Little Man Smears Palin

Last night on Fox News, including the Fox Report and the O’Reilly Factor, Carl Cameron spread rumors about Sarah Palin.

Shame on Fox News for passing along Cameron’s unfounded & anonymous smears about Sarah Palin.

Cameron seems like a little boy who gleefully spreads rumors about a pretty girl in class who wouldn’t sit with him at lunch.

Seriously, did it ever occur to him that this may be McCain staffers taking a preemptive strike at Palin to deflect criticism of them for running a bad campaign and mishandling Palin?

It sickens me that Cameron would be so friendly with Palin during the campaign only to stab her in the back when it’s over.

If this is a “he said / she said”, I believe Sarah.

For those of you that still believe Fox News is always fair and balanced, read a story I wrote back in January about how Fox News Enabled McCain’s Political Hit Job of Mitt Romney.

To be fair, Fox usually gets it right but that does not mean they are bias-free.  To any fair observer, during the GOP primary, they were spinning things for McCain. 

Now, it appears, that bias has reared it’s ugly head again in the form of Cameron’s smear of Palin.

I’m still waiting for McCain to reign in these jerks or repudiate their statements.  

p.s. – btw…”little” does not refer to Carl Cameron’s physical stature, but the smallness and pettiness of Carl’s comments and his source – the anonymous McCain staffer.

Landslide for Obama in 2012?

I don’t believe Obama is “constrained” like other Presidents-to-be.  Most Presidents who win close elections try to govern from the middle because they want to win in four years and worry that if they push their own left or right agenda they’ll lose the next time around.

Obama knows the next election will be very different for three reasons:

1. Fairness Doctrine – Like most issues, Obama has been vague but the leaders of his own party (Durbin, Pelosi, Kerry) have not – they want the fairness doctrine back and conservative talk radio shut down.  Without talk radio, conservative free speech goes dark and liberals, like Obama, will benefit. 
2. Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) – Another act that sounds like it promotes freedom but does the opposite.  This bill will make voting for a union public.  Right now, it is private.  If the EFCA is passed, union reps can come to your house and ask if you’re going to vote to unionize.  How intimidating is that?  Even George McGovern is against this.  In a rare instance of clarity – Obama came out in favor of this bill as a Senator.  When Obama is President, it will become law. 
3. Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants – Obama will have to time it carefully, but we will see another Amnesty bill come up for a vote.  Remember what stopped it last time?  Conservative talk radio (see step 1).  Without talk radio, Amnesty will pass creating 20 million new Obama supporters for the next election.  Obama won by just 7 million this time.

So, Obama has a plan that has nothing to do bi-partisanship or governing from the middle.  Pretty scary, huh??

Let’s organize a March for Freedom. 

Obama Has No Mandate

At the risk of stating the obvious…

Obama had a thin resume, an even thinner voting record and shifting campaign positions.  Therefore, he has no mandate!

Remember how many positions Obama changed relative to his promises in the Democratic Primary?  In this Sept. 4 O’Reilly interview of Obama, Obama actually modifies his capital gains tax rate, during the interview, because of the give and take between O’Reilly and Obama.  During a famous exchange with Charles Gibson in a Hillary debate, Obama proposed doubling the cap gains rate to 28%.  O’Reilly suggests keeping it at 15%.  Obama eventually commits with O’Reilly to limit the rate to 20%.  Remarkable.

This is why people struggle to tell reporters what he has done and what he will do.  If people can’t say why they’re voting for Obama, then he has no mandate. 

To achieve a mandate you must take the risk of defining your agenda clearly before an election and if you win decisively, you’re given the reward of a mandate.  A great example is the 1994 Republicans and the Contract with America.  Their positions and agenda were clearly defined, they won decisively (first GOP Congress in 40 years) so they took office in January 1995 with a strong mandate.

Obama has no mandate because a) he never defined clearly his agenda (90% soaring rhetoric) and b) he did not win decisively.  In fact, given a level playing field (fair media, equal dollars, no ACORN), McCain-Palin would have won.

That says the media finally succeeded in getting their candidate elected, not that Americans chose Obama’s agenda. 

Sarah Lifted U.S. Up!

