Author: Tickler

Obama’s 26-year-old Speechwriter, No Wonder!

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No wonder all of his speeches are shockingly naive and uninformed.

I just stumbled on an article from back in January that Newsweek did on the 26-year-old toddler who writes Obama’s speeches, Jon Favreau (no, not that one). Not that I’m biased against youth (being a little over 10 years older), but when so many important issues rely on having experience — and frankly more knowledge of history than what was freshly force-fed by reliably liberal professors — and when precious votes hang in the balance, I want someone with the seasoning of their own perspective to be putting ideas in people’s heads. Much as I wish this country could be full of the well-read and the historically-perceptive, oh, and the reality-tactile, it isn’t.

It follows, obviously, but should be pointed out, that this is precisely why Obama’s speeches are empty of ideas and perception of the real roots of these issues, and full of wide-eyed child-like liberal cluelessness (uh, when in doubt, put “change” down a lot, my professors said Bush was bad, so “change” will sound good).

By the way, in case you hadn’t read it in class, socialism doesn’t work (and frankly can’t without theism). I’ve lived in it and seen the bright awakening as the socialism turned to capitalism. When you live in it, and everyone around you is living witness to the rotten stagnation of it, you gain that valuable judgment experience I was discussing earlier. Thanks Jon, but page 457 of whatever textbook you’re working from only provides enough information to fool the uninformed. It’s not enough on the reality of peoples and governments to write intelligent campaign speeches to the knowing. Perhaps that’s the point. Sucker the suckers, their votes spend just as well, sadly.

When asked…

“What got you into politics, what got you interested?”

Favreau told him about the social service project he started in Worcester, defending the legal rights of welfare recipients as the state tried to move people off the rolls and into work.

Your witness.

Ich Bin Ein Beginner, Obama Spews People’s Party Bolshevik

Tickler 2 Comments

Listen to this…

“Now is the time to join together through constant cooperation and strong institutions and shared sacrifice and a global commitment to progress to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”

Is it suddenly 1917 Petrograd again? Is anyone listening to this? Here’s the translation for those who don’t speak liberal.

“Now is the time to join together through world government and mo’ better of that government. I’ll put America on the stick to sacrifice much more freedom and treasure, and we’ll do our best to weaken America so it can be less intimidating and on equal footing with Europe (and someday the paradise Kenya), to meet the challenges of defeating the formidable patriotic and hard-working folks on the U.S. Right.”

The Sock Puppet is reliving the halucinations from his father (or as best he can remember having spend 1 visit with him). Not sure why he chose to write a book with a title referencing a man he never knew, and by behavior shouldn’t have wanted to.

“This is the moment when we must build on wealth that opens markets have created and share its benefits more equitably.”

I don’t need to break that down for you. Government regulated and enforced wealth redistribution, in plain terms. I’m always surprised when liberals say this out in the open. I’m even more surprised we don’t all pick up rocks. Wake up America, this guy is as scary as they come.

Glenn Beck commented on that last quote as follows…

I’ve always wanted to be able to write music. I can’t write music. I can meet with composers and I can say, you know, I want it to feel like this, I want it to do this, but I cannot write music. Should John Williams share his creativity with me? Should he ‑‑ he’s got a wealth of strong writing ability. Should I force him to share that song writing ability more equitably? That’s his gift. He chooses to use it. I have met people with gifts of music, with gifts of business, with gifts of comedic talent, acting talent, business talent that don’t use it. It’s their loss. Shared prosperity, sharing the benefits more equitably. It goes against everything that America stood for. What we share is an idea and we want that idea to spread and, that is, man is free, man is free to create, man is free to do as he sees fit. That is the only thing that we should be sharing more equitably. We should be sharing it to every corner of the globe. We should be sharing it with everyone who will listen and if you don’t listen, that’s fine. You don’t want freedom, that’s fine. If your people want freedom, we stand with your people. If your people decide they don’t want freedom, they’re happy living under totalitarianism state, they’re happy handing their power back over to a totalitarian guilt of the like they do in Russia, that’s fine, but not here and we’ll continue to share that wealth of that idea that you can be successful, you can be happy, you can be rich, you can be poor, you can have all of the benefits because there is no end to wealth, there is no end to happiness. It is an infinite idea. It’s a never ending idea. It is as vast as the oceans and far beyond. Why should I share the oceans more equitably? There’s enough water in there for all of us. Stop diminishing the size. Stop telling me that the ocean is a pond. It’s not. Get into the water. It’s fine. You might need directions to the beach, but I ain’t putting a fence around that beach just for you. I’m not telling people who have been on that beach and use that beach and get into that water and swim and boat and water‑ski and turn it into energy, I’m not telling those people, no, no, no you can’t because someday these people may need that water brought to them because they can’t go to the beach, they don’t believe in the beach, they just want all the benefits of the beach. The only thing we share is an idea and a love of freedom.

