The United STATES of America

Our nation is called the United STATES of America. It is a Union of 50 individual political entities, and as such, is unique in the world. 50 political entities that have thrown together for security and strength. They are individuals as much as you and I, yet they share a familial commonality.

Come election time, we do not have one election. We have 51. (Washington DC has been granted membership in the Electoral College). To win the White House, one has to win at the State level. The Left says that's not fair. The national popular vote should decide. I disagree.

It seems to me, if one wanted things to be truly balanced, a candidate might need to win a simple majority of the states to be named President. Wouldn't that be fair? Democratic?

You should know that the GOP candidate (like him or not) won THIRTY of the 51 state/DC elections. A bill with that level of support in Congress would be veto-proof.

The Democratic candidate could have won 100% of the vote in California, but domination in a handful of states will never equate with winning a broad number of our 50 member-states in our Union.

Again, if the national popular vote was the standard, politicians would ignore the needs of middle America. But that's not how we are set up. The miracle that was the founding of this nation, its grand experiment in FREEDOM and SELF-GOVERNANCE, unheard of at its time, is such that the elitist white men who assembled its structure ensured that the powerful would be less powerful, and the small would be protected from the strong.

Think hard about that. They had the foresight to set up a system that has evolved, yet still ensures less populated members of the Union have a true voice. That's what was intended, and that's the way it remains. 

If an adjustment is to be made, I argue we should follow the lead of Nebraska and Maine, and award electoral votes by Congressional District, with the 2 votes representing the Senate to go to the overall winner in each state. This would give voice to the rural folks who live outside giant metropolitan areas like New York, Chicago, and much of California.

THOSE are the folks whose voice isn't being heard; farmers in big states, small-town Americans in flyover country in the Midwest, average folks living in Elitist America.

The instinct of the Left is to go the other direction, to reduce the voice of the Sates, to further Federalize every step of the way. Perhaps they'd prefer a name change? Drop the United States, in favor of yet another People's Republic?

I don't think so.

I Am Spent.

I gave up. After two years of the Obama administration, I gave up. I couldn't keep pace with the lies, stumbles, incompetence and general tone-deaf nature of these folks. The pace with which  the hypocrisy and malfeasance of the media became apparent - and generally unchallenged was unnerving. I couldn't wrap my brain around a post without two new events popping up screaming for my attention.

And I did what they probably wanted all of us to do. I gave up.

I made do with the immediacy of Facebook and Twitter. Shorter bursts of opinion satiated my need to express myself, but it's so difficult to flesh out concepts that require detailed essays in such a medium. And it drives one's apolitical Facebook friends crazy. I know it does. And for that, I am sorry.

But on the eve of this election, it is time to speak out - in detail - again.

It is grossly unfortunate for our collective history that Mr. Obama has squandered the equity he had in his back pocket on Inauguration Day. He could have been a uniter, a post-modern, post-racial, post-partisan President. Ultimately, he chose to line the pockets of unions and contributors instead of actually working to create - not jobs (that's not his job) - but an environment friendly to job creation (that IS his job).

The uncertainty with which he burdened small business, big business, medium sized business, ALL business in regard to tax policy, regulation and Obamacare cratered job creation. How can you ask Mr. Bidnessman to take risks with his capital when he doesn't know what the rules are going to be for said capital down the road?

Ask the GM bond holders about this administration's willingness to respect private contracts. The patently unconstitutional dismissal of those contracts reveals a mindset that has been repeated time and time again.

Obama chose to spend his equity on an unconstitutional mandate to force the citizenry to purchase health care insurance. That equity would have been completely squandered were it not for Chief Justice Robert's need to have the Supreme Court to be seen as a caring and progressive institution. (The fact that Obamacare was thus, technically a tax bill, but did not originate in the House is yet another technical bit of unconstitutionality.)

Obama's energy policy is either naive or intentionally damaging to the U.S. economy. Much has been made of Obama saying energy costs 'would necessarily skyrocket.' He shut down drilling in the Gulf and unconstitutionally ignored the federal court's ruling to resume drilling. He seems to think that Green Energy ideas that are still in their infancy can replace and transform the engine that drives our economy. Gasoline, corn, beef, fruit - you name it, prices of everything that requires a gallon of gas or diesel to move across the country (i.e., everything) has gone up and a helluva lot faster than we're used to.

Layer upon layer of regulations and permits have caused the abandonment of plans to build a refinery in South Dakota. The coal industry has been attacked by this administration. Thousands of coal jobs are gone. Apparently coal jobs aren't nearly as important as car jobs.

All that stimulus money spent, yet so much of it went to green guys who just happened to be Obama donators and apparently were in the game only long enough to get said stimulus money.

He's had four years, yet still complains that our energy infrastructure is substandard. It's a shame he wasn't in charge and could have directed some funds in that direction.

