Category Archives: Opinion

ELECTION HIGHLIGHTS 2010

Posted on November 3, 2010 | Leave a comment

Tea Party
The Tea Party accomplished a lot but is responsible for some damage as well. The damage came out of naïveté, political inexperience and uncompromising principle, not from character flaws. The damage is contained and the movement will learn as it grows. We have Sarah Palin and the TP to thank for turning what might have been just a normal mid-term reversal into a rout, a rousing success.

Split results
Charles Krauthammer said winning the House and failing to win the Senate was the perfect result. The Democrats will be unable credibly to blame the next two years on their loss of control of the Legislature to Republicans. It’s a comforting thought but we question its validity. BTW, this will be the first time ever there was a Democratic President and Senate facing a Republican House. The acrimony level will be high. We only hope John Boehner will be up to it.

Ugliest moment
Chris Matthews lost it when interviewing Michele Bachman. Michele stonewalled him (not a practice we approve) and Matthews castigated her ruthlessly. “Are you hypnotized?” he repeated over and over in various catenations. Matthews’ attacks were not limited to Bachman. He was vicious with Sen. Eric Cantor also. Cantor handled it extremely well, much better than Bachman did. Even Rick Santelli came under disparagement by Matthews who wasn’t even sure of his name. Perhaps Olbermann will recognize Matthews for one of his “Worst” awards.

Districting effect
In the Connecticut gubernatorial race more people voted for the Republican than for the Democrat but the Democrat was declared the winner. It wasn’t fraud. Apparently Connecticut has a process similar to the national Electoral College but where districts rather than delegates cast the votes. It is the political reverse of the time Democrats screamed “unfair” when Gore won the raw vote but lost in the electoral process. Periodically, Governors get to reset the boundaries of districts within their state. This is why Obama made seven trips to Ohio to support incumbent Gov. Strickland and why Strickland’s defeat was a significant victory for Republicans.

Harry Reid
Reid’s victory, though not unexpected is the most disturbing. Not because he won, but because of how he won. It was a victory for intimidation, voting irregularities and casino money. There is still a lot of cleaning up to do in Washington.

The cleaning lady
One has to admire Sarah Palin. From the lowly post of small town Mayor she took on her own party and succeeded in cleaning out the Republican rot in Alaska. That’s audacity we can admire. She has integrity, spunk and bravery. We respectfully propose that in 2013, President Marco Rubio appoint Sarah to the post of Washington DC Cleaning Czar reporting directly to Vice President Paul Ryan.

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CORPORATE HEALTH CARE PLANS ARE ON THEIR DEATH BED

Posted on October 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

In our Oct 12th post, Obamacare is Working as Planned, we pointed out that the President’s objective is the elimination of private insurance altogether. We included a video of Barack Obama declaring very clearly that single player is the goal. Single means “only” and the “only payer” is of course the federal government. The complete elimination of private health insurance companies is his goal.

One thing the President knows about economics is that he can destroy an industry by raising its costs and taking away its customers. It’s called the double whammy. The Associated Press issued this progress report:

AP WASHINGTON – Oct 24, 2010
The new health care law wasn’t supposed to undercut employer plans that have provided most people in the U.S. with coverage for generations.

But last week a leading manufacturer told workers their costs will jump partly because of the law. Also, a Democratic governor laid out a scheme for employers to get out of health care by shifting workers into taxpayer-subsidized insurance markets that open in 2014.

While it’s too early to proclaim the demise of job-based coverage, corporate number crunchers are looking at options that could lead to major changes.

“The economics of dropping existing coverage is about to become very attractive to many employers, both public and private,” said Gov. Phil Bredesen, D-Tenn.

You must forgive the Associated Press for saying “it wasn’t supposed to”. The AP editors don’t read Random Thots and thus are not fully informed. McDonalds and AT&T were first to say, that due to the new law, they would need to drop or seriously curtail health insurance for employees in order to remain viable and competitive. Senator Waxman threatened to haul the executives into Washington for an investigative hearing by the Senator’s committee. Ultimately a deal was cut and these two companies have exemption from the law.

