Thoughts on Boston, the media and slandering the Right.

As I was sitting in front of the television last night around seven o'clock I could feel that the nightmare in Boston was drawing to a close.  When they announced that they had him, and had him alive I was shocked.  I was also proud of the law enforcement officers and how professionally they handled this.  Monday, Boston showed the world that when tragedy strikes, you don't hide.  You don't run, cower or beg.  When the bombs go off, you run toward them.  Law enforcement showed us, this is how you apprehend a ghost.

The media?  Once again a failure.  Falsely reporting rumors as facts is just part of it.

Today I am writing about politicizing the story, assigning an agenda to it.

What I saw after the story broke about the April 15th bombing wasn't just speculation that the bomber was a "right wing extremist."  I saw hope that it was.  Watching the coverage, over and over the media figures posited about, "anti-government," "extreme right wing," "tax day" and the like.

Even more blatant were many of the well known scumbags on Twitter.  Michael Moore, not quite coming right out and saying it, but giving the old wink wink, nudge nudge, tweets of "Tax Day.  Patriot's Day."  David Sirota, who apparently doesn't understand the difference between political disagreements and hate/lack of sympathy, wrote an article in Salon titled, "Let's Hop the Boston Marathon Bomber is a White American."  Geraldo Rivera weighed with similar opinions.

Once the facts came out, the media went silent.  No correction, no apologies, just silent.

And this is not the first time.

When DA's in Texas were being assassinated, immediately it was the "extreme right wing."  Turned out to be a disgruntled wife.

When James Holmes shot up the Aurora Theater, the media reported that the 20 something perp was a middle aged TEA Party member.

When Faisal Shahzad planted a bomb in Time Square on New Years Eve there were similar reactions and speculation.  Michael Bloomberg stated blamed the TEA Party.

When Gabbie Giffords was shot, they blamed the TEA Party and talk radio.  That was until classmates described Jared Lee Loughner as "left wing."

When the anarchists plotted to blow up a bridge outside of Cleaveland, they rushed to blame right wing extremists.  It turned out they were connected to the Occupy Movement.  To Occupy's credit, no one at Occupy would go along.

When Joseph Stack crashed his plane into the IRS offices in Austin, TX, the media and left claimed it was because he was a right winger.  Then his suicide note quoted the Communist Manifesto.

The Beltway Snipers were said to extreme right wing or Christian militants.  John Allen Muhammad was a member of the Nation of Islam.

The list goes on.  Every time their lies are proven wrong, they never apologize, they never retract, they just leave it out there.  Like Dan Rather on the forged Bush AWOL documents, they are false, but accurate.

Are there dangerous extreme right wing groups out there?  Sure.  But there is a second tier to this.

Look at the way the media throws around the word "extreme."  It is used to describe the KKK, the Aryan Brotherhood, the TEA Party and the Republican Party.  It is used to describe anyone who is devout Christian, anyone who is pro second amendment and who wants smaller government.

Formula is simple, label people you disagree with, TEA Party, Republicans, et al. with the same thing you label bad guys with, KKK, Separatist Militias, and so on.  Make them indistinguishable in mind of the public.  Stretch it as much as you need to.  Then when an act of terror can be pinned on the "extreme right wing" it was be as if it WERE the Republicans or TEA Party or your grandpa.

That's what this is about.  Slandering and marginalizing non liberal, progressive, leftists.  To make them appear a certain way so their ideas can be silenced.

Who knows, maybe they'll get a violent right winger on the next one.  Afterall, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Preventing The Next Child Killing Tragedy With "Common Sense" Reforms.

One woman, seven children, eight counts of murder.  That's the charge.  The details are grisly with tales of scissors jammed into necks, screams silenced and body parts in a freezer.  It is a scene out of a horror movie.

