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ABORTION BIGOTRY ABOUNDS

Posted by Patrick Henry on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 1:42:23 PM
 
   A great Super Bowl game featured not only an exciting football game, but also a
string of controversial commercials. One of these was a pro-life commercial featuring
star college quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, who was counseled to have an
abortion while pregnant with him, but chose, instead, to protect his life.
   The piece itself was low-key and sweet, directing people interested in learning more
to the website of Foucs On the Family, a conservative Christian group that spnsored the
spot, The controversy was whipped up by NOW, the National Organization for Women
(or is that "Whiners') and NARAL, the National Abortion and Reprodive Rights Lobby
(also calling itself "Pro-Chouce America"). In prospect they claimed that by advocating
against abortion the commercial was disrespectful of a woman's choice, and retrospectively
it was labeled by trollish NOW president Terry O'Neill as advocacy of violence against
women. Both claims are ludicrous, but they do serve to nicely frame a strategy perfected
by radical advocacy groups and adopted by "progressive" politicians and parties.
 Summarily put, the strategy is isolate, label, polarize and demonize. As a mother and son,
the Tebows were easy to paint a target on, and they became the poster pair for the
NOW-NARAL rant. These groups immediately labeled them as "pro life" (although the
commercial was clearly "pro think about it") and some of the liberal blogs caricatured
them as sympathizers with Scott Roeder, the nut case who muredred Kansas abortionist
George Tiller. They were then painted into the "us against them" corner, as part of a
conspiracy opposing the law (Roe v. Wade) and a dangerous fringe minority. Finally demands
were made of the boradcasting network to pull the commercial because it was offensive
and disrectful to women. The campaign failed, the commercial ran, the manufactured
"offense" by Tery O'Neill clearly showed who the real nut job is, and the sun came up on
Monday, as usual. Touchdown, the Tebows. Flagrant personal foul, NOW and NARAL.
   That's the obvious story. But the real story requires a bit more analysis. NOW and NARAL
have Roe v. Wade on their side. In that case the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the decision
about whether to have an abortion is fundamentally about a woman's privacy, and that the
law may not invade it to insist that a fetus be carried to term. So what are NOW and NARAL
afraid of?
   Recent polling has shown that the tide of American opinion has turned against the practice
of abortion on demand. A majority of Americans now oppose it. Each time a Supreme Court
Justice is nominated, a major fight breaks out over his or her views on reproductive rights
because abortion advocates fear that the narrow majority achieved in Roe v. Wade could
be overturned should the wrong (i.e., a conservative) justice be confirmed. Current research
also shows that women counseled about abortion, understanding and, in some cases viewing
the process, more often than not reverse their decision and decide to deliver their baby. With
popular opinion turning aginst them, their precious law hanging by a one vote thread and
fully informed women opting out of their pet remedy for sexual irresponsibility NOW and
NARAL have plenty to worry about.
   In Barack Obama, the abortionists have the best friend they've evr had in the oval office.
Obama has struck down existing prohibitions against federal funding for abortion abroad,
insisted on abortion rights protection in the healthcare legislation that would use taxpayer
dollars to fund abortion and nominated Dawn Johnsen, Special Counsel for NARAL to a
powerful position in the Justice Department that would give her vast power over a wide range
of issues. That's right! It's the same Dawn Johnsen who equated pregnancy with slavery. Not
much doubt where she, or for that matter Obama stand on the issue.
   But the interesting thing is that the preferred isolate-label-polarize-demonize strategy
used by the left can also be turned against them. The ugly truth about pro-choicers is that
they don't give an altruistic flip about women. What they crave is sex without consequences,
without responsibility. That God (or "nature," of you prefer) never intended it that way should
be clear enough from the sometime results of unprotected sex. Further, these people are the
biggest hypocrites in the world! Threy would blanch in horror at the suggestuion that Martin
Luther King, Medgar Evers or Rosal Parks should have just shut up and accepted the unjust
laws they succeeded in changing. Yet they have tried to stifle dissent by shouting the Tebows
into silence and threatening those who would afford them any platform. In other words, "If
we don't like your point of view (or commercial) we have a right to say anything we want,
including ugly, defamatory lies, while you, on the other hand, just need to shut up because
your opposition to our point of view is 'disrespectful.'" Not only hy[pocrites. but bigots as well!
   NOW and NARAL do not represent women. They represent only the narrow segment made
up of liberal feminist champions of gender fascism and sexual irresponsibility. It's time to
call them out and label their lame arguments for the drivel they are.
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OBAMA'S HEALTH INVITE: GOP BEWARE

