Monthly Archives: September 2011

Politics

Now President Obama Blames You

In an interview with a local NBC affiliate in Orlando, President Obama claimed that America has “gotten a little soft.” President Obama is blaming the people for going soft, and that’s why the economy still sucks. You are simply not doing your part. After blaming the lack of economic recovery on the Arab Spring, Japan’s tsunami, and rich people, he has finally come around to YOU. Not himself or his policies. You!

“This is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft, and we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades. We need to get back on track.”

Coming from someone who hasn’t a clue about competition in a free-market capitalistic economy, it takes arrogance to a new level, or a mental disorder, or both, for Obama to think that the American people are going to just accept what he has done to this country. Why wouldn’t you embrace a 14 trillion-dollar national debt, nationalized health care, record unemployment, and playing class warfare and wealth envy to depress economic activity more? What’s wrong with that?

What he means is this is the new normal. And he has the audacity to expect you to get used to it. I don’t think so.

Update: 10/1/2011: Just for giggles, check this google search on “Obama blames.”

Uncategorized

aSide Order

There is an ‘Issues’ box in the left-hand column. I was looking for a place to highlight some posts that are just as important and relevant today as they were when they were originally written.

If I had a reading assignment, it would have to include all the posts there.

Well, except for maybe the Bayou Texar link. That is a local (Pensacola) environmental issue. Part of that story is how environmental contamination is allowed in some cases, and not in others.

If there is a company with deep pockets involved, the lawyers would swarm all over that and the problem would be fixed. But when the problem can not be traced to a company but can be traced to a homeowner, then well, it’s OK.

It must be OK because nothing has been done about fixing it in the four years I’ve been following it, and the decades before that.

9 Things That Make You Say…”Help Me, Jesus!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OSAMA BIN LADEN has just met with the first of his 72 virgins that had been promised to him.

Florida, Pensacola, Politics, Race Relations

Lunch With Otis

2 Comments

My annual trek down to the seafood festival yesterday turned out to be something else. I met Otis.

Otis was walking away from the festival and I was walking to it. From a distance, I could see that this guy has something going on. I mean, aside from the bright red hat and umbrella. Curiosity getting the best of me, I had to stop and talk to him.

He let me take his picture then we talked. Knowing that I wanted to use his picture in my blog, I wanted to get his name right. And having nothing to write on or with, I pulled out my wizbang iPhone and recorded his name in the voice recorder. What followed was not what I expected.

Turns out he was just looking around. Asked if he had any of the seafood there he said no, he didn’t have any money. Upon which I instituted my own stimulus program. He accepted my offer to buy him lunch. He had calamari for the first time, some crawfish pie, and an adult beverage in a can. I ate the same, except for the beer. I’m not a big beer drinker.

I didn’t talk about politics with him, on purpose. We seemed to enjoy each others company and I didn’t want to do something that might have spoiled that chance encounter. I mean, it just didn’t seem the time or place to discuss liberal v conservative politics, or to point out that people like President Obama think that I hate black people and poor people because I consider myself allied with the tea party movement.

Lunch with Otis audio

Transcript:

  • Ross: Otis Womak, works at the Coffee Cup restaurant. Are you a cook?
  • Otis: A dish washer.
  • Ross: A dish washer, oh, outstanding.
  • Otis: I was dishes. I {unintelligible) work there for six and a half years. I came over to see my momma and daddy in the nursing home. So I ran down here to some, ya know ….
  • Ross: Get a little seafood?
  • Otis: Yeah. No I didn’t get no seafood I had no money.
  • Ross: Oh man.
  • Otis: I’m broke, today. So I go over there (unintelligible)
  • Ross: Ya wanna go eat some seafood?
  • Otis: Huh!
  • Ross: Come on with me.

It all worked out just fine. I’m satisfied in knowing that we both had a good meal and some fellowship from complete strangers. I gave him a ride home and called it a day.

