Rasta Rants

One of the joys (perhaps curses) of being semi retired is that I can watch a Presidential news Conference in the middle of the day. (why don't they do these at 6 pm so working folks can actually see their President in action?) So today I decided that since this was his first news conference in eight months I would tune in. He made a surprisingly brief opening statement reiterating that the Fiscal Cliff is upon us and we can solve it as long as Congress does it his way. Then he started taking questions from the press. I want to learn more so I listened carefully. A lot of questions were around Benghazi and the Petraus scandal. Sadly it is apparent we will never know the truth on either so we probably should just drop it. The President says there is a an investigation of Benghazi and we will find the killers and bring them to justice. He diverted all specific questions about his role in trying to save the four American on 9/11 and why they did not have adequate protection. Short

The election is over and the Democrats won. Now we have to contend with many changes and a lot more taxes in the next four years (see my Post Election Thoughts). As I watched (as much as I could) the campaigning I was struck by the new and very arbitrary definition of rich in America. Someone has decided that a family making over $250K is rich. When I think of rich I think of fancy mansions, exotic cars, lavish clothing, servants, rapper gold teeth (grilles), expensive pets and first class travel. What do you think of as rich? Well I decided to explore this a bit more so we could actually see what this new definition means. Let say up front I think that a family making $250K certainly has a comfortable life and compared to the millions of Americans in poverty they are rich but so are folks making $60K. This debate is about the arbitrary way this definition was set and how unrealistic it is. It is also about defining these folks in a manner that is unfair and ridiculous. Finally

Well the big election is over. I have been sick with the flu so delayed in my comments. Obama will be our President for another four years and the House and Senate are still divided. In short nothing has changed – or has it? Clearly Obama has learned nothing from the election and shows no signs of changing anything. And truthfully why should he? He is a lame duck President and has a specific agenda he wants to accomplish and he will. Nothing anyone did or said in the first term deterred him in anyway so why should he change now? He won by a big margin; the women and Latinos love him and who cares if he drives the economy down. After all the only people bitching in the US are the darn rich Republicans. Has Congress learned anything from the election? I doubt it. The Senate will shoot down everything that comes from the House and the only things they will try to shove through the House will be entitlements and increased taxes on the “rich”. I don’t see any miraculous bipartisani

Well it is the day before the big election and what do we know? We know that the race is too close to call; that each side is claiming victory will be theirs; that both are still campaigning hard; that there is a big push to get folks to vote and that this election means a great deal to the future of America. When I look at the election a few things spring to mind: This election is not just about the President. It is about over 200 House and Senate seats; it is about many referendums in many states and it is about the future of America. It is about failure and how we fix our economy It is about our kids and grandchildren It is about the global economy and how we compete It is about peace and how we keep and encourage it worldwide It is about our morals and families We have seen a partisan divide the likes of which i cant ever remember. We are a polarized nation with a blurred vision and weak morals. We seem lost and our American pride is not what it should be or has been. We