Mid-Term Miracles

After tomorrow’s election there will once again be the refrain by liberals and the far left that Americans are stupid. This is what they said after the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections when their candidate lost. I never understood their reasoning. If the losing side wanted to win the next time around then they needed to convince the other side to vote for their man (or woman). So you would think that insulting the winning side by calling them stupid isn’t exactly the smart way of winning friends and influencing your enemies.

When Obama was elected four years later, surprise, surprise, suddenly the American people were very intelligent. They voted in the right man and life was good again. Not only did Americans elect Obama but the liberals hit the Trifecta, dominating the Presidency, the House and the Senate. Plus in the first two years, this new President picked two new politically correct Supreme Court Justices and if there were potential problems with other Presidential appointees then Obama just bypassed Senate’s consent and called them Czars. Oh life was good for liberals.

But a funny thing happened, the American people started to lose IQ points over the past two years, or at least thats what Democrats would have you believe. Even worse, the lower the IQ, the louder these people became. They had the nerve to not quietly sit back but to actually take action and without anyone’s help! They might have been better managed if they had kept to the Republican Party where old-timers knew how to squelch loud bothersome newcomers. But they even surprised the GOP by gathering under their own name – the Tea Party.

The Tea Party might have fizzled out after that first summer of discontent when they protested about Obamacare, disrupting town hall meetings with their sharp questioning. After the Senate and House still passed their health care plan, arrogantly ignoring a large and growing segment of the population, the Tea Party should have died out. They lost. Shut Up. Move on. But people didn’t move on. Instead they became angrier. Even worse for the politicians, they took names and took action.

The Tea Party nonetheless still could have died out if it weren’t for the actions of two people. They are not the founding fathers of the party but they were the nursemaids, nurturing and encouraging Tea Party enthusiasts. They gave it a legitimate platform and a voice. The first person of course is Sarah Palin; the darling of the conservatives and the laughingstock of the liberals. After being continuously embarrassed by the Mainstream Media (MSM) this woman had the audacity to not go away; just the opposite actually. By all rights, after the trouncing she got by the MSM and the truly awful Couric interview, she should have slunk back to Alaska never to be heard from again. Instead Palin left the relatively obscure position of Alaska’s Governor, wrote a book and hit the lecture circuit.

This is the first time I can recall that a politician refused to let the MSM win. Remember Dan Quayle? Probably not if you’re under 50. He was the first Bush’s VP and his falling out with the MSM was over the spelling of potato. He thought there was an e at the end. They hounded the man showering nonstop ridicule on him for weeks and weeks over a simple misspelling. They broke him and he disappeared, never to be heard from again. So give credit where credit is due – Palin refused to back down. Instead she and the Tea Party grew stronger together.

The other Tea Party nursemaid is Glenn Beck. Here was the ideal meeting of a man and a movement, each backing the other to untold fame and infamy. Glenn Beck did for the Tea Party what Pat Robertson did for the Moral Majority and President Nixon for the Silent Majority. And just like Palin, he has been totally villified by the MSM, and labeled extreme, even mad.

What did Beck do to earn the wrath of liberals? He told conservatives that they are not alone. That they shouldn’t feel disheartened by the news they hear each day from the MSM. Instead they needed to understand that if they banded together they would have the power to take over the country. In encouraging this group he also was forthright in describing the other side, the interweaving of liberal groups and people in DC, Hollywood, New York and now Chicago. In many ways, Beck turns today’s politics into a morality play bringing back old fashioned morals, religion and patriotism with clear cut heroes and villains.

On Tuesday November 2nd Americans are going to take a stand and say to the President and his party “No more”. The MSM will once again call these Americans stupid. And they are led in this chorus by none other than our President. In a speech at a small fundraising party last month in West Newton MA, Obama said: "Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared, and the country's scared.” He went on to say that he faulted the economic downturn for Americans’ inability to “think clearly” and said the burden is on Democrats “to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling.”

Obama just doesn’t get it and that scares me. We are frustrated because Obama, Reid and Pelosi don’t listen to the majority of the country and we are afraid of what they will do next. Saying we don’t understand the facts isn’t helping. He is the one who isn’t understanding the situation. He has repeatedly said that perhaps part of the problem is that he could have better communicated what they were doing. OMG. This man does nothing but communicate. We heard you already Mr Obama and November 2nd is our reply.

