Democracy Corps runs a survey and finds that they are shocked at the results.

So what was the survey, you ask? Democracy Corp ran a survey asking Americans how they felt about American leadership with regard to National Security and world respect for the identity of the United States of America. What they found is that the majority of Americans feel that the world sees us worse today as compared to two years ago and that Republicans are awarded higher credit for National Security than both Obama and Democrats in Congress.

The devil is in the details. 51% of Americans surveyed said that “American standing” has dropped during the first 13 months of President Obama's administration. That is compared to 41% of Americans who say the opposite.

So who is Democracy Corps and are they promoting a particular political agenda? Wait for it.

According to the Washington Times reporting on the survey results, 50% of likely voters feel that Republicans would likely do a better job of providing National Security. Only 33% favored Democrats in the pole.

Nearly one year ago (May of 2009) just after the Presidential transition, the same poll showed that the American people felt Democrats were equally as capable as Republicans with regard to national defense. When asking questions like “Keeping American Safe” or “Ensuring a strong military” or “Making America Safer from nuclear threats” Democrats now trail Republicans at 13%, 31% and 11% respectively.

So now, you are thinking that numbers can be made to look favorable to whomever is pimping them, right? I would agree with you. What is interesting is that Democracy Corps was founded in 1999 as the result of a few people feeling outraged at the political partisanship of Congress when they impeached President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In 2000, Democracy Corp rallied the proverbial troops of voters when their preferred candidate, Al Gore, didn't get elected the next President of the United States. Said another way, this group isn't about to win any political conservatism awards.

And now they are reporting that America is disappointed in the Presidency of Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats. Why would that be? Well, it appears that today, the Democracy Corps is dedicated to what they would call “making the government of the United States more responsive to the American people.” They clearly take issue with the fact that the government doesn't appear to be listening to the people.

All of the poll on health care demonstrate the same exact outcome. The trend as it were, exclaims loudly that the American public don't feel the current administration nor Congress is listening, and they are being vocal.

There is plenty of advice the group gives to Democrats in Congress and the White House. They label that advise “Analysis.” But regardless of their politically aligned advice, the bottom line is: American's feel that we are less safe and the world has a lower opinion of America now than it did the day this administration took over Washington, DC.

Feel free to read more straight from the horses mouth:

http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2010/03/the-politics-of-national-security-a-wake-up-call/?section=Analysis

Health Insurance For Illegal Immigrants

Congress has made a lot of statements about Health Care Reform and specifically providing a public option. People who have read the bills proposed have shown serious concern about supporting a bill that funds a government run health insurance plan, especially a plan that can be utilized by people who are not here legally. Here is the idea...

In a nutshell, not everyone benefiting from the plan will be paying taxes. In fact, quite a few will not be paying taxes. So those who are paying taxes (that's you middle-class) will be financially backing this plan and so naturally you might prefer the the idea that IF you are going to pay then you would rather limit your financial investment to only paying for people who are currently citizens or who have undergone the complicated, lengthy and costly process of earning the right to be here legally. Now... I have lost most of your at this point! Most of you either don't want the public option (because it has almost nothing to do with reform in reality) or don't want a plan that pretends to save you money on health insurance only to crank the cost back up again through new taxes! I get you!!! But stay with me.

As a protective measure to at least mitigate some risk with regard to paying for illegal immigrant health care a number of senators have proposed passing an amendment to any health care bill that closes the illegal immigrant loophole. Well, as reasonable as that sounds, Dems won't have it.

"I would find it extremely difficult to vote for any measure that denies undocumented workers health care," said Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat. He said undocumented workers should be allowed access to insurance coverage provided that they get no tax assistance.

This sneaky little health care quote above is from the Washington Times newspaper. Breaking his verbiage down, this is what he means:

• I would find it extremely difficult to vote for any measure that denies undocumented workers health care: the missing word here is "coverage." Nobody is talking about denying health care. If someone gets sick in America and they are not FROM America, we do not refuse them health care. What we don't do is pay their bill... well, in some cases. To date, many hospitals have philanthropic arms that "forgive" medical bills for people. So, nobody is really talking about refusing health care to anyone. The Illinois Democrat is simply making an emotional appeal here. What he really means is that he WANTS to allow people who are living here illegally the ability to participate in the public health care insurance option.
  
  
• He said undocumented workers should be allowed access to insurance coverage provided that they get no tax assistance : This means that the illegal immigrant CAN take part and sign up for a public option. What he doesn't want to allow is the Federal Government cutting that illegal immigrant a "tax credit" check that further subsidizes that public health care option provided by the Federally Funded Health Insurance Plan!!!

You see there are two moving parts in this plan. First, the whole plan will be funded through taxation (now basically admitted when Congress asked state Governors to sign a letter that committed states to help fund the Congressional Health Care Scam.. I mean Plan.) Secondly, in addition to the existence of a Federally run Health Insurance public option plan they want to cut checks to people (also paid by you in taxation) in the form of a "tax credit" to make the plan more affordable.

Note that this week Republicans are also going to present a plan to help control the rising cost of Health Care. This is a very limited plan with a number of reforms (many in the legal realm) that would likely lower the cost of health care due to reduced number of fraudulent lawsuits which would in return likely reduce the number of unnecessary butt-covering procedures that doctors have learned to employ to simply reduce their legal exposure but that do not help the person who is undergoing the procedure or bearing the cost of that procedure. Keep an eye out for that proposal and read up on it. It actually works to achieve the initial goal of Health Care reform!

Health Care Reform Passing The Bill

So in a revelation shared by the Washington Times newspaper Congress has asked state Democrat Governors to sign a letter to Congress promising to locally fund the medicare portion of the health care bill.

Basically, Congress can't find a way to make their health care plan affordable so they are hiding cost at the state level. What does this mean to us?

Well, first off it means that Congress can't balance the cost of this program. Secondly, it means that your local state politicians will have to raise money to pay for these programs. Said another way, Congress is looking to find a way to semantically claim they have an affordable plan while pushing program taxation down to a state decision so that they don't get blamed for it.

What is the outcome of this? Well in the case of a number of state governors they are either refusing to sign the letter or are getting vocal about the Fed not printing more funny money to pay for these programs we cannot afford.

So, let's add up the score so far. Dems in Congress can't balance the cost of the plan. A number of Dems have gotten vocal about refusing to support a plan with a public option. Other Dems don't think the cost is something American can wisely invest in right now. So Congress reaches down to the state level in search of more support and more than 25% of those politically aligned Governors are vocal about the fiscally irresponsible budget-busting nature of the Congressional plan. In my score book the American's are still loosing the Congressional Health Care Reform game!

Virginia And New Jersey Go Conservative

Sending a significant and critical message to Washington, both Virginia and New Jersey selected conservative leadership in their Gubernatorial elections. With a year-long Federal power grab led by the current Presidential Administration, selecting conservative governors (important for a state so strategically located next to DC and huge for a state as historically liberal as New Jersey) means defending states rights against an out of control and out of touch Congress and White House.

Just two days ago President Obama called incumbent liberal Governor Jon Corzine a "key component" in his ability to keep his campaign promises. according to the Associated Press. Tonight, according to CNN's political ticker White House aides claim that President Obama isn't even watching those same "key" election results roll in.

I guess that means President Obama can't keep those campaign promises?

The Many Faces Of Health Care Reform

I can't keep up these days... and I am really trying. But the winds at the White House are changing so fast. or maybe they are not and it is just a tactic, I don't know. I hate to think the worst but when something totally stumps you, you have to look at the possible alternatives.

The big debate right now on Health Care Reform is "the public option" meaning government would provide a competitive alternative to current insurance plans. Many people fear that because the government will play the role of both "health care insurance company" as well as "health care insurance rules judge" that they will always beat out any competition. This will result in the government taking over health care both in terms of (1) health insurance and (2) health insurance regulation, but also in providing health care (because of new regulations on Doctors and the fact that they would then be paid by the government.)

The other side of the debate has everything to do with providing health care for uninsured people. Forget the fact that not everyone wants to buy insurance and that senior citizens would be forced into the government program (if they don't spend their money on a government-approved alternative.) The fact is that the other side of the debate is concerned with providing health care insurance to the currently uninsured. Whether they understand how this gets paid for or if millions of Americans flooding into that new solution creates health care rationing, just about anyone agrees with the altruistic goal of helping people. That isn't the debate. The problem is in the "how."

So, this blog post is not about the details of the plan. This post is about the mixed messages coming from the bills largest proponent, the President.

Over the weekend the Washington Times (and a number of other news groups) wrote that the White House communicated President Obama was not married to passing a Health Care Reform bill that contained a "public option." Since that time other Democrats went on the record saying that the Public Option didn't have enough Democrat support in the Congress to pass the reform bill and that we should move on to focus on "reform" and stop flogging that dead horse. The White House even did a little more face-saving by saying, ...We have been saying this for about two months now. Now, I thought I was paying attention and I don't recall them ever saying they were fine with supporting a bill that didn't include the "public option."

