From the blog Abiding, by Shellie Tomlinson

Written by her son-in-law these words express perfectly just what happened, and what that means. Pigs really do fly…

http://shellietomlinson.blogspot.com/2010/02/pigs-have-flown.html

You will be missed.

R.I.P. MP3

Missing the point…

Something tells me they are still missing the point. President Obama wasted little time trying to explain that he had got the message from Massachusetts Election of Scott Brown. Jobs jobs jobs, he said. That’s the reason. He just hadn’t adequately explained just how many jobs he’s created, or, once again, the voter hadn’t understood just how bad the Bush administration had effected the world and he just hadn’t been able to overcome the deep deep hole we’d been left in by the past policies of said administration.

Somehow he missed that that wasn’t the point of what it was that ruined the dreams of keeping Kennedy’s seat as a liberal entitlement and legacy to Teddy. What happened was the voters got fed up. Fed up with ALL of it. The back room deals. The tossing of billions and trillions of dollars out, trying to buy progress. Giving away the house on healthcare. The appearance of open and outright bribing fellow senators for votes. The hiding behind closed doors, then telling us his is the most open administration in history, which is obvious to even the oblivious that its not so. Trying to place the blame of it all on Bush. Even the press blinked at most of that.

People are mad about the huge bailouts. Tossing good money after bad. It’s OUR money after all. And the final writing of that policy was yours Mr. Obama. Yours and the democrats in congress. Republicans not allowed, remember? And it’s scary to think that our government can virtually take over a huge corporation and a President can force a change of who runs it instead if its stockholders.

The people ARE mad that you haven’t created the jobs you claimed you would. You’ve spent trillions and you said that would save jobs, yet unemployment steadily climbs. You’ve even resorted to changing the way jobs are reported to try and make you look better. It didn’t work.

We expected a legitimate attempt at addressing the needs of so many with healthcare, not a government coup of the industry. Sure, you did a lot to give things away, but you never attacked the reasons for the problems in the first place. And nobody has a clue what all this will actually cost. Not now, or in the future. And playing political games to get it done makes us all wonder what we are really getting. It looks too much like a political smorgasbord of patronage and payoffs than sound policy and legislation.

Congress made a game out of banking and lending with forcing banks to make loans to people that couldn’t afford them, and in fighting off regulation that would hurt programs put in place to help “constituents”. It was the democrats that fought those regulations, not Bush and the republicans. It was you and yours who built the problems into the housing market and set it up for collapse. The failures in that industry is on your shoulders, yet you want to place the blame, first on Bush, and now on the Banks. There is a saying now – “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Well, don’t hate the banks for playing the game you yourself had great part in setting up Mr. President. You were right there in the beginning on that.

On openness in government you even left the press scratching their collective heads at the answers your spokesman gave when inquiries were made as to why you weren’t living up to the many promises you made to have the healthcare debate open to the world on C-SPAN. Do you not think we noticed that everything was being done behind closed doors. Almost everything you do is behind closed doors. Proclaiming your openness doesn’t make it so. Hiding things is something you seem to excel at.

Mr. President, you’ve missed the point. People felt that the Bush administration had gotten too intrusive into our lives with its war on terror. The change people were looking for in electing you was less government intrusion into our lives, not more. The people felt like there was too much partisanship in Washington. A change from all the bickering in politics was what we hoped for, not some dancing in the aisles “it‘s our turn now” “we won” rub it in orgy. The hope we had was for less waste and spending of our hard earned tax dollars. Less borrowing from China. Less putting good money after bad, not more. Our hope was for problems to be really solved, not paved or padded over with a cushion of cash. Cash we don’t have, but our grandchildren will have to somehow come up with.

In one year in office you’ve done none of that. You kept thinking that all the opposition out there, those “tea baggers” you so tongue in cheek vulgarly called them, were some lunatic fringe made up of gun right nuts, religious zealots, and racists. What you missed, and most likely continue to miss, is that is the mainstream. What you saw the other night, those are the voters. They are a reflection of the Hope and Change that America really wants. What the people were voting for when you were elected. Not what you’ve tried your best to sell us this past year. You missed the point.

-Al 

Today… I know I’m inspired!

