Pride Goeth Before the Fall

The seven deadly sins are commonly known: Extravagance, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. While many in government of all political stripes love to indulge in many of these, it's become quite clear that Pride is the current favorite of the Democrats. The pride of course starts at the top (remember BOH's "humble" acceptance of his party's presidential nomination that was followed by his boast that his nomination marked the time when the seas began to recede, blah, blah, blah?), but now seems to have flowed all the way down to even lowly congressional aids.

The past few days have treated us to two more examples of this pride.

First we had Barbara Boxer, dressing down a Brig General for not calling her "senator." The general was answering the regal Boxer's question, when he made the mistake of starting the answer with "ma'am." Boxer cut him off and whined: "Do me a favor, can you say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am'? It's just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd appreciate it. Thank you." Give me a break. Yeah you've worked so hard. It must be really hard getting elected in California when you're politically to the left of Stalin. It must also be really hard spending other people's money and passing bills that you haven't read.

The first thing that jumps out at me is her utter ignorance. Using the term "ma'am" is military protocol to show respect. The general referred to the male senators in that same meeting as "sir."

The next thing that jumps out at me is her dripping arrogance and pride. A senator is supposed to be a "public servant" right? Instead, because of her huge salary and copious perks, Boxer has come to see herself as somehow superior and she's obviously not the only senator in congress to suffer from this malady. What makes her and other senators' arrogance all the more surprising is that they don't notice that most citizens hold them in contempt. As low as Pres. Bush's approval ratings were, the approval rating of Congress is even lower. Their popularity rating resides somewhere between used car salesmen and the H1N1 virus. Instead of petulantly whining about being addressed respectfully as ma'am, Boxer should be kissing the feet of a member of our military that has preserved Boxer's right to make an ass of herself. I'll tell what Barb, I'm sure that a majority of Americans have a title in mind for you and it's not nearly as respectful as "ma'am."

If the arrogance and pride of Congress aren't enough, how about the pride of congressional aids? When dealing with Elizabeth Becton, aid to Jim McDermott (D-Wash), you better be sure you call her by her full name. Otherwise, you're in for a flurry emails that are sure to overwhelm you, as an executive assistant at one company found out. The assistant sent an email to Becton, trying to set up a meeting with Rep McDermott and representatives of JP Morgan Chase. Here is a brief excerpt from politico that explains what happened:

Days later, the assistant checked back in and unfortunately began the e-mail with “Hi Liz.”

Becton curtly replied, “Who is Liz?”

When the assistant wrote back with an apology, Becton turned up the heat. “I do not go by Liz. Where did you get your information?” she asked.

The back-and-forth went on for 19 e-mails, with the assistant apologizing six times if she had “offended” Becton, while Becton lectured about name-calling.

This garbage has got to stop. Our founding fathers (at least most of them, Hamilton being a possible exception) never envisioned a professional political class ruling this country. And this is what we have now: rulers instead of representatives or public servants.

Instead, they wanted our representatives to be fellow citizens who would serve a few years and then return to their normal lives. In this way, to paraphrase Thomas Paine, these people would have to go back into their own communities and go back into business so they would never vote a rod against themselves.

Today, however, more and more people go into government for life. For example, the before-mentioned McDermott has been in Congress since 1988 and was a Washington state senator from 1977-1987 (that's 31 years in government). He's no representative; he's a professional ruler. And there are scores of other congressmen just like him. These out-of-touch rulers are the main reason that vast numbers of Americans feel like the lady who wrote this letter: Open Letter to Our Nation's Leadership.

So what is to be done? Many have floated ideas that range from barring lawyers from serving in Congress to revoking the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. In my mind, the very least that needs to be done is to cut their pay and perks. Longer-term goals should be a term-limits amendment and a repeal of the 17th Amendment. Luckily, many are already pursuing these goals and have started grass-roots campaigns and other efforts. The Tea Parties are also providing platforms for these ideas and giving like-minded people opportunity to meet.

Proverbs tells us: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Hopefully, the pride and arrogance of today's leaders will compel more Americans to want to take back their government so that our leaders become public servants again rather than career rulers.

The Power of Prayer

It's been quite awhile since I added a new post to this blog. Beside being extremely busy, I was tiring of being so negative. I'm not a negative person and venting about this tyrannical regime that currently plagues us requires a good bit of negativity, which was weighing me down. Therefore, I'm aiming to make this post more positive: I want to reflect a bit on the power of prayer.

Near Death Experience
May was the one-year anniversary of my dear wife's brush with death. That day in May 2008 started like any other day: I was at my desk working when I received a phone call from a neighborhood friend. She told me that Gretchen had collapsed at the school and that an ambulance had taken her to the hospital. By the time I got to the emergency room, they had Gretchen in a room, strapped down to a medical table. She was totally unconscious but was constantly thrashing and mumbling. They said they were trying to sedate her but that nothing was working very well. They needed to sedate her to keep her still enough to perform an MRI on her head. They finally succeeded in getting the MRI done but it was blurry because she was still moving about a bit, even though they had given her the strongest sedative that they dared use.

The MRI showed blood on Gretchen's brain. The ER doctor asked if it were possible that she had hit her head when she collapsed. I told him that those who were with her when she collapsed said she was participating in a Walk-a-thon at the school when she complained of extreme dizziness. She said she needed to sit down and that after she sat down, she collapsed and started convulsing. So no, I didn't think that she had hit her head. With this bit of diagnostics completed, the doctors decided she needed to be transferred to a nearby hospital that had a very experienced staff of neurological experts. They put her under general anesthesia, intubated her, and loaded her onto an ambulance for transfer.

At the new hospital, they performed an angiogram and then moved her to a room in the ER to await the results. We had been waiting in the room for about hour, when I noticed a group of people in surgical scrubs gathering outside the door. When the anesthesiologist arrived, he said that Gretchen was being taken in for emergency brain surgery and that the neurosurgeon would be there soon to explain the surgery. The surgeon then arrived and showed us the image derived from the angiogram that had been performed. He indicated that Gretchen had suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by the rupture of an anterior communicating aneurysm. Even with my untrained eye, I could detect the aneurysm in the image; it looked like a large Mickey Mouse balloon wedged into the tight Y branch formed by two tiny blood vessels. He said that it looked like Gretchen had suffered one hemorrhage and that the goal was to seal off the aneurysm before a second hemorrhage occurred. He said the chances of surviving a second hemorrhage was only about 7-10%. He instructed us that the surgery would take about three hours and that the patient services lady would show us to the waiting room and then he followed Gretchen as they wheeled her out of the room.

