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White House Correspondents’ Dinner and Bedtime for Bonzo

  • Posted on April 28, 2012 at 11:00 pm

What do Greta Van Susteren, Lindsay Lohan, Arianna Huffington, Kim Khardashian, and President Barack Obama all have in common?  Well, tonight they are all at the White House Correspondents’ dinner.  It is the place to be if you are the rich, the famous, or the connected!  Don’t worry you and I, the “normal” American people, weren’t invited!  We can only watch through a CSPAN camera lens.

This event always irks me because I see the coziness between the White House and the press that is supposed to be covering it for the American people.  It doesn’t matter if the president is a Democrat or a Republican.  These dinners go on and they are all the same.  The president is expected to be funny and self deprecating.  A good laugh is supposed to be had by all and everyone can let their guard down a bit from the stress of everyday life in Washington D.C.  That, to me, is a fantasy because truthfully these people don’t know what stress really is.  They live in a world unlike what most Americans live in.  They are the one percent.  They are the movers and shakers in the country, if not the world.

The rest of us are truly the glue that holds this country together.  We are the ones that take care of their children, educate the masses, watch over their homes, and give dignity to those that are dying in a hospital or on the battle field.  We are the ones that give our bodies to build this country, our heart to fight for it, and our soul to continue to believe in what matters in this world is our humanity!  We are not the one percent.  We are not Hollywood, and we are not politicians.  We are the American people that can see through a fake dinner and are probably the servers at the dinner.  We are the 99%.  We are your sisters, brothers, cousins, and friends.  We hold no title but we serve our country in a manner that the one percent could never understand.  While they are busy patting themselves on the back for doing their jobs and telling the rest of us what they had to give up in the private sector to be a politician, super star, or whatever, we are out doing our jobs every day like we always do.  We don’t complain.  We just want a fair break.  We aren’t stars although we tend to watch the stars.  We are normal folk that just want our country to do the right thing.  This dinner is meaningless to me but it always shines a light on what is happening in our country.  While we are living our simple lives the politicians, Hollywood, and the press are busy figuring out how to manipulate us into the next big thing, whatever it may be.  If we’re supposed to get ready for another big war, don’t worry folks, Hollywood will put out just the right kind of movies to get us in the proper “mood”, you know those movies that make us feel patriotic and want our young ones to do something for their country.  We have all watched them and they do tug at our heart strings in ways we can’t quite understand.

The press already has done their job for this election.  This past year it was obvious that the press wanted Mitt Romney to be the nominee.  Why do you suppose this is? From my point of view, it seems as though there won’t be much difference between the two parties for voting.  We have a choice between Barack Obama who continued the Bush policies, even those tax cuts for the wealthy or we have Mitt Romney, who will continue the Bush policies like extending, once again, the tax cuts for the wealthy.

The reason I’m upset about this dinner is because we, the American people, will get the shaft.  We do all the heavy lifting and while we are doing it these people are really setting the agenda for the coming year.  Does it make any sense that former Senator Chris Dodd went from being a senator to being the president of the Motion Picture Association of America?   He is working right now on legislation that could have a major impact on us “little” people.  This dinner makes a lot of sense to me and it makes it easy to understand how Dodd ended up with the job he did.  These shakers and movers are not really concerned about the American people.  They are concerned about their own situation and their next jobs.  Everything is a set up.  Do you remember last year’s dinner?  The next day was the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound.  Following that was “breaking news” about Osama Bin Laden.  Even the death of Osama Bin Laden was so strange to me.  They dumped the body at sea.  I really don’t know what that was about but it sure did feel like we should have learned a lot more than we did!  I just feel the timing for all of this was pretty staged.  It was presented as “all in a day’s work” of the office of the presidency but to me there was much more to it.  It just makes me wonder if there will be any surprises this week.

The one thing I’ve noticed in the past several years is how easily politicians move into the press.  The relationship must be too cozy if these politicians can get their next jobs as pundits on some show.  How else could people like George Stephanopoulos and Joe Scarborough so easily switch into the roles of correspondents or press?  Sarah Palin and Governor Huckabee are both on Fox.  Go figure.  Don’t get me started on Hollywood or I’ll have to be wondering how a guy that was an actor in a movie, “Bedtime for Bonzo”, could ever get the job as president of the United States of America!

Social Security: You are entitled to your entitlement!

