Ground Hog Day

Notre Dame, South Bend, IN - In the coming New Year, 2012, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address will occur on the same day. This is an ironic juxtaposition of events. One involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to an insignificant creature of little intelligence for prognostication.

The other involves a groundhog.

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The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its prediction and then disappears.
- Bill Vaughan

Who really decides US elections?

Slidell, LA - It recently came to my attention lots of folks do not understand who decides elections in this country. The key words for the purpose of this post are "who decides."

When a Democrat speaks to an all Democrat crowd that is called preaching to the choir. Unless that Democrat screws up beyond belief, no one in that room is going to vote for the Republican. If that same Democrat speaks before an all Republican crowd, that is called preaching into the wind. None of them are going to vote for that Democrat no matter what is said.

So there are two substantial groups of people out there that are already decided. Many members of both groups are decided even before the candidate is nominated for the race.

The rest of the electorate is made up of the people that will cast the deciding votes in most US elections. These are the undecided independent voters. In most races neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have a numerical majority by themselves. It takes the votes from those people in the middle to push one candidate ahead of another.

This is why most politicians forget their voting records and put on a game face more palatable to the center during election cycles. Of course once they are done with the election, those campaign statements are promptly "refined" to suit their actual mind set.

This post comes from my expressing concerns the Republicans will run Sarah Palin for President in 2012. Many of my conservative friends are appalled at my doubt she is electable.

But there is no escaping the fact Gov. Palin scares the Hell out of a large number of independent voters. Not only that, some of her message doesn't sit all that well with more then a few conservatives.

The 2010 general election promises to send a lot of liberal representatives home. The 2012 presidential election is in the Republican's hands right now. The conservatives quite literally will have to go out of their way to lose it as things stand now. (Based on current approval polls. Looking at the President's programs, projects and ideology, I don't see any change for the better anywhere on the horizon.)

If the conservatives run an extreme candidate like Gov. Palin, there is an excellent chance we will see four more years of Obama's politics. Hopefully conservative voters will see this in the 2012 primaries. What is left of our future is in their hands.

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Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.
- W. C. Fields

If you build it, we will come…

Merritt Island, FL - All the empty words about stopping proliferation of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear material stock piles around the world become even more empty when we look at the realities of Iran and the people running the show there. Check this latest ration of noise:

Iran is so powerful today that no country would dare attack it, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday during an annual army parade.

"Iran's army is so mighty today that no enemy can have a foul thought of invading Iran's territory," the Iranian leader said, according to state media.
CNN: Iran too 'mighty' to attack

Ahmadinejad cracks me up.

We could solve this with seven simple words: "If you build it, we will come." That should be our national policy on the matter. No clarification needed. No modifiers. No conditions. Plain and simple. When ever the question of Iran and nuclear weapons comes up, those seven words are the response, substituting "they" for "you" where appropriate.

But that would also require a real leader in the White House. One with a basic understanding of the real world and some focus on the security of Israel as well as our own national interests. And one with the backbone to follow up on those words. Unfortunately the current President is lacking in all those areas.

Ahmadinejad knows this too.

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Obama's views on Iran are "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content."
- From a translation of an interview given by French President Nicolas Sarkozy

President Obama has a really short memory

Tampa, FL - Last night while addressing the nation President Obama said the following:

"It's easy to forget that when this war began, we were united -- bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear.  I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again."
The White House Web Site, text of the address 

Mr. President, with all due respect let me remind you that it was you, your party and most of the people that support you who spent the last few years using the war on terror as a wedge to divide our nation.

Give me a break.

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A house divided against itself cannot stand.
- Abraham Lincoln

Obama Predictions: Gun control

Over the last couple of weeks the President and White House spokes people placed a great deal emphasis on the problems with drug gangs in Mexico. It is amazing how much of that talk centers around apologizing for our responsibility in those problems. That would be our consumption of drugs coming from or brought through Mexico and the cash and guns heading south.

The emphasis on the guns has been loud and clear in each and every statement. Newscasters, White House staffers, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and even President Obama himself have all stated flatly that 90% of weapons recovered from the bad guys can be traced back to the United States.

That number is a serious distortion of the facts. Read on…

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

Fox News: The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.

In addition to that, the vast majority of that 17% are traceable back to weapons legally sold to various agencies in the Mexican Government.

I'm one of these people that always wonders "who benefits?" It is amazing how many difficult puzzles come crystal clear when you apply the "What benefits are derived and who benefits from the event" filter.

One possible answer (and the only answer that makes any reasonable amount of sense) is the President is beginning a systematic attack on guns and gun owners. Demonizing guns, and by default people that own guns, would make it easier for him to get anti-gun legislation through a congress that still has enough grasp of reality to realize gun owners vote in great numbers.

