Taking Sides

    The Holder Department of Justice is a travesty.  At a meeting with black pastors yesterday, he told them that there is a concerted effort being made to suppress the right to vote in America.  Does he really think that there are conservatives in America who do not want any certain sector of people to have the right to vote?  Yes, there is an effort to pass voter ID laws, but those are meant to eliminate voter fraud, not suppress the right to vote.  If there is anyone working to suppress the vote in America, it may well be Eric Holder himself.  He is the one who chose not to pursue charges against Black Panthers who were intimidating voters in Philadelphia. 
    Holder's record on obstructing state laws from being enforced in states like Arizona just give more evidence of the travesty that the Justice Department is.  It is an embarrassment to this country and its justice system.  This is not justice.  It is taking sides.  This is just one of so many reasons to elect a new President this November.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

• America has never before had a major Presidential candidate who was running against the free market and capitalism.
• It has taken a long time for me to get bold enough to say this.  Many politicians mislead, distort facts, put their spin on stories, and tiptoe their way around questions.  This President does that and more.  He lies.
• The mainstream media is being completely irresponsible by NOT covering the story of the Catholic churches who are suing the Federal government over the HHS mandate.
• It completely baffles me why anyone who is Jewish would even consider voting for President Obama.
• Tea Party candidates continue to make inroads.  The Tea Party is NOT dead.
• Don't believe the mainstream media.  Don't pay attention to polls.
• Planned Parenthood has been shown assisting a woman who wanted an abortion because she wanted a boy, not a girl.  And it's the GOP that has a War on Women?????

Temporarily Non-Grumpy

With us hosting two grandchildren here all week, I haven't been very grumpy lately. I guess you could say that I haven't been very curmudgeonly. Maybe next week I'll feel like venting again.

I Guess It Was a War FOR Women

a New CBS/NYT poll indicates that women prefer Romney to Obama 46% to 44%. That poll is certainly not done by a right wing organization. Quite the opposite. Looks like portraying the GOP as conducting a War on Women is an absolute flop.

Real Unintended Consequences

In an effort to distract voters fr on the President's record of failure, The Obama Campaign has delved into the area of social issues. I guess they figure that the GOP will come out looking bad on these issues. They have now tried free contraceptives and gay marriage as decoys to get the attention away from the President's dismal failure with the economy. I am thinking that this may turn out to have a different result than they anticipated. It appears to me that a large segment of the American people have been energized in their opposition to the President because of his stances on these moral and religious issues. What is next? I suspect the progressives will manage to use well manipulated polls to project an image that most Americans agree with the President. And of course the mainstream media will continue their efforts to paint conservatives as intolerant monsters. Don't believe any of it. It will be a smoke screen.

Eroding, Not Evolving

   Much is being made these days of President Obama's "evolving" ideas about gay marriage.  I have been contemplating a similar concept for some time now about what is happening in America, only I would not refer to the process as evolution.  I refer to the change that is happening as erosion.
   Over the years since the founding of our country, changes have been made to the very framework of our government.  The US Constitution provided the foundation upon which our country was to be built.  That foundation, made up of very basic principles, has been chipped away slowly, but intentionally.  The changes to our country have been made in very small increments.  For the most part, Americans did not even notice the changes as they occurred.  That is the way erosion works.  It is a very slow process.  It is also a very destructive process. 
   I think what is finally happening these days is that more and more people are noticing the damage which has been done to our country.  We see that our foundation is crumbling.  Yet, we have another group of people in our country who would rather that our foundation crumble so that they could build an entirely different country.  To them, this change is what they want.  They refer to it as evolution, as if the change they want is a beneficial change.
   Not me.  I see it as erosion.  I love our country the way the founders designed it.  Our principles are eroding.  What is needed is some principle repair.  Also, we have to always be vigilant.  We must be alert for all the efforts to make those small, seeming meaningless, changes that progressives want to make which will corrupt our principles.  One of the processes used to bring about this erosion is compromise.  It seems every compromise brings another tiny chink in our foundation.  It is never a time to compromise our founding principles.  We cannot let go of our freedom and liberty.

Good Results

Several good things took place at the polls yesterday. In Indiana, A Tea Party candidate won in a primary battle with a 36 year veteran of Congress who has a record of RINO tendencies. It was not even close. In Wisconsin, GOP voters far outnumbered the Dem voters. This is amazing because the Democratic primary was destined to be a much closer race, and Gov. Walker was facing practically no competition. Those two results indicate Tea Party victories. In another vote that was not one that aligns with Tea Party principles, voters in North Carolina chose to prevent future efforts to change the definition of marriage and passed an amendment which defines marriage as that between one man and one woman. This was more a victory for voters who would like our country to remain one which is aligned with God's plans. I think America is not as liberal as the media would like to paint it in their coverage.