You may be thinking that I am writing about some other shooting that is tearing across the headlines.  Instead I am talking about the murders that are currently subject to a media blackout.  That is the murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell.  Gosnell is an abortion doctor who was sued after the death of a patient. The resulting investigation yielded that Gosnell's facility was a house of horrors.

During their testimonies, former employees of Gosnell told stories of babies being born, only to be killed directly afterward.  One woman testified that she was handed a prematurely born infant with no eyes or mouth and told to "deal with it."  Other stories included jamming scissors into the neck of infants and snipping the spinal cord.  The idea of "aborting" babies that survive abortion is not new, and is actually supported by President Obama.

But I think we can all agree that this is a horrible atrocity.  The question is how we go about preventing the next one.  Predictably, Huffington Post weighed on the issue that this was caused by there not being enough access to abortions.  You can't make this stuff up.

I would like to propose some "common sense" reforms that would prevent similar tragedies.

To begin, we need to set up an abortion waiting period.  When, a person shows up at the abortion clinic they need to fill out the proper background checks and federal paperwork.  Then they can wait three days to determine if they really mean to have an abortion.  We can call this a "cooling off period."

Second, there should be mental health checks.  Is a person with a history of mental illness really capable of handling something as important as having an abortion?

Third, we should probably look at frequent abortion recipients.  I mean why do they need to have so many abortions.  I think that one or two should be enough.

Finally, we should crack down on abortion providers.  There is an entire industry that makes money off of providing abortions.  These "high capacity" facilities should be made illegal.  No more than ten per day.

In all seriousness, the murder trial of Kermit Gosnell is currently in the middle of a media blackout.  Now granted, the news media can't wait to editorialize about Sandy Hook four months after the fact, or devote segments to what the latest vapid celebrity is wearing.  Make no mistake, the blackout on Kermit Gosnell is to protect abortion and keep the horrid truth about the practice from seeing the light of day.

When Politicians Talk Numbers: A Counter-Stupid Primer

This has most certainly been a year of numbers.  When not side-tracked by discussing the epidemic of rape-pregnancy (you would think that 9 out of 10 pregnancies were the result of rape as much as it was discussed) this year's campaign was about the economy and the numbers.  A trillion dollars here a few billion dollars there and so on.

The key to this is that it is largely all a bunch of B.S.

Oh make no mistake The United States of America has been running a One Trillion Dollar deficit. But when you hear a politician talk about their plans to fix it?  Get on your hip waders.  This goes for pro-tax Democrats and pro-cut Republicans.  Let's not forget the media either, they are complicit in this as well.

Let's look at what Republicans are proposing.  According to Reuters in "Fiscal Cliff" negotiations the Republicans proposed "steep" cuts of $600 billion dollars.  Democrats are mad as hell about this, because it "guts" (one of the many favorite terms of politicians) so many programs.  I mean out of our $3.7 TRILLION "budget" (one hasn't been passed since Obama took office) $600 billion makes quite the dent in our $1 trillion deficit, right?

Oh wait.  That $600 billion we were just talking about?  It's $600 billion over ten years.  So in actuality, it is $60 billion per year against $1 trillion per year in deficits.  That's 6% of the deficit.  That's like leaving a $1.20 tip on a $20 meal.  What's more ridiculous than that?  The Obama and Democrats response to it.  The $60 billion is against $3.7 trillion in yearly spending.  That's 1.6%. That's leaving a $0.32 tip on a $20 meal.  It's $0.016 on the dollar.  And Obama and Democrats are going on about they're "gutting" this or that and the elderly dying and eating dog food.  The media goes right along with it (the Democrats and media do a great job of forming an echo chamber of BS).

The Republicans aren't out of the woods here though.  They have the same reaction anytime cuts are proposed regarding defense spending.  The so-called fiscal cliff is going to "gut" $500 billion from defense spending!!!  Oh wait, it's over ten years, so it's actually $50 billion.  Out of $700 billion per year.  Or 7%, still not an acceptable tip.

