News and Opinions - Blog Chow

How many poor people does 36 million dollars help out? That’s what Hillary blew on a campaign that even this New York Times article describes as containing only token opposition. Wait till you hear where the money went!

The New York Times article reveals that she bought more than $13,000 worth of flowers, spent $27,000 for valet parking and forked over $800 for just one month’s worth of credit card interest. Is this someone fiscally responsible enough to run the Country? Make sure you don’t waste any time reading the article, because these kinds of stories tend to have a short shelf life in the liberal media. I’m actually surprised it was even allowed to be published by the New York Times.

Maybe Hillary should have hired Oprah Winfrey as her campaign adviser. She could have showed her how to donate 30 million and get a billion dollars worth of positive publicity out of it. But then Hillary has always gotten the positive publicity for free. Why would we expect anything else from her? She can promise you the world with other people’s money, but look what she does with the money she gets her own hands on. I wonder what she would do if she didn’t have to account for certain expenses?

Hillary spent $17 million dollars on advertising. Why? Hillary got more free positive publicity from the media than her opponent was able to pay for. Did Hillary have an opponent? Do you remember the name? I don’t remember who it was. This is a country where anyone can become President? If you aren’t a media favorite you can’t possibly have enough money to even have a level playing field. That’s just for the Senate. Forget about becoming President.

Let’s see… There’s another $1.1 million to a longtime pollster/adviser. There’s $930,000 to a longtime communications strategist. There’s seems to be good money at being a “longtime” anything in the Clinton camp. Then there’s a consulting firm that got $200,000, but now we are getting into chump change. What could a poor person do with a measly $200,000?

This just seems like more of the same from another self serving politician. A whole lot more of the same. How many poor people could all that money have helped? She blows the whole wad and waits for the money to come rolling back in. She’s entitled because she is Hillary Clinton and you aren’t. How many people could have been helped with their health care woes? What an absolute waste. So much for campaign finance reform. What a joke that turned out to be.

This is the typical “liberal” way with these fat cats. They talk about how we need to do more for the poor or the environment, but they themselves live high off the hog and don’t practice what they preach. Do as they say and not as they do. The truth is they need poor people to win elections. They promise the world but never actually fix the problems. That’s why eight years of the Clintons didn’t produce the health care reform they have been talking about for the last 25+ years.

The only thing they can do for the poor is raise minimum wage 50 cents. Tell me, is someone raising a family on minimum wage no longer poor with a 50 cent raise? Of course after the raise, they’ll try to raise your taxes. They give someone 50 cents while at the same time they use the other hand to pick their pocket. It’s frustrating that some people are so easily conned. But Hillary Clinton thanks you for your support!

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“Donors, like voters, increasingly expect candidates to exercise fiscal discipline.”
– Mark McKinnon - adviser to Senator John McCain

(note: what was McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform for other than to silence freedom of speech?)

“In a race that was virtually a shoe-in for Hillary, she somehow managed to outspend her opponent by a 7 - 1 margin. Too bad Hillary did not have the foresight to put her fundraising machine to a better use like raising more money for Congressional candidates that needed help rather than blowing a shameful 36 million on her shoe-in re-election campaign.”
– The liberal Democratic Daily

“We’re not in this business to make consultants rich. The wasting of money — it drives everybody crazy. She’d better get a handle on this if she is going to run for president.”
– A fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton who was granted anonymity(by the New York Times) in order to speak freely about the campaign.

They didn’t deliver on what they promised to the Conservatives who voted them in in the first place. Compromising on your convictions doesn’t make voters want to run out to the polls and vote for you. The old 2 out of 3 ain’t bad doesn’t always cut it in politics. Selling out one third of the time doesn’t go over big with true Conservatives. Unfortunately, there are too many RHINO’S (Republicans in name only) who play the liberal’s game of saying and doing whatever they think will get them elected. John McCain basically falls into the latter category. He’s the Conservative Clinton. He’ll tell you what he thinks you want to hear. Who knows what he will actually do?

If you can’t get your own people out to the polls you aren’t going to win. Turnout is everything when you’ve got about 40% of the population voting in an election. Why put all your efforts trying to get votes from people who get their news from Letterman or Leno? If someone is going to vote based on what their favorite entertainer tells them on the Oprah show why compromise your principles trying to get their acceptance? They aren’t paying attention to you. They’ve been told who to vote for and don’t want to hear the facts and think for themselves anyway.

