Is any Republican presidential candidate capable of removing Republican rivals from his crosshairs long enough to focus on Barack Obama’s lies, distortions, and hypocrisies? Don’t any of them think it’s noteworthy to point out that Obama, who excoriates Wall Street bankers seven days a week, is the biggest recipient of Wall Street contributions of any president in U.S. history?

Or how about Obama’s ripping Republicans for “stopping his jobs bill” in the Senate, even though the Senate is controlled by Democrats? Are they really going to let something so outrageous slide and assume that sleepwalking Americans know the truth?

Hello, Republicans … are you there? Going after Barack Obama is like shooting fish in a barrel. He’s like a walking ammunition store. It’s one thing that the media didn’t bother to vet him when he was running for president in 2008, but why in the world do Republicans still refuse to hammer home a plethora of lies, distortions, and hypocrisies?

When his taxpayer-funded bus tour stopped in Asheville, North Carolina on Sunday, Obama, sounding more like former Democratic Congressman and maniac Alan Grayson than the great uniter he was billed to be, shouted that the Republican jobs plan — “Real American Jobs Act” — “boils down to a few basic ideas: They want to gut regulations. They want to let Wall Street do whatever it wants. They want to drill more. And they want to repeal healthcare reform.”

Voters are still looking for the Republican candidate who has the courage to step front and center and say: “Yes, we want to gut regulations. No, we don’t want to let Wall Street do whatever it wants. Yes, we want to drill more. And, yes, we want to repeal Obamacare.”

Let’s hope he emerges in tonight’s debate.

Copyright © 2011 Robert Ringer

ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron’s, and The New York Times.

©2012 The Common Sense Politics Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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1. What Free Market?
2. Establishment Republicans Eat Their Own …
3. Republicans Come Out Swinging

From Robert Ringer:

I have long thought about printing the subscriber e-mail below, and with the far left now hysterically beating the class-warfare drums, I thought this would be a good time to do just that …

“I have been a long-time fan of yours and have always enjoyed your newsletters, although I admit I have not always been diligent in reading every one. Recently I read a newsletter about the most persecuted group in America. Since you wrote it, I have no need to remind you what it said.

I read it with an open mind, and I admit that at first I did not agree with you. However, due to my massive respect for you, I spent the day really pondering your message, and after reflecting on it, I realized that you were absolutely right.

I am not rich, so my agreement with you is not based on my own interests. I just purely considered the reasoning you presented. My father is from West Africa, and although my grandfather was a hardworking farmer and landowner who did not have much, he and his brothers sacrificed so that my father could have a Western education and a possibility for a better life.

Many back in Africa consider him to be rich. They constantly beg him to give them things they have not earned. He has sent many people to school, bought them houses, sends money for food, has sent money and equipment so that people can start businesses, and it has only led to more begging and laziness.

No one earnestly tries [to] make their lives better. All they have done is become bums. The land that my grandfather was once proud to farm is deserted because no one would dream of work now that they can get handouts.

Now it has gotten so bad that they constantly come up with new scams and lies in order to squeeze my father out of his money, as if he owes them something. I see the poor in this country the same way.

Working hard in this country may not guarantee you will be rich, but it will guarantee that you will not be poor, and I am happy with that. If people are punished for being successful and rewarded for being lazy, the entire system breaks down and I am starting to see that clearly now.

Just wanted to thank you for all that you do to promote success and austerity.

— S. F.”

Believe it or not, I wouldn’t go as far as S.F. when it comes to lumping all poor people together as lazy. I’ve met a lot of hardworking poor people and, more importantly, honest poor people.

Thanks to the relentless and divisive rhetoric of progressives, however, I think it is fair to say that a disproportionate percentage of people in the lower income brackets have probably bought into the idea that it’s “fair” to use force to redistribute wealth. And, to be honest about it, I can see why it would appeal to folks who are financially challenged. Human nature is what it is.

That isn’t to say they should be given a free moral pass. But the real culprits are the progressive politicians and their trouble-making allies outside of government. They conjure up images in one’s mind of serpents offering shiny red apples to all who agree to join with them in doing battle against the greedy privileged class.

Unfortunately, when the uninformed masses reach for their apples, they become entangled in an entitlement net and soon find themselves hopelessly trapped on Uncle Sam’s plantation (credit, Star Parker).

Which is why I find S.F.’s e-mail so refreshing. He’s a black man whose father came here from West Africa and made it on his own. His e-mail speaks for itself, and it almost gives one cause for hope.

This again demonstrates something I have repeatedly said — that the challenge lies in educating the masses as to the evils of socialism and the moral superiority of capitalism. The former leads to enslavement and meaninglessness. The latter leads to freedom and a purposeful life.

Only one side will prevail in the titanic struggle that is heating up by the day, and I wouldn’t want to place a bet on the outcome, given that a large percentage of the population has little or no understanding of politics, ideology, the economy, and, above all, morality.

You have permission to reprint this article so long as you place the following wording at the end of the article:

Copyright © 2011 Robert Ringer

ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron’s, and The New York Times.

To sign up for his free e-letter click here.

©2012 The Common Sense Politics Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Immediately following the ruling in the Casey Anthony murder trial, I was amazed by the amount of outrage from people who believed the mother of Caylee Anthony had gotten away with killing her child.

Not since O.J. Simpson had so many people been convinced of the overwhelming guilt of the defendant, only to wind up in stunned disbelief when the jury failed to convict.

However, the thing that struck me about this case wasn’t the possibility that a murderer had been allowed to go free, but that people were so inexplicably disgusted by this one instance of an atrocity which occurs every day in our country.  That atrocity is not simple murder, or even the murder of a child.

