Questions for Dem Candidates

Although Democrats do not realize this, their candidates have been asked very few difficult questions.

Democrats are rarely called upon to speak to their own morals or religion, even though they take many moral and/or religious positions. Abortion is an example of this.

Senator Clinton, as a progressive, you believe in and protect the right of a woman’s right to choose what to do with her fetus. At what point do you determine that a woman no longer has this right, and what moral, religious and/or scientific position informs you of your position?

Science generally determines that a person has died when the brain no longer has an electrical output. This electrical output can be measured in a fetus as young as 3 weeks old. What moral, religious or scientific position informs you that this is not really life inside the womb?

Abortions often affect women for the entirety of their lives. Do you support the requirement that a doctor show a woman a live sonogram before she is allowed to consider an abortion? If you do not support this, explain why not.

Do you believe that reducing the number of abortions is a good thing? If reducing the number of abortions is a good thing, why?

Senator Clinton, you seem to have taken a multitude of positions on Iraq. You have justified your vote for the war when you made it; you have publically celebrated the fall of Saddam; and yet you sound as if you want to pull troops out of Iraqis quickly as possible. Can you clarify your position on Iraq without resorting to slogans like “Iraq is Bush’s war”?

Senator Obama, your one claim to fame seems to be that you voted against the war in Iraq, a fact which you seem to trump in about every 3^rd speech. Do you believe that we are at war with al-Qaeda? Whether or not al-Qaeda was in Iraq when we took troops into Iraq, it is clear that they are there now. It is also clear that we are defeating them. It is also clear that radical Muslims see Iraq as the primary front against the US. Since conditions have changed on the ground, won’t pulling out the troops be understood as a victory by radical Muslims and won’t such a pull out embolden our enemies?

You both favor some sort of health care which will be available to all Americans. Given that entitlement programs now take up 60% of the federal budget and will, within 4 years, become 70% of the federal budget, don’t you think that adding one more huge entitlement program (government health care) before we solve problems of the existing programs would be economically irresponsible? Since you have never run any company and since you have never had to make a payroll, why on earth do you think you have the ability and the experience to take over the largest sector of our nation’s economy? After all, all you have done in the medical field, Senator Clinton, is follow a nurse around for a day. You have done less than that, Senator Obama.

You voted down privatization of social security accounts, again preventing those who pay for these funds to have any control over these funds. Almost every economist warns us that social security, medicare and medical will bankrupt us in this generation. What are you solutions if full or partial privitization is off the table?

Private schools have shown again and again that they are able to produce better educated students than public education, and for a much lower price tag per student. Why do you oppose school choice, school vouchers, or any other similar program which would allow both the poor and the rich to place their children in schools which would be cheaper for taxpayers and give their children a better education?

We have, over the past ten years, more than doubled the amount of spending per student throughout the United States, without any results. Is your solution to spend even more money per student? Where will that money come from and how much per student should be we spending right now? Should we continue to throw good money into a system which seems to be getting worse each and every year?

How exactly do you plan to deal with the immigration problem? How will you enforce present immigration laws? What will you do about the people who are already here? What will you do about the illegal alien crminals who are already here? What will you do about cities who refuse to obey federal immigration laws?

You have railed against this economy as if we were in the greatest recession of our generation, whereas, in fact, we are not in a recession and we have enjoyed an unprecedented continued growth for 52 quarters. Compare and contrast the economies of the Clinton, Bush, Reagan and Carter administrations. How do they compare with respect to job growth, inflation, interest rate and the stock market?

Senator Clinton, you seem to have no control over what your husband says and does, even though what he has done seems to have alienated many members of the Democratic party. You have also had various people who have worked for your election organization who have also run off at the mouth. Is this lack of control that you seem to have going to be typical of a Hillary Clinton administration?

What Did Bill Clinton Do?

Senator Obama is not running, for the most part, as a Black man. He had very little contact with his Kenyon father; and he was raised essentially in a white household in a white neighborhood by a white mother. He is no more ghetto than I am; and, apart from marrying a very upwardly mobile Black woman, is no more Black than I am. Now, I am not saying this to disparage Obama, as most conservatives see race as an irrelevant factor. However, when he began to run his campaign, his race was not an issue. He won the Iowa caucus by a healthy margin, as I predicted, with something like a 98% white electorate.

