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Posted on June 1st, 2009 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News.
We knew it was coming. We knew that General Motors was going to go belly-up. It should have happened sooner rather than later. We have thrown good money after bad for far too long. GM should have been in bankruptcy a long, long, time ago. The company is in the hole for a reported amount of $173 BILLION DOLLARS. Excuse me? How is a company that owes $173 billion, VIABLE, in any sense of the word?
What’s even more amazing than the amount owed by GM however, are the galling comments that Barack Obama made about the bankruptcy. Apparently he wasn’t going to allow GM to become a welfare ward of the American taxpayer. Really? Then why the hell is he throwing another $30 billion at GM?! What do we get for the near $50 billion we’ve pumped into GM thus far? We get a 60% stake in a company that is WORTHLESS. To top it off, the government is going to be purchasing a fleet of vehicles from the “new” GM. No, no corporate welfare to be seen here… shuffle off. Is this guy for real?
I remember when Barack Obama said that he had no interest in running GM. Well, I think somebody missed the memo because while GM is closing plant after plant, it’s also going to open a new plant that will build small cars, apparently the smallest ever offered by the automaker. Seems to me that GM has gotten Obama’s message (more like mandate) loud and clear. Who is it that is going to buy these tiny vehicles? Have Americans shown a real interest in buying these micro vehicles that GM is set to start selling? No…. but hey, who cares, it’s not like GM is actually conducting BUSINESS. After all, when the US government is your sugar daddy, you really don’t have to worry about making something people want to BUY.
This is insanity. It’s time for conservatives and people that believe in CAPITALISM to walk away from every company currently taking money from this government. We cannot REWARD these companies for their failures by buying what they’re selling. These are not American enterprises be they banks, insurance companies or automakers. Abandon them wholesale. You might be stuck with a bank for your mortgage, but you can move investments, insurance policies, retirement funds, checking/savings accounts from these parasitic companies and reward those companies that are conducting a quality business.
Sorry for the rant, but I am enraged by these developments. That Barack Obama would pretend that GM is not still on the government dole because of this bankruptcy filing is an OUT AND OUT lie. We are now in deeper than ever. Make no mistake about it.
Posted on May 31st, 2009 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, Just Dumb, News.
One would think that Robert Gibbs, the President’s Press Secretary would be a little more media savvy. Where former Press Secretaries would dismiss comments made by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, or in this case the British press, Gibbs seems keen to take on all comers straight away. Bad move, Bob (or does the President call you Bill too?).
Politico has an extraordinary report on Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary, launching a furious broadside against the British press. Here are Gibbs’ sneering and condescending remarks:
“I want to speak generally about some reports I’ve witnessed over the past few years in the British media,” Gibbs said. “In some ways, I’m surprised it filtered down.”
“Let’s just say if I wanted to look up, if I wanted to read a write-up of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I’d might open up a British newspaper,” he continued. “If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not entirely sure it’d be the first pack of clips I’d pick up.”
Gibbs’ juvenile comments followed an article in The Daily Telegraph relating to the President’s decision not to release new photos reportedly showing appalling prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib by a tiny minority of military personnel. The straightforward news piece, hotly disputed by the White House, is based upon an interview with Major General Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the inquiry into the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal.
Bob, may I call you Bob? Your boss wants this story to go away. The US military wants this story to go away. The American people want this story to go away. So, when you’re asked about it, why not just say, “The President did what he felt was in the best interests of our fighting men and women still in harm’s way,” or, “We’re not going to comment on every press account as relates to an issue that has been thoroughly covered.”? It’s all really rather simple, Bob. You don’t need to diminish the whole of British media with a snarky retort. Please Bob, a little professionalism. You should be out there elevating your neophyte boss in the eyes of the world and here you are playing down at his level? Come on, man… think.
Leave Limbaugh and the media (British or otherwise) alone. Think of these items as the third rail of Press Secretaries. You have managed to elevate a talk show host to the level of world power, while lowering the British press to the level of The National Enquirer. Just nod, smirk and say nothing… you can handle that kind of work cantcha Bob?
You’re an idiot Mr. Gibbs, but you’re our idiot. I don’t like to see you savaged in the foreign press, even if deserving of it. Elevate your rhetoric sir, please, for the sake of your rock star boss.
Posted on May 29th, 2009 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News.
Senator Cornyn, do us all a favor and practice what you preach. How dare you judge editorial worth by whether or not somebody is an “elected official”.
“I think it’s terrible… This is not the kind of tone any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advise and consent.”
Cornyn dismissed Limbaugh and Gingrich, adding: “Neither one of these men are elected Republican officials. I just don’t think it’s appropriate. I certainly don’t endorse it. I think it’s wrong.”