Do you see how overwhelming opposition to this man and his policy is?

He has articulated no plan for the next four years. His only debate points at this juncture seem to involve Big Bird and a war on Women that has been created out of whole cloth.

Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism. He said as much. "I'm sure Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism too." That's not the attitude Americans expect from our leaders. But Obama didn't spend his formative years here. It's hard to understand the wonder that the very existence of these United States are when you grow up in Indonesia.

On the social side, it comes down to one thing for me. We are stealing from our grandchildren at a rate unseen in human history. We need to stop asking people to pay their fair share and start demanding our government live with it's fair share.


Just writing this piece has exhausted me all over again. My objections to this administration are so many, so varied and so deeply felt that they are hard to organize on paper. I have not been nearly as literate as this missive requires, I am spent. Hopefully the voting populace feels the same way.

Keeping Up with the Dems is Hard To Do

When most folks talk about the Obama administration and Cloward & Piven's strategy of collapsing the system by overwhelming it, I'm pretty sure they were concerned with big things like government welfare, food stamps and unemployment benefits.

Not a little-read blog.

But that's what happened to your truly last week.

After seeing Obama heckled at an appearance in Pennsylvania last Sunday, I started writing - in the back of my mind, as I often do. The subject of the piece would be about how poorly Obama responded to the heckler and how much difficulty he's having in TelePrompter free zones. For goodness sake, the President of the United States had to have a full TelePrompter rig set up for a talk with 6TH GRADERS.

His handling of the Pennsylvania heckler was far from the polished Obama we were sold during the campaign for office. You can judge for yourself here.

I thought the prez really failed to take control of that situation, and the fact that he stepped away from the podium for some snapshots just didn't feel right.

I hadn't got much further than that in my writing gestation process when polls started appearing all over Massachusetts that showed Scott Brown had a very real chance of winning his special election. Hmm. Maybe something was bubbling in Boston...

Then MSNBC's Ed Schultz said he'd cheat to keep Brown from winning and Obama's stumble at the podium began to blossom into a bigger multi-tiered story about political machines versus the will of the people.

Then they counted the votes and the health care bill looked doomed. But wait! Harry Reid said he'd seat Brown 'when all the proper paperwork was received" and it started looking like the Dems were prepared to cram a bill through no matter how dirty the politics was going to have to get.

I started prepping something about how out of touch the elitists in Congress are. For example,
Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (he of the infamous Cornhusker Compromise) is STILL so out of touch with the speed with which the health care bill is crumbling around him that he placed BRAND NEW ADS explaining his vote in yesterday's NFL playoff games. Ben, sidebar... IT'S OVER!

We're just to Tuesday... I haven't even mentioned the nationalization of student loans, the bank tax, Keith Olbermann's anti-Brown meltdown, Air America calling it quits, raising the debt ceiling by $1,900,000,000,000.00, the Supreme Court's death blow to McCain/Feingold, retiring politicians or Senator Arlen Specter's "Act like a lady" command to Rep. Bachmann of Minnesota.

It's more than one fellow can digest and opine on short of posting five missives a day. And as overwhelming as it's been, it has also been one of the best weeks ever.

It's the first week of the 2010 political season and the water is going to be getting mighty hot for a lot of politicians in the coming months.

I just hope I can keep up.

Obama: The 101st Senator

Much has been made over the last 48 hours about Candidate Obama's pledge to televise the negotiations for Health insurance Reform. Folks with the time and determination to count such things have found eight separate instances when Mr. O pitched that some sort of coverage of the inner workings of Congress should be televised by C-SPAN.

Much more needs to be made of Nancy Pelosi's response when questioned by a brave member of the press who pointed out these pledges.

"There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail."

That comment belies a deep problem with the current Administration's relationship with the House - and with Capitol Hill in general.

It's not just the Conservatives on Talk Radio. Congress doesn't respect Obama either.

His complete lack of experience in an Executive role is showing. His instincts are that of a legislator.

He is ignorant of the power of the Bully Pulpit. I submit 'Exhibit A' - Obama's neophyte response to the Fort Hood shootings. With the media and many Americans waiting for a some sort of encouraging, empathetic message from their President, we were instead treated to several minutes of shout outs and personal messages to the organizers of the conference he was attending. A man who understood the power - and the ROLE - of the presidency would have known instinctively it was time to set aside the personal stuff and speak directly to the nation from the top of his address.

'Exhibit B' - Obama's September address to a joint session of Congress (the one of the infamous "You Lie!" outburst.) Obama spent a long time that night discussing the details of his alleged Health Care plan. I say 'alleged' because the truth was, he had no plan. Now, he may have had a list of things he wanted, but there was no bill for him to submit to Congress. In short, apart from a laundry list of broad concepts, Obama has had absolutely nothing to do with the bills passed to date. The depth of his participation has been to twist arms for votes. He hasn't insisted that Congress pass his version of the legislation because he has never had his own version of the legislation. He hasn't fought for his bill. He hasn't led the way.

