It is almost astounding to watch the news analysis programs after the latest jobs reports of the creation of a paltry 18,000 jobs and unemployment ticking up to 9.2%. Nearly lost in the data is that the news from prior months was revised in a negative direction and at the same time the progressive talking heads say the stimulus worked.

Well some do. Those with the courage to admit that it didn’t work are quick to say that it was only because it wasn’t big enough. Great! What we really need right now is to be $20 trillion in debt before we find out that didn’t work either. The other argument is the shoulda, coulda, woulda argument. “Imagine, how bad it would have been if we did nothing.” Back at you, “Imagine how great we would be doing if we didn’t have a Washington run ponzi scheme called Social Security and had personal savings accounts instead. Imagine how there would have been no financial crisis if Washington didn’t decided long ago that everyone has to own a home whether they could afford it or not. Imagine how energy independent we would be if Washington didn’t force us away from our own oil, natural gas, and nuclear power to buy from foreign despots.” I could go on, but I think you get the point.

When the talk on main street is about our massive debt and how concerned the average American is, the progressives launch into such things as saying the Republicans haven’t written a jobs bill, and cling desperately to their tax raising wealth transfer programs.

The Two Myths

The two progressive myths I refer to are that 1) government is responsible for creating jobs; and 2) we need the government to transfer wealth from those who have to those who don’t through taxes.

Private industry creates jobs, and more specifically small businesses create the most. The best way for the government to help with job creation is to stay the hell out of the way. As an example, there were a couple of wineries on Long Island whose business was stuck because they were waiting for word from Washington on approval of a change to the shape of the wine bottle and the label that would go on it. It took the involvement of a U.S. Congressman to get the process, which normally takes 48 hours but has been stuck for months, to break up the log jam. Why is Washington even involved? As a wine consumer, unless a skull and crossbones is on the label, there is nothing there that is a deal breaker in my decision on whether to buy that wine or not. It is a combination of price, type of wine, reputation of the winery, year that will most influence my decision. If the result is me is spraying the room with a mouthful of wine that tastes like dishwater, the news will spread about the reputation of the winery. Some clerk in a cubicle in Washington isn’t going to be the final arbiter of my choice.

Let’s look at innovation that is done by private industry and the fallacy of government genius becomes crystal clear. When a new technology product comes on the market it is typically expensive, often very expensive, and its features are few. In my own experience, when I first went to college to study engineering, on my first Christmas home I received a calculator as a present. I was thrilled. This was basically a four function calculator and it retailed for $130. Today, four function calculators are throw away items. The first automobile GPS system cost thousands of dollars and it required a large unit be installed in the trunk of the car. Today you can carry them in your pocket.

So what does all of this have to do with the topic at hand? Well, to get these products off the ground someone has to buy them. Who can afford them? The richer folks among us. In doing so, they have made a decision and a choice to take their wealth and exchange it for the new gadget. By doing so, their purchases fuel the innovation that improves the product and drives down the price. Driving down the price to the point where the masses can afford it with their lesser wealth while at the same time creating jobs by the thousands. All without a government program in sight. So there is your wealth transfer and job program, all without government programs, entered into willingly by all participants. We like to call that freedom and liberty.

“Wait a minute!” the progressives will exclaim, “How do you think GPS got invented if not for the government?” True enough. It was invented by or for the military, the same as was the case for the Internet. But the last time I looked the military is right there in Article II, Section 8 of the Constitution, so I am okay with that.

But so much for the invention, rolling it out to the masses was still done by private industry, not government. And because of the efforts of private industry, we are all a little bit richer than we otherwise might be, or than people elsewhere still are. Here is a further example.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FB0EhPM_M4

Can it be true? Those greedy capitalists thinking of ways to get rich by making products cheaper so that more people can afford them? The bastards! So the government should get out of the way of private enterprise. It cannot pick winners and losers. The Soviets couldn’t do it, the Cubans can’t do it, the Chinese are giving up on it, so why are the progressives clinging to it? We are not in the mess we are in because of a lack of government regulation and programs. We are in the mess we are in because 180 cases of wine sit on a loading dock on Long Island waiting for a phone call in Washington to say, “You’re label passed our excellent standards.” Please!

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.



It’s a term I haven’t heard for a while but it came back to me when listening to Mary Katherine Hamm comment on how President Barack Obama always seems to make the big speech, the bold pronouncement and then doesn’t follow through, rather leaving that to others. Back when the term was popular it stood for an important looking individual in a position of power with nothing inside.

Calm down, I am not bashing the president’s intellect that we are repeatedly told is quite impressive. His political talents are equally extraordinary, but the man has never held a position of making key decisions and seeing they are carried out.

