Just Trying To Help

Thanks to the Democrats the recession is officially over!

Barack Obama could not have been more pleased to announce the “welcome news” that the latest report from the Commerce Department showed a respectable 3.5% growth in the countries third quarter GDP. Obama gleefully reported that this growth is “an affirmation that this recession is abating and the steps we’ve taken have made a difference.”

To be sure, 3.5% growth, the first growth since the second quarter of 2008, is a welcome change from the previous declines and under most circumstances would be cause for celebration. But a closer look at the numbers reveals just how cooked these books really are.

The GDP gain was mainly driven by an increase in consumer spending. Just about two thirds of the overall growth is attributable to the 3.4% rise in consumer spending versus the nearly 1% drop in the previous quarter. Most of that additional spending is related to the temporary increase in new car sales driven by the Cash for Clunkers program. The core inflation index slid from 2.0% in the previous quarter down to 1.4% indicating otherwise lackluster spending causing downward pricing pressure.

As Cash for Clunkers was a onetime program that added no new jobs and only stimulated a short burst of new spending the celebration currently being enjoyed by Obama and his minions in Congress will be short-lived indeed. That is of course unless the spend-happy Democrats are able to find some other suitable programs to artificially inflate the numbers.

As I am known far and wide as being a helpful kinda guy I have taken it upon myself to come up with some suggestions for the Democrats to consider. How about:

Dollars for Dog Fighting – As Rush Limbaugh will not be allowed to be even a minority owner of an NFL football team because of his conservative views, and as Michael Vick was welcomed back into the NFL after having been convicted of feloniously supporting a hideously cruel dog fighting ring, one can only draw the conclusion that dog fighting is a more acceptable past time than being conservative. As such, the government could get in on the new burgeoning market of allowing two dogs, which have been brutally abused since birth, to fight to the death by supporting the development of new and improved dog fighting techniques.

Funds for Felons – Forget about spending all that money on law enforcement trying to catch criminals after the fact by sending those who are considering major crimes a check before they break the law. Most offenders will be sated, at least until the money runs out, and therefore crime figures will be decreased allowing cities and towns to reduce their police forces. I am certain that this program could be easily sold to the public by showing how it will pay for itself in reduced police expense, overtime for all that nasty paperwork and court costs.

Denaros for Deadbeat Dads – Here is an opportunity to help one of the most misunderstood poverty groups in America. It is obvious that these poor runaway fathers don’t have the funds to support their children. Otherwise they would send their child support checks, right? This money will also help to stimulate the liquor and cheap hotel markets.

Money for Marijuana and Meth – Let’s be honest. No matter what, folks are going to do dope. Just ask any high school guidance counselor. This program, along with Funds for Felons, will help to further reduce crime by giving pot heads the necessary funds to not only buy their dope but also Twinkies, Oreos and in the case of the meth users, much needed dental implants.

Bucks for Big Screens – Seeing as the government obviously views watching television as an inalienable right through the free digital converter box program, would it not also be a right to view it on a big honking plasma screen TV. What’s the sense of having digital transmission if you have to watch it on a little screen? This will not only be a benefit to the big box appliance stores but will also be a direct benefit to Barack Obama as his voting base will be able to see him more clearly during his near-daily infomercials.

Currency for Coffee – Hey, at 4 bucks plus a cup if the government doesn’t step in soon with some support some of the 15 to 20 million barista’s currently pouring coffee in America could be forced to look for new careers.

Tender for Toddlers – No this isn’t a program where people actually sell their babies (although that may become an amendment at some point down the line). This would be a program where the government would begin sending welfare checks to people from the moment they are born. Why wait until they drop out of school and begin to have kids of their own. This way those who are hopelessly trapped in the liberal slavery of welfare can get used to waiting for the mailman for their support as soon as they are able to see out the window.

Cash for Condoms – This program speaks for itself. It is the very definition of a “stimulus” program and will certainly help see us through the hard times.

Well, those are just a few of my ideas. I hope they help.

The Times They Are A'Changing

My oh my, how times have changed.

It seems like only yesterday that the Democrats and their faithful lapdog counterparts in the news media were lambasting President Bush for inciting the Taliban and Al Qaeda to violence. Almost every move the president made and every word the president uttered was dissected and analyzed for its negative impact on America’s enemies.

If Bush said “Bring it on”, he was described as a cowboy who put our troops on the battlefield in even greater peril by stirring an already very dangerous pot. If he suggested inclusion of former members of Al Qaeda who had not committed violent acts against our troops he was damned for being passive and putting our troops in danger by inciting our enemy through weakness. Democrats stood on the sidelines and played Monday morning quarterback after each and every press conference or directive. The now infamous position John Kerry took during the presidential debates of being against something before he was for it before he was against it became the order of the day for the entire Democrat Party.

It was a much simpler time to be a Democrat when all you had to do was oppose. It was also a much simpler time for the blatantly liberal news media when the only tool they needed to deal with then President Bush was a hammer and the only reporting they needed to provide on Barack Obama was the worldwide Hope and Change he would bring. Flash forward to today and it gets much more complicated.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was noticeable by her absence at the latest summit meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai regarding the recent Afghan elections with its alleged claims of vote fraud and corruption. In her place was US Senator John Kerry representing the United States. Constitutionally a US senator has no authority to represent the entire country in matters of foreign affairs, that is the constitutional task of the Secretary of State under the direction of the president. Barack Obama said he had nothing to do with it. But there stood Kerry with no sign of Clinton. You figure it out.

Now just three hours after Clinton arrives in Pakistan the Taliban blows up over a hundred innocent people. Clinton’s immediate reaction is to call them “cowardly”. A woman who is also an official of the US government, calling Muslim terrorists cowards and the press makes no mention of possible incitement.

October has been the deadliest month in years for our brave troops in Afghanistan. It also just happens to be the month Barack Obama has made a spectacle of his inability to give our troops the desperately needed support requested by General McChrystal. The press remains mum on that point too.

Barack Obama addresses airman at a military base in Florida making a solemn pledge to not send them into harms way without a firm strategy in place. The press gleefully reports on the speech but fails to mention that we already have tens of thousands of America’s finest in harms way who are just waiting for some backup.

At the same time car bombs planted by Al Qaeda in Iraq kill hundreds of innocent shoppers. Does the press even ask if this could have anything to do with the weakness shown by a president more interested in political damage than military of civilian lives? Nope, not a word.

The sad truth is that if the Taliban and Al Qaeda want to get this pacifist president to take action they will have to go to work for Fox News.

Maybe then the mainstream media will give it some coverage.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Sometimes it’s better to just let them do my talking for me.

