We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Since unions are non-profits, I have never understood how they can legally engage in partisan political efforts at all. But what do I know?
Forbes says:
The most far-reaching effect of the decision may be the court’s requirement of an opt-in system for public-sector unions when they impose a special assessment or dues increase. The court seems to be carving out a special case for public-sector unions, perhaps because of the political power they have to elect politicians who will serve their interests and diminish the political power of employees who disagree with them.
This is from back when F&F was ordered by Obama in 2009 (thanks, reader):
Thus, a lousy and aggressive, if reckless, border plan, OK'ed by Obama and Holder, that resulted tragically. A fatal SNAFU, resulting in American deaths and many Mexican deaths. Why not just say so? Admit a well-intentioned but ultimately tragic error. That is termed "manning-up." There is nothing much to conceal here that I can see.
Unless there are tons of unfortunate emails about the PR approach to the mess that would be embarassing to the Administration. Stupid, unnessary cover-up? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Or am I missing something?
This is stupid stuff. The Admin's covert leaks to the media are the bigger scandal. This is a sideshow, despite these terrible and unnecessary deaths. Nobody died in Watergate.
The MSM pundits always wail about "ungovernable" when their pets fail at their jobs. I remember when NYC was said to be ungovernable when Dinkins was mayor. It was amusing and gratifying to see how governable, prosperous, and civilized NYC became when Giuliani was elected.
Of course it is amnesty, in the same way that Obamacare is just a step towards government-owned medical care.
Obama says it's good for Americans. Whether it's the right thing or not for America, I don't know. Definitely good for Mexicans, but Mexicans aren't American yet. Seems like an issue for Congress, however, not the executive branch.
Gays? Check. Greenies? Check. Illegals? Mexicans? Check. What next?
...what Obama wasn't able to make stick to Romney with Bain, Romney intends to make stick to Obama with Solyndra -- define him as a reckless job killer who squanders our money for his own personal and political gain. And from where I stand, this is working , mainly because everything Romney is saying is 100% true. Which brings me back to the media.
The reason the use of the media is so crucial in this ad is because the Romney campaign obviously learned much from 2008 and therefore understands that in order to protect Obama, the media has devised any number of ways to kill narratives damaging to Their Precious One. Phony fact-checkers like Politifact come to mind.
Clinton, unlike Cory Booker, is not spankable by the O team. In fact, Team Clinton, still the de-facto heads of the Dem party, has carefully announced that it's OK not to pin your future on Obama. That is politically devastating, I think.
Romney is a JFK-era Democrat. Or, you could argue, a JFK-era Repub. They weren't all that far apart, back then. Back then, the federal government did not play such a large role in daily life, and did not aspire to it so it did not matter too much.
Does Obama have any friends at all? I mean, besides the notably unappealing David Axelrod who is a guy who makes you want to take a shower after listening to him, and government union thugs who will expect to be paid off, Chicago-style?
From VDH's Culture Still Matters -You can learn a lot about a country’s destiny by just watching how people behave:
A warm sunset with an ouzo on a Greek-island beach may be more relaxing than schnapps on the foggy Rhine shore, but to learn why Greeks will probably not pay back what they owe Germany — and why they do not believe that they should have to — take a walk through central Athens and then do the same in Munich.
It’s certainly hard to argue that the Romneys’ horse-riding habits today are worse than the Maraniss revelations, which have gotten little mainstream coverage.
And the horse-riding story came a few weeks after a second story that made Republicans see red – another front-pager, this time in the Washington Post, that hit Mitt Romney for bullying a kid who might have been gay, in high school nearly a half-century ago. The clear implication to readers: Romney was a mean, insensitive jerk.
Maraniss works for the Post and his pot-smoking scoop, which included details of Obama’s college-era dope-smoking club and waste-no-weed rules for inhaling it, never made the front of his own paper.
The story landed on page A6, and Maraniss’s reporting included colorful details of Obama’s pot-smoking prowess: “As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called ‘TA,’ short for ‘total absorption.’ To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled,” Maraniss writes in his book.
