The Biggest Winners and Losers of 2012

No sooner had the haze cleared from the GOP’s 2012 train wreck than the hand-wringing began (yes, even by me) over the future of the Republican Party.

Faced with defeats in the Senate as well as the presidency, GOP leader Sen. John Cornyn called for “reflection and recalibration.”

“While some will want to blame one wing of the party over the other,” the Texas Republican said, “the reality is candidates from all corners of GOP lost tonight.”

The election’s impact extended far beyond the political arena, however.  Here are my lists of winners and losers, after the thousand slings and arrows of 2012.

BIG WINNERS

Health Insurance Companies

Shortly after the race was called for President Obama, America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, congratulated the incumbent and “members of Congress in both parties.”  Virtually no obstacle remains to the 2014 implementation of Obamacare, and millions of Americans will be required by their government to become customers of the insurance industry, which expects to reap a windfall.

Sen. Rob Portman

Ohio, Ohio, Ohio.  The GOP lost the state, but that might have been different if Mitt Romney had tapped the state’s popular Republican Senator Rob Portman.  The affable Portman helped Romney draw crowds there, and played the key role in prepping Romney for the debate that was Romney’s best moment.

Banks and Wall Street

Despite President Obama’s “tax the rich” rhetoric, banks and the investment community have reaped billions thanks to the cheap money policies promulgated by the Federal Reserve.  True, Wall Street is nervous about the fiscal cliff, as reflected in the market selloff the day after Obama won.  But the too-big-to-fail banks are bigger than ever, and Wall Street has enjoyed record profits in this stimulus-happy of deficit spending.

Hillary Clinton

The first call Obama placed after Mitt Romney conceded was to thank Bill Clinton for his support.  Due in part to husband Bill, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton now has so many chips to call in across the Democratic Party, she has to be considered the inside favorite for the Democratic nomination is 2016.  Even gaffe-machine Joe Biden probably couldn’t stop her.

House Speaker John Boehner

Boehner is the No. 1 GOP leader left standing on Capitol Hill.  There were worries that the Republicans might lose control of the House but, despite the Democrats’ onslaught, they kept a solid majority.  His Senate counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell, lost a golden opportunity to gain ground in the Senate.  If Obama wants a bipartisan legacy, he’ll have to do business with Boehner.

China

The rising nation’s communist leaders were among the first to congratulate President Obama, and why not?  After all, Romney had promised to label them “currency manipulators” in his first day in office.  Under Obama, with trillion-dollar deficits projected for as far as the eye can see, they can rest assured that America’s fiscal solvency will continue to spiral downhill.

Marco Rubio

Being passed over as Mitt Romney’s running mate was probably a blessing in disguise for Rubio, the inspirational junior senator from Florida.  He served up a rousing speech at the party’s national convention and established himself as a rising star in the GOP.  By grabbing 69 percent of the Hispanic vote Obama exposed Republicans’ vulnerability with that demographic. Rubio, a bilingual Cuban-American, is uniquely positioned to hone his party’s appeal to Latinos.

Jeb Bush

After Obama captured an eye-popping 69 percent of the Hispanic vote, the former Florida governor is arguably the most Latino-friendly Republican on the national scene.  A bona fide conservative, he also had demonstrated a willingness to challenge his party’s orthodoxy.  Footnote:  There is no path to a GOP presidency without Florida.

BIGGEST LOSERS

Sen. Mitch McConnell

When the cycle began, it looked like the senior senator from Kentucky could soon be sizing the drapes in the majority leader’s office.  Now, Republicans remain stuck in the minority and McConnell has to worry about winning re-election in 2014.  He’ll be fortunate to avoid a serious grass-roots challenge in the primary.

The Tea Parties

The tea party activists were unable to help Romney carry Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, or Ohio, raising inevitable questions about their ongoing influence.  Party insiders and operatives, moreover, will not soon forget the Senate losses in Indiana (Richard Mourdock) and Missouri (Todd Akin).

Super PACs

After all the talk by Democrats that billionaires would use the super PACs to buy the election, it is not clear what difference they actually made.  Republican PACs spent an estimated $355 million, compared to $272 million for Democrats.  Next time, well-heeled donors may think twice before opening their wallets, considering the results.

Scott Brown

The Massachusetts Republican headed to D.C. after capturing the seat of the late liberal lion Ted Kennedy.  But despite Brown’s moderate positions and willingness to cross the aisle, Massachusetts’ rising blue tide ultimately proved too much to defeat liberal darling Elizabeth Warren.

The American Voter

The voters’ choice to keep Obama in the White House, combined with GOP control of the House, basically assures four more years of gridlock in Washington.  Nor can Obama claim a mandate, given his difference to actually offering a second-term agenda.

Chris Christie

The New Jersey governor’s election-eve embrace of Obama probably helped his cause in his own state.  But it will complicate any bid for national office.  And Romney’s example shows, his tacking to the right in the GOP primary then back to center in the general election is too much for moderate from the Northeast corridor to survive.

The President Should Speak Up For Israel Now

Today, as I write, Israel is under attack once again.  So why should we Americans even care?  Should the U.S. officially change its policy on Israel?  After all, this is something President Obama has unofficially been doing for years.  So does it really matter?

