Interracial Couples

An idiot Justice-of-the-Peace in Louisiana has refused to marry a couple because they are interracial.

Yes, seriously. You don't have to check your calendar, it really is 2009.

His reason? "He was concerned for the children who might be born of the relationship..."

Yeah.

Children of interracial marriages never amount to anything.

Just ask, I don't know....President Obama.

or Tiger Woods.

or Derek Jeter.

Hard to imagine people like this still alive. The only good thing, I guess, is the near-universal denunciations that have crashed down upon this moron.

Hypocrites

Two items in the news, both of which show us why the dictionary contains the word "hypocrite".

First, NOW blasts Letterman, and is planning all sorts of juicy retribution.

"As 'the boss,' he is responsible for setting the tone for his entire workplace — and he did that with sex," O'Neill (President of N.O.W.) said. "This places all employees — including employees who happen to be women — in an awkward, confusing and demoralizing situation."

A powerful man with a public forum like Letterman, O'Neill said, can get away with turning women into sex objects because "he can crack a few jokes and publicly apologize for his mistakes."

"It is this kind of hypocrisy that perpetuates the image of men in power preying on women, while many look the other way," O'Neill said.

NOW urged CBS to take immediate action against Letterman for his lewd behavior...

Really? Really??

Did NOW just come up with this stance? The biggest "boss" in the United States is the President. The most vulnerable employee is arguably an intern.

Where was NOW when the disbarred former President was turning women into sex objects? Silent, that's where.

Hypocrite 2-- the Black Caucus. They claim that they are out to protect the poor and disadvantaged from being preyed on by the rich and powerful. Their defense of Charley Rangel gets them the title this week.

The Black Caucus should not have protected Rangel this week. They should have disowned him and attacked him themselves, months ago.

Not because Charley didn't pay taxes. Not because he didn't list a few assets on his disclosure form (what's a few million between friends, heh?).

No, because of a reprehensible thing he did that Congress isn't even investigating him for.

That sonuvabitch took over 4 rent controlled apartments for his own use--three he cobbled together for a huge duplex. The fourth he uses as his campaign office!

That's three apartments that poor people-- the people the Black Caucus claims to represent-- could have used.

Worse, according to the New York Times, Charley has been silent about abuses his landlord has allegedly perpetrated on the good people of Harlem. Why? Perhaps in exchange for 3 extra apartments he never should have had, at ridiculously low rents (the Times estimated he was saving about $4,000 per month)?

And yet the Black Caucus protects him--instead of riding him out on a rail.

Shameful behavior on the part of Letterman and Rangel.

Greater shame falls on NOW and the Black Caucus for failure to protect their constituents.

Unemployment "Insurance"

As an employer who pays unemployment insurance, I have a question in the face of yet another extension of benefits, which, again, I will pay for:

Here in NY everyone contributes a little each week towards the 6 month standard unemployment benefit package. Fine. It works like insurance. There are few, if any, restrictions on what a person can do while unemployed--presumably they are looking for a job.

But when the payments get extended beyond the 6 month period, the "fund" no longer has the money to pay for the benefits. They come from two sources- former employers and the taxpayers.

Is it unreasonable to ask that anyone receiving extended benefits report each day for "work" (except for those times actually interviewing, etc.?). Is it unreasonable to ask the unemployed to perform functions that might serve the community in exchange for the extended benefits? Working at soup kitchens, helping out at day care centers, fixing up playgrounds and ball fields, delivering meals-on-wheels, reading to folks at hospitals and nursing centers, etc?

Wouldn't that help our communities, provide services to our other needy, as well as weed out those who are working off the books, or who are delaying re-entering the workforce for some reason?

And wouldn't that help the long-term unemployed combat depression by getting them out of the house each day with a purpose?

Just a question or two as the Senate prepares to vote.

A Swiftian Question

If I have to pay for your and your family's housing, education, food--and now, health care, can I have a say in how many damn kids you have?

The number of people who can't afford any of life's basics, yet have 3, 4, 5 or more kids, is astronomical.

I would never begrudge anyone having a child. But number 2? 3? 8?

Don't we have a right to say no (or at least that there are no benefits)-- if only because we are being REQUIRED to pay for them?

According to the Census Bureau, of the families with zero children, only 4% are below the poverty line. 1 or 2 children? 12% 3 or 4? Then it jumps to 23%.

