Lesson for CEO’s if you don’t want to be attacked by Obama for your Multi-Million Dollar bonuses, be a big Obama supporter and donor! Obama spends much of his time attacking those “Evil Wall Street Bonuses”, but yesterday he defended the bonuses of his buddies!  From the article:

….According to the transcript provided by the White House, the reporter asked Obama, “Let’s talk bonuses for a minute: Lloyd Blankfein, $9 million; Jamie Dimon, $17 million. Now, granted, those were in stock and less than what some had expected. But are those numbers OK?”
Obama replied: “Well, look, first of all, I know both those guys. They’re very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That’s part of the free market system. I do think that the compensation packages that we’ve seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance. I think that shareholders oftentimes have not had any significant say in the pay structures for CEOs.”…

So when it’s an Obama buddy and donor…he is a free market Capitalist? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

http://www.twincities.com/news/ci_14376987?source=rss&nclick_check=1

So I am on my Blackberry checking out news videos when I come across a video of George Snuffleupagus over at ABC news doing a story about how in their latest poll people trust Republicans more than Obama on 4 out of 5 key issues. Now the issue that Obama comes out on top is terrorism?  Quickly the story becomes that this vindicates Obama’s handling of terrorism and the Pantie Bomber and so on.  He goes on to give the numbers on all of the 4 other areas, health care, economy, jobs and the budget but doesn’t give the numbers for the terrorism, only saying Obama leads in this area and how it is such a vindication of his policies and how the GOP attacks have failed.

http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/republican-rise-doubts-obama-economy-abc-news-poll/story?id=9785572

But there is a problem with people like me, when I watch or listen to the news, I listen for the part of the story that people are not giving me. Why didn’t they give the numbers on terrorism if this is in fact a glowing report card for Obama? If this vindicates everything he has done, which they listed it all, you would think they would give the number!

So I went digging and in fact if you go into the above article, they don’t give the number there either, only saying the same thing how he beats Republicans on terrorism. This is what it says in the article:

“The president’s rated negatively for his handling of four out of five individual issues tested in this poll: the deficit (56 percent disapprove), health care and the economy (53 percent apiece) and creating jobs (51 percent). His only positive is for handling terrorism.”

So where is this magical terrorism number that according to Snuffy makes Obama the terrorism warrior? Well you have to go into the PDF file of the poll and dig a little deeper.

http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1102a22010Politics.pdf

There you will find that Obama does hold the advantage at 56% to 39%. However if you were to turn this into an approval index, which measures only the strongly approve 28% and the strongly disapprove at 25% you would find Obama only at a +3 points. This is not exactly a number one can tout as a complete vindication and agreement with everything Obama has done. In addition the poll was of 1004 adults, which is not the same as “Likely Voters”, and the reason they don’t use likely voters is because Obama always does worse among that group. That’s why they all slam Rasmussen polls, because they use “Likely Voters” which is more accurate.

This is just another way that the media, even when they have to report Obama is down in the polls, they are always trying to turn it around and make it some positive for Obama.

Sarah Palin is by all accounts a female, one that groups like the National Organization for Women should hold out as the “Superwoman”.  I mean here is a mom, a career woman, author and a talented classy lady that can demand $100,000.00 speaking fees.  But no…that is not how Sarah Palin is received because for groups like NOW she has two major problems.  This first is she doesn’t support ripping living breathing humans from the womb, tearing them to shreds and vacuuming them out.  The next problem they have with her is the fact that she doesn’t derive her power from her sexuality and victim-hood, instead relying on her faith in God.

For me the jury is still out on Sarah Palin, I like her well enough and respect her, but I am not lining up to put her on a national ticket.  I am and always will be a Mike Huckabee guy, and while I am impressed with Sarah Palin, her attachment to Johnny McRino, (My pet name for John McCain referring to his Republican In Name Only status), to me is a major problem.  I know that he put her on the map politically, but she needs to realize she has stayed on the map in spite of Johnny McRino and his campaign’s slander of her which I believe he has directed.

Regardless of my feelings about Sarah Palin, the Liberals  and the White House have sunk to a new low of idiocy and they are no longer deserving of being taken seriously or treated with the smallest amount of respect.  You see Obama has rightfully been criticized for his over use of the teleprompter, to the point where he doesn’t even know what he is reading…he is simply reading.  But Sarah Palin recently gave a speech during which she had 6 words and a seventh crossed out on her palm.  So now suddenly Sarah Palin is a “Hypocrite” because she had a few words scribbled on her palm to keep her on track because she takes jabs at Obama and his teleprompter fetish.

Suddenly Sarah Palin is an “Idiot” because she uses a couple of words to keep her on track during the speech, but Obama who has every syllable that he utters fed to him by someone else who writes his words is a “Genius”.  These people must go to ventriloquist shows and be amazed at the intelligence of the puppet!  Oh, and yes Liberals I just called Obama a puppet, because when he is off script he has more oh’s and uuh’s than a Nevada whore house!

So if a couple of notes scribbled on Sarah’s palm makes her an idiot…I wonder what the people who are not paid $100,000.00 for showing up and giving a speech are?

Recently former NBA player Paul Shirley came under fire for blogging an open letter to the people of Haiti:

Dear Haitians –

First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.

As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it’s possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor? Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty-and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?

Sincerely,

The Rest of the World

Now this letter was part of a much larger article and really should be read within that context here.  However, the media and the Internet world hasn’t made much of an effort to do that and has instead sensationalized bits and pieces.  The cause of the day is Haiti and let me be absolutely clear, I am not in any way saying that we shouldn’t help the people of Haiti, however as we do so it should be done with our eyes open.

