When Snow was hired as press secretary, the liberal media proclaimed that this was evidence of the fact that he was always biased.  They claimed that if there wasn’t an incestuous relationship betweeen Fox News and the Bush Administration, there was at least collusion.  Then when Karl Rove was hired as a commentator for Fox News, the liberal media proclaimed that this was evidence that Fox News was biased all along.  When Clinton advisors Carville and Stephanopoulos were hired by the CNN and ABC respectively, if the liberal media said anything about it at all they said Tim Russert worked for Moynihan and Mario Cuomo and Diane Sawyer worked for Nixon.  These incestuous relationships have been occurring a lot lately, and it only appears to be getting worse:

Record 19 reporters, media execs join Team Obama

For some Washington reporters and media executives, cheering their team from the sidelines just isn’t good enough anymore: Tugging on a red, white and blue Team Obama jersey is the answer.

That’s the case for a whopping 19 journalists and media executives, including five from the Washington Post and three each from ABC and CNN, who’ve gone into the administration or center-left groups supporting the president.
Those inside the administration hit 14 this month when the Post’s Stephen Barr joined the Labor Department. “That’s a record,” say some revolving door watchers, and could even be much higher: The Post reports that “dozens” of former journalists have joined the administration, although Washington Secrets couldn’t verify that tally.
Many are in communications and speech writing offices, most prominently Jay Carney, the president’s spokesman who ran Time’s Washington bureau. He is also husband to ABC’s Claire Shipman. Some joined as the news business collapsed, many to finally voice their politics, and others, notably former Transportation spokeswoman Jill Zuckman, because she liked her future boss, Secretary Ray LaHood, a rare Republican in the administration. That relationship rocked: LaHood broke through the lower-tier Cabinet P.R. ceiling to become one of the most well-known Transportation secretaries ever. She had worked for the Chicago Tribune.

The revolving door isn’t a surprise to critics of the media and Obama. “The number of reporters going into the Obama administration merely confirms what I knew and what most conservatives long believed,” said Noam Neusner, himself one of the few reporters hired as a Bush speech writer. “There is a vast supply of liberals in newsrooms, they are very happy to support Obama administration policies if they can get hired and they barely hide their ideology in the way they cover the news.” Neusner, who I worked with at U.S. News, said that he too might have been guilty of a pro-Bush bias, but said correctly: “My editors and colleagues were surprised to hear that I was a Republican.”

A former GOP Capitol Hill and cabinet spokesman added, “It’s frustrating to see so many reporters that had relationships with trusted sources give up their ‘impartiality’ and start playing for the other side. It does show that the game is stacked in favor of the other side when most reporters still working in their profession remain silent.”
Stephen Hess, a presidential and journalism scholar at the Brookings Institution, said reporters can be “conflicted” when they trade places. “On the other hand,” he added, “reporters going back to journalism after a stint in government are always better reporters in that they now understand how government really works.”

Source:http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/record-19-reporters-media-execs-join-team-obama/380971

How long has this incestuous relationship been going on between the media and politics in America?  Some would say you can trace it all the way back to the Thomas Jefferson hiring the muckraker James Callender to slander the name of presidential opponent John Adams.  Others would argue it probably goes back even further than that.

How many people were stunned, STUNNED, by the partisan vitriol coming from the mouths of former broadcasters Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, Ted Koppel, and Dan Rather following their careers?  All right, no one was stunned by Rather’s comments, but the other guys mentioned above appeared to be unbiased in their news reportage.

Some would say that these professionals were always non-partisan when they were on the air.  AH, but there’s the rub on the matter: On the air.  Conservative writers have often said that that which occurs behind the scenes of news studios is often as important, if not more, than what you see broadcasted.  Hearing the partisan vitriol that comes out of the mouths of these former broadcasters one cannot help but think that their passionate stances may have caused them to spike stories that were not helpful to their cause.

Those who defend, and applaud, such moves would tell you that those in the media and politics tend to gather a wealth of information in their chosen professions that makes them an interesting analyst for the other side of the aisle.  It’s a decent point, until you start to wonder about the associations and relationships that are developed along the way.  If those in the media developed a proper adversarial relationship with a George Stephanopoulosm, for example, would he really be welcomed with open arms at ABC?  If a James Carville genuinely believed that CNN gave Bill Clinton, and their administration, a hard time, would he really be willing to take a seat on their stage?

Montesquieu called the media, “the forth pillar of Democracy.”  He said that “the media fulfilled the important role of shaping public opinion.”  He said, “In turn, public opinion is the ultimate check in the checks and balance system designed to ensure equal and balanced authorities between the three branches (pillars) of government, namely: Executive (apply the law), Legislative (write the law), Judicial (interpret the law). The media can be seen as an equally important pillar to this balance because its role is to ring the alarm bells in cases of abuse of power, corruption etc. A further way of keeping the system honest.”

With so many incestuous relationships now occurring between the four pillars of our Democracy, the question is how well are we doing at keeping the system honest?
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_media_is_called_as_the_fourth_pillar#ixzz1mflA5T00

The title of Reese’s column is 545 versus 300,000,000 people.  It was Reese’s final column for the Orlando Sentinel, and it appears as though it unleashed the libertarian frustrations that had built up in him over the years regarding how our beloved country is being run.

It was written back on February 3, 1984, but you’ll swear it was written yesterday.  Writing such as this is called beautiful by writers such as myself, because it’s brilliantly simplistic, and beautiful, brilliant, simplistic writing is timeless.

It was written during President Ronald Reagan’s tenure as president, but it is non-partisan in its condemnation.  It was written after a tumultuous year (1983) of spending that led to a mountainous 1.4 trillion dollar debt.  That was a leap in the debt of nearly 6.6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from President Carter’s last days.  The final amount of the debt, as a percentage of the GDP, that enraged Charley Reese enough to write this prescient column in 1983 was 39.9%.  The debt that we currently have, as presented by the fine people at skymachines in the link below, is nearly 16 trillion, as of 12/31/2011.  The final amount of the debt, as a percentage of the GDP for 2011, is currently listed at 99.7, a percentage increase of 15.6% for Barack Obama from George W. Bush’s last days.

Source:http://www.skymachines.com/US-National-Debt-Per-Capita-Percent-of-GDP-and-by-Presidental-Term.htm

545 vs. 300,000,000 People By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in a foreign country it’s because they want them in a foreign country …

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees…

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Source: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-07-31/news/os-ed-mike-lafferty-charley-reese-54520110729_1_charley-reese-column-con-game

As I said, this piece could’ve been written yesterday to condemn President Barack Obama’s 3.8 trillion dollar budget resolution.  It could’ve been written as a direct complaint about the president “spending much of his energy convincing you that this economic mess we’re in is not his fault.”  How many presidents have expended such energy on such a topic three years into their presidency?  Why would they do it if the fruits of their budget spoke for themselves?  How many presidents were former Senators that voted for all of the Bush spending increases, only to turn around and complain about the horrible economy that spending and those votes created?

Obama is now declaring that the only reason he had to submit a 3.8 trillion dollar budget resolution is because “no one knew how bad things were economically”.

To paraphrase Reese, “The only reason we have deficits is because he wants those deficits.”

The president and Congress have had the power over the last three years to make things better.  Instead, they’ve made things the way they want them.  Obama would tell you that his current difficulties are based on the fact that the Republicans have controlled Congress.  Whenever he does this, he should be forced to examine how he and the previous Democrat controlled session of Congress may have affected the economy in his first two years.  That session of Congress voted for everything Obama put forward.  Pelosi’s budgets were passed without Republicans.  Republicans were shut out of these legislative sessions, so Democrats could take all the glory if things turned around…or all the blame if they didn’t.

To be fair to Democrats and Obama and Pelosi, it is difficult to turn around an economy in two years, but how easy is it to make it worse should be the follow up question?  How easy is it to create a problem that you can campaign against?  How easy is it to propose a decent budget?  How easy is it to create an economy that they want?

