The two major campaign promises by Barack Obama were Change (in various forms) and Hope. He promised at every event that he would change Washington D.C. and the way things had been done there in the past. He would bring ethics back to the White House, there would be no room for lobbyists in his administration and no lobbyist would have access or influence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He promised total transparency in all his actions, he would not sign one single bill without having it posted on websites so that the American people could see and review its content. He promised a new era of bi-partisanship, all part of his “Change” theme. He would bring ‘Change, we can believe in” and fundamentally change America. He said that he knew he could bring people of all stripes together and therein unite the country after those terrible eight years of the previous administration.          

            And then there was “Hope“. He promised hope for every American who needed help of any kind. He would cut taxes for 95 percent of the people in this country (which is an incredible promise when one considers that about 40 plus percent of the people do not pay any income taxes). He also promised to ‘spread the wealth around’ and that meant real hope for the downtrodden. He promised last summer to bring the high prices of gasoline down with his energy policies. (Needless to say, they came down without his help). And so, he got elected, there were enough people who believed him and his messages/promises and they voted for him. In all, about 62 million persons compared to the 56 million who voted for John McCain.

            He utilized the time between November and his inauguration to build his cabinet and he and his team transitioned with the Bush administration very effectively. At first glance, his cabinet selections all appeared capable and experienced individuals and he hailed every one of them as the most qualified ones to serve this country as member of his administration. And on January 20, 2009, he became the 44^th President of the United States of America. He rode a huge wave of popularity not just here but around the world.

            But now came the reality: He had to govern! He asked Congress to expeditiously approve his cabinet nominees and they tried very hard to do so. But, as we found out, a few candidates were not all that squeaky clean. For example, the new Secretary of the Treasury had not paid income taxes for a few recent years! Ooops, the man in charge of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) simply forgot to pay taxes on portions of his income over four years. But he remedied the situation by paying them post haste and since he, Mr. Timothy Geithner was the only man qualified to be in this position, the Senate confirmed him. Then we found out that the candidate to run the Health & Human Service Department, Mr. Tom Daschle, also had not paid his taxes on some income in previous years and he took himself out of contention for this job. The President then appointed a Republican Senator, Judd Gregg from New Hampshire, as Commerce Department Secretary. After initially accepting the appointment, Mr. Gregg took himself out of contention as well. And there were a few others who also rescinded their nominations.

            We could continue here and write about the “former lobbyists” who are now in high level positions in the Obama administration, even though the President had vigorously campaigned to not appoint any. But the major focus in the past weeks was the Obama stimulus package, called the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He had asked Congress to get this bill on his desk by President’s Day. He provided some guidelines (not a complete stimulus proposal) but left the drafting on these bills to the members of Congress. The House of Representatives came up initially with an $820 billion proposal that was voted on along party lines (Democrats for, Republicans against), the Senate settled on a bill for slightly less than $800 billion and the consolidation of the two versions settled at $787 billion. This is a thousand-plus page bill that no member of Congress read before voting on it! While nearly all Democrats voted for it, all House Republicans voted against it and only three out of the 41 Republican Senators voted for it with all the Democrats in the Senate.    The President signed the measure on February 17 and hailed it as a major achievement by Congress. It would provide, as he said, the funds necessary to create 3.5 million jobs in America over the next two years. He also said that this bill was just the beginning! To us, this means he will come back for more if the millions of jobs are not created!

            Now then, we asked: Why does it take over $200,000 ($787B/3.5M people) to create a job that might not pay more than $40 to 50,000 per year? We do not have the answer to this question! But our biggest disappointment in Mr. Obama so far is his change in rhetoric. When he campaigned, he promised change and hope and yet for three weeks until the stimulus bill was hastily voted on by Congress, he predicted doom and gloom and catastrophic consequences for America if this bill would not be passed. You are talking about a complete switch from lofty rhetoric (while campaigning) to constant fear-mongering (as new President). He predicted potentially irreversible trends towards permanent recession and even depression! He compared the current times to the “Great Depression” some seventy years ago. To us, having lived through several economic downtowns in the past, this is nothing more than hype and complete nonsense. To be quite honest, we here at CSU are not impressed with that performance by our new President! He sounded at times like a spoiled child wanting to get his wish and throwing temper tantrums when getting it was in doubt.

