Say Anything Blog

I think it’s important we figure this out.  Obama has as the lead item on his half page resume 8 years as a community organizer.  Good title.  Kind of like maintenance engineer became a pseudotitle for Janitor.

SO, what is or what does a Community Organizer do?

Let’s have one of my fellow Chicagoland citizens explain.  He supports Obama.  He says in part:

Since Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, he has been accused of moving to the center and flip-flopping on positions he adopted during the primary. This criticism misses the point. In his recent moves, Obama, the community organizer, is simply trying to build new alliances as he neutralizes threats to his power. It is what any Chicago-trained community organizer worth his salt would do.

In other words, A Community Organizer is a Chicago Style Machine Politics operative.  Coming soon to a country near you.  I’ll bet you can hardly wait to see the USA turned into the kind of “smooth running machine” the Chicago Political Mob have made of the state of Illinois.  Vote for Obama and you’ll get that in spades.

I think we need to get some truth buttons
printed.

Hat Tip to The Anchoress

I am NOT an Obama fan and will do all I can to get him defeated.

I’m enthusiastic about mccain PALIN. Emphasis intentional.

She will be a great VP and when the time comes a greater Commander in Chief.

BUT, all that said, Barak Obama showed real class when he called off the vicious dogs from Bristol Palin.  Saying back off the kids.

He’s right.  Of course the Daily Kos nutcases will ignore him.  But I wanted to note his class action.  We need to sanction sanity on the left when we see it.  It’s so rare.

Since the surprise announcement and brilliant one fell swoop McCain made in picking Sarah Palin to be Vice President the blogosphere on the right has been all over itself with joy.  I include myself in that group.

One such is Chicago Boyz.

A commenter said this:

The McCain-Palin campaign needs to address the experience question head-on, and they need to do so by working from Palin’s strengths, not by sweeping objections under the rug. This should be done by announcing several areas in which she would take the lead within the administration, areas where her existing strengths give her plausibility. Three areas suggest themselves immediately.

1. North American energy and trade policy. The most important substantive accomplishment of her administration has been the natural-gas pipeline deal with Canada, that she was a key figure in brokering and pushing. The Financial Times gave her credit for this accomplishment weeks ago, when nobody thought she had a chance for the VP slot. Have her make a speech as soon as possible before a major energy or trade meeting in Canada, where she will give a preview of the McCain-Palin policy for energy cooperation with Canada. Cite her pipeline experience frequently. Get in digs at Obama for playing the anti-NAFTA card in the primaries, and against Biden for having voted against the pipeline when it was first an issue decades ago. Play up her experience as an Arctic governor and show sympathy for Canada’s Arctic issues, including the undersea resource claims we and Canada will soon be disputing with Putin. Maybe follow that with a trip to Iqaluit, being sure to bring her husband. Up there, talk about America and Canada’s common Arctic and Inuit/Eskimo heritage.

Obama has done nothing as important or complex, or as international, as the pipeline deal. Not to mention Biden.

2. Middle-class/blue-collar issues. The Republicans need to hone their “Sam’s Club” agenda. She’s the person to do it. Adopt the Romney proposal for a realistic (at least 10K per kid) child credit, and be sure it’s deductible against payroll tax. And pledge to revisit and reform Joe Biden’s (D-MNBA) bankruptcy bill, making sure to repeat ten zillion times that it was Biden’s baby. She can take credit for convincing McCain to revisit his previous position and decide it needs reforming.

3. Native community issues. Not only are her husband (and kids) part-Eskimo, Palin had to deal constantly with the powerful “native corporations” as governor. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and its programs are an ongoing national disgrace. Let Palin head up a task force to entirely revamp [programs for native communities. This might sway enough votes in New Mexico to swing the state their way, and would count in several other Western states that are leaners.

These are three “mules” for Sister Sarah to ride - - to office.

She will make a great VP and most likely a great President.  I have been breathing this breath of fresh air all weekend and feel so much better.  She is a young and better qualified Margaret Thatcher to bring us back from the edge.  We needed her right about now and she shows up.

Friday’s announcement of Sarah Palin as VP candidate generated some horse poop from Daily Kos (which I don’t normally read but found Courtesy of Little Green Footballs).  Daily Kos has given me even more reason to love this future VP.

She belongs to the Assemby of God Church in Alaska.  Mike Rose is her pastor.  Now here’s the North Dakota connection.  Mike Rose almost 18 years ago was the pastor of the AG church in Lisbon ND.  I met him then.  My pastor, Dan Rothwell from Fargo and Mike were good friends.  I met Rodney Howard Browne in the Little Bible Camp in Devils Lake ND when Mike was there helping Browne at a men’s retreat.

