The Sound of America

Did you hear that sound? It is something I haven’t heard in at least ten months. It is the sound of the people finally finding their voices. Americans have had enough and are finally standing up against Obama and the rest of Congress. And these aren’t just Republican tea baggers but Blue Dog Democrats and Independents who are finally questioning the Democratically controlled government and are angry with where Washington is going.

Voters wanted to trust in this newly elected President and Congress and allowed them to push through the stimulus bill, and cap and trade with little to no resistance within the first 100 days. But that is how the American people act – we believe in giving everyone a chance. Even if you didn’t vote for the man, the country was hurting and most of us wanted him to help this country. We didn’t agree with how he wanted to help us but we were willing to give him a chance. We are now realizing that there was a fatal flaw in our generous and naïve trust in President Obama.

You see, it would have never occurred to most citizens that our leaders would enact legislation that would purposively hurt our country. Obama and Congress swore to serve and protect us, right? So we tried to understand the benefits of saddling this country with trillions in debt for economic stimulus bills which might not even implement these jobs for years in the future. We wanted to believe that the cap and trade would help the environment and couldn’t fathom the darker side that it was a way to redistribute wealth and punish successful companies.

But in the past month, Obama has acted in such a manner and Congress has drafted such astonishing legislature that we can’t ignore our misgivings any more. People began to finally wake up when Obama sided with the angry black man vs. law enforcement and when Congress tried to ram through a 1000 page Health Care Bill that would dismantle every existing health plan we have today. Perhaps the epitome of the stupidity found in Washington is the Cash for Clunker program which ran out of money in the first few days. And people are realizing that there can only be some hidden disreputable reason as to why Washington won’t let the banks pay back the bailout money.

I keep thinking of the classic movie Network and the much quoted line “I’m mad as hell and I won’t take it any more.” And it has always been to their own detriment when leaders or other countries dismiss angry citizens. We are basically a friendly and forgiving group of people but when we are angry, we become an entirely different animal altogether. Just ask Japan or Germany or Iraqi’s. We believe in fairness but we also believe in justice. And Washington has not acted fairly to us and we are now out for justice.

Chills now run up my spine as I listen to average citizens confronting their Congressmen. I cheered when the crowd booed Senator Specter when he said they needed to pass the health bill “fast”. I am thrilled when I hear protesters chanting “Just say no” at a Representative’s rally in Texas. I laughed when I read that Senator Diane Feinstein’s office threw out a group of senior citizens who refused to leave her CA office. And I am elated when citizens stop being passive and now are standing up to Washington.

All of this is reflected in the downward spiral of Obama’s popularity. And we must be succeeding because Obama is now going after those who speak out. It is truly scary that Obama wants people to snitch on those who are protesting against him. On Aug 4 a White House website posted the following statement:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

By the way, when did they start referring the Health Care plan as the health insurance reform plan? Did they think just by changing the name people would be lulled into approving this monstrosity? But that is secondary to the chilling intention of this statement; to report people, like me, to the White House for writing unfavorable things on the health care plan. Good grief! How can the older liberals who spent their youth protesting the government allow this to happen? What is happening to my America when the White House goes after anyone who disagrees with them? What is next? Will anyone opposing the government be sent to rehabilitation camps? Will children be rewarded for snitching on the parents as in Nazi Germany or the like the feared KGB in Russia? But this is America, where things like that don't happen, isn't it?

I can’t help but recall Michelle Obama’s telling statement that she had never been proud to be an American until now. This is the America she envisioned? Well, this is not my America. My America is the land of the people, the land of free speech, the land not of socialism but a republic, the land of the melting pot where immigrants flocked to night school to learn English - not the land of diversity and Habla Espanol, the land where if you work hard anyone can succeed – not the land of handouts and welfare, the land where the citizens respect policemen – not immediately label them racists, the land that my father and my nephew proudly served, the land of Patrick Henry, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and most of all the land of the free and the brave. So be brave and don’t let anyone shut you down or scare you into silence. The people have found their voices and must continue to speak out against what they don’t like or else this won’t be America anymore.

When Fiction Become Fact

When I was in college I discovered the books written by Allen Drury. Many may have heard of his Pulitzer Prize winning 1950’s novel Advise and Consent. However, most do not realize that this novel was just the start of a series of books regarding Washington politics*. I loved those books for they opened my eyes to so many issues and were one of the reasons I became a Republican.

