One of the few occasionally rational-minded liberals in the world, Juan Williams, finally got the axe this week from NPR. This was a long time coming – they were just waiting patiently for any reason at all. It’s obvious that NPR brass have been steaming for years that Mr. Williams dared to stray from the reservation and join Fox News as an analyst. As I stated last week, many far-left groups consider Williams a traitor, or even a “conservative.” While I agree that relative to their place on the spectrum he must seem conservative, Juan Williams is a liberal, although an often pragmatic one, which sometimes has led him to accept truth when he sees it to the disdain of his farther-left colleagues at NPR.
Williams admitted what everyone in this country automatically thinks: that he gets nervous when he sees men in full Muslim dress board a plane with him. That was all the justification NPR needed to finally unload him. Naturally, the mainstream reaction to his firing is one of introspection but you can also hear the liberal pundits not affiliated with NPR collectively say, “D’oh!” They realize this is Shirley Sherrod all over again, because anyone who bothered to watch the whole segment saw Juan Williams take Bill O’Reilly to task for O’Reilly’s (correct) assertion that it was Muslims who executed the attacks on America on 9/11. Yeah, it wasn’t all Muslims, but it was a network of people who shared the Islamic faith. Only liberals can seriously debate against irrefutable fact.
I’m waiting to see what Bara Bama does now. He was so quick to admonish Fox News and conservative pundits for his mistakes in the Sherrod scandal, but now he has no one to blame except other libs who swung the axe. What’s he gonna do, blame Fox News for trying to be “Fair and Balanced”?
Likely he will stay out of it and let Williams swing from the gallows. Williams was helping the enemy, after all, by attracting viewers, however progressive his goals might have been. My guess is, whereas Sherrod received a personal apology from the President along with a promotion and a raise, Williams will be treated by the left like a leper. His promotion will come from Fox News, and that will piss the left off even more. They hate nothing more than when conservatives promote minorities based on merit instead of skin color, as liberals are more likely to do. Juan Williams deserves a larger role at Fox News – I’d like to see him with his own primetime show. He could bump Greta back on hour.
Aside from the personal controversy revolving around Williams, the most disgusting aspect of this is all the pundits admitting to self-loathing when they do the very same thing. I’ve read several articles online about this in the last two days and they share the common theme that the pundit is nervous when he/she sees Muslims in full dress on airplanes, and then how much they hate themselves for having such an inappropriate reaction, and how badly those Muslims must feel, blah, blah, blah.
The fact is that, whatever the numbers, Muslims of both sexes and all ages have committed terrible acts against innocent people, and yes, Muslims flew airplanes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11. Every American has the exact same thoughts go through their head, every time. It is an honest and sensible reaction to what happened and to what is indelibly burned into each of our minds forever, and no amount of air travel will scrub it clean. On top of that, it may actually be prudent. On 9/11 none of the people in those planes knew what to do. Prior experience was always that terrorists had some demands, and had no interest in suicide. All that has changed, so if you get on a plane you better have some idea about how you are going to act in that 1 in a 1000000000 chance that the Muslims sitting next to you start hollering in Arabic and lighting fuses leading into their rectums.
We all need to be better Boy Scouts – be prepared. There’s absolutely no shame in that. Juan Williams knows that even though almost nobody else on his side of the aisle does. I like Juan Williams, and I hope this will result in more exposure for him and ultimately expose the far left’s propensity for Big Brother style thought policing and further turn America against those kooks and their like-minded President. That’s the guy we need to fire.
UPDATE: I had written this post earlier today, but it turns out the news is already out - Williams confirmed that NPR was "vindictive" about his relationship with Fox, and Fox has offered him a substantial contract in the wake of all this. Further proving my point, NPR Chief Vivian Schiller said Williams should have "kept his comments between himself and his psychiatrist." It's fun watching the left self destruct, no?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44009.html
Friday, October 22, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Privatize Social Security to Save the Economy
I woke up this morning to sound bites for the Angle-Reid debate last night. The contrast could not have been more stark, and I’m looking forward to the end of Reid. Is there anything worse for your career than to become the Democrat Senate Majority leader?
