Happy Thanksgiving

For those who canceled or delayed travel plans this Thanksgiving, for economic reasons, don’t waste the spirit of the day. You’re in good company. This Thanksgiving a lot more folks will find themselves closer to the warmth of their own hearths.

It’s not the size of the feast or the location that matters; it’s the strength of the family’s heart. For the older generation, it’s always about the children and grandchildren. Grandparents have their priorities straight. Most would exchange the turkey and fixings for a peanut butter sandwich and a few moments of conversation with a young member of the family.

In truth, most would give up their health for the opportunity to hold a newborn member of the family in their arms.

There is no doubt that many family gatherings will be smaller due to the economy. That’s okay. Americans are resilient and creative. Besides, these gaps are just part of life.

There is a reason I love Americans. Here is an example of what makes them special. I found myself at a Best Buy in southern New Hampshire in need of a new printer. If you enjoy electronics, it’s a paradise. And it’s impossible to confine yourself to a single aisle with so many toys about.

In my travels I overheard a conversation. Okay! Okay! I eavesdropped on a conversation between a middle aged couple and a sales associate standing in front of a display of Digital Photo Frames.

For the uninitiated, these gadgets can hold hundreds of pictures, including video and recorded sound, and automatically cycle all the pictures.

Evidently, the couple had recently placed one of their parents in a nursing home. This topic perked the interest of someone my age. It seems the parent would wake up in the middle of the night frightened and disoriented. The couple had purchased one of these frames, loaded it with family pictures, and placed it on a night stand.

You have to love American ingenuity. It served as a nightlight and a beacon. Evidently, the intimacy of family photos had a calming influence. But this is what makes the story neat.

The couple couldn’t update the pictures between visits, so they were purchasing a new frame that could be updated wirelessly. The staff at the nursing home had offered to update the pictures from a site Kodak provides (no charge) for this purpose. How nice is that?

This little vignette reminded me that Americans are resourceful, they always find a way. And my hat is off to Kodak. Happy Thanksgiving.

The Bailout of General Motors

The majority of congressional Democrats enthusiastically support providing General Motors $25 billion in bailout money. This is in addition to the approved $25 billion in “136 loans” for alternative fuel research, already sitting on the table. Naturally their media cronies endorse the handout.

No surprises here. This is the same political party that is attempting to end the secret ballot in union elections by passing the Card Check bill. If the title fit the intent of the proposed legislation, it would be called the Employee Intimidation Act.

GM is headquartered in Michigan, a state mired in out-of-control spending, insufferable business taxes and dominated by Democratic hacks. Like California and Massachusetts, it’s sinking under the weight of its welfare mandates and bloated bureaucracy. This should also be placed in the political equation.

It would be outrageously naive to believe the Democrats care about the longevity of the Big Three. This exercise is aimed at protecting their staunch supporters, namely, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. It’s a reciprocal agreement in the making. The Democrats are offering to subsidize the wages of union members with tax dollars, in return for the union’s support.

The bailout will only delay the inevitable. None of the Big Three can stay competitive when paying wages about 58% higher ($78/hour on average) than the US based, foreign owned, manufacturing plants in Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina.

Want proof! Barney Frank and the other liberal slugs in Congress will turn this into class warfare. They will argue that if Congress bails out the white collars on Wall Street, the blue collars should receive equal treatment. This argument will confirm their motives for helping the Big Three, as blue collar stands for union.

GM’s management isn’t exactly stellar. If they cared about their company’s survival, they would have come to blows with the UAW years ago. The labor costs and union rules have restricted their options. They can’t turn on a dime. And for that matter, they can’t turn on $25 billion either.

The union anchor has kept them churning in smaller and smaller circles. They are now dead in the water. If they don’t cut the anchor chain, they will sink.

Many pundits criticize the marketing skills of GM. The most common refrain is that it doesn’t produce the vehicles that Americans want; although most agree that its quality standards are competitive.

It’s inconceivable that GM doesn’t have its finger on the American pulse. The pundits should look in another corner. It costs a lot of money to react quickly to market conditions. The unions, federal and state taxes and environmental restraints have drained GM of the capital reserves required to adapt to changing market forces.

It’s more reasonable to suspect that GM can’t plow through the maze of barriers and obligations erected by the unions and government. Anyone, who has read Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, can be sympathetic to GM’s plight. The Lilliputians have GM staked to the ground.

GM should break the bondage by reorganizing under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. At the top of its agenda should be a trip to a southern state. The GM contingency would be greeted with dollar incentives, a favorable tax climate and millions of potential employees willing to work for $45/hour.

