Monday, November 10, 2008

Random Thoughts

My favorite season of the year has always been autumn. The beauty of the leaves changing, the shortening of the nights and the crispness in the air have always touched my soul. But like all good things, this too passes and the bleak, cold winter lay ahead. For a guy who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, winter is hell. It's only 35 degrees out, yet I can not seem to stay warm. It's gonna be a long winter.

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Although I was not happy with the outcome of last week's Presidential election, I was even more disturbed with a law that was voted for in the state of Arkansas. The electorate passed something called Act 1, which specifically denies adoption rights to gays and “unmarried couples.”

Seriously this law is horrible. While I understand the rationale behind California's Prop 8 (and we can discuss it's merits another time), these kids need a loving home. A child could care less whether or not his parents, or even just his parent is gay or straight. All of these kids just need someone who will love them and take care of them.

It seems to me that the people who voted for this measure are afraid that if they allow homosexuals to marry, that their children will be gay. As absurd as that sounds to most of us, it is just a matter of education. In this aspect, I believe that this is an issue of civil, and equal rights. Plus, it truly hurts the one population that has no say in the matter - children.

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There has been some buzz that Jamie Gorelick may be on Obama’s short list for Attorney General. I'm sorry, but if there is one person in this country who should not be in public service, Ms. Gorelick is that person.

It isn't often that you find one person partly responsible for two major national disasters. But this woman was. As a member of the Clinton administration, she played a critical role in blinding counterterrorism efforts prior to 9/11. Ms. Gorelick was the No. 2 official at the Justice Department in the Clinton administration, from 1994 to 1997. From Hot Air:
Gorelick played a major role in keeping counterterrorist and law-enforcement agents from sharing information and “connecting the dots” before 9/11. In a series of judgments at the Defense Department and at Justice during her tenure in the Clinton administration, Gorelick hamstrung our efforts to find and disarm terrorist infiltrators by discouraging any cooperation between intelligence and enforcement efforts by making “the wall” much more significant than Congress ever intended.

Gorelick wound up serving as a panelist on the 9/11 Commission, but she should have been served a subpoena instead. Two memos from Clinton-appointed US Attorney Mary Jo White made this point crystal clear, as did an explanation from someone involved for years in the counterterrorist effort. Gorelick imposed an unrealistic standard on intelligence gathering that led directly to the 9/11 attacks. As AG, she would have even more power to reimpose those same limitations, and leave us just as blind as we were before those attacks.
In addition, Gorelick was vice chairman at Fannie Mae in the years when the GSE fraudulently reported its income. She got a Friends of Angelo sweetheart mortgage for almost a million dollars in 2003, and is currently under investigation by the department she would run if nominated for AG.

Hope and change, indeed!

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Can we please get past this "Sarah Palin said Africa is a country" garbage? First of all, it isn't true and secondly, the Republicans who have spread this crap should be deeply ashamed of themselves. As far as I'm concerned, John McCain was the reason the Republicans lost, and not Sarah Palin.

When, or if, the GOP decides to return to it's roots and return to Reagan's vision, the party will rebound. When they stray, they lose. It has happened time and time again. This country is still a center-right nation, as evidenced by the many local elections. However, the right got caught with an unpopular President, a curious financial crisis (the timing was certainly curious) and a candidate who tried to out-Democrat the Democrats (as well as an incumbent President doing the same).

My feeling is that if McCain would have opposed the bailout - even if he knew it would pass anyway - he would have come across as the true agent for change and a real maverick. Instead, he lost his way and fuddled his many messages. Obama, on the other hand, consistently stayed on message - even though his message was the meaningless "hope and change."

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You know what upsets me? For the last 8 years, I have heard the most vile, inhuman and disgusting vitriol out of the mouths of the Democrats and liberals in general, while speaking about conservatives and President Bush. Of course, when Bush won 51% of the votes in 2004, the left was very quick to oint out that he held no mandate and that we were still so divided.

Now that Obama has won - garnering just 1% point higher, we are being told that we are all united now. That we "need to all get behind the new President" and that "there is no more 'red state/blue state', just 50 'purple states.'"

Who are they kidding???

The funniest article I read this past week was from Reuters (I should have known better). It stated that now that Obama has won, the nation is no longer suffering from divisiveness. So basically, what this means (according to Reuters - and I know many leftists are included), because their guy won, all is well in the kingdom. But if our guy would have won, we would be back at each others throats and the country would once again be divided.

That is the biggest pile of horseshit I've ever heard.

Perhaps the real reason we are no longer divisive is because Conservatives - unlike their liberal counterparts - are able to get along better with each other. Perhaps Liberals are just sore losers. Just remember, 57,838,800 people did not vote for Obama.

We are no more divided than we were a week ago. This proves to me that the divisiveness was purely a function of the Liberal wing of this country. The very fact that no Conservative is calling the results "stolen" or "illegitimate" speaks honestly about the mettle and maturity of the Conservative movement.

To me, most Liberals are nothing more than spoiled children. When they don't get their way, they lash out out others. When they do get their way, all is wonderful and great and the world is one again.

5 comments:

Allison said...

Great thoughths! Especially the begining...I don't think the sexual orientation of parents has any unfluence on the children. How many homosexuals have had straight parents after all?

And it's not Sarah Palin's fault. I don't think it's McCain's fault either. He should have been more vigilant about Ayers, Pflegler, Farrakhan, Khalidi, but he wasn't. We can't go in circles pointing fingers at Sarah Palin. She was only on the campaign trail for two months!

sher said...

Well, as for purple states... I think that must be from the bruising. In Southern MI, those who voted with their union and put up signs for Obama were verbally attacked and had yards vandalised. Oh, no, not black homes. White homeowners who supported him had "N** Lover" sprayed on cars and homes.
United indeed.

Shayne said...

Ser, while those instances are horrific, I think they are less an issue of Conservatives vs. Liberals and more an issue of Whites vs. Blacks.

In other words, the idiots who did that aren't against Obama because he's a Democrat. Rather they are bigots and racists who can't stand the idea that a person of color will be in the White House.

Anonymous said...

I was just saying that those instances seem to suggest that the victory in the name of racial unity has escaped some people... not that it is a Con V. Lib issue.
And trying to be a bit funny to aleviate some of the angst I am feeling with the blind lemmings at the voting booths.

readingjunkie said...

Yes, the beauty of the leaves changing is wonderful but the lurking of the cold weather that lay ahead is so sad. The arthritis in my knees is already making me long for the heat of the summer months.