Author: Eldon Kramer

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Liberal columnist, who regularly destroys reputations, bemoans loss of sense of awe

The left-leaning Arizona Republic columnist, EJ Montini, bemoans the loss of his sense of “awe” when it comes to politicians, entertainers, writers and ballplayers.

Montini (azcentral

Liberal columnist EJ Montini regularly tears down politicians, yet he bemoans the loss of a sense of awe. (azcentral.com)

“One of the worst things about the news business is that it robs you of your sense of awe,” he writes, “you recognize very quickly that the rich and famous and powerful are just … people.”

While commenting on the cynical times we live in, he owes it to television and social media, but fails to recognize that he regularly tears these people down in his columns.

“Individuals for whom previous generations would have looked upon with awe, simply owing to their status, we look upon with suspicion, even disdain,” he writes as he refers to outgoing Governor Jan Brewer.

He blames cynical parents for robbing their children of their sense of awe when it is he, with his liberal views, who persuade us to view people and events cynically.  If that were so, how does he explain the majority of those in the audience at President Obama’s Central High School appearance were impressionable teenagers?

Several students expressed their appreciation that the president would visit their school, citing that it doesn’t have the best reputation. Continue reading →

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Obama’s warm-up for State of the Union address

Ramierez cartoon

President Obama made no mention of the failure of automakers to put a million electric cars on the road by 2015 during his visit to Ford this week. (Cartoon courtesy Michael Ramierez, IBD)

Understanding that many of you may not have noticed, President Obama made stops in three states this week to do warm-up speeches in preparation for his State of the Union address, here are the low-lights.

Speaking at a Ford plant in Detroit, he again credited his steps to rescue the economy and rebuild it on a new foundation, stating that we are entering the New Year with new confidence that America is coming back.

“You don’t have to take my word for it.  The facts are the facts,” he stated while touting his administration’s statistics on job creation and unemployment.

Missing, however, was his glowing vision of the electric car market.  Could it be the reason that Ford and the other manufacturers have fallen far short of his goal of having a million of them on the road by 2015?  Some 850,000 short.

Having “invested” $8 billion in taxpayer funds, the president quietly shelved his goal.  The lower price of gas at the pump is sure to further reduce electric car sales. Continue reading →

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Obamacare: Looking past the heartbreak and a little bit of humor to a pending Court decision

With the U. S. Supreme Court scheduling of oral arguments in the case of King V. Burwell on March 4, 2015, I thought I would again touch on the controversial ObamaCare.  At issue is the questioning of how people in states with federally-run exchanges can lawfully get tax credit subsidies under the so-called Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare).  The law clearly states they cannot.  Recently, two health insurance related stories came to my attention, providing the impetus for this blog post.

Doctors (dailycaller.com)

While many doctors are retiring, others are forming Concierge practices in order to better serve its members. (dailycaller.com)

I’ve been reading numerous stories about the misfortunes taxpayers are experiencing with increased premiums and deductibles, and those IRS penalties soon to hit many of them.  Bringing it a bit closer to home, a friend sent me a copy of a letter he received from his doctor outlining the challenges faced in his daily practice of medicine brought about by ObamaCare.

Faced with a decision on how to provide the kind of care he believed he wanted to provide his patients, like many physicians, he decided to transition to the Concierge model of care.  Beginning this month, he is limiting his practice to 500 patients agreeing to pay an annual membership fee.  As a result, 2,500 patients will be forced to find a new doctor.   This is happening across the nation. Continue reading →

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Muslim attack evokes memories and reminders

247BCD7500000578-2900259-image-a-71_1420643665252

One of the terrorists in Paris is shown shooting a policeman despite his pleading for mercy.

Waking up this morning to the news of Muslims killing 10 journalists and two police officers in Paris reminded me of the several times my readers have directed me to a 2009 You Tube video of Muslims shutting down Paris streets for prayer. Click here to see it.

My wife and I have enjoyed our many trips to Paris and other parts of France.  I vividly recall that the usual warnings we received about hoodlums, who want to rip off unsuspecting tourists, became more serious as the Muslim population grew there.  The same was true in London.

More recently, a reader sent me a piece being circulated about the growing Muslim U.S. terrorist network, the increasing number of mosques appearing in our cities and the Muslims who are gaining regular access to the White House, thanks to Obama administration appointments. Continue reading →

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A look ahead to the Republican majority

Republicans are just days away from halting candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 plan to fundamentally transform the United States of America.

Republicans now hold the majority in the Senate 54-44-2 and have increased its hold in the House to 246-188.

Even though the president continues to arrogantly flaunt the possession of the veto pen, the euphoria over the GOP’s decisive mid-term win is still high.

Yes, there are those who are concerned with the split within the party between the more conservative Tea Party and traditionalists.  More importantly, however, is the concern many of us have over the ease in which Republicans compromised in the passage of the so-called “Cromnibus” spending bill.

boehner (aattp.org)

Despite the rhetoric of Speaker John Boehner that he would vigorously oppose the president’s executive actions, the big spending bill sailed through the House and Senate, frustrating conservatives looking to the GOP majority in 2015. (aattp.org)

“We are going to fight the president tooth and nail if he continues down this path,” said Speaker John Boehner, referring to illegal amnesty, “this is the wrong way to govern.  This is exactly what the American people said on Election Day they didn’t want”

We also heard Boehner talk about how the Democrats crafted ObamaCare behind closed doors, his references to the “broken institution,” and “what our constituents want.”

