1.) It's a tradition. Congress-crooks have been fleecing this Harlem district since Adam Clayton Powell Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell,_Jr. won the seat in 1945.
2.) To protect the gullible constituents of New York District 15 from electing the risible Adam Clayton Powell IV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_IV_(politician) , continuing the tradition cited above.
3.) To keep our young men on their toes worrying about Crazy Charlie's efforts to reinstate compulsory military service http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/15/AR2010071505686.html for Americans.
Charlie Rangel has single-handedly saved or created scores of investigative jobs for forensic attorneys, forensic accountants and forensic journalists, all http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/charles_rangel_and_the_forensi.html employed to ferret out where the Sly Fox of Harlem stashed his ill-gotten loot. Charlie is no William Jefferson (Convicted Democrat, Louisiana) satisfied leaving his greenbacks cooling in the freezer.
4.)If Rangel retires, Congress will lose one of the last protege's of arch-Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (Convicted Democrat, Chicago) who taught Charming Charles a thing or two about the House's Ways and Means while Rosty was Chairman and Charlie ranked 3rd on the committee roster. (See Rostenkowski chased down the street by angry seniors here.) http://volokh.com/author/davidh/
5.) Even though he is a bloviating, money-grubbing hack, Rangel remains the cream of the Congressional Black Caucus http://www.cbcfinc.org/cbc/cbc-members.html , which has come rushing to Poor Chairman Charlie's aid.http://blackpoliticalthought.blogspot.com/2010/07/congressional-black-caucus-coddles.html
6.) One would be hard pressed to find a sorrier collection of shills, demagogues and grandstanders than this group led by the insufferable Sheila Jackson-Lee, Bobby Rush, and Maxine Waters.
7.) Congressman Rangel remains a living, breathing reminder of Nancy Pelosi's role as Swamp Troll http://www.examiner.com/x-6996-Louisville-Economic-Policy-Examiner~y2010m2d27-Nancy-Pelosi--Swamp-Troll to the current Congress, determining who is allowed to stay in the slough she has enlarged rather than draining it as she had promised.
8.) We must stop the hemorrhaging of cartoonish ancient Democrats from the Congressional ranks. What began as a target-rich environment with the likes of Teddy “Floater” Kennedy, Jack “Abscam” Murtha, and Robert “Exalted Cyclops” Byrd is now in danger of flushing yet another morally challenged monument to the smoke-filled room style of Democrat politics.
9.) The loss of the Democrat's black elder statesman will further strip the race-card baiters of their last line of defense: “(Rangel's is a style, a method, a politics from an age when it was simply not done to ask uncomfortable questions of a black politician, lest that politician (and his supporters) retort that the questioning was racist. That protective smokescreen of “racism” was good to men like Rangel, allowing them to go about their merry ways blithely, and untroubled. It is harder to strike pouting, Manichean postures now, when a black man holds the highest office in the land. There can be no cheap and easy shaming of critics, no slick refuge in a narrative of racial oppression.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-23/charlie-rangel-will-resign-next-week-predicts-tunku-varadarajan/ If the Democrats lose Rangel, what is to become of Jesse Jackson's pere et fils? Of Al Sharpton and his ilk?
10.) If we let Charlie Rangel off the hook with a simple resignation, we will never get the full story of exactly how large a fortune this humble servant of the people of Harlem has amassed through his skillful manipulation of Rostenkowski style Ways with whatever Means he saw necessary to promote his personal engrandizement.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The Revolution is not being Televised
(This article first appeared at The American Thinker on 07/05/2010.)
Back in the glory days of the boomer generation, after it discovered its mutual affinity with the leftist American media, political demonstrations and protests ran rampant and became the hip scene. Aligning with the Chicago Seven and other useful idiots being carefully nurtured by America’s abundant supply of anarcho-leftist-trade union types, young Americans hit the streets to demonstrate their rejection of traditional American values. In their naivete, the hippies and peaceniks naturally supported the angrier, more aggressive politics of the burgeoning Black Power movement. While San Francisco loonies like Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane espoused an alternately druggy and pulingly angry form of revolution, the Black Power advocates including Angela Davis, Stokely Carmicheal and H. Rap Brown raucously promoted a violent revolution. In fact, while Justice Minister of the Black Panther Party, Brown became famous for his proclamation that “Violence is as American as apple pie.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Rap_Brown
Fortunately for America, so is a life sentence for homicide, under which Brown currently remains imprisoned.
In 1970, poet/songwriter Gil Scott Heron created a spoken word poem celebrating the violent revolution anticipated by the Black Panthers, SNCC and associated Black Power groups. On an album titled “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox,” accompanied only by congas and bongo drums, Heron riffed on the post-revolutionary landscape he foresaw in a poem titled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Will_Not_Be_Televised
Heron’s grim choleric is actually the “B” side of a 45 rpm single with the flip-side title purely expressing the dominant emotion driving the Black Power movement: “Home is Where the Hatred is.” The revolution as envisioned by Gil Scott Heron essentially erases the evidence of traditional “white” American culture:
Green Acres, the Beverly Hillbillies and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
Women will no longer care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
Will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
Bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke. http://www.gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html
Paradoxically, over the last two generations, the aging leftists have been quite successful in establishing their agenda without violence, by infiltrating and dominating the education, legal, and media establishments in our country. Teaming with the trade unions whose movement has been a tool of the International Communists for over a century, this coalition has succeeded in radically altering the American economic, political and moral landscapes. Their foothold has been so firmly established, especially in the media, that those promoting traditional American values can scarcely get their voices heard through what now amounts to the Pravda media. The formerly mainstream media is nothing more than the unofficial organ of the Democrat party, just as the original Pravda was the official house organ for the Russian Communist party.
Thank God for the rise of the alternative media and talk radio! Through the thoughtful nurturing of traditional American idealism and a determined effort to disseminate information that the mainstream media would rather keep suppressed, a genuine peaceful revolution continues to sprout from the efforts of the conservative, alternative media. Most evident in the courage and patriotism of the Tea Party movement, the corrective right-ward swing of the pendulum indicates a genuine revolution in American values is underway. Conservatives are taking back their country, albeit peacefully. There couldn’t be more important news to disseminate.
But lo and behold, just as Gil Scott Heron predicted, The Revolution is not being televised:
The Revolution is not being televised.
You will not find the smiling faces of your friends and
Neighbors marching in the streets, protesting
The arrogant contempt of the temporarily ruling regime..
Like slaves were counted in pre-Civil War
Voting rolls, government media will count
Each tea partier as one fifth of person,
Reducing its estimate of Tea Party crowds
To allay their own fears.
The Revolution will not be found on CBS,
CNN or MSNBC.
There will be no film at eleven
Showing joyous Tea Partiers in the streets
Celebrating the return to American sanity.
You will not find the video of Sarah Palin
And Marco Rubio linking arms and singing
“We have Overcome” after election night
In November signaling the triumph of excellence
In America after the pernicious cancers
Of multiculturalism and diversity
For diversity’s sake are sent whining
Into the dust-bin of history.
