"The most significant threat to our national security is our debt," Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, August 27, 2010


Monday, November 3, 2014

The shame of the party out of power

By this time, most Americans, all but the 30 or 35% who sell their vote for “peanuts and promises”, know that Mr. Obama is an empty suit.  Our former allies learned this during his first four years in office.  Our enemies all cashing in on this simple fact.

So why is the party out of power (POOP) – the republicans, the GOP, the so-called conservatives still muddling along, hoping for a midterm win but not sure of it?  Why have they been out of power more than in power?
Well the pundits tell you it’s because black Americans double their voting power by voting 90+ percent always for democrats.  And that Latino Americans give the party in power (PIP) 60, 70% of their vote consistently for PIP which increases their voice also.  And then the white gals come along and top off PIP’s slim majorities with 40 or 50% of their voting power.
We don’t think that’s the reason at all.
We think POOP simply does not have leadership – quality leadership – coupled with a consistent message that is not knee-jerk reactionary nonsense to whatever PIP and its strong media following wishes to spend time on.
For example.  PIP says POOP is running a war on women.  Now will some PIP voters say – you betcha – POOP just wants to keep us barefoot and pregnant!  Which is really quite funny when you think of it.  Under PIP and POOP women have done pretty well over the past 30, 40 years which is simply proof that PIP and POOP had nothing to do with it.  But for the last 5, 10 years women have not done well at all unless you think big leaps forward in getting food stamps and earned income tax credits and all sorts of other handouts and welfare program goodies is doing well.  Women are scared.  They too have big college loans to repay; they too see their kids without good job prospects; they too are experiencing declining paychecks unless they have a union government job and they too see the bumbling immaturity of the president; the congress; the judiciary and all the agencies such as VA, IRS, CDC, Immigration and on and on messing up visibly every day.
But who can they turn to?  Mitch McConnell?  John Boehner?  Mitt Romney?  Ted Cruz?  Rick Santorum?  Rand Paul?
It’s laughable to list them.  Not one of them offers an adult, experienced version of leadership or a plan.  No man with a plan and women like men with plans.  So do black Americans and Latino Americans.
Everyone likes a man with a plan.
And whether you like it or not, that man with a plan had better have some grey hair; some non political experience; either business or military; some successes that are not hot air or David Axelrod produced propaganda nonsense and the ability to deliver a good speech; a good message; but mostly a believable ability to hold ones attention and muster some consistent support.
It is to POOP’s shame that they have not produced such a leader.   A few parrot the message and actually hit upon some basics; some fundamentals.  But not one of them has a plan and the conviction and the messaging to get a wide open electorate to follow them. 

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The he** with his minimum wage raise…we don’t have any jobs…

Here is the number one thing the party in power does not want you to know – you can negotiate with your vote and right now the party in power does not negotiate.  They take the black vote for granted.  The way to negotiate is to vote for the other party, the one out of power. Give it a try.  Then the best way to follow through is to insist that the sweetheart deals that all go to the folks who are tied into the party in power – those deals are over.  Let business build factories here.  Forget about taxes and forget about laws and bureaucrats restricting everything business wants to do.  Tell them to keep their turkeys and their minimum wage nonsense.  We want factories and businesses right here and our vote goes to the party that delivers the good jobs now.  Here, in our neighborhood.  As Bill Clinton says, "It's a no-brainer!"

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

In his own words – Jim Webb

 
TF comment/question – This rambling speech from the former senator is heavily focused on war policy.  Webb knows that any politician seeking to build momentum for a run at the presidency in 2016 and challenge the democrat party front runner must force Hillary's hand on her war tendencies.  He also mentions the need to rationalize and “reorganize” the federal government.  Pretty obvious to all but the incumbent.  And he caters heavily to the black vote; Hillary's Achilles heel.  But, Jim, what about debt?  You never mentioned debt.  No top level politician in America ever mentions our debt!

