observing what is going on and unfortunately I can say I don’t like what I am seeing one bit. It would be nice to get a rant off that was positive or that was praising this or that, I will have to work on that one later.

Domestic Policy – It seems the honeymoon is beginning to lose its shine. 8,000 ear marks and tripling the US deficit spending and our GDP to budget ratio was not enough for the Democrat party. Reneging on campaign pledges, promises, and hype was not enough either. Nor was nationalizing the banking sector or using the crisis to subvert debate in passing the largest spending program in US history and his party stating it was not enough and they would need more. Monday President Obama marked the beginning of US socialism. The US government has effectively overtaken the US auto manufacturing industry by taking over 2/3 of the companies, only Ford is still run by the private sector but it seems their days are numbered too. The Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado were the best selling vehicles in 2007 and this irritates the Democrats. The stimulus money Detroit received, hat in hand, had hooks the auto industry could not imagine. This goes beyond the firing of GM’s CEO and Board Director, they needed to go anyway and long ago, no it goes to the fact that Obama laid out his socializing of the companies after saying he was not doing so, the markets reacted with a huge plunge. Chrysler will now HAVE to merge with a foreign auto company or go under, what was it about keeping companies in American? GM will have to stop selling its most popular vehicle and instead start selling unpopular high fuel efficiency vehicles, the government is telling GM what to sell, how to make it, and how to restructure, not a bankruptcy court who is better able to deal with this, remember this, our government is one of the most wasteful and inefficient in the world when it comes to managing public funds and we are now trusting them to run GM, the worlds largest company? Buick is THE most popular car line here in China, that’s right, get rid of the one profitable division that was keeping the entire company afloat in the largest growing auto market in the world, way to go! You can expect higher taxes on gas now, and those incentives to buy the new cars GM is going to produce, government bribes to force people to buy what they say you should buy, the free market is dead. This is not the first time. Remember the naming of the new New York Stadium a certain bank funded and bought the naming rights to, well again the government steped in and said, you took bail out money, therefore we have the right to tell you what to do with ALL your money and ALL your business decissions.

Science – The space shuttle just returned from a successful mission with the ISS. Unfortunately the ISS had 2 near misses with space debris, thanks to China for blowing up one of their satellites and to us and the Russians for colliding two into each other. Now that we almost have the ISS completed guess what, it is almost at its projected end of life! Nasa wants to replace the shuttle with an Apollo looking capsule, no more Hubble or large payload articles, but with Obama and the Socialists Republic of America in charge I doubt that any real science is on the agenda, just what we can get form embryonic steam cells. With all the mess we have here we really need to have real hope in our ability to rise up above Earth bound strife, like the first lunar missions. Space will hold the key to getting more resources, understanding, and put us on the course of being a species able to expand beyond our home planet when the day comes that it is no longer able to support life.

On a second science related topic, Earth Hour. It seems I am better then a Noble Prize winner! That is right, for 1 hour I had all lights off and observed many Shanghai high rises do the same. I ran things on battery power, candles emit CO2 you know, and today I found out Al Gore had his home lit up like a Christmas tree the whole weekend. Even his CO2 absorbing trees in his front yard were alight to show their majesty when so many home across the planet went dark. Now unless the power plants cut production then Earth hour did not do much good. Those coal power plants were still burning coal. The only difference was that the grids across the world had a slightly less load then normal for a Saturday night, not a significant drop either. It is a good concept, but to make a real impact the power plants would all need to cut production for that 1 hour and have rolling brown outs, then we would have something to cheer about.

Sports – March madness is fully underway and I could care less. Baseball continues to get a black eye, Soccer is proving to be a deadly sport as in any sport held in Pakistan. The NFL wants to extend the season by 2 games. Congress is too busy turning the dial from free market capitalism to quasi communistic socialism to investigate the BCS, maybe we should be thankful. In this time of economic hardship we need a good diversion that people of all philosophies can enjoy. Sports allows us to passively project our aggressions on to those on the field. It demonstrates that team work and hard work can make the impossible possible. It gives us hope we can overcome impossible odds and succeed. Too bad we are in a sports funk. The NBA is losing its luster, baseball is tarnished, hockey is a Canadian sport, and only hicks and inbreeds watch NASCAR. At least we have bowling.

Social issues – Norte Dame got itself into hot water with the Church for extending an invite to Obama for a commencement speech. Now correct me if I am wrong, isn’t ND a private Catholic school? Inviting a politician who’s only legislative achievement in his state and federal legislative career was championing the passage of the Illinois law requiring survivors of abortion to be put to death by denying them any medical care and going to extreme methods if that did not do the job. Add that to the lifting of the embryonic stem cell ban essentially turning planned parenthood clinics into laboratory supply warehouses. All I can say is that the leaders at ND really want to buck the system and prove they are Americans first and Catholics second. I guess they are following the 2 guarantees in life literally, taxes and death. Where is the separation of Church and State on this one, oh yea, private college and public figure, my bad I thought it was only bad for the Church to get involved in the States’ business, not the other way around. While on the topics of religion, our Secretary of State, Hillary, went to Mexico recently and ended up at the site of the patron saint of Mexico’s site for a visit, in Guadalupe, when shown the sacred shroud she asked the priest ‘that is beautiful, who painted it?’ to which the priest stated ‘God’. Classic, you would think the Secretary of State would research a country a little and her route and itinerary to ensure no social or religious snafus would crop up, especially having that get caught on film.

International issues – North Korea… Here we go again. They have invaded Chinese territory to punish two Korean born US Citizens who had the audacity to film their country from the Chinese border. You know there were Americans because anyone who has lived here for more then a year knows that the border between the two is pretty porous and open and China will always turn a blind eye. I guess Al Gore will need to find 2 more recruits, and maybe this time he can tell them what they are getting into before they get paraded in the capital of a hostile state and tortured for treason. In a few days Kim, the Dear Leader, will launch a 3 stage rocket into space to put a communication satellite into orbit. We know this is a veil, because who is North Korea communicating with? They are completely cut off from the world because they can’t control what is out there. What do you want to bet this satellite will be a washing machine or something that will crash into another satellite and cause yet more space junk. The US of course is stating sanctions will be put into place, pttttt. We all know China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, will not allow the rouge nation to be punished. The South Koreans are scared to act, facing down the world’s largest army and knowing how the US has recently dropped support for its Eastern European allies I can’t blame them at all. North Korea needs real pressure placed on them from all 5 partners in ensuring their nuclear ambitions cease as quickly as possible, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, and the US all need to unify and punish North Korea without the UN’s involvement. Once again the UN and our reliance in it is proving to be impotent and ineffective.

Cultural issues – For those who are not aware, there are numerous Tea Parties going on around the country on April 15th. These are to signal to the government we want representation for the taxes we pay by re-enacting the Boston Tea party that was a major event leading up to the creation of our nation. I suggest all seek out these events close you to and attend if at all possible. This is not a conservative only issue, we all pay taxes. Cigarette, gas, alcohol, sales, property, licensing fees, all the hidden little taxes we pay are the major issues. Add that to the porkulous spending and soon to be largest budget in the history of the world and I feel it is vital we send those who work in our names a message that we OWN THEM, they don’t tell us what to do, we tell them WHAT WE WANT and they do it. They represent US, not their party and its wacky ideals, right and left wackyness included. It is time we all READ the constitution and see where in it the government has the power to do what it is doing now. Read the Federalist Papers, our Declaration of Independence, and other founding works so we better understand what the term, We the People means and how the government belongs to US, not the people we send to do our dirty work. Oh, Mr. Obama… we OWN YOU, and your little Nancy Pelosi too, that goes for you Harry Reid and Barney Frank. We OWN all of you, we PAY your salaries, expense accounts, health insurance premiums, retirement savings, remember that. Not until you re-write the Constitution will you break the back of the nation. Here is one for you rich people out there. I challenge each American making over $3 million a year in income to work for only $1 in 2010. This gives you 9 months to save. If you accept this challenge the vast majority of tax revenue to pay for this liberal insanity will not exist! Think about if the richest 10% of the nation, who pay 80% of taxes, forego paying tax for 1 year. Sure it can not be coordinated, just like gas out days or Earth hour, but if all the CEO’s and corporate big wigs did this, the Dems would have no money to study pig farts or the 2010 census results. I also challenge the members of our elected state and federal governments to forgo their salaries for 1 year and cut their staff by 75%. Spend more time listening to the people who you represent and reading their letters and less time with lobbyists and fellow government employees so you are connected with the people to whom you ultimately answer. This will save hundreds of millions of tax dollars and will reconnect the elected to the electors and ensure only those who have a duty to serve will do so. Do that and I will eat my shoes, raw.

Talking about: "Natural forces stalling global warming, UWM pair say" - JSOnline

2009-04-22T00:24:00.001-07:00

Today I was amazed to learn my alma mater, UW-Milwaukee, is beginning to make the news over a very controversial publication in a scientific journal. In the late February edition of Geophysical Research Letters and later picked up by Discovery Channel News but has just now began to get circulated on major news outlets. So why am I bringing this up, and it is not to shamefully plug my far left-wing university? The paper, titled “Has Climate Recently Shifted?” authored by Kyle Swanson and Anastasios Tsonis. The research paper, if you care to read it, outlines how the climate temperatures of the past decade mathematically indicate the planet is actually cooling, not warming as Al Gore and the rest of the global warming, I mean climate change, crowd insist. Now these two are not trying to debunk or disprove climate change, to the contrary they are stating their findings only state the climate is equalizing now, but their mathematical models do explain what I and many others have been stating for the past 5 years, the Earth heats and cools naturally and human intervention most likely has little impact on this, i.e. age of dinosaurs being tropic, ice age being, well, ice.

Before some of the radical left try to skewer these two please note this. They have been published 11 times since 2007 and referenced numerous times in citations, very important in advancing in the academic world. They used a complex advanced mathematical model called synchronized chaos which has been under study since the 1970’s, of course scientists then believed we were entering another ice age too. This pair has been working on and publishing papers on this since 2007 and their research is funded by the National Science Foundation and cited by major science publication organizations. The pair has not anticipated being drawn into the eye of the storm of climate change debate however. Their findings are based on sound and proven techniques and show that global warming peaked and waned at the turn of the century and we are now in a state of cooling as the oceans and atmosphere are equalizing.

