Now, Now Bobby Jindal

You actually need to listen to Obama’s speech in order to address it properly.  I can’t really say that Governor Bobby Jindal was very successful about that.  He engaged in a lot of partisan blather in his “Republican response” to Obama’s speech.  Which I figured he would, so I was hitting the channel changer to something more interesting to watch once I finished feeding my dogs.  “Mega Disasters” on History Channel HD looked to be something of interest.  But I still caught the La. Guv’s. comments when he railed about how we couldn’t weaken our defenses.  Neither do we have the money for the money pit of the Star Wars missile shield which happened to have far more disappointing results for the amount of dollars spent on it.  So, let’s be realistic.  (With reference to Charles Krauthammer.)  And massive debt will not make us safer in a world suffering greatly from unstable economies.  President Obama stated clearly that pursuing the terrorists will be an objective, a quite primary objective.  So, I don’t see where he is weakening our defenses or going soft on foreign policy (with reference to Krauthammer).    Oh, that’s right, he will proceed to end those no-bid contracts where private contractors such as Haliburton could waste billions of taxpayers’ dollars in ways not accounted for today.  Right after that, the main HQ was moved to Dubai, one wonders why.

Bartlett was the GOP on board CBS special report on Obama’s address to Congress.  Bartlett for one began describing how any of the President’s plans would put the economy in the crapper.  Uh, excuse me, but I thought the economy already was! Further, that the people would become divided.  Wasn’t that something the GOP once delighted in, division?  Which begs the question,  is this all about the American people or is it in reality the “base,” that Bartlett is appealing to?

Jindal’s response to education was to shove aside the whole idea of a public school system and provide taxpayer dollars to religious institutions for schools as well as privatized charter schools.  Isn’t that nice?  School choice should include people preferring public schools and not just religious or anything that business interests are pushing instead.  But, if you are going to eliminate funding for the former, you don’t really provide school choice.  And you do provide a climate for indoctrination.

What got me highly amused, was that even after Jindal complained about the massive stimulus plan, he still plans on holding his hand out for money out of our collective pockets.  Some, “Republican response.”

What does Indiana have to teach?

The Hoosier spirit.  That’s what Cal Thomas chose to call it.  What I picked up toward the end of his commentary was a sports metaphore.  Where an Indiana sports team picked up a new coach and then went on to see a brighter future.  I’m assuming that this is his latest typical slam against the Obama administration and the massive gvt intervention and investment into the U.S.  All this country needed was a new coach…

That’s funny.  I thought that’s what we were doing on 4 November 2008.  We were getting ourselves a new coach.  A new coach with a new vision to encourage people to get back up on their feet and get moving again.  Oh, that’s right, all of a sudden Thomas is anti-gvt again.  All of a sudden, the people should engage in self-gvt rather than asking the Dem congressional majority and a Dem president for help.  That’s interesting, the recently homeless because of home foreclosures only need a new coach who will give them a new vision…  It still takes money, and if you are jobless and homeless new visions had better come with a payday.  That’s why Obama and the Dems got voted into office.  Which makes the argument that in this commercial world, you can’t just put two sticks together to build a new home, or plant two bricks side by side if you haven’t bought them first and don’t have a place to put them.  Some Hoosier vision, huh?  And if the private sector doesn’t want to invest in this nation, who will, if not the gvt?

CNN’s the Political Ticker put out a Senator McCain statement on its blog site and of course it would seem that most people responding had no nice things to say about the man.  Reminding each other that McCain did lose the election, he was involved in a savings and loan scandal and etc.  Comments already being closed for the article, this is what I have to say:  McCain is a member of the minority party for a reason.  That reason happened to be GW Bush.  At what point in time did tax cuts assure the hiring of Americans?  GW was more than happy to gloat about an increase in GNP based on what exactly?  The fact that his business buddies, the people who bought his office for him were achieving great personal wealth?  At the same time as the GNP was reported to be going up, American jobs were being shed.  So, after all this time, given the economic mess we have now, upon what do we trust with the facts?  It can’t be that of the GOP who rubberstamped GW at every turn and didn’t bother investigating the white wash.  GW and his new ownership philosophy as to home ownership.  And those mortgage companies that took advantage of such a market philosophy and exploited the desire of the American public to get a slice of that American dream.  “60 Minutes” had such an exposé on the 15 February 2009.  Wachovia had bought up a mortgage company featured in this exposé and folded soon after.  Why?  Because the company after bilking hundreds, maybe thousands of prospective home owners, turned toxic.  Wachovia couldn’t handle that.  Would’ve been nice if McCain had taken the time to look at that.  The obstructionist GOP minority in Congress most certainly acted like they didn’t.

