Deny, Deny, Deny

I once read that lawyers are trained to tell people who are in trouble to always “Deny, deny, deny.” It seems as if our president has mastered this lesson when he was studying to become a lawyer at Harvard Law school.

Take the NASA incident. First NASA administrator Bolden states that Obama wanted him to reach out to the Muslim community. After getting some negative feedback, the White House issued a statement defending this initiative. More negative feedback occurred. Then on Monday, Press Secretary Gibbs says that the White House denies that Obama ever gave that directive, adding that NASA administrator Bolden misspoke. Nice. Of course what Bolden said is true! Having NASA reach out to Muslim’s is so bizarre that it would never occur to Bolden to make up this story. Nor would this man lie about what President Obama, his boss, said to him. Besides, why would Bolden even be on the Arab network Al Jazeera last month if it weren’t to discuss the Muslim outreach program?

But this isn’t the first time Obama has denied and lied. Remember when he said he barely knew the disgraced Illinois governor until picture after picture was produced showing the two of them together? Or how about his State of the Union pledge that jobs will be his #1 focus only to immediately ignore jobs in favor of passing a health care plan? To help recall other lies I googled ”Obama Lies” and was amused to find 13.4 million hits including an Obamalies.net website dedicated to this topic!

In Obama’s defense, he is not the only politician to live by the “Deny deny deny” philosophy. Remember when Bill Clinton first denied that he had sex with that woman? Or how about his earlier denial of “not inhaling”. John Edwards tried to deny his affair and “love” child. Perhaps the most serious and reprehensible denial was President Nixon’s infamous “I am not a crook” statement. And it's not just politicians who deny wrongdoing. There are many a story about corporations (most recently Toyota for example), celebrities (Mel Gibson?) and other famous men/women we once admired (hello OJ) who have lied and denied they did anything wrong.

I think people lean towards denial the minute they can talk. Find a child standing next to a glass that he had clearly just broken and ask what happened and the child would invariably reply “I don’t know”. When asked point blank if they had broken the glass many children would make a lawyer delighted with their repeated denial of breaking the glass. Children must be taught to tell the truth even if they are told otherwise when they are older.

But wouldn't you think by now that politicians would realize that denying never works and in fact makes life more difficult for them? Besides, Americans have a soft spot for the man or woman who stands up and says “Yes I did that”. Just as you would quickly forgive the child who confessed that they broke the glass, you would forgive the politician who seemed genuinly sorry for his/her actions. But by lying, it only serves to keep a story alive as the press continue to dig for more evidence to prove that the politician was lying. The biggest lesson learned in the Watergate scandal was that it wasn't the wiretapping but the ensuing cover-up that brought down President Nixon.

In this case, instead of lying and denying the NASA story, Press Secretary Gibbs should have said yes, Obama had told NASA administrator Bolden to build better relationships with Muslims and then explained why he wanted Bolden to do this. Perhaps after knowing the reasoning behind this order people might have been more understanding. Or here's a novel thought, to admit that since the public is upset they are rescinding that order altogether. But no, being a typical lawyer, Obama ended up lying and denying the entire story!

The public has reached the tipping point with Obama. This is just one more lie on top of dozens of earlier lies. Combined, the President's lies are a large factor behind Obama’s increasing disapproval rate. Time and time again, Obama has denied and lied to us. In addition to hurting public opinion of him, Obama’s most recent lies and denials send a chilling signal to anyone who works for him. Obama basically left Bolden hanging in the wind when the White House cut all support and then turned around and accused Bolden of lying. Who would want to work for someone who would do that to an employee!

Did you watch Obama's state of the union earlier this year when Congressman Joe Wilson shouted out "You lie"? Wilson apologized for interrupting the president, which was wrong, but I can now understand his frustration. Too bad that being publicly branded a liar hasn't phased Obama in the least. In fact last month Senator Or from Arizona met privately with Obama to discuss immigration. Afterwards the Senator told a group that "The president said the problem is if we secure the border, then you all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform." The President denied ever saying this. At the time, you wondered who was telling the truth. After Obama’s recent statement denying his instructions to NASA administrator Bolden, you no longer wonder who the liar was.

