Wednesday, November 17, 2010

She's Back!

To the great surprise of many, Nancy Pelosi was elected by the House Democratic Caucus to be House Minority Leader. Looking at this issue objectively, the Democratic House caucus made a big mistake. They put back into the power the woman who was a major factor in the Republican upset in the 2010 midterm elections. The Democratic strategists were surely asleep at the wheel when the decisions were made.

Nancy Pelosi is one of the most disliked politicians today, with approval ratings from Independents and Republicans in the single digits. Large amounts of Democrats even wanted her gone, and even a few challengers arose to try and remove her from the tip of power in the House Democratic Caucus. All attempts to push Pelosi aside were unsuccessful, and she will remain as the top Democrat in the House.

The real effect of this is going to play out in 2012. I believe Nancy Pelosi will be one of the major death knells of the Democratic Party. She leads what is portrayed to be a center-left party as a U.S. Representative from San Francisco, one of the most liberal Congressional districts in the nation. She has lead the party from being center-left party to a rubber stamp party for Obama's radical leftist agenda. She has lead the assault on the middle class, preserving high unemployment rates and dumping trillions of dollars of debt upon the backs of the American citizen.

Nonetheless, she's the winner! Comments such as "The reality is that she is politically toxic" by Rep. Mike Quigley seemed to have no effect in today's vote. This can only be a good sign for Republican prospects in 2012.

Civil War Brewing Over Airport Security

If you've been to the airport recently, you'll have noticed many new changes to the system of security. The Transportation Security Administration along with the Department of Homeland Security has really "stepped up" their efforts to search passengers.

The use of intensive "pat downs" and naked body-scanners is become the norm in the realm of airport security. Many Americans, myself being one of them, feel that this type of excessive force used to search passengers is unreasonable and violates our right to privacy. Is it really a necessary step for the government to use expensive radiation-based machinery and grotesque pat downs of children by adults to add to our levels of security? Many lawmakers and media pundits are voicing their opinion loud and clear. What do you think?

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Ben Franklin

Lame-Duck Congress Poised to Introduce DREAM Act

A little over two weeks after the November 2nd midterm elections, Congress is now coming back into session. With Democratic majorities in the House, Senate, and a clear liberal ally in the White House, almost anything is possible. One of the first actions of the lame-duck Congress being tossed around is the introduction of the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act is essentially a pass for the illegal immigrants that have been felons since their feet touched our soil.

Moreover, the DREAM Act does not just give aliens citizenship, but makes them meet a certain level of requirements to obtain it. While any intelligent person can see that this is clearly better than just handing out citizenship, it is intrinsically wrong in its nature. After millions of illegal aliens illegally crossed our borders, held illegal jobs, and have avoided taxes, are we really planning on giving them a pass? These are same people who are taking work from Americans who are picking cans out of the trash right now just to get by. With an unemployment rate hitting the double digits, this is not what America needs.

America being a Constitutional Republic, we run on a system of laws. We can't be advocate that certain people get a pass for breaking certain laws and lock people up for years for breaking other laws. Also, a nation is defined by its borders and when dismantle our system of borders, then are we still a country? Anyone can walk in, and this is happening right now. Thousands of drug smugglers, human traffickers, criminals, and terrorists are crossing our southern border on a daily or weekly basis. Instead of securing our border, we're trying to legalize the criminals that are already here. We have come to a sad point in American history.

To me, this only shows the complete arrogance of the liberal. Only a little more than two weeks ago did Republicans take control of over sixty previously controlled democratic seats in the United States House of Representatives. After the American people have clearly spoken, what do the Democrats go and do? They introduce left-wing legislation that the American people clearly do not want and have rejected at the polls.

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama think it's a good idea to give these aliens citizenship. Are they crazy? Illegal immigrants contribute to the imminent degradation of society. Just their presence in this country makes them criminals, let alone the acts the commit while here. Twenty-nine percent of our current prisoners in our federal prison system are illegal aliens. Why are we paying for these people, why are we letting them take our jobs? Not only is the DREAM Act stupid, it's insane.

See more here.

Regulate This!

How many times can college students obtain alcohol poisoning before their beverage of choice is banned? So what if that drink of choice comes in a wide variety of flavors that packs a caffeine punch that rivals a vente Starbucks coffee, and did I mention that is has 12% abv! Seriously folks, what does not sound fun about this beverage? Campuses across the United States have come to love 4 Loko, but legislators are rallying against this fine beverage in order to get it banned. Why must the government always interfere with our fun?

Government, especially big and intrusive governments, love to tell people what is bad for them as opposed to allowing a citizen to reach a rational conclusion about their own well being. State legislators are pointing to a large quantity of college parties that in recent weeks have yielded an increasing number of college students riding in an ambulance because of 4 Loko. The argument is that the energy the beverage provides consumers, along with the high alcohol content, create a perfect storm that often leads to binge drinking and ultimately alcohol poisoning. So the government has witnessed our expressed desire to get annihilated on weekends (or weekdays if you are into that sort thing) and claim that we don’t know well enough to drink 4 Loko.

Ladies and gentleman, the intoxicated masses, 4 Loko is not evil! 4 Loko is not out on some evil scheme to destroy our livers and cause our nights of debauchery to end in the ER. We are! Consumers are rational beings who are able to make intelligent decisions based on their wants and needs. Any intelligent human being who purchases 4 Loko realizes what they are getting themselves into, and as such should approach this amazing beverage with a bit of caution. Just because you have a few 4 Loko because that Econometrics test was ridiculously hard doesn’t mean you should continue drinking after you are already drunk. People drink for a wide variety of reasons, people get blackout and violent drunk because of some slightly more specific reasons. Consumers are the ones at the helm of their evenings, we make decisions (some of them dumb) because we want to and somehow in our reasoning we occasionally decide that cracking out the Jose Cuervo after a few 4 Loko is a good idea. 4 Loko can, in fact, be consumed responsibly and still lead to an amazing night of partying.

Who is the government to tell us what we can or cannot drink? We know smoking cigarettes and cigars can lead to lung cancer, yet we may choose to smoke still. We know that eating rare meat may increase chances of obtaining colon cancer, yet we still eat medium rare burgers. We know that 4 Loko is a potent alcoholic beverage that might lead to a less than fun trip to the ER, but we drink it anyway! The point is that we are rational beings and are capable of reaching our own conclusions, we do not need the government telling us what drinks are appropriate for consumption or not. 4 Loko is a revolutionary product, it contains positive and negatives for consumers, and as long as we, as intelligent members of society, are aware of these factors I see no reason to ban it.

Andrew Plocica