Why would anyone vote for Obama part 2

As a conservative, I, like many people, have reservations about Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate. For independent voters it must be difficult to assemble a list of reasons to vote for Romney, we do not know much about him and the relentless personal attack ads have hurt Romney’s ability to define his views.

But maybe a better question would be why would anyone vote for Obama? Under his watch we have:

·         40 straight months of unemployment at over 8%. Two full years after the recession ended.

·         Home ownership is now at a 16 year low.

·         Still experiencing record amounts of home foreclosures.

·         Six trillion dollars of more federal debt than when Obama came in to office.

·         Record number of people are collecting food stamps.

·         Three straight years with no federal budget.

·         A justice department out of control and thousands of weapons shipped to Mexican drug gangs by the United States federal government, some that were used to murder a US Border Patrol officer.

·         Gas prices are up 67%

·         Middle East is in flames and American interest attacked worldwide, including the murder of a US Ambassador.  Last time that happened was 1978.

·         American troops dying at a rate of one a day in an Afghan war that appears leaderless.

·         Iran closer than ever to an Atomic weapon.

·         Poverty rates at over 15% with 46 million people now living in poverty. The highest rate in 20 years.

·         500 million taxpayer dollars wasted on solar panel company Solyndra. Even after it was clear Solyndra’s business plan had no chance to ever turn a profit, the President continued to dump tax money into a this “green technology hole”.

·         Obama appoints Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, to head his Jobs Council at the same time GE was shipping thousands of jobs out of this country. Suppose it did not really matter because Obama promptly ignored his job council.

·         Obamacare was the answer to all our health care worries.  But for some reason, the Obama administration saw fit to grant over 2000 wavers from the requirements of that bill.  Many going to large unions and corporations

·         Obama told us if we liked our health insurance we could keep it. We know now that was a lie.

·         In 2008 Obama said he would post all bills for five days for public comment before signing them. Of course that never happened.  Some people will say anything to get elected.

·         In 2008 Obama said he would cut the deficit in half in four years, in fact he said that he did not deserve to be reelected if he did not. Nice to see we have found something to agree about.

·          Appointed former lobbyist Islam Siddiqui as America’s Chief Agriculture Negotiator ,

·         Appointed telecom lobbyist Eric Holder to Attorney General (Holder was also a top fundraiser),

·         Appointed education lobbyist Tom Vilsack to secretary of agriculture,

·         Appointed defense lobbyist William Lynn to deputy defense secretary,

·          Appointed anti-tobacco lobbyist William Corr to deputy health and human services secretary,

·         Appointed energy lobbyist David Hayes to deputy interior secretary,  

·         Appointed Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson as chief of staff to treasury secretary Geithner,

·         Appointed variety lobbyist Ron Klain as chief of staff to Joe Biden,

·         Appointed lobbyist Mona Sutphen to deputy White House chief of staff ,

·         Appointed civil rights lobbyist Melody Barnes to domestic policy council director,  

·         Appointed Hispanic lobbyist Cecilia Munoz to director of intergovernmental affairs,

·         Appointed union lobbyist Patrick Gaspard to political affairs director,  

·         Appointed lobbyist Michael Strautmanis to chief of staff to the president’s assistant for intergovernmental relations ,

·         Appointed lobbyist Erik Hirschhorn to the Commerce department,

·         Appointed lobbyist Michael Punke to represent the US before the WTO ,

·         Appointed lobbyist Jacqueline Barrien to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,

·         Appointed lobbyist Emmitt Beliveau to Deputy Assistant for Advance at the White House,

·         Appointed lobbyist Cassandra Butts to Deputy Counsel at the White House, 

·         Appointed lobbyist Martha Coven as Special Assistant at the White House, 

·         Appointed lobbyist Phillip J. Crowley as assistant secretary for public affairs at the State Department, 

·         Appointed Fannie Mae lobbyist Thomas Donilon as Deputy National Security Adviser at the NSA,

·         Appointed lobbyist Derek Douglas as Special Assistant for Urban Affairs at the White House,

·         Appointed lobbyist Jocelyn Frye as Director of Policy and Projects at the Office of the First Lady,

·         Appointed education lobbyist Gabriella Gomez to assistant secretary at the Department of Education,

·         Appointed lobbyist Krysta Harden to assistant secretary at the Department of Agriculture,

·         Appointed lobbyist Alan Hoffmann to Deputy Chief of Staff to the vice president, 

·         Appointed AT&T lobbyist Sean Kennedy as special assistant at the White House, 

·         Appointed MPAA lobbyist Jon Liebowitz as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission,

·         Appointed lobbyist Robert Litt to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,

·         Appointed lobbyist Demetrios J. Marantis as deputy U.S. trade representative ,

