Obama Won But Gridlock Prevails

Last night, the nation voted and Obama won.  It was an emotional win; not based on any logic.  I say this because this man has been a complete failure in his first term.  He pushed a stimulus package that has only caused our rebounding economy of 2009 to get weaker by the year.  Job creation has primarily been for low-paying and part time jobs.  As a result, the middle class is falling apart.  Average incomes have fallen by more than 7% as laid off workers are being forced into finding and taking lower paying jobs.  The number of low income workers and those in poverty has doubled to over 60 million people.  Those on food stamps and collecting disability pay have reached never-before-thought-of highs.  We are a country in decline. We are moving towards being a country that looks more like Europe  --- a Europe that is in complete turmoil with weak and depressed economies and where the normals are high unemployment and a dependency on government.

The only saving grace from Tuesday's election was that gridlock prevailed.  If this country truly wanted what Obama was selling, it would have broken that gridlock and given the Democrats a dominate position in the House of Representatives.  But, the voters said no to this President's liberal agenda by leaving the GOP in charge of the people's house.  While some Republicans lost, an equal number won. This, to me, only proves that the votes for Obama were ones based on the emotion of maintaining an historical first of having a black man as president; no matter how badly that man has performed in office.

But, don't underestimate Obama in terms of forcing through his liberal agenda.  He will do it by by-passing Congress through the stroke of his pen on executive orders. He will do it through the powers already vested in the EPA, the Department of Interior, and through the new powers given to the Health and Human Services department as a result of ObamaCare.  He will also do it through the still-unwritten, unlimited regulatory actions that were provisioned under the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.  He will do it anyway he can because, no longer, does he have the burden of winning a reelection.  And, as a result, America and America's values were the big losers in Tuesday's elections.

Elizabeth Warren's Socialist Blather

Elizabeth Warren, an attorney and law professor who has worked, primarily, for the Obama Administration over the last 2-1/2 years, is running to unseat Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts. In a town hall-style event yesterday, she made these remarks:

"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody... You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

While everything she said sounds "logically" true, the reality is that her viewpoint totally ignores the fact that "if" we didn't have the superior wealth creators that we have in this country, there would be no massive tax base and the taxable jobs to build the roads or to build the schools and pay for the teachers to educate the people. When she talks of the "rest of us" who "paid for" the "roads", who the hell is she really talking about? The 50% of this country who pays zero taxes; yet, still gets to use those roads? Obviously she's ignoring the fact that the "rich" pay 70% of all the taxes in this country.

She's playing a game of flawed chicken-and-egg political nonsense that sounds more like something a communist would have said in the former bankrupt society of the U.S.S.R. A society that, too, had teachers, police, fireman, and roads but never achieved the economic status that this country has. No wonder Obama originally hired her!

When The Going Gets Tough The Weak Go To The Teleprompter

Using the BP oil spill, Democrats have decided this will be their "sweeps week", in order to, as in the television industry, try and get some major ratings increases. Today, the Democratic leadership in Congress has decided to make a "really big show" by dragging in all of the CEO's of the major oil companies for a public flogging in front of mainstream media's TV cameras. Yesterday, Obama walked the oil soaked sand of the Gulf; ate a snow cone; and, posed with the natives to show that, for only the 4th time, he is fully engaged with the problem. Tonight, he will hit the teleprompter again to give his first-ever "Oval Office" speech. Tomorrow, he meets with the CEO of BP; even though it might have been smarter to meet with Tony Hayward beforehand in order to incorporate the results of that meeting into the speech. But, the all-knowing Obama obviously knows what BP's CEO is going to say, since that was the reason he gave for why he never met with him until the 59th day of the oil spill.

Expect, too, that Bush will be blamed for his obvious irresponsibility. Even though Obama claims that a President can't personally stop the oil spill, he will, however, make it clear that, somehow, Bush was personally responsible; as has been claimed for the last 58 days.

I'm tired of the blame game from Obama. Every speech he gives, he blames BP and provides no solutions. You'd have to be a complete idiot to think that BP isn't responsible. That's a given. So why keep telling us that? Obama does this because of a complete lack of leadership skills. He is not a leader and has absolutely no solutions. This is a diversion by a weak President to keep the focus on BP as a means of keeping the focus off of his own inabilities. It's a typical tactic for a poor leader to hide behind a bogeyman to avoid taking any heat; just as in the case of the Democrats in Congress having their phony show-trials of the oil executives. Quite simply, it's all political theater.

