Bucket has a hole in it

Editor 

A 16 December Gallup poll found Americans are less concerned about income inequality than they were in 1998. Now 52% are not concerned and 45% are, the exact opposite of the 1998 poll. This isn't good news for the Occupiers or for Obama's "soak the rich" campaign for reelection.

Once more Americans show more sense than populist liberals, realizing that income redistribution by government only produces waste and failure.

According to Arthur Okun, the late Yale economist and author of the 1975 book, “Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff,” free markets are a source of unparalleled human progress — and of big gaps between rich and poor. Indeed, he argued, markets are efficient partly because they distribute economic rewards unevenly. Government should try to smooth out income stratification, but such efforts risk undermining incentives to work and invest. 

Hence the “big trade-off”: channeling income from rich to poor, Okun wrote, was like trying to carry water in a leaky bucket. He wanted to move money from rich to poor without “leaking” so much economic growth that the whole process became self-defeating.

Like it already has.

Mike Combs

Gualala 

The enemy is us

Editor

It is an inconvenient truth that income inequality is not caused by the 1%, but by the growing segment of society which lacks marketable skills and education. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, 40% of babies are born to single moms and each year half a million teens have children. Are Republicans the only ones who think this is a problem?

A study in Sweden found that single-parent children were twice as likely to have serious health problems, addictions, mental illnesses, and to commit suicide. This was not a right-wing hate study. Of course, other studies have found the same problems here which are contributing to a rapidly growing underclass that requires ever-increasing support services such as day care, Medicaid, housing assistance, and remedial education, to name just a few chronic and increasing problem areas. Will these problems go away if we avoid looking at a primary root cause? That’s what we’ve been doing, and it’s only getting worse.

Unemployment is bad at 8.6% (12% in California), and only looks like it is getting better because of seasonal hiring. However, good jobs go unfilled because Americans don’t have the education, skills, or required willingness to work. Many high-tech, high-paying jobs go begging unless businesses can hire foreign workers. In Wyoming (3.5% unemployment) over 16,000 high-paying energy jobs go unfilled because Americans are unwilling to relocate and work hard. Fifty years ago in Point Arena many of us worked at jobs that only illegal immigrants will take now, which depresses wages for unskilled and undereducated Americans, including college graduates.

The cartoon “Zits” summed it up nicely: Jeremy wants to major in music theory to “totally justify playing in a band while racking up $100,000 in student loans and graduating with minimal marketable skills.” Unfortunately, he’s not alone.

Mike Combs

Gualala

Hateful Lefties

Editor

Criticizing Occupy activists is considered hateful, judging from responses to Jim Littlejohn’s criticisms. Now it looks like the left-leaning Press Democrat should also be tagged “hateful” because of their November 28 editorial, “More muddled messages from Occupy folks”, which noted that the attempt to disrupt “Black Friday” shopping damaged Santa Rosa Occupy’s credibility and focus.

Occupy Wall Street’s national shopping boycott failed spectacularly, as Black Friday sales were up a record 7%, showing OWS has no clout as a national movement.

The ultra-left San Francisco Chronicle was “hateful” two weeks ago when in an editorial “Oakland says ‘enough’”, the Chronicle opined: “Oakland leaders finally acted decisively to remove a sprawling and unruly camp from the city's central downtown plaza. It was the right move, one that San Francisco should consider in responding to a similar tent city that's taken over an Embarcadero park.”

In another “hateful” editorial, the Chronicle concluded: “The Occupy movement is no longer  associated with protests over income inequality or Wall Street misconduct. Now it's about squalor and public safety, thanks largely to its nonexistent leadership and disorganization.”

What does OWS want? Income redistribution no doubt; having government take the rightful property of one group and give it to another, also known as theft. “When you take from Peter and give to Paul, you can count on Paul’s support.”

The rest of the OWS message is the usual Liberal hodgepodge of special interest issues, made particularly incoherent by its lack of leadership and direction. As OWS camps become full-time homeless camps and OWS activists flee their squalor – and Winter rain and freezing – the backlash by the media, municipalities, and weary voters will cause the Left to wish Occupy Wall Street never happened.

And as a coherent movement, it hasn’t.

Mike Combs

Gualala

NOW WE VET (Published in the Independent Coast Observer)

The “mainstream media” is joining in their usual game of magnifying weaknesses and diminishing the strengths of Republican primary candidates. Too bad such due diligence was not carried out in 2008 for then candidate Obama. He may still have won the election given his natural charm, the anti-incumbent mood, and the near collapse of the financial system in Bush’s final months. Nevertheless, voters would have had a lot more information on which to base their judgements and the country might have been spared a great deal of agony.

