A very long train, with the United States on board. Call it the Gravy Train, for a name.
This train has been speeding down the tracks for many, many years. It has been a great party for most on board, though not for all.
At the end of the track it is running on there is an abyss. Nobody knows where the end is, but it is there.
It might be one mile away, ten miles, 100 miles; nobody can know for sure. We only know that the train must be stopped before it reaches the abyss, or there will be a terrible train wreck.
We also know that the train takes a long distance to be stopped, so there can be no waiting until the last moment to apply the brakes.
The only way to stop the train is to stop the party. Everyone will have to give up some of their gravy. It cannot be stopped any other way.
Meanwhile, the Engineer is opening the throttle. The train is picking up speed rapidly.
The rest of the crew is dithering, doing little at all to stop the train.
Some of the passengers are getting worried, many are just ignoring the speed and are enjoying all the gravy.
Very little is being done because nobody on the train wants to give up any of their gravy.
So the train keeps speeding toward the abyss. Will it be stopped in time?
It doesn't look much like it.
This little story should seem familiar. Our government has a huge and growing budget deficit and huge and growing entitlement commitments that cannot be paid for under any scenario.
The President has offered a budget proposal that will increase the deficit considerably. His party which controls the Senate is fighting to preserve current levels of spending.
The other party, which controls the House of Representatives are engaging in tokenism so far, and were split on a vote this week that would cut a mere $22 billion from the $1.5 trillion deficit.
The only conclusion that I can reach about this is that we are governed by morons.
Who will lead the political revolution that is needed?
Showing posts with label President. Show all posts
Showing posts with label President. Show all posts
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Are we living in a satire?
A good question. When we consider what is going on around us every day, it just has to be satire.
The President of the United States tours the world apologizing for everything our country has been.
The President of the United States offends and insults the friends and allies of our country, but snuggles up to the tyrants and dictators of the world in very obsequious ways.
The Russians are now threatening the US with nuclear preemption.
The Iranians and the North Koreans and every other two-bit dictatorship thumbs their noses at the US, correctly assuming that our President is weak.
A Republican President of the United States permits a financial coup de' etat of our economy by the huge financial institutions in New York, and his Democratic successor further enables it.
The President of the United States is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, having been nominated therefor not later than 12 days after he took office, joining others to hold the prize like Yassir Arafat and Jimmy Carter.
The politicians in Washington are proposing huge and expensive changes in our medical care system in the middle of the worst economy in decades.
They are also proposing huge new taxes on energy use at the same time.
They are continuing to try to solve the problems in the economy caused by too much debt by going further into debt at historical rates.
When one looks at Washington, all one sees is business as usual.
We are living in Wonderland, with Alice.
Who will lead the revolution?
The President of the United States tours the world apologizing for everything our country has been.
The President of the United States offends and insults the friends and allies of our country, but snuggles up to the tyrants and dictators of the world in very obsequious ways.
The Russians are now threatening the US with nuclear preemption.
The Iranians and the North Koreans and every other two-bit dictatorship thumbs their noses at the US, correctly assuming that our President is weak.
A Republican President of the United States permits a financial coup de' etat of our economy by the huge financial institutions in New York, and his Democratic successor further enables it.
The President of the United States is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, having been nominated therefor not later than 12 days after he took office, joining others to hold the prize like Yassir Arafat and Jimmy Carter.
The politicians in Washington are proposing huge and expensive changes in our medical care system in the middle of the worst economy in decades.
They are also proposing huge new taxes on energy use at the same time.
They are continuing to try to solve the problems in the economy caused by too much debt by going further into debt at historical rates.
When one looks at Washington, all one sees is business as usual.
We are living in Wonderland, with Alice.
Who will lead the revolution?
Friday, July 24, 2009
Memo to the President and Congress re: Health Care
Mr. President and Congress, you are presently trying to pass a health care reform bill. You have exempted yourselves and all Federal employees from the provisions thereof.
You need to pardon me for shouting, but:
I WILL ACCEPT ANY REFORM OF MEDICAL CARE THAT YOU AND ALL FEDERAL EMPLOYEES WILL BE SUBJECT TO, AND NONE OTHER.
PERIOD.
I do not know why you believe that you have some kind of superior rights to the rest of us, but rest assured, you do not.
