The discussions we just had on the Constitution will be useful as we gauge what is happening now, against what should be happening within the framework of the Constitution but as we enter the 2010 campaign season, I also want to expose some myths surrounding modern “political speak” in that context to begin our next segment.
Myth one – FDR’s policies and programs ended the Great Depression.
False - Since President Obama’s proponents are touting him as the new FDR, this myth is the first that needs to be debunked. Nothing can be further from the truth. FDR’s programs were nothing more than keep busy government works projects that kept most at or below the poverty level; actually very similar to today’s Stimulus bill. World War Two sent millions of American men to war taking them off home relief and placing them on the front lines to defend the nation and during the war years, the country’s economy shifted to war production. Since general provisions were limited by the war, a combination of rationing and the tax structure were used to prevent runaway inflation. At the conclusion of the war, nearly every manufacturing center around the world had been destroyed in the fighting except for those located safely within the borders of the United States. From 1945 through the late 1050’s, if you wanted to buy anything, you had to buy it here and that is what ended the Great Depression.
Myth two – Reagan’s tax cuts and policies of “trickle down economics” failed and ultimately quadrupled the National Debt.
Partially true - First of all, to gain the tax cuts Reagan wanted to stimulate the economy, Reagan had to agree to the TEFRA act (Tax Equity and Reform Act) of 1986. Before the Reagan tax cuts, the tax on the wealthiest Americans were roughly 50% (already down from the top marginal tax rates of 80% to 95% during the world war two years). TEFRA eliminated many of the deductions that high earning American’s used to reduce their taxable income. You may want to note that even after the marginal tax rates for the top earners began to climb during the first Bush administration, none of the deductions eliminated under TEFRA had been restored. The only mistake Reagan made was in phasing in his tax cuts over a period of a few years. This stalled the economy for a further two years as business held back, waiting for the goodies that were coming.
Now to the bare facts: OMB figures indicate that the explosion of the economy directly related the Reagan tax cuts resulted in a tripling of revenues to the United States Treasury. Unfortunately, the Congress immediately wrote legislation that spent $1.34 for every new dollar they received. Admittedly, part of that was to fund the military expansion that Reagan insisted was necessary for the security of the nation; but a great deal were pork barrel projects injected into the legislation. Don’t forget, Reagan asked for the line item veto to be able to weed that reckless spending out of the legislation but Congress refused to offer him that power. If he were to move forward on the agenda he felt was vital to the nation, Reagan was given no alternative but to sign these pork laden bills into law. President Clinton was eventually given the power of the line item veto and never used it to weed out frivolous spending. In all fairness, neither did the second Bush administration.
Myth three - Deregulation created the mortgage crisis of 2007.
Partially true - Deregulation certainly allowed for the lapse in accountability that made this possible but to find the roots of the crisis, we need to travel back in time to the Clinton administration. During the Clinton administration there was a push to expand the “American Dream” of home ownership to a segment of the population where it had never existed before. That “push” was in the form of the Federal government fining banks that would not issue what were traditionally considered high risk loans to allow low income people access to home mortgages.
That practice drove the median prices of homes skyward since the law of supply and demand was now challenged by an artificially created marketplace. Those that already owned homes took advantage of the lenient lending terms and free flow of cash to refinance their mortgages based on the inflated value of the property, in essence turning their homes into an ATM machine with a garage and two and a half baths. Many took adjustable rate or interest only loans because they were cheaper thinking they would get into a conventional loan later. They took the difference in cash with some, purchasing additional properties with the idea that property values would continue to go nowhere but up.
Well, you knew it would happen sooner or later but an awful lot of those high risk loans started going sour. Banks that saw trouble on the horizon packaged these loans and sold them to investors. They sold them as securities thinking that the good paper would offset the bad paper, because property values always go up. Well that might have worked if property values weren’t artificially inflated and if property owners hadn’t already cashed in on that.
The net result was due to the high rate of loan failures (the high risk ones the government had forced on lenders) property values plummeted. When it came time for the ATM people to refinance, their home were worth substantially less that the principal they already owed. Unfortunately, the cash they withdrew from the “ATM” was already spent. You already know the story from there.
Myth four - The Stimulus plan (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) is responsible for the creation of millions of jobs.
False - Again, no; only a portion of the $800 billion allocated in the stimulus bill has actually been distributed. As opposed to The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 which consisted of tax rebate checks put into the hands of tax payers, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 doled out money to the States and Cities. As a note, The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 consisted of roughly $152 billion given back to the tax payers while The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 scripted over $800 billion to fund projects administrated through the States and Cities. They still haven’t figured out that we spend money far better than they do.
In my home town of Phoenix, the stimulus money they received was used to purchase additional traffic enforcement cameras; cameras that will likely be voted out of existence in the next few years as referendum ballots opposing them gain ground. Well that put a lot of people to work, now didn’t it? Much of the stimulus money in other areas was used to fund other previously committed spending like roads or transportation projects.
The facts: much of the stimulus money was used to fund projects that were already awarded to contractors (no new jobs) or was used for “make work” jobs, some of which lasted a total of 36 hours, less than a full work week, before these people were once again, unemployed. The “new jobs” were far less than temporary and the balance of what they claimed credit for, were jobs that had already existed.
As a note, The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 only failed because people used the money they received to satisfy existing personal debt. In essence, the government had already taken too much and waited too long only to give too little back.
So where am I going with this and is there a common thread? Those of you that have read my work before already know there must be something that ties all of this together. That “thread” is the Federal government’s inability to affect positive change through the manipulation of the free market system. Every time they have tried they have failed and failed miserably. Partly, because they are following an ideology that mainstream America does not share and partly, because they have still been divided amongst themselves for years.
The nation’s capitol has become nothing more that a battlefield of the extreme right and the radical left with the bulk of the nation, meaning you and me, caught in the crossfire. Accusation is met with counter-accusation and whatever party is in control tries to force their agenda through while accusing the other of having no vision and no alternatives.
Since there is apparently a lack of common sense solutions in Congress, let’s see if we can’t frame the real issues and identify some reasonable solutions for them. I know, I know….we are just regular people. Truthfully, I can’t think of any better reason to try since the “professional” legislators have made such an unholy mess of things already. Besides, this is still our country….isn’t it?Paul
Showing posts with label Tea Parties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tea Parties. Show all posts
Monday, May 24, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Real Un-American Activities
With Tea Parties and Conservative programming now being called seditious and un-American, I thought it would be a good time to discuss true un-American activity and its history. With roots established as far back as 1918, The House Un-American Activities Committee has provided the means for Congressional investigations of subversive activities conducted within or against, the United States. The direct precursors to The House Un-American Activities Committee can be found in the Overman Committee of 1918, the Fish Committee of 1930, the Special Committee on Un-American Activities of 1934-1937 and the Special Investigations Committee of 1938-1944.
The Overman Committee was a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary chaired by Senator Lee Slater Overman of North Carolina. The Overman Committee operated from September 1918 to June 1919 and investigated German as well as Bolshevik elements in the United States. Originally tasked with investigation pro-German sentiments in the American liquor industry, the priority shifted after the conclusion of World War One to focus on the affects of Communist Bolshevism in America after the Russian Revolution of 1917. This Committee had a decisive role in constructing an image of a radical threat to America during the First Red Scare.
Similarly, the Fish Committee of 1930 pursued the same interests. NY Congressman Hamilton Fish III, who was a fervent anti-communist, introduced on May 5, 1930, House Resolution 180, which proposed to establish a committee to investigate communist activities in the United States. The resulting committee, commonly known as the Fish Committee, investigated people and organizations suspected of being involved with or supporting communist activities in the United States. Among the committee's targets were the American Civil Liberties Union and communist presidential candidate William Z. Foster. The committee recommended granting the United States Department of Justice more authority to investigate communists, and strengthening of immigration and deportation laws to keep communists out of the United States.
In May 1938, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was established as a special investigating committee. It was chaired by Texas Representative Martin Dies Jr., and therefore known as the Dies Committee. Its work was aimed mostly at German American involvement in Nazi and Ku Klux Klan activity but the committee's chief counsel Ernest Adamson announced that "The committee has decided that it lacks sufficient data on which to base a probe." Instead of the Klan, HUAC concentrated on investigating the possibility that the American Communist Party had infiltrated the Works Progress Administration, including the Federal Theatre Project and the Federal Writers' Project.
Representative Dies, who was a supporter of the New Deal, eventually withdrew his support for FDR’s far reaching social programs in 1937. The Committee fell under attack by members of the Roosevelt administration after their investigations were found to involve child actress Shirley Temple, who was ten years old at the time. The attacks were an intentional misrepresentation of the Committees work since Miss Temple’s name was only mentioned as it had appeared on a list of Hollywood figures that sent greetings to the Communist-owned French newspaper, Ce Soir. Mr. Dies tried to appear before the public to address this deliberate attempt to discredit the Committee but was curiously refused air time by both CBS and NBC as they feared reprisal from the Roosevelt Administration through use of the FCC.
In 1945, The House Un-American Activities Committee became a standing or “permanent” committee. The Un-American Activities Committee has often been mistakenly identified with the anti-communist investigations of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1953-1954. Although the goals were the same where subversive activities were concerned, Senator McCarthy chaired the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and had no direct involvement with The House Un-American Activities Committee.
After the House Un-American Activities Committee achieved status as a permanent committee, it became more focused on Communist subversive activities. Ironically, Democratic Congressman Samuel Dickstein, vice-chairman of the respective committees, would eventually be named in Soviet NKVD (precursor to the KGB) documents as a Soviet agent. Congressmen Dickstein, who had actually assisted in forming this committee to root out German fascists, apparently had not anticipated the change in the targets of committee’s investigations. The allegations remained unproven at that time and Dickstein later served as a Justice on the New York Supreme Court until his death in 1954.
In an interesting development, documents discovered in 1990s in the Moscow archives showed Dickstein was paid $1250 a month from 1937 to early 1940 by the NKVD, the Soviet spy agency, which hoped to get secret Congressional information on anti-Communist and pro-fascist forces. Whether Dickstein provided any intelligence is uncertain and when he left the Committee, the Soviets dropped him from their payroll.
Joseph McCarthy was a U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. Through his position as Chairman of The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator McCarthy made numerous claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere.
His subcommittee held 169 hearings throughout 1953 and 1954. Of the 653 people called by the Committee during a 15 month period, 83 refused to answer questions about espionage and subversive activities on constitutional grounds and their names were made public. Nine additional witnesses invoked the Fifth Amendment in executive session, and their names were not made public. Some of the 83 were working or had worked for the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the Government Printing Office, the Treasury Department, the Office of War Information, the Office of Strategic Services, and the Veterans Administration. Others were or had been employed at the Federal Telecommunications Laboratories in New Jersey, the secret radar laboratories of the Army Signal Corps in New Jersey, and General Electric defense plants in Massachusetts and New York.
Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate. The term "McCarthyism," coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist pursuits. Today the term is used more generally to describe demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents. It is clear that Joe McCarthy faced the same opposition that the House Un-American Activities Committee did but was he wrong?
Recent disclosures point to a Soviet program of demoralization that infused money into key areas of our society to fund groups that would reduce the American resistance to socialist ideals. The Soviets funded labor movements in the 1920’s and ‘30s, which infiltrated the film industry and print news. They also established socialist professors in American universities and funded the anti-war movement against American involvement in Viet Nam.
Periodically, the news is still punctuated with names like Robert Hanson and Aldrich Ames, both if which were convicted of espionage and conspiracy, both of which are currently serving life sentences and both of which were in the employ of the Soviet Union and later, Russia, which serves to prove that this program of demoralization is still being practiced today.
The protests in Pittsburg that erupted into violence at the G20 conference were mostly anti-capitalist factions that acquired their left leaning tilt at the hands of radical professors that are still spreading the disease of socialism. You already know many of the colleges that are famous for this indoctrination by name, such as UCLA Berkeley, Columbia University, Bard College, etc, etc. Just the names invoke a response because the radical teachings in these schools are common knowledge.
Now we have new threats to our society. Since blatant socialism is still met with resistance the new communist social engineers have found a new host to infect; the environmental or “green” movement. Have you noticed that their message has recently changed from fighting pollution to “creating a green economy”? The new environmentalists (Marxist globalists) have presented their earth-saving agenda to the newest generation of indoctrinates with the added urgency that we must do this now or all is lost. What these clandestinely co-opted college students don’t realize is that these plans will do little to improve the environment since they are really crafted to destroy the U.S. economy and food supply; hence, destroying the American citizen’s resistance to socialism as it becomes their only hope for food and warmth.
No, Joe McCarthy isn’t rolling over in his grave and I doubt he would say “I told you so” even if he could. People like Joe McCarthy would have loved nothing more than to have been wrong and to know the nation he loved was safe and sound. If he were alive today he would probably be leading the charge to expose these threats just as he did then. He would be leading the charge to expel those that mean harm to our country not only from the schools, but from all facets of government as well.
