Archive for October, 2003
« Previous EntriesEconomy: Mission Accomplished
Friday, October 31st, 2003Yesterday we learned that economy has had its strongest quarter of growth in nearly 20 years. It looks like the economists were right—tax cuts stimulate the economy!
The economy grew at a blistering 7.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter in the strongest pace in nearly two decades. Consumers spent with abandon and businesses ramped up investment, compelling new evidence of an economic resurgence.
The increase in gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the economy’s performance, in the July-September quarter was more than double the 3.3 percent rate registered in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
The 7.2 percent pace marked the best showing since the first quarter of 1984. It exceeded analysts’ forecasts for a 6 percent growth rate for third-quarter GDP, which measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States.
Scott McLellan, President Bush’s spokesman, said that while today’s numbers are “another positive sign,” and that Bush’s strategy of cutting taxes to boost the economy is “is working, getting more money into people’s pockets,” there is still more work to be done. “We need to continue to act and build upon the steps we have taken to get our economy growing so we can continue to translate growth into job creation,” McLellan said.
Despite Democrats claiming that the tax cuts would ruin the economy, President Bush showed his leadership by getting the tax cuts passed. As a result, our country is recovering from the Clintonian Recession.
Near rock-bottom short-term interest rates, along with President Bush’s third round of tax cuts, have helped the economy shift into a higher gear during the summer, economists said. The next challenge is making sure the rebound is self-sustaining, they said.
We need President Bush to continue this phenomenal progress with the economy. The same tax cuts, which resulted in this economic boost, are at the risk of being repealed under a Democrat president. We can’t let that happen.
The Left Wing Conspiracy to Take Over Talk Radio
Wednesday, October 29th, 2003Democrats, still misunderstanding the phenomena of popular right-wing talk radio, are pumping money into starting a national liberal talk show, to be hosted by Ed Schultz, a radio personality from North Dakota.
This is so sad.
Democratic lawmakers in Washington are raising money for the show, and Democrats have pledged about $1.8 million over two years to get it off the ground, Schultz said Monday. He said a half-dozen stations are looking at whether to carry it.
This is so pathetic.
Do liberals understand how Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and other popular conservative radio talk show hosts got to where they are? They worked they way up from the bottom and built up a fan base.
Ed Schultz, the potential radio voice of the Democratic Party, said “The Democrats are getting the tar beat out of them constantly by Limbaugh and Hannity, and they feel they don’t have a platform,”
Hello! That’s because Democrats have consistently failed to win on the issues – they certainly can’t debate on them, and that is a result of the fact that they have no platform!
The Democrats obviously need to do a lot better than Ed Schultz. Perhaps they need to stop pointing fingers and starting offering policy.
I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.
Liberals can bitch and whine about conservative talk radio all they want, but that doesn’t change the fact that television news media is extraordinary liberal, with CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS, just to name a few. So what are they complaining about? Their problem isn’t that liberals don’t have a voice; their problem is that liberals are losing their audience because people are sick and tired of the bias they get on TV. Liberals are livid that conservatives have been able to harness talk radio successfully.
At least conservatives didn’t need rich lawyers and politicians to achieve success in talk radio. Ultimately, this is why liberal talk radio will never be as successful as conservative talk radio.
DemoKKKrat Lynchings
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2003It seems that we keep saying, “The Democrats have hit a new low,” all too often in recent years. It never ceases to amaze me how their actions constantly reflect how determined they are to enforce their radical ideology on mainstream America.
Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court should be confirmed. End of story. She’s intelligent. She’s extremely qualified.
She’s also black. She’s a conservative. A black conservative woman has the DemoKKKrats sweating, because the idea of her being confirmed to the federal Court of Appeals, considered to be a stepping stone to the Supreme Court, doesn’t mesh with their big plan to legislate their agenda from the bench with far left-wing judges.
Now, Janice Rogers Brown is the target of a lynch mob by the DemoKKKrats. A lynch mob sure to make Senator Robert Byrd feel like he’s back in the old days when his sheets were still white.
Janice Rogers Brown has more in common with the mainstream than any DemoKKKrat who’s fighting to tighten the noose around her neck.
What makes her so dangerous to left-wing ideologues? She voted to uphold Proposition 209. 4.5 million Californians voted to ban racial quotas, and she voted to uphold the will of the voters.
Why are the DemoKKKrats filibustering her? Because she voted to uphold the will of the majority of the voters, not the liberals who wanted the state Supreme Court to overrule them.
