Tag Archives: Obama

About The Stock Market….

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BreakfastYesterday, while we were at breakfast at the hotel on the last day of our vacation there were several business men at another table complaining this or that about President Obama. They were talking about things that were reported on Fox News about him. It seemed they can’t wait until he is out of office.

My wife being more of a political person than me (go figure) started “talking” to me about all the good things that have happened under the Obama administration. She signed to me without voicing it what was going on so I joined in.

“If you want to live like a Republican you must vote like a Democratic. I said that when Mr. Bush became president he came into office with a stock market at flourishing well above the 10,000 mark and left eight years later with it was barely above 8,000 and now that Obama has been in office a little over four years it has almost doubled from what it was on that fateful day of January 20, 2009.  The stock market is booming because the real business men know that our economy will soon be flourishing again as it was during the Clinton years and almost all Democratic administration before that.  ”If you want to live like a Republican you must vote like a Democrat”.  (For all you doubters out there I put a few graphs related to this subject at the end of this post).  I continued with A recent report found that if you get your news totally from Fox News you are actually less informed than those who do not listen or read any news at all.  In other words, Rupert Murdock’s version of the world has little or no reality to what actually is.

It wasn’t long before the table of business men, or at least I suppose they were, became suddenly quiet and started quickly vacating the restaurant. I guess they had heard enough from us “liberal freaks”.  We have been known to do this before while on vacation. Its kind of fun to rattle a few chains once in a while.  :)

Democrat Admins

Putting a Man On The Moon And….

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Source: Obama’s $2 billion plan to wean US off foreign oil (+video) – CSMonitor.com.

Moon LandingIf the Obama administration has its way, $2 billion in new revenue from offshore oil drilling will fund research into how to wean American drivers off imported oil…

“The reason so many different people – from the private sector, the public sector, our military – support this idea is because it’s not just about saving money, it’s also about saving the environment. But it’s also about our national security,” Obama said. “This is not a Democratic idea or a Republican idea; this is just a smart idea, and we should be taking [SAFE’s] advice.”

So far, the US has cut foreign oil imports by more than 3.6 million barrels per day during Obama’s presidency, the White House reported. Oil imports have also fallen to a 20-year low, and carbon-pollution emissions are at their lowest level in nearly two decades.

Part of the trend is connected to the drop in economic activity resulting from the recession and slow recovery. But renewable electricity generation from wind, solar, and geothermal sources has doubled, and Obama wants to double the fuel efficiency of the US auto fleet by 2025. That could reduce oil consumption by more than 2 million barrels a day – as much as half of the oil imported from OPEC every day, according to an Environmental Protection Agency report released Friday .

When John Kennedy made the vow “to put a man on the moon and bring him back safely” he started a technological advance in this country that we are still benefiting from.  I remember staying up all night watching that historical event. It was very fortunate that Kennedy had a congress that went along with his plan.

I applaud President Obama in bringing forward and equally, maybe even more, noble plan for the 21st century.  If only those in congress would get their heads out of their rear-ends and support it we might see similar advances this time around. As pointed out in the words above three different factions are aligning with this proposal: saving money, saving the environment, and making us safer by getting us out of middle eastern politics.

With this broad coalition it seems like a pretty sure thing, that is except for two obstacles.  Of course, those are the oil company lobbies and the obstructionism in our federal government. The mentality in the current congressional body is “if Obama wants it we have to be against it”.  If only those who are of this mentality and you know who I am talking about would get over the last election and vote for the good of the country instead of their political party, great things could happen here.

It is certainly encouraging to see that during the Obama administration that we have lessened our dependence on oil imports by 3.6 million barrels a day! I can’t help but believe that this could have been accomplished just about anytime in the last twelve years if the last president had just taken the same action. But of course the last president had other things in mind than  that. Something as simple as mandating that the auto companies increase gas mileage in their cars was a no-brainer for a progressive president but a stretch for a conservative one. Wind and solar are the obvious solutions to much of our energy needs for the future.  I would love to be able to peek forward to see how that works out.

