ONE SOLUTION FOR THE JOBS PROBLEM

Posted on September 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

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MY SOUL FOR A MESS OF POTTAGE, MY VOTE FOR A FREE TELEPHONE

Posted on September 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

It’s an old Socialist trick.  Take mightily from the masses in complex ways they don’t understand and give back a pittance in something tangible and you will gain their trust even as you are depriving them of their prosperity.  Eva Peron was a master, or should we say mistress of the technique.  She would hand out actual peso notes at times when she mingled with the public.  Eva and her husband devastated their once prosperous nation yet the people referred to her affectionately as Evita when she reined and today she is honored with her image on the currency.  Fidel Castro, as I remember it, gave a rice cooker to every household.  Apparently today’s pittance du jour is a telephone.

Republicans don’t get totally off the hook this time.  While the Democrats are spending our tax money buying votes with free telephones, Republicans in Florida were playing ACORN with voter registrations.  The RNC in Florida hired an outside firm to canvas neighborhoods and register voters.  It must have been piece work because they registered some dead people and perhaps a dog or two.  At least the Republicans had the decency not to do it with some of the Democrats money and they promptly fired the firm and ended the program.

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KRUGMAN ARGUES THAT GREECE AND SPAIN ARE VICTIMS

Posted on September 28, 2012 | 2 comments

Paul Krugman, ever the liberal, is less vituperative than usual in today’s column in the New York Times.  It is entitled Europe’s Austerity Madness and is well worth reading.  Not for the column’s correctness but for its clarity.  He outlines with rare accuracy the predominant views of the cause of Europe’s financial woes and the solution for them.

First we must note that what passes for the Right in most of Europe would be called Liberal in the U.S.  This places Krugman’s argument more in the Socialist camp than Liberal.  He says of the European Right,

Talk to German officials and they will portray the euro crisis as a morality play, a tale of countries that lived high and now face the inevitable reckoning.

And fear of a backlash from voters who believe, wrongly, that they’re being put on the hook for the consequences of southern European irresponsibility leaves German politicians unwilling to approve essential emergency lending to Spain and other troubled nations unless the borrowers are punished first.

Despite the insertion of the word “wrongly”, Krugman has done a good job of stating the argument coming from Europe’s Right.  One other fault to find, it’s not punishment that’s sought; it’s bearing the consequences of one’s own decisions.  If you choose to live beyond your means don’t ask someone else to pay for it.

In Krugman’s view,

More austerity serves no useful purpose; the truly irrational players here are the allegedly serious politicians and officials demanding ever more pain.

Consider Spain’s woes. What is the real economic problem? Basically, Spain is suffering the hangover from a huge housing bubble, which caused both an economic boom and a period of inflation that left Spanish industry uncompetitive with the rest of Europe.

Spending was not the problem and austerity is not the solution.  Greece and Spain are victims of a housing boom and collapse that occurred in the private sector.  The fault is with other nations in the Eurozone that are failing in their moral obligation to redistribute some of their relative wealth to where it is needed.  Inferred in that view is the notion that the greed of capitalism was the source of the problem and socialism is the solution.  Get the cause wrong and so it will be with the solution.

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Posted in Economy, Opinion, Political philosophy

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WHERE IS THE PROMISED HEALING?

Posted on September 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

First it was a spontaneous eruption by a few members of a group of demonstrators and it was mere coincidence that the raid happened to occur on the 11th day of September.  The Libyan people were horrified and even helped carry Ambassador Chris Stevens to the hospital, so said Hillary Clinton in the Secretary’s first public statement about the attack.  Then the details morphed a few times until now we are at “Al Qaeda did it”  and the ambassador’s body was paraded through the streets in triumph.  What was so difficult about saying this was an operation planned for September 11th and carried out by a brand of Islamic extremists whose work is all too familiar to us?

It would not reflect well on Islam, of course.  It would place full responsibility for the atrocity on certain elements from the Muslim world and not hold the United States in any way accountable for the overrunning of its Libyan embassy and the murder of its own ambassador.  Any other administration would have said something like that.  But not this one.