Consider these:

• Health Care – he came into office and quickly went to work. Most historians will tell you that a president can only focus on 2-3 major issues during his time in office because of the tremendous effort to put them in action. It seemed that President Obama was going to attack 2-3 major issues a month. But after introducing his health care initiative, what happened? Other than for speaking purposes, he withdrew and let Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid cobble together a massive mess, that no one understood and then used every last parliamentary tool to drag it across the finish line. Today the plan is unraveling. Federal judge Roger Vincent has declared the whole law unconstitutional, the double counting of $500 billion that the Republicans cried foul over, was just admitted to by Kathleen Sibelius in Congressional testimony; Michelle Bachmann has uncovered a $105 billion slush fund in the bill. Instead of creating a framework for healthcare inside the White House and working with Congress to flesh it out, he just tossed it over the wall and then went and played golf.
• Closing Guantanamo – repeatedly on the campaign trail Obama lambasted Bush over Guantanamo and military tribunals. He would shut down the former and do away with the latter. He is now continuing with both.
• Gulf Oil Spill – after the BP spill in the gulf, again he made strong statements about what he was going to do to BP, while agency after agency tripped over each other and slowed the response.
• Jobs – President Obama pushed through nearly $1 trillion in spending on a stimulus plan that would keep the unemployment rate at 8% instead of 9% under the “do nothing” scenario. Well, it now appears do nothing would have improved the unemployment picture by about a full percentage point, and now we are $1 trillion deeper in debt. Obama put Joe Biden, of all people, in charge of watching the money. Biden was quick to point out he had no experience in economics or finance. The president then killed tens of thousands of jobs in the gulf by stopping drilling permits. A federal court ordered the administration to stop dragging their feet, but they continue.
• Debt – All of the presidents from Washington to the halfway point in G.W. Bush’s second term accumulated $8 trillion in debt. In the next four years, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid added $5 trillion. President Obama wants to continue spending at this rate for as far as the eye can see. When the American people turned out Nancy Pelosi, and the Republicans talked tough about cutting the debt, President Obama came out with his “you go first” budget of nothing. Now that’s leadership.
• Middle East – after he toured the Middle East after his election bashing the United States and proclaiming his friendship to the region, it wasn’t long before the Middle East started to unravel. While the mullahs in Iran slaughtered protesters, President Obama said nothing so as not to interrupt his game of patty cake with Ahmadinejad. He didn’t know what to do with Mubarak and is befuddled with Khadafy. Oil prices start climbing with the uncertainty and he ponders tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, instead of drilling for oil here that would create more jobs at the same time.

Taking it Easy

A recent estimate was that President Obama has played sixty rounds of golf so far as president. If you figure that a round of golf takes about four hours, give or take, that works out to six, forty-hour weeks, just playing golf. How many people do you know who start a new job and are able to play golf for six weeks in the first two years. He also is said to play basketball every weekend. He has taken two Christmas vacations in Hawaii and another in Martha’s Vineyard. And let’s not forget numerous parties that we see snippets of at the White House.

Being a community organizer may be a noble calling, but it is no preparation for being the Chief Executive Officer of the United States of America.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

Ah, the romance of rail travel.  From Murder on the Orient Express to From Russia with Love to White Christmas to Some Like It Hot there is something alluring about a train.  But for all those warm feelings it’s time to recognize that we are in the 21^st century and to leave trains to the movies. 

There have been calls for the great idea of high speed rail that is, in effect, a solution in search of a problem.  It may work well in Europe and Japan, but the United States is not Europe or Japan.  Two things needed to make high speed rail viable are population density and distances between such population densities that are not too close and not too far. We have a whole lot of neither.

Building a high speed rail system is capital intensive.  Between the track bed, carefully engineered to keep high speed trains on the tracks and the passengers comfortable, the rolling stock, and the signaling and safety equipment, it takes a lot of money to build it.  If that investment is to be recovered you need many passengers paying ticket prices high enough to make a profit and low enough to attract those passengers.  Those population centers have to be far enough apart so that the inconvenience of public transportation offsets driving by car and close enough so that the travel time is not too much longer than air travel.  How many of these routes are there in this country that satisfy those criteria?  Precious few.

Consider that part of the country where the population is densest, the Northeast Corridor, extending from Boston to Washington, D.C.  This happens to be one place in the country where rail service works.  Amtrak runs a fast train service along this corner that in 2008 actually made a profit of $41 per passenger on this service, called Acela. 

