This is indicative of the complete chaos coming out of the Obama administration at this time. And, given liberal philosophy, it won’t stop.
The Obama Department of Labor just spent your money to put together an advertising campaign letting illegal workers know they have rights to minimum wage standards. In Spanish.
They don’t have one in French. Guess Ms. Solis isn’t too worried about French Canadiens being taken advantage of. That could never, ever, ever, be considered racial profiling would it?
Now, that’s the bait. That no matter how you get here, once you’re here, you’re going to have the Department of Labor protecting your income. Not sure HOW, but they say they are.
But it won’t much matter now since we got THIS headline today:
These bad boys will be delivering death from the skies for anyone who dare even think about causing trouble on the US-Mexican border.
But, wait a second, not so fast apparently:
The department said Wednesday it has obtained Federal Aviation Administration permission to operate unmanned planes along the Texas border and throughout the Gulf Coast region. Customs and Border Protection will base a surveillance drone at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station in Texas.
If illegals have the same rights as any citizen once they’re across the border, according to Janet Napolitano, what exactly does looking at them accomplish? And, wouldn’t that be invading privacy? I mean, anyone has the right to roam around the border. You don’t need a drone to see that people are walking around. If you assume there’s something else occurring, just because it’s at the border, that’d be racial profiling. We can’t have that. The Mexicans have decided that for us when the Mexican President addressed the US Congress:
Get all that? The way I figure it, I am more inclined to believe the US government is going to use the drones to force greedy US businesses to pay Mexicans fairly so they can contribute to the Calderon Re-election Campaign via SEIU union dues.
The last couple of days have pretty well illustrated the Obama/Pelosi administration’s stance on national defense. Obama promised the voters he’d be firm on national defense, and he is. In almost simultaneous moves, Obama has expressed concern about Iran developing nuclear weapons:
Obama is so concerned about the threat of Iran’s nuclear weapons program he ordered the removal of our missile defense systems in Eastern Europe:
He is so concerned about ballistic missiles, he feels we don’t need ballistic missile defense in Europe. Obama assured us he consulted with the Poles, Czechs, Russians, and others affected. Obama I’m sure was re-assured by the words of Jan Vidim, a Czech lawmaker:
“If the administration approaches us in the future with any request, I would be strongly against it,” said Jan Vidim, a lawmaker with Czech Republic’s conservative Civic Democratic Party, which supported the missile defense plan.
And, in a second development, Nancy Pelosi was reduced to tears at the thought that some people are using bad words when protesting health insurance and warned us all that violence may follow on the levels of the 60′s protests if we continue to use bad words:
I’m going to guess those missile defense systems that were meant to protect us from Iran will now be placed in San Francisco to protect Nancy Pelosi from voters. There’s your national defense for ya. They are much more concerned about protecting themselves from us than they are protecting us from our enemies. And, if Iran does start threatening us or anyone else with ballistic nuclear missiles, we’ll just tear up and tell them to quit talking so badly and use nicer words. That’ll stop any aggression dead in its tracks for sure.
25
Aug
It’s telling me that the policies of Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton/Janet Reno are back.
That was my opinion January 5 of this year when Obama put Leon Panetta in charge of the Central Intelligence Agency. As of now, the Central Intelligence Agency will not be allowed to glean intelligence from war prisoners. The Federal Bureau of Investigations will be doing that under a very strict set of guidelines. Those are the guys that investigate things. Now, what’s the big deal you ask? Think about these incidents and who was in charge:
- Waco
- Ruby Ridge
- Zaccarius Mussaoui, the 12th 911 terrorist.
- For that matter, 911.
- Terrorist Watch List
- Expanded wiretaps under Clinton ( and you thought Bush was bad. )
- Filegate
- Deep Throat ( when the FBI decides it needs a new president. )
- McCarthyism
On and on and on it goes. The FBI has had a history of lying, targeting people, political meddling, totally inept interventions, and most importantly, not having a clue how to deal with critical intelligence that led to the death of 2,000 people. So, when Obama appointed Panetta as the CIA Director, I stated then that we were returning to the days of Jamie Gorelick, Janet Reno, and the Wall. Today’s announcements seal it.
