2010 Mid Term Elation! - December 2010

The 2010 midterm elections were a historic victory for those of us who wanted to hit the brakes on the Obama leftist agenda. From federal elections to local contests throughout our country, Republican candidates touting conservative policy positions were elected nationwide.

Not only did the Republicans pick up seats in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, but Republican candidates gained 7 governorships and more than 500 state legislature seats. Several states have turned Republican for the first time in decades.

Regardless of whether such national and state victories were protest votes against Obama or were votes from citizens who wanted a conservative governing philosophy, the reality is that Republicans now control the United States House of Representatives and with the likelihood of many vulnerable Senate Democrats voting with its 46 Republicans, President Obama’s dream of a European style socialist government are finished.

The big question is whether Obama will go down fighting or accept the results of the election and work with Republicans to govern from the middle as President Clinton successfully did to be elected to a second term. Having watched Obama’s press conference and his media interviews thereafter, I think he will go down fighting since he does not believe his ideals were rejected. Instead, he thinks it was his failure to effectively communicate his achievements. He will fight because his ego requires that he be remembered for changing America regardless if such change was not wanted. And his fight will take place in executive orders and policies rather than legislation.

Outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi also believes she and her ideals were not the reason for the historic Democratic defeat. She continues to believe that passing ObamaCare, Financial Reform, and a massive stimulus plan against the will of a majority of Americans had to be done and she is quite proud at doing so. Ditto for Senate President Harry Reid who kept his seat despite the high unemployment and depressed economy of his Nevada homeland thanks to twisting lots of arms and providing free lunches to voters.

I look forward to seeing Pelosi’s protégé, local Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, back in a minority role although her commendable political skills will unfortunately keep her relevant in Washington. Perhaps we will again see her on CSPAN in the middle of the night lecturing an empty House chamber about the culture of corruption in Washington. Unfortunately her cohort in those laughable moments, Kendrick Meeks, will not be able to join her as his bid for a US Senate Seat failed to even win most Democratic voters.

Also here in Florida, Republicans now have veto proof control of both the State House and Senate meaning that the Democrats will not be able to slow down a conservative agenda with their fairness arguments. It will be interesting to see how Governor-elect Scott works with the leaders in both chambers. Hopefully they will join him in putting the state back to work rather than following the lead of lobbyists who helped finance their legislative election machines. As we all know, Governor-elect Scott virtually financed his own election and has no obligations to anyone other than the voters who elected him.

While Governor-elect Scott was not a perfect candidate given his inexcusable style of delegating at Columbia-HCA, I believe his intent for our state is commendable. The last four years of virtually nothing being done for Florida by Governor Crist was predicted by me before he was elected in 2006. You may recall I backed his Republican challenger at the time. Crist’s cowardly defection from the Republican Party to run as an Independent against Senator-elect Marco Rubio was also not a surprise to me but I was shocked at the continued support for Crist by many prominent Broward County Republicans.

Personally, I feel great about the 2010 election results and am proud to have backed the winning candidates for Governor and US Senator early during the primary and general elections. I am also proud for America to have put conservative Republicans back in control of so many important states which will yield positive results for those states and for our country today and into the next election season in 2012.

Be Thankful For Obama - Novembr 2010

As we ready ourselves and our families for the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday, it is important to sit back, enjoy a glass of wine, and starting thinking of all of the things for which we should be thankful during the past year.

For my friends on the left, I am sure you are thankful for the great job President Obama is doing with the nation’s economy, the healthcare of our citizens, and with fostering a joyous atmosphere in which all of our citizens just get along.

No doubt you are ecstatic about the millions of government jobs saved or created by Obama’s trillion dollar stimulus efforts - including the tax dollars and borrowed money spent on those shovel-ready union jobs. And I am sure you are thrilled that federal government salaries now exceed average pay of private industry employees – that is for those private industry employees not among the 10% who are currently unemployed as the business community continues to hold tight with its resources until the Obama administration finishes writing the thousands of new regulations which affect them.

And despite the overwhelming numbers of American citizens against ObamaCare, I am sure my lefty friends are still quite content in his federal government takeover of the healthcare industry. Even as you read reports on a daily basis of private companies getting exemptions from ObamaCare regulations or other companies having to raise employee insurance contribution levels, there is no doubt of your joy knowing that the private healthcare market will simply become a public utility in which all aspects are controlled by the government.