The South Plainsman
You need to pardon me for shouting, but:
I WILL ACCEPT ANY REFORM OF MEDICAL CARE THAT YOU AND ALL FEDERAL EMPLOYEES WILL BE SUBJECT TO, AND NONE OTHER.
PERIOD.
I do not know why you believe that you have some kind of superior rights to the rest of us, but rest assured, you do not.
The South Plainsman
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Who is Barack Obama?
After the basketball games were done, and the vote counting as well, last Saturday night I was channel surfing prior to bedtime, and came across the speech Barack Obama made that night in Richmond, Virginia. I stopped to watch, and was amazed at the performance. This guy is a formidable candidate. A tidbit follows:
"....But in this election - at this moment - Americans are standing up all across the country to say, not this time. Not this year. The stakes are too high and the challenges too great to play the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result. And today, voters from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast to the heart of America stood up to say that it is time to turn the page. We won Louisiana, and Nebraska, and the state of Washington, and I believe that we can win in Virginia on Tuesday if you're ready to stand for change....."
More:
"...But I am running for President because I believe that to actually make change happen - to make this time different than all the rest - we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, Independents, and Republicans together to get things done. That's how we'll win this election, and that's how we'll change this country when I am President of the United States....."
Read the whole thing here.
For the last several years I have been hearing both partisan Democrats and partisan Republicans expressing the same thoughts, although each side probably has a little different idea of what that means. Obama has discovered a theme that is reacting powerfully throughout the country. His delivery and enthusiasm makes him a very formidable candidate in spite of his lack of experience.
After some thought, I decided to try to find out just who this Barack Obama is. One can check his bio at numerous places and they all have about the same info. From Congresspedia:
"Obama was born August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Obama studied for two years at Occidental College, before transferring to Columbia University. There he majored in political science, with a specialization in international relations. Upon graduation, he worked for a year at newsletter publisher Business International (now part of The Economist Group), and moved to Chicago, where he was a community organizer in the Altgeld Gardens housing project on the city's South Side. It was during his time spent here that Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ. [26]
He left Chicago to study law at Harvard University, where he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude. After law school, he returned to Chicago and organized an aggressive voter registration effort that registered over 100,000 voters and aided in the election of President Bill Clinton and Senator Carol Moseley Braun, the first African-American woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate. Soon after, he joined a local civil rights law firm, and he became a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago..........."
He ran for the Illinois Senate in 1996 and won. In 2000 he ran against an incumbent Congressman and was defeated 61% to 30%. In 2004, he was elected to the United States Senate from Illinois. Now, in 2008, he is running for President of the United States.
You can check his personal story here, and here, and, of course, on his campaign site.
Is there a downside? Well, yes. In looking for the downside, one first would go to Hillary's campaign. There one will hear about the association of Obama with one Antoin "Tony" Rezko who is currently under Federal indictment in a corruption case. The case is described here, while Obama's connection is described here. It seems Mr. Rezko "helped" the Obamas buy a $1.6 million house right after he was elected to the Senate. That's a pretty expensive house for someone with the job history he has disclosed. The dealings came to the public eye when Rezko was required to disclose it at his bond hearing. There is no direct evidence of anything illegal, but the potential is there.
In my short search, I have not found anything else, but I suspect that if there is anything, the Clintons will be all too happy to inform us.
Where does his money come from? This is a surprise, I guess. From Opensecrets.org:
"Goldman Sachs
$421,763
UBS AG
$296,670
Lehman Brothers
$250,630
National Amusements Inc
$245,843
JP Morgan Chase & Co
$240,788
Sidley Austin LLP
$226,491
Citigroup Inc
$221,578
Exelon Corp
$220,267
Skadden, Arps Et Al
$196,420
Jones Day
$181,996
Citadel Investment Group
$171,798
Harvard University
$164,978
Time Warner
$155,383
Morgan Stanley
$155,196
Google Inc
$150,329
University of California
$140,429
Jenner & Block
$136,565
Kirkland & Ellis
$134,738
Wilmerhale Llp
$119,245
Credit Suisse Group
$118,250"
If you want to check out the other candidates, go here. This is a great site for political campaign finance.
As you can see, there is nothing revolutionary about Obama's big donors. Many of them donate to Hillary and to McCain as well.
