Archive for the ‘Social Issues’ Category
February 1, 2012
Now that Romney has won Florida, it appears to be what some French would call a fait accompli. A win is a win, as they say, but with the figures we now have rolling in, we may not want to don the FA cap on Romney just yet. I’m not saying that Gingrich or Santorum have a shot at this point, but I’m talking about the celebration that would surely ensue if any other such victory by any other candidate. There is still plenty to fear with Romney.
It took Romney a ton of money to put what many consider a group of lackluster candidates away in Florida. Estimates have that figure to be roughly sixty-five to one in favor of the former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney. A win is a win, and Romney did whatever it took in this case to win, but every time the Yankees have won the World Series in the past decade, the sub story has always involved how much money they spent versus their opponent and the rest of the league. The underlying story was, what happens when the Yankees run across a team that is able to spend as much as they are? When the Red Sox reached that point, they beat the Yankees as often as they lost to them. The Yankees lost their mystique. When the Yankees won the Series, however, there was never a next day, a next opponent. If Romney is the Yankees in this scenario, he just won two games, on the road, against the Royals in the Championship Series. (No offense intended to the Gingrich, Santorum and Royals fans, I’m talking money here not quality.) In this money scenario, there are no comparative Red Sox analogies, and there really are no NL analogies, for no team has spent as much as the Yankees or The Sox in the past couple decades, but let’s just say for the purpose of this scenario that the Dodgers were on a scale comparable with the Yankees economically. Let’s just say that Obama is the Dodgers. Romney has just beat the Royals twice on the road. The sub story is Romney has done nothing to connect with voters more than Gingrich or Santorum, and he has done little to nothing to combat his opponents if they were on equal footing.
Posted in politics, Simple Truths, Social Issues, The Thoughts of Neighbors |
Tags: barack obama, Elections 2012, Florida, Mitt Romney, money, negative ads, negative campaigns, policits, primaries
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January 27, 2012
Warren Buffet, the oracle of Omaha, and chairman of the Berkshire Hathaway mutual fund, launched his secretary into the limelight by saying that it’s unfair that she pays more in federal income taxes than he does. The first question many have had is if we’re going to reform this nation’s tax code based on how much this particular secretary pays in federal income taxes, shouldn’t we know how much she makes? Both Buffet and Ms. Bosanek have said that that’s private information. Buffet did announce that she’s paying 35.8%, and he’s paying 17.4%. Based upon those numbers, the next logical question is how are each of you declaring your taxes, as total income or dividend or capital gains? Buffet’s response to these questions, thus far, has been to call them personal attacks against Ms. Bosanek. He’s amplified his response by saying these criticisms are ‘ridiculous’.
In an interview with The World-Herald, Buffet said none of the online guesses about Bosanek’s salary are right, and the critics are missing his point. The next logical question to that statement is what is your point? Do you want to raise capital gains taxes and discourage investment in this country? Knowing Mr. Buffet’s position and stature in this country, one would think that that would be anathema to him, as he should understand how vital private investment is to the companies in this nation and the nation as a whole. Buffet has decided not to illustrate his point for us in this manner. He simply wants his complaints about tax rates out there, and he wants the statements he makes about the general unfairness of the tax code to be left as a general statement.
“I’m saying she is being treated unfairly in the tax code, as are tens of millions of others, compared to me,” Buffett said. “They shouldn’t change the rates on all the other people. They should change mine.”
Posted in Nebraska Issues, politics, Simple Truths, Social Issues, The Thoughts of Neighbors |
Tags: capital gains, income, taxation, unfairness, Warren Buffett
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January 26, 2012
Omaha is one of the top telemarketing markets in America. I’ve heard that this is due to the fact that we are one of the most plain spoken people in America today. Me thinks it also has something to do with the fact that the cost of living is low in Omaha, and as a result so are the wages.
Restaurants are also huge in Omaha. The marketing line on restarurants in Omaha is: “If you can make it in Omaha, you can probably make it anywhere.” Again, this may be due to the wages and the cost of living, but Omaha has also been said to have some of the most common tastes in America.
I list the traits of Omaha in this manner to lay the foundation for the fact that I know that working in Omaha is the same as working in Duluth, Albuquerque, Monroe, and Pocatello. If something is going right in America, it’s usually going right in Omaha, likewise if times are getting tough. Telemarketing and restaurant jobs are all over America, so I know that my plight in the workforce is no different than any other unqualified worker in any part of America, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to hold back. I know I’m lucky to have a job, but I’m over that. I usually get over it about two weeks in when the reality of what I have to do slides down on me.
Posted in Nebraska Issues, Simple Truths, Social Issues, The Thoughts of Neighbors |
Tags: employees, employment, job market, labor market, Omaha, sales, strategies, telemarketing, unqualified
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January 24, 2012
Even in the local, Omaha media outlets one never hears who is funding ads designed to make Republicans look bad. How many Nebraska ads are characterized as those run by George Soros? When it’s a Democrat that looks bad, we get sources and characterization of those funding the ad, and we get attempts to diminish the ad before we even read the article about it.
