Partisan Nation Part II - December 2012

“Can’t we all just get along” is the famous quote with which I concluded my column last month on our partisan nation. The late Rodney King, who spoke those words after the Los Angeles riot 20 years ago, would be sad today to see that no, we are not getting along.

Last month’s Presidential election told an important story about the current and future path of our country. Based on that vote, we are currently not a nation that cares about being the economic engine of the world. Instead a slim majority of our citizenry is more concerned about perceived economic fairness and redistribution here in the United States.

Our nation is also not currently concerned about protecting and enforcing our Constitution and its unalienable rights. Instead that slim majority of our citizenry seems to be okay with a federal government that tramples on our rights to privacy, personal liberty, and the rule of law.

Citizens in 20 states in our union have actually started petition drives, since President Obama was elected to another four year term, to potentially have their states secede from our United States of America.

While it is doubtful their secession efforts will succeed, it is exciting to see so many citizens following the words of our Declaration of Independence that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

While the Vietnam War, Watergate, and Monica Lewinsky’s oral fixation certainly caused major rifts in our country, nobody has been as destructive to our citizens getting along than has President Obama. His 2012 election strategy played to the worst fears of blacks, Latinos, single women with and without children, and to young voters by attacking Mitt Romney for positions allegedly which would negatively affected those groups. There were no optimistic “Shining City on the Hill” comments from Obama. In fact, he ended his campaign by telling his minions that voting was the best revenge. Revenge against what?

There has been much talk that the current and future demographics of our country have set a pace for permanent structural change in our country. I will not argue that demographics are changing. In fact I have been educating my friends and family for years that our country is never again going to be like or look like it was in the fictional Happy Days and Leave It To Beaver eras. To me, demographic change is nothing to fear or despise as our country was built on evolving demographics. It is something to celebrate.

But those of us on the right do not believe those demographic groups voted for President Obama because they want the United States to go down the path of more socialist Latin American and European countries despite the Democrats again believing they have a mandate for more entitlements and onerous taxes and regulations. Because those groups also voted to keep Republicans in control of the United States House of Representatives which is the people’s chamber in Congress.

I believe that a majority within those demographic groups understand that our country was not founded to provide economic fairness to all but rather to provide a free and fair chance at economic success. And that our nation was not founded so a powerful federal government could entrap its citizens in growing bureaucracies and entitlement programs as envisioned by Obama in his “Life Of Julia” video campaign which depicted cradle-to-crave government involvement.

I believe that these demographic groups and all other Americans will soon be looking for a national political figure who will come forward and again prove that government programs and entitlements are not the answer to a successful future for our democracy. And that a bright and prosperous future for their children and grandchildren cannot and will not come from government but from an entrepreneurial marketplace.

I am confident that political figure will come from the Republican Party. And I am hopeful that person will also showcase to these demographic groups that my Republican Party is the same in principle as it was when Lincoln supported black Americans when they needed it most in the 1800s and 1960’s; that it is a party of diversity with the likes of US Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Governors Susana Martinez, Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley, and Brian Sandoval; and that it is still the party of Ronald Reagan who united this country after a faltering economy caused by an ineffective Democratic President  not unlike the current occupant of the White House.

Partisan Nation Part 1 - November 2012

No matter who wins this year’s Presidential election, there will be ongoing partisan rhetoric coming from both sides in Congress, in the media, and across the fruited plains. 

 

If Mitt Romney wins, those on the left will blame alleged voter suppression rather than blame Obama for not being able to defend his record for the last four years and for not convincing voters of his future plans.

If President Obama wins another four years in the White House, those on the right will certainly blame biased media and liberal debate moderators for their overwhelming efforts to focus attention on Romney trivia and avoid making Obama’s record the centerpiece of the election.

The bigger question regardless of who wins is why has the United States become so partisan and angry and when did this attitude become set in concrete?

Was it the effect of the Great Depression in the 1930’s when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reacted by expanding and strengthening the federal safety net while perfecting a populist agenda which would set the stage for a divided country in the years ahead?

Was it President Richard Nixon in the 1970’s who tried to evade and cover up illegal activities in his political campaign and almost caused a constitutional crisis in our country?

