Peggy Noonan

The long-time speechwriter turned columnist, Peggy Noonan, is an establishment Republican in a skirt.  Today's Wall Street Journal column asserts that the best Republican candidiates didn't run, enumerating Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Haley Barbour and John Thune.  Now there's a list of exciting guys for you.  Do you know who they are?  Their credentials perhaps?  There's not a president in that list.  Each has publicly said he did not want the job.  I accept that as a serious disqualification for consideration.

Notice who Noonan left out?  Chris Christie.  Oversight of a slightly senile writer perhaps?  Or deliberate slap at a conservative?  Anyone else?  Florida's new Senator, Marco Rubio, is a sure-thing as an eventual Republican candidate.  He's got "it" and is already being touted by many conservative but not by Noonan or the Establishment she represents.

If Romeny had Christie's or Rubio's personality (or even a personality), Obama would be toast.  Instead, we're getting McCain & Dole redux in Romney.  Smart, experienced and dull  to run against a cool, slick Obama.  The Republican Establishment gets what it deserves.  The problem is that we don't deserve what they offer us.

As it is, no matter who runs for the Republicans, it will likely be a fairly close election.  I doubt it will be a landslide against Obama because of the NAM voters, the suppression of the military voters and whatever other skulduggery the Chicogo thugs concoct.

Happy New Year!

Ni Hao

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times described a state-wide experiment whereby children are taught half-day in English and half-day in another language.  Apparently there are some 200 such elementary schools in the program.  In Venice, a beach town below Santa Monica and above LAX, the second language is Mandarin.  The Venice elementary school, which had been plagued by low attendance, is now nearly overwhelmed with new students enrolled in that program.

Why?

Because the kids in the Mandarin program are overwhelmingly white and Asian whereas the school was overwelmingly black and brown before.  Few white or Asian parents want their kids to go to a heavily black and/or brown school.  Parents know what politicians, social scientists and others of the politically correct ilk refuse to admit.

Black and brown kids, as a whole, are nowhere near as educationally capable as white and Asian kids.  It is tough to say that but it's true.  And thus you find few whites who willingly send their kids to other than a white/Asian school, public or private.

Zai jian.

Dumbell Biden on Opportunity

J. Biden, our vice-president, is the best reason to pray for the Obama's health.  Graduating 506th in a class of 688 law students, he "worked" as a public defender for 4 years and was then elected to the Senate by his fellow morons in Delaware.  That was Biden's last and sole recognition of "opportunity".

He has worked for the federal government since 1972, almost 40 years.  He knows nothing of the private sector; nothing about job creation and less about how to make either function better for Americans.  Obama doesn't either and for the same reasons.  Neither has an ounce of private experience; Obama additionally despises the private sector.  Biden is just too dumb to comprehend it.

So when Biden bloviates about "the opportunity society", ignore him.  In the article he wrote on the subject, he shows an appalling misunderstading of basic grammar as well.  As a well-known plagiarist, perhaps he didn't actually write the article but it does carry his name as author.  Thus, like Rand Paul's bigoted newsletters, Biden owns it.

Biden is well-known for what the Democrat media terms "gaffes".  Wrong.  Biden is just dumb.

Romney on O'Reilly's Show

Bill O'Reilly just finished interviewing Willard Romney.  O'Reilly, as usual, will brag about his "tough" questioning and his sycophantic regulars will nod in agreement but, in fact, O'Reilly softballed Willard and I nearly napped while trying to pay attention.  Partly, that is Romney's fault.  He's such a bore which is one reason folks don't cotton to him much.  His answers are rote, unenthusiastic and scripted.  If elected, such pap is what we'll get from Willard the Robot.  I recall Willard recently produced some 157 ways to produce jobs or run the country or somethng.  The "plan" sank quickly into well-deserved oblivion.  I suspect Willard will produce endless plans few can follow should he be elected.   Maybe that's the idea.  Normal people can't understand anything any government produces or what most politicians say.

Willard and the others are boring; not stupid, just plain boring; all of them.

Except one.

Obama's Fairness

Once again the community organizer is rousing the community rabble with the bread and circus chant of fairness.  It's a unique form of fariness though.  It is only to be imposed on rich people, though where rich begins is a variable.  And it is intended only to benefit the 'poor'.  The poor are always Obama's intended beneficiaries and they all look alike.  They are either black or brown so they are easily distinguished from white or Asian people.  Often, those people are referred to as NAMS, Non-Asian MinoritieS.

