Author: Retired Spook

Ed Schultz’s Campaign for Wisconsin

Retired Spook73 Comments

For those of you who don’t know Ed Schultz, he’s one of Cluster’s favorite comedians, broadcasting his ever-so-popular show from that dynamic comedy channel, MSNBC. The indomitable Schultz is waging a one-man campaign to save Wisconsin from the evil Scott Walker.  I say “one-man” because pretty much everyone else in the lame-street media has abandoned the effort.  But if it’s one thing that ol’ Ed lacks it’s shame and the capacity to be embarrassed.

Now that Wisconsin isn’t collapsing, and in fact is seeing a dramatic economic improvement, it’s somehow no longer Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt, and the liberal networks have pretty much stayed away. But Schultz keeps pounding away in a panic, lamenting that not only is Walker “the worst governor in the country,” but that those evil Republicans and their capitalist funders like the Koch brothers are “trying to make it so Barack Obama doesn’t get re-elected and no Democrat ever will be elected into the White House.” Schultz warned, “There’ll never be a Democratic president in our lifetime again.  And when I say in our lifetime, I’m talking about a long, long, long, long, long time.”

We’ll find out in about 3-1/2 days whether or not  Ed’s singular efforts have been successful.  It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in either case.

Hat-tip to Cluster for the link for this post

 

The Impending Implosion

Retired Spook128 Comments

The American Progressive movement is soon to collapse upon itself and we can
probably expect the self destruction to be loud and messy – there are signs of it already — everywhere.  The brain trust at MSNBC are getting more shrill by the day, as evidenced by Al Sharpton’s recent tirade; Elizabeth Warren appears poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory due to a convenient lie told to further her liberal cred and career; Obama is now known to have told a similar lie to further his standing in the progressive movement including his recent endorsement of same sex marriage; Obamacare is most likely to lose in the SC, as is their lawsuit against AZ; even some democrats are now opposing the incessant attacks on private equity; the “war on women” has gone no where; and now they find themselves the subject of 42 lawsuits on behalf of a very powerful institution in the name of the Catholic Church, and these are just some of the current troubles confronting this regime. Add to that the Euro crisis, the Egypt thing isn’t turning out well and oh yeah, there’s that economy thing, and we’ve got the makings of the perfect storm

Scott Walker winning in WI will hopefully be the beginning of the end for progressives, culminating in November, and most likely we can expect an all out assault on conservatives, decency and common sense by the media, the administration, and by their loyalists, ie; OWS, SEIU, AFL-CIO, etc, throughout the summer. I hope Romney stays focused and on message through what portends to be a very vicious campaign, and I hope conservatives will hold him to account to do the necessary things to get us back on track when he wins. This is an important election in not only rescuing the country, but in hopefully “fundamentally transforming” the Democratic Party of Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, into the party of people like Evan Bayh, Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford and Joe Manchin, and digging back into the past, people like John Breaux and Sam Nunn. Maybe then we can start getting things done.

Thanks to Cluster for the content of this post.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan:

Can you say “meltdown”, boys and girls?  From the LA Times:

Artur Davis, one of President Obama’s earliest supporters and a former co-chairman for his presidential campaign, announced Tuesday that he was leaving the Democratic party for good.

In a post published Tuesday on his website, Davis was vague about his future political endeavors, but declared: “If I were to run, it would be as a Republican. And I am in the process of changing my voter registration from Alabama to Virginia, a development which likely does represent a closing of one chapter and perhaps the opening of another.”

Davis, who represented Alabama’s seventh congressional district from 2003 to 2011, was notably the first member of Congress outside of Illinois to endorse then-Sen. Obama’s 2008 presidential bid. And it was Davis who seconded the official nomination of Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention…(emphasis added)

This is pretty huge – this is the draggled, rotting, tail-end of “hope and change”.

Memorial Day Weekend Open Thread

Retired Spook127 Comments

Just a few of the ongoing stories shaping events as we head into this holiday weekend, where we celebrate the sacrifices of countless generations of selfless Americans to keep us safe and advance the cause of freedom around the globe.

