Archive for January, 2009

The point has been raised that I needed to be more frequent in my posts. I will attempt to post at least once a week when I have relevant commentary. That being said, most of my attitude towards American Politics this week has been antipathy. However, there are some interesting things happening.

Congressional Republicans are developing a spine again. Instead of hoping that Democrat Lite will win them elections, maybe they will indeed fall back to their laurels of being the party of fiscal restraint. They recognize that this “Stimulus Bill” in its current form is not actually that at all. This is a bill of long awaited Democratic Pork Projects. Now that there is a Democratic President to go with a Democratic Congress, they figure that it is time to realize their dreams come true in one bill. They can pass the bill without any Republican support. They don’t actually need it. However, they want a few Republicans to cross the aisle on this. They need to say that there was a bipartisan vote in favor of the bill. I think that this bill is incredibly unpopular with the American public, as is evident by 11 House Democrats voting against it also. It is smart for the Republicans to oppose this bill for reasons other than instituting Socialism in the US. When the outcry against this massive purveyor of debt comes around near election time, they will be the people who voted against it.

I will not outline the bill in this medium, but here is the bill as it was submitted in the House.

The new President had a whirlwind first week dolling out five Executive Orders. If this pace is kept up, we may be seeing the birth of a tyrant. These particular orders are all meant to reel American foreign policy from the Cowboy Diplomacy of the previous Administration.

I guess we just need everybody to like us again. What are we in middle school? Our “place in the world” is pretty damn secure without thinking of what people in London, Paris, Rome, and Mecca think about us. Let’s have a comparison. If I’m in a room with 250 other people. I don’t care what any of them think of me. There is only one person in the entire world of 6-7 billion that I do care what their opinion of me is. I just want my wife to like me at the moment. The rest of you, it’s nice if you do but it doesn’t define me. Now just think about this, the most influential country is supposed to worry what the Cook Islanders think about them. If I were in government, I would not be worrying about how people in the UN building felt about us. I would be cutting corporate tax rates so that it would actually be advantageous for manufacturing to occur within our borders. We are slipping as a superpower, but it isn’t because of Cowboy Diplomacy. It’s because we are a nation of consumers rather than producers. That is when empires fall.

It is truly a historic day in the story of The United States of America.  I think it shows great progress for our country that the first African-American has been Inaugurated as the President of the United States.  It makes me feel that we are becoming a place where color, gender, creed, or orientation is not what defines the American people, but content.  This past election cycle, the content that was elected is admittedly not my preference.  However, I do look forward to my children being raised in the society of equality that I envision.

As for content, the Inaugural Address contained not so thinly veiled promises of collectivism, communism, and a weakening of our National Security efforts.  I will continue to speak out against policies that are clearly not within the bounds of the US Constitution.  I wish President Obama good luck in his coming four years, I hope that he gives an actual ear to policies of fiscal restraint.  I think that it won’t happen, so if nothing else, I will be guaranteed to have fodder to opine on for the length of this President’s administration.  I again leave you with the words of John Wayne, “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my President.  I hope he does a good job.”

I will readily admit that my personal site usually rails against the policies of America’s Left.  However, I want to turn my focus on the outgoing rather than the incoming in this article.  I voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 election cycle.  I did not vote for him in the 2000 cycle because I was too young at that time to vote.  During each cycle, I supported him as the lesser of the two evils presented to the American voter at that time.  Al Gore had his lock box and John Kerry had botox.  I never felt like they were being honest though.  Perhaps it is a true testament that America is a Center-Right country when the Democrats have to back pedal towards more Populist stances instead of preferred Liberal agendas. 

I’m sure that you along with me have seen the “How will history view the Bush the 43rd?” stories from media outlets.  This morning while sluggishly getting ready for work, I watched Morning Joe.  On the program this morning, Joe Scarborough was defending the outgoing President with a sincere argument that maybe torture is justified because we have not been domestically attacked since September 11, 2001.  Paraphrasing his opinion, perhaps the ugly pill for Americans to swallow was the right pill for the right time.  The entire time, co-host Mika Brzezinski sat by trying to interrupt and rolling her eyes.  This is not the first time I’ve seen Ms. Brzezinski treat the mere utterance of approval of President Bush with such disdain.  She inhibits one of the classic cases of “Bush Derangement Syndrome”.  Not as severe as the prime-timers on MSNBC, but enough to make my morning commute sour until I crank on some Honky Tonk Kid.  Today, I will be reviewing the Hits and Misses of George W. Bush in all honesty.