While it is true there are glaciers retreating and breaking off into the oceans, sea levels are rising, and we need to better use our energy resources and stop depending on technology of 100 years ago we also neet to look for better ways to fuel out energy needs (use more nuclear power), this much is true and observed. However the science behind Gore’s Nobel Prize winning fiction piece and other’s distorted views colored by mass media agenda driven propaganda is not 100% clear. The debate is not over. We have seen divesting cold winters for the past 3 years in Asia, Europe, and North America with documented falling temperatures globally since 2005. Yes we need to change, but as I have stated before, we should not presume to be so arrogant as to believe our existence on this planet can actually destroy the climate. Science is proving the climate has changed radically and for unknown reasons in the past. Pole shifts, ash clouds, mass floods, expanding and contracting deserts, yo-yoing ocean levels, all of this happens every few thousand years. We have only just begun to record climate for the what, 200 years at best? The model the two authors use accurately tracks the temperatures of the last 100 years and clearly points out the current seen phenomena of global cooling and predicts continued cooling followed by another cycle of warming.

These two took some of the same classes I took at UWM. I know the professor who explained that all this global warming talk is premature until we can understand the effect of our axis wobble, planet wobble, orbit wobble, and sun’s expansion, contraction, and solar storms on our climate and track it for long enough to predict it, at least 3 full cycles (about 30,000 years). The core ice samples, sandstone layers, peat bog cores, are all good but they do not paint a complete picture. This study is not complete either, but it goes a long way in stating what many of us have been saying but were ignored and shouted down by the main stream media, global warming, I mean climate change, is sexy, normal weather patterns is not. Those taking advantage of and pushing the hysteria are left wing fruit cakes hell bent on destroying our current society (based on manufactoring, fossil fuels, plastics, and anything produced since the 1800's). Their agenda is clear, fear and loathing, and those buying into it need to sit down and seriously look at the facts, not the science fiction.

So now the major press is getting wind of this story, Wisconsin is all abuzz about it and scientists who want to prove the case with science and facts before crying wolf are going to ensure this message gets out. So before we get all huffy and puffy about this and draw lines in the sand, we need to make sure what is what and what isn’t. Yes we need to pollute less, yes we need to use less electricity (hang clothes out the window like here in China and not use dryers), yes Earth Hour this weekend is important (I am participating), and yes we need to develop better and more efficient energy production and transmission, but we don’t need to cause a panic to push a hair brain agenda that is not proven and based off of incomplete science. The reason for the fear and hype is to get the public at large to support the destruction of industrialzation and set back social development thousands of years. Odds are Yellowstone will blow its top and plunge half the world into a ‘nuclear winter’ before we kill off all the ocean fish and foliage on the planet with our carbon emmissions. People for the most part are basing 99% of their opinions on emotional propaganda produced by ratings driven mass media and agenda driven left-wing idealists who are now taking over America. Real science strips emotion out of the process and used facts, logic, and math to show the reality of it all. Lets finish the science before we go back to living in caves and hunting for a living. My ancestors were doing that just 100 years ago so it would be easy for me to revert, except my country is invaded by Europeans and they killed off nearly all my food source, the buffalo. There is an old saying that applies here, don't go off half cocked.

Sources, resources, and sites full of science and facts
http://www.wisn.com/weather/18935841/detail.html http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/02/global-warming-pause.html http://www.uwm.edu/~kswanson/publications/2008GL037022_all.pdf http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/41870692.html http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801175711.htm http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=266711 http://www.topix.com/news/global-warming/2009/03/uw-milwaukee-study-could-realign-climate-change-theory

Vast right-wing conspiracy… part 2

2009-04-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

Ah, the good old days of the Clinton administration. Bill was constantly under investigation for shady real estate deals, girl friends or interns, or renting out the Lincoln bedroom and Hillary was shot down in flames over socializing health care. It was at this time that she stated there was a vast right wing conspiracy to bring the Clintons down. This was a defining moment in showing the Clintons as bitter and slightly kooky. There is a reason why you can’t convict a capital crime on circumstantial evidence alone, ask OJ about that one.

I am not going to fall into the obvious trap of implying the same thing madam president was doing at the time of Billy’s impeachment. Instead I am going to outline the circumstances slowly coming into view like the jagged rocks of a cliff in the fog on a shipwreck inlet.

I could go on for thousands of words on Obama’s lack of experience, ignorance, stupidity, and incompetence but that will achieve nothing more then ire from liberal minded ones who are still basking in the glow of electing the first half black man who was raised by whites in Hawaii and attended Harvard and Harvard Law becoming president of Harvard Law Review (as far from being black as an Irishman raised in Alaska) to president of our fair republic. I could write for pages about Pelosi, Reid, Frank and the rest of the government insane clown posse better known as the Democrat controlled Congress but again pointing out the worst approval rating governmental body in US history, worse then GWB over the past 3 years, will only incite the left to cry fowl and say I am part of the problem and not the solution. I will save that for another blog on another day because all that stuff is just too good to resist writing about.

I will talk about the utter hypocrisy revelation of the month. that of Obama’s go to financial wizard, remember the new head of the IRS who was a habitual tax cheat, was the author of the loopholes allowing AIG to issue and pay bonuses to top executives. I can go one better, the very Congressional Democrats who were loudest against the bonuses were the ones who also authored the initial bailout package to AIG and the lack of intelligent controls of the money, most of which evaporated. Who were the largest contributor to 4 out of 5 Democrats railing against AIG’s bonuses, you guessed it AIG, check it out, its public record. That is how the initial bailout funds were given, and lost, and how the second round ended up going to bonuses and such, now its a big deal.

Puppet master Pelosi. If Obama is not in Washington who is running the government, I will give you 2 guesses and Joe Bidden is not one of them. The problem in Pelosi and the DNC’s plan is that Obama is a little too arrogant and gaff prone to pull off the empty suit role effectively. The years of cultivation and planning are now jeopardized because the perfect pansy who could razzle and dazzle and divert attention is under the assumption he is actually in charge and calling the shots, the gaul and audacity of him! Obama has scolded and chided the Democrats on the 8,000 earmark stimulus bill, wink wink, nod nod and passed it anyway saying while not perfect it had to be passed. His role as diversion tactic eye candy worked as he stated we HAD to pass now worked well, but not well enough. Pelosi, off the win of her insane SCHIP package does not know when to cool it, she is getting greedy and impatient and is pulling back the curtain so we can see the wizard behind the machine. Now she is calling for a second stimulus, and all this when Obama’s budget is 13% GDP, GWB’s war time only got up to 5%, and the GAO is stating his calculations are now almost $2 trillion short! Where will all this money come from, tax the rich! tax the rich! tax the rich! Redefine who is rich.

Obama needs a “thinking on your feet” upgrade. First he insults mentally impaired people and gets a pass Ben Stiller wishes he got for Tropic Thunder. Then he makes light and jokes about the economy on 60 minutes, getting light press. Follow all this up with his performance in the staged circus the White House calls a press conference (pre selected reporters and questions only please) and he states 2 items that hare lighting up the conservative blogsphere, first 1 out of 50 children in America are homeless and many are living under bridges, wow that is a lot of kids living like trolls. Second he says that it isn’t fair for rich people to get a 39% tax deduction on charities, home mortgages, etc. and should only get a 28% deduction like the lower tax brackets, oh and no tax itemizations for the rich. So if it isn’t fair to get the tax cut, why is it fair to pay the higher tax rate? Fair is fair, people who pay higher taxes would get higher tax breaks in an equal proportion. Raising the rate of taxes rich people pay but lowering the deductions they can claim is the opposite of fair. The only thing that is more bazaar is his answer to the follow up question, you know, if the rich don’t get to deduct charitable contributions Obama thinks they will continue to donate at their existing levels. Rich people give money to get the deduction, take away the incentive and they will pay less, there is no real motivation to give more, oh and conservative are proved to contribute more to charity then liberals, unless it was on purpose so the government can take over the running and operations of the charities. Should rich people pay more taxes, of course, should they get proportionate deductions, of course because this encourages them to donate more or pay a higher mortgage, which provides more property tax revenue for the local community.

Obama is a lousy magician. The first thing they teach you in magician school is to distract people’s attention with one hand while you do the trick with the other. Obama was going to bring bi-partisanism back to D.C, then did nothing with Pelosi and Reid locked out Republicans from stimulus bill and omnibus spending bill authoring, resulting in the infamous 8,000 earmarks. He was going to bring hope and faith in our government back, now more and more people are skeptical of socialism, taxes, deficit spending, and inflation. Obama was going to rebuild our international reputation, closed GITMO, sort of, sparked a trade war with Mexico, was talked down to by Canada, Great Britain, and now the EU over our protectionism and isolationism legislation. He was going to rebuild confidence and strength in America, now his brilliant tax dodging Treasury Secretary is agreeing with China in establishing a new international currency because confidence in the US dollar is at an all time low. Obama was going to bring integrity to Washington, well 13 tax cheats, numerous lobbyists, beltway Clinton administration insiders, and Chicago machine cogs later we have an administration that echoes “the more things change the more they stay the same”, that is change we can believe in. Transparency, well the 5 day review policy has already been blogged on by yours truly. How about accountability, call Obama the president of a 1000 czars. The administration’s usage of the unofficial official czar role, the most of any administration, is anything but accountable, no Senate confirmations, no elections, no committees, the president’s ear, this is so bad Democrat senator Robert Byrd has sent Obama a letter stating grave concern and outlining Obama’s historic overuse of the position that czars “inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability” and later added “The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the constitutional system of checks and balances”, harsh words of abuse of presidential powers, something Obama always pinned on GWB. Partial list of czars; health reform, energy and climate change, urban affairs, economic, AIDS, Drug, Stimulus (VP Biden), tech, education, copyright, intelligence, and all working directly for the president, bypassing existing channels and having no checks or balances. While this seems like a good idea it provides a new layer of governance to move through and they have to share power with confirmed cabinet members. Accountability.

Hillary is one smart politician. By taking the Secretary of State job she has isolated herself and cemented her foreign policy experience and contacts. She is no longer a Senator so she is not accountable to the citizens of New York State. She does not have to defend or explain her voting record anymore. If the Obama administration continues to self destruct and bring backlash to the party, she will be positioned as a golden candidate. She is racking up the experience and contacts on the world stage. She has gotten Obama and his groupies to pay off her campaign debt. Man, those Clintons are smart. Oh, and giving Obama most of their people for his administration and they can destroy if from the inside, and if you don’t believe they are above such dirty tricks, you don’t know politics.