Let’s compare that to what is being planned for California.  The concept is a high speed rail link running from San Francisco in the north to San Diego in the south, a run of about 800 miles.  The initial segment of the project is estimated to cost $5.5 billion, take five years to build, and will connect Bakersfield to Madera mainly through agricultural regions.  From a construction perspective that should be an easy build with long stretches of open spaces.  Anyone care to wager what how much the estimate will grow?  The total cost is estimated at $40 billion.  If you could achieve the same profit as the Acela ($41 per passenger) and carry as many passengers as the Northeast Corridor in a year (10.8 million), it would take over 90 years just to recover the capital costs, not including any interest charges.  Is that remotely feasible?

Here’s where the problems mount, you could travel the 800 miles by air in about an hour and a forty minutes, whereas a high speed train would probably take around four hours.  One of the towns mentioned in a recent article in the New York Times as being along the route is Corcoran, population 26,000 including 12,000 “guests of the state” at nearby prisons.  Don’t count on them using the rails much.  The distance is too great and the population density is lacking.  But once again, the federal government is in the middle of something where it doesn’t belong providing funding.  Why should the overtaxed citizens of New York and New Jersey pay for a high speed rail system entirely within the state of California?  This about sums it up:

On Dec. 9, California’s rail authority received a windfall of additional federal stimulus money — some $600 million — when Republican governors in Ohio and Wisconsin passed on money intended for their states. California voters approved high-speed rail in 2008, and deadlines are already passing, including a Dec. 31 cutoff for the state to finalize a plan to spend federal money in the Central Valley. Initial spending will span a raft of projects, including designing stations, redirecting nearby roads and acquiring land.

So responsible governors in Ohio and Wisconsin passed on federal stimulus money; rather than return the money to the Treasury, damn it, it was going to be spent by someone!  Send it to California.  In case you hadn’t noticed lately, California is broke.  So tell me again, why hasn’t this project been cancelled?

If the people of California want to build this themselves, fine.  If a private company sees the opportunity to make a profit and wants to build this, go ahead.  But to take tax dollars from one state and give it to another to build another white elephant, is insane.  It is time to get our heads screwed on straight and live within our means.  Between cars and air travel, there are few places you cannot reach in this country.  There is no value in spending billions of dollars to hit a very small niche between the two.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

2010 was a tumultuous year.  The Tea Party really found its voice and let it be heard.  A huge shift in power in Congress came on Election night, but Pelosi, Reid and company tried to do in four weeks what they couldn’t do in two years.  But that shouldn’t be surprising; they didn’t respect the will of the people when the people rose up against ObamaCare, why should they respect the voice of the people on Election Day?

But the ignominious 111^th Congress is no more.  In four days the 112^th Congress will be sworn in and we now have to keep an eye on them and make sure there is no backsliding on what they promised us if we elected them.  For Republicans it wasn’t so much a victory as a second chance.

We worked very hard in 2010 to put the right team on the field.  We cannot forget why we did that, so here is a little reminder.

A friend of mine in Oregon received a gift certificate to a salon for Christmas.  She was redeeming her gift when she made the following observation via Twitter:  

“Woman at the salon, on her iPad complaining that her food stamps and unemployment was getting cut.”

“While getting a pedicure no less! UGhhhh!!!!!”

This is what we are working and paying taxes for and why we are going broke.  This is what Bernie Sanders is fighting for and complaining that the wealthy are not paying their fair share.

A number of years ago when I lived in the Bronx, I remember being in the checkout line behind a woman with a shopping cart piled high with food and (what in my youth I considered treats) potato chips, soda, and sundry junk food.  The only reason I noticed at all was that she proceeded to pull out her food stamps to pay for part of her haul.

When I grew up in a working class family we made ice tea to drink from water, tea bags, sugar and lemon juice; my shoes came from the bargain bin in the basement of the nearby discount store.  In other words, my parents made ends meet with what they had, not by taking government handouts.  It was a matter of pride.  When my father was out of work during a long newspaper strike he was hired to pump gas at a relative’s gas station.  He had to drive from Long Island to Yonkers to get there, but that’s what he had to do to feed his family.  It was self reliance and family that pulled together, not the government.  But today the government works to destroy families and mocks people of faith whose institutions used to be the backstop to the family in times of need, all while the progressives cheer them on.

I recently heard a news story about a woman buying soda for her kids with the justification that milk was too expensive (could that be due to government imposed milk subsidies?) , so she shouldn’t be blamed if her kids are obese.  How about substituting water for the soda?  It is even cheaper and healthier.  But the parents don’t want to deal with the grief the kids give them, so it is up to everyone else to work to provide first for their own families and then for those who don’t want to deal with the grumbling from their kids.

