Economy is Job One!

May 4, 2012 Addendum. The April jobs report confirmed my worst fears. The U.S. economy added just 115,000 jobs and yet the unemployment rate is down another tenth of a percent to 8.1%. In other words more people have given up the search. This is another great day for Mitt Romney. Everything I wrote on April 28 remains valid. The difference is it has just been reinforced.

Is the recession over? Not if you are unemployed. Over 12 million Americans are in that status. Most of those people have families that have been impacted. The impact is more likely on three to four times that number. Worse is that the number is not the real number because many more people are no longer counted as unemployed. Most economists add about 50% to the official numbers to reach that real number.

The Obama administration failed to address the primary issue facing the nation. That is the condition of our economy.

Where is the plan to change our course of outsourced jobs? It does not exist.

The latest pieces of economic data support the feeling that the economy is struggling to recover from the Great Recession. New claims for unemployment benefits dropped to 351,000 in the week ending February 11 of this year but have been increasing every week since then with one exception. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the first quarter of 2012 grew 2.2% versus a growth of 3% in the last quarter of 2011. The president can’t be held responsible for everything in our economy but there is little he has done or proposed to improve the situation.

The problem is that Mitt Romney has not enunciated any actions he would take that would change our desperate employment situation. The number of unemployed reached over 14 million people and has now dropped to under 13 million. However the number of long term unemployed has not been significantly reduced and still remains over 5 million people. Obama’s policies did save the country’s auto manufacturers but too many products and services are now provided in other countries.

Americans are the employer of the president. We have the right to expect results. Barack Obama’s four year contract is almost up. Unfortunately the alternate candidate for the job has not told us what he would do to change our economic situation.

Santorum suspends GOP presidential campaign

Reported in an AP story April 10, 2012 2:16 PM EDT. This is the news that Romney was hoping would come soon. Santorum scared me because of his strong religious convictions. He advocated a strong link between the government and his church. That would end the religious freedom that is a hallmark of our society.

A Festival of Lies

OP-ED COLUMNIST in the New York Times
A Festival of Lies
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 24, 2012

THE historian Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote a brutally clear-eyed piece in The National Review, looking back at America’s different approaches to Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan and how, sadly, none of them could be said to have worked yet.

“Let us review the various American policy options for the Middle East over the last few decades,” Hanson wrote. “Military assistance or punitive intervention without follow-up mostly failed. The verdict on far more costly nation-building is still out. Trying to help popular insurgents topple unpopular dictators does not guarantee anything better. Propping up dictators with military aid is both odious and counterproductive. Keeping clear of maniacal regimes leads to either nuclear acquisition or genocide — or 16 acres of rubble in Manhattan. What have we learned? Tribalism, oil, and Islamic fundamentalism are a bad mix that leaves Americans sick and tired of the Middle East — both when they get in it and when they try to stay out of it.”

And that is why it’s time to rethink everything we’re doing out there. What the Middle East needs most from America today are modern schools and hard truths, and we haven’t found a way to offer either. Because Hanson is right: What ails the Middle East today truly is a toxic mix of tribalism, Shiite-Sunni sectarianism, fundamentalism and oil — oil that constantly tempts us to intervene or to prop up dictators.
This cocktail erodes all the requirements of a forward-looking society — which are institutions that deliver decent government, consensual politics that provide for rotations in power, women’s rights and an ethic of pluralism that protects minorities and allows for modern education. The United Nations Arab Human Development Report published in 2002 by some brave Arab social scientists also said something similar: What ails the Arab world is a deficit of freedom, a deficit of modern education and a deficit of women’s empowerment.

So helping to overcome those deficits should be what U.S. policy is about, yet we seem unable to sustain that. Look at Egypt: More than half of its women and a quarter of its men can’t read. The young Egyptians who drove the revolution are desperate for the educational tools and freedom to succeed in the modern world. Our response should have been to shift our aid money from military equipment to building science-and-technology high schools and community colleges across Egypt.