China, Economy, Energy, Europe, Organized Labor, Politics

Stimulus Spending, For What? For Who?

With the economy still in recession, and the President still touting his American Jobs Act, Americans are becoming more skeptical about what all the stimulus spending has done for them. And the news about questionable stimulus spending and special deals is beginning to bubble up to the surface. Some new, some old.

Old news that is coming around again is the Fisker Automotive  (now Tesla Motors) luxury electric sports car that Vice President Al Gore invested in. That company got a half billion dollars for so-called green jobs. It is an electric car. It is a luxury car with a 50 mile range in total electric mode. Big investment for no market. But it did create jobs, in Britain and Finland.

The Fisker Karma sedan is priced at $87,400, with buyers eligible for a $7,500 credit on their Federal income tax returns.

Want one? Call them up and put down your $25,000 deposit. They’ll let you know when it is ready. Sell price? $87,400 to over $109,000.

So we subsidize a car company whose target market is “millionaires and billionaires,” then we give them $7,500 more of our tax dollars to incentivize them to buy it. All that from the guy that calls himself a ‘warrior for the middle class.’

Then there is the Solyndra scandal (Solar-Gate?) that wasted another half billion taxpayer dollars. That solar panel company declared bankruptcy not long after receiving your half billion dollars. Another big investment in an industry where there is no market. Officers of that company are big-time campaign fundraising bundlers for President Obama. Now those green jobs went directly to China. And Solyndra’s execs are pleading the 5th in Congressional hearings about it.

Are you seeing a pattern here of connected democrats and Big Labor being on the receiving end of millions and billions of your (and your grandkid’s) tax dollars? All in the name of stimulus and green jobs.

Economy, Florida, Media, Organized Labor, Pensacola, Politics

ECAT Drivers Are Driving

Carlton Proctor at the Pensacola News Journal spoke to Michael Lowery, president of Local 1395 about the ECAT union bus drivers going on strike. Lowery also spoke to PNJ reporter  Thyrie Bland.

He told Proctor

“This is all about fair treatment on the job, it’s not about wages. It’s about fair treatment.”

He told Bland

“The employees have gone over 1,000 days without a raise, and working conditions are the worst I’ve seen in 16 years.”

Which Mr. Lowery are we to believe? And does it matter? The evolving version of why they went on strike looks a bit unorganized. Certainly not characteristic of organized labor. Keyword ‘organized.’

Economy, Florida, Organized Labor, Pensacola, Politics, Uncategorized

ECAT Working Conditions, Worst In 16 Years

3 Comments
The raised fist (also known as the clenched fist) is a salute and logo most often used by left-wing activists, such as: Marxists, anarchists, socialists, communists, pacifists, trade unionists, the SEIU, and black nationalists.

Escambia County Area Transit (ECAT) bus drivers are on strike. Thyrie Bland at the Pensacola News Journal writes ECAT drivers on strike, Wage issue halts public transit for thousands.

The human aspect of the bus drivers going on strike is inescapable. Their riders are their customers. They are people who don’t have personal transportation and that includes the working poor. They also include physically handicapped folk like Mr. Freeman. Regardless, these are folks that need to get to their jobs so they can put food on the table and pay their bills, get to the store or the doctor.

Being responsible for creating a hardship on those with no alternative transportation is unconscionable. But is also standard fare for organized labor negotiating tactics. A lesson about labor unions and liberals in general is that they are liberals first, they are union first, and you are not on their list.

I bet these riders vote. And I also bet that they will remember who it was that caused them to miss work. It was a government labor union member who has a full-time job making from $12-16 an hour.

According to Michael Lowery, president of Local 1395 . . .

The employees have gone over 1,000 days without a raise, and working conditions are the worst I’ve seen in 16 years.

No raise in a couple of years huh? How does it feel (government labor union member) to be more like your neighbors? The ones that still have a job. Surprise! It happens in the private sector too! That’s life in the big city. The article brings to question a dispute of one half on one percent. If there’s a half of a percent in dispute in the current contract, then ‘work’ it out.