The DemoKKKrats will do anything, even subvert democracy, to push their agenda on the American people.
When the will of the voters is not the will of the DemoKKKrats, the DemoKKKrats run to the courts, hoping to find a bench saturated in liberal judges to tell the voters what they want.
How do the DemoKKKrats accomplish this? The call nominees like Janice Rogers Brown an “extremist” or an “activist” to instill fear into the unquestioning public, and to give the media a headline.
Janice Rogers Brown, who grew up in the segregated South, excelled academically, and made something of her life despite her lack of privilege.
The black community should be praising her accomplishments, and be supporting her 100%.
But that’s not what’s happening. The National Association for the Advancement of Color People (NAACP) and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) have joined in the on the lynching. Two organizations that should be behind a qualified black woman have turn their heads and unleashed their claws against her, solely because she is conservative, and amongst other things, is pro-life and against racial quotas.
Are black conservatives to be separated from the courts, but equal everywhere else? Are blacks to be equal in the workforce, but not on the bench? Are blacks to be equal in education, but not in the judiciary?
The DemoKKKrats have thrown a burning cross into the judicial nomination process. Should this continue, only the charred remains of democracy will be left.
The Inequalities of Multicultural Representation
Saturday, October 18th, 2003While it’s tough to keep up with the goings-on at my alma mater, the University of Hartford, whenever a story in the school paper, The Informer, catches my attention, I feel inclined to write about it. While at the current time it is unclear if The Informer may consider publishing a possible submission by me, (as they did on occasion last school year) I nevertheless want to write about it here – considering I do get visit from the University of Hartford campus on occasion.
I was particularly interested in a story in the most recent issue entitled “Multicultural Groups to Fight SGA Decision.” It appears that the student government, which is no stranger to scandal, is enduring a bit of heat for a decision made at the end of 2002-2003 academic year, which stripped multicultural clubs from having votes in the student government.
What amazed me first was that the Student Government Association (SGA) had actually made a decision of this magnitude that I actually agreed with.
Nevertheless, the Left of the University of Hartford have spoken out against this decision. Of course, this is to be expected. The University of Hartford has a decently sized minority student population. While they have been vocal… they’ve been quite ridiculous in their arguments to have SGA appeal the decision.
Sterling Garcia, a student, spoke out at a SGA meeting saying, “I urge you, senators, to fight this injustice.”
Injustice? Hardly.
The Executive Vice-President of SGA, Jacob Wilk, stated that the reason behind this decision was due to the fact that “SGA can’t house the 80 or so clubs on campus if they all choose to have a vote in the Senate.”
This is an extremely legitimate reason. However, I also see other issues that further justify this decision – which it is highly unlikely anyone at the University of Hartford would dare say publicly, so that’s what I’m going to do.
The story did mention that the “multicultural” groups were not happy with the how their voting rights were relinquished.
BSU and NHU representatives were outraged by the process in which they were stripped of their senatorship in SGA.
They were told that the new constitution would not be processed and given to the Board of Regents until the beginning of the fall semester, alotting time to appeal the decision.
Instead, the new constitution was submitted for approval during the summer, demoting BSU and NHU senators to representatives.
The president of the Brother & Sisters United (otherwise known as the Black Student Union), Ebony Wright, said, “Our senators were not formally notified of this change. Instead, they heard they were not senators through the grapevine.” Regardless of whether or not this is a genuine issue with them, I am not convinced this is where their anger comes from.
Surely, my suspicions were proven right with another quote from Ebony Wright, She said, “As minorities on this campus, we need to feel represented in SGA. Having our [organizational] senator would allow us to truly be represented.”
This is a lie. It is quite obvious that the minority students are attempting to use political correctness to pressure SGA to giving their clubs back senator positions so they can vote.
However, according to the article, “the system is designed for students to be represented in SGA in three ways: by expected year of graduation, by residence and by the school they are enrolled.” While I’ve not been able to obtain a copy of the Student Government Association’s constitution to verify this, I have faith that this has been looked into already by the author of this story.
Clubs such as BSU, NHU, Strong Independent Sisters (SIS), the Men of Color Alliance (MOCA), the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the Caribbean American Student Association (CASA), SPECTRUM (the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender club), Hillel, and even the Newman Club, are all social clubs that congregate based on race, gender, ethnicity and religion. None of these clubs should have voting rights at SGA elections.