Greece continues to slide toward oblivion with the masses complaining about losing government jobs and bennies and the people who should be footing a good portion of the bill, evading taxes in every conceivable way.  One of the main organizations shoring up the Greek economy is the International Monetary Fund — whose Managing Director has little sympathy for the Greeks.  Will the IMF and the EU continue to prop up the irresponsible Greeks or just let them implode.  What effect will either choice have on the EU and economies beyond Europe?

It looked as though Elizabeth Warren might easily unseat Scott Brown from Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat until it came to light that Warren claimed to be part Cherokee Indian.

However, when Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson, citing a genealogist, announced “In what may be the ultimate and cruelest irony … it turns out that Warren’s great-great-great grandfather was a member of a militia unit which participated in the round-up of the Cherokees in the prelude to the Trail of Tears,” Warren’s candidacy began to implode.

On the scientific front, the privatization of space exploration has begun.

Feel free to discuss these or any other topics.

The Wisconsin Recall Election

Retired Spook127 Comments

There’s a really interesting dynamic at work in Wisconsin, in the run up to the June 5th recall election of Governor Scott Walker.

The majority of polls show Walker once against beating Barrett, with a recent Public Policy Polling poll showing Walker garnering 50 percent of the vote to Barrett’s 45 percent.

This 5 percent margin was unchanged since PPP last polled Wisconsin voters in April, showing that the May 8 Democratic primary did nothing to help boost Barrett’s chances at beating Walker in June.

However, Barrett’s failure to catch steam might be at the fault of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). In an exclusive report by the Washington Post, top Wisconsin Democrats are furious at the DNC for not helping to fund Barrett’s gubernatorial bid against Walker.

“We are frustrated by the lack of support from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association,” a top Wisconsin Democratic Party official told the Washington Post. “Scott Walker has the full support and backing of the Republican Party and all its tentacles. We are not getting similar support.”

One has to wonder just what development has stalled the near hysterical fervor of Democrats to get rid of Scott Walker.  The secret could well lie in recent revelations that the Bureau of Labor Statistics may have knowingly or unknowingly represented a false picture of the jobs and unemployment situation in Wisconsin (gee, where have we heard that allegation before?)  I had read a while back that unemployment in Wisconsin had dropped from 7.8% to 6.9% in Walker’s first year in office, and figured that would be a plus in the recall election.  So I was more than a little surprised when Democrats began charging that, under Walker’s leadership, Wisconsin had the WORST job creation record in the entire country.  Sounded like fuzzy math to me, until a read this piece today:

Relying on an alternative set of jobs numbers, embattled Wisconsin Gov Scott Walker is touting job creation during his term in office, saying numbers from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics — which show Wisconsin losing jobs during that period — are not accurate.

The new numbers from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, released by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, calculate that Wisconsin added more than 23,000 jobs between December 2010 and December 2011, the first full year of Walker’s term.

During his campaign, Walker promised to add 250,000 private sector jobs in his first term as governor.

The numbers diverge sharply from BLS stats, which showed Wisconsin lost 33,900 jobs over that same period. That put the Badger State in last place for job creation nationwide.

Wisconsin’s number-crunchers claim their numbers are more accurate because they are based on data from “nearly all Wisconsin businesses.” The BLS numbers, by contrast, are an estimate based on data from 5,500 Wisconsin companies, which comprise just 3.5 percent of the Wisconsin workforce.

“It looks like 160,000 Wisconsin employers helped show us the thousands of new jobs that BLS estimates missed last year,” Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Secretary Reggie Newson said in a press release. “The bottom line is Wisconsin added jobs in 2011.”

Obama’s only chance at getting reelected is for published national unemployment figures to come down at least another percentage point, since no president since FDR has been reelected with unemployment over 7.2%.  It’s pretty clear that what we need on the national level is a coordinated effort on the part of the Departments of Workforce Development from each state to come up with a comprehensive report and then compare it to the figures presented by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.  My sense is that most thinking Americans already know that the 8.3% unemployment and the 4.1 million jobs created or saved are simply made up figures, but it would be nice to have something besides a NewsMax headline telling them that their intuition is right.

