The Height of Arrogance

Does anyone else see the irony in the fact that the people who decried George W. Bush as arrogant are extolling the virtuous Obama?

The difference between confidence and arrogance can be summed up rather simply. Confidence is walking the walk; not only trusting your beliefs but acting them out. It does not step on toes or send mixed signals because words and action intersect. Arrogance is all talk and little action; failing to follow through on overbearing or overblown rhetoric because of the sheer impossibility or impracticability of it. It confuses and tramples on our basic sense of reason instead of inspiring true belief.

President Obama exhibited lots of arrogance in his State of the Union speech Wednesday. It many instances, it was a roller-coaster ride that defied logic. On the one hand he decries the excessive spending of the past decade, then on the other, he lauds Stimulus 1 as he lays out plans for Stimulus 2. That’s the same Stimulus 1 that has done little (putting it nicely) to even begin solving our economic problems. Obama talks about all the jobs Stimulus 1 has created, without being able to point to a single one. At the same time, he ignores the fact that we’re still losing, not gaining, jobs. All this delivered with a smirk that was matched by his #2 and #3 sitting behind him (oh how I pine for the days when Nancy Pelosi looked downright mortified sitting next to Dick Cheney and behind George W. Bush).

President Obama talked about a need for bipartisanship, especially on health insurance reform. “Stop saying no, give me some ideas and I’ll listen”, he basically challenged Republicans while willfully ignoring the bills Republicans literally waved in his face last summer. Just a thought, but perhaps Obama should take his own advice on the “not saying no” part. And that’s not even considering how Obama appears to be hunkering down when most Americans want him to back off (don’t be fooled by the cooling down he mentioned…he won’t give up on health reform).

Obama criticized special interests and Washington itself for the lack of trust in government. That’s fine and well, but let’s start with the pro-Obama special interests in the health care debate. Or we can start with opening up hearings the way he promised us a year ago.

And let’s not even get into his “no tax increases on 95% of working Americans” line, or the "tax cuts for those earning under $250,000. Lots of talk, no substance or proof of results. That’s arrogance.

The height of Obama’s arrogance, however, had to be when he criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling on campaign finance reform, right in front of the justices themselves, when he, himself, turned down the government campaign finances so that he could accept as much from special interests and other groups as he could possibly get. In fact, Obama '08 was the most heavily financed campaign for any elected office anywhere in the history of the world. So much for that partnership and leadership he calls for, but fails to practice when the teleprompter is turned off.

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Super Bowl Ad Stirs Controversy

A Super Bowl ad from Focus on the Family featuring former Florida Gators football star Tim Tebow has created a scuffle between abortion rights groups.

The Heisman Trophy winning quarterback — one of the most celebrated college football players of all time — has cut an ad with his mother Pam, who tells of her decision not to end her 1987 pregnancy in spite of advice from doctors to do so. Pam Tebow and her husband were working as missionaries in the Philippines at the time when doctors there advised her to have an abortion due to health concerns. She did not, and Tim Tebow was born.

The ad will debut during the Super Bowl, prompting protests from numerous women’s groups and organizations supporting abortion that say the ad violates CBS’s longstanding tradition of not airing controversial ads during sports events.

“The abortion debate has no place in the Super Bowl. I organize abortion rights rallies all the time and I recognize how inappropriate it would be for me to sit in the stands with signs at the Super Bowl,” said Erin Matson, vice president of the National Organization for Women, which has called on CBS to reject the ad.

Jehmu Greene, president of the Women’s Media Center, sent a letter to CBS on Monday urging the network to not air the ad that she says “uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sporting event of the year.” Of course, she has not seen the ad, nor has she seen a script to the ad. No doubt, she would have harsh words if her group were running an ad that was being criticized by someone who had never seen the ad.

CBS has approved the script of the Super Bowl ad and defended its decision in a statement.

“Our standards and practices process continues to adhere to a policy that ensures all ads on all sides of an issue are appropriate for air,” the statement read. You can bet the ad is not in any way controversial. The left-leaning CBS is not likely to approve anything that remotely resembles a promotion of religious faith or something that would vaguely suggest that abortion be made illegal.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, defended CBS’s decision during an interview with POLITICO.

The head of the group opposing abortion rights said that “Women can be trusted with information and they certainly don’t need to be protected from the idea that if they have a crisis pregnancy that they can choose life.”

“What are they protecting people from?” she asked. “It is just so counter to the whole mission which is to provide women choices. This is just the one choice they can’t abide.”

