The Most Disturbing Thing About Barack Obama

     The most disturbing and troubling thing about President Obama's State of the Union speech was the very thing that is most disturbing about all of his speeches and public appearances, it is what is conspicuously absent, not what is painfully present. Barack Obama treats his Americanism the same way he treats his whiteness, he ignores it and/or derides it mercilessly. This president is the first in the collective memory of Americans who is deliberately unwilling to acknowledge the greatness of America and the endowment made to the library of freedom by the principles and values enshrined in the founding documents of this great nation.
     It is easy to understand why Barack Obama excludes his white heritage. It can not be used, as his black heritage can, for everything from bullying the leadership of Harvard to list him as a professor when he was no more than a guest lecturer, to winning the presidency of the United States and pushing his radical agenda over the objections of persons who he characterizes as racists for opposing him. The exclusion of his American heritage is done for much the same reason, but with a target audience being the America-hating folks who comprise his base.
     Never before in this nation's history have we had a president whose overwhelming good fortune required so little effort on his part. And instead of being grateful for the unearned advantages he enjoys as a result of the efforts by more substantive men than himself, he sneers and snarls at the very source of his liberty. This is a common affliction among Leftists, i.e., the duplicitous behavior of biting the hand of liberty that feeds them their freedom to do so.
     But Barack Obama is only a symptom of the Leftist cancer that has metastasized in the vital organs of this great and free republic. He was, after all, elected by persons who have the same sense of entitlement and self-hatred for their own nation that he carries proudly to every podium from where he spews his corrosive rhetoric. Barack Obama chooses to lower the esteem of his political opponents in the eyes of the public, rather than raise up the stature of America. He would rather give Americans reasons to be victims than to give them reasons to succeed. We have a president whose conscious aim it is to detract from the human spirit instead of inspiring it, and to punish the free exercise of liberty instead of encouraging it. It is Barack Obama's ideology that results in the pathogen of oppression and the virus of tyranny that disturbs the soul of liberty and causes it the uneasiness of imminent thoughts of its demise.

The Great Apple Conspiracy

     This past Monday, Apple Computer Inc. reported their earnings for the quarter ending December 31, 2013. The company's earnings and revenue beat estimates and they sold a record 51 million iPhones in the quarter. One would expect investors to reward Apple with a spike in their share price, but just the opposite happened after the analysts panned the company's earnings as missing their expectations of 55 million in iPhone sales.
     A company's share price can be greatly affected to either the upside or the downside by analysts in the short term, which is why they have deluded themselves into believing that they are demigods of the financial world. But in the longer term, a company like Apple that continues to deliver record breaking quarters will be justly rewarded by investors. Billionaire investor Carl Ichon, who holds almost 4 billion dollars in Apple stock, recently said investing in the company is "a no-brainer."
     The big knock on the post-Steve Jobs (the company founder who passed away in October of 2011) Apple is that they are not innovating. But Apple's success has always been one of perfecting innovation, not initiating it. Apple did not innovate the Mp3 player, that was Sony. They did not innovate touch screens and Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices, that was Palm. And they did not innovate the smart phone model, that was Research In Motion with their Blackberry device. What Apple did best was to repackage others' innovations in more reliable and mature technology that they made appealing to the masses. Besides, the first iPods were released late in 2001, the next "innovation" from Apple was the iPhone, six years later in 2007. Their last innovation was the iPad, which was released in 2010, so the claim that they are not innovating as fast as they use to, has no basis in reality.
     Since taking the reins of Apple after Steve Jobs died, Tim Cook has presided over record-breaking quarters financially, a nest egg of cash that has topped 100 billion dollars, a share price that has appreciated thirty percent in two years, and additional share value delivered to investors in the form of a generous dividend. He has also recently inked a deal with China Mobilcom, which will make Apple's iPhone available to its 700 million customers.
     The reason for the analysts' dour outlook for Apple has more to do with petty animosity than with the company's fundamentals. As a method of criticizing CEO Tim Cook, the analysts speak of Steve Jobs in glowing terms. The fact is they Hated Jobs as much as they hate Cook. But the analysts are like all those Democrats who hated Reagan, and now that history has proven him right, they want to attach themselves to that greatness by saying they "worked with Reagan on many issues." As long as Apple continues to make better and more reliable products than everyone else, and delivers value to share holders, I will continue to support them with my patronage of their products and investment in their stock.

