Computer Problems
I have been fighting a nasty computer virus on and off for the last two weeks. After my last post, the virus returned and I have been unable to fix it. Today the computer heads into the shop for two or three days so I will not be around much until I get it back. I apologize for not being able to respond to the comments, I will try to catch up when I am back online.
If an issue arises that I feel compelled to write about I will write a mobile post. See you all again soon.
Harry Reid apologizes for calling Barack Obama a “negro”
Those who oppose the president’s agenda and those who have joined the tea party movement across the country have been attacked for being racists. Why else would anyone not like Barack Obama? If you do not like him or his agenda you are a bigot, that is how we are being portrayed on an almost daily basis. We have heard it all, even before the election by those that said too many white people would not vote for Barack Obama because of his color for him to be electable. They were wrong.
The opposition by most people to this president’s agenda is based on just that– his agenda. Those who join the tea party movement also joined for the same reason– his agenda. It has nothing to do with race and it never has, but the supporters of Barack Obama knew that this movement was legitimate and they knew that it had the potential to derail the president’s agenda so instead of having an honest debate the left tried to attack those who oppose the president in the most convenient means possible– be branding us as racists.
Naturally there are those who oppose Barack Obama because of his race and there are those who have joined the tea party movement because of his race– but they are few and far between. The vast majority of those who oppose the president do so because of what he represents, not what he looks like. But there are racists from and in all walks of life and you can tell quite a bit about a person by his or her words in an unscripted moment. This leads us to Harry Reid.
Here is what Harry Reid said about Barack Obama several months ago when he did not think that his words were going to be used in a book:
he called Barack Obama a “light-skinned” African-American who lacked a “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,”
Now that would appear to be the words of a racist to me, there is no other explanation for Harry Reid’s comments. It is blatantly racist, not only that, Harry Reid is calling Barack Obama a phony. By mentioning that Barack Obama talks in a different manner depending on the people he is talking to– and isn’t that what Harry Reid is accusing Barack Obama of doing– he is implying that Barack Obama is a Chameleon looking to change who he is or who he appears to be in front of different people.
Harry Reid has apologized— and the president has accepted his apology– for his “poor choice of words,” but not for the sentiment that those words conveyed. Does he actually feel they way that he said he did? Is he only sorry for the words that he used in conveying that sentiment? One has to wonder; as I said, you can tell quite a bit about a person by what he says in an unscripted moment. Yet top Democrats are defending Harry Reid, even going as far as to claim that he meant it in a positive manner and claiming that Barack Obama was “recognizing in Senator Obama a great candidate and future president.” I am not sure how you can spin Harry Reid’s comment to mean anything other than what his comment implies.
There is a double standard at play here, we all know that. While the people who joined the tea party for legitimate reasons, and who oppose the president based on the issues, have to endure false claims of racism, we have a man– the leader of the Democrat party in the senate, no less– who made a clearly racist and derogatory remark. he made that remark because he thought that nobody would ever find out about it and he has now apologized only because the American people did find out about it. Yet the same people who are making the fraudulent claims about the tea party movement are strangely silent on Harry Reid’s racist remark. They are circling the wagons around Harry Reid and defending him because they claim he can not possibly be a racist because his record indicates that he has done so much for minorities.
To the defenders of Harry Reid I would ask, is it at all possible that Harry Reid finds minority groups essential to his re-election? Is it possible that he has been using these groups and feigned support for these groups in spite of how he actually feels about them to further his political career? If Harry Reid did not find minority groups essential to his remaining in power would he have still done as much to help the “negro?” Or would he more publically display the animosity towards them as he did to Barack Obama in private when he thought nobody would hear him?
Even if we give Harry Reid the benefit of the doubt and we accept the fact that he is sorry and that he harbored no ill feelings to Barack Obama, what does his statement about Barack Obama say about Obama’s integrity that he thinks Obama is willing to change who he appears to be based on who he is talking to?
This case highlights perfectly the juxtaposition between those that oppose the president based on his policies and how they are portrayed and perceived as racists, with a man who has made blatantly racists comments and is forgiven simply because of party affiliation.