I can talk until I’m blue in the face about the Democrat’s desire to keep their base dependent, and how they truly believe that the voting public is incapable of cognitive thought. I can draw examples and comparisons showing conclusively how the liberal Democrats currently in control of both Houses of Congress and the White House are blatantly driving the country toward socialism and away from the very principles upon which America was founded. But all my efforts, as well prepared and convincing as they may be, pale by comparison to a short news conference with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Speaker Pelosi made it clear that she and her Democrat counterparts are convinced that Americans are so stupid that she can even tell us how they plan to deceive us and we still won’t be able to figure it out.

While making one of the few public statements regarding the closed door Democrat ramrod healthcare proposals Speaker Pelosi said that American families “shouldn’t be left on their own ‘to negotiate with insurance companies”. The only solution for this problem of limited personal mental ability is the inclusion of the “public option” government run health insurance into the ObamaCare healthcare package. However, because the public option is so publicly unpopular Speaker Pelosi said it should be renamed. Not refined, re-explained or reversed, simply renamed. She went on to suggest it now be called the “consumer option”. Well, that certainly clears things up for me. As long as it’s a consumer program and not a public program I’m on board. NOT!

It is important to understand exactly what the Speaker is saying.

First, Americans are incapable of handling their own private family affairs. We are too stupid to make a decision as important as which company we will choose to carry our health insurance and what we are willing to, and more importantly, capable of paying for it. We are not qualified to figure out which plan best suits our needs or which coverage options we should buy for ourselves and our families. We simply cannot be left on our own and therefore we need to become dependent on the government to tell us what we want.

Secondly, because many of us understand the nightmare that government run health insurance would bring and vehemently oppose losing our rights to make our own healthcare choices Democrats are prepared to simply trick us into support by calling the untenable plan by a different name. Plus, Speaker Pelosi made it clear that they think we are so stupid that even after they tell us how they plan to trick us we will still want to go along.

The arrogance of this Speaker to tell Americans that they cannot be left alone to make their own healthcare choices is so profound as to be almost unbelievable. In fact, had this piece of the socialist pie been leaked from one of the many closed door meetings it surely would have been denied.

But thanks to Speaker Pelosi’s pubic admission of her adamant belief in and reliance upon American stupidity no such denial will be plausible. That is not to say that it won’t be tried. Already Democrats fearful of being handed their walking papers in the mid-term elections are trying to spin the Speakers comments into something less offensive. Their success in this endeavor is entirely dependent on whether or not Speaker Pelosi is correct.

Are we in fact really that stupid?

The Fabricated Flu Frenzy

Welcome to a political opportunity of, well, pandemic proportions.

For those of us lucky enough to have dodged the bullet of “bird flu” a couple of years ago we are now faced with an even bigger plague of national destruction; the H1N1 media flu, I mean the H1N1 swine flu. This runny nosed nuisance is almost custom made for a political party in peril.

Just days after taking the oval office Barack Obama earmarked a billion dollars to fight the onset of what was gleefully forecasted by the media as an illness so profound that it could end life as we know it on the planet. Ten months later we are just beginning to receive the life saving serum specifically designed to thwart the disease.

News outlets are relentless in their daily updates of new case reports and the rising death toll attributed to the epidemic. At last count 1000 deaths have been attributed to the H1N1 virus in America so far this year. That certainly sounds ominous, right?

While the number of deaths may in fact be true, there are some other factoids that have been conveniently omitted from the reports. Like the fact that in that same time period 30,000 people have died of flu that was not the H1N1 strain. And by historic comparatives, those numbers mean we are experiencing a perfectly normal flu season.

What the media is failing to report is that every year in America 40,000 people die of generic influenza. Normally those who succumb to the flu are those particularly vulnerable like the very young, the very old and those with already diminished health. But historic statistics show that every year not all who die from the flu are in those most susceptible categories. Some are perfectly healthy who get the flu so serve that for any number of reasons they die. Tragic, yes. Unusual, unfortunately no.

During the “bird flu” scare a few years ago the country was told by the media medical talking heads to brace for a devastating flu season. Much blame was heaped on then President Bush for not being prepared to deal with this oncoming pandemic. We were told that while we had flu shots, the serum was for the wrong kind of flu strain and would likely not be effective against this budding bird borne blight. Some way, somehow we survived. And without even so much as a blip in the normal flu season mortality rate.

Bush was lax in any attempt to make political hay from this forecasted endemic disaster; Obama will not allow this opportunity to pass him likewise.

More than the billions of dollars in worldwide spending on appropriate antibodies, there is plenty of political capital to be made by averting the forecasted doom. The H1N1 flu has been a political tetherball since it first hit the newswires. Originally called the Mexican Swine Flu the name was changed to just Swine Flu once the Mexican government complained. Further complaints from pork producer’s associations had the named once again politically corrected to the scientific Nam de Plume H1N1.

Much like Nancy Pelosi’s ridiculous supposition that the non-stimulating stimulus passed by Congress is keeping the recession from being worse, the same approach will be taken with this media mania regarding H1N1. The fact that 30 times as many people have died from non-H1N1 related influenza, even before the proper antibodies hit the market, will likely never be mentioned. Only that the Messiah has saved the country a much worse fate than would have otherwise befallen us. There is, of course, no way to prove or disprove the hypothesis of Obamian intervention so it will be ladled out for mass consumption like momma’s chicken soup. The fact that most who do get the H1N1 brand of flu will recover with no extraordinary medical intervention will also be glaringly apparent by its omission from the discussion.

When it comes to the campaign happy Obama administration no opportunity is too small to take credit. Especially when everything else they have done has only made the situation worse.

It really is enough to make you sick.

The Ying And Yang Of Gang

It’s a tale of two cities.

Well, actually it’s just one city with two examples of what seems to be an unsolvable problem.

In one case, parents of students at the now infamous Fenger High School are planning to boycott the school by keeping their children home to protest what they see as a lack of security against gang violence. In the other, 6 black college students from St. Louis are threatening action against a locally famous bar for refusing to allow them entry because of what they claim is racial discrimination.

At Fenger parents are claiming the Chicago Public School Board and the Chicago Police are not doing enough to keep their children safe. It was outside Fenger that honor roll student Derrion Albert was brutally beaten to death by gang members wielding 2 X 4’s. The fatal beating was caught on video by one of the many witnesses who stood by and watched. A number of Fenger students have been charged with the murder and police are continuing their investigation. This past week 5 more students were arrested for fighting inside Fenger. The brawls are part of the “turf war” between local gang members and those from a nearby housing project.

Chicago’s black community is rife with gang activity. Parents of students who just want an education have every right to be fearful, but what they hope to accomplish by this proposed boycott is unclear. The problem is with the gang bangers not the school. The only possible solution from a police standpoint is to have armed police officers roaming the hallways of the school. This would pull them off their duties outside the high school and would only serve to increase tensions and crime rates on the street. It would also most certainly cause local community activists to portray the police in school as an abuse of power and a violation of the student’s constitutional rights of free assembly. Chicago has already tried to institute action against groups of 2 or more gang members gathering on the street only to have it struck down as unconstitutional by the courts.

