Brilliant Minds are not always on Talk Radio

Picture courtesy of the FCC.gov

With all the hype over Rush Limbaugh and his alleged bashing of the troops it makes me wonder why people blindly follow the words of one person. Talk radio hosts, President Bush, Teddy Kennedy, Move On.Org, Michelle Malkin and the list goes on. Somebody else is telling us all how to think, what to think about any issue and who is the enemy amongst us.

It brings me to the conclusion that our leadership system in America is broken because we as a people are so strongly divided down the middle. There are those Americans on the Right and there are those Americans on the Left side of the political aisle. Stuck in the middle is the swing voter but the base on both sides is consistent. What is the common task or sentiment that all of us can agree on that is realistic? Be you Right leaning or Left leaning, what is the one thing that binds us when an event like 9/11 happens? You are an American without a doubt.

Our nation needs a healing President and the need to feel leadership from our government to it’s people is overwhelming. Our nation is in a political crisis where both parties are talking the same game but neither is offering solutions to bring the country and our people back together again. Blame the left, blame the right, blame anyone but it is not my problem is a scapegoat that you do not want to embrace. This is all of our country and the ones that actually participate in our government are the ones that matter.

On the air waves and around the web the swing is against the right side of the aisle because of the non stop excuses and political gamesmanship of Kings from the fifth century. My way or the highway immediately divided the nation. I voted for it before I was against it divides the nation from the left.

We are a divided people and there is not a Roosevelt or Lincoln on the horizon. I frankly do not get a warm fuzzy feeling from any of the current candidates for President because for the most part all of them are saying we have to stay the course. Bush got us into this mess and he has no plans to fix it so it is the next President’s problem to deal with. For the record, no candidate can predict or insist on a timeline for our troops getting out of Iraq or Afghanistan. Reality is funny like that. In the same respect no candidate can tell the people of America that there is a point in time when our troops are no longer needed in Iraq to hold back the terrorist.

My main point to this post is that you as a voter have a say as to whom is going to be the next President of the United States of America. If you need Rush Limbaugh or even a lowly blogger like myself to tell you what party to vote for then you need to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what you think. Get rid of the sound bites from both sides of the aisle and think about what America really needs in the next election.

From my perspective, I’m tired of seeing all our kids coming home in body bags and flag draped coffins for a people that have no clue as to what freedom really is. Iraq is lost, Afghanistan is lost. Bring our troops home alive and let’s focus on America once more. Put a strong military presence on our borders and that is defending America at home.

Papamoka

Cross posted at Bring It On!

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Religion and Politics is Not like Honey and Bees

Picture courtesy of the White House

No matter who you think you are backing for President of the United States of America you really never know whom the real person is. Running for the highest office in the land is supposed to be of high morals and even higher expectations. I’m beginning to think that that is the problem with the current process. Is it not ironic to think that a candidate for President should mirror the values of all of the people and all of our faiths?

In the upcoming election for President there has been placed an abundance of attention on the candidates religion or practice there of. We even have a Reverend running for President in this latest round of political showmanship and who’s who on the Marquee of politics today that we call a ballot. Who is going to question a Reverend’s faith in God and weekly participation in a religious service? You should and that is who!

Over at the Pew Forum they have an interesting little piece on politics and religion and this little paragraph has my noggin a rocking…

The United States has a long tradition of separating church from state, but an equally powerful inclination to mix religion and politics. Throughout our nation's history, great political and social movements – from abolition to women's suffrage to civil rights to today's struggles over abortion and gay marriage – have drawn upon religious institutions for moral authority, inspirational leadership and organizational muscle. But for the past generation, religion has been woven more deeply into the fabric of partisan politics than ever before. - The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

In politics and in the main stream media they keep bringing up the question of religion when it comes to our election process for President. It confuses me as to why they do that. If you were to walk up to anyone on the street and ask what that persons religion and practices are you better duck fast because either a shopping bag or a fist is coming your way. Why should it be any different for someone running for President?

We are a nation of many religions and many political factions and ideologies that would make a Suduko champion give up. In the cloth and puzzle that is America there is all of our religions and all of our political belief’s. Looking at any individual thread under a microscope only shows you the make up of that one strand that really isn’t America. Back away from the microscope and sit about twenty rows back on the fifty yard line and right in front of your eyes is the giant quilt that is America. All the faiths, belief, politics, ethnicity and personal choices are melded together to form something beautiful and a pleasure to the spirit of its people.