After the longest 4 hours of my life, the surgeon appeared in the waiting room saying that the surgery had gone well and that they were closing now and that she would be moved to a room in the ICU in about an hour. The surgeon said that the surgery was a little tricky because of the location of the aneurysm, but I wouldn't understand exactly how tricky until a couple days later when the ICU nurse explained everything that was done. She explained it like this: first they shaved her head and opened a 7-inch incision that ran from her ear, up the side of her head, and curved to an end about the middle of her forehead at about where the hair line ended. They then pulled the skin and muscle down to expose the skull. They opened a 3-4-inch hole in her skull and used a retractor to pull her brain up to expose the location of the aneurysm (it was located on the bottom of her brain, close to where her right optic nerve connected). They clamped off the aneurysm with a tiny titanium clip. After the first clip was applied, the surgeon could see that blood was still swirling inside the aneurysm so a second clip was applied at an almost perpendicular angle. The application of the clips was extremely dangerous because if the surgeon went too deeply, it could cause scaring on the brain that could cause later seizures, and if he didn't go deep enough, he could perforate the blood vessel and kill her.

Quick Recovery
Obviously, Gretchen's condition was extremely dire. After the surgery, the doctor predicted that she would be in the ICU for about 14 days and would then be moved to a regular room where she would probably stay for another week. While she was in the ICU, I was at the hospital about 20 hours/day. Our four great kids took over to keep the house running while I was at the hospital. But the outpouring of love and support from our friends and neighbors made things much easier for our family. The support ran from the delivery of groceries and meals, to house cleaning and yard work. The greatest support they offered, however, were their prayers. At the time of her collapse, Gretchen was an assistant teacher at a special needs preschool that was held at the local elementary school. She also was a teacher of 4 and 5 year-old children in our church congregation. The parents of these children constantly told me that their little ones were praying for Gretchen daily. I also heard from my far-flung friends of all different faiths that they were keeping our family in their prayers.

I am convinced that, in answer to the many prayers offered on our behalf, Gretchen was helped to recover quickly. For the first few days after the surgery, she was mostly out of it and her short-term memory was shot. Every few hours, the ICU nurses would check for complications from the surgery that might need to be addressed. They would ask her if she knew where she was. She usually didn't know so they would remind her that she was in the hospital. Then they would ask if she knew why she was there. One of the times they asked this, we all had a good laugh when she answered: "well, whenever I've been in the hospital it's been because I've had a baby. I didn't have a baby, did I?" However, after the first few days, she recovered rapidly. When the physical therapists first made her get out of bed to walk around the ICU, she could barely make it around the ward, and this was with the therapist helping support her on one arm and me helping on the other. But two or three days later, she was able to complete the route a couple times in a row with little help.

A week after the surgery, Gretchen was ready to leave the hospital. However, her doctors weren't quite so ready to let her go. They wanted to keep her in the ICU a couple more days and then wanted her to stay in a regular room 3-5 more days after that. Nine days after her surgery, Gretchen was moved to a regular room but while in this room, she was restless and just wanted to go home. She constantly pestered her doctor until he relented and let her go home just a day-and-a-half after leaving the ICU. So just a little over 10 days after major brain surgery, Gretchen was back home.

A couple of weeks after leaving the hospital, I had to take her in to the neurosurgeon's office to have the staples removed that had sealed her incision. She was able to walk up a flight of stairs and into the office almost completely under her own power; I only held her hand and arm to help steady her. The nurse that was to remove the staples couldn't believe it. "You're walking?!" she said. "I have been reading your chart and I thought to myself that this is a person that is going to be have some major problems, but you look great!" After this office visit, I searched the web for the prognosis for those that have suffered a ruptured aneurysm. It was not encouraging. One citation that I found said this:

The prognosis for people who experience a ruptured aneurysm is not good. About 15 to 25 percent of those who experience a rupture do not survive the event. An additional 25 to 50 percent survive the immediate episode, but die of complications caused by bleeding in the brain. Of those who do survive, about 15 to 50 percent suffer permanent brain damage or physical disability.

I found further, that some of those that recover completely aren't able to walk unaided even a year after their surgery. On top of that, when Gretchen was referred to the neurologist to continue her treatment, the neurologist looked at her chart and said, "I can't see how you're sitting here in my office. You should be dead. I don't see any reason why you didn't die." However, I know why she didn't die and why, a year later, if you look at her, you couldn't tell that she had ever had an aneurysm: a loving Heavenly Father that answers prayers.

Tools
I believe completely in the power of prayer. I believe that all prayers are answered; sometimes they may not be answered as we'd like them to be, but they are answered, none the less. Often they are answered in ways that we don't recognize until years later. I also believe that we are often meant to be tools in the hands of our Father to be the answer to the prayers of those around us. A friend of mine tells this story about his wife: his wife and daughter were driving down a residential street when they noticed a family out on their lawn, in obvious agitation and distress. The two little girls were crying and the mother and father looked worried. My friend's wife felt prompted that she should pull the car over and ask if she could help but her daughter said: "why would we do that? We don't know them and we probably wouldn't be able to help anyway." So she kept driving but after a couple of blocks she couldn't fight the feeling that she should offer to help so she pulled the car over so she could make a u-turn. While she was checking to see if it was clear to turn around, she saw a little puppy in the middle of the street. Something told her that this was the cause of the family's distress so she opened her door and, with her daughter's help, coaxed the puppy into the car. She returned to the worried family and opened her car door and let the puppy jump out, after which a happy reunion ensued. I am sure that those little girls were praying for the safe return of their puppy and my friend's wife was the tool through which their prayer was answered.

