At CPAC Marco Rubio showed some of the traits that make him a leading candidate for Vice President no matter who the Republican nominee happens to be. He mixed humor and personal narrative.

Rubio spoke with a degree of awe about arriving in the Senate. He wondered to himself, “How did I get here?” But after spending time in Harry Reid’s do-nothing Senate he looked around and wondered, “How did they get here?”

Getting more serious he talked about President Obama’s State of the Union address and how the president scrupulously avoided talking about his record. Why? Well, Rubio explained, for two years President Obama had a Democrat controlled House and a Democrat controlled Senate, which until the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy and the election of Republican Scott Brown to replace him, they had a filibuster-proof majority. So for two years he got everything he wanted and since then, everything has gotten worse.

So what did Obama say in the State of the Union address? He chose to pit Americans against each other. He is trying to sell the American people on a bill of goods that says we are a zero-sum society. That is, for someone to get ahead, someone has to get pulled down. But that is not true, but Obama needs us to believe it so that he can get people to vote for him.

Rubio then related to his own family saying that he felt his father and grandfather were better men than he, but Rubio has advanced as far as he has because he was born in the greatest country in the world.

He then made a telling point. He said that Republicans try to attract followers by arguing who is more like Ronald Reagan. Do you ever hear Democrats argue about who is more like Jimmy Carter?

What is government’s role, he asked? We should have an understandable tax code so that individuals and businesses can make decisions for business reasons not tax reasons. We need regulatory reform. Yes, we all want clean air and clean water but with sanity. We don’t have an energy policy, we have energy politics. While in office for three years President Obama had no plan for Medicare, but as soon as Republican Paul Ryan came up with a plan, he attacked it.

Summing up, Rubio said that President Obama seems to be a really good father; he seems to be a really good husband; but he is a terrible president. I couldn’t agree more.

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

Congressman Tim Bishop continues to push his manufactured campaign issue, with the full union backing of the Communication Workers of America, to fight against outsourced call centers. He calls it a “surgical strike”. I think there are more appropriate names for it.

It’s always fun to listen to someone who hasn’t spent a day outside of academia or government tell the rest of us, a) what the problem is; and b) what the solution is. The first question that I would ask Congressman Bishop is “why is this such an important issue for your constituents?” Answer: It isn’t. There are no major call centers in his district and there are none that I know of that are weighing a move to his district. So why is this his major legislative focus?

He is desperately looking for an issue, any issue, that he can campaign on. He cannot campaign on his record. He cannot campaign on a record of supporting the Obama economic disaster. He cannot campaign on how much the debt ballooned on his watch. So Doctor Bishop wants to do a little surgery and penalize companies who outsource call centers. Since Bishop never held a job that produced anything for a profit he can be excused for not grasping the impacts of his proposed bill.

One of his provisions is to make companies that have outsourced call center jobs overseas ineligible for government contracts. Two of the largest US PC manufactures HP and Dell and they both have call centers overseas. So does Congressman Bishop want the stop the federal government from buying PCs from HP and Dell? Who should they buy them from? Chinese Lenovo, Taiwan based Acer? Japan’s Toshiba? Speaking like a general he says it is a surgical strike. Well surgical strikes are designed to limit collateral damage, and Bishop’s plan is chock full of collateral damage.

Here is how Bishop could really help the situation. First, take a basic economics course. Study how the global economy works and how free global trade helps everyone. Perhaps he should ask his backers at the Communications Workers of America, what they can do to make call centers in the US more cost-effective. Do they have too many work rules in their contracts? Do they force their members to pay union dues to pay for the union to back Bishop and Obama? If their dues were limited to collective bargaining, perhaps employers could afford more call center jobs in the US. Tell Obama we need to slash the corporate tax rate so that companies do not save billions of dollars by locating operations in overseas countries with lower tax rates and then trap those profits overseas so they can’t be brought back to create jobs here.

But that may be too much to ask of Mr. Bishop before November. So here’s a better idea. Step down, and let someone who has actually created jobs take your place.

