Smartuckus' Guide to the Republican Field

Barack Obama is going to lose in 2012, and not by a small margin. I’m thinking that with sustained unemployment of 9.2% or worse, not only will he lose, but by Reagan-like landslides. The question remains: Who is going to be the victor?

There are eight candidates still in the fight, and one, Sarah Palin, who has yet to make a decision. Those eight include Michelle Bachman, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, John Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.

Of those eight I think that only three have a shot at winning the Republican nomination. Huntsman is not only too liberal, he’s a virtual unknown. Gingrich on the other hand is very well known; you either love him or hate him, but his checkered past will prevent his nomination. Likewise, Ron Paul is considerably well known, and while most of the conservatives agree with his economics, he has unveiled his naïve, if not downright crazy, foreign policy ideas. Rick Santorum and Herman Cain are not quite so well known, and it shows. Of those still in the running, the three that stand out are Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Michelle Bachman.

One thing I can say - and I believe I can speak for every conservative – is that we are tired of having to vote for the lesser of two evils. The Republican Party has not nominated the kind of leader most of us want, and that the country needs, since Ronald Reagan. George H. Bush inherited the nomination simply because he had been Reagan’s Vice President. Other Republican nominees did not have enough appeal to overcome Ross Perot’s third party candidacy, and as a result we got stuck with eight years of Bill Clinton who set the stage for the housing debacle of 2007. Finally, although George W. Bush was not the first choice of conservatives; it was either him or Al Gore, or John Kerry afterwards.

Given that the three most likely candidates to win the Republican nomination are Romney, Perry and Bachman, we need to consider who, if any, are candidates that we can fully support, and who are candidates that would be nothing more than a lesser of two evils.

Romney is the media-crowned favorite. We are told that he “looks presidential.” But what of his substance? To me, Romney is more of a career politician more likely to do what he needs to keep his job rather than to make a stand. He would compromise with liberals, seeking that middle ground that always results in more liberalism and more socialism. Proof of that can be found in his pushing for and signing into law, Massachusetts’ healthcare law which socialized medical care in that state. Since then costs have, predictably, skyrocketed, just as quality of care has been diminished as healthcare workers have either been laid off, or have moved to other states to practice medicine, and entire hospitals have been forced to close. Romney continues to claim that while socialized medicine is not right for the entire country, it was right for Massachusetts. Foolish pride doesn’t sound very presidential to me.

Perry has done a terrific job in Texas by keeping taxes low and not creating or signing endless (not to mention mindless) job-killing government mandates. But part of his apparent success is due to the effect other states’ mandates and tax policies have had on their own businesses. People and businesses have moved to Texas because of fiscally detrimental liberal leadership in other states, and not necessarily because of anything Perry has specifically done. Contrary to Conservative principle, Perry did sign an executive order in February of 2007 mandating that all girls receive a vaccination for HPV, a virus that causes cervical cancer, when they reach the sixth grade. There was an opt-out available for families who filled out a conscientious objector form, but that hardly ameliorated the outraged state legislature, which quickly and emphatically overrode the order. At the time, Perry's former chief of staff Mike Toomey was a lobbyist for Merck, the sole manufacturer of the vaccine. Is this another example of “politics as usual?” Forget for a moment that although the FDA had approved the vaccine, which is manufactured from cell linings from an aborted fetus; it was not thoroughly tested, and has resulted in deaths in the US and around the world. Contrary to the Washington political pundits, I don’t think Perry is going to siphon off support from Bachman. I think Romney supporters will gravitate to Perry, and that may very well be a good thing.

If Sarah Palin doesn’t get into the race, that leaves Michelle Bachman. I am hoping that Palin will simply endorse Bachman, especially since their views are virtually identical. Palin would certainly siphon supporters from Bachman, and given her unfair treatment by the liberal media, I believe Palin would have the most difficult time defeating the incumbent out of all the a-list candidates in the field. But should she surprise the Washington elites and simply throw her support to Bachman, Michelle could easily hang in there. She has shown remarkable ruggedness in staving off the typical sexist, misogynistic and dirty attacks of the Left, and even those from some Republicans. I think that under this scenario, and given enough time, Romney and Perry might wither under the spotlight instead of her. Both have been set up to fail, since both are considered seasoned candidates and “presidential looking.” One gaff and either could become as toxic as Howard Dean in 2004.