Many of the Congressman and Senators, both Republican and Democrat, have been sitting in office for long enough to enact sweeping changes if they wanted to do so.  The average tenure of a sitting Congressman is just over ten years at this point.  The average tenure of current sitting Senators is 12.8 years.  That is plenty of time to create an environment that “they want” as Reese says.  It’s more than enough time to make things better or make things worse depending on how they want them. That’s more than enough time to put a huge dent in the deficit and the debt, it’s enough time to create a simple tax code that is necessary and fair to all, it’s enough time to set a decent fiscal policy, to vote on appropriations that will turn this economy around, and it’s enough time to fix the problems that they will no longer be able to campaign on if they fix them.  All of these sitting Senators and Congressman have had enough time to fix the domestic problems that plague this country.  The question is why don’t they?  Do they want a bad economy?  Of course not, but they have created the environment for themselves in which we must live, that leads us to bad economic year after bad economic year.  It’s their fault…regardless of their party.

Former Governor of Massachusetts Romney has won the Florida primary. His trip to the nomination appears to be what the French would call a fait accompli. A win is a win, as they say, and this was a huge one. The question is what does this victory say about the Romney campaign in general, and what will it say about the campaign in the general?

It took Romney a ton of money to put what many consider a relatively lackluster group of candidates away in Florida. Estimates have that figure to be roughly sixty-five dollars to one in favor of the former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney. A win is a win though, and Romney did what it took to win, but what does a win mean when you have to spend so much money to achieve it? Every time the Yankees won the World Series in the past decade and a half, the underlying story involved the team’s payroll. The underlying story to that 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 then lost their mystique. When the Yankees did win the Series, however, there was never a next day, a next opponent. They organized a team to win that year and that year alone. They traded away their farm system for the future, they spent like there was no tomorrow, and they won that year, and they did it year after year, until it caught up to them. 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, we’re talking money here.) In this money scenario, there are no comparative Red Sox analogies in this politcal season for Romney, nor are there any National League analogies here spending wise, so we won’t go further with the analogy. Suffice it to say, Romney just beat the Royals twice on the road, and in the game of baseball that doesn’t mean a whole lot, unless you spent a whole boat load of money to do it.  The underlying question is what happens when Romney runs into the candidate that has as much money as he does (if not more)?

We shouldn’t take too much away from the money in elections. Money is based upon contributions, and those contributions can only be generated through solid fundraising, and that solid fundraising can only be achieved through a solid foundation placed in the various communities. Romney, and his people, have done a great deal of footwork to set this victory up, just like the Yankees did a lot of work to set up their championship teams. You need money to win, but money alone cannot secure victory. Having said that, Obama and his people have also set up similar foundations in various communities, and he has a mantle for raising money that may exceed even Romney’s.

Where does the campaign go on substance when the money is equal? Where does he go to reach out and identify with the common American? He is going to have to match the positive aspects of what he has to offer Americans combined with an equal measure of negativity toward the past four years of the Obama administration.

The next logical question is, can he go negative on Obama? Going negative on Republicans is easy. There is no downside to it. Media analysts love you for it, Republicans expect it, and it’s seen as a general course of action for most politicians. Going negative on Obama is another matter altogether.

Going negative on Obama’s job performance, or his philosophy, could land you in hip deep water with the media. If you attack Obama personally, the media will attempt to do grave damage to your campaign and to your personal legacy. They will call you a racist, they will demean you, and they will call you unintelligent, closed-minded, and out of touch with the American people. It doesn’t matter what your social status or economic status is, if your political status is Republican, they will find an angle on you. They’ll ask you snarky questions like how much a gallon of milk costs, if you were a tree what kind of tree would you be, and quick, what’s the Bush Doctrine (even though Bush’s Karl Rove admitted that there were four foreign policy initiatives that couldn’t been called doctrines, but none of them were).  Then, they will turn to Obama and ask him about his kids, his favorite bunny story, and quick, “are Republicans uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible?”  The mainstream media will not give you an even shake, and they may never be fair to you if you’re a Republican, but they will savage you if you go negative on Obama.

If Romney does decide to go negative on Obama, and some would say he’s already started down that road, what does he go negative with? As Jeffrey Jones of the Gallup organization points out, there is plenty of material:

“The historically high gap between partisans’ job approval ratings of Barack Obama continued during Obama’s third year in office, with an average of 80 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans approving of the job he was doing… The 68-point gap between partisans’ approval ratings of Obama last year is nine points higher than that for any other president’s third year.” Obama, by the way, holds the record for the most polarized first and second years in office, too. This means Obama has set a record for polarization every year he’s been in office.”

Some would say that this divide is based solely on the uncompromising and partisan hatred of those rascally Republicans.  Rush Limbaugh came out (pre-inauguration) and said, “I hope he (Obama) fails,” but everyone from Lindsay Graham to John McCain to Newt Gingrich disavowed this sentiment and said, “We need to work with this president.” They were motivated by love of country, they said. “Regardless who leads this country, it’s important that we work with them to see to it that America succeeds,” Newt Gingrich said. Minority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, then said the words that Democrats cite as evidence to the fact that Republicans were never willing to work with Obama when he said, “My single, most important job is to defeat Barack Obama in 2012.” Well, Republicans would say that that is his job as a Republican leader. I’m sure McConnell meant this in the same manner then Democrat minority leader Daschle meant it with George W. Bush; and in the manner George Mitchell did with George H.W. Bush; and in the manner Tip O’Neill did against Ronald Reagan. It’s called opposition politics, look it up, it’s been around for a while.

Some of us agreed with Rush Limbaugh and McConnell, but we were in the minority. Some of us heard the soaring Obama rhetoric and heard it for what it was. We heard his rhetoric in the same vein most hear music. A well-crafted song will appeal to men and women across the spectrums of society. Some gay and bisexual lyricists have written some of the most beautiful love songs ever written, for example, but they did it without gender specifics. They were still great love songs, but they were meant to appeal to people of all sexual persuasions. Obama accomplished this same feat in his campaign speeches, and he did it so well that Republicans and Democrats swooned. He sang a song people could believe in. He sang a song of hope and change. His lyrics included words that suggested that Obama would end the politics that “breeds division and conflict and cynicism.” He sang that he would help us to “rediscover our bonds to each other and … get out of this constant petty bickering that’s come to characterize our politics.” He would “cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past.”

“I will listen to you,” Obama said on a stage in Grant Park on the night of his election, “especially when we disagree.”

Three years later, we have what Jeffrey Jones points out is an historically divisive president who only reaches across the aisle to hand the other side his agenda. Then when the other side doesn’t completely concede to his vision and agenda, he calls them names. He shut the doors on them when he could pass legislation without them, he told them “I won” when they asked him to compromise, and he now goes behind their back when they fail to act on his threats and vituperation. This, from the man who as a candidate said, “The time has come to set aside childish things.”

His childish rhetoric and bickering have led to what many have called a weak economic recovery. We need a kick start, a bump, or a right cross to the jaw that wakes us up and gets us competitive again. We need less partisanship and more statesmanship; we need legislative leadership not rhetorical grandstanding and division. Obama used his State of the Union speech to rail on about fairness, inequality and redistribution. He laid out his strategy, and it was simple: tax the rich, because they don’t pay enough.

A 15% tax hike proposal on capital gains is what we got out of the State of the Union. Obama called it a tax on millionaires, he called it the Buffet rule. It’s a tax on investment, what some have called the seed corn of our nation. “You can’t have successful capitalism without capital,” Jack Kemp once said. Obama would call an idea like that, an example of failed ideas and policies of the past.

Obama would much rather dive into his failed policies of the present, his bag of Keynesian tricks, to kick start the economy. Thus far, three years in, we’ve had an $800 billion government spending package, a $2 trillion Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion, a zero Fed interest rate (for three years and counting) and a whole bunch of temporary and targeted tax cuts. All of this has achieved a growth rate of 2.4%. Reagan’s “failed policies of the past” produced a 6% growth rate. On a side note, issued to illustrate how paltry the Obama recovery rate has been, the recovery rate after WWII was 4.6%. His policies haven’t worked, but that hasn’t stopped him. Whether you love him or hate him, you have to give him points for stick-to-itiveness. He’s a true believer. Even if it doesn’t work, Obama will try, try, and try again, until it does. As opposed to a recent Italian cruise captain, Obama is fully prepared to go down with this ship. It’s all there for you Mitt, if you want it badly enough. If you’re willing and able to whether the storm and avoid McCain’s self-imposed trap of trying to run a nice campaign where people like you when it’s all said and done. Some of the times you have to throw at their best hitter to get there, and some of the times you have to slide into second, cleats up, to show your desire. You may receive some negative press for doing this, of course, but at the end of the day a win is a win.

