Health care reform passed....

Health care reform passed the House 219-212. This 2300+ page abomination must be repealed to save this country.

Hope and Change --> Hope he Fails

There are catchphrases and slogans that people associate with certain people, especially in politics. From “I like Ike” to “Compassionate Conservatism,” people in the realm of politics use these phrases to rally the populace to their cause. These slogans are short, sweet, and gets to the point.

In 2008, the phrase that swept the country was “Hope and Change” and “Change We Can Believe In.” It encapsulated the last year of President Bush and the urge for a simple change of leadership that many, even Republicans, wanted after eight years. That phrase, along with a horrible economic downturn, got Obama into the White House.

In 2009, the phrase came early in the year. Republicans were ready to help President Obama and willing to work in the spirit of bipartisanship to get much of Obama’s agenda through Congress. One man with a microphone spoke up and in four words summed up the Republican approach to the new Obama presidency – “I HOPE HE FAILS!!!”

That phrase, uttered by Rush Limbaugh on January 16, 2009 (four days before Obama’s inauguration) was the rallying call for many on the Right who were about ready to give up. Today, Obama’s stimulus plan got through barely but everything else grind to a halt. Health Care Reform is dead in conference after both houses of Congress passed their vastly different versions. The tea party movement has arisen to oppose Obama’s agenda.

In Obama’s first year in office, Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, all “Blue” states, have elected Republicans officials. This is the start of an anti-incumbent and anti-Democratic Party wave that is coming in like a tsunami and will wipe out Democrats in 2010. Minority Leaders Boehner and McConnell will become Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader McConnell by this time next year. It's 1994 all over again!!

2012

Remember Y2K? The year that the world was supposed to come to an end? I remember that New Year, watching fireworks go off and watching the television on the celebrations going around the world without suffering a major glitch.

Now we have another end-of-the world scenario coming up in 2012, when the Mayans predicted that either the world will end or some catastrophe will occur. Films such as 2012 are making huge money on this fear.

So, what is the event that wipes us out? Floods? Earthquake? Hurricanes? Tsunamis? Or a combination of everything, including fairies?

We have been here before. Many people from Nostradamus to Al Gore have predicted that either we must change our way of life in order to prevent disaster or we are destined to be hit with a disaster no matter what we do. They are all a bunch of snake oil salesmen who are trying to persuade the public that the world is about to end in order to push a product or a public policy.

We have more pressing matters to worry about than the 2012 hoax. The economy has not recovered, people are losing their jobs, Congress is considering bills that are over 2000 pages long and full of bureaucratic waste, a budget deficit of over $1 trillion, and a government that does not serve the people.

I am more worried about the government rolling back our rights via the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” (cap and trade), or the “Affordable Health Care for America Act” (the health care bill that just passed the House). People must stand up against this attempt to take over many of the basic functions of American life.

My prediction: the world will end in 2012 if Barack Obama is re-elected as President of the United States. It has as much of a chance to occur as the Mayan prediction of the events of 2012.

Golf

President Obama must love his golf. Obama has golf 24 rounds since he became President. It took the previous president, Bush 43, 2 years and 10 months to reach that many rounds.

Obama can do whatever he wants with his free time. However, it looks bad when the economy is going bad and American foreign policy is taking a beating. I guess Obama has delegated enough authority to his subordinates that they can afford him the luxury of golf.

http://www.politico.com/click/stories/0910/obama_ties_bush_on_golf.html

Debt

The Congress will soon increase the debt ceiling to $13 trillion. When will the Congress realize that spend, borrow, and print is not the greatest way to govern a country?

Obama

Obama gets a Nobel Peace Prize for bombing the moon. Oh wait, he bombed the moon AND got a Nobel Peace Prize. Isn't bombing the moon an act of war?! Why didn't he use sanctions and tried to negotiate to get the "ice" that underneath the Moon's surface? Did we invade the Moon unilaterally or did we go with a Coalition of the Willing? Did we go to the UN to get a resolution condemning the Moon for having illegal weapons? Or for having poisonous cheese?

