Category Archives: Politics

June 16, 2010 · 4:12 pm

Flunking Out

I have often puzzled over the gulf that exists between liberals and conservatives on how they look at the issues of the day. This is never more evident than when I visit my liberal friends and in-laws who frequently treat me with the bemused tolerance one would expect for a dimwitted and slightly addled child. To maintain peace and harmony I chew on my tongue and try not to let any political comments pass my lips.


One of my theories on how liberals and conservatives can arrive at such divergent conclusions from the same set of facts supposes that we are not, in fact, using the same facts. This theory surmises that liberals read the NYT, the Daily Kos and The Huffington Post and listen to NPR, MSNBC and CBS News. Conservatives, on the other hand, read the WSJ, Bloomberg, Townhall.com and listen to Fox News. In other words, we libs and cons may NOT be operating from the same set of facts or, at least, the emphasis or interpretation of those facts.


An older theory of mine postulated that people adopted a stance early in life… either left or right and simply stuck with it. This firmly held conviction thereafter colored whatever information they received. This tied in with another theory of mine that I call “tribalism”. I postulated that people in their early years decide to which “tribe” they belong: Hippy, punk rocker, preppie, biker, geek, etc. From there onward they adopt the dress, speech, mannerisms, life style and attitudes of that tribe. Therefore, if you decide that you are an educated, hip, urbane person concerned with the environment and socially conscious, you join the liberal tribe and accept anything “liberal” and reject as downright stupid, if not corrupt, anything labeled as “conservative”. (Note to my liberal friends: Don’t get hostile here. I am just trying to figure this shit out.)


I was never all that convinced that either of those two theories sufficiently answered my questions.


Now comes a new theory to further confuse me. Daniel Klein recently published a piece in the WSJ entitled “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader”. Mr. Klein is a professor of economics at George Mason and together with Zeljka Burturovic, a Zogby researcher, conducted a December 2008 survey of 4,835 American adults. The survey asked them eight questions about basic economics. They also asked them about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative and libertarian. The researchers here were looking for incorrect answers, and only, as Professor Klein said, “A response was counted as incorrect only if it was flatly unenlightened.” The possible responses to the questions were: 1. strongly agree 2. somewhat agree 3. somewhat disagree 4. strongly disagree and 5. not sure. “Not sures” were not counted as incorrect. I will list the questions below and the correct answers at the end of this piece so you can, like, figure out if you are, like, a liberal or like, a conservative. No, like, cheating by going to, like, the end of the article.


Pick one of the above highlighted answers to the following questions:

1. Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.

2. Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services.

3. Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago.

4. Rent control leads to housing shortages.

5. A company with the largest market share is a monopoly.

6. Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited.

7. Free trade leads to unemployment.

8. Minimum wage laws raise unemployment.


So, how did the self-identified ideological groups fare in this simple economics test? Remember, we are scoring incorrect answers here.

Very conservative: 1.30 wrong

Conservative: 1.67 wrong

Libertarian: 1.38 wrong

Moderate: 3.67 wrong

Liberal: 4.69 wrong

Progressive/very liberal: 5.26 wrong


When asked about party affiliation, those responding as Democrats averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Those responding as Republicans got 1.61 incorrect.


You can read Klein’s original article (link) to get the specific scores on the individual questions and his explanations of the correct answers.


A lot of brain cells can be destroyed trying to figure out why the most liberal among us did so poorly on a simple economics test compared to the most conservative citizens. I won’t attempt that here. Suffice it to say that the “progressive/very liberal” wing of the Democrat Party has been in charge of things for some time now and this simple test helps explain the unenlightened economic policies now coming out of Washington.


Wrong answers to questions: 1. Somewhat disagree, strongly disagree. 2. Disagree. 3. Disagree. 4. Disagree. 5. Agree. 6. Agree. 7. Agree. 8. Disagree.

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Filed under Econ Quiz, Politics

June 9, 2010 · 5:00 am

Score Card

In February of 2009 I posted a piece entitled “Prognostications” in which I made a number of predictions about what Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress would do now that they had complete control. As I was driving back from our annual fly fishing expedition to central BC the other day I thought about that list and concluded it was time to see how I faired in my predictions. Hereafter, the list and the score thus far into the “Hopie-Changie” era.



· The Stimulus Package: Originally at some $870 billion, winding up with some add-ons at around $1 trillion, has failed miserably to prod the US out of recession. The “neo-Keynesians” that populate the Obama economic brain trust assured us that if this thing were not rammed through Congress immediately that unemployment would go above 8%. Well, it’s been hovering around 10% for many months and only that low because the millions of workers who are no longer even bothering to look for work are no longer counted in that calculation. 325,000 people dropped out of the “lookers” category last month. Congress recently passed an extension of unemployment compensation to 99 weeks, assuring that the unenthusiastic and disinterested will remain on the sidelines. The recession continues. The deficit? Greece here we come. According to the Heritage Foundation the US is poised to have the deficit exceed the GDP in the near future. Score: YES.


· Card Check Legislation: They made some feeble attempts at this but backed off to concentrate on the health care bill. Obama did reward the unions big time by giving them big chunks of GM and Chrysler stock when the two auto giants went tits up. Score one NO.


· Give More Money to the Auto Companies: The US government now own most of GM and the bondholders at Chrysler (these are the secured creditors in a bankruptcy) got stiffed. GM paid back part of the money, but that money came from previously borrowed government funds. So, you can’t really say they paid off the loan. They still owe some $40 billion. Score: YES


· Pass the Fairness Doctrine: They did not really have the courage to tackle this one and totally piss off the millions of listeners of conservative talk radio. Instead they dispatched Mark Lloyd, the Diversity Czar for the FCC to see if he can “back door” the thing through regulations. Score: NO.


