Back to the Future With New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

Tomorrow is Coronation Day for Bill de Blasio as Mayor of New York City. I love New York. The streets are clean, the subways safe, crime has plummeted, and the museums incredible. I love the diversity of the neighborhoods. I love the accent. I love walking along Broadway and Fifth Avenue. I love the passageways of Grand Central Station, and driving through the PanAm/Met Life Building. I love my wife who grew up a few miles outside the city’s boundaries. Yes, I love New York and will take every opportunity to visit the City, even if it’s just to connect flights at Kennedy Airport. Maybe not in a year though. The media and polls have long proclaimed Bill de Blasio the overwhelming winner of tomorrow’s mayoral election. There is seemingly no need to hold an election tomorrow. After 20 years of Republican Mayors, the voters of New York City will elect the most progressive of all the Democratic primary candidates for Mayor. The voters have forgotten why they elected Rudolph Giuliani 20 years ago as Mayor. They have forgotten the treacherous subways, the crime infested streets, the squeegee men, the graffiti, the fiscal collapse, the fear of visiting the City, and an ineffectual Mayor David Dinkins. Of course they have. 20 years of prosperity can dim memories. So too is the reality that the median age of New York City voters is 35. In other words, half of the voters were only 15 when Mayor Giuliani assumed office. They don't remember the crime ridden, near bankrupt days of New York City. Bill de Blasio has romantic ideas of returning the to the progressive New York of decades ago, just as he still has romantic notions of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He worked with them 25 years ago. He recently said to the New York Times that the Sandinistas showed a “youthful energy and idealism mixed with a human ability and practicality that was really inspirational.” The Sandinista "practicality" included assassinations and executions, which de Blasio has ignored. He honeymooned in Cuba in 1991. He won the democratic primary not only as the most progressive of all the candidates, but as the most anti-Mayor Michael Bloomberg of the candidates. New Yorkers had become tired of Mayor Bloomberg in spite of his boosting the City’s economy. Bill de Blasio is the “Public Advocate” of New York City which fits his persona. He gave a pep talk at the Occupy Wall Street encampment. He has campaigned on the theme of a “Tale of Two Cities:” those who have and those who have not. In a different form he has campaigned against Mayor Bloomberg and his fellow 1%ters. He rails against the income inequality. He proposes to raise income taxes on those earning $500,000 or more to support universal full time pre-kindergarten and after-school programs for middle school children. He also wants to create 200,000 units of affordable housing, ignoring the lessons of past public housing projects. His class warfare rhetoric plays well with the 48% of New Yorkers who live in poverty. The demographics of the City have substantially changed in the 20 years since Rudolph Giuliani was elected Mayor. The 1990 census showed a white population of 43%. It had fallen to 33% in the 2010 census. New york City has always been a city of immigrants, even more so today. His pledge to end the effective law enforcement tactic of “Stop and Frisk’ is playing well with the “minorities” in New York City. The teachers unions love his contempt for the charter schools. New York City has a budget of $70 billion with 300,000 city workers. 147 city bargaining units are awaiting new contracts. They eagerly anticipate Mayor de Blasio, who has the potential to be as generous with them as Mayor Villaraigosa was with the Los Angeles public employee unions. New York City will once again become a progressive paradise, just like Detroit and the other progressive cities in bankruptcy or heading into bankruptcy.

