Reply to pub challenge to show O's

This is posted in response to pub spin that would assert SP is better qualified to lead the country because of O's lack of experience.  Of special note are the numerous foreign relations committee diplomatic initiatives listed below.  Of course, I would be interested in any comparable experience SP may have that the pubs can produce.  I have saved this post and will be using it in reply to any similar assertions made by pubs in the future whenever I encounter them.  Hope format is not too seedy. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Senate_career_of_Barack_Obama

In Illinois senate O Worked to get BIPARTISAN support on legislation on:

1.       Ethics reform.

2.       Health care reform.

3.       Sponsored bills for earned income tax credits for low-income workers.

4.       Provisions for $100 million in tax cuts to families.

5.       Provisions for early childhood education. 

6.       Welfare reform. 

7.       Childcare subsidies. 

8.       Funding for churches and community groups. 

9.       Chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee. 

10.    Instituted requirement for transparent videotaped police interrogations of suspects in capitol cases after a number of death row inmates were found innocent. 

11.    Measures against racial profiling.

12.    Campaign finance reform. 

13.    Restrictions on lobbyists activities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_career_of_Barack_Obama

In US Senate:

1.       Senate Committee (SC) on Foreign Relations.

2.       SC on Health.

3.       SC on Health.

4.       SC on Labor and Pensions.

5.       SC on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

6.       SC on Veterans' Affairs.

7.       Member of Congressional Black Caucus.

8.       Chairman of the Subcommitte on European Affairs.

9.       Border security and Immigration reform.  Cosponsor "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act introduced by JM. 

10.    Added 3 amendments to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act.

11.    Supported Secure Fence Act for security improvements along US-Mexico border.

12.    Cosponsored Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.  

13.    Introduced expansions to Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure in former Soviet Union states.

14.    Sponsor of Democratic Republic of Congo Relief, Security and Democracy Promotion Act, signed by Bush, to restore basic services like clinics and schools, train a professional, integrated and accountable police force and military, and otherwise support the Congolese in protecting their human rights and rebuilding their nation.

15.    As member of Foreign Relations Committee, he made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  His 2005 trip to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan focus on strategy planning for the control of world's supply of conventional weapons, biological weapons and WMDs and defense against potential terrorist attacks. 

16.    January 2006, met with US military in Kuwait and Iraq.  Visited Jordan, Israel and Palestinian territories.   Asserted preconditions that US will never recognize legitimacy of Hamas leadership until they renounce elimination of Israel. 

17.    August 2006, official trip to South Africa, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad where he made televised appearance addressing ethnic rivalries and corruption in Kenya.

18.    Worked on Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, signed into law, to eliminate gifts of travel on corporate jets by lobbyists to members of Congress and require disclosure of bundled campaign contributions. 

19.    Cosponsored bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections to include fraudulent flyers and automated phone calls.

20.    Cosponsored climate change bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds by 2050.  

21.    Promoted liquefied coal production of gas and diesel.

22.    Introduced Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007 to cap troop levels as prelude to phased troop withdrawal and removal of all combat brigades.

23.    Cosponsored amendment to Defense Authorization Act safeguarding personality disorder military discharges.

24.    Sponsored Iran Sanctions Enabling Act in support of divestment of state pensions funds from Iran's oil and gas industry. 

25.    Introduced legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism., provisions of which were added as amendments to the State-Foreign Operations appropriations bill.  

26.    Sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children's Health Insurance program providing one-year job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries, which passed both houses of Congress with bipartisan support but was ultimately vetoed by fearless George. 

• Reply to pub challenge to show O's - state and US senate experience. sm
  • None of this was him doing anything independently. - O has never run anything -nothing. nm

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Since we have history on our side and the #s to accompany it, we could make a friendly bet with these utopians as to how the tax rate will change, etc.  It'll all play out (perish that thought)!

Did you hear Rush today on his show or when he was on with Greta?  He pointed out some very valid things about O and his desire to hold up the war in Iraq until Jan.  What he's proposing is unconstitutional.  He wrote an op-ed in the WSJ (Friday), which is no doubt on his w/s.  I got the link for it when I got my "Rush In A Hurry" for the day, which gets sent out after his show and before his site gets completely updated to reflect the contents of his show.

BTW, I purposely put Rush into this mix.  He just makes the libs crazy!  All I can say to them is "temper, temper!"

March 13, 2006

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302081.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Wow, I believe we have some sore losers!

From NBC’s Pete Williams

When the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court meet on Dec. 5th, in their regular private conference to decide which cases to hear, two lawsuits that have captivated a segment of the blogosphere will be up for discussion.