Being Against… 4

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againstIf I was a President and wanted something I would claim I didn’t want it. For Congress has not given any President anything he wanted in the last 10 years. Be against anything and then he is sure to get it. – 5 May 1923  – Will Rogers

I can’t understand why each president seems to have to learn this lesson on their own. But, I think President Obama finally gets it.  If he wants something to happen the best thing he can do is to remain quiet about it. Mr. Boehner is constantly harping that the president is not involved enough in the legislative process but what I think he really means is that he wants to know what the president is for so he and all the other sheep in the GOP led house can line up against it.

I imagine it is hard sometimes to put together a list of what you are against. Especially for those House Republicans. They just get lazy on occasion and don’t want to do the work to make up their own “against” list. That is when they insist that President Obama do it for them. A perfect example of that is the immigration reform plan leaked by the White House. It was certain to be “DEAD ON ARRIVAL” before it even left the White House door.

I am waiting for Mr. Obama to evolve into the next phase of Will’s strategy. I expect that soon he will come out with a list of things he is against. If he is good at it the conservatives will want to get everything on that list into law as soon as possible. But the secret is to make sure that Mr. Boehner and company are convinced that he really is against them.  Mr. Obama is a pretty smart guy so I pray that he get good at this game so we the people might be able to get something good from the 113th congress.  But in reality I kind of doubt anything productive will come from that bunch….

But, I’m just a simple guy so what do I know……

Some Strong Words about John McCain and War…. 2

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Sojourners1Source: John McCain’s Theology of War is Wrong – Jim Wallis | God’s Politics Blog | Sojourners.

But McCain hasn’t been right in his endless promotion of war as the primary solution to our national conflicts. He has been consistently wrong and America has paid a very high price because of the ideological zealots of war that McCain represents.

After yesterday, I wished that the coming vote on confirmation could be the other way around; that America could somehow vote John McCain out of office and off the American political stage. The cost of McCain’s theology of war has been far too high.

The important discussions yesterday should have been about other critical issues: like how quickly and responsibly we can leave the endless war in Afghanistan, how we can address the real threats of terrorism in better ways than failed wars of occupation, what we should do about the real problem of Iran, and a very serious strategic and moral examination of our growing reliance on drones as a primary instrument of our foreign policy. Instead, we saw old men defending their old wars. That was both very sad and morally objectionable.

These are some rather strong words about John McCain and his vengeful attack on his one time friend Chuck Hagel during the Secretary of Defense confirmation hearing recently.  Jim Wallis from Sojourners is not one to parse words but these are some of the strongest I have heard from him in recent months. Jim is a very strong advocate for peace and making war as a very last resort so I guess I should not have been surprised by his emotional response to Mr. McCain and his actions.

It is hard for me to understand how someone who spent two years being tortured as a prisoner-of-war can so frequently seem to want to put our country at war with others.  I appreciate some of the things he stands for (for instance is constant battle against “pork barrel spending”) but his such frequent call to war deeply troubles me.

I think John McCain is a noble man but has just been mauled so much by politics that he has become a shell of his previous self.  He has just been in the political meat grinder too long. He and others like him are so scarred by the political battles that he no longer has much of a concept of reality outside the beltway.  I include Mr. McConnell and Mr. Reid with that same condition.  Maybe it is time for them to leave politics and let those less vindictive take over the leadership. Then maybe something could actually be accomplished in Washington.

If that were to happen I believe a good part of the petty bickering now present in the Washington would lessen to a significant degree. Of course our political environment in this country has always been partisan since Jefferson and Adams had it out more than two hundred years ago. I don’t expect that to change but I hope the magnitude of it subsides.  We have to find a way out of all this petty squabbling that seems to daily occur there now.

Wordle….. Behind The Speeches….

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Source: Behind Inaugural Speeches, Meaningful Words | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine.

Wordle is an application that takes text from any source and enlarges words that appear more frequently. Conversely, words that are smaller appear less frequently. Small words, like the or of, are not included in the Wordles above. (www.wordle.net)

Wordle is a new word for me. I suspect it will be commonly used in the not too distant future.  When I came across this article in the Smithsonian Magazine – electronic edition it got my immediate attention. The article basically covers nineteen inaugural address ranging from Washington to Obama’s second address. It is interesting to go through the list to see the differences.