This is your better national security Obama promised. We’re back to 1993 again. Instead of worrying about foreign entities attacking the US, which is what the CIA does, you’re the target. If you claim to be a conservative, you’re the terrorist. If your neighbor thinks you’re a conservative, all they have to do is call the White House tip line. All that was missing was putting the federal enforcement agency in charge of gathering intelligence. Why bother seperating intelligence from enforcement? It worked so well for Clinton it got us into two wars and the worst terrorist attack in the history of our country. They did however, wipe out quite a few US citizens at Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Think about it.
As governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano was notoriously lax on immigration. This included vetoing a LOT of bills designed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. When she was picked as Director for the Department of Homeland Security, a lot of people questioned Obama’s intentions regarding enforcing our borders. Now, we have a definitive answer:
And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well.
Per about a dozen different websites. Title 8, Section 1325 of the US Penal Code states very clearly:
Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
What, in that statement, allows for “per se”? There are civil charges that can be filed, but this is a federal law which makes it a felony.
And, as is par with the Obama administration, they are attacking the private business sector for something that is clearly not a private sector issue. If Napolitano is not going to enforce the law and allow immigrants to be here legally “per se”, then why should it be a crime for a business to hire some who is here “legally”?
And, if border agents are basically completely neutered in stopping anyone from crossing the border, what does that mean for national security? How does this affect the drug wars going on right now? By her interpretation of the law which she has obviously not bothered to read, drug dealers can come and go as they please. They will only be an issue when they are convicted of a crime within the US since no one will be allowed to question them on their way across the border.
I kinda like the old system better, keep the criminals out. Period. But, that’s obviously not what Obama wants.
5
Feb
At least for now.
The problem I have with this concept is we haven’t even figured a way to control nuclear missiles here on Earth. In other words, although the US has been involved with numerous diplomatic treaties for decades, the problem has been with countries that have never involved themselves with those treaties. The United States and Russia decided to scale back their nuclear arsenal, Pakistan, India, North Korea, and now Iran decided to develop theirs. Just this week, Iran launched their first satellite. If Iran is more than willing to ignore international treaties and go rogue in a serious way, why does Obama assume they would honor a space weapons ban?
Reality is, they won’t. And even if we stare them down for the time being here on Earth, someone else will pursue it such as North Korea.
My fear is this ban will only allow our space technology superiority to be eroded even more than it has been. The technology is rapidly becoming available to access space. The private sector is getting there rapidly. What will we do if some terrorist hijacks Virgin Galactic with a nuclear bomb? How will we develop a Near Earth Object defense within the guidelines of a space defense ban? If we just gut the entire concept, what do we do if some rogue entity does violate our self-imposed ban and attacks our communications satellites? Do we just sit around and wait for our communications to be knocked out before we decide to develop something? And, going where no man has gone before, what do we do if there is intelligent life out there that is not so friendly? Would Obama rather have a war on Earth with inferior technology or a war in space where no innocents get hurt? And lastly, what would be defined as military or not? I mean, some satellites carry multiple capabilities. What can be used for purely humanitarian issues such as weather and disaster relief coordination could very easily carry the military function of observing ground based military movements. That folks, is a ton of data. What could be used for private sector cell phone use could just as easily be used for military use. Who would oversee and enforce that information? That’s a massive gray area that would have to be monitored constantly.
As usual, with a very liberal concept, the concept itself sounds great. We don’t war in space or on land. However, the problem is in the detail. As much as Obama doesn’t want war anywhere, many of the approximately six billion people on this planet aren’t quite as peaceful minded as he is. They’ve got ulterior motives that are much bigger than Dr. Evil
And lastly, the space defense industry is huge. The last thing we need to do is gut yet another US dominated industry during a recession. I guess the can spend their time speaking about STD’s instead?
I think this is incredibly naive and borderline stupid. Tell me what you think:
EDIT: As of this date, the ban is no longer mentioned on the White House website. Guess someone got the message through just how stupid this idea was.
