The House That Jack Built

I am wayyyyyy late on this, so I will just add my .02.

1) Let’s have none of this nonsense that banning unions from collective bargaining has anything to do with the budget.  In Wisconsin, the unions had already agreed to more then enough concessions to balance the budget and then some.  The bottom line is:

Say what you want about unions.  There are some good ones and there are some bad ones.  However collective bargaining is part of how capitalism works.  Take it away, and you move to fascism.  Individuals and corporations with similar interests collectively bargain all the time.

A union’s job is to represent the workers in a way that partners with the employer and promotes the trade.  If the contract hurts the employer, it ultimately hurts the workers as well.  Let’s assume that is exactly what happened with the public employees unions in Wisconsin.  What did the unions do?  They conceded all the financial gains they negotiated in order to preserve their jobs.  Exactly what they were supposed to do.

So let’s talk about what is REALLY going on here.

1) Many (not all) unions have been turned into forced contribution political PACS for the Democratic party.  (Sad but true).  Further, they don’t promote the trade at all.  Rather, they reward a lack of productivity.  (Again, not all)

2) Realizing #1, Mr. Walker, as part of a general RNC plan (which include Republican Governors nationwide) is trying to strip unions of their ability to function, which in turn, will eventually severely hamper their ability to raise money and collect democratic votes.  (yeah, yeah, I know this is not news.  As I said, I am way late on this)….  Geez…  Did he REALLY think we wouldn’t find out?

With a massive recall effort of all Wisconsin Republicans in both houses of their legislature, Republicans have really shot themselves in the foot.

OK…  So it’s been almost 13 months since my last post.  I took a break from blogging for a while.

But with everything going on and sooooo much to blog about,  I can’t help myself.

This Blog (as the tagline states) is dedicated to cutting through the B.S. in American Politics.  My Republican-supporting readers are sometimes offended, because unfortunately, there is about 100x more B.S. from the Republican party, than from the Democratic party.  (Notice I didn’t say conservative, I said “Republican”.  There is a HUGE difference.)  Democrats tend to be more incompetent than corrupt B.S.’ers.  (although they have their share as well)

Anyway…  I’m back (in case anyone missed me) 

Jack

Hannity was yanked from his Tea Party appearance yesterday by Fox News and ordered back to New York.

According to Fox’s official statement, they didn’t like the Tea Party profiting from Hannity’s appearance.

I guess the idea of a “News” organization promoting a political rally didn’t at ALL strike them as unethical?  No ethics problem, just a $$$ problem.

Hat Tip to Crooks and Liars!  I have been trying to find video of Tom Coburn on O’Reilly for days now.

O’Reilly invited him on to discuss his outing of Fox News for its constant misinformation.  (OK I’m being very polite here).

This thing is soooooo hilarious.  It starts out with O’Reilly saying (and I quote) “Bias by Fox News senator, really?” After nearly snarfing my iced tea, I continued to watch.  O’Reilly says to Coburn “You don’t know anyone on Fox News because there hasn’t been anyone who has said that you would go to jail if you didn’t buy health insurance.” It took me until now to stop laughing.  The video picks out only a couple of 5 or 6 DOZEN times every single Fox Anchor (and almost EVERY guest) has said it.

The one with Beck AND O’Reilly is hilarious.  Of course neither of them has ever read the bill or has ever even understood the issue of healthcare reform.

Tom Coburn

►

Once again, kudos to Mr.  Tom Coburn, who claims to want to debate on the FACTS!  You NEVER hear that from a Republican.  Are Republicans FINALLY claiming some independence from Fox News???  If there were a debate on facts, that would then leave out Hannity, O’Reilly, and Beck for starters.  NONE of them even KNOW the facts, let alone have any desire to learn them.  Then there is Greta Van Sustren (who once had a respectable legal show on CNN) who would actually have to ask tough follow-up questions when guests came on and said things like Obama has raised income taxes on the middle class 40%.  (Like that will ever happen)

ok…  I get it.

