Fred Barnes, a Conservative political commentator for Fox News and the editor of the “Weekly Standard” magazine, wrote a straight factual piece in the Wall Street Journal that details Why Obama Isn’t Changing Washington.

To start with, Barnes reviews the president’s statements when campaigning for office:

“Change must come to Washington,” Mr. Obama said in a June 2008 speech. “I have consistently said when it comes to solving problems,” he told Jake Tapper of ABC News that same month, “I don’t approach this from a partisan or ideological perspective.”

Mr. Obama also decried the prominent role played by lobbyists. “Lobbyists aren’t just a part of the system in Washington, they’re part of the problem,” Mr. Obama said in a May 2008 campaign speech.

What happened? Obama and his Democratic majority have gone so far as to change the locks on doors so that Republicans couldn’t get into sessions when the Healthcare Legislation was being drafted. Hardly partisan politics.

As for lobbyists, Barnes points out:

“The bigger the role of government, the more lobbyists flock to town. By pushing for his policies, the president effectively put up a welcome sign to lobbyists. Despite promising to keep them out of his administration, he has even hired a few.”

To answer his own question: “Why Obama Isn’t Changing Washington”, Barnes says that:

“. . . the president made three strategic mistakes (or, really, misreadings of the political landscape) and they’ve come back to haunt him and his party.

“First, Mr. Obama misread the meaning of the 2008 election. It wasn’t a mandate for a liberal revolution. His victory was a personal one, not an ideological triumph of liberalism.

“Second, Mr. Obama misread his own ability to sway the public. . . . The president spent much of the summer and early fall touting his health-care initiative. He spoke at town halls, appeared on five Sunday talk shows the same day (Sept. 20), turned up on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and on “60 Minutes.” All the while, support for ObamaCare fell. His address to Congress on health care on Sept. 9 is now remembered only for Republican Rep. Joe Wilson’s shouted accusation, “You lie!”

“Third, Mr. Obama misread Republicans. They felt weak and vulnerable after losing two straight congressional elections and watching John McCain’s presidential bid fall flat. They were afraid to criticize the newly elected president. If he had offered them minimal concessions, many of them would have jumped aboard his policies. If that had happened, the president could have boasted of achieving bipartisan compromise on the stimulus and other policies. He let the chance slip away.”

I would add that Obama’s worst mistake was his assumption that Americans are willing to give up the America they know and love for an America with a government that overwhelms their lives with taxes and with rules and regulations that take away their ability to make their own decisions.

The Daily Political Blog Politics Daily has published an article about hate crimes. The article is filled with data and statistics (taken from the FBI’s 2008 Hate Crimes Report) and these statistics indicate that hate crimes are up!

The idea that a crime committed against an individual may (if the individual is a member of a protected class) carry two different punishments has never made much sense to me. I guess the theory is that giving a person a harsher sentence for striking out against someone because of WHAT they are rather than WHO they are will reduce the number of crimes against members of those “protected” groups. The protected groups by the way are: race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. Personally, as I said before in an old post, I feel that hate crime legislation violates the First Amendment (equal protection under the law) and the 14th Amendment (the prohibition against double jeopardy but apparently Legislators are neither reading or paying attention to my posts.

Regardless of how I feel about hate crime legislation its very interesting to note (as they did in the Politics Daily story) that there were 7,783 “bias crimes” committed in 2008, a rise of 2% over 2007.

Because of the stiffer penalties imposed at the Federal and State level for attacking a man because of his race or religion or etc. one would think that this type of crime would be going down. That, of course is a government’s only real option in a situation like this — make new laws and impose stiffer penalties; i.e., ‘pile on those disincentives and you can stop any behavior you want to stop.’ Too bad it doesn’t work.

Hate crimes are as old as the Bible and, when you boil it down, people who commit this type of crime are doing so because of their own insecurity and emotional instability. Laws and rules may have a small impact on a few of these people but they will not come near to solving the problem.