What’s next? If two are exempted, why not two hundred? or two thousand? That will never do, so more exemptions are unlikely. That means employers will drop the insurance, pay the additional tax (called a “fine” for legal reasons) and health care coverage will default to the government. No major company wants to go next. But one will, and then an avalanche will follow.

In his promise to the labor union membership, Obama said “It won’t happen overnight. It may take 10 years or more.” It looks like the plan is running ahead of schedule.

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OBAMA SAYS REPUBLICANS “GOTTA SIT IN BACK”

Posted on October 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

Getting Even

“We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”  …Barack Obama from a Rhode Island speech as reported by the Associated Press, Oct 25, 2010

Obama has always had a knack for communicating with his inner constituency in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways. It wasn’t necessary for him to add, in the back – of the bus – for a certain faction of his followers to smile and say, Right on brother! Right on! Stirring up grievances, old and new is a community organizers job.

“When those prominent in the status quo turn and label you an “agitator” they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function – to agitate to the point of conflict.”… Rules for Radicals, In the Beginning, The Process of Power * by Saul Alinsky

Barack Obama has not come to bring peace; he has come to bring change, total change, to transform America. He is sincere. He harbors resentment. He is determined. He is smart. He knows Americans love their country and the complete transformation he envisions cannot be achieved without some pain. The people need to be aroused, to denounce the status quo and to bring change by force because most of the population will not knowingly accept Obama’s transformation voluntarily.

“The organizer dedicated to changing the life of the people of a community must first rub raw the resentments of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression (sic). He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act.” and “An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent”…Rules for Radicals, In the Beginning, The Process of Power * by Saul Alinsky.

Obama’s current frustration is because the Tea Party stole the first act. And the only community organizing required was Rick Santelli and his 30 second rant. After that it was grass roots from the heart all the way. Barack Obama is down but not out. Stay alert.

*Alinsky did not number the chapters of his book; so we had to identify the location of quotations by chapter name and sub-heading.

 

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RANDOM THOTS ANALYIZES NPR’s RESPONSE

Posted on October 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

Alicia Shepard is the ombudsman for NPR. Writing in her official capacity for the network she said “Williams is controversial among NPR listeners because of his long-standing contract with Fox News, which he had before he joined NPR.”. Shepard wrote that back in 2009. The issue has been brewing for quite some time.

Please note it is “because of his contract”. The idea that any one of the elite of NPR has no more sense of decency than to walk into the Fox News building turns their stomach. The fact that he is providing balance to Fox probably angers them more.

Yesterday Shepard penned NPR’s response to the Williams dismissal. We start with the headline.

“NPR’s Firing of Juan Williams was poorly handled”

They should have fired him in a different manner?

“Juan Williams, once again got himself into trouble.”

Once again? You never told us about the first time. Got himself in trouble? Yes, I guess he did that by not quitting breaking his contract with Fox when he took the job at NPR.

“While on Fox, he shows his politically correct submissive Pro Fox bigotry for a few dollars more.”

Shepard did not say this directly. It is from a listener, the only listener she chose to quote out of the 6,800 response she said were received. Then she quotes the same listener further.

“NPR must take a stand against this bigotry and tell Williams he must choose NPR’s code [or] go to join the racist bigoted fearmongerers (sic) of Fox.”

The quotes were given without qualification or comment. Missing was any hint of that phrase we often hear to the effect that the views expressed are not necessarily those of the management. To the contrary, they are consistent with the views of the management. The listener quoted was Mohamed Khodr.

“It is not about race. It’s also not about free speech, as some have charged. Nor is it about an alleged attempt by NPR to stifle conservative views.”

Of course it’s not.

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LIFE UNDER BUSH

Posted on October 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

If you don’t miss him yet, you should.

Back in March, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke said personal income is in decline. If you are a Democrat you probably think it is still less of a decline than during the Bush years. Here is the Bush record.

PER CAPITA INCOME

The law that enacted the Bush tax cuts was the Jobs and Growth Act of 2003. If you are a Democrat you know revenues declined, they had to, but you don’t know by how much. Here is the Bush record.

TAX REVENUES CLIMB AFTER TAX RATES ARE CUT

Those tax cuts shifted the distribution of the burden between the rich and not rich, (not between the rich and the poor because the poor pay nothing). If you are a Democrat you believe the burden was lessened on the rich. In fact it was increased by 4%. Here is the Bush record.

