Charlotte Front and Center

We The People

Obama's Poor Handling of Our Intelligence Community

Once again we hear promises of congressional investigations, but will Obama once again request that these investigations be stalled so as not to interfere with the federal investigations?

Senator Joe Lieberman is promising to have hearings on why the State Department took no action after Abdulmutallab's father reported his concerns about his son to the American embassy in Nigeria.

Will Obama do the right thing and simply fire those responsible for this horrible blunder in American security?  What is a "Watch List" for?

Once again, Secretary Napolitano's explanations and defense speak poorly of Obama's Administration to address real security issues.  After this latest attempt (number 28), Napolitano says 'the system worked as it should have'.  The Obama administration may have a hard time dealing with that ridiculous statement down.  Yet, her defense shows the non-chalant attitude this administration has adopted when it comes to terrorists.

Obama is learning, but this lesson almost came at the expense of 300 lives.

Mandela and Obama Not to be Compared

Image via Wikipedia

South Africa Rocks has an interesting tweet that sums up the irresistible urge to compare Mandela, one of the most magnificent political figures of the 20th century, with Barack Obama.  The tweet reads: " There is no comparison. Mandela is a different person from a different time who called for a different following to achieve different goals. The closest these two come to one another is the tone of their skin color."  So true, unless events were to change. But the divisions and lines drawn in the sand in America make a comparison between the two a waste of thought and breath.

What Obama preached during his campaign and the voice of change and hope he promised his followers, all of a sudden seems so long ago with the rush of events, and the cold reality of Washington.

The politics of skin color remains a handy weapon for this White House, along with a host of those who would silence and ostracize a news outlet, and deride citizens who disagree with their policies.

It would seem that the contrasts between Mandela and Obama are apparent, and most specifically when the politics of race is the subject of anyone's comparison.

It is a given that Mandela and Obama are both revolutionary, but Mandela proved to be a leader.  In turn, Obama has inspired his followers and many in the world.  Yet Obama has yet to unite and lead all of America.

The Federal Ruling Elite Grows Richer with Obama

Image via Wikipedia

Is it fitting that Obama complained about the "Fat Cats" of Wall Street without mentioning the new burgeoning ranks of well-heeled federal workers?

We shouldn't be shocked if we have believed all along in the cost of an ever-growing federal government that protects its powers by placing over-paid government workers as a fat cushion between itself and the common, everyday taxpayer...or better yet-that working man that is so distinguishable from the Washington elite that expands itself on the back of the vulgar taxpayers.

The Right Side News comments in detail about the facts reported from USA Today : "Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months - and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time - in pay and hiring - during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector."

Right Side News discusses the issue of the ruling elite and its historical change in number. In the past, both in Europe and America, the ruling elite was always prosperous but small in number.  Not Now.  The unprecedented expansion of government spending is building an elite from the future estimate of tax collection from its citizens.

Yet this Federal elite should realize that voters calling themselves "Independent" are growing in number with some polls saying that this group will soon outnumber both parties.

In the public sector, there is no way to observe what these lawyers, scientists,czars, and advisers actually do.  Nothing is measurable, and corruption festers.

Voters calling themselves independent will grow, and so will their voices on the internet, in other forms of social media that the vulgar citizen uses.  At long last, we will start to see this monster of an overgrown, always hungry government finally sling off the parasites who never served the interests of the American citizen for even a day!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama's America...Pay Raises For Federal Employees, Federally Imposed Pay Caps For Others (minx.cc)
• JUST AFTER THE "JOBS SUMMIT," new regulations that discourage hiring. "Regulatory risk from the fed... (pajamasmedia.com)

The Hypocritical Road to Copenhagen

Image via Wikipedia

No matter the level of foolishness we tolerate from our leaders, politicians, and celebrities as Americans, one action we don't accept among public figures is hypocrisy. 

As the Copenhagen summit gets underway, American plebeians have suffered the admonitions from people such as Al Gore who proposes a plan that could finally sound the death knell for our economy.  The green suggestion from Sheryl Crowe to use one single square of toilet paper is certainly for ward-looking, and all from celebrities that produce a carbon footprint 100 times over what the average western citizen ever produces!  

John Travolta has the gall to lecture British citizens on being "green" as he flys to Britain on one of his 5 jets. It's a hobby, you know. The Times also reports on Gore : "At the end of the film An Inconvenient Truth, the unbearably earnest former presidential candidate Al Gore asked his audience: “Are you ready to change the way you live?” His own huge Nashville mansion consumed over 20 times the electricity of an average American home."

The examples of non-green living are numerous and easy to list from Sheryl Crowes numerous bio-diesel tour buses to the $12,000 electric scooter lugged in to the Hollywood Green Conference on a diesel truck.

What about the green jobs? Who is going to produce them and finance them? Its hard to wait on an answer when you have been laid-off from your non-green,old carbon filled job. As the NowPublic says, these countries gathered at Copenhagen will be looking to the green west for their green dollars...those sinful, carbon-footed, American taxpayers.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The climate question: Road to Copenhagen (network.nationalpost.com)
• "Honest Al's Green Car Sales" (edistojoe.com)

Obama and His "Campaign Hacks"

Image via Wikipedia

One of the best reads on Obama comes from John F. Harris on "7 Stories Obama Doesn't Want Told."

Harris' article will strike home to most of Obama's critics who will see the 7 news stories as neatly summarized points Obama's opponents have been trying to voice the last few years towards the mesmerized media and followers.  Harris also makes clear these 7 perceptions of Obama are issues that Obama must worry about taking hold in the public's mind about his character and job performance.  One of these issues is that Obama feels as if he is playing with "Monopoly" money. That point is beginning to take a very strong hold in America's mind, and as Harris points out, Obama realizes the danger as well. This is one reason Obama will focus on cost control in 2010.

Yet the most damage to Obama's image may come from Obama's own Chicago gang in the White House.  Harris' third point of Obama's "Chicago-styled politics" is reflected in the way his aides take pride in being nothing but "old campaign hacks". The problem is that much of the American public took Obama at his word in that he wanted to bring a non-partisan style of politics to Washington. Yet what we have seen is Harris' description of old style politics: 

The examples of Chicago-style politics include their delight in public battles with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (There was also a semi-public campaign of leaks aimed at Greg Craig, the White House counsel who fell out of favor.) In private, the Obama team cut an early deal — to the distaste of many congressional Democrats — that gave favorable terms to the pharmaceutical lobby in exchange for their backing his health care plans.

The bribing of politicians is clear for all to see as votes are bought and others are strong-armed. Americans do have a distaste for political corruption that is blatantly acted out on the large public stage health-care reform has provided. It isn't that Americans are naive,but when these so called "Chicago politics" are openly approved of and acted upon by those in power, the voters will soon show their disapproval and 2010 is upon us.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama and GOP Differ Over Recipe for Jobs, Economy (abcnews.go.com)