What is Fairness?

Retired Spook117 Comments

Arthur Brooks new book, The Road to Freedom, is causing quite a stir, and hearing an interview of Brooks this week reminded me of an essay last fall that was inspired by Brooks previous book.  The essay dwelled on the philosophical difference in the way the concept of fairness is viewed by Conservatives and Liberals.

There are basically two ways to define “fairness” in an economic sense where there is mal-distribution of income. One is “redistributive fairness” which President Obama and other liberals in and out of congress favor. The idea is through taxes or financial favoritism to take from wealthier Americans and give to less wealthy Americans and thereby to even out, to some degree, the income people have regardless of whether they have earned it.

The other definition is “meritocracy fairness” which holds that people should receive monetary compensation based on hard work, ingenuity, and innovation – i.e. the money that people make should come as a result of merit.

In his 2010 book, The Battle: The Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future, Arthur Brooks states that inequality is “fair” if it is based on merit and equality would be “unfair” if what someone has earned on merit is redistributed to others who have not earned it. There should be penalties, not rewards, for corruption, stupidity, laziness, and incompetence. Where does the public come down in this? According to a comprehensive survey, 89% of Americans believe in “meritocracy fairness” and only 11% opt for “redistributive fairness.” People in the past, our ancestors, came to the United States for economic opportunity, not for redistribution of wealth.

Those numbers, to me, are staggering, and just completely belie the notion by nearly every Liberal who has ever posted here that they are in the mainstream of American political thought, and it’s Conservatives who represent the kook fringe.  It’s generally accepted that Liberals account for about 20% of the U.S. population, so almost half of those who self-identify as Liberals don’t even agree with redistributive fairness.

I think almost everyone who is paying the slightest bit of attention to this election cycle agrees that it’s one of the most important elections in generations, perhaps, as some contend, the most important since 1860.  November 6th will, I believe, be a referendum on how we as a people view not only the concept of fairness but the overall role, size and scope of government.  We are at a fork in the road, and this election will, I also believe, determine whether we take the road to serfdom or the road to freedom.

May 8th Primary Election Open Thread

Retired Spook166 Comments

In honor of the MASSIVE victory (61-39%) of Indiana State Treasurer, Richard Mourdock over 6-term U.S. Senator Richard Lugar in yesterday’s primary election, an open thread to discuss how the various 2012 campaigns are shaping up around the country. Less than 30 days before the recall election in Wisconsin, Governor Walker will go up against the mayor of Milwaukee, whom Walker beat in 2010 by 5 points.

Obama Ate His Dog — Open Thread

Retired Spook95 Comments

This actually started as an off-topic comment in the previous thread, but there is so much humorous material involved in the “man eats dog” story that it deserves its own thread.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: a couple of my own tweets on the subject:

Are You a Racist?

Retired Spook115 Comments

Back when I was growing up in the 50’s and early 60’s, the term “racist” actually meant something. Today we throw the word around so casually that it’s virtually lost its meaning for most people. So just exactly what is a “racist”?

Webster defines racism as follows:

1
: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2
: racial prejudice or discrimination

I’ve NEVER thought of myself as a racist, and yet I’ve been accused of being one on this blog when I’ve written that I believed blacks in America have been duped and suckered into voting in virtual lockstep for Democrats in exchange for affirmative action programs and free “stuff”.  I don’t know how any casual observer could perceive it any other way.  If that makes me a racist, well then I wear that as a badge of honor.  It hasn’t changed the way I look at blacks as individuals.  I’ve been hoping for nearly half a century that MLK’s dream would come true, and we would get to a point where everyone would judge others by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.  I’m still waiting for that to happen, and, in fact, it appears we’re drifting farther away from that ideal rather than toward it.  Much of our current problems, IMO, can be laid at the feet of the current administration.  Never in my lifetime has there been a president who has been more divisive, particularly along racial lines, than this president.  What a poor record for one who was touted as being the first “post racial president.