In a New York Times interview published on Sept. 23, the new president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, makes his demand for a change in U.S. foreign policy if Egypt is to have a friendly relationship with the U.S. He states that the U.S. would have to give up "supporting Israel over the Palestinians."

President Morsi, in effect, was echoing the position of people in the Arab world: The U.S. must end its close relationship with Israel to have peace with them, a relationship that every president since Harry Truman supported.

When the U.S. became the mediator between the state of Israel and the PLO, created by Yasser Arafat, the Palestinians recognized the existence of that special relationship.

Notwithstanding its existence, they readily agreed to have the U.S. chair the negotiations. They and the Arab states knew that only the U.S. could get Israel to make concessions affecting its security when it was facing hostile Arab populations and Arab and Iranian armed forces vastly larger than its own that are at war with Israel. At the time the PLO had clauses in its charter calling for the total destruction of the state of Israel.

Those relevant clauses were ultimately revoked by the PLO and Yasser Arafat, but they remain today in the Charter of Hamas which governs Gaza which is the very source of today’s attacks.  The latter has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., the European Union, the United Nations and Russia. It hopes one day to defeat the Fatah Party and its leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Abbas) in a general election to be held in both Gaza and the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority knows that only with the assistance of the U.S. would it be possible to achieve a final accord with Israel, because no other nation could induce Israel to accept an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza threatening its very existence.

Only the U.S. could provide the security assurances Israel needs to take the chance of allowing a Palestinian state to be created. Hamas defeated Fatah in an election in Gaza and then expelled Fatah from Gaza, leaving itself in sole control of Gaza.

In its position of mediator, the U.S. has demanded that Hamas revoke its charter demanding the elimination of Israel, give up violence, and accept all agreements previously entered into by Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It refuses to do so.

If President Morsi has his way, the U.S. would no longer be Israel's ally. If the Palestinian Authority were asked would it prefer the U.S. to abandon its efforts to establish peace and a final accord between the parties or continue to assist the parties as mediator while maintaining its alliance with Israel, I have no doubt that it would opt for the latter.

In the Times interview, President Morsi said:

"If you want to judge the performance of the Egyptian people by the standards of German or Chinese or American culture, then there is no room for judgment. When the Egyptians decide something, probably it is not appropriate for the U.S. When the Americans decide something, this, of course, is not appropriate for Egypt."

He and other Islamists, who believe in the use of terrorism to achieve their goals, demand that western civilization accept the Muslim philosophy that blasphemy, e.g., defaming the Prophet Muhammad, allows for deaths not only of Muslims but of others in western countries as well.

When the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten created cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in September 2005, it caused violent demonstrations in the Muslim world, ending in 100 deaths and the bombing and burning of Danish embassies in some Muslim countries.

Then there was the Fatwah or death warrant demanding the death of Salman Rushdie who wrote a book deemed by Muslim clergy to be blasphemous. More recently a Christian girl in Pakistan, whose job it is to sweep trash, was found with a burned Koran.

She has been charged with blasphemy. Many more situations exist where Muslim mobs rioted and in some cases killed to punish blasphemy, including episodes involving American soldiers in Afghanistan.

While Muslim countries have the right to impose their laws and mores upon their own citizens, they do not have the right to impose them on others. We in the U.S. and other western countries treasure the right of free speech.

Our relationship with Egypt has clearly changed. As President Obama has said, it is no longer an ally. Our relationship henceforth should depend on what they do with each passing day as it relates to the interests of the U.S. Any financial support we give them should be conditioned upon their actions.

In his first foray into foreign affairs, President Obama delivered a speech in Cairo in June 2009 in which he sought a new beginning with the Arab world, "based on mutual interest and mutual respect."

The recent events in Egypt, including the election of an Islamist president, a leader of the Muslim brotherhood, and the sacking of the American embassy in Cairo, etc., have demonstrated the futility of his approach. President Obama should acknowledge this failure.

For the U.S. the concept of free speech covers the rude, crude, false and the blasphemous. Our response to that which offends us is to criticize but not to prohibit or seek by violence to deter.

We will not surrender our most precious and fundamental right to those Islamists and others opposed to those democratic liberties who threaten us with violence and death if we don't surrender.

We now know that the Islamists in the Muslim world who rioted, alleging as the reason the video made by an American provocateur which blasphemed Muhammad, were simply using the video as a pretext. Their intention was to celebrate the catastrophe of 9/11 by other acts of terrorism on the anniversary date of the original infamous act.

I believe the hostility of Egypt's president and government toward the U.S. is also the result of a decision by Egypt to recapture from Turkey the leadership of the Muslim world which it once enjoyed and was usurped by Turkey when it became Islamist and aggressively hostile to Israel.

Will we have the resolve to stand up and protect the lifestyles and mores of western civilization now under attack by the Islamists in a war that can and will probably last for decades or will we ultimately surrender? I believe we will fight for our freedoms as we did in World War II and once again prevail.

Was Tuesday's Vote a Vote For Slavery?

I feel this most recent election will go down in history as the first time a majority of Americans voted based not on which candidate would be best for the country.  But instead they vote base on which candidate would give them the most free stuff.  Unfortunately, those very voters have no idea what they have to give up in order receiving their free stuff.