Thanks Glenn. Well put.

(Credit to Michael Ramirez for the “ich bin…” line, clever fellow.)

Hard to Make Fun of Barry Obama? Nah.

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There’s a surprisingly entertaining op-ed in the L.A. (Left Apologist) Times today by Joel Stein, about the wonder boy-nerd. I knew I was going to enjoy this one when he lobs the first volley…

“…comedians have appeared on every news outlet to whine about how hard it is to make fun of Barack Obama. Really? They have an arsenal of jokes to use against a 71-year-old ex-POW cancer survivor and Obama is too touchy a subject?”

There are several really great points, here’s just a few…

“He’s A Nerd. …Compare Obama with other 46-year-olds and he’s Urkel. He’s the kid at the Model United Nations conference who says, “Guys, guys, c’mon. Let’s not make fun of Eastern Europe.” And the brutal truth is, even if women faint at your rallies, you’ll never feel cool inside when you have Alfred E. Neuman’s ears.”

“He’s ridiculously earnest. …Comedian Marc Maron does a really smart bit about how Obama stares out into the distance while giving a speech. “The first time you see him you’re like, ‘What’s he looking at?’ But then you’re like, ‘I don’t know, but it’s good and full of hope. And he’s the only one who can see it. If we vote for him, maybe he’ll take us there.’ ”

“He called his own grandmother a racist. We all have racist grandmothers, but we don’t brag about it to everyone. I like to imagine that his granny wasn’t that bad and that Obama was just super-sensitive. Like she would tell him it was bedtime and he’d yell, “Oh, I have to go to bed because I’m black!” Or she’d tell him to clean up his room and he’d start yelling, “Oh, clean my room, huh? My people stopped obeying the white woman 100 years ago, Grammy!” Then they’d both laugh and she’d whip him.”

I know it’s nit-picky on my part, but I should share my personal favorite of B.O.’s presentation flaws: his hard left, hard right, hard left, hard right head movements while delivering his ethereal speeches (of course ethereal in the insubstantial, not heavenly, meaning). Perhaps it’s in his script.

  1. Look down as if to read from the podium (don’t worry it’s on the teleprompters)
  2. Lift head looking to the hard right, teleprompter #1
  3. Deliver half the sentence
  4. Whip head hard left (with the urgency of change!), pick someone adoring in audience, preferably female (to feed your ego delivery)
  5. Deliver second half of the sentence off of teleprompter #2
  6. Whip head hard right again. Rinse. Repeat.
  7. When finished, be sure to shake hands in the middle to regain folks who got nothing but profiles for 20 minutes

He’s a sock-puppet. Anyway, read the article, not to be missed.

In with Men’s Vogue and Best Life, out with Portfolio, Esquire, GQ

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I just cancelled my subscription to Conde Nast Portfolio (a new business/financial magazine I decided to give a try). Much as I tried to give them 5-6 issues of the benefit of doubt, I couldn’t find more than one or two reasonable capitalist representations — awww, come on, who’d want that in a business/financial magazine? — between the rampant socialist (er, uh, progressive) world view writing that litters the filler folded neatly within the glossy cover. The best I can say for Portfolio in print is, nice graphic design. That said, I’ve found the online version to actually contain some balance, so far. Doesn’t mean I’ll make it daily, or even weekly reading, since the agenda seems to be set from the upper offices and is sure to filter down at some point. Clearly against the level-headed and mostly reasonable financial publications, Conde Nast saw a possibly under-served market in the knowingly undeserving white-guilt democrats in finance (read Jamie Dimon of JPMC and the like), and jumped on it. As an aside, I can never wrap my head around how even the worse white-guilt could sway those who see how the economy works or doesn’t day in and day out. Like a wise man I know always says, there’s a butt for every seat.