· Restrict drilling for oil and gas: At the time of posting “Prognostications” Salazar had already cancelled leases and set aside huge swathes of the west where no drilling was allowed. Now, with the oil disaster in the Gulf every-thing is shut down. The irony is that if the regs had not forced the oil companies to drill in such deep water (a mile down) and instead were allowed to drill on land or in shallow water, this thing would have been fixed already. Score: YES


· Not allow the construction of nuclear power plants: Obama says they want to build them but they shut down the Yucca Mountain repository where they were to store the waste signaling their real intentions. Score: YES


· Enact cap and trade: It has already passed the House and is currently introduced in the Senate. Debate has been stalled with the intrusion of other matters like voting themselves a raise and fine-tuning their special medical program. Some GOP Senators will vote aye. Score: YES


· Toss money at solar and wind power: Money for these industries was included in the stimulus bill and much more to come with the cap and trade legislation. Score: YES


· Abandon missile defense and reduce US nuclear arms: Obama cut funding for missile defense programs, refused to provide funding to upgrade the US’s aging nuclear arsenal, cancelled the missile defense shield for Europe and made a lopsided deal with Russia to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. Score: Big YES


· Enact restrictions on gun ownership: Hillary is trying to work something through a UN agreement. Score: NO


· Appoint “living constitution” fans to Supreme Court: Sonia Sotomayor has been confirmed and Elana Kagan has been nominated and awaiting confirmation in the Senate. She’s sure to be approved. Score: YES


· Squelch school choice: The Congress withdrew funding for the charter school program in Washington, DC, thus ending a successful program and signaling the Adminis-tration’s aversion to charter schools. Of course, the Dems are much beholding to the teacher’s unions and they hate charter schools. Obama has created a program called “Race to the top” providing certain states with substantial funding. Some states are refusing to participate as the money comes with the Feds getting too involved in local schools. BTW, the June 5th edition of the WSJ has a great piece about Madeleine Sacker, an independent filmmaker, who has created a documentary called “The Lottery”. It’s about the thousands of Harlem kids and their parents who show up for a lottery to try and secure the few slots open at Harlem Success Academy. Surprise! The teacher’s union paid Acorn $500,000 to pretend to be parental protesters. Score: YES


· Abandon tort reform: Of course. Don’t be silly. Score: YES


· Attempt to make illegals citizens: They are trying to push “comprehensive” immigration reform, but not yet. Score: NO


· Put the government in charge of health care: You know all about that one. Score YES



Somehow I neglected to put tax increases in the Feb ’09 post. It did, however, appear in previous posts. Here’s a list of the tax increases the Democrats have enacted so far.


· $500 billion included in the Health Care bill.


· Double taxation on corporations doing business overseas.


· When the Bush tax cuts expire taxes on upper incomes will increase from 35% to 39.6%. Dividends will be taxed at 39.6% instead of 15%. The capital gains tax will increase from 15% to 20%. The inheritance tax will increase from 0% this year to 55%.



Congress is currently working on a bill to raise taxes by $43 billion on corporations and another bill to tax S-Corps (small businesses taxed as individuals). While the details of this one are as yet unclear, it appears to apply to independent operators like architects, accountants and the service industries. It sounds like it will hit them at about 15%. So much for the talk about helping small business and not taxing the little guy.



Another thing I did not anticipate is Obama’s muddled and wrong-headed foreign policy. He has offended and insulted the US’s allies, especially Israel, Poland and the UK while trying to suck up to the Muslim world. This has only confused our allies and emboldened our enemies. The combination of an isolated Israel and an aggressive Iran and Syria only make the likelihood of war in the Middle East more certain than not. He’s pushing Israel into a corner. Watch the price of oil when that one tees up.



As a new prediction (at least to blog readers) I feel the sum of Obama’s economic policies insure a double dip and protracted recession. You cannot crowd out capital with an annual deficit of $1.5 trillion dollars, raise taxes on individuals and corporations, driving jobs and businesses offshore, raise the price of energy with cap and trade taxes and expect a growing economy. They’ve got a lot of Harvard folks in the Administration, but they will need to get glass eyes installed in their navels if they expect to see where they are going.

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Filed under Politics, Predictions

March 28, 2010 · 4:17 pm

Done Deal

So, the Democrats, after 14 months of contentious internal wrangling, finally managed to pass their mammoth overhaul of the US health care system. Since the Republicans in the prohibitive minority, could never do anything to stop it, the problem always was to convince enough Democrats to vote for this socialist wet dream.

Making laws has often been compared to making sausage… a messy business. But, the ugly process of cramming this unpopular law through congress makes the production of links and patties positively clean and efficient by comparison. ‘Sleazy’ is a word that comes immediately to mind. ‘Arrogant’ is another.

To get it through the Senate where Democrats held a veto proof majority before the historic election of Republican Scott Brown to occupy the “Kennedy Seat”, special deals were struck with Senators to secure their votes. Mary Landrieu of LA sold her vote for the $300 million “Louisiana Purchase”, and Ben Nelson sold out for the “Cornhusker Kickback” for a similar amount. Much less discussed were: “carve outs” for Mutual of Omaha and other insurers in Nebraska; $100 million for Chris Dodd (a hospital in CT) and Tom Harkin got a hospital in Iowa. Democrats in Florida, North Dakota, Montana, Vermont and Michigan all got exemptions for their states from the substantial cuts to Medicare Advantage, a popular program with seniors.

Perhaps the most predictable of the breaks was that for the UAW. They got an exemption from the new tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans. And why not? In the 2006 and 2008 election cycles the UAW gave $1.5 billion of their members dues to Democrat candidates. After giving them 50% of GM, the Democrats continue to pay them back.

To force the Senate bill through the House, Nancy Pelosi and the White House had to pull out all the stops. We don’t know all the strong-arm tactics employed to convince wavering Democrats to vote for the Senate bill that many members admitted they hated. Their constituents were telling them in no uncertain terms that a “yes” vote would insure their defeat this fall. Kim Strassel (WSJ, 3/19) wrote about the plight of Jason Altmire of PA. His story may be similar to other reluctant Dems. She likened his situation to a man being forced to walk the plank with his choice being facing the cutlasses of angry pirates behind him or sharks circling below. The sharks, of course, were the voters and the pirates organizations like MoveOn.org and SEIU who were already running negative ads against him in his district and promising to sabotage his election campaign in the fall by withholding money and running primary challengers against him. On the other hand, a “yes” vote pretty much assured he’d get his ass handed to him in the fall and have to go find a real job.

Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a no vote last time, got a nice ride on Air Force One, some face time with Obama, and Denny’s wife got a job working for Michelle. Jim Matheson was convinced to vote yes when his brother suddenly got appointed to a lifetime position as a Federal judge.

Surely the most cynical of the purchased “yeses” were that of Reps. Cardoza and Costa of CA. Their districts have been devastated by the decision to shut off the water to the San Joaquin Valley to protect the two inch Delta Smelt. Environmental groups had sued and a Federal judge decreed that the endangered minnow required shutting off irrigation to 1,000,000 acres of farm land, throwing 40,000 farmers and their workers into bankruptcy or onto the streets. Turning the “bread basket of America” into a dust bowl and ruining the economy of the region was not enough to sway the Obama Administration from their love of the Delta smelt. But, getting two more votes for ObamaCare? Screw the minnow! The water has been turned on.