Yet, instead, a year later, we’re in the crazy situation of paying $5 million in bail to an Egyptian junta to get U.S. democracy workers out of jail there, while likely certifying that this junta is liberalizing and merits another $1.3 billion in arms aid. We’re going to give $1.3 billion more in guns to a country whose only predators are illiteracy and poverty.

In Afghanistan, I laugh out loud whenever I hear Obama administration officials explaining that we just need to train more Afghan soldiers to fight and then we can leave. Is there anything funnier? Afghan men need to be trained to fight? They defeated the British and the Soviets!

The problem is that we turned a blind eye as President Hamid Karzai stole the election and operated a corrupt regime. Then President Obama declared that our policy was to surge U.S. troops to clear out the Taliban so “good” Afghan government could come in and take our place. There is no such government. Our problem is not that Afghans don’t know the way to fight. It is that not enough have the will to fight for the government they have. How many would fight for Karzai if we didn’t pay them?

And so it goes. In Pakistan, we pay the Pakistani Army to be two-faced, otherwise it would be only one-faced and totally against us. In Bahrain, we looked the other way while ruling Sunni hard-liners crushed a Shiite-led movement for more power-sharing, and we silently watch our ally Israel build more settlements in the West Bank that we know are a disaster for its Jewish democracy.

But we don’t tell Pakistan the truth because it has nukes. We don’t tell the Saudis the truth because we’re addicted to their oil. We don’t tell Bahrain the truth because we need its naval base. We don’t tell Egypt the truth because we’re afraid it will walk from Camp David. We don’t tell Israel the truth because it has votes. And we don’t tell Karzai the truth because Obama is afraid John McCain will call him a wimp.

Sorry, but nothing good can be built on a soil so rich with lies on our side and so rich with sectarianism, tribalism and oil-fueled fundamentalism on their side. Don’t get me wrong. I believe change is possible and am ready to invest in it. But it has got to start with them wanting it. I’ll support anyone in that region who truly shares our values — and the agenda of the Arab Human Development Report — and is ready to fight for them. But I am fed up with supporting people just because they look less awful than the other guys and eventually turn out to be just as bad.

Where people don’t share our values, we should insulate ourselves by reducing our dependence on oil. But we must stop wanting good government more than they do, looking the other way at bad behavior, telling ourselves that next year will be different, sticking with a bad war for fear of being called wimps and selling more tanks to people who can’t read.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 25, 2012, on page SR13 of the New York edition with the headline: A Festival of Lies.

Thoughts on Politics

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I’m beginning to believe it. ~Clarence Darrow

If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates. ~Jay Leno

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. ~John Quinton

I offer my opponents a bargain:ï if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them.~Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech, 1952

A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.~ Texas Guinan

Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.~Ronald Reagan

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.~Doug Larson

There ought to be one day — just one — when there is open season on senators. ~Will Rogers

The Issue is Long Term Unemployment

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics report dated today, March, 9, 2012.
“The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed at 5.4 million in February. These individuals accounted for 42.6 percent of the unemployed.”

“The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons(sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged at 8.1 million in February. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.”

Perhaps this answers the question, why is one in seven Americans receiving aid to buy food?

Millions of people lost jobs in the last four years, and being plunged into poverty made them eligible for food assistance. “That’s the way this program is designed,” said Kevin Concannon, the head of the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service. Some 15 percent of the population-the highest rate since 1993-now lives at or below the poverty level, which is defined as $19,090 per year for a family of three. The average food stamp household of 2.2 people receives $287 in monthly food-assistance benefits, or about $72 a week. That’s not a lot to feed two people, but food stamp spending adds up: It has quadrupled in the course of the last 10 years, to a total this year of $80.4 billion. Critics blame that cost explosion on relaxed eligibility standards that began under the Bush administration, and on a boost in monthly benefits put through by Obama as part of the 2009 stimulus package. Obama increased the amount of time people could stay on food stamps, and added about $80 to the monthly benefits of a family of four. “No program in our government has surged out of control more dramatically than food stamps,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

The issue is the millions who are unemployed with no job opportunities on the horizon. Our nation’s leaders in both political parties have not offered any solutions.

