Palm Beach County Straw Poll Was Never In Doubt

The winner of the Palm Beach County REC straw poll was never in doubt. The vote took place on Wed. Oct. 14 but you could see what the results were going to be 2 months ago.

The results: Marco Rubio 90, Crist 17, Bob Smith 11, Marion Thorpe 4.

At the August meeting of the PBC REC Crist narrowly avoided censure, by just one vote. Even those that argued against censure were not fans of Governor Crist. I myself argued that while I was unhappy with Crist's performance as Florida's Governor and as the "leader" of the State Party, censure was an inappropriate solution to a political disagreement. I thought that the straw poll was the place to express my displeasure with our small "r" republican governor. RPOF Chairman Greer and Crist are seeing the one-sided results of the 9 straw polls that have now been held. But for some reason, like many establishment politicians, they aren't getting the message that the base of the Party is sending. Maybe when Charlie loses straw polls in Broward and Pinellas he'll see the light. What he ought to do is withdraw from the Senate race and go back to finishing his term as governor and then run for reelection. He needs to support actively and wholeheartedly our congressional nominees in all districts. He also needs to back the Party's nominee for US Senate. As the man whose face graces the RPOF membership card, I'd say Governor Crist sees himself as the leader of the State GOP. If that's the case, he needs to act the part. Only then can Crist run for higher office with grassroots support.

This could be a rare case of a situation where the person running for higher office will be dependent on the results of local races for their future success. The Governor could find that his fortunes could hinge on the success or failure of a handful of Florida's US House candidates. People like Robert Lowry, Allen West and Edward Lynch may hold Charlie Crist's political fate in their hands.

Wexler to Resign.

Congressman Robert Wexler (D) FL-19 will hold a news conference tomorrow to announce he is stepping down from the House seat he's held for 17 years. His top opponent, Republican candidate Edward Lynch will hold a news conference immediately after Wexler's. Wexler is expect to say he's resigning to take a job with the United States Agency for International Development. It's more likely that he's resigning due to a federal investigation into his campaign finances and questions regarding Wexler's residency, or lack thereof, in Florida. Governor Charlie Crist will have to call for a special election to fill the seat here in Palm Beach County.

Stay tuned for more as it develops!

If Obama Was Noble He'd Have Declined The Nobel.

Yesterday much of the world was shocked and astounded when the Nobel Foundation awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the sitting President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. The Foundation gave the award to Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples". It should be noted that President Obama was nominated for this award only 12 days after he took office in January of this year. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that people on both sides of the political spectrum were shocked that he had won. Even liberals had to admit that Obama had won the award for not being George W. Bush. As author and columnist S.E. Cupp Tweeted yesterday, “I've literally done JUST as much for world peace as Barack Obama. Which is nothing. But I ain't got no stinking Nobel Peace Prize.” Just what exactly had President Obama done 12 days into his presidency to deserve this nomination? For that matter, what has he done to date to deserve it?

To be sure our president has given many speeches talking about peace. For instance, he’s talked about peace between Israel and the Palestinians, which apparently will be achieved by the Israelis surrendering land to the Palestinians that would literally cut their nation in half to give the Palestinians a contiguous state and by the Israelis ceasing the building of settlements, all while they continue to absorb rocket attacks from land in Gaza that they already surrendered in the name of peace. President Obama also gave a long and apologetic speech in Cairo where he equated the plight of the Palestinians that have been displaced to the Holocaust of 6 million Jews during WWII and attempted to rewrite world history. He apologized for every wrong the United States has committed, real or imagined, for the last 60 years. He then proceeded to absolve Arabs and Muslims of any wrong doing, even against their own people, especially against women and Christians. The president most recently spoke at the United Nations, both at the General Assembly and the Security Council, where in the most pompous and naïve terms, he expounded on world peace, nuclear disarmament, adherence to International Law and how his election as President of the United States was somehow supposed to bring all this about.