The old adage “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” rings true because of five primary factors:

• Although a free lunch is offered with the enticing promise of “something for nothing,” ulterior motives too often lurk in the background.

• While someone else might pay the monetary cost of our meal, we always pay with our time, which is the most valuable commodity we own.

• The giver nearly always wants something from us in return – perhaps just simple conversation, but more often than not, commitment to the giver’s cause, whatever that cause may be.

• By accepting a free lunch, we also accept an implied expectation of reciprocation – of giving back at some future point in time.

• Repeated acceptance of free lunches builds a lingering dependency upon, and consequential firmer commitment to, the lunch giver.

By accepting free lunches, we trade independence for dependence on and commitment to another, or, in the extreme case, freedom for slavery.

Political entitlements, such as government bailouts, health care safety nets or government pensions not directly tied to our personal contributions, are like free lunches. Each comes draped in the alluring promise of “something for nothing,” but requires the ultimate sacrifice of personal freedom.

Does this sound harsh? How can we equate acceptance of a payout from government to yielding to personal slavery? How can the government entitlements be as onerous as pre-civil ware slavery?

Accepting free lunches over a period of time instills a feeling of entitlement or inherent claim to something in the recipient. Once that feeling of entitlement becomes ingrained, enslavement kicks in. Dependence on the giver replaces independence in the recipient. Freedom is traded for slavery as surely as opiate addiction overcomes personal choice.

Accepting government handouts over a period of time has a similar effect. Politicians and the government institutions they control always want something in return for handouts or entitlements, including votes, political support and control.

For example, federal grants to states for education always come with explicit control over how states operate educational programs. Federal bailouts of private enterprise always come with federal control over corporate operations. Government grants to students come with an implied expectation of political support for the sponsors of such legislation. In each case, the receiving institutions or individuals trade independence for external control, freedom for slavery.

But a more insidious consequence is the personal slavery that emerges when individuals progressively accept and become dependent on government entitlements as an essential part of their personal lives. Too often, easy money from government programs dulls personal motivation, reduces sense of opportunity, limits the drive to personal economic independence and mires recipients in a hopeless spiral of dependence. The implied “security” of government aid allows economic and emotional slavery to replace personal independence and freedom.

In the United States, years of government largess has progressively built an entitlement culture, a culture of slavery to the government. Personal freedom and independence have, for many people, been traded for the false sense of security promised by the recurring free lunch. 

Capitalizing on this pervasive expectation of something for nothing, politicians promise more and more in the form of pork barrel spending, government bailouts, and health care reform, knowing that if citizens are willing to trade personal independence and freedom for dependence on the government and consequential slavery, political objectives of power and control are easily within reach.

We must not stand by and allow the freedoms we enjoy be progressively eroded by the accelerating threat of entitlement slavery. As surely as our nation of freedom fought to break the chains of black slavery, we must fight to break the insidious bonds of entitlement slavery that threatens the very foundation of our free society. We must be willing to say “No more free lunches for us, thank you.” We must raise our voices in an articulate and resolute war of words to stop the downward spiral of our precious free society into the slavery of government entitlements.

But sadly, based on last Tuesday’s voting I feel it may already be too late.

The American People Deserve Better Than This Campaign

As we are fast approaching elation day, I can’t help but think the ramifications of one of the most hard-fought, expensive campaigns in American political history will continue to reverberate.

First and foremost, the real issues facing the country went largely unaddressed during this campaign.

While President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney are locked in an arduous struggle replete with vicious negative ads, neither candidate has offered a coherent and comprehensive plan to address the debt, the deficit and unemployment.

Representative Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate, has developed his own budget and entitlement-reform proposals.  But it is not clear how either ticket will deal with the large scale fiscal challenges facing this nation, which are bringing us to the brink of financial collapse.

In fact, the most important issue facing the country – how to create jobs and reduce unemployment – has barely been addressed at all.

Unemployment (which was over 8 percent for 43 months and remains at 7.8 percent today) did not disqualify President Obama from re-election, notwithstanding the economic pain that Americans are currently feeling, and will continue to feel, once the dust has settled after November 6^th.  But what is also clear is that the American people’s dissatisfaction with the political and economic situation in our country has gotten worse, not better.  Satisfaction with Congress is at or below record lows with only about 10 percent approval.

The federal government and the political class in Washington have ongoing and, I dare say, record credibility problems with an increasingly cynical electorate.

To be sure, we saw the power of the presidency in the general election.  In both the primaries and general election, we saw the rise of powerful super PACs, political action committees funded by very wealthy individuals either directly or anonymously.  These committees have demonstrated the ability to sway the political dialog.

We also saw the power of the media to drive a narrative – whether that narrative touted Romney’s nomination as inevitable or, more recently, in pushing the story that Obama was leading substantially throughout the last several months.

This account cam complete with polls that appeared to overestimate the incumbent’s advantage.

What is probably clearest about this election is that although the campaign has further polarized the electorate, and the critical issues facing this nation have been largely glossed over the enduring confidence of the American people remains strong.

It is now time to turn to the crises that face our county.  Domestically, our fiscal situation must be addressed.  The current pace of spending is unsustainable.  A consensus must be reached – and FAST – to avoid further spiraling debt.  Internationally, the threats from Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida continue to loom large.  This will be a pivotal year for Afghanistan, as we wind down our presence there.

