President Bush,
Thanks for all you did. I think you messed a lot of things up, and you could have done a lot of things better, but you always had the best intentions, and you stuck to your principles, even when it cost you all the political capital you had. You certainly handled 9/11 a lot better than Al Gore would have. Your tax cuts were a serious victory for the economy. Your Supreme Court appointments appear to have all the makings of quality justices that will be strict constructionists rather than individuals who will try to legislate from the bench. I truly believe you went into Iraq based on bad information, but with the best intentions based on that bad information. You also impressed me with your willingness to admit the Iraq strategy was not working, and rather than withdraw, you listened to McCain, your joint chiefs, and others and actually initiated the surge that is leading us to victory in Iraq. So, I say thank you. I will enjoy not having you in the White House anymore, but I will always be grateful for the way you handled the situation 9/11 presented you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your life as a citizen.
My thoughts on the ceremony tomorrow.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Hillary: Like her or Not. I am kind of both.
Hillary Clinton. My feelings towards that woman have changed so much over the last 2 years. 2 years ago, when the election cycle was starting to take off, my number one fear was that Hillary Clinton would be taking the White House as the first female President of the United States. It was ridiculous. My fear that Hillary would win made me think a Rudy Guliani nomination would be okay (the man's record left a little something to be desired for conservatives), just because I thought he could win New York from Billary in a general election. I mean, Hillary. This was a dislike Hillary stage.
Well, then Barrack Obama jumped onto the national scene, with his radical associations and naive (or else something more sinister) view of foreign policy/relations, and Hillary became my hero. I was literally following every single primary of the Democratic party, hoping and praying that Hillary would win the Democratic nod, solely because she was much more reasonable than Obama on so many things. Who would have thought that I would ever want Hillary to win anything? This was a "like" Hillary stage.
Well, we all know how it turned out. Obama won both the primary elections and the general election. One of my biggest fears was that Obama would be appointing someone as ridiculous as himself to Secretary of State, or worse, someone like Jeremiah Wright. So, imagine my surprise when he appointed Hillary. As far as his cabinet appointments go, Hillary was probably my favorite. She has a lot of respect in the foreign community, and is not an uber-radical. That said, she has a major problem at the moment: Bill Clinton and their William J. Clinton Foundation. A lot of foreign entities have given large sums of money to this foundation, creating a strong conflict of interest. The biggest problem lies in the fact that several of the major donors are Arab, and one of the major things Hillary will have to deal with as Secretary of State is Arab-Israeli relations.
I would have no problem with this situation, if the Foundation was shut down during her tenure, or all financial records were put out in the open. This could at least keep her and Bill honest, and give her a justifiable defense if problems/accusations arise and are attributed to dealings with the foundation. But no. All that is required is that new donors will be examined and donations from previous donors will be examined IF the amount donated is significantly different than the previous donation.
I foresee potentially dark times ahead.
Well, then Barrack Obama jumped onto the national scene, with his radical associations and naive (or else something more sinister) view of foreign policy/relations, and Hillary became my hero. I was literally following every single primary of the Democratic party, hoping and praying that Hillary would win the Democratic nod, solely because she was much more reasonable than Obama on so many things. Who would have thought that I would ever want Hillary to win anything? This was a "like" Hillary stage.
Well, we all know how it turned out. Obama won both the primary elections and the general election. One of my biggest fears was that Obama would be appointing someone as ridiculous as himself to Secretary of State, or worse, someone like Jeremiah Wright. So, imagine my surprise when he appointed Hillary. As far as his cabinet appointments go, Hillary was probably my favorite. She has a lot of respect in the foreign community, and is not an uber-radical. That said, she has a major problem at the moment: Bill Clinton and their William J. Clinton Foundation. A lot of foreign entities have given large sums of money to this foundation, creating a strong conflict of interest. The biggest problem lies in the fact that several of the major donors are Arab, and one of the major things Hillary will have to deal with as Secretary of State is Arab-Israeli relations.
I would have no problem with this situation, if the Foundation was shut down during her tenure, or all financial records were put out in the open. This could at least keep her and Bill honest, and give her a justifiable defense if problems/accusations arise and are attributed to dealings with the foundation. But no. All that is required is that new donors will be examined and donations from previous donors will be examined IF the amount donated is significantly different than the previous donation.
I foresee potentially dark times ahead.
Monday, January 12, 2009
The "state" of Illinois and racism.
Well, finally, the U.S. Senate is going to do the right thing, and more importantly, the only thing it had the right to do: Seating soon to be IL Senator Roland Burris. For those of you who have not followed the story, a summary of it can be found here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-12-30-gov-illinois_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip Also, the Senate's response to the appointment of Burris can be summarized here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-12-30-senate_N.htm .
