The President recently told us his view on same sex marriage had evolved and now he supports it. This abrupt announcement was hastened by comments made by Vice-­President Joe Biden while appearing on a Sunday news show. The Obama campaign said the President was planning on making this announcement before the Charlotte convention this summer but whether you buy that explanation or not it doesn’t really matter now.

President Barack Obama is on the record supporting same sex marriage – a complete 180‐degree departure from where he stood on the matter while running for a first term in 2008.

My position is firm and has evolved. I believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.

When you discuss a matter of faith in these turbulent times it is probably best to stay somewhat socially relevant. So with that touch point in mind here is what supports my heart-­felt position.

• The LGBT community argues that denying them marriage is denying them the ability to have a loving commitment with another person.

That is simply not true. People have loving, committed relationships with other people all the time – we just don’t always call those relationships marriage.

• Advocates argue they are being denied civil rights.

Restrictions have always existed regarding the state of marriage. It is, first of all, a state between a man and a woman. No one has ever been permitted to marry someone simply because they loved them. The would-­be spouse must be an adult – must be free from any other marriage – and cannot be closely related to the other person just to name a few. Would advocates who preach same sex marriage also be willing to allow the other restrictions be relaxed or eliminated? It is undeniably part of the same argument.

• Those in favor of same sex marriage believe they are being denied government benefits.

Let’s be clear about what this issue is not about. It is not about homosexuals being treated as less than equal citizens. All the rights and dignity of American citizenship should, and must, be afforded all individuals. If it’s about government benefits then that is a completely different set of circumstances and a warrants a different discussion all together.

While marriage can be richly rewarding for adults it’s really not about that. It’s a building block of society and has always been family based. Through thousands of years of human history, and across each landmass of this planet, marriage has been the accepted social norm – the way that we’ve moved forward from generation to generation. It is about the well being of the children transcending religion, politics, culture and law. Human nature requires marriage.

The libertarian in me always thirsts for less governmental interference and less governmental influence in general, but a civilization without rock solid principles is really no civilization at all.

Same sex marriage is a question that’s been forced into this political season to take focus away from our staggering economy – or from the very real attempt to gut our military – or our collective ability to make the tough decisions necessary to provide hope and opportunities for that next generation. While American’s believe in freedom and personal choice, they balk at the idea that politicians anywhere can redefine marriage. After an overwhelming twenty­‐point margin of victory in North Carolina recently, a total of 30‐states have now banned same sex marriage in their respective constitutions.

Marriage is a union between one man and one woman – and that basic principle, Mr. President, has evolved since the very beginning of time.

by John Raese

I’d like to respectfully ask the Gazette editorial board to reconsider their endorsement, or lack thereof, of Joe Manchin.

I can understand your frustration with the hide and seek tactics that Senator Manchin employs when he thinks it is politically expedient. Yes, he’ll talk like a conservative and act like he’s fiscally responsible to appeal to more moderate voters – but under that outward appearance of a lovable rube is the heart of a tax and spend liberal.

Joe Manchin was a champion for the budget busting Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act better know as Obamacare. He praised President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid during the Obamacare debates in 2009. When running for Senator two years ago he said he wouldn’t have voted for the bill if he knew what was included in the legislation but then, once he had taken the oath in Washington, and it was time to go on the record he voted for Obamacare. It was just a nuance in Joe’s thinking – a little misdirection now and a little payoff to the party leaders later.

I know that Manchin has long asserted he is pro life, but when it was time to fund Planned Parenthood – the largest abortion provider in the country – he was in lock step with the more left wing colleagues in his party. He wants to say that no federal money goes toward abortion, but he funds an organization with his vote that performs over 300,000 abortions every year.

Stimulus deficit spending? Manchin is your man. The Obama agenda? Joe is on board more than 85% of the time.

Manchin is also finding new friends in Washington that obviously like his take on things. Campaign contributors include Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and John Kerry. That trio obviously doesn’t see the similarities the Gazette points out between Joe Manchin and Joe Lieberman. Joe Manchin is running as a “West Virginia Democrat” touting his roots and interests are vested in what is best for West Virginia. That is merely window dressing since nearly 90% of his campaign money is coming from outside of the state while, as you can plainly see, his supporters and friends are on the far left fringe of his party.

