RWNJ Conservative Views from Cincinnati

I must say, Bobby Jindal grows on me more and more as time goes on.  For those unfamiliar with Jindal, he is the Governor of Louisiana, the youngest in the US at 36.  He was rumored as a favorite to run with McCain as Vice-President.  He was even re-elected to Congress in 2006 with 88% of the vote.

On CBS’s Face the Nation, Jindal outlined three things he said the GOP must do to get back on track:

“Number one, we have got to stop defending the kind of spending and out-of-control spending that we would never tolerate in the other side. You know, when voters tell us that they trust Democrats more to cut their taxes [and] control spending, that tells you something is wrong with the Republican Party. We’ve got to match our actions with our rhetoric.

“Number two, we’ve got to stop defending the kinds of corruption we would rightfully criticize in the other party. The week before the election, our most senior senator is convicted on federal charges – and that’s only the latest example.

“Number three, we have got to be the party that offers real solutions to the problems that American voters, American families are worried about. We don’t need to abandon our conservative principles; we can’t just be the ‘party of no.’ We need to offer real solutions on making health care more affordable, on the economic challenges facing families, on the international threats.”

I have to say, the man is dead on with this.  McCain lost the election by being a moderate.  He failed to clearly offer alternatives to Obama’s solutions and in doing so allowed this to be a referendum on Bush.  The GOP needs to go back to Conservatism.  Take clear action and speak clearly on policy.  Stand against corruption, and I’m not talking about pulling a Pelosi and just talking loudly about fighting a “culture of corruption” while doing nothing.

Jindal could be the GOP’s Obama.  He is young and very intelligent.  If he plays his cards right, I think he could be a clear front-runner for 2012.

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Posted under Misc

It seems Obama is falling for the same flawed economic logic that fooled FDR back in the 1930’s.  The New York Post is reporting that Obama is wanting to push through a $500 million (4% of US GDP) stimulus package similar to FDR’s “New Deal”.

While investing in infrastructure, replacing bridges, and rebuilding roads is great for the construction industry, it suffers from “lag”.  Often, by the time the investment is felt from an economic standpoint, the economic issues are past.  It is not a quick fix to economic woes, as Roosevelt found out in the 30’s.

Jason Furman, one of Obama’s chief economic advisers, wrote, “In the past, infrastructure projects that were initiated as the economy started to weaken did not involve substantial amounts of spending until after the economy had recovered.”  Alan Blinder, another of Obama’s economic advisers, said that spending money on public works for the purpose of economic recovery was “wasteful”.

So here we are, looking at what essentially is pork (even larger than Ted Stevens’ wildest dreams) and it’s being pandered as an economic recovery package.  I have no problem with backing the repair of our aging and sometimes dangerous infrastructure, but I certainly don’t like the packaging.

One comment, what do you think?

Posted under Economy

Yet another question mark has been raised regarding the monitoring of global temperature.  Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) of NASA announced about a week ago that October was the hottest on record.  Oddly enough, this was the same month that Tibet experienced its worst snowstorm ever, London has its first October snow in 70 years, and large parts of the US have record cold and snowfall (including 115 record cold temperatures and 63 new snowfall records).  The US actually had the 70th warmest October in the past 114 years.

GISS maps showed that a large part of Russia was 10 degrees higher than normal.  This would explain the increase in global temperature except for the fact that the numbers were apparently from September and not October.  GISS quickly revised its figures and claimed to have found an area of the Arctic that was unusually hot (yes, the same Arctic that has recovered from the extreme summer melt so well that it has 31.3% more sea ice than last year and the largest growth ever recorded).

GISS has resorted to some fingerpointing that throws some doubt on the main source of data that Global Warming alarmists such as the IPCC use as their main source of evidence.  Dr. James Hansen has been forced to revise his numbers in the past, including having to admit that the warmest decade in the 20th century was actually the 1930’s and not the 1990’s as he previously claimed.

The carbon credits scheme is sure to be in the works with Obama and the Democrats soon to take control.  Such a ploy for wealth redistribution should be based in fact and not speculation based on invalid statistics.  Errors such as this should raise red flags and cause investigations, not be ignored as seems to happen these days with the whole global warming topic.

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Posted under Climate

Several news outlets are spreading the rumor that Hillary Clinton is in the running to be nominated to Obama’s cabinet as Secretary of State.  Democratic officials are confirming that Clinton is in the running for the job.  Others apparently in the running include Senator John Kerry, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and former Senate Leader Tom Daschle.

Hillary clearly has some contacts she can lean on, especially if you consider Bill’s 8 years as President.  There is no word on if she would want the job or not if she is offered it.  It might help patch some of the rift that has formed between Hillary supporters and Obama supporters if it happened though.

Hopefully the sniper fire will stay at a minimum if she does get and take the post!  (Sorry, couldn’t resist)

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Posted under Foreign Affairs

I might be a bit slower with my postings for a while.  Found out today that I am laid off (sorry to disappoint all my left-leaning readers that thought I was a greedy and filthy rich…  I’m middle class, even well under Obama’s strictest standards, but still dislike wealth redistribution).  I’ll still try to post daily or more, but if I miss from time to time you’ll know why.

Wish me luck on the job search, Ohio isn’t the bastion of job availability and the incoming President’s plans are going to make it even worse.

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Posted under Economy