Common Sense University

            As President Barack Obama told America several weeks ago, he was fully focusing on job creation to help the bad economy in our country. However, that did not keep him from scheduling and presiding over a seven-hour long televised healthcare debate with Democrat and Republican leaders from the House of Representatives and the Senate on February 25. The build-up to this so called summit was enormous and for the few days leading up to this spectacle nothing else was discussed in the media. Speculations were rampant and everybody had his or her own expectations of what might be the outcome of this summit.

            We here at Common Sense University believe that he, the President initiated this for basically two reasons: First, he wanted to keep a campaign promise that healthcare reform discussions and debates would be televised on CSPAN and secondly, he probably wanted to prove to America that the Republicans were really the party of ’NO’ without any concrete ideas and suggestions. We submit that this is our opinion but we do not think that we were far away from the truth. What happened in reality on February 25 was a seven hour televised civilized discussion seminar attended by approximately forty leaders of Congress and the President and his Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sibelius.

            It proved, if nothing else, two things: The President knows how to conduct a meeting and the Republicans showed that they – instead of just being a group of Naysayers to healthcare reform – had in fact some concrete and rational proposals of their own. This had simply not been known before to the general public because the liberal mainstream media had ignored that. In terms of time, the President spoke longer than all Republican speakers combined and the Democrats had a chance to make their cases for their healthcare reform bills. While the Republicans talked issues and came forth with a number of well thought out proposals, the Democrats mostly concentrated on sob stories of how some of their constituents suffered. The funniest one being stated by Democrat Congresswoman Louise Slaughter from New York who claimed that one of her constituents could not afford dental care and had to wear her dead sisters dentures.

            After seven hours, the meeting adjourned and nothing had changed! The President then gave another speech last week Wednesday and re-iterated his strong desire and the need for passing his healthcare reform legislation. He wants to get it done before Easter now. The funny thing is, while he said that some Republican proposals had been incorporated in his bill, in reality he does not have a bill, he never had one. The pieces of legislation so far were all generated in Congress. And so, let’s look at them by using a visual prop:

            From what we understand, the proposed healthcare reform legislation amount to somewhat around 2700 pages of text. We suggest to you, next time you visit Staples or Office Depot take five or six reams of paper and stack them on top of one another. Now picture in your mind that they are all filled up with law text. This pile of paper is what the Democrats in Congress and the President are proposing in order to revise healthcare reform for America! We do not know about you but to us here at Common Sense University, this is very, very scary!

            We do not think that we are in the minority when we feel this way and maybe this is part of the reason why a strong majority of Americans are against this type of healthcare overhaul. They really do not understand what is in it and what change it will bring to them personally. And why is the President pushing so hard to pass this now in the next few weeks? Because he knows that this is his only chance to force this massive reform upon us and that is very devious and even shameful! Based on the vast differences between Barack Obama’s campaign promises and current reality as he is now President, we are beginning to doubt just about every word he says and we have lost our trust in him some time ago. We sincerely hope that this current monstrosity called healthcare reform will fail in Congress and never gets to the President’s desk for his signature.

            Having read Sarah Palin’s book: Going Rogue, Common Sense University is absolutely baffled by what she describes happened during the ten-week Presidential campaign in 2008. As if it was not bad enough that the liberal media, the vast majority of our media, tried everything in the book to dishonor and discredit her with atrocious accusations and slander, her own campaign staff, the so called ‘B’ team did not at all support her and advise her properly. Instead, they treated her like some country hick and micro-managed her every day activities. They set up interviews with the likes of Charlie Gibson (ABC News) and Katie Couric (CBS News) that turned into disasters for Palin; not because of what she said but by how she was prepared for them and what she was asked by these two liberal ‘icons’. Why would the ‘B’ team campaign staffers think that those two liberals, Gibson and Couric, would treat Sarah Palin fairly. It was apparently Nicolle Wallace who pushed for the interview with Couric telling Palin that Couric liked her and so on. Anyway, we know how that all worked out.

            McCain’s campaign manager Steve Schmidt was the big man in this campaign and he dictated what would happen during joint appearance campaign events up until the end when he had somebody tell Sarah Palin on Election night in Arizona that she, Palin, was not to make a statement that evening and that her husband and children were not to be on stage with John McCain (as he gave his consolation speech). As it turned out, Todd Palin was on stage but not her children. Another issue was the billing by the McCain campaign of $50,000 to Sarah Palin for the ’vetting process’ expenses incurred during 2008 (prior to her nomination by McCain). Palin was told that she would not have had to pay this had they won the election (see page 363 of her book).   

            John McCain father and grandfather had been Admirals in the United States Navy and he chose to follow in their footsteps, his military career was excellent and he is mostly known for his heroic behavior during his six years of captivity in Vietnam as a POW. He will be forever a hero in this regard in America’s history! But in the early 1980’s, McCain began another career as a politician, first as U.S. Representative in Congress and then as U.S. Senator from Arizona, a title he still holds today. His political career was one of mixed results, he considered himself a maverick and he did things that were not always in accordance with party affiliation and conservative principles. We do not want to get into that here but instead just focus on his failed presidential bid.

            We believe that he recognized in the summer of that year that his support among conservatives was weak and he could not totally count on their votes (due to his many flip-flops on conservative policies over the years). So he selected Sarah Palin as his running mate and it was an excellent choice because probably millions of conservative voters pulled the lever for his ticket because of her and not him. We here at Common Sense University are convinced that without Sarah Palin he would have lost the election to President Obama in a landslide similar to the gigantic loss that his Senatorial predecessor Barry Goldwater suffered in 1964 against Lyndon Johnson.

            But his conduct during the campaign in connection with the way his running mate was ‘handled’ and treated by his paid campaign staffers makes us shudder. He, John McCain picked her and it was his duty to protect her from the shenanigans she had to suffer at the hands of his own team and then at the end to even allow the ‘campaign’ to collect the fifty thousand dollars from her for pre-nomination ‘vetting’ expenses is just incredulous and morally wrong. This is not the way a “hero” handles his affairs but it is shameful to the highest degree. We would call this ’wussy’ and cowardly by McCain! How could he let this happen? Or did he just walk away from his own campaign on November 6, 2008? In our opinion, John McCain was a hero a very long time ago and he is no longer a hero. Heros do not act this way and do not let things like this happen, period!  In fact, John McCain should be ashamed of himself and enjoy his remaining years in retirement.

            Reading this article’s title, it is probably a sound bet that you are thinking of former President George W. Bush, often referred to as G.W. But you are incorrect: CSU means our first President: George Washington! Today is his birthday, he was born on this day on 1732 and became the first President of the United States of America in 1789 after a very successful career. He is still referred to as the ‘Father of the Country’. Just think, he would be 278 years old today. But it would be intriguing to know what he would think of what is happening in Washington D.C. today.

While George Washington was not a signer of the declaration of Independence, he was a delegate from Virginia and was called to preside over the Constitutional Convention in 1787 in Philadelphia until the final draft of the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787 and subsequently ratified by nine States by June 21, of the following year.

            In honor of his birthday today, we would like pursue a hypothetical in that we would assume, George Washington could be back for a short period of time and look things over. This would be followed up by a couple of questions to him such as:

• Mr. President, how do you like today’s acceptance of the separation of church and state in that no prayer is allowed in schools and no money can be allocated to religious causes?
• Mr. President, how do you like the U.S. Government owning two American car companies?
• Mr. President, do you think that the U.S. Government should provide health insurance for all Americans who can not afford to pay for it?
• Mr. President, do you think it is alright for the U.S. Government to run up trillion dollar deficits every year for social programs as we have them today?
• Mr. President, do you think that the U.S. Government should pass laws to tax its citizenry for contributing to Global Warming?
• Mr. President, what do you think of the 535 men and women in Congress and how they are serving the country and how well they are representing us, the people of the United States?

            Would it not be nice to find out the answers to the above questions from the very first President of the United States? We think, fortunately we never will but – aside from the technological advances since his days (cars, trains, airplanes, radio and television to name just a few) – he would probably be hugely astounded what he would learn about life today and wonder if the Constitution of this country was still in existence and possibly substituted by something else or done away with altogether. We also think that he would call the men and women running this country to task over why they would think it proper to govern the way they are. He would probably read the Constitution and the first ten Amendments once more and ask more questions and be severely critical of what lawmakers had turned it into.

            We conclude this short trip into the land of the hypothetical with the only thing that we can say to our first President: Happy Birthday and many thanks for what you did for this great country of ours.

            It is truly alarming when the United States Government resorts to statistical mischief! Common Sense University feels very strongly about this, after all, when the credibility of governmental agencies is in doubt and statistics are being manipulated for whatever purposes and we suspect political ones, then something is gravely wrong in America.      Let us explain what we mean here. Ten days ago on February 5, the U.S. Government released its Job Labor statistics and declared that the nation’s unemployment rate by the end of January had dropped from ten to 9.7 percent. Even though, about twenty thousand jobs were lost, the total unemployment rate dropped which brought cheers from the White House from the President on down. To them, it was solid proof that they had turned the economy around and they jubilated about it.

            When the announcement was made, we wondered: How can this be? On the one hand, we lose more jobs and send people to the unemployment line and yet the unemployment rate drops by three tenth of a percent. The given answer by the Department of labor was simple; they had enlarged the data base by 500,000 people who had not been included previously. When we heard that explanation, we simply wondered how this could possibly be true. After all, these statistics are being made public every month, in fact, some data is even being issued weekly. And now we are made to believe that this Department all of a sudden found out that they had underestimated the data base by a nice round figure. This is truly absurd! In fact it is even worse, this is a Department that has done these types of statistics for decades and now wants us to believe that a correction in the data base was required.

            But we think that there is much more to this story. President Barack Obama has politicized his entire administration and we should not be surprised that a directive came down from up high: Bring the number down to single digits! We understand that this would be vehemently denied by the administration but we smell a rat. It would not be the first time that somebody has been ‘cooking the books’ and was in fact, told to do so. And it will of course also not be the last time when this kind of action will be happening.

            The thing that is most galling to us here at Common Sense University is the lack of curiosity by the media. Is there nobody out there who wonders how this could truly have happened? How can one expand the data base by approximately one half a million points and therefore influence the results effectively by bringing a double digit rate into a single digit number and falsely indicating the beginning of a downward trend? How would it be if one journalist in America would ask him- or herself that, essentially saying ‘I will dig into this and want to fully understand the explanation given as to those half a million people added to the data base. Who are they? Where were they? Why were they not included previously? And who discovered this previous falsehood and now decided to correct the facts? We still have hope that there is such a curious person but only time will tell. We are patient and will keep on looking for that.

            Looking at this from a personal perspective. How would the IRS react if an individual underreported his income by thinking that not all income was taxable? We think we all know how they would react. They would charge the individual and slap severe fines and interest rates on top of it. Why does that only happen to the citizenry and not the government officials, after all, they work for us or are we wrong here?

