Tag Archives: New York

What Next? Busking?

Posted on by
Reply

Money is an obsession with President Barack Obama. He speaks of it constantly. Not so much about his money, but other people’s money and getting his hands on it.

Mitt Romney’s, Warren Buffet’s, Bill Gates, the taxpayer; talk of their money and ours fills his campaign speeches and Oval office addresses. The man simply cannot get enough of it.

Today, for instance, he is in Chicago and he has five fund raisers scheduled. Try getting in some work on foreign diplomacy or our decaying economy in between the campaign money raising and the golf. There simply isn’t time.

White House Dossier reports:

Will there be any cash left in Chicago after Obama leaves Monday?

The president Sunday will hold what is, as far as I can tell, an unprecedented five fundraisers in one city in one day. He’s in Chicago, passing the hat all over the place.

He quotes pool reports:

President Obama will attend fundraising events in Chicago on Sunday, August 12.

First, he will attend a small roundtable in downtown Chicago. Tickets for the event cost $40,000 per person. The President will then attend a Gen44 reception at the Bridgeport Arts Center. Tickets for the event start at $51 per person.

Following the Gen44 fundraising reception, President Obama will deliver remarks at a fundraiser at his home in Hyde Park. Tickets for the event cost $40,000 per person.

Following the President’s remarks at his home, he will visit a private residence in Hyde Park for a fundraising event. Tickets for that event start at $5,000 per person.

In the evening, the President will deliver remarks at a private residence in Chicago. Tickets for that event cost $1,000 per person.

Obama’s got Michelle out their scrounging for it, too. They use up a lot of fuel dashing to Hollywood and New York, collecting as much as they can.

What’s next? The daughters? Probably. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them on some teen show pressing for cash for dad.

The only thing he hasn’t done yet, what with dinners, lotteries, etc. is to stand on the sidewalk, do a dance and collect the coins – busking.

At least those who did it had some dignity in their profession. Our president doesn’t.

The Joke’s On Us

Posted on by
Reply

Thomas Lifson at americanthinker.com shares an interesting anecdote. As he says, it succinctly sums up this president:

President Obama made a telling remark last night at a fundraiser in New York.

Andrew Malcolm of Investor’s Business Daily brings us news of a joke told by Obama at a New York fundraiser that, once you think about it, really sums up his term in office:

Obama said he was reminded of the following story involving a young family that was understandably “very excited” at the mere sight of an Obama photo:

“This does also remind me of the season that we’re in. Jim Messina tells this story, my campaign manager. He was in some event, and this young couple who was there with their adorable four-year-old son, and I guess there was a picture of me somewhere, and so they were very excited.

“They said, ‘Sammy, who’s that?’ And he said, ‘That’s Barack Obama.’ ‘And what does Barack Obama do?’ And the boy thinks for a second and he says, ‘He approves this message.’”

Obama laughed and so did his wealthy audience

As the saying goes, ‘Out of the mouths of babes…” or as Andrew Malcolm puts it:

“…after all this time and all this money the only thing an American youngster in 2012 knows about the current President of the United States is that he approves the message in a political TV ad. [snip] no one, least of all Barack Obama, seemed struck by the fact that after all this time and all this money the only thing an American youngster in 2012 knows about the current President of the United States is that he approves the message in a political TV ad. And this oblivious Chicago South Sider finds that worth sharing publicly.”

Obama has a dilemma: his reliance on a teleprompter, and his weird tennis match head moves back and forth between them, are now a point of ridicule. So his campaign has let it be known they intend to keep him off the teleprompter as much as possible. But when he goes off prompter in front of enthusiasts, he betrays the real Obama, and people start to notice.

Thanks to the internet, these little tells by Obama spread and undermine the public personna. This little slip does not rank with “you didn’t build that,” but it does reveal a man who thinks it quite a joke that his main activity is campaigning.

Tragedy Revisited

Posted on by
Reply

When a tragedy like the Movie Massacre in Aurora, Colorado, happens it’s important and newsworthy. Unfortunately, the news coverage of these events often loses the story which gets lost in the formulaic relating of it.

Oklahoma City; Columbine; Pearl, Ms.; Virginia Tech, all end up with the same treatment. It’s like TV News has a big book of tragedy coverage plans and cliches and darned if they don’t all follow the playbook every time.

It starts with Phase One in which:

News is announced.
Info trickles out.
Much misinformation is spread.
Everyone is shocked.
All networks go to complete coverage, even skipping ads. However, at this time there is almost nothing known so you get a lot of people gassing about any topic that is in any way related. Speculation abounds and outrageous things are said.
You know who’s important at the network because their top guys all hightail it out to the scene of the disaster.

