More Government Ineptitude

                                                                 
Do some of you ever wonder why I write these posts? It’s really not to criticize liberals and progressives, although it may seem the way, at least since BHO got in office. It’s really about information and education that you won’t get from today’s media, and if you don’t care about that, it’s about showing you the ineptitude of big government.

Since the “savior” took over in 2008 the federal government has taken control of about ¼ of the national economy, and some of that has been given to labor unions. If Obamacare craters in 2014, as I think it will, the government will have to bail out the health insurance industry and will than control an additional 1/6 of the economy.

During this recession if you live in the Washington, D.C. area, Maryland, Virginia, and environs, there was no recession. Jobs, housing, and construction abound. So it’s hard for anyone working for the federal government to understand what’s going on in the rest of the country. This is why big government is so destructive, its sole purpose is to spend money and there is no accountability as to results or return. The only concern is whether you’ve spent your budget, and if not, someone else will get that money next year.

Because results are not important management is very poor, even at very high levels. People never worry about demotions or termination, therefore, this leads to complacency. Just look at the meetings and conferences at the General Services Agency (GSA) that were highlighted this year. Millions of your dollars wasted and hours of time spent on workers traveling to exotic places and having fun, food, and booze at your expense. That type of culture would never be tolerated in the private sector.

An example of waste, fraud and mismanagement is the recent case of John Beal, a high level employee of the EPA who bilked taxpayers of $900,000 pretending to his co-workers and superiors that he was a secret agent for the CIA. He hardly showed up at the office and was sometimes missing in action for months at a time. He was recently sent to prison for 32 months and required to pay back the money. From 1989 until 2013, he was employed in the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) which developed policy for air pollution and climate change. His duties included assisting the Head of OAR, Gina McCarthy, who is now Head of the EPA. Imagine what analysis and policy this guy was cooking up while he was goofing off most of the time, and Ms. McCarthy was writing accolades and commendations about his work to her superiors. How many CEO’s in the private sector would be able to keep their jobs and get promoted no less, after showing such incompetence and lack of engagement about what’s going on?

Now you can see how Kathleen Sebelius could run the HHS and Obamacare for 3 years and never have one direct one-on-one meeting with Obama and nobody thought it unusual. Total disengagement, no teamwork, no concern, no accountability, only selective communication. This is why government cannot run healthcare and why waste and fraud will run amuck in such a system as Obamacare, just as it now does in Medicare, or anything else it runs.

If you want more of this, keep voting Democratic and for big government.

 

Inequality and this Presidency – A Bad Joke!

  Sometimes I think we are living a dream and a bad joke is being perpetrated on the American public and we will soon wake up and everything will be fine again. We have this President who keeps telling us that inequality in this country is our defining challenge and a moral disgrace. Not only is this blasphemy, because he runs his office as if he were our King and his crony capitalism favors all his benefactors, it also is misguided. An excellent op-ed article in today’s WSJ by Robert Grady entitled, Obama’s Misguided Obsession with Inequality, illustrates how he uses snippets of statistics that are incomplete and out of context to drive home an unsubstantiated point. He is a master of this and has done it for most of his political life.

This President tells us that “the deck is stacked against the middle class no matter how hard we work” and that future children will never escape poverty because “they will lack a decent education, healthcare, or a community that views their future as their own”. Who is he talking about, the Detroit ghetto? As Mr. Grady points out, Obama uses census income data that fails to include taxes, transfer payments, like Medicaid, Medicare, nutrition assistance, earned income tax credits, and employee benefits like health insurance. When you take this into account inequality actually declined 1.8% during the 16-year period between 1993 and 2009.

In addition, he neglects to tell you that recent (2011) studies at Columbia and the Congressional Budget Office showed that family income, including benefits, experienced a 62% gain above inflation from 1979 to 2007 and all 5 levels of the income distribution spectrum had real gains in family income. Since he became President the reverse has happened. The defining challenge for us Mr. President, is not income inequality but economic growth!

It’s obvious that income equality is a rather fruitless goal, nowhere in the world do we have it nor will any political system ever achieve it. Even in communist and socialist societies, which profess to aspire to it, income inequality is even more rampart and infested with graft and corruption. Since your income depends upon many factors related to your own desires and skills or factors that you cannot control, income equality is not a realistic objective. However, in a free market system with solid economic growth, we all benefit. We have proven that in the U.S. where even the most poor among us are taken care of better than anywhere in the world.

And now this President is striving for healthcare equality with a law that ignores the free market and inserts bureaucrats between the doctor- patient relationship and in fact dissolves that relationship by government decree. The law is so bad that he is actually revising it as it is being implemented, something our Constitution, which he swore to uphold, prevents him from doing. A law in which he misled and lied to us in order to get re-elected. A law in which he actually repealed the other day when he suspended the individual mandate for specific “hardship” cases who could not get insurance that met the requirements of Obamacare.

