Socialist Backlash? France, Germany Among European Nations That Move Right After Elections

Is there a socialist backlash starting in Europe? For decades, Europe has been the poster child for socialism. Over recent years, the tide had started to change. As I reported on my Review blog conservatives are making a comeback in Europe. The elections of France's Sarkozy and Germany's Merkel were just the beginning. Over the last few days, elections all over Europe has begun to bear significant fruit of this backlash against socialist failures:

Conservatives raced toward victory in some of Europe's largest economies Sunday as exit polls showed voters punishing left-leaning parties in European Parliament elections in France, Germany and elsewhere.

Some right-leaning parties suggested the results vindicated their reluctance to spend more on company bailouts and fiscal stimulus amid the global economic crisis.

Projections showed Germany's Social Democrats heading to their worst showing in a nationwide election since World War II. Four months before a German national election, the outcome boosted conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel's hopes of ending the tense left-right "grand coalition" that has led the European Union's most populous nation since 2005.

The results from France wasn't any better for socialist parties:

Exit polls suggested France's governing conservative party scored a resounding victory with 28.3 percent of the vote, followed by the opposition Socialist Party with 17.5 percent.

French Socialists said their defeat signaled a need to rethink left-wing policies to unseat Sarkozy.

Ya, you should "rethink" your policies. For example, your party should drop all of that socialist fantasy nonsense and join us in the real world where capitalism and individual freedoms are paramount and the most effective way to ensure success in any country's economy. Entitlement programs just make people lazy, and they don't have the drive to be everything that they can be because the government will take care of them from cradle to grave.

All over Europe a socialist backlash seems to be taking root:

Opinion surveys and exit polls showed right-leaning governments edging the opposition in Italy and Belgium as well as Germany and France. Conservative opposition parties were tied or ahead in Britain and Spain, opinion polls showed.

A center-right European leader, Graham Watson, had this to say about the election results:

"People don't want a return to socialism and that's why the majority here will be a center-right majority."

While Britain didn't have any major elections this year, the socialist backlash seems to taking root there as well:

In Britain, dissident Labour legislators said a plot to oust Prime Minister Gordon Brown could accelerate after the party's expected dismal results in the European elections are announced.

Opponents say the Labour leader has been so tainted by the economic crisis and a scandal over lawmakers' expenses that the opposition Conservatives are virtually guaranteed to win the next national election, which must be called by June 2010.

Of course, the Associated Press and others in the mainstream media blame the "far-right" and other "fringe" groups gains this past week not as a sign of a significant shift in Europe but as a sign of "low voter turnout":

Exit polls also showed gains for far-right groups and other fringe parties due to record low turnout.

They repeatedly focused on low turnout to try to imply the victories as not a true indicator of the beliefs of Europeans. Also, they tried to peg some of the groups as bigots by their "Anti-Islamic" platforms.

Bulgaria, Hungry, and Poland are also moving more to the right.

Greece and Portugal are the only European countries that seems to be moving more to the left.

It's a welcome sign from across the pond. Hopefully, this is just the beginning. If Europe admits the socialist experiments as failures, maybe Americans will learn from their mistakes before we make the same ones over here.

Numerous polls show that Americans are already growing tired of it. TEA parties have popped up all over the country with plans for more on July 4th. The 2010 elections are beginning to look scary for the Democrats. It could be 1994 all over again.

Waxman's Folly: Proposed Bill Includes Provision That Allows Global Warming "Victims" to Sue Government

Whenever the Democrats want to pay back their base, everyone must pay for it. This time their looking to bestow their trial lawyer constituency with a significant reward for voting Democrat.

Reps. Henry Waxman (CA) and Edward Markey (MA) wrote a bill that allows individuals to sue the government for ailments allegedly caused by climate change. This could conceivably mean that people suffering with anything from something as serious cancer to something as minor as asthma or sunburns could sue the US, state, and local governments because they neglected to put restrictions on man-made gases that some say cause global warming. Not only that, but one could also sue for ailments that they don't even have but could "expect to suffer" from an ailment.

According to the Washington Times:

"The measure sets grounds for anyone 'who has suffered, or reasonably expects to suffer, a harm attributable, in whole or in part,' to government inaction to file a 'citizen suit.' The term 'harm' is broadly defined as 'any effect of air pollution (including climate change), currently occurring or at risk of occurring.'"

Leave it to two trial lawyers to dream this up. Frivolous doesn't even start to describe this new potential type of litigation. It would create a whole new breed of lawyers. They will make "ambulance chasers" look like boy scouts.

This is absolutely asinine. It's like suing churches because one might believe that God allegedly failed to prevent them from getting sick. The only people that this would good for is the trial lawyers.

They will get rich exploiting the "victims" and the government, and by extension every single taxpayer in this country. The government is having enough trouble paying for the Democrats' wish list as it is.

This will spark a massive onslaught of frivolous lawsuits against the government. As unpredictable as juries and judges can be, it could lead to big sums of money being awarded to people because of activist judges and juries, especially in the more liberal parts of the country.

Many people today are looking for that one big score so they won't have to ever work again. They see Uncle Sam as the rich uncle with deep pockets that they can squeeze some money from without any consequences. However, the government can't pay the bills they already have. We don't need to add more leeches sucking on a piggy bank that has already been bled dry.

How could this ever be considered a good idea? People nowadays are too sue-happy as it is. Do we really need to make it easier for them to sue the government in order to get a big payday?

The bill would limit the amount that any one person could be awarded at $75,000 in a year and $1.5 M lifetime. Considering that there are over 306 million potential litigants,...um I mean people, in this country right now, that would be about $540 M that could be conceivably given out.

The legal theory behind this bill is extremely flawed. Assuming climate change exists, the government isn't directly responsible for the carbon emissions that cause it. It's a stretch to say that they're even liable for global warming effects.

Secondly, how can one be able to sue for an ailment that they don't even have yet? It would be the equivalent of someone suing McDonald's because they "expect to suffer" from coffee burns sometime in the future... maybe.

Plus, you have to wonder where and when would it stop. Being able to sue the government for global warming would open the door wide open to sue companies for their contributions to the release of man-made gases that allegedly cause climate change. This would devastate industries like the automobile and airline industries already teetering on the edge of collapse. It wouldn't just put the final nail on the coffin. It would fill in the 6-foot deep hole with cement instead of dirt.

Other industries like energy, transportation, and different manufacturing industries would be thrown into a tailspin, if this bill was enacted. It'll cost more to make and transport the goods to sell. The only way they could survive would be to pass on the cost of the lawsuits onto the consumer by driving up the prices of everything we use and buy. All kinds of insurance in this country are already sky high because of Frivolous lawsuits. What happened to insurance would happen to most of the industries in this country.

Let's also consider that the United States only emits slightly over 20% of the world's emissions. What about the other 80%? China and the European Union emits 33% of greenhouse gases combined. China's cities have a perpetual fog that surrounds them because of the amount of air pollution in the air.

Russia and India aren't exuding as much gases as the previous countries, but they are industrializing countries that care very little about restricting emissions. Their carbon footprint is getting increasingly bigger all the time.

Can we file lawsuits against those countries for their contributions to the problem? On the flip side of the coin, would this bill allow people from other countries to sue our government for global warming caused ailments? If you consider the $1.5 per person limit from before, the 6 trillion people in this world could bankrupt the US.

Finally, global warming is just a theory, if not a myth. Should we be giving so much weight and plausibility to a half-baked belief in man-made climate change that we could be risking sweeping and devastating consequences for years to come?

This is a transparent attempt for the Democrats to pay back their trial lawyer base. There is no other logical reason to include this provision in the proposed bill.

The mainstream media has buried the story, but it must be brought to light. I would recommend that you call your representative and senators and express your objections to this provision.

Rosa Brooks Loses Touch With Reality Writing Her LA Times Swan Song

In her last article for the LA Times before going to work for the Pentagon advisor for the Obama Administration, Rosa Brooks said the only way for the press to survive so that they can keep government in check is for the government to bail them out.

Please, someone give Ms. Brooks a drug test. She must be on something.

She seems to fail to realize that the great majority of people are usually reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them. As we have seen with AIG and GM, the government will ultimately exercise their ability to control what companies do and who is hired and fired by being able to have the power of the pursestrings over the companies. Therefore, if newspapers and journalists rely on the government for their salaries and survival, they will be less likely to say anything bad about the government because of the fear of losing funding or jobs.

It would give the government too much power over the press. It would bring an end the freedom of the press, at least for the ones that were bailed out. There is a reason why the freedom of the press was in the first amendment in the Bill of Rights. It is one of the cornerstones needed to keep free society like our own free. The government would be able to bury any story that would air their dirty laundry and affect their chances of getting re-elected.

A great example is when Rod Blagojevich tried to blackmail the Tribune Co., which owns the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Cubs. Hot Rod refused to give them any "f'n" money for Wrigley Field unless they would get rid of certain "A-holes" that wrote pieces that expressed their unfavorable opinions of the "damn" former Illinois governor and his policies.

If Rod was able to exert this kind of pressure on the paper and almost succeed with indirect control of a company's money flow, imagine what those corruptable officials in government could do with direct control of their money flow. Our newspapers would devolve into just being a mouthpiece for whoever is in charge in Washington. Our press corps would start resembling cheerleaders much like the press in dictatorships with state-run media in Venezuela and N. Korea have turned into with their coverage of the "Dear Leaders". Then again, the way the papers have covered "The One we've been waiting for" maybe they're already cheerleaders anyway, but at least they have a choice to be a cheerleader or not. If the papers are bailed out, they won't have a choice.