I read the news and see that the Democratic majority has totally bought into President Obama’s vision of Utopia; a United States that needs to be remade into a country that is less of a threat to our enemies and more acceptable to European Socialists. This is not a paranoid delusion or a flight of fancy or an observation without a basis. They (the president and Congress) are intent on emulating the failed British and Canadian healthcare systems; they will happily destroy our economy and the nation’s productivity in the name of that sham called global warming; they are doing everything they can to strengthen unions by taking away the choice of workers who believe that people should be judged on their performance as individuals rather than on their seniority; they refuse to call terrorists, terrorists and have started giving our enemies the same legal and Constitutional rights as U.S. citizens, they have demoralized the military by putting the safety of the enemy (and world opinion) above the safety of our troops and making “diversity” superior to safety and common sense; and, as you know if you read, watch or listen to the news, the litany of governmental malfeasance goes on and on and on.

The realization that these destroyers are the majority in the US Legislature and, as the majority, they can do almost anything they want added to the fact that they are apparently more devoted to the president’s “vision” and to their mission to “remake” America than they are to the Constitution or the American people, has demoralized many Americans — including this one. If you are one of these demoralized Americans — lets get over it!

Let’s get over it — we’re winning!

It started in New Jersey when Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine lost his reelection bid to Republican Chris Christie and simultaneously in the Virginia governor’s race when Republican Bob McDonnell scored a resounding victory over Democrat Creigh Deeds. It continues as Obama’s popularity in every poll is lower than it ever had been; and continues with the public backlash over the obscenity of civil trials for terrorists and over the stupidity of Gen. George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff who feels that losing diversity in the military would be a bigger loss than the loss of life by a terrorist.

Unless the president and the Democratic majority do a complete turnaround and begin acting like responsible Americans who understand and buy into American Exceptionalism, it will continue. It will continue in November of 2010 and then in 2012 it will finally unseat the Obomination in the White House.

The Cheatham County Tennessee School District is being sued by four students who are protesting the District’s position that allows, and apparently encourages, religious activities in the district’s schools. According to an article in the Tennessean:

The lawsuit alleges: a planned prayer took place at graduation last spring; the Gideons International were allowed to speak to classes and distribute Bibles; a cross hangs in a classroom; and a history teacher taught that the United States is a “Christian nation” and decried the separation of church and state. The suit asks the court to stop the activities.

Now this may seem like a frivolous lawsuit to some — to those of you who believe that your own religious beliefs have no borders and should have no limits — as well as those of you who argue that no one forced the kids to pray at the graduation or accept the Bibles or look at the cross on the wall and you would be right — well at least partially right. But when we come to that situation where students in a classroom, some of who may not know better, have to listen to a Christian Evangelistic version of U.S. History and an abstraction of the Constitution we’ve reached an unquestionable limit and have begun to corrupt the educational process.

The broader picture is: The United States is not a “Christian nation”; it is a nation based not on religion but on morality, a basic morality that forms the basis of ‘civilization’ as we understand it and practice it — a morality that exists apart from any religion — a morality that is, by law, the basis of even the most ardent atheist’s behavior.

I realize, of course, that it’s human nature to want to share a good thing and religious people believe that they have not only a good thing to share — they feel that it is their duty to share it. I wish they would also realize that there are many people in this world who have their own “good things” going in their lives (their own religions and/or their own non-religious or quasi-religious belief systems) and that Christian (or other) evangelism is not only an intrusion into these other people’s lives, it is an insult to their intelligence and their choice of life style.

When I ran across a recent article at “Air America” online titled: Abortion Restrictions In House Bill Show Power Of Organized Religion In Politics I broke into a sweat! (Well not literally!) However, how could it be that I, a self-professed proponent of Conservatism, could agree with ANYTHING that the “wacko Libs” at Air America propose. Perhaps I need to reevaluate my dedication to Conservative values as well as my blanket condemnation of “Libs.”

The Air America article begins like this:

The Catholic Church successfully helped deliver a crushing blow to the abortion rights movement on Saturday by insisting that abortion restrictions be inserted into the newly passed House health care bill. But this isn’t the first time that a religious organization has used its power, money, and influence to merge dogma with public policy.

