Guest Commentary – Fantasy Candidate Part 4

Tonight we delve back into the fantasy candidate series from Jon Smith. For those who read Jon’s site as well as this one, he has already posted this article there. However, there are quite a few of you here that do not regularly frequent Jon’s site, so I wanted to make sure that this gets seen by all of you as well. Tonight we delve into the positions that Jon’s fantasy candidate would take on existing legislation that we should be working to repeal. I have tried to think about everything on the list and I don’t see any of these that would be bad to repeal. But I do absolutely agree with Jon that on many of them we would have to take a slow approach that allows the pain from elimination to be minimal. I think that this part of the series will perhaps be the one that has the most constructive discussion around it. I will be interested in seeing what areas you think he missed, or what areas that he hit that you disagree with. I know that some of them seem to be simply “anti-Democrat” positions, such as health care, but if you are against repealing it, please explain why. I will do my best to be involved in the discussion on this article over the next few days as well.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for October 26, 2010

Tuesday night crept up on me this week. I continue to have a lot to do with work and have managed to thus far keep my head above water with so much going on. I will be going through some big changes over the next month or so. I therefore may be changing some of the schedule of when I post articles and what nights become the mainstays (although I haven’t really figured that part out quite yet). I have received several emails asking why I am not talking more about the elections, as they are only a week away at this point. I simply think there is so much out there already that we would be wasting time attempting to discuss them all. Furthermore, I have my races that I am personally interested in but I have no idea which ones the rest of you are interested in discussing. As this is open mic, feel free to offer up your thoughts on any races that you are interested in discussing. I am following them as much as I can, but simply haven’t had the time to evaluate them. I will begin tonight with just three articles. I will try to find time tomorrow to add another article or two as time permits. I hope you all are having a great week so far.

The Death of Honesty… and Hopefully NPR

So I have a confession to make. I am not a bigot. You know the kind of articles I have written here about idiotic Republicans. But I gotta tell you, when I go out into public and I see people with Obama T-shirts or bumper stickers or hats, I think to myself that they are identifying themselves first and foremost as liberals. I get worried, I get nervous. Now I remember listening to Rahm Emanuel talking about this and stating that the rise of a new, more fair, America is just beginning. That 2008 was just the first drop of blood. I don’t think there is any way to get away from these facts. But we have people who want to remind us that liberals are Americans too and this isn’t a war against liberals, it is a war against radical liberalism in the form of socialist or fascist policies. Alrighty then. Now that I have given my comedic version of Juan Williams remarks on O’Reilly’s program last week, we can simply laugh at how ridiculous it is that someone would have too strong a reaction to them. Yet the reaction from NPR was more than strong, it was conclusive and final. Juan Williams lost his job over what he said on Fox News. And that really bothers me. Maybe more than it should.

Guest Commentary – Fantasy Candidate Part 3

And a hearty good evening to all of SUFA. I must again apologize for my sporadic posting lately. To say that things are hectic right now is an understatement. I have a lot of things that are transitioning which has made my schedule chocked full for the majority of the last month. I don’t see it really slowing down for another month for reasons that I will share later. As promised earlier this week, I tonight offer the third installment from Jon Smith’s fantasy candidate series. Tonight’s addition deals with new legislation that should be proposed, but not including anything that would be a repeal of current law, as that will come in a later section. I highly encourage everyone to talk out the proposals that Jon offers below. Would they work? Are they the best step in each of their respective areas? Are there other forms of legislation that should be offered that Jon has missed. With a government as bloated as the US federal government, there should be no shortage of legislation necessary to start paring things down.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for October 19, 2010

We come to open mic and I am still trying to recover from the last few weeks of work. I am working on some more substantial articles that I think are going to be pretty good when they are finished. And we will see Part 3 of Jon Smith’s series coming later this week as well. For tonight we have several interesting topics. We have a SCOTUS judge who decided that he is skipping the State of the Union, a Senatorial candidate that doesn’t know what the Constitution says, the idiot women on The View making complete asses of themselves, and a lame attempt by Democrats to buy the Senior Citizen vote with a $250 credit to each senior. As many of you may have noticed, I have tended to stay away from stories about specific races for the upcoming elections. Realistically, all the madness out there is getting more than enough coverage. But the other side of that is the races that are most interesting are so bizarre or idiotic that these candidates simply don’t deserve the time it would take to write about them.

