Obama get angry, Obama get mad, give those Republicans the biggest lecture they ever had!

Obama get angry (to the tune of Johnny Get Angry) at the end of this post:

——————–

UPDATE: late in the day 9-19-11

Caught a little of the president’s address on his deficit reduction proposal, but it was confusing because for fun I was listening to it on French radio and I don’t speak French, so I only heard him in bits and pieces between the ongoing translation into French. But I caught his new hard-hitting tone and I have read some more about it since I originally posted all this below. I don’t have to agree with him to agree that finally he is fighting back and dropping the hopeless compromise tactic. Maybe he has just been pacing himself all this time. Now he can sprint to the 2012 finish line and he can also say he gave the Republicans a chance for compromise — they just were not interested. And even though my post below criticizes the confining quality of  ideologies when it comes to critical thinking, maybe it will be nice to have a clear struggle between right and left in the next election and see what the mood of the public is by now or then.

——————–

The trouble with political ideologies, such as conservatism and liberalism, is that they are so confining. They force one to think only inside the box, not outside the box.

I mean although I am not a registered Republican and although I do not consider myself a political conservative I wholeheartedly endorse the concept of making one’s own way in life and not depending upon the government or munificence of my fellow taxpayers (and that is not to say I have not ever benefited from that — most of us have or do to some degree). And that is considered quite conservative, that is making one’s own way and all. But at the same time, I would favor socialized medicine (I am not afraid to use that term — I don’t have to hide behind another term, such as single-payer or whatever). But I have come to realize that socialized medicine seems to be something U.S. voters as a whole just can’t get their arms around. Instead it seems we are all in a muddle on the subject and in so being go on supporting our crazy inefficient and highly expensive patchwork system. Yes I know, we now have Obama Care –  it’s still early with various parts to phase in later (unless the GOP wins and abolishes it) — but so far the only result is that I pay the same as I have in the past for less coverage in my job-connected health insurance (the alternative being to pay more for still less coverage than I would have had in the past).

But I did not begin this blog post to talk about healthcare or socialized medicine.

More and more I am convinced that President Obama is heading for defeat in his bid for a second term. He is supposed to, as I understand it, announce details of a proposal to cut the deficit over many years by $3 trillion by closing tax loopholes (probably a good idea, unless it is your loophole) and, according to the headlines, taxing millionaires at a higher rate that they are currently.

The notion that we can simply tax the rich to balance our budget or pay off the national debt is absurd. At least it is my understanding that the reality of the math is that those in the middle income level (whatever that is) have the burden, by their sheer numbers, of  paying the largest percentage of taxes. Taxing the rich sounds nice and even fair, especially if you are not rich or if you are Warren Buffett and have so much money, well you don’t quite know what to do with it all, especially once you’ve wall papered your house. He says he is not taxed enough, but that’s him — other rich folks don’t agree.

A better idea than targeting the rich would be to greatly simplify the tax code and maybe even flatten it out — everyone paying the same percentage. I know that is supposed to be unfair to all of us at the lower income levels since we need a higher percentage of our total income just to get by, but if the percentage was not too high, we could afford it. And of course the high earners could more than afford it — and that is so bad?

I am not so sure but what the income tax should not be replaced or at least augmented by a national sales tax. And I know that is supposed to be particularly regressive since we “poor folk” would end up paying even more for our basic necessities. So maybe actual basic necessities should be exempt from that national sales tax (and there would be a lot of argument as to what constitutes a basic necessity). But at least a national sales tax would have the advantage of gauging the government intake to the health of the economy. That way taxes could not be strictly blamed for hampering the economy.

Obama also proposes to balance the books through projected savings in winding down our war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, which only serves to point out the absurdity of our foreign and war policy. I mean if we can afford to simply wind down wars, by what right or reason did we get into them in the first place? War should only be fought for true necessity and only end in complete victory, making it no longer a necessity. But of course we have gotten into hopeless causes that never promise any victory.

But I have to begin preparing for my real job now and can’t quite complete the thought here.

Gosh I wish we could get a viable third-party candidate — the party of open-minded reason.

P.s.

Who is rich?

It is often pointed out that many farmers and small business people are millionaires on the books. Several decades ago there was a headline in the Sacramento Bee newspaper about a Red Bluff, Ca. area ranching family that described them as millionaires. But they said they did not feel like millionaires. It seems that because they owned their land free and clear, probably thanks to the efforts  in of their forebears, and land values being what they were then, on the books they were millionaires. Now while I assure you no one need have felt sorry for them — they no doubt having plenty to get by, by all observation they lived a fairly simple, hardworking life. The wife of the rancher told a reporter on the local  newspaper for which I worked at the time that she did not feel like a millionaire, seeing as she had just got done rendering a hog. All I am trying to say is that whether they were wealthy or not, they were labeled by that headline (and it was actually meant to be ironic) as being in the same category as the idle rich (whom many of us envy but love to hate at the same time). Class warfare, as Mr. Obama proposes, does not turn me on. Nonetheless he has the hope that the Republicans will choose one of their crazies, who wallow in their own ignorance and bigotry, to run against him in an election that seems to be otherwise already handed to the GOP on a silver platter.

