what if?

Mom's Bridge Game

One of the benefits of being the "Roaming Reporter" for the bridge league!

They Fought the Law

And - they won!

Let's hear it for the Jewish butchers against FDR's New Deal.

Market Principles

What happens when you reduce hyper-regulation?  This.

The 2010 electoral wave carried in Republican Governor Paul LePage and a GOP legislature, and they took modest steps to deregulate the insurance market.

The returns are now rolling in for the new coverage that can be offered starting on July 1, and premiums are falling by as much as 69% for Maine's dominant insurer, Anthem.

According to the Maine Bureau of Insurance, a married couple age 40 to 44 with one child will pay $1,919 a month for a policy with a $2,250 deductible in 2013 if they choose to re-up their current policy. If the same family switches to the new health plan, or buys the plan for the first time, their premium will fall to $920, a 52% decrease. A couple over 60 could buy the same policy for $1,290, down from $2,466 under the old system. Or a young adult 25 to 29 could buy a high $10,000 deductible plan for catastrophic expenses for $232, previously $665.

I reiterate a question I have often asked in the past.  Why does it seem that liberals are for choice when it comes to abortion - and not for almost everything else?  Take away the heavy regulation, and people can craft health plans that work for them and are vastly more affordable.

No Win

Those of us who are libertarians or conservatives well appreciate this.  But - everyone else should, too.  Candidate Mitt Romney is damned if he does and damned if he does not in a variety of respects.  His concern about the fate of poor black children and their communities is just one of them.

When Mitt Romney came to an inner-city charter school here Thursday to promote his new education agenda, he received something of a history lecture about the persecution of blacks in America and the struggles of African American children to meet the academic achievements of their white counterparts.

But here in the streets of West Philadelphia, the emotion surrounding his contest with the nation’s first black president was raw, as dozens of neighborhood residents shouted, “Get out, Romney, get out!”

Romney arrived at Universal Bluford Charter School aboard his logo-emblazoned campaign bus and began his morning visit by meeting school and civic leaders at a formal roundtable session. “I come to learn, obviously, from people who are having experiences that are unique and instructive,” he said.

Residents, some of them organized by Obama’s campaign, stood on their porches and gathered at a sidewalk corner to shout angrily at Romney. Some held signs saying, “We are the 99%.” One man’s placard trumpeted an often-referenced Romney gaffe: “I am not concerned about the very poor.”

Madaline G. Dunn, 78, who said she has lived here for 50 years and volunteers at the school, said she is “personally offended” that Romney would visit her neighborhood.

“It’s not appreciated here,” she said. “It is absolutely denigrating for him to come in here and speak his garbage.”

So, the Obama campaign conspires to make it difficult for his opponent to even be heard, and political activitsts are presented in the news as mere neighborhood volunteers.  Would anyone like to bet that if Romney makes no efforts to become involved and learn more about poverty and minority communities, that he would be excoriated for that?  If you value your cash, I advise you do not take such bets....

Memorial Day

Today, we remember the sacrifices of those who serve to protect our freedoms - and our very lives.

Lest some forget just how important this is, reviews of five books from another time and another land.

That Filip Müller, a Slovakian Jew, survived to write this essential Holocaust document is statistically quite astonishing. He was deported in April 1942 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of Germany's six death camps. More than a million Jews were murdered there. A month after arriving, he was made to work in the camp's Sonderkommando unit. The SS regularly liquidated these work crews, yet Müller somehow survived. To read his account is to gain an insight into the mechanics and relentlessness of the killing process. "I had come to believe that there were no human feelings left inside me," Müller writes, but then he sees his father's corpse on a trolley in the crematorium. "While my team-mate recited the Kaddish my soul mourned in pain and grief. As the flames busily devoured the mortal remains of my father, the words of the traditional prayer gave me solace."

War is a terrible thing.  Sometimes, however, it is most necessary - and far superior - to what is being fought.

Today, I think of all the soldiers from all times in all places who have fought to right wrongs - and I applaud them.

The Last Trip Home

Tomorrow, I will be playing bridge - as I have been since last Monday.  And on Memorial Day, I'll be working and spending time with friends and catching up around the house .... All activities I am able to do and enjoy because of people who serve in our military.

For many, they return home after their service, to unite with their families and return to their jobs.  For some, however, their trip home is their last.

Monday, please think of the people who make the ultimate sacrifice for us.  I assuredly shall be thinking of them - and be eternally grateful.