As for the great and peaceful relations between the rich and poor, black and white, gay and straight, and Christians and Muslims (let alone the Jews and Muslims) which Obama our Savior was supposed to bring to America, I am sure you lefties smile all day knowing that Barack is a rich straight black Christian who was raised in near poverty as the son of a Muslim. He is certainly our first post-racial President even if most segments of American society have not joined him in his Nobel prize winning efforts for world peace.

For those of us on the political right, we have our own thankfulness for still being able to live in a country secured by the Bush Homeland Security policies most of which Obama has enhanced to increase their effectiveness despite screams from the ACLU, George Soros, and the left wingers in the media and academia. And we are thankful for Obama allowing Bush’s surge in Iraq to succeed before pulling back troop levels when his military brass said it was safe to do so.

We righties also continue to be thankful for being able to benefit from the Bush tax cuts which Obama is trying to rename as his own even as he threatens to eliminate those lower tax rates for small business owners and others who are financially successful. Hopefully we will continue to be thankful this time next year for Obama also maintaining Bush’s low capital gains rates on our investments.

And most importantly for us right wingers, it is very easy to be thankful that the silent majority of American voters are actually waking up to the realities of what is happening to our country. And preparing to vote in all upcoming elections, to start holding our elected officials accountable, and to work together to ensure that our country returns to the basic forms of government which our founders desired. As I write this column, the November mid-term elections have not occurred but I am very hopeful that the predicted anti-Democrat wave will wash away enough big government liberals that common sense will soon return to Washington.

I am sure that your upcoming Thanksgiving Dinner will be a great opportunity to discuss how thankful we all should be to live in a democracy in which each of us can voice our opinions about how our country should be run without fear of arrest or intimidation unlike the daily threats to democracy throughout the world. And hopefully you will end that night by opening up your wallet and spending big on Black Friday so that our economy can start humming again.

Crime Pays - October 2010

There is a fine line between a civilized society and pure anarchy. The only thing that keeps that line functional is the rule of law.

Fortunately America’s founding fathers produced an exceptionally brilliant constitution; and we have relatively sane legislative branches in our federal, state, and local governments; and we have a judicial system second to none other in the world. So our country’s rule of law is able to fend off anarchy on a daily basis.

Unfortunately those laws are put to the test too often by our citizens and, as a result, our country has among the highest rates of incarceration worldwide. Those on the left tend to think we have too many strict laws while those on the right typically say our enforcement of those laws is too weak.

I say the reason for our country’s high rate of incarcerations is because of educational and moral failures and because of an economy in which crime pays in too many ways.

First to the education issue. In some states including Florida more than 40% of high school kids drop out and do not seek higher education or technical school training. Statistics have historically shown that lower levels of academic achievement usually relate to lower levels of employment opportunities and income.

Since everyone needs money to pay for food, rent, recreation, healthcare, and luxuries, sometimes economic crimes become the only way to generate the money to pay for those items whether it is from selling drugs; stealing and fencing goods; participating in healthcare and insurance frauds; passing bad checks; or profiting from ID theft.

I also mentioned moral failures as a cause of our nation’s high incarceration rate. If one leads a life which follows the teachings of the Ten Commandments as they are interpreted by many different religious faiths, then he or she will live a life free of crime. Thou Shall Not Steal Or Murder could not be any clearer.

In today’s world, however, where our children are sooner to idolize the sleazy lifestyles portrayed on MTV’s Jersey Shore or stake their futures on following in the footsteps of professional athletes and entertainers, it is no wonder that the Ten Commandments are no longer the compass to life for a growing portion of our society.

Of course there are many cases of supposedly deeply religious and moral people committing both economic and physically injurious crimes but I would argue that they should not be labeled as being deeply religious or they would not have failed to follow the teachings of their church, synagogue, temple, or mosque.

I also believe that one of the biggest reasons for our high levels of incarceration is because crime pays – and I am not talking about the economic benefits for the criminals. The criminal apprehension process, prosecution efforts, and incarceration industries are amongst the largest sectors of employment in our country. Thus, there are millions of Americans gainfully employed who may have an economic incentive to keep the judicial process going.

Imagine what would happen to our economy if there was no need for Congress, State Legislatures, or local Municipal Councils and Commissions to continually write and change our laws? How many lobbyists and related professionals would be out of work?

And suppose there were fewer crimes committed? What would happen to the hundreds of thousands of government prosecutors and defense lawyers and their staffs without clients to represent? How many fewer judges would be needed? How many police?