Phase Two:
Camera crews are all over the place. Sometimes you see them tripping over one another.
Witnesses are interviewed. Lots of them still seem shell shocked yet they are quizzed – cold heartedly – at this point when they still haven’t understood what happened.
Police hold press conferences in which very little is disclosed. Still, desperate anchors in New York seize upon any point and make it seem more important than it probably is. At this stage there is great respect for police/firefighters/first responders. Later, not so much.
The big gun anchors jockey for dominance. Who can get the interviews? Who can make the most heartfelt statements?
At this point someone decides on a name for the tragedy. Each network figures their own out which is kind of odd, actually. This is followed by some sappy music they use as a theme every time they come on air.
The president makes a statement. It usually includes “our hearts and prayers go out to the victims’ families,” “we struggle to understand how such a thing can happen” and “we promise to cooperate and do anything that the local police need.” Then Obama’s handlers sit down and figure how they can benefit from this politically. A lot of peoples weekends are ruined. Prayer never mattered before, but it gets a bump now.

Phase Three:

Call for unity.
This is immediately followed by statements like ABC’s Brian Ross alleging connections to the Tea Party/right wingers/gun advocates/Rush Limbaugh. MSNBC goes into liberal overdrive.
Media insists that the entire country is trying to understand this and what it says about our culture.
Media has lots of ideas on what it says about our culture. First and foremost is the need they perceive for greater gun control laws.
Every congressman with an axe to grind uses this event as a way to introduce legislation. There’s a sleazy lawyer quality about how ready they are to spring into action.
The blame game starts. Who missed the warning signs? Was it the police? School administrators? Local communities? This, of course, can never be answered, but they get to score liberal points by offering ideas.

Phase Four:

Geraldo does an in depth show of the shooter and then one on the victims.
The American way of life comes into criticism. We need to reevaluate our lifestyles. The simple concept of an evil person falls away as the shooter is a victim of something. Various psychological ailments are applied to him. Violent movies and violent video games get blamed for his actions. The breast beating continues and so does the scolding of the American people for a culture that could produce this tragedy.

Phase Five:

Call this the move on phase. The media gets tired of covering it and race back to their headquarters. The victims are forgotten and the family and wounded the media hounded to talk to are dropped. It’s surprising that shortly after an event like this any news that might really be interesting about it is casually mentioned. Hardly noted. The trial comes about, it renews interest but after a verdict the perp goes to jail and the event gets forgotten.

Until the next one starts it all over again.

Dem Urges Dems to Skip Convention

Posted on by
Reply

From Gateway Pundit:

The man responsible for getting Democrats elected to the U.S. Congress this fall has a message for his party’s candidates: Stay away from the Democratic National Convention.

“If they want to win an election, they need to be in their districts,” New York congressman Steve Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told the Reuters Washington Summit on Tuesday.

The Democratic convention, to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, in early September to formally nominate President Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee, is viewed warily by some of the party’s candidates.

The September 3-6 gathering to fete a president whose popularity ratings have hovered around 50 percent is a particularly sensitive issue for Democratic candidates who are in close races in states or districts where Obama trails Republican Mitt Romney in voter surveys.

For such candidates, four days of mingling with Democratic leaders could turn off independent voters before the November 6 election.

“A trip to Charlotte may be interesting,” Israel said, “but why leave your districts?”

Obama’s poll ratings have little to do with his stance, Israel said.

Journalist Sees the Light

Posted on by
Reply

You probably understand how deeply deceptive the media is. But to some who were involved in it, it is a hard concept to accept.

One stalwart, a 26-year writer/producer for CBS News in New York and D.C., just had his “road to Damascus” moment. Greg Kandia, a Catholic deacon recently shared this on the Anchoress blog:

First, there was the Trayvon Martin boondoggle a few months ago.

Then yesterday, evidence of some creative editing regarding Mitt Romney’s visit to a Wawa in Pennsylvania.

Today, we have Andrea Mitchell’s spectacularly lame followup to “criticism of the Romney clip edit” — which amounted to Ms. Mitchell saying, with a sigh and a frown, “Oh, bother. Fine. Here’s what we left out.” She failed to acknowledge what the “criticism” entailed; she neglected to point out how the editing misrepresented the event being covered; and she offered nothing resembling an apology or an admission of responsibility for something that was, as a matter of fact, irresponsible.

