I'm Voting For . . . Because . . .

I’m Voting for . . . Because. . .

© David Burton 2012

 Election - 2012
 

     The time has come to decide for whom to vote in the 2012 presidential elections. How will you decide who you want to be the president for the next four years? Let me make one suggestion. Use your brains! Ignore the rhetoric; restrain your emotions; put aside any prejudices you may harbor; consider the true facts (if you can determine them); check the historical precedents; read between the campaign lines; and, perhaps most importantly – think for yourself. Having said all of that, I’m voting for Mitt Romney for President because:


THE ECONOMY

     The father of America’s banking system, Alexander Hamilton, recognized that: “Governments love to spend. The accumulation of debt, he wrote, is ‘perhaps the NATURAL DISEASE of all governments.’ The ‘natural disease’ that Alexander Hamilton foresaw is out of control. The federal government continues to spend $3 for every $2 it collects, and borrows the rest. That amounts to $1.4 trillion in new indebtedness in 2011, bring the nation’s total indebtedness to just shy of the current legal limit of $14.3 trillion. The annual interest on that debt, $206 billion this year {2011}, is the fifth-largest and fastest growing expense in the federal government.” (Ref. 1) This enormous debt burden will come home to roost on the shoulders of our children and our grandchildren. Witness the economic chaos in Europe where countries have been spending more they could afford. Democrats and Obama act as if they are blind to these facts. Mitt Romney and the Republicans acknowledge the problem and vow to address it responsibly.

     Under President George W. Bush, all Americans received tax breaks as a result of the 2001 and 2003 “Bush tax cuts”. The economy boomed for the eight years of his administration. GDP rose at an annual rate near 4% and unemployment stood below 5%. This election year, President Obama refuses to extend these tax cuts as he did earlier in 2010. History has repeatedly demonstrated that reducing taxes stimulates the economy – this president either hasn't read his history or doesn’t believe that history can repeat.

     The President’s re-election propaganda machine talks about economic recovery and the growth of the U.S. economy under the Obama administration. What they won’t do is compare the recovery with that under President Ronald Reagan. “Real GDP growth during the first two years of the Obama recovery should average 2.69%, about half of what is typical for the start of an economic recovery. In contrast, real GDP grew at a 6.65% annual rate during the first two years of the Reagan recovery. . . . While in terms of employment the Obama recovery has been catastrophic, in terms of economic growth it has been merely disastrous. . . . The comparison between the 1982-84 and 2009-11 recoveries is particularly illuminating because Reagan’s economic program was the exact opposite of Obama’s. . . . The contrast between the Reagan program and the Obama program is especially stark when it comes to the dollar. During the first two years of the Reagan recovery the dollar rose by 12% against other major currencies and by 34% versus gold. During the Obama recovery the dollar lost 10% of its value against major foreign currencies and 39% of its value versus gold.” (Ref. 2) Wonder why the cost of fuel is so high? Wonder whether the socialist policies of Obama are leading us in the right direction? Who was/is right – Obama or Reagan; socialism or capitalism?

     Under President Barack Obama administration, both the economy and unemployment have tanked. GDP growth is now around an anemic 2% or less and unemployment has grown to between 8% and 10%. The real unemployment rate is nearer 14%. The U.S. Census Bureau in mid-September 2012 “found that the annual household income dropped in 2011 for the fourth straight year.” (Ref. 3) The economy under president Obama has been a disaster and there is no evidence that he has any idea of how to fix it. Is the economy better in September of 2012 than when he assumed office at the start of 2009?

     The economy is in trouble because of the massive debt burden facing this country. Government spending has escalated with no attendant increase in federal income. American businesses are hamstrung by federal regulations and uncertain government actions with regard to taxes and health care. “Barack Obama and the Democratic congressional supermajorities of 2009-10 raised federal spending from 21 percent to 25 percent of gross domestic product. Their stimulus package stopped layoffs of public employees for a while, even as private sector payrolls fell.
     “And Democrats piled burdens on the private sector. Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill are scheduled to be followed by regulations that will impose impossible-to-estimate costs on the economy. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the threat of tax increases and increased regulatory burdens have produced something in the nature of a hiring strike.” (Ref. 4)

     Let’s remember that in February 2008, outgoing President Bush “proposed a budget for fiscal 2009 with a 3% spending increase. . . . In 2008 Congress was controlled by Democrat majorities, with Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker and the restless Senator Obama already running for president. The budget approved and implemented by Pelosi, Obama and Democrat majorities provided for a 17.9% increase in spending for 2009! . . . So Obama played a very direct role in the runaway fiscal 2009 spending explosion.” (Ref. 5) The out of control spending binge by Obama and the Democrats was underway!

     Contrary to Obama’s economic actions upon assuming office: “Almost no one remembers now the much-vilified-at-the-time Reagan budget cuts, his first legislative initiative, which reduced the fiscal 1981 budget of $681 billion by $31 billion. Obama could have done the same thing when he entered office, even more so with Congress totally controlled by his own party.
     “But his first legislative initiative was the so-called stimulus, which increased future federal spending by nearly a trillion dollars, the most expensive legislation in history, except for ObamaCare. . . . you don’t promote economic recovery and growth by borrowing a trillion dollars out of the economy to spend a trillion dollars back into it.
     “Obama then worked with Congress to pass an additional $410 billion supplemental spending bill for 2009 . . . Next in 2009 came a $40 billion expansion in the SCHIP {State Children's Health Insurance Program} entitlement program.
     “Of course, those were just the preliminaries for the biggest single spending bill in world history, ObamaCare [Emphasis mine]. That legislation is not yet even counted in Obama’s spending record because it mostly does not go into effect until 2014. It is now scored by the Congressional Budget Office as increasing federal spending by $1.6 trillion in the first ten years alone. After just one year of the Obama spending binge, federal spending had already rocketed to 25.2% of GDP, the highest in U.S. history except for World War II. [Emphasis mine] That compares with 20.8% in 2008 and an average of 19.6% during Bush’s two terms. . . . During the 60-plus years from World War II until 2009, {the average was} 19.7%. President Obama’s own fiscal 2013 budget released in February {2012} . . . shows federal spending increasing from $2.983 trillion in 2008 to $3.796 trillion in 2012. The highest government spending in world history. [Emphasis mine]” (Ref. 5) And what has all this spending and debt bought us? We have a continuing unacceptably high unemployment rate. We face a future with spiraling taxes to pay off the ongoing government spending binge and the associated enormous debt burden. BUT, President Obama and the Democratic Congress did pass regulations that are supposed to regulate Wall Street so that there will no future financial meltdowns – if you believe in the tooth fairy! The truth is that these regulations will do nothing to prevent future financial crises, but these regulations will increase the size of the federal government – more cost to taxpayers; more government employees beholden to their Democratic sponsors; more lawyers to assure compliance; and more burdensome regulations on corporations that will increase the cost of their goods and services to all of us.

