The Tygrrrr Express is Nevada bound.
On Thursday, May 28th, I head to Reno, Nevada. I will be speaking to the Reno chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
http://www.rjchq.org/Events/eventdetail.aspx?id=b34ed5f9-43c5-4da5-a621-4a13a8fe8c35
Naturally, I will also be signing copies of my book, “Ideological Bigotry.”
On Sunday, May 31st, I will be speaking to the Las Vegas chapter of the RJC, and signing books.
http://www.rjchq.org/Events/eventdetail.aspx?id=eed94bf6-d68c-47a6-b176-a464feb2c9c7
I look forward to meeting anybody and everybody that can make either of those two events.
On June 10th, I will be speaking to the Chicago chapter of the RJC, and signing books there, and doing so on July 21st in Ventura County, California.
http://www.rjchq.org/Events/eventdetail.aspx?id=2b295556-0264-4285-86e5-ee65d90fb510
Wherever you may be, I look forward to shaking your hand.
As for now, I just hope that Harry Reid stays in Carson City, or better yet, leaves the state for a multi-day vacation from what ever it is he actually does.
More importantly, I pray that President Obama stays far away from Nevada during my visit. There are 50 states Mr. President. Choose one of the other 49.
I say this because Mr. Obama was in Beverly Hills, California yesterday. Beverly Hills is three blocks from my home.
Mr. Obama, I just wish you would stay far away from wherever I am.
I want to make it clear that this has nothing to do with your politics. I just really hate traffic.
I mean come on, sir. My ride home should be 10 minutes, but the d@mn 405 freeway doubles that time. Today it took almost 45 minutes, although the trip could have been cut down to 30 minutes had I not stopped to pick up a sandwich for dinner. Dinner notwithstanding, 30 minutes is still frustrating.
My flight from Los Angeles to Reno gets me into Nevada with plenty of time to give my speech. As long as your motorcade does not get in the way, things will be fine.
I know you are busy, but please have your staff confer with me to make sure that there are no overlaps.
Also, please do not send Joe Biden to Nevada. The Vice Presidential motorcade is just as bad, and Biden will no doubt say something stupid that will lead off the nightly news.
I want the story to be about me. Joe can be Joe and make boneheaded comments somewhere else today.
Besides sir, what are you doing in Beverly Hills? You don’t need the money, and you certainly never need to campaign here for votes. Is that where the strategic command center for dealing with North Korea is located? I mean can’t we just get a deal done? Maybe we can send them some Happy Meals or something. They don’t want to kill or die. They want to eat.
If you can handle this North Korea thing in my absence, I would greatly appreciate it.
Also, if I could borrow one of your twelve teleprompters, that would be helpful. Public speaking is not easy. I always worry that I will leave out one line. You may not think it is important sir, but my joke about my Susan Boyle Swimsuit Calendar could be the difference between selling a book and losing the sale.
Anyway sir, I will most likely get back to criticizing you on Friday, but I will give you Thursday off since I have to prepare my remarks. Therefore, in the spirit of bipartisanship, I would like you to keep quiet tomorrow as well, at least within a 200 mile radius of Reno today and Las Vegas this weekend.
I would invite you to my speeches, but again, the traffic would be unbearable.
As I said, I will be in Chicago on June 10th, and I will even autograph a copy of my book for you. All I ask is you stay in Washington, D.C. from June 9th through the 11th.
Mr. President, I appreciate your attention to this matter. Together we can help combat ideological bigotry, which come to think of it, is the title of a groundbreaking new book that I wrote.
Ok, now that the streets are clear, it is time to get down to business.
For now, the Tygrrrr Express is Nevada bound.
eric
Eric, How long will you be in Las Vegas? My wife is heading out there on 1 June, and if she is listening to you, she won’t be shopping.
