Accountability and Regretful Americans

July 13, 2010 | Comments (1)

I wish I could laugh, hearing that captains of industry now regret the millions they donated to Barack Obama, arming him with the power to decimate American industry and the free-market system. I wish I could smile when I hear the lapdog media reporting with shock that confidence in this President is plummeting across the board, and that even members of his own party are realizing they have made a terrible mistake by pledging him their blind allegiance. I wish I could at least grin upon hearing that millions of voters now admit they would vote differently if given the opportunity to go back in time to November, 2008.

But I’m not laughing, and neither am I feeling the relief I suppose I should upon hearing that these Americans have recognized the terrible mistakes they made. Because of the devastation those mistakes, those choices have caused our country, our families and our children, I feel no relief, no sympathy. This is permanent-record territory, so anger is all you’ll get from me.

From sea to shining sea, well-educated, highly skilled, Constitution-loving Americans are admitting they regret their votes for Obama now that their eyes have opened to the true character and agenda of the man. We just don’t understand what happened, these individuals invariably plead.

But why don’t they understand? What’s the big mystery here? It’s really quite simple: They and so many others just don’t want to acknowledge the part they played in the current attacks on our country. They did so knowingly, and probably at the time with a big goofy smile of do-gooder, guilt-relief on their faces.

Though my own conscious is clean, I find the simplicity of this tragic situation staggering. Here you have thoughtful, highly skilled, professionally experienced people who have worked very hard for what they have achieved in this life. I know these people. You know them, too. Now along comes this guy running for President. To spare my own sanity, I’ll skip the description of his lack of experience, his mysterious past, his frightening associations, and his childhood scars.

Now, given this man’s thin resume and problematic personal background, let’s ask our regretful yet accomplished, hard-working, professionally experienced Americans, including friends and family members of our own, if they would ever hire this man to work for their companies, their practices, their shops. Of course they wouldn’t. And they would say this without hesitation, I’m sure. Yet millions of these same accomplished, professionally experienced friends and family members, also without hesitation, entrusted the futures of our precious nation, our families and our children to this same incompetent individual.

And they should be ashamed. Not shocked. Not disappointed. Ashamed.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to shed my own anger over what they did to us – beginning with what I hope will be a redemptive election for our country come November. In the meantime, all those regretful Americans out there can take their first step toward their own redemption by acknowledging their guilt – not regret, guilt — and then doing all they can to make things right again.

Betsy Siino | Comments (1)

Obama Tries to Be Manly and the Left Goes Gaga

June 11, 2010 | Comments (0)

Following the advice of his handlers, pollsters and a bunch of celebrities, Barack Obama tried to get tough this week and “show his anger” with the oil-spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico by dropping the A-word. Apparently the belatedly scripted shot of him walking along an oil-spattered beach in his spindly designer suit, his dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves, concern emanating from his furrowed brow, just wasn’t enough to suggest that he is powerful and competent.

But once he dropped that A-word, making it clear he would be finding whom to blame (rather than finding solutions), his minions in the lapdog media went wild, cooing that their President had not only exploded in emotion, but had also given the masses a quintessential show of masculinity. To be fair, they really aren’t all that familiar with masculinity, so I suppose they can be forgiven for so blatantly misidentifying it here, yet it’s sad to think that Chris Matthews’ leg is probably still tingling.

Of course, those of us who do admire true masculinity, and still consider real men to be valuable assets to our culture, found Obama’s attempt to show some belated manly behavior in response to this devastating tragedy inappropriate, completely lacking in leadership, and downright embarrassing. We the people would have preferred to see him jump on the disaster at its onset; acknowledge its potential impact; and pass up a few tee-times, fundraisers, teleprompted speeches, and rock concerts in the White House. Oh, and for the record, Mr. President, a real man, a genuine American leader, would have told the aging Beatle that it was not the time, nor certainly the place, to bash the man who occupied the Oval Office before you did. Now that would have made my leg tingle.

When not tingling over their President’s show of manliness, the lapdogs are similarly celebrating the masculinity of Joe McGinniss, the so-called journalist who has courageously moved in next door to Sarah Palin to spy on her and her family and gather dirt. Again: What can you expect from a gaggle of clowns who have only the likes of Keith Olbermann, our tingly friend Chris, and David Letterman (to name only a few) as their masculine role models?

Unfortunately, it’s a lost cause even to imagine the left ever figuring out that stalking, cursing, blaming, avoiding, evading and hand-wringing do not a real man make. Nor are they components of a leader, particularly an American leader. And a leader, man or woman, is what we Americans need right now. We need a fearless American at the helm of our nation who genuinely loves, respects and cherishes this country and her laws. These are qualities that cannot be faked. We know them when we see them, and we look forward to the day when we will see them in the White House, in the halls of Washington, and in the State Houses and City Halls of this great nation once more. We pray that day will come soon.