The Worst Example

Brent Bozell presents this as the worst example of bias by the press in decades.

You'd think the largest legal action in American history in defense of religious liberty would be a major news story. But ABC, CBS and NBC don't judge news events by their inherent importance as relates to the future of our freedoms. They deliver the news according to a simple formula: Does it or doesn't it advance the re-election of Barack Obama?

If it doesn't, it isn't news.

On May 21, 43 Catholic dioceses and organizations sued the Obama administration over its ridiculously narrow idea of how a "religious institution" can be defined under the Obamacare law. Never has the Catholic Church -- or any order, for that matter -- undertaken something of this magnitude. It's truly jaw-dropping that ABC and NBC completely ignored this action on their evening newscasts, while "CBS Evening News" devoted just 19 seconds to this historic event.

This was a deliberate and insidious withholding of national news to protect the "Chosen One" who ABC, CBS and NBC have worked so hard to elect and for whom they are now abusing their journalistic influence. Even when CBS mentioned the suit -- ever so briefly -- like so many others, they deliberately distorted the issue by framing it as a contraception lawsuit when it is a much broader religious freedom issue -- and they know it.

Bozell may well be correct.

All the News that's Fit to Ignore

Once again, the mainstream media displays their unbending bias toward Barack Obama.

Democratic political operatives have been furious in their denunciations of author Ed Klein and his new book The Amateur, a biography of President Obama which relies heavily (although not entirely) on anonymous sources to paint a highly unflattering picture of its subject.

Supposedly, journalists care primarily about a good story more than anything else. And Klein’s book certainly has them, including secret feuds between First Lady Michelle Obama and TV billionaire Oprah Winfrey as well as tales of former president Bill Clinton privately bashing Barack Obama as an “amateur.” Unfortunately for Klein, however, he is being almost totally ignored by the elite media.

According to a Nexis search of television news transcripts, not one of them has interviewed him on-air. His name hasn’t even been mentioned by ABC, CBS, CNN, or NBC. MSNBC gave him a tiny mention in a segment condemning conservatives for opposing Obama but didn’t talk about him except in passing.

The book has drawn the attention of some of the major newspapers—none of which is positive—including a review by Janet Maslin in the New York Times which lambasted Klein in the first paragraph as follows:

“’The Amateur’ by Edward Klein is a book about an inept, arrogant ideologue who maintains an absurdly high opinion of his own talents even as he blatantly fails to achieve his goals. Oh, and President Obama is in this book, too.”

I am old enough to remember when many journalists were fierce reporters of the news and did their utmost to be even handed.  Perhaps I will live long enough to return to such a time once again.

Tolerating No Dissent

Irrespective of your politics, this should scare you.

It's hard to imagine a more instructive couple of days for those who want to know where the Democratic Party's head is at: its only high-profile African American moderate just got a brushback pitch for leaning in too close to the Independent thought zone; the Obama camp looks ominously like a cult of personality that tolerates no dissent; and the reelection campaign just doubled down on the European leftist notion that business is fair only when it operates in a sanitized, risk free manner.

And note; this is not from someone on the far right.  This is a respected former black congressman at Harvard's Kennedy School of Politics.

Speaks volumes......

Honesty is the Best Policy?

What happens when a black Democrat politician is honest?

This.

@MWJ1231 @CoryBooker Mr. Booker is nauseating. he is just another hating jealous house nigger begging for table scraps.

@CoryBooker @dawn9476 @Bain Cory, ur political career is DEAD to us Dems unless u get ur ass back on TV ASAP & take back ur words re; Bain

If @CoryBooker felt that the attack on Bain was nauseating he should have just puked and kept his pie hole shut.

@CoryBooker you need a big cup of "shut the fuck up!" #TriangulatingLiar

And so on and so forth.  You get the general idea... 

School Daze

Troy Senik writes about why the California Teacher's Association is the worst union in America.  He also explains why this union has such a destructive impact on our nation - and our children - overall.

The CTA’s most important resource, however, isn’t a pool of workers ready to strike; it’s a fat bank account fed by mandatory dues that can run more than $1,000 per member. In 2009, the union’s income was more than $186 million, all of it tax-exempt. The CTA doesn’t need its members’ consent to spend this money on politicking, whether that’s making campaign contributions or running advocacy campaigns to obstruct reform. According to figures from the California Fair Political Practices Commission (a public institution) in 2010, the CTA had spent more than $210 million over the previous decade on political campaigning—more than any other donor in the state. In fact, the CTA outspent the pharmaceutical industry, the oil industry, and the tobacco industry combined.