It’s all coming to a head in a political battle that is sure to be one of the nastiest of all time. One man finally appears ready to get nasty to win the most powerful position in the world, and the other hasn’t won an election without getting nasty and personal. One man is as close to a pure capitalist as we’ve seen in 25 years, the other is as far from a pure capitalist as we’ve seen in 32 years. It will be the philosophical battle that pits the big-government, entitlement society versus small government, laissez faire government. It will be the teachings and philosophies of Milton Friedman, Adam Smith, and Thomas Sowell versus those of John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, and Paul Krugman. It will be awesome political theater to those political junkies who follow this stuff on a daily basis.

For others who, hard as they try, can’t help but be affected by decisions made in Washington, this will be a referendum on the past threee years. It will be a time for reflection, a time to look into the past to see what’s coming in the future…unshackled, as it will be, from the fears of losing a re-election bid. For these people, it won’t matter what Romney does, for he will be judged as the alternative to Obama. It won’t matter what Romney says, for they will be reflecting on the last four years of Obama when they cast their ballot. It won’t even matter what Obama does or says, for as hard as he tries to avoid it, this election will be about Obama. Neither of them will be able to escape the American public reflecting on the last four years and the shadow it casts on the future. To paraphrase Mark Twain, “There comes a time in everyone’s life when they need to reflect, and reflection can be loud at times. It can be ugly, and it can have you thrashing about in frustration. It can get so loud, at times, that even the deaf can hear it.”

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/27/obama-most-polarizing-president/

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/01/28/obamas_lowball_vision_tax_success_and_growth_112943.html

In an interview with The Omaha World-Herald, Buffet said, “none of the online guesses about Ms. Bosanek’s salary are right, and the critics are missing my 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 clarify his point for us in any manner. He simply wants his complaints about tax rates to be taken on face value, and he wants the statements he makes about the general unfairness of the tax code to be left as a general complaint.

“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.”

If Buffet is solely upset about the amount he is paying, he could simply give the government more. He has that opportunity. There is a box on the tax form that allows us to give more than what is due. Simply check that box and we can give the federal government more than we owe. Doing so, would relieve Mr. Buffet, and his ilk, of the guilt of paying less in their federal taxes than anyone else.

An argument that is being made against the ‘Buffet rule’ is why do we have to increase taxes to achieve fairness? Why can’t we simply lower the federal income taxes of all the Ms. Bosaneks around the nation to match those rates being paid by millionaires? If we did this, we wouldn’t be punishing anyone unfairly for the manner in which they make money or the amount they make.

As Warren Buffet knows, this criticism being leveled against the ‘Buffet rule’ is not a personal attack against Ms Bosanek. It is a study of the federal tax code, and its fairness, with Ms. Bosanek being used as a symbol of this unfairness, a symbol that happened to be created by our own Mr. Buffet.

Is Mr. Buffet saying that capital gains taxes should be raised? I’ve looked, and I’ve listened, and I don’t see anywhere that Mr. Buffet has ever been specific. Buffet, and subsequently Barack Obama, simply want to lay the claim that it’s unfair that Buffet’s secretary, Ms. Debbie Bosanek, should be taxed at a higher rate than Buffet is regardless of how they’re taxed respectively. He doesn’t want you to examine tax rates and how they’re applied. He doesn’t want you to examine the reason why capital gains rates are lower than earned income rates. To those who have attempted to examine, analyze, scrutinize, and get to the bottom of these claims of unfairness, Mr. Buffet has come to Ms. Bosanek’s rescue:

“They can’t attack the facts, so they attack the person. It’s ridiculous.”

He won’t give us the facts though. His argument is similar to the guy who claims he was taken out of context then refuses to put those same statements in context for us. Buffet won’t give us the facts of his argument, so we are left with his projections and his fuzzy math. Then when we make projections based on this fuzzy math, he says ‘these projections are way off’ (i.e. out of context) and ‘ridiculous’ without clarification.

Very few of us can make a living on our investments alone. Most of us invest and seek dividends as supplemental income. It’s this supplemental income that is now being taxed at the 15% capital gains rate. Our annual income is usually taxed much higher. For the purpose of adding in round figures, let’s say that I make $100,000.00 a year in annual income. According to 2011 federal income tax figures, I would be taxed at between 25%-28%. That would leave me with $75,000 in after taxed income. Let’s say I buy and sell a stock, long-term, with that money. If that’s the case, I will be taxed 15% on the amount that I have gained on the sale, so if I made $10,000 in investment profit then I would have $8,500 of that profit after capital gains taxes are taken. If I lose money on that investment, I am only able to declare $3,000 in losses regardless of amount of the loss. If I gain on that investment, my principle amount is still $75,000, but anything over that is taxed at 15%. The principle amount is not double taxed, but the investment profit is taxed. If you up the capital gains rate on the potential profit of their investment, fewer people are going to be as inclined to take such a gamble. They’d just as soon put their money in a proverbial hole and make nothing on that money than take the risk of loss if their gains are going to be taxed higher. Warren Buffet has the luxury of already having a boatload of supplemental income, and he can gamble that away without too much fear of altering his current lifestyle. He’s admitted that investing is more of a game to him. To some of us, that supplemental income is everything. Again, most of us don’t have the luxury Warren Buffet has of deriving the bulk of our income via dividends or capital gains, so most of us are not taxed at 15% as a result.

Buffet’s statement is confusing on so many levels. He says that he’s only taxed 17.4%, and that that’s unfair compared with the 35.8% that his secretary pays. Some sites have listed Warren Buffet’s nominal salary, as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, at $100,000 in earned income. Buffet remarried in 2006, so if he files separately from his wife, he should be taxed at a 28% rate…if his sole argument were on that reported $100,000 earned income for 2011. If that isn’t his nominal salary, and he is being taxed in the same manner as Ms. Bosanek when he arrives at his 17.4% rate, then his salary would be around $8,501 – $34,500 annually according to the 2011 federal income and tax brackets. If that’s the case, then he should be audited, because we all know he makes more than that. The point is, we shouldn’t be penalizing all millionaires for Buffet’s malfeasance in this scenario, and we shouldn’t be changing our nation’s federal tax code based on his fuzzy math.

As for Ms. Bosanek, she would only be taxed 35.8% (according to the 2011 federal income and tax brackets) if she were making $379,151.00+ and married and filing jointly. If she files jointly, of course, we would need to know her husband’s salary for thorough analysis, but we don’t have that information, so we could only go with what we know. If she files separately, then she would have to make 189,576+. If these numbers are to be taken seriously, combined with Buffet’s numbers and their relative tax brackets, then Buffet pays Ms. Bosanek more than he declares in annual earned income…Unless, of course, you count investments and capital gains and dividends.

Buffett was quoted in the Times of London, about five years ago, as saying he pays his secretary $60,000 a year. If that’s the case, and she files separately, she would be paying 15%. If that’s the case, then Buffet is paying more at 17.4%. That, of course, defeats Buffet and Obama’s entire argument, so a cynical mind could say this is the reason her salary is being kept private. I understand the need for privacy, of course, but one has to figure that if Ms. Bosanek’s salary bolstered their argument, Obama would encourage Buffet to encourage Ms. Bosanek to not be so private about her annual salary.

Buffet claims that criticism of Ms. Bosanek is ‘ridiculous’, but again it’s not criticism of her individually. It’s critical analysis of her being used as a symbol for why we need tax reform in this country. Mr. Buffet sent her out into the public as a talking point. Buffet and Obama sent her to sit in the State of the Union address as a symbol of why we need reform, and if they’re going to hold her out as the reason we need to radically change the tax structure at this point in our history, shouldn’t we evaluate, and analyze, and scrutinize Buffet’s statements and Ms. Bosanek’s salary and the true nature of taxation in this country regardless of how Mr. Buffet feels about it?