Next in the time line comes a letter from the Congressional Democrats sent to Obama asking, "What the? No Public Option?" This only just happened and was likely the result of so many Democrats hitting the road to pimp Health Care Reform including the public option and taking a beating in public forums.

Now, in today's Washington Times President Obama is said to be back in vocal support of the Public Option. The source: his letter back to Congressional Democrats. Obama basically writes back and says, wait a sec... I still want a public option and nothing has changed.

So how do we take this? Here are my alternative explanations for this kind of double-talk:

Semantical Accuracy: If you look at both sides of what President Obama is saying at the same time, then he is communicating... I want the public option just like you, Liberals, but I am not married to it and would sign health care reform bill into law without it, like you, Conservatives.

Liberal Bias: If you look at this as a liberal, then you think that the President saying he is fine without it but really wants it simply means that he wants people to cool their jets in opposition to it, while he gives a wink to the liberal folks and says, ...hey, keep pushing for it because we really still want it. At the same time liberal folks who have stuck their necks out and said stuff like health reform without a Public Option is a waste of time (Nanci Pelosi) are worried that Obama might be simply pandering to them if he is really willing to sign a Health Care Reform bill into law without it.

Conservative Bias: If you have your conservative hat on then while you thought that the President's wavering commitment to the Public Option felt like a move in the right direction, now you simply wonder if he was pandering to conservatives while still sending support to the senators who are hitting the road pimping the Public Option. The conservative mind feels worried that the President is pandering at best and lying at the worst if he isn't really willing to sign a bill into law without the Public Option.

At this point the double-talk only serves up one outcome for those who are paying attension: a loss of trust for somebody. If you are a liberal and you want him to simply be pandering to the conservatives but in the end he signs a bill into law that doesn't include the public option, well, then you lose trust. If you are conservative and he refuses to sign a bill without the public option, then he is a liar to you, and you lose trust. Someone loses trust as a result of this experiment in words.

There is one other reaction at this point that I can think of and it goes like this...

Fan-boy: The substance of the President's words matter less that your ability to spin them into unwavering support. One week ago you were championing along with the President for Health Care Reform that included the Public Option and this week (for at least a moment) you were celebrating the seemingly bi-partisan move to not be married to a bill that must contain the Public Option.

The problem with fan-boy is that the only guiding value in that scenario is unwavering support for the icon that is the President. If you were a proponent of the Public Option and looked at the details then you would likely have a very difficult time cooling your jets and suddenly be fine with not including it. If you opposed the bill then you understood the ideological, social and financial difference that the Public Option made and were not about to simply start endorsing it. If none of that mattered to you, then I have a difficult time imagining that you were paying attention, because one way or the other a decision in this category would end up shaping the lives of Americans. So the details matter.

Another $18 million down the drain

Recently I have read stories where we are being told that the economy is once again sound, but not quite back to where we would really like to see it. In other words, “Everybody relax, but not too much.” And why should we relax but not too much? Mostly because there is more fund raising to do. Current the Congressional Budget Office took a look at the recent government plans for health care and announced that it will now add yet another $1 trillion to our national deficit. This is on top of the few other trillions of dollars scheduled to be added onto the deficit since the conclusion of the 2008 election. It was at this time that now in an unprecedented reach-out to influence the Congressional Budget Office, the White House has invited the leadership of the CBO over for a private meeting. Hmmmm? If I am a betting man I would guess that the meeting might have to do with the unfavorable review of the financial outlook of the plan.

Back to the fund raising. While we should relax, one reason we shouldn't relax is because if we don't and health care keeps treading forward as it is today, then we are being told that we could be buried under the expenses of medicare and medicaid costs in future years. On that point alone we are told we should quickly approve this current government health care makeover plan. But, then again, these were the same people who told us to “act now” on the near trillion dollar bailout so that we can save jobs only to completely blow away their worst case scenario on national unemployment anyway (despite the fact that congress “act(ed) now!”) These were the same folks that admitted not long ago that the economy was worse off than they anticipated and that “they were wrong” about their understanding of it. Now we should relax, but not so much that we don't feel this new pressure to solve something else that they are likely wrong about as well.

And the newest, well, not so new fiasco has everything thing to so with how they intend to share information about all of the recovery dollars being spent. Recently Elijah Cummings, the Democrat from Maryland said “If we can't show them that we are doing the right thing with their money, we're going to have problems.” So how will they show us?

Check out the website... http://www.recovery.gov

This is a new website, but apparently it is not new enough. I know, the web moves quickly and this site has been up for what... a couple months now. That is like a century in internet years, right? We'll that is what the White House thinks. So, they recently awarded what will turn out to be an $18 million contract to a company called Smartronix from Maryland (isn't that convenient) that will... redesign the site? That's right. I know of a multimillion dollar company that revamped their entire e-commerce / website by simply putting a single company on less than $1 million annual retainer! They are doing fine! And yet for some reason Recovery.gov needs $18 million to pull this off? That is pretty amazing.

And here is the killer. What are they going to do for recovery.gov again. They are going to redesign the site. Let's take a look at their website.

Go check out... http://www.smartronix.com

Is this a web 2.0 demonstration of social interactive web technology? Does this group even advertise “website redesign” tallent in their top skillset? No!!!

And buckle up for the final note: How will this $18 million pay out? Over the next five years! Said another way, the White House would have us believe that the economy is sound, but could be doing better, so shift your focus to spending $1 trillion in deficit on national healthcare, but well, understand that we feel it is important to set into motion a 5 year plan on phase 2 of a website that explains how we are still recovering from this slump we recently shouldn't feel too bad about, but well, don't get too comfortable?

Are you feeling schizophrenic yet? Well, you should be feeling crazy. Because this current batch of politicians seem to be willing to say whatever the heck they want in completely contrary directions so people will do what they want them to do. What kind of suckers are we? What kind do they take us for?

If you watched TV tonight then at the minimum maybe you got a small feeling of levity when President Obama cracked a few jokes. He can be a very endearing and personable seeming fellow. I can honor that in the man. But it is time to get real people. He may be personally likable, but we don't have to like what he is doing with the other face he seems to have.

Leftist Ideological Spying

Just when you think you’ve heard it all. In the news at the moment is a recent revelation that Walter K. Myers, a State Department intelligence analyst, is defending himself in a court of law for spying, a.k.a. sharing intelligence secrets, for Cuba against the United States of America. As we know spying for Cuba means spying for the Soviet Union since they back the Cuban Government politically speaking.

So what is the key defense that Mr. Myers is using? Well, it has been reported that he has grown frustrated with U.S. Policies. What does that mean exactly? Well, he used to complain to his politically liberal neighbors who would agree with him about feeling appalled by “the Bush years.” This is crazy talk since G.W. Bush was only President for the last eight years in his 30 year spying spree. So what does that mean?

Probably no surprise to anyone at this point, Myers complained to his diary about “greedy oil companies”, inadequate healthcare and “complacency of the oppressed” in the United States. Does any of this sound at all familiar? Wow, that sounds like the Democrat Political platform… literally.

So what happened to Myer in the 1970s? He made a two week trip to Cuba where he was supposed to be making an academic trip as a part of a United Nations effort. Interesting. Once he arrived for this little United Nations trip he was met and led around by a Cuban Intelligence Officer. The story spins out into a series of moves where he was recruited and eventually joined the State Department Intelligence community explicitly to spy for Cuba. Myers says that his growing frustration on the above mentioned points culminated in his eventual inspiration for a new American revolution: Communism.

Let me say that again. His liberal ideals leading him to buy into the typical Democrat talking-points eventually brought him to the ideological conclusion that America needs a revolutionary move toward those ideals, and the government-type that most well embodied those ideals was… communism.

I am not remotely surprised that this definitive example of such an ideological connection now has a walking-talking face. The closer we get to over-simplified political arguments that demonize the concept of democracy, or free markets, or that value a social ideology over personal freedom, the easier it is to see how a country under pressure can move toward Marxist ideals. The biggest tell-tale in a move toward a Marxist ideal is when people who are already empowered to make a difference hand over their power to a leader that will now advocate for the general welfare for the betterment of all. Go back and read about the history of Russia, the communist revolution or the short book “Animal Farm.”

This is why it is so important that we don’t just look at where we are but where we have been and where we are going.

Bad Financial Advice (or bad advice, period)

It is a bit morbidly entertaining to watch someone in financial disarray give financial advice. Tell me you haven’t observed this! You likely have an uncle or friend of the family that is full of get rich quick schemes, ideas for making money if it weren’t for a distinct lack of financing, and on-demand (or without request) advice for the would-be investor or the financially troubled.

This character has even made its way into movies. You’ve seen it, right? The semi-crazy street vagrant dressed in rags carrying around a disconnected rotary dial red telephone yelling “Sell, sell!” into the handset.