Of all those still in this race, Bachman is the most principled; a far cry from the career politicians everyone has grown so weary of. Watching her debate people from Anthony Wiener to Tim Pawlenty over the past 12 months while being unfairly criticized and slandered, yet coming out on top is a testament of her character. Should she win the nomination I think she’ll go on to mop the floor with Obama and replace Reagan as the standard bearer for the Republican Party.

Free Healthcare!

That's what CNN thinks Obamacare should bring us. (Click here for story).

The story's opening sentence set the tone: "Contraceptives, sterilization and reproductive education should be covered by health insurance plans with no cost to patients under the health reform law, a new report recommends."

Funny, I thought these wacky liberals wanted the government out of their bedrooms? I mean, if the government can rob Peter to pay for Paul’s vasectomy or Paula’s IUD, shouldn’t Peter have some say in what Paul and Paula should or shouldn’t be doing? Let me put it another way. My tax dollars go to subsidize school lunch programs. Do I want the schools to make bad nutritional choices or to be so overly-nutrionally-minded that the kids opt out of lunch altogether because lunch tastes terrible? Do I want food that my tax dollars paid for to be thrown away? These little school lunch scenarios aren’t made up; they happen all over the country. In some school districts kids were not allowed to bring their own lunches and snacks from home because the school officials didn’t think that they were good enough for the children. (In reality the school lunch programs were subsidized by the tax payers and the schools made tons of money for their teachers unions... but that's a different story).

Applying the same sort of scenarios to contraception, sterilization and reproductive education I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to ask that if the government is going to provide these services “free” to the consumer, then how long will it be before men and women are forced to use a particular product (as we’ve seen with our new light bulbs), or to be sterilized to save the planet from over-population and global warmin? Given that liberals work according to the process of incrementalization, isn’t this just one more step toward that and tax-payer funded abortions? And how much more will the tax payer have to fork over to cover the costs of these services for illegal aliens, just as they do with school lunch programs? Either most people are mistaken about those wacky liberals, or the “stay out of my bedroom/I have a constitutional right to privacy” mantra isn’t really about privacy and personal choice at all; it’s about people engaging in every vice they choose and keeping the consequences private while getting everyone else to pay for their bad decisions; you know, Socialism.

In a tone that can only be called cheerleading, CNN tells its audience that the Institute of Medicine has made these recommendations to the secretary of Health and Human Services. "Historic" is the way HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius described the report, adding that "we will release the Department's recommendations of what additional preventive services for women should be covered without cost sharing very soon."

Sebelius, not us tax payers, gets to decide what we are going to cover because by passing “Obamacare,” the Democrats have given her that authority. Under Obamacare, health care has been nationalized. Among the roughly 700 references in the law to "the Secretary shall" is one mandating that the secretary shall decide which health care plans are acceptable in America and which are not. If a plan does not comply with HHS mandates, companies and individuals who purchase their products will have to pay a fine. In other words, under Obamacare, the secretary of HHS decides who gets covered for what.

The secretary is now considering whether all health plans in America will have to cover birth control, annual HIV tests, well-woman care visits, annual counseling on sexually transmitted diseases, breastfeeding support and counseling including rental of breast pumps, and screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic abuse. These services should be covered "without any co-pays or deductibles," the report by the Institute of Medicine urges. In other words, these products and services should be "free" for all women, not just for the poor, and without regard to the moral code of the individual tax payer.

I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, and chances are neither did you. Any time the government uses the word “free” you just know it’s going to end up costing many times more than it used to. As the great P.J. O'Rourke put it many years ago, "If you think health care is expensive now, just wait till it's free."

Casey Anthony Found Not Guilty Just In Time for Dexter, Season Six Premiere!

One has to assume at the moment that the Jury found Casey Anthony - the despicable Florida woman who murdered her almost three year old daughter and then implicated her father in trying to cover up the “accidental” death (not to mention sexual molestation) – innocent due to lack of evidence. At the same time most of the country finds the jury guilty due to lack of intelligence. This is not the only case that screams for the creation of professional juries.

Did the jury come from the same pool of village idiots that acquitted O.J. Simpson sixteen years ago? Simpson, formerly number 32, is now known as inmate #1027820 at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada, not for the murders of Nichole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman mind you, but for robbery and other felony charges he committed in 2007. His extended stay there is obviously the result of a better jury; one not easily enchanted by common defense attorney charades.