The War on Terror

We have been safer since September 11th.  American authorities have uncovered and subverted plots by terrorists to harm American lives.  Now traditionally this broad topic can be used to incorporate a few different blemishes on the Bush record, so let the good times roll.

• The War in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) is the only war that you’ll see a Democrat support.  We should have been more focused on capturing bin Laden in the Hindu Kush.  Steps are taking place now to redeploy a troop surge into Afghanistan to reclaim territory from a resurgent Taliban.  Did the administration distract itself from what should have been our primary goal by opening up a secondary front?  Yes.
• The War in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) is what it is.  The entire operation is very unpopular with the vocal American Left.  They opposed that we depose a dictator that violated human rights, violated UN resolutions to allow weapons inspectors to do their jobs, attempted a genocide of the Kurds, would not allow free-elections, repeatedly threatened it’s neighbors, and did I mention the 19 UN resolutions that he violated?  If the UN is going to make a resolution, it should stand up and back it up.  What good is the resolution otherwise?  What is the crime in the main financial backer of the UN (the United States of America) enforcing that body’s resolutions if the body itself will not?  In my opinion, the Iraq War was ill-timed, but the absolute right thing to do.
• Torture became a bone of contention.  Apparently Americans are happy to see torture on and by American agents on fictionalized spy shows and movies like 24 and Alias.  However, if it takes place in real life, we start getting squeamish.  I think that President Bush summed it up well in his last press conference while in that office.  He surmised that if his administration had done nothing and we were attacked again, there would be outcry by the media that he didn’t do all he could to protect the citizenry of America.  Therefore, by acquiring information, sometimes under duress, we got the job done to keep us safe.  From me, Thank You G. W.
• Guantanamo Bay, Cuba holds a detention facility for foreign terrorists.  Many in the American Left see Bush’s massive usurpation of the Constitution is not granting the detainees the Rights described in the Constitution.  First of all, these detainees are not American citizens and thusly have no rights under our Constitution.  However, it may be a mistake to not include them in the Geneva Convention.  Under that agreement we could not forcibly acquire intelligence from the detainees.  That’s a hard call to make with positives on both sides.  No torture or foiling a plot to enact another major terrorist act?  If you read the list of confessions on Wikipedia under Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, then I’ll let you make the call on whether or not it was a good thing to aggressively interrogate him.
• Wire tapping people that were connected with suspected terrorist organizations without a warrant is where I sit in the middle of the teeter-totter.  The Constitution precludes any unlawful investigation without the investigating party to possess a warrant.  Do we stop gathering real-time intel in a real-time world with an antiquated system for obtaining warrants?  No, I think that setting up a special court in which to acquire these warrants was justified.  However, there should be more transparency.  I don’t want to know everything, I just want to know that there is no power being abused, and I think that’s where the mistake was made.  There was just no degree of transparency.
• “Mission Accomplished” was the aircraft carrier’s banner for completing their deployment.  I don’t think I would have had it up in my shot.

The Economy

In this arena, President Bush acknowledged a departure from his own (and Constitutional) ideology.  I think that I have outlined the Constitutional stance enough to blow down the house of bricks of the last little pig.  Government interference in markets is a horrible idea.  It’s that simple.  Whether it be bailout, stimulus, or loans, they are all bad ideas that create fiat money and push problems to compound into a horrible situation down the road.  We’ve done that, we need a correction.  It hurts, but let the correction happen.