After realizing that her own state legislature (even her own party) had completely lost confidence in her, (coupled with the fact that she was caught red-handed on dozens of occasions taking her family on expensive trips (at state expense), Sarah Palin decided to call it quits as Governor of Alaska.

And her new job?  Anti-Obama one liner ROCK STAR!

Students at CSU Stanislaus got a hold of the contract with Palin for her speaking engagement there.  (The link contains the whole document)

She normally gets at least 100k per engagement, but CSUS reportedly got a bargain at 75k!

She also demands (among other things):

• Pre-screened questions.  (And a pre-screened ASKER of the questions).  She clearly could not handle a non-screened question.
• A Lear Jet (Lear 60 or larger) (or First Class Airfare from Anchorage, at HER discretion)
• 3 hotel rooms (one of them a suite)

I am ALL for capitalism, and Mrs. Palin has EVERY right to market herself and make any demands she likes.  (Even pre-screened questions).   However, as the the California Attorney General, Jerry Brown (the man responsible for exposing the James O’Keefe/Pimp fraud) pointed out, why are California taxpayers footing the bill for this nonsense?

CSU Stanislaus has responded that the money has come from a private foundation (not State University funds), and that they expect to raise between $100k and $200k.  Ok.  Fair enough.  If raising money to support the University is the goal, then more power to the foundation, Mrs. Palin (and her private jets and multiple hotel rooms), and the university.

However, if the goal is to provide a conservative point of view to the political discussion at the university, why not bring in someone who understands the issues, and doesn’t require pre-screened questions?  (Just saying)

WOW.  I had to read that twice!

From WaPo…

All I can say is… Good riddance!  I’m sorry, Andy Stern has given Unions a BAD name.  His “recruiting” tactics at SEIU included secret deals with the Obama administration to secure Union contracts for government employees (even AFTER their employers had been fired), fraudulent “pizza parties” where people were told they had to fill out a card to get a piece of pizza (not knowing that the card was a vote for SEIU at their workplace), late night visits to people’s houses, spreading false rumors about anti-union activity at their employers.  (And that’s JUST the beginning!)

I don’t know who will replace him, but I hope it’s someone better.

This is from Bush speechwriter David Frum’s blog.  I won’t comment other than to say that I find it very interesting and moving.

A couple of things about Ron Paul.

1) He seems to be very popular among enthusiastic and active Republicans.  He won the CPAC poll (and came within 1 vote of winning the SRLC poll), but does that translate into actual votes during primary season?  David Frum and other pundits say NO.  The answer was a resounding NO in ’08 to be sure.  But this time Dr. Paul is starting early, and is far more organized.  Frum dismisses these straw polls as the opinions of a bunch of college kids who live in their mothers’ basements.  He is probably right about that!  But these college kids are FAR more organized and FAR more energized this time around!  All they need is gas money or bus fare to get to the polling place and vote!

He then sights a CNN Opinion poll as a “REAL” poll in which Dr. Paul is at 8%.  He says this poll (of 531 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents) is more REAL then a poll of 1825 registered, active, and energized Republicans (living in their mom’s basement or not)

Keep in mind there is a 4.5% Margin of Error in the CNN Opinion poll.  There is virtually a 0% Margin of Error in the Straw Polls.  However, since it is not a scientific poll, there is a possibility of “ballot stuffing”.

Also, keep in mind that this is a PRIMARY which means (in most states that have closed primaries), Independents and other non-Republicans CAN’T VOTE!  (So Republican-leaning independents’ opinions are meaningless.)

UPDATE: WHILE I AM WRITING THIS, I DISCOVER RON PAUL HAS WON ANOTHER STRAW POLL

He has won the straw poll at the Conservative Leadership Conference in Nevada, by a LARGE margin!  (But only 430 voters registered for the poll)

The results are:

• Ron Paul 33%
• Mitt Romney 16%
• Duncan Hunter 15%
• Undecided 11%
• Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani were next in single digits

OK… That being said, he just MIGHT be a more formidable Republican candidate then Frum and other pundits realize.  We’ll see.

But let’s move on to the OTHER thing about Ron Paul.  Item #2.

