Friday, June 29, 2012

Chief Justice Roberts hands Romney a wonderful campaign issue

It took me awhile for it all to sink in, the actual shock of a conservative justice on the SCOTUS and Bush's pick no less joining the more liberal jurists and tipping the balance in favor of ObamaCare but be that as it may those lower and middle-class folks who can and who decide not to purchase the health-care product will be subject to an extra tax on their returns.  I think somebody said it could be $95 because Roberts ruled that the imposition of the individual mandate is okee-dokey by him because it amounts to a tax and not a penalty.  I don't think even Obama thought of it this way but hey wait a minute, if it's a tax I thought Obama only loved to soak the Rich and there's Romney's issue all in a nice package with a bow-tie, that and Fast & Furious.  It's interesting.  The Medicaid coercion of states was let go, cold comfort.  OK so what to make of Roberts?  Well it sure was a case of classic doublespeak when he said Congress or the federal government can't force anyone to buy health insurance, no wonder CNN and FOX were confused in their initial reports and yet in the same breath he said but it can pass as a tax.  Well I pondered all this on my long day trip up the line to Poughkeepsie today, had to do some shopping up north.  Dunno if it's as my friend said All By Design or my own personal and more mundane theory that they have dirt on everyone these days, the key players but something else came up and it's valid.  I think Roberts is the kind of conservative jurist that if Congress passed a law tomorrow saying everyone has to watch The Big Bang Theory he'd rule that while he may not agree with the wisdom of said law the Congress has the power to pass such legislation.  Um, it's weird.  We're hearing alot about his epilepsy meds today, maybe that was a factor and we're also hearing evidence that he may have abandoned his conservative colleagues at the last minute but I think it's just as I said.  Maybe Bork falls somewhere along in here and maybe that's what school Roberts is from.  It's like Borkism is not pro-abortion or anti-abortion just whatever laws the states pass is fine by him and so I think Roberts took that and is maybe applying it on a more federal level, to the Congress and the government.  Another example, say the Democrats pass a bill and it's signed into law that you have to suck your partner's big toe, Roberts would find a way around the obvious absurdity of it all by saying hell it's Legislation ya know? we all have a job to do.  Meanwhile in Arizona it's against the law to enforce the law.  Well that's my commentary for today:)

Monday, June 25, 2012

The Sandusky case brings up an important workplace issue

I was talking with a woman this morning about Jerry Sandusky former assistant football coach at Penn State and all-around perv.  Of course why couldn't he just go the full gay route and sit on the famous beach at Sitges in Barcelona Spain with the A-dults but that's not my issue.  My issue falls somewhere along the Peter Principle and corruption mechanics but that's only the tip and in my workplace experience you are more likely to be fired for the more minor offenses like stealing a chicken wing or calling somebody fat than for anything major or even criminal and so this woman and I were talking and I said yes I get your point that once these rumors came out early they couldn't just arrest the man and bring him to trial because you need some type of proof or evidence, I get it so my question then became this: by a casual preponderance of the evidence at the time why didn't Penn State just fire the man?  Certainly most workplaces can do this unless there's a union of course as previously discussed and in Penn State's case they could've went with he just didn't cut it as a coach although that woudn't have been the real reason.  Now of course the inherent natural instinct of any institution and this certainly includes the Catholic Church is to cover things up even though I said to her by doing this it makes the situation 10X worse down the road because the Truth will eventually come to light as Shakespeare said and then it'll be far far worse for said institution than if they dealt with It swiftly from the getgo so I'm trying to understand the rationales involved why businesses and organizations and institutions behave this way but still to me they make no practical sense.  Now applying the principle above if Sandusky would have simply stolen a few basketballs and jerseys, popped a couple of N-words and smoked on campus and blew the smoke in a student group's face we could have been spared all this:)

Saturday, June 23, 2012

I think the election of the first African-American president was a great historical moment

Too bad he sucks.  Is this a racist statement? I don't think so because I honestly think the election of the first black president was a great historical moment but it's like Tiger Woods the first in his game too, he let us down and deep down it always pains us.  IMO liberals' great great unabated love for Obama goes beyond simply that he's a good liberal Democrat in the best progressive mold, they're still nostalgic for the sheer historicity of that moment so I get it, like Tiger they want to see him make that comeback.  The historical importance of that moment, put it this way unemployment could jump to 20 or even 30% and he could pardon Sandusky and you'd still have the same folks defending him (be honest).  Jimmy Carter isn't black so it's easy for everyone across-the-political-board to render the historical verdict that he sucked whereas in Obama's case I sense some reluctance to do so.  Political Psychoanalysis, I think in this case most of it hinges on Race which is why Cindy Sheehan could protest the Obama White House and the msm won't cover it which is why I learned it from BB in a reply to the Dude, it sure as hell wasn't Brian Williams.  Frank Robinson became the first black Major League Baseball manager, not that long after he was fired.  So yes it's important to make History, I'm kind of a progressive conservative in this regard but it's also important just as or more so to make an objecive analysis, an impartial and fair evaluation after a time and in this regard he suffers.  FDR was handicapped although at the time it was kinda downplayed, been there done that so now I say let's elect the first woman president, then the first gay president (they can be one and the same) but here's a minor sticking point for me, can they at least be good?  Don't just make History, give us a good historical product.   

