Category Archives: Political Trends

Damaged Goods

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I came across two articles this morning that linked a topic that had been wandering in my thoughts these last few days. One article was about the possible move of a fast-food company headquarters from a large metropolitan area. The other was about the potential ethical and criminal issues of a politician. The common link of the two was democrat politics.

https://cbsstlouis.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/img_0069.jpg?w=620&h=349&crop=1

Hardees Headquarters in downtown St. Louis. Photo by Dominic Genetti/KMOX

The first instance was from St. Louis. The corporate headquarters for Hardees is in downtown St. Louis. An article appeared in the St. Louis CBS News outlet that hinted Hardees would soon be moving to more…business friendly climes. A state without an income tax and with Right-to-Work.

All Signs Point to Hardee’s St. Louis Departure

Michael Calhoun (@michaelcalhoun) April 29, 2015 9:27 AM

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) — St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay says after his conversations with Hardee’s CEO Andy Puzder, it looks like the fast-food chain is moving headquarters, and Slay says it’s over things the city has no control over.

“I know for sure he’s looking for states that don’t have an income tax,” Slay says, “and he’s looking at Right-to-Work states.”

The fast-food restaurant chain is currently headquartered at 100 N. Broadway, just a few blocks from the Gateway Arch in downtown.

The company announced last week that it was considering moving to Nashville.

Mrs. Crucis and I was in Nashville a couple of weeks ago. The city appears to be booming if all the road construction is any indication. Tennessee does meet the two criteria mentioned in the article above.

We drove through St. Louis on our way to Nashville. As does anyone who is about to leave on a long road-trip, I filled my Tahoe’s tank before I left. I paid $2.169 a gallon at my local gas station. I noted as we drove east that gas prices were about the same, varying a few pennies, west of Columbia. However, the further east we drove, the higher the gas prices. I wondered why. The state and federal gas tax is uniform across Missouri. That couldn’t be it.

We stopped not far from the St. Louis county line for a pit-stop and to check our route. The local gas price was $2.469 per gallon and higher. I discovered one of the reasons for higher gas was more and higher local sales taxes.

Sales taxes are a burden on everyone and sales taxes have a broad negative impact on commerce. Those who can, will buy elsewhere leading to cash flow out of the taxed area. A reason why internet sales are so popular.

The CBS article made Hardees’ motivation clear. They want to move to a location with lower taxes and a place with Right-to-Work. Nashville fits the bill. St. Louis, with its higher taxes and the city’s support and promotion of unions is not the place Hardees wants for its corporate headquarters.

The sense of oppression is not limited to the social ills of Ferguson and St. Louis. It extends to the business climate of the entire section of the state around St. Louis. Decades of democrat policies and democrat leadership of St. Louis have, “come home to roost!” Missouri, especially the eastern side of the state, has become ‘damaged goods’ as far as business is concerned.

The other instance hinted in today’s post title is about…Hillary Clinton. In a FOX report this morning, her political future appears to be imploding. Her cronies in the media are no longer providing cover against the growing revelation of scandal, fraud, and probable criminal activities of herself, her husband and the Clinton Family Foundation.

DAMAGED GOODS NO BARGAIN FOR DEMOCRATS
Another day, another revelation of ethical misconduct in Clintonland. This time it’s the Boston Globe’s discovery that the largest single non-profit group in the Clinton network utterly ignored the disclosure agreement that Hillary Clinton promised would be a bulwark against corruption during her tenure as secretary of state. Foreign donations exploded during Clinton’s tenure as America’s chief diplomat, but her organization said nothing about it. At the same time, we are learning more about the astronomical overhead in the Clinton family’s charitable network. So it is no wonder that Politico reports that the donors who have funded the multi-billion-dollar enterprise – the kind of folks who go on whirlwind Africa tours with Bill Clinton – are getting queasy about the new scrutiny and the serial improprieties. Their world is shrinking down to folks like billionaire Tom Steyer, who openly embrace the Washington cash-for-influence game.

