REALITY CHECK: GREED

Liberals like to call the Bush years the Decade of Greed. By their thinking, people getting educated and working to achieve the American Dream makes them greedy if they choose to use their wealth to improve their lives and the lives of their children and family. Generally the result of education, hard work, and taking risks, the opportunity to earn more is the incentive that grows business, creates jobs, generates more taxes, and helps our economy grow. But let's talk about real greed. That would be the greed of the Obama years should he win on November 4.

The definition of the word, "greed" is simply; "the excessive desire for more than one needs or deserves." Consider all the arguments that could be spawned by this definition of greed?

Let's start with the first part; "the excessive desire for more than one needs." Who decides what is more than one needs? Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are going to decide. Yes, Obama and the socialists in Congress will define what is appropriate or acceptable. And as they do, so they will suppress the incentive that has made the American economy the most productive economy in the world, and America the leader of the world. Barack Obama will know what is too much, and if you dare to pursue something that one of Obama's constituency can't afford, watch out, because Obama will see to it that you can't afford it either, or he'll punish you for the right to spend your money where you wish.

But how about the second part of the definition of greed; "the excessive desire for more than one deserves." Who is going to decide what someone deserves? Yes, Obama and the socialists in Congress again. Barack and the Democrats in Congress will decide whether you deserve the fruits of your own labor, or whether the fruits of your labor should be taken from you and given to that unemployed high school dropout who refuses to seek out additional education or training.

Not to leave all the blame with the socialists in the Democrat Party; who will have given them the power to take from some to give to others? Yes, the people who vote for Obama will be the ultimate cause of the coming age of American socialism. And what is motivating a huge percentage of them? Yes, it is pure greed.

They are the portion of America that already pays little or nothing to make government work. The bottom 50% of wage earners pay less then 3% of all the income taxes. Their retirement payroll deductions, often cited by the left as taxes they do pay, doesn't begin to cover the costs of their Social Security or Medicare either. They are the ones buying into Obama's class warfare argument and the socialist promise of sharing the wealth. They are just fine with the idea of being given other people's money. Therefore, it is many of the Obama supporters, that in general, demand more than they need, and certainly more than they deserve.

The left can call the Bush years the decade of greed, but if you really want to label a decade, or a group of Americans as greedy, there can be no more obvious group of Americans than supporters of Obama, or Democrats in general, who couldn't care less about any of Obama's or the Democrat's advertised policies, except one. They are waiting for their check from the government. Yes, that check paid for with other people's money.

For those paying attention, the real Decade of Greed has just begun, coinciding with the Age of Obama Socialism that could be ushered in on November 4. But it doesn't have to happen. Joe Biden tried to tie patriotism to paying more taxes, even though the targeted top 5% of taxpayers already pay more than 60% of all the income taxes. But for those that pay little or no income taxes, wouldn't it be a truly patriotic act to say no to class warfare and income redistribution? Wouldn't the real patriotic act be for those with less to take responsibility for themselves and refuse to bought with other people's money?

Saying a loud "NO" to socialism would be the most patriotic thing any American could do on November 4.

Election day will be the real defining moment for America. On November 4 we will all know whether we are a nation of patriots, or a nation driven by the greed of those at the bottom of our society's income scale.

New video on challenge to Obama's eligibility to be president

Why is Berg trying to obtain the vaulted long-form birth certificate for Barack Obama?

The original images posted on the Internet released by the Obama campaign were highly suspicious, pulled, and discredited. Recently, FactCheck.org, which is funded by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $160 million school reform effort funded by and approved by, among others, Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, from 1995 until the end of 2001, posted an article claiming that they had been given access to the "short-form" birth certificate created, issued, and stamped in June 2007 by the Department of Health in Hawaii and held on file with the Obama campaign. That report is here:

It does seem like quite a coincidence that of all the investigative sources across the country, that this website, funded directly by Obama's actions with the Annenberg Foundation, is the one that has obtained, examined, and posted the conclusions related to their investigation. It is also less than comforting that the certificate was physically produced just over a year ago, albeit stamped by a government employee working within a Democrat-run administration. If the certificate is genuine, then it attests to the fact that in June 2007, when it was produced, that the Hawaii database listed Obama as born in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is this glaring shortcoming of the short-form, though, that appears to have led Berg in his lawsuit to request a certified copy of the original "vaulted" "long-form" birth certificate that the state is required by law to have on file. That form would be the original paper form produced immediately after Obama's birth in 1961, and not a newly printed certificate based on data that could easily have been manipulated within the DOH's records database.