Posted by Patrick Henry on Tuesday, February 09, 2010 12:13:48 PM
 
   In an ancient world wherein the world was presumed to be flat, many of the earth's
nether regions and remote waterways remained uncharted. At the edge of the unknown,
maps customarily bore the warning, "Beyond this point there be dragons." As antiquated
and superstitious as it may sound, it is not bad council for Republicans as they ponder
meeting Barack Obama and his Democratic legion before television cameras to do battle
over healthcare reform.
   Stung by criticism of the heretofore entirely partisan course followed in developing
healthcare overhaul, Obama has made a public show of inviting Republicans back to
the table. But analysts are divided over whether this is a genuine change of course, or
a carefully crafted ambush. There are several factors that give cause to skepticism.
   One is that Obama seems to want to use the current body of Democratic ideas embodied
in the House and Senate bills as the baseline for dicsussion. In other words, he proffers
the need fro Republican help to fix two bad bills that have already been rejected by a
clear majority of Americans. One cannot help but wonder if the ploy is to agree to a
couple of peripheral Republican adjustments until one or two GOPers agree to come over
and vote for the Senate version of the bill.
   What's wrong with this is that here we have a president who is willing to meet with a
megalomaniacal terrorist dictator "without pre-conditions," but who insists on making
fundamentally flawed, publicly rejected and ideologically repugnant (to Republicans)
pending legislation the starting point for any discssions. The fundamental divide between
the parties is that Obama and the Democrats favor an intrusive, monopolistic, high-taxing,
mandate heavy approach, while Repiblicans want government to butt out of the doctor/
patient relationship, tax less, spend less, provide limited entitlement, strip special interests
(i.e., labor unions and trial lawyers) of their "perks," and enable free market competition
across state lines. The two sides could not be more diametrically opposed. Yet it seems
that Obama's definition of bipartianship relates exclusively to Republicans rolling over
to Democrats' assumptions. This is not a sound footing for truly bipartisan agreement that
will serve the American people.
   Further, because Republicans propose a smaller "fix" with commensurately smaller costs,
the forum Obama proposes will afford Obama and the Democrats the opportunity to strut
their gas-guzzling Cadillac entitlement boondoggle as a way to paint Republicans' far
more economical Volkswagen as flimsy, unsubstantial and ineffective in accomplishing
what Democrats have already pre-ordained to be the goal: socialized medicine and a giant
step down the road to the discredited single-payer system.
   And it casts media darling Obama as the king of the stage, in his element, the home
court advantage. Imagine a glib, smiling, charming, chic Barack Obama passionately
arguing his case before a national television audience against grim-faced John Boehner
and Mitch McConnell, both of whom will look like they'd rather be having a root canal.
   Wisely, McConnell and Boehner have laid out some pre-conditions of their own. First,
they have demanded that Obama forswear passage of the current bills by the parliamentary
trickery of "reconciliation." So long as the so-called "nuclear option" remains on the table
Republicans will be negotiating with a gun to their heads. Why would they sign on for that?
   They have also asked that the process re-start "from scratch," meaning that the current bills
with all their unpopularity and attendant problems are off the table, and a bill negotiated
without presupposition that Democratic assumptions must prevail across the board can be
crafted in a genuinely bipartisan manner. Granting of either of these conditions would
provide Republicans some sanctuary, and it is unlikely they'll get both. If they get neither
they should walk away. Better to go down fighting than to be associated with the
legislative and economic catastrophe upon which Democrats seem hell bent.
   In any case, Republicans will be walking through a deviously laid minefield and should
be extremely wary. Beyond this point there be dragons. 
Tags: health care  
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THEATER OF THE DISINGENUOUS

Posted by Patrick Henry on Thursday, February 04, 2010 7:52:33 PM
 
   The Sophists of ancient Greece were debaters who would argue any point of view, before
a judge or otherwise, for the right price. From them and their devious practice we derive
the word "sophistry," which implies a twisting or confusing of the facts, a representation
of something as true that is not.
   Today's attorneys are, in many cases, heirs to the Sophists. The maxin that"everyone
is entitled to the best defense" is used to justify diverting attention from evidence,
throwing out red herrings, badgering witnesses, browbeating and manipulating juries and
arguing that what they know to be false is true and vice versa. All this regardless of the
well-known law of logic which holds that a thing cannot be both true and untrue at the same
time.
   A critique of the adversarial justice system is a matter for another day. The point here
is that when the great bulk of our legislators are attorneys, we ought not be surprised when
they tell competing versions of "the truth." Your average liberal intellectual might argue
that truth is relative. The extension of his point is that only power, never truth is the decider.
That was the conviction of Saul Alinsky, whose radical Marxists philosophy has captured
the Democratic party and, I suspect, influenced some Republicans as well. In politics, the
politicans tell only that version of "the truth" that serves their political goals.
   Barack Obama is a prime example of the modern day Sophist, and few are better at
twisting "the truth" to suit their own purpose. This he does expertly in at least three
different ways.
   First, he tells whoppers, outright lies. As a case in point look at his first address to the
joint houses of congress in which he denied outright that his healthcare reform bill would
insure illegal aliens or pay for abortions, only to have the U.S. Senate fly into a dither
changing the bills so they wouldn't say what they clearly said and that Obama denied
they said. Love Joe Wilson or not, Obama flatly lied. There are many, many other cases 
of this president simply telling for trute things that are clearly not.
   Second, he rarely gives direct answers to direct questions. Instead he sets up straw
men that have no correspondence to reality, but make great punching bags. A recent case
in point was when he was addressing a question on healthcare in his meeting with members
of the House's Repyblican caucus. There he accused them of stating that his healthcare
bill was some kind of "Bolshevik plot." The implication is that they had made an
incredible and outrageous charge of which they should be ashamed. The truth, however,
is that no Republican legislator has ever called the Democratic healthcare bill a "plot,"
"Bolshevik" or otherwise. But it's far easier to refute an outrageous accusation no one
has made than it is to defend a government takeover of healthcare or a socialistic
"redistribution of wealth." Obama is the absolute master of the straw man.
   Third, he simply shuts out incongruent realities. He is chagrined that a majority of
Americans dislike his healthcare initiative, and thus argues that he "hasn't done a good
enough job of explaining it." This implies that people are ignorant and obtuse and if
they understood could have no plausible objection to what the Democrats are proposing.
In his recent meeting with Democratic senators he advised them to "tune out CNN and
Fox." Never mind that they are the ones facing angry voters, and that those voters aren't
tuning out CNN and Fox. His argument is tantamount to saying "if you ignore it, it will
go away."
   There seems to be no place left for truth in politics, and no consensus about what truth
is. But there are some truths that are self-evident. This nation is drowning in debt, and
Barack Obama and his party are taking multiple actions this very day to mire it even
more deeply there. Can you count to fifteen trillion? And government is growing
exponentially, intruding into every crevass of national life. Millions are unemployed
so don't criw about some mystical increase in the GDP. And there are thousands of
armed, trained men out there waiting in line to murder Americans. Deny what you
will, but those things, at least, are undeniable and, therefore, are the truth.
   Barack Obama is a Harvard lawyer who believes that the U.S. constitution, as well
as "the truth" is relative. In 2012 America will have another crack at finding a leader
who can find the truth with both hands and a flshlight, and who isn't afraid to tell it.
That person likely won't be a lawyer. And it certainly isn't Barack Obama!
 
