Gang Comes Up From Basement

The gang has been in the basement, feeling locked in by work. They were shocked to finally come up the stairs and find the sun shining. It was short lived. Obama’s stimulus package might spend something on jobs in a year or so, but the debt load is staggering. Is there enough money to actually cover it? After surveying the world, the gang debated whether to go back in the basement, launch a festival of Susan Hayward films, or apply to for stimulus fun ding to determine how many Julie London songs fit on an iPod Shuffle.

Of Course, we are dosing ourselves in more Keynesian economics. Spend to get out of a downturn. To bad we never learned the second half of the lesson: be responsible and save when times are good. We started spending in 1933 and never stopped seeing places to spend it. Half the theory is worse than none.

Obama Begins

The gang at the lake has been busy sitting back and watching it all happen. Obama is in and things seem to be settling down. Of interest to the gang is that Obama does not seem so bad so far. He seems to be following his predicted pattern subject to the economu taking some steam out of his more socialist plans. Even Marx would have said captialism has to be well advanced to provide for all, so that is expectexd. A good thing.

The gangs attention is directed at the non-change oriented people that Obama has around him. Both in the Congress and some of his own people will have to embrace that the word change does not mean they get to be the recivers of graft instead of others. The Clinton appointment probably brings that out the most. Reid and Pelosi are the big two fears Obama must have. I think Obama wants to move on in an honest way, but the rest of his crowd does seem to have other plans. His look as Biden chided Justice Roberts told the gang Obama might be ok but Biden joined in with Reid and Pelosi in not being on the team.

Obama has some team building to do. Change is not we now punish those who have not agreed with us. That is not a new direction. That one goes back to Jefferson and Adams.

Elelction Eve Sadness

On the massively long awaited eve of the election, it is time to review this newly extended period of American life. The calm may last all the way to March 7 and Obama’s second walk on the waters of tehe Potomac; except that this time he sinks. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, in scuba gear, will provide the weight to make him sink. Obama’s promise of change as the people see it is in such a totally different universe from what will take place in the business as usual Congress, only with new people getting the meat of the fattened calf. Not a new calf or dinner plate, just a new crowd with the knife.

The gang at the lake still hopes for a Huckabee come from behind victory, but they suspect this is only the glimmer of too much sherry.

With a slight inkling of a withdrawal of the Christian Right and other conservatives from the American Community several years ago repressed, it may explode anew. The Baptist movement has done it before, only now the crowd leaving and taking their American flags with them will be bigger and more diverse. With no limit to San Francisco values taking over Washington now, they will return to the older view that the political community is tainted and a risj to one’s salvation. Withdrawl is required. Flags will come down. Army volunteers will look elsewhere. Obama’s collection will find that it built on a base of anti-Americanism including the anti-America mass media. When it calls for patriotism and sacrifice as John Kennedy did, the silence will deafen.
Talk is of America’s decline. Will those most enamored to political correctness and it’s anti-American attack on free speech that is not derogatory to America and its limits to freedom suddenly shift, as Michelle Obama did, to now loving an America cloaked in socialism and limits on freedom?

Why should the inventiveness of any America be used here when the financial rewards will go to those who ridiculed them in school for paying attention and not partying? That they should be patriotic and pay it in taxes will generate laughs then goodbyes as they realize that the statements come from those who have mocked patriotism for years.

Sad.

Election Observations: are we in trouble

The gang at the lake has been compiling their comments on the election while engaged in their fall search for the best recording by Julie London. The energy has been high and the debates fierce. The gang divided further with each new London song they hear. Oh wait, this was to be about the election. Sorry.

The first conclusion is that neither candidate has a chance of producing the change in the minds of the voters and their own rhetoric. The same for bringing the country together. While Obama claims to be able to do this the most, it is he who is faced with making Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi agree. You know income transfer from one group to another is not what people around the nation hear in the word change. Obama’s theme is change, but simply reversing a policy falls far short of what people see in the word. He says one thing but still means that one group loses as another gains. The sides shift, but is this the “change” he implies and people believe in? No. Is “change” marked by the additions to the “rescue bill?” How is money for the rum producers of Puerto Rico and indicator of change? Obama’s chance of changing the Congress is less than zero, meaning he is going to bring more of the same.