Not a single club whose purpose is the socializing of segregated groups based on the on race, gender, ethnicity and religion, (according to what the article says that SGA was designed to represent) are required to be represented for that purpose.
There is no reason why black students should have their own vote in student government.
There is no reason why Hispanic students should have their own vote in student government.
There is no reason why gay students should have their own vote in student government.
There is no reason why Jewish students should have their own vote in student government.
As a former student of the University of Hartford who was involved in many clubs, including Hillel, the social club for Jewish students, my interests were represented through my class senator, my dorm senator, and my college senator, Is there anything being voted on in the student government where my interests as a Jew could not have been represented through any of these other means? Absolutely not. As a Jew, I could bring my concerns to any of these senators to have my voice heard. The same goes for black students, Hispanic students, gay students, etc. etc. etc.
Perhaps the most ridiculous comment in the entire article was one by Garcia, “Clubs are extracurricular activities implemented for entertainment,” he said, “Without organizations such as NHU, there would not be programs like Hispanic Heritage Month in place to diversify campus life.”
First of all, clubs like NHU are social clubs implemented for socializing amongst a particular group of people. All other activities and programs held by these groups are put on primarily for fundraising, and to justify SGA allocating funds for that group for the following year.
These clubs are not mean to “diversify campus life.” What Garcia fails to understand is that the mere presence of Hispanics, blacks, or any other minority on campus is by definition the diversity of the student body. As a white student, who witness these kinds of programs Garcia mentioned, I was never embraced to participate is such programs or activities of that nature, and generally speaking, the minority group hosting them generally served other students of their minority group. While any group funded by the SGA cannot exclude any student from participating in an activity held by a club, or deny membership to a student from a club, these groups reflected homogeny. Diversity, while a euphemistic front for these groups, really is not their purpose.
While at the University of Hartford, another student once told me he and a friend of his were not let into a party hosted by BSU because they were white. While this may be hearsay, I had no reason at the time to believe that they were lying. Now, since this did not happen to me I cannot prove it, however, assuming that it is true, this reveals the true nature of at least one of the clubs.
While the word “diversity” will be excessively used by these groups in their appeal, having gone through four years at this school, I would hardly call the student body diverse socially – probably because of these clubs.
I had many meals in the University Commons, and I can tell you that more often than not, black students sit with the black students, the Hispanic students sit with the Hispanic students, Jewish students sit with the Jewish students… especially when they belong to one of these clubs. I was in the Jewish club, most often, when I ate with a group of friends, they were friends I had through Hillel. Whether it is intentional or incidental, is irrelevant, it’s just how it is.
The diversity argument is a fraud. I’ve seen it firsthand. These clubs are primarily social clubs, that promote the segregated socializing of these particular gender, racial, religious, ethnic and sexual-orientation based groups.
The article continued:
Members of SGA’s executive board asserted that if BSU and NHU were represented, then any club on campus would have the right to be represented also. Garcia and Faith Kolly were also on hand to dispute the claim that organizations such as BSU, NHU, SPECTRUM, and others are not clubs, but organizations put in place to serve the social and academic needs of their members.
My academic needs do not differ from another student who is a different race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or of a sexual orientation than I am. The last time I checked, 1 + 1 equals 2 for me and the black student who sat next me… or the girl who sat in front of me… or the Hispanic student who sat behind me… or the Christian who sat in the next row… or the gay student who was in or out of the closet.
To suggest these “multicultural” clubs serve the academic needs of their members is a lie.
Garcia was quoted one last time in the story, he said, “Remember the meaning of democracy - meaning social equality and respect for every individual in the community.” This sounds all warm and fuzzy to your politically correct campus liberal, however, this definition that Garcia has elected to use to represent what democracy means to him, really contrasts with his agenda. Social equality does not mean that minority groups are required to have their own vote in government. Democracy cannot not mean votes for each group of people. I belong to many groups that, according to Garcia, are worthy of representation. I am a Jew. I am white. I am heterosexual. I am left-handed. I have brown eyes. I have brown hair. I am a Republican. I can go on an on… While I am all those things, I do not feel that each group that I belong to deserves its own collective vote. There was nothing preventing me from starting clubs on campus any of those “groups” and demand SGA representation. Such a demand would have been ludicrous.
My interests as a student while I was at the University of Hartford had more than enough representation through my class senator, dorm senator, and school senator. The minority students demanding representation specific to their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual-orientation are seeking special treatment they do not need, deserve, or have any right to.
