A Mosque at "Ground Zero". Did the United States vote for this?

Exactly how long can President Barack Obama expect to continue to have the support of anyone if he continues to make decisions that are opposed by an overwhelming majority of the American people?

President Barack Obama's support of the controversial Mosque at the "Ground Zero" location of the Muslim terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001, is only the latest in a long string of support for measures unpopular with a majority of U.S. citizens.

Is this what the United States voted for in 2008?  A President that is so disconnected with his constituency that he feels he can do anything he wants, regardless of what is right for the United States?

It's almost is if President Obama wishes to go down in history as the most contentious person to ever hold the office.  He campaigned to be a  someone who would "fix" whatever supposedly ailed us after 8 years of George W. Bush, what the radical left calls the worst 8 years of leadership ever seen in America.  Acting as the ultimate snake oil salesman, "Barack Obama and his traveling Medicine Show" went from town to town proclaiming the virtues of some ethereal "Hope" and "Change" to an audience apparently hungering for whatever "Hope" and "Change" they could envision within their own minds, and slightly over half of the voters fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

The result has been the most leftist surge in Federal policy since the Roosevelt Administration of 70 years ago.

From almost the start, a juggernaut of titanic proportions leaped forward with it's own version of "Hope and Change", beginning almost immediately with a hefty tax increase, when President Obama signed the largest tobacco tax increase in history, breaking a pledge he repeatedly made during his campaign that those who make less than $250,000 a year would not pay "one dime" in increased taxes.  The average smoker's household now pays and average of $630 a year in taxes, which is heavily weighted toward those who make far less than $250,000 a year, as lower income people smoke more.

Then came ObamaCare, which has stubbornly clung to a 60 percent disapproval rating from it's inception, yet was passed by the Reid/Pelosi congress and signed into law by President Obama regardless.

Then there was the outrage over the Obama administration's decision to haul 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed before a civil court in New York City, which angered Americans nationwide.

Add to that the Obama administration's battle with Arizona over illegal immigration, despite the fact that fully 60 percent of Americans, and 70 percent of Arizonans, support the state's efforts to curb it's own immigration problem, after decades of Federal failure to properly address the issue.

And then there is President Obama's history of statements that appear to have been intended to invoke racial tension, intentionally or otherwise.

And now, President Obama's vociferous support of radical Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's plan to build a Mosque at "Ground Zero" in New York City has sparked public outcry, after the proposed Mosque itself has been soundly denounced by a large majority of Americans as a "slap in the face" to both the victims of the Muslim terrorist attacks and their families, and to the United States at large.

How can President Obama expect to effectively lead the nation after fracturing it's population into so many different opposing factions?  As someone who promised unity after the supposed "divisive" leadership of President Bush, it would seem Obama, through either bungling and inexperience, or by design, is taking the nation even further into chaos and discontent, building upon his administration's failure to make any headway in improving the economy.

Building a Mosque at "Ground Zero", where thousands of Americans died at the hands of Muslim terrorists, IS a slap in the face to both New York City, and the U.S. at large, and flies in the face of the supposed "peace" and "unity" that Islam would like to project to the world.  The mere idea of it raises the ire of patriotic Americans.  And it should.  Other than putting up a monument praising the 9/11 terrorists themselves, I can think of no better way to permanently rub salt into the wounds opened in the United States by the worst terrorist attacks in the nation's history.

That our President should support such a move is a further indication of exactly how President Obama is leading us in exactly the wrong direction.

Did General McChrystal figuratively "fall on a grenade" in order to save the men and women under his command?

Today, while driving back from Albuquerque, New Mexico, I was listening to Jim Villanucci on the radio. Villanucci is a popular radio talk show host.  In listening, I was presented with an interesting scenario concerning this weeks events surrounding General Stanley McChrystal and the Rolling Stone article that cost McChrystal his military leadership job in Afghanistan.

What if General McChrystal had run into a "brick wall" with the Obama Administration?  Unable to change Obama's mind on the course of the war, which hasn't been going well, what if McChrystal purposely put forth the article, knowing that he would be fired, and that General Petraeus would be put in charge?  Obama would be then forced to follow Petraeus' advice, lest Obama look like he is interfering too much in military activity.  It is being reported that one of General Petraeus' first acts as commander in Afghanistan is going to be the rescinding of the Obama administration's very restrictive "rules of engagement", which currently have our fighting men and women walking on eggshells, unable to fight back if fired upon unless expressly ordered to. Many are reporting that those current rules have led to the deaths of many American soldiers in Afghanistan.