I am pointing out the double speak of the administration and our Congress. If you want solutions, real and not invented (all I can provide) well, we will have to wait until balanced budgets are realized and leprecons riding unicorns are seen on K street chasing out the lobbyists. I can Monday morning QB the administration, but that is merely an exercise in futility, much like training for a week on the ISS. Some things are obvious from the get go, a slow PC, a bad TV, shoddy craftsmanship, others take a while, the lemon of a car, bad furniture to bad clothing. This administration is proving to be the latter, no need to take it back for repairs, its obviously broken. We now have North Korea readying their second test of an ICBM, Iran exposed supplying terrorists in Palestine, Hugo Chavez mouthing off, Mexico setting tariffs over a trucking row, China submitting a vote of no confidence in the US dollar, and of course there is still Russia out there too, oh yea and a domestic disaster that was built and nourished by the Democrat lead Congress in place now and recent revelations and policies of ACORN and HUD that created the housing mess that sparked it all, and Obama was a cog in that wheel too. The evidence of a vast left-wing conspiracy is not there, but it we conservatives were like Hillary we would call it so.

Note to liberals: Actions speak louder then words…

2009-03-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

I have been running into more and more Americans here overseas who are grateful to be out of the country in this time of uncertainty. Why, they all cite the economy and the direction of the country. For all the white washing, name calling, and blame shifting the media is screaming at the public to such a deafening volume, the reality is just not in synch. I am not saying this as a sore loser conservative or doom and gloom nay-sayer but as an American who is watching the ship sink as it catches fire and burns on the way down. This is the reality of what is going on. Despite the love affair from all corners of the liberal community towards this new ‘golden age’ of American politics we are witnessing the total collapse of our free market economy and the beginnings to nationalization of all things to all people in the country.

The more the US government acts the more the markets go down. Pelosi ramrods a bill, the market tanks. Pelosi and Reid hold closed door stimulus deals, the market tanks. Obama signs a bill into law, the market tanks. Obama and his tax dodging economy geniuses make comments and testimony, the market tanks. Obama tries to calm down the markets, yep it tanks. Day in and day out I have seen my modest retirement savings plummet to near initial investment levels, despite pumping in more money to take advantage of low mutual fund and stock prices. Since Obama has been sworn in we have seen little if any impact on the markets from any newly identified source. We have had full knowledge of what has been going on since January; AIG, Citi Group, Bank of America, GM and Chrysler, all of it has had no shocking new or damaging revelations announced since January. Global markets and currencies are not falling dramatically and for the most part are declining in a steady yet stable glide down. Despite all this the markets have shed 23% of its value in this time, why?

I have stated on this blog I would give Obama a chance and some opportunities to show himself and his true colors before I began criticizing his leadership and administration. That time is now officially over. In less then 100 days Obama has taken a bad situation and made it drastically worse. The levels of incompetence, ignorance, and sheer lunacy going on in Washington DC is making me seriously consider the unthinkable, that my beloved country will only emerge from this crisis as a pale shadow of its former self. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid’s vision of America through their actions has done more damage and destroyed more progress in our country then Al Qaida has with all its attacks on our country, combined. I am not exaggerating, look at the results since November and where we are today and look at the same amount of time from the USS Cole, African embassy bombings, and both WTC attacks.

I am not going to back down or sugar coat this criticism under the hopes and desires to have the Obama dream presidency turn a corner and we are all delivered to the liberal promised land. Obama’s lack of real job experience is showing and this is being reflected by the confidence in our economy to recover and our country to return to a leadership position on the world stage. We Americans vote in many ways on many things everyday. The stark reality to the liberal dream is that nobody is buying it. The more Obama does and the more information that is released on the direction he is leading the country into is being voted against every day in the Stock Exchanges, Corporate employment departments, local governments, and households across the nation. Lack of confidence is causing the money to be saved and squatted on by all those who really matter in our economy, the ones who run our businesses. If Obama is trying to break the back of the free market system and establish a nanny state or a society solely dependant on the government for survival then congratulations, its working.

The armature dealings go far beyond our economic mess, to secret letters to Russia leaked to the NY Times (a liberal mouthpiece so we know it came from the White House itself), to protectionism legislation despite calls from around the world it will result in trade wars and even England’s Prime Minister coming to DC and saying directly not to do it, to their lack of response to North Korea on its attention getting remarks on saying it wants a war with us, to Iran who must be laughing at us for the Russian back door policy disaster with the very country who is building Iran’s enrichment facilities, to his lack of showing China the respect and gratitude he needs to for the help we will need from them over the next 2 years, to his top officials engaging in a media war with conservative talk show hosts for no other reason then to posture for the next election to help make more gains in mid term elections, to Obama’s sour grapes response to Republican opposition to his policy and legislation when he does not even need their votes or support to pass these things because his party controls everything anyway, the Republicans are irrelevant and impotent in the government so just let them speak out and scream because it will not matter at the end of the day because they don’t have the votes to stop anything.

Barack Obama has not had a real job in his life, much less a real leadership job in any facet of the definition of the word and we wonder why the world is crumbling down around us despite all the wonderful words and platitudes Obama spews from his golden tongued font. Talk is cheap, actions speak louder then words, if you talk the talk you better be able to walk the walk, proof is in the pudding, a bird in the hand is better then 2 in the bush. No matter how you want to put it the leadership of the nation is NOT happening. The direction the country is being steered in is NOT working. Confidence in our country is NOT there. Throwing money into the abyss in hopes it will fill is NOT working. Saying a single company is too big to fail is NOT the right answer. The Democratic vision of how to fix this mess is NOT resulting in anything coming close to the neighborhood of success. Yes it has been only 4 months since Obama won the election and 2 months since him taking office but how far are we willing to let things drop before we demand a different direction? Guess what, by the time Obama hits 100 days we are dangerously close to seeing some of the largest companies in US history fail which will cascade far beyond what anyone can imagine. Here is something else for you, George W. Bush is not to blame. His administration fell asleep at the switch over lending regulations, this stimulus plan authored proudly by Pelosi and Reid and signed into law by Obama will be judged by its real impact.

Obama’s eloquent public speaking skills have not steemed the tide of unemployment as over 1,000,000 jobs have been lost since Obama took office in January. That is the reality. Nationalizing healthcare talk and banks have not loosened up lending or instilled confidence in companies to stop laying off people. Delaying tax cuts and promising to bailout irresponsible homeowners who bought more home then they could afford has not spurred investment in small business expansion, creation, or investment into the very companies who are cutting back expansion and laying off workers left and right. Obama’s public charm and intoxication of inspiration has not worked on those very groups who employ or create jobs in our country. Obama’s building bridges and rebuilding our international reputation has not paid any dividends or promises of partnerships but has drawn warnings and promises of retaliation for his Buy American pledge from our staunches allies to at arm length partners. Canada, England, and Asian countries have all lectured Obama on this policy and yet, he is still going down this road. No, word are truly cheap, the cost of taking the wrong actions appear to be the wealth and economic power of our country. If Obama does not stop this insanity and Pelosi and Reid stopped with losing the majority of seats in Congress then is seems we will see the real cost of all these wrong actions. Talk is cheap, the actions taken are showing no way of fixing the mess we are in. There is something worse then inaction, the wrong action and that is what the far left liberals have pushed for and achieved at this particular moment. Our governments actions are causing much more harm then good and as the liberals sing songs of praise the ship is continuing to sink, but now the fires are beginning to burn and it may be too late to save the mess now.

After the dust settles, its beginning to look a lot like class warfare

2009-02-14T11:53:00.000-08:00

Obama’s 5 day pledge will not be used on this legislation because it is deemed ‘emergency legislation’, not that that seems to be stopping him from upholding that pledge anyway. The corrected, consolidated and merged House and Senate bills were online the evening of Friday the 13th, Obama will sign it Monday morning. The documents are HUGE, Section A is 496 pages – 5Mb and Section B is 575 - 2Mb. Going through it to find all the hidden earmarks, pork, and wasteful spending would take a week or longer! You can’t trust the summaries or press as they are so slanted it is unbelievable. The point is this, this bill is shaping up a clear cut class war. The payouts and provisions are all aimed at aiding those dependant on government aid, buying more of their loyalty, forcing the middle class into dependency on the government for sustainability, and undermining the upper class in an attempt to redistribute their wealth completely (much the same way as happens in all revolutions where rich people’s properties are taken and given to the poor). This is becoming more and more clear as I analyze the flapping head talk show hosts, blogs, and what the media is leaving out of the discussions on what is going on in this country now. As I stated earlier, good thing I am in China, now I can apply the living in an authoritarian communist society to my home country.

Just breezing through the first 20 pages I came across a $400 million provision for WIC, the women, infant, and children for providing nutriesous and free foods necessary for development (milk, orange juice, cheese, cereal, etc.). Working for a grocery store in rural Alabama for 6 years and I know about it all too well. The provision states clearly that $100 million is only to be used for funding the program, the remainder is to be used when it is expanded to enroll more people. This expansion is used to hook people on dependency on government aid, little by little. One of my favorite talk show hosts said it best, its like what a drug dealer does to get new clients, he gives away free drugs to get you hooked and then he starts charging when you need it. This package, while some is necessary and needed, is government crack handed out to hook us all. $100 million to expand free lunch programs, provided the schools only use it for new equipment and have a population of students eligible for the program at 50% or higher. Seeing public school enrollment is declining, as our population is, and school districts are having to close down schools would it not be a better use of funds to use it to; hire staff, buy better quality food, or expand the program to charter schools and alternative schools?

Increasing social services does not stimulate the immediate needs of our economy! Increasing social programs does nothing to fix the problems of job loss, frozen credit, home value increases, or spur domestic spending which all the Democrats have acknowledged is what the real problem is! All these programs are long term spending programs. They all require local taxes to fund. Where do you suppose this funding will come from in October, when this budget plan expires? Oh, you did not know this bill is just for this fiscal budget year? Surprise, we will get a peek at Obama’s wish list for the next fiscal year at the end of the month. Back to the point, the funding for all this expansion of WIC, school lunch, Medicare/Medicaid, unemployment benefits, etc, will be coming out of local tax bases. Yep, local communities will have to hike up property, sales, and income taxes to pay for the new expanded services. This will bog down local economic growth and make the case for federal funding grants to the local communities cementing their dependency on and influence by federal government into local communities across the nation. California and Wisconsin are already using their portion of the bill to supplement their deficit spending (remember all states are required by law to have balanced budgets). This financial crack being handed out will make communities and people dependant on the government. Once you do that the government will tell you how to spend that money.

What was Bill Clinton’s crowning achievement as president? Come on, you know you can name it. Letting Bin Laden go, Kosovo, White Water, the tech bubble, Monica Gate, Socialized Medicine, NAFTA, getting impeached? Nope, it was workfare, the reform of welfare to make people who could work work to receive assistance. Well that was just erased. This bill, soon to be law, now allows tens of millions sit at home and collect a check with no job searching provisions or minimum hours of work at a job to receive. Welfare is there as a supplement to allow you time to get another job. If you don’t have to get another job and they expand it from 6 months to 10~12 months then what incentive do you have to look for work? It is encouraging laziness and dependency on government aid. What was lauded as a success under Clinton’s 8 years of hell was now killed by the very party that created it. Making the middleclass slaves and then slowly turning them into lower class will help swell the ranks of those for an impending class warfare.

