Omnibus spending bill proves 'the Swamp' cannot be drained

Sen. Rand Paul holds a copy of the omnibus spending bill

President Donald Trump was elected to "drain the swamp" in Washington, D.C. by eliminating waste and turning away from politics as usual.

But today, the president signed a massive $1.3 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill that not only failed to help drain the swamp, but pumped more muck into it instead.

As reported by Dave Boyer at The Washington Times:

"The spending deal will increase the deficit for the current fiscal year to at least $850 billion, up from $666 billion in fiscal 2017. Starting in October, annual deficits are projected to top $1 trillion for the foreseeable future. On that course, the government would add roughly $12 trillion in borrowing over the next decade."

Of course, this one isn't all on the president alone. Congresspersons in the U.S. House of Representatives and members of the United States Senate crafted the bill, then voted it through to his desk.

The spending bill passed in Congress by a vote of 256-157, and then passed in the Senate by a 65-32 vote.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a vocal critic who voted against the bill, summed up the feelings of many conservatives very succinctly per Benjamin Brown of Fox News:

“Republicans control the government, yet Congress still follows the Democrats' playbook. Time and again, spending skyrockets, and conservatives are expected to fall in line to praise the party for making the big-spending status quo worse."

President Trump had stated as late as Saturday morning that he was considering a veto of the bill. However, in the end he signed off on it, claiming that it provided necessary increases in funding for the military as a primary reason.

Though a staunch supporter of the American military, I find this reasoning disingenuous at best, and a flat-out lie at worst.

After signing, the president referred to the bill as "ridiculous", and per S.A. Miller at The Washington Times stated that "I will never sign a bill like this again."

Unfortunately, by that time the damage was already done. He signed this one. Why sign this one, knowing while you are doing it that you allegedly will never sign one like it again?

What the president could have, and should have, done in my opinion was to veto the bill. While the bill had passed easily in both Houses of Congress, there was not enough support to override his veto.

With a veto, the Congress would have been forced to go back and make cuts that would allow for the president to affix his signature. That, or with no spending authorization in place, they could simply decide to shut the government down.

This president was supposed to be the one who did things differently. Who didn't play the same old political games. But here, when he had the chance to back up his tough talk and tweets with some real hardball action, he blinked and signed.

The Trump signature on this bill was a slap in the face to every conservative American who threw their support to him in November of 2016. It was a betrayal of those of us who believed that we finally had someone unafraid to stand up to the Deep State establishment.

There is no sugar-coating this one. President Trump caved in to politics as usual in Washington, D.C., and as a result we as a nation will sink deeper and deeper in debt.

There is no doubt that there is much to like in the spending bill, including those necessary increases for the U.S. military. But there is no funding to "build the wall" that has been promised by the president, and there is no fix to the DACA issue.

There is also no doubt that among the ridiculous 2,232 pages of this massive grab into taxpayer wallets that there is a great deal of money going out to special interest pork barrel projects that the government has no business being involved in funding.

Frankly, I'm tired of vocally backing a president and a party that, when push comes to shove, continually thumbs its nose at the people who elected them to office. They talk about Democrats spending like drunken sailors and promise that they will be different if given the chance. Then when given that chance, they drink the Dems under the table.

No more. I'll be taking a nice, long, happy break from politics after this piece. It's on to sports, faith, entertainment, and other less stressful topics in my writing. And that's a shame.

The election of businessman Donald Trump was supposed to mean an end to business a usual in Washington. Instead, we saw today that he is incapable of nothing more than talk in regards to draining the swamp.

Why Democrats don't want you to have nice things

Democrats refer to historic tax relief as a "scam"

The Republican Party-controlled United States Congress led by Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky passed historic tax reform legislation this week. This tax relief will lower the tax burden for nearly every American individual and business.

The Tax Policy Center is a nonpartisan joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. They are an organization made up of nationally recognized experts in tax, budget, and social policy who have served at the highest levels of government.

Howard Gleckman at TPC had this to say about the changes:

"About 80 percent of households would get a tax cut while about 5 percent would pay more in 2018 (the rest would pay roughly the same as under current law). Among middle-income households, about 90 percent would pay less and 7 percent would pay more."