To get the health care bill passed into law the Democrat controlled House had to pass the Senate version without changes. With any changes it would have to go back to the Senate where the election of Scott Brown had eliminated the veto proof majority. But, many Dem House members hated a number of provisions in the Senate bill, particularly language that provided for public funding of abortions. Bart Stupak (D, MI) led a group of Democrats strongly opposed this provision and threatened to provide enough votes to defeat the bill. After serious arm twisting failed to sway him, President Obama stepped in and offered Bart political cover by promising an Executive Order prohibiting public dollars for abortion. While everyone agreed that it was “not worth the paper it’s printed on”, Stupak and his small group figured it a sufficient fig leaf to vote yes for the bill.

The House decided to use “reconciliation”, a parliamentary gimmick that would require only 51 votes in the Senate, to “fix” the objectionable bits of the original Senate bill.

At the same time the Congressional Budget Office released the analysis of the bill’s impact based on a bogus collection of assumptions, double counting, Medicare cuts and tax increases. The CBO came back with the wildly implausible projection that the deficit would be slightly reduced by the bill. This flimsy piece of political cover, coupled with the Stupak cave produced sufficient Democrats to pass the bill with zero Republican votes.

Done Deal!! Pop the corks on the champagne, let the party begin! Obama gloated and continued his speechifying touting the bill even after he signed it. As the Congress packed their bags and their hangovers to head home and face their constituents, the details of what’s in this 2600 page monster started to get analyzed and its impacts calculated. Dozens of major corporations now estimate that the bill will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. (AT&T says it will be a cool $1 billion). This is only the beginning of the reality check. Those disparaged prognosticators who pegged the cost of the bill at close to $2.5 trillion will certainly be vindicated. There is no doubt that this take over of the health care system will be a killer of jobs and a massive increase to the deficit at a time when the US economy can afford neither.

As I have said before, this legislation has never been about improving health care or containing costs. On 3/20 the WSJ reprinted a 1996 piece by the late Milton Friedman. In it, the brilliant economist explains that the rapid rise in the cost of medical care has been the result of policies that separate the receiver of care from the entity that pays for it. Most people receive medical insurance from their employer (either management or union) or from Medicare and Medicaid. Since someone else is paying, there is little incentive for the users to concern themselves with cost and that encourages the overuse of services. With users unconcerned about cost, providers face no competitive pressures to reduce them. And, since the employer provided insurance is tax deductible to the company and tax free to the employee, this distortion of the market has grown over the years.

Medical Savings Accounts were created to let market forces do their magic in a small segment of the health care universe. People could set aside some tax-free savings in a HSAs to pay for routine medical expenses and purchase high deductible insurance in case of something really serious. When spending their own money, people become much more judicious. ObamaCare will eliminate this common sense approach using the gentle persuasion of the IRS.

The unchecked predations of the trial lawyers who attack health care providers for crimes real or imagined has also added greatly the rapid inflation in health care costs. This not only drives up costs directly but also results in a tremendous amount of “defensive medicine” where doctors and hospitals add tests and procedures in anticipation of lawsuits.

ObamaCare does nothing to address these factors that increase costs. In fact, it makes them worse. Provisions in the bill actually make it easier for tort lawyers to sue doctors and hospitals. Pushing more people into Medicaid will not reduce costs and it certainly won’t improve quality. Besides, debt heavy states can ill afford to have these costs fobbed off on them.

So it’s a done deal…. Against the wishes of a vast majority of the American public. The new taxes start immediately but the “benefits” won’t show up until 2014. In the meantime, we will get to find out what it really means and hire the 16,000 new IRS agents to track down and jail the scofflaws who refuse to buy health insurance. (String them up!) It is difficult not to believe that the whole purpose here is to drive private insurance and health care delivery out of business. Perhaps the Left believes that health care nirvana arrives when the US has a government run system like Canada or Great Britain. I can assure you after living in Canada for the last 15 years, that Americans are going to hate it.

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Filed under Health Care, Politics

January 7, 2010 · 7:01 am

The Depends Bomber

“The US does not have an (air) security system; it has system for bothering people.” Shlomo Dror, Israeli Air Security Expert, 2002.

The Obama Administration dodged anther bullet on Christmas day when a Nigerian Muslim by the name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (hereafter referred to as UFA for obvious reasons) attempted to set off 80 grams of PETN hidden in his Depends-like briefs while aboard NW flight 253 as it approached Detroit. You may have seen the video of what 50 grams of PETN can do to a jet liner. 80 grams would surely have done the job, killing all 300 aboard and an unknown number of unsuspecting innocents on the ground. Had UFA’s detonator worked, the public reaction to the resulting catastrophe would be furious rather than the “ho hum, another failed terrorist plot”.

The President, not wanting to disrupt his vacation in Hawaii, took three days to comment on the incident. In his statement he used the word “alleged” numerous times.

Alleged?

Alert passengers subdued this turkey with his genitals on fire and his diaper loaded with high explosives! Obama’s statement plus the fact that UFA was arrested and given a lawyer rather than turned over to the military for questioning certified yet again this Administration’s return to the pre-9/11 mentality of treating terrorism as a legal matter. We know how well that worked out during the Clinton years.

With the lawyer’s sage advice, UFA immediately clammed up and that eliminated any possibility of obtaining any useful information from the guy. Had the CIA been given a crack at him and allowed to water board, we might have learned some useful information about his network in Yemen. Not to worry said spokesman John Brennan on the Sunday talk shows, they might offer UFA a plea bargain to obtain info. Al Qaeda is laughing their asses off. Plea him down to what? Smoking on an aircraft?

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano issued a statement saying, “…the system worked,” thus sliding just under the wire for the Stupidest Statement of 2009 Award. This is no small achievement given her other statements in ’09, such as her pronouncement that “terrorism” would now be called “man caused disasters”. She also opined that veterans, gun rights advocates and various right-wingers were serious threats to national security. Among many notable challengers on the Obama Team, ol’ Janet may be the most uniquely unqualified of the lot.

The monumental absurdity of Napolitano’s statement became glaringly obvious when it was revealed that not only had his own father reported to the State Department that his son was a threat but also, that the British had warned the US about this guy over a year ago. He had purchased a one-way ticket with cash and traveled with no luggage. The Brits had denied him a visa and yet he had a valid one from the US. This nut job was waving more red flags than a North Korean May Day parade. The only way he could have been more obvious would be to wear a tee shirt with the word “Terrorist” on the front and an arrow pointing to his crotch with the words “bomb here” next to it.

The system worked? Nothing worked… most importantly the detonator. A week after the incident Obama, after meeting with his “security advisors”, announced that, yes, “mistakes were made”. That’s my all time favorite Washington cliché. It covers crimes big and small. He informed us that from now on they would be looking more carefully at people flying in from certain Middle Eastern countries.