Remember the good old days of president Bush when the Democrats were screaming about raising the deficit spending from 3% to 4% of our GDP to fund the war? Remember when Regan created a recession and deficit spending of 3% of our GDP to fix Carter’s catastrophe? You will now because this bill puts our deficit spending at 13~14% of GDP based off of pre-recession GDP figures! That is like having a sub-prime mortgage loan with a teaser rate of $900 a month and after 4 years jumps to $3,600 a month… oh wait many can relate to that because that is what cause the housing melt down that tripped off this whole mess in the first place! We have increased our deficit spending 3 to 4 times! Why were the Democrats screaming at Bush for increasing it a measly 0.5% 4 years ago and happily going with these gross increases now? We are putting ourselves on a collision course and the reasons are eerily pointing toward a new class war in the country.

How can all this spending be paid for. If you take all the war spending since it began 6 years ago, throw in the homeland security spending for good measure, you still don’t match the spending in this bill! The Democrats seem to hate spending money on war, but spending it on re-analyzing the results of the 2010 census findings and other things that don’t fix our economic problems outlined above is totally fine. Just as SCHIP was lauded by Pelosi and she defended its birth control measure by saying it was a stimulus provision, no cost saving provision, no, well she blew it off anyway. The Democrats love to spend money and could care less about oversight. Case in point. Obama’s ridicule of a bank’s planned annual event to Las Vegas, for an employee recognition and senior executive meeting to review and plan the next year’s strategies, and his fervor against another bank’s marketing budget at the Superbowl, to gain more clients, deposits, and loan candidates. Because these banks took TARP funds he want to tell them what they can’t spend money on. Its their fault for taking the funds, but if they take federal funds does the government have the right to tell them how to spend their money? Really? If so I want to tell all the unionized school teachers in America where, when, and how to spend their paychecks, vacations, and personal expenses. They receive tax dollars. How about the Post Office. With this new 2 cent increase I don’t want to see them spend anymore on advertising, overtime, use 30% less fuel, and get rid of all unhealthy foods on government property because I fund their healthcare too! See, when the shoe is on the other foot it feels different.

Our deficit spending is funded by; taxes received over the next fiscal year, treasury bonds sold to private, public, and sovereign wealth funds (countries), and deals involving trade and currency exchanges. This tripling of deficit spending pushes the bonds down to historic lows eroding the confidence they can even be repaid! Private investors are not going to buy them, they just lost 50% of their wealth when the markets collapsed (if they were lucky) and the bond rates now are less then 0.6% return on 10 years! Businesses won’t be getting any bonds for the same reasons. Japan and China (#2 and #3 economies respectfully) are hurting and can only buy a small fraction of bonds as they are in recessions and problems of their own. Global markets are all down and digging in by spending less as investments. Some want to see the dollar fall as it will increase their currency or GDP rates. So the only other option is to just print money. Without a value based on it the value of the currency will fall, simple supply vs demand. As demand for US dollars falls supply will skyrocket, making inflation and possible devaluation a stark reality. The US dollar may become just like the Mexican peso, worth less 24 hours after it was printed. All that money will mean little if prices go up to match the realistic value of the currency. Remember the good old days of Carter and his triple doubles, double digit inflation, unemployment, and national debt increases? Well, get used to it because here we go again. Funny thing here. This bill is trying an old formula that has failed in every communists and socialists country over the past 60 years yet we feel we can make it work this time around. China abandoned government run businesses 30 years ago and adopted a more capitalistic approach, the results… from 3rd world to 3rd largest economy and still growing in a global recession all in 30 years, it has never happened before. It seems China and American are two passing ships in the night, each going to where the other has just came from.

All this circles back to the positioning of class warfare in the country. The Democrats, drunk off of their huge wins this past fall, have placed a 40 year in the making wish list up before a president who is going to sign it into law after the public, who will be paying for it, gets less then a weekend to review and inform their Congress members how to vote on it. 40 years of far left wing ideas, philosophies, and scams will become a reality, all with smiles and pats on the backs while the president told the nation, with a straight face, that this was necessary and had to be done now, because waiting another week or two would doom us all to, well whatever the Democrats version of a non-religious Hell would be. These measures will place the yoke of dependency on the middleclass. These measures are aimed at going after the rich. While not rich, a fan of the rich, nor a believer that rich people are anything besides scum, I feel in out country that if you work hard and are persistent you should get rewarded accordingly. What about Paris Hilton? I would love to see her on WIC and food stamps, but only as a result of her family disowning her or cutting her off permanently. There is a gambler’s saying that applies here, scared money don’t make no money. The reward of a high payout is worth the risk, this is what created the rich people in the first place, they were willing to go it alone when it looked worst. Are we saying now that they are bad for being successful? Are we no longer rewarding success? Are we now going to say that those with money have to support a system that has declared war on it for no other reason then what they make in a year? Sounds pretty un-American to me.

The investments of this package do 3 things. It boosts popularity by those stead fast loyalist who already receive entitlement and feel their plight is the fault of others. It purchases the loyalty of the middleclass under the guise of short term assistance until things improve. It sets up a system so bloated and large the amount of resources required to maintain it exceed what we can afford and this will push the middleclass into the rank of the entitlement receivers. That will leave just the large companies and the rich to fund the rest. Of course the government counts on them staying where they are out of some sense that America at that time is still better then Dubai, China, Vietnam, Brazil, India, hell even Canada, Australia, and others. Not only will pay caps on top executives create brain drain in those companies, the top tier talent going where the pay and benefits match the work, class warfare and assaults on our elites will create wealth drain faster then the government can take it. Rich people are smart in one area and one area alone, retaining wealth. If they can’t do that here there is nothing preventing them from jumping ship. They employ the smartest people to manage their money, loyalty and nationalism only goes so far. Unlike France during their revolution, the world is smaller and easier to navigate in today. This year celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Other countries have blood soaked shifts of power or wealth throughout their recent histories too. The US, and to some extent Russia, do not operate this way. This war will not include poor peasants running into mansions and looting them, no that will be left up to the government. Tax increases, road blocks for investments and business operations, death taxes, luxury taxes, and the like. This war will backfire on the Democrats and cause a mass exodus where other countries will get the tax dollars we will miss. Then we all are left holding a very big and heavy bag. Remember that little war at the turn of the last century? They passed and implemented a ‘rich’ person tax to pay for that war, on telephones that at the time only rich people had, well, we still pay that tax today each month.

As I have stated earlier. Liberals tend to be very short sighted with their ideals. All this stuff looks like it was cooked up in the 1960’s and now has the chance to see the light of day, however over that time they never got past the ‘would it be radical and cool if we did “x” – never thinking through what would happen next or because of it. Those of us who are left will look around and wonder how it all happened, well this is it. Remember Mr. ‘it’s patriotic to pay taxes’ Bidden kept lowering his definition of rich from $250,000 household income to $200,000 and then to $150,000, well you should because it may have to go lower, meaning all those nice taxes above could be coming your way. That is how class warfare is conduced, full frontal assaults on the supply lines and resources used. It may be bloodless but the effects are just as devastating. Pelosi and Reid have rammed 40 years if unfilled X-mas wish lists into the first real legislation Obama will sign and doing so as to ‘not let a good crisis go to waste’, yep that sounds like this is on the up and up and we have all that hope of change and transparency happening here. Just as Wisconsin found out when their ‘tax Hell’ drove thousands of tax payers to Florida and Arizona (who were grateful in receiving new tax bases) and are now left with a $3 billion deficit, you can only tax so much before those getting taxed will leave. A strategy to take down ‘the man’ and stick it to ‘the rich’ is getting underway, power to the people and those ‘the man’ has held down for too long, we are with you brothers and sisters, our time has come, we will get all we deserve now, follow us to the promised land of equality, harmony, lollipops, unicorns, and chocolate rivers.

Betsy McCaughey Identifies the beginning of Amerikan Socialism

2009-02-11T18:30:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the People's Republic of Americka. The United States of America is about to be heaped up on the scrap heap of wrongly named countries like the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. A republic is a form of government where representatives debate and present government issues for the people they represent. According to our leaders, Obama in particular, we are not allowed to debate, review, oversee, or even think about this legislation, the largest spending package in human history! Trust us they say, Pelosi raises her hand on CNN stating there is no pork, Obama states there is no pork, if they say it long enough then it must be true. Here in China the people only know what the government is doing after it is done, America seems to be doing the same thing now, pass it now and find out what is in there later. The doom and gloom has made it too urgent to review, and it has to be passed NOW! We no long have open debate, exchange of ideas, or moderation of extreme fringe philosophies from being forced on us moderates or nonbelievers. This stimulus bill has much more then pork, even if they changed the name of pork and ear marks and placed them in the bill in a way that does not fit the definition of ear marks. Two wrongs don't make a right, so stop saying that all the conservative ear marks over the past 8 years justifies this round, and while we are there, didn't Pelosi and the Dems have control of Congress for the past 4 years, making all the pork, waste, and stupidity passed by Congress their faults, thought so. Glad I am in China and getting orientated in how to live in a socialists and non-republic country, all hail dear leader Obama.

Yesterday's Bloomberg has an opinion column by Betsy McCaughey that outlines the takeover of our healthcare system by the government. This shifts the bad care we have today from HMO's to Government. Now some government body will dictate what treatment you get and when you get it. Get ready to stand in line for that operation. Ask people in Canada and Briton how well this works out for them. Oh, and how does socializing healthcare stimulate the economy, please enlighten me. Excerpts below.

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

Again, I am not joking. This is gravely serious. Add this to the now $3 trillion total cost of the next wave of TARP, Stimulus bill, and new spending initiatives and how is this going to be paid for? Do you think taxes can cover this? We are all getting a tax cut according to the NICP, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. So what is left, corporate taxes, windfall taxes, well in this economy you can count that out with double digit decline. The $3 trillion total spending will have to come from somewhere, $325 billion is paid for already, $850+ via taxes (stimulus bill), $1 trillion for freeing up credit markets by buying toxic paper that will have to be raised by selling American bonds to other countries, sovereign wealth funds, and private investors. Well, American investors have lost 50~70% of their worth in the current market downturn, and will be taxed more for it. China, Japan, Germany(number 2, 3, 4 economies in the world) and the EU have stated they can only purchase a few bonds and only of the stimulus legislation has NO protection measures in it, which in its current form it does not. So if only we can get them to buy this, which they don't want to, that still leaves $1 trillion for the spending our tax evading Treasury Secretary just outlined and caused the markets to sink 381 points in an hour! We will print it. Welcome to double digit inflation, meaning your $1 today will have about 0.90 or less depending on the inflation rate next year. Look at Mexico and Zimbabwe for insight on inflation. Just printing money to flood the market will overheat the economy to the point of creating inflation so bad it will make Japan's lost decade look like road bump compared to the Grand Canyon.

