A Nation's Surrendered Standing

We're Not Worthy!

In November of 2008, more people voted for Barack Obama than voted for John McCain, of that there is no question. Well, there may be, but that is an entirely different subject. For now, we'll simply deal with the people who voted for themselves and not for their nation.

Many of the people who cast those Obama votes in 2008 now regret their decisions, wondering what they could possibly had been thinking. In short, they were duped by not only the man's handlers, but by an allegedly unbiased press, which provided an inordinate amount of cover for a completely unproven candidate.

That leaves the people who still enthusiastically support Obama, the only man to occupy (pardon the pun) the White House since Jimmy Carter that leaves the latter in a somewhat positive light. Carter must be dancing with delight at the eventual legacy of Barack Obama, which would, by default, include him among Obama's continued supporters for selfish motives.

While Obama has worked overtime since inauguration day to weaken our standing around the globe -- from apologizing for our "arrogance" to bowing in obsequiousness to foreign leaders who once respected American superiority -- it is still the people who pray for his continued reign and rejoice at the "work" he has already done who are most culpable in our slow death as a nation. Whether it be powerful political allies of the president -- depending on the continued wave of privilege -- or the lowest among our society, at least economically, who crave the continued flow of "free stuff", our fellow citizens have sold us out.

Our collective morality is continually mocked as hokey, quaint, or just plain stupid. We're told that we're being hypocritical when -- as sinners -- we demand that others adhere to a higher standard. What the left fails to grasp is that we fully understand our own frailties while constantly seeking to atone for them. They decide that sin is a normal function of life since they also mock God. While it is perfectly within their right to do so, even at their own peril, what is tragic is that that view is catching hold in our country.

Success in America is also slandered while it was once the station virtually everyone sought to achieve. And this president is stoking the very flames of envy and false entitlement that are the hallmarks of the absence of morality. There was a day in America when it was considered shameful to depend on others. Charity at that time was for the unfortunate. Normal folk would accept it in only the most dire of circumstances, even then placing as condition of acceptance the promise to repay the kindness. Today, it is demanded with not so much as a "thank you" offered.

Virtue is vanquished regularly, with politicians blatantly lying without fear of consequence. Lying to get ahead has become so pervasive in our society that ordinary people lie to each other with absolutely no remorse. The practice has woven itself into the very fabric of our souls like a rogue thread, and the stigma of discovery has been rendered impotent. Culprits routinely shrug and retort, "Well, what did you expect?".

Our people have not only accepted the increasing role of government in our every day lives, we have craved it. We have begged for it. And we have embraced it. Once upon a time unemployment insurance lasted twenty six weeks, and then the checks stopped. After that, the alternative to finding a job was to apply for welfare, which was once properly stigmatized. People out of work actually worked to find a job in twenty six weeks to avoid such shame. Now we have two years of checks flowing to people who "can't find work", and government is seeking to extend that even more.

We are rapidly descending into a third world scenario where wealth is held by the rulers and doled out to the hungry masses, all because we allowed ourselves to be lured by the alleged magnanimity of a government that was designed to serve us, not to provide for us. But we permitted those we elected to stay too long, and they got very comfortable with the opulent trappings of their place in society, a place that was implicitly intended to be temporary.

We surrendered it all; the freedoms of a young nation and the blessing of liberty bestowed by our creator at the hands of our Founding Fathers. As Thomas Jefferson once said, "A government big enough to give you everything you need is a government big enough to take everything you have". I believe ours is almost at that size.

As for our standing in the world, there is not one nation that respects or fears us the way they did just forty years ago. We have had presidents in office whose very presence kept hostile and impotent foreign leaders from voicing their hatred and contempt for us. Today, most of the planet's bad actors are thumbing their noses at us and laughing. That is because we elected an utter neophyte to be our "leader" based on a manufactured brilliance of the candidate and a desire to finally elect a black president. (At least ESPN can't fire me).

China brazenly mocks us, Iran openly taunts us, and Mexico continues its march across our borders, all the while our federal government sues its own states to prevent them from enforcing American laws regarding immigration. As if that wasn't bad enough, our own Department of Homeland Security increasingly hints that we, the people, are becoming more the focus of their work.



In other words, we're not dead yet. There is still hope, ironically, that our great nation can be saved. We have eleven short months to decide our fate, and the clock is ticking. It is up to all of you, and me. I know which way I want to go.

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These Capricious Critters in Control

Liberals Pretending to Care
for the "Little Guy"

One year ago, the fierce debate on Capitol Hill and in the pages of our State Run Media was all about the payroll tax cut. Today, the debate rages yet again, just as ferociously, only this time the roles are reversed. It makes one wonder if these people we elect understand at all that we, the little people, even pay attention to their antics.

Do the bloggers and actual "journalists" not realize that their works are products for posterity? Perhaps the belief that many of us are too lazy to check recent events is justified since such intellectual sloth has been fostered for decades by the propagators of poppycock. But anyone with a few minutes to spare, a modicum of curiosity and a computer -- or a library card -- can retreat into history and read the opinions of people who now champion the opposite position.

Such is the case with the current "payroll tax cut" extension. The same mission that Democrats -- both political and pundit -- vehemently opposed one short year ago and for decades previous. The same mission that Democrats -- most notably President Barack Hussein Obama -- now use as a weapon to attempt to bludgeon Republicans in a general election season.

Obama spoke in Osawatomie, KS -- despite his opening claim of it being good "to be back in Texas" -- where his campaign-on-our-dime continued. The same man who brokered a deal with Republicans in December of 2010 for a temporary payroll tax "holiday" was speaking where Teddy Roosevelt had a century earlier, ostensibly as a form of comparison between the two presidents. (One wise soul suggested that Obama should try being the president rather than trying to be a past one.)

