bloviators.net BloviBlog

 
Okay everyone – The Bloviator has to formally apologize for the utter failure to post, well, anything on the blog here.  I could use the excuses of being busy, visiting some family, traveling on business – which are all true – but really, The Bloviator has been tired.  Tired of the election, tired of where it seems that our nation is heading, and utterly tired of hearing about Barack Obama.

One quick comment, and then hopefully I can resume the normal posting schedule of at least an article every other day or so, including resuming the normal Weekly Wrap-Up schedule tomorrow.

The quick comment – what the hell is with Obama standing in front of signs stating “The Office of the President Elect?”  Yes, he won the election, but it didn’t take very long for Mr. Presumptuous to start milking the “I’m the f-ing President” angle, did it?  And did you notice, his Presidential seal is back on those placards?  

Here’s an image to illustrate the point – and again, more to follow in tomorrow’s Weekly Wrap-Up…

Earlier this week Senator and Vice-Presidential nominee Joe Biden said of Barack Obama:  “Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. . . . I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he’s gonna need help.”  Biden even added that the Democratic base “would have to stand with them because it wouldn’t be apparent that Senator Obama would have the right response.”  Too bad they cannot seem to give the same benefit of the doubt to President Bush and the Iraq war, which now seems to be headed towards victory when everyone wrote the effort off as a lost cause more than a year ago.

Biden was trying to speak about the world testing an Obama presidency in some way, however whatever his intention was the words just did not come out right, and since then John McCain and Sarah Palin have been pounding the Obama campaign for it.  Biden’s comments seem to fit right into McCain’s claim that Senator Obama is simply not ready to lead, and that the American people should not elect someone who will need on the job training during such a crisis as Biden seems to be promising us.

One would assume such a statement would be big news, but assuming that would also require an assumption that the mainstream media was not already in the tank for Barack Obama.

The NY Times buried Biden’s quote in an article on page A18 under the headline “Obama Briefly Leaving Trail to See Ill Grandmother.”  Similarly, NBC and MSNBC News both have refused to run the full text of Senator Biden’s quote.  If there were any remaining doubt that these organizations were not in the tank for Obama this act should resolve those questions.

The Bloviator finds himself agreeing with Sean Hannity in that 2008 is truly the year that journalism died.  My last remaining hope is that once Obama is elected…and that is the way things are headed right now…the media will turn on him and start to report on the issues of the day again rather than spending their time covering up their candidate’s mistakes.  Who does the press think they are, anyway, to decide what the American people should and should not know about?  Their job is to tell us everything – it is our job to decide what is important and what is not.

 
Oh what stupid things the candidates sometimes say.  Barack Obama told the New York Times this week that he is “convinced that if there were no Fox News, I [Obama] might be two or three points higher in the polls.”

He continued to say “If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?”  

Pardon The Bloviator’s French, but what the hell is that?  Obama tries to clarify the point he was making was that “there is an entire industry now, an entire apparatus, designed to perpetuate this cultural schism, and it’s powerful.”

Boo-hoo, Senator Obama.  Have you been so spoiled by the mainstream media’s coddling and failure to ask you any tough questions or challenge you on any of your policies that you honestly believe that Fox News is out to get you?  Is this the powerful right-wing conspiracy striking again?  The Bloviator thinks not.

Do American’s really want a President that whines about a little tough questioning?  Wouldn’t it be so easy if there were just no Fox News, no one to ask tough questions, no one to actually look into a candidate’s background, and no one to provide fair, balanced interviews on topics that actually matter to the American public?

If that is all true, if we should just not ask tough or hard-hitting questions, then by the same logic could we just wish Iran away by telling the NY Times ‘the world would be a much safer place if there were no Iran developing nuclear weapons?’

The Bloviator thinks that Senator Obama had better toughen up.  He has exhibited this type of behavior before, whether it be his preemptively playing the “race card” with that ‘Presidents on the dollar bills’ comment or his constant attempts to label anything unfavorable to his campaign as a “distraction.”  

