Time to Clean House

Its time for Michael Steele to either step down as chairman of the RNC (the honorable thing to do), or get tossed out on his keister. In this current environment, with a Democratic administration in the White House, and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, and the party still smarting from the aftermath of the last election, the last thing the GOP needs is a chairman who seems intent on stinking up the joint like a Mississippi outhouse in July. Almost immediately after his selection as chair just short months ago, Steele stuck his foot in his mouth and has hardly removed it since. In fact, Steele has gone even further, jumping at every opportunity to voice his just-barely-articulate views in every possible bully pulpit, nearly every such instance requiring rehabbing after the fact by the RNC. Most recently, Steele has come under fire for hiring friends and family of friends as party staff, and at two to three times the salaries of their immediate predecessors.

The popular vote outcome of the 2008 General Election upholds that the country is still essentially a 50/50 bipartisan split (actual #’s are 53%D/46%R). The fact is, however, that the party is hemorrhaging popular and financial support like a leaky lifeboat. Sarah Palin has become little more than a target of opportunity for sharp-tongued pundits. The rising star that was Bobby Jindal has been significantly damaged by his ill-advised performance rebutting the President’s address to the joint session of Congress in February. Steele’s recent comments on a national radio talk show have even begun to undercut the technical frontrunner for the 2012 campaign, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

The fact remains, the Republican Party has a wealth of talent that is in-step with the values and beliefs of the meaty part of its support: Romney, Jindal (after some rehab), Utah Governor and newly appointed Ambassador to China, John Huntsman, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, Eric Cantor, John Boehnor, to name a few. For the cream to rise, though, the party needs to do some house-cleaning (forgive the mixed metaphor), and Steele needs to be the first to go.

I'm Sensing a Pattern Here...

Once again, a nominee for the new administration’s cabinet has turned out to have failed to properly pay her income taxes, this time due to undocumented and erroneous deductions. Kansas Governor and Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Kathleen Sebelius just recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes—after her nomination. In a letter dated March 31, Gov. Sebelius stated that she and her husband, Gary, a federal magistrate judge in Kansas, paid a total of $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest to amend returns from 2005-2007. Honestly, $7000 over three years is not a huge oversight, especially in light of how much THAT family must bring in….but why was it only noticed, and remedied, once her nomination process had begun?

I can only conclude that either our Federal tax forms and instructions are just too complicated for even the best and brightest of its citizens to grasp (are you listening, Secretary Geithner?); or rather that public officials just don’t feel accountable to bear their fair share of the cost of our governance? Any chance we will soon hear of a nominee who has overpaid his or her taxes?

"AIG" on his face...

While I reserve the right to remain righteously indignant over the payment of $165M in bonuses to AIG executives whose company has been kept afloat, not on the tide of earnings resulting from their savvy financial decisions, but rather, on the backs of taxpayers; one of the loudest protesters may be blowing up a smokescreen to obscure his own culpability in the matter.

Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary (and tax evader), has led a vocal charge against AIG’s bonuses. The detail he all-too-frequently omits from his oratory is that he was a primary author of the AIG bailout plan, and either knew, or should have known, of these bonuses and AIG’s obligations regarding them, several weeks, if not months ago, and could have provisioned AIG’s receipt of bailout funds on restructuring those obligations.

As it stands now, looks like he has “aig” on his face.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

AIG, one of the biggest benefactors of the recent cash bonanza to flow out of Washington, is now grabbing headlines based on its recent payment of $165 million in bonuses to its executives—those folks MOST responsible for the poor decisions that brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. AIG counters the bad press, on the basis that these bonuses are legal, contractual obligations that have to be met, lest lawsuits argue otherwise. Even Larry Summers -- President Obama's top economic advisor – has stepped up to their defense, arguing, "We are a country of law. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts."

That is pretty interesting, seeing as how AIG, which is to a great extent, one of those festering sores on our country’s commerce, an insurance company; one of those rare entities whose business is already universally assured by compulsory auto insurance laws across the country. And, in its capacity as an insurer, AIG and its subordinate companies are sued dozens of times each day for—guess what?—breach of contract.

So I reckon when it comes to performing under its contractual obligations to those people who dutifully pay their premiums and need their benefits to survive; AIG feels less compelled than it does to reward the gross incompetence of those who financial navigation steered the company’s ship aground.

Ethics? We Don' Need No Steenkeeng Ethics!

Seems Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY, is the latest member of the “most honest, ethical, and open Congress in history*” to hit the news for failure to properly pay income taxes. It seems the Congressman has earned more than $75,000 in rental income from a villa he has owned in the Dominican Republic since 1988, but never reported it on his federal or state tax returns. His attorney told reporters that that the congressman would most likely file amendments to his tax returns for the years in question.

