Uncle Bill O'Reilly is wrong!

Barney and Uncle Bill were talking on Fox about Hispanics waving the Mexican flag in California at a political protest. Uncle Bill said that it is now acceptable and is no longer offensive to most Americans.  That may be true in the U.S.A., but not the rest of the world. I live in the Philippines if I put a U.S. flag out on my balcony the neighbors would raise all kind of H???.  In fact it would be against the law in the Philippines and I would be deported if I participated in a political rally or waved an American flag. A lot of Americans and a lot of our politicians no longer have U.S. pride. Yet, we allowed Reid to use Manny the famous Filipino boxer to influence the election in Nevada and no American politician or American media or American citizen said a word that I know about.

It appears to me we just have lost all our patriotism, religious values and morals and we are about to lose our country to foreigners. I may not like a lot of things in the Philippines, but I adapt and that is what minorities should do when moving to the U.S.

+++ At the Republican Convention a middle age woman was arrested for trying to burn the U.S. Flag so some people must still care Uncle Bill! Her husband was burned in the incident KARMA!

Appointing Supreme Court Justices has become critical to political parties!

I will be surprised if the conspiracy stories do not begin soon over Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death. There were some very important cases about to be ruled on, cases that have tremendous political ramifications.

Among these is Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association, a landmark case regarding the mandatory collection of union dues and their use for political purposes. The ruling could have meant the death of collective bargaining and the political might of America’s unions.

The Democrat Party has depended on the union votes for decades to keep them in power. Since Reagan the union’s power has slowly eroded and if employees were not forced to pay union dues their political power would have most likely ended. Without political power to threaten politicians with their block votes and large campaign donations politicians would no longer have a reason to rule in favor of union bosses even when the politicians know their decisions are not in the best interest of the country as a whole.  

After oral arguments in the case in January, The Washington Post indicated the court’s conservative majority, including Scalia, were leaning to rule against the union’s ability to collect mandatory dues. But, with Scalia’s passing and the news that the Republican led Senate will likely not confirm an Obama nominee means such cases could end up with a 4 to 4 decisions. Lacking a majority, the lower court’s rulings would stand in favor of the unions.

Had the Supreme Court ruled that union dues could not be used for political purposes, it would have dealt a major blow to one of the Democrat Party’s most powerful assets.

Another key case is U.S. vs. Texas, in which opponents challenged the legality of the president’s executive orders dealing with illegal immigrants. Signs are now strong that it will be decided at the lower court level and the Supreme Court will not deal with it.

Supreme Court justices take a vote on a case immediately after oral argument, cases that have already been argued, even if no opinion has been written yet, the Chief Justice has an obligation to include Justice Scalia's vote in those cases. In other cases where no vote has yet been taken, we may get tied votes which means the lower court decisions will stand. That means that a number of controversial issues will have to be brought back to the court in new cases when there are nine justices.

Not all legal experts agree with the view Chief Justice Roberts could issue a decision using Scalia’s vote.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, blasted comments by Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader that the Senate would try to block President Obama from nominating a new justice to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.

Ms. Warren said, “Senator McConnell is right that the American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice. In fact, they did when President Obama won the 2012 election by five million votes.”

That is not what Ms. Warren and other Democrats were saying in 2008 and 2004 when they were afraid that George Bush would appoint a new Supreme Court Justice prior to elections. The Democrats in 2008 and 2004 like the Republicans in 2016 threaten to block a new nominee for the Supreme Court.

In the 1840’s and 1860 the Supreme Court went two years without nine Justices. That is certainly not an ideal situation, but the Supreme Court operated during those periods and would do the same today regardless of what Harry Reid says about the Court cannot go one year without nine Justices.

There was a time when the Supreme Court exercised its role as final decider on important public issues, modestly, on a non-partisan, non-ideological basis and only when necessary to protect the Constitution from clear excesses committed by the political branches. In my opinion those days are long gone there is no denying the Supreme Court has become just another arena for playing out the same partisan and ideological warfare that dominates the other branches. This is why political parties and politicians fight so hard to have their president make these appointments.

The current size of the court, nine justices, is not established in the Constitution. It has varied over U.S. history from five to ten.  The changes in the size of the court were almost always done for partisan/political/ideological reasons. Constitutionally, the number of justices could be changed again. F.D.R. is the last president to try to change the number on the court, but he failed to do so.