Our Responsibility
This blog is meant to be political, rather than religious, in nature. So let me close by relating this to the current state of our country. While this country has always benefited from the prayers of its citizens, the need for prayer has seldom been more acute. I believe that it is important that we pray for our leaders each day, both for those that we oppose as well as those we agree with. I believe that, unfortunately, we are ruled by a wicked government at this time (I use 'ruled' here on purpose. With the unconstitutional powers that our president is wielding, with the numerous new bureaucratic czars that he is appointing, we aren't being governed; we're being ruled). This is not hyperbole; I sincerely believe that many of our current leaders are a fulfillment of Isiah's prophecy:

Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!

I believe that we must pray each day that our honorable leaders will keep up the fight and do what they can to preserve our nation and pray that those who wish to harm the country will see the errors of their ways. However, we should also do more. Like my friend's wife, we must work to be the tools that will help these prayers to be answered. We must write letters, join peaceful protests like the Tea Parties, register our opinions with our representatives, become involved in the political process and in our communities and neighborhoods. It is not enough to just vote, we must be educated voters. We must actually learn about the candidates and not just base our vote on the rock-star status of the candidate. We must, in short, do the things that were considered a normal part of good citizenship for our forebears. It is the least we can do to show our appreciation for the legacy that they have bequeathed us.

Open Letter to Barack Obama

Open letter to Barack Hussein Obama on your 100-day celebration:

As is your wont, you relied on a lot of misinformation and misdirection to keep the faithful eating out of your hand, didn't you? Let's revisit some of those, shall we?

We began by passing a recovery act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs...

This little bit of political sleight-of-hand has been trotted out a number of times, but you never seem to tire of using it, Barack. Others have document the fraudulent nature of the so-called "saved" jobs but for the sake of argument, let's assume that 150,000 jobs were "saved" by your pork-barrel-palooza (they certainly weren't created). Crowing about "saving" 150,000 jobs at this point is roughly equivalent to your boasting $100 million in cuts when the budget is trillions in the red. Earlier in the year, economists predicted that the US would lose 2 million jobs in 2009. That prediction has been proven to be extremely optimistic since the economy has shed over 2 million jobs in the first three months of the year alone (651,000 in January, 706,000 in February, and a record 742,000 in March). 150,000 jobs is a drop in the bucket when compared with the rate we are losing them right now. That number of "saved" jobs looks even punier when you consider that you've strapped us and our children with unimaginable debt. Good boy Barry, you've saved 150,000 jobs and only spent, what, about $1 million per job? Here's your gold star.

It contains new investments in education that will equip our workers with the right skills and training...

Oh yes, we will throw money at the schools and they will churn out workers with the right skills and training. If you believe that, I've got this bridge to sell ya. The US already spends more money per student than almost any other country on the planet. What do we get for that huge investment? Not much. In a ranking of students from the 30 richest countries, our students' test scores in science lag behind 16 of those countries. In math, it's even worse: 23 of the 30 had better test scores. Coming in 17th and 24th out of 30 isn't much to celebrate.

It also isn't very heartening to think that one of your few stints outside of government was serving as Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was supposed to work to reform education. The CAC gave out millions to Chicago-area schools and tests scores went down. Is that the kind of "skills and training" that you intend to equip our students with?

...new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses, and new savings that will bring down our deficit...

I think one basic principle that we know is that the more we do on the prevention side, the more we can obtain serious savings down the road.

This is a pipe dream at best and pure sophistry at worst. The AP reports that the New England Journal of Medicine, back during the campaign, poured cold water all over the idea that preventative medicine will save huge amounts of money; it certainly will never save enough to make any kind of dent in our current deficit. The fact is, nothing that you have proposed will bring down the deficit in any significant way, and that is before we start spending to pay for all of your other pet projects.

We've begun to end the war in Iraq...

Ahem, the withdrawal in Iraq was already planned and the draw-down in troops had already begun before you even took office, in spite of your shameful attempt to scuttle those plans during the campaign.

...and we forged with our NATO allies a new strategy to target Al Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What strategy was that, Barack? It sure looks like the same strategy to me: we supply the bulk of the troops and the majority of Europe gets a free pass. What was the response to your request for more European troops in Afghanistan (even after you sold out your countrymen during your "apology" tour)? "No" in any language is still no.

We have rejected the false choice between our security and our ideals by closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and banning torture without exception.

Please explain the "false choice," Barack. Also, whose ideals are you talking about. Certainly not mine or those of most of the people I know. Our ideals say that we have the right to defend ourselves from evil madmen that have masterminded the deaths of thousands of our fellow citizens and that boast about beheading others of those citizens. Our ideals say that those "enhanced interrogation" techniques are NOT torture. The worst of these "tortures" was water-boarding, a technique that has been administered to thousands of our own soldiers as part of their training. The other techniques ranged from placing these scum into an enclosed space with a live caterpillar to grabbing their collar (oh, the horror!). Ann Coulter has a very informative (and comical) column that details each of these "tortures".

Your ideals include denying medical care to infants who are born alive after botched abortions (clearly infanticide) and kissing up to ruthless dictators (and standing idly by while they slander our country) while you spit upon long-time democratic friends and allies. Clearly, we don't share the same ideals and I would prefer that you quit pretending otherwise.

And we've renewed our diplomatic efforts to deal with challenges ranging from the global economic crisis to the spread of nuclear weapons.

Yes and what have those diplomatic efforts produced? The Russians laugh at us when we ask for help in halting the Iranians' drive to possess nuclear weapons and the Chinese laugh at us when we request help in checking the North Koreans' ability to deliver their nuclear weapons to some far-flung location across the globe. Yeah your vaunted diplomatic efforts are really paying off.

About Chrysler & GM: What we've seen is the unions have made enormous sacrifices on top of sacrifices that they had previously made.

Oh yes, huge sacrifices. While investors who spent billions on Chrysler and GM bonds get pennies on the dollar, the unions, who haven't invested squat get a majority stake in Chrysler and a huge stake in GM. On top of that, the American taxpayer gets to pick up the tab of guaranteeing their pension and health care deals while Chrysler is in bankruptcy. A lot of sacrificing there, sure.

On water-boarding: I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.