Despite those challenges, my hope in the months ahead is that the extraordinarily resilient nature of the American people will become as evident to our leaders as they are to everyone else.

Obama's Redistribution Won't Work

A recently discovered tape in which Barak Obama said back in 1998 that he believes in wealth redistribution may serve a useful purpose – if it gets people to think about what the consequences for redistribution are.  History is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty.

The communist nations were a classic example.  In theory, confiscating the wealth of the more successful people ought to make the rest of society more prosperous.  But, when the Soviet Union confiscated the wealth of successful farmers, food became scarce.

As many people died of starvation under Stalin in the 1930s as died in Hitler’s Holocaust in the 1940s.  You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment.

You cannot confiscate future wealth – and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated.  And unlike farmers, industrialists are tied to the land in a particular country.  Financiers are even less tied down, vast sums of money can be dispatched electronically to any part of the world.

If confiscatory policies can produce counterproductive repercussions in a dictatorship, they are even harder to carry out in a democracy.  A dictatorship can suddenly swoop down and grab whatever it wants.  But a democracy must first have public discussions and debates.

Those who are targeted for confiscation can see the handwriting on the wall, and act accordingly.

When successful people with much human capital leave the country, either voluntarily or because of hostile governments, damage can be done to the economy they leave behind.  We have all heard the old saying that giving a man a fish feeds him only for a day, while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime.

Redistributionists give him a fish and leave him dependent on the government for future fish.  If redistributionists were serious, what they would want to distribute is the ability to be productive in other ways.

Knowledge is one of the few things that can be distributed to people without reducing the amount held by others.  That would better serve the interests of the poor, but it would not serve the interests of politicians who want to exercise power, and to get the votes of people who are dependent on them.

The Rush to Judge

I have read tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of words on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, the South Florida teenager whose shooting death about a month ago at the hands of a self-appointed neighborhood watch volunteer has become a national symbol of continuing American racism.  But in all those words, there are three that I have not seen that seem worth remembering to me:  Duke lacrosse team.

In 2006, the phrase “Duke lacrosse team” was seething shorthand for the evocation of racial power and privilege, the everybody-knows-it-truism that to be whiter and wealthy was a license to rape and plunder other races, the moral certainty that for all our cheap rhetoric to the contrary, millennial America was really just 1955 Mississippi dressed up with an affirmative action program or two.

A young black stripper told police that, at a drunken party thrown by captains of the nearly all-white Duke lacrosse team, she was choked, raped and sodomized for 30 minutes by three players.  Rich white-boy jocks despoil poor black girl working her way through college.  A building-full of progressive sociologists working around the clock for a week could not have come up with a story that pushed more hot buttons on race, gender and wealth.  Overnight, the stripper’s story turned from accusation to the national common wisdom.

Mobs swarmed around the home of the lacrosse players, banging pots and pans.  Wanted posters bearing the names and photos of 40 players were posted around campus.  The team’s games were canceled, its coach fired.

Any attempt by the lacrosse players to defend themselves became further evidence of their guilt.  When the players said they wanted to consult with attorneys before complying with a police request for DNA samples, cable news’ video lynchmistress Nancy Grace was incredulous.  “You’re kidding, right?” she squawked, adding that their house ought to be burned down.

The string-‘em-all-up-let-God-sort-‘em-out approach was by no means restricted to the perpetually belligerent Grace.  Selena Roberts, now with Sports Illustrated but then a New York Times columnist, said that the refusal of the players to identify the rapists among their ranks was “a conspiracy of silence.”  The possibility that there were no rapists was, well, impossible, for “the intersection of entitlement and enablement, there is Duke University, virtuous on the outside, debauched in the inside.”

Even Duke’s own faculty scoffed at the idea that anybody needed to wait for judicial due process.  “We’re turning up the volume,” 88 professors wrote in a letter to the student newspaper.  “To the students speaking individually and to the protestors making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and making yourselves heard.”

By not waiting, they also made themselves look like fools.  In the courtroom, where evidence counted for more than righteous outrage and political hay, the case against the lascross players was non-existent.  Traces of the DNA of several men were found on the stripper’s body, but not one of them matched to a member of the Duke team.  A second stripper at the party said the two women were together for all but about five minutes of the evening and she didn’t see any rape.  Time-stamped photos showed that the stripper was already scratched and bruised when she arrived at the house.

When the charges were finally dropped a year later, North Carolina’s attorney general took the unusual step of saying that the players were not merely not guilty, but actually innocent, the victims of a “tragic rush to accuse.”  The cases prosecutor was dismissed, disbarred and jailed for his outrageous misconduct.

Six years later, we may be leading another tragic rush to accuse in the Trayvon Martin case.  The 28-year-old man who shot Martin, George Zimmerman, has already been convicted in public opinion inflamed by political quacks and hacks and race huckster Al Sharpton, who see America as a seething mass of homicidal racism.  “I only want one thing,” said U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., last week.  “It’s real simple: I want an arrest.”

