Voting doesn’t have to be complicated

I’ve been a conservative voter for many years and still am for the most part.  If you have read my opinion on some of the more controversial subjects, you understand that in some ways, I side with the more liberal thinkers.  Blame my service record for that.

Years ago I read Lyndon: An Oral Biography and Plain Speaking an Oral Biography of Harry. S. Truman both by Merle Miller. I read 5 of John McCain’s books.  I’ve read many other books about our presidents and political figures and they have helped me understand how American politics are supposed to function. For the people, by the people, etc. Of course I am no expert and don’t want to give that impression.

The TV series House of Cards pretty much nails how it works though, with powerful politicians calling in favors and chits, often skewing the voting records of those under their lofty positions. Lyndon Johnson was possibly the best at getting things done in the White House of all the presidents and political figures this country has ever seen.

On television and before the people, he drawled on in a monotone, appearing to be this slow-talking Texan with very deliberate word choices. In reality he had almost inexhaustible energy and forced through his policies and opinions by stabbing a big index finger in his victim’s chest and then using his Texas cowboy boots, he would kick them in the shins.

I’m not making that up. Hubert Humphrey was permanently scarred by Johnson and would pull his trouser legs up to show the permanent bumps. 

Over the years the crevasse between the 2 major parties has became a so wide that neither side wants to give an inch and herein lies the problem. Whereas LBJ could push things through, through compromise, nobody on either side wants to be accused of “working with the enemy”

Take the Kennedy-McCain immigration bill for instance. It would have and still would work, but it was picked to pieces by both parties and made both politicians look foolish and like turncoats. What did we end up with when the immigration bill failed?  Nothing. The same old thing that didn’t work. Americans were carefully manipulated to thinking both of these guys were jerks for even suggesting the joint plan.

So who benefited from this failed bill? The illegal aliens, that’s who. The reason I say this is because I actually read the whole thing! Yup. Unlike idiots in high places like Nancy Pelosi, I actually read this stuff.

There is a website located here: http://www.ontheissues.org/

It is where you can see how a politician actually voted on major issues. Now bear in mind, that on some of this stuff, they were coerced into voting against their desire so they could get their own stuff passed. That is important to remember.

At the bottom of each politician’s page is a matrix that shows how they rate as far as Liberal versus Conservative, etc. You may believe that the far left or far right truly reflects your views, but understand that any of these representatives whose mark is in the extreme, has more intention of pushing their parties policies over what the voters want.

They no longer represent YOU. They represent their party and their party knows what you need or want or deserve more than you do. As a Conservative with Libertarian leanings I do not want anyone in the White House who is against returning this nation back to the way the Constitution and Bill of Rights initially declared.

Think about that. You should feel the same way. Our freedoms are disappearing and all for our own good according to them. They have massive benefits while ours are vanishing. The do not call list is an tiny example of their self-serving privilege. They voted to exempt themselves so they can call you while you and your family eat supper.

Our political system has been allowed to morph into a government that is parasitical and has little to do with the voter’s wishes.  Whether you love or hate marijuana 68% of the population of this country believe it is time for marijuana law reform. When Jeb Bush votes “No medical marijuana; it's just a guise toward legalization”, he ceases to be anything to me but a Party hack out of touch with 7 out of 10 voters.

I’m expressing marijuana here to prove a point. Look at above website. Forget what is coming out of their mouths and see how they vote. Every once in a while one of them will speak the truth though. Bravo to Joe Biden for calling the Chattanooga shooter who killed our Marines and one sailor, a “perverted jihadist”. As far as I know, he’s the first person in the Obama Administration to call the guy a terrorist.

Our few good politician’s are made villains by other politicians and we lemmings sit back and let them. Look at Sarah Palin’s voting record. She was ridiculed to the point that she became a laughing stock. Her voting record is clean and reasonable. If all I could see was her voting record, I would vote for her.

The Presidency is serious business folks. Choose carefully. We can only support so many people who don’t and won’t work. We can only give so many anti-American countries 150 billion dollars – thank you Obama. Our country has to make the correct choices and our leaders need to find a way to work together.