Have you read the Constitution of the United States of America, Senator? It is every American’s RIGHT to speak their mind and I would go further and state that it is their civic duty. I suppose you being a Senator makes you a more worthy judge of Sonia Sotomayor? It seems you’ve taken as elitist a view as the judge, elevating your position as a Senator above that of the unelected. Perhaps you two could compare and contrast your assertion that elected opinions matter more than those of the unelected, with her view that latina women are better judges than white males.
Excuse me sir, but Gingrich and Limbaugh owe you nothing. They surely don’t owe you their silence. Perhaps if you weren’t such a yellow bellied coward they wouldn’t have to take it upon themselves to speak out. Perhaps if you were as committed to the defense of conservatism as you claim to be, you would understand why the words of Sotomayor are so concerning. Perhaps if you were a man of convictions rather than a hack consumed with being re-elected, you’d be out in front leading on the issue instead of calculating risks to your own political ambitions.
Right is right, sir. Cowardly is cowardly… and you sir, you Senator Cornyn, you are a coward.
Posted on May 29th, 2009 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News.
I had to laugh when I read this story. It seems that Ahmadinejad is trying to buy the votes of the poor in Iran by doling out potatoes.
Two weeks from today, Iran’s presidential election will determine whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust-denying, Israel-hating, America-bashing incumbent, remains in office, whether his country continues its drive to become a nuclear power, and whether a state with a key role in Iraq, Afghanistan and other international flashpoints remains hostile to the West.
The stakes could scarcely be higher, but it is the lowly potato that has been grabbing attention.
The Government is handing out 400,000 tonnes of free spuds in rural towns. It says that it is merely distributing the surplus from a bumper crop, but Mr Ahmadinejad’s opponents accuse it of bribing the poor. “Death to potatoes,” they chant at rallies.
One would think that the idea is madness and that the people could see through such things (especially given that Iran has a very high unemployment rate that Mahmoud has done nothing about) but perhaps not. After all, look at us here in the United States. We bought off on a juvenile and populist notion that Barack Obama would deliver “hope” and “change”. Given that the US seems to be doing worse off now than when he took office, it seems that Ahmadinejad’s potatoes are a much stronger offering than Obama’s cheap promises.
I hope that in the future those voting Democrat will demand more of their candidates. It’s time for them to get back to basics… passing out cigarettes, instead of handing off bogus promises.
Posted on May 28th, 2009 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News.
I keep hearing that Chrysler and GM are going to survive albeit as much smaller entities. I keep hearing that America’s big three will survive this economic “downturn”. I keep hearing that Mr. Obama will make sure it’s so. Nonsense. America is down to ONE car manufacturer and that is Ford. If you’re going to buy American, you need to set aside GM and Chrysler as wholly UNAMERICAN. GM and Chrysler are now government entities within the market. They are not American corporations, they are not capitalist endeavors engaged in the risk and reward of business. Until the Obama government is out of GM and Chrysler, these two companies are the antithesis of capitalistic enterprises.
If you want to buy “American” support companies still doing business within the capitalist model. At this point buying Toyota, Honda or Nissan is in essence more in line with “Buying American” than if you bought from either GM or Chrysler. Government is NOT supposed to take over corporations. We have courts and a process called BANKRUPTCY which companies in the straits faced by Chrysler and GM are supposed to utilize to weather such storms, or to fold up and die. We have thrown tens of billions of dollars at both of these auto companies in an attempt to keep them viable. In the end, both Chrysler and GM ended up in bankruptcy anyway. So I ask? What was the POINT?
Congratulations tax payers, we own two worthless companies. Congratulations bond holders, you got robbed. Congratulations union employees, a bunch of you are going to be let go, but hey, your dues have managed to allow your “representatives” to own a stake in these worthless companies as well. I don’t know, is this supposed to be the “feel good” moment?
Forget about helping your fellow American or the economy by buying a Chrysler or a GM car. The temptation will be great when all of the dust settles. It will seem like business as usual, but it won’t be. Business won’t be “as usual” until the US Government is out of the industry. You have to look beyond the little guys where it concerns your next auto purchase. If you believe in capitalism, and further that it has served this country well, then you have to reject GM and Chrysler products. Neither of these companies represents American capitalism. They are now monuments to the Obama dream of a socialist economy in which government is expanded and expanded and expanded. Obama has brought 70,000 people into the government at a median income of $75,000 per year. Was this the hope and change that we were supposed to embrace? Now we can add tens of thousands more to the government payroll under the subheadings of “Chrysler” and “General Motors”. Yeah, a real feel good moment for America and American industry. Give yourselves a pat on the back. Shake your own hand. Job well done.