2) Ron Paul got into some hot water in the 80′s and 90′s about his newsletters with some racist, and anti-semitic remarks.  Dr. Paul himself, made some racially insensitive comments back in the 90′s about African American crime in Los Angeles and the criminals being “fleet-footed”.

Neither of those things make Dr. Paul a racist or an anti-semite.  Further, I can’t find anything anti-Semitic that he has said or done. (EVER) (And I can’t find any even remotely racially insensitive comment that he has made this millennium).  However, what is disturbing, is that Dr. Paul CONTINUES (as far as I know) to keep as his right-hand man, a known racist and anti-semite.  (Mr. Lew Rockwell).  His web site ( I will NOT post a link, you can google it yourself), the “Council of Concerned Citizens” is a basically a blog, 100% focused on racism and anti-semitism.

I watched Dr. Paul’s speech at SRLC on cspan.org today, and I have to say…  WOW!!!!

AMAZING!  He GETS it!  He has been in tune with where this country should be for over 3 decades.  It was an amazing speech.  I could not agree more with it.  It was like my words were coming right out of his mouth.

Listen to the applause and chants of “Ron Paul!”

He starts out with the premise that debt and deficits are a primary issue.  (disagreeing with former VP’s assertion that “deficits don’t matter”)

He then moves on to earmarks, and identifies that they are a great talking point, but not a cause of spending.  And by eliminating state reps in Congress “earmarking funds” for themselves, you end up with the Federal Government doing it, which can be much worse. —  Good one Ron!

Then he advocates for a strong legislative branch (as opposed to an executive branch), (completely the opposite of the power grabbing previous executive branch we had.) – YES!  (NOTE: It was Trent Lott, Bill Frist, and John Boehner who ushered in the era of a weak, submissive legislative branch)

Then he goes on to take on the culture of spending (and the implied corporatism) of the Republican Party.

He says “Now if we were so good at cutting spending, where were we when we had the chance?

LISTEN to the MASSIVE applause on that one line!

Then he says: “What we (as Republicans over the past several decades) have created, is a credibility gap.  We talk a good game, but when we get the chance to something, we haven’t done the job that we should have.” – YES!!!!

NOTE: The “credibility gap” is like the GRAND CANYON (x100)

He says, (paraphrasing) that “If we only elected individuals who would obey the Constitution, we would get out of this mess in no time.”   YES!!!!!  Other then Ron Paul, I can’t think of any Republican who has a clue what the constitution means.  (It’s pretty hard to think of a current Democrat that does either!)

He then CORRECTLY identifies Obama.   (This guy GETS it!)  He says: “The question has been raised, whether or not our President is a Socialist” – (Raised by Neocons and not by anyone who understands what the word means)

He then states that there are some in the audience who believe it.  He says it’s a fair discussion because Obama deserves a lot of criticism. He then says “In the technical sense, in the economic definition, he is not a socialist. He’s a corporatist. And unfortunately we have corporatists inside the Republican Party and that means you take care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”

YES!!!!!!!!!! Ron Paul GETS it!  He actually understands what the words MEAN!!!!!  He recognizes corporatism as the hijacking of our freedom!

He wants to introduce a bill to repeal the individual mandate (or a Ms. Wasserman Shultz calls it, the “change in tax status”) for people to buy health insurance.  YES!!!!!!!  The mandate was just a STUPID idea.  Completely antithetical to our way of life.

Here is Part 1 (of 3) of his speech:

I found this Heritage Foundation post which accurately predicts a Doctor shortage.  It cites 2 reasons:

1. An increase (in the millions) in the number of insured people.
2. A mass exodus of docs from the field.  This CBS News article is cited.

Well #1 is true.  If #2 is true, why do a third of doctors believe that they are going to be reimbursed less?  After all, that is what the Doctor fix was for!  Are THAT many doctors, just THAT uninformed?

Besides, (depending on the practice, and its patient mix, of course (there are many exceptions)), most docs are paid by private insurance!  (And all these “NEWLY insured” will be on PRIVATE insurance, courtesy of us taxpayers)  So what are these people thinking???

If anyone knows, please comment.