That’s a start but still avoids the major and blindingly obvious issue: 100% of the terrorists are Islamic fanatics, young men and primarily Arabs. Obama’s new policy would not have stopped UFA since he boarded the plane in Amsterdam. And, what about flights originating at US airports? The BHO administration, and Bush’s before him, refuse to do the one thing that would make us safer….PROFILE. Giving young Muslim men the identical scrutiny as white haired grandmothers from Omaha can only be described as idiotic.

This political correct mania and reluctance to offend any Muslims is what got 13 soldiers and one unborn child killed at Ft. Hood recently. And, it’s behind the decision to try KSM and his 9-11 terrorist cohorts in NYC instead of using military tribunals.

I can’t understand why Obama thinks it perfectly fine to vaporize suspected terrorists in Pakistan with missiles from Predator drones, but if we happen to catch one, we give him US Constitutional rights and a free lawyer. God help any SEALs or spec ops guys who might give the terrorist a fat lip in the process of capturing him. And profiling? Furgetaboutit.

Meanwhile, the TSA and FAA are dreaming up more ways to make air travel even more inconvenient and intrusive. Not only will we be just taking off our shoes and having our toothpaste and shampoo confiscated, carry-ons are now forbidden and no standing up or potty breaks on the last hour of the flight. What’s that supposed to do? Next up: full body scanners. They’ll see what Granny has in her knickers but still won’t give any special attention to the young man from Saudi Arabia with the sweat running down his forehead. Maybe everyone should simply refuse to fly until some common sense gets injected into the issue? I wonder how long it would take?

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Filed under Obama, Politics, Terrorism

December 23, 2009 · 7:55 am

The New Deniers

Skeptics of man made global warming have been called “deniers”, a name purposely chosen to tie them to “holocaust deniers”. In other words, nut cases refusing to recognize the obvious. Skeptics like me were held in contempt and shouted down by the true believers. Most skeptics kept their doubts about the doomsday predictions to themselves.

One would have thought that after the publication of over 3000 emails and reams of data either hacked or released by a whistle blower on November 17th from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, that things would change. I naively expected that the scandal dubbed “ClimateGate” would anger journalists and editors and they would now aggressively investigate and report on what appears to be a massive fraud. HA! Silly me.

“The Vancouver Sun” reluctantly ran a brief report on “ClimateGate” a week or so after the story broke on the internet and then pretended it did not matter, running one global warming scare piece after another on the buildup to the climate conference in Copenhagen. Today they ran four pieces lamenting the failure of the UN conference to impose massive restrictions and taxes on Canada and the developed world.

The ClimateGate emails revealed that the dons at CRU had fudged and cherry picked the data, conspired to “peer review” each other’s work, frustrated FOI requests for other researchers to see their data and methods and pressured scientific journals to exclude articles critical of their positions. Now they claim they have “lost” the original data on which they based their research! They also wrote each other lamenting the inability of their theories to account for recent cooling. Pretty damning stuff and those defending the emails as simply ‘banter between scientists’ sounded more than a little lame.

Honest and diligent reporters should have smelled out this story years ago. Canadians Steve McIntyre and Dr. Ross McKitrick have been working on it for years and have written papers discrediting Dr. Michael Mann’s famous “hockey stick” graph widely used by alarmists. The graph showed a dramatic rise in temperatures in the last century and eliminated the Medieval Warming Period of 800 years ago. M and M, as the CRU scientists called them, discredited the hockey stick proxy data showing that they had cherry picked the data. (Recently Russia revealed the CRU had also selectively utilized the weather station data provided to them by Russia. CRU researchers only used 25% of the data, selecting the warmest locations.) McIntyre also made NASA back off from their contention that 1998 was the warmest year on record. It was actually 1934. NASA admitted their error. Did you read about any of this in your local newspaper or see it on TV? No, of course not. Should they take Al Gore’s Nobel Prize away and give it to McIntyre and McKitrick? Certainly.

You would think that when new evidence is presented a rational person would reevaluate their position. That does not seem to be the case with global warming (oops. Climate Change). And, with record breaking cold and massive snow dumps in Europe and North America even before winter’s official start (yesterday) one would expect some concern. Hey, it actually snowed in Houston and collected on the beaches in the south of France. Hello. Oh, I forgot, that’s climate change formerly known as global warming. Right.

There seem to be two camps that have a vested interest in perpetuating the global warming alarmism: The scientists who receive massive amounts of money from various governments to conduct their research. If scientists scream the world is coming to an end government opens the purse to fund the research. CRU received $20 million from the Brits. The US has doled out far more. This camp also includes those who invest in industries poised to gain from government funded alternative energy projects and those who can get in on the carbon trading schemes.

The other camp includes socialists who believe the solution to all the ills of society can be rectified by a world government. Craig McInnes wrote a piece in today’s Sun (After Copenhagen: Political Climate Change Begins at Home). He summed it up for us with this quote: “What Copenhagen demonstrates again is that we don’t have a system of international governance that allows a global interest to override national interests…” Just what Canadians need, the UN telling us how many cow (or moose) farts are allowed, how we can heat or light our homes or whether we can barbecue a steak. If you think about the UN Food for Oil scandal or the ongoing slaughter in Darfur you can probably guess how well global governance might work out.

What about the editors and journalists, you might ask? I suppose some are just lazy or hired to be the “environmental reporter” inclined to lean left and green. They have tended to just parrot news releases and propaganda put out by environmental groups without doing any serious checking of the facts. Hey, scary stuff sells papers. Don’t rock the boat.

If you really want to get information on global warming you have only to go to the internet. (Journalist take note.) You can start by viewing a special report by Fox News called “Global Warming, Or a Lot of Hot Air”. It ran last Sunday but it’s now posted on YouTube (part 1 of many–look for other links). If I could find it, you can. Next I would suggest Steve McIntyre’s site, Climate Audit and then Climate Depot. If you still believe in global warming after a little honest research God love ya. You’re a New Denier.

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Filed under Global Warming, Politics

November 13, 2009 · 8:44 pm

Mixed Grill

Just a few thoughts on recent items in the news of late.

Major Hasan’s potential for mass murder was ignored by the Army prior to his attack at Ft. Hood, despite glaringly obvious clues. His many radical public statements and comments to associates (duly reported), his attendance at a radical mosque frequented by the 9/11 perpetrators and attempts to contact Al Qaeda should have rung some serious alarm bells. Nobody did a thing. The only explanation seems to be political correctness. At all costs we must not offend any Muslims.