There will be no photos of Al Sharpton
Being run out of Harlem on a rail
With a brand new buzz-cut
Nor video of looters in Los Angeles
And New York City or the other
Havens of amnesty for the undocumented Democrats
loading up their green buses
To get out of Dodge before the new Sheriffs arrive.
You will find no High Definition
Profiles in Conservative American Courage
But you will continue to find the Housewives of Oakland,
Undocumented Apprentice, and
President-for-A-Day
On a continuous loop
Drowning out the hysterical whimpering
Of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow
And the women of The View
Blithering on about the diminished glory of
Affirmative action, Jane Fonda and Barney Frank.
No the revolution is not being televised.
It does not need Viagra, Cialis, or Flo-max.
The revolution can do without a Snuggie,
A Sham-Wow or any trinkets from the Home Shopping Network.
The revolution will go better with Coke,
And the revolution will put you
In the driver’s seat.
The revolution has no need for video replay
Satellite photos or any commentary
From Chris Mathews, Katie Couric
Or any petty bureaucrats from the Clinton
Or Carter administrations.
The revolution is real
And it’s coming to an election booth near you
On November 2, 2010.
Be there.
Back in the glory days of the boomer generation, after it discovered its mutual affinity with the leftist American media, political demonstrations and protests ran rampant and became the hip scene. Aligning with the Chicago Seven and other useful idiots being carefully nurtured by America’s abundant supply of anarcho-leftist-trade union types, young Americans hit the streets to demonstrate their rejection of traditional American values. In their naivete, the hippies and peaceniks naturally supported the angrier, more aggressive politics of the burgeoning Black Power movement. While San Francisco loonies like Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane espoused an alternately druggy and pulingly angry form of revolution, the Black Power advocates including Angela Davis, Stokely Carmicheal and H. Rap Brown raucously promoted a violent revolution. In fact, while Justice Minister of the Black Panther Party, Brown became famous for his proclamation that “Violence is as American as apple pie.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Rap_Brown
Fortunately for America, so is a life sentence for homicide, under which Brown currently remains imprisoned.
In 1970, poet/songwriter Gil Scott Heron created a spoken word poem celebrating the violent revolution anticipated by the Black Panthers, SNCC and associated Black Power groups. On an album titled “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox,” accompanied only by congas and bongo drums, Heron riffed on the post-revolutionary landscape he foresaw in a poem titled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Will_Not_Be_Televised
Heron’s grim choleric is actually the “B” side of a 45 rpm single with the flip-side title purely expressing the dominant emotion driving the Black Power movement: “Home is Where the Hatred is.” The revolution as envisioned by Gil Scott Heron essentially erases the evidence of traditional “white” American culture:
Green Acres, the Beverly Hillbillies and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
Women will no longer care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
Will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
Bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke. http://www.gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html
Paradoxically, over the last two generations, the aging leftists have been quite successful in establishing their agenda without violence, by infiltrating and dominating the education, legal, and media establishments in our country. Teaming with the trade unions whose movement has been a tool of the International Communists for over a century, this coalition has succeeded in radically altering the American economic, political and moral landscapes. Their foothold has been so firmly established, especially in the media, that those promoting traditional American values can scarcely get their voices heard through what now amounts to the Pravda media. The formerly mainstream media is nothing more than the unofficial organ of the Democrat party, just as the original Pravda was the official house organ for the Russian Communist party.
Thank God for the rise of the alternative media and talk radio! Through the thoughtful nurturing of traditional American idealism and a determined effort to disseminate information that the mainstream media would rather keep suppressed, a genuine peaceful revolution continues to sprout from the efforts of the conservative, alternative media. Most evident in the courage and patriotism of the Tea Party movement, the corrective right-ward swing of the pendulum indicates a genuine revolution in American values is underway. Conservatives are taking back their country, albeit peacefully. There couldn’t be more important news to disseminate.
But lo and behold, just as Gil Scott Heron predicted, The Revolution is not being televised:
The Revolution is not being televised.
You will not find the smiling faces of your friends and
Neighbors marching in the streets, protesting
The arrogant contempt of the temporarily ruling regime..
Like slaves were counted in pre-Civil War
Voting rolls, government media will count
Each tea partier as one fifth of person,
Reducing its estimate of Tea Party crowds
To allay their own fears.
The Revolution will not be found on CBS,
CNN or MSNBC.
There will be no film at eleven
Showing joyous Tea Partiers in the streets
Celebrating the return to American sanity.
You will not find the video of Sarah Palin
And Marco Rubio linking arms and singing
“We have Overcome” after election night
In November signaling the triumph of excellence
In America after the pernicious cancers
Of multiculturalism and diversity
For diversity’s sake are sent whining
Into the dust-bin of history.
There will be no photos of Al Sharpton
Being run out of Harlem on a rail
With a brand new buzz-cut
Nor video of looters in Los Angeles
And New York City or the other
Havens of amnesty for the undocumented Democrats
loading up their green buses
To get out of Dodge before the new Sheriffs arrive.
You will find no High Definition
Profiles in Conservative American Courage
But you will continue to find the Housewives of Oakland,
Undocumented Apprentice, and
President-for-A-Day
On a continuous loop
Drowning out the hysterical whimpering
Of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow
And the women of The View
Blithering on about the diminished glory of
Affirmative action, Jane Fonda and Barney Frank.
No the revolution is not being televised.
It does not need Viagra, Cialis, or Flo-max.
The revolution can do without a Snuggie,
A Sham-Wow or any trinkets from the Home Shopping Network.
The revolution will go better with Coke,
And the revolution will put you
In the driver’s seat.
The revolution has no need for video replay
Satellite photos or any commentary
From Chris Mathews, Katie Couric
Or any petty bureaucrats from the Clinton
Or Carter administrations.
The revolution is real
And it’s coming to an election booth near you
On November 2, 2010.
Be there.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Unlucky Obama?
Peggy Noonan, one half of the mainstream media Sinister Spinsters providing liberal apologetics for the stumbling Obama administration along with Maureen Dowd, was actually beginning to show signs of awakening to the recognition of B.O.'s thorough incompetence. Peggy's May 29 column, titled “He was supposed to be Competent” suggested that Noonan was finally ready to acknowledge that her enthusiasm and support for the weakest man ever elected POTUS was wrong-headed:
I don't see how the president’s position and popularity can survive the spill. This is the third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president’s political judgment and instincts.....How could there not have been a plan? How could it all have been so ad hoc, so inadequate so embarrassing? www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=524
A mere 3 weeks later, Noonan demonstrates the wishful thinking that has kept Obama's approval numbers from plummeting into the 20 or 30 % range. Rasmussen's latest poll pegs B.O.'s favorable rating at 43%, although it has dipped as low as 41% earlier in the week. www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_trackir
Noonan would now like to delude her readers, as she has clearly deluded herself, into believing that the poor little Punahou Kid suffers from nothing more damning than some bad luck:
The president is starting to look snakebit. He's starting to look unlucky, like Jimmy Carter...(this) is dangerous for him because Americans get nervous when they have a snakebit president. They want presidents on whom the sun shines. (ibid WSJ)
Oh my god! There is a reason that Carter and Obama are inextricably linked to one another in the minds of Americans and it has nothing to do with contemplations of their fortuity. These two maladroit schmucks mirror one another precisely because neither was remotely qualified to hold the office of POTUS and both had the good fortune to be elected despite their formidable short-comings.