Dems tip their hand in destroying the 1st Amendment

2009-02-08T23:36:00.000-08:00

The left is now the establishment, the man, big brother. They are starting to institute their socialists agenda using the backdrop of the financial crisis as an excuse. Below is the beginning to their outright assault on the 1st Amendment, our right to speak freely without fear of government reprisal. It would be funny if it weren't true, see the proof below, this is not made up or a test or anything else then the cold sober truth of the possible beginning of the end. It is an attempt to shut down dissenting views clearing the forum of open debate and free flowing ideas via talk radio, at first, then setting up measures to control TV, press, and all forms and forums of communication labeling dissent as hate speech, all this led by the wife of a former radio executive who has had a hand in the failure of 3 radio networks who could not compete with conservative talk radio, very interesting.

A few links to read:
Corey Deitz - The Fairness Doctrine: Free Speech and the Radio Marketplace
Free Speech – n. "The right to express any opinion in public without censorship or restraint by the government." – Answers.com
Lately, because of the dominant conservative tone of talk radio, there have been calls for a return to something referred to as "The Fairness Doctrine". In reality, it should have really been called the "Forced-Balance Doctrine". Unfortunately, freedom of speech is not necessarily about balance. Rather, freedom of speech is more often about imbalance – and how the strength of one or more opinions wins in the competitive court of public discourse.
http://radio.about.com/od/opinionpieces/a/aa070308a.htm

Barbara Simpson - Beware unintended consequences
Michigan's Democrat Sen. Debbie Stabenow is the latest, and she makes no bones about it. She says "fairness" and "balance" on talk radio "is coming." She says the issue is "accountability."
She means the government will decide what can be said, where and by whom. She's not alone: Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Jess Bingaman and others are on board, too.
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=88360

Debbie Stabenow and the Fairness Doctrine
According to the Politico, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, is the latest politician who wants to rein in conservative talk radio by bringing back something called "The Fairness Doctrine."
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1452835/debbie_stabenow_and_the_fairness_doctrine.html

WorldNetDaily - Another senator lines upbehind 'Fairness Doctrine'
Stabenow's husband, Tom Athans, was executive vice president of the left-leaning talk radio network Air America. He left the network in 2006, when it filed for bankruptcy, and co-founded the TalkUSA Radio Network.

Asked by Press if she could be counted on to push for hearings in the Senate this year "to bring these (radio station) owners in and hold them accountable," Stabenow replied: "I have already had some discussions with colleagues and, you know, I feel like that's gonna happen. Yep."
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=88113

Mr. President, um, your shoes are untied… 5 day pledge evaporates

2009-02-07T12:45:00.000-08:00

What other excuse can he, or his administration give for the first Major breakage of a campaign promise? Politicians sure do have an issue with the truth, promises, and doing what they pledge. Case in point; candidate Barack Obama’s pledge to have a five day public review of all non-vital legislation passed by Congress before he would sign it. President Barack Obama’s reality is completely the opposite in passing all legislation as soon as it passes Congress until the mid-term elections. The Democrats are scared that will be their reckoning day, and by the looks of it, it can’t come fast enough.

The below 3 images are screen captures that will illustrate the real issue for the liberals who will say I am making this issue up or that I am full of you know what, well here are the actual screen captures showing the reality and truth of our good President’s ability to keep his word and follow through on his campaign promises. You can do the same searches and find the same info, no doctored pictures here.

Five day review exists, Google found it and shows the results

Follow the link and Oops, error 404 - WhiteHouse.Gov states that page does not exist…

Follow the cashed link page and viola, the page DID exist and it WAS really there outlining the real pledge

Why, well if you listen to his Chief of Staff on the ‘not letting a good crisis go to waste’ mantra jumped on by Congress and used more then a turnstile at the NYC subway system during rush hour. Next look at the tone of the government from ‘hope and change’ to preaching ‘fear and blame’ the Democrats blamed the GOP of using on the campaign trail, though it is good enough to use to get all their special pet projects and special interest paybacks that fear is the only way to get the American people behind this ever ballooning stimulus package that is now over $910 billion.

The first 3 bills Obama signed and did not post for HIS own 5-day pledge; #1 Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (NEVER posted, signed in 2 days… 2 days!) signed 1/29/09, #2 State Children’s Health Insurance Program SCHIP (posted on the site for only 3.5 days posted Super Bowl Sunday afternoon, signed Wednesday morning) signed 2/4/09. The response by the White House…
White House spokesman Reid Cherlin: “During the campaign, the President committed to introducing more sunlight into the lawmaking process by posting non-emergency legislation online for five days before signing it. The President remains committed to bringing more transparency to government, and in this spirit the White House has posted legislation expected to come to the President’s desk online for comment.”

“We will be implementing this policy in full soon; currently we are working through implementation procedures and some initial issues with the congressional calendar. In the meantime, we will continue to post legislation on our website for comment as it moves through Congress over the next few weeks.”

So much for change we can believe in, I believe in what I see, results and actions, I leave faith to religion and spirituality only and not the realm of politics. Thus far Obama and Congress which from this point forward I will refer to the NICP or national insane clown posse, no office to the rap group to whom I do appreciate some of their works. Seeing the insanity that is going on over there in DC it is unbelievable they are going to get this pork laden, earmarked from hell, lobbyist and political payback bill pushed through straddling America with massive national debt and increasing our deficit to two or three times that of the last 8 years. Oh, and I can’t accept Barack’s EXCUSE of it was handed to him neatly packed and in a bow on day one, how pathetic is that? Leaders lead, not lie, cheat, talk out of both sides of their mouths and they sure as hell don’t go around laying blame and making excuses for it when the situation starts to turn on them. Every day this package is not passes is more time we get to peak inside and see how much more pork we can find, and thus far there has been enough to last our national food assistance program for years to come.

Why am I pessimistic about the current American government?

2009-02-07T12:31:00.000-08:00

I am finding it impossible to keep the silence any longer folks, seriously. The state of our current government is eroding faster then cotton candy in my daughter’s mouth. If I do not criticize and condemn the insanity in my nation’s capital I am not a true American. I can no longer sit by and keep quiet while the far left Democratic Party runs my nation into her worst possible place in history. Yes I believe that is what is really going on here. How in my right mind can I say this and post it on the internet for all to see?

Joe Biden, on the campaign trail in September 2008, stated and lauded it is “patriotic to pay taxes” yet the administration he is a leading member of has had 4 people, nominated either withdraw or thoroughly embarrass the President for their failures to pay taxes to the tune of forcing the President to make a public apology for his “failures” and promise “to not screw up again”. So far we have:

Tom Daschle -`HHS Secretary – withdraw for not paying $146,000 in back taxes
Nancy Killefer -`Chief Government Performance Officer – withdraw for not paying federal employee taxes of $900 for her nanny
Timothy Geithner -`Treasury Secretary – confirmed despite not paying $34,000 in back taxes for work at the International Monetary Fund
Hilda Solis -`Labor Secretary – confirmation stalled due to husband’s failure to pay taxes and a lean taken on their home, and all this is just the taxes part

According to Biden the president is appointing some very unpatriotic people to key positions in the government. The math adds up to $180,900 of tax revenue not recovered for years, good thing Geithner is head of the IRS now, he can sweep it all under the carpet (yes I know all the taxes have been paid in full by now). Add this to the President’s “new era of responsibility” pledge and the collapse of:

Bill Richardson Commerce Secretary – withdraw over pay-for-play investigation
William Lynn Deputy Defense Secretary – confirmed despite failing Obama’s own anti-lobbyist policy against former Pentagon workers who become lobbyists from working for him in 2 years time (Obama granted him a special waiver so its all good now)

It seems that shutting the "...revolving door that lets lobbyists come into the government freely" thing was just another campaign trail promise the leader of 'hope and change' will not be delivering on. And all this is just with the Executive branch!

Below is a shinning example of why the lunatics are running the asylum over at the Legislative branch. Remember my old friend Non-stop Nancy. Well Madam Speaker is not only trying to instill fear and hate they way she and her ilk accused the GOP of doing during the campaign, she is trying to win the award for largest government employed idiot of the year with her actions since January 1st! First Pelosi pledges the, then $700 billion, stimulus package will contain absolutely no 'pork', 'ear marks', or ‘bridges to nowhere’ in a January 12th CNN interview with Wolfe Blitzer. We all know how much pork has been uncovered thus far in this now $900+ billion stimulus package. The past week on ABC television Pelosi had to break the ‘no pork’ pledge by defending the ear marked hundreds of millions of tax payer funds for birth control claiming it will stimulate the economy… is this like saying, you know, like if people don’t have kids then they will, you known, have more money to spend money of stuff, or is she stating that all these poor people across the Bay of her home district of San Francisco, Oakland, are sapping too much tax payer money with WIC and healthcare costs? Let’s not forget what came out of the other side of her mouth last month with her crowning achievement of Expanded Child Healthcare. If she believes in the government handing out birth control, why did she insist on the child healthcare bill, aka SCHIP, and why is she praising it so much? Seems she was against federal birth control before she was for it, sorry John but the shoe fits.

See what I mean, insanity. Add this to her and Joe Biden learning to count from the same place. Joe things there are only 3 letters in the word ‘jobs’ and now Non-stop Nancy has stated that every month that goes by America loses 500 million jobs (she has stated this figure twice now, count that, 2 times Joe). Seeing America only has 308 million people we are all losing our second and third jobs now! The stimulus package keeps growing, from 700 billion, to 800 billion to now 900 billion. Why are the Democrats so despite to demand this thing be passed now, immediately, post haste? Why is the Speaker of the House, third in line to be President, not getting grilled in the media for her math, blatant contradictions, and inability to digest and use government provided figures the way Dan Quale, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and other GOP officials were? There is a multi-layers snow job going on here and it is trying to cover up a whole slew of things. Dems want to scare the American people the same way they accused McCain/Palin of doing all the way up to November. They want to scare us so bad we pass legislature that will line their pockets, cement their re-elections, and push their socialists and Marxist agenda to the point of budding. They don’t want people to have time to poke into the bill, that is why we are all losing 2 jobs this month for every man, woman, and child in our country!