The Taxation Contradiction

I was reading through some different articles over the weekend, hoping to find something interesting to comment on, when I happened to stumble upon a series of several articles in a row dealing with taxation. The articles had nothing to do with one another. They just all happened to have taxation in some form or another as the main topic. Each taken on its own painted a picture in support of this plan or that. And all were, in general, the intentions or sales pitches from the Democrat point of view. But my random order of articles revealed to me a disturbing double standard in from the White House in their message. No, double standard isn’t correct. Contradiction fits better. Two articles that I read back to back in particular drew my attention to the contradiction, which I am ashamed to say that I never put together before. It seems that the White House, specifically the President, believes that we should reward the wealthy who conduct business in the US, while at the same time stating that those who are wealthy in America should be taxed higher than they are…

Sorry for the Delay This Evening

I apologize that I am unable to post the regular guest commentary for this evening. As some of you may remember, today was a big day for my company as we launched a groundbreaking new product. As a result of the launch and my tenure, we had all the VIP’s at my location today, which made for a very long day. IT is also the major contributor for my limited participation over the last two weeks. Important VIP visits inevitably mean two or three weeks of long hours of preparation in order to make one day perfect. Things will be getting back to normal for me for a few weeks going forward. The guest commentary is going to be part three of Jon Smith’s series and I will get it up as soon as possible on Friday.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for October 12, 2010

A hearty good evening (or morning as it may be in reality as I am writing this at almost 3:00 am). I will again be keeping it short this evening as I am still having a bit of trouble typing at my usual rate of speed. I have thus far determined that they wrist is not broken. Instead it must be something in the joint or tendons or something. It can hold weight just fine, I just cannot turn the wrist or move it quickly without pain. I also have the big event this week at work: The release of a new product that will revolutionize the industry yet again. Very exciting times, and very busy times as I have all the bigwigs at my location for launch on Thursday. So tonight I will be adding only two articles to start and hoping to add more as the day goes on tomorrow (although I cannot promise). As always, feel free to add any topics that you want to discuss. It’s all fair game….

When Even the President Shows Desperation

I begin tonight with an apology that I have not been able to reply the last couple of days. My stubborn wrist has not exactly cooperated. It makes it difficult to type, as it takes me about twice as long to type as it normally does. After spending the day at work, I came home this evening to peruse the days news. News always gets more interesting as we close in towards an election. Each side becomes more desperate depending on who is leading. If a Dem is leading a Senate Contest, the GOP candidate is sure to throw out something wild. If a GOP candidate is pulling ahead, the Democrat is sure to have a new scandalous revelation to offer as proof that the opponent is the devil. I have grown used to it, although I openly admit that watching the races convinces me of one thing: Neither one of the two sides is fit to represent the average American in Washington DC. Yet somehow things never change. In fact they just seem to get worse with each cycle. As I said, I have grown used to seeing Senate and House candidates showing their ass and lying through their hypocritical teeth to sway voters. But then today, I saw something that surprised me. I hadn’t expected that the President of the United States would blatantly lie and twist on the campaign trail. Yet there it was.

Guest Commentary – Fantasy Candidate Part 2

Thursday night brings me to part two of Jon Smith’s fantasy candidate series. I was pleased with the discussion around part one and after reading the parts that are yet to come, I am excited to be sharing this series with all of you. You already know what I think of what Jon brings to the table and this series is no exception. I am not going to write out a big introduction tonight as I am having a little trouble typing. I hurt my wrist the other day and I am still trying to figure out if it is broken or not. I guess if it is still hurting tomorrow I may have to get it looked at. Wouldn’t be the first time I have broken something and did my best to ignore it  Needless to say typing is a little tough for me to do this evening as every time I reach for certain keys the pain shoots up my forearm. Let’s all hope for the best as if it is broken that would put a serious damper on my blog writing ability. So instead of my rambling, I will simply turn it over to Jon as he continues the quest to identify the traits in a candidate that would serve the constituents of SUFA. I will add a few more pictures of my personal fantasy candidates, however!

