President Obama to Pick a Fight with Academia?
Though I like the policy initiative, I don’t actually see this going very far and I question whether President Obama’s heart is really in this fight. So often we hear President Obama speak on issues for no other reason than for the political points, and I see this as yet another example of it. To believe otherwise would be to believe President Obama would stand up and fight against some of his own most ardent supporters. And to fight the society of academia within which he grew up. For a man who voted “present” all his life, I don’t see it happening. Its one thing to believe in a socialist construct (universal healthcare) and to fight tooth and nail for it when it matters and with those who support you, and quite another to pick a fight against some of those very same supporters. President Obama has never struck me as that kind of man.
Washington Post to now vet the President?
Excuse me for guffawing Washington Post, but the horses are already out of the barn. Vetting the President in the run up to his second term doesn’t eradicate or even lessen the harm President Obama has done to this country. And you, along with the majority of the other liberal media, are to blame for it. Please save us the self-aggrandizement regarding how you’re going to perform the very function now that you should have performed in 2007 and 2008.
Doomsday clock charade
Anyone who grew up in the 1970′s or 1980′s should be familiar with the Doomsday Clock. But for those who are younger, the Doomsday Clock was (and remains) a figurative representation of humanities closeness to annihilation. It was a means for Nuclear scientists to discuss their fears with the world and it became a political tool with which to goad the worlds Super Powers and allies to step back from the brink. With the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s the Doomsday clock’s significance had been largely marginalized, and society today has all but forgotten what it was to live under the threat of nuclear winter. It’s amazing what a few short years can do to the psyche of a culture, but in all honesty, the world is just as threatened by the likes of North Korea, Pakistan, and quite possibly Iran in the near term possessing nuclear weapons.
In any event, at some point in recent past the organization responsible for the Atomic Clock decided marginalization was for the dogs and they climbed aboard the “Climate Change” bandwagon. The Atomic Clock was always a bit of a political stunt, yet it wasn’t tied to a specific mindset or political ideology. That simply isn’t the case with “Climate Change”, and so whatever relevance remained for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is now completely gone with the political theater unleashed upon the world yesterday. Not one single study or model has to this day been able to accurately predict climate. In fact even the most ardent supporters of “Climate Change” hysteria begrudgingly admit they can’t explain why the dire consequences they’ve trumpeted for years have not been realized. And now the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, founded on the threat of Nuclear annihilation, is alerting us that humanity’s destruction is now closer because we simpletons will not accept the word of our betters.
Some people just don’t realize when their time in the sun has passed.
President Obama is responsible for OWS violence
President Obama has made it clear he stands with the OWS movement and believes in the “principles” they espouse. Despite, of course, that the collective movement has released a dizzying array of “demands” which any sane person would look at and ignore for the utter tripe those demands are. However, President Obama stands behind the movement. As do a number of prominent Democrats, unions, and liberal social organizations. President Obama has gone so far as to turn his Saturday morning speeches, and other public statements into platforms to offer additional support. So President Obama, don’t be true to form now by backing away from the violence your children are committing. Own it.
Of course the OWS movement has been committing various minor crimes all over the country since early on, but has witnessed more periodic serious crimes at various locations during the past few weeks. And the last few days in Oakland, California has been nothing short of atrocious. Those riots are what the Democrat party stands for. Those riots are what President Obama espouses. Those children are the spoiled, whiney liberals that want the productive part of the country to work hard so they can sit back and continue to collect the hand outs government has given to them all their lives. Own it Mr. President.
I never again want to hear a single word uttered from the left, or from the left’s main stream media lackeys about the Tea Party. Never was there a single act of violence at any of the Tea Party events, nor did any Tea Party group ever demand the government forcibly take anything from anyone else to give to them. Nor did any Tea Party group ever demand the government practice class warfare. I am so disgusted with the media, liberals, and President Obama in particular.
What is fair?
President Obama has a habit of throwing around the words “fair” and “Justice” but never defines what either means. And on Saturday he was at it again, latching onto a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that indicated the incomes of the wealthiest Americans increased by 275% from 1979 to 2007, while the lowest income bracket only increased by 18% during the same period. President Obama, true to form, is taking the populist approach attempting to gain leverage over Republicans in the budget and debt discussions.