Unfortunately, Simpson is in Nevada and behind bars. Fans of Showtime’s Dexter know that it would be a little too difficult for Dexter Morgan to pull that one off. But Casey Anthony lives in Florida, Dexter Morgan’s own playground, and will soon be out of jail and protective custody.

A lot has changed in this country from the days where people would say, “This looks like a job for Superman!” Today’s verdict has a lot of people saying, “This looks like a job for Dexter Morgan!”

When Up Is Down And Down Is Up

The world is a very different place from what it was when I was a kid. Back then “up” was up and “down” was down. My parents helped make sure that I knew right from wrong, and even though I didn’t always practice what they preached, I always knew when I was doing something wrong and felt worse for doing so. Guilt was a powerful consequence. Not so today. The liberal mindset is turning everything upside down. It seems liberals no longer even understand the concept of morality. For them what is moral is simply what is legal, and vice versa. That is why liberals put such emphasis on things like gay marriage being made legal: if something that has traditionally been considered immoral is made legal, guilt stops being a consequence.

For conservatives there is a clear difference between the law and morality, and it is understood that morality will almost always be the higher standard for which we are required to strive. However, our laws are generally a reflection of our moral values. Historically speaking, when a society adopts laws in opposition to moral values it is a society on the brink of extinction. We are told by our liberal friends that we can’t legislate morality, yet they are always working hard to legislate immorality.

How much longer do we have now that our government openly admits that it believes that it is wrong not to plunder from the earner in order to redistribute his money to the ever-growing dependent unwashed masses? (Click here for story)

Or to focus government time and money on turning the moral order upside down? (click for story)

Recently there have been all kinds of news stories written regarding the estimated 163 million abortions performed in China and India since 1970 for the purpose of gender selection. In this story (click here) the idiocy of liberalism is fully exposed and yet most readers won’t see it. Liberal dumb-dumb Eleanor Clift champions the so-called “right” to choose… to murder the unborn, but sees the resulting choice of gender selection as the real evil because girls and women aren’t empowered by it or something. What kind of tortured logic is that? The same kind that would tell us we are immoral for not allowing the government to steal from us: Up is down; down is up!

The Helen Kellerization of the History of the Catholic Church.

Almost every student in the last 60 or more years has read about Helen Keller via some history textbook vignette that tells us about how Helen Keller overcame total deafness and blindness to become a fully functional citizen. She learned, with the help of Anne Sullivan, to read raised letters and even to speak. American education regarding Keller has been aided by several different Hollywood productions all named The Miracle Worker. But that’s about the extent of it. Most do not know that Keller went on to graduate from Radcliff College near Cambridge, Massachusetts. What almost no one is ever taught is that Keller was a radical socialist. She joined the socialist party in 1909 and was involved in almost every radically leftist cause of her time. She was even a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which, unlike its name suggests, is still constantly aiding socialists and their causes today.

Most people in the United States understand that socialism deprives men and women of their God-given freedoms and their justly-earned compensations – profit and property – which is exactly why Helen Keller’s radical socialism is not included in those textbook vignettes and Hollywood movies based on her life. Historical revisionism has made Keller a hero far beyond her due, but if the truth of her adult life and her villainous associations became common knowledge, it would skewer her reputation in the realm of public opinion.

This “Kellerization” is rampant today in all forms of history, especially political and religious. The Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965) liberalized the Catholic Church to such a degree that it no longer resembles the ancient religion from which it sprang. Today it has more in common, in many ways at least, with charismatic Protestant denominations than it does with its Apostolic origins. The liturgical abuses of the Novus Ordo Missae that have been carried out by the consiliar church’s “presbyters” over the course of the last 50 years are so common and so extreme that one can only come to the conclusion that the Novus Ordo Missae is itself a liturgical abuse.

It isn’t just the Mass that was replaced either. Add to that the “evolution” of Catholic teaching, whether that be dogma or doctrine based upon dogma, and discipline – and please note that this so-called “evolution” is nothing more than a "complete rejection." There is an old saying, summarized in Latin, “Lex Credendi, Lex Orandi,” or, “we believe as we pray.” Catholics don’t pray like they used to, and they certainly don’t believe what they used to either. Many "catholics," like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and most of the clergy are nothing but dyed-in-the-wool socialists. Catholic Social Justice is nothing more than code for Marxism. The United States Bishops (sic) have turned the word "charity" upside down, whereby they tell us it is our duty to allow the government to legally plunder our earnings so that they might be spent to feed and clothe the needy. They can't possibly be ignorant enough to think that this is what happens! These dollars aren't spent on the needy, unless by "needy" they mean "unions and Democrat Party campaign contributions."

