Obamamania Thrills Liberals and Socialists Throughout the World

So Europe has an Obama, the Muslims have an Obama, Russia and China have their Obama, Michelle might even have her own Obama, Turkey has one and even we have one, or two, or three. Don't get me wrong, I do not want the president to fail. However, there are a lot of things he is doing that give me the creeps.

He promised change then loaded his staff with former Clinton people, not exactly my idea of fresh new faces. Seven nominees by Obama owed back taxes. What is that all about? He has the greatest collection of liberal socialists next to the French parliament or the old Soviet Politburo.

What happened to the new era of ethics in government? What happened to his ban on lobbyists working for him? His appointees quickly violated both of those promises. I don't remember him saying he would generate more national debt in four years or less than Bush did in eight years.

He promised to eliminate or slash the budgets of all those departments and agencies that don't do their job but the only budget cut has been our national defense. He promised to build a wall to stop illegal aliens then went and promised to let the 12 million illegal aliens stay here behind the wall and become citizens. I thought the wall was to keep them out.

Now we discover he sent the Congressional Black Caucus to negotiate with Fidel Castro to open our borders to Cuba. Okay, if the average Cuban makes $9 a month under the Communist country aren't they going to become illegal aliens trying to get into America as well? And besides, the Black Caucus was never approved by the Senate to negotiate treaties.

He spent trillions more than he promised in just his first year and even spent a trillion on stimulus when less than a third of it can actually stimulate. Big cars are gone. Bank accounts are empty. There will be no drilling for oil though millions of gallons are there to drill.

He doesn't bow to the Queen of England but does bow to the King of Saudi Arabia. Countries at the G 20 and NATO meetings greeted him cordially then refused to do anything he asked. He can't even make up his mind about the dog for his kids.

He promised no pork bills from Congress would be allowed yet thousands of pork projects costing billions of dollars have already been signed in to law by him. What happened to reforming our corrupt campaign laws? Where is the new level of ethics? What has been done to stop special interest groups from buying the influence of Congress?

We know stem cell research has been expanded. The floodgate to more abortions have been raised as if 50 million abortions already performed in America were not enough. We know we won't be in Iraq long even if the country falls apart when we leave. And that bad prison in Cuba will be closed although no one knows where the hundreds of terrorists will be set free.

All in all our new president is off to quite a start. Now he did get something right, he picked North Carolina to win March Madness. Stay tuned.

AMERICA'S COLLECTIVE NATIONAL TRIP

I never thought I would get the chance to do this article but there is no doubt that truth changes here in America and it is about time we take another look at the facts. The subject is marijuana use in America and the facts are this; over 100 million Americans have tried marijuana and 14.8 million use it monthly. Over 40% of all high school age kids have tried it.

Now for comparison purposes, there are three recreational drugs in America, alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs including marajuana.

Results from the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Office of Applied Studies (OAS)

Alcohol
Slightly more than half of Americans aged 12 or older reported being current drinkers of alcohol in the 2007 survey (51.1 percent). This translates to an estimated 126.8 million people, which was similar to the 2006 estimate of 125.3 million people (50.9 percent).





More than one fifth (23.3 percent) of persons aged 12 or older participated in binge drinking (having five or more drinks on the same occasion on at least 1 day in the 30 days prior to the survey) in 2007. This translates to about 57.8 million people, similar to the estimate in 2006.

In 2007, heavy drinking was reported by 6.9 percent of the population aged 12 or older, or 17.0 million people. This rate was the same as the rate of heavy drinking in 2006. Heavy drinking is defined as binge drinking on at least 5 days in the past 30 days.

In 2007, among young adults aged 18 to 25, the rate of binge drinking was 41.8 percent, and the rate of heavy drinking was 14.7 percent. These rates were similar to the rates in 2006.

The rate of current alcohol use among youths aged 12 to 17 was 15.9 percent in 2007. Youth binge and heavy drinking rates were 9.7 and 2.3 percent, respectively. These rates were essentially the same as the 2006 rates.

Tobacco
In 2007, an estimated 70.9 million Americans aged 12 or older were current (past month) users of a tobacco product. This represents 28.6 percent of the population in that age range. In addition, 60.1 million persons (24.2 percent of the population) were current cigarette smokers; 13.3 million (5.4 percent) smoked cigars; 8.1 million (3.2 percent) used smokeless tobacco; and 2.0 million (0.8 percent) smoked tobacco in pipes.

The rate of current use of any tobacco product among persons aged 12 or older decreased from 29.6 percent in 2006 to 28.6 percent in 2007, but the rates of current use of cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, cigars, and pipe tobacco did not change significantly over that period.





Between 2002 and 2007, past month use of any tobacco product decreased from 30.4 to 28.6 percent, and past month cigarette use declined from 26.0 to 24.2 percent. Rates of past month use of cigars, smokeless tobacco, and pipe tobacco were similar in 2002 and 2007.

The rate of past month cigarette use among 12 to 17 year olds declined from 13.0 percent in 2002 to 9.8 percent in 2007. However, past month smokeless tobacco use was higher in 2007 (2.4 percent) than in 2002 (2.0 percent).

Illegal Drugs
In 2007, an estimated 19.9 million Americans aged 12 or older were current (past month) illicit drug users, meaning they had used an illicit drug during the month prior to the survey interview. This estimate represents 8.0 percent of the population aged 12 years old or older. Illicit drugs include marijuana/hashish, cocaine (including crack), heroin, hallucinogens, inhalants, or prescription-type psychotherapeutics used nonmedically.

The rate of current illicit drug use among persons aged 12 or older in 2007 (8.0 percent) was similar to the rate in 2006 (8.3 percent).




Marijuana was the most commonly used illicit drug (14.4 million past month users). Among persons aged 12 or older, the rate of past month marijuana use in 2007 (5.8 percent) was similar to the rate in 2006 (6.0 percent).