 
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TORQUEMADA, W, AND THE PRESIDENT OF OZ

Posted by Patrick Henry on Monday, February 01, 2010 8:36:17 PM
 
   Tomas Torquemada is famous for having led the Spanish inquisition designed to
purge heretics from the Catholic Church in the 15th century. In so doing he employed
torture techmiques that would have made the CIA cringe on their worst day, and reveled
in capital punishment. To this day, those wishing to denigrate Christianity hark back to
the inhumanities of Torquemada as proof positive that Christianity is no badge of goodness.
   Of course, such an argument is like suggesting that if your grandfather had syphilis then
you and your parents and any children you might have are likely to be sex perverts. If one
is wrong, then all are wrong. Conversely, it would be obtuse and wrongheaded of Christians
to blame all the shortcomings of the church or of fellow Christians on Torquemada.
   It is now quite clear that Barack Obama plans to continuing blaming everything but ring-
around-the-collar on "W" -- George W. Bush. In the remarks given while introducing his
utterly insane 3.4 trillion dollar 2011 budget, he laid the entire national financial calamity
on 10 years of profligacy by the preceding administration, and then, almost under his breath,
"past congresses." The reason fo the foootnote about congress was that during a substantial
part of the "profligacy" Democrats held the congressional majority, meaning Bush could
have done very little without their complicity, The devil is in the details.
   Obama is reminiscent of a character in the delightful child's saga The Wizard of Oz.
There is such a sense of unreality about the man that he would seem more at home in a
place where everything depended on imagination, and the consequences of failure are
not real. To wit, his notion of how to address the bourgeoning deficit is to propose the
larges government budget in the nation's history, and to drive that deficit toward fifteen
trillion dollars by 2012. In blaming Bush he neglects to mention the near trillion dollar
stimulus package passed on his watch by a Democratic congress and which has failed
to make any meaningful impact on the historic highs in national unemployment. In fact,
now he wants another 100 billion for a "jobs program." To this he wants to add a trillion
dollar universal healthcare overhaul, raise taxes on everyone through cap-and-trade
energy legislation, legalize those who have sneaked into this country illegally so that
they can legally complete with unemployed citizens for the few jobs left and give them
all free health care too.
   Only those who have taken leave of their senses seriously believe that a person (or a
nation) can spend their way out of debt. But Obama, since the state of the union address,
has sounded more and more like a spoiled brat saying, "W spent us into debt on his
priorities and now I have the right to spend us deeper into it pursuing mine." The idiocy
of the discussion is that the issue is not so much who did what as to what it is that was
done and that it can't continue without disastrous ramifications. Pride, of which Obama
has legion, and partisanship are the greatest blinders to such in-your-face realities. Obama's
strategy is to continue using W the way people have used Torquemada. That is not to say
that Torquemada's barbarism or Bush's fiscal irresponsibility were good things. It is, rather,
to say that with the prerogative to blame comes the responsibility to fix. If you come across
someone with a broken leg, you don't break the other one just to see how much the guy can
take.
   Barack Obama apparently fancies himself the president of Oz. But he's well on his way
to finding out that the Wicked With of the North is real. She's Chinese, or Iranaian, or
North Korean or a radical Muslim, and she has sharp teeth and appreciable powers of her
own. Like Dorothy from Kansas, Obama needs to wake up from this dream before he
makes it America's permanent nightmare.
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NEW YORK? PERHAPS NOT!

Posted by Patrick Henry on Friday, January 29, 2010 11:06:42 AM
 
   Yielding to overwhelming public condemnation, pleas from concerned legislators
from both major parties and the reluctance of New York's mayor, the Obama
administration is now seeking a new venue for the criminal trial of 9/11 mastermind
Khalid Sheick Mohammed. Looking at $200 billion annually in security costs, and with
the cost of expanding government already going through the roof, even Barack Obama
has seen the writing on the wall. The New York trial is not going to happen.
   New York is America's largest city, as well as its financial capitol. To endanger,
ensnarl or otherwise involve it was a fool's errand from the outset. But the problem with
the current debate is that it has become bogged down in discussing venue instead of
focusing on the real issue: whether these war criminals should be tried in criminal court
at all.
   Not only will a public criminal trial afford Mohammed and the other 9/11 cnspirators
an international public media circus through which to spew their anti-American bile, it
will prove a greater al Qaeda recruitment tool than Guantanamo Bay ever was. Add to
that the fact it may pit the criminal justice system directly against national security.
Since Mohammed's confession was obtained by coercion, statements he may have made
will likely be inadmissable at trial. Under the principle of discovery defendentas must
have access to documents (classified CIA and DOD files) that implicate them as well as
witnesses (other detainees and terrorists) whose testimony may be either incriminating
or exculpatory. Why not just give them the keys to Langley and the Pentagon? Any
hedging on the part of the government regarding the disclosure process will guarantee
a long, drawn out and hideously expensive trial at the very least, and may lead to
acquittal.
   The administrative symbol of this galactic stupidity is Attorney General Eric Holder
who is rapidly distinguishing himself as a partisan and prejudiced public official and a
world class fool. It was Holder's decision to try the Gitmo detainees in American criminal
courts rather than before military commissions. It is Holder who has provided the constant
legal justification for closing Gitmo and bringing those detained there to American soil. It
was Holder who made the decision to Mirandize Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the now
notoroious Christmas bomber, after only fifty minutes of interrogation. And it was Holder
who chose New York as the site for a KSM trial -- a decision that the Obama administration
will have to eat since it, like so many Obama administration decisions, was so irresponsile
as to provoke a grassroots outcry from the American people.
   But if Holder is the symbol of Obama's impotence on national security, then consider the
hard evidence. Obama spent much of his campaign railing at the Bush-Cheny policy of
jarsh interrogation for detainees, promising to reverse them and close Gitmo if elected.
By executive order her abolished then current interrogations, and after the usual blathering
and endless consultation announced, in the summer of 2009, the establishment of a High
Value Detainee Interrogation group to be based within the FBI but overseen by the National
Security apparatus. When Abdulmutallab was detained at the Detroit airport, and without
consulting the CIA, the DOD, Homeland Security, the Counter-Terrorism Center or the
Director of National Intelligence, the Justice Department (Eric Holder) made the unilateral
decision to cease interrogation and lawyer Mutallab up (causing him to immediately shut
up) after only fifty minutes. Compounding this abject stupidity was the insistence from
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Obama security advisor William Brennan
that we had "learned all we could" from in in that time. Ask anyone at all who knows
anything about suspect interrogation and they will tell you that is absolute nonsense. Proper
interrogation takes time, the establishment of rapport with the subject, time for memory
to correct, the desperation of personal circumstances to set in, etc., ad nauseum. But so
hell bent was Holder on imposing his judgment (and Obama's) that these foreign terrorists
are entitled to full constitutional protections, that he squandered everything else that might
have been learned about the Yemeni al Qaeda branch by rushing to Mirandize this "Santa
Claus of Death."
   But I promised evidence, and here it is. When asked why Abdulmutallab was not turned
over to the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, Director of National Intelligence
Gennis Blair first said that the group was not available because it was intended to be
de[ployed overseas, then finally admitted that the group does not yet exist. The evidence
that Barack Obama does not take the Islamist terrorist threat seriously is that he dispensed
with the effective interrogation techniques of the past and designed a new strategy, but never
followwed through on it. So the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group has no skills, no
experience, no guidelines, no deployment --IN FACT IT HAS NO MEMBERS!
   Ecomonmically, politically and in matters of national defense and security the preisdency
of Barack Obama is a joke. Fewer and fewer Americans are laughing.
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NOW WE KNOW!