Nice bit of Monday-morning quarterbacking there, Barack. What makes you so sure we could've gotten the information in other ways? Especially in a timely manner? Remember, we had picked up a high level of chatter (greater than that picked up around 9/11) amongst the terrorists that indicated that they intended to hit us again soon. KSM had to be water-boarded, what, about 180 times before he broke, right? Chances are, if we had relied on asking "pretty please give us the information we need," we would've gotten the information about one hour after the terrorists flew another high-jacked plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles. The truth is, there is absolutely no way you can be sure we could've gotten the information in other ways. That's why you only released the memos that discussed the interrogation techniques without revealing that those techniques saved hundreds if not thousands of lives in LA. You're just speaking out of your anal sphincter again, aren't you Barry?

And Churchill said, "We don't torture," when the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat.

You got this little "factoid" from some left-wing blogger, didn't you Barry? When will you learn that you can't trust those nuts to report anything accurately? The British threatened to hang captured Nazi spies if they refused to transmit false information to Germany. I think hanging is just a tad more brutal than water-boarding, don't you Barry? Plus, your very own family tells stories of your grandfather being tortured by the Brits, don't they? I don't understand why you would try to leverage Churchill anyway, since you clearly have disdain for him his country. Was it just desperation on your part? Was it the only way you could think of to dupe the American people?

Part of the reason why I called for a gradual withdrawal as opposed to a precipitous one was precisely because more work needs to be done on the political side to further isolate whatever remnants of Al Qaida in Iraq still exists.

You really are quite the liar revisionist, Barack. During the campaign you never called for a gradual withdrawal. You never called for a gradual withdrawal until it was clear that the surge was going to be successful. Remember, the surge that you and your leftist cohorts (the slimey Reid and maleficent Pelosi) opposed?

I do think that our administration has taken some steps that have restored confidence in the American people that we're moving in the right direction...

Oh yes, that is why all of the latest polls show that, despite your personal popularity, the majority of voters are against all of your initiatives.

Well, I think our -- our first role should be shareholders that are looking to get out. You know, I don't want to run auto companies. I don't want to run banks.

You keep saying this Barack but then you do things like: refuse to allow banks to pay back the bail-out money they received or take a huge chunks of equity in the car companies while giving other huge chunks to your cronies in the unions. Me thinks thou dost protest too much.

I know you've been hearing all these arguments about, oh, Obama is just spending crazy, look at these huge trillion-dollar deficits, blah, blah, blah. Well, let me make a point. Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit -- that wasn't from my -- that wasn't me.

You really are pathological about passing the buck, aren't you Barry? You're like some petulant 4-year-old, always pouting, "it wasn't my fault." Fortunately, the AP has again been helpful in pointing out this lie. Congress controls the budget and you and your leftist comrades have controlled both houses of Congress for the past two years. You gave us the current deficit and you are making it much, much worse.

So, you know, when you see -- those of you who are watching certain news channels that -- on which I'm not very popular -- (laughter) -- and you see folks waving tea bags around -- (laughter) ...

Pardon me, but what a whiny little puke you are, Obama. Why don't you grow up and quit mocking the people you're supposed to be serving. Pres. Bush, for all his faults, never belittled code pink or the other goofey war protesters, no matter how much they deserved it. You promised to be the "great uniter." One hint: making fun of good, hard-working people that have legitimate grievances against the government is not the way to unite the country. Of course, you really don't care, do you? That "great uniter" bit was just some good-sounding campaign slogan meant for the kool-aid drinkers, wasn't it?

We are going to have to tighten our belts...

ROFLMAO!!! Yeah right. Us little people will definitely have to tighten our belts (or already have tightened them) but you and your fellow elitists will never do it. Just like when you declared during the campaign that we won't be able to keep our thermostats at 72 degrees year-round and then you kept the white house warm enough to, in the words of your own staff, "grow orchids." Well, just keep on enjoying your expensive dinner parties and wasteful jet flights around the country and other extravagant perks. Hopefully your profligacy will turn enough of your acolytes so that we can throw you out of the honorable office that you've besmirched these last 100 days.

Lies and Statistics

Benjamin Disraeli is responsible for the quote that Mark Twain popularized: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." This administration excels at all three, but the current con game that Obama perpetrated at his first ever cabinet meeting definitely ranks as the worst kind.

Obama trumpeted his plan to force his cabinet to find $100 million to cut from the budget as if $100 million meant anything. To put that number into context, here are some comparisons:

• $100 million is only 0.0029% of Obama's 2010 $3.5 trillion budget


• $100 million is only 0.013% of Obama's $700 billion Porkulus stimulus bill


• $100 million is only 0.77% of the $13 billion in pork in the omnibus spending plan

Put another way, let's say that I go out and buy a $100,000 stereo system. I bring it home and my wife says, "you paid what for that stereo?! How can we pay for it?!" And I (very calmly of course) respond, don't worry honey, I'll just return these $2.90 speaker cables. I bet that would reassure her, right?

But, hey, at least it's a start, right? Wrong! It's a con just as I stated above and here's why: psychologists tell us that people, in general, can't understand these huge numbers without some context. Beside that, we all instinctively know that $100 million is a lot of money, so the cuts seem pretty impressive. However, many don't recognize that $100 million is a drop in the bucket, compared to Obama's profligate spending. The administration is counting on the general public to miss that fact.

Even though they'll never admit it, the hundreds of Tea Parties held across the nation seem to have rattled the Obama administration. In response to the Tea Parties, the administration trotted out its press secretary, the hopeless Robert Gibbs, to crow about it's great accomplishment of cutting $100 million. However, in a rare showing of journalistic backbone, the press corp pointed out that the $100 million was nothing compared to current spending. It was even pointed out that just a week prior, the self-same press secretary had claimed that $8 billion in earmarks was nothing.

Let's hope that the general public will realize what the White House press corp recognized while Gibbs was trying to slip one by them: this government is spending us and our children into oblivion. We currently pay about $50 million per day on just the interest on our national debt (so the $100 million cut that Obama is so proud of will pay for about 2 days of interest, gee thanks). Our current dept is $11.2 trillion and Obama's spending is expected to add another $1 trillion to that debt in the year 2010 alone. Before long, the interest on our debt could be the largest item in the budget. This is debt that we will never be able to pay off without a huge amount of pain and suffering. Piddling $100 million "cuts" will never change that fact.

