When leftists are asked about the ugly process (which even Obama does not deny), they try to divert attention to their talking points about the supposed goods in the bill, i.e. the ends justify the means.  But if process is unimportant, then so too is the Constitution.  The Constitution is about process; it specifies how a bill becomes a law (Article 1 Section 7), and that does not include special deals/bribes nor does it include "deeming" it a law.  Furthermore, it does not permit the government to force you to buy something (health insurance is not the same as car insurance; you do not have to drive a car).  Have there been abuses of the Constitution before, by both parties?  Yes, but nothing of the scale that we are currently seeing, with Congress ready to make a massive change impacting one-sixth of our economy.  If it passes, this will be the first time in U.S. history such a big change was made without bipartisan support, and moreover without the people's support.

What about the end product?  The leftists pretend that it will reduce the deficit, while spending a trillion dollars to expand coverage to 30+ milliion people.  They cite the latest CBO report, but this report is based on assumptions that are not likely to be realized, e.g. 500 billion dollar cut to Medicare.  As even the CBO admits, there are too many variables to make accurate long-term estimates; note that most of the projected "savings" are in the second 10 year period, not the first, due to delayed tax increases.  "Overall, the government is inept at predicting healthcare spending. When Medicare was created in 1965, the government estimated that the cost of the program would be $12 billion by the year 1990.  In actuality, the program cost $110 billion in 1990, and to date costs $500 billion.  Also in 1965, Medicaid was created and was expected to cost $1 billion annually, but has developed into a $250 billion program.  If the CBO estimates are as inaccurate as predicted and this legislation is enacted, the stability of the American economy faces irreparable damage." [http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/3166-can-we-trust-the-cbos-healthcare-figures]

The leftists also pretend that health care quality will improve.  Consider that most doctors oppose Obamacare, and that we already are experiencing doctor and medical school shortages.  Do you believe that fewer (or even the same number of) doctors treating tens of millions of more patients will lead to an increase in quality, or rationing (as happens in all countries with socialized medicine)?

Countering leftist arguments that people in some other countries with socialized medicine live longer, Thomas Sowell points out the difference between health care and medical care: "Years ago, a study showed that Mormons live a decade longer than other Americans.  Are doctors who treat Mormons so much better than the doctors who treat the rest of us?  Or do Mormons avoid doing a lot of things that shorten people’s lives?  The point is that health care is largely in your hands.  Medical care is in the hands of doctors.  Things that depend on what doctors do — cancer survival rates, for example — are already better here than in countries with government-run medical systems."  [http://article.nationalreview.com/400562/unhealthy-political-habits/thomas-sowell]

Our health care system is not perfect; it needs reform but not an overhaul.  The myth propagated by the leftists is that the current system is free-market, unregulated capitalism controlled by greedy insurance companies.  First, insurance companies' profit margins are less than 4% [http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/08/25/why-health-insurers-make-lousy-villains.html].  Second, government already regulates insurance companies, requiring plans to cover things you may not need or want (e.g. drug rehabilitation) thus increasing your costs, and disallowing health insurers from competing across state lines [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574360923109310680.html].  Competition lowers costs and increases quality, so before we overhaul the whole system, why not try this and other common-sense reforms (such as tort-reform to reduce the defensive practices that are unnecessary and expensive, and perhaps encourage more people to enter the medical profession)?

In both process and substance, Obamacare lacks the support of the Constitution and the people.  The end product may satisfy ideologues who want us to move closer to government-run health care, and those individuals and groups that were bought and paid for in closed-door back-room deals (if the bill is so wonderful, why not convince people of its merits rather than bribing?), but it does not address the problems in our current health care system, and only makes them worse.

As members of the House of Representatives are preparing to vote imminently on "health care reform", it is important to consider the big picture of where we are heading.  Vladimir Lenin said “socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.”  Once the state has control over your health, it can control everything else.  Think that cannot happen here in the United States?  Our country's founders realized there are no guarantees.  After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, "What have you got?" and replied, "A republic if you can keep it."

