Gloat

Why are Democratic pundits gloating over the election results?  Barack Obama did not win by an overwhelming majority.

The final results from the presidential election are impressive when looking at the Electoral College (332 to 206) but not so impressive when looking at the popular vote (65,258,278 or 50.9% to 60,658,920 or 47.3%).  Thus .9% gave the president a win.  Hardly a landslide.

Despite that narrow victory Democratic pundits are gleefully hashing out the mistakes made by Mitt Romney and his campaign election team as if they were utterly incompetent.

Wikipedia lists these landslide victories among the popular vote.  These were wins worth gloating over.

So while I disagreed with Mitt Romney’s opinions on women’s rights (from pay to abortion and contraception), his lack of concern for 47% of the population, his solution to illegal immigration (self deport), and his confrontational views in foreign policy; almost half of all Americans gave him their vote.

Mr. President stop gloating.  You do not have a mandate.

35 Days to Fiscal Cliff Hell

Some of this posting is based upon an article titled, “Fiscal Cliff Could Cost America 277K Jobs in January” posted on this website.

While addressing the House Financial Services Committee in February of this year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke coined the term “fiscal cliff,” describing, “a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases” scheduled to occur on January 1, 2013.

Just a few days ago President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and minority leaders were all talking as if an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff was a realistic possibility.

Today’s news reports are that little progress has been made.

Should Congress fail to act, allowing the tax cuts to expire and budget cuts to take effect, the results could be drastic, increasing the annual federal tax burden on the average family of four by about $2,200, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The major components of the fiscal cliff are the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts, federal unemployment benefits, and social security payroll tax cuts, on top of automatically triggered spending cuts associated with the Budget Control Act of 2011.

Cuts associated with the Budget Control Act could result in the loss of 277,000 federal jobs, according to a report from the George Mason  University Center for Regional Analysis. The report assesses the impact the Budget Control Act would have on all agencies subject to cutbacks including Agriculture, Commerce, Education, EPA, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, State, NASA, Transportation and Interior. While the cuts would only reduce federal spending from 22.9% of GDP to 22.4% of GDP, according to the CBO, they would cause significant job losses for federal health inspectors, Federal Aviation Administration workers, and FBI agents.

The president does not appear to be willing to write a piece of proposed legislation to avert going over the fiscal cliff.  This was my complaint about his management style throughout his first term.  It was no Barack Obama who wrote the Affordable Care Act.  It was members of the Democratic Party leadership in the houses of Congress.

If the sequestration occurs both political parties deserve blame.  The president should not be campaigning as he did during much of his first term.  He should be negotiating with congress.  His failure to bring this self inflicted event to a satisfactory conclusion will dog his next four year term.

Abraham Lincoln and the Never Ending Civil War

Perhaps the title of this post should be “Is this the and of the United States?”

The American Civil War, also called War Between the States , fratricidal four-year war (1861–65) between the federal government of the United States and 11 Southern states that asserted their right to secede from the Union. The war ended 147 years ago.

After all of these years since the end of the Civil War the South is still re-fighting every battle and every event connected with the confederacy. Steven Spielberg’s new movie simply titled Lincoln says we have not gotten over the war or the events that led up to the war.

The new Steven Spielberg movie is based upon the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It’s an enthralling book. Even someone who is not particularly interested in reading history books will find this biography a compelling read.

The troubling part of this story is that citizens of all 50 states have submitted petitions to secede from the United States and that happened just this year. Seven southern state petitions have collected significant number of signatures. The leading is Texas with over 101,000. Major numbers of petition signers are residence of Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

Happily Anti-Secession Petitions are Gaining Clicks, Too! The thought is that those wanting to secede should be stripped of their citizenship and deported. I would agree with that thought. Perhaps Mexico will take them.

One More Reason There is a Federal Government

Those in the path of Hurricane Sandy should be grateful that Mitt Romney was not elected president.  Last year Mr. Romney pledged that if elected he would shrink the deficit by axing FEMA and handing the responsibility of disasters over to the states and local governments.

