Monday, November 28, 2011

The Unholy Alliance of the Public Sector Unions and the Government

It's been a hot topic this past year as newly elected Republican governors try to balance their state's books by reining in the unsustainable fringe benefits and pensions of the government workers that were negotiated by the formerly Democratic run administrations. Wisconsin, Indiana, New Jersey, Virginia, and Ohio are just a few of the states that are trying to bring back some fiscal sanity to their state budgets.

French political thinker, Alexis de Tocqueville once warned our fledgling American republic that, “A democracy can endure up to the point when politicians realize they can bribe people with their own money”. Those prescient words can be seen today as the explosion of the federal work force has mushroomed over the past couple of decades and has accelerated greatly since Obama took office (in fact, he has appointed over 40 unelected czars to be advisers to his administration, many earning big six-figure salaries). Most government workers, in trying to protect and enhance their jobs, generally vote for the politicians who have been giving the public sector workers generous salaries and fringe benefits in hopes of getting their votes on election day. Some of the most Democratic areas of the country are around Wash. D.C. and the various state capitols. That tactic seems to have been working for the Democrats up until now, but now with the Obama recession, many citizens are getting fed up with the “sweetheart” deals between the politicians and the unions and are voting for fringe benefit and pension reform, much to the chagrin of both the Democratic politicians and their lackey's in the public sector, the unions.

In New York State, these unconscionable labor deals have come to light by showing how many of the public sector employees have “gamed” the system by retiring early on a “disability” pension, which in some cases are larger than a regular pension and in some cases the proceeds are tax-free. It has been reported that train conductors, for example, have been retiring at the rate of 90% going on disability pensions. Who would've thought that being a train conductor would be such a dangerous job that 90% of the retirees go out on a disability pension? The same is true for policemen, firemen, sanitation workers, and transit workers. The out-of-control pensions and fringe benefits are bankrupting NYC and other cities and states across the country. The union big-shots are fighting the new Republican governors tooth-and-nail, and just a few weeks ago they were able to beat back some reforms in the State of Ohio by spending upwards of $30 million to stop the reforms that were put into place to bring back fiscal sanity to the state and municipal authorities. It looks like the public sector unions are going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by fighting those sensible reforms.

As more and more taxpayers get fed up with these budget busting collective bargaining agreements, more and more states will be trying to put into place reforms that will enable those governmental entities to survive.

Remember what Alexis de Tocqueville said, “A democracy can endure up to the point when politicians realize they can bribe people with their own money”. The time has come for us citizens to say “enough is enough”, and that we won't take it anymore.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann


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Thursday, November 24, 2011

MORT’s Meanderings

OBAMA: POTUS-MIA



For those who might not be familiar with these acronyms, let me ‘splain:

POTUS=President of the United States. MIA=Missing In Action

BHO (that would be Barack Hussein Obama) has been doing his ‘Now you see him; now you
don’t’ act, again. This time he disappeared while the House of Representatives was
stumbling, bumbling and fumbling in yet, another embarrassingly disgusting farce. They blatantly abandoned their collective duty and foisted the task of cutting $1.4 trillion in bloated spending, onto a DOA (Dead On Arrival) Super-Committee comprised of their most partisan colleagues.

The spokes-boob for the President excused Obama’s absence as, the POTUS merely
acquiescing to the suggestion by the House of Representatives that he ‘leave it to them’ to handle this job. Nice try Guys. Our Dodger-in-Chief has gone from avoiding any commitment by voting ‘Present’ as he often did when he was a Senator - to avoiding any responsibility for leadership by being ‘Missing In Action’, now that he is the POTUS.

This President’s priorities are quite obvious. A trip to Hawaii and then dashing across the Pacific to hob-nob with a few of the more despotic leaders of Asia, takes precedent over His Royal Highness actually becoming personally involved in the resolution of any of this nation’s pressing situations – even those that have reached critical mass.

