Passing along good information

Took this from a longer article, but thought it important enough to repeat.

Believing Polls? Hardly.

I was reading today about how polls are taken.  Most of them require land phone lines and people who are willing to answer the call, and the questions.  I don't answer when I get a call (I know my mother doesn't either).  It makes me wonder just who does.

Then there is the writing of the poll questions.  They can be skewed to solicit certain kinds of responses.  After all, they are multiple choice so the choices can be whatever the poll taker wants the results to show.

Think how you would answer the old standard, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"  What if your possible responses were:  1) Recently    2) Maybe next week   3) Not yet.

The pollster could therefore state that almost all respondents were beaters, but some had stopped and a small percentage would be stopping soon.  Hardly realistic, but an accurate representation of the poll results.

Since most polls are media related, it is little wonder that they run liberal.  That's why I'm skeptical of their results.

Obama and fiscal cliffs

I don't know if anyone much reads this, but it makes me feel better to put it out there.  Obviously, there are some political cartoonists whose work I enjoy.  I'm sharing a few of those today.

I have wondered if President Obama really had an idea what his policies were doing to regular people.  I know he considers himself far about the average citizen.

He makes noises in speeches about how Congress wouldn't work with him.  Even his own party couldn't support some of his ideas, and he has never offered a budget that Congress could take seriously.

I think we are in for a bad ride, and if President Obama gets reelected, our country is in some very deep trouble.

Media spin

The Mainstream Media is trying hard to make sure Barack Obama wins the 2012 election.  There is very little written or spoken on the major networks that is not glowing about him.  On the other hand, the microscope never wavers from Mitt Romney.  Things he says--no matter what the subject--are dissected, criticized, and enlarged for days.  President Obama can say whatever, even things that are proven false or misleading and he is almost never called on it.  He's golden.

Mitt Romney can say nothing that is positively reported by the major networks or national press.

Kathleen Parker provided an excellent example from a couple of months ago:

 I left out her entertaining account of how that make-believe strategy session may have sounded.

Romney said he would repeal Obamacare because he has always says that.  How would the pundits have described his speech if he had modified it to fit what he thought his audience wanted to hear?  They would have pilloried him as a deceiver.

I'll conclude with more of Kathleen Parker's words about the use of the word Obamacare:

I agree.

One more example from the newspaper today:

It's not just me who has noticed.

I forgot that I'd saved an article written by Charles Krauthammer, who explains this same idea in a very clear and erudite way.  This is not the entire piece, just the paragraphs I thought were the most revealing.

Business and Obama

President Obama has had few real jobs.  He was a professor for a short time, but I know of no other real jobs.  Being a Senator or Representative is supposed to be a public service job, but it is not full time (unless you count all the time spent working to get reelected).  Community Organizing is not a job one sees advertised in the classifieds.  If he has actually worked somewhere else, no one talks about it.

So, admittedly, he knows nothing about the difficulties and rewards of creating and maintaining a business--accounts payable, receivable, capital, tax accounting, personnel, materials, organization, etc.

Even ignorance is no excuse, these same entrepreneurs paid the taxes that made everything possible.  Many of them probably worked on some of these things too.

This last comic really sums it up.  

Thinking about the next two months

I'm glad the Conventions are over, but if you watched you saw there was little doubt about the mainstream media's liberal bias.  I suppose that if you lean far left yourself, you likely thought everything was fair and normal.  The "talking heads" that felt the need to tell us what we just heard picked apart all the speakers at the Republican Convention and waxed poetic about those at the Democratic Convention.  

If the media were trying to be really fair, talking to Al Sharpton after the RNC would be countered by Rush Limbaugh at the DNC.  That would be equal treatment.

I only hope that the next two months will go quickly.  I have read that many people now get a lot of their information from the Internet and/or social media.  Maybe that is partly because they realize that most of the regular media are viewing the election from just one angle, one restrictive prospective.

I hope people will read, study, and investigate before voting.  Those who just believe the sound bites (many of which will be misleading or deceptive) are the people I worry about.

Now that Mitt Romney has chosen his running mate, there is a whole new level of venom coming from the extreme left and the Obama camp.  Senator Ryan is going to do so many awful things that no one could possibly want him as vice president.  With help from the mainstream media, misleading and false information will abound.

Yes, Senator Ryan was bold and brave enough to offer a budget plan for the entitlement budget disaster that is looming.  Has President Obama offered anything?  Harry Reid?  Not really.  President Obama's only plan is to tax the "rich" more and offer possible, pretend savings that not even his own budget office believes will happen and would not stop us from falling off the fiscal cliff we are heading for.

We need to listen, consider facts, figure out ways to solve the problems, not just cross our fingers and assume things will be okay.

There just are not enough taxpayers to keep his ideas of endless money possible.  Repeated borrowing and printing money are like using credit irresponsibly.  It catches up and bankruptcy follows.  A bankrupt government helps no one.