Political correctness will be the sword they use in their battle to obtain this excessive representation in student government. I hope the SGA will continue to use common sense and fairness as their shield.
Madeleine Albright, Get a Clue
Friday, October 17th, 2003Leave to a former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, to go on French radio and babbling on about George W. Bush’s foreign policy, calling it, “not good for America, not good for the world.”
I guess to morons like her, taking Saddam Hussein out of power doesn’t make the world a better place.
Speaking in French, she also said, “America is much stronger in a multilateral system, we must be on the same side, work with other people in the world. It shouldn’t be America versus the others.”
Excuse me? Since when have we be going at it alone? Last I checked, the United States got unanimous support from the U.N. on the latest Iraq resolution. This included France, Germany, Russia, and Syria.
There appears to be a deliberate and forceful attempt by anyone and everyone in the former Clinton administration to not only rewrite history and change Bill Clinton’s blemished legacy, but also to paint a different picture of history in the making.
However, most despicable and deceitful is Bill Clinton’s trying to pin the blame on Bush for not heeding Clinton’s warnings about Osama bin Laden before September 11, 2001. However, I doubt anyone is falling for that lie — except of course for liberal idiots and anti-Bush ideologues.
Support Bush and Support America
Wednesday, October 15th, 2003As each day passes, it becomes ever more clear that the Democrats hoping to get their party’s nomination will sink to new unprecedented lows in their campaigns.
Democrats are running scared. The wake up call of 2002 hasn’t quite sunk in yet. They haven’t learned where this country is headed politically. Democrats don’t understand that the will of the majority of voters does not align with the ideology of their party anymore. Unable to appeal to Americans with issues, they resort to baseless negative attacks against President Bush. A close look at the nine Democrat candidates reveals a party without direction, vision, or a solid constituency.
The latest failure of the Democrats, the California Recall, sent another shockwave through the party, when more than 60% of the voters chose a Republican candidate.
Recently, Bush’s approval ratings started to go back up. While this may shock the liberals of our country, we still have work to do to help reelect George W. Bush, so he may continue to fight the war on terror, and help lead us out of the Clintonian recession.
There are many ways to help the campaign. By writing letters to your local newspapers, you can express your support for President Bush. Make no mistake about it, with the constant partisan attacks on our President, we need to show the people that we believe in Bush’s leadership, and that his policies have helped America.
You can access information on writing Letters to the Editor. You can type in your zip code to get a listing of your local newspapers.
It’s also extremely helpful to donate to the campaign itself. Every little bit counts, and the cause is just.
It’s important to remember what is at stake in this upcoming election. Our country cannot afford to have a Democrat as President during this crucial time in our history.
Just So You Know
Tuesday, October 14th, 2003MattMargolis.com experienced some problems earlier which resulted in the site being down earlier today for a number of hours. My webspace provider told me this shouldn’t happen again. Hopefully this didn’t inconvenience many people.
In other news, there’s been quite a bit of blog-worthy news stories that I hope to write about soon. Unfortunately, working full-time and being a full-time student makes finding time to blog a bit difficult. Feel free to check out older posts that you may have missed in the meantime.
Why We Fight Is Why I’ll Vote For Bush
Thursday, October 9th, 2003It was good to see President George W. Bush standing firm on the war on terror today. Unlike most of the Democrats who are hoping to take over his job, Bush is clearly committed to fighting the war on terror – the right way. He reaffirmed today that “America is following a new strategy. We’re not waiting for further attacks. We’re striking our enemies before they can strike us again.”
This is what it’s all about. It is quite sad to think that the Democrats hoping to be president are running on a platform that is effectively weak on the war on terror. Bush justified the preemptive doctrine plainly and simply when he said, “These committed killers will not be stopped by negotiations; they won’t respond to reason. The terrorists who threaten America cannot be appeased - they must be found, they must be fought, and they must be defeated.”
You can’t get much clearer than that. While a good number of people (including Bush and his administration) see that you don’t fight a war against terrorism with words but with actions, an obsessively vocal and angry group of leftists, liberals, and Democrats stop at nothing to convince their constituency that the way to fight terror is to the nice guy and do nothing.