Posted by Patrick Henry on Thursday, January 28, 2010 2:19:41 PM
 
   With the president's first state of the union message in the rear view mirror we now
know for certain some things that many of us suspected. He did NOT hear the message
from Massachusetts, he intends no compromise, no true bipartisanship, and he is totally
committed to pushing through his agenda without respect to public opinion. Like the
patient who has awaited the dreaded diagnosis, at least the uncertainty is over and we know
beyond a doubt what we're dealibng with.
   A speech that afforded a prime opportunity for reaching out, compromise and course
adjustment was used, instead, as a platform to attack the opposition party, rail at the
Supreme Court justices, denigrate business interests and suggest that the man on the street
is somehow just too dense to grasp the wisdom from on high spewed by the Democratic
elite and their delusional leader. So the battle lines have been drawn. It's war, and it's
a war Americans have to win and Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have to
lose.
   Pelosi wasted no time in following up the speech announcing her plan to add as much
as $300 billion to the already bloated healthcare travesty, and then rely on Senate
Democrats to use a political gimmick called "reconciliation" to ram it through with a
51 vote majority. They may do it, and if they do it will become a rallying cry far more
resonant than "Remember the Alamo." The Democrats are going down hard in the 2010
and 2012 elections, and they know it. They seem intent to enact as much irreversible
unpopular legislation as possible before that time so as to place their openly socialist stamp
indelibly on America's future.
   Obama made it crustal clear that cap-and-trade and amnesty for illegals (euphemistically
known as "Immigration Reform") are still very much on the table. While he gave lip service
to jobs for Americans, he redoubled his commitment to laws and programs that will kill
them. Then he shamed himself by publicly scolding the Supreme Court, charging them
with opening campaign finance to foreign donors, something they neither addressed nor did.
   Missing from his rambling diatribe were any references to national security, the narrowly
averted Christmas bombing, the contradictory statements of administration officials, the
failure to fully interrogate the bomber before giving him Miranda rights and an attorney
and the insane plan to try terrorists in New York City. I guess people don't bring up things
they know they've already screwed up.
   In 2008, America thought they wanted the glib-tongued, handsome, charismatic Barack
Obama to be their national leader. But is this what they wanted? Ever growing trillion dollar
annual deficits, government takeovers of automakers, banks and healthcare, legislation
crammed through with backroom deals and trickery that flies in the face of public opinion,
a national security policy so fifled with holes and inconsistencies that it resembles a well-
aged Swiss cheese, a leader who wants to fight the opther party, the Supreme Court abd
public opinion at the drop of a hat? I think not!
   And si it's time. It's time for Republicans, Independents and Tea Partiers to make common
cause and rise up. Because one thing is certain: whichever degree of the conservative
spectrum you favor, there is no way that anything right of Karl Marx is going to happen as
long as Obama sits in the Oval Office and Reid and Pelosi dominate Capitol Hill. What
happens at the ballot boxes across the country next November begins right now with the
identifcation and bankrolling of strong conservative candidates and a "boots-on-the-ground" approach to recruting conservative voters and getting them to the polls. We need to be
challenging the liberal blog and media everytime they make a misstatement of fact, or
disseminate bogus left-wing propaganda. We need to begin at local levels throwing big-spending, big-taxing, big government liberals out into the street so that they can experience the jobless
malaise they are perpetuating. We need to go to war! And we need to do it now! Obama clearly wants a fight. So let's give him one.
 
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THE AUDACITY OF A DOPE

Posted by Patrick Henry on Thursday, January 28, 2010 12:13:49 AM
 
   Prior to running for the presidency Barack Obama penned a sort of autobiography that
he titled "The Audacity of Hope." What he demonstrated in his defiant, churlish State
of the Union address was, instead, the sheer audacity of a real dope.
   He grudgingly talked about the economy, striving to dupe the middle classby offering
childcare tax credits so they can go to the jobs they no longer have, save money they
can't earn and pay less on their student loans which few people care about defaulting on
when they can't feed their families and are in jeopardy of losing their homes. Whoop-tee-
doo, Mr. President. Most of the jobs created so far and in prospect by his administration
are government jobs. That means they are paid for with taxpayer money -- OUR money --
despite the pre-stimulus promise to create 3,600,000 private sector jobs. Sustaining those government jobs will mean either renewing the stimulus package or raising taxes.
There is no difference in practice between this and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.
Both must eventually go away.
   Obama's prattle about creating private sector jobs rings hollow. How can a president
whom 77% of investors consider anti-business hope to create private sector jobs, when the
whole idea seems to be to tax and regulate the private sector so that no one can make any
money.
   And his proposal to put in place a partial three-year spending freeze  is an even bigger joke.
Now, after the $787B pork-laden stimulus and the over-the-top omnibus spending bill has
upped government spending by 25%, our clueless leader wants to cut it by less than 2%? But
the real devil is in the details, because if congress gives in to that proposal it will effectively
lock in place a perpetual 23% increase in baseline spending. Obama's not really giving back
anything. He's just trying to protect what he has already stolen from taxpeyers.
   Commentators have proposed that Obama is a very intelligent man. But it does not seem so.
Either he is a very dense man. or he thinks the rest of us are. State of the Union laid out no
concrete proposals for creating private sector jobs, contained numerous misrepresentations
of Obama;s record and failed to address the string of broken campaign promises that have
littered this left-leaning administration. It's clear that the man's agenda needs to be repudiated
and that he needs to go in 2012. Now, more than ever!
   
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SAY WHAT??????