Timothy Geithner to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee about his role in the AIG bailout
It appears that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has more than just tax evasion problems. He could be a much bigger criminal than just a tax cheat. While he was in charge of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the bank was told to withhold details from the public about AIG’s payments of bailout funds to the banks.
Timothy Geithner claims that he had no knowledge of what was going on right under his nose, and that he was not responsible for the coverup that AIG and Goldman Sachs, along with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, seemed to have been engaged in.
I am not going to sit here and pretend that I understand what all of this means, but it appears as if billions of AIG’s bailout money was diverted to Goldman Sachs, and I do know one thing– this is something that has to be investigated. We are talking about billions and billions of taxpayers dollars and the American people need to know who is responsible for this scandal.
And we are going to get the investigation that we deserve. Timothy Geithner is going to be called to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee about his role– or non-role– in the bailout of AIG.
With the news that the would be Flight 253 terrorist, Abdulmutallab, is to be tried in civilian court and has received a taxpayer funded lawyer, comes this report that more than 20 Republican senators have signed a letter to Barack Obama opposing the civilian trial of Abdulmutallab. The letter is still being circulated through the senate for more signatures and then it will be sent to the president.
These senators prefer the path that any president who is serious about defending America from terrorism would have taken– labeling Abdulmutallab an enemy combatant and trying him before a military tribunal.
Abdulmutallab’s offense was much more than just a criminal offense; his offense was an act of war against the United States and it should be treated as such. But this administration is treating Abdulmutallab as if he is nothing more than a criminal. It is time to get serious about this issue. Barack Obama, and the American people, dodged a huge bullet on Christmas day and it should have served as notice that this war is not over and it is not going to end anytime soon. The president should have taken the warning that he was given by Abdulmutallab and used it to show the world that he is strong and serious on the issue of terrorism and the defense of the United States.
Instead the government has provided Abdulmutallab with the very rights that he opposes– United States citizen’s right– and given him a lawyer at taxpayer expense so that he can use the United States as a stage to embarrass us in front of the world. He is going to use the very system that he supposedly is fighting against because we do not consider he and his ilk as a serious threat to the United States any more.
It is good to know that we have at least 20 senators that take this issue seriously and it will be interesting to see how many more sign this letter, and who they are. This is not going to change the mindless decision that was made in this case but hopefully the president will learn from his multiple blunders and if there are any future attempts made on America’s soil perhaps he will handle it better.
With the Christmas day and Fort Hood attacks, Barack Obama already has two strikes against him, he cannot afford a third. Neither can the American people. If he continues to be weak on this issue, the enemy will not be afraid to continue.
Flight 253 aftermath: Director of the National Counterterrorism Center remained on the ski slope after hearing of the attack
Barack Obama has taken quite a bit of heat– at least on the internet, if not in the mainstream media– for failing to leave the golf course or his vacation in Hawaii to address the public about the Christmas day Flight 253 terror attack– and rightfully so. This man could not be bothered by an issue that he takes as lightly as national security to cut short his round of golf, nevermind his vacation. Three days after the attack the president finally decided that he should probably say something while Americans were being delayed at airports all across the country, dealing with an issue themselves that the president deemed unworthy of responding to.
As inappropriate as the president’s non-reaction to the Flight 253 terror attack was, there was another man that could not be bothered to cut short his vacation to address the issue of terrorism, and this man’s inaction may be even more alarming and unforgivable than was the president’s. This man was too busy skiing in Colorado to give a damn if America was under attack from a radical Islamic Jihadist.
The man’s name is Michael Leiter, and in case you were wondering why I find his non-response to the Flight 253 terror attack so despicable it is because this man is the head of the National Counterterrorism Center. This is the organization was created after September 11th and is responsible for assessing terror plots against the United States. Yet this man– who was appointed by George Bush– was having too much fun on vacation to be bothered with coming home and doing his job. Maybe if he was doing his job before he went on vacation this attack wouldn’t have come so close to succeeding.