So much of this “debate” centers around “equality”. The left makes the point that the wealthy getting wealthier to the extent they are while everyone else is getting wealthier to a much lesser extent or not at all is unfair; that there needs to be a more even distribution of the “country’s wealth”. As if there were such a thing. The “country” does not have wealth, individuals do and in a capitalist system where individuals have freedom to pursue achievement, there will be – by definition – unequal wealth distribution. The “country” takes wealth from individuals in the form of taxes to carry out the specified functions directed by the Constitution. Read more…
Liberal ignorance
I have a friend that happens to be a liberal, and so it’s not terribly surprising that the OCCUPYWALLSTREET movement would come up. As so happens recently he’s tried gently chiding me about the aims and goals of the movement. Of course, being conservative, I’ve refuted his chiding by pointing out the ridiculousness of the movement. Not only have I pointed out the ridiculous nature of the varied demands of the movement, but also the crimes committed by protesters across the country, and the general ignorance of the movement’s political philosophy to begin with. I also compared the actions of the movement against those of the Tea Party rallies over the last year which never resulted in a single law being broken, or property damage. What a comparison it is too. Read more…
Surprise? Government Employees in DC average over $100k
This does not surprise me in the least. I do a lot of consulting work and work alongside quite a few government employees on a daily basis, which is part of the reason I was as incredulous at the remarks of Senator Reid yesterday as I was. I see the utterly wasteful spending and total lack of concern for the taxpayer every day and its sickening. I’ve yet to meet a government employee that is one because of a sense of civic virtue despite over 20 years running shoulders with them. Rather, the draw of government positions is the long-term stability, benefits, and pay. Which isn’t to say that you can’t make more money in the civilian world (you can), but no where in the civilian world will you find the job security that is experienced in government service. Civilians might walk around their offices, gathering at the water cooler and comment about concerns of layoffs and quarterly performance. Government employees simply don’t have to.
Case in point a memo has been circulating among certain government employees this week advertising a round of voluntary early retirement. Proving my point and proving just how cynical Americans have a right to be, the talk among government employees I’ve heard all week is speculation concerning financial incentives to take that early retirement. A lot of those I talked to would take early retirement with incentives but were suddenly not interested at all today when an email was circulated that no incentives were involved. Not one single person I talked to today was interested. Why would they be? They all know that they can’t truly be fired like any other American not lucky enough to be a government employee. Unlike regular Americans government employees simply get moved around. In fact in 24 years I’ve never met or so much as heard of anyone that did in fact ever get “down sized”. Billets might have been reduced through attrition or through reorganization but the government employees who did not in fact want to take advantage of early retirement provisions have the right to move to another position somewhere else. They might not have liked what was offered to them, but isn’t that the case with everyone?
Incidentally the average private sector salary is $50,000. The average government salary is $75,000. It’s good to be king, isn’t it?
This is the reason we have a debt problem
Well, other than the obvious that government spends more than it receives. Statements such as Senator Reids are precisely the reason we have a debt problem. Sentor Reid is most assuredly a moron, but Democrats in general need to pull their heads out from whichever dark nether region they currently occupy and understand that government jobs do not PRODUCE. Government jobs CONSUME. Private sector jobs PRODUCE. Government taxation reduces the amount of wealth in the private sector, which causes the private sector to slow down or halt hiring at best, and causes the private sector to reduce the number of jobs at worst. So when I see statements by Democrats like Sentor Reid such as:
It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about.
It makes me want to scream at TVs, punch stuffed animals and generally mis-treat Democrats. Government jobs are the safest jobs in the United States today. And they get paid extraorinarily well. It also so happens that Government employees are the single largest body of UNIONIZED employees in the United States. Have no doubt about it, but that is the only reason why Democrats are concerned about government employees. However, at least you can see without any doubt that Senator Reid and the Democrats care very little for you, Mr. and Mrs. private sector worker.
