It Is Not Strictly Business - It Is Personal Now

Last summer and fall America was enthralled with the election and pretty much ignored what was happening all around us. Oh sure we were not happy with that bank bailout but it was strictly business, right? And who really understands that? Not your average citizen, especially when terms like derivatives and bundles and subprime are thrown around. Besides nobody paid much attention to what Bush was doing; he was leaving soon anyway. And yes the market dropped but hey it has done that before but it was costing less to fill up our SUVs, so life wasn’t too bad, right? So the summer flew by as summers do and the fall was exciting and historical as the country elected Obama as our president. Then came the winter…

Maybe at a Christmas party you first talked to a neighbor or friend or somebody’s spouse and you realized that people around you were losing their jobs. Perhaps you cut back some on your holiday shopping, and even if you didn’t, you discovered that favorite stores and restaurants were disappearing overnight. Suddenly the holidays seemed a bit more muted this year; more furtive looks, more dipping into the eggnog, scared people heading to church on the Sunday after Christmas.

In January, when it seemed as if everyone on TV was rejoicing Obama’s inauguration, no one you knew was celebrating. Life was actually turning more stressful. The harsh winds of winter were beginning to creep into your house.

Year-end results were announced at work making this recession, depression whatever it’s called start to hit home. If there hasn’t already been a reorganization or downsizing in your company, you know one was coming. Maybe you’ve worked hard and climbed the corporate ladder but you’ve never been given a million dollar bonus or flown on private jets to sun drenched “meetings”. No, in fact, you’ve worked harder than ever spending late nights and weekends, seeing less and less of your family while your employees resent you as they believe what they see on TV about management. And now all employees are told of wage freezes, no bonuses and no more matching 401K. But worst of all, you might have lost your job or, if you’re in management, you might have the gut wrenching task of having to let people go. Your job, if you still have it, has become even more stressful. But what can you do? There are no jobs out there so you stay put, if you can, but hating every minute of it, and you seriously begin to worry about strokes and heart attacks. But you will do whatever it takes because you need that job for the bills are beginning to accumulate like the snowdrifts against your house and car.

By February, you’ve already received the credit card statements and you’re scared. You know that after paying your mortgage and electricity and everything else that there isn’t much left over to help chip away at your MasterCard and Visa and Target and all the other credit card balances. Then you start to go through the paperwork to fill out your income taxes. You worry how you are going to be able to pay Uncle Sam, but unlike some states, you never once question if you will pay, of course you will find the money, sending in that check, somehow, someway.

No matter how difficult, you still manage to pay your bills, your taxes and yes, your mortgage. You may go deeper into debt, you may have to stop buying nice things for our spouse, you may stop putting money into your child’s college funds or your pension plan but you’ve always been told that you have to pay your bills, especially your mortgage. And it is depressing to know that you can no longer do more for your family, that the dream you’ve worked for all your life is gone through no fault of your own and you can’t fix it any more. In fact it hurts, really hurts, deep down inside you. And you realize that what is happening all around you isn’t strictly business or economics or even politics anymore. It has become personal, very very personal.

Then Obama tells us he will help us with his recovery plan. But what do we get? Out of the billions and billions of dollars, the hardworking taxpayer gets only a few lousy bucks more each month and nothing for the struggling small businessmen and women. Instead Obama promises handouts to people who bought homes we never could afford so that they can stay in their homes. Lowlifes who never worked or saved or earned the right to buy their homes. Yet we are told we have to give them our tax money so they can stay in their fancy houses; while we struggle to quietly pay our mortgages on our small homes every month. It just isn’t right and we are hurt and angry. So now, it is no longer strictly business. It has become personal.

Liberal Hypocrites? Really?

Yes, it may be hard to believe but liberals really are hypocrites! In fact their two-faced indignation and hypocritical outrage have recently reached new levels. Two totally different stories in the headlines have had these liberals, especially the California/Hollywood types, screeching in moral indignation. Yes, I said moral indignation, which, considering these people the idea of moral Hollywood liberals is surely an oxymoron. Nonetheless see for yourself….

Everybody knows about the OctoMom, the woman who had 8 babies in addition to her current 6 children. I think that in Hollywood the greater sin is not that she had all these children or that she can’t take care of them but rather that she dares to emulate the nearly sainted Angolina Jolie. What nerve!

