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Over and Over It’s Almost Over

Big Frick — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 02:34:27 +0000

It’s almost over.

The billboards. The TV commercials. The radio spots. The debates. The interviews. The handshakes. The photo ops. The auto-dialed phone calls. The full page ads. The political action committees. The rallies. The speeches. The political pundits along with their up to the minute opinion polls replete with graphs and charts. It’s all almost over.

With just about 24 hours left before the midterm election of 2010 it is a far different political landscape then it was just a short two years ago. Hope and Change have been replaced by the harsh reality of what those two innocuous transitive verbs really mean.

There has indeed been plenty of Change. And the Change that has transpired has begot many emotions. None of them even remotely resembling Hope.

Two years ago many of the self-proclaimed independent thinkers raced headlong into the polls to cast their vote for a fresh faced junior Senator from Illinois that said almost nothing, but said it in such an eloquent manner that almost nobody bothered to ask what any of his obfuscated rhetoric meant. But now just two short years into this Messiah’s four year term many of those same proud independents have come to the realization that talk is just about the only thing that has been cheap these first two years. The rest has been very expensive indeed.

It has been an election season rife with wild accusations of witchcraft and sexual misconduct. Of Aqua Buddha and illegal alien housekeepers. Of secret donations and not so secret strong arm tactics. The voting public has been made aware of just about every word ever written and every phrase ever uttered by both political veterans and newcomers alike. All this while most of the focus has been on the failed policies of a president that still hasn’t produced a valid copy of a birth certificate or allowed the review of even a single college paper.

The entire election process has been uglier than a Hillary Clinton pants suit and harder than Barney Frank at a Boy Scout jamboree. But what seems to have already lasted an eternity will be over very soon.

And for all the deep digging that has been done into the past actions and policies of those hopeful to make Washington DC their mailing address for the next few years the most important question is the one that has remained unasked. Lost in the circus of personal attacks and carefully phrased and spun repudiations is the only real reason to vote in this election.

Are you happier today than you were two years ago? Do you feel safer? Do you feel more confident in the country’s direction? Forget about the broken promises. Are you happy with the ones that have been fulfilled? Is your job more secure? Is your bank account in better shape? Is your future brighter?

If you can honestly answer yes to the above posed questions, or at least to most of them, then my honest suggestion is that you vote for more of the same and pull that voting booth lever for the Democrat. But if, like me, you are more scared today having seen the reality of what can happen when a neophyte community activist gains control over both Houses of Congress who are literally willing to sell the very soul of this country and those of our children and our children’s children to the economic devil of unsustainable debt and unbridled government spending then you have a chance to make it stop.

Forget about who is right with “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and focus on Asking the right question and Telling the Democrat controlled brain trust in congress your answer with your vote. Is this the direction our country should be headed? If it is than I guess the national celebration of Hope should have continued through the entirety of the past two years.

But it hasn’t.

Maybe that’s proof it’s time for the Change.

Pointing Fingers

Big Frick — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:27:20 +0000

Yea, but he started it.

The childish antics of our elected officials continue. Republicans are being accused of maliciously blocking proposals by Democrats, Democrats are locking out Republicans from key negotiations and the president, who only spent enough time in the Hallowed Halls of Congress to have a cup of coffee, is clueless as to how to get anything done using the standard mechanisms in place in both Houses.

It has become obvious that this president’s first year, rapt in historic encomium and bolstered by a wave of nebulous hyperbole, was as good as it is going to get for this administration of Hope and Change and Inexperience.

Entering the oval office with a filibuster-proof majority in both Houses, Barack Obama looked to inflict his vision for America onto the voters that swept him into power. But Hope and Change means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It was the audacity of ambiguity that got him elected and it is that same audaciousness that is now causing many of his once-adoring supporters to turn against him. Even those Democrats who appeared to be unshakable in their support for this new Messiah are looking for ways to distance themselves and save their political skin to fight another day. The collapse of the once all but certain ObamaCare bill proves that the stalemate stymie currently paralyzing Congress can be traced directly back to the inept leadership coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

And just like a schoolyard fracas when the teacher shows up the bully who started the whole thing is all too eager to point his finger and claim victimization.