Donald Trump is not the villain he is being portrayed as. He is an uber-threat to the 2 established ultra-partisan parties and both parties are scared to death, so they are demonizing him. He knows this and is forcing both parties to actually declare what they are going to do on real issues.

That may be the only reason he is running and I say bravo. Research how these people vote before you punch out that chad.

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Which Candidate is Best? You Decide!

I have an easy and logical method for determining which Presidential candidate is best for the future of the United States of America. I simply watch the news sources and see whom Hollywood endorses and which candidate our enemies are rooting for and I vote for the other campaigner. I find it curiously peculiar that many wealthy Hollywood actors, third world despots and economically competing governments often want the same candidate to win the election.

It's tried and true, uncannily accurate and history does indeed repeat itself, so I use this formula each presidential election to make sure I am helping to secure our future well-being as a superpower, which incidentally is something I feel is vitally important.

According to Reuters – "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, renowned for colorful insults of world leaders, called U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin a confused "beauty queen" on Friday after she said he was a dictator. Chavez, a leftist who often mocks U.S. President George W. Bush, invoked the advice of Jesus Christ on how to handle the slights by Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska and a former beauty pageant winner".

I think its safe to say whom Mr. Chavez would like to see in the White House especially when Barack Obama is promising an expanded non-military diplomatic Bill Clintonesque agenda (which sounds good on paper, but hardly works in the real world), but how about Iran's scruffy dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who just last year inaugurated an international conference called World Without America--attended by anti-Americans from all over the world, including the U.S.?

According to Middle East expert Amir Taheri "Obama's election would boost President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's chances of winning a second term next June. Ahmadinejad's entourage claims that his "steadfastness in resisting the American Great Satan" was a factor in helping Obama defeat "hardliners" such as Hillary Clinton and, later, it hopes, John McCain". He's an Obama man for sure.

Let's move on to Europe's preference for the next American President. Europe hates America; it's no secret. Even though we protect their borders with the world's most powerful military presence and pump billions of American dollars into their collective economies and pulled their bacon out of the fire two times in the last century – they hate us. I'll leave it to the experts as to what they think and since they are our competitors for global domination, their preference is important.

"The 5 largest European countries are unanimous in their desire to see Barack Obama elected whilst John McCain's rating is extremely low. If they could vote, only 1% of French, 5% of German and 8% of Spanish respondents would elect John McCain. In the United States, the Republican candidate is behind by 10 points." so says the FRANCE 24 / Harris Interactive poll.

According to this poll, 99% of the French want Barack Obama. To me this is a Euro-klaxon horn of alarming concern. The French see themselves as the true leader of the European Common Market and detest everything American. If they want Barack Obama, they feel they can manipulate him and triumph over us as a country. Yes, it is that simple.

But isn't John McCain just another paw-parrot of George W. Bush? Hasn't he voted almost identical as what GWB wanted? John McCain was considered a freethinking renegade Republican until the Primaries started and then his fellow Republican contenders labeled him as nothing more than a pinko liberal, which wasn't true. He would occasionally vote against a Republican initiative if he felt it was a bad plan and that made him a maverick. Now, if I read the newsprint correctly, he's become a staunch conservative who eats out of GWB's hand and that also is not so.

Okay, let's move on. What about our venerated Hollywood movie stars? Why in heaven's name would they be for raising their own taxes, cutting our military back to near nothing and making our country vulnerable – just like they did when they threw their collective monies behind electing Bill Clinton - twice? Why would they be so vehement towards the George W. Bush presidency and blame him personally for our economic woes, when the government has been Democratically controlled for the last two years? It's a mind-boggling conundrum for sure and for the life of me, I can't understand why this doesn't raise serious debate everywhere on our politically active campuses.

I thought the January 3rd, 2007 election of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House was supposed to be a magic economic panacea or something, but nope, it wasn't and their approval rating for running the government is so low, the only scapegoat they point towards is poor old George.

So, is this column nothing more than a John McCain infomercial? The answer is no it's not, but as I said at the beginning, whomever our competitors, world anti-American dictators and our enemies want in the White House is an excellent barometer and since they all want Barack Obama, then I will vote for the other fellow thank you.