So what’s a conscientious liberal to do? The GOP is out of the question. Republicans are tumbling over themselves to seek the favor of the super PAC donor whales who are preparing to fund potentially hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of red-on-red attack ads in the coming months. This isn’t a big problem for GOP voters, though, since the members of the party widely oppose restrictions on political spending. But for liberal Democrats, these are famine times. The wife of a former president is preparing to claim by regal right their party’s nomination. She is mired in a scandal that involves boatloads of cash from unseemly sources, the violation of basic transparency standards and the destruction of huge troves of documents. To go from “hope and change” back to “no controlling legal authority” is a far fall indeed. — FOXNewsletter, April 30, 2015.

Two democrat institutions, large metropolitan areas and Hillary Clinton; are two in a growing pile of democrat damaged goods. The liberal policies of the democrat party fail everywhere they are found from Detroit to Baltimore to St. Louis and Kansas City.

Kansas City’s Mayor Sly James proposed not long ago to raise Kansas City’s minimum wage to $15/hour. He filed to notice some of the unintended consequences to the city if that happened (or perhaps, like Baltimore Mayor Rawlings-Blake, he just doesn’t care about business and private enterprise or property.)

I looked at the Kansas City School District’s pay scales recently for another post. The district is required to post the pay scales every year by individual from the Superintendent to the freshly hired teacher’s assistant. Over 1,000 district employees make less than $15//hour. If the district had to comply with Mayor James’ proposal, the decision would be who to lay off. The district can not longer depend on the state for funding. Those days are longer over.

Sly James proposal would break the KC school district’s budget. It would be one more woe for a failed district who lost its accreditation and is struggling to remain credible while hoping to control student flight to other accredited school districts.

Six decades of a failed political policies have killed the life of large cities. Wherever democrats are in control, the economies of those areas crumble and add one more city after another and their people to the pile of damaged goods.

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Trends and Portents

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Mark Levin’s book, The Liberty Amendments, has triggered a lot of discussion on the state of the nation, the Constitution and the constant violation of the Constitution by the federal government. Just scanning national opinion pieces this morning led to these headlines. One is a piece on the state of the government, another is on national trends and polls, still another proposes the country is in a pre-revolutionary state.

What Has Mark Levin Wrought?

By James V Capua, August 18, 2013

In The Liberty Amendments Mark Levin has delivered more than advertised. He promises a credible agenda for reinvigorating constitutional government based on an approach to the amendment process which avoids the liabilities of better known options.

Continued here…

Obama Flouts the Law

By Clarice Feldman, August 18, 2013

From his first presidential campaign to the present, the president, his party and his administration have openly flouted existing laws, and it doesn’t seem there is any legal means of stopping him short of impeachment.

Continued here…

America’s Tyranny Threshold

By Eileen F. Toplansky, August 19, 2013

As he finishes up his Martha’s Vineyard vacation, Barack Obama would be well-served to recall the fiery words of Jonathan Mayhew, who is famous for his sermons “espousing American rights — the cause of liberty, and the right and duty to resist tyranny.”

Continued here…

And finally, this one. Its subject is one few want to discuss all the while its one that is being discussed more every day.  Is a second American Revolution on the horizon?

Time for a New American Revolution?

By Richard Winchester, August 19, 2013

The United States of America was born in revolution. The Declaration of Independence asserted that people have a right of revolution. According to The Declaration, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [such as “life,” “liberty,” “the pursuit of happiness,” and “the consent of the governed”], it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The Declaration acknowledged that people should not, and will not, seek to overturn “long-established” governments “for light and transient reasons.” After “a long train of abuses and usurpations,” however, which are clearly aimed at establishing “absolute Despotism,” people have not only the “right,” but the “duty,” to “throw off such Government, and provide new guards for their future security.”