This from the FactCheck article:

"The document is a "certification of birth," also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents' hometowns. The short form is printed by the state and draws from a database with fewer details. The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department. We tried to ask the Hawaii DOH why they only offer the short form, among other questions, but they have not given a response."

Note that FactCheck doesn't describe the real difference between the short and long-form documents, other than the info in them. But the long-form document is the paper form filled out at the time of birth. It is not created by printing information out of a modern database. FactCheck didn't think its readers needed to really understand the difference.

So why doesn't the Hawaii DOH offer a copy of the long-form birth certificate? Because all the data in the long-form is not included in the database? No. You can't print out a copy of the original long-form from a database unless it was scanned into it and stored in an image document type, like a PDF of JPG. But once you've scanned it, you've opened the door to manipulation of that document. And if there is no long-form document, then you have nothing to scan in the first place. Regardless, you can't store a piece of paper in a digital database. Paper is stored in a physical location. Locked up hopefully where it can exist for decades. Like in a vault.

Anyone who works with databases also knows that data is easily manipulated in a database, and that without the proper protections, Mickey Mouse could be entered into the Hawaii DOH database and given a birth date, and when a short-form certificate is requested, a certified and stamped printout could be obtained without much issue. How and from what source was Obama's birth information entered into that modern digital database? But if someone asked for a copy of the original stored paper copy of the long-form for Mickey from 1961, it would be much more difficult to come up with one if one never existed. Creating a forgery would be a real challenge, in fact.

For an office as important as President of the United States, all Berg seems to be asking is for proof beyond data entered into a modern database that this candidate, was in fact, born in the USA. And given the contradiction between family members when asked the simple question of where Obama was born, Berg's request is not unreasonable. This could all be settled if a copy of that 47 year old long-form document would be provided.

In contrast, John McCain's eligibility to be president was also challenged. Born overseas to two US citizens, McCain immediately released all the relevant information and the issue of his eligibility was put to rest. If Obama was born in Hawaii, why is he seemingly doing everything he can to avoid satisfying this basic Constitutional requirement?

If it exists, would not Barack Obama be able to request such a copy with a simple phone call or signed request if required? If it exists, why is he fighting the request? No one can doubt that the Obama campaign does not understand the difference between the short and long forms. And yet, they are content to leave these questions unanswered and rely on a document printed from a modern database one year ago.

Can a socialist fix an economy with more tax and spend?

The National Debt is today is $10,187,754,347,408.87. Yes, that's $10 trillion dollars.
On September 11, 2001 the National Debt was $5,773,172,068,291.89.

Reality Check: The US economy was in recession in 2000 after the Tech Bubble exploded on Wall Street. We were attacked on 9/11/2001 by terrorists that not only killed 3,000 Americans, but wreaked devastation on the US economic system. In 2002 we went to war in Afghanistan, and in 2003 we went to war in 2003. Military spending has nearly doubled since 9/11, and an American people adequately informed by the national media of this nation's many financial problems knows that the growth in Bush's Military spending is the cause of the huge increase in the debt, and that Bush's failed economic policies have resulted in the rich not paying enough. Right?

Consider this. To receive the necessary 60 votes in the US Senate to bring any spending bill to the floor for a vote (The Cloture Rule), even with Republicans in the majority, Bush had to buy liberal Democrats and Republicans to get his funding for the Military. That means the Bush was forced to sign onto tons and tons of earmarks, pork and other bribes to get the votes to even bring Defense spending bills to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

So I want to make the following charge. Bush did not fail the American people. He did not invite the 9/11 attack and he had no choice to respond in defense of the American people. But I'd like to drive a stake through the heart of the left's lie that Bush created the huge National Debt, just as they pinned the growth of the Debt under Reagan in the 1980's.

