And Another One Rides the Bus!

I was not aware that sunset last Friday marked the start of a Jewish period of silence. But it must have been for how else can we explain David Axelrod’s failure to shut up his boss.

There was Obama on Saturday in Grand Junction, Colorado still extolling the efficiency of FedEx and UPS while lampooning the United States Postal Service, the “Public Option”.

Later that day though, with Axelrod still in absentia one presumes, Obama saw some polling numbers and so by Saturday evening he was pulling that contentious option off the table.

Well, at that, the Left came unglued and you don’t have to take my word for it. Just go and take a look at “Democratic Underground” or “Daily Kos”. Ever keen to join the fray, Howard Dean chimed in saying that without the “Public Option” a change in this country’s health system was meaningless. I never thought this day would come but he’s right. Without that option there is no reform.

So now the battle lines are drawn. Will there be a public option or not? Obama certainly needs something. He needs to be able to stand there in the White House rose garden as he signs into law something, anything that has the words, “Healthcare Reform” somewhere in it.

He needs it for political reasons. He needs it for Obama reasons. He needs it for him! And we know by now, it’s all about him!

But, in the meantime, he’s stuck with a pissed off Left and a confused Right and they’re both in his own party. And for good reason which is why they want to have Republican support. They want someone else to blame.

Here’s another look at a similar problem and it involves the so-called “Cash for Clunkers” program.

Ostensibly it worked because all of a sudden car showrooms were stuffed with people. Well for a start it deserved to work because it was effectively a tax refund. A bad word for liberals because it smacks of Presidents Reagan and Bush and what is it about the Left that embraces feelings but abhors data and fact?

But again, there are a couple of lessons to be learned. For a start, “Cash for Clunkers” showed that this government, any government cannot run an efficient or profitable or cost-effective program. And let’s start with the one that heads up this paragraph where we quickly learn that for every $4500 promised to the buyer via the dealer, it really costs more than $6000 when we factor in the overhead in government administration,

Now, I understand overhead and so do most people but almost 50% is more than a little extreme.

As of today, Monday, August 17, 2009, less than 3% of the promised money has been paid to the dealerships who have handed over cars to their new owners. At least one major dealer in the Mid-West has already halted the program because he has not been reimbursed for the deals already done. And can you blame him or her?

This all started out as just a $1 Billion program; just $1 Billion. Then we find that it’s now 3 times that and a whole new bureaucracy has to be created to administer what was to be a temporary “green” effort and to provide a boost to Detroit.

Again, as of today, 54% of the vehicles sold will benefit the bottom line of Japan and South Korea and, just as a kicker; no model of General Motors appears in the top 10.

I’d like to present an honest question to Obama believers everywhere. If your leader and his employees cannot run an efficient organization to administer a $1 Billion program, what do you estimate the chances are for one that is at least 3 orders of magnitude greater, namely Healthcare?

If I were a betting man, which I'm not, I'd be very tempted to start a business to snatch cars from those in default on their loans. Let's face it, people were driving a "clunker" because that was all they could afford.

So give it a year or less ............

And the tow trucks will surely be rolling at dawn's early light.

Welcome back dear Schadenfreude; I've missed you!

As I said before, last Sunday I attended an event called a “Freedom Concert” in Phoenix, well actually Glendale but I doubt anyone cares that much which.

One of the speakers employed mainly, I contend, to distract the audience between acts, as the roadies extracted one set of loud and discordant hardware and substituted another, was Jon Voight.

One of a rare breed indeed is Mr. Voight who unlike most of his ilk sees life as it really is. Most Hollywood liberals of the limousine variety are just that; shallow and unthinking whose only talent is to mouth the words that someone else wrote while assuring the gullible that it’s real.

You’re thinking Obama right? Perhaps that’s what will happen to him after 2012 but they’ll have to do something about the ears.

Jon Voight said it well. The vast majority of the American people do not want to see a Socialist system in this country. Too many of us either lived under a regime like that at one point in our lives or we have parents or grandparents who did. And none of those memories are happy ones.

So much for emotion and feeling; both beloved of liberals everywhere but facts are facts.

And here’s a few to be going on with:-

According to the New York Times last Sunday, 69% of the total adult population is becoming nervous about Obamacare. And that’s from the New York Times also known as the Obama News Agency.

