Why Obama and Democrats are wrong!

This is an old video but it is a great way to show why big government and socialistic principles are wrong.

How the Democrats Will Govern

Will the Democrats -- the President-elect and the House and Senate -- be liberal Ted Kennedy Democrats, or moderate Bill Clinton Democrats? That, it seems to me, is the main question.

I was no fan of Bill Clinton, but I was no great detractor of his, either; I think he was a smart guy and a pretty good President, especially when his private appetites didn't interfere with his public policy. He got welfare reform through, he was good on trade, and in general was pretty good as far as his domestic policy went. (In post-9/11 retrospect, we see the flaws in his foreign policy, but we see the same with regard to the pre-9/11 George W. Bush; both parties were no great shakes as to foreign policy in the immediately pre-9/11 era.) If the Obama Administration implements Clintonesque policies, I wouldn't be that worried. If it implements Ted-Kennedy-like policies, I would be worried.

Here's why I think the Clinton option is more likely: 1994, or to be precise the Democrats' awareness of 1994. Remember that in 1992, the Democratic Presidential candidate beat the Republican by 5.5%. (I realize Perot was something of a confounding factor, but it was clear this was a solid victory for the Democrats.) After the election, the Senate was 56-44 (without the shift in the Democrats' favor, but that shift had happened just a few years before). The House was 258-176 (with a slight shift against the Democrats, I realize), and a raw percentage of 49.9% to 44.8%. The Democrats were solidly in control, more or less to the same extent they are now. And then two years later, despite a good economy and no foreign policy problems, they lost both houses.

The Democrats, if they're politically savvy -- and I'm pretty sure they are -- realize that this could happen again in 2010. And this is especially so because of the extraordinarily high turnout this election: In 2010, many of the new voters from 2008 won't vote; it will be a midterm election, the charismatic Obama won't be on the ballot, and we'll be back to normal politics.

My sense is that the Democrats will govern with an eye towards that. Obviously, this gives an extra incentive to do things that are seen as helping the country as a whole, both in domestic and foreign policy. Nothing succeeds like success. If their policies are seen by the country as working, and as compatible with the values of the center as well as of the left, the Democrats will win in 2010 -- and they'll deserve to win.

But the prospect of the 2010 election, in front of a very different-looking electorate than the one that voted in 2008, also gives Democrats an incentive to be relatively moderate, and to avoid both risky gambles and political programs that are seen as benefiting the Democratic base (either materially or symbolically) at the expense of the center.

D.C. Education and Idiot Democrats

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) intends to terminate Washington, D.C.'s federal school voucher program, even though those vouchers are paid through a separate fund that takes no money at all from D.C.'s public schools (which already spend $10,000 more per pupil per year than the city's private schools). Del. Holmes Norton says the program undermines the public schools. Given that the program takes no money from the city's already bloated public schools, isn't it only "undermining" the public schools if D.C. parents choose not to send their kids to them? And if that's the case, isn't that an indication that they aren't happy with the schools' performance?

Oh, yeah!!!

Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight / Gonna grab some afternoon delight / My motto's always been, "When it's right, it's right" / Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night?

There are many words, but only one truth

Basically this is the mentality of Democrats. Take, for instance, good olde' Senator Joe Biden.

Speaking at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network event in New York, Biden said President Bush, Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove are responsible for what he called “the politics of polarization.”

Biden said Republicans have created an environment that brings bad things to the United States.

“I would argue, since 1994 with the Gingrich revolution, just take a look at Iraq, Venezuela, Katrina, what’s gone down at Virginia Tech, Darfur, Imus. Take a look. This didn’t happen accidentally, all these things,” he said.

I wonder, but highly doubt, if any conservative would list all the hardships that the nation went through during the 40 years prior to 1994 when Democrats largely controlled the federal government and blame liberals for those things.

Try running these comments by your friends on the left and I bet you'll be in for quite a surprise. Democrats are what they are because they cannot think rationally for themselves. That’s why they like loud, obnoxious mouthpieces like Rosie, Sharpton, Biden and on and on.

Maryland Democratic party Codemns Racial Attacks on Steele

State Democratic party Chairman Terry Liermann said in a statement that his party would not condone racial attacks on black Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (see link to Washington Post article). "The Maryland Democratic party condemns all words, images and acts that suggest or reflect bigotry and hatred," Lierman said. "Racism, discrimination and prejudice are the enemies of freedom and the antagonists to our diverse, democratic society."

I am glad to see Democratic outrage for these ugly racial attacks on a black person just because he holds a differening view point. I think blacks in the Democratic party should remember that the Emancipation Proclamation applied to their minds as well as their bodies.

California Democrats abusing eminent domain

California Democrats have used the Kelo ruling to make avaible property otherwise protected under the Constitution. For them, eminent domain has become a crucial, regrettably routine shortcut for "redeveloping" run-down areas, speeding up gentrification of hip neighborhoods, and otherwise doling out favors to anyone promising the sales tax revenue on which their municipal governments depends.

