Though, something has to be said of the obvious. How does this square with global warming? Or as I like to call it, the Polar Bear BBQ. If the Greenland Ice Sheet and the Antarctic Ice Sheet are melting, then why does the evidence point to global cooling? Is it perhaps because there is no real evidence of global warming outside of doctored photos of weepy polar bears floating on rapidly shrinking ice bergs? 

All of the video in Gore’s Inconvenient… whatever it was… uhhh… waste of time, yeah that’s the ticket! Anyway, all the video of glaciers calving is from a Hollywood movie (The Day After Tomorrow). So that is to say it is completely CGI. This leads us to the conclusion that Global Warming is the result of CGI. Whether CGI designed to mislead people, or whether from CGI carbon emissions is still under investigation.   

Regardless, too many people are letting themselves be lied to. Again, there is no evidence of Global Warming except for doctored photos and fake CGI video. It remains to be seen whether the evidence for the impending ice age is any better, but Pravda the news paper has chosen the right name. Pravda is Russian for “Truth.” Well, we’ll see.

There’s been a lot going on, but most of that will materialize and coalesce on January 25^th, 2009. So I want to focus on what we are leaving behind in the wake of all of this change and hope. That is Bush’ legacy. I have no doubt that many of you will have read blogs and articles rambling on about the Iraq War, the financial crisis, 911 and the war on terror, as well as the expanding nature of the executive branch of government. Many of these writings will try to postulate whether history will look favorably on our 43^rd president, but rather than follow their lead, I would like to comment on this fascination and preoccupation with legacy and legacy shopping.

I don’t think that President Bush is really concerned with legacy shopping. If his past behavior is any guide to his future or current behavior I feel that we can be fairly certain that he doesn’t care whether or not he has high favorability ratings, now or in the future. He has always seemed much more concerned with doing what he thought was best and most appropriate for our nation. He took, I believe, the job of the Presidency very seriously. And why not, he saw his father in the Whitehouse for many years not only as President, but Vice President as well. I think he understood the incredible weight of the office and its import.

So I think that thinking or talking too much about legacy is the Media’s purview. It is nearly impossible to predict how future generations will view the actions of today’s movers and shakers. We cannot hope to have the impartiality or perspective needed to judge them. It is far too vain and self aggrandizing to talk about legacy. Essentially, it is guessing how someone will be famous, rather than assessing how appropriate or needful someone’s actions have been. I say we all leave legacy shopping to the media, and instead applaud our President for a job well done and if not always completed successfully, attempted with absolute commitment. 

Until next time….

Go Broncos! Beat the Chargers!     

After a stellar win last week at Cleveland the Broncos are poised to take on the rest of the season with gusto! Now, I know that a lot of people are saying, “They beat the Browns! Of course they beat the Browns!” But let’s face it, even the worst team in the NFL is still a professional football team. And I don’t think that the Browns are the worst team in the NFL. With that said, it is entirely possible for any team in football to beat any other team on any given Sunday.   So this win against Cleveland wasn’t a gimme. 

What I was impressed with in that game was how the Broncos didn’t just fall backwards into the win. They had to work for it, and eventually got it. We didn’t win because of bad officiating – or especially good for that matter. We simply won. And that is good at this point in the season with all of the injuries that our team has suffered. Of course, every team has injuries and still needs to find a way to get that big W. 

So now it’s on to Atalanta. The A-T-L yo!   I think that this is another one that we can win. The Falcons aren’t the best team in the NFL, nor are they the worst. (Whereas I believe that the Broncos are always the best team in the NFL J) This is another game we will have to work to win, but I think it can be done. Tony Scheffler will be back to his full speed, and with Eddie Royal, and #15 in the field of play, things look good. I’m not worried about our running back situation, because let’s face it, you or I could run for 125 yards a game behind the Broncos offensive line.

So let’s go Broncos! Let’s Go!!

Our government is based upon the idea that the centralized federal government will have as little power as possible to infringe on the rights and liberties of the people. With Obama in the White House, and the Dems in the Congress, that system is in serious jeopardy. There will be almost nothing to check the power of either branch of government, and their liberal agenda will almost certainly be passed.  

The conservative movement has to reorganize itself – especially the younger crowd (20-35 year olds) – and realize that it is up to them to get the job done if the country is to be taken care of with conservative values of individual liberty and responsibility once again. I call on all my peers to get involved, and to be the check and balance to the democrat party’s control of government. 