What so many of our citizens fail to remember is that this Federal Government is still comprised of three main branches of government: The Legislative Branch (The Senate and The House of Representatives), the Judicial Branch (The Supreme Court) and the Administrative Branch (King & Potentate-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama – mm-mm).

By the way, has anyone ever had a more elegant ‘get-out-of-town’ chariot than the
mighty Air Force One? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and
the Wright Brothers must be spinning in their graves.

Conservative Commentary by MORT KUFF © 2011

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Monday, November 21, 2011

Are Race and Sexual Orientation Comparable?

From the liberal gay left-wing, you constantly hear the phrase that the gay rights movement of today is the same as the civil rights movement of the 60's and 70's.

Well, are they comparable?

From our point-of-view, race and sexual orientation are not comparable; even if homosexuality stems from innate urges that the gay individual cannot control, the expression of those impulses (like all sexual behavior) involves elements of choice. According to author, pundit Michael Medved, this push for compliance can be called the new “tyranny of marriage equality”. In addition, he stated that the prospect for changes not only threatens the future institution of marriage (by altering that institution beyond recognition), but the core idea of this Republic - that legal standards and social norms should reflect the preferences (or at least the consent) of the majority of the people.

Most blacks find the comparison between gay rights and black civil rights demeaning and insulting (this does not include the self-serving Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the Congressional Black Caucus). In fact, when Proposition 8 (defining marriage as being between a man and a woman) came up for a vote in California, blacks voted overwhelmingly to define marriage as being between a man and a woman.

When gay rights advocates say that current marriage laws “discriminate” against homosexuals, they confuse discrimination against people with making distinctions among different kinds of behavior. All our laws distinguish among different kinds of behavior. That is the purpose of our laws. While people may be treated the same, all their behaviors are not.

The real issue is whether marriage should be redefined - and if for gays, why not for polygamists? Why not for pedophiles? If that happens, it then becomes the theater of the absurd and screws up centuries of tradition as set down by most cultures and religions.

Marriage is not a right but a set of legal obligations imposed because the government has a vested interest in unions, among other things, that have the potential to produce children, and to provide a stable family relationship, which is the future of the nation.

It should be said that not being allowed to marry a person of the same sex is not anti-gay, it is pro-marriage as every civilization has defined it. We, as a country have the right to determine what and how we define the term marriage. To oppose interracial marriage, for instance, is indeed to engage in bigotry, but to oppose same-sex marriage is not. Society is predicated on men and women bonding with one another in a unique way called “marriage”.

It is intolerant for the gays, who demand tolerance from others, to call those who oppose gay marriage homophobes and bigots. We should be able to agree to disagree in a civil manner.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann




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Thursday, November 17, 2011

MORT’s Meanderings

OBAMA: Offender-in-Chief



I make no secret of my disdain for the policies of Barack Hussein Obama. I don’t like him and I don’t like his entire retinue of Socialist-Marxist sycophants and enablers. I readily admit to this bias regarding everything Obama says or does; I simply don’t trust the guy, Insofar as what he claims he stands for and the soaring rhetoric he uses in his non-stop avalanche of self-serving speeches, I believe it all to be at least 97% ‘Taqiyya’. For those readers who have yet to become familiar with the terminology of the rapidly-moving encroachment and very real threat to our society by Islamic Shariah - the term ‘Taqiyya’ means ‘lying’. Not just fibbing to get oneself out of a tight spot but, lying with a very purposeful intent to deceive.

Over the course of the past three years, I have been fashionably offended by the utterings of this man as he has developed and refined his skills of insulting the intelligence of the American people. I mean that literally. It is my assessment that he is quite comfortable in portraying himself as Allah’s gift to the world as its Savior-in-Chief. It would be laughable if it were not so deadly serious. This character’s arrogance is quantum leaps beyond anything I’ve encountered in my life’s experience. I’ve been particularly offended by his ego-maniacal performances when he attempts to don the mantle of patriotism. He is unquestionably anti-American, anti-Capitalism, anti-free-enterprise, anti-Constitution, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. Whenever he speaks – more Taqiyya.