The world is full of self-proclaimed experts and as a result it is always important to ask the right qualifying questions before even listening to advice to plague your mental process. Take for example, an old lost friend. He used to talk about money quite a bit. If you were to simply ask him if he was a business magnate or someone of just relative success he would be quick to tell you about the number of entrepreneurial businesses he was brought in to consult with on their way to the big-time. If you simply said, “Well, that works for me!” you wouldn’t ever hear the part of the story where nearly all of those businesses took his advice and are currently either in various stages of bankruptcy or in some cases the executives lost their right to be executives in any business ventures for nearly a decade as a result of them taking advice from him directly. Asking the right relevant questions is as important as getting purportedly good advice from “experts.” You can’t outsource your intelligence.

Such is the financial political world in the U.S. at the moment. If you are finding yourself affected at all by or thinking about the new national direction on issues like welfare, immigration, taxation, lending, regulation, government (deficit) spending, ecology, environmental laws and policies, housing market trends then you might want to ask yourself, “Where are we getting our advice on these new moves?” The answer is, well, no single source really. But what a reasonable person can do is look at parallels and say, “Are there states or governments that have already moved in the direction our nation is now headed in and what is the outcome of the progress they have made as a result?”

This is by all means not a foolproof technique in estimating the potential for success, even if it is how most of us make our daily decisions on a broad cross section of situations (i.e. we consult friends who have been through similar situations and learn from their missteps or successes.)

Our best parallel on nearly all of these socio-political fronts is both a U.S. state as well as the 9th largest economy in the world: California. Since the end of 2008 and in the beginning of 2009 California is, for lack of an actual legal ability to declare itself as such, bankrupt. States can’t declare bankruptcy, while local community governments and cities (more specifically) can do so, and in the case of California have (or in some cases nearly have if it weren’t for Federal bail-out.)

When you look at the policies in all of these categories it is no surprise that California runs a regular annual budget deficit of over $30 billion. It has falsely propped up its housing market. It has publically funded healthcare and lax boarders that allow illegal immigrants the benefits of legal immigrants and U.S. citizens. It has the highest personal income taxes in the country. It has the highest energy costs partially due to so called "green" legislation. It has the second highest unemployment rate in the nation (at 9.3%, and second only to DC which is nearly 10% unemployment.) It has completely over-leveraged its value against its lending power. It has been bailed out by the Federal Government and it has its hand out again!

Now, if you listen to the New York Times, they would have you believe that this is a shared story amongst Americans. Our American spirit should have us rally behind supporting a Federal bailout for California (as they ask for it again) because, well, this will likely be our states story too, right? Well, unless you are in New York City, that just isn’t true. And the runner-up for “in between a rock and a hard place” NYC is still only half as hard off as California. All of the states in between these two monolithically self-important socio-politically similar communities are not nearly in the same situation financially and otherwise. Oddly, if you go back as "far" as October of 2008 you can see Nancy Pelosi claim that bailouts are "bad policy" as she spoke out against it then and later wrote checks to NYC and now possibily against her own advice, to California. So why would we bail out these clear exceptions to the rule if the rule across the country doesn't trend into the toilet like these less-than-apologetic examples that spend and legislate themselves into a hole (and don't look like they are about to change that trend)?

The answer is simple, and you’ve likely heard this on TV: we can’t afford to let them fail. What you haven’t heard is the reasoning behind that statement. The can-do-people behind such statements need California to be a raging success because they epitomize the model implementation of their current nearly-manifest dream for the nation. If California can’t survive, and all of the states between California and DC are being turned into little Californias (politically and financially speaking through legislative action and spending) then naturally, California cannot be left to fail.

Maybe in this context, the New York Times would then be correct for once. If we all become little Californias, then maybe our states would all genuinely have a financial fate similar to the aforementioned. Then the Fed will swoop in and buy up the political landscape through the power of bailout funding that forces states to conform to the new political agenda.

In response to this unparalleled federal spending spree that attempts to change the socio-political momentum of the country through the power of financial leverage using these bad-example-communities, I have decided to start a mock campaign against this very obvious political movement called…

“Bailout BONANZA! America sells low.”

I am thinking about creating bumper-stickers.

On a more serious note, I think the solution could be a whole lot smarter. If we allowed for the creation of state to state lending where profitable states could provide contingent financing for less profitable states, then we sell out less and can skip the more costly middleman (the Federal Government, who would have to take money from the more profitable states anyway.) And contingencies could be established by the more profitable states, demanding that states requiring bailout take a few lessons on management from those more well-off states and set into motion plans that move them in the right direction. Now, mind you, my bias shows through in this statement, because the most profitable states across America are all fiscally and politically conservative states. At the same time, and with less bias, the upside is that funding would come from real sources and not the Fed which would either print more money lowing the value of the dollar or by just taking it from other states in the least efficient manner possible.

Spector Becomes A Democrat

Well, not really. Last year I was filming an election stop of John McCain when, for some reason, PA. Senator Spector stepped to the microphone (as a then-Republican) to endorse John McCain.

From a loud and excited audience, the crowd went silent for about 5 whole seconds. Then, with no hesitation the voices of the populous swelled with "Boo!"s and "No!"s inviting Spector off the stage.

Spector's record honestly does not represent the platform he was elected under, and I think this is what caused the reaction in the conservative audience I had the opportunity to observe. Based on this first hand experience and the recent events in the news, here is my best estimation of what went down behind the curtain:

Spector has publicly announced that part of the reason for his willingness to jump parties had to do with a desire to maintain his seat. The trouble with politics is that the party has to endorce you if you want to be a part of a party, at which point I am sure the endorcement came tied to his willingness to attend a few photo opportunities.

So, in my estimation, based on the fact that PA Republicans are just fine with seeing him go, it is too little too late to make his jump into a big ideological political party migration story. This is opportunistic politics as usual with a hand full of behind closed door handshaking as one could only imagine.

The Party Of No

It is time for a "political" reality check and they are accompanied by a few "scenarios" I would like to run past you. Give your most honest answer to the following questions:

1. Your kid just blew his allowance on candy, ate it all, got sick from it, and now has your checkbook. That kid is now saying that the only way to keep from getting more sick is to get a bit more of the "hair of the dog that bit him" and needs you to finance the next candy run. "Mom, I am sick! This is the recommendation from the person holding your checkbook! Are you really just going to do NOTHING!? I am sick and getting sicker... what is your ANSWER?" Yes or No. (Remember, your only option is Yes = more candy, or NO = be accused of doing nothing.)
   
   
2. Your neighbor drove home last night drunk... into the side of their house. Their entire home is now an uninhabitable portico. Give it a few more hours and the roof will cave in. The people in the next town think that the house looks horrible and that crappy drive-through home must be bringing down the value of your home. So here is the thing. Those folks from the next town over think that they should do something about this and so they grab your checkbook. The "thing" they do is tell you, "Hey, if we don't stabilize this house so that your reckless drunk-of-a-neighbor can keep living there then it won't bode well for you. This is the recommendation from the person holding your checkbook! Are you really just going to do NOTHING!? They are about to not be able to live in that house... what is your ANSWER?" Yes or No. (Remember, your only option is Yes = spend your hard earned money on refinancing your neighbors ability to continue living in that house regardless of their relationship to that property, how they got into it, or how they are taking care of business, or NO = be accused of doing nothing.)
   
   
3. You check your bank account only to find out that your spend-thrift spouse has slowly been bleeding dry your retirement on various pet projects that are all currently falling to pieces around you (sculptures in the back yard, half a hole dug for an in-ground pool, a few half-built guest houses designed for a couple visiting relatives now all semi-permanent homes to two dozen people you don't know demanding better room service.) You recall having "financial risk" conversations about this sort of thing previously, and you even wanted to set thresholds on those accounts but couldn't get your spouse to agree... now you know why. You confront your spouse, and that spouse simply yells at you saying "Well, your name is on the account too, YOU should have STOPPED ME! So really this is your fault! Moreover, we have half a pool here and people need their pillows fluffed, so I need you to go take out another mortgage on the house so we can finish this pool and buy bigger pillows! This is the recommendation from the person holding a copy of your checkbook! Are you really just going to do NOTHING!? This POOL AIN'T GONNA SWIM IN ITSELF HERE!!! ...what is your ANSWER?" Yes or No. (Remember, Yes = refinance your own home to save, stabilize and bring to fruition a number of projects that are full-on imploding in your own backyard, or No = be accused of doing nothing.)

My best guess is that even the most conservative or liberal individual can think of a dozen very reasonable alternatives to any of these crazy scenarios to make for a positive outcome. Being given no options where only agreeing makes you look reasonable and disagreeing makes you look like a jerk IS unreasonable. Did you enjoy being pigeonholed into simply agreeing with someone who was threatening to call you bad-names if you didn't? The fact is, it is tyranny to pretend like you are getting choices when you aren't.

When the Henry Ford was selling his Model T in the 1920s and was asked "What colors will it come in?" his reply was, "You can have any color you want, as long as that color is black." Well, this is the mantra of the Democrats in congress as well as our President at the moment. "You can have any change you want, as long as it's the change we are promoting," with the caveat, "and if you don't want our change, screw your alternatives, you are just the 'party of no' that's what you are."