Education, Social Security, Health-Care, Immigration

• It is not in the Federal Government’s enumerated power to regulate a child’s education.  That is a power that is under statewide jurisdiction.  Even though it was basically the Texas system of standardized testing expanded, it should not be funded on the Federal Level.
• I loved his ideas for privatizing Social Security and it’s a damn shame Democrats didn’t want to get their cash cow taken from them.  The system is so broken that it does not provide a sensible retirement plan.  I don’t plan on using it for more than just monthly beer money.  An individual should be smart enough to set themselves up for success.  Roth IRA, diversified, with an approximately 12% yield from $4000/year for 40 years puts me at around $1.5 million at 65.  Can’t even come close with Social Security.  You do the math.  Social Security is just a crutch to tax the public now anyway, FAIR TAX!
• The Prescription Drugs and Medi-care Initiative was formed while I was in high school and thusly still invincible.  I’m sorry that I haven’t paid that much attention to it in any of my pieces.  It seems to me that there was an attempt to make it easier for people to get medication without socialising (i.e. destroying) our medical system.  More than I can say for the Democratic plan for disaster.
• President Bush stated that he wished he would have pushed stronger for immigration reform.  There is just a lot that is going to have to be hammered out in this debate.  All I will say until then is this, illegal immigrants are not citizens and are not subject to the same protected Rights that United States citizens are.  That means that there should be no due process or introduction of them into our court systems unless they have committed heinous felonies.  Catch them, deport them, prevent them from entering again illegally.  Guest worker program?  Great!  Just get it on the up and up.  You want to be an American now that you’ve lived here for 10 years?  Awesome, but we are going to make you jump through a few naturalization hoops, then get those dodged taxes out of them through processing fees.

Hurricane Katrina

• As I’m wrapping this up, I cannot help remembering Kanye West stating that, “George Bush hates black people.”  I don’t agree, and if you look back on history, the Republican Party as a whole has done more to advance people of all color in the lauded pursuit of happiness.  There is no guarantee.  If you work hard, you will get rewarded.  Take a look at the (?) letter behind the name of Abraham Lincoln or the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (before he became a Communist sympathizer) and you’ll generally find an (R).
• Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming.  Well, that’s easy to say.  All hurricanes are caused by warming.  Every cloud is caused by warming.  Hurricanes and typhoons are natural systems to cool their respective hemispheres during the time when they are closer to the sun.  As I’ve said before, climate changes.  I’d be more interested in us cooling off than warming up.  There will be less space either way, but you can either wear more clothes or less or have cities covered in 500 feet of water or a mile of ice.  Take your pick.
• The horrible response time falls on more than just FEMA’s shoulders.  The structure in Louisiana at the time was atrocious.  There was absolutely no way that the operation could have gone any better.  I literally watched a History Channel program a week prior to Katrina and it accurately predicted how inept the recovery would be.  You have corrupt leaders at local and state levels, and nothing is going to be done.  Case in point, Texas got the snot kicked out of them by Ike this year.  I guarantee they are already farther along in almost everywhere but Bolivar, the West End of Galveston, and Surfside.  Also take into account that these areas were also well past recovery from Rita.  A competent state and municipality in conjunction with the Federal government gives  recovery a chance to start immediately rather than a full-scale evacuation after the fact.  Also, channelizing the Mississippi River was one of the US Army Corps of Engineers biggest mistakes, but it was made almost 100 years ago.
• “Now Brownie, you’re doing a hell of a job.”  Maybe he was doing the best with what he had available, but it just was not the right thing to say at the time.

Now President Bush is going back to Crawford (the lucky jerk) to work around the house, write a book, and set up a library/school.  He’ll get away from the media who hates him for a few years, but they’ll drag his name through the mud for a long time.  Why?  He was the first President in a Socialist-centric media, that has the widest range of outlets in the world’s history, that they disagreed with.  I wish him good luck and wish that he still drank so that we could go grab a beer one day to a job well done for the more than 50% of the time.

My hopes for January 8, 2009 were simple.  A happy day at work complete with a site visit.  Buy a new hose and regulator for my grill so I can cook some nice Omaha Steaks and then watch Florida and Oklahoma play in the NCAA BCS National Championship Game.  I wish life were so simple.