TAX BURDEN SHIFT

You may have heard that under Bush government spending reached their all time high. That is both true and lamentable. If you are a Democrat you dismiss the relevant fact that revenues also reached their all time high.

If you are a Republican you know that Clinton’s surplus came by way of the dot com bubble. If you are a Democrat you fail to consider it was Bush was had to deal with the burst.

Click the graphs for a clear and enlarged image.

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RADICAL IN CHIEF II

Posted on October 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

Stanley Kurtz has done his homework. The copious notes attest to that. The Left will hate this book. They will do best to ignore it because it is beyond refute.

The message is two fold. The first is Obama is a Socialist, capital S. The second message is cause for even greater concern. It’s the message of stealth, gradualism and determination; first and foremost is stealth.

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened.”
– Norman Thomas, the once perennial presidential candidate of the American Socialist Party

The hope is the nation will not awake to the reality until it is too late. Obama’s strength is his stealth. Without it, the highest office he could have attained is State Senator within the Illinois government.

Kurtz concludes the book,

“From his teenage years under the mentorship of Frank Marshall Davis, to his socialist days at Occidental College, to his life-transforming encounters at New York’s Socialist Scholars Conferences, to his immersion in the stealthily socialist community organizing networks of Chicago, Barack Obama has lived in a thoroughly socialist world.”

and

“In sum, the fears of Obama’s harshest critics are justified. The president of the United States is a socialist.”

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FRUIT FROM THE OBAMA TREE

Posted on October 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

“By their fruit shall ye know them.”

Herewith are some fruits by which a reasonable judgment can be made.

Where there are apples, there's an apple tree.

 

From a UK newspaper, the Telegraph
“No leader in American history has gone to greater lengths than Barack Obama to make amends for his own country. From condemnation of American “arrogance” in a speech in Strasbourg to acknowledging U.S. “mistakes” before millions of Muslims on Arab television, Obama has rarely missed an opportunity to apologize for the actions of the American people. “
[In another example he chose to tell the Chinese people, at a Town Hall style meeting in China, that it’s not uncommon in America for men to fail to support their women.]

From Barack Obama’s chosen spiritual leader for 20 years
“God damn America ! “ “America lies!” America is guilty of genocide of black people.
This is the message of the man Barack Obama has admired above all others, a man he “could never disown”, the man whom Obama has said shaped his life more than any other.
Rev Wright’s Liberation Theology was twice condemned by the Pope for its Marxist foundation.

From Obama’s community organizing co-activist
“I only regret we did not do even more bombing” of American institutions (paraphrased)

From Michelle Obama
Upon the nomination of her husband, “I have never been proud of America, until now”
On another occasion, speaking to children in a school
“America is downright mean”.
Does Barack agree with his wife’s sentiments? He hasn’t explicitly said so, but his words and actions are consistent with the views she expressed.

From the Russian newspaper PRAVDA
Commenting in the Spring of 2009, “like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed.”
Whatever one may say about PRAVDA, they know Marxism when they see it.

From Barack Obama
During his campaign Obama was asked by a 7 year old girl why he wanted to be President. He answered by expressing dismay at the thought of his children having to grow up in America as it is.

More pieces that form the picture
Despite a family argument 2 or 3 hundred years ago Americans feel a special affinity for the British. Britain is the prime element of the American heritage. However, Obama has shown contempt in many ways for this perennial friend and our most loyal ally. For one example, he had the bust of Winston Churchill that stood in the White House, removed and sent back to Great Britain. Quietly removing it to storage would be one thing but sending a gift from a sovereign nation back its giver as Obama did, could hardly be interpreted as anything but a deliberate insult.

In juxtaposition, Obama thanks Hugo Chavez for his gift of a book condemning America. There is no record of his returning the book. Nor is there is any record of his being critical of Chavez’s anti American screed.

Obama accepts without condemnation the display of a Che Guevara poster prominently displayed in a local campaign office.

Obama launched his first political campaign from the very home of the afore referenced Bill Ayers, a man who, not too many years ago told the New York Times “the notion of the United States as a just and fair and decent place makes me want to puke.”