I have a confession: I am a liberal...  in the classical sense of the word.  In the U.S., socialists tend to call themselves "liberals" or "progressives," as if they are for liberty or progress.  Who is not?  I do not doubt the good intentions of most "liberals" who promote ever-expanding social programs administered by an ever-expanding government to achieve collectivist goals (e.g. "social justice") without realizing that they are taking for granted our individual liberties.  Friedrich August von Hayek was an economist who earned his Nobel Prize.  He made the case in Road to Serfdom (and in his responses to his critics) how Socialism leads to tyranny and loss of individual liberty.  Hayek dedicated his book to the socialists in all parties; there are socialists not just on the left but also on the right.  He explained in his foreword to American readers that when he uses the term "liberal", he means it in the classical sense, and not the misnomer it has become in the U.S.

People are free to call themselves whatever they like.  So I have no problem with socialists calling themselves "liberals" or "progressives."  (Note: not all socialists in the U.S. do this; some are proud of who they are.)   But why should a non-socialist accomodate them by calling them a name that does not fit?  My New Year's resolution is to no longer use the term "liberal" to refer to a socialist, whose policies are not compatible with individual liberty.

Obama's default response to critics is "The notion that ____ is ridiculous" where the blank is filled in by whatever the critic said.  This is ironic considering Obama's many ridiculous notions.  For now, let's focus on the two subjects that are most relevant at this time: terrorism and health-care reform, and let's give him a taste of his own medicine (no pun intended) by using his language (notions and all) against him.  But unlike Obama, I am going to explain why the notions are ridiculous.

First, the notion that Obama understands that radical Islamic extremists are at war with us (and the rest of Western civilization) and is doing everything in his power to protect us... is ridiculous.  MSNBC tried to refute Dick Cheney's claim about Obama's lack of understanding by playing dozens of clips of Obama saying the word "war".  Yes, he knows about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  But does he know that these ongoing terrorist attacks are acts of war (motivated by radical Islamic ideology) and not simply isolated criminal acts?  Evidently not.  Obama would not even call the Fort Hood attack a terrorist act, and he described the al Qaeda terrorist who attacked on Christmas as an "isolated extremist" (the only way that makes sense is if Obama meant that he was the only extremist on the airplane).  More important than his words are his policies.  If preventing further terrorist attacks is your priority, would you detain and interrogate a captured terrorist, or treat him as a criminal and read him his Miranda rights?  Obama, by his actions (by choosing the latter, and doing everything in his power to prevent the kinds of interrogations that have thwarted terrorist plots), does not consider the prevention of further terrorist attacks a priority.  Surprised?  You shouldn't be; this was evident in the Saddleback forum prior to the election, when Obama did not even mention "al Qaeda", not even once, not even when asked "Does evil exist?" [See my 8-31-08 blog for further details on this.]

Also ridiculous is the notion that when Obama repeats a mistake that Bush made (such as trying Moussaui not in a military tribunal but in a civilian court, which not only led to a circus but also could have leaked sensitive intelligence had he not pleaded guilty), Obama's actions are defensible on the grounds that Bush did it too.  Did not Obama run for office as the anti-Bush?  Change you can believe in?   

Hopefully, Team Obama's mistake-filled response (the system worked very well... no it failed miserably... it was an isolated incident...) is just the result of their ignorance and not because his administration views this latest terrorist attack as just an inconvenience, impeding their progress on their top priority: health-care reform.

The notion that the bills pushed by the Democrats in Congress will reduce costs, while expanding coverage, increasing quality of care, and preserving/increasing choice and competition, is ridiculous.  The so-called reduction of the deficit happens via accounting tricks: taxes start right away while the program doesn't start until 2014, and the assumption of a 500 billion dollar cut to Medicare.  Depending on whether this cut is actually made, the bill would either reduce senior care or increase costs.  The Democrat leadership, by promising all things to all people, does not acknowledge that there are tradeoffs.  Even a New York Times article acknowledges that Obama's goals cannot be achieved with the number of doctors that we have, though this problem is just seen as an "obstacle" [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/health/policy/27care.html ]. 
There are shortages of primary-care doctors and medical school students; Steven Safyer, president and chief executive officer at New York's Montefiore Medical Center said "Do the math.  You give millions more people insurance, and it adds up to a much worse shortage"
[ http://news.aol.com/health/article/medical-school-plan-wont-end-doctor/822553icid=main|main|dl5|link1|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Fhealth%2Farticle%2Fmedical-school-plan-wont-end-doctor%2F822553 ].  So Obamacare doesn't work with our number of current doctors and pipeline of future doctors; now consider this:  45% of doctors surveyed said they would consider quitting if Congress passes a health care overhaul [ http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=506199 ].  This is a recipe for disaster.   

