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Obama's First 100 Days

Though I don't know who is the author of this political cartoon, it does a good job of summing up this administration's agenda.

Picture the following words over a picture of President Obama: So we'll put money in the economy by taking money out of the economy then putting it back in the economy and taxing it as it passes through. Yeah, that ought to work.

BREAKING NEWS: On a 51-45 vote, the Senate, with the votes of 15 Democrats, just defeated the proposed bill that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgage contracts to reduce the amount people owe on their mortgages. Led by Arizona's Jon Kyl and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, President Obama's high priority bill became his first legislative defeat. By relieving troubled homeowners today, banks would have been forced to charge higher rates on the next generation of mortgagees. Speaking for millions of renters and nondelinquent borrowers, Mr. McConnell said that the vote "ensures that homeowners who pay their bills and follow the rules won't see an interest-rate hike at the whim of a bankruptcy judge". Nor, I add, will the binding contracts we sign be allowed to be altered at the command of the government.

ABC ran a report showing the names and faces of two present CIA contractors who may have had a role in the waterboarding of KSM and Abu Zubaydah. This puts them at extreme risk from our enemies, and is against the law. When it isn't a Republican who can be falsely accused as in the Valerie Plame case, I doubt that any recriminations will be coming.

Barack Obama, while celebrating his first 100 days as our "hero", said "those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I'm not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.” I guess he doesn't know that Fox News Network has more viewers than all the other cable channels put together, and that Fox only began to cover the tea parties after we the people began to organize them. By the way, the Petoskey, Michigan tea party will be held today at 6:00 pm, and Joe The Plumber will be in attendance. Our President denigrated those citizens who attend tea parties and totally misrepresented their focus: his and Congress's dismantling of capitalism, their extreme spending and debt production, and their disrespect for the very Constitution which they have pledged to uphold. While willing to discuss with us the various ways in which we can save money on health care (just as Castro and Chavez promised to listen to anything and everything Americans wish to discuss, but to change nothing), he is not willing to do anything except listen. This is demonstrated by his Congress which is about to pass a simple majority as the voting method to give to us national healthcare, without debate. He must have forgotten that when questioned on his agenda, he told a Republican Senator, "I won". And I would remind our President that though he won, there were nearly 60 million Americans who did NOT vote for him, and he is the President of us all. His speech demonstrates what he truly thinks of those of us who might question his wisdom. He said, "opposing our approach on every front is probably not a good political strategy." And I thought that is why our Constitution provides for at least TWO political parties! He and his party certainly exercised their rights to oppose the President's agenda during the last administration.

Marxists believe in the following: "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". Is this not reminiscent of Obama's response to Joe the Plumber? As a reminder, he said to Joe: "It's not that I want to punish your success, I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too." Obama then explained his trickle-up theory of economics. "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Marxists believe that goods should be produced for usefulnesss and not for profitability. Wow! That sounds so much like a recent Obama quote about how we Americans need to stop working because of the importance of the money it provides and more for the goodness it can provide to others. No, Mr. President, some of us work very hard to provide for ourselves and our families. American conservatives then become the world's largest donators to charities world-wide. Statistics show, however, that liberals tend to donate almost nothing to charities, for they want to use OUR money to do that.

On another subject, some of the arguments against the Obama administration's release of classified documents regarding "enhanced interrogation", as well as plans to prosecute those who approved the aforementioned techniques (which would include a large number of Congressmen) have been voiced by his own CIA director Leon Panetta and four previous CIA directors. Declassifying the memos will make it more difficult for the CIA to defend the nation. It communicated to our enemies the limits of our techniques, enabling them to practice their resistance (just as our SEAL members all do as part of their training). It is believed that it will discourage intelligence professionals from offering their frank opinions in sensitive counterterrorist cases for fear that they will be prosecuted by a future administration. That will make it ever more difficult to recruit good people to our government whose job it is to protect our country.

"The quote of the day from GM, on their new Obama contract : "The U.S. Treasury will be able to elect all of our directors and to control the vote on substantially all matters brought for a stockholder vote." The government who couldn't even successfully run it's own cafeteria knows SO much about running ANY business, don't you know! The government is also refusing to accept repayment of loans it made to various banks -- for it wishes not to lose control over those banks.

"That is the true genius of America , a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door." That is a direct Obama quote. I have not yet heard a knock on my door, but I and all conservatives have been targeted for surveillance, as we might become terrorists, according to our government. Why has our President not condemned this National Security edict as he refuted the naming of veterans as possible terrorists?

New Latin America Leaders Not Leftist??

To the Petoskey News Review:
Your Editor Kendall Stanley asked for opinions on which columnist he should choose for dismissal. I am writing to offer my opinion regarding Georgie Anne Geyer, as I find it almost laughable that he considers her to be a moderate. In her last article for instance, she describes new leaders in Latin America as "not leftist in traditional Marxist terms, but rather broadly and emotionally leftish, essentially nonideological". I can only assume that since the very definition of Marxism is from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, Geyer recognizes that they do not fulfill that definition due to their “nonideological” total authoritarianism, the jailing of their political critics, the running of their countries with an iron fist, and their disrespect of basic human rights. Our US State Department has declared there are “numerous rights violations under Chavez”, that he represses opposition to his administration. "I sting those who rattle me," Chavez has said in one weekly TV address, "so don't mess with me, Condoleezza!" The recent warning given by our own Department of Homeland
Security's leader Janet Napolitano, by the way, makes me understand that now in the United States political critics of our government are being isolated and threatened by being named as possible terrorists which all local police departments have been warned to watch. Do we not recall Hillary Clinton’s screech, “I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration". I guess we conservatives are not being called unpatriotic, just ripe for being terrorists. Does that make you feel better?
Ideology by definition is supposed to mean "the body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual group, class or culture." I guess Latin leaders ARE non-ideologues, as they don't CARE about the needs and aspirations of anyone but themselves. Take Chavez, for instance. I do not find Chavez to be "mystical", nor Messiah-like, as Geyer does. His getting chummy attention, with not a condition required, from what used to be the greatest power on Earth is definitely not helpful to America. Chavez has recently suggested that Venezuela and Iran must build a New World Order, along with a new bank which shall replace the IMF and World Bank. How do you think Obama's new “good neighbor policy” is working so far?
While admitting that Cuba is impoverished, she does not connect the dots to the agenda and policies of Castro in making it so. If Castro is such an "historic inspiration" to Geyer, perhaps she should note that even though Raul Castro said last week that he was open to talk about "everything, everything with the Americans", he also has no intention of changing a thing. Nor does she mention that the health care of those in Cuba is rationed by Castro's government, just as it will have to be in the USA if we indeed institute government paid health care and health insurance, as was admitted by none other than Tom Daschle, President Obama’s first, but flawed by being a tax cheat, choice to be head of this effort.. President Obama's "Good Neighbor Policy" includes new $200 million in loans to Cuba. These come rife with the probabilities of the loan money never reaching those who actually are impoverished, which is often the case with American money sent abroad. Geyer admits that "these leaders actually accomplish little palpable for their people", which she says is not the point! What, pray tell, should the point be, then?
Ms. Geyer saw in Chavez a "Messianic Glow". I assume Geyer must also see in our new President a “Messianic Glow”, for he has already declared that he and his followers are “the change we have been waiting for”, predicting that “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." In my view, President Ronald Reagan is our “historic inspiration”. Ms. Geyer is no moderate, but she does continue to give me plenty of material for presenting a conservative’s viewpoint.