If you ask conservatives what their number one priority is in the 2012 election, most will agree it is to unseat Barack Obama. Yet unless Rick Santorum can expand his base beyond social conservatives, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney may hand the election to Obama on a silver platter.

When Newt Gingrich is good, he is very, very good, but when he is bad he is awful. Romney has not won the hearts and minds of conservatives because of some of his past positions, his fumbling when he should strongly be defending himself, and his personal tar baby, RomneyCare. In the last debate Santorum almost pleaded for a focus on the national issues, but it only took a moment for Gingrich and Romney to roll back into the mud.

Romney has not been able to break out of the 25% neighborhood, but he hasn’t much fallen below it either. Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich each have a win under their belts, but Romney has either been first or second in each contest, which the others can’t claim.

Gingrich can rightfully claim to have led the Republicans out of the wilderness that they languished in for forty years. He can rightly claim that he worked to reform welfare, balance the budget, cutting the capital gains tax, and has worked hard to strengthen conservative causes. He also has some good ideas on taxes. That is what he should run on.

On the flip side, he resigned from Congress when it was clear to him that his own party was not going to reelect him Speaker of the House. In 1997 there was an attempted “coup” where several Republican leaders told Gingrich to step down or be voted out. Newt stood firm and prevailed, but after the 1999 election it was clear that he would not retain the Speaker’s gavel and he resigned. At the time Gingrich said, “I’m willing to lead but I’m not willing to preside over people who are cannibals.” On the one hand, Newt Gingrich through deft political skill got Bill Clinton to go along with welfare reform, balancing the budget and tax cuts which turned Clinton into a demigod among Democrats. On the other hand, his brinksmanship against Clinton, with the government shutdown and his handling of the impeachment, drove Republican approval ratings into the ground. Clinton was a masterful politician, so is Obama.

The Dark Side

In the nomination battle Gingrich has gone after Romney on some pretty bizarre points for a conservative. He has attacked him on being a free market capitalist. The super PAC that backs Gingrich put out a hit piece that was so full of errors, even Gingrich said it should be corrected or pulled. But is attacking free market capitalism conservative?

He attacked Romney for his investments and for having foreign bank accounts when he knew, or should have known that Romney’s investments were in a blind trust. For those who don’t know what a blind trust is, here’s a definition.

A financial arrangement in which a person, such as a high-ranking elected official, avoids possible conflict of interest by relegating his or her financial affairs to a fiduciary who has sole discretion as to their management. The person choosing the trust also gives up the right to information regarding the status of the assets.

The key point is that Romney “gives up the right to information regarding the status of the assets.” How can Newt attack him on his investments if Romney has no control or knowledge over them? So Newt either knew this and hoped no one would notice, or he didn’t bother to find out. Romney seems be more on top of his game, because in the debate when Newt attacked him on investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Romney shot right back that Newt had similar investments. Oops! Who would you rather have in the Oval Office, the guy who does his homework, or the guy who shoots from the hip?

The latest attack from Gingrich out today concerns Medicare fraud at a company called Damon Corporation. Damon was involved in Medicare fraud to the tune of about $25 million between 1988 and 1993. Bain Capital acquired Damon in 1989, while Romney was running Bain and he sat on the board of Damon. So according to the timeline Damon was already fraudulently filing Medicare claims before Bain bought them.

When tipped off by whistleblowers an investigation was started and Damon ultimately paid a fine of $116 million. Romney was never charged with any wrongdoing. So what is the point of Gingrich’s ad? Why are Democrats and unions running similar ads to Gingrich’s? This is not a new discovery. It was brought up when Romney ran for Governor in 2002 and a Google search finds a similar reference on a Huckabee blog in 2008. Romney said he learned of the issue and took steps to deal with it, prosecutors disagreed. More facts will certainly come out in the next few days, but it seems that Gingrich is writing Obama’s campaign playbook. It’s one thing for the Democrats to raise these petty issues, but it gives them a whiff of credibility if they can show clips of prominent Republicans mouthing the same charges.

The focus for both of them should be the guy in the White House. For Romney it’s about making the case that he is a reformed moderate and he has moved away from those positions and how he has to convince conservatives of that and of Republicans that he can beat Obama.