Reid’s biggest swing was his most predictable, going after Angle’s stance on Social Security. During the primary Angle was a pro-privatize or get rid of it altogether candidate, and she has now stepped back from that a little. Reid is of course a do-nothing Democrat, more than happy to continue to force Americans to throw money into a black hole and not at all shy about admitting they will lose out on the deal. His attack used the tired charge that if Bush had succeeded in privatizing SS in 2005 most Americans would have lost their retirement when the economy crashed.
For some reason, smarter political minds than mine have not mounted a respectable resistance to this claim, but it came to me this morning.
First off, Bush wanted to make privatization optional. Why don’t Republicans ever bring that up? If you’re about ready to retire or already retired, then don’t change anything, and keep sucking on the teat. If you’re young and can take on short term risk for long term gains, privatize. Bush tried hard to get that message across, but the likes of Harry Reid and the Democrats successfully scared enough seniors with their lies that the public never came around to the idea, and unlike Obama, George Bush listened to the people, even though they’d been sold the liberal lie.
But the real master stroke is that if Americans would have been allowed to privatize SS in 2005 we would never have had this degree of financial collapse. Think about it. If every day thousands of US companies received millions in new investment dollars the credit market would not have seized and yeah, the mortgage crisis would still have happened but millions of Americans would not have lost their jobs because American businesses would not have failed when the money ran out. The money would not have run out! President Bush would have prevented this collapse, but Democrats stopped him!
Conservative candidates need to make this point. Today SS money gets turned into an IOU with an ever increasing likelihood of default. If it were privatized it could be invested in American companies and American jobs! And if the economy takes a hit again history is on the side of the investor, whereas the future is against anyone relying on Social Security and its guaranteed 25% loss.
Reid’s biggest swing was his most predictable, going after Angle’s stance on Social Security. During the primary Angle was a pro-privatize or get rid of it altogether candidate, and she has now stepped back from that a little. Reid is of course a do-nothing Democrat, more than happy to continue to force Americans to throw money into a black hole and not at all shy about admitting they will lose out on the deal. His attack used the tired charge that if Bush had succeeded in privatizing SS in 2005 most Americans would have lost their retirement when the economy crashed.
For some reason, smarter political minds than mine have not mounted a respectable resistance to this claim, but it came to me this morning.
First off, Bush wanted to make privatization optional. Why don’t Republicans ever bring that up? If you’re about ready to retire or already retired, then don’t change anything, and keep sucking on the teat. If you’re young and can take on short term risk for long term gains, privatize. Bush tried hard to get that message across, but the likes of Harry Reid and the Democrats successfully scared enough seniors with their lies that the public never came around to the idea, and unlike Obama, George Bush listened to the people, even though they’d been sold the liberal lie.
But the real master stroke is that if Americans would have been allowed to privatize SS in 2005 we would never have had this degree of financial collapse. Think about it. If every day thousands of US companies received millions in new investment dollars the credit market would not have seized and yeah, the mortgage crisis would still have happened but millions of Americans would not have lost their jobs because American businesses would not have failed when the money ran out. The money would not have run out! President Bush would have prevented this collapse, but Democrats stopped him!
Conservative candidates need to make this point. Today SS money gets turned into an IOU with an ever increasing likelihood of default. If it were privatized it could be invested in American companies and American jobs! And if the economy takes a hit again history is on the side of the investor, whereas the future is against anyone relying on Social Security and its guaranteed 25% loss.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
A Shovel Full Of "Shovel-Ready"
The friend of mine I mentioned in a previous post who was working two part-time jobs and starting his own small business after getting laid-off from his previous full-time job now has a new full-time job. This absolutely proves my point that if you walk into a prospective employer and show them that you are a worker, and not just someone who surfs the Internet all day looking for a place to send her resume to, you have a much higher likelihood of getting the job.