All indications are that General McChrystal is nobody's fool.  He's a smart, efficient, badass soldier who knows exactly what he is doing.  He got the position in Afghanistan for a reason, and that reason is that he was best qualified for the job.

However, in describing his meetings with President Barack Obama, in which he described the President as "uncomfortable and intimidated" by top military leaders, it would appear that General McChrystal was not impressed by Obama.  There were many other sources of friction between McChrystal and top Obama Administration officials, particularly Vice-President Joe Biden, who had his own plan for the Afghan war, one which did not garner General McChrystal's good will.

It is my belief that war should be left to the military.  President Obama and Vice-President Biden are particularly inexperienced in the handling of the military situation in Afghanistan.  The Obama Administration, thinking they know best, did not give General McChrystal neither the manpower, nor the battle plans, requested by the General.

Perhaps McChrystal, rather than allowing more soldiers to die under Obama's rules of engagement that McChrystal himself could not change, felt it would be best to "fall on his sword" in order to create a situation where another General could take charge under his own terms, which would be better for the fighting men and women on the ground.

Just a crazy thought.

The Oil Spill Address: Barack Obama again runs for.....President.

If the American People wanted answers.  They didn't get any.  If the American People expected solutions.  Sorry, no such luck.  If the American People hoped to hear how the Obama Administration, in partnership with British Petroleum, was going to solve the oil spill crisis in the gulf, and clean up the mess.  Nothing doing.

What the American People got was another campaign speech.

President Obama gave an 18 minute address to the nation last night, and it was merely a re-iteration of some of the the same rhetoric that we heard from candidate Obama when he was running for the office of leader of the free world.  The only difference was that back then, it was fresh and new.  Last night, it sounded old and re-hashed.

What we did learn is that the arrogance and thuggery that is becoming synonymous with this administration was fully present, in that President Obama declared that he was going to "make" BP put money into a slush fund administered by a third party, money which is to be used to clean up the oil and compensate those who are losing their livelihoods due to the spill.  Sounds like tough talk from a man who is working hard in the interest of the people of the gulf region.  The only problem is:  President Obama simply doesn't have the power, under the Constitution, to do it.

The reality is, BP is legally bound to pay only the amount of damages up to the cap set by the U.S. Congress, which is currently $75 million. This does not mean that BP won't pay more, as anyone affected by the spill, including an entire state, can file a civil lawsuit which can be legally decided outside the scope of the Federal legal liability cap set by congress.  And BP itself has stated that they intend to do as much as possible to clean up the mess they've created, which includes spending well more than the $75 million cap.

We also learned, in President Obama's address, that he intends to use the oil spill situation as a campaign issue to press for all sorts of new regulation, new and increased taxes upon the American people, and subsidy for ethereal alternative forms of energy, none of which is a solution for the problem at hand. In other words, President Obama's insatiable drive to grow government is wholly intact.  And we leaned, through the absence of specifics, that the spill in the gulf is currently unstoppable, and it appears it will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Apparently the best we can hope for is for a better "mop up" effort in an attempt to soak up the continuous spillage of oil which is currently taking place.  But no details were forthcoming about how either BP, or the Federal Government, intended to improve what has been universally declared a dismal clean-up effort.

Basically, what we were offered last night was nothing more than a commonly vague political speech which gave us no real details or solutions for the problem today, and no real solutions or details for solving anything tomorrow.  It was a speech reminiscent of empty campaign promises, and as such, was utterly forgettable.

We need action, not excuses, in the Gulf of Mexico

 

I've walked the beaches of Grand Isle, Louisiana.  I've swam with dolphins there.  I've walked the beaches of Mississippi, and nearly stepped on a stingray there.  It floated up out of the sand and glided off from where I was about to place my foot.  I've also swam in the waters off of Pensacola Beach, and have never seen clearer water or whiter sand, though I've been told there is such a thing somewhere.

Now the gulf oil spill threatens all of that.  It threatens the fisheries, the beaches, the tourism industry.  Just a few years after Hurricane Katrina did billions in damage from the coast inland, the oil spill is threatening to do billions more in damage along the coast and off the shores of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.  Some say the oil could drift around Florida itself and start heading up the Eastern Seaboard.