Brooks: "Some might say I have a 'new job,' but because I'll be escaping a dying industry -- and your tax dollars will shortly be paying my salary -- I prefer to think of it as my personal government bailout."

Does she not realize that one of the main reasons why the industry is "dying" is because of hacks like her that distort the truth to promote her own liberal agenda as she did here.

By the way, is it discomforting to anyone else that my tax dollars are going to pay her salary now, or is it just me?

In response to her piece, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air had some major disagreements with her spotty at best theory. First of all, "it’s a myth that faulty reporting led to the war; Democrats and Republicans both used the same intel and gave the same answers on Iraqi WMD, as did all of the Western democracies.  The intel was wrong, a problem that better reporting would not have solved."

He, also, rightly debunks her claim that the media was supportive of the Iraqi invasion in 2003. He goes on to wonder if papers were dependent on the Bush Administration would they do a better job of holding him accountable than one independent.

Let me get my magic 8-ball.

Um...no.

I agree with Ed to a certain extant about Brooks' view on the absurdity of equating the government's role in the newspaper industry to its role in roads and schools. Roads are definitely something that the government should control. Although, I'm not totally sold on the idea that the government should have such a huge role in the school system. They've run our schools into the ground. Why let them keep control of it ? Also, I believe that they shouldn't have so much control over what is taught to our kids especially in relation to evolution and other controversial subjects.

A newspaper bailout as Brooks presents it is a horrific idea. It'll just be another step towards socialism a la Venezuela.

EPA + CO2 = < GDP

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Obama administration are preparing to put more regulations on carbon dioxide emissions. Since many in the scientific community blame carbon dioxide for causing global warming, Lisa Jackson, the new EPA administrator, wants to find the latest research and prepare documentation that will explain our need for such regulations.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, I am personally a huge skeptic when it comes to whether global warming is actually happening and whether we are causing it, if it is. So, I don't believe that the new regulations would be necessary anyway.)

The fact is the new restrictions on carbon dioxide that have been proposed will raise the costs of energy like gas and coal. The price of manufacturing cars will go up as well because the manfactures would have to reinvent a car that will be able to comply with the new regulations.

This would be the last straw for the Big 3 in Detroit. If it costs Detroit more to make the cars, then, they will have to pass that higher cost onto the consumer in order to stay profitable. The already high price of cars will skyrocket, and people won't be able to buy the cars that they want, especially with the credit crunch in this country.

The three "too big to fail" pigs in Detroit will have to keep asking the government for more of OUR money because the Obama administration and the Democrats would be making it impossible for them to rebound and become profitable.

General Motors (GM), Chrysler, and Ford are getting attacked from both flanks in their fight for survival and profitability. The UAW is digging in their heels to demand that their workers continue to be paid way more than anyone else in the industry. They won't allow any of them to lower the wages. Although, they made some significant compromises. They eliminated jobs bank (which allows workers to receive 95% pay and benefits for a year after they were laid off from the Big 3), won't give automatic raises, and limited overtime that workers could get per week. Even with the compromises that they made, the UAW is still putting the Big 3 in a distinct disadvantage in their competition with other car manufactures.

Now that they were finally able to get the UAW to bend a little, why is the EPA wanting to make it even harder for them to turn around their businesses by making them retool all of their plans because of more restrictions that Lisa Jackson and most of the Democrats want to force them to comply to? These new requirements will make GM, Chrysler, and eventually Ford need more time and more of our money to make them viable again. GM and Chrysler have already asked for more money from the government this past week to stay alive. If Congress ever gets a backbone and says, "No" to them, it will guarantee bankruptcy and most likely bring about their fall.

The new EPA regulations would be the final nail in their coffin, if it comes to pass. They are already teetering on the verge of collapse without this kind of "help" of the administration. It is like a lifeguard trying to save the drowning man by giving him a ball-and-chain instead of a life jacket.

The automobile industry is not the only ones that would feel the effects of this ill-advised policy. Every industry will be hit with the higher prices of coal and gasoline. It will cost more to transport goods across the country and worldwide. Therefore, they will also have to pass the higher cost of transportation on to the consumers. As a result, consumers will buy less of their products or stop buying them altogether. After they stop selling, they will have to start laying people off because of a lack of sales. If sales dip too low, they will have to go out of business which will put everyone in the company out of work.

The rise in regulations will also hurt those of us that have the misfortune of having to live, eat, or leave the house. The cost of heating and air will skyrocket. Unless you want to live in the winter using just your fireplace in the winter (assuming the EPA won't try and regulate the carbon emissions coming from your fire), you will pay more to stay warm. Also, staying cool in the summer will also be much more costly.

It'll cost more to take the kids to school or go buy groceries. It'll also cost more to buy those groceries because of the higher transportation costs the companies will have to pay to get the food to the store.

This is just a bad idea any other time, but it could be a catastrophic one at a time such as this. The economy is holding on by a thread already. We don't need something like this to unravel that one string. The gross domestic product (GDP) will plummet, unemployment would go into the double digits, inflation will go nuts, and it could get us in a full blown depression.

Obama, just say no to the environmentalists. If the auto industry and the rest of economy rebounds, then you can try and get more regulations in gradually, but you can't sacrifice this nation's economy long term for the short term benefit of appeasing part of your base.

You need to put our money where your mouth is. You need to show that post-partisan spirit that you claimed to have throughout your campaign.

American's Right to Defend One's Property in Jeopardy

Imagine that you are home minding your own business. You are a simple cattle rancher who wants to spend his days in peace in the Arizona countryside next to the border with Mexico. You are not near any major cities where crime runs rampant.  You think that you are safe. However, you wake up one day and your property is getting vandalized.  Your house is getting broken into and trucks are stolen. Your livestock is dying from eating plastic bottles that are littered all over your land. In fact, there is so much litter on the ground that it is starting to look like a garbage dump. There is a steady stream of illegal immigrants invading your own version of the Ponderosa.
 
What would you do to combat the vandals? Call the cops? They don't seem to what to do anything to help watch your land or taken any type of proactive actions to prevent any future occurrences. Would you call your congressman? Senator? Governor? You could, but they don't seem to care either. If no one cares, maybe you would give up and deal with it or move.  Maybe you would fight back.
 
So many would cross his 22,000 acre ranch into the United States that the local and federal law enforcement agencies started calling it "the avenue of choice" of illegal immigrants. In 1998, Roger Barnett, of Douglas, Arizona got tired of waiting for the government to protect his land and chose to fight back. He began patrolling his own property and detaining illegal immigrants entering the country on his property while waiting on law enforcement to come and pick them up. Over the past 10 years, he has exercised his right to protect his property, home, and family by turning over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol.
 
Now, he is getting sued for $32 million by 16 people that he detained and had arrested back in March 2004. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) claims that Mr. Barnett violated the civil rights of the 5 women and 11 men he captured and held at gunpoint while waiting for law enforcement to come and apprehend them.  They go on to accuse Mr. Barnett of "yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women." As he was waiting for law enforcement, MALDEF claims that he threatened them in English and Spanish while pointing a pistol at them and his large dog barked at the trespassers.
 
According to the Washington Times, "Mr. Barnett said some of the ranch's established immigrant trails were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, used toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, empty 1-gallon water bottles, chewing-gum wrappers and aluminum foil - which supposedly is used to pack the drugs the immigrant smugglers give their 'clients' to keep them running."
 
I don't know about you, but I would not put up with all that he has put up with from the felons that have crossed his property over the years. The right to the ownership of PRIVATE property is one of the founding cornerstone beliefs in what makes this country great. He has an absolute right to protect his ranch, home, and family. According to the many comments on the "Douglas Dispatch" website regarding this issue, most people agree with me.
 
This lawsuit is an abomination to the Constitution of the United States and all of our rights. He has the perfectly legal right to apprehend and detain individual that are illegally trespassing on his property. It is nothing but a Trojan horse lawsuit to make this an open border country and amnesty for illegal immigrants in this country.

Many on the left will try to demonize Mr. Barnett. "The Barnett brothers have time and time and time again held people at gunpoint," Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center said. "There were cases that may well have amounted to false imprisonment, which is a felony."

Well, this statement is misrepresenting the facts of the case. It is true that if he would hold a random law-abiding person at gunpoint it would be considered kidnapping or false imprisonment. However, they were in fact in the process of committing the federal felony of entering the country illegally and a misdemeanor crime of criminal trespassing. According to Arizona law, people are allowed to do a citizen's arrest when the suspect commits a felony that the arresting citizen witnesses or when a citizen knows that a felony has been committed and has reasonable grounds to believe that the suspect committed it. [See A.R.S. section 13-3884.] (The statute also permits an arrest for a breach of the peace) He was well within his rights to do what he did.

Last March, Judge John Roll denied the Barnetts' motion to dismiss and stated there was sufficient evidence of a conspiracy, denying the plaintiffs their right to interstate travel and the Barnetts' actions were motivated by race, to allow the matter to be presented to a jury. 