This tendency continued even as the bodies were being hauled away. Commentators in the MSM carefully avoided the obvious and refused to call the slaughter an act of Islamic Terror even in the face of the facts and that Major Hasan had shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he fired over 100 rounds into the unarmed troops. The contortions were almost funny as the talking heads explained that Hasan had “snapped” and perhaps suffered from “pre-traumatic stress disorder”. Since Hasan had never been in battle (or near it) he presumably contracted this new syndrome from anticipating his deployment or from talking to troops who had seen action. Absurd.

The degree to which the MSM will go to avoid calling a spade a spade was humorously on display last night when Bill O’Reilly interviewed Sally Quinn, veteran reporter of the “Washington Post”. You should watch the interview. He had to practically pin Ms. Quinn to the wall and throttle her to get her to say the words “Muslim terrorist”.

President Obama did not look very good in his handling of this tragedy either. Attending a conference with American Indians he stepped to the microphone to speak to the nation about the attack. Before getting to the Ft. Hood incident he spent several minutes discussing the conference and giving “shout outs” to several attendees. Almost as an after thought he brought up the Ft. Hood shootings. Then he choppered off to Camp David for a relaxing weekend. Meanwhile, with cameras and publicity prohibited, George and Laura Bush quietly drove to Ft. Hood and met with the victim’s families. This is what a Commander-in-Chief does instead of slipping off for a weekend of R & R.

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In case you missed it, the House rammed through a 1990 page health care reform bill with two votes to spare, including one lone Republican. 39 Democrats voted against it. The Dems spent a lot of time figuring out who would be permitted to vote NO and still get the thing to pass. Surely the Democrats in the safest districts (those likely to be re-elected even if caught on video snorting crack while sodomizing a sheep) voted YES with little fear. Those in districts carried by McCain or considered conservative were given a pass. This measure is highly unpopular and will prove more so as the taxes, penalties and coercion kick in. The cynical Democrat calculus is that short- term losses are acceptable, and if they can once get this implemented, will ensure a left of center government forever.

They are nervous though. The public gets ever more angry as the unemployment rate keeps climbing (10.2%) and the debt piles up. The health care bill costs over one trillion dollars even with the increased taxes, and forcing the unwilling to purchase health insurance or face penalties, or even imprisonment. It has people more than a little concerned. Now it’s up to the Senate. They have not even released the bill yet and if Harry Reid is to be believed, it will mirror the House bill. The question remains: if the Democrats don’t have the 60 votes, will they pass the thing by “reconciliation”, the parliamentary procedure requiring only 51 votes? While it’s a highly questionable maneuver, Reid may do it as a parting gift to the liberals as it seems likely the good people of Nevada may toss him out next November.

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As the health care train trundles down the tracks, those busy Democrats in the Senate are quietly preparing the Kerry/ Boxer version of a cap and trade bill. You might remember that the House has already passed its version. Cap and trade is a huge tax on an already strained economy that is struggling to rise out of a serious recession.

Why the Democrats figure hanging these two anchors around the necks of the taxpayers at this time is a good idea befuddles me. I guess just as the health care bill is not about improving health care or making it more affordable, the cap and trade bill is not about reducing carbon emissions. Both of these boondoggles are about power and control. And, if anyone thinks the government can effectively run health care or the energy industry, you have not communicated with the Social Security Administration or the IRS lately. Social security and Medicare are headed for bankruptcy and Amtrak and the Post Office on life support. If you think these new initiatives are a great idea, you need a reality check.

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Filed under Cap and Trade, Health Care, Obama, Politics, Terrorism

October 26, 2009 · 4:20 am

Fox Hunt

A couple of times in recent years my liberal friends have offered without any prompting from me, a disparaging comment about Fox News. In both cases I responded, “How would you know? You’ve never watched it.” That ended the debate because, of course, they never had tuned into Fox News.

In the past week the White House and George Soros funded Media Matters all came out attacking Fox News, the latter with a “Fight Fox Campaign”. White House advisor and former campaign manager for President Obama, David Axelrod, appeared on one of the Sunday talk shows and opined that Fox was not actually a news organization. Rahm Emanual, White House Chief of Staff appeared the same day on another show and uttered essentially the same exact words. Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director said the same exact thing. Gee, what a coincidence. The previous Sunday Obama appeared on all five morning talk shows…. Except Fox.

What the Hell is going on here? Actually it’s quite simple. Fox is the only network reporting on some of the radical people Obama has chosen to be part of his collection of “Czars”, positions within the White House reporting only to BHO, unconfirmed by Congress and accountable to no one. They have also reported on the unlawful activities of ACORN, the community organizer and receiver of government funds and SEIU, the radical union that heavily supported BHO’s election.

None of the other news organizations bothered to report any of this stuff. In fact, readers of the NYT and viewers of the major networks were confused when Van Jones, the “Green Jobs Czar” was forced to resign because of videos of Jones admitting he was a communist and other racist and absurd comments. They were confused because the major outlets had completely ignored the controversy and had failed to report that the guy was on his way out!

Messrs. Axelrod and Emanual both observed that Fox has a “point of view” ie. They are conservative and therefore should not be taken seriously. What a joke. Like MSNBC, CNN and the NYT do not have a distinctly liberal point of view? ABC, NBC and CBS are similiarly left wing and all were cheerleaders for Obama during the election and haters of GW Bush during his Presidency. They failed in their job of vetting this man during the election and since Obama took office the MSM have been fawning over him like a love struck teenager. None of the late night comedians do any jokes about Obama and when SNL did a mildly critical skit about Obama it caused the Left to go crazy. CNN even did a “fact check” on the skit.
Only Fox and talk radio have been questioning what he’s doing and looking into the CVs of the radicals he’s appointed to be his “Czars”. BHO has appointed 30 of these folks at recent count. Here’s a sample of some of the people closest to Obama and the positions of power and influence that they hold:

Valerie Jarrett: Senior Advisor and closest confident to BHO. Former advisor to Mayor Daley in Chicago. She has ties to communist Frank M. Davis and has been linked to left wing radical causes.

Van Jones: Former “Green Jobs Czar”. Embraced communism when in prison. Professional radical. Resigned.

Ron Bloom: “Manufacturing Czar”. Former union executive, has made anti-capitalist statements and said Mao Tse Tung is a political guide.

Anita Dunn: White House Communications Director. Also said Fox “… is not a news organization”. Quoted as saying Mao is “one of the two political philosophers she turns to…” (Mao, you might remember, was the dictator of China responsible for the death of 70 million Chinese.)

Carol Browner: “White House Director of Energy and Climate Change Policy”. One of 14 leaders of Socialist Internationals “Committee for a Sustainable World Society” calling for One World Government.

Cass Sunstein: Head of “Office of Administration and Regulatory Affairs”. Argues for bringing socialism to the US and lends support for communism.