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Happy Mom’s Day!

May 9, 2010 | Comments (0)

On this day I pray for all children to be blessed with nurturing, loving moms, who not only give them the care and cuddles and guidance they need each and every day, but also protect them and their families with the fierceness embodied in our legendary mom Grizzly. There is no greater calling.  

Wishing a happy day to moms everywhere — moms, grandmoms, sisters, aunts, foster moms, moms-to-be, wannabe moms, grizzlymoms, and every mom in between. And a happy day to all who love them.  Cheers!

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Dear Congressman Stupak

March 23, 2010 | Comments (0)

Dear Congressman Stupak:

I write this today on behalf of both pro-choice and pro-life Americans who oppose the monstrosity of a so-called health-care-reform bill that you helped shepherd through the House Sunday afternoon. I don’t think I have to remind you that the vast majority of Americans oppose this government takeover of our health-care system, but there you were, front and center, making it happen.

It was no secret on Sunday that your leaders wanted to make sure the vote would be nicely padded to ensure that no single “yes-voting” Congressperson could be “blamed” for the bill’s passage. But we’re not fools, Congressman. You were the deciding vote. No matter how you have tried to spin it, we know it, and you know it, too.

I’m sure you’ve grown weary of the phrase “30 pieces of silver” by now. You just have to understand that most of us were furious to hear that you had finally caved and would do whatever Pelosi and Obama mandated. After your week of pathetic “they’re being mean to me” moaning and whimpering, though, and given your record of doing your leadership’s bidding, we weren’t all that surprised when you betrayed your country. You could have been a hero. You could have voted “no.” Now that would have surprised us.

You claim to be a “pro-life” moderate democrat, which, after Sunday means nothing, of course, but this goes beyond the labels “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” To be blunt, Congressman, you have sworn your allegiance to a man who spent all of 5 minutes as a State Senator, the same amount of time in the U.S. Senate, and practically the only time he ever bothered not to vote “present,” was to vote repeatedly to deny medical care to a baby who survives an abortion. Does the “Born Alive Act” ring a bell? It better.

Before Obama was elected, I never even thought about this. His voting record, however, brought it into my consciousness, and I have no choice but to proclaim it evil. Pro-choice or pro-life, I would think, have to think, that all would agree on this. Well, all but you, of course. And your President.

Unlike most run-of-the-mill voters who may not have even known about Obama’s fundamentally inhuman position on this profoundly human issue, you have pledged your allegiance to this man. When you took the bribe. When you feigned outrage. When you cast your vote.

Decent, genuinely compassionate people have no choice but to condemn Obama’s voting record – and thus his character. Ignore it, overlook it as you have, and there is no hope for us. Too bad you didn’t have the guts to stand by moral principle. Your failure to do so, told us all we needed to know about where you stand. And who you are. Your mistake was believing we wouldn’t see this.

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Please Stop Talking, Mr. President!

February 1, 2010 | Comments (0)

February 1, 2010 | Comments

Responsible mom, responsible American, that I am, given the current state of the American economy, I worry for the people who need and want jobs and have none. I worry for the lack of common sense and capitalist know-how that seems to drive the current administration. I worry for the future of my children — and yours – as they are sentenced to suffer the consequences of the radical, even criminal, economic agenda currently at play. I worry about the punishing debt that is being heaped upon our children, and I worry for the lack of opportunity they are doomed to face, thanks to the current regime in Washington, DC.

Given these worries, I wish the President would just stop talking!

Case in point: Last Friday, mid-day, the stock market was plugging away, enjoying an increase of about 60, 80 points…doing okay. Then the President, ever a moth to the camera’s flame, stepped up to his podium to regale us with yet another televised montage of his golden words. Instantly the market plummeted, never to recover that day.

Today, recent history repeats itself, but with a twist, as we witness the release of the President’s record-breaking, $3.8 trillion 2011 budget. So, yes, he’s scheduled to take to the microphone once more. In response to this scheduled speech, traders on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange (several having stated recently that “we all hate” this President for the effect he is having on the economy), are confessing that minutes before their fearless leader begins to speak, they will place “put” orders. In other words, they will bet that the market will fall in response to this President’s voice, a voice proven to damage stocks and profits – and, by extension, jobs and a robust economy.

