It's Just Disgusting

Charlie Rangel gave an interview in which he said that the Tea Party was composed of the same "crackers" who opposed civil rights decades ago.  Now I have seen a lot of garbage spew out into the media by all sorts of political crackpots, but this is truly crazy stuff.  I don't know how else to say it:  "Rangel can just go to hell."  (You should have seen it before I toned it down.)  Let's look at the real facts:

1.  Rangel is someone who needs to put attention on something other than his own record.  After all, this is a man who just "forgot" to pay taxes on his income from a villa he owned in the Dominican Republic and who also happened to "forget" to include that same property on his congressional statements.  Rangel's survival in Congress after being exposed is the result of his representing a one-party district in New York City for four decades. 

2.  The Tea Party is a national movement.  Rangel can oppose their call for smaller government, reduced waste and fraud in the federal government and repeal of Obamacare.  That is his right as an American.  The Tea Party, however, is not racist (except in the speeches of race baiting frauds like Rangel.)  Sure, the Tea Party opposes president Obama's so called program (although giving Obama credit for proposing a coherent program is being way too kind to Obama.)  Opposition to Obama does not make one a white racist any more than Rangel's opposition to Mitt Romney in 2012 made him a black racist.  The Tea Party does not oppose Obama because he is black; they oppose Obama because his programs suck.

3.  Rangel knows that every time someone like him calls a conservative group racist, that there are thousands of folks who come closer to believing that nonsense.  He knows full well that statements like the one today create racial divisions in America.  We have spent fifty years as a country trying to bridge the divided between the races; we have been trying to create a non-racial reality for the USA.  Rangel, however, is doing his best to make sure that racial tensions persist by leveling false charges of racism.  It is disgusting.

This use of phony charges of racism has not gone unnoticed by the American people.  Just today, a new poll from Quinnipiac shows that every single group in the country has a lower opinion of Obama's handling of racial issues than it had two years ago.  For example, among Independents, Obama's handling of race is now negative by a margin of more than 2 to 1.  The first "post-racial" president has become the least successful at handling race issues in more than half a century.

The race baiters keep saying that we need to have a national conversation about race.  They are wrong.  What we need is an HONEST conversation about race.  But that will not happen in the near future.  There are just too many Sharptons, Jacksons, Rangels and others who profit from racial tensions to allow for honesty in that conversation.  Simply put, the Tea Party is not racist, but Rangel, Sharpton and the others surely are.  Americans need to get over the fear of saying this out loud.  It is not racist or insensitive to call these folks out as the purveyors of racial tensions that they truly are.  Their voices need to be drowned out.  They need to be ignored.  NOW!

 

Virginia Race Gets Messier

Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat candidate for governor in Virginia, is in trouble.  No, it is not the polls; those are close and many show him leading Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican.  No, it is not a Weiner/Spitzer/Filner typical Democrat sex scandal.  This time it is an investigation by the SEC into whether or not a company McAuliffe founded and ran (prior to the campaign) defrauded investors.  Here is the way the Washington Post describes the story: 

The SEC subpoenaed documents in May from GreenTech Automotive and bank records from a sister company, Gulf Coast Funds Management of McLean. The investigation is focused, at least in part, on alleged claims that the company “guarantees returns” to the investors, according to government documents.

GreenTech has sought overseas investors through a federal program that allows foreigners to gain special visas if they contribute at least $500,000 to create U.S. jobs. Gulf Coast, which is run by Anthony Rodham, the brother of former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, seeks investors for GreenTech and arranges the visas.

It seems that what McAuliffe was allegedly selling to investors was a legal way into getting a green card in the USA rather than a real investment in green technology.  The tie to Hillary's brother is just an added attraction.

It seems clear that the first thing that voters should look for in a candidate is basic honesty and the ability to obey the law.  Given the SEC investigation, the voters of Virginia may want to think twice before they vote for McAuliffe.

 

The Jobs Report For July -- Is It the Fingerprints of Obamacare?