Here is the wordle for President Obama’s recent inaugural address:

Wordle - Obama 2nd Inauguration

I must admit that the Smithsonian Magazine is currently one of my favorite reads. They always cover things that others frequently don’t. If you get a change take a look at them. You might just learn a thing or two :)

Looking Back…. And Forward…. 2

Government, Healthcare, In The News, Politics • Tags: , ,

Source: Obama’s Speech Is Urgent Call for Progressive Values – NYTimes.com.

Inauguration SpeechMr. Obama came to office four years ago all but consumed by what he inherited: two wars and an economy in free fall. He then confronted an exhausting series of crises and political problems at home and abroad: budget showdowns, a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Middle East turmoil, the rise of the Tea Party movement.

Through it all, he chose to wage additional battles of choice, most notably his successful push to overhaul the health insurance system. But not until this point, with the economy gradually mending, one war over and another winding down, with Osama bin Laden dead and the Democratic Party drawing strength from the nation’s changing demographics, has he had the opportunity to master his own presidency.

The beginning of President Obama’s second term is an opportune time to look back on his presidency.  I have mentioned several times on this blog how disappointed I was about how he seemingly abandoned his rhetoric of the 2008 campaign trail once he got into office. I will admit here that much of that criticism was unwarranted. More…

Leaving No Troops??? 9

In The News, Military • Tags: , , , , ,

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Source: President Obama, Hamid Karzai: US Combat Operations in Afghanistan to End in Spring – ABC News.

War MachineRoughly 66,000 U.S. troops are serving in Afghanistan. The military has proposed keeping several thousand troops in the country after 2014 as advisers, trainers and logistical support for Afghan forces; the White House has said it remains open to pulling out all troops entirely.

Leaving no troops behind when we finally exit Afghanistan?  That would be a first for us.  We currently have troops stationed in about seventy-five percent of the world’s countries.  It wouldn’t be so bad to just leave some temporarily behind but when their tour is complete we send someone in to replace them for years and  years to come. We have had thousands of troops in Germany and Korea for my entire lifetime.

If I were a small country I don’t think I would want some other country’s soldiers constantly among us.  What would we U.S. citizens say if President Obama suddenly announced that he was allowing  50,000 German soldiers to be permanently stationed in Texas.  I think there would be an uproar almost as loud as trying to take a Texan’s assault rifle away from him!! More…

A Real Leader Leads……

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Source: Boehner’s GOP Problems Complicate Deficit Negotiations – ABC News.

House Speaker John Boehner is about to begin another attempt at a grand bargain deficit reduction deal with President Obama, a high wire act in which he will be buffeted by demands from the White House as well as from House Republicans

It looks like total gridlock may again happen coming out the gate of the new year. Mr. Boehner in some of his words seemed to say that he was open to compromise but soon took those words back after some in his party chastised him. The sign of a real leader is someone who leads, sometimes even in opposition to some in his party. He does not bend, especially to the least common denominator of his party.

More…

The World is Ending….

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Here is my favorite cartoon about the 2012 election results. Whenever the minimum wage is raised there are those who claim it will cost millions of jobs and basically cause the end of the USA. Now that President Obama has been given four more years the same rhetoric bumped up by a factor of ten is echoing now. These guys just seem to be totally shell-shocked! Some one needs to tell them that the world goes on no matter who occupies the Oval office. After all, we survived Reagan and baby Bush didn’t we? :)

Big Money…. 9

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‎[Republicans] take care of big money for big money takes care of them. – 20 September 1931  Will Rogers

I don’t think that even Will would have dreamed that we would one day have something called “Citizens United”. That is the Supreme Court decision that opened the money spigot in today’s politics. There are now dozens of groups both Republican and Democrat, but mostly Republican, that go by various innocuous names that put out much of the mud in today’s politics.

