Submitted by Chuck Lehmann
Chuck on the Right Side
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Conservative Thought of the Week
"In war (as well as peace) we, as a country, have secrets to keep. When we fail to keep those secrets, soldiers die and innocent civilians are killed, our enemies are encouraged, our allies grow reluctant to share intelligence with us, and our own intelligence agencies worry about the danger of sharing information from their top sources. We, the American people, are the one's betrayed, thanks, in part, to the Obama Administration and their shameless release of the interrogation papers which were classified as "Top-Secret". It seems that political expediency trumps national security, again, in the affairs of this administration. The old WWII slogan of, "Loose lips sink ships" certainly does apply in this matter."
Submitted by Chuck Lehmann
Chuck on the Right Side
Submitted by Chuck Lehmann
Chuck on the Right Side
Monday, June 8, 2009
Conservative Thought of the Week
There is nothing affirmative about "affirmative action" if you were passed over or denied a job, or denied a spot in a college freshman class, because of your race or gender. It really should be called "negative action" because you can't give somebody something unless you take it away from somebody else. "Affirmative action" by definition is a bad thing. It helps some people based on their race or gender and hurts or discriminates against others for the same reason. How Un-American is that?
Written by Chuck Lehmann
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Do You Have Buyers Remorse Yet?
All of us, at one time or another, have experienced the condition called “buyers remorse”. The dictionary definition is: an emotional condition whereby a person feels remorse or regret after he/she makes a purchase.
I have experienced it as both a buyer and a seller. Years ago, I worked as a time-share salesman at a resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. My job was to present the time-share plan in the best possible light to the prospective buyer. Since I taught salesmanship, as a business education teacher in high school, I pretty much knew the basic fundamentals of selling, but selling time-shares was selling at a high intensity level as it involved many thousands of dollars changing hands between the buyer and the seller. I needed some on the job training in order to be successful which I got that from the professionals in the field. As a result, I made “Salesman-of-the-Month” on one occasion. I believed in the time-share concept and it was my job to convince a buyer to buy my product using my selling ability.
I experienced the condition of “buyers remorse” after I sold a plan and the buyer left for home. On a few occasions, the couple or family thought about what they had purchased and got fidgety and developed a case of “buyer’s remorse” and called to cancel the contract (they had three days to cancel with no penalty). It was not a pleasant experience for me, the salesman, as I lost my commission. C’est la vie!
Today, I see the same emotional condition setting in with people who enthusiastically voted for President Barack Hussein Obama. Some friends of mine, who voted for him, have told me that they think they may have made a mistake in voting for him. It seems like a perfect case of “buyer’s remorse”, only this time it is their regret for a politician they voted for and not for a product. But, the catch here is that they don’t have “three days to cancel” their vote, and they and their country are stuck with their vote for at least the next three and a half years.
President Obama, like a good time-share salesman, did a great job in selling himself by telling the people what they wanted to hear. He was youthful, glib, and very articulate in selling “hope and change” on the campaign trail. Many people believed in him, and it didn’t matter that he was rated the most liberal member of the Senate, he sounded very moderate. It also helped that he was running against a very bland, boring candidate in John McCain. Many people were convinced that he would be the “change” they were looking for as compared to the policies of the previous administration. But, just like the buyer of the time-share plan, who had second thoughts and reservations about what they had just bought into, many people, after seeing what his plans are for the country since he was sworn-in, and how those plans will affect them in the future, are ruing the day they voted for him. They are having “buyer’s remorse”.
The extent of the “buyer’s remorse” won’t be felt until the congressional elections of 2010 and finally the next presidential election of 2012.
We’ll see if this “buyer’s remorse” has affected the voters who voted for him in 2008 (he received 52% of the popular vote), or is this just a temporary passing fancy of doubt? The success or failure of what he does between now and then will be the eventual determinant. Stay tuned for the ensuing results. Let’s hope our country can survive.
Written by Chuck Lehmann
I have experienced it as both a buyer and a seller. Years ago, I worked as a time-share salesman at a resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. My job was to present the time-share plan in the best possible light to the prospective buyer. Since I taught salesmanship, as a business education teacher in high school, I pretty much knew the basic fundamentals of selling, but selling time-shares was selling at a high intensity level as it involved many thousands of dollars changing hands between the buyer and the seller. I needed some on the job training in order to be successful which I got that from the professionals in the field. As a result, I made “Salesman-of-the-Month” on one occasion. I believed in the time-share concept and it was my job to convince a buyer to buy my product using my selling ability.
