Can You Fix It?

"I looked him in the face and I asked him one thing. I said, can you fix this?" Foxworthy said. "And he did not blink, he said 'yes, I can.'"

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Real Compassion: More Jobs

What an important and powerful conservative message this is.  Real compassion isn't measured by the number of people on welfare, but by creating jobs and giving people the opportunity to work and achieve and provide for themselves and their families.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Squirrel!

I quite enjoyed this recent post from National Review Online.  A snippet below:
Democrats need to change their party mascot from the donkey to the squirrel. They divert the media’s and the electorate’s short attention spans with fleeting, fuzzy objects — like the main canine character in the Pixar movie Up, who was easily distracted from his main thoughts and serious duties by every last little moving trifle.
Embassy attacks? Quick, find a squirrel! Warnings ignored? Squirrel! American troops killed by long-plotting jihadis exploiting security weaknesses? Squirrel! Sabotage of the First Amendment by White House officials in the name of political correctness? Squirrel! Chronic joblessness, high gas prices, exploding dependency? Squirrel! Squirrel! Squirrel!
If that doesn't describe the MO of the Democrats and their media supporters, I don't know what does.  But I also think many voters are onto them.  We just need to keep pressing forward, talk to and encourage our friends, coworkers, and family across the country, so we can get this done in November.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Dependency vs. Opportunity

So you may have heard by now - cue the laugh line - that Mitt Romney was secretly taped at a fundraising event last May talking about the "47%" of the population in America who get significantly more from than they give to government, and that he expected it would be hard to get that group to vote for him based on an argument of reducing taxes and slowing the growth of government.  It never ceases to amaze how overboard the mainstream media can go with these things - but that's a topic for another day.

Now, I think it's clear - and I suspect Mitt would agree with this - that these comments in isolation are too simplistic to really describe the situation with the voters and the government.  I'm sure he would state things differently if he could go back.

But there remains a serious point and principle that I think most citizens, most voters in America would fully agree with.

And that is that government has for decades now been creeping amoeba-like into practically every aspect of our lives, and we have as a whole become more reliant on the government for many things than we used to be.  I think we would also agree that this process has affected our personal freedoms, but more, it's also "breaking the bank" as the government has gone so heavily into debt - over $16 trillion and counting.

Is this the America and the government that Americans prefer?  I don't believe that.  I think Americans overall are comfortable with government programs being available at key times of crisis to help out.  But I don't believe most Americans want that to be a permanent state.  If we need help, we want it limited and temporary - what we really want is to be able to work our own way forward as much as possible.  What we really want is the opportunity to do so.

Which brings me back to Mitt Romney and his plans.  Can anyone seriously doubt, when they look at Romney's record and life, that the man has been able to accomplish amazing things?  He's a doer...he's smart and finds a way to accomplish what he sets out to.  And most of what he has done is create business, jobs, and successful enterprises.

So what is the #1 thing - way beyond anything else - that Mitt Romney has set his mind and heart to do if elected in November?  CREATE JOBS...or as he says, "LOTS OF JOBS."  And jobs are the key way in which economic opportunity comes to the personal level - it's the way individuals and families gain the power to help determine their own path and to move through and past challenging circumstances.

So ask yourself - and ask your friends - is it Obama or Romney that we really believe will bring opportunity rather than more dependency?  What do we really want from our next president?

In my book, Romney wins on that question - in a landslide.

From National Review Online blog today:
Mitt Romney talked directly about the middle class today at a fundraiser, saying “The question of this campaign is not who cares about the poor and the middle class. I do. He does.”
“The question,” Romney continued, “is who can help the poor and the middle class? I can! He can’t!”
RIGHT ON.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Obama's Disaster in the Middle East

There are so many levels of dysfunction coming to light with America's policies in the Middle East.  The US economy and our massive budget deficits will be the most impactful issue on this election, but I can only see the flames and disasters in the Middle East doing harm to the reputation of Barack Obama.

Here's one writer's take:
That's an unforced error for an incumbent president, one who has criticized his opponent's lack of foreign policy experience.
But perhaps it's not surprising. American Enterprise Institute's Marc Thiessen revealed last week that Obama has skipped more than half of his daily intelligence briefings. He reads the reports instead. His last in-person briefing before 9/11/12 was on Sept. 5.
It's not clear why security efforts failed in Benghazi and the Libyan government's assurances that it will protect our diplomats in the future seems sincere.
And Obama did find time for a reportedly "tense" phone conversation with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who then made a public statement denouncing the attacks. But on the phone, Morsi reportedly asked Obama to "put an end to such behavior" -- i.e., suppress the video. Did the president explain that we have a First Amendment that prevents government from doing such things?
Under settled principles of international law, attacks on diplomats by, or permitted by, governments can be considered acts of war. The threat of such attacks deserves a more stern response than a campaign trip to Vegas, a misstatement of settled policy and skipped intelligence briefings. 
Another short - but brief - recommended read on "Obama's Dangerous Weakness."