Much of this Drury series were leading up to a major presidential election. The series then ended in a very unique way. There were two “final” books; one in which the very naïve and idealistic liberal candidate becomes President and in the alternate ending the staunch Conservative became president. Each book then reflected how the winning President dealt with the Communist threats facing America during the 60’s and 70’s.

The ending with the naive President was a warning to the liberals who believed that the Communist regime was really not as bad as Conservatives make them out to be. Even after enemy aggression, this liberal President still counseled talk and not war. In their naivety, the liberals also believed that the UN would step in and do the honorable thing of helping us. Instead the UN members gloated at what they perceived to be US weakness and condemned us. I also liked Drury’s treatment of the media. Drury portrayed the press as being the first to write glowing stories about the liberal President while ignoring his weaknesses. But after the Communists took over the first freedoms to be revoked were our Freedom of Speech and the Freedom of the Press. By the time the journalists realized they had been wrong it was far too late.

The parallel last book showed the Conservative candidate becoming President. In this book, the Conservative President was demonized by the media as he continued to take a strong stance against our enemies. I loved the part where the US had met with the Soviet Union to try to reach a détente. If my memory serves me correctly, earlier in the series, the Russian Premier started to rant and rave and blame America for all the ills in the world. Instead of listening to him or even try to reason with him, the Republican President simply walked out of the room and to Air Force One and flew home. Yes!

I hadn’t thought of these books in years until I read a number of recent headlines in the Drudge Report; “Iran sends six Warships To International Waters”, “Ahmadinejad rejects Western Nuclear Proposal”, and “N. Korea fires more Rockets, Says USA Hostile”. These actions and threats remind me of what faced the new President in Drury’s book. And I can’t help but wonder if fact is like fiction and that our enemies are now testing our new liberal President.

In the book, the naïve President who’s platform had been peace not war, did nothing when threatened because he was afraid that if he retaliated he might “offend” our enemy and that the confrontation could escalate into war. But by not retaliating, the enemy became bolder and more aggressive while the new President, who was encouraged by the press, continued to back down rather than go to war. In spite of the truth, that the enemy really did want to destroy us, this President continued to think that if he could just sit down and talk they could find an answer. Sound familiar?

Today we, too, have a new liberal President who is adored by the media and far left groups. Like the naive President in the book, Obama also urges peace at all costs and believes the propoganda spread by those who hate this country. For example, Obama didn’t even wait for the enemy to blame us for the problems of the world – he did it himself with all of his sickening apologies! He is also going forward with the naive idea that we can talk to those who truly want to destroy us - such as Hugo Chavez whom he recently shook hands with. And what message is sent by the President of the USA bowing to another leader? How much harm has he already caused by denigrating the position of the greatest leader of the free world?

So how will Obama react to the blatantly aggressive action by Iran and N. Korea? Will he ignore it and let them continue on this aggressive course because he and the media are afraid of war? Will he continue to say that the answer is to sit across the table from them and talk? Or will he stand firm against our enemies? I can only hope that Obama does no lasting harm to my country and that in four years we can have our own alternate ending with a Conservative President.



* These books are no longer in print. However, you should be able to find them in used book stores and they are also available through Amazon.com. The books, in order, are: Advice and Consent, A Shade of Difference, Capable of Honor, Preserve and Protect and then the two final books”: Come Ninevah, Come Tyre and The Promise of Joy.

Managing Change

Years ago I was part of a management “take over” of a casino. This casino has since been sold and I’m sorry to read that it is now going into foreclosure but back in the early nineties it was owned by Merv Griffin, the talk show host and producer of game shows. He had hired the president of the Harrah’s in Atlantic City to run his casino. Over the next few years this man also hired away from Harrah’s people to fill top positions at Merv’s casino including COO, legal councilor, CFO and VP of Marketing. It was the latter who had been my boss at Harrah’s and then he brought me over to Merv’s casino. I was hired to start a new Marketing Finance Division and given four or five employees from the Finance department.

Oh it was heady times! I remember that we laughed a lot back then. There was this great feeling of comradery as we exHarrah’s employees banded together with an us vs. them attitude. This was also the first time I was part of the executive team and it was exhilarating. In meeting after meeting we outlined what we were going to do, how we would implement all the things that worked at our old casino and try out new ideas that we were never free to try before. We were going to take this small underperforming casino and make it into something wonderful. We worked long hours but we didn’t mind. And every now and then we took time off to go to a cocktail party and hobnob with Merv where he came to know us by name. Could it be any more fun?