The Age Of Manufactured Economic Growth

     It never ceases to amaze me how the market mavens in their shortsightedness choose to believe vacuous economic data over hard cold facts. Yesterday, the market rose on an increase in consumer sentiment, a number obtained from survey data that is processed through a meat grinder of unrelated variables. The market barely noticed the much more reality based durable goods statistic for the month of December, which dropped 4.6% instead of rising the expected 1.5% that most economists predicted. The preceding data is illustrative of the deliberate and artificial manufacturing of a healthy economy where one does not exist for the purpose of supporting Wall Street and an ever increasingly unpopular president.
     The juked statistics and artificial sweetener added to the economy from the Federal Reserve's bond-buying program, has not been enough to coax life back into the rotting corpse of this worse economy in 70 years. President Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke are pretending no more, as they pull away the teat of easy money from the grasping market that once prattled on the knee of big government economic theory that resides in computer models which fail to work in the real economy. And now the lame duck president and the retiring Fed chief can use their economic failures as a stepping stone to propel them into the stratosphere of wealth that to often comes to "public servants," whose policies have rained down economic hardship and despair upon tens of millions of their fellow Americans.
     Those on the Left like Barack Obama have convinced a significant portion of American citizens  that it is the government which supports the economy under the weight of the free market, but just the opposite is true. It is the heavy hand of government that pushes down upon the economy and weakens its supports that consist of free market principles. The president and others on the Left preach the twisted sermon of income equality and fairness, but those things only truly exist in a healthy and thriving free market. There is no greater laboratory of fairness and equality than one in which those who provide goods and services and those who freely choose to avail themselves of those goods and services are able to contract with each other, sans the interference from the bloated belly of big government.
     The reality of economic hardship caused by this administration is beginning to break through the thin dam of subterfuge and dishonesty used to construct it. The manufactured economic growth used to propel the stock market has done little to do the same for average Americans. And the president who orchestrated the economic death of a nation will take his JP Morgan Chase multi-million dollar portfolio and his million-dollar-a-speech stipend he will receive after he leaves office and never look back at the devastation and misery he has left in his wake. And somehow, in his mind, this is fair.

Another Nail In The GOP Coffin

     There has certainly been many reasons in recent years for the Republicant party rank and file, and especially the conservative wing of the party, to become disillusioned with leadership. There has been a palpable and distinct unwillingness on the part of the Republicant establishment to embrace the conservative values and principles that have brought the party not only political victory, but have helped them to connect with average hard working Americans. Additionally, and more troubling, in recent years there has been an effort on the part of some Republicants in congress to champion Leftist issues from global warming to immigration reform.
     A recent Wall Street Journal story highlighted the claim by some House Republicants that House leadership is considering a delay on an immigration reform (aka amnesty) vote until the deadline has past for conservatives to mount primary challenges to Republicant House members who may vote for it. The thinking is that without the baggage of an amnesty vote until after the deadline, Republicant House members who support it will breeze to easy victories because the rank and file will be forced to vote for them, given no other alternative.
     If this strategy is implemented by Republicant House leadership it will be one more nail in the coffin of the GOP, and will make the unlikely scenario of a third party more likely. There is only so many times that the base of the Republicant party will be ignored, unappreciated, and downright mocked by the establishment before they will pull their support for this dying and retching beast known as the Republicant party. I am not sanguine about third parties, and do not think one can gain the power and influence to effect real change in the near future. But as the Republicant party establishment continues to push its voters away, it creates an opportunity for the building of a better alternative.
     It is a shame that the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan has succumbed to the cancer of progressivism that eats away at the heart of all that is good, decent, and purely American. As a party we have lost our way, and so we not only embrace the moral corruption of amnesty for illegal aliens and global warming, but our leaders in the party de-emphasize and are reticent to ring the bell of social issues for fear of repelling voters who want no part of morality. The Republicant leadership aims to break the inextricable bond between social rectitude and the prosperity and liberty upon which this great nation can continue to be a beacon of righteousness in a world where tyranny and oppression is waiting in the wings of moral consciousness, eager to replace true justice.