They are using the politics of fear and panic to pass their agenda, yet they claimed that is what the GOP did with all the things done post 9/11, hypocrites the whole lot of them! Add in the ‘turn that frown upside down’ air Pelosi and her counterpart Harry Reid have with their support of and adoption of Rahm Emanuel (Obama’s Chief of Staff) quote “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before. This is an opportunity.” That is what this is folks. The Dems are worse then a stampede of bulls in a china shop, they are beyond insanity with their spending and beliefs that government is the solution to all our problems. Strap in and hold your breath, the next 4 years are going to be a lulu! Enjoy the show!

Buy American - Testing cooler heads and resolve as the insanity train keeps on rolling

2009-02-05T01:39:00.000-08:00

It’s nice to see how so many highly positioned people in the American government are so clueless about how the modern world and its interconnected economies operate that they can start a storm in a tea cup. Senator Byron Dorgan D-ND and Rep Peter Visclosky D-IN both have sparked off an international debate that could well lead to a series of counterproductive nationalistic measures with their “Buy American” clause in the now $900 billion (and growing) US stimulus package. This has a real potential to slowing down global recovery and sending our current trading partners into stalled wheel spinning situation and possibly worse. President Obama is beginning to pull out the John Kerry style answers and flip flopping on the issue by endorsing it, remaining silent, and now weakly opposing it.

Senator Dorgan backtracked in USA Today and tried to explain himself more clearly, little good that did as the EU, Canada, Brazil, China, India, and others have all began to line up countermeasures and their own punishments against American if the already passed House bill passes the Senate and Obama signs it as is, and they all are strongly warning against it. Well Mr. Dorgan, I hope you are proud of yourself because the perception in the world is you are instituting protectionism policy and we all know perception is reality in the real world and not fantasy lefty bazaaro world where most liberal politicians live (exhibit 1 and 2, Pelosi and Reid). Their strong reactions all state clearly that these measures will not be taken lightly or sitting down but will be answered with action, so even if they are not intended to do such, thanks for the party Mr. Senator because you got it going on now!

Let’s look at what we can about the facts first. The passage in question is stated by its author as specifying that "if American tax dollars are used for construction or infrastructure work then domestically produced and manufactured goods need to be considered and used when all possible”, paraphrased of course. If you want to see how effective this is talk to the tax payers in San Francisco who funded a massive bridge repair and used similar policies and were fleeced out of $400 million that could have been used to fund any number of cockamamie liberal leftwing-nut ideas America’s most liberal city has. The state of California could sure use that $400 million now with their budget crisis, the worst of all 50 states! Reality is sure a bitch when it falls out of sync with ideal liberalism day dreams these rulling Democrats have. Sure the use of the steel in the bridge refitting project employed American steel workers, rail workers, and truckers, but how good of a deal was it?

The liberal Democrats are tripping all over themselves in Washington DC now trying to ‘save the day’ by nationalizing this or that, and spend spend spend our way out of the crisis so as to ‘not let a good crisis go to waste’. This particular buy American measure is just another shinning example of short sighted, illogical, out of touch with reality, (and in the pocket of lobbyist, special interest groups, and trade unions as well as how ignorant to how modern economies operate) these people passing our laws really are. Where is the ‘Hope and Change’? From here the government is being steered by the campaign contributors and special interest groups who funded the current lot of super liberals we have in power now instead of the ‘open, transparent, and accountable’ government we were all promised last fall. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction; politics is not exempt.

America, over the past 20 years, has made many trade pacts, treaties, and alliances we can not just back out of now, or afford to if we could. During this time the world has changed, modernized, and begun to raise in wealth, influence, and power. Europe has consolidated currencies and formed a super trade group we can not ignore. Emerging markets and rouge nations are exploiting their natural resources to fund expansion and projects we just don't want to see fulfilled. Our old enemies are striking allegiances to rebuild their power and they would love to see us crippled and isolated economically through this. We live in a global economy, period. Trying to turn back the clock now will disrupt the entire balance and spark off conflicts, digressions, and problems we really can not afford to see happen.

The benefactors of this buy American clause will be few and far between the much lauded 20,000 daily unemployed people Dorgan mentioned. Politicians may be many things, ignorant and stupid among them, but one thing they really know how to do and do well is to lie and manipulate those who elected them so smoothly it seems natural. Buy American and keep jobs here to help our people, they proclaim loudly. Sure, if Americans wanted to and could afford American made goods. Now this is the distracter they use to get deaf, dumb, and blind sheep of the masses to follow them. Their measure is mainly for the steel, concrete pre-fabrication, and construction industries. A real hard look at the jobs saved, created, and impact on the nation as a whole spells out the total opposite, net job loss!

How many of the 20,000 a day newly unemployed people can readily go to work in one of these fields today? 1,000, 500, 100? Steel workers are unionized, you have to join the union to get the job, and that could take years to go through plus the hassle of staying in a union. Concrete, its hard and dirty work, been there and done that and nearly ended up in the hospital for it. Construction, again mostly unionized, and they tightly limit the access to card carrying members only. So what jobs can be saved and how many real jobs can be created by this? How about saving this stimulus of tax payer money to put real SUSTAINABLE projects together? All the pork in this every expanding stimulus package is giving all us Americans high cholesterol and blood pressure and not a real long term survivability plan. Saving 5,000 steel jobs over the next year is great, but what about when the stimulus funds and programs run out? These steel workers will be on the unemployment lines then and have just delayed their fate by a few months. I keep saying it again and again, we can not compete with emerging markets cheap labor! Stop trying, instead shift the work force into a more highly trained, skilled, and educated one that can lead the world with new technologies, innovations, and specialties that emerging markets can’t! Stop clinging to the ways of the 20th century! Wasn’t this election about looking forward and not backward, oh sorry wrong party and candidate.

What are the pitfalls of this folly of protectionism? Domestic downturn as tax dollars are wasted and run out faster, unemployment is only staved off until demand runs dry when the projects are completed, goods made from these sectors will increase in price and production time as oversea supplies collapse as trade reprisals and spats escalate, WTO legal action, US based companies like GE (50% of their work comes from overseas contracts) Caterpillar, AIG, BoA, Met Life, Goodyear, etc. all loose market share and profits as oversea work erodes or goes away completely, allied trade partners break alliances and begin trading with the EU, rouge nations, or worse our enemies therefore strengthening opposition to American products, goods, and reputation abroad, America’s image as a fair and friendly nation, America’s reputation as a friend to emerging markets and supporter of human rights, numerous devastating and destabilizing humanitarian crisis as foreign economies weaken more and unemployment takes root in nations who just recently clawed their way out of poverty, oh, that is all I can think of off the top of my head.

The truth is the reaction to this action would be bad for not only America but for the world in the long term. The media is now pouncing on this as stupidity, LA Times, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and others all state this would set off global trade wars that could put is into worse economic climates for the foreseeable future. The independent Peterson Institute for International Economics has stated in a published review this week of the measure that is will cost America more jobs then it saves in the short term! Now Obama can smell the political decay of those backing the measure and is getting an earful from Canada, Briton, the EU, Brazil, China, and others that if this happens they will act, act swiftly, and act decisively to protect their own interests against America and he his scared of being part of it. In an ABC interview this week President Obama stated “I think that would be a mistake right now. That is a potential source of trade wars that we can’t afford at a time when trade is sinking all across the globe.”

Buy American was a great idea in the 1990’s, but we consumers laughed at it all the way to the bank as we passed up over priced union made goods for cheap labor foreign produced goods. Well, that was almost 20 years ago and we can’t reverse course now. In the light of the crisis we are in, if we tried to force the country or even cities to buy American then prices, inflation, and taxes would have to rise to such a degree Mexico would look at us with pity and shake their heads in dismay. Just as the times of that Great Depression saw the end of the agriculture age in American as farmers flooded cities for work and jobs, the paradigm is shifting again. Instead of fighting it we need to embrace it, learn from the mistakes of the past and put the majority of our current manufacturing sector into history where it belongs. Spend stimulus funds on re-education, high-tech job training, and American unique job sectors instead of extending unemployment, pork barrel pet projects that will only lead to higher taxes to sustain after the stimulus money is gone. Spend the money on modernizing our education and medical sectors so we can compete with superior education systems in China, Japan, India, and other nations who have passed us up on reading, science, and math and STOP dumbing down education because you think inner-city youth are not as smart. Yes, we need help now, but we need the right kind of help, not the kind that postpones the pain for 6 months to a year. Use the money to push the country into a new era, a 21st century era, an era where we can dominate and excel, not scrape by and follow the same path we have for the last 90 years because that is not progress, that is stagnation.

Typical of liberal leftwing thinking, they are putting the cart before the horse and not thinking beyond their current Senate or House terms to the long range impact and message this measure would make to the world. They are being bullied by their union cronies, lobbyist financiers, and fellow crackpots who can only think up good ideas while stoned, drunk, or half asleep in their vacation homes or cocktail parties. The world is much smaller then it was in 1930, 1980, 1990, or 2000. The cold hard reality is China is the largest holder of US currency, debt, and the only country who can and is willing to look at buying enough treasury bonds to keep the Pelosi’s, Reid’s, and Obama’s of the Democratic party in a job and our country from falling apart. The cold hard truth is that our national security and survival depends on the existing trade alliances we have and keeping them strong enough to withstand the temptation of our trade partners from making our enemies richer and more powerful.

We Americans have been the richest and most powerful nation on the planet for 60 years and we are the example for emerging countries. Our actions are felt far beyond our borders as this present economic mess painfully demonstrates. If we begin to turn our back on the world now, and doing this will signal that we are doing so, then we can expect to lose the small shred of credibility we have left and Mr. Obama and the liberals ran their campaign’s on the mantra of restoring our place in the world to a respectable and honorable nation, protectionism and perceived protectionism policies will accomplish just the opposite, we will look like spoiled brat, pick up our toys and go home when upset, children that we are.

January Rant of the Month - Looking Forward to...

2009-02-03T00:26:00.000-08:00

What a start to a new year. Due to Chinese New Year, the year of the Ox and marking the year 4707 by some Chinese Calendars, My January thoughts have had to be postponed until February and I do not have the time to get off weekly rants anymore so I am changing formats to a monthly rant instead. So without further ado here is my overview or rant for January 2009.