More taxes won't help.

President Obama's economic record is a train wreck.  He is planning to raise taxes on everyone, but especially those making more than $200,000 a year.  Even Nancy Pelosi and some of his serious supporters think that bar is too low--they wanted the cut-off to be a million a year.  The Morning Bell, a publication by the Heritage Foundation lays out what this may mean to those most affected:

Besides the horrendous affect these taxes would have by themselves, add the uncertainty of the Affordable Care Act,  and our economy is in for a hit like it hasn't seen in 70 years.  Why a President would propose such a thing, when there is so little reward, boggles the mind.  Even assuming most of these businesses/people just paid those extra taxes--which is unlikely since many will probably close up shop--the dent made in the deficit would be infinitesimal.  Lots of loss for so tiny a gain.

Obama has no core beliefs

President Obama has again proven that he has no set of core beliefs.  The only idea that he seems to stick with is that he wants to have ultimate power to spend other people's money in whatever way he chooses.

The latest example is his pronouncement about illegal immigration.  Charles Krauthammer sums it up:

In 2010, President Obama asked Congress to pass the DREAM act.  Congress refused.  Hispanic groups suggested that he ignore Congress and use executive order.  His response?


But now that is exactly what he has done and the reason is obvious.  His numbers are slipping and he needs a big Hispanic vote.  Who will call him on it?  The press?  Congressional Democrats?  Hardly.  The immigration laws no longer apply to 800,000 people.


Mr. Krauthammer continues:

It is shameful that Congressional Democrats should be applauding such a brazen end-run. Of course it’s smart politics. It divides Republicans, rallies the Hispanic vote and pre-empts Marco Rubio’s attempt to hammer out an acceptable legislative compromise. Very clever. But, by Obama’s own admission, it is naked lawlessness. 


As Obama himself argued in rejecting the executive action he has now undertaken, “America is a nation of laws, which means I, as the president, am obligated to enforce the law. I don’t have a choice about that.” 


Except, apparently, when violating that solemn obligation serves his reelection needs. 


Me again.  So, no wrong or right--just expedience and reelection maneuvering.

War on Women?

A short time ago, an old acquaintance wanted my support on a social site against what she called the Republican War on Women.  I respectfully declined, saying that there was no such "war," and it was just another attempt by the left to divide us.  I was supported by comments of others who I didn't even know.  This acquaintance had fallen victim to the media sound bites without doing any fact checking.  I'm afraid that happens to lots of people.


Soon thereafter, I read a piece by Charles Krauthammer that explained this divisive strategy.  It is too well-written to pick apart, so I'm posting almost all of it.  

The entire Obama campaign is a slice-and-dice operation, pandering to one group after another, particularly those that elected Obama in 2008 — blacks, Hispanics, women, young people — and for whom the thrill is now gone.

What to do? Try fear. Create division, stir resentment, by whatever means necessary — bogus court challenges, dead-end Senate bills and a forest of straw men.

Why else would the Justice Department challenge the photo ID law in Texas? To charge Republicans with seeking to disenfranchise Hispanics and blacks, of course. But in 2008 the Supreme Court upheld a similar law from Indiana. And it wasn’t close: 6-3, the majority including that venerated liberal, John Paul Stevens.

Moreover, photo IDs were recommended by the 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, cochaired by Jimmy Carter. And you surely can’t get into the attorney general’s building without one. Are Stevens, Carter and Eric Holder anti-Hispanic and anti-black?

The ethnic bases covered, we proceed to the “war on women.”

It sprang to public notice when a 30-year-old student at an elite law school (starting private-sector salary upon graduation: $160,000) was denied the inalienable right to have the rest of the citizenry (as coinsured and/or taxpayers — median household income: $52,000) pay for her contraception.

Despite a temporary setback — Hilary Rosen’s hastily surrendered war on moms — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will resume the battle with a Paycheck Fairness Act that practically encourages frivolous lawsuits and has zero chance of passage.No matter. Its sole purpose is to keep the war-on-women theme going, while the equally just-for-show Buffett Rule, nicely pitting the 99 percent versus the 1 percent, is a clever bit of class warfare designed to let Democrats play tribune of the middle class.

Ethnicity, race, gender, class. One more box to check: the young. Just four years ago, they swooned in the aisles for Obama. No longer. Not when 54 percent of college graduates under 25 are unemployed or underemployed.

How to shake them from their lethargy? Fear again. Tell them, as Obama repeatedly does, that Paul Ryan’s budget would cut Pell Grants by $1,000 each, if his domestic cuts were evenly distributed. (They are not evenly distributed, making the charge a fabrication. But a great applause line.) Then warn that Republicans would double the interest rate on student loans. Well, first, Mitt Romney has said he would keep them right where they are. Second, as The Washington Post points out, this is nothing but a recycled campaign gimmick from 2006 when Democrats advocated (and later passed) a 50 percent rate cut that gratuitously squanders student aid by subsidizing the wealthy as well as the needy. For Obama, what’s not to like?