Now I’m a math person but I know that an awful lot of people are not and so I’ll be gentle, trust me.

Elections are won and lost not by the extreme right or extreme left and not even by the mediocre right or left. Look at the national elections in this country going back to …… Pick your date.

They are won and lost according to the number of “independents” who swing one way or another. As an example, I was never going to vote for Obama and nor did I. Even in this conservative state of Arizona there are those who would never have voted for anyone else. Especially down in Tempe and other enclaves of youth-inspired and academia-centric liberalism.

I had an aunt and uncle way back in England and many years ago they braved a cold and very wet November evening in order to execute their franchise. When they closed their front door, shook off their umbrellas and hung their dripping mackintoshes up to dry, my uncle asked who she’d voted for. “Well”, she said, “It is supposed to be secret but I voted for ’X’.”

“Damn it”, he replied. “I voted for ‘Y’ so all we did was to waste our time and our vote”.

But is a vote ever wasted? In their case, perhaps. Just as every confirmed Republican vote is negated by every confirmed Democratic vote. But the middle ground always calls the shots. And here is the scary part for the Democrats but is a sign of hope for me; by a margin of 2 to 1 the Independents oppose Obamacare. That’s right; 65% of these vacillating folks disapprove and many of these are the ones who are showing up to the Town Hall Meetings.

The Democratic hierarchy is worried stiff and is resorting to tactics such as that employed at a session in Texas in the district of Sheila Jackson Lee. There, a woman who identified herself as a physician before she endorsed the healthcare proposal, wasn’t. In fact she was a full-time worker for Obama’s ongoing campaign and fund-raising efforts.

Add to the lack of support by Independents the fact that only 42% of Democrats approve of the House Bill and that Rasmussen reports that Obama’s general approval rating is down to 47% and, well, you get the picture.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that “Miss Botox” aka, Nancy Pelosi is viewed so negatively that she would probably kill to have an approval number as good as those of Bush and Cheney when they left office.

Oh, it feels good to be a conservative again!

The Audacity of Hype"

As it stands today, only 42% of likely American voters favor healthcare reform as proposed by the House. 52% strongly disapprove.

So why is Obama destroying the ozone layer by jetting around the country aboard Air Force One trying to shove this monstrosity up ………. No, erase that thought, down our throat?

One thing is clear to me and a growing number of people like me is that this push has little to do with healthcare and is all about government control. And that is surely anathema to the very soul of this Republic.

As a result, this battle has turned into something that Obama cannot win. Of course he and Pelosi and Reid can stuff it through the legislative process but, if they do, they will lose the House next year and the White House in 2012. Let’s see if they think it’s worth it?

Today, Salon.com proposed that the only way to prevail on this issue was to get Obama off the campaign stump and to get rid of Pelosi altogether. As a conservative, that would be disastrous to my cause. Let’s hope that egos and stupidity win out and they both keep on doing what clearly is not working for them.

I know that Obama broke his last teleprompter and for his sake, if not for mine, I hope another one is about to graduate from teleprompter boot camp because without that aide-memoire he’s lost.

Yesterday Obama conducted a Town Hall Meeting in New Hampshire. He spoke in rambling disarray and when it came to answering questions, it just got worse. We now know, via Drudge and others, that the deck was stacked. I’m shocked, stunned and amazed. The young girl who asked the question about the signs she had seen is the daughter of an Obama worker and Drudge also reports that she admitted being prepped. And yet, even so, his response was long, rambling, pathetic and devoid of content.

Some of the other “highlights” included a gem when he tried to draw a comparison between Fedex and UPS on one side and the United States Postal Service on the other. “The former”, he declared, “are doing just fine”. “The Post Office seems to have a problem”.

In terms of moving stuff from hither to thither, the Post Office is the “Public Option”. The other two are not. They are the product of peasant-grinding capitalists. And yet Obama, Reid and Pelosi want to hand over my healthcare to a “Public Option”.

The other “Oops” that the new teleprompter would never have permitted was his reference to the support from the AARP. Wrong again, O Anointed One. From late yesterday and through to this morning, that organization is running away so fast, it’s unreal, because they’ve heard from their members. And they don't just vote for the directors of AARP. No, they vote in droves in the major leagues.