This move would signal Michigan and the UAW that the Big Three is in the game to win. That’s an attitude that Americans respect. These are the same Americans who are all too aware that handouts are for losers.

Personalize the Federal Bailout

Think of the bailout in personal terms. Currently there are about 113 million households in the United States. The aggregate cost of the bailout, including payments made, pending and proposed tops $2 trillion.

Using simple arithmetic, the federal government could use these funds to send every household in the nation a check for $17,000. Or, it could elect to mail a check in the amount of $6500 to every US citizen.

This begs five questions. First and foremost! Would you and your family benefit more from an infusion of $17,000 into your checking account, or from bailing out the Wall Street financial fraternity and a select group of mismanaged companies?

Secondly, which alternative would have the greatest immediate impact on stimulating the economy?

Thirdly, which option would most rapidly reduce unemployment?

Fourthly, which alternative would save the most homes from foreclosure, increase home values and stimulate new construction?

Finally, which choice would stabilize the stock market and increase the value of every family’s portfolio?

The answer to all five questions is painfully obvious.

It’s impossible not to believe that 99% of the US manufacturers and retailers, including the Big Three automakers, would see a mighty jump in sales if the funds were given to households. The only bad news for the American consumers is that they would see fewer products “on sale.”

Keep in mind that the US taxpayers will be stuck with the identical sized debt with either option. For the fiscally conservative, there could be a third choice. Let them have a credit of $17,000 toward future taxes.

Or, for the fiscally wise, eliminate the bailout and reduce the projected deficit by $2 trillion, and spare them, their children and grandchildren from taxes so high that they would give a mountain goat a nosebleed.

When the bailout is put in personal terms, it’s obvious that Congress, the Bush Administration and Obama, aren’t using the money to stimulate the economy. They are protecting their friends and building their power base. The bailout is one great big, giant, colossal subterfuge.

The minds of Americans can be changed with reason. Any politician (of any political stripe) is invited to explain why we should care if the Fat Cats on Wall Street and those sitting in the board rooms of the Big Three can’t afford to buy a new yacht, or a third or fourth home.

WARNING: It would probably be medically unsound to hold your breath while waiting for this answer. Besides, the truth is in the silence.

Dining on the American Eagle

As it unfolds, the $700 billion bailout of the financial fraternity on Wall Street is a wild kingdom buffet. The jackals are at the table, the weasels are serving and the vultures are waiting in the wings. They are all prepared to ravenously feast on a banquet of American Eagle.

As the party began, the running joke which provoked the most amusement was that the mice, their children and grandchildren would be stuck with the tab. The punch line of the Master of Ceremonies, which rocked the house with laughter, was “And those damn fools trusted us.”

The slimy creatures from AIG, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Freddie Mae, Fannie Mac, etc., have nothing to fear because the vermin infested pack that sponsored the feast are the same weasels that betrayed the mice.

The swaggering vultures-in-wait are rubbing their claws together in anticipation of a glutinous feed. On January 20, 2009 they will get the best seats at the table.

The weasels, Representative Barney Frank, Senator Dodd and Obama greased the frying pan with lies and deceit. They were rewarded with contributions to their campaigns from the financial jackals. In return, these weasels are buying the silence of the jackals with the $700 billion they stole from the mice.

This ménage a trois is beyond the definition of cynical. It’s a criminal enterprise. The participants should be prosecuted and then be hung from the belfries of the churches they scorn in word and deed.

The mice that blindly voted for these traitorous weasels deserve to have their tails cut off. And any mouse who forgives the media for not pinpointing the cause of this feeding frenzy is equally perverse. These mice stood around and applauded a media menagerie; one which traded its integrity to sleep with the weasels. They are the real villains.

They betrayed the mice, and not because they fell asleep on their watch. They deliberately abandoned their posts. They are the real traitors.

The mice who objected to cutting the wings off of the American Eagle will be flushed from their holes. The meager supplies in their pantries will be confiscated and redistributed to all the mice that have learned to survive on the weasels’ table scraps.

Weasels, jackals and vultures live off the land. They are opportunists, driven by instinct, and are free of the constraints associated with humankind. They prey on the weak and the unguarded. And have no illusions. They only care about their own survival.

And there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them and the grotesque assortment of animals that cluster around the bailout.

America’s mice have one last hope. Maybe the media and politicians will practice cannibalism. These feasts would benefit every American who understands that the American Eagle should be no man’s meal.

A National Police Force

The Obama team is discussing the economy in the front room, but the real action is always in the backroom. Most noticed that in his first press conference that Obama failed to answer the question about increasing taxes on business and family incomes over $250,000.