So then why would every single Democratic member of Congress, Senators and U.S. Congresspersons led by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, vote against the legislation? Why would not one single Democrat want middle-class workers and families to keep more of their own hard-earned money?

The answer is simple: control. It is the answer to the same question asked in the headline accompanying this piece. That answer lies in the fundamental difference between today's American conservatives, found mostly in the Republican Party, and Democratic Party liberal progressives.

Conservatives - and trust me, not all Republicans are true conservatives - want you to keep more of your own money and power. They desire more familial, local, and state control over your finances and your personal lives.

As Republican ad-maker Brad Todd put it per James Hohmann at The Washington Post: “God created Republicans to cut taxes. Big bills are always complicated, but in time the truth comes out when something costs them (the American people) more or less money.”

Liberal progressives want greater state control. The lib-progs believe themselves to be fundamentally more capable than you to make decisions regarding how your money is spent, what your children are taught, and in fact, what you as an individual should think and feel.

Liberal progressives want businesses taxed and regulated so as to have more control over their product output and direction, regardless of the impact on the economy or society. With taxes lowered and regulations loosened on businesses, the worn and tired lib-prog talking point of Republicans "helping only the wealthy and corporations" is once again foisted on the gullible.

The liberal progressives have taken control of the Democratic Party over the last century. Today they are moving ever leftward, marching towards outright Socialism as publicly proclaimed by one of their most popular leaders, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

(Milton Friedman on capitalism over socialism)

Why don't publicly proclaimed socialist Democrats such as Senator Sanders want businesses to receive even greater tax and regulatory relief? Why are even supposed "mainstream" Democrats voting against tax relief for middle-class Americans workers and families?

Tax reform postcards from the edge

The Republican controlled United States Congress is attempting something significant that has not happened in more than three decades. Yet it is something that almost everyone in both parties believes to be grossly overdue.

Updates to the United States tax code have not been accomplished since Ronald Reagan was President.

That long ago legislation passed a voice vote in the House of Representatives in December 1985. It then took another seven months before finally passing the Senate in June 1986. President Reagan then signed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 into law on October 22, 1986.

Over the ensuing decades, further changes to the tax code have been discussed and debated in both formal political circles as well as in the media and in academia. Many on both sides of the American political aisle have voiced their concern that tax reform was necessary. Agreeing to the specifics and getting such reform done has been much more elusive.

Charles Rangel is as liberal a Democrat as you are going to find. He served in Congress for nearly five decades before retiring earlier this year. Per Brainy Quotes, Rangel once stated "We all want a simpler code, but tax reform is about much more. It is about ensuring that everyone pays their fair share."

Those final words have usually become the rub. What makes up a "fair share?" Reaching any consensus is becoming nearly impossible now in an era where American politics are as partisan and polarized as any in history. 

That 1986 tax legislation was actually co-sponsored by a pair of Democrats, Congressman Dick Gephart and Senator Bill Bradley. While Republicans held a 53-47 advantage in the Senate, the final vote in support for tax reform was 97-3. 

When the 2017 House vote was taken on November 16, no Democrats voted for it. None. Their mantra, as it has always been, claimed that Republicans were cutting taxes for "the top 1%" of earners, while giving no or little actual relief to the middle class. 

The Speaker of the House, Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, responded per Naomi Jagoda and Cristina Marcos for The Hill that "Passing this bill is the single biggest thing we can do to grow the economy, to restore opportunity and help these middle-income families who are struggling."

The fact is that on most issues, especially the big ones, votes in both the House and Senate now come down rigidly along party lines. Where there used to be a dozen or more "swing" votes to be had, legislators of either party who could be appealed to and lobbied for support, that is rarely the case today. 

There is always an obligatory appeal to the middle class by both parties. Each claims to want to bring relief to those middle income earners. Yet somehow, the two parties can never agree on any issue that will actually help the middle class.

Getting actual tax reform done now is going to come down to one party or the other gaining control of both the House and the Senate. Then they are also likely to need a President of their same party who is willing to sign the new tax proposal into law.