Obama Prediction:

With this post I predict that President Obama is going to use the gun violence in Mexico and the bullshit 90% number to refine his campaign promise to leave gun owners alone into some kind of heavy duty anti-gun push.

We are so screwed.

Here's another link on the 90% number: Factchack.org - Counting Mexico's Guns

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This battle for 'common-sense' gun control laws pits emotion and passion against logic and reason. All too often in such a contest, logic loses. So, expect more meaningless, if not harmful, 'gun control' legislation. Good news - if you're a crook.
- Larry Elder

Doing away with secret ballots

Tampa, FL - One of the most fundamental tenants of our election system is the secret ballot. This method of voting allows voters to cast their vote without fear of recrimination by either the winning party or sore losers. The voter may express their choice free of peer pressure, glaring looks from parents or spouses and even the raised eyebrows of children who think they know everything.

In the old days, and even some rare cases now days, the secret ballot prevented violence against voters. A sheriff's race this last November in the Florida Pan Handle that got so hot that people were actually being stopped by sheriff's deputies for have the wrong bumper sticker on their car. Imagine what it would have been like if the losing incumbent sheriff knew who voted against him. That little stretch of time before the new sheriff was sworn in could have been very nerve racking fro those that voted against the old sheriff.

Now lets take that to a whole different level. We are talking far more personal where the results of that vote could effect your employment, your standing in the community and even your future for some time to come.

Imagine your place of employment is undergoing a union vote. Things are getting very heated between union supporters and those that are happy with the way things are. The employer is putting the pressure on, the union organizers are pressuring you every chance they get, friends at work are pressuring you in both directions and the over all environment is getting very ugly. There have been shoving matches in the parking lot. Some vandalism of cars. Several people have been reassigned or had their hours or jobs cut because for purely business reasons, but they are also big union cheer leaders. People have had very aggressive visits at their homes by union organizers not prepared to accept "no" or "I prefer not to discuss it" as an answer.

So the big day comes. The vote is going to be taken. Thank all that is Holy and a number of things that aren't that no one but you will know how you voted. If the union gets in and you voted against it, no one will ever know. If the union does not get in and you voted for it, your employer will never know. The best part is that friends and colleagues will not be treating you as if you just crawled out of the outhouse pit.

But now that cherished portion of American tradition is in serious jeopardy.

President Barack Obama told AFL-CIO union leaders Tuesday in a videotaped address that the controversial Employee Free Choice Act will pass, signaling his full backing for legislation that makes union organizing easier.

"We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act," President Obama told more than 100 top labor officials in a closed-door meeting at the labor federation's winter gathering in Miami, according to people at the meeting.

The Wall Street Journal: President Tells Unions Organizing Act Will Pass

Well now isn't that special. Sounds like the unions are calling in the note on the election and the President is stepping up to pay with interest.

The program the President is promising to sign into law is also known as the "Check Card" system. That would allow union organizers to unionize any place of employment by simply getting a majority of people to sign the cards. It would do away with currently required secret ballot election.

Effectively what this does is allow the unions to get signatures, maybe even in secret, while denying the employer a chance to state their case. Perhaps even robbing workers of vital knowledge. For example: Within a month after unionizing this job site, your job will move to Taiwan.

There are some heavily union regions, especially Chicago, Detroit and New York, where that change in the law will effectively force unions down the throats of  80% percent of business.  We're talking everyone from Arby's to Zoo Keepers.

Think about this for a minute. Two large men approach you, maybe even outside your home, and shove a card in your hands. One of them says, "We want you should sign 'dis card. Yo Rocko, help 'dis nice person find a pen."

The other one says, "You gots a nice house here. Pretty daughter too. I want she should stay pretty, don't you?"

What are you going to do at that point? Refuse to sign the card?

In a milder example, let's think about the situation outlined above. You could have close friends and colleagues pressing the card in your hands with words like, "Do the right thing for all of us" when you know in your heart it is not the right thing. But the peer pressure is incredible when people you like and work with are standing there looking you in the eye. We all want to please our friends and not all that many will stand up to friends under that kind of group pressure.

The last thing we need to do in this country is make it easier for a union to be forced on a company. We have shipped enough jobs to the Pacific Rim and Mexico.

If this passes, it will be the most devastating blow yet to our floundering economy. The number of businesses that would fold or flee the country rather then endure the headaches of dealing with a union is a damn site higher then anyone from the left will admit.

The more I listen to President Obama or read what he has to say, the worse and worse our future looks. The President's legacy is already shaping up to make President Roosevelt and his "Brain Trust" look conservative.