What it is is the rationalization for the legally-protected “right” which our society calls “abortion.”

Indeed, Caylee Anthony serves as the perfect example of why most abortions are committed.  In trying Casey Anthony for murder, the prosecution had to ascribe a motive for her actions.  That motive was simply that Caylee had become an inconvenience for her mother and so Casey decided she had to eliminate the child from her life.

A child requires time, effort, expenses, and other sacrifices which, according to the prosecution, Casey Anthony did not feel like providing.

The jury was told that Casey felt she was being held back from the life she wanted, the life she had once known, by the burden of motherhood. Rather than dealing with the situation like a responsible mother or even seeking an alternative like adoption, Casey took the fast way out and decided to brutally murder her child.

It is true that Casey carried the child to term and eventually gave birth, but short of that, the Anthony case carries the same “who, what, and why” of any other instance of abortion; the only variation in this case is the “when.”  The only thing separating Casey Anthony from millions of other women is the fact that Casey waited longer than most to decide she did not want to be a mother.

One thing I discovered years ago in arguing abortion with the “pro-choice” crowd is that the biggest difficulty in reaching any consensus is that we are essentially arguing on two very different topics.  To someone who opposes abortion, it is all about the life of the unborn child and the preservation of the innocent who cannot protect themselves.  Pro-lifers are not seeking to trample the rights of women or tell anyone what they can and cannot do with their bodies.   Quite the opposite, the position of pro-lifers is the preservation of rights: specifically the right to life.

For the pro-choice crowd, the life of the child does not even factor into the equation.  They look at the issue entirely from the perspective of how it effects the potential parents, usually the mother in particular. 

The most common accusation and complaint comes from their belief that pro-lifers are seeking to control their “choice” of what they can and cannot do with their bodies.  They do not believe pro-lifers are seeking to preserve any form of life, but instead presume it is an excuse to control their lives, their futures, and assert ownership over their bodies.

It seems absurd to many on the other side, but it is a true belief on their part, one dictated entirely by emotion and fear.

It is human nature to desire control of one’s own destiny, and there is no greater expression of that than the physical form.  This belief taps into the primal fear that someone else is seeking control and ownership of them; the fact that a child’s fate also rests in the balance escapes them entirely. 

It is essentially useless to even argue or discuss the topic with these people because emotion blinds them to reason.  It isn’t necessarily that they condone the death of a child; they just don’t see what a child’s death even has to do with the discussion.

As for most “pro-choice” men — and also for the women to whom abortion is not strictly an emotional issue — their stance is a bit more sinister.

Unlike those who look at abortion as a matter of their own body, these people are fully aware that pregnancy means there is a baby on the way. In fact, that is entirely why they feel the need to do something about it.

In discovering that they have an unplanned pregnancy on their hands, their decision to have an abortion centers entirely on the negative impact another human being would have on them personally.  A child requires time, effort, expenses, and other sacrifices which are eerily similar to the reasons the prosecution gave for why Casey Anthony was supposed to have murdered her daughter.

Like a premeditative murderer, these people are fully aware of the facts; they simply have not been equipped with the capacity to care. When it comes right down to it, abortion is almost always handled as a matter of convenience:

•  If a woman feels a child might stand between her and her social life, she gets an abortion.
• If a young couple determines the birth of a child would be too expensive, they stop that birth from occurring.
• If a woman thinks her career might be impaired by the burden of motherhood, she prematurely terminates her baby in order to enhance her own lifestyle.

All of these reasons are the same sort of selfish, hedonistic motives ascribed to Casey Anthony during her murder trial, and they were the very things an entire nation condemned her for and wanted to see her punished for. Our nation has been surprisingly quick to pile on one woman and condemn her actions for the exact same behavior millions of other Americans have been perpetrating and making excuses for in their own lives.

Why does the murder of Caylee Anthony resonate differently from a child who was aborted?  The only real difference is that on this occasion, the child had a name and a face.

When people refer to a “fetus” or “unborn child,” they tend to think in the abstract.  Even sonographic images of a child in the womb show something that might be alive and humanoid, but which many people have trouble identifying as truly human and one of us.

The investigation into the death of Caylee and the trial of her mother changed these things by showing us images of a child smiling, laughing, playing, and beginning her life just as all human beings have done.  She was vulnerable and entirely dependent on her guardian, just like any child in the womb, and just like any aborted child, her guardian let her down, and for precisely the same reasons.

In many ways, Caylee Anthony had things better than millions of children who essentially share her fate.  She was born and cared for in some capacity.  She was given a name, immortalized in photographs, and she now has a grave and a marker to signify that for whatever brief period of time, she was among us.

In the grand scheme of things, it makes little difference that her killer may never be brought to justice.  Millions of other Casey Anthonys are also free and no one seems to have any problem with that.

There is a moral equivalency with the fate of young Caylee Anthony which is difficult for our society to face, but which cannot logically be denied.  If you were never outraged by the ruling in the Roe v Wade trial which essentially legalized abortion throughout our nation decades ago, then you have no right to be outraged by the verdict in the Casey Anthony murder trial.

Travis Sedars
Mason City, Iowa

©2012 The Common Sense Politics Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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In a June 20 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court struck a note for liberty when it overruled federal courts in San Francisco that had allowed all women who worked for Walmart since December 1998 to join in a single, nationwide suit seeking back pay. I say struck a note for liberty, because this was about far more than Walmart’s winning out over a bunch of high-priced litigators who represented a group of ungrateful Walmart employees.

The court ruled that the 1.5 million women at 3,400 Walmart stores in the United States had too little in common to allow a class-action lawsuit to move forward. In the court’s opinion, there was no proof that Walmart employed a general policy of “systemic discrimination.”