OK, I get it. Manchin threw President Obama under the bus when he said he wasn’t certain whom he would support for President. When he dodged the question in a national interview and said he would make up his mind on Election Day in November between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. On the surface that looks like an automatic disqualification for the Gazette editorial board, but if you overlook the other hedges and side steps that Manchin makes to hide his core beliefs you can surely overlook a purely political utterance. Do you really believe that Joe Manchin will pull the lever for Mitt Romney?

You do, in fact, know that I will.

I’d also vote to repeal Obamacare and to block funding for Planned Parenthood. Wasteful stimulus packages and bailouts would be a non-starter and Lisa Jackson would be looking for a new job in the Gazette want ads.

I don’t usually get involved in personal spats but I do feel compelled to come to Joe’s aid on this one. It’s time to reconsider.

I’m John Raese – and I’d like to talk to you about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – better know as Obamacare.

I won’t hide from or change my position on Obamacare. I am against the implementation of this dangerous and damaging law and I would vote to repeal it if elected to the United States Senate.

Simply put – we cannot afford Obamacare and we can find a better solution. This isn’t simply about extending health insurance coverage – this is about fundamentally changing the relationship between the citizens of this great country and their government. Changing that relationship in a most profound way in which we, the people, give up choice and freedoms for outcomes and decisions made by faceless bureaucrats.

Does that sound like the America envisioned by our founding fathers? More importantly does it sound like the America you see for you and your family?

I believe that answer is a resounding no!

Opponents of Obamacare back in 2009 protested that the new law would cost far more than advertised by the President, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. In reality, the financial damage was under estimated by nearly 40-billion dollars by the critics.

Despite numerous attempts to explain the faulty scoring of the proposed legislation during the debate three years ago, very few heard – or wanted to hear – the cold, hard facts that the Obamacare numbers were rigged by implementing the tax increases associated with the law long before the outrageous spending was scheduled to kick in.

It’s like you getting a full salary for several years before you had any expenses – like a mortgage, food, education, a car payment or gas. It’s obvious that you would see savings in the short term, but the expenses would quickly catch up. This phony accounting is really at the heart of what makes Obamacare a financially unsustainable program.

If the cost of Obamacare inflates at 6 percent per year between 2014 and 2023 – a number suggested by the Congressional Budget Office or CBO – the cost of the program would be just over 2-trillion dollars for that period, and that’s in an America that is already generating trillion dollar annual debts under President Obama and his staunch supporters like Joe Manchin.

With the new information that is being released and analyzed nearly everyday on this government grab of nearly one-seventh of our economy it now appears that what was projected by the Obama Administration to be an 8-billion dollar “savings” between 2017 and 2019 is now thought to be at least a 453-billion dollar deficit.

We haven’t even started this takeover and estimates of the costs associated with Obamacare have already doubled – and that, once again, is according to the non-partisan CBO.

Once Obamacare is fully in place it will account for anywhere between 50 and 72-percent of the budget deficit, and corresponding increase in the national debt, in any given year. Our government, with Obamacare in full operation, would represent 50% of our economy. The United States as essentially a nation of free enterprise would be a distant memory.

And how many times back in 2009 did President Obama promise and reassure American’s that if they liked the insurance they had now they could keep it? It was his best and most used selling point to inch this massive legislation through Congress and to his desk.

That is clearly not the case.

President Obama and Joe Manchin, one of his strongest supporters and campaigners on the issue three years ago, knew better at the time but still sold this government program through classic deception. As Nancy Pelosi famously said, we’ll find out what’s in the bill after we pass it. What a preposterous way to make laws.

A recent survey indicates that as many as 52% of employers who offer their employees insurance now would drop that coverage if and when Obamacare is fully in force. They would elect the simplicity of a penalty instead of participating in the uncertain and rough waters of regulators, conflicting insurance plans and uncontained costs.

The solution to offering universal coverage was not to destroy the peace of mind and health coverage of the vast majority of Americans. It’s to allow more resources and decisions to flow back to the states – back to where services are needed and provided.

America can only be strengthened through economic recovery – by eliminating a hostile business environment – and by shifting our national spending priorities to rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and achieving energy independence. That means jobs, growth and prosperity for all who seek it.

Now is the precise time to begin unwinding this bloated and ineffective federal government. We must shift major issues like health care and education back to the states where it belongs – where we, as active participants, can shape these important programs locally and be responsible for our personal and collective outcomes.