Light of day shone on #OWS
I had been wondering where all of the recent information concerning #OCCUPYWALLSTREET organization had been coming from. Now we know thanks to Andrew Breitbart and others who worked with him to accumulate THIS. Infiltration of the OCCUPY movement enabled the intrepid citizen journalists to accumulate a large repository of emails that show the true nature of the movement. It’s every bit as insidious as believed. As had been said from the very beginning, the movement is a collection of leftists including anarchists, anti-capitalists, communists/marxists, labor union and Democrat party personnel. The emails detail in some detail the plans of the movement, which in short are to “destabalize” the country. This quote from an Oct 12th email summarizes the groups strategy:
We’re in this for the long haul. There are no “solutions” that can be presented quickly to make us go away. And so there will be moments where our presence is no longer an uncomfortable and unknown variable, but rather is normalized and integrated. It’s in those moments that we have to push the envelop [sic], pry open the space of possibility even farther. We go as far as we can to destabalize [sic], but maintain momentum. And when that’s the new “normal” then we go farther. That’s how change happens, how we shift the terrain and the terms of the game.
- Email in “Occupy” archive, “Re: Can OWS be turned into a Democratic Party Movement?”; Wednesday, October 12, 2011
We have not yet seen how dangerous these people are, or the ends to which they are willing to go.
Read more…
Where is this age’s Ronald Reagan?
I remember the first thought I had when I learned that Ronald Reagan had been elected President of the United States. It was November 1980 and I am shamed to admit that I hadn’t yet learned to think for myself. I mournfully recall thinking “oh great, now we’re going go to go to war”. You see, like so many other young impressionable minds, I’d been brainwashed into thinking that Ronald Reagan was nothing more than a intellectually inferior, war-mongering, cowboy. I bought everything the nightly news channels and our country’s largest newspapers said about the President. It took several years before I came to realize that I didn’t actually believe those things the media said about President Reagan, and that instead I had a deep, abiding respect for him. By President Reagan’s second administration I had completely reevaluated my beliefs and had come to consider myself a Republican. President Reagan was a master communicator and it was through his words that I learned what I truly felt in my heart was that America was great and that the principles upon which America was founded were principles I deeply believed in.
Through President Reagan the GOP was transformed into the party of ideas; of vision; of world leadership. Sadly, today the Republican party has forgotten the lessons the Great Communicator taught us. It’s been little more than 20 years since President Reagan left office, yet we find ourselves more in need of President Reagan’s presence now than ever. Our country stands upon a precipice, a deep chasm into which we have begun to tip and from which depth there is likely no return. As we did then, today we need a charismatic leader who believes in those founding principles and can express those principles to a wavering people who seem hell bent upon transforming a unique country into yet another European nation. Read more…
Finally the costs of Michelle Obama’s Africa trip are known
Serial vacationer Michelle Obama cost tax payers more than $424k on her last major vacation in June according to information recently released. Though the White House isists that figure is high, they refuse to indicate what they believe the cost of the trip to have been due to privacy and security concerns. Whatever the cost actually was — higher or lower — that figure was for the travel alone and doesn’t include the costs associated with the personnel who travelled with her and any costs incurred by the foriegn government to accomodate the first family. Normally I’m not one to begrudge the first family their vacations, yet we’re still in the midst of an extremely sensitive economic cirumstance. Its shameful that Mrs. Obama would incur expenses anywhere close to a Million dollars for a vacation when families here in the United States are struggling to put food on the table for their families. Let us not forgot that every dollar Mrs. Obama and her daughters caused to be spent was a dollar taken from someone through taxes. Clearly Mrs. Obama needs to become a better steward of the public’s money.
Obama to call out Cantor for “Jobs” bill inactivity
Despite Sentor Reid placing the President’s “Jobs” bill on the back burner and several Democrats taking specific and public issue with the plan, President Obama is going to “call out” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor because the bill isn’t being voted upon. Lets ignore for the moment that Obama paid nothing but lip service to “Jobs” for the first two years of his administration, and instead opted for healthcare and short term pay offs for his union friends. But to see the President now thumping his chest as if he had any real ideas or leadership is ludicris and infuriating. Even many Democrats claim the President’s “Jobs” bill won’t create many jobs, and the President’s insistence that the bill is an “take or leave it” proposition won’t help his cause with Republicans insistant upon creating real jobs instead of creating more debt.