In other countries that have socialized medicine, the results are vast new government bureaucracies (we need more of those, right?) that are costly and inefficient, lack of incentives for medical innovations [ http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649 ], decreased access to quality care, and rationing of care by government bureaucrats (e.g. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence or NICE as it is ironically abbreviated).  International comparisons establish that the most important factors in cancer survival are early diagnosis, time to treatment and access to the most effective drugs; some uninsured cancer patients in the United States encounter problems with timely treatment and access, but a far larger proportion of cancer patients in Europe face these troubles; the data show that cancer patients live longer in the United States than anywhere else on the globe [ http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596 ].

If the Dems truly believed their stated goals of reducing costs and increasing competition, why do they not support (as Republicans have) allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines, which would increase choice from a handful of companies to hundreds of companies?  Is it because the priority is not to bring costs down, but rather to move towards a single-payer system under government control?  Perhaps this video will answer the question for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ-6ebku3_E&feature=player_embedded .  The video shows Obama saying in October 2003, when he was running for the U.S. Senate, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program.” He adds, “We may not get there immediately,” noting the Democrats must “take back” the White House and both houses of Congress — a condition fulfilled last Jan. 20.  Campaigning for president in May 2007, he says, “But I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately.” That seems to imply that his goal remains the same as it was in 2003. “There’s going to be potentially some transition process — I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out, where we’ve got a much more portable system.” Which of course government health insurance would be. You couldn’t get away from it. The president’s defenders depict this video and others like it as a patchwork of irrelevant and misleading statements. They also cite Obama’s oft-repeated pledges that any health care bill he would sign would let you keep the insurance you have. They don’t address the point, raised by Hacker in the video, that you can’t keep it if your employer stops offering it. [ http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Video-proof-Obama-wants-a-single-payer-system-52699182.html ]

The Dems in the above video (including Obama), in their own words, say the ultimate goal is single-payer government-run health care. So why do they say in the next breath that they want "choice and competition" ?  Because they hope to fool the American people into unwittingly supporting a plan that moves us closer to single-payer (as Obama said, it may take 10 or 15 or 20 years).
Thus far, the American people are not as dumb as these Dems think, as polls show two-thirds of Americans opposed to the Dems' health care proposals.   If the Dems' plan was so wonderful, they wouldn't need 2000+ pages filled with pork and earmarks (what does funding ACORN have to do with health insurance reform?), and they wouldn't have had to buy off the members of Congress and big players in the health industry. 

The notion that we should support the Dems' bill simply because it is historic is ridiculous.  It is indeed historic -- it is the first time in history that it is a crime, for which you could go to jail, for not purchasing something (health insurance).  The notion often cited by the Dems that this individual mandate is analogous to the requirement to purchase car insurance is ridiculous.  You do not have to drive a car, and if you do drive, you could harm someone else (thus the requirement for liability insurance).   Our current system already limits your choices and increases your costs via mandates that require your insurance policy to cover things that you may not need/want (e.g. drug/alcohol rehabilitation) and regulations that prevent companies from competing across state lines.  The individual mandate in the proposed bill escalates the assault on your individual liberties in an unprecedented, perhaps unconstitutional, manner.  Does our system need reform?  Yes, but to solve a problem requires understanding the causes.  As with the economic collapse (see my 9-20-08 blog), government causes a problem and then arrogantly proposes to fix it without addressing the root causes, like an arsonist proposing to rebuild the house he burned down.

Finally, the notion that the Republicans did not offer a realistic alternative, that truly increases competition and reduces costs (unlike the Dems' plans), is ridiculous [ http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/CBO-Prepublican-health-plan-would-reduce-premiums--69270747.html ].

If you don't like my overuse of the word notion, why don't you complain when Obama does it?
The notion is ridiculous.

Remember Obama's and Democrats' promises of a new era of transparency?  That non-emergency legislation would be posted online for 5 days before a vote?  Well, the Senate Finance Committee voted down a GOP amendment that would require Obamacare legislation to be available online 72 hours before a vote.  Democrats are only allowing conceptual language to be available online before the vote.  The Congressional Budget Office cannot truly measure the cost impact without the actual legislation; the devil is in the details.  So why are the Dems hiding from their promises of transparency?  Could it be the backlash Democrats received at town halls from informed citizens who were quoting text of the bill that their "representatives" had not even read, and in the opinion polls that show most Americans opposing the Democrats' health care proposals?