I’m tired. Truly. I’ve grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible and explain the inexplicable. For years, people have stomped their feet and pounded their fists and snorted “Liberal media bias!” and I’ve always tut-tutted and shooshed them and said, “No, no. Calm down. They meant well. It was just a misunderstanding. A mistake. These things happen.” I spent over 25 years working in the oft-reviled Mainstream Media and I saw up close and personal how the sausage was made. I knew the people who wielded the knives and wore the aprons, and could vouch (most of the time, anyway) for their good intentions.

But now?

Forget it. I’m done. You deserve what they’re saying about you. It’s earned. You have worked long and hard to merit the suspicion, acrimony, mistrust and revulsion that the media-buying public increasingly heaps upon you. You have successfully eroded any confidence, dispelled any trust, and driven your audience into the arms of the Internet and the blogosphere, where biases are affirmed and like-minded people can tell each other what they hold to be true, since nobody believes in objective reality any more. You have done a superlative job of diminishing what was once a great profession and undermining one of the vital underpinnings of democracy, a free press.

Good job.

I just have one question:

What the hell is wrong with you guys?

Welcome to the party, pal.

The Joy of Food Stamps

Posted on by
1

CNN Money reported:

More than one in seven Americans are on food stamps, but the federal government wants even more people to sign up for the safety net program.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been running radio ads for the past four months encouraging those eligible to enroll. The campaign is targeted at the elderly, working poor, the unemployed and Hispanics.

The department is spending between $2.5 million and $3 million on paid spots, and free public service announcements are also airing. The campaign can be heard in California, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, and the New York metro area.

Here’s the clip:

“And they make you look good, too,” the ad says.

O Outrage O’ the Day

Posted on by
Reply

Last night’s Obama trip to Sarah Jessica Parker’s Greenwich Village home was outrageous enough. Consider that he penciled in a brief trip to the new Freedom Tower in New York so as to bill the U.S. taxpayer for his million dollar fund raisers. So we get hung for the bill for what Obama said “to me, this is a date night.”

Bad enough. Today though he pulled another outrage. Drudge headlines: “Who Needs Congress: Obama to Grant Immunity to Young Illegals.” The Hill reports:

he Obama administration announced Friday it will stop deporting illegal immigrants who come to the country at a young age.

The politically charged decision comes as Obama faces a tough reelection fight against Republican Mitt Romney, with Hispanic voters in swing states seen as a key bloc.

The change in policy could allow as many as 800,000 immigrants who came to the United States illegally not only to remain in the country without fear of being deported, but to work legally, according to a senior administration official speaking to reporters Friday.

Ace of Spades blog had this reaction (besides its flaming skull which indicates big news):

Constitution? Never heard of it.

Politically it’s brilliant desperate. It will energize his base and force the GOP to talk about being anti-DREAM Act and anti-illegal immigrant. (“Brilliant was my insta-reax but it’s not. To be clear, it shows how weak Obama is. He’s blowing off white working class voters but he’s going to lose them anyway. He needs to rally his base to hold what he has. This will do that. Of course like most base rallying moves, it will rally the other side’s too.)

Seriously, how much pandering is this man willing to do? Unions, gays, celebrities, illegals. And all this without going through the legislative moves our nation has always required.

What next? Letting 16 year olds vote? The world community? Not much surprises me anymore.

Not Really Pro Choice

Posted on by
Reply

The other day it was Nanny Bloomberg who decided for us that we can’t have a Big Gulp or extra big Coke on the streets of New York. No, no, no! Sugary drinks must be so tempting to people that the average American is overwhelmed when he or she comes upon one, loses his or her mind and cannot resist the temptation.

Enter the state to keep us from our base desires. If this goes forward in New York, you won’t have to make that decision of whether you want a big drink or not. The temptation has been removed. You can’t handle it so it’s been decided for you. Have a nice day!

Today we learn that Disney is refusing all ads for junk food. That means that aside from the parks, no junk food ads will be accepted on ABC’s Saturday morning kids shows, the Disney channel, radio Disney, online entities and anything that features the big mouse.

Disney is supposedly working with some of the major food companies to get them to lower the salt, fat and sugar contents and reformulate their products. This is a nod to Michelle Obama who was at a big event today with chief Bob Iger to unveil their new plans.

It’s all for the children, you see.

Because the parents are too stupid to know what’s right and too stupid to parent their children.

Aside from the obvious message that mom and dad don’t know anything (but Uncle Sam does, kiddies), what comes across is that you can’t be trusted with a choice. The liberals don’t want you to choose anything because it will show that they are not necessarily right. Not all people will have ill effects from eating a donut. Some of the skinniest people around go through life eating whatever they want and many never have any problems with cholesterol or heart ails. Time and again science has shown us it doesn’t always know what it’s talking about.