It’s not a pretty sight to see unfolding what was easily predictable - - a struggling President who was not prepared through either experience or temperament for arguably the most difficult executive position in the world. A local liberal and good friend asked me shortly after the election what I thought of President Obama. I replied that I was delighted we had elected our first black President, but concerned that he’d never really run anything, not even a daycare center.

Most Conservatives are quite dubious of candidates for President on either side of the aisle who lack solid executive credentials, and even more so after the past three years. Conservative regrets about McCain were plentiful but didn’t carry the day, and his inability and/or unwillingness to take the fight to candidate Obama was puzzling. 

We now have a mixed bag of Republican candidates with a range of strengths and weaknesses. I can’t predict the winner, but I think it’s safe to assume that whoever comes out on top will have to prove to Republican voters that he or she has a reservoir of the skills and experience to be an effective leader. And equally important, the tenacity to defeat an incumbent. Make no mistake, President Obama, enveloped in the protective shield of the media, is a formidable campaigner.

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA

The 99% (Published in the Independent Coast Observer)

Like many Americans, I’ve struggled to come to grasp with the mobs of the OWS, their class warfare mantra of “We are the 99%,” their hatred of successful people, and their inexplicable reluctance to protest political leaders. They “choose” not to blame President Obama’s disastrous policies that have increased our debt by more than $4 trillion and brought perpetually high unemployment. And we’ve yet to see one of their squalid tent cities on the pristine lawns of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Nor will OWS protest the plush residences of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, etc., though these politicians were largely responsible for the toxic loans and financial calamities visited upon us in 2008.

A simple reason explains why such protests have not occurred - - the OWS is 99% political. Its participants are the armies of Hope and Change reduced to a pathetic reality. They’re the “transforming of America” that Barrack Obama promised and has now delivered. These Obamavilles, a cross between Brave New World and The Lord of the Flies, have spawned hate, destruction, crime, filth, and disease. Their putrid streams of rapes, mugging, murder and mayhem are becoming so prevalent that several Leftist mayors now realize they’ve created a monster.

Protest is the American way. Wallowing in the refuse of self-pity is not. There’s no constitutional right to create a lawless community that callously shuts down small businesses. There’s no constitutional right for people to take over public or private property to breed crime and disease. Period.

Democrat leaders (e.g., Obama, Biden, Pelosi) have supported OWS from its beginning and they now own it. Perhaps these esteemed politicians seek a kindred message in the inarticulate garbling of idiots. The rest of us hear only the ancient adage, “What you do speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you say.”

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA

VETTING CAIN (Published in the Independent Coast Observer)

I don’t know if Herman Cain can stand up to the rigorous vetting process of the Republican primaries or the onslaught of attacks from the “mainstream media.”Time will tell. I do know that his stellar executive experience and his ability to articulate a practical conservative view of the world drives many Liberals crazy. So that’s a good thing. Even local Lefties, who swallowed entire bottles of “Yes We Can” tablets in 2008 without noticing they were made of sugar and air, are now taking shots at Cain. Fortunately their diatribes are about as effective as gnats biting an elephant’s butt.

Still, it is nice to know the Left has re-discovered the necessity for critically examining aspirants for the Presidency. Perhaps those newly found skills can be turned toward their own flailing candidate, who was last seen running around the country preaching class warfare and embracing the unwashed OWS mobs. These increasingly violent “protestors” appear to have sprung up spontaneously from a Stephen King novel (or George Soros’ checkbook). The President recently stated that he has fulfilled 60% of the promises he made as a candidate. That boast rings a little hollow and likely is not true. Even so, what he has left undone are “elephants in the room” ( e.g., things like closing Guantanamo or “bringing the country together”).

Cain is being criticized because he will not specify how he would deal with a host of hypothetical foreign policy issues. He says he will apply his problem solving skills to those issues. Unlike candidate Obama, who promised much that he could not deliver, Cain has demonstrated many times that he has such skills. Also unlike candidate (and President) Obama, Cain prefers not to pretend that he knows what he doesn’t know.

That approach is honest, direct, and refreshing to many.

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA 95445

A DEBACLE

The Democrats and the mainstream media are enthusiastically embracing the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) folks, comparing them favorably to those hated “Tea Partiers.” That’s ludicrous. The Tea Party was (and still is) totally focused on repealing ObamaCare and pushing back against President Obama’s Czar-filled big government agenda. In the summer of 2010, Tea Partiers gathered hundreds of thousands strong on the National Mall, made patriotic speeches, sang songs, and uttered a few prayers. They then picked up all the trash, went home and voted both Republicans and Democrats out of office, replacing them with people they felt better understood the need for a more limited, fiscally responsible government.

Number of Tea Partier’s arrested:  zero.

In an article in The American Thinker (10/17/2011), J.R. Dunn notes that a better comparison to these undisciplined, group-chanting, OWS folks is the radical rebel crowd who stormed the 1968 Democrat convention in Chicago and got their heads bloodied in the process. Dunn notes that in 1968, the Democrats were totally in charge of the government as had mostly been since the days of FDR. Liberalism was the establishment that the 1960s kids were protesting against.