All this money has helped the union rack up an imposing number of victories. The first major win came in 1988, with the passage of Proposition 98. That initiative compelled California to spend more than 40 percent of its annual budget on education in grades K–12 and community college. The spending quota eliminated schools’ incentive to get value out of every dollar: since funding was locked in, there was no need to make things run cost-effectively. Thanks to union influence on local school boards, much of the extra money—about $450 million a year—went straight into teachers’ salaries. Prop. 98’s malign effects weren’t limited to education, however: by essentially making public school funding an entitlement rather than a matter of discretionary spending, it hastened California’s erosion of fiscal discipline. In recent years, estimates of mandatory spending’s share of the state’s budget have run as high as 85 percent, making it highly difficult for the legislature to confront the severe budget crises of the past decade.

In 1991, the CTA took to the ramparts again to combat Proposition 174, a ballot initiative that would have made California a national leader in school choice by giving families universal access to school vouchers. When initiative supporters began circulating the petitions necessary to get it onto the ballot, some CTA members tried to intimidate petition signers physically. The union also encouraged people to sign the petition multiple times in order to throw the process into chaos. “There are some proposals so evil that they should never go before the voters,” explained D. A. Weber, the CTA’s president. One of the consultants who organized the petitions testified in a court declaration at the time that people with union ties had offered him $400,000 to refrain from distributing them. Another claimed that a CTA member had tried to run him off the road after a debate on school choice.

Please note that I am not anti-union, and I assuredly am not anti-teacher.  Some of my teachers have been an incredibly positive force in my life.  And unions have contributed in a meaningful and good way to employment in our country.

Nevertheless, this union and this union's history - and its actions today - are poisonous.  Read the entire column, and you will appreciate why this is so.

Name That Racist!

A short morning quiz.  Who are the racists who made these statements below?

As far as that stuff, I have to say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. It’s—to me, we’re just getting to a ridiculous point in America. Especially, I know, I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses; this to me, I’m very uncomfortable.

And--

I do think to pick out an example of somebody who lost their job unfortunately, this is part of capitalism. This is part of life. And I don’t think there’s anything Bain Capital did that they need to be embarrassed about.

Rick Santorum?  Sarah Palin?  Newt Gingrich? 

Nope.  The first quotes are from Cory Booker, mayor of Newark.  And the ones that follow were made by Steve Rattner, Obama's former auto czar.

Anyone think that the President might start talking about real issues instead of ludicrous attacks on Mitt Romney now?  Anyone?  Anyone?

The Buffett Rule

Warren Buffett is a bridge buddy of mine and a super guy in many respects.  Requesting that our nation adopt what has become known as "The Buffett Rule," however, is not one of Warren's greatest ideas.

T.J. Rodgers explains exactly why.

Who is Barack Obama?

No one in the mainstream media seems to know - or care.

Some of the rest of us, however, do wonder.

No excerpts.  Just read the Whole Thing.

Other People's Money

What happens when you use other people's money to buy things and services?  This.

Nobody told Hurricane librarian Rebecca Elliot that the $22,600 Internet router in the branch library's storage closet was powerful enough to serve an entire college campus.

Nobody told Elliot how much the router cost or who paid for it. Workers just showed up and installed the device. They left behind no instructions, no user manual.

The high-end router serves four public computer terminals at the small library in Putnam County.

The state of West Virginia is using $24 million in federal economic stimulus money to put high-powered Internet computer routers in small libraries, elementary schools and health clinics, even though the pricey equipment is designed to serve major research universities, medical centers and large corporations, a Gazette-Mail investigation has found.

The state purchased 1,064 routers two years ago, after receiving a $126 million federal stimulus grant to expand high-speed Internet across West Virginia.

The Cisco 3945 series routers, which cost $22,600 each, are built to serve "tens of thousands" of users or device connections, according to a Cisco sales agent. The routers are designed to serve a minimum of 500 users.

Yet state broadband project officials directed the installation of the stimulus-funded Cisco routers in West Virginia schools with fewer than a dozen computers and libraries that have only a single terminal for patrons.

Do you think this is a good use of public resources?  If these were your own funds, do you think you might do a better job of managing them?