In 2007, there were 2.1 million current cocaine users aged 12 or older, comprising 0.8 percent of the population. These estimates were similar to the number and rate in 2006 (2.4 million or 1.0 percent).

Hallucinogens were used in the past month by 1.0 million persons (0.4 percent) aged 12 or older in 2007, including 503,000 (0.2 percent) who had used Ecstasy. These estimates were similar to the corresponding estimates for 2006.

There were 6.9 million (2.8 percent) persons aged 12 or older who used prescription-type psychotherapeutic drugs nonmedically in the past month. Of these, 5.2 million used pain relievers, the same as the number in 2006.

In 2007, there were an estimated 529,000 current users of methamphetamine aged 12 or older (0.2 percent of the population). These estimates were not significantly different from the estimates for 2006 (731,000 or 0.3 percent).

Among youths aged 12 to 17, the current illicit drug use rate remained stable from 2006 (9.8 percent) to 2007 (9.5 percent). Between 2002 and 2007, youth rates declined significantly for illicit drugs in general (from 11.6 to 9.5 percent) and for marijuana, cocaine, hallucinogens, LSD, Ecstasy, prescription-type drugs used nonmedically, pain relievers, stimulants, methamphetamine, and the use of illicit drugs other than marijuana.

Did you really check out the statistics? Alcohol was used by 126.8 million people 12 and over, tobacco was used by 70.9 million people 12 and over, and illegal drugs were used by 19.9 million Americans 12 and over. Of the latter 14.4 million used marijuana. Over time 100 million people have used marijuana.

The cost of illegal marijuana is staggering with a study by Jon Gettman, Ph.D. indicating that Americans spend nearly $113 billion annually on the drug. We also spend $10.7 billion in law enforcement to control the drug before the stimulus and new drug enforcements efforts by the Obama Administration. In other words our government loses nearly $31.1 billion in lost tax revenue to illegal marijuana and spends $10.7 billion trying to stop it, about $42 billion a year.

That is only the beginning of the cost however. The majority of the drug is grown in South America and Asia and smuggled into the states. Along the Mexican border over 6,000 Mexicans have been murdered in drug wars in the past year alone. Tens of thousands of people in other countries have been murdered over the years supplying the US with pot.

Yet the effects of marijuana are nearly insignificant compared to the physical and psychological damage inflicted on us from legal drugs sanctioned in America, alcohol and tobacco. If you threw in the abuses in the prescription drug use here you would find billions more in wasted money. We know all these legal drugs kill and cost us billions of dollars in medical costs.




So why not legalize marijuana? The benefits now substantially outweigh the risk. Marijuana is the only natural drug of the three sold in a natural state. Where it has been legalized in places like the Netherlands, the use by the public has dropped significantly below the rate in America. In fact in Columbia where it is grown the drug use is a fraction of the American use.

Not only would legalization eliminate the $10.7 billion in law enforcement costs, money that could be better used chasing the criminals in suits whose actions cost us trillions of dollars in losses, but the $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues could pay for a lot of deficits in states and a lot of new initiatives nationally.

Marijuana could be grown in America putting tens of thousands of acres into productive, tax generating use, land currently sitting idle and generating no property tax revenue. States that lost significant property taxes with the loss of tobacco crops would have a way to recover the losses. Thousands of lives in Mexico would be saved every year by eliminating the drug smuggling and drug wars involved in distribution.




When we tried to prohibit the sale of alcohol in America it backfired and we should have learned our lesson. We allow the sale of tobacco which has hundreds of chemicals added to it to make us addicted to it and the government still can't stop 126.8 million people from using it. The last three presidents of the United States have all admitted to using marijuana. There would be a great sigh of relief from all the countries trying to stop the flow of marijuana into America and we would be saving thousands of lives a year. How about we use common sense and finally legalize it and put billions of dollars to work for us?

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What is the Economy Going To Do?

Now that is the biggest question facing the world today as the Obama Administration has been mired in deflection of the economic problems to Bush saying they inherited the mess. Of course the Democratic controlled Congress passed the bail out bill, with Obama's support, then passed the second and all subsequent packages and bailouts. The new budget is also Obama's, not Bush.

If the economic plans fail they will be because of Bush. So if they succeed they should also be because of Bush but of course that is not politics as usual and we have seen how the agent-of-change has taken great comfort in maintaining politics as usual. It matters not, who can believe them anyway? Fact is none of the experts can be believed because all of them collectively, Democrats, Republicans, politicians, Wall Streeters and the financial institutions of the world were responsible for the mess.

The Coltons Point Times has been far more accurate than Wall Street or Washington in predicting the future trends and problems of the economy over the past three years. We are now going to give our newest round of predictions and we tend to take a much more optimistic approach than all those guys trying to "capitalize on the crisis."

Once again we turned to our legion of experts and consulted the shamans, psychics, channels, spirits (both the ethereal and bottled kind), illegal aliens, extra-terrestrial aliens and itinerate preachers for advice. We did not consult Wall Street, economists, stock analysts, bankers, brokers, politicians or media for they lived the lies that got us here in the first place and that they are condemning even now. If they looked in the mirror they could identify the bad guys.

So here are the 2009 economic predictions of the CPT. First the recession will end during the 3rd quarter of this year and a sustained growth will commence in September. By then the Dow Jones should be flirting with 9,000. Real Estate will turn around the second quarter and by the third quarter the value of homes will start increasing again. Congress better watch the lenders to make sure they are not sticking it to us in hidden fees.

While America will be back to business almost as usual next fall it will take six months more before the European markets start to stabilize, like in the spring of 2010. If you can go to Europe and other places while the prices are dirt cheap. The unemployment rate will stabilize by the fourth quarter of this year but will take several years to return to a 6% level. That's okay because if people see the value of their homes and stocks increasing many older workers will not need to return to work making more jobs available for younger people.

Ford and a stripped down General Motors will emerge this fall much more competitive with the Japanese car manufacturers who stole the American market from them. Health costs will increase making health and wellness companies good investments as Obama will struggle with lowering costs. No matter how much money they pour into education it will not improve until they create a whole new educational system. In both health and education it is the system that is flawed. More money and people cannot make incompetent or outdated systems better.