As Rick Santelli said in his famous Tea Party rant, “How about some people who carry the water, instead of just drink the water?”  We are all in this together, and everyone has to accept personal responsibility to take care of themselves and stop expecting the rest of us to put in extra hours to make your life comfortable.  The idea is for you to become sufficiently uncomfortable, to get motivated to do something about it.

Let’s make it happen in 2011.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

He was made out to be a folk hero.  Bernie Sanders was filibustering the old fashioned way, by talking continuously, like they did when Mr. Smith went to Washington.  Sanders, the self proclaimed socialist, was railing against greed, but he failed to see the irony.  While he was lambasting the unseen faces of America’s top 1% of earners, he stood there as the face of our federal government that can’t make ends meet on $2.165 trillion but those rich bastards had better pay their fair share.  Not only couldn’t the federal government not get by on $2.165 trillion, it overspent that revenue by $1.5 trillion.  Who is the real greedy bastard? 

How poignant that Bernie should stand there and say, “Greed is, in my view, like a sickness. It’s like an addiction. We know people on heroin. They can’t stop. They need more and more.”  I could not describe the federal government more accurately than that.  The sad part is that Mr. Sanders doesn’t see the problem as out of control spending, he sees it as him not being able to get his hands on his heroin, his fix.  He wants more money and he wants it now, and shame on anyone trying to keep him from getting it.

Deroy Murdock lays it out nicely in a piece on National Review Online titled, Merry Christmas to America’s Top 1 Percent.  It is true, as Mr. Sanders points out, that the top 1% earn 20% of the income in this country.  However, they also pay 39% of the taxes.  So if 1% earning 20% of the income is unfair, how is 1% paying 39% of the taxes not fair enough?  The bottom 50% earns 12.8% of the income but pay only 2.7% of the taxes. 

Here is where their thinking is off track.  Picture an airplane flying at 5,000 feet.  Let’s look at that altitude as if it were the median income.  How much lower can it go?  It cannot go down more than 5,000 feet.  On the other hand, how high can it go?  Leaving aside the technology of the airplane, there is no limit.  The point is that there is a floor, but there is no ceiling.  That is the fallacy of comparing income percentages.  It doesn’t take too many Bill Gates, Oprah Winfreys, Warren Buffets, to make that top 1% pretty high up (a little over $380,000 according to Murdock).  In a recent article in Newsday, here on Long Island, it reported a number of public school superintendents making more than that amount.  If you are fortunate enough to make it to the major leagues in baseball, the minimum wage is $400,000.  So let’s get a grip.

There is also a danger to the class warfare politics of Bernie Sanders and friends.  What if the 2.7% paid by the bottom 50% actually falls to zero?  You could have a majority of the voting population paying no taxes and supporting policies that the entire burden for paying it falls on a voting minority.  How badly do you think government will spin out of control then?

The other side of the coin is how do the rich do in area of charity?  Well, Mr. Murdock points out that 10% of the wealthiest taxpayers provide 42% of all charitable deductions taken on tax returns, to the tune of $72 billion.  Another study has also shown that conservatives give 30% more to charity than liberals.  Liberals like to take other people’s money by force and institute government programs to provide the services that they are not willing to voluntarily go into their own pockets to provide.

It’s time for Bernie Sanders to sharpen his pencil and see what programs should be cut so that he and his fellow greedy politicians can live within the means they are provided by a generous citizenry, instead of grandstanding for more and more.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

Nancy Pelosi is not feeling the love.  After all she has done for us, we ingrates are not showing our proper appreciation.  So, Speaker Pelosi is in talks with Steven Speilberg to see if he can help remake the image of the Democrats.

Let me see, as a public service, I can help.  How about a series of short video clips to get the message across?  Perhaps I can suggest some titles.

• The Sugarlobby Express
• Close Encounters of the Spending Kind
• Raiders of the Lost Treasury
• E.T. Extra Taxes
• Illinois Obama and the Temple of Doom
• The Color Red
• Illinois Obama and the Lost Golf Ball
• Jurassic Pork
• Soros’ List
• The Lost World of Jurassic Pork
• Saving Speaker Pelosi
• A.I. Artificial Interest

We look forward to the New Year and some entertaining videos. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I still find myself in awe of our Founding Fathers who created our form of government.  The competing ideas that they sifted through to come up with our Constitution and the safeguards in it is wondrous.  The designs upon it by the progressives is by equal measure disturbing.