     President Obama is clueless when it comes to solving the problems of the American economy. He, as much admits this fact when he throws up his hands and passes the buck by claiming it’s all the fault of the previous administration and he really can’t do anything about it – it’s all George W. Bush’s fault! Obama’s fallback plan is to raise taxes, throw more money at the problem and “eliminate waste.” “Anyone who suggests that we can gain control of our nearly $14.4 trillion debt by raising taxes and eliminating waste is not living in reality.
     “Unfortunately, the current occupant of the White House still nurtures dreams of turning this country into a European-style social welfare state. . . . {What Obama can’t comprehend is that much of the problem is a result of} our failure to reform the unsustainable Social Security/Medicare Ponzi scheme that will devour our entire budget by mid-century.
     “Indeed, economists have estimated that by 2049 spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies will consume all tax revenues, leaving nothing for other government spending (including national defense, the court system, education and transportation.)
        - - -
     “The president has offered Americans no specifics. And, given his track record, it’s a safe bet that Obama’s new found commitment to reform will last only until {and if} he is re-elected.
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     “Tyrannosaurus Debt continues his rampage devouring our children’s future.” [Emphasis mine] (Ref. 6)

     Private business is the engine that fuels the American economy and creates the jobs that eliminate the unemployment problem. The uncertainty of the business climate fostered by president Obama and his Democratic administration is an anchor around the necks of American businessmen. “Business can’t function and consumers won’t spend without a predictable future. A more optimistic climate will not materialize until we have a rational and definitive policy blueprint that addresses our crushing debt, crippled entitlement programs, long-range defense budgets and all those other nagging problems that are dragging the nation down.” (Ref. 7) Such a blueprint has not been forthcoming from President Obama. His electioneering speeches give no indication that there will be sea change during a second term. He gives no indication of understanding the concerns of American businesses.

     A major aspect of the economy issue is that of unemployment and jobs creation. “Obama’s jobs creation plan has been simple – government hands out money (that comes from those with jobs who pay the taxes) and someone else gets a job. . . . {But, as Mitt Romney said,} ‘At best, government can provide a framework in which economic growth can occur. All too often, however, government gets in the way.’ It’s the private sector that creates jobs and by freeing the private sector to do just that – by lowering the corporate tax rate, eliminating taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends, and clearing away part of the regulatory thicket – Romney points in all the right directions.” (Ref. 8) Barack Obama, who has never in his life worked a day in the private sector doesn’t understand this - Mitt Romney, who has been a success in the private sector does. Obama has been brainwashed by the intellectual elite into believing in the fantasies of a socialistic Utopia.

     In spite of political ads to the contrary, an unpleasant truth for the Democrats is that the economy is Romney’s strong suit.


HEALTH CARE

     In spite of the clap-trap emanating from Obama supporters, Mitt Romney and the Republican Party do not plan to reverse every single aspect of Obamacare. They have always stated that they would keep those parts of Obamacare that nearly everyone is in favor of and get rid of those provisions that many, if not most Americans, oppose. The problem with Obamacare has always been that it is too broad, too complex, too vague, and places too much power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. Nancy Pelosi knew this and basically said as much when she, Obama and Reid were railroading the health care monstrosity through the Democratic controlled House and Senate. She essentially told Congress to pass the plan and afterwards try to understand what it contained - it is doubtful if they (or anyone else) understand the entire bill to this day. The Supreme Court intimated the same when Justice Scalia exclaimed, 'You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?' when faced with trying to read through and comprehend the full meaning and impact of the plan that defined the program.

     On September 10, 2012, Mitt Romney stated what Republicans have been saying all along. On NBC’s Meet the Press, Romney “said he would replace Obama’s health care law with his own plan while keeping some popular provisions including coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. . . . “I’m not getting rid of all health care reform,” said Romney. “Of course there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place.” (Ref. 9)

     In 1996, the personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act – popularly known as welfare reform, was passed into law by a Republican Congress. Instead of welfare being available forever, this act transformed welfare to a time-limited assistance program in which individuals had to demonstrate efforts to obtain work. Welfare reform worked – welfare rolls were halved and record numbers of young former welfare mothers found their way into the work force. The Medicare reforms being proposed by Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, Paul Ryan are similar to those of the welfare reform act. In Ryan’s and the GOP’s Medicare reform proposal, “bureaucratic social engineering is replaced by personal responsibility and market based incentives. . . . The Ryan plan restores freedom, ownership and personal responsibility to center stage of entitlement reforms.” (Ref. 10) In spite of Democratic propaganda, it in no way pushes grandma in a wheelchair over the edge of a cliff. Instead, it is a step on the path to restoring our health care system to some form of sanity.


COLLECTIVISM OR FREE ENTERPRISE

     In deciding on the Obama/Democratic path to socialism versus the Romney/Republican upholding of America’s traditional reliance on capitalism, consider the facts:

  • The economy added only 96,000 jobs in August, 2012, down from 141,000 in July – not enough to keep up with population growth. (Ref. 11)
  • The unemployment rate fell to 8.1% only because 581,000 workers quit looking for work. The real unemployment rate is probably around 14.7%. (Ref. 11)
  • This has been the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression. (Ref. 11)
  • The reduction in unemployment rate from 10% in October of 2009 is the result of a drop in the percentage of adults either working or looking for work. (Ref. 11)
  • Economic growth slowed to 1.7% in the 2nd quarter of 2012. (Ref. 11)
  • While President Obama claims that the economy is facing the most daunting changes since the Great Depression, the truth is that Ronald Reagan inherited a similar troubled economy, with unemployment peaking at 10.8%. Under Reagan, the GDP growth averaged 6.3%, versus a measly 2.2% under Obama (Ref. 11)
  • President Obama has failed to introduce efforts to produce more domestic oil, redress the trade imbalance (mostly with China), relax burdensome business regulations, and curb health-care mandates and costs. It’s estimated that such actions would create 5 million to 10 million jobs, and lower unemployment to about 5 percent. (Ref. 11)
  • Health insurance cost concerns, once Obamacare is fully implemented, are discouraging employers from bring on new hires. (Ref. 11)
     President Obama touts his administration’s bailout of GM as one of his economic policy successes. Far from an economic success, the GM bailout is nothing more than a Soviet-era example of government mismanagement of the economy and another example of favoritism to unions that overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party. FACT: If GM went bankrupt, it would not have gone out of business. In spite of Democratic innuendo, thousands of jobs would not have been lost in a GM bankruptcy. Thousands of companies go bankrupt, restructure under court protection and then emerge from bankruptcy to continue doing business as a better, more efficient organization. It can be argued that a GM bankruptcy would have resulted in a much stronger GM with resultant hiring of thousands of new employees. “The bankruptcy process gives a company the opportunity to solve its problems and reshape its business. As a result, the company that emerges out of Chapter 11 is often much stronger than it was before filing for bankruptcy.” (Ref. 12) Some companies that have successfully continued on after bankruptcy include: American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Owens Corning, Winn-Dixie Stores, Texaco, Time Warner Cable, and Dow-Corning.