During a CNN debate at the height of the GOP primary, Mitt Romney was asked, in the context of the Joplin disaster and FEMA’s cash crunch, whether the agency should be shuttered so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?”

“Including disaster relief, though?” debate moderator John King asked Romney.

“We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids,” Romney replied. “It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.”

The Los Angeles Times is reporting today that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is planning to ask the federal government to pay 90% of the associated costs.  Those costs are estimated to be in the billions of dollars.  They are already at $20 billion.  New York officials have indicated they will seek more than $30 billion in federal aid.

It is unlikely that any state could handle the costs of devastating climatic or geological occurrence.  Think Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, and the Northridge Earthquake.

If we are the United States we come together to help those in need.  This is just one of the many reasons Americans re-elected Barack Obama.

Palestinian will hate Israelis Forever

A letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Daily News

Israel Defends Itself

Most of us were brought up to defend ourselves when someone threatens us. Israel is no different. This mighty country is sur­rounded by countries wanting to wipe it off the map. This will never happen. In the Six-Day War, Israel went to war and won.  They won the war and the land. To keep peace, they gave back land that was rightfully theirs. It didn’t work. They’ve been attacked by hundreds of rockets aimed at the country by mili­tants in the Gaza Strip. Israel needs to enter Gaza and seek out the missile installations and put them out of commission. Their enemies will try to supply them with
more weapons, but in the meantime, there will be peace. And maybe, just maybe, it will stick. One can only hope.

  Ron Sellz, Chatsworth, California

Let’s be clear.  The fight between Arabs and Israelis is not easily resolved.  Each group has valid arguments supporting their positions and objectives.  The battle of Israelis goes back to the years before there was a State of Israel.  This small country is only the size of New Jersey.  It was created from what was a British Mandate authorized after World War 1.  The Arabs hate the idea of a Jewish State that was agreed to by the United Nations.

Without going through all the wars that Israel has fought, that country is still hated by its Arab neighbors and has been confronted by terrorists who have only one objective; destroy Israel at any cost and drive its citizens into the Mediterranean Sea.  Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal, who has lived in exile in Syria, said today, “Get out of our land.”  Another spokesperson said Zionists cannot control even one inch of Palestinian land.  The objective of Hamas is the total destruction of Israel.

My question: How can you negotiate with an enemy who retains its objective of total destruction of your country?  The answer is, You can’t.  The negotiated truce is just a temporary situation.  Hamas still maintains its objective.

I do not see a solution to the Israel Palestinian confrontation ever!

David Bancroft

You don’t have to be Jewish!

You don’t have to be Jewish to appreciate this video but it helps.  There are great Jewish delicatessens wherever there is a large Jewish population.  So it’s not just NYC.  Think Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal.

Here in Los Angeles we have Langer’s, Canter’s, Jerry’s Famous, Brent’s, Junior’s, Factor’s, etc.  etc.  etc.   My favorite is Brent’s.

You don’t have to be Jewish to love the food!

Deli Man Trailer from Erik Anjou on Vimeo.

Medicare for Everyone

Even before the annual enrollment period for Medicare had started (October 15) I was receiving the start of insurance company campaigns for my enrollment.  Since then the volume of mailings has become an avalanche.  This has caused me to ask: Are there significant profits to be made in Medicare enrollments?

The answer appears to be YES.  AARP’s single largest revenue source is royalties from United Health Care Group.  This is no surprise.  I receive solicitations from AARP to join United Health Care every single month of the year.  34% of their revenue comes from United Health Care.  In 2011, the AARP generated $458 million in royalty fees from so-called “Medigap” plans.  Read more about AARP’s special treatment at this forbes.com link.

Other companies solciting my enrollment include: Blue Cross, Blue Shield, SCAN, Aetna, and Humana.

This campaign leads me to the conclusion that Medicare for all would be a real solution to affordable health care for everyone.