Has their ever been a luckier man than Barack Obama? Despite what appears to be a very middling intellect, regardless of the propaganda shoveled out by the main stream media pundits, B.O. Was educated at the finest American colleges, probably at public expense. Born when affirmative action was at it's apogee, his career has been high-lighted by constant promotion from one job at which he never became accomplished to the next. Now this ultimate example of The Peter Principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle holds the most powerful position on earth with the biggest spending account in the universe. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with its $1.4 million jackpot Peggy! While constantly failing at his job, weakening our defenses and our relationships with our former allies, he has spent America deep into a likely double-dip recession while undermining key American industries. In return for his destructive incompetence, Obama gets to host multi-million dollar parties for his closest friends, and has Air Force One at his disposal to whisk his wife off on date nights here and in Europe. Any one of us should be so lucky.
The American people are the ones who are snakebit. Unfortunately we elected the snakes and will have to wait for the electoral process to restore some responsibility to the executive branch and the good luck and blessings that have been the natural consequence of our remarkable American system of government.
I don't see how the president’s position and popularity can survive the spill. This is the third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president’s political judgment and instincts.....How could there not have been a plan? How could it all have been so ad hoc, so inadequate so embarrassing? www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=524
A mere 3 weeks later, Noonan demonstrates the wishful thinking that has kept Obama's approval numbers from plummeting into the 20 or 30 % range. Rasmussen's latest poll pegs B.O.'s favorable rating at 43%, although it has dipped as low as 41% earlier in the week. www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_trackir
Noonan would now like to delude her readers, as she has clearly deluded herself, into believing that the poor little Punahou Kid suffers from nothing more damning than some bad luck:
The president is starting to look snakebit. He's starting to look unlucky, like Jimmy Carter...(this) is dangerous for him because Americans get nervous when they have a snakebit president. They want presidents on whom the sun shines. (ibid WSJ)
Oh my god! There is a reason that Carter and Obama are inextricably linked to one another in the minds of Americans and it has nothing to do with contemplations of their fortuity. These two maladroit schmucks mirror one another precisely because neither was remotely qualified to hold the office of POTUS and both had the good fortune to be elected despite their formidable short-comings.
Has their ever been a luckier man than Barack Obama? Despite what appears to be a very middling intellect, regardless of the propaganda shoveled out by the main stream media pundits, B.O. Was educated at the finest American colleges, probably at public expense. Born when affirmative action was at it's apogee, his career has been high-lighted by constant promotion from one job at which he never became accomplished to the next. Now this ultimate example of The Peter Principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle holds the most powerful position on earth with the biggest spending account in the universe. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with its $1.4 million jackpot Peggy! While constantly failing at his job, weakening our defenses and our relationships with our former allies, he has spent America deep into a likely double-dip recession while undermining key American industries. In return for his destructive incompetence, Obama gets to host multi-million dollar parties for his closest friends, and has Air Force One at his disposal to whisk his wife off on date nights here and in Europe. Any one of us should be so lucky.
The American people are the ones who are snakebit. Unfortunately we elected the snakes and will have to wait for the electoral process to restore some responsibility to the executive branch and the good luck and blessings that have been the natural consequence of our remarkable American system of government.
Monday, June 14, 2010
A modest van Sloot Proposal
Homicidal party-boy Joren van der Sloot apparently decided he has had enough of the Peruvian civil justice system. After being pelted with rotten tomatoes and vegetables by the locals on his way to court, the pampered, Obama-eared thug announced through his local attorney that he is finally ready to reveal details that would lead investigators to the body of Natalee Holloway.
This follows the flock of geese-chases conducted by the Slootster for the press, the Aruban police and most recently, the FBI. Despite the school of red herrings the Dutch predator has released previously, we are now supposed to believe that Joren will actually come clean, but only to Aruban authorities.
This is clearly an attempt to escape the daunting conditions the bully-boy of teen-age girls is faced with in Peru’s prison system:
(His) Peruvian attorney Sandro Monteblanco …(calls) the prison "Dante's Inferno." "You hear people talk about Turkish prisons and what not, because they haven't been to a Peruvian prison," he said. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Media/joran-van-der-sloot-offered-give-location-natalee/story?id=10885442&page=1
Since van der Sloot has already extorted 25 large from the Holloways in a deal to reveal the whereabouts of Natalee’s body while stringing the FBI along for the ride, I have a modest proposal for the Peruvian authorities:
Considering that the over-sized thug who apparently felt no compunction at battering two young woman to death is now cowering in the face of more formidable opposition, and that he suggests that he does have information that would finally provide some peace-of-mind to the family he has effectively tortured for years, why not see how a little water-boarding works on the former Mr. Tough Guy?
After about 60 seconds, we will finally be able to mark this one: case closed.
Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target www.rightot.blogspot.com
This follows the flock of geese-chases conducted by the Slootster for the press, the Aruban police and most recently, the FBI. Despite the school of red herrings the Dutch predator has released previously, we are now supposed to believe that Joren will actually come clean, but only to Aruban authorities.
This is clearly an attempt to escape the daunting conditions the bully-boy of teen-age girls is faced with in Peru’s prison system:
(His) Peruvian attorney Sandro Monteblanco …(calls) the prison "Dante's Inferno." "You hear people talk about Turkish prisons and what not, because they haven't been to a Peruvian prison," he said. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Media/joran-van-der-sloot-offered-give-location-natalee/story?id=10885442&page=1
Since van der Sloot has already extorted 25 large from the Holloways in a deal to reveal the whereabouts of Natalee’s body while stringing the FBI along for the ride, I have a modest proposal for the Peruvian authorities:
Considering that the over-sized thug who apparently felt no compunction at battering two young woman to death is now cowering in the face of more formidable opposition, and that he suggests that he does have information that would finally provide some peace-of-mind to the family he has effectively tortured for years, why not see how a little water-boarding works on the former Mr. Tough Guy?
After about 60 seconds, we will finally be able to mark this one: case closed.
Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target www.rightot.blogspot.com
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Two bits, four bits, six bits a Euro
(This article was first published at The American Thinker on 05/23/2010.)