That can have two interpretations. Either he was told by his economic advisors that the action would catapult the nation into a brutal, extended recession, or he has decided to do it to please Speaker Pelosi and the other unstable members of the left-wing. Of note, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS and the major newspapers never called attention to this detail.

Chris Matthews, MSNBC's tingly legged mouthpiece, recently stated that his job is to insure that Obama and his agenda is protected, defended and implemented. At least Matthews is candid about his self-anointed role. The rest of the media will do the same while pretending to be objective.

Throughout the primaries and general election contests the media selectively featured topics and statistics that were favorable to Obama and Democrats. They distorted the truth by ignoring or omitting large chucks of Obama’s relationships with his voraciously anti-American associates and his far-left agenda.

For example, not one of these Obama supporters repeated his call for a national police force, made in Colorado Springs on July 2, 2008. His words: “We cannot continue to rely only on our military to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”

Unlike the FBI, this million member force would not be restricted to inter-state crime. And unlike the laws governing US military troops, this force would not require the permission of a governor to enter a state. They will live and work in our neighborhoods.

Here is a fair question. What is Obama planning that would require a police force that reports directly to the President? In the Soviet Union, this style of internal police was called the NKDV, in Germany the Gestapo. The NKDV and Gestapo were used to enforce government directives and to silence dissent.

It’s doubtful that the police in local and state jurisdictions would welcome these intruders. And the majority of Americans would be frightened by the proposal. So how does Obama’s cadre plan on squelching opposition, and justifying its creation?

If you hear that this liberal controlled congress passes the Matthew Shepard Act, it will set the stage for Obama’s US version of the Gestapo. This exalted Hate Crime Stature, combined with accusations of local Racial Profiling, will be the pretext to justify the creation of a national police force to insure racial and gender justice.

Like the Fairness Doctrine, it’s a deceit to insure the absolute power of the federal government. If the topics of affirmative action, racial profiling and hate crimes start dominating the national news be frightened! A national police force will follow.

Americans for Reciprocal Fairness

Whether Senator Kerry and Senator Schumer are successful in establishing a foothold for the reimplementation of the Fairness Doctrine is yet to be seen. The only certainty is that they will attempt to quiet the voices of conservatives heard on talk radio.

The Fairness Doctrine was never law, but rather composed of the policies and guidelines of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for broadcasters. Most of the early fairness policies were based on the “scarcity” of outlets.

During the 1980s, the “scarcity” argument became moot. The abundance of news outlets, including cable TV, the popularity of FM broadcasting, and access to the Internet opened an incredible array of vehicles for information dissemination.

The FCC issued a Fairness Report in 1985, which concluded the doctrine might actually have a "chilling effect" on news reporting, and could be in “violation of the First Amendment.”

It’s common knowledge that liberal radio talk programs rarely raise or sustain an audience. Why? More than likely because the liberal viewpoint is readily available in most every newspaper, weekly magazine, on the network news broadcasts and on most cable news programs. Plus, the left’s viewpoint dominates most Internet political blogs.

Conservative talk radio's success is the natural outcome of the liberal domination of other mediums which express political viewpoints. Balanced news reporting in the other sectors would dramatically shrink its impact.

It’s obvious that Kerry, Schumer, Pelosi and Reid want to stamp out the loudest voice of their opposition. Because the Fairness Doctrine only includes information disseminated across the airwaves, their biased, liberal friends controlling the print media would not be scathed by this censorship.

The existence of privately owned radio stations is fueled by advertisers who purchase time to promote their wares and services. The fees are based on the size of the listening audience when the ads are run.

The goal of Kerry and Schumer has nothing to do with the dissemination of liberal views. The media is already satiated with those who promote liberal causes. Forcing radio broadcasters to provide equal airtime for programs which express liberal opinions would decimate the revenue stream required to keep the conservative stations operating. That’s their goal.

The Fairness Doctrine is an end-run around the First Amendment to silence the opposition. The efforts of Kerry and Schumer, et al., can be stopped by the fans of talk radio.

We have a president elect who takes office on January 20, 2009. Every time a liberally biased broadcaster runs video of him (live or a video recap), or features his picture on a magazine or on a newspaper front page, immediately change the station, or refuse to buy a print copy.

Once the advertisers realize the public is tuning out these forums en masse, they will abandon them. The loss of revenues will encourage the liberal media outlets to stop the drumbeat for the Fairness Doctrine.

This opposition should be called Americans for Reciprocal Fairness. President Obama’s State-of-the-Union address would be a great time to start defending the First Amendment.