P.s. P.s.

Just heard a little of President Obama’s address on his proposal — his tone sounded tough; maybe he has taken James’s Carville’s advice and is getting mean. It reminds me of the 1960s Joanie Sommers song “Johnny Get Angry”. In my parody it goes like this:

Barack Obama get angry,

Barack Obama get mad,

Give those Republicans the biggest lecture they ever had,

We want a brave man,

We want a cave man,

Barack Obama show us that you care, really care for us…

——————

In case you did not recall the original tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI_nk0L-cF4

As much as I enjoy political satire, I won’t quit my day (and night) job.

Obama in trouble; he could be a comeback kid maybe if he pushed wholeheartedly for revival of conventional domestic industry…

One of the things that makes the Solyndra scandal, where President Obama threw millions of dollars of taxpayer money away in a shady deal with campaign contributors — wittingly or not — so maddening is that people don’t need solar panels as much as they need jobs. And you won’t create nearly enough jobs via green energy schemes. Even if they are on the up and up, they would only provide ancillary benefits at this time to our economy. We need industry producing real everyday basic products people need to sustain life.

Eventually, some of these green things will catch on, but I do not see how in and of themselves they can produce the economic input we need to keep our economy healthy.

It appears that the Obama administration got taken on the Solyndra thing, funding the company $527 million and then seeing it go belly up — where was the due diligence the Obama administration accused (and rightly so) the Wall Street bankers of not using that started this whole mess in 2008?

—————-

ADD 1:

Reports indicate that it was feared inside the Obama administration that something might be wrong with Solyndra even as the president was touting it to the public. You know, this is not good.

—————

As Gene Burns said last night on his KGO, San Francisco, radio talk show: it’s things like this that have given rise to and have seen the rapid ascent of the Tea Party (and he is no fan of the Tea Party, but admires their political initiative and wonders why those of other persuasions are not so active, or at least that is my interpretation of what he has said).

Worse yet, the word is now that there are more Solyndra type scandals out there.

The public is fed up with on the one hand being told that the nation is trillions of dollars in debt and on the other hand being told it must go deeper into debt to deal with that problem. And it is aghast at such scandals as the Solyndra fraud.

I don’t know what really happened at Solyndra, but it does sound like some lobbying and some campaign contributions garnered a lot of government money and probably those in charge were not of the highest moral character — the greed is good type.

Also I heard that China has dumped a lot of solar panels on the market — free trade or most favored nation status for China and all — another thing that riles the public, and should.

And I think that those who cheered the other night at the GOP debate at the fact that Texas Gov. and presidential candidate Rick Perry has no qualms about the fact he has sent so many people to death row are just yahoos who wanted to take a swipe at the news media hosts who they see as liberal or progressive enemies, but are also emblematic of the public mood against seeing the molly coddling of criminals in general and of violent people being let go on technicalities.

Going off track here a little maybe, but although we certainly don’t want a police state, it was interesting to me that I heard a comment on radio from a citizen during the 9/11 commemoration this past weekend in which the person said how nice it was to see the high police presence and how safe it made one feel.

And I often wonder, why is there not more police presence in high crime areas?

Politically, Obama is in big trouble. The Democrats lost a nearly century-old safe seat in the congress over the Anthony Weiner scandal to a Republican over voter disgust. It is hard to see what with the mood of the country how Obama can possibly get reelected. He’d have to be a comeback kid, ala Bill Clinton, to turn the corner.

Why not concentrate on re-vitalizing our conventional industry and get moving on those infrastructure projects he talks about too? And domestic energy exploration to include natural gas (and I would exclude offshore drilling, except in areas where it is already  fact — but that is just me), would be of great help too. Maintaining our oil supply from the Middle East has become way too expensive in blood and treasure.

If Obama could or would go full force with that now, he just might get another term.

If the Democrats cannot beat the Republicans, who would throw out the baby (Social Security and other protections) with the bath water, they don’t deserve to be in power.

And God help us if the Republicans win (maybe Romney would be kinder and gentler than Perry).

What do the voters think of Obama jobs speech? Don’t know yet…

Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, but while I see and read pundit and partisan reactions to President Barack Obama’s jobs speech to congress last night, I don’t see any polling results among voters or even any voter interviews.