One of the strengths of Conservatives is national defense. We’ve got Iran, North Korea, China and Russia who are making fools out of America on a daily basis. We’ve encouraged Israel to show restraint that has only further hurt their security. Our borders aren’t secure, which is a security threat, not to mention an ongoing drain on the economy. Americans support a strong defense when they know what the threats are and when they are dealt with accordingly. It’s incredible how they’ve been unable to get the facts out and have seemed to ignore them themselves. Despite what President Bush has said in the past, it seems more and more that we do seek a permission slip from the U.N. to defend ourselves.

Voters show time and time again that traditional marriage is big amongst a huge majority of Americans. Why is this always an issue on the back burner? Those who are against traditional marriage know who to vote for. Those who are for it don’t seem to have the same confidence. There are a host of other issues that just haven’t been tackled with the kind of enthusiasm that makes Conservative voters themselves enthused. It’s still better than the alternative, but not enough to drive out that 1% extra that was needed in this last election. That is basically what this election was lost by. There were a lot of races that were decided by less than 1%. This wasn’t the overwhelming landslide that it is being portrayed as. In seats it was a big shift, but we’re talking a tiny majority that decided a lot of those seats. Republicans don’t need to be more like liberals to win elections, they need to be more like Conservatives.

Even the politicians who do the right thing don’t seem to know how to get the message out on what they believe or have done. They spend their time constantly defending themselves from attacks from liberals. You’ve got to be enough of a "politician" to get your accomplishments or beliefs noticed. The liberals are able to turn a lie into the truth by repeating the same thing over and over again. It really does work. Why then isn’t a Conservative able to repeat the facts enough to make the truth believable? But that’s a lesson for another time…

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“I feel liberated. I’m just going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, well, why have you been doing it? Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country’s than the Democrat Party and liberalism does.”
– Rush Limbaugh 11/08/06

If you are sticking by your convictions (another lesson to come) you don’t throw people under the bus. Take Donald Rumsfeld for example. You show weakness when you allow others to force your hand. If President Bush thought it was time for a change he should not have done it one day after the election. That’s like making a scapegoat out of Rumsfeld. If this move would have been beneficial to the party it should have been done some time ago. To do it the day after an election is inept. This is a double loser here. Rumsfeld was appointed by President Bush. We did not elect a new President this week.

Not the way you want to start off after a tough loss. This is like firing the offensive coordinator because the defensive coordinator screws up. Rumsfeld was a pawn in the whole Iraq debate. Whoever was in there was going to be demonized by the press and by liberals. They have already gone after Rumsfeld’s replacement.

Character assassination is an ongoing strategy of liberals. Rumsfeld was especially disliked because he didn’t take any crap from the media. Regardless of what you think of Rumsfeld, handling it this way is not the way to make decent people want to run out and vote for a political party. The truth is, only a handful of people actually have enough information to determine whether Rumsfeld did an adequate job or not. How is the average Joe supposed to know? If we knew too much about individual decisions, then the enemy would know as well.

This is all about putting politics ahead of national security. The only thing we really have to go on when it comes to Iraq is viewing it from a historical standpoint. If you do that, it reveals that this war is a huge success. Look at wars that were won where we suffered enormous losses in one battle. If you don’t put things in perspective you wind up with opinions that are not supported by the facts. Perception is pretty much reality.

Obviously when it comes to loyalty it is a different story if you have a pervert in the party like a Mark Foley. Foley’s former seat, by the way, was taken by a democrat. But to allow relentless attacks from the media and from your political opponents to cause you to make decisions you would not otherwise make is not the kind of thing that Conservatives stand for. You don’t see this kind of thing from the Democrat party too often. They usually rally behind someone when it comes to any kind of illegal or immoral behavior. The only unforgivable crime in that party is to agree with a Conservative.

Sacrificing your own for political gain never works anyway. It convinces the liberals that attacking and demonizing one person to get to another works, thus bringing on even more of the same. When they can’t get who they want they go after someone like Rumsfeld. In the eyes of liberals and the media, this will be a confession that President Bush screwed up in Iraq. What it turns out to be is a President who unfortunately abandoned principle to try to get in the good graces of the wrong people. Again, this is another lesson I’ll be covering. Throwing someone under the bus because you can’t take the heat isn’t much different than governing by poll numbers.

This is like waking up with a hangover trying to put the pieces together of what you did last night. I did that? So many people really don’t know what the liberal party stands for. Is there really over 50% of the population who wants higher taxes and sympathy for murderers, rapists and torturers? Do people really want to live their lives running and hiding from their enemies?