What makes the Supreme Court’s decision especially delightful is that the law firm of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll lost roughly $7 million in pursuing this classic deep-pockets case. It’s enough to make one fantasize about how different our court system (and our economy) would be if attorneys who lost frivolous law suits would be required to pay for the winners’ legal fees.

But let’s get back to Walmart’s employees. Forget that Walmart is the number-one employer in the country, employing 1.4 million Americans in 4,424 stores. Forget that it saves consumers billions of dollars each year on retail purchases. Forget that its employees, on average, earn about double the minimum wage. It doesn’t matter how much good Walmart does, the raw-meat crowd continues to call for beheadings. Bring on the Jacobins!

The word from some disgruntled employees has long been that Walmart doesn’t treat its employees “fairly” — whatever that’s supposed to mean. But, definitions aside, this is your lucky day. Because if you think Walmart is “unfair,” guess what? You don’t have to shop there.

Wow! What a novel idea — shopping with your feet. If you don’t like the fact that Walmart carries too many products made in “sweatshop” countries, shop with your feet. If you believe Walmart puts smaller retailers out of business and you’re unhappy about that, shop with your feet.

Nevertheless, to make it easy on the social-justice crowd, let’s assume there is such a thing as absolute fairness. And let’s further assume that Walmart does, indeed, treat its employees unfairly. That, of course, begs the question: What in the world can be done to protect Walmart’s 2.1 million paid slaves?

More good news: In a truly free society, unfair treatment of employees would never be an issue, because workers would be free to sell their services for the highest possible wages in the open market. If someone chose to work at Walmart, he would do so only because he believed, consciously or otherwise, that it afforded him the best opportunity to be adequately compensated for his skills, his experience, and his efforts.

An employer doesn’t ask a job applicant to present a list of his job requirements when he submits his application. On the contrary, the employer lets the applicant know, in advance, what the company’s conditions of employment are.

If those conditions call for fifteen-hour workdays, minimum-wage pay, and no paid sick leave, so be it.

How can I say such a dastardly thing? Because an employee not only does not have to take such a job, he also has the right to quit his job at any time.

Further, since an unhappy employee is free, he can apply for another job anywhere he chooses. No making a clear statement that he believes it’s the best position he can hope to obtain at that particular time. If this were not true, he would be insane, or perhaps masochistic, to remain in his present job.

It doesn’t take a Ludwig von Mises to explain it. In a free market, everything works smoothly because both employers and employees are free to make their own choices. It’s only when government bureaucrats or labor thugs (a.k.a. “labor unions”) enter the picture that freedoms are violated.

All government intervention between employers and employees results in infringements on the rights of one or the other — or both. The same goes with labor unions. The actions of most labor unions are fundamentally immoral and in violation of the constitutional rights of both employees and employers.

The so-called union shop is a violation of the natural rights of every employee who is forced to join a union against his will — even without the new card-check legislation being proposed by the NLRB. And, worse, it is a violation of the rights of an employer to hire whomever he wants, whenever he wants, for whatever reasons are important to him.

Unfortunately, that’s not reality in today’s People’s Republic of America. After decades of artificially high wages and benefits, job-protection schemes, and government-mandated safety standards, spoiled American workers demand still more.

I would make the case that an excellent investment for Walmart would be to spend mega-millions to educate its employees about the morality and efficacy of liberty and laissez-faire economics. It would be a lot less expensive than the draconian legal fees it is certain to continue incurring in the coming years.

Now that we’ve come face to face with the ugly realities of Marxism in the United States, it’s time for corporate leaders to man up and start educating their own employees, as well as the public at large, about the wonders of capitalism. History has clearly taught us what to expect if good men do nothing.

Educating muddled minds, however, does not begin with the worker; it begins with big business. If corporate America does not truly believe in laissez-faire capitalism, why should its workers? And if it does believe in laissez-faire capitalism, but is unwilling to suffer “mortification of the flesh” (in the words of Frank Chodorov) in presenting the truth to the public, then the case for free enterprise is lost.

In the meantime, it’s up to each of us to become proactive and not wait for corporate America to come to our rescue. Take every opportunity you can get to extol the virtues of capitalism, because when you do so, you are extolling the virtues of freedom. It’s true that you are but one person in a sea of millions, but it is completely within your power to be part of the solution to America’s ills rather than part of the problem.

If the Supreme Court can rule in favor of liberty, anything is possible.

ROBERT RINGER is the author of three #1 bestsellers and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. Ringer has appeared on numerous national talk shows and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron’s, and The New York Times. To sign up for his one-of-a-kind, pro-liberty e-letter, A Voice of Sanity, visit: www.robertringer.com

©2012 The Common Sense Politics Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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I have to admit that the Anthony Weiner scandal has been a lot of fun for me.

While I consider myself to be well-spoken, educated, and something of an intellectual, I still retain a healthy interest in relatively lowbrow humor. I count the Austin Powers series and Dumb and Dumber among some of my favorite movies, so it should go without saying that I appreciate bathroom humor and dirty jokes as much as anyone.

So for me, the revelation that a United States congressman by the name of Weiner has been posting X-rated pictures of himself all over the Internet provides for satire and general comedy on a level I never thought I would be fortunate enough to see. The reason I’m just now getting around to writing this is due in no small part to the fact that I’ve only this minute stopped laughing over the whole thing. I am, however, still chuckling.

That said, the only thing that makes this story particularly noteworthy is the fact that the politician at the center of this scandal happens to have a hilarious name that provides endless opportunity for double entendre.