Sure there were some obstacles. Like the fact that the head of Finance, my actual boss, had no say about hiring me and then wasn’t thrilled by the fact that the COO and VP of Marketing continued to bypass her and go straight to me for information and assistance. And yes, my new employees were a bit resentful of me, too. In fact they didn’t like any of these outsiders coming in and taking over. In retrospect none of us were very “gentle” with the existing employees. We were also way too impatient in bringing about change and in doing so we stepped on a lot of toes. And God help anyone who would tell us “that is how we’ve always done it”.

By the time I was brought over, the top man from Harrah’s had already been at this casino for 2-3 years. In the casino environment that is a long time since the average duration of a casino executive is only about 2 years. I started in August and it was my bad luck that this man left the casino in early October. Then right before Thanksgiving Merv conducted a black Friday by firing a dozen or more of the top executives which included almost everyone originally from Harrah’s. Merv then brought in his own friends. The new President assured me I was safe, as did the guys leaving but sure enough, that January in another massive layoff I was fired.

Luckily my old boss quickly landed on his feet at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and shortly thereafter I was packing my bags to work for him there. This time I did a lot of things differently. Once again I found myself working for someone other than my old boss but unlike last time I no longer went around my new boss. In fact this time when the man who brought me there left, I stayed. And a few years later I followed my new boss to another casino, Rio, where the President was the same guy that had previously run Harrah’s and then Merv’s. Like so many businesses, the casino world is very small and you never know when you might run into someone from your past. (Ironically, today Harrah’s owns both Caesars Palace and the Rio!)

I am relating this story because I can’t help but see the similarities with Obama’s team. If my colleagues and I were exhilarated by our newfound power to control people and ideas and to bring about the changes we envisioned then I can only imagine the feelings of the new guys in power in Washington. I learned and became a better manager the second and then third time around. But for Obama and most of the people he brought with him this is their first time out and they don’t have the luxury to make rookie mistakes at our country’s detriment.

This biggest rookie mistake is to take on too much change. Yes you were “hired” because you had great ideas but neither employees nor the country can tolerate a lot of changes all at once. It is too much culture shock. Plus those hired need to spend time understanding their new jobs, environments and the people they work with and work for before they begin to implement any changes. And when they do make changes, they need to make sure that they have won over the old crowd who will then help and not hinder them in implementing the new directions. Instead of hitting us with so many changes in their very first budget, Obama’s team should have prioritized what the country needed most and focused on that in their first year.

When asked about overseeing so many changes, Obama laughed and said something about being able to think about more than one thing at the same time. Of course he can multitask. That was an egomaniacal answer and his accompanying laughter was very rude and condescending. This shows just how much of a rookie he is. For the real question is not if he can handle all his proposed changes but can the country?

No Habitat for Humanity

There are so many big news stories on TV and the internet; the fighting on the Gaza Strip, the upcoming inauguration, Bill Richardson stepping down as Obama’s choice for Secretary of Commerce, the mess in Illinois and if the senate will seat Burris, the sickening prospect that Al Franken just might be the next Senator from MN and I can go on and on. But I have decided to kick off the New Year with a smaller story that you probably haven’t heard about.

The Drudge Report has a link to a very politically incorrect headline which caught my attention: “Charity homes built by Jimmy Carter start to crumble”. As in everything that Carter has done, he means well but it somehow is always the wrong thing to do in the long run. (Remember that this is the same man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for the Middle East – and see how well that has turned out?!) And it now appears that his Habitat for Humanity may be heading for disaster, too.

Carter and a contingency of volunteers built an entire community of homes in northern Florida eight years ago. Today there is a lawsuit representing many of the 85 homeowners who are now claiming that their homes were built on a rubbish dump. The Timesonline article goes on to say “One man pulled up his floorboards to find rubbish 5ft deep under his kitchen. Other complaints include cracking walls and rotting door frames that let in rats and ants. Many residents have complained of mildew and mysterious skin rashes”.

It shouldn’t really be a big surprise that there are problems with these homes, considering how quickly they were built. Added to this is the, lets say, “inexperience” of the new homeowners. So it is almost to be expected that between the hasty constructions of the homes within a few days then followed by years of less than optimum care that these homes are in disrepair. The same problems are also occurring with the homes built for that TV show, Extreme Makeover. Plus I wouldn’t be surprised if half the folks after the first year can’t even afford to pay the taxes on their expensive new homes, much less the utilities and other monthly bills.