Paul
The Overman Committee was a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary chaired by Senator Lee Slater Overman of North Carolina. The Overman Committee operated from September 1918 to June 1919 and investigated German as well as Bolshevik elements in the United States. Originally tasked with investigation pro-German sentiments in the American liquor industry, the priority shifted after the conclusion of World War One to focus on the affects of Communist Bolshevism in America after the Russian Revolution of 1917. This Committee had a decisive role in constructing an image of a radical threat to America during the First Red Scare.
Similarly, the Fish Committee of 1930 pursued the same interests. NY Congressman Hamilton Fish III, who was a fervent anti-communist, introduced on May 5, 1930, House Resolution 180, which proposed to establish a committee to investigate communist activities in the United States. The resulting committee, commonly known as the Fish Committee, investigated people and organizations suspected of being involved with or supporting communist activities in the United States. Among the committee's targets were the American Civil Liberties Union and communist presidential candidate William Z. Foster. The committee recommended granting the United States Department of Justice more authority to investigate communists, and strengthening of immigration and deportation laws to keep communists out of the United States.
In May 1938, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was established as a special investigating committee. It was chaired by Texas Representative Martin Dies Jr., and therefore known as the Dies Committee. Its work was aimed mostly at German American involvement in Nazi and Ku Klux Klan activity but the committee's chief counsel Ernest Adamson announced that "The committee has decided that it lacks sufficient data on which to base a probe." Instead of the Klan, HUAC concentrated on investigating the possibility that the American Communist Party had infiltrated the Works Progress Administration, including the Federal Theatre Project and the Federal Writers' Project.
Representative Dies, who was a supporter of the New Deal, eventually withdrew his support for FDR’s far reaching social programs in 1937. The Committee fell under attack by members of the Roosevelt administration after their investigations were found to involve child actress Shirley Temple, who was ten years old at the time. The attacks were an intentional misrepresentation of the Committees work since Miss Temple’s name was only mentioned as it had appeared on a list of Hollywood figures that sent greetings to the Communist-owned French newspaper, Ce Soir. Mr. Dies tried to appear before the public to address this deliberate attempt to discredit the Committee but was curiously refused air time by both CBS and NBC as they feared reprisal from the Roosevelt Administration through use of the FCC.
In 1945, The House Un-American Activities Committee became a standing or “permanent” committee. The Un-American Activities Committee has often been mistakenly identified with the anti-communist investigations of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1953-1954. Although the goals were the same where subversive activities were concerned, Senator McCarthy chaired the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and had no direct involvement with The House Un-American Activities Committee.
After the House Un-American Activities Committee achieved status as a permanent committee, it became more focused on Communist subversive activities. Ironically, Democratic Congressman Samuel Dickstein, vice-chairman of the respective committees, would eventually be named in Soviet NKVD (precursor to the KGB) documents as a Soviet agent. Congressmen Dickstein, who had actually assisted in forming this committee to root out German fascists, apparently had not anticipated the change in the targets of committee’s investigations. The allegations remained unproven at that time and Dickstein later served as a Justice on the New York Supreme Court until his death in 1954.
In an interesting development, documents discovered in 1990s in the Moscow archives showed Dickstein was paid $1250 a month from 1937 to early 1940 by the NKVD, the Soviet spy agency, which hoped to get secret Congressional information on anti-Communist and pro-fascist forces. Whether Dickstein provided any intelligence is uncertain and when he left the Committee, the Soviets dropped him from their payroll.
Joseph McCarthy was a U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. Through his position as Chairman of The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator McCarthy made numerous claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere.
His subcommittee held 169 hearings throughout 1953 and 1954. Of the 653 people called by the Committee during a 15 month period, 83 refused to answer questions about espionage and subversive activities on constitutional grounds and their names were made public. Nine additional witnesses invoked the Fifth Amendment in executive session, and their names were not made public. Some of the 83 were working or had worked for the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the Government Printing Office, the Treasury Department, the Office of War Information, the Office of Strategic Services, and the Veterans Administration. Others were or had been employed at the Federal Telecommunications Laboratories in New Jersey, the secret radar laboratories of the Army Signal Corps in New Jersey, and General Electric defense plants in Massachusetts and New York.
Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate. The term "McCarthyism," coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist pursuits. Today the term is used more generally to describe demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents. It is clear that Joe McCarthy faced the same opposition that the House Un-American Activities Committee did but was he wrong?
Recent disclosures point to a Soviet program of demoralization that infused money into key areas of our society to fund groups that would reduce the American resistance to socialist ideals. The Soviets funded labor movements in the 1920’s and ‘30s, which infiltrated the film industry and print news. They also established socialist professors in American universities and funded the anti-war movement against American involvement in Viet Nam.
Periodically, the news is still punctuated with names like Robert Hanson and Aldrich Ames, both if which were convicted of espionage and conspiracy, both of which are currently serving life sentences and both of which were in the employ of the Soviet Union and later, Russia, which serves to prove that this program of demoralization is still being practiced today.
The protests in Pittsburg that erupted into violence at the G20 conference were mostly anti-capitalist factions that acquired their left leaning tilt at the hands of radical professors that are still spreading the disease of socialism. You already know many of the colleges that are famous for this indoctrination by name, such as UCLA Berkeley, Columbia University, Bard College, etc, etc. Just the names invoke a response because the radical teachings in these schools are common knowledge.
Now we have new threats to our society. Since blatant socialism is still met with resistance the new communist social engineers have found a new host to infect; the environmental or “green” movement. Have you noticed that their message has recently changed from fighting pollution to “creating a green economy”? The new environmentalists (Marxist globalists) have presented their earth-saving agenda to the newest generation of indoctrinates with the added urgency that we must do this now or all is lost. What these clandestinely co-opted college students don’t realize is that these plans will do little to improve the environment since they are really crafted to destroy the U.S. economy and food supply; hence, destroying the American citizen’s resistance to socialism as it becomes their only hope for food and warmth.
No, Joe McCarthy isn’t rolling over in his grave and I doubt he would say “I told you so” even if he could. People like Joe McCarthy would have loved nothing more than to have been wrong and to know the nation he loved was safe and sound. If he were alive today he would probably be leading the charge to expose these threats just as he did then. He would be leading the charge to expel those that mean harm to our country not only from the schools, but from all facets of government as well.
Paul
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The First Amendment - Part Three
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The third and final part of the First Amendment is the freedom to assemble.
"Congress shall make no law… prohibiting the… right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The freedom to peaceably assemble has been openly exercised throughout the history of this nation. Since Labor Day is one of the left's favorite holidays, is it worthy to note that most legislation that offered protection for unions and for striking workers has been inextricably tied to the First Amendment. It was recognized by the courts that the union busting tactics used by employers and local law enforcement during the height of the industrial revolution denied striking workers their constitutional right to assemble; therefore it was the obligation of government to enact legislation that would prevent these violent reprisals against striking workers.
Prior to the inception of the United States, people still gathered to air grievances, usually with catastrophic consequences. Without the right to assemble most would grumble quietly to themselves until things had become so unbearable that the consequences for public dissent were all but meaningless. We have all seen the images in old movies that show the town folk marching through the night carrying pitch forks and burning torches to protest one thing or another. We also saw that those protests were usually met with armed reprisal by whatever authority existed in that time period. The clash resulted in the deaths of the protestors and within a short period of time, the protests would turn to open and violent insurrection with towns and cities burned to the ground by enraged citizens.
The Boston Massacre was another instance of a protest quelled by the Kings soldiers. That massacre was still fresh in the memories of the colonists when the Constitution was drafted. Since the United States was a government formed by free people, they naturally held their God given rights as paramount over the authority of government. I’m sure people are tired if hearing this from me at this point but it is a critical philosophy if one is to understand the Constitution. The founding fathers recognized that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The States and the people wanted a Federal government that would unite the States and would govern maters of commerce and law between the States; a government that would insure that all would provide for the common defense of the Union in the event that any one of the sister States were assaulted by an outside force. What they did not want was to give unbridled power to that same Federal government or allow it the ability to seize power from the States or the people.
The colonies had just fought a bloody war against the British Crown to obtain their liberty and they were not about to surrender that liberty to a centralized government. With that in mind they established strong constraints over the power the Federal government would be allowed to wield. The bill of rights are the chains that prevent the Federal government from becoming oppressive. After freedom of religion and freedom of speech, the freedom to peacefully assemble is the logical next step to secure the ideals of a democratic republic. After all, if Congress is pledged to represent the will of the people then there had better be a mechanism in place for the people to make themselves heard when they feel their representatives are not adequately addressing their concerns.
Every major event in American history is punctuated by the marches and protests that shook government into action. Unfortunately, the history of this nation says that our government doesn’t act until the protests are large enough and loud enough so that the voice of the people can be heard through the thick walls of the Capitol building not to mention the equally thick skulls of the occupants of that building.
We don’t like to be ignored, especially by our government. We recently saw proof of this at the recent town hall meetings. Once again, the Congress wants to pass legislation that will explode the National Debt and eventually, implode our economy. The American people are already frustrated that the Federal government has accrued a national debt of 12 trillion dollars. Americans want that debt paid and the spending deficits turned into a surplus before we will even consider establishing more spending to grease the so-called social consciousness of the liberal arm of Congress. We are angry and we are obviously not being heard. Since they are not reaching out to us, we are once again using our guaranteed right under the first amendment to bring the message to them.
The people that shouted out their concerns at the town hall meetings were denigrated by the press and by the Congressmen they met with. The protestors were called manufactured and fraudulent and the concerns they brought with them were swept away as these Representatives, Senators and journalists turned the discussion away from the message and instead made it about the people that brought the message to them. How foolish.
Unlike the left that uses bricks, bottles and fire to make their point, teabags were being used to punctuate these protests and the “tea parties” that took place on September 12, 2009, with the largest happening in Washington DC. Even though the protests were peaceful, Congress, Democratic organizations and special interests started up their machines to drown out the voice of these people by calling them “tea baggers” and Nazis” in an attempt to make them seem vile and dangerous. Have they forgotten the lessons that for every person that actually makes the time to protest that there are a hundred more that believe the same thing?
The message is clear and sensible. No more massive spending bills, no government control of healthcare and we do not want a climate bill that will decimate what is left of our economy. This nation is in a recession with more that 200,000 additional jobs being lost every month. Thanks to the spending practices of Congress we are 12 trillion dollars in debt and that equals over $80,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The bailout programs and stimulus plan will add another $80,000 a piece to that and the unfunded liabilities of the social programs given to us by Roosevelt and Johnson mean that we are all pledged to cover the future debt associated with those programs to the tune of an additional $190,000 a piece. To put it simply, the reckless spending of Congress has seen to it that every child born into this nation already owes more than $350,000 in nationally accrued debt before the umbilical cord is even cut.
I hope Congress stops this foolish practice of dismissing the American people. Let’s face it, the colonists revolted and engaged the British in a bloody war because Parliament placed a 2% tax on their breakfast drink. We are the descendents of those brave men and women and we possess the same intolerance of government abuse. We have already passed the point where taxation has become oppressive and burdensome. We were told that there is a healthcare crisis and something had to be done. Once again, the only portion of the healthcare system that is in crisis was the portion that the Federal government already controlled before this disasterous healthcare bill passed.
The climate bill is nothing more than a cleverly disguised energy tax that will yield no benefit to the environment and most Americans know that the Federal government is simply incapable of managing the healthcare system without turning it into an unholy mess. The proof lies in their gross mismanagement of the government social programs that are already bankrupting this nation. Congress must not ignore the cries of the American people. If history has taught us anything it should be that once the words of the governed fail to persuade the leaders of government, it won’t be long before the pitchforks and torches are taken out of storage again.
Join me tomorrow for the guardian of the First Amendment: The Second Amendment.
Paul
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The third and final part of the First Amendment is the freedom to assemble.
"Congress shall make no law… prohibiting the… right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The freedom to peaceably assemble has been openly exercised throughout the history of this nation. Since Labor Day is one of the left's favorite holidays, is it worthy to note that most legislation that offered protection for unions and for striking workers has been inextricably tied to the First Amendment. It was recognized by the courts that the union busting tactics used by employers and local law enforcement during the height of the industrial revolution denied striking workers their constitutional right to assemble; therefore it was the obligation of government to enact legislation that would prevent these violent reprisals against striking workers.
Prior to the inception of the United States, people still gathered to air grievances, usually with catastrophic consequences. Without the right to assemble most would grumble quietly to themselves until things had become so unbearable that the consequences for public dissent were all but meaningless. We have all seen the images in old movies that show the town folk marching through the night carrying pitch forks and burning torches to protest one thing or another. We also saw that those protests were usually met with armed reprisal by whatever authority existed in that time period. The clash resulted in the deaths of the protestors and within a short period of time, the protests would turn to open and violent insurrection with towns and cities burned to the ground by enraged citizens.