Working in Omaha is the same as working in any state in any region of the country.  If you have a nice degree or valuable knowledge in a particular craft or trade, you’re probably going to land yourself a nice job.  If not, you’re probably going to land in telemarketing, the service industry, or the unemployment line.  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.

A rule of thumb I had until the last year was that the more they pay you, the worse they treat you.  Until recently, I believed that the less they pay you, the more enjoyable the job.  Sure, they treat you like a grunt and make you stand in a certain area for hours at a time, they don’t want you to talk to your neighbors, and they discourage smiling in a roundabout way, but most of these bad jobs are largely stress free.  They know you feel lucky to have a job, and they take advantage of that, but they usually don’t treat you like a dog when you’re making peanuts.

The telemarketing jobs that are in Omaha usually go this way.  They send you in for a week’s worth of training, and they cover some of the basics of what it is you’re going to be doing, but that aspect of the job soon becomes irrelevant when they start in on the sales training.  The entry level customer service positions of these companies do not generate revenue for the company anymore, so they’ve brought in think tank types to try to generate some sort of revenue out of these positions. As a result of this, customer service is not the goal of these positions anymore.  This is why when you call a company to get your cable fixed, the agent you’re speaking with probably knows little to nothing about your cable box.  They’ll hit the reset button and ask you to watch the box, they’ll diagram your problem with you and ask you to do some stuff from your home, but they really know little to nothing about your actual problem.  If they don’t transfer you to a “specialist” they’ll send a guy out to your place for forty bucks, or they’ll just simply pitch products on you until you get angry and go to the home office.  They won’t get in trouble for this either, because they’ve hit all of their bullet points, and they’ve delivered their sales pitch in a manner that allows them to pass their quality reviews even though you didn’t get anything fixed.

To train you in these sales strategies, these companies send in inspirational coaches to pump you up and make you think that you’re the bee’s knees.  They ask you what your dreams are, and they’ll get you all dream-oriented, then they’ll ask you how you can apply these dreams to your work.  The latter point will not be something they say outwardly, but they’ll quickly bring you back to the sales training after talking about your dreams to get you associating the two together.  Their goal is to get you focused on sales, their goal is to have you finesse the customer away from the problem they called in about and onto the products the company offers, and their goal is to get all of their agents whooping and hollering whenever an agent does this successfully.

This whole psychological game reminds me of detentions in grade school.  Detentions in grade school were an hour after school.  No big deal right?  Well, it was among the grunts.  We grunts talked among ourselves and said: “Gretchen just got a detention!” and we’d laugh behind our hands at her.  We’d all ask her the specifics of it, and she would either plead her innocence or say she didn’t care about detentions.  We all knew she did.  We knew we did when we were on the other end of this conversation.  The tale of her wrongdoing would spread like Grecian Fire throughout that day, until Gretchen was forced to walk around with a proverbial, scarlet letter ‘D’ on her head.  She was ostracized, talked about, and made fun of.  She was the subject of scuttlebutt among those of us who needed something to talk about for a day.  We generated this hype, we did this to ourselves, and we made something that was largely no big deal the event of the day.  If you can get them to believe it, this told me, you can get them to behave, and you can get them to do anything you want.

To implore these tactics of group mentality that I first saw in grade school, the company posts your sales before all.  This is to leave you feeling proud or humiliated on a relative basis.  It’s to get you motivated.  Then the big boss, we’ll call him Arnie, steps out of his office, and he walks near you, and he ocassionally graces you with a smile, but he never pets you for that would make you feel like a dog.  “How are you doing?” he may ask you if you’re a top performer.  “How are the sales numbers?” he will ask you.  He may then talk about how many sales Joanie made for the day, and he says that within earshot of Joanie, and Joanie smiles and blushes and tries to think of something to say, but her throat is dry.  She is overwhelmed, and she will probably go home and cry to her husband, and she may say it’s her greatest day ever without knowing exactly why.

If you’re on the bottom of this ladder, you get the proverbial scarlet letter attached to you.  You get talked about, and people laugh behind a hand at you.  And you may be having a tough time, but at least you’re not at the bottom.  At least you’re not Jeff.  Then, when you are Jeff, you wish you could be Jeff, because at least he learned from his mistakes.  When you reach the point that you join Jeff in mocking Joanie, you’re in.  They got you by the short ones.  You’re their marionette from that point forward.

To get the marionettes amped and ready to run through walls, one of these firms hired an attractive female to train us on the sales portion of the job.  The lead trainer, the one who trained us on the other minutiae of the job, was homely and mousy.  When we were first introduced to this mousy and homely lead trainer, I wondered why the company made her a trainer.  Sure, she knew her stuff backwards and forward, and she had enough hands on experience that she could flip out any answer on a dime without having to look it up, but her looks were such that she wouldn’t be able to inspire us to do anything beyond that which we were capable.  The answer to my quandary stepped forward a couple of days later in the form of the attractive female they chose to train us on the sales portion of the job.  She was thin, attractive, and cute.  She was everything we wanted to be.  She was the combination of cute and thin and attractive that for centuries men have walked through fire to save just to see her smile.

We’ve all heard the studies about how students outperform their natural abilities when their teacher is attractive, but when you combine that with cute you can get them to run through walls for you.  When I write cute as opposed to attractive, I mean personable, I mean fun, and I mean the type of person that is the opposite of the aloof blonde with the incredible figure.  I’m talking about the type of person that makes you feel like you can be one of them, and that they’re one of you.

After implementing this association, this cute sales trainer let us know she was driven hard to succeed, and through implication how driven we would have to be if we, in fact, wanted to be one with her.  She asked us our dreams, and she was impressed with every one of them.  She had us write our dreams down on paper for further association, and she asked us if we’ve made any progress towards those dreams.  She was attractive and cute and she was impressed with us, and we were ready to take on the world to show her that we were one of her, until we got on the phone.

When we got on the phone, we realized how poorly trained we were.  Either that or we put so little prominence on what the mousy, lead trainer had to tell us that we didn’t retain.  In fairness to the employers, and the mousy trainer, most of the material these telemarketing companies teach is so overwhelming that you may not be able to train the employees to comprehension in six weeks.  So, they give you databases to find this information to answer customer questions.  The databases are usually poor and difficult to navigate, and you usually have two to three minutes per call to properly navigate them to answer the caller’s questions.  Then, you have to take what that attractive cute, sales trainer gave you and put it into play on an individual who is disgruntled that it took you two to three minutes to navigate the incomprehensible databases to sort of, somewhat, kind of answer their question.  They give you coaches, and if the coaches are around to answer your question, they usually don’t have a quality answer that fits the individual question the customer asked you.   They give you an Instant Message (IM) board full of tenured agents to answer your questions, and in the beginning this is great, because all of the questions are so basic.  When the questions start to become more advanced, your questions sit on the IM board and roasts away while your customer impatiently waits for the sort of, somewhat, kind of answer their question.  A friend of mine said: “I’ve had fast food jobs, and I’ve never been this stressed out!”

Here’s another key to their success: It’s all on you.  You get poorly trained, the availability of coaches is sporadic, the website is awful, the knowledge database is almost as bad, and the IM board is filled with people who have answers that aren’t as helpful as the coaches are, and you hang up on the call feeling like it’s your fault that you sort of, somewhat, kind of answered the customer’s question.  You feel like you didn’t pay enough attention in training, you feel like a dunce for not being able to navigate the website or the database as well as you think you should be able to, and you get the feeling that you didn’t properly ask the customer’s question of the coach or the IM board.  You can’t help it, you’re human, and you feel doubly flawed when you get back on the phone and the customer tells you that you didn’t answer their question.  There aren’t many people who can survive training, go through the list of help products that I’ve provided above, and still think that it’s not their fault that the customer’s question didn’t get answered properly.  Most people think it’s on them.

