Democrats

Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

heading toward the cliff

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is willing to sacrifice the political futures of her fellow House Democrats in order to get the health care bill passed.  That’s generous of her, and the Republicans will absolutely accept that result.  I just wonder how many left-leaning true believers are left in the Democratic Congress.  The answer to that question will determine the future of this health care bill.   Sure, there are a few like Nancy Pelosi who would sacrifice the rest of their political life to get this country-changing reform passed.  But I’m willing to bet that at the core, most Washington politicos value self-preservation over ideology.  They have seen the writing on the wall with the recent Republican victories and are considering future votes more carefully than they would otherwise.

Most Democrats will choose their jobs over following the Speaker over the political cliff.  That’s my prediction.

Even though our side seems to be winning the argument on health care reform, there’s still no reason to be overconfident.   There is still work to be done, and when the current legislation goes down in flames, we need to be ready to take advantage of that failure with our own vision and solutions.

Posted on Democrats, George W. Bush, Iraq, Liberals

not likely

Our lovable Vice President Joe Biden talking to Larry King:

I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.

I spent — I’ve been there 17 times now. I go about every two months — three months. I know every one of the major players in all of the segments of that society. It’s impressed me. I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.

I’m obviously blinded by my anti-Obama bias, because it’s not clear to me how this administration gets credit for Iraq.

I would say that the credit for that should go to President Bush, just like the credit / blame for deficits, the stimulus, the bailouts,  and every struggle that our new President has to deal with right now.   Didn’t President Obama run for president as an anti-war candidate?  Why yes.  Didn’t VP Biden propose that Iraq be divided up into three partitions to keep the peace there? Yes again. It takes an incredible amount of nerve for this administration to attempt this argument when President Obama has opposed the war from the beginning.   But it could just be VP Biden talking out of school, as he is often prone to do…

Fair is fair.  If everything previous to the Obama administration is Bush’s fault (and Iraq is part of that), then any success there should be credited not to President Obama, but to his predecessor.

Now, that said — if Iraq becomes a stable ally to the United States, and a useful partner in that dangerous region of the world, ultimately I don’t care who gets the credit.   The end game is far more important to me than political points for Republicans or Democrats.

Posted on Democrats, George W. Bush, Liberals

well…yeah

What Alan Bock said in the OC Register:

It’s not that there isn’t a good deal of truth in such criticisms of the ways of a “Washington” he invoked more as an epithet than a place. But at what point does a president of the United States take responsibility for his part in feeding the atmosphere of distrust?

Barack Obama has been president for a little more than a year, during which time his party has had a theoretically filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (a rare occurrence) and a substantial majority in the House. During that time he has engaged in a goodly share of partisan sniping while making only empty gestures toward the will-o-the-wisp of bipartisan cooperation. He’s the ultimate insider. Yet he took no responsibility for the poisonous atmosphere in Washington, trying to make believe that he is still quite above it all.

Yep.  You can only convincingly run against Washington when you aren’t part of its culture of failure.  That’s part of the reason for Scott Brown’s success in Massachusetts.  At some point  — and God only knows when this will happen — the statute of limitations on blaming Bush will run out and President Obama will have to take responsibility for his own actions.  Until then, we all must suffer through complex explanations of why the consequences of Democrat / Obama policies are all Bush’s fault.  Yay.

It’s going to be a very long three years…

Posted on Democrats, Liberals, Republicans, War on Terror

that’s a scary proposition

CBS newsman Bob Schieffer says that “Real security is built on trust in the government.”  He actually wrote that!  Read it here.

Trust in the government.  That’s a scary proposition if you really think about it.  The more bureaucracy you add to deal with a potential crisis, the more likely it is that the potential crisis becomes an actual crisis.  I get the point Schieffer was making about spin and how the feds should be honest with us when addressing terror-related events, but you can’t just depend on the government to protect you in these kinds of situations.  The flight crew and a brave passenger saved the day on Christmas Day.  Not the TSA or DHS.

Everything the federal government can and should do to improve our domestic security will not completely protect us from a future terrorist attack.  If we are completely committed to telling the truth to the American people, we should start by admitting this.

Posted on Democrats, Liberals

jumping off the bandwagon

President Obama is in big trouble.  He’s lost Maureen Dowd over his response to the recent failed terrorist attack.