I am beginning to wonder if anyone in our government takes the issue of terrorism seriously. If the man in charge of the National Counterterrorism Center doesn’t take the issue serious enough to cut short his vacation, we are left wondering, who does? It is disheartening to see such a lack of leadership, and a void of the feeling of responsibility in those leaders that goes along with it coming from the people that are supposed to keep us safe.
Somebody has to be held accountable, and the president is trying to have it both ways; on one hand he agrees that someone must be held accountable, but on the other he claims that now is not the time for finger pointing or accessing blame. I will place blame, other than Janet Napolitano, and Barack Obama himself, Michael Leiter deserves a lion’s share of the blame here.
Barack Obama supports taxing healthcare benefits
Barack Obama is in the final push to sign some form of healthcare reform into law; he is so desperate to pass something– anything– that he is abandoning all of his campaign promises on this issue. He recently held a meeting with House Democrats in which he told them that the Senate version of the healthcare bill would have to be accepted virtually unchanged by the House in order for the Senate to hold onto the 60 votes needed to pass it. During this meeting he let it be known that the House would have to drop its opposition to taxing “Cadillac” healthcare plans; in other words, Barack Obama favors taxing these “Cadillac” plans.
Under the House bill, higher income families would have their income taxes raised to help pay for healthcare reform, but the Senate plan takes a different route; under the Senate plan higher income families would not be taxed at a higher rate, instead people who have these so-called “Cadillac” healthcare plans would have to pay taxes on these plans.
Barack Obama favors taxing these “Cadillac” plans over raising the taxes of wealthier Americans. I find that very interesting, especially after watching the following video from the campaign trail:
When talking about John McCain’s healthcare reform proposal that included a tax on healthcare benefits he called the idea, “so radical, so out of touch.” He ridiculed John McCain’s proposal on numerous occasions during the campaign, but now Barack Obama has thrown his support behind the very proposal that he once called “radical” and “out of line with our basic values” and “out of touch” with ordinary Americans and “what you are going through.”
He has chosen this proposal over what his stated campaign position was– to tax wealthier Americans. Instead, he will tax middle class Americans who make far less than the $250,000 threshold that he claimed would see no tax increase whatsoever.
He went on to say that if healthcare benefits are taxed, many employers will drop their healthcare benefits and that many Americans will lose the healthcare that they have through their workplace, yet he still claims that under his healthcare reform plan all Americans that like their insurance will be able to keep it.
If he adopts John McCain’s plan to tax healthcare benefits and he was telling the truth about employers chosing to drop healthcare coverage, how is it possible for Americans to keep their insurance if they like it but their employer drops it?
When John McCain proposed this idea it was “radical” and “out of touch” but now that Barack Obama supports it himself, it is “change that we can believe in.”
Seriously, this man has lost whatever credibility he had left. No wonder that Nancy Pelosi is bullshit at him.
Barack Obama is a walking contradiction, so I give you some Green Day lyrics from the song of the same name that sum up Barack Obama perfectly:
Do as I say not as I do because
The shit so deep you can’t run away
I beg to differ on the contrary
I agree with every word that you say
Talk is cheap and lies are expensive
My wallet’s fat and so is my head
I have no belief
But I believe
I’m a walking contradiction
The Obama administration reported stimulus money being spent in zip codes that do not exist
Back in November it was learned that the Obama administration was crediting jobs that were either saved or created in congressional districts that did not exist. We were told that these were just errors that were made by the people who were in charge of reporting the stimulus money that the districts received. The administration claimed that in many instances the people who were in charge of receiving and reporting the stimulus money did not know which congressional district they belonged to. That is pretty scary– if you believe it– how can the government hire people to track stimulus money who do not know what the congressional districts are that they are in charge of reporting?
Needless to say, it is hard– nearly impossible– for someone who is as cynical about the federal government as I am, to honestly believe that there was not more to this story than the Obama administration is letting us know about. It is quite possible that the administration was skewing the numbers to make the stimulus look more effective than it actually was. I just find it too hard to believe that an administration– even an administration as incompetent as Barack Obama’s administration– would not hire people who are at least responsible enough to properly report where the stimulus money is being spent.