Posted by Patrick Henry on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 7:23:37 PM
 
   Excuse me for asking, but why, when the nation is already drowning in debt, and
the president is asking for a partial spending freeze (tisk), must we spend $500
million to retrofit a facility in Thompason, Illinois, to house detainees who are more
safely contained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? When Medicare is already facing
insolvency, where is the sense in slashing it by more than a half-billion for a
healthcare bill no onre but the president and congressional leaders want? When
millions of jobs have been lost and unemployment hovers at unprecedented levels
why is congress considering a bill that imposes 14 new taxes worth more than half-
a-trillion dollars?
   When we already have a stimulus package worth $787 billion, now revised to cost
an additional $75 billion, that has not significantly impacted unemployment nor caused
significant economic recovery, why are our elected leaders now talking about yet
another stimulus? Who is promoting the incredibly stupid notion that we can spend our
way out of debt?
   When the problem with the healthcare bill is already that it costs too much, how can
we afford to pay Nebraska an extra hundred million, Louisiana an extra $300 million,
the unions another $59 billion and allow Florida and Pennsylvania to keep their
Medicare Advantage programs while the rest of Americans have to give them up? Why?
   What is the point of imposing a spending freeze that will effect only 20% of the
government's budget when we've already broken the bank by increasing government
spending by a whopping 25% in one year? Isn.t that asking us to cheer a 2% reduction
against a 25% increase for a net loss of 23%? And why are we supposed to get excited
about that?
   When Americans are losing their homes at a record pace, the housing market is
dropping again and hundreds of thousands have given up even looking for work, why
is congress wasting it's time (our time) making plans for a cap-and-trade tax that will
skyrocket our home energy bills (if we still have homes to heat and cool)? Why do
they refuse to acknowledge that the United Nations climate change data is in tatters,
increasingly discredited by discoveries of inaccuracy, over-generalization and gross
exaggeration?
   Why? Why? Why? The only answers from the White House and congress are best
described as "doublespeak," and the administration seems oblivious to the many polls
that show Americans overwhelmingly rejecting the president's positions on healthcare,
national security, Guantanamo Bay and the handling of enemy combatants and energy?
At the risk of upsetting the rosy State of the Union applecart, I'm just asking. Maybe you
should too.
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OBAMA'S BIG FIGHT

Posted by Patrick Henry on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:27:34 PM
 
   In a Cleveland speech the other day, President Barack Obama pledged not to back
away from his clearly unpopular left-wing agenda and to fight those who oppose him.
His next move was to summon back to staff his former campaign publicist, David Plouffe,
whose first advice was "jam healthcare through . . . we're going to fight like hell." Those
are provocative words and bear some serious consideration.
   First of all, what are they fighting for? It would seem that they propose fighting for an
agenda that includes their healthcare takeover, cap-and-trade energy legislation, the
closure of Guantanamo Bay and transfer of its detainees to American soil, limited
interrogation and full constitutional rights for terrorists and an all-out assault on banks
and other American businesses. It would, therefore, seem that they didn't learn anything
from the Massachusetts debacle. Polls, pretty much all of them, have shown that the
American people do not supposrt these radical ideas, nor do they want a leftist president.
Narrowly focused polling and focus groups have further shown that the anger reflected
in the Massachusetts vote was specifically directed against the president's policies. So
the fight to which Obama has committed himself and his administration is a fight to enact
or "jam through" (Plouffe's words) an agenda that will radically change the nation and
which its voting piblic by-and-large rejects.
   But every fight has at least two sides. It is fair, then, to ask with whom they wish to pick
this fight. The innuendo is that it's the Republicans. What a joke! That's like Muhammad
Ali challenging Funky Winkerbean. Democrats hold a 59-41 seat advantage in the Senate
and a 40 seat majority in the House, as well as controlling the White House and every major
department and orhan of government. So why should Obama have to "fight" such a critically
weakened opponent?
   It's a smokescreen, a red herring. The "fight" he has is with moderate elements within the
Democratic party who have come along kicking and screaming on healthcare reform,
and then after many were bribed, and who want no part of his next priority, cap-and-trade.
If his own house was in order there would be no need to fight.
   But the ultimate Obama fight is against the American people, the voters. They tried to
send him a message in Massachusetts, but he clearly doesn't get it. He ignores the polls,
ignores the bourgeoning Tea Party movement, ignores his own government's wasteful
runaway spendiong and ignores campaign promises like transparency, no new taxes on
the middle class, no more no bid sweetheart contracts and no more earmarks and seems
oblivious to why voters are angry. George W. Bush is long gone, Mr. President, and the
sins of government are now wholly owened -- BY YOU! So if you want to pick a fight
with America, if you go on insulting the voters and acting as though their clearly
expressed wishes count for nothing, good luck. But, my bet is on America and against
you. Because you're going to learn like every other arrogant politician who thinks and
acts like he or she knows better than America, what it means to be a short-timer.
   There's still time for a course correction. The State of the Union is an ideal platform
to show America that, all appearances to the contrary, Obama cares what they think. Bill
Clinton wanted a second term bad enough to do that, but can Obama can swallow a bit of
his ego and move to the middle. Oh, I forgot, he told ABC that he'd rather be a "good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president." Ignoring those one wants to lead is not good leadership, and if Obama continues his pugnacious assault on the elctorate he will be neither
a "good one term president," nor will anyone ever see his mythical second term. As a wise man
once said, "You'd best be careful what you wish for,'"
 