If you are an American and you believe in democracy then you have to stand up to this tyrannical rediculum that is forcing their agenda without debate and calling anyone who opposes them bad-names, creating political commercials and smear campaigns to propagandize the masses! (and before you run out and blame Republicans for the defense-related political decisions of the post-9-11-era, go back and look at debates and voting records on those issues before your polarize your perspective. Things can change and should. But they should change because it is the change we want(sound familiar) and not because one group calls us names if we want to look at our options.)

Partisan Pandering

I hear a lot of debate over the Stimulus Bill and the first Federal Budge under the new Obama Presidency. Here is the consensus opinion (from conservatives and liberals)talking points that I am hearing:

• The government should be doing something.
  
  
• I am uneasy about the amount of money congress is talking about spending.
  

It seems that only the biggest "fanboys" on either side of the congressional carpet are completely and blindly agreeing with a hard-party-line perspective. For example, ultra-conservatives would rather the government simply slim down and spend less, while some would see room for a more Ronald Reagan type of approach. Equally as true, there are folks like Obama who believe that the only way to pass a stimulus bill is to pass a high-priced spending bill, while some Democrat senators are making public announcements about the risk of saddling future generations with insurmountable Federal debt.

In a related note, recently I had a conversation with some company leaders about "career development." A number of ideas came out with regard to (1) career pathing, (2) expanding the scope of employee empowerment, (3) personal continued education, etc. After a bit of talking some of those leaders shared the fact that they had not previously imagined "career development" equaling anything other than climbing a corporate ladder (i.e. giving title changes and matching raises.) While most people probably aren't loosing any sleep over the title of their job, they likely wouldn't be opposed to receiving a raise. At the same time, money is clearly not the only motivator. I think that the facts bare out the idea people want purpose, personal growth and measurable movement that feels like progress. Assuming that you can survive on your current salary, are you more likely switch jobs for a moderate raise or title change? Or could your current company retain your interest and commitment if they focused on mutually beneficial opportunities that help you grow professionally and help you see how you work has purpose and results in measurable success and progress? All things being equal, I think the later could well be described as "career development."

Likewise, right now President Obama is showing the limitation of his understanding of what a Federal Stimulus Bill could be:



I find the fanboy "right!" remark at the end entertaining. To be fair, I have no idea what she said next, but it is that kind of lack of deeper introspection that plagues the President and the Democrat-liberal congress right now. Rather than truly examine what is being said by either side in an open and free discussion, the alternatives are being blown off by simple name-calling them "old" or "tired." Let's look at another example:



By simply listening to this video it almost sounds like a cross-section of America is chiming in to support these seemingly profound statements about how this bold move by the President is new or fresh, while any alternative yet-to-be-debated-or-even-discussed is blown off as tired or worn out. But are all those whoops and hollers coming from a cross-section of American people, or is this video-op really just a planned event with a hand-picked crowd? The Democrats in Congress would have you believe that this President is the most honest we have seen in years (how often are you hearing that right now?) But I recall President Bush and his press secretaries allowing themselves to make announcements across the room from people who were willing to debate them on the spot. Let's hear another perspective about this speech you just heard:



So, how is this really newly bi-partisan or more honest? It seems to me that President Clinton and President Reagan were more bi-partisan. To me, the point is that it seems that President Obama is more interested in motivating people to action through social pressure, scare tactics and name-calling than he is through real political discourse. I've said it before and I will say it again. This is a sound-byte president. He buys Op-Ed space in news papers and gets TV time to spin significantly non-substantive statements that simply render a "yeah!" response rather than encouraging people to engage in the topic at hand.

In conclusion, I will offer a piece of advice to challenge the logic of the rhetoric coming from the current Presidency: If the statement can be applied to both parties, then it is not substantive but rhetoric. Take the idea that President Obama is explaining Republican talking points as "tired" or "worn out." He clearly described these perspectives as such to encourage the American people to reject those ideas simply because they are old long-held ideals of the Republican mindset. So here comes the test. Is what President Obama proposing with regard to spending a new Democrat approach? Or is he proposing the same old long-held ideals of the Democrat party? Likewise, could we not then call President Obama's approach "tired" and "worn out"? Should we then also just reject them, out of hand?

Or should we stop the rhetoric and demand that politicians begin to engage in a real discourse with each other and their constituency about how to expand the limited narrow-minded understanding of what a Stimulus Bill could be?

change.gov

Right now I am battling a horrible cold and so far it is winning. There is nothing worse than feeling like you might be over the hump, only to find out that maybe you are not.

I am somewhat equally concerned about something I've bumped into on the web today. Just when I thought we were past the election shennanigans, I am kinda thinking they are just starting. The example would be the "change.gov" site.

So far in the history of the web websites that end in ".gov" typically instill confidence in us. If we hand over our personal information, we expect that info to be respected and protected with the same standards as any other well protected government website. Now, I can't definitively confirm this, but with a few whois tricks, some static IP addressing pinging, I get the feeling that change.gov is not really a traditional government website. You might not care, until you realize that they are harvesting American individuals contact information via this site (i.e. in at least five different situations on this small site they ask you to hand over some personal information, like you name, address and phone number.) It seems that the sites are hosted on a combination of hardware that sits in Georgia and Colorado.

Here is another part that I find a bit questionable. In a recent political talk show hosted by Charlie Rose, they discussed the very savvy use of technology by the Obama campaign. The example they gave had to do with the use of text messaging. There was this moment when the Obama campaign said that they would announce his running mate via text message. All you had to do was submit your cell phone number to them to receive the announcement before the rest of press got the message. The goal here was to simply harvest cell phone numbers for the purpose of campaign marketing. It is reasonable for the campaign to gather those cell phone numbers and use them for the purpose of the campaign, including text messaging the running mate announcement, but I wonder if people truly understood how the campaign was (or still is) intending on using those cell phone numbers. Maybe some people don't care, but I would!? More importantly, change.gov is asking people to submit their information because the Obama / Biden administration transition team is hiring! i have no doubt that they are, but when you look at the information they are collecting, that is one sham of a form! I can only imagine the number of people who would want to submit their information, imagining that they will be selected to personally work with this new administration. Understand that the fineprint says that both the transition team and the administration will use your submitted contact information... yeah, I am sure they will. Who knows what for?

This is an incredibly blurry line between legitimate politics and campaign marketing that doesn't seem to know when to quit. I am in favor of the government wanting to team up with regular folks. I am not in favor of to 2012 Obama campaign reelection committee pretending to pimp jobs to America in an effort to primarily harvest contact information unwittingly.

(To read a few more articles on scrubbing on the change.gov site see http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2008/11/09/obamas-change-gov-site-undergoes-severe-scrubbing-40-hr-college-service- and http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/11/exclusive-obama-deletes-agenda-from-transition-web/)

Does Obama Denounce and Reject Farrikhan?

Honestly, so far I haven't been a fan of imagining that Obama really supports Farrakhan. I really have imagined that he is not in support of that dude. In fact, I think if he was really in support of Farrakhan it would be a game-changer for him. So I was thinking back to the Tim Russert challenge on this topic during the Obama / Hillary fight for the democrat nomination and how Obama said that he both "rejected" and "denounced" the support of Farrakhan. Naturally, I am crazy about researching this stuff and I wanted to be sure I have a clear understand.

Now, I want to be reasonable and imagine that Obama himself doesn't support him, based on his words. And I was able to quickly find his words. I also did some research to find out what Farrakhan really said about Obama and the fact is that he calls him the "Messiah", and specifically calls him "the stone that the builders rejected" and the "chief cornerstone" (both New Testament references to Jesus, basically calling Obama the second coming.) Farrakhan is mobilizing his followers to vote for Obama under this rhetoric. That is pretty scarry stuff. But in response to that Obama has said that he doesn't want nor has he solicited Farrakhan's support and more specifically he says that he rejects and denounces the things Farrakhan is saying.

To be fair and reasonable, I tend to believe that candidates do in fact believe the last thing they have said, but I temper my trust in that by examining what they said previously on the same issue. Now, I cannot find any previous statements about Farrakhan from Obama except for what he has said on this topic. It only seems at best that Obama moved from saying that his pastor's award to Farrakhan was for something specific and had nothing to do with anti-semetic statements, and then within a short period moved over to rejecting and denouncing. Some might look at that history and say that Obama minimized Farrakhan perspective and then later denounced it (showing yet another flip-flop once revealed.) At the minimum, it seems that Obama has never said anything directly supportive of Farrakhan. But really, that is not what this blog post is about.

I am writing this blog post because I have bumped into the same rhetorric of support for Obama despite various revelations of his contraditory opinions.

A few weeks ago I wrote about a conversation I had with a friend who felt that Obama isn't like McCain with regard to war and strategy, even though he is currently pandering toward McCain's perspective over the weeks gone bye. More importantly, he said that even though Obama sounds more and more like McCain, he is convinced Obama will end up being the Obama that he liked at some previous point during the campaign. he feels that the current tougher version of Obama is just pandering and that inevitably Obama will return to the version that my friend liked the most.

Jump over to the Chicago Sun-Times. With all of this rejecting and denouncing of Farrakhan, it seems like Obama is poised to lose the support of Farrakhan supporters. Surprisingly that is not the case. Why you might ask, like me? You would think that if Obama is seriously rejecting and denouncing Farrakhan then both Farrakhan and his supporters would be up in arms and definitely not supporting him. Check out this quote from Sun-Times Columnist Mary Mitchell.

