The political system here in the United States is the best in the world. Because we are so open, sometimes we are very proud of what we can accomplish. Other times we are ashamed of how our politicians act. I fear sometime it's more about serving one's self, rather than serving the American people. Polls are slanted, politicians are 'smooth' talking but not really saying what they really think.and at times speaking without thinking first.
That's all part of American politics. We say it would be nice for everyone to get along, but that's not the nature of our system. Most of us think that's a good thing. Here's a few tidbits:
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appointed Joseph Onek to be her Senior Counsel. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that she would want someone like him working with her. John Perazzo says:
... a 1967 graduate of Yale Law School, is currently a Senior Policy Analyst for George Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI), one of the world’s major financiers of the political far Left. OSI is a member of the benignly named Peace and Security Funders Group, an association of more than 50 foundations that earmark a sizable portion of their $27 billion in combined assets to leftist organizations that undermine the war on terror in several interrelated ways:
- by characterizing the United States as an aggressively militaristic nation that exploits vulnerable populations all over the globe
- by accusing the U.S. of having provoked, through its unjust policies and actions, the terror attacks against it, and consequently casting those attacks as self-defensive measures taken in response to American transgressions
- by depicting America’s military and legislative actions against terror as unjustified, extreme, and immoral
- by steadfastly defending the civil rights and liberties of terrorists whose ultimate aim is to facilitate the annihilation of not just the United States, but all of Western civilization
- by striving to eradicate America’s national borders and institute a system of mass, unregulated migration into and out of the United States — thereby rendering all distinctions between legal and illegal immigrants anachronistic, and making it much easier for aspiring terrorists to enter the U.S. Toward this end, OSI has poured rivers of money into the coffers of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, theNational Immigration Law Center, the National Immigration Forum, the National Council of La Raza, and the American Immigration Law Foundation. (read much more at FrontPageMag)
Here's a fine example of polls:
New York-based political consultant Kieran Mahoney’s survey of probable Republican participants in the 2008 Iowa presidential caucuses showed this support for the “big three” candidates: John McCain, 20.5 percent; Rudy Giuliani, 16.3 percent; Mitt Romney, 3.5 percent. Astonishingly, they all trailed James Gilmore, the former governor of Virginia, who had 31 percent.
How could that be? Because it was not a legitimate survey but a “push poll,” normally a clandestine effort to rig the results by telling respondents negative things about some of the candidates. But Mahoney makes no secret that the voters he sampled were told of liberal deviations by McCain, Giuliani and Romney, as well as true-blue conservatism by Gilmore, who is Mahoney’s client.
Mahoney did not include Gingrich in his poll of Iowa Republicans likely to vote in next year’s caucuses. (more at Peace and Freedom)
We can't expect Democrats and Republicans to get along. In fact, the Democrats can't even agree among themselves. Ditto for the Republicans.
Most, if not all, of the Democrats in the Senate want the war in Iraq to be over. Some want U.S. troops to be withdrawn immediately. Yet when pressed, many of them also plan to vote to continue funding the war. That makes a consensus — and a strategy — hard to come by.
In the House, Democrats are talking about adding equipment, training and rest requirements for troop deployments to Iraq; their Senate counterparts are talking about redefining the scope of the U.S. mission in Iraq. There's little talk, though, of cutting funding — unless, of course, you're listening to Republicans like Texas Sen. John Cornyn.
"If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle feel so strongly, as some of them clearly do, about the conflict in Iraq," Cornyn says, "then they have the obligation i believe to cut off funding." (NPR)
Bicker. Bicker. Bicker. But in America we are free to do that. I'm thankful every day.