For Gingrich, he has to prove that he is not a flip-flopper between pro-free market or anti-free market; between government solutions or government being the problem; about creating an environment for success or demonizing success; about being pro-cap and trade or against the global warming hoax; about endorsing liberal Republican candidates because they can win or backing the most conservative, electable candidate.

I took up commenting on the political scene just before the last presidential election. I don’t want to try to survive another four years of Barack Obama. It will be no consolation to say,”Yeah, but do you remember how Gingrich ripped up John King of CNN?” Retiring Obama is job one.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

In his recent telephone town hall meeting, Tim Bishop expressed his support for the continued payroll tax holiday but making it clear that it would have no impact on the Social Security Trust Fund. Money for Social Security would continue to go into the trust fund from other sources. What other sources you might ask? I may have an answer for you.

In an article in HousingWire magazine, the author points out that:

The Federal Housing Finance Agency will increase guarantee fees on single-family mortgage-backed securities charged by the government-sponsored enterprises by 10 basis points effective April 1, 2012, in response to the new funding mechanism for the payroll tax cut extension passed by Congress.

So it seems that the Social Security Trust fund will get its money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or more accurately, from new home buyers. So for a two month extension of the payroll tax holiday that will prevent taxpayers from paying an additional $130 into the Social Security Trust Fund, that everyone expects to get back anyway, new home buyers will have to pay thousands in new fees.

The g-fee increase will remain in effect through Oct. 1, 2021. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the g-fees would offset about $35.7 billion in the costs of the tax cut. Mortgage Bankers Association CEO David Stevens said the increase could mean an extra $4,000 in fees on a $200,000 mortgage.

One of the problems facing Long Island is affordable housing. Our young people are leaving Long Island for areas were there is a larger rental stock that they can start out in, rather than living in mom and dad’s basement, and where they can afford to buy a house after saving a down payment for a couple of years. Apparently for the benefit of a political talking point Tim Bishop votes to slam an already weak housing marking with additional fees. After all who can really call a two month anything sound fiscal policy? Notice there is no spending cut mentioned here, it is an increase in taxes and fees. This is what Tim Bishop was telling his constituents not to worry about in his town hall meeting? What will become of his district, if nobody lives here but retirees? Is that his plan to solve the unemployment problem? Drive enough young people away until the number of jobs fits the remaining population?

The problem is spending. It was only last week that Joe Biden was attacking Mitt Romney’s policies by saying:

“His proposal would actually double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and accelerated a decades-long assault on the middle class,” Biden added.

Decades long assault on the middle class? I guess he means you too, Bill Clinton. The greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression has been the Obama administration and if he were to get reelected it would finish America off. We have had the worst consistent unemployment since the Great Depression for the entire Obama administration. We have had the worst record of job creation, loss actually, since Herbert Hoover. The National Bureau of Economic Research says the recession ended in June of 2009. Does it feel like it to you? Most recoveries from economic downturns are mirror images of the slump. A gradual recession is followed by a gradual recovery; a sharp downturn is followed by a sharp upswing. Not this time. Just look at the job creation record of Team Obama.

This chart goes all the way back to Harry Truman and Obama’s performance stands alone.  Let’s put to rest the “eight years of failed Bush policy, yada, yada, yada” and face the fact that Obama and his spending, heavy-handed regulations, and insatiable appetite to fix everything by taxing more has put us into an economic winter. Tim Bishop has happily ignored the needs of his constituents to buy favor from the Democratic leadership and their special interest pals. They have done an awful job and we need to turn them out, before they turn us into Greece.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Photo by roberthufstutter

Throughout out the Republican campaign process, Herman Cain has been portrayed as an interesting candidate, but with no serious chance of winning the Republican nomination. What I found was the most curious logic was on the O’Reilly Factor the other night. Bill’s reasoning that Herman Cain won’t win the nomination was because the most important thing to Republicans was to unseat Obama and that independents won’t vote for Cain because he is too conservative.