Both urge the court to consider claims that President-elect Obama is not qualified to be president, because he is not a natural-born American citizen.
Persistent concerns about the qualifications of both major party candidates rank among the oddest aspects of 2008's historic campaign.

Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution provides that "No person except a natural born citizen" is eligible to be president. John McCain's status was questioned because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone and various theories have been advanced to cast doubt on Obama's.

Lawsuits over the inclusion of their names on state general-election ballots popped up around the country and were quickly dispensed with by local courts. But two challengers have pursued their cases to the Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania lawyer Philip Berg claims that the circumstances of Obama's birth are vague and that he may have been born in Kenya. Obama's mother, Berg asserts, later flew to Hawaii to register the birth.

Leo Donofrio, a New Jersey lawyer, contends that election officials in his state failed to ensure that only legally qualified candidates were placed on the ballot. Obama may have been born in the United States, Donofrio argues, but "natural born" status depends on both parents being American citizens. Obama's father was Kenyan.

The justices are unlikely to take up these cases for a host of reasons, not the least of which is the invitation to overturn the results of an election in which more than 66 million Americans voted for Obama. An equally high hurdle is the issue of whether Berg or Donofrio have the legal right to sue claiming a violation of the Constitution.

In dismissing Berg's complaint, a federal judge in Pennsylvania found that he failed to meet the basic test required for sustaining a lawsuit, because he couldn't show how the inclusion of Obama's name on the ballot would cause him -- apart from others -- some particular harm. Berg's stake, the judge said, "is no greater and his status no more differentiated than that of millions of other voters."

Other courts presented with similar challenges have reached the same conclusion, ruling that there is no general legal right to sue over the Constitution's eligibility requirements. Federal courts typically reject claims of legal standing based simply on a litigant's status as a voter or taxpayer.

The Obama campaign had hoped to end the controversy last spring by releasing his actual Hawaii birth certificate. But that prompted further questions about its authenticity, which were compounded when state authorities in Hawaii said they could not vouch for it, because they were constrained by the privacy laws.

Then, on Oct. 31st, the director of Hawaii's Department of Health issued a statement, proclaiming that he had personally seen and verified that the state has "Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record," which shows that he was born there.

As far as who can accomplish all these goals -- a journey begins with a single step. Barack is willing to start the journey. McCain stubbornly refuses to change course.   If he does not live up to his hopes - another election in 4 years. 

Experience -- time and time again current events have proven Barack's thoughtfulness and judgment have proven true.  Even the current administration is following the course for a time-table that Barack proposed so long ago.

I do not see Barack as a savior -- I see a fine man with a vision for our country that matches my own.

Throw that hood in the wash, its getting dingy.  12 year olds, we know what you are saying there.

I made no "moral judgment" on SP's premarital pregnancy - merely pointing out the historical precedent she set.

poster says duh?  Exactly.  Overwrought rhetoric destroys the validity of any discussion.

Let me just address a couple of points:

Science isn't a "numbers" game where if you line up 1000 scientists on your side and I line up 1500 on my side, I win.  The history of science is rife with examples of the majority of scientists being wrong.  It might even be argued that at the moment any scientific discovery is made, the person who makes the discovery is, DE facto, a minority of one.   The majority of scientists once thought the world was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, and that human disease was caused by invisible gases or by imbalance of the "four elements", and scoffed at the notion of "germs". If we left science up to a vote and counted heads to determine what is true, we'd have never moved one inch beyond the stone age.

The real problem, though, is that it really doesn't take much information about the methods used by the "global warmists" (my term) for even a layman to recognize that they are far from conclusive, and in many cases their methods are highly questionable.  And since there is an enormous cost to all of us (or, enormous flow of money to the "warmists") to do battle with this "problem" - if it is one - it only makes sense to get the science right rather than jumping off the deep end and starting a lot of things in process that might very well be entirely unnecessary.  Before we get the villagers all up in arms with torches and pitchforks, let's bother to find out if there really is a dragon in the cave.  So far, I'm afraid that the best we can say is that all we have is rumors and that no one has actually seen the dragon.

Let's not conflate global warming with alternative energy, though.  Although there is some connection, they are really separate issues.  If there is global warming, it seems now that some scientists think that worm flatulence causes more warming than hydrocarbons, so on that basis we should be attacking worms, not fossil fuels. 

Certainly, we should be pursuing every realistic form of alternative energy, but for one simple reason which you have correctly stated:  There is only so much fossil fuel of any kind in the ground.  We're going to run out of it.  This means that even if oil were clean and cheap as water, we must seek alternatives. 