Watched Obama signing the stimulus package into law today.  Among the people stepping up to the podium to introduce this package, a green tech business owner, Blake I think.  He did not have a problem with gvt helping out his business, the Governor, Ritter didn’t have a problem with some of that federal money heading toward his state, period.  I’d also say that the state of Idaho doesn’t have a problem getting its share of the taxpayers’ loot.  While condemning those who do the robbing Peter to pay Paul routine.  It figures.

If I were president

We all know that President Obama does not have that many years in Washington, D.C. before he developed the ambition to run for that office. So? The last two presidents with absolutely no experience in Washington, D.C.: Bill Clinton and G.W. Bush, developed the ambition to run for the office of the presidency and without a doubt showed what their lack of experience accomplished, in their vetting of cabinet positions, in many of their policy positions, even in how they worked with Congress.  We Americans managed to weather the topsy-turvy Clinton administration just fine.  Even with the Lewinsky as mistress scandal, or despite it, there are people now who look back on his presidency as a far better time than we had in the last 8 years of GW.  With GW, we saw a fellow heading toward his retirement who still acted far too young to fill his elderly father’s shoes in the same office his father held.  But then, Kathleen Parker never described the president many derided as a “chimp” or “shrub” as being immature.  She leaves that for the much younger African-American president, Barack H. Obama.

What if I were president?  A person about a decade older than he is who is not a politician, never ran for office, and wouldn’t have political experience anywhere.  Would I try for a cleaner more ethical administration?  Given the last 8 years most assuredly.  Would I be pitch perfect in bringing people to the cabinet, staff, perhaps even a judgeship who couldn’t be challenged on ethical standards?  Absolutely not.  Would I try to work with the political opposition?  Absolutely.  And if the political opposition were voted into a minority status because my party won; demonstrated a refusal to leave partisanship behind; would I be inclined to say, “I won and you need to get over yourselves,” absolutely.

After all, the GOP can count among their numbers the dude who sang a crude parody of “Puff the Magic Dragon;” titled “Obama the magic negro.”  They wanted for their veep a woman who classified foreign policy experience number 1 as being neighbors with Russia.  They wanted for their president a fellow who couldn’t decide which “straight talk express” he was going to ride on that day throughout the long campaign. Their “base” exhibited pure childish hatred at the very idea that an African-American could ascend to the highest office in the land and more as a Democrat besides.  And since Obama has entered the presidency, the childish hatred of what the GOP “base” presumes are his policies a little more than 3 weeks into his presidency—being “socialist”—have been vented in letters to the editors in local papers.

If I were president, I could definitely expect such slings and arrows from such people.  It would in fact take a strength of will to withstand such petty hatred and make every effort to do the work of the nation.  But, where I, like Obama would have the immediate awareness, maturity, and even wisdom to say that I screwed up when it came to people filling my cabinet or policy decisions made wrongly; I’d find it totally amazing that political columnists such as Kathleen Parker might overlook that and instead nitpick over problems that will inevitably arise in any administration.  And plagued all of GW’s administration throughout his entire 8 years in office.  And by the way, GW rewarded failure.

Senator Judd Gregg made it official that he pulled out of the position of Commerce Secretary solely on the basis of what he didn’t like with the stimulus package.  He didn’t vote, which means he didn’t participate in its final drafting, but he decided to let his partisan colors show over accepting a cabinet position and being a voice for the GOP in the Obama administration.  I would hardly call that a level of maturity.  And a GOP who engage in childish rants that Gregg was “selling out” if he did accept such a position, my argument becomes, I don’t see you as a party relevant enough to reclaim governing status any time in the near future.

If I were president at a time when this nation were facing economic turmoil as it does now, my first focus would be on what I could do about it.  I might not choose a stimulus plan where this nation already suffers a massive debt, but I could insist on laws passed to bring American based businesses home and rehire an American workforce.  To create incentives for new cutting edge technologies.  Any spending package would be to repair critical infrastructure such as roads and bridges.  As a Republican, I would attempt to rebuild a military weakened greatly by fighting two wars.  Education?  Health care?  In better times I’d prefer to leave that to the states.  But, a presidency in tough times such as we now have, I might just agree with Democrats in Congress that some funding would be required.  Funding to the states had been done before, even GOP governors and mayors are absolutely supportive of getting federal dollars.  But how much?  And what would it take to begin refilling the U.S. Treasury?  Can I begin a presidency where the GOP mantra of tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts all the time would become just as burdensome to the next generation as Obama’s spending package assures today?  Or would I have to argue—at the risk of being called a “socialist”—that until this country is no longer a debtor nation, tax cuts are something we can’t afford?

