Tag: politics

On Trey Radel’s resignation

Some interesting news to wake up to today:

Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.) will resign from Congress on Monday, according to multiple sources.

Radel, 37, was caught buying cocaine last year from an undercover federal agent in Washington and spent nearly a month in a rehabilitation facility. He returned to Congress after the winter recess.

Radel sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announcing his resignation, saying it “is my belief that professionally I cannot fully and effectively serve as a United States Representative to the place I love and call home, Southwest Florida.” He said that 2014 has already “been tremendously positive as I focus on my health, family and faith.”

via Trey Radel to resign House seat – POLITICO.com.

Of course, some bloggers are griping about it. Gateway Pundit:

Democrats may be found guilty of perjury, statutory rape or running a prostitution ring from their home – yet they never resign.

Republicans, on the other hand, are expected to resign for their sins.

HotAir’s Ed Morrissey has the answer to that:

Most Republicans wanted him gone after the arrest. Instead, Radel insisted that he would hold his seat after going through rehab. Unless I missed a memo, there hasn’t been any unusual events surrounding his return this month. Perhaps Radel found his welcome back to the caucus chillier than Polar Vortex I or II.

[….]

I’m still not sure what changed Radel’s mind. His return was about as uneventful as he might have hoped. Unless more revelations are on their way, he had a pretty smooth glide path to obscurity in 2014 already.

Furthermore, let me add to that to answer Hoft’s complaint; who is Anthony Weiner, chopped liver?!?!? He resigned his office, after the revelations about him. This is why I am not a regular reader of Gateway Pundit or Breitbart; because:

  1. Both are confirmed neoconservative blogs that are not above propaganda
  2. Both sensationalize their headlines to the point of fudging the truth

This is why you do not see them in my blogroll or in my rss feeds in the sidebar. Some people believe that there is no difference between paleoconservatism and neoconservatism; I disagree and the above is a perfect example why.

Now back to the matter of Radel; he most likely went back to Florida and was greeted with the icy reception from hell; and quickly decided that his future in politics was basically over. There is a reason for this, it is because Conservatives, especially social conservatives, do not want some coke headed buffoon representing them in Congress. Unlike the Democrats who could honestly care less about such things. It is called morality; and some Republicans and Conservatives, at least some of them anyhow; still care about such things.

So, to the bloggers on the right; no there is no conspiracy here. Nor is there any sort of double standard. It is simple the Republican base wanting a true, moral, Conservative in D.C. and not some two-bit coke head living a lie.

…and that, is all.

Others:  CNN, Real Clear Politics, Hot Air, New York Times, BizPac Review, Scared Monkeys, National Review, Outside the Beltway, Mediaite, Roll Call, Taylor Marsh, Business Insider,  Talking Points Memo, NBCNews, Tampa Bay Times, NPR, The Gateway Pundit, National Review

Wal-Mart lays off employees, possibly union protesters?

This is an interesting headline:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it’s eliminating 2,300 workers at its Sam’s Club division as it reduces the ranks of middle managers in a bid to be more nimble. 

The layoffs, which cut 2 percent of the membership club’s U.S. employee count of about 116,000, mark the largest since 2010 when the Sam’s Club unit laid off 10,000 workers as it moved to outsource food demonstrations at its stores. 

The cuts come as Sam’s Club strives to compete better with Costco Wholesale Corp. and online players like Amazon.com’s Prime membership service. They also follow layoffs announced by several other major retailers in recent weeks that include Macy’s Inc., J.C. Penney and Target Corp. 

Bill Durling, a spokesman at Sam’s Club, says that a little less than half of the cuts were aimed at salaried assistant managers. The cuts are also eliminating some hourly workers. He says that each of the clubs had roughly the same number of workers regardless of how much revenue each store generated. 

“We felt this was the right move to make sure we are positioning ourselves for growing in the future,” said Durling in an interview with The Associated Press. “We are trying to rebalance our resources in the field to make sure we are investing in the clubs that have the higher growth potential and balancing resources across the chain.” 

via Wal-Mart to cut 2,300 workers from Sam’s Club stores – NBC News.com.

I would be willing to bet a shiny dollar bill that the company went around and found out, who, that were employed by the store; was protesting the store for the unions and laid their butts off. Serves them right for doing something so darned stupid, as trying to get a union in a place like Wal-Mart.

