Tag Archives: Obama

•

"No more illegal wiretapping of citizens, No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. The FISA court works. The separation of powers works. Our Constitution works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary. This administration acts like violating civil liberties is a way to enhance our security. It is not…There is no short cut to protecting Americans”.

-- Senator Barack H. Obama, 2007

• 3 Comments

•

This is a difficult post.

Our country's leaders seem unable to stop spending. President Obama said that we cannot "cut ourselves into prosperity." and yet, on an individual basis, people do it all the time. If you're in debt...stop spending and pay it off.

My son joined the "47%. Came home from college for Christmas and he's not going back. He doesn't have a job but does get SSI and Social Security benefits because of his blindness.

Our country needs to stop spending, but those who cannot work, or cannot find work...need help. (Note: Tom can work, but between school and LHON, he hasn't.

Then there's the question...when does too much help become hurting?

I don't know if I'm helping or hurting, but

1- the rule has always been if the kid is not in school full time or working...they can't live here
2- Tom is 26. He needs to get on with his life
3- and I need to get on with mine.

Our country is on her way down the crapper. We cannot keep on doing what we 're doing.

In the effort to not raise my taxes...my payroll taxes are going up and I'll talk later about my health care plan...

All in all, I'm sorry it happened the way it did...but I have to admit I'm looking forward to being an empty nester for real.

•

I read this article on March 8, 2009. I blogged on it then and wrote this post on this day, setting it to publish in 2012.

Barring unplanned things (like when I lost pages when I changed web hosts or if inflation gets so far out of hand that I stop paying for webhosting or internet services) this will post on June 8, 2012.

 

An Open-Letter to My Pro-Obama Friends
By Bretigne Shaffer
Dear pro-Obama friends,

I got a call from one of you the day after the election. You were so happy. You had "not been so proud to be an American for... decades!" You're living overseas, and you told me about watching the results in a bar with other Americans and how you were all hugging and crying you were so happy. As I hung up the phone, I found that I felt happy for you too.

Most of you know that I supported neither McCain nor Obama, that I view them as equally opposed to peace and freedom and equally ignorant of sound economic principles. I wasn't going to be happy with the election results no matter who won, so I can at least be glad that some of my friends are happy, and I am. And after his first few days in office, even I have to admit that Obama has done some very good things for which he is receiving well-deserved praise. It is not my intention to dismiss these accomplishments, nor is it my intent to rain on anyone's parade. But I do want to ask you all a big favor.

I'm going to make some predictions about Obama's presidency. Essentially, I'm going to predict that four years from now, an Obama presidency will not look very different from the George W. Bush presidency, or from what I imagine a John McCain presidency would bring. If I'm wrong about this, then I promise that I will re-think my beliefs about our political system and about politics generally. But if I am right, then I'm asking you to do the same. I'm asking each of you to consider the seemingly bizarre proposition that there really is no significant difference between candidates offered up by the established party system; that Republican and Democrat are virtually indistinguishable; and that neither party has at heart the interests of you or me or "the American people." I'm asking you to consider the possibility that continuing to vote for these people just helps to perpetuate the very ills you seek to cure.

So here are my predictions. I'm going to leave aside areas such as the environment (I don't believe that government solutions to environmental problems will help anyone other than special interest groups — many of you probably don't agree with me) and wealth redistribution (I'm old fashioned and believe that theft is wrong even when the government does it) because we may not be on the same page on these issues. (However, on the issue of wealth redistribution, I will say this: Do you really believe that the same man who voted to bail out billionaire bankers at the expense of ordinary taxpayers is really going to help the poor stick it to the rich? Really?)

I'll stick to the areas where I think most of us agree: War and foreign policy; civil liberties; and the economy.