     Let’s look at some facts surrounding The Obama administration’s bailout of GM. The bailout was made under the auspices of TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief program. But TARP “was created in order to preserve liquidity in the financial markets . . . nothing at all to do with cars, really. GM’s financial arm . . . was in trouble, but GM’s fundamental problem was that its products were not profitable enough to support its work force expenses. A single dominant factor – the United Auto Workers union’s extortionate contract with GM – prevented the carmaker from either reducing its work-force costs or making its products more efficiently.
     “Admirers of the GM bailout should bear in mind that it was the Bush administration that first decided to intervene at the company, offering a bridge loan on the condition that it draw up a deeply revised business plan. President Barack Obama’s unique contribution was effectively to nationalize the company, seeing to it that the federal government violated normal bankruptcy processes and legal precedent to protect the defective element at the heart of GM’s troubles: the financial interests of UAW. [Emphasis mine] . . . at the same time that Barack Obama & Co. were caterwauling about the supposed lack of patriotism of companies that used legal means rather than political favoritism to reduce their tax bills.
     Mitt Romney’s proposal for a structured bankruptcy would have necessitated considerable federal involvement, too, but with a key difference: the UAW contracts would have been renegotiated. . . . Obama did for GM what he is doing by un-reforming welfare: creating dependent constituency.” [Emphasis mine]
          - - -
     “. . . Far from having saved 1.5 m jobs {as Obama claims}, it is not clear that the GM bailout saved any – only that it preserved the UAW’s unsustainable arrangement.
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     “The GM bailout was a bad deal for GM’s creditors, for U.S. taxpayers and, in the long run, for the U.S. auto industry and our overall national competitiveness. No wonder the Democrats are campaigning on a fictional account of it.” (Ref. 13)

     In a 2012 campaign speech in Roanoke, Virginia, President Barack Obama stated his true beliefs about capitalism, about free enterprise and about the role of government in America. In essence, what the President said was that he really didn’t believe in the basic American concept of individuality and entrepreneurship. Instead, he spouted the liberal, socialist and progressive philosophy that all economic and societal benefits are derived from the collective - from the state. According to this philosophy, the individual is nothing and the state is everything. The homage we Americans pay to those whom we believed to be the bedrock or our national success is misplaced. Instead, it has been the state - the government - that has actually been the source of our greatness and prosperity. This being true, the so-called rich must give back to “the all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipotent state” that which the state claims they unfairly earned. Carrying this philosophy to its natural conclusion then, there should be no individuality – the individual must make himself or herself subservient to the state. The state knows best and will decide what everyone should do and how to spend the money the individual “earns”. In return, the state will decide what benefits to return to the individual. Clearly, this is not the American way – this is nothing but the Marxist philosophy of socialism and collectivism which has failed so miserably wherever and whenever it has been tried.

     President Obama and his administration are nothing more than an extension of “the New Deal-Great Society liberalism {of a bygone era}. At its heart are massive transfer payments for housing, health care, unemployment, job training, retirement and even funds for food, electricity, and cable television. For decades these payments translated into votes for the party the championed them. . . . {under President Obama, we have seen} a massive expansion of the federal government’s role – longer-term unemployment benefits, boosts in student loans, a huge new role in regulating and running the health care sector. . . . {Today,} almost half of American residents receive federal checks . . . {as a result,} the federal debt is now the size of the entire U.S. economy . . . {and} the day of reckoning is coming. . . . So far Obama’s response has been to try and scare the public that they will see their government checks reduced or eliminated.” (Ref. 14)

     Obama and the Democrats have been trying to impose upon the American people a socialistic economic system that has historically proven to a failure wherever it has been tried. America is what it has become because of a free-market system of capitalism. Socialists and liberals are envious of the success of what in their eyes is a “greed-driven” system and are blind to historical facts. “The Obama administration’s agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of ‘economic planning’ and ‘social justice’ that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. [emphasis mine] The administration’s central activity – the political allocation of wealth and opportunity – is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.” (Ref. 15)

     President “Obama believes that we can and should spend our way out of the recession. His public comments . . . reveal a hostility toward business and a wrongly held belief that government – not the private sector – is the engine of economic expansion.
     “And so he promises higher taxes (in the name of ’fairness’), more government spending and more regulation – all the while failing to see that such policies hamper job creation and economic growth.
     “Moreover, by promising to enlarge (rather than reform) the social safety net, Obama essentially guarantees that he will increase the national debt and entrench the culture of dependency – thereby limiting the economic and social mobility of working Americans.” (Ref. 16)

     There is idealism and there is realism. To the idealist, history does not teach us any lessons. To the idealist, current events are irrelevant. To the realist, the exact opposite is true. I am 90% a realist and only 10% an idealist. History and current events in the world do matter. Today’s economic chaos in Western Europe has my attention. From whence do their problems arise? “The primary problem is that the Western European model of providing cradle-to-grave entitlements for the folks is no longer sustainable in a world where recession has replaced expansion. Many countries, including the United States, have so much debt that they simply can’t pay it off. America can still borrow what it needs, but not even Zeus would invest in Greek bonds.
     “With all the economic chaos on display, you would think the Democratic Party and liberal America would reconsider their attachment to massive government spending. You would think. But you’d be wrong.
        - - -
     “The American left wants to spend even more money while raising taxes on the affluent and on a variety of businesses to raise the cash.” (Ref. 17)

     A question facing the voter in 2012 is: Are you an idealist or a realist? If you are an idealist, you probably long for Utopia and the promised heaven on earth society. You probably believe the rhetoric from Barrack Obama and the propaganda from his liberal and Democratic supporters. I urge the idealists among you to independently use your brains to review the lessons of history and to see the world around you as it actually is. We have not achieved Utopia in America and are not likely to do so in the foreseeable future. For 250 years we have existed and prospered as a capitalist nation. “In a capitalist country, no one is guaranteed a job. The marketplace and competition drive employment. Also, while union contracts can mandate wages, the government does not. It allows private enterprise. But that’s not what the far left wants. It seeks a socialist society.
        - - -
     “The United States cannot afford to give everyone a job and pay them a nice salary. No country can do that. Those who try, . . . wind up destitute.” (Ref. 17) Socialists, liberal Democrats and Barrack Obama do not believe in the truth of these facts. They are convinced that government should and can take total care of its citizens, that government is better qualified to makes decisions than the individual and the free market. I am convinced that the opposite is true and will cast my ballot to stop the growth of this socialism in America.

