J's Cafe Nette

Archive for January 9th, 2008

A while back I had read that the United States Supreme Court was going to take up the matter of Voter Identification. Mind you, I think this is a no brainer.

There are few things one can do in life without some form of ID so I have never understood (not logically) the arguments against doing so when casting a vote in any election.

I did not realize, however, that the case was being heard today.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case that raises the question of whether requiring a voter to have a government-issued photo ID unfairly impacts poor and minority voters.

Many question whether the case, which will be decided before the end of the Court’s term in June, will have an impact on the turnout of those voters for the 2008 presidential election.

The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a 2005 Indiana law that would require all voters to show ID before being able to vote. Judge Richard Posner, a prominent judge who sits on the bench in the Seventh Circuit, said it would be impossible for a person to exist in society today without an ID, saying, “Try flying or entering a tall building.”

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While Rudy Giuliani is not an acceptable candidate to many on the Right due to his social views, this recent video deals with an issue I feel is vitally important.

Without strong National Security in a volitile world, the rest is moot.

HT:AJ Strata

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We’ve had two caucuses for the Republicans and one primary for both parties, with at least one caucus for the Democrats.

We still are looking through muddy water to try to figure out what it is the voters of this country want for the “change” they seem eager to get.

Change is going to happen at noon on January 20, 2009, simply because we will then have a new president and a new administration.

What change we get is the question. I haven’t heard anyone spell out what sort of change they will bring, but it seems to be the popular catch-phrase.

Hillary and Barack will live to fight another day and it may be such a boost to Clinton with her win in New Hampshire that she will eventually win the presidential nomination.

Barack, on the other hand, has about as much money as Clinton and seems to be able to fight to the end for the nomination.

The change Clinton intends to try to implement is universal health insurance that will cause those not participating to pay a fine. Otherwise, it’s going to be the same people in her administration if she wins as it was in her husband’s.

Do we really want another four or eight years of Clintonism? Are we becoming a nation that wants political dynasties that might as well be kings and queens of the type we see in Europe?

She hasn’t campaigned on any new ideas and isn’t really telling us what changes she will bring but is using the catch phrase.

Her experience as first lady does not make her any more qualified to be president as my experience of being married to a man who worked in a nuclear power plant gives me the expertise to run a nuclear power plant.

Obama has literally come from nowhere to a real possibility of getting the nomination of his party for president. What change is he offering us?

Is he offering to get the two sides of the aisles in Congress to get along and make nice with him so he can implement whatever his changes are? If so, he’s making the same mistake President Bush made when he said he was a uniter and not a divider.

President Bush actually tried to work with the Democrats when he first got to Washington–even getting Ted Kennedy to write the No Child Left Behind Act, which everyone hates now and is blaming Bush for it.

He found out quickly that he could not charm his way with Congress the way he could with the Texas legislature.

Our party suffered a big defeat in 2006 because our Congress, led by Republicans, forgot what Republicans stand for: smaller government, less taxes and a free market. The president just compounded the problem by signing off on all the big spending bills.

We had gay representatives who were pretending to be straight and attempting to write legislation that was against the gay agenda and when they got caught it showed the hypocrisy of it all.

We paid a price, and we deserved to. Now President Bush is vetoing bills he should have been vetoing when the Republicans were passing all the pork barrel spending.

The current Congress has accomplished almost nothing and that’s good. Given a Democratic president they would have passed some very bad legislation and there wouldn’t have been anything we could have done about it.

On the Republican side we have the surprise first place showing by Mike Huckabee in Iowa, the Wyoming caucus win for Romney and the New Hampshire win for McCain.

So who has the momentum and what do they bring to the table?

Huckabee is not a conservative no matter how much he tries to convince us he is. He is for tax increases, doesn’t know his geography and has absolutely no experience that would show he knows how to run a successful administration.

He’s using his religion to get nominated because he believes the evangelicals will all flock to him regardless of his stands on issues that they disagree with such as higher taxes. This makes me angry and I’m part of the evangelical movement, but I do see through him.

He talks like a preacher giving a sermon with his “Oh, shucks” mannerisms. I would have loved to have heard him preach, but we are not electing a preacher in chief.

McCain is 71 years old. He has served his country honorably for most of his life. He hates pork barrel spending and supports the surge in Iraq.

If he wins the nomination and got a like-minded running mate who is younger I could see myself voting for him if that’s our choice.

Giuliani is dropping like a rock and I don’t know if he is viable anymore. He’s also not a conservative and the “base” won’t vote for him for that reason.

Thompson is in my state ready to take a bus tour. I need to check his schedule to see if he’ll be in my community since we are so close to North Carolina and he would have publicity from the radio, newspaper and television outlets there.

I’d like to go see him and hear what he has to say, but I’m almost afraid he waited too long to get his campaign in gear and is also a lost cause.

This leaves us with Romney, who hasn’t performed as expected even with all the money he has poured into his campaign.

If, as they say, the economy is headed for recession the Fed should take care of that but it would need a boost from a pro-free market administration. Less regulation rather than more.

In a situation like that it would seem the ideal candidate would be Romney since he has business experience, but his flip flops on almost every issue and the fact he seems to be so slick make it distateful for me to vote for him.

So, what do these primaries mean? They mean three states with 3 or 4 electoral votes have pushed certain people to the front and forced the majority of the country to consider these people to be front-runners even when their vote totals are less than 120,000 or so. In other words, they don’t mean a thing. Not to me anyway.

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You have to hand it to the Clinton’s.

When all the pollsters, pundits and many blogs had written the Senator off, they once again defy all.

While I am no fan of the former First Lady, I must give credit where credit is due. Obviously, they (or she) depending on how you view this win, have not lost their “magic” when it comes to wowing the electorate.

On the Republican side, I suppose I will continue to wait and see exactly what direction the primary voters choose to take the party.

I am so underwhelmed at the moment with the prospects as they are at this juncture, it will take a real turn around for me to be “excited” by the GOP candidate.

Politics are amazingly unpredictable but one thing remains certain, polls have proven themselves as useless as I have always believed.

But no matter. As interesting and challenging as the politics in this country are, tomorrow we will all, God willing, wake up and have the things which mean the most to each of us in our lives.

*For those who may not have followed the results of the NH Race closely and would like a look at the county by county vote for both parties, this is an excellent website.

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