For years liberals had been trying to co-opt the youth revolt for their own purposes. Lyndon Johnson promised them cradle-to-grave welfare through The Great Society programs. But Johnson also gave them the Vietnam War, and that was a bridge too far.  In November 1968, the voters took the full measure of both the radical protestors and their erstwhile Democrat allies and gave Richard Nixon a huge victory over Hubert Humphrey. The Democrat Party has never fully recovered from that 1968 debacle.

Now we have Democrat politicians and unions embracing the OWS protests while practicing “crony capitalism” with Wall Street. How will that end for Democrats?

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA

STRIKING OUT ON TAXES

Not born with a silver spoon athletically, the only opening for me was traditional:  Practice and hope for improvement.  There was no immediate gratification; throughout 4th grade I was still in the top 5% on striking out.  Occasionally, my father came home from work in time to throw strikes for me to swing at.  I was an intentional spastic: The harder I tried the worse I got.

What I learned was that the pleasure from trying increased faster than the skill.     I acquired confidence that I could have fun. Then the baseball started taking off on its own. If the rules had been changed to protect me from a period of unhappiness, natural athletes(4th grader’s dream)  would have lost confidence and I would have not learned a lessons that boosted mine. 

What is really lost when a society grows small and takes from the gifted fair credit for their home runs ?  Confidence.  Confidence in order, predictability, and fairness of the system encourages the gifted to excel and the rest of us to aspire and develop.

Handicaps may work in golf because you’re playing against the course.  Do handicaps work in life?  If government gave half the citizens a charitable handicap by requiring only the most productive to pay taxes would that undermine confidence or deter motivation?

Societies grow small when confidence declines. Governments cannot create level playing fields by making gifted play up hill and giving less gifted a down-hill run without undermining confidence. Without confidence no one invests and positive forms of deferred gratification (planning, practicing, and perfecting) decline.

After the 4th grade don’t throw a kid floaters or you’ll undermine his respect. Never, vote for a politician that promises to change rules to distribute handicaps.

David Griffith

Concerned Costal Voter

The Sea Ranch,CA

NO ALTERNATIVE

Now that I write letters to the ICO, my “otherness” apparently kindles a desire among some of my liberal friends to convert me to the rightness of their position. This is nothing new, but their arguments have become a bit more subtle, and to quote the Bard, “too clever by half.” Recently at a wonderful dinner, a person of the Left looked at me with evangelical fervor and said something like, “We’re too divided as a country. We should just get along and not be writing divisive things.” 

Not seeing any other “letter writers” at the table, I responded to the concerned Liberal that our government was designed to allow differing views. The framers of our Constitution specifically sought to ensure that all sides would be heard. The response was, essentially, “But we can’t get anything done. We can’t get our problems solved.” 

“But that’s what elections are for,” I said, “that’s how we settle things in this country.” To my great dismay I heard, “But elections aren’t working. We need to do something else.”

“Okay,” I said with my usual control (i.e., no spittle was spewing from my mouth), “what would you recommend - - a dictatorship, Communism, Socialism?” I got no response, but the “elections aren’t working” phrase stuck with me. I’ve recently read several dreamy paeans from the Left  extolling the “efficiency” of the Chinese. Even President Obama stated (jokingly, I hope) that if we followed China’s system, he could quickly solve our problems. Are some on the Left advocating silencing dissent to “get things done?”

Certainly elections don’t always work for your positions or your Party, but what’s the alternative? The answer is there’s nothing outside our democratic system that is worth considering. And if people don’t know that at this point in history, then God help us all.

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA

FDR REDUX

Many of us were taught in school that FDR’s New Deal brought the country out of the Great Depression by using massive government spending to create jobs. This “truism” has been a mainstay of the media for generations, but the “truism” isn’t true. Roosevelt’s economic programs failed so miserably that by May 1939 unemployment stood at 20.7%! Secretary of Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, lamented, “after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started . . . .”  (Sound familiar?)

The seamier (fascistic) side of the New Deal was epitomized by such actions as federal National Recovery Act hooligans kicking down doors and arresting tailors whose only crimes were to work overtime and charge a few cents less to sew pants than the government allowed. Businesses drowned in wave after wave of stultifying red tape, and reams of regulations strangled incentives to hire and expand. (Sound familiar again?) New Dealer bureaucrats implemented dozens of hare-brained schemes, such as paying farmers not to plant crops, or destroying crops and livestock to raise prices. Many believe such nefarious actions prolonged and worsened the Depression.