The Boston Massacre was another instance of a protest quelled by the Kings soldiers. That massacre was still fresh in the memories of the colonists when the Constitution was drafted. Since the United States was a government formed by free people, they naturally held their God given rights as paramount over the authority of government. I’m sure people are tired if hearing this from me at this point but it is a critical philosophy if one is to understand the Constitution. The founding fathers recognized that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The States and the people wanted a Federal government that would unite the States and would govern maters of commerce and law between the States; a government that would insure that all would provide for the common defense of the Union in the event that any one of the sister States were assaulted by an outside force. What they did not want was to give unbridled power to that same Federal government or allow it the ability to seize power from the States or the people.
The colonies had just fought a bloody war against the British Crown to obtain their liberty and they were not about to surrender that liberty to a centralized government. With that in mind they established strong constraints over the power the Federal government would be allowed to wield. The bill of rights are the chains that prevent the Federal government from becoming oppressive. After freedom of religion and freedom of speech, the freedom to peacefully assemble is the logical next step to secure the ideals of a democratic republic. After all, if Congress is pledged to represent the will of the people then there had better be a mechanism in place for the people to make themselves heard when they feel their representatives are not adequately addressing their concerns.
Every major event in American history is punctuated by the marches and protests that shook government into action. Unfortunately, the history of this nation says that our government doesn’t act until the protests are large enough and loud enough so that the voice of the people can be heard through the thick walls of the Capitol building not to mention the equally thick skulls of the occupants of that building.
We don’t like to be ignored, especially by our government. We recently saw proof of this at the recent town hall meetings. Once again, the Congress wants to pass legislation that will explode the National Debt and eventually, implode our economy. The American people are already frustrated that the Federal government has accrued a national debt of 12 trillion dollars. Americans want that debt paid and the spending deficits turned into a surplus before we will even consider establishing more spending to grease the so-called social consciousness of the liberal arm of Congress. We are angry and we are obviously not being heard. Since they are not reaching out to us, we are once again using our guaranteed right under the first amendment to bring the message to them.
The people that shouted out their concerns at the town hall meetings were denigrated by the press and by the Congressmen they met with. The protestors were called manufactured and fraudulent and the concerns they brought with them were swept away as these Representatives, Senators and journalists turned the discussion away from the message and instead made it about the people that brought the message to them. How foolish.
Unlike the left that uses bricks, bottles and fire to make their point, teabags were being used to punctuate these protests and the “tea parties” that took place on September 12, 2009, with the largest happening in Washington DC. Even though the protests were peaceful, Congress, Democratic organizations and special interests started up their machines to drown out the voice of these people by calling them “tea baggers” and Nazis” in an attempt to make them seem vile and dangerous. Have they forgotten the lessons that for every person that actually makes the time to protest that there are a hundred more that believe the same thing?
The message is clear and sensible. No more massive spending bills, no government control of healthcare and we do not want a climate bill that will decimate what is left of our economy. This nation is in a recession with more that 200,000 additional jobs being lost every month. Thanks to the spending practices of Congress we are 12 trillion dollars in debt and that equals over $80,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The bailout programs and stimulus plan will add another $80,000 a piece to that and the unfunded liabilities of the social programs given to us by Roosevelt and Johnson mean that we are all pledged to cover the future debt associated with those programs to the tune of an additional $190,000 a piece. To put it simply, the reckless spending of Congress has seen to it that every child born into this nation already owes more than $350,000 in nationally accrued debt before the umbilical cord is even cut.
I hope Congress stops this foolish practice of dismissing the American people. Let’s face it, the colonists revolted and engaged the British in a bloody war because Parliament placed a 2% tax on their breakfast drink. We are the descendents of those brave men and women and we possess the same intolerance of government abuse. We have already passed the point where taxation has become oppressive and burdensome. We were told that there is a healthcare crisis and something had to be done. Once again, the only portion of the healthcare system that is in crisis was the portion that the Federal government already controlled before this disasterous healthcare bill passed.
The climate bill is nothing more than a cleverly disguised energy tax that will yield no benefit to the environment and most Americans know that the Federal government is simply incapable of managing the healthcare system without turning it into an unholy mess. The proof lies in their gross mismanagement of the government social programs that are already bankrupting this nation. Congress must not ignore the cries of the American people. If history has taught us anything it should be that once the words of the governed fail to persuade the leaders of government, it won’t be long before the pitchforks and torches are taken out of storage again.
Join me tomorrow for the guardian of the First Amendment: The Second Amendment.
Paul
Thursday, March 4, 2010
It Must Be Pledge Week at the Southern Poverty Law Center
Apparently the Southern Poverty Law Center is feeling the pinch as the economy is still creeping along at a snails pace. Donations are falling for nearly every charitable and political organization and while many have made sincere pleas to their traditional supporters, the SPLC has chosen to cry “Wolf” once again and tell America how close we are to anarchy at the hands of the hateful right.
In an article penned by Mark Potok, he claims that the “radical right” has reared its ugly head once again and is breathing the flames of hatred all across the nation. His article states that hate groups stayed at record levels of roughly one thousand and that anti-immigrant vigilante groups have risen eighty percent; adding as many as 139 new groups in 2009 alone. If the name Mark Potok sounds familiar it is because he has also written for that other voice of Liberal reason, the Huffington Post. As much as the Huffington Post uses their pages to routinely bash Conservative values and has often sought to soften the jagged edges of violent radicals on the left, they usually don’t align themselves with single-minded conspiracy seekers.
Since defense is usually a trait of the guilty, I refuse to lend credence to Mr. Potok’s odd observations by wasting my time rebutting them line by line. I will however, delve into why Mr. Potok makes these charges so vociferously. Mark Potok has made a name for himself scouring the internet and airwaves looking for words and phrases to reinforce his notion that Conservatives in the United States are little more than a seething pot of zealots bent on the destruction of anything that is not white or Christian. Most of the “Hate Groups” that Mr. Potok refers to are phantom websites that are reflective of a very small minority and it takes a vivid imagination to claim that they are a product of the Tea Party or are representative of Conservatism as a movement.
In Mark Potok’s world, the populist movement that is calling for tax relief and a halt to Federal spending are simply hateful and dangerous. He has worked feverishly to take the isolated opinions of a few people living on the fringe of society and wrap the entire Conservative movement in a very thin veil he made though his efforts. The links he claims exist between the two would be laughable if he were not so sadly serious about them.
The anti-immigration vigilantes his article claims are so prevalent are also the product of his fertile mind. For an anti-immigration group to be considered “vigilante” it would have to necessarily follow a path of violence against immigrants; a violence that is curiously absent on the scale that he writes of. Of course if all of the mainstream media were involved in this grand conspiracy, then news of these violent incidents might go unreported. Considering that most of the mainstream media share Mr. Potok’s views of Conservatives and Tea Party members, the chances of vigilante violence against immigrants going unreported are statistically impossible.
Of course, the SPLC doesn’t have an issue with Potok’s crusade to uncover right wing conspiracies because it plays into their own reasons for existence; bashing the Conservative right and fund raising. The SPLC was founded in 1971 by two Alabama attorneys, Morris Dees and Joe Levin. Their stated mission is to track the activities of hate groups and bring legal action against them where feasible. Of course this mission seems to be overwhelmingly directed at so called “right wing” hate groups while the actions of the left and radical left are largely ignored. They are famous for overstating the membership and dangers posed by white supremacist groups; often launching ridiculous claims that “the heirs of Hitler” will soon be marching through the streets of America while trying to frighten donations out of elderly Liberals.
The SPLC spends twice as much on fund raising as it does on legal services and that may be the reason for the slant of the ink that finds its way to their paper. After all, liberals tend to be very generous when it comes to what they believe is social justice while Conservatives usually look for the truth in what they have been told before they will commit to spending their resources or time on any cause. Why do I believe this is more about cash than conscience? Well, co-founder Morris Dees’ one time business partner Millard Fuller once said: "Morris and I ... shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money. We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich."
Even former SPLC legal fellow Pamela Summers said in an interview with The Montgomery Advisor: "They're drowning in their own affluence…What they are doing in the legal department is not done for the best interest of everybody (but) is done as though the sole, overriding goal is to make money." "I think people associate the SPLC with going to court," added Summers. "And that's why they get the money. And they don't go to court." Curiously, there were several studies through the 1990’s that Dees and other top SPLC personnel earned disproportionately higher salaries than the top personnel of most non-profit organizations.
Of course that doesn’t explain all of their leftward tilt but Julian Bond does. Julian Bond, the NAACP’s current Chairman, was the SPLC’s first President and is still a member of their Board of Directors. Bond is fervent believer that America is a racist nation and has gone as far as saying that the Republican “idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side.” Bond will never recognize that America has fundamentally changed since the civil rights struggles of the 1960’s because he refuses to accept the ascension of minorities into the power base that guides the nation.
According to Bond, blacks that espoused conservatism are not proof of America’s greatness, they are nothing less than traitors that had joined a vast right wing conspiracy plotting to reverse affirmative action, voting rights for minorities and public education reforms. Conservative blacks, according to Bond, are ventriloquist’s dummies that speak in the puppet master’s voice. In an even more bizarre twist, Bond equated Hitler’s relationship to Jews with Nixon’s relationship to Blacks and accused former National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice of being a murderer working for the Bush “oil cabal”. Bond had also suggested that Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice were both token black appointees that the Bush Administration was using as “human shields against any criticism of [its] record on civil rights.”
Bond may despise Conservatives and America but appears to have great admiration for Communism. For someone that is so unabashedly angry over his perception of racial injustice, Bond seems more than willing to ignore the ethnic cleansing that has punctuated the history of many Communist States. Bond praised longtime Communist Party USA leader James E. Jackson, Jr., an individual described by CPUSA Executive Vice Chair Jarvis Tyner as “a consummate teacher of Marxism-Leninism.”
Bond’s affiliation with Communism is not a new revelation. In 1965 Bond was elected to the Georgia State Assembly however, the Assembly refused to seat Bond, citing his endorsement of a Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s directive that urged young black men to illegally avoid the military draft. Bond won a second election, then a third, with the same result. In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court, for the first time in American history, overruled a state legislature’s right to establish and maintain its own qualifications for seating members. During the period that he fought for his Assembly seat, Bond had become a celebrity. He was endorsed by the Communist Party, participated in Communist political forums, and campaigned for Communist and left wing politicians as he continued to urge blacks to resist the draft.
My father often told me that a “Fish stinks from the head down” and if the leadership of the SPLC is rife with such disgusting characters, then it is no surprise that they would attract people that are equally myopic. Mark Potok is only one of the conspiracy theorists writing for the SPLC but combined, their anger is clearly fueled by the despicable displays of Bond’s racial hatred and encouraged by the insatiable greed of Morris Dees.
This is not a denial that racial prejudice exists in the country; I am sad to say it does. What Mr. Potok refuses to see is that the Conservative movement and the Tea Parties also treat prejudice with disdain. The hate groups that Potok speaks of are isolated and small cells of radical zealots that are no longer welcome in American society and for the most part, conduct their nefarious acts using pseudonyms to hide their identity while they spew their poison on the internet. I would dare to say there is more left wing hatred than there ever was on the right and while the left wing radicals threaten the existence of the United States, real Conservatives and Tea Partiers are raising their voices in support of the Constitution and that support shouldn’t threaten anyone that is not threatened by the Constitution itself.
Paul
Source material obtained from:
The Southern Poverty Law Center
Discoverthenetworks.org
The New York Daily News
In an article penned by Mark Potok, he claims that the “radical right” has reared its ugly head once again and is breathing the flames of hatred all across the nation. His article states that hate groups stayed at record levels of roughly one thousand and that anti-immigrant vigilante groups have risen eighty percent; adding as many as 139 new groups in 2009 alone. If the name Mark Potok sounds familiar it is because he has also written for that other voice of Liberal reason, the Huffington Post. As much as the Huffington Post uses their pages to routinely bash Conservative values and has often sought to soften the jagged edges of violent radicals on the left, they usually don’t align themselves with single-minded conspiracy seekers.
Since defense is usually a trait of the guilty, I refuse to lend credence to Mr. Potok’s odd observations by wasting my time rebutting them line by line. I will however, delve into why Mr. Potok makes these charges so vociferously. Mark Potok has made a name for himself scouring the internet and airwaves looking for words and phrases to reinforce his notion that Conservatives in the United States are little more than a seething pot of zealots bent on the destruction of anything that is not white or Christian. Most of the “Hate Groups” that Mr. Potok refers to are phantom websites that are reflective of a very small minority and it takes a vivid imagination to claim that they are a product of the Tea Party or are representative of Conservatism as a movement.
In Mark Potok’s world, the populist movement that is calling for tax relief and a halt to Federal spending are simply hateful and dangerous. He has worked feverishly to take the isolated opinions of a few people living on the fringe of society and wrap the entire Conservative movement in a very thin veil he made though his efforts. The links he claims exist between the two would be laughable if he were not so sadly serious about them.
The anti-immigration vigilantes his article claims are so prevalent are also the product of his fertile mind. For an anti-immigration group to be considered “vigilante” it would have to necessarily follow a path of violence against immigrants; a violence that is curiously absent on the scale that he writes of. Of course if all of the mainstream media were involved in this grand conspiracy, then news of these violent incidents might go unreported. Considering that most of the mainstream media share Mr. Potok’s views of Conservatives and Tea Party members, the chances of vigilante violence against immigrants going unreported are statistically impossible.