Service sector unions are good for one thing and one thing only. Causing hate and discontent among employees and putting a burden on business owners and sometimes employees too. I ought to know, I worked for Meijer’s back in the 1990’s and you talk about an abortion job of a place. You could not do anything without management’s approval and the union’s approval. It was terrible and I was happy the day that I told that crapola of a place, to take that silly minimum wage job and shove it.

I ended up going to a place that paid twice as much and did not have nearly as many problems as Meijer’s did. Needless to say, I was quite happy to get the heck out of that place! In fact, the only reason why I shop at this local Meijer’s here near my house; is that it is the closest place to shop; not because I happen to believe that the place is really that great.

You go in there on a Holiday and shop? You will wait for two freaking hours to get to a register. Why? Because the unions force Meijer’s to pay their employees higher the minimum wage; despite the fact that most of them are dumber than a box of rocks and that they are the slowest bunch of employees; who really do not get in a hurry to do anything at all. Anyhow, the managers will only open like 4 or 5 checkout lanes, instead of opening all of them. Why? Because they know they will have to pay all of them employees, despite their lousy job performance.

If you work in a steel mill or an automotive factory; then yes, have a union. But, if you are working in a service industry, like Meijer’s, Wal-Mart or some other retail or fast foot outlet; do your job, shut the hell up and be glad you got a damn job — and don’t whine about it either or go find a better job! That’s how America works, been that way since I was working and was that way long before I ever started working.

….and that — is all.

 

Obama to announce overhaul to NSA program

This should be really interesting….:

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama will announce on Friday a major overhaul of a controversial National Security Agency program that collects vast amounts of basic telephone call data on foreigners and Americans, a senior Obama administration official said.

In an 11 a.m. (1600 GMT) speech at the Justice Department, Obama will say he is ordering a transition that will significantly change the handling of what is known as the telephone “metadata” program from the way the NSA currently handles it.

Obama’s move is aimed at restoring Americans’ confidence in U.S. intelligence practices and caps months of reviews by the White House in the wake of damaging disclosures about U.S. surveillance tactics from former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden

via Exclusive: Obama to announce overhaul to controversial NSA program | Reuters.

This is the part of President Obama’s job that I would not do, even if they offered me a million dollars a day to do it. Doing the balancing act between national security and privacy is not an easy task. On one hand, you have the people who want to protect America from terrorist attacks; on the other, you have those who want to keep the privacy of Americans safe.

The article goes on to say what Obama has in store. I highly recommend that you go read it. Because needless to say; this is going to make many people, on both sides of the argument, very unhappy.

 

I know how Pat Austin feels

Pat Austin is going through what I am going through….:

A Facebook friend noted today, “I can’t keep up with your blog posts!”

Don’t get used to it; I slacked off in 2013 because real life kept me busy.  I probably suffered from some blogger burnout, too.  Like a lot of conservative bloggers, I got real disheartened after the last presidential election.  Between the two, I didn’t do a lot of relevant blogging last year.

via And So it Goes in Shreveport: A Note on Blogging.

I know how she feels, I really do.

When you have to strain to even put up a blog posting and you find yourself trashing posts in Draft, because you just don’t like what you are writing; you are suffering from burnout. I’m there now. It just ain’t fun anymore; and really has not been since around 2008.

Quoting myself, which I hate doing! — :

One of the characteristics of having A.D.H.D. is that we bore terribly easy. I do this very much so. Another thing is that I utterly hate having to repeat myself over and over. Once I write something about politics, Democrats and Obama; I have wrote it and I hate having to rehash things that I have already written about.

I think another thing too, for me anyhow; is that back in the day,( 2006 till 2008) as much as I hate that term — is that when I was on the “skeptical left of center” or as I like to call it; a Bush critic —- things were different. I had a motivation. I was criticising Bush. For me, it really was not from a partisan perspective. But, more from a reality perspective. I never considered myself a hardcore leftist at all. I just disagreed with what Bush was doing with Iraq.

Now that Bush is gone. I find myself struggling to write about anything. Yeah, I’ve written my share of stuff about Obama. Yes, socialism sucks. Yes, big government sucks. Yes Democrats are stupid. Blah, Blah, blah… I’ve said till I am blue in the face. I did my share of defending America from what I perceived as evil and anti-American. However, there comes a point when you begin to realize that no one is really listening to what you are writing; and I am NOT the type to write what people want to hear. I tried that crap on my old blog for a bit; and I was freaking miserable.