Seventy years later, New Deal advocates once again control our government. In 2009 President Obama pushed a trillion dollar stimulus bill through a majority Democrat Congress. The bill was based on two premises: (1) it would ensure the unemployment rate would not exceed 8%, and (2) thousands of “shovel ready” jobs would immediately put Americans to work rebuilding our infrastructure. Neither happened. In early 2010 ObamaCare was rammed through a filibuster-proof Democrat Congress with promises of more jobs and lower health costs. How has that worked out?

“New Dealism,” now repackaged as “Hope and Change,” remains a failed economic policy. The American people rejected it in November 2010 and will resoundingly reject its advocates in 2012.

GUNGA DINS

Conservatives speak of the “Left” to describe politicians and their supporters who view big government as the solution to all problems. Want more jobs? No problem. Just prime the compliant media (CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, New York Times, etc.) with fairy tales about “shovel ready jobs” and Voila!, they’re carrying water for the Democrats like modern day Gunga Dins. Want a national health care plan that ensures government bureaucrats armed with ten thousand pages of regulations will control and ration private medical decisions? That’s easy, too. Just give the media lap dogs their daily talking points about how evil “right wingers” are blocking health care for the poor and wavering Democrats fall in line. Want to increase our debt by trillions without presenting a plan to reform entitlements? Have the media blame the Tea Party.

Clearly a battle is joined between two differing views. Progressives believe the government is best suited to control our commerce and every aspect of our lives, whereas, Conservatives believe that excessive government stifles individual initiative, creates dependency, and pushes us closer to economic and social ruin.

The mainstream news media in this country falsely touts its objectivity while aligning itself with and fully promoting Left Wing/Progressive views.  I would love to see documentation of the number of times that major media news anchors routinely refer to Democrat politicians as “Left Wing,”  or even “Liberal,” versus the number of times Republican politicians are referred to as “Right Wing,” or “Conservative.” The fact is that the large media, with few exceptions, do not recognize that President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and dozens of Democrats are to the far left of the majority of Americans. Sadly, the same media that failed to vet candidate Obama protects the Left’s behind, while daily demonizing the Right.

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA 

BLAME

I can’t recall another moment in American history where our nation’s leadership has been so inept and unwilling to deal with reality. Granted President Obama inherited a fiscal crisis, but he has made it infinitely worse by piling on trillions more in spending, including the infamous ObamaCare scam. Unlike the detailed Paul Ryan plan, Obama’s (unwritten) deficit reduction plans have been floating chimeras of fairy dust, wisps of smoke containing no substance.

It’s one thing to focus on a reelection campaign, but it’s a shameful failure of Presidential leadership to allow the country’s credit rating to go down the tubes  for short-term political gain. And that’s exactly what has happened. Quotes from Obama and his minions over the past few weeks clearly show that the President’s main concern was cutting a deal to extend the debt ceiling through the 2012 election, not to make serious cuts in our staggering deficit.

After partying much of last week and enjoying a long weekend at Camp David, the President finally decided to reassure the American people that all will be okay. It had the opposite effect. In fact, the speech was so inept that even the liberal press expressed concern about its lack of substance.

This is serious, folks. Action is needed now, not later. Instead, the President and his supporters are doing their usual schtick of blaming others for the Administration’s failures. Their first reaction was to blame Standard and Poor for declaring the credit downgrade. Then, on the Sunday talk shows, Democrat disciples dragged out freshly-printed talking points referring to the “Tea Party downgrade,”  a ludicrous charge easily refuted by facts.

Shooting the messengers has become the modus operandi of this Administration, but leadership is about solving problems not blaming others. 

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA

PALTRY NUMBERS (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

President Obama’s approval rating for handling the economy has been abysmally low for months, somewhere in the mid-30s. June’s disappointing job data will likely drive those numbers even lower. In June, the unemployment climbed to 9.2 %, with an overall gain of only 18,000 jobs. Even that paltry number is likely much lower. The New York Post reported that Obama’s Labor Department reduced the number of employed in May to show an artificial June increase. Labor also added 131,000 job numbers for phantom “start-up” businesses as a ploy to keep positive job growth numbers.

Now the President wants to sucker punch the Republicans by forcing them to agree to a trillion dollar tax hike in return for promises to cut entitlement spending and/or reform the tax codes. Republicans know that tax hikes would occur but the promised reforms would not. Democrats would quickly spend new tax revenues and then blame any bad economic news on Republicans. Obama has waited until the last minute to start promising reforms of complicated programs that would require months or years to resolve. It’s foolish for Republicans to give serious consideration to anything he says about deficit reduction. Under his leadership, the deficit has mushroomed by $4 trillion in less than three years, and ObamaCare, with its myriad regulations and requirements, is yet to be fully unleashed.