Here is what Senator Clinton’s political machine has done: it has successfully (in my opinion)

portrayed Obama as the Black candidate. Some people from Clinton campaign fell on the sword, as it were, to portray Obama as Black. President Clinton has done this on several occasions—enough to make many of his own party angry—and the idea is this: those who are Black have his permission to vote for Obama because Obama is Black. That is a normal and natural thing to do (for a Democrat; not necessarily for a Republican). So, what is unsaid is, it is also natural and normal for women and whites to vote for Senator Clinton because she is a white woman.

After doing this, both Clinton’s have begun to make nice, which I think is part of the reason the Democratic debate was so civil. Bill did what he set out to do; Super Tuesday is upon us; now he needs to step back, and let their strategy play out.

However, even though pundits have said, “No, Clinton would not be playing the race card like that.”

What has happened is, Barrack Obama now has the support of MoveOn.org (an organization originally set up to defend President Clinton from the Lewinksy fall out);  and the LA Times as well. These are huge endorsements.

It is a tough call, as to what is going to play out on Super-Tuesday. Will Obama’s many significant endorsements win out or will Clinton’s divisive racial attacks carry the day? Since Democrats tend to be motivated by race and gender more than Republicans, I think the Clinton’s polarization will win out. But, it will be close. Edwards could tip the scales in either way, but I don’t think Obama would make a deal with him. I believe that Edwards may still make a play for a high position, if things are still close after Super-Tuesday (i.e., close enough for his supporters to make the difference).

Senator Clinton’s Weaknesses

Quite obviously, anyone who feels the government is designed to solve all or most of our problems, and that businesses making big profits is evil, are strong failings in a country built on American ingenuity, faith and hard work. This is the typical liberal opinion, and obviously, this is the biggest Hillary negative. When big government is automatically a good thing, but big business is a bad thing (even Wal-Mart is demonized by many liberals!), that is liberal philosophy, and it is wrong.

The second big problem is, Senator Clinton has never run anything. She has not been the boss of anything. She has no control of those in her campaign, including her own husband, as she has said again and again. If she cannot control her own campaign (and I believe that she can’t; I don’t think this is just her claim), then how can she control a government, which is many times larger.

How does Clinton answer this charge? Her explanation is, the government is not a for-profit organization, and, for that reason, she does not need executive experience to run it. I kid you not. This was her answer in the Democratic debate this past week. This is why she has the ability to run the largest and most powerful organization in the world—the United States government—because it is not designed to make a profit.

To give you an idea of how well Senator Clinton understand business, recall her proposal for solving the home mortgage crisis: “Freeze interest rates and freeze foreclosures for x number of months.” This is a solution put forth by a person who has not even a clue as to how business works. I am sure that many people heard this and thought, “Yeah, good idea; I want her as my president. She knows how to fix these things.”

Let me suggest some other solutions: Let’s solve poverty by passing legislation (or an executive mandate) saying that everyone will have a job and all jobs will, from hereon in, pay at least $50,000 a year. Oh, and, while we are at it, let’s also mandate that this includes free childcare.

Let’s solve the housing crisis and homelessness by giving everyone who cannot afford a house, a house. Hell, give them 2 houses!

Let’s solve the national debt by going out back and print up a few trillion extra dollars. Let’s solve mental illness by giving everyone their own personal psychiatrist. Let’s solve physical abuse by assigning every small person and woman their own personal bodyguard.

I hope that anyone who is reading this recognizes that these are stupid ideas; and not a part of the Democratic platform (yet).

Loan officers, loan processors and those who work at closing entities are working for a living, and their jobs depend upon the for-profit concept of buying and selling houses and refinancing loans. The money involved here does not just float down from the sky. It is primarily investment money, not just from the uber rich, but people who have money invested in some part of the real estate market (mostly through retirement and mutual funds). Here is how it works: you get a low percentage return for low risk loans; you get a high percentage return for high risk loans. The government has mandated more high risk loans, which means high interest rates for high risk borrowers, and now the government cannot seem to figure out, why are high risk borrowers (some of whom put little or no money down on some government programs) walking on their loans. They walk on their loans because they are high risk borrowers. This is not all of the bad loans today, but this is a large percentage of them.