The Senate Finance Committee is planning to vote on the Baucus bill tomorrow.  The Democrats want to pass health care legislation in a light so dim, they wouldn't even buy a suit in it.  

Obama: I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking.

First, who created the economic mess?  As even Chris Dodd and Bill Clinton acknowledged, it was the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that triggered this economic downturn.  Is Obama suggesting that Democrats did not play a role in this economic collapse?  On the contrary, prominent Democrats like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, etc are on the record resisting reforms and refusing to acknowledge problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (see documentation in my 9/20/08 blog, or just look up the videos yourself on youtube; search "Democrats Fannie Mae").  Not to mention the vast corruption and millions of dollars in donations (i.e. bonuses) received from Fannie Mae by Chris Dodd and Barack Obama.  Obama likes to whine about the previous eight years, and while it is true that the failed bailouts and TARP started under Bush, Obama voted for these as a senator!  Obama claims that he "inherited" something that he supported!  He can't have it both ways.

Second, what happened to our first amendment right to free speech?  When Hugo Chavez eliminated the last remaining voice of opposition in Venezuela (their version of Fox News), why didn't Obama issue a statement denouncing the Venezuelan dictator and supporting freedom of speech?  Is it because he wishes he could do what Chavez did, i.e. silence any dissenting views?

If Obama's words are to be taken literally, then ironically, he is telling himself and his cronies to stop talking, because as he said, the people who created the mess shouldn't talk.

 

 

Obama talks about a "new era of accountability", but if he really believed in accountability...

• He would call for hearings on the root cause of our economic crisis, i.e. the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Who ran these government sponsored entities into the ground, then propped them up and blocked reforms as they collapsed?  This would implicate prominent Democrats such as Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters... [ video implicating prominent Democrats with their own words ].  For further information, see my blog on September 20, 2008 below, titled "The road to economic hell is paved with the good intention of houses for all".
• He would return to the taxpayers the campaign contributions that he received from Fannie Mae and AIG.  Barack Obama is the second largest recipient of campaign contributions not only from Fannie Mae, but from AIG too.   "For politicians, campaign contributions act like 'bonuses' for a job well done."  [ article ]  So Barack Obama has received bonuses himself, in the form of campaign contributions, from the same companies whose bonuses he is condemning with a straight face.  He has implicitly condemned himself!
• He would not have hired a tax-cheat to run the IRS!
• Each time he breaks a campaign promise, he would explain why, rather than pretend he didn't ("I've consistently said all along...") or have his press secretary Gibbs say "That was just campaign talk."  The most prominent campaign promise broken by Obama thus far is the promise of transparency; he said that a new bill would be available for all to see for at least 5 days before a vote; the 800 page, 800 billion dollar stimulus bill was available for less than a day before it was voted on; even Democrats in congress admitted there was not enough time to read it [ article ].  Yet the Democrat-controlled congress approved it, without having read it!     

 

