Selective Thoughts

Selective Thoughts
By Bruce Bialosky
1/24/2011

I am still astonished that Democrats continue to pitch themselves as the party of the common man. They represent only one constituency that could be considered the common man (unions) and even that claim raises doubts. First, union members nowadays are mostly well-paid government pencil-pushers, not the hard-working private-sector employees of the 1930s. Second, the Dems seem to hobnob only with overpaid, corrupt union leaders. Where’s the “common man”?

The contrast between the last Speaker of the House and the current one clearly illustrates this continuing lie. Pelosi acted like royalty because, being married to a very wealthy investor, she lives a life filled with riches and comforts much like the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” It’s no surprise that she felt entitled to co-opt Air Force planes for her personal travel and have the staff at her beck and call. Boehner’s wife works as a real estate agent in a moderately-priced area of Cincinnati, and Boehner has no intention of using government assets to visit her and his constituents. There is quite a difference in perspective – and the level of sheer arrogance – between the two.

Of the wealthiest zip codes in the U.S., 19 out of 20 vote Democratic. How much longer can the Dems continue the lie of representing the interests of the common man? What they represent is the interest of those who can take advantage of government in the most selfish manner.

Lightening has struck. I agree with left-wing blogger Erza Klein of the Washington Post. He stated exactly my thoughts about the aftermath of the Giffords shooting. This should encourage more members of Congress to have meetings with their constituents and the rooms should be packed to show anarchists like Jared Loughner that we will not be deterred from protecting the rights of this Republic.

I fear though that some of the Imperialists in Congress who feel their constituents are just a nasty inconvenience will use this as an excuse to be further detached from their voters.

President Obama searched high and low to find a new chief of staff – and ended up with another man from Chicago. Does he really think that the son and brother of two men who ran Chicago with a thuggish mentality can represent the salvation of his administration? Couldn’t he find one person worthy of the job from the other 49 ½ states? Or perhaps he could have located someone who wasn’t spoon-fed shady machine politics since birth? At least this Daley has actually held a job in his lifetime, and has some relationships with the private sector. One good thing about this appointment – it doubles the number of Administration employees who have ever worked outside of government.

As the college bowl season began to wind down, I started to receive a flurry of text messages identifying those football players who elected to skip their senior season to enter the NFL draft. Then the shocker: Andrew Luck, Stanford quarterback and consensus #1 overall draft pick, decided to return for his final year of school.

How many people would advise someone to forego a multi-million dollar contract, and instead risk injury just to receive a college degree and complete the process he agreed to three years before? Many will call him a fool – but some of us call him a man.

Mr. Obama is being applauded in the mainstream media for bringing in new personnel with experience during the Clinton Administration. Devotees are insisting that these appointments will lurch him toward the center, work with the new Republican House, and prepare him for his re-election campaign. And that would do exactly what for his second term? Mr. Obama favors centralized government and expansive regulation from Washington. Handing him a second term will give him four more years to restrict individual freedoms and do permanent damage to the American dream. Mr. Obama will never have a life change and adopt Milton Friedman as his personal guiding light. You cannot make chicken salad out of ham.

Speculation is rampant that there may be a deal between the new Congress and Obama to lower the tax rate for corporations. At 35%, the United States has the second highest rate in the world, and that’s without considering state taxes. Our Canadian neighbors just lowered their top rate to 16.5%.

If this happens, it will be very amusing to watch the left go apoplectic – screaming about a sellout to those evil corporations even as it creates greater revenue for the government. Watch for this as Obama’s first great move to the center.

The inability of the New York Times to see beyond their instinctive liberal bias is often very entertaining. For forty years (and until 2010), there were no significant domestic oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. When the presidential commission came out with its preliminary report, the Times could not wait to jump on the inadequacy of the regulatory bodies (which had a pretty good record for 40 years) and those evil profit-seeking oil companies. The report does not cite any specific shortcut taken for profit, but the Times implied so anyway.

Here is the real result: Does anyone think that any major oil company will ever again risk having to lay out over $20 billion for a stupid mistake? Or worse, risk a replay of the humiliation suffered by their chief executives? No CEO likes to lose money, but they like even less being personally and publicly embarrassed.

Of course, there’s no guarantee against another accident. But what happened to BP will cause every oil company to take deliberate and significant steps to avoid the same fate. Don’t look for a repeat soon. That’s your real regulation.

Maybe if enough additional people stop looking for full-time jobs, the unemployment rate will continue to plummet – thereby giving President Obama and his media acolytes the opportunity to applaud his “successful” economic policies.
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To read another article by Bruce Bialosky, click here.