In May the Los Angeles City Council approved a $325 million project at the famous intersection of Hollywood and Vine, including a fancy new 296-room W Hotel. The project would displace, among others, the Bernard Luggage store, which has stuck by the neighborhood for 55 years. When it was approved, L.A.'s City New Service report, City Councilman Eric Garcetti "said the city would not use its powers of eminent domain to force property owners to sell, unless the developers were unable to reah a deal with the land owners."

In other words, the government won't take your property unless you refuse to sell. This Don Corleone style approach can be found all over California, especially in neighborhoods (such as Hollywood and Vine) that are no longer covered under any meaningful definition of the word blight. (State law establishes blight as the precondition for private-to-private eminent domain transfers.) The W Hotel isn't about to invest in Skid Row, but it sure does get annoyed when pesky luggage stores make it harder to tap into a resurgent neighborhood.

Ditto for a huge mixed retail project slated for downtown Alhambra, in East L.A. County, where tax-greedy local pols drool over the prospect of replicating the retail redevelopment nirvana of nearby Pasadena and are willing to label as "blighted" a whoping 60 businesses, including the Museum of Contemporary Arab Art. Blight has become such an elastic term of convenience that the sparsely populated California City, near Edwards Air Force Bae, has decleared "blighted" a patch of unused desert coveted by Hyundai.

The paradox is that eminent domain abuse is seared into the historical consciousness of Southern California's Democrat-leaning poor people. Dodger Stadium was infamously built on land stolen from thousands of working class Latino families, a vile act of property violence that has inspired a recent best-selling book, a popular local pla, a well-reviewed documentary, and a RY Cooder CD. In downtown L.A., multigeneration immigrant communites (and priceless Victorin homes) were leveled in the 1970s and 1980s to build sterile office tower for white-shoe law firms. The 105 and 10 freeways ripped ugly seams through poor black communites. Hollywood Star Lanes, the hardscrabble and locally revered bowling alley made famous in The Big Lebowski, was seized from it's original owners to build a mammoth school in a crappy neighborhood. And Indio, a city next to Palm Spring, razed an entire black neighborhood in 1993 to make way for a shopping mall expansion tht never took place. Obscenely, Indio officials are now trying to buy out two minority churches nearby to clear way for yet another promised extension.

Southern California has always been a political trendsetter, from property tax revolts to immigration crackdowns to the rejection of taxpayer financing for football stadiums. If the disconnect between its Democratic residents and politicians over eminent domain continues to widen, we an only hope another revolt is around the corner.

Did you know?

Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of two governors who have appeared as contestants on the Dating Game. The other is Jennifer Granholm of Michigan.

Cindy Sheehan

I understand too well living in Washington, DC the politics of bereavement. Back in 2002, the Democratic party used the death of Paul Wellstone as a political tool. They called on Republicans to not campaign until after the planned public memorial for Wellstone. However, the day of reverence turned into a poltical rally. Many people walked out and others complained. The election in Minnesota changed overnight and Norm Coleman would go on to defeat Walter F. Mondale.

Turning to a new form of bereavement we have Cindy Sheehan, who is protesting the war in Iraq by camping outside the President's home in Crawford, Texas. She is a mother of a fallen son in Iraq. She is also a liberal political activist with the backing of the most extreme groups on the left (two groups are MoveOn.org and Crawford Peace House, which is dedicated less to the opposition to the war in Iraq than to the belief that Isreal is the source of all evil).

Unlike others who have taken the death of a loved one and used it as a political tool, Sheehan's partisan fight has been revealed rather quickly. Many have began to question her, including family members, also bereaved, that denounced her performance, and other military families have come forward to declare she does not speak for them. Among them has been linda Ryan, whose son, Marine Corporal Marc T. Ryan, was killed in Iraq. "George Bush didn't kill [Cindy Sheehan's] son," she told the Gloucester County Times. "George Bush was my son's commander in chief. My son, Marc, totally believed in what he was doing. She's going about this not realizing how many people she's hurting. When she refers to anyone killed in Iraq, she's referring to my son. She doesn't have anything to say about what happened to my son."

The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is NOT absolute. Cindy Sheehan is only one of thousands of parents that have lost children all over the world. Does her voice rule over all others? Do we accept the moral authority of a pro-Bush mother of a dead Marine?

The problem is that there are so many people who have buried children, and so many more who have had children wounded, and so many more who have children in danger, that their poltical views cannot be uniform. What happens when the opinions behind which they put all of their moral authority collide? When parents and other family members of the dead and wounded disagree about politics, who gets custody of the moral authority? Is the moral authority of Cindy Sheehan compromised by the dissent of her husband, who is also a parent in agony?

Do not get me wrong, I am not trying to attack Sheehan to be mean. My point is to say to all those who take advantage of a death: You must cut this out! We are tired of having our emotions worked on and worked over; tired of the matched sets of dueling relatives, tired of all of these claims on our sympathy, that at the same time defy common sense. The heart breaks for everyone who lost relatives and friends on September 11, as it does for the relatives of the war dead and wounded, as it does for the family of Paul Wallstone. It does not break for MoveOn.org or Crawford Peace House, who have not been heartbroke, except by a string of election reverses, and are using the anguish of other poeple in an effort to turn them around.

