The Patriot Act should be repealed
I strongly dislike the Patriot Act. It was pushed through Congress after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Members of both parties blindly voted for this bill to supposedly fight terrorism.
The Patriot Act does little to fight terrorism; instead it is being used as a crime fighting tool.
Many Democrats in the past spent some time “blasting” the Bush Administration for violating the civil liberties of Americans.
I have opposed the Patriot Act since it was passed. I have railed against it and I opposed it when Republicans were in the majority and former President Bush was the President.
In the US senate only one senator had the courage to vote against the original Patriot Act, Democratic Senator Russ Feingold.
Well the Democrats have controlled Congress since 2006 and yet the Patriot Act is still law.
President Obama often said on the campaign trail that he would perform a “serious review” of the Patriot Act. Well apparently he has performed that review and thinks the Patriot Act is largely OK. In fact he has asked that the provisions that expire this year be extended, again…
The Democrats should immediately rescind the entire Patriot Act. If there are some provisions on the Patriot Act they want to pass then they should create a new law and pass those provisions per the normal Congressional procedures.
Over the last few years there have been many well documented abuses of the Patriot Act. In response to those Congress passed a law that requires the Department of Justice to issue an annual report about The Patriot Act. You can read more here.
In a recent hearing Russ Feingold asked some very serious questions and got pathetic answers. Consider this item from the DOJ report:
There were 763 sneak and peek requests in fiscal year 2008. Of those requests three were conducted due to terrorism. 474 were due to drugs. Heck 5 were for Food and Drug issues.
You have got to be kidding me…
This is absurd and everyone should be outraged; unfortunately the average American does not care…
Mike Sylvester
President Obama needs to focus on what is important
I am really irritated at the President. He keeps taking the time to make a media blitz and appear on the Sunday Talk shows, prime time TV, Saturday night live, etc. Now he has decided to go and personally ask for the Olympics to be held in Chicago in 2016.
There are a lot of things President Obama should focus on; getting the Olympics to be held in Chicago should not be on the list.
Here are some items President Obama should focus on that I feel are more important than a personal appearance in Europe to lobby for his home city of Chicago:
1. President Obama appointed a new General in Afghanistan. This new general (McChrystal) has put in a request for about 40,000 more troops and for a change in strategy. So far the White House is putting off making a decision on this request. President Obama should sit down with his advisers and decide what to do in Afghanistan and he should do it now. He has been President for over eight months…
2. The United States has spent TRILLIONS of dollars to bail out the financial sector in the United States. Some of this money was spent in late 2008 (Under President Bush; however approved by a Democratic Congress including President Obama) and the balance was spent in 2009. So far NOTHING has been done to install new financial regulations over this industry that the taxpayers bailed out. This is shameful and I blame the Democratic Congress; however, President Obama shares some of the blame as well.
3. The President keeps telling Americans that health care reform is vital to this country and that it must be passed now or the financial future of the country is in danger. His health care reform plan has gone nowhere and if he thinks it is that important I would think he could rally his supporters and get his ideas passed through Congress.
4. A large number of Democrats oppose the Patriot Act as a violation of American Civil Liberties. President Bush and the Republicans were demonized over the Patriot Act by Democrats. That being said the Democrats have had strong Congressional majorities since 2006 and they still have the Patriot Act in place. I would think President Obama should focus on getting parts of the Patriot Act repealed… Oh wait, he now supports the Patriot Act now that he is President… Good Grief…
I could go on and on; however, I think you get the idea.
President Obama is doing a terrible job and needs to seriously change course. I still am convinced that he will serve just one term unless the Republicans run a complete moron in 2010 (Which is very possible).
Mike Sylvester
Obama Administration predictions from 11/8/8, post 1 - the first 9 of 27
On 11/8/8 I made a series of 27 predictions about what the first two years of the Obama Administration would bring. We are now seven months into the Obama Administration and my predictions are accurate so far.
Below is my 11/8/8 post in its entirely, my current comments on the predictions are in italics.
I hope that many of you will respond to this post with predictions of your own. I did a post similar to this two years ago and the results were interesting to say the least. Here are my predictions on what will happen in the next two years in Federal politics.
Many of you did respond to this post back in November of 2008, there were 71 comments…
More 911 Consolidation Nonsense
The best part of the meeting tonight was when councilman Tim Pape announced that he was once again going to introduce a motion to cut the entire city Communication department’s budget. Pape introduced an identical motion last year in hopes of forcing the long-overdue 911 consolidation process between the city and county. The motion was supported at the time by councilmen Harper and Hines with several others suggesting they would be willing to give the powers that be one more year to try and get a deal done.
I spoke before council at the time and supported the cut saying that bold action was the only thing that could fix this problem. I predicted that we would be back talking about the same thing one year later and what do you know - here we are.
At the end of the meeting councilwoman Liz Brown called the proposal “dangerous” and indicated that as part of the Public Safety commission she had seen how close the city and county were to an agreement and thought it would happen very soon. How many times have we heard that before? It’s the same bunch of bullshit year after year.
People are fed up with the bureaucratic nonsense. I don’t care if the city or county runs the joint department because either solution would be better than we have now. The real “danger” is having calls transfered through a glass wall where information has to be repeated and precious time is lost for emergency responders.
