Category Archives: Media

Economy, Florida, Media, Pensacola

Don’t Ignore Small Business

The article in the Pensacola News Journal showing the decline in business investment “Top 10 sales fall to $80M” painted a pretty good picture of slowing economic conditions and increasing uncertainty surrounding business investments.

Multi-million dollar projects are one thing. Businesses with those kinds of assets have people, if not departments, to tend to the details. But small business, really small business, the mom and pop venture, is one sector that can benefit with just a little assistance from local government. And the assistance I’m speaking of does not cost a dime.

There’s no better motivation to start a small family business than to find yourself unemployed. Current unemployment figures show there is plenty of opportunity for a new start-up for someone with a passion for a business or product for which there is market demand. Employed or not, you have way more potential to succeed than you know. Being unemployed may be all it takes to make up your mind to jump in with both feet to start your own business. Been there, done that. And there’s no greater satisfaction that I’ve experienced in the workplace than when the workplace is your own.

Depending on the business you have in mind, you may need more than one license, permits, and inspections along the way. You’ll have to comply with city, county, and state laws not only from the financial angle, but also from details like building codes, fire codes, and ADA compliant features that may be required. There are tax issues, federal, state, and local. There are insurance issues if you have employees. Having prior knowledge of these will save you time and money.

Let’s assume that after losing your job, you don’t have a boatload of cash to take your time in getting something going. You cannot afford to start paying rent for months on end while getting things ready. Inspections by various departments and jurisdictions may be required. Some of them must happen in a certain order. Learning this the hard way will cost you something that you can’t replace, time. And you can’t afford the financial setbacks you’ll incur for failing to comply with necessary details, beginning with the loss of business for not being able to open when you expected to.

So you have an idea of what you want to do. Maybe you took the extension courses offered by the University of West Florida on starting your own business? They are good, and inexpensive. For me it was like a college refresher course condensed into a few weeks. Maybe you’ve already run a business, but it wasn’t your own? Maybe you have a college degree in business or management? Those courses are helpful in a general sense, but do not cover the mechanics of what you will need to do in a legal sense, and in what order, before you can open your door for business.

You have a site selected that would be conducive to your business plan. But where do you start? Where do you go locally to get the ‘official guide to opening a business?’ That’s where the city and county can help. And there’s not been a greater need for this kind of help in decades.

Attracting big businesses/employers to the area is fine. Something the government should try to do. But let’s also try to develop the small business potential that is already here.

link: Top 10 sales fall to $80M

Update 1/24/2010: This post was reprinted in the Pensacola News Journal on the opinion page as a Viewpoint: Right time to promote small business growth

2010 Election, Economy, Media, Organized Labor, Politics

As Not Seen On CSPAN

Labor union leaders from the SEIU, AFL-CIO, and the UAW met in Washington yesterday to (one could only guess) threaten to withhold support for Democrats in the 2010 election if the President went through with his wanting to levy a tax on people who have a good health insurance policy.

President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats stand within days if not hours of striking final deals on historic health care legislation after key labor unions won concessions and pledged their support.

What we could not see is the smoke and mirrors accounting they are applying to mask the cost to appease big labor. Taxing those policies was supposed to be part of paying for this plan. Absent that, there’s  more snake-oil on the health insurance menu.

Unfortunately, we could not see this ‘negotiation’ in action like the President said when he was a candidate. We couldn’t see who was representing who, like the President promised he would do, and on this very subject. The negotiations weren’t on either of the two CSPAN channels I get. Did you see it?

link: Health talks in overdrive with Obama pushing

Media, Politics

A Mind-numb Robot And CNN

After the Brown-Coakley debate last week, Martha Coakley went to Washington to attend fundraisers by fat cat lobbyists from the health care industry.  While republican challenger Scott Brown’s campaign received over a million dollars from Americans giving under $80 each.

Forget what that picture looks like, because CNN didn’t bother to mention that Brown seems to have real grassroots support. But lets recall that it was a large number of small contributors that financed the Obama campaign, in addition to big contributions from big labor, big law, and Wall St..

No, the story here is  CNN carrying the water for Coakley, Democrats, and Obamacare in the way they present this story.

Massachusetts Republicans wasted little time Wednesday criticizing Democrat Martha Coakley for attending a fundraiser one week before Bay State voters elect a successor to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.

CNN is incapable of reporting what Coakley is doing. Instead, they report it as something Republicans are accusing her of doing.  Somehow, they can’t find a way to criticize her on their own. Something they would have no hesitation or reservation in doing if she were an R instead of a D.

When the media watchdog becomes a mind-numb robot by circling the wagons around hypocrisy, to help a political candidate, it’s safe to say that the media watchdog has died.