More than the White House

  It is certainly imperative that our country elects a new President in November, but if we want the election to make real positive differences in this nation, there is much more to do. 
  Conservatives need to also take back the US Senate.  It is very much in reach for the GOP to do this.  It would also be wonderful to have a filibuster-proof Senate as well, but I do not think that is going to happen this time around.  I know I am going to get great pleasure voting for someone else than Claire McCaskill, and there are several possible good replacements for her that are running against her.
   This is also more than being about removing Democrats from the Congress.  It is also about getting more conservative people elected.  We need to elect people who are going to do the hard work of getting our nation back on track.  We have way too many establishment politicians in Washington.  It is time to get more there who are committed to Tea Party principles.  We are already "settling" on an establishment Republican to run for the White House.  We cannot be satisfied with that type of approach elsewhere.  We need bold leadership.
   Lastly, it is also crucial to get better leadership in state and local elections.  Great strides were made in 2010, and the beginnings of positive changes have taken place already as a result of that election.  The next election sets the stage for a continuation of this trend. 
   The next election should not be just a vote AGAINST somebody.  We need candidates who we can proudly vote FOR.  Our nation is at risk.  Let's do this.

Lessons from Joplin

    I listened to an interview this morning on a radio show with someone who was actively involved with the recovery efforts after the Joplin tornado.  I do not pretend to know much about Joplin.  I have not been there.  However, this gentleman had what I would consider some valuable insights.
   Joplin actually has been rather successful in their efforts to rebuild.  As I listened, I heard some important ingredients in making Joplin generally more successful than other disaster areas in recent years.  One of the reasons for their success is the amount of volunteer help they received from religious and charitable organizations.  These people just showed up and Joplin was willing to let them help.  When FEMA finally showed up on the scene, they were amazed and asked the folks of Joplin where they got all the chainsaws to get all that work done.  They were impressed.
    A more important factor in their success was that the local officials pretty much got out of the way.  They refrained from putting all kinds of restrictions on the volunteers.  They kept their supervision to a minimum.  They relaxed their usual regulations and allowed workers from out of town to come in to be employed.  They ignored the regulations which were there to protect local businesses from competition.  They relaxed normal guidelines required for new construction.  The local government did not try to take advantage of the situation and try to change their city by making zoning changes.  They basically took the attitude that they were going to trust their people to rebuild the city they loved and get the city and their homes and businesses back to the way it once was.  The people of Joplin did not approach the problem they faced by waiting for the Federal government to come in there to fix it and pay for it.  They put on their gloves and got to work.  And they accepted the help of others.  The folks of Joplin are going to end up with a rebuilt town that they can take pride in because it will be their sweat and toil which made it happen.
    There is a valuable lesson to be learned from Joplin.  The American people need a government to provide for an orderly society and provide for its defense, but they do not need a government to solve all their problems.  In many cases, government IS the problem.  A good government is one that recognizes the times when the best thing for it to do is to get out of the way.
    Just a side note.  If I have heard correctly, President Obama has named himself as the graduation speaker for the high school in Joplin this spring.  I predict that he will use that speech to proclaim how instrumental the Federal Government was in the rebuilding of their city.  This thought appalls me.  I hope the President makes the right choice and praises the residents of Joplin for their outstanding successes without taking any credit for himself.  However, based on his past performance, my guess is that he will once again try to spike the football.  In this case, he wasn't even involved in scoring the touchdown.

Law of Intended Consequences

Bret Baier of Fox News used the term "law of Unintended consequences" to describe some of the results of Obamacare. Many large businesses are considering accepting the fines in the law associated with dropping their healthcare benefits because it would save them a boatload of money. I have great respect for Bret Baier, but I think he's wrong on this one. I think this was part of the plan all along. The goal of this legislation is to get everyone into a government-run healthcare system. The fines were set low enough to tempt businesses to not offer health insurance to their employees. Then the government-run plan becomes the affordable plan of choice for these workers. There are several reasons why this outcome was desired by the Democrats. 1. It is yet another entitlement program which gets more people reliant upon a giant government. 2. People who are reliant on the government become voters for the Democrats. 3. The government gets many inroads into controlling the lives of Americans. We already see efforts being made by the government to control our eating habits. Taxpayers will end up paying for this. But, hey, that's only about half of America that pays income taxes, so it doesn't impact that many people, right? There are so many reasons why Obamacare is wrong for America. Let's elect representatives that will do the hard work of ridding our country of this horrid piece of legislation. That doesn't just mean that we get rid of the Democrats in Congress. It many cases, it means that we need to get better Republicans there.

Put It in Reverse

The new campaign slogan of the President is FORWARD. Well, folks, there comes a time when going forward is NOT the thing to do. And now is one of those times. We are going down the wrong road. At this time in history, it is time to go BACK. America needs to return to the values of the past. We need to re-educate Americans about the values which were cherished when our nation was founded. The farther we go forward on the present path we are on, the more freedom we lose. The new slogan does not bother me. What we need to do now is use it to point out that proceeding forward is not the way America should go. To use someone else's words: FourWords....Elect a New President.

They Still Don't Budge on the Budget

We have now passed the three year anniversary of the last time the US Senate passed a budget. The iPad that I am using as I write this was not even on the market yet (not even the first version). This is a disgusting dereliction of duty. Americans should hold the people responsible for this accountable. The opportunity to do something about this comes this November.