But it was a strong speech, probably one he should have given some three-plus years ago.

I am concerned that he may have hinted about making cuts in Medicare and Social  Security as a bargain with Republicans to get more government economic stimulus money.

And here’s something I once mentioned in a blog post, but I think rather than raising the retirement age for Social Security it should be lowered. That would allow people to retire  early and get more enjoyment out of life — none of us really knows how long we have — and would conceivably open up jobs for younger workers.

I have to say that when the president claimed his $447 billion jobs proposal would not raise the deficit or debt (those two terms get mixed up in reporting — I probably should just use debt), I’m afraid, well heck I know, that is just so much smoke and mirrors and nonsense. You cannot spend money you don’t have, thus requiring borrowing, and not raise the debt. We all know this, it’s just something politicians have to claim to try to get us all to buy into some kind of alternate reality.

But if he can get the government to introduce a massive amount of money into the economy and things can get rolling, then perhaps economic activity will pick up and be able to sustain itself.

All the republicans offer is cutting benefits for everyone (except tax breaks for the super rich), abolishing safety regulations and other protections for general public, and gutting health care. All the GOP candidates are vowing to dismantle what they tag Obamacare.

While I am not a fan of Obamacare — too complicated and probably overdoing things — all the Republicans offer is some kind of free market free for all in which a whole lot of us would be priced out of the market.

Obama talked about restoring teacher jobs and made a swipe at the GOP for being more interested in preserving tax cuts for the wealthy than preserving the jobs of public school teachers. Personally I think public schools should be funded and operated at the local level and it is the responsibility of local taxpayers to fund them, probably with the help, but only help, of  the states.

And back to health care: Rick Perry is adamant that he would with the stroke of a pen abolish Obamacare as his first act as president. Today in the LA Times there is a story telling of the dismal state of healthcare in Texas, the state of which he is governor.

Mitt Romney also says he would abolish Obamacare, but he designed the Massachusetts health care law when he was governor there and it served as the model for Obamacare. Mitt is kind of everything to everyone He just wants to be president. And he just might get there, although a lot of the pundits seem to think the firebrand Perry has a better chance.

I’m wrapping this up for now because I have to make a living. But I’ll be back.

(Sharia law for Libya?) Obama may have another Middle East victory: Bin Laden down and now Gaddafi

LATEST UPDATE (8-25-11):

At the the opera they say it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. In libya,  it can’t even begin to be over till Gaddafi crawls out of his hole or until he is pulled out. His loyalits are still resisting and he’s still issuing statements, according to reports, even though his command center/residence was taken over.

And one wonders if this will all devolve into a civil war.

UPDATE:

8-24-11

Over the last 12 hours or so the story/rumor that is circulating concerning the apparent Libya rebel victory over Gaddafi, who served as a tyrant for more than four decades, is that a draft of a new “democratic” constitution is circulating and that it calls for the imposition of  Sharia law.

I have to admit I know next to nothing about Sharia law, except basically I understand it is an Islamic religious code. Well if a nation is going to have an official religion, it seems logical it might well adopt that religion’s code.

I could no more deal with the imposition of Sharia law here in the United States than I could deal with the imposition of some Christian code of conduct based on the Old or even New Testament of the Holy Bible.

In the U.S., religious freedom, which includes the prohibition of a state-sponsored religion (and I would add, freedom from religion), is a fundamental part of our democracy. It would seem impossible to achieve anything close to our basic freedoms with the imposition of a religious law, even though much of our law is derived from religious moral codes of the past.

And that story or rumor about a pending imposition of Sharia law in Libya is just that, a story or rumor.

But again, my limited understanding is that there are various forms of Sharia law and that different people, that is different Muslims, interpret it differently.

Now that I think about it, Iraq, which we liberated and nation-built with so much cost in blood and treasure, now uses Sharia law. And so does our oil-rich “friend ” Saudi Arabia.

(From what little I do understand of Sharia it is not fun to be a woman where it is practiced, unless you like having no rights.)

While we have to hope that something good comes out of the Libya rebel cause, such as a Western-style democracy, I’m not sure it should make a lot of difference to any of us here in the Good Old USA. We have our democracy and a nice country — we need to take care of ourselves and let Libyans decide what they want to do.

And by the way, does it bother you as it does me when I see all those ignorant people shooting automatic weapons into the air in “celebratory fire”? BBC (a much better source of news than any of our outlets) did a little story on the dangers and the many deaths that idiot behavior causes.

Are those people really ready to take care of things for themselves?

———————————————-

My previous post from 8-23-11 follows:

Maybe there is hope that the Libya thing won’t turn into an Iraqi/Afghanistan/Vietnam quagmire after all — we don’t know yet.