The real downside to Obama just seems to be his far left record. He talks about hope and bipartisanship, and about all the great things he is going to do, but the devil is in the details, and he has not been free at all with details. What he does seem to be doing is trying to be all things to all people, speaking in very high sounding terms, but not going into any depth on the subject. Will he fill in the details? Somebody needs to challenge him on this. If Hillary doesn't, then he may well defeat her. He is good enough to win this thing if he can get by with the platitudes without having to go into specifics.
It is going to be an interesting election year.
"....But in this election - at this moment - Americans are standing up all across the country to say, not this time. Not this year. The stakes are too high and the challenges too great to play the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result. And today, voters from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast to the heart of America stood up to say that it is time to turn the page. We won Louisiana, and Nebraska, and the state of Washington, and I believe that we can win in Virginia on Tuesday if you're ready to stand for change....."
More:
"...But I am running for President because I believe that to actually make change happen - to make this time different than all the rest - we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, Independents, and Republicans together to get things done. That's how we'll win this election, and that's how we'll change this country when I am President of the United States....."
Read the whole thing here.
For the last several years I have been hearing both partisan Democrats and partisan Republicans expressing the same thoughts, although each side probably has a little different idea of what that means. Obama has discovered a theme that is reacting powerfully throughout the country. His delivery and enthusiasm makes him a very formidable candidate in spite of his lack of experience.
After some thought, I decided to try to find out just who this Barack Obama is. One can check his bio at numerous places and they all have about the same info. From Congresspedia:
"Obama was born August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Obama studied for two years at Occidental College, before transferring to Columbia University. There he majored in political science, with a specialization in international relations. Upon graduation, he worked for a year at newsletter publisher Business International (now part of The Economist Group), and moved to Chicago, where he was a community organizer in the Altgeld Gardens housing project on the city's South Side. It was during his time spent here that Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ. [26]
He left Chicago to study law at Harvard University, where he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude. After law school, he returned to Chicago and organized an aggressive voter registration effort that registered over 100,000 voters and aided in the election of President Bill Clinton and Senator Carol Moseley Braun, the first African-American woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate. Soon after, he joined a local civil rights law firm, and he became a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago..........."
He ran for the Illinois Senate in 1996 and won. In 2000 he ran against an incumbent Congressman and was defeated 61% to 30%. In 2004, he was elected to the United States Senate from Illinois. Now, in 2008, he is running for President of the United States.
You can check his personal story here, and here, and, of course, on his campaign site.
Is there a downside? Well, yes. In looking for the downside, one first would go to Hillary's campaign. There one will hear about the association of Obama with one Antoin "Tony" Rezko who is currently under Federal indictment in a corruption case. The case is described here, while Obama's connection is described here. It seems Mr. Rezko "helped" the Obamas buy a $1.6 million house right after he was elected to the Senate. That's a pretty expensive house for someone with the job history he has disclosed. The dealings came to the public eye when Rezko was required to disclose it at his bond hearing. There is no direct evidence of anything illegal, but the potential is there.
In my short search, I have not found anything else, but I suspect that if there is anything, the Clintons will be all too happy to inform us.
Where does his money come from? This is a surprise, I guess. From Opensecrets.org:
"Goldman Sachs
$421,763
UBS AG
$296,670
Lehman Brothers
$250,630
National Amusements Inc
$245,843
JP Morgan Chase & Co
$240,788
Sidley Austin LLP
$226,491
Citigroup Inc
$221,578
Exelon Corp
$220,267
Skadden, Arps Et Al
$196,420
Jones Day
$181,996
Citadel Investment Group
$171,798
Harvard University
$164,978
Time Warner
$155,383
Morgan Stanley
$155,196
Google Inc
$150,329
University of California
$140,429
Jenner & Block
$136,565
Kirkland & Ellis
$134,738
Wilmerhale Llp
$119,245
Credit Suisse Group
$118,250"
If you want to check out the other candidates, go here. This is a great site for political campaign finance.
As you can see, there is nothing revolutionary about Obama's big donors. Many of them donate to Hillary and to McCain as well.
The real downside to Obama just seems to be his far left record. He talks about hope and bipartisanship, and about all the great things he is going to do, but the devil is in the details, and he has not been free at all with details. What he does seem to be doing is trying to be all things to all people, speaking in very high sounding terms, but not going into any depth on the subject. Will he fill in the details? Somebody needs to challenge him on this. If Hillary doesn't, then he may well defeat her. He is good enough to win this thing if he can get by with the platitudes without having to go into specifics.