Of the families with five or more children, 41.5% are below the poverty line!

That means of the 8 million families with 3 or more children, over 2 million are below the poverty line--meaning they qualify for the full buffet table of government subsidies, handouts and aid.

Now, there are people who had 3 kids, could afford 3 kids until something bad happened.

But come take a trip with me to Family Court someday--you'll see plenty of women and men who have had children they could never take care of.

I don't suppose any of that is covered in the health care reforms before Congress.

A Couple of Quick Health Care Questions

I haven't heard or read anyone, other than me, talk about increasing the supply of health care workers, including doctors, to help lower health care costs and increase health care availability. Which leads me to this question: If one of the main goals of this effort is to insure the 45 million uninsured, and to move people away from emergency room care to preventative and primary care physicians-- do we have enough doctors?

Here on Long Island we have probably the lowest doctor-to-patient ratio in the country. Yet most times we have to wait for appointments and sit in the waiting room, sometimes for hours. I know doctors who are turning patients away. Doctors all claim to be overworked.

I assume the situation is the same, or worse, around the country.

If 45 million people show up next year for an annual physical, who is going to treat them?

Why aren't we addressing the supply portion of this equation?

2) The key problems I keep hearing are people being denied coverage for preexisting conditions; being booted from their plans for being sick; and lack of portability.

Can't those problems be addressed without a massive federal program? Haven't many states done so?

If the goal is to make health care better, and not let more power settle in Washington, aren't there better ways to go than the bill(s) presently in the House & Senate?

Health Care FAQ

Dems are bleating that the protesters of health care reform are misleading the public--yet I haven't heard anyone, including Pres. O, give a point-by-point explanation of the proposed legislation.

Pres. O and his team are so Internet-savvy--you would think it would be easy for them to whip up a web site, complete with a simple explanation of the bill--and FAQ's for people to see, easily, how this will affect them.

Some of the reforms I've heard I think I approve of. Some I am very concerned about. I hear talk that the bill must not add to the deficit--but if we are now going to offer health insurance to 40+ million, how can that not create new costs--and who will pay them? And how much?

The problem is that Pres. O left this to Congress. The same Congress that has about a 15% approval rating. And he's wondering why Americans are upset!

Quick Notes

...Problem with this health care "debate" is that we have no idea what we are debating. And that's Pres. O's fault. Of course people are angry, upset and, in the minds of the Dems, misinformed.

We ALL are misinformed--if that word means lacking information.

Pres. O should have met with his Dem leadership, put together a package, explained it to America, then passed it. They control everything--they can't be allowed to blame Republicans or conservatives. You have control. You think you have a way to deliver better, cheaper health care? Pass it.

Just don't blame us if we're concerned that your plan, whatever it might be, winds up being another FEMA.

...Governor Sanford should be impeached for leaving his post. They shouldn't have to be making up financial improprieties from years ago regarding flights he took that weren't the cheapest available. Nonsense. No one who runs a company or a State has any right to be missing that long-- what if a hurricane or train wreck or flue epidemic had hit? Didn't the people of South Carolina have the right to have their governor making decisions?

...Hillary got all up in the face of an African teenager for asking what her husband thought about an issue. The typical Clinton response--it was OK, because the boy was mistranslated.

Huh?

The Secretary of State looks and acts like a petulant child--in response to a question from a kid--and its not her fault? The Clinton morning news was great--she was tired; he was mistranslated; its about respect.

BS. It's about a woman who should have been able to handle that question with ease and who, as our leading diplomat, should have handled herself better.

She should apologize. I know that word isn't in the Clinton vocabulary--but she should. Without the usual Clinton spin and dance. Apologize and move on.

Health Care

My good friend Bruce wrote in a recent piece:

The question should not be why is health care so expensive. It's so expensive because it saves lives.

The question should be how do we save everybody's life.

I am really disappointed with the turn this health care debate is taking.

I agree with him.

Republicans blew it--on this and so many other issues--when we had control. Trying to keep demand down on health care is doomed to failure. Americans will not put up with restrictions on the quality or length of the lives of themselves or their loved ones.

The answer is supply side. We should be doubling and then doubling again the number of medical schools in this country. Doctors have imposed limits on the number of medical students-- there are about the same number now as 25 years ago, when there were less of us and we were demographically much younger.

We should have built dozens of new medical schools, or provided financial support for the independent creation and expansion of existing ones. Competition would go a long way towards lowering the cost of and increasing the access to medical care.