Friday, October 17, 2014

The dream of every little boy

Sixty three years ago ----

 

 
Same team, different town, last night ----
 


Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Consumerism

The question on our mind is this – is consumerism fading, even a bit?  Is it possible that this weird infatuation that we Americans have with gathering gobs of useless, shiny objects with only passing faddish interest and utility beginning to wear thin?  Could it be that those who have chosen (remember in a consumer dominated society the false promise of choice will always prevail) to supplant family, God, religion, morals, discipline and selflessness with shinny objects are coming around to the thinking that they have been pursuing empty endeavors of hope and change?

As usual we don’t know but we do see the early signs of something.  Here are the early signs we see:
·         Massive visual and noisy sound based poundings of messages telling us to buy, buy, buy packaged as if the act of buying, buying, buying will somehow make us young, good looking, surrounded by gobs of similar looking young, good looking people who admire us as we admire them and we are beginning to grasp that it is all baloney, and

·         An entire generation or two of politicians and government bureaucrats who simply don’t have a clue about all that they claim to be so well informed about, and

·         Too many people pursuing too many frivolous, needless, useless activities that are just what they appear to be – time consuming wastes of time, and

·         Time is so brief for all of us that it makes no sense to waste it on shiny objects produced in foreign lands and empty activities promoted by beer companies, soda companies, fast food companies, erection enhancing pill companies and all sorts of other costly products and services that do not bring an ounce of the joy that comes from holding a baby; chatting with a granddaughter; tossing a ball back and forth with a son or a grandson or simply reading a good book!
Nah – who’s kidding whom.
We’re Americans.  We like to buy crap; use it for a day or two and then toss it in the garage or a closet until we can’t fit anything else in so we go out and rent a storage space.  When we’re not doing that we like to sit in front of the TV set, eating and drinking the crap advertised on the show we are watching even though we just watched the same thing yesterday.  We particularly like to watch commercials of young good looking people doing things even though we are too fat to do the things that they are doing.
Buy, buy, buy.  That’s what life is all about.  For a minute there we thought we saw something changing but no, we were wrong.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Rights

We, us Americans, are fascinated with this concept of rights.  Perhaps it all began when the founders submitted their draft constitution to the 13 colonial and now state legislators for ratification.  The pushback was – what about our rights?

From whence came, the “bill of rights.”  10 amendments added to the new constitution just to get the needed 2/3rds (9 states) of the legislators to ratify all the other mumbo jumbo about checks and balances, federalism and separations of power.  We, us Americans, just love our rights.
Since then, the federal government set up by the ratified constitution has done nothing but peel back the 10 amendments providing us our “rights.”  Well that’s almost true in and of itself but something else has developed more recently – in the last 50 years.  And it seems to have all begun with the civil rights movement or whatever you may call it.
In 1964 black Americans got their very own legislation to confirm their rights – actually it was just federally enforceable law to implement a variety of equitable treatments such as openness in education, public access, voting, employment and other basic elements of societal behavior.   These so-called civil rights laws had two accompanying enforcement provisions that previously did  not exist.
1.    Penalties for those who could prove violations, and
2.    Federal bureaucracies to assist, even promote, compliance
We were now on the road to a very different form of separation of powers, checks and balances and federalism.  Rights trumped those concepts.
It didn’t take long for others to see the light – the light to federally enforced rights.  And lo and behold, the gates opened up.  We chose not to document the order because now it seems to be meaningless.  Here are just a few of the rights now permanently embedded in enforceable federal law:
·         Employee rights
·         Handicapped/disability rights
·         Health care access rights
·         Animal rights
·         Patient rights
·         Unionization rights
·         Immigrant rights
·         Education rights
·         Legal defense rights
·         Crime victim rights
·         Voting rights
·         Gay and lesbian rights
·         Student rights
So the bill of rights, those 10 amendments that were designed to keep government away from the people; those 10 that were solely designed to provide comfort to those asked to approve the new constitution by assuring them that government could not and would not ever enter the everyday comings and goings of law abiding citizens have now evolved into (here we are guessing) 10,000+ pages of laws and rules and bureaucrat gobbledy gook all designed to introduce a federal government oversight into our everyday life.
It’s almost funny to realize what we have done; to ourselves.  But we notice one thing is missing in all this rush to legislate rights.  One right has been ignored.  Do you know what it is?