There would also be no need for most of our jails so tens of thousands of wardens and their staff members would be unemployed. Along with the construction, foodservice, and related industries that provide needed services to those governmental and for-profit jails.

Do I think there are many dumb laws on the books and that the penal code is irrational with sentences for some offenses too long and others too lenient? Yes! But I do not have the expertise – and thankfully personal experience – to comment on any of them. I will let the heretofore mentioned gainfully employed professionals and clergy argue those points. And I will count on the school system to better educate our children so fewer see the need for breaking the laws.

Immigration Battles - September 2010

There is perhaps no more difficult subject to discuss as a citizen of the United States than how to determine and control the immigration policy of this country. From its earliest explorers by land and sea to the explosion of migration during the industrial revolution, America has grown thanks to the contribution of individuals from all over the world who have chosen our country as their new homeland.

Politics, bigotry, religious intolerance, and economic competition have and always will play a part in how we Americans accept our new citizens. From Benjamin Franklin who was hesitant to allow the Hessians into colonial America, to fear of Irish Catholic immigration in the mid-1800’s, to the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 aimed at limiting southern and eastern European migration, there have been ongoing governmental efforts to control legal immigration.

Of course, I cannot discuss immigration without mentioning the tens of thousands of individuals brought to this country by slave traders which is a part of our country’s history which was regrettable even if such efforts were common worldwide at that time. Thankfully, our country is now at the forefront of providing equality to all of its citizens.

I am proud to be a descendent of my late maternal grandfather who was born in this country in the late 1800’s and was awarded a Purple Heart during World War I. And I am proud to be a descendent of my late paternal grandparents both of whom came to America because of religious persecution in Eastern Europe in the early 1900’s and who worked hard to become a part of this country by learning English, learning this country’s customs, and toiling in the garment industry of Baltimore to be able to afford a decent way of life for themselves and their three children.

Our country has also been a liberal recipient of war and economic refugees from around the world except during World War II when Japanese immigrants were kept in internment camps and European Jews were regularly refused entry including by the Roosevelt administration in 1939 to allow 800 passengers of the MS St Louis cruise ship to debark in Miami. Forty year later President Carter allowed more than 125,000 Cubans to come through those same Miami waterways in a controversial decision which changed South Florida in many ways.

Flash forward to today and our citizens are again in an uproar about migration to the United States. But this time the issue is about those entering our country illegally or staying intentionally beyond their visa expiration date. The State of Arizona even passed a law empowering its state and local police to get involved in immigration matters which are typically the sole responsibility of the federal government. That law is now being challenged in federal courts and I, quite frankly, hope that the law is upheld because of the failure of the Obama administration to meet its national responsibilities in securing our international borders be they in Arizona or in Florida.

Instead it is the goal of the Obama administration to give a path to citizenship to the estimated 20 million illegal immigrants, mostly of Hispanic heritage, currently in our country since he believes they will eventually register as Democrats and give that party a notable edge in elections thereafter. Even Harry Reid, the leader of the US Senate has said he can think of no reason why any person of Hispanic heritage would not be a Democrat. In 1986 President Ronald Reagan signed a law giving amnesty to illegals and all it did was encourage tens of millions more to enter the United States expecting amnesty would be offered again.

Our country survives because of the rule of law. Therefore, I cannot support any efforts by our federal government to allow and encourage illegal entry into the United States. I believe that employers should be heavily fined for hiring illegals and that social services should be denied to illegals except in life threatening emergencies. If we eliminate this cheap source of labor and the associated government giveaways of social and health services, there will be no incentive for illegals to stay nor for others to come to our country illegally. We cannot expect a wall to solve this problem.

Economic Woes - August 2010

In 1980 Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter by talking about the “misery index” which highlighted Carter’s failed economic plans. In 1988 Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush by focusing on the message “it’s the economy stupid!”

This coming November the Republicans should easily gain seats in the US Senate and US House of Representatives by simply asking “how’s that change working out for your wallet?”

The American public has come to realize that the Obama economic plan has not worked but, worse, has put our country in a grave financial condition for the years ahead. President Obama has amassed two trillion dollars in debt for our country in less than two years since he took office.

And that debt total does not include the complete – and still unknown - implementation cost of ObamaCare which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has recently acknowledged will be at least one trillion dollars over ten years.