Okay, so the unpaid taxes in question would hardly be a drop in the bucket against the rapidly growing national debt. Certainly, there are no jobs which would have been created but weren’t, as a result of his “error.” And, now that he has been caught, things will be brought to rights, at least as far as the Congressman’s tax obligations are concerned.

That aside, the biggest offense the Congressman is guilty of here is his arrogance towards his constituency and those who pay his salary. Jason Mattera, of Brooklyn, NY, and a reporter for Hot Air TV, confronted Rangel about his growing ethical and financial troubles, and the ever-eloquent Rangel responded, “Why don’t you mind your g*dd*mned business?” Fact is, had Rangel been an ordinary citizen, living his life in the private sector, that would have been an entirely appropriate, although decidedly impolite, response. Fact is, though, that Rangel is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the federal tax code, and has pushed for higher taxes on the wealthy. Apparently, excepting him.

*House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Cowboy Creed

Colorado is cowboy country. Most of the western range is still populated by far more cattle and bison than people. As such, we have one of those chuckwagon deals here, the Flying W Ranch...where the "actual working cowboys" lay out an authentic cattle trail supper and then play cowboy music and tell funny stories. Its a real attraction for out of town visitors, and since the missus has a big family, we have been there many times. On the back of the ticket for the show, they have printed "My Creed," written by an American statesman, Dean Alfange.* I keep a copy of the ticket on my desk, and happened to pick it up yesterday before leaving for work, and was impressed by how timely his words are:

Those these words were written long ago, at least as early as 1950, but could they possibly ring any truer today?

*Born in Constantinople (now Istanbul), in 1899, he was raised in upstate New York and served in the U.S. Army during World War I and attended Hamilton College, graduating in the class of 1922. He attended Colombia University where he received his law degree and opened a practice in Manhattan. In 1942 Alfange was the American Labor Party candidate for governor of New York and a founder of the Liberal Party of New York. Alfange was also Professor Emeritus at UMass Amherst and a leading figure in various pro-Zionist organizations. He died in Manhattan at the age of 91 on October 27, 1989.

My Solution

Since our President has now given voice to the goals of his administration—universal health care, universal education, and green energy, as well as the bonus opportunity to fix the economy, I figured I’d offer up my ideas to help him move all of his programs along the path to success. My bright idea? Institute a Federal University system.

Need to stimulate the economy? Need to create jobs? Take the (already Federally owned) recently closed military bases and put construction trades to work immediately refitting those facilities into university campuses….complete with ready-made dormitories and dining facilities. Many will also have available on-campus living quarters for faculty and staff, sports and recreation facilities, and some will even have operational medical centers.

Once the physical plant is complete, jobs will immediately open up for food service workers, maintenance and janitorial workers, clerical and administration workers, and of course educators. Tuition and fees could be lowballed enough to put significant pressure on the private and public state colleges and universities to bring their own rates to more realistic levels, and admissions preference could be given to veterans programs, low-income background students, and other folks disadvantaged by the existing higher learning systems. Thus, we are well on our way to making universal education achievable.

Next, these Federal Universities could condition admission to specific areas of study, and on post-graduation service in specific industries: in this case, I am thinking of health care and green-energy engineering. Establish university hospitals on these campuses, and staff them, at least in part, by student-nurses, student-doctors, and student technicians. Recent graduates could populate the professional staff, under the supervision of a skeletal cadre of established physicians. Beneficiaries of “universal” health care could receive their treatment in such facilities and the costs would be reduced dramatically. Likewise, engineering faculty could conduct wide variety of funded research and development projects on green energy projects, with a wealth of students for worker bees and experimenters. Green energy is only going to be feasible when it becomes economically feasible, and few private sector entities are willing to invest the time, effort and economic cost to find that solution.

Since the pocketbook is open, why not try something that might at least work?

He Went Back Up The Hill

One year ago today, Bob Beck, my Dad, ended his struggle of half a dozen years of dealing with the ravages of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Everything that made me a success as a military leader, and every good quality I have as a man, a husband, and a father, I learned from him. Never a churchgoing man, he nevertheless exemplified love of his fellow man, and was a pure paragon of integrity. A life long sportsman, he continued to run whitewater rivers in canoes and kayaks, and refereed basketball at all levels from church league to college for over fifty years, well into his seventies.