Right now, Republicans have just such control. The GOP holds a slim 52-48 edge in the U.S. Senate, and a tight 239-194 edge in the House of Representatives. And, of course, a Republican now sits in the Oval office for the first time in eight years.

Miniumum Wage: Be Careful What You Wish For...You Just Might Get It

Democrats, led by President Obama, are trying to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour up to $10.10 per hour. Many Republicans have come out against such an increase.

Efforts such as raising the minimum wage are attempted, not to help the poor or middle-class, but to wage (pun intended) a continuing political and ideological war within the United States of America. It's not about compassion. It's about power, plain and simple.

Democrats believe that their continued, traditional use of buzzwords and terms such as "living wage", "fairness", and "equity" will keep certain segments of the population voting their way in elections. They count on it to keep them in power. Their main carrot to garner and control these votes is the oldest in the book: they pay for them.

Many people want, and a surprising number of people even expect, something for nothing. They feel that government owes them something, including money, food, medicine, transportation, and much more, with nothing expected in return. This is the mentality behind the support for a raise in the minimum wage.

Now supporters of that effort will try to sell you that such an increase will help everyone. That minimum wage earners are helped by making more money. And other workers will then have their own wages also raised to keep them ahead of these entry-level and lesser-skilled workers.

Frankly, that is a farce. What does indeed happen when wages are artificially, forcibly increased is that companies cut back and/or raise prices. They hire fewer people, meaning less opportunity. They raise prices on their goods, meaning more money out of the pockets of those who just had their wages artificially raised.

No company is just going to accept any increase, be it in forced wage increases, greater taxes, or anything else, without eventually passing that increase on to it's customers. Forcing wages up artificially means that we will all pay more. Meanwhile, fewer jobs will be available for that lesser skilled workforce.

President Obama and his Dem cronies will try to tell you that the minimum wage needs to be raised to $10.10 per hour in order for Americans to meet their vision of a certain standard of living. They say that it will be good for everyone. But they ignore a fundamental flaw in their argument.

If $10.10 per hour is good for Americans, why not $11 per hour? Why not $15 per hour? Heck, why not a minimum wage of $25 per hour? If minimum wage workers earned much more, wouldn't they spend more, helping the economy more? Why is $10.10 just right?

They stop at $10.10 per hour because it is a figure at which their own studies have shown that business will take the increase with a minimum of job cutbacks. There will still be cutbacks, layoffs, and other ramifications. But they will be minimal when compared to the expected political gain of tens of millions flocking to the polls on the Dems behalf.

Meanwhile, back at the minimum wage worker home, many of those actual workers will be losing their jobs, rather than ever seeing that increase. Companies will simply make due with fewer employees. Sure, some workers pay will increase. But how does that help the individuals trying to get a start, or supplement an income, or pay for school books, who once had a $7 per hour job and now have none?

When Democrats pass programs that increase handouts, giveaways, and other "benefits", their supporters seem to think that it will be the "wealthy corporations", the "rich", the "well off", who will be paying. But what the Dem politicians, labor leaders, and others will never tell them is the truth.

The truth is that every time the government spends more money, something has to give, and that something will be a hit to every single consumer and American worker's pocketbook. Every time the government forces economic sanctions on the economy, something has to give, and that something is usually jobs.

Every family is hurt by increased prices, higher taxes, fewer jobs. Those are the ultimate prices of forcing changes on the American economy such as an increase in the minimum wage.

Now, am I against people making more money? Absolutely not. Stay in school. Don't waste your life. Be willing to work hard for minimal pay when young. Get more education, in a field where opportunities are expected to be available. Be flexible in life, willing to go where the opportunities are located. Do not depend longterm on a minimum wage job as the primary source of income for you and/or your family and expect to support cable TV, cellphones, and restaurants.

Minimum wage jobs were not created for, and have never been intended as, the primary lifetime career of the principle wage earner in a family. They were intended for young people just starting out in the work force, for retirees looking to supplement pensions, for management trainees looking to gain boots-on-the-ground experience.

If the federal minimum wage is raised, it will result in fewer jobs, greater unemployment. It will result in higher prices to those who do indeed get to keep their job with that increased wage. Those who want the minimum wage raised should be very, very careful. They just might get what they want. That is going to be very different than what they believe, and what they are being sold by lying politicians.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The state of modern American political discourse has deteriorated to such a wretched point that there are times where I will hear or read something and feel as if blood is actually going to begin shooting from my eyes.