Since these guys can hide behind noble sounding names and don’t have to say what their political bent is it is hard to know where they stand without a program. So I took the effort to track down the top fifteen pacs for you.  It is shown below. In case you are interested the totals add up to

Republican – $263 million

Democrat – $48 million More…

About That Debt…. 6

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I know there is a lot of fury going on now about how President Obama has increased the national debt. So, when I came across this graph it got my attention. I have had several ranters here lately who proclaim that “that idiot Obama is bankrupting the country”. They go on and on about the increased deficit and how it is their sole reason to drive that “idiot” out of office. I am going to try and give you some insight into this situation but as President Clinton said recently you are going to have to pay attention…

More…

Vicious Retribution….. 1

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Source: Pizza Man Bear Hugs Obama, Starts ‘Yelp’ Troll War – Yahoo! News.

When Big Apple Pizza owner Scott Van Nuzer bear-hugged and hoisted President Obama off the ground during their brief meeting in Fort Pierce, Fla., Sunday, it wasn’t only the (startled) press corps that took notice.

Earlier today, users flooded the rate and review website Yelp, sending Big Apple Pizza’s overall rating in a tailspin.

“Talk about committing business suicide. After picking up Obama, your (sic) books are gonna be in the red pretty soon. Not too smart,” wrote one commenter, who delivered his one star (out of five) rating from Cottonwood, Ariz., about 2,200 miles away. More…

Mr. Romney Doesn’t Seem To Have a Clue….

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via Romney ridicules Obama on ‘change’ remark – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.

President Obama:

“I think that I’ve learned some lessons over the last four years, and the most important lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t change Washington from the inside, you can only change it from the outside,” Obama said. “That’s how I got elected, and that’s how the big accomplishments like health care got done – [it] was because we mobilized the American people to speak out. That’s how we were able to cut taxes for middle-class families.”

Mr. Romney’s attack:

“Well, we are going to give him that chance in November — he is going outside,” Romney said. “I can change Washington; I will change Washington. We will get the job done from the inside. Republicans and Democrats will come together. He can’t do it. His slogan was ‘Yes we can.’ His slogan now is ‘No, I can’t.’” More…

Putting a Face on the Tea Party…. 4

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My regular viewers you know that I have recently had some discussions with a commentor on this blog named “Hank”. Of course since the Internet is a virtual gathering place I really don’t know for sure if Hank is a male or female but for the sake of this and maybe future posts I will call him “he”. Now Hank made several comments to posts about the political conventions.  On each comment I got to know Hank a little better than before. In Hank’s last post ( which is his last comment by my choice not his) he gave me an important personal insight.

I have said many times on this blog that in order for something to be real you have to “put a face on it”. Until you can put a face to something it remains in an abstract state and somehow doesn’t quite become real.  What Hank managed to do for me was to put a face on the radical right Tea Party. I don’t know what Hank really looks like or if he really belongs to that group but he now there poster boy to me. Some of his words that fixed his face to that organization was when he commented on my post about the Clinton speech as the DNC.

 ‘Shared opportunities and shared responsibility’ is code speak for taking from the rich and those who work hard for a living and giving it to the poor and the clueless. I am aghast at how just a speech from a lying president, Clinton (who BTW slept with way more women than Monica) can change anyone’s mind with rhetoric.

Previously Hank had made angry comments about President Obama but I let them slide as just being caught up in the moment. But with the above quote it seems obvious that he despises much more than that.  So, with this post I want to thank Hank for opening my eyes as to just how critical the election really is. We cannot allow the Tea Party to get a further hold on our political institutions. If we do then serious  irreversible consequences will likely result.  Suddenly those who are struggling to find jobs or those who need a temporary hand up will become those who are taking from the rich and those who work hard for a living and giving it to the poor and the clueless.  

Because the Tea Party now has a face I just donated a healthy sum, as least with my limited income, to the re-election campaign for President Obama and to help defeat the Tea Party candidate in my State’s Senate race. Hank made me realize that we as a country can’t become complacent about our political processes. If we do that all of us but especially “the least of these” will likely suffer the consequences.  Thank you Hank for opening my eyes. I am officially taking my head out of the sand because of you….