The U.S. has not experienced a successful revolution since the one between 1775 and 1783, despite Thomas Jefferson’s hope that “[t]he tree of liberty should be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Some think it’s time for a new American revolution. Moreover, many of the preconditions for a revolt exist.

Continued here…

One of Levin’s common quotes is that we are living in a post-Constitutional era. In other words, government, at least at the federal level, Congressmen and the Supreme Court no longer follow the constraints of the Constitution. The Obamacare decision forced by Chief Justice Roberts is a prime example of that latter segment of government. There was NO Constitutional basis for his decision. But, with his vote, he joined the liberal Justices and overrode the strenuous objections of the remaining Justices. Roberts followed the liberal diktat that the Constitution is whatever the Court says it is.

That is a lie. Few, however, were reluctant to stand up and say so.

Perhaps one of the best statements of the condition of our government and the accelerating discussion of revolution, is this article by In her article she cites the acts of Obama and the democrats in government that supports Levin’s premise that we no longer have a governing Constitution.

Today’s post as turned into a long one. I’ll close with this from Betsy McCaughey.

King Obama vs. Rule of Law

By on 8.14.13 @ 6:08AM

Have we ever seen such presidential contempt for constitutional principles and our nation’s history?

At an August 9 press conference, President Barack Obama said that when Congress won’t agree to what he wants, he will act alone. That statement, which he has made before, should send shivers through freedom-loving Americans.

The President was asked where he gets the authority to delay the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, even though the law states that the mandate “shall” go into effect January 1, 2014. The Obama administration had announced the delay on July 3, without seeking Congress’s help in changing the law.

In response, Obama said that “in a normal political environment, it would have been easier for me to simply call up the Speaker and say, you know what, this is a tweak that doesn’t go to the essence of the law… so let’s make a technical change to the law. That would be the normal thing that I would prefer to do.” 

But Obama explained that he took a different route because Republicans control the House of Representatives and ardently oppose Obamacare.

Obama’s statement reveals how disconnected this president is from this nation’s history and constitutional principles. Divided government is the norm in the United States. Most modern presidents have had to govern with an uncooperative Congress or at least one house of Congress controlled by the other major party. With the exception of Richard Nixon, these presidents — from Eisenhower, to Reagan, to Clinton, and both Bushes — have not tried to exempt themselves from the Constitution.

Article II, Sec. 3 of the Constitution commands the president to faithfully execute the law.

Courts have consistently ruled that presidents have little discretion about it. President Obama can’t pick and choose what parts of the Affordable Care Act he enforces and when. 
 

The framers duplicated the safeguards their English ancestors had fought hard to win against tyrannical monarchs. Most important, the English Bill of Rights of 1689 barred an executive from suspending the law. 

The tug and pull between the president and an uncooperative Congress is what the framers intended. It’s checks and balances in action. Obama has no patience for this constitutional system. In June 2012, the President announced that he would stop enforcing parts of the nation’s immigration laws, because “We can’t wait” for Congress to offer relief to young illegal immigrants brought into the country by their parents.

Now the President is rewriting the Affordable Care Act. Delaying the employer mandate is not a mere “tweak.” Because individuals will be required to have insurance as of January 1, 2014 or pay a penalty, some ten million currently uninsured or underinsured workers who would have gotten coverage at work under the employer mandate will now have to pay the penalty or go to the exchanges. That means more people enrolling on the exchanges, more dependence on government and a bigger bill for taxpayers. It’s not the law that Congress enacted.

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) has urged Congress to vote against any continuing resolution to fund the federal government after September 30, as long as it funds this distorted version of Obamacare.

“Laws are supposed to be made by Congress, not… (by) the president,” Lee explained. If the administration is not prepared to fully enforce Obamacare as enacted, including the employer mandate, it should agree to delay the entire law and remove its funding from the budget.