The founding fathers specifically did not want this country to be a monarchy. So tell me if we are not living in a monarchy. How can it be that the only qualification that you need to become a senator is a famous name and the "fundraising skill" of showing up? I think you know who I am talking about. On a separate note this is something that makes me very very angry. All of the people who say "give him a chance. ..show some respect... there is no link of implication" when they are talking about Obama. These are the same people who still to this day believe that Bush was never legitimately/legally the president of this country. Is that showing respect for the president? NO, they did not respect him for one second of the past 8 years. Every single day there were tons of disrespectful things happening, so many that it would take me a 100 pages to list all of them. I am not saying that everything that Bush did was good. I know that is not true. But we are still here and that is a BIG thing that they should acknowledge and give him credit for. But they won't because they can't. Yes it is true they are not physically/mentally able to acknowledge/give Bush credit for ANYTHING. I think we will find in the future that there is an actual mental disorder involved here that blocks them from doing so (I am not joking about that). That is the only possible explanation for their surprise at some people not blindly following the soon to be president. I have said this many times before and I will say it again. I DO NOT care what his or any other person's skin color is because I do not believe that a person's skin color has anything to do with how they do their job; that is absurd. Melanin has absolutely no link to brain power. If there is no mental disorder I would like to ask the people who blindly support Obama: why is it ok for you to question everything about a president and it is totally absurd that we ask a few questions about a president who never directly answered a 'difficult' question? If a person has nothing to hide and they did nothing wrong then they should not have a problem answering a few simple questions. They know that if any of these things happened to Bush or any of his people then they would eviscerate him. They would be calling for his head in the biggest hunt since the townspeople chased after Frankenstein's Monster. There would be such an uproar for him and everyone he ever knew to be in jail. Let me speak directly to the Obama supporters for a second here: I completely understand why you want him to be a great president; you have invested all of your hopes, dreams, and quite possibly a piece of your soul in him. That is why you can not possibly imagine that he could ever have done anything wrong. But I am sorry to break it to you; he is not some kind of super being, he is a human, and EVERY human does things that they regret later (you know that is true), and it is not possible if you live/ work in a stinking pile of crap, I don't care how good of a person you are/ claim to be, it is not possible to get out of it without smelling a little funky. I am not saying that he did anything wrong; however, the guy was his boss and it is perfectly natural to talk to your boss about who is going to replace you in your position (if you could make a suggestion for who would take your job
when you got a promotion you know you would). That does not mean he did anything wrong; it just means that he is handing this situation all wrong which makes him look a little guilty to some people. What he should have done is on the very first day that this whole thing started was come out and say "Yes of course I have talked to the governor about my replacement and I told him that I thought that _______ would make an excellent choice." That's it. That is all he would have to say and that would be acceptable.

One final thought. I hope and pray that the government (everyone in it) is successful in just one thing; keeping us (all of the citizens) safe from destruction, because that should be their only focus.

If you liked Jimmy Carter’s economic and foreign policies, you are going to love Obama and Biden.  First, the economy.  If you think things cannot get worse, we had double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment under the leadership of Obama’s ideological twin, tax-and-spend liberal Jimmy Carter.  Obama proposes a trillion dollars of new spending in the midst of an economic crisis.  Obama is campaigning on a middle-class tax cut, but the record shows that Clinton also campaigned on a middle-class tax cut when he ran for the White House and he did not keep his promise ( article ).  When you have a Democrat in the White House and a Democrat majority in congress, taxes on the middle class not only don’t go down; they go up, regardless of what was promised.  Clinton and the Democrats in congress raised taxes on people earning over $30,000; as Senator, Obama voted for tax increases on people earning as little as $42,000.  With Obama and Pelosi in charge, do you have any doubt that your middle-class taxes are going up?  The truly wealthy, such as Ted Kennedy and Charles Rangel, will still game the system to hide their monies and avoid paying taxes, and those who don’t pay any taxes right now will receive a check from Obama (thanks to Obama’s proposed “tax credits”); who is left?  The middle-class.  Moreover, as Dr. Walter Williams, economics professor of George Mason University, pointed out, if your house was on fire due to arson, would you trust the arsonist to fix it?   See Dr. Walter Williams’ article, “Lessons from the bailout”  ( http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/08/LessonsFromTheBailout.htm ).  If you need further proof that our current economic crisis was largely caused by Democrats (Bill Clinton, his appointees who ran Fannie Mae into the ground while enriching themselves, and Congressional Democrats such as Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, and Maxine Waters who encouraged banks to make risky loans in the name of “affordable housing”, despite warnings and reform efforts by some Republicans including Bush and McCain), see my 9/20 blog below, watch the following well-documented videos ( video #1 and video #2 ) and watch the C-Span video of Democrats covering up Fannie and Freddie ( video #3 ).  In his short career, Obama still managed to leave his fingerprints on this economic collapse as well.  He was the second largest recipient of money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and he was a lawyer, trainer and financial contributor to ACORN (whose political arm endorses Obama), a community-organization that pressured banks to lower credit standards for poor and minority customers, using a combination of militant tactics on the street and inside-strategy in Washington ( article ).  