The incident at Mother’s bar in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood involved 6 black college students who were not allowed inside by security because of their gang related attire. The 6 wore baggy pants and had their caps on backwards. While this is seen in the suburbs as a fashion statement it is understood in urban areas as a sign of gang affiliation. The manager of the bar was inclined to allow them inside until the 6 backed him into a corner with aggressive behavior and shouting. At that point any hope for resolution was lost and the students were forced to leave. They claim that they traded clothes with some white friends who were allowed entry and are making that their basis for claims of racial discrimination.

So police and private security can do nothing if you associate with gang bangers, dress like a gang banger and even admit to being one. But let gang bangers do what they do and then these same security and police forces are at fault for not doing enough to stop him. How do you win that?

Police can arrest the perpetrators of violence after the fact, but they are legally limited in how much they can proactively do to prevent it. The bulk of that responsibility for action lies within the black community. The community, led by their vocalists (they are far more vocal than active), is quick to complain about too much or too little action being taken, but the only action that will make a meaningful difference must come from within the community.

The greatest threat to a member of the black community is from another member of the black community. Not the police, not security guards and not racism.

Change the attitude in the community, or change the law so police have legal authority to be proactive, or get used to it.

Don't Ask Don't Think

Before we begin the deluge of e mails accusing me of being a homophobe let me assure you I have no fear, either conscious or subconscious, of homosexuals.

What I fear is a Commander in Chief who believes it is a good idea to increase the ranks of our all volunteer military with homosexual enlistees and to allow those already inducted to display their deviant sexuality publicly.

There have probably been homosexual military patriots in the US military for as long as the US has had a military. Many have served with honor and many have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I salute every single man and woman, regardless of their sexuality, who has served our country in the military and given of themselves for the greater good of the nation.

The very reason homosexuals have been able to serve and succeed in the rigorous life of the military is in large part because it has not been acceptable for them to publicly display their homosexuality. Not that all would want to. My guess is that even with this proposed presidential game-changer many homosexual’s in the military will continue to remain in the security of leaving their private life private.

But in the spirit of political correctness this community activist qua Supreme Commander has announced his intentions to end the current military policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”. This misguided idea of equality will likely have a profound impact on the future of our nation’s security forces.

It was no secret that for years the female forces in the military were largely made up of more manly women than feminine flowers. That balance has shifted a bit with the push for female equality and certainly not all women in uniform were attracted to other women. But to deny the sizable portion that were would be to reject the obvious history of our female forces. Most males who have served can also attest to the fact that there were always a few brothers in arms that may have had questionable sexual preference. I’m certain other homosexual’s knew, but as long as acceptance of their, what is absurdly called “alternative lifestyle”, was not forced onto the military population at large it remained for the most part a non-issue.

That is all about to change with the stroke of a presidential pen, when once again Barack Obama inflicts his idea of Change without giving proper weight to the negative effects.

Military service requires sacrifice and dedication, of which both homosexual and heterosexual military personnel are equally capable of giving. But it also requires a close sense of fellowship with those who serve with you. Having openly homosexual members in a military unit will destroy that close bond so necessary for success under the most grueling and dangerous conditions. The long honored celebration of a military homecoming with families gathered to welcome their heroes’ home would be forever changed when you consider the possibility of allowing openly homosexual displays of affection. And what of the families living in base housing units? Shipping off for a tour overseas is hard enough without having to leave your family in base housing with openly homosexual couples. While many homosexual members would not participate in the over the top exhibitions so common at every gay rights rally or gay pride parade, the fact that there would be no way to stop it means that there would be those who would, if for no other reason than to prove they can. Forcing military families to live with openly homosexual couples will do nothing to increase tolerance and if anything cause a rebellious backlash. While the president claims the need to keep qualified homosexuals in the military, this mandate for acceptance of this deviant sexual lifestyle would cause many more heterosexuals to leave.

When it comes to giving our troops on the battlefield In Afghanistan the necessary forces to save lives and succeed at their mission we have a president that can’t make a decision. But when it comes to forcing what for many is an unacceptable breach to their personal and religious moral code we have a president that is all too eager to do so at any cost.

Our military deserves better and so do their families.

Understanding Change

It’s all just a matter of understanding……or is it?

I have been told on more than one occasion that the reason I am so firm in my conservative beliefs is that I just don’t understand. If I would merely approach things with an open mind I would see the sense in what I currently view as senseless and understand that which now leaves me scratching my head.

I freely admit that there are certainly more things on this planet that I do not understand than things I do. Many of them I enjoy in my daily life without much consternation as to the how and why. For instance, I don’t know how they get a movie onto a DVD or how the player reads it and puts the picture on my TV, or how computer code flies through the air and allows my computer to hook into the World Wide Web without wires, which is not surprising seeing as I didn’t understand how it did it with the wires and that crazy beeping noise either. Even mundane issues like how they get the toilet paper so neatly onto the roll escape me. But my lack of understanding of those and countless other subjects do not keep me awake at night.

There are however, some issues that do.

I don’t understand how only those who get their hands dirty are considered to have worked for a living. Or, according to the Obama administration, how union members are entitled to be given ownership shares of the automaker they work for, with no financial investment and a bank president who has worked the entire year, through the toughest conditions since the 1940’s, is informed that he is entitled to nothing at all for 2009.

I don’t understand how those who found, own or run a business are viewed as just lucky and worthy targets of intensified government scrutiny and penalization through increased taxation, while those who work for them, who have a job solely because somebody else worked to create the business, are somehow victims.

I don’t understand how a Commander in Chief could be so concerned about the rights of our sworn enemies that he signed a decree closing the Guantanamo Bay Detention facility within days of taking office without a clue as to what would be done with the detainees, but when it comes to reinforcing our military people already on the battlefield in Afghanistan it takes weeks and possibly months of politically focused meetings for him to make a decision. This even after his handpicked advisor laid out the military strategies for him and the ramifications of inaction.

I don’t understand how we can spend our way out of debt or how sending senior citizen’s checks for $250 when the cost of living went down is fair to those who will eventually have to foot the bill.

I don’t understand how it could be a good idea to legalize marijuana but yet it remains a criminal offense to sell food cooked in trans fats. Am I to believe that the carcinogenic smoke and mind altering THC in pot is less dangerous than a McDonald’s French fry?

I don’t understand how we continue to claim the need for new oppressive taxes in every conceivable area to institute economic recovery when Asia is leading the world’s economies in recovery with 9% annual growth, without doing the same.

I don’t understand how increasing health insurance costs or burying healthcare providers under reams of government paperwork while reducing their payments will improve healthcare. Nor do I understand how we will get a handle on unrealistic malpractice settlements by removing them from the court system but creating government installed panels in their place.