Despite the best efforts of the Democrat troika of Obama, Pelosi & Reid to lead the American economy down the spiraling path of European socialism, Larry Kudlow at The National Review suggests that we might soon be cheering again for King Dollar:
Amidst all of the fear, panic, and growing stock market doom and gloom, I’d like to offer an important silver lining. It’s a little piece of economic optimism. Look no further than the sharply rising U.S. dollar….For the moment, we are witnessing price stability. Not inflation, not deflation, but price stability. Would that it would last….the greenback’s surge relative to other paper currencies is depressing energy and other commodity prices….Gasoline prices have dropped 2.4 percent, despite the fact that we’re heading into the busy summer driving season. When was the last time gas prices fell heading into Memorial Day? http://www.nationalreview.com/kudlows-money-politics
While what passes for the current crop of American political leadership deserves precisely zero credit for the dollar’s resurgence, at least the Geithner-Summers-Obama hand on the wheel of economic state is held somewhat in check by the genius of the checks and balances built into our political system by the founding fathers. The American economic system still looks good compared to what’s left in the bottom of the European shake-and-bake bag. Gerald Warner at the UK Telegraph, as usual, doesn’t sugar coat it:
The European experiment has failed and is only artificially being kept alive on a life-support system of taxpayer-funded bailouts. The euro is now a zombie currency….We live in an age of mass communication: people have noticed that Europe has a few little local difficulties. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100040178/the-eu-is-as-doomed-as-its-currency-lets-get-out-from-under-this-collapsing-monstrosity/
Everybody, that is, except the geniuses in the American Democrat party. One would think the lemmings at the back of the socialist stampede over the cliff would have an advantage over their European brethren who are already hurtling down the abyss. Yet, even in the face of strident voter opposition to their demented policies, Democrats continue to call for more spending, more debt and more government. Any fool can see where socialism has led Europe.
As Warner suggests, the establishment of the European Union and its currency was merely an attempt to establish an expensive ruling elite, regardless of its economic and political viability. Even in the face of ruin, the Euro-nannies resist taking the appropriate medicine:
The real-life solution to the crisis would have been to let Greece and the other PIG nations default on their debt and restructure it; to return to the drachma, peseta, etc and devalue. The euro was never a real currency: it has failed and the longer the Euro-fanatics delay in recognising that reality the more they will be punished.
…there is no “if” about it – Euroland is down the plughole. The question is: how much longer is Europe going to court economic collapse that could regress its living standards by a generation, to placate the power-mad fantasies of the Unholy Roman Emperors in Brussels? The fundamental, structural flaw in the euro from its inception was that it was a currency invented to give an appearance of substance to a political aspiration – it was Brussels Monopoly Money.
Hopefully the strength of the American dollar, based upon it being issued by the strongest and most stable political and economic machine the world has ever known, will survive the current assault on it by the power-mad fantasies of the Unholy American would-be emperors from Chicago and San Francisco. I suppose we will have to wait for the time to force California and New York to default and restructure their debt. At least until we can start throwing the bums out in November.
Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target www.rightot.blogspot.com
(This article was first published at The American Thinker on 05/23/2010.)
Despite the best efforts of the Democrat troika of Obama, Pelosi & Reid to lead the American economy down the spiraling path of European socialism, Larry Kudlow at The National Review suggests that we might soon be cheering again for King Dollar:
Amidst all of the fear, panic, and growing stock market doom and gloom, I’d like to offer an important silver lining. It’s a little piece of economic optimism. Look no further than the sharply rising U.S. dollar….For the moment, we are witnessing price stability. Not inflation, not deflation, but price stability. Would that it would last….the greenback’s surge relative to other paper currencies is depressing energy and other commodity prices….Gasoline prices have dropped 2.4 percent, despite the fact that we’re heading into the busy summer driving season. When was the last time gas prices fell heading into Memorial Day? http://www.nationalreview.com/kudlows-money-politics
While what passes for the current crop of American political leadership deserves precisely zero credit for the dollar’s resurgence, at least the Geithner-Summers-Obama hand on the wheel of economic state is held somewhat in check by the genius of the checks and balances built into our political system by the founding fathers. The American economic system still looks good compared to what’s left in the bottom of the European shake-and-bake bag. Gerald Warner at the UK Telegraph, as usual, doesn’t sugar coat it:
The European experiment has failed and is only artificially being kept alive on a life-support system of taxpayer-funded bailouts. The euro is now a zombie currency….We live in an age of mass communication: people have noticed that Europe has a few little local difficulties. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100040178/the-eu-is-as-doomed-as-its-currency-lets-get-out-from-under-this-collapsing-monstrosity/
Everybody, that is, except the geniuses in the American Democrat party. One would think the lemmings at the back of the socialist stampede over the cliff would have an advantage over their European brethren who are already hurtling down the abyss. Yet, even in the face of strident voter opposition to their demented policies, Democrats continue to call for more spending, more debt and more government. Any fool can see where socialism has led Europe.
As Warner suggests, the establishment of the European Union and its currency was merely an attempt to establish an expensive ruling elite, regardless of its economic and political viability. Even in the face of ruin, the Euro-nannies resist taking the appropriate medicine:
The real-life solution to the crisis would have been to let Greece and the other PIG nations default on their debt and restructure it; to return to the drachma, peseta, etc and devalue. The euro was never a real currency: it has failed and the longer the Euro-fanatics delay in recognising that reality the more they will be punished.
…there is no “if” about it – Euroland is down the plughole. The question is: how much longer is Europe going to court economic collapse that could regress its living standards by a generation, to placate the power-mad fantasies of the Unholy Roman Emperors in Brussels? The fundamental, structural flaw in the euro from its inception was that it was a currency invented to give an appearance of substance to a political aspiration – it was Brussels Monopoly Money.
Hopefully the strength of the American dollar, based upon it being issued by the strongest and most stable political and economic machine the world has ever known, will survive the current assault on it by the power-mad fantasies of the Unholy American would-be emperors from Chicago and San Francisco. I suppose we will have to wait for the time to force California and New York to default and restructure their debt. At least until we can start throwing the bums out in November.
Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target www.rightot.blogspot.com
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Vermont: If at first you don't secede...
(This article was first published at The American Thinker on 02/02/2010.)
Despite being wildly over-represented in Congress considering their pint-sized population and their woeful insignificance to all but the maple syrup, macrame' plant-hanger and lib-tard industries, it looks like Vermonters would like to secede. A collection of native moon-bats has formed the ""left-libertarian, anti-big government, anti-empire, antiwar,...small is beautiful" Second Vermont Republic with plans to unhook the Green Mountain State from the tenous tether to sanity maintained by its inclusion in our 50 states.You see, Vermont, like Texas (I bet you never thought you would see those three words strung together), was an independent republic before it ever became our 14th state. Originally a French possession, Vermont was the booby prize awarded to the British in 1763 for their victory in the French and Indian War. From 1777 to 1791 Vermont was a power unto itself led by it's fierce militia. Called The Green Mountain Boys, their army was comprised of itinerant furniture makers including Ethan Allen and his crafty young recruits, Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders.After more than two centuries of statehood, however, the hearts of Vermont's Ben & Jerry's-swilling populace was broken by Barack Obama. The secessionist party's gubernatorial candidate is currently the owner of Radio Free Vermont and states the case for those northeasterners desirous of opting out of the U.S. of A.:
"People in Vermont in general are very antiwar, and all their faith was in Obama to end the wars. I ask people, 'Did you get the change you wanted?' They can't even look you in the eyes. We live in a nation that is asleep at the wheel and where the hearts are growing cold like ice." The secessionist movement already commands the support of 13% of Vermont's voters. If supporters for the state's drive to legalize the use of marijuana for the treatment of sandal fungus, windmill pox and solar panel blindness succeed, pundits expect support for secession to rise to near unanimity. The well-organized movement has a slogan: "Imagine Free Vermont." I guess living in those monts verts inspires a desire to take the high ground, with the iconoclasts from Montpelier (population 7,760) believing they have cornered the market on morality:
"The U.S. government, they said, was an immoral enterprise - engaged in imperial wars, propping up corrupt bankers and supersized corporations, crushing small businessmen, plundering the tax-base for corporate welfare, snooping on the private lives of citizens - and they wanted no more part of it."In addition, the free-thinkers from the Burlington Mutineer Factory believe that by going even greener, the residents of Vermont can cast off their corporate oppressors and achieve energy and economic indepence:
" (they can do so) with a tax structure reformed to incentivize small business and industry (and to make life difficult for large out-of-state corporations). By 2020, they foresee Vermont producing at least 75% of its own electricity and heat, using wind-, solar-, biomass- and hydro-power....(furthermore they believe that) current U.S. law enables multinational corporations to abuse Vermont as a "resource colony." Citing a 2008 study by the University of Vermont, Wagner says the state stands to gain over $1 billion a year in revenue by taxing equitably the corporate behemoths that exploit Vermont's "commons," which includes everything from the state's groundwater, surface water, wildlife and forests, to the public spectrum of the airwaves. Pardon my cynicism, but if Vermont wanders off on its own, it won't be 12 months until their native deposits of snow and Stowe-bud run out and the Birkenstock Flannel Revolution comes a cropper. That's not to say I don't like the idea of Vermont's secession: I say let 'em yoke themselves to the Mexifornians and the Tundra-Pinkoes from Wisconsin and go over the falls in a troika-barrell.