However today, when I watched him on TV speaking at a Veteran’s Day ceremony, I was offended for the thousands upon thousands of veterans lying beneath their grave markers in U.S. Military Cemeteries throughout our nation and in hallowed ground overseas. It was painful enough to listen to him rave endlessly as he topic-hopped about things unrelated to the special meaning of Veteran’s Day. But then, he tortured his blatherings to provide us with yet, another example of his narcissistic self-aggrandizement. He related a story told by the Mother of a child with a terrible affliction. It seems the child was performing public service without once stopping for food or drink, but asked of its Mother whether she thought this would please President Obama? Really? This flight of fancy is right out of the pages of the Little Red Book by Chairman Mao. A speech-writer has to be pretty hungry or awfully insecure in his job to craft such tripe as this into a serious speech for delivery by the President of the United States on this sacred day reserved for remembrance of our departed heroes. Again, more Taqiyya.

I believe that given what we know about Obama, this is all we can expect from now until November of 2012 when we vote him out of our White House and separate him from any vestige of power to do further damage to our beloved nation. More lies. More bungling. More regulation. More stone-walling. More incompetence. More inefficiency. More shredding of our values. More weakening of our security. More debt. More - ‘me, me, me’. I for one, am sick of it.

Conservative Commentary by MORT KUFF © 2011


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Monday, November 14, 2011

“Sell the Sizzle”

When I taught marketing during my teaching career at Syosset High School, I used some of the sales techniques of a well-known guru of master salesmanship named Elmer Wheeler. One of his famous sales points and the full sentence of the above headline was; “Don't Sell the Steak, Sell the Sizzle”. This phrase referred to the sales point that people don't buy the product itself (the steak), they buy what the product will do for them (the sizzle).

That's what Obama and the Democrats tried to do in selling that monstrosity of a health plan called ObamaCare. They almost completed the sale by using the “sizzle” to claim that ObamaCare would do great things for millions of people. Through manipulation, bribes, cajoling, and backroom deals, they got a willing Democrat Congress to pass it. No Republicans voted for it.

Meanwhile, as more and more information came out (no one actually knew what was in it because no one read the 2,700 page bill - Speaker Pelosi even said that we will know what is in the bill after we pass it, the people turned against it as over 60% of the people now think that it should be repealed. The “sizzle” points of lower medical costs and lower premiums, the claim that you could keep your own doctor regardless, and that Medicare wouldn't be affected etc. were all found to be not true. So after the people were sold on the “wonderful” benefits of this health care proposal, the people decided the product didn't meet the standards they were told was in the bill.

I guess the old adage of “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time” really applies to this boondoggle.

The representatives in Congress are now in the process of trying to repeal the bill in total even though it does contain some worthwhile provisions. The Republicans, knowing that we need some reform of health care, want to repeal it and start over from scratch, and craft a new bill with true bi-partisan input, which was totally lacking in the legislation that was passed by the Democrats.

The efforts by the present Congress might become moot if the courts, as predicted, shoot down this legislation as being unconstitutional, which most constitutional scholars seem to think will happen. No where in the Constitution does it say that a person must buy a product or service directed by the federal government. Obama and the Democrats will argue that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution lets the federal government mandate coverage. I predict that this legislation will finally be shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court as being unconstitutional.

So, many people were sold the “sizzle” of ObamaCare, but later on found that the “steak” was unfit for consumption, and they demanded their money back. I think they'll get a refund.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann

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Thursday, November 10, 2011

MORT’s Meanderings

Obama Gone in 2012:


Get ready for mass unemployment
How un-American and insensitive of me to wish for the huge jump in the unemployment figure that will occur when Obama is booted out of office on his un-American ass. I know what it is like to be out of a job and I would not wish that on my worst enemy. Whoops. I take that back.