Author's Note: I have been in a total of seven unions over the course of my life. As close as I can tell checking tonight I am still considered an active member in four of them, inactive in one and there is no way to find out on the other two tonight. With one small exception, none of those unions did anything for me except take a percentage of my paycheck and then give some of that to people I wouldn't vote for in my worse nightmare. In two union jobs I would have earned a higher salary if I were non-union but was held at the union scale because of the contract.

It is my experience that working under or around a union job makes for a work environment where it is difficult to get the job done without jumping through an extraordinary number of hoops. I have little patience for bullshit rules (other then safety) when I am trying to get a job done. I find unions to be extremely expensive not only from inflated wages and benefits, but also in stupid things like having an entire crew sitting on their collective butts waiting for someone from the right union to be found so four boxes can be unloaded from a truck. Or wait for a union member to move a TV camera cable out of a shot. (Got a grievance over that one… got tired of waiting.) Or having to pay a four digit "honorarium" (a bribe by any other name…) to a union boss so my non-union people can do their jobs on his union turf.

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Michael: My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
Kay Adams: What was that?
Michael: Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.

- Al Pacino as Michael Corleone talking to Diane Keaton as Kay Adams in the movie "The Godfather"

The President, Commerce and the US Census

Tampa, FL - Here's a quick poll through a show of hands. All of you that would want to see President George W. Bush directly in charge of the 2010 US Census raise your hands…

Uh-huh…

Ok, all of you that want to see the President Barack H. Obama directly in charge of the 2010 US census raise your hands.

Here's a heads up for those of you that raised a hand for one or both Presidents. Neither should be in charge of it. In fact, that particular branch of the commerce department should be hands off for all elected officials. Elected officials cannot help but have a conflict of interest when it comes to the final official numbers.

President Obama said in his inaugural address that he planned to "restore science to its rightful place" in government. That's a worthy goal. But statisticians at the Commerce Department didn't think it would mean having the director of next year's Census report directly to the White House rather than to the Commerce secretary, as is customary. "There's only one reason to have that high level of White House involvement," a career professional at the Census Bureau tells me. "And it's called politics, not science."

The decision was made last week after California Rep. Barbara Lee, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Hispanic groups complained to the White House that Judd Gregg, the Republican senator from New Hampshire slated to head Commerce, couldn't be trusted to conduct a complete Census. The National Association of Latino Officials said it had "serious questions about his willingness to ensure that the 2010 Census produces the most accurate possible count."

The Wall Street Journal: Why Obama Wants Control of the Census

Here is another flash for a whole bunch of people that see the US Census Bureau as just another political football.

The people of the US Census Bureau have been doing their job and doing it well since the bureau was founded. Those people are counting a population that is in constant flux. Think of it as trying to heard and count cats on the open range. The fact that some people living in a dumpster and a few illegal immigrants didn't get their noses counted is simply a part of the margin of error that comes with a process that cannot be made perfect without nailing everyone in place and demanding two forms of ID while the count takes place. I don't hear anyone screaming over the illegal immigrants that did get counted. 

It is funny that we did not hear any outrage over the people the census takers missed because they travel the country with crews that harvest wheat, run carnivals, drill and assemble oil wells, set up rodeos or simply live in motor-homes using where ever they park that night as their address. But most of those people tend to vote conservative so we wouldn't hear all that much complaining, would we?

The bottom line is that we need the White House (any White House not just this one) meddling around in the count like we need a hole in the head. 

Census takers do not need their work tarnished by The President, his minions, Acorn, Jessie Jackson, California Rep. Barbara Lee who is chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Al Franken, The American Civil Liberties Union, Al Sharpton, The Southern Law Center, The National Association of Latino Officials or any of the pathetically misinformed Hollywood Elite that see themselves as some kind of world changing activists.

I would also like to point out that the The National Association of Latino Officials and California Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) gave us an egregious display of pathetic pandering and mud slinging when they complained to the President that former Commerce Department Secretary appointee Sen. Judd Gregg could not be trusted to conduct a proper count.

It is truly a shame none of those people can be dragged before the public, placed under oath and then pressed to name reasons and facts behind their slanderous claims. I would buy a ticket to watch that one.

If President Obama takes over direct oversight of the US Census there will be questions and law suits lasting until 2020. That is like having a contestant's father on the board of judges for a beauty contest.

If the President and his staff have any grasp of reality left between them, the White House will drop this plan as a really bad idea. If for no other reason then for appearances sake alone they will walk away from this one.

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In the closing weeks of last year's election campaign, we wrote that Democrats had in mind the most sweeping expansion of government in decades. Liberals clucked, but it turns out even we've been outbid. With yesterday's fiscal 2010 budget proposal, President Obama is attempting not merely to expand the role of the federal government but to put it in such a dominant position that its power can never be rolled back.
- The Wall Street Journal: The Obama Revolution - Paid for by the people.