Israel and Hamas’ war in Gaza spilled over into most of January starting Dec 27th with the expiration of a peace treaty meant to work towards a political solution. International condemnation and opinion rose against Israel as Hamas got nearly a free pass for poking Israel in the eye with continued military strikes against the Israeli military and civilians alike with rockets and bombs. The situation kept deteriorating until Israel got tired of beating a dead horse and Hamas leaders were too well hidden to inflict any more damage against. What was the outcome? Hamas declared victory by surviving, Israel looks like a bully and we are right back at where we were in the region before the military actions happened. This broken record (or should I say scratched CD?) cycle has been going on for decades now and until both parties are forced into a real compromise situation nothing will ever happen to achieve a lasting and viable peace. Neither side is flexible enough to reach a middle ground due to civilization norms of the region. Compromise is seen as weakness and if you are weak you are a target and then you are destroyed. Some have stated this was a proxy war between the US and Iran. If so it accomplished nothing, except for the death of hundreds and the destruction, and devastation of tens of thousands of people’s homes and livelihoods. For what? Do the Palestinians really want to live in peace with Israel? Do the Israelis really want to see a 2 state solution implemented splitting Jerusalem and other sacred sites? Without Egypt, Syria, Iran, and others weighing in and pushing and accepting concessions then nothing will ever happen. The situation will not change until it is forced to by some major catalyst. Terrorism needs to stop, on both sides, and peace is not in either of their vocabularies at this time.

The Democrats promised us change and a New Way during their campaign for president. Change was the mantra chanted feverously by the media and supporters as if they were devoted Buddhist monks during a ritual. Well here we are. Obama’s beginnings are more contentious then any President’s in my memory, and that goes back to President Ford, 6 presidents past. From the goings on over who would fill his vacant Senate seat, eventually filled by the order of a corrupt governor recently impeached, to the withdrawal of a key Cabinet post by New Mexico governor Bill Richardson for a pay-for-play scandal all of this was just the beginning to what has led into a slew of follies over his much touted litmus test and vetting process to ensure we had a bi-partisan and respectable government to replace the evil Bush years. Treasurer and now Health and Human Services Secretaries failure to disclose their not paying taxes and seemingly free ride by Congress and the press into office. Secretary of State’s confirmation had only 2 opposition votes despite her husband’s organization receiving monies and access to the former president Bill Clinton by enemies of the state and rivals in many different aspects to America’s interests abroad. A NASA selection who the space community states knows little to nothing about space exploration. Closed door private meetings over the largest government bailout and financial offering in national history that has led to a massive pork laden and crippling $825 billion package. Well, you get my drift? Where is the transparency, the accountability, the signal of a new way of doing politics and new government we can be proud of? The only change we have seen is from a Bush administration to a rehashed Clinton one with stark contrasts to accountability and honesty everywhere you look. Obama has strutted green energies and global impact climate change initiatives while caught on film working in a 74 degree White House with his sleeves rolled up because he likes to work in a warm office. Contrast this against his first media interview as president, with an Arab television network, and the only Change I can see is going from the frying pan straight into the fire! I am seeing lots of change but little hope in all of this and all I can do is shake my head and say I told you so.

Home foreclosure is up 81% or 1 in 54 homes in America according to USA Today. That is 2.3 million homes sitting vacant because the people who mortgaged them owed more then they were worth and got too far behind on payments for the banks to keep the farce alive. How is pumping $350 billion back into the banking system going to reverse this trend when the first $350 billion didn’t thaw the frozen credit situation? Oh, because Obama is doing it and not Bush and because Obama will attach more strings to the money… I will believe it when I see it. The cold hard reality is we, the American people, will have to pay for it with tax dollars and loss of services in other programs. Oh, wait no, because Obama brokered a deal to pump in an additional $825 billion in stimulus while not raising taxes and giving money to people who don’t pay taxes in the first place and inflating our already bloated national debt to double its war time levels. Trillion dollar deficits are only going to work if foreign countries continue to buy our bonds and fund our governmental spending spree… oh wait, the rest of the planet is in a recession now and all the currencies are falling against the dollar which is falling as well. Keep printing money and we will end up like Mexico and Zimbabwe, with currencies so inflated it has to keep issuing higher denominations to keep up with prices. Home properties values have to fall, tax assessments on those properties have to fall, people have to have jobs to afford homes again. ACORN and HUD need to stop pushing people with unstable lifestyles into homes just as people need to trim their lifestyles and live within their means and paychecks. Homes are not ATM machines and flipping a property should not be a way to generate income. The real problem needs addressing, not money thrown its way. Our credit and business sector is sick, let the decaying flesh fall off and rot. You can't right a top heavy ship if capsized until all the weight on the top is cut loose or breaks away naturally else the entire ship is lost. This stimulus package is a huge mistake and acting just to act is shortsighted and ludicrous and we will be funding this for generations to come, all because of political vision and ambition.

China is now the #3 economy in the world. 2008 was a HUGE year for China. Started out a little rocky and had a few bumps mid way but finished strong and resounding. With a strong 8% growth resulting in $3.38 trillion GDP China grew $5 billion in 2008 and surpassed the receding Germany by 13% points and is poised to take over #2 Japan if they slip further into negative territory. Japan has seen 2008 go with a $4.38 trillion GDP that shrank 1.3% and on the verge of losing more as their production falls with everyone else’s. Even the EU receded with a combined GDP down 0.6%, thanks to a fuel crisis and economic stagnation fed by decades of socialists policies and population unproductively (Please, please, please Obama, Pelosi, and Reid see this and wake up!!!!). China is still far from producing the US $13.8 trillion GDP, but with a 2.8% loss over the past year and continued recession of our economy China will be much closer. Of course China has shed 20 million factory jobs and hundreds of thousands of factories and the 8% growth is the lowest and first single digit growth China has seen in over a decade compare that to everyone else who saw GDP shrink over the past year and you will see China is closing ground FAST. At #3 China commands much more power and respect on the world economic stage and believe me, they will use it. Like it or not China is the future and the key to economic survival in this new world. The only real concern, domestic issues caused by inflation, real-estate bubbles, unemployment, rapid changes all threaten China’s internal stability and if that cracks, well the ball game is over folks. Per capita spending in China is only $2,500 per year, compared to Germany at $40,400 so you can see the potential for problems and exploitation if the China card is played correctly and intelligently with long term goals built in.

Thank goodness the inauguration is over. Wall to wall coverage must have been as nauseating as CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage. Glad I am in communists China where they protect their citizens from such pronography in all the media outlets (yes they did censor Obama's speech and cut out the parts they did not like). Sure history was made and yes it is important to cover but just one last tidbit of perspective before I go. Does anyone else get an whiff of Germany in the 1930’s, Korea in the 1050’s China in the 1940’s or Russia in the 1910’s over all the hubbub we had to witness since November? I am just checking because when a leader is lauded and fawned over so much as Obama has been and is touted as the savior and answer to all our ills in such a fashion I see tinges of a false profit or despot on the rise in the same ways as happened in all the examples above. America was built off of debate, conflict, strife, and compromise. Not one party majority or defacto acceptance of a single clear path to salvation. I am a skeptic by nature, educated by years of hard work, and conservative by choice. I am not implying anything beyond an eerie trend running in parallel between peoples wanting to believe in something so much they made a historic mistake that change the world we live in forever and the the pushing of a direction onto us all by those who want to run things their way after a decade of having to abide by an opposite philosphy. Death and oppression have one thing in common, they both come to us like a thief in the night, unexpected and unplanned for and without vigilance and foresight we can not expect to escape.

Obama's Inaugural Address review and thoughts

2009-01-21T18:43:00.000-08:00

My fellow citizens:
This threw me off here, historically the addresses always started 'My Fellow Americans", what is this implying? It seems immigration and those who don't hold citizenship are not welcome with this little departure from tradition with a tighter focus on address.

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and co-operation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because 'We the People' have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
This is what I was expecting, it is good, solid and patriotic rhetoric that is reverent and full of inspiration, transcending all differences

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. (Pretty cocky to state that with the person to whom he is referring to is sitting just a few feet away, a very thinly veiled cheap shot and contradictory to paragraph #2) Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many (Pease tell me this means advancing NCLB and not dummying down the curriculum and playing to the teacher union's requests); and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. (Um, this sounds very familiar, oh yea, it was Bush who said that in a State of the Union address a few years ago, except for the threatening the planet part, 1/2 point for originality there)

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights. (I am confused here, help me out, is this stating that the perception is the national recovery is a useless effort and my daughter is to lower her ambitions and hopes of success and prosperity? Is this an attempt at sarcasm, if so it did not work and the fact I am confused and mentioning this means I am taking this as the former, he is sating we have to lower or sights... so what is the talk about education in paragraph #3, please not this is contradiction #1)

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. (So McCain was campaigning on a platform of fear, conflict, and discord, cheap shot #2. What was with the warm reception and kind words to McCain at the formal dinner the night before and then follow it up with a cheap shot and personal attack the next, sounds like lack of class, character, and tact to me)

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics. (Amen! To bad his cabinet is mostly recycled Clinton people, Chicago machine cogs, and there has already been an initial political fight with Pelosi and Reid over the Bush Tax Cuts and when to repeal them, sounds like business as usual thus fat, but it makes for a great sound bite)

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. (thus far the best line of this speech, odd how it mentions religion twice, be careful your atheist lefty friends will get offended)

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and ploughed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. (Which one of these does not look like the other, which one of these does not belong... As a vet looking at this list I am shocked by its purposeful inclusion and missing names on the list, for those not knowing let me enlighten you. Concord was a great Revolutionary War victory and the turning point of the war for our independence. Gettysburg was the great War Between the States victory and was the turning point of the war preserving the Union and the country. Normandy was the great World War II costly victory and was the turning point of the war toward victory in Europe. All 3 are great national war victories that defined, saved, and showed the strength of the nation. Khe Sahn was the Vietnam War battle that was the defining moment pushing the war over the brink for support in America and sealing the utter failure of our military and political presence and influence in the region. Why mention Khe Sahn, a failure, and not Falujha where the surge sealed the current path of victory we have in Iraq? Why stop at Vietnam, a national disgrace, when you have the Baltic War, both Gulf Wars, and current operations in Afghanistan? This was on purpose and it is an insult as to include Khe Sahn in this list, using Iraq is a logical and better choice, given the fact we are still there and THE SURGE WORKED!!!)