What continues to amaze me is how delusional many of this nation’s unemployed are. Manufacturing jobs are not coming back, yet every day I hear the lament for those “good manufacturing jobs” that were lost. I realize the situation for those people is tough – they got into manufacturing when they were young, were often paid well beyond their skill level because of union contracts that ultimately cost them their job when the company was forced to look for cheaper labor elsewhere. Now they still don’t have any skills and no prospects. The world changed while they weren’t paying attention. They were lured into Bama’s slick presentation with the promise of “shovel-ready jobs” but no such thing materialized, despite a trillion dollars worth of wasted idealism.
So now what? It seems highly likely that unemployment will remain around 10% for the foreseeable future. My guess is it will be a generation before we see unemployment back down to 5% like it was during the Bush years. Two things must happen. First, businesses must regain faith that the government will not punish them for success. “Cap And Trade” would be another devastating blow to private sector industry, and must be defeated. It is obvious now that we can either have extreme environmentalism or we can have a prosperous economy, but not both, at least no right now. Obama’s promise to create 5 million new clean energy jobs could still happen, but at the cost of countless jobs lost to layoffs as companies look to cover the higher energy costs. We can move in that direction, but it cannot happen overnight. Increasing government regulation as a knee-jerk reaction to the Bank failures and the mortgage debacle will only hinder company’s attempts to access new revenue streams. The trade war the Democrats are instigating with China will further impact an already massive trade imbalance. And liberal’s continued attacks on CEO salaries and their vilification of corporations has and will continue to result in trepidation or outright unwillingness to expand into markets that are openly hostile to their very existence. Liberalism and its extensions are the root of the demise of capitalism, and they are starting to own up to the fact that they like it that way. Until American voters restore sanity to the political force of the economy it will continue to sputter.
The second requirement is that Americans must become better educated, and I don’t necessarily mean college. In today’s workforce it is much more valuable to be specialized and then find a job that applies that focus than to fumble around with a Liberal Arts degree. Technical colleges will become the primary avenue from which the next generation of workers achieves a functional education. Those who fail to continue education will have limited value in the economy going forward. Those “good jobs” of the past have no relevance, and attempts by unions and Democrats to cling to them for purely political reasons is a drain against the producers of wealth.
“Shovel-ready”, “Hope and Change”. America was sold on meaningless slogans. Obama is nothing more than a catch-phrase comic, with his presidency as the punch line and American liberties as the butt of every joke. Until we get these jokers out of power and then take it upon ourselves to increase our individual value in a competitive global economy collectively we will continue to tread water. On the other hand, for those of us that do choose to better ourselves we should have an easier go of it compared to those that don’t. My friend’s success is proof of that.
What continues to amaze me is how delusional many of this nation’s unemployed are. Manufacturing jobs are not coming back, yet every day I hear the lament for those “good manufacturing jobs” that were lost. I realize the situation for those people is tough – they got into manufacturing when they were young, were often paid well beyond their skill level because of union contracts that ultimately cost them their job when the company was forced to look for cheaper labor elsewhere. Now they still don’t have any skills and no prospects. The world changed while they weren’t paying attention. They were lured into Bama’s slick presentation with the promise of “shovel-ready jobs” but no such thing materialized, despite a trillion dollars worth of wasted idealism.
So now what? It seems highly likely that unemployment will remain around 10% for the foreseeable future. My guess is it will be a generation before we see unemployment back down to 5% like it was during the Bush years. Two things must happen. First, businesses must regain faith that the government will not punish them for success. “Cap And Trade” would be another devastating blow to private sector industry, and must be defeated. It is obvious now that we can either have extreme environmentalism or we can have a prosperous economy, but not both, at least no right now. Obama’s promise to create 5 million new clean energy jobs could still happen, but at the cost of countless jobs lost to layoffs as companies look to cover the higher energy costs. We can move in that direction, but it cannot happen overnight. Increasing government regulation as a knee-jerk reaction to the Bank failures and the mortgage debacle will only hinder company’s attempts to access new revenue streams. The trade war the Democrats are instigating with China will further impact an already massive trade imbalance. And liberal’s continued attacks on CEO salaries and their vilification of corporations has and will continue to result in trepidation or outright unwillingness to expand into markets that are openly hostile to their very existence. Liberalism and its extensions are the root of the demise of capitalism, and they are starting to own up to the fact that they like it that way. Until American voters restore sanity to the political force of the economy it will continue to sputter.