Besides, how dare a doctor implant all those eggs in this woman! Debates are already raging about him with outraged liberals demanding that his license is yanked and perhaps even putting him up on criminal charges. For it should be a crime for an unwed mother of six to have eight more children, right? I mean it’s ok if Jolie has a lot of children because she’s rich and has a husband. Oh wait, I guess she and Pitt never have married, have they? But OctoMom’s doctor should definitely be punished for implanting all those eggs because this woman has to be mentally unbalanced and therefore couldn’t make the right decision. So it is up to the doctor to intervene on her behalf, right? Then again, aren’t these the same liberals who will start screaming at even a hint of the repeal of Roe vs. Wade for how dare a man tell a woman what to do with.. her..body... oh, well, never mind.

Speaking of babies, last fall these same far left gossips were jumping all over Sarah Palin’s unwed daughter who became pregnant. Oh what a horror! How could she not only become pregnant at 17 but then compound it by actually giving birth and keeping her baby! What a terrible mother Palin must be to allow this to happen. No need to mention that “baby bumps” are the latest Hollywood accessory without of course any fathers in sight. And gee, didn’t the Oscar for the best original screenplay last year go to Juno, about, yes that’s right, a pregnant teenager. How cute. How funny. How sweet. How dare Palin’s daughter get pregnant and give birth without a father around! So it’s ok for Godless liberals (as Ann Coulter calls them) to have children out of wedlock or to play a pregnant teenage but conservative have to abide by a different standard!

The last hypocritical move by the liberals is something that is still in the news. Poor Michael Phelps caught taking a hit off a bong and getting high on pot. What a tempest in a teacup! I mean really, it’s no big deal, right? He’s just having some fun with some college kids (although if he had been in a frat house I bet the press and liberals would be singing a different song). Anyway, it wasn’t as if Phelps was doing anything strong like crack or heroin, it was just marijuana. Since this story has broken I have heard numerous Hollywood liberals proclaim that pot should be legalized. They all point to California, the land of Nancy Pelosi, which is so progressive that it has decriminalized pot.

In fact just as FDR repealed Prohibition in order to increase tax revenues during the depression then Obama should legalize pot. Then Phelps and anyone else who wants to get high can take a hit on a bong whenever they want to without fear of being arrested. But don’t you dare light a cigarette within 50 feet of these pot proponents or they will have you arrested for polluting the air and endangering their health with that filthy, disgusting second hand smoke! Wait a moment, let me sniff, oh, that’s a joint and not a cigarette? Never mind.

It Is What It Is

Conservatives are having hissy fits over this stimulus bill. I suppose I could add my voice to the ranting and ravings but what is the point? After the election when Democrats took over every branch of government we knew there were going to be changes which went against everything we believe in, like the stimulus bill. This bill was a major platform of Obama’s and in spite of some bickering, Reid and Pelosi quickly rallied their troops to give the President what he wanted, when he wanted it. Come on folks, was anybody at all surprised by this?

Yet a glance at the headlines on Drudge, Politico, Townhall or any other conservative website will show excitable, angry, outrageous headlines of which the award for most over the top column would go to Ann Coulter who wrote an article titled Goodbye America, It Was Fun While It Lasted: http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2009/02/11/goodbye,_america!_it_was_fun_while_it_lasted. Then there are the radio talk show hosts. Oh my. Yes they are normally rather excitable but you should hear them now. They are running out of words to describe how despicable Congress is and nearly frothing at the mouth in indignation over this stimulus bill.

My take on it is a line from work that became overused but which expresses my feeling on the whole thing: It is what it is. Maybe that’s a fatalistic point of view but why bother getting all worked up over something you have no control over? Or as Obama likes to remind everyone; he won and we lost and I would state it as “he won, we lost so deal with it!”. Histrionics will get you nowhere. Actually it will make Republicans look like poor losers, something that American’s despise. We already have a trust issue with half of America and so we need to change tactics going forward.

We need to regain the nation’s confidence, respect and become the party of ideas and reasonableness. It really shouldn’t be too difficult to portray Reid and Pelosi for what they are; far left, demanding, odious, old time politicians. So instead of becoming hysterical over every little thing they do we need to calmly explain why a bill is harmful to the nation, how much it will cost the average working tax payer and then present to the nation alternatives. Of course Congress will never look at our ideas much less enact anything from the right side of the House and Senate. But over the next few years people would begin to trust and respect Republicans if they calmly and logically explain to the country how they would have handled an issue rather than the current ranting and ravings and shouting “No” and screaming that it is the end of the world or at least the end of America.