A 2010 Gallup Poll showed that about 42% of Americans described themselves as conservative, 20% as liberal and about 35% moderate. So, if Herman Cain were to win the Republican nomination, independents would not vote for him because he is too conservative, but where does that lead? It would lead you to the conclusion that they would vote for Barack Obama instead and where, exactly, does he fall on the political spectrum? No American president is or was further left on the political spectrum than Barack Obama. So given a choice between a strong conservative candidate and a strong liberal candidate we are supposed to believe that, naturally, moderates are going to vote for the far left guy. If you check your math, a conservative in America today only has to hold his base and grab 25% of the moderates to win. A progressive candidate has to hold his base and grab 75% of the moderates to win.

But Republicans keep falling into the trap that O’Reilly is claiming. We say, uh oh, a conservative can’t win because the main stream media tells us that, so we go wobbly and pick someone who appeals to the moderates. What we end up with is a liberal (the Democrat) and liberal light (the moderate Republican) and we get our clocks cleaned (see John McCain).

I would have no problem seeing Herman Cain on the debate platform facing off against Barack Obama. In these troubled times, who better than someone who has actually turned around two companies (Burger King in Philadelphia and Godfather’s pizza). He learned the Burger King business by going through the company’s training “boot camp” where he actually worked at the grill. What has Barack Obama ever worked at in the private sector? Herman Cain can give an inspirational talk for 30-45 minutes without a teleprompter. I don’t know about you but I felt pretty embarrassed to listen to the master communicator, Barack Obama, stop in the middle of  a speech to tell the teleprompter operator to move the speech up a few lines. Barack Obama thinks he’s the Wizard of Oz, but he should turn around to see that the curtain has fallen to the floor.

Another knock on Cain was his lack of knowledge about foreign policy. How much did Bill Clinton know about national defense, other than how to dodge the draft, before he was elected president? How much did Barack Obama know about anything before he was elected? They are not the same in their experiences. The presidency is an executive position, and what counts is executive experience. Governors have it, generals have it, CEOs have it; legislators do not. What a legislator decides to do carries no weight unless he can get a large number of fellow legislators to agree and go along with him. Everything an executive decides to do has an impact, some large, some small but an impact nonetheless.

We are in the mess we are in because Obama didn’t understand that coming into office and he has yet to learn it. His signature program, ObamaCare, was just thrown over the wall to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to finish the details and when it was done it was an abomination.  When in doubt, Obama goes into campaign mode. Herman Cain comes up with solutions. They may not be perfect, they may undergo some changes, but they are serious solutions to real problems, not just another transfer the wealth program.

Herman Cain deserves a serious look for who he is, what he stands for, and what he has accomplished. Don’t write him off because some political pundits think they know the formula for winning. If you don’t believe me, ask Marco Rubio, or Rand Paul, or Bob Turner, or Mike Lee.

That’s my opinion; I’s like to know yours.Please comment below.

Photo by roberthufstutter

One of the knocks on Herman Cain is that he has never held political office and therefore he doesn’t have the necessary experience. I, for one, would like to see a lot more people who have met a payroll go into government, than be governed by those who have never done anything other than live off of a government paycheck. They have no concept of the real world, but love to write the rules the real world must live by.

We have been watching a number of debates among the Republican candidates and one thought that must be in the back of the minds of some, is how will this particular candidate perform in a debate against the charming Barack Obama? Will Barack Obama be able to talk himself back into the White House using his “gift“?

In the purely political realm there have been few who were as talented as Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton survived in 1996 because his primary goal in his life, in my humble opinion, was to be president. Ideology came second. So if remaining president meant pivoting, he pivoted. If remaining president meant working with Newt Gingrich to reform welfare, pass NAFTA, balance the budget, that was what he would do and then apply his political skills to make sure he got all the credit.

In 1994, when Bill and Hillary were trying to push their version of health care, there was a Town Hall meeting where one of the questioners was a fellow by the name of Herman Cain. Watch this exchange and then tell me how worried you would be if Herman Cain faced off in a debate one-on-one for the full two hours, with Barack Obama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WP5dYfBBzU

I think Herman Cain is very electable. He is the only candidate with a plan to fix Social Security. He has a concrete plan on taxes. You may not agree with him, but he has done his homework, and as you can see in  the video clip, when Herman does his homework, he knows what he is talking about and he doesn’t need a teleprompter to tell him what he is talking about.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Chuck Schumer by DonkeyHoley

Today in New York City, the bastion of blue, in the bluest of states there is an upset in the making. Republican Bob Turner is leading Democrat David Weprin for the Congressional seat vacated by the disgraced Anthony Weiner, a protegé of Senator Chuck Schumer.