He was also a veteran of the Korean war. While he has often told stories of pranks and goofups from his time in the Army, he shied away from speaking of his war experiences. In fact, he only ever told me a single story from his time in combat, but that story told me more than a twenty more could have.

A fresh-faced infantryman not long out of basic training at Fort Indiantown Gap, he was on Pork Chop Hill, and when the Chinese blew their bugles and charged, he and his buddies were ordered to crawl back to the rally point to reconfigure and refit for a counterattack. As he was moving toward the rally point, he was crawling over the bodies, and body parts, of friends he had gone through boot camp with. It was more than his 19-year-old mind could handle, and he broke down. He was taken to the aid station, got an IV for hydration, and a half-hour's rest. The battalion surgeon offered to pull him off of the line, but instead, this soldier WENT BACK UP THE HILL, to be with his buddies, and see this thing through.
Fifty years later, his dreams were still haunted by the sounds of those bugles and the images of the torn bodies of his friends. Alzheimer’s and dementia left him sometimes unable to distinguish then from now.

He never got any medals for that trip back up Pork Chop Hill, but anyone who has ever been in battle will tell you that the hardest thing is not to hold the line under fire, but rather to leave the relative safety of the "rear" and willingly walk back into the midst of the fray. Most people wouldn't consider him a hero, some might even consider him a coward. But in my eyes, what matters is that he WENT BACK UP THE HILL.

Lessons NOT Learned

One of my long-standing maxims is “When there are no consequences for substandard performance, substandard performance will become the standard.” Yet, our society, and especially our current administration, seems to want to avoid adverse consequences at any cost.

I have spent a lot of my life in supervision of young men (and a few women), and it sure seemed to me that the default position was to live right at the edge, or beyond the edge, of their income. Little consideration was given, at least initially, to what can I/we afford, as opposed to what do I/we want? The upshot of this was, time and again, that the least calamity in their income stream would totally upset their personal financial applecart.

So now we find ourselves facing the results of such a mindset on a nationwide scale. People over the last half-dozen years or so, at a pace never before equaled, have bought houses with reckless disregard of their ability to afford them. They bought these overpriced homes with overpriced mortgages and agreements that the interest rate on the loan could change at any time, increasing the payment (that, as it was, they could only regularly meet under the very best of circumstances) by hundreds of dollars per month. Unscrupulous mortgage brokers, hungry for easy commissions, painted too-rosy pictures, and home-buyers bought it all, hook, line and sinker.

In some of these cases, actual fraud transpired. In those cases, those buyers have a right to seek restitution, to be put back to rights, and I wish them good luck. Those fraudulent brokers and companies should be imprisoned for the collective terms of those fraudulent loans, or at least strung up in the public square and banned from ever again holding a financial position loftier than cashier at Carls Jr. All that said, buyers need to remember that in a home purchase, there are three parties: buyer, realtor and mortgage broker. Two of these parties have primary interests that stand in conflict with the buyer’s… It doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to realize that if it is called an “adjustable rate mortgage,” the direction of adjustment will nearly always be UP. Caveat emptor, as they say in the funny papers.

So now Uncle Sam swoops in to put everything to rights. Since I heard about this “bailout” from the beginning, my stand was that if our government is going to help out the mortgage brokers and companies, then it had an equally compelling duty to help out the note-holders. By “help-out,” I mean underwriting the re-financing of those mortgages, if possible, to a rate tied to the prime lending rate, that the homeowner could consistently make. But if that dawg ain’t gonna hunt, then get’im out of the truck. What absolutely should not happen, however, is that the “bailout” leave these people better off than if they had acted responsibly in the first place.

Fact is, the market has a built in remedy for fiscal irresponsibility. By foreclosing on ill-advised or irresponsible buyers, those properties will likely be available at a more realistic price to people who have accepted ownership for their own financial security and lived within their means.

HOPE and CHANGE

Our new president, who campaigned on a platform of “HOPE” and “CHANGE,” has now had his fourth nomination for a senior level cabinet post come up as a tax cheat. Of course, the most egregious is the one who was confirmed--Tim Geithner, as Secretary of the Treasury, and ironically, directly in the line of supervision of the I.R.S. When the bright light of day (and of media attention) shone on these nominees’ tax shortcomings, they of course paid up and apologized. Nothing was said of any criminal prosecution (remember, this was the only crime Al Capone himself couldn’t dodge!) for their actions. Would that be the case if it was Joe Tentpeg (or Joe the Plumber, for that matter) who had erred in paying his taxes? First, I doubt that it would have taken a nomination for a cabinet position for such an error to be discovered in Joe’s case, and I’ll bet Joe would have been dealt with promptly and harshly.