Kevin Jennings: “Safe Schools Czar”. Homosexual who has worked to teach gay topics in schools including elementary schools. Ties to NAMBLA (you can look that up).

Mark Lloyd: “Diversity Czar for the FCC”. Praises Hugo Chavez for his stifling of the press during Venezuela’s “great” revolution. Big fan of Saul Alinsky and government control of all media.

And this is just a partial list.

In one of my blogs right after Obama was elected, I said he would surround himself with radical leftists from the fringes of society. Even I had no idea he would be brazen enough to recruit a bunch of left wing kooks this far out of the mainstream.

It seems pretty clear that this attack on Fox News is an attempt to intimidate the rest of the media into continuing to keep silent and not question what the Czars are up to. With Obama’s approval ratings falling rapidly (51% as of 10/28/09) they want to keep the news of their radical agenda under wraps long enough to ram through socialist policies unpopular with the electorate. And, of course, with his Czars he can use regulations and mandates, avoiding the messy business of passing laws.

This guy is even more dangerous than I thought.

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October 2, 2009 · 5:25 am

Ann Coulter: Too High Above Cayuga’s Waters

Generally I enjoy watching and reading Ann Coulter, the conservative author and commentator. She’s often quite funny and I do relish that she gets under the skin of liberals with ease.

On the other hand, she occasionally drifts into the outrageous just, it seems to me, to get attention. Ann also seems to be too impressed with her own considerable intelligence and suffers under the illusion that she is just as attractive as the “info-babes” on Fox News. Sorry Ann.
When Coulter decides to go after someone she becomes caustic and very, very personal. She displays outright distain for Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the publisher of the New York Times.

Of course, Sulzberger, whom she calls by his nickname “Pinch”, inherited his position at a young age, the NYT having been controlled by his father and grandfather for the past 150 years.
In recent years under the leadership of Pinch the Times has lost its position as the “paper of record” by becoming a left wing rag.

Along with credibility the Times has lost readership and boatloads of money. Bankruptcy has only been avoided by the $250,000,000 infusion of cash by Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire.

OK, Pinch is a lousy businessman and a schmuck. But, Coulter’s attacks have been very personal, calling him stupid for failing to get accepted to Harvard and getting into Columbia only because of family connections. Out of bounds? Yeah, I think.

Coulter has also focused her sharp tongue on Keith Olbermann, the host of MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”. Before I get going here, let’s be clear. I think KO is a dip shit and an extreme liberal bomb thrower. I believe MSNBC has sold its soul to the Democrats and should be ashamed to call themselves a news organization. Having said that, I think Coulter’s attacks on Olbermann are too personal and over the top.

Chief among Coulter’s charges is that Keith’s frequent references to his Ivy League education at Cornell ring hollow because he went to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell. She calls the college a “bovine management school” and claims the only people who can legitimately call themselves “Cornellians” attended the College of Arts and Sciences. This likely shocked those folks who attended the Engineering, Architecture and other fine colleges that comprise Cornell.

It certainly came as a surprise to me, a graduate of said College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in 1964. While yes, the CALS does offer courses in agriculture and related fields, it also offers majors in pre-med, pre-vet and dozens of other majors including: biology, sociology, economics and engineering. I got my own degree in Marine Biology. Olbermann got his degree in Communication Arts.

Ann also ignored that students in the CALS School take many of their courses in the “Arts School” where they compete head-to-head with the “real Cornell students”. Note to Ann: We often kicked their Asses, thank you.

The big advantage for students who are residents of New York State is that you can attend the CALS and other state supported colleges at Cornell and pay 1/3 of the nearly $30,000 per year tuition for the same education. For guys like me who were self-financing a college education, this is an opportunity not to be ignored.

Coulter also conveniently overlooks that acceptance to Ivy League schools may not always be based on pure academic achievement alone. Legacy students, those whose parents attended the university are given special consideration, as are minorities and athletes. The Ivies pride themselves in not giving athletic scholarships but let’s get real. If a great high school running back with less than stellar grades applies… Well, adjustments and exceptions can be made. When I was there nearly our entire hockey team was comprised of Canadians. Great students? Maybe.

Ms. Coulter’s attacks on Olbermann are justified on the basis of his view, opinions and some of the asinine things he says. But, denigrating everyone who attended the other fine colleges at Cornell except the “Artsies” smacks of snobbery and the very elitism she so often disparages.

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Filed under Ann Coulter, Cornell, Keith Olbermann, Politics

August 14, 2009 · 5:41 pm

The Doctor Will See You Now….. Finally

My three faithful readers may have been curious why I have not weighed in on the contentious health care reform debate that has been raging in recent weeks. Been traveling folks. In late July we flew to Michigan to visit our friends Pete and Shirley for a few days before riding together to Buffalo where Pete and I attended our 50th high school reunion. Yeah, I know. I find it hard to believe myself.

Loi and I then drove on to Schenectady to visit her brothers and families. The day after we got back I headed back across the border for the weekend gathering of the annual UDT/SEAL (NW Chapter) Assn. Yesterday we finally got back to Whistler…. Just in time for rain and 50 degree temps.

I have been paying attention to the debate and the unfolding drama as Obama and his left wing allies try to ram “health care reform” (later focus group renamed “insurance reform”) down the throats of Americans. Obama proclaimed it had to be passed before Congress went home for the August recess even though the final version of the bill had yet to be completed by either the House or the Senate. What finally emerged was HR 3200, another 1100 page behemoth that the President himself had not read even as he tried to sell it.

Of course, none of the esteemed legislators had had a chance to read the Stimulus bill, the spending package or the Cap and Trade bill either. John Conyers (D-MI) laughed when asked if he’d read the bills and opined that no one reads them and if they did, they’d need two lawyers at their side to figure them out. Hilarious. The Obama Team knew that if anyone, especially the citizens, actually had a chance to read what he intended to do to American health care and American freedoms that resistance would grow.

Democrats have enough votes to ram this thing through without a single Republican vote. But, the “Blue Dog Democrats” and those in districts won by McCain could see their political careers flashing before their eyes and refused to vote on it before recess. As they headed home to meet with constituents, people started to read the massive bill, distill it down to bullet points and distribute it on the internet. You can read a synopsis of HR3200 at: http://www.lc.org/. The whole thing is online if you have the time and inclination (and a couple of lawyer friends). As people read the thing with deep misgivings already over the quick accumulation of massive debt (five times larger than Bush’s biggest) and concern over the sagging economy, they started to rebel. Huge numbers of angry voters began turning up at politician’s town hall meetings. The Dem leaders responded and with the assistance of the MSM began calling these citizens “un-American, “Nazis” and a “mob”. Harry Reid called them “astroturfers”. This is a time-honored technique of the Left: accusing your opponents of the dirty tricks you yourself employ. Consider the irony that it was Obama’s campaign manager, David Alexrod who perfected the Astroturf Strategy and coined the term.

