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 Idiocy of Youthful Idealism

Lately I’ve been listening to some young people discuss President Obama. They sounded so idealistic and enthusiastic about our President. It makes me want to slap them silly until they get some sense and see what really is happening in our country. Now some of you might say that I am acting like an old grump complaining about the youth of today and forgetting what it was like to be young. Not true. When I was in my 20s I was as politically conservative as I am today and even helped to campaign for Reagan.

As for today’s youngest voters, first, they should be applauded for actually voting. Too many of their generation opt out entirely from the election process. So even if they voted stupidly, er, for Obama, these 20 somethings should at least be proud that they did vote. And yes, I know, if they had stayed at home then that would mean fewer votes for Obama. However, the win margin was so great that even without their votes Obama would have still won so I can afford to be magnanimous and congratulate them for voting. Actually it is this kind of sneaky thinking that doesn’t yet occur to young people. Unfortunately politicians are masters of this type of attitude and behavior and President Obama is the Grand Master of it all.

Obama cloaks himself in secrecy, lies and doubletalk and is surrounded by people almost as good as he in manipulating others; Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel just to name a few. Between them, they are creating a legacy that at first glance appears to be one of helping anyone with middle and lower incomes at the expense of those with higher incomes. They are making his campaign promise come true - to share the wealth, which sounds great to everyone except the wealthy and of course businessmen who make profits and everyone on Wall Street. But these “fat cats” as Obama calls them can afford to be hit up for some money to help others, right? Oh my, there are so many things wrong with this that I get dizzy trying to think where to start. How do you begin to explain to young people who are still enamored with Obama and believe that all capitalists are immoral and making a profit is bad that they are wrong and the path Obama is taking our country is reprehensible?

I might be saved from having to explain anything if I just wait and let them discover it for themselves. In fact, I think they are about to be in for some big shocks. None have seen past the razzle dazzle promoted by President Obama and his team to take the time to understand what he proposes actually means. Take the national health care bill, for example. I heard one young women gush over our President and how this was why she voted for him, because he cares about the poor and those without health care. It was her next sentence that got to me for she then added that she can’t afford to get that health insurance but she feels relieved to know it is there for when she can afford it. Excuse me? Didn’t she read the small print? Didn't she listen to any of the nearly daily speeches the president made about health care? Obviously not.

This woman didn’t have a clue how this national health care was going to work. Yes I agree that it is a nice gesture to now have health care for everyone. But she must not have read the small print – health care insurance will not be an option - it will be a requirement in this country. Once this bill goes into effect, if she still can’t afford the offered health care insurance then she probably won't be able to afford the tax Obama will impose on people without any health insurance. I am sure as hell that she will not be happy when she does her income taxes and realizes that she will be hit with a hefty tax instead. It is infuriating that this young woman and the millions like her can’t see the unfairness of this new bill and it may take our Supreme Court to decide if it is even legal to require our citizens to buy health insurance. And yet until the reality of this bill hits this young adult, they will still think Obama walks on water.

Another young Obama enthusiast recently discussed how the President has kept his taxes down. He was actually referring to Obama’s decision to keep President Bush’s lower taxes but I knew it would be useless to point this out to him. I know that he, too, will be in for a shock come the first tax day after Obama has removed Bush’s lower taxe rates and the young man will see how much he now owes in taxes thanks to our current President. But no one that age would listen to me if I said that the current lower taxes are due to President Bush since they can't see past their hatred of him.

As much as these young people love Obama they despise Bush. I have a theory about that. These young adults were children and teens during 9-11. It was a scary time for everyone and must have been even more upsetting for children. It would be only natural for them to look up to our new president and during those early days President Bush did seem nearly heroic. The image of him standing next to the construction workers at the sight of the fallen towers shouting that we will be heard was exhilarating as were the early days of the Afghanistan war. But then the war dragged on and on and the initial heat of revenge cooled off as we found ourselves in a long drawn out war. Between the war, the 2004 election and the economy Bush went from hero to zero in the eyes of the young. And no one can be as judgmental and cruel as a young person who becomes disillusioned with an adult they had once admired. I should know. I was once a young Republican for Nixon.

For the time being, other than this article, I am going to keep quiet when I hear further outrageous remarks from the young people. Besides, I am not sure there is anything I could say that would change their mind. Only time and experience can make them understand what is really happening. I just hope we have the time for them to get the experience which would open their eyes to what Obama is doing to America.