In another job, I had a New York trainer who was very impatient.  If we didn’t remember what he said last Tuesday, about a specific product, he would raise his voice and get impatient with us.  “I told you that last Tuesday!” he would yell.  The yelling and impatience he showed intimidated all of us against asking for verification for something we may have forgotten among the one thousand things he crammed into the week.  The New Yorker then conlcuded his training session by telling us about product Z.   “I’m going to be blunt,” he said, “This corporation does not care about this product.  It does generate some calls, but we’re not going to spend a whole lot of time on it.  The company makes no money on this product.”  Well, I’m sure you can guess what product we call takers received the most calls on?  You’re right!  So, we had to navigate the impossibly poor website, and the poor database, to try to figure out the answer.  Then, when the caller sat on the line for what felt like ten minutes, but was probably two, we had to churn that caller onto the fat, New Yorker sales pitch.

In both of these jobs, the statistical measurements of the employees was almost entirely concerned with sales.  There is very little prominence placed on customer service, but of course adequate customer service leads to sales.  One plus one equals two.  A caller is more apt to purchase a product from those representatives they deem to be the most competent.  A caller feels validated when you are able to answer their question before moving onto the sales portion of the call.

The most recent job has implored a new aspect of the job I haven’t experienced thus far: The secret shopper. The secret shopper (or mystery shopper) for those not acquainted with the term, is a person who pretends to be a shopper and tests the quality of your service skills.  The secret shopper, in this particular job, seeks to push you to the limit and test your resolve, your temerity, and frustration levels.  I’m sure many of you are saying that that’s a great idea, but when it happens in call after call after call, day after day, and week after week, you get a little burned out.  They’re never rude to the point of being seen as obscene, but they try to give you your worst call you’ve ever had in call after call after call day after day, and week after week.  They’re the impatient, but polite customer, and they’re the customer that is aghast when you cannot find an answer to their obscure question that you can’t find in the poor database or the impossible website, because you were never trained on it properly. This happens on a daily basis, and it is most assuredly going to happen for the tenure of my stay at the company.  When I asked a coach about the secret shoppers she said, “There’s a whole team of them.” She said, “The corporation that leased out this work to us is regretting the fact that they bought the contract.”  She basically told me that the company who leased out their work services was looking for a way to break the contract without having to pay the fines for doing so.  In other words, if these secret shoppers can break a bunch of employees and get them to swear or be rude, the corporation can end their contract with the company by providing them a list of responses from these employees, and everything will look fine in the single script they present, because the secret shopper wasn’t entirely rude in that chat.  He may have been overly demanding, a little critical of the customer service agent’s skills, and on the border of rude, but that doesn’t become apparent in one chat.  So, you get your contract back, and you’ve only left one employee unemployed and a little more insane, all for an hour’s wage that is just a bit over minimum.

As I said, the job market in Omaha is probably no different than anywhere else in the world, but when you’re not qualified to do anything else you’re subjected to all of these fly-by-night companies that have incomplete ways of doing things.  Every parent who has a drifting young one who does not know what he wants to do for a living, should have them read this blog.

The television and radio advertisements label Kerrey an “East Coast liberal.” They were bought last week by Americans for Prosperity-Nebraska, a group tied to a national organization supported by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

The group is running the ad in the Omaha and Lincoln television market, and on radio stations across the state. In all, about $105,000 in advertisements were purchased, said Brad Stevens, state director of the group.

He noted that the nonprofit group does not have to disclose its donors, but said that more than 1,000 Nebraskans have donated to the group.

Kerrey is considering a return to Nebraska and a run for his old U.S. Senate seat, more than a decade after he decided not to seek re-election and moved to New York City.  He said Monday that he expects to make a decision “soon,” about the bid.

A former Nebraska governor, Kerrey has said if he decides to run, he would return home and re-establish his residency.

He also has argued that he planned to spend more time in Nebraska before he considered a run for the Senate.

In the television ad, Kerrey is accused of “ditching” the state a decade ago and of wanting to return home to spread an “East Coast liberal agenda.”

Specifically, they note that he has said he would not vote to repeal President Barak Obama’s controversial health-care law.

Kerrey has argued that parts of the law were imperfect but that it does not need to be repealed. He said if he were to win election to the Senate, he would work to improve the law.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20120123/NEWS01/701249997/0#ad-kerrey-an-east-coast-liberal

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?

The question Nebraskans are asking is why?  Why would he run when, even if we didn’t live in an age of internal polling, Kerry could at least read tea leaves.  He would be able to see that the less three elections have trended away from liberalism in Nebraska.  Sure, Obama won the Omaha district in the last election, but as far as Senators are concerned we went from Chuck Hagel to Ben Nelson to Mike Johanns.  It’s trending the opposite way for Kerry.   Now we hear polling numbers say that 60% of Nebraskans think Obamacare is a bad idea, and Kerry is publicly stating he’s for it.  He says he wants to change it, but he doesn’t say how.  That’s a little critical Mr. Kerry, and 60% of Nebraskans are going to demand to hear how you’re going to change it.  Would you make it more government oriented or less?

Kerry once told a group of New Yorkers that the longer he lives in New York City the further to the left he gets on ObamaCare.  “From My Standpoint, It Isn’t Just Because I Live In Greenwich Village Now – The Longer I Live Here, The Further To The Left I Get On Health Care.” (Bob Kerrey, Remarks At Tishman Auditorium, New York City, 9/16/09)

“I Really Don’t Get How The Public Option Got Demonized So Badly, And Why It Became So Scary.” (Bob Kerrey, Remarks At Tishman Auditorium, New York City, 9/16/09)

“I Don’t Understand Why The Public Option Isn’t Seen For What It Is, Which Is A Nationalization, A Creating Of A National System.” (Bob Kerrey, Remarks At Tishman Auditorium, New York City, 9/16/09) Kerrey Said If He Were “A Right Wing Governor,” He’d Be For “Socializing” Insurance, And “Creating A Federal System Of Insurance.” KERREY: “So let’s say I’m a right wing governor …I’d be for socializing the insurance part. I’d be for creating a federal system of insurance.” (Bob Kerrey, Remarks At Tishman Auditorium, New York City, 9/16/09)

KERREY THANKED HARRY REID FOR HIS WORK ON OBAMACARE Kerrey Praised Majority Leader Reid For Taking On Health Care, Saying “We Need More Harry Reids.” “Former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., who served during the Clinton administration’s failed health care reform initiative in 1993, said that Reid deserves ‘a tremendous amount of credit’ for taking on ‘the most difficult, the most emotional, and the most complicated issue in politics.’ Kerrey added, ‘We need more Harry Reids.’” (Alexis Simendinger, “Reid Faces His Biggest Test In Health Care Reform,” The National Journal, 11/21/09).

Kerry claimed he knew that that Climate Change Legislation Would Destroy Jobs, But He Believed It Was Possible To Create More Jobs Than It Destroyed “With The Right Investment Strategy.” Does this “right investment strategy” revolve around Solyndra and Beacon Power?

“As Nebraskans get reacquainted with Bob Kerrey, they’ll be surprised to learn that Kerrey cites his 11 years in New York City as the reason he’s an unabashed supporter of ObamaCare,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokesman Jahan Wilcox. “Kerrey even supports the public option, which is an ominous sign for a person looking to replace the man who made government-run healthcare the law of the land.”

While running for President in 1992, Kerrey vowed to create a government-run healthcare system that would use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions – something he would later have in common with Senator Ben Nelson.

Kerry’s Senate record is spotty, but we do know that he voted against a partial birth abortion bill in 1997, he voted to save Bill Clinton’s presidency and later voted against overturning Clinton’s veto of the ban in 1999.

“Between his support for taxpayer-funded abortions and his repeated votes against a ban on partial birth abortions, Bob Kerrey is clearly out of touch with our state,” Fahelson said. “Ben Nelson alienated pro-life Nebraskans with his 60th vote for Obamacare, and Bob Kerrey’s equally indefensible record on abortion will not soon be forgotten.”

Kerry had said, in a KFAB interview, that he believes “America is headed in a dangerous direction,” but does anyone believe that Bob Kerry will stand tall before Harry “We need more Harry Reids” Reid and tell him that we need to cut spending?