The changes of Vatican II, from replacing the Mass to rejecting nearly 2000 years of dogma and discipline, are the main reasons that the number of Catholics has diminished substantially. Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus has become "any religion is as good as another while on our way to Communism." Not only is Catholic membership way down, there are far fewer priests (or presbyters as some would call them), and the numbers of religious (nuns and monks) has dwindled almost to zero. Of those who still claim to be Catholic, only 22% say they attend Mass – or rather, its replacement - regularly. The changes are also the reason that the Church is infected with sexual deviants and perverts of the worst kind. That’s not to suggest that sexual deviancy and criminal behavior never occurred before Vatican II, but it was in fact extremely rare by comparison until the 1960’s, and when such abuses did take place, the Catholic hierarchy were quick to punish the offender and remove him from ministry. During the middle Ages for example, this sort of behavior by priests was considered so egregious that the offending priest was ceremoniously defrocked as each of those participating would remove a single priestly vestment and slap one side of the offender’s face. The priest then had the tendons in his hands sliced clean through to prevent the thumb and fore finger from ever closing, thereby depriving him of his ability to hold the sacred species (only the thumb and fore finger were consecrated to touch the host). Once the ceremony was complete, the offender was turned over to the state for punishment; usually execution, or in some cases, life imprisonment. Too bad we don’t handle these perverts in the same manner today.

Homosexuals, who according to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Study make up the vast majority of criminal deviants in the modern priesthood, were forbidden to become priests prior to the Council. And even though the ban against homosexuals in the priesthood was reiterated by Pope John XXIII in 1961, very few bishops enforced it once that council had liberalized the Church. In 2000, the liberals went bonkers when some started speculating that the ban was going to be re-introduced.

And yet, with overwhelming evidence that clearly illustrates the root problem – Vatican II and its modernist, even socialist theology, the Kellerization of the facts continues. So bad is people’s understanding of that reprobate council and its effects that many think of Vatican II and the post-consiliar popes as conservative! Karol Wojtyla, former Soviet mole and Bishop of Krakow was elected pope (John Paul II), reigned over the church longer than any previous pope, and did absolutely nothing to protect child victims of his criminal subordinates. He spent most of his time apologizing for the Church’s heroic deeds, such as the Crusades, all so as not to offend Muslims and others who have different religious beliefs, and involving himself in syncretic (not to mention condemned) prayer gatherings. And yet he has been placed on the “fast track” for canonization, in violation of the church’s prudential rules governing canonizations. Indeed, the mob is clamoring for even more liberalization! (Click here)

Helen Keller overcame one form of blindness and deafness, but remained blind, deaf, and dumb, in a manner of speaking, for the rest of her life. Those who champion the liberalization of the church, despite the facts, are just as stupid.

Semper FABULOUS!

This last June 5th, 2011 story by David Alexander should be a wakeup call to the nation. I don’t have the Marine sergeant’s name, but the question he asked is pure dynamite:

"Sir, we joined the Marine Corps because the Marine Corps has a set of standards and values that is better than that of the civilian sector. And we have gone and changed those values and repealed the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy," the sergeant told Gates during the question and answer session.

"We have not given the Marines a chance to decide whether they wish to continue serving under that. Is there going to be an option for those Marines that no longer wish to serve due to the fact their moral values have not changed?" he asked.

"No," Gates responded. "You'll have to complete your ... enlistment just like everybody else."

I know that Gates was shaking in his boots, and probably still is. This is exactly what he fears will happen. He knows it’s going to happen. In fact, the proof that he knows it’s just a matter of time is the rest of his canned response. Given that Gates was prepared to answer the question the way he did tells me that those at the top are indeed worried about a possible mass exodus of the many opposed to the Obama Administration’s social engineering in the military. And I am disgusted that someone like him would stoop to falsely equating beliefs and opinions to immoral behavior. This is just as disingenuous as equating “gay rights” with civil rights for blacks:

"The reality is that you don't all agree with each other on your politics, you don't agree with each other on your religion, you don't agree with each other on a lot of things," he added. "But you still serve together. And you work together. And you look out for each other. And that's all that matters."