This has got to be a joke. I hope I wake up soon!

 

The Next Government Grab – Higher Education

While Egypt and Syria are falling apart and our economy continues in a malaise of tepid growth, I guess the best thing to do, if you don’t like governing, is to change the subject. That is exactly what President Obama did this past week. He did what he likes to do, take vacations, play golf, and go on campaign trips and give speeches that inspire selected audiences and tells them what they want to hear.

For the last 5 years he has been telling college students how his financing programs would make college more affordable. You recall that he push through a $1trillion student loan program for which the U.S. tax-payer is the guarantor. Now he does a 180 degree turn and tells them that our economy can’t afford a trillion in outstanding student loan debt. His solution is for the federal government to rate colleges on their effectiveness and efficiency and then, as an incentive, allocate federal subsidies to those schools that Washington believes is providing the best education at the lowest cost.

How is that for irony? The federal government should look in the mirror before it rates anyone on effectiveness and efficiency, when you consider its track record! Why can’t the professional academics, parents, and students decide on the best universities to attend? The rise in tuition costs since 1965 is a direct result of the federal subsidy machine of tax-payer guarantor student loans and federal grants and loans to colleges which caused them to increase staff, salaries, and curriculum. This is what always happens when the government starts to provide incentives. The price goes up. Since 1983 tuition and fees have risen by 257% while family incomes advanced 16%.

We should think hard and long before allowing the Federal government to dominate our system of higher education. Like Obamacare, this is just another step toward statism; when government influences what is taught and how colleges spend their money. There is no place for this in our society and it sounds more like what Hitler or Lenin would do. How would conservative universities compete with lefty schools with this administration?

The best approach is to stop the increase in grants and subsidized loans that Obama has greatly accelerated.  Instead of “tinkering” with a system of higher education that is second to none in the world; a system that thousands of foreign students flee to every year to get the best education they can. We have enough college grads and can’t even find jobs for them right now.

 The federal government should get out of higher education. As much as those lefty professors abhor the idea of a free market, I bet they go ballistic at the thought of politicians running their universities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faithful Execution of the Law – Obama Style

Well, it has taken me a while, but I am finally breaking my pledge not to directly criticize Mr. Obama after his recent press conference on Friday. This guy bugs me so much that I simply can’t resist. His comments are so revealing about his attitude on Presidential power and his rather cavalier approach to the constraints of the U. S. Constitution. I can only conclude that although he is revered by blacks, young people, gays, and liberal women he is nothing but a politician who only thinks about his opposition and ways to blame them for his mistakes and stays aloof of the real problems. He is a liar and a hypocrite who misrepresents the facts and assumes that since the low information voter doesn’t really follow events, what he says will be believed by the masses. This is a strategy used by dictators and tyrannical regimes. It works, except when people become educated or life gets so bad that riots occur and the military take over, which is not likely in the U.S., mostly because he will be out of here in 2016.

What troubles me the most is that the White House press corps did not take him to task when he rationalize his decision to delay for one year the Obamacare corporate mandate in violation of the effective date of the existing law. He said he acted unilaterally because the Republicans were “ideologically fixed” against Obamacare and this was a tweak that doesn’t go to the “essence “ of the law. What he neglected to tell you was that in July the House passed a law giving him authority to tweak this law which he said he would veto because it was “unnecessary”, so the Senate didn’t even bring it to a vote. The House also passed a companion bill delaying the mandate for ordinary Americans as well, let’s hope he will not consider that “unnecessary”. The implementation of Obamacare is fraught with technical problems and impossible procedures which show it to be un-operational and that is why the Republicans are fixated on it!

The President’s remarks show that if he thinks a part of this bill does not affect the “essence” of the law, he can elect to change it by “executive authority” without seeking Congress to affect a legislative remedy. Therefore, this so-called Constitutional lawyer can elect to change any law passed by Congress if he thinks the change does not affect the “essence” of the law, so he can act as the Supreme Court and the Congress if he sees fit. This is the attitude of a Caesar Chavez, Fidel Castro, Vladimir Putin, Mao, and even Hitler, and now we have a President that feels that way. Not one reporter took him up on his remarks or why he is giving Congress the ability to opt out of the law entirely. Enough said for investigative journalism. That’s why we yearn for a leader, instead of a political misfit. Have a nice vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Mr. President.