Let's start with war and foreign policy. Obama was not an anti-war candidate, and he is not an anti-war president. His opposition to the US occupation of Iraq was based not on a principled stance against pre-emptive invasion and occupation of a foreign country, but on his view that it had damaged the US's credibility and therefore its ability to engage in military interventions in the future. Senator Obama voted to continue funding the Iraq war and voted against a 2007 pullout in June of 2006. He does not plan to bring troops home from Iraq, but to redeploy them in Afghanistan, and he "support[s] plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines." (from Obama's website, change.gov)

In an article for Foreign Affairs last year, Obama said "I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened." (Emphasis mine.) He has promised AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) that he will "...do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything." Coming from the future leader of one of the most heavily nuclear-armed nations in the world, these are chilling words. Prior to his election, Obama also spoke of expanding the war on terror to Pakistan (indeed, by the end of his first week in office, he had already ordered air strikes on villages in Pakistan, killing at least 17 people including three children), and prior to his inauguration he remained silent as the Israeli government killed hundreds of civilians in Gaza with weapons provided by the US government.

The sad truth of the matter is that George W. Bush in 2000 ran on more of an anti-war platform than did Obama in 2008. Indeed, the danger inherent in a President Obama is that he will be perceived as being less bellicose than Bush or McCain. I believe that this will allow him to get away with even more than McCain might have, as he will face neither the public opposition nor opposition in Congress that a Republican president would have.

So, here are my foreign policy predictions:

At the end of Obama's first four-year term:

1. The US will still have an active military presence in Iraq.
2. The US will have attacked at least one more country that poses no direct threat to us. (I'm not even going to count his early air strikes on Pakistan.)
3. Military spending will have increased.
4. US citizens will be no safer from terrorist attacks. I say this because I believe the (sadly all-too-accurate) perception of the US as an imperialist warmongering nation will persist. I realize this one is open to interpretation. I would just ask you to honestly ask yourselves at the end of these four years whether this is the case.

My one caveat to this section is this: If the US government becomes financially unable to maintain its empire abroad, then Obama's military aspirations may be hampered by budget constraints. However I maintain (and Obama's own words support me here) that this will not be because of any lack of will on his part.

Moving on to civil liberties and human rights, I have to admit that this is the one area where Obama's presidency is already looking different from that of his predecessor. In his first few days in office, President Obama signed executive orders to 1) close Guantanamo within a year; 2) officially ban the use of torture in the military; 3) close the CIA-run secret prisons around the world; and 4) review detention policies and procedures and review individual detention cases. He has also suspended the military trials at Guantanamo for 120 days, and has acted to combat government secrecy. These are all good things and Obama is receiving well-deserved praise for them.

More important though, the fundamental problems facing civil liberties and human rights in this country do not stem from the operation of some detention centers. The damage inflicted has its roots in such things as the USA PATRIOT ACT (which Obama voted to re-authorize), drug law enforcement, and the repudiation of the very foundation of due process of law, habeas corpus. The big questions then, are: 1) whether Obama's administration will actually follow through on his executive orders and close Guantanamo, close the CIA prisons and truly end torture (there is also of course the question of what will then happen to the detainees); and 2) whether Obama will be able to tackle the more fundamental problems such as restoring habeas corpus and due process.

And there are some fundamental issues that Obama has not even taken on. While he is aware of the fact that more than one percent of American adults, and one out of every nine black men, are in prison, he does not tackle this issue head on. Nor does he really address the war on drugs in its entirety, nor the increasingly dangerous police state it has helped to spawn. To his credit, he has promised to end the illegal federal raids on medical marijuana clinics, and to eliminate the inherently racist sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine. However these measures don't even come close to addressing the fundamental problem that is the drug war itself. And some of his moves so far do not inspire hope: His appointment of Eric Holder, formerly a big proponent of mandatory minimum sentencing is worrisome. Even more disturbing, Obama has pledged to strengthen two federal programs ("Community Oriented Policing Services" (COPS) and the Byrne grant program) that have actually contributed to increased militarization of local police forces.

My predictions, then, are a bit more muted than in the other sections. On some of the big questions I listed above, I do not have any predictions. I hope that he does do all of these things, and if he does I will give him credit for it, and even admit that he may be better than McCain in this one area after all (although remember McCain said he was against torture too). To me though, real change means more than simply reversing the most outrageous of measures put in place by the previous administration. However if under Obama habeas corpus and/or due process (including an end to warrant-less searches and seizures) are fully restored, then I will absolutely admit that there are significant differences between the two men, and I will reconsider my view that real change cannot come through the political process.