Well, maybe that is all that matters to the brass and to the current administration, but it is not what matters to those serving and those who might otherwise have chosen to serve in the years to come. Politics and religion are matters of belief and opinion. The homosexual lifestyle is a behavior or set of behaviors, which most of those serving in the military find reprehensible, immoral and incompatible with the moral code of conduct they strive to put into practice, and which is spelled out in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, not to mention the honor codes of all of our military service academies. “I will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do.” The homosexual lifestyle is a lie because it cannot live up to the truth of the biological (and primary) purpose of the sex act; procreation. To expect military personnel (who are not mentally disordered) to tolerate this unnatural behavior is to ask them to lie and lower their own standards, not to mention those of the military.

Gates said training was underway to prepare the services for the new policy.
"If we do this right, nothing will change," he said. "You will still have to abide by the same rules of behavior, the same discipline, the same respect for each other that has been the case through all the history of the Marine Corps."

Bull shit! Everything will change! The same rules of behavior will not exist, they will simply be “revised” out of the UCMJ! The affect of this nonsense will be shattered troop morale and discipline. Gates knows it; they all do. They just don’t want to admit it publicly. The next question is: when are we going to have to start drafting our military?

Never Trust A Fart

It was recently suggested to me that my criticisms of Obama and his administration are unfair; the result of narrow minded and skewed conservative propaganda, namely Fox News and Rush Limbaugh – you know, the typical baseless liberal drivel.
I try to deal in the facts, no matter the source. My friends might be surprised to learn that I do get information from several liberal sources, specifically the Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, several Democrat Party web sites, Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, Laurence O’Donnell, Ed Shultz and a number of other ones. That I disagree with nearly all of them does not mean I do not read what they have to say, and, in a few instances, actually agree with them. For example, Bill Maher, perhaps the most despicable of them all, expects the Catholic Church to hold predator priests accountable for their crimes. I know that he is a rabid anti-religionist, but I have to agree with him on this, because justice is a necessary, meaningful objective no matter what you believe.

A liberal friend of mine made mention of a list of Obama’s accomplishments on the Internet – as if such a list would exonerate him from the state of our union today. I suppose the existence of the list is well known to liberals, but it is obvious that the contents of the list are not, or else my liberal friend would not be so quick to point it out to me. The list, which I link to below, perfectly illustrates the fallacy of liberalism whereby their standards are purely symbolic and completely free of substance. To many liberals, it isn’t necessarily what someone thinks that matters, but only that he or she is thinking, unless of course it’s a conservative doing the thinking. Notice that the author of this list, Professor(!?) Robert P. Watson has a Ph.D. and is the Coordinator of American Studies at Lynn University in Boca Raton Florida. (Mental note to self; don't send your kids there). I looked for other lists that people might have created, but the Watson list is by far the most popular, having been published on numerous websites. I found the first copy posted on The Daily Kos – if you click the link you can see for yourself.

Bear in mind, as you read each item, that Watson describes his list as “impressive.” Asks yourself these questions:

1.) “Is this a substantive, measurable accomplishment?”
2.) “Is it actually true?”
3.) “Is this ‘accomplishment’ good for the country? Is it sound domestic or foreign policy?”

I found, to the point of laughing out loud, that the majority of the list did not include actual accomplishments. If I “announced plans” to clean the kitchen but didn’t really clean it, would my wife accept my announcement as an accomplishment? How long could I keep my job if I “intended” to make it to work, but didn’t? Is “hiring the first Latina in my department” something I can add to my résumé?

Other items on the list may be measureable, but either a specific item was accomplished by others, or the accomplishment was bad for the country, as in the case of the stimulus bill and “Obamacare.” In fact, I can’t think of a single item on the list that I would call a bona fide accomplishment. It’s true that the list is old, but I have to ask, “Has Obama done anything good for the country since he took office?” The cost of living is up, and is going to go way higher as higher fuel prices and out of control inflation – due entirely to his detrimental energy and economic policies – kick in. The true measure of his “accomplishments” is just now being realized at home and abroad. Unemployment is higher than when he took over, despite what he promised when ramming his stimulus down our throats. The deficit is ridiculously higher because of his administration and the Democrats in Congress. The amount he will add to the national debt by the end of his first (and hopefully, only) term will be more than all other presidents combined! He aligns himself on the wrong side every time, from the "Beer Summit" to the ransoming of children's education in the latest union bruhaha. Smear tactics by those merchants of hate in the liberal press go unchallenged while conservative rhetoric is sacrificed on his altar of free liberal speech.