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

While wiping his feet on the First Amendment by trying to force Catholic institutions to bend to his will and force them to provide services that go against their core beliefs, President Obama took time to lecture us on the Bible, and twist it to fit his reelection campaign. This outrage doesn’t get a pass.

The Bible Supports Obama’s Tax Plan

Obama tried to use the bible verse about from those who have been given much, much is expected, as a call from God to pay more taxes. To follow the Buffett Rule, if you will. Here is the verse from Luke 12:48:

When much has been given a man, much will be required of him.

But the context is in terms of doing the master’s will, not paying taxes. When it comes to paying taxes, Jesus was asked specifically about it. Here is that passage:

They sent some Pharisees and Herodians after him to catch him in his speech. The two groups came and said to him: “Teacher, we know you are a truthful man, unconcerned about anyone’s opinion. It is evident you do not act out of human respect but teach God’s way of life sincerely. Is it lawful to pay the tax to the emperor or not? Are we to pay or not to pay?” Knowing their hypocrisy he said to them, “Why are you trying to trip me up? Bring me a coin and let me see it.” When they brought one, he said to them, “Whose head is this and whose inscription is it?” “Caesar’s,” they told him. At that Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar’s what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God’s.” Their amazement at him knew no bounds – Mark 12:1-17

When asked specifically about taxes Jesus dismissed them, seeing the political trap. Jesus didn’t say let’s go to Rome and lobby for the least of our brothers. He didn’t say, you know, we need a new government program. He didn’t tell of the Good Samaritan, calling his Roman Senator to pass a new law to provide free health care for victims of highway robbery found laying in a ditch. He said we should take care of such things ourselves, not pass the buck to someone else. So instead of asking the rich like Romney to pay more in taxes, ask Joe Biden how much he gives of the public’s money, that he has been living off most of his adult life, to charity. See if Obama wants to brag about so-called Catholic Biden, giving an average of $1 a day to charity while pulling down a tidy six figure income. Since 2010, Romney gave $7 million to charity. What about the Obamas? Barack Obama and his wife Michelle gave $10,772 of the $1.2 million they earned from 2000 through 2004 to charities, or less than 1 percent. As former Louisiana Senator Russell Long famously said, “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.” It is hypocrisy at its boldest. But then this president has never been shy.

Wasted Gifts

What should be embarrassing to Obama is that the passage he used really refers to him. Who has been given more than Obama?  He grew up in Hawaii, he got an Ivy League education, he has drawn a salary from the public trough as an Illinois state senator, a U.S. Senator, and President of the United States. What has he done with these gifts? We know he has played golf over ninety times, he has taken long vacations, he plays basketball every week, and rather than meeting with members of Congress he stonewalled them and then blames them for the state we are in. Let’s take the passage from Luke that Obama quoted and back it up a few verses:

The Lord said, “Who in your opinion is that faithful, farsighted steward whom the master will set over his servants to dispense their ration of grain in season? That servant is fortunate whom his master finds busy when he returns.”

It is not the rich who according to Obama do not pay enough taxes that the Bible refers to, but him, who was given bountiful gifts from God but squandered them. What would Jesus say to Illinois Senator Obama who opposed legislation that if a woman went to a hospital to have an abortion and if the child was actually born alive, the surviving child should be given all necessary medical care? Is that caring for the least of his brothers? Is that emulating the Good Samaritan? Is there no level to which Obama will not stoop to get himself reelected? America has had enough of this president. America deserves better.

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

They are still using the same tired rhetoric, about inheriting the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression. The truth is that the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression is the Obama administration. Barack Obama stands with Herbert Hoover as the only presidents with negative job growth during their administrations. As if stuck in the 1930s, Obama dusted off FDR’s playbook, since he had no personal executive experience to draw on, and that playbook didn’t work then and it’s not working now.

So along comes an opportunity for a major “shovel ready” project, backed by unions, that can create thousands of jobs, move us closer to energy independence, help us depend less on getting oil from Middle East despots, and what does Obama do? He kills it. What he wanted to do, was defer a decision on this until after the election, eleven months away. He wanted to do what he does best, vote “present”.

