What is the 7th District?

For those of you not familiar with the 7th District in Southern Maryland I thought I would offer a little primer in the highly unlikely event you ever fall off the edge of the world and find yourself in the 7th District. First of all it is one of the oldest landing points for the colonization of the original thirteen colonies way back in the early 1600's. St. Clements Island, the actual place where the English pilgrims landed, is just off Coltons Point where the pilgrims first saw the Indians and set foot in Maryland. These are the last two places on the map in the 7th District at the Potomac River.

Now I am not a pilgrim nor related to pilgrims but an awful lot of people here are and it seems that the older the family the more likely they inter-married with other families that have been around about 375 years, since 1634 and this is the anniversary year. That means when you meet a Dorsey, Bailey, Combs, McKay, and all the other names you see on signs down here you might just be meeting the relatives of all the prominent and aristocratic families.

The 7th District folks came here for religious and other freedom and for the last 300 years have been fighting anyone who tried to tame them. Long before the existence of New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, DC these folks had established rights to the 7th District. The early settlers were a combination of watermen, farmers and tobacco farmers and starting in 1639 other people started trying to take this place away from them.

The local Native Americans never tried, I suspect they knew better, and this was about the only place in America where the settlers and Native Americans lived in harmony which tells you a lot about the people who settled as they respected the rights of the Natives. Since it was the only place in the New World that promised religious freedom a lot of other people wanted to stop them. The Puritans and a few other groups seemed to think they had the only connection to God.

So the locals fought off the other white men for about a hundred years before they joined the fight against the Brits as the concept of freedom just kept spreading. In a couple of wars the British actually attacked this area which goes to show military intelligence hasn't much changed after all these years. The 7th District eventually became the last frontier in Maryland which it remains to this day.

So along the way the Civil War was fought and being we were well south of the Mason Dixon line but still in Union controlled territory the 7th District became one of the primary smuggling points for getting supplies and arms to the Confederates since the Union had blockaded all the southern ports. One Union officer said at night the Potomac River was filled with black painted boats sailing supplies across the river to the Confederates in Virginia.

Upcoming scandals we will be reporting on include the English and French support for the Confederate army that was channeled through this area and the fact the English backed John Wilkes Booth and was to pick him up here after the killing of President Lincoln. Of course there is also the disappearance of Booth for almost a week during the manhunt in the area of the 7th District.

Eventually the rest of Maryland got civilized and soon the election of governor in the state always seemed to be tied between the Baltimore Democrats and the Washington DC area Republicans and it was the band of outcasts down in the 7th District that decided many an election throughout the 20th century. I suspect this was the way the folks of the 7th District got even with the politicians. Many a person can recall seeing a candidate for governor from up north sneak into the District, spend a weekend sharing some moonshine with the old boys, and going home to win the election. In the 7th District the vote could be controlled as about everyone was a Catholic Democrat and they knew statewide elections were dependent on them for success.

We had our share of celebrities as well but they always seemed to live just across the water from the 7th District. From Coltons Point you could see where George Washington was born and where Robert E. Lee was born on the Virginia shore.

There is no local government nor local police in the entire 7th District as the people could never see the need for the bureaucrats. Most justice was handed out locally including disposal without the expense of trial or jail for anyone terrorizing the people. No crime wave lasted long.

Of course to this day there are no governments, street lights, stop lights, sidewalks, sewers, water pipes, gas lines or anything else found in most civilizations. The fire and emergency personnel are volunteers. About half of the roads planned for Coltons Point have never been built and you better check the goods in the local store for expiration dates before you buy anything.

People here still eat fish, oysters, crab and clams harvested from the river although the politicians up north have done about everything possible to destroy the environment. More than nine Bald Eagles share year round residence in the Point along with many a strange specimen that can be seen wandering out of the swamps and wetlands on dark and foggy nights.