But no one ever hears what happens to these homes and homeowners after the cameras are turned off and the celebrities leave. As I said in the beginning, criticizing Jimmy Carter or even Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover is one of the biggest politically incorrect statements you could make. The liberals love this kind of charity for it shows that they are helping the little people and it makes them feel good about themselves. They just don’t seem to understand that it would be kinder in the long run to pay for people to go to college or a trade school so that they can eventually afford to buy their own houses, or at the very least to spend time teaching them how to care for their families and new homes.

So now it seems as if some of the houses are falling down partly due to shoddy quick work combined with the fact that some of these new homeowners neglect the upkeep of their homes. Yet no one ever does a follow up to point this out. I guess that would be too much reality for the liberals in New York and LA who live in their insulated world.

Unfortunately I think we are in for a lot more of this kind of thinking. It is a lot easier to shove money at a problem then it is to figure out the cause of the problem and fix that. Democrat governors are requesting $1 trillion in bailout money to cover state shortfalls. Congress has already handed out a $700 billion bank bailout. And now Obama is pushing a massive new $700+ billion “stimulus package”.

Where is all this money going to come from? And how exactly will it be spent? Once again, nobody really knows. In a way the story of these Habitat for Humanity homes is a reflection of what is happening throughout our government. Washington and Hollywood stand hand in hand and make a lot of noise about helping the “little people”. So they will take billions of dollars of taxpayer’s money to build shaky structures, which only help a chosen few, and then eventually it all falls apart through neglect, greed and ill usage while they somehow end up making millions from it. Sound about right? And with the incoming Congress it will only get worse. But don’t get me started on that….

Senate for Sale

I feel sorry for New Yorkers. It seems as if they are destined to be represented by very famous people who are completely ignorant about their state, their needs, their problems. Hillary Clinton never lived in that state nor had she had any experience governing or politicking for herself until she decided she wanted to be the NY Senator. Was she a good Senator? I have no idea. Maybe she did use her name and power in her party to get some perks for her state. But no matter how much she traveled when she ran for the Senate she is still not a real New Yorker and doesn’t understand or love that state as would someone who actually lived there.

Now Carolyn Kennedy has decided she wants to take Hillary’s seat when junior Senator Clinton becomes Madame Secretary of State. Carolyn’s uncle was once the Senator of NY but he was never a real New Yorker either. It makes you wonder about New Yorkers (ok I have always wondered about anyone who chooses to live there). Anyway, I wonder why they keep voting for somebody who moved to their state last week and declared they want to be the next Senator from New York.

Yes Ms. Kennedy has a name with star power but she has even less experience than Hillary had when she ran for that seat. I heard that Carolyn said that because she recently turned 50 and had worked with her uncle Teddy on Obama’s election she has now decided that wants to go into politics herself. So she just moved to NY and declared that she wants to be the next Senator in NY. Wow. I can’t help but feel sorry for all the hard working NY politicians who thought that they have earned the right to be named and now their dreams have been shattered in one day.

In both NY and Illinois the Governor has complete freedom to fill their respective empty Senate seats. The Illinois Governor is facing all kinds of criminal charges for trying to sell his empty seat to the highest bidder. The NY Governor is now faced with having a living icon, Carolyn Kennedy, stating that she wants him to name her as the next NY Senator even though she has never lived there nor has any experience. (Ironically I can’t help but wonder what the Illinois Governor would have done if faced with this decision.)

It is bad enough for an outsider to move to NY just so they can be in the Senate. But in Hillary’s case she earned that seat as the people of New York decided they wanted this foreigner with name power to be their next Senator and voted her to be their Senator. But in this current situation Kennedy would be named by the Governor and not elected by the citizens of the state. That just doesn’t seem right even if she has a mega watt name. As somebody quipped, Brittany Spears has a famous name, too, but you wouldn’t want her in Congress.

When a Senate seat becomes open in the middle of the term, we need to come up with a better way of filling it instead of letting the Governor pick whomever he wants. Neither pay to play nor having your Daddy’s name should be the criteria for selection but I am not sure what the alternative is. In Illinois, the Republicans are clamoring for a special election but this will cost a great deal of money. Perhaps the seat should be given to the person the leaving Senator beat in their party’s primary. Or maybe the State Senate should vote on a replacement as they are supposed to represent their district’s best interest. I am not sure of the solution but anything has to be better than the current situations in Illinois and New York.