But what about Barack Obama?  What's he proposing?  Obama has some very definite ideas.  Obama wants to get those pesky "millionaires and billionaires" and make them pay their fair share!  Yeah, Warren Buffet even came out and said that Obama needs to raise those tax rates.  And it's going to raise $800 billion!!!  Oops.  Again, that's over ten years.  $80 billion per year, on a $1 trillion deficit.  But wait!  There's more!  That's going to give Obama wiggle room for Obama to "invest" (can't say stimulus) another $200 billion in spending.  Or as we've established here $20 billion per year, right?  Wrong.

That's right, Obama wants to "fix the deficit" by raising $80 billion per year in taxes (read not even a dent) then spend another $200 billion per year!  Let that sink in.  Got it?  Good.

From this we establish a couple of rules whenever politicians and their lap dogs in the media talk numbers.

Rule 1#: Spending figures are quoted per year.

Rule 2#: Spending/budget cuts, revenue and tax increases (and tax cuts for that matter) are always quoted over ten years.

Keep this in mind when listening to these jokers.

The Liberal War on the Middle Class.

As the fiscal cliff looms, both parties are arguing about how to go about raising revenue and addressing taxes.  Republicans are echoing the Romney plan of keeping rates the same while cutting out loopholes.  President Barack Obama is deadset on seeing rates go up on the "millionaires and billionaires" that don't "need" tax breaks.  No doubt such a tax increase will be met with only the most superficial in spending cuts.

Saul Alinsky, whom Obama has studied and followed, taught that the best way to bring about communism is to destroy the middle class.  That's exactly what is at stake.  Following Alinsky's "freeze it, personalize it, polarize it" method, Obama has picked the "1%" as the target.  We are meant to view this group as the really, really wealthy.  Currently the number is $250,000 per year in income and up.  These are the people to be subjected to the top marginal rate that is going up.  The sole purpose of this is to crush small businesses and hard working people who have made good, NOT to address the uber rich.

The entire thing is a shell game.  Obama consistently uses himself and Warren Buffet as examples and justification for raising the top marginal rate.  The rub is, neither are subject to the top marginal income tax rate.  That rate is for "earned" income.  Income generated through your toil, or business, etc.  Not investment income.  Investment income is taxed at the capital gains rate.  Warren Buffet, George Soros, Bill Gates, et al. may see rates go from 15% to 20%.

Further, think about the idea that a lawyer pulling in $250,000 from his practice is the same as Bill Gates.  Let that sink in.  The increased top marginal rate will not have an effect on the likes of Bill Gates, but that guy with the small business?  He's getting hosed.

But hey, we're getting all of this benefit out of the extra income, right?  Actually no.  The middle and upper middle class get no "assistance" from the government.  What about education?  Or infrastructure?  Look at the stimulus package for our infrastructure.  The extra money was spent on signs advertising the Obama stimulus.  What about education?  Ever notice how we continually spend more and more on education with fewer and fewer results?  But we're getting rid of the deficit, right?  The deficit is currently $1 Trillion.  The Obama tax raises project revenue of $1 Trillion... over ten years.  One tenth of the deficit.

So what is the net effect of this?

-The wealthy will stay wealthy.
-The small business owner and working professional will take the hit.
-Any chance of wealth accumulation for the middle class will be removed.
-The middle class will be knocked down a peg.
-The poor will become more dependent.

You were warned...

Thoughts on the 2012 Defeat

I had a plan on Tuesday.  Get home from work, set up shop in my bedroom (laptop, iPad, TV) and watch the election unfold.  We've been living under the rule of Barack Obama for four years and it's been a disaster.  From a terrible economy, to international disasters like Benghazi, Barack Obama has been a failure.  For me Mitt Romney was the best guy we had in 2012 AND in 2008.  Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, and the Left could not find a single bit of dirt on him.  A year ago I thought that Obama would be a one term President.  Over the summer I had my doubts that we were going to beat him, followed by hope after the debates and better poll numbers.  By eight o'clock on Tuesday, I knew we'd lost.