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OBAMA: A PRESIDENT ADRIFT

Posted by Patrick Henry on Saturday, January 23, 2010 9:26:57 AM
 
   In an Ohio speech yesterday President Barack Obama defiantly promised that he would
not "walk away from health care reform." but press on to get it done. He was somehow
lonely sounding, and reminiscent of the small boy walking past a cemetery after dark who
can only conquer cold fear by loudly whistling.
   Options facing Obama and his party after Republican Scott Brown's devastating senate
win in Massachusetts deprived them of a filibuster proof majority in the upper chamber
range from the unpalatable to the unthinkable. They could continue working on a House-
Senate compromise and then jam it through using reconciliation, a parliamentary trick
that would require only a 51 vote majority. Should they choose that option, they gamble
that the voting public, a majority of whom detest both versions of the bill, will revolt and
throw them out of office in the 2010 and 2012 elections. They would give political
opponents overwhelming political leverage with which to bash them. Those not immediately
standing for re-election might be willing to sacrifice the careers of their less fortunate
colleagues, but the price for such an outrage would be paid by the entire party.
   They could invite centrist Republicans back to the table and start offering concessions
until enough of them agree to go along. But given the outcome in Massachusetts and the
wave of national anger it signifies, such concessions would likely be so great as to make
the bill unrecognizable and unacceptable to leftist Democrats.
   Obama could drop healthcare reform altogether and then try to blame its failure on
Republican opposition, casting the GOP as shills for big insurance. But even Democrat
polling shows them that in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections, and by
a 3-1 margin in Massachusetts, it was the Independents who abandoned them in droves.
   Or, they could start again from scratch, this time with an absolute commitment to a
bipartisan approach and in the up front realization that themes like tort reform and allow-
ing insurers to compete across state lines will be in play. They would also have to acceed
to a much smaller bill that would not bust the budget and would be unlikely to achieve
the universal coverage they seek. This strategy might save some of the more popular
Democrats electorally as well as producing actual healthcare reform. but will likely
infuriate the party's left for a long time to come.
   Obama at long last has to face the fact that the American people hate corruption,
pasrtisanship, abuse of power and condescension, and over time they will not vote for
what they hate. Deserted by the spiteful left, questioned by the confused middle and
opposed by a mobilized right, he is learning about the loneliness at the top. His best
leadership gambit is to move, and urge his party's leaders to move, to focus on the
people's business instead of the Democratic party's business. Otherwise, he stands likely
to meet the fate of Jimmy Carter, another nimrod who would rather be right (in his own
eyes) than president. Obama's fate is in his own hands. If he doesn't engage in dramatic
course correction, voters will take it out of his hands.
 
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THE MESSAGE FROM MASSACHUSETTS

Posted by Patrick Henry on Friday, January 22, 2010 1:02:59 PM
 
   Beginning only a few hours after the Associated Press called the special senaatorial election
in Massachusetts for Republican Scott Brown, Democratic talking heads hit the airwaves and
print media outlets with hollow-sounding denials that the electoral outcome was a referendum
on either the presidency or agenda of Barack Obama. MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked if the
voters were "crazy," and stated that their "No" wasn't "No" to anything in particular. but just
"No." Responses by other left wing synpathizers were equally vapid.
   Post-election polls show that 78% of those who voted for Scott Brown did so because of
his promise to stop Obamacare. The other 22% cited the jobless economy and soaring deficit
as their main priorities. So what's not clear about that? It was "No" to the Democrats' (and
Obama's) healthcare reform, and "No" to big spending, big government deficit balooning
policies that produce no jobs and drive our economy closer to the abyss. Secondarily it was
"No" to insipid Democratic candidate Martha Coakley who ran on a platform of "more of
the same." Massachusetts voters said "No," all right, and only those not open to persuasion
by facts (Chris Matthews, MSNBC and the rest of the far left) can deny it. Those who do
only look silly.
   Two Democrats in particular gave thoughful and wise responses, and are due respect for
their common sense and willingness to listen to the voice of the people. One is Representative
Anthony Weiner (D-NY), and the other is Senator Jim Webb (D-VA). Weiner, a big advocate
of healthcare reform said, regarding his party, "clearly we have a problem on healthcare." Webb
drew the excoriation of his liberal colleagues by saying that no more healthcare votes should be
held until Scott Brown was seated because the people had spoken. Unfortunately, the majority
of the Democratic party seems unconcerned about the "voice of the people," as has been
evident throughout the entire healthcare reform debate.
   Perhaps what is most helpful is to focus on just what it is that people detest about healthcare
reform in its current mode. First and foremost, everyone but the "progressives" (a euphemism
for "liberals") hated the so-called "public option," the notion that the government that has
already demonstrated an inability to organize an egg on toast would now get into the health
insurance business in direct competition with private insurance companies. The concept is
clearly toxic and congress needs to repudiate it and move on.
   Second, by allowing loopholes whereby public funds could be used to subsidize abortion
and provide insurance opportunities for illegal aliens Democrats dragged two other separate
and heated debates into healthcare. They clearly intended to do it, and it was dumb,dumb,
dunb and insured that their bill would be stillborn. If congress wants to succeed in this
venture, they must clearly jettison abortion funding and access for illegals. Otherwise whatever
they do will remain enveloped in a toxic cloud.
   Third, the public was put off by 2,000-2,500 page bills that they couod not read. It lent
the suggestion that the devil was in the details, which it was. A fifty page bill in plain
English will stand a much better chance of passing.
   Fourth, the complete lack of bipartisanship made the bill vulnerable and suspect from the
beginning. If the bill was so good, why couldn't Democrats get any Republican senators to
vote for it, and why did they have to bribe members of their own party to do so? To voters
the answer was clear enough. The bill isn't that good and should be scrapped or drastically
re-worked before passage. Focus groups suggest broad public support for Republican ideas
such as tort reform that would limit malpractice suits, cap attorney's fees and damage awards,
and for allowing insurers to compete across state lines. Failue to even consider such ideas
smacks of the worst kind of political cronyism (with trial lawyers) and is transparent to
voters even while much of the bill is anything but.
   Fifth, the process became so messy and ugly that voters couldn' tolerate the foul odor of
corruption. Cornhusker kickbacks, Louisiana purchases, union tax exemptions, closed door
partisan sessions, middle-of-the-night votes, denial of press and public access and backroom
dealing that would make Boss Tweed blush irreparably stained the process.
   Finally, all the math mumbo jumbo suggesting that one can spend a trillion dollars and
actually save money, or that taking half a billion dollars away from an already struggling
Medicare system somehow makes it better are simply not credible. Polls show that very
few voters believe either claim.
   These are the lessons from Massachusetts. No president, no matter how popular, and no
political party, no matter how powerful, can so consistently and flagrantly disregard the
will of the people and go their own way without paying a price at the polls and eventually
losing their power (i.e., their jobs). The hard left will never accept that, which is why they
won't get re-elected. Whether Obama, who claims he heard the message, will make a real
course correction, drop his radical job-killing agenda and focus on creating jobs and
rescuing the economy, remains to be seen. Voters want to see results. That is their right.
The "Massachusetts Massacre" suggests that they don't much like what they've seen so far.
Tags: health care  
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'YOU'RE SCREWED!"

