Evan Bayh, a Democrat Senator from Indiana is joining members of his party who are jumping from the political ship captained by Barack Hussein Obama. It seems it is more palatable for him to bow out now than to get creamed like his associates from Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Mr. Bayh likes to be thought of as a moderate Democrat, but his constituents are increasingly reminding him he has voted for every socialist-like bill that has been brought to the Senate.
Mr. Obama is now on a campaign to propagandize the great benefits of the stimulus package. On February 18th Obama waxed eloquently on the hundreds of thousands of job that have been created or saved by the 800 billion dollar stimulus bill. This time he is talking in general terms since a month ago thousands of jobs supposedly created were in non-existent zip codes. A recent poll indicates only 6 percent of Americans believe the stimulus bill of some 800 billion dollars has produced any new jobs.
Mr. Bayh just couldn’t buy this hyped-up diatribe. When asked what he planned to do upon his Senate retirement, he replied he wanted to work in the private sector. “If I could create one new job, that would be one more private sector job than Congress has created in the last year.” Oh-oh, someone didn’t get the memo.
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You almost have to have pity on those that are continuing to proclaim that global warming is man-made. A leading global warming expert now concedes there has been no increase in world temperatures since 1995. When asked about some of his previous statements that global warming has been significant, he claims he now can’t seem to find that recorded information – his files are just in horrible shape.
Bill McKibben is the author of “The End of Nature” and he complains that is extremely difficult to make progress when this winter is bringing brutally cold weather. For one week in February we had snow in all 48 of the contiguous states. Mr. McKibben admits it’s irritating when Senator James Inhof’s grandchildren are building an igloo next to the Capitol with a big sign that says, “AL GORE’S NEW HOME”.
Mr. McKibben goes on to explain that one effect of climate change (formerly global warming) is that warmer air holds more water vapor than cold air does. The increased evaporation leads to more droughts but also to more precipitation. How’s that again? Because more moisture is brought up from the oceans, that excessive moisture causes both drought and floods? With this kind of logic anything that happens anywhere can be scientifically explained.
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Congress or leaders of either political party will not discuss any real decrease in federal spending. By definition spending cuts by Congress is defined by them as when a budgeted increase of 8 percent is reduced to an increase of only 6.5 percent.
None of our congressmen or congresswomen has the guts to even talk about a meaningful decrease in federal spending.
This is because in our own warped measurement of success by our elected representatives, we measure how much pork has been delivered locally.
Meaningful reduction in federal spending has to include entitlements (Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, etc). Can you imagine the uproar if Social Security checks were actually decreased five percent next year? And yet we continue to increase our national debt to an inconceivable 20 trillion dollars. This will result in a cheapening of the dollar and will mean the purchasing power of Social Security recipients will decrease a heck of a lot more than five percent. No politician will even attempt to explain this economic theorem.
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If you have paid any attention to our new president and vice-president, one theme is repeated more than any other. All these problems facing our nation were an “inheritance” from the Bush administration. Obama complains about the gigantic inherited federal deficit and in his first year solves the problem by increasing the deficit 3 to 4 times. Ditto on the loss of jobs. The acceleration of job losses peaked in the fall of 2008 when it became apparent Obama would be the next president. That has been some 18 months ago.
The hypocrisy peaked a couple of weeks ago when Vice President Joe Biden declared he was pleased with the developments in Iraq, and he believed Iraq might go down as one of the great achievements of this administration.
Thank goodness for television clips of only a year or two ago. Obama voted against every aspect of the Iraq war and in early 2009 emphatically declared the “surge” will only make things worse. Joe Biden, for his part, made statement after statement that Iraq’s problems cannot be solved and his only brilliant suggestion was to split Iraq into three countries.
When Obama and Biden were elected, the “surge” had already been successful and all Obama had to do was to complete the Bush initiative. This was an “inheritance” that was real and should be an embarrassment – not a bragging point, proving once again Joe Biden is a disaster.
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Can you top this? Obama’s National Security advisor announced that the recidivism rate for released terrorists is only about 20 percent. So, if we released 200 dangerous and dedicated terrorists only 40 of these will be devising new attacks on this country and U.S. citizens. Sure makes me feel warm, fuzzy and worry free. And how do they know it is 20 percent? Do you think our intelligence is capable of following every released terrorist? I think not, and it might well be a recidivism rate of 50, 60 or 70 percent. The logic that we should follow is that about 50 percent of burglars, shoplifters and hold-up men return to their dastardly occupations. Therefore 20 percent is more than acceptable.
(Jerry Jackson of Heber Springs writes his “conservative viewpoint” column each Wednesday)
Heber Springs, Ark. —