Of course, the SPLC doesn’t have an issue with Potok’s crusade to uncover right wing conspiracies because it plays into their own reasons for existence; bashing the Conservative right and fund raising. The SPLC was founded in 1971 by two Alabama attorneys, Morris Dees and Joe Levin. Their stated mission is to track the activities of hate groups and bring legal action against them where feasible. Of course this mission seems to be overwhelmingly directed at so called “right wing” hate groups while the actions of the left and radical left are largely ignored. They are famous for overstating the membership and dangers posed by white supremacist groups; often launching ridiculous claims that “the heirs of Hitler” will soon be marching through the streets of America while trying to frighten donations out of elderly Liberals.
The SPLC spends twice as much on fund raising as it does on legal services and that may be the reason for the slant of the ink that finds its way to their paper. After all, liberals tend to be very generous when it comes to what they believe is social justice while Conservatives usually look for the truth in what they have been told before they will commit to spending their resources or time on any cause. Why do I believe this is more about cash than conscience? Well, co-founder Morris Dees’ one time business partner Millard Fuller once said: "Morris and I ... shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money. We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich."
Even former SPLC legal fellow Pamela Summers said in an interview with The Montgomery Advisor: "They're drowning in their own affluence…What they are doing in the legal department is not done for the best interest of everybody (but) is done as though the sole, overriding goal is to make money." "I think people associate the SPLC with going to court," added Summers. "And that's why they get the money. And they don't go to court." Curiously, there were several studies through the 1990’s that Dees and other top SPLC personnel earned disproportionately higher salaries than the top personnel of most non-profit organizations.
Of course that doesn’t explain all of their leftward tilt but Julian Bond does. Julian Bond, the NAACP’s current Chairman, was the SPLC’s first President and is still a member of their Board of Directors. Bond is fervent believer that America is a racist nation and has gone as far as saying that the Republican “idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side.” Bond will never recognize that America has fundamentally changed since the civil rights struggles of the 1960’s because he refuses to accept the ascension of minorities into the power base that guides the nation.
According to Bond, blacks that espoused conservatism are not proof of America’s greatness, they are nothing less than traitors that had joined a vast right wing conspiracy plotting to reverse affirmative action, voting rights for minorities and public education reforms. Conservative blacks, according to Bond, are ventriloquist’s dummies that speak in the puppet master’s voice. In an even more bizarre twist, Bond equated Hitler’s relationship to Jews with Nixon’s relationship to Blacks and accused former National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice of being a murderer working for the Bush “oil cabal”. Bond had also suggested that Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice were both token black appointees that the Bush Administration was using as “human shields against any criticism of [its] record on civil rights.”
Bond may despise Conservatives and America but appears to have great admiration for Communism. For someone that is so unabashedly angry over his perception of racial injustice, Bond seems more than willing to ignore the ethnic cleansing that has punctuated the history of many Communist States. Bond praised longtime Communist Party USA leader James E. Jackson, Jr., an individual described by CPUSA Executive Vice Chair Jarvis Tyner as “a consummate teacher of Marxism-Leninism.”
Bond’s affiliation with Communism is not a new revelation. In 1965 Bond was elected to the Georgia State Assembly however, the Assembly refused to seat Bond, citing his endorsement of a Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s directive that urged young black men to illegally avoid the military draft. Bond won a second election, then a third, with the same result. In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court, for the first time in American history, overruled a state legislature’s right to establish and maintain its own qualifications for seating members. During the period that he fought for his Assembly seat, Bond had become a celebrity. He was endorsed by the Communist Party, participated in Communist political forums, and campaigned for Communist and left wing politicians as he continued to urge blacks to resist the draft.
My father often told me that a “Fish stinks from the head down” and if the leadership of the SPLC is rife with such disgusting characters, then it is no surprise that they would attract people that are equally myopic. Mark Potok is only one of the conspiracy theorists writing for the SPLC but combined, their anger is clearly fueled by the despicable displays of Bond’s racial hatred and encouraged by the insatiable greed of Morris Dees.
This is not a denial that racial prejudice exists in the country; I am sad to say it does. What Mr. Potok refuses to see is that the Conservative movement and the Tea Parties also treat prejudice with disdain. The hate groups that Potok speaks of are isolated and small cells of radical zealots that are no longer welcome in American society and for the most part, conduct their nefarious acts using pseudonyms to hide their identity while they spew their poison on the internet. I would dare to say there is more left wing hatred than there ever was on the right and while the left wing radicals threaten the existence of the United States, real Conservatives and Tea Partiers are raising their voices in support of the Constitution and that support shouldn’t threaten anyone that is not threatened by the Constitution itself.
Paul
Source material obtained from:
The Southern Poverty Law Center
Discoverthenetworks.org
The New York Daily News
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Man of Change?
Well here we are just six days away from the much publicized summit on healthcare reform the President announced during the State of the Union Address. Some foolishly believed that his invitation to ranking Republican’s signaled his understanding of the message voters had sent in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections and finally, the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. Apparently that assumption was premature and the election of Republicans to all three of these vital races is being dismissed as easily as the town hall meetings and Tea Parties have been.
It is bizarre that the Democrats can be this blatant as to their intentions. Behind the scenes work to reconcile the Healthcare Bill is still progressing even as the President continues to at least say, that he wants the best ideas from both Parties. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have both signaled their intention to “go nuclear” and rely on a reconciliation tactic to pass the bill with a simple majority, causing reasonable people to ask what kind of summit can this be if these negotiation are till taking place in secret and these kind of plans are being made before Congressional Republicans are even given the opportunity to present their ideas and compromises?
Scott Brown was not simply a message for the Democrats. His campaign was centered on the promise that he would be the 41st vote that would stop the race to pass a healthcare reform bill that the majority of American’s do not want. As support for the President wanes, the trust the American people have in the Democrat’s healthcare plan evaporates at an astounding rate. In recent polls, most Americans would prefer that the plan be scrapped and that the government turn its attention to the economy and the faltering job market.
Regardless of the loud and clear voice of the people, Congressional Democrats are standing firm because their President said they must move forward and also because the Progressive movement has been holding the Democratic Party hostage for decades. That is why Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh decided to throw in the towel and refuse to run for another term. He was bitter in his statements about the ineffectiveness of Congress and said that he could accomplish more as a private citizen than he ever could as a member of the Senate. Alabama Congressman Parker Griffith recently switched Parties for much the same reason. He joined the Republican Party because the Democrats under the Progressive assault had lost their way. They were no longer the Party of the people but some weird group of far left elitists that no longer cared to hear the people. That is why the President’s agenda is being propelled forward as the economy continues to crumble; they have been in effect, deafened by their own rhetoric.
To continue their push for healthcare reform and cap and trade they must convince you that the economy is already in recovery. As the President and the DNC struggle to convince people that the Recovery Act (Stimulus Bill) is working fine and has “saved or created” two million jobs, the U.S. Department of Labor’s own website says the job loss average for the past month has been 467,500 jobs lost in each of the last four weeks. Of course “saved jobs” is the new catch phrase since it is as impossible to disprove as it is to quantify. You know, that we might have even begun to believe some of that if Joe Biden hadn’t spilled the beans in an interview on Wednesday. As he spouted the administration line of “saved jobs” he added that the Recovery Act is a two phase program with the money for actual job creation loaded in the second half of the program. He explained that most of the funds spent in phase one had been targeted to offset the cost of State unemployment benefits and to provide tax relief.
Ok, I admit I’m a little confused here. The job creation funds have not been disbursed yet but the Recovery Act has already saved or created two million jobs? “Most of the funds spent in phase one were to offset the cost of State unemployment benefits and to provide tax relief” but the Recovery Act has already saved or created two million jobs? Is Vice President Biden saying that the act of collecting unemployment insurance is now considered a job? If so, is it a created job or a saved job? Maybe it’s both. If you had already been collecting benefits and are now drawing on an emergency extension then it is clearly a saved job but if you are one of the unfortunate 467,500 that are still losing their jobs every week; well, then that must be a created job.
All of this nonsense of saved jobs and created jobs flies in the face of the statements made by White House Economic Advisor Christina Romer in a Congressional hearing in October of 2009. Romer testified “Most analysts predict that the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009 and by mid-2010 fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to further growth.” Of course when the economy did not respond as hoped, Romer was obviously asked by the White House to revise her assessment. While recently appearing on the February 17th edition of Good Morning America, Romer said in response to questions about the economy that the greatest effects of the Stimulus Bill have yet to be realized.
The inconsistencies aren’t something shocking. In fact, this administration is amazingly consistent in its inconsistency. If you speak with five different people in this administration you will get five different numbers of the jobs the stimulus bill has “saved or created”. What doesn’t change is the mindless defense of the actions they have already taken or are hell bent on passing into law. Regardless of every possible economic index you can look at, the stimulus bill is not only a failure but has resulted in a “job deficit” as the economy fails to respond. What they absolutely refuse to see is that they can have another five stimulus bills of equal amount and still not create lasting private sector employment. Business is not responding because as this administration continues to apply its short term fiscal Band-Aid, the threat of future tax hikes and new regulations are still part of the overall plan.
The Healthcare Bill is just one of those black holes that are making businesses apprehensive. We still don’t know what is being crafted in the dark up on Capitol Hill. What will the tax liability be? At what income level does it begin? How many employees can I have before the mandate to provide coverage hits me? Will the plan I already provide have an additional tax levied against it? How can responsible business owners make a decision to hire additional employees until they know if they can even remain profitable after the Bush tax cuts expire and the capital gains tax go up in 2011?
Cap and trade, if passed, will increase energy costs by 65% in the first few years and more that 100% by 2015. The only thing that has allowed American businesses to remain even marginally competitive against nations that pay their employees five dollars a day is affordable and abundant energy. Proponents of cap and trade claim the difference is pennies a day but California has already installed Smart Meters, a major component of Smart Grid, the key to cap and trade. California energy costs to PS&G customers have skyrocketed and they are ready to revolt at the increases they are experiencing. Bear in mind that the cost of purchasing carbon credits to produce their electricity aren’t even part of that increase yet. That is where the real kick in the pants will come from. There are estimates that claim cap and trade will cost America five million jobs or two jobs for every so-called “green job” it creates. Looking at Spain, I think that estimate is conservative if not overly optimistic. Spain was suckered into the whole plan of creating a green economy that Obama is trying to sell us and unemployment in Spain has already passed 19%.
So where is the change? The actions of this administration are bordering on criminal; there is no transparency other than a few carefully orchestrated photo ops and the President has broken every promise he made during his campaign. The legislative process itself has been hijacked by Progressive radicals and special interests and even Obama’s friends in the Community Organizing business have been writing key parts of costly legislation that Congress won’t bother to read before passing. If Progressive Democrats continue to ignore the impact their plans are having on the economy and force healthcare through while unemployment is still close to 10%, the backlash will cost them both the House and the Senate in 2010. The damage they are doing now has already insured a long and hard road to recovery and the measures that will have to be taken to right the wrongs will be painful and unpopular. I can only hope that the American people will wean themselves from the public teat so we can actually address the spending problems in Congress before the world economy forces even more drastic change against our will.
Paul
It is bizarre that the Democrats can be this blatant as to their intentions. Behind the scenes work to reconcile the Healthcare Bill is still progressing even as the President continues to at least say, that he wants the best ideas from both Parties. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have both signaled their intention to “go nuclear” and rely on a reconciliation tactic to pass the bill with a simple majority, causing reasonable people to ask what kind of summit can this be if these negotiation are till taking place in secret and these kind of plans are being made before Congressional Republicans are even given the opportunity to present their ideas and compromises?
Scott Brown was not simply a message for the Democrats. His campaign was centered on the promise that he would be the 41st vote that would stop the race to pass a healthcare reform bill that the majority of American’s do not want. As support for the President wanes, the trust the American people have in the Democrat’s healthcare plan evaporates at an astounding rate. In recent polls, most Americans would prefer that the plan be scrapped and that the government turn its attention to the economy and the faltering job market.
Regardless of the loud and clear voice of the people, Congressional Democrats are standing firm because their President said they must move forward and also because the Progressive movement has been holding the Democratic Party hostage for decades. That is why Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh decided to throw in the towel and refuse to run for another term. He was bitter in his statements about the ineffectiveness of Congress and said that he could accomplish more as a private citizen than he ever could as a member of the Senate. Alabama Congressman Parker Griffith recently switched Parties for much the same reason. He joined the Republican Party because the Democrats under the Progressive assault had lost their way. They were no longer the Party of the people but some weird group of far left elitists that no longer cared to hear the people. That is why the President’s agenda is being propelled forward as the economy continues to crumble; they have been in effect, deafened by their own rhetoric.