Posted by Patrick Henry on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 10:44:29 PM
 
   On a Friday in December during a meeting with his Democratic colleagues in the
House of Representatives, Michael Capuano, who had just concluded a second place
finishing campaign to become Democratic Senate nominee in Massachusetts was asked
to share with fellow Democrats what he had learned on the campaign trail. His summary
consisted on two words: "You're screwed!"
   His meaning was clear and unambiguous, and understood by all present. Americans
are angry. They've had enough of big spending, high taxing, backroom dealing politics
in Washington. They're worried about jobs, the deficit, the cost of the unending bailouts
and the looming healthcare boondoggle. They're mad and they're not going to put up
with the business-as-usual manipulative political shenanigans used by the Democrats as
levers of change.
   Polling is equally clear. A majority of Americans do not want Obamacare, cap-and-trade,
amnesty for illegals, the expansion of abortion or most of the other things for which the
liberal Democratic establishment is pushing. They see one heretofore moderate Democrat
after another joining the "endangered species" list, as party rank and filers are strongarmed
by the administration's Chicago-styled machine into voting for laws their constituents do not
want or support.
   The Tea Party movement, dismissed by the Democratic establishment as a mob of radicals
and dissed by the descriptive use of a filthy sexual epithet in the liberal media, has now caught
full fire at the grassroots level, and threatens to burn the liberal agenda to the ground. There is serious talk about the emergence of a third political party, but consensus that in the foreseeable
future such an entity would likely make common electoral cause with Republicans.
   Now Scott Brown, an upstart Republican state legislislator has blown away his opponent,
Democratic machine backed State Attorney General Martha Coakley to become the first
GOP senator from Blue Massachusetts in 52 years. That, in spite of a last-ditch desperation
personal pitch from the floundering Democratic president. And Brown did it by repeatedly
making the point that the seat was not "Ted Kennedy's seat" or "the Democrats' seat," but "the people's seat
   By morning, Democratic talking heads will be screaming at the top of their lungs that the
Massachusetts vote was not a referendum on the Obama presidency, healthcare reform or
the broader Democratic agenda. And they'll know they're lying, as will everyone else.
Incumbent Democrats won't sleep well tonight, or for many nights to come. They'll be
scared blind because they know that Michael Capuano was dead right when he told them
regarding their prospects for re-election: "You're screwed."
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THE PART OF THE CONSTITUTION I MUST HAVE MISSED

Posted by Patrick Henry on Friday, January 15, 2010 11:17:05 AM
 
   There must be some esoteric clause in the Constitution of the United States of America
that my high school civics teachers and college history profs forgot to enlighten me about.
As a matter of fact. I re-read the thing this morning and couldn't find the pesky anomaly
either. It's the part that says when important legislation is being negotiated those meetings
must include the executive branch, both houses of the legislature AND the labor unions.
   Yet in Washington that is exactly what is playing out. The Senate version of healthcare
reform mandates a substantial tax on "Cadillac" health plans, many of which are enjoyed
by union members who badgered them out of corporate employers. So the Service Employees
Interbnational Union and the AFL-CIO ptched a fit about it, drawing a special audience at
the White House, a presidential intervention in the negotiations and a reputed "deal" to which
the media lists them as a party. But the constitution nowhere authorizes the legislative branch
to negotiate backroom sweetheart deals with unions when law is being written.
   But, you may say, the unions represent a lot of Americans. No argument, but so does the
Catholic Church whose abortion-related dissatisfaction with the bill has drawn their leaders
no invitation to the White House and they represent even more Americans. The point, it seems, is
that not all special interest groups are created equal, nor treated with equal deference and
basic fairness by the current process. And that is precisely why the founding documents make
no allowance for any special interest to be given special privilege nor to be accorded special
access to the legislative process save the proviso that all citizens shall have the right to
petition the government.
   So what is the difference between the unions and the Catholic Church? It is the political
indebtedness of Barack Obama and his corrupt administration to big labor that bought and
paid for his presidency and now expects payback. Obama himself admitted that when the
uions call "I call them right back" because "I owe those people." Perhaps that also explains
why Andy Stern, president of the SEIU, was a White House guest 22 times during Obama's
first six months in office. Clearly, as though the vaunted healthcare reform initiative were
not already poisoned enough by cash for cloture and similar political payoffs, it is now,
finally, tainted by the worst kind of political cronyism as well.
   What's wrong with this -- in additon to the fact that it circumvents the constitutional
process for discussing and passing legislation -- is that Barack Obama has forgotten that
he is not the union's lackey, and that he is supposed to serve a president for all American
citizens, regardless of race, color, creed OR union affiliation. If big labor gets a seat at
the negotiating table then why not the Catholic Church or, for that matter, the Humane
Society, the YMCA, the United Way, etc.? The only plausible reason stems back to
big campaign contributions made by the union to Obama and the Democrats.
   When hisorians look back on this period of American life they will ask one question.
Whatever happened to truly representative democracy. There will be a single, simple 
answer. It was sold for money -- bought and paid for by the labor unions. And Barack 
Obama was the Judas who sold it! 
 
Tags: health care  
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IT'S THE STUPID ECONOMY