Before I sign off I must comment on the latest Town Hall Meeting in Michigan by John Dingell. He delighted in reporting today that there was a black guy with a poster outside the venue inciting the venom that ensued later. The poster had a picture of Obama, morphing into Adolph Hitler and replete with swastikas. The only gotcha was that after, the same man had been seen letting Union goons in via the side door and he was also spotted handing out pro Obama/Dingell flyers.

Why the title to this post? Those who did not vote for our current experience recall it well. Those who did are trying so hard to forget.

Tough!!

The largely forgotten separation of Church and Stage!

Excuse me if I’m not at my best today. Nothing contagious and nothing bad so those readers who would like the malaise to be non-trivial are going to be disappointed. No, the trouble is that I got to bed very late last night and that problem was compounded by my inability to stay in bed after 5 o’clock in the morning. More about this later and I would probably have begged off this post had it not been for an email I received this morning.

Now there was both good news and bad news implied in the email. The good news was that somebody had actually read my last post and the bad news was that the criticism was valid.

The thread of it was my look at the second 100 days of the Obama governance and the lack of progress therein and thereby. Well, the writer took me to task and bewailed the inarguable fact that I had omitted to be more specific about his shortcomings as I perceived them. I mean Obama’s shortcomings of course not those of the author of the email. Although I cannot imagine that the author's are more egregious. So, ever one eager to please but rarely succeeding, I undertook this post reluctantly from a physical perspective but mentally so willingly.

Clearly the wars in the Middle East have not ended. On the contrary, Obama has elected to escalate the conflict in Afghanistan and to put boots on the ground in Pakistan as well. All this had led to the greatest loss of life last month in those theaters since the initial invasion. This fact has gone largely unreported in this country but not so among our allies mainly the UK and Germany.

The Military Tribunals continue and Gitmo has not closed principally because the rest of the world wants nothing to do with the inmates which they know to be vicious killers although that fact seems to have eluded Obama’s razor-sharp intellect.

One of Obama’s key support groups during and after the election were the Gay activists but they haven’t got what they wanted either as Obama steadfastly continues to renege on his promise to support marriage of same-sex couples.

Remember when this was going to be the most “transparent” of regimes? Well, it’s turning out to be one of the most secretive as we see from the abandonment of the commitment to publish legislation via the Web. And, even more than that, Obama sends out people like Linda Douglas to propose tactics reminiscent of those beloved by Goebbels and Felix Dzerzhinsky who created Lenin’s Cheka.

Then there was mantra about “No New Taxes” unless a person earned more than $250,000 per year. Well that’s gone bye-byes as well and you only have to read the proposed government-run healthcare scheme to see that lie in black and white.

And, then I would be remiss were I to omit the issue of “earmarks” which were much castigated by Obama. Again, the evidence is clear. The “Stimulus Package” is stuffed with earmarks as is the “Cap and Trade” legislation.

So, dear and dissenting emailer is that enough to be going on with? No wonder a reader from the other side of the Atllantic told me of a headline which had appeared in the British press, “Has the Obama bubble burst?” You betcha!

I promised to tell you why my tail is dragging this morning. I spent last evening at an event called a “Freedom Concert” which was a charity event to raise funds for the education of boys and girls who had lost a parent in the line of duty.

Not surprisingly, it was an evening of unbridled patriotism, conservative beliefs and support for our brave men and women and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I was accompanied by an unabashed Obama booster. I was uncomfortable with the Christian-dominated bits for obvious reasons. She though, the confirmed agnostic, delighted in all that and sang along with gusto.

Her verdict, at the end of the evening was that it wasn’t very democratic or perhaps she meant Democratic. In either case, she was right but I didn’t know that a concert was supposed to be.

In a similar way, a church service isn’t supposed to be either and, if I’m wrong about that, then someone had better point it out to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and also to Obama who listened to his hate-filled maniacal ravings for 20 years without complaint.

So, the word, "Is" means what?

So it seems that the legends were indeed correct and the Oriental sense of logic is very different from that of Occidentals.