Obama does have one thing right. If you’re a Democrat who wants to make a ridiculous claim, put it out there and watch the mainstream media carry your water like Gunga Din. While they’re at it, they’ll suggest that your long-time relationships with extremists such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers are irrelevant while your opponent’s one-time appearance at an event with one of the most famous men in America, Donald Trump, is a sign of moral turpitude.
In New York Magazine: Hope: The Sequel - For Obama & Co., this time around it’s all about fear:
...2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear. For many Democrats, this is just fine and dandy, for they believe that in the Romney-Republican agenda there is plenty to be scared of. For others in the party in both politics and business, however, the new Obama posture is cause for concern. From the gay-marriage decision to the onslaught on Bain, they see the president and his team as coming across as too divisive, too conventional, and too nakedly political, putting at risk Obama’s greatest asset his likability with the voters in the middle of the electorate who will ultimately decide his fate.
Whichever side is right, one thing is undeniable. For anyone still starry-eyed about Obama, the months ahead will provide a bracing revelation about what he truly is: not a savior, not a saint, not a man above the fray, but a brass-knuckled, pipe-hitting, red-in-tooth-and-claw brawler determined to do what is necessary to stay in power, in other words, a politician.
Businesses lose money every day by making calculated risks. I don't know what the big deal is. All business operates on risks. You win some, lose some. You try to win more than you lose.
Few politicians have had the cojones to push back against the government unions who seem to believe that they own the government.
Walker did. Government unions nationwide are pouring so much money into his recall election that Obama's team is complaining that there isn't enough left for him.
...is the party he belongs to. The Dem Party is as far Left as it has ever been, and with that comes irresponsibility, vote-buying, and deception (ie "by all means necessary").
If I believed that socialism were a good thing for American freedom, I'm sure I would overlook his flaws and be just focused on the larger goals, as the MSM and other O supporters do. After all, politics ain't beanbag.
Lying, deception, and skirting the rules have now become commonplace for O and the Dems. However, we must understand that they believe that this is justified "for the greater good." It would not matter what skin tone O had, it would be the same (altho I suspect being half-African may multiply the sycophancy of the media).
As I discussed with a friend last night at dinner, Obama is not the problem. He's just the figurehead du jour and, it seems, not an ineffective one as figureheads go. So it really doesn't matter that the O is a slick con-artist who would fit right in with Newman and Redford in The Sting.
Their "anti-greed message"? What? Seems to me they just want my money and my stuff, so who is greedy? I do not want anybody else's money or stuff. If they wish to purchase something I produce, fine. It's for sale.
Susan Squire, the author of a forthcoming history of marriage called I Don’t, told me that marriage wasn’t made to handle all the sexual pressure we’re putting on it. For one thing, the average life span is far greater than it was 100 years ago; what is marriage to do with all that time? And in days gone by, marriage was a more formal institution whose purposes were breeding and family. Squire says that cultural standards of morality have changed dramatically. In ancient aristocracies, rich men had courtesans for pleasure and concubines for quick sex. In the Victorian age, prostitution was far more open than it is today. America is a special case. By the early-twentieth century, she says, the combined impact of egalitarian ideals and the movies had burdened American marriage with a new responsibility: providing romantic love forever. Squire says that the first couples therapy began cropping up in the thirties, when people found their marriages weren’t measuring up to cultural expectations.
With mashed potato minds fresh from the psychological Cuisinart of public schools, the next generation in line to inherit the most fantastically schizophrenic nation in history will be like candy for social engineers; utterly unequipped for the mission.
I wonder how many other mothers, including working mothers, are offended by the Democrats’ denigration of Ann Romney — mother of five, cancer survivor, and MS sufferer — on the ground that she’s “never worked.” The Dems can walk this one back as much as they like, but it’s out there, and closely associated with a White House that apparently underpays its women.
Get the idea that the vote of the "traditional Mom" is of no interest to the Dems? There are many would-be traditional Moms out there too, who have jobs because they feel they need to, not because they want to.
Opinion polls suggest that Americans are dissatisfied with government. Yet whenever another crisis hits, the natural human instinct is to say, "Why doesn't the government do something?"
is the party he belongs to. The Dem Party is as far Left as it has ever been, and with that comes irresponsibility, vote-buying, and deception (ie "by all means necessary"). 
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