Category Archives: Politics

Congress Wants to Help You Buy a $730,000 Home

June 25, 2008 – 7:21 am

It costs a lot to get reelected to Congress. So the incumbents are willing to take your money and my money to help ease their pain. Not directly, mind you. Devious politicians never do anything directly. After all, it wouldn’t be devious if it was direct. The AP reports:

A mortgage aid plan is on track for passage in the Senate as soon as today. The massive foreclosure rescue bill cleared a key Senate test yesterday by an overwhelming margin, with Democrats and Republicans both eager to claim election-year credit for helping hard-pressed homeowners.

The mortgage aid plan would let the Federal Housing Administration back $300 billion in new, cheaper home loans for an estimated 400,000 distressed borrowers who otherwise would be considered too financially risky to qualify for government-insured, fixed-rate loans.

So all those people who have already demonstrated that they are poor risks for loans are going to get another loan backed by you and me. The Senate wants the loans to go as high as $625,000 and the House wants to up that to $730,000. Think about that. If someone with a bad credit rating wants to spend nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to buy a house, you and I are going to be forced to guarantee them a loan — if the House has its way. President Bush has said that he will veto the bill if it is passed, but that is because he doesn’t like some of its provisions.

Some of the lawmakers are pushing to make the bill revenue neutral. But who believes that will happen? If a lot of the “400,000 distressed borrowers” weren’t expected to default on their loans they wouldn’t need to have the tax-payers backing them.

What this bill is really about is a way for a bunch of well-connected builders to get rid of their over-built inventory of over-priced houses. What a stroke of political genius! Use tax-payer money to reward big reelection campaign donors and buy the votes of over-indulgent borrowers at the same time. I’m still looking for the day when such strategies backfire, but I’m afraid I’m looking in vain.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Congress, Nanny State | Comments (0) |

Political Farce in Iowa

January 5, 2008 – 5:47 pm

I thought the Democrat candidates’ speeches after the Iowa caucuses were entertaining. Huckabee was the only Republican that I saw speak and I thought he was boring.

Hillary gave a victory speech after coming in third. She seemed so exhilarated she must have been expecting no better than fourth. It’s really funny watching her try to sound presidential. Standing behind her Bill had to be thinking, why is this happening to me? Speaking of Bill, did you notice most of his former cabinet standing behind Hillary? Change? What change? Hillary seems to think it’s really important that we know she will be ready to serve on her first day in office. Frankly, if she got elected I wouldn’t mind if she spent the first several months redecorating the White House — that is if she keeps Bill out of the Oval Office.

John-Boy raised demagoguery to a new level. He wants to smack down all those evil corporations and rescue all the homeless and otherwise downtrodden. Never mind that without those corporations all of us would be downtrodden (and he wouldn’t have anyone left to sue). Never mind that the last thing most of the homeless want is to be forced into a structured lifestyle. He said that if he were president he wouldn’t let companies like Maytag move its factories abroad. Never mind that in doing so he could make their appliances unaffordable to the people he claims to be so concerned about. He claimed that there are 200,000 former soldiers sleeping under bridges and on grates. Does he expect us to believe that, in an economy that provides jobs for 10 million illegal aliens, these homeless former soldiers (if they exist) couldn’t find a job if they wanted one?

B. Hussein made it very clear that he is the candidate of change. What happened to hope? He puts a big sign on the front of his podium with the single large word, Change. I can’t help but hope (there it is!) that someone will approach him with a dollar and ask for four quarters. He talked a lot about change but said little about what he will change and nothing about how he will do it. Most of the Iowa voters must be so fed up with the current state of national affairs that they will accept anything as long as it’s different.

I’ve said all along that Hillary won’t be president; now I’m ready to say that neither will she be the Democrat nominee. It will be either Obama or Edwards and probably Obama. Either way the Republicans will retain the presidency. I think that neither Edwards nor Obama will be taken seriously enough by the voters to win in November.

I have no idea who the Republican nominee will be. I hope it won’t be Huckabee.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Race for President | Comments (1) |

Dissent versus Divisiveness

October 22, 2007 – 9:40 am

Burt Prelutsky has an excellent column on Townhall.com about the silliness of Democrats accusing Republicans of being divisive.

Democrats boast about encouraging dissent while accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being divisive.

Both parties are guilty of overusing the goal of "uniting the country." What politician, or any salesman for that matter, doesn’t want to unite the country behind his or her campaign? Can you imagine a salesman advertising that he only wants half the people to buy his products? Instead of criticizing the politicians, perhaps I should say that the voters are too prone to buy into the "unite the country" sham.