If our government is based on freedom of religion, freedom of speech and separation of Church and State, then why do people insist that religion should be a top priority for selecting our President today. If our Presidency is to govern to the Constitution as intended, but given the current religious litmus test to do so, then most of our past President’s would never have passed that test. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would have been just a blip in our nations history as just a General that won a war and Jefferson was just an innovative thinker that lived and dreamed beyond his years.

Religion and politics do not mix for a reason. In one venue the ultimate truth is the ultimate truth and in the other is the combined agreement of man choosing the lesser of two evils that becomes the law of man. It isn’t perfect but it is what we call democracy.

Big difference, HUGE!

We should not vote based on our faith but vote our continued experience that is the American experiment. Faith in change is part of the never ending cycle of politics in America and that you can count on.

Papamoka

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One Word! Okay Tops Two!

Picture Courtesy of the White House

Elections are coming up fast and furious and people are talking and candidates are talking sound bites. This is your chance to participate in the sound bite. Just a little fun too!

List the Candidate for President of the United States of America first that you love or dislike and just ONE word... Okay TWO at the most.... to best describe how you feel about that candidate. Pro or Con on anyone running for President is acceptable. I'm not about to tally the results but it will be a fun read for all.

Post away in the comments and have fun! Just keep it clean...

I may need some help getting this moving so please email your friends and link back here.

http://papastraighttalk.blogspot.com/

Papamoka

Fred Thompson Anti Church Going Kills his Campaign

I’m so sorry for saying this but Fred Thompson just ended his campaign with this one speech politically. Not being a political genius, even I know that the worst thing to say while campaigning for the highest office in the land is to state that you do not attend church even somewhat regularly is a NO NO! Somebody fire off a flare because the Thompson campaign just sank on its maiden voyage.

Did anyone tell the actor and former United States Republican Senator that our nation is kind of religious? Did anyone tell him that he should be courting the Evangelicals and religious right who are still seeking a candidate to back? Umm, I’m guessing and I could be wrong but he just popped the Fred Thompson is us balloon or the me too Fred for President grass roots campaign.

Baptist, Lutheran and Protestant Ministers across the bible belt are admonishing themselves for stating out loud “Holy… and it begins with an F and ends with UCK and it isn’t FIRETRUCK!

Over at the Washington Post they have a little bit more to say about this issue regarding Fred Thompson and his run for President…

'Right With God' But Not Churchgoer Says Thompson

Chalk it up as another quirk of the 2008 GOP presidential field: The top-tier Repubican who entered the race as the supposed godsend for socially conservative voters in the Bible Belt who are dissatisfied with the other candidates is someone who does not attend church on a regular basis.

Asked about his religious beliefs during an appearance before about 500 Republicans in South Carolina yesterday, Fred Thompson said he attends church when he visits his mother in Tennessee but does not belong to a church or attend regularly at his home in McLean, Va., just outside Washington. The actor and former senator, who was baptized in the Church of Christ, said he gained his values from "sitting around the kitchen table" and said he did not plan to speak about his religious beliefs on the stump. "I know that I'm right with God and the people I love," he said, according to Bloomberg News Service. It's "just the way I am not to talk about some of these things." - Washington Post

Freddie can kiss Iowa goodbye and New Hampshire. For that matter most of the South Bible voters goodbye during the primary elections. Me thinks he surrounded himself with bad folks and advice or his own revelation was the first and last nail in the coffin of his campaign.

I’m a realist and for that matter honest with myself and the working of our nation. America is a very religious nation and that is a fact no matter how you psychologically try to break it down. Republican or Democrat we believe in God and worship regullarly, well most of us do and that is what it is. In elections, the majority rules. Politics is about surviving in the media and one mistake can end your campaign and Fred Thompson just stepped on the foundation of not just Republican voters lives but many Democrat voters as well.

