Yesterday I commented on the obvious corruption of ACORN, in light of the videos released which show ACORN staff advising undercover investigators on how to set up a brothel. I had thought that this so plainly demonstrated the nature of ACORN that anyone could see it, but I was wrong.

First, as reported by biggovernment.com, Charlie Gibson said, in response to being interviewed about it, “I don’t even know about it.” See the full story here: http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/15/charlie-gibson-on-acorn-scandal-i-dont-even-know-about-it/

Charlie, is ABC news asleep on this? How could any national journalist not have heard about it? The only answer I can think of is that they don’t want to know about it.

The second story comes to us from Reuters. Read the story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN1422457320090914

You can tell how Reuters stands on ACORN just by the title of the article: “U.S. Senate denies funds for poverty group”. Oh, is that what happened? Looking at the title, you wouldn’t think that there was any scandal, and you’d have to read towards the end of the article to even get a hint of the story:

“ACORN more recently has been embarrassed by conservative activists who secretly taped employees in several cities giving tax advice to a couple posing as a p(imp) and prostitute.” Well, I’d hope they’d be embarrassed. Also, what difference does it make if they were “conservative activists”? Clearly the author of the article is trying to impugn the motives of those who have exposed the corruption.

Then the article closes with this observation:

“The group has fired several of those taped while denouncing the actions as a smear campaign.” A smear campaign? That has to be the most outrageous thing I’ve read about this. Are those who run ACORN clueless? Those employees gave the advice on how to set up an illegal enterprise and hide it from the law. If there was any smearing involved, they smeared themselves. Back to my example involving H&R Block, does anyone out there think the same investigators would have been able to get an accountant from there on tape giving similar advice.

In watching the O’Reilly Factor tonight, he showed a clip from MSNBC where someone was saying that the employees were entrapped. Are you kidding me? How could they have been entrapped? They freely talked to the undercover investigators, and anyone can tell from the videos that they took the questions they were receiving seriously.

The corruption of ACORN is obvious. It’s on tape. The fact that some choose not to see it, like Reuters and MSNBC, speaks volumes about their character, or lack thereof.

In Thomas Sowell’s column of November 5 - http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/11/05/affirmative_action_and_gay_marriage - Dr. Sowell mentions the length of time that marriage has existed for a long time, and that the rules and laws have evolved over that time based on that union being between one man and one woman:

“Marriage has existed for centuries and, until recent times, it has always meant a union between a man and a woman. Over those centuries, a vast array of laws has grown up, all based on circumstances that arise in unions between a man and a woman. Marriage has existed for centuries and, until recent times, it has always meant a union between a man and a woman. Over those centuries, a vast array of laws has grown up, all based on circumstances that arise in unions between a man and a woman.”

One of the circumstances is the potential to produce children. In my previous post, Ken The Playful Walrus made a comment, and posted a link to one of his blog entries: http://walrus.blogtownhall.com/2008/07/23/neutering_marriage_devalues_and_discourages_marriage.thtml.  Ken discusses here the connection of marriage to children, and I agree that the connection is strong, and I also agree that this connection has the potential to be undone by allowing same sex marriage. In addition to the points Ken makes, there is one other point that I haven’t heard or read mentioned, but it’s a point that has to be considered.

In many cases, there are prohibitions on who can marry. A brother cannot marry his sister, for example. A reason for this is the concern about recessive genetic disorders being passed to children and becoming active. If a brother and sister were to marry and produce children, there is the increased risk of genetic disorders being passed to the children.

For same sex couples, this is not a concern, because offspring cannot be produced. So this raises the question of, if same sex marriages are made legal, will a brother be allowed to marry his brother? If not, what will be cited as the rationale? If they will be allowed to marry, then will the prohibition on brother and sister marrying each other be allowed to stand? After all, if two brothers can marry each other, I can see the argument being made that a brother and sister should also be allowed to marry.

Admittedly this probably isn’t a huge concern, because I think the taboo on incest is so ingrained in American society that I can’t imagine siblings, whether same or opposite sex will ever want to marry in large numbers.

In my next entry, I’ll discuss the potential ramifications on the freedom of religion aspect.

 

Tonight I was watching “Hannity & Colmes” on Fox News, and, during a panel which included Juan Williams, the comment was made that the economic crisis was caused by a “lack of regulation” that took place under the Bush administration. Juan Williams said this just as they were going to commercial. When I heard this, I wondered what, if any, regulations were taken off the books or ignored by the Bush administration.