Outside of that, Weiner is just another average liberal politician doing that liberal politicians do. And while it may be true that there are Republican politicians who have made poor decisions in their personal lives, conservatives generally condemn this sort of behavior and oust offending representatives who tarnish the party rather quickly.

Democrats, on the other hand, embrace immoral behavior to the extent that it is practically a prerequisite for running for political office under their banner.

Perhaps no one in modern times exemplifies this as well as Bill Clinton. Clinton achieved national fame in 1988 when he gave a speech introducing presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, but his long-winded and pompous display also set him up as something of a joke. When he decided to attempt his own presidential run, Clinton was lagging behind in the Democratic primaries until the nation learned of his affair with Gennifer Flowers. The Democratic Party collectively stood up and said, “Yes, that guy! That lecherous, womanizing compulsive liar is the person who would best represent us as our presidential candidate.”

The media narrative became filled with glowing reviews of Clinton’s charm and irresistible charisma, propelling him to a win in the primary and later the general election. The Democrats then spent the next eight years battling the fallout from his numerous sexual improprieties, including the obstruction of justice which led to his impeachment. Throughout all of this, the media and the rest of the Democratic Party maintained an aura of incredulity and faux surprise whenever their champion was caught misbehaving . . . which was almost all of the time.

It is interesting to note that in the case of politicians like Clinton, the Democratic Party schizophrenically embraces and denies this reprehensible behavior. Democratic pundits spent years adamantly insisting that Clinton was a loyal and loving husband even when his adulterous behavior was already the defining aspect of his character. It may be that the far-left is more accepting of these actions but feels the need to pretend otherwise in order to have some imagined level of decency with which to fool the undecided independent voters. However, in addition to this is the disturbing likelihood that Democrats are fooling themselves in their inability to see their representatives for who and what they are.

Weiner is practically the poster boy for this sort of denial. As an uncommonly dweeby-looking fellow—even among career politicians—he has nonetheless staked out a number of extramarital conquests and followers ranging from attractive coeds to professional porn stars. It may be that women found the topless pictures of his concave chest somehow arousing, but a more insightful perspective comes from porn star Ginger Lee. Lee describes her reason for being smitten with Weiner thusly: “I’m normally, like, drawn to their personality before I’m drawn to their looks because normally the really cute ones turn out to be ****. So, I go for the really sweet ones before I go for the really cute ones.” Yes, someone mistook Anthony Weiner for being “really sweet,” which just goes to show how some people can be fooled into believing anything. Lee later admitted that Weiner personally coached her to lie if anyone inquired into the nature of their relationship, but I’m sure she just considered this chivalrous as well.

In truth, Weiner is what is known as an “attack dog” for the Democrats. He achieved notoriety primarily through relentlessly assaulting the opposition by distorting their character and their message. Lee might have been charmed by this because, as a porn star, that’s likely the sort of sociopathic personality she interacts with on a daily basis. However, Weiner is just one in a long line of Democratic men who have been given a free pass by liberal women to engage in whatever unscrupulous behavior they desire, as long as they say the right things and vote the right way. This includes harsh treatment of women, and is again embodied by Bill Clinton. No matter what horrible things Clinton was accused of doing, from numerous infidelities to outright assaulting unwilling women, liberals have always been quick to come to his aid. To this day, Clinton is considered a champion of women’s rights within the Democrat Party.

Self-proclaimed liberal feminists often speak of the evils of the male gender while also attaching themselves to some of the worst examples of men in our society. It is no wonder they expect men to behave badly when those are the only ones they know, but somehow they assume conservative men must be worse. Republicans are always accused by Democrats as being anti-women. The DNC’s new chairwoman said exactly that just weeks ago. This is probably because of the abortion issue. It is perfectly acceptable for men in the Democratic Party to lie to their women, marry them for money, cheat on them, beat them up, rape them, and even murder them during a drunken drive into a river, just so long as those men support a woman’s decision to kill her unborn baby.

Obviously, politicians on the other side of the aisle are hardly immune to personal failings, so the root cause of the issue is not necessarily partisan. What is partisan is how the respective ideologies react to these scandals. When a Republican is caught in an immoral or questionable position, his political career is almost certainly considered to be over. Democrats naturally seize on the opportunity of the scandal to make an example of the offending representative, who is also immediately condemned by his own party and either steps down of his own free will or is driven out by his former allies. We have seen this many times and the formula is always the same. Notable examples include former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Representative Christopher Lee (who merely posed shirtless in contrast to Weiner’s extensive catalog of lewd behavior), and Representative Mark Foley, whose improprieties were exploited as a campaign stunt by the Democrats to paint the entire Republican Party as immoral and corrupt, allowing them to take control of Congress in 2006.

Citing the Foley incident in particular, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” of similar politicians and preside over “the most ethical Congress in our nation’s history.” While her swamp was largely drained by the American people four years later—and against her efforts—Pelosi did nothing to strengthen ethics in Congress. Quite the opposite, she coddled and defended her own allies through all of their many scandals, sexual or otherwise, including Charles Rangel’s tax evasion convictions. Predictably, Democrats the likes of Pelosi are only interested in ousting misbehaving politicians if those representatives have the letter “R” next to their names.

When a Democrat is caught in the midst of a scandal, Republicans will usually call for his ousting, but the response of Democrats is hardly as uniformly vindictive as it is amongst Republicans. Democrats—with some help from their allies in the media—will usually circle their wagons around their colleague and hope for the incident to blow over, which it often does. Sometimes the candidates are tarnished but survive to be reelected another day. Most of the time, they are celebrated amongst their colleagues and their political fortunes thrive. Notably, Representative Gerry Studds engaged in activities far more offensive than Mark Foley more than two decades earlier, and Studds was repeatedly reelected and applauded by his fellow Democrats for fighting to retain his office in the face of adversity.