Well, damn it all, they’re ALMOST absolutely right!

Two things: 1) Their naming of the “Catholic Church” as the culprit is a bit questionable — Evangelicals do deserve a big share of the credit; and 2) While they are correct that abortion restrictions ARE based solely on religious dogma and they are also correct that this isn’t the first time religion has influenced government actions; (same-sex marriage restrictions are now, thanks to religious influence on government, imposed by most states and are fully supported by federal fiat.) They are NOT right however when they suggest that the health care bill should have no restrictions on abortion. Taking religion out of the equation, abortion, in the majority of cases anyway, is a completely elective procedure and, as such, neither abortion or any other strictly elective procedure should be paid for by U.S. taxpayers. (Of course if sanity prevails, there will be NO Federal Health Care bill and this discussion will be moot.)

What about those Conservative values that deserve my reconsideration?

After just a bit of investigation I quickly discovered that I am not a textbook Conservative but I’m not far off. “Conservapedia” — the Conservative version of Wikipedia — lists 19 specific Conservative agenda items that a true Conservative is supposed is supposed to embrace:

- Classroom prayer *
- Prohibition of abortion *
- Abstinence education
- Traditional marriage, not same-sex marriage *
- Respect for differences between men and women, boys and girls
- Laws against pornography *
- The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms
- Economic allocative efficiency (as opposed to popular equity)
- The death penalty
- Parental control of education
- Private medical care and retirement plans
- Canceling failed social support programs
- No world government
- Enforcement of current laws regarding immigration
- Respect for our military … past and present
- Rejection of junk science such as evolutionism and global warming
- Low taxes, especially for families
- Federalism (less power for the federal government and more for local and state governments)
- A strong national defense

The four asterisked (*) items above are where I personally take my leave from this particular set of values; allow me to clarify my reasoning. Conservatism is, to me, a strictly political realm and while this list reflects a great set of personal values, those four asterisked items, IMO, have no place in the world of laws or politics. You may have also noted that these items are near the top of their list — a clear indication of how religion has already perverted political thinking.

My bottom line is this: Religious values are important to many (or most) people but they properly belong only where people willingly accept them: in the church, in the home, possibly in some microcosm of the community (where they are accepted by all members of that community) and, in general, in the lives of those who embrace them; they should NOT however have the force of law. Our great nation is NOT just populated by Christians or Jews or Hindus or Moslems or by any other single religious group and our laws should be strictly secular — not reflect the beliefs of any religion.

There are, of course, logical exceptions to a general statement like the preceding and they are, without exception, already codified into all of our laws: restrictions against causing physical harm, taking someone else’s property, etc. These may all be religious values, at least in most religions but in the context of law, they are the rules of any civilized nation.

One final note on abortion: My view, embraced by those people who are falsely label pro-abortion, is that an unborn baby is not subject to the laws of the United States (or any other entity) until it is born. People who believe this are pro-choice, not pro-abortion; they recognize that abortion does indeed terminate a potential life and that act (or “sin” for you religious folks) is the responsibility of and the rightful decision of the woman carrying the unborn child and the man who took part in the conception. That’s called “choice” and an individual’s choice is far more valuable than the religious proclamations of any religious or government body. You can “damn a woman to Hell” for her choice but arbitrary laws should never be able to prevent her from making that choice. That would be (or should be) completely outside of the realm of government.

We seriously need to keep the gate closed between the worlds of religion and politics — not doing that will, eventually, draw our system of government closer and closer to theocracy.

Arianna Huffington, the Ann Coulter of the far-Left, expresses an enormous amount of dissatisfaction with the way her far-Left wing president does his job in her article this week on her website: “The Huffington Post”.

Huffington’s article, titled: “Barack Obama Is Doing My Job; Why America Needs Him to Do His,” openly wonders why the president is acting so unpresidential when it comes to Wall Street and the banking system, i.e.; he has the authority and power to make things happen but he seems to be satisfied with “urging, advocating, recommending, strongly suggesting, and cajoling.”