Obama has been president for all of three weeks, he does face some rough bumps in the road and is assured to face many more.  That is to be expected.  But as Obama himself said, he must be judged on results.  Anyone who’d stand in front of people and risk their disaproval is far more mature than his predecessor.  Who’s comfort zone was such that he couldn’t stomache disaproval of any sort.  Parker is wrong.

Hey Lou Dobbs

Lou Dobbs spent better than two years describing in earnest tones the war on the middle class. Well, fear. What that war comprised of, increased medical costs, increased educational costs, outsourced jobs, insourced foreign labor. Well, fear. As home foreclosures began to skyrocket, he kept his viewers well apprised of the situation.  Well, fear.  Cost of fuel escalating.  Fear indeed.  All those dangerous imports from China, well, fear.  I am going to gather that Mr. Dobbs had a good reason to be afraid  as far as this nation and its future can be considered.  Job losses since his show has aired, no longer jobs lost in order for business interests to seek out foreign labor, but rather, jobs lost period.   Between the escalating credit crunch and the cost of fuel plus all other factors that had indeed been reported on in the last year; that now afflicts all nations globally, fear is what Americans will pay attention to and vote accordingly.  So imagine to Dobbs utter horror that America could put an African-American into the highest office of all.  A man who ends up preaching catastrophe if we don’t do something.

President Barack H. Obama, I can’t assume that he is a near religious viewer of Mr. Dobbs; but like Mr. Dobbs he paid attention to that war on the middle class and campaigned on the promise of doing something about it.  Now that he is president, Mr. Dobbs wastes no time—doing a complete 180°.  There must be a real problem with that politics of fear, esp. being used by a Democrat against the GOP, to get a stimulus package passed that well, Dobbs provides a “line item veto” to.  In short, Dobbs now ridicules Obama for exploiting the fear that quite frankly got the GOP booted out of office and into a minority status on 4 November 2008.  The fear that Dobbs exploited not only before Congress, but also in various town hall meetings and also daily on his show.  His target was then the GW administration, and the failure of that administration to “do something” about the fragility of this country’s economy.  Now, we have Obama who threatens fear in order to do something for the catastrophic failure of this nation’s economy and Dobbs invites on his show all the people he can find to dispute it.

I watched Obama do a town hall meeting in Indiana this morning and thought he had done a decent job informing people what he hoped the not yet signed into law stimulus package would do to begin creating new jobs and strengthening the economy.  He wasn’t only providing dire predictions if the package did not pass.  He was informing people, esp. in a state hard hit by major job losses what major moolah from the gvt could possibly give them.  A chance at a hand up, is what it amounted to.  ↔My take on the matter is this, if you fish for the poor dude, you provide him with a meal for a day.  But if you proceed to teach him to fish but with hold the fishing pole, hook, line, and sinker; he will still be coming to you for that hand out of fish. ↔

Here is a real funny, he is one of CNN’s legal contributors, and Jeffrey Toobin informed the viewing audience about the GOP as “arsonists” who set the house ablaze then block the firetrucks as they arrive.  That’s basically what it amounts to with respect to the stimulus package.  Does the package still have pork despite the massive trimmings that went on in the Senate?  I’ll make that assumption.  But only Dobbs would discuss the particulars of what he thought were pork or even earmarks, not the rest of the CNN crew.  How about that.

So, what is pork?  Cleaning up the Washington Mall?  Revamp the homeland security office?  I might make that argument.  Esp. when I consider that Dirk Kempthorne did some spendy reconstruction re his time spent in the Interior Dept.   Some spendy reconstruction involving an office.  Or what he allowed while governor in the State of Idaho to build some heavy security barriers around his mansion post the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks.  Then again, gvt buildings and public areas like the Washington Mall might be considered viable infrastructure to other eyes.  Pork in the eyes of the beholder?  I can only wonder what Mr. Dobbs really wants.

God of love?