My worst enemy is Obama – plus his legion of anti-American thugs, lunatics and useful-idiot enablers. I want to see each and every one of them put ‘out of work’ and designated as ineligible for unemployment benefits as long as they live. As a matter of fact, I would like to see every single Obama supporter become a ward of the State, residing in a Federal penitentiary. Talk about over-bloated Government payroll. Talk about your broken Social Security system, Medicare system and Government-gone-wild-and-out-of-control - - why not seize all the assets of the vaunted poor 99% to alleviate the financial burden of the overcrowded prison system? And, I would consider that having my tax dollars go to feed and house these varmints, would be a good thing. And, if all that revenue turns out to be insufficient, the new President can petition the Chinese for a new loan to bail out the failed penal system, ala Obama’s failed stimulus packages. (only kidding, only kidding)

Such is the total idiocy that has been visited upon our nation by the careless and clueless who voted-in and still support Obama and his band of Chicago street thugs who still slavishly hew to the many-times-failed tenets of Marxism.

Obama has dumped us into such a hole that the next President will indeed be able to state truthfully that in fact, he did inherit his mess from the ‘Inept One’.
It isn’t funny at all. It is deadly serious. And, the mess that Obama has made of our formerly beautiful nation will take decades to repair. But, it can be done and it will be done, once Obama and his Soros-funded string-pullers have been relegated to the ashcan of history. It will take an enlightened citizenry, lots of political courage on the part of the newly-elected members of the Congress; a heavenly intervention to re-align the Supreme Court toward the original intent of the Founders, and a major born-again conversion of the Fourth Estate to the morals and ethics so long abandoned by the teachings of pseudo-professors of Journalism in our institutions of ‘higher learning’. The employment picture should brighten; there will be a lot of work to do.

I see millions of job opportunities, Maybe, a good start would be to secure our borders and extend protection of our natural resources to a hundred miles off our shores. Immediately serve notice to any and all who would attempt to drill for oil in our neck of the woods, they will feel the full power of our commitment to protect our shores and our sovereignty. Put an immediate, screeching halt of foreign aid to our declared enemies - - name them and warn them we mean business. Begin at once, to rebuild our national defense capability – close the post-WWII bases on foreign soil that no longer serve our immediate interests; bring those troops home to re-establish and update our readiness; begin to rebuild our Navy toward the objective that we will once again be the super-power that dominates the world’s oceans. How’s that for starters?

Further, we must address the debt that this administration and the corrupt Federal Reserve has burdened us with – we’ve got to let China know that the viability of our nation, our freedoms and our way of life, come before the re-payment of what we owe them. We must honor and repay our debts but, China might have to wait a hundred years or so before they see anything like the full return of their loans. Maybe those financial trapeze artists, the Brothers Frank and Dodd should be sent to China to help ‘splain to our benefactors how all this works.

As you can see by the aforementioned mix of muck-raking, macabre humor and man-made manure, I’m just full of fun ideas to save our beloved nation from the awful morass in which we are wallowing. Some of them I believe, are really quite valid. But, some of them like this President’s so-called ‘Jobs bill’ are of course, more on the order of hallucinating fantasies, on steroids.

Once again, I claim my right guaranteed by the First Amendment, that everyone is entitled to my opinion.

Conservative Commentary by MORT KUFF © 2011


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Monday, November 7, 2011

The Hell with Political Correctness!

When are we all going to go the window (like in the movie, “Network”) and yell out, “I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore”, when it comes to dealing with the insane, mostly liberal, induced madness called, “political correctness”?

You can't say this, you can't say that, you can't do this and you can't do that - who in hell are these self-appointed arbiters and guardians of proper speech and behavior (a/k/a the P.C Police) to make our lives hell because they deem certain things or actions “verboten”, “not Kosher”, or insensitive, to some real or imaginary groups or individuals? It infects all aspects of our lives especially when it applies to certain “protected” minorities. I thought we had a 1st Amendment right to say what's on our mind, whether it is deemed proper or not. Shouldn't people be allowed to look stupid, say stupid things, and do stupid things as long as it doesn't hurt some else, besides their feelings? It has gotten so bad that some people, in the normal interchange of conversation, can give someone a compliment and be sued for sexual harassment, that telling an ethnic joke, making a racial remark, or using a harmless non-threatening sexual innuendo, can be a cause for someone losing their job, being fined by a court, being refused a promotion, or being vilified by the media, because they (who's they?) deemed it insensitive or insulting? It is outright lunacy, to say the least.