Why is it that the administration and city council can act lightning quick when it involves padding somebody’s pocket (i.e. Renaissance Square) but can’t get a deal done that directly impacts public safety after years and years of wrangling. It’s pathetic and everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves.
Every single councilmember needs to be held accountable on this - perpetuating the status quo is not acceptable. The time for committee meetings, consultants, action plans, etc is over. I say give them until the end of the year and after that cut their entire budget. I guarantee you a solution will be in place within a week…
Fort Wayne Gm plant to add third shift
Excellent news for Fort Wayne!
The local GM Plant will add a 3rd shift in April of next year. GM will transfer 700 laid off UAW workers to Fort Wayne. Many of these (Likely most of these) will come from Pontiac, Michigan.
This is great news; it would only be better if the plant had to hire local workers rather then bring in workirs from outside of Indiana.
Mike Sylvester
Main Budget Question That Needs Answered
Before any detailed work begins on the city budget the council and administration should come to some consensus on what their expected revenues will be over the next couple of years. Without this how in the world can the budget be anything but a complete shot in the dark? So the question of the day for the mayor is:
What changes in revenue do you anticipate over the next 2 years and what is your plan to mitigate the effect of these changes?
Answering this question is the number one priority for putting together a sustainable and responsible budget…
Preliminary Thoughts on 2010 City Budget Proposal
At tonight’s city council meeting the administration will present their budget proposal for 2010. I will reserve some of my judgment until I see the presentation but I am extremely skeptical at this point based on what I’ve seen. The biggest concern I have is with the administration’s inability to deal with the inevitability of falling property tax revenue. Home values are down 8% in Fort Wayne from 2006-2008 and as I pointed out previously this will show up in the budget two years from now.
By their own admission the budget is unsustainable and yet the mayor’s strategy once again seems to be one of hoping the state legislature saves the day - a prospect I find highly unlikely:
The city’s $177.9 million spending plan uses some of the city’s rainy day money and pension cash to achieve balance, a strategy that won’t be sustainable in future years, Controller Pat Roller said.
It gets the city through 2010 and gives the city time to seek other sources of revenue and lobby the state for changes that would help, Henry said.
“What we’re doing is buying time,” Henry said.
I’m sorry but now isn’t the time to be “buying time” - now is the time for action and leadership. There is no doubt that property tax revenues are going to fall over the next two years so what is the plan to solve that problem?
Read Mayor Henry’s quote again - he wants to “seek other sources of revenue“; for those of you scoring at home that is typically called a tax increase. The answer to this budget issue is straightforward but requires something the administration has been hesitant to do - cut spending. Since Henry is unlikely to do it, the council will have to do it for him and for us.
For some additional context in regards to how the numbers will break out in the future go back and read my post on 2010 city budget projections. Right now, I’d say the revenues are tracking the adverse or more adverse scenario but the city’s budget comments seem to be setting expenditures under the optimistic scenario. This would be a recipe for fiscal disaster…
President Obama is working hard to ensure he only serves one term
Since President Obama was elected I have predicted he will serve only one term. I stand by that prediction.
He has broken so many campaign promises that it staggers the mind.
One of the promises that he made over and over during and after his successful Presidential campaign was that he would NOT increase taxes on families that make less than $250,000 per year. I cannot tell you how many times President Obama made that promise.
Well, now it seems he may well break that promise:
President Obama is claiming:
President Barack Obama says requiring people to get health insurance and fining them if they don’t would not amount to a backhanded tax increase.
We can argue about whether or not it is a tax increase or not. I think many reasonable people will argue that it is a penalty and not a tax increase. That being said lets look at how this penalty would be collected from taxpayers… Drumroll please…
The penalty will be assessed on the taxpayers individual tax return. The penalty will be collected by the Internal Revenue Service.
This means that many of the Americans who have to pay this penalty will consider it a tax increase because they are paying the penalty to the IRS…
I still think the only way President Obama can possibly win a second term is if the Republicans choose a candidate who is as bad as Kerry was in 2004.
Mike Sylvester
Where are the anti-war protestors?
Many liberal groups (Often supported by Democrats) staged large anti-war rallies while former President George W. Bush was in office. Many of these rallies were large and many of those on the left made their hatred of this war known far and wide.
The unpopular conflict in Iraq is certainly one of the items that helped the Democrats gain majorities in the House and Senate in the 2006 mid-term elections, and the general anti-war sentiment helped the Democrats expand their house majorities in the 2008 election and gain the Presidency.
Since President Obama has been in office our troop levels in the middle east have INCREASED by 13,000 troops.
Where is the outrage from the left and from Democrats?
President Obama and the Eastern European Missile Defense system
Twice in one week I am writing a post where I agree with a policy decision made by President Obama!
Miracles do actually happen.
The administration of former President George W. Bush antagonized the Soviet Union by promising to build a land based missile defense system in eastern Europe.
I feel that this entire project has been a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.
Europe is as wealthy as the United States and if Europe wants a missile defense shield they can certainly build one. We have no business increasing the national debt to defend eastern Europe.
Now if we can just get President Obama to decrease military spending, close some of our excess military bases, and pull our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan…
Mike Sylvester