Common sense would tell any campaign to look at Main Street America and see that on every other corner is a church. Hello Freddie? The life of any candidate for President is or should not be an open book in my opinion. If the former Senator had said simply that his religious belief was not up for discussion that would have been appropriate. He didn’t. Nobody in America has to defend their religion and yet in politics you have to take a stand and Fred Thompson chose his ground. It probably will not work out well for him in the Republican primaries but he was the one that spoke on his religious commitment.

I find it ironic that the people that want to run our nation have to run from their belief in God at all. In my life, in my faith, I find it to be my own comfort and saving grace when I need it most. For the record, if anyone asked me about my church going activities I would have told them that that is between my God and I and not for publication.

America has freedom of religion. In politics however there is no freedom of religion. Bad move Fred.

Papamoka

Cross posted at Bring It ON!

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Wake Up America

Every Presidential candidate out on the political trail has the same stump speech to give. What is wrong with America and how they are going to fix it? The only problem with that scenario is that they only want to fix that which affects them alone. Or for that matter what effects only the people at the top of the pig pile that is American politics.

Campaign speeches are nice but the fact of the matter is that no matter how much they talk about fixing the educational system in America, not one of them will be able to do so. It does not matter how passionate they are about fixing the health care crisis in our nation, they can not do it alone. All of the empty promises are for not if the White house is filled with a man or woman unable to govern for all of the people. If the Congress is not backing the President then the Presidency is a lame duck at the mercy of the Congress.

Turn the page, the Congress is having a mass migration of Republican Senators and Congressmen into retirement or resignation. The battle for America is on and the people have a chance to take it back. Republican political party leaders and current members are not the Ronald Reagan Republican’s. President Reagan hated corruption and waste in our government and frankly so do I. His idea of his political party has been hijacked by the worst possible dream that he could have ever envisioned. Corruption and arrest charges are not the Reagan Republican Party. That however is the current problem with the past political party affiliation of Ronald Reagan.

Times change, people change. Politics of yesterday can change in a heart beat but the honesty and respect that the American people will always look for can not and should not be taken for granted. While the flood gates of Senators and Congressmen from the Republican Party that are not seeking re-election opens up, in the next election the people need to decide who is telling the truth and whom is blowing smoke up the back side of your anatomy.

What is the ultimate beauty of our political system is that with your own vote you have the ultimate decision. Return the same ideology to our nation’s government or take a fresh breath and hope that the newbie will fulfill at least one or two election promises.

Papamoka

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Our Nation Once had Leaders

Picture Courtesy of Fred08

In politics today it is more of public opinion and stardom than it is about what you actually can achieve once elected. Fred Thompson proved that fact by wiping out what was said by the debaters at the actual Republican Presidential debate with his five minutes of fame on Jay Leno last night. Welcome to the elections run by timing and an audience larger than a boring political debate.

I give Fred the actor prop’s for knowing how the tube works and how the mains stream media works. Fred announced his Republican bid for the Presidency to an audience of ten to twenty million viewers. Over at the debate they were lucky to have seven million viewers. Scales of justice and the main stream media proved out today who really won the debate and he wasn’t even there!

Some folks say that Freddy is a horrible public speaker and some say that he isn’t about the presenting of the idea as much as he is about getting the battle won to make the message law. Others say he could not handle the non stop back stabbing that is our nations gentleman halls of government.

That fact perplexes me? Why did he quit the Senate? Did he or did he not say that nothing could be accomplished in Washington, D.C.?

If I were given the choice of anyone opposing Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barrack Obama, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden or John Edwards then I would definitely cast my ballot for the Democrat over Fred the actor Thompson. Better air time on the networks does not make you fit to lead. It only makes you television savvy.

I was listening to talk radio today and they were pointing out the leaders of the election and I was sickened by the fact that they were declaring certain people the only ones that could win. I’m not saying that Fred Thompson is out of the running but does anyone know what he really stands for? All of the contenders on both sides have spoken and been heard. How can you say that somebody out of the blue might steal the race? You can’t!

This race for President has not even started yet and the people are not paying enough attention to it yet. I’m following it as best I can and even I think it is to early to declare the White House for any party. The people will decide that fact when the votes are counted in 2008.

Leaders of our nation are born through life trials and not by the offices they have served in or held. Our nations Presidency is not decided by the media, it is decided by one vote cast by many people that becomes the office of President.

Papamoka