Below is a graph derived directly from US Government Historical Budget data. Here is the source:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf

This data is adjusted for inflation. It is dead-on accurate and the real story of federal spending going back 28 years, from Jimmy Carter's last 2 budgets in 1980 and 1981, through last year 2007.

I ask you to look at 2 things. First, spending on National Defense, even now fighting two wars, is barely more than we were spending near the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. Second, look at Social Spending. After adjusting for inflation, Social Spending has more than doubled in the same period, and if you look at the slope of the curve, is no where near slowing down.



Conclusion. If you think the most liberal member of the United States Senate, along with a liberal majority of both the House and the Senate chomping at the bit to adopt his tax and spend policies is going to fix this economy, I've got some Default Credit Swaps to sell you at a bargain.

Is Obama eligible to be president?

Is Barack Obama a US Citizen? Is he a "natural born" citizen, which is required under Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, before a person is eligible to run for the highest elected office on the planet? Seems this would be an easy question for Obama to lay to rest. But given that he's fighting a challenge for basic citizenship documents in the US District Court in Pennsylvania, what should we think?

Less than 2 weeks ago a motion was filed by Obama and the DNC in the case, Berg v. Obame et al, to dismiss the case. Why argue to dismiss a challenge if simple documentation would end the case? Even more curious, did Obama and the DNC argue for dismissal on the merits of the case? No. They argued that an American citizen, who is also a member of the Democrat Party, did not have legal standing to ask Obama for proof of his presidential eligibility.

Many critical questions have been asked by Mr. Berg in his challenge. Was Obama born in Hawaii, or in Kenya? His birth has been "registered" in both countries, and Obama has refused to provide a certified birth certificate. His family is all over the map on the place of his birth, with some family members stating one hospital in Hawaii, with others alleging a different hospital. In Kenya, Obama's family, including his grandmother, are alleged to have stated that he was born in Kenya.

But place of birth isn't enough to lay this issue to rest. Even if Obama was a natural born American at birth, he was taken to Indonesia at age 5 by his mother, and in Indonesia, appears to have taken Indonesian citizen to get into Indonesian schools. His mother would have been required to renounce her citizenship before marrying an Indonesian national, and young Barry appears to have been declared an Indonesian citizen, and Muslim, to attend Indonesian school. Obama has denied ever being a Muslim.

If Obama became an Indonesian citizen, and documents in Indonesia are alleged to affirm this, then in a country that does not allow dual citizenship, Obama was no longer a US citizen. And upon his return to the United States years later, if no efforts were made on his behalf to apply to become a naturalized citizen, then Obama would, legally speaking, not even be a US citizen today.

To throw more gasoline on the fire, Obama visited Pakistan in 1981 at the age of 20. At the time, Pakistan was on the US State Department's travel ban list. Non-Muslims were not even welcomed into Pakistan without the person's embassy's support on official business. Obama certainly was not traveling on government official business for the US, Indonesia, or Kenya. So how did Obama get into Pakistan? Was he using an Indonesian passport? Did it identify him has a "non-US" Indonesian citizen and did it declare his religion to be Muslim?

To a growing number of left-leaning Americans, the US Constitution seems little more than an old document to be rewritten to satisfy the "progressive" view of the world. But today it is a document that, I hope, the majority of Americans still hold as the foundation of this nation, and one of its most basic provisions is the requirement of citizenship and natural born status before any candidate is eligible to hold the office of president.

Mr. Obama, it is not an unreasonable request, and in fact, an absolutely essential duty of any candidate for president to provide whatever documentation is necessary to verify the candidate's right to hold the office of president. Why are you fighting it? What do you have to hide? The longer you refuse to prove your eligibility to be president, the more citizens of this nation will wonder whether we're about to elect an illegal alien to the highest office of president.

Here is the legal brief filed by Mr. Berg in the case just a week ago. The case is now pending a ruling by the judge in the case. The unsigned order is not the ruling, but the plaintiff's request for relief in this case. I know that Obama supporters will think this crazy, and frankly, not important. But if this is not important, then what is?

And how ironic would this be for a candidate who has used technicalities in the past to force opponents off the ballot? But if this nation is still a constitutional republic, isn't it vital that the US Constitution be respected?