Friday, September 14, 2012

What's Mitt Made Of?

Does it matter what kind of character a person has, who we choose to be the President of the United States?  Does it matter what they are like in private?  When no one is looking?  Does it really matter how they treat not only their family and their friends, but people they may not know personally, people they come across in the course of day-to-day life?  Does it matter what they are really made of?

I believe it does.  Want to get a sense of what Mitt Romney is made of?  This clip is an intro...

Romney is Right

If you haven't ever visited evangelicalsformitt.org, it's run by an incredible couple that live in Tennessee.  He is a lawyer that works for freedom of religion and related issues; he also served us in the military in Iraq a few years back.  She is a mom of I think three kids, one adopted from Africa.  Just a great couple.

She has an additional thought and link on the feckless wolf-pack approach to Romney in the media the past couple of days that I think are worth reading.  Also a nice way to get acquainted with them and their blog.

Here are the questions the media should be asking of Obama (by the way, have you noticed how unavailable Obama is to the media - but do you hear them complain about it?  and did you know that while the media was focused on Romney, and while these tragedies were occurring at our embassies, Obama was off at a campaign fundraising event in Vegas?  What a leader!):

- Why did the embassy release a statement that the administration in Washington then had to counter?  
- What protocols were set up for emergency communications at the embassies in this dangerous part of the world?
- What kind of security was set up at these embassies?  
- Who was protecting the diplomates? 
- What are you going to tell the world about that video, America's founding principles of freedom, about respect, about rule of law?
- What is your message to our enemies?
- What are you going to say and do so this doesn't happen again?

How about asking those questions of Obama?  And why haven't they been asked already?  

There are so many questions that need to be asked directly of Obama right now.  Take this article, well worth the read.  An excerpt:
No one in this administration seems to fathom what the attacks on our diplomatic missions on the anniversary of 9/11 were all about. Instead in adolescent fashion, the president, our ambassadors, and, most culpably, the secretary of state remain sort of stunned that reset, the Cairo speech, the al Arabiya interview, the euphemisms, the ad nauseam “we are not Bush” apologies — all that and more — did not prevent the assassination of a U.S. ambassador, the sacking of a consulate, and the attempted storming of a U.S. embassy.
Islamists, apparently more than we do, understand America — someone educated in the U.S., like Mohamed Morsi, especially. They privately accept both that this obscure video (like a papal quotation of a Byzantine text, a supposedly burned Koran, a purportedly flushed Koran, a novel, a cartoon, etc.) has nothing to do with the American government; but for the ignorant masses on the Arab Street these totems can be used as successful pretexts to whip up anti-Americanism. But here is the key: What drives the Islamists’ venomous anti-Americanism?

Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Media is Ridiculous

Lest you have any doubts as to the ridiculous lack of trustworthiness of our mainstream media, look no further than their meltdown over what was actually an awesome analysis and reaction by Mitt Romney to the horrors of Libya and Egypt.

This is an effective opinion on the subject.
And another one.

And keep in mind one key fact when the media or Obama supporters try to criticize Romney on this: the Obama administration is now saying the same thing Romney did.  In other words, THEY AGREE HE GOT IT RIGHT. They're only complaint is that he said it first.  That's what has them hotter than mad hornets. ROMNEY GOT IT RIGHT, AND HE UNDERSTOOD WHAT NEEDED TO BE SAID FIRST.  For me it's not even close.  Romney nailed this exactly.  And he had every right to say it as one of two men running for the top job.  Every right.