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 Show of Raw Power

People I talk to are truly scared that the passage of this bill would change America, many of them fearing it is an irrevocable giant step towards socialism. However, if the news that the Democrats have the votes for the health care bill upsets you, here are some things to think about.

For the past six months, ever since summer really, it feels as if the whole country has been paralyzed because of the health care bill. Republicans should actually be grateful. All this attention and effort on just one bill has meant that nothing else is getting done in Congress.

If Obama wins on Sunday and the health care bill is passed, it won’t mean that everything will go his way from then on; far from it. I keep thinking of the phrase “political capital”. Obviously with all the arm twisting and bribing, Obama and Pelosi will have used up all of their political capital. If a Congressman ends up voting for this bill I wonder how receptive they will be to future liberal causes, and threats.

For example, there is my own first term Congresswoman, a Democrat who voted No on the first health care bill. If I am being bombarded by telephone ads from both left and right to call her I can only imagine what her life is like right now. Well, no actually I can’t imagine what it would be like to be browbeaten not only by my Speaker, dozens of Democrat leaders but also confronted by my President in his Oval Office, and all of them threatening to annihilate me in November if I don’t support my party.

Then there is the “pep rally” planned this afternoon for all Democrat Representatives plus Obama, now that he has cancelled his trips. Some analysts are comparing what is happening to the Stockholm syndrome which is when hostages begin to sympathize with their captors. I think it is more along the lines of mass hysteria. Remember the pictures of the crowds cheering Hitler over and over again?

I really can’t see my Congresswoman continuing to stand up to so much raw power. And that is what it is. Absolute raw ugly power against, in many cases, first term idealistic Congressmen and women. But once Obama and Pelosi have used this tactic they will have nothing left in their bag of tricks for the rest of the year, which is why I doubt that any other very liberal bill gets passed this year.

We all know that Obama came into office promising a laundry list of far left changes. He has now spent his first year on just one issue – health care. Once that is passed he will try to quickly move on to other issues, immigration is already next on his list, but I believe that he will find each vote to be a painful reminder of the damage he and Pelosi have done in order to pass the health care bill.

First, the passage of the health bill will result in dozens of law suits questioning the legality of forcing people to get insurance. Already over half the states are planning to fight this bill. There is also the “fixes” which Democrat Senators promised the House will be added but they might find it difficult to pass when faced with Republican opposition. The bill already isn’t supposed to force health care on us until 2014 and between now and then Congress will be swamped with law suits and delaying tactics making it difficult to implement this bill or to move on to any other bill.

I also think that what is happening is similar to any action movie. The good guys always take a real beating and then at the end they pull themselves together and finally succeed in defeating the bad guys. I have a feeling that as in any action flick, if the health care bill is passed then the people, the soccer Moms and racecar Dads, the elderly widows and the young family man, the single women and the mother of four, Republicans, Independents and Tea Party people of any and every color, age and creed will pull together in a tidal wave of anger, frustration and purpose to block anything else proposed by Obama and to win this November. And like any good movie, in the end the good guys will win.

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....

Short Retort

There is a lot of talk about health care bills. The Senate and the House each have their own version of a bill that would provide health care for everyone. They are massive bills filled with pages and pages of legalese and bureaucratic jargon which no one ever reads. Yet these Washington politicians and their mainstream media side kicks bombard us with stories and lectures on how wonderful these health care bills are. But no one mentions one small detail; not everyone is covered in the new health care plans. There is one group who will be exempt from following this "wonderful" new health care plan - the politicians themselves! You have to wonder... why aren't the Senators and Congressmen and women who are writing and designing the new health care system going to be forced to use it just like everyone else? If the proposed new health care system not good enough for Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi and all the rest of the politicians then why should we be forced to use it?

Liberal Hypocrites? Really?

Yes, it may be hard to believe but liberals really are hypocrites! In fact their two-faced indignation and hypocritical outrage have recently reached new levels. Two totally different stories in the headlines have had these liberals, especially the California/Hollywood types, screeching in moral indignation. Yes, I said moral indignation, which, considering these people the idea of moral Hollywood liberals is surely an oxymoron. Nonetheless see for yourself….

Everybody knows about the OctoMom, the woman who had 8 babies in addition to her current 6 children. I think that in Hollywood the greater sin is not that she had all these children or that she can’t take care of them but rather that she dares to emulate the nearly sainted Angolina Jolie. What nerve!