Santorum under attack from Kennedy

Republican Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania has come under fire from Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. The attack was made as a result of a three year old column the Pennsylvania Republican wrote stating that the liberal culture had played a part in the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Santorum explained in his column:

"Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."

Senator Kennedy wants Santorum to apologize for these remarks.

I for one think Kennedy should apologize for being weak against the Soviet Union in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, but that is neither here nor there. Although I am for allowing personal freedom on many issues, the individual is still obligated to show restraint in his/her actions. One simply cannot run naked in a shopping mail yelling, "I am Hilter" and think you can get away with it. That action effects others. I believe that Santorum was touching on a matter that is politically heated. Both conservatives and liberals have battled in the ongoing cultural war well before Roe v. Wade.

The question is where do personal freedoms stop and community concerns start? It is not easy to answer. Taking parenting at its most basic level, the action in raising a child is very "conservative." A parent must limit a child's personal freedom. Although I am pained to admit this, years ago society aided parents in raising their children. At some point the rise of personal freedoms failed society. Now this might seem strange coming from a professed believer in "Free Minds and Free Markets," but for those who are libertarian in outlook will agree with free thinking comes a personal responsibility in the actions there upon made.

Like most libertarians, I believe in abortion rights but don't think that a little girl should be given the sole responsibility in making a life or death decision. First of all, she never should be in such a situation to choose between her future and her child's. In such a case, the parents and society failed her. I believe that Santorum was saying in the sex abuse scandal somewhere down the line society allowed such horrible actions to take place. This was not through a collective want to harm children, but through a lax sense of responsibility in the individual. Once more and more individuals decided feel no personally responsibility, society was forever weakened.

I admit that my values of personal freedom have harmed society because, as a collective unit, we are not managing that liberty of thought or action. Yet, I must profess in all modesty, personal freedom is still the best course for human interaction. Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, "libertarianism is the worst form of philosophical belief, with the exception of all others."

To summarize: 1) Kennedy is a jerk, 2) Santorum needs to think before he writes, 3) there needs to be balance between personal freedom and community welfare.

At least one Democrat learned something from the 2004 presidential race

When asked what he learned from the presidential contest Democratic vice-president candidate John Edwards said: "Don't listen to Mary Beth Cahill."

I love it. Finally a Democrat that is willing to break from the Kennedy wing of the party.

Guiliani and Clinton as 2008 presidential contenders?

In a recent poll both Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton were leading their respective parties in the 2008 presidential race. Neither to me is a very strong candidate. Speaking just in historical terms, no sitting senator has won the presidency since JFK in 1960. For Giuliani, can an ex-mayor really win the presidency? No past president has ever won from such a low office (the closest I can think of is William H. Harrison, who was a war hero with no political experience). Anyone with a political background had come either from the Senate (for example: B. Harrison, Harding and JFK), Vice-presidency (Adams, Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Arthur, T. Roosevelt, Taft, Coolidge, Truman, Johnson, Ford, and H. W. Bush), cabinet/minister (Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Buchanan, and Hoover), or governor position (Hayes, McKinley, Clinton, and W. Bush). In recent years, its the governor position that will take one to the White House.

Knowing this am I the only one that thinks Haley Barbour and Mark Warner might be the darkhorse candidates? Both are southern governors who are moderate socially and conservative fiscally. In addition, Barbour and Warner have the added advantage of knowing that the last two presidents have been southern governors. The south is a rising political force, not only because of its increased population but also the Republican dominance and hispanic vote. It only makes sense to find a candidate (esp. for the Democrats) that is from the south. Bush already had one of the biggest states in the Union (Texas) for his presidential run in 2000. In 1980, Reagan started with the powerhouse state of California. Clinton, in 1992, had ... uhhh ... Arkansas? Well, that might be the exception that the doesn't disprove the rule. At any rate, don't count out a southern governors.

Clinton and Gingrich Agree?

Has h-ll frozen over or do I sense a presidential run in the future for these two? By coming together on health care, Clinton and Gingrich serve their political futures well by showing themselves as political moderates.

Big problem. Neither is a political moderate!!! How dumb do they think the American people are? I really hate crap like this and I wonder why I dislike politicans when they run for office.

Good Job Goode and Pastor!!

Represenatives Virgil H. Goode (R-VA) and Ed Pastor (D-AZ) came in first and second respectively for member's allowance spending. They are each spending less than 60% of their allowance. For Goode that is roughly 686,000 out of 1,182,000 and for Pastor it is 748,000 out of 1,249,000. Good job fellows!!!

Now lets see if the top spenders, Barbara Cubin (R-WY) and Corrine Brown (D-FL), can learn some money management skills from Goode and Virgil.

Discloser Bill

I hope reports are true that Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) will introduce a bill requiring presidential administrations to disclose more information to the public. Although I don't know all of the bill's specifics, in principle, it could benefit both Congress and the American public. Let's wait and see what Waxman comes up with.