There is a distinct social structure that has evolved over the years including the Ancients, Aboriginals, Watermen, Yuppies, Yippies, Yappies, Come Downers and Come Backers. The Ancients are the descendents of the original boat people from 1634 on. Since there are no Native Americans left the Aboriginals are the hillbillies, moon shiners, deinstitutionalized head cases, religious zealots, and of course Confederates who run around singing "Don't give a damn what the Yankees say the South's gonna rise again" in a strange pig Latin tongue.

The Watermen are the raucous survivors of the original fisher men, crab men, oyster men, clam men, eel men, (yes I said eels as in scary slithering things on the river bottom) and the people who supported them like the marinas, crab shacks, oyster and clam processing joints etc. There aren't many left and that is one of the enduring tragedies of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The Yuppies are the new rich who move here to get away from what they spent their lives working to get. Yippies are the younger generation now beyond youth but still trying to find their way through life with a soft spot for environmental issues, nature, birds and privacy. Yappies are Yuppies and Yippies with a big mouth who show up expecting to find all the laws of more civilized places like dog catchers, police and all the other conveniences of modern society.

Down here the Postmaster knows everyone on a first name basis. The local bar doesn't want any more customers as that might put them in a higher tax bracket. There is no fast food, no place to eat period without driving about 10-20 miles, and little need to put on airs. It don't matter whether you are rich or poor, you all eat crabs, oysters and clams the same.

The Come Downers are the city folk who discovered the quaint place along the river and made their way here to escape where they are from or to exploit the area for material gain which never seems to happen. Finally the Come Backers are the kids of the Ancient families who escaped long ago only to discover the rest of the world will never replace what they had here in the first place and eventually they find their way back home.

Now that is a little of what you find down here in the 7th District of Southern Maryland, ferocious defenders of individual freedom a lot of character from a lot of characters, a place steeped deep in history, a keen sense of fair play, a desire to help your neighbors no matter what their social status might be, a bit cynical when it comes to the promises of the government or elected officials, but people who will never turn their backs on people in need, unless, of course they deserve it.

No Hillbilly Joe this is not acceptable art!

In response to the request from Hillbilly Joe to have this sculpture of a human placed on the St. Clements Museum porch, the answer is absolutely not! The people of Coltons Point don't want to literally see through people. Think of something else to endow to the people.

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).

Election Wrap Up - Republicans & GOP Stars

The Republicans actually did quite well this election cycle as the economy, wars and lack of faith in George W. seemed to have little effect on the party results. McCain earned an astonishing 46% of the popular vote with all these problems.

Much to the chagrin of the liberal media a new star was born in Sarah Palin whose experience and battles with campaign staff will help her immeasurably in future elections. Make no mistake, Palin is a force to be reckoned with in the future.

The Palin factor left Biden out in the cold for most of the fall election, caused Obama to address the comments of a vice presidential opponent for the first time in memory and left the liberal media totally exhausted in the end, having floated every lie and innuendo they could dredge up on Sarah with little effect on her popularity.

Not only was Palin the greatest individual draw for much of her three months of campaigning, but her very presence forced many Democratic female candidates out of the woodwork knowing that Palin was now a front runner to campaign for being first female president in 2012. Thus Hillary had to take a far more visible Secretary of State position, Caroline Kennedy came out of nowhere and other prominent women are now positioning themselves in case Barack fails to heal the nation.

However, the most amazing thing I found with the election was the vast number of Republican female spokespersons who dominated the media. Never have so many quite attractive and eloquent younger women dominated news coverage for the Republicans, known much better for the conservative old men, and this bodes well for the future direction of the party.

