"Madness"

"Madness"... the only term I can think of to explain what is happening in this country regarding the financial management by our government. It is such a subtle thing that many Americans pay no attention to what is happening. Why should you question the government when you may get a "stimulus" check, or a welfare payment, or food stamps, or help to pay off your mortgage, or a $4500 "cash for clunkers" payment, or an $8000 rebate for your first home purchase? Most people will not question "free" money? And if you get yours, why should you care if the government has to borrow the money to give you your free handout?

Many Americans do not even understand what a "$ trillion" is. My son recently made a good suggestion - eliminate the word trillion and replace it by "1000 billion" when talking about deficits...I agree; more people might understand the problem if they heard that the deficit this past year was 1,400 billion dollars.

We are now starting to see the reality of this spending of money that the country (and states), do not have. California was the first, now New York is almost bankrupt, and today ten states are close to bankruptcy. Has California tried to solve the problem by cutting expenses? No...they have raised taxes and increased the state tax withholding by 10% to in effect get a free "interest only" loan from the citizens of the state.

This reckless spending by Congress has caused the value of the dollar to drop 35% the past year. While at the same time Congress and President Obama are working hard to pass an unpopular Health Care bill and a "Cap and Trade" bill that will add even more 1000 billions to the deficit.

As a businessman that had to meet budgets all my life I cannot believe what these politicians are doing. They have no concept of managing money - because it is not theirs. They preserve their jobs by distributing "pork" and free services to their constituents with no regard to the future financial stability of this country.

But I see a tax revolt coming - our politicians cannot continue this uncontrolled spending and expect the public to support it with higher taxes, higher fees, higher interest rates, and higher inflation.

The unemployment rate continues to climb over 10%; and many estimate it is closer to 15%. And I'll tell you why, because the entrepreneurs and the small businesses who are the "machine" that makes this country work are standing on the sidelines, waiting to see what madness this government will come up with next.

Is he a Marxist? - correction

In a recent blog post I wrote about a a thesis that President Obama produced while at Columbia. I checked this report out on Snopes and found no information regarding whether it was true or false, and I have found Snopes to be very reliable.

One of my readers pointed out that this quote from Obama's thesis may be a hoax. So I checked it out further and find that it was written as "satire". So in the interest of keeping this blog accurate I now believe the thesis quote was not made by Obama, and I certainly do not want to come across as a "right wing extremist".

This does not change the other points in the blog, so I ask again - is he a Marxist? You make the call.

Is he a Marxist?

President Obama has been called a Socialist, a Marxist, and even a Communist. And of course these accusations are normally attributed to the "radical right wing" in this country. But if you look at Obama's history with Reverend Wright for 20 years, his past association with Louis Farrakhan and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, and the many left wing thinkers in his administration, it surely makes you think about his philosophy. Add to this his push for government run health care, along with his government takeover of two out of the three US auto companies, the takeover of several major banks, and the out of control "stimulus" spending that has driven the national debt to unheard of levels. But with the main stream media behind him, when Obama's policies result in accusations of promoting socialism, these accusations are just written off as "right wing rhetoric".

It's hard to find out how Obama thinks because his history, his writings, his speeches, and even his interviews and press conferences are so tightly controlled that we really do not know what this man thinks.

But recently, several pages from one of Obama's college theses at Columbia have surfaced and some of his writings in this thesis are quite interesting. Here is an excerpt from that thesis. I have put single quotes and highlighted some of the interesting thoughts:

"... the Constitution allows for many things, but what it does not allow is the most revealing. The 'so-called' Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is 'supposedly' a cornerstone of the document, the 'distribution of wealth' is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."

These are very interesting writings by the man who was to become the President of this country:

In this thesis he refers to Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton etc. as the "so-called" Founders of our country. When I read this quote I actually sat down and read the Constitution again today. And I must say, the Founders of this country would not believe the American public elected this man President.

Second, Obama states that political freedom is "supposedly" a cornerstone of the Constitution, and that the Constitution does not even mention the "distribution of wealth".

If "distribution of wealth" is not classic Marxist or Communist philosophy, I don't know what is. Obama seems to have missed the Bill of Rights in his thesis. This country, starting with nothing, became the most powerful economic force in the world because individuals had the opportunity to show that hard work and innovation could make them wealthy - and many of them started with nothing. Now our President and his administration would like to "redistribute" that wealth.

Is he a Marxist? You make the call.

Kahlid the Martyr

The picture seen around the world - Kahlid Sheikh Mohammad was captured in Pakistan in 2003 after a global search for this mastermind of the 911 attacks. Mohammad was also the "terrorist" who cut off Danny Pearl's head and posted the video for the world to see.

After his capture Mohammad was taken to Guantanamo Prison (GitMo) and has been detained there ever since. According to the Obama administration he was "tortured"; this torture included sleep deprivation, threats of injury, and of course "water boarding". Even though this man was responsible for the deaths of 3000 Americans, many from the left have accused the Bush administration of human rights violations for his treatment. Obama's Attorney General is now even investigating our CIA to see if criminal charges might be in order for the agents who interrogated Mohammad.