UPDATE: an excerpt from a related article here:
In an interview this week, the president of CBS News insisted his network isn't biased. We agree. When it comes to the current election campaign, calling the mainstream press biased doesn't go nearly far enough.
These days, the media aren't just tilting stories, they're acting like paid employees of the Obama campaign's PR shop.
Think about it. Over the past several months, there hasn't been one major political story line pushed by the mainstream press that hasn't been perfectly in sync with the Obama campaign's strategic messaging plan.
Case in point is the ferocious press response to Mitt Romney's criticism Tuesday night of the Cairo embassy's "disgraceful" apology. At midnight on Tuesday, the Obama campaign said it was "shocked" that "Romney would choose to launch a political attack."
Was Romney out of line? Hardly. The embassy's apology was disgraceful. Even the White House admitted as much — but only after Romney issued his stinging rebuke. As for politicizing an international crisis, Obama did so repeatedly in his 2008 campaign, including using the death of nine troops in Afghanistan to score political points.
Still, the mainstream press has flooded the zone with stories about how Romney was irresponsibly and ineptly politicizing a foreign policy crisis, and about the "withering criticism" — as the New York Times put it — that his statement generated. (Never mind that much of that criticism was coming from the press itself.)
Does anyone really believe it's a coincidence that this media frenzy just happened to advance a key line of attack by the Obama campaign against Romney?

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

#WeCanDoBetter

From Jeff Fuller at mittromneycentral.com: 
Within the last week Obama has claimed that he didn't know that:
1) God and Pro-Israel language had been taken out of the Democratic Party Platform
2) Prime Minister Netanyahu had requested a meeting with him
3) His Ambassador/Embassy in Egypt had put out an apologetic tweet on Sept 11th which emboldened Muslim terrorists
Are you kidding me?!?!? He's either a convincing liar or totally asleep at the wheel ... #WeCanDoBetter

Outrage at the Breach in Sovereignty

As we all now know, yesterday - on the 11th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States - mobs in Libya and Egypt were allowed to attack the American embassies in those nations.  Most significantly, an American diplomate and several of his aids were murdered.

Supposedly the attacks were - at least in part - reactions to a video released by a private American citizen that visually made a connection between Islam and Islamists and the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  Whether people agree or disagree, like or do not like the video...we are America and we believe in rights that come from God and nature, and that among these is the freedom of speech.

Both just before the attack and just after it, our embassy put out statements of condemnation against the American citizen exercising their right to freedom of speech.  When criticism arose about this, the Obama administration tried to distance itself from the embassy statement, saying it did not agree with it. And yet, the President is in charge, and must accept responsibility for the conduct and statements of the U.S. State Department and our embassies around the world.  Worse yet, by having the embassy and the administration in Washington seemingly at odds, it made America look even weaker and more humiliated. Weakness in the face of extremist enemies is one of the worst possible ways we could respond to this awful situation.

Mitt Romney's statement at a press conference this morning included the following:
"I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who breached our embassy in Egypt, instead of condemning their actions. It's never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values. The White House distanced itself last night from the statement, saying it wasn't cleared by Washington. That reflects the mixed signals they're sending to the world," Romney said about the incident in Libya that left a U.S. ambassador and three others dead." 
"The first response to the United States must be outrage at the breach of the sovereignty of our nation. An apology for America's values is never the right course," Romney said." 


UPDATE: It gets worse...
"It appears that terrorists linked to al-Qaeda or other similar groups specifically targeted the United States as it was the anniversary of 9/11. The protests surrounding the movie were merely a ruse."

Friday, September 7, 2012

Out of Juice

My impression of the Democratic National Convention is largely similar to that of Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal editorialist.  It's a good read in its entirety and I'd recommend it, but I'll pull out a few lines I thought were 'right on'...
"Barack Obama is deeply overexposed and often boring. He never seems to be saying what he's thinking. His speech Thursday was weirdly anticlimactic. There's too much buildup, the crowd was tired, it all felt flat. He was somber, and his message was essentially banal: We've done better than you think. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
There were many straw men. There were phrases like "the shadow of a shuttered steel mill," which he considers writerly. But they sound empty and practiced now, like something you've heard in a commercial or an advertising campaign.
It was stale and empty. He's out of juice.”
And...
“The fight over including a single mention of God in the platform—that was extreme. The original removal of the single mention by the platform committee—extreme. The huge "No!" vote on restoring the mention of God, and including the administration's own stand on Jerusalem—that wasn't liberal, it was extreme. Comparing the Republicans to Nazis—extreme. The almost complete absence of a call to help education by facing down the powers that throw our least defended children under the school bus—this was extreme, not mainstream.
The sheer strangeness of all the talk about abortion, abortion, contraception, contraception. I am old enough to know a wedge issue when I see one, but I've never seen a great party build its entire public persona around one. Big speeches from the heads of Planned Parenthood and NARAL, HHS Secretary and abortion enthusiast Kathleen Sebelius and, of course, Sandra Fluke.”  
“What a fabulously confident and ingenuous-seeming political narcissist Ms. Fluke is. She really does think—and her party apparently thinks—that in a spending crisis with trillions in debt and many in need, in a nation in existential doubt as to its standing and purpose, in a time when parents struggle to buy the good sneakers for the kids so they're not embarrassed at school . . . that in that nation the great issue of the day, and the appropriate focus of our concern, is making other people pay for her birth-control pills. That's not a stand, it's a non sequitur. She is not, as Rush Limbaugh oafishly, bullyingly said, a slut. She is a ninny, a narcissist and a fool." 
And she was one of the great faces of the party in Charlotte. That is extreme. Childish, too.”
And finally...
“Something else, and it had to do with tone. I remember the Republicans in Tampa bashing the president, hard, but not the entire Democratic Party. In Charlotte they bashed Mitt Romney, but they bashed the Republican Party harder. If this doesn't strike you as somewhat unsettling, then you must want another four years of all war all the time between the parties. I don't think the American people want that. Because, actually, they're not extreme.” 