If Senator Obama wants to lead the United States, and by proxy the free world, he had better learn to deal with tough questions and, yes…maybe even a person or two who does not share his perfect vision of the world.  Obama may be getting a pass from the media during the campaign, but does he really expect that to last after the election?

 
Jermoe Corsi, the author of the bestselling book “The Obama Nation,” was detained by Kenyan authorities last week just before he was supposed to hold a press conference to discuss Barack Obama and links to the Kenyan government.  Corsi, who also authored “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” surrounding the 2004 Presidential election, was also intending to give a $1,000 check to Obama’s half-brother George Obama, who currently lives in a Nairobi slum.

Corsi’s claim, which is now published on World Net Daily, is that Barack Obama has been providing direct support for Raila Odinga’s failed 2007 presidential campaign in Kenya.  Odinga’s loss was followed by chaos and deadly violence in Kenya that, according to emails collected by Corsi while in Kenya, damaged hundreds of Christian churches.  

Dr. Corsi was intercepted by Kenyan authorities in Nairobi just a few minutes before he was to hold a press conference to announce his findings.  The Kenyan government has several different accounts of the event, ranging from Corsi being held to “answer some questions” to his not having a work permit for his activities. 

According to a Times Online story, “a source at Nyayo House, where Dr Corsi was being held, said the author had been detained for references made to Raila Odinga, the Kenyan prime minister, and allegations that his Muslim supporters had engaged in a wave of violence that rocked the country after December’s disputed elections.”

Obama’s father is well known as an economist and widely admired in Kenya, offering potential motivation for Barack Obama to have campaigned for Odinga.  Odinga is seen by many in Kenya to have been cheated out of the presidency in the 2007 election.  Barack Obama is very popular and was met by thousands of supporters in his last trip to Kenya in 2006.  Obama’s image appears on buttons, t-shirts, and buses throughout Kenya, where the locals are following the US Presidential election closely.

Corsi was held until just before his return flight to London was to depart and was then allowed to leave.  You can read additional details and first-hand accounts of Corsi’s detention at World Net Daily’s website.

In an interesting note today, Fox News is reporting that Senator and Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama is advertising on billboards…on the XBox 360.

Gamers playing the online version of ”Burnout Paradise” are now seeing virtual billboards along the side of the virtual roads reporting that “early voting has begun” along with the website voteforchange.com.

The game is produced by EA Games, who claims that they do not support any political candidate and would offer advertising to John McCain should he inquire.  According to EA spokesperson Holly Rockwood, EA Games, “like most television, radio and print outlets…accept[s] advertising from credible political candidates.” Ms. Rockwood emphasizes that “these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.”

The Bloviator sees nothing wrong with this, it really is no different than television or print advertising in my opinion, however it does make me cringe a bit anyway.  What happened to the days when video games were an escape from reality?  Now there is no place sacred from political campaigns.

Perhaps it would not be quite so creepy if there were virtual Obama and McCain sprites walking the streets of Liberty City in “Grand Theft Auto,” at least then we could have a little fun with them.

Image courtesy Foxnews.com

Obama scares me.  Not because his name sounds funny, or because he doesn’t look like the other President’s on our currency.  He scares me because he is at the very least a socialist, and given enough time and unchecked Congressional power, a communist. 

Obama scares me.  Not because he “palled around” with terrorist Bill Ayers, or sat in a church whose parishoners cheered as their pastor preached “God Damn America”, although those reasons do leave me feeling uncomfortable.  He scares me because he has the charisma that compels many politically ignorant Americans to file in behind him like happy lemurs marching off the edge of a cliff, completely oblivious to the disaster that awaits them.