By Carson Sasser | Comments (1) |

This and That - Part 12

October 19, 2007 – 10:36 am

Why do liberals want to give a free pass to everyone who has had bad things happen to them? The families of 9/11 victims can do no wrong. New Orleans residents affected by Hurricane Katrina are not held accountable for their actions post-Katrina. If you’re poor your bad behavior can be excused. Ann Coulter calls this the "doctrine of infallibility." This means that if you’ve been screwed by life we can’t complain if you screw up our lives.
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A middle school in the Northeast wants to pass out birth-control pills to eleven year-old girls. Another middle school had some boys arrested and jailed for slapping girls on their butts. If they’re not even going to allow a little flirtation why do they think the girls need birth-control?
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Some pediatricians are now interrogating their patients about the ownership and handling of guns by their parents. The pediatricians’ professional organizations encourage it. Some even report what they find to local law enforcement agencies. To me this is an egregious invasion of privacy. And it is clearly politically motivated.

I never hear about pediatricians being concerned about the ownership and handling of five-gallon plastic buckets. About the same number of children are killed each year by drowning in the buckets as are killed by guns. Should someone start a bucket-control advocacy?
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From a CBS News report that some democrats are hoping that Al Gore being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize will cause him to decide to enter the race for president:

"A lot of people are sacrificing a lot," said Draft Gore founder Friedlander. "People are donating to this cause who can’t afford to donate. But we believe very strongly he is very, very desperately needed. This is not a campaign of people who think he’s a great guy. This is not about him. It’s about the country."

That doesn’t say much for Hillary, Barack and the rest of the lineup of Democrat candidates. But if I were a Democrat I’d probably be desperate too — just not for Gore.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Gun Control, Health Care, Race for President | Comments (0) |

It’s Time to Dump the Party Primary Elections

September 2, 2007 – 5:26 pm

The ongoing kerfuffle over Florida moving its primary elections ahead of those in Iowa and New Hampshire has started me thinking again about getting rid of the state financed political party primaries. The Democrats have threatened not to seat any Florida delegates at its convention if the state follows through with moving its primaries up to January 2008. It appears that there is an issue about who owns the primary elections. The Democrat Party apparently thinks it should have some control over when they are held in each state but the states run and pay for the elections. I fail to see why we need primary elections.

Political parties are private organizations. Tax payers should not be expected to pay for their candidate selection processes. I’ve even read that the tax payers are subsidizing the party conventions to the tune of about 50 million dollars each. That should obviously stop. Each party should run and fund its own process of selecting the candidate that it wants to appear on each state’s general election ballot — or have all of them on the ballot. If they want that process to include a statewide referendum of registered party members, they can run it and pay for it themselves. They can even let convicted felons, illegal immigrants and Canadians vote if they so desire — or restrict voting to dues-paying party members.

Each state should hold its general election in early September with a runoff in early November. The September election should include all candidates that qualify in the state. That is, all Democrats, all Republicans, all Libertarians, all Greens, all independents and all anything (that qualifies). It should be the responsibility of each party to decide, as described above, which candidate(s) it wants on the ballot. The runoff election will be held if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes cast. The runoff ballot will include only the two candidates that receive the highest numbers of votes — even if both belong to the same party or both are independents.

Most likely each political party will want to winnow its field of candidates down to one to avoid splitting its vote in the general election. For example, the Democrats aren’t going to want two or more candidates in the general election when the Republicans have only one. But, a Republican or Democrat rebuffed by the party may elect to run as an independent. Remember Joe Lieberman in last year’s election in Connecticut.

I’m for anything that stands a chance of reducing the influence of the two major parties. That’s my opinion. What do you think?

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Elections | Comments (0) |

Who ‘You Calling a Hypocrite!?

August 31, 2007 – 7:31 pm

The liberals like to point to scandals like those of Representative Mark Foley and Senator Larry Craig — both caught falling short of the moral conduct they espouse politically — and ask if this is going to destroy the Republican Party. Perhaps the conservatives should find and expose a few liberal politicians whose moral values are clearly more Judeo-Christian than those they espouse politically, and then ask if this is going to destroy the Democrat Party. Both are instances of hypocritical behavior. In both cases one set of morals is being espoused politically and another set is being practiced personally.

I think it’s hilarious to hear members of Congress calling one another hypocrites — or challenging one another’s morals. How many politicians do you know who practice what they preach? Almost all of them say one thing publicly and do pretty much the opposite privately. It’s quite clear that they think most of us are stupid or just don’t care; sadly, they might be right.