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction. (That is what I was expecting! The above is reminiscent of the speech Obama gave at the DNC convention where he sounded more moderate and American then he ever has since. These are all great points, except the one outlined above, and will echo with conservatives, moderates, and middle of the road liberals and demonstrates our true national values, ideals, and expectations)

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. (You are on a roll! Don't stop now, I will forgive the contradiction #2 from paragraph #4 above that states we have to 'lower our sights')

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost (Um, when was science in a wrong place in our educational or medical priorities? Are we talking about funding stem cell research to include something not in the current plan, and we all know what that is. I am a little unsure what is being said here). We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories (Whoa whoa whoa, stop the buss! I'm onboard with all but this soil thing. Ethanol is a negative efficient alternative and food production needs to go towards animals and people, not my car! It takes 1 and 1/10th a gallon of Ethanol to equal 1 gallon of gas and the amount of grain it takes to produce cost more fuel in planting, fertilizing, harvesting, refining, and shipping then gas and that is less food that farm animals and people can eat that increases meat and meat product food prices sparking mass inflation, this is getting much worse now... fast). And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage. (free men... oh, I see what this is, not commenting any further for obvious reasons. Oh, here is an immigration plug, but it does not mention anything solid to offer hope or inspire our current immigrant issues)

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government. (Our government is too big in its current incarnation, period. You are right, the government does not work. I applaud the call for responsibility and accountability, show me the results, I seem to remember hearing all this before many many many times before, as the Jerry McGuire line states, 'show me the money!')

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good. (I can agree with this, however the last part is a little suspect but I will give the benefit of the doubt)

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more. (Ok, I am getting back onboard, this is sounding good, but will he really get rid of warrantless wire taps and renditions???)

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint. ('With great power comes great responsibility', I believe it and want to see it)

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people (um begin? Begin? Um sorry to say but since the SURGE worked we have began to draw down in Iraq, Baghdad is handed over to the Iraqi government, the Iraqi government has agreed on a time table for US troop withdrawal, the leaving of Iraq is in the works and has been since the SURGE stabilized the war there and gave their government a chance), and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you. (Oh, this is a message to radical Islam militants! This too I can get behind and defend, don't give an inch and they have nothing to take, Bush kept us safe at home for 7 years, lets make it 11 and we can go from there)

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect (This only works for the moderate Muslims, the radicals want us destroyed along with Israel, there is no compromise or negotiating with them as they want us destroyed and they have no tolerance or quarter about it, watch the beheading videos of westerners). To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist. (Aimed at North Korea, Iran, and African nations this unfortunately will fall on deaf years as they don't really care, otherwise they wouldn't do it in the first place)

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it. (Foreign aid is good and a good message for others to follow, this kind of wealth we should spread around)

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all. (This almost makes up for the Vietnam mention above, almost. At least you acknowledge the existence and service of current service members and vets of the current conflict and their sacrifices, God bless them all)

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the fire-fighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath. (Amen, the last 3 paragraphs are rock solid and truly American all the way, I wish transcending politics like this would be this easy, still I like this part)

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: “Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations. (Strong finish, great and solid, not very historic or memorable but solid none the less. The finish is back on track for something we can all believe in and follow)

Thank you. God bless you.

And God bless the United States of America.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/01/20/Text_of_Barack_Obamas_inaugural_address/UPI-45861232473668/

Ok, some may be asking why God and religious references are underlined, glad you asked. Most of the resources on the Internet cut out the last 2 lines form the official transcript, mostly because liberals seem to take offense to mentioning God in any political or public address at all, remember the lawsuits over school prayers and any reference to God in any public place or institution. Well, for those far left atheists your candidate rock star mentioned the Holy 8 times, 7 plus the religion breakdown of our countries citizens. Overall I agreed 13 times. Um, hey that is one for each of our original colonies, strips on our flag, maybe this is a sign. I disagreed a total of 13 times, whoa, is that right? Let me double check... yep. So what does that mean? Seems the speech overall is a wash, I agreed and disagreed with the same amount of points. Again I have to defer to Obama's actions and deeds, not his words or promises. I will give him a chance and not begin to go all "NYT on Bush" which is more then any liberal can ever say with a straight face. The bar is now set high, yes high. Obama has to do as good or better then Bush and if you closely look at the record and the bars he has to meet or exceed it is a HUGE task! Good luck, God speed, and God bless the US of A. The next 2 years will be crucial and we are all hopeful Obama can fix or solve as many issues as he can and restore the country, that is our hope and he is our president. We, as a nation, are all behind you President Obama so get to work and lead us out of this mess and into a better future!

Welcome to the big time Pres Obama - Quik note

2009-01-21T18:38:00.000-08:00

Not to be part of the wall to wall coverage of the events of my nation's transition of power, as you can't get away from it if you try, I want to get out some very quick and brief points before the Chinese New Year break and while my daughter is soundly sleeping and I am between business meetings

President Obama, welcome to that desk, now here are the things that are going to cross it in the next 100 days:

Israel and Gaza strip situation, its your call - Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Iraq are all watching, better balance it well
EU Gas shortages, you have to issue a response to send a message to Moscow, they need to know the US and NATO care about the EU and its members
North Korea, the drums are being beaten and with a conservative government in the South, Japan in trouble, and China preoccupied you have to be the rock of which the progress of getting the North to the table are not undone and North Korea feeling emboldened or rewarded for obtaining nuclear weaponry, see #1 above
Columbia, FARC is on the run, Hugo Chavez is on the hunt to spread leftist regimes, don't abandon our allies in the hemisphere and send a message to the region that the political center of the area is Caracas and Bogotá
China, they are the largest holder of US currency, debt, and foreign trade, they want more military openness and to recapture all its rogue territories, take a Bill Clinton position and having a downed spy plane will be the least of optimistic outcomes possible, its a Chinese chess game here and you can't fake it
India, the largest outsourced labor market on the planet protectionalist policies will create a massive human rights crisis if unemployment takes hold in India, and an unstable India will destabilize the hinge between Asia and the Middle East, an area we can't afford to see that area unhinge
Iran, everyone knows what they are doing and what their end game is, don't underestimate the opposition, its goals, and its intentions here, they don't like our policies and will do anything to undermine it, and don't forget their funding of terrorists and regional destabilizing groups in Pakistan, Syria, and Palestine
You hold the keys to the national nuclear arsenal, remember that, but also remember this - our nuclear capabilities are diminishing and our readiness is also, we have to re-examine our conventional and unconventional forces and doctrines and upgrade them to the current and future threats now, not in 4 years as the threats we face are real and closer then those who don't see the daily national security briefs could even imagine, and this whole don't ask don't tell thing of yours is too disruptive for the addressing in the next 2 years, wait until the Afghanistan war is won and our troops are home first!

This is just on the international side. This has to be focused on to ensure we have secure borders, security at home, and don't end up like our allies with attacks on our soil and in our borders when we need the breathing room to fix our domestic mess and get our country standing on both feet again, you can't do our own house keeping first and then the international ones later. Also we have to ensure our direct and regional neighbors are economically viable and strong enough to resist the wave of socialists policies running through the region, least we fall victim to their destabilizing effects here at home, international policies will directly shape and color our domestic reality.

So domestically we have to address the below:

NAFTA, its good to have free trade with our neighbors. If the philosophy of "spread it around" is good enough to tax the hell out of our own citizens to redistribute the wealth to the poor of our country then why not do the same to Central America and Canada. Cross border trade is good for us and our neighbors as it will keep our borders safe and secure as democracies with healthy economies will be across the fence and not a economical wasteland of poverty and desperation that invites terrorism and illegal policies
Immigration, America is still the most immigrated to nation on Earth, but we need to have a fair and practical approach to it, we need to have a way to deal with undocumented workers, legal immigrants, and those applying for immigrant status. Our southern border is a huge problem that has the best opportunity to be fixed now while the draw to the flow of illegal workers has waned to a trickle of what it was a year ago, take advantage now while you can
Mexican drug lords, help Mexico NOW or you will have a mess that is worse then you can imagine on the border to our most populous state and access to our interior by drug cartels looking for their own free trade zone
Carbon credits are a disaster, leave it on the campaign trail, carbon credits will kill our utility industry, auto industry, heavy manufacturing industry, all the places jobs are that you pledged to protect and keep, let the free market dictate what products to buy, else you will send jobs to overseas as people will buy what they want, not what the government mandates our industries produce
You can't spend your way out of debt. This is a market correction and a natural process of sucess and failure. Those that emerge will be healthy and better able to succeed in the future, if you mess with the balance now you only postpone the natural process of natural selection of the business world, spend the stimulus package by putting the money into the citizen's hands to spur spending and savings recouping from the losses of last year otherwise you have set up millions of communities for tax increases to continue your programs after the national spikot of stimulus monies dries up
Push education harder, take the NCLB act to the next level, put real teeth into it and get rid of the influence of the teacher's unions. Without world class education fundamentals you are only hamstringing the future of our country and dooming us to a third world future as developing nations are exceeding our primary educations scores at such a fevorish rate that we can't afford to play politics any longer
Stand up to your party and lead the nation, don't let Nancy and Harry run the country, lead them or be lead by them and with their past approval ratings, lower then Bush's and the worst in our history, you will be another Jimmy Carter in that you will in a 4 and out man
Don't let the politics of the past color your present, in other words don't toe the line and play the uber liberal the far left is lauding all over the air waves and media. You are already elected and if you govern from the moderate position you will gain the support of the moderate middle of the nation and there are far more of them then the far left and they will re-elect you, betray them and play to the Chicago far left you came from and stand by for the backlash and ousting

These are the immediate and tasks you have to address before the ice thaws from the woods around the capital. Then you can begin to tackle all those campaign issues of things like medical care, education access, economic policy, treaties, healing our international reputation, taxes, deficit spending and control, military revamping, etc., ect., ect. The Dems can't keep blaming Bush now, its all on you and them. I have been biting my tongue in order to give you and them a fighting chance to prove yourselves and thus far it ain't looking good and all that venom used against Bush will come back to you all, with interest. While I am a nobody small fry out in a communist country who is blogging on a platform that prohibits sharing and expanding views and ideas of which few will see, I am not alone and there are tens of millions who share my views. You were barely elected, by a margin of less then 6% of the voting population so you are on a short leash and so is your party.

Trying something new

2009-01-12T23:42:00.001-08:00

As a Windows Live account holder I am seeking alternatives as recent changes to Live Spaces has made blogging there impractical. They do offer more photo storage space, integration with messenger, and integration with Facebook, but they are shedding users at a ridiculous rate. I have seen my viewership drop from a few hundred views a week to less then a hundred, all driven by search engines now.

Depending on my experiences with Blogger and the fact I am currently living and working in China I will evaluate moving my Windows Live Spaces posts here by my experiences in browsing blogs, and how the community here works. If anyone has made the switch from Live Spaces to Blogger please let me know how the transition worked for you if you would. I do not like to move but if Live Spaces continues to hamper user experiences like they have in the past 3 months it will be inevitable.