Pass The Blue Bottle

I have a friend who was feeling unwell. He went to his doctor. Actually, I think it was one of those roadside doc-in-a-box clinics, as he was having some insurance problems. He told the doctor the he was logy, felt bloated, and was passing gas. I told him I felt he was giving me way too much information. The doctor did have a suggestion. He told my friend to go to the drugstore and pick up one of those well known blue bottles and go home, take a couple of healthy swigs and stay close to something big and white and porcelain. One very uncomfortable day later he pronounced himself cured.

As much as I don't want to think about it, his symptoms sounded familiar. Bloated, logy, a lot of gas being passed, and no production. That sounds to me like the United States economy. Our President has been feeding our economy the wrong stuff and we are economically constipated.

We can recognize the symptoms but what on the Chez Obama menu caused this blockage?
Let's start back at the beginning when he served up an appetizer to the Republicans of "I won you lost and I do not need you". That would be the equivalent of eating a bad clam. Then we were served a large portion of ivory tower dilettantes with no real world experience with a smattering of political hacks running departments.  The next course was  a flock of czars with secret duties only reporting to the President. Congress was trimmed from all courses.

Then the maitre'd , Harry Reid and the hostess, Nancy Pelosi served their personel recipe, an Obamination of Obamacare. Finally, for desert, we got the Obamacare website. I must say, most people found that a little tough to chew on. While there were other tasties served these were the main items. So now we know we ate to much of a poor fare that was served to us. It was certainly different from the menu we saw before election.

So we end up with a constipated economy. What was discomfort has long ago gone over to painful. The country needs a good dose of an economic laxative. The problem is, I don't see any blue bottles on the horizon.

Random Thoughts - Thirty-Six

To me, writing a blog is like driving a car. As long as I stay to the right of center, I should be OK.

There is someone on Facebook that goes by Cranky Conservative. It is not me. Please do not confuse us. 

I just saw a video clip of the students at Rutgers who accused Condaleezza Rice of being a war criminal. That is stupid on it's face. But the ones that I saw were young women wearing hajibs. Interesting. Think they might have had a particular point of view? But now I can add Rutgers to Brandeis as universities that are run by cowards that bow to the least tolerant. I would be ashamed to have a child of mine be a student at either school.

Speaking of colleges that are going to pot, so to speak. What is it with these "free speech zones"? I thought that the United States was a free speech zone under our Constitution.

Is there anyone that has ever done more to destroy the ability of the two parties to work together than Harry Reid? His attitude and his language are just plain destructive and condescending. I mean, "the Koch brothers are responsible for global warming". Really? 

Evil has a new face. It is the face of Abubakar Shekau. He is the warlord sheikh of a group called Boko Haram in Nigeria. Shekau is a very religious man. He talks directly to Allah and Allah talks directly to him. He says it was Allah, who ordered him to kidnap little girls and to allow his followers to use them for their pleasure. Those that survive, he was told to sell into slavery. He had to do this. It was his obligation. For, you see, Shekau and his followers are devout muslims.

I do not often agree with our President. This time he got it right. He offered the Nigerian government resources to help them track down Boko Haram. They have accepted. This group hides in a jungle area four times the size of Yellowstone National Park. It will not be an easy task, but it is doable. When they are found, I pray that they can free those poor girls and then turn the Reapers loose and blow them all to hell where they belong and probably be welcomed for they are true children of Satan.

As The Worm Turns

I was brought up in a time when racism was public, prevalent, and unadorned. Does racism still exist? Of course it does. There will always be haters. It is not restricted to race. Some people are just hard wired to use hate to cover up fear. But you can believe me when I tell you that the racism that you see today is pale by comparison (no pun intended) with what I saw as a youth.

I know that as I get older I probably get confused a little more easily, but I am losing track of the rules. I read this morning that if you do not like Mexican food you are a racist. That's a reach. What if you like burritos but don't like tacos or mole sauce. Last week it was announced that non-Hispanics are not to use the word fiesta as that would be racist. But cinco de Mayo seems to be all right. At least for now. Even flying the American flag is called racist by some.

If you disapprove of our President's policies you are racist. Apparently this is true, even if your natural skin tone is even darker than Mr. Obama's. But somehow if you have a campaign against Condaleezza Rice speaking at Rutgers University that is not racist. Who are these protesters that can campaign against an brilliant and accomplished woman of color without repercussions? I'll just bet they are of a light complected hue. You see trashing any conservative is never racist. To some it is a duty. If you hear the Greek chorus chanting "hypocrisy", so do I. Somehow you never hear the racist rants of Al Sharpton called for what they are.