How soon we forget. Not only have so many forgotten 9/11, but they have forgotten where the few thousand dollars a year extra in their paychecks or tax refunds came from. They’ve forgotten high unemployment and inflation. They’ve forgotten what liberals can do to businesses. They’ve forgotten the Bill Clinton internet bubble bursting.

People need to pay closer attention to what candidates actually say and do on a regular basis and not just a few of the sound bytes that make the evening news. Sadly, innocent people often have to suffer from what others did last night.

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More Election 2006 lessons to come. Not necessarily in order of importance. However, they will be the main lessons or reasons Republicans and Americans in general blew an election. I’ll also cover some of the winners and the positive parts of the election. There actually were some very positive things for real Americans. You might be surprised. Stay tuned…

John Kerry’s latest remarks insult not only American Soldiers, but their families and anyone with pride in their country or the military. Kerry said: “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.” (Translation for those who need it: If you are in the military, you are either stupid, lazy or both). It also implies that soldiers themselves are not proud of what they are doing. It is really shameful, but John Kerry has a history of remarks that insult soldiers, both past and present. It is so typical of liberals to say they support the troops, but demean them with backhanded comments. Comments which either suggest our soldiers are no better than the terrorists or imply they are not competent enough to win.

Kerry is trying to backtrack and say it was a botched joke about President Bush. Hard to fathom where the humor is in that unless you are an anti-American. I’m sure he wasn’t trying to offend the troops, but this clearly shows what the “superior” John Kerry thinks of them. When given a chance to apologize shortly after the infamous remarks, he said “I apologize to no one” and then goes on to somehow make it about the Bush Administration’s policies. Incredible.

He not only has shown contempt for American soldiers and anyone who actually doesn’t have an education, but for overweight people as well. In an effort to insult Rush Limbaugh, he’s not going to be lectured by the “doughy Rush Limbaugh.” So if you aren’t skinny, you are inferior to the almost President Kerry. In fact, since Rush Limbaugh has lost a lot of weight since his earlier years, if you were once fat, you are always fat in Kerry’s eyes. It is really quite remarkable coming from a man who could pass as the skeletal remains of Lerch.

In the same sentence as his “doughy” remark, he called Tony Snow a stuffed suit. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. But then again, I think John Kerry would more appropriately be put under the category of empty suit.

If you really want to get down to the facts of it, the United States military is actually better educated than the average general population. A lot of them have an education when they join, not to mention they get a pretty good one while they are in there. All this talk brings back to mind John Kerry’s four D’s out of ten his freshman year at Yale. Who is the uneducated idiot making those remarks a week before a big election? Kerry didn’t need to do well in school since he was “smart” enough to marry into a fortune.

These kinds of insensitive and disrespectful comments embolden the enemy and very likely cost American lives. It’s one thing to die fighting for freedom, it’s another to die because terrorists are given hope from comments made by their own leaders.

What are our allies to think of these kinds of comments? How much stock can they take in our word? How can they trust us to be on their side when they know someone like this could become President? If they don’t trust us, how can we trust them?

It is beyond my imagination how Kerry can have a chance of becoming President now. There’s a big difference between opposing a particular military operation and repeatedly demeaning the troops themselves. God help us if we ever get someone like this in the White House.

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Quotes:

“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.”
– John Kerry

“The men and women who serve in our all-volunteer Armed Forces are plenty smart and are serving because they are patriots — and Senator Kerry owes them an apology.”
– President Bush

And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of customs, the historical customs, religious customs, whether you like it or not. Iraqis ought to be doing that.”
– John Kerry, Face The Nation Interview- December 04, 2005

Blog Chow comment: Iraqis ought to be doing that?

They told the stories of times that they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in the fashion reminiscent of Jen-jiss Khan (Genghis Khan?), not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with a full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
– John Kerry, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - April 22, 1971

note: John Kerry’s account is much different than most of the men he served with.

Eleven year-old Devon Rivers, who went into a coma after he was diagnosed with a mysterious illness has awoken after two years. Doctors kept telling his family that he was in a persistent vegetative state and there was little or no hope of recovery. Unlike Terri Schiavo, the boy continued to receive daily physical therapy and wasn’t starved to death.