Was it decades of Walter Cronkite on CBS and Chet Huntley on NBC opining from the left while supposedly presenting the daily news facts as America was still dealing with civil rights, the Vietnam War, and a bourgeoning welfare state?

Was it the attempt by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 to nominate Robert Bork to the Supreme Court which became the first time a court pick became so divisive with organized partisan politics for and against him?

Or was it the Republican investigations of President Bill Clinton in the 1990’s for his lying under oath about sexual misconduct and for his questionable White Water real estate investments in Arkansas?

In my opinion, it was none of the above. Our country has been partisan since the founding of our nation. The divisiveness began almost immediately as arguments ensued as to the role of the new federal government relative to the individual states.  There were the Federalists led by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. And then there were the Democratic-Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who believed in states’ rights.

The election of 1800 between Adams and Jefferson became the first ugly partisan campaign in our nation’s history with Jefferson allegedly hiring a “hatchet man” to spread rumors about Adams. Jefferson won. Years later the Federalist Party would fade away while the Democratic-Republican Party would eventually morph into the Democratic Party of today. The Republican Party would emerge again in the 1850’s with President Lincoln being its first victor to the White House.

Flash forward to this recent Presidential election of 2012. You had Obama’s campaign calling Romney a felon, for being responsible for the death of the wife of a former Bain subsidiary employee, and for being a hater of Big Bird and women. I found Obama’s campaign sad and pathetic and was not surprised to see our Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz deep in it. Likewise Republican operatives went to the gutter to keep public attention on Obama’s relationship with his anti-American religious mentor Reverend Wright and on his murky path to college and law school for which no transcripts have ever been released.

Today, Americans cannot even come together to discuss the tragic murder of an American Ambassador in Libya without spinning for or against how President Obama handled it. And rather than working together to help the 28 million unemployed citizens, their fate has become a political hot potato based on the weekly and monthly reports.

More concerning to me is reading social media like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs on various news sites and seeing the vitriol between those on the left and on the right. It is the 1% against the 99%, blacks versus white, non-religious versus the religious, and even men versus women! 

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson are probably turning in their graves as they see the country which they risked their lives to help form going down the path of social and economic destruction.

As Los Angeles riot victim Rodney King once said, “Can’t we all just get along?”

2012 Election Predictions - October 2012

Sometimes I think I am living in an alternate universe.

With our country’s real unemployment rate – those unable to find work or who stopped looking - at more than 15%; with gas prices at nearly $ 4.00 per gallon; with our national debt at more than $ 16 trillion; and with our embassies being attacked by Muslim extremists around the world, I cannot comprehend how President Barack Obama has any possibility of winning another four year term from American voters.

Yet when I read the Miami Herald, the Sun-Sentinel, or watch CNN or any of the NBC family of networks (NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, or Telemundo), this campaign is not about how badly our country is doing or how Obama’s policies have contributed to our decline. Instead it seems to be about weekly Democratic talking points and distractions targeted at Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan.

When the terrible August unemployment numbers were released, I could find no mention or analysis of them in the Sun-Sentinel while the pundits on MSNBC’s popular Morning Joe show actually said the drop in the rate from 8.2% to 8.1% was good for Obama because it continued his streak of job growth. The talking point was that his policies had created 4.5 million jobs in the last 27 months. The reality is that the rate dropped because hundreds of thousands of Americans stopped looking for work and that overall Obama’s economy has created only 300,000 net jobs since he took office.

When the Democratic National Convention platform originally left out the word God and made no mention of Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, the media quickly covered for Obama by saying he was unaware of the proposed platform and had it changed. Yet Obama’s own staff originally said the platform reflected his views. The media even tried to cover for our local Congressman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz who called it simply a “technical oversight”.

While the media has done its best to dissect Romney’s Vice-Presidential pick Paul Ryan’s Congressional votes and speeches, they have continued to give a pass to Joe Biden who has been perhaps the most embarrassing Vice-President in my lifetime. Why was so little – if any – analysis given to Biden’s remark that Romney-Ryan would put “y’all back in chains” when speaking to a mostly black group? Yet every perceived gaffe by Romney or Ryan has lead network new casts for days.