I am also very concerned about Obama's plans for what amounts to compulsory national service for young people. The idea is that schools receiving federal funds will be strong-armed into implementing "service" (for government-approved endeavors of course) as part of their graduation requirements. I am not going to include this in my predictions however as I really don't have a strong view on whether this will come to pass or not.

What I do predict is the following. By the end of Obama's first term in office:

1. More than 1% of US adults will still be in prison. This number will very likely be even higher than it is today, and the black and Hispanic portion of that population will not have decreased by any significant amount.
2. We will still suffer from the kind of police abuse that is becoming more and more common: military-style raids on unarmed civilians in their homes; the shooting and tasering of unarmed citizens; and police and judicial corruption leading to the jailing of many more innocent people than can be acceptable under any system. The militarization and aggressive behavior of police forces will probably become worse before they get any better. This is another one that is somewhat open to interpretation. I would ask you to rely on your own honest judgement regarding whether you believe things have really changed in this area.
3. "No-Fly" lists will still be in place, and there may even be more restrictions on travel.
4. There will be more restrictions on gun ownership and the right to self-defense.
5. The police tactics and suppression of dissent at the 2012 RNC and DNC conventions will be just as brutal as they were in 2008.
6. Government surveillance of US citizens will continue (remember that bill Obama voted for that gave immunity to the telecoms companies that assisted with this in the past?),

Now for the easy part: the economy.

It is true that President Obama has inherited a tremendous problem from the previous administration. Any president would be hard-pressed to come out of the next four years claiming victory in this area. In fact, the best that anyone could do would be to not make things any worse by allowing markets to function, overvalued assets to depreciate and poorly run companies to fail. Barack Obama is not going to do that.

With his support for the massive financial-industry bailouts, and his plans for stimulus packages to get the economy on track again, President Obama is doing all the wrong things. What got us into this mess was too much borrowing and spending, too much government involvement in markets, and now he wants to implement more of the same as the solution. I'm not even going to ask you all to agree with my assessment. Just watch what happens.

My prediction: By the end of Obama's first four years in office, the US economy will be in much, much worse shape than it is now. Specifically:

1. The US will have massive inflation. The dollar will lose at least 50% of its value against most goods and services, and certainly against the goods and services most people use every day. This is a very conservative estimate. It will probably be much worse.
2. Unemployment in the US will be worse than it is now. It will be at least in the double digits.

Maybe you all have a different concept of what "change" means than I do. If so, then fair enough. But for me, at a bare minimum, any real change cannot possibly include a continuation of the US government's interventionist and imperialist foreign policy. Nor can it include the maintenance of the police state that allows government agents to spy on US citizens, burst into their homes in the dead of night armed to the teeth, seize the property of people not even connected to crime s, shoot and taser non-violent citizens with impunity and incarcerate nearly 1% of the population — or incarcerateanyone for crimes that have no victims. I believe that these things will continue unabated under the Obama administration.

If you agree with me that the continuation of these problems would not constitute the kind of "change" you are looking for, then I'm asking you to accept my challenge: If, by the end of Obama's first term in office, these areas are not significantly different from how they are now — that is, if the US is as much an imperialist, warmongering state as it is today, if civil liberties at home are no more protected than they are today and if the economy is in significantly worse shape than it is today — then I will ask you to admit that you were wrong about Obama. More than that, I'm going to ask you to rethink your views on about the political process more broadly. And I promise to do the same.

For years, I have said that real progress towards peace, freedom and respect for individual rights cannot come from working within the very system that sustains itself through war and the expansion of state power over people's lives. If in fact the Obama administration does herald great and significant change in these areas that we agree upon, then I promise to rethink these beliefs.

Let me correct myself on one point. Up above I said that there was no discernible difference between the Republicans and Democrats, or between McCain and Obama. That's not quite true. Obama is smarter. He will pursue his ends in a more intelligent and a more publicly palatable way than John McCain would have, and he will very likely be more successful in attaining them because of it. But what remains the same are the ends themselves. Ultimately, both parties stand for upholding American empire overseas and expanding the scope of the state in people's lives and the economy at home. If I am wrong about this, then I promise to re-think everything. But if I am not, then I hope you will do the same. Let's talk again in four years.