Monday, June 18, 2012

Obama to young illegals - your Uncle Pedro has to go but you can stay to work and study

Yes yes yes I'm reading all the latest conservative comments fresh off the presses about Obama's latest immigration program and it's hard to argue it's not an end-run around Congress although Congress never really gets down to addressing and resolving the issue so hey but let's just recap the basics here:

The feds will stop deporting illegal immigrants under 30 who came to the U.S. as kids and are law-abiding in every other way.  You came to our country before age 16 and have resided here for at least 5 years, you're in school or graduated from HS or earned a GED or were honorably discharged from the Coast Guard or Armed Forces then you're SAFE (Obama's ever-evolving immigration policy is beginning to resemble a game show/talent competition with judges in swivel chairs).  Also no convictions for a felony or significant misdemeanors (not sure what that means, does Judge Judy get to decide that one?) or multiple misdemeanors and of course you're not a threat to nat'l security or public safety.  So you go out and get yourself a nice 2-yr. work permit and that could probably be renewed indefinitely.  Some stats: about 800,000 illegals would qualify for this program and in NYC alone there are roughly 500,000 illegal immigrants.

OK so steer clear of all the boring and predictable generic political commentary out there (think Mark Shields/David Brooks) and for some talking head to repeat that Romney took a hardline stance against illegal immigration during the GOP primary season is Basic Politics 101 and not even that earth shattering, yeah that and Obama is finally down with Anal Entry.  IF I were a political adviser/strategist to Romney I'd go with there have been a record number of deportations under President Obama and this makes him contradictory and inconsistent a charge most often leveled against Mitt Romney.  Hispanics ARE the largest growing demographic group out there so now that Obama has the gays under his belt and the women and apparently the Jews he wants the 'spaniolas of course, not hard to figure.  Why not make 'Rico the 51st State while we're at it?  Even though I'm a moderate on the immigration matter (either deport 'em all or regularize them, I'm all for regularity) in my gut I don't like the way he's going about this.

I honestly think Obama should choose as his running mate a Jewish transgendered Mexican woman with a limp.  Whither the Great White Male?

Friday, June 15, 2012

Thuganomics and the psychology of organized crime

With the passing at 69 of mob turncoat Henry Hill there have been some positive things to say about the fellow from people who should know better.  His main claim to fame/celebrityhood is that he was the main inspiration for the mob classic Goodfellas and the Ray Liotta character yada yada and the eulogies go on.  Hill was a drug trafficker among other things and was involved in the infamous Lufthansa heist at JFK.  You know the rest and I think it's a fair social comment to make that we've romanticized, glorified the life of the gangster and this probably goes back to Mario Puzo and The Godfather book and movie.  By all accounts The Godfather (Parts I and II, forget the 3rd) is a superb film from a cinematic standpoint but my friend had a rather oblique take when he said how many lives taken is the movie responsible for? by which he meant how many joined the Club because the life portrayed in the movie inspired them to?  Actually this may not be that far off the mark as a key member of the now defunct young gangsters known as the Tanglewood Boys in Yonkers admitted to the late NY Daily News columnist Mike McAlary that they watched Goodfellas a number of times and it was sort of their inspiration.  Here's the deal for me though, take any level gangster or thug and let's say he led an independent life of crime, killings, robberies, general mayhem Society would level at him that he's a bad dude, a psycho, a criminal, a mutant, a deviant and needs to be taken off the streets pronto and go to the Big House for a long long time BUT take the same psycho and have him working as part of a GROUP operating in concert for some unified ends, a hierarchy, a criminal bureaucracy so to speak and it's somehow respectable, even glamorous.  Read two cases in the paper recently of a Mafia member putting out a hit on an average non-criminal man for the sole reason of going out with or marrying the mobster's ex-wife, this was two separate situations and let's say he wasn't a member of Cosa Nostra and did the same thing he'd be universally condemned as an obsessed psycho, a stalker yada yada but because he's a member of organized crime there really isn't the usual social and reportorial commentary you'd expect in such a case because hey that's what gangsters do.  Organized psychos is another way of putting it and the usual psycho/anti-social labels are dropped because it's an organization, a group, a conspiracy, a secret society and so it's somehow rational, none of the member's self-esteem will suffer because we're in this thing together and hey we're selective, we ain't bumping off old ladies crossing the street.  Serial killers and rapists bad, gangsters good, that's our social mindset/collective moral philosophy and we simply don't know Right from Wrong anymore, never really did.  The media wants to keep the theme going though with more books from former mob wives down the pike and some new tv shows with mob themes even though it's a passe genre by now, bloodsuckers is where it's at.  We love the desperado but hate the psycho even though they may be one and the same:)