Respect for this country abroad is in the toilet because of him. Great Britain, Israel, and to some extent, Pakistan, once our staunchest allies, now keep us at arm’s length at best, and openly criticize us at worst, and our traditional enemies are still our enemies, only now they are growing stronger while we are growing weaker both economically and militarily. China, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran are emboldened by his weak leadership. Support for and control by the Muslim Brotherhood is expanding in Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and virtually throughout the entire Islamic world.

Where is that once vaunted “Hope and Change?”

Obviously the liberals will continue to blame George Bush, but doing so is dishonest, proven by four years of Democrat congressional control and super majorities in both houses of Congress and Obama’s own reign of over 2 years. Besides, shouldn’t Obama have the decency to accept responsibility given that, on June 3rd, 2008, accepting the nomination of his party, Obama’s infinite hubris led him to say:

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.”

Lofty promises; none of which have been obtained. Rather than slowing the rise of the oceans, Obama has us sinking to the bottom under the cinder-block-weight of our massive debt. Who will they blame in another two years? And if, God willing, Obama is defeated in 2012, will his Republican successor get the same mileage out of blaming Obama? Doubtful, given the intellectual dishonesty of people in the media and academia like “Professor” Robert Watson, and the mindless liberal masses – devoid of critical thinking skills – who accept the notion that Obama can add a bullet point to his list of accomplishments every time he farts – or intends to.

American ills not caused by unions

I haven’t written in a while because so much has been going on in my own life and especially, in the world, I just couldn’t figure out what would make more sense to write about. I sat down several times to write about the Tucson AZ shootings and the outrageous accusations made by liberals, especially in the press, attempting to link the murderous actions of that lunatic Loughner to conservative political speech, all while excusing by way of omission the hate speech and lies offered up minute-by-minute by rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth liberals. But I didn’t need to – conservatives have done a spectacular job of derailing this worse than usual liberal smear job, especially Michelle Malkin. I recommend that everyone visit her website, http://www.blogger.com/www.michellemalkin.com.

A couple of days ago something caught my eye which hasn’t received a lot of media attention so I thought I’d throw in my two cents worth on this one. It’s an article written for the Detroit News by James P. Hoffa, son of Teamsters Union heavy man Jimmy Hoffa, titled “American Ills Not Caused by Unions.”

I take exception immediately to just the title. I often find myself wondering about liberals/socialists/modernists: “Is this one of the stupid or gullible ones, or is this one of the clever mendacious types?” There are no in betweens; liberals are either ignorant or they are liars, or both.
His title is a ploy, a sophism, typically employed by liberals, whereby a statement is made to defend a non-existent accusation, thereby making it seem as though his adversaries are treating him or his cause unfairly. This is precisely why the stupid liberal thinks that good conservatives are a fringe group of extremists. Has anyone ever said that unions are responsible for America’s ills? Not to my knowledge. I would posit that the modern day union is partly responsible for some of America’s ills, but that for the most part unions are a symptom of a far greater ill. And I think Hoffa knows this; he knows that that is the real criticism. His article begins:

“The 19th-century robber baron Jay Gould once said, ‘I can hire half the working class to shoot the other half.’ Gould's vision of class warfare is being played out today in the shameful attacks on public employees.”

“What shameful attacks?” you might ask. I was just as curious, so I kept reading:

“These attacks are secretly financed and planned by modern-day Jay Goulds who aim to keep their own taxes low.”

So, people who want to be able to keep what they earn are “attacking” the poor unions by demanding they be allowed to keep their own money? That’s like saying that the evil homeowner viciously attacked the poor homeless thief who broke in to eat and help himself to the contents of the homeowner’s safe. Don’t believe me?

“Some vastly powerful corporations and billionaires want to cripple all unions and turn America into a low-wage banana republic.”