Meanwhile, North Korea continues to test short and medium range ballistic missiles, ignoring international law and sanctions. Iran continues to test it’s ballistic missiles and build it’s nuclear program as well, even getting caught with a second covert nuclear facility. The Taliban is resurgent and Obama waffles on just what his strategy and tactics will be in Afghanistan. His handpicked general, General Stanley McChrystal had to mention on 60 Minutes that he’d only spoken to the Commander-in-Chief once in the past 70 days and leak his assessment and request for 40,000 additional troops in order to get 25 whole minutes of face time with Obama. This only occurred because the president was on route to Copenhagen to shill for the 2016 Olympics to be in Chicago, an effort that was a failure and diminished the office of the President of the United States. This 25-minute meeting, by most accounts, wasn’t even a discussion of General McChrystal’s assessment and troop request. Instead, it was Obama dressing down his field commander for embarrassing him the media. It wasn’t until Obama returned from his Olympic defeat that he finally began to address the Afghan situation. And what came out of a week of discussions with his War Council that included VP Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, Defense Secretary Gates, National Security Advisor Jones, CIA Chief Panetta, General Petreaus and General McChrystal? No decision on troops, tactics or strategy, but we did get a statement that the President was willing to accept limited Taliban participation in the Afghan Government. So I guess the women of Afghanistan won’t be expecting much peace. If the Taliban is allowed to run portions of Afghanistan and reinstate Sharia Law, women will be banned from going to school and will be subjected to stoning for myriad offenses. Doesn’t that seem like an award winning policy to you?

In doing some research into the past winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, I came to the conclusion that it is often times an award given for good intentions, or to make political statements. To be sure there have been extremely worthy recipients. Most notably: President Theodore Roosevelt for negotiating the Russo-Japanese Peace Treaty, the Committee of the International Red Cross, Albert Schweitzer, George Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., Elie Weisel, Mother Teresa, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin.

But the award has also been bestowed on such dubious winners as: Woodrow Wilson who created the worthless League of Nations and helped negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. The League failed to prevent Japanese Expansion or atrocities in China and the Treaty of Versailles with it’s punitive penalties against Germany is widely credited with helping to facilitate the rise of Adolf Hitler to power. In more recent years, the award was given to such people as Yassar Arafat, who was a terrorist responsible for the murders of untold numbers of Israelis and Americans and was likely responsible for the assassination of Anwar Saddat. It was also awarded to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who presided during the Oil for Food scandal and the continuing genocide in Darfur. It was also awarded to former-President Jimmy Carter, one of our worst presidents and an anti-Semite and of course to former-Vice President Al Gore for making a propaganda film about man-made Global Warming that was so fraught with inaccuracies and factual omissions that a British court ruled it couldn’t be shown to school children without factual corrections and counter arguments being included.

President Obama said he was surprised and deeply humbled by the award. But apparently he believes he should accept the award, as he will be making yet another international trip at taxpayer expense, to Olso on December 10^th to accept the Prize and the $1.4 million dollars, which he says will be donated to charity. I guess the best we can hope for is that he doesn’t donate it to ACORN.

"O" Can Blame it on Rio.

On Thursday the triple O’threat of Oprah, Michelle Obama and the “One” Barack Obama jetted to Copenhagen, Denmark to try to charm the International Olympic Committee into giving the 2016 Games to the O’Trio’s home town of Chicago, Illinois. Oprah and Michelle wined and dined the committee members and later the President arrived to make his pitch. Michelle made a heartfelt speech in which she said, "Some of my best memories are sitting on my dad's lap, cheering on Olga and Nadia, Carl Lewis and others for their brilliance and perfection…” Of course when Carl Lewis participated in the Olympics the First Lady was in her 20’s, but we’ll let that pass. Maybe her dad's lap was bigger than we think. But most of her speech, like that of her husband’s, which followed hers, was about her. She said “I” this, "me" that and “my” that over and over, making the proposed Chicago Olympics not about the City of Chicago, or it’s people, but about the Obamas. Whether this obsessive self-centered diatribe was intentional or just a natural inclination of the Obamas I can’t say for certain, but it was ironically correct. Had the Windy City received the nod from the IOC it wouldn’t have been the taxpayers of Chicago that would have profited. No, from the beginning, the winners of Chicago 2016 would have been the Obamas and their cronies. The Obamas would have had a moral and political victory while Mayor Daley, Valerie Jarrett, their real estate developer friends and scores of others in the Chicago Democrat machine would have been the ones to make big money, while the taxpayers of Chicago got soaked for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Historically, most cities that host the Olympic games lose money. Sydney, Australia and Atlanta, Georgia are just two recent cities that lost millions all for the “prestige” of hosting the vaunted international competitions. Calgary, Canada where the 2010 Winter Games are to be held, is already deep in the financial hole and has used up 98% of it’s reserve fund with months yet to go before the games begin.

