Author: Gary Ivey

October 10, 2009

It appeared that President Obama himself was actually embarrassed when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this week.  He said in his statement that he wasn’t expecting it and didn’t deserve it.

Truer words were never spoken.

Of course the Nobel Peace Prize has pretty much been meaningless ever since it was awarded to Yassir Arafat.  That made pretty much as much sense as awarding the Country Music Associations’s Artist of the Year award to Charles Manson.

Just as puzzling was the Nobel Committee’s choice of Al Gore a few years ago.  Al Gore was vice president during the Clinton Administration, which studiously ignored the growth of Al Qaida despite at least four major terror attacks on American interests.  So how did Al Gore warrant the Nobel Peace Prize?  Why by championing Global Warming, that’s how.  The Nobel Committee’s convoluted logic was as impossible to follow as the basis of the Global Warming/Climate Change theory itself: It was something about wars starting because it was hot… I don’t know.

In order for Obama to win the Prize this year, he had to have been nominated in FEBRUARY, approximately two weeks after he became president. Of course soon after, he began his European Apology Tour, in which he missed no opportunity to bash the United States and Israel.  That probably clinched the award for him.

The Nobel Committee said it was awarding the prize to Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

For his “efforts”?  So it wasn’t for anything he’s actually done?

To find what Obama has done thus far to further the cause of peace in the world is like desperately needing to find a needle in a hundred haystacks.  After all, in February, he hadn’t even been at his desk in the Senate but a few days since he was elected since he had pretty much started running for president from his first day in the Senate.

And since then he has promised to meet without conditions any number of bloodstained dictators, principally Iran which is a betrayal of Israel, and at the same time betraying our new allies like Poland and the Czech Republic by renigging on the promised missle defense system.

How do these things further the cause of Peace?

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October 5, 2009

Here in my little blog, I’ve been critical of President Obama and people in his administration because of their policies and their philosophies with which I very much disagree.  Some might conclude from that that I was a rabid George W. Bush supporter, but they would be wrong.

I did vote for George W. Bush twice and each time I thought he was better for the country than his opponent.  But “better” is a relative word.  Something that is “better” than the worst possible “something” can still be really bad.

I didn’t agree with George W. Bush on a lot of things, like Illegal Immigration (just build the wall!), the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (more bureaucracy doesn’t help the War on Terror) and “Compassionate Conservatism” (just an excuse to spend the taxpayers’ money).  In short George W. Bush was too liberal for me.

Now information has come to light that, in my opinion is nothing less than a scandal.  We heard whisperings about it when the changing of the guard was taking place in January.  Apparently it is true that Bush Administration Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson FORCED a dozen financial institutions to take bailout money in order to gain control of them.  Most of the banks didn’t  want to take the money but Paulson threatened to “take their stock”, which would essentially be a nationalizing of the banks.

Then when the banks were beholden to the Feds for taking the money, Treasury put the screws to them, investigating executive compensation and other activities.

It’s easy to look at the activities of the Obama Administration and cry “Communism” or even “Fascism”, but the current Administration apparently has nothing on the Bush Treasury Department for wanting heavy-handed socialist control of private business.

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October 3, 2009

One of the problems in figuring out how to feel about the various proposals to reform the United States’ health care system is that it’s just really complex.  After all, we’re talking about 17% of the nation’s economy, which makes our health care industry larger than the GDP of many of the world’s nations.  The implications of whatever is finally done will be far-reaching and difficult to reverse.

However, this week we got a dramatic clue to how we should feel about the proposals the Democrats are pushing through Congress and President Obama is cheerleading.

Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning entered an amendment to the Senate version of Health Care Reform.  The proposal was really simple: After the bill is finalized, the American people would have 72 hours to review the wording of the bill before the Senate would have its final vote.  The amendment also stipulated that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office would be allowed to run the numbers before a final vote.

Sounds reasonable enough, except that 72 hours is really not enough to have a real discussion of the bill in its final form, whatever that might be.

So of course the Democrats defeated the amendment, because they know the bill will be more likely to pass if no one, including the Senators themselves, knows what’s in the bill before they vote for it.

But this also tells us something very important about the Democrat majority in Congress:  They don’t want us to know what they are really doing.

And that’s really all you need to know about the current Health Care Reform proposal to have an informed opinion.