There obviously is no silver bullet. However, a combination of vastly increasing the supply of medical care providers, health savings accounts, public clinics (especially for Medicaid patients), the computerization of medical records (so you don't have to fill out the same damn clipboard 804 times), some med mal reform, and reasonable restrictions on insurance companies makes the most sense.

I like President Obama. I honestly do. However, this is the second time that he has pronounced the need for a solution to a problem NOW, and then let Congress come up with a "solution". It failed miserably with the so-called stimulus "plan". And it is failing now with health care.

Pres. O will get a bill. But it will be a bill cobbled together by the likes of Pelosi and Reid and Frank & Kennedy--4 people I guarantee few Americans would be happy to have babysit their kids, let alone decide the fate of our nation.

A Few Thoughts on GM

A couple of random thoughts about GM:

-- I'd feel a lot more comfortable with the Obama/Bush "strategy" of taking shares in exchange for bailout money, for GM & the banks, if there was a set timetable for the government to orderly dispose of the assets. For instance, the U.S. now holds 60% of GM. I would love it if the Administration announced that commencing January, 2010, we will be auctioning off 1% per month. That amount shouldn't shake the market; it gives us a better timetable for withdrawal from GM than we have from Iraq; and it would make it clear that Obama is not doing this to create a socialist society, but rather only as a needed short-term stop gap.

--This should have been done in the Fall, some $50 billion ago.

--I have no remorse for the retired GM workers. The ones who worked there in the '70's and '80's were the cause of this, with rapacious contracts and terrible work ethic. I remember sitting in my dorm room, in 1976, discussing GM with my roommate (his Dad owned a Chevy dealership)--and the topic then was the miserably built and designed cars. People used to take it as fact that you didn't want a car that came off the line on Monday (hangover day) or Friday (getaway day). This is simply a matter of reaping what was sown years ago, when people like me simply could not find a vehicle made by GM that was...satisfying.

--The first new car my wife & I bought was a Chevy Chevette. But we moved on, basically because for less money we were able to buy Japanese cars that were made better. Period. About 7 years ago I looked for a middle-age crisis car--I wound up with a Saab convertible after looking at every..single..American dealership. Nothing was made as well, nor designed as well. The last two years I've been driving a Prius--and I love it. Why don't American companies have similar cars? (And, except for the engine, mine was made right here. American workers can do the job-- is it our engineers who are lacking? Or is it some kind of Midwestern still-living-in-the 1950's nonsense that is keeping GM from designing cars most Americans will buy?

--I'll believe the Volt when I see it.

This is the Best?

Really? Really?!?

This is the best we as a nation can do?

Joe Biden- revealing state secrets this weekend, adding to his thousand other "gaffes." But, oh, how, cute the media treats him. Chuckle, chuckle, there goes Crazy Joe. (As opposed to the rip jobs done on Palin, Quayle, etc.)

Nancy Pelosi--who told six stories in 4 minutes --and, by the way, the people who should be most outraged are the liberals who thought she was protecting their interests all these years. As for her position (her 4th, I think) that she couldn't do anything about waterboarding in 2002--hey, hasn't she been Speaker since 2006? Are you telling me, if she was really troubled by the interrogation methods, instead of on a junta-like political retribution attack, that she couldn't have put a stop to them 3 years ago? Or at least ordered hearings then?

Barney Frank.

Harry Reid.

Any of the half-dozen or so people in Obama's cabinet who didn't pay their taxes.

These are the men and women who snuck in under Obama's skirt while we allowed him to waltz into office.

Our best and brightest? Really?

Get What We Pay For

News that the co-pilot of that crashed flight out of Buffalo was earning less than what a CVS clerk with 2 years experience earns is troubling. The calls from liberal circles is for re-regulation, wage scales, etc.

The problem is, we are getting what we deserve--in so many ways, so many places.

I'm not saying those poor people on that flight deserved to die. What I am saying is that the airlines are left with no choice but to cut service, slash maintenance, hire as cheaply as they can-- resulting in, predictably, poor service, long delays when planes are taken out of service on an emergency basis, and, well, incompetent personnel.

Who is forcing them into these choices?

We are.

The American consumer.

We have gotten to the place in this country where all we care about is price. Consumers should be making informed choices taking into account a whole host of factors--price among them. But we have stopped doing that.