Sadly most members of Congress are too busy looking out for themselves to stop the president from chipping away at the Constitution. Last week Republicans and Democrats conspired with the president to weasel out of Sect. 1312 of Obamacare, which requires members of Congress to get health coverage on the newly created exchanges. Congress was happy to let the President unconstitutionally give them a special taxpayer funded subsidy that no one else in America earning $174,000 would get.

Such self-dealing brings to mind what Benjamin Franklin warned about, as he and his fellow framers finished writing the Constitution. It’s a republic, said Franklin, “if you can keep it.”

If Congress refuses to use its power to restrain the Executive branch, we then reside in a dictatorship. No one with the ability to enforce constraints is willing to do so and thus participate in the dictatorship.

 

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If you can’t beat’em, be them

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That appears to be the state of the republican party today. Fifteen ‘pub senators joined dems to pass the immigration amnesty bill. Oh, they’ll claim there’s no amnesty and the border will be secure, etc., etc., etc.

They lie.

Here are the 15 Republican senators who voted in favor of invoking cloture on the amendment, according to the Weekly Standard:

  • Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
  • Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
  • Jeffrey Chiesa (RINO-NJ)
  • Susan Collins (R-ME)
  • Bob Corker (R-TN)
  • Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
  • Lindsey Graham (RINO-SC)
  • Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
  • Dean Heller (R-NV)
  • John Hoeven (R-ND)
  • Mark Kirk (R-IL)
  • John McCain (RINO-AZ)
  • Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
  • Marco Rubio (R-FL)
  • Roger Wicker (R-MS)

Some of the senators above will be up for re-election in 2014. Let’s not forget them. We don’t need more democrats in the Senate.

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Yesterday I wrote about the political technique called Logrolling. It’s a tactic where pols exchange votes to pass their favorite piece of pork. John Boehner’s and Vicky Hartzler’s votes to pass the Food Stamp Bill are prime example. The problem with this tactic is that democrats lie and when they are expected to reciprocate, they don’t. Repeated use of this tactic fits the definition of insanity—doing the same time after time while expecting different results.

Tactics like this one serves no one. It doesn’t gain the pols any political advantage and alienates their constituents. But the ‘pub establishment continues as before—acting insanely.

Cal Thomas, a writer whom I once admired, says we’re now entering a new era, of those looking backward and those looking forward. He even cites passages from Newt Gringrich’s upcoming book to support his premis. His premis is that we, who revere the past—the Constitution as it was originally written and intended, are losers locked into the past. What Cal Thomas fails to prove is whether this forward looking stance provides any benefits to our personal liberty and security.

Breakout from politics of the past

By CAL THOMAS | JUNE 24, 2013 AT 1:30 PM

The “Faith and Freedom” Coalition held a gathering last week in Washington, D.C. It resembled many similar conservative assemblies: mostly white male speakers, a mostly white, middle-age audience and mostly full of attacks on President Obama, liberals, Democrats and Washington.

That is not a winning strategy for political victory. Neither are appeals to a bygone era that is unlikely to return. The social, financial and governmental dysfunction we are experiencing are symptoms of something far deeper. The foundations that built and have sustained America are being destroyed. Too many Republicans and conservatives mistakenly believe what’s needed is a paint job, like those false storefronts painted on closed-down businesses in some Northern Ireland towns to hide its struggling economy during the G-8 summit.

Instead of more navel gazing, Republicans and conservatives (they are not always the same) must seize the future rather than hold on to the past.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich believes America may be on the verge of another major breakthrough on several levels, but he warns in a book titled “Breakout,” to be published this fall (Regnery Publishing, Inc.), about powerful forces opposed to the advance. “Prison guards of the past,” he calls them, versus “pioneers of the future.” If the future has publicists, he says, the past has lobbyists.

Gingrich believes, and polls reflect this, that people are weary of the left-right, Republican vs. Democrat repetitive drama. He thinks the next decade will be more future vs. past.

What is needed, he says, “is a movement dedicated to identifying and encouraging the pioneers of the future,” while fighting for the policies and structural changes that will hasten its arrival. He labels it the “Breakout Party,” though he thinks this shift can still be achieved within the GOP.