Obama’s so-called Summer of Recovery celebration is turning into a public relations nightmare for his administration as it continues to tell the American public it created or saved 3 million jobs while at the same time trying to dodge the fact that more than millions of jobs have been lost since the beginning of 2009 when he took office.

Many pundits are very concerned about next year when the Bush tax cuts implemented in 2001 and 2003 will automatically expire if Obama does not agree to extend some or all of them. It is being reported that many businesses are working hard to front load next year’s sales into this year to avoid the higher taxes so if you believe the stock market is based on an earnings multiplier, you should be very worried about next year when earnings could be notably lower.

So what should Obama do to get the private industry economy booming again as opposed to focusing on just growing government jobs? Of course, he could follow the wisdom of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said that unemployment benefits are among the best ways to create jobs, and shoot for a 15% national unemployment rate.

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer for Obama. Much of the private economy is dependent on financing but such will be become tighter and more expensive thanks to the recently passed Dodd-Frank Financial Overhaul Bill. And the still unknown implementation details of ObamaCare are continuing to cause pauses in hiring efforts as business simply do not know how much to budget for healthcare anymore.

In past columns, I had predicted that normal 7 year business cycles would eventually turn positive as built-up consumer and business demand for goods and services kick started the economy. While we are seeing some signs of that in the technology industry, most other industry segments continue to be flat. There is just too much uncertainty because of so many regulatory changes and fees being created by Obama at the same time.

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chairman, recently said he is so concerned about the national debt and budget deficit that it would be unwise for Congress to consider extending the Bush tax cuts. His predecessor, Paul Volcker, has stated that a national sales tax being pushed by leading Democrats may be needed to generate sufficient revenue to cover the crushing government debt being added by Obama.

Wow! For those of us who believe that lower taxes provide the necessary capitalistic incentive to produce and profit, we may not have an opportunity to again prove that strategy unless the Republicans take back control of Congress this coming November and Obama joins that job creating unemployment line in 2012.

President Obama has always admired European society and even visited several European countries in 2008 during his American presidential campaign to bask in their supposed love for him. What is so ironic now is that Obama is trying to remake our country’s economy like European socialism while most European countries are reshaping their economies to be more like ours used to be.

Hopefully American voters will show up at the polls this November and get rid of all of the big government Democrats and Republicans in Washington and put an end to this craziness.

Middle East Peace? - July 2010

News spread like a wildfire throughout internet blogs last month that the Egyptian Foreign Minister supposedly said on the Egyptian TV show Round Table that President Obama personally told him earlier this year that he – Obama – was brought up as a Muslim, still had many Muslim family members, and that he would begin to change American foreign policy towards the Middle East to address Muslim concerns.

While I find it hard to believe that President Obama would have made such a comment in private to the Egyptian Foreign Minister, there is no doubt that Obama is in the process of changing American foreign policy towards Israel and towards the entire Middle East. And not for the better in my opinion.

Let’s not forget that Obama has been on the wrong side of most important foreign policy decisions since he took office. He looked the other way when ordinary Iranian citizens tried to rise up to challenge Ahmadinejad; he supported Zelaya the Honduran ex-President who was removed from office by his own government; and he wrote personal notes to North Korea’s Kim and Venezuela’s Chavez telling them that America had not been a fair partner in trying to overcome policy differences. And then there was the missile defense capitulation to Russia’s Medvedev and his ongoing all talk, no action, stance on Iranian nuclear ambitions.

Maybe President Obama thinks if America resets its Middle East foreign policy to better support the Muslim world’s preference to minimize or eliminate the State of Israel, that the Muslim world will like him - I mean our country - better. And perhaps he thinks that the Jihadists will stop their centuries old battle against non-Islamic religions. How naïve!

The Israeli government has made its fair share of mistakes in its recent actions. Letting word leak out about the status of a long-planned 1,600 East Jerusalem unit housing development while Vice-President Biden was meeting with Israeli officials, and its recent failed boarding of a ship trying to challenge the Gaza blockade, could have been handled better. But the need for the United States to solidly back its most reliable ally in the Middle East should not change.

Unfortunately Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have left no doubt about their beliefs that it is the fault of the Israelis that the Middle East peace process is again at a standstill. Perhaps each of them has forgotten that Israel was prepared to make major concessions as part of the Oslo Declaration brokered by Hillary’s husband in 1994. But Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, ultimately rejected most of the agreement because of political pressure at home.