•

Here is a link to the article.

I highly doubt that any liberals will want to think hard enough to listen to the answers.

In every case — public-sector members included — the livelihood and job security of Hoffa's members depend on a growing economy and robust employers to deliver the wages, benefits, working conditions (and tax revenue) they expect in exchange for the dues money they pay regularly.

Why is that so hard to understand? When Obama offers his prescription for jobs tonight to a joint session of Congress, the folks that Hoffa and other private-sector unions represent should let pass the partisan shots and thinly veiled anti-business riffs and consider submitting the president's overdue plan to a simple test:

Does it propose to ease tax and regulatory burdens on the businesses who employ people like them? Does it promise to deliver — finally — a federal budget that begins to offer some certainty to gyrating markets? Are his proposals more likely or less likely to benefit your employer, which could benefit you? Are whatever tax reforms he seeks permanent or the temporary kind that tend to deliver diminishing returns?

In short, does the president show any inclination to leverage the power of a well-capitalized private sector? Or is the core of his plan a bid to take advantage of historically low Treasury bill rates, to increase federal borrowing, to focus the proceeds on public works projects and direct aid to cities and states, leaving the bill for whomever comes next?

The answers will speak for themselves.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110908/OPINION03/109080348/Howes--Hoffa-rant-riles-’em-up--doesn’t-create-jobs#ixzz1XOc2ybpj

•

I read this article on March 8, 2009.  I blogged on it then and wrote this post on this day, setting it to publish on October 1, 2010 (about a month before mid-term elections.)

Barring unplanned things (like when I lost pages when I changed web hosts or if inflation gets so far out of hand that I stop paying for webhosting or internet services) this will post again on October 1, 2012.

An Open-Letter to My Pro-Obama Friends
By Bretigne Shaffer
Dear pro-Obama friends,

I got a call from one of you the day after the election.  You were so happy.  You had "not been so proud to be an American for... decades!"  You're living overseas, and you told me about watching the results in a bar with other Americans and how you were all hugging and crying you were so happy.  As I hung up the phone, I found that I felt happy for you too.

Most of you know that I supported neither McCain nor Obama, that I view them as equally opposed to peace and freedom and equally ignorant of sound economic principles.  I wasn't going to be happy with the election results no matter who won, so I can at least be glad that some of my friends are happy, and I am.  And after his first few days in office, even I have to admit that Obama has done some very good things for which he is receiving well-deserved praise.  It is not my intention to dismiss these accomplishments, nor is it my intent to rain on anyone's parade.  But I do want to ask you all a big favor.

I'm going to make some predictions about Obama's presidency.  Essentially, I'm going to predict that four years from now, an Obama presidency will not look very different from the George W. Bush presidency, or from what I imagine a John McCain presidency would bring.  If I'm wrong about this, then I promise that I will re-think my beliefs about our political system and about politics generally.  But if I am right, then I'm asking you to do the same.  I'm asking each of you to consider the seemingly bizarre proposition that there really is no significant difference between candidates offered up by the established party system; that Republican and Democrat are virtually indistinguishable; and that neither party has at heart the interests of you or me or "the American people."  I'm asking you to consider the possibility that continuing to vote for these people just helps to perpetuate the very ills you seek to cure.

So here are my predictions.  I'm going to leave aside areas such as the environment (I don't believe that government solutions to environmental problems will help anyone other than special interest groups — many of you probably don't agree with me) and wealth redistribution (I'm old fashioned and believe that theft is wrong even when the government does it) because we may not be on the same page on these issues.  (However, on the issue of wealth redistribution, I will say this:  Do you really believe that the same man who voted to bail out billionaire bankers at the expense of ordinary taxpayers is really going to help the poor stick it to the rich?  Really?)

I'll stick to the areas where I think most of us agree:  War and foreign policy; civil liberties; and the economy.

