Category Archives: Political polemics

FOUR MORE YEARS…PLEASE

Posted on September 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

It was more interesting to watch the audience than to listen to the President’s pleading for four more years to accomplish what he couldn’t do in the first four. MSNBC scanned the audience and focused on the Delegates frequently throughout the speech. The Delegates appeared to be a somewhat motley group of folks. There were a lot of teary people among them particularly (but far from only) when Gabrielle Gifford was brought out on the stage. We can only wonder how many of those in the great hall and watching on television felt a deep pang of animosity toward Republicans for the horrible atrocity suffered by the former Congresswoman. How many remembered that Jared Lee Loughner was not a denizen of the Right, but a wacko from the Left who hated Gifford because she was too far to the Right to match up with his ideals.

The audience was notable for being heavily black. Blacks make up about 14% of the population but the ratio at the Convention appeared to be more than double that. Make of it what you will, but it was not a good cross section representation of the general population.

I saw deep emotion in many faces, black and white, man and woman. The nation is in bad shape and we all know it, but who is to blame? Once a Messiah always a Messiah in the minds of a true believer. High unemployment, the weak economy heavy debt and whatever else ails the country must be due to Republican policies because Messiahs don’t fail.

The speech itself was all about how insurance companies, banks, oil companies and people whose accomplishments brought them wealth are all bad. Only government is good.  It was straight out of that “Manifesto” book.

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IF I BELIEVED

Posted on August 31, 2012 | Leave a comment

If I believed that what MSNBC broadcasts was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and if I believed the New York Times was honorable in its journalistic ethics then I would absolutely despise Republicans and everything they stand for.  There is very little ethical difference in the fourth estate ethics between outright lies and lies by omission.  The paper is particularly guilty of the latter.  The New York Times does more than claim to be the newspaper of record; it is the newspaper of record.  As such it has a responsibility greater than any other to record all the news and report it accurately.  It has failed this responsibility miserably.

In his final column, Arthur Brisbane, who very recently resigned his post as Public Editor wrote mostly about the papers steady financial demise which he blamed entirely on the rise of new media, namely twitter.  There was nary a word about the effect that content may have had on readership.  Brisbane acknowledged,

The Times’s “believability rating” had dropped drastically among Republicans compared with Democrats, and was an almost-perfect mirror opposite of Fox News’s rating. Can that be good?

Is this statement not bias itself?  Nonetheless, Brisbane is acknowledging that the paper’s perceived integrity trending downward and he does not hesitate to use the word “drastically” while inferring that an integrity rating equivalent to FOX Is bad.  Then Brisbane confirmed what has become very obvious.

Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.

The Times is bias.  Brisbane is jut reporting it.

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NEWSWEEK MAKES THE NEWS

Posted on August 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

The cover of Newsweek Magazine blares out “HIT THE ROAD, BARACK. Why We Need a New President” In the article behind the cover Niall Ferguson expresses the sentiments of many people with this comment.

Despite having been—full disclosure—an adviser to John McCain, I acknowledged his opponent’s remarkable qualities: his soaring oratory, his cool, hard-to-ruffle temperament, and his near faultless campaign organization.

Yet the question confronting the country nearly four years later is not who was the better candidate four years ago. It is whether the winner has delivered on his promises. And the sad truth is that he has not.

Actually the sad truth is Obama has delivered on his promises.  He promised in a speech to union members that he would establish us on the road to single payer (government only) healthcare, and he did.  He promised the folks at ACORN that he would put their interests first and he did.  He promised to completely transform America and he has made progress on that front too.  He may very well complete the job if re-elected.  He never did say he would get it all done in the first term.

There were, of course some promises he did not keep.  The oceans have not changed their habits.  The coal industry still exists.  He has not created a domestic police force larger than the military.  He didn’t bring the troops home immediately from Afghanistan as he said he would and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did not get to see New York City.

Why are so many people disappointed in his jobs performance?  Obama’s economic policies are what you should expect when you put a socialist in charge.  He said in his book that he only had one job in the private sector and he considered it to be “working for the enemy.”  Did you think he would focus on helping the enemy create jobs?  In his campaign he stressed his experience as a community organizer.  An organizer’s job is to agitate one group so they will be angry enough to confront another group.  Did you think he would be a uniter?  I think I know why you are disappointed.  You didn’t do your homework.

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DISHONORABLE DISCLOSURES

Posted on August 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

When Osama bin Laden was killed, I gave a modicum of credit to Barack bin Obama for authorizing the hit.  I was wrong; he didn’t deserve a whit.  How much credit do you give a burglar for using a comfortable rope to tie up his victim?

It has come out since that he denied the operation more than once before finally allowing it.  In his rhetoric he repeatedly took the credit for having accomplished the feat but he did not initiate it; he did not plan it and he did not carry it out.  President Bush initiated the search; our military carried it out. It just happened on Obama’s watch and all he did was try to stop it and even in that, he failed (thankfully).

