Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Is this the best the Democrats have to offer?

There is just one week left before the final primaries take place. While the Democrat race has been an historic one, it's also a bit disconcerting. Is this the best the Democrats have to offer?

I'm already unimpressed with John McCain. But this isn't about the continued boredom of the Republican Party and their eventual nominee. This is about the Democrats.

There are two candidates left. They seem to be tripping over themselves and the news media to see which of them can become the bigger fool.

Hillary Clinton. I'm hesitant to go back into the 90's and all of the scandals that she was involved in that we know of and the ones that she was probably in that we don't know the details. I just don't know that there is enough space on any computer, any website to cover all of that.

She came into the race as the inevitable choice of the Democrats. Now she is in a tight race with another Senator. Remembering how the Clintons were in the 90's, I don't count her out. I seriously can envision her taking this all the way to the convention and duking it out there. I can see her pulling a fast one and stealing the nomination away from Obama. In fact, I'm almost hoping for it.

Clinton has had her problems. First she said she was under sniper fire, which turned out to not be true. This past week, she said that she didn't understand the bellowing for her to get out of the race. After all, her husband didn't wrap up the nomination until June in 92 and Bobby Kennedy was killed in June of 68. So why should we be so surprised that the Democrat nominee hasn't emerged as of May of 2008?

Frankly, I'm surprised that there has been so much upset in the Democrat party over these words. They are, after all, true. She says something that is true and she's attacked by her own party over it. The same ones that backed her "vast right wing conspiracy" invention that turned out to not be true.

Hillary has enough problems. She has done nothing in the Senate other than to vote for the war in Iraq, then change her mind when it was time for her to run for President. She has no legislation in place. In fact, the only real thing I can remember off the top of my head of her time in the Senate is that she told General Petraeus that it would strain credibility to think that his plan of the troop surge would have any success....just before it became a raging success.

Her opponent is even less qualified. Barack Obama has ties to communists, socialists and terrorists. He's been a Senator for three years and done nothing. He attended a church for 20 years, but apparently didn't hear his Pastor say anything negative about the United States, nor any of his racist rants. I guess it pays to miss church at times, although I don't know how he knew which days to skip church.

This weekend alone was enough to show how inexperienced, incompetent, and unaware of history he is. Memorial Day; he was giving a speech and said he could see some of the soldiers in the crowd that we were honoring on Memorial Day. To do this, he'd have to have had dead soldiers in the audience. Memorial Day is a day to honor the fallen. The men and women that have died in service to the United States. Those that gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Then he followed that up the next day by saying that his great uncle was one of the first Americans to liberate Auschwitz. He used this story as a way of talking about how we need to take better care of the soldiers when they return home and have seen things that humans have done to other humans. He said his great uncle had gone to the attic and stayed for six months, not leaving the house.

Here's the problem with his story. First, Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians. Not by the Americans. Now if his great uncle was a Russian, his story just became believable. But apparently, he wasn't Russian. That would open up a whole new can of worms.

Second, this was a family member that was talked about in the family because he had been in Germany and had supposedly brought home photo's.

Barack Hussein Obama's just lost credibility. So the press had to go into overdrive to fix their candidates problem. Within a couple of hours, the real story came out. His great uncle had actually been to another camp and did take part in the liberation of that camp, but it wasn't Auschwitz.

Here's the problem. Shouldn't Barack Hussein Obama have known as he was telling his story that something was wrong with it? Shouldn't have had known as soon as he started telling it that Auschwitz was actually liberated by the Russians? Any candidate for President of the United States should know that simple fact.

Since Obama's great uncle was so upset upon his return, and refused to go out of the house for six months, and this was enough of an important story for Obama to use, wouldn't you think that he'd get his facts straight. Especially such a simple fact that nearly any high school student should be able to get correct.