Despite being wildly over-represented in Congress considering their pint-sized population and their woeful insignificance to all but the maple syrup, macrame' plant-hanger and lib-tard industries, it looks like Vermonters would like to secede. A collection of native moon-bats has formed the ""left-libertarian, anti-big government, anti-empire, antiwar,...small is beautiful" Second Vermont Republic with plans to unhook the Green Mountain State from the tenous tether to sanity maintained by its inclusion in our 50 states.You see, Vermont, like Texas (I bet you never thought you would see those three words strung together), was an independent republic before it ever became our 14th state. Originally a French possession, Vermont was the booby prize awarded to the British in 1763 for their victory in the French and Indian War. From 1777 to 1791 Vermont was a power unto itself led by it's fierce militia. Called The Green Mountain Boys, their army was comprised of itinerant furniture makers including Ethan Allen and his crafty young recruits, Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders.After more than two centuries of statehood, however, the hearts of Vermont's Ben & Jerry's-swilling populace was broken by Barack Obama. The secessionist party's gubernatorial candidate is currently the owner of Radio Free Vermont and states the case for those northeasterners desirous of opting out of the U.S. of A.:
"People in Vermont in general are very antiwar, and all their faith was in Obama to end the wars. I ask people, 'Did you get the change you wanted?' They can't even look you in the eyes. We live in a nation that is asleep at the wheel and where the hearts are growing cold like ice." The secessionist movement already commands the support of 13% of Vermont's voters. If supporters for the state's drive to legalize the use of marijuana for the treatment of sandal fungus, windmill pox and solar panel blindness succeed, pundits expect support for secession to rise to near unanimity. The well-organized movement has a slogan: "Imagine Free Vermont." I guess living in those monts verts inspires a desire to take the high ground, with the iconoclasts from Montpelier (population 7,760) believing they have cornered the market on morality:
"The U.S. government, they said, was an immoral enterprise - engaged in imperial wars, propping up corrupt bankers and supersized corporations, crushing small businessmen, plundering the tax-base for corporate welfare, snooping on the private lives of citizens - and they wanted no more part of it."In addition, the free-thinkers from the Burlington Mutineer Factory believe that by going even greener, the residents of Vermont can cast off their corporate oppressors and achieve energy and economic indepence:
" (they can do so) with a tax structure reformed to incentivize small business and industry (and to make life difficult for large out-of-state corporations). By 2020, they foresee Vermont producing at least 75% of its own electricity and heat, using wind-, solar-, biomass- and hydro-power....(furthermore they believe that) current U.S. law enables multinational corporations to abuse Vermont as a "resource colony." Citing a 2008 study by the University of Vermont, Wagner says the state stands to gain over $1 billion a year in revenue by taxing equitably the corporate behemoths that exploit Vermont's "commons," which includes everything from the state's groundwater, surface water, wildlife and forests, to the public spectrum of the airwaves. Pardon my cynicism, but if Vermont wanders off on its own, it won't be 12 months until their native deposits of snow and Stowe-bud run out and the Birkenstock Flannel Revolution comes a cropper. That's not to say I don't like the idea of Vermont's secession: I say let 'em yoke themselves to the Mexifornians and the Tundra-Pinkoes from Wisconsin and go over the falls in a troika-barrell.
Monday, February 1, 2010
American Francophiles
(This article first appeared at The American Thinker on 01/30/2010.)
Barack Obama and his allies a gauche would like to model our national economy after that of the Social Democrat statopias of Western Europe, with the model of France being a particularly attractive model for leftists. A reading of the auto-biography of Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (Harcourt, Brace & Company 1948) suggests that the American national psyche has already gravitated toward the francophilic.Merton spent the better part of his life in cloistered monasteries, practicing a mixture of fierce Christian faith and a meditative practice that drew from the ways of Eastern spirituality. As a child, he lived in France and came to revile it and the change in the character of the French people as their sense of cultural smugness blurred their sense of place in both the world and the universe.
"..I suppose the most shocking thing about France is the corruption of French spirituality into flippancy and cynicism; of French intelligence into sophistry; of French dignity and refinement into petty vanity and theatrical self-display; of French charity into a disgusting fleshly concupiscence, and of French faith into sentimentality or puerile atheism." (pg 51 TSSM)If one were to substitute the words "America" and American for the words, "France" and "French," one would have a clear picture of the dissolution of the American character, particularly as represented in the politically correct worlds of academia and journalism.Only a return to a focus on educational principles grounded in the thorough study of history, religion and the humanities can prevent our continued slide into the economic and social morass currently inhabited by the nearly bankrupt, demographicly dead-end states of Western Europe.
Barack Obama and his allies a gauche would like to model our national economy after that of the Social Democrat statopias of Western Europe, with the model of France being a particularly attractive model for leftists. A reading of the auto-biography of Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (Harcourt, Brace & Company 1948) suggests that the American national psyche has already gravitated toward the francophilic.Merton spent the better part of his life in cloistered monasteries, practicing a mixture of fierce Christian faith and a meditative practice that drew from the ways of Eastern spirituality. As a child, he lived in France and came to revile it and the change in the character of the French people as their sense of cultural smugness blurred their sense of place in both the world and the universe.
"..I suppose the most shocking thing about France is the corruption of French spirituality into flippancy and cynicism; of French intelligence into sophistry; of French dignity and refinement into petty vanity and theatrical self-display; of French charity into a disgusting fleshly concupiscence, and of French faith into sentimentality or puerile atheism." (pg 51 TSSM)If one were to substitute the words "America" and American for the words, "France" and "French," one would have a clear picture of the dissolution of the American character, particularly as represented in the politically correct worlds of academia and journalism.Only a return to a focus on educational principles grounded in the thorough study of history, religion and the humanities can prevent our continued slide into the economic and social morass currently inhabited by the nearly bankrupt, demographicly dead-end states of Western Europe.
