Sequel: The 80% Solution

When buying a food product, it's always good to see the word 100% pure on the label as that conveys the message that the product is safe to eat.

But in politics, that same desire for a candidate to be a 100% “pure”ideological candidate, is almost impossible to achieve. If that's what a voter is looking for, he is not going to find it. So what is a “purist” voter to do? Well, Ronald Reagan had what he called the 80% solution, which meant that if a voter could agree with 80% of the policies of a candidate for office, he should be able to support that candidate with a clear conscience as long as his opponent has a lower or non-existent favorability rating on the issues. This is the case now with the present slate of Republican candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul). All of the candidates have flaws, made flip-flops, and held opposite or differing opinions on a variety of issues - but, they mainly agree on the major issues as opposed to the views and policies of President Obama. Some voters in the present and past, have based their support of a candidate on one issue to the exclusion of all others (ex. Abortion, same sex marriage, immigration etc.). To me, that is a wrongheaded position to take as life is more than just one issue.

The candidates for the Republican nomination have mostly run the gauntlet of diverse positions on certain topics or policies and have been accused of flip-flops on some issues. Does a candidate have to toe-the-line by never changing or altering his mind on specific issues he might have held in the past? Let's hope not.

The two current front runners for the Republican nomination, Romney and Gingrich, have been accused of flip-flopping on a few issues. I think most all politicians have changed (or evolved) their positions over the years, either out of convictions or for political considerations. Even somebody like President Obama has flip-flopped on the issues more than a short order cook at IHOP over the past few years, which he will have to confront and answer for during the regular presidential campaign of 2012.

Many of our previous presidents have changed their minds on a whole host of topics including the a fore mentioned items such as abortion, gay rights, immigration and now government run healthcare. It is politically expedient to accuse your opponent of changing his mind, but in reality, it is a weak excuse to withhold your support or vote for a candidate just because of the flip-flop. That ploy is going to be used by both Democrats and Republicans in the upcoming election, as it is a means of personally attacking their opponent for doing what most all politicians do anyway, that is, change their mind.

So, my advice to all voters who hold disdain for any candidate or politician who has changed his mind on a particular issue, is to remember that most all have done the same thing on one or more occasions in the past. It's what that candidate believes in now, in the present, that should be taken into consideration more so than what he believed in years ago. Politicians would be foolish to stick to a position that they no longer believe in just for the sake of not being called a flip-flopper or to be “politically correct”.

So, in my opinion, Reagan's 80% solution should be viewed as a sensible means of evaluating a candidate for public office.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann

MORT’s Meanderings

My Favorite ‘UNfavorites’.

Being the picky sort, I enjoy being upset by things that never seem to faze my good wife or others in my immediate circle of those who tolerate me and my pickiness.

Example: I take huge umbrage at a TV spokesman who appears in ‘gold’ commercials, who always begins by saying, “People are always asking me - - - -“. That’s B.S. He would have to prove to me that people are always asking him anything except, to get the hell off the air.

Example: I am harshly irritated when people close their e-mails with, ‘lol’. I never know whether that means, ‘lots of luck’; ‘lots of love’; ‘lots of laughs’; ‘loads of laundry’; or what? I do believe this is a by-product of ‘texting’ and that we’re stuck with unintelligible abbreviations until something comes along to replace this current practice of people avoiding spelling-out what it is they want to express.

Example: I become agitated instantly when an elderly neighbor-lady, with a quivering rat-like dog on a leash, picks up her puppy’s recently-deposited poop from my lawn - albeit in a plastic bag, smiles sweetly and says, “Good morning”. I respond with an contemptuously-cool, “Good morning”, as I thank her for picking up the poo and gently but firmly, request that if it is within her power to do so, she refrain in the future, from allowing her pooch to poop on my private property. I don’t wish to engage in further conversation with this woman and so, after delivering my carefully crafted request, I turn heel and retire to the confines of my domain.

I love dogs as much as the next guy who objects to them shitting on his property but, I have no patience whatsoever with the owners of pooches who think their dog’s poo doesn’t stink. I have spake upon this subject and don’t not wish to smell it, again.

Example: I become eggs-aspirated with Florida’s ‘middle-of-the-roaders’. Whether they are occupying the middle of a street in my development that is replete with perfectly good sidewalks on both sides or, they are sashaying at a snail’s pace, pushing shopping carts full of groceries while occupying the precise center of the aisle between parked cars in super market parking lots.