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September 26, 2009

It’s ironic, since the Democrats always oppose any effort to stem the tide of illegal immigration, that President Obama is rapidly putting into place his plan to put an end to the problem.

When Obama was campaigning for president, he was critical (as was I) of George W. Bush for running up budget deficits and increasing the national debt.  However, it was apparently not a serious criticism because as soon as he took office, his administration and Congress rapidly put in place policies that quadrupled the deficit, pushed the national debt toward the 12-trillion-dollar, statutory limit, and printed enough money to reduce the value of the dollar by 25%.

Prognosticators, who admittedly are not sympathetic with Obama’s policies, have predicted that the Federal government will have to borrow money just to pay the interest on the debt.  Some have said that this may bring about the end of the sterling “Full Faith and Credit of the United States” and our country may find it difficult to borrow any more money.

What does this have to do with illegal immigration?  Simple.  People come to this country for mostly one reason: our economic opportunity.  The combination of free market capitalism and freedom to innovate have, over the short history of our nation, allowed people who started in poverty to become fabulously wealthy by simply providing goods and services people need and are willing to pay for, something you can’t do in many countries of the world.

Obama really hates that.

He has indicated repeatedly that he will do many things to punish the evil capitalists and punish the companies that they have created.  He has already nationalized two banks, two auto manufacturers, and hopes to take over the health insurance and industries and the medical profession.  This together with the crushing debt he has saddled generations of Americans with during just the first six months of his administration, may effectively end the unique opportunity America has always represented to the oppressed people of the world.

So, when the standard of living and economic opportunity in the United States are no different from Cuba, Mexico, Guatamala, Viet Nam, China, France. etc., those people will have no more reason to come here.  Legally or illegally.  

Problem solved.

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September 17, 2009

Is the Democrat left so intellectually vapid that “they’re racists” is the best response they have to people protesting the irresponsible spending spree in Congress and the threatened takeover of our private medical profession, insurance and pharmaceutical industries?

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times was the first to say that the reason Joe Wilson said, “You Lie” during Obama’s speech on Health Care was because he was a racist.  As time goes by we learn about more and more “inacccuracies” in Obama’s speech, so it may just be that Joe Wilson said Obama was lying, not because Obama is black, but because Obama was LYING!

Then this week, former President Jimmy Carter, who never met a Marxist dictator he didn’t like, said he thinks that the “bulk” of people criticizing Obama’s policies are doing so because he’s black.  Poor Jimmy.  He’s finally gone around the bend.

So let me get this straight:  when people opposed Hillarycare, which was the same general idea as Obamacare in the ’90s, they were racists?  Sorry, I’m having a little trouble with the logic.

Then there’s the video of a gun-toting health care protester shown by MS-NBC, the cable news outlet with the microscopic ratings.  The video showed a close up of a man’s waist with a pistol and a semi-automatic machine gun at a tea party.  Solemnly the MS-NBC reporter intoned how this was an indication that the protests were racists.  After all, Obama is black so anybody who disagrees with him must be a racist, and see, white people are bringing guns to their protests as an intimidation tactic.  Interesting though, if you look at the entire unedited video, it turns out that the man carrying the gun WAS BLACK!!!!  And he was probably a plain clothes policeman.

Dan Rather would be proud.

MS- NBC’s actions in falsifying their video and the angle of their report betrays a desperation that would almost be pitiable if it were not so dangerous.  Is that really all they’ve got to answer the concerns of 55% of Americans who oppose the Health Care Reform plans now under consideration?

But if you’re a racist when you criticize a black president, why are you NOT a racist when you criticze the black chairman of the Republican National Committee?

I’ve said from the beginning that there is no racial angle to Obama’s presidency.  After all, he’s African-American, but the American part is whiter than I am.

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September 3, 2009

The president’s “Green Jobs” Czar, Van Jones has stepped in it.  He was caught on videotape moderating a Town Hall in Berkeley, California, where he was asked why past Republican-led Congresses got laws passed without having a 60-vote majority in the Senate as the Democrats have now.  So why can’t the Democrats pass Health Care Reform?

Any normal person would recognize that this question was about Democrats, but Van Jones answered by saying, “Because they (Republicans) are a**holes.”

That was mature.

Van Jones is a self proclaimed Marxist, Anarchist and “Truther”, which means he believes the Bush Administration knew ahead of time about the 9/11 attacks and allowed them because it would be an excuse to go to war.  He also says the Environmental Movement is about completing the revolution that started in the 1960s.  In other words, Van Jones is a nut.