The Democrats then immediately called out ACORN and union thugs to disrupt and dominate the protests. George Soros donated $5 million to help the reform effort and the pharmaceutical industry agreed to kick in $150 million in exchange for restraint by the White House in pushing for drug price controls. Someone should remind the CEOs of the pharma industry about the story of the frog making the deal with the scorpion for a ride across the river.

With support for reform slipping badly in the polls and Obama’s popularity with it, BHO decided to go into campaign mode, confident that his charm would turn the tide. Obama sufferers from the ego driven conviction that he can fool most of the people most of the time, especially when protected by the likes of ABC, NBC, Time, etal. Thus, he feels no need for restraint in telling untruths. He’s told some whoppers lately. For example, he stated he was not in favor of a “single payer system”. Unfortunately, he was caught on tape a couple of times during the campaign saying the exact opposite. In the early going he said the purpose of health care reform was to contain costs. The CBO came out with an estimate that the cost of this thing will be about one trillion dollars. He told an audience during his own “town hall” that AARP had endorsed the bill and the next day AARP denied it. He said there would be no rationing, Medicare would not be cut and that there would be no bureaucrats deciding to terminate treatment for seniors. If you check out the link on HR3200 above you will quickly find that all of those statements are ….. Well, lies. Despite a protective press, people are catching on that you cannot trust this guy.

The take over of the health care system in the US has never been about containing cost, covering the uninsured or improving health services. Some 85% of Americans are happy with the health care system. (Ironically, 88% of Canadians, who have a single payer system, say they would prefer to go to the US for their health care than receive it in Canada.)

As pointed out by Mark Steyn in a “National Review” piece entitled “Dependence Day” (July 20, 2009) that 45 million uninsured number is BS. One fifth, he says, are not Americans (illegals would be covered under the proposal), Medicare covers another fifth, two fifths are young and don’t care because they will live forever and the other fifth are wealthy and choose to self-insure.

The take over of the health care system by government is purely about power and control. It will, as Steyn points out, insure that once implemented, left of center governments will prevail forever. The UK and Canada, both with single payer systems provide a perfect example for, however imperfect, it becomes the proverbial third rail of politics. It has the power of life or death over citizens and they are fearful of attempts to cut services further.

Then too, the British National Health Service has 1.4 million employees in a nation 1/3 the size of the US. This massive bureaucracy that has more managers than doctors, wields considerable political clout. If you look at the huge new bureaucracy that HR3200 proposes to administer nearly every aspect of citizens personal and financial lives, you can see where Obama plans to create employment and, Democrat voters.

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of this monster is the intrusion into the freedoms of Americans. Steyn states that: “A government-directed medical system can be used to justify almost any restraint on freedom.” He points out that smokers in Manchester, England have been refused treatment for heart disease and obese people in Suffolk told they are ineligible for hip and knee replacement. When you turn over decisions for your health care to a bureaucrat with instructions to cut costs, your individual needs get tossed out the window. A headline in yesterday’s “Vancouver Sun” proclaimed that due to cost issues several thousand surgeries had been cancelled and hundreds of health care workers laid off. Too bad, folks.

I am at a loss to predict where this thing will go. The Democrats might ram it through thinking they will never have another chance like this one. They might calculate that losses in the 2010 election are acceptable and that since the law would not actually kick in until 2013 that people will have forgotten and Obama can get re-elected in 2012 while retaining control of the Senate. On the other hand, they might decide to try to modify the plan to get some Republican support for a compromise. Right now they are losing serious support among seniors and independents and those groups make the difference in elections… especially if they turn out in large numbers. Obama, Pelosi and Reid have tremendous egos and are drunk with power. They might well decide to say the Hell with the public and cram it through.

If the idea of turning over your life to the government does not appeal to you it might be time to get off your ass and do something. Contact your representative, email everyone you know, attend a town hall meeting or write a letter to the editor. If you’re happy with the idea of a government bureaucrat coming into your home and telling you how to raise your kids or what to eat, or that “Sorry Mrs. Jones, that surgery you need is not available at this time because of budget cuts”, do nothing. Your choice. Good luck.

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Filed under ACORN, Health Care, Navy SEALs, Obama, Politics

June 25, 2009 · 7:52 pm

Dictator For A Day – Part II

If you did not read Part I you’re going to have some difficulty figuring out what I am doing here. You can probably guess what you need to do now.

Rising from my brief nap I am a little fuzzy so I will take on a rather simple issue: the dollar coin. Most countries that I have visited have one, two and even five dollar (equivalent) coins. The reason for this is quite simple. Paper money wears out many times faster than coins and who wants to carry a wad of paper singles in their pocket? In my youth we called this a “Michigan bankroll”… a big wad of bills, all singles. The US has made several attempts at introducing a dollar coin: the Susan B. Anthony dollar, the Sacagawea dollar and now the Presidential dollar. [Not to mention the Eisenhower dollar (1971-1978), Peace dollar (1921-1935), Morgan dollar (1878-1904; 1921), Trade Dollar (1873-1885), Gold dollar coins (1849-1889), Seated Liberty dollar (1836-1873), The 1804 dollar, and the silver dollar coins from 1794 to 1803. This dollar coin business is a failure more than 200 years in the making. –ed.] All have failed for one simple reason: the government refuses to simultaneously remove the paper dollar from circulation. Several years ago the Canadian government introduced the two-dollar coin (the one dollar coin, having the image of a Common Loon on the back side is often called the “Loonie”; similarly, the two dollar coin is fondly referred to as the “Twonie”). The banks pulled all paper two-dollar notes out of circulation when they came in and within two weeks all the paper notes were gone. I’d immediately have the Treasury stamp out millions of one-dollar coins and have the banks pull the paper bills. While I’m at it, I’d have them create a two-dollar coin. Maybe the Bill Clinton coin?
The War on Drugs: Started during the Nixon Administration in the ‘70s and expanded ever since, you would have to agree that the war has been lost. My criterion for this is quite simple: if any high school kid in North America can get any drug he wants in 24 hours (and he can), then I’d say you’re pissing up wind and getting your shoes wet.
The Feds spend some $20 billion annually on the effort and the states spend another $30 billion, almost all for enforcement. This does not include the costs of prosecution and imprisonment of offenders. Half of all the people in Federal prisons are there because of drug offenses and 17% for crimes committed to get cash for drugs. Officials anticipate that in 2009 over 1,841,000 people will be arrested on drug offenses. In 2007 there were 872,000 arrests for cannabis violations alone. In 1986, during the Reagan Administration, a mandatory minimum was enacted for drug offenders. As a result the average sentence for drug offenders is 75.6 months while violent criminals serve an average of 63 months. (Figures from War on Drugs Clock and an article by Christina Gleason).
Dan Gardner of the “Ottawa Citizen” has written an excellent series on the drug issue and points out that there is no relationship between the cost of production and the retail price for drugs because of the “risk cost” to the industry, including the need to corrupt judges, police and government officials. Many users could continue to function in society and not resort to crime to support their habit if the cost were not so out of whack.
So, for my first big pronouncement after lunch I would legalize all drugs (except crystal meth). They could be imported (or home grown) and sold like liquor i.e. Taxed and confirmed for quality. This would quickly destroy the illegal market for drugs and all the violence and graft that goes with it. Druggies would be able to pick up clean needles and that would require rescinding the Federal ban on needle exchanges. Dirty needles cause some 4000 new cases of HIV/AIDs each year that cost $618,000 each for a lifetime of treatment.
Next I would release from prison all except the violent drug offenders. The dealers could not re-offend because the market for their services no longer existed. Clearly, this would free up lots of prison space to hang on to the real dangerous predators to society like rapists, murders, pedophiles and various scumbags. It would also allow the ATF and the FBI to concentrate on potential terrorists and man the border to stop illegal immigration. Not happy with this? Sorry, I’m Dictator today.