There have been a lot of calls by people all over the country and within both the Illinois and U.S. government for the appointment of Burris to be blocked. On the surface, this sounds good. I mean, who wouldn't want to block the appointment made by a man who did the unthinkable, trying to use the power given to him by the people of Illinois for personal financial gain. However, there is a deeper issue at stake here. Blagojevich had every right and capability to appoint Burress. He was still the governor when he made the appointment. In fact, he had not yet even been indicted. All that had been done against him was a criminal complaint. He had just as much right and obligation to fill that seat and ensure that the State of Illinois had equal representation as he would have had he not been accused of the crimes he has. Obviously the man is very corrupt, but if the people of Illinois wanted Blagojevich out, they should have pressured their legislature to take action against Blagojevich when they had the chance. The Illinois legislature had several weeks of opportunity to take the necessary steps to prevent Blagojevich from appointing Burris.
However, the people of Illinois do have every reason to be upset with the fact that Blagojevich was left in a position of being able to make the appointment. Maybe this event will open their eyes to the level of corruption that has sullied the government of Illinois. Even if it doesn't prevent them from electing corrupt politicians in the future, this event should and rightfully does anger many citizens of Illinois.
The people who have no right to be involved in this process were those on Capitol Hill. Once the state of Illinois went through their pre-set method of determining president-elect Obama's replacement, the U.S. Senate had no obligation or right to do anything other than seat the man or woman sent to represent Illinois. In my opinion, the Senate overstepped its authority in refusing to seat Burris, and it committed one of the greatest sins that it can commit: It purposefully acted in a way that prevented the people of Illinois from having equal representation guaranteed it in the Constitution (albeit for a very short amount of time). The time frame matters not. Illinois sent somebody to represent the state, and Harry Reid denied the people of Illinois just representation. I firmly believe if Reid felt he could successfully deny Burris his seat, he would have, and the people of Illinois would have just had to suck it up and deal with it.
Nobody is outraged by this injustice for two reasons: 1.) Blagojevich is a corrupt guy (does anybody else think that he sounds a lot like the corrupt mayor of Springfield from The Simpsons?), and so the focus is on the fact that the seat may be tainted. 2.) We as Americans have begun to think of the Federal government as a cohesive body, and forget that the rights of States should come first and foremost. Those elected to the U.S. Legislature should make the needs of the country a high priority, but the needs and rights of the state that elected them should be the highest priority. To deny a state that representation like Reid and Durbin tried to do is a travesty, but the American people largely fail to look at it this way. 100 years ago, this would have been inconceivable.
I hope this has provided an alternative viewpoint to the events that have transpired over the last few weeks. As always, comments and discussion are always welcome.
There have been a lot of calls by people all over the country and within both the Illinois and U.S. government for the appointment of Burris to be blocked. On the surface, this sounds good. I mean, who wouldn't want to block the appointment made by a man who did the unthinkable, trying to use the power given to him by the people of Illinois for personal financial gain. However, there is a deeper issue at stake here. Blagojevich had every right and capability to appoint Burress. He was still the governor when he made the appointment. In fact, he had not yet even been indicted. All that had been done against him was a criminal complaint. He had just as much right and obligation to fill that seat and ensure that the State of Illinois had equal representation as he would have had he not been accused of the crimes he has. Obviously the man is very corrupt, but if the people of Illinois wanted Blagojevich out, they should have pressured their legislature to take action against Blagojevich when they had the chance. The Illinois legislature had several weeks of opportunity to take the necessary steps to prevent Blagojevich from appointing Burris.
However, the people of Illinois do have every reason to be upset with the fact that Blagojevich was left in a position of being able to make the appointment. Maybe this event will open their eyes to the level of corruption that has sullied the government of Illinois. Even if it doesn't prevent them from electing corrupt politicians in the future, this event should and rightfully does anger many citizens of Illinois.
The people who have no right to be involved in this process were those on Capitol Hill. Once the state of Illinois went through their pre-set method of determining president-elect Obama's replacement, the U.S. Senate had no obligation or right to do anything other than seat the man or woman sent to represent Illinois. In my opinion, the Senate overstepped its authority in refusing to seat Burris, and it committed one of the greatest sins that it can commit: It purposefully acted in a way that prevented the people of Illinois from having equal representation guaranteed it in the Constitution (albeit for a very short amount of time). The time frame matters not. Illinois sent somebody to represent the state, and Harry Reid denied the people of Illinois just representation. I firmly believe if Reid felt he could successfully deny Burris his seat, he would have, and the people of Illinois would have just had to suck it up and deal with it.