Look what has happened in our judicial system - today when someone commits a crime, it must be determined whether or not it is a “hate” crime, which carries a more severe penalty, than the same crime committed by someone against someone else who is not in that “protected” class. How absurd! A crime is a crime, is a crime, regardless of who is the victim.

Certain people get a pass, just because they are in the “protected” class. If a white person called a black person a “nigger” it can be considered racial harassment, but if a black person called another black person a “nigger”, that is O.K. or at least it would not considered a “major” offense by the P.C. Police.

Zero tolerance is another area where “political correctness” holds sway. The intentions are sometimes laudatory, but the punishment doesn't always “fit the crime”. A casual remark by one person to another with a sexual connotation might be grounds for a lawsuit, a student taking an aspirin in school might be a cause for suspension, telling an ethnic, racial or religious joke might be cause for a firing or banishment from the industry, but there's one area where the P.C. Police don't seem to get involved in, that's when the topic is slandering or mocking Christians. Anything goes and in many cases it is looked upon favorably by those who are non-believers (generally liberal secularists and atheists). Slander a Muslim, a Jew or other protected minority, and all hell will break loose, but not when it comes to Christians - they are fair game. Shouldn't all religions be fair game, even for obnoxious, and slanderous speech or actions?

It was different years ago, when people could joke with one another, say stupid things to one another, and be free to either be nice or nasty, without a “blow back” or being vilified or harassed by the P.C. Police. We should all be fed up with these “unwritten” restrictions called “political correctness”, and we should all run the the window and proclaim that “We are mad as hell and we won't take it anymore”. Political correctness be damned.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann

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Thursday, November 3, 2011

MORT’s Meanderings

OBAMA-CAIR



Has a nice ring to it, don’tcha think?

In case it escaped your notice, Obama ‘The One - mm-mm-mm’, is in panic mode. His
Royal Narcissism must have read the news on his Teleprompter that there is a very real possibility his reign of incompetence will come to a screeching halt in November 2012.

He has brushed back the dark curtain that has heretofore obscured his true personality, his real political motivations and his inner-most core belief in the tenets of radical Islam, coupled with his expressed hatred of nearly everything that America stands for. He has thrown all pretense to the winds, along with what was at one time, at least a sham of prudent caution as would be befitting a President who gives speeches, non-stop.

He now, openly embraces dissident organizations, openly lauds anti-Capitalist-system
groups and operatives, hails pro-Palestinian terrorist groups, openly rails against Israel, openly embraces pro-Islam and Muslim Brotherhood groups, and has jumped onto
the bandwagon of the full panoply of corrupt and corrosive bands of hate-mongering,
Socialist-Communist-Marxist thugs who wish only bad things for our country.

Okay, each of you true, red-blooded American patriots - - time to stand up and be
counted as a supporter of Obama and his buddies of bankruptcy; his Democrat
blockhead enablers in the Congress; his sicko-phants who gobble up his racism,
his inexplicable bail-outs; his class warfare screeds, his Robin Hood act where he
takes from the 1% and gives to the undeserving; his Dept of Justice gun-runners and
importers of illegal aliens; his pseudo-science Environmental loonies who love snail-
darters and electric cars; his Dept of Homophobic-Homeland INsecurity; his Secretary
of negative negotiations and UN toady, Hillary the Horrid; and his resident buffoon,
Joe ‘Really Great Guy’ Biden, who is so far, the only Veep in our history who flaunts his single digit I.Q.

Oh yeah, gimme four more years of this throw-up.

Conservative Commentary by MORT KUFF © 2011


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