There is no doubt that British Petroleum and it's contractors who were involved the errors which caused the Deep Water Horizon disaster should take responsibility for the situation.  If they do not, then they should be forced to take responsibility...to a point.  Here's where I will come into direct conflict with the rabid band of finger-pointers who wish to effectively burn BP at the stake:

BP, and it's contractors, can only take responsibility for the situation as long as they remain financially capable of doing so.  I listened to a press conference this morning with Admiral Thad Allen and Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and a question was posed to them as the whether BP should forfeit the oil from the relief will being drilled as a method of stemming the flow of oil into the gulf.  As if the oil should be taken away from BP in some form of punitive punishment for causing the spill in the first place.  Well, the fact is, and Robert Gibbs correctly pointed out, that the costs to BP for the remediation of the gulf oil spill are going to be far greater than the profits from the sale of any oil collected during the remediation process.  As long as that well keeps gushing oil into the gulf, the "meter is running", and costs are going to continue to skyrocket.  BP is going to NEED that oil to help pay for their share of the cleanup.  It will do absolutely no good if BP, or it's contractors, are forced into bankruptcy.  Unlike the U.S. Government, BP cannot print it's own money.  It cannot sell bonds to China.  It cannot simply tax it customers for any budget shortfall it incurs due to this disaster.  If they run out of money, the game is over for them.  Who is left holding the bag then?

Which brings us around the Federal Government's responsibility for this mess.  For all of BP's direct fault for the oil spill that continues in the gulf to this day, the U.S. Government DID sell the leases involved.  The U.S. government DID approve the drilling.  And the U.S. Government DOES get a good portion of the proceeds through such oil production in the form of taxes and fees on that oil at every level of production, from the exploration, to the extraction, to the refining, and to the final sale of the finished product.  Uncle Sam has his hand in the till all along the way, and grabs cash to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars per year from the oil biz.

Thus, to what extent is the United States government culpable in this?  It pretty convenient for politicians to start pointing their fingers at everyone but themselves when disaster hits, after those same politicians have been lining up with their hands out to oil companies for decades, demanding a portion of the proceeds.

Given that such a large amount of money is involved in the production of oil in the United States, and given that the United States government receives such a huge portion of that money, why is it unrealistic to think that the U.S. government should appropriately share in the burden of clean up when something goes wrong?

Rather than pointing fingers at British Petroleum and it's contractors for the gulf oil spill mess, the Federal government should be placing every resource into position to assist in the cleanup efforts.  The U.S. Military should be on hand for logistics, equipment, and manpower, as they have the expertise in that area.  The U.S. government should be getting itself out of the way of the states in order for the National Guard to be called in, as they have the expertise in logistics and have needed manpower and equipment as well.  After all, this oil spill IS a national security issue, to the extent that the damage caused has the potential to harm and already weak economy, and will certainly harm the economies of several important states.  It also has the potential to alter domestic energy policy in a way that will further increase or dependence upon foreign oil.  At the same time, the people of the effected areas want to be involved as well.  It's their beach.  It's their economy that will suffer.  Government should be helping, not hindering, the volunteer effort that is "champing at the bit" to help.

President Barack Obama, rather than looking to place blame, would do well to merely take responsibility for the situation, and offer the full co-operation and assistance of the U.S. Government in this matter, as a partner, and a leader, rather than as a standoffish politician looking to score points .  We should not be seeing scattered work crews wandering around here and there on gulf coast beaches, with no central co-ordination, spending more time under the shelter of portable cabanas than out sifting the sand.  If for safety reasons, only 20 minutes of each hour can be spent doing actual cleanup, then there should be three times as many workers on that beach, so there are people involved in cleanup every minute of every daylight hour.  Simple things like that will go a long way towards actual, physical cleanup, which is likely to go on for month, if not years, and simple things like that will go a long way towards increasing public faith in both the Federal government, and BP, in their efforts to save the gulf coast from further harm.

Rather than attempting to vilify and demonize BP in feeble attempts to make government look good by comparison, there should be an all out effort on government's part to step up the responsibilities government takes on when they allow oil exploration and production to proceed, and get paid handsomely to do so.