Gingrich says a breakout occurs when “so many different new scientific and technological capabilities are emerging and being translated into usable products by entrepreneurs in a dynamic consumer-led market that the very capacity of life, for the individual, for society, for business, and for government, are changing.”

Neither party has a clear vision or understanding of what this can mean for the country. Neither, says Gingrich, does either party have a strategy for knitting together a coalition of these pioneers who are already creating the future, but largely under the media’s radar. The media could be said to be one of the “prison guards,” because they mostly focus on the old arguments, rather than on solutions.

Thomas’ next statement is where he diverges from conservative philosophy.

House leadership last Tuesday brought a bill to the floor that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The bill has zero chance of passing the Senate. It has less chance of being signed by the President. Instead, Republicans should place themselves on the side of giving more information to women, empowering them by making it law that they view a sonogram of their baby before they have an abortion.

Yes, Cal, let’s just give up on the whole anti-abortion thing and give in to the libs. That’s a real winning solution…for them.

“The opportunity for Republicans to play the lead role in developing a breakout system is historic,” says Gingrich, “and will both reward the party with victory and reward the country with vast new opportunities for jobs, economic growth, long-term prosperity, greater learning, better health and greater security.”

In this last statement, Gingrich is correct. But Cal Thomas completely misses the point. Conservatives must understand the new technologies and how they will affect society for our benefit and detriment. It is the conventional party structure who is locked into the past, not the political and philosophical views that govern our purpose as we enter this new era.

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Does the Rule of Law still exist?

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I was listening to the news this morning and heard that a group of illegal “immigrants” were protesting outside the office of the Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach.  Their complaint? Kobach insists on upholding the law and helps other states, like Arizona, formulate legislation to curb illegal entry into this country.

This particular group, some from within Kansas and others imported from out of state, want Kobach to resign because he enforces existing law. While they were protesting, ICE did not appear.

“We the People…”

This post, however, is not about illegal immigration, per se. It is about the failure of government to uphold and enforce existing law. The example above and the refusal to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, are just two of many failures by the federal government. If such actions, the refusal to enforce selected law and legislation, becomes institutionalized by the FedGov and the states, what are the consequences?

Let’s take an example from the international stage. Last February, Obama was in a lather accusing Communist China of not following international trade law. Obama called, “the soon to be president of the a country that is the world’s second most powerful and that highly values “face” (pride,dignity) a cheater.” In light of Obama’s actions these last four years, that statement was the height of hypocrisy.

Clyde Prestositz, the author of the sentence quoted above defines the failure to enforce the rule of law as playing with the rules.

The phrase “all must play by the same rules” implies that all are playing the same game, but in actuality they are not. In many instances there are no rules or the rules are vague, untested, and unclear. Even where there are rules, many countries have been ignoring them for a long time and there is thus strong precedent for not playing by the rules or even for interpreting the rules such that they are actually said to bless the apparent violations.

The rule of law operates under the assumption that all parties have the same understanding of the law. If that is not so, how can any commonality of thought exist?

A long time ago, there was a science fiction short story about a murder case…the willful killing of a peaceful extraterrestrial alien. The killer proudly admitted killing the alien because it wasn’t human and was therefore a “varmint”. Killing a “varmint” was not illegal (in that story.)  The story ends with the Sheriff approaching the killer, pistol in hand, and tells the killer, “We’ve just redefined the description of ‘varmint’.”

Several of the protesters outside Kris Kobach’s state offices admitted to being in the United States illegally. They protested publicly confident the FedGov, in the form of ICE, would not intervene. They were correct. The federal government is actively redefining immigration law. When there is no commonality of thought—definition of law in this case, there is no law and the rule of law cannot exist.

When the federal government creates new law, whether through the normal passage through both Houses of Congress, or by edict in the form of federal regulations, how can the government reasonably expect the public to adhere to those laws when the federal government itself does not? It cannot.