In each case, I find myself day-dreaming about those lovely twin Cal.50 machine guns that accompanied me as I occupied the top turret of a twin-engined, land-based U. S. Navy patrol bomber during WWII. While I am now a couple of generations removed from that young man who sat between those guns, I still have reveries about using them in certain kinds of situations all these years later. Situations as just described or quite often, events taking place on I-95.

With regard to Interstate 95, there is a brigand who regularly travels that thoroughfare and makes no attempt to hide the fact that he is out to kill me. But, true to his cowardly nature, he uses a different vehicle every day to avoid detection and identification. Sooner or later, he’ll appear within my sights – and when he does . . . . he’ll ‘get his’.

Example: I couldn’t end this short litany of my Favorite ‘UNfavorites’ without a not-so-friendly jab at my all-time UNfavorite, my ‘UNfavorite-in-Chief BarackHusseinObama. I experience an overabundance of harsh irritation at each mention of his name, vision of his arrogant, sourpuss countenance or audio of his all-too-frequent lies and lunatic utterings into every microphone within a 6,000 mile radius. When he speaks, I reach for the closest barf-bag.

I remember clearly, wanting to strangle His Ineptness-in-Chief, Jimmy Carter. I have many indelible recollections of being annoyed to the max with the degenerate carryings-on by the Scumbag-in-Chief, Bill Clinton. However, all that pales beside the non-stop, 24/7 reminders about the most anti-American reprobate ever to occupy the Oval Office of our White House, Mr. Destruction himself, Barry the bamboozler.

There’s more of course but right now, it is time to clean my guns and check my ammo.

Conservative commentary by MORT KUFF © 2011

I Just Don't Understand!

It amazes me, as a “goy” (a gentile), that some of the most vociferous detractors of Israel are Jews themselves. Most of these detractors, although claiming all out support for Israel, seem to be part of the far-left, liberal, secular progressive branch of Judaism, and most seem to be Democrats. They are hell-bent on apologizing for the Muslim terrorists and their actions against Israel and the western democracies, most notably the United States.

They constantly bring up the canard of “moral equivalency” to the response that Israel takes the wrong approach in defending itself from people who are trying to kill them. Just recently, Obama's Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, (a Jew) saw fit to proclaim that anti-Semitism in the Arab world is different from the old European hatreds - because it can be justified by Israel's actions. These same “apologists” are also in the forefront of giving aid and comfort to our enemies or detractors around the world. These “self-hating” Americans are dedicated to blaming America first for anything negative that happens in the world. President Obama went on a world tour apologizing for our actions over the past years. That was unprecedented in the annals of the presidency for a president to “bad mouth” his own country on foreign shores. The blame America first crowd champion the oppressive regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, and blame the U.S. for all the ills in those countries.

These same apologists, who all seem to be afflicted with that liberal malady called CRI (Cranial Rectal Inversion), are constantly claiming we are the one's responsible for the terrible violations of their “rights”. They are against all means that we initiated since 9/11 to protect us from future 9/11's or worse. Profiling, wire tapping of suspected terrorists, forceful interrogation of captured terrorists (which they call torture), all seem to be “excessive” and depriving the terrorists of “their rights”. When you ask them how they have been personally affected, they have no answer, but give vague generalities about non-existent violations.

These same “Woodstock Wusses” are the same people who say that Israel and the West should negotiate with these terrorists who want to kill and behead them. Obama even said that Israel should sit down with the Palestinians and negotiate a peace settlement using the 1967 borders as a starting point. Does he really think Israel is that stupid to agree with that self-defeating proposal? They erroneously think that you can sit down and reason with these butchers and appeal to their good hearts and good intentions. They don't seem to realize that we have been trying that for over 30 years with no positive results. All they got for those efforts were more killings, more rockets, more kidnappings, more suicide bombers and endless vitriol eagerly propagated by a pliant main stream media around the world and in our own country.

Because I strongly support the State of Israel, doesn't mean I'm prohibited from criticizing Israel and its policies, but when it comes to its national survival and standing up for their right to defend themselves, I take a back seat to no one or no group.