In the rare instance a Democrat does see the end of his political career, he can at least take the Elliott Spitzer path and secure a job hosting a program on CNN.

To their credit, Democrats will roll over on one of their own candidates once that candidate has served his purpose or achieved irreparable damage, which is what seems to have happened with Weiner. After days of ambiguity, Senator Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi both condemned Weiner, which is pretty strong language considering neither of them ever got around to condemning Saddam Hussein. John Edwards became a victim of this form of abandonment as well. Edwards managed to out-feminine Hillary Clinton during the last Democratic primary to the extent that it would have been more surprising if she had shown up for a debate wearing a dress than if he had. However, Edwards was also carrying on an affair throughout that period of time with the woman who wound up bearing his lovechild. Worse still, his wife was dying from a well-publicized case of terminal cancer which he had parlayed into a campaign tool. As someone the Democrats nearly let try his hand at the presidency or vice presidency on two separate occasions, Edwards probably expected nothing more than a slap on his finely-manicured hands for breaking the law to hide his indiscretions. Instead, he might be facing prison and a closer look at that “other America” he kept telling us about.

But really, why should Edwards have expected to get into any trouble? Sure, he broke the law in trying to cover up his affair, but so did the Democrat standard Bill Clinton. Just ten years earlier, their entire party marched in lock step to the claim that this sort of thing was not a big deal, and they managed to keep Bill Clinton as President. The difference is that Clinton was in the Oval Office and it is now clear Edwards would never hold a position of power again. Had Edwards ascended to the White House in 2008, we can be sure the Democrats would be doing everything in their power to salvage him, no matter what disrespect he had shown his dying wife.

Edwards was right about one thing: there are “two Americas” and two sets of rules for people who fall into different categories. But despite his classifications, what we see here is not a divide along the financial lines of the “haves and have-nots.” This is a division amongst those who understand the difference between right and wrong, and those who only pay lip service to those concepts. The Democrat Party idolizes the likes of Bill Clinton, while the Republican Party is handicapped by a sense of morality and a desire to be something better. It might make things more challenging for us, but I think we can live more happily with ourselves if we are not the party of Weiners.

Travis Sedars
Mason City, Iowa

©2012 The Common Sense Politics Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Last week, Barack Obama scored a major win for the United States in our war on terror when he used intelligence-gathering techniques set in place by the Bush administration to finally hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden.

What has followed has been perhaps the most schizophrenic juggling of facts we have witnessed since Bill Clinton argued on “what the definition of the word ‘is’ is.”

The Obama White House is scrambling to score a political victory with the assassination of a hated terrorist leader, while simultaneously attempting not to offend any of the Muslims who already hate us or the anti-Bush zealots who spent the past decade claiming Osama was an innocent man and the attacks of 9-11 were an inside job. Also, with the modesty which has become a hallmark of his administration, Obama is attempting to take as much credit as he possibly can for the death of the terrorist leader, even though the methods used from the beginning to the end of the hunt were established by the Bush administration and opposed every step of the way by Obama and the Democrats.

But the true dedication of Obama’s war on terror can be discerned by his efforts to see that justice finds all of the men responsible for attacking the Pentagon. After all, 9-11 was not the first time terrorists attacked that particular government building. In 1972, domestic terrorist Bill Ayers participated in the bombing of the Pentagon as part of his actions as a member of the Weather Underground. In 1995, Barack Obama launched his political career in Bill Ayers’ living room, which might have something to do with why Ayers is still living as a free man.

While Ayers did not know Obama during the time he was committing crimes as a proud member of the Weather Underground – and avoided legal fallout from his terrorist activities only because the bungled FBI investigation resulted in all criminal charges relating to him being dropped – he was an active participant in crimes which caused massive property damage, including destruction of federal property by bombing such targets as the Pentagon, and murder and attempted murder of American citizens. He escaped suffering the consequences due to a legal technicality.

Ayers fully admits to his part in the heinous crimes he has been accused of, because he knows that the legal system of the country he attacked is now powerless to bring him to justice.

Far from being repentant, he speaks proudly of his terrorist activities to leftist organizations and is on record for claiming he wishes he had gone further and committed more of these crimes. The only thing stopping him from continuing this terror now is the fact that he is softer and lazier than he was forty years ago, and is no longer willing to risk his freedom or health for his cause, because he knows it was only due to luck that he is not rotting in prison right now from what he has already done.

At the end of the day, all that separates Ayers and Osama bin Laden is that Ayers was spared by a loophole in the constitution of the country he so hated, and even that distinction is not so stark.

When Bill Clinton was President of the United States, prior to the attacks of 9-11, he turned down several opportunities to imprison or assassinate bin Laden because he was uncertain of how to deal with the terrorist from a legal standpoint, choosing to regard bin Laden’s earlier attacks against the US as simple crimes rather than acts of war. This allowed bin Laden to roam the globe largely unhindered, stirring supporters to his cause, and stoking the fires of a massive war against American values – exactly what Bill Ayers has been doing for the past few decades.

The biggest difference between Ayers and bin Laden might just be that Ayers has a close personal friend in the Oval Office. Indeed, many who are familiar with Ayers’ writings theorize he may have even ghost-written Barack Obama’s first autobiography, Dreams From My Father.

Obama’s ties to terrorist sympathizers is not limited to Ayers, and has been as detailed by his detractors as it has been ignored by the media at large. Perhaps most famous of these would be the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose church Obama attended faithfully for twenty years. Wright routinely led sermons on controversial anti-American topics which did not seem to offend Obama in the least.