ObamaCare is an Obama Success

President Obama is succeeding With ObamaCare President Obama’s goal was to transform America. ObamaCare is transforming, for the worse, 1/6 of the American economy. Even a complete repeal of ObamaCare could not put the pieces back together, just like Humpty Dumpty. The American healthcare system shattered into pieces on October 1. ObamaCare is a success. The website doesn’t work, Medicaid is jammed with enrollments while the budget is cut. ObamaCare is a success. Doctors are dropping out or being excluded from plans, Medicare, or Medicaid, or retiring early; hospitals are refusing to take part in ObamaCare; ObamaCare is a success. Individual policy holders are being cancelled en masse coupled with high premium increases, with employer health plans soon to follow, and most new hires in America are in part time, often low paying, jobs. ObamaCare is a success. Private practitioners are now less than half the practicing physician workforce. Private practitioners have traditionally been strong Republicans. ObamaCare is a success. President Obama never promised you could keep your hospital. ObamaCare is a success. Over 20 new taxes have been imposed on the American people. ObamaCare is a success. Competition in the private healthcare insurance market has been eliminated though the one size fits all mandates of ObamaCare. ObamaCare is a success. ObamaCare is destroying the individual health insurance market. ObamaCare is a success. 1/6 of the American economy has been shattered, that is, transformed. President Truman couldn’t do it. Bill and Hilary failed at it. ObamaCare is a success. President Obama has not had to cancel a golf match to fix ObamaCare. ObamaCare is a success. The President has moved on to immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, and raising more taxes. ObamaCare is a success. ObamaCare will bust the budget. ObamaCare is a success. ObamaCare is a success. Just ask the diffident, out-of-touch President. The next step - the single payer plan by the government. ObamaCare is a success, a raging success, even before its full implementation. ObamaCare is an American Tragedy.

Michigan's Second Season Begins Tomorrow

Michigan is 6-1 in the first 7 games of the season. Five games are left in the regular season. The second half, technically 5/12th, of the season remains. The Wolverines could easily have been 7-0, but were singularly unimpressive in almost snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against basketball power UConn and the zipless Zips of Akron. The attempts to play smash mouth football failed as stubbornness possessed the offensive play calling. Drive after drive up the middle stuffed. 28 yards on 30 rushes by the running backs in an ugly 4OT loss to Penn State, after blowing a 10 point lead with ten minutes to go. It was ugly. I’ve seen Michigan pull out victories in games it should have lost, and lost games it should have won. I even was at the Appalachian State loss. Penn State was ugly. Penn State was not Michigan football. The offensive line couldn’t get the job done. It’s been too short to rebuild it after the Rodriquez years. The twice revamped OL now consists of two senior tackles, a true freshman, a redshirt freshman, and a walkon. That is not Michigan football. Michigan lacks a true wide receiver and is still weak on the defensive line. That is not Michigan football. No slant or screen passes to break up the rush. That is not offensive football. The great Bo had his moments of stubbornness in the 10 Year War with Woody. Michigan had first and goal twice in a game against Ohio State. Bo did not believe in field goals. He was going to smash it in. Eight running plays – zero points. Ohio State won 12-10. Bo learned. Maybe Brady Hoke and Al Borges learned from the Penn State debacle. They played a spread, the dreaded offense, in a win against Indiana. Maybe they won’t play smash mouth against Michigan State, which has one of the best defenses in the country. Michigan State on the road Saturday, followed by Nebraska at home, Northwestern and Iowa on the road and Ohio State at home. Michigan could end up anywhere from 6-6 to 11-1. 8-4 could be the outcome. I’ll settle for 10-2. The Wolverine family was looking forward to a two game season finale against Ohio State, first in Ann Arbor and then in Indianapolis for the Big Ten Championship game. Visions of roses with New Year in Pasadena were enchanting. The Wolverines are still two years away from greatness. Rebuilding takes time. Just ask Nebraska. Excessive exuberance does not win games. The Wolverines will find out how tough they are tomorrow. Michigan State plays tough, old time football - tough, down and dirty football – no holds barred, literally and figuratively smash mouth, smash hands, smash legs, smash fingers football. Mark Dantonio, Michigan State’s coach, coaches with a chip on his shoulder. He has transferred it to Little Brother, which has beaten Michigan 4 of the past 5 games. Sparrty is favored by 5 ½ points over Michigan. Michigan State only needs to beat Michigan to have a great season. Michigan has to defeat both Michigan State and Ohio State to have a great season. Just remember, Michigan beat Notre Dame, which then defeated Michigan State. Go figure.

Is President Obama Our Know Nothing President?