On foreign policy, Obama says he is going to rely on Biden’s experience.  Biden consistently supported Jimmy Carter and his failed foreign policies.  Furthermore, Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Z. Brzezinsky, is now a foreign policy advisor for Obama.  Jimmy Carter’s response to the crisis in which Americans were held hostage by Iran was to send a letter to the Ayatollah Khomeini begging for him to show "magnanimity and compassion."  Khomeini laughed at our weakness.  He said, “America can’t do a thing”.  For 444 days, Americans were held hostage, paraded before the cameras in blindfolds, and were not freed until Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president.  Ronald Reagan believed in peace through strength, as did Teddy Roosevelt who said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”  Biden has a history of opposing efforts to get tough with Iran.  In fact, after 9/11, Biden said that "this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran."  Israel's Army Radio reported that Sen. Joe Biden told Israeli leaders in 2005 that they would have to accept a nuclear Iran.  He even voted against a resolution designating Iran's Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization and calling for tough sanctions against it, one of only 22 senators to do so.  For more than a decade, Biden has pushed for "engagement" with Tehran, as opposed to sanctions.  Biden is either sympathetic to Iran or he is their most useful idiot ( editorial ).  As Iran pursues nuclear weapons and poses an existential threat to democratic countries, there is no resistance from Biden (as discussed above) and Obama (who said he is going to rely on Biden’s “experience” and wants to meet radical leaders such as Ahmedinejad without preconditions).  Perhaps Obama would like to appeal to the Iranian leaders’ “magnanimity and compassion” as Carter did (without any stick) and failed.  “Speak loudly and carry no stick” would be an appropriate slogan for Obama-Biden’s foreign policy. 

Obama and Biden have demonstrated both in their economic and foreign policies that not only do they not understand the problems, they helped create the problems.  As Dr. Williams asked (see above), “Do you trust the arsonist to put out the fire?”  Doing something that has consistently failed in the past does not count as “change”.  Unless by “change”, you mean an economic depression and a nuclear Iran – those are the kinds of changes we can expect from Obama-Biden.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed, causing a monumental mess for our economy.  The collapse was largely due to too many loans to people who could not afford them.  Why did they do that?  Because that is what these government sponsored entities
were designed to do by congressional Democrats and the Clinton White House, with the goal of making mortgages available to more people.  Perhaps they meant well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  In 2006, McCain said, "For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.  I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.  I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation."
This legislation, which McCain co-sponsored, was blocked by Democrats like Barney Frank and Chuck Schumer.

Barney Frank, a long time opponent of reforming Fannie and Freddie, said "I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems...I regard them as great assets...I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis."  As head of the House Financial Services Committee (2007), Barney Frank "encouraged the companies to guarantee more 'affordable' mortgages, thus abetting their disastrous plunge into subprime and Alt-A loans. He also pushed for, and got, an increase in the conforming-loan limits to allow Fan and Fred to securitize and guarantee larger mortgages. And he pressured regulators to ease up on their capital requirements -- which now means taxpayers will have to make up that capital shortfall.  Mr. Frank has had many accomplices from both parties in his protection of Fan and Fred. But he was and is among the most vociferous and powerful. In any other area of American life, this track record would get a man run out of town. In Washington, he's hailed as a sage whose history of willful error will be forgotten faster than taxpayers can write a check for $200 billion" ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122091796187012529.html?mod=googlenews_wsj ). 

Fannie and Freddie, creations of the congressional Democrats and the Clinton White House (designed to make mortgages available to more people), have also been places for big Washington Democrats to go to work in the semi-private sector and pocket millions. The Clinton administration's White House Budget Director Franklin Raines ran Fannie and collected $50 million. Jamie Gorelick, Clinton Justice Department official (the same Gorelick who compromised our security in the mid-90's by raising the "wall" that prevented intelligence sharing among US agencies -- see my blog on 9/11 -- and the same Gorelick who Obama considered a candidate for Attorney General), was Vice Chair of Fannie Mae (despite no background in finance) during Fannie's big accounting scandal in 2002-2003 and took home $26 million.  Democrat Jim Johnson, who also pocketed millions as Fannie Mae CEO, was recently on Obama's VP search committee!  According to a July Washington Post profile, Obama also received advice from Raines, whose top priority as head of Fannie Mae was to make mortgages easier to get for people with poor credit, few assets and little money for a down payment; Raines had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." 