As I said, I freely admit that there are many things I don’t understand. But I fear that in order for me to understand these illustrations and many more like it from the Obama administration I would have to adapt the Jack Nicholson line from “As Good As It Gets”.

First I think like I do now, then I take away all reason and accountability.

Absence Of Evidence

And now, Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrre’s Ricky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can hear Doc Severinsen and the boys in the band striking up that familiar theme song now.

Hurricane Rick is stalking off the coast of Mexico and climatologists are dusting off their hurricane preparedness pamphlets for what will likely turn out to be yet another dud. To be sure old Rick is kicking up some serious surf right now as a category 5 hurricane, the strongest storm to hit the Pacific in ten years. But it is also predicted to be a nothing more than a soaking rain storm by the time it reaches the Baja Peninsula area later this week.

As I read the news reports about Hurricane Rick it gave me pause. It seems as this year’s hurricane season draws to a close we have once again missed the destructive doom forecast by the global warming crowd. If the near obliteration of mankind that was so ominously predicted 5 years ago is going to take place in the 10 years it was envisioned, it had better get its devastating butt in gear.

The only real change that has transpired in this countdown to doomsday is a subtle but important name change. What started out as manmade global warming and later simply became global warming is now referred to in the more politically correct phraseology of climate change.

The problem with the whole manmade global warming aka climate change theory took shape as institutes of higher learning began to battle each other for the most portentous forecast of catastrophic destruction in an attempt to garner a greater share of the government grant pie. There was no money to be made in an honest appraisal or in investigating other possibilities for what will continue to be proven as temporary anomalies. Corporations were quickly incorporated and savvy politicians like Al Gore invested huge amounts of face time as well as sizable amounts of their own personal wealth to exploit what would become the greatest hoax since Nero blamed the Christians for the great fire of Rome.

Any scientist who dared to challenge the less than scientific science that was predicting these worrisome results were ostracized from the brotherhood and branded as a tool of big business. The same fate awaited any politician or even private citizen who questioned the veracity of the results. It was of course to the benefit of the big business being set up to capitalize on the global warming scare to make sure that no reasonable facts were ever introduced that would muddy the swirling tempest they were creating. And with the news media soundly in their side, that is exactly what they did.

The reason the urgency for proposed immediate action was so intense was so that legislation could be passed and huge sums of money could be set aside before the lack of death and destruction became an issue. Make no mistake about it; had the billions that were proposed been spent 5 years ago, the lack of devastating hurricanes again this year would have been credited to that spending. Not unlike Nancy Pelosi claiming the near trillion dollar non-stimulating stimulus spending has had an enormously positive impact on an economy that is in much worse shape than the climate.

Climate data for the last 10 years shows conclusively that global warming is not global. Extended data from a longer time period shows that climate change is in fact normal and for the most part cyclical.

As congress begins to wrap up its legislation on the non-crisis in healthcare and take up the non-crisis of global warming with Obama’s cap and tax legislation I wonder just how bad the economy has to get before folks start getting a little more rebellious about their representatives focus.

As for me, I’ll be donning the heavy winter parka I have had to wear since the beginning of October because of near freezing temperatures as I go to stand in the bread line.

$250 Per Vote

I keep waiting for someone to say “April Fools”.

Unfortunately the fools perpetrating this virulent assault on common sense are not confining themselves to a single month. No, this complete disregard for reality has marched steadily through the halls of Congress for the past 9 months and from all appearances will continue its disastrous trek unabated with guiding support of a president who obviously has no grasp of economic reality.

The latest attempt at redefining ridiculous is the Obama administration’s call for Congress to approve a special $250 payment to all seniors on Social Security. $250 may seem like a paltry sum to get upset about, but when you multiply this 2010 midterm election vote incentive by 50 million Social Security recipients it becomes a much more ominous total at just shy of $13 billion. The insanity driving this madness is so profound that I fear some form of medication may be in order.

By the rules that govern Social Security payments seniors will not be entitled to a cost of living increase this year. AARP CEO A. Barry Rand said, "For nearly 35 years, millions of Americans have counted on an annual increase in their monthly Social Security checks to make ends meet." With idiotic statements like that I can only assume what the A. stands for.

The problem with A. Barry’s statement is that in 2008 seniors received the largest percentage increase in their Social Security COLA since 1982. That 5.8% increase was driven largely by skyrocketing energy prices. Inflation figures this year have turned negative thanks to the equally dramatic reduction in energy costs. By law Social Security payments cannot be decreased, but taking last year’s increase versus this year’s negative inflation into consideration seniors are already money ahead.

Sure it’s nice to get free money and there will be a plethora of camera hungry Democrats and their supporters like AARP’s A. Barry Reid to say that seniors “deserve” this money to help offset other expenses. But the money isn’t free and it isn’t being given to help offset anything but negative poll numbers for the 2010 election.

Democrats know they are in hot water for the $1.4 trillion national debt they have amassed thus far with absolutely no positive impact on the economy. They also know that Republicans will resist this attempt at bestowing yet another stipend of Obama Money and further increasing the already untenable deficit. What better way to attempt to get back into the good graces of 50 million senior citizen voters than to send them more “free money”.

Seniors, for the most part, are only looking at their entitlement and will not look at the overall impact this senseless spending will have. Very few will even attempt to understand the ever tightening choke hold this exponentially expanding debt will place on their grandchildren and great grandchildren and beyond.

This use of the national checkbook to garner favorable results in the midterm elections borders on a criminal abuse of power. While it may prove to be a defining moment, Republicans must expose this sham for what it is and oppose it at all costs.

While the country languishes in the abyss of a near economic depression, NASA spends millions to hit the moon with rocket ships. While the streets of our major cities are strewn with the lifeless victims of gang warfare our government sends hundreds of millions to countries like Ireland to help keep the peace in their streets. And while millions of able bodied Americans continue to struggle to find employment in an economy that is forecast to remain inhospitable for at least the next 12 months our Democrat led Congress and community activist President wants to add even more to the debt by sending bribes to the elderly.

Social Security is scheduled to pay out more this year and next then they will be taking in thanks to the huge increase in unemployment. If the President and Congress truly want to help seniors they need to focus on that issue rather than continuing to inflate the debt and delay the recovery.

I would say that the Democrats are spending like drunken sailors, but drunken sailors spend their own money.

CNBC - Buy The Book

Just in time for holiday gift giving, a new and improved history.

As someone who tracks the financial markets I have been a fairly faithful watcher of CNBC. While I wouldn’t trust the parent company NBC for the correct time, I have found that CNBC has a pretty good group of correspondents that keep abreast of breaking news. They also have some pretty talented traders and hedge fund managers that can spot trends and make recommendations.