Congress, particularly the Republicans who seem to be the only adults working on Capital Hill, included a provision in the payroll tax holiday extension, to make a decision within sixty days. People are hurting, gas prices are creeping up, unemployment benefits have been extended to extraordinary lengths, and this incompetent president says that sixty days was not enough time to review the proposal so he had to, sadly, reject it. Perhaps if he hadn’t played all those rounds of golf, perhaps if he had studied it a little closer instead of spending all that time in Hawaii, perhaps if he put this job creating proposal on the top of the EPA’s to-do list instead of their focusing on the job killing regulations to limit power plant emissions, he would have gotten his job done. But no, sorry, I don’t have my homework, teacher, I dunno, I forgot, my dog…. Enough!

Let China make an oil deal with Canada. We can always buy the oil back from them at a premium. Why not, they probably don’t have enough of our dollars as it is now. Why not give them more? This president is making decisions that will cobble together a coalition of supporters to get him reelected. This is about appeasing the environmental movement so that they won’t abandon him.

At an event in Ottumwa, Iowa, on Dec. 31, Rick Santorum mocked the idea that the pipeline posed the threat of environmental damage, noting that there were already many other pipelines in the area it would go through. “This is just, again, pandering to radical environmentalists who don’t want energy production, who don’t want us to burn more carbon,” Mr. Santorum said.

The State Department, which has authority over this since it goes between us and Canada, “said there was not enough time to draw a new route for the pipeline and assess the environmental harm.” Bullfeathers. It’s a 1700 mile pipeline. The area in question is a fraction of that length. Agree to the pipeline, get started hiring people and building it in areas not in dispute, and work to resolve the section in question. But unless it is killed, Obama risks losing the green vote and what is more important, America or Obama’s reelection?

I’d like to ask my Congressman, Tim Bishop, to weigh in. What do you have to say about this, Tim? Or are you too busy manufacturing your own campaign issue around outsourced phone center jobs. If jobs are really important to you, you would stand up and challenge Obama for killing an opportunity for good, high paying, union jobs in America. On the other hand you can stay silent, not challenge President Obama’s error and risk his ire and possibly lose campaign funds and support. So what do you stand for, Tim? Putting America first or putting your interests right up there with President Obama’s and above America’s.

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

In his recent telephone town hall meeting, Tim Bishop expressed his support for the continued payroll tax holiday but making it clear that it would have no impact on the Social Security Trust Fund. Money for Social Security would continue to go into the trust fund from other sources. What other sources you might ask? I may have an answer for you.

In an article in HousingWire magazine, the author points out that:

The Federal Housing Finance Agency will increase guarantee fees on single-family mortgage-backed securities charged by the government-sponsored enterprises by 10 basis points effective April 1, 2012, in response to the new funding mechanism for the payroll tax cut extension passed by Congress.

So it seems that the Social Security Trust fund will get its money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or more accurately, from new home buyers. So for a two month extension of the payroll tax holiday that will prevent taxpayers from paying an additional $130 into the Social Security Trust Fund, that everyone expects to get back anyway, new home buyers will have to pay thousands in new fees.

The g-fee increase will remain in effect through Oct. 1, 2021. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the g-fees would offset about $35.7 billion in the costs of the tax cut. Mortgage Bankers Association CEO David Stevens said the increase could mean an extra $4,000 in fees on a $200,000 mortgage.

One of the problems facing Long Island is affordable housing. Our young people are leaving Long Island for areas were there is a larger rental stock that they can start out in, rather than living in mom and dad’s basement, and where they can afford to buy a house after saving a down payment for a couple of years. Apparently for the benefit of a political talking point Tim Bishop votes to slam an already weak housing marking with additional fees. After all who can really call a two month anything sound fiscal policy? Notice there is no spending cut mentioned here, it is an increase in taxes and fees. This is what Tim Bishop was telling his constituents not to worry about in his town hall meeting? What will become of his district, if nobody lives here but retirees? Is that his plan to solve the unemployment problem? Drive enough young people away until the number of jobs fits the remaining population?