There are some who think America’s finest hour is past us. There are some who laugh at the idea of American exceptionalism. I am not one of those people.

Senator Barack Obama ran on the theme Change We Can Believe In back in 2008 – and despite Hillary Clinton’s 40-point win in the West Virginia primary – Democratic “super delegate” Joe Manchin threw his support behind Barack Obama.

It’s 2012.

This year change we can really believe in is someone new in the White House, someone new at the EPA and a new Senator from the great state of West Virginia.

It seems like every time I encounter a reporter they never fail to ask me if I’ll support the Republican nominee for President. That’s an easy question – I would support anyone with the qualifications to be President before I would cast a vote for Barack Obama.

Obama’s time in the White House has meant an avalanche of debt and too much government interference. We face a daunting task to climb out of the financial hole we’ve found ourselves in and we just cannot afford four more years.

I’m on the record – yes, I would support Mitt Romney for President.

The National Journal asked Joe Manchin last week if he would support President Obama in the November elections. Manchin hedged and said he was unsure and the he would look at options.

Unsure?

I guess Joe thinks that 8% plus unemployment and trillion dollar debts are the new norm.

Unsure is telling people you are for Obamacare, then telling them you are against it, and then voting for it.

A more precise definition of Joe’s comments would be untrue.

Obama and his administration have waged an assault on West Virginia’s coal industry. During the 2010 campaign for the Senate Manchin filed a phony lawsuit against the EPA. I call it phony for the simple fact that now Manchin says he’s unsure about his support for the President. Few people are “unsure” about how they feel when they sue someone. The lawsuit was window dressing and was meant to deflect our attention as the Environmental Protection Agency dismantles our coal industry and with it, West Virginia’s fragile economy.

We recently caught Manchin on tape saying that he is all for the new EPA regulations and goes on to threaten massive fines against energy producers if they won’t or can’t comply. He justifies his inconsistency on this subject by saying he just wants more time until the rules are fully implemented. That’s not fighting for us – that’s negotiating surrender.

It’s obvious a high misery index doesn’t faze Joe. He took office in January of 2005 when the unemployment rate in West Virginia was 4.9% and left the Governor’s Mansion when it was at 8.5%. So the economic misery the Obama Administration is planning for West Virginia is not a problem for the Senator – not when he tells us every day that he’s fighting for us and that he’s upset with the regulatory agencies – but in reality does nothing about it. Now he tells us he’s unsure whether he will vote for President Obama calling it a ballot box decision.

Make no mistake; Joe Manchin is not unsure about anything. West Virginian’s made a clear statement when Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama by over 40 points in the 2008 primary – yet Democratic “super-delegate” Joe Manchin cast his convention vote for Obama in clear defiance of his own state party voters. Manchin has been a vocal, staunch supporter of President Obama from the very beginning – and now, after three and a half years of our state being pummeled by the Obama Administration, he is hedging to give himself as much political cover as he can muster. Regardless of whether Obama’s reelection is derailed in West Virginia, a vote for Joe Manchin assures that the President’s harmful policies continue unabated.

The only answer is someone new in the White House, someone new at the EPA and a new Senator from West Virginia.

It’s all summed up in this one direct quote from Joe in last week’s National Journal: “I am just waiting for it to play out. I am not jumping in one way or another,” Manchin said. “I’m worried about me. I’ve said it’s not a team sport. You need to go out and work for yourself.”

It’s hard not to admit that Joe Manchin has done a great job working for Joe Manchin.

On February 27th I reported to you that the Outstanding Public Debt in America stood at $15,450,391,220,613.11.  That number was $15,625,670,456,977.13 this morning.  That’s approaching 16-trillion dollars and our debt, as a nation, has increased 175-billion dollars just since we talked about it in February.  That divides out to roughly $49,870 share per citizen – every single man, woman and child.

You hear the word unsustainable a lot, especially in Washington.  Politicians toss it around, but do they know the real meaning?  Daniel Webster did.  Unsustainable: not sustainable; not to be supported, maintained, upheld or corroborated.  The facts are the United States Senate is corroborating this landslide-sized debt every day and the clock is running.  Under Barack Obama and ably assisted by Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller and Joe Manchin the upper house has not passed a budget for 1,072 days.  Almost three full years!

That is a disgrace – and we are now starting to see illustrations of what severe and undisputed consequences are on the way unless we take swift and positive action to arrest this freefall into a sea of red ink and misery.