Good point about why Mr. President will be in Berkeley…campaigning there is akin to Republicans worrying about upsetting Latinos…as long as the Dems keep minorities barefoot and pregnant in their dependence on government, the Repubs can do or say anything – they’ll never get their vote. Regardless of race, though, there is a common thread among the “have nots”… they may not be able to afford their rent, car, or health insurance, but they always have money for cigarettes, booze, a cell phone, satellite TV, and lots of kids…and a dog…
Laura makes many good points, Clarence Thomas’s personal story was not of any concern to the Democrats who grilled him…maybe filleted him is the right description.
Laura Ingraham this morning on Imus in the Morning weighing in on Sotomayer.
She (Sotomayer) has the right probably political out look for them, and so her personal story is going to be highlighted, and sold, and resold, and retold, and she is going to be an inspiration to Latinas and Latinos. And yet Justice Thomas, and Justice Miguel Estrada, weren’t any such inspiration so they were fair game for ridicule and disparagement.
http://youhavetobethistalltogoonthisride.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-fav-laura-ingraham-reaches-perfect.html
Eric, There is no way we can save our republic from the political professionals and their various special interests, except the following, and all of us who try to educate the public should hammer away at this theme:
There is ONLY ONE infallible way to make term limits happen, and that is to do a VOTER-IMPOSED term limits, unilaterally…
Simply speaking, we must NEVER REELECT any Congressman or Senator, NEVER! Whether he is a good guy, or a bum. Whether he has served only one term or ten. Whether he is a Republican, Democrat, moderate, Greenie, or 3rd party. Simply NEVER REELECT ANYONE IN CONGRESS.
If we do this for 3 or 4 election cycles, and reduce the reelection rates of incumbents from 95% to 60%, they will absolutely get the message, and may give us a bill for a Congressional Term Limits Amendment. If they don’t, we just need to keep it up and NEVER REELECT, which gives us TERM LIMITS by default! Which is a “voter-imposed term limit”.
This is the only infallible way to make term limits happen! The American voter must IMPOSE TERM LIMITS on Congress simply by NEVER REELECTING anyone in Congress.
In other words, don’t let anyone serve more than one term. That’s the only way to teach them that the voter is their boss! and that Congress as a career WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!.
Forget about who wins the White House. It is in the Congress where the changes need to be made. The 95% reelection rate in Congress has created a corrupt, arrogant class of professional politicians who are only interested in being reelected forever, regardless of the country’s problems.
One of the reasons our government is permanently dominated by that class of professional politicians who make a career of getting reelected forever (rather than getting a real job in the private sector like most of us), is that WE, THE VOTERS, are all obsessed with party politics. When has party politics done us any good? Look at the mess we are in!
Half of us are straight-ticket Democrats, the other half are straight-ticket Republicans, and the few ‘Independents’ in between are uselessly spread out among Libertarians, Greens, so-called “moderates”, 3rd parties, etc, and it has been this way for years and years.
Let’s wise up, and start voting for our country! NEVER REELECT ANYONE IN CONGRESS!
Eagle, as long as you cons keep denegrating and insulting the intelligence of minorites, you will never get their votes. Jack Kemp used to absolutely froth at the mouth when he heard people make nasty comments like, “as long as the Dems keep minorities barefoot and pregnant in their dependence on government, the Repubs can do or say anything – they’ll never get their vote.” Absolutely nasty. This is beneath you, Eagle.
Laree, just because someone has a great story, that doesn’t mean we should just ignore their politics. I don’t care if you’re ultimate Cinderella/Up From Your Bootstraps/Underdog/Crippled/Made it to the Top uber-human being – if you stand for things I find abhorant, I’m going to call it as I see it. This whole notion that we should appreciate people just for their stories is stupid and pointless. A great story is all well and fine, but it’s what you do with it that counts.
Nels, term limits are a stupid idea. All it does is put all the power in the hands of special interests and career insiders. It runs contrary to our democratic republican ideals. People should be able to vote for who they want. Period. And besides, we need people who devote themselves to the polity and become experts, not an endless rotation of rank amateurs and useful idiots looking for their 15 minutes of fame. Simply never voting for an encumbant is an innanely moronic idea. A simplistic blanket solution to a complex problem.