"Fairness" for Hussein Obama and other black and brown socialists only exists when it applies to people of color other than white or yellow.  Black and brown people are unfairly granted admission to universities or unfairly placed on civil-service job lists ahead of the NAMS under color of government policies even though black and brown people are less qualified.

"Less qualified" you say?  "Yes", I say.  "Blacks and browns are dumber than whites or Asians."

I think that's a fair statement.

But Romney's Electable

Who says so?

Knowledgeable presidential politicians such as John McCain and other Republican grandees.  That's who.  They almost all say that.  Why they say that I don't know.

Romeny has not been able to get past the 25% support mark in this campaign.  He was so disliked as governor of Massachusetts that he decided not to run for re-election as he knew he'd lose.  I read recently that Romney has run in 22 different elections.  He has lost 17.  Romney is batting 230 in the election game  That's fact, not prediction.

So, why does the Republican Establishment declare Romney to be electable?  It can't be because they hate Gingrich; they held this position from the beginning, before Gingrich's rise.  They're not stupid; it's not a deathwish.  It makes no sense at all.

Based on history, Romney is UNelectable; he's simply not liked by voters; he lacks the requisite charisma.  He ain't got it.  But, just like the statists they are, the Republican grandees know what's best for its voters.  They forced Bob Dole and John McCain on the party faithful and are trying again with Romney.  I don't think it will work this time around either.

Uselss College Degrees

One point which was inferred from the Occupy snots was that their colllege degrees were essentially useless for employment purposes.  That is not uncommon.  After all, if you run a business, how many Chicano Studies majors can you use?  Or Black, Feminist, Transgendered graduates who can help with your bottom line.  Mostly, those types work for government or other fascist groups so that they may impose their belief systems on your dissimilar lifestyle.

It used to be that "basket weaving" was the caricature of a useless college degree program.  Athletes were supposedly enrolled therein so that they could continue to play footbal or basketball to bring in TV dollars to universities to help pay for the $1 million annual salaries of the presidents of such institutions of higher learning.  (If you think I'm overstating incomes, you're mistaken.)

This is an element of the now popular "education bubble" which deals heavily in useless degrees.  My own undergraduate degrees are in English Literature with minors in philosophy and Latin.  (I waited 39 years after college before earning my JD.)  Now my undergrad work is somewhat useless but, somehow, I persuaded IBM to hire me.  I even went to work a few weeks prior to my actual graduation.  "Going to work" was an early habit: I started working at 11 as a delivery boy, pumping a bicycle loaded with foodstuffs and delivering them around my neighborhood in The Bronx.  I'm still working, full-time, decades later.  I have hungry mouths to feed with my second family.

Maybe Newt is on to something that could assist those others of us with useless degrees.  What's that you ask?  Work:  the curse of the drinking class.

Toys for Snots

While driving back to LA from a rural court appearance, I listened to a radio show caller talking about the Occupy crowd.  He suggested that Americans organize a Christmas gift drive  for them and call it: Toys for Snots.

Sounds just about right to me.

The Snots have now been thrown under the bus by the liberal media which has recognized that most Americans have no use for their antics.  Of a sudden, Democrat politicians have forgotten their earlier endorsement of the Snots.  (Elizabeth Warren comes to mind.)  Liberal city mayors have evicted the Snots from city parks which they only did when the Snots ran afoul of general public disapproval otherwise the Snots would yet be pooping in public places.  Mainstream TV and press coverage is about nil.

Sic transit gloria mundi.  And good riddance.

Snots.

Thanks New York Times

On November 28th, Thomas Edsall, of the New York Times wrote a story about the Democrat's no-white-guys strategy for the 2012 election.  I think they must have read my post "The White Party" published here November 25th.

It is indeed a sincere form of flattery which I appreciate.

Colin Powell

Slick Willy's counterpart, Colin Powell, was on Meet the Press today, mouthing off about the Tea Party's responsibility for most of what's wrong with Washington.  Really.  That's what he said.  He followed that by a cri de couer for centralism, as a necessary condition precedent to compromise which he opined as the heart of our political history - and future.

Well, he ought to know.

Powell is without peer as a spineless political type; sort of a black David Gergen.  He alleges to be a Republican but seemingly takes the Democrat party's planks to heart or to the camera which is where his heart really is.  He voted against McCain, publicly, and with smooth apologies for having to do so.  He says Obama has made mostly correct decisions, especially financial decisions.  He plays his miltary career to the hilt because, were he other than military, he'd have been toast long ago.  On the other hand, it was he who advised Bush 41 not to depose Saddam Hussein leaving that for Bush 43 who bungled the whole thing.