Our short-sightedness has lead to airlines stripping down their industry because people base their traveling decision solely on the price of the ticket-- an extra $40? No way!

We base our clothing and sundry purchases solely on price-- in a throw-away society, who cares if the shirt is well made? Probably only going to wear it a few times anyway. Do we care if our clothes are made in China by slave labor? Not if it means a dress shirt for $14. American industries close? Screw 'em. I want a $99 color TV.

Our towns are devastated in hidden ways by the Walmarts and Home Depots of the world. We lose our businesses, our community leaders, our volunteers when store after store closes. But, hey, I can get a wrench for $3 less! Will it last? Who knows? Who cares? They're so cheap, I'll buy another! Do I care that the guy running the local hardware store sponsors Little League teams and particpates at the local senior center and hires local kids to work summers and actually knows his product line? Nope.

I don't have the answer. I'd like to wrap this situation up into my theory that the Boomers, no doubt the most selfish generation in American history, have continued to rip through our culture, debasing it in every way--and that the Walmart-ing of America is just another example of their me-me-me disdain and disregard of all things, well, American.

Is government control The Answer? Any time I even start to be lulled by that siren call, I look at my TV and see Pelosi & Reid and Frank, and, for that matter, Boehner and W, and FEMA and the SEC and...well, you get the point. These people can't run what's on their plate now--how can we possibly think for a second that they could really run an entire economy. That has never worked, anywhere, ever-- and it won't save us now.

What we probably need is a cultural shift--a shift to self-respect, to self-control, to accountablilty. And what are the chances of that?

Odd Day

It was just brought to my attention that today is Odd Day-- 5/7/09--and that Odd Days, where the dates are consecutive, happen only 6 times a century (01/03/05, 03/05/07, etc.).

Reminded me of an incident with my younger daughter--one of the first that gave us fair warning of the type of individual we were growing.

She must have been, I don't know, 3 or 4-- whatever the appropriate age is for kids to count.

Me: "Hey, Ali, can you count by twos?"
Her: "Sure, Dad!"
Me: "Let me hear it."
Her: "1, 3, 5, 7, 9..."

Who in the world counts by twos using the odd numbers?

It was a sign. I should have been better prepared for what came later, and, for that matter, what continues to come.

Odd Day, indeed.

Any Openings?

One of our local Democratic County legislators was arrested today on charges he failed to report, and pay taxes on, $226,000 of secret income he allegedly received from a contractor. The same legislator has had tax problems in the past.

Figure there is a Cabinet post left for him in the Obama Administration?

Jack Kemp, RIP

My GOP is going through some tough times-- not unlike the Dems did in the 1980's when Jack Kemp helped lead the Reagan Revolution. I have always been, and always will be a huge Jack Kemp fan. A decent, good, optimistic, upbeat, can-do man--full of big ideas and an effervescent enthusiasm in the delivery of those ideas.

Our party moved away from him, to the Bush family and the Southern Christians, and hence we have the problems of today. Long before it was fashionable, Kemp preached that the GOP should be the party of the working person--and he especially fought to bring a message of hope and individual accomplishment to minorities. He felt that conservative ideas--like school choice-- benefited poor and working families better in the long run than the socialist programs of the liberals. He was truly a big-tent Republican.

Our party chose, instead, to follow Bush and Rove, and pander to narrow-minded, one-issue target groups--and thus we have lost the Northeast, and in a time when more people now live in cities than anywhere else, we have lost metropolis'. Good for W--terrible for our party.

Kemp preached a different gospel--one where we help each other, regardless of race, creed, etc., because in helping others we make America stronger. Again and again I heard him say we need everyone on the team to be prepared and play well for the team to win--against businesses from other countries.

Kemp's vision of America included low and fair taxes; empowerment zones; individual freedom; and a commitment to helping others. It was a compelling vision--and our party would do well to revisit Jack Kemp's stands as we restructure the party.

From Jack Kemp:

There are no limits to our future if we don't put limits on our people.

There really has not been a strong Republican message to either the poor or the African American community at large.

Pro football gave me a good perspective. When I entered the political arena, I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded, and hung in effigy.

When people lack jobs, opportunity, and ownership of property they have little or no stake in their communities.

There is a kind of victory in good work, no matter how humble.

Every time in this century we've lowered the tax rates across the board, on employment, on saving, investment and risk-taking in this economy, revenues went up, not down.