I’ve been meaning to write about this ever since I heard it was on the political agenda a few months ago. Last week I was listening to the Al Roney radio show on WGY out of Albany, NY, which is local to me. He was discussing the internet gambling ban, so I rifled off a quick email to him with some thoughts, which he read on the air. If ever there was a subject which shows how hypocritical politicians are on both sides of the aisle, this is it. This bill is a farce, and probably does more harm than good. Many people are skeptical about it and think it’s because the government can’t get it’s hands on this money. Unfortunately it is far worse than that. Forget about whether you are for or against gambling. That really has nothing to do about this bill. In fact, even if you are completely against gambling, this is just wrong.

They tell you they are doing this to protect people from losing their money. Why then do they offer you up lotteries, casinos and the like? A fortune was bet on sports and poker long before the internet was even an idea. I don’t think there are many men out there who haven’t played a game of poker or bet on a football game. I don’t think there would be a revolt if these forms of gambling were legal. So why aren’t they? Why lotteries and slot machines?

Anyone who is familiar at all with gambling knows that the lottory and slot machines present the largest possible disadvantage to the gambler. Not many people win the lottery and they don’t call the slots “one-armed bandits” for nothing. Poker and sports, on the other hand, offer about the best odds around to gamblers. Not only that, but those are games of skill with a low house cut which rewards those who do their homework. There really are plenty of people who actually consistently make a profit on those games. In other words, you get a lot more entertainment and lose less money. How much entertainment do you get on a lottery ticket? What’s that, about thirty seconds? About as long as it normally takes to lose a buck in a quarter slot machine. You get about 3 hours of entertainment on a football game. If you hit 53% of football wagers you will actually show a long term profit. In poker you just need to be better than the person(s) you’re playing. Those are odds our fine government want to protect you from.

There are two things that work against a gambler. House edge and addiction. Obviously being addicted to gambling is very destructive, but again that has little to do with this particular issue. The truth is, most people are addicted to something. Shopping, eating, television… You name it. If you have 50 pairs of shoes in your closet you have a bit of a problem. If you consider it part of your entertainment budget and are able to stay within that budget, then I guess it’s all about the same. No better, no worse. But don’t believe these guys when they tell you they are trying to protect people from themselves. They are trying to get people out where they can more easily be separated from their money. Thanks for the protection.

Horse racing is kind of in the middle when it comes to the house advantage. I imagine the politicians would ban that if it weren’t so well established. You’re seeing a lot of racetracks being allowed to put in slot/video gaming machines to up the profits for everybody, except the average fan. Not only that, but it’s like waving crack cocaine in the face of someone who may already be suseptable to having a drug problem. Again, thanks for your protection.

Some politicians are consistent in opposing gambling, but why pat yourself on the back for a bill that does the citizens no good? Why sign it? This was easy to push through because the online gaming industry doesn’t really have lobbyists in this country, with the exception of some online poker organizations and such. Small fry compared to most industries. The big lobbyists belong to the casinos who are in competition for the internet money. This is a bill that makes it look like they are doing something, when in fact it is the utmost of hypocrisy. Even those who are truly against gambling should have voted against it on the basis of the points I have mentioned. Not many did. Not to mention the fact that they slipped it in on the back of the controversial Safe Port Act. That kept the issue from receiving the proper debate. Does the end justify the means? In this case the end is worse than the beginning.

An interesting point was brought up on the radio show that I hadn’t thought of. There are some people who are disabled who don’t really even have the option to go out to the casinos and give away their money that way. It takes away their ability to pursue a gambling hobby which is, in many forms perfectly legal. I guess it frees up their internet time for other legal pastimes, such as surfing porno. There doesn’t seem to be a shortage of that.

They can’t keep spammers and perverts from emailing porn to children, but they can keep Grandma from playing a hand of online poker. They can’t stop illegals and potential terrorists from entering the country, but they can keep a dollar from leaving it. They leave it up to a corrupt and inept U.N. to deal with mass murderers building nuclear weapons, but at least they were able to do something about putting unemployed bookies back in business. When you really start to think about it, it’s scary just how incompetent, hypocritical and deceptive so many of our so-called “leaders” are.

Don’t let them convince you that any of this ties in with terrorists moving money around. Most of the large online sportsbooks are worldwide publicly traded companies and could probably aid in catching these guys. It wouldn’t be that hard to track those who make huge deposits and withdrawals and are not actually gambling with the money. We do still want to catch these guys, don’t we? It’s in the best interests of these gaming companies to cooperate, since they stand to lose a lot of business with the new laws. Not to mention that this doesn’t stop foreign terrorists from dealing with these companies. It’s just another example of using a phony excuse to cover up their real motives.