To continue their push for healthcare reform and cap and trade they must convince you that the economy is already in recovery. As the President and the DNC struggle to convince people that the Recovery Act (Stimulus Bill) is working fine and has “saved or created” two million jobs, the U.S. Department of Labor’s own website says the job loss average for the past month has been 467,500 jobs lost in each of the last four weeks. Of course “saved jobs” is the new catch phrase since it is as impossible to disprove as it is to quantify. You know, that we might have even begun to believe some of that if Joe Biden hadn’t spilled the beans in an interview on Wednesday. As he spouted the administration line of “saved jobs” he added that the Recovery Act is a two phase program with the money for actual job creation loaded in the second half of the program. He explained that most of the funds spent in phase one had been targeted to offset the cost of State unemployment benefits and to provide tax relief.
Ok, I admit I’m a little confused here. The job creation funds have not been disbursed yet but the Recovery Act has already saved or created two million jobs? “Most of the funds spent in phase one were to offset the cost of State unemployment benefits and to provide tax relief” but the Recovery Act has already saved or created two million jobs? Is Vice President Biden saying that the act of collecting unemployment insurance is now considered a job? If so, is it a created job or a saved job? Maybe it’s both. If you had already been collecting benefits and are now drawing on an emergency extension then it is clearly a saved job but if you are one of the unfortunate 467,500 that are still losing their jobs every week; well, then that must be a created job.
All of this nonsense of saved jobs and created jobs flies in the face of the statements made by White House Economic Advisor Christina Romer in a Congressional hearing in October of 2009. Romer testified “Most analysts predict that the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009 and by mid-2010 fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to further growth.” Of course when the economy did not respond as hoped, Romer was obviously asked by the White House to revise her assessment. While recently appearing on the February 17th edition of Good Morning America, Romer said in response to questions about the economy that the greatest effects of the Stimulus Bill have yet to be realized.
The inconsistencies aren’t something shocking. In fact, this administration is amazingly consistent in its inconsistency. If you speak with five different people in this administration you will get five different numbers of the jobs the stimulus bill has “saved or created”. What doesn’t change is the mindless defense of the actions they have already taken or are hell bent on passing into law. Regardless of every possible economic index you can look at, the stimulus bill is not only a failure but has resulted in a “job deficit” as the economy fails to respond. What they absolutely refuse to see is that they can have another five stimulus bills of equal amount and still not create lasting private sector employment. Business is not responding because as this administration continues to apply its short term fiscal Band-Aid, the threat of future tax hikes and new regulations are still part of the overall plan.
The Healthcare Bill is just one of those black holes that are making businesses apprehensive. We still don’t know what is being crafted in the dark up on Capitol Hill. What will the tax liability be? At what income level does it begin? How many employees can I have before the mandate to provide coverage hits me? Will the plan I already provide have an additional tax levied against it? How can responsible business owners make a decision to hire additional employees until they know if they can even remain profitable after the Bush tax cuts expire and the capital gains tax go up in 2011?
Cap and trade, if passed, will increase energy costs by 65% in the first few years and more that 100% by 2015. The only thing that has allowed American businesses to remain even marginally competitive against nations that pay their employees five dollars a day is affordable and abundant energy. Proponents of cap and trade claim the difference is pennies a day but California has already installed Smart Meters, a major component of Smart Grid, the key to cap and trade. California energy costs to PS&G customers have skyrocketed and they are ready to revolt at the increases they are experiencing. Bear in mind that the cost of purchasing carbon credits to produce their electricity aren’t even part of that increase yet. That is where the real kick in the pants will come from. There are estimates that claim cap and trade will cost America five million jobs or two jobs for every so-called “green job” it creates. Looking at Spain, I think that estimate is conservative if not overly optimistic. Spain was suckered into the whole plan of creating a green economy that Obama is trying to sell us and unemployment in Spain has already passed 19%.
So where is the change? The actions of this administration are bordering on criminal; there is no transparency other than a few carefully orchestrated photo ops and the President has broken every promise he made during his campaign. The legislative process itself has been hijacked by Progressive radicals and special interests and even Obama’s friends in the Community Organizing business have been writing key parts of costly legislation that Congress won’t bother to read before passing. If Progressive Democrats continue to ignore the impact their plans are having on the economy and force healthcare through while unemployment is still close to 10%, the backlash will cost them both the House and the Senate in 2010. The damage they are doing now has already insured a long and hard road to recovery and the measures that will have to be taken to right the wrongs will be painful and unpopular. I can only hope that the American people will wean themselves from the public teat so we can actually address the spending problems in Congress before the world economy forces even more drastic change against our will.
Paul
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Battle of 2010 - First Shots in the Election Season Have Been Fired.
Even though the November elections are still nine months away, the battle lines are being drawn and if nothing else, 2010 promises to be a figurative fight to the death between two fundamentally different ideologies. The left still doesn’t understand what has happened. They are used to doing battle with Conservatism and their tactics have always relied heavily on Alinsky’s strategy of framing the arguments and controlling the press to sway the opinion of the masses. That methodology is usually centered on having a villain on which to focus America’s anger. The rich, the Republicans, the economy, the environment and even some phantom persona known only as “the system” were all brought under fire at one point or another and with varying degrees of success.
This time it’s different and it is frustrating and confusing Progressive politicos. For the first time, the opposition they find themselves fighting are the American people themselves. In early debates over healthcare reform, they challenged the sincerity, identity and patriotism of those that were protesting against this government planned takeover of our healthcare system. What they failed to identify in time was that the protestors were not a fringe group of ultra right-wing anti-Obama radicals or some orchestrated attempt to catch media attention paid for by the RNC, PACs or members of the health industry. The protestors were in fact, regular people that for the first time were fearful enough about the direction this country was heading to have organized themselves in neighborhoods and communities, eventually taking to the streets en mass in Washington and at Congressional offices around the country.
How can this be? Conservatives don’t protest! Moderates don’t protest! Why, they write letters or better still, quietly mumble their discontent at the newscasters on TV and radio in the comfort of their own homes; but in the end, they just lie down and take it. Tax increases, fees, fines, new regulations and government bureaucracies were all things that they hated but historically, would eventually accept because unlike the radical left, they had grown up believing that “you can’t fight City Hall”. Before the left realized the real source of this movement, Nancy Pelosi had called them manufactured, Harry Reid called them a mob, the liberal press called them (and some still do) racists or the disgusting and derogatory term “Tea-baggers”, President Obama called them inconsequential and SEIU goons were out violently stomping on people handing out Tea Party literature.
In August 2009, a man was peacefully handing out flags in front of a Tea Party gathering in Missouri was confronted by a group of angry thugs. Kenneth Gladney, who happened to be black, was thrown to the ground by the gang of counter-protestors wearing SEIU shirts, who then beat and kicked him while peppering him with racial epithets. Local law enforcement in St. Louis, where the incident happened, took months to investigate; eventually charging several of the assailants with the misdemeanor equivalent of disorderly conduct. Another violent incident occurred in September of 2009 at a rally opposing healthcare reform in Thousand Oaks California. This time, the assault would send a 65 year old man to the hospital after a portion of his finger had been savagely bitten off by one of the counter protestors bused in by MoveOn.Org, a civilian group organized by the Democratic Party. The results would be the same with local law enforcement pursuing the assault as vigorously as they would for littering. The official lack of concern for these “hate crimes” were obviously driven by unspoken support for Obama and his unofficial army, which only served to enrage Tea Party Patriots even more.
Beyond the protests at town hall meetings and in the streets of DC, the visible backlash of ignoring this movement became visible in November of 2009. The gubernatorial race in Virginia was won by Republican Bob McDonnel but the shocker came in traditionally Democratic haven of New Jersey when Republican Chris Christie unseated Democratic Governor Jon Corzine despite last minute visits by Party big-wigs and President Obama himself. Most savvy politicians would have recognized the warning signs and sought to mend the fences between the people and the Party but not Obama. He pressed on demanding that Congress act on healthcare even though the unemployment rate had by then, surpassed 10% and most people were screaming “It’s the economy stupid!”
To make matters worse, Harry Reid closed Republicans out of the debate and took healthcare behind closed doors obviously, because the people could no longer be trusted. Congressional Democrats voted against a proposed bill that would require them to publish the completed bill on-line at lease 72 before a vote and then the special $300 million dollar deal to purchase Louisiana Democrat, Senator Mary Landrieu’s vote made it to the news. If that were not a large enough insult, the cost of the Cornhusker deal for Democrat Ben Nelson’s vote can’t even be calculated. Nelson’s State, Nebraska, would be exempt from the increases in Medicare liabilities the healthcare bill will force on every other State, not for the two or three years that Mary prostituted herself for, but in perpetuity. It was these deals that turned anger into rage and despite the public outcry, the Senate would pass the bill in a rare late-night, weekend session and the House would follow suit, forcing a vote along Party lines on Christmas Eve. Immediately after the vote, Pelosi stood there with her vacuous smile announcing that what a wonderful Christmas gift this was for the American people.
The result of that entire session of Congress, those deals, that vote and the open disdain Congress had for the American people through the whole process cemented the Tea Parties until they had become a unified movement. The level of angered directed at Congress finally boiled over and the unthinkable happened. Republican Scott Brown won the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated through the death of Ted Kennedy. This election took place in one of the most Liberal States of the Union to fill the vacancy left by one of the most historically Liberal members of the Senate. The White House was so sure that this seat was securely Democratic that they didn’t even bother to campaign in Massachusetts until the poll numbers showed Coakley trailing Brown a week before the election.
Strike three and your out, right? Well, not of you are Barack Obama and you are on a mission to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America. The President spoke before Democrats after the Brown election and tried to ignore the loss of his filibuster proof majority in the Senate by joking that “the Republicans were bragging about their 41 to 59 majority”, reminding Senate Democrats that they still held the bulk of power. He then took his show on the road and tried to garner support from some of the more moderate Republicans in an attempt to shame them to support his agenda or face accusations of obstruction. Rush Limbaugh correctly pointed out that if the bill is bad for America then being called names should be the least of their concerns. Instead of worrying about being called “the Party of no” they should stand proud and declare that they are “The Party of NO MORE!”
We can already see Progressive Democrats circling the wagons and the one thing they know how to do is shape opinion within the Party. By November, they will all be using the same ads and catch phrases; carefully selected words and images from the millions they are spending on focus groups to see what will fool you into forgetting what they did last year. Apparently the statute of limitations has not run out on blaming Bush and the latest take on that is that Obama doesn’t have to take credit for the rise in unemployment or for the failure of the economy to respond to the Stimulus Bill because Bush had caused much more damage than originally estimated. Some might even believe the Bush connection if business owners and investors weren’t standing on hilltops yelling out that it is their uncertainty of the future because of Obama’s agenda that has prevented any real recovery. No one is willing to hire or expand until they know what next years taxes and energy costs will look like and that is what responsible business owners must do to survive.
I think we all have an idea what the Democratic strategy will be. We’ve seen it before and the only reason it worked then was that Democrats were running against their Republican challengers and not an opposition movement of so many angry Americans. The Republicans would be wise to listen to what is being said because the mood out there is not largely an anti-Obama or even anti-Democrat movement; it is an anti-incumbent movement and the people that win will be the people that have worked hard to regain the trust of a very wary and disenchanted public.
The Democrats have badly damaged their chances in the upcoming election so they have twice as far to go as the Republicans do. That does not mean the Republicans can coast to the finish line and if they are smart, they will put down the newspapers, turn off CNN and visit their home towns. They should listen carefully to the issues their constituents have raised and most of all, they must remember that the last time there was a tangible difference between Democrats and Republicans in the public perception, was during the Conservative Revolution of Ronald Reagan. The People elected George H.W. Bush believing he would carry on the work begun by Reagan and he failed to honor his most basic promise of not raising taxes. They elected George W. Bush after another 8 years under the embarrassing behavior of Bill Clinton, hoping “W” had learned from his father’s mistakes, but he had not. Barack Obama did not win the election by promising to be a radical, tax and spend Liberal, he won by promising change to a people that felt betrayed by two Republicans that failed to act like Republicans.
Tomorrow: some tough love for Republicans.
Paul
This time it’s different and it is frustrating and confusing Progressive politicos. For the first time, the opposition they find themselves fighting are the American people themselves. In early debates over healthcare reform, they challenged the sincerity, identity and patriotism of those that were protesting against this government planned takeover of our healthcare system. What they failed to identify in time was that the protestors were not a fringe group of ultra right-wing anti-Obama radicals or some orchestrated attempt to catch media attention paid for by the RNC, PACs or members of the health industry. The protestors were in fact, regular people that for the first time were fearful enough about the direction this country was heading to have organized themselves in neighborhoods and communities, eventually taking to the streets en mass in Washington and at Congressional offices around the country.
How can this be? Conservatives don’t protest! Moderates don’t protest! Why, they write letters or better still, quietly mumble their discontent at the newscasters on TV and radio in the comfort of their own homes; but in the end, they just lie down and take it. Tax increases, fees, fines, new regulations and government bureaucracies were all things that they hated but historically, would eventually accept because unlike the radical left, they had grown up believing that “you can’t fight City Hall”. Before the left realized the real source of this movement, Nancy Pelosi had called them manufactured, Harry Reid called them a mob, the liberal press called them (and some still do) racists or the disgusting and derogatory term “Tea-baggers”, President Obama called them inconsequential and SEIU goons were out violently stomping on people handing out Tea Party literature.