And today, the terrorist group Hamas is in control of the Palestinian territories with little interest in making peace with Israel. And it continues to launch missiles and suicide bombers into Israel from Gaza which is why the Israelis launched its maritime blockade to prevent additional explosives and questionable supplies from reaching Hamas.

Yet President Obama believes that pressuring Israel to accept peace demands from Hamas will put an end to the ultimate goal of Hamas and its Iranian sponsors to destroy Israel. But what else can we expect from an individual who was tutored by Reverend Wright for nearly 20 years about the evils of Israel and America. Or whose Presidential candidacy was strongly supported by billionaire George Soros who actually blames Israel for anti-Semitism.

While the Republican Jewish Coalition and many leading conservative organizations have been quick to condemn Obama for his Middle East policies, there has only been a weak response from prominent Jewish Democrats such as our own Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz who usually runs to the national TV cameras to publicize her thoughts on just about any other subject. And the liberal media continues to focus on the fate of the Palestinians rather than on the security of the citizens of Israel.

Thankfully a recent Gallup poll detailed that more than 60% of Americans say their sympathies are with the Israeli people in ongoing Middle East conflict while only 19%agree that the Palestinian position is correct.

Perhaps our President will join the majority and focus his efforts on eliminating the security threats to Israel and the peace living world.

Financial Reform - June 2010

The United States was built on a strong entrepreneurial foundation of risk taking and freedom to pursue one’s dreams and interests.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s belief in the strong role of a centralized federal government to regulate all aspects of our lives is presenting serious challenges to that foundation for success.

The latest assault on our lives is from retiring US Senator Christopher Dodd’s effort to turn our financial sector into an industry in which the government sets the rules for what products can be offered, how they can be sold, determines how financial industry employees can be paid, and limits hedging efforts by firms to balance their investment risks.

Don’t get me wrong. I find the Wild West nature of today’s financial industry and the current framework in which those firms operate to be unhealthy for the well being of our country. The 2008 collapse of many leading financial firms and the hundreds of billions of tax payer money needed to keep the financial system liquid and operating should never have happened.

Part of the problem goes back to 1999 when President Bill Clinton signed into law the Financial Services Modernization Act which repealed part of the Glass-Stegall Act of 1933 which had kept investment firm and insurance company businesses separate from commercial bank operations. In essence, our checking and savings account monies were not to be put at risk by possible losses by a firm’s investment operations.

Clinton’s former Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, who came to the Clinton administration from Goldman Sachs, lobbied hard for the law’s passage since he was angling to be the head of Citigroup which wanted to own all types of financial firms under one roof.

And with the stroke of Clinton’s pen, our savings and checking accounts were again at risk of being wiped out by failure of a financial conglomerate’s non-banking operation. But, of course, those financial conglomerates knew that the FDIC would come to the rescue of the traditional account depositors. I am sure those financial conglomerates never dreamed the government would completely bail them out of all of their losses, or coordinate their sales to other firms, which partly came true for many in 2008 after their wrong bets on risky mortgages. Or that the government would end up buying and rescuing AIG which had insured many of those risky mortgage products sold by those financial conglomerates.

Today’s financial reform proposals focus on making sure investors are fully aware of the risky derivatives market such as those mortgage backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. And by making sure the agencies which rate those investments do not have any conflicts of interest by profiting from other products offered by the financial conglomerates who offer those investments. And by possibly setting up a multi-billion dollar government fund which would be ready to rescue those firms during future collapses.

I believe failure is good for a capitalist society whether it is for an individual investor who did not do their due diligence or whether it is from a large investment house which bet its money on the wrong side of the market. I am not in favor of the current reform proposals which would also put the federal government in charge of reviewing even the smallest financial transactions such as those created to fund small businesses including funding mechanisms from so-called angel investors.

Instead, I would favor a new Glass-Stegall type law which would again separate investment firm operations from the traditional banking operations which typically fund our mortgages, small business loans, and other working capital needs. If an investment house – and its clients – make bad market bets, let them fail but do not let their fall take down banking subsidiaries which will require FDIC rescue.

And I would also take a look at reforming the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 signed by President Carter which “encouraged” banks to make loans to questionable borrowers in low-to-middle income neighborhoods. Those types of loans are partly to blame for the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which are two quasi-governmental entities created by President Roosevelt to buy loans from banks so the banks would have more money to loan to others. When the housing market crashed during the 2008 financial meltdown, it was those questionable loans which provided fuel to that fire.