Nobody is outraged by this injustice for two reasons: 1.) Blagojevich is a corrupt guy (does anybody else think that he sounds a lot like the corrupt mayor of Springfield from The Simpsons?), and so the focus is on the fact that the seat may be tainted. 2.) We as Americans have begun to think of the Federal government as a cohesive body, and forget that the rights of States should come first and foremost. Those elected to the U.S. Legislature should make the needs of the country a high priority, but the needs and rights of the state that elected them should be the highest priority. To deny a state that representation like Reid and Durbin tried to do is a travesty, but the American people largely fail to look at it this way. 100 years ago, this would have been inconceivable.
I hope this has provided an alternative viewpoint to the events that have transpired over the last few weeks. As always, comments and discussion are always welcome.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
There is no Santa Claus.
President-elect Obama is giving me a good bit of material for this post. He is outlining his new economic plan, a potentially trillion+ dollar (that is 12 zeros) bill that, at any other time, would be laughed out of congress as the largest pork plan ever.
There were 8 things that stuck out to me as being worthy of note from this speech.
1.) President-elect Obama opened up by saying that this recession could last for years. In my opinion, that statement is intended to clear him of wrongdoing if this trillion dollar spending plan does not actually work.
2.) One of the points that President-elect Obama emphasized made was that only the government can pull America out of this recession. My question is: Why? He says that only the government can make the sort of spending necessary to push the economy forward, and that businesses are too limited by credit and the like. But, he should remember, there is no Santa Claus. This money the government wants to spend has to come from somewhere.
3.) President-elect Obama did admit that yes, this trillion+ dollar plan will greatly inflate the federal deficit. But, he asks his listeners to consider the alternatives. We might have a REALLY BAD recession...
4.) Another thing he said that scares the heck out of me was something along the lines of "It is now the job of the government to end this destructive economic cycle of bubble and burst, and create a new, stable economy." I am sorry, even Reagan could not rewrite the laws of economics. The trick is to promote policies that play the economy to its fullest potential within those laws. There will always be bubbles and bursts. The question, therefore, is not can we eliminate the bubbles and bursts, but rather, can we limit the negative impact of the cycle. President-elect Obama is approaching this the wrong way.
5.) The President-elect flat out admitted that a spending plan of this magnitude is unprecedented (it is both in actual dollars and adjusted dollars), but he justifies it by saying that so is the crisis we face. Really? Is this crisis an entirely new phenomenon? Or is the magnitude one that America has never faced before? Has Obama never heard of THE GREAT DEPRESSION? During the Depression the unemployment rate in America was around 25%. Right now our unemployment rate is not even in double digits yet. The Depression lasted essentially from 1929 to WWII, a span of about ten years. We have not officially been in a depression for more than a couple of months. Lets consider his justification for this spending plan. It is a statement aimed at the uninformed, making a mockery of the intelligence of the rest of us who don't just accept everything Obama says as God-ordained truth.
6.) "We must reform a weak and outdated regulatory system." I wonder if Obama means that he is going to strip all of the unnecessary government regulation that has been imposed on both the financial and auto industry... Oh, right, he means more regulation. Yeah, that's gonna help.
7.) Obama said towards the end of his speech that we as Americans should not ask what is best for us right now, but rather what is good for the country our children will inherit. This is an effective counter argument to all of what he has said in this speech. The money for this plan has to come from somewhere. My generation and my future children's generation are already footing a debt we still cannot fathom. And Obama wants to add over $1,000,000,000,000 to that? This whole thing is about trying to avoid as much pain at the present moment. Nothing in Obama's plan is truly good for future generations.
8.) Obama rightly pointed out that there are many Americans who are skeptical of this spending plan, because the government has already thrown hundreds of billions of dollars at the problem. However, the president-elect argues that this spending plan is different because we are not throwing money at the problem, we are investing in the future through new infrastructure, etc. This argument may have some merit, but there is still strong reason to have doubts about the government spending any more money to address this problem.
Those 8 things are just tidbits from Obama's speech that made me very uncomfortable. I am sure there were other important things he said, but I did not have time to catch them all.
And now, some suggestions as to how Obama could help the economy through the government:
A.) Cut the tax rate for corporations from 35% to 20% or below. That money could be used much more efficiently by businesses than the government. Yes this could cut government revenues (maybe, the Laffer curve might argue differently), but if the government would cut spending like Obama promised on the campaign trail, then the offset of the revenue would not matter while still stimulating the economy and promoting free-markets.
B.) Update regulations, but the other way. Remove them. Let the markets work, especially the auto industry. It can be argued that regulations and pressures by the U.S. Government put the financial, auto, and housing markets all into their current spin. Lets move towards free markets again and stop this trend towards socialism that we are sprinting towards.
C.) We are in a recession, no doubt about it. And yes, times will be tough. But, if we bite the bullet in the short term, we can make a real investment in the long term. At the moment, we are merely trying to hold off the inevitable problem while creating even more problems. Obama has said many times that there is a right way of doing things and a wrong way. The way we have been doing things the last couple of months is the wrong way.