Throughout this article you will see their photos and the women featured include Sarah Palin, Janine Turner, Laura Ingram, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Monica Crowley, Debbie Shussel, Jeri Thompson, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Judith Giuliani, Dana Perino, Sarah Evans, Kirsten Powers, Cindy McCain, Chrei Jacobus, Megyn Kelly and Martha MacCallum. You will be hearing a lot from them in the future as they rallied around women and conservative issues.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR

OUR HOLIDAY GREETING FOR YOU

For all people of the world we offer prayers and hope for world peace and wish you happy holidays for (Christian) Christmas, (African) Kwanzaa, (Hispanic) Las Posadad-Noche Buena-Navidad, (Jewish) Hanukkah-Rosh Hashanah, (Persian) Yalda, (Islamic) Eid al-Adha-Muharram, (Buddhist) Rohatsu, (Hindu) Sankranti, (Celtic) Winter Solstice and (Chinese) New Year.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Feliz Navidad y Felices Fiestas

Joyeux Noël et joyeuses fêtes

Buon Natale e Buone Feste

Frohe Weihnachten und frohe Feiertage

Vrolijke Kerstmis en Gelukkige Vakantie

Καλα Χριστουγεννα και καλες διακοπες

Feliz Natal e Boas Festas

И Рождеством Христовым праздники

メリークリスマス休暇で幸せ

聖誕快樂，節日快樂

This is Rockefeller Center in NYC which could be seen from my office above it on 5th Avenue.

From the Coltons Point Times -- have a great, safe and loving holidays....

Obama's Historic Presidency - Harvard Must Clean Up the Yale Mess

On the abs and shoulders of newly elected Barack Obama comes the most daunting task of his historic presidency which is cleaning up the legacy (mess) that 20 straight years of Yale grads as president has bestowed on us. The last Harvard grad to undertake such a challenge was John F. Kennedy 48 years ago.

In 1636 Harvard was founded and in 1701 Yale was founded and ever since these two Ivy League competitors have been at each other's throats whether it was in founding a nation, creating the game of football, distinguishing themselves as the educational elite of America, charging the highest tuition in the nation to attend, or just capturing the presidency.

Almost a year ago I wrote an article called "Presidential Election 2008 - Harvard versus Yale" . The stunning recent success of Yale in capturing the presidency the past 20 years and nearly for an additional 8 with Hillary capped a long and dominant run by the Bulldogs. In every election since 1972 either a Democrat or Republican presidential candidate or both were from Yale and the 20 year domination beat out the old record held by Harvard and Franklin Roosevelt.

Roosevelt was elected four times himself, meaning Harvard had the muscle to change the Constitution and have a president elected more than twice to keep a favorite son in office. He served into his 13th year before dying and had been elected to serve 16 years. Yale controlled the White House the last 20 years with three different presidents, Bush, Clinton and Bush 2.

Now before we all become overly enamored with the power and success of the Ivy elite remember that Harvard, the venerable 372 year oldest university in the nation still has the dumbest mascot ever adopted by a school in America while the Yale Bulldogs must explain away the legacy of the past 20 years. Oh yes, and only once in history has someone been president who graduated from both schools, our very own George W. Bush, leaving both with much to explain.

As for the Harvard mascot, for those of you who don't know and the Harvard Crimson has worked very hard to conceal the fact, the university mascot is a real person, John Harvard, a puritan clergyman from England in the 1600's. A statue of John Harvard, sculpted by Daniel Chester French, sits in Harvard Yard at Harvard University. Despite its name, the statue does not depict the true likeness of John Harvard, as the sculptor had no accurate image to work from.

The statue, known by Harvard tour guides as the statue of three lies, claims that it depicts John Harvard, Founder, 1638, but in reality Harvard was a contributor, not the founder; the institution was founded in 1636; and the statue is actually a likeness of someone else as French used a student as a model. What Harvard did do was leave the first major endowment to Harvard along with his library thus immortalizing the value of endowments over academics. The current mascot is a hideous distortion of the original John Harvard who wasn't John Harvard to begin with but some student.

Obama is the 8th Harvard grad to serve as president from colonial days after John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and George Bush. John Adams was vice president under George Washington for two terms before being elected the 2nd president of the USA in 1797.

Yale has given us 5 presidents with the first being William Howard Taft who was not elected until 1908, 111 years after the first Harvard president. Following Taft were Gerald Ford, George Bush, Sr., Bill Clinton and George Bush, Jr. all in the past 35 years.