This hate America and hate Israel crowd not only makes apologies for the Muslim terrorists, but they also support the oppressive regimes and tin-horn dictators right here in Central and South America. These same misguided misguided people support and apologize for the likes of Castro in Cuba, Chavez in Venezuela, Correa of Ecuador, Morales of Bolivia, and Ortega of Nicaragua, all the time mostly blaming the U.S. For all the wrong in those countries. Now you can see why I don't understand why “educated” (with no common sense) people will act and do such misguided things and think they are compassionate.

Maybe someday they will understand.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann

Selective Outrage

The Sun-Sentinel and reporter Anthony Man did what they normally do on
Saturday, Dec. 17, they published a "hit piece" on Rep. Allen West.
Bill O'Reilly popularized the phrase, "The Spin Stops Here", but their
spin never lets up, especially on sliming Rep. Allen West on a regular
basis.

To selectively take the words of Rep. West when he said in an
interview; "If Josef Goebbels was around, he'd be very proud of the
Democrat Party because they have an incredible propaganda machine.
Let's be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are
complicit in this, in enabling them to get that type of message out",
and to try to turn those words into a slur against Jews or the
Holocaust survivors, is outrageous. In a way, the Sun-Sentinel and
Anthony Man proved West's contention that the propaganda machine of the
Democrats and their surrogates in the news media, was working as well
as the Nazi smear machine run by that evil propaganda minister, Josef
Goebbel's, during WWII. Nowhere is his remarks did he denigrate Jews
or the Holocaust, only in the warped minds of the partisan Democrats
and the liberal news media does this "selective outrage" exist.

This is just the beginning of the upcoming vile campaign to get Obama
and the Democrat legislators elected in 2012. They can't run on their
pitiful record, so they'll have to resort to engaging in the "politics
of personal destruction" to cover up their ineptitude and their
Marxist/Socialist policies. Being a black Conservative Republican,
makes Rep West a prime target, because he's not part of the
"plantation" mentality alive and well in Wash. D.C.

Shame on them, but then again, they have no shame.
God bless Rep. Allen West.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann



Artwork by MORT KUFF























Click on the Cartoon for another cartoon by MORT KUFF

MORT’s Meanderings

White House will not do Christmas!

Actually, the White House itself, has never ‘done’ Christmas. It has always been of course, the occupants who have gotten into the spirit of this Christian holiday and have led the nation in celebration by decorating the People’s House and hosting public ceremonies that are appropriate to the occasion.

Since the White House was first occupied by President John Adams and his wife, Abigail, there has been an unbroken stream of Presidents and their families who have celebrated Christmas in that mansion, during times of peace as well as during those periods when we were engaged in war. Since this nation was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles, it has been taken as a matter of course that the two most significant observances of the life of Jesus Christ representing his birth and his death - Christmas and Easter - would and properly should be celebrated in the People’s House.

That is, until the ‘weird one’ President Barack Hussein Obama, initiated his crude & rude deviation from this long-established practice. He has blatantly ignored the Christmas tradition and absented himself and his family from The White House at Christmas time, leaving the gaily-decorated mansion without the presence of a President or a First Family. This is outrageous behavior on the part of a sitting President however, in light of what we have learned about Obama since his immaculate conception (un vetted election) the emerging pattern is becoming more evident. His hypocritical stance, vis a vis his observance of the tenets of the Muslim faith and his embracing of the ideology of Islam as opposed to his professed belief as a Christian, poses an ugly conundrum. What is at the core of this man whom more than half this nation’s voters elected?

The only thing I can imagine that would be worse than the President of these United States avoiding the celebration of Christmas in the White House, would be Obama the Muslim-in-Chief doing a shuck & jive ‘Taqiyya’ number by hypocritically pretending to celebrate this Christian holiday. The man is a lying S.O.B. He is a treacherous deviate in every sense of the word. He hates the freedoms that are the hallmark of our way of life. And, he has become so arrogantly reckless as to express that un-American viewpoint unambiguously, in his ever more frequent Karl Marx-like speeches.

I have no doubt that if the unthinkable happens, meaning he is re-elected for another four years - Christmas at the White House will become a thing of the past while even the most obscure Muslim celebrations will be the only quasi-religious events permitted and ‘officially’ observed in the ‘People’s House’.

Christians should be afraid. Jews should be afraid. Mormons should be afraid.

Believers in Confucius should be afraid. Atheists should be afraid. All sane people should be afraid. And, every American should definitely be afraid.

Do elections have consequences? This Jew says, “Yes, they do”.

Conservative Commentary by MORT KUFF © 2011