Second, the whole thing comes down to buying out groups. The election has become, and maybe always has been, a bribery process. Only the Christian right is not being bought out, and that is because their issues are cultural and not economic. The promises are so large that neither can deliver er and we are set up to have the same old-same old of promises that fail to be met. The vice-presidential candidates already were asked to identify areas they thought might not be met because of having to cut back, and Biden’s answer was an iffy cloud of gas.
Third, the tax the rich theme of Obama shows he has no understanding of how the world works. The money of these people will be sucked out of the United States to foreign places and trusts. He can ask Ted Kennedy how this works. His family knows how it doers. Which Caribbean island was it that the Kennedy clan has its trusts? That income Obama wants to tax will be gone from our soil. And if you just do not seel the stock, you pay no tax, either. More clouds.

If Obama wins, which is likely unless the hidden racial bias of many suddenly shows up in the ballot booth as some are thinking it might, he will face a world buoyed on his promises and defeated as the baby-boomers were with J F Kennedy’s death. Can the country, like it is, stand more loss of faith in our political system? Let the low confidence in the Congress numbers point your way to a “no”.

We are in trouble and pitting one group against another is not going to help in any way, relying on Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to point the way to change is an expression of the faith of children in a real adult world.

The Election is Going Already?

The gang at the lake was amazed as they came in from the beach to find that the presidential election had already started. The gang unanimously recalled this all once flowing to a convention, followed by a vacation, followed by the start of the campaign on Labor Day. That the September-October race is already on, in a campaign that has been here near two years, was viewed with displeasure. With Americans burned out on politics, more of what makes it look bad to them is not a good thing. Even worse, some pundits have already talked of the 2012 race.

The gang subcommittee on blogs had already planned its impeach Hillary page for January 21. Ruined. Now the focus is on Obama, who will implode. As his "change" theme turns into Washington's "more of the same" workings, he will just disappoint. Think of it. Nancy Pelosi and change? Not in this century. She can';t even turn off the politics of the past to solve people suffering with high energy prices. Obama is set ot look like Clinton after he imploded in his first term. Everyone is approaching this election with such emotions, the results of Obama will devastate American Politics for years to come.

Midway

Watching a great film again [Midway], the gang discussed how it must just gaul the stuffing out of most current media people in the United States that no reporter was able to break into the US code rooms and alert the American Public that we figured out that AF in many Japanese coded messages meant Midway Island. How could the press people of the time not realize the constitutional mandate to keep the Public informed on facts like this one. The Japanese were ready to attack Midway Island and the Public did not have the facts to discuss this important event. We mean the Public had a right to know this. How could the press of 1942 so fail the Public?

Maybe, just maybe, they understood that the Japanese, not the government of the United States and the American people, were the enemy. Maybe they understood that rights brought responsibilities. Maybe they actually believed that America was their country and was owned allegiance, not their own careers and self-interest.

Certainly a different crowd is in the media seat now. Lucky we had who we did in 1942 or our kids having trouble with English would be in worse shape learning Japanese.

Cigarette Example Makes Gun Control Harder

The current anti-smoking drive may have the ultimate and unexpected result of providing evidence support the arguments of people who see any first step in regulation or control of guns as being the first step toward elimination. The U.S. has gone from warnings from mom, to warnings on packs, to age restrictions, to tax increase messages, to limited bans, to full public bans, to finally bans on smoking in rental units. “Control Creep” it might be called.

The next time gun control comes up the arguments against it now have a case study to use to say that controlling one aspect leads to controlling more to every aspect. In the next round on gun control, the argument that controlling one aspect of guns will lead to controlling more to all aspects of guns, will now have a powerful supporting piece of evidence.

Of course, you also have Medicaid and the march to national health insurance. Help one place and it grows to others. Witness the current SCHIPS battle.

Ok, the slippery slope exists.