If you object to sharia law, or a nice peace loving stoning or beheading or female mutilation you are Islamophobic. So why, if you want to wipe Israel off the map are you not called Judeophobic? If you blow up Christian churches killing Christians in the process, why are you not Christophobic? This is a road that seem to go in one direction only and I am confused about why. Is it because those that usually apply these labels are in fear of peace loving Muslims or are the just true believers.

So if I express distress in a hateful manner about Boka Harum kidnapping twelve year old girls, as they were ordered to do, they say, by Allah, and selling them into slavery (yes, selling twelve year old girls into slavery as a religious right) am I Islamophobic? Say yes, say no. I do not give a rats posterior what anybody thinks, such behavior is sub-human and evil. If you believe in a God, any God, you cannot believe that a God would condone this.

The Spin Is On

The President, with his steady hand no where near the rudder, is, as usual, spinning like a top. Last week he said that he has set his laser like focus on jobs, This has been about , as a guesstimate, the eighth time since he came into office. The one thing that everyone agreed was needed since Obama was elected was jobs. The President periodically announces that jobs are his focus going on. Then nothing good happens. He has done absolutely nothing to promote jobs in five plus years. In fact the Participation Rate today is at it's lowest in over three decades.

Now, this week, Mr. Obama has announced that he will once again focus his boundless energy on Global Warming. Again. He has done this about as many times as he has focused on jobs. But he may actually try to do something about Global Warming, as that has become his one true religion And also because that is where the money is.

People can go to the government with plans for green projects and get huge grants to start companies and save the earth. Before the government got into the financing business, these people would have to go to venture capitalists. But venture capitalists are strange, they actually like projects that have a chance of success. The government has no such requirement. And you really have to stretch the Constitution to make a government investment in private business legitimate.

The government, apparently, has only two requirements. You must be the rich friend of someone in the administration or the rich friend of a rich friend of someone in the administration. The only other requirement is that you toe the line as a liberal.

Then interesting things start to happen. You are allowed special dispensations. Wind farms chop up eagles like a giant food processor. Solar fields cook all kinds of birds, protected and otherwise, quicker than a microwave. You hear little about that causing problems for the owners. Go bankrupt before you even get a product on the street. No problem. Get your big fat grant and start manufacturing in a foreign country. No problem.

The money goes out. The company owners get big paychecks. Along the line some cash gets back into certain political coffers and all is good in their world. In ours, not so much.

Persistence Is Golden

I congratulate those people that have the power to make things happen who stayed the course on Benghazi. Many of us recognized the abject phoniness of the original story from day one. It also became obvious that this whole mess did not start with the attack. It started weeks before.

There was an operation being run out of Benghazi. We are not told what the operation was or who was in charge. The best guesses seem to be a transfer of arms run by the CIA. But there was something going on because Ambassador Stevens requested more security. His request was not fulfilled. That was blamed on a low level staff member who felt additional security was not needed. That is simply not believable. As I understand it, the only people than can refuse the request of an ambassador is the Secretary of State and the President.

At some point the property at Benghazi was designated an American Consulate. That made it American territory. Ambassador Stevens was either asked or told to go there. He, most certainly, was not on a sight seeing tour. There were and are two major Al Qaeda affiliates in the area. They are Ansar al Sharia and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. They are not a rag-tag bunch of neighborhood toughs. They are serious political jihadists. They knew what was going on at that consulate.

Even the video that was shown on TV gave lie to the administration's story. The people that attacked were organized and well armed. They even had RPGs. No rag-tag there. But the administration had been going with the story, "bin Laden is dead and GM is alive". "Al Qaeda is diminished and on the run."

Coming up to an election, putting more security in Benghazi and admitting an Al Qaeda based attack would have made Obama look weak and Hillary Clinton incompetent. They couldn't allow that. So good people were sacrificed on a political alter. And they didn't even try to save them.

Then came two years of deny, deny, deny. Blame it on the Republicans. Blame it on the Koch brothers. Redact any paper the must be sent to Congress. But ultimately, a spark. An unredacted email. An email from Ben Rhodes at the White House to Susan Rice instructed her in talking points that were patently untrue.