It is going to be an interesting election year.
Friday, February 8, 2008
The contest for the Democratic nomination
What an election year! There have been many surprises, and I suspect there will be many more. In my 50 years of active politics, I have not seen anything quite like it.
The election that this one seems to resemble the most is that of 1960. Of course it is not the same, but there are a few comparisons that are interesting.
On the Democratic side we have a contest between an old time political hardball player (Hillary Clinton playing a similar role to LBJ) and a more youthful new generation guy who espouses change (Barack Obama playing JFK). Then we had contestants that were a generation apart, and the same is true now. Hillary was born in the Baby Boomer 40s, and Obama in the X Generation 60s.
Another similarity is that the campaign for the nomination will probably go down to the wire, and end up being contested in the convention.
I can remember following that 1960 Democratic Convention, rooting for Lyndon Johnson, knowing all the time how difficult it would be for him to win it. It was a great convention, chaired by Sam Rayburn, LBJ's good friend. But all of Johnson's power in the party came to naught as the Democrats sought a fresh face and nominated Kennedy. (Of course, the Kennedys proved themselves very capable of engaging in power politics as well.)
The electorate back then was split in much the same manner as now, and JFK won the general election in as close a race as that in 2000. Nixon did not file a lawsuit challenging the vote count in Chicago, saving the country the spectacle we saw in 2000.
McCain cannot really be compared to the Nixon of 1960, although both served in the House and Senate. Nixon got the nomination because he was the Vice President.
The primary campaigns are nothing like those in 1960. Of course, back then primaries were not that important. The fight was over convention delegates picked in "smoke filled rooms" more than in primaries.
The Democratic campaigns are going to be very interesting to watch. I have always felt that Hillary would win, but have been surprised at what Obama has accomplished. His fund raising has been phenomenal, beating everyone pretty badly. Now that Hillary is having to self finance her campaign, one must wonder how long she can keep it up. Obama has some wins coming. Will Hillary have enough to compete in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania? Good question.
My view is that Hillary will win Texas when the day comes, but Obama has good shots in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Look for a convention contest.
The election that this one seems to resemble the most is that of 1960. Of course it is not the same, but there are a few comparisons that are interesting.
On the Democratic side we have a contest between an old time political hardball player (Hillary Clinton playing a similar role to LBJ) and a more youthful new generation guy who espouses change (Barack Obama playing JFK). Then we had contestants that were a generation apart, and the same is true now. Hillary was born in the Baby Boomer 40s, and Obama in the X Generation 60s.
Another similarity is that the campaign for the nomination will probably go down to the wire, and end up being contested in the convention.
I can remember following that 1960 Democratic Convention, rooting for Lyndon Johnson, knowing all the time how difficult it would be for him to win it. It was a great convention, chaired by Sam Rayburn, LBJ's good friend. But all of Johnson's power in the party came to naught as the Democrats sought a fresh face and nominated Kennedy. (Of course, the Kennedys proved themselves very capable of engaging in power politics as well.)
The electorate back then was split in much the same manner as now, and JFK won the general election in as close a race as that in 2000. Nixon did not file a lawsuit challenging the vote count in Chicago, saving the country the spectacle we saw in 2000.
McCain cannot really be compared to the Nixon of 1960, although both served in the House and Senate. Nixon got the nomination because he was the Vice President.
The primary campaigns are nothing like those in 1960. Of course, back then primaries were not that important. The fight was over convention delegates picked in "smoke filled rooms" more than in primaries.
The Democratic campaigns are going to be very interesting to watch. I have always felt that Hillary would win, but have been surprised at what Obama has accomplished. His fund raising has been phenomenal, beating everyone pretty badly. Now that Hillary is having to self finance her campaign, one must wonder how long she can keep it up. Obama has some wins coming. Will Hillary have enough to compete in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania? Good question.
My view is that Hillary will win Texas when the day comes, but Obama has good shots in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Look for a convention contest.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
A waste of his time
A new Reuters/Zogby poll is out, and our national pols do not fare very well, as one would expect. President Bush shows an approval rating of 24%, while the Congress comes in at less than half of that: 11%. This only continues what is now a long term trend. The public is fed up with politics as usual...and should be.