About New Orleans, Obama declared“ we had to realize that we were no longer the America we had hoped to be”. and this comment ” But here’s the good news: America was ashamed and shocked.”

When a white police officer has an issue with a black man in Boston, Obama presumes it is another white police officer harassing a black man and immediately condemns the officer. When a muslim kills 14 people while yelling “Allahu Akbar” he intones us not to jump to conclusions. These responses are reflective of a view of America as a land where blacks are oppressed and Islamic killers are unfairly judged.

In the matter of Honduras Obama sided with America’s adversary rather than support the people of that democratic nation who sought through their legal system to remove a tyrant, a Chavez acolyte.

“American exceptionalism”. is a term is attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville who claimed that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy. When Obama was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he answered in the negative.

Opinion
Obama seems to delight in prostrating America before its critics and rivals, especially on foreign soil. He appears to believe America is an arrogant, oppressive, unjust nation and the source of much of the world’s ills. He believes he can transform America from what he deems it to be into what he believes it should be. Obama described his ascendancy to the Presidency as being “what the world has been waiting for” and as the moment when “the oceans will cease to rise and our planet begin to heal”. His vision is of a new and better world, a world risen from the ashes of America.

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MILITARY BALLOTS IN JEOPARDY

Posted on October 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

In the beginning of Al Gore’s Michael Moore grade documentary entitled An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore walks on stage and says “I’m Al Gore. And I used to be the next president of the United States of America.” An attempt was made to steal that election, but it failed.

The margin was just a few hundred votes in favor of the opponent when the Democrats tried to prevent some of the overseas ballots intelligible to be counted. The Democrats are very much aware that the troops lean Republican and their only means of voting when deployed is with the overseas ballot form. No form – no vote.

Overseas ballot forms are not distributed by the federal government nor by the states. That responsibility is left to thousands of counties, boroughs and voting districts throughout the country. This decentralization of duty opens the possibility for pockets of manipulation. If one federal office or one entire state defaulted in their duty it would not be tolerated. But if a district or two is late in the bureaucratic function of mailing some forms it could be shrugged off as government as usual.

Additionally, when there are thousands of officials responsible for one function there will be more instances of failure, intentional or otherwise. It’s worthy of note that all the districts thus far known to be delinquent are heavily Democratic, all of New York City, that’s 5 failures, one for each borough, and Michigan, the home of Detroit.

Can this be called attempted voting fraud? Perhaps not, intent cannot be proven. But as someone (It may have been Confucius.) once said “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and squawks like a duck, it’s a duck.” So to dismiss them all as inadvertent coincidences “would require the suspension of disbelief.” (I know, that wasn’t Confucius). Thanks to some of the press, including the blogs, it looks like the necessary adjustments will be made and our troops will not be deprived of their votes, this time.

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DRILLING MORATORIUM ENDED?

Posted on October 13, 2010 | 1 comment

John Hofmeister of Citizens for Affordable Energy was interviewed on the CNBC business channel. It is essential viewing but we are unable to embed it. So here’s a link.

Hofmeister makes many good points. Just to give you a sample he says the moratorium dictate may be lifted but there will be no commitment on the part of drillers until they know what the law is or will be. Even the regulatory authorities are still in the dark and unlikely to issue any permits for months. When the permits are finally issued, virtually every one will be hindered by lawsuits from environmentalist factions.

There is more. Click the link and watch the interview.

 

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OBAMACARE IS WORKING AS PLANNED

Posted on October 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

In Connecticut, Aetna Insurance petitioned the State regulators to allow a 24.7% rate increase to cover the increased cost of providing coverage under Obamacare. They were granted a 14.2% increase for large group plans and an 18% increase for small group plans. Similar rate hikes are being granted in other states. Facing this magnitude of cost increase several companies have announced they will no longer be providing health coverage for their workers. These employees will end up on the government plan by default. This is Obamacare working as planned.

The squeeze is on. Insurers need to raise prices for survival, employers need to control costs to remain internationally competitive. The pragmatic solution for business is to default to single payer government coverage. For insurance companies the path to survival is to diversify away from providing health care coverage. In time, at the end of the struggle the government plan will be the only man left standing. Pelosi, et al, knew this consequence was built into the bill. Whatever else was there didn’t much matter.

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