Most people don’t think Bob Kerry will strive for Harry Reid status, and he’s simply enjoying his last fifteen minutes of fame.  It has to be intoxicating to have so many of the power brokers of our nation chasing after you, but at the end of the day he has to have seen what Ben Nelson went through in his final term.  Even an obscure blogger from Omaha doesn’t need the sophisticated, internal polling a potential candidate has to know that this is an impossible venture.  The impossible does happen though, and we all know that, but we should also know that if we decide to put more Bob Kerrys in office we’ll probably end up getting more Harry Reids when it comes to fiscal responsibility and more Harry “you can smell the public coming down the hall a mile away” Reids charm in office.

http://negop.org/news/bob-kerreys-greatest-hits-an-indefensible-record-on-abortion/

Personally, I’m a little tired of hearing Romney say he’s going to overturn Obamacare.  It’s probably why I would not make a great politician, a great musician, or an ad executive.  I loathe repetition.  I can’t stand it, but I do know that if you want a human being to know your message, you have to repeat it over and over and over again, until it sinks home.

Congressman Michele Bachman’s warning also doesn’t sit well with me when I hear Romney simply state that he will overturn this effort to transform America into a socialist country.  Her warning is that this mammoth piece of legislation, we call Obamacare, cannot be overturned in the manner Romney is suggesting.  She warned that by the time a Republican takes the seat, parts of Obamacare will be so entrenched that it will have to be fought line by line.  Her point was that no one has the temerity, or the knowhow, to do what needed to be done to erase Obamacare from our daily lives.  Her point was that only a legislator that knows the minutiae needed to weed out the damage that Obamacare promises to do to this country.

The question that Bachman raises is a good one.  Another question might be can a legislator weather the storm that is sure to follow any attempt to overturn and weed out the elements of Obamacare and all of the socialist legislation that has been passed over the last twelve years?  Or, would it take a proven leader, a Governor, to take on tasks that are unpopular in the short term for long term results?

Does Romney have the temerity to be such an unpopular president to overturn everything and rid our Republic of all of the waste, fraud, and abuse that have become so entrenched in our government?  Romney supporters would probably say, sure, he’s a good man.  Look at what he faced so far in Bain Capital, as Governor, and as a candidate for the Senate.  He’s a man who knows how to make tough decisions, and he has a proven track record.  But does he have the temerity it will take to fight back the media?  Does he have what it takes to weather the riots that are sure to follow some of that which he overturns: A la Greece, a la France, a la Ireland?  You take away their goodies, and some people don’t shrug and go out and get a job.  They riot, they burn stuff, and they occupy.  After showing that mayhem, the media will show your face and your press secretary taking questions, and you’re supposed to plod on with your agenda like nothing happened.  There aren’t a lot of people who can weather such a storm and remain teathered to their idea that what they’re trying to do is better for America in the long-term.  Most politicians will scale back a little bit to show that they’re kinder and gentler.  Most people can’t handle it when the onslaught that begins to weave its way out of NY Times headlines and columns, to the evening news programs, to the late night talk shows, to Saturday Night Live, and onto to the Marys in accounting who say: “I was with Romney when he did such and such, but he didn’t have to do such and such, that hurts such and such a people.”  Most people want the Marys of this world to like them, and they’re not willing to have their face put to the repetition.  What Romney is saying from the podium sounds great, but it’s ensconced in theory and sent out to friendly crowds where it plays well, but will it play as well in debates and in legislation and onto reality?  Will he have the temerity of a Reagan who watched all of this going on around him and pushed forward with what he believed in?

Romney says if he wins, he’s going to transform America back to what it used to be before moderate Republicans and liberal Democrats took the reins and progressively transformed this country into what it is today.  Many have said that Romney is a moderate on some social issues, but most have no question that he’s as close to a pure Capitalist as we currently have running for office.  He really believes Capitalism is the way to go, and he’s been able to defend his position against those who have called him a vulture capitalist.  He deftly avoids backing down on his position, but is it because he believes it, or is it political know how?

It’s hard to win me over with material that comes from a podium, but when one quiety laments that his ideas may rub some people the wrong way once it’s put into play, and that mirrors my beliefs I get so excited I’m bouncing off the walls.  It makes one think he might actually do this, but whether he has what it takes to get it done is another question altogether.  He appears to have a strong faith, and thus a strong constitution, that can combat all of which I described above.  He avoids full-fledged attacks that vet his positions on issues, but does that mean that he’s simply well-schooled in the art of debate, or that he believes in what he stands for in a manner that suggests that he might become an excellent statesmen?

I hate the drama.  Let’s face it, most of those us who are immersed in the drama chose to be there.  Drama usually does not happen by accident.  Usually, it’s the people, places and things one chooses to surround himself with that causes the problems and the drama.  People have problems, people have situations.  I’m not talking about genuine tragedy or genuine problems.  I’m talking about the man or woman who sees a relatively simple issue and starts screaming or belittling a loved one.  Their reason for being is soon quenched when everyone and the family dog rushes to their side to ease their pain.  I know, I know, you’re not one who falls prey to their cries.  You’re the one who doesn’t listen when Mary cries.  If something goes wrong, however, and the first person you look at is Mary, you in the drama mama.  The sad thing is it works, especially if you’re good looking.  If you’re not good looking, you had better learn how to scream louder and swear more often.  It then becomes everyone’s focus to try and get Mary to stop screaming and swearing, and she achieves her goal of being the only one crying in every room she’s in.  She’s officially the drama mama.

I hate book reviewers who say that they’ve read a book in one day.  “I just read this book this afternoon.  I read it in a day.  Yes, it’s that good!”  The goal of the reviewer is not to tell you how good he thinks the book is.  It’s to tell you how fast they read the book, and how intelligent they must be to have read a book, any book, that fast.

I hate teasing.  I don’t care if it’s a radio show, or a TV show, everybody teases.  Commercials are teases, of course, but we all know that.  I’m talking about the show, or host, who says: “I’ll get into this information after the break.”  Or, the TV show that leads you to the revelation of something huge and fades to the commercial of the latest drug that aids in some form of vaginal disorder.

On that note, there’s nothing more disturbing to me than to hear explicit detail on how some particular drug will assist you in curing the most explicit malfunctions of our reproductive organs.  I understand that these commercials are hoping to educate the public as to the virtues of their product, but they end the commercials with the words, “Consult your physician to find out if this drug is right for you.”  Can’t we consult with our physician with these intimate most details of our ailment?  If you have a reproductive organ jetting blood, you should probably consult with your physician.  I’m quite sure your physician will tell you that it’s not what it’s supposed to do that, and he’ll recommend a drug to cure it.  Why do I have to hear about this though?  I know that the company is trying to niche its way into the market, because every doctor knows that product A is the perfect cure for the jetting blood, but if the customer is adamant enough about the niche product then the physician will prescribe it.  In most cases of this sort, the knowledgeable consumer is not right, but with the perfect ad, showing the perfect model that has the same ailment as you, you can niche your way into the market.  I know what they’re trying to do, I’m just sick and tired of the effort.

I hate people who know the answer after the answer was given.  How many of us are Jeopardy! experts?  How many of us knew the answer shortly after it was given?  There’s probably some psychological name given to this, but I don’t know what it is.  I just know that all of us do it.  All of us can build backwards to most answers to figure why it’s the right answer, but we just shouldn’t ask for credit for it.  Most of us get frustrated when this moment arrives, because we weren’t able to think of the answer quicker.  We all knew the answer, we just weren’t able to process it quickly enough, and we express our frustration over that fact.  There are others who begin with, “I was going to say…”  These ‘I was gonna say’ creatures actually want credit for knowing the answer after it was given.  My reply, “Well, you should’ve said something earlier” is the only thing that frustrates them.  Some of the times, they are able to draw perfect angles to the answer, but I still don’t give them credit.  “You should’ve said something earlier,” then sits like a kidney stone between us that must pass in a painful manner.