JMJ
Jersey, I am laughing…was it Dan Quayle who said something to the effect that a mind is a terrible thing to waste? Insulting someone’s intelligence assumes that someone has intelligence, which was my point. In general, my remark was brutal and unfair. In context, I was referring to those minorities (the have nots) who continuously feed at the government trough and refuse to do anything about it…they are chained to their chains…it is the group of “have nots”, who are a minority in this wealthy country but are fast becoming the majority because they are making babies and spawing yet another generation of trough feeders. Overtures to have them pull themselves up by the bootstraps, as our parents may have said, make them laugh.
Concur with comments on term limits – right wrong or indifferent, there are many processes involved in legislation and leadership positions, and the two and four year terms would not necessarily allow for proper representation or efficiency in getting the job done.
Oh man, I tell ya’, I can’t stand the two-year representative term. It is such anachronism. I suppose it made sense in the Founders time, when districts were sparsely populated with a few homogenous population centers. now districts are these huge 700,000 person regions, with numerous population centers, demographics, and interests. All congresspeople do anymore is endlessly run for reelection! You get elected and then on your first day you start planning your next campaign! It’s a miracle they ever get anything done!
As for minorities, I think you have it wrong. Take black people. about 50% of black people are what we call “middle class.” They are homeowners, have good jobs, are educated, etc – yet they still vote Democratic. This is true of other minorities. Even Cubans – one of the wealthiest ethnic groups in the country – are voting more and more Democratic. It’s not for hand-outs, or to maintain some kind of soft slavery – it’s because the GOP simply isn’t speaking to their poltiical beliefs. For one thing, minorities tend to live more in urban areas. The GOP does NOTHING for urban areas. The last republican to care about urban America died a couple weeks ago. The GOP has become the rural party, representing almost solely Flyoverland.
Also, the GOP stands for too much Daddy State “law & order,” which has gone too far. Too many minority parents have watched their children’s lives ruined for nothing more than smoking a joint, or stealing a pack of gum – things white, suburban kids do all the time but don’t get busted for. The drug war is a race war and that’s obvious to those of us who lived or live in the cities.
Also, the GOP is endlessly trying to short-change or kill public transportation and other urban infrastruture investment. It’s stupid. For every dollar in tax cuts the GOP so worships the GDP grow’s by $1.03. but for every dollar spent on infrastructure, the GDP grows $1.59! Yet the GOP stands ignorantly against it, as if moticated by some irrational hatred of the urban. If you are urban, you couldn’t help but feel some bigotry on the GOP’s part – there would seem to be no other explanation. But there is an explanation – attacking the cities is fodder for the if idiots of the rural base. That’s why so many New Yorkers were so offended by the country’s reaction to 9/11. It seemed like crocodile tears to us. These people bashed us and bashed us for years and years and then one day WE get hit by planes and all of a sudden their hearts bleed for us. It seemed phony and contrived and it still does to this day. Every time I hear some rural pol say “remember 9/11” I just cringe.
Then, of course, there is just plain ol’ bigotry as was displayed by the recent anti-immigrant fervor on the right. Oh sure, GOP pols played up on it (never mind that 75% of all ag workers are illegal immigrants and most ag districts are republican and they do NOTHING about it), while offering no realistic way of dealing with it. Baiting immigrants for votes has always been a popular low-road for American pols, but now that we’ve become a much more diverse people, that strategy is a sure loser in the end. You can say whatever you want (“we are only complaining about “illegals,” not legals,” or “we just want them to come legally like they used too” – which they never really did), but the whole thing came off as racist.
Two things – Minorities are NOT the soft slaves of some nonexistent social state. It’s a myth. And you are insulting their intelligence and character every time you say otherwise.
You are completely and totally wrong about why minorities vote for dems.