Even by Obama’s own standards, he should be a one-term President since he has not been able to get the unemployment rate down to his targeted 5% or get the country on the right track. Yet many national polls show him with an above the error margin lead over Romney and with a sizeable lead in predicted Electoral College votes.

How can this be?

In my opinion there are several reasons why President Obama is not being chased out of office.

A friend of mine whose family escaped from a communist takeover of their country forty years ago says it best. “The people want to eat and will vote for the guy who will give them food.” So when nearly 47,000,000 Americans rely on the Obama Administration for food stamps - a shocking 100% increase from when Obama took office – it is no wonder that a large percentage of those unfortunate Americans will vote for Obama because they wrongly fear that Romney will let them starve.

When 54,000,000 Americans rely on Medicaid for their healthcare – a 60% increase since the Obama Administration took office – why would they not vote for the candidate promising to expand Medicaid coverage and increase their healthcare choices if Obamcare goes into full force in 2014 despite its unprecedented cost?

Since more than 50% of working Americans pay no federal income taxes, why would they vote for Mitt Romney if Obama’s spin meisters and their friends in the media continue to falsely claim that middle class families will see their federal taxes increase by $ 2,000 if Romney gets elected? Many have enjoyed labeling Romney “Richie Rich” or “Mr. 1%” because of his earned wealth while barely focusing on Obama’s class warfare and anti-business “You Didn’t Built It” attacks on small business people
.

Unfortunately, President Obama has a high probability of staying in office not because of his economic or foreign policy successes but rather because of his growth of the self-fulfilling Entitlement Society.

Of course there are many Obama voters who think that President Obama has, in fact, done a commendable job the past four years and deserves to win. They say the stock market is at a record high thanks to his economic stewardship. That he has performed as good as possible given the bad deck of cards he was given when he took office. And that American prestige worldwide is on the mend.

The reality is that the stock market is doing well not because of corporate earnings and rosy outlooks but because of the cheap money and devaluation of our currency by Obama’s Federal Reserve team.  Low interest rates and cheap money sets a very low hurdle for short-term investments and since stock market investments have decent liquidity, why not do the trade? As a result, almost every equity, commodity, and credit market is moving higher. 

And let’s talk about that bad deck of cards Obama was given. Yes he did inherit a troubled financial system and the resulting loss of millions of American jobs. But I am tired of hearing that it was “Bush’s fault”. The reality is that the financial crisis occurred because of Democratic policies implemented in the Carter and Clinton years! It was the Democrats that forced banks to loan to sub-prime mortgage candidates. And it was the Democrats who cheered and forced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to guarantee those loans even when Bush and Republicans tried to stop the madness.

Yes, President George W. Bush did engage in two expensive wars and yes, President Bush did sign into law the unfunded – but popular - Medicare Prescription Drug Program but President Obama has created more debt in his four years in office than Bush did in his eight! And President Obama has no plan to stop the borrowing. 

As for his foreign policy successes? Obama said the Muslim world would start to love America because he had lived overseas amongst Muslims in his youth. His conceited belief is that he started the Arab Spring which is quickly turning into a cold Arab Winter around the world. Then there is his failure to stop Iran from its war grade nuclear program. And lastly, who can forget Obama pleading with Russia to wait until his second term when he can be more flexible in unilaterally disarming our missile defense systems!

You might be wondering why I will be voting for Mitt Romney this coming November other than he is not Obama? My reasons are simple. Mitt is the kind of proven business leader we need to help our capitalist economy again be the engine for job growth and prosperity for all. He will lead trade missions to promote our country’s goods and will push for new trade agreements unlike Obama who has focused on redistribution of wealth within our country to fund his programs. Mitt will also not lead from behind when it comes to foreign policy as Obama has done. Mitt will stand by our allies and promote westernized democracies throughout the world. And Mitt will gut most of the economically disastrous parts of Obamacare including its penalties and taxes and encourage the free market to innovate new healthcare models including interstate buying groups for individuals and small businesses.

Since this is the last issue before many of you will be voting in this coming November’s elections, I also wanted to write a few words about several other important races which affect us all. If Mitt Romney is to succeed as President, he will need to put current Senate leader Harry Reid on the back bench. In order to do so, we need to fire Obama’s lackey in the Senate, Bill Nelson who has voted 98% with Obama, and elect Connie Mack as our junior Senator from Florida. 