Hoffa, true to his name, paints the modern day union as the saving grace of the downtrodden worker, and anyone or any entity that disagrees is “powerful” and “eeeevillll!” Anyone who knows anything about unions these days can tell you that the public unions deprive taxpayers and under-perform. How many hundreds of billions of dollars of state deficits are out there purely because of the ridiculous sweetheart deals made between liberal Democrat state legislators and governors (like Jerry Brown of California) and public unions? Talk about Robber Barons! How about those (unfunded) pension plans offered to automotive workers, teachers, miners, etc., etc. There is no money to pay for them! So now it falls to the taxpayers, some of whom hadn’t been born when these slimy backroom deals were made? Say again? That’s fair? Hoffa goes on:

“They're succeeding. Across the country, new governors and new legislatures are demanding cuts to jobs, pensions and concessions from public employee unions. Their demands are nothing more than payback for the billions of dollars that the ultra-rich have poured into political campaigns.”

You mean ultra-rich like George Soros, David Gelbaum, Herbert and Marion Sandler, Ted Turner, and Tim Gill, who heap millions upon millions onto the Democrat machine that built up these unions in the first place? Here is another liberal canard – 'the rich only contribute to conservatives.' Funny how the aforementioned multi-millionaires and billionaires never appear on the members lists of the country club of evil rich folk.

“Scapegoating public employees has almost become a sport. In New York City, a city councilman accused sanitation workers of a deliberate slowdown in removing snow during the Christmas blizzard. It turned out that slow snow removal was actually caused by the layoffs of 400 workers and the failure to call a snow emergency quickly enough.”

Gee whiz! What caused the layoffs of 400 workers? It wouldn’t have anything to do with New York City’s debt crisis, would it? It wouldn’t have anything to do with the union’s failure to accept renegotiated contracts to help save those 400 jobs….would it? And by the way, in that now famous video of the union employee who carelessly tried to free a snow plow despite repeatedly smashing into an SUV… did he do that because 400 workers got laid off too? How come 400 employees were laid off, but he didn’t get fired for that? Oh yeah – he’s in a union that protects bad employees.

“In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich wants to ban collective bargaining for public employee unions and get rid of the prevailing wage.”

As well he should! These people are paid by the taxpayers who do not get to directly supervise them. That’s why the quality of work by unions usually sucks!

“In Wisconsin, Scott Walker suggests banishing unions for government workers. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he won cooperation from unions because he threatened "to take a bat out and hit you."

What’s wrong with either of these!!!???

“Christie's threat isn't funny to anyone who remembers the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968. All the workers wanted was to earn above-starvation wages and to be respected as human beings. Peaceful workers were gassed, dragged, arrested and threatened by armed National Guardsmen in tanks.”

Another sophism - that people didn’t respect the sanitation workers as human beings. These peaceful workers shut down sanitation work which affected the entire city – poor included. The bottom line, as with any employee anywhere, is that they don’t need the power of collective bargaining since they already possess the power of individual bargaining; if you don’t like your job or your pay you are free to seek employment elsewhere.

“Only after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed while in Memphis supporting the struggle did city officials come to their senses and recognize Local 1733 of AFSCME as the bargaining representative for the sanitation workers. Just think where those workers would be today without a union.”

Hoffa is just full of sophisms! He makes it sound as if King Jr. was assassinated because he supported the strikers! Nowhere has it ever been suggested that this was the case. By trying to connect the two, Hoffa is engaging in the worst sort of opportunism. Rather than being the savior of poor workers, unions stifle and constrain the natural human ambitions and individualism that allow us to rise above the economic and cultural status in which we are born. I can imagine where those sanitation workers might be today – they might have decided to work elsewhere for better pay; they might have pursued better educations and earned degrees with substantial bargaining power.

“It's time for a reality check. Government employees did not blow a hole in any state budget, including Michigan. Economist Dean Baker points out that shortfalls were almost entirely caused by the recession. ‘If revenue had increased in step with normal growth (2.4 percent real growth, plus inflation), state and local governments would have had an additional $290 billion since the start of the downturn,’ Baker notes.”

Another fallacious argument. Notice how Hoffa shifts focus from all unions to simple government employees. No one denies the recession deeply affected state budgets. The real problem is why the recession affected state budgets so deeply. Furthermore the rise in the numbers of government employees increased dramatically since the recession. Since Barack Obama took office there has been an increase of over 200, 000 government employees and that number is bound to go up to facilitate new legislation such as “Obamacare.” The real issue here is that our government, at the federal, state and municipal levels is spending too much money on entitlement programs. Social Security, Medicare and other welfare programs account for over half of the yearly federal budget. Medicaid is crippling the states. Now throw in lifelong pension plans for union employees and not only are states out of money, they are in a major debt crisis. State budgets need to be recession-proofed, and one way to do this is to cancel all the sweetheart deals created between unions and their corrupt and complicit partners within the Democrat political machine. One last bit of B.S.:

“It's also important to remember, as economist Robert Reich points out, that the typical public employee's pension is only $19,000 a year.”