Dismantling of NASA

In a recent interview with Al Jazeera, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that Obama instructed him to help Muslims “feel good about their historic contribution to science”. Excuse me? This is so over the top as to be made up. Right? Nope. Here is the exact quote.:

“When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering,"
You can’t help but wonder if, with these three charges to this NASA administrator, Obama is not just crippling the US space program but trying to extinguish our leadership role and the advances we have made. Well, actually, that is exactly what Obama is doing. For in response to former NASA administrator Griffin’s statement that these objectives were "deeply flawed", the White House issued this statement “The space race began as a global competition, but today, it is a global collaboration.”

Wow. The leader of this country is actually telling us to step aside. Our President truly believes that the US should not strive to be first but should instead work jointly with other countries and helping Muslim countries specifically. Right there is Obama’s motive for what he is doing to not just NASA but to our entire country. Are you scared yet? You should be.

Obama’s second objective, to expand our international relationships, goes to the heart of his plan to globalize the space program. What really scares me, though, is that if in expanding relationships, Obama wants us to share our secrets about the space program. NASA has given us so many advances in science, medicine, physics and engineering plus many many military advances. Obama can't be wanting us sharing these secrets with other countries, can he?

Then there is Obama’s third initiative – to make Muslim’s feel good about their role in science. Instead of helping, don't you think it comes across as extremely arrogant and condescending? And isn’t it interesting that he states it as dominantly Muslim countries and not Arab countries? Why the continous bowing down to this group? Can you imagine the outcry if Obama had said to reach out to dominantly Christian countries? The media would have been all over him and yet, why isn’t the media attacking the President for his prejudicial treatment of Muslim countries?

Why doesn’t Obama realize that many of these Muslim countries are our enemies? Don’t you get it Mr. President? They hate us and want to annihilate first Israel and then the US. For example, do we need to make Iranians feel good or under the umbrella of globalization provide them the means to fly a rocket with a nuclear tip to the US? And I bet that Iran wants nothing to do with globalizing space or globalizing anything for that matter in their race to be first. Yet in Obama's overall goal of globalization for America, he wants to use our space program as a means to reach out to them and to make Muslims feel good. Sorry, Mr. President. I could give a flying f$%! if Muslims feel good about their historic role in science.

Finally, the space program is not and never should be a global project. President Kennedy understood that. JFK’s moon speech eloquently rebuttals Obama’s goal of globalization in space. Here is an excerpt from his 1962 speech which rings as true today as it did 48 years ago.

“The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and
it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be
the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode
the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern
invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not
intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space.
We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of
freedom and peace.

We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.”

In less than two years, Obama will have destroyed President Kennedy’s hopes and dreams of America’s space leadership and abandoned all that has been achieved in the past 50+ years by the great men and women who worked for and even died for NASA.

Greece, GDP and Dr. Seuss

There have been riots in Greece but I didn't really understand why other than Greece's economy was shot. Then I read an article about Greece's debt to GDP ratio and for the first time I truly understood the impact of what they were saying. Before, I would get lost in talks of billions and trillions, it sounds like something out of a Dr. Seuss book* but this ratio made sense. It divides debt (the amount a country owes) into the Gross Domestic Product or GDP (the total market value of all goods and services produced in a country in one year). To make it easy, if a country produced $50,000 and had debts of $5,000 their debt ($5,000) as a percentage of their $50,000 GDP would be 10% ($5,000/$50,000).

Greece’s current debt to GDP is an astonishing 115%. So for every $100 produced, Greece would spend all of it plus owe another $15 giving it a deficit of 15% which it has no way of paying back since it has already spent all of the money it produced in a year. Thus they needed a loan from the UN to make up for its deficit spending. If Greece doesn’t curb their spending then economists predict that Greece’s debt to GDP ratio will top 140% by 2014 which is a 40% deficit! Something must be done but their ideas of drastic changes are ridiculous. Two of the measures they plan to implement include changing the retirement age from 61 to 63 and abolishing a two-month pay bonus which state workers receive every year. Oh my, no wonder protesters were rioting!