            Since the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will eventually amount to several trillion dollars (with interest and continuation of inherent Federal programs), you can look at it as having been burdened by Mr. Obama with a ‘nice’ addition to your obligations as future tax payers, probably to the tune of $10,000. And that is just this one bill.

From Hope to Fear – Campaigning versus Governing is a post from: Common Sense University

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            But then the slippery slope to credit and lending started and mortgages with ‘balloon’ payment were introduced. Or a ten percent down payment was acceptable and a ninety percent mortgage was agreed to or a second mortgage for the ten percent was negotiated at a lower interest rate. And so it went. In addition, over many years, the social foundation in America changed dramatically with such ‘wonderful’ introductions as Affirmative Action and even more so, ‘Victimhood’, an avoidance of responsibility. Nobody seems to be responsible for their own action anymore.

            Enter Freddie Mac (Federal Home Mortgage Corporation) and Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association). While the latter was established in 1938 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his New Deal and to establish local banks with federal money to finance home mortgages in an attempt to raise levels of home ownership and the availability of affordable housing. Thirty years later, another Democrat President, Lyndon B. Johnson converted the two companies into Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE’s) and they have operated as private enterprises and have been owned by shareholders, they are protected financially by the support of the Federal Government. These government protections include access to a line of credit through the U.S. Treasury, exemption from state and local income taxes and exemption from SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) oversight. Both, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the only two Fortune 500 companies that are not required to inform the public about any financial difficulties they may have. Their combined dept is estimated to be equal to nearly fifty percent of the national debt. In numbers, that is about five trillion dollars.  Origins of Freddie and Fannie.

            With no SEC oversight, it fell upon Congress to monitor these two companies; and in hindsight, Congress did a lousy job. When Republicans in general including the President as well as Fed Chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke asked for more oversight and regulations in light of some accounting scandals that became public knowledge in recent years, Democrats in Congress stopped their efforts repeatedly! They had an obvious motive: They wanted to protect prominent CEO’s of those companies who were Democrats and who had raided the companies and walked away with millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses. Case in point, Franklin Raines walked away with ninety million dollars during his six-year reign of Fannie Mae. The Democrats also wanted to continue the loose lending practices by Freddie and Fannie to continue in an effort to promote what we call ‘Social engineering’. When banks were pressured to provide mortgages to truly unqualified buyers – no down payment in cash – no way to make the mortgage payments – it was the beginning of the current crisis. The house of cards had to collapse eventually and now it has!

            So then, who is to blame? We know one thing for certain the American taxpayer will be burdened with the rescue. As we have witnessed, the U.S. Government has stepped in and taken on nearly a trillion dollars between the bailouts of AIG and others as well as the recently passed and signed “Rescue Plan” to allow the government to buy back bad loans and to encourage and stimulate the markets to lend money again on Wall Street, in other World financial markets and elsewhere. The Democrats in Congress have promised to investigate as to where blame for this mess can be assigned. Does anybody truly think that they will point the finger at themselves as long as they have President Bush to blame (even after he will be out of office)? They will not! So then, should we blame the people who signed for the loans knowing full well that they could not pay the mortgages back? Of course not, they were the ‘victims’ in this scandal, they were taken advantage of by greedy lenders and bankers. How about the lenders and bankers? Their defenses for these irresponsible lending practices will be that they were threatened by government agencies such as HUD (Urban Housing and Development), Freddie and Fannie and others to make these loans. How about real estate speculators and investors who bought houses on the cheep with low-adjustable loans and who renting these houses out and had the renters pay the mortgages? They walked away from their investments when interest rates increased and they could not get higher rents from their renters and that is how the overwhelming increase in foreclosures started and continued. But we cannot blame them, “they were trying to make a buck”.