Rather than continuous defensive press conferences, the people of the United States need to see, above all, action.  Where one level of the clean up effort is lacking, another should step up and help where needed.  And President Obama should be there through it all, giving direction through his top leadership people.  Rather than Interior Secretary Salazar announcing that he will keep the his "boot" on BP's neck, he should be announcing that our government will offer every assistance in this remediation and clean up effort.

The gulf oil spill is a disaster that should transcend politics.  It should not be treated as mere political theater.

Hope, Change & Sleaze

I'm certainly not the only one critical of the Obama Administration's lack of adherence to their stated campaign principles of "Hope & Change".

Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, cuts through the mainstream media haze surrounding the Obama Administration's "Chicago Style" jobs-for-political-favors scandal, and brings a "transparency" to the story not available from the Obama White House itself:

Hope, Change & Sleaze

Former Clinton Secretary of State and Obama advisor Robert Reich calls for government takeover of British Petroleum

As if the U.S. Government isn't running enough businesses, from banks, financial service companies, insurance companies, car companies, and other assorted and sundry formerly private sector businesses, now influential Democrat operative Robert Reich is calling for President Obama to simply takeover British Petroleum.

Never mind the fact that BP is a publicly owned multi-national corporation, which has stockholders spread all over the globe. Never mind that BP already has the manpower, knowledge, and equipment to best handle the situation in the gulf. Never mind that BP has EVERY incentive to solve the crisis as soon as possible, since the longer the oil gushes into the gulf, the larger BP's cleanup expenses will become, and the bigger and more numerous the payouts to affected gulf coast industries and citizens will be, not to mention the black mark upon BP's record that is likely to last for years, if not decades.

The nationalization of private industry is the kind of thinking going on in the modern Democrat/liberal/progressive mindset: If private business doesn't do what government wants, when government wants, then government should simply take over that business and run it themselves.

Reich is calling for the takeover of BP based on the precedents set by President Obama since his ascent to office. Says Reich:

"If the government can take over giant global insurer AIG and the auto giant General Motors and replace their CEOs, in order to keep them financially solvent, it should be able to put BP’s north American operations into temporary receivership in order to stop one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history."

The Obama administration has created a Federal monster, in that once government usurps the rights of private business and it's owners, whether it be individual, partnership, or a corporation with stockholders, government then wants to use their new found power with greater frequency (Bureaucrats, after all, by their very nature want to manage something). First, it was mismanaged and financially destitute business' that were deemed "too big to fail". The government takeover of banking and auto companies allowed the administration to effect political payoffs by transferring ownership to big time financial contributors and supportive labor unions. Now it's an oil company that isn't working fast enough for certain members of the U.S. government, and which is becoming a political liability to the Obama administration.

It wasn't very long ago, politically speaking, that it would have been unthinkable for the U.S. Government to simply take over massive sectors of private enterprise. I seriously doubt that if Robert Reich, as a Cabinet member, had suggested to then President Bill Clinton that the U.S. Government should nationalize an oil company, that he'd even be taken seriously. The public outcry if such a statement were made public "way back then" would have been enormous.

Yet here we are, in 2010, only two administrations later, and government takeovers are "old hat". So much so, that it hardly makes news when Obama advisor Robert Reich floats a "trial balloon" about further government takeovers, such as he did on June 1st.

The U.S. Constitution clearly defines the role of Federal government. Nowhere does that document allow the kind of abuse of power we've come to expect from Washington, D.C.

When does government begin to honor the Constitution, and put a check on it's own power? Fact is, at this point, with the Obama White House flush with victory on several controversial fronts, primarily through political manuevering, and despite the opposition of the majority of the American people on several major issues, including bailouts, takeovers, and socialized health care, there is no reason to believe that this administration will suddenly decide that "enough is enough".

Obama's losing his cred.

President Obama came into office with a massive amount of good will behind him. Young voters, liberal Democrats, conservative Democrats, a good percentage of Republicans, Communists, Socialists, welfare queens, financiers, the oil industry, the media, the Hollywood elite, every branch of the music biz except for perhaps Country Western, among others, all gave Obama every chance following his "all things to all people" campaign.

Somehow, Obama has managed to squander away a huge amount of his "mojo" over the last 18 months. I figured he'd fall eventually, no man could possibly live up to the incredibly high standards Obama set for himself. Superman is, after all, a cartoon character. However, even I didn't figure he'd fall this far, this fast. After hearing Obama speak "off the cuff" compared to reading his teleprompter, I knew he was no "Great Communicator" on par with Reagan, but I honestly thought Obama's handlers were a far better gang of political "whiz kids" than they've turned out to be. I thought they would keep their lead man out of trouble.