So many of us worked so hard to help make history tonight by electing the first Mom ever to be Vice-President of the United States of America.  Although we fell a little short, I am so proud of what they have accomplished.

Thank you John McCain & Sarah Palin!

I especially wanted to thank Sarah Palin for inspiring my daughter Kate.  My daughter and I were fortunate enough to attend a Palin Rally in Lanconia, NH.  Here’s some pictures from that event:

     

My daughter was lucky enough to get Sarah’s signature on my copy of the National Review with the Governor on the cover.  Although we drove 3 hours from Vermont to attend the event, it was completely worth it.  Sarah gave a great speech and provided my daughter with a real life example of a strong successful woman campaigning at the highest levels of our great democracy.

Think about all Sarah Palin has endured.  The media, the Obama campaign, writers on the left and right slammed with boat loads of unfair criticism and sexist questioning – she never lost her cool.

Sarah was under enormous pressure to perform during her GOP Convention speech and at the V.P. debate and she passed with flying colors!  She seemed to excel under pressure and showed grace and wit.  She even took on corruption in her own party and ran against an incumbent GOP Governor – who does that??

Sarah Palin has accomplished a lot and has shown to be a natural leader as a mayor, regulator and Governor.

She understands and respects the limits placed on our government by the founding fathers.  She speaks with conviction about how even flirting with socialism can hurt our work ethic and erode opportunity.  Her real life examples of walking the walk, by choosing life, and having a son in the military, not only inspires others, it convinces them to listen to what she has to say – she speaks from experience, with wisdom.

Sarah – we are so grateful for the work you have done during this campaign inspiring conservatives young and old to stand up and fight for America.  As Geraldine Ferraro said, “Sarah Palin helps parents keep that promise to their little girls that they daughters can be whatever they want to be”.

Thanks Sarah!

Great Job McCain-Palin!

What a remarkable election!  Despite the fact that Obama supporters dominated our education system, our film industry, our unions and our news media, John McCain and Sarah Palin fought the good fight and came close to winning anyway.

Despite being outspent 5 to 1 and 4 to 1 in many key states, McCain-Palin only lost Florida (27) by 2 points, Ohio (20) by 3 points and Virginia (13) by 3 points.  If those three states (60 votes total) had gone the other way, the totals would have been Obama-Biden 277 to McCain-Palin. 

Over 110 million Americans cast their votes and McCain-Palin only lost by 4 million or 3.6% of the total – not a landslide or a mandate by any stretch – just a hard-fought contest between two strong campaigns.

I know a lot of pundits will start nit-picking McCain-Palin first thing tomorrow, if not already, but I wanted to say how proud I was of the way they fought this campaign and how much they accomplished against very long odds.

Thank you Senator McCain!  Thank you Governor Palin!

Why Blame Economy on GOP?

I often hear pundits and commentators, on the left and the right, say “this is a tough year for the GOP because the economy is so bad”. 

Why?  Why blame the GOP for the economy? 

Is it possible that we can take a few moments and think this through a little bit?

The economy isn’t all bad, just parts of it.  So, what are the bad parts?  Which parts are causing us problems?

1. Too much “Toxic Paper”.  The whole world invested trillions into exotic mortgage products that contained thousands of loans made to high-risk borrowers but implicitly guaranteed by the U.S. government.  This irrational exuberance lead to a housing bubble that, predictably, came crashing down, bringing the financial markets to their knees. 
2. Energy costs skyrocketed.  When oil prices shot up, the price of everything else shot up.   This increased the structural costs to everyone – reducing discretionary income, reducing sales, wiping out profits resulting in layoffs and making much harder for the average person and business to make ends meet.
3. Too much debt.  Even before the first two problems, U.S. households were carrying too much debt.  In the same way that having a nice chunk of savings helps you weather storms, having no savings and a lot of debt makes you vulnerable to storms.   

So, who caused these problems?  Yes, there are millions who don’t think things through very much and will blame everything on Bush.  There’s a lot of news media in this group.  Ironically, this same group will not give Bush credit for the good news in Iraq.  If you can make sense of that position, gold star for you.

Another group wants you to blame everything on Bush because they either want his job (Obama), or they want Obama to have his job, and, even though they know better, they will attempt to fool enough people to blame Bush, and McCain by association.  Barack Obama loves to say the current financial crisis is the “final verdict” on “eight years of failed Bush policies”.