Even in trying to sit down and type this piece, deciding where to begin, in what direction to take it, the problems are so many and deep that it almost makes me want to stop and just throw up my hands in surrender.

I have said it myself, and I heard it from someone else this morning: American partisan politics have deteriorated to a state of bitterness, rancor, and stalemate. Our nation has reached a point not seen since the Civil War era. We are angry as a people. Mad at the politicians, mad at the media, mad at each other.

There are many culprits, and we can blame those politicians and that media. We can blame lobbyists and special interest groups. We can blame whomever else we choose. But there is another guilty party in this situation. We have reached a point where all of us need to take a look in the mirror and realize that we ourselves have become a big part of the problem.

We all have basic moral, spiritual, and political values developed over the course of a lifetime based on personal experiences. Our internal compass leads us to make the important decisions in our lives, including decisions at the ballot box. We vote for candidates who we believe will best reflect our values. We choose those who we believe will support those values with specific programs and initiatives to further those values.

There is just one problem with our entire line of thinking: it is completely selfish.

The Republic For Which It Stands

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Every good American knows and has said those words hundreds, if not thousands of times in their lives. Learning and reciting the "Pledge of Allegiance" to our flag is part of our shared civics lesson as citizens.

But do we really think of the detail in those words as we say them? After all, in saying them we are theoretically taking an actual pledge to stand behind it's principles.

One of the most important and least appreciated of those principles is the simple line "and to the republic for which it stands" which speaks to our nation's form of government. Did someone tell you that the United States of America was a democracy? That would be incorrect. America is actually a "constitutional republic", and there is a very big, very important difference, one you should become familiar with if you are not already.

In a true democracy, the majority rules, either by direct voting results or through the decisions of their elected representatives. These are the two basic forms of democracy: direct and representative. The American Revolution was undoubtedly fought in part to form a more democratic society and government, as opposed to the tyranny experienced previously by the former Colonies under the British monarchy.

Liberals Must Stand Up to Obama

The cries have been going out far and wide regarding President Barack Obama from the very beginning.

He is a Chicago-machine politician with a strong lean towards Socialism, and he will plunge the country deeper into debt while dismantling capitalism and further dividing the nation ideologically.

It turns out that all of this is true. Everything that was cried out has either come to pass, is in the process of coming to be, or has been actively and publicly discussed by the Obama administration as a goal and/or actual plan being drawn up.

The debt and the size of federal government has grown, jobs and the economy remain stagnant, the people's political ideological gulf has widened.

There is one big problem here: the only people doing anything about it are Republicans.

Tea Party Should Not Be A 'Third' Party

There has been a great deal of angst among the Lefty Lib community regarding the emergence over the past year or so of what has become known as the 'Tea Party' movement.

The liberals who now control the Democratic Party should be concerned, because they and their political leaders led by President Barrack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have awoken a sleeping giant.

That sleeping giant is the true Conservative movement that the majority of Americans feel a natural affinity towards. The people who make up real main-stream America.

Hard-working, family-rearing, tax-paying, God-fearing, America-loving, law-abiding folks who want government out of their lives. Who recognize that low taxation, modest regulation, secure borders, and the teaching of and support for American exceptionalism are the true path to lasting recovery, not the socialist style policies of the Obama administration.

That sleeping giant has been embodied by the Tea Party.

Elections Have Consequences

For the past year it has become the public mantra of Democratic Party politicians: "Elections have consequences." Whether they were talking about bailing out large corporations or taking over the banking, auto, and health care industries, that simple phrase has been their fallback position.

To some extent, that is true. When the nation elects a leader such as Barack Obama, the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, it has definitely sent a message. A majority of the citizens of the United States spoke up in November of 2008 and sent the message that the direction the country was headed during the Bush years was not one that they wanted to continue following.

The American electorate sent a clear message for 'change' to Washington politicians at that point. The problem, however, and it is a big one for the Dems, is that the voters quite obviously wanted 'change' with a small 'c', not the "Change" that marked the Obama campaign's signature slogan.