How is it that the government can order banks to not allow people to use certain companies and can order internet providers to block gambling sites from it’s adult customers, but they can’t stop Google from aiding China in censoring and oppressing its citizens? Google helps China’s government by censoring freedom and anti-government related material from the people. So much for “don’t be evil.” China has a human rights record which includes routinely imprisoning and torturing those who speak out against the government. I wonder what we will be censored from in the future? So what’s worse, oppressing millions of innocent people or a hand of poker? Pornography for children or a friendly wager on a football game? We know where the government’s priorities lie. Now you know why.

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“It seeks to protect our children from gambling sites at home, keep our hard-earned money in the bank, and put the criminals that seek to take advantage of our family earnings in jail.”
– House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) (note: to make room for the non-criminals that seek to take advantage of our family earnings?)

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), lobbied to remove exemptions for horse racing and state lotteries, saying the bill is unfair because it shields those industries while banning sports betting, casino games and card games.

“They call it a prohibition. It’s really Congress picking winners and losers.”
– Michael Bolcerek, president of the Poker Players Alliance

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I guess this is as good a place as any for my Super Bowl prediction:

~Seattle Seahawks~ over the San Diego Chargers

Put the ranch on it. I mean, this prediction is for entertainment only. Ties and mismatches do not count;)

A Tennessee man became irritated with problems associated with the neighborhood cat lady feeding about 10 stray cats, so he threatened a ‘feline jihad’ to stop it. He wrote in a local newspaper: “I’ve officially become a trapper and it’s time to take a walk to the river.” Apparently the local Humane Society had been unwilling or unable to stop the cat problems. The ‘Humane Education Society’ (whatever that is) wants to talk with the cat jihadist. The police said they were investigating as well. I guess you are better off threatening jihad against people than against cats. No word yet whether the ACLU is going to represent the threatened cats. If any of the cats turn out to be gay this guy could be in a shitload of trouble.

The moral of the story is: Do not kill cats. Do not even threaten to kill cats. Do what I do. Bring them over to the Chinese restaurant. At 2 bucks a tail, it’s the easiest money you’ll ever make. Plus 10% off the sesame chicken. It’s a really sweet deal. If it tastes like chicken it could be chicken…

The ‘United 93′ and ‘World Trade Center’ movies did well at the box office, but they were not blockbusters by any means. Why is that? First of all, It’s hard to get excited about seeing movies with such painful events. Violent movies are of course very popular, but not so much when they bring back painful memories of innocent people being butchered. Especially when they don’t conclude with an overall triumph. Individual acts of heroism, but not a decisive response which shows the victims did not die in vain. The terrorists received such a response, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Taliban was crushed. Saddam Hussein is behind bars. While terrorists are still a major threat, they now know what it is to live in fear. This needs to be captured in a quality motion picture.

I think if someone in Hollywood with a lot of clout does a major film showing Bin Laden and the terrorists twisted and evil path to 9/11, ending with Bin Laden cowering in a cave or buried under a ton of rubble, it would be a huge hit. After all, Bin Laden is either dead or spending every day of his life hiding and looking over his shoulder.

If you want an old fashioned Hollywood hit, it needs to be done without liberal/terrorist propoganda or undertones. One which realistically puts the pieces together. Not something meant to deceive such as a Michael Moore home movie. A movie written with common sense, not something far fetched like the ‘Da Vinci Code.’ American soldiers should be portrayed for the heroes they are, not stereotyped because of a tiny percentage of bad apples or mistakes.

So far, no one in Hollywood has had the guts to really portray the terrorists for the twisted, barbaric and cowardly murderers they are. Nor have they really shown the righteous wrath of a Godly nation. Doesn’t seem like it should take any courage, but it would take the focus off of their liberal, blame America agenda. I guess it shows Hollywood is more anti-American than it is greedy.

‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’ is a real tearjerker column from Peggy Noonan. It’s primarily about last minute phone calls from those who knew they were going to die and shines a light on the bravery, love and spirit of America.

These kinds of things have received miniscule coverage in comparison to all the negativity cranked out of the news media. It doesn’t seem to jive with the anti-American tone the major media has preferred to take since those horrible events took place.

I always wondered why they came up with the phrases “Remember the Alamo” and “Remember Pearl Harbor.” I always wondered how anyone could possibly forget. I still wonder, but now I know they can.

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