Of course I am afraid of what the tyrannical trinity of Obama, Reid and Pelosi will do to my country. Unfortunately they have the votes in the House and there will always be a few turncoats in the Senate so that they will be able to do what they want. Yes it is frustrating and infuriating and most of all very scary to see all these changes. Although it is what it is we actually can deal with it by trying to change the situation using a two prong attack. First, as I have suggested, Republicans need to rationally explain why the liberals are not only wrong but dangerous to the country and then give an alternative idea. My second point is that we must begin to target vulnerable districts where Republicans have a chance of beating the current Democrat Congressmen in two years. Then all of us need to help with money and support in order to elect more Republic Congressmen in 2010. This quiet support to defeat Democrats in two years will go a lot further towards ending the Democrat stronghold in DC than any rantings and ravings ever will.

Crazy Idea or Chilling Reality?

Yesterday after listening to the news, I came up with this really crazy thought….

We know that there have been a lot of meetings and discussions between Chavez, Castro and Putin. In fact I googled on the three names and came up with over a million hits, including one from back in 2001 “Putin, Venezuela’s Chavez Plan Anti-American Alliance”. Fast forward to October 2008 and you have this opening sentence in a newspaper article “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who arrived in Russia with a short visit upon the invitation from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, had his first meeting scheduled with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Chavez said hello to Putin from Fidel Castro.” The newspaper with this article? Pravda: http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/26-09-2008/106471-russia_venezuela-0. So for at least seven years, perhaps even longer, these three (with Castro’s brother stepping in to replace the ailing Castro) have been building this alliance.

Then it occurred to me to see where Venezuela is in South America. Unfortunately, I think I learned most of my geography while playing Risk in college and could only remember that Chavez’s country was somewhere in South America. After getting a map on-line I was extremely startled by this country’s location. Wow. This really isn’t good. To illustrate my concerns, I highlighted the three countries; Cuba, Russia and Venezuela in red for the old communist red. As Mexico is now very unstable and could fall I highlighted them in pink. Here is what my map looks like:

Everybody knows that Cuba is right off our southeastern coast, but who remembered just how close Venezuela was to Cuba and therefore from us? Now with Mexico possibly in play, how easy would it be for them to deploy troops at that border? If we can’t stop unarmed illiterate Mexicans, how could we possibly stop highly trained armed troops crashing across our unmanned empty borders? And will people some day remember with regret how they contemptuously dismissed Sarah Palin’s comment about seeing Russia from her home in Alaska? If I were playing Risk and was blue, I would be very worried about an invasion of some kind.

I realize that this is one of my crazier ideas. Then again, now would be the perfect time for a coordinated attack. America is weaker than we’ve ever been. Our economy is in shambles. We have no money. Our troops are spread out, with most of them in Iran and Afghanistan. The State Department is more concerned about Israel and the Hamas while Homeland Security is more worried about Islamic terrorists than with what is happening on our own border with Mexico. And of course, we have a very young, naïve and inexperienced President. What better time for our enemies to strike against America on American land?

Add into this crazy thought that up until 9-11, the idea of anyone attacking us never even came into our consciousness. A lot of men and women fought and died in WWII and WWI but it was all over seas, including Pearl Harbor, none of the destruction and death was on continent. As awful as 9-11 was, it was still a one shot attack; over and done with in a matter of minutes. Yes, men and women have since died because of it but again it was all over seas and not here. So we have no memories, nothing to guide us by if enemy troops flooded our boarders and immediately engaged in destroying out towns and killing our citizens. Sure we have nuclear weapons but would Obama ever use them much less deploy them in Texas? OK maybe he wouldn’t mind if he bombed TX but definitely not in Harry Reid’s Nevada!

Plus we might not be the only ones with nuclear weapons. Russia already has them and there has been a lot of talk in the lately that Iran will have them in the near future in spite of potential UN sanctions. The Wall Street Journal even has an article this month entitled “How Europe’s Companies Are Feeding Iran’s Bomb”: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123379548035950207.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.

There was another article from September 2008 with the chilling title of “Putin and Chavez in Nuclear Talks”. Great. That’s all we need is for Chavez to have the bomb (take another look at that map!). It also said that Russia has loaned $1 billion to Venezuela to buy arms. And then there was this picture along with these paragraphs:

“Earlier this month, in deployments not seen since the Cold War, Russia sent two long-range bombers to Venezuela for exercises and has dispatched a flotilla of warships from the Arctic base of Severomorsk to Venezuela near US waters.

Venezuela has bought Russian fighter jets, tanks and assault rifles and is planning to purchase anti-aircraft systems, armoured personnel carriers and more combat aircraft, Kommersant reported earlier, quoting Russian officials.”