So just what the hell happened?  Honestly, I don't know.  I've heard from all over the web, radio and TV from all manner of different commentators.  Mitt was too far to the Right, Mitt wasn't far enough to the Right.  The Republican Party needs to be "more inclusive" or it needs to double down on deportation.

Looking at the election results I noticed that TEA Party favorites, Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin, Allen West and Mia Love were all defeated.  Granted West's race is likely going to get recounted, but it doesn't look good.

With that in mind, my first thought was this: "The Conservative Revolution is over."  How is that possible as Mitt Romney wasn't the most conservative candidate?  It's true he was the establishment candidate.  But, despite Romney not being the first choice of the TEA Party, he was successfully portrayed to BE the TEA Party by the Left and media.  Add in the defeats of real TEA Party candidates.  Regardless of what policies were going to be the choices were successfully portrayed as such: option 1) smaller, less intrusive government, lower taxes, less spending, more use of natural resources, but you are going to have to work; or option 2) larger, more intrusive government, higher taxes, more spending, and you may or may not work, but you're going to get yours, because Obama's going to give it to you, don't worry about where it comes from.

America took the blue pill.  That's what's saddened me the most.  The idea that America rejected its own founding and its own dream for Obama Phones and EBT cards and the thanks of cool celebrities.

Republican turnout this time around was less than 2008.  I didn't see that coming.  There are a lot of people on the Right who refused to vote for Romney for various reasons (Mormon, not Right enough, Ron Paul supporters, etc.) who lodged protest votes by voting for others or just staying home.  Congratulations!  You got Obama re-elected, how's that going to work for you.

Here are what I consider to be some lessons learned on how we lost and what to do, if anything.

Character Assassination.  Obama ran his entire 2008 campaign off of blaming Bush.  He ran his first term off of blaming Bush.  He ran his entire 2012 campaign off of blaming Bush and characterizing Mitt Romney as Bush incarnate.  It has long been held by Republicans that it is best not to get dragged into the mud over these attacks.  Bush has allowed his name and presidency to be slandered for 12 years, without a response.  Mitt Romney allowed himself to be slandered for four years.  The lesson learned, the mud sticks.  What can we do?  Respond, don't let it become the story.  There is a fine line between responding to libel and slander and letting it become the story.  It's too late now, but Bush should have defended himself and we should have defended him.  Bush presided over 6 years of growth, 5% unemployment and increased government revenue.  But no one knows it.

The Record.  All of these guys have records.  It amazes me how many people give Obama a pass on the 2008 recession.  He was a Senator, he helped block the audits of Fannie and Freddie that Bush wanted and could have prevented a lot of this damage.  Obama ran this time on how he couldn't get anything done because of obstructionist Republicans.  Never mind that for two years Obama got everything he wanted because he had a House majority and filibuster proof Senate.  He got everything he wanted to two years, and things got worse.

The Ground Game.  The Democrat Party are the masters of the ground game.  There are a couple of things about this.  Democrats are the owners of the dependency class, think Obama phone lady.  They are getting their needs met by Democrats, getting paid and they don't have a job to go to.  On top of that, Democrats pay protesters, organizers and other "volunteers."  Republicans on the other hand don't get that free volunteer force.  We don't have union thugs paid, indirectly by the government, to campaign for us either.  We need to get the vote out.  The Republican Party needs to start paying people on the ground and you need to volunteer.

The Cheating.  I have no doubt there was plenty of cheating going on.  Between thousands of voter registrations being shredded, and GOP election judges being assaulted and thrown out, intimidation, wonky machines switching votes, and precinct workers allowing unregistered people in to vote there is no doubt some votes were stolen.  My advice to everyone, and get this out to your friends.  Don't register to vote via voter registration drives.  Period.  Be proactive, make sure you are registered.  If you are not, register.  You can do most of this online.  Work in a precinct and be watchful.  Call it in if you see something.

