Last Post

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, this is my last post on Restore the Republic. True, the Republic still needs to be restored. With that I am in total agreement. And as Ron Paul has said, perhaps the country going bankrupt will be just the moment for restoration to take place. But the byline of this blog is "Thoughts on the 2008 US Presidential Election."

I have thought all that I want to think on the 2008 election!

It's been a nice outlet for rants, revelations and some rogue humor from time to time. I've enjoyed blogging on Restore the Republic.

RTR08 was established Dec 1, 2008. So we are a week past a year in publication.

Including this one, there have been 352 posts.

And though I declared the Fox New fast over, I still have not watched it. So I have been Fox-free for 339 days. It's not bad. You'll have a headache the first couple of days but you can do it!

Thanks to all who have read and to those who took a moment to comment.

Honestly, I'd like to keep blogging here but it's time for a 'change.'

So, bye bye Rudy, Mitt, Mike, John, Ron, Joe, Hillary, Sarah and Barack...I'll leave it to others to write about you now.

I leave with one last prediction....two years from today, President Obama will be among the most unpopular Presidents in history. It's not that he will do a bad job...it's just that nobody can be all that he has allowed himself to be made out to be....and realities of the world and the economy will keep him from being the liberal savior that many expect....I predict that he will do a better job than many expect but be much less popular than most would ever imagine.

To one and all....."Restore the Republic!"

- 30 -

Seems Like

Seems to me that Obama has made more conservative appointments in key positions than the Maverick would have.

Thanksgiving Address

The following is the text of the speech that Abraham Lincoln gave on the day that he signed the Thanksgiving Proclamation, “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November...as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the LORD.

We know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to, feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

--Abraham Lincoln - October 3, 1863

Expiration Date

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. - Second Amendment to the U S Constitution

One or both expire on Jan 20, 2009.

Counseling Needed

I still haven't watched a minute of TV news since Obama won Ohio. So, by default, the Faux News fast has been extended. I keep up by internet but at least there I don't have to listen and watch as major media figures swoon and prattle on about Michelle's dress or some such drivel. Obviously I need to be admitted.

Real Downer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wall Street slumped Thursday afternoon and the S&P 500 closed at an 11-1/2 year low as fears of a prolonged recession sparked a massive selloff.

The Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index lost 6.7% according to early tallies and closed at its lowest point sine April 14, 1997.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 445 points or 5.6%. It closed at the lowest level since March 12, 2003, just above the low of the last bear market.

The Nasdaq composite (COMP) lost 5.1% and also closed at its lowest level since March 12, 2003.

Dick Morris Scorcher

The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy. In one month of legislation and one diplomatic meeting, the United States has unilaterally abdicated all the gains for the concept of free markets won by the Reagan administration and surrendered, in toto, to the Western European model of socialism, stagnation and excessive government regulation. Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. Given the dismal record of those nations at creating jobs and sustaining growth, merger with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.

At the G-20 meeting, Bush agreed to subject the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our other regulatory agencies to the supervision of a global entity that would critique its regulatory standards and demand changes if it felt they were necessary. Bush agreed to create a College of Supervisors.

According to The Washington Post, it would "examine the books of major financial institutions that operate across national borders so regulators could begin to have a more complete picture of banks' operations."

Their scrutiny would extend to hedge funds and to various "exotic" financial instruments. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), a European-dominated operation, would conduct "regular vigorous reviews" of American financial institutions and practices. The European-dominated College of Supervisors would also weigh in on issues like executive compensation and investment practices.

There is nothing wrong with the substance of this regulation. Experience is showing it is needed. But it is very wrong to delegate these powers to unelected, international institutions with no political accountability.

We have a Securities and Exchange Commission appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, both of whom are elected by the American people. It is with the SEC, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve that financial accountability must take place.

The European Union achieved this massive subrogation of American sovereignty the way it usually does, by negotiation, gradual bureaucratic encroachment, and without asking the voters if they approve. What's more, Bush appears to have gone down without a fight, saving his debating time for arguing against the protectionism that France's Nicolas Sarkozy was pushing. By giving Bush a seeming victory on a moratorium against protectionism for one year, Sarkozy was able to slip over his massive scheme for taking over the supervision of the U.S. economy.

All kinds of political agendas are advancing under the cover of response to the global financial crisis. Where Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism by regulating it, Bush, to say nothing of Obama, has given the government control over our major financial and insurance institutions. And it isn't even our government! The power has now been transferred to the international community, led by the socialists in the European Union.

Will Obama govern from the left? He doesn't have to. George W. Bush has done all the heavy lifting for him. It was under Bush that the government basically took over as the chief stockholder of our financial institutions and under Bush that we ceded our financial controls to the European Union. In doing so, he has done nothing to preserve what differentiates the vibrant American economy from those dying economies in Europe. Why have 80 percent of the jobs that have been created since 1980 in the industrialized world been created in the United States? How has America managed to retain its leading 24 percent share of global manufacturing even in the face of the Chinese surge? How has the U.S. GDP risen so high that it essentially equals that of the European Union, which has 50 percent more population? It has done so by an absence of stifling regulation, a liberation of capital to flow to innovative businesses, low taxes, and by a low level of unionization that has given business the flexibility to grow and prosper. Europe, stagnated by taxation and regulation, has grown by a pittance while we have roared ahead. But now Bush -- not Obama -- Bush has given that all up and caved in to European socialists.

The Bush legacy? European socialism. Who needs enemies with friends like Bush?