     What has been happening in America under Democratic and Liberal leadership is similar to the situation that caused the eventual fall of ancient democratic Greece as described by a leading authority of Graeco-Roman civilization, Edith Hamilton, in The Lessons of the Past. (Ref. 18) In her writing, Hamilton describes Athens as the first democracy in the world and, at its peak, an almost perfect democracy. Basic to all its achievements was freedom “The Athenians were a strong people, they could pay the price. They were a thinking people; they knew what freedom means. Their love of freedom allowed them to remain unconquered no matter what manpower and what wealth was arrayed against her. At marathon and at Salamis overwhelming numbers of Persians had been defeated by small Greek forces.”

     So what caused the ultimate fall of ancient Greece? “In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security, a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security and comfort and freedom.
. . . When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to the state, but the state to give to them, when the freedom they wished most for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.” (Ref. 18) Is this to also be the epithet for America? NOT IF I CAN HELP IT! I’ll vote for personal responsibility and not perpetual dependency on the state.


BIG GOVERNMENT

     Big government is destructive to the American way of life! No matter what President and Obama and the Democrats may say, I believe this statement to be true. Big government costs big money – in innumerable ways. One way in which big government impacts our lives is in the blizzard of regulations emanating from Washington. Under President Obama the mountain of regulations has been growing. In 2010, federal agencies issues 43 new major rules. The government regulators themselves estimated the total costs for these new rules at about $26.5 billion for the private sector. Never mind the cost of keeping these regulators employed. That is the highest single-year increase in costs imposed by regulation in at least 30 years. Now, add to that the 243 new rule-makings in the pipeline by 11 different agencies just to implement 2011’s financial regulation legislation. And, what about Obamacare? Since Obamacare passed, the Administration has released over 6,000 pages of new regulations – and there are hundreds if not thousands more regulations coming. The paperwork will be crippling, the associated costs enormous, with the likely result being countless jobs in the private sector being lost. BUT, there will be more federal hiring – to interpret, revise, and enforce the regulations – big government begets more big government. As I said, Big government is destructive to the American way of life!

     Here’s one example of the difference between big government and the free market. “San Francisco International Airport (SFO) employs a private contractor for screen passengers and luggage. . . . The House Transportation & Infrastructure committee conducted a study of how screening at Los Angeles’ chief airport (LAX) compared with SFO’s. The astonishing finding: SFO screeners processed 65% more passengers per screener than did their counterparts at LAX. . . . SFO screeners receive the same wages and benefits as those hired and managed by the TSA {Transportation Security Administration}, and SFO uses virtually identical procedures and equipment. The difference is that the private contractor in San Francisco has no sense of entitlement or feeling of permanency. Competition works. . . . {Also,} a USA Today investigation . . . found that TSA screeners at Chicago O’Hare and LAX missed three times as many hidden bomb materials as did privately contracted screeners at San Francisco.” (Ref. 19)

     Big government needs lots of money to remains big. To get lots of money, big government needs to impose high taxes. But, do high tax rates benefit the taxpayers? To answer this question, we can “compare taxes around the world to see which countries are doing well and which are not, however.
     “Hong Kong has a 15 percent tax on salaries and no capital gains tax. Its unemployment rate is 3.4 per cent.
     “Residents of Spain are taxed on all income other than savings interest at rates ranging from 24 percent to 45 percent. Spain’s unemployment rate is 25 percent.
     “In the U.S., the official unemployment rate is 8.1 percent, which doesn’t count those who have stopped looking for jobs (that would put it in the 14 percent range). Our capital gains rate is 15 percent, set to jump to a top rate of 39.6 percent in 2013. Marginal income tax rates range from 10 percent to 35 percent.
     “Notice a pattern? Simply put, economies with low tax rates create jobs and those with high tax rates don’t.
     “People who think a job is a good thing should thus vote for politicians who keep taxes low. Those who disagree with that position can support higher taxes.” (Ref. 20) Since close to 50 percent of Americans don’t pay any taxes, this may be a moot argument. These 50 percent (or is it 47 percent?) may not care about the rest of us that do pay taxes and many of these 50 percent may also not care about jobs, since some of them receive money from the government in lieu of work and may not care to find a job.

     The Obama administration is imposing a plethora of rules and regulations on America that goes against the grain of representative government. This form of executive branch tyranny is being perpetrated by unelected government bureaucrats through President Obama’s executive orders. “President Obama’s Department of health and Human Resources released an official directive that guts the work requirements that have been the foundation of the bi-partisan welfare reform law of 1996 – one of the all-time most successful domestic policy reforms. . . . The Senate rejected the President’s cap-and-trade plan . . . But the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) simply issued the same plan as a regulation with the force of law. . . . And just wait until ObamaCare fully kicks in, if it is not repealed. The power over one-sixth of the economy will be transferred to over 100 federal agencies all reporting to the Department of Health and Human Resources, whose head is not subject to congressional authority as a member of the President’s cabinet. . . . Major federal regulations have more than doubled in the last five years.” (Ref. 21) We are seeing a shift to government by fiat instead of a government by consent and we are witnessing a burgeoning of the federal bureaucracy with its associated rise in the cost of running a highly non-productive segment of the federal government. One of the complaints against King George III in our Declaration of Independence was that: “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” Substitute President Obama for He and unelected federal bureaucrats for officers. Now, you know one more reason that I will be voting for Mitt Romney!


CLASS WARFARE

     According to President Obama and his Democratic and Liberal supporters, all rich people are evil. We continually hear the shrill cry coming from the left for the rich to pay their fair share so the government can hand out more of the tax-payers’ monies to the other 99%.