·         Appointed lobbyist Dennis McDonough as deputy assistant to the president, 

·         Appointed lobbyist Leon Panetta as director of the CIA,

·         Appointed Audubon Society lobbyist Robert Perciasepe to deputy commissioner of the EPA,

·         Appointed lobbyist Daniel Poneman to deputy secretary at the Department of Energy,

·         Appointed lobbyist Peter Rundlet to deputy assistant at the White House,

·         Appointed lawyer lobbyist Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services,

·         Appointed lobbyist Susan Sher to chief of staff at the Office of the First Lady,

·         Appointed lobbyist Dana Singiser to Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs,

·         Appointed lobbyist Nancy Stoner to Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water at the EPA,

·         Appointed lobbyist Thomas Strickland to assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior, 

·         Appointed lobbyist Karl R. Thompson as a lawyer at the Department of Justice, 

·         Appointed lobbyist John Trasvina to assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 

·         Appointed lobbyist Dan Turton to Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs at the White House,

·         Appointed lobbyist Christine Varney to Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the Justice Department, 

·         Appointed lobbyist Richard Verma to assistant secretary at the State Department, 

·         Appointed lobbyist William J. Wilkins to Chief Counsel at the IRS (thanks to Post Libertarian blog for that list)

·         For the first time in History the US has lost its AAA credit rating; even Jimmy Carter could not mess things up that bad.

·         Absolute no ability to lead, Reagan, Clinton and both Bush’s found ways to work with the other party, this President’s inability to work with Congress has brought the government to a new level of low.

·         Today’s headlines in our local paper reads “city poverty rate up 24%”.

·         Arthur Davis, an early supporter of Obama and co-chair of the committee to elect Obama in 2008, switched sides and spoke at the Republican convention might have put it best when he said   "America is a land of second chances, and I gather you have room for the estimated 6 million of us who know we got it wrong in 2008 and who want to fix it."

Mitt Romney might be an unknown quantity BUT  the President is definitely not.

 Do we really want; can we really stand four more years of what we have seen in the last 40 months?

Why would anyone vote for Obama.

Some things are just to good not to pass along,

 

http://whyichangedmyvote.com/?source=text&gclid=CMmk4vPgxrICFec-MgodL2sADQ

This must be what Democrats call leadership.

Last year when Congress could once again not manage to pass a budget, they passed a bill that is now referred to as the budget sequester. Basically it said if they could not come to some budget agreement before January 1st 2013, automatic spending cuts would be triggered. That bill among other things would result in cuts as much as 500 billion dollars in defense spending. Now that much decrease in spending would mean massive layoffs for defense contractors and that leads us to, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story”.

According to the “Workers Adjustment and Training Notification Act” of 1988, any company that does business with the federal government must give their employees 60 days’ notice of any potential layoffs.

The WARN Act (as it came to be known) was passed by a veto proof democratic majority and signed into law by President Reagan. Big labor and Democrats hailed the bill as needed federal protection from big business. The idea was that now workers would have some warning that their job might be eliminated in the near future.

But a funny thing happened last week. The Department of Labor issued a directive that this time businesses do not have to follow the law’s procedure when it comes to the upcoming layoffs that might result from the January 1st budget sequester that will slash defense spending and lead to hundreds of thousands of layoffs in defense related industry.

For some reason President Obama, and apparently big labor that supports him, does not think those workers need the same protection that they thought was so vital over the last 24 years.

Or maybe - - the prospect of hundreds of thousands of American workers getting pink slips just days before the presidential election warning that they might lose their jobs just days after Christmas justifies the President ignoring the best interest of those very same workers

Some politicians will do anything to get elected.

We are the ones in charge.

To say that I disagree with the Obamacare bill would be an understatement. But after reflecting on the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold the law, I think I at least understand why Justice Roberts voted the way he did.

For too long Congress has been in the habit of deferring its responsibility to the court. Whenever a contentious decision has to be made, Congress would rather hide its head in the sand and let the court render a decision.  This is all the better at election time; to be able to deny any accountability.

I think Roberts not only hit the nail on the head with his harsh criticism of the continued expansion of the commerce clause as an excuse for an ever expanding federal government, but he correctly identified the situation as Congresses avoiding its constitutional duty to set policy. 

I wish the outcome had been different: but it’s about time Congress actually does its duty and sets policy. If the American people don’t like a 2000 page health insurance bill forced down our throats they need to force our elected officials to change it. If we or Congress do not have the guts to do this, we deserve what we get.

In November we get a chance to make sure those in Washington know exactly how we feel, make sure you take advantage of it. Every vote does count!

What did we learn the second night of the Democratic convention?