Posted on May 26th, 2009 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News.
I don’t even have to go very far on this one. Is Sonia Sotomayor a great jurist? Nope apparently not. From the various reports trickling in from colleagues, it seems that Ms. Sotomayor leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to her abilities. I have serious questions about a woman that intimates on video that courts, “set policy”. Courts are NOT supposed to set policy, they are supposed to interpret the law. Further, it seems that Ms. Sotomayor thinks that her experiences as a latina female make her somehow more qualified to render judgment than say, a white male on matters of race and sex. Really? How so? If a judge is supposed to work within the context of the LAW, what personal experience is it that she wishes to impart where it concerns her application of said law? It seems that the law will be trumped by Ms. Sotomayor’s life experience. Oh how nice for all of us that she is going to bring her bias to the bench.
Congratulations Ms. Sotomayor, not for being a learned scholar of law, but for being female and latina… that seems the most pressing of criterias in Mr. Obama’s selection of you as a Supreme Court Justice. How does it feel to have subjected yourself to years of education and to then find that what qualified you was obtained at your birth? Somebody with a wee bit of self respect might be offended, but hey, you said it yourself, you’re only half the woman your mother is.
Posted on May 26th, 2009 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News.
Memo to Barack Obama, Kim Jong-il and Ahmadinejad don’t give a hoot what you think. After detonating a “test” nuke, it was nice to see Mr. Hope and Change come out and condemn it (after following prompts from China and Russia) and followed up by hastily tossing the matter off to the UN. Way to lead Mr. President.
Last week Benjamin Netanyahu paid Washington a visit. Without a doubt he voiced his terrible concerns with regard to Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. After all, Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric hasn’t exactly been reasonable whilst he’s chased down “the bomb”. Barack Obama is the biggest advocate of the two state solution to ever hold the office of President of the United States, and it doesn’t matter a lick. The tiny tyrant is unimpressed. Iran does as it likes, Ahmadinejad continues to make threats and what does Obama tell Netanyahu? He says that he wants progress with Iran on nuclear weapons by the end of the year. I wonder if Barack Obama would be so cavalier if nuclear weapons were being installed in Cuba and Castro was threatening to wipe Florida off of the map. Somehow I’m not convinced that he’d do much of anything to stop it. Hey Mr. Putin, you might want to finish what Khrushchev started.
Who is spearheading the Obama effort on North Korea? Hillary Clinton? No. It seems that the Secretary of State is being relegated to second fiddle while we pass the buck to the UN and to Susan Rice, who by my estimate is a neophyte. Remember this is the woman that said that neither Clinton or Obama were ready for a “3 AM call” during the campaign. Isn’t it nice to know that Ms. Rice is bringing her own brand of naivete to reining in North Korea? Rice isn’t ready for a call, period. Watching her on the morning talk circuit this morning inspired no sense of confidence within me… and today, the missiles continue to fly despite all of the “condemnations”.
This is madness. Nuclear proliferation was poised to become epidemic, unfortunately the election of Barack Obama has made what was going to be a tough job (stopping it/slowing it) impossible. Meanwhile, in Pakistan… the Taliban marches on.
Sooner or later we have to expect this president to commit to a course of action on SOMETHING. Giving away the store and bankrupting tax payers for the next half a century somehow now seems irrelevant in the scope of wondering if this guy is going to twiddle his thumbs on the road to Armaggedon.
Posted on October 19th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, Politics.
What is wrong with the media and the democratic party in this country when they go out of their way to destroy a private citizen? Are we not entitled by birth-right to ask questions of our leaders? Is that not American? Should we all fear RETRIBUTION for asking a question? How exactly does one speak truth to power in an environment like this? The media has visited more scrutiny on Joe the Plumber, than it has its candidate of choice, Barack Obama. In concert with the likes of Joe ‘Jobs is a three letter word’ Biden the media have rushed to the defense of Obama, and painted Joe the Plumber as a fraud, a dead beat and “unlicensed”. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THIS COUNTRY?! Meanwhile, you can’t get these people to investigate, Rezko, ACORN, Ayers, Wright, Michelle, Farrakhan or any of a slew of campaign promises that Mr. Obama cannot hope to keep in our current economic climate.
Are we really prepared to suffer the leadership of the Democrats while the Fourth Estate’s nose remains entrenched betwixt Mr. Obama’s butt cheeks? Really? Is this the new press? Can we expect to see the wrath of the press unleashed on ALL WHO DARE TO OPPOSE, “The One”?
