Key is to close a pattern early, and with as little noise and as few words as possible.
We are pleased with results, past months.
In the case of Obama we predicted early on (Jan/10) that he would tank the Democratic party. That process is now nearing completion.
He’s put the party that JFK and Scoop would never have recognized anyway, out of business.
Extremists in the abstract are one thing. An extremist at the helm is quite another.
Americans will never forgive Obama’s attempt to steam-roll their liberties, that drastic change in life style - the major insertion of government control of their lives, BO’s plans to remake the US using health, education and energy as vehicles - the unprecedented federal intrusion into American industry and commerce. Don’t try this nonsense.
The final blow was BO’s operative's gestapo tactics in ram rodding the health heist down American throats. That was the give away. That which we had maintained all along suddenly became clear to the masses - health was the vehicle, not the end.
And so most who voted for this guy now understand that they invented their candidate.
They feel betrayed by someone who never existed.
Fools.
Robert Craven
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
The Unions & Executive Ownership
Churchill: “Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?”
Socialite: “My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course… “
Churchill: “Would you sleep with me for five pounds?”
Socialite: “Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!”
Churchill: “Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.”
GM's unions had a price; Obama paid it. Is there something nefarious hereabouts? Does a one-legged goose swim in a circle?
It’s well know that the unions and trial lawyers together own the Dem party. Let’s look at the unions.
Background: Today almost half of union members work for some level of government. Why would any independent, hard working American want to be union? Ninety-two percent of private industry workers don’t. And those that do, including their public sector brethren, are not your father’s labor movement types in hard hats. As Linda Chavez explains, “The labor movement used to be strongly pro-American, pro-defense, and very conservative on social issues. Today's union bosses have more in common with Michael Moore than George Meany.”
The media virtually ignores the corrupt relationship between the unions and the Democratic party, rarely looking at illegal campaign violations. OK, forget the crooks, just the power: For example, the two national teachers’ unions — the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — contributed more than $70 million to campaigns during the 2007–2008 season, with 95 percent of contributions going to Democrats and left-leaning causes. When these types ask the left to jump, they ask, ‘How high?”. (worn phrase)
Specifics: Obama just announced a plan to “Renew and Expand America’s Roads, Railways and Runways.” The plan would add $50 billion more to the nearly $230 billion already allocated in the original trillion-dollar stimulus plan, for infrastructure.
Why the great urgency to pile on more $? Something to do with the midterm elections?
The president says he wants to “put people back to work” through a new “up front investment” in surface transportation, airports, and the air-traffic-control system. But guess what? Not all people, just some people. From Michelle Malkin: “The key is E.O. 13502, a union-friendly executive order signed by Obama in his first weeks in office, which essentially forces contractors who bid on large-scale public-construction projects worth $25 million or more to submit to union representation for their employees.”
Obama’s “project labor agreement” forces contractors to hand over exclusive bargaining control, pay inflated wages and benefits and fork over dues-money and pension funding to corrupt labor organizations. These agreements undermine a fair bidding process on projects which locked-out, nonunion laborers fund with their own tax dollars! Too much! (Keep in mind dear readers that in the construction industry, 85% of the workers are non-union by choice.)
The result? Well, Boston’s notorious Big Dig was a union-only construction project thanks to a Massachusetts government-mandated PLA. The original $2.8 billion price tag for the project shot to $22 billion in state and federal taxpayer subsidies thanks in large part to ballooning labor costs. Oh, that.
BO’s connection at the hip to unions costs all of us plenty. It’s a scheme that raises the cost of doing business and bars ten of thousands of skilled, non union workers from securing work.
Oh sure, BO’s concerned with our highways and byways, concerned with America, sure he is.
Robert Craven
Socialite: “My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course… “
Churchill: “Would you sleep with me for five pounds?”
Socialite: “Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!”
Churchill: “Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.”
GM's unions had a price; Obama paid it. Is there something nefarious hereabouts? Does a one-legged goose swim in a circle?
It’s well know that the unions and trial lawyers together own the Dem party. Let’s look at the unions.
Background: Today almost half of union members work for some level of government. Why would any independent, hard working American want to be union? Ninety-two percent of private industry workers don’t. And those that do, including their public sector brethren, are not your father’s labor movement types in hard hats. As Linda Chavez explains, “The labor movement used to be strongly pro-American, pro-defense, and very conservative on social issues. Today's union bosses have more in common with Michael Moore than George Meany.”
The media virtually ignores the corrupt relationship between the unions and the Democratic party, rarely looking at illegal campaign violations. OK, forget the crooks, just the power: For example, the two national teachers’ unions — the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — contributed more than $70 million to campaigns during the 2007–2008 season, with 95 percent of contributions going to Democrats and left-leaning causes. When these types ask the left to jump, they ask, ‘How high?”. (worn phrase)
Specifics: Obama just announced a plan to “Renew and Expand America’s Roads, Railways and Runways.” The plan would add $50 billion more to the nearly $230 billion already allocated in the original trillion-dollar stimulus plan, for infrastructure.
