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A Little Fun
taken from a forwarded Email
2010 Was
Not A Good Year To Be President
Welcome to Toastmasters, June 13, 2033. That's right:
2033.
Today Rick
Campbell, one of our senior members at age 87, is here
to reminisce a bit and give us a history lesson. He says
he is so old that he learned to drive an internal
combustion engine car (remember those) with a manual
transmission. He once owned a typewriter. He remembers
when bicycles had one speed, phones had two-party lines,
and cameras had something called film. As incredible as
this may seem, he says that when he was young, it was
common for people to smoke in restaurants and
public places. He is from a different time; almost a
different world.
I'm sure all of us are far too familiar with the tragic
events of 2010, so Rick is not going to plow that
fertile field again. Instead, he is going to give us a
personal look back at the conditions which led up to
that fateful year, in a speech titled "2010 Was Not A
Good Year To Be President."
"2010 Was Not A Good Year To Be President"
Yes, 2010 was long ago and far away.
As we look back on history, it appears that some
Presidents had an easy ride- times of growth an d
stability. Teddy Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding, Dwight
Eisenhower, Bill Clinton come to mind. Those were good
years to be President.
Others were elected just when the Republic was facing
terrible crises:
Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt,
George W. Bush. They rose to the occasion, even though
they were controversial and widely hated while in
office. Not such good years to be President.
Just a few years prior, in 2008, the country began
foundering. We were in the sixth year of the Iraqi
Occupation, and the economy was flat. The mainstream
press clearly wanted a Democrat elected.
Although we didn't know it until some years later, oil
producing nations had colluded to secretly buy their own
oil on the open market, driving oil prices to shocking
levels above the true demand price- reaching a high
of $162 a barrel in October, 2008, just before the
general elections.
Their purpose was simple: to effect regime change in the
United States .
And of course, the U.S. economy was already in a real
estate slump and also suffering the curse of
stagflation; slow growth and high inflation.
There were a million home foreclosures.
Independent truckers went under by the thousands.
Airlines failed. Airlines with names now long-forgotten:
United, Delta, Northwestern, American. All now merged,
of course, into the one lone U.S. carrier we love so
much: Southwest.
Against this backdrop of weariness of the war on terror,
and economic distress, the American people were ripe for
a demagogue, and they certainly got one in Barack
Hussein Obama.
He and his running mate Kathleen Sibelius,
Governor
of Kansas, inspired them with vague notions of hope and
change; of a world in which diplomacy settled
all international problems, of free universal health
care, of abundant alternative energy, of peace and love.
It was a vision too good to resist.
The Republican nominee, a name you probably haven't
heard in years, anyone?
Yes, it was John McCain, an obscure Senator from Arizona
had no clue how to run a national campaign, and a
platform nearly as liberal as Obama's.
The selection of Condoleeza Rice as his running mate
looked brilliant at first. Unfortunately, black voters
viewed her as white, and women voters viewed her as one
of the guys.
Even so, the McCain/Rice ticket would have won the
election if it weren't for the fact that 16 percent of
conservative Republicans voted for another,
anyone remember? That's right, Bob Barr, one more name
that's a footnote in history.
After Obama's narrow win, thanks to recounts in Broward
County , Florida , the country was positively giddy. A
Democrat House, Senate, and President. At last, an end
to gridlock in Washington .
Camelot!
When Congress convened in January, 2009, the 44th
President of the United States did something unique in
history: he made good on his campaign promises.
Certainly most Americans never really thought he was
serious during the campaign. But whether because of
inexperience, idealism, or simply incompetence, he
followed through.
In Obama's first One Hundred Days, the Congress passed
his initiatives, and he signed them into law as he said
he would.
He repealed the Bush tax cuts, and increased capital
gains taxes.
He enacted a windfall profits tax, and instituted price
controls on
gasoline and diesel fuel.
He passed universal health care, which added an
additional 10 percent tax increase on all working
Americans, as well as those who tried to provide for
themselves in retirement.
He signed the Immigrant Amnesty bill which created 12
million new citizens instantly, each with entitlements.