Another aspect is that if his great uncle was so upset about this, why would Obama bring it up? It's a personal story in his own family, and if it's true that his great uncle wouldn't talk about it, why would Obama talk about it for him? Even the press didn't talk to that uncle. They talked to another uncle, who is a brother to the one in question apparently because the great uncle involved still doesn't like to talk about it. Yet, Obama throws an incorrect story out there for his own benefit despite the privacy his great uncle prefers on that topic.

This reminds me of when he claimed his grandmother made racist statements when he was a boy and it made him cringe. His grandmother can be known as a racist, his great uncle described as needing mental health care. If it weren't for his facts being all wrong, I'd have to question if there is something genetic that should keep him from being President.

Obama and Clinton are the number one and number two liberals in the Senate. Both of them act like it. They promise all of this spending that they are going to do, in addition to surrendering to the terrorists and what they don't talk about is who is going to pay.

There is one answer to both questions. The American people will pay for their spending programs that they are promising and the American people will pay when the terrorists decide to strike us again after being emboldened by the liberals in their surrender.

If either one of these two are elected to the White House, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton will likely be two very happy former Presidents. Right now, it's a toss-up as to who is the worst President in history. A case can be made for both of them. If we elect Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, either one of them could give Clinton or Carter a run for their money at being the worst President in history.

Republicans run trying to emulate President Reagan (the best President of the 20th Century) while the Democrats trot out candidates to alleviate Former Presidents Carter and Clinton from being the worst President in history.

Unfortunately, this is the best the Democrats have to offer. Although, it's probably fortunate for McCain. I'm afraid he'll be the worst Republican to be President from the day he takes office.

I guess that says alot. I'm willing to vote for the worst Republican over the worst possible President we could have.

I welcome your opinions and comments.

Brett

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Where are the Republicans?

Not just where are the Republicans, but where are the Conservative Republicans? The liberals are talking about windfall profits taxes, bringing the troops home from Iraq immediately after the election, letting the Bush tax cuts expire if not repealing them immediately after the inauguration in January. What have the Republicans said about all of this? Zero, zip, nada. NOTHING.

Can you name the Republican National Committee Chairman? Can you name the leading the Republican in the House? The Senate? I would venture to say that not many can.

Finally!! A Republican stands up and calls the liberals to task. President George Bush, in and address to the Knesset in Israel said that Appeasement has failed throughout history and even gave the example of the Republican Senator from Idaho in 1939 saying that if only he could have spoken to Hitler before his march, it might have prevented it.

Do we need to be reminded of what terrorism has done in the past 16 15 years? The World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. There were no less than 7 other attacks on this country during the 90’s under President Clinton. What did Clinton do? He passed on the opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden. He passed on three opportunities to take bin Laden into custody. His final act was to do nothing after the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000 when they knew in early December who was responsible.

President George Bush was in office less than 8 months when we were attacked on September 11, 2001 and 3,000 American civilians were murdered. In less than 30 days, President Bush took the fight to them.

A year and a half later, after intelligence from several countries, including our own intelligence agencies, showing that Hussein was working towards weapons of mass destruction, he gave Hussein a time limit to give it up. When Hussein didn’t, Bush took the war to Iraq with the Senate’s and the House’s blessing. You can look up the resolutions voted for by the House and Senate authorizing war. It wasn’t just due to the intelligence on WMD’s.

We are now 8 months from President Bush’s final day in office and he stands up and talks about appeasement from the liberals. The liberals are up in arms. I have seen just one Republican (not counting Senator McCain) speak out about this statement. Senator John Kyle asked why the liberals are so upset about this statement when their names weren’t mentioned, leading him to believe that they must have taken this personally. His quote was “Me thinks thou doeth protest too much”.

The liberals are claiming that President Bush is politicizing the war on terror and that it’s beneath the dignity of the office. That he’s injecting himself into the presidential campaign. Yet, they don’t complain that Senator Durbin compared the troops to pol pot, the gulags and the nazi’s. Yet Hillary Clinton is upset that President Bush would dare compare a Democrat to the nazi’s.