I want to hope that he will then act like Bill Clinton who, when faced with a similar mid-term situation, became more centrix and worked with Speaker of the House Gingrich to implement bills that helped the country. But I doubt it. A recent speech had Obama calling conservatives “the enemy”. And he ended his speech in MA by predicting even more partisanship and gridlock in Congress. “I don’t anticipate that getting better next year,” he said at the fundraiser. “I anticipate that getting worse.” He said he needs Democrats in the Senate “because every bit of progress that we need to make is going be a matter of grinding it out.” Nice attitude, Mr. President. So much for bipartisanship.

One more thing. In addition to calling Tea Party candidates and their followers “stupid” you can be sure that the MSM and liberals will also label them “extreme” and they will endlessly worry about the future of our country after this historical midterm election. Funny. Although I have frequently been proud of my country, for the first time in a long time, unlike the media, I am not nearly as worried about my country’s future as I was yesterday.

The Day After

I am watching President Obama sign the new health care bill into law. How do I feel about this? It scares me. Taxpayers will have more taxes and lesser health care in order that unemployed or poor people can have health insurance, many of them for free. I worry what this will do to small businesses. I hear that businesses that do offer health care have determined that it would be cheaper to pay the penalty and not help out their employees. And I really am concerned about the added power they want to give to the IRS. The IRS is already out of control at times and now the government want to expand that department? And no way will it help the deficit, of course it will make it worse!

Obama is now talking, people are applauding and standing for an ovation. But why? Because they forced members of their own party into voting the party line? They had to bribe, strong arm, and as they admitted, do whatever it takes to get their own Democrat Congressmen and women to vote “Yes”. It just shows how flawed this bill is, if even with all the maneuvering by Obama, Pelosi, Rahm et al, there were still some Democrats who stood by their values and voted “no”. Good for them.

So now what? There is talk now about Republicans being “ugly losers”. I can understand why, people are very upset with what just happened. They can’t understand how a President with a 41% favorably rating, a Speaker of the House with an 11% favorable rating and a Senate Majority Leader with only a 9% favorable rating could come together and decide how to spend our money. I would say it is simply unimaginable except for the fact that it happened.

Yet I don’t think we should be ugly losers. Instead we should fight harder, fight smarter on the next bills, primarily immigration, and cap and trade initiatives. We must stop both of them. We must go across the country explaining why these are bad for the U.S., for us. No name calling or any other tactic along those lines which would only make us look bad and give sympathy to them. We need to publicly be nice and polite but behind the walls we need to fight as hard as Pelosi did and stop being so nice and polite. The country simply can’t afford another loss, another step towards redistribution of the wealth.

I bet that Obama will next try to bring in all the illegal immigrants. He has to. He needs those new citizens as potential new voters. Democrat voters, of course, who would then be bused to the voting polls in November 2012 to make sure that Obama is re-elected, even though the tax paying population is turning against him. (Obama has already shown he could care less about his party and Democrat politicians up for re-election this year. If he cared about them he wouldn’t have forced them to vote Yes on the health care bill knowing full well that their people hate the bill and will vote them out in November.) Anyway, we must stop any new bill to ease illegal immigration. If we couldn’t afford all those poor illegal immigrants before, just imagine the cost since they would all get on the federal insurance plans! We need to close the gates now because if I were a Mexican I would get my ass in this country ASAP in the hopes of some mass legalization thus allowing me to use the United States wonderful health care system, for free, of course.

Tea parties are great but we need more than that. We need stronger voices. We need Nancy Reagan. We need both Bushes and their spouses. We need Sarah Palin to do more than comment on Fox News. I just heard that McCain, who has always had a more liberal view of immigration and was hoping to put together a joint bill, has just said that there will be no more bipartisan efforts. What little goodwill there was has totally evaporated in light of the shenanigans by the Democrat party to ensure their recent victory. And then we need young voices.

Over the past week there have been a few younger Congressmen who have slowly risen to, perhaps not the top, but they have risen above the crowds. Other than Scott Brown I can’t tell you their names. But they know who they are and they need to start making the rounds on Sunday mornings and standing up for our causes. Speaking of which, most people are at church Sunday mornings but if you think of it tape Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. He is hosting the first one-on-one of the Republican candidate’s for Florida’s open Senate seat between Florida Governor Crist and Marco Rubio. At the start of the Republican primary Crist was a shoe in. Now? Rubio, a second generation Cuban, very conservative, young tea party goer now has a solid majority of 56% vs. Crist’s 34%. That is what we need to do.