The Arrogant Apology Tour

I know this will come as a surprise to many, but I've had it with our arrogant buffoon of a president. This latest moronic apology tour should've been the last straw for any non-Obama-koolaid-drinker who thinks this guy gives one wit for the country he's supposed to represent.

He started out apologizing to Europe for American "arrogance." Let me see if I've got this straight: Because of America, Europeans are not doing the Nazi goose-step across the continent. Because of America, Europe can afford to coddle its citizenry in cradle-to-grave socialism because they haven't had to spend on their own defense. Because of America, Germany is no longer divided. Because of America, the wall came down. Because of America, the French can sniff autocratically and deny us the right to fly our warplanes over their airspace when we need to speedily attack a madman in Libya. Oh yes, how "arrogant" of us.

Next he moved on to Turkey where he felt the need to assure Muslims that we are not at war with Islam. Oh good, I guess ole George W. didn't make that clear as he bent over backwards to assure the world that Islam was a religion of peace. Beside W's rhetoric, America has done nothing but aid Muslims in the last few decades. First, Russia would never have been defeated in Afghanistan without American weapons that were smuggled to the mujaheddin (something we would later come to regret but that's beside the point). Then we tried to help feed starving Somalis which turned into Black Hawk down. Next we sided with the Muslims in Kosovo and bombed their enemies back to the stone age. Finally, we liberated millions of Muslims in two countries (Iraq and Afghanistan) and helped them create constitutions that enshrined Sharia Law. Yep, it's a good thing that Obama was there to clarify this country's position vis-a-vie Islam.

With his latest tour, Obama has proven that he is nothing more than a narcissist that cares little for his country beyond it's usefulness as a foil to gain the world's love for himself. "Come on," the Obamabots will protest, "he shows his care for his country by improving its standing in the world." Okay, but the president is supposed to protect the interests of his country. So did Obama's groveling promote America's interests; did America gain anything with that "improved standing in the world?"

The answer, in a word, is nein or non or nyet or however you say "no" in Chinese or Turkish. When Europe was asked to pony up more troops for Afghanistan, we were rebuffed. When the Russians were asked to help with Iran, they assured us, "America has nothing to fear from Iran." When the Chinese were asked to help with the North Korean rocket, we got the cold shoulder.

Obama's apology tour shows that he views himself as more "a citizen of the world" than a citizen of America. He is clearly willing to abrogate America's interests in favor of the so-called "interests of the world." When he was elected, I feared that this would be Jimmy Carter's second term. Instead, it appears that it will be much worse than that. Heaven help us.

More Administration Double-Speak

In the short time that he has been a political force in this country, Obama has proven that he is unrivaled in the world of Orwellian Newspeak. Just a couple examples:

During the campaign, as he accepted the Democratic nomination for president, he claimed to "humbly" accept the nomination and then went on to boast that, "I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal … . This was the moment when we came together to remake this great nation." Did you notice the great amount of humility in that boast? Nah, I didn't either.

While claiming that he was bringing responsibility back to government, he did the following:

• Constantly blamed each and every problem on the previous administration (on one occasion he claimed to be taking responsibility for the economic problems in one breath while blaming those problems on the previous administration in the next).


• Forced passage of the biggest piece of government irresponsibility of our lifetimes (the "stimulus" bill). Not only did this legislation place our country into unprecedented debt, the bill was passed without a single legislator having read it.


• Claimied that the above "stimulus" bill contained no earmarks when it contained some 8000 of them.

Today's announcement, however, rivals anything he has done thus far. Obama claims that the government has no desire to run GM yet he announces that

• the government was firing the current GM CEO


• the government wasn't going to loan any more money until GM produced a government-approved business plan

Geez, what would the government have done if it did want to run GM?

AIG Updates

My previous post addressed the sliminess of the leftist politicians who were "righteously indignant" over 160 million in bonuses for the AIG employees who "helped bring down our financial system." In the post I pointed out that the bonuses were retention bonuses meant to keep valuable employees around to help transition the company. Here is a letter from an AIG employee that is now resigning which backs up that contention and sheds more light on the situation: I Quit!

This whole situation clearly demonstrates the evil of the current administration and leftist politicians in Congress. And I use that term intentionally because that is what their actions are.

All of the politicians involved, including Barack Obama, knew the details of the bonuses. However, they couldn't pass up the opportunity to direct the public's anger towards innocent targets in order to weasel out of their political problems. Because of these unscrupulous politicians, the AIG employees and their families received death threats. There were protests at AIG and at the homes of AIG employees.

The media breathlessly covered these "protests" but they didn't tell us who was behind them. The protests at AIG offices was organized by big labor: the Service Workers Union. Why would the Service Workers Union be protesting AIG? Can you say political payback to the Democrats? Even more egregiously, who paid for the buses that transported "protesters" to AIG employees' homes? It was ACORN. That's right, the same organization that is under indictment in more than 20 states for vote fraud and to which Barack Obama's "stimulus plan" gives hundreds of millions of dollars.

In my previous post I gave a few reasons why I thought the slimy politicians were trying to whip up public outrage. However, since then I see an even more sinister design behind their manipulation of the public mood: in order to move to socialism and government control, the people must be made to hate our businessmen. This is borne out by Obama's expanded bank take-over plan. With business people out of the way, the government will be the only entity we can turn to in order to get out of our economic malaise. This is the evil that we've been warned against by many of our previous leaders, both political and ecclesiastical.

This must be fought; don't fall for their smoke screen.

Lies and Diversions

The major news story of the day is the "righteous indignation" of politicians at the bonuses that AIG is paying to some of its employees after it took billions in bailout money. "How can AIG give millions in tax payer funds to it's employees when they've run the company into the ground?" is the general sentiment expressed by Washington.

Perhaps this discussion could benefit from a few facts that you won't hear from the "mainstream media" or from Washington:

• Washington has known for months that these bonuses were going to be paid.


• The bonuses are a contractual obligation of AIG.


• The bonuses are "retention" bonuses. A retention bonus is given to an employee that has been notified that he/she will be laid off but the company would like to have them stick around for a bit to help clean up loose ends. Without these bonuses, the employee would be off looking for other work instead of sticking around to aid in the transition to a smaller company.