Ever hear the old saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”?  I admit that saying puzzled me for a long time, because how could good intentions have such a negative outcome?  As people, especially as Americans we like to help people, we have good intentions when we give the man on the street holding the sign a dollar, our motives are pure.  But let me ask you, what if that man on the corner used your dollar to buy drugs?  But you say, “Sure that can happen, but that wasn’t my intent”.  I understand that, but what if he not only used that dollar to buy drugs but he overdosed and died?  Again, your intent was that he buy food like his sign said, but you basically aided this guy in his demise.  You intended to help but your accomplishment was to kill that man.

We as Americans need to begin seeing things for what they are, not what we want them to be.  If you had a son who was 16 and you bought him a car and the same day he wrecked it and the next day you bought him another with the same result and over and over again this happened, how long would you continue to buy him cars?  Would you consider yourself a bad parent for not buying him another car?  Let’s say you are paying for your kid’s college and he keeps skipping classes because he doesn’t feel like going that day or he’s too hung over, how long would you continue to pay for his college?  Or your son likes video games, but every time his character dies, he throws the controller against the wall and breaks it, how many controllers are you willing to buy?

Haiti shares an island with the Dominican Republic and while Haiti managed to become the poorest country in the western hemisphere, the Dominican Republic has one of the fastest growing economies.  Haiti has one major import and that is charity dollars and their only export is illegal immigrants and that has been unchanged for decades.  No matter how much money we send these people through charity and through our tax dollars, they have had zero improvement, they are still at square one.

Right about now though you are thinking, “But Mark they had a 7.0 earthquake that’s not their fault!” and you would be absolutely right.  But you know I got to thinking, in 1989 San Francisco had a 7.0 earthquake too and you know the difference between San Francisco and Haiti?  About 149,932 deaths!  San Francisco had 68 people die and Haiti had 150,000 people die.  Why?  Because in spite of all of the billions of dollars that have been poured onto that island over the course of decades they have managed to remain screwed up.

Nobody, not even Paul Shirley is saying to not help Haiti.  What I am saying and what Paul said in a much less tactful way is, if we are going to help Haiti then we should demand some changes from them and their Government, because otherwise what is the point?  Here is an article from 2008 that talks about the people of Haiti eating cookies made from dirt.  And here you can see in this article that they are still eating dirt cookies.

The problem is that in 2008 alone we spent $83 million on family planning, reproductive health and AIDS prevention in Haiti.  We also spent $63.4 million on a police force, anti-corruption, fighting human trafficking and so on.  We also gave the UN over a billion in part to fund operations in Haiti which accounted for $98 million of that money.  Another $14 million in developmental assistance.    $200,000 in military assistance and $9 million in narcotics enforcement.  So that means in 2008 alone we gave about $267,200,000.00 to Haiti’s 9 million people and they are still eating dirt cookies!  (Source: Here)  That is just in official US aid to Haiti and does not include the millions of charity dollars and aid from other countries!

Our intent may be to help Haiti but if we just help them back into the situation they were in before the earthquake and in two years they are still eating dirt cookies, have we accomplished anything?

Much of Obama’s speech was the same ol’ same ol’, lots of blaming Bush and lots of completely empty promises that he knows he won’t have to abide by, but will simply blame Republicans for their failure.  This is why in no small part many of his “applause lines” fell flat and why it wasn’t until he was 676 words into the speech that he got his first applause.  So let’s jump into some points:

• Obama repeated the same old line, “If Republicans have ideas, let them bring them to the table” with regards to Obamacare.  However the fact is the Democrats simply locked Republicans and their ideas out of the room, crafted a bill and then accused the Republicans of being obstructionists.  This pattern has and will continue, because whatever type of Obamacare there is will never contain some of the key provisions that have been talked about since 2008 by Republicans such as allowing purchasing insurance across state lines and tort reform.
• With regards to lobbyists and special interests, these are well worn lines from his campaign that he immediately violated as soon as he began appointing staff.  The fact is the Unions are treating him like Kermit the Frog, (He is a puppet that their hand is inserted into).  This is the same guy who met with the Pharmaceutical industry before he rolled out Obamacare and cut a deal to prevent them from being critical.
• Obama’s calls for “bi-partisanship and a change in tone” are old and tired which he followed up with a “Democrats have the largest majority in decades” which was clearly a message that “We don’t need them”.  This is the same guy that when he met with the Republicans responded to their concerns with a “We won, so I get my agenda”.
• Then there are the wonderful, “Leave the past behind” line that he has said usually about three sentences after he blames all his problems on Bush.
• Where he really went over the top was his claims of killing more terrorists in 2009 than in 2008, when clearly there is not a shred of data to back up, at least that is not classified.
• There were throw away lines about ending the war in Iraq by the end of August, but there is no way possible that will happen and he knows it.  We will have troops in Iraq for many years to come, that is not going to change.
• With his claims of reducing nuclear arms the fact is Obama doesn’t have the will to disarm Iran or North Korea.  He can make all the claims of sanctions that he wants, but the fact is he doesn’t have the will nor the support to pull it off.
• Then there was the old gays in the Military bit.  Someday I will explain my stance in detail.
• Oh and then the “Equal pay” bit for women which is the same old table with not a leg to stand on.  The fact is women with the same time at a job as a man is in many cases likely to make more money.  The “Glass ceiling” bit is old and tired.
• Then there is the old, “Change” line that we all know is a bunch of bunk.
• But the line of the night was the idea that, “We all hated the bank bailouts” as if he had nothing at all to do with them.

So that is my analysis, it took much pain and I hope you appreciate it!  LOL