He closed the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay , and
he summarily released all the detainees.
He repealed the Patriot Act, cut funding for espionage,
and eliminated all terrorist listening and wiretaps.
Most important, he began the complete and immediate
withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq .
He ignored the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who
wanted to retain bases in Kuwait and Qatar . Instead, he
went with the recommendation of Secretary of Defense
Dennis Kucinich and ordered all troops back to U.S.
soil.
Viola! In One Hundred Days, by May of 2009, it was all
done, and the vision was complete. He did exactly what
he said he would do.
And so it was in the summer of 2009 that things began to
unravel for Obama.
Of course, the economy needed a tax cut, not an
increase, and unemployment quickly rose to 12 percent.
Even attorneys and economists were put in the bread
lines. Hard times!
Price controls on gasoline immediately led to shortages
and gas lines.
The global cooling trend we have seen for the past 25
years first became obvious in 2009, exposing the CO2
global warming fraud.
People were justifiably angry.
Federal deficits increased massively, because thousands
of baby boomers, facing job loss and much higher taxes,
simply gave up and took social security.
Although the superb U.S. health care system was thrown
into disarray, the bright spot was the creation of the
Federal Department of Healthcare, and the immediate
hiring of 250,000 administrators, inspectors and
auditors, the only job growth in any economic sector in
2009.
By February 2010, the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq
was complete. It was a very expensive undertaking.
And then in March, the gradual Shiite insurgencies from
Iran turned into a true Iraqi civil war. In May, Iranian
tanks crossed the border and quickly took Baghdad .
Although the exact number is not know, at least
230,000 Sunni Iraqis died as we stood by.
Iran also quickly moved into undefended Kuwait .
President Obama did exactly what he said he would. He
sent Secretary of State, Maria Cantwell, to Tehran to
meet with Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
After two weeks of high level talks, the United States
agreed to allow Iran to retain Iraq and Kuwait, to
create stability in the Middle East, with the
understanding that Israel would not be disturbed.
Cantwell returned to Washington , and explained the
agreement in her famous speech, in which she proudly
noted that the Obama administration had finally achieved
"peace in our time" in the Middle East .
So there was some surprise at the rocket attacks on Tel
Aviv on August 14th.
President Obama said, "This is not the Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad I knew."
The Obama administration decided it would be
de-stabilizing to take sides in the conflict, and
approximately 29,000 Israeli civilians died during the
summer and fall.
American Jews were appalled at the inaction. Yes, most
American Jews were Democrats, but because of 2010, they
are solid Republicans today.
As awkward as it was, everything might have turned out
all right for the Obama administration going into the
fall mid-term elections of 2010, if it hadn't been for
the dirty bomb in the Port of Long Beach .
The administration had cut funding for the inspection of
containers,
because they felt it showed a "lack of trust" in the
international trading community.
It wasn't really a very big bomb, and thank goodness,
not a real nuclear device, bu t nonetheless it
contaminated some expensive real estate- Newport Beach,
Palos Verdes Estates- and ultimately caused the death
of 14,000 Americans. People were especially annoyed
that Disneyland had to be closed for decontamination.
And so, in the midterm elections, Republicans regained
control of both the House and Senate, and the rest is
history.
The impeachment proceedings against President Obama for
"failure to protect and defend" were swift and nearly
unanimous. Vice President Sibelius resigned.
Newly-elected Speaker of the House, J.C. Watts,
became the 45th President of the United States .
But you know the rest of the story well.
Republicans finished the war on Islamic fundamentalists,
largely by aiming ICBM's at Mecca and Medina .
No Democrat has been elected President since.
Republicans have held both Houses of Congress.
History of Western Civilization and Economics are now
taught in all public schools and in English only.
Marriage is defined as one man and one woman.
And there are border fences, north and south.
We old codgers remember the ancient Confucian curse:
"May you live in interesting times."
Well, 2010 was an interesting year, but it was not a
good year to be President.
(Far fetched? We are likely to find out if we continue
to be unaware of the issues and vote with our emotions
rather than be studious in our approach to electing our
"public officials".)
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