The Digital Game.  We are losing the war on Facebook and Twitter.  We need to be more aggressive and get more content out there.  It's an uphill battle simply because mindless celebrities get more attention online and they all fall Democrat.  They're so cool.

The Pandering.  Conservatives don't pander.  Conservatism knows no race.  But that's not what people want to hear.  While there is no homogenous "white" identity, there is one for blacks, latinos, etc.  We need to start pandering and letting them know, for example, how Democrat policies hurt blacks, exclusively and how Republican policies will help blacks, exclusively, and so on.  This does not mean the big lobby groups.  Republicans will not get traction there.  They need to go into the communities.

Unite.  Democrats unite behind their candidate no matter what.  The Republican Party has been splintered for some time now, even dating back to Reagan.  This is because Republicans value their principles more than winning.  The hard question is do you want to compromise on some of your principles or all of them.  That's the choice.

The Media.  This is the gorilla in the room and the biggest threat.  If there was any doubt before, there should not be any now.  The news organizations have been covering for Barack Obama since 2004.  He is a media darling and he will not be the last.  From the economy to Benghazi, the media has been propping Obama up.  Not only will they not report on Democrats, they will amplify the most bogus things against Republicans.  Periodically, the media will take on a pet Republican, for the purposes of dutifully being the "voice of reason" only to crush them when they get too ambitious.  I call this the "McCain Rule."  We are in an uphill battle here.  Yeah, Fox News is a Republican cheerleader channel, but it gets a fraction of the viewers as the alphabet networks.

In closing I thought that there was no way America would re-elect this President.  I thought that we were fooled the first time and that we would wake up.  But alas we did not.  We have the President we deserve.  I have friends and family who voted for Obama, they will not get my pity when their lives get worse.

The Ethical Problem of Public Sector Unions in Politics...

Or how the Democrat Party funds its campaigns on the taxpayer dime.

Some might think that I am simply picking on unions this week.  I was thinking about this premise while reading about how the SEIU astroturfs protesters to show up at Romney events for eleven bucks an hour.  So while the MSM slanders the TEA Party as "astroturf" and "teabaggers" people are admitting on film that they are paid to protest on behalf of the SEIU and, by extension, Barack Obama.

If you think that's greasy, keep reading.

Public sector unions are nothing more than taxpayer funded, campaign fronts for the Democrat Party.  This isn't something as innocent as a taxpayer/citizen donating to a campaign, or even the practice of a union taking dues from Democrats and Republicans and donating to Democrats.  These are campaign contributions that are being taken from the United States Treasury, and your pocket whether you want it to or not.

I think it goes without saying that labor unions align with Democrats.  Even more so, unions that represent public employees.  In case you haven't noticed the SEIU is fully and violently behind Barack Obama and the Democrat Party 100%.  As a result, all members of the SEIU have their dues go toward these campaigns, whether they are a Democrat or not.  Afterall, its not like government workers have a choice of whether to join the union or not.

This practice is shady enough when it is the poor hospital and hotel workers who are bullied and intimidated into the SEIU and other such unions.  What makes it so much worse in the public sector is that the donations are coming in the form of dues taken from salaries of public sector employees.  These salaries, of course, come the treasury of either the US Government or the state for which the people are employed.

One of four things the Democrat Party excels at is growing government (the others are spending, taxing and appeasing our enemies).  Growth of government means more government employees, etc.

More government employees = more unions members = more dues = campaign money to Democrats.

Ironically, anyone can come to this logical conclusion by following Vladimir Lenin's advice to "follow the money."

Congratulations people, you're donating to Barack Obama whether you want to or not.

Myths of Unionization and Minimum Wage.

As with every election season the air waves and Internet is full talking heads and politicians stumping about how the economy should be run.  To this day I don't why Democrats and Republicans don't get along.  After all, both are for "jobs," "a strong middle class" and "fixing the economy."  Of course while making the case for their version of these things "the other guy" wants to "destroy" jobs, the middle class and the economy.