Take the case of the US Attorney firings that the Democrats are so worked up about. The Bush Administration fired eight or nine Attorneys and the Democrats want Bush’s head on a platter (they already have Alberto Gonzales’ head). Never mind that the Clinton Administration fired about 90 US Attorneys. They apparently think that most of us don’t remember that or don’t care. They obviously don’t subscribe to the old maxim, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Here’s a message for most all of you politicians: I’m really not that impressed with you. I believe you to be one of the world’s biggest collections of pompous dipshits. I’m painfully aware that the future of our country is in your incompetent hands. But I also believe that we, the voters, will get rid of you before you can do irreparable harm. In the meantime I will continue to laugh at your phony displays of indignation over the missteps of the opposition.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Congress | Comments (0) |

On Senile Senators and Inexplicable Voters

July 23, 2007 – 9:28 pm

If you haven’t seen the video of Senator Robert Byrd’s Barbaric speech on the Senate floor you need to watch it. If you have any doubt that the man is senile you won’t after viewing it. His speech is about the ’sport’ of dogfighting and was prompted by the recent arrest of Michael Vick, an NFL quarterback.

What is this man doing in the Senate? He will be 90 years old before the year is out. He has served in the House and Senate since 1953 — 54 years and counting. Why do the people of West Virginia keep electing him? Probably because they think he can bring home more pork than a new senator. Surely it’s not their idea of a cruel joke on the rest of us.

Sadly, this is not the most egregious case of voters sending a senile senator to Washington. South Carolina sent Strom Thurmond to the Senate for 48 consecutive years. He was 100 years old when he quit. If the man had decided to run again would they have re-elected him again at the age of 100? Probably; he had to have been at least 94 when they re-elected him the last time. I remember seeing him on C-SPAN sitting in a wheel chair and appearing to not know who or where he was.

Mississippi gave us John Stennis for 42 years and to the ripe old age of 88 (well, compared to Thurmond, Stennis was practically a spring chicken). He retired voluntarily too, so we don’t know what the Mississippi voters would have done either.

So what’s up with voters sending goofy old farts to the Senate? Are they so pessimistic in regard to politicians that they don’t think it matters if their senator doesn’t know what day it is — or nods off at the podium? A better question might be: If that many states are sending senile senators to Congress, how many are electing senators that are totally incompetent in less obvious ways? I’m afraid that a lot of them are.

Do these politicians not have close friends or relatives who can convince them that they’re too old to serve? They’re obviously past the point of being able to realize that themselves. A potential argument: Since you’re unable to dress yourself now, perhaps your effectiveness as a senator is also degraded. This gives us another argument for term limits: to prevent politicians from embarrassing themselves.

How long before a senator dies in his seat and no one notices? How long before some state unknowingly re-elects a dead senator?

(I decided to retire when I was 62 for several reasons, one of which was that I didn’t want my colleagues to remember me as a doddering old fool. I wanted you, the readers of this blog, to remember me as a doddering old fool. Now, five years later, I tend to forget what…)

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Congress, Term Limits | Comments (0) |

This and That - Part 9

July 6, 2007 – 10:42 am

First, jounalists started using ‘lead’ when they mean ‘led’. Now they’re using ‘plead’ when they mean ‘pled’. I suppose they think that because ‘read’ is both the present and past tense of the act of grasping the meaning of printed text, then ‘lead’ and ‘plead’ must also represent both forms. It’s as if they think the English language has an ounce of consistency. If so they should consider the fact that ‘pleaded’ can be substituted for ‘pled’, but ‘leaded’ can’t be substituted for ‘led’. ‘Leaded’ means that a substance contains some of the metal element ‘lead’ — which is pronounced ‘led’.
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It’s amusing to me how political factions grab labels to help promote their ideologies. A few years ago big-government liberals started calling themselves ‘progressives’. Who can be against progress? Well, that should depend on what the faction is progressing toward. A faction promoting the subjugation of our people to a monarchy could be considered ‘progressive’ by those that support that goal. The big-government liberals took a generic term and tried to redefine it as if it only applies to their goals. The principal function of such labels is to disguise the goals of the factions.
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I’ve said before that I think racial preferences, such as those implemented in the name of diversity, are themselves racist — because they inherently assume that any member of a minority race is more like other members of that minority race than members of a majority race. They don’t allow for the fact that a child of a white, rural, redneck family in the South would add more diversity to an Ivy League university than a child of a black, urban lawyer from the North. George Will addressed this today in the best and most colorful way I’ve seen:

Although progressive people would never stoop to racial stereotyping, they evidently believe that any black or other minority child, however young, or from whatever social background, makes a predictable and distinctive — you might say stereotypical — contribution to “diversity.”