Americans Wake Up to Obama's Lies
(This article first appeared at The American Thinker on 01/20/2010.)
As much as Barack Obama professes his admiration for our 16th POTUS, Abraham Lincoln, B.O. still seems determined to disprove one of Honest Abe's most famous bromides:"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."(Abraham Lincoln ) The fact that this duplicitous non-achiever was elected in the first place proves his ability to fool nearly all of the people some of the time. Despite a near total lack of credentials, a voting record vacillating between rad-lib and "present," and a passel of communists, terrrorists, anti-Semites and criminials in his close circle of friends, Obama rather easily fooled nearly all of the people in our great land. Especially those who went to journalism school.The increasingly tin-tongued Speechifier-in-Chief seems deterrmined to flay the dead horse that Obamacare has become, just as he continues out in front of the politically correct nit-wit national security apparatus he has constructed, believing that he merely needs to find the right way to parse his promotion of these bankrupt ideas so his intellectual inferiors can finally "get it."Well, we're getting it, all right. The latest Rasmussen poll demonstrates just how much of America Obama has lost. When asked whether B.O.'s proposed freeze of discretionary federal spending would help much, fully 9% of respondents agreed that it would while 81% of those polled believed that the freeze would be little help, if any. I'm sure Joy Behar, Keith Olbermann and Henry Waxman are still on board. After all, Lincoln did state that you can fool some of the people, all of the time. The starry eyed residents of Lib La-La Land are snug in their tin-foil hats with their Obama blankie to keep them safe and warm. It appears that all Obama has left is the true believers. After nearly a year of B.O.'s fork-tongued pontificating, he is reduced to fooling almost none of the people, all of the time.
As much as Barack Obama professes his admiration for our 16th POTUS, Abraham Lincoln, B.O. still seems determined to disprove one of Honest Abe's most famous bromides:"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."(Abraham Lincoln ) The fact that this duplicitous non-achiever was elected in the first place proves his ability to fool nearly all of the people some of the time. Despite a near total lack of credentials, a voting record vacillating between rad-lib and "present," and a passel of communists, terrrorists, anti-Semites and criminials in his close circle of friends, Obama rather easily fooled nearly all of the people in our great land. Especially those who went to journalism school.The increasingly tin-tongued Speechifier-in-Chief seems deterrmined to flay the dead horse that Obamacare has become, just as he continues out in front of the politically correct nit-wit national security apparatus he has constructed, believing that he merely needs to find the right way to parse his promotion of these bankrupt ideas so his intellectual inferiors can finally "get it."Well, we're getting it, all right. The latest Rasmussen poll demonstrates just how much of America Obama has lost. When asked whether B.O.'s proposed freeze of discretionary federal spending would help much, fully 9% of respondents agreed that it would while 81% of those polled believed that the freeze would be little help, if any. I'm sure Joy Behar, Keith Olbermann and Henry Waxman are still on board. After all, Lincoln did state that you can fool some of the people, all of the time. The starry eyed residents of Lib La-La Land are snug in their tin-foil hats with their Obama blankie to keep them safe and warm. It appears that all Obama has left is the true believers. After nearly a year of B.O.'s fork-tongued pontificating, he is reduced to fooling almost none of the people, all of the time.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Time to Take on the Unions
(This article first appeared at The American Thinker on 01/25/2010.)
The self-actualizing tea-party/townhall movement continues its remarkable job on the national political scene. Nudged by talk radio and the alternative media punditocracy, conservatives have put boots on the ground and cash in the coffers for deserving Republican candidates in New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts. The near miss in the effort to elect Conservative Doug Hoffman in N.Y. District 23 may not have gone for naught either. There is another election coming there soon.
The efficacy of the movement has been based on its speed, mobility, and ability to generate cash. Once a vulnerable target like Martha Coakley has been identified, action follows swiftly and effectively. The fact that the special elections that have been held were isolated from the normal brouhaha of a full national election with hundreds of races and candidates has facilitated the effectiveness of the conservative response. The question becomes: How can conservatives approach the national political landscape now that it has proven susceptible to focused effort and amenable to the conservative message?
The dearth of additional special elections in the near future will allow the conservative movement to target the underlying causes of our ailing national economy and diminished national pride. No other single cause has been more disruptive to our economy and the principles of the American Dream than the pernicious undermining of commonsense capitalism by the greedy bullies in the teachers', auto workers', and public sector unions.
The restrictions placed upon corporate political donations by the McCain-Feingold Act simply facilitated the ability of the huge labor unions to use their cash to purchase the Democratic Party lock, stock, and Obama. SEIU's Thug-in-Chief Andy Stern was the most frequent visitor to the Obama White House reported on the W.H. Visitor list. Do you suppose he showed up empty-handed every time?
Labor unions provided protection to workers from the sharp practices of powerful companies in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Since the 1950s however, the American labor movement has taken unfair advantage of a political climate, opening doors to political influence denied others. Through collective bargaining, the unions have negotiated contracts that have bankrupted our auto industry, destroyed our public schools, and bloated state and federal government payrolls with unconscionable pension, benefit, and payroll costs.
Needless to say, it's impossible to run a company or the government when you can't fire incompetent workers, are manacled by ridiculous work rules, and pay pensions to fifty-year-olds nearly equal to their highest salary when fully employed. How did anyone ever believe that this business model would work?
Of course, the Democrats and their union pals have the solution: They want to make everybody a union member. When quizzed about the wide difference between wages for American union members and those not in unions, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis provides what passes for critical thinking on the Obama team:
As workers across the country have seen their real and nominal wages decline as a result of the recession, these numbers show a need for Congress to pass legislation to level the playing field to enable more American workers to access the benefits of union membership. This report makes clear why the administration supports the Employee Free Choice Act," a bill that would make it easier to unionize.
The report cited by Ms. Solis is the annual report of the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics on union membership, which was released last Friday. It reveals that private-sector union membership continues to decline as private businesses with unionized labor forces falter, reduce their workforce, go bankrupt, or find a way to escape the unions. Government union membership, however, continues to grow, reaching 37.4% of the total government workforce. There are significant political ramifications to this continued growth.
Meredith Jessup at townhall.com quotes senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute Fred Siegel:
At the same time the country is being squeezed, public-sector unions are a rising political force in the Democratic Party," he said. "They depend on extra money for the public sector, and that puts the Democrats in a difficult position. In four big states -- New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California -- the public-sector unions have largely been untouched by the economic downturn. In those states, you have an impeding clash between the public-sector unions and the public at large."
And therein lies the opportunity for conservative action. All across America, people of nearly every walk of life have been forced to sacrifice during the current recession. Yet the American Labor Union movement seems to think that its members should be the only ones to get through this trough without getting a haircut. It's time for the tea-party movement to encourage our elected officials to get out the coarse clippers.The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision has deprived private-sector labor unions of a key advantage over their employers, who are now able to fund election advertising. A coalition of citizens hurt by union dominance can be effective at the polls.