            There is only one answer to the question whom to blame: It is ourselves! You and I, we the people of America let it happen. We the people allowed our elected officials to lead us onto this slippery slope of social engineering, equal opportunity for all, achieving the American dream and so on. Old values be damned, forget about common sense and individual responsibility. The intent is to share the dream with everybody. The only answer to this dilemma is to send Congress a very strong message: Do not vote for the incumbents this year! This might hurt some good ones but don’t worry about it, there are very few of them right now in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Let us all send a strong message and change Congress by voting for Non-Incumbents. They will recognize that they have two years (in the House) and six years (Senate) respectively to change things for the better of America and to get us back to the way things were once upon a time with such virtues as responsibility and personal accountability for actions taken.

The Background of Today’s Financial Mess is a post from: Common Sense University

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• The Obama/Biden team leads in national polls by an average of five to six percentage points and in the Electoral College vote category, the lead is overwhelming. We here at this site have in the past repeatedly stated that polls cannot truly be trusted since they are so easily manipulated by the pollsters yet the media presents them as factual and the American voter is inundated daily with new poll numbers. We give you just one example: In 2003, the so called neutral and respected Field poll in California had Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante in the lead over Arnold Schwarzenegger by nearly 15 percentage points just a few days before that election. Yet, Schwarzenegger won by nearly 15 percent, this is a thirty percent swing and yet with idiotic post-election explanations and rationale, the Field poll in California maintains its reputation as a reliable poll by the media. Incredible, yet true! The daily poll barrage in the media could have an impact on swaying undecided voters to go to Obama since this is all they hear,
• America’s mainstream media is nearly completely in the tank for the Democrat ticket, they are on television daily and are even bold enough to openly say so (even though there are four weeks to go until the election). Last week, the political news director for NBC, Chuck Todd stated happily “all trend lines are in Obama’s favor”. It was obvious for all who heard him, that he was delighted. Even though it has been removed, at the same time, a video was released wherein children were singing the praises of Barack Obama as our new leader. It was initially reported that Hollywood producers including the President of NBC Universal, Mr. Jeff Zucker had financed this video but this charge has since been denied by those initially mentioned. In addition, the media refuses to be critical of whatever lies and falsehoods Barack Obama or Joe Biden state on the campaign trail or during debates. As an example, Joe Biden told more than ten lies in his debate with Sarah Palin on October 2, yet nobody called him out on it yet Sarah Palin mispronounced the name of the General currently leading the war in Afghanistan (she called him McClellan instead of McKiernan) and that was a major mistake on her part according to the pundits,
• It is factual that a nationwide organization called ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now) has been registering voters in huge numbers and is under investigation in several States for criminal activities such as falsifying such records and voter lists. In fact, some of their members have been found guilty of fraud etc and been even sent to jail. All you have to do is Google ‘ACORN’ and you will find out more about them and their activities. Even though Barack Obama claims that he was never a member of ACORN or had anything to do with them, he nonetheless prides himself of having been a ‘Community Organizer’ before he became an elected official in the Illinois State Senate and the United States Senate. Yet we are to believe that there is absolutely no connection there, even though it is a known fact that ACORN members have been very open in their support for the Democrat party and Barack Obama in particular,
• While ‘Guilt by Association’ is not ever applicable to Democrats, it definitely applies to the Republican ticket, we are constantly reminded that a McCain presidency would be a ‘third Bush term.’ In other words, guilt by association applies with Republicans! Yet Barack Obama’s previous long-term associations with the hate-spewing pastor Dr. Jeremiah Wright in Chicago or the convicted felon Tony Rezko and former terrorist Ayers cannot be held against Obama. At the same time, we hear that John McCain who voted against many of President Bush’s proposals and also has a long record of voting independently and even against his own party, will be nothing more than an extension of the current administration. Never mind the facts, folks! Never mind that McCain wants to bring and effect changes and substantial reforms to Washington D.C., should he be elected President. His proposals have been very specific in some ways. That is nothing more than empty campaign rhetoric according to the experts. Yet Barack Obama is talking about ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ without specificity and that is the real thing!

            There are probably several other convincing arguments why an Obama victory is certain, but the four listed above should suffice for our prediction. We here at Common Sense Politics are deeply saddened by the fact that as a country, we have been so manipulated by an industry called MEDIA that cannot give us facts without opinion, by slanting all reporting and proposing lifestyle adjustments under the guise of tolerance.