Oh, sure, I got hits and eyeballs on the blog. But it was not me. It was me writing in another style or someone else’s voice. I quit that quickly, and vowed never to do that crap, ever again.  I want people to know what I think, not what some Republican or ultra-conservative wants to hear.

There are some people who will write what they think people want to hear. I have a word for those kind of people — sell outs. I have never, nor will I ever sell my soul out to anyone for the price of getting seen anywhere.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that I am not interested in being a part of the echo chamber at all. I did that for a short time, when I was blogging. But, on the right; the echo chamber is quite partisan and I am just not into partisan politics at all. Some people dig that sort of a thing; but not me. Do not get me wrong here; I disagree with direction of the Democrats at the moment. But, I really do have issues with the Republicans and some of the so-called Conservatives as well. The good part is, I have company. I am not the only one who feels the way that I do.

I also tend to be quite cynical as well — with both parties. This might be seen as bad; but I believe a cynical mistrust of Government is good thing. No matter who or what party is in power. 

Quote of the Day

To our modern moral and cultural elites, it is those who condemn the values of GLAAD who are the enemies of decency and progress who ought to be fired and blacklisted to prevent their poisonous views from being disseminated.

In the Hollywood of the late 1940s, Communism was persona non grata. In the 21st century, biblical Christianity is persona non grata.

No, this is not the America we grew up in. And it is becoming less so.

According to a CNN poll last week, while belief in God and the divinity of Christ is still shared by two-thirds of Americans, that share — older, more Republican, less educated — is falling.

Worldwide, too, Christianity at Christmas 2013 seems in a long retreat. Receding slowly in America, and moribund in Europe, Christianity is undergoing merciless persecutions in Africa and the Middle East — from Nigeria to the Central African Republic to Egypt, Syria and Iraq.

Compared to these folks suffering martyrdom for the faith, we have it easy here.

So, Sursum Corda. Lift up your hearts. And Merry Christmas.

Obama’s alarming similarities to Bush

This is a very interesting article and it is written fairly, I believe:

Claiming a mandate he never had, the newly reelected president foisted a bold agenda upon Congress and the public, then watched it collapse within months—a victim of scandal, cynical opponents, and his own hubris. One despairing adviser declared, “This is the end of the presidency.”

That was George W. Bush in 2005. Or was it Barack Obama this past year? Reading Peter Baker’s extraordinary account of the Bush-Cheney era, Days of Fire, I found a striking number of parallels between Bush’s fifth year in office and the atrocious first 12 months of President Obama’s second term.

My takeaway: Obama needs to shatter the cycle of dysfunction (his and history’s) or risk leaving office like Bush, unpopular and relatively unaccomplished.

via ‘This Is the End of the Presidency’ – NationalJournal.com.

I suggest you go give that one a read. It is very interesting; and almost eerie to read.

Now the partisans on both sides will object to the piece and that is to be expected. But those of us, who do not suffer from such illness, will read it and agree.

What astounds me is that the American people actually allowed themselves to be fooled by the President who promised a change of business with his new Presidency. Only to find out that it was the same old Washington business as usual. For that, America is a less great Country. Sad how our Nation has become a people of useful idiots.

 

John Podhoretz gets exposed for the intolerant Trotskyite that he truly is

This is great;  a Trotskyite Zionist goes for a debate; and the minute he sees that he is losing the debate — he storms off the stage, takes his marbles and goes home.

I am referring to the greatest Trotskyite, Zionist, Neoconservative of them all — John Podhoretz.

See here, here, here and here.

Money quote:

Bottom line: I’d had a long day and I didn’t see the point in spending more of it getting booed and shushed. So I left. So sue me.

If only we could sue you and your family for all the trillions of dollars — and the 4000+ lives that were  wasted in the Iraq War —- which you and your satanic Father were cheerleaders for, after 9/11. Actually, I would very much like to see criminal charges filed against you and few of your Trotskyite friends as well. However, as we realists know; that will never happened to a protected class as yourself.

You want to know what got wrong with Conservatism? You want to know why the GOP is in the shape that it is in? Look no further than this man here and his idiotic Trotskyite magazine that he runs. They are the true enemies of America; they are the ones who put us in the war that almost broke this Nation and ruined its standing in the world.

It is a pity that there is not true justice in this Nation of ours; otherwise, this man and his friends would be sitting in jail cells.