For some reason when I see all of this concern for Mohammad, the image of those innocent Americans jumping off the twin towers comes to mind. Their only choice was to jump to their death, or burn to their death.

After the election Obama immediately announced the US will never "torture" again and he reiterated that this week in his speech to the United Nations. Ironically on the same day as Obama's speech, Mohammad wrote a letter to the military court in GitMo calling Obama a liar and stating that 911 was a "noble effort". In the letter he also sent his best wishes to Osama Bin Laden and Mula Omar, the leader of the Taliban.

Mohammad is acting as his own lawyer and will be representing himself in military court. He states that his desire is to be given a "swift death penalty" so in Allah's eyes he can be a martyr. If only we could accommodate. But like a mass murderer on Death Row here in the U.S., he will most likely still be alive 20 years from now while endless appeals are pursued in our "very fair' legal system.

Now that he is working as his own counsel he realizes that he must change his image. What jury would take sympathy on him if he entered court looking like the picture above? Even common criminals in the U.S. know that your image when you show up in court is very important - out with the "low rider jeans" and on with the suit and tie.

So as Mohammad gets ready to start his trial he has changed his image to look more like a citizen of the world - I'm sure when the jury sees the "new " Mohammad they will take pity on him, and who knows he might even convince Obama that he deserves a Presidential pardon because of all the "mistreatment" he has gone through at the hands of our CIA. After all what jury could convict someone with a face like this?

More broken promises

During his campaign Obama promised full "transparency" and told us that every proposed law would be put "on line" for 72 hours, for the public to read, before a vote. The administration has yet to do that on ANY proposed law.

As a Senate committee works feverishly this week on their version of a Health Care bill, the Republicans introduced an amendment today to post the proposed Senate bill on line for 72 hours, before the committee votes to send it to the Senate floor for final approval. The Democrats rejected the amendment.

This is what we are up against as our politicians try to ram laws down our throats without input from "the folks".

All I can say is yell and scream and write to your Senator and Congressperson, although so far the Democrats do not seem to be listening. They know that they have the power to push just about any law through.

Political Hypocrisy

In 2004 when John Kerry was running against George Bush for the presidency, Mitt Romney, a Republican, was governor of Massachusetts. At that time the law stated that if a Senator vacated his seat, the Governor would appoint a Senator to serve out the remaining term. This is the law in almost every other state in the country.

Because John Kerry was a Massachusetts Senator running against Bush, the Democrats led by Teddy Kennedy were afraid that if Kerry won the presidency and vacated his Senate seat, Governor Romney would appoint a Republican to the U.S. Senate. So Kennedy convinced the Massachusetts democratically controlled House and Senate to change the law and require a "special election" to fill Kerry's vacant seat, knowing that the overwhelming democratic majority in the state would elect a Democrat. Kerry lost the election so the law change did not matter at that time.

After Teddy Kennedy died a few weeks ago; according to this law a special election for his vacated Senate seat was scheduled for January. But the White House balked, afraid they might lose their 60 vote "filibuster proof" majority in the Senate until then. Since there is now a Democratic Governor in Massachusetts, the Obama administration has pressured them to "go back" to the old law which would let the governor appoint a Senator to serve until the 2010 elections. With huge majorities in the Massachusetts House and Senate they voted today to change the law back to the way it was, insuring that the Governor will appoint a Democratic replacement for Kennedy next week.

This is the height of hypocrisy, so is no wonder that in a poll that came out today 66% of the American people are angry and have lost confidence in our politicians - both Democrats and Republicans.

What happened to the days when the people had a voice in this country? 2010 could be one of the most important elections in this country's history.

"Roasting Acorns"

There is an old saying; "Sooner or later even a blind squirrel finds an acorn".

This story is almost too good to be true. Two twenty year old kids with a Handycam could cause the downfall of Acorn, a multi-million dollar corrupt liberal organization. Over the past several years many Acorn employees have been convicted of voter fraud and there have been Acorn voter registration fraud indictments in more than fifteen states. But these video tapes taken by these kids all over the country showing Acorn employees literally advising them how to commit fraud could be the nail in Acorn's coffin.

All the while our main stream "Ivy League educated" media stand by and look like they haven't even graduated from journalism school as the story is broken by two young students. Why? Because the main stream media did not want to investigate Acorn - they are Obama's former employer. Charlie Gibson the news anchor jerk that looked down his nose glasses while he interviewed Sara Palin said this week in a radio interview that he had not heard about the Acorn story, even though it was the biggest story of the week. He is either an idiot or he did "not want to report" the story. You make the call.

Obama is a former Acorn lawyer and trainer, but of course like Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers "he is no longer associated with them". Come on America wise up. Every piece of the puzzle keeps falling into place. I said in a recent blog I wonder how Obama ever got elected - the corrupt Acorn voter registration organization might have been a factor.

The House and the Senate have voted to stop funding Acorn and they have also been removed from participating in the 2010 Census. It will be interesting to see if Obama actually signs the bill ending their funding or if the administration will do a "dance" and somehow keep Acorn in business.