At some point in the next 24 months people are going to suddenly have a divine awakening when they realize that if we spent all the money currently spent on health, insurance and treatment on the simple strategy of rebuilding our immune system, maybe we wouldn't need that massive health care industry. Didn't the Bible even say "heal thyself"?

Remember when you were a kid and ate mud patties, dirty snow, unwashed garden vegetables and even half-cooked burgers if the barbeque chef was half-lit? That stuff didn't kill you. Most times it didn't even make you sick. Our immune system could handle it. Well even since you were a kid you have been busy destroying your immune system with our societal addiction to prescription drugs, atrocious eating habits, and over-the-counter remedies to every problem you didn't even know you had!

For the richest and most advanced society in the world we are pretty sick physically, mentally and spiritually. If you choose to maintain the status quo when it comes to your health and habits including the diagnosing and treatment of our many illnesses and diseases, then you will stay sick. If you want to get well, you change what made you sick in the first place. That is the future of improved health. Many old and even ancient treatments never should have been forgotten. They cured the problems. Today's treatment is intended to prolong the problem and make you more susceptible to more prescriptions.

Physically, health maintenance is the best cure for the physical body. Mental health can be cured when we wake up and realize a greed-driven society breeds the many tentacles of stress which manifest into your sicknesses. Spiritually, well that is a test. You could find or go back to religion or adopt some discipline that helps you find inner peace.

That is all the advice I have to offer on this at the moment.

On Balance What Problems Might Obama be Solving?

As the new Administration continues to struggle to get new programs out the door, which is certainly understandable when you are throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the public, I wanted to offer my help to them.

First, I find it rather bizarre that after two years of investment financial analysts, media financial analysts, Congressional financial analysts and Executive branch financial analysts being dead wrong on the economy and virtually every aspect of the economy that Washington, Wall Street and Madison Avenue continue to listen to them as if they had a clue what they are talking about. Don't the leaders in the Obama administration remember? Oh yeah, the same mouthpieces that blew it before are speaking for the new administration.

Congress has been studying the collapse of the housing market for over a year and we are yet to see anything except ways to save mortgages in foreclosure or save the criminals that wrote the mortgages that are in foreclosure. Even Obama's chief of staff was part of the Freddie Mac Fanny Mae mess that evolved from the liberalization of mortgage rules.

You want to fix the problem here is a good start. Allow 4.5% refinancing with minimum closing costs. Bank of America is allowing refinancing after receiving $45 billion in federal bailout funds but the Bank of America closing costs on refinancing have risen to $16,000 when they used to be $3000-5000. What kind of a deal is that for clients? They may be lending money again, our money from the federal bailout, but now it costs us 3-8 times as much.

There is no reason to require appraisals, title searches and registration fees costs thousands of dollars for refinancing mortgages already owned by the banks. Get rid of the corrupt fees and rigged appraisals and put money back in the pocket of mortgage holders and you will finally get real stimulus. While some of those in foreclosure should be saved most should not be when over 95% of the people are making payments on time. Lowering the monthly mortgage payment of the good loans will immediately put those hundreds of dollars a month into the economy.

The sale of foreclosed homes should not be allowed to impact on the market value of homes not being foreclosed. Appraisers are dropping market rates where ever there is a glut of mortgages and applying such loss of value to regional areas experiencing no foreclosures. Unscrupulous appraisers can get away with the same manipulation to lower values as they did to raise values the past 3 years.

Speaking of appraisers, if a home has been remodeled and exceeds energy and environmental code it should have a much higher value than a home not remodeled. Even homes built to code are far from achieving energy and environmental efficiency peak potential. Right now a home needing $50,000 to $100,000 in energy and environmental upgrades to exceed standards is valued the same as a home with the most advanced materials and equipment, a joke if the nation really wants to save energy. There is no value gained by making the improvements. We are encouraged by present law to take shortcuts and not use advanced materials to keep the costs down.


Historic preservation must accommodate energy and environmental improvements and reward them when made but these homes are also discounted for age and penalized for maintaining historical standards. For example, if a home was built without closets but used cabinets or free standing wardrobe closets they will be rejected as a bedroom and significantly decrease the present value of the home even though they are being historically preserved. Does that make any sense?

What about the banks, how do we save them from self-destruction? Well, if you are liberal and believe it is our responsibility to pay for their sins then do whatever Pelosi and Franks tell you as you already have made up your mind they are too big to fail even if it takes nationalization to save them. What is a few more hundred billion dollars when money can be printed at will? Even Obama slipped $750 billion more into his new budget to cover unexpected bank losses.

I wonder why the Administration finds it so important to save banks like Citigroup and Bank of America when they have already cost us $90 billion to keep them alive, snd after all that cash they are still on life support. Now since all individual deposits in those banks were already guaranteed by the FDIC, that means any money they need has nothing to do with the little people. So why in the world have we already pumped in $90 billion when the little people were protected? Who is Congress protecting and bailing out if the money is not needed for depositors?

So where does this leave you? In the first place, 47% of you didn't even vote for Obama which the media seems to keep forgetting as they talk about the president as if everyone in the world voted for him. Here in American a six percent victory is not a landslide. Truth is he should have won by 15-20% and didn't.
However we still have those that did support him. I doubt they all believed he would advance such a liberal - socialist agenda, especially in such dire financial times.

In normal times I would say contact your Congressmen to stop the largest government spending spree in history but the Democratic Majority are demanding he spend even more. Obama promised to stop pork barrel spending. His own stimulus bill had at least $10 billion in pork and a new appropriations bill he is expected to approve has $410 billion, with a substantial amount of pork barrel. I guess Obama can't keep all his promises.

We have no campaign reform being discussed though it is the biggest violator of ethics and cause of corruption in Washington. We have no control over pork barrel spending as witnessed by the legislative record to date. We have no control over lobbyists working in government as a number of lobbyists have been hired by the Obama administration.