Besides, how dare a doctor implant all those eggs in this woman! Debates are already raging about him with outraged liberals demanding that his license is yanked and perhaps even putting him up on criminal charges. For it should be a crime for an unwed mother of six to have eight more children, right? I mean it’s ok if Jolie has a lot of children because she’s rich and has a husband. Oh wait, I guess she and Pitt never have married, have they? But OctoMom’s doctor should definitely be punished for implanting all those eggs because this woman has to be mentally unbalanced and therefore couldn’t make the right decision. So it is up to the doctor to intervene on her behalf, right? Then again, aren’t these the same liberals who will start screaming at even a hint of the repeal of Roe vs. Wade for how dare a man tell a woman what to do with.. her..body... oh, well, never mind.

Speaking of babies, last fall these same far left gossips were jumping all over Sarah Palin’s unwed daughter who became pregnant. Oh what a horror! How could she not only become pregnant at 17 but then compound it by actually giving birth and keeping her baby! What a terrible mother Palin must be to allow this to happen. No need to mention that “baby bumps” are the latest Hollywood accessory without of course any fathers in sight. And gee, didn’t the Oscar for the best original screenplay last year go to Juno, about, yes that’s right, a pregnant teenager. How cute. How funny. How sweet. How dare Palin’s daughter get pregnant and give birth without a father around! So it’s ok for Godless liberals (as Ann Coulter calls them) to have children out of wedlock or to play a pregnant teenage but conservative have to abide by a different standard!

The last hypocritical move by the liberals is something that is still in the news. Poor Michael Phelps caught taking a hit off a bong and getting high on pot. What a tempest in a teacup! I mean really, it’s no big deal, right? He’s just having some fun with some college kids (although if he had been in a frat house I bet the press and liberals would be singing a different song). Anyway, it wasn’t as if Phelps was doing anything strong like crack or heroin, it was just marijuana. Since this story has broken I have heard numerous Hollywood liberals proclaim that pot should be legalized. They all point to California, the land of Nancy Pelosi, which is so progressive that it has decriminalized pot.

In fact just as FDR repealed Prohibition in order to increase tax revenues during the depression then Obama should legalize pot. Then Phelps and anyone else who wants to get high can take a hit on a bong whenever they want to without fear of being arrested. But don’t you dare light a cigarette within 50 feet of these pot proponents or they will have you arrested for polluting the air and endangering their health with that filthy, disgusting second hand smoke! Wait a moment, let me sniff, oh, that’s a joint and not a cigarette? Never mind.

Bio Brief - Nancy Pelosi - Part 3 of 3

Peter Schweizer wrote a book entitled Do As I say (Not As I Do); Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy and it should not come as a surprise that he devoted an entire chapter to Mrs. Pelosi. One example of her hypocrisy was explained in a National Review article where Schweizer says: “Nancy Pelosi bashes everyone who doesn't allow unions to call the shots. Everyone that is except herself. It's takes an amazing amount of gall to accept the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Unions while using non-UFW workers on your Napa Valley Vineyard. It takes the same to praise the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union and take massive sums of money from them all the while keeping them out of your Hotel and chain of restaurants. But again, I think Pelosi correctly assumes that no one in the media will challenge her on this.”

Although it is not true that her husband owns $17 million in Del Monte stock, the email making the rounds about her was correct in stating that she did get the American territory of Samoa exempt from the increase in minimum wage. And that Del Monte, which is headquartered in her district, has two packing plants in Samoa with around 5,000 employees. She also did get into trouble once by using government planes to travel to and from San Francisco and there was an incident over her paying her husband $100,000 for consulting fees, a practice she had voted to ban.

Pelosi’s hypocrisy is also evident in how she runs Congress. Remember her initial vow last year to have Congress work five days? That went out the window in the first week when she adjourned Congress on a Monday so that people could attend the national college football game! I’ve not heard much about that 5-day work week since then, have you? And last August, when gas prices were closing in on $5 the Speaker adjourned Congress for a five-week vacation without taking any action to lower gas prices while Republicans continued to debate the issue on the darkened House floor.

But the coup de grace of hypocrisy was last summer when Pelosi called Bush “a total failure” yet refused to acknowledge that Congress had the lowest approval levels of just 14% according to Gallup, ratings that were even lower than Bush’s! The same CNN article continued to report that a whopping 70% disapproved of the job Congress is doing. And while the Real Clear Politics poll shows that Obama has an average favorable rating of 61.8%, Congress continues to have a low favorable rating of just 27.3%.