All of that is manifestation of political opportunism,  poor judgement and lack of respect for those who risk their lives for the rest of us.  It gets worse, much worse.  Watch the video.  It’s not short, so allow time for it.

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RYAN ROMNEY RALLY ROCKS — 10,000+ PEOPLE SHOW UP

Posted on August 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

Wisconsin is Paul Ryan’s home state and what a rousing reception he received!  More than ten thousand plus cheering fans came in threatening weather to greet Ryan and Romney in the town of Waukesha.

Ryan was born and raised about 60 miles away in Janesville which is a modest sized town in fly-over country.  That means it is down home America and Paul Ryan is Janesville’s Mr. Smith who went to Washington.  Romney called his running mate “someone who is a leader . . . who has real character, who loves America,”.  That’s a change we can hope for.

When the cheering subsided Romney got serious.

“If you follow the campaign of Barack Obama, he’s going to do everything in his power to make this the lowest, meanest negative campaign in history. We’re not going to let that happen.

Mr. President, take your campaign out of the gutter and let’s talk about the real issues that America faces.”

Someone near the stage started heckling the candidates Romney handled the heckler very well.  Romney faced the person and said “You ought to find yourself a different place to be disruptive because here we believe in listening to people with dignity and respect.”

We are coming to a fork in the road and if we take the path to the left it will be so precipitous there may be no turning back.  It will be the proof that Tocqueville was right.  One reason Ronald Reagan was so loved is that he had great faith in the American people, in you and I, to do the right thing when all the chips are down.  If we choose the path to the right it will be proof that Reagan was right.

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Posted in News, Political philosophy, Political polemics, Uncategorized

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ARE PRESIDENTS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATHS OF SOME OF THEIR COUNTRYMEN?

Posted on August 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

You bet they are!  And not just in military matters either.  Presidents and Congress shoulder the awesome responsibility of promoting the well-being of the country’s entire population.  It is well documented that life spans are longer in prosperous societies.  And there should be no need to mention healthcare; the implications are obvious.  Obama would argue that more lives are saved because more people are covered.  Those opposed would argue that more lives will be lost because the plan is economically unsustainable, quality will drop dramatically and coverage will be meted out according to feasibility.

But is it fair for a campaign to accuse an opponent of killing people?  The question is irrelevant.  Fair no longer has a place in political campaigns.  During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama famously said “If they bring a knife to the fight, we will bring a gun.”  He was speaking metaphorically of course; and he was right.  There are lines you do not cross but you cannot counter outrageous audacity with respectful civility and expect to win.  Not this race.

Healthcare may be free in Great Britain but would you travel there to have a critical operation?

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PLANTING HATRED

Posted on July 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

Republicans vs Women.  What’s not to love about that headline?  Everything.  It’s from the New York Times.  Okay, It’s an editorial so one needs to allow some leeway but isn’t that over the top… or better said, under the bottom?  How about “Democrats vs. Children” for an opinion article about mid-term abortions?  Or “Democrats Against Democracy” for an opinion piece about preserving the integrity of the voting process?

The Editorial starts with this howler

“Republicans have not given up on their campaign to narrow access to birth control, abortion care and lifesaving cancer screenings.”

Really?  Republicans are against life saving cancer screenings?

”A new Republican spending proposal revives some of the more extreme attacks on women’s health and freedom that were blocked by the Senate earlier in this Congress. The resurrection is part of an alarming national crusade that goes beyond abortion rights and strikes broadly at women’s health in general.”

That statement by the Times doesn’t make the hurdle to be called hate speech.  However, asserting that Republicans are fighting life saving cancer screenings and spending taxpayer money in a campaign against women’s health in general does plant hate in the minds of the paper’s readers, many of whom are naive enough to believe such drivel.  It seems Republicans have always engaged in “extreme attacks on women’s health”, this is just a revival, a “resurrection” of a perpetual battle against women.

Love flows naturally in the human race.  Hatred needs to be stirred.  As the nation’s leading newspaper, The New York Times has the biggest spoon.  Unfortunately, they are neither careful nor truthful in how they use it.

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Posted in Opinion, Political polemics, Uncategorized

THE GOVERNMENT DIDN’T BUILD THAT

Posted on July 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

It’s 5 o’clock in the morning.  No one but the night critters are out.  It’s peaceful and I have been thinking, thinking about the Golden Gate Bridge.  The government didn’t build that, we did.  The government didn’t even conceive it.  In 1916 a privately owned newspaper, The San Francisco Daily Call published an article proposing the bridge.  A private a private structural engineer by the name of Joseph Strauss offered to build it for 30 million dollars.  The government wasn’t interested.  Five years later Strauss said it could be done for 27 million dollars.  It took eight more years after that for the government to approve it.  And then another 4 years of bureaucratic bickering passed before government authorities allowed the first pick to hit the ground.  The bridge wasn’t built by the government; it was built despite the government.