Unlike the Republicans, I freely admit or concede our President Obama is looking pretty clever right now. I was critical of his move and method on Libya, thinking that although we (the U.S.) went in there, by air power, under the cover of NATO, we would be left holding the bag and it would all turn into a messy civil war, as is or was the case in Iraq and/or a seemingly unwinnable fiasco as in Afghanistan.

I was right in that it takes ground troops — air alone would not likely topple Gaddafi — but the troops were indigenous rebels, the way it should be I would think.

As of this writing, Gaddafi has not been captured yet, but reports are that fighting is intense around his palace or compound, I guess they call it (I thought he lived in a tent), and smoke can be seen coming from his residence.

—————-

UPDATE: Now at mid morning my time on the West Coast reports are that rebels have taken over his compound and have found some of his officially-stamped papers. No reports of Gaddafi’s capture yet. If he’s like Saddam Hussein, I’d day call Rotorooter.

———————

It’s almost laughable how the Republican candidates have to say they are happy Gaddafi is out or almost out but refuse to give Obama any credit.

I don’t even buy that it could have come quicker with more U.S. help — I mean maybe it could have, but I have to admit Obama was wise not to make this an American war. He also knew that he could not afford to get into still another ground war.

Of course no one knows what will happen now. It could still turn into complete chaos.

But for now, with the Obama-ordered killing of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. special operations and elite forces and now apparently the downfall of Gaddafi, I’d say Obama is looking pretty good.

But the economy here at home and the question of whether the Republicans can field an acceptable candidate, palatable to the bulk of American voters, will likely decide whether Obama gets a second term.

P.s.

I wonder what Assad in Syria is thinking about now.

Let’s recognize a free Palestine and look homeward America…

For my part, I would be pleased if our president concentrated more on domestic issues, such as how to pay off the national debt and to eliminate deficit spending, and of course to get the work force back to work. But since he seems interested in foreign relations at the moment, I applaud his call in a speech on the Middle East today for the creation once and for all of an independent Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders.

I’m not as up on the history as I should be, but I am certainly well aware of the Six-Day War back in 1967. I was a senior in high school then, and it being in June, I was just about out of school. I don’t think many of my classmates were interested in this sort of thing, but I recall at least one of my social studies teachers was. He was obviously pro-Israeli (I think he was Jewish), and I think based on the comments he made and the tone of the news reports I heard, the Israelis were the good guys and those dirty nasty Arabs were the bad guys. Well, in reality there is/was probably plenty of blame to go around. My quick internet research tells me that both sides were expecting war and troops from each side, the (Israelis and the Arabs) were massing on the borders. Both sides initially claimed the other side attacked first, but in the end, Israel admitted it made a pre-emptive air attack.

The Arabs had wanted (and still do) to eliminate the modern state of Israel, created in 1949 with the support of the United States and Western European governments over guilt and/or sympathy over the Holocaust (the murder of some 6 million Jews — along with assorted Gypsies and others, by the Nazis of Germany). But in the end, instead of being eliminated, Israel took over some new territory as the result of its pre-emptive attack and subsequent victory in the Six-Day War.

Well right there, that should not have been allowed. Israel should have been pressured by the western powers, upon whom it depends ultimately for survival in a hostile land, to cede back the overtaken territories. I wish after all these years the western powers, to include the United States, most notably, would simply demand that Israel recognize a fully-independent state of Palestine, based on pre-1967 borders, and at the same time let the Arabs know that Israel will continue to be a reality, so get used to it.

On a related subject, while I think the Libya intervention (remember that?) was a mistake, now that we are in it (by our support), let’s get Gaddafi and then let the Libyans do what they will with their own country, even if they have to fight among themselves to sort it out. Bin Laden is gone, and he was not in Afghanistan (surprise, surprise), and most or all of Al Qaeda is said to be out of that nation and the Taliban there are not as hot on Al Qaeda as they once were some experts say (they don‘t want to go the way of Bin Laden). So let’s hand that nation back to the people there and let them take care of things as they have for centuries in their tribal fashion.

Let’s say good riddance to out false friend Pakistan. No more money to them. (And really, if I understand it right, most of the so-called aid that goes to them is military and is really just a boon for the armaments industry.)

And let’s ignore Iran already. We should (this is something I always assert and will not stop now) secretly send Iran a message that we will stay out of its affairs but we will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. Same with Pakistan and North Korea. These nations cannot be trusted. And, in fact, the world does not need any new members of the nuclear weapons club.