Posted by Patrick Henry on Sunday, January 10, 2010 2:25:04 PM
 
   Pardon the parody on the Clinton era maxim, "It's the economy, stupid." But it still is!
With eight million Americans having lost their jobs outright and millions more under-
employed (meaning they're working one or more part-time jobs at far lower wages than
those they made when fully employed). the stock market bouncing on a bubble and
government touting one job-killing piece of legislation after another American voters
are more concerned today about the nation's economic future than ever.
   Government is part of the problem, not the answer. Higher taxes and bigger government
that intrudes ever deeper into the private sector only means that while the government will
employ more, the private sector will continue to shed jobs faster. The president and his
advisors told America that unemployment could be held at 8%. It is now at 10%. Many
of those on the street have given up actively looking for work. It's that bad. Only 20% of
the enormous Porkulus stimulus bill has been spent, and it has created precious few jobs.
The only thing Obama's people can point to is "jobs saved," which neither they nor anyone
else can prove. Their new promise is a bill that will provide 17,000 "green jobs" at the
cost of millions to taxpayers. There is much uncertainty about what constitutes a "green job,"
but it conjures up images of minions covered in green paint trudging to work each day. It
probably refers to people working in industries that try to clean up, rather than further
pollute the environment. Wind and solar energy plants would be an example. But when one
considers that 27,000 (brown) jobs were lost in November 2009 alone, 17,000 "green"
ones at some unspecified point in the future pales to total insignificance.
   But if the economy is the issue, and the 2010 mid-term elections are approaching, why
are the Democrats in power not fully focused on it, choosing instead to ram through a
healthcare reform boondoggle that a  majority of Americans don't want? The answer is
shocking, but obvious. While giving lip service to the economy while pursuing hea;thcare,
climate change and immigration reform, all of which will kill even more jobs, they are
pushing their real agenda, the re-distribution of wealth. Healthcare reform isn't about
healthcare at all. It's about taxing those who have health insurance so that the uninsured
can have insurance (transfer of wealth to the tune of a half-trillion dollars). In truth it
would be just fine with Democrats if 95% of us worked at McDonald's or Burger King
flipping burgers for the minimum wage so that over time only a very few would be
making more than anyone else. It is the virtual assassinatuion of the American Dream.
   Obama's Democrats are trying to re-define the American Dream as they have attempted
to re-define everything else. Instead of the opportunity to earn what one is worth in the
open market, enjoying the profits of ingenuity and industry proportionately to success,
they want everyone to enjoy the same no matter whether they work hard, get an education,
flip burgers or practice medicine. That's the Communist dream. So when Joe the Plumber
asks Obama if his higher taxes on small businesses are designed to make small business
ownership impossible for new entrants, and Obama says he just wants to "spread the wealth
around a little," that's not just sme cutesy shorthand answer. If he had answered truthfully
and directly he would have said, "Right, I don't want you to buy a new business and prosper
until every welfare mom, recovering addict, illegal alien, former inmate or lazy bum has
at least as much as you have now."
   So if you are waiting for Barack Obama and this Democratic congress to somehow
restore the American economy you so fondly remember -- you know, the one where
everyone who really wanted to work had a job and the opportunity to move up the ladder--
don't hold your breath. That's not on their agenda. Sure, they'll talk economy, blow about
how losing a few thousand less jobs this month than we did last month indicates "economic
recovery" and how they're going to put the screws to Wall Street. But it's all a hoax.
Socialism is adopted by countries where there simply is no hope -- where poverty and
unemployment and powerlessness have become the way of things. In other words it is
the grasping at straws of the desperate. The only way we can have it the way it was is to
elect those who believe in the principles that made it that way. Obama and his crowd
ain't it!
   The stock response to hypocirisy is, "Your actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear
your words." Listen to the Obama-Democrat rhetoric, and then look at the tax-raising,
job killing measures they are speeding into legislation. They are diametrical opposites.
Democratic socialist economic philosophy is pie-in-the-sky idealism that has no hope
of achieving anything but another Venezuela. If that thought doesn't much appeal to you,
then you'd better think long and hard about your votes in 2010 and 2012. It's the stupid
economy, neighbor!
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POLICIES, POLITICS AND PRATFALLS

Posted by Patrick Henry on Thursday, January 07, 2010 8:50:12 PM
 
   With the great Christmas day bombing scare in the rearview mirror and President
Obama having admitted that "the buck stops here," we should all be reassured that
2010 will be a safer year in which we, as Americans, will be safe from those who
would murder us. But I'm not, and there are good reasons why.
   There is still a highly dangeruous tension between Obama's admission that "we are
at war." and the insistence of his administration and party upon treating dangerous
enemy combatants like common crminals and according them all the rights and
privileges inherent in the American justice system. It heaps costly trials and pre-
trial security burdens on taxpayers, affords Islamist thugs a platform from which to
spew their hate worldwide and sends the message to terrorists that they're safer in
American hands than in the custody of the countries from which they come. There is
also an inherent contradiction in guaranteeing an Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab due
process and summarily ordering the execution of others in Pakistan or Yemen by
 Predator drone and without trial.
   It is, consequently not reassuring to hear the Secretary of Homeland Security say
that "we were surprised" that al Qaeda in Yemen would be plotting attacks against
the American homeland. Why should we be surprised when those with whom we
admit we are at war plan to attack us? And was it precisely that kind of naivete that
led to the security and intelligence failures that nearly cost 288 American lives?
   What America heard in the aftermath of the near "man caused disaster" was an
endless prattle of CYA excuses and, until today, pretenses that everything was under
control while Obama vacationed in Hawaii, CTC Director Michael Leiter was on
the ski slopes and DHS Secretary Napolitano was on national television claiming
that "the system worked" when it clearly didn't. Why all the circling of the wagons
when the time and intellectual energy could be better spent actually solving the
problem and fixing the failed policies?
   There is one reason: politics.  Simply put, the Democrats who have power want to
hold onto it and are grasping at straws to do damage control, while Republicans want
to get it back so they turn the whole thing into a three-ring circus of finger-pointing.
The great farce is that none of this makes America safer, causes the intelligence and
security apparatus to become more competent or does any good at all. More and more
policies are about politics and not about pragmatics, and that, more than anythinng
else, causes gridlock in government and sustains a prolonged drift away from the hard-
nosed problem solving the nation needs.
   Put another way, if there are real, tough problems to solve, the last ones you want
solving them are politicians. Why? It's because what they know about are raising money,
winning elections, making speeches and trading backroom deals. If you want to solve
intelligence and security problems then you need to employ intelligence and security
professionals to do it, not political hacks whose first response to every crisis is to cover
their own backsides, point the finger at someone else or just pretend there is no crisis.
   Two cases in point that highlight what should be an obvious truism are Obama's
CIA Director Leon Panetta and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. Panetta's claim to
fame was that he was once a White House Chief of Staff. He had no background at all
in intelligence, save that he sat in on some CIA briefings while he worked for President
Clinton. Panetta's a career politican, period. If the American intelligence network is not
what it once was -- and it's not by a long shot -- it should come as no great syrprise. And
then there's Napolitano, a lawyer whose greatest distinction was that she served as the
governor of Arizona and played lead trumpet in Obama's campaign marching band. The
woman has zero background in any kind of security, let alone homeland security, and
a troubling penchant for shoving her foot into her mouth up to the thigh. So why should
we be surprised to hear her insist that "the system worked" until after her boss publicly
said it didn't? Politicans do politics. Serious people with technical training and long
resumes of practical experience do intelligence gathering and analysis and security
work, Passing out vital government functions as political party favors has led to the
insolvency of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the collapse of the housing market and
now, nearly the loss of 288 more lives. And one political party is just as guilty of it as
the other. We have to start demanding of our national administrations that they seek
out the most qualified indiciduals to serve, irrespective of political affiliation, and
then set the performance bar high, refusing to accept less than 100% performance.
   The two party system and the partisanship to which it has given rise are not the
answers to the problem. They ARE the problem. Don't we deserve better?
 
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