A recent survey conducted by business entity Bloomberg, revealed that 77 percent of investors think this President is anti-business. This budget isn’t likely to reverse those results, despite the sugar-sweet words the President uses to pacify us. Indeed words, like elections, have consequences, too.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

The Morning After: Watching an Angry President

January 28, 2010 | Comments (0)

January 28, 2010 | Comments

Last night I felt we had just witnessed the spinning of a desperate man offering up a glorified campaign speech under the guise of a State of the Union Address. Today I awaken with a truer insight. What we actually witnessed last night was the pathetic tantrum of an angry President who does not understand – or simply does not want to understand — the basic tenets of the magnificent country he serves.

As someone on our local talk radio station said yesterday afternoon, this President needs to learn the difference between a leader and a ruler. I say that even if he does understand this, he has convinced himself that he was ushered into office with a landslide mandate (which he was not), an event, he seems to believe, that endows him with the title “ruler,” and, perhaps, “supreme being,” as well.

But last night’s disconnected, disjointed performance gave evidence that he realizes he is being regarded as mortal after all. Thus the root of his anger. He has forgotten, or simply chosen to ignore and disparage, the basic foundation of our nation – the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government – a separation that in every way offers us the ultimate safety net. Last night he lashed out at that safety net like a spoiled child, revealing to us once more how little he thinks of this nation, her system, and, yes, her people, who have had the audacity to stand in the way of his transforming America in his own image.

In one of the most inappropriate moments of all presidential history, he blasted the Supreme Court Justices seated as a group at his feet. With a nasty sneer, he berated their majority for daring to pass down a ruling that upholds our sacred right to free speech, a ruling with which he disagrees. He then urged the Congress to fight this ruling (by whatever means necessary, perhaps, Mr. President?). The members of the legislative branch in attendance who are in his camp responded with a rousing ovation.

But he berated the legislative branch, as well, scolding them for failing to push his agenda through swiftly and secretly. As a result, he found himself standing before the nation, unable to announce his long-coveted government takeover of the American health-care system. And now, it just won’t be that easy. The democratic supermajority has been squelched, he whined, thanks to the election of a man he did not name. His dominance of all three branches of the U.S. government has been destroyed, he said in so many words, and the republicans can now take the blame for standing in the way of progress.

Which led him to the target of his most ardent anger. He is angry at us, folks, the American people, and he didn’t even try to hide it. We dared to steal that supermajority – and, in turn, the unfettered power it offered him as a ruler. He bared his hostility toward us loudly and clearly, essentially obliterating any other message he tried to cloak in false sincerity and folksiness. And we will not forget that. I don’t think those Supreme Court Justices – particularly Justice Alito – are likely to forget either.

So I suggest the President consider, perhaps, getting himself to an anger-management class. Even more importantly, though, he needs to go back to school for a basic civics lesson. Time to refresh his understanding of the separation of powers, a concept he swore to honor when he pledged on his inauguration day to uphold that “flawed document” (his words), the Constitution of the United States.

If, as we hear, this President truly was a lecturer on constitutional law in his former life, this certainly makes me wonder what he taught his students in those classes. After hearing last night’s lecture to the American people, if I were the parent of one of those students, I’d be asking for my money back today.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

I Believe in the Permanent Record

January 22, 2010 | Comments (0)

January 22, 2010 | Comments

I believe in the permanent record, that elusive checklist hovering somewhere out there in the atmosphere that moms, teachers and school principals use to keep us in line. Though it may not tangibly exist, I do believe there are serious, devastating, character-damaging choices people make in life that, once revealed, become part of one’s indelible being, not to be written off as “mistakes,” never to be erased, forgotten, or sometimes even forgiven.

Join the Ku Klux Klan: permanent record. Cheat on the wife with 16 women: permanent record. Drive drunk and kill a family: permanent record. Attack innocent people in the name of your religion: permanent record. Sell secrets to those who wish to harm our country: permanent record. Vote “yes” on a 2000-page health-care-reform bill that you haven’t even read that will nationalize and ration American health care, plunge our children and grandchildren into decades of punishing debt, and inject the government into the most intimate corners of American lives: permanent record.

As to this latter example, the democrats are in chaos at the moment, thanks to that 2000-page monstrosity they have jammed down our throats almost to the point of reaching the President’s desk for one of his staged photo-op signings. But after Tuesday’s election in Massachusetts, we are seeing mea culpas being performed all over the place by democrats, who have been shown quite dramatically that their days could be numbered on Capitol Hill. “We had no idea you guys were so mad,” they whimper. “We are listening now. We promise.”