Following the 9-11 terrorist attacks, Wright implied that we deserved the assault as “America’s chickens are coming home to roost!” Wright’s equally famous quote, “Not God Bless America…God Damn America,” also seems unbecoming of the spiritual mentor of an American President. While it cannot be proven that Obama attended this particular sermon, these sorts of comments have not been at all out of the ordinary for Wright, who has continued to make racially-charged comments about the Jewish people even into Obama’s presidency. Obama is very well-acquainted with Wright, and even used the title of one of his sermons for his second book, The Audacity of Hope, also known as the book Obama probably did write.

The skepticism Obama’s critics have held for him in matters of national security is more than justified. He spent his presidential campaign promising to cancel the war on terrorism, apologizing to our nation’s enemies for America daring to defend itself, and declaring that he would shut down the Guantanamo facility and set the terrorists there free. He kept on apologizing and began bowing to the rulers of other nations after being elected, and he even demanded his administration stop using terms like “terrorism” and replace that with “man-made disasters.” The “war on terrorism” was replaced with “overseas contingency operations,” but fortunately he stopped short of calling off the battle against the Taliban and freeing all of the terrorists rounded up by the Bush administration. This turned out to be bad news for bin Laden when the continuation of the hunt for the world’s most infamous terrorist finally led to his death.

These are just some of the reasons why many on the right are slow to offer our praise to Obama for his handling of the eventual demise of Osama bin Laden. Obama is like a man who spent his life making poor business decisions, then happened to inherit a fortune from a distant relative he treated poorly in life, and now he is trying to pass himself off as a financial wizard for his stroke of luck. As a professional politician, Obama is hoping to use the death of bin Laden to make people forget all of the many failures he has presided over in the past two years. When the 2012 election comes up, he wants people to forget about the health care overhaul he rammed down the our throats, the way he nationalized the auto industry, the massive debt he spent our country into, his domestic drilling policies which have crippled our energy production, the high unemployment he seems blissfully unconcerned with, the devaluing of the American dollar, and the extensive list of other complaints which can be blamed squarely on him. Obama is banking that the one good thing to have happened during his presidency, the culmination of a process set in motion ten years earlier and which he personally fought against at every turn, can secure him a second term.

The media and the rest of the Democratic Party are also climbing on board this sudden interest in patriotism and support of tough anti-terrorist tactics as well. During the Bush years, Nancy Pelosi claimed too much time had passed and even if Bush brought bin Laden to justice, it would be a token win against an opponent which no longer had any value. On the other hand, now that bin Laden has been killed during the Obama presidency (several years after her earlier statement), Pelosi is hailing this as a major win for his administration. Similarly, the same media which claimed Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience was a non-factor during his 2008 run is now claiming this singular military victory makes him unbeatable in 2012. This is all behavior which is to be expected from an ideology guided entirely by opportunism.

Not only is Obama doing his best to avoid crediting the people and methods which actually made the death of bin Laden possible, he is also still seeking to punish those individuals and dismantle their operations. His supporters in the far left have never given up on trying to prosecute George Bush, Dick Cheney, and everyone else in their administration for their part in fighting the war on terror. Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder is even now putting together legal cases to prosecute the people in our own intelligence agencies whose only crimes were the defense of our nation through legal methods the liberals disagree with.

The world does not owe Obama any more thanks on the matter of bin Laden outside of that, once the terrorist kingpin’s location was known, he did not allow him to escape. The vast majority of other Americans would have done the same thing without even a second thought.

The real thanks should go to the countless military personnel whose selfless and anonymous sacrifices can never be repaid, and also to former president George W. Bush, who set the wheels of the operation in motion long ago and had the fortitude to stay on that path even when Barack Obama and those like him were trying to derail the effort.

In the end, Obama might have ordered the death of Osama, but he still breaks bread with Ayers.

Travis Sedars
Mason City, Iowa

©2012 The Common Sense Politics Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Racism in the Obama Administration?
2. Barack Obama: The Affirmative Action President
3. Barack Obama: Son of the Fifty-Seventh State

At long last, after years of inquiry, Barack Obama has finally put to rest accusations that he was not born a citizen of the United States of America, which would have disqualified him under the Constitution from holding the office of President.

Given the significance of the presidency as the most powerful office in the country–and, by extension, the world–one would think proving one’s qualifications to hold that position should be mandatory.

But just as we have learned over the past two years that it is not necessary to actually prove that a president will “to the best of (his or her) ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” as long as they simply claim they will, it is also not necessary to produce proof that a president was born in the USA. We are instead asked to merely take their word for it, or be labeled as insane, racist, conspiracy theorists.

The angle that makes this topic interesting isn’t the physical evidence of the location of the President’s birth–which should have been a given–but rather the intense effort on the part of the media and the Democratic Party to avoid having to actually provide proof of the circumstances of the President’s birth. Indeed, Obama could have settled the matter within days of the question being raised, but instead chose to keep the debate at the forefront of his presidency. That would be entirely understandable if he did have something to hide, but is all the more baffling in the face of legitimate citizenship. A lack of closure on the issue has only stirred suspicion among many who had not originally questioned the matter, until what might have been just a formality or a conspiracy theory instead became a major issue and even the key policy point of one potential Republican presidential contender. Barack Obama ran on a campaign promising to lead the most transparent administration in the history of our nation and to bring the divided citizenry together, yet his handling of his own birth certificate–what should have been a non-issue–served to accomplish just the opposite. By the time Obama finally disclosed his birth records, the fact that he was born in the United States means he has some explaining to do.