If your answers are "no" and "yes" respectively - then perhaps we need different politicians in office, judging how to spend the public's money.  Just a thought.

Bain or Bane?

You be the judge.

It Makes It Worse

For quite some time now, I've come to believe that our national obsession with race makes race relations worse; it does not improve them.

Yesterday, a Facebook friend of mine (and actual real friend!) posted something about the headline regarding a change in the racial composition of babies being born in the U.S.  For the first time, Caucasian babies are a minority.  There was much discussion following as to what language to use to describe this.  Indeed, if "minority" babies are now being born at a higher rate than "white" babies - what terminology should be used?

My friend happens to be black, very liberal and very involved with all the attendant issues for those who have such a mindset.  After I made a comment that I thought all of us were "people of color" - including lightly flesh colored me - I was excoriated by some.  Although I am quite certain my skin color is not white like my kitchen cabinetry, I was told in no uncertain terms that I am not a "person of color".  Morever, it is offensive of me to refer to myself that way.

And then, there is this.

"Diversity training doesn't extinguish prejudice. It promotes it," says Peter Bregman in Psychology Today. He's not alone in his belief. Walter Olson at Overlawyered.com has collected numerous articles detailing why diversity training doesn't actually make people more tolerant. In fact, it can open your company to lawsuits, as the Federal Aviation Administration found out way back in 1995.

Sigh.  Sometimes I think that the author of this quote would be laughed off the podium today...

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Perhaps if we began more to focus on the content of everyone's character, rather than the color of their skin, we could move closer to the nation of which Martin Luther King Jr dreamed.....

 

If You're Gonna Lie

Lie BIG.

At least, that's Barack Obama's motto.

One way or another, he's been lying about his nation of origin.  (Though it's been many years since I've studied or taught logic, I certainly am aware that he either was born in Kenya - or was not.  Can't be both.  Yet, Obama has promoted himself as being born in Kenya when it suited him - and denied that it was true when it suited him, too.)

And then there's this:

Would you hire President Obama as your financial adviser? Three years ago his administration invested more than $100 billion in taxpayer money to bail out General Motors. On Tuesday, the entire company, not just what the government owns, was worth less than $34 billion. By anyone’s definition, that investment is a glaring failure. Yet over the last few days the Obama campaign, in a $25 million marketing blitz, has flooded the airwaves with ads in battleground states, claiming the bailout should be counted a rousing success.

Unfortunately, assertions that “all loans have been repaid to the federal government,” that the bailout “saved more than one million American jobs,” that “U.S. automakers are hiring hundreds of thousands of new workers,” that GM is again the “number-one automaker” — all are based on creative accounting.

Do read the whole column, then decide for yourself whether or not GM is really a "success story" for this administration.

I have always maintained that the President would have made a fine actor.  We've seen him do it for more than a few years now.

Personally, I'm hoping that he can retire at the beginning of next year - and pursue his true calling full time.

 

513 to Nuthin'?

Even members of his own party won't vote for his budgets.

Two months ago, Congress voted down the "Obama budget" by a vote of 414-0. Today, the Senate chimed in. The result was just as definitive. Final outcome, between the Congress and the Senate, a grand total of zero votes were cast for the Obama budget... and a mere 513 against.

From Washington Times:

President Obama's budget suffered a second embarrassing defeat Wednesday, when senators voted 99-0 to reject it.

Coupled with the House's rejection in March, 414-0, that means Mr. Obama's budget has failed to win a single vote in support this year.

Republicans forced the vote by offering the president's plan on the Senate floor.

Democrats disputed that it was actually the president's plan, arguing that the slim amendment didn't actually match Mr. Obama's budget document, which ran thousands of pages. But Republicans said they used all of the president's numbers in the proposal, so it faithfully represented his plan.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, even challenged Democrats to point out any errors in the numbers and he would correct them — a challenge no Democrats took up.

More Regulation

Is what the left wants to "protect us" from evil bankers and capitalists.  But Allan Meltzer highlights what out nation really needs.

In 2008-2009, I advised Sen. David Vitter, the Republican from Louisiana on the Senate Banking Committee, that protecting the public meant we must end the notion that some banks and companies are "too big to fail" and must be bailed out by the taxpayers. Mr. Vitter proposed legislation that required all banks to hold more capital, and large banks to hold proportionally more capital per dollar of assets than smaller banks. Congress quickly dismissed his proposal.  Regulators are protecting banks from competition instead of protecting the public from paying for losses.