Earlier, when I was googling on Pelosi’s husband, Paul, I turned up a lot about her son, Paul Jr. I looked at a few articles and discovered that that Nancy Pelosi’s son, Paul Pelosi is a real chip off the old block. An excellent article at http://valleywag.gawker.com/5113868/paul-pelosi-jr-the-fresh-green-prince-of-san-francisco highlights Paul Pelosi Jr. Here is just a sampling: “His LinkedIn profile is a bit incomplete. It discusses his investment-banking work for Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. And it mentions his job at Countrywide, for example, where he worked as a loan officer — at one of the mortgage companies most scrutinized for its role in the housing bubble and ensuing collapse of Wall Street. But it pointedly omits his $180,000 a year job as a senior vice president at InfoUSA, a marketer of consumer databases, which he started less than one month after his mother became House Speaker, while simultaneously holding his job at Countrywide. InfoUSA CEO Vinod Gupta also paid Bill Clinton millions of dollars as a consultant…”

Did anyone ever mention during the mortgage crisis that the Speaker of the House’s son worked for the worst culprit, Countrywide? Now if a Republican Congressman’s son worked for them there would be outcries of conflict of interest but not a peep was said and this was the Speaker of House! As for InfoUSA, there is a definite trend of paying off the relatives of high ranking Democrats. However, I won’t comment any further as I was once a client of theirs, although perhaps paying off Clinton and Pelosi might explain the exorbitant prices they charged for their services!

At the same time she and her family appear to flaunt the rules, she is currently working to repeal the Fairness Rules. Basically these rules, which were implemented by Newt Gingrich as part of his Contract with America, ensure that minority opinions are heard through open debate and alternative bills, and include a six-year term limit for committee chairmen. There is an excellent article about this in Human Events at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30143&s=rcmp.

This Human Events article ends by saying: “Pelosi’s proposed repeal of decades-long House accountability reforms exposes a tyrannical Democrat leadership poised to assemble legislation in secret, then goose-step it through Congress by the elimination of debate and amendment procedures as part of America’s governing legislative process.”

Add in her professed Progressive (read Socialistic) ideologue and this is a very scary picture of our Speaker of the House, third in line for the Presidency, isn’t it?

Bio Brief - Nancy Pelosi - Part 2

Nancy Pelosi is a hypocrite and the worst kind of tax and spend liberal. The Speaker of the House has never worked a day in her life, she has never had to punch a clock, meet a payroll, manage a team or produce a product. She has never had to worry about her household money as she has a net worth (thanks to her husband) of at least $15 million and some put it as high as $95 million, she sent her children to private schools, and in addition to her home in the eighth district she also owns a million dollar house in DC, a vacation home in Napa Valley, and a condo in Lake Tahoe. Oh yes, she is just like one of us. And yet this extremely wealthy, non-working, insulated woman is the leader of the arm of government responsible for the budget, including funding the economic stimulus package! As Speaker of the House, which is in charge of creating the bills to tax and spend, she is in position to now enact her goal of redistributing everybody’s wealth (but her own of course!).

Pelosi’s far left stands are in lockstep with her extremely liberal district; San Francisco's eighth district, which is geographically the smallest district outside of New York City. How is it that a Representative from the second smallest district became the leader of all of us in the “people’s house”? Even more outrageous, Pelosi represents the same district which is infamous for being a sanctuary city for illegal immigration, providing free needles to drug addicts, allowing gay marriages and if Obama was not in this district then he was nearby when he made his “bitter” speech. Yet all of this pales in comparison to what I have found after digging a bit further into Nancy Pelosi’s past.

I discovered something very scary about this woman who is in control of the House. The Speaker of the House belonged to the Progressive Caucus and only stepped down as it is custom to not belong to any caucus or committee upon becoming Minority Whip and then Speaker of the House. According to a number of sources; “Until 1999, the website of the Progressive Caucus was hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America. Following an expose of the link between the two organizations in WorldNetDaily, the Progressive Caucus established its own website under the auspices of Congress. Another officer of the Progressive Caucus, and one of its guiding lights, is avowed socialist Rep. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent.” Another website, therealbarackobama.wordpress.com, included a similar quote but attributed to Wekipedia. It is interesting to note that any mention of the Democratic Socialists of America has now been scrubbed from Wekipedia’s page on the Progressive Caucus.