I experienced the condition of “buyers remorse” after I sold a plan and the buyer left for home. On a few occasions, the couple or family thought about what they had purchased and got fidgety and developed a case of “buyer’s remorse” and called to cancel the contract (they had three days to cancel with no penalty). It was not a pleasant experience for me, the salesman, as I lost my commission. C’est la vie!
Today, I see the same emotional condition setting in with people who enthusiastically voted for President Barack Hussein Obama. Some friends of mine, who voted for him, have told me that they think they may have made a mistake in voting for him. It seems like a perfect case of “buyer’s remorse”, only this time it is their regret for a politician they voted for and not for a product. But, the catch here is that they don’t have “three days to cancel” their vote, and they and their country are stuck with their vote for at least the next three and a half years.
President Obama, like a good time-share salesman, did a great job in selling himself by telling the people what they wanted to hear. He was youthful, glib, and very articulate in selling “hope and change” on the campaign trail. Many people believed in him, and it didn’t matter that he was rated the most liberal member of the Senate, he sounded very moderate. It also helped that he was running against a very bland, boring candidate in John McCain. Many people were convinced that he would be the “change” they were looking for as compared to the policies of the previous administration. But, just like the buyer of the time-share plan, who had second thoughts and reservations about what they had just bought into, many people, after seeing what his plans are for the country since he was sworn-in, and how those plans will affect them in the future, are ruing the day they voted for him. They are having “buyer’s remorse”.
The extent of the “buyer’s remorse” won’t be felt until the congressional elections of 2010 and finally the next presidential election of 2012.
We’ll see if this “buyer’s remorse” has affected the voters who voted for him in 2008 (he received 52% of the popular vote), or is this just a temporary passing fancy of doubt? The success or failure of what he does between now and then will be the eventual determinant. Stay tuned for the ensuing results. Let’s hope our country can survive.
Written by Chuck Lehmann
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Obama in the British Media
Barack Obama and the CIA: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?
Posted By: Gerald Warner, from the Telegraph.co.uk
If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.
Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.
That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.
"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.
So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers.
Obama promised his CIA audience that nobody would be prosecuted for past actions. That has already been contradicted by leftist groups with a revanchist ambition to put Republicans, headed if possible by Condoleezza Rice, in the dock. Talk about playing party politics with national security. Martin Scheinin, the United Nations special investigator for human rights, claims that senior figures, including former vice president Dick Cheney, could face prosecution overseas. Ponder that - once you have got over the difficulty of locating the United Nations and human rights within the same dimension.
President Pantywaist Obama should have thought twice before sitting down to play poker with Dick Cheney. The former vice president believes documents have been selectively published and that releasing more will prove how effective the interrogation techniques were. Under Dubya's administration, there was no further atrocity on American soil after 9/11.
President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?
Submitted by Tony DiPerna
"Chuck on the Right Side"
Posted By: Gerald Warner, from the Telegraph.co.uk
If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.
Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.
That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.
"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.
So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers.
Obama promised his CIA audience that nobody would be prosecuted for past actions. That has already been contradicted by leftist groups with a revanchist ambition to put Republicans, headed if possible by Condoleezza Rice, in the dock. Talk about playing party politics with national security. Martin Scheinin, the United Nations special investigator for human rights, claims that senior figures, including former vice president Dick Cheney, could face prosecution overseas. Ponder that - once you have got over the difficulty of locating the United Nations and human rights within the same dimension.
President Pantywaist Obama should have thought twice before sitting down to play poker with Dick Cheney. The former vice president believes documents have been selectively published and that releasing more will prove how effective the interrogation techniques were. Under Dubya's administration, there was no further atrocity on American soil after 9/11.
President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?
Submitted by Tony DiPerna
"Chuck on the Right Side"
Monday, June 1, 2009
Too Good To Be True? It Probably Is!
“Greed is good”, as Gordon Gekko exclaimed in the 1987 movie “Wall Street”. It looks like quite a few people agreed with that statement as the revelations about the Ponzi scheme run by Bernard Madoff has been unfolding recently, and has caught quite a few South Floridians in it’s web of deceit.
