I have been meaning to write for so long  and now that the unofficial end of summer came yesterday, I am ready to write.  There is so much going on.  The 2012 presidential election is already heating up.  The Republicans have ten candidates seeking the Republican nomination.  There is one guy that I have never heard of and another guy that I only know because he was a former governor of New Mexico where I reside.  Right now the top three are Rick Perry, current governor of Texas, Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and Michelle Bachman, congresswoman from Minnesota.  I have to admit I haven’t really studied any of them in depth as of yet.  I know that I do not want Michelle Bachman as the candidate.  She is too out there.  We currently have a president that  is so far left and our country is suffering.  We need someone in the middle.  Traditionally our nation’s values are conservative, however, not everyone holds the same values.  There is no reason for our country not to be able to function if we don’t agree.  Right now, our country is dysfunctional.  It amazes me that there are still people that blame President George W. Bush for the problems we are facing.  President Obama clearly owns the economy.  He has been president for over two years now.  This is his mess.  Blaming the other guy doesn’t work anymore.  It is tiresome and gets old really fast.  On Thursday, President Obama will be speaking to a joint session of Congress.  Apparently he is going to tell the nation his plan to get people jobs.  This should be good.  Yesterday, he was in Detroit at a Union Rally. Not a very good start for the president in my opinion.  He talked about $7 million dollars in construction jobs that would help rebuild highways, bridges, etc…  Weren’t those the shovel ready jobs that he urged Congress to pass as part of the Recovery Act in 2009?  We still haven’t recovered and President Obama joked about those shovel ready jobs, too.

President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness met today in Durham, NC at Cree Inc., a company that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting. One of the Council’s recommendations to President Obama was to streamline the federal permit process for construction and infrastructure projects. It was explained to Obama that the permitting process can delay projects for “months to years … and in many cases even cause projects to be abandoned … I’m sure that when you implemented the Recovery Act your staff briefed you on many of these challenges.” At this point, Obama smiled and interjected, “Shovel-ready was not as … uh .. shovel-ready as we expected.” The Council, led by GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, erupted in laughter.  (Fox Nation, June 13, 2011).

Gee, I wonder if all the people who are currently out of work think this is fun.  I really don’t see what President Obama can say that will help.  I understand that Congress is a big part of the problem.  I also wonder what happened to the  man that was elected president who said in his victory speech after he was elected president, “I will listen to you… I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation… Block by block, brick by brick, callused hand by callused hand.” He added that “A new dawn of American leadership is at hand.”  Well from all I read and watch and study he has not listened. In fact, he doesn’t like it when someone has an opposing view.  He will cut the person off and talk in circles.  It will be interesting to see what he does say  in his speech on Thursday night.  I will just have to watch the highlights on the news.  I will not be watching. I have more important things to do like going to my son’s open house at school and taking him to soccer practice.  Life does go on, but I do pray every day that our country will be able to fill in the fractures that this president and congress have made in our country.