One of the hard parts of traveling is finding the time to write my column. I have to admit, I'm a news junkie, and USA Today and some of the local papers just don't cut it.
I was talking to our Tennessee real-estate broker and asked him where I could find some New York papers, and he just laughed. I wasn't expecting that response, and it made me think twice about relocating to Winchester.
Anyway, this column will touch on a variety of topics. First up, the Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor.
Everyone knows she will be confirmed. The script went exactly as planned. Sonia ran away from the tough questions, was evasive on the others, and the senators strutted and preened for the cameras.
I was looking forward to seeing Al Franken look foolish, and I wasn't disappointed. The failed host of the failed liberal talk station, Air America Radio, had a deep intellectual discussion with the judge about Perry Mason. Way to go, Al. Way to go, Minnesota.
Finally, there was Arlen Specter. What an embarrassment! He stuttered, stammered and was pretty much incoherent during his time of questioning. I'm so glad he finally, officially, switched parties.
The top five oldest senators are Democrats, with the young Arlen No. 5 at 79. Now, the age is OK, but don't these guys have anything else to do besides acting foolishly?
Robert Byrd, the undistinguished senator from West Virginia and past Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops (where do these clowns come up with these titles?) of the KKK, leads everyone in age, 91, and incompetence.
Even scarier is the fact that as president pro tempore of the Senate, he is third in line of presidential succession. That makes an all-star succession lineup of Biden, Pelosi and Byrd, in that order, to replace Obama if anything happens to him.
Anyway, Sonia will be confirmed, and I hope will be less left-of-center than David Souter was. If there is anything positive to result from these proceedings, I guess that's the best I can come up with.
Now, when are the worshipers of Barack "The Pied Piper" Obama going to admit they made a mistake? All I want his followers to do is question his lies, distortions and dangerous policies.
You simply cannot justify his "cap and trade" boondoggle where the increased taxes are going to fall directly on the 95 percent of working families he promised would not see a penny in new taxes under his reign.
In addition to further increasing unemployment and significantly decreasing economic output, he is placing an annual burden of between $700 and $2,200 on these families.
How can you justify the $787 billion stimulus bill that is stimulating nothing but the special interests that supported him? Four hundred billion dollars of the package was classified as pure pork, $200 billion went to special interests, and only 7.7 percent has been expended.
Remember how important it was to rush this bill through Congress? People, the economy will recover from the recession as it has with all previous ones. If anything, the stimulus package is seriously slowing this from happening.
How can you fans justify the socialized health care proposal that is going to further bankrupt the country with its $1.5 trillion cost? He is trying desperately to get this farce through Congress before the 2010 congressional campaigns begin, hoping that people will forget how their representative voted.
Not gonna happen.
And finally, please explain to me your silence relating to Obama's $3.6 trillion fiscal 2010 budget that will result in an unheard-of $1.26 trillion deficit.
You libs and Dems have got to stop following this failure like lemmings following each other off the cliff. You can't act like parrots and keep repeating "it's Bush's fault" over and over again.
Sorry guys, people with common sense don't buy that blather anymore. Just because Barack keeps repeating this mantra doesn't mean you have to behave like zombies and follow along.
I want to thank all those who responded to my column of four weeks ago. It was the most popular column since I began writing. As usual, I got some crazies who responded, but they were by far the minority (121 to 6).
I even had one delusional fellow who simply made up his own facts. His best one was that Barack still had a 70 percent approval rating! I think his research is limited to the White House press releases. All the independent polls have Barack with a 51 percent to 57 percent approval rating, and slipping daily.
Thank heavens for the independent voters. They will (if they haven't already) see the light.
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Tom Sears is a professor of accounting at Hartwick College in Oneonta. He can be reached at SearsT@hartwick.edu. His column appears every other week.
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