Imagine two cute ladies of Korean extraction who decide for reasons not obvious to this Western mind to smuggle themselves into the north of that country. They risked and were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in order to meet Bill Clinton on a private jet. Next time girls, get a boob job and get hired by Hooters. Much safer and I wouldn’t have to watch his dissipated face on TV.

Again, the reason I came up with that possible but, I admit, unlikely scenario is to illustrate another point about most of the media outlets in this country.

I’m willing to bet that newsrooms around the country were scouring Obama’s record in order to trumpet his second 100 days. Remember the hoopla around that first milestone? Little Chrissy Matthews was breathless in anticipation as he waited to help blow out the candles on the cake.

Try as they might though, they could not come up with any Herculean accomplishments this time around. Not one! And so they had no choice but to ignore it all which they did.

The Augean Stables of Washington DC are even more filled with ….. Well you know what stables are filled with and it’s just that there is more of it than existed 3 month’s ago. It's good for your rhubarb and not much else.

Obama and his teleprompter tried to wrest some measure of comfort by trumpeting that the unemployment rate was 9.4% as compared to 9.4% the month before.

And no, that’s not a typo!

Then contrast the adulation which that non-fact earned from the media with the same coverage accorded to that same statistic during George W’s administration.

In those days of media-threatened doom and gloom, the drive-bys insisted on adding to the official numbers those who were no longer counted. These included those who had given up looking for a job, those who were working part-time jobs and those who were starting their own business.

Even when the national rate was way below 5%, little Chrissy had to add his caveat. OK, little Chrissy, apply the same rules today and the real number is 16.3%. And, included in that number is another 30,000 positions lost at Caterpillar. Remember them? They were the company that was going to start rehiring when Obama’s stimulus package was enacted. It was all about “shovel-ready” jobs and I assume he meant to include the mechanical equivalents.

Ah well, another Obama promise tossed aside.

No poll is perfect especially as far as elections are concerned. More suspect than most are those who call up any a Bubba, anywhere, and then count his or her slurred pronouncements. To mean anything, it must surely recognize only likely voters and, as far as I know, only one outfit asks that question. Rasmussen does precisely that and found the GOP is now ahead by 6 points in the “Generic Congressional Poll”. In other words, forget personalities, whom do you trust?

CNN knows this and so does MSNBC. Little Chrissy doesn’t because he’s in his corner with his Obama blankie and his fingers in his ears.

But he did emerge long enough to point at a clause in his contract which empowers him to insist on some content. Devoid of other ideas, he grasped at the Clinton/Korean non-event.

Well done little Chrissy ………… And now, go back in your corner. With a little luck and if you’re a very good boy, your leg may tingle again real soon..

Let's Get Married in Reno, have the honeymoon in Tahoe, drive back to Reno, get divorced and then fly home!

Only three good things ever happen in Reno, Nevada and they happen on a regular basis. For a start, every summer an event is held called the “Reno Air Races”. I won’t take up your blog reading time by describing it because there are lots of websites where you can watch it for yourself.

But, for those from Lake Havasu think the Indianapolis 500 with wings and at a much higher speed. The other is different and it’s called “Hot August Nights” and, trust me, you really don’t want to go there.

Speaking, though, of August nights, there’s a few coming up around the rest of the country as the Congress has adjourned for the summer recess and it used to be that they couldn’t wait to get out of the humidity of DC and wallow in the pool of their constituents. This year will be different though.

It all started about 10 days ago in Philadelphia when Arlen Specter a, now, Democratic senator and Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services held a “Town Hall Meeting”. With Sebelius in attendance it shouldn’t have been surprising that the subject of healthcare reform was raised. My readers in this country know what happened and my readers elsewhere probably don’t care.

But, again for the people of Lake Havasu, Specter and the Secretary were almost run out of town on a rail.

And this was Philadelphia, one of the most union dominated cities in the country.

Politicians, for the most part, are not too bright. They are lots of other things but smart is not one except when it comes down to survival and reelection. So many representatives returned to their local offices, cancelled any public sessions they had planned and hid under their desks. My own congressman, Harry Mitchell announced that for most of August he would be out of town.

But, just as in pre-Revolution days, what started in Philadelphia didn’t stay there. Maybe that’s where Las Vegas got the slogan? The point being that, you don’t stamp out dissent by ignoring it.