Political Party Irrelevance? - April 2010

I was born in Washington, D.C. not too far from the center of the political power of our country. Perhaps that is why I have always been fascinated by politics and politicians. And perhaps why I spent several years as a legislator in the Student Government at the University of Maryland and why I ultimately ran for the Florida Senate some years ago.

In the past few years, however, my positive feelings about the world of politics and political parties has been tainted by well publicized influence peddling and corruption on the local, state, and national levels from both Democrats and Republicans. It has become apparent to me that the needs of the voters have finally become a distant second to those of the campaign contributors, lobbyists, and political power structure.

Political parties have become no less of an industry onto themselves as are manufacturing, retail, and service companies. These political parties are major sources of job generation within their large staffs and to their favored vendors. They collect revenues from their members and vendors and they dole out those monies in the most efficient manner to yield them more members and the resulting power.
These political parties write emotional fund raising letters to ordinary citizens telling them the sky will fall if they do not win elections or if their opponents are able to pass certain bills into law. Yet in most cases both parties fail to listen to their voters anyway. The current soap opera that has been ObamaCare is the ultimate proof as a majority of voters were against the bill but the Democratic Party had too much at stake with its contributors, lobbyists, and its own power structure to not try and pass that bill regardless of the tactics used.

Much has been written about the latest trend for trying to change political parties. This so-called Tea Party movement is certainly sincere in its goal to support politicians who will again focus on the needs of the voter and on the original intent of our government. It has been a fantastic process for getting new people involved in the political process. But I am afraid they, too, will become cynical and apathetic when their efforts come up short. Despite all of the positive energy within that effort, the Tea Party groups have not had much success with their preferred candidates. Just read about the recent Texas primaries for more details. And what happened in upstate New York several months ago. While they did play a part in the election of Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts, they did not play the deciding role – it was Democrats who crossed party lines who decided that election.
There has also been much talk about litmus tests within each party to ensure that their candidates loyally represent the party ideals and platforms. The State of Florida will be a good test for that process within the Republican Party this coming August when Marco Rubio faces off against Charlie Crist to be the Republican candidate for the US Senate in November. The grass roots activists and most of the county parties are fully behind Rubio while Crist - who has run away from the party ideals to support Obama’s stimulus plan and anti-growth environment efforts – still has the media spotlight as the sitting Governor.

But there is one other factor at play which I believe may force both political parties back to reality and may even force true bi-partisanship in Congress and in many State capitals. The fact that the largest percentage of registered voters are now “Non-affiliated” or “Independent” gives them the power to pick and choose candidates from both parties who will best serve the public. And that possible coalition of Independent supported Republican and Democratic elected officials may ignore the power structures within their political parties to work together to get the peoples’ business done. It will be up to the pollsters and media to prove to those politicians that it was the Independent voters and not their political party machines that put them in office. It may take a few election cycles but I can see the day when a party Whip will not be able to apply the traditional pressure to get its members to vote the party way without them first getting the pulse of the Independent voters.

Until that day, we will have to accept the reality of power hungry partisans controlling Congress and our State legislatures. And the probability of bigger government and higher taxes.

Obama's 1st Year Disaster - March 2010

“I’d rather be a really good one-term President than a mediocre two-term President”. So said Barack Obama to ABC News last month. But he left out a more likely third option. Many believe he will actually be a really, really, bad one-term President. And if today’s poll numbers continue, he might even be known forever as the worst one-term President.

Let me tell you why. He is out of touch with the needs and expectations of ordinary Americans. Instead, Obama is trying to Rahm his radical leftist policies down their throats with his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel leading the charge. Both came through the Chicago political machine which is known for hard ball strategies, demonizing tactics, and take no prisoners battles. Thankfully the Republicans in Congress along with a handful of Democrats, a massive number of citizen activists, and certain members of the national media have been able to slow down those efforts and hopefully defeat them.

President Obama truly believes that this is his moment in history to remake America as he envisions it regardless of what our citizenry believes. Whether it is his desire to nationalize the remaining parts of the health insurance industry not already monopolized by government programs, or his goal to force Americans to utilize what he believes are the best energy sources through mandates from his EPA bureaucracy, or his ongoing efforts to set pay and union policies in private industries by fiat from his Pay Czar, the Obama regime is out of control. And these are just his domestic policies.