If you’ve read the stories of Kerry’s mulling, you’d think that the only people against Kerry’s proposed run are Karl Rove and the Koch brothers. From what I hear that’s not the end of the list. People from small town Nebraska and…Omaha are saying that this guy has a long road ahead of him if he hopes to win my vote. Ask Nelson how easy it is to win a Senate seat without Omaha, ask Pete Ricketts.
Everyone knows that the only reason Ben Nelson isn’t running for re-election is his vote for Obamacare. Everyone knows that Tea Party pressure dug at Nelson to such a degree, over the vote, that he couldn’t take it anymore. Why someone who publicly supports the same health care initiative that Ben Nelson wouldn’t even consider mentioning in a pizza parlor would run for the seat Nelson once occupied has many Nebraskans scratching their head. He may as well wear a Longhorn cap to a press conference just to see if he can secure the Longhorn constiuency here. (There are some here, trust me.)
Why would the DNC turn to Kerry in a last ditch effort to secure the seat with someone more prone to vote for the Health Care bill than Nelson? Is it celebrity status? Do the Democrats think that we yokels in the cornfields will get so impressed with him that we’ll fall all over ourselves to get some star-studded representation in the Senate? Do they think that Nebraskans will greet him like Elvis returning home to Memphis?
Kerry’s new tag line is: “I’ve probably paid more income and property taxes than all the Republican candidates combined.” Ok, fair enough, you have made a ton of money in this state, but how many times, while president of the liberal New School, did you espouse conservative, Nebraska views. How many times did you even mention this state in your time in the Big Apple Bob?
Posted in Nebraska Issues, politics, Simple Truths, Social Issues, The Thoughts of Neighbors |
Tags: Bob Kerry, carpet bagger, Senate
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December 29, 2011
It was that one vote from Nelson that did him in. It was political suicide in the minds of Nebraskans. It was taking one sixth of the economy and nationalizing it. Nelson could’ve survived other votes, and he has in the past. He could’ve survived voting for the Obama stimulus in 2008, but voting to change the face of this nation was unforgiveable in the minds of most Nebraskans. Others (above) can say that Obama is popular in Nebraska, but he’s not. He won one district, Omaha’s district. In 2006, Ben Nelson lost just about every county in Nebraska, in his bid for re-election, except for Omaha. The votes were so overwhelming in Omaha that Nelson won re-election.
For all of his conservative votes, Nelson still decided to vote for one of the most partisan pieces of legislation this country has ever seen. The pressure must have been intense for him. After casting the vote, Nelson started getting booed out of Omaha pizza joints, and he started ordering protestors’ cars towed away from in front of his offices. It hasn’t been pretty for him, and I’m sure he’s just had enough of it.
Posted in politics, Simple Truths, Social Issues |
Tags: Ben Nelsen, Elections 2012, political chaos, Senate
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December 22, 2011
Amid the kerfuffle of primary politics it seems most of the conservative intelligentsia can agree on one thing, they don’t like former speaker Newt Gingrich. George Will has basically called him a communist; Ann Coulter says he has so many ideas from so many different sides of the aisle that conservatives would do well to read the history of Newt Gingrich better; and Charles Krauthammer has said: “(Gingrich is) too erratic or mercurial… a victim of his own creative intelligence. People wonder if he’ll wake up one morning the way he did in the past with a mandate or global warming… and surprise people by being unconservative.” Even Brit Hume joined the fray calling Gingrich “Undisciplined. You never know what he’s going to say next. He’s a provocative thinker, but a promiscuous talker.” The latter two have also gone on record to say that Gingrich’s May 2011 characterization of Paul Ryan’s plan, as regards Health care, as “Right-wing social engineering” was political suicide on the right.
Enter Thomas Sowell. Sowell differs from Ann Coulter on the credit Gingrich is due for welfare reform, balancing the budget, the 90’s surplus, and the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. Coulter believes Gingrich is given too much credit. She says Gingrich did not single-handedly engineer the takeover. Coulter believes that the liberalism of Clinton’s first two years as president is more responsiblefor the takeover than anything Gingrich ever did. (Coulter does not mention the Contract with America that Gingrich engineered.) Coulter does not mention that the 1994 takeover was the first time in forty years that Republicans controlled the house. Instead, Coulter mentions that Boehner’s takeover of Congress, (again, she writes, all glory to Obama for that one) was a greater takeover in pure numbers than Gingrich’s was. Sowell says that Gingrich presided over the party that won Congress for the first time in forty years, and he presided over the Congress that produced the first balanced budget in forty years. “The media called it “the Clinton surplus” but all spending bills start in the House of Representatives, and Gingrich was Speaker of the House,” Sowell furthered. In other words, Gingrich’s seat of power while all this occurred is, at least, more than anything Romney accomplished as governor of Massachusetts.