  • Posted on February 15, 2011 at 9:34 pm

President Obama and the Republicans are putting their collective brains together to figure out the best way to stick it to the American people on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  All the whining about Social Security is making me just a little bit angry.  There is a constant hum of information that is being pushed at the American people through the many propaganda machines to get us ready for the big changes to come in Social Security.  It’s an entitlement program which basically means that you have paid into it for many, many years and you are entitled to receive benefits from that money when you retire.  You faithfully did your part and now they want to change the game!

In December there was no worry about Social Security when the politicians put through the tax cut bill that included a 2% reduction in what you and I pay into Social Security.  Now if there’s a real problem with Social Security, why would anyone undercut that program even more?  That just doesn’t make sense to me, but of course I’m just a middle school art teacher!

This morning on “Morning Joe” Joe Scarborough said the American people get it.  In Florida Marco Rubio was voted into the Senate and he wants to raise the Social Security retirement age to 70.  So what might be going on with Florida?  From my perspective, it sounds more like the old people that live in Florida that already have Social Security don’t much care what the young people are going to do about Social Security in the future.  As long as those old folks, that do tend to vote, get their cake, they will be happy!

More and more it seems like the young people in our country are really getting the short end of the deal.  We dump everything on them.  These two unfunded wars have been dumped on the future.  We have a big deficit that will have to be dealt with by our future generation.  The unions are dead or dying so young people have to depend on business to have a sense of honor in paying them.  If you are a young person and you want to be a teacher today, expect to jump through many hoops, continue your schooling until you die, and end up with a reduced retirement package when you retire.  It’s probably like this in most other areas as well.

What really troubles me with the Social Security debate is the lack of real understanding of the American people and their circumstance.  President Bill Clinton used to say, “I feel your pain.”  However, most politicians don’t really have a clue what the American people are feeling today because they don’t live anything like you and me.

I’ll start with President Obama.  This is open information that is posted on the Whitehouse website.  http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/04/15/president-obama-and-vice-president-biden-s-tax-returns

If you look at President and Mrs. Obama’s tax returns for 2010, they really are not anything like the average American people.  When you have an income in the 5-6 million dollar ranges, you really have lost touch with people making anything under $100,000 let alone someone making $30,000 or less!  Now let’s check out the Congressmen and see what kind of money they’re sporting.  I apologize as these are 2009 figures but you will get the point.  http://www.rollcall.com/features/Guide-to-Congress_2009/guide/-38181-1.html Please note that our Representative Fred Upton is number 31 on the list.  He may sound like one of us but really is he like you?  If you want to check out another of the key player’s salary, Speaker of the House, Representative John Boehner’s net worth go here.    http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/otherdata.php?cycle=2010&cid=N00003675&type=I

You might be thinking this isn’t relevant but really it is.  We have heard for years how wonderful our government it.  You know all that, by the people, for the people, stuff.  We supposedly have gone beyond having to be property owners to vote and have a say in our elections.  However, the truth is those that have money run this country.  The rest of us just take care of those that have money.  We serve them.  They don’t serve us.  We always hear about their years of devoted service to our country.  All of us have devoted years of service to our country as well.  I teach the children of the future.  You may be a nurse, doctor, scientist, policeman, maid, waitress, soldier, or perform some other noble job, you serve your country.  You pay your taxes, you give to charity and you pay your bills.  You suck it up every time “they” want your children for war and trust me; they want your children as they sure don’t want to give their children for war!

Now they want all of us to just suck it up one more time.  Take those cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid like a man.  Do it for your country!  We all have to pitch in you know?  Many months ago I wrote a post that is worth linking back to.  http://www.ksvoboda.com/?p=317

In it I asked the wealthy to step up for our country.  It didn’t happen because the wealthy are doing the legislating!  They aren’t going to step up.  The best thing we could do is to have a revolution like Egypt and get rid of Congress and start over!  The young people really should be marching because much of what is happening and will happen will be put on them for an even bigger burden.  If you are a young college kid or just out of college a couple of years, you probably have a mountain of school loan debt already.  Do you really need to take on the debt of the clowns working in Washington D.C. too?  Every time one of them opens their mouth and moves their lips, rest assured they’re probably lying to us.  I don’t trust any of them.  At this rate we will continue to spend more money on the Defense Department and Homeland Security and less and less on education, or any of the “ENTITLEMENT” programs!  I hope I’ve given you something to think about.