Anarchy is the result.

I, personally, do not wish to live in a state of anarchy. If this trend of government, the failure to adhere to the rule of law, continues, we will have anarchy and that leads to civil war.

As an engineer, it was part of my job to perform risk assessments. To look, not at the best case, but at all cases including the worse case. Truly, civil war, is the worse case but I see it approaching if we continue on our current path. Along with risk assessments, I also looked at means for mitigation of those risks.

One mitigation is to establish, or perhaps re-establish the rule of law. If we cannot coerce the federal government to do so, then we must do so within ourselves, within our communities and states. Next, would be to extend the commonality of thought, the same rule of law to other communities and states and establish alliances to enforce commonality of law within our communities and states. Call it the Red States Alliance.

Numbers count. When we have sufficient numbers, individuals, communities, states, with the same commonality of thought, the same rules of law, we can then pressure the federal government to conform to our definitions, our rules, our commonality of thought, our rule of law.

Failure to ally ourselves with others of common thought and purpose means we must conform to the rules, the redefinition of the FedGov’s rules of law. That path leads to an authoritarian United States and the Constitution ceases to exist as our standard. It has already been grievously damaged but it is not yet irreparable.

To answer the question in my post title, does the rule of law still exist? Unfortunately, as much as I wish it weren’t so, it does not. When the federal government fails to enforce law, redefines law to make that law conform to an agenda contrary to its intent, the rule of law no longer exists. It’s not too late to reinstate the rule of law but the time is approaching when that option, too, ceases to be possible. Then our choice can only be to create new rules and impose them on the federal government.

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Turning Point?

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I may be premature saying this, but I really don’t think so. I believe we’ve reached a turning point in this election and it’s turning for Romney. No, it isn’t the attacks on our embassies in the middle east that is expanding to other Islamic countries today. The turning point was earlier this week.

Obama’s post-convention bounce is over. Instead of a bounce, it was more like a “Thud!” The media hyped the convention and tried to give the impression that it was all wonderful and everything was great for democrats.

It isn’t.

From the removal of God in their platform, to the non-recognition of Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel, to using photos of Russian naval ships in a video that was supposed to show support for our servicemen and veterans, the democrats have inadvertently exposed themselves to the nation—and the nation saw it all. Yes, the dems, over the loud vocal objections of their delegates, reinstated God into their party’s plank saying it was just an oversight.

Yeah. Sure. You can fool the democrat cool-aid drinkers but not all of them. The country saw the true nature of the democrat party.

They didn’t like it.

Evidence of that turning point began to emerge this week. Here in Missouri, despite the attacks of the democrats and the establishment ‘Pubs, Todd Akin may have reached a turning point in his campaign against Claire McCaskill.

On Wednesday, Rasmussen release a poll showing the Akin had narrowed his earlier 9 point gap to 6 points. That poll was conducted over the weekend.

The fallout appears to linger in the Missouri Senate race, with incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill still holding a six-point lead over Republican challenger Todd Akin. But the race is tightening.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds McCaskill will 49% support to Akin’s 43%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate in the contest, and another four percent (4%) are undecided. — Rasmussen.

Citizens United commissioned a poll in Missouri this week that supports the turning point. Romney leads Obama by 20 pts(!) and Akin leads McCaskill by 5.  I went through the poll internals to see if it contained any rightward skew. Yes, there was some but not nearly as much as I expected given the results.

The party, gender demographics were equal. The age distribution was higher among those 50 and over—those who are more likely to vote. The geographic distribution was skewed to the regions containing St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield and Columbia. Those areas are not ‘Pub strongholds. You’d expect those areas to lean to the democrats.  One area of skew was the racial divisions, Only 8% of those polled were black.  That seems odd when you consider the geographic distribution. In short, I found nothing in the poll dynamics to make me believe this poll was skewed beyond the usual statistical deviation.

