No reform here

Barack Obama was packaged and sold as a reformer, a harbinger of change. But as Republicans have said throughout this campaign, he is nothing more than a savvy politician with cunning handlers. He has stocked his cabinet and his Oval Office with former Clinton hacks. He is rumored to be considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. Bill will probably the chief molester and of course let us not forget that there is most likely a place for Al "Moonbeam" Gore. Maybe he could create a new cabinet position for Secretary of Ego.

No, there is no reform here. Simply the tired old mule of liberalism coughing out another idiotic administration; an administration that the American people will wind up paying for in the decades to come. Fifty-two percent of them deserve what they get.

Gimme, gimme

Come and get it. The trough is open. First, it was the banks and insurance giant AIG. Then it was individual citizens. Now the Big 3 automakers are coming to Congress with their hands out and it appears that municipalities throughout the country will be next. Everybody wants a piece of the bailout pie and you and I are footing the bill.

The problem of course is that we are already spending at a deficit. Between two ongoing wars, the spendthrift nature of recent congresses and the dwindling revenue due to the financial crisis itself there's no way that the government can make up that gap. This is why the government uses credit from foreign nations to prop up its budget. But other nation's are feeling the credit pinch as well. And that brings us to an even more troubling situation.

The United States may lose its 'AAA' rating which will make it more difficult to get loans to pay all of the deficit spending that we are doing. And in the unlikely event that some nation calls in its loans, it will make the Great Depression look like a mild correction. I say that it is unlikely because the debt could not be paid off and trying to seize the assets of the U.S. would cause a catastrophic crisis around the world including the nation or nations that call in that debt. But we live in a world filled with suicide bombers and socialist dictators that would love nothing better than to destroy capitalist nations, especially America. The suicide bombers would have nothing to lose because the believe they answer to a “higher power” than Wall Street. The tin-pot dictators who believe they are the second-coming of Marx aren't bright enough to realize that socialism is no replacement for the free market. Case in point: Hugo Chavez. Since he nationalized most of the Venezuelan economy and put price controls on food, rationing of essentials and economic collapse has been the result. And let's not even get into Cuba.

So there are worries involved in any economic crisis, especially this one. But that's all the more reason to take a measured, judicious approach to the treatment of these crises. Republicans warned that the socialist bailout plan that Congress passed a few months ago would result in more problems than it would solve. Now that the nation knows that its so-called leaders can be cajoled to give handouts, everyone wants a piece of the action.

Props go to Drudge for the article on the 'AAA' threat.

SOURCE: CNBC article

Thanks but so long

The Dems are on a hunt for the heads of moderate and conservative members of their party. They have every intention of swinging far to the Left and I say that we Conservatives should let them. Sooner or later it will come back to bite them in the posterior and that's when we can retake control of the Congress.

The Libs in the Democrat party are trying to push Joe Lieberman and John Dingell out of their positions in the Senate and House respectively. Lieberman is on the chopping block because of his support of John McCain during the election. In 2006 he was kicked off the Democrat ballet in Connecticut because of his support for the Iraq War. He ran as an Independent and the people of his state voted the veteran senator back into office. Even after the betrayal of his party he continued to caucus with them on most issues. In fact he was one of the reasons that the Dems had a majority in the Senate for the past two years. But now that the Dems have won more seats his vote is no longer needed to maintain their majority so they're saying sayonara.

Representative John Dingell, of Michigan, is in a similar predicament because of his moderate views on climate and energy policy. With the extreme Left running the Democrat party only the “greenest” members are safe. Henry Waxman the ultra-liberal congressman from California, stated the day after the election that he would seek to replace Dingell on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Dems like Waxman refuse to accept terms like “reasonable”, “realistic”, “achievable” and “cost containment”. They want to pass a law that would force industries to cut emissions to 80% below 1990 standards by the year 2050. The thing is that Dingell passed a bill out of his committee that would more reasonably required emissions reductions to 80% below 2005 levels. As the Wall Street Journal puts it, this type draconian law would affect blue-collar Americans more than Waxman's Beverly Hills constituents.