Chicago’s Mayor Richard M. Daley originally said that taxpayers wouldn’t have to foot the bill for the Games. Then he amended that a bit and said that Chicago’s taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay for them. That was an interesting change in phrasing since, according to reporting by Michelle Malkin, Valerie Jarrett (also known as Obama’s other brain) who was the unofficial White House Olympic Czar, had already arranged a meeting for herself and Chicago 2016 committee member Lori Healey with the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development to arrange HUD loans for the construction of the Olympic Village. So it seems that, in fact, the American Taxpayers (including those in Chicago) would have been stuck paying for at least a portion of the Chicago Olympics, had they come to pass. Also of note is that Valerie Jarrett may not have completely divested herself of her shares in Habitat Company, a development company that was bidding to build the Olympic Village.

In the end, the International Olympic Committee dropped Chicago in the first round of the final four, much to the shock and dismay of the O’Trio and their followers. In the aftermath of the defeat President Obama, his ego bruised, congratulated the winning city of Rio DeJaneiro and tried to get back to pushing his healthcare agenda on the nation. He and his fringe media allies, completely ignored the fact that he had spent millions of US Taxpayer dollars to fly to Copenhagen to lobby the IOC, something no American President had done before. He and they dismissed the fact that at a time when we’re fighting two wars, unemployment is nearing 10% nationally, the economy is in trouble and his healthcare plan is on life support, he dropped everything to shill for his adopted hometown and his political cronies. But others like US Senator Rowland Burris (D) IL, appointed by disgraced ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich to fill Obama’s vacated seat, rather than criticize Obama for wasting time and diminishing the prestige of the presidency, blamed former President George W. Bush for Chicago’s defeat. He indicated that Bush had hurt the image of the United States in the international community and that that ultimately was what caused the IOC to vote against Chicago.

I look at it a bit differently. I tend to agree with Rush Limbaugh, who remarked that perhaps it was President Obama’s “apology tour” that hurt Chicago’s chances. After all, Obama spent the past 9 months telling the world what a terrible and arrogant nation we are. Why would the IOC want to grant what they consider to be an honor on such an "unworthy" country? They probably decided that if they were going to let a city that's riddled with crime and corruption host the Games, they might as well give to Rio DeJaneiro, a city in South America where the Olympics have never been held. To quote the title of a mediocre Michael Caine movie, “Blame it on Rio”.

Who Believes in the Obama?

Who still believes in Barack Obama as a leader? That's really the key question 10 months into the presidency of this community organizer, who's never held a real job or run a business. From what I can tell those that still believe in Obama are the elite media, Democrats (those that hate G.W. Bush and those that are so far left they think Hugo Chavez is a moderate) and the Kool-Aid drinkers that just don't know any better.

With his healthcare "reform" on life support and his "cap and tax" bill on the back burner, the president turned his attention to an elite media blitz. He spent Sunday Morning doing interviews with ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and UniVision. The interviews were mostly unremarkable, in that the hosts (I dare not call them journalists, lest I insult true journalists) asked the Community Organizer-in-Chief softball questions. Even when George Stephanopoulos did ask Obama about the ACORN scandal, he let the president off the hook after Obama claimed not to know about all the money ACORN was receiving from the American Taxpayers. This Sunday Morning liberal lovefest was followed on Monday by an appearance on 'Late Night with David Letterman'. Once again Obama yucked it up, playing the rockstar and abandoning all semblance of being presidential. All of this face time was intended to convince the American people of how wrong we are about Obama's healthcare agenda and the rest of his misguided ideas and how wonderful he's supposed to be. The polls would indicate that he failed miserably on both counts, again. The elite media may believe in Obama, but rather than helping him change our minds about the Prez, they've only reduced their own relevance.