Maybe We Vote For President For The Wrong Reasons…. 3

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I pride myself in frequently looking outside my box in this world. Yes, my life’s experiences pretty much, like everyone else, defines who I am but we must also try to look at things from a different perspective on a regular basis. That brings up the topic of this post. The typical voter and that certainly includes me seems to want to elect a person for president who we think could be a “best buddy”. That seems to be the primary reason that Mr. Reagan was twice elected and it certainly was one of the critical factors that got Mr. Obama into the Oval Office.

But maybe we got all our reasons backwards. Maybe we should be looking at who can get the job done in the current environment. I am a lifelong U.S. history buff and have read literally hundreds of books on the topic. It seems that after a president dies some of the less noble things about him come out.

That was certainly the case with President Johnson from the 1960′s. He was really a brute of a man who bullied people to get what he wanted. In private almost every other word was a curse word. He was just not a very pleasant man to be around. But when we look back at history he probably got more accomplished than almost any president in the 20th century.  Along with personally making sure that there were thousands of six foot deep reservoirs built in his home state of Texas he accomplished among other things the monumental voting rights act and started Medicare for senior citizens. And he did both of these bills right not just a piecemeal attempt as the current healthcare bill seems to be.

I was pretty much a naive Republican when Johnson was president so I never voted for him and if I had known his personality I’m sure I never would have voted for him. They say hind sight is always 20:20 so now I can see that he actually was the best man for the job.

So many people today want the equivalent of their best friend in office. Maybe we should be looking for people like LBJ instead. The person that comes to mind in this current generation is Rahm Emanuel who recently left the chief-of-staff job to become Chicago’s mayor. Insiders say he is a pretty vulgar guy. Maybe he is what is needed to really make things happen. I know my “best buddy” Barak has let me down in what he has been able to accomplish. I guess he is just not nasty enough for the job.  Maybe we can get him “nasty classes” before he starts serving his second term.

Besides wanting our buddy as president it seems some will only vote for a person that agrees with them on a single issue.  For some it is gay rights, for others it is their guns and then there is abortion. Abortion is another sole reason that many, particularly the evangelicals among us, vote for the president. Whoever speaks the loudest against abortion has their vote. And like Mr. Bush when they end up really doing nothing to change the number of abortions they get re-elected anyway! Go figure….

When will we ever learn what it takes to be a good president?

Fact-checkers find exaggerations in Obama, Biden conventions speeches

In The News, Politics • Tags: , , , , , , ,

via Fact-checkers find exaggerations in Obama, Biden conventions speeches | Fox News.

President Obama and Vice President Biden made statements in their convention speeches about unemployment, Medicare and other issues that fact-checkers say appear inaccurate or at least misleading.

Among the questionable remarks were Biden’s argument that “after the worst job loss since the Great Depression we created 4.5 million private sector jobs in the past 29 months” … The Associated Press and others point out that statement is misleading because it counts jobs from the recession’s lowest point  to where employment began to grow again – excluding jobs lost earlier in Obama’s term and masking that overall unemployment has increased over that period….
The Associated Press also points out that Obama said in his speech that he wants to use money saved by ending the wars to build highways, schools and bridges.  However, the wars were largely financed by borrowing “so there is no ready pile of cash to be diverted to anything else,” the wire service writes….

Other examples include the president saying U.S. auto makers are back on top of the world.  “Nope,” writes FactCheck, pointing out that General Motors has slipped back to No. 2 and is headed for third place in global sales this year behind Toyota and Volkswagen.

As promised I am giving you  the fact-checkers report for the DNC candidates.  Please note that this report comes from Fox News.  Unlike the fact-check last week that noted there were some out-right lies in Mr. Ryan’s speech most found by Fox news were at best exaggerations. I guess you could call the first one a deliberate manipulation.  I will let these words stand on their own. I just wanted to give a final quote from this article about Mr. Ryan’s speech last week.

However, the group said Ryan, in his acceptance speeches, made “false claims” or gave “misleading statements” at least five times – among them were that president’s health care law funnels money away from Medicare “at the expense of the elderly.” FactCheck pointed out Medicare’s chief actuary says the law “substantially improves” the system’s finances and that Ryan has embraced the same savings.