The way in which Obama’s supporters are now celebrating his victory of actually having been born in Hawaii serves to demonstrate just how desperately his administration needs a political win. The President has spent the past twenty-eight months botching everything that came across his desk, often with results that were either tragic or hilarious. This is like an Olympic athlete trying to use a urine test proving he did not use steroids as a means to distract from the fact that he tripped and fell on his face during his event. While Obama makes light of the matter of his birth records–a frivolous issue only made significant by his previous unwillingness to address it–a startling number of truly important issues continue to escape focus as they compound in urgency. The economy is in shambles, gas prices are skyrocketing, the Middle East in on fire, and America in general is on the path to global decline. Obama’s handling of all of this borders on criminal negligence, and his allowing the matter of his birth records to eclipse any of it is further demonstration of the sense of entitlement and disconnect which surrounds his administration.

Whatever one might have previously believed about the location of Obama’s birth, there was always cause for suspicion and reasonable doubt. His family was splintered across continents, no one within the United States seems to remember associating with him during his early years, there are few photographs, and he is known to have spent a large part of his time actually living overseas. This might not be enough to call “overwhelming evidence,” but it is certainly enough to cast a shadow. The equivalent in a murder investigation would be a suspect who had motive, was caught with the murder weapon, and had no alibi. DNA evidence–or in this case, a birth certificate–could have easily proved his innocence, but for some reason, he refused to subject himself to the testing which might clear his name. Given these circumstances, as more time passed, it became less reasonable to believe the man wasn’t hiding something.

As much as Obama and his hangers-on in the media scoff at the notion that he should have to provide documentation of anything, the average American citizen is entirely accustomed to having to prove his or her legal standing on matters which are nowhere near as serious. The next time a bartender asks to see some identification before allowing you to buy a drink, tell him to just take your word that you’re over twenty-one and see how far you get. Chronological age is–at best–an inefficient and unreliable method of proving our level of maturity, and yet we are legally required to present documentation when we buy tobacco, rent a car, or even purchase a ticket to an R-rated movie. If we are required to provide satisfactory evidence of our legal standing to even vote for a president, should a presidential candidate not be held to at least that standard? If a person must prove their age to demonstrate aptitude and maturity, then surely it is not too much to ask a president that he provides proof of his citizenship before entrusting him with the wellbeing of the nation.

As always, the media provided ample evidence of their own political bias throughout their handling of the matter. In a time when information is easier to gather than at any point in human history, Barack Obama is undeniably the least-vetted presidential candidate since the founding of our nation. The media has been willfully inept at investigating his past and exposing the man for who he is, taking the approach that there were some things they just didn’t want to know, and the things they did know were things they didn’t want us to know. Meanwhile, within hours of John McCain selecting Sarah Palin as his running-mate, these same intrepid reports were hopping jets to Alaska and digging through her garbage cans, desperately hoping to find something to embarrass or discredit her. The woman has been so thoroughly investigated that we can get an account of what she had for breakfast on any given morning, and yet no one knows the topic of Barack Obama’s college thesis. While Obama, who once claimed to have campaigned in “57 states,” received softball questions about his favorite sports teams during the campaign, Palin was subjected to examinations of her knowledge of the power structure of the isolated tribes of the Brazilian jungles, and pounced upon if there was an answer she didn’t know. Had anyone suggested Sarah Palin was not American-born, the investigation would be updated regularly on the nightly news and the front page of the New York Times. And let us not forget, this is the very same media which actively worked to downplay the documented connections between Obama and his America-hating pastor, as well as domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. We can only assume that this week’s news of the President’s birth certificate was met with an enormous sigh of relief by the left wing media, because they themselves had probably long-suspected it did not exist.

In line with his numerous ties to shady characters, the matter of his birth certificate is the least in a long line of topics which Barack Obama must account for. This is a president which has worked to undermine the United States of America at every step. Obama has spent the past two year apologizing to America’s enemies, bowing to dictators, driving down the US economy, dismantling the American health care system, alienating our nation’s allies, crippling domestic oil drilling, arbitrarily involving us in military matters which are not our concern, and spending our country into debt for generations to come. And that’s just the short list. It is not a stretch to assume that most Americans would have taken Obama at his word concerning the circumstances of his birth if only he could satisfactorily explain how any of his policies thus far have been driven by the best interests of the United States.

After all this time, we can finally agree Barack Obama is technically an American. Now perhaps it is time for him to start acting like one.

Travis Sedars
Mason City, Iowa

©2012 The Common Sense Politics Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Racism in the Obama Administration?
2. Barack Obama: The Affirmative Action President
3. Obama Got Osama, Missed Bill Ayers

If there is one thing we know about Hillary Rodham Clinton, it is that she owns the world’s largest collection of pantsuits.

If there is one other thing we know about her, it is that there is nothing she would not do to attain the title of President of the United States.

Her entire life is a testament to this fact. From working hard to get into a good school, to marrying Bill Clinton, to staying with Bill Clinton after Gennifer Flowers, to staying with Bill Clinton after Monica Lewinsky, to running for Senate in New York, to continuing to stay married to Bill Clinton . . . there is no hardship Hillary is unwilling to endure.

By 2008, she had paid more dues than perhaps any American President in the past two centuries, and the general consensus seemed to be that she was entitled–if not qualified–to hold the job.

But somehow her résumé as a morally-questionable woman with a background in the legal realm came in second to Barack Obama’s résumé as a morally-questionable black man with a background in the legal realm. As Obama confidently read the words, “Yes we can,” from his teleprompter, Hillary could be heard shrieking, “How did this happen?”

Hillary Rodham Clinton, once the de facto 2008 Democratic nominee and First Lady to “for all intents and purposes the first black President of the United States,” became a victim of the same style of politics she had practiced all her life. Her argument for entitlement to be President of the United States was structured around the idea that she was a woman and everyone should be excited to vote for her on that basis alone.