The President can call out whomever he chooses to, yet having done so won’t change the facts a whit. The President’s “Jobs” bill is nothing more than a veneer for further short term Union spending that will cost Billions and yet won’t stimulate the economy. It would however sadlle the US Tax Payers for several hundred Billion in additional debt. Unlike President Obama, I’m not interested in gambling with the economy any further
The left, proving once again they don’t believe in the Constitution
I love this story. There aren’t often such clear examples of hypocrisy from the left, yet this is one such perfect example. The left is always harrangueing the country on the importance of ‘Freedom of Speech’, — as if any of us truly needed a lecture on its merits — using it to ensure they have the right to create and burn/hang effigees of President Bush; using it to ensure they have the right to burn the American Flag and to create horrible art depicting Jesus Christ and Mary drenched in feces; and using it to ensure they have the right to depict everyone who disagrees with a black man as racist. However, when the shoe is on the other foot all that hyperbole goes out the window. The left only wants the right kind of free speech. The wrong kind of free speech must be stamped out whatever the cost.
A racist by any other name
It saddens me that it is 2011 and yet we as a country as still so focused on the issue of race that we simply can’t move beyond it. On one side you still do have genuine racism against minorities in small pockets around the United States, but on the other hand you also have racism by minorities against the majority. I don’t buy the common contention from certain minority groups that racism only occurs in one direction and I honestly think that attitude is utter nonsense. Racism is nothing more or less than:
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the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others |
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abusive or aggressive behavior towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief |
What race you happen to be has absolutely nothing to do with it. Frankly there is just as much racism in the black community as there is in the white community, if we want to be completely honest about the situation. Despite progress we as a nation have obtained towards eradicating racism, we will never overcome it completely if what we continue to focus on is race!
For instance, last week Morgan Freeman, a particularly talented actor that I have loved and respected my entire adult life made a completely egregious and ridiculous statement regarding “Tea Party” racism and that political attacks against President Obama are rooted in nothing but racism. Sentiments that are happily carried over the airwaves by the main-stream media without any proof what so ever, and without any meaningful counterpoint. It’s frustrating. Read more…
Hayden Panettiere, meet the Founding Fathers
Last Sunday, as it turns out. was Hayden Panettiere day in Washington D.C.. Evidently Ms. Panettiere’s contributions to the city have been such that they wanted to honor her. What were those contributions, you ask? Calling attention to Washington D.C.’s “unjust plight“. You see, Washington D.C. – the very seat of our national government — is not a State of this union, but is instead a federal district. A district, purposely constructed in such a manner, so as not to stand any State above another and to ensure the federal government would in no way be subservient to any State government. And despite the careful and considered opinions of our country’s forefathers, Ms. Panettiere believes she understands the issues better than the very individuals who crafted our union in the first place. According to Ms. Panettiere, among others, believes that Washington D.C. should be a State in its own right, with full voting powers in the United States Congress. Despite what the Constitution says, of course (hint, see Art 1, section 8).
But just reading the pertinent passage in the Constitution doesn’t give you the detail you might want to understand why the Founding Fathers established the seat of federal government in the fashion they did. For that you but need read Madison’s Treatise on the matter. Madison, after all, was the “Father of the Constitution“? One would think he would have a grasp on such lofty principles. Yet, even after reading it most still might not understand. Prior to 1913 the States appointed their Senators, but with the ratification of the 17th Amendment Senators would from that point forward be elected by popular vote. The original intent of the Founding Fathers was that Senators were the representatives of their States, whereas the Representatives were the people’s representatives. So as to ensure Congress was not unduly influenced, or at the behest of a State, the Federal government would have it’s own seat. Congress changed one of the Constitution’s balancing principles, and it’s served as one of the forces that has tipped the balance of power away from the States toward the Federal government. There was, of course, also the little issue of an insurrection in 1783 that weighed heavily on those crafting our union.
Of course the issue of statehood is not new, and Ms. Panettiere is just the latest celebrity or popular figure to endorse the measure. Despite numerous previous attempts at changing the intent of the founding fathers, Individuals like Ms. Panettiere who have no understanding of our Constitution or the intent of its many passages, keep trying.