The trial should have ended right there before it even started. Judge Roll been heavily criticized for his judicial activism. How could he totally ignore Barnett's property rights or the Arizona statue that allows private citizen's to make arrests of people committing felonies in their presence?

As the jury is currently deliberating the fate of Mr. Barnett, I sincerely hope that he is not found libel for violating their "civil rights". If he is, it will set a bad precedent and will basically make every American citizen's private property rights invalid.

A thug who is caught breaking into a man's house and assaulting his wife could claim that his rights were violated if the man protects his wife and apprehends the criminal while waiting for the cops. It would also make it a lot harder for us to prosecute illegal aliens.

How can a foreign criminal sue a U.S. citizen for preventing the criminal from committing another felony on said citizen's property?  Something doesn't sound right with that picture.

Could the Democrats Be Starting to Overreach?

The biggest danger the Democrats could face would be overreaching to their leftist base. This is still a center-right nation. It won't take much to start turning their constituents away. Bill Clinton found that out when he tried to get Hillacare passed and instituted the "don't ask, don't tell policy" in the military. The Democrats got thumped in the '94 mid-term elections. After only the first two weeks in power, it looks as if they haven't learned that lesson yet.

Obama's first two executive orders were to overturn the "Mexico City policy", which funds abortions internationally with federal tax money, and to close Guantanamo Bay within the year. He is, also, championing the "stimulus" package that is going through Congress. However, all of these are very unpopular with the American people.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans said they disagreed with the president's decision to give overseas funding to family planning organizations that provide abortions, according to a recent Gallup survey. Only, 35% of Americans supported decision.

The closing of Guantanamo was closer but still more Americans were against it than for it by a 50-44% margin.

The most toxic issue today for Obama and his fellow band of merry liberals is the "stimulus" bill by far. The "porkulus" bill, as it as been called by conservatives, is full of goodies for left-leaning organizations like ACORN and programs like an increase in the amount of food stamps given out that will have little to no effect on stimulating the economy.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37% favor the legislation, 43% are opposed, and 20% are not sure. The support for the bill has skydived overall the past two weeks. Opposition was 34% two weeks ago to 39% last week and 43% today. Even Democrats are starting to sour on the bill. Sixty-four percent of Democrats still support the plan. That is down from 74% a week ago, though. The more people hear about the bill, the more people don't like it. A recent Gallup survey found that 54% of those surveyed wanted the bill to be changed dramatically or killed altogether. Breaking down the 54% mentioned above: 37% wanted major changes made to the legislation, and 17% said that it should be rejected entirely.

The bill needs to be scrapped down all the way and rebuilt from the floor up. In fact, 45% favor a tax-cut only plan while 34% are opposed to the idea. On the other side of the coin, 72% of voters oppose a stimulus plan that includes only new government spending without any tax cuts.
More Americans seem to favor tax cuts as a way to stimulate the economy versus government spending. Obama would be wise to listen those who voted him in.

Obama still enjoys an approval rating of 61.8% (RCP average), but it has been steadily declining since his inauguration. Now, there is a natural decline that happens to every president after the "high" of inauguration. However, it'll keep falling if they follow the same policies that kicked the Democrats out of power in the White House under Carter and the Congress under Clinton. The GOP is gaining ground on the Democrats in Congress already. The Rasmussen survey said that 42% of voters said they would vote for their district's Democratic candidate while 38% said they would choose the Republican. A week ago, the Democrats enjoyed a seven-point lead, 42-35%.

It's still way too early to predict a mid-term backlash against the Democrats, but it is not off to a good start. If the bill goes through as is, and it the economy doesn't recover, there probably will be. Obama campaigned against the deficit spending of Bush. He criticized W. for ballooning the deficit over his years in office and claimed that McCain would be an extension of the Bush administration. However, he will be seen as a major hypocrite, if he doubles-down on the Bush style deficit spending. If he's not careful, it will be Obama that will be seen as Bush squared.

The Audacity of Prayer

Yesterday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton rejected an injunction that would have prevented religious references during the upcoming presidential inauguration in a lawsuit brought about from an atheist group led by Michael Newdow and Dan Barker. This is the third time that Newdow has failed to stop the prayers. Thank God that the third time wasn't the charm. He tried to file injunctions during Bush's past two inaugurations, also.

The atheist group was attempting to take away Obama's freedom of religious expression by filing a lawsuit to prohibit any references to religion in the festivities. They didn't want any prayers in the ceremony, "So help me, God," to be included at the end of his oath, or Obama to take his oath by placing his hand on the Bible. No one is forcing the president-elect to keep the religious aspect to the ceremony. If Obama didn't want them, he could have taken it out, but he wanted to keep it. In fact, he made a personal request to use the same Bible that Lincoln used at his first inauguration.

"The inauguration is not a religious event. It is a secular event of a secular country that includes all Americans, including those of us who are not Christians, including those of us who are not believers," Dan Barker, the Freedom From Religion leader said.

He's obviously forgetting that this country is founded on Judeo/Christian principles. From John Smith to the Pilgrims, the first Americans came to the New World seeking refuge from the English monarchy which forced their people to belong to the Church of England and practice their rituals. They kept them from practicing and proclaiming their own beliefs in public. Now, they want to do the same thing, today, in this country.

The Declaration of Independence specifically says that "Nature's God" entitled us the ability to govern ourselves. In addition, it specifically says that we were also "endowed by (our) Creator with certain unalienable Rights". The founders put a reference to a higher power at the beginning of the document twice. This is proof that we are a country founded on religious principles not totally secular ones.

America was founded on the concept of a "universal" God. There wasn't just one denomination or sect that was dominant over the others. According to recent poll, 92% of Americans that believe in God in one form or another or a universal spirit. Why would we totally take God out of our public and political lives? As long as the prayers are more on the generic side and focus on God and not Jesus, there is no reason why it shouldn't be included.

They want the state religion to be agnostic and force everyone to comply with their lack of beliefs in public, so they won't feel "uncomfortable". In order to make a few people "comfortable", the rest of America must feel awkward wanting to express their beliefs but forced not to by the concern for their comfort levels.

"Yet, we are subjected to someone else's religious views with the endorsement of the government, which makes us feel like second class outsiders," Barker continued. Apparently, they want to make the overwhelming majority in this country that are religious in anyway feel like outsiders instead. That seems very intolerant for those who say they want tolerance for their beliefs or rather the lack thereof.

Michael Newdow is an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church and the founder of the First Amendment Church of True Science (FACTS).

"The First Amendment reminds us that people see things differently, and guarantees that every individual will be afforded an opportunity to express (themselves) and follow (their) own conscience," said Michael Newdow in his first "sermon" given as FACTS founder. If this is how he believes, why is he wanting to take away Obama and everyone else's ability to express themselves religiously or follow their own conscience regarding their beliefs and actions?

"I hope people understand this is not an anti-God issue -- this is a pro-equality issue," Newdow told The Associated Press. "And it's not treating people equal when the government takes one side in a religious debate." That's a bit of a oxymoron when considering that the judge is going to have to take sides in making a decision, and he wants the judge to "choose" their side of argument.

Religion is defined as "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe...and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs."

Newdow has described how he believes as a "religion", and by definition, how atheists' believe is a religion. So, if they don't want the government to "pick sides" in matters of religion, the government cannot choose their "religion" either. They shouldn't try to prevent people from praying in public. In doing so, they would be favoring the position of the atheist "religion" over all others.

Another example of their hypocrisy: On Tuesday lawyers representing the atheists submitted the 1952 Supreme Court brief filed by the United States in Brown v. Board of Education, the case the declared segregated schools unconstitutional. They used a quote out of the brief from Harry Truman to justify their demands.

"We shall not finally achieve the ideals for which this nation was founded so long as any American suffers discrimination as a result of his race, or religion, or color, or the land of origin of his forefathers," Truman said.

How can they site a court case that gave people freedoms who should have them in the first place in order to take away freedoms from other people that should have them, too? That just seems wrong on so many levels. Also, I might be wrong, but wouldn't forbidding anyone to express themselves religiously through prayer or otherwise be the kind of religious discrimination that Truman was talking about?

"These atheists who are suing to prevent prayer at the inauguration are showing a fundamental misunderstanding of what the First Amendment is all about. The establishment of religion that is forbidden by the First Amendment means the official declaration of an official national church. It doesn't mean that public ceremonies can not include prayers or acknowledgment of the existence of God," Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council, told FOX News Radio.

"The atheists, while they have every right to practice their atheism, they do not have an absolute right not to be exposed to viewpoints they don't agree with,"  Sprigg continued.

Another attack on Obama came a month ago. The far left were all in a tizzy over one of his choices of preachers. Rev. Rick Warren was tapped by Obama to give a prayer at the ceremony. Liberals called it a "slap in the face" to them, especially gay rights activists.

Warren has caught a lot of heat from the left for vocally opposing Prop. 8, the amendment to California's state constitution that defines marriage between a man and a woman. The passing of Prop. 8 made gay marriage illegal again, trumping the ruling made by the activist judges in Sacramento. One of the more vocal critics of the pick was everyone's favorite House bloviater, Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat.

"Giving that kind of mark of approval and honor to someone who has frankly spoken in ways I and many others have found personally very offensive, I thought that was a mistake for the president-elect to do,” said Frank.

Well, if saying something that offends many or not is the yardstick that determines who gets to speak or not, than Frank shouldn't speak either. He has been quoted as saying that conservatives “believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth”. I know that about half of America might be offended at that.