The progressives envision a national government that they can dominate and that, in turn, will dominate us.  There is no activity over which they do not feel they can or should control.  Private property is a panacea, to keep the masses from open revolt, but they really believe that all wealth that is generated belongs to the government except for the portion they permit us to keep.  If you think that statement is unimaginable consider this.  How often do you hear, concerning the current debate over the Bush tax cuts, that we cannot afford them for the rich?  Think about it.  They say our government cannot afford to allow certain citizens of this country to continue to pay the same level of taxes in 2011 that they pay today.  That the government somehow has to pay for a tax cut, that actually isn’t even a cut but rather a continuation of what has existed for the last ten years.  How is getting less than you want a cost? If you awake on Christmas morning and do not find the present you have been hoping for under the tree, do you say, “Man, that’s gonna cost me?” Of course you do not.

A Massive Federal Government

Think about the many federal departments and agencies that exist today for which you will find no authorization in the Constitution: Education; Agriculture; Housing and Urban Development; Energy; Health and Human Services; Transportation.  Did they not have education in the eighteenth century? Are we more agrarian today than we were in 1789?  If not, why do we need a Department of Agriculture today, but the Founders didn’t see a need for it then?

The progressives are fighting for the continual concentration of functions at the federal level where the voices of the people are faint, but the voices of the special interests are robust and clear.  The branch of the federal government that is closest to the people is the House of Representatives.  But ponder how small your voice is in that chamber.  You are one of some 700,000 in your congressional district; your congressman or woman is one of 435 in the House of Representatives.  How do you get your voice heard at the federal level?  And yet Congress will tell you what kind of light bulb to buy or what kind of toilet you must flush.  Is this what our founding fathers envisioned?

The Bloody Revolution

To establish our country they fought a brutal revolution; a revolution where 50% of the mortal wounds were caused by bayonets.  Now that’s up close and personal.  It is not something they entered into lightly and a reading of the Declaration of Independence will tell you that they pledged their lives when they signed that document and their death warrants as well.  If captured by the British they surely would have been tried and executed for treason.

In designing our form of government they were very suspicious of strong central power and authority, having just thrown off one.  They did not trust government.  As Jefferson said, “When governments fear the people, there is liberty.  When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”  Here is a simple test, do you fear the IRS or does the IRS fear you?

The Founders designed the Constitution to have strictly enumerated powers given to the federal government with all other powers retained by the states or the people.  They did not design a democracy, but a republic.  In that republic they built numerous checks and balances to prevent the accumulation of power. It has been the goal of the progressives to remove those checks and balances and put in place the tyranny that fears no people.

The Structure of the Federal Government

Among the balances they put in place was that the people would directly elect the members of the House of Representatives.  That is the body of government closest to the people.  If you recall the wording of the Tenth Amendment it speaks of the federal government, the states and the people.  The Senate was to be appointed by the state legislatures to represent their interests.  The president was to be elected, not by the people, but by the Electoral College.  Lastly, judges were to be appointed for life by the president with the advice and consent of the senate.  Why did they do this?  One reason is that they believed that if a proposed law had the backing of the majority of the people (House of Representatives) and a majority of the states (Senate) then it was probably a good thing, otherwise slow it down.  The fewer the number of laws, the greater our liberty.

The Progressives Attack

The progressives began their designs on the Constitution with the introduction of the income tax through the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913.  By allowing the government to tax incomes the government could now afford to greatly expand. However, to be able to expand it had to have the consent of the states, which was not likely to be granted.  So two months after the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified.  The Seventeenth Amendment called for the direct election of Senators, rather than having them appointed by the state legislatures.  The individual citizens picked up two more votes in the federal government, in most cases an even weaker voice than their Representative, and the states were shut out.

Do you think things such as unfunded mandates could pass in Congress if the states still chose the members of the Senate?  Social Security? Medicare? The Department of Education? The Department of Housing and Urban Development? And on and on?  Think of some of the more radical members of the Senate.  Do you think Al Franken would have been appointed by the Minnesota state legislature?  For many years in New York, the State Assembly was under the control of the Democrats but the State Senate was under the control of the Republicans.  The governorship passed back and forth between representatives of the two parties.   However, New York’s two Senators are Democrats and win reelection easily because of the concentration of Democrats mainly in New York City.  Could Hillary Clinton have moved into New York and immediately become its newest Senator with a Republican governor and Republican controlled State Senate? She was elected Senator from New York before she even moved out of the White House.  So instead of representing their state legislatures, Senate candidates focused on the population centers of their states to appeal directly to the people and to get elected and reelected.  The states were reduced from sovereign entities to subsidiaries of the federal government.