It was wonderful.  I value my time spent with Rodney Howard Browne and with Pastor Rose in the old quonset hut at the Bible Camp that winters day.

Course being pagan unlearned savages the Kos Kids have no way to deal with someone who has genuine spiritual Cred.  Like Sarah Palin.

When I read the article from Kos it did much to cause me to rise up and support this good woman.  She is just like me.  I think she will be seen by most people to be just like we all are in some way.  She will connect.

I can see the money rolling in.  I can see the campaign taking on new life.  WE (and saying this about the McCain campaign is a big step for me) WE can WIN THIS THING!

I am now an enthusiastic McCain Palin supporter, without Palin, not so much.  This was a wise and brilliant move on McCain’s part.  He will find himself likely in the White House because he reached out to Social Conservatives.  Even my buddy Mike Huckabee loves her.  Even James Dobson.

This was a great pick and we all know what good things come from Alaska, not just oil or salmon or Rob.

I feel better already.

You’ve heard it said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

That is used by many to tell people to stay away from things that seem to be working.  In this political season lots of things seem to be broken at one level or another.  Some need to be left alone, others need fixing.

For instance:

Public Education.  Doesn’t seem to be much agreement on it’s brokenness.  I would call it broken.  Others who want to pay teachers for doing little would disagree.  I think it needs fixing.

Our Military.  Not broken.  Breaking things and killing people right on cue.

Our Tax system.  Kinda Broken, but usable.

Our infrastructure, broken but repairable.

Our economy, broken a little but coming around.

Free Speach - Just fine, but the Libs want the unfairness doctrine back.

Energy Dependence, broken badly but being repaired as we speak.  We’ll get this fixed.

Health Care.  This one is really the conundrum.  It’s broken.  OH, it works OK for those who are government employees, it works OK for Retirees, It works OK for some corporate workers, but for 25 million Americans who are uninsured or under insured it doesn’t seem to work very well.  I would call that broken.  Oh we have health care available.  It seems like however that the only two options available are 1. Don’t get sick or 2.  Get sick, go to hospital, go bankrupt.

Not really options now are they?  Those who have coverage of some kind or another will say that we should be happy that we have good health care available to all.  Really?  I pay almost 20% of my AGI for health Insurance from a private company. I know they have to make a buck.  But, for that I get the most marginal of insurance coverage and I pray every day I never have to use a dime of it.  To date any claim I have submitted has remained unpaid by them.

None.

Here’s the problem.  I don’t want the government in the business of DMV or Post Office style health insurance administration.  I don’t want regulation on Doctors.  I don’t know what I want actually.  If I had an answer it would be GENE for PRESIDENT.  It’s not.

I do know that we spend as a percentage of or GDP and Per Capita more on health care in the USA than anywhere else in the WORLD.  And we are NOT healthier for it.  On a healthy index we are pretty low.

And I hear all the stories about people who come from far and wide, Canada, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia to access our Health Care system.  Oh, for those who can afford it, it’s a wonderful system.  Just not to the marginally insured which by some estimates is almost a third of the US population today.

I’m just not sure who can afford it, from here.  I don’t seem to be able to.

I think our health care system is broken.  As is Medicare, Medicaid and while we are at it the whole social support system.  It’s a giant black hole.  We keep pouring money into it.  Nothing is being fixed.

I’ll make this observation.  Our social costs including the upward spiral of health care will kill us all off.  We are in deep weeds in this country.  This in my opinion is more important than the price of oil.

This is very broken but let’s not try to fix it without knowing what we are doing.  I think as a conservative this is one issue where the Republican Party Must become aware of.  Just hoping it will go away is death to any victory.  I don’t want OBAMACARE.  But, we must have a clear conversation.

I suspect that Private Health Insurance must be the Supplement with Public overarching coverage of catastrophic.  Paid for HOW?  I don’t have all the answers.

I would hope one of the wise ones on this blog will tell me.

OH, I am healthy, 63, Not terribly overweight or sick.  Yet, in trying to find any alternative to the home wrecking insurance costs I carry I am told over and over again that I better hold on to what I have, that’s all there is, there are no options.  This by insurance professionals.  I am fully hostage to my insurance company.

That would be broken in my estimation.

Hidden on the very very last page of Today’s Wall Street Journal is a column relating this story:

“Garbage collectors would inspect San Francisco residents’ trash to make sure pizza crusts aren’t mixed in with chip bags or wine bottles under a proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom.” Isn’t that what homeless people do—rooting around in other people’s garbage? If Bay Area residents are caught failing to separate the plastic bottles from the newspapers, according to the newspaper story, they could face fines of up to $1,000.............

A new game called Climate Crime Cards urges kids to spy on and keep an online record of their family’s environmental faux pas—noting when their parents fail to turn off the TV, plug in too many appliances or use the clothes dryer on a sunny day.............

Do-gooders also once wanted to “celebrate diversity,” but total conformity seems to be the aim of those in Seattle these days, where the city has started putting green tags on garbage cans of homeowners who don’t recycle. Enthusiasts boast that there is a very positive “Scarlet Letter” effect to subjecting noncompliers to public scorn. So you can almost hear the kitchen conversations: “Jimmy, I don’t want you playing with the Williams boys anymore; their family doesn’t recycle.” But wait, aren’t these the same ACLU members who oppose public registries of multiple sex offenders?.................................

In reality, household recycling is mostly about absolving the guilt of Lexus liberals who just hate themselves for enjoying an affluent 21st-century lifestyle. The aim seems to be less saving nature than building self-esteem.

And it has worked. Too well. I can barely tolerate the proud recyclers, hybrid-car owners and “save the polar bear” button-wearers who smother us with their self-righteousness. A few weeks ago I was at the house of some friends, and I accidentally tossed a plastic Gatorade bottle into the glass recycling bin. You would have thought that I had made a pass at their daughter.

We are in such deep weeds.  These people are dangerous.

I live in Illinois, I love this state for many reasons.  One of not is how “Well” it’s governed.  When I moved here in 1986 every single constitutional position was held by a Republican.  The state worked a little bit better.

Now, the opposite is true.  Republicans hold NO seats Whatsoever in the state.

The state is in total disarray.  Destroyed.  Collapsing.  “Escape from New York” nearly.  Circling the drain.

Carl of The Chicago Boyz has written a pretty good description of how bad it has become in IL and how likely the USA will look if BHO wins.  It will give you cause to ponder how bad it can be.  The most interesting thing is his disgust not only for the Demorats but for the insipid Republicans as well.

Jane Ahlin, I grew up with her.  She is a very nice lady.  Her dad was my Boy Scout leader.  BUT, she is so wrong so often I have given up trying to correct her.  As she has with me.  We live in sort of an ideological detente.  Till now.

Jane writes for the Forum in Fargo.  She just wrote a very stereotypical left tipping column that I have to answer.  You can read it all here.

Here are the things I want to respond to.  Since I have no other fair Forum to do, Say Anything and it’s hundred thousand global readers (along with my lowly blog) will have to be my platform.

Jane Says that she just spent a wonderful tranquil weekend with her family. I’ll bet they didn’t think one time about an attack of an Islamic radical.  That was a long time ago and the “Failed” policies of the Bush administration have contributed to the sense of peace and security she enjoyed.  Not that she would say anything about that in appreciation.

Then Jane Says:
The country....... general sense of frustration is unfocused and seems to render us disengaged rather than determined in the pursuit of change.

What about OBAMA.  Isn’t he the candidate of Change?  Isn’t he going to solve all the problems just like the whiz bang kids of the all Democrat congress was going to at the end of 2006?  Guess not.

we’re stuck as long as George Bush is president.

I guess the Democrat majority in Congress have all dropped dead.  Oh, Wait, no they only look that way.  What a victim mentality.  We would do something except we can’t because of …………………

Sounds like the mentality coming out of Jeremiah Wright’s Church.  It’s all ___________ Fault.  Fill in the blank.  Whitey, Uncle Tom, Bush, Cheney ad nauseaum

incompetence of the Bush administration in all things economic.  ideology is no substitute for reasoned public policy.

Wow, there is a classic stoves calling kettles black.  If the democrat party had a clue in economics I would rest well.  Unfortunately with few exceptions there is not a whit of economic common sense among them.  Barney Frank would be a notable exception and even, Obama is for the most part starting to talk with some level of intelligence on economics.  Of course that is going to go over badly with the loons at Huffpo and Kos.  They can’t even balance a checkbook.  If he decides to talk with common sense they will go nuttier than they already are.

In fact, were the economy not in such dire straits, it might be amusingly ironic that the bailout of the big financial institutions – Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac – echoed the New Deal mentality conservatives love to hate.
Here Jane gets it right.  These bail outs and the economic stimulus plan were among the dumber things that have happened.  Bush signed them and in that I am disappointed.  But let’s see, what group of dummies came up with all that?

Our children and their children will sort out the ways we were shamed with patriotism and corralled by fear into letting this presidential administration play fast and loose with the constitution.

I would love to ask Jane what constitutional right has she personally lost in the last 8 years that she is missing.  I can’t think of any.  Getting on a plane with an Uzzi is more difficult but I guess that’s OK.

the downward trajectory of educational achievement
I guess it’s right to blame the President because we sure can’t blame the education lobby, teachers unions, corrupt administration, failed public education and local government.  I mean everyone knows that the President comes RIGHT IN THE CLASSROOM AND RIPS THE BOOKS OUT OF INNOCENT CHILDREN’S HANDS.  Never mind that Vouchers and Charter Schools allow kids to get actual educations and who is it that opposes that working strategy?

“It’s not globalization or immigration or computers per se that widen inequality. It’s the skills gap.”

OK, I guess parents have no responsibility at all in this equation.  Never mind that Chinese and Jewish kids do very well on all these educational venues in the USA.  White and Black kids not so much.  How much of this lack of skill is cultural and how much is parental.  We have a parenting gap, not an educational gap.

I would like to ask my friend one thing, Other than the arrogance of thinking that after Bush is gone you (we) will have to “Clean this mess up”, what are some actual specific things you would do if you were King or Queen.  I mean specific implementable policies that you would specifically suggest that are not being done now.

Of course the classic knee jerk liberal pap is defeat George Bush.  Oh, wait, he’s not running.  Not that that ever stopped anyone from running against him.

You, we, no one will get any specific plan that has a drop of common sense in it because they don’t have any.  They have nothing but hatred for Bush in their arsenal.

Well guess what boys and girls, he won’t be the POTUS after the 20th of Jan.  You get to blame him for a while.  But that will run out too.  Unless President ObamaMcCain finds some bright people to surround themselves with we are going to be in deeper trouble still.

There is a really really good reason the USA has in all it’s history only elected two presidents directly from the US Senate.  They have no experience.  That is as true of McCain as it is of Obama.  They don’t know how things work.  Both men have demonstrated profound ignorance.  I’m not happy with either choice which my bumper sticker says: No One for President.

I’ll sit right here and wait for 2 or 3 sound practical strategic proposals to “Clean this Mess Up”.

The arrogance behind even MAKING such a statement is huge.

But the Arrogance of the Left continues to astound me at every turn.

Past 24 hours Iran test fires 9 missiles to demonstrate they can blow up Israel. 

Oil price doesn’t budge and drifts lower a bit.

And there’s oil bubbling up out of the ground in Northern Iraq

And there are ten reasons why Oil can’t get it on any more.

If Iran testing missiles doesn’t run the price of oil up then what will?

Hang on to your Amoco hat.

In case you want proof of the bias of the media to propagate fear why haven’t you heard about the huge fall in oil in the last two days?

To those of us who are market watchers this is no surprise. This had all the indications of a market top.

But ten bucks in less than a week and no bottom in sight is a reason not to believe the Mainstream Media.  They don’t say a word.

$100?

$80?

$60

I’m guessing between the 60-80 mark.  And right on cue, how this will affect banks was all the headlines on the financial news.

This headline is crazy.

As a Christian I have only one question, “What the hell are they thinking about”.

Cutting greenhouse gasses in half by 2050 means you have to kill off the human race pretty much. This is insanity.

Then this morning the light bulb went on.  This is about conserving fuel.

They (world leaders) have come to the conclusion that taxing and encouraging people to use less fuel won’t work. So, they have to inject fear into the world’s population to believe a lie.

This is discouraging and transparent.

And sad for the world.

A permit to build a coal fired plant using the cleanest burning technologies (very low pollution systems) has been denied in Georgia because there is no amelioration of CO2 production.  We can build new coal power plants that burn almost as clean as natural gas.  There is no such thing as CLEAN COAL but almost clean coal.  This is so wrong it’s nauseating.

This is where the world is gone completely wrong.  There is no HUMAN CAUSED global warming.  There is climate change.  Repeat that until you get it.

So, now a badly needed power supply is held up by a myth propagated by a false religion.

We are in so much trouble if we don’t reign in these crazies now!  We should be building 100 cleaner coal plants and 100 nuclear plants today.  That will take a lot of pressure off, create jobs and help our energy problems.  Just think, you can plug your plug in electric car and drive on nuclear power.

Makes sense to me.  Too much sense for the nuts in Georgia who made this stupid decision.

From Newsmax:

Powell, who last month in British Columbia hinted that he might vote for Obama, met with the all-but-certain Democratic presidential nominee in Powell’s Alexandria, Va., office on June 18.

Some were hoping McCain would select Powell.  That would be adding insult to injury.