13
Jan
Here we go. The members of the US Senate class of 2008 haven’t even been fully seated and we are already sepculating on 2010. CNN has already decided the Republicans are in trouble in 2010 simply because, get this, they had trouble in 2006 and 2008. Logical huh? Wikipedia references something called the Cook Political Report as the official word on what is going to happen in 2010. Their breakdown has it looking something like this:
| DEMOCRATS | 17 HELD SEATS | ||||||
| SOLID D (11) | LIKELY D (5) | LEAN D (1) | TOSS UP (0) | LEAN R (0) | LIKELY R (0) | SOLID R (0) |
| Lincoln (AR) | Boxer (CA) | Bennet (CO) | ||||
| Dodd (CT) | Reid (NV) | |||||
| Kaufman (DE) | Dorgan (ND) | |||||
| Inouye* (HI) | Murray (WA) | |||||
| IL (Obama) | Feingold (WI) | |||||
| Bayh (IN) | ||||||
| Mikulski (MD) | ||||||
| Schumer (NY-A) | ||||||
| NY-B (Clinton) | ||||||
| Wyden (OR) | ||||||
| Leahy (VT) | ||||||
| REPUBLICANS | 20 HELD SEATS | ||||||
| SOLID D (0) | LIKELY D (0) | LEAN D (0) | TOSS UP (4) | LEAN R (2) | LIKELY R (2) | SOLID R (12) |
| FL (Martinez) | KS (Brownback) | OH (Voinovich) | Shelby (AL) | |||
| Bunning* (KY) | Specter* (PA) | Coburn (OK) | Murkowski (AK) | |||
| Vitter (LA) | McCain (AZ) | |||||
| MO (Bond) | Isakson (GA) | |||||
| Crapo (ID) | ||||||
| Grassley* (IA) | ||||||
| Gregg (NH) | ||||||
| Burr (NC) | ||||||
| DeMint (SC) | ||||||
| Thune (SD) | ||||||
| TX (Bailey Hutchison) | ||||||
| Bennett (UT) | ||||||
Basically, it’s a pretty simple chart. If you’re a Democrat, you’ll likely win. If you’re a Republican, it could be a toss-up. For instance, it lists Kentucky as a toss-up because the sitting senator might be retiring. That’s based on actions Bunning made in 2007. In 2008, he’s running. That’s how accurate these things are at this point.
Most people are painting the Republicans in trouble primarily because of what happened two months ago. However, history tells them, and me, that things are probably not going to be as easy in 2010 as they were in 2008. There are several things people need to take into consideration before lumping the Democrats unbeatable forever.
- Most pundits, especially the slightly more liberal ones like ABC, CNN and MSNBC, predicted Democrat super-majorities based on the 2008 elections. That didn’t happen. In Kentucky particularly, the Republican Senator won and Obama lost. So, these coat-tails that some media have been assuming is there never has been in some places. The Republicans did surprisingly well in Kentucky given that Kentucky is a 2.5 to 1 Democrat state and the head of the Democrat ticket was being lauded by all media as the greatest candidate of all-time. Something went wrong somewhere.
- History has been brutal on the majority party during the first election following a presidential election. The wildly popular Bill Clinton had his legs taken out from under him in 1994. The exception noted by CNN and most people was 2002. However, there was an event in very late 2001 that affected the elections of 2002. Barring some catastrophe in 2009, I expect history to repeat itself for several reasons. Partially, in large part, because the “wildly popular” Bill Clinton was never truly “wildly popular”. The media just loved him. The majority of people in the United States did not. 43% of the vote just isn’t a terribly long coat tail.
- The dynamics of the 2008 election have been horribly abused by the media. Although the Democrats nominated someone farther to the left than is typically successful, the Republicans nominated a moderate that failed to capture the base of his own party. This left the Republicans putting more resources into the presidential race as the presidential candidate was unable to compete financially with the Democrat. As such, their efforts in the Senate races were not well coordinated or financed. In 2010 the Republicans will not have this distraction and typically outspend the Democrats. Whether people like it or not, money talks very loudly in local races. Expect a much more coordinated effort from the Republicans in 2010. Because:
- Obama is pro-civil rights to the point of being extremely anti-business. A lot of his views border on Marxism. Sure, I know that has been tossed around a lot, but it is true. What little legislation we’ve seen coming out of the House in 2009 so far has been pro-civil rights, anti-business. Even with the economy in the tank, the liberal arm of the Democrat party is in full socialist mode, attacking businesses. That will bite the Democrats very quickly.