“If, in fact, the president’s actions on immigration are against the Constitution and the rule-of-law,” asked the Washington Times’ Joseph Curl, “then why would the GOP cave in on the budget negotiations and actually allow them to be funded?”

Although the funding only continues through February 2015, support for the bill, in my view, validates the president’s executive action. Continue reading →

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A sidebar to my Merkel post

 “The United States keeps trying to restore what is unrestorable – leadership in the world system.” – Immanuel Wallerstein

In yesterday’s post, Merkel’s opinion of Obama revealed, I wrote of the NSA spying on Merkel, the ejection of the CIA’s Berlin station chief, and the souring of the German public on President Obama and the U.S.

Space didn’t permit me to give you details of what has been termed as an “unprecedented breach” in German-U.S. relations.  I am posting this sidebar because the U.S. media has failed to give us the inside “skinny.”

lmerkel and obama ( Charles Dharapak, AP)

President Obama was unwilling to commit to a no-spy agreement with German Chancellor Merkel. While apologizing privately to her, he would not make a public apology. (Charles Dharapak/AP)

“The United States has been stupid and very clumsy,” wrote Immanuel Wallerstein, a senior research scholar at Yale University.  “The basic problem is that the United States is, and has been for some time, in geopolitical decline.  It doesn’t like this.  It doesn’t really accept this.  It surely doesn’t know how to handle it, that is minimize the losses to the United States. So it keeps trying to restore the unrestorable – leadership in the world system.”

Wallerstein says Europeans in general, and Merkel and Germany in particular, see the U.S. as a “very unreliable partner.”  As they lose trust in the U.S., they wonder if they can really trust Russia.  “Today … Germany (Merkel) feels free to criticize openly and even harshly all the powerful nations with which she deals.” Continue reading →

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You got us into this mess, Mr. President, with your 2008 grand plan to fundamentally transform the United States of America.

Now, if you are as smart as your people say you are, you’ll drop the “I’ve got a veto pen arrogance” and allow Republicans to help you salvage your last two years.

… read more
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Merkel’s opinion of Obama revealed

“What puts her off about Obama is his high-flying rhetoric.  She distrusts it.”  – The New Yorker magazine

While Barack Hussein Obama swept into office on a wave of popularity that extended to Europe and the Middle East only to see that acclaim dwindle,  German Chancellor Angela Merkel has quietly gained leadership strength and approval.

“In Obama’s first years in office, Merkel was frequently and unfavorably compared to him (Obama), and the criticism annoyed her,” wrote George Decker in a Dec. l, 2014 piece in The New Yorker.  Quoting Stern, a German publication, Decker writes, “Her favorite joke ends with Obama walking on water.”

merkel (washingtonpost.com)

As this photo seems to convey, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is not an admirer of President Obama (washingtonpost.com)

“She does not really think Obama is a helpful partner,” wrote Torsten Krauel in the publication Die Welt, “She thinks he is a professor, a loner, unable to build coalitions.”

Decker’s major profile, The Quiet German: The Astonishing rise of Angela Merkel, the most powerful woman in the world, was one of two recent articles about her.  Vanity Fair’s feature, Angela’s Assets, appears in its January 2015 edition.  Merkel, however, looks upon “the most powerful woman” label with disdain. Continue reading →

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What has happened to America’s will to win?

“Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.  Americans play to win all the time.  That’s why Americans have never lost a war and will never lose a war.  Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.”        – Gen. George S. Patton, May 31, 1944.

Patton (dayiii.tripod.com)

Gen. George S. Patton (dayiii.tripod.com)

Oh my, if General Patton were alive today, he wouldn’t recognize today’s America.  Victory eluded us in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. This week President Obama told a gathering of Marines in Hawaii that the war in Afghanistan will come to a “responsible end.”

A “responsible end?”  What is that?  Whatever happened to winning?

In 2007 it was presidential candidate Obama who referred to the Afghan war as the “good war.”  “We did not finish the job against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  We will wage the war that has to be won.”

Obama (abc30.com)

President Obama told a Marine gathering in Hawaii that he was bringing the Afghanistan war to “a responsible end.” (abc30.com)

Since becoming president, the words, won, win, winning, victory and victorious never seem to get onto the teleprompter.  Instead, sentence bites like “finishing the fight,” “we will finish the job,” “getting the job done,” and “time to prevail” appear.

It was candidate Obama who spoke of the need for a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO, saying “We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president, I won’t.” Continue reading →

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Where’s the great orator?

During a family discussion on the silence of President Obama about the subject of the recent execution-style killing of two NYPD officers, we recalled how he weighed-in when the victims were black.

lectern (biostate.blogspot.com)

Where is the president when the nation needs a civil response to the blue on black controversy? (biostate.blogspot.com)

Remember how he said the Cambridge, MA police “acted stupidly” in the Louis Gates arrest, and how if he had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon Martin? Following the shooting of Michael Brown, he said “too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement,” while directing AG Eric Holder to conduct an investigation.

Most recently he commented on the grand jury decision in the Eric Garner death in New York, saying, “minority communities feel that law enforcement is not working with them and dealing with them in a fair way.”  During that same appearance – unbelievably – he said, “My tradition is not to remark on cases where there still may be an investigation …” Continue reading →