 

 

Why the IRS Scandal is Important

 Since the Obama regime (and it is a regime) can check any conservative blog on the Internet, should I expect an IRS audit this year? If I gave money to a Tea Party group, could I be targeted for additional IRS scrutiny? Also, because I am a conservative, should I be investigated using a different set of guidelines than my liberal counterparts? Or the converse, if I were a liberal and conservatives had the White House, should a different set of tax rules apply to me? Well, this is exactly what we have with the current regime and their playbook, and never since the Nixon administration have we seen this. As you recall, Mr. Nixon resigned in order to avoid impeachment.
         
Will we impeach Mr. Obama? Of course not, that’s why I hang up when groups advocating this call me for donations. I don’t support such a waste of time and money. We will never impeach our first black President. It will cause a tremendous outrage and set back the progress we have made in the civil rights arena by 100 years. There will be riots and it will eliminate any chance for future African-Americans to have a shot at the Presidency.

               Should Mr. Obama be impeached for the way he runs the Executive office? Certainly! The Nixon presidency is a case in point. For example, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is now involved in the IRS scandal. There is now evidence that this presumably neutral agency received information from another presumably neutral agency, the IRS, and used its enforcement powers against conservative groups. The FEC’s General Council staff sought tax information about conservative political groups from Lois Lerner (remember her?) of the IRS. Such a request is illegal and is a clear violation of FEC rules. The IRS is barred from releasing such information, but Ms. Lerner, based on her political bent and apparently instructions from White House Council, elected to ignore the law. There is also evidence from emails, that the FEC created a “novel” or scenario by which a conservative group could be “investigated” by the IRS which was more severe or stringent than the evaluation of liberal groups.

               All this is typical of this regime. Create a straw man, spread a bunch of lies or mistruths about him, and then proceed to tear him down as you deflect attention from your mistakes and blunders. It was done to Romney and is now being done in the Virginia gubernatorial race where an outstanding conservative, Ken Cuccinelli, the Attorney General, is running against Terry McAuliffe, the has-been cast off from the Clinton years. The Obama playbook is being used by McAuliffe as he goes negative, stays vague on his policies, and stresses the fanciful GOP “war against women” on his opponent. Does anyone still believe that?

               Just like this President, who has decided not to govern and stay aloof of the real issues in the world, but spend his 8 years in office campaigning and lecturing ideaology to special interest groups, blacks, young people, women, and spreading mistruths about his favorite straw man, the GOP.

The Fuss Over Fracking – Debunked Again!

      
Well, all those hysterical Hollywood environmental activists can rest easy tonight, and maybe they won’t have to make any more movies about the evil technique used by those evil oil companies called “fracking”, which they think should be banned. You remember that recent film with Matt Damon, showing how fracking contaminated all those farmer’s land and ruined a whole town. Why you could hardly throw a cigarette on the grass without causing a blaze reminiscent of the Chicago fire.

 The Associated Press released a story today, which I found on page 14 of my newspaper, stating the results of a year-long DOE study which concluded that there is absolutely no evidence that potentially toxic chemicals used in drilling for shale gas, move up to contaminate drinking water aquifers at a Western Pennsylvania drilling site. It also confirmed that any of the chemicals used in the process stay thousands of feet below the shallower areas that supply drinking water.

Of course, most of us with experience in this method and familiar with similar studies conducted by the major oil companies are not surprised, but this is the first independent confirmation of their data. I bet if the results showed otherwise, it would be on page one today and on every TV news show to beat.

The chemicals were tagged (probably radioactively), and also showed that although they were injected at a depth of 8,000 ft, no trace was found in a monitoring zone that was located at 5,000 ft, which shows they would be more than a mile from aquifers that are usually located at 500 ft. Most of the rock in between is virtually impermeable. I’m sure most of the people living in PA, NY, Ohio, and West Virginia, which are located over the giant Marcelous Shale formation, will be glad to hear about this, if the news ever gets out.

Of course, the results were tempered by the DOE with all sorts of qualifications, probably with suggestions from the EPA like, “this is only the initial study of this type, the study is on-going, it does not mean that other formations will be the same, etc., etc. So the dispute will continue for years but at least this should accelerate the drilling permits in these States, create more jobs, and bring us closer to energy self-sufficiency.

Once we get rid of this administration, we can move closer to energy independence in about 10 years. Remember, we have been using fracking techniques for 75 years and not a single death from chemical or gas contamination has ever been recorded. It reminds me of the environmental icon, Rachael Carson, who caused the ban on DDT because she said it was hazardous to humans, with very little data to that affect. Well, millions of adults and children have died of malaria in Africa as a result of her lobbying since then, because other pesticides are not as effective.

 This is a risk/reward issue and sometimes technology causes some risks which we must address in a civil, scientific, and objective way.