Link: CNN:Republicans criticize Coakley for attending DC fundraiser

Media, Politics

It's The People's Seat

Putting arrogance in its rightful place, Scott Brown republican state senator in Massachusetts and republican candidate for the senate seat vacated by the late Sen. Kennedy, answered the loaded question from moderator and CNN political analyst David Gergen about Obamacare. Quite effectively.

Here’s the question from David Gergen, that CNN did not put in the article.

We know from the Clinton experience that if this bill fails, it could well be another fifteen years before we see health care reform efforts in Washington. Are you willing under those circumstances say I’m going to be the person, I’m going to sit in Teddy Kennedy’s seat, and I’m going to be the person that’s going to block it for another fifteen years?

And here’s Brown’s response, which they did, almost. They omitted the last sentence.

Well with all due respect, it’s not the Kennedy’s seat, it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat. They have a chance to send somebody down there who’s going to be an independent voter and independent thinker — and going to look out for the best interests of the people of Massachusetts. And the way that this bill is configured, I’d like to send it back to the drawing board.

Gergen raising the possibility that if the bill doesn’t pass now, that it may be another 15 years before health care reform comes up again,  painting the republican candidate as some kind of Grinch, while at the same time presuming that health care reform won’t happen unless Democrats do it.

Yeah, I think Brown knocked it and Gergen out of the park.

link: Race for Kennedy’s seat may affect health care reform

Media, War On Terror

Churches Under Attack In Malaysia

What is God to some is Allah to others. That is unless you live in a country like Malaysia, a country that is 60% Muslim. There is a problem with reconciling the religion of peace with firebombing churches.

There was a court case over the use of the word Allah, and in printing bibles in the local language where the word God was replaced with the word Allah. Both were banned in Malaysia. Although the court came down on the side of the Christians, lifting the ban on using the name Allah and using it in their bibles, ‘many Muslims’ are fanatically intolerant of it. Nine churches have been attacked since Friday, seven of those by firebomb.

The church caters mostly to Christians from eastern Sabah and Sarawak states, who worship in the Malay language and use the word “Allah” to describe God.

Many Muslims are angry about a Dec. 31 High Court decision overturning a government ban on Roman Catholics’ using “Allah” to refer to their God in the Malay-language edition of their main newspaper, the Herald.

The ruling also applies to the ban’s broader applications such as Malay-language Bibles, 10,000 copies of which were recently seized by authorities because they translated God as Allah. The government has appealed the verdict.

That the government is appealing the verdict is way more than ‘many Muslims.’ Seems to me that religious intolerance is institutional and built-in in Malaysia.

Makes one wonder where else such radicals exist. Maybe not our Secretary of Homeland Security, but normal-thinking people might. People not infected with Political Correctness like Janet Napolitano and the Associated Press.

For the AP to characterize this as racial tensions would be like saying that Muslims are like the Klu Klux Klan. As if that is better than calling it what it really is, religious-based terrorism.

link: Church attacks in Malaysia deepen racial tension

Economy, Media, Politics

Shucking And Jiving In Washington

The contortions and obfuscations of facts and history as relates to this administration and its attempt to railroad health care  legislation upon all of America is laughable. Well, it would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

What’s worse is how the media gives it all a pass. Unfortunately for America, the media watchdog died last year.

Events of the last two days epitomize the shucking and jiving I’m talking about.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, for two days in a row, refused to reconcile the barring of C-SPAN from these final and all important deliberations to show the American people the openness that Obama promised when he was a candidate. Obama said on eight occasions he would use C-SPAN cameras ‘so the American people can see what the choices are.’ But Gibbs did it by saying he already answered the question and, that there has been a lot of open discussions. See the transcripts HERE. They’re out of this world.

Then there is the response of Speaker Pelosi, when asked about President Obama’s rejection of C-SPAN’s specific request and his promise to use C-SPAN while on the campaign trail and in Presidential debates. She flat-out laughed in the reporter’s, and your face. Saying ‘There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail.’ And it gets better, or worse. She adds ‘there’s never been a more open process.’ What was impressive about that statement is that she said it with a straight face.

No doubt the administration is circling the wagons here. Betraying the public trust is not a trivial matter.  Question is, are we seeing acts of desperation, or is the Democratic leadership showing its true colors?

links: White House: We will NOT discuss broken C-Span promise | Pelosi on ObamaCare: There’s never been a more open process evah

Media, Pensacola, Politics

Today's Special, The Healthcare Legislative Coup

The greatest story never told is the letter that Brian Lamb, the founder, Chairman, and CEO of C-SPAN, sent to President Obama Dec. 30, 2009, requesting to ‘allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American’ via C-SPAN cameras. The subject of his request is the final stages of deliberations to propose a health care bill to send to the President.

Imagine having to request this of the President, since while he was appealing for our votes as a candidate, he said all such deliberations would be on C-SPAN for all to see. And America fell for it.

Obama pledged during a presidential debate in January 2008 that he would be ”bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are.”

If the shoe were on the other foot, the media would be up in arms 24/7 calling for impeachment or some such nonsense. It would be front-page, above the fold. But since it isn’t, you have to get the news from the new media, the blogosphere.

No mention of it on CNN. MSNBC is more creative. They disguise the story by putting it at the bottom or the nut of the story. A story that has two titles, neither of which say a word about C-SPAN or Brian Lamb or transparency in the titles.

The New York Times has a small article in the dead tree version far from the front page and said this . . .

The C-SPAN television network is calling on congressional leaders to open health care talks to cameras — something President Barack Obama promised as a candidate.

Instead the most critical negotiations on Obama’s health plan have taken place behind closed doors, as Republicans repeatedly point out. In a Dec. 30 letter to House and Senate leaders released Tuesday, C-SPAN chief executive Brian Lamb asked for negotiations on a compromise bill to be opened up for public viewing, as Democrats work to reconcile differences between legislation passed by the two chambers.

None of the above media, the ones the Obama referred to as the real news media, offered the letter itself that Lamb sent if it was mentioned at all. Same with our local paper. Not enough space to print it? Not enough bandwidth to link to it? The White House wouldn’t approve if they did?

Here it is:

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi

Speaker, United States House or Representatives

The Honorable Harry Reid

Majority Leader, United States Senate

The Honorable John Boehner

Minority Leader, United States House of Representatives

The Honorable Mitch McConnell

Minority Leader, United States Senate

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

Representative Boehner:

Senator Reid:

Senator McConnell:

As your respective chambers work to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate health care bills, C-SPAN requests that you open all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings, to electronic media coverage.

The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of these sessions LIVE and in their entirety. We will also, as we willingly do each day, provide C-SPAN’s multi-camera coverage to any interested member of the Capitol Hill broadcast pool.

Since the initial introduction of the America’s Affordable Health Care Act of 2009 in the House and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the Senate C-SPAN has televised literally hundreds of hours of committee hearings, mark ups and floor debate on these bills for the public to see. And importantly, we have archived all of this video for future generations to study in the C-SPAN Video Archives.

President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation’s editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation’s health care system. Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American.

We hope you will give serious consideration to this request. We are most willing to employ the latest digital technology to make the cameras, lights and microphones as unobtrusive as possible.

Please contact me if I can answer any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian Lamb

We are witness to a coup to remake America into something that, if given the chance, America would not want or vote for. And the President, the Democrat majority in Congress, and the media are so far, carrying it out successfully.

Media, MRIOTD, War On Terror

John Brennan Wins M.R.I.O.T.D. Award

Guantanamo Bay, affectionately called Club Gitmo, was home for over 600 terrorists that were captured on the battlefield in Iraq, Afghanistan and a few other choice places on earth.

Over the years, around 500 of them were released to their home countries for imprisonment and/or ‘rehabilitation,’ or just plain released as no longer being a threat or of use from an intelligence standpoint. Terrorist rehabilitation recidivism rate for the so-called less dangerous hasn’t been good, which should tell the administration (including the Bush administration) that sending these people to terrorist charm school does not work. The hundred or so that remain at Club Gitmo are the worst of the worst. That’s why they’re still there.

John Brennan, adviser to the president on counter-terrorism.

Most of those that remain are from Yemen. A country so poisoned by al-Qaeda that our embassy there was just closed for security concerns. Feeling warm and fuzzy and secure now?

So where are the security concerns with sending this dog squeeze back to Yemen?

According to John Brennan, the assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, sending them back to Yemen isn’t a problem. Today on CNN’s “State of the Union” show, he said . . .

“We are making sure that we don’t do anything that’s going to put Americans at risk,” Brennan said. {emphasis added}

Sorry, anyone with our national security in mind would conclude that sending these folks back to Yemen is doing way more than ‘anything’ to put us at risk.  Now, I don’t blame him for trying to get that trash back to where it came from. But if doing that has the potential for making us less safe, then Obama’s judgment comes to question.

Further, Brennan says the ‘unique incident’ on Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan won’t affect the process of closing the Guantanamo facility.

That unique incident CNN described as a ‘failed attack.’ Take off the blinders.  In fact, it was a successful attack. By the grace of God and passengers on board, what failed was the detonation of the bomb.