Of course, what they are really protecting is the Abortion mill industry. The so-called Women's Rights groups (a misnomer if there ever was one) are only interested in one choice. The choice that funnels billions of dollars into abortion mills, murdering millions of innocent children in the process.

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Special Interests Derail Health Care

For now, it seems, ObamaKare is dead.

Over the weekend, Pelosi, Reid and other democrats in Congress looked for a way to save or revive it. Following the election of Scott Brown, Pelosi admitted that she didn't have the votes in the House to pass the Senate version of the bill, and as time goes on, those votes are dwindling. Blue dogs (fiscally not-as-liberal-as-the-rest-of-the-democrats democrats) as well as the handful of pro-life democrats never liked the bill from the beginning, and are far less wiling to sacrifice their seats for a bill that, clearly, nobody wants.

Obama and the White House have been quick to respond to the situation. Special interests, they say, have moved in to kill health care reform.

Fascinating.

I say that, because, for the most part, they have all the special interest on board.

The insurance industry? Check. The health insurance industry supports the current health care reform package. They see it as a way to increase their revenues with a large influx of new customers, even if there will be tighter restrictions and regulations. They understand that the government is unlikely to create a situation in which they will be completely unable to make a profit, though they recognize that their profits could decrease to a degree.

Unions? Check. With special deals, the biggest and most powerful unions will not have to pay additional taxes on their so called "Cadillac plans," even though everyone else will.

Doctors? Check. No, wait. Uncheck. Well, sort of. The administration claimed that health care providers were on board several months ago. In fact, a number of provider organizations, such as the AMA, is on board. But the doctors "in the trenches" are not. Still, they don't have a powerful enough organization with them to oppose the process.

So what special interest groups is the administration complaining about? Who is it that is derailing the health care reform package? What dastardly group would dare disagree with the liberal left and have the power to influence Washington to not pass this bill?

Actually, there is one group. Polls show that it is .... hold on to your hats ..... voters.

Yes, Washington could get so much more done, if it wasn't for the fact that they have to answer to the people that put them into office. That's a situation that they would, no doubt, change if they could.

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Obama on Scott Brown

Obama, Pelosi, Reid and their official spokesmen have an explanation for the election of Scott Brown.

Republican Scott Brown was elected in the heavily democratic state of Massachusetts over democrat Martha Coakley because ... get this .... people are angry and frustrated over the 8 years of Republican President George W. Bush.

Yes, you heard that right, Obama blamed, once again, 8 years of the Bush presidency for, not only everything that has gone wrong since the year 2000, including me losing a pair of socks the other day, but the Bush Presidency also makes people SO ANGRY that they want to vote for more Republicans.

Now, to be fair, actually the official spin from the White House and other liberals, is that there is a general anti-incumbancy mood. The electorate is still unhappy with unemployment, "evil banks and other corporations" and the business as usual attitude in Washington that any incumbent in the coming year is very likely to lose his or her seat.

Of course, there is one little, tiny fact that they are overlooking.....

Martha Coakley isn't an incumbent.

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More Perspective on Reid's Racist Comments

These comments are a week or so old, but I just ran across it. (Yes, I'm behind in my reading.) Likely, some of you have already read them. In case you hadn't, it's an excerpt from a blog by Ann Coulter (who is seldom wrong on anything) and it puts a humorous, but painfully accurate twist on the revelation that Harry Reid made blatantly racist comments about Barack Obama while at the same time insulting the American electorate by accusing us all of being racist ....

As long as we're mulling the real meaning of Reid's words and not just gasping in awe at the sorts of things Democrats get away with saying, I think Reid owes America an apology for accusing the entire country of racism. A country, let us note, that just elected a manifestly unqualified, at least partially black man president.

On the other hand, Reid couldn't have been expecting Republicans to vote for a Democrat, so I gather Reid was accusing only Democratic voters of being racists.

I don't disagree with that, but I'd like to get it in writing.

I think the Democratic platform should include a statement that the Democrats will not vote for dark-skinned blacks with a Negro dialect. Check with Harry Reid on the precise wording, but something along the lines of "no one darker than Deepak Chopra."

The "whereas" clauses can include the Democrats' history of supporting slavery, segregation, racial preferences, George Wallace and Bull Connor -- and also a precis of their treatment of dark-skinned Clarence Thomas.

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Quote of the Day

John Kerry (following last night's Democratic defeat in Massachusetts:

I hope as a party we don't succumb to the temptation to form a circular firing squad.