Why is the President suddenly fixated on a bipartisan solution to the Aug. 2 debt-ceiling “crisis” when the Democrats have not even bothered to pass a budget in over two years? Throughout 2009, Democrats controlled all three branches of government and the word “bipartisan” wasn’t even in their vocabulary. Did Obama and the Democrats learn anything from their November 2010 shellacking? Apparently not. But the voters did, and 2012 is looming on the horizon.

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA  95445

EVIL ENTITIES (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

Whenever things are going badly for the Left and the Democrats, they drag out their old socialist mantras and start beating up on corporations. You know about corporations, don’t you?  According to the “progressive” Left, corporations are those evil entities that force us to buy millions of cell phones, TVs, stereos, computers, Ipods, cars that run with little maintenance, and thousands of other things that make our lives easier and more interesting.

Then there are those really, really bad corporations that invent and manufacture malevolent MRI machines, or the technical doodads that cure cancer through radiation, or machines that allow decadent doctors to do by-pass surgeries and other such procedures with almost 100 percent survival rates. But the worst of these knaves are the food-related corporations. These mean-spirited corporate villains direct their degraded employees to sneak into our grocery stores at night and fill the shelves with endless varieties of deliciously edible things - - fresh vegetables, tasty cuts of meat, good wines, fine desserts.

Oh, the evil of it all! The audacity of these corporate entities to even exist is enough to stir the class hatreds of the progressive soul. The dictates of the Left demand that these corporate evil doers be taxed and harassed until they see the evil of their ways and repent, or better yet, just go out of business. Then we can all happily go back to something else - - I don’t know, maybe farming, or stealing, or something! We rural folks will be okay. We have a half acre or so to grow food on and a goat or cow for milk. But what about those poor souls who live in the cities? Won’t they need jobs to make a living? Nah, the government will just send them a check - - until the money runs out.

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA

REACTIONARIES (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

On many issues “liberal progressives” are far more conservative than “conservatives.” In fact, the Democrat Party’s positions on preventing changes to Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs are downright reactionary. 

Democrats argue that we should not change any aspects of these programs. Yet these “progressives” offer no realistic solutions to the undeniable fact that the programs are on the road to bankruptcy.   Instead, they spend their efforts and massive campaign war chests personally attacking Republicans, ridiculing viable proposals, and blaming our fiscal problems on Greece, tsunamis, the Easter Bunny, etc. The reason that Social Security and Medicare are known as the “third rail of politics" is because the Democrats will not allow any debates on better ways to restructure these programs. 

The Democrats’ campaign default tactic is to scare the hell out of older folks. It’s all about keeping control over the citizenry by having the government collect their money and then dole it out to them as a way to win votes. Democrats understand that if the government turned substantial control of entitlement monies over to citizens, the Democrat Party would have nothing of substance to offer voters. 

We are now well into the 21st century and Democrats are clinging to the failed programs of the past as their lifeline to reelection. In 2012, President Obama and his progressive followers will be judged by voters on their accomplishments (or lack thereof), not on how well they can place the blame on others. Demagogic slogans won’t sell this time around. Nor will the reactionary tactics of the progressives that eschew any chance for real solutions.

Democrats saddled us with the massive government-managed ObamaCare, but they've done nothing to address the most significant fiscal issues facing our country.

Another round of golf, anyone?

Jim Littlejohn

Concerned Coastal Voters

Gualala, CA

It Ain't Necessarily So (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

Editor

Columnist Amy Goodman criticized Sarah Palin for her Paul Revere statement, but then continued that recent bad weather was a sign we need to stop global warming. Since Goodman used Sarah Palin as an example of conservative ignorance, I did what I always do when confronted with liberal columnist climate change assertions: I looked at the science, and at what even “warmist” scientists were saying about the link between bad weather and climate change.

Not surprising to me, since I’d already read voluminous articles about it, scientist after scientist said that there is no demonstrated link between recent bad weather and man-caused warming. The New York Times: Thomas R. Karl, director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. “(I)n the early part of the 20th century, there was also a tendency for more extreme events followed by a quiet couple of decades.”

In New Science: “Martin Hoerling at the US NOAA. ‘A lot of these extreme conditions are natural variations of the climate. Extremes happen, heat waves happen, heavy rains happen.’

“’Drought across the southern US - and heavy rains across the north of the country - are a result of La Niña,’ says Michael Hayes, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. An extended holding pattern in the jet stream, the same type of "blocking event" that caused last summer's heat wave in Russia, is responsible for this year's European droughts, says Michael Blackburn of the University of Reading, UK.”

“As for the apparent convergence of droughts worldwide, Mark Saunders of University College London says current conditions aren't that unusual. News media may simply be more tuned in to reporting extreme weather events.”

Sarah Palin erred on historical trivia, but Amy Goodman’s ignorance of science contributes to wasteful resource allocation. Goodman does harm.