I say this because it had become plain that Obama’s rhetoric is increasingly empty. This was something that I believe that a lot of us knew – I certainly did – but most of the liberal lemmings and so-called ordinary people seemed unable to see through it. All of this, “Change! Change! Change!” malarkey blinded a lot of people who were unhappy (or at least thought they were unhappy) with the Bush administration. Though, if you asked most of them, they wouldn’t be able to tell you what Bush had done to them that was so egregious that they were this dissatisfied. All they knew for sure was that Obama was black, and seemingly articulate, and seemingly charismatic and to them that was just different enough that they wanted to vote for him. Never mind what his policies might be – do we even know that now? Never mind the fact that he has no experience or record to show his ability to accomplish anything. I guess none of that matters as long as he can sound convincingly non-threatening and can make people believe that he will solve all of their problems.

(NOTE: It is worth mentioning that the democrat controlled congress has been a party to the climate of American politics in the last 2 years, and their approval rating was even lower than Bush’s. Why on Earth didn’t Americans seem to want a change from that kind of stagnant cesspool congress?)  

Now post election, I have heard interviews on the news (CNN, MSNBC, FOX) where the reporters have gone to Obama supporters’ neighborhoods and asked why they voted for him. Inevitably the answer is, “Change, and Hope.” Then when asked whether or not they think that Obama can fix the economy, or help them out personally, the answer comes back, “Well, I hope so.” I’m not so sure that that is the kind of hope that they were thinking of when they voted for him. In this case, hope means the ardent wishing for something to happen that is good while not having to really put any effort in yourself or risk any personal responsibility on your success or failure. Real hope involves personal action and responsibility, not waiting for Obama (or any government for that matter) to maybe do something that might possibly help me but might never happen because of the nature of big government bureaucracy. 

And so much for “change!” Is Obama’s idea of change hiring one of the Clinton’s character assassins? Is his idea of change rolling out the same liberal agenda of tax hikes and government programs his party has been touting for the last 50 years? (They still don’t work!!) It looks like his idea of change is more of the same liberal politics. I can’t believe that this many Americans were duped into believing the that Lord Barak the Most Merciful would descend from on high to distribute (or I should say, re-distribute) loaves of bread and fish to the huddled masses of starving middle class Americans who have no other recourse but the rely on a messiah-like figure who they still really don’t even know anything about to save their homes, cars, and lives. What has America come to when our self sufficiency is more reliant on the government than our own ingenuity and drive. That’s the real American dream!       

So, that’s my post election posting. I still call on all young conservatives to unite! Let’s take our country back! Get all your friends to read Locke, and Paine, and Jefferson. Then they will truly understand the nature of our American Democracy, and will want to save it from the European socialist forces at work in our nation.

I am an American, and as such, I believe in four basic tenets.  One: Life.  Two: Liberty. Three: The pursuit of happiness. And Four: Denver Broncos Football. 

Now, I know that with the election going on right now it may seem a bit trite to discuss the Denver Broncos.  But I remind you all that no matter what the outcome of the election next Tuesday the Broncos will play on Sunday and will still be at the top of the AFC West Division.

I am happy to note that this weekend we will have Tony Scheffler, Selvin Young, and Eddie Royal back in the mix. This is great news for Jay Cutler (the incomparable #6) as he will again have ALL his weapons back on offence and will no longer be relegated to throwing only to Brandon Marshall (the incomparable #15). 

Now we will be coming off of a loss to the Patriots – heck, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while – and a bye week. But with our record of wins after a bye week being unquestionable, I feel great about this weekend.

So remember, even if the outcome of the election stifles your joy, and your cup is less than full, the Broncos will still play, the Broncos will still win, and Mile High Magic will still be magical. 

The only argument I have heard the Obama campaign use to counter any of this is, “It’s not socialist to take money from the rich to give someone a chance.” Or, “We’re trying to build this economy from the bottom up.” So really what’s happening here is that they are disagreeing with the definition of socialism rather than our characterization of what it is that they are actually doing. Ok. Let’s define socialism then.

Webster’s dictionary defines socialism as “a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.”