This administration hit the ground with both feet on pavement, and took off running. Unfortunately, somehow it seems they've been managing to run a zig-zag course which often brings them right back to where they started from. And each loop they've made around their wild and wacky track seems to have weakened them in the eyes of the American people. Folks want to see progress, not just a bunch of mad action with no apparent results.

The American people were also hungry for a leader who talked change, and would actually deliver. A Washington D.C. filled with partisan bickering, back room deals, and perceived indifference and mismanagement, was exactly what the majority voted against in November 2008.

But what we got was not quite what we voted for.

Joe Sestak's assertions that the Obama White House offered him a job in exchange for Sestak choosing not to run against Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Democrat Senate primary is another in a series of disappointments from the current administration. Sestak himself can stand tall in that he made the right decision, and declined the offer. However, those who didn't vote for Obama still want an honest, open government of which to be proud. Not many Americans are happy with the status quo in Washington, D.C. Even an honest critic of Obama would be able to recognize integrity when they see it, and perhaps even give a little credit where credit is due.

But for all the pre-election hype surrounding Obama's "Hope and Change", what we've ended up with is merely another run of the mill politician, who led the American people to believe that "Change" meant an open, trustworthy Presidency which would make the people of the United States feel like they were part of the program.

I don't think anyone, myself included, thought the Obama administration, from nearly day one of their official ascention to power, would be so cynical as to do almost the exact opposite of what was promised in the campaign, and think they could get away with it.

I don't know how much more of this the American people are going to be asked to take, but I can say with relative certainty that with nearly each week bringing yet another reason for Obama's apologists to make the rounds to nationwide media outlets in an attempt to explain away the administrations unusual modus operandi, voters are becoming increasingly weary of example after example of the "same old politics", and then some. The people of the United States simply did not know they were voting for an extension of the Chicago political machine to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Indeed, I'm sure that was the farthest thing from their minds.

And for of all things, to have squandered the people's trust in support of Arlen Specter? The turncoat opportunist politician already looked upon with a skeptical eye by Democrats, and as a traitor by Republicans? What kind of lapse of judgement allows a decision like THAT to be made? Are we sure we want folks with so little common sense running the whole show?

I'm reminded of some lyrics sung by Johnny Cash on one of his last albums:

"Well, one time when things was looking bright,
I started to whittling on a stick one night.
Who said, "Hey, that's dynamite."
Nobody."

Offering Joe Sestak a job to stay out of the Pennsylvania Senate race was political dynamite, and very volotile dynamite indeed, considering Obama's promises of an open and honest government. A government which would not be marred by the influence peddling and back room deals utilized by the previous administrations, which played so much a part in Obama's campaign speeches.

Whomever of Obama's inner circle was standing about, and didn't hollar a warning, when someone brought up the "great idea" of offering folks jobs to keep them from running for office, must not have been paying much attention when Obama was giving his speeches during the campaign.

Chicago: The vacation of choice for Presidents everywhere!

As the furor over Arizona's Immigration law continues, President Barack Obama once again showed his incredible lack of understanding of the American people by ordering 1200 members of the National Guard to "support positions" at the southern U.S. border, where they will not actually be involved in the physical duties of helping to stop drug trafficking or illegal immigration. Then he takes off to Chicago on vacation, at the same time promising to skip the traditional Veteran's Day Memorial Service at Arlington National Cemetary, and ducking out on any leadership responsibility involving the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

I mean, how many Presidential duties can this guy shirk at one time?

Or is there a bigger issue at hand? Consider: Is Barack Obama already so completely overwhelmed by his duties as President, that he's simply given up?

Perhaps being an obscure U.S. Senator from Illinois is looking pretty good to him right now. When know one knew who he was, no one was critical of him. He could could give speeches and get applause, he could travel from Illinois to Washington, D.C. and back, do nothing of real importance, and tell everyone what a fine job he was doing, and no one would question him. Because for the most part, the world didn't care.