• A provision of the bailout plan recently pushed through Congress by Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, exempted such bonus agreements from any restriction.


• This doesn't stop Dodd from feigning indignation and threatening to tax 100% of the bonuses (it's highly illegal to target private individuals for specific taxes, by the way).


• Christopher Dodd was the biggest recipient of campaign donations from AIG. The Obama campaign was second.

With the above information in mind, you might be wondering, "why would government officials be making such a huge sideshow out of this?" I can think of one reason: diversion.

1) Christopher Dodd's poll numbers are falling through the floor. He needs a distraction from his sweetheart mortgage deal from CountryWide (a company that is regulated by the committee that he chairs) and the little fact that he wrote the provision that allowed the bonuses in the first place.

2) Obama wants to push through more of his left-wing agenda. However, he is in danger of losing the approval ratings that allow him to easily get his way. Thus, this little brouhaha turns the public's anger away from him and onto those greedy evil capitalists. Political sleight-of-hand has always been his modus operandi.

3) Congressional leaders, whose approval ratings are currently somewhere between the Bubonic Plague and ambulance-chasing lawyers, need anything to divert the public's attention (especially after they just passed a 1,000-page bill without ever reading it).

Ignore the sideshows and keep your eyes on the one fact that stands unassailable: the government caused this entire mess, not the poor saps who work at AIG (who, by the way, are receiving death threats because of the heated rhetoric coming out of the government - way to go guys!).

A Good Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Before Obama was even sworn into office, his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, made a statement that should go down in the annals as one of the most nakedly cynical statements ever made by a politician. “Rule 1: Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” he told the New York Times. “They are opportunities to do big things.” Little did we know at the time that this would become the new administration's motto.

Not only did the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, repeat this "rule 1," but the president himself repeated it in his Saturday radio and Internet address: "there is great opportunity in the midst of the great crisis” befalling America.

It is incredible enough that the "mainstream press" hasn't made much of this malevolent "Rule 1" and is further proof that the supposed "4th branch of government" is in the tank for Obama, but I don't want to address that here. Instead I'd like to analyze the administration's actions in light of this "rule".

First Obama leveraged the crisis to prophesy gloom and doom ("impending disaster" he called it) if his "stimulus" ("porkulus" more like it) wasn't promptly passed. Then the "porkulus" bill was jam-packed with things that had absolutely nothing to do with the causes of the crisis (Does anyone think that the lack of health care caused the economy to tank? Anyone? Anyone?). Obama not only leveraged the crisis but tried to stoke fears ever higher so that no one would notice that he had forced his socialist agenda onto the country without one word of debate.

Fresh off his success in ramming through his "porkulus" bill, Obama was asked by the press for details on his plans for the bank bailout plan. He dodged the question, promising that his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would unveil the plan when he testified before Congress. During his testimony, however, Geithner spoke only in vague generalities and gave no details about what the administration planned to do to shore up the struggling banks. The market promptly dropped like a lead balloon.

At the time, most thought that this was just a rookie mistake by what I like to call "our affirmative action president," but as the days have gone by, I'm not so sure. I think it was planned to extend the crisis as long as possible. The longer the crisis, the longer the administration could foist its leftist program on a public that was too frightened to object.

This conclusion is reinforced by other Obama actions. Every time that someone from the administration spoke publicly about the economy, the stock market plunged. Then the president told the press, "The stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. ... if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong." Unfortunately for the president, investors knew that the market hadn't been bobbing up and down as he contended, but had steadily declined since his inauguration. The statement was also taken as a sign that the administration totally ignored the market which sent it tumbling further.

Since Obama's inauguration, this country has lost over $1.6 Trillion in wealth in the market and we have lost over 600K jobs. Obama's statements have been so negative during that time that even former president Clinton had to chide him on his constant negativity. Beside the negative statements, Obama refuses to focus on the economy, instead proposing some new initiative that is totally unrelated to the causes of the economic crisis. Thus we have a "health care summit" followed by an "education summit" etc. This combination of negativity and complete neglect, is an effective one-two punch that has succeeded in keeping the economy on the canvas.

FDR said, "all we have to fear is fear itself." But for Obama, the saying should instead be, "all we have to fear is the fear that the crisis will pass too quickly." His actions and statements seem directed towards prolonging this economic malaise while the Democrats in Congress are working on furthering the country in its left-ward slide. While the president is trying to "remake" this country in his leftist image, real Americans are suffering as markets plummet and unemployment skyrockets. That makes the actions of this administration not only cynical, but evil.

Update: With the economy totally tanking, it appears that the Obama team is thinking that they need to change course. Now Obama is saying, "oops, it looks like the economy isn't as bad off as we thought. It looks like it will turn around by the end of the year." Now that inspires confidence doesn't it? The man that was predicting catastrophe just a couple of weeks ago now says everything will be fine. Of course, this about-face on the economy wouldn't have anything to do with this administration's desire to raise taxes would it? Nah that would be cynical of me to assume wouldn't it?

With Obama in the WH, the World Will Love Us

You silly Brits, I spit in your general direction

Obama is sure acting as if he can do without one of our closest allies, England.

First, Obama rudely returned the bust of Winston Churchill that was loaned to President Bush by the British embassy. When Obama came into office, the embassy offered to continue the loan for another four years. The Obama Administration response? Thanks but no thanks. The Brits of course saw this as the snub that it was.

Next, Gordon Brown visited the new president amid great expectations. First Obama slapped down the Prime Minister's expectations and didn't even hold the customary activities of a usual state visit. Then he added a little spittle to the slap with the customary gift exchange.

Here is the list of very thoughtful gifts that Brown had for Obama:

• A pen holder fashioned from the oak timber of HMS Gannet, a Navy vessel that served on anti-slavery missions off Africa.


• A framed commissioning paper for the HMS Resolute, a Royal Navy ship that came to symbolize British-American goodwill when it was rescued by the U.S. from icebergs and given to Queen Victoria. It is the sister ship of the HMS Gannet.


• A first edition of Martin Gilbert's seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill, whose World War II partnership with President Franklin Roosevelt symbolized the U.S.-Anglo alliance.