Republicans and Democrats have been obstructionist, mean-spirited and unfair when it comes to appointing Supreme Court Justices. Be careful of what you believe coming from the mouth of politicians from either political parties during this time of replacing Justice Scalia and be careful of the conspiracy stories that will likely begin over Scalia’s death – no autopsy, no heart failure, death due to natural causes, enjoying a hunting trip and vacation the day before he died will only feed them.  

Tea Party in Congress -Breathe of Fresh Air

I am so glad that the debt ceiling question is settled.  I was beginning to worry that the Tea Party Members of Congress would not strike “any” type of compromise and cause the country to go into default.  The fact they held out until the end and did compromise cause me to respect them even more.  They may be the” Knights on the White Horse” for the United States.  Our only hope is that they gain Senate and House seats in the next election.

I am sure John Boehner, Harry Reid and the rest of the old guard were shocked when they discovered the elected Tea Party candidates meant what they said during their campaign.  I am sure they thought when the newly elected Tea Party members got to Washington they would forget their promise and become one of the “Good Ole Boys.”   Why would” ANYONE” believe a politician would keep his or her campaign promises once elected – Obama certainly did not?

Not even a staunch Democrat can forget or deny that President Obama’s Democratic Party had control of all three branches of government the first two years of his term and should have been able to get anything passed.  Obviously President Obama did not mean the things he said on the campaign trail or his own party thought his ideas were bad. 

A few of the campaign promises President Obama forgot once elected: 1. Increase the Capital gains and dividends taxes for higher- income taxpayers. If he wanted to do that why did the Democrats not do it in the first two years? 2. Expand the child dependent care credit. 3. Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners. 4. End income tax for seniors making less than $50,000 a year. 5. End all Federal no-bid contracts above $25,000. 6. Repeal the Bush tax cuts for higher income. If he wanted to do that why did the Democrats not do it in the first two years? 7. Phase out exemptions and deductions for higher earners. If he wanted to do that why did the Democrats not do it in the first two years? 8. Sign the Employee Free Choice Act, making it easier for workers to unionize. 9. Forbid companies in bankruptcy from giving executives bonuses. 10. Allow workers to claim more in unpaid wages and benefits in bankruptcy court. 11. Allow imported prescription drugs. 12. Appoint federal-level coordinator to oversee all federal autism efforts. 13. Reduce earmarks to 1994 levels. 13. Enact windfall profits tax for oil companies. 14. Create cap and trade system with interim goals to reduce global warming. 15. Require plug-in fleet at the White House. 16. Provide an annual report on “states of our energy future”. 17. Recognize the Armenian genocide. 18. See to it that NO family making less than $250,000 will get “ANY form of tax increase.” 19. Negotiate health care reform in public sessions televised on C-SPAN. 20.  Introduce a comprehensive immigration bill in the FIRST year of his term.   These are only twenty of his many promises that he did not keep.

The BIGGEST promise that President Obama did not keep and the one that I think got him elected was he would bring CHANGE to Washington D.C. Things would be done differently and he would bring about a halt to partisan politics because he was not the TYPICAL politician Americans have had to endure for generations.   He is the most partisan president we have had in my life time.

I do not agree with some of the freshmen members of the Tea Party when they claim they got what they wanted.  They did not get what the Tea Party wanted for the cuts did not go deep enough nor do the major cuts take effect soon enough.  I do think they got all they could get without putting the U.S. Government in default and I think the 2/3’s of the freshmen members who supported the bill realized that.

The Tea Party members did get conversations started in the House and Senate on “Cut, Cap and Balance”, “Balanced Budget Amendment”, “Entitlement Cuts” and critical conversations on the Obama Health Care Bill. The Tea Party members did accomplish enough good that the Democrats will definitely try to destroy their creditability over the next 16 months and perhaps even some Republicans will.

The United States is on the road to becoming like Greece.  Only the American people can prevent it and they can only prevent it by electing a new breed of politicians to local, state and federal government.  If they do not then we deserve what we get.

I have heard the argument that the Republicans want to push grandma off the cliff and do not care about the sick and poor and I do not buy it.  The Democrats cannot keep giving away what we no longer have.  The approach to cut and save the social programs we can is far better than NO SOCIAL PROGRAMS at all and that is exactly what will happen with President Obama’s Socialist Government and the Democrats programs to buy votes.