Not any more. Now Barack Obama is playing on the world stage, as the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, and people are watching his every move. His ideologically hard left, big government stance on nearly every issue has proven to be stubbornly ineffective across a surprisingly wide range of situations. From unemployment, to the economy, to Afghanistan, to terrorism, to the border, to the oil spill in the gulf, Barack Obama just doesn't seem to know the right thing to do. Over and over again the Obama administration has taken wildly unpopular (if not downright reckless or unconstitutional) stances on issues from health care, to Guantanamo, to criminally trying foreign terrorists on U.S. soil, to bailouts and government takeovers of the auto industry, banking, and other private enterprises, to cap and trade legislation that's guaranteed to increase energy prices, to inaction on the border and in the Gulf of Mexico, to financial legislation, etc. etc.

Obama just stubbornly and blindly continues to blunder forth, despite the fact that it should be obvious to him by now that his perceived "mandate for change" wasn't nearly what he thought it was. It's easy, during a political campaign, to promise everyone that you are Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy all rolled into one. It's infinitely tougher to actually deliver a working governing strategy when you are, in fact, in no way like either of them. It's all gotta wear on a guy. Heck, when James Carville starts yelling at you like you're George W. Bush, it must be quite a blow to the ego!

And those falling approval ratings must be tough to digest for someone who's never, in his life, had to suffer the pains of harsh criticism.

So when the going gets tough, the tough.....go on vacation!

The continuation of smear: Rand Paul

Now several internet sources are reporting that Rand Paul must be a racist, because his campaign received funds from an organization called "Stormfront", which has a white supremacist website.  These funds were provided through what are called "moneybombs", internet money raising schemes which press folks with a perceived time limit in which to give, thus pressuring folks to give, and give now.  There is nothing wrong with this practice, in theory.  Barack Obama effectively used the internet to raise funds, becoming the number one money raising internet force of all time.

A politician cannot control the people or organizations which supports him or her.  Individuals, or groups of individuals, still have the right to support whomever they choose to support.  This is no reflection upon the candidate.  Any nut can choose to support, either vocally, or with their cash, any person running for office.  Making the case that a primarily powerless white supremacist organization that supports Rand Paul constitutes some sort of scandal is quite a reach.

Perhaps the media ought not go there, given the fact that the Communist Party, USA, supported Barack Obama as a candidate for President of the United States.  One wouldn't want to confuse President Obama with a Communist.

But perhaps the $71,000 cash which was donated by oil company BP (currently involved with the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico) to Barack Obama's presidential campaign makes Obama himself an oilman?

Or maybe the over $994,000 dollars donated by Goldman-Sachs to the Obama campaign makes Obama am international banker?

Who here has even heard of Stormfront?  What power do they have on the world stage?  Do some internet research, and you will see that the answer is "not much".

However, I think we can all agree that the worldwide financial and political power wielded by corporations like British Petroleum and Goldman Sachs really means something, and having a President in their pocket can mean a lot, especially when BP is involved in an oil spill, and Goldman Sachs is involved in a worldwide financial meltdown.

Should Rand Paul return money donated by Stormfront?  Perhaps, given the present political climate, where the left is attempting to label anyone who doesn't support their socialist agenda as a racist, but that's given the money can even be accurately traced, due to the rather anonymous nature of the internet.  To be honest, I'm comfortable in my belief that Rand Paul is the farthest thing from a racist a person can possibly be, so as far as I'm concerned, he can keep the money.  For every dollar Rand Paul gets from Stormfront is one less dollar Stormfront can use to buy white sheets, Nazi uniforms, or Swastika bumpersickers.

But if the media, and others on the left, are so adamant that Rand Paul should return the money, shouldn't they be just as adamant about Barack Obama returning money given to his campaign by BP and Goldman-Sachs?  Or are the media and the radical left really just the hypocrites I've believed them to be?

Joe Sestak and Chicago politics on a National scale.

Arlen Specter, the party-switching long term Pennsylvania Senator who's been on the national stage ever since he was a young attorney involved with the Warren Commission investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, was soundly beaten politically by newcomer Joe Sestak in the Pennsylvania Senate Primary last week, and word quickly began to spread concerning the Obama administration's handling of the Specter campaign.

There was no doubt that Obama had been supporting, to a point, Specter's candidacy after Senator Specter switched from Republican to Democrat last year and provided several key votes on Obama's legislative agenda, including socialized health care.  However, when Specter looked to be hopelessly losing his first campaign as a Democrat, President Obama was suddenly nowhere to be found.