That is exactly what Obama is proposing! His campaign says that they have refuted these claims that he is a socialist. Well, they have disagreed with them, but that’s not the same thing as refuting. They have offered up no adequate alternate definition for what it is they are trying to do. They have run away from the hard questions like, “How is your plan not Marxist?” – Even refusing to do future interviews with news organizations who ask those tough questions. So if to ‘disagree’ now means to ‘refute’, McCain has refuted all of Obama’s assertions about him. And the next time someone tells me that Obama will be a good president and offers no evidence to support their claim, I will say respectfully, “I disagree.”     

In the past few weeks and months I have been shocked to discover how many republicans are admitting defeat, and if not that, are bemoaning their state of being. If you listen to a lot of talk radio like I do, I am sure that you have heard the same. This phenomenon displays two things to me. First, that the republican party isn’t doing enough to make its members feel actively engaged in victory, and two, that the conservative movement is not as closely tied with the republican party as it used to be. 

Obama begins by telling us that he will make sure that only the wealthy or rich will be burdened with a tax raise. He means those that make $250 thousand per year or more. How this arbitrary number was reached, I have no idea – maybe someone should ask him. The first problem with this plan is that the top 25% of income earners in this nation already pay 86% of the tax burden for our nation, and simply because they can afford it is not a good enough reason for people to be levied a tax. In fact, it is not a reason to do anything at all; they earned that money and should keep what they have worked so hard for. 

The second problem is that he applies this to small businesses. He says that only a very small percentage of small businesses make over $250 thousand dollars a year anyway so the small business market will not feel the burden of a new tax. Well, I have news for Obama. He was confused and got it backwards. In fact, only a very small percentage of small businesses make less than $250 thousand per year. The vast majority make between half a million and $10 to $15 Million. Obama has tried to mislead us here as he has on many other issues.

The last thing I’ll mention about this plan of Obama’s is that he never states what portion of that supposed $250,000 and above he will tax. Is it gross income? Net Worth? With Inventory included? What? Because that is a game changer as well, and for him to be so vague about this is dangerous. He will definitely cause small businesses to lose money. If they lose money, then they lose jobs, and when they lose jobs, business decreases, and when that happens, the markets struggle and before you know it, recession time – and all in the guise of helping the middle classes by punishing the so-called rich with taxes.     

Today, Obama has mentioned a $3000 tax credit for businesses that create jobs. Again, Obama’s ignorance gets the best of him. How on Earth is lucrative for a business to spend – and this is just a guess – $65,000 to create a job (salary, benefits, etc.) just to get $3000 in tax credits. That’s like giving a homeless man $3 and then taking him to the most expensive restaurant in town and telling him to have a full meal and then to pick up the check. (This analogy isn’t mine; I’m borrowing it from someone else!)

The point I’m trying to make with all of this is how ignorant Obama is about economics. It’s obvious to me how little these plans of his could work. But, it seems, the ignorance abounds and millions of Americans – including the middle classes – will be fooled by his rhetoric. He seems to be simply regurgitating what his handlers have told him without understanding any of it. Proof of this can be found in his speech this week where he promised a cut to the capital gains tax on investments made in small businesses. Well, the last time I checked, there was no capital gains tax on investments in small businesses – unless, of course, he is planning to institute one, and then cut it for political expedience.

The solution is simple. Cut taxes. You cannot raise taxes during an economic slowdown and hope to spur growth.  It’s like putting water on a smoldering fir and hoping that it’ll make the flames become hotter and higher. No! Remove the burdens placed upon working Americans by the government; give the economy back to the people. The government has no business running business when it can’t even seem to run itself. It is not government’s job to make my life bountiful, it is mine, and the sooner the government relinquishes that right the sooner we can get our country back on track and on the road to growth and prosperity that only our country has ever known. The idea that is America is its people – not its government. With Obama-nomics it would be the other way around – and that way lies disaster.   

It certainly isn’t used anymore to thrash your opponent’s positions, or to disqualify someone else’s arguments. This trend was typified in last night’s second presidential debate. 

The problem can be traced to a couple of key components in the structure of the so-called Debate. First, we have the moderator. Now Tom Brokaw is a seasoned professional for whom we should have much respect, but last night’s moderation was abysmal. The grand thing about a town hall style debate is that the questions that get asked are generally off the beaten path, and they tend to engender responses in the candidates that lead to more personality and poise being displayed. When Brokaw stated that he had chosen the questions to be asked personally, it became clear that it was going to be just another policy vs. policy debate without much substantive argument either for or against one candidate or the other. And that is exactly what we got. 