Letter: Other services don’t outweigh abortion

Pat Bell, board member of Planned Parenthood, was quick to leap to the defense of his business associates (letter of Feb. 1) with a list of the wonderful services they provide to some women. This was in response to my earlier description of the hundreds of millions of our tax dollars that PP uses to abort human babies. Without denying it, Bell faults me for “focusing” on abortion while he chooses to focus on PP’s other activities.
I make no political comparison, but we cannot deny the analogy that Hitler built wonderful highways&mdashif we choose to focus on that and ignore some of his other activities. Just because PP does some good things, we cannot ignore the evil that they also do.
The attitude of “can’t we all just get along” is a fantasy. With abortion we’re talking about killing, period. There is no middle ground between life and death. Calling that “vitriol” is simply more PP deception.
As for Bell’s invocation of a religious background, any argument would be useless, as I don’t know his god. Mine is the God of love and life. It is ironic that Bell actively works for the abortion industry, yet signs his letter “Father.”

Hans Neuman
Spirit Lake

There are so many ways to fault this letter that it is hard to know where to begin.  One place to start would be Deuteronomy:  3-6 where that scripture describes a holocaust type of warfare, where not only the King of Hebron was killed, but so were all of his people; men, women and children.  The why?  The greatest sin apparently, was that these people didn’t believe in God.  Would a God of love and life, who created men to have free will insist that they can also die for exercising it?  According to the bible, yes.  And just as telling, are all the scriptures that describe what God will do to his chosen people for not following his laws exactly.  Among those to be punished and killed:  Children, even “unborn children.”  So, you begin to wonder what bible and what God is Neumann referring to?

Then, I can also consider the history of truly tragic warfare that bloodies  the era of Christianity.  The “witch hunts” that killed countless and most often innocent women, sometimes kids.  Christians who savaged each other for heretical views from Gnosticism to the schism and onto Protestant reformation and from there Momonism regarded as a dangerous cult in American history versus mainstream religion.  Christians weren’t opposed to killing the “non-believers” even though these too were human lives.  And at the same time, anti-abortionists can also be pro-death penalty.  They can often be bigoted against those of other beliefs, as evidenced by the above letter.

Anti-abortionists who exploit Hitler do indeed make intentional political comparisons.  Hitler was engaging in genocide against an entire people, abortions in this country do not focus on specific races.  That is why there is no comparison between Hitler and legal abortions today.  But, anti-abortionists have a beef with anyone who “sins” by being gay or lesbian.  Who disagrees with their activist religionist views.  Who feel that discarded embryos can be pressed into service to heal the sick and the injured, that would be obscene.  Given the fact that anti-abortionists tend to focus almost exclusively on aborted fetuses and generally not on the general travails of mankind, seems there is a middle ground:  if they can be selective about which human life they care about, then so can Planned Parenthood.   And by the way, anti-abortionists get federal funding to be so selective about human life.  Even federal laws.

On PBS yesterday, was a fellow discussing with a moderator about our current economic troubles and referred to Calvin Coolidge as it involved the business of business in this country is business.  Then went on to describe the “In God We Trust” on our money.  Which got me to thinking of a discussion I once had with my late father’s distant cousin.  The “God We Trust” on our money, is in fact money!  Which the guest on the show pretty much got himself, it was all about the money.  What did Christ say about the worship of mammon?  (money, material things)  That if you love the one, you don’t love the other.  It isn’t possible to worship both.  You get the hint of mammon worship in Neumann’s letter.  He doesn’t want his mammon funding the abortion industry.  So, which is more important:  the money or recognizing that the God of the New Testament is one  who is very capable of forgiveness?   Apparently, Neumann isn’t too knowledgable about Luke.  Or for that matter, the letters and Acts of the Apostles.

Watching “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” last night, he went into quite a discussion about the sanctimonious anti-spending and fiscally responsible GOP opposing the stimulus package on how it is too much spending.  He also revealed clips of where the GOP was all in support of too much spending when it came to Iraq as well as favored pork projects of their own.  You get the impression that the GOP are opposed to investing in America and think that the not so stimulative tax cuts are frankly good enough.  Well sorry, but those tax cuts of earlier years did not prevent the economy from going into a free fall and what those tax cuts seem to have done was foster the greed that caused the economy to go into a free fall.  And by the way, tax cuts won’t restore jobs to people unemployed.  This nation must in fact invest in jobs creation to re-employ the American workforce.