I’ve also recently canceled my subscriptions to GQ and Esquire, two magazines that have taken such a blatant and frankly militant dive to the Left, and pushing that agenda, that I don’t even recognize them anymore. As for GQ, only Glen O’Brien remains the bright shining light, but his column isn’t political so it’s hard to go wrong. As an aside, I find it interesting that in 25 years of reading his solutions to our sartorial conundrums, I’ve disagreed with his advice maybe twice. Thanks Glen. Pick up GQ on the newsstand, read The Style Guy column and put it down. GQ went away in the early 1990’s from where I sit.

Men’s Vogue and Best Life are my new straight guy’s style and culture mags (though I’ve already noticed the odd emasculating article starting to surface here and there in Best Life). Men’s Vogue is surprisingly reminiscent of the golden age of GQ back in the 80’s, before they decided that staff metro-sexuals should expand beyond fashion and also run editorial. Growing up in a relatively small town, I loved to read about the far-away places and things that I became determined to grow up and travel to and do, which I have done and more, all mingled with pages and pages of style ideas and great classic graphic design (as opposed to the schizophrenic Wired-wanna-be of late years). Men’s Vogue has all of the old good, with none of the new bad. The random timeless accoutrements that are reviewed in reverence return me to the wide-eyed early materialist dreamer of my childhood, and gadget/destination collector that I am today.

I mourn the passing of the previously classic men’s magazines, but while there remains a market of guys like me to satisfy, I have hope for the future. Men’s Vogue and Best Life are a good start of the revival.

Al Gore Still Running Black Car & SUV Convoy

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From Glenn Beck’s newsletter this morning…

Al Gore recently gave a speech where the advertisements encouraged people to ride their bikes (in 90 degree heat) or take public transportation to get to the event. Gore, always looking to live out his do as I say not as I do philosophy on life, showed up with a fleet of cars and SUV’s. This video is taken by a group who crashed the event and asked some attendees why they didn’t ride their bikes, and they ask Gore’s driver why he’s leaving the car idling with the air conditioning on.

Watch the video clip here.

Who Really Cares, Right vs. Left in Charity & Service…

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In “Who Really Cares: America’s Charity Divide – Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters”, Arthur C. Brooks uses hard data to prove that, when it comes to charitable giving, conservatives – especially religious conservatives – are far more generous than liberals, who seem to believe that “compassion” begins and ends with voting for government handouts.

  • Conservative households in America donate 30% more money to charity each year than liberal households, even in spite of lower average incomes
  • Conservatives are also more generous in other ways, such as blood donations, and volunteer work. In fact, if liberals gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the U.S. would jump by about 45%
  • People who mistrust big government give more than those who rely on the government to take care of the poor. This includes giving and volunteering even to traditionally “progressive causes” such as the arts and the environment
  • Conservative “red” states give away far more of their incomes than liberal “blue” states do
  • Religious people give away four times more money each year than secularists. This is not just because of giving to churches – religious people are 10 percent more likely than secularists to give money to explicitly nonreligious charities
  • Religious people are far more generous than secularists with their time. For instance, a religious person is 57% more likely than a secularist to help a homeless person
  • Religious people are also more generous in informal ways, such as giving money to family members, and behaving honestly
  • A working poor family without welfare support gives, on average, more than three times as much money to charity each year as a family with the same total income that receives welfare support. In other words, poverty does not discourage charity in America — but welfare does
  • People raised in intact and religious families are more charitable than those who are not. For instance, married parents are 9 percentage points more likely to give money than divorced parents, and 29 points more likely than never-married parents
  • Charitable giving spurs the economy: at the national level, a $1 increase in giving per person stimulates a $19 increase in GDP per capita
  • Americans give far more money and are far more likely to volunteer their time than citizens of any European country. For example, the average American family gives three and a half times as much as a French family, seven times as much as a German family, and 14 times as much as an Italian family
  • Charitable giving and volunteering improve physical health and happiness, and lead to better citizenship — whereheas many government policies that discourage private charitable behavior have negative effects

While Politicklish.com takes no money from sales or interest in this book, and is certainly not trying to sling the book for the author (who we don’t know from anyone), we’re always in favor of exposing data to the public, and this book’s full of data. Read for yourself if you like.

Socialist vs. Capitalist Systems, Great Old Clip

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It’s strangely timely and relevant still today, right?

I know what some will say… so let’s all say it together… The propaganda I agree with is good propaganda!