However, oil isn't as cheap as water, and we don't own most of it even if it were, so the second reason we must seek alternatives is that we cannot continue to send $billions to foreign countries, many of whom don't like us very much and who are using our own dollars to finance the operations of our enemies.  It's simply madness to finance our own destruction.

Thought I'd switch back over to this board.

Thanks for your reply to my question about your leaving Florida.  It sounds like a big transition in many ways, both geographically and emotionally.  I had inquired because I have similar thoughts myself and so far I keep moving farther and farther north and away from civilization.   Anyway, good luck and it would be good to hear when you're settled in. 

... I know we don't want to digress, but please stop blaming the fact that we have to resort to these measures on the current administration

Here’s what a lot of us believe:  We don't 'have' to print or borrow money to buy our way out of this mess.  That is the thing most people will not acknowledge.  The mortgage crisis and  the housing ‘bubble’ were caused by government meddling with Fannie/Freddie loan standards. That sent the whole house of cards tumbling and the cascade of threatened failures that resulted.  More government meddling will not fix this.  You cannot shore up a house of cards.  It's still cards.  It should have been allowed to fall and be rebuilt, even if that meant starting from the ground up.  Sucks to be us.

Foolish people who bought too much house for their means must be allowed to lose them.  Bad companies have to be allowed to fail.  Bad politicians with worse ideas also should to be allowed to fail; I'm doing my part not to get in their way.

I don't think anyone can name three things government does as efficiently and/or cheaply as private industry.  Now government will part owners in AIG, banks, and other failing concerns.  Now government wants to control  health care?  And all of this - plus much more - was put in an 1100-page document nobody who voted on it could even read?

Even though this is all mostly a done deal, I still cannot go along with the can't-we-all-get-along; wait-and-see crowd.  Of course we’ll all just have to ‘sweat it out’ now, what choice?  This is so reminiscent of the FDR New Deal 70 years ago that I cannot believe we have learned nothing from history.  What am I saying?  Of course I can believe it.  We’re still idiots! 

Tell me if any of this sounds familiar:

‘We seldom know six weeks in advance, what we are going to do.’  ‘It is common sense, to take a method and try it: if it fails, admit it frankly and try another.  But above all, try something.’  FDR 

Some of the things he tried:

National Recovery Act (fixed prices and wages).  Forced smaller companies out of business, since lower wages and prices where the only way they could compete with big companies. 

A law in Washington, DC, mandating a minimum monthly wage for women (only), resulting in women losing their jobs to men who were willing to work for much less than that guaranteed wage. 

Agricultural Adjustment Act (subsidized farms by taking acreage out of production and fixed prices).  Designed to curb overproduction and support prices.  In reality production rose because farmers used their cash subsidies to buy fertilizer, and they had taken their worst acreage out of production anyway.  They switched to the crops whose prices were guaranteed, hence, even more overproduction. 

Works Progress Administration (to provide employment and improve infrastructure).  Turned into a giant political patronage system to reward supporters with ‘shovel-leaning’ jobs and to punish detractors.  To get most such jobs, you had to declare your political party, ‘vote right’ and ‘tithe’ to the D party.

Emergency Relief Act (made available to governors to assist the needy in their states).  Since it was supported by huge tax increases, it all but shut off voluntary charitable contributions that traditionally went to the needy.

Excise taxes arbitrarily levied on a few luxury items of the rich such as yachts, furs and jewelry, but also on cars, gasoline, radios, cosmetics, cameras, bank checks, long-distance phone calls and movie tickets used by lower-income groups.

Tariffs on imported goods, which caused other countries to retaliate by taxing or not buying our goods and damaged our export business.

Top income tax bracket for the too-rich (only) 79%  and the IRS was used as a weapon to harass and punish the wealthy, as well as critics of New Deal policies.  Roosevelt was incensed that the wealthy (though he was born to wealth)  used tax loopholes such as charitable deductions and business losses to legally avoid taxes, so he instructed the IRS and Congress to close them.  Meanwhile, FDR himself used such loopholes to deduct the value of materials he donated for his own future presidential library.  He took business losses and farm losses on his personal tax returns. 

Roosevelt was one of those silver-spoon guys, subsidized by someone else’s money (his mother’s) his entire life.  He failed repeatedly in businesses financed by family money.  He had a solid record of picking losers; he thought the airplane was a fad.  He had a lackluster academic career.  Never held a ‘real’ job. His only talents were his personality and charisma.  

Yes, FDR inherited the beginnings of the Great Depression from Herbert Hoover in 1933,  but  Roosevelt’s repeated ‘try something’ efforts to fix it kept it going until World War II. 

Any of this starting to sound familiar?  We’ve been at this exact pivotal point before and we are blowing it again.  Elected another snake oil salesman.  Way to go.