The U.S. economy can't grow unless investors are free to finance risky assets. Our future will be much poorer if we convert the banking system into an ever more heavily regulated group of companies.

During America's booms following the Civil War and World War I, commercial banks served as both commercial and investment banks. For safety they held much more capital per dollar of assets. In the 1920s, capital ratios for large New York banks ranged from 15% to 20% of assets. Stockholders took losses, but none of the major New York banks failed during the Great Depression.

Experience shows that regulation is an inadequate substitute for bank capital. Scrutiny failures by the Securities and Exchange Commission left investors in the Madoff and Stanford funds with huge losses. Regulation failed to protect the public.

Au Revoir First Amendment

The left doesn't fight ideas it doesn't like by tough argumentation and hard data.  No.  It fights by shutting down the opposition.

The left has mounted a fierce campaign to target companies that donate to ALEC, acting like reverse extortionists who threaten a PR nightmare unless the companies stop paying up.

They don't even bother to deny it. Color of Change talks about flooding targeted companies with "thousands of phone calls" and how it will "escalate pressure" with radio ads and threats of public action, the Free Beacon reports.

It's about the left's desire to silence voices with which it doesn't agree, and it's about bullying companies into giving only to left-wing causes.

As ALEC's experience shows, the left doesn't want open debate and dialogue or freedom of speech. It wants forced conformity.

What's worse is the fact that "journalists across the country" — including those at the Washington Post and New York Times — who normally pride themselves as champions of free speech, have decided to play along with this campaign rather than call it out.

ALL About Him

We all know people for whom life is All About Them.  No matter what you may discussing or story you are relating, they don't really want to listen to what you have to say.  They want to talk about themself.  Their family, their experiences, their job, their accomplishments, their talents - and so forth and so on.  There is no "off" button for their own life.

In the political world - welcome to President Obama.

Rory Cooper at the Heritage Foundation was the first to notice that the Obama administration edited the official presidential histories on the White House website to include a blurb about Obama on the page dedicated to Ronald Reagan.  Commentary’s Seth Mandel followed up and found numerous other examples:

Many of President Obama’s fervent devotees are young enough not to have much memory of the political world before the arrival of The One. Coincidentally, Obama himself feels the same way—and the White House’s official website reflects that.

The Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper tweeted that Obama had casually dropped his own name into Ronald Reagan’s official biography onwww.whitehouse.gov, claiming credit for taking up the mantle of Reagan’s tax reform advocacy with his “Buffett Rule” gimmick. My first thought was, he must be joking. But he wasn’t—it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford).

Why start at Calvin Coolidge?

Yes, the President is not stopping with just a couple of past presidents.  Obama has included himself into short bios of Hoover, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, mentioning such feats as holding virtual meetings with Twitter and celebrating the 50th annivesary of the Peace Corps.  What a guy!  If you read through the link, you will note that he has also rewritten actual history, mangling magnificent quotes from the past.  John F. Kennedy's "Ask not what you your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" has now morphed into "Ask what you can do for your country."  Doesn't quite have the same ring to it - does it?  But - what does it matter, as long as it makes this president look better!

Are you as tired as I am of having a president who puts his needs, wants, preferences and personal goals before those of the American people?  If so - then let's elect a president that respects history - and the good of we, the people - instead of himself.

 

Racism is Racism

And no excuses should be made for it.  Thomas Sowell explains.

Those who automatically say that the social pathology of the ghetto is due to poverty, discrimination and the like cannot explain why such pathology was far less prevalent in the 1950s, when poverty and discrimination were worse. But there were not nearly as many grievance mongers and race hustlers then.

Holding people to a high standard is generally good for everyone.  Don't demean people of any race by assuming that they cannot live their lives with dignity and successfully.

Unemployment

As a Realtor, too often I see the painful effects of people out of work.  More than a few factors contribute to the sad statistics we've been seeing the last few years.  This, however, is assuredly a contributing cause that should be stopped!

Two recent studies find that state licensing regimes for small businesses impose severe burdens on consumers and entrepreneurs alike. The first, by the libertarian Institute for Justice, finds that licensing is ubiquitous for a wide range of professions, and that it often has little or no public interest justification:

License to Work details licensing requirements for 102 low- and moderate-income occupations in all 50 states and D.C. It is the first national study of licensing to focus on lower-income occupations and to measure the burdens licensing imposes on aspiring workers….

