News Headlines of the Day in Obamaville

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Pelosi and her Swamp

When Nancy Pelosi was swept into her House Leadership position four years ago she promised to "drain the swamp" in Washington of corruption. Four years later the only swamp that was drained was two top Democratic party leaders Rangel and Waters, both members of the Congressional Black Caucus, so Nancy has had to redefine what she meant by draining the swamp.

In a burst of pre-election insight she now says she meant, "The swamp was described in the press as a 'criminal syndicate' operating out of the Republican leader's office." Now that is a pretty major charge for the Leader of the House and a person a heartbeat away from being president.

Of course after four years of her witch hunt for criminal syndicate Republicans none have been charged with anything while her own party leaders have been charged and are going to trial so one might say Ms. Pelosi is playing politics with ethics and is delusional with the facts. It's no wonder just 11% of the people have a favorable opinion of Congress.



Obama's Birthday

Today is Obama's 49th birthday and he is celebrating it with the boys in California while his wife, Michelle scheduled a last minute junket to a posh resort in Southern Spain along with 30-40 $2,000 rooms at a Spanish resort for her family and friends. Why is the First Family halfway around the world spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars instead of celebrating with the President at home? Rumor has it she is fed up with Barack's emulation of Clinton's presidential style, at least the parts not involving Clinton's bi-partisan work with Republicans.



BP Oil Leak

The Obama administration has defied liberal environmentalists once again and trial lawyers for the first time by releasing a report today that 75% of the oil that leaked into the Gulf is gone and the rest is widely dispersed and no longer a threat to cause cataclysmic environmental destruction. That does not bode well with the environmentalists who claim the Gulf was destroyed by the spill and that we must allocate billions of dollars for future research by them to find the missing oil.;

Nor does it sit well with the Trial lawyers, the largest special interest contributor to Obama's presidential campaign, who expected to make billions of dollars in legal fees suing BP and everyone else for the disaster. Since Obama already protected them during the acrimonious health care debate by refusing to limit excessive medical malpractice legal fees and fines, they expected a better return on their investment in Obama.



Will Obama Oil Drilling Ban be Lifted?

As the weeks roll on and nothing has been done to resolve the Obama ban on deep sea drilling, that has also literally blocked all offshore drilling, and the Obama administration's own scientific report says the environmental damage is far less severe than previously claimed, there is growing distress in the Gulf states who stand to lose thousands of jobs that are going to other countries where offshore drilling is encouraged.

Alternative energy advocates have held the drilling ban hostage as a way to block oil production and get federal approval for the massive energy cap and trade legislation Obama wants that will force a huge increase in taxes and in the cost of gasoline and all other oil products. Of course Al Gore and Goldman Sachs, also big Obama campaign backers, are poised to make billions of dollars from the cap and trade initiative and are desperate to protect heir investment.



State's Rights versus Obama Centralized Government

Arizona has been joined by 19 other states in fighting the Obama Justice Department efforts to deny states the right to protect their citizens from illegal immigration costs and crime.



Virginia and Michigan are pursuing separate court challenges to the Obama health care experiment saying it is unconstitutional for the federal government to force their citizens to buy health insurance against their will, especially if they have the ability to pay for it.

As Obama moves closer and closer to the massive federal government he has advocated in order to pursue his often stated goals of redistribution of wealth and expanded control over all sectors of the economy and banking system expect more and more challenges by the states to protect their Constitutional rights.

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Arizona versus White House - States Rights versus Big Government - You Decide!

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It is a classic battle in the history of America and one that began with the debate over the original Constitution by our Founding Fathers. Do we want a centralized federal government or a government where state government is the primary instrument of the people with the federal government doing only what states could not do?

Time and again the argument has been settled by the people deciding that a centralized federal government was no what the people wanted as it would always be a threat to the Bill of Rights, the individual freedoms of the people and the system of capitalism that has made America great, and yes different, than the rest of the world.

After failing to push a centralized, socialist agenda in the 1700's the post depression period of the 1930's and Franklin Roosevelt's aggressive New Deal added fuel to the debate with a dramatic increase in power and control by the federal government. In time the state's rights advocates finally got a number of New Deal initiatives shot down by the courts and an uneasy balance between encroaching socialism and individualism was maintained.



Then came the 1960's period of social unrest fueled by the unpopular Viet Nam war and President Johnson and his Great Society again pushed the socialist, centralized agenda. Almost as soon as it was approved it started to lose the faith of the people and along came President Nixon and then President Reagan pushing New Federalism, a reversal of federal centralization and return to state's rights.

I was involved in both efforts and was a member of the New Federalism Task Force under Nixon that the New York Times called the most successful effort since Roosevelt's New Deal to reverse the balance of government power and return control to the states.

Now along comes President Obama and once again he is pushing the agenda of central government control and domination over all aspects of our lives, a thinly disguised effort to resurrect the socialism of the last century. Such a mindset centered upon the principle of redistribution of wealth along with the elimination of individual rights and initiative long ago proved to be ill-designed and unsuccessful over the long term as experiments in Europe, Russia and other parts of the world have proven.



Two recent actions by Obama have confirmed his commitment to the federal social management underlying his agenda of change for America. The Obama administration has blasted the state of Arizona for passing their own immigration bill to protect their own border and citizens and then went to federal court to deny Arizona their right to protect their people.

This action was taken by the administration in spite of the universal acknowledgment by everyone, friends and foes alike, that our federal immigration laws do not work. At least 13 million illegal immigrants are in our country using services and taking jobs meant for our own citizens. Arizona has suffered more than any other state because of this federal failure yet Obama challenges one of our own states.

Ironically, numerous other states have entered the case as a friend of Arizona while numerous other foreign countries have entered the case as a friend of the Obama administration. One wonders why only foreign governments agree with Obama while our states, and the general public according to all polls, agree with the state of Arizona.



The second case is the oil drilling moratorium Obama imposed on the Gulf, claiming it only impacted on the deep water drilling like the BP oil leak. Well he was wrong as the issuance of all oil drilling permits in the Gulf have been slowed down, including shallow water drilling permits, because the Obama administration is obsessed with proving a point and has focused all resources on stopping the exploration for oil.

As for the merits of the case, the action was thrown out by the federal courts as unjustified and a gross over-reaction by the Administration. Remember, it was the Obama administration that approved the permit and emergency plans for the BP well so who was really at fault for the disaster? After the court action Obama filed another moratorium to block the drilling and ignore the court action.



The state of Louisiana and other Gulf states say the drilling ban is unnecessary, is blocking legitimate shallow water drilling, and is causing the loss of thousands of jobs in the Gulf Coast for no reason. Well there is a reason, it is called ignoring the courts and congress and pushing a socialist centralized agenda.

So the administration has taken action to strip the states of their ability to protect the public safety and jobs as well as the future economic health and development of our states. More important, these actions have been taken in spite of the refusal of congress to agree and the actions of the courts to reject the actions of the administration.



In America we have three branches of the federal government with equal powers to act as a check and balance on each other. No more. In America the rights of the states have been protected by the congress and the courts for 234 years, but not any more.

Maybe the public needs to send another message to Washington. Maybe the White House does not understand that governors know a lot more about local problems than the federal government. Maybe the Administration needs to be reminded that creeping socialism is still socialism and long ago we made clear that America is the land of the free, not the home of those who reject individual and states rights in order to implement the new look of a socialist system where everone looks and acts the same.

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