Only four United States Presidents have ever gotten a Nobel Peace Prize. President Theodore Roosevelt received it for negotiating a peace treaty between Russia and Japan in 1906. President Wilson got one for the Treaty of Versailles (which led to German anger and Hitler) and the League of Nations (a less competent version of the United Nations). President Carter got one in 2002 for decades of failed appeasements. What has Obama done to receive his Nobel Peace Prize? The only thing he has done is apologize for everything America has done wrong and stated that the United States needs to improve itself. Obama needs to change his slogan from "Hope and Change" to "Apologize and Beg."

Is it too early to give Obama an award like this? He has been President for less than a year, no treaties have been signed, his poll numbers are slipping, plus Afghanistan and Iraq are continuing under his watch. Do the people that award these prizes look at the credentials of some of their awardees? Arafat got a peace prize in 1994. He continued to wage terrorism and warfare on the state of Israel until his last day on this planet.

Obama should say "Thanks but no thanks" to his award and get back to the real issue: figuring out how to apologize to the rest of the world for bombing the Moon.

You Lie!!

During Obama's speech, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) blurted out "You lie!!" when Obama was telling the Congress that his health care plan will not cover illegal immigrants.

Rep. Wilson is on the right track. Even if the plan does not explicitly cover illegal immigrants, they will have access to it if they need it. Also, when Congress and Obama pass comprehensive immigration reform, those 12-20 million illegal immigrants will become citizens and have full access to health care.

Polls

Obama's approval numbers have dipped below 50%. Not a good sign. He needs to do something to get his numbers up.

Fiscal Insanity

In a nation of over 300 million citizens, how can the federal government justify receiving over two trillion ($2,000,000,000,000+) in tax revenue/receipts and still run a deficit of $1.58 trillion ($1,580,000,000,000.00) for the current fiscal year. The federal government has lived well beyond its means for too long. The 1970s, 80s, most of the 90s, and this decade were marked by ever growing deficits that nobody in Congress or the White House had the resolve to reduce.

We now have a president who, instead of limiting the spending in the federal government, believes that the government is the sole solution to all our problems and must spend in order for the economy to recover.

When Senator McCain called for spending freezes during the presidential debates, candidate Obama said, "The problem is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel." Now that he is President, Obama states that he is a man of fiscal restraint. Where has he been able to cut any money in the federal budget? The deficit has risen due to bank bail-outs and stimulus but the economy has taken a nosedive. Obama has done nothing to reduce the deficit by cutting spending. To extend the metaphor, Obama has thrown away the scalpel and pumped the patient (economy) full of blood, hoping that it will recover from a massive heart attack.

If that was not bad, now we have health care reform that will either balloon the deficit, force the Congress to raise taxes, or limit health care to those who need it. The public option, a.k.a. government-run health insurance, will be a great burden for the federal budget and a bureaucratic nightmare for the millions of people who would be on the public option to receive basic care. Is this true reform that we can afford at this time?

It is time to reconsider our fiscal priorities. We must eliminate any program that is not a priority. Washington must be able to live within the means that We, the People provide them. The “hatchet” method must be deployed to eliminate huge amounts of money that Washington does not need. Fiscal insanity has gripped Washington for too long. Our government must return to the simple concept of staying within its own budget.

http://www.aberdeennews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090830/OPINION01/908300317

Middle class taxes?! Sounds like 1993

Obama might have to break a campaign promise to get his wish of government run health care. His advisors are stating that a middle class tax hike might be necessary to fund Obama's health care legislation. How can the government target tax increases at certain people within our progressive tax systems that punishes achievement?

Obama's advisors are now worried about the budget deficit. Where was this concern when he passed the stimulus bill and everything else that was passed by Congress this year? This concern should have made a long time ago, before the government took over two auto companies, bailed-out of major banks, and everything else.

It's Clinton 1993 all over again. He promised a middle class tax cuts but raised marginal rates on the middle class in order to reduce the deficit.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/2-Obama-officials-No-apf-2491158742.html?x=0&.v=7
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090803/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_economy

Fraud

Who is more of a fraud - President Obama or Alex Rodriguez?