I wish all the best in the so-called Arab Spring democracy movement. But that is their business and who is to say their version of democracy will be like ours? It’s not as sexy or glamorous, but the United States would do better to refurbish its relations with the nations of its own hemisphere. I’m not aware of any particular problems with Canada, but I do know that Mexico, a major commercial trading partner, is in the throes of a catastrophic drug war that threatens civil society there and here as well and that the U.S. is partly responsible in that the drugs come north because of the market here and contraband weapons from the U.S. go south .

And we would do well to strengthen relations with the nations of Central and South America.

Look homeward America!

A needed victory for U.S. in the long war on terror…

I’m just now catching up on all the Osama Bin Laden death news, having posed my initial blog on it after I heard the news a little over 24 hours ago, so I have not had time to analyze it all as I like to do, but right off the top, besides being elated by the news I have to question how he was allowed to hide, reportedly, in plain sight in a million or multi-million mansion built just for him and not far from the Pakistani capital. It is said he was there for some six years — not in a cave somewhere. With an ally like Pakistan, we certainly don’t need enemies (is that how the saying goes?). And what is so worrisome is that Pakistan is a nuclear power — they have the bomb.

Another nagging question is the decision to dump Bin Laden’s body in the ocean. Initially it was said our government was showing respect for Islamic custom in disposing of the body within 24 hours of death. But I was not aware that Muslims are routinely dumped at sea when they die — I’m being sarcastic. I understand now that the government did not want his burial site on land where it could become some kind of shrine to terrorists and terrorist sympathizers.

I have criticized some of the policies of President Obama, to include his war policies. But I have to give him credit on this one. It took some guts and moxie to make the decision to go in with a surgical commando raid rather than just send in the heavy bombers, the latter which would likely commit overkill and result in the failure to recover proof the terrorist master mind Bin Laden was killed.

I heard someone on the radio say that although we finally cut the head off the snake, Al Qaeda is a hydra head — it has many heads and they may compete with each other to see who can pull of the biggest or best attack of vengeance and become  the new leader (s).

But it does feel good to finally have a clear victory in this war on terror.

I understand it was Navy SEALs who carried out the raid. Hooray for the Navy SEALs! And like I said in my last post, thank you armed forces and others who had a part.

I’m thinking this is quite a feather in the cap for Obama and boosts his re-election chances. It took guts to go with a commando raid that could have turned out like the failed Jimmy Carter hostage rescue raid. This time around we even lost a helicopter (as we did last time), but apparently we had backup plans and resourceful troops. But I still appreciate what the others tried to do all those years ago — I think they suffered from bad weather, bad luck, and maybe even poor leadership, civilian and military.

Maybe this will give us some of our self-confidence back.

‘Trump forces Obama’s hand on birther issue’, or at least that is the headline The Donald was Looking for…

The Donald may think he has scored by forcing the president to release the birth certificate.

It would seem that the birther issue should now be put to rest now that President Barack Obama has released what has been called his “long form” birth certificate, but I’m sure the diehards will continue to persist that it is a forgery and there is some grand conspiracy, and the anti-Obama hate machine crowd got what it wanted anyway, the storyline that Obama was not born in the United States. This has been imprinted in the brains (or what passes for them) in the minds of those who are a little too willing to believe the worst of the first black American president.

(Of course I have to admit I still cannot say for sure whether Obama was born in the U.S. anymore than I can say any one of you were. I’m told I was, and I have a copy of my own birth certificate handed to me by a San Francisco city employee.)

And Donald Trump, who is unofficially a Republican presidential hopeful, can now crow, and already has, that he forced Obama’s hand in the disclosure. Talk show host Dennis Miller was telling his listeners that Trump stared down the president on the issue and the president blinked. This is the first time I ever heard Miller (whom I only recall as a comedian on the old Saturday Night Live, along with some announcing in the NFL) on his talk show. He apparently appeals to the macho guy America hang tough crowd (and I’m not against America hanging tough, necessarily — whatever that means), and thinks it shows Trump has the, well, guts, to deal with China (Iran?) and so on and not back down.

Miller suggested the whole birther charge was just a trick by Trump to get the president to back down from something.

I am still puzzled why Obama did not disclose the actual official birth certificate in the first place, even though it might be unfair to make him do it when it is not asked of other candidates — what could it hurt? But then again, I’m thinking most of those who were adamant about his being foreign-born may have had more on their agenda then just checking the boxes for presidential requirements — racism???

But I have blogged a few times about the fact that heretofore, despite reports he had actually released his birth certificate, in reality he had not. Otherwise it would not be news that he has just done so. I think, unless I missed something, the mainstream media was negligent or sloppy in not clearing up the issue and erroneously reporting that despite calls for Obama to release his birth certificate, he already had. No he had not.

P.s.

I realize the earlier document that Obama issued may or may not have sufficed as legal proof under Hawaiian standards, but assuming all have just one actual birth certificate (long form) then that is what people mean by birth certificate.

