Perhaps a brewing controversy....

I read an interesting piece in the Washington Post today (Click Here to read it). Let me set it up by explaining that members of Congress get to send out mail for free under a policy called the "Franking Commission." There are many controversies surrounding this policy, not the least of which is the fact that incumbents can use it to send out mail during election cycles, but this new controversy surround the healthcare debate.

I admit that I am not hip on all the details of the Franking Commission, but according to this article there is a bi-partisan commission set up to approve every piece of mail sent out, checking it for inappropriate use (such as blatantly partisan or personal criticism of policy). Apperently the commission rarely stops a piece of mail, including recent mailings sent out by Democrats to tout how the wonderful success of the stimulus bill.

Well, now Republicans are trying to use "franked mail" (what free mail is called) to send out charts, graphs, and facts which point out the confusing nature of the current healthcare reform proposal. And guess what? Democrats are trying to stop it.

I will be keeping my eye on this. I smell a rat.

Gates/Crowley/Obama Update

No apologies yet. But there have been a few interesting updates.

First of all, the Cambridge Police Department and a handful of other local law enforcement unions and associations had a press conference in which they expressed their unequivocal support for Sgt. Crowley. The president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association had my favorite quote of the conference:

"President Obama said the actions of the CPD were stupid and linked the event to the history of racial profiling in America. The facts of the case suggested that the president used the right adjective [stupid] but directed it to the wrong party."

All officers were of voice in supporting their comrade, even the black officer that was on the scene with Sgt. Crowley. As much as media-types tried to shake them off their rockers by asking if Gates should have been arrested, they all responded by saying, "Absolutely. 100%." It looks like Gates is going to have to take on a lot more than one officer in this fight.

Another interesting event was Obama's correction on his choice of words. No apology, just an admission that he had escalated the situation. He said that he "could have calibrated his words better," but that's about as much blame as he would take. he stuck to his guns in saying that an arrest should not have been made and barely squeaked out the words, "I continue to believe that Professor Gates probably overreacted." It should be noted that he needed no qualifier to announce his disagreement with Sgt. Crowley's actions, but could barely bring himself to put blame on his Harvard buddy.

President Obama is missing the point. Yes, it is annoying that he called a policeman stupid. Yes, it is disturbing the President is so quick to jump into these racially divisive controversies. But the most frustrating thing to me is that his knee-jerk reaction to these types of things is always to defend his liberal buddies. It was the same with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. His first reactions were always to defend the repulsive actions of his far-left friends and then to throw them under the bus when the facts come out.

Again, when in doubt Obama will stand with his lefty friends before the brave police officers of our great country.

Gates, Obama, Crowley, and the Persistence of Race

Our President has done many things that get me upset, but what Obama did this week has infuriated me more than any political act I have ever witnessed. His interjection into the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is appalling for three reasons:

First, Obama has no right meddling in local affairs. It completely undermines police work when the chief executive officer of law enforcement in the United States reprimands officers who work hard and put themselves in harm's way every day. Worse that, he did it so condescendingly, saying that Sgt. Cowley acted "stupidly." Press Secratary Gibbs later tried to correct his teleprompter-less boss by saying that "He was not calling the officer stupid. But at a certain point the situation got out of hand."

Second, Obama did not need to throw fuel on this fire. By chiming in on this so-called controversy, Obama throws gasoline onto a flame lit by Professor Gates that otherwise would have been stamped out quickly by rational, reasonable Americans. Now, since CNN and President Obama have proclaimed Sgt. Crowley's actions to be stupid and racist, millions of American will once again be thrown into the downward spiral of thinking that all police officers are KKK members with a badge.

Finally, all of this would be somewhat forgivable if there was at least a tid-bit of truth to the Obama/CNN/Gates hullabaloo. Unfortunately that's not the case. The President obviously did not have all the facts of the case before he started spewing out the bitter rhetoric that he got from his own far-left Ivy League professors. Even he admits that "I don't know all the facts" (always a good time to speak publicly on something, right?). If he did have the facts, then his statements on the matter are pure lies. For example, Obama summed up the confrontation between Crowley and Gates like this:

"The police officer comes in, I'm sure there's some exchange of words, but my understanding is, is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house. And at that point, he gets arrested for disorderly conduct."

Wow. I am stupefied by such a gross misrepresentation of the facts. Even a quick skim of the police report (click here to read it) shows that Obama's description of the event is either uninformed or completely dishonest. According to Crowley, Gates was defiant from the very first point of contact, yelling throughout the conversation and continually calling him a racist. Furthermore, Obama and other critics of the Sgt. Crowley imply that the arrest was made despite the fact that Gates had shown ID and proved that it was his house. Has anyone read the charges of his arrest? Did it say breaking and entering? No, it says disorderly conduct. He wasn't arrested for breaking into the house, he was arrested because he was throwing conniption fits throughout the entire conversation with the police.

The bottom line is that it is Gate's word against the police officer's. When in doubt, will Obama take the side of police officers or his black friends in academia? We now know for sure.


Click here to read USA Today's synopsis of Obama's statements.

Click here to see the video of Gates on CNN giving his side of the story. My favorite part of this is when he says "there was a black officer there and he was sensitive."