Joe Sestak, who ran on an anti-incumbent platform, and rightly pointed out Arlen Specter's attempted opportunism, is now coming under the media spotlight himself since he candidly admitted that the Obama administration offered him a job, perhaps in an attempt to induce (read: bribe) Sestak to abandon his bid for a seat in Washington, D.C., representing Pennsylvania.

Now Joe Sestak has clammed up, and isn't offering any details concerning the job offer.  The White House is perhaps wisely not denying Sestak's claim, but will offer no other details either.

Like all of Obama's previous political malfeasance, from reportedly beginning his political career in the company of domestic terrorist William Ayers, to sitting in anti-American Pastor Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years, to his connections to land deals with felon Tony Rezco, to the bruhaha with ousted Governor of Illiniois Rod Blagojevich and the filling of the senate seat left open by Barack Obama when he became President, apparently, Obama and his handlers are sticking to the tried and true method they always used in the past:  Ignore, and a willing media will eventually drop the subject, and we can all forget about it.

It's going to be up to us, the people, to keep the pressure on to get to the bottom of the matter.  If the Obama administration truly offered Sestak a job to keep him from running for Senate, a Federal felony may have been committed, based on bribery alone.  Already, Obama's apologists are making the rounds on national T.V., asserting that this situation is simply another in a series of "no big deals" surrounding President Obama and the people around him.  Perhaps on the grand scale of things, this particular incident could be considered "no big deal", but how many laws are to be broken before anyone is called to account for them?  How many unresolved questions will surround Barack Obama before he pays a price for his past actions?  Several U.S. Congressmen, of both parties, are calling for a Federal investigation into the matter.

I'm old enough to remember President Ronald Reagan being considered the "Teflon president", because of all of the media-driven scandals that surrounded him, nothing could be stuck on Reagan himself.  President Obama is truly outdoing Reagan by miles, and deserves to have the mantle of "Teflon president" handed over to him.

Perhaps the people of the United States are willing to accept Chicago-Style politics on a national level, just as many folks appear to accept Obama's big-government socialist agenda.  If we wish to ignore Federal law, then we can only blame ourselves if we become a truly lawless nation, and our politicians continue to play "fast and loose" with our trust.

I'm betting, that with the national mood being what it is, the people are quite close to rejecting Obama's style of "machine politics", where power, for power's sake, appears to be the current National Motto.

O.K. This bailout stuff is getting ridiculous.

As if bailing out banks, car companies, the construction industry, and socialist nations isn't enough, now our leaders in Washington D.C., with President Barack Obama leading the way, are bailing out the entire European Union.

The United States is broke.  We are on track to shortly top a 13 trillion dollar accumulated deficit.  According to some, through government book-keeping strategies, this number itself is only a fraction of the true debt.  Remember way back when in 2008, when the left was screaming about President George W. Bush's completely irresponsible $460 billion yearly deficit?  (For the record, many on the right were screaming about it, too, but they didn't have a political ax to grind.)

Well, now that the "wunderkind" of the left, Barack Obama, has been our President for nearly a year and a half, our Federal Government was gone on a wild spending spree, jacking up our annual deficits to nearly three times what George W. Bush left us with..and nary a peep from the left about it.  In fact, in a gross example of denial, the left is willing to justify Obama's fiscal irresponsibility by continuing to blame the entire budget fiasco on George W. Bush.  While George W. Bush was in reality no fiscal conservative at all, compared to President Obama, Bush was a penny-pinching tightwad.

Yup, the same folks who continually portrayed Bush with as a marginally ignorant country bumpkin, deserving of "dunce" status, will turn on a dime and even claim he was such a grand schemer that he practically single-handedly engineered the economic fall of the European Union, when that argument suits their political agenda.

Socialism fails.  That's what it does.  It simply cannot work, ever.  The fall of the Soviet Union, brought about primarily because Ronald Reagan wisely called Moscow's bluff and was able to outspend them on military projects at precisely the time Moscow could least afford it, while simultaneously using political pressure, was a masterstroke in the continued cause of freedom.  One would think the United States would have long ago learned our lesson that socialism, on it's own, cannot stand.  British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said it best when she stated:  "The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

Socialistic actions of members of the European Union: the entitlements, the make-work projects, the early retirement ages, universal health care, the cradle-to-grave security mandated by government, have broken the financial backs of several EU nations.  They've spent their way into economic oblivion.  The remaining taxpayers in those nations simply cannot sustain the financial security promised by their governments.  Because of this, we see the violence in Greece, who's citizens have rioted at the mere thought of cutbacks in their promised entitlements, and the possibility of increased national sales taxes.  When people are promised the world by their government, they fully expect that government to deliver the world.