The payroll tax break of 2010 caused much consternation among Democrats across the nation since it was the first time the Democrats ever allowed a rate cut in the program since its inception. With Social Security edging toward insolvency in the near future, and its sole funding source historically having been payroll taxes, it is understandable that anyone would have been skeptical of a reduction. It seems, though, that even liberal Democrats underestimated Obama's Socialist tendencies.

As it turns out, the payroll tax holiday did not create a dent in the coffers of the trust fund. How can that be, you ask? Simple; Obama's redistributive shenanigans have breached the once impenetrable wall between the trust fund and the general fund. What that means is that now the federal government can take tax money for any project and pump it into the Social Security fund. What's odd is that they have been raiding that fund for years to spend on general fund projects while resisting any attempts to replenish it from any other source. Obama waved his wand and poof, now they can.

Here's the rub, however, which will explain the title of this article: in 2010 when the White House first floated the idea of a payroll tax holiday, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), the Senate Subcommittee On Retirement and Aging Chair, expressed concern. At the time she said,  "I'm concerned this could be the beginning of the slippery slope to getting rid of the payroll tax and cause a way of getting rid of Social Security as a public issue in the way of heading to privatization."

Ironically, the White House used these words as a way to assuage those fears:

"It is explicitly temporary and there's a general revenue transfer in the bill so it will not negatively impact the social security trust fund at all."

Further, Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post wrote an article on December 8th, 2010 in which he moaned about the expiration being labelled a "tax hike", and then wrote another in September of 2011 in which he labels the pending expiration a...tax hike. To add to the irony, Ryan's first article was titled Tax Cut Deal A Hidden Threat To Social Security, suggesting that he was totally against it. The second article is titled Paul Ryan, Herman Cain Push For Tax Increases On Middle Class. 

Aha! There it is; if it can be used as a tool against Republicans, it's got to be good!

To fully understand what the end game is for Obama in all this confusion, it is this; getting the "rich" to pay for your retirement while you enjoy a payroll tax "holiday". If the general revenue transfer is also "explicitly temporary", it stands to reason that it will also expire with the tax cut. So in order for Obama to raise the taxes on the "wealthy", he needs the payroll tax cut extended.

You gotta give credit where credit is due. The man is nothing if not cunning.

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Mitt's Gall, Newt's Baggage

The Two Front-Runners for GOP

There can be no argument that the 2011 incarnation of Mitt Romney, the candidate, is not a far better candidate than the version that ran in 2008, and as if to punctuate the point, Mitt's campaign has come out with the first direct salvo of the season against Obama-the-incumbent.

The surprise of the move is not in the hubristic nature of such presumptuousness --Gingrich, after all, has made it clear that the two are rivals and not "opponents" -- but in the aggressiveness of it. And it's already drawing howls of protest from Obama's camp and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as a whole, claiming that the ad is misleading.

Romney's ad, which ran today in New Hampshire to coincide with Obama's visit, could legitimately be labelled "sleight of hand", but it nevertheless suggests a basic truth: if Obama's campaign keeps talking about the economy, he will lose. The ad uses Obama's own words from the 2008 campaign against John McCain, but Obama was quoting a McCain staffer at the time. From the Daily News:

At one point, Obama is heard saying "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." 

Although it sounds [sic] Obama is talking about his chances of winning in 2012, the then-Senator was actually quoting an aide from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign in 2008.

How fitting it is, then, that Newt Gingrich shares the lead with Romney.

Gingrich knows a thing or two about misleading ads, himself a victim of creative editing in a time when the technology was not nearly what it is today. As Speaker of the House in 1995, Gingrich was leading the fight against the last Democrat President's attempt to inflict National health care on Americans and, as usual, the leftist sycophants struck back hard, albeit deceitfully.

As Bill Clinton was trying valiantly to implement the signature plan of his wife, First Lady Hillary Clinton, for health care reform, Gingrich was leading the opposition and gave a speech on the matter in 1995 to a Blue Cross audience. His words were selected in part and used to demonize him in what has turned out to be a most effective way. I know people to this day who still harbor a deep hatred for the man based on a lie.

It was the infamous "wither on the vine" faux-quote", in which the left allegedly caught the right wing Speaker admitting that the Republicans wanted to kill Medicare. In 1996, during the re-election campaign of Bill Clinton, the AFL-CIO ran an ad with Newt's "own words" saying, "Now we don't get rid of it in round one because we think that's politically smart and we don't think that's the right way to go through a transition. But we believe it's going to wither on the vine."

But, as I pointed out in 2009, the quote was not in the full context of Gingrich's speech. Here's what he actually said, and meant:

"What do you think the health care financing administration is? It's a centralized command bureaucracy. It's everything we're telling Boris Yeltsin to get rid of. Now we don't get rid of it in round one because we don't think that's politically smart and we don't think that's the right way to go through a transition. But we believe it's going to wither on the vine because we think people are going to voluntarily leave it. Voluntarily."

Voters will do well to remember that it wasn't Medicare that Republicans wanted to kill, it was government-run health care, much as it still is today. And as Gingrich moves closer toward the nomination, also remember this when he begins to take on that which the Democrats inflicted on us when they controlled it all. Whomever ends up with the GOP nomination, repeal of Obamacare will be a top priority, for it is that route which will cause the most immediate impact on our foul economy.

It is also pertinent to note Gingrich's use of the word "voluntarily". Think of how many of Obama's own cronies have already filed for waivers from his health care monstrosity. Even people who view this president favorably have already begun preemptively leaving it, voluntarily.

If the Democrats want to whine their way through what is slated to be a particularly nasty campaign, let them, but the Republicans must be prepared to hit them with all of Mitt's gall and the full weight of Newt's baggage.

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