The government issued the employment report for July this morning.  The non-farm economy "created" 162,000 jobs which was less than the expectation of 185,000.  The job creation figures for June and May were revised lower as well, although not in a significant way.  Despite the stagnant level of job creation, the unemployment rate dropped from 7.6% to 7.4%.  This lowered rate, of course, conflicts with the level of job creation, but we have talked about that at length previously.  To me, the headline of today's report is that both wages and hours worked fell.  Indeed, the average work week is now only 34.4 hours, down 0.1 from last month.  Remember, in order for this figure to fall, there have to be significant increases in part time workers.  A full work week is still 40 hours in most businesses, with some set at only 37.5 or 35.  The average fell from a level below all three of those numbers, so there had to be a big increase in part time work.  America got more part time workers getting paid lower wages.  That is the growth area in the Obama economy.

The truth is that these figures may well indicate that the impact of Obamacare is spreading.  Remember, employers need not provide healthcare for employees who work less than 30 hours per week.  Some businesses are revamping their work force to include more people working only part time just so that they can avoid the need to provide health care.  This is particularly true in retail and restaurant/hospitality industries, and these were the two biggest gainers in employment last month.  In other words, much of the slow growth in jobs was actually not growth at all.  Instead, what was happening was the same amount of work getting spread to more part time employees from fewer full time employees all done to avoid the looming impact of Obamacare.

The problem, of course, is that most America families cannot live on the income from a part time job.  More and more folks are being thrown into poverty because they cannot get a job that pays enough to support them.  It is just another souvenir of Obamacare, a disaster on so many levels.

 

 

The Truth about the Labor Participation Rate

As I wrote the title to this post, I started wondering how many people would just skip it.  After all, the Labor Participation Rate is not the topic of greatest interest to many people.  It is, however, a key statistic in modern America.  It represents the part of the adult population that actually either has a job or is actively looking for work.  Those who have retired or who have just given up looking for work are not counted as participants in the work force.

Since the recession of 2008 to 2009, the participation rate has been falling.  This drop makes the unemployment numbers look  better.  After all, each time a person just gives up looking for work, the government removes him or her from the ranks of the unemployed.  For years now, we have been told that most of the decline in the participation rate has come from the increasing numbers of baby boomers who are retiring.  Sure, some of the reduction in participation has come from folks giving up in the search for work, but the Democrats and their friends in the media downplay those people and keep talking about all those retirements among baby boomers.

Today, we learned that it just ain't so.  The reduction in the participation rate does not come from baby boomer retirements.  In fact, the participation level of those over 55 has increased since the start of the recession.  The biggest drop in participation has been among those under 30.  That's right, the portion of the American population that ought to be strongest in working and growing the economy is instead dropping out of the workforce.  It is a monumental disaster.

The full details of this mess are set forth in an article over at PowerLine.  If you really want to be depressed, take a look at the chart in that article.

President Obama spoke of engineering the fundamental transformation of America.  So far, he has managed to move us toward a country of dependent and lazy people who no longer strive to achieve personal independence.

 

Now It's Time For Spitzer

Anthony Weiner has succeeded in making himself into a total laughingstock, so the attention of the media is shifting to that other paragon of virtue in the New York City Democrat primary:  Elliott Spitzer.  Spitzer resigned as governor of New York when it was revealed that he was patronizing prostitutes and using state funds to come and go to the trysts.  He was never indicted although his use of state funds in this manner was arguably a criminal act.  During all the years since then, Spitzer has remained married to his wife Silda.  Recently, however, since Spitzer entered the race for New York City Comptroller, it has been reported that Silda told friends that she would file for divorce after the election.  But then comes today's news; the rumors are flying that Spitzer is involved with a woman other than his wife.  No one knows if these rumors are true (other than Spitzer and the woman, if any).  Spitzer, however, was given repeated opportunities by reporters to deny any involvement with a woman other than his wife, and Spitzer refused to comment.  One would think that Spitzer would have issued a denial followed by a subsequent refusal to comment.  Indeed, Spitzer's refusal to even talk about the subject seems more like a confirmation that "Spitzer the Shpritzer" as one New York Post columnist calls him has something to hide.  Is this alleged new woman a prostitute?  Will we hear more stories about how Spitzer likes to keep his black socks on during sex?

Why don't these two paragons of the New York Democrat establishment just go away?  Forever!