Now, we know what happens when the government comes in and mandates that you must be more fair in giving out loans to people who normally would not get them—you get a mortgage loan crisis. So, what happens when you mandate that these businesses start losing tons and tons of money? Let me make it simple: let’s say the government walked into your business and said, “For the next few months, I am mandating that you will lose money, and lots of it. After that, I cannot guarantee what will happen.” Are you going to stay in a business like that? Mortgage money is going to dry up overnight (unless it comes from the government). Huge numbers of people will lose their jobs (primarily women, by the way; remember, I have been in this business for 15 years, and women are far in the majority of real estate agents, brokers, loan officers, loan processors, closers and secretaries). How does this happen? You put someone in an executive office who has no concept of business, who has no idea how business works, who has no idea that making a profit is what drives investment, and that all you have to do to solve a problem is to impose whatever governmental mandate that you feel like imposing that day.

I’ve got a better idea. Have Congress mandate that everyone own a business which generates $1,000,000 a year; and also, mandate that every car get 300 miles per gallon. Make the latter mandate retroactive.

When you don’t have a clue, it is easy to say any damn thing which pops into your pretty little head (I was talking about me, by the way).

Super Tuesday Debates

Since I do have a lot of time to watch this stuff, I have seen almost every single debate, and I must say that the Super Tuesday Debates were quite depressing for me. The Republican Debate sucked and the Democrats (both of them) had a good debate.

Mitt Romney runs a lot of negative ads. Now, he does not attack a person for his religion, his private life or for irrelevant personal matters; but he runs attack ad after attack ad where he distorts the position of his opposing candidates. McCain has begun to respond in kind, and much of the debate was spent arguing over what a person’s position is. Now, I have no problem with issue attack ads. Being a conservative, I don’t care if someone is white or black, male or female, Mormon, atheist or a former Baptist minister. What concerns me is (1) what are their policies and (2) are they actually able to lead and do what they say they want to do? Unlike some Democrats, it is not a plus or a minus if someone is Black; I would never vote for or against someone because they are a woman. These are irrelevant issues. So, a healthy discussion of the issues and a comparison between where someone stands is important and apropos. However, what I don’t want to see is, for instance, McCain claiming that Romney believed in setting up a timetable for withdrawal and for Romney to deny this charge—and to see this discussion go on and on and on and on. This was a result of a poor ad that McCain ran against Romney, but Romney has run a lot of bad attack ads himself. Quite frankly, this is pathetic.

Now, I would have no problem if McCain ran a negative ad which gave Romney’s current positions and how he has voted in the past. I would not mind if Romney ran negative ads on McCain, which his current positions are contrasted with how he has voted in the past. However, there is a limit as to how much I want to hear this. I want to hear what a candidate believes in, I want to hear about a candidate’s experience and ability to actually implement his vision, and, when pertinent, when a candidate has a change of heart, then I want to know why and if there is any evidence that this is a true change of heart.

At this Super Tuesday debate, Huckabee—who is not my favorite candidate—conducted himself with great honor and restraint. Most of the time, when Huckabee is given a free shot at his opponents, he says, “I don’t want to speak for so-and-so; but this is my position on that issue.”

Ron Paul, who does not have a chance in hell, also focuses on substantive issues without personal attacks. I may disagree with many of Paul’s positions, but I do respect his focus on his stance as opposed to attacking his opponents.

Briefly, the problem is this, and this is McCain’s and Romney’s fault—is running straw men ads. You set up a position which your opponent does not have, and then you attack that position. That is simply wrong and embarrassing. It could be worse—they could be running personal attack ads—but they need to focus more on their vision than upon attacking a slanted version of what an opponent.

In the Democratic debate—at least this particular one—both Clinton and Obama dialed back their personal animosity and focused on the issues. Senator Clinton (or was it Senator Obama?) rightly pointed out that, despite the differences that they may have, these differences are minuscule compared to their differences with Republicans. He/she is absolutely right; and when both sets of debates stay on issues, it is like they are debating about different countries during different time periods.