She continues:

“During his weekly radio address, which focused on the need to get America’s banks lending to small businesses again (wasn’t that the reason we bailed out the banks in the first place?), the president declared that “it’s time for those banks to fulfill their responsibility to help ensure a wider recovery, a more secure system, and more broadly shared prosperity.” But “it’s time for” is the kind of thing we pundits say: “It’s time for the banks to do this and that… It’s time for Congress to do this and that… It’s time for the president to do this and that.

“Then the president laid out his plan of action: “We’re going to take every appropriate step to encourage them to meet those responsibilities.

“Encourage them? How about make them? Columnists and bloggers encourage. Presidents execute. It’s in the job description. Hence: the executive branch.”

I have to give Ms. Huffington credit — she has her principles and they will not be corrupted by party loyalty.

So what does she want the president to do?

“For starters, the president controls who runs the Fed. Instead of just giving Ben Bernanke the green light for a second term, he could have made it contingent on forcing Bernanke to open up the Fed to full transparency. In fact, there is a proposal for an audit of the Fed in the House now. It is, not surprisingly, being fought by the Fed. And the White House is silent on the subject.

“The president also has the power to make other key appointments, including the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (who supervises the nation’s commercial banks); the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; the head of the Office of Thrift Supervision (the primary regulator of savings and loans); the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (which oversees derivatives).

Huffington then sharpens her virtual tongue for another attack:

“He also controls who runs the Treasury Department — which, believe it or not, is not legally mandated to be overseen and staffed by former Goldman Sachs executives and their friends. And there is nothing in the Constitution that says the Treasury Secretary has to be in near-constant contact with the heads of Goldman, Citigroup, and JP Morgan, often taking their calls late at night.”

Its fun to read a far-left Lib dissing another far-Left Lib for not being far left enough but hopefully President Obama pays no attention to either Arianna or her “Post.”

Obama does, as Huffington suggests, need to get all the crooks and other rubbish out of the White House and out of his cabinet and needs far more transparency — he hasn’t even begun to keep his campaign promises in those regards –but he does NOT need to exercise more control over any aspect of the private sector.

My suggestions for President Obama are far simpler than Arianna Huffington’s: 1) Do everything you can to get the government out of the way of the free market; 2) Provide whatever incentives you can for growth (not mandates but incentives), and 3) Stand back and watch the economy return to health.

]]> http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/huffington-on-obama/feed/ 2 Harvey Arianna Huffington http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/krauthammer-interview-in-der-spiegel/ http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/krauthammer-interview-in-der-spiegel/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:12:20 +0000 Harvey http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/?p=522 ]]>

Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer prizewinning political columnist and Conservative commentator was interviewed by Der Spiegel on a variety of political topics — the interview was published today.

On Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize:

Charles Krauthammer: It is so comical. Absurd. Any prize that goes to Kellogg and Briand, Le Duc Tho and Arafat, and Rigoberta Menchú, and ends up with Obama, tells you all you need to know. For Obama it’s not very good because it reaffirms the stereotypes about him as the empty celebrity.

SPIEGEL: Why does it?

Krauthammer: He is a man of perpetual promise. There used to be a cruel joke that said Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be; Obama is the Brazil of today’s politicians. He has obviously achieved nothing. And in the American context, to be the hero of five Norwegian leftists, is not exactly politically positive.

On Obama and the UN:

SPIEGEL: Do you really believe that Obama deliberately wants to weaken the US?

Krauthammer: The liberal vision of America is that it should be less arrogant, less unilateral, more internationalist. In Obama’s view, America would subsume itself under a fuzzy internationalism in which the international community, which I think is a fiction, governs itself through the UN.

SPIEGEL: A nightmare?

Krauthammer: Worse than that: an absurdity. I can’t even imagine serious people would believe it, but I think Obama does. There is a way America will decline — if we choose first to wreck our economy and then to constrain our freedom of action through subordinating ourselves to international institutions which are 90 percent worthless and 10 percent harmful.