Should I vote for Barack Obama?

I listened to Presidential hopeful Barack Obama address the nation this past Tuesday with his eloquent history lesson beginning at the penning of the Constitution through the many civil rights advances and its many problems. The man is very much a public speaker, at least as long as he sticks to his prepared material. He talks so well that almost nothing he says can be contested. I have the transcript on my desk as I write this column and have read and re-read it. It's a very good speech, maybe one of the greatest speeches of our day.

Although interesting and fluent, it's not necessary for Barack Obama to give me a 30-minute history lesson on race-relations in this country to win my vote. What I do need as a voter is his assurance that everyone under his future administration is going to get a far shake and that 20 years of the "most segregated moment in American life occurs on Sunday morning" is not ingrained in his subconscious mind. If John McCain had a 20-year history of sitting under the Pastor Wright's opposite and then told the world that he believed in racial healing, everyone would openly reject him. Heckfire, Hillary wouldn't even go there.

Mr. Obama's charismatic delivery is somehow wasted on me, as I have an inbuilt spam-filter when it comes to what I perceive to be possibly smoke and mirrors. Flowery speeches promising vague returns defined as "change" doesn't make me salivate. I simply want line item yes' and no's. I want to see a voting record that has more than "present" in the little boxes. Mr. Obama is either in excess on one count or sadly lacking on the other.

At least with Hillary Clinton we have 15 years of hard evidence to go by if she is our choice, but Mr. Obama is a mirage of sorts. He promises. He points out old seemingly difficult to change problems and promises to fix them. Somehow. Even though his problem-fixing promises are weak and there is no record of his past successes, he has plenty of followers ready to believe him.

About 20 years ago I attended a large gathering of non-denominational basically Christian people in Houston for a Bill Gothard seminar on Basic Life. We were seated in a large auditorium with what appeared to be a thousand or more people and before us was a stage with a giant two-section curtain. Everyone rose to his or her feet as the curtain opened and a projected image of Bill Gothard appeared to be walking onto the stage. A thunderous applause greeted him from the crowd around me.

Much to my wife's dismay, I did not follow suit, but remained seated and did not clap my hands. I looked around and folks were smiling and clapping and anxiously awaiting the night's presentation. Interspersed were others, like myself, who simply would not partake of greeting something that only appeared to be real, but simply put, was a mirage. There is a term for this kind of crowd mentality and it comes from the saying "like sheep to the slaughter". It's "Sheeple" or sheep-people. I saw this same behavior at an Obama speech when he sneezed and his audience of supporters cheered with giddy abandonment.

Now, don't get me wrong, Bill Gothard does indeed teach sound basic life principles, most of which embrace level-headed decision making, but fail to address everyday problems we encounter and I had no problem sitting and listening to his teaching, albeit by virtual proxy. What I did find disturbing was how easily his image and just his image moved people. I also walked away from his seminar with no clear idea of how to implement his teaching into every day life.

Mr. Obama's cultured appearance and incredible speaking ability hyper-boosts him as he exposes old difficult problems, but only hints of solutions. His description of black and white angst over race issues is dead-on, but can he actually change anything? Will his holding the Oval Office make racial unity possible? His followers think so.

Will his admission that Washington is riddled with insider back-scratching and corruption change in his administration? Can he fix it? What is his plan? If we dismantle our Army in Iraq and bring them home, what will we do with all these troops and the war machine? How will surrendering the Middle East make us stronger? I'm afraid Mr. Obama's plan will simply return us to Bill Clinton's day of a weakened military through sweeping military budget cuts, raised taxes and make matters worse.

Finally, the coup de grace for me in deciding if Mr. Obama is "The Candidate" is by listening to France and Germany. Who is Europe supporting for our leader? According to a European based poll of five major countries, Hillary Clinton was the favorite by 43%, while Barack Obama was only able to garner 11%. The Europeans who are our competitors and want their share of the pie (rather the whole pie) gave John McCain a 1% vote. That settles it for me.

What I see in this poll is they think Hillary Clinton will compromise, like her husband did. They are unsure of Barack Obama, because they have no idea what he plans to do and John McCain? John McCain will continue doing what America needs, even if it means putting America first. They fear him.