While this growing skepticism by the mainstream media and a few responsible libs is welcome, it might have been helpful to have some of that during the 2008 election.  No matter which candidate won this election, we still would have had the same struggles with domestic security as long as we continue on the current failed path.  So it’s way past time to rethink our current strategy.

Posted on Democrats, Liberals, War on Terror

rules and other stupid things

Some new failed jihadist won’t be seeing his 72 virgins. 

Not yet anyway.  How fortunate those people on that Northwest flight are that the guy didn’t quite have the procedure down for detonating the explosive and that their fellow passengers and airline crew members took the initiative to deal with the threat.   This won’t always be the case.   Someday the United States may have to deal with a terrorist who knows exactly what he or she is doing, and has a foolproof plan to finish off the attack and to cause massive destruction in this country.   When we are confronted with a legitimate threat to the safety of our nation,  what will the federal government do about it?  There’s this theory going around that we can prevent future terrorist attacks by setting all sorts of limits on the innocent passengers just trying to get from point A to point B on an airplane.   Brilliant idea.  After all,  wannabe terrorists  / jihadists will follow all these rules too, won’t they? What lunacy is this?  We won’t prevent future terrorist attacks this way, and in the process of  “doing something” about the obvious problem, the feds might end up making us less safe by restricting our ability to protect ourselves in the event that someone slips by those watchful TSA agents.

One thing we can do that we are not doing is to be more selective about who gets visas into this country.  DHS should also consider keeping an eye on those folks once they get here, and kick them out once their visas expire.  I don’t think the federal government has a clue how to handle domestic terrorist threats, and this was true before President Obama arrived in Washington.   DHS is a flawed idea to begin with, and I often wonder if we would be safer leaving the security of the homeland in the hands of the FBI, rather than a large collection of bureaucrats.  We are where we are, so let’s take the situation as it is.   Enforcing current laws would go a long way toward keeping our country safe.  This also goes for illegal aliens of the non-Muslim variety that we have been ignoring for years under many different Presidential administrations.

Make it harder for potential terrorists by improving our intelligence gathering and enforcing current laws and visa restrictions.   Don’t keep imposing silly restrictions on airline passengers that do nothing to improve our chances of surviving a plane ride.  It’s common sense, something a lot of the fellows and ladies in DC seem to lack these days.

I agree with Hitch.  Read what he said in Slate.

Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

flawed concept

Reason’s Jacob Sullum says there should be no fundamental right to health care.

A right to health care thus requires the government to infringe on people’s liberty rights by commandeering their talents, labor, and earnings. And since new subsidies will only exacerbate the disconnect between payment and consumption that drives health care inflation, such interference is bound to increase as the government struggles to control ever-escalating spending. Rising costs will also encourage the government to repeatedly redefine the right to health care, deciding exactly which treatments it includes.

Enforcing this right demands an involuntary contribution from all taxpayers.   Once it is decided by our Congress that health care coverage is mandated for all of us and primarily funded by tax dollars,  then we are in danger of losing more than the ability to buy private health care coverage.  I used to think that the relationship between liberty and the health care debate was tenuous at best,  but it’s becoming clear to me how wrong I was about that.   Expanding the reach of government into health care beyond its current bureaucratic regulations and restrictions is something we need to consider carefully before going forward with such plans.   While I’m proposing all these radical things, how ’bout one more – if we are going to copy another country’s health care system, we might want to copy one that actually does what President Obama promised with expanding choices and competition for the health care consumer, and take steps to make health care more affordable for every American.   That’s not what the Senate and House are doing with their proposed health care legislation.  We need to start over from scratch and try again if we want a health care bill that is truly worthy of the claim of  “health care reform”. 

Read Sullum’s entire argument here.

Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

lighten up scrooge

Now for something a little different and somewhat holiday-themed…

Eventually it would come to this – someone is compelled to attack the lifestyle and behavior of  Santa Claus.   Honestly, there’s just no good excuse for that.

Some “public health expert” in Australia says that Santa is a bad example for children.  The charges against St. Nick include encouraging obesity and drinking alcohol while steering his sleigh through the wide-open sky, where he is endangering no one but himself and the reindeer.  Seriously, dude, if you want to bring a more significant complaint, you might point out the greed it produces in otherwise sweet little children who produce gigantic lists of very expensive gifts which they fully expect to get on December 25th.   And God bless the parents who try to keep up with those expectations out of their own finite pockets, because there will never be enough money to cover that wish list.  This reminds me of a certain group of Americans who expect their fellow citizens to completely finance their health care bills…and believe that the federal government has an endless pot of money to meet their every need.