Let's start with war and foreign policy.  Obama was not an anti-war candidate, and he is not an anti-war president.  His opposition to the US occupation of Iraq was based not on a principled stance against pre-emptive invasion and occupation of a foreign country, but on his view that it had damaged the US's credibility and therefore its ability to engage in military interventions in the future.  Senator Obama voted to continue funding the Iraq war and voted against a 2007 pullout in June of 2006.  He does not plan to bring troops home from Iraq, but to redeploy them in Afghanistan, and he "support[s] plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines." (from Obama's website, change.gov)

In an article for Foreign Affairs last year, Obama said "I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened."  (Emphasis mine.)  He has promised AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) that he will "...do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.  Everything."  Coming from the future leader of one of the most heavily nuclear-armed nations in the world, these are chilling words.  Prior to his election, Obama also spoke of expanding the war on terror to Pakistan (indeed, by the end of his first week in office, he had already ordered air strikes on villages in Pakistan, killing at least 17 people including three children), and prior to his inauguration he remained silent as the Israeli government killed hundreds of civilians in Gaza with weapons provided by the US government.

The sad truth of the matter is that George W. Bush in 2000 ran on more of an anti-war platform than did Obama in 2008.  Indeed, the danger inherent in a President Obama is that he will be perceived as being less bellicose than Bush or McCain.  I believe that this will allow him to get away with even more than McCain might have, as he will face neither the public opposition nor opposition in Congress that a Republican president would have.

So, here are my foreign policy predictions:

At the end of Obama's first four-year term:

1. The US will still have an active military presence in Iraq.
2. The US will have attacked at least one more country that poses no direct threat to us.  (I'm not even going to count his early air strikes on Pakistan.)
3. Military spending will have increased.
4. US citizens will be no safer from terrorist attacks. I say this because I believe the (sadly all-too-accurate) perception of the US as an imperialist warmongering nation will persist.  I realize this one is open to interpretation.  I would just ask you to honestly ask yourselves at the end of these four years whether this is the case.

My one caveat to this section is this: If the US government becomes financially unable to maintain its empire abroad, then Obama's military aspirations may be hampered by budget constraints.  However I maintain (and Obama's own words support me here) that this will not be because of any lack of will on his part.

Moving on to civil liberties and human rights, I have to admit that this is the one area where Obama's presidency is already looking different from that of his predecessor.  In his first few days in office, President Obama signed executive orders to 1) close Guantanamo within a year; 2) officially ban the use of torture in the military; 3) close the CIA-run secret prisons around the world; and 4) review detention policies and procedures and review individual detention cases.  He has also suspended the military trials at Guantanamo for 120 days, and has acted to combat government secrecy.  These are all good things and Obama is receiving well-deserved praise for them.

More important though, the fundamental problems facing civil liberties and human rights in this country do not stem from the operation of some detention centers.  The damage inflicted has its roots in such things as the USA PATRIOT ACT (which Obama voted to re-authorize), drug law enforcement, and the repudiation of the very foundation of due process of law, habeas corpus.  The big questions then, are: 1) whether Obama's administration will actually follow through on his executive orders and close Guantanamo, close the CIA prisons and truly end torture (there is also of course the question of what will then happen to the detainees); and 2) whether Obama will be able to tackle the more fundamental problems such as restoring habeas corpus and due process.

And there are some fundamental issues that Obama has not even taken on.  While he is aware of the fact that more than one percent of American adults, and one out of every nine black men, are in prison, he does not tackle this issue head on.  Nor does he really address the war on drugs in its entirety, nor the increasingly dangerous police state it has helped to spawn.  To his credit, he has promised to end the illegal federal raids on medical marijuana clinics, and to eliminate the inherently racist sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine.  However these measures don't even come close to addressing the fundamental problem that is the drug war itself.  And some of his moves so far do not inspire hope:  His appointment of Eric Holder, formerly a big proponent of mandatory minimum sentencing is worrisome.  Even more disturbing, Obama has pledged to strengthen two federal programs ("Community Oriented Policing Services" (COPS) and the Byrne grant program) that have actually contributed to increased militarization of local police forces.