Based on what?  Not a single shred of evidence to surface publicly contradicts Zimmerman’s story – that he was trying to follow Martin, who confronted him, jumped him and then began ganging his head on the ground.  The only witness to their struggle who’s come forward supported Zimmerman’s account in an interview with a Tampa TV station.

He could be lying, of course, or mistaken.  And there may be other witnesses who will testify differently.  I have no idea what happened that night.  I was not there.  And, neither were you.  And, neither was Jesse Jackson, who last week explained that Martin was shot because “killing us is big business.”  You remember Jesse.  He’s the one who said the Duke lacrosse players were just acting out “the special fantasies and realities of exploitation.”  Even when they weren’t.

Obama's Oil Lie

President Barack Obama has repeatedly and deliberately embarrassed himself by lying about America’s petroleum resources. He loves to tell audiences that we need to invest billions in “green” energy because we only have 2% of the world’s oil reserves, and consume 20% of the oil. I just to call Obama on this misrepresentation. His fibbing has been so persistent that even the Washington Post has called him on it. “Reserves” in the United States (unlike other countries) include only petroleum that can profitably be recovered at current prices, and that it is legal to develop under existing laws and regulations. So Obama’s reasoning is circular: if we opened up ANWR, for example, to drilling, our “reserves” would expand dramatically, overnight.

But despite the fact that everyone who is at all knowledgeable about energy knows he is lying, President Obama did it again only yesterday. Speaking at the Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility in Boulder City, Nevada, Obama claimed that enormous “green” energy development is a must because the U.S. has “only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves.” The man is absolutely shameless.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Jay Carney railed against the House Republicans’ budget yesterday, claiming that “Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and the Republicans who support his budget plan are ‘aggressively and deliberately ignorant’ when it comes to the need to invest in clean energy.” Actually, it is Obama and his minions who are “aggressively and deliberately ignorant” when it comes to America’s petroleum resources. As always, they count on the voters to be ignorant, too.

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2012/03/diagramming-president-obamas-oil-lies.html

I Dread Those Pushy Baseball Parents

As I prepare for a new season of coaching youth baseball, I thought I would take a break from writing about the politics of the day and write about something every youth baseball coach dreads:  the pushy baseball parent.

If you answer yes to any of the following questions, you may be a pushy baseball parent:

Does your kid has a personal trainer and he is not in high school yet?
Does he go to private lessons more than once a week?
Has he had an arm injury before his 12th birthday?
Is your travel baseball budget over $5,000 a year?
Have you missed a family reunion to go to games instead?
Do you have punishment for missing practice before the age of 12?
Have you ever lost sleep because of a child’s game?
Do you have a plan for his college recruitment before he's in high school?
Do you think you are going to make sure he gets the chance you never had?
Do you have pitch charts on your child?
Have you quit a team because you were not getting in the game?
Have you started a travel team so your kid could be the star?
Are you going to decide where he goes to school based on baseball?
Have you verbally abused an opponent or an umpire?
Did you change jobs because it interfered with a team’s schedule?
Are you planning to start school later to improve chances of being in the upper age limits for baseball?
Have you ever got in a fight with another parent, coach or umpire at a game?
Have you ever yelled at another adult, or worse a kid under the age of 18, while he was umpiring a game?

I know nobody reading this would ever say yes to any of those questions, right? But, I'm sure you know someone who would.

I have heard some parents say things like, "My 10 year old has a dream of playing in the Big Leagues and he is so focused that nothing will stop him.  We train 4 hours per day and he's going to play 120 games this year." But, your son doesn't want that. Do you know how I know your 10 year old doesn't want to train 4 hours per day and play 120 games?  I know because he is 10!

He probably picks his nose when you're not looking and loves fart jokes. If you allowed him he would eat cookies, ice cream and soda at every meal. He should. He's 10!

Your son doesn't want what you want. He wants you! All your child wants is approval, praise, and love from you as a parent.

Too many people mistake their kids desire to please them with their interest in sports. He's trying to connect with you. You could be doing anything with him. It is not about sports.

Try this every now and again:

Take him out for ice cream.
Ask him what else he thinks is cool.
Go for a jog or a walk together.
Try learning a new skill together.
Do silly things to make your son laugh.
Go see a move together.
Try and eat a whole pizza together.
Go volunteer to help the needy together.
Take him to the mall, give him $20 and tell him to buy something for his mom.
Play video games with him.

And, if you said “yes” to any of the above questions, you absolutely must to the following: Look your son in the eyes every day and tell him you love them and give him a hug!

There's only been about 15,000 Major League Baseball players in the history of the game, odds are your son will never be one of them. You will never manufacture your child’s ability.

You could be playing with a very dangerous and fragile thing: your child’s self-worth. For every kid that gets a Division One scholarship or gets drafted by a professional baseball team, there are hundreds who wind up hating and resenting their parents for pushing them so hard in sports.

Am I saying you should not work hard for your goals? No, you should teach your child to set goals and to go for them with everything they have. But, there has to be a balance.

You have to be the voice of reason. You're the adult. Act like it. Your child playing 100 games a year is not going to make him a professional player or a division one prospect. He's more likely to burn out, wind up hating you. And you could put him in a situation where he quits altogether.

Yogi Berra did not play a single organized game of baseball until he was 17.