            Yet, for purposes of clarification, we have to state in conclusion that we here will not be swayed by their actions and propaganda; we still believe that the Presidency will be decided on November 4, 2008. We will not accept a result any other way even though the odds are getting very much longer for a fair and honest election. Voter fraud has been fact in the past and it appears to be even more likely in more places than ever before this year. And that is shameful!

The Fix is in to Help Obama become President is a post from: Common Sense University

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            Now then, let us look at what her introduction on the national scene has got them, the liberals and their fanatical friends, so upset by this woman: Let’s begin with some facts; Sarah Palin at age 44 is a self-made woman who gave birth to five children ranging in age from 19-year old son Track who is currently serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq to a five-months old boy Trig who has Downs Syndrome. She joined the PTA in her home town Wassilla in Alaska, she was elected to the City Council and also the Mayor of this small town, later on served as Chairman of Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and in 2006 was elected Governor of that State. She is Conservative, Pro-Life (Anti Abortion), a member of the NRA (National Rifle Association) and has brought significant change to Alaska’s politics as usual in that she has signed strong ethics reform, lowered taxes for individuals and small businesses, raised taxes on the Oil Companies there and sent refund checks to all Alaska residents from that money. She also has negotiated the construction of a nearly 40 billion-dollar gas pipeline project.

            At first glance, she is a woman who has achieved success in politics, local and State government and one would assume that the liberal feminism movement in America would idolize her and hold her in high esteem. But that is not the case! She is being attacked and demonized by the very group that has been preaching that women are equal to men and have long been waiting for the day when a women would finally ascend to the highest offices in the land: The Presidency and the Vice-Presidency.

            So what then is their problem with her, we might ask? Why are they so fiercely aligned against her and have so far and will continue to attack, smear and malign her in this hateful and unjust fashion? There is only one reason for that: Sarah Palin is a Pro-Life Conservative! She therefore does not fit their ideals of liberalism and feminism; it is as simple as that! We here at this site look at this in sheer wonderment.  Do the liberals and feminists truly believe that a woman who has demonstrated her abilities in effective management and attained executive experience yet opposes abortion is not qualified for higher office? Are they really this narrow minded or is it fanaticism at its worst? It lacks total credulity and common sense, yet how else can one explain their attacks on Sarah Palin? It is the highest form of hypocrisy when achievement by an individual is only measured through the spectrum of abortion as it relates to this kind of baby killing. They think of it as being “Pro-Choice” and call it ‘a woman’s right to choose’. Sarah Palin had a choice when she was told that her youngest son was diagnosed as being afflicted with Downs Syndrome, yet she decided to be against abortion and gave birth to this baby. Was it not her right to choose life over death (of the baby)? It is sheer hypocrisy on the part of Liberals and Feminists to say otherwise and exposes them for what they are, fanatics

            Maybe these terms, Pro-Life and Pro-Choice should be eliminated and replaced by Pro- and Anti-Abortion, because that is what it is, pure and simple! Liberals and Feminists also think that maintaining the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe versus Wade, a Federal mandate for abortion rights is of the greatest importance for America, even more important as National Security or anything else. They will accuse any person with Pro-Life opinions as forcing women to have ‘back alley abortions’ in the future if Roe vs. Wade should be overturned by the Supreme Court at any time. This is of course sheer nonsense in that such overturning of existing law would simply result in individual States having the right to allow such procedures under State Law. But we will never hear Liberals and Feminists talk in those terms and recognize these truths, they rather lie about it and become vicious in their fight to preserve this Supreme Court ruling in 1973.

            It is for us here totally unacceptable and we cannot therefore have any respect for liberals and feminists, this has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence (as sometimes expressed in I.Q.’s) or slanted viewpoints, this is hate-filled narrow-mindedness and should be rejected for that alone by all who consider themselves objective and rational. We think that this is a great time to put the focus on these people and expose them for who they are. Common sense thinkers should speak up the next time individuals get viciously attacked when they do not share the belief system of Liberals and Feminists. We should all understand what Supreme Court Justice nominations in Congress are all about, in one simple word: Abortion! If a nominee is supporting Roe v. Wade, he or she will get approved with great fanfare. But when someone is Conservative, even without expressing an opinion on abortion rights as was the case for recent appointees to the Supreme Court, Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, the fight is on with all weapons and means possible, the dirt digging is reprehensible and should be called that.