Obama’s foreign policy disasters have included giving Miranda rights to foreign terrorists whose aim is to destroy our country, being on the wrong side of democracy movements in Iran, Honduras, and elsewhere. Talking softly and carrying no stick in facing the nuclear threats of North Korea and Iran. And deserting our leading ally in the Middle East in hopes of forcing peace. Of course giving back a bust of Winston Churchill - which was a gift to our country from England – to the British Prime Minister and giving a misspelled Reset Button to the leader of Russia certainly also played parts in his now laughable reputation around the world.

And if President Obama’s domestic and foreign policies are not bad enough, it is his hypocrisy on the involvement of lobbyists in his regime, his two-faced approach to Wall Street where he privately takes their political contributions while publicly using populist themes against them, and his unwarranted attempts to apologize for the past actions of our country that have really caused his enviable initial approval ratings to plummet to the lowest levels ever for a President one year into his term of office.

But Obama still does not get it. His now famous “we won, you lost” comment to the Republican Congressional Leadership continues to guide his efforts. While he publicly derides the Republicans for not being bipartisan, it is his administration and the Democratic Congressional Leadership who continue to meet behind closed doors to formulate policies and strategies. It is Obama who continues to blame President George W. Bush for his own policy failures. And it his Press Secretary Robert Gibbs who still does not miss an opportunity to taunt the Republicans during his daily press briefings.

The recent election of Republican Scott Brown to a Senate seat from Massachusetts was not seen as a stop sign to this Obama regime. Instead, it has simply caused Obama and the Democratic leaders to consider ways to by-pass Senate protocols to Rahm his agenda into law. And in a show of utter elitism, Obama’s handlers actually blamed the Massachusetts voters for electing Senator Brown rather than blaming the failing Democratic agenda. Maybe they should have blamed Obama himself whose campaign efforts have now failed in New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Copenhagen (where he lost the Olympic 2016 bid for Chicago), and in Miami (where he rooted for the Colts rather than the Saints in the recent Super Bowl).

Hopefully America will not fail as President Obama continues to do so. Despite his teleprompter speeches about fiscal responsibility and federal deficits, he continues to borrow and spend as if tomorrow will not come when our children will have to pay the piper. But thankfully voters across this great country have an opportunity this coming November to sufficiently change the make-up of Congress to put a halt to Obama’s socialist plans for America so we can again unleash the entrepreneurial spirit which built this country.

Much Has Happened In 20 Years - February 2010

There have been a number of historical moments in the United States during the twenty years in which DRW Magazine has been published in the Weston, Davie, Southwest Ranches, and Cooper City areas. Among those moments have been five key events in politics and economics which are detailed below in order of significance to me.

By far, the most impactful moment in the last twenty years was the terrorist attack on New York City’s Twin Towers in 2001. For many of us on the right, it solidified our belief that our western way of life was under attack by Islamic fundamentalists. While there had been previous attacks on our embassies overseas, on the USS Cole in Yemen, at international hotels, and a botched attempt at those same Twin Towers, the well organized 9/11 suicide attack brought the war to our shores. We were fortunate to have had a President who was prepared to do what was necessary to minimize future attacks by going on the offensive against the terrorist organizations and those entities which supported or housed them.

While many people have hailed the recent election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States as historic because of his race, I consider his election historic because of the utter destruction he has brought - and still may bring - to the fabric of this country. His populist class warfare has gone beyond a rallying cry for political points. His continuing verbal vilification of the business community along with the radical regulations being proposed by his various Czars have the potential to forever change American Capitalism in countless ways. That is if our American economy does not get dragged down first by the trillions of dollars of debt Obama has already generated in his first year in office. Saul Alinsky, the father of modern American radicalism, would be proud of Obama’s attempts to redistribute the nation’s wealth and his interest in moving our country towards a more socialistic model.

The Great Recession of 2008 which is still underway brought to the forefront the ugly side of greed. Whether it was certain Democratic Senators who protected Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from being investigated for their risky loan purchases which allowed those transactions to continue, or certain Wall Street whiz kids and hedge funds who created mortgage-backed derivatives, or those individuals who knowingly speculated in the real estate market or who borrowed more than they could afford, our country and the world is now paying for a speculative bubble that nearly brought our financial system to a complete halt. And now our responsible citizens and small business people cannot get the financing they need to improve their lives and grow their businesses. Hopefully the normal business cycle will pull us out of this rut.