The Supreme Court

When Franklin Roosevelt was president he tried to pass his massive socialist programs but found that the Supreme Court was striking down many of his programs as being unconstitutional.  Roosevelt wanted to pack the court by increasing its membership from nine justices to fifteen.  He argued that the justices were old and over worked.  So he wanted to appoint a new justice for every existing justice that was seventy years or older.  His plan failed.  But when he broke with George Washington’s precedent and that of every president who followed him of serving no more than two terms, he was eventually able to appoint every justice to the Supreme Court.  So he got his way, it just took longer.

The Supreme Court can be considered the collateral damage of the Seventeenth Amendment.  The Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate.  However once the Senators became directly elected by the people things changed.  Would a distinguished jurist like Robert Bork be treated as shamefully as he was by the lie filled speech of Ted Kennedy if Kennedy and Joe Biden weren’t doing the work of the pro-abortion lobby?  Would Clarence Thomas be subjected to the electronic lynching he faced if not for some Senators pandering to their special interest groups?  What we now have are potential Supreme Court justices who have learned that if you don’t want to get “Borked” keep your mouth shut during your confirmation hearings.  So we don’t know who we are going to get until a lifetime appointee is on the bench and then it is too late.

The 2000 Presidential Election

Who can forget the 2000 presidential election?  The Democrats still say Al Gore won, not because of Florida (he lost the election there, he lost the re-count, he lost the re-re-count) but because he won the popular vote.  The debates raged, why do we have an Electoral College?  The president should be elected by popular vote only. 

The argument follows the one made previously about the direct election of senators.  The Electoral College forces presidential candidates to campaign everywhere because everywhere counts.  There are at least three electoral votes to be had in every state.  The Founders were very concerned about balance.  They did not want the president just to be elected by the people of New York, Boston and Philadelphia, the large cities of that time.  Today, if the Electoral College was abolished the election would focus on the media  and population centers of New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago and the large cities because that’s where it is easiest to get the message out and that is where the majority of the people are.  The progressives would put up pretty much the same candidates as they do today, perhaps more to the left.  This is their home turf and power base.  Instead of traveling around the country they could concentrate their time and money in a few large cities.  The Republicans would probably field candidates of a far more moderate stripe to not get hooted off the stage in New York.  Let me illustrate.

Electoral College vote Bush-Gore 2000

The Democrats claim Gore won in 2000 because he won the popular vote.  He lost in the Electoral College by five votes.  If you look at the breakdown of the states Gore won versus Bush, Gore took the Northeast, the Great Lakes area and the West Coast.  With the exception of New Mexico, Bush took everything else.

Let’s dial it down a level and look at who won at the county level.

Bush-Gore 2000 Winners by County

If you look at it at the county level, you could drive from the east coast to the west coast without entering a single county that Gore won.  You could do the same driving from Canada to Mexico.  But if popular vote was the metric, the man who won 80%-90% of the land mass of the United States would have lost.  Why should you not have a say, if you don’t live in a major population center?  It is not like Bush won in an Electoral College landslide and it is not like Gore absolutely trounced Bush in the popular vote.  The purpose of the Electoral College is to act as another brake on the tyranny of the majority.  

Where Do We Go From Here  

We are presently at a crossroads.  We have an electorate that is more knowledgeable, more aware, and more engaged than at any time in my memory.  We can continue to go down the socialist path toward a massive central government that takes all of our liberties for a measure of sustenance, or we can turn the tide and demand our liberties back.  

Let us begin by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment.

In Harry Reid’s Senate, this qualifies as dereliction of duty, as the Majority Leader said himself on Monday in defense of his frantic deal-making to get 60 votes. “I don’t know if there is a Senator that doesn’t have something in this bill that was important to them,” Mr. Reid said at a press conference that offered an unintentional commentary on modern democracy. “And if they don’t have something in it important to them, then it doesn’t speak well of them.” – Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2009

It kinda makes you feel warm all over, that our Congressional leaders are representing their constituents, selflessly doing what’s best for America in line with the consent of the governed (55% opposed according to latest Rasmussen poll). 

 Have you seen some of the commercials for Ally bank, where a man asks one little girl if she wants a pony and she gleefully says yes, so he hands her a toy pony.  He then asks the next girl if she wants a pony and she says yes, so he calls out a live pony.  The first girl, crestfallen, says, “You didn’t say I could have real pony.” To which he replies, “Well, you didn’t ask.”  By now you probably know how Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Evan Byah of Indiana feel.  They didn’t ask for a bribe in return for their vote on the health care bill, and like the creep in the commercial Harry Reid tells the world what a couple of saps they are for not doing so.