Finally, over the last 8 years of the GW administration, any effort at family planning on a national or even an international basis could be denied funding if abortion was on the table.  You get the impression that either a.) Neumann is ignorant or b.) this is a fact that Neumann simply ignored.  Planned Parenthood does not get funding for abortions, but only if they provide other low cost services.  Neumann’s own deception for political reasons without a doubt.

HDTV switch over

I guess it is just as well that the Digital Switch Over is still on track for the 17^th of February 2009.  The LCD to Plasma flat screen HDTVs are easier to put just anywhere you like.    Like on top of an old roll top desk.  You could never put a big box TV there, that’s for sure.

I expect that it is still possible to find really, really old and still working analog TVs.  At the same time,  Cable TV has been around for the last 30 years, Satellite TV has been around for at least 20, the digital switchover has already been in effect for like forever.  Only the most rural areas would still require antennas, right?  Or people who don’t want to pay a dime for multiples of channels and just love broadcast TV.  Now however, from what I understand, broadcast TV is going digital, and if you have an analog TV, you need a converter box.

The Sharp SDigital TV is among the last big box TVs still around.  It was bought about 2 years ago, at 4801 it handles wide screen HDTV ads and other programming just fine.  It is also hooked up to Dish Network.  Even if it was hooked up to an antenna, it wouldn’t require a converter box.   After all, it is already a digital TV.

The new HDTV that I have, a Vizio, 22″ and a 1080p LCD screen, it is only attached to a Terk low profile HDTV ready antenna.  Converter box, what converter box.  Yeah folks, the TVs are digital, converter boxes not required.  Now,  just how many working analog sets are there out there?

In other news,  the news media for one, highly opinionated columnists for another, and yes, the final leg of the stool being people who never liked Obama, didn’t vote for him and are now applauding every mis-step no matter how trivial.  Of course, a failure to pay one’s taxes on time can be considered a serious issue.  Tim Geithner for one, Tom Daschle for another.  But given the last 8 years of GW being of a more trivial matter than say, Dick Cheney late of Haliburton.  Haliburton that got a ha-huge no bid contract from the Bush run gvt for the purposes of  post war Iraq reconstruction and prior to the actual invasion.   At the time, who among the news media was prepared to raise holy hell about it?  Well, uhhhh?  And did anyone ask as the GW administration was entering office in 2001, if any of his cabinet appointees paid or did not pay their income taxes in a timely manner?  No?  Or just how many of GW’s actual administration lobbied for or were heavily involved in the business world especially where they were to regulate the very businesses they once represented.  I can at least give Obama an A for effort in at least reducing if not eliminating the prospects for corruption in his administration.  Whereby,  Tim Geithner can tell the truth that yes he failed to pay his taxes on a timely basis, Obama in an interview was upfront and accepting of accountability, and Daschle is one of three now who took himself out of the running for Secretary of HHS.  Richardson removed himself from the Commerce position.  So while “red flags” can have been raised by the likes of Cal Thomas, we already know about these problems, because none of them were kept hidden.  Wonder if the news media has even caught on yet.  We already see a higher, if not perfect ethical standard, better than the last 8 years.

So, I ask this as a very public statement:  We saw an 8 full years of secrecy, flagrant lying, corruption and etc. and look what a mess it had made.   Did Obama during the campaign declare himself Mr. Perfection?  I believe that he never did.  Any incoming administration is going to make mistakes; the better president is going to do his damndest to correct them.  Now, as for walking the talk, I believe that Obama at his core is indeed trying to do that.  I don’t expect Mr. Perfection, but I would like the news media to take a better look at the broader picture.

The ethically challenged will refuse to accept responsibility for wrongful conduct.  We’d have a bigger problem if even these tax issues had never been made public.  Well, they were.   And that’s what you call transparency.  I don’t have an issue with it.  But then, I am not a paid opinion maker trying to be a journalist.

The best thing about “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” is that Mr. Stewart tends to poke fun at the news media that takes itself far too seriously over very trivial matters.  Such as tonight, when field reporters tell us all about Obama’s favorite foods.  And why is that a matter of national importance?

A fellow by the name of Goldberg was on “The Daily Show” last week, harping about Obama getting more coverage than Senator John McCain.  And therefore, the news media was “in the tank” for Obama.  More coverage doesn’t mean more positive coverage.  And the  coverage since the 2008 election, pre and post inauguration has been anything but positive.  See above.  To put it bluntly, the news media has been absolutely hostile, especially CNN.  Don’t you wish they’d done as much in the last 8 years of GW?