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.

The Conservative Dilemma – Higher Education

On Election Day 2008 Americans came out of the voting booths and described themselves to pollsters as conservative over liberal by a margin of 2 to 1, but had just proceeded to vote for Barack Obama. In that election most of the independents or moderates voted that way, but a second and more important factor was that 18-29 year –olds supported Obama by a margin of more than that, 66-32 percent, and they comprised almost 25 million votes. They showed up again in 2012 in even greater numbers. Therein, lies the dilemma for conservatives; America’s educational system is manufacturing millions of future Obama’s and those who support his view of the world.

The political left has promoted big government for many years. Since the election of Obama, socialists and communists have infiltrated our government with ideas, and sometimes legislation, far more radical than big government. They are the product of our higher education system. A 2007 study by George Mason University found that liberal faculty members at our universities outnumber their conservative counterparts by a ratio of 11 to 1 among social scientists and 13 to 1 among humanities professors. This can’t be a coincidence because poll after poll for the last two decades say that Americans identify themselves as conservative over liberal by 35-45% versus 20-35%.

Much of this trend is in schools rated among the top in the nation. For example, an analysis of Cornell University professors found 166 liberals compared to 6 conservatives, and UCLA claimed 141 liberals to only 9 conservatives. I venture a guess you will find the same at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Universities of California, Chicago, New York, etc. It’s like only liberals go into the profession or maybe that’s all they look for. At these schools impressionable students hear liberal words like tolerance, diversity, multiculturalism, collectivism, globalization, and relate them to the secular sacred cows like gender, race, and sexual orientation. Not in the context of the diversity of ideas, but the context of indoctrination. America is the problem, America is racist, America is ruining the environment, America is homophobic, America is greedy, are the continual themes.

Barack Obama is hardly one-of-a-kind, he is a product of this system, and you as a parent continue to send your children to these schools and contribute to their endowment funds. Recently my alma mater, Rutgers University, was courting me for more than a year for a large donation to Alumni Fund. After researching their faculty, student organizations, and speakers who are invited to give seminars, I could not relate to their current student body or the political bent of the school and told them so. They still persist.

For the last 15 years I have supported the Young America Foundation www.yaf.com . They work at the high school and college level to establish local chapters that support and invite conservative speakers to universities all over the nation in order to send a more balanced message to our young people. They also sponsor conferences and regional meetings where young people can hear the conservative message from contemporary political leaders. In addition, I have provided below a list of outstanding universities researched by the Young America Foundation, where your child can get a more balanced education of the political options.

Young people have become an influential voting bloc. It’s time for parents to look at this issue, for the only way that our system of government can be destroyed is from within. Our leftist educators appear to be doing a good job of just that.

List of Leading Conversative Colleges and Universities
Christendom  College
Front Royal, Virgnia
(800) 877-5456
www.christendom.edu

College of the Ozarks
Point Lookout, Missouri
(800) 222-0525
www.cofo.edu

Colorado Christian University
Lakewood, Colorado
800-44-FAITH
www.ccu.edu

Franciscan University
Steubenville, Ohio
(800) 783-6220
www.franciscan.edu

Grove City College
Grove City, Pennsylvania
(724) 458-2100
www.gcc.edu

Harding University
Searcy, Arkansas
(501) 279-4000
www.harding.edu

Hillsdale College
Hillsdale, Michigan
(517) 607-2327
www.hillsdale.edu

The King's College
New York, New York
(212) 659-7200
www.tkc.edu

Liberty University
Lynchburg, Virginia
(434) 582-2000
www.liberty.edu

Patrick Henry College
Purcellville, Virginia
(888)338-1776
www.phc.edu

Regent University
Virginia Beach, Virginia
(888) 718-1222
www.regent.edu

Saint Vincent College
Latrobe, Pennsylvania
(724) 537-4540
www.stvincent.edu

Thomas Aquinas College
Santa Paula, California
(800)634-9797
www.thomasaquinas.edu

Thomas More College
Merrimack, New Hampshire
(603) 880-8308
www.thomasmorecollege.edu

Wisconsin Lutheren College
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
(414) 443-8811
www.wlc.edu




                                  

Rules For Politicians in Current Times

My wife always said I would be a good politician but when I looked at the current rules, I concluded I would not make the grade:

Symbolism always trumps substance.

If you give the appearance of success enough times it becomes the truth.

If you don’t respond to your opponent’s lack of civility you give the appearance of weakness.

Young voters eventually grow up and realize that politics does affect their lives.

Politicians are similar to entertainers; they are not always what they appear to be.

If you know how to yell, move your hands, and talk ex-temporaneously, you can be a good politician. You don’t have to be smart or know what you’re talking about, but it helps.

If you are a successful politician and do not leave office as a rich man, you are not very smart.

If you can socialize with someone who degrades you in public, you have the potential to be a good politician.

Being a hypocrite is essential to being a successful politician.

If you are successful, lead a good life, and play by the rules, don’t run for public office.

If you tell the truth and never pander to special interests, you will never get re-elected.


Now you know why you don’t find many quality people in this occupation?

The New American Electorate

This is the post I did not want to write. In fact, I wrote another one 5 days ago for publication today because I thought Mitt Romney would now be President of the United States. Am I despondent? No. Do I still have faith in the United States and its destiny? Yes. Have I changed or altered my conservative political bent? No. Am I still fearful of the direction of this country? Yes. Will I continue to call Barack Obama out on his mistakes and performance? You bet!

The pundits will dissect and analyze the results of this election for the next few months but one thing is sure; this is a changed electorate. Voters are impressionable and impulsive, and facts or astute analysis to solve problems is not the path to victory. It’s the way you package the message and create perceptions that count. One of my friends who reads this blog told me that, but I did not heed his warning because I am a logical businessman with scientific training. Facts may win in the long term, but perception and emotion prevails in the short term when our electorate is made up primarily of women, Hispanics, and people under 30.

Of course, the danger is that impressionable or emotional people are more prone to make mistakes or take precipitous actions, and that makes this world a more dangerous place. It also means that the less educated and less informed have a greater influence on outcomes. This means our direction as a country becomes more like the rest of the pack and our exceptionalism dissolves.

With this kind of electorate, a campaign run by President Obama works well regardless of whether most people think we are headed in the wrong direction, or the economy has not really improved, or poverty is on the rise. He did it with a negative campaign that demonized his opponent, and told mistruths and lies about him enough times that the perception was created. Also, it was startlingly that 15% of the electorate said that Hurricane Sandy impacted their vote! That’s what happens with an impulsive electorate when visual impressions are so important. What you see is more important that what you say!

I will continue to support the conservative message because I believe it is the right one. However, based on the election I am disconnected with the American public, but not by much, according to the popular vote count. Unfortunately, only 10 states dictated events in the electoral vote. So nothing much has changed, and we are headed to 4 more years of big government. I only hope that Mr. Obama take heed of the tax reform ideas of Mr. Romney to get us out of this economic mess, because he appears clueless at this point. See, I still have my spunk!