Hello President Obama, Goodbye America

Election 2008 ended with President Obama the designated leader of our nation. We have already had a peek into America’s future. Massachusetts offers a microcosm of America’s prospects. This Blue State portends the future of America under the leadership of President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid.

Ninety percent of Massachusetts’ state representatives and eighty-seven percent of its state senators are Democrats. Governor Deval Patrick and the state bureaucrats have ironclad control over the budget. With only 21 elected conservatives among the 200 politicians sitting in the state legislature, there are no worthy advocates for accountability.

The state is a liberal bastion. One statistic defines its depravity. Ninety-five percent of the taxes collected for highway and road maintenance supports the bureaucracy. Only five percent is actually spent on improving the roadways. Welcome to share the wealth socialism.

Over 70% of Massachusetts’s citizens confirmed the state government’s right to pillage the wealthy. They defeated the abolition of the state’s income tax on the 2008 ballot. These are the same voters who welcome illegal aliens into their midst, and encourage them to teach in the public schools.

These are the same voters whose judges found the right of gays to marry in a 200 year old state constitution. These are the same voters who blessed the right of Representative Barney Frank to lie about the health of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You are right. He’s the one who didn’t know his partner was running a gay brothel in his home.

This is the same state that offers public assistance to our future president’s aunt, who was ordered deported four years ago. Yes, she has a part time government job. Only a mean spirited, selfish, unpatriotic taxpayer could scorn such inclusiveness.

Now you may ask why anyone outside of Massachusetts should complain if the citizens of Massachusetts are happy living in a socialist state? That’s a fair question.

There is a dirty little secret that the Massachusetts socialists are keeping under wraps. Despite the flood of illegal aliens overrunning the state, its population isn’t growing. The companies and affluent, who are hammered by the taxation, are voting with their feet.

That’s right; they are leaving. The state blames this emigration on the lack of affordable housing. Of course, that’s not true. These folks sell their unaffordable homes prior to escaping.

In effect, each year the tax base shrinks in Massachusetts. To compensate for this depletion of funds, the state and local governments raise taxes every year. This in turn encourages more of the productive segment of society to pull up stakes.

This cycle cannot be supported indefinitely. The bureaucrats and welfare recipients will wake up with a bankrupt system which will collapse under its own weight. This is the path that President Obama wants the nation to follow. And his agenda will be enforced with censorship and a federal police force he plans to create.

Of course, when the national economy is socialized, there will be no safe place for the productive members of the nation to protect their wealth within the US borders. America’s wealth will find homes in friendlier nations. Ditto for US corporations.

The decline of America’s prosperity will officially begin on January 20, 2009. Hello Obama; Goodbye America.

Light a Candle on November 4, 2008

It’s difficult to believe that our country is sitting on the precipice of abandoning its principles, its honor and its glory. It’s disheartening to conceive the majority of Americans are ashamed of their flag, ashamed of their history.

The blood of Americans has been shed on every continent to protect and propel the dignity and rights of all mankind. The world has always assumed that the United States would come to the rescue. America has never failed these expectations; America may arrive late, but never empty handed.

We never stood alone, but we always stood taller. Our ingenuity, loyalty, kindness, generosity, unbridled determination and heroism unfolded in epic proportions. And like America’s soldiers, who have always been embarrassed by the medals they earn, Americans have always understood the essence of duty.

If they had to work two jobs to feed their family, that’s what they did. If they had to put themselves in the line of fire to protect their friends, that’s what they did. If they had to rush into a burning building to save the lives of others, that’s what they did.

America’s strength and prosperity were built by generations of people who understood that sacrifice is an inherent part of duty. They understood that responsibility didn’t define their lives or patriotism; it just quietly kept these attributes alive.

President Kennedy summarized America’s climb to greatness with the words, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” In one sentence, Kennedy described what kept, and what would keep, America strong.

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society legislation reversed President Kennedy’s concept of patriotism. Senator Obama’s political agenda is second nature to the generations of Americans who were raised in an era of government handouts.

Senator Obama grew up in a society that was concerned with the answer to only one question. What can my country do for me? He is the product of affirmative action, diversity and shared responsibility. With millions of others, he was deceived into believing that his personal success depended on the beneficence of the government.

Anyone steeped in this characterization of opportunity would advocate income redistribution, sanctuary cities, healthcare divvied out by bureaucrats, and would be confused by personal responsibility. This is the only reason why an immature, inexperienced political hack is one election away from the Oval Office.

This election will determine if Americans want to be subservient to government, or want the government subservient to the citizens. This is the crossroad at which America stands. Let’s hope the older generations will keep the candle of personal responsibility burning in the windows of America.