JMJ
Jersey, I don’t buy this, “it’s because the GOP simply isn’t speaking to their poltiical beliefs. ” A majority of Blacks are Baptists and now Muslim. Neither of these would have one thing to do with abortion. These minorities are willing to throw out their “beliefs” to vote for a party that doesn’t speak to their beliefs. Likewise, most Cubans are Catholic. Same argument. Many Dems think like Arabs – emotion and entitlement. A greater percentage of middle class Blacks vote Republican versus the upper, upper middle, and lower class who vote Dem, because there is more practicality and less emotion/entitlement in the middle class than in the others Our media caters to the ignorant masses to keep them ignorant. President Obama wants it both ways. He wants to say minorities are just as smart as anyone else but they were too stupid to read the terms of a mortgage. He claims that minorities are just as smart as anyone else but they are too stupid to figure out the small print on their credit card applications. That, to me, is insulting, but the minorities eat it up because it caters to emotions and represents an entitlement.
Now Muslim??? What the heck??? Eagle, black Muslims are a tiny minority within a minority. And a lot of the “black Muslims” are actually just jailhouse Muslims, who forget all about it when they get out. Yes, Republicans do speak to some religious moral values, and yes, many religious minorities vote GOP for that. But there’s more to Christianity than just baiting gays or whining about the pseudo-sin of abortion. And besides, people have real life priorities – abortion and gays just don’t seem too important when you have mass unemployment, unaffordable healthcare and education, and a closed credit market – all not-so-coincidentally immediately following years of GOP rule.
And again you bring up “entitlement” and this time “emotion” as if somehow voting Republican is devoid of these prerogatives. Look, lots of gays vote republican too. It’s not because they’re educated, though they are, and it’s certainly not because the GOP gives a lick about their rights – it’s because gays are among the wealthiest demographics in America and they want their tax cuts and deregulation to stay that way. GOP voters vote their selfish personal interests just as much as anyone else. To think otherwise is silly and naive. You want to talk about “entitlement?” No group feels more entitled than the wealthy.
And emotion? Few emotions are as base and insipid as nationism (as Walter Karp used to call it). Jingoism, xenophobia, paranoia, and the false patriotism of nationism are among the lesser emotions the GOP preys upon. I’ll take the left’s emotions over those base, insipid, malevolent emotions any day!
JMJ
Jersey, “…people have real life priorities – abortion and gays just don’t seem too important…” WTH??? I would think that “real life” is just that – if a pregnant woman is murdered, the guilty party is charged with double homicide. If a pregnant woman enroute to an abortion clinic is killed by a negligent driver, the driver is charged with killing two people, not one. A pregnant woman aborts her baby and that’s perfectly legal…but this sounds more like a “real death priority” than life… The “unaffordable healthcare” is a myth. When people need healthcare, they generally get it. There are more people “injured” by getting treatment than those who are refused service. 25% of the mythical 46 million are illegals. 25% are people who don’t have anything to insure against, so they don’t need it. The majority of the remaining have air conditioning, cell phones, internet access, cars, iPODs, cable or satellite TVs, and indoor plumbing, and if they can afford all those luxuries, they could afford health insurance.
You are right about the wealthy feeling entitled, but higher taxes don’t affect the wealthy as they affect me. My car insurance is much higher in GA than in VA because in GA we subsidize people through “no fault” insurance. My property taxes have almost doubled in the past 5 years because so many illegals are sucking the life blood out of hospitals and our school systems, and sending untaxed US dollars back to Guatamala, Mexico, and elsewhere; my home has been devalued by 20% because too many people who aren’t entitled or emotional bought homes they couldn’t afford, even though they weren’t stupid…I guess they were tricked by some white republican male…but Chris Dodd isn’t republican… and my credit card rates are going to rise because I am subsidizing unentitled people who don’t know how to pay their bills on time and want me to cover for them. And you are right again – nationalism doesn’t work unless one has a heart AND a brain… so until the brainless left merges with the heartless right, we will ride this chasm to the disjointed states of Mexico, Allah, and Urbania.
“WTH” – I like that. Much more polite than the other popular acronym!