Your son is going to grow up to be a husband, father, have a career and maybe become a leader. What kind of man is he going to be? Don't screw him up! All your son wants is love. He's your son,give it to him!

The President vs. the Supremes

President Barack Obama has all but declared war on the United States Supreme Court.

Like most U.S. presidents who chafe under the high court’s authority to rule on their agendas, Obama is unhappy with the court’s failure to recognize the divinity of his proposals, if not that of his personhood.

The president’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was correctly overruled in a case involving religious freedom.  The court clearly stated that the First Amendment protects churches in their decisions regarding workers with religious duties.  The exception had already been supported by lower courts and many states.

Soon the issue before the court will be Obama’s healthcare program, rammed through Congress despite the widespread opinion that it was an opening to national socialized medicine.  A ruling is expected by July.  The question is whether the Constitution’s Commerce Clause can be stretched to reach into everyone’s pocketbook with the Obamacare mandate.

The notorious failings of Britain’s socialized medicine have not failed to diminish the hopes and plans of our own fans of socialized everything – of a government so big and so powerful that nothing can resist its meddlesome reach.

That is a lesson Obama has yet to learn.  If he doesn’t learn his lesson by July, he will certainly learn it in November.

The GOP Key to Victory: Millennials

If the Republican Party is to have a success this year, I believe its biggest key will be reaching out to the millennial generation. Millennials are one of the largest age groups in America today, numbering approximately 78 million, almost as many as the Baby Boomers (80 million) and 32 million more than my generation of Gen. Xers (ages 30-45).

Ronald Reagan brought an entire generation of young voters into the Republican Party during the 1980s, which largely contributed to his landslide victories in 1980 and 1984. Ironically, he was one of the oldest and most conservative candidates of modern times, yet was able to tap into the age 18 to 29 age group as one of the greatest communicators of the 20th century.  Young people want a bright future and want to believe or at least hope that tomorrow will be better than today. This is where Reagan excelled and where Obama was able to capitalize in 2008. The difference, though, was that things did get better during Reagan’s tenure in the White House. The economy, unemployment, and business have yet to turn around under Obama’s first term. Today’s millennials are graduating college in debt and fearing there won’t be any jobs waiting for them in the workforce, fearing that they’ll be living with less than their parents did.

Millennials have been hit worse by the Great Recession than any other age group.  37% of millinials are unemployed or underemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The College Republican National Committee is aware of this, and has been looking to capitalize with an ad entitled, "What is Your Plan."  The ad uses the president’s own words against him, claiming Obama is “losing the future.” The ad has been run during sportscasts, reality TV shows, and the late-night comedy programs popular with younger people.

Regardless of what some of today’s far-right conservatives may think, Reagan also understood that elections are won by addition, not subtraction. He practiced the politics of inclusion, not exclusion. He took his message of freedom, individual choice, and less government to anyone and any group who would listen. He never tried to exclude anyone from his coalition.  That will also resonate well with today’s millennials, who are more pragmatic than ideological. More millennials identify themselves as moderate (40%) than as liberal (29%) or conservative (28%). They are the most diverse and least traditional generation in America. They are 39% are non-white, have the highest number of single-parent households, and are the least affiliated with organized religion. Divisive social issues will not win over this demographic. The Republicans needs to stay focused on job creation, entitlement reform, education, and the economy in 2012.

Center-right candidates like Mitt Romney understand this and are keeping their campaigns focused on the economy and jobs, without signing pledges that bring attention to religious or social issues. Another Republican who, like Reagan, shows age doesn’t necessarily turn off youth support is Ron Paul. In fact, a Gallup Polls shows Paul’s support goes down the older the voter is. Paul’s libertarian leanings and stances of small government, anti-interventionist foreign policy, and adherence to an originalist interpretation of the Constitution seem to be finding lots of support among the millennial generation.

But whatever it is that millennials find attractive, Republicans will find a very receptive audience among them in this election willing to at least listen to what solutions they have to offer in this sluggish post-recession recovery (or lack thereof). What millennials are interested in most of all is job opportunities, education reform, and long-term solvency for entitlements so that they’re still around when they eligible for them.

Will the President Double Down on Gas Prices?

Here we go again. Gasoline prices are rising rapidly and already have shattered the $4-a-gallon mark in California. Industry analysts say the all-time national average record of $4.11 could be shattered this summer. Some stations in Los Angeles are charging $4.93. Americans hired Barack Obama in 2008 partly in hope of finding relief from that summer’s pain at the pump. As the agony returns, voters could be primed by November to pull the lever for anybody but the current President.

The Golden State has the unwelcome distinction of having the nation’s highest gas prices, having reached $4.03 on Presidents Day, according the AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Though the national average was $3.56, the California price jumped 18.9 cents in just the past week. Alaska, Florida and traditionally pricey states in the Northeast are not far behind. The standard rule is that each penny increase sucks about $1 billion out of the economy, so the financial impact will be felt from coast to coast.