The bombing of trains in Madrid, subways in London, a night club in Bali and the World Trade Center in New York are atrocities in plain sight.  They cannot be denied.  And these may be the least of it if you add up all the local killings by Islamists that have occurred over the years in schools, airports, markets and even on military bases.  If such inhumanities are not acknowledged as an element of the Muslim world, then the only alternative is they must be the Muslim world.  That of course is not the case.

Obama’s father was a Muslim.  Obama spent some his early formative years in a Muslim country attending Muslim schools.  It is understandable that he would be sympathetic to the plights and beliefs of Muslim believers.  There is nothing wrong with that.  In fact he is in a unique position to bring some understanding between people of the Muslim and Western worlds.  But it has to start with acknowledgement and unqualified severe condemnation of Islamic militant Jihad and terrorism.  Only then can understanding begin.  Sadly, Obama won’t do that.

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Posted in Opinion, Political philosophy

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SHOULD NINCOMPOOPS BE ALLOWED TO VOTE?

Posted on September 25, 2012 | 1 comment

The following is taken from an item in Real Clear Politics.  The post is accompanied by a video that must be seen to be believed.

Howard Stern contributors Sal and Richard traveled to Harlem to interview Obama supporters and ask them why they are voting for Obama.

Stern and his crew ask denizens of Harlem various outrageous questions, including if they believe Obama will find and kill Osama bin Laden; if Romney is a Muslim and if Obama is a Mormon; if Obama made the right choice by picking Paul Ryan as his running mate and if he did it because he is black.

One interviewee was under the impression that 2008 Republican nominee John McCain is also running this time.

“Just trust me, not one person knew that Osama bin Laden was dead,” Stern said during the segment.

“Well, we’re obviously dealing with a whole population that doesn’t listen to the newscasts or read a newspaper,” co-host Robin Quivers said.

People who are this clueless are pawns for manipulation by the most unsavory of politicians.  It gives rise to the question of whether citizenship alone should be enough qualification to vote.

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Posted in Humor, Opinion

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RANDOM THOTS ABOUT NOISES, JILL BIDEN and APPLE

Posted on September 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

You may have heard that Ahmadinejad and Barack Obama have both said Israel’s concern over a nuclear Iran is a lot of noise.  To Obama, the “noise” is a political distraction founded on a baseless fear from a people and a nation he does not like.  T Ahmadinejad, the noise is the sound of a nuclear bomb exploding in Tel Aviv.

Jill Biden, Slo Joe’s wife told an off color joke about her husband on the stump.  (Jill not Joe).  It was about her husbands qualifications for office.  She gestured with her hands and entendered that when it comes to work ethic, she has seen her husband up close and he has a big one.  Apparently Mr.’s Biden can’t spell any better than Dan Quayle.  What Churchill said was a great world leader should walk softly but carry a big stick.

In other news I see Apple is on tack to be the first company worth one trillion dollars.  That’s quite a turn around from the days when the board fired Steve Jobs in 1985 because the company was headed for bankruptcy.  Today’s management must know something about how to go from doing things wrong to doing things right in order to pile up all that cash they have.  Should we hope they buy the United States?

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THE ANTITHESIS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL

Posted on September 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

President Barack Hussein Obama

One of the first things Barack Obama did upon occupying the Oval Office was to remove the bust of Winston Churchill from the White House and send it back to the people of England.  It was a deliberate insult, equivalent in diplomatic circles to the secular act of attending a cocktail party and walking up to one of your best and oldest friends and saying straight to his face “I now despise you.”  It was an incivility unbecoming of any person, beneath the dignity of a world leader and confirmation that we had elected our first un-American president.


Common wisdom says Obama’s act of returning the sculpture was the product of an unsatisfied rage over Britain’s history of colonialism, particularly with respect to Kenya.  And that is probably correct.  But there is another reason why Obama might harbor a great bitterness toward Churchill.  Winston Churchill stood strong against Barack Obama’s chosen style of deep Socialist government.