But the story does not end there; in addition to the news that the jobs saved or created numbers were being credited to congressional districts that do not exist, we have now learned that there was millions of dollars sent to zip codes that do not exist.
There are only two reasons that stimulus money is being reported as having been sent to zip codes that do not exist; One, in the worst case scenario, this is fraud that is being perpetrated in order to inflate the effectiveness of the stimulus bill, or two; in the best case scenario, the people that have been hired to track the stimulus money are incompetent.
I stated that option two was a better case scenario than option one; the question is, is it really? Is is better that the Obama administration has people working for it that are so incompetent that they do not know what zip codes they are in charge of, or is it better that the Obama administration is purposely inflating the numbers by purposely reporting money that has been sent to zip codes that do not exist?
Neither of these scenarios is very appealing, and it doesn’t give you a feeling of trust in the government that is on the cusp of running the healthcare system. Does it?
Chris Dodd announces he will not seek Re-election
Chris Dodd is going to hold a press conference later on today in which he is expected to announce that he will not seek re-election. This news comes directly on the heels of the announcement by another longtime Democrat senator, Byron Dorgon, that he will not seek re-election.
Chris Dodd was in trouble, he faced a very tough re-election bid, his sweetheart mortgage deal from beleaguered Countrywide Mortgage did not help him in the eyes of his constituents. He looks be leaving the senate in order to let a more popular Democrat candidate run in his place thereby giving the Democrats a better chance at keeping his seat.
But there is another aspect of these two recent announcements that I want to take a look at. In the last 24 hours we have had two longtime Democrat senators announce that they will not run for re-election.
This is a time when Democrats should be riding high; they have what should be an unstoppable 60 vote super majority in the senate and an overwhellming majority in the House, but yet they just cannot get united on the issues.
They have not been able to unite on healthcare and cap and trade, and they certainly can’t unite behind the president’s inept, uncaring response to the two terrorist attacks that have happened on United States soil. At a time when the Democrats should be more united than ever, the fissures are growing in the party and they are actually pulling farther apart than they ever were.
But then something else struck me, because the Democrats have been united for so long, something had to have changed. And what changed is this; they no longer have the opposition of George Bush to united behind. The Democrats were united in their opposition to George Bush and now that he is gone and they are in power, they are finding it much harder to legislate than it is to just stand in opposition. They no longer have that single issue that they can all agree upon and because of this they are getting nothing done.
With the election coming up later this year Democrats are looking out for themselves and their best interests; they have not been able to unite behind Barack Obama because the American people are growing dissatisfied with his radical agenda, and they cannot run against George Bush again.
So in a time when it should be the easiest to be a Democrat in congress, when they should be able to easily pass their agenda, they are struggling. They are struggling and their poll numbers are dropping and because of this we have two longtime Democrats who will not run for re-election.
If things were going as smoothly for the Democrats as they should be at this point, this would not be happening, but they are frustrated and they are growing demoralized.
Nancy Pelosi takes a jab at Barack Obama’s campaign promises
Emerging from a closed door meeting, the leader of the House’s most open and honest session in history, Nancy Pelosi, faced the reporters. When Nancy Pelosi was challenged to air the healthcare reform debates on television, and when she was reminded that it was Barack Obama who as a candidate promised to run the most open administration in history, she had an interesting response. She said, “there are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail.”
This seemed to be a little jab at the president for not quite living up to all of the promises he made during the campaign. There seems to be a little sarcasm in Nancy Pelosi’s response, and it turns out that Nancy Pelosi is indeed a little miffed with Barack Obama.
As we can read here, Nancy Pelosi is not too happy with the pressure that is being put on her to accept the senate version of the bill in its entirety, while being asked to throw away the bill that the House worked so long on.
Nancy Pelosi is particularly upset about the tax that the senate bill will apply to people who have “Cadillac” healthcare insurance plans. She views this as a broken promise by Obama because there are many middle class union members who have these plans, and they will be taxed.