What Obama was trumpeting was "fundamental change", a message that he banged home time and time again. The mass electorate heard those words and decided that he meant a simple change in direction, something they wanted indeed. What he actually meant was to change the very nature of what it meant to be America as a nation.

After winning election, Obama got his house in order, got his Democratic Party leadership organized, and then set out down the path towards that fundamental change from a democratic, capitalist society to a full-blown European-inspired socialist one. The American 'system' that had made us the envy of the world for generations had somehow "failed" in is words and needed to be almost completely trashed.

Problem was, the American public didn't go along for the ride. As the depth and scope of Obama's vision of change came into view and practice, as Dem national leaders like Nancy Pelosi in Congress and Harry Reid in the Senate began to push the legislative agenda, it became crystal-clear to Americans that socialism was the order of the day.

The Democrats were making a fundamental political mistake, one that the Republicans had made a couple of times in the last couple of decades. They assumed that their election to power now gave them a mandate for major changes to America, and they began to institute those major changes.

Quickly, the American public began to voice their concerns. In every major public opinion poll, the public shouted at the top of it's lungs for the Dem leadership to slow things down. Some changes were needed to the system, yes. But almost no one wanted socialist restrictions and control to replace democratic capitalism's freedom and liberty.

Socialism has failed everywhere that it has every been tried on earth. The reasons are quite simple. Taking away incentives from individuals to work harder, to dream bigger, to achieve more results in less production. Citizens come to rely on their government to provide for them. Eventually, the government can no longer do so, because it simply lacks the resources.

You cannot possibly tax individuals and businesses enough to sustain government control. And let's face it, that is the only place that government gets it's money. Government is, in fact, you and I. We pay into the system to keep it functional. We elect people to run things as our representatives. In a socialist system, those representatives just keep raising and raising our taxes to take on more and more control over our everyday lives.

Eventually a system such as the Obama administration is attempting to install will collapse on itself because it is economically unsustainable. But before it does, society will degenerate into a mess of ennui and disillusionment, or worse. If those who have control in a socialist system see that control slipping away, their response has often been to use force to remain in power. They change the laws and keep themselves in the life boats to protect their own interests as the ship sinks around them.

Many Americans did understand that this would be the direction that Obama and the leading Dems would take once in power. Those are the tens of millions who voted against them. They are now being joined by the millions 'in the middle', those Americans who wanted the small 'c' of 'change', not the capital 'C' of Obama's socialism.

Yes, Democrats, elections have consequences. However, what you are failing to remember is the lessons of politicians and Parties past. That there is always another election coming. This November, Americans will again go to the polls. All signs point to the Dems losing control of Congress, which will seriously cripple Obama's ability to continue his agenda.

Obama and Pelosi and Reid have led America down this path of 'Change' at full speed, recklessly disregarding the public's wishes time and time again. Reid and many of his Dem leadership co-horts will undoubtedly pay the price in the Fall of 2010. They will pay that price because, despite their election victories in 2006 and 2008, they are now ignoring the American electorate in 2010.

Now is a time of opportunity for the Republican Party to reassert itself, but it must be willing to return to basic American principles of democracy, capitalism, and traditional exceptionalism in order to take full advantage. The Republicans must reflect core American values, pledge a change in direction to fiscal sanity and responsibility, and to fully and effectively preserving and defending our nation and it's founding principles.

In the fall of 2010, the Democrats will be reminded that elections do indeed have consequences. When they lose their control over Congress, their control over the purse strings and the power and the direction, then they will cry and wail and moan. They will blame one another, point fingers, and become disgruntled. And they will have no one to blame but themselves, because elections do indeed have consequences, the next one as strongly as the last one.

City's Main Problem: Liberals

In the Sunday, February 21st, 2010 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer an article was published at the very top of page two titled "City's main problem: poverty" written by Karen Heller.

In the article, Heller proceeds to lay every ill that befalls the city of Philadelphia - and that's plenty of ills - at the very feat of this fearsome monster known as poverty.