            The final question we have is what will they do when unemployment rises in the country? Will they, the Department of Labor look for more ‘previously underreported people in the data base in order to facilitate a lower overall unemployment rate? Again, only time will tell and we will be watching! Yet the real question is: Can we trust the information we are getting from the Government?

            The title of this article might at first appear harsh and it probably is. To witness the fallout of this incredible catastrophe for the past four weeks is heart-wrenching for anybody. Haiti, the country with a population of about ten million living mostly below or slightly above the poverty level with a national Gross Domestic Product of nearly twelve billion dollars or $1200.00 per person is poor and considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

            It should therefore be no wonder to rationally thinking people that besides buildings and other structures the country’s infrastructure nearly totally collapsed after the 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12. Not only were roads destroyed, the utility infrastructure together with the country’s communications system went down and the main airport was underdeveloped and inadequately equipped to take the help flown in from all over the world. All medical facilities and hospital were either totally destroyed or require substantial repair.  The entire picture of Haiti is one of unbelievable despair and almost total hopelessness. As happens when catastrophes of this magnitude occur anywhere around the globe, the world wants to help and sends money, materiel things such as food items and other needed supplies or even rescue personnel and medical teams.

            To us here at ‘Common Sense University’ the old adage comes to mind: ‘Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’ Why would we think this? It is very simple. If we just send money and needed supplies to Haiti, we are feeding them for a day, a week or a month which is not a desirable solution. The people will continue their lives as before once the situation is somewhat normalized and Haiti will remain the poorest nation in the western world.

            To us this appears to be a point in time where the lives of Haitians could not only be changed but permanently improved. The tasks to rebuild Haiti are incredibly huge and will take considerable time, several years to say the least. The country’s leadership should take this opportunity and coordinate with world leaders a massive re-building of this island nation. We think this should be a two-prong project. First, provide immediate help for the people in terms of minimal shelter and life sustaining provisions such as food, medical support, clean water, sanitation, electricity and so on but the second and larger program should be the re-building of the country to bring it to higher living standards as enjoyed by most western countries.

            This would mean master-planning of infrastructure construction, removal of earthquake damaged buildings and other structures including medical facilities. Not knowing what larger companies are existing in Haiti who could undertake such tasks, bring in firms from other countries as for instance Bechtel, Fluor or Parsons Corporations from the USA and allow them to bring in the management personnel required to undertake such work. But perform the actual work with locals! In other words, hire Haitians to do the physical work, they can learn the trades and earn money doing the rebuilding. This would help the local economy and provide higher living standards for them as well on a sustained level as Haiti could build the necessary tourism elements to vastly improve that industry which currently does not seem to even exist.

            Once these plans would become known, it would entice developers from countries around the world to build hotels and the associated facilities that exist in other country’s resorts. If Haiti has one thing going for itself, it is the climate and tourism could boom in just a few years. This could be a lasting solution for this scenically beautiful country and it would help lift the population out of its previous economic doldrums and current misery. That’s what we mean when we call for this golden opportunity: “Teaching them how to fish!”

            Last week’s State of the Union address by President Barack Obama was just another farce as many such speeches have been by Obama’s predecessors throughout the years. But his speech was distinct in that he reminded everyone that everything wrong in America was George Bush’s fault and that it would take him a little longer to make it right! It was pitiful and even immature. He then proceeded to play Santa Claus by emptying his ‘goody-bag’ of giveaway’s for almost everybody he cares about and those that he believes he has to appease. In a nutshell, it was a 71 minute long updated campaign speech in that he took credit for things he believes he had accomplished.

            He skirted by and did not mention such issues that could have been negative: Closing Gitmo this January and transferring the trials for major terrorists such as Khaled Sheik Mohammed to New York City. Nor was the election of a Republican to the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts mentioned, an election that at least for the time being stalled health care reform. He was smart enough to realize that one cannot defend the indefensible. And so, instead of recognizing that, he decided to skip over those things.

            But the one item that he owns all by himself since no other President has ever had the distasteful arrogance to do so, was his harsh critique of the United States Supreme Court while most members were present. He reprimanded and demeaned the Court for their recent decision to overturn certain campaign finance laws for its unconstitutionality of limiting free speech. He misstated the facts and got away with it. Obama asked Congress to draft a new law that would reverse the Court’s decision. Real class, Mr. President! The least we would expect from a supposed constitutional lawyer like Obama is to know the reality that there are three equal branches of the government: The Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branch! If anything, they are independent and not subservient to one another. The constitutional intent was and still is the separation of power in this country. But he, the President must think that he is above everybody and everything in America. Did the job as President go to his head? We begin to wonder. And is there nobody in the Administration who has the courage to tell him that he is just the head of one of the three branches and not America’s King, dictator, sole ruler or whatever he might want to be or thinks he already is. Barack Obama has no tolerance for dissent and he shows it by being sarcastic and even angry towards those that disagree with him.

            As before, the two people seated behind the President, Vice-President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ms. Nancy Pelosi, got their exercises that evening by jumping up every time when they thought he had made a statement worthy of applause. And of course, the Democrats in the room did the same thing. As he always seems to do, he impressed people with his oratory skills and pretty much got away with saying whatever he wanted to say, factual or not. He demanded that Congress present him with a jobs bill shortly, he also thought that health care reform should be pursued and he promised near the end that he would not quit, whatever that was supposed to mean. For the record: He has been elected to a four-year term of which just one quarter has passed. He will have another three years and whether or not he will get re-elected in 2012 will depend entirely on the voters of America.

            Common Sense University concludes that realities in our country will decide what is ahead of us, his current focus on job creation is good but his plan is as wrong as it can be. Governments cannot create jobs in the private sector; Obama’s petty attempts of doling out money here and there are not true job creators but nothing more than band-aid solutions for a much larger problem. The best economic stimulator has always been and always will be a reduction in taxes for individuals and companies. Since Obama and the Democrats do not believe that to be true, we forecast that unemployment will remain in the double digits for a long time to come and all the high rhetoric in the world will not change that. Unfortunately, Obama and the Democrats will be in charge for at least one year and the true tragedy for America’s future is the ever faster increasing debt to the nation. That is the sad reality we all have to live with.

            The recent election in Massachusetts for United States Senate to fill the seat vacated by the death of former Senator Ted Kennedy was supposed to be just a formality in electing another Democrat. In fact, it was even a surprise to some that a Republican dared to challenge the Democrat’s candidate, Ms. Martha Coakley. But then reality set in for the people in Massachusetts and they listened to the Republican challenger, a man by the name of Scott Brown who was a State Senator. He criss-crossed the state in his truck and spoke to people everywhere he could, expressing his concerns and sharing his plans and ideas with them.

            Last Tuesday night, his work coupled with his message paid off. He won the special election decidedly and will be the first Republican holding that seat since 1952. Ever since that year, a Kennedy (first former President Jack and then his younger brother Ted) had won elections, imagine that is altogether nearly 58 years. The rest of the country did not really expect that to happen, Massachusetts residents , ergo voters, had been known to be overwhelmingly liberal and progressive in their attitudes as reflected in their voting patterns.

            But what happened last Tuesday in that State was a political earthquake, one that was felt everywhere and there could be huge aftershocks right into this coming November when the mid-term elections will be held across America. As is typical for the political elites, one of the first things that happened since Tuesday was the search for whom and what to blame for this elections’ result. Some thought that Martha Coakley ran a terrible campaign and had too many gaffes, others blamed the White House for not being more supportive and some blamed the Democrat Party leadership for not playing a stronger role in this campaign.

            To us here at Common Sense University, they are all missing the point. The truth is that even in liberal Massachusetts, the people will not forever blindly follow the ambitions of a given Party, the Democrat Party in this case. Even in Massachusetts, the people had enough of the Obama agenda of bigger government, a total overhaul of national health care, unlimited deficit spending, wrong policies with regards of the economy and job creation and so on.

            Yes, that is precisely what happens and it is reassuring for us to see that the American people throughout the land still have enough common sense to correct course when an extreme agenda is pursued and they know how to do it with the simplest of methods: They simply do not re-elect people who are pursuing such an agenda! And it does not matter whether it is a left-wing or a right-wing agenda, anything extreme will eventually be rejected. This is for us the most important result of this election and it gives us confidence to think that America is and will always be an exceptional country. It is the land of the free and it should remain so!

            We cannot predict what the immediate consequences of Scott Brown’s election victory will be. Will he be the one deciding vote that will stop the current healthcare overhaul legislation by voting against it in the Senate? Will the Democrats from President Obama to the Democrat leadership in Congress recognize honestly that it was their agenda that was rejected in Massachusetts? Will these folks in Washington D.C. get a solid dose of reality and look at things more soberly, realistically and less fanatically instead of ideologically? Only time will tell but we believe whatever will be: This election should be a wake-up call for every single one of the elected representatives that they are first and foremost just that: Representatives of the people and that they should listen to the people who send them to Washington. There is hope for America again, the 2008 election results putting a Democrat in the White House and giving the Democrats huge pluralities in Congress have been corrected if not reversed in Massachusetts and it is in our opinion, good for the country as a whole!

            As we know, earthquakes normally bring harm to people and areas where they happen, but this kind of earthquake brings only good things to people, we like these kinds.

            Common Sense University does not recall a person’s life and reputation turning as fast as Tiger Woods’s during the aftermath of what became known as a minor accident during the night after Thanksgiving Day as he was leaving his property in Windermere, Florida. Tiger was not seriously injured and a neighbor reported that he had heard the noise of a crash and also had seen him laying on the ground seemingly unconscious for a short time.

            And while the mystery fascinated people throughout the country, within days after this incident, women were going public with stories of having sexual relations with Tiger Woods during the past couple of years. Some of these women had tape recordings of evidence of their claims and within a very short week, about a dozen women claimed to have been intimate with this married man, Tiger Woods.

            Needless to say, that really turned on the rumor mills everywhere and coupled with Tiger’s limited statements to the media (including his self-imposed suspension of playing in upcoming golf tournaments), it was all factual, period! Tiger Woods, America’s sports idol was found to be a multiple wife-cheater and the stories kept on coming that his Swedish born wife, Elin, was about to file for a divorce demanding anywhere from 200 to 300 million dollars in settlement reimbursement from her husband.

            True or false, Tiger did the smartest thing he could do under the circumstances, he remained silent! The more disgusting story in all this so called scandal was the expediency by which everybody seemed to dump on Tiger Woods. He became the pun of late-night television shows and with that, the entire media felt compelled not to be left out and they tried their best to outdo others in speculating and rumor-mongering about Tiger Woods, the newly disgraced former super hero. The one exception being the professional golfers who mostly remained silent and did not join the game of “Tiger-bashing”. We respect them for that.