This is enough to prod Congress into convening a select committee. After two year of stonewalling and name calling, it is time for the truth. For the good of America, I hope the Democrats can come to the table and put politics aside for this one, very important, time. 

Random Thoughts - Thirty-Five

Isn't it amazing that on the day they announced that the growth of the GDP has dropped to one tenth of one percent, the Dow hit a new record. The one percent that the President pretends to dislike are all sending him "Thank You" cards.

Well, we have the Congress to look after our interests, right? Then why, when we pay to have roads built, is Congress looking at a plan to put tolls on more roads and make us pay to use what we paid to build?

There is a quiet plan afoot to eliminate COLA increases for social security recipients once again. That will make three years out of six that they have punished the elderly for being old. They say they haven't the money. They do, however, manage to find the money for Barack's golf junkets and Michelle's vacations with her entourage and the frequent Obama family respites. Priorities, folks. Priorities.

I hope everyone knows how important I believe it is to get honest answers to all of the questions regarding Benghazi, as we have been fed a constant stream of lies by the administration. But how are we ever going to get the truth when the hearings are just a stage for politicians to bloviate. We need a Select Committee.

It has become the custom in some quarters to espouse the idea that America's best days are behind us. It is all over and we are on a long downhill slide. Bull! Yes, we've been damaged. Yes, we will have more damage as long as we stay on our current path. Yes, it will take time to reverse the damage. But we can do it. I remember Germany after WWII. They were the enemy and the allies devastated them. This added to the terrible damage the Nazi Regime did to their own country in order to wage the war. Twenty years later, they had a viable economy. Forty years later they were the top economic power in Europe. And we are better than they are!

Did you see the weekly jobless claims? I'm expecting the President to make a speech soon telling us that he is going to change his focus to creating jobs. What will this be? The tenth time. Barack, your sixth year and we're still waiting. Some recovery. 

Why does the AARP air ads on TV bragging about "feeding the poor" but none about lobbying for the elderly. I thought that is what they were supposed to be doing. Amazing, not one word from the AARP about how Obama is harming the elderly. Why do you think that is? Full disclosure; I stopped supporting them ten years ago.

There are those that say I have nothing good to say about Barack Obama. That is not true. I think that he is one of the most loyal Presidents in my lifetime. My problem is with who and what he is loyal to.

This Double Dip Isn't Ice Cream

Over the past two years, since I started this blog, I have written that the only economic recovery is in the mind of those in the Obama administration. While the government spin meisters in Washington have been shouting joyous accolades over the number of jobs that the President has created, the net employment figures have worsened. You see, the government touts the figures that they can jiggle and juggle to make them appear to be heroes of the working man.

If the unemployment figure drops by one tenth of one percent the administration claims a great victory. Eighty thousand jobs created is time to declare a national holiday and to start carving Obama's face on Mount Rushmore. What they do not tell you is that when those eighty thousand jobs were created a hundred thousand were lost. What they don't tell you is that the reason the unemployment rate went down is that the people who had their unemployment benefits run out are no longer counted. To the government bean counters, these people just dropped off the face of the earth.

What the government economists do not bring up and the cuddle puppy press chooses to ignore, is the Participation Rate. That is the rate of people available for work that are employed. The current Participation Rate is 62.8 percent. In other words, one third of the people that want to work are not employed. In more other words, our real unemployment rate is 37.2 percent. Your not reading that in the New York Times.

Our administration goes ecstatic when the GDP growth rate hits 2 percent. Primarily because that is better than 1.5 percent. But 2 percent is not even enough to maintain a growing economy with a growing population. At 2 percent we are losing ground. It gets worse.

It was just announced that the current GDP growth rate is one tenth of one percent. And there is every chance that that will be adjusted downward as more figures come in. The administration usually goes for the most optimistic numbers. 

So after the longest and slowest recovery from a recession in history, we might be heading into a double dip recession. The usual definition of a recession is two negative quarters on the growth of the GDP. We seem to be going that way. As I have been shouting from the roof tops for the past two years, we are losing ground. Obamanomics is digging the hole that our country is in, deeper. 

The Obama administration talks populist but takes care of their one percenter friends. The middle class is disappearing. And not because they are upwardly mobile. Employed people were earning more twenty years ago than they are today, on the average. Whether by intent or by ineptness, our government is destroying our economy. I know that we went out there a little bit on this  one, but it is important. There is an election coming up. Use it well.