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A Victory For President Obama

A Victory For President Obama

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Several weeks ago, President Obama made one of the best decisions of his Presidency. He decided to support South Korea by after North Korea attacked the island of YeonPyeong. And he did it with the strength of our military by moving them into the area and engaging in military exercises with our friends in the South. I was afraid at the time that he would turn his back on Seoul, but instead he did the right thing for the region and for the United States. Well done, Mister President. This morning, South Korea followed through on its plans to conduct artillery drills on that same island, plans which had brought promises from the North that there would be further attacks due to this new "provocation". And the result of it all was... nothing. The drills proceeded without incident, the North kept quiet (except to say it "did not feel any need to retaliate", and we [...]
A Victory For President Obama

What’s Wrong With Oklahoma’s Position on Sharia Law?

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The voters in the state of Oklahoma earlier this month approved a measure that prevents state courts from considering international law or Sharia (Islamic) law. The measure was mostly in reaction to the New Jersey case of a women that sought a restraining order against her abusive husband and lost (but later won on appeal) because her husband's beliefs (supported by Sharia law) gave him the right to force himself on his wife. The Oklahoma measure (State Question 755) was put on hold yesterday by a Federal judge who thinks the ballot issue may be unconstitutional. It seems to core question to the judge is whether the specific reference to Sharia (and defining it within the question as being tied to the Quran and the Prophet Mohammed) is improperly singling out a religion. I can't even begin to pretend that I understand why anyone would think that Sharia law should ever be a consideration in a United States court. I'm not saying that to diminish the position (although I oppose it), I'm simply saying I fail to understand it and I wish I did. Clearly we have had a history of granting exceptions to those whose religious beliefs run counter to societal demands through law. Most notably is that those who can make a case that using restricted drugs for religious purposes (even during Prohibition, there were [...]

The Big Spanking

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Our grandchildren were over last weekend–two boys ages 5 and 3.  At one point the 3-year-old was telling me about being disobedient and how Daddy had to give him a big spanking.  Now I know my son and I’m sure that he was providing gentle discipline, but...
A Victory For President Obama

OppurtuniTEA to RealiTEA

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In a lot of ways you wouldn't need much of a crystal ball to see this coming: A Country over 13 trillion dollars in debt with a government either completely ineffectual or damaging in nearly all spheres except military, enacting massive expenditures passed against the majority opinion of its citizens, which gives rise to a movement that wants to stop spending money it doesn't have and return their government to its Constitutionally relegated space. These people have been branded with a name: the Tea Party, which is weird because I have never been to a party where everyone is this mad. Much has been said about this newly minted surge and much is known. Though you may not have needed it to see it coming, that crystal ball sure could come in handy when trying to envision how the Tea Party will attempt to pivot from being a movement to achieving movement. Being that mine seems to be broken about half the time I'll just tell you that if I could write the script it would look something like this. Never minding how sad it is a movement is needed for this, the beauty of this uprising is the underlying confidence that is implied by the movement. The confidence of the people in saying we can take care of ourselves. We, as Americans, can make decisions on a personal level to better ourselves and our Country while weathering the results. Let us keep the vast majority of our own money and we will be the stewards of our own future. The next step is to have the fortitude to extend this confidence into the political proposals that will be forthcoming after the mid-term elections, when at a minimum Republicans will control the House, if not the Senate as well. Here is what I mean by this-- the process for passing legislation in Washington is to argue for it by making grand proclamations for how some bill's passage will control costs, provide this or that, or stop this or that. Once passed the game turns into one of managing expectations. When a bill is written never is there included benchmarks that need to be met for it to be continued, no rip-cord provisions stating that if certain measurable effects that have been promised do not materialize in a certain amount of time the bill is nullified or re-opened for debate. The reasons for this are obvious. First, when you pass bills upwards of 1,500 pages for a country of over 350 million people nobody knows what will really happen. Second, it flies in the face of political self-preservation by opening the door to, god forbid, being proven wrong. A perfect example of this is [...]
A Victory For President Obama

Republicans Lead In Polls, ObamaCare Progresses, And Other Dangerous Things

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Running with scissors, bungy-jumping, lion-training don't hold a candle to these two items...