            We here at Common Sense University would not be truthful if we did not express our deeply felt sadness about this entire episode, but that is where it ends. We would never join the fray of all the others to judge him negatively and now make him out to be one of the worst villains in America. We here, as almost all of America, do not know any of the circumstances which brought about the alleged extra-marital affairs of which Tiger Woods is currently accused of. We say this because we do not know much about Elin, the former Swedish swimsuit model who met Tiger in 2001 when she was an au-pair girl for the children of Swedish pro-golfer Jesper Parnevik. They began dating and she became Mrs. Woods in October 2004. She gave birth to a daughter and a son in 2007 and 2009 respectively and turned 30 years old on January 1, 2010.

            Other than that, we do not know much about her, her personality or her being the wife of the world’s most successful golfer for the past years. With that, we also do not know anything about the circumstances that allegedly drove Tiger Woods to have extra-marital relationships, and we emphasize “allegedly!” Elin kept a low profile during those past years, she was not seen at many golf tournaments throughout the years and we do not know if that was by consent between the two of them or for other reasons. We, the general public really do not know much about her interests, hobbies and other such elements that round out a life of prominence. What do we know about their dialogues as spouses and their day to day lives? Nothing! Did she share his interests in all matters golf or was she more interested in decorating houses and the like? We do not want to speculate here but there could be a vast variety of reasons why Tiger developed a need for “comfort” with other women, assuming that that really occurred. We conclude that we do NOT know what kind of wife Elin was to Tiger!

            So then, let’s do what we owe them (and especially Tiger): Give them space and privacy, the future of them is theirs to decide, their children are very young and whatever the outcome of their decisions, it is theirs to make. We wish them both the best for the future and hope for the return of Tiger to the PGA golf circuit.

            …the question: How much money was lost when banks financed home mortgages for people who could not afford to buy – let alone – own such homes nationwide? We honestly wonder if that day will ever come. Yet this reality – letting people buy homes without the financial strengths to ever make payments to keep such homes – was recognized as a major cause for the financial collapse in 2008 together with some other activities that nearly brought the worldwide financial institutions to the brink of total collapse. If we remember correctly, that is how the “experts” described the situation in the fall of 2008 when we immediately had to appropriate 700 billion dollars to stop the world from coming to an end. This fund was called TARP which stood for Troubled Assets Relief Program and its main purpose was to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector created during the subprime mortgage crisis.

            We have to confess that we did not understand all this ‘stuff’ and simply were amazed at some of the findings as to the causes for this apparent financial meltdown. We did not and still do not understand the roles that Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae played in all this, after all, we are not bankers and do not pretend to be. We heard the various accusations against them and they all did not make a lot of sense. What bewildered us at the time was that the company AIG received huge amounts of money – 70 billion dollars of TARP money – and they then turned around and paid European banks and institutions huge amounts of money. Since this was all reported as facts, we accepted it as such in the hope that there would be eventually a complete reconciliation of the money – mind you, taxpayers’ money – by telling us what we got for it.

            But Common Sense University has not seen anything of the like, only bits and pieces come out ever so infrequently, all we know is, if we can believe these reports, that nearly 200 billion dollars of TARP money were never spent and are sitting somewhere. Now this is where our interests perk up again. How is that possible we ask? Think of this in simple terms, one we all can understand: Your son/daughter comes to you and confesses to have gotten into financial trouble and is in need of, let’s say, $50,000 immediately. If the money will not be given, the kid will have to file for bankruptcy and there will be other even more dire consequences. “And please, do not ask me for details, Dad” your son/daughter says to you. So, you do not like it at all but give him/her the money and the kid goes off. Over a year later, you inquire and find out that your offspring is ok again and guess what, has about $15,000 left over, money that was not needed. How would you feel about that? Should we not demand collectively as U.S. taxpayers to get some answers on the TARP money?

            How about answering the fundamental question: How many billions of dollars were lent to people who bought homes they could not afford? Or was it even in the trillions of dollars? We understand that the banks were pressured to relax standard (and well proven) lending criteria and procedures but that is not an answer that should satisfy us. Can we not demand to get some reliable summarized audit results from all the banks combined in our country that will tell us that ‘X’ amount of houses were purchased (and financed) by ‘X’ number of people and this all amounted to ‘X’ number of dollars?

            For whatever “Noble” reason this apparent experiment in social engineering was created  by these culprits who initiated and directed it, one cannot ignore the reality that it has been a humongous failure and it is generally accepted as such but that should not mean that we just shove it under the rug, or is it? The applecart is turned upside down when we are asked to accept that people without money can buy the same things as the people with money! We think it’s time to straighten that applecart right side up. Let’s hope that we will never see such atrocious experimentation in the future.

            It is customary to start a new year with good intentions, hope for the better and listing some New Year’s resolutions that we desire to achieve or hope for in the coming twelve months. It has been done for the ages and it ought to be continued. As we wrapped up the previous year and possibly found some time for reflection, one should also think of the immediate future and re-energize one’s resolve to be better and do better – at least, that should be the intent for most of us and hopefully these intentions are strong enough to carry us into the coming months and throughout the entire year. As a result, we have come up with a ten-point wish list for 2010.

            We wish that…

•       Our elected officials/politicians in Washington D.C. and in the 50 States get infected with a genuine dose of real COMMON SENSE and will base all future decisions on non-political considerations;
•       President Obama and his administration acknowledge that America is in a WAR on TERROR and act accordingly instead of treating terrorist acts as ‘Human caused disasters’ and mere criminality;
•       President Obama finally gets off the 2008 campaign trail and do two things: Act like a President, take full charge of his office and stop blaming all things going wrong on his predecessor, we are tired of it;     
•       We are killing POLITICAL CORRECTNESS  in all actions connected with National Security and the Safety of the American people. That includes the United States Military! It has no place there;
•       The pending HEALTH CARE REFORM legislation in its current composition will DIE in negotiations between the House and the Senate in Congress and that they will wait a while and start all over in a bi-partisan way;
•       Congress does not even bother to further pursue any ‘CAP and TRADE’ legislation as it should be clear to them that this is in the current economic climate a jobs killer, not to mention the ever increasing doubts about ‘Global Warming‘;
•       The President and Congress recognize that you do not create jobs by higher taxes and spending more money on short-term fix stimulus legislation. Instead, they should do what has been proven successful time and again by lowering taxes and a reduction in Government regulations (and intrusions) to job creators: i.e., the SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS and CORPORATIONS in America;
•       CAPITALISM will be recognized  for what it is: A good thing for America and that Democrat politicians embrace it instead of demonizing it; it has worked very well for America for centuries;
•       The entire media in America returns to their original role in society: Reporting the news factually without commentary, distortions and personal/political slant;
•       Everybody stops playing the “RACE CARD” and other tools that divide us as a people in America!

Unlike quite a few others, we do not believe that one can comprehensively do an End-of-Year review in one article. 2009 was hailed and pronounced twelve months ago as the Year of Change and Hope. And a lot of people had believed in 2008 candidate Barack Obama’s campaign promises and slogans and voted for him because they wanted change and hope. But an open minded and serious opinion will have to conclude that those voters only got change so far. Yes, a lot of things called CHANGE happened in America in 2009 and we will list here only a few of them:

• We got a change from George W. Bush to Barack H. Obama in the Presidency;
• We got a change in the nearly doubling of the Nations unemployment statistic;
• We got a change in foreign relations by way of an apologizing President bowing to foreign heads of State, yet we think while the foreigners did not like President Bush at all, they at least respected him while the current White House occupant is somewhat more liked but not at all respected;
• The Democrat controlled Congress has passed legislation that will burden our future in such debt as to   possibly even bankrupt the country;
• This was the first year in our history that America has accumulated an annual deficit of well over one trillion dollars and it will not improve any time soon due to the vulgar stimulus packages and other out-of-control spending measures;
• The American public is being lied to on a daily basis by their elected Democrat Representatives including their President and their liberal media allies.

Now then, what about HOPE? We here at Common Sense University only see hope for America with the mid-term congressional elections, unfortunately not for slightly more than ten months from now. Based on the current mood of the voters some major change could happen when the liberal, wild spending Democrats get their response from their constituents for ignoring their wishes and the Democrats could find themselves out of a job as well. That is for us the only Hope we can see, that is in terms of hope for America. If the current spending trends continue for a few more years, we can envision a bankrupt America!

There is not a single sector in America that has experienced a positive “change and hope” because we do not consider promises (no matter how well presented) real change and hope. The outlook for job creation is grim in America, every corporation and business owner is tightening his/her belt and adjusting for a bad economy and the proposed health care legislation is not something to make them optimistic for the future.

But in conclusion, this country of ours is too big and too strong to be incapable of making the changes it needs when things are not going well for America as a whole. It has happened in the past and this can all happen again in November 2010 when there could be a major re-alignment in Congress. Principles, virtues and fiscal restraint will be the major agenda items during that election and wish as they like, the Democrats in Congress cannot hide or run away from their voting records during 2009.

So, there is – what we call – HOPE we can believe in. With this in mind, we wish everybody a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2010.

            We still do not know if the Democrats efforts in Congress to give America a Health Care Reform package by Christmas will succeed but it is becoming clearer that whatever the outcome will be at the end, it is BAD news for America and its citizens. In fact, it will be a huge coffin nail for our country! The real tragedy though is the way this has been put together. This bill was for the most part written, altered and amended behind closed doors by the Democrat’s leadership and then – where necessary – amended again to suit the wishes and demands by a handful of Democrat ‘hold-out’ Senators who then also had to be bought off with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax dollars for their respective States, they were not hold-outs, there were hold-ups.

            Political prostitution is what we call this here at Common Sense University but it is nothing new for Congress. This has been going on for a great number of years and not just by Democrats but by Republicans as well. The saddest part of this all is that our country’s highest elective body, namely Congress, has sunk to this low level of ‘doing business‘. They call it ‘Politics as usual’, we call it discusting, dishonest and even outright criminal. Principles, honor, commitments, values or virtues have been lost a long time ago and there is apparently nothing we can do about it. Except for one thing: Not to re-elect these people. This has happened in the past and it has worked in some instances but after a while, the climate in Washington D.C. corrupts these people and they lose their good intentions as promised during their campaigns and simply join the club.

            Without delving into too much detail of this piece of legislation, we will just scrape the surface and ask the question: “How dumb do you Democrat Senators think we are?” You want us to believe that…….

• by cutting nearly one half a trillion dollars out of Medicare and in doing so, you are saving and even strengthening the program;
• by raising nearly one half a trillion dollars in taxes, you are bringing the costs down for everybody;
• this will save the country from bankruptcy because health care costs without this reform would just simply rise to vastly higher levels;
• competition among the health insurance providers by allowing coverage across State lines is bad and would not reduce health care costs;
• true tort reform (malpractive lawsuits etc) is ineffective and would not reduce costs.

