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Monday, September 24, 2012

It’s another one of those letters



I'm a very optimistic person by nature, sometimes to a fault, but it's who I am. I would rather watch Fareed Zakaria's special "Putting America Back to Work" than to watch a gloom and doom scenario of a six month melt-down if we don't start bringing down the debt. I wanted to write my thoughts about some good ideas coming from the Clinton Global Initiative but a stupid letter caught my attention.

First things first, I'll answer this letter -to -the editor of what the author thought was 18 questions for Democrats but it really only amounted to five questions, and the rest are at best assumptions with an ending of "duh." I was a little hesitant because this letter falls into the “why bother" category. I'm assuming the letter writer forgot about the financial crisis of 2008, the 700,000 job losses a month and the Republican's part in that fiasco. His letter is to Democrats, so I assume he thinks his party is doing fine, and America is in line with his thinking. It'll be useless to tell him that consumer confidence is at 42% and rising or that his leader Mitt Romney thinks he's even with the president because of one national poll. I'm sure the letter writer doesn't know the importance of the battleground states; if Romney loses Ohio and Florida; it's over for him, and he's losing both right now.

1...The first question calls for speculation; a more proper question would be; why did you vote for Obama? I'm not into hero worship, and I know one man can't possibly handle all the problems for 300 million people, but I do know the role of 535 members of Congress. I do admire the president's intelligence,  I like his history of pulling himself up by his bootstraps from welfare, to the president of the Harvard Law Review, state senator, United States Senator  and then to the president of United States.

2... The president did not accomplish anything that would satisfy a right-wing republican. The president assembled advisers to come up with a stimulus bill to stop the massive job losses he inherited. The first piece of legislation he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (equal pay for equal work) which gave the author's wife, daughter, girlfriend, niece the opportunity and to get equal pay for equal work. I believe the Affordable Health Care Act will reform our health care, make it accessible for 31 million Americans and eventually lower the cost curve. Meanwhile, he was instrumental in repealing “Don’t Ask Don't Tell" and did I mention that “GM is alive and Bin Laden's dead." That’s off the top of my head.

3.... Like all presidents, his future accomplishments depend on the makeup of the Congress. Will it be another one of obstruction? I see him setting back in his oval office chair in his third year of his second term ,reaping the benefits of the policies he put in place.

4.... I would like to see the evidence of the president attacking the first or the second amendment... I would have liked him to go after the ammo extension clips.

5.... A good course of government and civics would answer the author's worries about a single man lead us toward socialism or communism...I don't have time.

6-10 & 14... Again the author did  not offer any evidence for his charge of speaking out of both sides of his mouth but he's a Mitt Romney supporter; he must give a lot of leeway on this. The letter writer has to come into the 21st century because then he would know the Air Force, I, is equipped with loads and loads of communication equipment; it's a 24/7 job. I don't know of any appointments that are going to Chicago hoods, and his characterization of giveaway programs sounds a lot like Mitt Romney's 47% comment. The administration's green jobs are on the back burner until the economy recovers.

11-13... I guess the entire work force is public and private; 7% of the private sector workforce is unionized and 32% of the public workforce is unionized. The administration never attempted to bring up or pass what labor wanted;CARD CHECK laws. The president (much to the dismay of the unions)stayed out of the Wisconsin recall battle and the latest Chicago teacher strike.Large companies are moving out union supported areas to benefit their their bottom line; you know, lower wages with no benefits.

The writer (not knowing that the GOP Congress holds the purse strings) says the president is spending us into total oblivion. Check the Fortune 500 companies’ balance sheet, check the Wall Street CEO's bonus checks, the Dow Jones Averages, and the fact that other countries are still investing in America. What your Democratic friends say is totally irrelevant because nationally, Democrats are lined up behind Obama, you might check what prominent Republicans are saying about Romney. Just go online and you'll find it in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or RedSate.

15-18... The president's defense Secretary Robert Gates (holdover from the Bush administration) initiated the defense cuts of our bloated defense system. I've yet to hear the Pentagon ever tell Congress that they didn't need more money. The defense cuts will be negotiated. You'll never apologize because you will never admit that Bush’s premeditated attack on Iraq was the worse foreign policy ever perpetrated by our nation. You will never admit the fallacy of two tax cuts for the wealthy while engaging in two wars, and passing a $7 trillion prescription-drug bill was a colossal mistake, that we're still paying for today. I just read where Texas was breaking ground on their end of the keystone pipeline. I like your closing line because like the start, it doesn't have any basis in the truth and doesn't really make any sense.