Ronald Reagan provided us with a blueprint demonstrating how American capitalism should deal with greedy and ineffective labor unions. On August 3, 1981, 13,000 unionized members of the Profession of Air Traffic Controllers Organization went on strike after the Federal Aviation administration refused to provide them with a 25% pay increase combined with a 20% shorter work week. President Reagan called the strike illegal and worked with air traffic managers to develop a contingency plan to cover for the striking unionists.
To the chagrin of the strikers, the FAA's contingency plans worked. Some 3,000 supervisors joined 2,000 nonstriking controllers and 900 military controllers in manning airport towers. Before long, about 80 percent of flights were operating normally. Air freight remained virtually unaffected. (Reagan stood his ground and fired all of the strikers.)
In carrying out his threat, Reagan also imposed a lifetime ban on rehiring the strikers. In October 1981, the Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified PATCO." Don't you love a happy ending? There really isn't another solution. Let's encourage our elected officials to commence wholesale pruning of the bloated state and federal workforce. At the same time, we need our best conservative legal minds to help discover a way to decertify the labor unions that continue to suck the lifeblood from the productive members of American society.
The self-actualizing tea-party/townhall movement continues its remarkable job on the national political scene. Nudged by talk radio and the alternative media punditocracy, conservatives have put boots on the ground and cash in the coffers for deserving Republican candidates in New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts. The near miss in the effort to elect Conservative Doug Hoffman in N.Y. District 23 may not have gone for naught either. There is another election coming there soon.
The efficacy of the movement has been based on its speed, mobility, and ability to generate cash. Once a vulnerable target like Martha Coakley has been identified, action follows swiftly and effectively. The fact that the special elections that have been held were isolated from the normal brouhaha of a full national election with hundreds of races and candidates has facilitated the effectiveness of the conservative response. The question becomes: How can conservatives approach the national political landscape now that it has proven susceptible to focused effort and amenable to the conservative message?
The dearth of additional special elections in the near future will allow the conservative movement to target the underlying causes of our ailing national economy and diminished national pride. No other single cause has been more disruptive to our economy and the principles of the American Dream than the pernicious undermining of commonsense capitalism by the greedy bullies in the teachers', auto workers', and public sector unions.
The restrictions placed upon corporate political donations by the McCain-Feingold Act simply facilitated the ability of the huge labor unions to use their cash to purchase the Democratic Party lock, stock, and Obama. SEIU's Thug-in-Chief Andy Stern was the most frequent visitor to the Obama White House reported on the W.H. Visitor list. Do you suppose he showed up empty-handed every time?
Labor unions provided protection to workers from the sharp practices of powerful companies in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Since the 1950s however, the American labor movement has taken unfair advantage of a political climate, opening doors to political influence denied others. Through collective bargaining, the unions have negotiated contracts that have bankrupted our auto industry, destroyed our public schools, and bloated state and federal government payrolls with unconscionable pension, benefit, and payroll costs.
Needless to say, it's impossible to run a company or the government when you can't fire incompetent workers, are manacled by ridiculous work rules, and pay pensions to fifty-year-olds nearly equal to their highest salary when fully employed. How did anyone ever believe that this business model would work?
Of course, the Democrats and their union pals have the solution: They want to make everybody a union member. When quizzed about the wide difference between wages for American union members and those not in unions, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis provides what passes for critical thinking on the Obama team:
As workers across the country have seen their real and nominal wages decline as a result of the recession, these numbers show a need for Congress to pass legislation to level the playing field to enable more American workers to access the benefits of union membership. This report makes clear why the administration supports the Employee Free Choice Act," a bill that would make it easier to unionize.
The report cited by Ms. Solis is the annual report of the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics on union membership, which was released last Friday. It reveals that private-sector union membership continues to decline as private businesses with unionized labor forces falter, reduce their workforce, go bankrupt, or find a way to escape the unions. Government union membership, however, continues to grow, reaching 37.4% of the total government workforce. There are significant political ramifications to this continued growth.
Meredith Jessup at townhall.com quotes senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute Fred Siegel:
At the same time the country is being squeezed, public-sector unions are a rising political force in the Democratic Party," he said. "They depend on extra money for the public sector, and that puts the Democrats in a difficult position. In four big states -- New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California -- the public-sector unions have largely been untouched by the economic downturn. In those states, you have an impeding clash between the public-sector unions and the public at large."
And therein lies the opportunity for conservative action. All across America, people of nearly every walk of life have been forced to sacrifice during the current recession. Yet the American Labor Union movement seems to think that its members should be the only ones to get through this trough without getting a haircut. It's time for the tea-party movement to encourage our elected officials to get out the coarse clippers.The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision has deprived private-sector labor unions of a key advantage over their employers, who are now able to fund election advertising. A coalition of citizens hurt by union dominance can be effective at the polls.
Ronald Reagan provided us with a blueprint demonstrating how American capitalism should deal with greedy and ineffective labor unions. On August 3, 1981, 13,000 unionized members of the Profession of Air Traffic Controllers Organization went on strike after the Federal Aviation administration refused to provide them with a 25% pay increase combined with a 20% shorter work week. President Reagan called the strike illegal and worked with air traffic managers to develop a contingency plan to cover for the striking unionists.
To the chagrin of the strikers, the FAA's contingency plans worked. Some 3,000 supervisors joined 2,000 nonstriking controllers and 900 military controllers in manning airport towers. Before long, about 80 percent of flights were operating normally. Air freight remained virtually unaffected. (Reagan stood his ground and fired all of the strikers.)
In carrying out his threat, Reagan also imposed a lifetime ban on rehiring the strikers. In October 1981, the Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified PATCO." Don't you love a happy ending? There really isn't another solution. Let's encourage our elected officials to commence wholesale pruning of the bloated state and federal workforce. At the same time, we need our best conservative legal minds to help discover a way to decertify the labor unions that continue to suck the lifeblood from the productive members of American society.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Barack Obama is Box Office Poison
Apparently it has never occurred to our political pollsters that Barack Hussein Obama is the Bradley Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect personified. While our floundering POTUS continues to garner approval numbers hovering in the 50% range, his policies are judged much more harshly by polled Americans. The Real Clear Politics average http://www.realclearpolitics.com/, for instance, reports B.O.’s job approval average at 49.4%. His hand-maidens in Congress however, receive only 24.5 % approval and of those asked about the direction in which our country is going, only 35.9 % believe we are headed down the right path. Just exactly who do they think is holding the steering wheel?
Obama was surrounded by wily operatives supremely attuned to the public mood during the 2008 campaign, taking maximum advantage. He won the Presidency despite a total lack of useful experience and principles precisely contrary to those needed to manage the executive branch of American government. Those same advisors have suddenly become tin-earred and hard-of-thinking, having either completely misread the wishes of the American populace or completely disregarded them. The misleading trope of “Obama’s popularity” is getting old. In the super-charged atmosphere of political correctness foisted upon us by the Kennedy/Cronkite media and their allies in academia, the polling dissonance cited above suggests that most folks just don’t feel comfortable reporting their dislike for the Lyin’ Hawaiian.