A couple of polarizing topics that will come up is unions and the minimum wage.  Many people, myself included have gone into the reasons why increases to the minimum wage and unions (especially public sector unions) actually damage the economy.  Simply put, minimum wage increases drive up the cost of goods and services at every level and these increases are passed on to the consumer.  Your dollar means less.  With a legally mandated working conditions, safety guidelines, workday, etc. unions aren't exactly fighting for safer working conditions or keeping the workers from getting screwed.  Today, the only thing on the table for unions is negotiating more pay and benefits for less work.  Less work per worker means more employees. This also translates to more expensive goods and services.

These cases have been made over and over again with no real change in dialog.  As with every election cycle the Left is going to one of their default tactics.  Scaring the crap out of people.

There are two prevalent myths about unions and minimum wage.  Both of which state that without unions and minimum wages the workers will be pushed into poverty while rich fat cats, who no doubt look like the guy from Monopoly will fornicate with super models on top of stacks of cash.

The last couple years right-to-work laws have been coming up in several states.  Right-to-work laws essentially state that a person does not have to pay union dues or participate in unions as a condition of employment.  This has been deemed by the Left as a "war on workers."  The idea is that if unions don't prevail we will be have our wages or salaries cut, we'll lose all of our benefits and be shoved off to the poor house.

I have one question: Are you a member of a union?

If you are an American, there is an 88.2% chance the answer to that question is "no."  Statistically speaking, only 11.8% workers are in a union (6.9% of private sector employees and 40.7% of public sector employees).  Union membership continues to decrease every year.  The fact of the matter is that workers do not want to be in a union.  But to hear the unions, not belonging to a union means you are about to become a serf.  That being said, if you were to look at Toyota and GM what you will find is very telling.  Non-unionized Toyota workers get paid more than unionized GM workers.  While GM has a pension retirement plan, that is the primary source of GM's financial woes.  They are contractually obligated to spend on pensions first, cars second.  This results in poor quality products, which translates in to few cars sold, less revenue and on until they go bankrupt or bailed out.

Similarly, we have the minimum wage.  Without the minimum wage we'd all be paid pennies a day just like in China, or whatever.  We've all heard this boogeyman story.  If we don't raise the minimum wage, why we'll all be in the poor house.  Then corporate big wigs will fornicate with supermodels on stacks of cash while we all starve.  And yes, said corporate big wigs look like the guy from Monopoly.

This is inaccurate.  We are a consumer driven society.  Everyone has stuff they need to buy, stuff they can sell.  But what if you're not a business owner?  Or don't have oil shooting out of the ground in your backyard?  What can you sell?  Yourself.  Your work, actually.  When you go to work at a job, any job, you are selling your labor.  Your job is a contract between you and your employer for you to carry out certain tasks for a specified period of time.  As part of the agreement you are paid as per your contract.

The fact remains that the majority of people earn more than the minimum wage.  The logic that if we don't have a minimum wages means that we will all earn nothing is flawed.  If the minimum wage were the only thing keeping us from earning pennies a day, then it stands to reason that we'd all be earning the minimum wage.  As as stated that is obviously not the case.

Why is this?  The answer is simple.  Free market, supply and demand.  When it comes to the supply of labor, we the people are in control.  We determine what we are willing to do for what price.  The minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour.  Let's take two occupations, grocery bagger and logger.  The grocery bagger makes minimum wage and the logger makes much more.  The question becomes, if they both paid $7.25 per hour, which would you do?

If every job paid the minimum wage no one would dig coal, cut down trees or drive trucks.  But what about cushy white collar jobs?  While not physically demanding, white collar jobs come with a level of stress.  Again, who would go to school for ten years to become a doctor if it only paid minimum wage?

At the end of the day, don't let yourself be cowed by these arguments.