The current Yale legacy, Iraq, Afghanistan, the credit crisis, Wall Street collapse, auto company collapse, insurance industry collapse, in fact the whole economic collapse, the extreme negative attitudes toward our elected officials, financial leaders and media, the negative attitude of the world toward America, corruption, oil crisis, terrorism and all the other stuff is certain to be the biggest challenge to Harvard since the great depression and World War II inherited by Franklin Roosevelt.

We can only hope and pray that Barack Obama can clean up the Yale mess and maybe even get the Harvard mascot finally changed during his historic presidency, something even the Adams, Roosevelt's and Kennedy failed to accomplish.

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.

Letter to the Editor

Seems Anonymous has decided to write again this time in defense of the internet. Now since I normally let all responses stand without comment I shall change from past practice since there is a clear misunderstanding on the part of Anonymous as to what I know.

Anonymous said:

You shouldn't be so tough on Internet advertising: this blog you spread your message on is given to you for free as a result of it. Just several years ago you would have had to pay to host an expensive server and rent a domain name to get your message out. Not to mention that Google has taken on the likes of Microsoft with their free suite of Google Doc publishing tools. Yeah, they even let you store your created documents on their servers also for free. And if you choose you can do all this in complete anonymity. Google and Internet advertising, albeit annoying, has changed the world for the better.

Nothing is free on the internet. I refuse constant attempts by Google and others to insert their advertising and that of their millions of advertisers. Any day they will require it and I will lose the ability to give you an ad free source of information. I have my own domain names and servers in place for the day the intenet is no longer free which will be very soon. Besides, we all pay to access the "free" information. There is no free distribution of my stories on the internet either by Google or anyone else. In spite of the fact I am a long time registered journalist any distribution of the stories short of extremely hard work and constant networking is at a very high cost as the Googles of the world along with the internet media refuse to run stories without payment. Just posting on the internet gets one nothing, including exposure.

Automated banking? Are you talking Internet banking? Just think about all those dummies recently standing in line to get their money out of failed banks. The fools should have been sitting at home moving their dough to safer institutions with their mouse and a few clicks.The biggest injustice we face hasn't changed, it's the use of media companies to further political agendas. At least the Internet is helping anyone who chooses to do so to harpoon those institutions.

You know those dummies standing in line at banks, well they got every cent they had deposited. The bigger dummies on the internet lost about $500 billion to fraud directly or indirectly related to the internet and credit cards last year. The cell phone users were losers as well with over $20 billion in losses. And even ATM machines were looted by hacking bank records to the tune of billions of dollars. If you add the other ramifications of identity theft from the internet the losses could be approaching a trillion dollars and guess whose internet, credit card and cell phone fees are adjusted to cover the losses, you!

Don't like what others say? Start a newspaper and put it in everyone's mailbox. The County Times should come to mind. Finally, some food for thought. No better tool has ever existed to expose corruption and find the truth than the Internet. Everything is archived and searchable. You've got the library of the world right at your desk 24/7. Just imagine how it would have changed your life had it been there in your youth.

The problem with the internet is there is no test of truth to what is posted. When it was originally started it was as a research tool with real institutions verifying the information. Now anyone can say anything with no relationship to truth and the gullible public believes much of what is posted. Just look at the vicious campaign rumors about both Obama and Palin that never went away, even after the truth had been established. As an entertainment tool the internet is great. As a source of truth it has led to the destruction of journalism as a source of true information and that is a sad commentary on life in general.

I was a newspaper reporter for a real newspaper and we had to have multiple sources, survive editing and fact checking and be able to capture the public attention before our stories were even published. Too bad such standards are not possible on the internet.

Finally, if the internet was such a valuable tool to protect us from corruption why is fraud and corruption using the internet and electronic trading, swaps and derivatives thriving, why did it just cost trillions of dollars in losses to unsuspecting people throughout the world, why has it destroyed our economy, and why can't anyone stop it?

Jordan Christopher

The Economic Meltdown - Where do we go from here?