This kind of hypocrisy is par for the course for many on the left that preach tolerance and diversity while refusing to be tolerant of anyone's decision to be more diverse in who they associate with professionally especially if they have a "R" after their name.

Why is it so hard to believe that Obama might respect Warren enough to bestow him this honor? After all, their views on gay marriage is almost identical. Rev. Warren is against redefining marriage, but he is for civil unions and other gay rights.

Obama said at the presidential candidate forum at the Saddleback Church, "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian it is also a sacred union." That is exactly almost the same as Warren's position. The only difference is that Obama didn't want the definition to be added to the constitution.

They have a selective memory, when it comes to the "chosen one". They will forgive him of anything, but if you are a conservative, you are demonized.

More Ice, Ice Baby!

Since before I was born in 1979, all of the global warming doomsayers were predicting that we would be well on our way to no polar caps by now. New York City and Los Angelos would be flooded. After all the environmental Chicken Littles' dire warnings of melting polar ice has been shoved down our throats for decades, a recent report by Daily Tech Online has found out that the difference in the ice levels between 1979 and today is zero. The ice levels are the same today as they were on the day I was born almost 30 years ago.

The inconvenient truth for the left and Al Gore is that they seem to may have been duped, or they have duped all of us. Gore got rich by scaring people about global warming while flying in his private jet and spraying "greenhouse gases" all over the world to deposit all of the money from the book sales and speaking engagements in the bank laughing all the way. The global warming racket is highly profitable one. People get billions of dollars from the government and private donations to combat this possibly fictitious threat.

This has been a bad year for global warming alarmists. Last winter, there was more snowfall recorded in the US and Canada since 1966. This winter looks like it might be even worse with already brutal winter weather in the Northeast and Northwest. Even places that hardly ever sees snow got it in record amounts. Las Vegas, Houston, and New Orleans all received an unusual snowstorm last month. An annual dog sled race in Minnesota has been canceled this year for too much snow for the first time ever.

In fact, the coldest decade last century wasn't the 90's like most alarmists would like you to believe. It was the 30's. Records of the weather have only been kept since the late 1800's, but other evidence exists that deals another big blow to their beliefs. Medieval times is suggested to have been even hotter than the 90's based on evidence from all around the world. That's one question that scientists can't answer. How can it be hotter in a time without any man-made "greenhouse
" gases than now with all of that man-made gases in the atmosphere?

“If we go back really, in recorded human history, in the 13th Century, we were probably 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are now and it was a very prosperous time for mankind,” Dr. Jay Lehr, an expert on environmental policy, said. “If we go back to the Revolutionary War 300 years ago, it was very, very cold. We’ve been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period and now we’re back into a cooling cycle.”

Weather is all about cycles. The day is warmer than nights. The summer is cooler than the winter. Those cycles are irrefutable. What if there is a bigger weather pattern that has not been realized yet because accurate weather records don't go back far enough? Could it be that every 200-300 years or so it alternates between hotter than cooler temperatures? Why is it impossible to the global warming faithful to admit that it is at least possible?

"Greenhouse gases" definitely has an affect on a local environment, but there isn't enough to believe that there is as any global warming effect caused by man.

The scientists have been trying to explain something that they didn't have enough imperical evidence to prove in the first place. Many scientists have forgotten that the role of a scientist is to constantly question everything. Unfortunately, they are too stuck in their own self-importance to admit that they might possibly be wrong.

Global-warming has become a religion. Al Gore has become their pope, and the scientists are their cardinals. The rest of the left-wing media and Hollywood are the preachers and missionaries that go around the world spreading warnings of the dangers of CO2 gases lest we create a hell on earth. Like the Holy Roman Empire, they excommunicate those who disagree with them and call them heretics. Only today, they do it first by publicly humiliating them with bad press, and if the heresy didn't stop, it might be a loss of a job.

However, more scientists than ever before have started to publicly criticize the theory of global warming. CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers recently said that it was arrogant for us to think that we can change the weather globally.

“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”

“The last 10 years have been quite cool,” Lehr continued. “And right now, I think we’re going into cooling rather than warming and that should be a much greater concern for humankind. But, all we can do is adapt. It is the sun that does it, not man.”

It is almost a common occurrence for me to see a conference on global warming being accompanied by record low temperatures at wherever the conference is being held, and they still act like the world is going to burn up, if we don't act now.
It is becoming almost comical, now.

I'm not saying that global warming doesn't exist without any doubt. It is just that global warming hasn't been proven beyond all doubt either. We should treat this theory as such, a theory not fact. As I have said before, we should be environmentally conscience, but not to the point were we are blind to the facts and the possibility that we are wrong. It doesn't matter that most scientists claim that it is fact. In medieval times, scientists swore that the earth was flat and the sun went around the earth. We all know how well those "facts" worked out.

Enviromentalists Cause Havoc on Seattle Streets

The weather outside was frightful for many in the Pacific Emerald City this past week. The roads were icy enough for Nancy Kerrigan to do a triple axle. The cars were slipping around the roads like Sunday at a NASCAR event. Every other level-headed city official would have used salt on the roads to help de-ice the roads and make them safer, but not the geniuses in the Washington city.

Environmentalists have convinced the city council to stop throwing salt on the streets out of fear of it spilling off into the Puget Sound. Since the Sound is full of salt water, it confuses me as to why it's bad to add salt to salt water. I guess too much salt would cause it to become like the Dead Sea, devoid of life because of too much salt. However, the amount of salt that could possibly run-off into the Puget Sound from salt that is put onto the roads a few days a year isn't enough to deaden the Sound. Diane Spector, a water-resources planner for Wenck Associates, which evaluated snow and ice clearance for nine cities in the Midwest, confirmed that using salt periodically will not have a lasting effect on the environment as long it is not used too often or too much.

What do they use instead of salt? They use sand. However, other cities are starting to move away from sand because it backs-up the sewers, goes into waterways, creates air pollution, and costs even more to clean up than salt. In fact, Ann Williams, spokeswoman for Denver's Department of Public Works, admits that they never use sand because it "causes dust, and there's also water-quality issues where it goes into streets and into our rivers." They don't even use enough sand to provide adequate traction, according to experts.

In addition to sand, they
use the method of "snow-packing." This is where they compact the snow and make it a harder surface to drive on, rather than melting it.

What is the result of using the less-efficient method of "snow-packing" and sand? According to the state patrol, they responded to 157 collisions Sunday in King County (Seattle). Troopers also responded to another 312 disabled vehicles.

Between noon and midnight on Saturday alone, the State Patrol responded to 246 collisions and disabled vehicles in King County. Of those mentioned, 179 occurred between 5 p.m. and midnight, when it would be the iciest.

"It's tough going. I won't argue with you on that," said Alex Wiggins, the chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transprtation. "We're sensitive about everything we do that impacts the environment." If that is so, why are they using an element that is more environmentally destructive than salt especially when the salt is more effective? The amount of accidents and broken down cars on the side of the rode around Seattle is just ridiculous. Driving around in icy conditions is dangerous enough. Do we really need to use an inferior product to keep our families safe while they are driving this holiday season? The accidents luckily didn't result in any deaths, but it could have been a very different story.

To Bail or Not to Bail: A Motor City Tale

President Bush has ok'd a $17.4 B bailout package for GM and Chrysler earlier today. Ford pulled out of the bailout for now. Pres. Bush thought that the economy is too fragile to let those two huge companies fail. He went against the Senate Republicans who were opposed to it.

Much has been said over the last few weeks about the Big 3/AWU bailout. Everything from planes, trains, and automobiles have been discussed. The emergency room doctors are doing all they can to keep the patients alive. GM, Chrysler, and Ford have all been shot in the assault on our economy. So far, Ford is in critical but stable condition. GM and Chrysler, on the other hand, are in the Intensive Care Unit. They have massive internal bleeding and are beginning to bleed out, and they are desperate for a blood transfusion.
Should we give them just the transfusion, or should we do the surgery to stop the bleeding? That is the dilemma that is facing Drs. Pelosi, Reid, and Bush right now in Washington.

To bail or not to bail? That is the question that has plagued Washington for a few months now. Who do we bailout? Where do we draw the proverbial line in the sand? The Republicans want to draw the line at the automotive giants. The Democrats don't seem to know what a line is. The $14 B bailout is needed to keep GM and Chrysler from going into chapter 11 bankruptcy. There are those "Chicken Little's" that say that Ch. 11 bankruptcy would spell doom for the Big 3 and the US economy and that people wouldn't buy cars from a company that goes into ch. 11. There are, also, some that say that the bailout would spell doom for our country by raising the national debt and taking us one step closer to bankruptcy as a nation.

Let's first look at what chapter 11 is and is not. It doesn't mean that the company is going out of business. Chapter 11 will enable the companies to reorganize its debt and renegotiate its contracts. The company will still exist.

One major argument for the bailout is people would be scared to buy from a company under going chapter 11. They are scared that, if the companies go under, there will not be anyone to fix their cars that are still under warranty. There have been some polls that seem to confirm this theory. A recent Fox poll said that 59% of people would not buy a car from a company in bankruptcy. If people really understood what chapter 11 bankruptcy really is, they would not fear buying from companies in chapter 11. Perhaps Congress should use the money that they want to give the companies to insure the warranties of the people that buy the new cars. If people weren't afraid of being left out in the cold with their warranties when one or all of the Big 3 folded, they would not be so reluctant and would be more likely to buy the cars.