The margin is a remarkable 6% (47%-41%) the day before the election. I walked two election districts yesterday, and not a Weprin sign was visible and the support for Turner was strong. Registration in the district is 3:1 Democrat. The national party is pouring money into the race on the Democrat side, $500,000 – $800,000 recently, and robocalls featuring Bill Clinton have begun. Unions are also being summoned to get out in force.

Why is this so important to the Democrats? Part of it is history. This seat was held by Chuck Schumer before he ran for the senate. His hand-picked protegé, Anthony Weiner, replaced Schumer in Congress. These were two of the most strident, aggressive progressives in Congress (Schumer still is)  and two politicians who never worked in the private sector, but have all the knowledge and experience to tell everyone else how to run their lives and what is good for them.

The Democrats also puffed out their chests when Kathy Hochul won a special election in upstate New York in a traditionally Republican district, where another Democrat ran on the Tea Party line. Hochul attacked her opponent’s support for Paul Ryan’s budget plan that would actually save Social Security, in the typical “scare the seniors” tactic. The Democrats felt they had the signature issue they needed to carry them all the way to 2012. When Weprin tried to carry that ball forward, he ran into a buzz saw named Ed Koch.

“This is former Mayor Ed Koch. I’m calling set the record straight on something. David Weprin is making phone calls trying to scare seniors. They’re NONSENSE. Weprin should be ASHAMED of himself. Bob Turner is running for Congress to PROTECT your Medicare and Social Security. It’s why I ENDORSED BOB TURNER for Congress. If anyone tries to scare you with LIES about BOB TURNER, tell ‘em ED KOCH told them to KNOCK IT OFF. BOB TURNER is the BEST candidate for senior citizens in this race. Don’t believe anything else. Send Washington a message:  Vote for Bob Turner for congress on September 13th. Bob Turner is supported by Rudy Giuliani, the Liberal Party and me.”

If the Social Security scare tactics don’t work in a district with a 3:1 Democrat edge, Team Obama is in serious trouble. In a recent New York Times article, other Democrat candidates are starting to distance themselves from Obama so they don’t go down with the ship. This will get very interesting.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours; Please comment below.

Photo by reinvented

The stock market is bouncing up and down like Fatty Arbuckle on a bungee cord. The job numbers are just as dismal as they were last week. The CBO says we can expect unemployment to continue north of eight percent until 2016. Is it just me or is the honeymoon over?

The last few times I parked myself in front of the television to await the next important address from the president, I noticed an empty podium as I looked at my watch and wondered when the president would arrive. It felt a bit annoying. I don’t know why it should because I don’t remember how prompt President Reagan was, or President Clinton or either of the Presedents Bush, so why would it feel particularly annoying with this president? Maybe the main stream media is at fault. After all, wasn’t President Reagan an “amiable dunce”? He probably lost his notes. We all know President Bush, despite two Ivy League degrees was also an idiot. He probably got lost along the way. President Clinton, that sly devil, he was probably straightening his tie and making sure everything else was in place, if you know what I mean. But President Obama, we are told, is brilliant. He is also super cool There is also something about the super cool, they like to remind you that they are cool, so you wait for them. They get there when they feel like it. So with the press corps assembled, millions of television viewers listening to the pundits while the picture-in-picture at the top of the screen shows the vacant podium, the cool president is letting us cool our heels. He will saunter down the hallway toward the microphones when he is good and ready, because when you are cool, that’s how you do it.

When the work day is done it’s time for a little basketball or if it’s a weekend some golf. Vacations? We have to go the Vineyard, baby. People criticized Bush for his vacations and they may well have been longer than Obama’s, but Bush went home to Texas to do chores. Obama’s not going home to Chicago to paint the bathroom. Does the fact that America is hurting not bother him at all? If it does, he is too cool to show it.