 

An Encore for Al and Jesse

 On March 24^th, 2012 I posted “The Trayvon Martin Case is Perplexing”, and at that time we had few facts about what really happened that night. So I was rather neutral on the topic, calling it a real tragedy. Now, like the rest of us, I know a lot more of the facts and am more aware of why Zimmerman was not originally arrested by the Sanford, Florida police after the event.

However, it now appears that Trayvon’s parents were soon accosted by Benjamin Crump and Daryl Parks, two Afro-American advocate attorneys, who claimed this was a civil rights case and brought it to the attention of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who quickly organized demonstrations around the country claiming that a black youth was murdered and demanded “justice for Trayvon”. They handed this to the media, who obviously relishes this kind of story, and the rest is history. Soon we were deluged with baby pictures of this “child”, who in reality was a 17-year old, 6 ft., 170 lb., athletic teenager, and they promoted a well-choreographed PR campaign to make this appear as a 60’s civil rights murder by George Zimmerman, a “white” Hispanic. They tried anything they could to drive us back to the 1960’s and negate the great progress we have achieved since that time. Jesse and Al were back in the news, and they loved it!

 Then the State of Florida takes over the investigation and overrules local police investigation, who see no crime or malicious intent on Mr. Zimmerman’s part, and brings forth a charge of second degree murder in order to placate the black advocates. No grand jury is convened and private meetings are held by city and state officials to review the 911 tapes with family members and their lawyers to the exclusion of the local police. During the discovery phase, Zimmerman’s lawyers get aced out of specific data that shows Trayvon is a troubled youth, suspended from school, with cell phone photos showing him smoking pot, and with jewelry spread out on his bed which he has obviously stolen. His parents actually tell Geraldo Rivera, a FOX journalist, about these problems. An employee of the Prosecutor’s office is called to testify about this withheld information and is fired by the State after his testimony reveals their obstruction of justice.

It’s clear that the States’ second degree murder charge cannot be proven and no evidence is presented that race was a factor in this event. Of course, Trayvon was profiled because many of the break-ins in that neighborhood were done by black youths with hoodies. Also, our prisons are 70% occupied by black youths, and black-on-white violence is rampant in our country right now, but you will never hear this from the media. If this sounds racist to you I’m sorry, but we also profile Arabs in airports for a similar reason.

 Sure, this is a tragedy that should never have happened, except that Trayvon should have just proceeded to go home and not decide to challenge and attack the “creepy-ass cracker” who was following him. Mr. Zimmerman is not a racist and was the wrong target for Al, Jesse, and Mr. Crump. I feel sorry for both the Martin family and  Zimmerman, who will be threatened for the rest of his life. In the meantime, Jesse and Al will continue to chug along reaping the benefits of this tragedy and inhibiting racial unity in this country.

 

 

Suppression of the White Vote in America

The secret is now out for all to see. How the 2012 presidential election turned out so surprising to most of us and why the pundits were so inaccurate in their analysis, finally has been revealed. For the first time in our history we have election fraud where the government consciously suppressed the vote of the opposition. This sounds like what they do in Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and in most of Africa and the banana republics, not in America!

Did you ever figure out why Romney got 4-5 million less votes than John McCain did in 2008, especially after a 2010 mid-term election where conservative Republicans smoked the Democrats and took a record number of seats in the House of Representatives, Governorships, and State legislator positions? It’s because the white people did not show up!  It now appears that, thanks to the IRS, the strange “interruption” in the momentum of the Tea Party and the conservative movement after the 2010 election, was due to the inability of conservative groups to sustain the funding necessary to continue to disseminate its message.

In a collaboration of Treasury and Justice Department officials and the White House, it is now clear that IRS officials colluded to promote a system to obstruct the growth of conservative and religious tax exempt organizations across the country. This effort started as soon as the power of the conservative movement was apparent to Obama advocates. At the same time, the Attorney General, the Democratic Black Caucus, and the media, all were promoting the idea that Republican governors in certain states were pushing “unconstitutional” requirements for voter ID that was really an effort to suppress the votes of minorities, who would have a hard time meeting such a difficult requirement.

So now we have the party that controls all the power of this immense government suppressing the vote of the white majority. Isn’t this ironic? Will the mainstream media ever uncover this illegal scheme to quell conservative voters like they did with the infamous enemies list of Watergate scandal of the 1970’s? Don't hold your breath.

To make this even more improbable, no one in charge claims to know what was going on. It was just a rogue group of lower level IRS employees in Cincinnati.  Could you please tell me than why the Commissioner of the IRS had 118 visits to the White House and, as it was revealed today, several of these were one-on-one with the President.  If Mr. Obama is so aloof from all these scandals, why is he meeting with the operating executive of the IRS, who reports to people several levels below him?  Still the President says he never heard of this until he read it in the newspaper.