My predictions, then, are a bit more muted than in the other sections.  On some of the big questions I listed above, I do not have any predictions.  I hope that he does do all of these things, and if he does I will give him credit for it, and even admit that he may be better than McCain in this one area after all (although remember McCain said he was against torture too).  To me though, real change means more than simply reversing the most outrageous of measures put in place by the previous administration.  However if under Obama habeas corpus and/or due process (including an end to warrant-less searches and seizures) are fully restored, then I will absolutely admit that there are significant differences between the two men, and I will reconsider my view that real change cannot come through the political process.

I am also very concerned about Obama's plans for what amounts to compulsory national service for young people.  The idea is that schools receiving federal funds will be strong-armed into implementing "service" (for government-approved endeavors of course) as part of their graduation requirements.  I am not going to include this in my predictions however as I really don't have a strong view on whether this will come to pass or not.

What I do predict is the following.  By the end of Obama's first term in office:

1. More than 1% of US adults will still be in prison.  This number will very likely be even higher than it is today, and the black and Hispanic portion of that population will not have decreased by any significant amount.
2. We will still suffer from the kind of police abuse that is becoming more and more common: military-style raids on unarmed civilians in their homes; the shooting and tasering of unarmed citizens; and police and judicial corruption leading to the jailing of many more innocent people than can be acceptable under any system.  The militarization and aggressive behavior of police forces will probably become worse before they get any better.  This is another one that is somewhat open to interpretation.  I would ask you to rely on your own honest judgement regarding whether you believe things have really changed in this area.
3. "No-Fly" lists will still be in place, and there may even be more restrictions on travel.
4. There will be more restrictions on gun ownership and the right to self-defense.
5. The police tactics and suppression of dissent at the 2012 RNC and DNC conventions will be just as brutal as they were in 2008.
6. Government surveillance of US citizens will continue (remember that bill Obama voted for that gave immunity to the telecoms companies that assisted with this in the past?),

Now for the easy part: the economy.

It is true that President Obama has inherited a tremendous problem from the previous administration.  Any president would be hard-pressed to come out of the next four years claiming victory in this area.  In fact, the best that anyone could do would be to not make things any worse by allowing markets to function, overvalued assets to depreciate and poorly run companies to fail.  Barack Obama is not going to do that.

With his support for the massive financial-industry bailouts, and his plans for stimulus packages to get the economy on track again, President Obama is doing all the wrong things.  What got us into this mess was too much borrowing and spending, too much government involvement in markets, and now he wants to implement more of the same as the solution.  I'm not even going to ask you all to agree with my assessment.  Just watch what happens.

My prediction:  By the end of Obama's first four years in office, the US economy will be in much, much worse shape than it is now.  Specifically:

1. The US will have massive inflation.  The dollar will lose at least 50% of its value against most goods and services, and certainly against the goods and services most people use every day.  This is a very conservative estimate.  It will probably be much worse.
2. Unemployment in the US will be worse than it is now.  It will be at least in the double digits.

Maybe you all have a different concept of what "change" means than I do.  If so, then fair enough.  But for me, at a bare minimum, any real change cannot possibly include a continuation of the US government's interventionist and imperialist foreign policy.  Nor can it include the maintenance of the police state that allows government agents to spy on US citizens, burst into their homes in the dead of night armed to the teeth, seize the property of people not even connected to crime s, shoot and taser non-violent citizens with impunity and incarcerate nearly 1% of the population — or incarcerate anyone for crimes that have no victims.  I believe that these things will continue unabated under the Obama administration.

If you agree with me that the continuation of these problems would not constitute the kind of "change" you are looking for, then I'm asking you to accept my challenge:  If, by the end of Obama's first term in office, these areas are not significantly different from how they are now — that is, if the US is as much an imperialist, warmongering state as it is today, if civil liberties at home are no more protected than they are today and if the economy is in significantly worse shape than it is today — then I will ask you to admit that you were wrong about Obama.  More than that, I'm going to ask you to rethink your views on about the political process more broadly.  And I promise to do the same.