President Obama said it was a hell of a mess he inherited and we needed to spend trillions of dollars to stimulate the economy or unemployment would rise to nine percent. When the program failed and all we had to look forward to was finding a way to pay the bill, President Obama laughed about “shovel ready” not being as shovel ready as we thought. Big joke, but the joke’s on us.

Do you remember a supposedly cool kid when you were growing up and how he bragged about either the things that he had or the places he had been or the championships he had won, where he used to live, only to find out it was all a crock? Do you also remember another kid who was suspicious of the new guy all along? Well, the first group that was enthralled with the new kid voted for Obama. The skeptical kids did not. The grumblings about this president are getting louder even from his supporters.

So what does Obama do? Well he tells us he has a super duper plan to create jobs that he will tell us about as soon as he gets back from vacation. It seems like he doesn’t want to come back. He’s just not that into us anymore. He has accumulated some gray hairs, and he would really rather be back on the campaign trail, with one reason being the re-runs of his old campaign criticisms of Bush are coming back to bite him. He enjoys the crowds, the adulation, winning the job, but when it comes to doing the job he neither has the skill, the experience, or the interest. He’s just not that into it anymore.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

The oil companies announce their first quarter earnings and they are good news for the oil companies and their investors. Not to let an opportunity pass, Congressman Tim Bishop, against a backdrop of $4 per gallon gasoline prices, introduces legislation titled, “The Big Oil Welfare Repeal Act.” On his own website he admits that this legislation “will not impact gas prices for American consumers.” The legislation’s purpose is to eliminate a tax credit for the oil companies, not all oil companies just the five largest. It also doesn’t address subsidies to other energy companies such as ethanol, wind, solar, coal, geothermal, and a $7,500 tax credit if you buy a Chevy Volt. Why not?

Because this is political theater not policy. Bishop’s reasoning is that Big Oil is evil, pandering to the people getting squeezed at the gas pump but doing nothing to actually help them. His other reasoning is that it will save a piddling $3 billion per year. Did I just use the words piddling and billion in the same sentence? Yes, I did. When you have a one year budget deficit of $1.6 trillion, that’s 500 times larger than Mr. Bishop’s proposed savings, that savings is piddling.

Lifting the Debt Ceiling

This week Congressman Bishop voted against raising the debt ceiling in a “clean” bill, that is, no conditions attached to it; just raise the limit. This is what President Obama and other Democrats have been clamoring for, but when given the opportunity to do so, they vote against it. Profiles in courage it’s not. Here is what Mr. Bishop had to say about his vote:

“Theater belongs on Broadway, not the House floor,” Mr. Bishop, a Democrat from Southampton, said in a press release issued Wednesday. “It’s juvenile when the House leadership is engaging in political stunts while slipping a note under the desk to their friends on Wall Street.”

Juvenile? Well, junior, what do you call your “Big Oil Welfare Repeal Act”? Serious statesmanship? Serious statesmanship would be passing a budget, not looking for pocket change behind the sofa cushions. Serious statesmanship would be working on getting control over entitlements, and condemning commercials showing a Paul Ryan look alike pushing grandma in her wheelchair off a cliff. Statesmanship would be applauding Bill Clinton’s admission that he hopes Democrats don’t demogogue efforts to get entitlement spending under control, rather than letting the moment pass in silence.

But Tim Bishop has spent eight years in Washington keeping a low profile, doing Nancy Pelosi’s bidding 97% of the time, and bringing home whatever bacon scraps he could find to get himself reelected. Little does it matter that at the same time he is piling billions upon billions in debt upon his constituents to pay off in return for the table scraps that his party’s leadership have tossed his way. But with earmarks off the table, all Mr. Bishop has left is theater. Of course, Mr. Bishop’s theater is brilliant while he bristles at being put on the record voting against his own position and caustically calls that theater. Mr. Bishop won reelection by a whisker thin margin, basically by hiding his record and attacking his opponent personally. Over the next eighteen months Mr. Bishop will find that there are fewer and fewer places to hide.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.