Republican Senator Jim DeMint proposed barring the companies from the lobbying and campaign contributions that have allowed them to buy political immunity all these years.  Fannie and Freddie bought off members of both parties, but in a very short time (only a couple years in the Senate) Barack Obama is second only to fellow Democrat Chris Dodd (the Senate Banking Chairman!) in the amount of money received from Fannie and Freddie.  No wonder that Obama, the self-proclaimed man of change, never proposed nor supported reforming Fannie and Freddie; he only pretends otherwise (and has the nerve to blame Bush and McCain who did propose reform) now that these entities have collapsed.  Bush and McCain, in 2003 and 2005 respectively, proposed to reform Fannie and Freddie but were blocked by liberal Democrats (and some liberal Republicans too -- they are known as RINOS, i.e. Republicans In Name Only) who wanted to make home mortgages available to all, and/or to continue lining their own pockets.  Who is going to hold the likes of Dodd, Frank, Schumer and Obama accountable for their actions and inactions?  If no one else, we as voters should hold them accountable, because we as taxpayers are the ones who have to pay to clean up the mess.

When ABC News anchor Charles Gibson asked Sarah Palin whether she agrees with the "Bush doctrine," Palin replied "In what respect, Charlie?"  Gibson acted as if there was only one meaning of the "Bush doctrine" and that it was "that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense."  Palin's response was consistent with the fact that there have been different versions of the Bush doctrine.  A front-page article in today's Washington Post is titled "Many Versions of Bush Doctrine: Palin's Confusion in Interview Understandable, Experts Say" ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091203324_pf.html ).  The "Bush doctrine" is a term that was invented by the media, and was first used by Charles Krauthammer to refer to Bush's position on the Kyoto protocol ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202457.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 ).  Version 2 was the "with us or against us" policy.  Version 3 was a doctrine of preemptive war.  The fourth and latest version is the freedom agenda, which draws upon JFK's inaugural pledge (the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty"), the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and Wilson's 14 points.

The Washington Post is generally a liberal paper, but it deserves praise not only for researching the facts on this issue, but for doing so in a front-page article today (not just on the opinion page)!  What about the so-called "paper of record," the New York Times?  Wrong.  (Note: I didn't put an exclamation point because it should come as no surprise that the NY Times was wrong.)  According to the NY Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/us/politics/12palin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin ), Gibson "informed" her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.'  By using the word "informed," the New York Times writer is agreeing with Gibson, thus making it very clear that either he too does not know what the Bush doctrine is, or he does but is only concerned with his cheerleading duties for Obama. 

Since we are talking about a "doctrine," a set of principles in a belief system, and it is "Bush's" doctrine, what does Bush consider to be his doctrine?  When asked how Bush would describe his doctrine, his press secretary Dana Perino replied, "The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor terrorists. . . . We will confront grave threats before they fully materialize and will fight the terrorists abroad so we don't have to face them at home. . . . We will counter the hateful ideology of the terrorist by promoting the hopeful alternative of human freedom."      

Today is the seventh anniversary of the worst attack on America.  Today is a day to reflect on what happened on September 11, 2001.  I remember trying to reach friends who I thought may have been at Ground Zero, to find out if they were OK.  When I could not reach them, I feared the worst, and could not rest until I heard from them.  Thousand of innocents were killed by Islamic terrorists who have been at war with us for years.  The 9/11 Commission concluded that they were at war with us but we were not at war with them.  In other words, pre-9/11, we were not defending ourselves in this war.  In the 1990s, al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers, and the USS Cole, and we did not respond.  September 11th, 2001 was a wake-up call to the existential threat facing us.  Finally, our nation began to defend itself from further attack: by fighting back on our enemies' soil, eliminating al-Qaeda's safe havens, disrupting their financial networks, and introducing reforms at home to make it more difficult for a future attempt to succeed. 

Terror plots have been thwarted by the U.S. government in December 2001, May 2002, September 2002, May 2003, June 2003, August 2004 (3 times), June 2005, August 2005, December 2005, February 2006, April 2006, June 2006, July 2006, August 2006, March 2007, May 2007, June 2007, and September 2007.  President Bush may not be popular right now; neither was Harry Truman (one of our greatest presidents) at the end of his term, but Bush did some things right; he recognized barriers that facilitated attacks on our country, and took vitally important steps to remove those barriers.  The communication barrier between our intelligence agencies and local law enforcement was removed by the Patriot Act.  A barrier to gathering intelligence in order to connect dots BEFORE an attack was removed by the NSA wiretapping program.  The NSA intercepted information about a planned attack on the Brooklyn Bridge and was required by provisions of the Patriot Act to communicate these intercepts to the NYPD, which then took steps to prevent the attack and arrest the man who was planning to destroy the bridge; this attack was thwarted in May 2003.  If, as liberals demand, a court's approval was sought before the wiretap, the Brooklyn Bridge would have been destroyed; the plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge was uncovered only after the wiretap; the NSA would have had to know in advance who was planning what in order to get a court's approval, and of course they did not know; that is why they were wiretapping in the first place!  This is an example of learning a lesson from 9/11 (prior to which we had missed the opportunity to follow the leads on the computer of the captured would-be 20th hijacker Moussaiu, due to the barriers discussed above), i.e. taking steps to prevent the next attack; our government has thwarted 20 attacks since 9/11/01.  It is a challenging task, because we must be right 100% of the time (the terrorists need only be right once), and we must not forget the lessons even when time passes without an attack, because the threat is still there waiting for us to let our guard down as we did pre-9/11. 