            Does anybody remember the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas in 1991? While Liberals have always publicly declared that they are friends of all minorities in this country, they will fight anybody who does not fit their mindset and ideology and then it does not matter if the person is white, black, Hispanic or anything else for that matter. Smearing and viciously maligning of Conservatives is their number One purpose in life it seems and rationale, courtesy and tolerance is thrown away when it comes to that. Sarah Palin is simply the most recent example on the national stage to receive this ugly treatment from Liberals and their ideological friends. Since the vast majority of the media is admittedly liberal, it should not surprise anybody why so much vicious nonsense and negative scrutiny is said and written about Sarah Palin. Has anybody wondered why Barack Obama did not receive this close scrutiny when he came onto the national scene? Did the media travel en mass to Chicago and look into his background and years of being a community organizer? We know they did not! And we believe to know the reason: He shared their ideological mindset, clear evidence of their hypocrisy!

The Hypocrisy of Liberalism, again! is a post from: Common Sense University

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Congresswoman Maxine Waters threatening to socialize oil in a way that few can.  The power to usurp is a right of every congresswomen named Maxine, isn’t it?

Maxine Waters and Oil is a post from: Common Sense University

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As always happens when oil company profits are high, Congress calls the CEO’s of the major oil companies ‘on the carpet’, inviting them to testify under oath before congressional committees to explain their profits and to defend themselves against charges of ‘price fixing’. These kinds of hearings are spectacles in that the representatives attempt to be smarter than the company executives while trying to ask questions they themselves do not even understand and this year, the oil company execs fired back and did not allow themselves to be insulted and cornered as the main culprits behind the high oil and gasoline prices.

And they have to be congratulated for keeping their cool when some questions really bordered on libel. For example, Democrat representative Debbie Wassermann Schultz from Florida asked the CEO of Exxon/Mobil:” I can’t say that there is evidence that you are manipulating the price, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not.” Without going into the carefully crafted response to this statement, we here at www.considercommonsense.com cannot understand the people who vote these types of individuals to represent them in Congress.

We firmly believe that it is time to end this unrealistic ‘reality show’ called Congress and we mean both, the House of Representatives and the Senate, all 535 persons! They are obsessed with finding culprits who they can blame for anything that is or appears wrong in America. They are not interested in the truth or in facts, they talk about solutions that are totally wacky and unrealistic. Let’s take one example of their so called ‘solutions: Windfall profits tax. This means that oil company profits can be taxed again when they, the profits, are allegedly too high. Our previous article showed that the profit of oil companies amounted to 15.7 cents per gallon in 2007. Even when increased to current prices, the prices would rise only to 22.4 cents per gallon. O.k., then take their profits and what does it do to the price of a gallon of gas at the pump currently in California? It brings it down from $4.35 to $4.126, big deal! It still is well over $4.00 per gallon.

Now then, Congress, what do you want to do now? Two presidential candidates, Clinton and McCain proposed to eliminate the federal taxes on a gallon of gas for the summer months and that proposal was dead on arrival. No way, can Congress agree to that. So, what did they do? They voted to authorize the Justice Department to sue OPEC to increase oil production! It is impossible for us common sense thinking individuals to comprehend the mindset of these people, led by the Democrat leadership in Congress. The price for a gallon of gas is over $4.00 and the solution as far as the Congressional leadership is concerned, is suing OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. And how soon will that bring us results? What if these countries say: We will stop selling oil to the USA as long as the lawsuit is going on? Will that bring the price of oil down? Do you realize what utter nonsense this is?

Back to reality: The real culprits are sitting in Congress, all 535 of them! They have been sent to Washington D.C. to represent us people and our interests and well-being, but in fact they are harming our interests and are in fact hurting us. Now you might say that this is not fair to some of them in Congress but we cannot differentiate at this time since those individuals are not speaking up loud enough and are simply voting ‘NO’ and think they did their job. We cannot agree with nor accept that, the least they could do is scream loud enough when nonsense is approved in Congress.