We do have a worldwide expansion in abortion approved. We do have stem cell research approved that encourages the "harvesting" of unborn fetuses for scientific research. We do have a move to force unions into all the states and industries nationwide, even if a state has chosen to be right-to-work. We do have millions of federal dollars being poured into liberal activist organizations that demand bigger government and more spending.

One final observation and that is regarding the liberal-biased media in the television and newspaper business who were so responsible for trashing Palin and McCain and getting Obama and Biden elected. As these media are rapidly falling into bankruptcy and disappearing I'd say your hero seems to have lost interest in your cause. Now are you glad you got him elected? Do you still have a job?

Obama Seduces Congress - Promises Everything Now

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President Obama finally adopted the Bill Clinton approach to getting away with anything by copying the Ronald Reagan straight talk technique. The big difference, however, is that Reagan was honest about what he said and straight forward in what he meant. With Clinton the style never matched the morality and with Obama the style was used to mask an expansion of his people's agenda to a liberal assault that has not been seen since FDR tried to stack the Supreme Court because his legislation was constitutionally illegal.

It was a masterful speech before an adoring Congress and media and absolutely no one seemed to notice that anyone in America with money was going to be taxed more, any corporation with success was going to pay more taxes, anyone driving a car, truck or bus was going to be taxed more, and about the only people who really won't be taxed more don't pay any taxes to begin with.

The speech was a blend of Harvard business school, Harvard Law School and Harvard Divinity School in which we are told why his agenda is the only door to the future that has the blessing of our Founding Fathers, the Ivy League and God. It was great theater. Congress is great theater. The avalanche of congressional hearings on the "crisis" are great theater. We just had no idea how much we were paying for the tickets to this theater.

There is no doubt we are on the way to pouring $5 trillion into solving the crisis, if not much more. We are already way over $1 trillion and there has been no change in the economic mess. A couple of trillion more may be committed already through Federal Reserve, Treasury, FDIC, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other agency actions. Then there is the $410 billion slush fund bill sneaking through Congress right now. Add to that all the new money that will be needed to pay off the corrupt bank loans, so called "toxic" debt, and the social agenda Obama described covering everything to do with health, energy and education, and we are close to overtaking France and Spain as leader of contemporary socialism.



One truth we should carefully examine. How much of what is happening is the careful, patient and long term strategy of Osama Bin Laden dating back to 9-11 in NYC? He said he would set in motion actions that would bring down our economy. Blowing up the heart of Wall Street in the World Trade Center was certainly a masterful stroke. Maybe the world economic crisis immediately after 9-11 was just the first wave of the long term impact. Bin Laden knew money, he was worth millions, and he knew the vulnerabilities of the American economy. All he had to do was to quietly encourage the proliferation of greed and dishonesty that was already well entrenched in Wall Street and Washington, DC.

Make no mistake, Osama Bin Laden has cost the USA hundreds of billions of dollars in military expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan every year since then and terrorized many other areas around the world. No one has ever reported the real losses to Wall Street and the economy from the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center. What was really in the vaults of the Twin Towers? Was Bin Laden behind the run up in energy costs? Was he behind the repackaging of mortgages into sub-prime investments? Who knows? The most powerful nation with the best intelligence agencies in history doesn't have a clue what mountain he may be hiding in today, let alone how he survived and what he did the past decade.

Oh yes, as for the cost of the tickets to the theater in our nation's capitol, if we throw $5 trillion at the problem that means every citizen of the USA will pay about $14,200 to cover up the corruption, bank mismanagement and expansion of social services that will all be solved with the largest cash infusion in history. Now, are the theater tickets really that valuable? And how is it 95% of our citizens will get a tax reduction?

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Obama Cabinet Nominees Spoil New Criminal Rehabilitation Program

Just when we thought the highest ranking appointees in the Obama Administration were going to constitute the most elite criminal rehabilitation program in the nation two of the three charter members withdrew from consideration this week.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who failed to pay $43,000 in back taxes until his Senate hearing, was first to make it through the process in spite of the tax problem. Obama said it was no big deal and Geithner said he didn't understand that he owed the taxes, a bit scary for the next head of IRS. What would happen to you if IRS discovered you did not pay $43,000 over a four year period? Geithner gets to be US Treasury Secretary. You would get federal prison.

Then along comes Tom Daschle, the former leader of the Democrats in the Senate and Obama's nominee to fix the health care mess. Seems he was paid over $5 million for lobbying for health care companies in a couple of years though he never bothered to register as a lobbyist. That was okay with Obama. But IRS said he owed $143,000 in back taxes for failing to report a full time car and driver paid for by his lobbying firm. He paid that and once again everything was okay with our new king of clean government President Obama and he urged the approval of Daschle.

Would you get a cabinet post with Obama if you owed $143,000 in back taxes? Once again federal prison would be more likely. A third key Obama appointee, Nancy Killefer, picked for what he described as the most important new post in his Administration, the government's first Chief Performance Officer, then had to acknowledge she also owed back taxes but just $946.69, a miniscule amount compared to the tens and hundreds of thousands owned by the old boys.

Nancy did the right thing, she immediately withdrew from consideration. Thus one of the most prominent female appointees of Obama was the first to recognize her civic duty and dropped out. A few hours later Daschle followed suit, even though Obama and others all agreed it was not significant enough to warrant withdrawing from the race. So far the new Obama standard is key employees are okay as long as they don't steal more than $143,000 from the government.

On Jan. 21, the day after his inauguration, Obama issued an executive order barring any former lobbyists who join his administration from dealing with matters or agencies related to their lobbying work. Nor could they join agencies they had lobbied in the previous two years.