This is a list of what President Obama did not know until he read about it in the papers or otherwise learned of it after the fact, or so he says: The Justice Department investigation of AP and James Rosen, Fox News reporter Fast and Furious Benghazi, then and even now IRS harassment of the Tea Party Lack of shovel ready jobs “ NSA eavesdropping of foreign leaders, such as Angela Merkel Solynda The President didn’t know nuttin’ about nuttin’, not to mention how many states are in the United States. He once claimed to have campaigned in all 57 states of the United States with one or two to go. The President cannot be expected to know everything about everything in a government of this size, but he should be kept informed of major developments, even in his relentless pursuit of the perfect golf match, traveling on Air Force I to a vacation site, or in one of his eternal campaign swings. A good leader does not like to be hit by unpleasant surprises. Leaders will fire those who keep them uninformed. President Obama conversely has retained his advisors and cabinet members, thereby sending a message of approval of their actions. Secretary of the Interior said the President did not know of the problems with the ObamaCare website until a few days until its launch on October 1. The few tests before the October rollout illustrated major problems with the site. Yet apparently no one told the President as he touted the readiness of the website to the public that it was flawed. That doesn’t make sense, unless the testers and HHS were scared of telling the President that his “major accomplishment” had critical flaws. President Obama kept proclaiming for three years that we will be able to keep our insurance plans and out doctors eventhough his Administration knew three years ago that would not be the case. No one in his Administration apparently thought to have advised him against using these talking points over the next three years, even up to a month ago. The President claims to have learned of Fast and Furious, and most of these problems, from the media after the fact as we learned from them. The White House met 118 times with the Director of the Internal Revenue Service in 2010 and 2011, but but we are to believe the persecution of the Tea Party never came up. The Secretary of the Interior, the President’s Chief of Staff, and the White House Counsel knew of the Inspector General’s investigation of the IRS, but apparently none gave the President a head’s up on the investigation. The President was “shocked!, just shocked!” when he found out after the story broke. Not only did the President not know that Solyndra and other green energy companies were failing, having blown billions of taxpayer dollars, but he also continues to fund these companies. That’s not the sign of a smart leader. He still doesn’t know. President Obama promised that the Stimulus Bill would fund “shovel ready” jobs and projects until several years later when he said: “I guessed they weren’t so shovel-ready after all.” he wants a second stab at it with an infrastructure program. He’s willingly, blissfully ignorant of basic economics, not to mention history. Plausible deniability is necessary to protect any President, but the Obama Administration goes to the point of know nothingism.