The letter writer is a low- information voter who will always vote Republican but other than what he learns from Fox News; he's clueless. I've never seen a letter from him praising Mitt Romney, but he falls into the typical hate Obama crowd. He reminds me of Ann Coulter and Bay Buchanan, who this weekend tried to convince the panel on the ABC and NBC talk shows that Romney was right about the 47%. It also falls in line with what will be the new attack talking point Fox News and the GOP will use against the president. Yesterday, Chris Wallace tried to make headlines by saying that “President Obama has time for Whoopi Goldberg but not for foreign leaders." That's so childish because the Secretary of State will continue where she left off with the foreign leaders when they come to the U.N. summit. The leaders know that she talks for the president and he is just a cell phone call away. The president has enough self confidence to delegate his authority without fear of losing his authority. His opponents will also try to make hay out of him saying that the unrest in the Middle East was a bump- in- the- road Mitt Romney immediately pounced on that saying that the killing of our ambassador and three other Americans was not a bump- in -the- road That’s a sign of desperation because it's totally irresponsible to think that a president would think that the killing of Americans was not of the utmost importance. Any reasonable person should know that the president meant that a new democracy will have some bumps in the road.

Well if nothing else;I feel a lot better now.

19 comments:

Born2Bme said...

Just a FOX news junkie. Wonder if there are multiple personalities at work again?

Mike said...

Don't know what you mean by multiple personalities....The author of the letter used to post on old forum...he wrote a complimentary comment on my wall once but it's not there anymore.

born2Bme said...

I was kind of wondering because of who is commenting the most

Mike said...

Ok, I get it.....:-)

dale said...

You should have been at our noon meeting. You would have felt a little better. Not to mention the Subway Sandwiches. You really should consider filling one of our vacancies. The local GOP folks, and our leader, Michael, are really not that bad. Wait until you see our new buttons and t-shirts. I'll have your application ready. ;-)

born2Bme said...

Strange how some things never change. Highly predictable. ;-)

Mike said...

Dale
I have no doubt Michael is a good man as well as you are...I bet you look cute in your Romney/Ryan t-shirt..:-)..That application will make good confetti, so send it over to the local Dem headquarters for their victory celebration- November 6th...lol

Speaking of Paul, he’s proof that if you hang around someone a long time, your views change to be more like them...This weekend Paul Ryan was in Florida talking to former NASA workers, so he started blasting the president for scaling back NASA....Funny thing Ryan is supposed to be a deficit hawk, and he voted against funding for NASA TWICE....Say one thing and do another.

dale said...

No Ryan/Romney t-shirts here. Speaking of Fox numbed robots. They make all of us look bad. You shouldn't have wasted a post-Sunday blog on it. What about those Ags, Longhorns and Texans? See what we can do when we all play second tier teams. TU should have a good season in their remaining Big 3-7/12 Conference games. A&M's new freshman quarterback is really showing some strong possibilities. He will probably surprise everyone. And Romney, he is still full of surprises.

Mike said...

Yeah you're probably right about the blog but it was pretty easy to fill In the dots.

I'm Longhorns and Cowboys And neither looking that good to me.

Edith Ann said...

Where are the letters of support for Romney/Ryan 2012? I have seen a few yard signs, and where I have, it seems the preferred configuration is one ginormous sign flanked on either side by a small sign.

The Obama signs are arriving this week! Look for those to be sprouting up around town.

Yeah, Larry Marek is a piece of work with that letter! I think when it all over done with and our civilization is completely destroyed as some on the right predict, future visitors from alien planets will discover what went wrong. It won't be the Mayan calendar, global warming or the Democrats. It will be Fox News. Fox news is killing the brain cells of this nation!

Mike said...

Mr. Marek hasn't figured out that Pt. Lavaca, TX is not the center of the United States where all political ideas come from. He doesn't know what seasoned Republican political strategists know; they've gotten all the mileage out of anti-Obama rhetoric because people have already developed their opinion of the president. Romney has to have an alternative plan that has specifics... "See me after the election or trust me is not gonna work." Bad thing about it for the Republicans is that Romney is trying to cater to people like Marek and that's making him lose the independent vote.

Since this election season started, the republicans had already lost the black vote but then by using all the harsh rhetoric- they angered the Hispanics, women, the gay community, and most recently the 47%... They still had a loyal old people vote but then Romney picked Paul Ryan to be his running mate and things changed. You saw the results of that a few days ago, when he told the AARP crowd that he was going to repeal Obamacare. He received a loud chorus of boos. The old people know about the "donut hole" that was filled by Obamacare....The old people still favored the GOP by 20% but today that lead has been cut down to 4%.