However, William J. Lynn III, his choice to become the No. 2 official at the Defense Department, recently lobbied for military contractor Raytheon. And William Corr, tapped as deputy secretary at Health and Human Services, lobbied through most of last year as an anti-tobacco advocate. Before the ink had dried the first waivers of the brand new executive order had to be granted to allow lobbyists to join his staff in top agencies. Didn't Obama get a lot of mileage smearing John McCain for having lobbyist in his campaign?

It just seems that those campaign promises for a new way to govern free of the influences of the past don't seem so real now. A new level of ethics promised has not materialized. In fact, far more promises have been broken than kept in the early part of the new regime. If there was any doubt about this ask the United Auto Workers at General Motors. The union was one of Obama's biggest supporters and were promised a bail out for the auto industry and told by the new president they were the priority of his administration. Today GM announced one third of the UAW workers must be laid off. That does not sound like they are being protected by the new president.

Election Wrap up - Democrats - What Now?

Suppose you made a wish list last New Years and you got everything you could ever dream for all in one year. Well that was the fate of the Democrats as they swept the presidency while taking much stronger control of the House and Senate, a politicians delight. But remember the caution, be careful when you wish as you may get what you want. Add to that be specific as well.

The Democrats got control of the government, filling Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barney Frank's stockings to the top. Unfortunately, they were not clear enough in their request and they forgot to say no recession, Wall Street collapse, credit crisis, auto collapse, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, violence in the Middle East and overall pretty bleak domestic and world economic, political and military situations.

The new president will inherit all these and untold more situations that have been kept hidden from the public for good reason. Had we known about the crooks on Wall Street and Washington, D.C. earlier in the year, not to mention throughout the nation and the world, most of our incumbent politicians who got elected would have been taken to the woodshed and lashed.

In addition there were all those many campaign promises, health coverage for all, tax reductions for 95% of the people, clean green cars, more unions, more social programs, more abortions, mortgage forgiveness and restructuring, more genetic engineering, well, more promises than I have room to spell them out, still what will happened to all those promises? The last time a Democrat made such promises was when Pelosi said we would be out of Iraq in a couple of weeks and a laundry list of other promises back in 2004 if we gave Democrats control of Congress and they got it but we didn't. So I guess this is déjà vu all over again.

Did anyone hear the victorious Democrats say they would pursue prosecutions against all the Wall Street crooks who caused the economic collapse or did they all take too much campaign money from them to get serious? Any word about how we will get meaningful campaign reform or was that also buried under the avalanche of special interest campaign contributions? Why are they going to extend health care to everyone when our medical system is broken down already? Shouldn't it be fixed first?

How can we believe Barney Frank and the Democrats that they are going to fix the mess when they were the ones that caused the mess in the first place? How many politicians will be leading the nation who stood by and watched the economy go up in flames in recent years? And how many staff and elected officials were personally involved in many of the crooked deals but remain in power?

We are just at the beginning of the reform promised by Obama. First he had to get elected. Now he has to drive out the demons of government and Wall Street and that will be a much more difficult task. I believe all those liberal groups and hardcore Democrats will be in for a shock when the Obama program is finally disclosed and it will not be fully disclosed until 2010 when the next round of Congressional elections takes place. That will be the first chance he gets to go after the patron saints of corruption still leading Congress.

You can always count on a rambunctious time when the Democrats take control of the government and I expect we will see more of the same. Still, something tells me Obama is a lot more than a politician but someone really committed to changing the nation for the better knowing full well the amount of pain that will cause in the short term. My prediction is a very short honeymoon for the new president as it will not take long for the crooks in Congress to realize they are the targets of the new Administration and when they see the truth they will fight Obama every step of the way against reform. Let's hope they are so drunk with greed they miss the warning signs.

Pictured in the article are Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank and Pelosi with Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader. These are the people we have entrusted with our government and our future. Yes, Pelosi and Hoyer are from Maryland though Pelosi long ago moved to California.

For those interested in history, the Democratic office holders in line to become president are 1. Joe Biden, Vice President, 2. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, and 3. Robert Carlyle Byrd, President Pro Tem of the Senate (at 92 years old this year he would be the oldest president in history).

Obama Should Meet Russia's Putin First

Foreign policy is going to be a very big deal in the new Obama administration and one of the lingering problems from the post Cold War period is our relationship to Russia. So you thought the Cold War ended back in the early '90's with the fall of the Soviet Union? So did I.

But something happened in Russia on the path to freedom as the world's other superpower was going through a meltdown with the collapse of Communism. Along came the USA promising all kinds of help if only Russia would become a democratic nation with free elections and free press.

This is a country whose people had lived under the protective dominance of Communists or Tzars for over 1000 years. A nation that stood by helplessly as over 62 million of their own people vanished at the hands of their leader Joseph Stalin. People dependent on a system that provided for them from cradle to grave.

With our encouragement they held elections, privatized much of their society and commerce, and started to charge through taxes for all the services people had grown to expect. The result, it took ten years to nearly destroy the once proud people, to reinvigorate the shell of the Communist party, to discover much of the privatization only put ownership of their industry and resources in the hands of professional thieves and to pretty much demonstrate that democracy was a long ways away.

So all the reforms started to be undone and the county put back together and suddenly a new Russia emerged under the firm guidance of President Vladimir Putin. What is our response to the revitalization of a major player in world affairs? The Bush administration decides to infuriate the new Russia by encouraging the former East European members of the Soviet Union to join NATO, a defense alliance of countries bribed by America through foreign aid.

Didn't Bush people know the Cold War was over? About 20 years ago, when his dad was president, the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War ended. Why did the kid treat Russia 20 years later as an adversary rather than a friend? Then we complained about the loss of rights in Russia, suppression of the media and the control of huge oil reserves.

When oil producing nations aided in driving the price of oil through the roof Russia helped keep the price from destroying the world by increasing production and ignoring OPEC efforts to control the world oil supply thus maintaining record prices. How do we reward our old friends? Over strenuous objections from Russia Bush decides we need a missile defense shield built in Chekoslavakia aimed at the Russians. Our current satellites can read cigarette packs from outer space, what is the point of a defense shield in Eastern Europe except to upset Putin.