The city budget shows 62% of resources go towards fighting crime and social needs? Poverty is the culprit. Michelle Obama visits Philly to campaign against obesity because too many parents shove McDonald's down their kids throats? Poverty. Teachers are overworked? Poverty. School violence is tolerated? Poverty. Health rate is poor, and kids don't take education seriously? Poverty.

The problem, not with the city but with Heller's article, is that she simply cries "poverty" at every opportunity. She makes the typical liberal mistake of failing to see the forest for the trees. The problem is not some general epidemic of poverty. Philadelphia's problem is an epidemic of liberalism.

That's right, little kids go without food because of the political philosophy and ideology of liberalism. Little kids get fat in some cases because of the exact same ideology. Kids don't stay in school, don't want to stay in school let alone advance further, because of it. Violence is greatly increased because of it, and health problems are magnified because of it.

Join the 912 Project

The picture accompanying this story might look like a scene out of some late 1960's, Gump-esque, anti-Vietnam War rally with counter-culture hippies, radicals, and others disenchanted with the actions and policies of their government protesting those actions and policies.

However, the picture, one that many of you likely have never seen because the former mainstream media does not want you to know about these events and thus fails to cover them or under-publicizes them, is not from the 'Summer of Love' but rather it is from the end of this very past summer. September 12th, 2009 to be exact.

The Americans in this counter-culture demonstration, the new generation of 'radicals', gathered in the National Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument and all over Washington, D.C. to demand fundamental change.

You might have heard that before somewhere, the "Change" idea? The one word slogan was deftly used in last year's U.S. presidential campaign by Barrack Hussein Obama. It was meant to galvanize those sitting on the fence in the election to support a change from the policies of the George W. Bush administration which had governed for the previous eight years.

But while Obama and his people sold that idea as a change from Bush policies to what they described as some new, more enlightened and peaceful era, what they were actually selling was a bill of goods. Their real motive was a change in the very fabric, culture, and traditional values of America.

The Bogeyman Enters Health-Care Debate

I know things have been getting really bad for the ultra-liberal Obama crowd lately, what with real Americans turning out in force and voicing their opinions loudly denouncing the President's policies at so-called 'town hall' meetings, particularly in regards to health care.

The policies instituted by the far-left, elitist Obama administration over the past six months have been staggeringly irrational and irresponsible, heaping tremendous debt on to the shoulders of our children and grandchildren, many of whom actually went out and voted for Obama with delusions of some non-specific "Hope" for some specious "Change".

Is this what they voted for, really? They actually want to be burdened for the rest of their lives by the tax bills, higher prices, and fewer jobs that are coming from these Obama policies?

Polls are beginning to show the truth. A new poll from Time magazine showed that 62% of Americans believe that health-care reform will raise costs in the long term, 65% believe reforms will make things more complicated for regular folks, and 56% believe it will result in less freedom in choosing doctors or health plans.

At the same time, research by Pollster.com, which compiles the numbers of various high-profile polls to get a more significant number, shows that overall support for President Obama, his "approval rating", is plummeting, down now to 52% from a high of 64% just six months ago.

These are significant developments, and the Obama administration and the Democratic Party-controlled congress are feeling the heat.

Too Big For His Britches

When I was a kid our older relatives used to have a saying for when someone got too full of themselves, or got too arrogant, or when someone was constantly pushing the limits too far. They would say that this person was 'too big for his britches', an analogy relating to someone who got so big they were about to burst out of their pants.

This would often be followed by an admonition that the person was going to 'get what they had coming to them' one of these days when the 'chickens come home to roost'.

Well, the far-too-big-for-his-britches Vince Fumo finally welcomed home the chickens yesterday. After decades of shady backroom politics, the former State Senator and political giant was found guilty yesterday on 137 counts including fraud, obstruction of justice, tax offenses, and conspiracy.

When the time comes for sentencing, prosecutors will be seeking to send the now 65-year old Fumo away to prison for more than a decade, meaning that the once mighty kingpin could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Just a day earlier, with the jury holding its deliberations, his typically slimy but skilled defense lawyers attempted one final bit of legal tap-dancing in an effort to free their client.

They tried to have a juror thrown off the case and possibly a mistrial declared that would at least temporarily free their client. The reasoning? One of the jurors potentially posted on Facebook that there would be a "big announcement on Monday" in regards to the case.