Barack Obama began his term as president with less legislative experience than most congressional interns. He had a totally new agenda in mind for the country which included some lofty goals and a supercilious socialist ilk. Quite frankly, had the country not been in such desperate need of an experienced leader who could focus his attention on the economic woes we faced, much of his exalted schema would have passed through congress with very little successful opposition. With his iron fisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and condescending Senate Leader Harry Reid, Obama’s first major legislative act was a near trillion dollar stimulus package that was 99% earmarked payback pork. Next up was to be the complete destruction of the healthcare system as we know it to be replaced by the ObamaCare system of reduced choice and mandatory participation. Much like the non-stimulating stimulus package the Democrats needed no Republican votes to get this monstrosity passed, so Republicans were locked out of the process both literally and figuratively.

Because this community activist qua president lost sight of America’s priorities for the sake of his own, the support he once enjoyed both inside the beltway and beyond began to dwindle. And as the polls go so goes the support of the elected elite whose continuing employment depends upon public sentiment. With the impending mid-term election coming Obama tried his best to ram through an unworkably expensive and graft laden healthcare bill that made nobody happy. Following the directions of his Chicago machine politics advisors he used muscle instead of mediation. And as a result he not only lost the battle but a number of defectors amongst the ranks of his once faithful as well.

Now, instead of learning from his mistakes in both principle and process, Obama is satisfied to make yet another political grandstand play and call the Republicans to a special televised meeting where he hopes to portray his new commitment to bipartisan participation. The reason for this newfound love of live television is so he can ratchet up the blame game and call the now filibuster-able Republicans to task for what he and his remaining Democrat minions will depict as obstructionism.

The Republicans, who are still smarting from a year of complete legislative domination, are in no mood to lose their newly attained political momentum and will likely not give an inch to this neophyte negotiator.

It will all make for good television and even better political pundit fodder. But it will not make for a productive legislative session unless the focus turns to real solutions for the ailing economy, the painful unemployment rates and the unsustainable national debt.

As Democrats, Republicans and this quickly fading presidential phenom point fingers at each other the public will continue to become more disenchanted with the entire lot.

And in November many of those looking to extend their congressional stay will not like the finger we use to point back.

Illinois – The Real Reality Show

Big Frick — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:43:32 +0000

Welcome to the reality show drama that is Illinois politics.

Primary election day has come and gone in Illinois. Voter turnout, which is historically light for primary elections, was about average for this state with a dysfunctional Republican Party and a powerful Chicago controlled Democrat machine.

But maybe, just maybe, Illinois Republicans are getting the message.

The Illinois Republican Party suffered greatly after the corrupt ex-Governor George Ryan was made a resident of the federal penal system. Ryan was a criminally corrupt Secretary of State selling drivers licenses to unqualified trucking firms and demanding political tribute (of the cash variety) from all of his many patronage employees. He successfully parlayed his illegal activities while serving as governor, crimes for which he was finally prosecuted and convicted after leaving office. The entire scandal left him in federal custody and the Republican Party scrambling to control the sizable damage done to the public confidence.

Illinois Democrats, with the aid of the well oiled Chicago Democrat machine, took full advantage and were able to sweep Republican lawmakers out of their elected positions pretty much across the board down to the level of assistant dogcatcher.

But then, like manna from political heaven, came Democrat Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was removed from office during his second term for blatant corruption and manifest stupidity. It is not unusual in Illinois to have a Democrat convicted and sent to prison as they control most of the political capital and even more of the political graft. But Blagojevich continues to walk the streets a free man while awaiting trial. And even in the face of overwhelming evidence, including undercover federal wiretap recordings, continues to seek any opportunity to get in front of television cameras to make a buck off his now infamous reputation. Big Rod did not elevate the Republicans but he did dig a deep enough hole for Democrats to make the Illinois GOP look taller, a job the GOP was too inept to do for themselves.