Which Bush policies hurt the economy?

Tax Cuts?  NAFTA?  Too much spending?  Iraq?  Support for free markets?  Except for too much spending, which Democrats want more of, none of these “Bush policies” have anything to do with those things we already said damaged the economy (toxic paper, energy costs and too much debt).  On the contrary, Democrats are responsible for toxic paper and high energy costs.

So, using the Audacity of Reason, you can see that blaming Bush for the bad economy is weak, at best, and a bald-faced lie, at worse.  It’s much more credible to blame Democrats for two reasons:

1. Toxic Paper – Democrats encouraged the sub-prime loans (toxic paper) that are choking our financial markets.   Clinton took Carter’s CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) and turbo-charged it.  Sub-prime loans under Clinton increased five-fold from $200 billion per year to over $1 trillion per year.  That’s a lot of money.  Housing prices were artificially inflated when trillions were poured into Fannie and Freddie in search of high interest/government backed mortgage backed securities.   The Germans, Chinese and the Saudis never imagined that something called a “U.S. Mortgage obligation” was given to an unqualified borrower, sometimes without income verification.  Surprise!  Thank you ACORN!
2. High Energy Costs – Democrats keep energy prices high by clinging to their extreme environmentalism.   I like cleaner air and water but Democrats have taken that bit of common sense too far.  For example, modern offshore drilling is pretty safe now – at least the way U.S. companies do it.  Although OPEC has much more lax environmental laws, Democrats will attack them for not producing more oil instead of lifting the ban on clean U.S. drilling.  Obama led Democrats had a chance to lift the ban on offshore drilling or go on a 5wk paid vacation – they chose the vacation.  Ten years ago, Bill Clinton refused to drill in ANWR, preventing us from adapting to increased worldwide demand and Hurricane Katrina.  For thirty years Democrats have refused to allow a new nuclear plant or refinery to be built in this country.   It goes on and on and on…we have paid a steep price because of Democrats on this issue.

When the housing bubble burst, it was like watching a patient cough up blood – they looked fine but inside the patient was very sick because of the sub-prime loans Clinton injected into the U.S. economy back in the 1990s.   Bush applied chemotherapy treatment (the bailout) and we’re now waiting to see if the patient recovers.  That depends on how Bush administers the chemotherapy and whether the next doctor nurtures the patient with lower taxes (McCain) or kicks the patient in the teeth with higher taxes (Obama).

I pray tonight that America chooses McCain.

Which Bush Policies Failed?

Barack Obama loves to say the financial crisis is the “final verdict” on “eight years of failed Bush policies”.

Which Bush policies hurt the economy?

Since O’Reilly had only a half hour with Obama and the rest of the media has given him a pass, we still don’t have the details about what Obama meant by that sound-bite.  As such, I’ll take a guess at which five the public might think of when they hear the phase, “eight years of failed Bush policies.”

Tax cuts?  Often, Democrats blame the Bush tax cuts for the booming deficit.  Problem is tax receipts are much higher since the tax cuts passed.  The Bush tax cuts worked so well to stimulate the economy that the U.S. economy has kept growing despite the worst terrorist attack (9/11) and natural disaster (Katrina) in U.S. history and two long wars.  So, there’s no evidence the tax cuts hurt the economy – to the contrary, they helped a great deal, which is why McCain wants to keep taxes low and offer some additional cuts.

Foreign Trade?  Nope.  Exports, including U.S. manufactured goods are way up under Bush.  If anything, Obama’s more protectionist, pro-labor policies would have hurt the economy.

Spending?  Yes, Bush has spent a lot to pay for 9/11, to increase security, to restore Clinton cuts in military spending, to help the Gulf Coast after Katrina, Ike, etc… and to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  In addition, Bush has increased spending on programs like the one to to help ex-convicts integrate back into society.  It’s true that Bush has allowed a lot of pork spending, but often that was necessary to secure votes to fund national security programs, and wars, that have kept us safe.  Sadly, Democrats would have withheld their support otherwise.