In August 2009, a man was peacefully handing out flags in front of a Tea Party gathering in Missouri was confronted by a group of angry thugs. Kenneth Gladney, who happened to be black, was thrown to the ground by the gang of counter-protestors wearing SEIU shirts, who then beat and kicked him while peppering him with racial epithets. Local law enforcement in St. Louis, where the incident happened, took months to investigate; eventually charging several of the assailants with the misdemeanor equivalent of disorderly conduct. Another violent incident occurred in September of 2009 at a rally opposing healthcare reform in Thousand Oaks California. This time, the assault would send a 65 year old man to the hospital after a portion of his finger had been savagely bitten off by one of the counter protestors bused in by MoveOn.Org, a civilian group organized by the Democratic Party. The results would be the same with local law enforcement pursuing the assault as vigorously as they would for littering. The official lack of concern for these “hate crimes” were obviously driven by unspoken support for Obama and his unofficial army, which only served to enrage Tea Party Patriots even more.
Beyond the protests at town hall meetings and in the streets of DC, the visible backlash of ignoring this movement became visible in November of 2009. The gubernatorial race in Virginia was won by Republican Bob McDonnel but the shocker came in traditionally Democratic haven of New Jersey when Republican Chris Christie unseated Democratic Governor Jon Corzine despite last minute visits by Party big-wigs and President Obama himself. Most savvy politicians would have recognized the warning signs and sought to mend the fences between the people and the Party but not Obama. He pressed on demanding that Congress act on healthcare even though the unemployment rate had by then, surpassed 10% and most people were screaming “It’s the economy stupid!”
To make matters worse, Harry Reid closed Republicans out of the debate and took healthcare behind closed doors obviously, because the people could no longer be trusted. Congressional Democrats voted against a proposed bill that would require them to publish the completed bill on-line at lease 72 before a vote and then the special $300 million dollar deal to purchase Louisiana Democrat, Senator Mary Landrieu’s vote made it to the news. If that were not a large enough insult, the cost of the Cornhusker deal for Democrat Ben Nelson’s vote can’t even be calculated. Nelson’s State, Nebraska, would be exempt from the increases in Medicare liabilities the healthcare bill will force on every other State, not for the two or three years that Mary prostituted herself for, but in perpetuity. It was these deals that turned anger into rage and despite the public outcry, the Senate would pass the bill in a rare late-night, weekend session and the House would follow suit, forcing a vote along Party lines on Christmas Eve. Immediately after the vote, Pelosi stood there with her vacuous smile announcing that what a wonderful Christmas gift this was for the American people.
The result of that entire session of Congress, those deals, that vote and the open disdain Congress had for the American people through the whole process cemented the Tea Parties until they had become a unified movement. The level of angered directed at Congress finally boiled over and the unthinkable happened. Republican Scott Brown won the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated through the death of Ted Kennedy. This election took place in one of the most Liberal States of the Union to fill the vacancy left by one of the most historically Liberal members of the Senate. The White House was so sure that this seat was securely Democratic that they didn’t even bother to campaign in Massachusetts until the poll numbers showed Coakley trailing Brown a week before the election.
Strike three and your out, right? Well, not of you are Barack Obama and you are on a mission to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America. The President spoke before Democrats after the Brown election and tried to ignore the loss of his filibuster proof majority in the Senate by joking that “the Republicans were bragging about their 41 to 59 majority”, reminding Senate Democrats that they still held the bulk of power. He then took his show on the road and tried to garner support from some of the more moderate Republicans in an attempt to shame them to support his agenda or face accusations of obstruction. Rush Limbaugh correctly pointed out that if the bill is bad for America then being called names should be the least of their concerns. Instead of worrying about being called “the Party of no” they should stand proud and declare that they are “The Party of NO MORE!”
We can already see Progressive Democrats circling the wagons and the one thing they know how to do is shape opinion within the Party. By November, they will all be using the same ads and catch phrases; carefully selected words and images from the millions they are spending on focus groups to see what will fool you into forgetting what they did last year. Apparently the statute of limitations has not run out on blaming Bush and the latest take on that is that Obama doesn’t have to take credit for the rise in unemployment or for the failure of the economy to respond to the Stimulus Bill because Bush had caused much more damage than originally estimated. Some might even believe the Bush connection if business owners and investors weren’t standing on hilltops yelling out that it is their uncertainty of the future because of Obama’s agenda that has prevented any real recovery. No one is willing to hire or expand until they know what next years taxes and energy costs will look like and that is what responsible business owners must do to survive.
I think we all have an idea what the Democratic strategy will be. We’ve seen it before and the only reason it worked then was that Democrats were running against their Republican challengers and not an opposition movement of so many angry Americans. The Republicans would be wise to listen to what is being said because the mood out there is not largely an anti-Obama or even anti-Democrat movement; it is an anti-incumbent movement and the people that win will be the people that have worked hard to regain the trust of a very wary and disenchanted public.
The Democrats have badly damaged their chances in the upcoming election so they have twice as far to go as the Republicans do. That does not mean the Republicans can coast to the finish line and if they are smart, they will put down the newspapers, turn off CNN and visit their home towns. They should listen carefully to the issues their constituents have raised and most of all, they must remember that the last time there was a tangible difference between Democrats and Republicans in the public perception, was during the Conservative Revolution of Ronald Reagan. The People elected George H.W. Bush believing he would carry on the work begun by Reagan and he failed to honor his most basic promise of not raising taxes. They elected George W. Bush after another 8 years under the embarrassing behavior of Bill Clinton, hoping “W” had learned from his father’s mistakes, but he had not. Barack Obama did not win the election by promising to be a radical, tax and spend Liberal, he won by promising change to a people that felt betrayed by two Republicans that failed to act like Republicans.
Tomorrow: some tough love for Republicans.
Paul
Monday, February 8, 2010
Palin calls for unity at Tea Party Convention
Sarah Palin made her much anticipated speech before the First National Tea Party Convention in Nashville Tennessee on Friday night. For the people that are familiar with Ms. Palin’s credentials, her message contained few surprises but for those that were only exposed to the highly critical coverage of the Tea Party movement through a mostly Liberal press, viewing her speech may have given them their first real look at the core values of this growing wave of Conservative Constitutionalism. Of course, that is assuming they took the time to watch it in its entirety and did not foolishly rely on the carefully selected snippets and caustic analysis of the Chris Mathews and Keith Olbermanns of the world.
The main focus of her speech noted the disparity in the vision that the American people have for the future of the United States compared to the agenda of the current body politic. While the main focus of the Sunday morning “talking heads” was the sharp criticism she had regarding the direction the President has taken our country in the past year, Palin’s criticisms were by no means, limited to one man or even to one Party. She possesses something that has been long lost in Washington; a keen understanding of the factual definition of a Federal system of government. Palin recognizes the root cause of the anger on which the Tea Party movement was founded and she is one of the few political people that have validated the widespread disdain for the Washington machine that has thwarted that rule of law and ignored the will of the governed.
The founders intended to form a union of sovereign states, each possessing the power of self determination and all guided by a Constitution of laws that were mutually agreed upon. The States voluntarily entered into this union and a Federal Government was established to perform the functions of government that would unify the States, provide for the common defense and establish a uniform relationship between the “united” States and foreign governments. The Constitution granted limited powers to the Federal government and only to the degree required for the Federal government to fulfill the duties designated to it under the Constitution. All other powers were to be retained, entirely, by the States and their citizens.
While Sarah Palin did not speak of the political history that mutated the Federal government into this insatiable leviathan, she apparently understands that the government has criminally deviated from these Constitutional directives and has been on a slow, methodical march to usurp State Power under some mystical authority derived from a bastardization of judicial and legislative policy. Palin noted the historical failure of the Federal government to provide even basic services without an enormity of waste and the blatant insensitivity to the crisis’s they have themselves created for main street America while serving the interests of unions, friends and political allies.
Palin spoke quite eloquently of recent Federal blunders and abuses of the Federal Government: the ineptitude of Federal bureaucrats that have not only failed to accurately track the effects the Stimulus bill had on job creation but in fact, have no idea where billions in Stimulus funds have even gone; citing money spent in dozens of Congressional districts that do not exist; the overreach of Congress by assuming authority it does not have to interfere in private corporations, take over auto makers and force its vision of healthcare reform on an unwilling nation; the ignorance of a Justice Department that grants Constitutional rights to foreign combatants that are hell bent on the destruction of America and the arrogance of a President that refuses to hear the voice of the people and still plans to proceed with an agenda that we keep telling him over and over that we do not want. I’m sure if she presented a full list of the past year’s failures, she could have easily spoken for hours but that was not the point of this convention or of her speech.
The main point of her speech was in recognition of the composition of the Tea Party movement itself. While the opposition to Washington has unified a great number of people, those people do have a wide and varied list of concerns that the individual members consider important. The difference in those interests could spell trouble within the movement unless there is a greater goal in mind and Palin tried to narrow the focus of the movement towards a goal they can all agree on. While born out of negativity, she challenged the conference attendees to focus on their hopes for the future. Palin invoked the memory of Ronald Reagan on the anniversary of his birth and reminded the audience of Reagan’s legacy.
Reagan had also inherited a nation in recession and could very well have taken the low road of blaming Jimmy Carter for the country’s financial difficulties but instead, he forged forward with his vision of restoring prosperity by enacting enormous tax cuts; cuts that even his critics admit, did bring a tripling of revenues to the treasury. Of course the recovery could have been far greater if it were not for the last great battle of the cold war that spawned massive increases in military spending and the TEFRA act of 1986, an act that would severely curtail the scope of deductions business could claim as exemptions. While opposed to TEFRA, Reagan was forced to accept this or risk losing his entire tax reduction package. The end result was that TEFRA limited the amount of money that business would invest in itself and in new employees but the cuts did have a spectacular effect on the economy despite that limiting factor.
The important part of Reagan’s legacy was in what his leadership provided for the spirit of America. In what seemed like a single moment, Reagan swept away the depression of Viet Nam, the shame of Nixon’s resignation, the hopelessness of the Ford and Carter economies and the indignity of Iran’s assault on our embassy and our pride. Moments after his inauguration, Reagan stood before the crowd and announced that the American hostages held in Iran for 444 days, had been released and had already crossed into international air space. Iran knew what Libya, the PLO, Hamas and other terror networks and nations would soon learn the hard way; Reagan would not yield to bullies, would not negotiate with terror and would bear any expense to enforce justice anywhere in the world. In that sense, Ronald Reagan truly was the embodiment of hope in America, not the half-hearted campaign rhetoric of a junior Senator whose only real experience in government was how to spend taxpayer money at the local level.
Former Governor Palin reminded people that conservatives united to support Reagan and that support transcended party affiliation. She cautioned the audience and the Tea Party movement in general, not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by letting that unity elude them now. The greatest strength of the movement is that it is focused on the Constitution and not on any one person. That can also be its greatest weakness if this sea of individuals allows the movement to splinter. There is a larger game afoot and people must not let one issue or another confuse the bigger picture of restoring the democratic republic based on the ideals clearly defined in the Constitution. Indeed, our future lies in the past and if we fail to look beyond minor details or become fixated on the foibles of some very human candidates, the Progressives in Congress may win by default as our votes are cast to the four winds. The Tea Party should not become a third party but rather, their future lies in shaping the electoral process as an advocate; lobbyist, if you will, for the Constitution and for the sovereignty of the States.
In a question and answer session after the speech, Palin noted that there are many Conservative Democrats, otherwise known as Reagan Democrats that are equally disenchanted with the direction of Washington. While she sincerely hopes that the Republican Party finds their Conservative roots so they can gain the trust of the Tea Party rather than compete with them, she also hopes that the Tea Party can remain focused on issues and not ideology because that is what is needed to attract and retain the Conservative factions within the Democratic and Independent Parties.
The time for unity is now and the Progressives are already trying to divide the Republican Party between Conservatives and Moderates and are attempting to isolate the Tea Party entirely. We must remain strong, we must remain focused and we must remain united. Remember, one of the first flags flown at the time of the revolution was that of a dismembered snake emblazoned with the words “Unite or Die”. It would do us well to fly that flag again.
Paul
The main focus of her speech noted the disparity in the vision that the American people have for the future of the United States compared to the agenda of the current body politic. While the main focus of the Sunday morning “talking heads” was the sharp criticism she had regarding the direction the President has taken our country in the past year, Palin’s criticisms were by no means, limited to one man or even to one Party. She possesses something that has been long lost in Washington; a keen understanding of the factual definition of a Federal system of government. Palin recognizes the root cause of the anger on which the Tea Party movement was founded and she is one of the few political people that have validated the widespread disdain for the Washington machine that has thwarted that rule of law and ignored the will of the governed.