The State of the Union and that Pesky CEO Pay

  • Posted on January 24, 2011 at 10:39 pm

This morning Peggy Noonan was on the Morning Joe show.  I watch the show as I’m getting ready for work.  I always think it is interesting when I hear Republicans like Peggy and Joe singing the praises of President Obama.  They both just love Obama and are so thrilled that he is moving more towards the “center”.  I, of course, find all of this laughable because Obama has always been pretty much right of center.  If he was any where left of that golden center, health care would have a public option and we’d be out of these two wars.  I have to make a clarification here as both Peggy and Joe insisted this morning that they are not really into that “Republican” label.  They are really “conservatives”.  All I know is that a thorn known by any other name is still prickly.

I sit here thinking about the state of the union address.  Of course we are all being told that President Obama is going to embrace business with some kind of love fest.  Recently, he put an editorial piece in the Wall Street Journal where he said that we have to look at old, outdated rules and regulations.  I’m really curious about this because I have a nephew who sustained a traumatic work place injury about ten years ago.  I’m sure he wishes there were better rules and regulations in place when he had his hand cut off in a meat cutter.  In business, it always comes down to the almighty dollar.  Let’s see is it worth putting that screw on the “kiddie” pool or will we make more money even with a lawsuit, if we don’t?

The questions business must think about.  I wonder what went through the minds of those Toyota executives when they tried covering up their little problem.  http://www.motortrend.com/features/auto_news/2010/112_1001_toyota_recall_crisis/index.html

You can read President Obama’s entire executive order.  There isn’t a lot to it, but it really makes me wonder why President Obama even bothered with it.  However, reading numbers 4 & 5 really get my curiosity up.  It seems to be quite open to interpretation.  The lines seem a little blurry to me.

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/2011.html

Or even his editorial piece.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703396604576088272112103698.html

As stated in that Executive Order and to the extent permitted by law, each agency must,
among other things: (1) propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned
determination that its benefits justify its costs (recognizing that some benefits
and costs are difficult to quantify); (2) tailor its regulations to impose the
least burden on society, consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives, taking
into account, among other things, and to the extent practicable, the costs
of cumulative regulations; (3) select, in choosing among alternative regulatory
approaches, those approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential
economic, environmental, public health and safety, and other advantages;
distributive impacts; and equity); (4) to the extent feasible, specify performance
objectives, rather than specifying the behavior or manner of compliance
that regulated entities must adopt; and (5) identify and assess available
alternatives to direct regulation, including providing economic incentives
to encourage the desired behavior, such as user fees or marketable permits,
or providing information upon which choices can be made by the public

I’ve been curious about the push for business in government for awhile now.  Here in Michigan we have a new governor, a businessman.  In the last election Maine and Florida, like Michigan went to the business world for their governors.  Now, I hear talk of President Obama warming to business and yet I saw on MSNBC today that American businesses have created about two million jobs this past year.  However, only 600,000 are in the United States.  I keep hearing the words “business friendly” and I’m not sure exactly what that means but I can deduce that it might imply “labor unions” not so friendly.  It really does come down to the bottom dollar.  How can a business turn the highest profit?  The cost of labor has to go down to make business happy or they can just keep hiring workers in other countries.  Where does that leave the American people?

Our Governor spoke last week and I’m still wondering exactly what he’s going to do but I know it’s going to be some kind of love affair with the business world.  Don’t get me wrong, I do realize that business has to be able to make a profit.  I’m just not so sure that those high CEO pays are all that necessary.  Other countries seem to curb the appetite of their CEO pay.  It is destroying our country.  Here is a good take on it. http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/nov2008/ca2008114_493532.htm

Notice that CEO pay can be 400 times the pay of the average worker.  I would say that is kind of excessive!  If we want to fix business in this country, then maybe we should start at the top and stop making the little guy continue to give up things and make concessions.  American CEO Pay needs to be adjusted.  Every CEO should be thinking about his or her country.  John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country.”  We can start with CEO pay.  Maybe President Obama could create an executive order there.  Maybe the government should do business only with corporations that limit the CEO pay.  President Obama imposed a restriction on CEO pay for companies involved in the bailout plan.  However, many of them found ways around that little gem.  I think our government shouldn’t do business with any corporation that has excessive CEO pay.  If you really want to make your stomach churn, just check out the AFL-CIO site on executive pay.  It really will make you sick.  http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ If you’re too lazy to do the search, just check the top 100 here:  http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/top100.cfm

There is something wrong with business when the CEO can make such tremendous figures while the little people at the bottom of this food chain are continually asked to take a cut.