Obama scares me.  If I were robbed by a homeless man on the street tomorrow, I would call the police, and that would be called justice.  If Obama is elected in November and raises my taxes to give to a homeless person, it is called “fairness”.  If someone wants to make more money they should work harder, not have that fourth child or make some other choice that would place them in a better circumstance.  I have purposely made choices in my life that have placed me in the position I am in today.  I thought about becoming a doctor.  After much deliberation, I decided I didn’t want to be married to my job as many doctors are.  I instead decided to become a nurse.   I don’t make as much money, but I make enough to pay my bills and I have more time to engage in all the other activities that I enjoy in life.   I didn’t have a child when I was eighteen.  I DECIDED to postpone a family to enjoy the single life and travel. 

Obama scares me.  He believes health care is a right, not a privilege.  Ok, let’s just say that is true.  As a nurse, I have seen countless people in the hospital on Medicaid.  When I was younger I compassion for these people.  As I grow older I see past the pity and I see them carrying $300 cellphones and iPods, wearing $200 shoes, and smoking cigarettes.  I pay for my own health insurance, but I can’t afford $200 shoes.  Is that fair?  Don’t bother sending me any shoes Obama, I have other financial priorities – like paying my mortgage.  But I don’t need any help with that either.   I believe people who are responsbile scare Obama.

Obama scares me.  What happened to personal responsibility?  If people find out that Obama is going to take care of all their needs, what motivation do they have to take care of themselves?  Sounds eerilly like communism, doesn’t it?

Obama scares me.  For the first time in my adult life, I feel like throwing my hands up and screaming ‘I QUIT!’  Why should I continue to work hard and pay for my own “rights,” when I can be irresponsible and own an iPod?

 
One of the rapidly developing stories this week is that of the organization ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, and the massive voter registration fraud being uncovered in more than 10 states.  According to ACORN’s own statements, they estimate they have assisted more than 1.3 million new voters register so far this year, however we don’t know how many of that figure are actually valid.

The FBI raided ACORN’s offices in Las Vegas on Tuesday the 7th after they received reports of fraudulent voter registration forms, including many players from the starting line-up of the Dallas Cowboys.  Some notable names included Tony Romo and Terrell Owens – neither of which live anywhere near the state of Nevada.  The FBI claims the raid was the result of a month long investigation into allegations, however a spokeswoman for ACORN said this was merely a “stunt that serves no useful purpose other than to discredit our work registering Nevadans.”  The FBI has yet to comment on how many instances of fraudulent registrations they turned up in the raid.  

ACORN spokesmen claim that these instances are just isolated and are due to their lack of resources in providing any level of quality assurance to the registration forms, however more allegations of organized voter fraud are surfacing each day.  

Where is the outrage?

The story has gone largely unreported in the mainstream media…no big surprise there…and you would be lucky to see a segment run on any cable news channel other than Fox News, who has been following the story all week.  This almost smells of a cover up by the Obama-favoring media, as CNN ran a story on Thursday the 9th that mentioned a “non-profit organization” that is under suspicion of voter fraud in Nevada and was raided by the FBI, however they failed to mention ACORN by name, nor did they mention any of the group’s ties to Barack Obama.

A search of Reuters.com for “ACORN” this morning yielded ZERO results, and a search of CNN.com only brought one article that discussed the Indianapolis voter fraud.  MSNBC.com shows a few articles with passing references to the group, and the AP only shows two articles that mention the fraud, balanced with a third speaking about how the boon in voter registrations favors Obama.  Fox News Channel and FoxNews.com seem to be the only places to find any substantial news about this issue.

James Terry, chief public advocate for the Consumers Rights League, testified in late September before the House Judiciary Committee where he claimed there is ”corruption at every level of ACORN including embezzlement, cover-ups, misuse of taxpayer funds and voter fraud.”

ACORN is accused of voter fraud in many other states, including Florida, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, and Connecticutt – along with several others, many of which are swing-states in the rapidly approaching presidential election.