The problem is spending. It was only last week that Joe Biden was attacking Mitt Romney’s policies by saying:

“His proposal would actually double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and accelerated a decades-long assault on the middle class,” Biden added.

Decades long assault on the middle class? I guess he means you too, Bill Clinton. The greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression has been the Obama administration and if he were to get reelected it would finish America off. We have had the worst consistent unemployment since the Great Depression for the entire Obama administration. We have had the worst record of job creation, loss actually, since Herbert Hoover. The National Bureau of Economic Research says the recession ended in June of 2009. Does it feel like it to you? Most recoveries from economic downturns are mirror images of the slump. A gradual recession is followed by a gradual recovery; a sharp downturn is followed by a sharp upswing. Not this time. Just look at the job creation record of Team Obama.

This chart goes all the way back to Harry Truman and Obama’s performance stands alone.  Let’s put to rest the “eight years of failed Bush policy, yada, yada, yada” and face the fact that Obama and his spending, heavy-handed regulations, and insatiable appetite to fix everything by taxing more has put us into an economic winter. Tim Bishop has happily ignored the needs of his constituents to buy favor from the Democratic leadership and their special interest pals. They have done an awful job and we need to turn them out, before they turn us into Greece.

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

With the economy in shambles and his campaign sound bites and early interviews as president coming back to haunt him, President Obama has ramped up the class warfare rhetoric. Let’s put the lie to these strategies.

The Payroll Tax Cut

The issue here is that President Obama wants to help the middle class and he claims the Republicans do not. The famous payroll tax cut puts about $8 a week in the pocket of individuals. But everyone who pays the payroll “tax” expects to get every dollar back, and then some, after they retire. So what is really going on here? The government forces you to participate in the Social Security system. It offers a lousy rate of return compared to alternatives and if you die before you start collecting, everything you paid into it is gone. Your heirs get nothing. If Obama believes in cutting back on payroll taxes, why not convert everything to private accounts and eliminate the tax altogether? Let people save for their own retirement. Let them put more away in the good times, and be able to scale back in the bad times.

The Republicans are not opposed to Obama’s plan, their only requirement is that we cut somewhere else in the budget to make up for the shortfall. This is nothing new. Former Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning raised this very point nearly two years ago, when the Democrats held both houses of Congress. In this enormous government can’t we find anything to cut? Find the cuts and the Republicans will sign on. If not, this is just another case of piling debt on our children and grandchildren, because they will have to make up the difference when we retire.

Taxing the Rich

This week we saw former senator and former New Jersey governor, Jon Corzine testify before Congress to say how sorry he was that he couldn’t find over a billion dollars of his customer’s money. But since he resigned from MF Global he doesn’t have access to any of the records to help in the search. Is the Justice Department beginning a criminal investigation?

Has anyone been charged with a crime for what happened in the fiscal meltdown of 2008? Has anyone collected more campaign cash from Wall Street than Obama? So is it unusual to conclude that President Obama, other than giving speeches, is perfectly fine with Wall Street ripping off the American people, as long as he can rip off the most successful people in America and claim he is looking out for the little guy. Let his pals get boatloads of government money to bail out their companies so they can keep getting richer and then say he wants to tax them more. Is it any surprise that a lot of rich Democrat supporters are coming out and saying they are all for paying more. Who wouldn’t?

President Obama says you can have billions of tax dollars and I just want a kickback in the form of higher taxes so that I can keep spending recklessly. However, ask anyone of these guys to write a check to the Treasury voluntarily, and they all balk. Why? Nobody gets any credit for donating their money to the government. They want the government to take it, not just from them but from every successful business person.

An Economic Winter

If President Obama gets another term, we may face an economic winter from which we may never recover. If the last three years were painful, the next four could be even worse.

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

Photo by jatraveler

I just finished reading a great new book, EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey. It is mainly a business book but he has a great chapter on delegation called “Mastering the Rope — Delegation: The Best Way to Build a Business Bigger than You.” He stresses the importance of getting delegation right and it points to why we are in the mess we are with President Obama at the helm.