As President Clinton said in his speech last week, just look at the arithmetic when comparing the two conventions.

But what do I know…..

Obama’s DNC Speech… 29

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Source: Obama: ‘America, our problems can be solved’ | The Ticket – Yahoo! News.

“I won’t pretend the path I’m offering is quick or easy. I never have. You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over a decade.”

It seems that many in this country think that all problems can be solved in a four-year presidential cycle. Of course life just doesn’t work that way. As noted above it took as decades to get into the troubles we are now digging out of. Years of Republican mantra of deregulation caused the near collapse of our financial sector. That mammoth problem can’t be corrected quickly.

“All they have to offer is the same prescriptions they’ve had for the last thirty years: Have a surplus? Try a tax cut. Deficit too high? Try another. Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!” 

As usual President Obama’s acceptance speech was uplifting. He knows just the right words to use get his feelings across. But to me the most significant thing about the speech was the difference between the Republican reaction to these time and the Democratic. The Republican convention last week seemed focused on who to blame for all our current problems and they blamed almost everyone except themselves.

  • It is the lazy welfare recipients who are gobbling up things they didn’t earn.
  • It is those immigrants who are in our schools costing us a fortune.
  • It is the liberal administration now in power
  • It is the homosexuals who are causing the downfall of the traditional family
  • It is this, it is that…..

 

The Republican response to our current problems is to blame everyone. Mr. Obama put forward a different approach. He cites the strength of our citizens as the answer and not the problem. He showed us that this is not the first problem that we have had as a country and it certainly won’t be the last one. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan seem to think that the only citizens who can do anything about our problems are the super-rich. If only we give them another tax break then it will trickle down through the economy and create jobs.  As Ayn Rand, their hero, points out if only we can keep “those” people away for our riches we will have more for ourselves.

Something happened in the 1980s that caused corporations to no longer think of their employees as assets but to think of them as liabilities. Employees are something to be downsized in order to create a bigger profit. That is the current business mode and that is the basic philosophy of the current Republican leadership. The Democrats showed us this week that it is our citizens who are the primary asset of this country and if we just give them a level playing field prosperity can come to all of us once again.

So to me this election comes down to one basic question. Are our citizens assets  or liabilities? It seems as simple as that.

Just Bill Being Bill…. 6

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Source: Fact check: Bill Clinton at the DNC – USATODAY.com.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Former president Bill Clinton’s stem-winding nomination speech was a fact-checker’s nightmare: lots of effort required to run down his many statistics and factual claims, producing little for us to write about.

Republicans will find plenty of Clinton’s scorching opinions objectionable. But with few exceptions, we found his stats checked out.

The worst we could fault him for was a suggestion that President Obama’s Affordable Care Act was responsible for bringing down the rate of increase in health care spending, when the fact is that the law’s main provisions have yet to take effect.

I must admit that I have always enjoyed listening to Mr. Clinton’s speeches. He just has a way with finding just the right words for every story.  If someone had just super-glued his zipper on that fateful day of his “improper relationship” there would be little to fault him with during his presidency. After all he was the only president in 50 years to have a surplus budget. I’m sure if any of my radical right friends dared to listen to his speech last night they are probably still uncontrollably wincing.

During his speech he step-by-step dismantled every argument against President Obama found in the many vitriol comments given at the RNC last week. About the only thing the fact-checker could find in it was that maybe he gave too much credit to Obamacare in causing the healthcare declining costs last year.  I know the Republicans gave the Affordable Care Act (ACA) the name Obamacare as a slam but it is now being commonly used as showing an achievement for the president.

If there is anyone who still is on the fence in this election I would strongly advise them to get a copy of this speech and read it. It was a forty-five minute speech given in the typical “Now listen this is important…” Bill Clinton mode. I would attempt to put down some of the most memorable things here but there are just too many to keep below my self-imposed five-hundred or so word limit for blog posts.

The one thing in the speech that I will mention is his comment that during his lifetime he has never seen such hatred displayed toward a president. That is the most distressful part of the Tea Party version of politics to me. We had some very good friends in the past who are now spewing this hatred. To see the anger and hate in their eyes when they talk about the President of the United States is truly scary to me. But maybe the scariest part of this is that they are doing it in church related functions such as Bible study classes. I seem to remember Jesus telling us to love our enemies. My past friends seem to have forgotten that phrase as well as so many other found in their bibles!