Republican leadership in the House have begun calling for all federal funding to ACORN be cut off immediately, including minority leader John Boehner, who cites the millions of dollars the group has already received – some of which have been utilized in illegal practices including voter fraud.  Boehner has recently said that “sources of federal funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development or any other agency must be stopped. Contracting for services between candidates for federal office and ACORN, as Senator Obama has done, must end. Now that the taxpayers own Fannie Mae, any funding from Fannie Mae’s nonprofit foundation to ACORN must stop.”  The Bloviator agrees with the minority leader’s comments.

Barack Obama’s Ties to ACORN:

Barack Obama, despite what his campaign would have you believe, has been tied to ACORN for over a decade.  

• In 1992, Obama worked for ACORN’s voter registration arm, Project Vote
• In 1995 Obama was part of a team of lawyers representing ACORN in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois
• In 2001-2002, while Obama served on the board of directors for the Woods Fund, ACORN received thousands of dollars in grants from the fund
• In 2008 Obama received ACORN’s endorsement for president
• In 2008 Obama’s campaign paid more than $800,000 to a subsidiary of ACORN, Citizens Services Inc.
• Barack Obama has been a trainer for ACORN’s voter registration initiatives, despite the cleansing of online references to this fact (thank goodness for cached records)

ACORN is a problem and needs to be shut down, it is that simple.  We cannot have instances, like in Indianapolis, where voter registration is reported as 105% (meaning there are thousands more registrations than there are eligible voters).  The Bloviator fears the fact that we cannot prevent these non-existent voters from actually voting in November.  If left unchecked, ACORN will effectively steal the election for Barack Obama.

 
The Bloviator wonders if the election is over.  According to the polling and the mainstream media, the jig is up for John McCain and Sarah Palin.  The latest Rasmussen polling, which includes voters leaning one way or the other, shows McCain is now running at an 11% deficit.  That’s a pretty big margin, and with the markets heading further into the tank, unemployment numbers climbing, and the third quarter earnings due out just a few days before the general election the deck seems to be stacked against the Republicans in a big way.

Tuesday’s debate was, in a word, worthless.  Barack Obama continued to read straight from his campaign’s talking points and comparing everything John McCain does or wants to do with President Bush.  John McCain did not come out swinging or show any passion on any issue, and just basically read from his campaign’s talking points as well.  This was not helped by the fact that the questions were literally horrible, Tom Brokaw essentially moderated the same two or three questions throughout the entire evening and only focused on the economy and a little bit for foreign policy.  Yes – the economy is important, but voters want to hear answers to questions about topics such as abortion, gun rights, property rights, and anything else that has an effect on our everyday lives.  This did not happen – and the only real sticking points of the debate were the constant requests from Brokaw that the candidates follow the time limit rules of the debate.  What a waste of my Tuesday evening.  I will not even be providing a detailed analysis of the debate as I truly felt it was a worthless undertaking.

The main question now has two parts.  First, whether or not there is enough time for McCain to forge some sort of a comeback.  I know we all have the memory of a goldfish so most of us probably do not remember when the McCain’s primary campaign died out and he was left for dead, travelling between stops on commercial airlines and carrying his own luggage, and somehow he managed to fight his way back to the top and secure the nomination.  Judging by how volatile the polls have been this year it would appear as if these last few weeks do offer enough time for a comeback.  The second, and more important part of the question, is what can McCain do to get the country excited about him again.  This is the key – and we will have to wait and see, but every passing day is a day wasted for his campaign.  If McCain has any hopes of winning he has to do something – and something BIG – fast.  If not, his only hope is that Obama somehow loses this race.

 
Last night was the first, and only, debate between Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden, and what a show it turned out to be.  About half of the audience was tuning in to watch what they expected to be the last stop on the Palin train-wreck of the past week while the other half tuned in to (hopefully) watch the Governor redeem herself after what appeared to be disastrous interviews, specifically her performance with Katie Couric late last week.  It became obvious after the first few minutes of the debate that Gov. Palin was not going quietly into the good night.

The Bloviator will post a more in-depth analysis of the debate once I have had a chance to review the transcript in detail, but I could not resist posting a few comments this morning.