Oh no, the entirety of a lengthy criminal court case with numerous witnesses and mountains of evidence tossed out because one juror made an innocuous comment on a social networking website! The horror of this violation of prudential conduct!

Repeat a Lie Often Enough, It Becomes the Truth

President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party cohorts have told the lie so many times in recent weeks that one has to wonder if they even believe it themselves.

The President said that his stimulus bill included tax cuts for "95 percent of working families" or what he calls the middle class.

That is great, isn't it? We have a President who cares about you and me, the working people that keep America moving forward. The hard-working everyday folks. Thank God we finally have someone in the White House who cares about us, right?

Well, that only floats if you actually believe what Obama is telling you.

Do you, and if so, why do you? Because a network news anchor tells you to believe it? Because the head of your union tells you to believe it? Because your city newspaper tells you to believe it?

President Barack Obama and his administration are simply lying to us. They are lying boldly to our faces by using positive-sounding rhetoric because they simply don't believe that we will care enough to look deeply into the details.

Tired of All the Financial Hand-Wringing

Am I the only one who is more than a little bit tired of the end-of-the-world financial hand-wringing going on in the news these days? Every day, day after day, both the local and network news lead with stories about the 'fiscal crisis' or the 'financial meltdown' that is happening at all levels of government. Cutbacks, layoffs, budgets, spending, revenues, stocks, bonds...blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! Now anyone who knows me knows that I take these kinds of things seriously, so this is no sports or entertainment-starved and isolated individual talking here about being fed up. I have read books on economics on my own, not school related. That isn't to brag about any alleged intelligence, just to note that I do really have an interest in these matters. I like to understand what people are talking about, at least to a certain level. But what is happening today in this country is utter and complete doom-and-gloom defeatism. As always, I do have a political take on at least a part of the problem. But it might surprise some of you where I lay that political blame. I blame my own Republican Party and its leadership at the Presidential level and at the Congressional levels. You see, I fully expect Democrats to spend your hard-earned money and mine like a bunch of drunken sailors on shore leave. I fully expect the Dems, leaning more and more towards open socialism these days, to demand government intervention and control over as many facets of our day-to-day lives as they can get their grubby hands on. Those things are a given with me, and with most people who look at the political world with open eyes. But I expect more from my Republican Party, and I am not getting it. Much to the Dems chagrin, George W. Bush was in the White House for eight long years. He had a Republican-led Congress for a part of that time. But despite this advantage in political power, the nation took steps backwards in key areas where Republicans are supposed to move us forward as a part of our very fundamental structure. This was highlighted by their spending your money and mine at a pace that leaves only a one word description - Democrats. For the past eight years Republicans have been as much to blame if not more so for the fiscal problems in which we now find ourselves mired. Republicans are supposed to stand up for two major fiscal principles: lower spending, lower taxation. As we all know, when we lower spending federal money, and we lower the amount of money taken from the pockets of individuals and the accounts of business, we increase freedom. People and businesses have more of their hard earned money and are free to spend it on their own wishes, needs, desires, futures. We also need some solid controls to ensure that people don't go crazy and mortgage away their future on dreams that they cannot handle. Why give someone a mortgage for a $500,000 house when they cannot possibly afford it based on any reasonable estimate of their income and employment history when balanced against the likelihood of future market changes in things like interest rates? But that is just what we allowed to happen over the past decade or so. People were allowed to buy bigger homes than they could afford, or second/vacation homes, or rental properties that they could not afford. It was up to Republicans to be smart and pull in the reigns, or at least to publicly put out stern warnings. It didn't happen. Now another key Republican idea is that we are all big boys and girls. We know very well what we are getting into when we sign on the dotted line. If you signed up for a huge variable rate mortgage that you could only afford because that rate was so low at the time that you obtained it, and then could no longer afford the payments when the rates inevitably went up and were in danger of losing your home, that is absolutely on you. You knew without a shadow of a doubt when you signed those papers that this was a serious risk that you were taking. We all make decisions in life, from what we put in our bodies (food, cigarettes, other people) to what we put in our financial portfolios (properties, stocks, artwork) and we all take on the risks and consequences of those decisions. We love it when things are riding high, but we all know that the party is going to end some day, and we need to make sure that we are prepared for that day. In this case, very few people made the adult decision to let us know that the sky was going to fall, and likely fall hard and fast. Now everyone is running around like Chicken Little, and I am just a bit tired of it all. I want my Republican Party leadership to stand up for fiscal sanity and a return to their roots. They made a good start last week when every single Republican member of the House of Representatives voted against President Barack Obama's massive socialist spending boondoggle that he calls a "stimulus" package. They need to continue that very real and very Republican leadership, and inspire more and more Republican leaders to step forward and take those same positions as we move forward and try to regain both Congress and the Presidency. But even if we can win those elections it won't matter a hill of beans if there is no basic philosophical difference manifesting itself in the actions of Republicans over what their Democrat counterparts would have done. It's not rocket science, it's basic conservative Republican ideals at their best: lower spending, lower taxes, more freedom. Long live democracy and capitalism. Let's put an end to this socialism and defeatist hand-wringing right now.

