Category: Politics

Castro

USA Today published a “Snapshot” of Fidel Castro noting that Castro is one of the world’s longest reigning heads of state and that there have been 10 U.S. Presidents since he came to power in 1959.

So what should we take from this? How’s this – the United States is able to change leaders every four or eight years and still have the largest economy in the world and have freedoms. In spite of Castro’s revolution for the people in 1959, the only Cubans who know those same freedoms are the ones that live in this country.

It’s all the President’s fault

The DNC has issued a press release using President Bush’s excellent results from his annual physical as an opportunity to criticize him for his policies. The Anchoress gave the DNC a good lesson in what an appropriate response would have been.

Instead of showing maturity as The Anchoress suggested, the DNC claims that the president’s “personal habits indicate that physical fitness is not just fun and games for him. Don’t our kids deserve the same opportunities to be physically fit? President Bush should stop running from his responsibility and make sure that all American children have access to physical fitness programs.”

Again, the DNC doesn’t stop to think about the stupidity of their statement. That’s because the president doesn’t rely on a government program to get fit. He gets off his ass and works out six days a week. That means that all these women and children already have exactly the same opportunities to be physically fit that President Bush does.

Now really DNC, how many people have been whining to you that they would be physically fit if only there was a government program that would fund their (lack of) effort? There was a recent time in this country when kids played sports outside instead of sitting in front of a Playstation simulating sports.

The DNC also shows how little they respect they have for women in their press release. In the press release they not that unreturned surveys of women asking about interest in college sports are assumed to be an indication of no interest. Seems reasonable. But the DNC seems to think this is some form of discrimination. They believe that women can’t be trusted to return the survey if they actually are interested so we can’t just assume that they aren’t interested if they don’t bother to return the survey. The nanny state at its finest. They know the women are interested even when the women aren’t.

But the DNC may have a point overall. Admittedly I’m a little overweight now. If only Honeybun would understand, it’s not my lack of motivation. It’s President Bush’s lack of funding my physical fitness. The DNC understands that I’m not responsible for getting outside and doing some physical activity. I can’t get on the excercise bike in the basement without a government grant. Come on Honeybun, don’t blame me. Blame the President. It’ll make us both feel better. Right?

It’s like having the DNC around so I can blame my faults on the government. Yep, life is good.

Karl Rove: Political Genius?

Instapundit.com has a round up on the implosion of a scandal. For those who don’t know – and that’s most of you because only political junkies and left-wing wackos care* – Karl Rove is being attacked by Democrats who are calling for him to resign.

I know, who is Karl Rove? He is President Bush’s Chief of Staff. Karl Rove was also the strategist behind the Presidents campaign for election. He is also considered the ultimate evil by radical liberals (i.e. most Democrats it seems).

Bear with me for a little background. Karl Rove is accused of “outing” a covert CIA operative who is the wife of a U.S. diplomat who criticized President Bush. The accusation is that Rove outed Valerie Plame to get even with her husband.

Democrats are calling for Rove’s resignation and they are trying to pass a law to revoke security clearances for anyone revealing the name of a covert agent. Dems think they can put Rove out of a job by getting his clearance revoked.

The problem is it looks like Rove didn’t break any laws. Plame was not an covert agent.
– She had been working in Langely for years.
– She was married to a U.S. diplomat (not a good cover for an agent).
– She freely admitted to friends and neighbors she was a CIA employee.

Rove didn’t reveal her name. The press told him who she was. You can’t reveal facts to people who already know the facts.

So what it sounds like is a U.S. diplomat who was lying about President Bush got caught lying. His deflection was to blame the administration for pointing out that he lied (How dare they!).

Here is where the genius comes in. The administration seems to have a strategy for dealing with accusations made against the president.

1. Don’t immediately respond to allegations.
2. Let your accusers work themselves up into hysteria.
3. Weather the storm until the truth comes out.
4. Truth comes out and discredits your accusers.
5. You are now in a stronger position because your accusers and political enemies have been shown to allow their hate of you to affect their judgement.

It happened with Dan Rather’s memogate. It’s happening now.

Simply brilliant.

It takes patience, and a thick skin to allow your enemies enough rope to hang themselves.

(*I guess that makes me a political junkie but I’m in a program to overcome it.)

Homeless update

The Denver Commission to End Homelessness has set a lofty goal. They are going to end homelessness in Denver within 10 years through an approach that is popular with other cities. The focus of their plan is “Housing First”. They believe that homelessness is caused by poverty. Therefore, if you give people a home, they will be able to solve their poverty.