Iraq?  One thing Democrats say is not a priority is the Iraq War.  Set aside the fact that the Iraq war cost less than 5% of the total budget, much lower than other important wars.   Also set aside the fact that the World is much better off with a Democracy in place of Saddam (see Joe’s Right About Iraq War).   How can Democrats complain about the cost of the Iraq war when they voted for it?  Obama often says he’ll save $10 billion / month by pulling troops out of Iraq.  How is that possible when he says he’ll increase troops in Afghanistan?  And if Obama pulls out of Iraq too early, odds are that the problems that follow will require us to come back at a higher cost (in blood and treasure) than if we just stayed and finished the job right (McCain’s plan). 

De-regulation?  This fits the Obama narrative that de-regulation caused the credit crisis.  I agree that regulations need to be updated to adequately monitor some of the new exotic Wall Street products but blaming deregulation is like blaming the police for property damage after the Detroit Pistons won their first national championship.  Would there have been less damage if there were more police?  Of course.  However, the real culprits are the criminal jerks who celebrate championships by lighting cars on fire.  The criminal jerks in this case are Chris Dodd, Barney Frank & Hank Paulson and Democrats in general.

I don’t need need to wait for history’s judgement – I can think this through myself.  Obama’s claims that our current economic problems are Bush’s fault says more about Obama’s desire to manipulate you than about Bush.  Contrast that with McCain’s readiness to admit where Republicans have failed.  Obama says a lot of things that don’t stand up under scrutiny.

Someone who doesn’t back up what they say, probably can’t.

Fight or Flight Response

According to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, the “Fight or Flight Response is the biological response of animals to acute stress”.  For me, this election has generated more acute stress than I’ve had in years.  I’ve been extremely depressed, angry, agitated, hopeless, frustrated and shocked again and again and again.

Contrary to his early rhetoric, Obama will not chart a new course that unites liberals and conservatives, by finding common ground, Obama will put in place changes that will force U.S. to become permanently liberal until we’re socialist.  

How depressing is that?

Given that Obama supporters dominate our news media, our education system, Hollywood, college kids, college professors and unions – an Obama Presidency is not just frightening – it’s a real possibility.   Add in the fact that Obama raised more campaign money than anyone in the history of the world and that the economy’s in the tank and it really seems more than a little hopeless. 

I jokingly said to my wife that maybe we should just give up and let Obama win so the government will take care of us and everyone will like us.  Instead of having our signs stolen (7 McCain signs taken so far) and disgusting things spray painted on our fence, we can put an Obama sign in our yard and people will treat us like old friends and smile and wave as they pass.   Life will be easy and everyone will be happy and agree on important issues.  It would be so nice if only we let Obama…

WAKE-UP!!!

My wife said she knows I was joking because she said I’m not that kind of man.  She said, “you don’t quit, you fight for what you believe in and you believe in keeping this country free and prosperous.”  Wow…she’s right.   Don’t tell her I said so, but my wife is exactly right.

People don’t migrate to this country because the government takes care of you – if that were true, more people would go to Canada, not here.   Instead, millions from all over the world come to America, even from Canada. 

People come to America because the American version of capitalism has created a free and prosperous society that starts with the assumption that your money belongs to you.    We tell our kids, and our immigrants, that in America you have the freedom to be whatever you want to be and if you work hard and achieve success, you can keep most of what you earn.  Because you usually succeed by meeting other people’s needs better than the next guy, our system encourages efficiency and excellence. 

Here’s some perspective from Bill Whittle at the National Review:

‘The United States of America — five percent of the world’s population — leads the world economically, militarily, scientifically, and culturally — and by a spectacular margin. Any one of these achievements, taken alone, would be cause for enormous pride. To dominate as we do in all four arenas has no historical precedent.

We should celebrate the success of American Capitalism, not call it a “failed ideology” and trash it to win elections and steer this country far left.   Wake up, America.  This country is in danger of losing everything that makes it great – our freedom.

We are experiencing acute stress.  Our Fight or Flight response is about to kick in.   We can choose to Fight – by helping McCain-Palin get as many supporters to the polls as possible – by calling, walking, driving or donating.   Or we can choose Flight – by letting ourselves get discouraged and overwhelmed. 

I choose to fight.  Join me.  Let’s fight for America. 