     President Obama and the Liberal Establishment have embarked upon a vindictive campaign of class warfare. If you are successful and if you make lots of money, you are vilified. You become one “of the 1%.” You aren’t “paying your fair share.” You are a mean curmudgeon who takes advantage of “the oppressed workers of the world.” Off with your heads! “’Millionaires and billionaires’ are in Obamaspeak, really individuals earning $200,000 a year; and ‘the rich’ repeatedly stand accused – falsely – of not paying their ‘fair share’.” (Ref. 22)

     The result is: “When people pay over 50 percent in payroll, federal, state, and local taxes and are still caricatured as ‘not paying their fair share,’ a sort of collective shrug follows and bodes ill for the economy at large. One need not be liked to make money, but the constant presidential harangues finally take their toll in insidious ways.” (Ref. 23)

     Mitt Romney may have been inarticulate when he declared that 47% of America won’t vote for him, no matter what. But he was just telling it like it is. The truth hurts, and the truth is that President Obama and Liberal Democrats have “bought and paid for” the votes of many millions of Americans with government hand-outs and entitlements. In days gone by, politicians would buy votes with drinks at the local saloon or by handing out $5 bills. Today’s politicians do the same, but today, it’s with tens of thousands of dollars in government hand-outs and entitlements that are not one-time bribes – these bribes last a lifetime.

     An objective of Democratic Liberalism is “to make life on the dole an acceptable lifestyle choice.” (Ref. 24) Mitt Romney and Conservative Republicans oppose this objective, as should all Americans. Democrats try to portray this as “not caring” about the poor and the truly needy. But, “Caring about someone isn’t the same as caring for someone.” (Ref. 24) Republicans and Mitt Romney are no less caring about the needy than Liberals and Democrats. The difference is that Republicans and Mitt Romney favor helping the needy to care for themselves rather than having the rest of us care for them for rest of their lives. Who is more caring - Democrats who want to enslave supporters in a life time of dependency, or Republicans who want to free Americans from a lifetime of dependency?

     “The indisputable fact is, a huge percentage of Obama’s voters are basically wards of the state. There are millions of them and they have no intention of voting for anyone who might want them to ever go out and work for a living – ‘no matter what.’ . . . more than 150 years ago . . . Alexis de Tocqueville . . . had the same take as Mitt {Romney} on what has become the American welfare state:
     ”A democracy … can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy. [Emphasis mine] . . . Anyone who doesn’t think the welfare industrial complex is trying to increase dependency isn’t paying attention.”(Ref. 25)

     “Self-reliance, independence, and the freedom to create the life we choose is the best way to live – far better than the half-life pseudo-adulthood of the dependent class.
     “I want to fire Obama and hire Romney because it’s the best way to get the most prosperity for the most people. I don’t want to watch working families struggle for another four years, only to be told, 'this is as good as it gets.’ I want Americans living well today and expecting to live even better tomorrow.” (Ref. 24)


FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND SECURITY

     It was only a last minute effort that forced the Democratic Convention to insert a plank in its platform identifying Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. “The Democratic National Convention opened its Wednesday evening session by reinstating the language that asserts Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish state. The abrupt move came after Democrats . . . spent the day defending the change in the party’s platform language. The omission of Jerusalem from the party’s original 2012 platform language drew sharp criticism from Mitt Romney’s campaign and could have proven to be a liability with some Jewish voters in the fall election.” (Ref. 26)

     The last minute change came about because the Republican presidential nominee, during his trip to Israel, “declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States has ‘a solemn duty and a moral imperative’ to block Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.” Romney also said that, "Obama has misunderstood the actual situation regarding the Israelis and Palestinians.” He concluded with, “The next administration will not be as foolishly idealistic as the Obama administration.” (Ref. 27) WELL SAID!

     The last-minute change of heart at the Democratic Convention was clearly a result of the embarrassment caused by, a) Mitt Romney’s affirmation of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel during his visit there, b) the fact that this plank was included in previous years’ Democratic platforms, and c) the need for Obama to counter the justified impression that he was either indifferent to the State of Israel vis-a-vis its Arab neighbors or more likely hostile to Israel and its elected leaders. His administration’s earlier calls for halting construction of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the dismantling of Jewish settlements already there, along with similar calls for the cessation of Jewish construction in Jerusalem indicated his administration’s true attitude toward Israel. His earlier calls for negotiations to determine the status of Jerusalem contradict the Democratic Party’s reinserted plank that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

     The president’s relations with Arab and Muslim leaders, nations and other organizations is quite problematic. One example: “President Barack Obama’s deputies are holding ‘hundreds’ of closed-door meetings with a jihad-linked lobbying group that is widely derided by critics as a U.S. arm of the theocratic Muslim Brotherhood.
     “The admission of meetings with the Council on American-Islamic Relations came from George Selim, the White House’s new director for community partnerships, which was formed in January to ensure cooperation by law enforcement and social service agencies with Muslim identity groups in the United States.
        - - -
     “CAIR is ‘the group with the worst record of deception and the deepest ties to terrorists,’ said Steven Emerson, the director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which tracks the public activities of Islamist lobbying groups.
        - - -
     “The House of Representatives . . . prodded the Department of Justice to end all contacts with CAIR.
     “’The [appropriations] committee understands that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has an existing policy prohibiting its employees from engaging in any formal non-investigative cooperation with CAIR [and] the committee encourages the attorney general to adopt a similar policy for all department officials,’ said the committee report accompanying the 2013 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill, passed in mid-May by the House.
        - - -
     “However, the White House’s cooperation with Muslim groups complements the Democratic Party’s diversity strategy.
        - - -
     “That strategy seeks to accumulate votes from a discordant variety of minority groups, including Muslims and feminists, Jews, gays, Latinos and African-Americans. The party’s Muslim outreach is focused on Michigan and Illinois, which are home to significant numbers of Muslim immigrants.” (Ref. 28)

     President Obama has unsuccessfully attempted to curry favor with the totalitarian Arab regimes in the Middle East at the expense of the democratic State of Israel. “Even as the Palestinian Authority adamantly refuses to come to the negotiating table, the Obama administration prefers to point the finger at Israel, unabashedly threatening the Jewish state with economic sanctions. . . . If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the snickering and laughter in Ramallah and Gaza as the Palestinians rejoice at the free pass they are getting from the White House.” (Ref. 29) The Palestinians know a patsy when they see one.