I heard some democrat say that people will forget about this by November. Perhaps. But that might be why the symbol for Republicans is an elephant. We don’t forget. And we won’t let anyone else forget. As for the health care bill, we will do anything and everything we can do to delay, if not stop, it. A recent poll showed that 49% wanted their states to sue the government; primarily challenging that the health care bill is unconstitutional. Make sure yours is one of those states and that yours is one of the voices protesting, challenging and making sure people know the truth. This is my voice - where is yours?

A Lack of Leadership

If we were in England, Obama, who just a year ago was riding high, would be facing a vote of no confidence right about now. Instead, we have the Health Care bill which has morphed into more than simply an up and down vote on this issue. It has become a test of Obama’s leadership skills and his ability to get something, anything, done in his friendly Democratically controlled Congress. The only problem, however, is that in order to prove he is a leader and can get something done, he must ask his party to vote on a bill that is unpopular with a public who no longer even want it. (The most recent Rasmussen poll shows that 53% are opposed to the bill and 57% believe it will be harmful to our economy.)

The question that Democrat Reps are facing is this - do they fall on their sword by voting on this issue as a show of their support of their party and their President but knowing that a "Yes" vote will alienate their district resulting in their being voted out of their office in the fall? I truly feel sorry for the first term Congressmen and women who know full well that they will not be re-elected if they vote for the bill. And yet imagine the pressure they must be under to do just that! Congressman Massa may be a nutcase but I’m sure there is an element of truth to his statement about pressure to vote Yes from Rahm, Obama’s hitman. Add to that the calls from Nancy Pelosi and even from the president, and life is very uncomfortable for the Democrats who plan to vote against the health care bill.

You read that Obama’s leadership is at stake because of this bill yet I feel that he showed his complete lack of leadership skills by letting himself get into this position in the first place. If he had actually turned to the economy and creating jobs, as he promised in his State of the Union, he not only might have helped the country but his approval rating might be on the upturn for once. Instead he has completely squandered the country’s goodwill towards him.

The numbers clearly tell the story of Obama’s downfall:

The President’s approval ratings have been in freefall. The Rasmussen poll shows a swing of 23 percentage points from a positive 16 difference between Strongly Approve vs. Strongly Disapprove to a negative 6 percentage points. As bad as this is, the negatives for Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid are even worse! Sixty-four percent view Pelosi unfavorably while 56% dislike Reid. A recent remark by Pelosi is so outrageous that it is almost impossible to believe she said it. But she actually did say this: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Wow. No wonder people are in such contempt of Congress.

So what is going to happen? If they had the votes, Pelosi would have called for a vote on Monday. But they are still a handful short of even a simple majority to pass the health care bill. To add further pressure, Obama just postponed leaving for his big trip by a few days. One assumes he will use this time to call the recalcitrant Congressmen and women into his office to apply the greatest pressure of all – Presidential appeal and probably bribery. I truly hope that these Representatives, including my own, Suzanne Kosmos (d), can continue to stand by their first vote of no but I can understand how difficult it must be when faced by an irate President in the Oval Office. Yet in the long run I don’t think it will matter.

If the President and Pelosi are successful in passing this bill there will be a major upheaval as irate blue dog Democrats, Independents and Conservatives vote in Republican candidates en masse this fall. The primary campaigning point will have been to overturn the health care bill and once in office I am sure that they will find some way to do this. Or there is still a chance that the Democrats will not obtain the votes needed to pass the bill. Either way, within a year the Obama, Reid, Pelosi health care bill will not exist. Hopefully the next President, be he (or she) Democrat or Republican, will have finally learned that in order to succeed, a health care bill must be a joint venture with input from both sides and not a complete overhaul of our system by one side only.

As for Obama, if he is unable to pass bills when both the House and the Senate is controlled by Democrats then the rest of his term will be abysmal if the Republicans win big this fall. His legacy will revolve around how he squandered the nation's goodwill, wasted time during an economic crisis on a health care bill the public didn't want and showed that his retractors were right - Obama knows how to campaign and run for an office but once there he has no idea how to lead.