The truly disgusting part is that the U.S. helped pay for the bailout given to Greece. And it won’t be just Greece that is falling apart. France’s debt to GDP is 80% and expected to grow to nearly 90% by 2014. No surprise as France is another nanny nation where the retirement age is 60, the typical French worker can expect to spend 24 years in retirement and civil servants will earn 75% of their pre-retirement income, not to mention 6+ weeks vacation when they do work. Yet Sarkozy refuses to discuss cuts to these overly generous benefits. Instead, France hopes that for some reason their workers suddenly become motivated and increase production (a higher GDP would then mean a lower debt to GDP ratio).

So on one hand there are these spoiled European countries with their low retirement ages, high pensions, months off and big bonuses and on the other hand there are us, the United States taxpayers. The US worker is lucky if they gets a 3-week vacation compared to months off in France and Spain. And lately, most US employees figure they will have to work until they are at least 67 to have enough saved for when they can retire. It galls me to think that part of our hard earned money is being siphoned off to support people who riot at the thought of increasing their retirement age of 60 to 63. We thought it was bad when we were burdened with supporting deadbeats and illegal immigrants here in America but it turns out we are also supporting the lifestyle of European citizens through UN bailouts. Maybe it should be the American taxpayers who are protesting. Oh wait, hello Tea Party.

Yet in direct opposition to the Tea Party’s goals, President Obama continues to rapidly transform the United States into becoming more like Europe by spending trillions of dollars and increasing our debt. But what is our debt to GDP ratio, you ask? It will probably come as no surprise that it has grown substantially since the last election. Back in 2006, America's ratio of debt to GDP was 61.9%, and in 2007 it grew slightly to 63.1%. Then came Bush’s bailouts in 2008 which increased our debt to GDP to 70.5%.

After Obama became president, the ratio jumped in one year from 70.5% to 87% in 2009! This year it again increased dramatically to 97.5%! Thanks to Obama’s health care program, stimulus packages and bailouts, the United States is now spending $97 for every $100 we produce. If we keep on this track we are estimated to have a projected debt to GDP in 2014 of 106.7%! Like Greece, we would be spending more than we produce. We are faced with the same basic choices as Greece, France and every other country; either we produce more or we spend less. (Again this is taking a very simplistic view of the situation.)

Right now, it almost seems as if Obama and his team are crippling our ability to produce more. It is hard to increase our output when we have a 10% unemployment rate. Yet after nearly 18 months there are still no comprehensive job programs nor has he used the bulk of the stimulus money. Education is another factor since you would think that the better educated worker would produce more. Our first African American President and First Lady would be wonderful role models to minority children. Michele should be preaching about staying in school and tackling the exorbitant drop out rates in inner cities, not showing off her muscles and harassing pudgy kids.

We also need to be a leader in technology which will help workers to produce more by providing better electronics, tools and equipment. Yet Obama is destroying our 50 year old NASA program which encouraged kids to study math, science and physics, not to mention exploring planets and stars. And on the opposite scale from NASA are the small businesses which Obama is crippling with his new taxes and initiatives. Not to forget big businesses or fat cats as Obama so prejudiciously calls them. He's happy to take their money for his campaigns while blaming them for our country's woes at every opportunity.

I cannot think of a single thing Obama has done that would encourage the businesses, small or big or the government to produce more. Can you? But we can’t continue like this or we will end up like Greece. So if we aren't going to increase productivity then the alternative is for Obama and Congress to decrease spending. Ok, did you have a good laugh, too, at that thought? But if Obama and Congress won’t stop spending then we have to stop them. It's that simple. Vote them all out and vote for leaders who believe in small government and individual and state's rights. And while we’re at it, maybe we should stop handing out our hard earned money to the UN, too.


* My take of Dr. Suess on Obama - Obama handed out millions, our millions, your billions, my trillions, and then he gave to the poor even more billions and trillions and gadzillions. Obama spent and he spent, every dollar and cent, bailing out cars, and houses, and banks, yet those louses never ever said thanks. Then Nancy got antsy and Harry got scary as they scurried like rats to round up their Democrats to vote the right vote or the right left vote. And now there's money for health care, money for car fare, money for stimulus plans and wars in Afghanistan.

But I do not like this, Pres, I says. I do not like Obamacare where everyone's on welfare. I do not care at all I says to Pres, I do not like banks too big to fail and so we bail and spend, and spend and bail so if you fail don't wail we'll bail and don't go pale for you'll get no jail instead give yourself a big bonus all on us. Oh my oh my I do not like this Pres, my friend, I do not like this Pres at all. The end.