There are still many issues that have to be worked out on healthcare reform, and all of these issues are within different factions of the Democrat party. The pro-life and pro-choice Democrats have issues, as do the public option and non-public option Democrats. And now we have Nancy Pelosi publically taking shots at Barack Obama in much the same manner as she did when President Bush was in office. Meanwhile, the Republicans remain united against the bill and can just sit back and watch the Democrats fight it out with each other.
It is fun to watch, and I think the rift that appears to be growing between Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama is symptomatic of a larger problem that is growing in the Democrat party. They have a super majority and yet they still can’t pass anything without fighting with each other. As the polls get worse for the Democrats and as more and more people turn away from them, I expect to see their infighting become more intense as they begin to look out only for themselves as the election draw closer.
Freed GITMO detainees are flocking to Yemen to rejoin the fight
It certainly seems as though the war on terror overseas contingency operation is spiralling out of control. In light of recent events; the would be Christmas day bomber, who was only stopped by his own ineptitude and the quick thinking of passengers, and the recent abandonment of the United States embassy in Yemen are the most glaring examples of this and coupled with this report that freed GITMO detainees are heading to Yemen to retake arms against the United States should have Barack Obama rethinking his GITMO policy.
At least twelve former GITMO detainees are currently in Yemen either training to fight against us or are already fighting against us.
A Yemeni, Hani Abdo Shaalan, who was released from Guantánamo in 2007, was killed in an airstrike on December 17, the Yemeni Government reported last week. The deputy head of al-Qaeda in the country is Said Ali al-Shihri, 36, who was released in 2007. Ibrahim Suleiman al-Rubaish, who was released in 2006, is a prominent ideologue featured on Yemeni al-Qaeda websites.
These men were all released under the Bush administration– some into Jihad rehabilitation centers– and Barack Obama would do well to learn from the previous administration’s failures on the GITMO inmate release program that so far has seen quite a disturbing trend of former inmates who return to the battle.
To be exact, 74 former GITMO detainees are known to have returned to the battle.
The US Government issued figures in May showing that 74 of the 530 detainees in Guantánamo were suspected or known to have returned to terrorist activity since their release. They included the commander of the Taleban in Helmand province, Mullah Zakir, whom the British Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Jock Stirrup, called “a key and seemingly effective tactical leader”. Among others who returned to terrorism was Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti who killed six Iraqis in Mosul in 2008.
This is a disturbing trend from a disturbing policy and it looks to only get worse under the Obama administration. With the knowledge that the would be Christmas day bomber has been arrested and sent to a civilian jail– instead of to GITMO where he belongs– and was given a taxpayer funded lawyer and United States constitutional rights, the terrorists certainly have to be gaining confidence that the Obama administration just does not take this issue seriously enough. At least President Bush realized that these men did not deserve constitutional rights, that is why they were detained at GITMO in the first place and while President Bush should never have allowed them to return to the front, Barack Obama is preparing to shut down the facility completely.
And these were the inmates that were considered less of a threat to return to terrorism, the inmates still at GITMO are the ones that the Bush administration considered the most dangerous of the detainees. It is time for Barack Obama to get serious on the issue of terrorism. While he is trying to prove to the world that America is now a kinder, gentler nation, he is in actuality showing the terrorists that America is a weaker nation that can be attacked. And the attacks are rising.
It is time for Barack Obama to get tough, it is time to show our enemies that we will not back down. This is the only language that they understand. But the administration’s stated goal of closing GITMO, coupled with the fact that we are going to give our enemies the same rights as Americans has made America less safe. We seem to be caught in this mode of balancing the safety of the American people with the right ot the terrorists, instead of putting the lives of Americans first and foremost. It is Barack Obama sworn duty to provide for the national defense, not to worry about whether we are providing our enemies with rights that they do not have nor deserve. He seems to have forgotten that.
The terrorists are now laughing at us, they are not frightened at the thought of attacking us, in fact they have been emboldened. They have seized upon this opportunity and they plan on making the best of it.
GITMO needs to remain open and those who are caught planning or trying to attack America need to be handed over to the military for questioning, not be handed over to lawyers with full constitutional rights.
America's Watchtower 