Working conditions? What working conditions? With all due respect to the drivers, you drive a bus.

Worst working conditions in 16 years? Which begs the question, when the head of my local labor union says that my working conditions are the worst that they’ve been in 16 years, just what am I paying my dues for?

Here’s an idea . . .

 

 

2012 Election, Economy, Media, Organized Labor, Politics

‘American Jobs Act’ Is Just That, An Act

Pass this bill right away. Now! Without delay! That’s what our President has been saying ever since he held up and waved his 155 199 page stimulus bill for the cameras. A stimulus bill that he calls the American Jobs Act.

From all the admonishing of Republicans (btw, some Democrats don’t like it either) he is doing to pass this bill quickly, one would think that he actually gave it to the House to be recorded so that it could be worked on. Fact is, no Democrat in the House of Representatives has presented the bill for consideration. So in fact, as of today, there is no American Jobs Act as proposed by President Obama.  Not to be confused with H.R.2911 American Jobs Act, which was introduced Sept. 14, 2011.

All we have is the President going on tour like a snake oil salesman asking the American people to ask their representatives to pass the bill. Will someone please inform the President that until it is delivered and recorded in the House, there is no bill? Forget the media. They haven’t noticed either.

Last month when he was on vacation, the President announced that when he got back to ‘work’ he would present his plan to create jobs. It was his top priority. Now we see that it is so low on anyones list of priorities (or so bad) that no one wants to deliver it. Everyone now knows that there is nothing new in what he has proposed. Just more of the same; mostly pumping your money into public sector labor union-type jobs and pensions.

If creating jobs is so urgent, what the president needs to do in front of a TV camera is to admonish some Democrat for not submitting it. Presuming of course that the President isn’t still sitting on it himself, like he is doing with those trade agreements he brings up in almost every news conference on jobs and the economy.

If it were introduced as a bill today, this is what it would look like:

[scribd id=65441495 key=key-1b73r5xin0y19umx7kmx mode=list]

Economy, Europe, Media, Politics

‘Real Ford Owner’ TV Ad

Check out this new TV ad from Ford. Their version of the man on the street press conference. The premise is that the subjects are real Ford owners using their own un-rehearsed response to a question from the ‘press corps.’

‘Chris’s’ response is golden. Took the words right out of my F150-owning mouth. Obviously Ford has the marketing sense to use this in their ad campaign because first of all, it is a popular sentiment, and, it is true. True about Ford. And true about the government’s handling of their competitors, Chrysler, now owned by Fiat, and GM, aka BM (Barack Motors). More jobs for Italy? That’s change you can step in.

This ad reminds me of the ‘Joe the plumber’ moment that President Obama had when his handlers let him talk to un-screened Americans for the first time. Now, it’s ‘Chris the Real Ford Owner.’ And Obama presses on down his yellow brick road.

Kudos to Ford Motor Company. It was to Chrysler and GM’s disadvantage for not standing up to the president. For not supporting their shareholders. For not supporting freedom, liberty, and free-market capitalism. Instead, they let the government roll them.

UPDATE 9/29/2011: Since the above ad, along with all their other ads are now no longer available online, below is a transcript of what it said. Ford’s explanation is that the ads run their cycles and that’s it. Their marketing people apparently don’t want to become a political news topic.

[Kristien] Source: LYBIO.net

Hi, I’m Kristien

[Real Ford Owner] Source: LYBIO.net

Chris, hi

Kristien]

We are gonna head on into the inteview

[Reporters]

Chris, was it buying America important to you?

[Chris] Source: LYBIO.net

I wasn’t going to buy any other car, that was bailed out by our government. I was going to buy from a manufactuerer that’s standing on their own, win, lose or draw, that’s what America’s about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you failed that you gotta pick yourself up and go back to work. Ah, Ford, is that company for me. Ford (Drive One)