Why the great urgency to pile on more $? Something to do with the midterm elections?
The president says he wants to “put people back to work” through a new “up front investment” in surface transportation, airports, and the air-traffic-control system. But guess what? Not all people, just some people. From Michelle Malkin: “The key is E.O. 13502, a union-friendly executive order signed by Obama in his first weeks in office, which essentially forces contractors who bid on large-scale public-construction projects worth $25 million or more to submit to union representation for their employees.”
Obama’s “project labor agreement” forces contractors to hand over exclusive bargaining control, pay inflated wages and benefits and fork over dues-money and pension funding to corrupt labor organizations. These agreements undermine a fair bidding process on projects which locked-out, nonunion laborers fund with their own tax dollars! Too much! (Keep in mind dear readers that in the construction industry, 85% of the workers are non-union by choice.)
The result? Well, Boston’s notorious Big Dig was a union-only construction project thanks to a Massachusetts government-mandated PLA. The original $2.8 billion price tag for the project shot to $22 billion in state and federal taxpayer subsidies thanks in large part to ballooning labor costs. Oh, that.
BO’s connection at the hip to unions costs all of us plenty. It’s a scheme that raises the cost of doing business and bars ten of thousands of skilled, non union workers from securing work.
Oh sure, BO’s concerned with our highways and byways, concerned with America, sure he is.
Robert Craven
The Unforgiven
(We borrow from Eastwood.)
McGovern never got traction, thus he did not disable his entire party. The warm and fuzzy stuff sounds just great until it hits the pocket book, no longer the abstract. This is why BO put the Dems out of business.
The rank and file will not forgive Obama. He made them out to be fools.
At the family picnic in April there was the sense of loss, the sense of, “We’re sunk.” Not so fast we told out dear cousins. But conventional wisdom has it that none of this stuff can be reversed, especially the health plan they lamented. Wrong.
Americans throw some slack from time to time, around the margins; they don’t capitulate wholesale.
Robert Craven
McGovern never got traction, thus he did not disable his entire party. The warm and fuzzy stuff sounds just great until it hits the pocket book, no longer the abstract. This is why BO put the Dems out of business.
The rank and file will not forgive Obama. He made them out to be fools.
At the family picnic in April there was the sense of loss, the sense of, “We’re sunk.” Not so fast we told out dear cousins. But conventional wisdom has it that none of this stuff can be reversed, especially the health plan they lamented. Wrong.
Americans throw some slack from time to time, around the margins; they don’t capitulate wholesale.
Robert Craven
Obama's & McGovern's Fine Work
The last candidate who triggered a similar problem for the Democrats was of course our progressive pal George McGovern; that would be 1972. We recall the convention - a free for all. Nominated for the VP slot besides Eagleton were: Mao, Jerry Rubin, Ben Spock and Archie Bunker. By the time this part was over, it was 3am; thus, McGovern’s prime time acceptance speech was prime time only for Guam.
Just as well. McGovern’s progressive ideas were even loonier than BO’s, shocking even the normally toady media. The Wash Post called McGovern’s welfare state “horrendous,” and a “pernicious extension of the power of the state.” Wow!! Time called McGovern’s proposals a “radical scheme,” and calculated that his proposals for expanded welfare, universal health care and other social programs would break the bank.
McGovern lost every state but two. However, he did not take his entire party over the cliff; many Dem’s remained loyal to the rest of the ticket.
Obama’s work has simply been more thorough.
Naturally BO will continue to blame conservatives and Tea Party types for his problems. Big mistake. His problem is the Democratic rank and file, who as Vic Hansen illustrates, “are now discovering that just as Obama could take them individually to great heights.....so too could he being them down collectively to unprecedented depths.”
These, our deer-in-the-headlights.
We must admit this is fun; in fact it’s exquisite to watch WH staffers (Rahm the latest) who like BO are just soooo wise and soooo sure they were the best and brightest, and soooo contemptuous of the rest of us who needed their guidance and who would surely bend over as they spun the crisis for big government; it’s plain fun to watch these types crawl out the back door.
Robert Craven
Just as well. McGovern’s progressive ideas were even loonier than BO’s, shocking even the normally toady media. The Wash Post called McGovern’s welfare state “horrendous,” and a “pernicious extension of the power of the state.” Wow!! Time called McGovern’s proposals a “radical scheme,” and calculated that his proposals for expanded welfare, universal health care and other social programs would break the bank.