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Looking "Forward" or Back?

Ran across this in reading about the DNC speeches last night.  Excellent point.  
"Always looking "forward," President Obama has asked Bill Clinton—who was elected to the presidency 20 years ago—to speak tonight and suggest to the American people (whether explicitly or implicitly) that this is really a choice between Clinton and George W. Bush, rather than between Obama and Mitt Romney. If you're Obama, this beats running on your record."  

God "In or Out" for the Dems?

What a mess the Democrats made of things when it comes to public relations with most American voters yesterday.  I call it "public relations" because it appears quite clear that the Democrats themselves have already moved into being a "majority secularist" party.  But because most Americans are decidedly religious, there was a last-minute effort to change their party platform to introduce one very limited reference to God - when the actual official process of the DNC had previously and specifically left out any mention at all of God.  The Democrats are clearly secular, but trying to pretend not to be - or at least trying to limit the PR nightmare of openly telling the American people that they are secularists.

'Secular,' of course, means "denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis."

So what actually happened?  Well, prior to party national conventions, there is a meeting held to develop the wording to be proposed for the party's platform.  This platform is then presented at the convention and - as I understand it - generally accepted as is.  There can be proposed last minute amendments, however, in convention.

So the Democrats had - for the first time in their history as I understand it - removed from their previous platform any reference to God, and also the traditional reference calling for Jerusalem to be considered the undivided capital of the nation of Israel.

These are both very unpopular positions with the American people and with American Jews in particular (who have traditionally voted more for Democrats - but may not this year).  The Republicans strongly criticized the Democrats for this change in their platform.  And the Democrats caved - or as they would say 'amended the platform to conform with President Obama's personal views of the matter.'

And what was the "big change?"  Well, in addition to putting wording back about Jerusalem, one single, flimsy reference to God was cautiously inserted back in, referring to encouraging the development of people's "God-given talents."  Really.  Only that, nothing more about God in the entire platform.  Not even a reference to "God-given rights."

Or did they cave?  You can watch the video below, but when the call went out to the delegates to approve these changes, it appears approximately equally divided.  Despite there being a requirement that 2/3 of the delegates agree to the changes for them to carry, the chair simply declared that he thought there were 2/3 in favor and made the change.  After that, there were long and loud boos from many of the delegates.  And more than a little chaos.

The whole thing is certainly a "PR" nightmare for the Dems.  But more than that, it's revealing of a party that has become more and more nakedly and aggressively secular, which is an astounding mismatch with the American people generally.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Know Mitt Romney

I was so impressed by some of the introductions and interviews used to introduce Mitt at the Republican National Convention, but I am just know getting the time to compile them together.  I hope you can take a few minutes to learn and enjoy:







"What America Needs is Jobs...Lots of Jobs"

The talker, or the doer?  Image or substance?  What do you want from our next president?  Mitt Romney's entire life and career has consisted of challenges overcome, promises kept, and failing enterprises turned around.  Obama?  Promises...unfulfilled.  Take a few minutes to watch:


As we hear more of the "same 'ol" from the Democratic National Convention, compare the lofty rhetoric to Obama's actual record.  And remember these comments from Mitt Romney last week:
"That is why every president since the Great Depression who came before the American people asking for a second term could look back at the last four years and say with satisfaction: "you are better off today than you were four years ago."  Except Jimmy Carter. And except this president.  This president can ask us to be patient.  This president can tell us it was someone else's fault.  This president can tell us that the next four years he'll get it right. But this president cannot tell us that you are better off today than when he took office. Americans have been patient. Americans have supported this president in good faith.  But today, the time has come to turn the page."
And one last...and important...video I recommend to you, as Romney responds to the DNC and Obama's messaging efforts: