Feel Me....Touch Me

Some people are touched by other people. Other people are touched by angels. Still some people are touched by the Lord. Now the Government Accountability Office has come out with a metric to justify Obama’s stimulus package called “lives touched” by the stimulus! Has your life been touched by the stimulus? I know mine has. Let me bend over and show you where.

Please tell me they are kidding. They couldn’t show how many jobs the stimulus created. They can’t figure out how many jobs have been “saved”. So now they are counting jobs created to include “lives touched” by the stimulus…seriously. The metric popped up in a report by the GAO justifying money spent by the DOE. “LBJ took the IRT down to 4th Street USA. When he got there what did he see? The youth of America on LSD!”

I digress. This metric is not used as jobs saved…it is used to determine jobs created. And it is cumulative, to show the jobs number, which really isn’t a jobs number but a lives touched number, is ever increasing. Where is George Orwell when you need him?

This is pitiful, but what do you expect from a self perpetuating bureaucratic behemoth struggling to justify what is happening in the country? It is so outrageous, one is almost speechless. What can one say about the government, and the omniscient Barack Obama, touching our lives?

I suppose "lives touched" can be argued to be a legitimate metric. If you have lost your job, your life is touched. If your home is foreclosed on, your life is touched. If violence is erupting in your school system, your life is touched. If your retirement has been lost or your stock market portfolio has tanked while your taxes are going up, your life has been touched. And I guess all those people on Martha’s Vineyard are having their lives touched by Obama’s sixth or seventh vacation this year.

How has your life been touched? I think the GAO should have a website where all Americans can post how their lives have been touched by the stimulus.

Sounds a tad pornographic, doesn’t it? IT IS!!!! Hey Mr. President! Stimulate……nevermind.

Economic Rage

If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny. Day after day I continually hear reports about what is wrong with the American economy. Political pundits and economic pundits and business channel pundits talk about stimulus, the lack of stimulus, monetary policy, fiscal policy, monetizing the debt, inflation, deflation, stagflation…talk is cheap!!!

It’s no great mystery why the economy is in the crapper. This President has stuck it to small businessman, and created an atmosphere of mistrust, fear and instability while exhibiting nothing but anger and revenge towards business. What do you think these folks are going to do?

So Obama wants small business to hire. Let’s see how this works. He has changed health care to such a point the business owner doesn’t know who is entitled and who is not entitled to health benefits, or what it is going to cost. He is told that his taxes are going up after the first of the year with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. The minimum wage has gone up, and will continue to go up periodically over the next few years. He is told to expand his factory, but then told don’t do this. Do that. You need that permit. You need that study. Get an EPA review. Make sure to unionize your work force. Watch for those carbon emissions. They are going to cost you. To finance it, you have to mortgage your first born child. And oh ya! If you are successful in actually getting something off the ground and operating, we will take it from you when you die with a confiscatory estate tax of 55%. Now there’s a deal. Sign me up for that.

What world do these people live in? Nothing is going to happen to help the economy until this jack ass is out of office, and some sanity comes into government. The proverbial ivory tower is not a myth. It is a reality. At the end of the day, Obama and his entire group of advisors are liberal, progressive left wing academics who know NOTHING about business, and what makes this country run. While boo-hooing over the minorities and the illegal immigrants and the Muslims and the Mexicans, all the while paying the government employees implementing these plans a full 30 -50% more than their private employee counterparts, they have forgotten the number one rule. DON’T BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU.

Obama does a lot of biting. The very people he denigrates and demonizes are the ones who are picking up the tab for his utopian programs…and they are not happy. Now he’s worried, or so he says, that the private sector isn’t “growing” jobs? Really? He’s lucky that more people aren’t being laid off.

Under Barack Obama, what side of the economic line would you like to be on? Those busting their ass trying to pay the bills, or those on the receiving end of Obama largesse? Folks, this guy is bad news. It is time for a change. It is time to change now.

To Mosque or Not To Mosque

The tone deaf president strikes again. For reasons known only to him and to God, President Obama came out yesterday in support of the proposed controversial mosque at Ground Zero. He didn’t have to say anything, but he once again had to open his big mouth. 64% of Americans believe the proponents of the mosque have the constitutional right to build it there. However 64% of Americans believe it is wrong to build it there, and oppose its construction. So once again, Obama is sticking his finger in the eye of Americans.

From what I read, there are numerous unanswered questions about what this Islamic Center is, who is funding it, what are the beliefs of those behind it, yada yada yada. To me, it looks like a shrine to the Muslim martyrs. I agree with the commentator that said the mosque should be built at Ground Zero when Saudi Arabia allows the construction of a Christian Church within its borders.

What the freedom of religion crowd is running into is the sense in America that Islam is more than a religion. For many, not all, it is a political movement as well as a religion. There are certainly religion tolerant modern Moslem countries; Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq to name a few. But the radical Moslems are something else. Saudi Arabia and Iran are theocracies which have melted the political and the religious aspects of Islam together.

That brand of Islam is NOT a religion. It is a movement of male domination and female subjugation coupled with a brutal legal code and an intolerance which is beyond the understanding of most Americans. It is racist, and would practice genocide in a heartbeat. That should not be tolerated in America anymore than the KKK, which was a hate based political movement clothed in religion. Freedom of religion is not anymore absolute than freedom of speech…the proverbial you can’t yell fire in a theater.

What disturbs me about the proposed mosque is that the government officials are refusing to investigate what this is. Where is the money coming from? Who will have access? What are the ground rules for its operation? Will it practice tolerance or intolerance? MOST IMPORTANTLY, DOES IT ADVOCATE POLITICAL GOALS…LIKE IMPLEMENTATION OF SHARIA LAW IN THE UNITED STATES? Does it advocate the overthrow of our system of government?

Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama are wrong. This is sacred ground. 9-11 cost this country 3400 lives and billions of dollars directly…and has resulted in the cost of blood and treasure in two subsequent wars.

Build the mosque somewhere else. Sanctimonious political correctness doesn’t cut it. Bloomberg and Obama should be ashamed of themselves.

Can't We Just All Get Along?

Newsweek Magazine is a liberal publication on life support courtesy of the Washington Post. It is up for sale, but the WP is being a tad choosey as to whom it sells this venerable American rag. (UPDATE: SOLD YESTERDAY FOR $1.00) Nevertheless, I enjoy reading the magazine, and its new format is not too bad. The front part of the mag is heavy on editorial opinion, including some conservative articles. The back of the mag is dedicated to life style stories…way too much on movie stories, but interesting none-the-less.

But a particular in this past week’s edition earned a MKIA raised eyebrow, given its usual intellectually elite tenor. It was written by its editor, Jon Meacham, entitled When the Facts Get in the Way. Making reference to the Shirley Sherrod story, Mr. Meacham writes: “The seasonal issue is one particular to the age of Obama, if universal to American politics: the underlying role that white prejudice against blacks plays in our national life”. Huh???

Mr. Meacham, are you tone deaf? In the media’s continual pursuit of looking for white racism, it has completely ignored time and time again racism rooted the black community. Ms. Sherrod’s experience is the perfect storm showing of white racism, and black racism, wrapping themselves up into one big surprise package that has exploded in this administrations face. I haven’t seen a whites on television calling for the killing of black babies. I haven’t seen white media list serve groups plotting to call black commentators and politicians racists. And I haven’t seen any white screaming ministers on television calling for the destruction of black America.

Minimally, Mr. Meacham, racism is something experienced across all swaths of American society: white, black, brown and red. President Obama has called for a national dialogue on racism. I agree. Mr. Meacham and President Obama, why don’t we start with both of you coming to Youngstown, and accompanying me to Southern Park Mall on Friday night…or riding up Market Street…or talking to the folks who live in Forest Glen. Then let’s sit and talk about racism.

The issue isn’t white racism in America. The issue is “racism” in America. It comes in all forms and colors. Until the liberal media is willing to accept that, nothing will get better. It’s time for an honest dialogue…but I can assure you under this post racial president, it ain’t going to happen. Race baiting is one of his political tools. Rodney King may have been right…”Can’t we just all get along?” We can only hope.