Potty and liquid refreshment break.

Energy independence: This is another old saw begun during the Nixon Administration in the ‘70s. The result: the US has gone from about 16% imported oil to around 60% with the US sending some $700 billion annually to countries that hate us. The solution is to drill offshore and in Alaska and to exploit the tar sands in the West. This morning I added a $.50 tax on gasoline and would mandate that another $.50 be added in five years. I would also reduce the tax on diesel to make it less than the tax on gasoline, and tell the UAW to pound sand and allow the import of low cost high mileage diesel cars from Europe or South America. While were at it, might as well eliminate the CAFÉ standards for gas mileage. (Good piece on this in the 6/22/2009 “National Review”).
To keep the cost of electricity down I would immediately authorize the construction of 20 nuclear plants and open Yucca Mountain repository for nuclear waste. To do the drilling and building of nuke plants it would be necessary to pull the teeth of the well funded environmental groups and their cadres of lawyers. So, I’d cancel the “citizen lawsuit” provisions of environmental laws and subject proposed drilling and plant building to a commission of scientists and business leaders. I would also make environmental groups taxable entities and donations to such groups subject to a 20% tax. To be fair I would extend those provisions to all the many K Street lobbying groups. Unless there is a serious issue… let the drilling and building begin. The sale of drilling leases and the royalties resulting from all the new wells would be a great revenue source for states and the Federal government. Clean up of any oil spills would, of course, be the responsibility of the drilling companies.

Time for a cigar. All this Dictating has me restless.

The cutting of taxes, reining in of the lawyers and providing cheap energy would certainly bring in massive amounts of investment capital from around the world and result in rapid economic growth. As always, the lower rates would bring in increased revenues for the government. However, there would be a lag, so spending must be cut substantially. Anyway, government is too big, too expensive and redundant. The federal government employs 1.8 million civilians plus another 785,000 at the beloved post office. I’d put an immediate freeze on all hiring. For the USPS, I’d let any business deliver the mail and let the post office go out of business.

I eliminated the Education Department this morning, but there’s lots more low hanging fruit that I want to pick off right away. The Drug Enforcement Agency for example. I legalized drugs so this group is now unnecessary. As Ronald Reagan observed, “The Department of Energy has never produced a single barrel of oil or a lump of coal.” I’d eliminate 90% of the Dept. of Energy and transfer the remaining 10% over to Interior to keep track of energy. That leaves the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Commerce, Labor, Treasury, Vets Affairs, State, Transportation, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development and Defense. Except for Defense, I would appoint a commission of businessmen to combine functions, eliminate employees and streamline operations such that the cost of government would be reduced by 50% in five years. With the aggressive growth of the economy there will be plenty of job opportunities for these federal employees in the private sector.

While we’re in the cutting mode, let’s have my “Efficiency Commission” go through the budget and eliminate corporate welfare, farm subsidies, funding of NPR, the NEA, ACORN and all other groups not considered a Federal function. For Congress, no more tacking on earmarks legislation to build a bike path or airport in your district. Absolute no-no, boys.

Social Security: This Ponzi scheme makes Madoff look like a two bit thief. First off, I’d forbid Congress from spending the money put into the SS Trust Fund. I guess I’d first have to set up the fund since it doesn’t exist. Having former illegal workers now covered under the Guest Worker program and paying taxes will help but, social security needs to stop hemorrhaging money by sending checks to drunks, druggies and immigrants who never worked in the US. There will be plenty of money left over at the end of the War on Drugs to weed out the undeserving. I would also let people opt out of the system on the terms of the Republican proposal of a few years back.
Medicare: This is a black hole that needs to be closed and a very difficult task. Unlikely to be fixed by the Dictator today. I have already given doctors relief from medical malpractice and that will help. I would also let people set up medical savings accounts, make medical insurance available across state lines and make it portable when workers change employers. Self-employed people would be able to deduct insurance premiums and able to buy at group rates through associations. Free medical care would not be denied illegal aliens in emergency situations but they would be immediately deported when mobile.

Welfare: Another difficult and long standing problem unfixable by single pronouncements. First, no illegals should be collecting welfare. That’s an insult to honest taxpayers. Same goes for otherwise able-bodied individuals and there will be plenty of jobs available in the rapidly expanding economy.
Justice: I would immediately expand the Supreme Court to 15 justices and appoint 6 new jurists that believe in the Constitution and not legislating from the bench.
And finally, as the day draws to a close, I would pronounce that none of my Dictator Mandates could be changed for 10 years.

Time for a beer. That’s enough for one day.

Note: One of my three faithful readers suggested I tackle the Media in this piece. I decided not to because: 1. Freedom of the press, and 2. The media is comprised of private businesses and should succeed or fail by their own hand. People are already getting frustrated by the biased liberalism of the MSM and their drooling, slavish support of Obama. They are turning off network news and canceling their subscriptions to left leaning newspapers (the NYT, Boston Globe and others are on life support. CBS just reported the lowest ratings ever for their evening news program. Ever.). When citizens fully realize the impact of BHO’s policies and global warming is finally exposed for the massive hoax that it is, the MSM will pay a heavy price. In other words, they don’t need any help from me.

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