We again have the chance to retire Debbie Wasserman-Schultz from her Congressional seat but unless her Democratic supporters in her district finally agree that she has taken them for granted and no longer represents their values while she has run the national Democratic Party, there is little chance that her opponent Karen Harrington will unseat her although my vote will certainly be with Karen!

With regards to State races, it is probable that Democrats Rick Stark and Katie Edwards will win their races to represent much of the readership of DRW Magazine given the higher number of Democrats than Republicans in their legislative districts. Rick is my insurance agent so I know that his fiscal conservative beliefs will represent us well in Tallahassee while Ms. Edwards learned her values from growing up in a successful small business family and from representing agricultural interests at the Dade Farm Bureau. Hopefully neither Rick nor Katie will be as overtly partisan as former State Representative Martin Kiar who won a seat as a County Commissioner unopposed.

Please be sure to vote in November so that you can have a say about the direction of our country and state!

Gun Control - September 2012

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”.

So say the words of the 2^nd Amendment to our United States Constitution.

Those brilliant words from James Madison in 1787, part of our Bill of Rights, have been the subject of ongoing philosophical, political, and legal battles for much of our country’s history.

Until a few years ago many questioned if Madison meant that one had to be a member of a militia to be able to keep arms. They said that a society with uncontrolled ownership of guns was neither a civil nor safe society. While others strongly believed that Madison wanted citizens to be able to protect and defend their other freedoms established by the Constitution.

Thankfully in 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in its District of Columbia versus Heller decision that one did not have to be a member of a militia to keep and bear arms for their self-defense in their homes. As such, neither the government of the District of Columbia nor other federal, state, or local governments could attempt to ban private ownership of guns within their borders.

But that Supreme Court ruling did not explicitly address what type of arms could be kept, whether the Constitution specifically protected storage and use of arms outside of the home, and did not overrule existing laws banning felons and mentally ill individuals from keeping arms. The Supreme Court also let stand existing laws prohibiting the carriage of arms in sensitive places such as schools, hospitals, and government buildings.

Flash forward to the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech, of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, of Trayvon Martin, and the recent Batman massacre in Colorado. The liberal media pundits and leading progressives are again on the warpath to legislate those grey areas on which the Supreme Court did not rule such as type of allowed guns to be kept, where they can be carried, the levels of eligibility to own guns, and even the types of munitions allowed for those arms.

Sadly the liberal media tried to score political points after each tragedy by attempting to pin those shootings on right wing Tea Party types which, of course, turned out not to be the truth. But when there was a massacre caused by a Muslim extremist at Fort Hood or an attempted masacre by a Chick Fil-A hating gay activist at the conservative Family Research Center, the media focuses their attention elsewhere.

I am not an expert on guns law nor am I a recreational user or collector of guns, so I cannot comment with authority or confidence on current or planned regulations on guns. But that does not mean that I do not have strong opinions on our 2^nd Amendment rights and how guns are being used in our country today.

When I ran for the Florida Senate years ago, I remember being questioned   – actually lectured – by the Florida chapter of the National Rifle Association for my view that gun shows needed to be more tightly regulated and that purchasers needed to be thoroughly vetted before being able to buy a gun at a show.  I believe the laws have changed since then and background checks by phone are now required at such shows except for individuals with current gun permits. You can view the law yourself at www.flsenate.gov, click on Search Statutes, and enter Title XLVI Section 790.

I also believe that assault and semi-automatic weapons should be illegal for non-military and non-police personnel to own except for non-working collector versions. It is crazy to think that you need a machine gun or AK-47 for hunting or other recreational uses. Lastly, I believe that so-called armor piercing bullets should not be available for sale to non-military or non-police personnel.

Of course, I also 100% agree with those who say guns do not kill people – people kill people. And that criminals will always have illegal access to any banned guns or ammunition including sometimes getting them from Uncle Sam itself as happened with the Obama “Fast and Furious” gun running scandal that resulted in the death of a U.S. Border agent.

But as James Madison wrote in 1787, we must NEVER let our governments take away our rights to bear arms for our protection and to protect all of the freedoms given to us by the greatest government Constitution the world has even known.