To be sure, most of these learned market gurus missed the credit collapse and the devastating impact it had on all things financial. But when looking at the recent past, everyone, including the Icon from Omaha, Warren Buffet missed the signs of impending doom. CNBC’s madman commentator Jim Cramer unjustly took it in the chin from Barack Obama to the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart and all points in between.

The sad fact is that almost everybody missed the warning signs because the collapse of the worldwide financial markets was as a result of a new set of rules. Congress changed the credit markets when it mandated home mortgages be given to folks who could not pay them back. Wall Street jumped on board with both feet looking to do what Wall Street does, make a buck. But reality has a way of trumping even the best of intentions and trillions of dollars of wealth were lost in a rapid decline of the market and an equally rapid disintegration of available credit.

CNBC’s David Faber was one of the first to publish a book about the collapse in his detailed account of Wall Street’s failings titled “And Then the Roof Caved In”. Faber’s book gives a detailed explanation of the various financial and investment tools developed and used to make money during the galactic expansion of the residential mortgage market. He explains the packaging and repackaging of mortgage backed securities and the devastating impact felt by investors worldwide when their AAA rated securities turned into junk bonds. He was however, extremely careful to absolve the US Congress and then President Bill Clinton of any blame for the genesis of this financial hysteria. I can begrudgingly overlook the blatant partisanship of Faber’s book out of appreciation for the worthy information contained about the financial packages. But history was at least tampered with in his non-factual assessment of responsibility.

But now CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino comes out with his new book “The Sellout”. It’s not new for Gasparino to come out with additional income earning books, this one being his third. But much like Faber, Gasparino’s political leanings are in full view in his less than impartial reasoning. It is also not that I mind CG writing any kind of book he wants and making a few extra bucks, but his liberal leaning is becoming more apparent during his on air discussions in what I can only surmise is an attempt to increase book sales.

During an on air interview Gasparino lit into the upcoming quarterly report of Goldman Sachs. Goldman is expected to announce a hugely profitable quarter and therefore some very hefty bonuses for those responsible for making it happen. Gasparino repeatedly damned the success and planned bonuses at Goldman fallaciously claiming they had just been bailed out by the taxpayers. “I don’t care what anybody says. They got bailed out” he said.

The facts are that Goldman neither wanted nor needed the $10 billion given to them in TARP funds. They resisted at every level until Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made it clear that everyone had to participate so as not to draw undue attention to those that actually needed the money. He also made it clear that this was NOT a voluntary program. Goldman took the money, held it and returned it as soon as the government would allow them to do so. Those are the facts.

Gasparino began to get into areas like the benefit Goldman experienced from the AIG bailout, which while true, was not done for the purpose of benefitting Goldman but rather to save the few trillion in pension funds AIG managed.

Goldman suggested they may give a portion of their earnings to a charitable organization, but even that was not enough to placate Gasparino. It was remarkably apparent that Charlie was looking to make a point and equally apparent he was looking to sell a few books and rewrite history.

This is an extremely dangerous precedent being set and plays directly into the hands of those that are looking to rewrite history and have us believe that everything Wall Street is evil and we are the poor victims of unbridled greed. I watch CNBC for news and informed commentary, not a political talking point and an infomercial about a new book.

At least I did.

Fox News Business Channel is getting a lot more of my attention.

PS – As I write this Goldman Sachs stock is hitting a new 52 week high. Nice try Charlie.

Rama Jama Limbaugh

“He has made his wealth appealing to the fears of whites”

With that comment and a bevy of other incendiary statements the good Reverend Jesse Jackson has thrown down the gauntlet in his battle to keep Rush Limbaugh from ownership of an NFL franchise. Jackson is joined in his efforts by the Tweedledum to his Tweedledee, the right Reverend Al Sharpton.

Limbaugh is looking to partner with the St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checkettes to buy the hapless St. Louis Rams football team. Limbaugh has the dough and Checkettes involvement in St. Louis sports should boost fan support by reducing (but certainly not eliminating) the possibility of moving the franchise to another city. Limbaugh is a Missouri native growing up a hundred miles down the road from St. Louis in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He is also a football fanatic and a remarkably successful businessman. Checkettes is a major league sports veteran having been the youngest chief executive in the history of the NBA after he was named president and general manager of the Utah Jazz at the age of 28. Checkettes has served in numerous sports related positions including CEO of Madison Square Garden and owns Sports Capital Worldwide a consulting and investment firm for sports franchises.

Successful businessmen with a passion for sports. Sounds like a great pair of professionals for NFL team ownership, right? Well, not in this seedy world of political correctness at all costs.

Jackson and Sharpton are desperate to regain at least a modicum of significance in the age of Barack Obama. Both of these veteran pot stirrers have been neutered in their efforts to remain in the headlines and, more importantly, in the heads of the black community. Every grab these two publicity hounds have made for front page coverage have fizzled thanks to the historic inauguration of a black president. They don’t matter, and they don’t like it.

Limbaugh steps into this catfight with some baggage of his own, not the least of which is his remark as commentator on ESPN that Philadelphia Eagles QB Donovan McNabb was overrated and the only reason he received so much attention was that the press was desperate for a black quarterback to succeed. ESPN disavowed any concurrence with that opinion and Limbaugh resigned rather than retract. There was much discussion and accusations of racism after the comment but nobody dared address if it was true. Was it provocative? Yes. Was it true? Absolutely!

But this campaign to thwart Limbaugh’s efforts is not about racism. It’s about giving two tired old show ponies a chance to strut their stuff in front of an audience again instead of shipping them off the glue factory. Limbaugh is outspoken and sometimes brash in his conservative message. But he is never, I repeat, never racist. If anybody has made a living, and a pretty good living at that, by being divisive and pitting one racial group against another it has been the pandemic duo of Jackson and Sharpton. It is their only claim to fame. A fame they both desperately want to rekindle.

The J&A team have been supposedly joined in their efforts by NFL Player Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith. Smith delivered a prepared statement last Sunday, but as is the case with many lawyer’s statements it’s tough to make out exactly what he’s trying to say. "I have asked our players to embrace their roles not only in the game of football but also as players and partners in the business of the NFL," Smith said. "They risk everything to play this game, they understand that risk and they live with that risk and its consequences for the rest of their life. We also know that there is an ugly part of history and we will not risk going backwards, giving up giving in or lying down to it."

I’m not sure I understand what point Mr. Smith is trying to make, but I’m pretty sure Rush Limbaugh would not increase the risk NFL player’s face in the field. And if the NFL Players Association truly want to be partners in the business of football maybe they should ante up the capital to buy the Rams.

As for the ugly part of history, if Mr. Smith is talking about slavery, it was abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation.

And once again by free agency.

Face It Or Not

Another example of – I got it but I don’t get it. But then again, maybe I do.

After much chiding and prodding I signed up for an account with Facebook. After having this account for several months I can honestly say I still don’t get it.