Now then, why are we calling Congress the real culprits? The answer is very simple, they are the ones that have voted against any additional exploration for oil in America. Be it in Alaska or the continental shelves in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans or the extraction of shale oil in those vast deposits of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Congress has been afraid to vote in a plurality in favor of any oil drilling because of the environmentalist movement in our country, nor have there been any new oil refineries built in America for over thirty years. After all, the oil as it comes out of the ground is not refined enough to put into our gas tanks. The only thing that has happened during the past three decades is the expansion of existing oil refineries but that has not been adequate to keep up with the demand. The population in America has grown by 80 million since 1978, an increase of about a third in people and does anybody seriously think that demand does not go up?

Let us demonstrate this with another example: Let us assume that for whatever dumb reason Congress decides that there will be no additional bakeries build in America. This means, the existing ones have to continue to make bread for the general population. While the exiting bakeries can be worked around the clock, there comes a time when bread production is maximized, yet the demand keeps going up and more and more people want to eat bread. Sorry, says Congress, eat something else (can you make the correlation to alternate energy sources?) but we will not allow to increase (refine) more bread production (gasoline). Does this make any sense? Of course not! It is utter nonsense but Congress is the place that got us into this mess, they are the real culprits in this particular crisis and this truth is unfortunately not fully known to the general public. They are the ones that ‘bottle-neck’ this country by forcing us, the electorate, to change our freedoms and lifestyles to what they think it should be. A liberal media has been and is continuing to play along with Congress and shade the facts.

We here at Common Sense Politics think that it will probably take $5 to $6 or even higher prices for a gallon of gas before the general public wakes up and sends stronger messages to Congress. The best one of course would be not re-electing the current representatives and voting for candidates who understand the simple facts of supply and demand and will do things to correct things the way they are right now.

Congressional Culprits Revealed is a post from: Common Sense University

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Bush continued and we quote “There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It’s natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21^st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

It did not take more than a few hours and the media in America went ballistic and also the Democrat front-runner candidate Barack Obama and several other Democrat politicians. They questioned the President’s motives for making this kind of statement and accused him of politicizing foreign policy and launching a false political attack against Obama.

Now, let’s look at the facts and analyze this:

• America has classified Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organization and also called Iran and Syria countries sponsoring and supporting terrorists,
• Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited a few months ago Syria and met with their President Al-Assad to conduct some foreign policy of her own against the advise of the State Department and she accomplished nothing,
• Former President Jimmy Carter recently visited with the leaders of Hamas against the advise of the State Department and achieved absolutely nothing,
• Democrat candidate Barack Obama has several times declared that he as President would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela without preconditions,
• President Bush did not mention anybody by name in his speech in Israel, not Pelosi, Carter or Obama.

We have to ask now: Based on the facts above, does the President not have reason to make these statements and a perfect right to do so? We say: Yes, he does because it is based on facts! His words hit an obvious sore spot with these folks and especially Barack Obama but we say to them: If the shoe fits…wear it!  Hanging in many classrooms throughout America are signs reading:  You are responsible for your actions.  Can anybody explain why it is perfectly all right for the likes of Pelosi and Carter to visit with foreign leaders and terrorists who are telling their people to shout ‘Death to America’ at every opportunity and even undercut (maybe even sabotage) the President’s role in representing this country? Why is it wrong to address certain statements that Senator Obama has made on foreign policy matters and for that matter question the wisdom of it? At the same time, it is perfectly correct for the media and Democrats to refer to President Bush’s foreign policy as ‘cowboy diplomacy’.

We here at Common Sense Politics strongly believe that these things should not be one-sided and once again, it shows the bias of the majority of the media membership in favor of the liberals in general and the Democrats in particular. We realize that the word ‘appeasement’ must feel like a dagger in the heart of liberals as it reflects a certain weakness on their part when it comes to security and protection of America. We also know that it hurts when one is confronted with facts.

And one more thing for purposes of truth and accuracy, the U.S. Senator, President Bush quoted in his speech was a Republican from Idaho. Yes, these words were said by Senator William Edgar Borah in September 1939 after Hitler’s armies invaded Poland. His quote has been used plenty of times by various people when citing it as evidence of alleged naïveté of attempts to negotiate with one’s enemies. So then, President Bush quotes a Republican Senator and the Democrats go crazy in response. All we can conclude from that is that the ‘Shoe must fit!’