SPIEGEL: And there is not even 1 percent that is constructive?

Krauthammer: No. The UN is worse than disaster. The UN creates conflicts. Look at the disgraceful UN Human Rights Council: It transmits norms which are harmful, anti-liberty, and anti-Semitic among other things. The world would be better off in its absence.

On Obama:

SPIEGEL: And Obama is, in your eyes,

Krauthammer: He’s becoming ordinary. In the course of his presidency, Obama has gone from an almost magical charismatic figure to an ordinary politician. Ordinary. Average. His approval ratings are roughly equal to what the last five presidents’ were at the same time in their first term. Other people have already said he’s done and finished because his health care plans ran into trouble; but I say they’re wrong. He’s going to come back, he will pass something on health care, there’s no question. He will have a blip, be somewhat rehabilitated politically, but he won’t be able to pass anything on climate change. He will not be the great transformer he imagines himself to be. A president like others — with successes and failures.

On Healthcare Reform:

SPIEGEL: How could Obama still win Republican support for healthcare reform?

Krauthammer: He should finally realize that we need to reform our insane malpractice system. The US is spending between $60 and $200 billion a year on protection against lawsuits. I used to be a doctor, I know how much is wasted on defensive medicine. Everybody I practiced with spends hours and enormous amounts of money on wasted tests, diagnostic and procedures — all to avoid lawsuits. The Democrats will not touch it. When Howard Dean was asked why, he said honestly and explicitly that Democrats don’t want to antagonize the trial lawyers who donate huge amounts of money to the Democrats.

SPIEGEL: What would be your solution?

Krauthammer: I would make Americans pay half a percent tax on their health insurance and create a pool to socialize the cost of medical errors. That would save hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used to insure the uninsured. And second, I would abolish the absurd prohibition against buying health insurance in another state — that reduces competition and keeps health insurance rates artificially high.

The preceeding excerpts provided with the hope that you will read the entire article — it is well worth your time.

About Charles Krauthammer:

Krauthammer has spent most of his life in a wheelchair due to a diving accident during his first year at Harvard Medical school but he would not quit; he graduated with the rest of his class in spite of a year of hospitalization. He then went on to specialize in Phychiatry and eventually became a Resident and then a Chief Resident in Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He gave up medicine to enter politics and then journalism.

]]> http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/krauthammer-interview-in-der-spiegel/feed/ 0 Harvey Charles Krauthammer http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/rescuing-the-children/ http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/rescuing-the-children/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:15:10 +0000 Harvey http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/?p=518 ]]>

Major kudos go to the Federal Agents and members of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children for their major success on Operation Cross Country. In just the past three days, almost 1,600 FBI agents and police officers have arrested 700 people who operated and patronized child sex rings in 36 cities around the country. Fifty-two children were rescued from their situations (the youngest 10 y/o) where they were either forced or otherwise convinced to provide for the sexual needs of the perverts who frequented the houses, buildings and rooms where they were kept virtual prisoners.

Operation Cross Country is part of a larger initiative called the Innocence Lost National Initiative which has been saving kids from child prostitution since 2003. So far Innocence Lost has rescued 900 children from prostitution and has sent 510 of the operators and front-line pimps to jail.

There are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of children still engaged in prostitution here in the United States. Some have been kidnapped and forced into prostitution but the majority of them are runaways who were seduced into the child sex trade by promises of food, shelter, clothes and protection.

According to an article in the UK Guardian:

“Child welfare groups estimate that around 2 million children a year run away from home in the US, and that many of them are lured into prostitution or pornography to survive.

The justice department says there is an “epidemic” of commercial sex activity among children living on the streets. It says more than half of street girls are engaged in prostitution, many of them beginning between 12 and 14 years old.

“Pimp-controlled commercial sexual exploitation of children is linked to escort and massage services, private dancing, drinking and photographic clubs, major sporting and recreational events, major cultural events, conventions, and tourist destinations,” the department says.