But what do I know…

And Then There Was The DNC…..

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Since my altruist worldview points me more toward the Democratic party than the Republican I’m sure I will have more words about their convention than I did with the Republican convention.  I will hold off on the fact-check post until more half-truth/half-Lies are gathered.  I just want to make some overall comments about what I saw last night.

As has been pointed out by several media outlets the DNC seems to be much more vibrant than the RNC. I think part of that is  because the RNC was pretty much full-time against Obama and not so much for Romney whereas the DNC is pure enthusiasm for Obama. The RNC being “anti” plays very well into the obstructionist/do-nothing theme they have chosen for their party. But I was surprised at how much of a “red meat Republican attitude” prevailed in some of the speeches.  They seem to be doing a pretty good job of learning that technique from their adversaries and that is not particularly a good thing in my mind.

Two things caught my attention.  One was a comment from Julian Castro in his response to the Romney speech where Romney say he left his father’s shadow and struck out on his own after high school.  Julian Castro, who is the mayor of a major city and grew up pretty much in abject poverty said about Romney striking out on his own “He has no idea how good he had it!”  Yes, Mr. Romney left Michigan but he left to go to Harvard  for pre-paid law and MBA degrees. I’m sure unlike Mr. Castro, or even myself, Mr Romney never saw the inside of a dirty pan working in a commercial kitchen during his college years, or for that matter since then. I’m sure he never had to work a day while in college while so many of us had to work at a full-time jobs along with attending classes.

The second thing that caught my attention was from the Michelle Obama speech. I didn’t record the words but her statement basically said that when there is a door of opportunity opened to you do don’t slam the door behind but instead hold it open for others to come through. Of course by this statement I think she was inferring that Mr. Romney who was brought up in a very privileged environment just doesn’t see the need to hold the door open for others.  He thinks everyone should just have to beat it open as he claims he did. ;)  He and Mr. Ryan as part of the deficit reduction plans want to reduce, not increase,  student aid programs and money to keep our educational institutions world-class. Mr. Romney just doesn’t seem to have the empathy for those like me or Mr. Castro in our younger years. He just doesn’t know how good he had it compared to so many many others.

Like the Republican conventions there were a lot of “half-truths” thrown about. I will get to them in a later post.

The Hawks…. 2

In The News, Politics • Tags: , , , , ,

Source: Paul Ryan weighs in on Middle East policy – First Read.

He continued: “In the past day, Iran’s president called our ally Israel, quote, a cancerous tumor that must be excised. Let me be really clear. Under President Romney, our adversaries will think twice about challenging America and our allies because we believe in peace through strength. There will be no daylight between America and our friends around the world. Strong national defense, peace through strength, strong relationship with our allies.” 

This post is part of my ongoing search into just who Paul Ryan is. I want to understand why a very good clergy friend of mine endorses him so highly.

The only thing that kept me from being very upset by this article is that I know that campaign rhetoric very very rarely becomes action upon holding an office. My hero Will Rogers had much to say about campaign rhetoric but I will save that for a future post.  Let’s face it the old adage that politicians will say absolutely anything to get elected is as true today as it ever was. I pray Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney maintain that pattern. I certainly don’t want to hear their rhetoric turned into actions if they by some remote chance were to get elected :)

The words above sound like the mad military general from the movie Dr. Who just aching to get into a battle with anyone he could find. I hope there is some “daylight between America and it friends” when it comes to putting our children into a war zone. I know we consider Afghanistan our current friends and our sons and daughters continue to die there on a daily basis. When we were on the rampage against Iran after the hostage crisis we considered Hussein our friend and ally. Do we really want to use our overwhelming military might, and because we spend so much on it it is overwhelming, when any of our current allies feel dissed?

Mr. Obama has proved to be much more hawkish than I ever dreamed but to put Ryan/Romney there would make President Obama’s actions timid indeed.

But what do I know…