For years, I have said that real progress towards peace, freedom and respect for individual rights cannot come from working within the very system that sustains itself through war and the expansion of state power over people's lives.  If in fact the Obama administration does herald great and significant change in these areas that we agree upon, then I promise to rethink these beliefs.

Let me correct myself on one point.  Up above I said that there was no discernible difference between the Republicans and Democrats, or between McCain and Obama.  That's not quite true.  Obama is smarter.  He will pursue his ends in a more intelligent and a more publicly palatable way than John McCain would have, and he will very likely be more successful in attaining them because of it.  But what remains the same are the ends themselves.  Ultimately, both parties stand for upholding American empire overseas and expanding the scope of the state in people's lives and the economy at home.  If I am wrong about this, then I promise to re-think everything.  But if I am not, then I hope you will do the same.  Let's talk again in four years.

• 1 Comment

•

Looking back at Tiger Woods

One of the "bad" things about reading blogs the way that I do is that I end up with a lot of open tabs.  The upside is that I end up with different perspectives and/or a running commentary from different sources.

Truth in Advertising (Parchment and Pen)

If You Can Find a Better Deal, TAKE IT! (Ann Coulter)

Climategate

There May Be More Errors- can we please stop calling them "errors"?  If you repeat a lie, it doesn't make it an "error", it makes a lie that you're repeating.

I Knew the Data Hadn't Been Verified - can we stop calling it "not verified"?

President Obama's pro-abortion record

(no, not "pro-choice)

On Haiti

What Pat Robertson Should Have Said

Who Will Be Left...? (I love the Hillbuzz guys!)

Doctrinal Issues (could be research paper fodder

Why I believe the Canon is Fallible and Am Fine With It (Reclaiming the Mind)

Case Studies...

Michigan Politics

In one of the worst economies in the country...our Senator Levin says that "unemployment has not been his focus."  Thanks for all the "help", Senator.

Tim Keller reviews "The Shack"

Yeah.

•

From Tom McMahon

tags: beatles, flow chart

~~~

More Americans are "pro-life" than "pro-choice" -

~~~

A great blog I discovered by a military wife

Found through "Obama doesn't "get" the military he commands" - a great post.

tags:  military, Obama, politics

~~~

On the other hand...

tags:  military, W., Bush, politics

~~~

Four Types of Theologians - from Parchment and Pen

"Where do you roast your marshmallows?"

tags:  Christianity, religion, theology

~~~

Well of course!  If there are too many books on the conservative best seller lists...give them their own list!  (That way they're not competing with the liberals...)

In a Nov. 9 entry on The Huffington Post that laments Fox News host Glenn Beck pulling a feat not done before - holding the number one spot on The New York Times' four lists: hardcover fiction, hardcover non-fiction, paperback non-fiction and children's - they suggest a separate category altogether, not for political non-fiction, but conservative non-fiction.

tags: conservative, books, Huffington Post, politics

~~~

How many people died at Fort Hood?  Fourteen...A grim reminder of the ones who are forgotten...

tags: Fort Hood, military

~~~

This is interesting...from the "religion of peace" and all...

Coworkers told police that Hamid's actions were out of the ordinary and that he had worked at the kiosk for years. (...) Through an interpreter, Hamid requested a public defender and was scheduled to appear in court at 9 a.m. Thursday where he is expected to enter a plea.

What's up with that?  He's been working at a mall in California for YEARS...and needs an interpreter to ask for an attorney?

tags:  Islam, politics, religion

~~~

Blackfive...another new blog I'm reading...

this post made me cry. - Lest we forget...

tags: military

~~~

For those who want a "level playing field" - here's a woman who...well...read.

tags: sports, disabilities

~~~

2009:

President Barack Obama recently told ABC News' Jake Tapper that he shares Pelosi’s belief that jail time is an appropriate punishment for not buying health insurance.

2008

And I think that it is important for us to recognize that if, in fact, you are going to mandate the purchase of insurance and it’s not affordable, then there’s going to have to be some enforcement mechanism that the government uses. And they may charge people who already don’t have health care fines, or have to take it out of their paychecks. And that, I don’t think, is helping those without health insurance.

and Pelosi dodges...

tags: health care, Obama, Pelosi

~~~

"Christian"?  Or "The Way"?

Both work for me...

tags: Christianity, religion, Jay E. Adams

~~~

I posted on this a long time ago...it wasn't well received then...or would be now I suppose.