Bush clearly is beginning to step up to the plate and play the campaign game again. It just needs to be done. It’s been two years now since September 11, 2001, and a great number of Americans have forgotten why we fight. It’s a sad state for our country to be in, because the Democrats running for President are making our country look weak. As if they are taking cues from the terrorists who wish to deflect support for the war in Iraq by attacking our troops, they recite partisan condemnations of the war effort, some demanding the troops be brought home… most telling people Bush lied to America (while several of them voted in favor of going into Iraq nonetheless) … it’s all just very sad. None of them resemble a President and Commander-in-Chief that any American should want while we’re fighting a war against terrorism.
Perhaps the Democrats just don’t care about terrorism. Maybe it’s just a non-issue with them. I can’t think of any other way to explain their positions on it.
Who would you rather a trust? President Bush clearly isn’t willing to put American lives at risk. The Democrats are clearly willing to wait for terrorists and evil dictators to attack us before doing anything about it – if they even would do anything about it, which, quite honestly, I doubt whether or not they would.
Bush sternly said, “I acted because I was not about to leave the security of the American people in the hands of a madman. I was not about to stand by and wait and trust in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein.” Those are the words of a Commander-in-Chief. Those are the words of someone I can trust to do the job necessary to protect America.
As David Kay’s report clearly showed that Saddam was certainly concealing his efforts to produce weapons of mass destruction, Democrats running for President still have the audacity to say “Bush lied to the American people,” regarding going to Iraq. Do they have any justification for these actions? No, it just sounds good when they say it, and it allows them to avoid talking about issues – which the Democrats have none.
Bush, practically calling the Democrats on their fallacious and partisan attacks on the war on terror, said the following:
Who can possibly think that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power? Surely not the dissidents who would be in his prisons or end up in mass graves. Surely not the men and women who would fill Saddam’s torture chambers, or the women in his rape rooms. Surely not the victims he murdered with poison gas. Surely not anyone who cares about human rights and democracy and stability in the Middle East. There is only one decent and humane reaction to the fall of Saddam Hussein: Good riddance.
The Iraqi dissidents certainly are glad we went in. The men and women who’d otherwise be in Saddam’s torture chambers and rape rooms certainly are glad we went in. Certainly the Kurds are glad we went in. The moral of the story is: Democrats just don’t care about human rights, democracy, and stability in the Middle East. While decent people say “good riddance” to Saddam Hussein, the Democrats (except for Joe Lieberman) stand at their podiums telling the country we shouldn’t have taken Saddam out. I’m glad Bush it telling it like it is. In November of 2004, America needs to say “good riddance” to the Democrats who only seek to bring this country down, and undermine the war on terror.
Bush isn’t willing to run from the challenge of the war against terror. That is why progress continues to be made. Bush cited examples from our own history, to demonstrate this, “The United States did not run from Germany and Japan following World War II. We helped those nations to become strong and decent, democratic societies that no longer waged war on America.” Bush then spoke of our accomplishments in stabilizing Iraq. “We’re rebuilding schools,” he said, “A lot of kids are going back to schools. Reopening hospitals. Thousands of children are now being immunized. Water and electricity are being returned to the Iraqi people. Life is getting better.”
As true as these accomplishment are, the media would like you to believe otherwise, and Bush knows this, and he’s finally addressed it:
It’s a lot better than you probably think. Just ask people who have been there. They’re stunned when they come back - when they go to Iraq and the stories they tell are much different from the perceptions that you’re being told life is like. You see, we’re providing this help not only because we’ve got good hearts, but because our vision is clear. A stable and democratic and hopeful Iraq will no longer be a breeding ground for terror, tyranny, and aggression.
It’s great that Bush is now out there saying these things. He’s got to explain that things in Iraq are not as bad as the Democrats want people to believe they are. “Our work in Iraq is essential to our own security,” Bush explained, “and no band of murderers or gangsters will stop that work, or shake the will of America.” While this may be true, it’s up to America to make sure the Democrats don’t stop the progress we’ve made, and shake the will of America – because they are certainly trying.
Bush demands victory in the war on terror - the Democrats demand submission. The war on terror should not be a political issue, but the Democrats are making it one. They’ve taken America’s best interests and diluted it with partisanship. They’ve made it a Democrats vs. Republican issue, not an issue solely of homeland security. By doing this, they are only helping those who wish to see us fail.
Democrats general attitude towards fighting the war on terror stems from their willing to wait for an “imminent” threat. Bush has stated in the past, (specifically during his State of the Union speech) that terrorists don’t announce their intentions giving us notice before they strike. To wait for an imminent threat would be irresponsible. It would cost lives.
I’m not willing to take that chance. That’s why I’m voting for George W. Bush in 2004.
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