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

While Obama can certainly win there are Problems

Not the least of which are Syria and those nat'l security leaks.  There's a reason many are accusing the White House itself of taking a leak, all the leaks are positive in Obama's favor and help burnish his image.  Who knew he was engaging in cyberattacks against Iran and every Tuesday shuffles a deck of terrorist playing cards and decides who's gonna get droned that day? but I don't hear the liberals complaining because hey it was quick and they weren't waterboarded like under Bush.  The atrocities continue in Syria on an almost daily basis.  Bashar al-Assad needs to go, everyone on the Planet except Russia and China seem to agree but Syria is fast becoming Obama's Rwanda.  Then there's Barbara Walters who helped get Assad's former press aide and political adviser/spinmeister into Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs because young 22-year old and Playboy material Sheherazad Jaafari helped land her the big interview with Assad, that's not Obama's fault of course but Walters has always annoyed me.  I thought she had a View to do but whatever.  Apparently Putin's Russia is sending the former ophthalmologist and current psycho leader of Syria attack helicopters and we're learning all about Assad's militia the Shabiha, a pack of low-IQ killers on steroids doing his really dirty work like massacreing women and children in the villages.  So who's supplying the 'roids?  The leaks, Assad and the Economy not necessarily in that order but ya just know some highbrow moderator at one of the first prestigious presidential debates is gonna ask him about fat kids and soda:)

Friday, June 08, 2012

Last Tuesday's recall vote in Wisconsin

I didn't blog about it at the time the goings on in Wisconsin when Republican Governor Scott Walker was ripping public-sector unions a new one, I like to go my own way when I blog but as you all know by now Walker won last Tuesday's recall vote 53% to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's 46% this despite practically every major union in the country making an all-out effort there to mete out justice and if you read the fine print about 1/3 of Walker's support came from union households.  His sins? he pretty much put the kabosh on collective-bargaining and public-employee workers now have to chip in more towards their pensions and health care and no more automatic deductions for union dues.  Before all this the recall of the GOP-controlled Senate also failed as did the effort to get rid of a conservative State Supreme Court justice and that was just a warmup for the Walker treatment.  So does this spell the death knell for unions? if there's enough Governors out there like Walker probably but I don't think the country is in as much of a union state of mind as back in the day.  For some reason when I think of unions I think of Jimmy Hoffa.

Over the past several years I worked with at least two young managers both men and it was quite obvious from their remarks they hated unions this despite our jobs in the food industry being heavily unionized.  So what was their #1 complaint?  I know when you talk about labor and politics the subject gets complicated but it was no more complex than when you have a union you can't FIRE somebody and let's face it in most workplaces there are definitely at least a couple of people who need to be shown the door at least this is the way the free market is supposed to work, better for everyone.  I can come up with at least two names myself right off the bat and so this is the #1 complaint even over and above fiscal concerns.  Good God have you been reading about the sexual goings-on between some HS teachers and their students in NYC? that's not even the point, sexuality has always been somewhat warped to begin with but it's existentially difficult to fire the tenured ones because...it gets complicated here.  There's a section on it in Glenn Beck's book Arguing with Idiots and ya gotta collect and collate your evidence first, get your witnesses and present your charges of course to this board or body or that and then all that has to finally go to an arbitrator at least some point down the road into the not-so-foreseeable future and even then the arbitrator for some strange reason often has a soft spot for the more pervy ones.  NYC Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott would like the sole power to fire the truly bad ones but he has to lobby Albany first, that takes time and you know how that goes and the United Federation of Teachers likes the system the way it is after all they fought for it.  I don't recall this going on when I went to school as a young'en but then again we had nuns who'd crack a ruler over a student's knuckles so unless you were seriously into some S&M or a little clothespin action......

Pretty much in my place the only straight up reason you can fire somebody is if they steal something:)

Friday, June 01, 2012

Proposed new law in NYC says you have to walk 3 miles a day

OK I made that up but what's the difference?  NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg you may have heard wants to ban sugary drinks over 16 oz.  Mainly we're dealing with soda and even putting the whole freedom issue aside for a moment I don't get it, just go out and buy yourself a bunch of mini-Pepsis and guzzle them.  I've many philosophical disagreements with the Health Movement in this country mostly that it's a joyless creed with its promotion of constant denial, when you're on your deathbed looking back was it worth it? but what Bloomberg wants to do points more to a fascistic core at the heart of this movement and that's the most disturbing.  To think the man fought so hard to change the law here in NYC so he could have his 3rd term and he devotes it to stuff like this, he's beyond RINO.  What's offputting about Bloomie is that half the time he makes perfect sense as with Stop 'n' Frisk so it's like there's something wrong with the circuitry or something.  I already know Dave's on board with the proposed soda ban but I'd like to hear BB's thoughts he of the McDonald's breakfast club.  The other thing is aren't fat people good for the economy? also they're not that likely to have STDs in the first place so talk about your health care savings!  Now everyone go out and buy a big 2-liter bottle of Coke.  Here's to your health:)