- Nancy Pelosi is in charge of the House. She got to where she is as a one trick pony. However, that one trick is now biting her. Running on purely ethics issues and against “the worst president ever”, she now has neither issue to fall back on. In addition, she is as liberal or moreso than Obama, and purely committed to partisan politics. Her stance that no Democrat ever had anything to do with the economic mess we’re in now flying squarely in the face of reality should mean something more if the economic situation continues into 2009. A very simple campaign platform for the Republicans would be that this mess didn’t occur until the Democrats took over the House. If it’s not resolved by election time, look for a lot more people to believe that argument.
- Harry Reid is in charge of the Senate. His ineptness and flip-flopping on issues has not only confounded people outside of Nevada like myself, it’s apparently tiring people in Nevada to the point where some are questioning whether he can even hold his seat. Some pundits are even calling Reid the most vulnerable Democrat up for re-election. If Reid is vulnerable in 2010 as the Senate Speaker under the most popular elected president in the history of the world, something’s amiss. If his leadership is so out of touch that it jeapordizes his long held seat, that could present problems for the DNC in 2010.
- Balance of power. This country has been unkind to the party in power. Bill Clinton had it all of two years. George HW Bush had it for a few years and lost it as well in 2006. It would most likely have been earlier, but the dynamics of the 2002 elections were skewed, and the Democrats shot themselves in the foot repeatedly in 2004. By 2006, things returned to normal and the people voted for balance. I’m not saying we’ll have that balance by 2010, but I think people will be working towards it.
- Failed expectations. People set the bar way too high for Obama. He can’t meet all those expectations. It’s just impossible. He can do well. But, well isn’t good enough. Because of that, expect some backlash over time as people realize he is not the messiah. He’s not at this point even controlling his own party. As much as he preached bipartisanhip, Nancy Pelosi has put the screws to that already. I expect he’ll survive. But, expect some backlash with the constituency.
- Iraq. If the troops aren’t out of Iraq by 2009, look for serious backlash.
- Economy. If the economy’s not back on track in 2009, look for serious backlash.
- National security. Obama painted a picture by choosing Leon Panetta as CIA director. If there is a major terrorist issue in 2009 or early 2010, expect that to affect things.
- Scandals. A lot of the gains the Democrats made in 2006 and 2008 were based on self-inflicted wounds within the Republican party. However, those players are out of the spotlight and now we’re looking at Democrats such as Blago, William Jefferson, Sheila Dixon, and others.
I could go on and on. Each race will have its own dynamics. However, the bottom line to me is this could be 1994 all over again. The only question to me at this point is if the RNC is capable of capitalizing. Now, I’m moderate. However, I’m not moderate on any real issue. No one is. The Republicans hung their hat on conservative issues with Reagan, and that’s what got them in charge. Over time, people confused conservative values with a reliance on religious values. That eroded some of the base. Abuses of power, inept leadership, and in-fighting took them down. However, the culmination was running a moderate for president. He appealed to me to some degree, but wasn’t anything I could get real excited about. It’s hard to get excited about any moderate. That’s just the nature of the beast being open to any issue. When Clinton won, he had to be more moderate, but won on liberal views. When Bush II won, he won on conservative values but had to move to more moderate views as well. Now, Obama has won running on extremely liberal credentials but moved to the middle during his campaign, and I expect will lurch even moreso to the middle once the realities of his decisions hits him ( which I think they arlready have ). I think this is a lot of the reason for the second year curse that seems to hit most modern presidents. As the figurehead abandons the ideology that got him and his minions elected, the public revolts in the democratic way. Obama can not possibly remain as liberal as he ran and was perceived and be an effective president. He’s already abandoned several campaign issues ( we’ll be in Iraq a lot longer, his tax incentives will be moderated ). As such, I expect the revolt to begin in 2010.
That’s all I have to say about that. Today.
People voted for “change” without ever really considering what the “change” was about. Today we got a few examples.
