LSJ Blogs: People's Politics

It Helps to Have Friends in High Places

I'm don't know which is more disturbing to me:

• the fact that Meijer corporation's Political Action Committee (PAC) gave Republican Mike Cox's Attorney General campaign committee $2500 while Cox was deciding whether to criminally prosecute Meijer for campaign finance law violations, or
• the fact that Mike Cox took the money while he was deciding whether to prosecute Meijer.  (Guess what he decided about prosecution.)

If you haven't heard about this, don't feel bad.  It hasn't been in print anywhere yet.  But I just saw the Meijer PAC report, and it's true.  Meijer PAC CFR 

There is so much wrong with this, it's hard to know where to start...

Sit Down or Throw Down?

Barack Obama has stated his willingness to sit down and speak with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other leaders who are adversarial toward the United States.  George W. Bush and John McCain view such talks as appeasement.

Barack Obama is absolutely correct.

Unless during this age of nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction you really want to 'throw down' with your potential enemies, you had first better sit down with them and discuss your grievances in a thorough and diplomatic manner.  Speaking with those you vehemently disagree with isn't a sign of weakness or appeasement, it is a sign that committed leaders are busy representing their constituents best interests and hopefully working in the direction of peace.

Nancy Pelosi Again

Nancy Pelosi on February 15, 2008 decided it was more important for her hard-working democrat friends to take a vacation rather than voting on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which had expired on February 1, but got a 15 day reprieve.  At the time it was “a matter of days” before this was passed and a conference committee between the House and Senate resolved the problem.

Some Reasonable Demands

On Wednesday U.S. Senator Arlen Specter demanded an investigation concerning the New England Patriot's secret taping of opposing coaches signals made on the sidelines.  My two word response: Who cares?

That's not to say that I am someone who doesn't care.  I actually care very deeply, just not about trivial matters such as NFL football.  But while Senator Specter is busy wasting his time and our tax dollars on total minutia, I humbly suggest that the rest of the Senate should start listening to the American people and begin making more sensible, topical demands such as these:

Throw Them All Out

I saw an interesting article in the LSJ today. It seems that any taxpayer who filed jointly with a person having no social security number will not be receiving one of those wonderful economic stimulus checks. Now let’s forget for a moment that the checks are really just politics as usual, and not a great idea in the first place. If they’re going to be distributed, shouldn’t they at least be distributed equally to all taxpayers?

From Russia With Lust

John McCain says that when he looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes he saw three letters, “K.G.B.”.  I'm sure that I would have seen four letters, T.A.T.U..  T.A.T.U. is a Russian female duet whose name is a shortened version of their longer name that in Russian means, This Girl Loves That Girl.  After watching them perform, you've got to admit that they do appear to enjoy an extremely close affinity with each other!

Smoking ban

Last Friday, the Michigan Senate voted to ban smoking in bars, restaurants and even casinos and bingo halls.  This was somewhat of a surprise action since in December they shelved the idea although the Michigan House was pushing a lame bill similar to the Senate's.  This is another example of the government, this time at the State level, overreaching their mandate and playing nanny to the public.

Congress and Energy

Again, whenever I think Congress has hit rock bottom, they pull out a bulldozer and start digging.  This time the new, highly anticipated democrat energy plan showed that democrats totally lack comprehension of reality and have no desire to improve the long-term well being of the majority of citizens.  They are interested in their core leftist constituents and ideas to make people feel good.  We should vote the whole bunch out of office.

Government Dysfunction

For a long time I’ve viewed split government as good for the country.  With the Executive Branch controlled by one party and the Legislative Branch controlled by the other, it didn’t matter which was the Democrats and which was Republican, neither side could pass much of their agenda and thus not too much damage was done to the country and the people in “flyover country” that were attempting to make it work.  In general, I think this has worked reasonably well since Eisenhower, but I think the current animosity and partisanship in Congress has reached the level that it is time to change.  One party or the other should control both the Congress and the Presidency.

Clinton for VP

It appears that Barack Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee for president. Now the question is, who would make a good Vice-President for Mr. Obama? How about a Washington insider and a very well known name combined with great speaking skills?