            Common sense and logic should tell anybody that this is pure nonsense to put it mildly. In fact, the opposite is the case. By taking complete control of one-sixth of the American economy, they, the Democrats, are hurrying the demise of our country into socialism and changing it forever from what we have known it to be for over two hundred years. This legislation is one giant coffin nail for America and together with our vastly rising national debt and the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare, the lid is getting pretty solidly shut and we wonder if it ever can be lifted up again.

            This is NOT a Happy Holiday Season for America and it is not the economy: It is the President and the Democrats in Congress that are causing it by their reckless action to rush this legislation towards becoming law. Shameful does not even describe this type of behavior, we think it is outright destructive if not criminal for the country!

            And there they are: Leaders and representatives of approximately 190 countries around the globe meeting in the Danish capitol Copenhagen to work out an agreement on so called Climate change legislation to rescue our planet from human destruction! It never ceases to amaze us how many supposedly intelligent people can be collectively so stupid to think that this is an achievable goal. Well, we should not assume anything and not put too much value on intelligence in and of itself. After all, bank robbers and other criminals are not necessarily dumb or unintelligent. We know better and have ample samples of so many who tried to get rich on other people’s dime and they all were smart and intelligent.

            So then, what do we have here? In a nutshell, the effort by those in attendance in Copenhagen  a major transfer of wealth from industrialized and fully developed nations to the non-industrialized and underdeveloped nations on Earth. The reason behind this is the fact that the under-developed countries do not have the money to go “green” and must be helped out by the “rich” countries. Under this scheme, countries like China and India would or could get billions of dollars from America and the European industrialized giants and Japan to help them comply with environmental changes required to be made in order to save planet Earth.

            If this was a script for a Hollywood movie, it would be marketed as fiction and strictly for entertainment purposes. But unfortunately, it is not. The conference attendants are deadly serious and want to work out an agreement to reach this artificial goal. Even as we pointed out in a recent article that the underlying reasons for this scheme is based on fraudulent scientific assumptions and cooked data, fanatics can never be persuaded of such facts. They all live by the old adage: Do not confuse me with facts; I have made up my mind! It is simply too late to turn away from this scheme to transfer wealth from some countries – the Haves – to other countries – the Have Nots.

            And our own Frequent-Flyer Champion, President Barack Obama will make an appearance in Copenhagen near the end of the conference to give his blessing to whatever fictional agreements are reached in terms of future goals. Within one week, the President will fly to this particular neighborhood twice, once to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo (on December 10) and then to attend this climate change conference in Copenhagen. These two cities are only 180 miles apart and he could have combined this in one trip. But no, the President is making two trips on Airforce One from Washington D.C., never mind the carbon footprint he leaves behind with this.

            This is so agonizing, liberal hypocrites only care what others are doing in their lives but always count themselves as being above the fray. Leading by example is not part of their agenda and accountability is not in their vocabulary and therefore does not apply to them. This is disgusting and shameful but then hypocrites have no shame. We here at Common Sense University hope that nothing imminent will come from this conference in the Danish capitol, that they will agree on far reaching goals far into the future as was done in previous such world wide gatherings. We hope and pray that Barack Obama will at least not make any financial commitments to the rest of the world for the next couple of years. And we hope that the representatives of the underdeveloped countries, while not getting any immediate financial aid, at least get to enjoy the pleasures of the Danish life style including the offers made by the prostitutes in Copenhagen to give ‘free sex’ to foreign dignitaries and their associates. Enjoy it while it lasts!

            Despite economic bad times in America, the country is still getting into the holiday season with all its traditional activities: Shopping for Christmas, buying gifts for loved ones and friends, giving to charities and volunteering time to help the needy and so on. Together with the regular daily routines, it keeps everybody fairly busy and little time is there to stay on top of what our so called ‘elected representatives’ are doing in Congress.

            Well, they are very busy too. The Democrats in the United States Senate are working feverishly on a healthcare reform bill in the hope of finishing it before the holiday recess. Since there is a lot of work to be done to achieve this artificial deadline, they are working through weekends. One would think that with 58 Democrats and two Independents, thus having a 60 vote majority to begin and to end debate (by their procedures) this should not be this hard but that is not the case. In fact, there is some serious division among the Democrats over several major components of this legislation.

            In comparison, the 40 Republican Senators cannot stop whatever the Democrats determine the final outcome to be but they are still submitting amendment after amendment to make changes to the proposed bill. So far, every one of these amendments has been defeated and yet, Democrat Senate Leader Harry Reid has portrayed the Republicans as Naysayers without any ideas and even compared them to the politicians who were against the abolition of slavery.

            This is outright devious and shameful! The other devious element in the Democrats activities is the fact that they want to do this at a time when they think the public is not watching since they are all so busy before the holidays with other things and can therefore be ignored before they vote on the final Senate bill, the Democrats that is and now we understand why they are working even through weekends. The plan seems to be: Let’s get this done before the public becomes aware of what we did. This is politics of the worst kind and we have to ask: Why are you doing this? We know for whom they are doing it, namely, the President of the United States. They, the Democrats want him to achieve a major campaign promise – healthcare reform – and they realize that if they do not do this now, that is right now, they will never get another shot at it.

            Their almost fanatical obsession with passing this legislation is sickening when one considers that they are elected representatives of the people and should not go against the majority of the voters in our country. It appears almost as if they have a death wish and do not care if they get re-elected, they want this done and they do not care by what means and schemes they get it done. Even if it means to get there under the cover of darkness (working through weekends) and whether or not this legislative monster meets the approval of the voting public. They believe so desperately in the power of government that they will do at this time anything to reach their goal, consequences be damned!

            We here at Common Sense University do not know what will happen in the end but we know one thing for certain: It is NOT good for America; it is not good for our country!

            For precisely three years, Common Sense University has written and or posted fifteen articles here about the Man-made Global Warming phenomenon or as it became known more recently the Climate Change dangers to this planet of ours. To be clear, while we have engineering degrees, we are not scientists but just maintain a certain amount of common sense and skepticism when it comes to new things. And the ‘Man-made Global Warming’ noises seemed to us just such a thing. This especially, in light of the fact that thirty years ago we were warned against serious ‘Global Cooling’. Yes, we are old enough to remember that!

            Now then, we looked at facts as stated from several sources and discovered that there was indeed a wide range of opinions on this subject. Studying them made us realize that not all of the scientists could be correct and we checked the numbers for ourselves and tried to find logic in them. We invite you to look up the following articles in our blog, posted under Global warming from December 4, 2006 :”Is it really that bad?”;

From January 10, 2007, “Global Warming – Is it for real?”; from February 21, 2007, “Hypocrisy in the Global Warming Debate”; and from March 13, 2007, “Computers and Global Warming”.

            Needless to say, we did not expect to have an impact at all but in our minds, we became convinced that there was a lot more to it than what the liberal media together with self-anointed experts tried to make us believe. In fact, the longer it lasted, the more we were certain that there was a bigger issue driving all this scaremongering, namely an agenda of major proportion. Add to that all the hype that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore produced with a book and it did not take long for politicians to see the immense potential of this new danger to planet Earth. We were told all the while that there was a consensus among scientists about Global Warming and that those who doubted it were like “Holocaust deniers” and “Flat-Earth believers”.

            Is it not interesting that politicians will believe anything if it gives them a chance at dictating life style changes to the people? Most certainly so when it can also be a vehicle to raise taxes and while liberals might have an edge over conservatives when it comes to taxing their constituents and especially the “Rich”, and it was no surprise that prominent public figures jumped on the ‘Global Warming Scare’ bandwagon and proposed laws to save mankind. How noble of them! And so now, we have a major conference in Copenhagen where the nations of the world will try to come up with a treaty to save Earth from ourselves by shifting wealth to other places around the globe. To this we can only say: “What a croc!”

            However, the one fact overlooked in all this hype and hysteria over the past ten years was one solid and unquestionable reality: The planet has been cooling since 1998!  In a reverse way, this was truly an “Inconvenient Truth” for author of a book by this title, Oscar winner and Nobel Peace Price winner Al Gore and his ilk and so it was dealt with by the scientists supporting this Global Warming nonsense by the only way they knew how: By cheating!  They had to ignore the reality of Global Cooling and so they fudged the data and we would have never found out about it were it not for somebody who discovered it by finding e-mails exchanged between these scientists discussing this fraud and deception.

            Finally this hoax has been exposed and it will be interesting to see how this reality will change the minds of lawmakers and others who were so eager to save the planet from us humans. Can they be human enough and admit that they have been had and then get off this artificially created phony subject? Only time will tell.

            It took President Barack Obama nearly one hundred days to respond to Four-Star General Stanley McCrystal’s request of an additional 40,000 troops in Afghanistan to win the war there. A war that candidate Obama had called a war of necessity. And to summarize the President’s response in very precise terms, he told:

• the General, he would only get 30,000 troops (i.e., 75 percent of what he had asked for),
• the enemy, the Taliban and Al Qaida: “We will begin withdrawing troops by July 2011,”
• our Allies: “Please help us out here and send more troops,”
• Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai: “You better shape up and run your country more efficiently and without corruption, otherwise we are out of there for good,”
• Americans : “Don’t worry I know what I am doing” with a strong and lengthy reminder that he had inherited this war from his predecessor.

            Us here at Common Sense University are truly bewildered by the above synopsis and have to ask: Why did this take from late August until December 1 to come up with the explanations above? Why can the General do this assignment now with 75 percent of the force he had requested? But most importantly: Why does Obama announce a deadline for the beginning of troop withdrawal? To the best of our knowledge, no American war-time President has ever done this before. We shudder to think of what would have happened if President Roosevelt on December 8 1941 declared war on Nazi-Germany and told Adolf Hitler: “We are coming with about 75 percent of what General Eisenhower asked for in terms of troops but we will start the withdrawal of troops in 18 to 24 months.”

            There are only two words for this: Total Incompetence! Barack Obama appears to be approaching and treating the execution of a war like any other issue he faces. He huddles with all his advisors, gets their individual opinions and then tries to come up with a solution that will appease most of them, especially his political base to some extent and soften the appearance of a very tough decision for a military surge by adding a deadline to it. Mr. President, war is a different thing than most other things you are dealing with. Why do you not understand this? On the other hand though, we have to give it to him, he succeeded in his “muddily” objective. As the old saying goes: A camel is a horse designed by a committee! And that is exactly what we got here (no offense to camels) and based on the geographical location of this war, it might appear to some even as appropriate.

            We should mention though that the President’s speech at West Point was filled with high-flying rhetoric such as “America’s security is at stake; we will deny Al Qaida and the Taliban a safe haven in Afghanistan; we will train the Afghan military and hope for support from our Allies in NATO and then we will end the war successfully sometime in mid-year 2011.” His leftover arsenal of buzzwords from his campaign was also used but it does not overshadow the fact that he was not convincing to most of those who listened around the world. At least that is our humble opinion and only time will tell if we were correct in our assessment.

            Common Sense University has expressed many times our deep disgust with the news media, whether the print, the television medias or even the movie industry in general. For us the saying holds true: “They don’t make them like they used to”. Many years ago, the individuals in these industries had a few rules and virtues that are totally missing today: Character, Decency and Integrity! Apparently, they are no longer required to get a job there. One could argue that there are exceptions to the rule and that somebody still has an ounce of integrity or even decency but you really have to look long and hard. It seems that sensationalism is the order of the day and doing it the fastest gets the prize and with it the money and ‘honor’, if one can call it that.

            Without going into extensive research as to its origin, the news and entertainment media as a whole has decided that the public is only interested in the sensational, the gory and the scariest news it can deliver, and consequently, so it does. And we cannot argue that they might not be right to a degree. As they say in the newspaper/television industries: If it bleeds, it leads! Meaning, the greater the number of casualties or horror, the bigger the story. We here at Common Sense University count the entire global warming myth a part of this hyping of scary things to come. Predicting the future has always been a fascinating element of human endeavor through all the ages. And the global warming scaremongering is simply a story that keeps on giving. Maybe it is a sign of our times, we really do not know, but we have strong objections when it goes too far and we believe we have found one that meets this criterion.

            For many years, by way of the media, people have been told about predictions and one of the most cited seer or if you will, astrologer was a man who lived in France from 1503 until 1566 by the name of Nostradamus. But there also has been the “Mayan calendar” produced over a thousand years ago that showed there could be the end of the world as we know it by December 21, 2012. While Monsieur Nostradamus did not give us this specific date, he also put the end of the world approximately in our near future. While there is no question as to the advances by the ancient Mayans in astronomy, alignments of stars and the like, the so called quatrains of Nostradamus are only meaningful in hindsight and never specific predictions ahead of actual events.

            But the proximity to the Mayan ‘end of the world’ prediction is incredible fodder for the newsmakers and scaremongers in the world. After all, it is barely more than three years from now that it will be all over for us on this planet. That is, if we were to believe this! Rarely a day goes by when a variety of television channels do not  bring so called documentaries and ’specials’ about these times. Experts in the many possibilities of what is to come can be seen expressing their opinions in those shows with an admirable amount of seriousness as they share their knowledge with us. And we know the old adage: If it is told enough times, it must be true! Of course, there is always the trusty remote control when it gets to be too much and one can either switch channels or turn the television set off.

                  While we have had disaster movies for a very long time like the Oscar winning film Titanic about a decade ago,  a German film maker has now arrived on the scene with the latest such movie by the title: 2012.    A nearly three hour film showing us exactly what will happen when we reach the year 2012. It is entertaining and scary at times and people love the film. What we find very upsetting about all this is the fact that it is apparently scaring the children as well and not insignificantly. They are wondering now if their lives will end in three years and that to us is the really scary thing! All the other previous disaster movies showed us episodes of past events or at least did not put a time to it. We live with the reality that earthquakes can happen as well as floods, volcanic eruptions and so on, but we have now a film that puts the end of the world in front of us in the very near future. When one considers all the hype of global warming and link this together, and let’s not fool ourselves, the kids hear plenty of this stuff in school from their teachers. Is it any wonder that we have now reached a point in time when our young generation is getting unnecessarily scared about their future and we should stop it? It has gone too far and should be stopped. We cannot on the one hand tell our children that their future is bright and rosy and then barrage them with non-fiction based global warming warnings and now show them a movie that ends it all in three years.

                  It is very ironic that children are being taught in schools today to believe such things while their faith in God is questioned and even ridiculed. After all, how do we know God exists when no one has ever seen him, right?  But then the children are exposed and influenced to believe that the world is coming to an end. It is high time to get back to true common sense and reality.

            …well, you know the rest of the too often used saying. An Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan walks into a building at the military base called Fort Hood in Texas, shouts “Allahu Akbar” and starts shooting about one hundred rounds at fellow Army soldiers, killing in the end thirteen innocent and unsuspecting people and wounding about forty others before he is being shot and incapacitated by a police woman at the base. What is the first thing we hear from officials via the news media: “Don’t jump to conclusions, this is not a terrorist act!”

            Yeah right, we are all stupid and cannot connect the dots. What are we to believe when we hear about such an atrocity? That the ‘shooter’ is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law! The fact that he is a Muslim and yelled “Allahu Akbar”, the islamic battle cry “God is great”, before he goes on a killing rampage should not influence our thinking and heaven forbid, even venture to guess that this could have been an act of terrorism. There is only one logical answer to this nonsense: Political correctness has been taken to the extreme!

            We all have witnessed the slowly increasing effect of political correctness into our lives over many years, its very existence another unchallenged brainchild of liberalism, yet we have more or less accepted it as an instrument of civility and tolerance towards others. But as is the case in all these endeavors, it has been used beyond rationality. To us here at the Common Sense University, it appears that this is especially the case when it has entered the military in its operations by showing us the reaction by officers after this incident. Of all places, the United States military should be managed to reflect its main purpose. The defense of this country of ours! Political correctness should have no place in the military for it is not a social club nor a place for societal experimentation. The armed forces are recruiting volunteers to fill their ranks and to become soldiers in the varying sectors of the organization. Anybody joining the military for the purpose of meeting women or men or other such peripheral objectives should be informed that such motives are not acceptable, period!

            The extent to which political correctness has infiltrated our armed forces brass at the highest levels was clearly on display when Four-Star General George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff went on a Sunday morning talk show on November 8 and stated that his major concern was the potential backlash of focusing on the fact that Major Hasan was a Muslim. He explained that there were about four thousand Muslim soldiers in our armed forces and it would be terrible if they would be a backlash against them. To this we say: With generals like George Casey, we would have lost World War II. He would have seen every action through the perverted lenses of “What might Adolf Hitler think?” When America sentenced German spies to death during those times and executed them, he, General Casey, would have probably considered that a backlash because the German Fuehrer could be really upset about that and might be forced to take reciprocal actions.

            Fortunately, our national and military leadership in those days was not handicapped by politically correct thinking but were focused instead of winning World War II. People like General Casey would have most likely also loudly protested back then against using and dropping two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What is very disturbing to us is the fact that this gives us a small insight into the strategic thinking of our military leaders today. We are even willing to say that we now better understand why the wars in Vietnam, the first Gulf War and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were fought so half-heartedly and dragged on for many years without any true results. One can argue any way one wants to but when Political Correctness enters the thought processes of military planners and the Generals who have to execute such plans, it is totally wrong and should be corrected for future such ventures.

            We can only hope that one thing resulting from the massacre at Fort Hood is a true re-evaluation of the application, purpose and usefulness of political correctness in the military. To us here, the totally senseless Fort Hood slaughter was a terrorist attack, perpetrated by a hateful and fanatical Muslim, pure and simple! To gloss it over by attempting to be political correct in order not to offend other Muslims in America and around the world is shameful and should be an insult to the victims and their families and friends of the shooting rampage by Major Hasan. It is time to get back to normal, basic common sense.

            If anybody ever doubted that the Liberals in Congress were not totally serious about taking control of America’s healthcare system, the vote by the House of Representatives on November 7 near midnight should have been proof that they truly are. Even though, it was not at all easy to get there, let’s check the numbers.

            The Democrats have 258 seats compared to 177 Republican seats in the House of Representatives. It takes 218 votes to pass legislation. In the end they just got 219 Democrats to vote in the affirmative together with one Republican, the final tally was 220 Ayes to 215 Nays. Considering the fact that they, the Democrat leadership had to accept the so called Stupac amendment which specifically called for language to never allow the use of Federal funds for abortions (with Mr. Stupac being a Democrat, i.e., one of their own), it was not at all convincing how they pulled this off. But in the end, they did and they are jubilant about it!

            The next action, or if you will, Step 2, will now be taken up in the Democrat controlled Senate. Just for clarification, the Democrats with two Independents have sixty members and the Republicans the remaining forty. Independent Senator Joe Lieberman has already come out and declared that in no way would he support a so called ‘Public option’ provision in this legislation. In fact, he has said that he would side with the Republicans and vote against it and even  stop the bill if it came to a vote. This now becomes interesting in that the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats have to find a way to get the sixty votes to bring the actual legislation up for a vote. The requirement of sixty votes for cloture being a long-standing Senate procedure! They have already been meeting behind closed doors for three weeks and it will remain to be seen what final version of healthcare reform they come up with.

            It is safe to say at this time, that nobody knows for sure nor does anybody know when it will be voted on. Only one thing is certain, it will not even be close in content to matching the 2000 pages plus House version. Let us assume, there will eventually be a bill approved in the Senate, they will then face the task of reconciling the two pieces of legislation from the House and the Senate into one bill. They will then have to vote again to approve such combined legislation before it can be send to President Barack Obama’s desk for his signature. We here at Common Sense University cannot realistically see how this can all happen before some time in early 2010. In fact, we have strong reason to question if it even will happen based on the hard realities as they exist in America today. The main reason for this are the opposing interests in such legislation from the liberal side to the moderates and independents among the Democrat members in Congress. The Republicans are not even a factor in all this and the Democrats have dumped bi-partisanship some time ago.

            With the economy being weak, the dollar continuing to fall, the nationwide jobless rate officially in double digits and apparently for some time to come, the rapidly increasing national debt are all factors that do not play a role in the liberals pursuit of ‘Affordable Healthcare Reform for America‘. The American citizenry however, is more concerned right now with the above mentioned pocketbook issues and they do not rank universal healthcare reform as pressing or even a current requirement. Combine that with the Senior Citizens who are worried over apparent cuts in Medicare and there is great opposition to this legislation by them. One other factor playing a role in all this is the reality that 2010 is an election year for all 435 Congressmen and -women and about 36 Senators. While they are on different ends of the political spectrum, most of them have one thing in common and it will rank very high on their minds: They want to get re-elected in November 2010 and they will logically look at polls of their respective constituencies and most likely will vote accordingly. For those who are opposed to this monstrous legislation, time will be on their side, the longer the process will drag out, the lesser the chance that it will ever come to pass and become law. Only time will tell.

            There is a tendency to read too much into things when they occur, last Tuesday’s elections in several states across the country could be such events. But we think they are not. Electing Republican governors in New Jersey and Virginia, two States that Barack Obama carried during the 2008 Presidential election should not be considered a Republican come back of major proportion. Far from it, the Republican Party did not win these elections, it was a preferential choice by the people in those two States and they voted basic pocket book issues: The economy, jobs and excessive spending on the part of the Federal Government this year and the additional uncertainties associated with the pending health reform and “Cap and Trade” legislations It’s that simple!     And it so happened that the Republicans apparently fielded candidates that seemed to be best suited to deliver on these issues in these two East Coast States. We here at Common Sense University firmly believe that the American people are much more grounded in basic principles and elementary understanding of what life is all about than given credit for by the liberal media and the political spin meisters who believe to be wiser and smarter than the average Joe. In spite of vast sums of money spent by incumbent Governor Corzine in New Jersey and strong campaigning by President Obama on his behalf, the people just did not buy it and booted him out of office. President Obama’s 2008 campaign charm did not work this time and his promises of ‘change and hope’ rang hollow to the voters.