The Democrats, and I should specify that I mean Democrat politicians, still believe in Obama either because they share his left-wing agenda or because they have little choice. Their political futures are irrevocably tied to his now and his to theirs. Except for the rare animal known as "Blue Dog" Democrats, the Dems in Congress are hell bent on achieving their agenda while they still control both the Senate and House of Representatives. They know that the majority of the voters don't want what they're peddling, but they intend to force it through, even if it means they lose effective control in the 2010 mid-term elections. They've abandoned the moderates in their party who spent August having HR 3200 quoted to them by angry voters that have made it clear that any member of Congress foolish enough to vote with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be unseated next year. Already Harry Reid and Chris Dodd are down in the polls and many expect them to lose their senate seats. Other true believers like Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank are in safe districts and feel invincible. They don't care that independents, moderate Democrats, conservatives and Republicans, even those that are their constituents, consider them out of the mainstream. They're going to take advantage of having a naive, young president that shares their liberal agenda. This is the opportunity that they've been waiting for, and they're not going to let it pass.

The Kool-Aid drinkers fall into two categories, those that drink it by choice and those that don't even know they're drinking it. The first, are the Bush haters, the America haters and the self-hating liberals that are guilty that they're successful, while others are not. These people are beyond reason and won't realize that Obama isn't the "One" until the nation collapses into bankruptcy or is attacked 9/11 style, and probably not even then.

Those that don't even know they're drinking the Kool-Aid are the people that watch the aforementioned elite media and believe what they're told to believe. They're told the economy is improving, so they believe it. They're told that Obama's "stimulus" improved the economy, so they believe it. They won't believe that Obama is a failed president until the elite media tell them he has.

So who believes in Obama's leadership 10 months into a presidency marked by failure and denial? The lying enablers in the elite media, the lying enablers in the Congress and the guilty and oblivious in the general public. All of them, for one reason or another, need to believe in him. To stop believing in Obama would somehow mean admitting that everything they believe in is wrong. Of course, that isn't true. Obama is after all, just a community organizer, an average politician and an average orator. It's not Obama they believe in, it's the idea of Obama they believe in. He is a creation of people like David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama. He's been packaged and marketed, like any product that people buy. The trick is to convince them to stop buying.

September 11th, 2001: Eight Years Later, What Have We Learned?

The morning of September 11th, 2001 was a bright, sunny, crystal clear one. I was living in Fresh Meadows, NY about 17 miles from the World Trade Center in the Borough of Queens. I was working from home at the time, I got up and went to my desk, turned on the TV to Fox News with the sound off as I usually did and started to check my email. Not long after I sat down, I noticed that on the television was the World Trade Center with smoke billowing from the North Tower. The caption said something to the affect of “small plane hits WTC”. I turned the sound up and the anchor repeated that early reports were that a small plane had struck the tower. My initial reaction was that the damage to the building was too severe, and the amount of smoke and fire too great, for it to be just a Cessna or other small plane. At the same time, I wondered how any plane could have accidentally hit the WTC on such a clear day. Soon the news indicated that a commercial jet had struck the tower. This only made me wonder more how this could have occurred. After all, a commercial plane has two pilots and collision avoidance systems. As I and the TV anchor were pondering the same question, our answer came in the form of a silver jetliner which appeared from the right of the screen, disappeared behind the towers, then reappeared to the left, turning and crashing headlong into the South Tower bursting into a fireball, leaving the building scarred and burning. At that moment it became apparent that this was a terrorist attack.

Part of me was waiting for the anchor to say that what were watching wasn’t real, that it was part of some simulation or a scene out of some apocalyptic Hollywood movie. Even sitting there watching it unfold it was difficult for me to wrap my head around the idea that someone would use commercial planes, loaded with passengers, as guided missiles and crash them into buildings filled with even more innocent people.

Soon my thoughts turned to my brother-in-law, Eric, who worked at the World Trade Center. I knew he worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, but I wasn’t sure which tower or what floor. I called my sister to see if she was watching and if she’d heard from Eric. She told me she was watching but hadn’t heard from him and that she wanted to leave the line clear, in case he called. I told her I loved her and hung up, hoping she’d soon be calling to tell me that Eric was okay. Unfortunately, that was a call that never came.

As I turned my attention back to the news the next thought that occurred to me was, were there more planes? I didn’t have to wait long for my answer. Soon I was learning of the attack on the Pentagon and of a plane going down in a little town called Schnecksville, PA. Only later did we all learn of the heroics of the passengers of United Flight 93 and how they’d stormed the cockpit, forcing the plane down in an empty field, rather than allow it to be used as a weapon.