P.s. P.s.

Of course Trump is now on to another foolish issue about the suggestion that Obama was actually a poor (as in grades) student before getting into Harvard  (with no evidence one way or another introduced, just innuendo), I think the undertones of which are that Obama gets a pass as just one hell of a smart guy from the “liberal” media and maybe a slam against affirmative action, whether Obama was ever the recipient of it or not — but he is half black.

(Obama’s predecessor, the first MBA president, was a notoriously lackluster student, but then again, no one ever suggested otherwise.) 

Maybe those who have it out for Obama can now hound him to release his academic transcripts from pre-school forward.

Obama “birther” issue is born again

BLOGGER’S NOTE: I no sooner posted this than I read that Donald Trump (and probably others) are apparently backing off the birther issue somewhat and only raised it to get attention — a cheap shot indeed.

————————–

The “birther” issue has resurfaced (well, it never completely went away in crazy land), most notably with Donald Trump questioning whether Barack Obama was actually born in the United States and therefore has met a basic requirement of being president.

(If you listen and watch Trump, though, his insincerity seems somewhat transparent, such as when he turns around and proclaims he hopes that he is a citizen. Trump and others sometimes back off a direct challenge to his citizenship, depending on how skillful their questioners are or who the audience is — might they be just seeking instant publicity and playing to the crowd? You think?) 

The disappointing thing about all of this is that it gets so much play (and in my own miniscule way, I add to this) and that the people who proclaim that there is a problem are just showing racism and religious strife and intolerance (hey, he’s an African, or a secret Muslim) or are appealing to the base instincts of some of our society for the purpose of drawing cheap and instant publicity for themselves.

While the case does seem curious when you try to research it on the web, pretty much it has been decided. I mean if the Hawaiian state government officials are satisfied he is a natural-born citizen, born in their state, it seems to me the issue is pretty much settled. Add to that the fact that Obama has been president for going on three years, what would we do? Nullify everything that has happened? Tell the rest of the world, never mind, it didn’t happen? Impeach him (that of course would satisfy his detractors maybe and maybe would be in order if he really had committed fraud)?

If there really was an honest question, the issue should have been resolved in the courts before he became president. As I understand it was, in a way; the courts wouldn’t hear it for lack of evidence or standing or both.

When I try to do a brief web search (I’m not going to be doing a thorough investigation, physically going to the courthouse and such) I keep reading about the fact that something called a “Certification of Live Birth” or that is a photocopy thereof, has been released. But some say that is a short form for something else called a “Certificate (not a “certification”) of Live Birth” and and does not carry the legal weight of what they would call the  actual necessary correctly-titled legal document.

Having two children myself, born in California, I do know that parents will get two sets of documents, but I am too lazy to research my own family records (if I could even find them) to recall which is which. But I have in mind that we did get one that is not considered the official birth certificate first and then later got the actual bona fide birth certificate. But it is all kind of bureaucratese to me. I mean why do you have to have different official documents noting your birth? In the end it is the government officials of a particular state (or maybe even county) who decide what proves your birth (and in a dispute, the court system).

And of course sometimes people lose their birth certificates and worse yet there are county courthouse fires and floods and such where old records go missing. In those cases people have to get someone or ones to attest to their own memories of you being born or being around at a certain time.

My mother tells me that when she went to apply for Social Security the courthouse told her they did not have her birth certificate. Now she is 100, and it seems to me her story has changed over the years, because I thought she originally told me the certificate was lost in a courthouse fire, but now she tells me she thinks maybe partly due to the fact that she was born at home, and maybe the doctor did not notify authorities, that no record was ever made. But she was able to get the member of a prominent family in her locale of birth to attest to her being born. Good thing she never ran for or was elected president.　

Most of us do not carry our birth certificates around and are seldom asked for them (except if we look Mexican and are in Arizona), but there are cases where we are, such as I recall when one of my brothers signed up for Little League (I think just to verify age, not necessarily citizenship). I had to come up with mine years ago (for a home loan? Don’t recall) and made a special trip to San Francisco and stood in line with a whole bunch of people I had nothing in common with except we were all born in San Francisco — that is the one time I enjoyed standing in line. I felt like I was part of something special; I belonged to a distinct class.

I actually blogged on the birther issue before and I am left asking the same question:

Even though it’s a pain, I can’t see why Obama just doesn’t have the original original, standard birth certificate released for public viewing on the internet and in addition allow anyone and everyone to go to the courthouse in Hawaii, or wherever the records are kept, and see the actual document, the same document any other Hawaiian would have to show if asked for a birth certificate.