The second requirement is that Americans must become better educated, and I don’t necessarily mean college. In today’s workforce it is much more valuable to be specialized and then find a job that applies that focus than to fumble around with a Liberal Arts degree. Technical colleges will become the primary avenue from which the next generation of workers achieves a functional education. Those who fail to continue education will have limited value in the economy going forward. Those “good jobs” of the past have no relevance, and attempts by unions and Democrats to cling to them for purely political reasons is a drain against the producers of wealth.
“Shovel-ready”, “Hope and Change”. America was sold on meaningless slogans. Obama is nothing more than a catch-phrase comic, with his presidency as the punch line and American liberties as the butt of every joke. Until we get these jokers out of power and then take it upon ourselves to increase our individual value in a competitive global economy collectively we will continue to tread water. On the other hand, for those of us that do choose to better ourselves we should have an easier go of it compared to those that don’t. My friend’s success is proof of that.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Liberals vs. The Truth: A Timeless Matchup
I was going to post last week Friday on the Chamber of Commerce flap, but was too busy, and now I'm glad I waited, because in just 2 days the thing has exploded. In case you don't know, ultra-liberal think tank "Think Progress" accused the Chamber of Commerce of backing political ads favoring Republicans with foreign contributions, which would be illegal, if it were true.
First of all, when I say ultra-liberal, I mean it. "Think Progress" is so far to the left they accuse NPR pundit Juan Williams of being a conservative. I won't link to their garbage website. If you want to read that kind of nonsense just Google it. It's enough to say that "Think Progress" and Democrat Underground occupy the same space on the ideological spectrum.
So they made this charge, without any evidence whatsoever, and now the President of the United States is reciting it as fact. On Friday, NPR did a report on this - is there anyone who doesn't think NPR is part of the media arm of the Democrat party? Anyway, they played a single quote from the "Think Progress" cartell: "We simply don't know where the money comes from."
Ok, so does that mean because you don't know, then it must come from foreign entities? Isn't it also true that if you don't know then you have no evidence and your claim is baseless. On the website, "Think Progress" cites as fact that the Chamber solicits foreign donations and also has not refuted the claim. Well they must be guilty! Obviously, that case is good enough for Bama to go around blabbing like he has a fucking clue about it.
Not suspiciously absent is any kind of real journalism to get to the truth, because the media already knows what it will find, and would prefer to simply refer to the "Think Progress" claim as the news story while letting the prospect of illegality linger. That meets their journalistic standard just fine. This is a tired and desperate old Democrat strategy, and as long as the "Free Press" is comprised 90% of rank-and-file Democrats they will never challenge this kind of bullshit, even from the President.
Say, you know who did take foreign contributions? Bill and Hillary Clinton! Remember when they sold US missle technology secrets to the Chinese for cash?
I'd like to take this opportunity to make some claims of my own. First, Barack Obama was secretly in league with Saddam Hussein, and it's very likely that Obama knows where the WMDs are hidden and may have even tipped Saddam off. I cite as evidence the fact that they share a the name Hussein. This is irrefutable, and it is now Obama's responsibility to prove otherwise!
Second, I charge that "Think Progress" is itself fronted by foreign money, namely the Russians and Iranians, and it is there secret mission to destabilize the Republic of the United States, and I challenge them to prove themselves to the contrary! Btw, I think this might actually be true. Ha!
That's a good start, now if someone would just help spread the truth!
First of all, when I say ultra-liberal, I mean it. "Think Progress" is so far to the left they accuse NPR pundit Juan Williams of being a conservative. I won't link to their garbage website. If you want to read that kind of nonsense just Google it. It's enough to say that "Think Progress" and Democrat Underground occupy the same space on the ideological spectrum.
So they made this charge, without any evidence whatsoever, and now the President of the United States is reciting it as fact. On Friday, NPR did a report on this - is there anyone who doesn't think NPR is part of the media arm of the Democrat party? Anyway, they played a single quote from the "Think Progress" cartell: "We simply don't know where the money comes from."