Michael B. Combs

Concerned Coastal Voter

Gualala

LAMESTREAM MEDIA (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

Conservatives are well aware that Democrat politicians are protected and coddled by the elite mainstream media ad nauseum.  The left-leaning media’s first reaction to a “Democrat behaving badly” is to ignore it altogether (e.g., John Edwards scandal), or mention it in passing without labeling the errant politician as a Democrat (e.g.,Spitzer, Edwards, Weiner, et. al.). 

In the early stages of the scandal, the liberal media does not investigate the Democrat, but rather circles the wagons to focus on “killing the messenger.” If the facts of guilt are overwhelming and a confession ensues, the elite media often attempts to paint the guilty Democrat as a “victim,” or proclaim the guy was simply making personal choices unrelated to his job.

That’s about the way the Anthony Weiner debacle unfolded. The media did a quick round of questioning and was ready to move on, but not before joining in on a savage attack of the totally innocent conservative blogger, Andrew Breitbart. NBC initially ignored the Weiner scandal on its nightly news, but did find the time to attack Sarah Palin. Good Morning America covered the Weiner escapade for several minutes without ever mentioning he was a Democrat!

Conversely, the media never fails to mention an errant Republican’s political affiliation, and it’s always open season on conservatives. However, even with this obvious bias, does anyone understand the liberal media’s obsession with bringing down Sarah Palin? In the long annals of journalism, I doubt if there’s ever been a more pathetic media performance than the elite media’s feeding frenzy on Sarah Palin’s e-mails. These “journalists” spent thousands of person hours and who knows how much money to find some salacious tidbits to humiliate her. Instead, they uncovered a trove of evidence depicting her as a competent, dedicated public servant. Have they no shame?

Jim Littlejohn

Americans Deserve Better

President Obama, in 2006 you and 43 other Senate Democrats voted against raising the debt ceiling. At the time you said: “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”

What has changed since 2006 that caused you to change your mind, President Obama?

In 2007 and 2008 you didn’t seem to think the debt ceiling vote was important, so you skipped the vote. The buck didn’t stop long with you then, and it doesn’t now.

Americans deserve better.

IRRESPONSIBLE (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

Are the Democrats serious about fixing the nation’s long-term financial problems? It appears not. Their overarching strategy for winning in 2012 is to redirect voters away from the administration’s dismal economic record by directing a hail storm of criticism toward Republicans. A recent example is the scorn heaped on Congressman Paul Ryan, a talented, serious man who has developed a workable long-term plan to save Medicare. Ryan’s plan would not kick in until 2022; Medicare would remain the same for persons now over 55, and guarantee those under 55 with health care plans similar to ones that Congress receives.

Faced with a workable Republican initiative, the Democrats had two choices: (1) develop a better plan for the American electorate to consider prior to the 2012 elections, or (2) take the low road and use the next 18 months to demagogue the Republican plan through attack ads designed solely to scare the heck out of many seniors. They opted for the low road. In a recent ad, a Ryan “look alike” pushes Grandma over the cliff in her wheel chair. Democrats claim seniors will “die sooner” under the Republican plan and compared Paul Ryan to Hurricane Katrina. Even the President stooped to attack the erudite Congressman.

What is the Democrat plan to save Medicare? The answer is:  they don’t have one. Furthermore, the Democrat-controlled Senate has not passed a budget in more than 750 days! Clearly, the conservative victory in the November 2010 elections has shaken the Democrats confidence. They’re now uncertain whether their ingrained practice of securing votes through promises of “federal largesse forever” will resonate with an attentive electorate. Thus, they’ve fallen back on the politics of personal destruction and demonization. Democrats see themselves as the responsible party; in reality they’ve become the “Party of Irresponsibility.”

Jim Littlejohn

Setting The Record Straight

Editor

The problem in writing the ICO is prioritizing which errors to address. First, editorial misstatements. In “Our new climate” (ICO, May 27, 2011): “We face increasing climate dislocation, more powerful storms, melting ice caps, sea level rise, crop pattern changes and other effects.” Remarkably, we faced those same natural climate changes long before the industrial revolution. While there are no recent examples of climate dislocation, history is replete with such. The Little Ice Age (1350 AD) devastated once prosperous Viking settlements in Greenland and thriving vineyards in England. Crops failed in Northern Europe, causing widespread starvation, death, and dislocation.

Sea level rise now is only 8”/century (the average is 4’/century since the Ice Age), and fell three to six feet since 4,000 BC.

Storms were also more powerful during the Little Ice Age. In contrast, the number of strong to violent (F3-F5) tornadoes has dropped dramatically since the colder 1955-1975 period. Recently global accumulated cyclone energy has dropped steadily to levels not seen since 1979, with no increase in violent Atlantic hurricanes or their wind speed for 70 years.

During the recent burst of violent tornadoes, North America was surrounded by colder-than-normal sea temperatures. Experts agree that natural warming does not produce more tornadoes.