As speaker Boehner said, “It looks like the lights are on in the White House, but nobody’s home”.  Someone needs to go to jail, and your worse fears about the IRS are now confirmed.  These same people are also going to monitor your compliance with Obamacare.  Good luck!

 

 

Letter to USC President

April 12, 2013

Dr. C.L. Max Nikias

Office of the President

University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA 90089-4019

Dear Dr. Nikias:

As a Floridian I am not used to writing to college Presidents in California, however, this letter is prompted by the recent national exposure of one of your Political Science professors at the University, Darry Sragow, and his utter disregard of proper educational standards unbecoming of your distinguished University. I am not naïve in believing that, to put it mildly, most professors have a certain left of center political bent based on the statistics I’ve seen, but the video went far beyond political bias. He condemned Republicans as a party of racists and stupid old white men and said they were fostering ID voting requirements on people they don’t want to vote. There also were many other mistruths, lies, and absolute falsehoods that he was teaching students about California politics that apparently suited his prejudicial viewpoint. I know you don’t support such indoctrination, intimidation, and political rhetoric from a so-called teacher.

Professor Sragow now blames the student who took the video and says he was free to challenge him. That is ridiculous!  Besides, he was actually reading this garbage and his delivery was utterly boring (an inept educator too boot).  No doubt this is going on in many campuses throughout the U.S. and most of the faculties and administrators probably have the same views as Professor Sragow. However, an educator’s job is to teach not preach and provide both sides of the issues, give a balanced view, and have students think and debate the issues and not be intimidated by their professor.

Since you reside over a California school, I’m sorry to say I don’t expect you to do anything about this, not even reprimand this jerk. However, most adults across American have viewed the utter deterioration of our educational institutions with graduates who know nothing about American values, little about our history, and lag many students in other countries. All they know is what’s wrong with America, not what is great about it.

While Mr. Sragow demeans all Republicans in your state, the rest of us view the collapse of your economy, your high unemployment rate, the abuse of your state pension system, and the mass exodus of people and companies from your state. California’s crime rate, uncontrollable tax rate, and your universities that are stocked with others that share Sragow’s views, all have contributed to your slide to bankruptcy and one of the lowest rated school systems in the country.  Maybe it’s because you don’t have enough of those “stupid” old white Republicans in office and have been controlled by that other party for too long.

As a former CEO and leader, I suggest that this situation merits some action on your part. There is no way you should tolerate this blatant display of academic incompetence.  That is your job, sir.

Very truly yours,

George P. Ahearn, Ph.D

Naples, Florida

The Rutgers Basketball Fiasco

Some of you may be aware that I am an alumni of Rutgers University having received a Master's and Ph.D degree there many years ago. The recent events there concerning the basketball coach has been very troubling to me, since the Athletic Director, Tim Pernetti, who had to resign because of this incident in view of the public relations fiasco that ensued. Mr. Pernetti has done a great job with the athletic program since he has been there bringing a winning football team that is now in the Big Ten conference starting with the 2013 season. Also, their ladies basketball program has also been among the top in the nation in recent years.

For years I have been courted by their alumni fundraising people for a major gift to the University. Some fundraiser staff have even visited me in Florida and I attended a gathering of Florida alums at the Ritz-Carlton sponsored by the University a few years ago. I eventually decided against awarding a gift to the school primarily on what I learned about the leftist political activities of the faculty and administrators and the large number of anti-American speakers that were invited to the school and the complete absence of the opposing view. In the past, I had made small gifts that were earmarked for the excellent chemistry and microbiological departments reseach programs.

Recent events at the school are symtomatic of what I learned about during my research and what is going on at many of our fine universities around this nation. So I recently wrote the following letter to Robert Constant, the young Alumni fundraiser staffer who had visted me several times in Florida:

Hi Robert:

 

I think you can see from the recent series of events at Rutgers, why I have been very reluctant to respond to your efforts at fundraising for the University. It is not only the political bent of the faculty and staff in their continuing support of leftist causes and Jihadist front organizations that sponsor speakers with anti-American and anti-Semitic views, but the utter ineptness of the administrators who now run the place.

 

 The fact that Tim Pernetti, the AD, has to fall on the sword for Dr. Barchi for not doing his job, is an embarrassment. Pernetti's resignation letter clearly conflicts with the President's version of events. Why Barchi maintained an arm's length attitude about the event when it originally occurred and didn't even view the video, is total incompetence and reflects on the trustees as well for poor judgement in the hiring of such people. The Penn State lesson surely illustrated that internal cover-ups never turn out well.