Health Care

We don't need health care reform. We need the gov't. to stay out as much as possible. Give health care an incentive to lower its own costs in the private sector.

Defict hits $1 trillion

Budget deficit for the fiscal year has gone over $1 trillion for the first time, biggest deficit ever and we still have 2.5 months to go. By September 31, the Obama Adminstration predicts a $1.84 trillion deficit. I bet it goes even higher.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090714/D99DSUG00.html

No Hope, No Change

Last year, fiscal year 2008, the deficit was $455 billion, the worst deficit of US history. However, this year, that record could be crushed as the Obama White House and Congress project could be $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, if not more. National Debt is currently over $6 trillion and going up.

The fiscal mess we are in today is caused by those in Washington that promise their constituents

everything to get elected and cannot make the hard choices to keep the government fiscally strong. It also does not help that the current President preaches fiscal discipline but has already sign a huge stimulus plan that won't stimulate anything and other legislative bills that spend even more.

When Obama promised hope and change, the change was the money we will have to pay to the government in forms of higher taxation, while the hope was for government bureaucrats who will delight in an ever expanding national government.

http://zfacts.com/p/461.html

http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp1213.htm

Obama, Sotomayor, and California

Busy day today. New Obama pick for the Supreme Court and California keeping the ban on gay marriage.

First, Obama picked Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge for the Second Circuit. Sotomayor is famous for ending the baseball strike in 1995 as a District Court Judge. She is considered a centrist by many. However, it's too early to tell.

The other big story is that the California Supreme Court affirmed the will of the people last November in upholding the ban on gay marriage. In a 6-1 decision, the California High Court ruled that the constitutional amendment was valid. However, they allowed the 18,000 gay couples that were married before the ban to remain legal. At least the California High Court got this decision mostly right.

California
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D98E2DO00&show_article=1
Sotomayor
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090526/ap_on_go_su_co/us_obama_supreme_court

My Response to Blanchard's op-ed

In reading Dr. Blanchard's most recent op-ed in the American News, I am a little bit surprised that people actually believed Obama's rhetoric of "hope and change." Maybe since I voted for the other guy in the last election because I did not like Obama, does not allow me to be stuck in the mindset of an Obama voter who wanted to rid the United States of anything that resembled George W Bush's work.
Nevertheless, anybody expecting to see radical changes within the first year of the Obama Administration would most definitely be disappointed by how this presidency has shaped up. Most of Obama's appointments have been either part of the Clinton White House (especially Hillary) and/or tax cheats. The Secretary of the Treasury owed tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS even though he was part of the Federal Reserve and now responsible for the $350 billion part of the Bail-Out approved last fall.

Dr. Blanchard stated that the Obama presidency is looking like a third Bush term. Isn't that what Obama tried to pin to McCain during the election? Besides, I don't see Obama as a mythical third Bush term. I see Obama as a second term that Jimmy Carter never got. America is going back on the defensive, trying to refocus our efforts on reclaiming our moral authority. By releasing the "torture" memos and other actions, Obama is trying to distance himself from the past and trying to reboot our relations with the rest of the world.

However, those on the far left want Bush hung upside down for his "crimes" that occurred during his presidency. Those are the people Dr. Blanchard refers to that expected a different Obama presidency. They will get what they want in time, just not as fast as they wanted.

The problem with any changes Obama makes is that the massive executive bureaucracy in place follows Newton's first law of motion: An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless an external force changes the motion. The bureaucracy is huge and slow-moving. Any changes Obama makes have to be massive and fast paced to have any effect on the bureaucracy.

As we get deeper into his presidency, Obama will make decisions that in time will reverse the Bush policies in matters of foreign policy and we will see the distinction between the two. For now, the decisions of the previous president are in effect until Obama has time to reverse it.


Dr. Blanchard's Opinion-Editorial in the American News:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090520/OPINION02/905200316/-1/opinion