Bullies And Modern Parenting

     There has been much talk recently about bullying, especially as it relates to cyber-bullying. Several suicides of teens who had been bullied on social media sites have been in the news, and in typical fashion, the tragic outcome of a deeper problem are blamed on the most convenient and easiest target. The issues which prompt the taking of ones own life are complicated and can not be tied into a neat little package and explained away by the words and images shared by others on Facebook, Twitter, or one of the many other social media sites used by bullies and their targets.
     I feel for the families of teens, or anyone else for that matter, who feel that death is the only sanctuary from the problems and stresses of day to day living. But suicide is after all the ultimate act of selfishness, the individual being so withdrawn into a world that contains only themselves, that ending it is an act of the ultimate control which they feel is lacking in their lives. Someone who commits suicide does not do so only because bad or hurtful things are being said about them over the Internet, but because they have deep-seeded issues, one of which is knowing how to handle adversity and the ultimate unfairness of life.
     Modern cyber bullying is really no different than bullying of the past. I remember an episode of The Andy Griffith Show in which Opie was bullied. Andy instilled in Opie the lesson that if he ran from the bully, and allowed him to have control over his life, he would never stop running. He also inculcated in Opie the understanding that the weakness was in the bully, not himself. Because of the self-esteem movement of the last twenty years and other Leftist psycho-babble, modern parents have taught their children that adversity equals unfairness, instead of teaching them that conquering adversity is a necessary part of building character. Or as Oliver Wendell Holmes once so eloquently stated in a speech at Harvard University in 1895, "the measure of power is obstacles overcome."
     I believe that the inability for many young people in the modern culture to overcome the adversity of bullies is directly related to the constant drum beat from the Left that life should not contain the struggle to overcome obstacles. Many modern children are pumped full of self-esteem and a false sense of their importance to the world by their parents and then sent out into a reality that has no obligation to recognize them as special. They then become despondent and angry as a result of  their parents having not prepared them for the world as it is but rather the false reality of a fair world where adversity and struggle have been magically removed. But this fragility of character is not only cultivated by modern parents, but by a modern culture that has lost its way on a sea of self-obsession and false self-importance.     

