It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I voted against Obama. He is now the most thoroughly unqualified person to be president, getting elected on policies that have proven to be failures under Jimmy Carter, that have been proven wrong by the scientific community and that by his own admission will bankrupt entire industries and not just make us pay more in taxes, but will cost us hundreds of dollars more per year for our energy. He's also going to turn the abortion spigot on full blast so there will be fewer people in 20 years to pay for his increased entitlements so in a generation America will be as deep in the hole as France is today.

My vote wasn't one of party loyalty; rather it was based on beliefs. Before the election I took a quiz which, upon completion, compared my answers to the policies of Obama. My beliefs differed from Obama's on 48 of 48 issues. Sadly, according the Zogby and USA today polls from which the quiz questions were compiled, the majority of Americans differed with him on 48 of 48 issues as well, but we still elected him. It makes no sense. Some questions were broken out by income bracket, and even the low income respondents differed with him on 46 of 48, with the only 2 agreements being on raising top marginal tax rates and increasing entitlements. I just don't know what happened.

Three days after the election most pundits are saying that Obama, like Clinton, will go more centrist than left. So far his cabinet picks don't show much in the way of change or inspiring hope, but they are pretty consistent with his past (Chicago politics of reciprocity all the way). What's funny is the things I point out below make conservatives gasp and make liberals clap. I hate to say it, but I think Pat Buchanan was right - he will either make good on his many promises and be at odds with the majority of America (the rejection of gay marriage in California of all places - twice - serves as proof that America IS center-right) or he will move to the center and be at odds with his party. Either way there will be blow back. I liked Ann Coulter's take on it. She said "As Republicans we need to reach across the aisle and show the new Democratic president the same respect that the democrats and the media have shown the current Republican president. Tomorrow, if not sooner." In that vein, here's the post:

McCain, in the third debate, was reticent to call Obama a liar. However, as Mark Twain said, there are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics. Obama deploys all three.

ACORN
Here, in his own words, is his explanation of his relationship with ACORN: "Now, with respect to ACORN, ACORN is a community organization. Apparently what they've done is they were paying people to go out and register folks, and apparently some of the people who were out there didn't really register people, they just filled out a bunch of names. It had nothing to do with us. We were not involved."

Here's what he's not telling you1:

• In 1992, Obama directed Project Vote - an arm of ACORN that also encouraged voter registration. This means he's intimately familiar with their tactics.
• Around the same time, Obama began teaching classes for "Future Leaders Identified by ACORN." This means he taught their future leaders - and guess what? 2008 is the future to those 1992 trainees.
• In 1995, Obama represented ACORN in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois for its supposed failure to implement a federal law designed to make voter registration easier, and thus increasing the likelihood of voter fraud. This means that not only was he aware of their tactics, but he went to court to ensure that they could practice them!
• Obama also supports them in a fiduciary manner:

1. He joined two well-known boards with strong ties to ACORN - the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation. Under Obama's watch, the Chicago ACORN branch received thousands of dollars in grants from both organizations.
2. $832,000 given to Citizen's United, Inc to fund Acorn's "Get Out The Vote" campaign. Given all this support, don't be surprised if he claims ACORN as a dependent on his taxes (since he repeats so often that he hates paying them.)
3. Obama accepted the endorsement of ACORN in 2008. In a press release touting the endorsement on his official campaign website, Obama says: "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues that you care about my entire career."
   

So here is a real clear example of what Obama says being different from what Obama does. At it's most benign, he's practicing the "sin of omission" - lying by not telling all of the truth. But - a sin of omission is still a sin! He may not have directed ACORN in this instance of voter manipulation, but he doesn't tell them to stop either. He's an accessory after the fact, he denies the depth of his involvement, therefore, I file this under the category of a "LIE."

Taxes
"It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama said, adding, "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too ... When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." This is his famous response to Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher's question about his tax policies.

Obama has repeatedly thrown out this notion that he is giving 95% of Americans a tax cut. The facts do not bear this out. 30% of Americans, either by virtue of low income or the number of dependents, do not pay any taxes. You can't provide a reduction on $0.00. You can give a rebate, which is not a tax cut. He uses (successfully it turned out) semantics and statistics to fool people. What's even funnier that when Bush pushed through his $600 rebate for the 2007 tax year, Obama railed against it, as did his wife, saying rebates do not work. Michelle Obama asked what Bush expected people to do with the money - go out and buy earrings? (That tells you the kind of shopping she does! But Palin being a shopaholic - oooh, that's bad.) But when the rebate is Obama's idea, even if it's $100 less, well, suddenly it's a good thing.

Currently the 5% of income earners in America pay 80% of the income taxes collected annually. The top 10% pay 90% of the tax revenues. 30% don't pay income tax. That means that 60% of the population pays 10%. If the tax revenue were a dollar, and there were twenty people paying it, one person would pay $0.80, one person would pay $0.10, twelve people would pay less than $0.01, and 6 people would pay nothing. But in Obama's mind, that one person paying the $0.80 is not paying enough. This set up is, in his mind (and in his words), the "tragedy of the civil rights movement" - that the supreme court didn't mandate wealth redistribution. Never mind that the supreme court is there to enforce existing laws, not create new ones. This is the real Obama, and this is what we can expect of him - legislation that despite what he says to the contrary, will punish success.

Tomorrow - I'll talk about the deceptive "Freedom Of Choice" act that he promised will be the first piece of legislation he signs into law.

1http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/10/mccain_memo_attacks_obama_on_a.html