If the shoe fits, Mr. Obama…wear it! is a post from: Common Sense University

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Common Sense anchored rationale tells us that by definition: “If something has to be protected, then it must be threatened!” And who have the environmentalists in this country and for that matter, around the world, protected? Animals of all types, the lands and oceans, water and air and so on. And whom did they have to protect them from? The Human race! These folks, the Environmentalists are convinced that there is only one culprit on planet Earth, the Human being! We have to concede, that there has been abuse of the environment by people in many ways, be it industrial abuses, dirtying the waterways, excessive indiscriminate cutting of forests etc. but we believe that environmental awareness campaigns over the past decades have produced positive results throughout the population in that we recycle products from paper to plastics, glass and more.

So, why then do the environmentalists support extremes on their own? And we mean very specifically the extreme measures that result in punishment to us humans? Since they claim to be the protectors of the environment, why would they intentionally harm us, are we not part of the environment? What the environmentalists apparently believe is that we are the number one enemy on this planet and therefore have to be fought and even brought down. To develop and sustain this strong attitude, one has to be beyond dislike towards something, this is hate! At least, it is in our opinions. When we at Consider Common Sense, as residents in ever growing Southern California are being told that we have to conserve water in our daily lives that is one thing, but when the efforts by private industry and local governments to produce more water by means of desalination plants are being fought tooth and nail by environmentalists because some little fishes might get killed in small numbers, we call that extreme to the point of being hate based. As residents here, we have no power to stop the increase in population; Southern California is a very desirable place to live for a variety of reasons. We also have no impact on the weather in general; we depend on the snow pack in the Sierras in Northern California, water from the Colorado River and the amount of rain we are getting every year for our water supply. We have the infrastructure to supply water to every home and place but if there is no water, it becomes meaningless.

Do the environmentalists care? Not one iota! And when a solution is found such as the planned desalination plant in Carlsbad, California, they will do anything to stop, delay or even deny such a project! And nobody should even try to suggest that it is the concern for protection of some fishes that might perish as a result of such a plant. This is very clearly more than being a protector of animals etc., this is pure hatred for an enemy! When you do not care what happens to people in general and only advise conservation by ignoring other factors, when you will do anything in your power and fight to alleviate a serious problem to an elementary quality of life issue, such as a solution in the increase of potable water to the growing population in a region, you are no longer protectors of whatever, you are extremists motivated by unknown reasons and filled with Hate towards the Human Race.

A similar point could be made about the supply of oil in this country. It is a well-known fact, that there has not been an oil refinery built in the past thirty years in America while demand has shot up drastically based on population growth and industrial output. Drilling for more oil has also effectively been stopped by governments and environmentalist groups, the same holds true for nuclear power plants. And now that we pay $4.00 for a gallon of gasoline and experience severe increases in food prices and other goods, we complain? Have we not seen this coming? Is this truly a surprise? Hello, where have you been or the question should be asked: Why are you so ignorant of basic facts and common sense? We can only blame ourselves for the conditions we find ourselves in and we should have the collective will to do something about it by going after those people that have been working for decades to bring us to this point, the environmentalists, and the haters of mankind! Why are their motives and actions so sacrosanct that nobody can even question them? What will it take for the general population of America to wake up to these facts? Is it $5.00 for a gallon of gas or do we have to wait until it goes up to $10.00 per gallon?

Common sense should tell us not to wait that long but to take affirmative action now, tell our lawmakers in Washington D.C. and throughout the country to get real and change laws to allow alleviating measures for our crises that we face today and that will get worse in the years to come if nothing is being done about it.