            The people had twelve months of history on their minds to reflect upon and realized that the economic troubles in New Jersey and in America in general could not be overcome by excessive deficit spending. Coupled with this were the promises by the President that his nearly 800 billion dollar stimulus bill would turn things around and keep unemployment under eight percent. People have begun to realize that this was a false promise and it is over ten percent now and is predicted to be like that for a long time to come. People also get tired of hearing from the President who has now been in office for nearly ten months that he “inherited this mess from the Bush administration”. They are wondering now when President Obama will finally assume full responsibility for what is happening in America and we mean also the negative things. We have to seriously think now about whether or not the President will campaign for re-election in 2012 on the platform: “All the things that went wrong were Bush’s fault!” Really, Mr. President, how long can you blame your predecessor for a lousy economy, four years? We don’t think so!

            People also understand the basic principle that you cannot spend your way out of a bad situation. On a personal level: Does it make sense to say I have to spend more money to get rid of my debt (when in reality you are adding to it)? Every second grader understands that he or she cannot spend thirty dollars on a twenty dollar allowance; the kids know that the store clerk will not give them thirty dollars worth of goodies for twenty bucks. It is that simple! But tell that to Democrats in Congress and the President: They just do not believe that and they are proving it to us on a weekly basis. Their spending and with it the excessive printing of money has driven the dollar down against all other currencies and we are indebting ourselves to other nations worldwide without a realistic chance to repaying this debt. But liberals do not care about this one bit and unfortunately for America, they are in charge now in Washington D.C.

            We view the recent election results as just a reaction by the people in a few States to the ‘State of the Union’ as seen through the eyes of average citizens. It is not good and the future is not rosy and they have come to the realization that things will not change with the people (and the Party) that are running the country right now and they voted for a change from the “change as promised” just a year ago. It remains to be seen if the Democrats in Congress and the President get a message out of the elections, time will tell. We do not think so for agenda driven fanatics cannot change course, their fanaticism will not allow it, it’s that simple!

            It is currently generally accepted in our country that the Republicans in Congress have not at all attempted to contribute to the massive health care reform legislation. In fact, the Democrats and the compliant liberal media have called Republicans the party of NO! This label has been put on the minority party for a simple reason: To demonize them in the eyes of the public as having nothing to offer and therefore not caring about the people of America when it comes to health care. Nothing could be further from the truth!  The Republicans in both chambers have been submitting in various committees comprehensive amendments to proposed legislation and it has been Democrats who have voted NO on all such Republican amendments.

            This has been a constant pattern among the Democrats from the President on down ever since January of this year. It was President Obama who said during one of the early bi-partisan meetings at the White House when he responded to Republican suggestions: Remember, I won! So much for bi-partisanship in our country’s capital. The truly ironic thing in all this is the fact that President Obama himself does not have a health care reform bill, at least not one that can be read on paper or could be scored by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. He has for all these many months, including the 2008 campaign, only stated certain provisions that he wants to see before he signs a bill. It will remain to be seen how many of his promises will be exactly that, nothing but promises.

            As promised in our previous article, Common Sense University will attempt here to present a realistic, common sense based health care reform package that would achieve the goals of true reform. As a starting point we asked the question: What is driving the costs of health care in America and what are the major elements contributing to these cost increases? We are of the opinion that there are three major factors:

            1.         Lack of true competition among the nation’s health insurance firms: As it currently stands, the approx. 1300 health insurance companies in the USA cannot sell and service their policies nationwide, instead they are by law limited to only do business in a few States. For instance, unlike with car insurance, if you live in California, you cannot buy health insurance from a company in Texas or even Arizona!

            2.         The immensely expanding and expensive industry of malpractice lawsuits: The immense business of malpractice lawsuits, both the legitimate as well as the frivolous ones are driving malpractice insurance costs for physicians and health professionals sky high. It is not at all unusual for an obstetrician/ gynocologist or an orthopedic surgeon having to pay up to $200,000 to $250,000 malpractice insurance premiums annually. They have to pass these costs on to the consumer. These high premiums are primarily driven by the many lawsuits filed against them many times frivolously for malpractice. Another cost factor is the reaction by doctors to conduct or call for multiple tests for patients in order to protect themselves against malpractice accusations. These multiple, and yet many times unnecessary tests drive the costs up to and effect the health insurance premiums;

            3.         Lack of portability of health insurance for individuals and insurance company clauses against ‘previous conditions’ by individuals: This is a genuine problem and is not easily fixed. The insurance companies will not take on patients with prior major health problems (heart conditions etc) and will simply deny coverage for them. This means also that many people will lose their health insurance coverage after major surgery or treatments when insurance companies simply discontinue further coverage of such individuals. Both sides have rational explanations why they do not like this situation, the companies believe that they have to protect themselves against unforeseen and non-calculable risks and expenses while the insured person suffers greatly when hit with such a calamity of insurmountable health care expenses.

            With all this though, it appears that a vast majority of Americans are satisfied with the health care in America and consider it to be the best in the world. But the ever rising health care associated costs are a mounting concern for the citizenry in our country. Now then, back to the reality of what the President and Congress are doing while trying to deal with this major issue: A multi-trillion dollar business every year. President Obama and the Democrats are totally ignoring the first two of our above identified cost-driving elements and instead focus fully on totally unimportant issues. They whine about the uninsured in America and continue to present false numbers by including nearly ten million illegal aliens and also others, among them the younger folks who could afford to buy health insurance but have decided not to do so.

            Instead of concentrating on the real cost drivers in the health care industry, Democrats have to demonize insurance companies, the doctors and health care providers including hospital chains as well as the pharmaceutical industry while trying to fix the problem. Democrats have refused to even listen to reason and rationale when presented by others who do not agree with them. That is why the Republicans are not even given time for proposal presentations and debate on this issue. We here think that this major overhaul of the health care reform as currently pursued by the President and the Democrats is nothing more than a government takeover of one fifth or one sixth of our economy and attainment of more control over our lives by reducing our freedoms! Let us ask one simple question: When you have two bad tires on your car, do you buy a new car when two new tires will do the job? Of course not!

            We here at Common Sense University strongly believe that our three elements as identified above should be the foundation of any major health care reform, it would bring costs down substantially for everybody. Remember, competition has always been good in America and benefited all of us. Reducing malpractice litigation to reasonable limits of damages would be a major cost reducer in health care and again, beneficial for all. Providing clauses for insurance portability and greater coverage for those with ‘previous’ health conditions should not be too big to tackle and solutions could be found by having reasonable people work them out.

            The only remaining question is for us: Can we expect this from the President and the Democrats in Congress? Unfortunately, we think not. They want more power over our individual lives and want to dictate to us what we can do, eat, drink and so on. What is happening in Washington right now is all about controlling us! They firmly believe, so it appears that – since we sent them there, they must be the smartest people in the country and they are forgetting the role they are constitutionally to play, namely, to represent us!

            In case anyone was wondering if Common Sense University had taken our eyes off the health care reform attempts in Washington D.C., the answer is simple: We have not! The primary reason we have not commented on it is the fact that not a lot has happened during the past five weeks since Congress returned from their August recess. To be accurate, only three things have happened:

            1. Those in favor of health care reform from the President on down the chain of command are still in favor of it and are demonizing everybody who is against it or who voices his or her opinion or rational in opposition of this massive legislation. Reliable public opinion polls remain consistent in showing a majority of the American people not being in favor of this massive health care reform overhaul.

            2. The Senate Finance Committee finally concluded its ‘deliberations’ and voted a bill out of Committee on October 13 by a vote of 14 to 9; Republican Senator Olympia Snowe from Maine voting with the Democrat majority, explaining her vote as “when history calls, history calls”! Whatever is meant by that arrogant statement, we do not know. As we have found out since, the bill as passed by the Committee is 1502 pages long and it is now posted on the Internet for those to read who care about its content. We suggest though not a single Democrat Senator will read it!

            3. The Democrat leadership in the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nevada) and several Democrat Committee Chairmen have been holding meetings behind closed doors with the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel to write a combined bill between two Senate Committees before presenting it to the full Senate for debate, mark-up and eventual vote. Procedurally, such a vote requires sixty (60) ‘Ayes’ for debate to end and to vote on the final version of the bill. This might take some time since there is obviously no agreement among Democrats about inclusion of a so called ‘Public Option’ provision. A public option being a vehicle to offer health insurance run by the United States Government, in competition with the current private Insurance companies. These secret ‘behind closed doors’ meetings will end some time soon and only then will America find out what the Democrats in the Senate are proposing for all of us.

            Since the White House is represented in these secret meetings, we have to question the value of campaign promises made by President Barack Obama or at least the earnestness of his commitments. He, the President assured everybody numerous times during the 2008 campaign that there would be absolute transparency during the deliberations of major legislation. In addition, he promised a minimum of 72 hours of Internet posting of any such bill before it would be voted on by Congress and even before he would sign such a bill. The fact is, he has violated these campaign statements already several times on previous occasions (like the stimulus act etc) and he will not keep his commitments either when it comes to the health care overhaul bill. He is just too eager to sign it whatever its content. Can you spell H Y P O C R A C Y ? We here believe that he never intended to keep those campaign promises but they sounded good to the voters and were delivered so honestly and convincingly, you had to admire the man for being so completely open about what he was going to do once elected. Well, so much for that!

            But back to the current state of the health care reform overhaul. Nobody in Congress can tell anybody right now when certain votes will take place and in what form. It is all very foggy and will probably remain so for some time. Procedurally, we are told that the Senate will vote on a final bill before the House of Representatives will combine their respective three Committee versions into one and bring it to a vote there. This then will be followed by a so called reconciliation process whereby the House and the Senate versions will be negotiated into one bill upon which both Houses will have to take another vote to approve such a piece of legislation before it goes to the White House for the President’s signature. The Democrats hope to do all this before the end of this year and it is possible that they will do so. Their respective majorities in both chambers are so huge, they do not need a single Republican vote to pass the legislation.

            In fact, the Republicans have been completely shut out of any serious negotiations of health care reform, every one of the amendments offered by Republicans during Committee deliberations have been voted down by the Democrat majorities on such Committees. The true reason for all this current wrangling and the delays of completing this legislation is disunity and substantial disagreement among Democrats over various provisions in the bills. The ultra-liberals are holding out for universal health care reform, a single-payer plan for all Americans while the more moderate Democrats are against such drastic overhaul. This is where the battles are being fought currently. We will simply have to wait and see what comes out of all these ’secret’ meetings, in essence when the fog will be lifted and we all can find out what they agreed to among themselves.

            Our next article will deal with specifics of this health care reform by proposing our version of health care reform that would find, in our common sense driven opinion, majority support among American voters.

