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Thingish Things

More Obama Buyer’s Remorse

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Aug• 11•11

More buyer’s remorse from a former Obama supporter who now wishes he had supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic Primaries. 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan opines: 

Hillary was not new. She represented the second act of ‘Billary,’ and I had tired of that play long before it ended its eight-year run.

So I voted for Obama in the primary and then again in the general election. I even left the election night party at the Pageant — a party with an open bar and filled with state legislators, union guys and other acquaintances — to go to the Chase Park Plaza, where the Obama people were celebrating. I knew almost nobody at that second party, but I was there when the networks declared that Obama was the next president. People cried and hugged. I got teary myself. A black president. The times they are a-changing.

Indeed. They keep getting worse.

The taller they are, the harder they fall.  Indeed. 

 

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A Double-Barrel Blast at London’s ‘Hoodies’

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Aug• 10•11

I took a little chip shot at the English rioters yesterday.  Max Hastings takes out the wood today in The Mail Online.  I can’t remember the last time I read such a scathing piece. It steams and spits about lost English youth.  Hasting’s column may be talked about for years.  It is a well-written, visceral rant. Caution: It will arouse strong reaction one way or the other.  

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A Touch of Madness at 30,000 Feet

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Aug• 10•11

 

from skywingsinc.com

One small thing I still enjoy about flying is watching the reaction of children on their first airplane ride. No matter how many times I fly; no matter how long the delay or how arduous the security procedures, I am instantly enchanted with the process of flying when I can see it through the eyes of a five- or ten-year old.

There were a couple of them on a flight with me tonight. It was a relatively empty plane, so these kids got to perch in the window seats above the wings. When the stewardess asked for volunteers to move to the back of the plane for ballast, it was nothing doing for these two. They got the wing seats and no one was taking them away.

What really struck me on the trip, though, were the faces of the kids when the flight attendants began the emergency training process — the whole oxygen mask and life raft thing. Giddiness immediately gave way to grown-up solemnity. Their eyes, betraying a trace of surprise, were fixed on the lady in blue.

It took me back to my very first flights when I would try to look nonchalant about the shocking and strikingly grown-up information I was receiving — this thing can actually go down, and in water! — while eagerly trying to store the sequence of survival instructions in the back of my head.

To this day I’m not sure I have it right, and if that mask drops and doesn’t inflate, there is no chance I would trust that the oxygen is flowing. It would be wild-eyed panic for me. (“Air! Air! I need…air!” “Sit down, Mr. O’Reilly!”).

But there’s something else, a suspicion I have subconsciously harbored for more than 40 years, of which these kids reminded me tonight. I have never truly believed there is a life vest under my seat. I don’t care what they say.  And, when I think about it, I have resist the neurotic temptation to drop to my knees and check. I never have, but I swear, one day I will.

I am under no illusion that the thing would spare my life; I just kind of need to know if it’s there, as one occasionally has to tap one’s pocket for a wallet or the house keys. It’s purely need to know.   

“Hey, kid,” I was tempted to say tonight, “check out what color life vest you got.”

But I didn’t. It probably would have broken some law. I do have to ask, though. Has anyone ever checked? Anyone?


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Blue States, Red Ink

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Aug• 10•11

Forbes teamed up with the Gallup Poll recently to determine which states are in the worst financial shape.  Forbes and Gallup measured each state’s “unfunded pension liabilities, changes in tax revenue, credit ratings, debt as a percentage of Gross State Product, debt per capita, growth expectations for employment and the state economy, net migrations and a “moocher ratio” that compares government employees, pension burdens and Medicaid enrollees to private-sector employment.”

Unsurprisingly, the states in the worst fiscal situations are those most heavily controlled by The Democratic Party and the public employee union tail that wags it.

“The five states in the worst financial condition–Illinois, New York, Connecticut, California and New Jersey–are all among the bluest of blue states,” Forbes writes. “The five most fiscally fit states are more of a mix. Three–Utah, Nebraska and Texas–boast Republican majorities and two–New Hampshire and Virginia–skew Democratic.”  (I’d venture to argue that NH and VA lean Republican today.)

 Is there anything simpler to understand? 

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Waterloo, Wisconsin

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Aug• 10•11

Public employee unions in America met their Waterloo in Wisconsin last night.  After spending millions of dollars and thousands of man hours trying to topple six Republican state senators and regain the Senate majority in the Madison statehouse, the union recall effort fell dramatically short. Republicans held four of six seats, and with them, a majority in the Senate. It was almost universally accepted that the Democrats would take back the Senate, but the voters felt otherwise.

It is impossible to overestimate what a big deal this is. Wisconsin has been the battleground for the national movement to reform over-generous and unsustainable benefits for public employees.  Public employee union tacticians from across the country — aided directly by the Obama White House — threw everything they had over the past several months into blocking Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s reforms. They shut the capital with protests, ran tens of millions of dollars worth of scare ads, denied the Senate quorum for almost a month by shipping Democratic senators out of state, and bused in protesters from the four corners of America. But to no avail. The traditionally Democratic voters in the Badger State said “enough is enough.” 