The Bible Column

In Gen. 4, we have the brothers Cain and Abel. They both brought offerings to God: Cain brought vegetables that he had sweated over and Abel brought an animal which was sacrificed to God. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb. 9:22b). Jehovah respected the offering which Abel brought and He had no regard for the offering which Cain brought (Gen. 4:3b–4a). From the very beginning, as I mentioned in the previous Bible column, there must be a blood sacrifice. Here we have it again, one chapter later. Jehovah said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why do you look upset over this? If you do what is right [i.e., offer up an animal sacrifice], then will you not be accepted? And if you do not do what is right [offer up the works of your hand], then sin [the control of the sin nature] is crouching [hiding] at the door. Its desire [the desire of the sin nature] is for you, but you must rule over it." (Gen. 4:6–7). God offers Cain a simple solution; offer up a sacrificial animal instead of the works of your hand, which is what your sin nature naturally desires to do. Man’s normal desire is to do something to earn God’s approbation. Haven’t you hear a few hundred times, “Be good so you can go to heaven” or similar sentiments? The Bible from the very beginning, speaks of a blood sacrifice as being key to our salvation. Man desires to earn God’s favor; the Bible tells us from the very beginning that God’s favor comes from a blood sacrifice.

Quite obviously, the key is that animal sacrifices always look forward to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us on the cross.

Global Warming

I am sure that you have noticed that supporters of imminent global warming disaster have been rather quiet over the past several months. Some have been inside, warming their hands on the heater. Others are in hibernation. Not to worry; they are still there, and when the weather warms, they will come out again, reinvigorated by the warmth of the sun.

Science prides itself in discussion and alternate theories and in careful examination of the evidence. This is not what the global warming bunch are about. Global warming is a fact, we need to stop talking about it, all the evidence is in, and the only so-called scientists who oppose it are supported by big oil. Does that sound like science? The debate is over. When was the last time you heard of Al Gore debating this topic? Try never. He isn’t going to debate this topic and certainly he will not debate his film. He would look like a fool.

Since 1998, there has been no appreciable temperature change. It snowed in Bagdad; I believe that it snowed in southern California; there were times this winter that 60% of the US was under snow or ice. There are a lot of people in the middle of the US who would love for global warming to be true. Their winters are just too cold. The past summer was unusually mild in the US; this past winter was unusually harsh. But, as soon as it warms up, as soon as this or that area suffers from a heat wave, then the global warming neo-libs will be out in force telling us how we need to change our lives to combat climate change.

By the way, have you noticed the solution to global warming? More government regulation, more taxes, more fines, more payments to the government, and more education. Doesn’t this sound like the liberal solution for virtually every ill which besets us? What a remarkable coincidence!

In case you don’t know what happened recently in California, it was almost law that every new house be equipped with a thermostat which some one else would control. This is an example of the kind of regulations neo-libs want to impose on you and me. They will rail vociferously against the horrendous loss of liberty which we have lost under President George Bush. However, how many of you actually know someone who has had their phone calls listened to? How many of you know someone who the government picked up because they had brown skin and worshiped Allah, and threw him into Club Gitmo? My guess is, approximately zero people. Guaranteed, if these things were really occurring, our court systems would be filled with lawsuits. This is neo-lib rhetoric, without a shred of evidence. But, what almost happened in California? Some Californians almost lost the ability to control their own thermostats in their own homes, all in the name of global warming. That is a true threat to freedom. You want to know another threat to true freedom? Regular brown outs. In the US, we are able to provide power. All we need to do is do it. Neo-libs in California have made the provision of state-wide power problematic. In my opinion, the more brown outs in California, the better. The more draconian their electric bills, the better. This is the liberal approach, and I think the neo-libs in California need to keep on enjoying the results of their philosophies which are imposed on the entire state.

Why Neo-Libs Love NPR

This Sunday morning, on publically funded radio, Daniel Schorr compared Bush and Club Gitmo to the Palmer raids of 1919 in which thousands of suspected "reds" were rounded up and deported and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

In 1919, there were a number of bombings of court buildings, police stations, churches and homes. Democratic President Woodrow Wilson rightfully thought that something ought to be done. All in all, approximately 10,000 individuals were rounded up and arrested or deported. The neo-lib revisionist history is, rounding up such people, like members of the Industrial Workers of the World, is apparently a bad thing. I don’t know that they would go so far as to repudiate Woodrow Wilson, but this is just mean. The bombings stopped, by the way. Our Democratic system did go to work on behalf of many of these people and laws were changed, some people were exonerated; but there appears to be little argument that this was a real problem and that these actions solved the problem.