As I said in a comment in a previous thread, my overall experience with other races, particular blacks, has been pretty good.  I graduated from high school in 1963, a year before the Civil Rights Act was passed.  Democrats held substantial majorities in Congress back then, and it wouldn’t have passed had not a substantial majority of Republicans voted for it.  All that was eclipsed a year or two later with LBJ’s Great Society and War on Poverty, two of the most massive government wealth transfer mechanisms every seen at that time.  Those two programs were the lynch pins in the Left’s effort to destroy the black family.  OK, let me rephrase that and give Progressives the benefit of the doubt that their initial goal was not to destroy the black family.  The destruction of the black family was simply an unintended consequence of the Left’s effort to create a solid block of reliable votes.  Regardless of the initial motivation, the destruction of the black family is the root of many of our current societal problems.

Prior to high school graduation, I’ll have to admit, my exposure to interaction with blacks was pretty limited.  I didn’t dislike them or not get along with them; I just didn’t interact with them much.  Most of the blacks in Fort Wayne, Indiana where I grew up went to one inner-city high school – Central High (since converted into a vocational center for the Fort Wayne Community Schools) We played them in basketball — they beat us — we shook their hands, end of story.  As I got out into world, I began to interact more with other races, but still I don’t recall ever encountering any of the types of problems we see today.  It just never dawned on me to treat someone differently because of the color of his or her skin.

So just exactly what is racism in modern terms?  Is it something that can eventually be overcome.  Will our kids do a better job than we’ve done, or is it going to take a race war before we finally move on?  It’s pretty obvious, from discussions about the recent Trayvon Martin incident, that our resident Progressives see it through a completely different lens than do our Conservatives and Libertarians.  Let’s see if we can have a civilized discussion about it.

 

Who is Really Waging a War on Women?

Retired Spook263 Comments

Any Conservative who has been paying attention to politics for any length of time knows that one of  the fundamental truths that applies to Progressive Democrats is that whenever they get caught doing something (fill in the blank – bad, illegal, unethical, repugnant, racist, sexist, etc.) their first reaction is to accuse Conservatives of (a) doing the same thing, or (b) doing something worse. The recent fabrication by the Left: the “GOP war on women” is just the latest example of this tactic.

So, is there really a “war on women”?  And if so, who’s waging it?  I would contend that the war actually started in the Obama White House.

In an excerpt obtained by The Post, a female senior aide to President Obama called the White House a hostile environment for women.

“This place would be in court for a hostile workplace,” former White House communications director Anita Dunn is quoted as saying. “Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.”

But of course, women White House staffers get paid the same as the men, so they really don’t have any room to complain — right?  Wrong.

President Obama has been outspoken in his criticism of “paycheck discrimination” that has women earning less than men for the same jobs, but a new report shows that female employees in the Obama White House make considerably less than their male colleagues.

According to the 2011 annual report on White House staff, female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, while the median salary for male employees was $71,000 — about 18 percent more, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

“Women are Obama’s base, and they don’t seem to have enough people who look like the base inside of their own inner circle,” former Bill Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Meyers told the New York Times.

But out in the general workplace, women have faired pretty well under Obama economic policies, right?  Wrong again.

The recent jobs report from the Labor Department had some alarming facts. The number of women employed in America declined last month as many dropped out of the work force, giving up on looking for work altogether. Of the 740,000 jobs lost since Obama took office, 683,000 of them were held by women. That is unsustainable.

Across America, women are feeling the pain of the weak economy—in the job market and at the kitchen table. Wives are worried about shrinking wages and rising prices as they try to make ends meet. Mothers fear for their children’s futures as the national debt skyrockets and college becomes unaffordable. Businesswomen are frustrated by the regulations and economic policies that make hiring impossible. Fewer women are working, and more are living in poverty.

And finally, the attack on Ann Romney by Democrat hack, Hillary Rosen, will almost certainly endear Democrats to stay-at-home moms – NOT.

All this begs the question, what would Obama have to do to lose support among women?