            The above title should be complimented with the following words: ‘See, what they are doing with your money!’ We are talking about Alfred Nobel, the 19^th century Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite and made a fortune that he then bequeathed to the Royal Swedish Academy of Science to make annual awards in his name for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace around the world. And so they have done this for over a century, beginning in 1901.

            As is tradition, they have awarded this year’s awards with the prestigious peace prize going to President Barack Obama. The announcement, made on October 9, caught everybody by surprise but then it was not really a surprise on reflection. The obviously liberal (socialist) Nobel Prize Committee has its own standards and award parameters by which they make their decisions and it should therefore not have come as a surprise. Liberals rank intentions much higher than actual achievements and results when it comes to everything and especially the Peace Prize! To us here at Common Sense University, the whole thing has been laughable at best and we like to dedicate this article to the absurd, the ridiculous and the utter nonsense that accompanies this decision of the Nobel Committee membership as announced by its Chairman, Thorbjoern Jagland in Oslo.

            We like to do this by listing some past and present peace advocates who never got this prestigious award and really should have. We start with former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who signed a treaty with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in September 1938 and declared afterwards and we quote: “We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire or our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.” He also said: “I believe it is peace of our time.” From history we know that World War II started eleven months later.

            We also believe that Saddam Hussein should get the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously for NOT developing atomic weapons. Yet, we could remedy this situation by awarding the 2010 Peace prize to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for developing atomic weapons for peaceful purposes. How about Lybian Leader Muammar Al-Gaddafi for offering to transfer the United Nations headquarters to his country, this is a wonderful gesture and should be awarded. With some imagination, we could also see the Taliban getting the Nobel Peace prize next year for fighting to rid Afghanistan of foreign military occupation. And how about Osama Bin Laden. With some twisting we could let him have this ‘prestigious’ award for not having blown up any skyscrapers for at least eight years. And let’s not forget North Korean leader Kim Yong Il who has sold nuclear technology worldwide to make some money in order to feed his starving people. A case could be made for him, don’t you think. There are numerous other ‘worthy’ candidates and only time will tell if we are correct.

            Enough already, so much for making fun of the Nobel Peace Price Committee members and the humor relief they have provided for people around the world and especially in America. It should make the 15 million or more unemployed people in the United States feel really good for a while and give them some hope that they will find work soon after all, Obama winning the Nobel Peace prize is a miracle. But we have one serious question for the Nobel Committee: You have given this award to a man who is at present Commander-In-Chief of American military forces who are fighting currently two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the case of Afghanistan with no end in sight unless we capitulate there and remove our troops. Did you overlook this or did you want to see this happen when you picked him this year to be the Peace award winner?

            Poor Alfred Noble, is this what he had in mind when he wanted his fortune to be used for these awards? Common Sense University thinks not but then, it’s not our money and there is nothing he can do about it either. This is definitely not the first award given for no achievements just the perception of such and it will not be the last either.

            The organization ACORN has been in the news lately in a rather dishonorable way. ACORN is an acronym for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and was established in the early 1970’s for purposes of helping and assisting the poor in getting better housing and improved wages, more community development investment from banks and governments, better public schools and other social justice issues. Sounds all very honorable and deserves praise when achieving such goals.

            Then why is such an organization in the news? For the most part, do-gooders who dedicate their lives to helping others do not make the news, whether or not in the press or on television. Must be something else then and as most of us know, it is something else that gets ACORN into the nearly daily news cycles. In the most recent national elections, ACORN concentrated largely on voter registration and assisting people to get to polling places on Election Day. Again, at first sight, there is nothing wrong with it. But then complaints were heard across the land about “voter registration fraud”. Newly registered voters lists were found to be fraudulent including the likes of Mickey and Minny Mouse and members of the Dallas Cowboys Football team in Nevada. This prompted several federal and local investigations and led not only to indictments of individual ACORN workers but also convictions in several States. For some people it was also troubling when it was made public that Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign had given about $800,000 to ACORN for ‘getting out the vote efforts’ across America. Since Barack Obama told us with pride that he had been a Community Organizer in Chicago in years past, this did not quite pass the smell test for some but it was explained as totally above board and appropriate. We here at Common Sense University do not believe that voter turn-out by ACORN was the major reason that Mr. Obama became President. But we do question if the newly seated Senator from Minnesota, comedian Al Franken did not decisively benefit from voter registration and turn-out fraud in that particular contest?

            But then came a couple of young people onto the national scene: A documentary film maker named James O’Keefe and a young journalism student named Hannah Giles. They decided one day to check into the  day-to-day inner workings of ACORN by posing as a pimp and a prostitute, seeking advise to open up a whorehouse with illegal immigrants, under-age girls from Central America. They secretly filmed their talks with ACORN staffers and it was shocking what they heard. When they published videos from various ACORN offices across America on a website last month, it was a real eye opener for most Americans. Here were these young guys, a 26-year old man and a 20 year-old girl, dressed in such ridiculously wacko clothing, they should have been asked to leave the offices right away. Instead, there were given truly detailed advise by several ACORN employees how to beat the system and cheat the government by not disclosing their true business intentions.

            While the main-stream media tried to ignore this brewing scandal at first, they eventually had to report this story when State and Federal government agencies cut their ties with ACORN and barred, at least temporarily, any additional funding for ACORN. And what was ACORN’s initial response? They denied the facts as shown on the video tapes, considered them edited and therefore false and threatened to sue the two people who made them. Then we heard that those employees on the tapes had been fired and that ACORN would now launch a detailed investigation into the matter and also re-organizing the operation.

            This is great news but it is the equivalent of ‘closing the barn door after the horses ran out.’ That should fix it, right? We do not think so because this seems to be deeper than just what we saw on those tapes and it begs the question: How many other people who visited ACORN offices were given advise as to how to beat the system, subvert the law and cheat the government? If anybody wants to believe that these five interviews were the only occasions where this happened, we have to seriously ask you on what planet you have been living?         The eagerness and willingness to “help” the “pimp and the prostitute” cannot possible be limited to those few ACORN employees in different offices from Maryland to California. This appears to be the result of some basic training and firm direction given to the work force at this community serving organization and common sense should tell us that. Combine this with voter registration fraud and other nefarious activities by this operation, we believe that this requires a very systemic and deep-rooted investigation into all their activities since they have received vast sums of money from the Federal, State and local governments. We should demand this since it is our taxes that are being used to fund these operations.

            In the meantime and until all this is all cleared up and cleaned out, we would give the acronym ACORN a different name: How about American Criminals Organizing Rapacious Nonconformists?

At least they are consistent.  The Nobel Peace Prize has lost credibility over the years but this year’s decision may be the one that kills this honor for others in the future.

            The annual ritual of the September United Nations General Assembly meetings is over for 2009 and Common Sense University has to wonder why this remains to be the much publicized event that it has been for nearly half a century. Yet compared to previous years, the 2009 event was humorous. Every year it seems, some so called “world leader” has been trying to make headlines such as when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a few years ago stated that he could still smell the sulfur while speaking a few hours after President George Bush had addressed the assembly, comparing the U.S. President to the devil.

            This years speaking marathon began on September 23 and the opening act was our very own President, Barack Obama. While United Nations protocol calls for all speeches to be about fifteen minutes long, Mr. Obama could not bring himself to set a good example. Apparently, he just could not put all his apologies to the world about America’s misdeeds of the past into such a time limit. So he spoke for 35 minutes and gave his trusted teleprompter a good workout. We have to assume that all U.N. member nations were present and that this talk was possible the final apology by our President.

            He was soon followed at the podium by the President of Libya, Moammar Quaddafi who attended this event for the first time. Was it any wonder that he had a lot to say? Of course not! He spoke for 96 minutes and drove his personal translator into total exhaustion. He looked tired since he had had apparently a hard time in the days before to find a place where the authorities let him pitch his tent. But that did not mean that he did not have to say quite a bit. For instance, he wanted the United Nations to open up an investigation into former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination back in 1963 to clarify if President Kennedy had not been a victim of a Jewish conspiracy back then. But he had more to say. He referred to Barack Obama as his son based on the fact that Obama had an African born father. He suggested to the U.N. that the Security Council should from now be called the “Terror Council”. The only thing notable he suggested with which we here at this site can sort of agree with was his suggestion that the United Nations headquarters should be moved to Libya. Parts of his rationale were the severe traffic jams in New York. All in all, it was a remarkable speech based on the fact that it was so totally irrational, ridiculous and absurd.

            Later that day, Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad took the podium and as his style, he found nothing good to say about anybody other than himself and his country. Quite a few delegations of various countries left the hall during his speech and many of them did not even show up for it in the fist place. But that did not stop him from telling everybody how evil they all were. He denied the holocaust once again and made threats against Israel and the United States as well as their allies.

            On the following day, the only substantive speech for the entire session was delivered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He challenged the United Nations membership how they could give a platform to speak in this place to a holocaust denier. He then presented visual and factual evidence that this event, the holocaust, had taken place in Europe under the Nazi dictatorship over sixty years ago. He complimented those countries whose representatives had not shown up for Ahmadenijad’s speech and those who had walked out during the speech. Then he asked those who had sat there during that speech: “Have you no shame, have you no decency?” He followed this up with a strong pitch for peace for the Israeli people and he invited all neighboring countries to come to the negotiation table to discuss this issue and he cited the fact that Israel had peace with Egypt and Jordan. He also defended the right of Israel to defend itself against attacks by its enemies.

            All other speeches paled in comparison since they all lacked substance. Hugo Chavez confirmed later that day that the sulfur smell was gone from the podium area and that it smelled like “Hope”, an apparent reference to President Obama.           

            In summary, this entire event was a farce as it has been in years past and it served no other purpose than varying degrees of ego gratification for the “world leaders” and the accompanying glamorous receptions and dinner affairs at the expense of the United Nations budget. It obviously does not matter that most speakers rule their countries like dictators, despots and tyrants, support worldwide terrorism and kill or jail political opponents in their own countries, whether or not they are complying with or openly defying United Nations protocol, rules and regulations, adhere to United Nations decisions and abide by Security Council resolutions and sanctions. That’s why we call this organization and all its operations a farce!

            It does not matter, once you are a member of the United Nations, you belong to the club and  you can give speeches in New York, do as you please at home, vent your anger at the United States of America and call this country of ours anything you want to. The nice thing about all this is that you cannot be thrown out of the U.N. and it does not cost them really too much money in terms of membership since the so called “rich” countries of the world carry the financial burden of this operation; the United States of America paying nearly a quarter of the budget, an amount of nearly five billion dollars.

            But this could change since these same country’s dictators now have someone in the White House whom they like and who has apologized for past American transgressions against them, maybe we will see a more peaceful world in the near future. But do not hold your breath. We here at this site believe the opposite will be the reality since Obama’s appeasement (apologies) policies are naïve and since appeasement has never worked in the past.

