February 25, 2009

Thoughts of Obama from Bama

Week Five – Hi Bob!

“It only takes one drink to get me drunk, but I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or fourteenth.”
George Burns

Most of us remember the drinking game millions of viewers played when watching the Bob Newhart Show. Every time one of the characters said “Hi Bob” millions chugged, took a shot or swig of their favorite adult beverage usually resulting in a serious buzz by the time the closing credits hit the screen.

Rumor has it millions of our fellow Americans played a similar game during President Obama’s recent so called Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan Speech in Arizona last week. Participants allegedly knocked one back every time the president used the word crisis. Twenty six shots of courage later had millions staggering around like god’s own drunk having just endured what was truly one of the most negative messages delivered by a sitting president since Peanut’s infamous malaise speech back in the 70’s.

The president’s “Crisis We Can Believe In” speech was a new low, which is really saying a lot, when considering his practice of the politics of fear mongering, class warfare, the financial sky is falling and victimization. Continuing his gloom and doom apocalyptic financial message of the last two years our commander in chief referred to three different crises in the first paragraph alone of his remarks.

According to Mr. Audacity of Hope our country is facing the most difficult challenges in the history of the union. He must have cut history class to hang with his terrorist buds and snort a few lines the day they covered World Wars 1 & 2, the War for Southern Independence (Civil War for all you Yankees), the Great Depression, Jimmy Carter, the Revolutionary War and Alabama’s loss to Florida in last year’s SEC Championship. Mr. Obama passionately warned us, and I quote:

“we are faced with crisis unlike any we’ve ever known; a home mortgage crisis; crisis that strikes at the heart of the middle class; crisis is vast, it begins just one house – and one family – at a time; we learn that acting responsibly often isn’t enough to escape this crisis; The effects of this crisis have also reverberated across the financial markets; all of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis; if we allow this crisis to deepen – a crisis which is unraveling homeownership, the middle class, and the American Dream itself; the home mortgage crisis, the financial crisis, and this broader economic crisis are interconnected; It will prevent the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy; especially now as we grapple with a crisis that would only worsen if we were to allow further disruptions; Communities have shown a lot of initiative, taking responsibility for this crisis; Taken together, the provisions of this plan will help us end this crisis; Our housing crisis was born of eroding home values and by leaders in our nation’s capital who failed to act amidst a deepening crisis; So solving this crisis will require more than resources; accountable for ending the practices that got us into this crisis in the first place; I am confident we will overcome this crisis.”

Don’t know about y’all but after reading that list of unadulterated crisis destroying life as we know it I’m thinking we all would greatly benefit from a couple of shots of Jack with a long neck Bud chaser.

The political reality is this tale of economic hardship, chaos and crisis has several purposes. First and foremost, the continuation of the great American Ho Ax, misleading and frightening we the people about the reality of our current fiscal situation and this administrations’ true intentions. Second, the advocacy of his recently passed Economic Stimulus/Socialist Spending Bill. Next, the promotion of his Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan and finally his highest priority, securing the future funds required for the hostile government takeover of the country’s healthcare, financial, energy, and educational industries and ultimately even little league baseball, the Girl Scouts and Junior League (They best be careful with that last group, those gals will overwhelm the White House with thank you notes for any perceived act of kindness disrupting the mail service for weeks).

President Obama started week five of his administration with the “Crisis We can Believe In” speech and wrapped it up with an address to a joint session of congress still professing financial ruin unless his divine vision for fiscal renaissance is implemented immediately. In between speeches the president conducted several made for TV events and photo opps including an Economic Stimulus Summit and speeches to the nation’s mayors and governors. Lets also not forget about his Secretary of State’s first trip abroad either where she bravely dodged Chinese sniper fire (that explains all the bowing) while walking down the red carpet and receiving line greeting officials and dignitaries at the airport.

His primetime congressional speech was well delivered, excellent in style points and at times even inspirational and motivational. Unfortunately, as usual, his remarks were also chalk full of empty rhetoric and I’m truly sad to say, out and out lies. Mr. President, every economist in the civilized world does not agree with your plans for economic recovery. You didn’t inherit this train wreck, you spent over two years and almost a billion dollars seeking this responsibility. And finally, whining and blaming W for your woes is both another lie and extremely unbecoming. As I’ve said before, the leader of the free world playing the victim card on national TV demeans the office and prestige of the presidency. Especially when you and your socialist democrat majority in congress the last two years with a big shout out to Madame Speaker & Chair of the Commune Pelosi, Senator Chris Countrywide VIP mortgage boy Dodd and Barney “Freddie in the Fannie Mac” Frank for your outstanding leadership and who share equally in the blame for our current dilema.