Barack Obama continues to infuriate those on both ends of the political spectrum, while merely providing major disappointment to those in the center. The combination of his narcissism and his love affair with the sound of his own voice have led him to completely over-expose himself to the point where the law of diminishing returns has kicked in. One or two Obama speeches might be inspiring. But according to the Political Hotsheet at CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/20/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6119525.shtml Barack Obama gave a combination of 411 speeches, addresses and remarks. How can America not be tired of his visage?
To cap it all, an informed observer would have to believe that a likeable President in his first term would have some useful coat-tails to extend to those members of his party in need of a little boost when elections roll around. Well, despite B.O.’s large expenditure of Presidential capital as a fund-raiser, the formerly silver-tongued orator has provided precisely zero tangible help to struggling Dems in need of a lifeline. Obama attended 28 fundraisers to churn up electioneering cash for his party in his first year in office. Compare that to the 6 fund-raisers attended by George W. Bush in the same period. In addition, the Big O attended 7 campaign rallies for his party in year one. And here’s the rub:
“The rallies were for Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, D-Va, and U.S. Senate Candidate Martha Coakley, D-Mass. All of them lost. “ (Ibid CBS)
Obama has even lost the approval of most of our children. Time for Kids http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/teachers/wr/article/0,27972,1954215,00.html provided a survey to 9-13 year olds in American schools and asked the kids to grade the President. Here are the results:
Obama's Grades:
A: 19%
B: 30%
C: 24%
D: 10%
F: 16% (Ibid TFK)
That’s right, 50% of the kids gave Obama a C or worse for his first year performance, with 16% giving him an F. Obviously B.O is not the guy you want to invite to pull you out of the ditch into which the Democrats have driven themselves.
After Scott Brown’s brilliant election victory in Massachusetts, it’s not just the Blue Dogs whose prognosis for re-election in 2010 looks grim. If Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts seat wasn’t safe, there are no safe Democrat seats. Regardless of the dire straits they find themselves in, you can bet that the Democrat campaign trails will be strictly Obama non grata.
Obama was surrounded by wily operatives supremely attuned to the public mood during the 2008 campaign, taking maximum advantage. He won the Presidency despite a total lack of useful experience and principles precisely contrary to those needed to manage the executive branch of American government. Those same advisors have suddenly become tin-earred and hard-of-thinking, having either completely misread the wishes of the American populace or completely disregarded them. The misleading trope of “Obama’s popularity” is getting old. In the super-charged atmosphere of political correctness foisted upon us by the Kennedy/Cronkite media and their allies in academia, the polling dissonance cited above suggests that most folks just don’t feel comfortable reporting their dislike for the Lyin’ Hawaiian.
Barack Obama continues to infuriate those on both ends of the political spectrum, while merely providing major disappointment to those in the center. The combination of his narcissism and his love affair with the sound of his own voice have led him to completely over-expose himself to the point where the law of diminishing returns has kicked in. One or two Obama speeches might be inspiring. But according to the Political Hotsheet at CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/20/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6119525.shtml Barack Obama gave a combination of 411 speeches, addresses and remarks. How can America not be tired of his visage?
To cap it all, an informed observer would have to believe that a likeable President in his first term would have some useful coat-tails to extend to those members of his party in need of a little boost when elections roll around. Well, despite B.O.’s large expenditure of Presidential capital as a fund-raiser, the formerly silver-tongued orator has provided precisely zero tangible help to struggling Dems in need of a lifeline. Obama attended 28 fundraisers to churn up electioneering cash for his party in his first year in office. Compare that to the 6 fund-raisers attended by George W. Bush in the same period. In addition, the Big O attended 7 campaign rallies for his party in year one. And here’s the rub:
“The rallies were for Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, D-Va, and U.S. Senate Candidate Martha Coakley, D-Mass. All of them lost. “ (Ibid CBS)
Obama has even lost the approval of most of our children. Time for Kids http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/teachers/wr/article/0,27972,1954215,00.html provided a survey to 9-13 year olds in American schools and asked the kids to grade the President. Here are the results:
Obama's Grades:
A: 19%
B: 30%
C: 24%
D: 10%
F: 16% (Ibid TFK)
That’s right, 50% of the kids gave Obama a C or worse for his first year performance, with 16% giving him an F. Obviously B.O is not the guy you want to invite to pull you out of the ditch into which the Democrats have driven themselves.
After Scott Brown’s brilliant election victory in Massachusetts, it’s not just the Blue Dogs whose prognosis for re-election in 2010 looks grim. If Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts seat wasn’t safe, there are no safe Democrat seats. Regardless of the dire straits they find themselves in, you can bet that the Democrat campaign trails will be strictly Obama non grata.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Who Vetted Martha Coakley?
(This article first appeared at The American Thinker on 01/18/2010.)
The utter lack of seriousness on the part of the Democrat Party in Massachusetts looks likely to complicate matters significantly for the Washingtonians stumbling toward Obamacare. It seems unlikely that anyone in the bastion of liberalism on the Bay vetted
the unpalatable machine hack, Martha Coakley, who is running for the Chappaquiddick Memorial Senate seat. Where were the media stormtroopers who rushed to vet Sarah Palin when they pronounced the McCain campaign's review of Governor Palin's background insufficient? Clearly the Democrats took this one for granted, foisting a grating and belligerent candidate upon their unsuspecting allies in the media and labor union confederation.
Hopefully it is too late to rescue the under-prepared shrew from the Dan Quayle school of spelling http://blog.masslive.com/thefray/2010/01/martha_coakley_ad_misspells_massachusetts.html from ignominious defeat. Coakley's arrogant dismissal of questions from the press, her head-in-the-sand belief that Afghanistan is terrorist-free and general cluelessness combine with her thin-lipped Calvin Coolidge demeanor to provide as unattractive a candidate for national office as one could imagine.
It's a good thing the Democrats were unable to sober up one of the Kennedys long enough to contend for what should have been a win in a walk. Here's to a Brown Tuesday.
The utter lack of seriousness on the part of the Democrat Party in Massachusetts looks likely to complicate matters significantly for the Washingtonians stumbling toward Obamacare. It seems unlikely that anyone in the bastion of liberalism on the Bay vetted
the unpalatable machine hack, Martha Coakley, who is running for the Chappaquiddick Memorial Senate seat. Where were the media stormtroopers who rushed to vet Sarah Palin when they pronounced the McCain campaign's review of Governor Palin's background insufficient? Clearly the Democrats took this one for granted, foisting a grating and belligerent candidate upon their unsuspecting allies in the media and labor union confederation.
Hopefully it is too late to rescue the under-prepared shrew from the Dan Quayle school of spelling http://blog.masslive.com/thefray/2010/01/martha_coakley_ad_misspells_massachusetts.html from ignominious defeat. Coakley's arrogant dismissal of questions from the press, her head-in-the-sand belief that Afghanistan is terrorist-free and general cluelessness combine with her thin-lipped Calvin Coolidge demeanor to provide as unattractive a candidate for national office as one could imagine.
It's a good thing the Democrats were unable to sober up one of the Kennedys long enough to contend for what should have been a win in a walk. Here's to a Brown Tuesday.
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