"When Sen. Barack Obama "rejected" and "denounced" the support of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan during the MSNBC debate last week, it wasn't his finest hour.

Fortunately for Obama, most black people understand the game."

You can read the entire article here which communicates that while black people are upset at Obama for denouncing and rejecting Farrakhan, that the black population understand the game, implying that Obama must reject Farrakhan to get broader support, but black people really know that Obama is playing a game.

Now I am not agreeing or disagreeing with what she is saying. Rather I am surprised at this common dialog. The shocking piece of this would be that people can't seem to justify the contradictions of Obama. The harder part of the contradictions would be that they go against the fundamental reasons they were originally going to vote for Obama (e.g. His fight against warmongers, timelines for getting out of Iraq, being anti-nuclear power, various entitlement programs that have changed, etc.) So rather than continuing to support Obama's new platform, they, like the author above, have decided that Obama is just playing a game and he will return to an earlier version of himself once he is President.

This is the worst kind of politics and the emptiest hope of all. Here is the miracle of what seems to be Obama's political approach:

1. You say you believe in perspective "A"
2. As a result all perspective "A" voters come running to vote for you
3. Later you say you believe in perspective "B" but sell it as "A+amendment 1"
4. As a result all perspective "B" voters come running to vote for you. They doubt you ever really believed in perspective "A" -- you were only "pandering"
5. As a result all perspective "A" voters still vote for you and they doubt you every really believed in perspective "B" -- you were only "pandering"

The inevitable danger as a voter is... you really don't know who you are voting for. Is this candidate 1-version A or candidate 1-version B?

Frankly I am not sure how to figure this out, but I would rather the American people just demand that the candidates truly speak out a resoundingly consistent message without pandering.

Here is my new definition for pandering: Pandering is not telling the truth. It isn't a game. It isn't a half-truth. It is a lie, and we shouldn't send a signal that we will be OK with seeing them lie if it means they get to be president.

McCain connections versus Obama connections

I watched a couple videos that were sent to me about McCain associations with political "terrorists." As a voting American it warrents examination (especially if I am planning on voting for McCain.)

Having watched those videos and researched the players involved I think there are obvious factor that differentiate McCain’s associations in comparison to Obama's on these talking points. Let's examine them:

1. The Keeting 5: McCain had a connection to the group, but was quickly exonerated for having not actually participated in any poor behavior. It is worth note that other in the group were not exonerated. Only John Glenn (Democrat) and McCain (Republican) were said to have not done anything wrong (so you cannot say that Republicans let him off the hook since a Democrat and a Republican were said to be guiltless.) This happened in 1989. McCain still apologized to Americans for what that group had done. He didn’t take ownership, but he did verbalize sympathy for any harm that group caused.
   
2. His Attendance at the controversial meeting: In this case he was invited to speak but didn’t have a long time association with this group or specifically any tie directly to people who were a part of radical groups. In fact there is no ongoing connect for him with these groups.

So, in that sense he has been around people who have gotten into trouble, but in neither of these examples do we find him teemed up with these people in long-time relationships surrounding a direct connection to goofiness. We all know that politicians from Chicago will always win a contest on "number of objectionable associations through proximity." Obama's list is too long if we are simply going to mention who he sat next to at a meeting. In both of the above examples McCain was either completely peripheral or implicated but exonerated. This isn't quite the case with Obama. Now let's look at Obama:

1. Obama chaired on an “education” committee founded by Ayers that did all sort of goofy experimental education thing that resulted in the undermining of school leadership and the promotion of his campaign. Read the wall street journal expose:
   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212856075765367.html
2. The fundraiser meeting McCain attended was a one time thing in 1993 and hardly comparable to the decade or more that Obama has known Ayers and been involved in implementing his radical agenda (according to the Washington Post) / political fundraising. As well it is worth mentioning that the mention of the woman who shot the doctor was noted in a prayer and the Oregon Citizens Alliance is not known for radical involvement. It is simply a grass roots political group that is trying to get legislation passed. Unlike the Weathermen they aren’t responsible for blowing things up or hurting people or disrespecting property. To say they are simply because a woman was mentioned at a meeting in a prayer in 1993 is a huge exaggeration.

The associations on the McCain side are obvious but harmless at best. The Obama side is also obvious, but they are apples to oranges at best. You don’t go to prison or land on the FBI top-ten wanted list for attempting to pass controversial legislation. Give me a break.

NOTE: Ayers is not the only character of ill repute associated with Obama. Click to read more about Obama's poor judgments and associations.

An Appeal To The Left

I recently rote an email to someone who sent a letter to John McCain explaining his frustration over McCain's selection of Governor Palin. He replied with the typical banter one would expect to hear from someone who is supporting Obama.

I would say that in my short voting history I feel more educated on the history and plans of the Democrat and Republican candidates now as compared to any other election. Like nearly everyone else at first I went with my gut and conservative nature supporting McCain. But now, based on my research of the major issues of these candidates pasts (voting histories as well as experience), getting an understanding of their proposed presidential goals, as well as following the trending and life of their campaigns, I can now say with all confidence that John McCain seems both the most reasonable and experienced candidate.

When investing toward retirement you are always told to make measured investments that are a balanced mix of conservative low risk and higher yield, high risk. The reason they say this is because the conservative low risk base investment will help you ride the ups and downs of the inevitable high-risk losses that might occur. This is why so many are in a panic over the stock market right now. The risk was obviously too high for too many and now that it is crashing, reasonable people are weighing the fact that they put too much of their investment in the high-risk bucket. At this stage of our economy Obama's inexperience coupled with his list of inexperienced "change"equals high risk. I think that in better days we as a nation could throw more into a high-risk set of change goals, but what our nation needs is stability. I am not willing to play with those outcomes at this point. Having said that, change is inevitable, so I am speaking to the kind of change that Obama envisions. A simple example of this change would be the inevitable changing of the guard within the government financial leadership in a transition to an Obama administration. Market speculation is already saying that this transition equals risk and an inevitable downturn (again) of our markets. Forgetting lack of experience and character issues, we can't afford Obama on this issue alone.

Having shared there thoughts, here is the letter I gave to the person I mentioned above, in response to the letter he said he sent to McCain. please, consider the points in this letter as you think about the coming election:

I read your note and appreciate you putting thought into the letter, but my hope is that you gain a greater understanding of the actual voting history (in Illinois and Washington) of Obama before you actually vote. I understand that most folks feel strongly at this point about their candidate of choice, but it is never too late to examine the history and character of the candidates within the context of their campaign promises. For example, I think Obama gets a lot of credit for:

1. Obama wants to reform Washington.
2. Obama wants to implement power in Washington to the benefit of main street.
3. Obama wants to tax the the rich and give to the poor.
4. Obama wants to legislate medical benefits.
5. Obama will get us out of Iraq.
   

Things to consider when thinking about the above statements (item for item):

1. He and the 110th Congress were elected on the same campaign for change and reform (this is a redu of that same campaign.) The 110th Congress will go down in history as the "do nothing" Congress with a larger disapproval rating than President G.W. Bush. If we vote for this same campaign again and expect something different than the change Obama didn't ever try to do in the 110th Congress (he didn't lead a single effort for change in the 110th) then we end up being the fools. Fools, not because we didn't rightly want change. We would be fools for voting twice for a campaign that yielded nothing close to the promised result the first time.
2. Obama said this same thing in Illinois when he was elected. And people thought he was going to deliver good change to the benefit of the people on main street. As a result he gave millions of government dollars to the public sector to build "affordable housing" in Chicago. It sounds good if you don't examine the outcomes. The results were the largest slums in Chicago many of which are now condemned. Many of those slumlord are in the middle of lawsuits or in Prison. Some of the others are working for Obama's campaign. I can share the stories from the Chicago Tribune. There were other write-ups in the Boston Globe that followed the story from the main streets where this craziness happened all the way to re-employing those corrupt private sector real estate developers into seats in his campaign.
3. I think we all agree that we should be helping those who are less fortunate. I am not a fan of the concept of "redistribution of wealth." The most writing on the values of redistribution of wealth as a government concept are found in socialist manifestos, and unfortunately those examples didn't work out very well either. It seems that Americans are willing to help each other out each year by giving billions of dollars philanthropically. My concern with the sensibility of Obama's hopes is that if we leave it to the government to create new situations that care for our neighbors, then we won't do it ourselves. A study not to long ago showed that conservative people give more (financially and of themselves) than liberals. Why? The study asked why and it said that liberals feel that their taxes take care of philanthropy through entitlement programs. But even Obama admits those programs are failing. It just doesn't seem like "good" or "change" to take a failing program and throw more money at it. If he throws money at it like he did in Illinois, then those tax dollars will just go into the hands of federal slumlords rather than just the ones he previously knew in Illinois. Some people even think his law experience was good legal experience and philanthropic because it was a non-profit law firm he worked for (some don't even know about that.) The truth is that his firm was the group that got those slumlords the government dollars. As a lawyer he worked to get government funding for those slumlords and later those slumlords helped him get elected to the Illinois State senate. A number of them continue to work for his campaign today. I know we want change, bu I cannot believe this is the kind of change we want.
4. In the very early 1900s federal taxes were made into law by the 16th Amendment. Under President W. Wilson they were used to provided funding for World War I. Before 1913 the U.S. Congress tried to pass federal tax rulings a number of times, but it was always deemed unconstitutional. So Congress had to amend the constitution to make it possible. Jump forward about 100 years and now according to Senator Joe Biden, paying taxes is "our American duty" and "patriotic." Federal taxes are reaching deeper into our pockets compared to many other countries and compared to our rich American history. A UK Paper recently told of companies that were moving out of countries where the corporate taxes were incredibly high compared to other mature developed nations. America was very near the top of that list of nations with already high corporate taxes. Somehow over the last 100 years and our countries ability to forget the fate and facts that have befallen many a socialist governments across the planet, it makes no sense in any shape or form to grow a form of government using a form of taxation that only 100 years ago was considered unconstitutional by our legal system as well as Congress itself.
5. Obama talks a lot about getting out of Iraq. And I hear many, many people talk about "warmongers" and contrast Obama with those war-mongers. The problem is that Obama hasn't kept his plans and promises on any front of the Iraq war yet, and he is already talking about moving troops to other regions of the world. Obama is using the momentum of anger around Iraq to simply split hairs between him and McCain. Fundamentally Obama's plan now looks each day more and more like McCains plan. If you were to draw a diagram plotting Obama on the far left side of the "Iraq plan" and McCain on the far right side, what you would see is Obama progressively looking more and more like McCain every day.
   