Tuesday Night Open Mic for October 5, 2010

Open mic night comes on the heels of some pretty good discussions. We have covered some interesting ground around the free market over the past couple of days. And we have also begun some discussions about what the important areas are for an ideal candidate going forward. After the discussion on federal regulation and control, we have an interesting article tonight that shows the government’s complete inability to use reason on something as simple as a paper clip. We also have some further claims of racism coming from the pages of ESPN, of all places (although athletes claiming racism has become a much more common thing these days). Another of tonight’s topic revolves around a environmental group in the UK that felt the right message to send was to comply with their world view or they will blow you up. Finally, we wrap up my topics with yet another story of how the tax money that Obama is redistributing to those “in need” is mysteriously ending up in Vegas casinos, Hawaii resorts, and pleasure cruise ships. I can’t wait to see what topics you all add as well!

Guest Commentary – Creating the Fantasy Candidate

Tonight we have another guest commentary from one of the more frequent contributors to Stand Up For America. Jon Smith has regularly offered his insight and thoughts to just about every conversation that we have here. And on more than one occasion has offered up his thoughts in the form of an article for guest commentary. It is for this reason that I am working towards having Jon be a regular writer here at SUFA. As much as he writes for us here, he might as well be on the virtual payroll (because a real payroll doesn’t exist  ). This particular article is a little bit different. This will be the first in a multi-part article that explores a single pursuit, developing the perfect candidate based on the needs of the country. It appears that Jon sees this as a six part series, so it will be running over the course of the next few weeks. I have already seen the drafts for the first four parts and the series is good, and more important, relevant to where we are in our political world. The reason that I think it becomes so relevant is that when discussing the concepts and ideas with others over the last few years, I have become more convinced that most people wouldn’t recognize the candidate that matches their ideals if they saw them!

Sayonara Rahm

This week begins one of the biggest transitions for the Obama led White House since they assumed power 20 months ago. We see the worst kept secret in the White House confirmed as Rahm Emanuel officially resigned his position as the Chief of Staff in order to pursue his candidacy for the Chicago Mayoral race. As most of you are aware, I am no fan of Emanuel. He certainly rubbed me the wrong way with his nastiness and absolute hatred for the other party, or for that matter, anyone within his party that didn’t go along with his plans and aspirations. Add to that his now famous “Never let a crisis go to waste” statement (which I personally think was one of the most damning statements ever made by a top level official in terms of revealing to the general public the way that national politicians view their role of governing the people), and you can see why he isn’t on my list of personal favorites. Of course everyone has their own opinion of Rahm Emanuel. What I am going to cover here is why I think that Emanuel leaving the White House is good news for the Obama administration, good news for Americans in general, and then pose a question to the people of Chicago who may now be forced to deal with Emanuel in a position of ultimate power within the city.

Robert Reich Lashes Out Falsely Again

Tonight I reach once again into the bowels of the Huffington Post for an article that I will systematically address, as I am sometimes prone to do. What caught my attention in the headline was the social darwinism part. As most of you know, I am not opposed to social darwinism. I think in many cases it is the proper thing. There are exceptions, but by and large, the survival of the species, according to evolutionary dictates (which I thought Democrats worshiped), demands that we allow the weak to be weeded out of the gene pool. Tonight’s target is Robert Reich. As many of you are aware, Reich served as the US Secretary of Labor and is also a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. I find him to be generally wrong on many things, and his partisan bias is evident in his economic advice. Because he is a strong believer in Keynes principles, I feel he is lost. But when he writes such drivel as below, I feel compelled to call him out on it. For the record, I think that it is authors such as Reich (along with Cesca and Johann Hari) that have rendered the Huffington Post somewhat damaged goods. For every good author and article there will be a clearly partisan and off base one like this.