Trying to Find a Silver Lining

I have always been a pretty positive person. It's hard to get me down for long, and I've learned in the course of a life that is now well into its fifth decade that most of the things that we worry over are somewhat insignificant.

For instance, my hometown Philadelphia Eagles lost a heart-breaking NFC Championship game yesterday to the Arizona Cardinals. The defeat means that the team falls just short of reaching football's ultimate goal - the Super Bowl.

It was very disappointing and somewhat frustrating as the final seconds ticked away and we came to realize that our team was not going to make it. What is even more ludicrous to me is what will happen over the next week or so, as all of the 'Monday Morning Quarterbacks' come out of the woodwork to criticize every poor play and missed opportunity. I will most definitely be avoiding all sports talk radio stations for the next couple of weeks.

As for me, I try to find the silver lining. With the Eagles it will be in the way they played for the last six weeks of their season, when they had to win nearly every week to keep their season alive. They won most of those games, and it was a fun time to be a fan.

To me, Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid showed that they are still among the best quarterbacks and head coaches in the league, and some strong young players leave me believing that next season will be a strong one for the team. So football is over for 2009 here in Philadelphia. Only the Arizona-Pittsburgh meeting in the Super Bowl remains for the NFL.

Tomorrow will be an even bigger challenge for me in trying to find a silver lining. Today marks the final day of the Presidential administration of George W. Bush.

Ann Coulter is Guilty as Charged

For over a decade now, conservative writer Ann Coulter has been directing her sharp wit and keen mind as well as her biting sense of humor at everything that liberals hold dear.

Coulter has emerged as the single most articulate and beloved voice of the far right in American politics, and the honesty and clarity of her works has gained her fans across the vast conservative Republican populace.

Her latest book titled "Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America" generally covers just what it says in that title.

"Guilty" speaks of the 'victim mentality' prevalent in all liberal quarters, and that has been particularly embraced by the Democratic Party over the past few decades.

The libs and the Dems take segments of society who feel they have been victimized by the American culture and government, embrace them, and tell them that they, the Democrats, will take care of all of their problems. They care about the 'victims', and will make sure that these 'lowly' have a 'voice' if elected.

What the liberal Dems never mention, of course, is that the vast majority of these 'victims' have created or exacerbated their own situations. The 'culture' or 'government' or 'the man' or 'the system' had absolutely nothing to do with it.

We're Not Supposed to Mention Race....But I'm Gonna

When evaluating someone as a person, or professionally, or for a position, their race should not matter, right? Almost everyone would agree with this statement. Not all people, but most everyone, no matter their background.

Certainly this would be most folk’s public posture. Race should not matter. But does it?

I put it to you that it most certainly does, and for proof we need look no further than yesterday’s Democratic Party primary on the Democrats side.

In that primary there were two candidates. Two “people” were battling for the votes of the Democrats in the Keystone State. One “person” was named Hillary Clinton; the other was named Barack Obama.

That’s who was running…two “people.”

So why then did exit polling show that 92% of black voters cast their ballots for the candidate named Obama? What did this “candidate” have that the other did not to gain that large a backing from any single constituency?