In conclusion, in almost all of his plans outside of the plans that are traditionally held Democrat perspectives, Obama has shifted toward McCain along a diagrammatic scale and typically in response to either something McCain has said (as if Obama is learning how to be presidential from McCain while on the campaign trail) or due to some new revelation about some person in his life or campaign that is revealed as problematic or un-American (examples are: Robert Malley who has terrorist ties in the middle east, Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin who helps architect the deregulation of wall street, his pastor of 20 years and "spiritual mentor" Dr. Wright who has given awards to Farrakhan, Illinois slumlord Tony Rezko in prison for his real estate scandals and who helps Obama buy his personal home, Vallerie Jarret who is another Slumlord in Illinois and a part of Obama's campaign, Mr. Raines who was sought for advice by the Obama campaign and who is an ex-Fannie Mae CEO who was successfully sued for millions for financial fraud.

Again, I agree we need change. So, why not vote for McCain who has an actual track record of pursuing change regardless of what hot water he find himself in inside his own political party? Why not vote for McCain who has a 20+ year record of not pursuing pork-barrel spending (something Obama has only just recently decided he would be about for a few months after 4 years and nearly $1 billion in pork-barrel spending alone!) Imagine Palin presiding over Congress (despite what Biden says about the role of the Vice President, the Constitution says that the Vice President is the "President of the Senate": http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Vice_President.htm) Understand that Palin led her state into a momentum of change toward responsible spending and governance. Within the scope of Congress I have no doubt that she would lead our Congress toward the right spirit of change and into a fiscally responsible direction (more than anyone else.) Palin has proven experience and undeniable success in this area of governance and would be poised and emplowered by the Constitution to lead all 535 people in the U.S. Congress.

Example of Rhetoric Versus Evidence

In my heart I really don't think that people get the difference between rhetoric and evidence. Let me show an example.

I am having a conversation today with a Democrat that is personally involved in politics (and has been for a long time.) He is throwing around a lot of conclusions and when I ask him for some evidence so we can consider that evidence with him he replies...

"The reason we cannot vote for McCain is because it was their de-regulation in Congress that is making main street poorer and making Bush Republicans richer and we MUST NOT ALLOW THAT ANYMORE!"

He looks around the room with a smile, eyes chasing for support of this statement. I replied, "Well, that is a conclusion, but isn't evidence. It makes an assumption of evidence but it doesn't contain anything but a conclusion and an assumption. For example, evidence does tell us that the deregulation of wall street with regard to the mortgage crisis started with President Carter in a federal mandate to the banking industry to make mortgages more affordable. It was under the administration of Clinton that wall street was de-regulated so that banks could sell the interest from mortgage loans as if they were stocks, and it was a lack of voting for the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act co-authored by McCain that kept us in harms way since 2003. Those are published facts. Maybe there are more facts to be considered, but those are facts. From those facts we should be able to conclude that it isn't the fault of "Bush Republicans." Here are some additional facts. Under Clinton, guys like Rubin, Summers (co-authors of the deregulation) and Fannie Mae executive Reines have profited from that same deregulation. So clearly "Bush Republicans" weren't the only people getting richer. In fact Fannie Mae's second largest recipient of campaign contributions is Barack Obama, and Obama has in one way or the other asked for help or retained the help of these Democrats who de-regulated wall street, which means that Obama is interested in seeking the council of the architects of the deregulation and profiteering of wall street and the mortgage situation on main street. How does this support your view?"

All of this said, people are not willing to review or even tollerate the facts. They seem to rather want to fill their pockets with the rhetoric of generalized stereotypical blame that says that Republicans are bad for various reasons. It is evident to me that if Obama were to become president that this level of introspection (or lack thereof) would likely continue and blameshifting through stereotypes would continue. I would give anything for someone to review the facts as a Democrat and explain how their paradigm fits in with this history (either minimize it in a reasonable manner or produce facts that bring a more whole perspective.) Instead I am left hopeless, imagining that they would rather simply not really care about this stuff and ride their horse to the whitehouse in November.

To me, this sticking your head in the stand to a degree is starting to feel pretty un-American. Other folks I have worked with have brought up stuff they have heard about McCain or Palin and we are able to talk about their strengths and weaknesses (we did do that for a very long time where I work.) I am starting to feel like Obama folks would rather just vote him into office rather than look at the details. I would rather be brought evidence from Democrats and then we would all be forced to consider a more complete perspective rather than just reduce this whole thing to something less than reasonable.

Palin "will get back with you" while Obama will "learn about it"

Over the last weeks Katie Couric, in an interview with Governor Palin, exposed a gap in Palins understanding about the voting history of Presidential hopeful John McCain at which point she offered to get some understanding and get back with Katie on the facts. This seemed laughable to the press and became fodder for watercool talk everywhere about Palins apparent lack of intelligence.

A few blog entried ago I exposed the fact that the press gave Biden a pass on not wanting to sensor himself and being caught in gaffe-style statements while calling a similar attitude in McCain an unfair desire for a "double-standard." In fact, Biden asserted his opinion before McCain asserted his, yet McCain gets poor press because of it.

Well, it ends up Obama has had similar moments of not being familiar with issues. On the topic of funding for the Hartford facility Obama said,

"Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport."

So, in the case of Obama, saying the exact same thing back in May, he gets applause from those who are listening. Palin said it and gets handed her hat and declared unfit to run for Vice President (well, by the lemmings being told what to think.)

This is yet another great example of the rediculum coming from the Obama press machine. Some friends previously decided to call having a memory problem a "Palin-moment" but since Obama actually did this first back in May, I think it is more appropriate to give him the credit and start rightly calling it an "Obama-moment."

I will repeat my montra: Don't be a lemming. Stop repeating soundbytes.

News flash: Obama's history of associating with questionable figures is hitting the fan (again)! The best rebuttle he can come up with is to call it "mud-slinging." Rather than address his poor judgments and shady dealings or simply justify the people he has placed into high seats in his campaign from those shady dealings, he just blows them off and calls it "mud." As a thinking American, it is time for Obama to account for this stuff.

Biden and Obama on Gay Marriage

Biden said in the Vice Presidential debate that while he and Obama support benefits for gay couples, that “No. [Neither] Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that.”

Well, surprise. Ends up Obama does, or well, at least he did, or well, maybe he does... oh it is hard to understand and nail the man down exactly when he has a mastery of contorting his own words. Let's take a look at what he said back in 2004 in a letter exposed by the Windy City Media group:

"For the record, I opposed DOMA [ the Defense of Marriage Act ] in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying."

Wait. I thought Biden declared to the nation that neither he nor Obama support redefining what marriage means? And here he says the complete opposite. So the spin will be that he isn't going to redefine marriage, but then again he isn't going to support it either. This is an example of the quintessential politician.

Whether you are gay or straight there is no chance you can get a clear view of what Obama believes. From gay marriage to economics to war to diplomacy, Obama seems to be pandering in every direction.

I had a friend say to me that he believed McCain would do what he said he would do, but that he doesn't like McCain and while Obama is changing and shifting his beliefs, my friend believes Obama will inevitably return to the version of Obama that he liked the most.

That is the problem with a chameleon. If you say enough, and pander enough in every direction, eventually you connect with everybody. Then the trick is juggling those statements and various faces until the voting actually happens. But really, who is Obama? We ought to know by now.