 

This house needs a complete overhaul with a more balanced political and academic viewpoint where political correctness is not the guiding force in making decisions about faculty, speakers, or HR issues. This is why I told you that I can no longer relate to this University anymore. I hope that Governor Christi takes an assertive role in bringing it back to what it used to be; a proud American university with faculty and administrators that support American values!

 

George

 

George Ahearn, MS, Ph.D.

Class of '59, '60

Naples, FL

The Jefferson You Never Knew

Jon Meacham’s excellent best seller on Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power, is great reading for you aficionados, like me, of non-fiction historical novels. I must say, Meacham, in spite of his political liberal bias (he is a regular on MSNBC and NBC), does not let that get in the way or taint his historical perspective. His previous 2008 book on Andrew Jackson, American Lion was equally spellbinding.

In this book you will learn more about Jefferson then his well known role in the American Revolution and authorship of the Declaration of Independence which he wrote in his twenties. You will learn about his personal life, his tenure in the Virginia statehouse, his term as Governor of Virginia, his years in Paris as our French Ambassador for President Washington, his feuds with John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, and his two terms as our 3^rd President from 1800-1808. It also reflects on the years after his realm of power at this beloved Monticello home, his lasting influence on his successors, James Madison and James Monroe, and where he died at the age of 84 on the 4^th of July 1826, on the very same day that his reconciled 90-year old writing companion, John Adams, passed away.

It was unknown to me that the two things that he considered most troublesome to our unity as a country during his presidency, was the subject of slavery and the strong desire of the opposing party, the Federalists, to establish a monarchist government similar to what existed in Great Britain, even after our independence was declared and our Constitution established. The movement was led by the strong northern states, which were anti-slavery and kept a cloud of succession over Jefferson’s head many years before our Civil War in 1860.

The conundrum for Jefferson was the slavery question, which he pondered most of his life. He conceded it was immoral, but concluded that it could only be solved by “expatriation” not “amalgamation”, the mixing of races. Even though he fathered at least seven children with his black slave, Sally Hemings, after he became a widower at a relatively young age. He never remarried, after his wife, Patsy, died after mothering 6 children and was pregnant most of her married life with Jefferson. All of Jefferson’s children with Patsy died before adulthood, except for Polly who survived him and gave him several grandchildren. All of his slaves were freed in his will and Polly freed Sally Hemings several years later. Most of Sally’s children went on to successful lives. Their children passed for white and most people never knew that Jefferson was their father. With all his power and intellect he never faced up to the slavery question, but said that it would have to be solved by future generations. If he had, maybe we would not have had a civil war.

Jefferson was the most intellectual of our Presidents and widely knowledgeable about history, music, books, wine, foods, the arts, science, and the environment. He was very tall for his day, well built, athletic, handsome, and appealing to both men and women with his gracious manners and quiet demeanor. He was not a great public speaker, but obviously a superb writer and conceptual thinker. He presided over the Louisiana Purchase from the French and the Lewis & Clark expedition which established our ultimate Pacific border. He really was the Father of the Republicanism and after you read this book you will have an even greater respect for him and his critical role in our history. 

The 4th One from Obama-Ugh!

I hate State of the Union speeches because the whole event is so phony, at least the way we do it these days. Remember, I made a pledge not to attack Mr. Obama anymore, so this is a critique of the speech and the policy he professed. It is not personal!

Even though Obama has a new speech writer (formerly Ted Kennedy’s), it seems I’ve heard this song before. More programs that he tries to justify, more government involvement in the economy, more spending, more fuzzy math as he tries to cherry-pick data to make things seem better than they actually are ( for the low information voter). We than reach the crescendo, as he introduces guests who are “great” Americans, such as parents of victims of gun violence, and a 101 year-old black lady who had to stand in line for hours to vote for him (there were many old white people who had the same experience). Frankly, the poor lady was put in that spotlight and didn’t look like she was mentally or physically prepared to make an intelligent choice at the polls.

I heard a long list of new programs that the General Accounting Office said, after the speech, would cost about $100 billion. There were programs for our “eroding” infrastructure that the Stimulus Bill was supposed to fix for $800 billion, a new “Fix it First” program for bridges, an “Energy Security Thrust” to cut energy waste in half by insulating old homes, a new rating system for colleges based on value and affordability that is supposed to get them to cut tuitions, universal day care subsidies for all, because every dollar we spend on day care we get $7 back (according to a study by Head Start) . What he didn’t tell you was that a recent study by Health & Human Services totally refutes this notion and found that vocabulary and social development gains for at-risk children in pre-kindergarten programs were largely lost by the third grade.