Robert Reich is one of those “economists” who provides anecdotal evidence to people like Hoffa so that these sophisms can be created in the first place. Notice that lifelong healthcare, at taxpayer expense, for these employees is purposefully not mentioned. The “typical” public employee pension is an average of all the pensions. So those who retired 30 years ago or longer when a pension of $17,000.00 a year with lifelong healthcare was considered decent are included. Hoffa fails to mention what the average will be in say, oh, 10 years.

It isn’t just that unions are bad by the way. It’s the tactics they use. Just today it has been reported that a teacher’s union in Wisconsin has resorted to some outrageous methods in a collective bargaining disagreement there. Click the link to watch some video – but the fact is some teachers are pulling students out of class to have them join a protest against the governor. This is being done without the consent or knowledge of the kids’ parents, and as the video shows, the kids don’t even know for what they are protesting! Looks a lot like the majority of Obama 2008 supporters to me. No, America's ills may not be caused by unions; they are caused by socialists like Hoffa who turn the natural social order upside down in order to acquire peer recognition, wealth and power.

The Dangers of Our Growing National Debt.

If someone had said, two years ago, that there would be riots in the streets of London and Athens as a result of their respective Euro-Socialist governments, he would have been labeled as an extremist, a kook, a crank and/or a fear-mongerer by those on the left. And how about now?
The national debt of the United States has now surpassed 14 trillion dollars, and the fiscal debate is about to get very ugly. Liberals want to raise the debt ceiling in order to continue their out of control spending, and conservatives want to cut spending programs to reign in and pay down the debt.
Funny; that liberals assume they are more educated than their conservative counterparts, yet they just aren’t smart enough to see the impending disaster looming just over the horizon. We’ve seen this pattern before: how many times were the liberals warned that the housing market bubble, inflated by bad loans and interest rate gimmicks, was going to burst in a manner reminiscent of the Hindenburg, resulting in a similar catastrophe on our economy?
Get ready for the Hindenburg Part Two! Our growing, massive debt is already problematic, but the consequences of letting it grow larger will be cataclysmic. Just look at all the European Socialist countries whose government run programs have had very dire circumstances: Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Great Britain. These countries are implementing “austerity” programs to contend with their economic woes, and who is suffering the consequences? The people, of course: the very people who were supposed to be the beneficiaries of their governments’ largess. In several cases these nations have paid off their huge debts by borrowing money from other countries, going deeper into debt. Thus their financial problems have only been placed on hold. Sooner or later, someone’s going to have to pay the piper!
These nations are puny compared to the United States, and don’t generate nearly the GDP we do. But knowing that, should we feel secure? You know the old adage: The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Consider the fact that our national debt dwarfs all others. Consider too that our states and municipalities are carrying their own massive debts and will be forced to look to the federal government, a government with no money, for bailouts. The only solution will be for the feds to print more money, causing massive inflation. The value of the dollar will shrink. And this is why our economy is so precariously moored.
China, our main creditor, not to mention our primary adversary, is already pushing the international community to drop the dollar as the monetary unit of international currency. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/world/asia/24china.html This is the lightning strike that will bring our economic Hindenburg crashing down in flames. Indeed, measures are already underway to accomplish this very thing! http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2011-01/05/c_13677915.htm
In the U.S., we pay far less for gasoline than other nations because we don’t have to pay international exchange rates to purchase oil. Ever wonder why gas prices are double in Great Britain than they are here, or why gas is nearly $10.00 per gallon in other countries? In part the answer is exchange rates. If, as China hopes, the dollar will be replaced by the yuan, our per gallon price for gasoline will increase drastically – perhaps even double! This in turn will ripple throughout our entire economy. Everything will cost much more: bread, eggs, grains, meat – everything that is transported by petroleum-powered vehicles! Energy prices will also skyrocket as a result. Airline tickets?: How about double what we pay today?
In the end, our socialist-like programs, the ones our governments have foisted upon the back of the tax payer, are going to ruin, not just the poor for whom they were ostensibly implemented, but everyone.