     President Obama naively believed and probably still does believe that being nice to the Arab nations and asking them to join him around the campfire singing Kumbaya will induce them to be nice to the U.S. in return. What he has never understood is that the Arab/Muslim world is not the world of the West or of the United States. For these people, trying to be nice is simply a sign of weakness and that sign of weakness means that they have the upper hand and don’t have to agree to anything of value to us. What the Arab/Muslim nations/peoples understand is power. If we make it clear that we are speaking from a position of strength and power, then these Arab/Muslim nations/peoples may – just may – be reasonable, at least not outright belligerent and combative. The appearance of weakness on the part of the U.S. just encourages more extremism and violence from radical Islamists and their adherents. President Obama has never gotten the message!

     Consider: “Obama has sat back as Turkey has fashioned a Syrian opposition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab League has intervened in a manner that increases the prospect that Syria will descend into chaos in the event that the Asad regime is overthrown.
     “Obma continues to speak grandly about his vision for the Middle East and his dedication to America’s regional allies. And his supporters in the media continue to applaud his great success in foreign policy. But outside of their echo chamber, he and the country he leads are looked upon with increasing contempt and disgust throughout the Arab world.” (Ref. 30) “There is no doubt Obama’s negative feelings toward Israel are becoming a serious factor in Middle East diplomacy, making the already poor chances for peace worse and increasing the possibility that Israel’s foes will conclude that the Jewish state cannot count on U.S. support if new fighting breaks out along the border with Gaza or Lebanon.” (Ref. 31)

     So far, Under President Obama, the killing in Syria goes on with no end in sight. The President has laid down the law to Iran about their nuclear program. Iran and the madman, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, laugh in our face and continue to develop an atomic arsenal so they can wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Obama sends a message to that Russian icon of freedom and democracy, Vladimir Putin, to wait until after the 2012 election so he can accommodate the Russians because he will “be more flexible.” Obama’s inconsistent “Carter-like groveling and appeasement of our enemies . . . sows confusion among our allies even as it heartens our enemies, who view it as a sign of weakness and fear.” (Ref. 32)

     Exactly what has the Obama administration accomplished with regards to American foreign policy?

     President George W. Bush’s foreign policy may have been unpopular with liberals, but the world understood it, and we were respected, if not loved, for it, even if parts of the world did not agree with it. Let’s not lose sight of the following facts. Sadam Hussein is gone and the world is better off as a result. George Bush was responsible for this. Al Qaeda has been driven out of its sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Osama bin Ladin and other top Al Qaeda leaders are dead. Obama may have been in office at bin Ladin’s demise, but we can thank George Bush for laying the ground work and for hunting him down from 2001 till 2008. There have been no 9-11 attacks on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001. We can also thank George Bush for this. The Taliban, who are Afghan Muslim fundamentalists and not Jihadist terrorists like Al-Qaeda, were driven from power in Afghanistan and the Afghan people have been given the opportunity to decide what form of governance they want to live under. Whether that is a liberal democratic regime or a theocratic one, like the Taliban, is up to them – but at least we have given them the opportunity to choose. George Bush was responsible for this. Despite fierce Democratic opposition to continuing the war in Iraq, President Bush persevered with a surge strategy that has allowed President Obama to declare victory. For more on the differences between the Bush/Republican foreign policy results and those of the Obama/Democratic administration, see Ref. 33.

     Under President Obama, our foreign policy is a failure and there is a total lack of respect for it throughout the world. With respect to Iran, Obama cannot face reality. He has persisted in the delusion that “the current Iranian regime could be a negotiation partner, despite what has already happened in that country.” He has irrationally clung to the hope that he could talk Mahmoud Ahmajinedad into halting Iran’s nuclear program. Obama extended his hand and Iran has shown the absurdity of the Obama approach. President Obama naively believed that the charisma that won him the presidential election in 2008 could also succeed in charming the Muslim world and the world’s despots. His failed Middle-East peace initiatives have shown the fallacy in this belief. He has yet to show that he understands that his policies are not working.

     To many, Barack Obama’s approach foreign policy is Carteresque, referring to the abysmally failed foreign policy of former President Jimmy Carter. Historian Sean Wilentz observed that Obama “resembles Jimmy Carter more than he does any other Democratic president in living memory.” (Ref. 34) Carter’s time in the White House was a foreign policy disaster for the United States. It was largely responsible for Carter’s crushing 44-state landslide defeat by Ronald Reagan in Carter’s bid for a second term. Ronald Reagan reversed Carter’s lamb-like foreign policy with a more forceful and muscular approach. Regan’s “peace through strength” approach ultimately reduced the risk of war with the Soviet Union “Within a decade, the Soviet empire – as Reagan foretold – would be relegated to the ash-heap of history.
     “Like all presidents, Reagan got many things wrong. But one thing he got very right was that American weakness is provocative. A foreign-policy blueprint that emphasizes the need for American constraint, deference and apology – what an Obama advisor today calls “leading from behind’ is a recipe for more global disorder, not less.” [Emphsis mine] . . . The Carter years are a warning of what happens when the leader of the free world won’t lead.” (Ref. 34)

     Where does this administration stand on national security? It seems to many that political expediency, redistributing the wealth and expanding social programs take precedence over national security. Many of the issues that impact military spending seem irrelevant to the President. “Gaping budget deficits and piling debt are bigger threats to national security than any country or terrorist organization. . . . Some executives {in the defense industry} throw up their hands in frustration as they hear Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s fear-inducing declarations that the mandatory spending reductions {from the threat of sequestration} would be catastrophic to the military, while the president insists that any legislation that repeals the tax cuts without revenue offset would be vetoed. . . . Burying one’s head in the sand until Congress takes this up during the lame duck session is not an acceptable course of action.” (Ref. 35)

     The President’s foreign policy and security moves are bewildering and, to many, inconsistent. Obama “issued Executive Order 1211, banning the use of enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding – the same techniques that contributed to the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden, . . . rejected military tribunals for trying captured terrorists, allowed his attorney general to hound CIA agents who had been involved in enhanced interrogations, released the Justice Department memos that legally vetted, and described in detail, the interrogation techniques used by the CIA, thus giving our enemies invaluable intelligence about resisting these techniques.” (Ref. 32) First, Guantanamo had to be closed – now it doesn’t; before, tribunals for terrorists had to be abolished – now they don’t; previously, renditions were wrong – now they’re not; preventive detention was wrong – now it’s not; Predator-drone attacks on terrorist leaders were wrong under President Bush – but they’re now O.K.; The Bush-Petraeus surge in Iraq was wrong under President Bush – but now it’s the success that allows President Obama to declare victory in Iraq and start withdrawing American troops; promoting democracy was “an arrogant neoconservative imposition of our values onto different cultures” under President Bush, but is now “advocacy for human rights” under President Obama. (Ref. 36)


ENERGY

     The price of gasoline is near record highs and President Obama tells the American public that he can’t do anything about it! While not taking meaningful steps to address the problem but actually taking actions that exacerbated the problem, the president repeatedly told us it wasn’t his fault and he proceeded to try and foist the blame on someone else – “it’s all the fault of the greedy oil companies” and the result of “high crude oil prices driven by geopolitical forces – Middle East instability and increased demand by China and India.” (Ref. 37)

     What gall, to tell me that as president of the United States he couldn’t do anything about the problem. Such an attitude from the president of the United States is insulting. In case President Obama didn’t read the job description, it clearly states that It is the president’s job is to do something about this type of problem! Obama has had four years to do something, during the first two of which the Democrats controlled both house of Congress, and he didn’t do anything to head off or solve the problem.