CNN slip-up

Although CNN has gotten better, their left-leaning bias show again in a headline today on their website: Republicans Heap Praise on Sotomayor.

Click here to read the actual article, whose actualy title is "GOP won't filibuster Sotomayor, Replublican Senator says."

Read the article and tell me if it is about Republicans "heaping priase" on the Supreme Court nominee. I guess not filibustering someone who ought not to even have a legal career, let alone a free pass onto the Supreme Court, could be considered "heaping praise," comparitively speaking...

Which One is Sotomayor's Real Philosophy?

This is what she said yesterday in the confirmation hearings...




And this is what she said a few years ago to students at Duke University...




Which do we believe?

We just didn't spend enough...

A few quarters ago I took a history class from a very knowledgeable professor who was also, by his own admission, very liberal. Despite his political bias, even he admitted that The New Deal did not pull America out of the Great Depression. Instead, he explained to a class full of FDR-worshipping liberal students, WWII did the job. But he made sure to add one caveat: the New Deal only failed because it didn't spend enough, because FDR didn't transfer enough people onto welfare, and that government didn't grow enough.

This seems to be the liberal arguement every time big tax-and-spend (or should I say spend-then-tax) liberal plans fail. They didn't fail because the strategy is flawed, it failed because we didn't do it big enough. Paul Krugman's column today in the NYT makes just that argument. He claims that the stimulus plan was too small (even though we haven't even spent 10% of the money yet) and that Obama needs to tell the American people that it's time for another round.

Can anyone give me an example of when government decided to spend a whole lot of money and create a whole bunch of new agencies to stop economic bleeding and it worked?

Losing faith in the establishment

After Barack Obama's election, the liberal media had a hay-day speculating about the end of the Republican Party and how conservatism was gone forever. At the time it was frustrating to hear a death sentence on my party and my ideology pronounced by the journalists and pundits who have been hoping for our demise for decades. But now I am starting to agree with them, but for different reasons.

Liberals think that conservatism is dying because people no longer agree with conservative principles or hold conservative values. I think that conservatism is dying because conservatives are affraid to act like conservatives. Our leaders tuck their tails and play the game the way the liberals want because they have been without a leader since Gingrich left. If they speak out against abortion, they are called sexists. If they speak out against judicial activism in someone who happens to be Hispanic, they are called racists. If they fight huge government spending in times of economic crisis, they are called "The Party of No." They are constantly on the defensive when they stand up for conservative values, so they go with the flow and sell their values down the river.

On the other end of the spectrum, Fox News pushes against every single statement and expenditure made by Congress and the President. I hate to say it, but liberals had a point when they told Sean Hannity that George W. Bush spent just as many tax doallrs on his trips to the ranch as Obama did on his fancy New York date with Michelle. Zeroing in on such petty little things distracts from the fundamental issues that we face.

Please, stop apologizing for us and start speaking the language of middle America. Most people oppose the bailouts, the stimulus, silence toward North Korea, and government-run healthcare, so dn't be affraid to take that stand.

I'm Bailin' on Palin

I was one of the few people who had actually heard of Sarah Palin before her jump into the spotlight last year (though I admit I didn't know is the "a" in her name was pronouced long or short). I remember rooting for her when she sued the EPA for listing the polar bear as an endangered species and reading about her when she stood up to corruption in the Alaskan GOP. Her appeal was her genuiness and non-elitism.

Unfortunately, however, I think the McCain campaign ruined her image and to her discredit she let them. They fed her lines the entire time and bought her a bunch of fancy clothes to make her look like a yougner, hipper version of Hillary Clinton. They held her back from reporters and made her trademark accent and funny language sound contrived. In short, they made all of her strenghts into weaknesses.

Since then I have been up in the air about Sarah Palin, not knowing what to think about her. On the one hand, I like her stance on the issues and I appreciate having a real person in the political spotlight. My knee-jerk reaction has always been, and still is, to defend her against so many unfair attacks. On the other hand, the left-wing media has always seemed to have the upper hand on her and she always seems to be on the defensive instead of pushing forward the way she did in Alaska before her huge celebrity breakthough. She never seems to effectively communicate her ideas, instead leaning on her girl-next-door image.

Never has this been more the case since last week's announcement that she would be stepping down from her post as governor. For me that was the straw that broke the camel's back. It is still completely foggy as to why she stepped down. She keeps exaplining it in metaphores rather than "straight talk" (as her former running mate coined). Everyone has an opinion, but no one knows exactly why she did it. To me, that is unacceptable. Any ways you cut it, she comes off soft and disingenuous. If she did it because of the many unfair attacks against her, then she is soft. If she left because of all the time and money that has been waisted on ethics charges, etc., then she is going to be sorely disappointed when she looks for a higher calling in national politics. Again, soft. If she's doing it soley to prepare for the 2012 election, then she has just slapped Alaskans in the face. The Alaskan people voted her in and expect her to do her job. If she really was as tough as she acts, she would push through the term.

In any case, I'm bailin' on Palin.

P.S. Sorry about the title. I couldn't resist the cheesy rhyme.