Yesterday, a Rasmussen poll confirmed Romney’s rise in Missouri.

Mitt Romney has edged back into the lead in Missouri.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that Romney earns the support of 48% of Likely Missouri Voters, while President Obama picks up 45% of the vote. Four percent (4%) like another candidate in the race, and three percent (3%) are undecided. — Rasmussen.

Today, new Rassmussen polls arrived in my inbox that covers those “inmportant” swing states.  Romney has risen above Obama again.

Rasmussen has a record and reputation for accuracy. In 2008, Rasmussen was the most accurate pollster, followed closely by Pew.  Consequently, I tend to believe their polls and those polls look good for ‘Pubs in November.

I’d be more confident if the ‘Pub establishment weren’t so busy stabbing conservative candidates, like Todd Akin, in the back—‘Pub establishment types like Karl Rove, Rience Priebus, and now Haley Barbour. I’d be happier and more confident in winning this election if the ‘Pub establishment wasn’t working so hard to hand it to the democrats.

There is an increase in grassroots support for Akin. One example is that pleas from the RNC for donations in Missouri is dropping. Conservatives are funneling their money to Akin instead. It appears, from the actions of our ‘Pub leadership in Washington, the ‘Pub establishment is more concerned with the rise of grassroots conservatism than they are with taking the Senate and the WH back from the dems.

What a sad state of affairs that is!

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Observations: Wednesday, September 14, 2011

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Fall arrives a week from today.  Where did summer go?  It seems only like last week that Vacation Bible School started and the local pools and playgrounds were filled.  The adage that time accelerates as you get older is obviously true.

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Earlier this week I wrote about “Signs and Portents”, referring to the upcoming special election in New York to fill the Weiner’s House seat.  The polls at that time indicated the ‘Pub, Turner, was ahead.  The polls were right. Turner beat democrat Weprin.  It is the first time a non-dem will  hold that seat in over a hundred years.  More amazing is that the district is 40% Jewish and Weprin is also Jewish.  Jewish voters turned against one of their own.

Yep. Signs and portents.

Perhaps Obama’s policies against Israel have made a few voters understand just who are their allies.  Evangelical Christians are uniformly strong supporters of Israel.  I submit that Jews and Christians have more in common than Jews and liberals.

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As I’ve written before, I have no preference in the ‘Pub herd for President.  I have eliminated a few.  Romney, Ron Paul, Huntsman were never in the running as far as I’m concerned.  

I’m reluctantly eliminating another, Michele Bachmann. She attacked Perry about his executive order to provide HPV immunizations in Texas.  It was a mistake and he’s admitted it should have gone to the legislature instead of him issuing an Executive Order.

That’s the facts.

What is not true is the statement it would force all girls to be immunized.  Contrary to Bachmann’s claims, there was an opt-out option.  It should have been an opt-in option but the fact is that no girl would be forced to be immunized without parental consent.  Bachmann knows that and lied.

Strike one, Bachmann.

If Bachmann had stopped there, I would continue to look at her as a viable candidate. But she didn’t.  After the debates she spoke with Greta Van Susteren’s on Fox. She continued her claim that girls would be forced to be immunized, implied that Perry had been bribed by Merch, the company that produced the vaccine, and that the drug caused mental retardation.

There are no facts indicating any retardation after the immunizations.  Bachmann claims a mother after the debate said the immunization caused retardation in her teen-aged daughter. Bachmann spread that claim without bothering to investigate the facts. 

Strike two, Bachmann. 

The claim that Merch influenced Perry is untenable.  The information is publicly available to prove those claims false. If Merch had bribed Perry, that would be a crime.  Where are the facts.  True, Merch donated $5000 to Perry’s campaign.  They also donated similar amounts to other candidates.  Did they “bribe” those candidates too?

Unlikely. This is another variation of “Governor have you quit beating your wife?” strawman argument.

Strike three, Bachmann!  You’re out!