It’s not that I don’t understand all the features, like loading photo albums or movie clips, which I don’t, but should go without saying for a techno-challenged paper and pencil guy like me. It’s not that I don’t see some value in being able to keep tabs with old friends or family members who may have moved away (most of whom do know how to do all that stuff). It’s that most of what I see posted by folks who have invited me to be on their list of friends is either complaints about issues in their life that I would probably not want to share with a blanket broadcast or is information exchanged by folks that seem to have the need to share their most mundane tasks. “Good Morning FB”, “Goodnight FB”, “I’m going to work now”, “I going to wash the dishes now”, “I’m going to check to see of the mail is here yet”. Is this really what Al Gore invented the internet for?

My favorite author C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying “I begin to suspect the world is divided not only into the happy and unhappy, but into those who like happiness and those who, odd as it seems, really don’t.”

I take some comfort from the fact that my spiritual guide was able to see this trait in people some 50 or 60 years ago as it lets me know this is not a recent phenomenon. I also could not agree more with his insightful appraisal.

There are those who have included me into their Facebook world that have good news to announce and pictures or videos of happy moments. I enjoy sharing in their happiness in a vicarious voyeuristic sort of way. But it seems that many more are folks who, for whatever reason, feel the need to share the most dismal details of heartbreak and trouble. It’s not that I cannot or do not have compassion and empathy for these folks, but my biggest sorrow is that the issues they so freely announce to their entire Facebook buddy list need far more personal attention than they could hope to get through this venue.

It’s one thing to share the heartwarming pictures of your two young sons after they discovered the unparalleled joy of creating and then playing in mud as one friend did, but it is something else to share the sordid details of a nasty legal battle in divorce court as another did. Once again, it’s not that I don’t care that they are hurting. It’s just that if they are looking for some help with a problem maybe something a little more personal and private with a close and trusted friend rather than an entire list of friends, acquaintances and those include in the “friends list” so as to not hurt their feelings, may lead to a better solution.

I don’t know if we have completely lost the ability for personal interaction or if it is a glaring example of what C.S. Lewis suggested; that there are simply some folks that do not want resolution because for whatever reason they don’t like to be happy and would just rather complain.

Nonspecific interaction in the most private and personal matters in our life without any human personal contact. And they call it technological advancement.

Maybe I do get it. I just don’t want it.

11 Days Of Glory

And you are surprised why?

The Nobel committee announced their decision regarding Barack Hussein Obama as their choice for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Even though the Messiah had only been in office for 11 days prior to the deadline for name submission the committee insists that their unanimous decision is based on his accomplishments and not what he may do in the future.

Worldwide the news seemed to catch many by surprise and actually seemed to anger a few previous recipients. My guess is because this decision exposes the sham this once noble award has become.

If the goal of the voting committee was to make the 2007 recipient Al Gore look more worthy they picked just about the only guy that could do that. The only problem is that in order to make this year’s recipient look more worthy they may actually have to give the 2010 award to Kim Jong-il.

The award came as absolutely no surprise to me or anyone else familiar with Chicago style voting practices. If in fact the president’s chief political advisor David Axelrod and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had anything to do with this selection the vote probably came in with 30 or 40 now deceased committee members voting in unison for Obama. The way it works in Chicago is you decide the vote total you want at the start and then “count” the votes to make it happen. It is also possible that ACORN was responsible for registering the proper number of voting committee members to insure the predetermined outcome.

All that aside, picking Obama was the only choice these learned committee members, both dead and alive, could make.

First off they haven’t picked a black to receive the prize since Kenyan environmental and political activist Wangari Maathai in 2004. In this time of politically correct and socially mandated diversity, picking another non-black could have been seen as racist. While the International Olympic Committee has a lock on black participation in their sporting events and therefore black support for their existence the Nobel committee is not afforded that same luxury. Secondly it has been 7 years since the committee bestowed the award on a staunch anti-Semite and completely feckless US president, having given it to Jimmy Carter way back in 2002. You had to figure it was time. Finally, they certainly could have given a second Peace Prize posthumously to 1994 recipient Yasser Arafat. After all, look at the lasting peace recipients Arafat and Carter were able to broker in the Middle East. But they probably saw the picture of Obama in his native head-covering and figured “hey, he’ll do”.

The award may be called the Peace Prize, but I believe the committee looked beyond that narrow designation and felt compelled to make up for the recent snub Obama was dealt, not by the IOC’s decision to go to Rio instead of Chicago in 2016, but by noted peace activist Osama Bin Laden in his latest version of the Oprah Book Club.

Bin Laden released a list of must read literature to his band of merry jihadists which included two of past Peace Prize recipient’s Jimmy Carter’s books. Sadly neither of Obama’s million selling tomes made this prestigious list. I’m guessing that receiving this prize will give him the much needed push to get the thumbs up for next year’s Bin Laden Book Club list.

All in all it is quite an honor for Obama to be named the 2009 Peace Prize recipient. Well, at least for Obama. Not so much for the previous recipients who actually did something.

Keep an eye on E Bay. I think the Dalai Lama, Lech Walesa and Elie Wiesel may have theirs listed there soon.

A McCrystal Clear Strategy

Okay, follow me on this one.

You’re walking through the jungle and all of a sudden a lion jumps out from behind a bush and takes a mighty swing at you with his paw. Being quick on your feet you are able to elude the lion’s swipe and end up with just the smallest of nicks on your hand where the lion’s claw punctured the skin. Looking down you think “Wow, look at this. It’s just a little lion prick.”

Speaking of which, did you happen to see Democrat Senate Leader Harry Reid leaving the White House yesterday?

The diminutive Mr. Peepers look-a-like was so blatantly dishonest that even his Democrat counterpart from the House of Representatives couldn’t hide her dismay. As news cameras rolled to catch another in the long string of historic moments of the Obama administration, Reid put his arm around Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and said that everyone will support whatever decision the President makes regarding strategy for the war in Afghanistan.

With that, in full view of the news teams assembled, speaker Pelosi rolled her eyes and seemed to recoil from the friendly embrace of Reid’s arm. Reid went on with his none too subtle prevarication and said what is important is “strategy before resources”.

In every aspect of Reid’s impromptu comments lies the deceit and misdirection of this latest chapter of America’s presidential on the job training.

First of all, we already have committed incredible resources to this most important military operation. The United States has been engaged in Afghanistan for 8 years and has tens of thousands of troops on the ground waiting for the new game plan. We regularly receive the sad news that more of America’s finest have lost their lives having been outnumbered by invading terrorist jihadists.

For two years the community activist now residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue said that winning this war by defeating Al Qaeda and the Taliban was a top priority. As recently as last March Obama made it clear that he intended to act like a real commander and chief, installing General Stanley McCrystal into the top position for Afghan strategy. McCrystal, one of the few Obama appointees that did not have tax troubles, had spent four years in charge of the military’s intelligence and covert operations in Afghanistan. There is nobody more in tune with what needs to be done than he.