On a positive note the speech to congress did reveal President Obama’s real agenda and I do give him credit for this most unusual lapse of honesty in revealing his real intentions. That’s the good news. The bad news is he plans to spend trillions more of our hard earned dollars on creating a big government, socialized, universal healthcare system that will compromise and lower the standard of care for all of us. He is also pushing for a fully government funded tree hugging, bark eating, and inconvenient truth of an energy policy restricting our freedoms and choices regarding the consumption and use of our natural resources. Finally, his hope to provide a free post high school education for college, community college or trade school certainly has merit and is a most worthy endeavor. I just wish I could find where in the U.S. constitution it states that the citizen tax payers are responsible for such massive social spending.

Tuesday night’s speech did have a more positive tone but still frequently evoked the crisis, catastrophe, and the financial sky is falling rhetoric of previous addresses. One thing this crowd does well is stay on message. “Hi Bob / Crisis” drinking game participants had ample opportunity to knock a few more back as the word crisis was generously sprinkled throughout the president’s remarks. Sadly, game player hangovers will pale in comparison to the financial hangover we are all about to suffer through if the president’s socialist and massive new government programs are enacted.

Cheers!

I am, “America by Birth and Southern by the Grace of God”
Ron W. Garikes

February 18, 2009


Thoughts of Obama from Bama

Weeks Three & Four - The Death of Bipartisanship

So bye-bye, miss American pie. Drove my Chevy to the levee, But the levee was dry. And them good old boys were drinkin whiskey and rye. Singin this ll be the day that I die. this ll be the day that I die
Don McLean


Exactly sixteen days after taking the oath of office our brand damn smacking new “Change We Can Believe In, Yes We Can, New Era of Cooperation” President killed bipartisanship stone cold dead. Openly and without shame, President Obama shot any hope of bipartisanship right between the eyes while addressing a group of his fellow socialist at a tax payer supported retreat of the House Democrat Leadership at the Kingsmill Resort and Spa in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Apparently having we the people foot the bill for this three day democratic shin dig is part of the president’s stimulus/socialist spending plan and will save hundreds of bartender, caddie, chef, bellman, hooker and masseur jobs at this exclusive Northern Virginian resort. Isn’t this the same group of pinheads that took corporate America to the woodshed for similar offenses?

Anyway, I digress, back to our “bring a new tone to Washington, reach across the aisle with a warm embrace and helping hand of friendship” new Commander in Chief. In one of the most powerful attempts of bipartisanship ever witnessed in the history of the union President Obama reached out to his republican brethren by basically proclaiming we won, we wrote the bill, sit down, shut up and get out of the way. He continued to promote this new era of unprecedented friendship and cooperation blaming the GOP as the cause of not only all of our economic woes but also global warming, world hunger, sky rocketing teenage pregnancy and the end of civilization as we know it. He wrapped up his remarks stating, "I found this deficit when I showed up," earning a standing ovation from his adoring audience who were taking a short break from making tee times, massage appointments and arranging limo pickups for the hookers on their blackberries. "I found this national debt doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me when I stepped into the Oval Office."

With all due respect Mr. President, there are few things more unbecoming than a grown man, who also happens to be the leader of the free world, whining and playing the victim card on national TV. Especially when senator, candidate and now President Obama and all of his democrat comrades in congress, having been in the majority the last two years, are as guilty as W, Wall Street, Paulson, Greenspan, The SEC, Freddie and Fannie Mac for creating this financial train wreck.

For the last year and a half Mr. Obama has been screaming from the mountain tops warning the financial sky is falling and his love sick followers in the elite media have been tickled pink to reinforce this message. The proverbial self fulfilling prophecy has been realized. Democrat congressional leaders, especially Senate Banking Chair Chris Dodd armed with his VIP sweetheart Countrywide mortgages and Barney “Freddie in your Fannie Mac” Frank, the House Financial Services Chair, probably bear even more responsibility because of their advocacy of social engineering with financial institutions and more than cozy reciprocal relationship with Freddie and Fannie which started this whole mess creating the housing crisis and stopping the flow of credit dead in its tracks.

Weeks three and four of the Obama administration were chalk full of more of the same chaos, drama, poor judgment and dangerous decisions we witnessed in the first two weeks. Events included the secret swearing in of an unqualified CIA Director, (what was that promise about openness and transparency?) withdraw of another Secretary of Commerce designee, (Glad you came to your senses Senator Gregg) and most troubling, dropping the charges against the terrorist who killed 17 sailors on the U.S.S. Cole (This sympathetic view of terrorist is truly an alarming pattern of behavior for this administration) and my personal favorite, the retention of a PR consultant to develop recommendations for renaming what W most appropriately labeled The War on Terror.

Again, Mr. President, with all due respect, there are 20 – 30 million wild eyed Muslims out there who have declared jihad against our country. These religious zealots don’t give a happy by damn what you call it, a struggle, police action, aggressive diplomacy or a hoe down. Omar and his merry band of tent makers are still out to kill as many of us as possible regardless what name your PR consultants come up with for this war.