Abortion is not a priority when times are tough because in real life it’s just not a personal concern. Either you personally choose to have an abortion or not. If you do not, someone else having one really doesn’t effect you. Now, of course, if a person is murdered – say your next door neighbor – that can really effect you. You feel immediate danger. Your property rates decrease. The police may question you. You may have lost a good friend. But if an embryo is aborted, it has no real effect on you. It has no relationship with you, no coexistence, no codependency, no history. It’s simply something that never was. This is why, in troubled times, “issues” like abortion become less important to people, less of a priority. That’s not an opinion – it’s a fact.
“The “unaffordable healthcare” is a myth.”
I assume you have never faced the issue and simply believe that millions of Americans are just fools being duped into believing something that isn’t true. More GOP insulting of the masses. I know anecdotes are worth nothing really, but here’s a couple of mine anyway: I had fantastic health covereage most of my life. I worked for foreign companies who in general provide great benefits, much greater than most American companies. I had the best Signa, Aetna, and so forth. I was, of course, the picture of health, with regular preventative care. I relocated to Florida to care for a family member and estate. In doing so, I lost my healthcare. Sure enough, last year I was diagnosed with severe hypertension and dangerously high blood pressure. The costs for this are virtually unbearable. I have to beg and borrow just to pay my medical bills. Now, take my wife (please! LOL!). She has skin cancer. She hasn;t been able to see a doctor for a check up in over a year. She’s running the risk of developing serious malignancy. We simply can’t afford the regular check-ups. We are typical stories. Like millions of other Americans, we simply can’t afford the preventative medicine required to keep us healthy and from accruing huge emergency bills later on down the line. Anyone who think healthcare affordability is not an issue shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that there party is now solidly in the minority. You are out of touch with reality.
As for your numbers, you conveniently leave out the millions on government healthcare – medicare, medicaid, VA, GEICO, SSD, etc.
“My car insurance is much higher in GA than in VA because in GA we subsidize people through “no fault” insurance.”
You have to have no fault, Eagle, lest the courts be backed up for a century. We are a very litigious people.
“My property taxes have almost doubled in the past 5 years because so many illegals are sucking the life blood out of hospitals and our school systems, and sending untaxed US dollars back to Guatamala, Mexico, and elsewhere;”
Where do you live? Brownsville? Look, most people are not nearly as affected by that as you. But hey, don’t look at me. I hate property taxes. I believe that should be mostly repealed and replaced with income taxes. And I will never understand why the federal gov’t sticks bordertown people with the “illegals” bill. I think it’s appalling.
“my home has been devalued by 20% because too many people who aren’t entitled or emotional bought homes they couldn’t afford, even though they weren’t stupid…I guess they were tricked by some white republican male…”
No, your home was devalued because of shenegans on Wall Street. If the federal gov’t had stepped in and put the cabash on the loose credit markets, derivatives and CDSs, we wouldn’t be in this mess today – but sure enough when the gov’t acts to prevent such legalized criminality…
“but Chris Dodd isn’t republican… and my credit card rates are going to rise because I am subsidizing unentitled people who don’t know how to pay their bills on time and want me to cover for them.”
… you complain.
“And you are right again – nationalism doesn’t work unless one has a heart AND a brain… so until the brainless left merges with the heartless right, we will ride this chasm to the disjointed states of Mexico, Allah, and Urbania.”
I think that “heart/brain” stuff is nonsense. I don’t for one minute believe conservatives are all that smart, certainly no smarter than anyone else, or that they think more with their heads than their hearts. Not at all. If anything, righties tend to be highly volatile and emotional people, easily baited and enraged by pseudo-isses and strawmen. No, I see no need to merge. Conservatism simply needs to go back in the closet of forgotten history where it belongs. ;)
JMJ
OK, you got another laugh out of me…and yes, I had health insurance taken from my paycheck, and when my wife had her second baby, we learned that the company hadn’t been paying the premiums…and then my wife was diagnosed with cancer, and we weren’t covered for that, either…so I’ve mortgaged my future for 20 years but am not complaining because we have an extremely high standard of living. I am truly sorry about your wife – and the anecdotal stories depict real life… my older daughter has had to depend on government assisted health care (and Mom and Dad up until she married a Soldier), and she had good success with it. Of course, her visits were emergency – not “check up type” as your wife’s.