McGovern lost every state but two. However, he did not take his entire party over the cliff; many Dem’s remained loyal to the rest of the ticket.
Obama’s work has simply been more thorough.
Naturally BO will continue to blame conservatives and Tea Party types for his problems. Big mistake. His problem is the Democratic rank and file, who as Vic Hansen illustrates, “are now discovering that just as Obama could take them individually to great heights.....so too could he being them down collectively to unprecedented depths.”
These, our deer-in-the-headlights.
We must admit this is fun; in fact it’s exquisite to watch WH staffers (Rahm the latest) who like BO are just soooo wise and soooo sure they were the best and brightest, and soooo contemptuous of the rest of us who needed their guidance and who would surely bend over as they spun the crisis for big government; it’s plain fun to watch these types crawl out the back door.
Robert Craven
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Craft-A-President
Nobody likes poor Obama.
The far left, the so-called progressives are upset because BO did not, “speak the truth, tell us and the country what was really happening in the corridors of power and what the constraints were that he was facing,” as Mike Lerner lamented in the SF Chron the other day.
The Dem rank and file are upset because he is about to put them out of business.
Where in the world did these folk, especially the far left get the idea that BO was going to move mountains for them, that he intended to face any "constraints," that he shared their (misguided) idealism? Because he had the most partisan record in the Senate? That wasn’t conviction for goodness sake, but convenience.
BO is a typical Chicago pol who knew how to work the system and lever his being half black, and, he never made a secret of it! Where did anybody get the idea this guy was some kind of visionary, or dreamer? Where did anybody get the idea that this guy was anything but an empty suit? Accomplishments? Were waiting........
The left simply crafted out of BO their perfect likeness of a US president. It’s made up! The nursery crowd, ever fawning, had theirs, and now they’re pissed. Moderates had one and now they’re pissed. Chavez and Castro had one; now they’re really upset. These are all caricatures that never existed!
In the mean time Obama is simply being Obama, thank you very much. By acting in character, Chicago style, and allowing Pelosi and others to force the health heist down the throats of Americans, he sealed his party’s fate.
Robert Craven
The far left, the so-called progressives are upset because BO did not, “speak the truth, tell us and the country what was really happening in the corridors of power and what the constraints were that he was facing,” as Mike Lerner lamented in the SF Chron the other day.
The Dem rank and file are upset because he is about to put them out of business.
Where in the world did these folk, especially the far left get the idea that BO was going to move mountains for them, that he intended to face any "constraints," that he shared their (misguided) idealism? Because he had the most partisan record in the Senate? That wasn’t conviction for goodness sake, but convenience.
BO is a typical Chicago pol who knew how to work the system and lever his being half black, and, he never made a secret of it! Where did anybody get the idea this guy was some kind of visionary, or dreamer? Where did anybody get the idea that this guy was anything but an empty suit? Accomplishments? Were waiting........
The left simply crafted out of BO their perfect likeness of a US president. It’s made up! The nursery crowd, ever fawning, had theirs, and now they’re pissed. Moderates had one and now they’re pissed. Chavez and Castro had one; now they’re really upset. These are all caricatures that never existed!
In the mean time Obama is simply being Obama, thank you very much. By acting in character, Chicago style, and allowing Pelosi and others to force the health heist down the throats of Americans, he sealed his party’s fate.
Robert Craven
Monday, September 27, 2010
Complexity - Protection for the Left
We asked our old friend the other day, why the slow recovery? Steve is an ex- chief economist for a major US bank, now a prof at Berkeley. Did he not consider BO’s legislative threats an impediment to hiring, a retardant? “No, not at all,” he responded. “You see, it’s very complex; that’s only a small part of it....... Just remember, for every complex issue, there is a solution that is neat and simple — and wrong!” Spoken like a true lefty.
The signature of the Dem party is the inability to make tough decisions. Recall your own experiences with that party. True?
Reagan used to say that, “It’s the complicated answer that is easy because it avoids facing the hard moral issues.” Instead, “I say there are simple answers to many of our problems, simple but hard.”
Given the left’s weakness for decision making it is no wonder that they so often resort to complexity for a refuge.
From Steven Hayward’s book we revisit the classical poet Archilochus: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” BO and the rest pretend to be in the ownership of great wisdom, all so multi-faceted, so nuanced, so confounded with moral equality and the never ending quest for the level playing field, led of course by the anointed.
They’re fools, knowing so much that isn’t true.
Reagan was successful because he knew one big thing - government is a threat to liberty, “both in its vicious forms such as communism or socialism, but also in its supposedly benign forms, such as bureaucracy,” explains Hayward.
The left are either naive or phony. Class time for both rapidly approaches.
Robert Craven
The signature of the Dem party is the inability to make tough decisions. Recall your own experiences with that party. True?