To begin the day, I woke up and prepared for my day.  I walked out to my truck to begin my commute to work.  The truck would not start.  I tried to push start it, but to no avail.  Finally, a neighbor of mine helped jump my vehicle.  While commuting I noticed every system that has electricity running to it flicker and try to die on me, including the engine.  OK, so my alternator is obviously in need of replacing.  After my site visit and a data collecting appointment at the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, I ordered a replacement alternator for purchase.  I will pick it up later this afternoon and my friend Patrick Ellis and I will replace the old one this evening after the work day is over.

By this time, my wife will already cook something and we will not have those Omaha Steaks tonight.  I’ll end up watching some portion of the BCS National Championship game.  Will I see it all?  I don’t know but I am going to remain hopeful.  This is my optimistic side shining through.

While listening to the radio today, I was entreated with a soundbite of President-Elect Obama’s speech of the day.  Before laying out the plan to spend over $1,000,000,000,000.00 (1 TRILLION),  Mr. Obama had to make the case for his plan.  An exact statement was, “Only  government can save us.”  At this point, I almost had a stroke.  In fact, I still have a bit of a headache.  Let me repeat, “Only government can save us.”

How does that make you feel?  It scares me.  It should scare you.  Let’s examine why this statement should scare you:

1.  Government Bureaucracies in collusion with Congressional Democrats created this specific Recession.  Workers employed by the US Government donated money to Democrats who were all too happy to give those bureaucracies the power to grow their ranks while working towards the goal of attaining housing for all (i.e. The Fannie and Freddy Fiasco).  Republican lawmakers were so hellbent on managing the debacle of the two GSEs and deregulation crazy, that they were blinded to the problems of basing the entire fiscal policy on mortgage backed securities.  I’ve outlined that domino effect already.  However, it is important for every American to remember that both Republicans and Democrats were to blame for this, and Democrats a little more so.

 2.   The Federal Government was formed after the ratification of a document that established its structure.  The document was limiting, some would say vague.  It was intended to support a small but efficient protectorate in times of war and give avenues to solving disputes between the States.  This document gives the directives for Government, it is not open to interpretation.  It is black and white on the paper, I am sorry to all Liberals (Socialists/Communists).  Our Government as defined by the US Constitution is not supposed to function the way that you want, the way that it has as of late, and the way that President-Elect Obama is proposing.

 3.  $1,000,000,000,000.00.

 4.  $1,000,000,000,000.00.  Do you realize that that means that the Government is just going to print massive amounts of worthless paper?  Our currency isn’t based on anything tangible anyway.  It is based on securities and the plan is to flood the market with currency when our largest security base has sent us into this mess?  All that pumping more money into this situation would do is kick the problem down the road to be expanded and cost us more in the future.  How do we pay for $1 Trillion?  Taxes from my grandchildren?

 5.  The American People just floated a bill of $350,000,000,000.00 with another $350 Billion to be spent by the Treasury Department under the new Democratic Administration.  It has been stalled by Barney Frank in a pure political move that make President Bush look even worse and more inept.  That still doesn’t negate the fact that there is still $350 BILLION to spend, yet we really need to pump in $1 Trillion.  Idiocy.

This entire Democratic strategy as of late is a move (probably deliberately, maybe through pure stupidity) towards a Communist State.  The Democrats Economic Policy will bankrupt us, make those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder dependent on Government Welfare, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Housing…  Add to it the Government owning the majority stake of major financial institutions and loaning tax money to inefficient American owned auto makers.  The expansion of a Federal Education Program and Health Care Program will make the transformation complete.  By starting at the bottom, it makes it easier for people one rung up the ladder from the new Proletariat to move down and let someone else worry for them.  Eventually, it just slides us into Communism.  I’m not being alarmist.  It’s been the master plan.  They tried it with the New Deal and Great Society and it didn’t completely take.  The Communists are trying to finish the Free People of America off.  Keep your eyes open and be aware!

Let’s do what we can to prevent this from becoming the flag of this Nation.  I would really like to avoid developing a stomach ulcer while this nation slides into Communism.  Who knows when the government run Medical System would admit me for a condition caused by my belief in freedom and the Constitution.