But we the people know self-preservation when we see it. What these so-called representatives are realizing is that the fury of the American public that has made itself abundantly and very vocally clear for the last year (do the town halls and tea parties ring a bell, anyone?), the fury these arrogant stiffs have chosen to ignore and vilify, has the power to run them out of office and back to their hometowns faster than you can say Martha/Marcia Coakley.

So now that they have recognized America’s true power brokers (us), vested with power handed down by the Founders themselves, they beg us to forgive them. “We understand now,” they claim. “You want us to slow down and trash a bill that only a third of you support. And you want us to read the Constitution. Okay, okay, we will. We promise. And look, we’ll even stop being the President’s lackeys! See, we’re not his toys and his tools anymore. We’re in this for you! We made a mistake, that’s all. So we’re okay now, aren’t we?

No. We’re not okay. Permanent record. We don’t trust you, and we don’t trust the President, either, even if he suddenly begins speaking with a centrist tongue. You all made your choice and signed on to an agenda designed to destroy the fabric and fiber of our great nation. You showed us who you are when you voted “yes” on that 2000-page atrocity and called us Nazis and racists, simply because we want to protect our nation and our families. Worse yet, we know you would have gleefully voted “yes” on all the atrocities yet to come: amnesty, cap and tax, more stimulus bills, appeasement of terrorists….And now you beg us to forgive you, claiming you didn’t mean it.

But you did mean it. We never heard a peep from you about the bribes and the threats and payoffs, some of you even taking the bribes yourselves. You endangered our nation as it has not been endangered since those first shots fired at Fort Sumter back in 1861. You fired your own shots. You voted “yes.” And you would have voted “yes” again and again and again.

You misread or simply dismissed the power of the American people. You ignored your own convictions (if you even had any) as well as your voters, and you knew exactly what you were doing every step of the way. We told you, no. We told you again and again and again that we don’t want this, that we don’t want our country plunging deep into a hard-left rabbit hole, that we don’t want to abandon what makes us the last best hope, the shining city on the hill. But you ignored us. You defied us. You attacked us.

So go ahead and offer your apologies, make your peace with the man upstairs, and confess to your moms and your families if you feel like it. We, however, are in no mind to forgive you. You have shown us who you are, and you have shown us we cannot trust you. Our country is too precious to us. You woke the sleeping giant, and we will not sleep again.

I teach my children that they will be faced with countless choices throughout their lives, each bringing consequences. As they will see, doing what is right when others around you are doing the opposite and beckoning to you to join them is the most difficult choice of all. But stay on your path, stick to what you know is right, and you will have no cause for regret, no reason to fear you have damaged what you love, no need to beg for forgiveness.

As Aaron Tipton says in one of my favorite songs: “Whatever you do today, you’ll have to sleep with tonight.” Plenty of elected officials are tossing and turning “tonight” after what they did “today” and over the past months. They went along with the “in” crowd, and now they see the consequences of that choice scribbled all over their own permanent records. They should have listened to their moms.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Thanksgiving 2009

November 29, 2009 | Comments (0)

November 29, 2009 | Comments

Another Thanksgiving weekend comes to an end. This is always a favorite of mine, and this one did not disappoint. I hope the same is true for you.

And now as it comes to an end, I reflect once more on all I have to be thankful for: family, kids, a beautiful country. And a Constitution and the blessings of being an American. For yes, though we are traveling a tough road right now, this is still America, a nation of laws, a nation of rights, a nation of opportunity and compassion unmatched by any other nation on earth.

And as I offer my thanks for this amazing gift of ours, I wonder where we will be this time next year. What will we be pondering come Thanksgiving, 2010?

I’ll tell you what I think. One year from now, one year from this very night, I believe we will be offering jubilant thanks to our nation and to each other for having just taken our country back days before. Thanksgiving next year will fall a few short weeks after what I believe will be a monumental, magnificent election in this country. I pray that those of us who love this country, who embrace our Constitution and who honor our history, will be, at this moment next year, thanking God and our fellow Americans for having cast our votes in droves for America on election day just passed and bringing our country back to where she belongs. In my heart, I know this will be, for I have faith in my country. I have faith in her people.

So tonight, I thank my country and I thank you, her people. And I hope we will all ask God to bless our America every day until Thanksgiving, 2010. Just as we always have. Just as we always will.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

God’s New Partner

August 20, 2009 | Comments (0)

August 20, 2009 | Comments

So now God is the tool. The man tried velvet. The man called out the media, and he toyed with the race card. He tried threats, he tried guilt, and he tried civil rights in his unceasing quest for that magic bullet that will finally win the masses over to his side on the socialized health-care debate/debacle. As all else has failed, he now turns to God.