The primary ballot was stacked with hopefuls from both parties looking to become the next Illinois governor and lieutenant governor. The Democrat now acting as a temp behind the governor’s desk won his party’s slot with ease. So did a pawnbroker named Scott Lee Cohen who spent the unprecedented sum of nearly $3 million to campaign as Democrat Lieutenant Governor. Cohen won at the polls which is now causing the Democrat machine to spasm like a colon filled with day-old Taco Bell. You see Mr. Cohen has a documented history of sexual and physical abuse including holding a knife to the throat of his live-in girlfriend who was a convicted prostitute he met at a massage parlor. Honestly, can it get any better than that for Republicans?

Meanwhile, the Republican nominee for governor is still undecided with a mere 400 votes separating the two top candidates. These two hopefuls are current Illinois legislators who are acting remarkably civil to each other and allowing the Democrats dig themselves an even deeper hole.

Could it be that the Illinois Republican Party is actually wising up? With the voter’s negative sentiment at an all time high this could be the Republican Party’s race to lose. While the general election is still pretty far away and Illinois Republicans have historically shown a penchant for doing the remarkably stupid at just the right time, if they play their cards right and let the Dem’s continue to self-destruct we could actually get a fiscally responsible administration in the governor’s mansion.

But while the Chicago machine that honed the skills of Barack Obama and brought him his closest advisors is sputtering, it is by no means dead. This could turn out to be a political race worthy of national attention, if for no other reason than entertainment value.

And if Scott Lee Cohen does eventually drop out of the race maybe he could get a spot on MTV’s “Jersey Shore”. But he better move quickly. I’m guessing Rod Blagojevich already has his agent trying to cut a deal.

The Real Nightmare

Big Frick — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:14:00 +0000

night·mare
Pronunciation: \ˈnīt-ˌmer\
Function: noun
1 : an evil spirit formerly thought to oppress people during sleep
2 : a frightening dream that usually awakens the sleeper
3 : something (as an experience, situation, or object) having the monstrous character of a nightmare or producing a feeling of anxiety or terror

There it was in black and white. A “report” from the Politico news service claiming anxiety or terror on the part of Republican leaders. The opening line read “In what could be a nightmare scenario for Republican officials, conservative activists are gearing up challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010.” A nightmare you say?

To be sure there will be some elected Republicans that might have a few restless nights. My guess is that many of them will already be working on how to spin the actions they took while in office to look less like the spend-crazy Democrat pacifiers they have been. As I have told every Republican organization fundraiser that has called my home for the past few years “when the Republicans quit acting like Democrats, I’ll start supporting them again.”

The nightmare is not in what is happening but in what has happened. The Republican Party is unrecognizable to many of us conservative voters. The media would have us believe that if Republicans are to be successful they must adopt a “big tent” mentality. The reality is that the party I supported for lo those many years folded up their tent long ago and simply annexed onto the Democrats. Oh sure there was talk of conservative principles during the congressional campaigns but after the votes were counted you couldn’t tell a D from an R without a program.

Many have pointed to the rapid decline in conservative principles in the national Republican Party as a reason to form a third party. I disagree. We don’t need a third party, we need to return the Republican Party back to what it once was when results mattered more than rhetoric and principles mattered more than appeasement. A recent poll confirmed that by a margin of over two to one Americans consider themselves conservative over liberal. This includes many who claim to be Democrats. If the Republican Party can align itself with the conservative principles that founded this country and allowed it to become the greatest nation on earth there would be no need to look for another political option.

Much has been made of the recent withdrawal of Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava in the upstate New York Congressional election. Liberals point to this as proof that Republicans cannot elect a moderate. But Dede was anything but moderate and her blatant liberalism was in full view when she endorsed the Democrat over the Conservative Party candidate for the position.