Well we certainly did upset Putin and he invaded Georgia, a move we also attacked. Somewhere along the line our leaders forgot that the people of Russia are our friends, not enemies. We forgot that Russia once saved the USA from extinction in the Civil War without ever asking anything in return. A desperate plea for help from President Lincoln resulted in Russia stopping England and France from attacking the seriously weakened Union Army as it was being driven far north by Lee's Army.

Now we have a new president. He has also ignored our fractured relations with Russia and kissed up to the traditional allies of the USA. Let us hope he has the insight and wisdom to stop what Bush began, chest-thumping in the face of the Russians, and will sit down for meaningful discussions with a friend and ally from long before the days England and France decided to be our friend.

Barack Obama - Abraham Lincoln - The Dream Fulfilled

On February 15, 2008 while analyzing the results of the Super Tuesday primaries, the Coltons Point Times became the first newspaper on the internet or in print to officially declare Barack Obama the next president of the United States, nine months before the vote that would confirm him on November 4. Click on the following link to see the full story.

Friday, February 15, 2008
IT'S OVER - OBAMA 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE USA

One month later, long before the end of the primary season and before Obama had won the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton a second story detailed how Obama would win the general election.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008
WHY BARACK OBAMA WILL BE THE 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE USA!

Tonight history was made and tomorrow Barack Obama begins a difficult quest as the 44th President of the United States fulfilling the dream of the 16th President also from Illinois who dreamed all people would be free and all Americans would have equal opportunity.

Now Obama carries the hopes of a nation and the hopes of a world on his shoulders. May the hand of God guide him and may the wind be at his back as he becomes president of all the people and leader of the greatest nation on Earth.

Campaign 2008 - May the Last Person Standing Win

As the campaign winds down and America is finally close to being free of political advertising I hope you have enjoyed the efforts of the Coltons Point Times to keep you up to date with the many aspects of the campaign that are not in the papers. After being involved in 32 campaigns over the years at various local, state and national levels I can say this one stands alone.

For those addicted to poll watching just remember that the media is famous for blowing it with the polls from the 2000 Gore win to the 2004 Kerry win along with disastrous exit polls both years, so don't take them too seriously. If Obama wins there will be support for the notion that major campaigns can be bought regardless of the merits of the campaign and I hope Congress will adopt campaign reform finally that eliminates once and for all the chance that America is for sale.

I was saddened to see that fear and hatred became much more dominant than previous campaigns and that is unfortunate for our future. Both sides were generous in their efforts to smear, unfairly characterize and trash their opponent and both took great liberties with the truth. Some can be blamed on over-zealous staff and some on idiotic supporters and a lot can be blamed on a media that seemed to have lost its sense of purpose and decided reporting the truth is no longer required of such an honorable profession.

If you followed my articles throughout the campaign you will note I was hard on both candidates at varying times and tried to remain somewhat balanced. I never took sides nor endorsed anyone but I did take exception when I felt the media did not give the candidates the respect they deserved for having the guts and commitment to sacrifice in running for office. Like them or not we all should appreciate what they did and give credit where credit is due.

As for the results, I said way back on March 5 that Obama would win and I spelled out the reasons. That was when he still trailed Hillary Clinton in the primaries. That was also before the oil price crisis, the home mortgage disaster, the economic collapse, and the fact Obama would raise three times as much money as McCain. By all rights Obama should be 15-20% ahead in the polls by now but he failed to break through the 50% barrier like he should have done. I expect his final result to be closer to 54-46% which represents a heroic effort by McCain and Palin.

I could be wrong, the McCain Palin ticket may do better in spite of the avalanche of Obama money that was thrown into the campaign. Still the sitting president and his lackadaisical approach to the economy, war and foreign relations made it almost impossible for any Republican to win. You might say McCain was bushwhacked along the way.

Of course the winner may very well be the loser in the end as I have written many articles detailing how I believe we are only in the beginning of the recession and there are forces at work to destroy our economy. It is entirely possible the new president will be like Jimmy Carter and be totally unable to steer the ship of state through the perilous times ahead.

Compounding the problem for Obama will be the demands from his various constituencies who will all claim credit for getting him elected and demand his time and attention to their needs first. His loyalties will be stretched thin between the unions and Goldman Sachs on Wall Street, between the Buffets and the uninsured Americans, between the Hollywood celebrities and the silent majority that will elect him.

Beyond that there is the far greater threat to his success which is the very result he worked to achieve, a solid Democratic control of the House and Senate, meaning a super majority that will deny the minority party any chance of influencing power. People will read an Obama victory as an overwhelming rejection of McCain when in truth it will mean a very slight win in terms of the American people.

Change we want, but returning the vast majority of Congressional incumbents to office will make it impossible for Obama to bring about much change when the very people who got us into this mess are still here. Bush may be gone, but he never had a veto proof majority in Congress which means the democrats, when they were a minority and majority power, still share the blame for everything that happened. By 2010 Obama will have to run against his own Congress to have any chance of bringing about all the changes he wants.

Regardless of who wins, all Americans owe their support to the new president and the efforts he will have to make to restore our world image, manage our battered economy and heal our many wounds from a government that lost sight of the very people it was meant to serve. That is the American way. We can disagree amongst ourselves but we must stand united in order to face the challenges that will try and prevent us from being the most powerful yet generous and compassionate people on earth.

For those of you who don't think Coltons Point gets much notice in the world you should know that we have about 370 residents of the Point but the readership of the Coltons Point Times has now passed 18,500. If only the new president would read the CPT he would have a much easier time solving our nation's problems.

Obama Campaign Politburo Silences ABC and CBS Journalists - Shades of Soviet Censorship

Obama New World Order Shows True Colors in Blacklisting Media

Is this a sign of things to come in the New World Order of Obama? For the second time recently journalists for major television network affiliates were interviewing Joe Biden asking about direct quotes of Obama concerning spreading the wealth and the relationship to socialism or Marxism.