The Shenanigans on Wall Street are BECAUSE the federal government (Chris Dodd, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barney Frank) GOT involved and loosened the standards so everyone could own a home.
My personal opinion on abortion is just that – and your opinion is just that…and I agree it doesn’t need government intervention. I won’t agree that it’s a pseudo-issue, but I don’t think the issue needs to be subsidized by the government – just as I don’t believe gay marriages should be subsidized. I don’t care what butt pirates do in their homes any more than they care what I do in mine, and the Federal governemnt needs to stay out of it. In other words, if I believed in abortion, which I don’t, I really don’t expect the federal government to offer to pay for my abortion, which they will. And I certainly don’t expect the Federal government to ship money overseas to pay for furriners abortions.
I like the heart/brain analogy, and it is, indeed, a generality, but I agree totally that conservatives are not all that smart – many Georgia Bubbas are conservative, and most book-educated professors hold left-leaning views, so it’s not a matter of intelligence but one of logic. Conservatives, like me, like order. If there are rules, one can figure out how to work around them. Without rules, there’s no advantage to the logical thinker…(ok, so I’m a closet liberal at times…)
I think, Eagle, their are bleeding hearts on left and right and all in between. And I think their are staunch intellectuals as well. And then of course there’s what I believe is the majority – a blance of the two. For instance, I do not want single-payor healthcare because of my, or your, anecdotes, though they are compelling, but for some rather dry rational reasons:
1) International competitiveness
2) It’s much lower overhead
3) It is a universally needed utility
4) The fairest and best pool for all would be the one with everyone in it
And then, of course, there’s a full explanation of what I and many others want of this system:
1) We want contracted private insurance companies to perform actuation
2) We want independent fraud and malpractice arbitration
3) We want the government to stand away from healthcare decisions, leaving it purely to doctors and other healthcare providers
So, you see, we don;t want some stupid, off-the-cuff, knee-jerk socialist answer to the healthcare crisis (and it is a crisis on several levels), but rather a thoroough and thoughtful reform and refit of the system. Really, it wouldn’t be all that much of a change at all. Just that everyone would pay a certain (preferably progressive) rate, which in turn would be distributed much as Medicare, a highly successful program, is already today.
That’s just one example. I could go on. For example – I’m not some utopian pacifist that thinks we can just be rid of all war by simply unilaterally standing down forever. But I do believe the MIC is completely out of control and will eventually destroy the republic. We must have a balance. A rationally sized military that only engages when absolutely necessary – not a massive miltary empire stretched around the globe. This isn’t because I abhor war – which we all should – but because I fear the Eisenhower prophesy of an MIC run amok.
As for abortion, I come from the school of thought that says that it is a private healthcare matter that should be handled like any other. I have no problem using my tax dollars for it, as I do not fear the abortion establishment (is there such a thing?) will ever run amok. It just makes no sense. Now, maybe someday we’ll have to review that, after all, we don’t want some kind of international Indira Ghandi population control cabal, but for now I see no harm or danger in it.
I’m not sure what you mean by “subsidized” gay marraige.
As for Wall Street, I think you’ve got it all backwards, by apparently we just come from two different schools of thought on that. I see money as more corruptive than power and you see it the other way around. We could argue that one forever and never get anywhere. But for the sake of this argument, I completely fail to see how “Chris Dodd, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barney Frank” created CDSs, for example. Yes, they could have stopped them, but I don’t see how anything they did created them. Especially Dodd and Frank, who were powerlessly in the minority through all this in the making. I don’t know why you’d even bring them up. They simply could not have had anything to do with it, let alone do anything to stop it. Clinton and Bush, however, were typical modern laizzez faire pols who simply weren’t minding the store while the little theives on WS robbed it blind. Why you trust WS is beyond me. I don;t trust any of the aforementioned any more than I could throw them – with my uninsured bad back! :)
JMJ
Jersey, The reason I brought Frank and Dodd in is because they had a lot to do with reducing the the credit qualifications for Fannie and Freddie. I’m not sure I trust WS as much as I distrust politicians!