All of the 102 occupations studied in License to Work are licensed in at least one state. On average, these government-mandated licenses force aspiring workers to spend nine months in education or training, pass one exam and pay more than $200 in fees. One third of the licenses take more than one year to earn. At least one exam is required for 79 of the occupations….

Noted licensure expert Morris Kleiner found that in the 1950s, only one in 20 U.S. workers needed government permission to pursue their chosen occupation. Today, it is closer to one in three. Yet research to date provides little evidence that licensing protects public health and safety or improves products and services. Instead, it increases consumer costs and reduces opportunities for workers….

the difficulty of entering an occupation often has little to do with the health or safety risk it poses. Of the 102 occupations studied, the most difficult to enter is interior designer, a harmless occupation licensed in only three states and D.C. By contrast, EMTs hold lives in their hands, yet 66 other occupations face greater average licensure burdens, including barbers and cosmetologists, manicurists and a host of contractor designations. States consider an average of 33 days of training and two exams enough preparation for EMTs, but demand 10 times the training—372 days, on average—for cosmetologists. “The data cast serious doubt on the need for such high barriers, or any barriers, to many occupations,” said Lisa Knepper, IJ director of strategic research and report co-author. “Unnecessary and needlessly high licensing hurdles don’t protect public health and safety—they protect those who already have licenses from competition, keeping newcomers out and prices high.”

 

 

Happy Mother's Day

This last year, I had a Significant Birthday - the Big 6-0.  At this age, most of my friends don't have one parent left - much less two. I am one of the lucky ones.  Not only do I still have my folks - today I was able to celebrate Mother's Day with them.

For as long as I can remember, Mom ranked living a healthy lifestyle very high.  Food around our house was very ... healthy.  My sister and I would ramble on over to a friend's house if we were craving dessert or junk food.  It just didn't show up at our house.  And exercise was a priority.  Through her 70's, Mom did a minimum of 1 hour of exercise a day.  All that healthy living paid off.  Mom was gorgeous and had a beautiful figure.

Sometimes, however, the fates foil our plans.  A little after her 80th birthday, Mom began to face a number of major health hurdles.  As they progressed, not only did the exercise end; Mom's ability to be very mobile became quite compromised, too.

Today, tasks that most of us take for granted are either quite major for Mom - or, impossible to do on her own.  Lovely nurse's aides help with the latter.  And for other simple items - like moving from the bedroom or into the car - great effort must be expended from Mom.  Sometimes I think the act of getting into the car is much for difficult for her these days than running five miles was for me when I used to do that!

In any case, not only does Mom do what she can as best she can every day - she has an amazing attitude.  Today, we were invited to my Aunt Ro and Uncle Av's club for a spectacular brunch.  As we rode home, Mom reflected on how lucky she was.  Lucky to be with family ... lucky to be listening to Frank Sinatra croon tunes ... lucky to be here.

And I am the one who is incredibly fortunate to still have both my parents - and still have them teaching me life's lessons.  Life has so much to offer us - if we only open our eyes and appreciate what is good in it. 

Thank you, Mom and Dad. 

P.S.  As you can see from these photos, Mom is still pretty darn gorgeous!  Less mobile - but - still deserving of wolf whistles!

Wrecking Wisconsin

If Scott Walker is wrecking the state of Wisconsin - then we need more governors "tearing down" their states, too.

What this eeeeeevil governor has done - and why in another era, liberals might have been cheering him on.

Walker won’t end forced private-sector unionism, lighten Wisconsin’s hefty tax burden, or abandon government spending to stimulate economic growth. All this would have made him a Democrat in FDR’s time. That modern-day progressives are branding him as a right-wing radical says far more about them than him.

"Incompetent"

“Barack Obama is an amateur.”

“The economy’s a mess, it’s dead flat. America has lost its Triple-A rating."

"Obama doesn’t know how to be president and is incompetent.”

No, these quotes are not from the lips of some rabid right winger.  They're from William Jefferson Clinton.  You remember him, don't you?

And who is the source of this information?

Edward Klein is a seven-time New York Times bestselling non-fiction author. He is also the former foreign editor of Newsweek and former editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine. Klein frequently contributes to Vanity Fair and Parade, and currently lives in New York, New York.

As Ed Morrissey states, you can bet that the Clintons will deny what is in the book.  Nevertheless...  make of the above what you will.  I certainly shall.