Hmmm...A circular firing squad could eliminate all the current leaders of the Democratic Party as well as their legions of grossly overpaid consultants, advisers, and strategists, as well as the leftist, socialist liberal scholars and thinkers in leadership positions.

And that's a bad idea...why, exactly?

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How Scott Brown Could Hurt Republicans

While the election isn't over, for the moment, I'm going to assume the polls are right and that Scott Brown will win the Senate race in Massachusetts, breaking the Democrats filibuster-proof 60 vote majority.

Scott Brown's election is a rejection by voters, not just in Massachusetts, but nationwide, of the leftist, socialist policies of Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the democrats.

However, Americans are not heartily embracing Republicans, either.

In 1994, Americans overwhelmingly told Washington that they did not want a liberal socialist agenda. Clinton took that woodshed experience to heart and moved to the center in how he governed. Of course, he had to. He had to work with a conservative majority in Congress. Since that time, Republicans have held a majority in Congress, until 2006. They squandered that opportunity. Instead of being fiscally responsible and fixing many of the problems created by the democrats since they have been in charge of at least one house of Congress since 1948, they spent money bigger and faster than the democrats, only on their own agenda.

Americans are generally a generous and tolerant people. Except when you waste their money. And that's just what the Republicans had done.

Now, it's the Democrats turn. They have done what democrats do and what Americans don't want them to do. Only bigger and faster than the Republicans.

This spending spree, which has been going on, now, for decades has broken the bank and our current economic situation is the result. Wall Street knows this. Businesses know this. And they know that proposed legislation on health care and a host of other issues will result in higher taxes and other fees that, right now, businesses can't afford.

That's how Scott Brown could hurt Republicans.

With his election, the leftist socialist agenda of Obama and the dems is derailed. Preventing them from passing all sorts of socialist policies and programs will actually help stabilize the economy. Businesses will be more comfortable hiring again. The stock market will start to take a more bullish direction.

And who will take credit for "fixing" everything? Yep. The president gets the blame when things go bad, and takes the credit when things go well. With the election of a fiscally conservative president a year ago, we could have already been out of this mess and on the road to economic prosperity. Obama and the socialist Congress have KEPT us in this recession longer than necessary. Scott Brown, a freshman Republican Senator from Massachusetts could actually pull us out of the recession without enacting a single piece of legislation. And in doing so, he could prevent his own re-election and the election of numerous other Republicans across the nation.

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Scott Brown and Health Care

We appear to be on the edge of political shift. Republican Scott Brown is now likely to win a Senate race in a liberal democrat state that has been held by the biggest liberal icon for almost half a century. And by all appearances, his election is a repudiation of Obama, his policies, and in particular, ObamaKare.

There are two potential responses from the democratic party:

The first could be the recognition that the American people don't like what is going on and try to improve policy. Polls are clear that the American people don't like the direction the country is going. As much as they thought we were heading the wrong direction a year ago, they REALLY think we are heading the wrong direction, now. In fact, a significant number of people who voted FOR Obama, would rather have George W. Bush back in office than continue the direction we are heading.

So the democrats COULD look at their positions and policies and try to fix them. Everyone agrees that the current health care bill is a piece of crap. It's too expensive. It doesn't fix many problems. It doesn't cover everyone it's supposed to cover. It doesn't control costs. It doesn't address many of the problems that lead to more expensive health care.

Instead of saying "Well, now we HAVE to push it through because we might lose our filibuster proof majority," they could be saying, "We have an opportunity to fix this. We could work with Republicans to develop a bipartisan bill that actually addresses real problems; a bill that the nation would support."

The other response could be "We HAVE to push through a crappy bill because it's what we want and for political reasons we have to do SOMETHING."

Which option do you suppose the dems will chose?

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What Haiti Reveals

I can't count the times that I've heard complaints from the secular left about how much harm religion does to societies. There is no question that you can find a number of examples of the harm done by the abuse of religion for political purposes.

What is overlooked is all the good that organized religion does, and particularly, Christianity.

As I watch the stories around the tragedy in Haiti unfold, one thing strikes me: the number of missionaries involved in the stories. These missionaries have not come in to Haiti following the earthquake to take advantage of an opportunity. No, rather, these missionaries were already there. They were ministering to the poorest of the poor, to the oppressed, to the illiterate and the homeless, long before Obama and Clinton jumped in this week to address the problems of the nation.

I know personally people in my own church who have been to Haiti and to Fuji and to Brazil and to Mexico and to other countries and other continents to dig wells, build houses, teach people farming techniques, to educate children and do many other things to improve the quality of life in these places ... all in the name of Jesus.