Egalitarianism and Homosexuality:  Connected or Autonomous Ideologies?

Evangelical Christian organizations that hold to a complementarian view of gender roles, such as The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), have expressed concern over a possible connection between an egalitarian view of male/female gender roles and homosexuality. For example, in the list of central concerns stated in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood-perhaps the most thorough defense of complementarianism-the authors declare, "We are concerned not merely with the behavior roles of men and women, but also with the underlying nature of manhood and womanhood themselves.

tags:  egalitarianism, complementarianism, homosexuality, Christianity, religion

~~~

Let's play:  One of these things is not like the other.

or...

"Why Can't Jill BIden Take Mrs. Utopia Shopping Sometimes?"

I like these guys...

tags: politics, fashion, Michelle Obama

~~~

via "Cruising Down the Coast of High Barbaree" who thinks this explains a lot...

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.” --BHO, 2008

tags: politics, Obama

~~~

"Why I Think Women Need to Study Theology"

I have a confession to make.  I am not fond of women’s ministry programs.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my sisters in Christ and enjoy fellowshipping with them.  But programs that involve some type of teaching, such as workshops or conferences, generally don’t appeal to me.  Why?  In my experience, gatherings to hear teaching have been little more than encouragement sessions to make us feel better about being “God’s women”.  Unfortunately, I find the same thing on women’s blogs, even ones that have been advertised as a place for serious thinkers.  There are a few exceptions, but generally, I find them lacking in rich theological substance.

tags:  women, theology, Christianity, religion

~~~

•

One one thing.

ABC News reporter Terry Moran caused quite a commotion tonight Twitter after writing the following: "Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a "jackass" for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT'S presidential."

oops....

In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologize to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.

Can I still agree with him if he was "off the record"?

(Yesterday was politics day and I missed it, so here it is)

• 1 Comment

•

Let's get all spun up...

or...

Pick your battles, and this is a silly one.

~~~

I read one blogger make the point that if you're expecting your students to be in a public school for 13 years without liberalism having an effect on them...one short speech by the president of the United States...isn't going to make much of a difference.

~~~

On October 1, 1991 George H.W. Bush spoke to a group of students...and it was broadcast into classrooms nation wide via C-Span.   This was was in the lead up to the 1992 presidential campaign and he spoke about his education policies.  (as much as I dislike using the Daily Kos, that's where I found this C-Span video)

So this is not the first time that a United States president has been broadcast into classrooms.

~~~

On November 14, 1988 Ronald Reagan gave a speech to four classrooms and the event was broadcast by C-Span and Instructional Television Network fed the program “to schools nationwide on three different days.”

Today, to a degree never before seen in human history, one nation, the United States, has become the model to be followed and imitated by the rest of the world. But America's world leadership goes well beyond the tide toward democracy. We also find that more countries than ever before are following America's revolutionary economic message of free enterprise, low taxes, and open world trade. These days, whenever I see foreign leaders, they tell me about their plans for reducing taxes, and other economic reforms that they are using, copying what we have done here in our country.


I wonder if they realize that this vision of economic freedom, the freedom to work, to create and produce, to own and use property without the interference of the state, was central to the American Revolution, when the American colonists rebelled against a whole web of economic restrictions, taxes and barriers to free trade. The message at the Boston Tea Party -- have you studied yet in history about the Boston Tea Party, where because of a tax they went down and dumped the tea in the Harbor. Well, that was America's original tax revolt, and it was the fruits of our labor -- it belonged to us and not to the state. And that truth is fundamental to both liberty and prosperity.

Here is the entire transcipt.

~~~

Get a grip, folks.

It's not the first time.

It's not even the first time that it''s been used to forward a president's agenda.

It's just the first time a Democrat has done it.

Do the people who were in school then even remember?

Do the people who had children in school then even remember?

Please...I'm begging...stop making the rest of us look like idiots.