Another reason some give to them a bridge loan is that there the effect on all of those people that is currently being employed getting layed off would be catastrophic to the entire US economy. They have a point with this argument. It would have a disastrous impact on the entire country, if they went down. However, under chapter 11, they wouldn't totally dissolve. They would just restructure how they operate. A few might be layed off, but not the amount of what is being floated around. Filing for ch. 11 doesn't automatically mean that the collapse of the company is inevitable. There have been other companies that filed for chapter 11 that didn't collapse. Texaco, Delta, and Continental Airlines all filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy over the years. (Continental has filed twice.) They are all still around and profitable today.

One thing that a ch. 11 bankruptcy would do is make any contracts null and void, including the contract with the United Auto Workers. I believe that is the real reason why the union and the Democrats that are in their pocket are so against filing for Chapter 11. The UAW doesn't want their contracts to be voided. They know that they got a sweetheart deal that they could not get again. They were able to get the Big 3 to start a Job Bank program, which is a program that guarantees laid off workers would still receive full pay and benefits from the company until they find another job or they find another position for them. These workers could receive funds from the program for up to two years for doing nothing. According to research done in 2005 by The Detroit News, 12,000 laid off workers from the Big 3 plus Delphi Corp. were still receiving regular paychecks and benefits for doing nothing. How could they expect the companies to be financially viable while being dragged down by all that dead weight? The four auto companies above combined spent over $4 B on this program alone.

According the Heritage Foundation's research, the Big 3 pay their employees over $70 p/ hour including current wages and future benefits like retirement pensions. About $30 of that is current cash wages, plus an additional $10 a hour on average for overtime pay. The rest, which comes to about $31 p/ hour, is for medical, dental, and life insurance and unemployment and retirement benefits. On average, all other private sector workers makes about $25 p/ hour. That is a $45 a hour difference. No company can afford that. To contrast their foreign counterparts that have factories in other parts of the country, especially the South, they pay the people just over $40 p/ hour for current and future benefits, and they are doing much better financially than Detroit.

The Legacy benefits are also a problem for the Big 3. These are the health benefits and pensions for current retirees. Retirement pensions alone cost them an additional $31 p/ hour per current active worker.

The GOP was wanting the UAW to make concessions that would make sure that both companies would be viable in the future. They wanted the union to discontinue the job banks program and make their pay more "competitive" with other auto companies across the country. The UAW knew that the administration wouldn't let the companies file ch. 11, so they would not agree to any significant changes. They said that they would temporarily suspend the job banks program for 1 year and little else. The Republicans wanted more concrete changes. Most of the Republicans that were against the bailout represent states in the South where unions don't have a hold on the foreign automakers in those right- to-work states. They see how well that those companies operate and would like the Big 3 to become more like them, so they can stay in business for a long time and keep Americans employed.

Bush did tell the UAW that they must stop the job banks program and become more competitive with their counterparts, but Obama could reverse that in one month as he takes office. Obama was quoted as saying, "The auto companies must not squander this chance to reform bad management practices and begin the long-term restructuring that is absolutely required to save this critical industry and millions of American jobs that depend on it." Anyone else catch that he only mentioned that the companies must change and not anything about the UAW needing to change, too? That doesn't make me feel too good about him keeping the demands on the union intact after he takes office. They need to force the union to accept a new agreement with the auto companies that would make it possible for the companies to survive.

I'm not saying that GM, Chrysler, and Ford are innocent in their financial difficulties. No one put a gun to their head to accept the UAW's demands. They were arrogant enough to think that they would always dominate the market before the rise of foreign automobiles. The CEOs of the companies insistent on pushing SUVs and trucks on a public that was starting to lean towards more fuel efficient models. They refused to listen to their customers, and it cost them many loyal customers. This summer's gas spike cemented the gas guzzlers fate.

The government deserves some blame, too. They put strict guidelines on what Detroit could make. Some regulations are needed, but they went overboard on some things. The Democrats' refusal to drill more offshore, in Alaska, and the Rockies has helped bring down Detroit.


There needs to be an overhaul on how the industry operates. They need to put more fuel efficient and alternative fuel cars on the market, and they renegotiate the contracts they have no matter how hard the UAW and their supporters in the government whine and resist. To let them crumble would devastate the economy, but throwing money at them and letting them stay the course that has led the to the brink of bankruptcy would be even worse. This would be increasing our national debt for nothing. Giving them a bailout without strings attached that would make the company financially viable is like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound to the aorta. It is useless and the patients will die anyway. It would just delay the inevitable. We should help Detroit but only if they will help themselves.

Gov. Blagojevich Receives Odd Birthday Present

Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois received an early birthday present from US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, silver metal bracelets. Gov. Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested early tuesday morning, the day before the governor's 52nd birthday, for corruption and a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy which included trying to sell-off Obama's vacated US Senate seat to the highest bidder. This is just another instance of the wide spread corruption of the Chicago-style political machine that has become all too commonplace in Illinois. The governor had approval ratings as low as 4% in mid-October. Not even President Bush (in the teens) or the Democratic lead Congress (9% earlier this year) has had ratings that low, ever.

Blagojevich was elected with the campaign promise to "clean up corruption" from George Ryan's, republican, previous gubernatorial administration in Illinois. Yet, the level of corruption in Blagojevich's administration is "staggering" according to Fitzgerald. The US attorney went on to call his actions a "political corruption crime spree," and said Blagojevich's "conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave."

He was allegedly looking for potential replacements to Obama's vacated seat to give him financial compensation for the appointment to the US Senate. He said the seat "is a [expletive] valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing." He even contemplated giving the seat to himself. He was quoted saying: "I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain." He went on to say that if he receives nothing of value for the seat, than he will keep it. He was allegedly looking for money that would be put into his re-election campaign, a high-paying job for his wife or him after he leaves office, and/or a nomination into a cabinet position in the Obama administration in exchange for an appointment into the Senate. He did everything but put the appointment on eBay to make a profit on his position.

Also, in a move that would make Nixon proud, Gov. Blagojevich blackmailed the Tribune to fire certain columnists that wrote unfavorable things about him like possible impeachment. The governor allegedly told the Chicago Tribune's editorial board that if they would fire those writers, then he would approve state financial assistance and approval with the sale and operation of the Chicago Cubs baseball team or Wrigley Field, which are both owned by the company.

None of this is directly linked to President-elect Obama. US Attorney Fitzgerald has said that the Presisdent-elect is not a subject in this investigation at this time. However, there are some discrepancies between what those in the transition team say about how much contact Obama has had with the governor and Obama himself. Obama said that there has been no contact between him and Blagojevich and no conversation with him about his successor. On the other hand, David Axelrod said two weeks ago that there had been discussions between the two about the Senate vacancy, and there is a picture of him with the governor talking on December 2nd. Obviously, the Obama team is trying to distance themselves from the governor. According to various reports, they haven't been known to be very close over the years, so there doesn't seem to be any deep connections between the two. I believe that the Obama people may have been in minimal contact with the governor about the vacancy, and they didn't have any active part in the conspiracy. There is evidence coming from the wiretaps of Blagojevich's phone conversations that Obama wouldn't give anything more than "appreciation" if the president-elect's pick was chosen. The Illinois governor reportedly didn't appreciate the gesture. "They're (Obama's team) not willing to give me anything except appreciation (for picking Obama's choice of replacement candidate). [Expletive] them.", said the governor on one of his wiretapped phone calls. Now on one hand, this quote seems to indicate that Obama isn't guilty of participating in the governor's alleged crimes, but on the other hand, how do they know that Obama wouldn't give them anything but appreciation, if they had no contact whatsoever as Obama claims. The question is probably not did Obama actively participate, but rather how much did he know about what Blagojevich was doing? Was the president-elect aware of his activities but was too complacent to do anything or even care? If the Obama team did know, why didn't they report it to the authorities?

In addition to the previous charges, the governor has, also, been accused of making organizations and businesses, including Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, contribute to and/or hold fundraisers for his campaign fund in order to receive public financing for various projects.

There needs to be a major house cleaning in Chicago. The political environment of the "Windy City" is toxic. It almost brought down the Obama campaign in the primary. Whether it is Bill Ayres, Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, etc., there has been widespread corruption in the Chicago machine. The "I'll scratch your back, if you scratch mine" mentality has led the city and the state as a whole to be one of the dirtiest, if not the dirtiest, in the game.

'Tis the Season to be Offensive

The holiday season has arrived and so has the contempt for religion. In the land of legal, nude bike riding, there is a new holiday display at the state capitol of Washington that isn't so jolly. Freedom From Religion, an atheist group, put up a display next to a Christian nativity scene and a "holiday" tree in which they make controversial statements about religion in general.

The placard says, "May reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." They go on to also say that the winter solstice is the real reason for the season, and they plea that we need to keep church and state separate. This is offensive to the majority of Americans who believe in one religion or another. No matter if you are a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or Scientologist, this an attack on the core beliefs of your religion.