No Taxation Without Cogitation!

On this 4th of July weekend I would like to propose a revised version of the slogan that helped to rally the continental troops into fighting and defeating the English. Back then our forefathers complained that they had no vote in whether or not they would be taxed. Instead the King imposed all taxes. So the great slogan of No taxation without representation was born, thus helping to create the United States of America

Today, I propose a slight change to this slogan to reflect our current situation. My revised slogan is No taxation without cogitation. Aren’t familiar with cogitation? It’s a great old fashioned word that means concerted thought or reflection. So what I want my representatives to do is simply read all proposed bills, think about it and then vote. Sounds reasonable, right? And yet, from the first Congress there have been a few Senators and Representatives who would never bother to read a bill but would vote the party line. However starting this year, major bills are being passed in which none of our Congressmen or women are bothering to read what they are voting on much less cogitating on how much it would cost us, the citizens, when the bill is implemented.

This new trend started with the Stimulus Bill which grew into a 1000+ page bill which no one could have read in its entirety in the brief time between publishing the bill and voting on it. This massive bill, which would spend over $787 billion of our money, was passed by 246 people (ok mainly democrats) in the House and by 60 Senators. To their credit, our government officials were told that they had to vote on this bill immediately in order to resuscitate a dying economy. And yes, in January 2009 the news was grim with increasing unemployment and major companies failing left and right. We also had a new and exciting administration and so it is understandable if a vote on this bill was seen as yet one more support of Obama.

For all of these reasons, this massive bill, which few people read, was pushed through Congress on record time in order to save our economy. Now it is six months later yet less than a tenth of the money has been spent. OK, I'm all for saving the money if the economy is rebounding. Oh wait. The economy is worse than the start of the year. In fact, Obama’s economic team had said that if the bill was passed then the 7.2% unemployment rate at the time of the vote would probably peak at 8%. Oops. They just announced that our current unemployment rate is 9.1%. And that is with the $787 billion in stimulus aid! Seems to me that maybe somebody ought to finally read all 1000+ pages to see just what that money is earmarked for and how it is supposed to be stimulating our economy. All it has stimulated so far is the unemployment rate.

But did Congress learn? No. In fact last week the House of Representatives did it again. They passed another long bill regarding a new concept of Cap and Trade. From what I understand it is basically a taxing platform to raise money from corporations and citizens to spend on “green” environmental stuff. Even putting aside the ongoing arguments (and yes Senator Gore, people are still debating global warming as they should) there is still the unconscionable fact that our Congressmen and women once again voted on a bill which they didn’t read.

This time it was a complete farce. When Representatives complained that they didn’t even have a copy of the bill Speaker Nancy Pelosi told them that there was one copy at the podium. That’s it; one copy for over 400 people to share and read. Only problem is that even that “final” copy was missing the 300 pages of addendums added at 3am of the day of the vote. Denying Representatives a chance to even read a bill is a complete abuse of her power. Plus it is one thing to be loyal to a new administration but to blindly pass massive bills unread which would change the foundation of this country and heavily tax citizens in an effort to redistribute wealth is unethical and disgusting.

Has it reached the point where we need to demand that if a bill requires new or increased taxes then our Senators and Representatives who vote on it must sign a statement indicating that they read it in full? They would then be held accountable for what was in that bill and what they approved with their vote. If they were forced to read it and to be accountable then they just might produce reasonable bills without pages and pages of rediculous earmarks.

Plus isn’t accountability what Obama promised us? Wasn’t his administration supposed to be one of both accountability and transparency? And yet Congressmen can’t even get their own copy of a bill and when they do the bills are so voluminous that no one can read it in time for the vote. Plus there is the whole issue of the unheard of speed in which these bills are being forced through committees and onto the floor with little to no discussions and not even time to read it even if you had your own copy and wanted to read it.

It is time to say Stop! We must demand No taxation without cogitation! We and our children and grandchildren will be paying for the taxes hidden in these unread bills and we can’t let this go on. Beginning with the upcoming Senate vote on the Cap and Trade we must demand that our Senators at least read the bill before they vote on it.