     Not only was he not solving the problem, but he actually gave the American people the misleading impression that actions he took resulted in increased oil and gas production. Nothing could be further from the truth! “The problem with {his} claim {was} that most of the expansion in domestic oil and gas production over the past three years {was} the result of steps taken by the Bush administration. {President Obama} actually reduced output from what it would have been had {his} administration not reversed many of President George W. Bush’s policies. . . . "The bottom line is {the Obama} administration {was and is trying to take} credit for American energy production while it {has been working} to aggressively undermine it." [Emphasis mine] (Ref. 38)

     What President Obama has been doing in an attempt to deflect the anger of the average citizen from his administration was to point his finger at big oil and blame them for the high cost of oil. He has repeated the same old tired refrain to the American people that “your tax dollars subsidize the oil industry.” But, in reality, these subsidies “are tax credits such as the ‘expensing’ of intangible drilling costs, a provision of the tax code since its inception. . . . {An inconvenient truth is the fact that} oil and gas producers receive {only} 25 cents per unit of production while wind and solar {energy producers} receive around $24 per unit {nearly 100 times more than oil and gas producers}. Another way of looking at the issue is to note that while fossil fuels get one-third of subsidies today, they account for 80 percent of our total energy. The two thirds {of the subsidies} that go for renewables account for less than 5 percent of our energy.” (Ref. 37) Oil and gas producers take enormous risks and incur staggering cost to find and extract their products from the earth. By comparison, wind and solar companies take no risk to locate their energy sources and pay comparatively little for the labor and equipment to generate electricity from these sources. While President Obama didn’t know what to do to combat the high fuel prices facing Americans, he did know how to feed the taxpayers’ money into unsuccessful green energy initiatives – apparently, he didn’t trust the America’s private sector to know how to pick the winners in the free market place.

     The sad facts are that “Permits for drilling offshore and on government-owned lands are down sharply since Barack Obama took office. His administration, for instance, refuses to open up … Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that is laden with oil and gas. Drilling there could be done with no environmental harm. The President has also stymied the Keystone Pipeline from Canada, which would give us an extra million barrels of oil a day from a friendly neighbor.” (Ref. 39)

     “President Obama made the outrageous claim that his administration is responsible for the national increase in domestic drilling. . . . {Here again the truth and the President’s rhetoric are at total odds.} Well, here's the truth: drilling is increasing in the United States ... on privately owned land. . . . On public land, which President Obama is responsible for, drilling is rapidly decreasing. In fact, leases issued by the Bureau of Land Management are now less than half of what they were under former President Bill Clinton. . . . The bottom line is this administration is taking credit for American energy production while it works to aggressively undermine it.” [Emphasis mine].” (Ref. 38)

     In terms of increasing the domestic supply of oil and gas, the facts show that President Obama and his Administration have “done nothing but stand in the way of increasing the domestic supply of oil and gas.
     “The Keystone XL pipline that would have assured a steady supply of crude oil from Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast was killed - not by congressional wrangling, but by {the Obama} administration. Any other interpretation is a work of political fiction.
     “And remember the Obama administration’s paralysis that followed the BP oil spill? Not only did the {Obama} administration halt virtually all drilling in the Gulf for months on end, but it halted all permitting of deepwater permits of new wells (the number of deepwater permits has been more than cut in half during this administration.” (Ref. 40)

     President Obama and the Washington Democrats seem to view American-made energy as hazardous waste rather than a resource. They pushed a “cap and trade” plan that would have significantly raised taxes on energy producers which would discourage energy production and drive up fuel and utility prices for American families while destroying thousands of jobs. . . . Republicans -- and a lot of Democrats -- successfully prevented cap-and-trade from ever becoming law. {Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency, under President Obama, has now simply issued the same plan as a regulation with the force of law.}
     “President Obama {has falsely taken} credit for the increase in oil drilling on U.S. soil but {didn’t mention the fact} that drilling on federal and American Indian lands has gone down under his administration. He also {forgot} to mention that he opposes drilling off the mid-Atlantic coast, the Florida coast, the full Gulf of Mexico, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or in the Rockies. (Ref. 41) Clearly, with respect to energy, President Obama has done little but said much.

     “The energy crisis we are facing today isn't a lack of energy resources; it's a lack of leadership. That starts at the top, with our President. . . . The American people deserve an energy policy that creates a stronger economy, more jobs and opportunity, and the security that comes with American Energy Independence.” (Ref. 38) For more on President Obama’s failure to address America’s energy policy, see Ref. 42.


WOMEN’S RIGHTS

     The Democrats have been screaming that the election of Mitt Romney will return American women to the status of women under the Sharia laws of fundamentalist Islam. It doesn’t take an Einstein to recognize the utter absurdity of these charges. Ann Romney will not be forced to cover her head and hide her face behind a veil. The Democrats may have cheered a convention speech by Sandra Fluke, who defended President “Obama’s decision to force Catholic Institutions to pay for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. {Apparently, Fluke can afford to attend} a “$50,000-a-year law school, but is unable to afford $10-a-month birth control pills.” (Ref. 43) According to the Democrats and other Liberals, opposition to government-mandated free contraception and abortion makes one a supporter of a nefarious scheme to take away all women’s rights.