Wait – you mean George W. Bush is NOT really running again in 2008?

My favorite moments of the debate surround one of my own rants of late – that George Bush is not running for re-election in 2008.  There are no shortages of comparisons between John McCain and George Bush on policy, practice, ideals – you name it.  The only problem with that argument, at least to someone who has actually been paying attention to the political process all along and not just during the election season.  Senator McCain has worked across the aisle with Democrats and independents on important legislation more than any other senator, and in many cases he has taken strong positions against his own party.  This has created a lot of waves over the years.  Some specific examples include the McCain-Feingold bipartisan campaign reform act of 2002, the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform act, and the McCain-Lieberman bill that imposed caps on greenhouse gas emissions.  None of these measures were popular with the Republicans, and in some cases, were not popular with the Democrats either.  The point is that Senator John McCain is fully capable of marching to the beat of his own drum when it comes to what he believes in.  Anyone who attempts to call John McCain a “third Bush term” is either just plain ignorant, or is trying to distort the record.

But I digress – I think that Governor Palin did an excellent job of calling attention to Senator Biden’s constant rhetoric surrounding the policies of the current administration.  At one point, and I am paraphrasing, Governor Palin told Senator Biden that she thought the Obama-Biden ticket was supposed to be a champion for change…looking ahead to the future.  She added that for a ticket that is so forward-looking, they sure seem to be living in the past.  Perhaps those efforts from Governor Palin will wake up some of those angry Americans who are voting for change out of hatred for President Bush alone.

What McCain Should do Now:

After his running mate’s performance in last night’s debate, John McCain should clearly see that his campaign staff – those who have wanted to sequester Governor Palin and keep her away from the media – deserve to be fired.  Anyone who would consciously prevent someone who can perform like that away from the media, town hall meetings, and the American people just does not get it.  Governor Palin demonstrated her unique ability to connect with the average American last night, and when you are running against two elitists that connection with the regular folks is a must-have.

For weeks now I have been hearing the call from everyone who knows Sarah Palin to “let Sarah be Sarah.”  After last night’s performance there should no longer be debate on the issue.  Send Sarah Palin out there.  Send her often…and send her out with no purse strings.

If John McCain wants to win the election in November he needs to learn some lessons from Gov. Palin’s performance last night.  He needs to go on the offensive and speak his mind rather than getting lost in the details of politics.  The American people do not want to hear “Washington Insider-Speak,” we want that “straight talk” that McCain claims to enjoy so much.  McCain needs to stop telling us who voted for what on bills no one has ever heard of and start speaking directly to the American people about how his administration will help us – the regular folks.

The Bloviator is tired of hearing about “tax cuts” that are really tax increases, health-care reform that will only make it harder for all of us to get care, and who is (or is not) to blame for the current mess on Wall Street.  If Senator McCain doesn’t get his act together we may have a situation where the election is not his to win, but only Obama’s to lose.  We might already be at that point, which is a very unnerving thought to The Bloviator.

 
I’ve been paying close attention to the polls this past week, including polling related to Friday night’s debate.  It is becoming painfully obvious to The Bloviator that a majority of the public in the United States today want some sort of a change.  It, however, is becoming equally obvious that a majority of our population is painfully under-informed about this process.

Will The Real Barack Obama Please Stand Up!

The Bloviator is smart enough to read the tea leaves.  People in America have, in large numbers, abandoned their support for President Bush.  This is evidenced in his approval ratings, which have been hovering around the 30% mark for more than a year now.  So, enter Barack Obama, a junior Senator from Illinois with so little experience, and subsequently, a very short record to use against him.  

In the Democratic primaries Obama was running to the left of Senator Clinton to ensure he won the support of the far-left organizations such as MoveOn.org.  This, combined with the fact that the media failed to fully vette Senator Obama and rather fell in to blindly endorse and support him, allowed him to defeat Senator Clinton and received his party’s nomination.  Do you honestly think, had the media or Senator Clinton’s campaign discovered his associations with Reverend Wright, William Ayres, the Countrywide scandals and the like, before ‘Super Tuesday’s’ elections Obama would have taken so many states?  Remember, once those stories broke (after ‘Super Tuesday’) Senator Clinton began to cream him in the remaining primary elections.  Unfortunately, there were just not enough delegates left for Senator Clinton to recover the deficit.