(Diversity) allows white majorities to feel noble while treating blacks and certain other minorities as seasoning — a sort of human oregano — to be sprinkled across a student body to make the majority’s educational experience more flavorful.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Racism | Comments (1) |

Mitt Romney’s “Vacation” Moment

June 30, 2007 – 8:41 pm

There has been a lot of talk — most of it critical — of Mitt Romney strapping the family dog to the top of a station wagon for a 1200 mile trip to a vacation destination. This supposedly occurred in 1983. I admit that it sounded a little bad to me too, until I learned that he didn’t strap the dog to the roof like a dead deer. The dog was inside a cage with a windshield on the front. Heck, that’s practically traveling first class for a dog. I’ve heard of people tying their dog’s leash to the back bumper and hitting the road.

The dog’s name was Seamus. (Coincidentally, Seamus is a name being considered for my expected new grandson. In case you’re wondering, we don’t strap babies to the tops of cars or let them ride in the backs of pick-ups in Florida.) Seamus crapped a lot while riding on the roof and covered the station wagon with poop. The experts say that was due to the extreme stress that Seamus was experiencing. Imagine though if they are wrong and Seamus just had diarrhea — and he was riding inside the car.

I can understand different reactions in Massachusetts than here in Northwest Florida. After all, most of them seem to believe that people of the same sex should be able to marry (How do they decide who wears the dress?), and they keep electing Kennedy and Kerry to the Senate. Here in Florida we know that dogs like to stick their noses into the wind. (I’ve never observed this to cause one to poop uncontrollably.) In fact, dogs here routinely ride in the open bed of pick-up trucks and seem to love it. It’s obviously not against the law here, as the MA Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says it is there.

Perhaps Romney should have let Seamus just stand on the roof of the car instead of being caged. That might have prevented some of the stress induced pooping.

Of course PETA thinks Romney committed a capital crime. It appears that they would prefer that he had put one of the kids on the roof and let the dog ride inside the car. I wonder if that would have caused the kid to lose control of his bowels.

The MA SPCA says that it’s now illegal to carry a dog in a way that endangers it. If that’s true, and it’s taken literally, it would seem to preclude the transportation of dogs by most any means. Dogs and humans are endangered anytime they travel. Dogs are endangered when they are walked down the street on a leash — or allowed to run free. Don’t you just love these laws that can mean whatever the ‘authorities’ want them to mean? Is someone somewhere thinking right now about a design for a car seat for dogs?

I don’t plan to vote for Romney, but if I was considering it this “Vacation” moment wouldn’t be a factor in my decision. The fact that he is a Mormon is the biggest reason I won’t vote for him. I’m afraid that he will want us to don black trousers and a white shirt and then hit the streets on a bicycle to spread the message.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Animal Cruelty, Race for President | Comments (2) |

Another Dopey Candidate for President?

June 22, 2007 – 8:46 pm

Some of the political commentators think that Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York City, is posturing to run for president as an Independent. I don’t care if the guy is a billionaire, to me his politics are dopey. He says that he will fix our broken political system by transcending partisan differences. Now how the heck is he going to do that? Wave a magic wand and cause members of Congress not to stand up for their beliefs — which are mostly whatever they think it takes to get re-elected? And what makes him think we want the broken political system fixed? As long as it’s broken maybe they won’t be able to pass any dumb laws — like the immigration and energy bills they’re working on now.

Politicians like to talk about transcending partisan differences and uniting the country. They seem to think that everyone believes this would be a good thing. I say it’s a good thing only if everyone else comes around to my way of thinking. I think a lot of other people will feel the same way. And a lot of them won’t agree with me and others that think like me. That’s why the country is divided.

The phrase ‘partisan differences’ seems redundant to me. If partisans have no differences they aren’t really partisans are they? They would be on the same side — unless they’re dopey like Bloomberg.

It seems that most politicians believe that a partisan is a member of an opposing political party that strongly adheres to the agenda of that party.

If Bloomberg were to become president do you suppose that he would try to outlaw the serving of foods containing trans-fats in restaurants all across the country? If I wanted to protect people from themselves I would push for a prohibition against billionaires holding public office — and against people watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

By Carson Sasser | Also posted in Race for President | Comments (0) |