This is not going to change until the pols get a clue about the whys of this, and so far it is clear that they have no clue at all.
The President lost a lot of credibility by leading us into a war that most supported, but was based on inaccurate intelligence, and executed with the wrong strategy in place. That part could be forgiven, I suppose, but not the part that came later. Knowing the intel was bad, and knowing the strategy was not working, he stonewalled the country for over three years, never acknowledging the mistakes, nor making any real effort to change the strategy. Only when his party lost control of Congress did he get the point. This occurred too late to salvage his reputation, but hopefully not too late to salvage the war effort.
Then on to Congress.... What can one say? The whole kit and kaboodle of them are making the strongest possible case for Will Rogers' statement that "the only native criminal class in America is Congress."
The Republican Congress was elected in 1994 with a "contract with America" that pledged, among other things, to balance the budget, cut out pork, and reduce the size of the government. Well, the budget did get close to balance during the Clinton Administration (if one can believe the silly and arcane methodology the government uses to measure such things), but upon the ascension of the Republican President, the majority went mad, setting new records for pork with every session, and letting the budget get far out of balance. This greed...and that is what it is.... was compounded when the President failed to veto anything but the Stem Cell Bill. Some are already in prison, and others are under investigation. Let us hope the Justice Department pursues the rest of those that have violated the law.
Of course, the conduct of the Republicans outraged the voters, and that was sufficient in 2006 to unseat enough of them so that the Democrats took control of Congress. Other than the war, the main theme of the Democratic campign was to "change the culture of corruption" in Washington.
So what happened? Well they did change it, but arguably for the worse. "Earmarks" apparently now are being sold for campaign contributions. See, for instance, this site. After a spike in approval ratings for Congress after the election, the public got wise, and ratings fell rapidly, and are now lower that they were in 2006.
It just appears that both parties are so busy slopping at the public trough that they cannot see how disgusted their constituents are getting with the whole process. No wonder voter turnout is so low, and getting lower. The choices are between twiddle dee dee, and twiddle dee dum.
If someone sees Diogenes (or his ghost), tell him not to bother taking his lantern to Washington, D. C. It would be a waste of his time.
This is not going to change until the pols get a clue about the whys of this, and so far it is clear that they have no clue at all.
The President lost a lot of credibility by leading us into a war that most supported, but was based on inaccurate intelligence, and executed with the wrong strategy in place. That part could be forgiven, I suppose, but not the part that came later. Knowing the intel was bad, and knowing the strategy was not working, he stonewalled the country for over three years, never acknowledging the mistakes, nor making any real effort to change the strategy. Only when his party lost control of Congress did he get the point. This occurred too late to salvage his reputation, but hopefully not too late to salvage the war effort.
Then on to Congress.... What can one say? The whole kit and kaboodle of them are making the strongest possible case for Will Rogers' statement that "the only native criminal class in America is Congress."
The Republican Congress was elected in 1994 with a "contract with America" that pledged, among other things, to balance the budget, cut out pork, and reduce the size of the government. Well, the budget did get close to balance during the Clinton Administration (if one can believe the silly and arcane methodology the government uses to measure such things), but upon the ascension of the Republican President, the majority went mad, setting new records for pork with every session, and letting the budget get far out of balance. This greed...and that is what it is.... was compounded when the President failed to veto anything but the Stem Cell Bill. Some are already in prison, and others are under investigation. Let us hope the Justice Department pursues the rest of those that have violated the law.
Of course, the conduct of the Republicans outraged the voters, and that was sufficient in 2006 to unseat enough of them so that the Democrats took control of Congress. Other than the war, the main theme of the Democratic campign was to "change the culture of corruption" in Washington.
So what happened? Well they did change it, but arguably for the worse. "Earmarks" apparently now are being sold for campaign contributions. See, for instance, this site. After a spike in approval ratings for Congress after the election, the public got wise, and ratings fell rapidly, and are now lower that they were in 2006.
It just appears that both parties are so busy slopping at the public trough that they cannot see how disgusted their constituents are getting with the whole process. No wonder voter turnout is so low, and getting lower. The choices are between twiddle dee dee, and twiddle dee dum.
If someone sees Diogenes (or his ghost), tell him not to bother taking his lantern to Washington, D. C. It would be a waste of his time.
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