HAVE THEY?

Rick Santorum is Pulling the GOP Too Far to the Right

He is a sincere man who is clearly outside the mainstream of American opinion on the place of religion in our society. He wants religion to participate in government and direct everyone’s behavior. He couldn’t be more wrong. The First Amendment to the Constitution specifically says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Those are the very first words of that amendment.

From The Week magazine

Rick Santorum may be leading Mitt Romney in the polls, said Jennifer Rubin in WashingtonPost.com, but the sweatervested Pennsylvanian reminded us this week of why the GOP would “get slaughtered with Santorum as the nominee.”

In a speech on President Obama’s energy policy, the devout Catholic veered off into an attack on Obama’s “phony theology” that, he later explained, “elevates the earth above man.” Then Santorum set off a fresh controversy by saying he opposes free prenatal testing for pregnant women because it can lead to abortions of fetuses with birth defects. With Santorum heading the Republican ticket this November, one GOP senator moaned this week, “we’d lose 35 states,” and the House of Representatives, too. Santorum’s social conservatism would be less problematic if he weren’t so abrasive, said David Kuhn in ReaIClearPolitics.com. But he has compared the battle to defeat President Obama to the struggle against Hitler in World War II, and this week, a tape surfaced of Santorum telling a crowd in 2008 that “Satan has his sights on the United States of America.” This fire-and-brimstone rhetoric is clearly helping Santorum with the social conservatives who vote in GOP primaries, but it’s a major turnoff to “the independent voters who elect American presidents.”

Santorum’s appeal to these voters is not hard to understand, said Harold Meyerson in The Washington Post. His worldview “summons the ghosts of religious and patriarchal orders that once regulated much of working-class life,” for which many conservatives are deeply nostalgic.

But Americans also value personal freedom, said Conor Friedersdorf in TheAtlantic.com. Are voters really going to hand the presidency to a man who wants to criminalize abortion even in the case of incest and rape, opposes contraception even for married couples, and famously equated homosexuality with “man-ondog” sex? Republican presidential candidates don’t have to be Ron Paul libertarians, said Philip Klein in WashingtonExaminer.com, but Santorum seems “actively hostile” to the idea that people have a right to make their own moral decisions. Nominating a smug scold who wants to “lecture Americans about their sex lives” would “ensure a Democratic rout in November.”

“Santorum’s style of social conservatism is deeply American,” said Rich Lowry in National Review, despite what “the media and political elite” would have you believe. He walks the walk, as the father of seven children, including one with a serious birth defect that often leads other couples to choose abortion. His “passionate intensity” plays very well with blue-collar voters, many of whom share Santorum’s belief that issues of family and culture are inextricably bound up with “the struggles of the working class.”

Santorum should probably avoid “the weeds of theological debate,” said William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal. He should also stop criticizing contraception. But the core of his appeal is that he’s a “conviction politician,” and even those who might not share all his views “are hungry for a nominee who does not bend with the wind.” Perhaps so, said David Weigel in Slate.com. But even Santorum now realizes that as a front-runner, he needs to tone down the harsh rhetoric. “Santorum 2.0” is saying that gays should be “treated with respect,” and noting that as a senator, he voted for two international aid programs that provided contraception. His problem is that, as the 2008 “Satan” speech illustrates, Santorum 1.0 has left a mother lode of extremist positions and off-the-wall statements for the media and his opponents to mine. And the digging “has only just begun.”

Rush Limbaugh Finally Gets His Comeuppance

It has taken too long but it finally happened. Rush Limbaugh has finally received what he has deserved for a long time. His comeuppance.