A Tale of Two Coasts

During the President’s State of the Union he touted job creations and announced a plan to build a high speed train from Orlando to Tampa. To further emphasize this initiative, he arrived in Tampa the very next day to announce it again. Now if you’re not a Floridian then you may not know that the idea of high speed trains is not new to this state… In 2002 there was an amendment to build a similar high speed train which was passed. Just one problem. There was no mention of how Florida was supposed to pay for this thing. Two years later, after everyone came to their senses and realized how much it would cost the state, we voted it down. I guess that citizens’ wishes are now irrelevant as the President has just forced it back on us again.

Obama said that he was “giving” us $1.25 billion to build this, except that is only half of the full cost of $2.6 billion. Who is going to pay for the rest? If it is up to Floridians, forget it, we don’t have that money. So we may end up with a high speed train from the Orlando International Airport to Disney, which is Phase 1 of the project - a great boondoggle for Disney World but useless for Florida’s citizens.

But what about all the jobs it would create? It was stated that there would be 23,000 construction jobs and 1,000 professional jobs needed for this project. Let’s take the professional jobs, first. We would need to look to Europe or Japan for the expertise and professionals to oversee this project. The trains themselves, would also most likely be primarily built overseas, too. But there would still be the 23,000 construction jobs which would help Florida’s employment, right? I don’t think so.

Everybody jokes about seeing a group of construction workers standing around and watching one guy work but what about 229 men watching one guy? You see, there are approximately 80 miles between the Orlando International Airport and Ybor City, the proposed final destination. Let’s even say there is another 20 miles to go over to Disney and other tracks needed at the airport and Lakeland, another destination point. The proposed 23,000 jobs works out to 230 men per mile! I don’t’ know about you, but the 23,000 projected jobs seems as out of whack as most government projections.

Even if they found the money to complete it to Tampa, there is still the question of who would ride it. I just don’t see that there is enough demand for people going between Orlando and Tampa to support the $2.6 billion cost. I’ve driven this route frequently and it simply is not a bad drive.

They say the train will halve the current trip of about 90 minutes to roughly 40 minutes. But that omits the added time to get to the train station and find a parking space. Nor does it resolve the practicalities of getting where you need to go without a car if you arrive by train. Then add in our Florida weather. I read that they are thinking of powering it with electricity. Hmmm. I am not sure if I would want to get on a metal train attached to an electric line during the daily summer lightening storms. Not to mention how often we lose power which would mean the train could frequently be stranded somewhere in the middle of orange groves… Driving straight over would make more sense and would probably be quicker in the long run, all things considered.

In the shadow of the “excitement” for the Orlando to Tampa high speed train there was another quieter announcement this week about the other coast of Florida. Obama has proposed that NASA use its budget to maintain the International Space Station and keep it viable to 2020 and abandon the effort to return to the moon. In one stroke Obama will effectively destroy NASA’s future. This change in focus will cancel NASA’s Project Constellation which was working on replacing our aging space shuttles with new capsule based systems. This simply does not make sense and is not only detrimental to my state but to the whole country.

This new change in the focus of NASA is expected to result in the loss of 7000 jobs in Florida, on top of the 900 people let go last fall. And these are skilled engineers and scientists with high paying jobs who will be now removed from Florida’s tax base. There would be comparable losses in Houston, California and other states which have facilities that support NASA.

Obama’s budget would destroy our space program as we would no longer have any shuttles and nothing in the works to replace them. Even worse, it means that we would end up funding Russia’s space program as they would have the only remaining transportation to the ISS and our astronauts would have to hitch a ride with the Russians, for a price, of course. Thus Obama would destroy our space program while supporting Russia’s.

Last week, on the west coast Obama proposed a high speed train at a cost of at least $2.6 billion, which nobody wants or will use. He is giving us only half the cost so this state, which had already voted down a similar project, will now be saddled for the other half. On the east coast, NASA has been told to abandon our space programs which will loose 7,000 high paying jobs. We need to tell the President he has it backwards (again). Abandon the ridiculous and unwanted high speed train and instead support our future space programs. For in the long run, probably more men and women will fly into space then will ever ride that train.