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Republicans appear to be doing well, very well, scary well. So what's to be done about it? Republicans need to work harder, get more engaged, get more yard signs up, knock on more doors! Why, you may ask, would I think that? Because early poll successes:
  1. Are deceiving. In Politics, scientific polling lacks integrity because there are so many factors and inconsistencies, including the fact that they reflect a point in time, which is not election day
  2. Are open to interpretation. The complexities and meaning behind poll answers can be interpreted multiple ways... sometimes the answers mean something different than what we think.
  3. Can lead to complacency. Accepting that your candidate is going to win hands down can lead to voter apathy and before you know it, everyone that said they were going to vote decides to stay home election day or just forgets to vote.
It's great to feel good about [...]

Short Video Says It All

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The following video uses few words to convey what most Americans are truly concerned about today. Click the picture to open the video.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

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The Labor Department reported this morning that nonfarm payrolls fell by 131,000 in the month of July.  Even more discouraging was that June’s revised payroll number was revised downward to a negative 221,000.  This is huge.  Initial jobless claims estimates...

Administrative Delusion

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Yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning, President Barack Obama was being interviewed by Harry Smith.  This seems to be this President’s primary function.  I can just see his job description now–Item 1, must interview with the media incessantly.  Never mind...
A Victory For President Obama

It Pays To Be A Pelican

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As the BP oil spill unfolds in the Gulf and in our living rooms through our television screens, the coverage has focused on two major problems that it has created. One is the flat-out brutal images of oil soaked pelicans; the other is the crisis of the Gulf fishermen who have been forced out of work. One thing is clear, if you had to choose between being a pelican or a fish your choice is an easy one. At the same time everyone is rightfully heartbroken about the pelicans, we can’t wait for the fishermen to get back in the water and cast their nets to catch and kill as many fish as possible. While I am not by any stretch a PETA guy and I grant the fact that this is largely because we don’t eat pelicans, the point it makes is that we constantly draw large subliminal differences between things. In this case, though both are “wildlife,” we subconsciously dismiss the plight of the fish while granting a level of sympathy to the pelicans that compels some of us to set about capturing them and hand rubbing them with Dawn dish detergent. The same point could be made by asking the questions: Why do we eat turkeys and chickens but not pelicans; why cows and not horses? Why are mice disgusting but gerbils and hamsters cute? In large part the answer is: that’s just the way it is. I suppose you might be asking yourself a question right about now—how does this relate to politics? While I’m quite certain that indeed everything relates to politics, the specific answer is the power of the mentally presumed. The United States is now and has always been a relatively conservative country. Our Constitution, laws, and values, as well as every poll ever taken on the subject, prove this. The problem for Liberals is that well . . . they are not. This presents a huge political task for them. In order to get the [...]
A Victory For President Obama

Hitting A Moving Target

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So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The two major forms of Republicanism each have a doctrine that is tied to actual documents. Religious social conservatives have The Bible, while fiscal and Constitutional conservatives have the Constitution. It is safe to say that the vast majority of Republicans have their political tenants supplied by one, if not both, of these documents. This type of textual anchor is a positive philosophically and morally but in a strictly political sense can be a liability. The resulting positives are what tend to be deep, time-tested convictions, stability, certainty and, when used, an effective measuring stick for candidates in primaries. However, in our current event driven and largely politically uninformed society the negative is that this rigidness makes it nearly impossible to adapt positions to individual situations and use current events for maximum political gain. This is a problem that the modern day liberal Democrat will not have anytime soon. They indeed stand in the starkest of contrast. Having left the Constitution behind decades ago, they move forward with no defined doctrine. No set of black and white documents that create, inform, or guide their ideology (and don’t even try to give me the party platform). This creates a situation in which changing party leadership sets an evolving standard as to what defines a Democrat. This not only allows them to easily tailor their political message to what they perceive to be popular at the moment, but grants them the option of playing the role of “lifeguard” and coming to the citizenry's rescue with politically crafted legislation. This, in tandem with the current perception that this is indeed the role of government, is extremely effective but thankfully also comes with disadvantages. First, the [...]
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