God has indeed played a prominent role in the characterization of Barack Obama. Our President has been likened to God by the news media he carries around in his pocket, jokes about his anointing are rampant, and he has been facetiously christened “the messiah” by those who object to his image as someone beyond criticism, beyond reproach, beyond media scrutiny, and beyond all human frailty. But yesterday, in a calculated quest for victory, he tried a new tact: He played the God card.

Yesterday for the first time, the President of the United States readily accepted the whole God connection that has long hounded him, when he stated to a gathering of rabbis that “we are God’s partners in matters of life and death.” Clever move. We can’t say no to God, can we? And if God speaks through Barack Obama, now apparently self-elevated to spiritual leader of the people, on such pesky matters as life and death, well, who are we to argue?

To say that I am horrified by such a shameless display of arrogance would be an understatement of explosive proportions (and I’m hoping God isn’t all that impressed either). While I personally believe that the President has gotten a charge out of the God/Supreme Being comparisons, I never dreamed he would so openly jump on that train. And to a gathering of rabbis, no less. Did they give him a pass?  I don’t know. I hope they didn’t.

 I can tell you that my family’s parish priest certainly would have called him on it. A veteran with a fierce love for America, our pastor has been quite honest and heartfelt in sharing his feelings about the prospect of the government deciding who among us should live and who should die. This, he has stated unequivocally, not only violates the Christian faith and all faiths that value the human spirit, but also the founding documents of our nation that grant us the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” As someone who has also read these documents, I don’t remember seeing mention of government bureaucrats or czars determining how the first item on that list will be managed, distributed and controlled.

But it didn’t end there. Oh, no. After proclaiming his divine partnership on Wednesday, his newfound position as spiritual leader, the President today informs us – by way of yet another health-care campaign event with a gathering of clergy – that to oppose these promising health-care proposals is, essentially, akin to committing a sin. Peppering his prepared speech with biblical references, he admonished us to “be our brother’s keeper” (a mission he accused us of neglecting and failing to uphold), he referred to passage of his health-care bill as our “core moral obligation,” and he accused those who don’t support his agenda as “bearing false witness.”

As Dana Carvey’s classic Saturday Night Live Church Lady of Church Chat fame back in the 80s might ooze in her imitable nasal whine: “W…e…e…e…l…l…l, isn’t that special.”

Though the President’s media pals tried valiantly to underplay it, we are all well aware of the church that God’s new partner and his family attended over the past decades, and the incendiary messages that emanated from its pulpit (though the President apparently missed them). Those of us who have spent that same amount of time in, shall we say, more traditional houses of worship – Christian and Jewish alike – we are left wondering not only how and when God decided that the President of the United States – any President of the United States – would now be his equal partner in “matters of life and death,” but also how we missed the commandment that opposing the presidential/congressional agenda was essentially a sin. I never heard Charlton Heston read that one from those stone tablets.

I am reminded of the magnificent mini-series “I, Claudius,” when a crazed emperor Caligula confesses joyfully to his uncle Claudius that he has become a god. It’s good to be king, we have long heard, but according to John Hurt’s Caligula, and perhaps a certain president we know, as well, it’s even better to be a God – or at least God’s partner. The God-fearing men who wrote our country’s founding documents were guided by the desire to protect the grand experiment that is our country from monarchy. Methinks they never would have dreamed that someone would someday come along, bypass the lowly king level altogether, and grasp for the exalted deity ring instead.

Most who know God can recognize what is authentic and what isn’t, the first sign of authenticity being humility. It is downright embarrassing and disgraceful to see our God used as a threat, a tool, a club, for phony, political pandering. Even more disgraceful, would be for men and women of God to give such pandering a pass.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Greetings!

July 4, 2009 | Comments (0)

July 4, 2009 | Comments

Welcome to Still the USA.

This, the first post of my blog, is my “Hello World.”  As an author, not a computer expert, I hope you’ll bear with my attempts to follow the proper guidelines here in the blogosphere and to get this site running in a clear and accessible manner.

First step: I invite you to take a look at my “About” page for an idea of where this blog has come from.  As for where it’s going, I will be following the many challenges that are facing our country today, at the same time looking at our culture, our history and our people – victories and mistakes and all — to understand where we need to go if we are to preserve the precious gift given to us by our founders.  In other words, I hope these pages will serve as a reminder to us all that no matter what problems, challenges and threats we face, we are still the USA, and we must never lose sight of what that means to freedom-loving people everywhere.

Please feel free to contact me with your own thoughts, your own comments about our country and her people.  Looking forward to hearing from you….

Be well,

Betsy Sikora Siino | Comments

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