Even with all of these going ons, the main focus of week three and four was the fear mongering, hard sell, stuffing down our throat of the president’s, Speaker Pelosi’s and Majority Leader Reed’s humongous, biggest in the history of mankind, partisan to the extreme, socialist /spending bill. I won’t bore you with the gory details but this bill is full of enough pork, earmarks and payback to dem supporters, including the sleazy likes of the Voter Frauds Are Us Group ACORN, to choke a horse.

The house republicans finally got it right and stood up in force and in one voice said hell no! Unfortunately, their GOP senate colleagues couldn’t reign in Senators Collins, Snow and Spectre, who cowardly turned their backs on their party, constituents and country, and voted with the dems in the ”spirit of bipartisanship”. At the urging of the president the bill passed in record time, (He then proceeded to take a long weekend holiday and signed the bill three days later) Speaker Pelosi snuck out of town on her tax payer supported corporate jet for an eight day Italian holiday and Majority Leader Reed bought a model train set he runs from L.A. to Vegas, all paid for by us taxpayers of course.

Bipartisanship is dead and I say long live partisanship! Bipartisanship is way over rated anyway. Here’s to the loyal opposition and our uphill fight against socialism, communism and all those other isms that threaten the freedoms we enjoy and liberties we hold sacred.

I am, “America by Birth and Southern by the Grace of God”
Ron W. Garikes

February 8, 2009

Thoughts of Obama from Bama

Week Two - The Company We Keep

“When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends”
Japanese Proverb

We are all judged by the company we keep. Considering some of the low life hooligans, yahoos, sandbaggers and poker cheats I’ve cavorted with over the years (and loved every minute of it) it’s no wonder your humble author is held in low esteem by some who just don’t appreciate the socially redeeming qualities, as hard as they may be to find, of the somewhat rowdy crowd I’ve had the honor to hang with most of my life.

For those of us who are parents, regrettably far too many of us have endured loud and heated discussions with our teenagers stressing the importance of the quality of the company one keeps. Hanging with the gothics decked out in black with red streaked hair, the potheads, smokers, or dating the pimply faced kid who looks like he fell head first in a tackle box tends to label one with a rep, deserved or not.

So how should we judge our new president based on the company he keeps? We are all well acquainted with his old pals from Chicago, Rev. “Captain America” Wright; Bill “BFF Bomb Thrower” Ayers; Tony “Felonious, Let’s Make a Deal” Rezko and Illinois’s’ X Governor Blago, “The Enlightened One”. The President’s association with this group, unfortunately, has rendered irreversible damage and their impact on molding his character has regrettably already been realized. It is interesting to note and more than a little ironic to say the least that we the people have just elected to the highest office in the land a man who probably couldn’t obtain a federal security clearance because of his past associations with known terrorist, convicted felons and radical left wing zealots.

All that being said and in the spirit of bipartisanship ushered in by the new administration, you know, my way or the highway, let’s give our new leader the benefit of the doubt and judge him not on his past associations but on his new circle of friends currently gathering in our nation’s capital.

Following is a partial list of President Obama’s handpicked group of visionaries who will lead us out of the financial wilderness and save us from all threats, foreign and domest

• Vice President Joe Biden – A national joke. Would somebody please shut “Mr. Plagiarize When in Doubt” up. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving.
• Madame Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – Pathological liar and gallant avoider of enemy sniper fire.
• Attorney General Eric Holder – Pardoner of Tax Cheats and Terrorist
• Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner – Tax Cheat and according to his supporters the only individual in a country of 300 million + qualified for the job.
• Health Czar and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Daschle – Big Time Tax Cheat and according to the Prez the only person in a country of 300 million + qualified for this job.
• Chief White House Performance Officer Nancy Killefer – Tax cheat, as Chief Performance Officer I imagine she was hired to help the rest of the group improve their tax cheating skills.
• Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis – Married to a tax cheat

So, what’s the final tally: 1 confirmed plagiarizer; 1 confirmed pathological liar and several more suspected; 5 admitted tax cheats and/or tax cheat sympathizers; one terrorist sympathizer and at least two senior level appointees that according to our new Commander in Chief are the only ones qualified for the position he chose them for in a country of 300 million plus. This is the epitome of arrogance and elitism, which so far seems to be two of this administration’s more redeeming qualities.

Every new administration makes a couple of mistakes with appointments, but this group has in more in common with the FBI’s top ten most wanted list than U.S. cabinet members. In addition to this travesty, the President’s nomination of two senior level officials, Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn and Mark Patterson, a former lobbyist with the financial firm Goldman Sachs, for Chief of Staff for the Treasury Secretary both fail to meet the President’s less than a week old Executive Order placing restrictions on lobbyist working in his administration. Are these people just too lazy, incompetent, or both to find qualified individuals (I personally think no tax cheats, ex cons, or lawyers would be a good start) in a country of 300 million plus to fill these positions?