I hope this has been enlightening, or at the very least, thought provoking. As always, comments are welcome.
There were 8 things that stuck out to me as being worthy of note from this speech.
1.) President-elect Obama opened up by saying that this recession could last for years. In my opinion, that statement is intended to clear him of wrongdoing if this trillion dollar spending plan does not actually work.
2.) One of the points that President-elect Obama emphasized made was that only the government can pull America out of this recession. My question is: Why? He says that only the government can make the sort of spending necessary to push the economy forward, and that businesses are too limited by credit and the like. But, he should remember, there is no Santa Claus. This money the government wants to spend has to come from somewhere.
3.) President-elect Obama did admit that yes, this trillion+ dollar plan will greatly inflate the federal deficit. But, he asks his listeners to consider the alternatives. We might have a REALLY BAD recession...
4.) Another thing he said that scares the heck out of me was something along the lines of "It is now the job of the government to end this destructive economic cycle of bubble and burst, and create a new, stable economy." I am sorry, even Reagan could not rewrite the laws of economics. The trick is to promote policies that play the economy to its fullest potential within those laws. There will always be bubbles and bursts. The question, therefore, is not can we eliminate the bubbles and bursts, but rather, can we limit the negative impact of the cycle. President-elect Obama is approaching this the wrong way.
5.) The President-elect flat out admitted that a spending plan of this magnitude is unprecedented (it is both in actual dollars and adjusted dollars), but he justifies it by saying that so is the crisis we face. Really? Is this crisis an entirely new phenomenon? Or is the magnitude one that America has never faced before? Has Obama never heard of THE GREAT DEPRESSION? During the Depression the unemployment rate in America was around 25%. Right now our unemployment rate is not even in double digits yet. The Depression lasted essentially from 1929 to WWII, a span of about ten years. We have not officially been in a depression for more than a couple of months. Lets consider his justification for this spending plan. It is a statement aimed at the uninformed, making a mockery of the intelligence of the rest of us who don't just accept everything Obama says as God-ordained truth.
6.) "We must reform a weak and outdated regulatory system." I wonder if Obama means that he is going to strip all of the unnecessary government regulation that has been imposed on both the financial and auto industry... Oh, right, he means more regulation. Yeah, that's gonna help.
7.) Obama said towards the end of his speech that we as Americans should not ask what is best for us right now, but rather what is good for the country our children will inherit. This is an effective counter argument to all of what he has said in this speech. The money for this plan has to come from somewhere. My generation and my future children's generation are already footing a debt we still cannot fathom. And Obama wants to add over $1,000,000,000,000 to that? This whole thing is about trying to avoid as much pain at the present moment. Nothing in Obama's plan is truly good for future generations.
8.) Obama rightly pointed out that there are many Americans who are skeptical of this spending plan, because the government has already thrown hundreds of billions of dollars at the problem. However, the president-elect argues that this spending plan is different because we are not throwing money at the problem, we are investing in the future through new infrastructure, etc. This argument may have some merit, but there is still strong reason to have doubts about the government spending any more money to address this problem.
Those 8 things are just tidbits from Obama's speech that made me very uncomfortable. I am sure there were other important things he said, but I did not have time to catch them all.
And now, some suggestions as to how Obama could help the economy through the government:
A.) Cut the tax rate for corporations from 35% to 20% or below. That money could be used much more efficiently by businesses than the government. Yes this could cut government revenues (maybe, the Laffer curve might argue differently), but if the government would cut spending like Obama promised on the campaign trail, then the offset of the revenue would not matter while still stimulating the economy and promoting free-markets.
B.) Update regulations, but the other way. Remove them. Let the markets work, especially the auto industry. It can be argued that regulations and pressures by the U.S. Government put the financial, auto, and housing markets all into their current spin. Lets move towards free markets again and stop this trend towards socialism that we are sprinting towards.
C.) We are in a recession, no doubt about it. And yes, times will be tough. But, if we bite the bullet in the short term, we can make a real investment in the long term. At the moment, we are merely trying to hold off the inevitable problem while creating even more problems. Obama has said many times that there is a right way of doing things and a wrong way. The way we have been doing things the last couple of months is the wrong way.
I hope this has been enlightening, or at the very least, thought provoking. As always, comments are welcome.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Sorry
No update today as promised. It has been one heck of a day. I will get one tomorrow (hopefully in the morning).
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Just info... for now
Well, I promised a blog, and here it is. I hope to update on a daily or semi-daily basis, depending on how life intervenes. The goal here is to provide commentary on current events and news, with a perspective that hopefully will educate the reader to think deeper into the issue or see them as they relate to the bigger picture. Comments will always be welcome.
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