More Liberal Than A Socialist

Many people have heard that the National Journal rated Barack Obama the Most Liberal Senator in 2007.   Obama’s could have picked anyone to be his running mate and he chose Senator Joe Biden – 3rd most liberal. 

What you may not know is that one of my Senators from Vermont, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was rated the 5th most liberal and is a self-described Socialist. 

That makes Obama more liberal than a Socialist.

Before you tune me out because I used the “S” word, do a little research.  Invest a little bit of time learning about:

• Saul Alinsky – the father of community organizing.  Clinton wrote her senior thesis about Alinsky.  Obama taught Alinsky’s methods.
• Bill Ayers – co-founder of radical left group the Weather Underground.
• Tony Rezco – a huge Obama fundraiser convicted of fraud and bribery.
• Black Panther Party – Weather Underground declared war on the U.S. Government after the death of a Panther Fred Hampton.
• Haymarket Riot – An event that seemed to have started it all. 
• Rashid Khalidi – former PLO spokesman & Obama family friend.
• ACORN – The nation’s largest radical organization and Chicago ACORN it’s most radical chapter.   They played a big part in pushing sub-prime loans that crippled our financial system and committing voter fraud in several states. 

Just Obama’s ties to ACORN should disqualify him from running for office.  Add in all the rest and the prospect of an Obama Presidency is truly frightening.   I have no doubt in my mind that Obama is a socialist and, with a little education, you will know that too.

Maybe you’re OK with that.  I’m not.

More Freedom

This is a reprint from an article I wrote in early September, just after the credit crisis began.  It seems more poignant than ever, given that the choice in this election, between more freedom (McCain) and less freedom (Obama), becomes clearer every day.

This seems like one of those times when one needs to reflect on core principles.  There’s no playbook for how to handle the financial crisis we’re in.  McCain’s right that the fundamentals of the economy are strong (American innovation, productivity, knowledge, skills and resources), but I’ve never seen this much fear and panic in the financial markets. 

My first career was as a stock broker during the 80s and early 90s so I’ve been a “market-watcher” for thirty years and I would have never guessed Lehman Brothers would go bankrupt.  Lehman has survived the Civil War, the Great Depression, two World Wars but couldn’t survive the recent credit crunch.  Even seasoned veterans are shaking their heads.

The first step in solving any problem is to face it squarely and honestly take stock of what went wrong.  So, what went wrong?  I believe the current problem has to do with what writer & philosopher Ayn Rand called the “mixed economy”, that is, the attempt to seek a compromise between socialism and capitalism:

“…no man has the right to seek values from others by means of physical force…The only social system that bars physical force from human relationships is laissez-faire capitalism. 

Men must deal with one another as traders, giving value for value, by free mutual consent to mutual benefit. 

Capitalism is a system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which the only function of government is to protect individual rights, i.e. to protect men from those who initiate the use of physical force.” 

Thus (we should) reject any form of collectivism, such as fascism or socialism, (that uses the threat of force (jail time) to give one group an artificial advantage over another.  For example, to take money (taxes) from “Joe the Plumber” and give it to groups like ACORN.  If Joe says no, he goes to jail). 

So, contrary to the populist calls for more regulation and more government involvement, is it possible there was too much?? 

Is it possible that Fannie and Freddie are textbook evidence of why a “mixed economy” is just as bad as collective forms of government? 

Maybe pushing banks to loan to people that couldn’t afford a home, or even verify their income, was too much regulation and government control.

Perhaps the way forward is more freedom not less.

• Let bankers decide who to loan to and who not to.
• Let investors know exactly what their investing in & assume all the risk. 
• Let oil companies drill where the oil is. 
• Let schools choose to set aside time for prayer or meditation. 
• Let doctors practice medicine without fear of a frivolous lawsuit. 
• Let minorities succeed or fail because of the content of their character. 
• Let health insurance be independent of a job or the government. 
• Let people invest their payroll taxes in their own retirement account.
• Let a state put to death a 300lb man who rapes his 8yr old stepchild. 
• Let schools and hospitals choose to turn away illegal immigrants. 
• Let people choose to use a gun to defend their family in their home.  
• Let parents choose the best school for their children.

More freedom, not less