In the second night of the Democratic convention we were treated to 48 minutes of Bill Clinton at his finest. Former President Clinton started his DNC speech career praising the virtues of Michael Dukakis (who won only ten states losing to George H Bush).  This time Clinton was supposed to convince the undecided to vote for President Obama just because Obama was nominated by the same party as Clinton.

 But President Obama is not Bill Clinton.

While Clinton worked with Republicans to reform welfare, Obama works to dismantle that same reform. Clinton, who apparently will support anyone or say anything to get a Democrat elected, says Obama is not removing the welfare work requirement.  But the fact remains that now the Secretary of Health and Human Services has the latitude to drop the work requirement with no input from Congress.    

While Clinton found ways to work with Republicans and actually balanced the federal budget, President Obama can’t even get his party to pass a budget. The President sent a budget to Congress in 2012 and not one single member of Congress, from either party, voted for it. The Democrats have not passed a budget since Obama became President. We should trust a President to solve the financial crisis of our government that can’t even pass a budget?  Let me say that one more time, the federal government of the United States has not had a written budget since President Bush left office. Since the Republicans took control of the House in the last election, the House passed a budget only to have it not even get to the floor of the democratic controlled Senate.

President Clinton championed government health care.  But when he saw how unpopular things like a government mandate for health insurance would be; abandoned the effort. Obama pushed legislation through a totally democratic Congress without one Republican vote, even though members of Congress admit that no one had actually read the 2000 page bill. Some type of health insurance reform might be needed but the 2000 page Obamacare bill failed to consider the 88% of the population that had health insurance and the vast majority that were satisfied with the insurance they had.

When Bill Clinton’s wife Hilary was running for President, she referred to Obama as “Elitist and divisive” now, Bill paints the President as a friend of the average worker and a builder of bridges. We already know that Clinton has no problem with lying.  That must be the only explanation from a former President who knew how to work with the other party,  would imply this President does.

And the most amazing thing is President Obama, who during the 2008 primary scolded past Republican and Democratic administrations of banking deregulation and blames the whole recession on Bush era bank deregulation, now has the biggest deregulator of all time speaking on his behalf at the convention. It was Bill Clinton who signed the Glass-Steagall law repeal. This depression era banking regulation had out lived any usefulness and was correctly repealed by the republican Congress and that repeal was signed by Clinton. Obama who makes a habit of accusing President Bush of causing the financial melt-down with bank deregulations, was now being championed by the President who really did de-regulate banking. Bush on the other hand signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley's Act that substantially increased the regulation on the financial industry.  The ability for Obama, Clinton and the Democratic Party to ignore history is beyond amazing.

And Clinton, who really did govern during a time that the country recovered from a recession (even if the recovery was more from a tech bubble that from any government policy) now supports a President whose polices prolong the suffering. Clinton justifies this support by proclaiming the often repeated but never explained message that this is the “worst recession since the great depression”.  Yet in length,  this recession does not even make the top five. The recession in 1979 was longer, with higher un-employment, lower GDP and higher interest rates.  The parrots that repeat the depression comparison to this recession are correct in one respect. Never since the depression has the economy stayed so weak even years after the recession ended. And both times liberal Presidents were pushing an ultra-liberal agenda that prolonged the economic slow-down.

If you are a Liberal you may find good reason to vote for President Obama, but it is hard to see how support from Clinton would be one of them. If you are supporter of Clinton era policies the new found support from Clinton hardly seems reason to support Obama. If you are a thinking person it is hard to see how you could support either.

What did we learn from the first night of the DNC convention?

That apparently unemployment is not a problem….speaker after speaker talked about the amazing job creation under President Obama, guess that unemployment over 8% for the last 39 months is not a problem.

Democrats lie…..a number of speakers repeated the report that more jobs have been created under Obama than under 8 years of President Bush, but looking at the monthly changes in non-farm employment finds this to be an absolute lie. At this point, jobs numbers have decreased dramatically during the Obama administration while showing an almost 2 million increase under Bush. (http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet). Who was it that said facts are stubborn things? But don’t believe me - CNN reported the exact same thing.

That American banks are the reason “we are in this mess” but Romney is un-American for have bank accounts in non-American banks. So the lesson here would be American banks are all evil and caused the financial meltdown but we should support those same banks with our money?

Better to create no jobs than to create millions of jobs and have some be overseas…… Speaker after speaker attacked Romney for his success at Bain capital. Ignoring companies like Sports Authority and Staples, that employ thousands of Americans and was created with assistance from Bain the assailed, the supposed jobs outsourced to foreign countries of which they gave no examples. Apparently the democrats prefer the job creation of Obama in his private carrier – that would be zero. They attack a man that has helped create thousands of American jobs to support a person who has never created one single job in his life.

The democrats applaud success: just apparently not too much success….. San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro on one hand makes the statement “We all celebrate individual success” but speaker after speaker attack Romney for the success of Bain capital. 