Obama ends his letter to the LGBT community with, "If I am elected U.S. Senator, you can be confident that my colleagues in the Senate and the President will know my position." Here we are four years later and I don't think the Gay and lesbian community, the senate, the President, the American public or Vice Presidential runningmate Joe Biden are any closer to understanding his perspective.

Obama avoids making judgments or makes poor ones

(UPDATE: I have updated this blog post to included links to sources on most of this critical voter information, to help you with your political research.)

In the first presidential debate, Obama accused McCain of making poor judgments about Iraq, saying that he made the right ones. Unfortunately he is leaving out a few facts.

When Obama made statements about iraq in 2002, he wasn't in Congress... he was in Illinois. he also made those statements in a speech to unquestionably the most liberal audience / district in his campaigning area, hence nothing other than a liberal message could have been well received. how do we know this Obama judgement on Iraq is pandering? Well, mostly because in 2004 he told the ChicagoTribune that "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." and in 2006 he said, "I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of US intelligence. And for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices." What does this mean? It means that he is at best shooting from the hip, pandering, and then being revisionistic when momentum and new information benefits him.

So what of his other judgements? Let's take a look at his time as an Illinois State Senator.

Is Obama a brave soul that sticks to his position on the tough issues? Well, we know when we look at his constantly shifting positions on Middle East issues that he has a hard time knowing what we as a nation really need to do. EVERYONE AGREES that we don't want to be at or in war. Obama just can't seem figure out if Hillary was too weak on the issue (he said her timeline was too long) or if he should adopt more of her "weak" perspective now that he is the Democrat nomination for President (his plan now look more like hers than his.) He can't figure out if McCain is a warmonger who doesn't know how to do diplomacy, or if he is the warmonger who doesn't know how to do diplomacy rather than drop bombs (to chase terrorists) on Pakistan without their support.

Maybe we should break it down to something more simple. What if Obama is trying to look tough on crime, but doesn't want to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults for fear of offending some consituents? What should he do? I can only tell you what he did. He did the same thing that the 110th “do nothing” Congress did about wall street... he didn't vote. In fact, when the vote came around he voted “present” communicating, “Hey, I am hear, but I am politically scared to vote, so I won't.” What was the bill really about: It was about prosecuting 15+ year old kids who committed a crime with a firearm on or near school grounds. If it was the right thing to do, why didn't he vote for it? Likewise, if it was right to vote against it, then why didn't he? We will never know because he didn't have the courage to be counted either way.

Don't even get me started on the fact that Obama has given a horrible list of excuses why Obama was continually unwilling to support a bill in Illinois that would require doctors to give life-saving medical services to babies that survive an abortion. Google that one yourself... it is actually pretty sad stuff. Worse yet, again, after making a bunch of excuses why he wouldn't vote for it, he wasn't actually convicted enough to vote (again.)

Bill Burton, an Obama spokesperson, said of Obama, “No politically motivated attacks in the 11th hour of a closely contested campaign can erase a record of leadership and courage.” I agree. It is too bad for Obama that he doesn't actually have a track record like that. In fact Obama proved that he didn't have the courage to vote 130 times as a state senator in Illinois alone!

But what about other types of judgements? Surely, with an undebatable significant lack of experience, he would at least surround himself with the right people (I hear this all of the time as an excuse to forgive his lack of experience)? Well, let's meet some friends of Obama.

First there is Robert Malley (his father was associated with Arafat and the PLO.) Robert himself has written a number of articles and made statements that put him squarely in a position of weakening the American support of Israel through revisionist propoganda during the Clinton days and since. Even Clinton disagreed with Robert Malley's perspective on Israel killing peace talks between Palestine and Israel. At one point Arafat called Clinton to tell him he was a great man (after a peace talk.) Clinton replied to Arafat, “No, I'm not. On this i am a failure, and you made me a failure.” So Robert's dad would be a horrible choice but is Robert himself a horrible choice with a fairly horrible bias in the wrong direction. I mean, Obama had selected this guy to be on his foreign policy team. THEN Robert Malley admitted to The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, a terrorist organization. He claimed that he does peace talk work with them, but if you read his track-record on treating Israel like a whipping-boy and look at the politics of his father, it is obvious that his Hamas connection is questionable at best. The news came out about Robert Malley and suddenly now Obama fires him. What kind of judgment and leadership is this?

Biden has taken campaign contributions from credit company MBNA, consulting pay from them and has gotten one of his kids a job with them after graduation all while a senator participating in working on bills that gave benefits to the company. In addition and directly related to the current issues on wall street Obama is the second largest recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. If all we were talking about was Fannie Mae we would see enough lies coming from Obama to call him a liar and “scary.” (1) Again, he is in second place for receiving the most campaign contributions from FanMae and FredMac, second only to another Democrat, (2) He's had four years of a voting majority in Congress to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and hasn't done anything. In fact, if this was so important to him, why didn't he push to get the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act (bill co-sponsored by McCain) passed? Answer: because he is too busy letting the majority Democrats telling him how to vote (not a leader; he's a follower simply voting the Democrat party line), (3) his campaign DID INFACT pursue advice on mortgage and policy issues from Franklin Raines, the defunked CEO of Fannie Mae, who pulled down $90 million for five years of work at FanMae, later successfully sued for millions because he committed financial fraud to get bonuses. Now, all of this news hits the fan, the truth about Raines comes out, and Obama has once again bailed from the connection (seeing a pattern here? I think he imagines that if he gets exposed all he has to do is disassociated himself, and then we are supposed to forget his bad judgments.)

Consider that the deregulation of Wall street was architected in a large part by Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin, financial advisers in the Clinton administration, the deregulation signed by Clinton (let me say that again so it is clear - wall street was deregulated using a plan architected by and during the Clinton Democrat Administration.) So the big issue that Obama has with deregulation of wall street ENDS UP BEING a Clinton era result... but wait, there's more!? Those same guys (Rubin and Summers) right now continue to be financial advisers for Obama... Hmmm? So is this whole wall street thing really a Republican thing by people like John McCain as said by Obama to McCain in the first Presidential debate? Come on. Lies and more rhetoric. More revisions Obama, really? I am geting a little tired of it (as you can imagine.)

His pastor had some harsh stuff to say earlier this year consisting of a completely un-American sermon asking God to damn America (that is no joke. The sermon was called for his congregation to ask "God (to) Damn America"). Keeping things real, Obama attended his church for 20 years and called him his “spiritual advisor.” During that 20 years his church published a magazine titled “Trumpet Newsmagazine” where they gave the Dr. Jeremiah A Wright Jr Trumpeter Award to a man they said “truely epitomized greatness,” Louis Farrakhan. What? FARRAKHAN!? Farrakhan is an anti-semite and is full of hate-speak!!! So, staying true to form, when all of this comes into the light, what does he do? Obama suddenly withdraws himself from his spiritual leader of 20 years. Now, I don't think for a minute that Obama likely agreed with everything that Dr. Wright has said, but it is amazing to me the list of people by which Obama seems to surround himself. Is this good judgment?

Who else does Obama hang out with. Let's talk about radical William Ayers who's group (led by him in the 1960s, Ayers' Weathermen) took credit for bombings at the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol four decades ago. He, Obama, chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge co-founded by Ayers. Ah, but maybe that means he really doesn't know Ayers right? Wrong. Ayers threw him a “meet-the-candidate” party IN HIS HOME when he first ran for a political seat in the mid 1990s. Don't kid yourself. They are connected.

Let's make the count so far: Pandering over Iraq, dodging his senatorial responsibility to vote because the issues were tough (how presidential is that?), associated with some of the more scandelous part of the deregulation of wall street, selected someone connected with the Hamas terrorist organization to be a part of his campaign, personal friend to an American terrorist that bombed the U.S. Capitol. This should be enough for a reasonable person to say, "Who is this guy?" and some of you should be asking yourselves, "Why am I thinking of voting for this guy?" Maybe at this point you are still thinking that Obama himself is not corrupt or given to using his political authority in corrupt ways with personal relationships that affect the average mainstreet person in a negative way? Keep reading.

What about the current bailout plan in D.C? I think people are upset that this is happening, but feel like something needed to be done. At the same time there is a lot of talk about how that money might go to people on wall street and not help people on mainstreet. Obama banged on this drum, right? In fact Obama said it reminds him of the S&L bailout in the 1980s and claimed, “our economy went into a recession, and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill. Sound familiar?” How insightful of Obama. Typically I don't give him credit because I don't think he has much proven understanding or experience. In this case he does actually have some experience. Too bad it is on the wrong side (wait for it!) As a State Senator in Springfield, Illinois, he used his elected office and clout to help unscrupulous low-income slumlords like Tony Rezko get millions of dollars in state grants, that later turned into uninhabitable “projects.” When Obama was questioned about giving millions of tax dollars to these crooks who were claiming to solve housing issues on mainstreet, he said he believed in programs where public funds back private companies to develop housing.... what? Wait a minute? I thought privatization was evil according to Obama, and was going to fix this sort of thing? Worse yet, as president he is talking about building a fund that pushes more than half a billion tax payers dollars PER YEAR into the hands of guys like Tony Rezko who are going to continue to NOT build affordable (rather uninhabitable) housing for mainstreet. Wow, he doesn't know what he is doing, even after he does it!? How do I know this?