I remember after the election of President Obama, the Republican brand had lost its popularity; only 20% identified with the GOP. The Tea Party revived the GOP and it showed in the 2010 midterm elections.... Yesterday's poll showed that people that identify with the Republican Party is down again. According to Pollster.com; 34.4% call themselves independents, 33.7% call themselves Democrats and only 25.6% call themselves Republicans.

Mike said...

This morning we had another letter writer who must be experiencing his first rodeo.

He doesn't know that Fox News and the GOP have hired a professional wordsmith, Frank Lutz, who came up with words like “job creators, government- run Health Care, and then advised his employers not to mention Capitalism because the public thinks that word is the illmoral and it would tie the party and candidate to Wall Street.

Do Democrats and Republicans use buzz words and talking points? Of course they do it would be political malpractice if they didn't.

The letter writer is mistaken because the difference when it comes to spending is that Democrats will call it an investment in the future and Republicans will call it wasteful spending.

I don't know what the letter writer is talking about because an overpayment of your taxes has always been called a refund.

The author of the letter obviously likes an aggressive foreign policy and name- calling so it's important to him for the world's largest armed forces to constantly be on the offense but he would probably be against the draft where his children and grandchildren could partake in the aggressiveness and its aftermath.

Mr. Stokes did a lot a word parsing and hyperbole to complain about his opponents doing the same. It's not like you're required to believe someone else's rhetoric.

dale said...

Let us talk foriegn relations.

Mike said "Chris Wallace tried to make headlines by saying that “President Obama has time for Whoopi Goldberg but not for foreign leaders." That's so childish because the Secretary of State will continue where she left off with the foreign leaders when they come to the U.N. summit."

We can compare the situation in the middle east to termites in the outhouse. Granted the outhouse is a long way from the home, yet for termites it is but a bite away.

The Arab Spring is not turning out the way the American Revolution ended. Back in 1776 the European nations had no fear of American terrorism. It is not quite so today. Like it or not, Saddam, Quadafi and Hussein kept the thugs under wraps. The Spring uprisings have unleashed Pandora's Box. Sure Mr Obama may have some self-confidence but the Oval Office is a high step above the Office of Ben Franklin. The Master of our Seal teams is a lot more intimidating that the wife of Bill Clinton. Today is the time Mr Obama should slam his fist down in Russian Style and say, "you kill my Ambassador, expect 100 of your family to suffer too. You have 48 hours to turn over the murderers."

He blew it this time, Mike. I am sure he has already had that "Come to Jesus" talk with our Muslim brothers in liberty. But Mr Obama needs to really have that talk with our new brothers of freedom in Northern Africa and Iran. Things are looking just a little shakey. A cruise missle up the outhouse hole may be just the thing to give these boys a little religion. Perhaps they should have one their martyrs to ask the question of Quadafi. "What really happened out in the desert between you and Reagan?" The lives Obama saves could be that of a million Americans.

Mike said...

Dale
Who killed the ambassador or does it really matter? Last I know the FBI is still investigating.

A tomahawk missile costs one million dollars to launch and indiscriminately killing civilians just to teach someone a lesson is totally incoherent and inhumane. How much corporation do you think will we would get if we asked the League of Arab Nations to help us if we just "Cowboy up" every time there's a riot.... I believe in bringing the killers of the four Americans to justice but let's do it in a civilized way and show that we don't stoop to their level... They are well aware of our military might and our drones.

When you write in riddles, it's hard for me to comprehend your message. Such as, “The Arab Spring is not turning out the way the American Revolution ended.”... Have you ever thought that not everything is about us? From what I know of the Obama foreign policy: democracy will come from the people within and not from American influence.

A little history lesson " "What really happened out in the desert between you and Reagan?" ...

When our barracks were attacked in Beirut, Reagan cut tail and ran.

"When Islamic fundamentalist militants attacked the US Marine barracks in Beirut with a truck bomb on October 23, 1983, they killed 241 American servicemen—the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility—they are now seen as a precursor to Hezbollah. (The Americans were in Beirut as part of an international peacekeeping force following Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.)

Reagan could have sent 130,000 US troops to invade Lebanon. But he didn’t. Instead, he did something completely different: two days after the Beirut barracks bombing, Reagan sent 7,000 troops to invade Grenada, the smallest independent country in the Western Hemisphere. He claimed to be fighting communism there, and to be “rescuing” 800 American medical students studying there (because they couldn’t get into American medical schools). The Americans killed fifty-nine Cubans and forty-five Grenadans, suffered nineteen casualties and declared victory after two days.”

http://www.thenation.com/blog/158344/reagans-lesson-obama-invade-grenada
Want to talk MORE foreign policy?....I love that subject.