Sir Winston said,

You may, by the arbitrary and sterile act of Government—for remember, Governments create nothing and have nothing to give but what they have first taken away—you may put money in the pocket of one set of Englishmen, but it will be money taken from the pockets of another set of Englishmen, and the greater part will be spilled on the way.

And another,

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill is no longer with us and no man of his stature is alive to speak for us today.  The job is left to smaller voices, like this very small one, to convey messages of success in place of failure, common sense in the face of ignorance, messages of love and ambition to counter the gospel of envy and to tell the story of virtue inherent in a system that leads to the sharing not of misery, but of prosperity.

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RADICAL-IN-CHIEF – Chapter 9 – State Senate Years

Posted on September 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

This post continues the series of chapter by chapter summations of the book Radical-In-Chief by Stanley Kurtz.

Chapter 9
State Senate Years
Obama has managed to keep much of his past under wraps, however, his years of work in the Illinois legislature are a matter of public record. And the record shows him to be someone who is “profoundly race conscious, exceedingly liberal, free spending even in the face of looming state budget deficits, and partisan”. He is careful not to put his true ideas out before their time lest he get too far ahead of the electorate.

Rashid Khalidi is one of the people who hosted a fund raiser at his home for Barack’s congressional campaign against Bobby Rush.  Khalidi is a professor at the University of Chicago, the founder of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) and a friend and associate of Bill Ayers.  Obama returned the favor by channeling money to Khalidi’s AAAN from the Woods Fund where he and Ayers served at various times on the 7 member board of directors.  Rashid, Bill and Barack were frequently acted for the mutual benefit of each other.

A study was done at Southern Illinois University showing that Obama worked almost exclusively on social welfare legislation while in the Illinois Senate.  The fact that the state was deep in debt and facing a financial crisis did not temper the Senator’s drive for ever more expansive social programs.  Obama endorsed a plan to borrow against an anticipated one-time windfall from a tobacco lawsuit to pay for permanent social programs.

Obama’s method in the Senate was to move toward a goal in small increments, first with one toe in the door, then another and another until the full objective was achieved.  His approach of asking for more than he expected allowed for apparent compromise on incidentals along the way that could be claimed to be “bi-partisanship” without jeopardizing the overall plan.

Chapter 9 is filled with anecdotes and bits of information that are trivial in themselves, but like a mosaic they form a clear picture when seen in total.  We offer here just this one example among many.  Bill Ayers held the view that “America’s prison system is a racist plot to clear the streets of kids most likely to make a socialist revolution.”  He wrote a book entitled A Kind and Just Parent proclaiming this notion.  Obama lent his support for Ayers work by writing what the New York Times called a “rare review”, not a full review but a warm endorsement.

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MR ARTICULATE RAMBLES ON WITH A STREAM OF UNMITIGATED LIES ABOUT FAST AND FURIOUS

Posted on September 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

It is not often that I write such a strong headline.  But when President Obama says the Fast and Furious gun facilitation program was started by George Bush and ended promptly by Eric Holder as soon as he heard of it, what else can you say?  That comes at about the 4 minute mark on the video.

Some videos just won’t embed on our system; this is one of them.  You can view it by going to the Daily Caller.  It is a clip of Barack Obama being interviewed on a Spanish language TV program.  The President was asked some very pointed questions by the interviewer – Don’t you think Eric Holder should be fired? – If there was no higher involvement than a few field operatives why did you refuse to release the documents?  You have to watch the video to hear the Presidents answers to these and other questions.

Yesterday the New York Times reported on the report released by the investigator appointed by the Obama administration to investigate the Obama administration’s Justice Department.  There were 9 words in the headline.  One would think Fast and Furious would be among them.  The headline read “Guns Inquiry Urges Action Against 14 in Justice Dept”.  So that gun problem, whatever it was, was just a case of some bumbling on the part a few expendable low level agents at the ATF and they have been held accountable.  Tell it Brian Terry’s family.