This latest gas-price jolt is predictable. President Obama has done much to impede the supply of petroleum products to consumers. Most particularly, he exploited the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an excuse to clamp down on oil drilling in the Gulf and also along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Last week, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed an energy bill by a vote of 237-187 that would reverse President Obama’s recent decision to block construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. With his December announcement to delay a final ruling on the project until 2013, President Obama, as a favor to his radical anti-business political base, passed up an opportunity to create an estimated 20,000 construction jobs. The House bill grants pipeline developer TransCanada a permit to proceed with the project and allows for expanded oil drilling in offshore reservoirs and in the protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sticks to his usual script, he’ll prevent the upper chamber from even voting on the measure, saving the president from the embarrassment of vetoing an economy-boosting measure in an election year. Additionally, fellow Democratic senators can be expected to reiterate support for the president’s move to end tax breaks for the oil industry. Don’t be surprised if they also call for hearings to probe “price-fixing” by oil executives as the pain at the pump inevitably increases.

President Obama would be wise to make a virtue of necessity and orchestrate Senate passage of the energy bill. By signing it, he could win back erstwhile supporters disillusioned with his economy-crippling leadership.

More likely, though, the President will simply double down on class-warfare rhetoric about the oil industry needing to pay its “fair share” in hopes of diverting attention from the growing gas-price crunch. Promises of hope and change won’t smooth the campaign trail for the president this time around. If gas prices continue their upward trajectory until Election Day, voters are likely to look to a new leader to heal their wounded wallets.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/obamas-rising-gas-prices-problem/2012/02/01/gIQAA3mQRR_blog.html

Does the GOP Deserve to Win?

They say they are all Reaganites and that they want President Reagan to return – President Reagan, who lived by his so-called 11^th Commandment that no Republican should speak ill of another Republican.

Reagan understood that Republicans can always win when they are united.  They have a message the voters understand and support.  Republicans can beat Barack Obama and his socialist message if they are unified, but if Republicans are divided and broadcasting a confusing message – which is what Obama craves – it will help him win another four years in the White House.

Every time the GOP picks a candidate with weak Republican convictions, the Republican Party loses.  And lose they should.  A party that will not defend its principles doesn’t deserve to win.

Do We Have a Two-Party System in America Today?

Do we have a two-party system in America today?  I think not.  We have one Big Government Party.  It has a Republican wing that prefers war, deficits, assaults on civil liberties, and corporate welfare; and a Democrat wing that prefers war, taxes, assaults on commercial liberties and individual welfare.  Neither wing is devoted to the Constitution, and the members of both wings openly mock it.  Will the Tea Party Republicans be devoured by the Big Government Republicans?  I hope not; but I fear so.

My fear is based on the truism that in America, people go into government in order to utilize its powers to tell others how to live their lives.  Very few persons go into government in order to shrink and to restrain the government.

Government in America today is not logic or reason, it is not fidelity to the Constitution, and it is not compliance with the Rule of Law:  Rather, it is force.  Government today steals liberty and property in the name of safety.  It restricts you ability to express yourself, to defend yourself, to be yourself; and it uses fear to keep people submissive.  Government rejects its moral obligation, insulates itself from litigation, breaks its own laws, makes its own rules, declares worthless paper to be money, and then devalues even that.  Government will not hesitate to use force upon those who challenge it.  Government has made it unlawful to resist its uses of force even when those uses are patently and unconditionally wrong.

However, there are stirrings in the land that enough is enough.  Wise folks are buying guns and gold.  States are blatantly telling the federal government that they simply cannot and shall not obey federal commands that they cannot afford or are not grounded in the Constitution.  Even many police have taken oaths to disobey the orders of their superiors when those orders violate constitutional guarantees.  And many thinking Americans – though apparently not the flying public – have seen through the Federal Government’s false promises of safety though greater control of our daily lives.

The government’s sole moral obligation is to preserve freedom.  And freedom is the unfettered ability to choose to follow your own conscience and free will, not that of someone in the government.  If the government keeps us safe but not free, the government will have become tyrannical and will be as illegitimate as was the government of King George III in 1776.  And it will be time for it to go.

It has been almost 240 years since last we dispatched tyranny from America.  Is that spirit that animated the Founders in 1776 still alive?  Are there those among us who unambiguously declare that liberty trumps safely?  Is life so sweet and peace so dear that we would prefer to live as slaves rather than risk perishing for freedom?

Obama's State of the Union Was Meant to Divide Not Unite

If you were looking for something new during President Obama's State of the Union address last week, you hopefully weren't holding your breath. While it was delivered with some of the best oratorical skills of any President, the actual substance of his address was thin and the promises regurgitated.

The President began by praising the military for capturing Osama Bin Laden, a smart move and one the entire country - especially Navy SEAL Team Six, which executed the mission - should be proud of. He then went on to use the military's "team" approach as an example for the rest of us: "At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they [the military] exceed all expectations. They're not consumed with personal ambition. They don't obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand."

While it was smart for Obama to try and compare his political fortunes to those of the military, the comparison is faulty, even if it is just a metaphor to serve his political purposes. The country is deeply divided on its path, while the military undertakes clearly-articulated orders. Our government is built on the democratic process, not a top-down command structure. That's the difference he seems to have ignored.

But Obama sees himself as commander who has put forth his plan and expects us all to line up behind it. From green energy to taxes on the rich, he appears to want us to faithfully execute his vision. Never mind that while our military can claim plenty of successes (but rarely mentions them), Obama has lost most of his fights. And those that he won - like Obamacare - were not even worth mentioning on Tuesday night. That made it so much harder to see him as the leader behind whom the rest of the nation will march.