The response of the vice president in waiting was to scorn the journalists and order the Obama campaign to smear the character and reputation of these local news stations, ban all future interviews with any representatives of the campaign, and quite possibly block any political ads from running locally thus denying them access to the 3/4 billion dollar media slush fund of the Obama campaign.

Barbara West, a 16 year veteran health and news anchor for WFTV ABC 9 in Orlando became the second victim of the Bulldog Biden censorship of the television media after a recent tantrum by Biden with KYW TV CBS 3 in Philadelphia over the same line of questions.

Biden has adopted a page out of the Lenin and Stalin Communist Manifesto to respond to a question about the Marxist leanings of the Democratic ticket and Democratic Congressional leadership that has pledged to take veto proof control of the White House and US Congress. Biden blacklisted the television affiliates and denied them access to our political leadership just because he doesn't like the questions they asked. The Obama campaign immediately moved to enforce the censorship.

Is this the kind of change they intend to jam down the throats of Americans that dare to question the oftentimes whimsical policies and programs to be pursued by the Obama New World Order? Well they should be honest and state that censorship of the media and persecution of dissenters will be part of their New World Order.

It is no wonder that recent polls in socialist leaning European countries show Obama to be favored over McCain 5-1 as the Obama campaign has already demonstrated an attitude toward the freedom of the press more in line with the old Soviet regime that silenced critics without remorse. We bet the tens of millions of dollar media blitz by the Obama campaign this last week will say nothing of the real agenda for the Obama - Pelosi - Reid New World Order about to take over the last outpost of pure democracy left in the world.

Maybe we should all move to Alaska and join Todd Palin in fighting the socialist stampede about to overrun the continental USA. Ironically it seems the only nation on earth aware of the dangers of the new push toward world socialism is Russia where the socialist communist experiment was implemented for about 75 years with devastating results including the loss of individual freedom, destruction of the free press and the liquidation of over 60 million citizens in the interest of the state. Russia learned the lesson the hard way, perhaps we should listen to them more and condemn them a little less?

Palin Must See TV - The Great Debate

If Obama was truly media savvy he would be debating Sarah Palin as she continues to be the star of the presidential campaign. Over 72 million Americans tuned in to watch her debate, a bunch cheering for her to beat the leftist media at their own game and a bunch waiting for her to self destruct. Once again, when her message cannot be diluted by the edit happy media like Katie Couric, Charles Gibson and the increasingly bitter David Letterman, Palin connects to the heart and soul of America.

Palin power pulled 20 million more viewers than the darling of the liberal media Barack Obama. For probably the first time in history a vice presidential candidate buried the presidential candidate audience in an avalanche of television followers and proved to the world that her experience and media savvy are far more powerful than Barack's inexperience and media manipulation when it comes to the typical American viewer.

Now the liberal leftist pundits say a candidate for vice president can never win an election for president but these are the same pundits who failed to warn us about the stock market crash, the credit crisis, the budget deficit and even the Yankees and Cubs being knocked out of the World Series. Their credibility to the general public is well below that of President Bush and threatens the Congress for having the lowest credibility of any profession in America. No one believes the media. No one believes the politicians.

I believe the vice presidential candidate can win the election when both candidates for president have the same standing in polls on issues like being prepared, qualified, trusted to be president, etc. and for now McCain and Obama are little different. What these same media pundits fail to say is that for the first time in our history women, not the bra burning feminists of 5th Avenue and Hollywood and Vine but the Main Street grandmothers, mothers and daughters who have watched in dismay as the media, politicians and Wall Street have sunk into the cesspool of corruption, back room deals and greed, these women can make things different.

These women you never read about in People Magazine or Crime Reporter have waited a long time for the men to get it right, the men of the left and the men of the right, and things are not getting any better no matter which way you turn. No, the seeds were planted long ago for a populist revolt in America and not just in Iraq but in Viet Nam. The people who run our government have been around for a very long time. But this time the silent women's majority has a choice to send a message so loud and clear it will knock the socks off the feet and the dirty cash out of the pockets of the entire male dominated establishment in the media, in Washington and on Wall Street.

Love her or hate her Palin is the only one of the big four candidates not contaminated by Wall Street, not contaminated by Washington insiders and not contaminated by a pandering media. She is the only candidate who is not a member of the most sacred men's club in Washington, in America,the US Senate. The people are truly fed up with the establishment, the existing order of things and the people who have brought us the mess we are in, and only one candidate is not part of that tainted establishment, Sarah Palin.

That is why she draws far bigger audiences, interest and even media attention than the big three. And if the silent majority of women decide for the first time in history that enough is enough, then the cocky candidates and cranky media will be in for the surprise of their collective lives when the Moose hunting momma kicks the butts of the mainstream media, the elite establishment and the executives of Wall Street come November 4.

Obama and McCain back on Track - The Election is on Again

For the first time since the political conventions in August today the two candidates for president acted presidential and maybe there is hope that the people will finally get the choice they need, a choice between two visions for the future of America.

I suspect the candidates finally got control of the campaigns back from the staff as there is no way these two people were performing to the best of their abilities the past few weeks. I have said repeatedly that we need to hear ideas, a vision and a future of hope for America and the campaigns were bogged down in blame, accusation and hostility that served no good purpose.

Today that seemed to change. Both gave speeches directed to the future, not pointing fingers to the past. It was refreshing to hear so many good ideas being offered and if the candidates were honest then they demonstrated that either one is not beholden to the forces in Washington, DC or Wall Street and were in a position to really go after the people standing in the way of change.

There are many people who represent the old way and will resist any reforms that take away their power and control over the nation and only a president free of dependence on them can offer such hope to the public. Our president is elected to serve all the people, not just the liberals or conservatives, and both candidates could do that.

If the biased media would just shut up and report the news rather than work so hard to manufacture the news, if they would stop the efforts to discredit candidates and recognize that the people running for office have given up a lot to run and will give up a lot more to serve, then we will all be better served.