Ok, so does that mean because you don't know, then it must come from foreign entities? Isn't it also true that if you don't know then you have no evidence and your claim is baseless. On the website, "Think Progress" cites as fact that the Chamber solicits foreign donations and also has not refuted the claim. Well they must be guilty! Obviously, that case is good enough for Bama to go around blabbing like he has a fucking clue about it.
Not suspiciously absent is any kind of real journalism to get to the truth, because the media already knows what it will find, and would prefer to simply refer to the "Think Progress" claim as the news story while letting the prospect of illegality linger. That meets their journalistic standard just fine. This is a tired and desperate old Democrat strategy, and as long as the "Free Press" is comprised 90% of rank-and-file Democrats they will never challenge this kind of bullshit, even from the President.
Say, you know who did take foreign contributions? Bill and Hillary Clinton! Remember when they sold US missle technology secrets to the Chinese for cash?
I'd like to take this opportunity to make some claims of my own. First, Barack Obama was secretly in league with Saddam Hussein, and it's very likely that Obama knows where the WMDs are hidden and may have even tipped Saddam off. I cite as evidence the fact that they share a the name Hussein. This is irrefutable, and it is now Obama's responsibility to prove otherwise!
Second, I charge that "Think Progress" is itself fronted by foreign money, namely the Russians and Iranians, and it is there secret mission to destabilize the Republic of the United States, and I challenge them to prove themselves to the contrary! Btw, I think this might actually be true. Ha!
That's a good start, now if someone would just help spread the truth!
Friday, October 8, 2010
Just Pay With Food Stamps
Recently Congressional Democrats and Obama have touted their spending blitzes for schools and Medicare as being “paid for.” They’ve “paid for” these bills with future deductions in the Food Stamps program. As long as you’re not a liberal, you might wonder, “How do they pay for a program today with money from the future?”
Here’s how it works. Food stamps is a huge social program that expands or contracts based on need. If a person meets the criteria, they get food stamps, otherwise they don’t. Pretty simple. As the program exists, Democrats do not have the ability to deny food stamps to those who meet the requirements. They wouldn’t do that anyway, but they couldn’t if they wanted. Right now, with the economy trudging sluggishly amid the pitfalls of liberal economic policy, food stamp usage is at an all time high. All Bama and his cronies are doing is betting that by the time the bill comes due, food stamp demand will have diminished to the point where the difference covers the government’s financial obligations. Essentially, the government has written an IOU to itself today with the expectation that tomorrow’s food stamp program is costs that much less than it does today. Given Bama’s economic track record so far, I’d say that’s a gamble.
What should upset taxpayers about this is that if the cost of the food stamp program decreases, it doesn’t matter, the savings is already spent, and for something nobody remembers that happened years ago, and for dubious reasons. And if the cost of the food stamp program does not decrease, then we have to incur additional debt to cover the IOU. Either way we lose!
Just another lesson in fiscal discipline from Bama and the Democrats!
Here’s how it works. Food stamps is a huge social program that expands or contracts based on need. If a person meets the criteria, they get food stamps, otherwise they don’t. Pretty simple. As the program exists, Democrats do not have the ability to deny food stamps to those who meet the requirements. They wouldn’t do that anyway, but they couldn’t if they wanted. Right now, with the economy trudging sluggishly amid the pitfalls of liberal economic policy, food stamp usage is at an all time high. All Bama and his cronies are doing is betting that by the time the bill comes due, food stamp demand will have diminished to the point where the difference covers the government’s financial obligations. Essentially, the government has written an IOU to itself today with the expectation that tomorrow’s food stamp program is costs that much less than it does today. Given Bama’s economic track record so far, I’d say that’s a gamble.
What should upset taxpayers about this is that if the cost of the food stamp program decreases, it doesn’t matter, the savings is already spent, and for something nobody remembers that happened years ago, and for dubious reasons. And if the cost of the food stamp program does not decrease, then we have to incur additional debt to cover the IOU. Either way we lose!
Just another lesson in fiscal discipline from Bama and the Democrats!
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