Irving Morrow and Leon Moisseiff did the designing.  They were private architects.  A private construction firm did the hands on building of the bridge.  The government doled out the money to pay for it but it was money they only had by taxing it away from the private sector.  The government doesn’t pay tax.  The government didn’t pay for it, the private sector did.  There is however one thing for which the government deserves all the credit, that’s the ribbon cutting ceremony.

Shall I tell you about the Hoover Damn or the street in front of your house?  It’s the same story.  If it hadn’t been for your money they wouldn’t exist.  If it hadn’t been for private sector enterprises to do the work the roads would still be unpaved.  We have the enterprising ingenuity of individuals working outside of the government mostly to thank for the beauty of our bridges and roads.  Hear me Mr. Obama, today’s entrepreneurs built their businesses just as surely as Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.  Or do you think the government did that too?

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MY 2 CENTS ON “YOU DIDN’T BUILD THAT”

Posted on July 26, 2012 | 1 comment

 

“People know that vast personal incomes come not only through the effort or ability or luck of those who receive them, but also because of the opportunities for advantage which Government itself contributes.  Therefore, the duty rests upon the Government to restrict such incomes by very high taxes.”

Who said that?  It was not our current president.  Here’s a clue – It was the only President in our history who presided over an even longer economic recovery than Barack Obama.  It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in an address to Congress in 1935.  It is no coincidence that the economic policies of both presidents failed.  Minds that think alike produce results that look alike.  Roosevelt ordered thousands of young pigs to be destroyed to raise the price of pork – in a depression!  Obama ordered thousands of serviceable cars destroyed which raised the cost of transportation for lower income families — in a recession.

As the opening quote attests, Roosevelt sought to siphon money from the employer class to pay for federal government programs.  Obama seeks to do the same.  Roosevelt’s plan for recovery was to put people to work on the taxpayer’s payroll, not in the private sector.  See the CCC and WPA.  Obama’s plan is to rebuild roads and bridges (WPA) and subsidize unprofitable environmental programs like the Solyndra (CCC).

Roosevelt took measures later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  See The Schechter Brothers and the NRA (National Industrial Recovery Act).  Obama has also been at odds with the Supreme Court.  Both presidents felt restrained by the Court, as well they should.  The Court is there to protect the people from an overreaching government.  Both presidents sought powers beyond those stipulated by our founders, albeit for different reasons.

When two presidents think so much alike and manage economic recoveries with results that are so much alike, it’s not coincidence.  It’s because their policies don’t work.  And what are those different reasons?  Roosevelt’s goal was to restore the economy and benefit lower income workers.  He just didn’t know how to do it.  Obama’s goal is to put a choker on capitalism and completely transform America.  He knows what he is doing.  It’s up to the voters not to let him do it.

 

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Posted in Economy, Opinion, Political philosophy, Political polemics

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YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK

Posted on July 23, 2012 | 1 comment

St. Paul, Minnesota:  Carlos Viveros-Colorado lost control of his car and killed 16 year old Clarisse Grime as she sat on a bench waiting for a bus.  Carlos is an illegal immigrant, a previously convicted drunk driver, a serial speeder, an unlicensed driver and now he is also a killer.

The St Louis Pioneer Press reports that Carlos had been “voluntarily deported” after a 2001 DWI conviction but he re-entered a second time illegally.

– July 19, 2011: St. Paul police cited him for speeding and driving without a license

– March 8, 2012: Newport, MN police cited him again for driving without a license

– April 19, 2012: Minnesota State Patrol cited him for speeding and driving without a license

The Police never asked Viveros-Colorado about his immigration status nor was the knowledge of his deportation and illegal re-entry available to officers when they ran a check on him.  St. Paul is a sanctuary city and prohibits the police from inquiring about immigration status.  Information was not available to the other officers because there was no outstanding warrant for his arrest.

Think about that for a moment.  With all of the money, people and technological resources at their disposal, the federal government, the State of Minnesota, Ramsey County and the City of St. Paul were unable or unwilling to determine that a previously deported illegal alien and convicted drunk driver, driving around town without a license was in their grasp.  So Clarisse died.

That’s your government at work keeping you safe.

The Minnesota Department of Education routinely hands out waivers to high school students who have not met the requirements for graduation.  In the Minneapolis school district more than a third of those receiving diplomas do not meet the requirement.  In St. Paul, there isn’t even an accurate figure because the district doesn’t track the number of waiver-dependent diplomas it issues.

Brenda Cassellius, Commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Education defends giving diplomas to those unable to pass the test required by Minnesota law.  “When you have about half the kids not passing, you know you have to do something,” Cassellius said “you cannot just deny diplomas.”

Yes you can.  And when you don’t the final lesson you teach is that rules don’t count and laws don’t need to be obeyed.  As for the “you have to do something” how about fixing the schools so they will teach.

This is your government at work educating your children.

If Obama wins re-election, your government will be at work providing your healthcare as well.

Digested and edited from an excellent blog post by Tim Droogsma.

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