Oh and the source of this article? Aljazeera. Getting worried yet? http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/09/200892518282265489.html

I’m beginning to think that we should be as worried about this as about our economy. I also found a lot of old articles talking about Chavez and Putin and their dealings with oil. If the rising and falling price of oil contributed to our current economic downfall then how much of this could be attributable to Putin and Chavez manipulating the sales of their barrels of oil? Fixing our economy is important but I sure hope Obama and Clinton are keeping their eyes on this. For if Putin and Chavez purposely sabotaged our economy then what might be their next step? Then again, maybe I am sounding like a conspiracy theorist now. But what if there really is a conspiracy?

Short Retort

Is the President starting to act like the bratty kid who doesn’t understand why no one wants to play with him even after he brought the only ball? Apparently Obama, in trying to round up Congressional support for his economic bill, once again reminded Congress that he won the election. I can’t help but think of the obnoxious kid who after being shunned stands alone stamping his feet in anger and frustration and telling everyone that he brought the ball so why won’t they play ball with him? Sorry Mr. President. But just as little boys have their reasons for not playing with the boy holding the ball, such as maybe the kid is obnoxious or doesn’t play fair or bully’s other kids; the big boys and girls who won’t play ball with the President, even though he won, also have their reasons. If it all weren’t so serious it would almost be fun to watch the President throw these temper tantrums when people actually defy him!

Super Sunday

Sunday was a great day for sports, only marred by a truly tacky afternoon. In the pre-dawn hours was the Australian Opens final with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Luckily the Tennis Channel ran it again starting at 9am and even knowing who won I still couldn’t move until it finished more than four hours later. Federer, ranked 1st was gunning for his 14th grand slam win which would tie Pete Sampras for the most grand slam wins. He was also well rested after an easy three set semi-final on Thursday. His opponent, Rafael Nadal, however, had played only 42 hours earlier in a grueling 5 match set to win his semi-finals in the longest match ever played in Australian Open history (5+ hours).

This match went the full five sets and is being called one of the greatest final matches ever played. And it was. After more than four hours of them fighting for every point, it was the more rested Federer who visibly wilted allowing the younger Nadal to be the winner thus depriving Federer of his 14th grand slam win. Until that last set it was an exciting match with more break points than either had had through the whole tournament. The sheer power, stamina and speed of Nadal was truly impressive. And I am not sure if I have ever seen a greater display of sportsmanship than during the award ceremony. Federer, so disappointed in his loss and so exhausted physically, emotionally and mentally, could not stop crying as the crowds cheered him, shouting they loved him while Nadal comforted him with a hug. Wow.

After tennis I turned on the pre-game show. Was that Keith Olbermann I saw? It was only for a second but I wasn’t going to wait to see if it was him so I changed the channel. I tried again half hour later and what was Tina Fey doing there? Ugh, I switched again. A bit later I turned it on and saw Springsteen’s interview. Not impressed. Wait, there’s Olbermann again! What was a political commentator doing on a sports show? Luckily my phone rang so I put Olbermann on mute and didn’t have to listen to him although simply looking at that man was bad enough.

And then there was the interview with Obama. I thought he dropped the ball. I admit that I despise both Obama and Lauer but I still think they blew it. The Super Bowl game is no place for serious politics and I thought they were completely out of line. I also think Obama was a bit too relaxed for he said things he really shouldn’t have said. The worst, though, was when Obama said he had to support the Stealers because their owner supported him. What?! No wonder he won Pennsylvania with the Stealer’s iconic owner campaigning for him in steel mills! And if that wasn’t bad enough, it was made worse by the fact that the opposing team just happened to come from McCain’s home state. So to say he was cheering for Pittsburgh was simply tacky. That just isn’t done as the President should always appear to be above the fray and not have favorites, except maybe his home state team. Worst yet, he didn’t end the interview by wishing both teams good luck – something every President has done, until, well, Obama. This was very unpresidential and showed that beneath his veneer lies a pay to play Chicago politician who will only support those who support him, which is really no different than ex-governor Blago.

Then there was the game itself. Wow. People will be talking about this one for a long time. It was packed with outrageous plays from a 100 yard run back for a touchdown, the safety of all things and all of the excitement in the last quarter. The only downside was the many penalties earned by both teams. If the players had behaved themselves it might have been a very different game. And I hope the Steeler’s player shown punching the back of a downed Cardinal gets heavily fined for that kind of behavior cannot be tolerated. But all in all it was a terrific game.

Of course you can’t talk about Super Bowl Sunday without mentioning the commercials. Most were aimed at 15 year old boys and there was a lot of pratt falls, groin injuries and people getting hit. Worst ads for me were the talking flowers, GE’s scarecrow and H&R Block’s ad with the creepy dead man. On the other hand, I really liked the moose one, the Coke ad, the adopt a pet ads and of course the Clysdale commercials. But my favorite had to be the Cheetah’s ad. I will even admit that the trailers looked really good for some of the upcoming movies and piqued my interest. But most of all there was the game. I didn't think the Super Bowl was going to match the earlier tennis match in sheer excitement and intensity. I was wrong.