Second priority, misleading “facts.” A contributor wrote that our general health is “lower than in most industrialized countries.” However, the standardized mean life expectancy excluding fatal injuries shows we have the highest life expectancy of all industrialized nations. Further, during Clinton’s presidency a study showed very premature births were included in our statistics that weren’t in other industrialized countries, and that low-weight babies, particularly Black babies, was the most significant issue. The study concluded we have “high quality and widespread availability of neonatal intensive care technology.”

And the US has the highest five-year cancer survival rate.

Michael B. Combs

ANIMAL FARM (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

“Some animals are more equal than others.” 

Whether applied to an anthropomorphized group of farm animals or the failed Communist dictatorships of the 20th century, Orwell’s observation about the inherent inequalities of “collectivism” has stood the test of time.  

The truth of this statement is particularly striking today as we witness a plethora of Orwellian-style edicts flowing out of Washington, D.C.  It seems some ObamaCare supporters are now discovering “inequities” in the legislation and are seeking temporary waivers excusing them from its requirements.  

This Administration has granted about 1350 such waivers thus far with a disproportionate number doled out to labor unions and other predominantly Democrat constituencies.  Interestingly, 20% of the waivers granted in April went to businesses in Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district. There are 435 Congressional districts across the nation. Do the math.

Conservatives view such actions as evidence that this country is being steered more and more towards collectivism:  a society in which the “rule of law” is corrupted by “collective cronyism,” a society in which class warfare rhetoric is used to demonize opponents and its most entrepreneurial, productive citizens are attacked as “enemies of the people.” 

The Democrat Left long ago jumped on the collectivist wagon, powered by the horse manure of political correctness and the winds of doublespeak (e.g., investment, not taxes). While the allure of getting “something for nothing” (e.g.; free health care, excessive food stamps) appeals to people across the political spectrum, it’s the raison d’etre for many Democrats.  

Fortunately, our particular brand of collectivism hasn’t approached the police-state extremes of the former Soviet system and its progeny. But it was Lenin who said, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”  That noise you hear from Washington, D.C.? It’s the sound of a lot of eggs being cracked.

Jim Littlejohn

The Prince (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

A recent letter to the ICO (May 6, 2011) dubbed President Obama “the prince of multi-tasking.” The writer pointed out that, for Democrats: “His timeline is not always ours.”  (How Biblical! “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9)

However, as a Republican I am quite pleased because his timeline seems to be ours. He has granted renewable waivers to any business with union or San Francisco affiliation that wants out of Obamacare, backed Sarah Palin’s call to drill for oil in ANWAR (and in vast offshore expanses), extended President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, kept Guantanamo open and will try terrorists there in military tribunals, surged the war in Afghanistan, set a record by deporting 387,790 illegal aliens in 2009, and adopted the Bush Doctrine for the Middle East. Not only adopted Bush’s call for a democratic transition of the region, but for over 60 days – while thumbing his nose at Congress and the War Powers Act – has gone one up on Bush by bombing Libya, while still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Prince also one-upped President Bush by clearly rejecting a Palestinian refugee “right of return” to Israel as part of a two-state peace settlement.

At this rate Republicans well may wonder why we would run against The Prince in 2012. I’m sure Obama realizes that Democrats won’t be able to get any tax increases through the Republican House; if he declared “No new taxes!” we Republicans might skip running anyone against him. But as Democrats have learned, he can’t be trusted, so he’ll be replaced with a good fiscal conservative; someone who will lead for the good of Americans, not just the unions.

Michael B. Combs

Nurturing the Dead Wood (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

"When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children," said Albert Shanker, founder and long-time president of the United Federation of Teachers, and the American Federation of Teachers. But he also said: "A lot of people who have been hired as teachers are basically not competent." Of course he still worked unceasingly to keep the incompetents paying union dues.

The fact that the California Democrat Party is a wholly owned union subsidiary was again demonstrated this past week. A bill to allow school districts to use performance rather than seniority as a criterion for laying off teachers didn’t get six votes and died in committee. Three Republicans voted for, two Democrats against, and five Democrats abstained.

Abstained? Is that how Democrats stand up to be counted?

California Teachers Association members left their classrooms to pack the hearing room to voice their opposition, but needn’t have bothered; Democrats on the committee received $176,200 from the two largest teachers’ unions since 2004. Republicans got zip. Shanker applauds.

Many Democrats agree that public funds should be used to recruit, retain, and reward the best teachers.  Indeed, many teachers would like to see the "deadwood" cleared. But with the teachers' union in charge of the Democrats, it's who paid dues longest:  seniority rules.

  

I was fortunate in my association with Point Arena public schools, both as a student 1949-1960 and as a school board member with Alice.  Unfortunately, my three sons were not so lucky; the Illinois, Hawaii, and California public schools they attended as the Air Force moved us around were far from adequate.  If I could relive the past, my sons would have been in private schools.