In 1998, the Republican-led Congress attempted to impeach President Clinton for lying under oath about an extramarital sexual liaison he had with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office of our White House. There were many – and I mean many – reasons why I did not like President Clinton during his term of office, but that gotcha effort by the Republicans sacrificed what community spirit people of all political sides still had at that time simply to get back at the Democrats for their partisan attempts to stall the great efforts of President Reagan years before with the ridiculous Iran Contra investigations. Since those days of the Clinton impeachment attempt, our country has been split ideologically, religiously, and economically like never before in my lifetime to the point that each party and its zealots will do whatever they can to defeat their opponents regardless of the potential for common ground in governing our country.

Although Al Gore did not invent the internet, I am glad that our military experts and leading universities did so and that our country has been able to exponentially benefit from it in the past twenty years. From online worldwide commerce, to unfettered (and sometimes unreliable) news postings, to the electronic communications now popular on cellular phones and portable laptops, the worldwide interconnection of computer networks has drastically changed our ways of living – mostly for the better. Imagine our lives today without Google; eBay; the iPhone and its apps; GPS systems, and YouTube.

I could mention many more significant events if I had the printed space to do so. I can only hope that America remembers and can learn from its past challenges in the next twenty years, can heal its partisan divide, and that capitalism can continue to unleash our country’s potential.

2010 Predictions - January 2010

The year 2010 has the potential to dictate the political and economic future of our country for decades to come. The upcoming mid-term elections in November could perhaps be the most significant election since 1937 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won his second term and was able to continue his New Deal plans.

American voters will have the opportunity to show their support for the Obama-Reid-Pelosi regime if voters again elect enough Democrats to Congress to give them continued control of the legislative branch of our federal government. Such a victory would serve as a green light for a Democratic Congress to continue remaking the banking, auto, healthcare, and energy sectors of our economy along with their planned immigration and labor reform which are sure to follow.

Or the voters will reject the efforts of the Democrats and elect enough Republicans to Congress to eliminate the governing majorities which the Democrats currently have in both the House and Senate. This would put a stop to the largest expansion of the federal government’s role in our economy since FDR. Many political pundits even expect the Republicans to regain control of the House while greatly diminishing the Democratic majority in the Senate.

Personally, I am growing tired of the labels Republican and Democratic to identify our politicians. It no longer matters which party is in power since both spend too much using IOUs to our children and grandchildren. The fact that the largest segment of registered voters is now independents seems to echo my sentiments. But as far as predicting control of Congress next year, I do not believe the Republicans will regain control but will add enough new members to seriously slow down Obama’s push for a more socialist America.

Florida will also be holding several important statewide elections next year. Those who read my column regularly know that I am no fan of Charlie Crist and I believe that Marco Rubio has a very high probability of beating him in the Republican primary for United States Senator. He is a young, energetic, Hispanic who truly represents the Big Tent potential of the Republican Party. I am confident that either of them, however, will beat the Democratic candidate in November.

As for the Florida Governor’s race, I think Republican Bill McCollum is a genuine person with a great resume but I do not believe he has the gravitas to win in November. I am hopefully that a new and credible Republican candidate will come forward to win that prize although voters tend to punish the incumbent party when things are bad and nobody can argue that Florida’s economy, job market, and real estate industries are worthy of rewarding a Republican candidate with another four years. But I am hopeful that Obama fatigue will overshadow statewide malaise.

Central to the outcome of all of these elections is the performance of the American economy by November. Under normal circumstances, the depleted state of our nation’s wholesale and retail inventories should naturally cause an uptick in manufacturing and jobs. But I believe that President Obama’s trillion dollar deficit, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, and hefty new taxes being proposed by the Democrats will keep the economy in slow motion all the way through next year providing Republicans nationwide with the opportunity to pick many new seats including a victory by Republican Allan West over incumbent Democrat Ron Klein in eastern Broward County. It is too bad, however, that our local liberal poster girl Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is well protected in her gerrymandered Democratic district and will retain her Congressional seat for another two years.

And finally, I predict that the United States east coast will not sink into the Atlantic Ocean in 2010 due to manmade global warming. But thankfully, Obama’s planned Cap & Tax plan to force us to cut back our traditional energy consumption will sink under the weight of the increasing evidence of the phony science used to create that inconvenient truth. That said, I continue to encourage you to recycle and wisely spend your energy dollars since doing both will limit our dependence on foreign energy sources. Have a great year!