The nightmare is not in conservatives taking back control of the government but in what has happened since conservatism has become a dirty word and conservative voters became silent. The nightmare is a President that plays politics while tens of thousands of brave military men and women battle terrorists in Afghanistan desperate for additional support. The nightmare is in a national debt that has tripled in under 10 months with absolutely no sign of abating in the largest spending spree in the history of mankind. The nightmare is in a deficit that is forecasted to be in excess of 10 trillion dollars in the next ten years. The nightmare is in the government control of our healthcare choices and in the government control of our health insurance. The nightmare is in the government nationalization of the banking industry and allowing the same economic morons that created the problem to cause even greater harm to the recovery. The nightmare is in a President that feels he has the power to dictate what Americans should be paid by private industry. The nightmare is in a President whose number one visitor in the White House, logging 22 visits in just under 10 months, is the president of the SEIU union that sends hired thugs to beat up Americans attending tea party rallies.

There are plenty of nightmares to go around.

Conservatism isn’t one of them.

Obama Meets Joe The Bummer

Big Frick — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:05:00 +0000

Poor Joe.

He is not a happy little liberal. As a matter of fact he is bummed out big time.

In a further attempt to connect with the American voting public and re-re-re-rewrite his message on ObamaCare, this President of Hope and Change, Honesty and Openness held a call-in on a talk radio show. Surprisingly he didn’t choose to hold his forum on the number one talk radio show in the country, Rush Limbaugh. But with Obama’s aversion to anything even resembling the truth in this healthcare discussion it’s understandable why.

During one of the calls Obama spoke with Joe from Philadelphia. Joe is bumming big time over the perceived lack of leadership shown by this administration of action, affirmative and otherwise. He echoed the newfound mantra of confused Democrats as to why this discussion is continuing and why the ObamaCare plan is not being rammed through Congress and down the still healthy throats of an overwhelmingly disapproving public.

Joe said “I’m getting a little ticked off that it feels like the knees are buckling a little bit…You have an overwhelming majority in both the House and the Senate, and you own the whole shooting match. … It’s very frustrating to watch you try and compromise with a lot of these people who aren’t willing to compromise with you.”

The problem is that Joe, like so many others, has taken the Democrat’s bait, hook, line and sinker, and now he can’t figure out why it’s not making sense. The reason is simple. Obama isn’t looking for something he can get Republicans to vote for; he’s looking for something he can get his own minions to vote for.

Joe is of course absolutely correct. Obama and the Democrat controlled House and Senate could pass this socialist nationalized healthcare package without a single Republican vote. The problem for the Congressional Democrats is then what? Democrats have been wailing for years that if only they were in power they would know just what to do. Now that they have complete control over the legislative and executive branches it’s the last place they want to be. It’s a lot easier to say what you’re going to do than it is to actually do it. Plus all those silly little details and that damned reality always seem to get in the way of a good Democrat promise.

HR 3200 is one thousand plus pages of reduced healthcare payments, increased governmental intervention, increased restrictions, and decreased healthcare choices. After his radio show Obama went to a meeting and live webcast at the Democrat National Committee headquarters. (Just as a side note, I never recall President GW Bush venturing out to the Republican National Committee headquarters for a completely partisan discussion of his policies, do you?) During the webcast Obama attempted to rally support by saying “no matter what you’ve heard, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor under the reform proposals that we’ve put forward. If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep it. If your employer provides you health insurance on the job, nobody is talking about messing with that.” OOOOPS! Hey Baracchio, your nose is growing!

Immediately upon its passage 25% of current Medicare recipients would likely see a change in their provider networks due to ObamaCare cutting the subsidies Republicans gave the Medicare Advantage programs. Less immediate, but certainly no less impactful, will be the countless doctors and healthcare providers that are forced to trim their patient ranks of Medicare patients or risk being financially driven out of business. Hospitals will find themselves in the no-win position of not being able to keep Medicare patients in the hospital due to decreased hospital stay provisions, but not being able to release them due to the new non-payment clause for readmitted patients.