There are a lot of similarities in the agendas of the candidates but a lot of difference in how they will go about changing things. That is the decision the voters must make. Because of the economy and Bush John McCain has an uphill battle to win but he is not a Bush clone and the people know it.

Barach Obama has to resist being labeled as the liberal candidate in order to reach across party and philosophical lines and his worst enemy are the leftist media supporting him but he too can effectively distance himself from the enemy.

It is time for a populist president and both can be standard bearers for the populist movement. Liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, and Wall Street and Congress have all demonstrated that their narrow agenda is not what America needs at this moment in time. What we need is to hear more of the candidates vision and implementation strategy these last 30 days. If they keep from attacks and focus on the future America will be well served.

What we need is a president with "No strings attached." If the candidates will stay focused America will get such a leader and a new wave of hope and promise will flow over the land.

Could Palin Invasion of Privacy be Obama's Watergate?

Privacy in America is guaranteed by the Constitution and an invasion of privacy is a criminal violation with dire consequences which is why it seems odd how little the Obama campaign has had to say about the illegal hacking into Sarah Palin's private email, the posting of the stolen emails on the internet, and the fact the liberal media all seemed to have copies of the emails.

About 36 years ago another well financed presidential campaign that expected to win the election did something equally as stupid, denied it to the world, and then got caught in the lie later costing the winner the presidency. Back then the President was Richard Nixon and the break in was called Watergate.

Watergate was not about approving the act, nor even knowing about the act. Watergate was all about covering up the act for campaign functionaries whose enthusiasm to win at all costs made them ignore the laws. We are far better prepared to investigate this illegal act than we were 36 years ago and it is serious enough that the FBI and the Secret Service have already launched an investigation.

If the private emails of our presidential and vice presidential candidates can be stolen all those involved must be prosecuted. The Obama campaign denies involvement. Barack Obama claims he personally runs the campaign, he has said so as a claim of his executive experience during the campaign so we should give him the benefit of the doubt on both counts.

But if his campaign was involved in any way in the theft, in encouraging the theft, or the distribution of the stolen materials by notifying the liberal media where to find them and give them talking points on what to say about them, then he should stand ready to withdraw from the race in disgrace.

In watching the various liberal media outlets comment about the stolen emails they used almost the exact words as Obama campaign representatives dismissing the seriousness of the theft and turning attention to the fact Sarah Palin had a private email account. Then insinuating she must have had the account to hide things from the State of Alaska. How stupid is that? Nearly everyone in America has a private email account including most members of the media.

Why did the liberal media and the campaign spokespersons have the exact same script? Why did they raise the exact same issue? Why weren't they outraged by the invasion of privacy? And why did they keep looking at the emails in their possession? If the Obama campaign was involved in the theft or any of these following actions it is the most serious breach of faith possible to the American public and would only demonstrate that a secret agenda must be driving them, one called Big Brother, where the right to privacy will no longer exist.

In one of the true ironies of history, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, daughter of President Richard Nixon, who grew up in the White House, is a supporter of Barack Obama and gave him the maximum financial contribution possible in the primary election. You certainly don't hear much about her from the Obama campaign. We shall await the results of the federal criminal investigation.

Is Obama Really The One? The $440 Million People's Person

Everyone in America knows we are in the midst of a serious economic crisis. First came the Bear Stearns collapse and Barack Obama refused to take a position saying we should wait and see what happens. Then came the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bail out by the government and the Lehmann collapse not bailed out. That was followed immediately by the AIG collapse that was saved at the last minute by the Federal Reserve. Each time Obama said we should wait and see what happens though our economy was a mess because of Bush.

Now that sounds like a Harvard educated response to the series of events. Is that leadership? Is that how he intends to govern through these tough times? He did promise us tax breaks and tax increases, a whole lot of them. And Biden did attempt to clarify how they would create new jobs, through public works projects. Yet another form of federal welfare destined to create dead end jobs with no career path at a cost to the taxpayer of billions of more dollars.

Some say the twin mortgage companies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the root cause of what has happened. Well they were created by a Democratic administration and run by former Clinton insiders so I think that might be a Democratic problem that triggered the catastrophe. Some say a bill sponsored by Republicans that was passed in 2005 and impacted on the investment and commercial banks was the cause but that same bill was approved by 90 of the 100 Senators including the Democratic leadership.

For the past two years Nancy Pelosi has controlled the House and Harry Reid has controlled the Senate, presiding over Democratic majorities. If they control the Congress why didn't they fix the problems? In fact since they did control both the House and Senate why didn't they do anything the past two years after making all kinds of wonderful promises? Empty promises - broken leadership.

Now they want you to give them control of the White House as well. So how fiscally responsible is the candidate for president for the Democrats? Well, he is spending more than twice as much in the 2008 presidential campaign then anyone else in history, having already raised over $440 million. McCain has raised $190 million. And while he claims the largest donor base in history, the million plus donors don't get access to him.

No, the only contributors that get personal pictures with Obama and get to sip wine and get served by waiters in tuxedos are the Hollywood elite who pay $30,000 to have dinner with him. Now the price of the evening ticket to be with Obama is equal to 60% of the median annual family income in America, meaning the average family would have to work from January until July 15 to pay for a single ticket. If you want to take your spouse you will have to work 14 months for the tickets! The savior of the common people only dines with the richest of the rich, how Ivy League, how elitist and how disconnected with the common people he claims to champion.

While he sips wine in Beverly Hills we patiently wait for Obama to tell us how he will really help the people. While he dines for dollars, very big dollars, with Barbra Streisand and Bon Jovi at million dollar private parties people are suffering. While he waits to see how things work out before he takes a position Wall Street continues to crumble under the weight of its own corruption and greed. While he throws hundreds of millions of dollars at us to convince us he is THE ONE, people are fighting wars and digging out from hurricanes so there is an America left for someone to govern, but I am not certain what he has demonstrated is a convincing argument he is REALLY THE ONE.