The founders intended to form a union of sovereign states, each possessing the power of self determination and all guided by a Constitution of laws that were mutually agreed upon. The States voluntarily entered into this union and a Federal Government was established to perform the functions of government that would unify the States, provide for the common defense and establish a uniform relationship between the “united” States and foreign governments. The Constitution granted limited powers to the Federal government and only to the degree required for the Federal government to fulfill the duties designated to it under the Constitution. All other powers were to be retained, entirely, by the States and their citizens.
While Sarah Palin did not speak of the political history that mutated the Federal government into this insatiable leviathan, she apparently understands that the government has criminally deviated from these Constitutional directives and has been on a slow, methodical march to usurp State Power under some mystical authority derived from a bastardization of judicial and legislative policy. Palin noted the historical failure of the Federal government to provide even basic services without an enormity of waste and the blatant insensitivity to the crisis’s they have themselves created for main street America while serving the interests of unions, friends and political allies.
Palin spoke quite eloquently of recent Federal blunders and abuses of the Federal Government: the ineptitude of Federal bureaucrats that have not only failed to accurately track the effects the Stimulus bill had on job creation but in fact, have no idea where billions in Stimulus funds have even gone; citing money spent in dozens of Congressional districts that do not exist; the overreach of Congress by assuming authority it does not have to interfere in private corporations, take over auto makers and force its vision of healthcare reform on an unwilling nation; the ignorance of a Justice Department that grants Constitutional rights to foreign combatants that are hell bent on the destruction of America and the arrogance of a President that refuses to hear the voice of the people and still plans to proceed with an agenda that we keep telling him over and over that we do not want. I’m sure if she presented a full list of the past year’s failures, she could have easily spoken for hours but that was not the point of this convention or of her speech.
The main point of her speech was in recognition of the composition of the Tea Party movement itself. While the opposition to Washington has unified a great number of people, those people do have a wide and varied list of concerns that the individual members consider important. The difference in those interests could spell trouble within the movement unless there is a greater goal in mind and Palin tried to narrow the focus of the movement towards a goal they can all agree on. While born out of negativity, she challenged the conference attendees to focus on their hopes for the future. Palin invoked the memory of Ronald Reagan on the anniversary of his birth and reminded the audience of Reagan’s legacy.
Reagan had also inherited a nation in recession and could very well have taken the low road of blaming Jimmy Carter for the country’s financial difficulties but instead, he forged forward with his vision of restoring prosperity by enacting enormous tax cuts; cuts that even his critics admit, did bring a tripling of revenues to the treasury. Of course the recovery could have been far greater if it were not for the last great battle of the cold war that spawned massive increases in military spending and the TEFRA act of 1986, an act that would severely curtail the scope of deductions business could claim as exemptions. While opposed to TEFRA, Reagan was forced to accept this or risk losing his entire tax reduction package. The end result was that TEFRA limited the amount of money that business would invest in itself and in new employees but the cuts did have a spectacular effect on the economy despite that limiting factor.
The important part of Reagan’s legacy was in what his leadership provided for the spirit of America. In what seemed like a single moment, Reagan swept away the depression of Viet Nam, the shame of Nixon’s resignation, the hopelessness of the Ford and Carter economies and the indignity of Iran’s assault on our embassy and our pride. Moments after his inauguration, Reagan stood before the crowd and announced that the American hostages held in Iran for 444 days, had been released and had already crossed into international air space. Iran knew what Libya, the PLO, Hamas and other terror networks and nations would soon learn the hard way; Reagan would not yield to bullies, would not negotiate with terror and would bear any expense to enforce justice anywhere in the world. In that sense, Ronald Reagan truly was the embodiment of hope in America, not the half-hearted campaign rhetoric of a junior Senator whose only real experience in government was how to spend taxpayer money at the local level.
Former Governor Palin reminded people that conservatives united to support Reagan and that support transcended party affiliation. She cautioned the audience and the Tea Party movement in general, not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by letting that unity elude them now. The greatest strength of the movement is that it is focused on the Constitution and not on any one person. That can also be its greatest weakness if this sea of individuals allows the movement to splinter. There is a larger game afoot and people must not let one issue or another confuse the bigger picture of restoring the democratic republic based on the ideals clearly defined in the Constitution. Indeed, our future lies in the past and if we fail to look beyond minor details or become fixated on the foibles of some very human candidates, the Progressives in Congress may win by default as our votes are cast to the four winds. The Tea Party should not become a third party but rather, their future lies in shaping the electoral process as an advocate; lobbyist, if you will, for the Constitution and for the sovereignty of the States.
In a question and answer session after the speech, Palin noted that there are many Conservative Democrats, otherwise known as Reagan Democrats that are equally disenchanted with the direction of Washington. While she sincerely hopes that the Republican Party finds their Conservative roots so they can gain the trust of the Tea Party rather than compete with them, she also hopes that the Tea Party can remain focused on issues and not ideology because that is what is needed to attract and retain the Conservative factions within the Democratic and Independent Parties.
The time for unity is now and the Progressives are already trying to divide the Republican Party between Conservatives and Moderates and are attempting to isolate the Tea Party entirely. We must remain strong, we must remain focused and we must remain united. Remember, one of the first flags flown at the time of the revolution was that of a dismembered snake emblazoned with the words “Unite or Die”. It would do us well to fly that flag again.
Paul
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tea Parties and Politics
The otherwise silent majority are suddenly finding their voice. Tea Party protests, town hall meetings, letters and phone calls to Congress. This is all new territory and the left has no idea what to do about it other than resort to the strategy they have traditionally used with their opponents on Capitol Hill and talk radio. They’ve made the mistake of denigrating individual citizens that were speaking out for their rights which only serves to infuriate them even more. More subtle Presidents would have pretended to listen and offer gentle platitudes to calm the unsettled nerves of a fearful electorate but this President is far too elitist for that. Only Obama, his radical advisors and his left wing, progressive friends in the democratically controlled Congress know what is best for you and they intend to drag you along, by your hair if need be.
Democrats have no frame of reference for this because Republican and conservative voters were never protestors before. That is a tactic and trait of the left and there was never a need to quiet their dissent; in fact, it was encouraged because it was always directed at “the enemy”; i.e. the Republican Party. Independents, for the most part, were exempt from direct assaults by the Democrats because independents usually draw votes away from Republican and Conservative candidates, broadening the lead of Democrats in a three-way race. But this time is different; the attacks are citizens fighting against big government, socialist policies and the Democrats that proposed them. So in a Pavlovian response, the “party of the people” turned on the people as though they were an adversarial political party.
Tea Party protestors and those that passionately voiced their concerns at the town hall meetings were called “Astroturf” and “tea-baggers” by the Congressional leadership. The White House Senior Advisor and long time Democratic strategist, David Axelrod, refused to address protestor’s concerns in recent interviews saying only that “they are wrong”. Nancy Pelosi equated otherwise peaceful Tea Party protests with the violent acts of the radical left; her radical left; that occurred during the anti-war movement of the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, saying they made her fearful. They struggled to make their case through their allies in the media that this was only manufactured anger bought and paid for by big business and the Republican Party, then organized counter-protests bought and paid for by unions and the Democratic Party.
Unfortunately for the strategists, the people they were trying to sway through the media were the same people they were attacking. The “Tea-Partiers” and “9-12ers” watched in disbelief. They know who they are. They know that these are the “grass-roots” and not some phony effort organized by business, pharmaceuticals or a political party. They know they aren’t violent; in fact, the only violence they encountered had been launched against them by the supporters of healthcare reform organized by the Democrats using Move On, SEIU and Organizing for America as their foot soldiers.
This culminated in a surge in Tea Party membership. By September 12th, these groups had gained so much momentum that nearly a million people converged on Washington D.C. in a massive demonstration against healthcare reform, cap and trade, the unchecked growth of the Federal Government and the continued bloating of regulatory bureaucracies.
The main stream media continued to misrepresent the protestors and the protests. They understated the attendance and created stories of violence and bigotry where none existed. The September 12th protest in Washington was reported to have had anywhere from thirty-thousand to sixty-thousand in attendance. It is widely known today that this figure was under-reported sixteen fold, as nearly one million people marched on the Capitol. For the one million that attended, there were no altercations, no arrests and for the first time since organized marches began on the Capitol, there was no garbage to clean up when they left. Not even the environmental movement can claim that!
The protests will continue as long as it is apparent that our elected officials are ignoring the message. In fact, as the public becomes more irate over being ignored and misrepresented, the latest round of protests were directed at the media headquarters and local offices of ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and their print equivalents. People are finally seeing the bias of these so-called “news” organizations through the overt whitewashing and lack of accurate coverage given to the nefarious actions of Congress and of the President. Shouts of “Can you hear us now” and “We’re the angry mob; have a nice day” echoed through the streets in front of, and around CNN headquarters in Atlanta Georgia. Similar protests took place in every major city and at every network and newspaper accused of playing “lapdog” for the Obama administration.
With all of this going on, one would think the message would have gotten through loud and clear by now. For some, it is. There are Democrats running for re-election in states that overwhelmingly voted for McCain that are seriously reconsidering support for any legislation that is this divisive. After all, the town hall meetings showed a massive lack of support for these initiatives and those that came to speak against healthcare reform outnumbered the supporters ten to one. Congressional approval is at its lowest point in decades with only a twenty-five percent favorable rating. Both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid’s approval have also halved since Obama began his grand push for a socialized America this past January.
Well, the White House and Congressional leadership are still trying to insulate Democratic Representatives and Senators from the voice of the people. Reid and Pelosi are pushing hard to get the healthcare bill through Congress before the Thanksgiving break in order to avoid another round of damaging town hall meetings and local protests. The mass media has “stacked the deck” in recent polls to show favoritism for the healthcare bill, that is until it was disclosed that the poll data contained thirteen percent more Democrats than Republicans, slanting the results in favor of reform. Curiously, the poll didn’t show a spread of thirteen percent in favor, indicating that even Democratic voters are finding this bill a “hard pill to swallow”. Since Fox continues to be the only network that is willing to provide unfiltered coverage of the news, they have been singled out for attack by the White House in a strategy that is proving to be less than effective.
Fox News has been continually gaining viewers and network ratings show that their most controversial shows now possess as many viewers as all of the opposing network news shows combined. Even competing news outlets have become extremely uneasy about the White Houses attempts to silence Fox. On Thursday, October 22nd, White House launched its most blatant attack when “Pay Czar” Feinstein called a press conference of all the news networks except Fox. To their credit, the White House Press Corp replied with a refusal to attend if the ban on Fox was not lifted. Perhaps they are finally seeing that this President intends to shape news, not make news. After all, if I were part of the man stream media I would be incensed at Anita Dunn’s revelation this week, that the press was intentionally manipulated all through the campaign, being spoon-fed glorious and glowing stories about Candidate Obama while direct access and interviews were severely limited. To add insult to injury, newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor also revealed that her appearances were carefully crafted right down to administration personnel choosing what clothes she would wear.
The American people continue to be shocked by the relentless, almost daily stream of new and more ridiculous actions in Washington. The difference is that now, Washington and the press are finally getting their own dose of daily assaults through the efforts of the grass-roots opposition. I know how hard it is to keep this pressure up. It’s tiring and we don’t have a staff of people to do this for us. We have jobs and families that rely on us but remember, there is nothing more important for their well being than the future of a free and prosperous United States.
Now that the efforts are beginning to show dividends, it is time to redouble our efforts. Attend your Tea Party meetings, join the rallies, call and write your congressmen; most importantly, remain awake, aware and vigilant. There are efforts under way to sneak these bills through in the dead of night as attachments to existing legislation and we must never allow that to happen. You know, instead of making fun of us Congress should be happy it was only a Tea Party in Boston and not an “Anvil” Party! If it were, Nancy would really have something to cry about.
Paul
Democrats have no frame of reference for this because Republican and conservative voters were never protestors before. That is a tactic and trait of the left and there was never a need to quiet their dissent; in fact, it was encouraged because it was always directed at “the enemy”; i.e. the Republican Party. Independents, for the most part, were exempt from direct assaults by the Democrats because independents usually draw votes away from Republican and Conservative candidates, broadening the lead of Democrats in a three-way race. But this time is different; the attacks are citizens fighting against big government, socialist policies and the Democrats that proposed them. So in a Pavlovian response, the “party of the people” turned on the people as though they were an adversarial political party.
Tea Party protestors and those that passionately voiced their concerns at the town hall meetings were called “Astroturf” and “tea-baggers” by the Congressional leadership. The White House Senior Advisor and long time Democratic strategist, David Axelrod, refused to address protestor’s concerns in recent interviews saying only that “they are wrong”. Nancy Pelosi equated otherwise peaceful Tea Party protests with the violent acts of the radical left; her radical left; that occurred during the anti-war movement of the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, saying they made her fearful. They struggled to make their case through their allies in the media that this was only manufactured anger bought and paid for by big business and the Republican Party, then organized counter-protests bought and paid for by unions and the Democratic Party.
Unfortunately for the strategists, the people they were trying to sway through the media were the same people they were attacking. The “Tea-Partiers” and “9-12ers” watched in disbelief. They know who they are. They know that these are the “grass-roots” and not some phony effort organized by business, pharmaceuticals or a political party. They know they aren’t violent; in fact, the only violence they encountered had been launched against them by the supporters of healthcare reform organized by the Democrats using Move On, SEIU and Organizing for America as their foot soldiers.