Ramsey uses the metaphor of a rope. He starts by applying the concept to raising children. “Visualize that I have a rope attached to you, and the more worthy of trust you have proven yourself the more I will lengthen the rope.” It is a similar process with people you hire. Ramsey writes, “When you delegate to someone improperly you will make a huge mess and add more drama to your life than you can stand. But when you properly prepare your organization’s culture, hire and keep only the right people, build unity and loyalty, recognize achievement…then delegation will become the joy of your life.” Ramsey learned a number of these lessons over twenty years in business, some of them learned the hard way, by screwing it up first, and figuring it out second.

So how does this apply to President Obama? Think about his signature “achievement”, ObamaCare. After formulating the concept he not only threw it over the wall to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, he threw the rope over the wall too. Pelosi and Reid put it all together while Obama golfed and made speeches. What came back was a three thousand page hideous monster, that everyone on team Obama had to drag across the finish line. Even Pelosi famously said, “We’ll have to pass it, to see what is in it.”

Since Obama never spent a day in the private sector, it is not surprising that he had no idea how to delegate. If you are one of the minions surrounding him, you are not going to be apt to tell him either. You want the responsibility and the rope, so that no one is looking over your shoulder.

Obama started as a community organizer. What does a community organizer do? He finds an issue and then fires up a bunch of people to chant slogans about the issue, march in large numbers to a designated place at a designated time, and the community organizer demands compliance with his solution to the issue. There is no delegation. The masses aren’t given any responsibility. The organizer just needs their numbers. It is similar to what we are seeing with the Wall Street protests today. Grab a video camera and go ask them what they stand for and what they want to change, and most of them won’t be able to tell you other than spouting slogans and bromides.

So President Obama has no idea how to delegate, and as Ramsey predicted Obama has made a huge mess and added more drama to all of our lives than we can stand. Not quite, “No drama, Obama.” Dave Ramsey learned a lot of his wisdom in the trenches for twenty years. We don’t have twenty years for Obama to figure it out. We can’t afford one more year, even though we will have to. But we don’t have to go any farther than that.

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

Photo by Luke M. Schierholz

In a recent interview on Piers Morgan Tonight, Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman, once again, laid down the charge that has no proof, that the Tea Party is racist. I like Morgan Freeman. I think he is a great actor. But with this display, I also think that he needs to get out of the Hollywood bubble that includes such deep thinkers as Michael Moore and Janeane Garofolo, and actually visit a Tea Party gathering, (they are very safe places to go to). Here is his thinking. The Tea Party is opposed to Barack Obama, therefore the Tea Party is racist. Game. Set. Match. Gee, that was easy. Does Morgan Freeman know who Herman Cain is? How does he explain that one?

Here is Morgan Freeman in his own words:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSbjRElWv5I

It is simply because he is a black man. It has nothing to do with 9+% unemployment; it has nothing to do with an additional $5 trillion in debt; it has nothing about having a health care program that the majority of Americans have consistently opposed crammed down our throats; it has nothing to do with our abandonment of Israel; it has nothing to do with Obama now being less popular in the Arab world than President Bush was in 2008, despite President Obama grovelling to every dictator in that part of the world after taking office. No, it can only be racism. Talk about being stuck on stupid.

Meet Frederick Douglass

Maybe Freeman is desperately trying to salvage the historic moment of having the first real black president (apologies to Bill Clinton, the self-proclaimed first black president) being elected by 53% of the American people and in three short years, destined to go down as one of the worst presidents in American history, alongside James Buchanan and Jimmy Carter. Perhaps Mr. Freeman should study Frederick Douglass, a former slave, who led the abolitionist movement and helped bring an end to slavery.

In a book by K. Carl Smith, Mr. Smith lays it out and shows how far we have come from our founding principles, principles that were embraced by Douglass. He calls them Douglass’ four principles;

1. Value #1 — Respect for the Constitution
2. Value #2 — Respect for Life
3. Value #3 — Limited Government
4. Value #4 — Personal Responsiblity

Based on that list of values Frederick Douglass would fit comfortably within the Tea Party. According to Morgan Freeman, Frederick Douglass is a racist, because he too would disagree with Barack Obama.