Wekipedia does, however, print the Progressive Caucus’s postions stating that they believe in: “universal access to affordable, high quality healthcare," fair trade agreements, living wage laws, the right of all workers to organize into labor unions and engage in strike actions and collective bargaining, the abolition of significant portions of the USA PATRIOT Act, the legalization of gay marriage, strict campaign finance reform laws, a complete pullout from the war in Iraq, a crackdown on free trade and corporate welfare, an increase in income tax on the wealthy, tax cuts for the poor, and an increase in social welfare spending by the federal government.”

In reviewing Nancy Pelosi’s official site and reading various interviews I could not find a single issue in which she deviated from the Progressive Caucus/Democratic Socialists of America stands. She even has a section in her official website called “Economic Justice” (http://www.speaker.gov/issues?id=0069) in which she discusses various issues which basically are calls to redistribute wealth. And this woman is now third in line for the Presidency. (Considering that Biden is second in line and you almost start to pray that Obama gets through the next four years…. )

Understanding her past with the Progressive Caucus also provides insight into a quote on Politico (http://mobile.politico.com/story.cfm?id=17650&cat=topnews) regarding Pelosi’s relationship with Obama: “She trusts him greatly because they share the same agenda and vision, but she always keeps the interests of the caucus in mind,” said a top House Democratic aide. "She has to move the process forward and is extremely strategic.” Does anyone doubt that this aide is referring to the Progressive Caucus?

At least when Bush was president he could keep this self-described progressive Speaker of the House in check. But now, with President Obama, who knows how far to the left the two of them, along with Harry Reid, will move our country?

(I had initially planned on just two parts but I am going to add a final Part 3 which will conclude with an overview of Pelosi’s hypocrisy within Congress and her own family.)

Bio Brief - Nancy Pelosi - Part 1

Nancy Pelosi needs to be slapped down hard (figuratively not literally). I have not seen any man or woman, other than the Obamas, quite so power hungry or so arrogant in a long time. A week ago she went on the air to basically tell President Obama to beware, she will not tolerate him trying to usurp any of her powers as Speaker of the House. This weekend she defended the addition of birth control funding in the stimulus package by saying that “contraceptions will reduce costs to the states and federal government”. In other words, this mother of five wants everyone else to stop having children as they would be a burden on our economy. So who exactly is this woman who is now third in line for the Presidency and how did she get into this very powerful position?

Nancy Pelosi was born in 1940 into a political family. Her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. was a Roosevelt Democrat serving in the Congress from 1939 to 1947 and was the mayor of Baltimore from 1947 to 1950. (Her brother also became the mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971.) After attending a Catholic all girls’ high school, Nancy went to Trinity College in Washington DC where she majored in political science and graduated in 1962. While at Trinity she met Paul Pelosi, a San Francisco native, and they married upon graduation.

OK I am getting extremely frustrated in writing this piece. Finding any information about Nancy’s early life is like pulling teeth and forget trying to get data about her husband, Paul Pelosi. I can understand that he wants to stay in the background as one article stated, but this is ridiculous. The few tidbits I can find make me want to learn more. For example, an article from the San Francisco Chronicle two years ago stated “The family money, along with the many business and social connections Paul Pelosi has brought to their 43-year marriage, gave Nancy Pelosi the financial independence she needed to spend long hours doing unpaid Democratic Party business in the 1970s and 1980s. Since she was elected to Congress in 1987, it has also added a degree of comfort to her life in Washington, where she has a $1 million-plus residence and a lifestyle that doesn't depend on the $212,100 annual salary she will receive as speaker.”

Further on in the article it stated that during Nancy’s first Democrat primary for the district, her husband was investigated by her competition. While little was found that could be used against her, since then her husband has been careful about his investments. But that’s it. I can not find anything else to explain how she became the ninth wealthiest Congressperson. And I am not the only one hitting a brick wall. Ironically, one of the hits from my google on Paul Pelosi returned a blog from someone asking if anyone knows anything about him as she couldn’t find any information! It is also interesting to note that if you google Paul Pelosi you are more likely to get hits on her son by the same name than on her husband, but more on the children later.

Anyway, all I could find from Wekipedia was that after Nancy and Paul were married they first lived in New York City then moved to San Francisco where Paul’s brother Ronald Pelosi was a member of the City and County of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. The same San Francisco Chronicle article that talked about his wealth also mentioned that Paul Pelosi “was willing to uproot their five children from their home in Presidio Terrace in 1987 and move into a rented place in Pacific Heights, firmly inside the congressional district Nancy Pelosi was set to run for”.