The Compound Nature Of Munoz Tragedy

     There is a situation brewing in Texas which is illustrative of how far down the road of dehumanization we have traveled as a nation. It further explains the inability for some who are inundated with the culture of death to place any value on life. I allude to Marlise Munoz, the Fort Worth, Texas woman who is pregnant and on life support. The family and their lawyers are going to court to allow them to end Marlise's life, thus ending the life of her unborn child. The hospital is following Texas law which forbids the removal of a pregnant woman from life support as long as there is a chance to save the life of her unborn baby.
     The Munoz's lawyers have determined that the baby has abnormalities and is "non-viable," a self-serving sanctimonious legal statement masquerading as a medical diagnosis. Have we arrived at a place in our culture that life is so cheap and inconsequential that it can be summarily dismissed because a lawyer says that life is "non-viable?"  Does the baby living within its brain dead mother not have the same right to live as anyone of us? Therein lies the rub, because if the answer to my proceeding question is no, then it is only a matter of time that the right to life will be determined by an ever changing list of conditions.
     It has always amazed me how those who support abortion, mostly on the Left, will move heaven and earth to protect the smallest animal life on the planet, and wet themselves over the smallest micro biotic life found on some distant planet, but refuse to acknowledge the life growing inside a human woman as a child. Even in the hard cold light of science, a fertilized egg in a woman's womb meets all the requirements of life. And that life is human. In other words, if left to maturation it will be a human child, not a cocker spaniel, a tit mouse, or a petunia. Furthermore, with what we now know about DNA, a baby in its mother's womb has a distinct genome from the mother, and therefore is a unique human life and not just  "a part of the woman's body."
     The legalization of abortion forty years ago is the standard-bearer of Leftist policy failure. The main driver of legalized abortion was as a way to reduce out-of-wedlock births, mothers of unwanted pregnancies being legally able to end that pregnancy and neatly dispose of their children. That was, of course, what the pro-abortion crowd used as their main argument in the debate. The out-of-wedlock birth rate in the nation as a whole in 1974 was 6%, and among the inner city black community it was 20%. Today, after forty years of government sanctioned infanticide of millions of unwanted children, the out-of-wedlock birth rate in the general population of the United States is 43% and among the inner city black population it is 75%.
     I feel sympathy for the Munoz family, it is never easy to lose a loved one. I am sure they feel helpless at not being able to save the life of Marlise. But they are not helpless in saving her baby's life, and I am sure Marlise, like any other mother, would do anything to ensure the safety of her child. Even if it means that her brain dead body must be kept on life support until her baby can be safely taken from it. To do any less would not only be immoral, but a sin against the institution of motherhood of which Marlise was a member.

Business Leaders' Ignorance Obama Best Friend

     I recently received a letter in the mail from the Veterans Administration, solicitous in its tone about my disposition with regards to health care insurance. The letter was prompting me to immediately drop everything and register for "the health care I deserve", on the government's health care exchange and identity thieves market place. Funny thing is that I am not even a veteran, unless one counts being separated from the Air Force before completing basic training back in 1982. I guess I am still in the government's system even though not an official veteran, which is illustrative of how far down in the barrel the Obama administration is willing to scrape to scare up enrollees for its socialized health care scheme.
     I have also been receiving emails prompting me to relinquish all my personal data (and liberty as well) to the greater good that our caring leader and his compassionate comrades in congress have graciously given the people of this great nation under the auspices of health care reform. These emails make their way to my inbox a couple of times a week, and here I thought I had hidden myself so well in my bunker apartment in a non-descript Mid-Western city. It begs the question in my mind that if the president's health care boondoggle is so great, and the crowning legislation of the last hundred years that Americans are going to love as was sold to us by Nancy Pelosi and others, why then must they expend hard earned tax payer dollars on commercials, emails, and letters to beg people to enroll?
     President Obama and Democrats sold "health care reform" as a means of insuring all those unfortunates that were previously uninsured. But according to Aetna CEO, Mark Bertolini, only 11 percent of enrollees his company is seeing are previously uninsured. Mr. Bertolini and others are beginning to realize what some of us knew before the law was passed four years ago, i.e., the law is not suppose to insure the uninsured, but move previously insured persons from private insurance into subsidized highly regulated government programs.
     Mr. Bertolini showed his political naiveté by stating that more choice is needed for health care reform to succeed. He says it is essential for a healthy market place. It is astounding to me that after five years of the Obama regime there are still smart people like Mr. Bertolini that seem obtuse about the real agenda of Barack Obama, in which choice and a healthy market place are certainly not welcome. It is this political ignorance among our business leaders that has, in part, allowed President Obama to implement policies that operate contrary to the tenets of liberty. Mr. Bertolini and other insurance execs still believe that their companies will benefit from the president's health care law. Instead they will awaken one morning to find they have been pushed out of the health care insurance business and replaced with the single-payer, government-run system that Barack Obama has said is his eventual goal.