A great day for sports. Too bad NBC just couldn’t help advancing their liberal views and marred the day by bringing in politics. Shame on them.

Bio Brief - Nancy Pelosi - Part 3 of 3

Peter Schweizer wrote a book entitled Do As I say (Not As I Do); Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy and it should not come as a surprise that he devoted an entire chapter to Mrs. Pelosi. One example of her hypocrisy was explained in a National Review article where Schweizer says: “Nancy Pelosi bashes everyone who doesn't allow unions to call the shots. Everyone that is except herself. It's takes an amazing amount of gall to accept the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Unions while using non-UFW workers on your Napa Valley Vineyard. It takes the same to praise the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union and take massive sums of money from them all the while keeping them out of your Hotel and chain of restaurants. But again, I think Pelosi correctly assumes that no one in the media will challenge her on this.”

Although it is not true that her husband owns $17 million in Del Monte stock, the email making the rounds about her was correct in stating that she did get the American territory of Samoa exempt from the increase in minimum wage. And that Del Monte, which is headquartered in her district, has two packing plants in Samoa with around 5,000 employees. She also did get into trouble once by using government planes to travel to and from San Francisco and there was an incident over her paying her husband $100,000 for consulting fees, a practice she had voted to ban.

Pelosi’s hypocrisy is also evident in how she runs Congress. Remember her initial vow last year to have Congress work five days? That went out the window in the first week when she adjourned Congress on a Monday so that people could attend the national college football game! I’ve not heard much about that 5-day work week since then, have you? And last August, when gas prices were closing in on $5 the Speaker adjourned Congress for a five-week vacation without taking any action to lower gas prices while Republicans continued to debate the issue on the darkened House floor.

But the coup de grace of hypocrisy was last summer when Pelosi called Bush “a total failure” yet refused to acknowledge that Congress had the lowest approval levels of just 14% according to Gallup, ratings that were even lower than Bush’s! The same CNN article continued to report that a whopping 70% disapproved of the job Congress is doing. And while the Real Clear Politics poll shows that Obama has an average favorable rating of 61.8%, Congress continues to have a low favorable rating of just 27.3%.

Earlier, when I was googling on Pelosi’s husband, Paul, I turned up a lot about her son, Paul Jr. I looked at a few articles and discovered that that Nancy Pelosi’s son, Paul Pelosi is a real chip off the old block. An excellent article at http://valleywag.gawker.com/5113868/paul-pelosi-jr-the-fresh-green-prince-of-san-francisco highlights Paul Pelosi Jr. Here is just a sampling: “His LinkedIn profile is a bit incomplete. It discusses his investment-banking work for Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. And it mentions his job at Countrywide, for example, where he worked as a loan officer — at one of the mortgage companies most scrutinized for its role in the housing bubble and ensuing collapse of Wall Street. But it pointedly omits his $180,000 a year job as a senior vice president at InfoUSA, a marketer of consumer databases, which he started less than one month after his mother became House Speaker, while simultaneously holding his job at Countrywide. InfoUSA CEO Vinod Gupta also paid Bill Clinton millions of dollars as a consultant…”

Did anyone ever mention during the mortgage crisis that the Speaker of the House’s son worked for the worst culprit, Countrywide? Now if a Republican Congressman’s son worked for them there would be outcries of conflict of interest but not a peep was said and this was the Speaker of House! As for InfoUSA, there is a definite trend of paying off the relatives of high ranking Democrats. However, I won’t comment any further as I was once a client of theirs, although perhaps paying off Clinton and Pelosi might explain the exorbitant prices they charged for their services!

At the same time she and her family appear to flaunt the rules, she is currently working to repeal the Fairness Rules. Basically these rules, which were implemented by Newt Gingrich as part of his Contract with America, ensure that minority opinions are heard through open debate and alternative bills, and include a six-year term limit for committee chairmen. There is an excellent article about this in Human Events at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30143&s=rcmp.

This Human Events article ends by saying: “Pelosi’s proposed repeal of decades-long House accountability reforms exposes a tyrannical Democrat leadership poised to assemble legislation in secret, then goose-step it through Congress by the elimination of debate and amendment procedures as part of America’s governing legislative process.”

Add in her professed Progressive (read Socialistic) ideologue and this is a very scary picture of our Speaker of the House, third in line for the Presidency, isn’t it?