It seems clear that McCain won’t attack Obama on his character and his associations. And it seems clear that Obama doesn’t have a leg to stand on to finish McCain off. He couldn’t finish Hillary off in the primary season without the Super Delegates, and he can’t finish McCain off with his “eloquent’ speech skills, and his “calm” demeanor. 

McCain needs to bring out all of the questionable character flaws in Obama; beginning with his association with a known domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, then moving on to his ties to the ACORN organization – the organization that is close to the heart of our current economic woes, and more recently at the heart of an FBI voter fraud investigation. But McCain won’t do that. He wants his campaign to be as non-partisan as possible. The problem with this is that the Democrats aren’t non-partisan. How can McCain hope to defeat an opponent who he tries so hard not to annoy or make angry? McCain’s hero Ronald Regan was always partisan. He disagreed with almost everything that the opposing party believed in, and when he told them and the American public so, he won hands down. I am mystified by McCain’s tactics here.     

In the debate last night we had a moderator who negated the possible benefits to the format, and then couldn’t keep the format together. And then we had two candidates who refused to throw actual punches and simply slapped each other with limp hands. I guess that if I had to pick a winner, I would pick McCain. He definitely had more substance in his answers than Obama did, he just didn’t take the opportunities he had to smash Obama’s arguments the way he should have. I loved the way that Obama skillfully skirted around answering many of the questions that he was asked. It really showed how once he is off the teleprompter how awful he is at speaking. He would simply divert his answer back to one of his stump speeches, and go from there, hoping all the while that we would forget that he hadn’t answered the question. McCain called him on it once, but then didn’t press the issue as he should have done.

I can’t say how much the debate changes things in the election, if at all. Only time will tell. Looking to the past, candidates who have had many points’ lead in the polls with 3 weeks to go ended up losing the election in the end – Gore, Kerry and Dukakis to name a few. I think that the margin will be much closer whatever the polls say. In any case, polls have a way of being created to make the news, rather than being taken to see what the news is or will be. 

Until next time… I’m going fishing – I just need to remember to bring De-Bate!      

That is the most important question I can think of today. I watched the Senate pass a “Rescue Bill” on Wednesday that they claimed was better than the first version when it was no different than the first version at all except that it had $150 Billion in extra pork attached to it. And if that was all that was keeping the house from passing it – which it did today – then we can only form one conclusion. The vast majority of congressmen and women have little interest in “Doing what is best for the people of this country,” and instead are more focused on getting money for their own pet projects. 

How anyone who voted ‘no’ prior to today could vote ‘yes’ now on a bill that is for all intents and purposes, the same, is mystifying. There is all sorts of audio out there where senators and congressmen are saying that they didn’t want to vote for it, but they had to because something had to be done now to fix this supposed crisis. That’s like saying, “I didn’t want to sew up this gaping wound in my chest with this rusty barbed wire, but because there isn’t any thread handy I’ll go ahead and use it.” When all it would take is time to go find some thread. 

Now, I am of the mind that government should have very little to do with this economic situation’s resolution outside of getting out of the way completely. The market will correct itself. It may not be pretty, but that is what happens in a free market. Bankruptcy happens, and gradually new business comes in to fill the gap and strength is renewed in the market. That strength is stymied by the intrusion of the government. Anyone who has a safety net will be willing to take more risk than in necessary. 

May fortune favor the foolish!

Oh… The Senate.

Well there you have it folks. If you put enough candy into the toilet even senators will reach in and take a few pieces. That’s exactly what happened here.

In an attempt to get the House to soften its opposition to the 700 Billion Dollar Bailout Bill (BOB) the senate loaded their version with all sorts of goodies and treats designed to lure the unsuspecting little congressmen and women into the suspicious white van at the park of government meddling in the market. What they’ve done is wrap a very unpopular bill in two more popular bills – one a bill about tax breaks, and the other a mental health bill (I know! That’s how I like my irony served.). This ploy is designed to get House republicans and Democrats who voted against the bill originally to vote for it now.