I can highly recommend several scoundrels, sandbaggers and poker cheats (all of southern heritage of course) I’ve known for years that would serve the president well and certainly much better than this group of highly questionable character currently being assembled. Unfortunately, he seems to have a powerful attraction for these unsavory types, kinda like white on rice, and if our president’s choice of friends doesn’t improve soon we could all be in a world of hurt for years to come.

I am, “America by Birth and Southern by the Grace of God”

Ron W Garikes

January 27, 2009


Thoughts of Obama from Bama


Week One – The Great American Ho Ax Continued


“Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.” Winston Churchill

Week one was chalk full of new executive orders, presidential face time ad nausea, and the disclosure of more criminal activities of Obama cabinet appointees, primarily for tax evasion. The new administration’s pattern of leniency with tax cheats and terrorist is truly becoming quite alarming.

Presidential directives covered the gamut from closing Gitmo, (of course they don’t have a clue where to put or what to do with Omar and his merry band of tent makers) diminishing our interrogation capabilities by restricting techniques to those as outlined in the Army Field Manual to raising emission requirements on US automakers, (who sure as hell need that monkey on their back right now) and setting goals for energy independence with no mention of increased drilling at home, nuclear or other domestic exploration.

Of course the highlight of the first week, if you don’t consider the Bush’s departure that was the epitome of class, decorum, dignity and professionalism unprecedented in modern politics, was the unveiling, selling, and passage in the House of the mis-titled and misleading Obama Economic Stimulus Package. The third major Ho Ax, or as clarified for all you non southern Americans in my first post, hoax, con or ruse, the “Yes We Can” gang has perpetrated on we the people.

To honestly represent the true intent of this bill it should probably be renamed:

The Barrack “ you can tell when I’m lying whenever my lips are moving” Obama; Nancy, “ Madame Speaker, San Francisco socialist” Pelosi; Barny, “special, special friends with Freddie and Fannie” Frank; Charlie “ just another democrat tax cheat Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee” Rangel; Wealth Redistribution; Socialist; Social Engineering; Socialist; ACORN, Labor Union and other left wing group political payoff; Socialist; Meager real tax breaks; Socialist; Massive Expansion of welfare; Socialist; Must pass now or disasters of biblical proportion shall reign down upon us; Socialist; Great American Ho Ax Socialist Stimulus package.

When you get right down to it there is really only one problem with this Stimulus Package, the absence of any stimulus.

The Obama spin machine and tellers of tall tales assure us that every credible economist in the civilized world including several Nobel laureates agree that this massive social welfare program is the only way to save the economy from total destruction. The problem with this claim is that it just ain’t so. In fact, it’s the same strategy the tree hugging, global warming head cases employ, led by Mr. Inconvenient Truth hiself Al Gore, whose Congressional hearing this week was postponed because of a snow storm in DC (Talk about a great idea for a Master Card commercial, Priceless!). If you say it often and loud enough it must be true. The inconvenient truth here for the President and his spin doctor’s is that as many (maybe even more) economist including several Nobel laureates disagree with this approach.


Where I come from a stimulus usually includes some element that actually stimulates. A spark that lights a fire under one’s ars compelling some action to be taken. This plan falls woefully short of achieving this objective. The so called economic stimulus in this plan includes millions and even billions of dollars for:

• Sod and upgrading the National Mall
• New cars for federal workers
• New computers for federal workers
• Billions for community groups including the corrupt and communist organization ACORN
• Family planning including contraceptives

In a word, unbelievable. Seems the only folks that will benefit from this stimulus package are illegal criminal aliens, government beuracrats, left wing extremist community action groups and the abortion rights and NAG (National Association of Gals) crowd. One saving grace is they do intend to distribute condoms so we can all at least practice safe sex while we are getting screwed by Uncle Sammy. (Thanks to B.G. from Montgomery for this contribution)

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill

There are a few components of this package that actually do have the potential to stimulate the economy. The proposed infrastructure projects, upgrade and expansion of utility and communication grids and some of the targeted tax cuts would help. Unfortunately, these types of measures are few and far between.

Expanding the massive government beuracracy, giving tax rebates to folks that don’t pay taxes (a classic redistribution of wealth) and the hostile government takeover of our private sector free market economy are all major steps towards socialism. To paraphrase Mr. Churchill, the equal sharing of misery may very well may be our fate if we continue to pursue these expensive and dangerous policies.

I am, “America by Birth and Southern by the Grace of God”

Ron W. Garikes

Authors Note:
Thanks for all the comments and feedback, positive and negative. Check back soon for thoughts on week 2