Than Mr. Obama proceeded to tell us the progress “he” made, such as a gain of 6.1 million private sector jobs, but he didn’t tell you when he started counting, he ignored the 5 million lost prior to February 2010. On his watch, the gain is actually a paltry 1.2 million if you include both private and public jobs. That’s what I call cherry- picking!

Glad to hear that he is now for more natural gas permits and drilling and reforming the tax code. The Republicans were pushing that long before the fiscal cliff debate but he had to tax the rich first. Glad to know that China “is going all out on green energy” and we need to follow their lead, even though they’re currently the worst polluter on the planet. Glad to hear that he is for comprehensive immigration reform and his program sounds just like Rubio’s, and that all those gun victims deserve a vote on gun legislation, even though it will do nothing to reduce gun violence.

Oh yes, the troops are coming home and Al-Qaida is fractured, except for some splinter groups in North Africa and other parts of the world, and that situation is “evolving”. Yes, Mr. President. They just murdered our Libyan ambassador and three others, killed about 89 people and 3 Americans at a BP gas facility in North Africa, and are now active in Syria. Looks to me like the franchise is still going strong.

No mention about the North Korean nuclear missile test aimed squarely at our West Coast, or the fact that he is working with Putin to reduce our nuclear capability, while rouge nations like North Korea, Iran, and China are increasing theirs. Remember, now that he’s re-elected he has more “flexibility”. Also, he said that this sequestration idea to reduce our defense spending is a bad idea. I thought that was your idea Sir, remember? Glad you feel the deficit is “under control” and that you will be cutting it by $1.6 trillion over the next 3 years, however, the General Account Office said that is wrong, and it will be only 1/5 that amount. Fuzzier math! Boy, am I glad State of the Union speeches are forgotten about one week after they’re delivered.

Teflon Hillary Uncovered

If you missed the Senate and House hearings of Hillary Clinton’s testimony on Benghazi and then read or heard about it thru main street media reports, you probably think this fiery, assertive woman, who is the champion of women all over the world, really told off those Republicans asking those mean questions about her role in this affair. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. No wonder the uniformed and disinterested constituency of this inept Administration thinks that Mrs. Clinton has done a great job as head of the State Department by 59% to 28%. Obviously, I’m part of the 28% and wrote about it in a previous post on August 13, 2012.

If this performance along with her poor judgment and incompetent administrative ability does not convince you that she would be a terrible President, then nothing will. Although she is ready to “take full responsibility” for the mishandling of this terrorist attack, apparently no one is “accountable” for the death of four Americans in this incident. Anyway, “what difference, at this point, does it make?” Sorry Hillary, it matters when Administrations mislead Americans for political gain. It matters, when pleas from our foreign service people in harm’s way go unanswered, it matters when our top officials make poor judgments about security, it matters when the terrorists responsible can sit in a café in Benghazi talking to a NY Times reporter after the incident and is still on the loose in Algeria.

“Why did you let U.N. Ambassador Rice go on the Sunday talk shows with bogus talking points about a video?” Your answer, “I had nothing to do with the talking points and I was not consulted about Ms. Rice’s appearance”. Also, “I don’t do Sunday shows; I have better things to do on Sunday”. Wow! An Ambassador murdered and three others killed and you have something better to do than let us know what happened.

“I immediately called it a terrorist attack”. Well, I remember that all you talked about was a video, and you were still talking about it when the bodies came home, and the President was for 2 weeks after that.

Then she goes back on message, “We cannot afford to retreat now; when America is absent, especially from unstable environments, there are consequences. Extremism takes root; our interest suffers; our security at home is threatened”. Hillary, that’s the Republican message. This administration leads from behind, remember? Look at Syria, Libya, Mali, Algeria, Iran, Egypt, and now we’re scurrying to get out of Afghanistan.

Our foreign policy is an utter mess and all those Democratic Senators and Reps call her one of our greatest Secretaries of State, and how she elevated the reputation of the U.S. around the world, while our flag burns and our embassies are invaded. But I guess that’s George Bush’s fault.

It’s amazing the dangers you face when you are not aware of what’s going on around you. Remember, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Since we don’t have a media to give us the straight story, it’s up to you the readers of this narrative to get the word out.

Inauguration Day Remix

It feels like déjà vu! This inauguration felt like our President was just nominated again and that we all forgot the last 4 years. Also, his speech was like a State of the Union address, combined with the soaring rhetoric we have heard in the past meant to uplift the down-trodden and disenfranchised. It said nothing about his vision for the next four years, except for the generalizations of the past, like “we must respond to the threat of climate change and preserve the planet from these disastrous droughts, fires, and storms”. I thought that God played a major part in this! Current climate catastrophies can’t compare to the climate disasters of biblical times, the dust bowl in the U.S. of the 20’s, the hurricanes of the 50’s, and the major earthquakes of San Francisco and Galveston at the turn of the century.