Environmentalists’ Hypocrisy is a post from: Common Sense University

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But this is not what this article is all about. In fact, we are starting a new chapter here at Common Sense Authors where we like to focus on who we consider real American Idols. We are talking about persons who have maintained their skills and reputations by remaining successful achievers over a great number of years. And yet their successes have not altered their basic personalities or their demeanors. Success has not spoiled them. Our criteria for being such an ‘Idol’ was grounded in their character, achievements, attitudes and consistency over a long period of time, not just for a year or two. They all have lived exemplary lives, in public as well as in private. They all have maintained public personas free of scandal and hype. And while we could have come up with a longer list had we included individuals who have passed away, we felt it necessary to differentiate with the annual American Idol show winners and therefore selected only living Idols as we see them.

We intentionally limited our list to just three individuals but we will add to this list in the future. Our Real American Idols in alphabetical order are:

• Bill Gates
• David Petraeus
• Tiger Woods

An entrepreneur/businessman, a Military Leader/Four-Star General and a professional golfer/Number One in his sport, all three supremely successful in their respective fields, good family men and men with character, discipline, generosity and yet humble in their demeanor and appearance. These three individuals are being idolized by millions and we have to say, rightfully so. This is especially true for Tiger Woods since he has great television exposure on about 15 to 20 weekends in any given year. He has turned hundreds of thousands if not millions of youngsters into golfing fans and has shown them in his demeanor that excellence can be achieved by many individuals, but only through hard work and consistency and with a great deal of integrity.

Bill Gates’s lifetime achievements are very well known and the world is using his software programs on a daily basis. Many others have emulated him for nearly thirty years, many of them successfully. He has been for many years the richest man on the planet and yet he has maintained his humble personality throughout the years. He has been seen at various places taking his wife and children to the movies or amusement parks such as Legoland in Carlsbad etc. Yet after all his successes Gates is still working on new inventions when it comes to information and especially communication technology while at the same time being strongly involved with his wife Melinda to improve lives of millions of people in many countries around the world by giving generously to causes from fighting starvation, diseases and life improvement projects.

General David Petraeus is a man of exceptionable character and strength. He dedicated his life to serving his country in the military, after graduating from West Point in 1974 he has moved up through the ranks over more than thirty years, he is married and he and his wife of 33 years have two grown children. He is currently commander of the multi-national forces in Iraq and has very successfully executed a military turn-around by implementing a counterinsurgency strategy he had developed a few years ago. He is unflappable in the face of criticism whether warranted or not and has shown his strength during televised hearings in Congress last September and again a week ago.

It is very easy to find out more about these three gentlemen by way of search engines or other means. To us here, they are Class Acts and therefore Real American Idols!

Real ‘American Idols’ is a post from: Common Sense University

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Every day, ten men go out to drink beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. Paying the bill as we pay our taxes, they agreed to pay as follows:
     The first four men (the poorest) pay nothing,
     The fifth man pays $1,
     The sixth man pays $3,
     The seventh man pays $7,
     The eighth man pays $12,
     The ninth man pays $18,
     And the tenth man (the richest) pays $59.

That’s what these guys decided to do and they came into the bar every day and drank $100 worth of beer and seemed quite happy with the arrangement. Until the day when the bar owner said to them: “You have been such steady customers, I am going to reduce the daily bill to $80 for the beer you drink.”

The group decided to continue to pay the bill on the same percentage basis as before, this resulted in the following:
     The first four men still drank beer for free as before,
     The fifth man now also paid nothing,
     The sixth man paid $2 instead of $3,
     The seventh man now paid $5 instead of $7,
     The eighth man now paid $9 instead of $12,
     The ninth man now paid $14 instead of $18
     And the tenth man paid $49 instead of $59.

Everybody now paid less for their beers and the first four guys still paid nothing as before. When they left the bar, they compared their saving and the sixth man said ”I only got one dollar out of the $20 while he (the tenth man) got $10 back, that’s not fair” and so they beat him up!

The next day, the tenth man did not show up and when it came to paying the bill, they discovered something important and realized they did not even have enough money for half the bill.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls is how our tax system works. The people who pay the most in taxes get the most benefits from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking beer overseas where the atmosphere is friendlier.
     For those of you who understand this, no explanation is needed!
     For those of you who do not understand, no explanation is possible!

Why not make this simple lesson part of the education curriculum in America so that our kids would not become victims to class-warfare in the future and grow up hating the rich? We can always hope!

Bar Stool Economics is a post from: Common Sense University

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