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I have to confess, I’m a people watcher.  And, listener.  I like to go to various greasy spoons for lunch and observe people and listen to their conversations.  You hear the wildest things that way. 

You also pick up trends and how the social and political winds are blowing.  The winds in New York’s 9th Congressional District are blowing here too.

Many of the patrons of the greasy spoons are blue-collar workers.  Landscapers, construction workers, plumbers, electricians, retirees, and minor politicians.

Most of these people have been democrats.  They grew up in democrat households. They belong to unions. They’ve played petty party politics for generations.  They now have to face the reality of that history.

They don’t like it.

When you hear union members being in favor of Right-to-Work, the unions are in danger.  When you hear blue-collar, self-employed tradesmen complain about taxes, licenses and fees, state and federal regulations, the burden of sustaining a family business, a core constituency of the democrats is in danger.  When you hear democrat pols talk about cutting spending and taxes, the democrat party is in danger.

I think the elections next year will be worse for the democrats than they have ever envisioned.

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The Census released the yearly poverty statistics this week.  What a joke.  The income levels for poverty does NOT include income from welfare, WIC, food-stamps, the Earned-Income-Tax credit (the negative income tax.)  That flaw makes the entire report false.

It comes down to: If you don’t like the figures and they don’t support your agenda, change the rules.

If it works for unemployment figures, it can work elsewhere too.

More governmental lies.

***

Overhead at lunch this last weekend.

Man with union hat: “You watch Obama the other night?”

Companion: “Nah.  Watched the game.”

Man with union hat: “Me, too. Didn’t miss anything.”

Companion: “Yeah. Can’t believe anything from those turds.”

Man with union hat: “Yeah, he’s toast.”

***

Fall has arrived a few days early. The highs today will only reach the mid-60s and that will continue until the weekend.  The long-range forecast has temps only in the mid 70s at the highest.  Summer  is over.

Stone Soup, September 13, 2011

I can understand, Alix.

Trends

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Once again I’ve been lax.  I should have written a post for today…yesterday.  I try to write a day ahead and queue them for posting. Well, I must be getting lazy since not queuing is beginning to be the trend, the norm, instead of an exception.

I was wiped out yesterday with sinus headaches most of the day.  I think the front that passed through was the culprit.  The headache woke me yesterday and I was still groggy from lack of sleep.  I spent the night in my old snooze 15 minutes then wake up, snooze, wake up.  It’s not restful by any definition.

Getting back to trends.  I’m reading Tom Kratman’s Countdown. It’s Mil-Fic instead of SF. It draws on Kratman’s experience as a retired Army officer, Ranger and troop commander.  I’ll not spoil the book other than to say it’s about a hostage rescue. 

The book does present some of Kratman’s views. One such view is that civilization is falling. I would say that our present world situation is close to that at the end of the Roman Empire.  Nation-states are failing and collapsing into factions, factions are collapsing into tribes and clans.  We even see evidence of that here in the US.

In the US we have three, maybe four main factions—liberals, conservatives, parasites and a smattering of other smaller groups.  The liberals are the elites and statists, mostly members of the democrat parties, unions and their hidden socialist supporters like Soros and others.  The conservatives are members from the republican, libertarian, and the Tea Parties—fiscal and social conservatives. 

The parasites are those who are out to get whatever they can from either of the other two sides.  You have the welfare class from the democrats along with members of the establishment like Lindsay Graham and the two Maine twins, Snow and Collins.

The result of these factions is the situation we have in Wisconsin.  The electorate booted the liberals from the state legislature and the Governor’s office.  When it came time to balance the budget, the dems/unions/liberals who had run the state for decades could not just abide by that decision. The disloyal opposition fled the state to create an impasse rather than heed the voice of the public.

Wisconsin is not the only state in this situation.  It’s just the first. Kratman is not optimistic about our future. I see where he could be correct but I believe we can still change our national course—if we have the will.  Kratman doesn’t think we do. I’m willing to wait and see.