“About one-fifth of these children become entangled in nationally organised crime networks and are trafficked nationally. They are transported around the United States by a variety of means: cars, buses, vans, trucks or planes, and are often provided counterfeit identification to use in the event of arrest.”

The U.S Department of Justice confirms this in their Child Prostitution information page; an excerpt:

“The majority of American victims of commercial sexual exploitation tend to be runaway or thrown away youth who live on the streets who become victims of prostitution. These children generally come from homes where they have been abused, or from families that have abandoned them, and often become involved in prostitution as a way to support themselves financially or to get the things they want or need.

Other young people are recruited into prostitution through forced abduction, pressure from parents, or through deceptive agreements between parents and traffickers. Once these children become involved in prostitution they are often forced to travel far from their homes and as a result are isolated from their friends and family. Few children in this situation are able to develop new relationships with peers or adults other than the person who is victimizing them.

Sadly, of the 700 people who were arrested in this latest sweep, only a minority of them will, in the end, be incarcerated. Many of the rescued children will refuse to testify against the men and women who functioned as their handlers because of pressure from their families or because they feel attached to them in a Stockholm Syndrome type of effect. Others will find legal loopholes or lenient judges and will be back out on the street plying their trade in just a short time. Our justice system is, on the whole, fair — even to those who don’t deserve a fair justice system; and it’s even more “fair” to those who can afford the best lawyers.

News Links:

L.A. Times: 52 children rescued in nationwide sex-trafficking raids

UK Guardian: 700 arrests across country as FBI rescues children from sex trade

Also of interest:

The Child Abuse Monument Project

]]> http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/rescuing-the-children/feed/ 0 Harvey http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/a-growing-republican-rift-in-new-york/ http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/a-growing-republican-rift-in-new-york/#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:58:05 +0000 Harvey http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/?p=510 ]]>

November 3, 2009 is a vitally important day in American politics — its the day the voters in New York’s 23rd Congressional district will decide between three candidates vying to replace Congressman John McHugh who was tagged to become the new Secretary of the Army in the Obama Pentagon. Why is this election so important? Here are the main reasons: It’s the only Congressional race this fall; it will test the strength of the Democratic party’s base in ther midst of Obama’s
declining popularity; and perhaps the most interesting aspect of this race, it features a rebellion against the mainstream Republican Party by Conservative Republicans.

The Democratic candidate is Bill Owens, a lifelong Independent who claims he was so inspired by Barack Obama that he became a Democrat. He has raised more campaign money than either (or possibly both) of his opponents because the Democratic party is fully behind him and all of the traditional Democratic funding sources are in full swing. The district is primarily populated by Moderate voters and, because of that, it’s a good possibility that he may, in the end, win the race.

The Republican Party, considering they were not in Conservative-leaning territory, decided to be pragmatic and throw their support behind Dede Scozzafava, a well-known (in the area) Moderate-to-Liberal Republican. What they didn’t forsee was a severe backlash by the Conservative wing of the Republican Party. Conservative Republicans have felt for some time that the Republican Party has drifted too far to the center . . . that the Republican Party has been hijacked by Moderate Republicans who don’t support Conservative values; then, when the party gave the spot on the ticket to a Moderate with Liberal values such as Dede Scozzafava, the outrage was tangible.

The Conservative Party candidate is Doug Hoffman, a rock-solid Conservative who has, because of the GOP selection of Scozzafava, become a “rock-star” in Conservative circles. Because of Conservative discontent over Scozzafava and over the direction the Republican Party is moving, Doug Hoffman has gained growing support from important Republicans, politicians and non-politicians alike.

According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor (linked below),

“Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, former Senator Rick Santorum, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, current Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann, former Tennessee Senator and presidential candidate Fred Thompson, and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes have all backed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava.

“Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a potential presidential candidate in 2012, suggested Friday on ABC News that he’s strongly considering backing Hoffman, as well.”