The problem with this tactic is that while the wrapping may look better, the insides are still as rotten as ever. No real declaration of accountability in the markets. It states that the Treasury Secretary will have the ability to keep organizations accountable. But who will keep him accountable? Was he elected? Who will be the next Secretary? And this is just the tip of the iceburg. To borrow a phrase from another writer, “The solution to a problem created by bad government is not more government.” Especially since the bad government that created the problem in the first place isn’t being retracted.

So what we have here is a pickle dipped in chocolate. You can lick all of the chocolate off the outside but you still have a sour pickle on the inside.

Let’s hope that the house doesn’t want to be patronized by the senate. Let’s hope they will rise to the challenge. If the republicans do what they did last time, and vote against it, we will see just how the so called party of unity struggles to pass a bill that they have enough votes for even without the republicans in the house. We’ll se where Obama, the great unifier is. He may not even be able to unify his own party… STILL!!!

The Voice of the People is the Voice of God” is an old axiom about democracy; specifically referencing the Roman and Greek forms.  So my use of it as the name of my blog is purely Homage to the Roman Senate.  I believe that it is also a statement about the temporal nature of democracy if it is not nurtured in the correct ways – or rather, if its core foundation isn’t remembered.  In the case of the Romans, their Democracy was given up to one man when the city was in danger.  So that one man could organize the defense of the city, etc.  The only problem with that is eventually one man did take over, and then refused to give up control.  His name was Caesar. 

As a conservative, I believe that we need fewer Caesars and more “Voices of the People.”  Self governance, self reliance, and individual rather than group rights should be the keystones to our nation.  No government can weave a blanket big enough and without too many holes in it to cover the shivering masses of its people.  Only on a small level (i.e. State and Local) can this be done – the smaller the needle, the smaller the holes.  As far as what the key stones should be - well, I believe that those I have mentioned were the building blocks out of which our country was built.  I think that they have simply been pushed to the side by the liberal ideology that is circulating within the media today.  No one seems to question the premises of liberalism - perhaps because of the "good feelings" that they engender - and therefore the basic principles of our nation are forgotten as they slide to the back of the room in lue of a much more loudly vocal liberal mentality. 

With the economic Bailout Bill (i.e. BOB) that is in the works in Washington today, this can be see very clearly.  Why the federal government thinks that it can pull anyone out of the muck and mire, when it can't even manage its own affairs properly, is beyond me... or to borrow from a presidential candidate espousing this big-government mentality, "Beyond my pay scale."  The federal government has an utterly abysmal track record when it comes to running anything bigger than a committee meeting (although I am pretty cynical about their chances there too).  We’ve seen the Great Society, the War on Poverty, Welfare, and now the largest golden parachute of all, 700 Billion dollars of bailout to the financial market.  It is important to realize that this BOB wouldn't be necessary if the government (i.e. Congress) hadn't already had its paws in the honey jar, so to speak, and had insisted under President Clinton that it needed to have regulatory oversight over the financial market - specifically the mortgage market. Then, for them to blame all of this on the current administration is utterly pathetic.  I am fairly certain that the legislative branch can be classified as the 'federal government' too.  They need to take responsibility for this too.  Especially the dems.

Now as I write this, I find that the BOB  has failed in the House.  All I can say is, "Hooray!"  Now I'm not just saying this because of the fact that I disagree with the bill in principle, but also because of all of the implications of the BOB's defeat.  Think about it.  We were told all last week that the Dems in congress had enough votes to pass this on their own.  And all the while we kept wondering why they hadn't even tried to pass it.  The Republicans didn't - and still don't - have enough votes to stop it on their own.  So that leads us to only one conclusion:  The Dems in the house are scared.  They haven't united behind anything or anyone, and they are worried about being reelected. 

So now we have Speaker Pelosi suspending the vote.  Why would she do this?  So she can try and twist the arms of as many Dems who voted against the bill as she can and try and force them to vote the other way.  Of course, we will all know who they are, and I think I can prophesy that they will have the hardest time getting reelected.  They probably won’t, in fact, and it will be the end of their political careers. 

This failure to unify of the Dems won't, I think, be good for Obama's campaign.  His 'pie in the sky', 'good feelings', economic strategy can't work. The market isn't failing as we are being told right now.  The market hasn't had a chance to correct itself - as it always does.  And I'm glad that the republicans in the house took a stand on principle and shut this thing down before the socialist liberals could get their paws in the honey jar and make a mess all over the place.

We'll see what happens.  Whatever it is, I think that I'll have plenty to comment about.