I’ll be watching the president tomorrow night.  I’ll be hoping that he’s thinking about those little people at the bottom, but I have this sneaking feeling it’s going to be more about the bottom line for business and how we all have to sacrifice a little bit more.  However, I know that guy at the top won’t be feeling a thing!

As I was looking around tonight I came across a great “read” on what’s happening with public sector unions.  This is a blog post by a teacher.  http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/01/impending-demise-of-unions.html

Just keep all of this in mind when your listening to the president Tuesday night.

In Search of the Democrats

  • Posted on February 22, 2010 at 1:02 pm

I was visiting Tennesse Guerilla Women this morning and loved this video post so I’m posting here and giving a link to her site.

http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/

This is just what I have been talking about in so many ways but Ted Rall is a lot funnier than I am.  We could do a Where’s Waldo for Democrats. It wouldn’t take too long to find the true Democrats, you know those ones that I remember when I was a kid that actually stood for Democratic principles!  You know I’m home with a snow day.  There is no teaching going on today, so I’m having some fun expressing myself.  This has got to be watched.  Archie Bunker at his finest.  It’s amazing what you can find on Youtube but what is truly amazing is how close to reality this clip is for today.  Am I in a time warp?  This could be now.

This is TV when it was really good.

In other news, the movie “Shutter Island” wins the weekend.  My son says I have to see this movie.  He loved it.  He was a film student at the University of Michigan.  I’ll probably see it when its on DVD but for anyone else it might be worth coughing up the money.  The big news though isn’t Tiger Woods but the Afghanistan civilian deaths.  I’m left wondering why we are still stuck in these two stupid wars when we are supposed to have a DEMOCRATIC president.  Of course the MSM is still talking about Tiger.  I found it interesting this morning when Joe Scarborough from “Morning Joe” on MSNBC said Tiger’s apology was like a third grader acting.  Personally, I don’t give a crap about Tiger.  What I found interesting is the fact that Joe bummed around on his wife and probably should have kept his mouth shut like he usually does about these sexual matters.  He divorced his first wife and couldn’t be faithful to her.  It kind of reminds me of the pot calling the kettle black.  The numbers don’t matter.  What’s the difference if you were unfaithful once or twenty times?  You’re still a dirt bag Joe!  Also Obama is now going to “compromise” on the health care debate.  Isn’t that what we have been doing all along?  Everyone hates John Edwards but John said if you invite the corporations basically to the table they will eat all the food.  That’s not a quote.  It’s just the basic idea of what he said.  John has lost all credibility because of his personal choices but we all should be questioning why that is so.  Does anyone really think our founding fathers were any different than the “cheating” men of today?  The truth is John had a message that nobody (corporations) wanted us (the little people) to hear.  No, we are better served hearing about the sex lives of the rich and famous!  I’ll put it right out there.  I don’t care who is sleeping with who, what, when or wherever?  I do care about who is picking my proverbial pocket and asking me, “Does that feel good?”

Any one out there might not like John but a lot of what he said holds true today.

And what about Obama taking a clue from Edwards?  Is this possible?  Could he use his executive powers to do this?  I would like to see it happen.  I think we all need to remember what was said during the 2008 election.  We might not like the imperfect messenger, John Edwards, but let’s get back to basics and try to get congress and the President to remember what was discussed during the election.

If taking away the health care from Congress would get something done, we should all be screaming, “Do it!”  More than likely though their corporate buddies would buy them new insurance.  And in other news we have the credit card industry.  For months I’ve been getting those little fine printed “exclamation of changes” to my credit card.  You know the ones that say your credit card is going from 8.9% to 29.99 gazillion percent!  Oh, congress has really pushed the credit card industry.   They are really holding their feet to the fire now!  Oh gasp, they have to find other ways to make money now.  Yeah, immediately they raised everyones rates for no reason other than they could and put on many more ways to get a pound of flesh.  Thank you congress and all of you that get money from the credit card industry.  You may want to search through the years at Open Secrets.  It doesn’t matter which party they’re in.  Banks like them both!

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?ind=F03&recipdetail=A&sortorder=U&cycle=2010

I’ll end on a positive note about the news.  The USA hockey team beat Canada and Bodie Miller got a gold!  All is right with the world!