Clearly, I am not a fan of Powell.  To me, he's a usable tool for left and right all for feathering his personal publicity nest.  He is a perfect example of a racist black.  Obama is a disaster: most Democrats would prefer him different or gone.  Nonetheless, Powell, the alleged Republican, is a big Obama fan.  That's because they're both sort of black.  They look like coffee with cream rather than just plain black; they've used that to their personal advantage as infinitum and they hang together for that very reason.  You might call them the 95 percenters for the 95% of blacks who voted for Obama.

I'll take Herman.

The White Party

Of necessity, Republicans are fast becoming The White Party.  Those who condemn that transformation as racist are numerous but silent about the Democrats having already become the Black and Brown party.  That is, of course, not racist.  That 95% of blacks who voted for president in 2008 voted for the black candidate is also not racist.  Even Catholics for Kennedy wasn't close to that: Catholics voted almost 78% for JFK.  Marco Rubio, Florida's new Senator, who I believe will someday be President, garnered 62% of the Latino vote in Florida.  That was configured by 78% of the Cuban vote (Rubio is of Cuban descent.) and 40% of the non-Cuban Hispanic vote. 

While Blacks were once Republican, I doubt we will see that again in any reader's lifetime.  From their racist voting and their slavish submission to any Democrat candidate, I see no likelihood that Blacks will vote other than 90% for Obama's re-election.  The Hispanic voters are similarly constituted.  Were the Black and Brown voters reflective of their fellow citizens, Democrats could hardly win the race for the Dogpatch Dogcatcher's office.

It cannot be that those two blocs vote from superior base intelligence, high levels of critical thinking or a more advanced civic view.  After all, we're talking about the two groups with lowest IQs, the least education  and who commit more violent, serious crime than any other citizens.  That's the folks who are the heart and soul of the Democrat party.  Couple them with the union crowd and, together, you have the class act of American politics: criminals, welfare-kings and queens plus the public pension people.  It is that slumgullion recipe which is joined and coddled by the liberal elite who rule them.

All of the above has arisen from the break-down of the Black family, the failure of the federal government to enforce immigration law and the anarchistic tendencies of elitists who believe they can manage the country and, indeed, the world as well.

But, irrespective of from whence it came, the Republicans are faced with the demographic realities.  Where will they find voters?  Certainly not from those people.  Who's left?

Us.

The European Union

Having spent a dozen years in international business, mostly in Europe, and having had a home in Neuilly-sur-Seine at the edge of Paris, the current state of financial affairs is painful to watch as it has a more personal aspect. The notion of the European Union has never made sense to me when looked at from the individual's viewpoint. I never believed it would work.  Last May (2010) I wrote that the EU would never work, something I have believed and said from its inception.  Unfortunately, it appears that events are now proving that prediction to be correct.

Americans generally don't think much of 50-cycle nations; we tend to think of people who live on the continent of Europe as the same just as we tend to think Asians are alike because they look alike.  Wrong.  On all counts.  A Finn is unlike an Italian who is unlike a Scotsman who is unlike an Austrian.  That is not true of a Californian who is not unlike a Floridian who is not unlike a Vermonter who is not unlike an Oregonian.  We, not they, are the same in language, customs and laws to recall Julius: they most assuredly are not.  And the Chinese hate the Japanese who have no regard for the Thai and the Indians disrespect them all.

All of God's children are like that.  They share one mark: one tribe dislikes all other tribes.  Person by person is a dfferent deal but, in fact, tribes tend to live together.  Look at big city ghettoes.  They, everywhere, prove the point.

Left-hand Turns

No, this is not a diatribe about leftists or rightists turning left. It's road rage about left hand turns. Here in Los Angeles and I suspect nation-wide, making a left-hand turn at a busy intersection is a real hassle. Many turn a block or two before or after the intersection wending their circuituous route to somewhere. A friend from Salt Lake City once remarked that, when driving in LA, she never made a left-hand turn after Noon. FedEx and UPS routes are organized to avoid them to the extent possible as time and fuel wasters.

There isn't too much that can be done but there is at least one easy tactic which would help, though not cure, the issue: the first cars in the turn lane should nose out to the middle of the intersection so that more cars can make the turn before or as the light changes. Those who sit on the white line waiting for oncoming traffic to pass drive me nuts. If they'd only get out to the mid-point, it would help everyone.