(It could be that Obama sees it to his advantage to let the seemingly crazies make fools of themselves.)

If for some reason there is no document, but the Hawaiian officials are still solid that he is certified to be a natural-born citizen born Hawaii, it might be curious, but legal is what the authorities say is legal. There are probably others who have record mix-ups, but when they need proof of citizenship, the authorities go to what they have and decide from there.

There is some talk that Obama does not want to release the original (even though he and his supporters claim, apparently using semantics, that they have released the “original”) because it has something embarrassing on it, such as a question of who his father really is. But that is just rumor, made possible, or course, by apparently withholding part of the information.

As far as I can see, it is really a curious non-serious issue, except that many who were and are uncomfortable about having someone not only black, but worldly (having lived overseas in his childhood) as president are eager to jump on anything they can, and political- and other publicity-minded opportunists are more than willing to jump on the bandwagon and use the prejudice to their advantage.

But what if it could be proved that he was not a citizen eligible to be president?

I guess impeachment would be in order. So why has that not been attempted?

Because it is probably more effective or self-satisfying to just to make noise.

The Obama Doctrine takes a lot of words to explain…

I still don’t believe there is such a thing as “limited war”. You are either at war or you or not and you either fight to win or you don’t, and in the case of the latter you likely lose, or at the least end up with a stalemate that is not satisfying to the American psyche. That is why we play or watch football where there are winners and losers, not soccer where you can tie 0 to 0.

The Obama Doctrine as I can make it out takes me a lot of words to explain: it seems to be we cannot act everywhere where there is terrible wrong, but we can sometimes if there is a real interest there and if the conditions are right and if we can get the backing and/or support of enough people, and if we do not have the bear the total responsibility and if we can back out of it at any time and we can make ultimatums such as Gaddafi must go because he lost the support of his people and because he is a mad man who would butcher his own people, but we will not put boots on the ground or actually enforce regime change to back up those words.

President Obama said somewhat over 24 hours now as I write this that those bombing sorties and missile strikes done by the U.S. and France and other members of the coalition had done the trick and the rebel forces had turned the tide (we‘re supporting the “rebels“ even though we do not know what they are really up to or whether in the end they will just open the way for Al Qaeda). But as far as the rebels beating back the Gaddafi forces, that is not what I am reading in news dispatches from the front as I am writing this (it is a fluid situation I am sure).

You would think with all the power arrayed against Gaddafi and all of it that is available, he and his forces could be wiped out pronto (then again that is not often the case, but there was that first Iraq war where we wiped out that nation‘s air force in a day or so and within weeks had his vaunted army surrendering to TV cameramen (ahh those were the days). Even then some people just could not stand to win, so we failed to march into Baghdad and hang Hussein at the time.

So even if there is enough pressure on Gaddafi to make him flee will there be a force to restore order or will it just be a new problem?

And just how does one take and secure territory without boots on the ground? Maybe the ragtag rebels can do it with air support from the coalition, but it does not seem likely since they are up against armed professional soldiers and mercenaries.

But if the rebels do prevail, what will they bring? Will they be co-opted by Al Qaeda if they are not just Al Qaeda in disguise already?

And where is Obama getting the money to pay for all of this, this war without congressional authorization?

How is it that we are nearly brought to our knees by trillions of dollars of national debt, but we can afford to pay for a war of choice, not defense? (We always can afford a war of defense — we have to afford that or we will not continue to exist.)

It is nice to have the support of the Arab world, such as it is, with all of its qualifications and equivocations, but why not let the Arab League sort it out?

Obama is not the first president to use the military as a tool of international relations. There is a long tradition in that. Teddy Roosevelt used gunboat diplomacy.

But I think the world has changed and gotten more complex and the military may be needed to be reserved more for defense.

Being a superpower may not be what it used to be. On the other hand that does not mean we have to let our own military be subjugated to the dictates of other nations or a world government.

Obama may well be trying to respond in a moral way to a crisis in which a dictator threatens to murder en masse his own people over rebellion, but without creating a mess like we did in a similar situation in Iraq, something that has not been totally resolved yet, although Saddam Hussein won‘t be bothering anyone anymore, thanks thousands of lives, to include thousands of Americans, and the hangman‘s rope.

Now if Obama can figure out a way to get at Gaddafi and hang him now and spare all the rest of the bloodshed, that would be good. But he seems unclear on whether Gaddafi can or should be forced to go.

But at the hour I write this Gaddafi forces seem to have taken the upper hand.

What is Obama and the rest of the coalition waiting for?

Either you know what or get off the pot, I’d say.

Ever since the 60s I have heard those debates ringing in my ears about whether to fight wars and if you do how to stop from “escalating” them, as if they were on some kind of dial you could turn up or down at will.