What was more, anyone who didn’t vote for her would be labeled a sexist for not doing so.

Unfortunately, her strategy was derailed by someone whose social status trumped her own: a minority candidate with a superior entitlement complex. Of course, it didn’t help Hillary’s case that John Edwards was also trying to out-girl her; it may be that Joe Biden was the only contender in that primary who was actually running on his credentials!

At the end of the day, the Democrats decided they would rather be “sexist” than “racist,” and Hillary was soundly defeated. Worse yet, she herself was temporarily branded a racist by the more extreme elements of the party for daring to keep her campaign alive and competing against a black man rather than immediately stepping aside. For the Clintons, whose primary tactic during the 1990′s was branding their own political enemies as racists, this must have come as quite a shock.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both prescribe to the theory that you keep your friends close, your enemies closer, your birth certificate inaccessible, and your rival for the Democratic nomination firmly where you can plant a knife in their back.

Thus, Obama asked Clinton to give up the cushy role she had just been reelected to as the manliest Senator from New York to become his underling as Secretary of State, and Clinton accepted.

Hillary’s willingness to do this shocked a lot of people, but really shouldn’t have. In the Senate, she was just one of a hundred people who put their slacks on one leg at a time and came to work desperately scrambling for a way to stand out from the crowd.

As Secretary of State, she has a high-profile post within the Obama administration which allows her to cultivate political connections throughout the world, wield power on an international level, and show the nation she can be humble even in defeat. Besides which, occupying a position under Barack Obama was at least a change of pace from being one of the handful of Democratic women NOT to occupy a position under the previous Democratic President.

However, Hillary did not simply smile politely and go with the flow for Barack as she had done for Bill.

For once in her career as a mislabeled feminist with a mind of her own, she demonstrated publicly that she was her own person and not just an extension of a man. Sure, she went where Obama told her and she worked to advance the policies of his administration, but when she disagreed with his handling of international issues, she let it be publicly known.

And given Obama’s tendency to bow to murderous dictators, apologize for America’s success, and generally botch every international incident which came along, even a renowned leftist like Hillary was left with no shortage of issues to criticize.

So successful has Hillary become in distancing herself from Obama within his own administration, that even as his approval numbers reach record lows, her own popularity has never been better. By the time Obama began his “kinetic military action” in Libya, little more than two years into his presidency, Hillary announced that she was so frustrated as his Secretary of State that she would not be part of his administration even if he should be reelected in 2012.

This latest development is a reminder that Clinton is as patient and methodical as ever in her desire to attain the presidency.

There has long been a suspicion that Hillary might rise again to challenge Obama in 2012, but to do so would be unwise, and she is politically savvy enough to realize it. True, Obama has lost approval since ascending to the presidency, but the Democratic Party is still firmly behind him. What approval he has lost among Democrats is primarily on the far left, because he is not as radical as they had hoped he would be.

The far left knows Obama is still more in line with their agenda than Hillary, and so the dynamics have not shifted from the last time they faced off in a primary. Her approval has risen among independents, but Obama is still the champion of the Democratic Party. If she were to run against him in a primary, she would again be defeated, her stature would be further diminished, and everything she has done since 2008 would have even less meaning than the wedding band on Bill’s finger. If she ran in 2012 against an Obama seeking reelection, she would destroy any chance she currently has at ever being President.

2016 is a different story altogether. If she leaves the Obama administration early in 2013, she will have nearly four years to distance herself from his disaster and promote herself for her own campaign.

In the more likely scenario, Barack Obama will be defeated by his Republican opponent and the healing can begin in 2013.

While things would undoubtedly get better, the fixes will not come overnight. Things were looking bleak when Obama took office in 2009, and they have already gotten much worse. By 2013, the Republicans will be looking at a monumental mess to clean up, and it will take substantially longer for things like our national debt to be paid off than it took for Obama to accumulate it.

Even if we are on the right track, the memory of the American voter has proven to be remarkably short, and their patience matches their memory. These factors, coupled with the Democrats’ willing accomplices in the media, could allow for another competitive presidential race, which Clinton would be poised to exploit.

The other scenario is almost too horrible to contemplate: Barack Obama might actually win reelection.

In this case, if the country still exists in 2016, Hillary will be able to avoid running against an incumbent from either party, and the country will theoretically have been satisfied of the compulsion to vote for a candidate based on his race; they may even feel inclined to vote for a candidate based on her gender.

In this instance, despite her party having held the White House for the previous eight years, Hillary will be able to use the strategy John McCain employed in 2008, effectively running against her predecessor as much as against her challenger from the other party.

When the Republican nominee talks about how bad things got under Obama and how his policies failed the nation, Hillary can simply agree and point out that’s why she abandoned the Obama administration. Doing so would allow her to look comparatively reasonable, forward-thinking, and go a long way toward establishing credibility and integrity in the minds of the common voter.

With the media again on her side and armed with an appeal that escaped McCain entirely, she could succeed where he failed. Hillary would then be able to sweep into office, building upon the rubble left by Obama and shaping the country to her desires by exploiting a desperate populace willing to accept any change; ironically, exactly what Obama himself did in assuming office after Bush, and precisely what got us into this mess!

Clinton winning in either of these scenarios is far from a certainty, but both her strategy and her intention to enter the race are clearer than ever. Conservatives need to keep this in mind as we work to defeat Obama. 2012 is just the next battle.

Another socialist is waiting in the wings, her declaration to seek office is just four years away, and the wheels of her campaign bus are already turning.

Travis Sedars
Mason City, Iowa

©2012 The Common Sense Politics Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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