If you were a regular reader of the Coltons Point Times or previous work by the editor you would be a lot richer than you are today. Since the '70's we have predicted the economic, stock market and housing fluctuations, trends and crashes with unusual accuracy from the oil manipulations of the '70's and 2007 and 2008 to the real estate mess in the early '80's and 2007, from the dot com meltdown of 2000 - 2002 to the interest spiral of the late '70's.

For years we have warned you of the conflict of interest of the "industry analysts" employed by Wall Street to influence stock prices. We listed the billions of dollars in fines paid for fraud and corruption in the financial and pharmaceutical industries and watched with awe as Congress passed the $700 billion bailout to save the same firms. Over and over we warned that there was nothing "free" about our free market system that is being manipulated by sources far more powerful than our government.

Wall Street and Madison Avenue, the financial and advertising centers of the universe, have joined forces to brainwash and spoon feed the American public with seeds of greed, obsession with materialism and disregard for laws and authority. Here we are today, a new president, a Democratic congress, and an inspired electorate yet the same architects of our current economic chaos are firmly in control of both the present and new administration.

Nearly a trillion dollars in bailouts have already been approved by Congress and our new president, a second multi-billion dollar bailout will be approved before Obama is even sworn in as president. House Speaker Pelosi is meeting today with the auto manufacturers and union leaders to decide on a second 25 billion dollar bridge loan. Barney Frank has promised just about everything to everyone while Pelosi is treating the Treasury as an endless pit of money and our new president may not even have a voice in what takes place.

Make no mistake, Madison Avenue convinced us we must have everything and Wall Street served it up through the maze of financial tricks of the trade and no one bothered to ask do we really need all this stuff. No one bothered to wonder why car companies were making more money off repairing your new car than selling it as "planned obsolescence", in other words making cars that would break down, became a bigger profit center.

Our FDA has turned its head to the proliferation of new drugs from an industry used to charging about 10 to 20 times the fair market value for prescriptions. Tens of billions in fines have been paid by the same pharmaceutical firms for fraud, price fixing, and bribes to doctors and hospitals. Yet Congress wants to expand our already broken and highly corrupt health industry to provide unnecessary medical care and drugs to everyone.

Many consumer product companies are in serious trouble because people did the only thing they could to survive the financial disaster, they stopped wasting money and started saving what little they had left. That is a very good thing but will extend a recession for those interested in bailing out Wall Street. Our media became dependent on advertising dollars that no longer exist so watch for television, radio and cable stations and networks dependent on advertising to start going under.

Our internet firms like Yahoo, Google, E Bay and millions of small businesses on the net will see their value collapse even more as the ad money dries up and as people realize that internet advertising really is the most over-valued method of reaching people with an undiluted message. Credit card fraud, cell phone fraud and identity theft flourish as a result of the internet and the failure of anyone to protect the consumer from such predators. Automated banking will be the next victim of the internet.

Entertainment companies including the record industry are operating with a broken business model and have had to resort to corruption to make money. The five largest record companies in America have paid tens of millions of dollars in fines recently for bribing radio stations to play records and now over 600 radio stations are under investigation for corruption. The record industry is beyond fixing and must collapse.

Many of the very industries our Congress is saving have no business in a free market economy where innovation, quality, service and competition are supposed to be the dominant attributes. Right now we reward fraud, corruption, greed and unfair business practices. How long is the American public going to continue to support the industries with their money and support their protectors (Congress) with their votes? The day of reckoning is at hand.

A Day For The Ages - Obama & Lincoln

THE DREAM FULFILLED

Abraham Lincoln - 16th President

Barack Obama - 44th President

Just 23 days after he takes office as the 44th President,

on February 12, 2009, Barack Obama will celebrate the

200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, a fellow

president from Illinois whose dream that all people are free

was fulfilled with the historic election of Obama. Lincoln sacrificed

his life so that Obama could serve. Here they are both sitting before

the Illinois Statehouse where both began historic political careers.

Image created by The Coltons Point Times.

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.

Choose or Lose November 4

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.