Where is the secular left? Where is the ACLU? Where are the American atheist organizations?

They are nowhere to be found. They don't see it as their job to help people in distress. They don't see the need to address tragedies. Instead they sit back and say "How can a God allow these kinds of things to happen. How can God allow people to starve? How can God allow people to be homeless?"

I suspect God may be asking the same questions of them, as they sit at home on their hindsides and complain about having prayer in public places and seeing Christmas trees. God might say to them, "As soon as you create your own universe, you can create your own rules about what is just and what is right."

Before Obama and Clinton and Bush met this week to address the problems in Haiti and to begin an organization effort to bring in relief, our church was on the phone telling us how we could help. You see, my church is already there. They've been there for years. In fact, they've been there for decades. And they don't need to start some new kind of organized effort to help out. They've already got an organization in place specifically designed to minister to the needs of the Haitian people.

Let's keep that in mind the next time we are tempted to knock organized religion for the"harm" they do to society.

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Harry Reid Insults American Voters

By now, you have heard about Harry Reid's comments regarding Obama's electability as reported in the new book, Game Change. Reid said that Obama might be electable because he has "light skin" and does not have a "negro dialect."

Apologies to all the appropriate people were made, and the left has forgiven him, just like they've forgiven Chuck Rangel of being a tax cheat without any consequences. Obama gave Reid a pass and said that all the good Reid has done for the left outweighs his racist insult.

Of course, when you read in context was Reid was REALLY saying, you'll find that he was not insulting the African American community NEARLY as much as he was insulting us, the American Voter. Yes, I can see why African Americans would be upset about the phrase "negro dialect." In using these words, you might say that Reid "acted stupidly."

What I want to know is, where is MY apology from Reid? Reid essentially claimed that me and you and every other American voter would never vote for a dark-skinned african american because we are all racist rednecks. We don't listen to what candidates say or care about policies. All we care about is that they are "white enough" to be president.

And for that, I'm VERY insulted.

Reid is a complete moron, and he's proven it over and over. But never has he been so blatant in his stupidity than now, when insults all of us, and then apologies to the wrong people.

Trent Lott stepped down as Senate Majority leader for a remark that was much more innocent than this one. But since Reid is on the left, you can bet there will be no pressure to "drain the swamp" in Congress this time.

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Who Should Vote

Musings reports on a story from the Orlando Examiner that reveals something the Democrats know that the rest of us don't. Some of us on the right think that Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the left are committing political suicide with policies and laws that take America down the path toward a socialist and totalitarian state.

We all know that Democrats seldom do things that are not in their own best interest. They have an agenda, but the top of the list in that agenda is to increase their power and influence.

What we don't know is that the democrats have a plan to pass "Universal Voter Registration." They are pushing legislation at the federal level that would override state laws and would require states to go through all welfare rolls, driver's license lists, property tax lists and essentially any other list that would have the names of residents on it, and register all of those people to vote.

The democrats know that those who are interested and concerned about what is going on in this country will register and vote. They also know that those who are more likely to vote democrat, including welfare recipients, drug users, and other low-life, are less likely to actually register and vote.

I don't have to spell out the implications of such a plot.

What I did want to bring to the table is what I consider a radical thought. It is my belief that people who do not pay taxes and people who do not pay attention to the election process should NOT have the right to vote.

In other words, if you don't have a vested financial interest in the nation, why should you choose who gets to spend our money? If your only interest is in GETTING something from government, of course, you'll vote for who gives you the most goodies, not for who is going to be fiscally responsible.

Furthermore, if you don't have a clue who the candidates are and what they stand for, why should you be allowed to vote for them? It amazes me how many people vote who don't have any idea what the platforms of the parties are or what the candidate the are voting for (or against) stands for. A simple test that would determine if a voter has even a very basic understanding of what the issues are and where the candidates stand would go a long way toward improving the voting process.

Yes, these ideas would be unpopular. It seems to be accepted wisdom that in our democracy, everyone should vote. The more the better. The more, the fairer.

I disagree, and I think the founding fathers also disagreed. If you remember back to your history/government classes, the founding fathers did not allow everyone to vote. Only the male head of household voted. And land owners were represented in the process to a greater degree than non-land owners. (i.e. taxpayers got a larger representation).

While this may seem unfair in many ways, it seems to me that if you want to take part in the political process and in what the government is doing, you should have as a minimum, at least two responsibilities: 1. Take part in what the government is doing by paying taxes. and 2. have an understanding of what is going on.

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