Bill Richardson, under investigation for pay to play politics ( read taking bribes ), was nevertheless nominated to a cabinet position under Obama’s “change”. He withdrew his nomination today. There’s no change when it comes to cronyism.
Leon Panetta, who was the Clinton Chief of Staff, was offered as the director of the CIA. Nevermind the fact he has no national security experience at all. There’s no change when it comes to political gerrymandering. And, regardless of the rhetoric, the only change will obviously be a lesser focus on national security if Obama thinks the Central Intelligence Agency should be run like a civil rights agency.
And finally, Nancy Pelosi is rumored to be stripping the House Fairness rules of 1995 that were enacted to assure all members of Congress, regardless of party, had an opportunity to contribute to the debate and passage of legislation. And, there’s obviously no change in partisanship. If Pelosi pursues this, there is no need at all for Republicans to feel the bi-partisan love Obama preached about. They will be screwed from the get-go. If this does pass, look for things to get real nasty real quick as the Republicans and independents will have absolutely nothing to lose by going after Pelosi’s throat. I would suggest playing over and over Obama’s pledges of bipartisanship contrasted to Pelosi’s actions.
The national stimulus package that was supposed to kick-start the economy is now a $500 tax credit. Where’s the “change” from the last $500 rebate? Did that fix anything? Sure, there’s talk of investing in infrastructure, but that’s all it is so far.
But, I did forget the other change we’re looking at so far, Obama is wanting NASA to ditch one rocket for another to do exactly the same thing.
Before Obama can get anything positive to come out of DC, he’s going to have to reign in Pelosi. She’s going to destroy any good will people have been trying to extend to Obama.
Been reading that Obama is planning on naming Leon Panetta head of the CIA.
A while back I did a series of posts on basically what happened when the security of the United States was wonked to death by people more interested in internal policies than doing what was necessary to protect us. Basically, the root of the problem as I saw it was that lawyers ran the CIA and FBI instead of security people like the military. This wonking led to 9/11 and the Iraq War. Not to fear everyone said, Obama believes in a strong national security. That was said while Obama was signing onto legislation banning cluster bombs. Now, we get the icing on the cake, Obama is a assigning a man who once was the Director of the Office of Civil Rights. Nowhere in his resume, other than a brief stint in the military, do we see anything advocating national security. We do see him advocating civil rights 25 years after the civil rights movements of the 60′s. We do see him doing everything he can to prevent off-shore drilling. We do see him advocating more entitlement programs. I see a lot of things Leon Panetta can be great at. And, I do mean great. But, to put him in charge of the CIA sends a message I am not comfortable with at all. It’s telling me that the policies of Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton/Janet Reno are back.
Tell me what you think.
A lot is being made of the Straight of Hormuz incident between the US and Iran a few days ago. The US claims it was harassed and provoked, the Iranians said originally it never happened. You be the judge, here IS the incident as provided by The Pentagon:
Now that the whole world can see it, the Iranians are claiming the video was altered or contrived.
The part I love the most about this is the US Department of Defense FINALLY seems to be getting it. It doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong, aggressor or victim. It only matters how you present it. I really like the fact the US gave Iran a couple of days to pin themselves in a corner with their denials BEFORE releasing the video.
For once, although a lot of people will find ways to contrive the US being at fault here, the evidence is pretty damn clear who’s provoking who here.
Oh, and don’t start the “we shouldn’t be in the Middle East” crap here, that happened in international waters that every single country on this planet has the right to be in.
26
Nov
Mike Huckabee had this to say in what I think is a response to the gang-rape victim in Saudi Arabia:
Ten years? This I gotta see. I think I’m gonna vote for Huckabee now just to see how he pulls this off. Now, I chastised John Edwars for making what appeared to be a purely election minded announcement to open the federal reserve. There was nothing to support his statement. However, this is what Huckabee has had to say in the past on energy policy:
Seems fairly consistent. Not sure I’m willing to write this one off as purely rhetoric.
However, it ain’t gonna happen in ten years. We do have the resources to do it, we just don’t have the resolve to do what it takes. That’s not Huckabee’s fault. However, it is Huckabee’s reality.