Try as I might, I’m having a real hard time thinking of one example of a regulation that was taken off the books under the Bush presidency. I also can think of no regulatory body that was shut down under President Bush. In fact, I can think of one big example where regulations were increased.

The quintessential example of increased regulation under the Bush administration is Sarbanes/Oxley, referred to, somewhat derisively, as SOX, for those who have worked for any publicly traded company since its passage. Also, anyone who has worked for a publicly traded company, as I have, during this time can attest to the fact that it is quite intrusive.  That’s not deregulation, that’s increased regulation.

Again, I can’t think of any example of lack of regulations, or deregulation under President Bush. In fact, the Bush administration pushed for increased oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but he was rebuffed. If anyone can site a specific example of deregulation under this administration, please do so.

 

In the aftermath of the 2008 elections, specifically with the passage of amendments defining marriage as one man and one woman in California, Arizona, and Florida, there have been a number of columns written on this issue.  I have some observations on the issue of gay marriage, and I plan to have at least two parts to my comments.  If I get too windy, I reserve the right to go to three or more parts.

First, I want to look at the politics of gay marriage.  In his column of November 10, Rod Dreher says here http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1108/dreher.php3:  “Similarly, though it's tough for social conservatives like me to admit it, we've lost the gay marriage battle, especially among the young.”  When I first read this, two thoughts came to mind.  How can anyone say that the gay marriage battle is lost, when every time, in every state, when amendments have been on the ballot defining marriage as one man and one woman, they have passed?  If citizens are voting this way, it looks to me that this is a battle that is anything but lost.

My other thought concerns the politics of this issue.  This issue is looked at as a conservative issue and a Republican issue.  However, looking specifically at California, that state went for Obama by a healthy margin, 61% to 37%.  California proposition 8 passed roughly 52.2% to 47.8%.  Just looking at the mathematics of those numbers, clearly many voters who voted for Obama had to have voted for proposition 8.  So considering the numbers, how is this issue solely a conservative/Republican issue?

Four years ago, here in Ohio, we had a similar amendment on the ballot, one that defined marriage as between one man and one woman.  It passed by a larger margin than Bush carried Ohio, so obviously the amendment had the support of some Kerry voters.  I personally know some Bush voters who voted against the amendment.  One friend put it like this:  “Let them (gays) suffer the same misery and torment I did in my two marriages”.

Considering this, why does the gay marriage issue get defined as a conservative vs. liberal issue, or a Republican vs. Democrat issue?  Clearly, defining marriage as one man and one woman enjoys bipartisan support, and also bipartisan opposition.

In my next part, I’ll dig into the issue more, specifically looking at Thomas Sowell’s column from November 5.

 My reason for asking this is because of an email I received. In it was an exchange between an Obama supporter and a McCain supporter. The Obama supporter made the point that Obama will govern from the center because he will learn from the mistakes made by Bush. When I read that, my initial (sarcastic) response was “So you are saying Bush governed from the hard left and Obama won’t do that?” No, the Obama supporter was making the assertion that Bush pandered to the extreme right of the party too much during his presidency, and that Obama will learn that he can’t pander to the extreme right of his party.

But did President Bush really govern from the hard right. Let’s look at some domestic policies:

1)      Medicare prescription drug program. Sure, obviously a right-wing position, increased spending on Medicare. Does that mean cutting Medicare is governing from the center?

2)      Guest worker program for immigrants. Yeah, the extreme, far right-wing always supports that.

3)      Amnesty for illegals. I never realized the hard right supported this, too. I supposed “throw them all out” would be governing from the center.

4)      No child left behind. This gave us increased federal intervention in grade school education. This put him in opposition to Republicans who wanted to abolish the Department of Education. Which one is the far right-wing position?

The fact of the matter is that President Bush governed from the center for most of his domestic agenda, yet so many on the left think of him as the next Hitler.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? Perhaps the best one is that once you let your opponent define who you are, and don’t respond to it, you run the risk of having that definition of you stick. President Bush wasn’t one to be a poll watcher, and many times did what he thought was right regardless of what people thought of him. That is to be admired, but some attention needed to be paid to his image, because his enemies were left to define who he was, without refutation.

 

I’m curious as to how long everyone had to wait in line to vote this morning. I arrived at my polling place around 7:15 this morning, and waited until almost 8:45 to get my ballot. At my particular place, there were 4 precincts. There were no lines at the other 3, so I think this is more the result of the precinct lines being drawn prior to a couple huge subdivisions being built up over the previous 5 years or so.

Does anyone else have any similar story about their wait to vote?