 

 

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

This news flash is just in:  Edward Snowden has been granted asylum in Russia. 

It seems amazing to me that this is even considered news.  Sure, the Russians say that they kept Snowden at the Moscow airport for the last month or so (although no one has seen him).  Now comes the expected news that Snowden will get to stay in Mother Russia.  It was clear from the day Snowden arrived that this would be the outcome.  It gives Putin the chance to tweak the USA for its "evil policies" and to take attention away from his own authoritarian practices.  After all, the Russian secret police do not have to put up with any of the limitations that the NSA deals with.  And we all know what the fate would be of any employee of the Russian secret police who did anything like what Snowden has done.  But the real point is this:  most likely, Snowden is an agent working for a foreign power.  It could be Russia.  It could be China.  Nevertheless, the Russians want to protect him but to look like they were judiciously granting asylum to this poor fugitive from the evil Americans.

So will president Obama retaliate against Russia for these actions?  I doubt it.  It will just be another foreign policy flub.

 

 

Just Another Day

There is so much happening today, but still, it is just another day in America.  Where to begin?

First, we have the latest "leak" from Edward Snowden.  We now are being told that the NSA can and does go through the internet activity of individuals, including Americans, without any court approvals.  For Americans, the NSA folks have to fill out a form explaining why they are looking at all this personal information, but that's it as far as any control on the activity.  There is no word yet whether an entry of "I felt like it" is sufficient to justify someone at NSA looking through your records.

Let's put this in proper context.  Many, indeed most people in America use the internet to communicate with friends and business acquaintances, to pay bills, to purchase things, to search for information and for plenty of other stuff.  Much of what gets said, reviewed or transacted is meant to be completely private.  The idea that the feds are reviewing all this without any reason is troubling to say the least.  Of course, in fairness to the NSA, we ought to wait for the story to unfold a bit more before coming to a conclusion.  Edward Snowden is hardly the most trustworthy source. 

Second, we have the seemingly never-ending stream of sex scandals coming from the Democrats.  We have Weiner, Spitzer, Filner and a vintage appearance by Clinton with Monica.  Then we have Weiner's press spokesman calling a former female employee who spoke to the press about the campaign a "slutbag".  It sure sounds like what Rush Limbaugh called that Georgetown law student, a statement that prompted enormous outrage from the left.  On top of this, we have silence.  President Obama has said nothing.  He did not call the poor woman slimed as a "slutbag" the way he called Sandra Fluke after Limbaugh spoke.  He did not ask Weiner to pull out of the race.  He is just silent.  Joe Biden is likewise silent.  Harry Reid, who seems to have an opinion on everything, is silent.  These people who treat women like trash are all Democrats, so party loyalty may require this silence.  Nevertheless, shouldn't the party that claims that there is a war on women at least try to defend those women when it is their fellow party members who are causing the problems?

Third, we have yesterday's "wonderful" economic growth figures.  Reading press reports about the "strong" growth made me extremely angry.  The truth is something far different.  Let's put it all into context.  For the first half of the year, the economy grew at the annual rate of 1.5%.  In the past seventy years, after a recession, especially a severe one, the growth rate would have been up above 5% at first and then leveled off at 3-4%.  During the Obama recovery we never go even close to those normal numbers.  But let's just look at the first half of this year.  If the usual recovery had been achieved, we would have had a growth rate of something like 3.5% during the last six months.  That means that during the first half of 2013, the American economy would have produced about 160 billion dollars more goods and services than it did.  Just think how many more people would have been working just to produce that huge amount of economic output.  And that would be an average result.  Instead, under the Obama leadership (and I use that term loosely), the USA has had a terrible recovery.  Only the press has the nerve to try to tell us all that things are good.  They are not, except on Wall Street where the Federal Reserve policies are pumping up stock prices.

Fourth, we have Attorney General Eric Holder cited for lying to Congress.  What more can one say than that?  The man who personally approved telling a court under oath that reporter James Rosen was an accomplice to espionage and could be charged as such, told Congress not long afterwards that he had never even heard of any potential prosecution of a reporter.  HE WAS LYING.  HE SHOULD BE FIRED!