Heaven and Earth

Many moons ago, when I began my first "big girl" job, I met a woman a few years older than I was.  What a woman!

In her early 30's, Karol Emmerich not only had an MBA from Stanford - she was the Treasurer for Dayton-Hudson Corporation.  (My employer, too, except my job was a teeeeensy bit more lowly than Karol's!)

Through a mutual friend, Karol and I met - and became friends ourselves.  Karol is a most impressive - and fascinating woman.  Super smart and super capable, Karol prospered at DHC and in the community, serving on a wide variety of boards.  Along the way, however, Karol's faith became more and more important to her.  Finally, having achieved much success (along with her husband) in the business world, Karol decided to retire in the midst of her business career.  Not only was she going to devote herself to following her faith - she was going to make this earth a more beautiful place. 

Karol found a large parcel of land about 25-30 miles southwest of the metro area.  There, she built a greenhouse, began propagating day lilies - and renovating a lovely but deteriorating old home on the property.  To her faith and her love of gardening, Karol brought the same passion and brilliance as she had to her career.

You might wonder about our friendship; me, the agnostic, follower-of-no-faith and Karol, the woman who names her beloved day lilies after passages in the Bible....  But - it works.  We share many of the same political views.  And on religion, we discuss with respect and curiosity. 

Unfortunately, I do not see a lot of my friend.  Yet, knowing she is out in the country, creating and growing and giving and learning always makes me smile.  Yesterday, I had the pleasure of going out - the first time in some years - to see her creations.  They are amazing - and - I will share just a few photos of them with you here.

I am quite certain that both Heaven and Earth are much improved, due to Karol.

The Man Who Flew Too Much

Despite being a mild agoraphobic, part of me dreams about doing this.

There are frequent fliers, and then there are people like Steven Rothstein and Jacques Vroom.

Both men bought tickets that gave them unlimited first-class travel for life on American Airlines. It was almost like owning a fleet of private jets.

Passes in hand, Rothstein and Vroom flew for business. They flew for pleasure. They flew just because they liked being on planes. They bypassed long lines, booked backup itineraries in case the weather turned, and never worried about cancellation fees. Flight crews memorized their names and favorite meals.

Each had paid American more than $350,000 for an unlimited AAirpass and a companion ticket that allowed them to take someone along on their adventures. Both agree it was the best purchase they ever made, one that completely redefined their lives.

In the 2009 film "Up in the Air," the loyal American business traveler played by George Clooney was showered with attention after attaining 10 million frequent flier miles.

Rothstein and Vroom were not impressed.

"I can't even remember when I cracked 10 million," said Vroom, 67, a big, amiable Texan, who at last count had logged nearly four times as many. Rothstein, 61, has notched more than 30 million miles.

Evisceration

What makes our nation great?  Is it the stunning geography that spans across the continent?  Is it the amazing mix of people that make up our population - people who have come from literally every corner of the planet?  Is it the spirit of Americans - the "can do" and creativity that we've shown for centuries?  Yes, yes and yes.

But it is also the government that the founding fathers crafted for us that allows us to enjoy all of the above.  Without our precious rights - who knows where we would be?

George Will knows.  And he explains how some in our country are trying to tear down a system of laws and rights, enshrined in our Constitution.

Newspapers, magazines, broadcasting entities, online journalism operations — and most religious institutions — are corporate entities. McGovern’s amendment would strip them of all constitutional rights. By doing so, the amendment would empower the government to do much more than proscribe speech. Ilya Somin of George Mason University Law School, writing for the Volokh Conspiracy blog, notes that government, unleashed by McGovern’s amendment, could regulate religious practices at most houses of worship, conduct whatever searches it wants, reasonable or not, of corporate entities, and seize corporate-owned property for whatever it deems public uses — without paying compensation. Yes, McGovern’s scythe would mow down the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, as well as the First.

The proposed amendment is intended to reverse the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which affirmed the right of persons to associate in corporate entities for the purpose of unrestricted collective speech independent of candidates’ campaigns.

As the editors of National Review note, liberals control unions and most of academia and the media. Yet such is their evident lack of confidence in their powers of persuasion they are desperate to control the speech of others.

By proposing his amendment, McGovern helpfully illuminates the lengths to which some liberals want to go. So when next you hear histrionic warnings about tea party or other conservative “extremism,” try to think of anything on the right comparable to McGovern’s proposed vandalism of the Bill of Rights.