A unity message - of which this was some version - was more believable in 2008, when Obama made it a hallmark of his campaign, since he didn't have a record to run on. At that time, there was very little class warfare rhetoric in his stump speeches. Sure, one meeting with a voter who famously came to be known as Joe the Plumber revealed the President's views on how "spreading the wealth around" is good, but wealth redistribution wasn't the defining issue it has become for Obama this time around.

The crux of what the President was pushing last week was designed to divide, not unite, and was peppered with class warfare, which breeds envy and sows discord. While the message of everyone paying his or her fair share sounds fair on its face, it means that in order to get income equality some must be punished for having amassed wealth. More specifically, successful capitalists Mitt Romney - who has taken a beating for his Bain Capital career - should be taxed at a much higher rate, even though they already contribute plenty to our tax rolls.

Tuesday night kicked off the campaign season in the most political of ways. So when the President talks about coming together with a speech that pulls people apart, bookended by praise for the military, be wary. As Obama himself said, "Simple recognition won't usher in a new era of cooperation. What comes of this moment is up to us." The "us" includes the President, not just the voters who he expects to fall in line with his one-sided battle plan for the nation.

Obama: The Last Great Marxist

“Whether you like it or not, history is on our side.   We will bury you,” Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev declared when addressing Western ambassadors at a reception at the Polish Embassy in Moscow in 1956.

This was an assertion of the Marxist contention that capitalism as a system would collapse and be replaced by socialism.  By this philosophy, wealthy people exploit the working class, and the capitalist system must be replaced by a socialist government that would redistribute wealth.

If that philosophy sounds familiar, it’s the approach taken by President Barack Obama and the Occupy Wall Street movement he has embraced.  At every turn, Obama demonizes those who have achieved financial success.

“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Obama told Joe the Plumber.  In a radio interview, Obama expressed regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t engaged in “wealth redistribution.”

When talking about financial regulatory reform in April 2010, Obama said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”  Many find it difficult to understand how Obama could hold that worldview.  On Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly often asks guests how Obama, if he wants to be re-elected, can cling to failed economic policies.

For the answer, look to the fact that the Soviets clung to communism despite its obvious economic failure.  Like the Democrats who want to provide coverage for all Americans, the Soviets flattered themselves by saying they had good intentions.  They reasoned that if the government ran everything and distributed wealth equally, everyone would be happy.

But under their government-run economy, Soviets had no incentive to work hard.  The government paid their salaries regardless.  Eventually, the system collapsed.

Obama’s class warfare campaign strategy ignores the fact that nearly three years after he took office, he is the reason for increasing joblessness that has jumped to 49.4 percent for black youths.

Rather than encouraging business, he vilifies it.  Rather than making it easier for companies to grow, he has made it more difficult by creating uncertainty about the extra costs imposed by Obamacare, future taxation, and a myriad of new regulations.

Rather than spurring economic activity by cutting spending and the nation’s deficit, Obama has increased the national debt by $4.2 trillion.

By its nature, capitalism produces inequality in income and wealth.  In general, those who strive to achieve – think of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, or Warren Buffett – do better under capitalism than those who do not.

Obama rejects this underlying premise of the capitalist system that is a key to this country’s success.  At the same time, he disses Americans for being “a little bit lazy” over pursuing foreign investments and for having “lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do things that built the Golden Gate Bridge.”

In the past, his comment about “bitter” small-town voters who “cling” to their faith, along with their guns, and their “antipathy to people who aren’t like them,” suggests just how much disdain he has for a large segment of Americans.

Like his self-described mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama appears to despise America.  On the Sunday following 9/11, Wright characterized the terrorist attacks as a consequence of violent American policies. Wright said America created the AIDS virus to kill off blacks.

“We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty,” Wright has said.  Like Wright, the Occupy Wall Street protestors fundamentally hate America, ignoring the fact that as it is, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid more than one-third of all federal individual income taxes in 2009.  Wall Street protesters reflect Obama’s anti-capitalist agenda and will help sink him.

Khrushchev was proven wrong when he said the Soviet Union will bury America.  Obama will be proven wrong about this country and what it stands for when he is defeated in 2012.

We Asked For Change and We Got It

President Obama ran for the presidency on a platform of “change”.  He certainly did not break that promise since his election.  Let’s take a look at the change that we got since Obama took office in January 2009:

Federal spending – from $2.5 trillion to $3.3 trillion

Federal deficit – from $642 billion to $1.7 trillion

Federal debt – from $10 trillion to $14.8 trillion

Foreclosures – topped 1 million in 2010 for the first time in history

Gas prices – over 110 percent increase

Healthcare insurance premiums – 9 percent increase for the year 2011 compared to 2010

Poverty – 15.1 percent of Americans (the highest poverty rate in 28 years)

Unemployment – above 9 percent for 26 of the last 28 months

Regulations –published over 80,000 pages in the Federal Register (the highest number since 2000)

Meanwhile, the number of American who think the country is headed in the right direction:  less than 20 percent.

We asked for change and we got it.  We have no one to blame but ourselves.