Reagan used to say that, “It’s the complicated answer that is easy because it avoids facing the hard moral issues.” Instead, “I say there are simple answers to many of our problems, simple but hard.”
Given the left’s weakness for decision making it is no wonder that they so often resort to complexity for a refuge.
From Steven Hayward’s book we revisit the classical poet Archilochus: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” BO and the rest pretend to be in the ownership of great wisdom, all so multi-faceted, so nuanced, so confounded with moral equality and the never ending quest for the level playing field, led of course by the anointed.
They’re fools, knowing so much that isn’t true.
Reagan was successful because he knew one big thing - government is a threat to liberty, “both in its vicious forms such as communism or socialism, but also in its supposedly benign forms, such as bureaucracy,” explains Hayward.
The left are either naive or phony. Class time for both rapidly approaches.
Robert Craven
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Self-Delusion
Folks have increasingly drawn parallels between the Carter and Obama administrations, few of these complementary to either.
Let’s take a look for something instructive in all of this.
We noted yesterday in conversation with the Marin left that as disastrous as Carter’s domestic policy was, his foreign policy took the cake (and provided his undoing). Steven Hayward in The Age of Reagan notes that, “Carter came to be regarded as the American Neville Chamberlain, not so much for his appeasement of foreign adversaries but for his..incapacity to perceive and act according to the geopolitical realities of the moment. ....his public rhetoric on foreign questions and his key appointments - rhetoric and personnel being two main pillars of foreign policy - were so deficient that it is understandable that he inspired such a harsh reaction.”
Most of us recall Carter’s missteps (no, we are not referring to his filing a UFO siting with the Air Force, or his clubbing to death a rabbit). But all of us have just been smacked by those of BO.
What is unique to both of these men is this - the co-suffering from a severe case of self-delusion. This is the single key to understanding parallels between these two failed leaders. It is the key to understanding especially, Obama.
We return for a moment to Silent Cal; if he was known for anything, it was honesty, integrity and incorruptibility. From Bob Sobel’s book, Coolidge - An American Enigma, Coolidge “recognized the dangers of self-deception the office could engender.” Quoting Coolidge now from that book, “It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly...assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation which sooner of later impairs their judgement. They are in grave danger of becoming careless and arrogant.”
Of course things have played out as Coolidge would have predicted (if he had know the players). The Coolidge rule applies to Chicago pols and Senators just as well as to presidents. This is why we could state with certainty even in the primary that BO’s primary weakness, his Achilles Heel, was a lack of judgement. It was obvious. He had demonstrated that repeatedly and for reasons Coolidge has highlighted. He continues to do so.
So Obama's simply being Obama. We’re not sure how he got elected however. Curious. Can’t find a sole who pulled that trigger. And all those Hope & Change bumper stickers here in Marin County? They seem to have been pilfered.
Robert Craven
Let’s take a look for something instructive in all of this.
We noted yesterday in conversation with the Marin left that as disastrous as Carter’s domestic policy was, his foreign policy took the cake (and provided his undoing). Steven Hayward in The Age of Reagan notes that, “Carter came to be regarded as the American Neville Chamberlain, not so much for his appeasement of foreign adversaries but for his..incapacity to perceive and act according to the geopolitical realities of the moment. ....his public rhetoric on foreign questions and his key appointments - rhetoric and personnel being two main pillars of foreign policy - were so deficient that it is understandable that he inspired such a harsh reaction.”
Most of us recall Carter’s missteps (no, we are not referring to his filing a UFO siting with the Air Force, or his clubbing to death a rabbit). But all of us have just been smacked by those of BO.
What is unique to both of these men is this - the co-suffering from a severe case of self-delusion. This is the single key to understanding parallels between these two failed leaders. It is the key to understanding especially, Obama.
We return for a moment to Silent Cal; if he was known for anything, it was honesty, integrity and incorruptibility. From Bob Sobel’s book, Coolidge - An American Enigma, Coolidge “recognized the dangers of self-deception the office could engender.” Quoting Coolidge now from that book, “It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly...assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation which sooner of later impairs their judgement. They are in grave danger of becoming careless and arrogant.”
Of course things have played out as Coolidge would have predicted (if he had know the players). The Coolidge rule applies to Chicago pols and Senators just as well as to presidents. This is why we could state with certainty even in the primary that BO’s primary weakness, his Achilles Heel, was a lack of judgement. It was obvious. He had demonstrated that repeatedly and for reasons Coolidge has highlighted. He continues to do so.
So Obama's simply being Obama. We’re not sure how he got elected however. Curious. Can’t find a sole who pulled that trigger. And all those Hope & Change bumper stickers here in Marin County? They seem to have been pilfered.
Robert Craven
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