Secondly, if you never have to make choices, you never learn how to make decisions in life. A person, even a child, must learn the consequences of a bad action. When the government steps in and prevents it, the man or woman are precluded from making that discovery. Kids need to find out that if they go around eating french fries all day, the next time they step on a scale, it might not show a number they like. Then, the person has the choice of what to do. If he makes the right decision, he is rewarded, if not, he will have to suffer the consequences.

It’s a very deceitful thing our government is promoting. It is stripping us of the right to make our own choices and learn from it. This, from the same people who claim to be pro choice. It seems the only thing they are really pro choice about is your choice to murder a baby. They’re all for that.

Unions Plot to Outfox

Posted on by
Reply

While the fight between unions and South Carolina to keep Boeing in that right to work state has taken center stage in labor news, more has been going on below the surface.

Redstate.com reports on this strategy, which they call death by a thousand cuts. Here’s what unions are doing:

One decision, though, that the NLRB issued last year that has been discussed with little understanding by the general public (including many small businesses) is the ability for unions to now unionize “micro unions (or units).”

Simply put, the NLRB now allows small, distinct groups of employees to unionize within a workplace, even if the vast majority of employees working around the small group don’t want to unionize. Further, under the NLRB’s new, micro-union concept, it is very easy for multiple unions to now unionize multiple small distinct groups of employees.

Now, under a recent decision under the NLRB’s Region 2 in New York City, the NLRB has ruled that the shoe salespeople within a large department store are eligible to vote to unionize, despite the fact that the entire store is populated by salespeople.

In New York City, Local 1102 of the Retail, Wholesale Department Store Union has targeted the shoe salespeople on the second and fifth floors for unionization at Neiman Marcus’ Bergdorf Goodman store. While Bergdorf Goodman argued that, if there is to be a union, all salespeople should have the right to vote, the NLRB disagrees.

According to the NLRB’s reasoning: The (union) petitioned-for unit is an appropriate unit for the purposes of collective bargaining.

While the election has yet to be held and, therefore, its outcome unknown, if the union does win, Bergdorf Goodman’s shoe shoppers will be entering a union shop on the second and fifth floors and union-free shops on the first, third and fourth when shopping for everything else.

If a contract is reached, when asking for assistance, may end up getting the proverbial union saying: “It’s not in my job description.” And, in the alternative, if the union strikes, shoppers (and union-free salespeople) would have the experience of crossing a union picket line populated by disgruntled shoe sales people.

Of course, to the union and its organizers (who are mere salespeople themselves), the purpose of micro units are simple: To get the camel’s nose in the tent.

Since smaller units are easier to unionize, union bosses and their organizers know that the way to unionize a company “wall to wall” is to start small and expand their presence from within.

When speaking to public audiences and employer groups to explain how the Obama NLRB is imposing a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ on America’s union free workplace, I often use the following analogy to explain how devastating the NLRB’s “micro union” (or micro units) decision is on employers—especially small businesses:

Imagine Mom & Pop’s Diner, which has six employees—two waitresses, two cooks, and two dishwashers. Under the Obama NLRB’s “micro-union” ruling (under last year’s Specialty Healthcare decision), each job classification (or unit) can become unionized separately. Each can have their own union, or each could be unionized into separate bargaining units, with their own individual contracts…or their own separate labor dispute (i.e., a strike or lockout).

With separate unions, the waitresses could be unionized by the Teamsters, the cooks unionized by the Culinary Union (UNITE-HERE), and the dishwashers could be unionized by the Steelworkers.

For Mom & Pop’s owners, it could very quickly become a costly, company-killing (and job destroying) nightmare.

Given the size of a Neiman Marcus (Bergdorf Goodman’s parent company), the divisiveness that the NLRB’s micro union will likely bring to the New York City store—while cumbersome and costly—it won’t likely bankrupt the company. However, to smaller businesses, micro unions can easily put smaller businesses out of business, especially if there are multiple units (or unions) within the same company.

Midtowner Hopes to Win in a Jif

Posted on by
Reply

Midtown Republican Tom Guleff’s son is a finalist in the Jif peanut butter create a sandwich challenge. Nine year old Logan Guleff is headed to New York next week with four other finalists. He’ll appear on the Live with Hoda and Kathy Lee on March 21st. If he wins, he will get a $25,000 college scholarship. Good luck Logan!