Originally written July 12, 2011

Make no mistake, Obama’s behavior and ideology have frightened business and financial markets.  It’s just that simple.  The leader of the free world is now at odds with fundamental concepts that have built this great nation.  Concepts contained in the United States Constitution as well as concepts found in free-market economics.  Concepts that previously seemed as concrete and absolute as the laws of physics.  They include limited government, individual liberties, self-correcting market forces and the right to private property.  Now these concepts are being aggressively challenged by a group of radical progressives who have found their way into the White House and Congress.  Remember those days not too long ago when uttering the words Obama and Socialist branded you as a lunatic out of touch with reality?  Now the topic is openly discussed.  The idea of socialism in the United States is increasingly advocated by the far left, and unless these forces are confronted and pushed back, the United States will indeed drift into a form of European-style socialism under which it may never recover.  At that very moment, our nation will be forever changed to the detriment of future generations.  That’s my belief and it’s a belief shared by many Americans these days.  For the first time in our history, the majority of US citizens think that the next generation will be worse off than the previous generation.  That’s a very profound and troubling outlook.

Yes, there’s a lot at stake in the 2012 election cycle.  So you would think that the topic of politics would obviously remain as a major category under Google blogs.  Well, perhaps that’s no longer the case.

As mentioned previously, I took the month of June off in order to take a break from writing.  Prior to that time, however, I would wake up daily around 4 AM and research stories related to American politics.  Much of this information came from Google blogs and if memory serves me correctly, I selected the category known as “politics”.  There was a wealth of information covering the entire political landscape of this country, and the world for that matter.  On any typical day, there might be 30 Google webpages of indexed information which served as a gateway to literally thousands of websites and breaking news stories.  It was all laid out in an efficient, concise format that made it relatively easy to survey the political landscape and make assessments regarding the proclamations and actions of politicians set against the mood of the nation.  Often they were at odds with each other.  And this format also made it relatively easy to compare and contrast different news stories and political editorials in an attempt to connect the dots in order to see a larger picture or pattern.

Well, unless the settings on both my computers,  both of my Web browsers or possibly my Google preferences have been accidentally changed , it now seems that the category labeled “politics” is no longer available.  In fact, all the categories that used to appear on the left side of the screen have been removed, leaving the Google blog search page conspicuously sparse.  Even categories found under Google “news” now seem to exclude the word “politics”.

So I find myself at a disadvantage.  Scanning stories that used to take about an hour may now take considerably longer.  That, in turn, may make it more difficult to write about specific events as they unfold.  And of course, it will be require a bit more effort to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated news stories and blog commentary.