More beneficiaries, more votes.

What else to run on with 1.7 percent GDP growth (2011), record long-term joblessness and record 8 percent-plus unemployment (38 consecutive months, as of this writing)? Slice and dice, group against group.

There is a problem, however. It makes a mockery of Obama’s pose as the great transcender, uniter, healer of divisions. This is the man who sprang from nowhere with that thrilling 2004 convention speech declaring that there is “not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.”

That was then. Today, we are just sects with quarrels — to be exploited for political advantage. And Obama is just the man to fulfill Al Gore’s famous mistranslation of our national motto: Out of one, many. 

Thinking about taxes

Thinking about taxes.  After all, it's April.  I heard someone suggest once that every citizen should get a vote in an election, but in addition, those who pay income taxes should get an additional vote for each specified amount of taxes paid.  I think it's an idea that has value.  But then, I'm one of those people who also thinks voters should have to show proper identification too.

There was a good article about the economics of our current level of deficit spending.  The last few paragraphs are worth reading.  Especially since the President is trying so hard to make people angry with those who have managed to be successful.



There are far too many people who don't want their handouts to stop.  Having a job is much harder.

Disturbing misogyny

A number of things in the presidential race media coverage have struck me. There are two that I found particularly annoying.

First, the double standard of an already disturbing misogyny. A conservative radio personality reacted to a D.C. college student's complaint that she needed help paying for birth control. He called her a slut.

Okay, I don't know much about that student--and I suppose neither did he--so the name calling was unacceptable. I guess he has since apologized, but the liberals and their accompanying media went nuts. As though they had no idea he ever said anything controversial.

Then something really interesting happened. A liberal woman wrote a column saying that the liberal left was just as bad--maybe worse--at misogyny and racism. She named names and gave examples. A news commentator/entertainer has repeatedly demeaned Hilary Clinton, referring to her as a "she devil," "Nurse Ratched," and "witchy," among other things. A liberal radio personality said Sarah Palin "set off a bimbo alert" and called Laura Ingraham "a right-wing slut." Another (whose name you would recognize) said that a conservative commentator "should have been aborted by her parents." The same man called Michelle Malkin "a mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick" and thought it appropriate to discuss Carrie Prejean's breasts on his MSNBC show.

I pulled a paragraph from her article:

But the grand pooh-bah of media misogyny is without a doubt Bill Maher—who also happens to be a favorite of liberals—who has given $1 million to President Obama’s super PAC. Maher has called Palin a “dumb twat” and dropped the C-word in describing the former Alaska governor. He called Palin and Congresswoman Bachmann “boobs” and “two bimbos.” He said of the former vice-presidential candidate, “She is not a mean girl. She is a crazy girl with mean ideas.” He recently made a joke about Rick Santorum’s wife using a vibrator. Imagine now the same joke during the 2008 primary with Michelle Obama’s name in it, and tell me that he would still have a job. Maher said of a woman who was harassed while breast-feeding at an Applebee’s, “Don't show me your tits!” as though a woman feeding her child is trying to flash Maher. (Here’s a way to solve his problem: don’t stare at a strangers’ breasts). Then, his coup de grâce: “And by the way, there is a place where breasts and food do go together. It’s called Hooters!”

The author of the article is Kirsten Powers. You can look the whole thing up if you are interested.

I wonder if these men say these things about their wives and daughters. I also wonder why there is so much difference in the reaction of those who hear it. When is it ever okay to debase women just because they are female?

My second annoyance will have to wait until my next post. This is enough for one day.

Going to hate this year!

I am going to hate this year. Election years are always filled to overflowing with political rhetoric, accusations, information spinning, misleading and downright false statements. It frightens me that there are vast numbers of people who believe the sound bites and empty promises.

There was an article that stated that if some tax policy was changed, a family making $20,000 a year would see their taxes go up by 60%. But, in reality, a family like that is paying no income tax. They are likely getting the earned income credit--a "refund" of money paid by someone else. 60% of nothing is still nothing. The article was purposely misleading to promote an agenda.

The vocabulary of the political left is fascinating. I believe Thomas Sowell pointed out that the left considers it to be "materialistic" and "greedy" to want to keep what you have earned. But it is "idealistic" to want to take away what someone else has earned and spend it for your own political benefit or to feel good about yourself.

If someone benefits from a hamburger, clothes, an education, a house, who should be forced to pay for it? I agree with Mr. Sowell that the only morally correct answer is that the person who receives the benefit should pay for it. Unless we are thieves who only care only about our immediate enjoyment, and who pays is irrelevant. One of our country's problems is too many Americans want to benefit from things for which they expect other Americans to be taxed.

The French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) said, "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." He is as correct today as he was 150 years ago.