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ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF BARACK OBAMA AS PRESIDENT

Posted on September 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

Once in blue moon a post bears repeating in its entirety.  Back in May, Random Thots published a list written by an Obama supporter of the President’s accomplishments since taking office.  It was a well written and impressive list.  I did a little research to see how accurate the writer was in his claims.  The Rebuttals are the result of the research.

One thing I would point out is how the truth can be used to convey a lie.  In the first example the author’s claim was absolutely true as he wrote it.  But it conveyed the idea that a higher level of standards relating to the lobby industry had been established and followed by Obama and his administration.  That was a lie.  The signing of the law turned Obama’s previous legal use of lobbyists (use that he continued) into an illegal one.  All others including his opponents were now subject to new restrictions while the President de facto set himself above the law by not complying with it even though he was the one who signed it..

Here is the original post.

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A LIST OF BARACK OBAMA’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT

Posted on May 31, 2012

There is a list going around the Internet outlining an extensive number of things the President has accomplished since coming into office.  The author seems to be addressing Obama supporters who are disappointed in the President’s performance.  It’s an impressive list, well documented and straight forward in it’s presentation.  I thought I would check it out.

Here is an example from the middle of the list.

He signed an order banning anyone from working in an agency they had lobbied in previous years. He also put strict limits on lobbyists’ access to the White House.   http://nyti.ms/gOrznV

REBUTTAL. He did sign the ban, but continued to hire former lobbyists to serve the White House. Mega lobbyists Steve Ricchetti, Broderick Johnson, James Heimbach just to mention three.

Not to cherry pick, I started from the top.  Here are the first seven.  They are enough to tell the storey.  Here’s a link to the full list.

Legislative Prowess
Despite the characterizations of some, Obama’s success rate in winning congressional votes on issues was an unprecedented 96.7% for his first year in office.  Though he is often cited as superior to Obama, President Lyndon Johnson’s success rate in 1965 was only 93%.   http://n.pr/i3d7cY

REBUTTAL. True. With Democratic control of the House and the Senate, Pelosi, Reid and Obama had a radical’s field day.

Fiscal Responsibility
Within days after taking office, he signed an Executive Order ordering an audit of government contracts, and combating waste and abuse.   http://1.usa.gov/dUvbu5

REBUTTAL. True. The Order added the requirement for contractors to disclose their political party affiliations when applying for government contracts making it easier to reward those who had done political favors for the President and his party. 

Created the post of Chief Performance Officer, whose job it is to make operations more efficient to save the federal government money.   http://n.pr/hcgBn1

REBUTTAL. True. But his appointee to initiate the post never served due to her personal income tax problems.

On his first full day, he froze White House salaries.  http://on.msnbc.com/ewJUIx

REBUTTAL. Not really. On his first full day it was a proposal and not a freeze.  And it didn’t stop federal employees from getting increases in their income.  It only stopped raises within grade. Increases could still be given as bonuses or the raising of pay grades without the need for promotions.  The proposal was more fanfare than substance.

He appointed the first Federal Chief Information Officer to oversee federal IT spending. http://www.cio.gov

REBUTTAL. True. Each government agency already had a Chief Investment Officer. The creation of this new layer of oversight provided the means to control all of the agency career CIOs by one czar appointed by and beholden to the President.  It also added and an unnecessary expense

He committed to phasing out unnecessary and outdated weapons systems, and also signed the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act to stop waste, fraud and abuse in the defense procurement and contracting system.  http://bit.
ly/hOw1t1     http://bit.ly/fz8GAd

REBUTTAL. Defense Secretary Gates called this a controversial move.  I am not qualified to judge the advisability of it. However one thing is clear; it dismissed one third of private contractors, replacing them with civilian government workers.

Through an executive order, he created the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.  http://bit.ly/hwKhKa

REBUTTAL. This is better known as the Erskine-Bowles commission.  The Commission made many recommendations for the President and the Senate to include in the Federal Budget.  None were adopted.  Harry Reid’s Democratically controlled Senate hasn’t presented a budget in 3 years, contrary to law.

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