     “When the Obama reelection staff began developing its general strategy for duping a majority of the electorate into once again supporting the President, they knew they needed to drive a lot of disenchanted female voters back into the Democrat herd. Thus, they concocted the fictional Republican ‘war on women.’ . . . {In truth, however, the} very ability to cast a ballot was won for them by the Republicans over the vehement objections of the Democrats.
     “. . . the amendment granting women the right to vote was passed by Congress in 1919 and ratified by the states in 1920. {In 1918,} the Republicans won landslide victories in the House and the Senate, giving them the power to pass the amendment despite continued opposition from most elected Democrats -- including President Woodrow Wilson.
        - - -
     “. . . When the Amendment was submitted to the states, 26 of the 36 states that ratified it had Republican legislatures. Of the nine states that voted against ratification, eight were Democratic.” (Ref. 44) The truth is the "war on women" is nothing but an election year red herring

     While Democrats rail against the GOP platform on abortion and public funding of contraception, the underlying truth is that there is little to no chance that women’s choice in the matter of abortion will be compromised by a Romney/Ryan win. While many Americans are opposed to abortion on religious grounds, as are Romney and Ryan, America has long ago decided that this is a matter of individual choice. On the other hand, forcing institutions to go against their religious beliefs is quite another matter. Public funding for contraceptives is a somewhat different matter. Should the government universally pay for contraception when very few among us cannot afford to pay for it ourselves? Public funding for contraception and in many case abortion is another intrusion by the government and an attempt by liberals to expand the “nanny state” concept of government.


PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP

     Instead of demonstrating the leadership expected of a president, Barack Obama has continually whined and attempted to blame anyone and anything for his failures in office. He came into office blaming former President George W. Bush and his Vice-President, Dick Cheney, for all the country's problems. It never crossed his mind that some of these problems are of his own making or those of the leaders of his political party. Harry Truman famously said, "The buck stops here!” referring to himself and the White House. His meaning was clear. No matter how the problem arose, it was ultimately up to the President of the United States to resolve the problem. The blame game was not part of his repertoire and indeed was not expected to be part of the game plan of any resident of the Oval Office. How things have changed in the 60 plus years since President Truman led his party and this nation.

     Obama's first scapegoats were Bush and Cheney, then the rest of the evil Republicans, then it was Fox Cable TV that was to blame, then the evil bankers, the lobbyists, the greedy people on Wall Street, the overpaid corporate CEO's, and on and on and on.

     Passing the buck doesn’t hack it! Pretty speeches are not enough. Our enemies don't respect signs of weakness, a lack of resolve and a groveling approach in an attempt to win their support. They can smell weakness. Domestically, it takes more than empty words to gain bipartisan support from Republicans, Independents and the American people. It takes thoughtful actions and not meaningless rhetoric to solve our problems.

     In an election-year interview on CBS's 60 Minutes President Obama said that, as president, he bore responsibility “for everything” but only “to some degree.” He also said that he was disappointed because he wasn’t able to “change Washington from the inside.” In essence, he was admitting his own failure to lead this nation. Apparently he never heard of President Truman’s “the buck stops here” statement. Over and over it’s been “it’s someone else’s fault”, and “there’s nothing I can do about it.” It seems to me those are pretty lame excuse from a president whose party controlled both houses of Congress for his first two years in office. Where has there been presidential leadership in solving the problem of the persistently sluggish economic growth; of the 23 million Americans that are unemployed or underemployed; of reforming Medicare and Social Security in order to shrink the deficit; of achieving comprehensive immigration reform; of halting Iran’s march toward the development of a nuclear weapon; of stopping the slaughter of Syria’s dissidents; or, of repairing the frayed diplomatic relations with Israel?


IT MAKES NO SENSE

     Several of President Obama’s actions defy common logic. The publishing of a book on the bin Laden killing by a Navy SEAL has drawn deserving and righteous wrath from the Secretary of Defense. BUT, at the same time, the president spilled many of the details of the action immediately following the raid and has now even briefed “a Hollywood film crew on the details of the raid.” (Ref. 19) Will someone please explain the logic of all of this to me?

     On June 4, 2008, as a candidate, President Obama spoke to a Jewish group of at the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) convention and called “for an ‘undivided Jerusalem’ but then recant{ed} that view the very next day, saying Jerusalem had to be negotiated.” (Ref. 45) Can someone please explain the logic of this reversal in position – could it be pandering to garner votes and then quickly sucking up to our Arab/Palestinian/Muslim “friends”?

     During his 2008 campaigning and early in his presidency, President Obama wanted to close the Guantanamo Prison Camp, ostensibly because the treatment meted out to al Qaeda terrorists was too severe. He also wanted to punish the CIA for being too harsh in their interrogation of the al-Qaeda terrorists who murdered 3,000 innocent American civilians on September 11, 2001. Did president Obama really believe that being nice to the al-Qaeda and Taliban animals and punishing America's front line fighters in the war on terrorism would gain the U.S. respect in the Muslim world or would such acts encourage more acts of global terrorism and weaken our ability to defend ourselves and our allies? (Ref. 46) The President, on one hand, threatened the CIA with prosecution for being too harsh in their interrogations, but, on the other hand, basically sanctioned the assassination of Osama bin Laden, in contravention of Executive Order 12333 (Ref. 47) which prohibited the assassination of a foreign official outside the boundaries of the United States. What kind of muddled thinking could explain such irrational behavior?

     Another 11th hour change to the Democratic platform of 2012 came about when the convention railroaded though the reinsertion of the word GOD. Previously, “the delegates were busy removing any reference to ‘God’ from the party platform. . .. You see, for Democrats in 2012, the only religion is government. The only god is Barrack – the man who will heal us all (and the planet) if we can give him just a little more time.” (Ref. 43) This country was founded by people with a profound faith in God. Why, some 200 plus years after its founding, would the Democrats want to remove a reference to God from their platform? It simply makes no sense, except to those liberals who place “political correctness” above all other considerations.

     President Obama says he wants to create jobs, but his policies say the opposite. Historical realities are not on the side of the President’s policies. “If you trust the individual, the collective wisdom of the American people, you understand why it’s important to let them have more money in their pockets. . . . Most new jobs are created by small businesses. And small businesses pay individual income tax. And if the goal is private sector growth, the tax policy ought to encourage, not discourage, the job creators of 70% of new jobs. If you raise taxes on the so-called rich, you’re really taxing job creators
. . . . If you raise taxes on capital gains and dividends, you’re taxing investment. And the private sector requires investment in order to grow. You’re also taxing pensioners and savers.” (Ref. 48) The President’s tax policies in terms of job creation just don’t make sense.


ON NOVEMBER 6 . . .

     Am I better off today than I was four years ago? – NO. Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Do you honestly believe that you would be better off after four more years of Obama?

On November 6th, I’m voting or Mitt Romney for President.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References:
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  48. Taxes, Trade, Social Security and More – George Bush Speaks Out, Steve Forbes, Forbes, Pages 15-16, 21 May 2012.

 
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