In 1942, Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order which stole the private property from 110,000 American citizens and put them into internment camps, because he and people in his administration were worried that Asian-Americans (who identified themselves as Americans, not as Asian-Americans) would side with the Japanese. In 1988, Republican President Ronald Reagan officially apologized for this act of racial prejudice and over-reaction. I don’t know that Woodrow Wilson was wrong, but FDR was clearly wrong. The greatest Americans are often those of Asian descent. They are often hard-working, highly-educated, patriotic, and they rarely play the victim card. What we did to them was wrong, and Reagan rightly apologized for it.

Now, Daniel Schorr says this is just what Bush is doing. Schorr says that hundreds have been rounded up and detained by Bush. Schorr does not emphasize that the Palmer raids affected 10,000 Americans, that the internment camps affected 110,000 Americans, and Bush’s playing fast and loose with the rules, has affect literally hundreds of lives.

Schorr doesn’t mention that, for the most part, we aren’t speaking of American citizens. Of the 505 detainees, 100 or more are from Saudi Arabia, about 80 from Yemen, about 65 from Pakistan, about 50 from Afghanistan, and two from Syria. The dirty little secret that you do not know is, there is a significant segment of Gitmo prisoners who do not want to be sent back to their countries. They would rather stay at Club Gitmo.

Guantanamo is notorious for being the first "gulag" in history where the average weight gain of prisoners is 13 pounds.

If Daniel Schorr was intellectually honest (most neo-libs in the media are not; and we pay their salaries), he would have pointed out how few Americans are really affected by this, and how radically different this aspect of Bush’s administration is from FDR’s internment. If you stopped someone on the street in California in the 1940's and ask them if they knew someone who was thrown into an internment camp, and more often than not, they did. The only reason you know about any American at Club GItmo is because of frantic neo-lib journalists who irrationally compare Guantanamo to the gulags in Russia.

Speaking of Neo-Lib Radio

I saw a few minutes of Randi Rhodes recorded from Air America on FoxNews (if I recall correctly), and she said that Republicans hate Blacks and women. It did not appear to be tongue-in-cheek; she appeared to be serious about this. The actual quote is: "I know they [Republicans] hate women. I'm very clear about that. But I will tell you they hate blacks as much, if not more. They hate everybody. If they met Jesus, they wouldn't like him because he was brown."

I checked several message boards, and not only did many of the people agree with her, they wrote such things as: YES, REPUBLICANS don't HATE ONLY BLACKS; they hate all minorities, poor, people with principles and self respect. Saying that Republicans HATE blacks, it's not a bold comment...it's a FACT. They win elections based on dividing people and promoting hate, that's how they operate. They use the ignorance of certain demographic in our country (red states) to move voters to the polls; they infect those rural Americans, church goers, fat women who drive vans with 3 or 4 kids inside and a yellow ribbon on their bumpers, PTA moms and dads with their propaganda, and unfortunately they are a pretty large population of the country...What can we do with them?...mmm dunno...maybe we all should take a history test and past it in order to vote. We'd have a better country if only informed people would have the right to vote. I agree with the last point made by this guy, by the way. Can you imagine how freaked out the left would get if we had to pass a test to vote?

It is sad, but this is how a significant portion of the left thinks. This is not the 1% freakazoids which can be found at any end of any spectrum; this is the typical thinking of a significant percentage of the Democratic party. If I was to guess, I would guess somewhere between 10–30% of them, because I have talked with some of these people. You cannot seem to reason with them. These are their core beliefs. And notice the contemptuous way this person trashes Republicans: those rural Americans, church goers, fat women who drive vans with 3 or 4 kids inside and a yellow ribbon on their bumpers, PTA moms and dads. Do you understand? These are bad things: going to church, driving vans with 3 or 4 kids, and having those damned yellow ribbons on their bumpers.

People who think this way have taken over the Democratic party, and there is a strong possibility that the Democrats will win this next presidential election, and be beholden to these people.

This is no longer your father’s Democratic party.