A chief reason for last night’s Republican victory has to be the success of Governor Walker’s reforms.  Despite all the protests and scare TV, Walker’s measured cuts are saving jobs and helping Wisconsin get back on its feet.  People like what he’s doing. 

Last night’s rejection of public employee union pressure is being noticed in every state in America. 

 

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The London Rioter Deconstructed

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Aug• 09•11

Spontaneous looters in London and other English cities are quickly being lent shape and purpose by sympathetic psychologists, sociologists, and other analysts working to get their mugs on TV.

It’s a mistake.  

The “experts” are providing striking insight into the socioeconomic factors behind rum-swilling 17-year-olds snatching 42″ inch plasma TVs  from the windows of mom-and-pop shops, and with it a narrative for why this really all makes sense. It has to do with powerlessness and unemployment and the humiliation of the disenfranchised, we are told — and nothing to do with Benny Hill re-runs in high definition.

You can’t blame the academic types for imposing their worldview on the situation. There is something of the social scientist in all of us that demands it (Kelly’s Construct Theory vaguely comes to mind). We seek an orderly explanation of all things random as a way to properly harness and mentally digest them. If it were political analysts on the telly, we would be looking at a revolutionary movement. Education reformers, I’m sure, would be busy indicting the English O-Level system. 

But sometimes, to Kipling’s eternal dismay, people just don’t keep their heads about them when all others are losing theirs. And so they throw that stone through the window when they know they shouldn’t or join in kicking the poor bloke on the ground when they were taught by their mothers not to. And they do it because, at the time, it seems like fun. 

You can call it mob mentality, but that provides umbrella absolution, too, for what in fact is a collection of individual acts of crime. And that’s how riots in a tinder-box world must be stubbornly viewed if we are to keep alive the basic social compact.  No excuses: A crime is a crime is a crime.

Fortunately the Brits are a no-nonsense breed and the extrapolators will be kept on a fairly short leash. The French might devise an entirely new philosophical discipline from this week’s events, certainly an art movement. Le Rage. 

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Obama’s Squandered Gift

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Aug• 09•11

 

from alexjmartin@wordpress.com

I’ve written about this once before, but it bears repeating in the wake of President Obama’s widely panned remarks following the stock market crash yesterday.

This President got overexposed within weeks of being elected. The phenomenon was first pointed out to me by a friend and former Reagan White press officer who was aghast at how often President Obama’s political team was trotting him out to speak in the early days of his presidency. It never stopped. If anything, the President’s media appearances increased in frequency over the past three years, and with each one, his words became more diluted. 

When the President of the United States speaks it has to mean something, my friend explained. It has to be special and rare so that the words carry weight, yet President Obama’s handlers squandered that resource. They had on their hands one of the best talkers in the world, and so they told him to keep on talking.

They are seeing the unfortunate result of that decision now. There are no words the President can utter today that will inspire confidence in the American public.  The great orator is spent 16 months before the end of his term.

It is a teachable moment.

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Empty Suit

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Aug• 09•11

Dana Milbank has an excoriating piece in The Washington Post today on President Obama’s serial lack of leadership. It’s worth a read. What I find most interested in how ingrained the lack-of-leadership narrative has become, especially among the White House press corps. It will only grow more intense.  This could be a long 16 months for the President. 

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Falling Stock Prices Mean Higher Property Taxes

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Aug• 08•11

The tanking stock market spells bad news for millions of individual and institutional investors, but its effects will be felt by everyone if the market fails to rebound quickly.  Nowhere will the losses be felt harder that in public pension funds, which are heavily invested in Wall Street.

State pension funds, which are estimated to be $3 trillion in debt already, have to make payments to retirees.  They are constitutionally guaranteed. When the funds fall short — when investment targets fail to meet their mark — local governments have to make up the difference.  In New York, that generally means an increase in property taxes. Close watchers of New York politics will remember that New York passed a “property tax cap” last year, but many may not know that rising pension costs were exempted from the bill.

Still, faced with soaring pension costs coupled with tax protests, town, village, and county officials throughout the country will have no choice but to further cut discretionary services like educational programs, senior centers, and infrastructure repairs.  Former New York State comptroller candidate Harry Wilson, a super-smart guy who led the restructuring of General Motors, warned of this extensively in his campaign last year.

Even before today’s market crash, pension costs for New York’s local governments were scheduled to be 37% higher in 2012, squeezing the life out of local government budgets. What’s happening now, in the wake of the S&P U.S. credit downgrade, will only make things worse.

New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli gamely predicted today a quick stock market recovery.  For everyone’s sake, let’s hope he’s right, but not bet any more on it. 

 

 

 

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Campaign Ad, Rick Perry ’10

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Aug• 08•11

http://youtu.be/ARDfHfMxy8Q

Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) has a great economic story to run on. I would expect to see his presidential campaign ads looking a whole like this one from his 2010 re-election campaign.  It couldn’t be more on message in today’s economy. 

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