Well, I’ll try to bullet through some of these, just to give a head’s up here and there, but I’d like to start with some positives on Obama.
In his “brave” abortion speech a week or so ago, Obama made the point that the country needs to do a better job encouraging people to adopt. I agree. Adoption is way too cost prohibitive, especially in a major recession. But even in “good” economic times, adoption costs a lot of money (somewhere between 10 -25 thousand dollars … in rare cases even more). There are also other issues with adoption, like a burecratic hesitation to place minority children with white families, but ultimately cost is the issue with many people who look into adoption.
Not that adoption should be easy, but the high cost isn’t necessarily the right limitation or obstacle.
I don’t know that Obama really believes in making adoption more affordable or manageable … call me a skeptic, but I will be pleasantly surprised to see him make constructive changes in this area. But I’m all for it.
Some conservatives made noise about Obama wanting to add more regulations in the investment business. Looking at what he wants to address, I can’t say that I disagree with Obama. There is a real problem with capitalism, in that sometimes people’s risk with capital hurts more than just their own business or lives. More risk garners more profit, so you do see some abuses. So I don’t know that these regulations are so uncalled for, but it will depend on the actual rules, regulations, and implementation, of course.
I’ll also commend Obama on trying to ease the pain of the housing market collapse with some incentives for first time home buyers and those buying foreclosures. The housing market is in a situation where many investors are taking advantage of the situation, as they do, and I agree the better thing in the long run is to encourage more private ownership than more real estate speculation. Of course, the current administration still blames the Bush administration for all of this … and the only blame Bush should really get is that he wasn’t more adamant and forceful in changing the unrealistic banking and housing regulations the Democrats instituted with Bill Clinton.
Even though he tried to close it down, Obama did make a good choice to keep sensitive photos from Gitmo out of the hands of the media, which he got a lot of flak from his own party and the ACLU about. He did listen to military advisers in the field and kept the pics from the public. Some of that was pure political survival … can you imagine releasing those photos and experiencing a major terrorist backlash … it would have damaged Obama’s image as someone needed to move us more toward peace with the international world.
As an aside about the Gitmo situation, Dick Cheney had a speech a week or so about it … did you realize that they used those questionable techniques on only THREE inmates? There are a couple hundred more terrorists that were not treated so harshly. Not that only three justifies any wrongdoing by a longshot, only that with all the coverage, we’ve been led to believe, by implication, that waterboarding and such was a common occurence there.
All this in the midst of Pelosi denying she ever knew they did such things, when she clearly signed off on it before the ACLU and other liberal groups got ahold of the info and became so outraged. She has lied several times about what she knew and when, and the CIA has even transcripts of what she knew when.
The last positive I’ll mention is Obama’s handling of the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has, in effect, done very little and let what has been working continue to work. That has been the best choice, and shows at least a little wisdom.
I know a lot of people were really afraid of what Obama would do in Iraq and stuff when he got in office. I never really had that concern. My concern was more the unnecessary nationalization of industry, the free and unlimited support of killing babies, and the unwise raising of taxes, all of which we are seeing and will continue to see. Obama is listening more to the military commanders than he is the extreme left. As long as he does that, I don’t think we have much to worry about.
To continue on with foreign policy, North Korea is being more aggressive with its nuclear program now that Obama is in office. Again, I thought Obama’s charm, good looks, and transcendent liberal personality was supposed to fix stuff like this, not make it worse. Funny to me that Obama is doing and saying much the same in regards to North Korea as Bush … except without Bush’s “axis of evil” language … and Obama isn’t getting any flak from anyone. Same foreign policy. Different reaction. Interesting.
As most of you know now, the US government will own 60% of GM. The Canadian government will own 12%. That is 72% of a major company owned by the state. Then Obama stressed “the government’s commitment to staying out of the automaker’s business decisions.” Really? Removing the CEO, giving all those ultimatums … that is a different definition of “staying out of the automaker’s business decisions” than mine.
Almost the very next day, the AP reported that Congress is reviewing the closing of dealerships by Chrysler and GM. Chrysler is closing almost 900 dealerships … GM closing 1,100. Gubmint doesn’t like that so many will be out of a job. Again, this is “staying out of the automaker’s business decisions”?
And to top it all off, Obama has made June Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender pride month. You can read the proclamation here. Ah, change you can believe in.
I’ve been thinking more on the nationalized/universal health care issue lately … too much to include here. Probably another post soon.
My only other little rant is on the celebrity status of our president. When does he have time to work? He’s doing a different interview or speech every day. There is more discussion on how Obama throws a perfect spriral than his policies. Classic bait and switch: distract while all this other stuff is going on.
Peace.