And how sad that we even have to tell our Senators and Representatives to read something before voting on it. But thanks to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid who are trying to jam bills with massive taxing and redistribution of our country's wealth down our throats then we must demand of our Congressmen and women to read the bill and think about its implications before voting on it.

So join me in shouting No taxation without cogitation and maybe someday there might actually be a vote by people who have read the bill, understand its tax implication and had a lively intelligent discussion about it. Now wouldn't that be nice....

Bio Brief - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

On Sunday, Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, emphatically stated that Gov. Blagojevich’s choice for Obama’s open Senate seat, Roland Burris would not be accepted by the Senate. Just three days later Reid changed his tune and will now accept Burris. So who is this man, Harry Reid, who is blundering his way into the new year as Senate Majority Leader?

Reid was born in a rural mining town in Nevada in 1939 making him 70 years old this year. I read in Wikipedia that he has held a number of positions in his home state, including serving as Nevada Gaming Commissioner from 1977 to 1981 a post that subjected him with death threats. After next serving two terms in Congress he was elected to the Senate in 1986. He was voted as Senate Minority Leader in 2005 and when the Democrats took control of the Senate became Senate Majority Leader in 2006.

I was very surprised to learn that the Democrats chose him as Senate Majority Leader considering his stance on some very sensitive issues. For instance, according to Wikipedia he is pro life and supported the ban on late term abortions. As an avid sportsman he is also pro gun voting against the ban on semi-automatic weapons. He voted for the Defense of Marriage Act saying that “marriage should be between a man and a woman”. And he supports a constitutional amendment to protect our flag. Not exactly the opinions one would expect from the leader of the Democrats in the Senate!

Reid, however, holds some very liberal views on other issues. Instead of describing them, I will let him speak for himself:

- On the Iraqi War: "This war is a serious situation. It involves the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country." February 18, 2007

- On the Surge: “I believe, myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense, and — you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows — this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday." April 19, 2007

- On Global Warming: “One reason we have fires in California is global warming.” October 2007

- On the Economy: “The urgency of this, everyone knows about. But I'm not going to have some false deadline, whether it's February 1 or whatever it is. I want to make sure that all senators have some input in what goes on here and do it as quickly as we can.” January 4, 2009

- On the new Capital Visitors Center: “In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true. ”December 2, 2008

- On Blagojevich: “"We determine who sits in the Senate. And the House (of Representatives) determines who sits in the House. So there's clearly legal authority for us to do whatever we want to do. This goes back for generations." January 4, 2009

- On working with the White House: “We are constitutionally empowered by the Constitution to have certain powers that are inherent in this body, and we want to work with the president. But they can't jam things down our throats.” Meet the Press December 5, 2004

Ok so I think that taken all together you get a pretty good picture of this man. I love the last quotes where he outright states that the Senate can do whatever they want as long as they are separated from the smelly tourists. What hubris! And as I read many articles written about him over the past five years there also appears to be a darker side to this man. There are numerous stories of corruption and hushed up scandals. Rumors have it that his family has made millions of dollars from bills Reid has endorsed, or earmarked including a very questionable $1.1 million land deal by the Senator, plus he was linked to the indited Jack Abramoff. There has also been a taint of racism throughout the years. This has resurfaced when he supposedly asked Blagojevich not to nominate three men for the Illinois Senate seat, all of whom are black.

And yes, he is a Mormon, which explains some of his conservative views. Although interestingly, he wasn’t born into a Morman family but rather he and his wife converted when they were in college. Hmmm. Here’s an interesting question. How is it that everyone knew that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was a Mormon yet this high level Democrat's affiliation with the Latter Day Saints is kept hush hush? And now that I think of it, how can the radical left, who are bitterly opposing Mormons due to their supposed influence in defeating Prop 8 in California, continue to support Reid and his leadership role as Senate Majority Leader?

After researching Harry Reid I am coming to the conclusion that he is the worst kind of politician – a self righteous, power driven, ethically challenged liberal. It is only a few days into the new year and already Reid’s ego and self powertrip has hurt him with this Burris situation. I wonder just how long he will be able to hold on to his leadership position, and who would win if he does go toe to toe with the new White House, which some of his previous statements indicated will happen. Only time will tell but it sure could be fun to watch!

So that wraps up my first Bio Brief. I hope you found it helpful in understanding one of the most powerful men in our country.