Here is the list of very thoughtful gifts that Obama had for Brown:

• A gift set of American classic movies on 25 DVD's.

Do you seen any problem as you compare these two lists? Brown's gifts were well-thought-out and intrinsically valuable. Obama's has the feel of a gift from a lazy boyfriend on Valentines Day that runs out at the last minute to buy the last-remaining wilted flowers. Brown, even if he is a movie buff - which is doubted, could've bought the same DVD's from Amazon.

Don't think that the British Press hasn't noticed the snubs. Just Google the terms "obama british snub" and see the fuss Obama has caused.

Just when is the world supposed to start loving us again?

By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them (Part 3)

Some Obama supporters hoped that, despite his ultra-liberal voting record in Congress, he would govern as a centrist. The early months of the Obama administration has shown this hope to be vain as he has incessantly pursued the radical leftist agenda that he has in mind for this country. While the leftist nature of the administration is alarming, even more alarming is the corruption and dishonesty of many of the administration's early actions.

Below are some of the more egregious Obama actions that I have noted over the weeks. I am not listing the actions in any particular order and I doubt that the list is exhaustive since the abominable actions of this administration are coming so quickly that they are hard to keep track of. I will revisit some of these in later blogs to flesh them out but I wanted to at least list them now.

Corruption of Obama Administration

• Forced American taxpayers to finance foreign abortions (via executive order)


• Nominated 4 tax cheats to cabinet (one confirmed)


• Nominated (and confirmed) one (honestly) card-carrying Communist to cabinet


• Nominated (and confirmed) Attorney General that facilitated pardons of Mark Rich and Puerto Rican terrorists. (I'll probably follow up with a blog about this slime-bag's latest assertion about Americans being cowards because we aren't blathering on about race.)


• Nominated Bill Richardson for Commerce Secretary (later had to withdraw because of a grand jury investigation into a state contract awarded to a political donor - pay to play)


• Forced passage of a 1000+-page bill that *not one Congressman* read that is little more than a leftist wish-list (I'll list the more outrageous provisions of the bill that we are currently aware of below.)


• Politicized the census bureau (brought it into the White House)


• Lie – Promise: “I will not sign a bill until it has been posted 5 days on the internet for everyone to view it.” Real Life: “Stimulus” pork bill is never posted to the internet and is signed the Monday after it is passed by both houses on Friday. The only reason it wasn’t signed immediately is because the first couple was off on vacation.


• Lie - Assertion: The "stimulus" bill must be passed and signed quickly in order to avert impending "disaster." Real Life: Most of the spending in the "stimulus" bill will not take place until after this year so will have no affect in averting immediate "disaster."


• Lie - Obama crowed proudly that the “stimulus” package contained no earmarks when it contains at least 9,000 earmarks.


• Appointed numerous “czars” (high level administration officials) in order to get around Senate approval of administration appointments.


• Appointed board of economic advisors that includes a union executive that twice plead the fifth in a money laundering probe (11 of 15 board members donated more than $1 Million to the Obama campaign – pay to play anyone?)


• Lie – Claimed that he never discussed the replacement of his Senate seat with Illinois Gov. Blagojevich when there exists a news report from the time period that says that Obama was meeting with Blagojevich for that very reason. David Axelrod, a high-ranking campaign official said that Obama discussed his replacement with Blagojevich. He later said that he was “mistaken.” Right.

Contemptible "Stimulus" Bill Provisions

• Rolls back the Clinton welfare reforms so that we will once again pay poor women to have kids without a father. These types of payments have been shown to be a major force behind the enormous black illegitimacy rate and the destruction of the black family. In fact, since the Clinton welfare reforms became law, the black illegitimacy rate has dropped from 70.4% to 68%. Now watch for that rate to go back up.


• Creates a medical information czar (whole bureaucracy actually) to second-guess your doctor.


• Gives over $4 billion to ACORN, a group under investigation for vote fraud in almost every state in the union. Obama's ties to this evil group deserve a blog of their own; hopefully I'll have time to do it.


• As Rick Santelli (CNBC financial reporter), puts it, it promotes bad behavior. See his report here.


• Puts us further down the road towards socialism (read Ezra Taft Benson to see the evil socialism)
  

Hypocrisy of Obama (we follow the rules but he doesn't have to)

• Gave speech during election that said that Americans must learn that we can't keep our thermostats at 72 year round and then keeps the thermostat in the White House high enough that, according to one administration insider: "it's so warm in there that you could grow orchids."


• Talks about everyone needing to take responsibility but he refuses to do so, constantly blaming the Bush administration for the current mess. Plus, ramming through a bill without giving it the time to be debated is responsible government?


• He and his wife lectured us that we need to be more charitable and involved with the community when he and his wife gave less than 1% of their riches to charity and did no community service without being paid for it.


• Signed executive order forbidding any former lobbyists in high administration posts, and then nominated/appointed more than a dozen such lobbyists.


• Decried "pay-to-play" Chicago politics when he participated in them. Of course, his Chicago mansion and Michelle's 6-figure hospital job had nothing to do with politics. Never mind the Rezko connection with the mansion and the fact that since Michelle left her job, it has not been filled to this date. (This definitely deserves its own post.)

By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them (Part 2)

Note: I remain totally amazed at the number of good, hard-working people that voted for and still support Obama. I don't believe that these people would ever have supported this corrupt man if it weren't for the media's dereliction of its duty. Anyone depending on the "main-stream" media for their information is largely ignorant of Barack Obama's shady past. See here... By exposing this man's white-washed past, I hope to show that he is "a corrupt tree" that must be resisted via all avenues provided by our constitution.

He's Just a Guy I Knew in the Neighborhood

During the Democratic primary campaign, a British newspaper reported on a connection between Obama and former (and unrepentant) Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. As was his wont whenever information damaging to his campaign surfaced, Obama lied and evaded. He claimed that Ayers was merely a "guy he knew in the neighborhood."

As more information trickled out about the Obama-Ayers connection, however, the Obama team changed tactics from lying to bullying. After the University of Illinois - Chicago was forced to release documents (140 boxes worth) pertaining to Obama's and Ayers' involvement with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), Stanley Kurtz went on WGN radio to detail what he found as he sifted through those documents.

"WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears," Obama's campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. The campaign then followed up with another email urging supporters to call the radio station to complain. "Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse. It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves," the note continued. "At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies." Interesting, however, that the note didn't disclose that WGN had requested an Obama campaign representative to be on the same show but the campaign declined. Who's the liar and smear-merchant here?

In spite of the Obama campaign's lying and obstruction, the following facts finally emerged (although the "main stream" media mostly ignored them):

• When Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer decided to retire in 1995, she hand-picked Barack Obama as her successor. In order to introduce Obama to influential liberals in the district, she held a function at the home of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. This was the beginning of Obama's political career.


• Ayers founded CAC and was on the panel that picked Obama to serve as the chairman of the board of CAC


• While Obama/Ayers worked for the CAC, the group poured in more than $100 Million to community organizers and radical education activists.


• Ayers's steered CAC's agenda, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism.


• Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down by CAC. Instead money was disbursed through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn - the same Acorn that has been prosecuted in many states for voter fraud)


• While Ayers/Obama worked at CAC, it gave $175K to Mike Klonsky, a confirmed Maoist, to set up a school dedicated to infusing Marxist ideology in students.


• During the tenure of Obama/Ayers at CAC, Chicago area test scores (of course) didn't improve one iota


• Not only did Obama serve with Ayers on the CAC, but also served three years with him on the Woods Fund.


• While Obama/Ayers worked for the Woods Fund, it granted $75K to the controversial Arab American Action Network, whose founder spoke supportively of Palestinian terror.


• Obama and Ayers appeared together on multiple panel discussions that were organized by Michelle Obama.

After the above information trickled out, the Obama campaign realized that they could no longer deny the Obama/Ayers relationship, so they changed tactics. They produced a "Fact Sheet" to try to downplay Ayers' radicalism. The "Fact Sheet" claimed this about Ayers: a) All charges against Ayers were dropped, and b) Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, are actually pretty "mainstream" these days.

Yes, the charges against Ayers were dropped but not because of lack of evidence. Ayers himself crowed upon his release, "guilty as sin... free as a bird." The charges were dropped only because federal authorities overstepped their legal bounds while pursuing Weather Underground members.

Hmmm, so Ayers is mainstream now? True, he is a college professor but does that connote mainstream? Has Ayers disavowed his radical philosophy or methods? No. In fact, in a newspaper interview that was printed on 9/11/2001 (yes that 9/11), Ayers is quoted as stating that he regretted not having performed more terrorist acts. Even more recently, Ayers and Dohrn appeared in a radio interview in 2007 where Ayers supports Mao and Dohrn calls the US the "belly of the beast." In fact, Ayers activities today are even more dangerous for American society than were his terrorist acts. That is because today he is passing on his hateful, radical philosophy to our children via his "education reform" attempts.

So tell me, is lying and bullying good fruit or evil fruit? Is working with radicals to tear down American society good or evil fruit? Is lying about working with radicals good or evil fruit?

By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them (Part 1)

Note: I remain totally amazed at the number of good, hard-working people that voted for and still support Obama. I don't believe that these people would ever have supported this corrupt man if it weren't for the media's dereliction of its duty. Anyone depending on the "main-stream" media for their information is largely ignorant of Barack Obama's shady past. See here... By exposing this man's white-washed past, I hope to show that he is "a corrupt tree" that must be resisted via all avenues provided by our constitution.

Three Four Cheers for Infanticide

Barack Obama has consistently been an unabashed defender of abortion rights, no matter the gestational period. NARAL has given him nothing but "perfect" grades on his legislative record with respect to abortion since he has never voted to limit abortion. He was also a cosponsor (and has promised to sign into law if it passes while he is president) of the "Freedom of Choice" bill that would declare abortion to be a fundamental right. This bill would undo all the progress made by the right-to-life groups and would out-law parental-consent state laws, restrictions on abortions during certain gestational periods, partial-birth abortion bans, etc. This alone should be enough to disqualify him as a suitable candidate for any voter that values life, but his support of infanticide should definitely put him out of the running.

Obama voted four times against bills in the Illinois Senate that would've protected infants that were delivered alive after a "botched" abortion attempt. When this information first came to light, the Obama camp tried to float the excuse that he opposed the bills because they were back-door attempts to limit abortion. That excuse had to be shelved, however, when it came to light that the fourth bill was equivalent to a bill that passed the US Congress on a unanimous vote. With that excuse out the window, Obama then tried to say that Illinois law already protected infants born after "botched" abortions. A brief look at the Illinois events that caused these bills to come up will blow that last excuse out of the water.

In 1998, Jill Stanek, a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, held a 22-week old infant boy with Down Syndrome and sadly watched him die. The baby had been born alive after an induced-delivery abortion. This was not an isolated occurrence. Stanek says that she is personally aware of 4 infants that were born alive and allowed to die and hospital spokeswoman Sue Reimbold confirmed that the hospital performs 10-20 induced-delivery abortions a year and that 10-20 percent of those abortions result in live births.

An article detailing the above events in the Chicago Sun-Times contained a quote from the District Attorney that said the he could find no law that was broken by the hospital as it allowed unwanted infants to die. If the DA knows of no law that enforces the protection of these infants (I could no longer find the Sun-Times article online but I did find a reiteration from the DA here that no law was broken), what law is Obama talking about?

There is an Illinois statute that requires that an infant born alive as a result of a failed abortion be given medical attention if, in the opinion of the aborting physician, the infant is viable. The idea that this flimsy law would protect these infants stretches credulity and is shown by the events at Christ Hospital to be faulty at best. In order to address the obvious shortcomings of this law, a companion bill to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act was introduced in the Illinois legislature. This bill required that when an infant is born alive after a failed abortion, another physician must be brought in to determine the viability of the infant. Obama voted against both bills and argued against the companion bill on the floor of the Senate. The audio clip of his argument can be found here. So, a matter of life and death is not important enough for Obama to "burden" the mother or the aborting doctor. How is this any different than supporting infanticide?

The Savior said, "Ye shall know them by their fruits. ... A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." So what were the reasons again for supporting Obama?