Today's editorial in the New York Post is appropriately titled, "NO MORE 9/11s."  Amir Taheri analyzes well the lessons of 9/11, and how Obama and McCain see 9/11 differently, in his column today ( http://www.nypost.com/seven/09112008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_lessons_of_9_11_128529.htm ).  Contrast this with an op-ed in today's New York Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/opinion/11Cohen.html?ref=opinion ) which blames Bush for everything and fails to acknowledge the  threats that we have overcome and the threats that we continue to face.  On this day, we remember and honor the innocent civilians and heroes who lost their lives as a result of 9/11/01.  We should never forget them and the lessons of 9/11.  George Santayana said that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

 

Now that McCain has surged ahead in the polls, suddenly Obama's campaign and its cheerleaders in the media are saying not to worry, polls change over time ("stay the course," as Bush was criticized for saying), so we should not put much weight on today's polls.  But Democrats like Obama and the Clintons rely heavily on polls to make their policy decisions; they have repeatedly changed their positions on important issues depending on the latest poll (and who they are currently talking to).  So if, as Democrats suggest now, the latest polls are to be dismissed because they are ephemeral, then so should the poll-driven (rather than principle-driven) decision-making process of their leaders.

"What a silly question", a reasonable person would say, "Of course the president's advisors should be qualified."  Every person, including the president, has gaps in his/her knowledge, and relies heavily on advisors to fill those gaps, so it should be obvious that a president's advisors should be knowledgeable about important things like our security and our economy.  Obama and McCain were both asked at the Saddleback forum who would be their top 3 advisors.  Obama said 1) his wife Michelle, 2) his maternal grandmother and 3) a list of senators. McCain said 1) General David Petraeus, “one of great military leaders in American history who took us from defeat to victory in Iraq,” 2) civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, “who can teach us all a lot about the meanings of courage and commitment to causes greater than ourself,” and 3) his economic adviser and eBay CEO Meg Whitman.  When our next president faces decisions affecting our military and our national security, would you want your president to consult General Petraeus or Michelle Obama?   When our next president faces decisions affecting our economy, would you want your president to consult someone who turned "a five-person business into a billion-dollar piece of the economy," or Obama's grandmother?

Our nation was attacked on September 11, 2001 and thousands of innocents were killed.  Since then, dozens of attacks were thwarted including an attempt to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge.  So it should be obvious that we need to stay on our guard, continue doing things that have helped keep us safe since 9/11/01 and remove barriers that are facilitating the next attack on us.  Should our national defense be a priority in this election?  "Of course," you say.  But in the Saddleback forum, with no teleprompters, how many times did Barack Obama mention "al Qaeda" or "national security"?  Zero!  Even when asked "Does evil exist?", Obama still did not mention "al Qaeda"!  How can we have confidence that this existential threat that we face is a priority for Obama if he does not even mention it once during the Saddleback forum?!  On the other hand, it is clear from McCain's responses as well as his background, that our national defense is his number one priority.  While it is true that Obama mentioned al Qaeda during his speech at the Democratic National Convention (in an unsubstantiated attack on McCain's willingness to go after Bin Laden), keep in mind that that was a prepared speech.  When Obama had the opportunity to speak for one hour without a script in the Saddleback forum, he failed to even mention what many Americans, including myself, consider our number one priority.  The Declaration of Independence says that our rights include "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  The order is important; life comes first!  Without life, there is no liberty and no pursuit of happiness.  Defending our lives from further attack must be priority #1.