Someone needs to give organizations like Freedom From Religion a copy of the Bill of Rights because I don't think that they have ever read it. It doesn't say "freedom from religion" or "freedom of speech except for religious content". It says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech". That means no matter how much they don't like it, we can talk about religion anywhere that we see fit even in schools. I'm not saying that they don't have a right to say what they believe, but they should be tactful. They could have said something like "Just be good for goodness sake". That would have been fine. However, they had to belittle and demean other religions. Why is there such hatred for the religious in this country? We were founded on Judeo-Christian principles. The attacks need to stop.

Gov. Christine Gregoire of Washington could have asked them to tone down the offensive rhetoric without trampling on their freedoms of religion and speech. That was not the time or the place for such divisive language. By saying that religion "hardens hearts and enslaves minds", they spew hateful and discriminatory speech against the religious people of this great nation. You wouldn't see a tribute of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, next to a tribute of Martin Luther King on MLK day, nor would you see a NAZI swastika next to a menorah celebrating Hanukkah.

Freedom From Religion co-president, Dan Barker, says, "Our members want equal time not to muscle, not to coerce, but just to have a place at the table." Whatever...They don't just want a place at the table. They, also, want a megaphone to make fun of all those that disagree with them at that table. What the display portrayed wasn't just their beliefs, but an attack on other's beliefs. Even many of the liberals that usually champion atheists and the overblown separation of church and state, like David Goldstein, agree that the way it was worded was way over the top.

Gov. Gregoire needs to take down the display and ask them reapply a display that isn't such a huge embarrassment for the state. Like many left-wing ideas that are said to be made not to offend some, they actually offend many. The state of Washington has become a rising hotbed of left-wing lunacy for some time now. They are starting to rival San Francisco in stupidity. We need to send a letter or call Olympia and tell the governor that such offensive language doesn't belong in the public square.

PC Nuts Attack Thanksgiving in California

The politically correct fruitcakes are attempting to ruin Thanksgiving for the kindergarten students of two Claremont, California schools. The two schools said that it will suspend the tradition of having their students dress-up as Pilgrims and Indians during an joint event celebrating the holiday. For over four decades, the two schools have come together while one school dressed as Indians and the other as Pilgrims. Now, a few in the loudmouth minority have muscled the two schools into discontinuing the tradition.

This has sparked a huge controversy in this once quiet small town. People are divided in between those who want traditional Thanksgiving depictions and those who want Thanksgiving to have no visual references to the original guests at the Thanksgiving dinner. They feel that the way that Native Americans are dressed is a racial stereotype that must be averted. Now, I don't believe that modern day Native Americans shouldn't be represented in such a way. I don't know any that still dress like that, but the historically accurate portrayals of Indians from the first traditional Thanksgiving didn't wear a t-shirt and jeans. They wore moccasins, feathers, and other stereotypical dress.

"It's demeaning," Michelle Raheja, the mother of a kindergartner at Condit Elementary School, wrote to her daughter's teacher. "I'm sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation's history."

She is greatly misrepresenting the dynamic of the traditional first Thanksgiving. (The actual first Thanksgiving was in Virginia not Plymouth Rock three years earlier.) Comparing the pilgrims to slave masters or Nazis is like comparing Ghandi or Martin Luther King to Osama Bin Ladin. They don't portray Lieutenant George Custer dining with Squanto. The Pilgrims were a very peaceful people. There is not one account of them mistreating the Indians or trying to eradicate them.

Raheja, who is of Native American descent, went on to call dressing up like Native Americans of that era racist stereotypes. Is dressing up like Squanto or Pochahontas racist? No. She feels that it demeans her as a stereotypical Native American, but there are others who disagree with her. Kathleen Lucas, a parent of Choctaw heritage, said that her son was proud to wear the clothes of his ancestors.

Many people cower to the politically minority because they have the biggest and loudest mouths. Most of Americans don't want to secularize the holidays or become so uptight with all the land mines we have to evade in the PC culture that is so prevelant today. People wouldn't dare to disagree with them because of the fear of being called racist, sexist, or just plain mean and hateful. I'm personally tired of a few knuckleheads telling me what to do or wear because they think that they are better.

Dressing up in the historically accurate dress for the Indians at the time is not racist. It might be racist to have modern day Native Americans portrayed in that way, but not in a historical reenactment. Where does this insanity that is political correctedness end? Will Shakespeare's "Caesar" have to be played by men in three piece suits, so we do not offend Italians by having them dress in togas and sandals? The insanity must come to an end.

GOP Blue Chippers Looking to Break Into Majors

Who is the next MVP of the GOP? That is a red hot topic on the beltway. Many on the left are gloating at the demise of the Republican Party. However, this is just the down part of the cycle for the party of Lincoln. The demise of the party was greatly exaggerated in 1932 and again in 1974. The party rebounded both times. The Democratic party has also faced similar trials in 1980, 1994, and 2000. This is nothing new.

Their major league roster is just getting older and more inconsistent. The republicans need fresh blood. Just like in any professional sport, they will have to dip into the minors to find new talent and replace the aging veterans. The process is not going to be quick. It usually takes a team a few years to become competitive again especially without the benefit of free agency. Blue chip talent has to be found and developed. Then, they have to be thrown out there to see which one sticks. Who is going to be the next Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan? Who will bring the GOP Pachydermous (Elephants) out of the cellar and beat those Democratic Jackasses (Hey that is the correct term for a donkey. Don't get mad at me.) to win the Congressional and White House trophies?

Triple A-These are the ones who have the best shot at challenging President-elect Obama and the democrats in 2010 and 2012.

I would be remiss, if I didn't mention Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. She has already has the capability to draw tens-of-thousands to hear her speak. A flood of money came into the McCain campaign and the RNC after the announcement of her candidacy, so you know that she will be able to compete with the fundraising ability of the democrats. Her mayoral and gubernatorial record is very impressive. She was able to cut spending and earmarks while drastically cutting taxes. She took a 10% pay cut while mayor and sold the private jet used for the governor's office in order to save money. Corruption in her state ran rampant. She fought and won to take out those who were corrupt even those in her own party. She has had approval ratings reaching over 90%. Her popularity in her state is perhaps the best in the whole country. She is without a doubt a rising star in the party and probable front-runner in 2012.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota, is another who was thought to be a possible VP pick. He has been the governor of Minnesota since 2003. In his first year as governor, he balanced the state budget. Minnesota went from $4.3 B deficit to more than $2 B surplus with very little up charge in state fees. He went overseas to build up trade in between Minnesota businesses and the international community.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, Louisiana, is also an up-and-comer for the republicans. He was in the running for vice-president under McCain. He showed outstanding leadership during Hurricane Gustav. He oversaw the largest and smoothest evacuation in US history. It was a huge step up from the disastrous handling of Katrina by all levels of government. He has been in office of governor for less than one year, but many say that he is very bright with a reformer's mentality.

Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana won re-election this year by a twenty point margin in a year that Obama won the state. Daniels was able to turn a $600 M deficit into a $300 M surplus in one year without any tax increases by creating the Office of Management and Budget in 2005. The new office was created to find better ways to spend the state's money and cost savings. He used the surplus to pay back money borrowed by previous administrations. Daniels, also, created the Indiana Economic Development Corporation which was started to attract new businesses to the state. From 2005-2007 they posted three consecutive record-breaking years for new investment and job commitments. The IDEC was able to lure Toyota, Honda, and Cummins into the state. To put it in perspective, over 100,000 jobs have been created since he took office in 2005. He passed the Healthy Indiana Plan that helped 132,000 people pay for healthcare. He also removed some barriers to coverage due to pre-existing conditions. He reformed property taxes to the lowest in the nation earlier this year. To compensate, he had to raise sales taxes but just by 1%. He may be a bit older than the previous mentions, but he can still make a lot of waves over the next four years.

Gov. Mark Sanford, S. Carolina, is another who has been receiving praise. He has a track record of using vetoes to cut pork-barrell spending even when bucking his own party and having them overridden anyway. He has said that he plans to retire from politics after his current term, but he could change his mind by 2010.

Double A-These next few potential blue-chippers are still very young or new to the scene but have been predicted to do great things by many pundits.

Rep. Paul Ryan has been mentioned by people like Newt Gingrich as being bright and a real future star. He has won over 60% of the vote in a district the Obama won by 53%-46%. Ryan has been coming up with a lot of new ideas that will help make republicans a party of ideas again. This past summer he released his "Road Map for America's Future." This is similar to Gingrich and the republican's "Contract With America" back in the early 90's.

There is Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia who is rumored to become the next house minority whip, the second highest ranking republican in the House.

Former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele of Maryland has become a prominent voice for conservatives as the current GOPAC chairman. He is also looking to become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee at the beginning of next year.

Returning veterans-These are some in the party that could be coming back to the scene. They still are relatively young and still have the desire in them.

Mitt Romney-He was a highly successful businessman. He was asked to return to Bain & Co. as CEO to save it from financial ruin. Within one year, he was able to turn around the company to profitability without any layoffs or partner defections. He left Bain to do the same thing to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The Olympic Committee was running on a $379 M deficit in 1999. After he joined as president and CEO of the committee, the games ended up with a $100 M profit. He did this by cleaning up the corruption and many budget cuts. He did this while still spending $300 M on security for keeping the games safe from terrorist threats. He gave his entire salary to charity. Upon entering the office of governor of Massachusetts, he faced a $1.2 B deficit. By 2006, he turned that into a $700 M surplus through a combination of spending cuts and raising taxes and fees. However, after the surplus was achieved, he was able to cut taxes. Romney does have a problem with his "for it before he was against it" record on abortion. Also, the tax burden was higher when he left office than when he went in, but many of his spending cuts were overridden by the state legislature.