I cannot claim to be a political analyst with any knowledge of any inside track. But I do know that as soon as the other side starts to attack the messenger instead of the message they’re scared and the message is valid.

Some denounced these audiences as “Insurance Company plants”.

Barbara Boxer of California said that they couldn’t be real Americans because they were too well dressed.

Pelosi branded all opponents as a “Mob” and later added that many were wearing swastikas.

Doesn’t it strike even Obama disciples as just a little odd that a proud “Community Organizer” whines when an actual community actually organizes?

But Obama isn’t just whining. In true Chicago thug style, the White House has ordered Union goons to attend any and all future town meetings. Will they wear brown shirts or black shirts I wonder?

And, just in case some dissenter doesn’t show up in order to exercise their First Amendment rights while running the gauntlet of Rahm Emanuel’s ordered billy clubs, the White House has another strategy. As a Jew, he should be ashamed to recite the Shema.

In perfect synchronization with bullies everywhere, Obama is demanding that he be informed of any negative statements about the impending legislation and has even established a place where you can fink out your friends because, Yes, casual conversations are included.

Not first but notable for a similar tactic came the Gestapo, the KGB and Mao’s “Cultural Revolution”. So I guess we abort the First Amendment.

In order to save Obama and Emanuel and my liberal readers the trouble, I’ve already sent in my guilty plea and I included my name, telephone number and my home address. So come and get me. Bring help. And bring your mob!!

If you want to do the same, the email address is flag@whitehouse.gov Maybe we can share a cell?

Oh, the other good thing about Reno. They have “quickie divorces”.

I’m ready to file!!!

Tastes Great ! --------------- Less Filling!

Before I retired from full-time work, I loved Fridays. Not because I had fears of the work week and was, therefore, glad to see the back of it but because I had a ritual.

The ritual went like this:-

Anybody in corporate life, especially here in these United States, is inundated with “stuff”. Some is hardcopy stuff but mostly, these days, it isn’t. The rest is electronic mail or voicemail and even though that medium weighs less, it can still clog up the inbox of your mind. I seem to remember from a psychology class I took once that the human brain can only do a maximum of 3 things at the same time. Thank heavens that the complexities of breathing and heartbeat are not my problem, well not at a conscious level anyway.

But I also seem to remember that, in certain circumstances, the male brain could only think of one thing. And if you happened to be also a teenager that subject consumed one for most of the time.

Anyway the Friday ritual was to throw away the bottom half of the 2 foot stack using the principle that, if I hadn’t needed it until now, I never would.

Today’s post was going to be a bit like that and I was going to use up lots of the otherwise unrelated snippets of Obama shortcomings. But, over the weekend that changed as I had the opportunity to do what John Conyers of Michigan should be doing which is to delve into the, now infamous, “House Resolution on Healthcare”.

We’ve previously looked at Section 1233 which calls for compulsory “end-of-life counseling” every 5 years for those on Medicare. Interestingly enough, Obama was asked about this provision at one of his never-ending town hall meetings and he categorically denied that it existed. So Obama supporters, you are left with the uncomfortable choice of deciding if he’s ignorant of his own policies or he’s a liar. I don’t have that dilemma because I think he’s both.

But now we can add to Section 1233, that Obama says isn’t there, a couple of other nuggets.

Let’s start with Section 163 on page 58 which gives the government full and absolute access to every one of the financial records of every person on “Obamacare”. Clearly today, if the IRS wants that kind of access they can get it but they need a court order to do it. But under this Bill, no such safeguard exists.

Then let’s also add Section 1308 which gives the government the ability to dictate “Marriage and Family Therapy” whenever and wherever they choose.

But what does the “Third Estate” of the press and broadcast media spend there time, money and resources on? Why the “Beer Summit” of course! Hours and hours discussing who drank what brand? Who ate peanuts and who chose pretzels? Were there apologies sought or proffered? And all about a subject that Obama should not have been in the middle of to start with.

The other half of the tag team was there as well namely Joe Biden. Now, in the past I’ve referred to Joe as the drunken uncle at the wedding who won’t shut up but actually Uncle Joe doesn’t drink. Perhaps he should take it up? Perhaps he’d make more sense? …………..

Nah!!!!