Do not hold your breath. It's easier to cut the budget than change driver's habits, including mine I suppose.

Affirmative Action: An American Disgrace

The disgusting policy of Affirmative Action yet resounds throughout this land of ours. Why? Because those politicians who know and believe it to be wrong are afraid of being called racists.

I have a young son. He's 6. Right now, his chances of admission to a first tier university in September 2023 are diminished because of some other 6-year old being of a preferred color. My son is half-Chinese through his Mother and half Caucasian through me. He was born in Pasadena CA so he's as American as you can get. The other 6-year old may not even be in the United States yet. He or she could be in Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico or Central America. They don't even need to show up until, say, 2023. But, because that child is a NAM (Non-Asian Minority), he will be admitted before my son or yours for that matter. Tell me again how that is a reasonable penalty to impose on your son or mine because some people believe that NAMs were oppressed. Especially show me where Latinos were oppressed. You want oppression? What about the oppression of the Chinese coolies who were brought here to work as if indentured. That's a lot more oppression than the Latinos ever had.

Any black or Latino who believes his or her child is entitled to step ahead of my son bacause of their color is a racist, a bigot and a disgrace to this land of justice for all.

Gordian Economics

All my long life, I have had a sense of economic inferiority to economists cited by various media or pundits. These wise and mostly men have powerful credentials: first tier doctorates, tenure or think-tank chairs, peer acclaim, authors of text books, numerous articles and more. Few have managed a business; these wizards manage governments. Some are trying to run the world. Impressive stuff that.

Recently, I was thinking about the economies of nations. The wreckage reminded me of Ozymandias. Everywhere one looks in the Western world, there is economic ruin. America is in hock to its eyeballs; a larger percentage of its workers is unemployed or under-employed than at any time in decades, inflation has returned and our leaders do not have any idea as to what to do. The President's proposals gain nearly unanimous disdain. Few have confidence in the ruling class; none of the awe inspiring economists has stepped up to economic leadership. Few pundits even pretend to understand the problem much less offer a solution.

Accordingly, it falls to me to cut through the Gordian economic knots in which we are ensnared.

As a general principle, the solutions need to be set forth so that they are understood by almost all, thus gaining support from the people. Since it is "the people" who are suffering the brunt of the chaos, their recognition of answers on the way will restore the confidence necessary to begin recovery. There can be but few principles; 20 cannot be fathomed much less sold. Here are The Ten Economic Commandments:

1. The federal government's present budget will be reduced to 95% of what it spent last year. Each succeeding year, for the next 8 years, an additional 1% will be lopped off of last year's budget. Reductions will be across the board, in all departments and branches with the heads thereof deciding who and what is eliminated. Excess revenues over operating expenses must be applied to debt reduction.

2. The military will be brought home from Europe, Korea and similar billets to be retired or honorably discharged. The military budget may not be raised for the next 7 years absent a war declared by Congress.

3. The federal reserve will announce support for a strong dollar and that it will not attempt to restrain interest rates in any form.

4. The federal income tax rates shall be 5% on the first $50,000 of gross income; 10% on the next $450,000 of gross income and 15% of all gross income over $500,000. There will be no deductions other than for charity which will be limited to your highest tax rate. There will be no tax on capital gains; all income shall be deemed ordinary and taxed accordingly.

5. If you are between 55 and 50 years old, you may not draw on social security or Medicare until you are 70 years old. If you are between 50 and 45 years old, you may not draw on social security or Medicare until you are 71 years old. This sliding age scale decrements in 5 year increments with a 1 year increase in the retirement age. Thus, between 45 and 40 = 72 years; 40 and 35 = 73 years; 35 an 30 = 74 years and if under 30 = 75 years.

6. The fence between the US and Mexico will be completed; all illegal aliens will be deported via legal deportation; the social security check system will be required to hire anyone in the US with severe penalties to those caught cheating, including individuals.

7. The minimum wage will be raised to at least $15 an hour.

8. Student loans will once again be dischargeable in bankruptcy but only in a Chapter 13 type procedure.

9. Financial institutions must mark their assets to market on a quarterly basis.

10. The United States will not seek to impose democracy on any other nation.

These are the principles. The rest will follow.

Ten Years Later

The Islamic terrorists of 9/11 and their supporters of any stripe or level are evil.