But he has an unelected, unaccountable position in the Obama administration, and powers that we can only guess at.  He’s either very dangerous or a complete screw-up and won’t be able to create any “Green Jobs”.  Either way, he needs to go, and yesterday.

As to the question at the Town Hall meeting, as often happens, the answer is in the question:  The reason Democrats can’t pass a Health Care bill is because not enough Democrats want to vote for it.

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August 28, 2009

One of the things that makes America great is the generosity of its people.  Every week millions of churchgoers contribute millions of dollars for a variety of charitable causes, from education to feeding the hungry to counseling ministry for the hurting.  Besides that, people respond with more millions to various drives to further research for multiple diseases and relief projects around the world.

It is telling then, that when politicians’ charitable giving is revealed publicly, it seems those who are most concerned that the government collect every dollar of taxes owed for use in the multiplied welfare programs are also the least likely to have given charitable donations in any significant amount.

Back during the election of 2000, it was revealed that Senator Al Gore had given a grand total of about $350 to charity the year before.  That’s incredible to me, since he is a multimillionaire and, by comparison, I contribute several times that amount PER MONTH!

Similarly, the contributions of Vice President Joe Biden were published recently and his annual giving was even less than Gore’s.  This led me to think that perhaps Democrats just think the government should do what the churches and nonprofits do, so they consider that they have given through taxes.

Then, another surprise.  It has now come out that both Treasury Secretary Geithner AND House Ways and Means Committee (the body that writes tax law) Chairman Charles Wrangle have not paid tens of thousands of dollars in taxes that they owe.  Geithner paid his so he could be confirmed, but Wrangle’s “mistake” has just come to light.  It seems he “forgot” about half a million dollars in income!  Not to mention thousands more in stocks and rental property income.

I guess this means that, whether the charity is done by nonprofits or the government, “Other Peoples’ Money” should be used and these liberal politicians don’t think they should have to contribute anything, either through giving OR taxes.

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August 30, 2009

A couple of weeks ago I suggested that President Obama’s superhero name should be “Opposite Man” because nearly everything he’s done since his inauguration has been, not just wrong, but the opposite of what should have been done. He’s at it again.

Two things the administration is doing are kind of two sides of the same coin, demonstrating how it’s possible to do the opposite of what needs to be done, SQUARED. The twofer has to do with the War on Terror.  Er, I should have said War on (whatever they call it now).

We all know that Obama is trying to keep his campaign promise to free the terror detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay.  It’s turning out to be more difficult than it was to promise.  Of course, he should be doing the opposite; that is following though on the military tribunals.

The other side of this coin developed this week, when Attorney General Eric Holder announced he would be appointing a special counsel to investigate those lawyers and CIA agents who decided to press the detainees to reveal Al Quaeda’s plans to murder all of us.  Again, these people prevented several more 9/11 attacks from being carried out.  They should get medals, not investigations with the accompanying hundreds of thousands in legal bills and defamation by the press.

So that’s a double opposite.  But there was yet another this week.  It was announced that Obama was allowing the voucher program of the Washington, D.C. public schools to expire, to appease the teachers union.  This program has been widely praised by people at all points of the political spectrum as giving opportunity to hundreds of DC’s poorest children to attend better schools who otherwise would be doomed to attend the worst public schools in the country.

So, naturally Opposite Man is not continuing the program even while his own children attend the most exclusive private school in town.  Some government employee might not be needed if too many children try to have a better life by going to a private school.

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August 27, 2009

Now that “Cash for Clunkers” has rolled to a stop and the dealerships are still waiting for most of their reimbursements, the consumers who rushed out to take advantage of the government giveaway got some distressing news today: Apparently the money they saved on their shiny new cars will be taxed at regular income tax rates!

So if a family’s Federal tax rate is 25% and their state tax rate is 15% they will owe approximately $1,200 if they merely got $3,000 off and about $1,700 if they got $4,500 off!

And of course the taxes will be cash, even though they just got a discount at the dealership.

Ah, well. The government giveth and the government taketh away!

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August 26, 2009

Believe it or not, there was a time when I agreed with Ted Kennedy that the US needed socialized medicine. Then I had my 13th birthday and with my increased maturity came clarity and I realized that freedom was more important than giving the government control over life and death.

Okay, maybe it was my 20th birthday.

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