Benjamin Netanyahu is the Winston Churchill of Our Generation

Prime Minister Winston Churchill is one of the greatest leaders of Great Britain. Benjamin Netanyahu is the current Prime Minister of Israel. Their countries are the most stalwart friends of the United States with the United States and Great Britain sharing a “Special Relationship.” Yet, England, Israel, and Iran illustrate the tenets of the Obama foreign policy: smite thy friends and placate thy enemies. Sadly for America, England, and Israel, President Obama loathes our two closest allies. His personal dislike for Israel’s leader is well known. He stood him up in the White House when a 2010 meeting went nowhere. The petulant President stormed out when he didn’t get what he wanted. He stated “I’m going to the Presidential Wing to have diner with Michelle and the girls.” The President didn’t even offer crumbs to the Prime Minister. The young Benjamin Netanyahu spent many of his formative years in the United States. He received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from MIT. He understands the American people, but has to wonder about the current President. Prime Minister Tony Blair of England loaned a bust of Winston Churchill to the White House as a show of support and solidarity after 9/11. Churchill was made an honorary citizen of the United States in 1963. In addition, Jennie Randolph (nee Jerome), his mother, was an American born in Brooklyn. One of President Obama’s first acts as President was to package the Churchill Bust and send it back to the British. His Administration denied the return in July 2012, but was caught in a misstatement. Actually, it was a blatant lie. The theory is that the President believes British soldiers tortured his Kenyan grandfather. Speaker of the House John Boehner has ordered a new Churchill Bust to be placed in the Capitol. Churchill was a rising British politician, becoming in 1911 First Sea Lord, equivalent to our Secretary of the Navy. His career short-circuited when he sponsored the World War I disaster at Gallipoli in Turkey. He “wandered” the political wilderness in the 1930’s warning about Nazi Germany. He argued for rearmament. Few listened to Churchill as the British people were weary after the heavy losses during World War I. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain practiced appeasement with Hitler and boasted he had obtained “peace in our time.” He resigned as Prime Minister on May 10, 1940 after France fell to the Germans. Churchill was appointed his successor and rallied the British people to resist the Nazi jugglenaught when all seemed lost. His prescience continued after the war when on March 5, 1946 at Westminister College in Missouri he delivered his famous Iron Curtain Speech proclaiming “An Iron Curtain has descended across the continent” by Stalin and the Soviet Union. Prime Minister Netanyahu is in the President’s doghouse while the President seeks rapprochement with the Mullahs of Iran. The Israeli leader has twice spoken to the United Nations, a seabed of rising anti-semitism, about the dangers posed by Iran. He was basically met with the sounds of silence in the General Assembly. His September 27, 2012 speech to the General Assembly is known as the Red Line Speech. He said of Iran’s nuclear ambitions “At this late hour, there is only one way to peacefully prevent Iran from getting atomic bombs. That’s by placing a clear red line on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.” We know, of course, that a red line is a flexible concept with President Obama. He stated recently at the 40th Anniversary of the Yom Kipper War: “We can’t surrender the option of a preventative strike. It is not necessary in every situation, and it must be weighed carefully and seriously. But there are situations in which paying heed to the international price of such a step is outweighed by the price in blood we will pay if absorb a strategic strike that will demand a response later on, and perhaps too late.” Israel emerged out of the gases and fires of the Holocaust. It will not passively await such a fate today. President Obama will, of course, try to block any strike on Iran, and perhaps order the United States military to block one. Prime Minister Netanyahu and United States Secretary of State John Kerry met a few days ago in Rome for seven hours of talks. The Prime Minister wants the hard sanctions to remain on Iran while the President appears to be going wobbly to the dismay Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Mideast countries scared of Iran. Winston Churchill was not in a position to block Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. Benjamin Netanyahu is in a different position today.

President Obama's Problems With ObamaCare

President Obama’s greatest problem with ObamaCare is that he cannot blame it on President Bush (either President Bush). He could claim it’s based on RomneyCare in Massachusetts, but the Governor was rejected by the voters last year. The Affordable Care Act, popularly known as ObamaCare, is the signature act of his Administration. If it fails, then he goes down with it. The next biggest problem for the President is that he didn’t know the details of the Bill. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, could have been speaking directly to him rather than to Congress or the American people when she said: “But we have to pass the Bill so that you can find out what’s in it.” Congress and the President literally did not know what they were voting on in taking over 1/6 of the national’s economy. ObamaCare imploded before its time. It is doomed by its underlying economics: it was supposed to jump out of the starting gate, but fell victim the excessive reliance on the government. ObamaCare’s problem is that the implementation is based on 5 million lines of code by a government, which unsuccessfully poured billions into new computer systems for the FAA and the FBI. The primary drafter of the software, CGI Federal, lost its contract for poor performance last year in Montreal for failing to produce a similar product under a three year contract with the Province of Montreal. Even with extensive beta testing, Microsoft and Apple introduce software with flaws. The federal government did little testing of the software before opening it on October1. Presidents should not be confronted with unpleasant surprises, but no one dared tell the President the software wouldn’t work. They knew he wouldn’t listen. President Obama has stood by Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, because of her blind loyalty to him. She too wore blinders, but her ignorance was compounded by incompetence. She tried to avoid testifying to Congress due to “lack of time,” but appeared on the Jon Stewart Show. The President and many of his acolytes sound like they’re selling snake oil. The President earlier today sounded like Baghdad Bob during the Fall of Baghdad. President Obama said earlier today that “The essence of the Bill is working fine.” President Obama is quick o the trigger in firing successful military leaders,such as Generals McChrystal and Petreaus, but is stubbornly loyal to mediocrity in his Cabinet. Demonizing Senator Ted Cruz and the Tea Party will not make ObamaCare work. The problem is greater than glitches and kinks; it's institutional and systemic. The President has a problem when Robert Gibbs, his previous press secretary, said it was bungled and people should be fired. President Obama has a problem in that the government shutdown was resolved. The continuing ObamaCare problems are now the lead article in the news today.