I hate cheering on sports teams.  There’s nothing more frustrating than watching my favorite team go down in flames.  I had so much hope watching them this year.  I secretely thought this was their year.  I heard the experts say that they were lacking in such and such a way, but I ignored it.  They always say stuff like that.  They’re paid to be negative.  I thought these negative comments could be overcome once they got hot, and all of their pistons started firing.  This would be it.  They finally had that guy that completed some kind of equation that I had in my mind.  Things wouldn’t go down that way this year.  Not this year!  Then it does, and the goofball, Howdy Doody look alike Eli Manning is having fun, hopping around in my team’s defense like he’s playing hopscotch, and I realize that my loved ones have been afraid of me for the last couple of minutes, and my dog is shuddering in a corner, and it dawns on me that there’s not a damned thing I could do about any of it.  Phil Donahue once said, “With all the heartbreak that is out there with rejection from lovers, economic loss, and career failures, how can you guys invest such emotion in teams, when you can’t do anything about it?”  It’s one of the few intelligent things Donahue said in his twenty some odd years of broadcasting, and I think about it every time my team goes down in flames.

I hate it when politicians say they’re going to retire or not run for a seat for any reason other than the truth.  I hate it when a Congressman says that he’s not going to run for the Senate, because the job he was sent to do in Congress is not done.  It’s a tedious response.  I hate it when a former Senator and Governor says that he’s made the decision that is in the best interest of his family.  No one I know knows what that means.  Does it mean that you don’t want to put your kids through the trauma of the microscope placed on them when  you run for a seat?  If that’s the case, quit letting your party think that you have some interest in the seat.  When a sitting State Senator says he’s not running for the seat because, “I want to be sure kids get the care they need,” the first question all of us are asking is wouldn’t you be able to do that on a wider scale as a federal Senator?  When a Governor says that he loves his current job, I’m a little less convinced that he’s lying, but the cynical side of me tells me that he would love the Senate seat too.  The cynical side of me says that like our Founding Fathers, most politicians fear appearing ambitious…when they’re told that they’re going to lose.  When a sitting Senator tells us that he’s retiring because he wants to spend more time with the family, everyone from his colleagues in the Senate to my five-year-old nephew knows that he’s skirting the issue.  It’s all about research and internal polling.  Internal polling tells a Congressman, a Governor, a sitting Senator, a former Senator and Governor, and a state Senator that they’re going to lose, and that’s why they are all telling us that they’re not running for Nebraska’s Senate seat that Nebraskans chose to let Ben Nelson occupy for twelve years.  I don’t expect them to say this publicly, don’t get me wrong, but it would be nice if they could switch up their lies every once in a while.  The current rolodex of excuses is so cliché, it’s an insult to our intelligence.

I hate it when liberals say that conservatives aren’t liberals because they aren’t intelligent enough.  Tim Tebow is not a liberal, according to this liberal line of logic (?), because he was home-schooled.  The theory being, if Tebow had gone to a school and experienced more gay and lesbians in every day life, he would be more liberal.  Rush Limbaugh isn’t more liberal, because he didn’t have enough sex.  Sean Hannity isn’t a liberal because he didn’t smoke pot.  Just think what a wonderful place this would be if he had.  We would all be more relaxed, happier, more liberal, and we could all live in peace and harmony.

Conservatism is not a choice in other words, it’s a sentence inflicted upon those who weren’t reared correctly, or who didn’t know how to live when they had their taste of freedom in college.  I know liberals will say that I’m broad brushing a little too much on this note, but I’ve read a lot of liberal literature.  I’ve read a lot of liberal blogs, and I’ve watched a lot of liberal shows.  I know that they say, and write, this stuff.  They believe it.  I also know that their great answer to all that plagues man is that there is no answer.  They want complex constructs.  “There are no simple solutions,” they say, “and there are no absolutes!”  Yet, when it comes to their great dilemma, why aren’t more people liberal, they break it down to all of the simple solutions and absolutes listed above.  I wasn’t home-schooled though, I’ve worked with and spent time with a variety of people from every walk of life, and I’ve done all the things listed above, so why am I still not a liberal?  To paraphrase Former President Ronald Reagan, a liberal is someone who reads liberal literature.  A conservative is someone who understands it.

I hate politicians who say I was taken out of context, then we all drop it.  We move on.  Wait a second here, I want to scream to all the reporters leaving the room with this as their only note, he said it.  He shouldn’t get off scot free just saying he was taken out of context.  He should be forced to put that quote back into context for us all, so we can know what he truly meant.  He should be forced to set the record straight.

“The idea that you pick the most right-wing candidate without any concern over who can win is suicidal,” Ann Coulter said in an apparent flip-flop over the presidential run of former Governor Mitt Romney.

Coulter is receiving a lot of flak for this comment.  The reason is Coulter has been saying, for years, that Republicans shouldn’t fear electing conservatives to the White House.  In recent years, she has railed against the nominations of RINOs Dole and McCain.  Throughout her career, she has railed against soft bellied Republicans.  She is now saying that remaining stubborn on a right-wing candidate is suicidal.  The comment is charged, of course, but what Coulter comment isn’t.  The question is is she right?  All of us have our issues about the candidacy of Mitt Romney, be they the second Amendment, Romneycare, or the silly flak developed over the $10,000 bet Romney issued to Perry.  All conservatives have their reasons for being against Mitt Romney.

For many, Romney will be another, in a long list of presidential elections, in which the voter votes for the lesser of two evils (if he wins the GOP nomination of course).  Others have said that they simply won’t vote if Romney wins the nomination.  Whether it be their devotion to principle, or the vain pursuit of being perceived as the smartest person in the room, some have said they won’t vote at all because Romney doesn’t adhere to their pet issue in a manner that’s conservative enough.  This is what, in my opinion, Coulter was referring to as suicidal.

The line, ‘This is the most important election in our lifetimes’ has been bandied about so often that most people laugh when you say it.  The question many have is, is it true in this case?  We’ve never had, to paraphrase Thomas Sowell, a president test our limits in the manner this president has.  FDR wasn’t this liberal say some analysts, LBJ wasn’t this liberal, and some have gone so far to state that even Woodrow Wilson wasn’t even this liberal.  No one has mentioned James Earl Carter, but it could be said that even he wasn’t even this liberal.  I know a number of people who would find this charge outrageous, but I’m thinking those people are probably factoring Carter’s disastrous post-presidency into the equation.  Not even the damage Carter did to the generations that followed his presidency could be compared to the havoc Obama has wreaked upon the capitalistic system of this country.  He has done a majority of the damage with the full support of Congress, and now he’s doing it without Congress.  “I have an obligation, as president, to do what I can without Congress,” he said recently.  The only thing that appears to have kept him, somewhat, in check is the fact that he wants to be re-elected.  In this light, and in the general scheme of things, every conservative voter must ask themselves the question ‘just how important is this issue I hold true?’

“(It) is not just, can you check off this issue, this issue, this issue, but who can you send in in the debates against Obama,” Coulter said. 

In other words, what’s your equation?  Would you rather have Obama sitting in office for another four years, because you don’t think there would be that much difference between he and Obama on your particular issue?  Are you willing to sit out this election, because you’re seeking to prove a point to the GOP?  Do you think that the GOP will never learn to nominate a “suitable” candidate if you vote for a lukewarm conservative?  As I said in a previous blog, you’re not sending a message to a bunch of Scooby-Doo, cigar smoking, suspender wearing bad guys.  You’re trying to send a message to a huge voting bloc that can be as fickle as a teenage sports fan.  You’re trying to send a message to a collective conscience of the voters who decide candidates in a primary.  They won’t change their minds based upon you what you think, Jed in Pocatello.  They collectively decide who is best for them and the nation as a whole.  In other words, if you think Romney is soft (or wrong) on your issue, you need to ask yourself is Romney will be the most formidable candidate against Obama?  The next Republican candidate, Ann says, “should be someone ‘who has run in . . . a diverse enough state that he has had to appeal to get votes from independents, from Democrats, from women. . . .’

We have 50% of the American electorate not paying federal income taxes, we have one in six on some form of government assistance, and we have $1,974,042,215,000 funding 1,607 government programs.  Some have questioned whether Obama is the great debater that some have professed him to be, but we do know that with this much government dependence, a lot of people are getting government goodies that they’re not going to be willing to give up easily.

Some have said that those who receive government goodies shouldn’t be able to vote for a politician that promises them more goodies and leads us on an escalated course of destruction.  Some have said that those who don’t pay federal taxes shouldn’t be able to vote in federal elections.  We’re not there, and we may never be, so the GOP may need someone who is able to soft sell moving away from dependence.