Once Senator Clinton suspended her campaign and Senator Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee he began to move – rapidly – towards the center.  In the days following Senator Clinton bowing out of the race Obama began to adopt the very positions he attacked his former rival for just days before.  He moved to the center on his timetable for the troop pull-outs in Iraq (although quickly moved back to the left when an internal outcry broke out from the far left).  He moved towards the center on the Supreme Court’s decision on the DC gun ban, saying he now supported the decision of the court even though he had supported the ban.  He began to alter his positions on energy and economics.  Senator Obama, in short order, essentially abandoned or modified every major point of his campaign up to that point in efforts to soften his “hard-left” image and appeal to the all-important independent voters who live in the center of this red state / blue state war we have been in for the last decade.

News Flash:  George W. Bush is NOT Running for President in 2008

As we’ve established, the American public wants a change from the policies and practices of George Bush so badly that they are turning to the opposing party.  We saw this two years ago when the Democrats took control of the House and Senate for the first time since 1994’s “Contract with America.”  The swing of power was not helped by the Jack Abramoff scandals either.  While Abramoff technically had illegal dealings on both sides of the aisle the Republicans took the brunt of the assault.

As I’ve stated a few times now, unless you have been living under a rock for the past several weeks you know doubt know that we are in a period of financial uncertainty.  The causes are vast and complicated, some recent and some stretch back to policies implemented over a decade ago in the Clinton administration.  The one sure thing is that there is plenty of blame to go around.  The problem is that the average voter has the memory of a goldfish.  If something didn’t happen within a relatively short period of time the average voter likely does not remember.  Case in point – when you voted last did you consider the mistakes made leading up to the 1987 financial crash?  Given the current market situation perhaps we should have.  

The point is that we, as voters, tend to blame the current problems on those who are currently in power.  An already unpopular President dealing with fall-out from the Iraq war makes a perfect scapegoat for the financial crisis – regardless of how much President Bush’s policies did or did not have to do with  anything.

The Bloviator is genuinely afraid, though, that the voter’s overwhelming desire to punish the Republican party for the error of their ways is going to end up installing Barack Obama in the White House along with Democratic control over both houses of congress.  Obama on his own represents a clear and present danger to the United States, but combined with control over congress (and perhaps, even, a filibuster proof Senate), the train to socialism will depart on the express track with no hope of stopping for at least two years.  Even two years of the far-left policies Barack Obama is proposing may cause damage to the country, our economy, and our overall mentality of government entitlement on an unrecoverable scale.  

These are definitely dangerous times we face.  Senator Obama’s policies represent his support of a clear and wide reaching redistribution of wealth.  To Senator Obama, everyone in the US deserves to be rich regardless of whether they worked for it or not.  Those who succeed, under Obama’s proposals, will be punished for their success and forced to give up to 50% of their hard-earned money to those who are not working for it.  Senator Obama calls this “fair” but The Bloviator calls this socialism.  Why would anyone want to work hard if they know they will just have to give up to half of their returns away?  Also, who would want to spend time working hard if the government will just give hand-outs for failure or apathy?  This Robin Hood mentality might sound good on paper at first, lifting the middle and lower classes to the same level as the wealthy, but at some point (which we are likely to rapidly reach) the wealthy can no longer support everyone else.  

It will be precisely at that point that the most dangerous side-effect of Senator Obama’s plan will come to fruition – full fledged class warfare in the United States.  Once we cross that line there is no turning back.  Ever.  

The Bloviator fears this outcome, but also warns you all now – elect Senator Barack Obama and you will get precisely what you paid for.  You all had better read the fine print before you buy anything.