Respect for the Constitution

“About four years ago I became convinced that it was not necessary to dissolve the union between the states, and that the Constitution of the United States not only does not favor slavery, but is is, in letter and in spirit, an anti-slavery document which demands the abolition of slavery. This radical change in my opinions logically resulted in my actions as well.” — Frederick Douglass, “My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)

Where does Obama stand on the Constitution? Since coming to office Obama installed czars for almost everything. By calling them presidential advisers he could avoid Senate confirmation.Here is what Democrat Senator Robert Byrd had to say about Obama’s use of czars.

Before passing away last summer [2010] Byrd, a nine-term senator who twice chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee, blasted the president’s czar appointments as unconstitutional and a clear attempt to evade congressional oversight. He referred to Obama’s “czar strategy” as an unprecedented power grab centralizing authority in the White House.

Obama is also of the school of thought that the Constitution is a “living, breathing” document that fluidly changes with the times. In other words, it means nothing to him other than what he wants it to mean to support his objectives. He believes that it is perfectly constitutional to force every American to buy health care insurance as a condition of being an American, whether or not you want it.

Respect for Life

Frederick Douglass held life as being precious. He wrote:

“When I was treated exceedingly ill; when my back was being scourged daily; when I was whipped within an inch of my life — life was all I cared for. ‘Spare my life.’ was my continual prayer.’” – Frederick Douglas, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave & Other Writings, p. 125

While an Illinois Senator, Barack Obama helped kill a law that would have required medical treatment to any child born alive, even if the procedure being performed was an abortion. Life was important to Douglass, life is a choice to Obama and not the choice of the individual who will live or die.

Limited Government

Frederick Douglass was also a strong believer in limited government. After all, wasn’t it government that enforced his enslavement. He had this to say about the relationship between government and the freed slave:

“Let him alone and mind your own business. If you see him plowing in the open field. leveling the forest, at work with a spade, a rake, a hoe, a pick-axe, or a bill — let him alone; he has a right to work. If you seem him on his way to school, with spelling book, geography and arithmetic in his hands — let him alone. Don’t shut the door in his face, nor bolt your gates against him; he has a right to learn — let him alone. Don’t pass laws to degrade him.” {emphasis added} — Frederick Douglass: Selections from his Writings

But where does our government stand with regard to a Right to Work? Obama appoints far left progressives to the National Labor Relations Board and they try to block Boeing from opening a factory in South Carolina. Laws such as Davis-Bacon were passed as a result of a contractor bringing black laborers to Long Island to build a VA hospital in the 1930s. Although changes have been made to reduce the impact on minorities, the law has continued to make federal constructions projects more expensive than they otherwise would be. With regard to education, again, the government gets in the way. While Obama sends his daughters to a prestigious private school in Washington, D.C. he fought against a voucher program that could rescue other black children from failing schools in the District. The Tea Party fully supports such vouchers. Tell us again about who is racist, Mr. Freeman.

Douglass also wrote about government power.

“I was now getting, as I have said, one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon returning each Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned it, –not because he had any hand in earning it, — not because I owed it to him, — not because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up.” – Frederick Douglas, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave & Other Writings, p. 85

How much does this sound like the government and President Obama’s insistence that he is entitled to take more. In Obama’s view and in his language he treats all earnings as belonging to the government except what the government allows you to keep. That’s why he says tax cuts “have to be paid for.” Never mind that the government is spending our money for $16 muffins; $500 million for failed solar companies; $60-$100 billion a year stolen from Medicare and Medicaid; $1 trillion for failed stimulus programs, but his solution to the budget crisis is not to spend less, but to take more.