This culminated in a surge in Tea Party membership. By September 12th, these groups had gained so much momentum that nearly a million people converged on Washington D.C. in a massive demonstration against healthcare reform, cap and trade, the unchecked growth of the Federal Government and the continued bloating of regulatory bureaucracies.
The main stream media continued to misrepresent the protestors and the protests. They understated the attendance and created stories of violence and bigotry where none existed. The September 12th protest in Washington was reported to have had anywhere from thirty-thousand to sixty-thousand in attendance. It is widely known today that this figure was under-reported sixteen fold, as nearly one million people marched on the Capitol. For the one million that attended, there were no altercations, no arrests and for the first time since organized marches began on the Capitol, there was no garbage to clean up when they left. Not even the environmental movement can claim that!
The protests will continue as long as it is apparent that our elected officials are ignoring the message. In fact, as the public becomes more irate over being ignored and misrepresented, the latest round of protests were directed at the media headquarters and local offices of ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and their print equivalents. People are finally seeing the bias of these so-called “news” organizations through the overt whitewashing and lack of accurate coverage given to the nefarious actions of Congress and of the President. Shouts of “Can you hear us now” and “We’re the angry mob; have a nice day” echoed through the streets in front of, and around CNN headquarters in Atlanta Georgia. Similar protests took place in every major city and at every network and newspaper accused of playing “lapdog” for the Obama administration.
With all of this going on, one would think the message would have gotten through loud and clear by now. For some, it is. There are Democrats running for re-election in states that overwhelmingly voted for McCain that are seriously reconsidering support for any legislation that is this divisive. After all, the town hall meetings showed a massive lack of support for these initiatives and those that came to speak against healthcare reform outnumbered the supporters ten to one. Congressional approval is at its lowest point in decades with only a twenty-five percent favorable rating. Both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid’s approval have also halved since Obama began his grand push for a socialized America this past January.
Well, the White House and Congressional leadership are still trying to insulate Democratic Representatives and Senators from the voice of the people. Reid and Pelosi are pushing hard to get the healthcare bill through Congress before the Thanksgiving break in order to avoid another round of damaging town hall meetings and local protests. The mass media has “stacked the deck” in recent polls to show favoritism for the healthcare bill, that is until it was disclosed that the poll data contained thirteen percent more Democrats than Republicans, slanting the results in favor of reform. Curiously, the poll didn’t show a spread of thirteen percent in favor, indicating that even Democratic voters are finding this bill a “hard pill to swallow”. Since Fox continues to be the only network that is willing to provide unfiltered coverage of the news, they have been singled out for attack by the White House in a strategy that is proving to be less than effective.
Fox News has been continually gaining viewers and network ratings show that their most controversial shows now possess as many viewers as all of the opposing network news shows combined. Even competing news outlets have become extremely uneasy about the White Houses attempts to silence Fox. On Thursday, October 22nd, White House launched its most blatant attack when “Pay Czar” Feinstein called a press conference of all the news networks except Fox. To their credit, the White House Press Corp replied with a refusal to attend if the ban on Fox was not lifted. Perhaps they are finally seeing that this President intends to shape news, not make news. After all, if I were part of the man stream media I would be incensed at Anita Dunn’s revelation this week, that the press was intentionally manipulated all through the campaign, being spoon-fed glorious and glowing stories about Candidate Obama while direct access and interviews were severely limited. To add insult to injury, newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor also revealed that her appearances were carefully crafted right down to administration personnel choosing what clothes she would wear.
The American people continue to be shocked by the relentless, almost daily stream of new and more ridiculous actions in Washington. The difference is that now, Washington and the press are finally getting their own dose of daily assaults through the efforts of the grass-roots opposition. I know how hard it is to keep this pressure up. It’s tiring and we don’t have a staff of people to do this for us. We have jobs and families that rely on us but remember, there is nothing more important for their well being than the future of a free and prosperous United States.
Now that the efforts are beginning to show dividends, it is time to redouble our efforts. Attend your Tea Party meetings, join the rallies, call and write your congressmen; most importantly, remain awake, aware and vigilant. There are efforts under way to sneak these bills through in the dead of night as attachments to existing legislation and we must never allow that to happen. You know, instead of making fun of us Congress should be happy it was only a Tea Party in Boston and not an “Anvil” Party! If it were, Nancy would really have something to cry about.
Paul
Thursday, October 22, 2009
They Really Aren't Listening, Are They?
I love it when people prove my point for me. It is no secret that my underlying belief is that the Federal government has become a hive of elitists, in fact, an American aristocracy that when faced with the anger of their constituents, invariably lash out with the modern equivalent of “Let them eat cake”. Of course you know that that phrase was reportedly blurted out by Marie Antoinette when she was told that the people had no bread. It didn’t work out very well for Marie and she would eventually be beheaded by guillotine during the French Revolution for her uncompassionate dismissal of her starving subjects.
Americans are now facing the same uncompassionate dismissal by their elected officials. The anger that bubbled up to the surface during the healthcare town halls was dismissed as “Astroturf”, not grass roots. The people that were demanding answers from their representatives were called an “angry mob” and “manufactured”, marching to the orders of corporate America and the Republican Party. I’ve been to Tea Parties and I can tell you I joined of my own free will and they are organized locally. We network with other Tea Party and patriotic groups and decide when and where to protest ourselves. I have not seen a single word given to us by big business, pharmaceuticals, healthcare insurers or the Republican Party. It has all been spontaneous and it has all been very “grass roots”.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, provides funds for MoveOn.org and Organizing for America and these are the groups that are protesting in favor of Obamacare. There were even ads taken out on Craigslist over the summer by Calpirg, a pro-Obama, pro-socialism group in California that promised pay for protestors! “Need a summer job? Protest for healthcare reform.” Somehow Ms. Pelosi thinks those protests are legitimate but the Tea Parties aren’t. In fact, the people shouting at the Tea Parties made her weep as she had flashbacks to the protests of ‘70’s and that “frightened” her. What she forgot to mention is that the angry and violent protests of the 70’s were conducted by people that share her ideology. Tea Party protestors don’t blow things up; left wing, anti-American radicals do.
Through all of this, one thing keeps resonating in every Congressional interview, in every Presidential speech. Despite all of the meetings, protests, letters and phone calls to Congress…they still don’t get it. We are not being heard and it is appears that those that have heard us are choosing to ignore us. I recently sent an e-mail to the White House about healthcare reform and I probably wouldn’t be upset if I had never received a reply. After all, who am I? I am not a foreign dignitary nor am I a member of Congress. I am a whiney little blogger that probably has far too many opinions for my own good. But I did get a response and it only reinforced my belief that they just don’t care. I will post my e-mail to the President and then the response I received.
Mr. President,
Americans are now facing the same uncompassionate dismissal by their elected officials. The anger that bubbled up to the surface during the healthcare town halls was dismissed as “Astroturf”, not grass roots. The people that were demanding answers from their representatives were called an “angry mob” and “manufactured”, marching to the orders of corporate America and the Republican Party. I’ve been to Tea Parties and I can tell you I joined of my own free will and they are organized locally. We network with other Tea Party and patriotic groups and decide when and where to protest ourselves. I have not seen a single word given to us by big business, pharmaceuticals, healthcare insurers or the Republican Party. It has all been spontaneous and it has all been very “grass roots”.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, provides funds for MoveOn.org and Organizing for America and these are the groups that are protesting in favor of Obamacare. There were even ads taken out on Craigslist over the summer by Calpirg, a pro-Obama, pro-socialism group in California that promised pay for protestors! “Need a summer job? Protest for healthcare reform.” Somehow Ms. Pelosi thinks those protests are legitimate but the Tea Parties aren’t. In fact, the people shouting at the Tea Parties made her weep as she had flashbacks to the protests of ‘70’s and that “frightened” her. What she forgot to mention is that the angry and violent protests of the 70’s were conducted by people that share her ideology. Tea Party protestors don’t blow things up; left wing, anti-American radicals do.
Through all of this, one thing keeps resonating in every Congressional interview, in every Presidential speech. Despite all of the meetings, protests, letters and phone calls to Congress…they still don’t get it. We are not being heard and it is appears that those that have heard us are choosing to ignore us. I recently sent an e-mail to the White House about healthcare reform and I probably wouldn’t be upset if I had never received a reply. After all, who am I? I am not a foreign dignitary nor am I a member of Congress. I am a whiney little blogger that probably has far too many opinions for my own good. But I did get a response and it only reinforced my belief that they just don’t care. I will post my e-mail to the President and then the response I received.
Mr. President,
Now that Congress has taken the position of adding to the national debt through Harry Reid's offer to doctors and since they have declined to allow the American people the right to see this legislation on-line, both of which violate your promises, do you intend to withdraw your support for this initiative as you also promised?
Let's be honest. You and I both know that this is not about lowering premium costs for American's with insurance and it is not about covering those without insurance...this is about the gross mismanagement of existing Federal programs. Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupting the Federal government and Congress has already raided the Social Security trust to keep it afloat to spite massive annual losses. The so-called "thinkers" in Washington needed a way to begin the process of driving Americans into a government run, universal care system so the funds would be there to continue this massive Ponzi scheme.
Are you people really any better than Bernie Madoff? Enough already; the reforms that the majority of America want are market reforms that reinforce the free enterprise system. We do not want government care, we do not want an expanded government and we are not willing to allow the Federal government to "tweak" the Constitution to make the unconstitutional, permissible.
As an Arizonan, I intend to vote for the referendum in the 2010 ballot that would exclude Arizona from having to participate in this scam and through my vote; I intend to hold any of my representatives accountable that do vote for this as it makes its way through Congress.
We have had enough. Taxation has placed an oppressive burden on America and we can no longer afford these massive tax and spend plans that the Democratic Party has become famous for.
Sincerely,
Paul M. Magel Sr.
The reply I received?
Dear Friend:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I have heard from countless Americans struggling to afford health insurance and health professionals striving to provide care. I appreciate your perspective.
There is broad consensus among the American people on the need for affordable, high-quality health care. The rising cost of health care is the most pressing financial challenge for families and for our Nation, and controlling this cost is essential to bringing down the Federal deficits we inherited. We must end unfair insurance practices that leave millions of Americans without coverage, denying them access to care, and exposing them to extraordinary burdens. And we should ensure that all small business employees have access to affordable, high-quality health plans so that we can make our economy--and our small businesses- -more competitive. Now is the time to move forward, and I am working to get health insurance reform done this year.
Since I took office, we have done more to improve health care than we have in the previous decade. In February, I signed H.R. 2 to provide coverage for millions of children through the Children's Health Insurance Program, and I signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to make key investments in computerized medical records and preventive services.
Still, more must be done to lower costs, expand coverage, and improve the quality of health care. My 2010 Budget makes a major down payment on health insurance reform by implementing efficiencies in government health care spending while improving the quality of care. To help fulfill the debt we owe to our service men and women, it includes the largest proposed single-year increase in veterans funding in 30 years. It expands health care coverage to an additional 500,000 veterans by 2013, implements technology that eases the transition from military care to veterans'
care, and enhances screening and treatment services for those suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury.
Looking forward, there are tough choices to be made, and I will seek to bring employers and workers, health care providers and patients, and Democrats and Republicans together to create a system that delivers better care and puts the Nation on a sustainable, long-term fiscal path. To learn more about my agenda or to share a personal story, please join me online at:
www.healthreform.gov. For further information on health care and assistance that may be available to you, you may call 1-800- FEDINFO or visit: www.usa.gov.
I share the sense of urgency that millions of Americans have voiced. I watched as my ailing mother struggled with stacks of insurance forms in the last moments of her life. This is not who we are as a Nation; together, we will fix it.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
To be a part of our agenda for change, join us at www.WhiteHouse.gov
The reply I received completely ignored every statement I made. There was not a single point in my message that was even touched on and the idea that the reply goes as far as providing links I can use to “join” with the President to work towards passing healthcare reform is insulting. He even had the nerve to include the story of his ailing mother struggling with “stacks” of medical insurance paperwork in the last moments of her life. My doctor’s office fills out all of my forms so maybe he should change doctors but that doesn’t answer the larger question…where was her family? You know, family, the people that love you and help you with these things or is the government supposed to provide those services too? Maybe the finished bill will have a couple of billion dollars earmarked for “hugs”. Maybe we can even find some community based organization we can fund to provide the hugs….like ACORN.
As you read those two e-mails, did you see one thread of evidence that my e-mail had even been read? In retrospect, sending that message was probably a mistake since I am sure it is being counted as just another example of an “American that is concerned about healthcare reform”.
No, they are not listening and it doesn’t appear they will. The only hope we have is to maintain the pressure. The longer the anger is vocal and public, the more they will understand that this is not going to go away as it has in the past. The one thing they want more than Universal Healthcare is another term and if we make it clear that the choice is one or the other, healthcare reform will die a quiet death and they can get back to their primary concern of raising money for their next campaign.
Paul
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