Shabbat Shalom 28 Av 5768 "update"

It's Palin
McCain selects strong conservative and true reformer

Your brilliant blogger is very excited that John McCain has selected Alaska Governor and recent new mommy Sarah Palin as his choice for Vice President. Besides bringing youth and nice looks to the ticket, her record as an executive is second to none. As governor she has displayed superb fiscal discipline and as a wife and mother she leads by example of the importance of faith and family. She describes herself as a Hockey mom and political reformer.

If America wants change this 44 year old mother of 5 is as good as it gets.


The only "change" was the venue
Brilliant visuals, but same old same old speech

85,000 fans of Barack Obama experienced political history as they attended the acceptance speech of the first African American to be nominated for President of the United States by a major political Party. Every American should take pride in this historic moment in our nations history. Unfortunately for Obama the so-called candidate of "change" delivered a typical political speech that was not in sync with the extravaganza surrounding him.

As in every convention speech before him, Obama talked about a better America. However he didn't give any details on how he was going to improve our country. As the Associated Press reported after the speech, "instead of dwelling on specifics, he laced the crowning speech of his long campaign with the type of rhetorical flourishes that Republicans mock and the attacks on John McCain that Democrats cheer." Once again America is subjected to general statements, personal attacks and no solutions.

What has become a developing theme of the Obama campaign is his desire to raise taxes. While he claims he will lower the taxes of 95% of Americans, he already has suggested a plan to raise payroll taxes on All Americans courtesy of Social Security.

According to the Cato Institute "Barack Obama's policy would impose a 60-percent increase in lifetime Social Security payroll taxes for some young voters." What Obama also doesn't come clean about is that his plan to increase the taxes of households bringing in 250,000 a year or more, includes small businesses, which is the backbone of the American economy. Simply put, higher taxes on small business means less jobs and diminished growth.

Earlier this week, I warned my readers of a Socialist theme stemming from the Democratic convention and without a doubt your brilliant blogger was correct. In typical liberal fashion populist grievances were used to appeal to voters. Tax the rich, damn the oil companies, corporations are shipping your job overseas. As columnist David Harsanyi wrote, "Tax them more to ensure the entire corporation is shipped out."

As Democrats do at every turn, Obama preached education opportunities for all. He talked about his success was possible because he was able to receive a good education. He then went on to promise all Americans the same.

While nobody will argue with him the importance of education, he promised more of the same. Throw more money at the problem instead of increasing charter schools and offering parental choice. Satisfy the teachers union, while are children get dumber and less competitive in a global economy.

Obama did what every liberal has done since the candidacy of George McGovern in 1972. He promised America that government will solve your problems and even showed his true Socialist colors when he attacked the free "market" as a solution to the health care crisis.

Tonight's concert, I mean speech in Denver was surrounded by great music and stunning visuals. While Stevie Wonder sounded awesome as well as a Michael McDonald, the only thing Obama had in common with them was that they were all throwbacks to the past. Whether it's Stevie singing a hit song from 1972 or Obama giving a speech that contained the rhetoric from the same era, the only "change" America saw and heard was that instead of a typical convention setting we saw a politician be the lead character in a broadway musical.

There is a school of thought that Obama needed to make a generic speech. In a year when Republicans are up against the ropes, some believe that sounding like a typical Democrat was the right move. Of course only time will tell if the former candidate of "change" metamorphosing into Generic Democrat was the smart move.

Paulie