Personal Responsibility

“….And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is to give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!…your interference is doing him positive injury” –Frederick Douglass, What the Black Man Wants (1865)

Douglass did not call for the Great Society programs that have destroyed the black nuclear family. He did not call for spreading the wealth around, because it is good for everyone. Barack Obama wants to grow government bigger and bigger, to do more and more, whether we want it or not. And if we don’t want it, we are racists; if we object to it, we are greedy; if we look at the economic wreckage that surround us and we say enough, leave us alone and we’ll right this ship, we are called Nazis. Here is what Frederick Douglass accomplished without a government program:

• Taught himself to read and write — self-taught homeschooling program
• Taught himself to play the violin
• Escaped from slavery at age twenty
• Delayed his escape from slavery for one year in order to learn how to read and write as well as read
• He wrote his first book at age twenty-seven
• Became the face of the Abolitionist Movement and served as the catalyst within the movement that gave birth to the Republican Party
• In 1847, started a newspaper, The North Star
• Assisted Harriet Tubman in the Underground Railroad Movement through the use of his home in Rochester, NY
• Became an ordained minister in the AME Zion Church
• Served as an adviser to five U.S. Presidents (Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and Benjamin Harrison)
• in 1863, served as a recruiter for the Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment
• in 1870, became the owner and editor of The New National Era,  a weekly newspaper in Washington, D.C.
• Without his knowledge, in 1872 Douglass became the first black American to be nominated as a Vice-Presidential candidate — Victoria Woodhull’s running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket
• Douglass earned $50-$105 per speech during his public speaking career.

All accomplished without a government program.

“I am a Republican, a black dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress. — Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)

So, Mr. Freeman, are you prepared to call Frederick Douglass a racist, because his views are far closer to those of the Tea Party, than to Barack Obama? We’ll wait for your next interview to find out.

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

Note: a shout out to K. Carl Smith and his book Frederick Douglass Republicans: The Movement to Re-Ignite Americas’s Passion for Liberty (Author House: Birmingham, AL) 2011

President Obama laid out his jobs plan and its more of the same. Tax more. Spend more. Calling more taxes, savings and more spending, investment. Is this president incapable of learning from his mistakes or is he going “all in” for a class warfare strategy to get reelected?

But it is not just the president. Democrats in Congress are circling the wagons and backing the president to the hilt, but they are starting to get nervous. They are worried if President Obama’s ratings keep falling, they may be dragged down with him.

In the First Congressional District of New York there will be a rematch between professional politician and Democrat Tim Bishop vs. entrepreneur Randy Altschuler. Bishop was in academia before getting elected to Congress in 2002, and that represents the sum total of his career. He eventually rose through the ranks at Southampton College, but just a few years after he left, in 2005, the college closed its doors, eventually being bought by the State University of New York.

After many years of fiscal mismanagement, the University announced a multi-million dollar capital campaign, launched a new interdisciplinary CORE curriculum and the construction of a new library (almost completed) to re-vamp the campus. After one year of a 10-year plan however, Long Island University officials ceased all plans and Long Island University decided to effectively close the campus. This forced most students to either move to University’s Nassau County location, C.W. Post Campus or transfer elsewhere.

That’s not an impressive record from a Democrat who likes to blame everything on President Bush. I wonder if he apologized to his successor at Southampton College for the terrible mess he left them. Since entering Congress he has voted with Nancy Pelosi 97% of the time. More than $5 trillion has been added to the national debt since Tim Bishop has been in Congress under both a Republican and a Democrat in the White House. However, with the recognition that spending has to be reined in, Bishop has given it lip service, but he cannot seem to bring himself to cut any real spending. The only thing he has seemed to offer up is closing a tax loophole on five oil companies which would close 0.2% of the current year budget deficit. With the U.S. Postal Service announcing an $8.5 billion budget deficit, Tim Bishop was out fighting to keep a superfluous post office in Setauket, NY. In addition, he voted against stopping the National Labor Relations Board from killing 2,500 jobs in South Carolina being created by Boeing. This has to stop. Tim Bishop cannot control his urge to spend, so he has to be replaced.

President Obama says we cannot cut our way out of the situation we are in. But we managed to spend our way into this mess. In Tim Bishop’s district, over $100 million of stimulus money went to school districts, who reported creating fifteen jobs. The green initiative that Obama and Bishop support has already spent $19 billion and has created only 3500 jobs; that’s $5.4 million per job! This administration guaranteed loans to a company called Solyndra, that is now bankrupt only one year after getting the loan guarantee. One of the biggest investors in Solyndra was also a campaign bundler for Obama, raising $84,000 for his presidential campaign.