A Ponzi scheme is a swindle in which a quick return on an initial investment is paid out of funds from new investors, which lures the victim or victims into bigger risks, and eventually results in a financial bust and the loss of most all the money invested.
As despicable as Bernard Madoff was in his operation of his financial Ponzi scheme, the people who got caught up in his web of deceit, couldn’t control the greed “ gene”, that is residing in all of us, and it came out to bite these people, in the butt, big time.
The “victims” of this scam were not illiterate school dropouts, who were taken advantage of by a smooth talking charlatan, but were some of the wealthiest “machers” here and around the country, and in foreign countries as well. Fred Wilpon, owner of the N.Y.Mets, Steven Spielberg, famed Hollywood producer, Mort Zuckerman, owner of the N.Y. Daily News and U.S. News and World report, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), were some of the famous people taken for a ride on the Madoff scam machine. It is estimated that up to $50 billion has been lost by these and other investors. The final total will probably never be known.
Some people were looking for that proverbial, “pot of gold” at the end of the rainbow, and believed that Bernie Madoff was some sort of a “financial genius” who could produce financial profits more than double the prevailing rate of what banks and other financial institutions were giving their depositors and clients. Greed blinded these people when they should have known that this guy was just another “snake oil” salesman selling a bogus product.
Mahatma Ghandi once said, “There is enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for even one person’s greed”. Getting annual returns of between 12% and 15% was not normal in the realm of today’s business and financial investing – it should have raised a “red flag” if anyone wanted to know how this “guru” knew something nobody else knew? In other words, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is”, should have been the catchword, heeded by all the dupes, who entrusted this guy with their life savings and their philanthropic trusts.
I don’t wish hardships on anyone, as “there, but for the grace of God, go I”, but when the greed “ gene” takes over, it’s very difficult to act rationally when the dollar signs cover your eyes and warp your judgment. This won’t be the last time somebody will attempt to “screw” his friends and friends of friends in order to live the “good life” on the backs of his naïve victims, but it should be a wake up call, to all investors, to be vigilant in the future for the enticing deals that seems “too good to be true”, because as we’ve seen in this case, “they probably are”.
Written by: Chuck Lehmann
A Ponzi scheme is a swindle in which a quick return on an initial investment is paid out of funds from new investors, which lures the victim or victims into bigger risks, and eventually results in a financial bust and the loss of most all the money invested.
As despicable as Bernard Madoff was in his operation of his financial Ponzi scheme, the people who got caught up in his web of deceit, couldn’t control the greed “ gene”, that is residing in all of us, and it came out to bite these people, in the butt, big time.
The “victims” of this scam were not illiterate school dropouts, who were taken advantage of by a smooth talking charlatan, but were some of the wealthiest “machers” here and around the country, and in foreign countries as well. Fred Wilpon, owner of the N.Y.Mets, Steven Spielberg, famed Hollywood producer, Mort Zuckerman, owner of the N.Y. Daily News and U.S. News and World report, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), were some of the famous people taken for a ride on the Madoff scam machine. It is estimated that up to $50 billion has been lost by these and other investors. The final total will probably never be known.
Some people were looking for that proverbial, “pot of gold” at the end of the rainbow, and believed that Bernie Madoff was some sort of a “financial genius” who could produce financial profits more than double the prevailing rate of what banks and other financial institutions were giving their depositors and clients. Greed blinded these people when they should have known that this guy was just another “snake oil” salesman selling a bogus product.
Mahatma Ghandi once said, “There is enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for even one person’s greed”. Getting annual returns of between 12% and 15% was not normal in the realm of today’s business and financial investing – it should have raised a “red flag” if anyone wanted to know how this “guru” knew something nobody else knew? In other words, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is”, should have been the catchword, heeded by all the dupes, who entrusted this guy with their life savings and their philanthropic trusts.
I don’t wish hardships on anyone, as “there, but for the grace of God, go I”, but when the greed “ gene” takes over, it’s very difficult to act rationally when the dollar signs cover your eyes and warp your judgment. This won’t be the last time somebody will attempt to “screw” his friends and friends of friends in order to live the “good life” on the backs of his naïve victims, but it should be a wake up call, to all investors, to be vigilant in the future for the enticing deals that seems “too good to be true”, because as we’ve seen in this case, “they probably are”.
Written by: Chuck Lehmann
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