I continued to watch the unbelievable and horrific sights unfold before my eyes. People jumping from the towers, making the decision that it was better to make a leap of faith than to burn or suffocate in the heat and choking smoke of the uncontrolled fires that burned in both the North and South Towers. Those are images that will be with me always. As will the first of two sounds I’ll never forget. One intrepid cameraman had made his way to the courtyard between the two towers. As he moved along, I could periodically hear what could only be described as sickening thuds. These were the sounds of the people that had jumped impacting the ground at terminal velocity.

I began to wonder as I looked at the fire and the physical damage to the buildings, how long could the damaged areas of the towers support the weight of the floors above them? Again my unspoken question was answered with the unimaginable. The South Tower, which had been struck second, collapsed in a shower of steel and concrete, creating a cloud of dust and debris that seemed to chase the people in the streets forever. When the dust finally cleared and some of the reporters nearest the scene came back on the air with pictures of crushed vehicles and people covered in grey dust, looking like stunned zombies, the second sound I’ll never forget could be heard. It was a chorus of electronic chirping sounds. The sounds of hundreds of FDNY distress beacons chirping in unison. After that, it seemed inevitable that the North Tower would soon collapse too. And yet, when it did, I was still taken by surprise. Once again the same scene that had played out with the previous tower did so again, there was a loud rumble, a shower of debris, a dust cloud, then the silence and the chirping.

I can remember all these things vividly even today 8 years later. I can remember the anguish, the numbness, the helplessness, the anger and the disbelief. All these feelings stayed with all of us for the days and weeks that followed. Even as we held a memorial service for my brother-in-law, whose body was recovered only a few days later, all these feelings, especially the anguish, numbness and anger seemed to be all I could feel. There was no humor, no laughter, it seemed that we would never smile or laugh again. It wasn’t just the loss of Eric and the nearly 3,000 others; it was the pain for my sister, who had lost her husband and my nephew, who wasn’t even 2 years old yet, who had lost a father he’d never know. It was for all the families whose fathers; mothers, sisters and brothers would never be coming home.

It’s been eight short years since that day that changed everything. My sister and nephew moved to Florida shortly after to be close to my parents. My wife and I followed a year later and we’ve all done our best to move on with our lives. But the truth is, 9/11 is with my family and me everyday. We don’t dwell on it or weep everyday. We don’t watch the towers fall on video endlessly. But there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t remember it. My sister and my nephew live with the consequences of it everyday. My politics and attitudes about many things have been shaped by the events of 9/11. I find that I’m much more patriotic and more politically active than I was before we were attacked. I’ve found a new respect for firefighters, police officers, our military and the members of our intelligence community. All these people put their lives on the line everyday to try to ensure our safety. They run towards danger when ordinary citizens are running away.
The thing that angers me now isn’t that we haven’t captured or killed Osama Bin Laden, though I wish we had. No, what gets me angry nowadays is the fact that so many in the public and the government have become apathetic again so soon. Many that didn’t lose someone on 9/11 seem to think the War on Terrorism isn’t that important and worry more about Enhanced Interrogation Techniques causing Kalid Sheikh Mohammed some discomfort, than the safety of the CIA agents that used those techniques to prevent another terrorist attack on our nation. Many in the government seem more interested in prosecuting our soldiers and intelligence officers than in keeping the American People safe. There is this notion that we need to use gentler methods, so that our enemies won’t hate us, or so that our soldiers will be treated properly if they’re captured, as though Al-Qaeda won’t behead an American soldier if we follow the Army Field Manual. I don’t understand that mentality. It seems to defy logic. In just the last few days a picture of a very healthy looking Kalid Sheikh Mohammed, taken by the Red Cross, has found it’s way onto Al-Qaeda websites, where it’s being used for recruitment purposes. He doesn’t look like he’s been tortured or mistreated. He looks ready to kill again. At the same time a group calling itself the John Adams Project has been taking pictures of CIA agents and showing them to terrorist detainees, endangering the lives of the agents that are trying to protect us. I keep waiting for our president to denounce these actions, but he remains silent. I’m afraid that our leaders haven’t learned a thing and I’m afraid we’re doomed to be taught the lesson of September 11th, 2001 all over again.