What you say is not what you meant….Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman was quoted Tuesday as saying “I’ve heard no less than Ambassador Michael Oren say this, that what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel.” Yet on Wednesday spokes persons from her office said she had been “misrepresented" by media that quoted her exactly. This came after the Israeli ambassador not only denied ever saying such thing but denied that republican positions were detrimental to Israel’s interest. How exactly does a direct quote “misrepresent” what you said?

Decrease any amount of taxes and you can brag about tax cuts….We had one speaker after another remind us that the president has “decreased taxes for the working people”. According to the left leaning ‘Citizens for Tax Justice’ families earning between $36,000 and $59,000 received between $ 650 and $ 710 tax credit under Obama. Now not to say that $ 50 a month is not a help but this is hardly a tax reduction to write home about. The real tax accomplishment by this president is extending the Bush tax cuts that the democrats fought so hard against when Bush was President. www.ctj.org/obamastaxcuts/nc.pdf

Bush era tax cuts under Bush…bad, same Bush era tax cuts under Obama….good.

Gitmo does not exist…..in 2009 President Obama said “continuing the military prison set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world." Yet here we are over three years later and the facility is still operational. Now I agree that the prison should remain functional but after campaigning on the evils of the Bush administration for operating this facility wonder why not only did the President not close it but we never hear a word about it.

It always helps to shout….for some reason most of the speakers last night had the need to shout their message, maybe if the message is no good it somehow improves if you increase the volume.

 

We all made it without Obama but you can’t…..it always amazes me when liberals start their speech with their and their families ascent to greatness from humble beginnings only to end their message with the notion that without massive government programs no one but the wealthy have any chance of success. Why was Mayor Julian Castro able to rise from humble beginnings but apparently his class mates could not obtain the same success?  In the Mayor’s speech, he tells us about how he and his brother both got good educations, even coming from humble beginnings, but he wonders how his class mates in high school will ever make it without government hand-outs. Is he so extraordinary that only HE can make it without government assistance? Is the path to financial stability only paved with government tax dollars?

 

16 trillion dollars of federal debt is nothing worth discussing……As the leading democrats attacked Romney and Ryan for their perceived fiscal irresponsibility the federal debt ticked over 16 trillion. Speaker after speaker talked about how we need more and more federal spending for about every part of our economy and no one ever gave us one hint of how we will pay for it except to “make the wealthy pay their fair share”. This undefined “fair share” of course could not even be enough to cover the massive debt added by this president much less pay for the added massive debt the democrats are planning on adding.

And finally - - -

Federal debt under Bush, bad….federal debt under Obama ,good.

I wonder if anyone really thinks about the Declaration of Independence?

(reprinted from 2010)

I really love the Declaration of Independence,

I have to look up the big words and I stumble over the old King’s English. But when you read it slowly, the ideas set forth are so revolutionary that, to me, it is the best hope in all history for the human race.

First is the concept that all peoples’ basic human rights are “endowed by our creator” (whomever you might think that is). For the first time in the world’s history, a group of people declared that human rights are not handed down by some government, or person, or secured with some piece of paper. But they are “unalienable” (this is one of those words I had to look up). “Not to be separated, given away, or taken away” the dictionary says. What an amazing and forgotten concept. You are not free because the government says you are free, or the Constitution says you are free. You are free because you were born! A government may deprive you of your human rights but they cannot grant them.

Then the basic rights themselves, listed in order of importance, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The right of life is obvious. Liberty has many interpretations but I like Webster’s “state of being free.” And last, “the pursuit of happiness.” Notice they said “pursuit,” not just happiness. Being happy is not a right but something to be pursued!

And last, the solemn declaration that, should a said government interfere with these basic rights, or as our better educated and learned founding fathers said “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,” not only do we have the right but we have the DUTY to throw off that government to secure these rights. Pretty heavy stuff, even scary. But that is the importance these brilliant men attached to liberty. Thankfully they were willing to risk their futures, their fortunes and their very lives to secure these rights for future generations. We would be negligent if we let these rights to slowly be eroded by a well-meaning but miss directed political class just because we were not willing or too lazy to provide for our own personal security.

In 1776, to “throw off such government” meant picking up arms and standing against an occupying army whose purpose was to suppress the people’s rights at the direction of a king. Today, I think that means continuing pushing back against laws, rules, regulations and the growth of a government. We must push back against a government that, with every expansion, results in the decrease of the liberty that allows us the opportunity to be so happy and productive.

After the Revolutionary War, the founders set about laying out a system of government that would allow for an organized society, but avoid infringing on the peoples’ basic rights. The Constitution dictates the powers of a central government, powers that are limited by design and ripe for abuse by officials that think providing for our happiness is their job.