Yeah, I’m getting tiring and repeating myself, but come on, you either fight or not (and there is a decision to be made on that account). But if you fight, you fight to win — give it all you’ve got. This is football, not soccer.

P.s.

And now, thanks to the New York Times, which I may be pay walled out of reading soon (I guess it’s only fair), I read that there is now a debate within the Obama administration and within the Pentagon over whether to arm the rebels. Well let’s see, we wanted one side to win in the Vietnam War and President Johnson vowed at one point he would not send American boys in to do what Vietnamese boys should be doing for themselves and 50,000 Americans dead and thousands wounded later we gave up – he did send them because the job was not getting done and if America is backing something it kind of has to be in charge. Oh, and I also read that the administration is trying to get all the intelligence it can on who exactly these rebels are. That’s comforting.

Let’s hope Egypt retains freedom of religion and freedom from it…

ADD 1:

After originally posting this it occurred to me that while I speculate that the bravery of the crowd in Egypt might be attributed to divine intervention, I hope that the democracy movement goes toward secular government. It seems that religious differences, even among  factions within the same faiths, poison free government. True democracies allow freedom of religion, while religious-based governments do not.

————————————–

I agree with the Egyptian crowds — God is Great! I’m not religious in the conventional sense, but surging masses unafraid, maybe because they were so frustrated they lost their fear, makes it almost seem as if there was divine intervention. An initial report out of Cairo said that crowds shouted “God is Great” on hearing that dictator Hosni Mubarak had stepped down from power after all, after an 18-day standoff in a revolt of the people.

(There was some violence and death, but overall it was minimal compared to what the potential was. Things still could go bad, of course.)

Moses, an outsider, said all those hundreds of years ago, “let my people go”. This time the Egyptian people themselves told the modern-day pharaoh, three-decade-long autocrat Mubarak, let us go, and in fact, you go (and he finally did, by all reports, after his one last desperate attempt to hang on by saying it was his duty to finish out his term and not be swayed by “outsiders” — his own countrymen? — but then in the last many hours reportedly fleeing to his resort home in the Sinai, with the official line being he was quitting anyway but he flubbed his lines in his last speech).

I’m not naïve enough to think it will all be happiness and light now, but certainly there is some potential for good here.

And thank God that the United States played it fairly cool here. I don’t know what our government (the U.S.) did or did not do behind the scenes, but as far as I can see President Obama played it correctly.

The military has reportedly taken over for now in Egypt, promising a transition to democracy, and the good news there is that since it has been and still is, I would suppose, highly dependent upon U.S. support, we should have a continued ally.

ADD 2:

One thing the Egyptian protestors had going for them was the fact that the Egyptian Army was basically on their side and apparently made it clear they were not going to fire on their own citizens en masse. Anti-government opponents have not had that luxury in places such as Iran. But one does wonder if this revolt of the people, augmented by social media, and so far seemingly free of Islamist rhetoric, will not be contagious. One could only hope.

—–

Although I really don’t think we can nor should try to control or try to manipulate what goes on in Egypt’s internal affairs, there is always a danger that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood might unduly insert its influence wherever there might be a void. That organization is a danger, as I understand it, because it is, despite its efforts to mask itself as a peaceful, non-violent, and nearly secular order (why the name then?), it is really a proxy for Al Qaeda or whatever movement that wants to install Islamist, non-democratic and Western-hating governments in the Middle East and everywhere it can.

But, again, for now I have to give our own president, Barack Obama, credit for playing it cool on this one.

And you know, the encouraging thing that has transpired here is basically the same thing that happened in the old Soviet Block and the old Soviet Union itself. Once the people get a good picture of the outside world and begin to realize that they really shouldn’t have to live in poverty (economic realities notwithstanding) and under repressive and corrupt governments they revolt in relatively peaceful fashion by their sheer numbers (of course what comes next is always a question). Back then it was images via satellite TV (I think I’ve described that right) and now it’s the internet and social media, which not only tells everyone how the rest of the world is, it also allows instant communication that is hard for even dictators and police states to control (Egyptian authorities were not able to completely shut down the internet, as I understand it).

This could all go bad still — but I don’t think so.

P.s.

There is something to be said for law and order, and sometimes dictators provide that and make quite a few people happy. A few decades back I saw a documentary or maybe a television news magazine piece about the days of Francisco Franco in Spain. A rich man interviewed looked back with nostalgia and said: “He took care of everything. He was like your father”.  And just a day or so ago I saw a television piece in which a rich Egyptian said of Mubarak: “We love him. He is our father”. Even those who are not rich will support a despot if he looks out for their interests. But Mubarak got old, too comfortable, and lost touch with the common man (and woman), as I understand it.