At some point, there needs to be a reality check for the little kiddies as well as the uninformed chuckleheads in the citizenry of this country  — the money has run out.  The credit cards are maxed.   Time to cut the spending.

Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble – but Santa Claus is totally fictional.  Focusing on his perceived sins is amusing, but unnecessary.  On the other hand, the financial damage this proposed health care “reform” will cause in this country, is quite real — and yet some Americans refuse to wake up to the truth that the federal government doesn’t have the money to do what our Congress has promised us it would do.

Posted on Democrats, George W. Bush, Liberals

grading on a curve

We certainly can’t say that the President of the United States lacks self-confidence. When asked to grade his performance as President, he gave himself a B+.  Can’t imagine what kind of curve he was using to come up with that grade.   Obviously our citizen king knows better than we do about, well, everything, so his falling ratings have nothing to do with the great job he’s doing.  Got that, fellow citizens?  Also, he has the hardest Presidential job ever of any administration, because President Obama had to follow the flawed administration of George W. Bush.  There’s no question that President Obama has faced tough challenges, but his reaction to them hasn’t even been close to getting these problems fixed.

Forget about grades.  Let’s talk about objectives.

“You don’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.” – P.J. O’Rourke

How about fixing the economy?  One way to help with that is to support American businesses by creating conditions that allow American businesses to succeed, prosper, and add critical new jobs for the American people.   What has he done about that?  Nothing.  The stimulus has not gotten the job done, and besides that, I think Bush deserves most of the blame / credit for the end results of the current stimulus package.  Instead of rolling back the Bush spending, and spending less taxpayer money, the Obama administration is spending MORE.  Odd way to prove your differences from the previous President.  While President Bush wasn’t exactly known for his fiscal discipline (which I have pointed out on numerous occasions – look it up), President Obama also knows that there is no money for all of these ambitious programs he plans to implement.  There is no money for health care “reform” as he would like to see it, or for the greenies’ fave – cap and trade.  You don’t fix an economy by raising taxes on the few productive taxpayers who still have jobs and the employers who supply these jobs.  That’s what this administration has in mind.   The common phrase we most hear is “taxing the rich”.  Well, who exactly is rich?  Eventually, the answer will be YOU.

FIXING THE ECONOMY SHOULD BE THE MOST IMPORTANT PRIORITY OF THIS ADMINISTRATION.  IT IS NOT.

But maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe the reason President Obama was elected had more to do with his foreign policy views than with his ambitious domestic agenda.  Let’s see how he’s progressing with the kinder, gentler America through non-cowboy diplomacy, shall we?

The desirable objective is for our allies to be able to trust us and for our enemies (rogue states, terrorist sympathizers, and similar other bad actors) to fear and respect us.  I don’t think this is the perspective of our current President.  He doesn’t seem to make the distinction between countries who can be legitimate partners in our struggle against the jihadists, and countries who need to be controlled in their quest for world domination through nuclear power.  Without any sticks in sight, the bad actors will continue to be bad actors, because they know the threats of the UN and of the United States are worthless.

The disregard of our allies, especially the Brits, is a glaring mistake when we consider that there are only a few countries left in the the world who share our views on potential nuclear opponents like Iran and North Korea.  We need all the support we can get in trying to keep Iran and North Korea from extending their nuclear capability into dangerous weapons that threaten the security of the United States and our allies.  President Obama, with all his grand rhetoric about America being a friend to the world, needs to spend more time talking to our allies than proposing grand schemes to single-handedly talk rogue states out of their nuclear ambitions.  Right now, our allies don’t trust us.  That has more to do with the fluid foreign policy strategy of President Obama, and not as much to do with Bush and the Iraq war.

How are we doing with stopping the bad guys?  As far as Iran / North Korea is concerned, it’s a push.  But Iran is getting more vocal and belligerent day by day, and at some point, it will be too late to stop them from getting nukes.  It may already be too late.  North Korea is still out there, although we haven’t heard much from them lately.  Afghanistan is still a struggle, and I hope that the additional troops Obama is sending will be enough to get the job done.

Both the left wing and the right wing have reasons to be frustrated with the Obama administration.   I just pray that someday there will be enough Americans who disagree with current administration policies that they will vote out the Democrat Congress  in 2010 and President Obama in 2012.  It can happen.  The Republican Party just needs to get its own house in order first.