To No Fly or Not to No Fly, that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of indecision

Or take arms against a tin pot dictator

And by opposing end him. To golf, to play

No more – and by play to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand responsibilities

This job requires. ‘Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To golf, to play –

To play, perchance to bracket: ay, there’s the rub,

To watch one’s pick, march on the final four

When at last we watch Duke play Pitt,

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes calamity of getting elected.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of this job,

Bush’s problems, the Tea Party’s contumely

The pangs of despised polls, the Constitution’s stubbornness,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

When he himself might his departure make

With an electoral loss? Who would want this job?

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after this office,

The undiscovered retirement, from whose bourn

Only Bill Clinton returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than to fly to others that we know not of?

Thus making decisions does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of

Longing to be a community organizer again

Or to be able to vote “present”

And lose the name of action. – Soft you now,

Jimmy Carter, to you I will be compared

By all my sins remembered.

Apologies to William Shakespeare

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

You almost have to wonder, why in the world did he run for president? Was he swept up in the ego trip? Was he reading too much into his own press clippings? Did the historic opportunity of being the first real black president, sorry Bill Clinton, in U.S. history overwhelm a careful consideration of what the job entailed?

For those who believe in federalism, as James Madison said, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined.” As the powers of the federal government are (supposed to be) few, so are the responsibilities of the President of the United States; important and focused, yes, but few. So why does President Obama look to avoid those few responsibilities and get involved in so many that are not in his purview?

From golf, to beer summits, to healthcare, to golf, to conferences on bullying, to golf, and now on guns, he seems to find that which is least related to his job to focus his energies and those of his administration. Even senators from his own party decry his lack of leadership on perhaps the most important issue of the day, spending and the debt. The Middle East is in flames and he talks tough but does nothing.

A Gun Summit

A deranged man in Tucson, Arizona, slipped through the cracks of existing laws that prohibit the sale of a gun, under both Arizona law and federal law to someone who is mentally ill or a drug user. Jared Loughner is guilty of both, but no one bothered to take the step to have a court declare him mentally unstable and no one made sure the system was updated with his drug use. If the laws on the books aren’t enforced, what will the addition of more laws do, other than further curtail liberties?

Of course that does not stop President Obama from wading in. On his team he picks Eric Holder and Hillary Rodham Clinton. I hope I am not being overly critical by saying, with the Middle East crumbling into chaos, a major ally recovering from an earthquake and tsunami in the Far East, and the function of the State Department being how we interface with other nations, am I the only one who thinks HRC is probably a little busy right now, or should be?

Then there is Eric Holder, who wouldn’t know a terrorist if he were jumping up and down on his desk screaming Allahu Akbar, while sweeping a sword inches over his head. Who sees Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philadelphia as just a couple of guys from the ‘hood hanging out. Who will twist himself in paroxysms to avoid saying in Congressional hearings that the possibility that Major Nidal Hisan was a radical Islamist, instead saying, “No, I don’t want to say anything negative about a religion.”

One of the knee jerk comments you hear from the gun opponents if you criticize gun restrictions is, “Should we allow machine guns!!” Considering that the U.S. government and this president have abdicated their responsibility to defend our border, even to the point of putting signs up 100 miles inside our country warning travelers that it is unsafe to travel in parts of Arizona, the idea of a couple of .50 caliber machine guns mounted on the roof of some rancher’s home in that area might not be a bad idea. With drug cartel members active in that area with automatic weapons, why not?

A Simple Approach

Let me suggest a simple approach. The laws should not be about what property you own, but what you do with it. Laws should apply to actions, not who we are, what we own, or what we think. The rules can and should be different for people who have violated laws by their actions or who have diminished capacity to safely operate something that could be dangerous. Felons should not be allowed to buy a gun nor someone who is mentally unstable. We are allowed to drink. We are allowed to drive. We are not allowed to drink and drive. The prohibited action is the combination of the two. If you drink and drive repeatedly, you don’t get to drive at all.

Our government should not stand in the way of its citizens being able to defend themselves. In a Supreme Court case Warren v District of Columbia, it was ruled that a police department is not responsible for failing to protect its citizens. It should be my responsibility to protect myself and my family. The Supreme Court seems to agree that you cannot blame the police if they do not respond.