How do I know he hasn't learned anything from this? Well, because Valerie Jarrett the previous chief executive of Habitat Company (the group that managed Grove Parc, the worst of these uninhabitable housing “projects”) is a senior adviser to Obama and a part of his Finance committee. He wasn't kidding when he told the country that his lack of experience didn't matter. It appears that a lack of experience or even the wrong kind of experiences still seem to make for good qualifications to join his campaign in high seated places.

What about Allison Davis, fund raiser for Obama and a lead partner at his lawfirm in Illinois? Well, ends up she is not just a lawyer, she is a real estate developer as well, and was not only involved with Grove Parc but is the recipient of more Government money to rehabilitate her slumlord property where the plumbing was in such disrepair that raw human feces sludged it's way into her uninhabitable "mainstreet" apartments.

Who is Tony Rezko really, you ask? He is one of those other fundraisers for Obama. You see he knows people who like what Obama has to say (and are likely waiting to receive part of that cool half a billion a year grant for housing once he is elected) and so he raises money to get and keep him elected. Rezko has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama, and that money comes from guys like Cecil Butler, who controlled Lawndale Restoration, unquestionably one of THE largest government subsidized slumlord in Chicago. With no surprise the government (reminder: Obama = Illinois Government) had to eventually seize Lawndale Restoration when city inspectors found around 2000 code violations on his property. So pay these guys to build this crap, then take their campaign contributions, and then the taxpayers have to pay to seize the housing once it is uninhabitable. Nice Obama! Wow!

But don't forget about that darn Tony Rezko! I wonder what Tony would say about his connection to such slimy folks who were ready and did provide campaign funds for Obama? Well, the only way of knowing would require you to call up the prison where he now resides and see if you can get him on the phone to find out. Better yet, I wonder what Obama would say of his relationship to Rezko? Well, you would have to call Obama up in the house that Tony sold him. Ouch!

Updated: Let me make one more connection for you. I have heard a lot of people talking about how Obamas law experiences someone how pushes him over the top in terms of having special qualifications. Upon further investigation, the lawfirm we were led to believe was all non-profit nearly philanthropic in the end simply specialized in getting real estate grant contracts from the government for people like Tony Rezko. Are you putting it together? If this were a movie, his firm would have been the slimball lawyers working for the slumlords that didn't have the mainstreet folks best interests at heart. It is amazing how in the face of these undeniable facts about corruption, that Obama comes away unscathed by the press. It might be one thing if he was out there trying to fix the messes of these people. Instead, he financed them, and they threw parties for him and gave him money! Enough is enough!

To read more about the validity of this Obama / Rezko fiacso read these:

• Rezko and Obama facts from Chicago Sun Times
• The whole scandal in the most complete write-up in the Boston Globe with a detailed breakdown showing all of the associations between Obama, his campaign and the continued connections to this fiasco.
  

Palin Record on Reform (an example)

In the case that you missed it, this article outlines Palin's efforts to inspire and enact reform on key issues in Alaska.

Wallstreet Journal reports on Palin and Oil Reform for Alaska

I have noticed that in interviews with Katie C. of CBS she is working hard to confound and confuse Federal political outsider Vice Presidential candidate, Governor Palin, by asking her to answer questions as if an insider on topics that no other candidate is being ask to bring answers to (compare the kinds of questions Katie brought to Gov. Palin and compare that question list with the questions and compliments Katie brought to her interview with Sen. Biden... oh wait, you didn't even know about that fluffy pup-piece interview with Democrat Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Biden?) There will obviously be downsides to employing federal outsiders, but between her experiences in achieving reform, working with industries and other political leaders, I would rather see this outside become VP and do what she says, rather than have a president that says one thing and does another (an unchasable ubber-list of flipflops and political reinventions of his own political agenda by shifty re-word-smithing of his goals.)

Side-note:

Recently, a few new friends confided in me that they considered McCain to be truthful about what he wanted to do for the nation, but they didn't like what he wants to do so they are not voting for him. On the flipside, they said that the more recent military / economic flipflopping of Obama was likely Obama just "pandering" to look "tough" and they believe he will go back and do what he said at the beginning, so they will vote for him. When I showed them some new facts that outlined Obamas involvement with receiving benefits and seek advice from folks who are under investigation and have been conficted of shifty dealings (not unlike Enron) with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I was told that they were "all politicians and all liar." When I asked if they thought the press was being biased when they were reporting badly on McCain but not reporting on shifty Obama facts, they replied that the sentiment in the country is very anti-Bush and so it is understandable that they would want to get people to vote on a candidate that doesn't like Bush.

On the first point, I think that I can respect the notion that people might not want to vote for McCain because they don't agree with him. I don't know why they don't agree with him, but if they don't like what he stands for, I can at least see their reasoning behind not wanting to support him. Seems pretty straight forward to me. What I don't understand is why McCain and Palin are getting sifted like sand and Obama and Biden get a pass, no matter the public opinion of President Bush. Anything less than even-handedness is bias, in my opinion. If they are suppressing the Obama / Biden stories by not reporting them then they are influencing through omission.

A perfect example of this would be two interviews that Katie Curric Recently did with (1) Senator Biden and later with (2) McCain and Palin.

Check this out: Video of Katie, McCain and Palin on the issue of the press non-contextually parsing and nitpicking over words, calling it "Gotcha Journalism".

Later CBS News published an article asking if "Gotcha Journalism" was just Republican candidates wanting a double-standard.

Now, check this out: Video of Katie and Biden talking about Biden not wanting to be held to the same standard of contextually parsing and nitpicking over his words ( same as Gotcha Journalism, but without calling it Gotcha Journalism.) (it starts about one minute into the interview)

No difference! Same issue! CBS had interviewed Biden a week before they interviewed McCain and Palin. Why didn't they object to what Biden suggested in the form of an article a week earlier?

The timeline goes like this:

1. Katie Couric interviews Biden who says people (Republicans) shouldn't nitpick his words. He claims that he isn't going to parse his words or censor himself. -9/21/2008
2. (No articles from CBS News claiming that this is a ploy for a double-standard.)
3. Katie Couric interviews McCain and Palin claiming that Palins statement about not letting Al Qaeda get a foothold in Pakistan is as much a military statement in poor diplomatic form as Obama saying that he would drop bombs on Pakistan to attack Al Qaeda with or without the support of Pakistan. McCain said in reply that you don't say stuff like that and that these soundbyte grabs where there are issues with non-contextual parsing of words is in fact a lower form of journalism he is calling "Gotcha Journalism." Note that Palin's words said nothing about doing such a thing with or without the support of Pakistan like what was said by Obama. - 9/29/2008
   
4. NOW CBS News suddenly calls this non-contextual nitpicking a plee for a double-standard by publishing an article accusing the McCain campaign of nitpicking over Senator Biden's claim that the Obama camp doesn't support "clean coal technology." - 9/29/2008
   

Obviously, outside of the issues, this non-contextual nitpicking needs to stop. If Biden was nitpicked on a policy statement in a non-contextual manner, then that is wrong. If Palin was, it was wrong too. Anything else is in fact CBS wielding the news with a double-standard. Consider the facts of the issue now. Which looks like nitpicking to you?

• Palin says she would definitely support cross-border attacks on Al Qaeda in Pakistan (CBS news leaves out that she said nothing about having or not having the support of Pakistan... this is called a lack of context, in my mind, and was in fact the very point McCain was making when he took exception with Obama's "with or without" the support of Pakistan statement.)
• Biden was questioned on video, asking if he supported clean coal technology and he said that they did not support clean coal technology (do we know the rest of that context? How is this non-contextual nitpicking?)

Final thought:

Even if I were to assume that Palin was making a naive statement about cross-border attacks on a country without the support of that country, the one common denominator between what she said and what Obama said is one thing: limited experience. At best, if the first were true, then the second is that much more true. The facts seem to be, however, it is a stretch to say that she said that. How do we know it is a stretch? Because even the CBS news article has to conceed that at best the similarity between what Palin said and what Obama said requires deduction, interpretation and inference stating that it was "implied."

Finally, during the coming Vice Presidential debate tonight I would like to hear what Palin and Biden think for themselves. I am less interested in what these candidates think of their running mates platform or more importantly what details they can recall on demand by the interviewer. What I would like to see happen is an honest set of questions about the key issues in America and what these candidates would personally want to see happen as a result of being elected. They were both just selected to be running mates and I expect them to be filled with personal opinions but possibly still working to find their place within the priorities of the inside view of their respective campaigns. In my opinion, this is why Biden said he didn't support "clean coal technology." He may not personally support it. My guess would be that he would be compatible with what Palin recently said about her views, that she is willing to share her views and perspective, even if that perspective ended up not being the goals of that administration. I think Biden will not agree with Obama on all points, but he will likely let Obamas goals run the administration be it elected in November. Having said that, I still want to hear what they think.