Reflections on the Republican Budget Battle

House Speaker John Boehner said: “We fought the good fight. We just didn’t win.” No! They fought the wrong fight with the wrong strategy with no chance of success. The Republicans lost the shutdown fight in 1996 when they controlled both houses of Congress. Congressman Boehner and Senator McConnell were there. They foresaw the outcome this time when the Republicans had an split majority in the House and an unwilling minority in the Senate, coupled with a President who made it clear to his aides two years ago that he would never again made concessions in budget battles. Speaker Boehner is on record several times saying he would not let the government default. President Obama is on record saying he would not compromise. The President had a complicit majority in the Senate led by Senator Harry Reid, probably the smallest minded majority leader in the 20th Century. The Republican leaders also knew that the media would support the President. The Tea Party did not cripple the Republican struggle; the House republicans never had a chance in this debate. The media let the President play smallball, by shutting open air parks and monuments, while allowing the National Mall to be opened for a demonstration for immigration reform. Some visitors to national monuments were issued $150 tickets. The biggest mistake of the Republicans was strategic. The House should have passed several funding bills for individual agencies along the way, as was common practice in past Congresses, instead of letting them all come together at the end. They would have had more leverage if only a few spending bills remained. Defunding ObamaCare never had a prayer of a chance during this Administration. Incremental steps might have passed, such as a repeal of the medical devices tax. Forcing Congressmen and Senators to vote on eliminating the subsidies for their health care would be a winner. Instead the Republicans adopted an “all or nothing” approach. It might have had some success with a government shutdown, but not with a pending debt defult. President Obama called for a changed, cooperative approach today, after calling out Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, bloggers, and talk radio. He’s hardly acting as a conciliator who promised to be a post-partisan President bringing Americans together, after calling republicans terrorists, hostage takers, and holding the country up to ransom in the preceding weeks. Senator Barbara Boxer referred to the Republicans as domestic abusers. The President won. It’s better to be a gracious winner than pour salt into one’s wounds. His viciousness may cost him immigration reform in the House. He had earlier this term struck out on his major proposals, such as gun control, an increase in the minimum wage, and pre-school care. Senator Patty Murray (D. Wash) represents the Senate majority on the newly appointed joint budget committee. She said everything is on the table, which is Democratic lexicon for tax increases. Speaker Boehner has stated tax increases are off the table. Their report is due December 13. The last joint committee resulted in the sequester, which has survived to live another day. If the new joint budget committee does not reach results, the second round of sequestration will commence on March 1. We also saw that Washington has not changed. The 35 page, unread bill that sailed through Congress yesterday was loaded with expensive pork – up to $2.2 billion for a dam and locks on the Ohio River, $450 million for flood repairs in Colorado, $636 million for wildfire fighting, and a survivor benefit for the widow of a deceased Senator. The bill also included retroactive pay for the furloughed federal employees, who are due for a pay raise in January. Some of these provisions would probably have been approved by Congress, but only after going through the normal budget process. Representatives and Senators today expressed “shock – just shocked” at what they blithely approved without reading. The President and Senator Reid had cried out for a clean bill. The biggest casualty of the Republican budget battle was taking attention off the main issue for Republicans – the ObamaCare rollout debacle. The computer “Glitches” are turning into ObamaCare self-destructing. The Republicans should back out of the way, and use Darrell Issa’s committee to investigate the no-bid contract awarded to CGI Federal, which lost a similar contract in Canada for failure to perform. Even California’s Covered California under which people have been able to sign up, cannot tell potential applicants which doctors are in which plans. The President believes he won. The media proclaimed him the winner. The bill reopens the government only to January 15 and the borrowing authority of the government to February 7. The President believes that a weakened GOP will not reopen the battle next year. The President probably still believes he will get his remaining agenda during his next three years. He doesn't understand that he has poisoned the waters.