Mike Huckabee-He ran for president this year and finished second overall. He has a huge following with black conservatives. He received almost 50% of the black vote when running for governor of Arkansas. He reformed healthcare which made it more available to low-income families. While he was governor in 2001, he was named a "friend of the taxpayer" by Americans for Tax Reform for his statewide spending cuts even though he did raise some taxes on gas and nursing homes. His tax policies and rise in state debt have garnered a lot of controversy though. However, overall he was able to cut those on welfare by almost half and grew the economy by 4.4% which was larger than the national average.

Dark horses-Those that have an outside chance at rising in the party.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida, would have been a bigger contender, but the unpopularity of W. will more than likely prevent his rise to higher office, unfortunately.

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi is also a dark horse to make some noise within the next few years. He handled Katrina tremendously and has cut a lot of frivolous spending.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has been a bright spot in the party. He has been sucessful at balancing the state budget, improving the transportation infrastructure, and bringing jobs into Texas.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has also been talked about making a comeback in the next few years. He is still a very polarizing figure, however. That might make it hard for him to make a run for the presidency in 2012.

The Senate has been pretty much depleted of any young talent for the republicans. However, these are some of the names of some possible long shots to be a phoenix that rises out the ashes in the Senate: John Cornyn of Texas, Bob Corker of Tennessee, John Thune of S. Dakota, Lindsay Graham of S. Carolina, and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

The Republican Party might be down, but they are not out by any stretch of the imagination. Both parties have been down before and have risen back into power. In time, it will happen again. The GOP must focus on what brought them to the show in the first place lowering taxes, reform, and fiscal responsibility.

Stretch Obama

President-elect Obama has a very difficult first 100 days ahead of him. He is going to be pulled apart in a tug of war between the center-right electorate and the liberal left. It is going to be like a couple of two-year-olds fighting over a Stretch Armstrong doll. Either one of them is going to win and make the other throw a temper tantrum, or he is going to torn so far apart that he will be unrecognizable in four years.

The radical left wing blowhards have already begun to say that he has a mandate from Americans to swerve us to the hard left. MoveOn implied that they put up millions of dollars to help him get elected, so he better do what they say. Monday, the ACLU demanded that Gitmo be shut down. The next day the New York Times uses a hate crime against a hispanic to go after those who want to enforce our illegal immigration laws. The Times is angling for the president-to-be to give pardons to all illegal immigrants.

Left wing bloggers are also getting in the act. David Sirota of Salon.com and Mark Green of the Huffington Post both wrote articles directed straight at President-elect Obama. They both say that his election is a "mandate" to proceed with their liberal agendas. They claim that the nation has turned into a center-left nation. Is the democratic wave because of a new liberal majority or because he successfully stole conservative ideas from republicans?

Obama ran on a budget and tax cutting platform. The promise to "cut" the taxes of 95% of workers was key to his victory over McCain. He said that he was for the right for an individual to bear arms. These are all issues that republicans have been known for the last 100 years. He didn't win on a platform of "spreading the wealth around", abortions without any restrictions, or legalizing gay marriage. He won as a fiscally responsible spender that would only raise taxes minimally on the rich and would cut everyone else's taxes.

Let me start first with David Sirota of Salon. He said that, "Voters want you (Obama) to go big and go liberal -- and not channel Clinton-style incrementalism." However, that is exactly how he campaigned in the latter days. He gave praise to President Clinton as an example of how he will govern. He basically said that if you loved the 90's, then you will also love his administration.

He went on to say, "What the party gains in strength, it loses in a Republican scapegoat that previously justified inaction. On huge issues -- whether re-regulating Wall Street, reforming trade, solving the healthcare emergency, or ending the Iraq war -- America envisages enormous progress in the months ahead, and Democrats will have no one to blame for failure but themselves."

Well I partially agree with him on this. With a dominant control of Congress and the White House, they can no longer blame Bush and republicans for the country's problems. Let's not forget that the deregulation of Fannie and Freddie's business practices and overregulation of the local bank's ability to deny people loans that could never pay them back was due to the democrats like Barney Franks and Chris Dodd and community organizations like ACORN not the GOP.

As for universal healthcare, it failed the first time that it was brought up by Hillary Clinton in the early 90's. The unpopularity and failure of Hillary Care and Bill's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy led to the Republicans getting control of Congress in 1994. In fact, President Clinton, who is naturally more of a centrist than other democrats, told one of his aides at the time, Dick Morris, that by the end of his second year, he didn't recognize himself anymore.

Mark Green of the Huffington Post continued with the same themes, but he expounded a bit more on social issues. He said, "Polling shows increasing majorities who are pro-environment, pro-choice, pro-expanded healthcare and anti-Iraq war, anti-big business."

No one is anti-environment, but there is also a huge majority that want responsible drilling and nuclear energy which neither are democratic issues.

Abortion is such a controversial issue that even most of those that are "pro-choice" don't agree with it for themselves personally. Even though South Dakota and Colorado denied the heavy restrictions on abortions, many believe it was not because they disagree with the restrictions, but it was because of the people's reservations of being the state that directly challenges Roe V. Wade. They don't want the national spotlight on their respective state.

People have said that they want healthcare reform not government-run healthcare. Earlier this year, Rasmussen did a poll about healthcare, only 29% of people believed in a single-payer system. Forty-six percent of those polled believe that the quality of healthcare would go down, and forty-two percent believe that cost would go up with more government control.

Most are against the Iraq War in hindsight, but most of those that are against it now were for it before the war started. Also, people aren't against big business but against excessive greed and bad management.

I will agree with him that the democrats have had a much better grassroots efforts in getting people to go out and vote for their candidates. However, that doesn't mean that there are more democrats than republicans. They have just been better at getting their voters out over the past two cycles.

Two recent polls dispute their claim that this country is now center-left. The first is a poll by the American Issue Project which polls 300 people each in four of the battleground states: Colorado, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia. In the poll 58.6% of people said that the republicans either lost their way or were incompetent. Only 23.7% said that they disagree with the GOP's stances on the issues, and just 9.6% said that they were too conservative. In a Rasmussen poll from earlier in the week, 37% thought that a candidate being conservative was good, and only 22% said it was bad. In comparison, 36% said being liberal was bad, and only 19% said it was good. These polls obviously show that this country as a whole still leans more to the conservative side than liberal.

The democrats have been able to steal the advantage on issues of typical republican strength like cutting taxes and keeping government spending under control. How have they been able to do this? The republicans shot themselves in the foot by doubling the federal deficit and championing earmarks. About seventy-two percent agree with the statement: "The Republican Party used to stand for keeping government spending under control, but not anymore." Over 75% say that they agree with this: "When the Republican Party took control of Congress in 1994, they promised to reform government and clean up corruption in Washington, but they failed to live up to that promise."

This sounds more like a referendum on the loss of core conservative values by republicans more than a mandate on the more progressive policies. By the way that Obama has been talking, he knows it. If Obama has any hope of getting a second term, he must keep his campaign promises to be post-partisan and in the middle like Clinton. If he let's the loony liberals pull him to the left, he will feel Jimmy Carter's pain in 2012.

Reaction to Obama Shows Racism Dying But Not Dead

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the US and leader of the free world has brought out the truth that racism is still out there. Around the world and in this country, it has become a greatly reduced problem over the years, but the idiots still remain.

The prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, implied that Russia's President Medvedev would have an easy time dealing with Obama because "He's young, handsome, and even tanned." When confronted by those upset by the comment, he called them "imbeciles without any sense of humor". I don't think that anyone is laughing but him.

Austrian TV anchor, Klaus Emmerich, called Americans racist, and "it must be going very badly for them that they so convincingly... Send a black man, and a very good-looking woman into the White House." In a Murtha-like moment, he clarified his statement by saying that "blacks aren't as politically civilized" and that Obama has a "devil-like talent to present his rhetoric so effectively."

A Moscow real estate agent told Fox News that Obama's race could be an issue when dealing with the East. She said that he won't be able to play a leading role in the eastern hemisphere.

The fact that he was elected shows that the racism is not as prevalent in this country as it used to be. We have come a long way in a relatively short time, but there are some examples of such lunacy.

In a suburb of Newark, New Jersey, a homemade Obama sign was stolen and returned the next night attached to a burning cross on the front lawn of one family tuesday night. According to Gary Grewal, the homeowner, his 8-year-old daughter saw it and has been afraid to sleep in her room since that night. Why must we have to explain hate to an eight-year-old?

In Staten Island, New York, Ali Kamara, 17-year-old black teen, was assaulted by four white men with baseball bats chanting "Obama". Ali was on his way home after the election on tuesday night.

In Austin, Texas, the University of Texas lineman Buck Burnette got canned by Coach Mack Brown for writing "hunters gather up, we have a n***** in whitehouse" on his facebook page. (Note to self: What's written on facebook doesn't ever stay on facebook.) Duh!

Martin Luther King, Jr. would be very proud of the progress that this country has made, but he would also say that we still have some work to do. There has been a lot said from various black leaders that a new page has been turned in the civil right movement.