While Obama’s first stimulus plan lies sputtering on the ground, and he and his team tee up another one, they fail to realize that many small businesses that create most of the new jobs in this country, simply do not know what all this (health care, cap and trade, stimulus after stimulus) is going to cost them.  Until they do, this uncertainty is what is keeping many of them from doing any hiring.  How can you hire a new person when you no longer know how much your existing staff is going to cost when the music stops?  So the unemployment picture will drag on no matter how may stimulus plans Obama rams through.

Coming to Their Senses

This is not over yet. The House version and the Senate version still have to be reconciled in committee.   In the House Bart Stupak says he has 30 Democrats ready to vote against the bill, if his amendment against abortion is tampered with.  The chumps in the Senate that Harry just made fools of, may re-think their support. The far left demands a public option be put in.  Lieberman and a few others vow to vote against any public option. In addition, the members of Congress, when they return home to their districts, may not find them full of good cheer this Christmas, as incensed constituents express their opinions on why every Democrat in the Senate doesn’t understand 55% opposition, while they vote yea.  Better watch out for flying fruitcakes, they can be lethal.

Yesterday in an interview with Oprah Winfrey for her Christmas special, President Obama magnanimously gave himself a grade of a “solid B+” on his first eleven months in office.  Now that’s grading on a curve!  I once had a very good professor who opened the first class with his philosophy of grading.  He said:

“I don’t believe in grading on a curve.  I don’t subscribe to the theory that if everyone learns nothing, you all get A’s”

Amen, brother.  Now if you revisit President Obama’s statement, he must have really, really done badly, because grading his class of one student, he couldn’t even pull that “A”.  Let’s look at his achievements:

• A stimulus plan promised to hold the unemployment rate to 8%, and if not passed the unemployment rate would rise to 9%.  His team must have really screwed up that project because it caused the unemployment rate to rise 1.2% above the “do nothing” scenario, and we are $787 billion poorer to boot.
• Cap and Trade — the Climategate scandal gives credence to the hypothesis that pro cap and trade scientists were cooking the books to manufacture conclusions that supported their political agenda.  Rather than backing away from it as it if were a skunk at a garden party.  President Obama is embracing it and pushing forward.
• Health Care — President Obama is trying to have the federal government take over 1/6 of the U.S. economy, because in doing so they will lower costs and make sure everyone is covered.  Sensible market based ideas such as: tort reform, patient control over how patients money is spent, insurance available across state lines, etc., need not apply.  How likely is this to work? (see bullet #1 above). Because this hasn’t passed yet was one of the only reasons Obama didn’t give himself an “A”.
• Continuing to blame President Bush for his shortcomings sounds a lot like “my dog ate my homework,”
• Agreeing to try the 9/11 suspects in civilian court rather than in a military tribunal.  Although President Obama says they are guilty and will be executed (can you say mistrial?) how many of us are looking forward to a replay of the O.J. Simpson trial with the acquittal included?
• Meanwhile, Black Panther’s who stood outside a Philadelphia polling place brandishing clubs have their case dropped by the Obama administration, even though there was a default judgment against the men for not showing up in court to face the charges. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!
• Yes, they’re Fat Cats but their MY Fat Cats:  After blasting bankers for being Fat Cats, why does Obama have so many Goldman Sachs alumni in his administration?  Mark Patterson, former Goldman lobbyist, Treasury Secretary Geithner’s chief of staff; Reuben Jeffrey III, undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs; Neel Kaskari, assistant secretary of the treasury for financial stability, administering the TARP funds; Dianna Farrell, deputy director of National Economic Council.
• In the midst of all this mayhem, he finds time to go pitch Chicago for the 2016 Olympics.
• He is piling so much debt upon our children and grandchildren that they will probably have to work 3/4 of the year, just to pay their taxes.

How Bad is Bad?

What kind of calamity would we have to be in for Obama to give himself a “C” let alone an “F”?  So we know where Obama’s ego is, and it is doing well, thank you very much.  But the American people have their own report card and it shows that support for Obama has been on a downward straight line since his inauguration with his approval rating now in the mid to upper 40s, the lowest level in history for a president at the same point in his tenure.

Such a disconnect between Obama’s opinion of himself and the American people’s opinion is a serious problem.  It drives him to continue to pursue policies that Americans adamantly oppose (e.g., 61% oppose the Senate health care bill).  Most reasonable people would take such feedback and reassess their actions.  But if an employee is blind to his shortcomings, the only thing to do is show them the door.  The sooner, the better, folks because it’s not going to get any better.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”  — Amendment I, Constitution of the United States

So what is one to make of the new campaign sponsored by atheists that says, “No God?  That’s good.  Let’s be good for goodness sake.”  Who could argue with the last part?  After all it comes from that famous Christmas carol, Santa Claus is Coming to Town. But what are we to make of the first part?