A Rocky Mountain News editorial points out the problem with the program:

In Housing First, surprisingly, the homeless are not required to get treatment as a condition for housing, although the expectation is that they will once they are in a stable environment.

The housing first approach assumes that poverty leads to addiction. The Denver commision has it exactly backwards. The Rocky cites a well known Denver columnist’s who investigated the homeless issue. He concluded that although problems like batterings, unemployment, and medical issues were listed as the official cause of homelessness there was a common element behind these problems – substance abuse.

This is why government is not the solution to these problems. Giving people a place to live rent free without requiring them to seek treatment for their substance abuse will do nothing to solve the homeless problem. It was not poverty that lead to homelessness and substance abuse. It was substance abuse that led to poverty and homelessness. Housing First only perpetuates the problem by enabling people to sustain their substance abuse inside government housing. We are going to end up with a government program that uses tax dollars to sustain poverty rather than solve it.

This is why I am for more private and faith based intervention programs like Step 13 in Denver. They don’t take government money because the government will prevent them from requiring people to receive substance abuse treatment in their program.

Any program that hopes to be rehabilitate the homeless must first address substance abuse (or mental health) before it will be successful.

DNC and rational thought

Last year, Republicans and most Democrats figured out that Howard Dean lost any sense of rational thought. He was considered the front runner to be the Democratic nominee for the presidential election when the wheels fell off his campaign and he let loose with the infamous “I have a scream�.

Apparently this made him ultimately qualified for his current position as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee where he continues to use the same rationality he had during his scream.

Dean doesn’t like Republicans. He has said he thinks they are evil. Of course evil people should be punished. Right now he has Republican House majority leader Tom Delay at the top of his list. Last week Howard Dean said, “I think Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston, where he can serve his jail sentence.â€? The remark was made about an investigation by the House ethics committee.

Since Delay has not been charged with a crime, it seems Delay’s biggest offense must be that he is a Republican. When it comes to people who have committed terrorism against our country, Dean is much more thoughtful. During his run for President he was asked about Osama bin Laden. Dean said, “I’ve resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found. I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama . . . we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials.”

So Dean is convinced that a man who has not been charged with a crime should be in jail while we must not prejudge a terrorist who laughs about killing our citizens. It’s a sad day when Democrats think the Republican House majority leader is more evil than Osama bin Laden.

Remember, Dean is now the leader of the Democratic Party. His statements reflect the official party line. When did Democrats lose their ability to reason?

Salazar – I take it back!

U.S. Senator Ken Salazar says he regrets calling Focus on the Family “the Anti-christs of the world.” He really meant they were just “unchristian”.

OK.

He then tried to reason away the reason for the dispute. Focus on the Family points out that during his run for office Salazar said that President Bush’s judicial nominees deserve an up or down vote.

Salazar now says that he changed his position because Republicans have proposed changing senate rules so Democrats can’t filibuster the nominees.

Look at that again, Salazar was for an up or down vote until Republicans were going to change the rules to get an up or down vote. Because Republicans were going to do what Salazar agreed should happen anyway, he changed his position.

No, it doesn’t make sense. But apparently, its the Democrat way.

Rest in peace Terri Schiavo

Terri Schiavo died this morning. I haven’t commented on this before because I could never understand how a court could allow her welfare be decided by her estranged husband – a man who is living with another woman and had children by her.

Even so, I have to admit I would not want to live in the condition Terri was in.

But for the record…I don’t want to die by starvation either.

Politically correct causes collide again

A legislator in Maine has introduced a bill to prohibit the aborting of fetuses that would grow up to be homosexual. Even though it is impossible to tell right now which lifestyle the fetus would choose in life, this is a pre-emptive measure for the day when science may be able to predict such behavior in the womb.

So-called women’s groups want no restrictions on abortion while homosexual activists want societal promotion of their lifestyle. Who wins here? If the bill were to pass, Maine is saying that homosexuality is superior to heterosexuality since on heterosexual babies could be aborted. Presumed heterosexual babies would not have the same protection as homosexual babies. Putting aside morality, it is difficult to understand the legality of such a move.

Then again, maybe this legislator is smart. If the law were to stand up against legal challenges from abortionists, it would necessarily outlaw all abortion since the heterosexual babies obviously deserve the same protections as homosexual babies.