The district Nancy moved her family into had been dominated by the Burton’s. First Phil Burton was the Democratic Congressman from 1964 until his death in 1983. His wife was then elected in 1983 and was Congresswoman until her death in 1987. Both had been political mentors of Nancy and made it known that they wanted Nancy to be next in line for their Congressional seat. With her husband’s money and having been anointed by the Burton’s, Nancy’s win was pretty much a given in this heavily Democratic district. In fact, according to Wekipedia “Pelosi represents one of the safest Democratic districts in the country. Democrats have held the seat since 1949, and Republicans, who currently make up only 13 percent of registered voters in the district, have not made a serious bid for the seat since the early 1960s. Pelosi has kept this tradition going. Since her initial victory in 1987, she has been re-elected 10 times, receiving at least 75% of the vote. She has never participated in candidates' debates.”

So Nancy Pelosi, through her husband’s money, strong democratic support and her own ambition has been reelected 10 times with at least 75% of the votes. Knowing that her seat was secure allowed her to next concentrate on securing power within the House. During the past 20 years, she served on two of the most sought after committees, Appropriations and Intelligence and was the ranking Democrat in the latter committee. She became House Minority Whip in 2001 and in 2002 was elected as the Minority Leader and is the first woman to hold either position. When the Democrats regained control of the House in November 2006, Nancy Pelosi was unanomously elected as the first woman Speaker of the House, a position she still holds today.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is currently one of the most powerful people in the United States. Now that all branches of government are dominated by Democrats, Pelosi’s influence is greater than ever. However, this 68 year old woman’s far left views are already clashing with the new President and with a country which is not nearly as liberal as her San Francisco base. The second part of this Bio Brief will discuss her extreme liberal beliefs and how she could impact the country and you.

Sunday Talks

I’ve just spent the morning watching all the Sunday talking head shows. I have to admit that there have been Sunday mornings when they all bored me to death. But that wasn’t the case today nor do I think I will be bored for many Sundays to come. There is just too much news, both national and foreign occurring in the world today.

This Sunday, most of the pundits talked about Obama’s upcoming economic stimulus package. As I watched the shows, one thought occurred to me that I don’t think anyone has addressed. Before we implement this package shouldn’t we first resolve the immigrant issue? Otherwise, what is to prevent illegal immigrants from filling the blue collar jobs created by the stimulus package? One of the pundits also said that jobs should be created which will produce something that either will benefit everyone (road and bridge repairs, for example) or can be sold, especially overseas which will then increase revenue. The package should not include jobs created for make believe projects that won’t return revenue for decades, if ever, such as questionable green projects. On the other hand, I wouldn’t object to Obama throwing a lot of money at NASA who in turn would hire more scientist, engineers and mathematicians to work on developing alternative energy. As it stands, most of the new jobs are for low level positions but there are also a lot of white collar workers out of job and we need to provide employment for them, too.

As I write this I am also listening to Wolf Blitzer interview Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. That woman smiles too much (although her face never moves) and I neither like nor trust her. Anyway, she seems to be adamant about taking away some of the tax cuts and she dismisses any indication that Obama will not immediately repeal them. She also keeps mentioning that Obama is “new to the job” insinuating that he will need not just support but advice from old-timers, such as herself and Majority Leader Harry Reid. (By the way, note that in this interview Pelosi swore that there will be no earmarks in the economic package.)

Anyway, the far left, headed by Pelosi, are unhappy with Obama’s more centrist positions and have started to go public with their dissatisfaction. But Obama has already slapped them down a bit. He recently said he doesn’t care who comes up with an idea, if it is a good one he will use it. This did not sit well with Pelosi who can’t say more than two sentences without denigrating the Republican party. A definite power struggle is occurring between the two government branches but Obama has one major weapon – his popularity, something that Reid and Pelosi are lacking. If there weren’t so many extreme problems it would almost be fun to watch how Obama handles Congress and the far left segment of his party over the next year.

It was also pointed out this morning that Obama has offended some of the men and women who helped get him into office by not rewarding them with jobs in his new administration. I don’t know why these folks are surprised or hurt. Obama had already shown that he uses people and after they have served their usefulness or become liabilities he will easily drop them and even disavow them; think Reverend Wright. I’ve said before that this is a man who has a public persona of warm congeniality but in reality is a cold, calculating pragmatist. That may be hard on his party and far left supporters but it just might be what the country needs right now.