Dear God, we are so screwed. America isn’t even America anymore. Are we really going to elect this guy? Are we really going to allow ourselves to suffer through a union of the media elite and the political elite? Have we gone mad? How can we stand by and allow these thugs to take out a “REAL” American (as opposed to Iranian caviar, lobster sucking rabble rousers)?
This is horrific.
Posted on September 24th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, Politics.
Yes Sarah Palin sat in her lakeside lair and nefariously plotted… well… apparently everything she’s ever done. “SCREW THOSE RAPE VICTIMS, MAKE THEM PAY,” she hissed while cleaning a rifle and impaling small woodland creatures beneath her stiletto heels. The fact of the matter is that the police department attempted to recoop costs for the tests from insurance companies and that the depth of the decision and the discussion that can be PROVED is found in how much cash was allotted for tests within the budget. Of course all of the “bloggers” (I think that term is too good for some of the garbage about this I have seen at Huffpost) want to find an evil, transsexual (because she can’t be a REAL woman) Palin snuffing out the rights of women. To this point that has not been achieved, so it’s back to troopergate.
It’s enough already… really. The investigation will go on, and sooner or later, “the truth” will be revealed. Oh, wait… no, the truth will not be revealed… because anything short of, “the woman is a criminal, a practicing witch and a man” will be deemed COVER-UP by some of the lunatics out there. Nevermind that Barack Obama’s patrons are terrorists, crooks and anti-American scumbags. No, that’s fine… BUT PALIN… whoa Palin, she will bring apocalypse. My God, she abused her authority by firing a guy that didn’t take on a drunken and reckless trooper. Yeah, this will play. PLEASE. The only people this plays with are Obamaniacs. Honestly, all Sarah Palin would have to do (and I am sure she will at some point), is discuss this guy’s record (he made it public) and the fact that he has a right to kill (to this very day) in her state. They’ll wonder why she didn’t sack the entire hierarchy of the Alaska State Troopers.
The real abuse of power in this case comes from the union (no I AM NOT ANTI-UNION). I can’t believe they took up for this trooper. Legitimate claims are ignored and fought haphazardly but this guy is defended vigorously. Unreal. Sorry kids, there will be no frog march to the firing squad for the evil genius that is Sarah Palin.
Posted on September 17th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News, Politics.
This week we watched the wheels come off of the cart where it concerns the financial markets. Believe me folks, this has been a long time coming. Alan Greenspan was a reckless steward of the economy and if you want to point a finger at a single villain in all of this, he is surely your man. We have a ways to go to see ourselves through all of this and I think that it is going to take industry reinvesting in America to bring about change. We need to build the most efficient engines, wind turbines, desalination equipment (water will be the new oil soon), solar cells, the list goes on and on. There is an emerging market where it concerns resources and we need to be at the forefront. Still, the candidates speak of revamping the financial sector while ignoring the fact that we need to first bring money back to this country.
While John McCain is seen as old school and beholden to special interests, Barack Obama maintains that HE and HE ALONE can bring real change to the financial markets. If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering how. Obama’s approach to campaigning surely hasn’t shown me anything different. He hasn’t changed the game. It’s the same cliched blood sport it’s always been. Where McCain is looked to as business as usual and therefor an ineffective agent for change, Barack Obama casts himself as this rebel rebuking big time corporate contributions or money from lobbyists. Is this true? No, not really. The industry he professes to want to change already owns him and people should realize this from the start. For all of his change rhetoric, his panhandling seems pretty status quo.
GOLDMAN SACHS…..$691,930
CITIGROUP…………….$448,599
JP MORGAN CHASE…$442,919
UBS AG………………….$404,750
LEHMAN BROS……..$370,524
MORGAN STANLEY….$318,070
Additionally, Merrill Lynch, FannieMae and FreddieMac are also big time donors. A former head of FannieMae was on Barack’s Vice Presidential vetting team. Here are the numbers by individual industry:
COMMERCIAL BANKS………………. $2,081,809
HEDGE/PRIVATE EQUITY FUNDS.. $1,979,162
INSURANCE COMPANIES………….. $1,290,434
SECURITIES AND INVESTMENTS….$9,873,356
So, there you have it. When Barack Obama is standing on the stump proclaiming that he is going to bring change to our ailing markets, you think about these contributions. You can similarly consider the same about McCain because he is likewise indebted to these outfits. McCain however has no political ambition beyond this election and further is not setting himself out there as some kind of squeaky clean outsider. McCain has to live down the whole Keating/S&L scandal and I think the guy is well aware that it’s a cross to bear. Barack will likely need these folks in his corner for a long, long, time to come. So you tell me, seriously, who is it that has less to lose by taking on an enormous task like this?