Time is wasted by the day as the oil spill grows larger. Stopping all offshore drilling isn't going to stop the damage or clean up after it. An escrow account, too, doesn't clean it up. Bashing BP and George Bush isn't stopping the leak or cleaning up the spill. Having the Attorney General threaten criminal charges against BP isn't cleaning up the oil spill. And, for sure, having government agencies (reporting to Obama) block one solution after another isn't cleaning up the spill.

Obama claims he can't don a wetsuit and cap the hole himself. Certainly, that's true. But, not allowing foreign vessels to come to our shores to siphon off the oil is something he can do and he hasn't. He could have waived environmental regulations but, instead, he kept Louisiana waiting for weeks before they could build offshore berms to protect the fragile near-shore environment. Their are dozens of creative Americans, who have come up with viable solutions for aiding the clean up. Yet, neither this President nor BP have even contacted those people. A good leader would have allowed trials to be conducted to see how effective these techniques really were and quickly employed those that had proven themselves. But, not Obama. These are all things that don't require superhuman skills and don't require him to don a wetsuit.

The real story here is a lack of leadership. The oil is pouring onto our shores as this President just talks; and, talks. If ever there was repeat of "while Rome is burning Nero fiddles", this is it! And, God help us all if this guy is simply allowing the effects of the spill to worsen in order to push his left-wing, anti-oil, Cap and Trade legislation.

Is She Gay? Or, Isn't She? And, Why Should We Care?

The left is desperately trying to keep the world from actually knowing if Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, is homosexual. This is out of character for liberals that are usually the protectors and defenders of gays. Normally, they would be putting her gayness on a pedestal to aggressively maintain and court the gay voting block. But, in this case, they know that, if it should come out that Kagan is gay, she could lose the nomination. That's because, in one of the few things we know about her, she may have allowed her sexual preference to cloud her judgment.

It all goes back to Bill Clinton's back-down on allowing gays to openly serve in the military. In an attempt to squelch the firestorm of opposition, he formulated "Don't Ask..Don't Tell" so that gays could serve without the fear of being discharged for their sexual preference. However, serving openly was still barred under the decision. It was a compromise that didn't set well with the gay community. And, it certainly didn't set well with Elena Kagan, who, at the time, was the Dean of Harvard Law School. In fact, and in retaliation, she used the power of her position to ban any military recruitment on the Harvard campus. Further, she signed on to a lawsuit that went all the way up to the Supreme Court and, which, was intended to overturn the "Don't Ask...Don't Tell" executive order from Clinton. To her dismay, she was resoundingly rebuked with a 9-zip decision in support of Clinton's order.

What the left is afraid of, and rightly so, is that her action after "Don't Ask...Don't Tell" may reveal that she made an emotional decision and, in doing so, pushed thoughtful deliberation and logic aside. One, then, has to wonder how many of those "emotional" decisions she will try to make if she becomes a member of the highest order of legal opinion in our country. I think it clearly shows a flaw in Kagan; and, not one that can be easily overlooked.

The fact that she is or isn't gay should never be a deciding point in whether or not she should or shouldn't be on the Supreme Court. But, the fact that she might not be a good arbiter of the law is extremely important.

Blue State Blues

Some of the biggest states in our union -- all politically left -- are the ones that are in the most serious financial trouble. These include California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Michigan. Each and every one of these states are heavily influenced by labor unions; and, each is being burdened by social programs that they can't pay for. Each of them has unemployment rates that are higher than the national average; with Michigan leading the pack at an astounding 14.3 percent. California, our most populous state, isn't too far behind that with a 12.5% rate. Every one of these states has some of the highest taxes in the country; and, each has lost population and businesses over the years due to those taxes and heavy handed government regulations.

These states are warnings for us all. They are telling us that big governments with big social programs and with heavy union influence don't make for a better life. Yet, we have a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President who are hell-bent on taking us down the very path that has put these States on the brink of ruination.