           Common Sense University wants to start this article with a question: Is there still Racism in America? The answer is simple: Yes, there is! We will end this article with an answer to the question: Where is the Racism today in America?  But let us take it one step at a time. The passage of civil rights and the voting rights laws by the Federal government in the 1960’s presented the first real foundation for racial equality. Until that time, some States in the Union had established civil rights equality for all but it was not the case in all States. The older folks among us remember the pictures of Governors blocking school doors to not let black children enter, the police dousing civil rights marchers in many places and arresting black civil rights advocates.

            These times are back well over forty years in our country’s history and the struggles to achieve true equality were hard and it took many years to see any significant results. Courts across the country decreed racial integration in schools and major busing programs of students were taking place, bussing black kids to ‘white schools’ and vice versa. The children born in those years – the 1960’s – grew up mostly in integrated environments and are now parents themselves, rearing their children and teaching them to be ‘colorblind’ when it comes to skin color as they themselves were brought up to be.

            Fast forward to the past ten or more years. There is no athlete who has the undivided adoration of people of all skin colors, not only across America but throughout the world, than Tiger Woods. Every tournament he enters, he is being followed not only by thousands of spectators around the golf course but also by millions of viewers in this country. When he wins a tournament, the people cheer and share the joy of his success, when he loses, these same people agonize with him and just hope that it will work out better the next time. He is admired and even idolized by untold millions who like to cheer him on and hope for him to break all records in professional golf and therefore become the most successful golfer of all times. And think about it: Golf is a sport where America has had hero’s in the past that were equally idolized, men such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and many like them in earlier years, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead to name just two. And guess what, they were all white men!

            Now then, why would today’s golf enthusiasts cheer for a black man to break all existing records and be the all time winningest golfer if there was still deep-rooted racism in America? The truth is: It is not no longer deep-rooted in white America, plain and simple! And it is not just Tiger Woods who enjoys this level of adoration among all people, every town in the country has local heroes who are black. For example, San Diegans admired Tony Gwynn, a baseball player for the San Diego Padres throughout his professional career and he is still held in very high esteem. The same holds true today for Ladainian Tomlinson, the star running back of the San Diego Chargers football team. There are more Gwynn and Tomlinson sports jerseys with their respective names and numbers on them by white kids in Southern California and elsewhere (not just in San Diego) than one can count. True deep seated racism would not make parents buy those jerseys for their kids.

            But it is not only in sports where we seem to have naturally integrated. Interracial marriages and dating in general everywhere is the norm, almost all workplaces in America are ‘colorblind’ if we can call it that. Identification and association by skin color only is a thing of the past. The incredible phenomenon from years past and we speak of the sixties and before called ‘white-flight’ when a black family moved into a neighborhood is just that, a phenomenon of a by-gone era. A white family is not selling their home immediately after a black family moves in next door, that too is a thing of the past.

            We could cite numerous examples where integration and with it color-blindness has been achieved in real terms and actualities, instead we want to now answer the last question as we promised above: Where is the racism today in America? It remains in the minds of black civic leaders and liberal elites, plain and simple! We have no evidence that black America in general still thinks in terms of racism, we would hope not and instead want to believe that they have begun to trust ‘white America’ as being sincere in their daily lives and not harboring any racist views and prejudicial sentiments against the black population. If it would be otherwise, what could the average white man and woman do to make them believe that they are not? How do you prove otherwise?

            Back to our statement as to who still harbors thoughts of racism. We have simply come to this conclusion on the basis of fact that they are the only ones who are still talking about it! Another reason that there are currently bringing up racism is the emerging vocal opposition to President Barack Obama. The people who are critical of him and his policies are opposed to that on the basis of their personal beliefs and not as a result of their dislike for Obama because he is a black man. Therefore, the ‘liberal elites’ conclude that they, the opponents of Obama must be racists? This is the most vile and slanderous rationale for bringing up racism in our  opinion. Barack Obama would not have been elected to the White House had it not been for millions of ‘white’ voters in all regions of America. That is acknowledged by all but they claim the facts remain that white America is still racists and they want us to believe this! And the “they” include former President Carter who would be wiser to stay mute in today’s world instead of making a fool of himself by talking this nonsense.

            Now while we can see a motive for black civic leaders to continue the racism issue, after all, their power base came and still comes from the furtherance of the black’s suffrages and so, they have to keep this alive, we have to question the sincerity of the liberal elitists. For example, why would Newsweek magazine publish an article in a recent issue that questions whether or not white babies are born racists?  In fact, they showed on their cover a picture of a small baby and asked: “Is your Baby Racist?” This is outrageous! In addition, for them to blame racism as the basis for the opposition of President Obama’s frantic efforts to overhaul the American health care system is libelous. For any of these self-proclaimed liberal know-it-alls to come out publicly and say or write so is the ultimate insult to Americans of all colors, at least, it should be! When America objected to then President Clinton’s efforts to nationalize health care in the early nineties it was not racism but now when America largely objects to President Obama’s attempts to do the same, it is? Only idiots or arrogant liberal elitists would come with that kind of illogical nonsense!

            What is shameful about all this is the fact that it does not help the general population to continue or become more be colorblind but opens up old wounds of prejudice that should be left alone. After all, the word racism is the ugliest word in America and should not be used accusatorily and in an irresponsible way to further ideological or political goals!

Wow!  This is a perfect example of a congressman exercising common sense.

Thanks Mike.

            Yes, Mr. President, you have lost credibility with a majority of the American people, they do not trust you anymore! They have heard you now numerous times on health care reform in various formats: Town hall meetings, press conferences, at gatherings at the White House and most recently addressing a joint session of Congress. And it seems, the more you talk, the less they – the average Americans – believe what you are saying. To them, it appears as if you are still on the campaign trail and using your rhetorical skills with your reliable teleprompter.

            The American public in 2008 was looking for change, this is true. They were tired of the Bush administration who, over an eight year period had according to the liberal media outlets done nothing right. And since John McCain was considered too much of a continuation of Bush policies (besides being an ineffective campaigner in comparison to you). And so, a majority of voters decided to give you a chance and pulled the lever for you in early November of last year.

            Mr. President, you are eight months in office, yes, you are the President, and we wonder when you finally will assume the burden of this esteemed office? Every speech of yours starts with a strong reminder that all of our ills in America are the result of what the previous administration did and that you inherited an incredible “mess” and that you are trying to fix it. Then, start doing it, stop talking about it! The people of America are getting awful tired of your ‘buck passing’ and are wondering: When will he stop acting this childish? Your excuses sounding more and more like the well known excuse of school children “The dog ate my home work!”

            Another thing that is grating the average citizens: You are on television more often and longer than the network anchors on ABC, CBS and NBC. And since you are still the darling of the main stream media, their cameras are rolling whenever you are seen in public. We call this OVEREXPOSURE and it is not helping you at this time. We are not psychiatrists here at this website but have to wonder if this has to do with your apparent ego gratification complex? A lot of people are now saying to themselves when they see on television: “Oh, no, is he on the tube again?” And they turn you off. We think this is reflected in your falling poll numbers after each major speech or town hall appearance. There appears to be a growing credibility gap in the minds of people when they hear you talk. We don’t have to tell you this but credibility and trust are commodities that are very easily lost but very, very hard to get back.

            Over the past few months, the American people have heard you speaking about health care reform and you have made some unbelievable statements: You have accused doctors around the country as making decisions based on profit motives. For instance: Instead of treating people for diabetes, you have suggested that doctors make more money ‘amputating’ feet at a vastly excessive price (you suggested $30,000 to $50,000 when in fact the doctors only get about $800 to $1,200 for such an operation). That is outrageous and quite indefensible! A man in your position cannot afford to make these kinds of “bloopers”.  This is the kind of stuff we laugh at and expect from Saturday Night Live but not from the President of the United States.

            Finally, your speech to the joint session of Congress contained so many falsehoods and irresponsible promises, it was in our opinion a lousy performance for a President and whether or not you yourself believe this stuff, your advisors should protect you from making these kinds of giant mistakes because this is what makes you lose the respect of the citizenry and with it credibility and their trust!

            It was all well-intentioned: President Barack Obama was to address the school children of America from Kindergarten to Grade 12 on September 8 and encourage them to do the best they could do, share some examples of his own education years and so on. And there had been precedents, Obama was not the first President to do so. President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had done so in 1988 and 1991 respectively.

            Nobody questioned this initially but then it became known that the federal Department of Education had or was about to issue to all school teachers so called “Lesson plans”, a two-page outline for grades K through 6 and a four-page plan for grades 7 through 12. In it were the following suggestions for the students to respond to after they heard the President speak: 

• What is the President trying to tell me?
• What is the President asking me to do?
• What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
• What specific job is he asking me to do?
• Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
• Write down about what you can do to help the President?

 ….and there were many more such ’suggestions’ to teachers from the Department of Education. When this became better known across the country, there was a resulting loud response from parents. They considered this outrageous and responded the only way they could by announcing that they would keep their children home from school that day. Responding to this, the Department of Education issued revised ‘lesson plan’ suggestions as in one particular issue. They changed the sentence relating to “helping the President” to “Why is it important to listen to your elected officials?

            These revisions were slightly less ‘offensive’, yet the damage had been done. One has to wonder why the brains in the Department of Education even considered such lesson plans? Are they so arrogant and ‘all-knowing’ that they did not think that the children of those sixty million citizens who did NOT vote for Obama might have heard from their parents opposing view points as to those of the President? Why not just leave it with the address by the President to the school children instead of injecting some “follow-up” action and discussions?

            Did they not recognize the tremendous uproar across the United States during August when thousands of concerned citizens energetically protested President Obama’s health care reform plans (resulting in the falling poll number for Obama) only to follow it up with a speech to all students coupled with some follow-up actions by the kids? These people must be blinded by their power and simply keep on pushing in the wrong direction.

            Speaking for myself here, I was born in the 1930’s in Germany and know from my own experience how easy it is to “indoctrinate” children. I am asking myself: How long will it be before the Democrat Party controlled Congress passes and the President signs into law that there will be a picture of the President in every classroom in America? This could then be followed in due time with a slightly changed version of the ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ that could then be changed from ‘One nation under God’ to “One nation under President Obama’.

            I realize this will make many people cringe and others will simply declare me crazy. Let me all remind you that Adolf Hitler’s picture was not placed in every classroom on the day he became Chancellor (Kanzler) of Germany but very shortly thereafter. We should all stay vigilant and be alert and speak up loudly when things like this happen in our great country!

             Simply for the record, we like to state here: While there was opposition to President Obama’s speech to all school children, primarily from parents and local school officials but not the Republican party in general, back in 1991, the Democrats in Congress – being in the majority at that time – raised major objections to President George H. W. Bush’s speech to school children and even held public hearings in Congress on this and investigated the issue challenging its constitutionality. In our opinion, “what’s good for the goose, should be good for the gander.” It seems, the Democrats have never heard this before, or maybe, certain rules do not apply to them. We call this hypocritical, plain and simple!