According to Rev. Eugene Rivers of Boston, "Racism is no longer the primary obstacle to black progress. With the election of a black man whose middle name is Hussein, the rhetoric of white racism is off the table...The old school is over." "Old school" is the worldview proclaimed by civil rights activists like Jesse Jackson that asks for people to denounce inequality and blame white racism for all of the problems of black people.

Kevin Patterson, a community activist, says, "The notion that black people need to employ racially polarizing stances is now extinct. There are more effective ways to get things done for our communities than being accusatory."

This election has been talked about in barbershops all across the country. "I think the mentality will change," said Timmigo Burnett, 47, owner of Phase II Barber Shop in Spartanburg, S Carolina. "Seeing a black man make it that far is the ultimate. (Young people) see hope. That's going to help us as mentors." The buzz around other barbershops has been that this is a signal to young black people everywhere that they don't have any excuse when it comes to whether they succeed or not anymore. They also say that young people cannot blame their fathers leaving when they were babies. Obama met his father only once in his life, and he became the President of America. Dan Quailes, owner of a barbershop in Pharr, Texas, said that young people can now "reach for the stars".

I'm not saying there aren't more minorities incarcerated than non-whites. Also, the gap of the average income and education is major, but the gap can be bridged. Rev. Mark Scott based out of Boston said it best. "You can't say it's because of racism. You can't just say, 'Pull your pants up.' You have to ask, 'What work are we going to do to close the gaps?' "

Congratulations President-Elect Barack Obama

I just want to congratulate Obama. This is truly a historical moment. The election of our first black president is a great moment in our nation's history and our lifetime. It was a hard fought campaign. We may have differences ideologically, but I greatly admire him.

I will be taking a week off from the blog to give the other side some time to enjoy their victory. I will be back to fight for my views and the views of the silent majority.

My Love Affair With Barack Obama

From the beginning of the year, I have been looking at who I believe that would be the best for this country.

During the primaries earlier in the year, my top democrat was Barack Obama. I was no different than the rest of America. I fell in love with him. His John F Kennedy good looks, warm smile, and calm demeanor intrigued me. His eloquence, his post-racial and post-partisianship rhetoric made me fall in love. It was as if I was a teenage girl swayed by the star high school quarterback's cheesy lines into "giving it up". Eventually, the power of his words wore off. After a brief and passionate relationship, I woke up one day realizing that he was not the man I thought he was.

What made me see the truth? It wasn't one thing in particular. One by one the qualities that made me fall in love with him started eroding away. His actions were speaking louder that his rhetoric.

His claim of being post-racial came under fire starting with his attack on Pres. Bill Clinton and his 20-year relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

How can he be "post-racial" when he throws around the race card like an ace in the hole? It has become a strategy to make the opposition, whether it be Hillary ot McCain, overly cautious and reluctant to say anything negative about Obama in fear of being called racist by the Obama campaign. In the case of McCain, Obama started crying racism before McCain could even bring up the subject. He repeatedly told people that the GOP candidate would try to scare voters by saying that "he has a funny name", "he doesn't look like the other people on the dollar bills", "and by the he's black".

What can I say about Rev. Wright that hasn't already been said? I could understand if Obama was there for only a few months and didn't know the true nature of man at first, but he stayed there 20 yrs. You don't stay in the pew of a church for two decades when you don't share at least most of their beliefs. Most people would never come back to a church after the head preacher said "G D America" or called this country we love the "US of the KKK".

It wasn't as if he was only there on Easter and Christmas. According to what he told Bill O'Reilly, he went to the church about twice a month. That is about 500 times he attended the church, if what he said is accurate. I highly doubt that he never heard such things. The law of probability says that over 500 sundays he would had to have heard that kind of sermon several times. He wants us to assume that he dodged that racial mine field for over 20 years of going to that church, and he never heard anything like Wright's belief that the US government put AIDS into the low income areas to kill off blacks.

Let's say that for the sake of argument, he didn't hear these kind of comments on one of those hundreds of sundays that he was there. They sell tapes of his previous sermons in the lobby just like any other church. He would have had to have never saw anything racially divisive in one of those tapes. We would also have to assume that he doesn't talk to any of the other fellow parishioners about the church and any of Wright's previous sermons. Did anyone ever tell him about what he missed when he wasn't there? That is a lot of assuming. You know what is said that happens when you assume a lot. It makes an ass out of you and me.

Let's also look at his claim of being post-partisan. He votes for 97% of the time with the democratic leaders. He has not had any real experience with reaching across the aisle. He has a 100 rating from NARAL, the pro-abortion organization. He even voted against the born alive bill. This was the bill that would make abortion clinics try and keep babies alive that survived botched abortion attempts. According to the National Journal, Barack Obama was voted the most liberal senator of 2007. He is so far to the left that he is about to fall off the face of the earth. What happened to his ability to build bridges?

He was "the One". The one who would mend the wounds that separated us as a nation. He was the personification of the Martin Luther King's dream. He was the man that history has waited to come. He was the one to show the world that America has moved past our racist past. Obama was the man that transcended politics.

Everything that he claimed to be, post-racial and post-partisan, he wasn't. He broke my heart. I had faith in the "new kind of politician". I was going to be part of history. Instead, I found a man who would say or do anything to get elected. He would lie about his previous friendships and beliefs just to get my vote. Just like a fling with the good looking star quarterback, I would have regretted the morning after.

Democrats Play Middle Class Limbo

Obama and the democrats are preparing for a luau on the White House lawn and Capital Hill. The party supplies are being bought. Sen Barack Obama brought the leis from his home in Hawaii. Michelle Obama is getting the hula skirts. Sen. Joe Biden is bringing those fashionable shirts. Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid are coming together to bring the pua'a pig (with lipstick) complete with an apple in her mouth.

There will be lattes and fine wine served. Celebs like Spike Lee, George Clooney, and Sean Penn will arrive in their limos. Ludacris, U2, and Madonna will be the entertainment for the evening. There will be a sign at the door asking entrants to be "patriotic" and pay the one million dollar cover charge. All proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood, ACORN, and the 40% of Americans that don't pay income taxes. It will be the party of the millennium.

The highlight of the night will be a rousing game of middle class limbo. First, the man of the hour, Obama will start. He clears it at the $250,000 mark. To just show how good he is, he goes again and clears it at $200,000. Biden is next. He clears it at $150,000. Surprisingly, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico clears it at $120,000. How low will they go? Will they get to their goal of $42,000? America is on pins and needles and holding onto their wallets while waiting for the results of the contest.

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Over the past couple of weeks, Obama, his running mate, and one of his surrogates, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, have changed the definition of rich from its initial definition that was given at the Saddleback Forum all the way back in August. Are these just innocent slips of the tongue? Maybe. Are they freudian slips? Likely. Is it a carefully orchestrated decline in the definition to foreshadow what is really to come, if Obama is elected to the White House? Very possible.

Let's look at the spending promises of Obama. He wants to overhaul the health care system and provide government health care for those without insurance, noble but very expensive. The plan could conceivably cost billions. If you add the money that will be spent for the bailout and the tax "cuts" and a possible second stimulus package that is currently being to be talked about in Congress, there is no way he is going to be able to decrease the deficit much less balance the budget. Unless the Democrats plan on using the Navy, Coast Guard, and Marines to hunt for the lost pirate treasure of Blackbeard off the coast of North Carolina, I have no idea where they're going to come up with the money for all the new spending that he proposes. There is a huge possibility that these "slips" are in fact closer to what the truth is in respect to the Obama tax plan.

Obama says that he won't lower the starting income for the tax raises. He claims that he will "cut government programs that don't work", but when he is asked to name an example of a program he will cut, he can't name one except military research. However, he can't take too much away from the Pentagon without getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Those two options should be off the table. It seems that his budget will be the same kind of out of control spending that has become commonplace in government especially over the past few years.

The only way it won't be the same is if he breaks his promise and raises taxes on more than just the stated $250,000 for individuals and $200,000 for families. He doesn't exactly have a good track record for honesty. Now, all politicians lie or embelish the truth a little, but all of his flip flops would make the Tazmanian Devil dizzy. His associations with left wing activists and organizations change according to what the media can prove. He backed out of his promise to take campaign financing as soon as he realized he could get more without it. Now, it seems he may be laying the ground work to pull a Clinton.

Pres. Bill Clinton also promised to give tax cuts to the middle class before he got elected in 1992. After Clinton got elected, he told the American people that he looked at the budget with his financial advisors, and he realized that could not just cut the taxes but had to raise them.

Let's, also, look at his senate voting record. Obama has voted to raise taxes on the middle class earlier this year. According to Factcheck.org, Obama voted to let the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 expire. This made the taxes go up for people making just $41,500 for individuals and $83,000 for families. This was not the first time he voted to raise taxes on the middle class.

In June, Obama said that he would raise taxes for the top 5% of wage earners. According to Gerald Prante of taxfoundation.org, the actual bottom of the top 5% is slightly above $150,000 not $250,000. Which definition is Obama going to end up with after November 5th, if he is elected? Will it be $250,000, top 5%, or $42,000?

What will he do once he gets into office? Will he keep his promises that he made to the American people or follow Clinton's lead and raise taxes right when he gets in office? If he follows how he has voted in the past, he will no doubt raise them. If he cares about getting reelected in 2012, he will keep his promise.