Conservative Talk Radio has also loudly spoken out in favor of Hoffman over the Republican candidate Scozzafava: Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin and Ingram are just a few of the many radio personalities who are chastizing the Republican party for backing a Liberal over a Conservative and are actively raising campaign funds for Hoffman. Naturally Internet Blogs are speaking out for or against the candidates in this race but Hoffman has gained “troops on the ground” since the rift began: the people who were active at Tea Parties across the nation are volunteering in droves to canvas the district for their favorite candidate: Doug Hoffman.

News Links:

North Country Public Radio: Campaign News

Christian Science Monitor: Republicans Going Rogue in Upstate New York

Blog Posts:

Hot Air: Video: Gingrich answers Hoffman supporter at book signing

Maggie’s Notebook: Doug Hoffman Sarah Palin: Palins Hoffman Endorsement: (video)

]]> http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/a-growing-republican-rift-in-new-york/feed/ 0 Harvey The Candidates http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/youd-think-its-october-2008/ http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/youd-think-its-october-2008/#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:05:16 +0000 Harvey http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/?p=504 ]]>

The title is a line from an article by Steve Huntley in the Oct. 20th Chicago Sun Times titled: “Excuses wearing thin for Obama, media pals”. Here’s the full quote:

“You’d think it’s October 2008, the final month in the Obama presidential candidacy, rather than October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency. Yet the Obama White House is in full campaign mode — maybe because it needs to mask the shortcomings of the Obama presidency.”

How True! How True!

Huntly goes on to jibe the Obama administration and the “Obama acolytes” at MSNBC and CNN and others who continually prostrate themselves at the feet of their spiritual leader in the White House and continually attack anyone who speaks out against Obama. The cries of racist are continually echoed from the speakers and pages of Obama’s media organizations along with excuses for Obama’s failure to meet his promises.

Not only is the Obama administration still in campaign mode after nine months and not only are they continually pointing fingers of blame at others they are not even focused on the major problem in the United States an economy that is suffering and causing massive unemployment.

How can they ignore that? Or the better question is: Why are they ignoring that while working like they are possessed toward legislation that will further devistate the general economy, create more unemployment, increase home foreclosures, increase bankruptcies and, eventually, grind our economy to a halt?

The answer is frightening but its the only answer I can concieve of: Obama doesn’t care about the economy; all he cares about is government control and he knows that he cannot control a free market so he is determined to destroy the free market.

But what about or country’s economy as it competes in the International marketplace? Our dollar will soon be worthless anywhere except at home and, I’d bet every dollar I own that in Obama’s heart he doesn’t mind that a bit. He’s getting even!

That’s right, the President of the United States is getting even with this country that he regards as greedy and oppressive; and to get even he is going to intentionally and willfully try to destroy the United States by taking away its wealth and power.

OK! I know that sounds completely paranoid but how else can his actions be justified?

Put yourself in the Oval Office. You’ve inherited a screwed up economy. What do you do? Do you focus on things like healthcare and the environment or do you take actions to get businesses back in business and growing again so they have a need for more workers?

The answer should be obvious and if Obama had really intended to fulfill his campaign promises, now, nine months later, our economy would be growing (or at least not shrinking) and the government would be shrinking — not the other way around.

What should he have done? Here’s my list: lowered corporate taxes (or even eliminated them for a period of time); provided other incentives to business to hire more employees; ensured that only American citizens or those here legally are on employment roles; given some money directly to consumers so they themselves can buy products and services to help get businesses back on track; divested the Federal government from any and all but the most essential (for National Security) ventures; cut foreign aid to any country that does not support us and work with us in the United Nations (as a practical matter you don’t enrich your enemies); insisted on a line-item veto and lined out all tag-on legislation that cannot pass on its own; and put healthcare legislation and environmental legislation on the “back burner” until we are in a stable economy and it can be addressed intelligently.

Hardly an all-inclusive list but you get the picture I’m trying to paint; Obama had sone NONE of that and will probably never do any of that until he understands that the American People are fed up with his anti-business, anti-American attitude == and maybe not even then! He is a man possessed!

]]> http://webcentrist.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/youd-think-its-october-2008/feed/ 1 Harvey ALT TITLE