Thank God President Bush has finally stood up for America. Unfortunately, the rest of the Republicans with the possible exception of Senator Kyle and Senator McCain, are sitting on their hands, offering nothing and giving absolutely no reason to vote for them like a scolded child placed in a corner for punishment.

It’s time the Republicans, ESPECIALLY the conservative Republicans get off their dead backsides and start standing up for their beliefs of lower taxes, less government, secure borders and the ending of illegal immigration as well as the deportation of those already here illegally.

They lost the election in 2006 not because of the Iraq war, but because they spent money like Democrats. They need to put it in writing and put their names big and bold next to their assertions and promises that they will not only address these issues but to bring them to a vote on the floor. They blew it in 2006 it’s up to them to correct their errant ways and they’d best start doing it loudly and clearly immediately. If they don’t get their priorities and principles in order and start showing it loud and often, they will be doomed to failure in the fall and that dooms this country to four years of higher taxes and more terrorism.

Cowardly acts, like pulling the troops out of Iraq without winning will only lead to more terrorist attacks on our soil. Remember, under President Bush, we have had ZERO attacks since September 11, 2001. This will end if the Coward Barack Obama is elected President. This will end if the Coward Hillary Clinton is elected President. We need the Republicans to start standing up and stating what they are for and proving to us that they are going to follow their conservative principles to avoid an all out war on terrorism in our own back yards.

I welcome your comments.

Brett

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

We are NOT in a recession

The news has been inundating us over the past couple of months that we're in a recession. They have claimed that because of the housing crisis the recession is on us. Well, the numbers came out on April 30. Once again, the news is wrong.

A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. In the fourth quarter of 2007 the economy grew at 0.6%. Since there was growth in the fourth quarter, we cannot officially be declared in a recession until at least June 30, 2008. If the growth rate had come in at a negative growth at the end of March (reported on April 30), we still can't be declared in a recession until the end of June, which would be reported in mid to late July.

However, the economic numbers came out on April 30 for the first quarter. Once again, the economy grew at 0.6%. Anemic? Yes. Slow? You betcha. But it's still GROWTH. So this now means that we cannot be officially declared in a recession until at least the end of September, reported in Mid to late October.

The news has cited as their main reason for declaring that this is a recession is that their polls say that people feel like they are in a recession. This report that came out in April should prove to you that reporting people's feelings is not the same as reporting the facts.

One of the first indicators that we're headed into a recession is the unemployment rate would jump. It hasn't. The unemployment rate did increase from 4.6% to 5.1% over a four month period, but that's not a significant jump. If we were to see unemployment jump to 6% in a two month period and then a little higher after that, it would be a good indication that things are getting worse. However, the unemployment rate just dropped to 5% in April. Another indicator is consumer confidence would drop. It did drop. Then it went up. Then it came down again. Then up again.

With the stimulus package that was passed and the checks having started going out this past week, I believe that the economy will get a needed boost. The question then becomes, will it be enough to boost the economy into performing well after all of the checks are distributed? Since these checks will be distributed over the next few months, it is unlikely that the economy will see a drastic downturn before spring of 2009.

It is interesting to note that these problems with the economy have come about since the election of 2006 which is when the Democrats took over Congress. It appears that since that election, people are more cautious with their hiring, their spending and their savings. We know from history that tax cuts stimulate growth in the economy and tax increases cause a constriction in the economy. Since we also know that Democrats look to raise taxes, it makes absolute sense to me that the slowdown in the economy has a direct correlation to the election of Democrats to the Congress in 2006.

Again, it comes down to the Ownership Society vs the Community Society. When people have their own money to make their own choices with, the economy thrives. When government confiscates more of that money and tells people how they must spend it, or spends it for them, the economy constricts.

We are facing massive tax increases on January 1, 2011. If the Bush tax cuts are not made permanent by then, the Democrats will have put a horrendous tax increase on us. Income, Capital Gains, dividend and death taxes will all increase substantially. I refer you to a previous blog on here that shows this in more detail.

The good news is that at the worst, the economy cannot be declared a recession until October of this year and that's not likely now.

I welcome your comments.

Brett