Like the Israeli's hunted the Nazis, we should hunt down al Quaeda unto eternity, just as was done with bin Laden. The pressure should never be lessened. The whole world should know what we are doing. That will isolate the targets; few non-terrorists will want to hang with them lest they become collateral damage. As recruits join the al Quaeda crowd, they are put on the list. Forever. Until they are all dead and gone.

Support them and you are a dead man walking.

That is my commemoration of 9/11.

It is known as Justice.

John McCain

Anybody heard from John McCain lately?

I think about 47% of American voters demanded he be president when last exercising their franchise. But he's gone into anonymous retirement, yet remaining on the taxpayer's payroll. It would be nice to see McCain working at a job sometime. Maybe he could be a messenger boy at his wife's beer company. Notice neither he nor his paternal ancestors ever did anything other than work for the government. For me, that's one good reason among a multitude for having kept him from the presidency.

In the sense that voters frequently make irrrational choices, voting for McCain because he was some people's idea of a war hero is equivalent to voting for Obama because he's a mulatto. In retrospect, McCain was the lesser evil but, nonetheless, evil.

McCain is still around though, voting as a mulatto conservative. Compassionate conservative Arizonans just couldn't say No to him. This is, however, his last hurrah.

Hurrah!

RICH OR POOR

I grew up essentially poor; Dad aways worked but there was zero extra money.  Mom saved pennies; my brother and I worked from age 11 forward and paid some "rent", keeping the rest.

When I was in my late 30s, I started a business.  It grew and went public.  Of a sudden, I was, literally, rich.

As sometimes happens, it all went to where Warren Buffet and Maxine Waters belong.  Ever since, I have been making a living.

Sophie Tucker is credited for the aphorism which I, and others, have lived.  "I've been rich; I've been poor.  Rich is better."

Thus, all the "tax the rich" and "pay your fair share" palaver is Pattonesque "horse-dung", class warfare of the worst kind.  The current President, the supposed healer, is nothing more than a rabble-rousing socialist.

Dear Mr. Buffet:

Dear Mr. Buffet:

As to your tax ideas, I offer you the immortal words of a fellow political philosopher, M. Waters; D-CA: "go straight to Hell".

Cordially,

Jim Sweeney

The Disgraceful Sarah Palin

A new book about Sarah Palin is published this week by a guy named Joe something. In it he alleges that, in the mid-1980s, Sarah Palin:

1. as a young, single woman slept with some men; and
2. that of the men she slept with some were alleged to be black.

Joe makes other "charges" but the above are those which titillate and will resound in the blogosphere and general media because they are "sensational". Good Old Joe has no proof of any of this but he doesn't care. Neither should Sarah. If true, what you learn about Mrs. Palin is that she is a straight, non-racist woman.

So...?

The Bushes of Texas

Based on his resume, I used to think the George Bush Senior would make a great president. Young fighter pilot in WW-2; entrepreneur in Texas; family guy; head of the CIA; UN Ambassador; Ambassador to China; vice-president and a good 1st baseman at Yale who still loved baseball. I was wrong; he was a weak, feckless, tongue-tied president without testosterone.

The latter-day George Bush turned out to be worse than his father if, for no other reason, that we had to suffer him twice as long. This incarnation was equally inarticulate but he did have the testosterone to send other people's kids off to fight his wars of honor and keep them at it for years more than needed. Worse, he permitted the wide-spread invasion of the United States by illiterate Mexican peasants he and his family so much admire. Neither he nor they ever cite reasons for such love, they just say it is compassionate to feel their way.

We now have the remaining Bush, Jeb, the former governor of the Sunshine State, who may well decide to enter the Republican primary contests as a counter to Rick Perry. It is an open secret the the Bushes do not like Perry who happily returns their disfavor. Alors, if it appears that Perry will become the candidate, it is now speculated that Jeb will come down from the mountain and run.

I hope he does.

I say that because I cannot be the only conservative who is sick unto death of the Bushes and the long-lasting damage they have done to our nation. The neo-cons - emphasis on the last syllable please - just love Jeb. Great executive; correct credentials; able politically; makes sense when he speak which makes him a rare Bush indeed, taking after his Mother.

Maybe; but few apples fall far from the rotten tree.

Answering the Call

After a more than brief hiatus and in response to the cries of my millions of readers, I have returned to National Spectrum. Blog essays and other snippets of good sense will be forthcoming regularly for your enjoyment and information.