Howdy Weazel, I accept your challenge.
1. He signed a bill providing for federal funds to be distributed to "faith based" organizations."
These faith based organizations are providing charity for the poor. They are more efficient at this than any organization of the federal government. (Don't forget to bow whenever I use the term "federal government.") They cannot use this money to publish religious tracts or sermonize. They can only use it to subsidize their soup kitchens and clothing for the poor operations. You got a problem with your tax money being spent efficiently?
2. He expanded the number of federal crimes for which the death penalty can be given to a total of sixty.
I assume you are referring to the tightening of the penalties that can be dished out by the federal courts that are meted out to people involved in activities that support terrorism or threaten the security of the U.S. With 3,000 dead and a continuing threat of outside attack, these actions seem perfectly reasonable to me. Do you have any better suggestions?
3. He signed a bill outlawing gay marriages...
The states handle the licensing of marriages. The federal government has not passed a law about it one way or the other.
...took out ads on Christian radio stations touting his opposition to any form of legal same sex couplings.
So what. Do you have a problem with freedom of the press. Or do you want to shut everybody up that does not agree with you. if you don't like what he says, take our your own ads.
4. ...He's been able to kick ten million people off welfare...
As a true liberal you should be delighted that the welfare rolls are contracting rather than expanding. Could it be that these people are actually finding meaningful employment with the aid of their state governments?! Is it possible that the state governments are better able to handle this type of problem than the federal government ? If a state is actually doing a pretty good job of taking care of its poor, shouldn't the federal government make funds available to assist these state programs. If the federal government does make these funds available, WHY should there be strings attached?
5. He introduced a plan that would bar any assistance to teenage parents if they drop out of school or leave their parents home.
Riigghhtt. I see your point. We shouldn't discourage teenagers from having children out of wedlock and then leaving home during their school years to try to make it on their own. To discourage them from doing so would be to admit that we don't think they are capable of making sound judgements.
Good point.
6. In spite of calls...to support a moratorium on capital punishment, he rejected all efforts to slow down the number of executions even after it was revealed that there are dozens of people on death row who are innocent.
There are thousands of murderers on death row. Not all of them are innocent. Some have committed the most heinous types of murder known to man. They will remain dangerous to their fellow human beings as long as they are alive. I'm all for the use of DNA evidence to validate the use of the death penalty. But that is for the STATES to decide, not the federal government because the states conduct most of the executions. Direct your anger at them.
7. He has released funds for local communities to hire over a hundred thousand police officers and support laws that put people behind bars for life after committing three crimes...even for ...
Would you rather these communities did NOT have these extra police officers? Again, the states make these laws. Direct your anger and vitriol at them.
8. There are now more people without health insurance than when he took office.
I fail to see your point. How is he responsible for this? Most health insurance is purchased by individuals or by their employers. If they lose their jobs, they have to drop their health insurance in some cases. It's no secret that the economy is in a recession. This is one of the consequences of that recession. When the economy eventually recovers, and it WILL recover, this problem will begin to disappear. But I suppose you want the federal government to create another "program" to handle the problem.
9. He has refused to sign the international Land Mine Ban treaty already signed by 137 nations...
This one I have mixed feelings about. They are a horrible weapon. On the other hand, if one of my sons was in a foreign land, fighting a war, and his base was under constant threat of attack, I would want he and his unit to have every possible form of defense.
10. He has accelerated drilling for gas and oil on federal lands...
Oil is the life-blood of our country. Until other methods of energy production prove capable of replacing it, it IS worth fighting for. One out of every three jobs in the U.S. economy are related to the automobile industry, or dependent on it in some fashion. If you think the current recession is bad, let the Middle East conduct an oil embargo. Besides, the mineral rights of federal lands are held in "reserve" for a reason. That reason is, and has always been, future need. Oil companies have far more "environmental friendly" methods of extraction than they had 30 years ago. The arguments against extraction from wilderness areas have therefore been rendered largely moot.
Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!
Regards, Shuckins