The Lunch Counter awards John Brennan, the assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, the Most Ridiculous Item Of The Day award. We don’t do runner-ups. But if we did, it would go to CNN.

related links:

Media, Politics, War On Terror

Cheney Saying What Most Are Thinking

As documented HERE, HERE, and HERE, the actions taken by the Obama administration that pertain to the war on terror have been anything but helpful to us in fighting the war. It is Obama’s pre-9/11 mindset put into action that brings out the inexperience and naivete of our Commander In Chief in dealing with real life and death situations.

But nobody, imho,  sums it up better than Vice President Dick Cheney whose direct quote is below and in all its glorious context.  See it all here because the left leaning media probably won’t include all of it.

“As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.

“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war.”

Like Cheney said so profoundly, he is pretending that there isn’t a war being waged against us, not to mention the rest of the free world. Even if you don’t accept Cheney’s premise, you have to ask yourself why this is? Why he is acting the way he is?

  1. He thinks it is Bush’s war. So it’s back to the 9/10 mindset of minding our own business and hoping we don’t get fooled / killed again.
  2. He thinks he has the world mesmerized by a few speeches and our enemies will have a change of heart, stop trying to kill us, and maybe even like us?
  3. He thinks that after releasing Gitmo prisoners and closing Gitmo, and not using military tribunals for captured terrorists, but instead give them the same legal rights guaranteed to American citizens, that the war will stop and the enemy will have a change of heart, stop trying to kill us, and maybe even like us?
  4. He is simply too green and inexperienced to be President and Commander In Chief. Is in way over his head. And has surrounded himself with the worst bunch of advisers to handle the problems the Country faces, both economic and in terms of national security.

It’s almost as though President Obama has forgotten, or really does not believe the oath he took when he became President. That’s about all I can think of. Your mileage may vary.

links:

Economy, Media, Politics

Today’s Special, Lies And Deception

The Obama administration is scrambling to get something, anything, passed that they can call health care reform. But it’s not because your health is so lousy and you’re going to die. According to surveys, most Americans, somewhere over 80% of them, are satisfied with their health care and health insurance situation. The emergency seems to be in the mind of the President to get something passed, else he’ll lose face with his rhetoric of the last year and a half.

Today, President Obama just had a pow-wow with Democratic senators and the two Independents to try and convince them to vote for this debacle of a health care bill. Today the President said that Americans want more affordable health care that will reduce the deficit. And he’s right. We do. Problem is, the bill in Congress won’t do either.

The irony is that he vowed not to vote for a bill that wouldn’t reduce cost and reduce the debt. He’ll sign it if it gets to his desk, through lies and deception, with help from lazy if not uninformed constituents still awestruck by the man who reads a great teleprompter, all with help from a media willing to let it all go unchallenged.

Paramount in this health care bill is the power and control that shifts from the folks to the government. That’s the goal. Not our collective health.

Another example is the way the President proposes to deal with the economy. Rather than the people making their own choices with their own money through reducing taxes and providing tax incentives for businesses to expand and hire, the President does just the opposite. Not only that, but HE is picking the winners and losers. HE as in the government. The government takes over industries and companies left and right. The government chooses to sell cars (and payback the UAW), so they have a cash for clunkers program that was an utter failure and had no long term effect on either the economy or the industry. Now, HE decides that manufacturers of caulking compound need an economic boost, not THE FOLKS in general, just these people. See the pattern here? Does Obama look anything like a little dictator? So the point of picking the Cash for Caulkers program is for the green-ness of it. It won’t help or stimulate the folks or the economy. Like putting air in your tires, it’s a good idea providing they are under-inflated, but it won’t do squat to make our economy recover, which ought to be his number one priority. Caulking a leaking window seal is a good idea, but if you don’t have a job or are working two jobs already to keep from losing your home, you’re not going to have money to spend on house maintenance, presuming you have a leaky house to begin with. And if you did, it won’t do anything for your job security.

Doing projects like that should come after we realize some economic recovery in the old fashioned free-market driven way. Not because we have a President who likes to act like a King who tells the people what he wants them to do.

President Obama, who has never run a business or made a payroll, says the ‘fat cats’ don’t get it. It’s Obama that doesn’t get it. Well, I’ll have to sort of take that back. What he does get is that socialism, and economic social justice works better for him. Because all that he has done and wants to do, will do only that. He said he didn’t like the Constitution. From what he is doing to America, it is obvious. He will remake America, to be just like Europe, and worse. His economic plan for America is a model for the global scale with his Cap & Trade scheme.  More social justice, only for the world. And of course, current and future generations of Americans will pay for that too, if he gets his way.

related picture: Hard Pill To Swallow