BTW Reagan retaliated for Pan AM 103 and Bush restored economic relations with them after 9/11.


Mike said...

"Back in 1776 the European nations had no fear of American terrorism."

Really? have you heard of the Boston Tea Party when England was the our ruler?...There was and still is a great big ocean that separates the nations..Oh.never mind..

I agree dictators kept the peace but Bush deposed one and the rest is history...You can't cry for democracy and complain when you don't the person you wanted.

Mike said...

Really,is that what you are going with "Obama weak on terrorism" ask all the al Qaeda leaders...lol

dale said...

Mike, did I say anything about Obama being "weak" in anything? You are getting really paranoid. Who killed the Ambassador. It is the responsibility of the host country via International law to protect a countries’ embassy. The Libyan government failed there. Finding the murderers should not be the duty of the US FBI. One week later, despite video evidence, the murders are still at large. Next, Mike?

Must you always go on the defensive? You are doing a bit of revisionist story telling regarding the US 1986 attack on Libya. At the time (1985) Gaddafi was openly supporting an Arab terrorist organization. Following an April 6 attack in Berlin, where three civilians died and over 200 were injured, Reagan consulted with Congressional, Europe and Arab leaders regarding retaliation. April 16, '86 US jets struck 7 military targets and a Gaddafi residence. Out of 300 bombs there were reportedly only 5 misses.

So what part do you agree with? It is ok to target civilians in a residential area? It is ok to strike military targets after you have been attacked? Well Reagan got it right. And after hearing the President’s lecture at the UN, I guess he is still having a little trouble understanding the importance of protecting our ambassadors, national interests and pre-empting future attacks. Don’t you notice how Mr Obama’s tone of voice is always in the form of lecturing little children?

Oh, when was the last time we specifically targeted civilians? I do not recall specific civilian targets. Taliban terrorists blowing up market places is a huge difference between what I am suggesting.

You noted The Boston Tea Party. History does not report death or injury of any ship crewman. So how do you correlate the Tea Party to killing of a US Ambassador? Oh well, perhaps I didn't read your history book. Always rewriting history, huh Mike? American terrorism following the American Revolution, that is really a stretch.

Von Prien said...

Of course no President is perfect, Can you only imagine the shame if the Mitt'ster had said these special words .. ...

And speaking of multiple personalities . . .

1. Taking sides?
2.Peaceful Muslim world?
3.Yes let's change the Star Spangled Banner -- Really

Yes, Obama told us in advance what he planned to do. Few were listening.

The following is a narrative taken from a 2008 Sunday morning televised
"Meet The Press'.


From Sunday's 07 Sept. 2008 11:48:04 EST, Televised "Meet the Press"
the THEN Senator Obama was asked about his stance on the American Flag.
General Bill Gann' USAF (ret.) asked Obama to explain WHY he doesn't
follow protocol when the National Anthem is played.


The General stated to Obama that according to the United States Code,
Title 36, Chapter 10, Sec. 171...
During rendition of the national anthem, when the flag is displayed,
all present (except those in uniform) are expected to stand at
attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. Or, at
the very least, "Stand and Face It".
NOW GET THIS !!'Senator Obama replied:
"As I've said about the flag pin, I don't want to be perceived as
taking sides". "There are a lot of people in the world to whom the
American flag is a symbol of oppression.." "The anthem itself conveys a
war-like message. You know, the bombs bursting in air and all that sort
of thing."
(ARE YOU READY FOR THIS???)
Obama continued: "The National Anthem should be 'swapped' for something
less parochial and less bellicose. I like the song 'I'd Like To Teach
the World To Sing'. If that were our anthem, then, I might salute it.
In my opinion, we should consider reinventing our National Anthem as
well as 'redesign' our Flag to better offer our enemies hope and
love.It's my intention, if elected, to disarm America to the level of
acceptance to our Middle East Brethren. If we, as a Nation of warring
people, conduct ourselves like the nations of Islam, where peace
prevails - - - perhaps a state or period of mutual accord could exist
between our governments ......."


When I become President, I will seek a pact of agreement to end
hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity,
and a freedom from disquieting oppressive thoughts. We as a Nation,
have placed upon the nations ofIslam, an unfair injustice which is WHY
my wife disrespects the Flag and she and I have attended several flag
burning ceremonies in the past".

born2Bme said...

Wrong!!

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barackobama/a/obama_anthem.htm