But being one who cherishes the existence of absolute truth, there is a better way for pretty much everything. Feigning open-mindedness only gets you into the popular clubs, it won’t gain you substance.

Andrew Carnegie on Poverty

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I recently read “The Gospel of Wealth”, and essay by Andrew Carnegie, and many quotes from it continue to resonate in my mind, to the point where I feel compelled to post some here.

In just the introduction there are so many gems of wisdom that if a person just read that, it would necessarily change forever the way they see their lot in life. Each time I begin to complain about my situation think of this quote from the essay…

But I never told them at home that I was having a hard tussle. No, no! everything must be bright to them. This was a point of honor, for every member of the family was working hard …and we were telling each other only all the bright things. Besides this, no man would whine and give up — he would die first.

And each time I hear about yet another social program designed to take self-sufficiency away from society, I think of this next quote about poverty itself and the blessing it can be in crafting a grateful heart and determined and self-sufficient disposition…

You know how people moan about poverty as being a great evil, and it seems to be accepted that if people had only plenty of money and were rich, they would be happy and more useful, and get more out of life.

As a rule, there is more genuine satisfaction, a truer life, and more obtained from life in the humble cottages of the poor than in the palaces of the rich! I always pity the sons and daughters of rich men, who are attended by servants, and have governesses at a later age, but am glad to remember that they do not know what they have missed.

They have kind fathers and mothers, too, and think that they enjoy the sweetness of these blessings to the fullest: but this they cannot do ; for the poor boy who has in his father his constant companion, tutor, and model, and in his mother— holy name!— his nurse, teacher, guardian angel, saint, all in one, has a richer, more precious fortune in life than any rich man’s son who is not so favored can possibly know, and compared with which all other fortunes count for little.

It is because I know how sweet and happy and pure the home of honest poverty is, how free from perplexing care, from social envies and emulations, how loving and how united its members may be in the common interest of supporting the family, that I sympathize with the rich man’s boy and congratulate the poor man’s boy; and it is for these reasons that from the ranks of the poor so many strong, eminent, self-reliant men have always sprang and always must spring.

If you will read the list of the immortals who “were not born to die,” you will find that most of them have been born to the precious heritage of poverty.

It seems, nowadays, a matter of universal desire that poverty should be abolished. We should be quite willing to abolish luxury, but to abolish honest, industrious, self-denying poverty would be to destroy the soil upon which mankind produces the virtues which enable our race to reach a still higher civilization than it now possesses.

I have been to the squalor of the cottage of his birthplace (in Dunfermline, Scotland) and to his beautiful grave in Sleepy Hollow, NY, millions of dollars and many years later, and can tell you this man’s accomplishments and wisdom are to be listened to and considered. If only all people were as honest with themselves as this man was, self-sufficiency and accountability would be the norm and society would be much farther along.

Katrina vs Iowa: Strong Contrast

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There’s an interesting email going around lately. I don’t know the origin, but the message is spot on and should be considered by all.

  • As you watch the coverage of the flooding in the Midwest, take notice of the following…
  • There are no farmers running around with stolen high-end tennis shoes and big screen plasma TVs or wading through water holding stolen liquor over their heads. Have there been reports of looting at all?
  • They’re not yelling “Where’s Bush?”, “Where’s FEMA?,  Where’s my check?”, or  “Why isn’t the government out here saving me and my farm?”
  • Likewise, I’ve also noticed there are no reports of any other country coming to help or sending aid.
  • Where are all of the Hollywood celebrities holding telethons asking for help in restoring Iowa and helping the folks affected by the floods?
  • Where is all the media asking the “tough questions” about why the federal government hasn’t solved the problem, and asking where the FEMA trucks (and trailers) are?
  • Why isn’t the Federal Government relocating Iowa people to free hotels in Chicago?
  • When will Spike Lee say that the Federal Government blew up the levees that failed in Des Moines?
  • Where are Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks?
  • When will we hear Iowa Governor Chet Culver say that he wants to rebuild a “vanilla” Iowa, because that’s the way God wants it?
  • Where is the hysterical 24/7 media coverage complete with reports of cannibalism?
  • Where are the people declaring that George Bush hates white, rural people?
  • How come in 2 weeks, you will never hear about the Iowa flooding ever again?

It’s hard to look the facts in the face for some, but the facts are the facts and nothing changes until people face them. And it goes to show how helpless people get when they aren’t expected to be self-sufficient.