But when McCrystal came back with his well thought out strategy of adding 40,000 additional troops to stage a similar surge to the one that was so completely successful in Iraq, well that’s when the commander and chief turned back into a community activist and began his protracted strategy debate.

While our brave volunteer military are actively involved in fighting a war against entrenched and treacherous Muslim fanatics, our less than brave Democrat politicians are debating, not war strategy, but political strategy. General McCrystal made clear the military strategy and even clarified further by stating publicly that anything less than his suggestion would mean defeat. That little press quote earned the general a trip to the presidential woodshed where he was summarily dressed down for speaking truth in a time when others are looking for excuses.

The delay in sending our military what they need when they need is criminal. This is not a new war with unknown adversaries in unfamiliar terrain. We have learned much over the past 8 years. But now the same brilliant minds that created the credit crisis and collapse of much of the world’s economy by insisting on giving loans to people who could not pay them back are trying to direct military operations in a politically expedient way.

Nancy Pelosi’s immediate reaction and the comments from her and others afterward make it McCrystal clear that she and her Democrat faithful will not support what needs to be done to win. It is impossible to not draw parallels to the political mismanagement of the Vietnam War and the tragic outcome of the political strategy of containment rather than the military victory that was eminently achievable.

But Reid, Pelosi and the other Democrats are not looking for ultimate victory in Afghanistan. They are only concerned with victory in the 2010 midterm elections regardless of the cost.

A cost that hopefully only these fallacious politicians will pay dearly.

The Pants Of Power

There is no need for you Bible scholars to check.

I am fairly certain that my name is not mentioned in the Bible. But I am just as certain that if it was it would be in the final chapter Revelations. It would be included as an ominous warning of the impending end of times and as a sign of the arrival of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It would read something like “Verily I say unto thee that when Big Frick becomes the moral compass for a great nation you can kisseth your taileth goodbyeth.”

I am not a prude and I am certainly not a saint. I understand that there are situations and circumstances that lead people to do things that are not within the socially acceptable norm. But this whole David Letterman thing has me confused and perhaps even more than that concerned.

Letterman got caught dipping his pen in the company ink well having had sex with a number of his employees. I don’t know the details nor do I care to learn them. I don’t know if they occurred before or after he got married or both. I didn’t watch his show because quite frankly he has become an incredible bore, but from what I have read about his less than remorseful admission and apology I can only assume it was the latter.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger nailed it when he said “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac”. That’s what this all comes down to. Letterman had the power and he used it his advantage over those he had power over. I’m not saying that the women he had the affairs with were innocent bystanders. But when you head up a major corporation like Letterman’s World Wide Pants, and are paid hundreds of millions of dollars to not only entertain but run that company, you are going to be held to a higher standard.

Letterman is human and is certainly entitled to the compassion of forgiveness for human mistakes. But that is not what I am seeing. Instead what I am seeing is a complete disregard of any guilt and instead the framing of Letterman as the victim.

There is no one coming out and saying that what Letterman did was even distasteful. It is as if this is the new standard. When asked for a comment Dick Cavett replied in writing saying "To me, it seems Dave Letterman's handling of this is impeccable. Brave, direct, and — dare I say it? — manly. He has set a real example here of exactly how to behave when assaulted in such a sleazy operation."

Impeccable, brave, direct and manly in the face of an assault. Wow!

If it was just the Letterman incident that received such a yawn from feminist women’s groups like NOW and the public in general I would be disappointed with the obvious degeneration of moral standards in this country. But when you couple Letterman’s love fest with the overwhelming support of Roman Polanski in his battle to avoid sentencing for drugging and having sex with a 13 year old, the complete disregard conservatives paid to Bill O’Reily when he paid millions to an employee he had been sexually harassing, the seeming total forgiveness of the sleazeball Woody Allen who had a sexual relationship with his adopted daughter before marrying her, and the liberal disregard for a President of the United States who carried on a perverse sexual relationship in the oval office with a cherubic intern I have to say that we may indeed be seeing the beginning of the end of a great nation.

There is definitely something wrong when the vast majority of the population is comfortable with nothing being considered wrong. Every great civilization collapsed under the weight of its own moral failures long before they were defeated by invading outsiders.

If you want to say that Letterman should be forgiven and allowed the opportunity to learn from his sordid past, I’m on board. If you want to say that this is a private matter and should be left to Letterman and his wife to sort out, I’m good with that too. But if you want me to believe that this is somehow acceptable behavior and that it doesn’t matter, well, that’s where I get off the bus.

Letterman has some explaining to do at home and to the other members of his World Wide Pants family. It would be far better for all concerned if he kept them pulled up in the future.

School Daze

I am one fortunate guy.

I can only attribute the good fortune of living in the Greater Chicago area to the divine providence of the ACLU and liberals everywhere.

Chicago is a great city. We have the beautiful lakeshore, the Magnificent Mile, the incredible downtown area known as the Loop and some of the finest restaurants in the country. But we also have the great fortune of having a city completely run by Democrats in a county completely run by Democrats. We have a mayor and city council that understand the problems on the streets are caused by guns not people and that personal responsibility is no substitute for good old fashioned political rhetoric.

Oh sure we have some problems that don’t involve guns. Like the brutal gang beating that ended the young life of 16 year old Fenger High School honor roll student Derrion Albert last week or the skull fracture that put a young 14 year old Mather High School freshman into intensive care a day later. These two young students were not attacked with guns but rather were beaten in the head with two by fours and metal pipes.

While that may sound distasteful to some, the city of Chicago can raise its head up high and say that while these students were beaten in the head with lumber and pipes the one thing you never have to worry about in Chicago is that students will be beaten over the head with the Bible messages. The same cannot be said for some of the more backward areas of the country like Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. Well at least it couldn’t be said until last week.

It seems the radical hayseeds at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School had been carrying on a years old tradition of having their football team make their grand entrance onto the field by running through banners emblazoned with (insert ominous descending tritonic musical scale here) Bible verses.

The banners were held by cheerleaders and after their entrance the team would all take a knee to say a pre-game prayer. The banners would have such subversive messages as “Commit to the Lord, whatever you do, and your plans will succeed”.

The tradition was instituted at the suggestion of the students after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The principle of the school enthusiastically supported the practice as did the 900 member student body. Fortunately these blatantly unconstitutional slogans were ceased last week by the Catoosa County Superintendent of Schools when she received a complaint from a single parent. Superintendent Denia Reese said the schools attorney advised that the signs violated federal law because they were held by cheerleaders at a school-sponsored function.

The ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League sent letters congratulating the Superintendent’s decision, saving them the time and effort of filing a lawsuit. Bill Nigut, the southeast director of the Anti-Defamation League said “There are legal ways for students to have religious observations in the school context and there are illegal ways…..” What a bright guy Bill is huh? Of course the only way for students to express their religious beliefs in the school context legally is to do so individually and in silence.

The poor students at this Georgia high school have obviously been so brainwashed by living in this buckle of the Bible Belt that they actually are protesting this decision. The poor kids don’t even know that they are being protected for their own good from the ever-present danger of religious belief and expression.

That’s why I say I am so fortunate to be living in the far more progressive Midwest.

Students in Chicago may have to worry about being beaten over the head with two by fours and metal pipes but at least they don’t have to worry about being beaten over the head with John 3:16.

The IOC Racist Snub

There can be but one answer to Chicago’s unsuccessful attempt in being granted the 2016 Olympic Games.

Racism!

Oh sure, Mayor Daley is white and Chicago has a majority of white residents. But the fact that Chicago was represented by America’s historic first black President and black First Lady can only mean that the International Olympic Committee is racist in their snubbing of the Windy City. The voting committee was probably sitting back in their council room taking the vote while wearing white robes and hoods.

Barack and Michelle are from Chicago so it is no wonder that they would chose to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to fly the President, his extensive entourage and security detail to Copenhagen. And look at who else made the trip. Oprah Winfrey, well known celebrity, Chicago resident and lifelong black person. And who did Chicago use to make the Olympic pitch from an athlete’s perspective? Michael Jordon. Recent Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, 6 time world champion with the Chicago Bulls, business entrepreneur and black guy about town.

Granted, the people who stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars selling their dilapidated slum tenements to the city for demolition in the building of the Olympic Village are mostly white. Folks like David Axelrod, the president’s chief political advisor and his business associates at AKPD who have been the lead group in Chicago’s Olympic publicity campaign and paid tens of millions of dollars already. Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the president who “divested” her Chicago real estate holdings to her close business associates at the Habitat Company who still hold them. And Patrick Ryan, chairman of Obama’s inauguration committee and CEO of Aon, the corrupt insurance giant recently hit with a $190 million corruption settlement and tapped to carry huge policies on the Olympic reconstruction.

Oh sure, most of those people are white. But the people who would be thrown out of those dilapidated buildings and given new housing elsewhere (in equally dilapidated conditions) are mostly black, so that should count for something.

No, there can be no doubt about it. This refusal to allow Chicago taxpayers to lose hundreds of millions of tax dollars hosting the 2016 Olympics while allowing the Democrat supporters and employees of our first black president to make huge profits can only be seen as blatant racism at its worst.

Pay no mind to the fact that Rio de Janeiro, who was granted the games, has many dark skinned people. As the president’s Chief of Staff and equally well connected Chicago politician Rahm Emanuel said, Chicago is just different. As Emanuel said in an interview with ABC (THE All Barack Channel) News, “The world will feel comfortable given the diversity of Chicago.”

Well, there you have it in a nutshell. The IOC is obviously not comfortable with diversity and therefore must be racist.

Chicago did everything they could to put its best foot forward spending millions of tax dollars in the worst economic conditions in nearly a century for the opportunity to spend hundreds of millions more tax dollars, but to no avail. The city was well represented by a black president, a black first lady, a black mega-millionaire celebrity and a black mega-millionaire athlete, all in an attempt to convince a group of middle Europeans of the city’s diversity. But diversity is not what these racists wanted.

Instead they gave the games to Rio, in a country with a white president, a city with a white mayor that has a huge white statue of a white Jesus overlooking it.

I think the reasoning here is pretty obvious, don’t you?

Economic Reality

If you don’t know where you’re going any road will take you there.

So it says in the title line of the George Harrison song and so it is with the economic recovery plans, or lack thereof, in Congress and the Obama White House. The economy continues to falter and the unfortunate truth is that those in charge of turning it around are completely clueless as to what to do next.

The massive, debt laden economic stimulus package was passed 9 months ago and as expected by anybody who can add 2 plus 2, has had absolutely no stimulating effect on the economy. Nearly one trillion dollars was spent or soon will be on everything from the habitat reclamation of California field mice to gang banger tattoo removal machines. None of this blatant partisan spending spree ever had a chance of actually improving the nation’s economy, but the Democrat leadership in both the House and the Senate were bound and determined to get their pet projects funded while the country was still euphorically celebrating the coronation of the new Messiah.

The biggest problem is that not only does the ruling Democrat Party not have a workable plan; they don’t even have a workable premise on which to base a plan.

As stated by John F Kennedy “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” Democrats have been persistent in developing the myth that the poor and middle class suffered greatly under the Bush tax cuts. Obama’s claim of the need for increased taxes on the rich has been proven time and again to be the exact wrong policy. The facts as shown by the governments own Congressional Budget Office shows clearly that the greatest increase in income and wealth over the course of the Bush tax cuts was the bottom 20% of earners. A subsequent study by the Treasury Department found the exact same thing. The data from these and other studies caused Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Fogel to write “In every measure that we have bearing on the standard of living the gains of the lower classes have been far greater than those experienced by the population as a whole.”

The myth of the repression of the poor through tax cuts that will benefit only the wealthy may be a popular mantra to run a political campaign, but the economy is not based on political rhetoric. The economy is based in the reality of numbers and when it comes to reality the Democrats numbers just don’t add up.

In manufacturing where countless workers are currently laid off or working reduced hours the much-hyped stimulus package has done nothing to curtail the industrial death spiral. At the recent national Infrastructure and Steel Conference the president of the American Institute of Steel Construction said that the Democrats alleged stimulus package should be called “The case of the vanishing billions.”

The overall manufacturing output received a temporary bump thanks to the Cash for Clunkers program in August, receiving its best showing of expansion since June of 2008. But the September report showed not only a slowing in the expansion but a rapid return to a contraction In manufacturing as the short lived rebuild of cars quickly catches up with the now depleted demand.

My ever faithful web monkey sent me a report from CNN that claims 47% of households will pay no federal income tax. That equates to roughly 71 million people. Yet according to the governments own studies each of these 71 million folks saw a greater increase in their incomes than the top 5% or earners who already pay 60% of all the taxes.

When it comes to developing a plan that will work to actually stimulate the economy and reduce the economic pain and suffering of all Americans, the Democrat leadership in power must first look at the real numbers and drop the charade of victimhood. Otherwise we will simply get more of the same and the deficit, which is already forecasted to exceed $11 trillion in the next 10 years, will bury us and our way of life under a debt load that is not only unmanageable but perhaps fatal.

And where is our president during this time of economic national emergency? Why he’s in Copenhagen trying to ensure the Olympic Games coming to Chicago which will pay huge personal financial rewards to some of his most ardent supporters.

More on that tomorrow.