Obama's Birth Certificate..Published!

Possibly the biggest political news today has been President Obama finally releasing his actual Birth Certificate (as opposed to the Certificate of Live Birth he has previously showed).

Now I personally was actually holding a bet that Obama would do so before the 2012 Presidential campaign trully started largely because of recent increased interest in the supposed controversy. Now I used the term "supposed" because I never saw this as a real controversy in the first place and I find birthers to be just as worthless in terms of the oxygen they waste as so-called "truthers" who believe the US either knew about or committed the atrocities of September 11th.

But enough about those political bottomfeeders, back to issue at hand.

Not shockingly, Donald Trump has claimed full credit for getting the President to release his actual Birth Certificate and to be fair he does likely get some credit. However I also think that now that this issue is gone Trump's political livelihood will largely cease to exist and now nobody will care much about what he says since nothing he talks about publically will ever get as much attention as the birth certificate issue.

And as you might expect there are those who are saying the President should have done this along time ago and those who said he shouldn't have released it at all since it only feed the birthers instead of starving them. And there is already hints of that since many birthers have already claimed the birth certificate released today is a fake..

Personally I think the President should have just released this back in the 2008 campaign instead of the Certificate of Live Birth he released though as Hawaiian officials have stated over and over that they are legally interchangable. Now whether they are legally interchangable on a nationally level is something strictly up to the State Department who is incharge of such things.

Regardless, I am glad the President finally realised it. I am also willing to personally thank Donald Trump for his statements of support when the birth certificate was released because he could have simply said it was faked and could have rode the issue all the way but instead give the President credit for his actions.

And finally, for your viewing pleasure I give you Barack Hussein Obama Jr's actual Birth Certificate:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf

Survey Says!

Today I have read through a rather interesting survey published by the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research on the political opinions of likely American voters on a wide variety of topics in the news as of late. This includes the likely voters opinions of political groups, politicians, and current legislative proposals (Including Congressman Ryan's budget plan for the next decade). It also includes a Presidential poll including many possible candidates for the 2012 election. I encourage you readers to read through the whole report and make your own conclusions (since no poll is perfect nor trully unbiased). Happy reading!


http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2011/04/paul-ryan-to-seniors-drop-dead/


Scroll to the bottom and click on the Frequency Questionare.

Michele Bachmann...Is a Twit

Those who follow politics and the unfortunate residents of my home state of Iowa know, Michele Bachmann is clearly exploring the option of running for president in 2012. I say my fellow Iowans are unfortunate for two prime reasons..

Firstly, Michele Bachmann was born in Iowa, a fact she has been telling anyone who will listen for the past month or so. This may indeed give her something of an advantage when the Iowa Caucus comes around next year..

Secondly, because Iowa is the first in the nation to hold a vote (though not the first in the nation primary of course) politics are a bit in your face whether you want it or not so president hopefuls are seemingly always here and it annoys a great many Iowans (including myself from time to time even though I am a political wonk). Now for any number of reasons, I will freely admit I strongly dislike Ms. Bachmann both for her political views and her closeness to possibly the most disgraceful and worthless Iowa politician of all time, Steve King (thankfully not my congressman). A recent example of her complete lack of political wit (or any wit at all for that matter) was in a recent event she hosted her in Iowa.

Just yesterday Ms. Bachmann was in Iowa City and giving the usual "Obama is a communist, and the she would never have supported a conflict in Libya, and his Health care plan will kill us all" speech. Towards the end of her speech she uttered something that struck me and shows yet again that from a foreign policy viewpoint she is unequivocally incompetent.. She stated that while former Egyptian President Mubarak "wasn't perfect", he was a good friend to the United States in the region and that the President should have supported him and because Obama didn't Mubarak fell and the country is prime for an Islamist takeover (via POLITICO).