Finally, some sanity shows thru in this messed up political world of ours. Even if it is only a little, it’s a beginning. The beginning of something big I hope. Now I have HOPE for a CHANGE!

-Al

I say…

WHO

DAT?

Chris Chris Chris…

Chris Matthews wonders if Sarah Palin is an empty head after she refers to Joe Biden as “O’Biden”, yet he gets tingles up his leg with wonderous thoughts about President Obama… who thought that there were 57 States…

Besides, she was running for Vice President against Joe Biden. Joe “Gaff Machine” Biden. Fat lot of room for talk Joe leaves… Yep, Case Closed.

-Al

Today… maybe I’m inspired.

I have not blogged a lot lately. Two reasons: First, the rapidity of change that has been occurring in the last few months has left me with a feeling that my writing has been behind the curve of events. By the time I process my thoughts into opinion the world is off onto something else. Second, I’ve had a hard time quantifying our President. It’s something hard to put into words. He’d do something utterly ridiculous, and seemingly in the next breath he mirrors the past administration on some mighty important matters. It’s a hate love hate love pendulum that is hard to grasp. I want so bad to write it off as naiveté… that he himself really doesn’t know what he’s doing, so he’s just shooting stuff out into the wind and some of it sticks and some doesn’t… or is he perhaps actually learning what it is to be “the” President.

Politics and reality are two entirely different things, we know that, so when one actually has to do things instead of just talk about them, naturally we can expect changes in perspective and policy … at least to some extent. There are consequences to what one says and does when he becomes President and Commander In Chief. Consequences that didn’t amount to much for a candidate. Now we find the elected Obama a bit of a different animal than candidate Obama… you can tell by the grumbling from his own.

Candidate Obama was rewarded for the expectations he brought with a Nobel Peace Prize. A Prize he collected today. But it was Elected President Barack Obama that picked up that prize.

“I liked what he said,” – Sarah Palin.

What!? Palin said what? She said, “Of course, war is the last thing I believe any American wants to engage in, but it’s necessary. We have to stop these terrorists.”

“I thought in some ways it’s a very historic speech.” – Newt Gingrich.

What!? Newt!?! “He clearly understood that he had been given the prize prematurely, but he used it as an occasion to remind people, first of all, as he said: that there is evil in the world.”

In a interview with WNYC and Public Radio International today Gingrch went on to say, “I think having a liberal president who goes to Oslo on behalf of a peace prize and reminds the committee that they would not be free, they wouldn’t be able to have a peace prize, without having [to use] force,”

Maybe Obama gets it now. Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said, “…based on this speech, I think we are witnessing a substantial shift, back in the direction of a more muscular moralism, ala, Truman, Reagan.”

Said Bradley Blakeman, a Republican strategist who worked in the Bush White House, “The irony is that George W. Bush could have delivered the very same speech. It was a truly an American president’s message to the world.”

Also, Christine Pelosi, an attorney, author and Democratic activist wrote in POLITICO’S Arena, “The President laid out the ‘right makes might’ Obama Doctrine: securing a just peace takes both the nonviolent teachings and military traditions of quiet heroes who fight for human rights as civilians and service members.”

“There will be times,” Obama said in his speech today, “when nations – acting individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”
“Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”
“The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans.”
“For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world.”
“A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”

Following Obama’s speech Democratic strategist Lanny Davis said, “Simply: all Americans should be proud.” “We and our president are once again viewed positively by most peoples of the world.” He went on to say it is, “A sea change from recent years.”

Yes. Yes it is a sea change from recent years… and it was a speech that could have been easily given by George W. Bush. What does that tell you?

Today… maybe I’m inspired.

-Al

Thanks too and Via Yahoo News, POLITICO article written by Eamon Javers 12/10.09

A voice out of our past speaks clearly to us today

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.”

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

- Thomas Jefferson

R. Lee Wrights reminds us today -

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.” - Thomas Jefferson

Cornbread!

Welcome to the world Jean-Yves Guidry. He’s a 9 pounds 8 ounces, 21 inch long baby boy, born yesterday to Jill and Tom Guidry. They will call him “Cornbread”! Congratulations Jillybean. I’m proud to be your friend.

-Al