Bishop’s challenger, Randy Altschuler, has created two companies and created hundreds of jobs. He decided to go into politics as he contemplated the future facing his young son. We need people in Congress who have felt the burden of trying to create jobs under the anti-business environment that exits today in America. We cannot continue to live in a fantasy world of spend, spend, spend and things will be better.

Think of a very successful company like Home Depot, which has created thousands of jobs. One of the founders of that company Bernie Marcus was recently interviewed by Neil Cavuto. Many of the suggestions he had to fix the mess we are in, have been advocated here, but they are also the very opposite of what those who are strangers to private industry are advocating, people like Barack Obama, Tim Bishop, and Chuck Schumer. We need more of the thinking and experience of those who have lived under the rules of Congress in private industry and less of those whose careers have been around telling others how to live their lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHUREbTn0Qo

It’s time to send Tim Bishop home and put some fresh thinking and problem solving in Washington. That’s why I support Randy Altschuler.

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

Boeing 787 Dreamliner photo by craezer

Yesterday, the House passed a bill that would prevent the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from telling Boeing, America’s largest exporter, that it couldn’t build a factory in South Carolina, a Right-To-Work state. Boeing built a $750 million factory (with their own money, not yours) and hired 1,500 workers, before the NLRB stepped in and called this union retaliation. But no jobs are being eliminated back in Washington state, in fact, Boeing has added  2,000 jobs.

So why is the federal government telling a private company where it can or cannot locate a factory? It is purely a union play, by a bunch of bureaucrats. Boeing faced a tough strike in 2008 for 58 days. Boeing’s new plane the 787 Dreamliner is way behind schedule, partly due to the strike. Boeing tried to negotiate a ten-year moratorium on strikes by the union. The union refused. So Boeing decided to add capacity in South Carolina. It didn’t shut down operations in Washington state, it didn’t relocate the plants in Washington to South Carolina, and yet the NLRB says it is a retaliatory move because of the 2008 strike. I guess in the bizarro world of the NLRB adding 2,000 jobs in Washington is retaliation.

What is President Obama doing about this? After all it is adding jobs in an economy that desperately needs them and doing so with private money. Obama says the NLRB is an independent board so his hands are tied. Now if you will excuse him, he has to get back to demanding more taxpayer money to create green jobs at a cost of around $600,000 each. Meanwhile, Obama’s jobs adviser, Jeffrey Immelt of GE is shipping jobs off to China to help the Chinese compete with Boeing. What the hell is going on here?

We have Congressman like Tim Bishop fighting to keep an unneeded post office open at taxpayer’s expense, and fighting to stop Boeing from creating jobs with private money in South Carolina. He is joined in this effort by his Congressional neighbor, Steve Israel, from the adjoining district who also happens to head up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, responsible for giving control of the House of Representatives back to Nancy Pelosi. This is purely a union play. But I’ve got some bad news for the Congressmen. According to a recent Rasmussen poll 48% of Americans no longer see a need for labor unions, while 30% disagree.

The unions threw everything they had at Scott Walker in Wisconsin and lost; they came out in force against Bob Turner in NY-9 and lost; we have Jimmy Hoffa calling the Tea Party folks “sons of bitches” who should be taken out. Taken out? Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds like a violent threat, not that the unions are ever violent, but I am probably overreacting. We all know that violence always comes from the Tea Party.

It’s time to clean house people. Jobs are created by private industry, not government. Our president doesn’t understand that. Not only does he not understand that but his appointees at the NLRB are actively working to kill private sector jobs. President Obama for an equivalent time in office, has the second worst job creation record, only surpassed by Herbert Hoover. He and Hoover are the only two presidents since 1890 with negative job growth over their first two and a half years in office. If there are any moving companies that do business between Washington, D.C. and Chicago, you might want to add 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to your mailing list.

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