Mubarak "wasn't perfect" could be the understatement of the year. He was a dictator plain and simple. He was never elected by the Egyptian people, under his rule all independent political movements were outlawed, his own people lived in fear of his dreaded Interior ministry and he was rumored to be grooming his own son to take over for him..Sounds a bit more than "wasn't perfect" to me..or any other human being with half a brain. More importantly she claims this absurb belief held by many on the political Right that President Obama has now properly used his power when it comes to such events in the Middle East during his presidency. My question to Ms. Bachmann is quite simple..What should President Obama had done instead? Should he have sent in the Marines and put down the protests ourselves? Now if the US had fully supported Mubarak against the protests and simply called on him to push some reforms (as we are doing with the Bahrain's royal family who are using foreign troops to hold back protests), it is quite possible that Mubarak would still be in power but for how much longer? The fact the protests happened and spread like they did could not have been stopped by anyone, certainly not President Obama. US support would have only delayed the inevitable.

Not to mention most 'experts' on the region generally agree the President handled the situation in Egypt as well as one could hope for considering the circumstances with Mubarak stepping down and a military back provisionally government taking over and with a successful nationwide referendum under this belt that set the stage for parliamentary and presidential elections later this year (though many claim that is too soon).

So either Ms. Bachmann thinks President Obama should have supported a hated dictator against his own people whether that be in the form of public support or more overt actions..Or She is just a massive idiot. Sad thing is, I am not sure which would be worse...Voters beware. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52976.html

Shut Down Seems Imminent..

For those watching the news the last few days will know that the likelihood of a government shutdown, the first in 15 years, is very high. As I type this the budget talks are ongoing but a breakthrough is looking more and more unlikely all the time..So what is the real risk of a government shutdown?

Here is a short and brief list of the major effects of a government shutdown:

1. 
   
   The majority of government workers will be sent home without pay (with many unlikely to receive back-pay when the government re-opens).


2. 
   
   If you have recently filed your federal tax return its possible your tax refund will be delayed in its delivery.


3. 
   
   The nations many National parks and other government run facilities (like the Smithsonian) will also be closed to the public as the employees that work at these places will be sent home.


4. 
   
   If you have recently applied for Social Security, your payments could be delayed, though current recipients will likely still receive payments.


5. 
   
   Finally, the most troubling and angering to me, military personnel will not be paid for the time they serve during the government shutdown regardless as to whether they are here at home or in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So because the nations two political forces, Democrats and Republicans, can't agree on a budget to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year (just 6 months mind you), our fighting men and women will have to go without pay...Do that make any sense to anyone?

And as expected, both the GOP and the Democrats are blaming each other for the seemingly imminent shutdown and there is plenty of blame to do around.

First, the Democrats failed to pay a Federal budget for 2011, instead deciding to leave that fun political chore to the new GOP-controlled House of Representatives (which such bills have to be started).

Secondly, the GOP asked for some $100 billion in cuts which has been referred to by Democrats are unacceptable and would be detrimental to the fragile US economy.

Thirdly, President Obama has been almost completely uninvolved in the whole process other than hosting the budget talks this week and scolding both sides for not getting the budget done.

However yesterday, the President surprised when commentators when you appeared unannounced to the routine White House Press Briefing to discuss the budget talks. Now for the record I think his statements were mostly right on. One point he made that rang very true was that regardless of the blame game we see in Washington D.C. right now, the American people will likely blame both sides for any ill effects of the shutdown so pointing figures is pointless. He also made a good point that the GOP bill passed by the House that would give them a few more weeks for negotiation is no way to run a government and the time for short term solutions is over.

But the President seems to forget his role in this budget crisis. Regardless of whether he wishes to actively participate in the talks or not, his actions (or in this case inaction) will be judged by the American people and for the moment it doesn't look like he will fair well if a shutdown does happen. The President hosting the talks is hardly a real sign of leadership and just looks like a show for the press. The President has just as much to loss from a shutdown as the GOP and he had better figure that our sooner rather than later or he will quickly find himself having to justify his inaction next year and I don't see how he will be able to excuse it away...

Has Obama Flip-Flopped with Libyan "Intervention"?

This question was recently asked by those at the fact-check website Politifact.com and I think their analysis is spot on..Read it and draw your own conclusions! http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/23/barack-obama/barack-obamas-libya-intervention-flip-flop-what-he/