So Hillary, go back to the State Department and focus on foreign policy not on guns. Mr. Holder, try being our chief prosecutor not a busybody. Mr. President, put away the golf clubs and start figuring out how to cut a very large slice out of the $1.6 trillion deficit you are running. If you didn’t want the job in the first place, you shouldn’t have asked for it.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

The common themes in each presidential race turn on a hope and dream for the future, defining a common purpose and a call to action. Candidates usually win on the success of their ability to marshal these themes into a cohesive series of arguments for their nomination and eventually election to office. Few were as effective as Ronald Reagan at recruiting the support of the average listener. If he could get your ear, he could get your vote. Candidate Barack Obama frequently compared himself with Ronald Reagan during his campaign. His media cohorts happily aligned themselves with this maladapted relationship, with the centrist and even right leaning (business friendly and low/fair taxes) themes hinted by Obama’s vague comparisons.

He then has compared the first half of his first term to Ronald Reagan, again with the support of an eager media. They both inherited a terrible economy, with high unemployment, handed to them by unpopular presidents, and a world on the brink of disaster. That is basically where the comparisons end in real life and thus spurring a misunderstanding in comparing the two I call The Great Reagan Mistake. When Ronald Reagan was elected, interest rates were double digits, as a result of years of an economic condition known as “stagflation”, a term rarely used because Reagan’s economic policies essentially made the condition obsolete. Or so we thought. A couple more years of this recovery, especially if interest rates rise as they are predicted by many economists to do, and the term will come back into vogue sooner than one may think.

After a year and a half of the Barack Obama recovery (2009-2010), the results of his economic policies could not be more divergent from the results of the first 18 months of the Reagan recovery (1983-84). Unemployment is chronically high, even though interest rates are historically low and we are told to expect 8% unemployment as the “new normal”. We are also told to expect trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.

According to Larry Kudlow, an economist in the Reagan administration, we have anemic 3% growth in GDP and a microscopic 121,000 new jobs created in the Obama recovery. Get ready for this: in the Reagan recovery, 5.3 million jobs were created by 7.7% GDP during the same period of recovery. Mr. Obama’s government centric high tax and suffocating business climate marked by presidentially led animosity for business in America, has stunted the very growth for which he longs, the absence of which is causing increasing frustration among the administration as well as the American people. Contrast that with the economic launch pad created by the then maligned “Reaganomics”. While his clueless Vice President Bush called it “Voodoo economics” to the howling delight of the liberal media, the business community knew better, and jumped on the rocket and rode it into unparalleled prosperity for the next twenty years. Reagan was the first president to shatter then accepted economic theory that low unemployment, low inflation and high GDP could NEVER exist at the same time. After the Reagan recovery began, those conditions coexisted continuously until 2008. Mr. Obama is turning back the clock, printing money and driving up inflation, while telling us to get used to high unemployment, leading us back into the “stagflation” era of Jimmy Carter.

While Reagan was accused of being an actor who was empty of substance and only made people feel good, this is the sadly unfolding truth about the Obama presidency. While they both had/have a gift for the rhetorical flourish, calling upon Americans to get in touch with their internal longing for a new vision for America, a dream and an awakening spirit, Mr. Reagan’s words were a separate and distinct tool for inspiration of the American people, guiding them through very tough times, while he took decisive action based on sound economic theory, with courage and conviction. Mr. Obama’s need to latch onto that legacy is resulting in the truly hollow rhetoric, lacking the substance so badly needed in the American domestic agenda today. Why can’t liberals just admit they were wrong and go back to what Reagan showed us worked? I always said it was the single most important thing Bill Clinton did to insure his presidential popularity: he didn’t mess with Reaganomics. He kept that his dirty little secret only supply side devotees like me would recognize. He never had to explain it to his liberal base because they were living in such nonchalant prosperity most Americans took for granted by then. He knew better than to make the Great Reagan Mistake. Mr. Obama is losing his window of opportunity to turn the tide and make actual changes. In two years, he will follow Jimmy Carter into oblivion. Hopefully the next President will not make the same mistake.

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