Posted in politics, Social Issues, The Thoughts of Neighbors |
Tags: Mitt Romney, newt gingrich, politics, presidential, primaries, republicans, thomas Sowell
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December 21, 2011
Ace Frehley has written a book to present his side of the Kisstory. To those not acquainted with Ace Frehley, he was the the guitarist for the rock group Kiss in the 70′s, the 80′s, and for a brief reunion tour in the 90′s. Ace then went onto lead a band called Frehley’s Comet, and he has since released a couple of critically praised and popular solo albums.
Ace Frehley states that he is clean now, and like so many others that adorn libraries across America, Frehley takes the vantage point of an outsider commenting on his past debauchery. Alcohol and drugs were the way Frehley dealt with the ups and downs of stardom, but he has no regrets about any of this. As comedians in the past (Pryor and Carlin) have done, Ace chooses to laugh at his lifestyle choices. He chooses the “now that I’m clean” meme to detail for us the hilarity of being so out of control that you don’t know what you’re doing. As a lifelong Ace Frehley fan, I found many of the aspects of his life story troubling and disenchanting.
Posted in Reviews, Social Issues |
Tags: Ace Frehley, alcohol, book review, drugs, gene simmons, Kiss, legacy, No Regrets, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, rock and roll, sex
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December 21, 2011
I’ve read this interview, and its pull quotes, about five times, and I don’t see how Obama escapes Capehart’s ‘could be’ comments (smug, too admiring of his own vision, too concerned with history, and an arrogant schmuck). If you are looking to characterize someone in such a manner, I don’t see how Obama’s comments don’t line up for a journalistic firing squad to methodically rip apart on that basis. I’m one who reads through analysis, such as Capehart’s, with as much objectivity as I can possible muster up to have the author prove me wrong. I don’t see where Capehart does this. Kroft was the one who said Obama had “some impressive accomplishments” that were “more than a lot of presidents who manage to get reelected.” Obama agreed with these assessments, then he expanded on the point. Obama took Kroft’s point and ran with it, and he was the one that specifically mentioned the other three presidents that he believes are the only ones who have more impressive records in their first two years. Obama is the one who got stoked by Kroft’s remarks and his competitive side came out.
Rather than attempting to parse Obama’s words, Capehart should be trumpeting them. Liberals around the nation should lock arms and sing the quotes. He’s their fella, and he’s not afraid to say that he believes he has been historically successful. He’s not afraid to do touchdown dances. Even though Middle America doesn’t like ‘arrogant schmuck’ touchdown dances, they’re just going to have to live with it. He doesn’t care what Middle America thinks, and liberals should be bathing in the realities of it, rather than parsing it and excusing it away.
Obama was speaking from the heart when he said this. He wasn’t using poll tested words in the manner a Bill Clinton would. He wasn’t reading his words off a Teleprompter. He wasn’t choosing humble words in the manner a George W. Bush would with words like, “I’ll let historians figure all that out.” Obama was in your face and dancing. He thinks his first two years stand only behind Lincoln, FDR, and, LBJ. If a conservative president—with an equally successful conservative agenda—said the same thing, I would probably have my fist in the air and my heart on my sleeve.
Posted in politics, Social Issues |
Tags: 4th best president, Clinton, interview, legacy, media bias, O'Reilly, obama
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December 19, 2011
So, Holder’s take on The Fast and Furious fiasco is basically, if we did anything it’s the racist, “most extreme segment” of the other side pursuing a punishment for it, and to all those others who are investigating the charges to see if they are severe enough to warrant punishment, Holder simply says: “Stop it!”
One does have to wonder if administration officials worry, behind closed doors, if they’re overusing the charge of racism. One does have to wonder if there are some voices in the administration cautioning top officials to use it sparingly. If that’s the case, then the top officials don’t appear to be listening.
Posted in politics, Simple Truths, Social Issues |
Tags: charges, Eric Holder, fast and furious, politics, power, punishment, racism
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December 12, 2011
The best quote I’ve seen on the Tebow matter comes from a Stuart James, an Alabama fan from Virginia:
“If him (Tebow) taking a knee and thanking God after a win offends your sensibilities, or upsets you, you don’t have to watch.”
In other words, Stuart James is saying, turn the channel. Siss, boom, bang! Right back atcha baby!
When a conservative gets his nose out of joint about some TV show, a movie, or a rock star offending their sensibilities, the answer critics give is, ‘if you don’t like it, turn the channel.’ The tables are being turned, someone is acting overtly moral and outwardly spiritual, and the sports writers of America are up in arms. Turn the channel is, for some reason, not an acceptable answer to those who are upset about this this travesty brought to our shores via the Rocky Mountains and through the Denver Broncos’ quarterback Tim Tebow. Not since Muhammad Ali decided not to fight in the Vietnam War, for religious reasons, has sports been so preoccupied by religion. This time, however, the sports writers of America are on the other side of the coin. This time, they’re the ones who are offended, this time they won’t accept the answer ‘turn the channel’, and this time they’re advocating for a separation of church and sports.
Posted in politics, Social Issues |
Tags: Broncos, NFL, religion, sports, tebow
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