To those informed individuals who produce the nuggets of information that detail that Romney may be soft on such and such an issue, do you know what we’re up against here?  How educated do you think the populace is?  We’re turning to late-night comedians for our news now.  I don’t expect anyone to shape their politics based on the influence of late-night comedians, but they have carved out their own niche.  They are influential in ways similar to Oprah Winfrey was in 2008.  While no one late-night host is as influential as Oprah was, collectively they may have an equal influence.  A recent study at the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University suggests that they’re all liberal.

A Thomas Sowell column suggested that if we broke all of the conservatives and liberals into teams, we would see the true nature of the movements.  If we took the top college graduates and broke them down by profession, we would find that the A team of the liberal movement, their best and brightest, all go into politics.  The A team of the conservative movement, however, usually go into business.  They see what like-minded individuals who run for office go through, and they don’t want any part of that.  It’s human nature to want to be liked, and these people don’t want to be hated for their conservative, Constitutional, beliefs in Capitalism.  Some would say that it takes a certain kind of mettle for a man to survive the media onslaught that the media heaps on Republicans and that those of this ‘A team’ that can’t handle it are weeded out.  How many of this movement simply want no part of it?  How many top businessmen, who would’ve made excellent leaders in the public sector, saw that like-minded candidate put through the sausage grinder and said I just don’t want to go through that?

If Romney is nominated for the GOP ticket, conservatives need to ask themselves if the Jed’s in Pocatello will vote for drastic change?  The line that conservatives usually offer up is Reagan got elected as a conservative.  He promised change, and he promised to save us from the disastrous Carter years, and he welcomed all to join in on the conservative doctrine.  Fair enough, but who is the Reagan in this election?  Who can combine heart-felt conservatism with electability?  We’ve seen the candidates thus far in numerous debates, and no one has shown Reagan’s prowess in combining the two.  The country may need an artful politician to bridge the gap between the dependence we’ve built up over the last couple of generations and where we need to be.   If the A team is not up there in the GOP stratosphere of candidates, then is it suicidal to wait until that man, our man, is up there?  What if that man never steps forth?  What if he would rather work within the confines of private industry where he is lauded for his beliefs rather than castigated?  What are we conservatives left with, and is it suicidal to demand that we all wait until he’s ready to finally step forward and take the heat?  Mitt Romney may be the least of all evils, but we may need him to be the candidate that is able to combine soft-sell change with electability.

http://americanvisionnews.com/266/coulter-flips-flops-sells-out-right-wing-republicans

http://funding-programs.idilogic.aidpage.com/

http://www.billoreilly.com/column;jsessionid=5FA95CBB33A31D180690713626C29764?pid=35371

http://bennelson.senate.gov/press/press_releases/statement-by-senator-ben-nelson-on-his-plans-for-2012.cfm

In this letter, Nelson stated that he was bowing out, because he wanted to spend more time with his family, and that it was “time to move on.” Former Fox football analyst John Madden once said: “Anyone who tells you he’s retiring because he wants to spend more time with his family is lying.” To be fair, when Madden eventually retired in 2009, the second and final time, he said that he wanted to spend more time with the family.

Nelson’s retirement gives Republicans an edge in Nebraska, where he is the only Democrat currently elected to statewide office, and in their campaign to take over the Senate, political analysts say.

“It qualitatively changes things for Democrats” because ‘I don’t see a path to victory for Democrats in Nebraska,” said Jennifer Duffy, a Senate analyst for the non-partisan Cook Political Report. Nelson’s retirement next year “puts Republicans one seat closer to a majority.”

To wrest control of the Senate, Republicans need a net gain of four seats in next November’s elections if President Barack Obama wins a second term. A Republican victory in the presidential race would reduce the needed pickup to three seats because the vice president casts tie-breaking votes.

“It’s a pretty tough road for Democrats in Nebraska, where Obama is so unpopular,” Duffy said.

Not always a reliable vote for Democrats, Nelson secured a concession for Nebraska in return for supporting President Barack Obama’s health-care legislation over a crucial procedural hurdle in 2009. Republicans derided the provision exempting Nebraska from paying for expanded Medicaid coverage as the “Cornhusker Kickback.” Nelson later asked that all states be treated equally. He still ended up voting for it though.

A maverick in his caucus, Nelson voted against legislation in August to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, saying it “sets up a maze of convoluted procedures that will only continue the chaos and political games Nebraskans are tired of seeing.”

In 2005, when Republicans ran the Senate, Nelson was part of the bipartisan “Gang of 14” senators who agreed not to block judicial nominations except under “extraordinary circumstances.” The agreement averted a threat of legislative gridlock in the Senate over confirmation of President George W. Bush’s appointments to the federal bench.

No one would say that Senator Ben Nelson was a liberal. The National Journal tabulated his votes as a Senator and found that he voted conservative 57.7% of the time and 42.3% liberal. It was one vote that did him in the minds of most Nebraskans I know: The vote for Obamacare, and the shenanigans that went on to secure that Nelson vote. The shenanigans are what we Nebraskans call The Cornhusker kickback. How much blame does Nelson deserve for the Cornhusker kickback compromise? No one knows. In the end, he still voted for Obamacare, so no one cares.

Some have pointed to the “Cornhusker kickback”, and the penetrating ads that the GOP has run to reveal the nature of the compromise, as the number one reason that Nelson would have had a great deal of difficulty getting re-elected to Nebraska’s Senate seat. Others have pointed to the pressures that Nelson faced among extremist Democrats as one of the primary reasons that Nelson decided to retire. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi once commented that she wouldn’t mind certain Democrats losing, because it gave her party the chance to purge those who wouldn’t toe the party line. In other words, blue dog Democrats like Nelson should fend for themselves. In other words, those without party purity would not receive the same kind of vocal support that the purists received. Pelosi was primarily speaking of House Democrats of course, but many believe that this has been a general line of thinking for most extremists Democrats (see Joe Liberman). One has to wonder if the pressure from these two factions proved to be too much for Nelson.

Clear-minded Democrats understood how important Ben Nelson was to them, and they saw to it that his campaign received more than one million in campaign finances for campaign ads. Some say this was done to attempt to convince Nelson not to retire.

The DNC leadership may not have loved Nelson, but they decided to focus on the fact that he was the only Democrat elected statewide in Nebraska, and that he generally delivered a vote they would not get otherwise. They knew that having another Mike Johanns (R,NE), or Jon Thune (R, SD) would be disastrous to their attempts to pass their agenda in the Senate in other words. According to a Senate Democratic leadership aide, Senators Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer tried to convince Nelson to stay in Congress after Nelson told a Nebraska newspaper a few weeks ago he was still deciding on whether to run.

“Over the last several weeks, there were intense conversations with Reid and Schumer trying to make Nelson understand how needed he was and how valued he is as a member of the caucus,” the Senate aide said. “Ultimately they understood that this is a personal decision.”

A Democratic strategist who spoke on condition of not being identified characterized Nelson’s decision as disloyal to the party.

“He typically takes the easy way out,” the strategist said. “The party has stood by him, but when the going gets tough, he abandons the party.”

During the first two years of the Obama administration, Senator Nelson’s vote proved crucial time and again in ending Republican filibusters, and Democratic leaders were willing to go to great lengths to meet his requirements — including handing him a $100 million special Medicaid allocation as part of the health care bill that was derided as “the Cornhusker kickback’’ and eventually repudiated by Senator Nelson. Even though that was taken off the table, Nelson still decided to vote for the Obamacare legislation.

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 even 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, a district that has since been reshaped by the state legislature. In 2006 bid for re-election, Ben Nelson lost every other town, hamlet, and city in Nebraska, except for Omaha. The votes were so overwhelming in Omaha that Nelson won re-election. Minds have obviously changed.

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.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-27/democratic-senator-ben-nelson-of-nebraska-won-t-seek-re-election-next-year.html

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/27/politics/senate-nelson/index.html

http://nationaljournal.com/magazine/house-and-senate-centrists-20110224?page=1

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/ben_nelson/index.html