  

Democrats and the teachers’ union would only care when no dues get paid.

Michael B. Combs

DEMOCRACY (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

In the recent ICO, a gentleman I’ve never met called me a “liar”, a “radical right wing nutcase” and “ignorant” with a “prejudiced mindset”. In my 28 years as a federal civil rights investigator, negotiator, and ultimately career head of the Office for Civil Right’s policy division, I was trained to examine such statements for hard evidence. In this instance, I could find no evidence to support the fellow’s charges. Unfortunately, his lack of evidence wouldn’t stop someone so inclined from believing his statements to be true. However, I doubt that anyone who knows me well, or who is familiar with my strong commitment to the rule of law and fairness would give much credence to the charges.

When folks say they “want more facts”, they often mean they want the facts with which they agree, not the ones that present another view. That’s why, for example, when I sat down to negotiate desegregation plans with school superintendents  or with college presidents (and/or their lawyers), I always had a bucketful of facts as well as an intimate knowledge of the law and regulations affecting their discriminatory practices.

Conservatives are a numerical minority in this community, but we have a right to have our views presented in the ICO and other fora. We know from countless conversations around local dinner tables that our views and politics are an anathema to many, even those with whom we have strong friendships. So be it. It’s a fact that some on the Left resort too quickly to  “Alinsky” type slanders as a knee-jerk reaction to differing views. We conservatives in the CCV believe we can hold our own in any debate on issues and appreciate that the Editor of the ICO publishes, week after week, letters with a range of views. That’s democracy in action!

Jim Littlejohn

TIMING (Letter to Independent Coast Observer)

“Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.”

This bit of folk wisdom arrived in my in-box at about the same time an ICO contributor suggested President Obama’s timeline “is not always ours.”  

The truth of both statements was evident as Americans watched Mr. Obama   bask in the attention he received for presiding over the killing of America’s Most Wanted Terrorist.  In a speech rife with references to “I,” “me” and “my,” our Narcissist-In-Chief triumphantly announced the success of a comprehensive mission put into motion nearly ten years ago by then-President Bush – and subsequently opposed by then-Senator Obama.  

With campaign season upon us, this administration’s timeline for exploiting another “gutsy, defining moment” could not be postponed.  Obama’s address, broadcast within three hours of bin Laden’s death, gave him an immediate bump in the polls – and may have compromised our ability to effectively utilize information seized in the raid.  

  

Had Obama stayed mum a bit longer, intelligence experts tell us we likely could have disrupted the entire al-Qaida organization in a very short time. Also, some administration officials are concerned that leaks of details best left secret jeopardize the safety of Special Forces involved in such operations. 

Last week a frustrated Defense Secretary Robert Gates remarked, “We all agreed that we would not release any operational details from the effort to take out bin Laden.”  As Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell summarized, “The more that’s in the public domain the less likely we’ll be able to pull these operations off in the future.”  

Which brings to mind another time-tested truism: “Loose lips sink ships.”

President Obama couldn’t wait to spill the beans, for the opportunity to campaign as a war hero.  I can’t wait for the opportunity to put a grown-up back in the Oval Office.

Linda Clyne

FAIR QUESTION (Letter to the Independent Coast Observer)

Conservatives had no problem with President Obama ordering Navy Seals to go in to Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden. But what about the Democrats? The Left-Wing of the Democrat Party? The anti-war protestors? The mainstream media? Did all these “Bush is evil” folks temporarily lose their principles in a poker game, or did they just receive new talking points? Talk about turning on a dime! A Democrat President, using data obtained in part from enhanced interrogation techniques, orders a kill mission without notifying the Pakistanis and without involving NATO or the UN. Did the “read them their rights” liberals publicly denounce their citizenship and move to Canada en masse? No. Most are ecstatic. Some danced in the streets! 

Not long ago these folks were clamoring to impeach former President Bush and to imprison CIA interrogators. But with a Democrat in the White House the anti-war fervor that was “blowin’ in the wind” during the Bush administration has become as passé as a feathered boa. The “Women in Black” quietly found better things to do on Fridays than demonstrate at the Post Office, and those letters to the ICO denouncing “war-mongering” dried up faster than frog piss in the Mojave. Yet the Iraqi conflict continues and President Obama has “surged” additional troops into Afghanistan while stepping up drone attacks in Pakistan. Did I mention that the President allowed himself to be dragged into an embarrassing “let’s kill Qaddafi” stalemate in Libya? (But we don’t talk about that.) 

Given these Jekyll/Hyde behaviors by Democrats, you can’t blame conservatives for wondering whether the Left’s much-celebrated anti-war protest movement was not so much about war as it was about politics. Imagine that! Are we all conservatives now? It seems a fair question.

Jim Littlejohn