The WSJ also points out that all of this is a warning to “Blue Dog” and rural-state Dems that they are on thin ice with the Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate. If the Republicans' charges that the Democrat party is being controlled by the Moveon Left weren't enough to convince the rest of America, then this should do it. Unfortunately, it's too late. For the next two to four years we're stuck with the job-destroying, tree-worshiping liberals. I hope you're happy America.

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal story

The 11th hour...

On the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, in 1918, the armistice that ended World War I went into effect. It was, up to that point, the bloodiest conflict in modern history. It was the first war to use weapons of mass destruction, including tanks, machine guns, chemical weapons and the full fury of the Industrial Age.

First proclaimed in November of 1919 and finally made an official holiday on May 13, 1939, it was meant to remember the men that fought and died in World War I. In 1953, a Kansas shoe store owner named Al King began a movement to have Armistice Day honor ALL veterans, regardless of whether they served in war or peace. President Eisenhower signed it into law in May of 1954 and in November of that year Congress amended the law to change the name from Armistice Day to Veterans Day.

So today if you see a vet, whether currently serving or not, say thank you. Whether they served in war or peace they gave a portion of their lives so that ours could be free.

God bless America.

Some thoughts about race

I was sitting at work trying to be at peace with the nation's choice of president and I came up with some interesting thoughts about race. It is something that our nation will always have to deal with but this particular election brings into the clear light of day, I think for the first time.

I never had any intention of voting against Obama because his skin was darker than mine. It really never entered my mind. And yet many black Americans did vote for Obama because he is a black man. One commentator said that the number of whites that voted against Obama because of color offsets the number of black people that supported him for the same reasons. I find this logic spurious at best.

Colin Powell is a prime example of a black man that voted for Obama simply because he is the same color. Powell had been a long time Republican—albeit a moderate one. Like John McCain he had served in Vietnam and he was well aware of the the Arizona senator's qualifications for the presidency. Despite his assertions to the contrary he endorsed Obama for no other reason than his race.

I don't have a problem with black people supporting Barack because he's black. They should be proud of the accomplishment of the first term senator from Illinois, the “Great Emancipator”, Abraham Lincoln's state. What I don't like is when a person tells a bald-faced lie about their reasons for making this very important decision.

It brings up a question that I feel has to be asked: why is it that people think they have to lie about it? If this were forty years ago I could understand the reticence of black Americans to state their reasons for voting based on race. Of course forty years ago a black man would never had made it. The point is that times have changed. And Colin Powell is one of the reasons that they have changed so positively. He served with distinction and became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under George H. W. Bush. He led the successful campaign against Saddam Husein in the first Gulf War. He was the first black Secretary of State. He has no reason to be ashamed about the fact that he voted for Obama simply because he is also black. Powell has paid his dues.

One of the reasons may simply be that he feels that he was slighted by the current Bush administration because of his reticence to use military force against Iraq. He made the case to the world at the UN for war and the evidence was faulty. It made him look bad. He also may feel that he is partially to blame for the deaths of over 4,000 men and women of the American armed forces. I guess I feel that maybe I am too since I supported the war. But the fact remains that we were operating on the intelligence that we had at the time. And though I'm just a lowly civilian I supported the war because I thought it was the right thing to do. I made some mean statements about the people who were against the war and I am sorry. However, neither Colin Powell nor anyone else that supported the war should blame ourselves for that tragedy since we used the same info to come to our conclusions. So if a feeling of responsibility for what happened is one of the reasons that he lied about his reasons for voting for Obama, it is misplaced. A lot of good people were duped.

I don't think that Colin Powell is afraid of what people think about him. I don't think that that is why he lied about his reasons. But if that's not the reason then the only remain reason for lying is the worst reason. He was actively trying to mislead the American people. Remember he didn't have to publicly support Obama. He could have simply done what the rest of America did on November 5^th; he could have silently voted. But he went out of his way to make a statement of his support on all of the Sunday chit-chat shows. And while doing so he lied about his reasons.

I think that I have lost a little respect for Mr. Powell.