This new administration, and its majority party, are unabashed believers in wealth-sharing and income redistribution, only…as it turns out, so long as it isn’t their income and wealth that is being shared or redistributed…During the campaign, I noted that me and the missus have given more to charity during the last four years than our new President and Vice-President…combined! That, and the recently-demonstrated record of Dem cabinet nominees taken together in context, make me wonder: was it that Big O “HOPEs” you won’t notice his parties disregard for paying mandatory taxes, and that you won’t notice the pocket “CHANGE” that constitutes his administration’s personal giving to the poor and unfortunate.

Letter to our "Pro-Life" Gubbinah

Beastly Intelligence

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

What I am Thankful For

Lies, Damn Lies,......and Democrats

Democratic New York Congressman and newly appointed House Ways and Means Chair Charles Rangel has apparently contracted the scourge of his party, foot-in-mouth disease. In this case, it looks like his Weejuns have reached well past his molars, and are cutting off the supply of oxygen to his (alleged) brain.

This past weekend, the dimwitted Dem opined "If a young fellow has an option of having a decent career, or joining the Army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq," on "Fox News Sunday. "If there's anyone who believes these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No bright young individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment," the congressman continued.

The Army, which was falling short of recruitment goals, has admitted that in 2005, it began accepting more high school dropouts and more recruits with lower scores on intelligence tests. This lowering of standards, however, has gained attention far out of proportion to its actual impact, as the actual effect on the population of the active duty force amounts only to a percentage point or two. In fact, a recent Heritage Foundation Study found that 97% of military enlistees were high school graduates, as compared with about 80% of Americans in general, and that the average reading level of military personnel is a full grade level higher than that of the general populace.

Rangel, a long standing advocate or reinstating a military draft, tossed aside the reports of the Heritage Foundation, instead apparently relying on his own experiences. “…everyone will see what they already know, and that is that those who have the least opportunities at this age find themselves in the military, as I did when I was 18 years old." Congressman Rangel served in the U.S. Army from 1948-52, during which time he fought in Korea and was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Apparently spring-loaded in the “affirmative action” position, Rep. Rangel has authored several pieces of legislation to benefit minority and women veterans, including a successful bill that established the Office of Minority Affairs Within the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Obviously, Rangel believes that a disproportionate amount of the fighting is borne by minorities. In fact, the contrary is true—while the population of minorities, especially blacks is higher in the armed forces:

White: 63% (compared to 60% of the U.S. population)
Black: 20% Hispanic: 11%
Other minorities: 6%

The cross section of the force currently deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other danger spots reflects the opposite:

70% White (compared to 60% of the U.S. population)
16% Black (compared to 13% of the U.S. population)
12% Hispanic
2% Other minorities

(DOD Armed Forces Overview)

Rangel gets it wrong again when he refers to the target recruitment group as being areas of low income and low opportunity. In fact, since 1999, and most obviously since 9/11; it has been young men and women of ALL races from increasingly affluent neighborhoods, with increasingly promising futures who have come to know the cost of freedom, and shouldered personally the responsibility to defend the cause of liberty—here and abroad.

Maybe what Rangel is failing to take into consideration is that many of those in low income areas aren’t motivated to expend the effort to raise themselves up. Maybe what he fails to factor into his equation is that it isn’t opportunity that is lacking in the regions he is concerned for, but rather a sense of personal responsibility for one’s own success.

Says it all....

These Guys are Celebrating the Democrat's Victories...

What more do you need to know....?

Donkey...or Jackass?

Earlier this week, Sen. John Kerry noticed that old familiar taste in his mouth.

At a campaign rally on Monday, Kerry stated, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

There goes that foot-in-mouth disease again, Senator.

While Kerry has spent much of the following days first sidestepping, and then apologizing for his poor choice of words, calling it a “botched joke,” the unspoken fact of the matter is that he said out loud what the vast majority of the Democratic leadership believes. And, once again, they are not only wrong, but far out of touch with what Mr. and Mrs. Citizen believe.

Generally speaking, soldiers are the best people I know. They have more drive, ambition, concern for their countrymen and world citizens, and embrace the concept of that a successful team has more value than a successful individual. Generation after generation have referred to our young soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines as the “best and brightest.” Fact is, it takes a heck of a lot more gumption to enlist, complete training, and serve than it does to languish in community college for six years.

Personally, I enlisted with two years of college, and completed my Bachelor of Science degree within six years—while serving. I served in a variety of positions and units, and left each one better off than when I joined it—better trained, more efficient, more cohesive. After 22 years in office, can Senator Kerry say the same?