If you are a public figure in America you are subject to scrutiny. Whether it is your words or behavior, you have put yourself in the public eye. Obviously some of those pubic figures do not understand that reality. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is an excellent example of someone who committed acts that the general public considered inappropriate (an affair with a maid at his home).

Words spoken by Don Imus resulted in his dismissal. John and Ken in Los Angeles were suspended for about 10 days for their name calling. At long last talk show host Rush Limbaugh has managed to cross the line. I am not a fan of Limbaugh but have heard him occasionally because my car radio is tuned to the local station carrying his broadcast.

The consequence of his words is his loss of advertisers. It is the perfect payback. Limbaugh’s choice of name calling will cost him money and perhaps the loss of his program.

The Associated Press reports: “ProFlowers said Sunday on its Facebook page that it has suspended advertising on Limbaugh’s program because his comments about Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke “went beyond political discourse to a personal attack and do not reflect our values as a company.”

The six other advertisers that say they have pulled ads from his show are mortgage lender Quicken Loans, mattress retailers Sleep Train and Sleep Number, software maker Citrix Systems Inc., online data backup service provider Carbonite and online legal document services company LegalZoom.

We should listen on Monday morning to his program to decide who we should boycott.

What do candidates really believe?

Want to know what candidates really believe? Listen to what they say after they speak without a teleprompter or written notes. If they subsequently say things like “my words were taken out of context” or “I didn’t understand the question” then you know that they meant exactly what you understood. This is valid for talk show hosts, congressional candidates as well as presidential candidates.

President Barack Obama was quoted saying “They cling to guns or religion” Obama was explaining his difficulty with winning over working-class voters in Pennsylvania and the Midwest, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:

“And it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” Obama said.

“Obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that,” Obama said in a phone interview with the Winston-Salem Journal. “But the underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so.”

Rush Limbaugh, “My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir,” Limbaugh said on his website. “I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.”

Mitt Romney’s wife has two Cadillacs and he is “great friends” with some NASCAR team owners.

John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on the separation of church and state made Rick Santorum want to “throw up.” He thinks the president is a “snob” for urging people to go to college or obtain more education than a high school diploma.

Can candidates make real mistakes? Of course. The difficulty is trying to understand the true views and opinions of a candidate.

Based upon the words spoken in the GOP primaries it is clear that Mitt Romney will say whatever his audience wants to hear.

Rick Santorum is a sincere orthodox Catholic who would be likely to follow church doctrine in his decision making process. That would be the exact opposite of JFK. Non-Catholics be afraid. Be very afraid.

Is California Governor Jerry Brown a Liberal?

California Governor Jerry Brown is known as a “liberal.” Is that an accurate appraisal of his views?

He was California’s governor from 1975 to 1983. After taking office, Brown gained a reputation as a fiscal conservative. The American Conservative later noted he was “much more of a fiscal conservative than Governor Reagan . His fiscal restraint resulted in one of the biggest budget surpluses in state history, roughly $5 billion. For his personal life, Brown refused many of the privileges and perks of the office, forgoing the newly constructed governor’s residence and instead renting a modest apartment at the corner of 14th and N Streets, adjacent to Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento. Instead of riding as a passenger in a chauffeured limousine as previous governors had done, Brown drove to work in a Plymouth Satellite sedan.

So it is no surpise that he still has that conservative streak. Look at what he has done or wants to do in the current and subsequent years.

1. Stopped funding of community redevelopment agencies throughout the state to provide more funding for public schools.

2. The governor wants the federal government to let him make more cuts in the Medi-Cal program that serves the poorest people and exempt state schools from new sanctions that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

3. The governor wants higher sales tax and increased income tax rates for the wealthiest in the state.

It is a wonder to me that he has not proposed reductions in retirement benefits that are obviously unaffordable. This man doe not follow a logical path. Perhaps that is what makes him the right man for the job.