Obama entered into this process by handing the ball to Congress and telling them to come up with something that hit as many of his points as possible. At that point, he virtually abdicated his position of authority and returned to being only one more voice in the maelstrom, the 101st Senator. He could have avoided this scenario by drafting a simpler version of the bill and driving Congress to pass it. The extra pork and state-by-state bribes could have been eliminated and dismissed as politics as usual. He could have thrived in his promised post-partisan world.

But that would take Executive leadership. It's a concept that is still foreign to Obama even after a full year in office.

Pelosi's remarks reflect the fact that Congressional leaders are driving the bus now. And worse, they know it.

Why defer to Obama at this point? He's just another legislator. And he's in way past his pay scale.

2010: Dormant No More

It's been a very long time since there's been any activity here at JELLY BEENZ. It's unfortunate and pretty much inexcusable.

But much like the Tea Party folks, the long period of dormancy is over.

The political and cultural goings on of 2009 have been difficult to let silently unfold. And truthfully, it's so much easier to pop over to Facebook and drop a snarky status update that stirs the pot amongst my most liberal friends and relatives.

I believe there's something lingering in the air. Something powerful that is about to congeal into a mighty force.

2010 has all the markings of a year of political upheaval, equivalent to the polar ice caps swapping places. Big time change that sees big C Conservatism roaring into power for the first time in 15 years.

The liberals who are currently in power in Washington have revealed the true nature of the system and of their souls. In a period of absolute power, they have tended to govern from positions further left than mainstream America.

The promises of transparency and of a corruption-free process lasted about as long as the words hung in the air. The wheeling and dealing involved in passage of bills twice the length of ATLAS SHRUGGED has given the American public a court side seat at the sausage factory and the public does not like what it has seen.

The pressure to pass massive bills quickly, without time to discuss, digest or even read - let alone debate - has made for a wary public.

And then there's the legislative bribery.

Ah, but that's just Washington being Washington, right? Maybe in a different climate, yes. But not in the promised climate of HOPE AND CHANGE.

A more generic term has never captured the hearts of so many. A more unexplained directive has never swept the country into a celebrity worshiping frenzy. Heck, Conservatives who thought George W. Bush was too liberal, or too weak, or too passive wanted some of that change too.

But nobody got it.

For all the promises of HOPE, the jobless claims continue to mount up and Obama's economy looks more and more like Jimmy Carter's every day. For every promise of CHANGE, there's yet another DC lobbyist taking over a brand new Czar position in an Obama administration that reveals its true transparency in its sealing of the president's birth certificate. (But that's a discussion for a different day.)

A full year after having a liberal conservative foisted upon them by the media (and liberals who crossed party lines to ensure McCain's nomination), Conservatives are beginning to feel the true depth of their power. A year after their national ticket (which was more appealing when viewed from the bottom up) went down in the flames of the folly of moderation, the silence is beginning to fade away.

After a year of being called racists, homophobes, red necks and tea baggers, the American Conservative has had enough. The Uprising is about to commence.

There is a song by the group Muse called UPRISING. There's some question as to the true politics of the group, but I don't care. The lyrics apply to 2010.

They will not force us.
They will stop degrading us.
They will not control us.
We will be victorious.

Like I said... the long period of dormancy is over.

Don't Tell Me What Offends Me

So there was this big dust-up on THE VIEW yesterday.

The topic de jour was Jesse Jackson's recent remarks concerning Barrack Obama. Seems Mr. Jackson used the N-word while waiting to go on THE O-REILLY FACTOR. An overnight producer caught the whispered expletive when he was transcribing the tape for archival purposes.

That was last week.

Fast forward to yesterday where Whoopi Goldberg began to defend Jackson's right to use the word. Apparently using racial expletives is only a fireable offense if you're a cranky old white DJ.

Whoopi and a guest panelist took the position that white folks have no business being upset when black folks use the word. They have taken ownership of the word, diffused its power and even use the word as a term of endearment among family members.

Wonder if they'd accept the same argument in defense of the confederate flag?

NBC Wants You to Vote for Change

One wonders if NBC/Universal, the producer of FOX's hit drama HOUSE, receive a receipt for its recent blatant donation to the campaign of presidential candidate Barrack Obama...





I'd really like to know the story behind this one.

Was FOX aware/complicit of the blatant product placement?

Does its presence violate any equal time rules? Does the FEC even care?

Will the episode be available for repeats airings on USA (owned by NBC/U) within 90 days of the election?

If it airs inside that window, does it constitute a violation of McCain/Feingold?

If the sign had read "Build the Fence Now!" would liberals be asking the same questions?

Just wondering.