How do you argue in favor of something that doesn’t exist?  Having a manger scene in the public square next to a menorah is not the establishment of religion on the part of the government that is prohibited in the Constitution.  But demanding that all signs and symbols of religion be banned from the public, to me, comes pretty close to the state establishment of a religion called secularism.  What was the point of the First Amendment prohibition of the establishment of religion?

Religion and America

The atheists will argue that a manger scene on public land is contrary to the establishment clause.  How so, I ask?  Specifically what religion is it establishing?  Christianity?  One of the reasons that the Founders created the establishment clause was to protect freedom of religion.  Christianity is too broad a term to be considered an organized religion.  If you don’t believe me, ask the Pilgrims, and the Quakers, and the Catholics, and the Mennonites who fled the persecution that came with not swearing allegiance to the Church of England.  They are all Christians and that was the whole point.  The Founding Fathers did not want the new nation of the United States to form an official state religion and a specific form of worship and tyrannize anyone who did not adhere to it.  Having a belief in God and adhering to a particular way of practicing it are not the same.  It is easy to see that the Founding fathers manifestly believed in the former while protecting everyone’s rights to the latter.  So the very argument that the atheists and the ACLU are making should be pointed at themselves, for they are demanding that everyone follow their religion to keep the public square naked.

Faith of Our Fathers

“WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…” — The Declaration of Independence

Are we to believe that the same people who wrote and signed this document meant that faith should be banished from the public square?  The Founding Fathers called upon God repeatedly for strength, guidance, and courage.  To say we should do the opposite today and call that the American way is bizarre, to say the least.

Pointing Out the Obvious

In any display of a manger scene or a menorah, or a Christmas tree, wreath, etc. the atheists are also covered.  Perhaps we need to be more careful to make it obvious.  An area, of appropriate size, should just be cordoned off or outlined in chalk, with nothing in it.  That’s what atheists believe in, nothing, so wherever you see nothing around the display, they are there.  They are represented.  Their tacky messages criticizing or condemning people of faith, is what is out of place and should be condemned.  You don’t see a message in front of a manger scene or Christmas tree pointing to the menorah saying, “They missed the boat on this one!”  Or a sign in front of the menorah pointing back at the manger saying, “Never happened!”  The universal messages are peace and understanding, not a Madison Avenue pitch for one brand over another.  So the atheists should stand down and go back to work.

Go Back to Work?

Yes, go to work.  Why are you taking December 25th off?  Without Christ, there is no Christmas.  Without Christmas there is no national holiday on December 25th.  With no national holiday on December 25th why aren’t you atheists working?  Instead of putting up insipid signs on buses go to work with gusto!  That will show the rest of us!

In his book, “What Americans Really Want…Really, ”Frank Luntz writes:

 “Harris Interactive and MBA students from Brigham Young University developed a “happiness index” based on a list of questions such as positive relationships with friends and family members, worry about work and finances, and spiritual beliefs…for the most part, the results were conclusive: The happiest people were those who described themselves as very religious and those who pray or study religion every day.  Religious people worry less about their health and are less frustrated with work.  At the very bottom of the happiness index were people who said they were not religious at all.  The angriest people are atheists and agnostics.”

Just Because You’re Miserable, Don’t Blame the Rest of Us

So you don’t believe in God.  This is America, that is your right.  But you don’t have the right to tell the rest of us what to believe.  “Well, you can’t do that in the public square, because it offends me.”  How do you come out of your dwelling this time of year?  If you are truly offended by Christmas how could you set foot in New York City?  Is your argument that all the stores and churches along Fifth Avenue with their decorations are okay, but the decorations in City Hall Park, are an outrage to your sensibilities?  Or are you really trying to start by establishing your religion of Secularism in direct violation of the Constitution?

Lunacy Unleashed

This has really gone too far.  From removing a cross from the seal of the city of San Diego, to the assault on Christmas when will it end?  When will we see the campaign to rename Corpus Christi, Texas, since the name means “The Body of Christ”?

Instead of attacking people of faith, how about trying to emulate them.  Be of good cheer, hold a door open, help out at a soup kitchen, sing a joyful song.  Maybe, just maybe, the next time Frank Luntz takes a poll, you won’t be the miserable wretches at the bottom of the happiness index. 

Merry Christmas, everyone.