The speech immediately jumps to the Declaration of Independence and says nothing about the Constitution, which he basically ignores in the way he governs. His opening paragraph is fraught with racial, class, and gender overtones; such as, we should not be separated “by the origin of our names (Obama?), color of our skin, or be a country where a few do well and many can’t make it". "We can’t be stymied by wars born by the lash and the sword”. Sounds like he reverts back to slavery and the Civil War here!

“We can’t be a nation where freedom is reserved for the lucky and happiness for the few, and where preserving peace requires perpetual war”. In another line he says, "we can’t be complete until our wives and daughters and gay brothers and sisters have equal pay and jobs". At the end he builds to a crescendo and starts to sound like MLK in a black church in Selma in the 60’s. “We must seize the moment and answer the call of history”. Just a few days ago his White House answered the call and issued a statement saying that this is the moment of opportunity but the Republicans are “not worthy of the moment”, and that’s why we can’t get anything done. In this speech Obama says “name-calling should not take the place of reasonable debate”. I guess he forgot how he demonized his opponent as a wife murderer, tax evader, corporate job exporter, and a corporate raider that bankrupts companies for his own personal gain. Selective memory or feigned amnesia is one of Obama’s greatest traits.

I now make an oath to you that I will stop bashing this guy, because we all know what we have and you are bored reading this stuff. Today we celebrate our system of government and the process by which we inaugurate Presidents. I was proud of the Brooklyn (my hometown) Tabernacle Choir, who stopped the show with “His Truth is Marching On”, and I must say Beyonce is no Whitney Houston, when it comes to the “Star Spangled Banner”.

I only wish that this President could speak to all Americans, not just lecture us as if we are a Third World country. Believe me, being poor in America is like the middle class in the rest of the world. We accomplished great things before he was elected and we will continue to long after he is gone from office.

Two-Bit Politician and Monarch

These are strange times in the U.S. We have a President who governs like a two-bit politician when he campaigns for election or deals with his adversaries, and then governs like King George III during our American Revolution. In addition, his negotiation tactics are predictable and since he is in charge and Harry Reid controls the Senate, the Republicans haven’t figured out how to get off defense. I look forward to Round 2 (the Debt Ceiling debate) because I believe the conservatives have more leverage then they did in Round 1(the Tax Debate).

After lying to the American public that the middle-class will see no tax increase in the fiscal cliff discussions, it’s clear that they will, if you see the list below:
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                     2012-%             2013-%

 Top personal tax rate ($400k+)                                      35                     41

  Estate Tax                                                                     35                     40

 Capital Gains Tax                                                           15                     23.8

 Dividend Tax                                                                 15                     23.8

Medical device Tax                                                          0                       2.3

 Payroll Tax                                                                   10.4                  12.4

 Obamacare Surcharge ($200k+)                                    0                       0.9

It’s obvious that the middle class will be hit by much of this. The only good thing that came out of this is that the Bush Tax cuts after 12 years will finally become permanent for all incomes below $400k/yr. It’s about time! However, are you now happy that we have increased the tax rate on 1-2% of the population and have raised only $600B in revenue over the next ten years? This is a mere pittance, given our $16.5 trillion debt and $1.3 trillion annual deficit over the remaining years of Obama. This was done just to meet a campaign promise! Have no fear there is more to come.

The other President is King Barack, who dictates to the country and his opposition about what is right, what is fair, and what the conditions of any negotiations will be. It illustrates his total inexperience in business and his utter arrogance. For example, he demonizes those who disagree with him and at his orchestrated press conferences, it is now beginning to look like even the main street media is starting to challenge him because of his hypocrisy and his erroneous and contradictory economic comments. This is something he did not encounter in his first term.

His monarch mentality was illustrated when he recently gave the eulogy for Senator Inouye of Hawaii, and he used the “I” pronoun 30 times, “my” 21 times and “me” 12 times. Eulogies are generally more about the deceased than the eulogizer. Also, his use of children as props to issue his worthless executive orders related to the Newtown tragedy was rather creepy and reminiscent of tactics used by dictators to appeal to the emotions of the populace. Nothing from these laws for more gun control will do anything to stop a Newtown or Aurora from happening again, because nothing is done to address the root cause, such as child safety on school grounds and a definitive mental health system. This attempt to look like you’re doing something will cost us $4 Billion to implement. In the meantime, we disarm the good guys and the criminals and mentally disturbed ignore the new laws. The focus is on the gun, not the person holding it. This is the typical move you would expect from a two-bit politician and a king taking advantage of a traumatic event as an excuse to alter our constitution.