I personally am not interested one iota what the Europeans think if it means compromising the American way of life.

Like Peas and Carrots

As a good hard-working American citizen, concerned about the future of Texas and our country, I swaggered down to the Polls, virtual spurs dragging in the dust of the Cedar Bayou Jr. School floor, took off my ten-gallon hat and cast my vote for the candidate of my choice. I exhibit no squeamishness or apologies when I say I voted for John McCain. Note to reader: Is this column about the ten thousand virtues of John McCain and am I going to whine, cajole, pressure and try and convince you, the intelligent reader, who to vote for? Nope. I am not. You will have to do your own homework, just like I did.

What I do want to talk about is who would be a good match-up as Vee-Pee for the front-runners and by the time this goes to press, one of the Democrats may be dust blowing in the wind, so please bear with my prophetic suppositions and possibly insightful meanderings. The prospective Vice Presidents have to mate up perfectly with our current candidates to be a winning combination and like the brilliant sage Forrest Gump said, they must be like "peas and carrots".

Let's start with the current object of affection, Barack Obama, the front-running Democratic savior of the American downtrodden universe (it appears to me). I've been watching this fellow from Illinois (pronounced Ill-An-Noy incidentally) for a while and I've come to the conclusion that this is the nicest man I've ever seen in politics; kind of like Jimmy Carter, but without Billy. Mr. Obama is a people pleaser (33rd degree compromiser/diplomat) and needs a running mate who can match his polished delivery and eloquence.

After seven years of Americans listening to George Bush butcher the American-English language, I admit, Mr. Obama has panache. Anyone sharing his platform has to be just as good or he or she'll look stupid, like Dan Quayle, Jessica Simpson or Ernest P. Worrell – know what I mean, Vern?

Mr. Obama needs a running mate who will never ever offend anyone with his flowery speech, but be able to bring home the bacon when the time is right. Like Mr. Obama, they must be able to promise the moon and stars without actually offering advice on how to make it happen. They have to be a feel good people person.

The candidate should be natty in appearance and if possible, have a semi-behaved, but basically quiet trophy wife. If this dapper fellow of prominence has the ability to talk folks out of their hard-earned bucks, so much the better, so without further ado, I've found our candidate: Joel Osteen. He's a perfect match for a Presidential winning combo! Peas and carrots…

Hillary Clinton might as well grab up Oprah Winfrey if she's still available in the unlikely event Mr. Obama gets defeated. The female candidate political taboo rule doesn't apply to Mrs. Clinton for obvious reasons and no I won't go there. Oprah Winfrey is the consummate vote getter, especially the white female vote (If she had endorsed John Edwards, this thing would already be over). She daily hands out instructions on what to do, read and how millions of American white women should think (and there are oodles of them out there in voter land mind you), so Mrs. Clinton would be really missing an opportunity to win, by passing up Oprah and in the event that President Clinton could no longer administer the Oval Office, Ms. Winfrey could take over by simply incorporating the Presidency into her daily show. Peas and carrots…

That leaves us with John McCain and there is only one man who could stand comfortably in the shadow of Mr. McCain with confidence. He's held in awe by all real men and desired by women, feared by our Country's numerous enemies and if there is one man who could swing the youth–student vote away from Barack Obama, it's this man – Chuck Norris!

Chuck is fair, looks like a Texan, honest, kind, thrifty, brave, vigilant, and real handsome and wouldn't hesitate to hammer-fist/triple side-kick a bad guy (or whole country) into submission. Mr. McCain is quite frankly no spring chicken and neither is Mr. Norris, but between the two them, they can still open up a can whoop-you-know-what if the need arises. Besides, John McCain has a notorious bad temper when crossed and Chuck is basically a nice guy and due to his extensive combat training, only beats up people who actually need beating up. Its yin and yang – balance. Peas and carrots…again!

In my search for the ultimate Presidential sidekick, I did deep research on the Internet to see what exactly Mr. Norris is capable of and surprise of all surprises, it turns out he is good at every thing! John McCain and Chuck Norris: our next Presidential team and that my friends, is what they call in the news/food industry - a wrap.