No Joe, Barack Obama is not trying to negotiate with the Republicans. Hell, the Republicans can’t even get in the room and any Democrat House Member caught discussing the plan with them faces the wrath of Nancy Pelosi.

Obama is desperately trying to negotiate with the Democrats who are facing an overwhelming majority of their constituents who are saying “Hell No” to the plan. And these Democrats are not about to be left standing alone when the ObamaCare bedpan hits the fan.

And as for seeing some knee buckling. Oh yeah!

Winning

Big Frick — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:32:00 +0000

“Just Win Baby” – Al Davis – Oakland Raiders

“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” – Henry “Red” Sanders – UCLA

“I’ve got a lot on my plate, and it’s very important for us to sequence these big initiatives in a way where they don’t all just crash at the same time” – Barack Obama

I know I have said it before, but does anyone recall a President of the United States that consistently opened his statements regarding what needs to be done by complaining about his work load like this President of Hope and Change? This constant whining about all that he has to do has become a daily lament and his default answer to any question. It’s almost as if he is surprised that being President is a hard job.

It shows in stark detail just how completely unprepared this community activist turned ghost writing autobiographer turned leader of the free world is when it comes to being judged on accomplishments rather than patronizing partisan rhetoric and enigmatic promises.

It was Karl Rove who cautioned Obama prior to his taking office that being President is “Like drinking from a fire house 24 hours a day”. Obviously Rove’s words fell on deaf, even though remarkably impressive, ears.

Obama came into his reign in the White House with a whopping 515 promises of hope and change. He has won a few and he has lost a few, but according to PolitiFact.com, 7 months into his historic administration he has kept 34 promises, broken 7, compromised on 11, stalled 12, has 77 in the works and has taken no action on 374 of his ardent pledges.

But where he goes from here seems to be riding in large part on his success in passing ObamaCare, at least in some form. It has become far more about winning than it is about actually creating a health care reform program that is both affordable and actually beneficial.

Some of Obama’s victories have included such insignificant items as signing the UN Convention on rights for persons with disabilities and the installation of the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer. Yawn. Another victory or promise fulfilled is the supposed closing of Guantanamo Bay, but much like ObamaCare, here is a perfect example of victory at any cost with suspect benefit.

Even GW Bush stated that Guantanamo would one day need to be closed. But Obama continues to race forward, without a suitable plan as to where these dangerous killers will be housed, what will happen if they are brought onto American soil or how much it will cost. Most importantly the Obama administration has been completely incapable of showing any benefit to changing these detainees’ zip code from Guantanamo Bay to anywhere else.

It has become apparent with the Obama’s newfound willingness to drop the public option in his health care plan that he is willing to forgo this alleged insurance cost control for something to call a win at any price. The public option was an absolute cornerstone of this new socialist healthcare insurance system. While I am not the least bit sorry to see it being cut, in reality it was no more flawed than the rest of the unworkable and eminently dangerous ObamaCare plan.

The benefit to its removal is that, at least temporarily, citizens will be allowed to continue to pick their own health insurance plan. The downside is that it being removed will do nothing to reduce the untenable $1 trillion fiasco known as ObamaCare and the dramatic reduction in actual healthcare that will come with it.

Watch the coming negotiations closely regarding getting some kind of bill passed and you will see that this is not about providing the nation with better healthcare, not that it ever was, but is about winning something, anything. Democrats are desperate to overcome the public pushback knowing that if they fail to do so on this one it will likely be a long 3 years with a lame duck president.

Republicans have the ball in their court. If they can defeat Obama’s oneiric vision of socialized medicine, or at least make an impactful unified stand against it, they will have something to run on in 2010. If they don’t they will be as doomed as the sick and elderly depending on them.

“There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that lost by not trying” – Sir Francis Bacon