So now, in reward for their fiscal malfeasance, you, the taxpayer, is going on the hook for a good portion of nearly a trillion dollars in a massive worldwide bailout to save the socialist nations of Europe.  The Federal Reserve is busy printing more money to send to Europe in order to help them stave off their collapse.  As a nation, we are already well beyond broke. Yet Obama and our wiser-than-thou leaders in DeeCee are fully prepared to send you further into debt.  $42,000 per person...man, woman, and child, apparently isn't enough.

When Obama was elected to office, I stated that perhaps Americans, as a whole, were ready for socialism.  By the time Obama was elected President, it was more than apparent that Obama had a tendency toward socialistic, big-government solutions to nearly every problem facing mankind.  Is that really the change a majority of our citizens voted for?  Do we really believe that big government solutions are the cure for our ills, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary?  Just take a look at what's going on in Europe, for a preview of what will happen in the United States if our current spending spree goes unchecked.  The American taxpayer is already teetering on the brink.  Unemployment remains a stubbornly high 10 percent.  Spending continues to out pace revenues by a wide margin.  Our current government is increasing that level of spending at every opportunity.  You, as a citizen, have access to every shred of evidence that socialism cannot work, yet our leaders continue to plunge us headlong toward financial ruin at seemingly every possible opportunity.

Propping up governmental systems that are proven to not work, is folly.  Trying to stabilize Europe's failing economies with your money is irresponsible.  Trying to save a system that has been repeatedly proven to fail is absolutely ridiculous.  A bailout will only prolong the agony.  Europe should be allowed to fail, and should be allowed the ability to learn it's own lesson about what works, and what does not.  From that failure, they can rebuild an economy that is truly self-sustaining, based on allowing their citizens the freedom to succeed, or fail, entirely by their own devices.

How long will you, the citizen, continue to stand for our our government's bailouts of failed economic models.  From banks that make unwise investment decisions, to auto makers which spend more on entitlements than they do on building cars, to nations that give their citizens money regardless of whether those citizens earned it or not, there must come an end to U.S. bailouts.  The U.S. taxpayer should never be held responsible for another's stupidity or laziness, whether it be an individual, an industry, or a nation.

Obama: "Information is a distraction."

President Obama has declared that the use of modern technology to spread information has become a "distraction" and a "diversion", and apparenlty, Ipods and Ipads are the worst of the offenders.

Obama has a penchant for singling out his targets by precise name.  It was Obama who has twice singled out an American city, Las Vegas, Nevada, as the symbol of all that is wrong with business travel, so it should come as no surprise that he would also single out products made by an American company, Apple.

Worst of all, he decries information itself.  Apparently U.S. citizens are simply too well informed to be governed properly.  Ignorant people are easier to manage.  After all, it was Obama and his cohorts in congress who told us that we should simply trust them, and support a health care bill nobody read, and now that it's passed, and HAS been read, congress is quietly attempting to pass further health care legislation to fix the stuff they screwed up.

Yes, our President wants us to be less informed, less active, less involved, and more pliant.  We should merely listen to, and quietly accept, what the talking heads in the mainstream media tell us. Then we should simply mind our own business and allow our leaders to do whatever they want.

Sorry, but I disagree.

Now we're bailing out Greece?

Greece is "Too Big to Fail".  That's right.  A third-rate socialist nation like Greece, which has spent it's way into the poor house, is "too big to fail".  And so, the United States, through the International Monetary Fund, is going to kick in about $8 billion to bailout Greece.

Heck.   You, the taxpayer, already own a couple of auto companies, a few banks and other financial institutions, and some would say we own Iraq at this point, so what's wrong with owning a few shares in a failed socialist country as well?  President Obama has already decided that bailing out Greece is a good idea, and has told the Greek Prime Minister so.  Apparently it's a done deal.  Yes, the U.S. is going to help bail out a socialist nation, with our tax dollars, using money we have borrowed from the Chinese, and which we will pay interest on, with more of our tax dollars.

That's just the way you run your household's financial affairs, right?