SavvySugar

Have you ever bid a lot of money on an eBay auction, and as soon as you bid, thought, "Sh*t, I hope I DON'T win" ?

Whiplash — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 05:08:19 -0700

Well, have you?

GOP Chasing Wall Street Donors

stephley — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:01:22 -0800

Republicans are stepping up their campaign to win donations from Wall Street, trying to capitalize on an increasing sense of regret among executives at big financial institutions for backing Democrats in 2008.

In discussions with Wall Street executives, Republicans are striving to make the case that they are banks' best hope of preventing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats from cracking down on Wall Street.

GOP strategists hope to benefit from the reaction to the White House's populist rhetoric and proposals, which range from sharp critiques of bonuses to a tax on big Wall Street banks, caps on executive pay and curbs on business practices deemed too risky.

Democrats have dominated Wall Street's fund-raising circles in recent elections. Mr. Obama himself raised millions of dollars from employees of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and other Wall Street firms.

Now, at least some Wall Street executives have reduced their political contributions to the Democratic Party and its candidates, according to fund-raising reports and interviews with executives at financial-services firms.

Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio made a pitch to Democratic contributor James Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan, over drinks at a Capitol Hill restaurant, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Boehner told Mr. Dimon congressional Republicans had stood up to Mr. Obama's efforts to curb pay and impose new regulations. The Republican leader also said he was disappointed many on Wall Street continue to donate their money to Democrats, according to the people familiar with the matter.

A spokeswoman for J.P. Morgan declined to comment.

"I sense a lot of dissatisfaction and a lot of buyer's remorse on Wall Street," said Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the second-ranking House Republican and a top Wall Street fund-raiser for his party.

A complete picture of Wall Street's 2009 campaign donations won't be available for a few weeks. Through the third quarter, campaign-finance reports show that some major Wall Street players began sending an increasing share of their donations to Republicans. Many of those donations came toward the end of this period, because many banks had essentially shut down their political giving at the height of the financial crisis.

Through the first nine months of 2009, about 54% of donations from Bank of America Corp.'s political action committee and employees went to Republicans, according to campaign-finance data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That was a switch from the 2008 campaign, when 56% of the company's donations went to Democrats. Shirley Norton, a BofA spokeswoman, said it doesn't base PAC donations on party affiliation.

Donations from the PACs and employees of J.P. Morgan and Citigroup also trended toward Republicans during the same period, according to the data. Spokeswomen for the banks declined to comment.

During the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama received nearly $15 million in donations from people who worked in the securities and investment industry, according to the CRP data. Employees of Goldman Sachs donated nearly $1 million to his campaign. By contrast, Mr. Obama's Republican opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, received $8.7 million from the securities and investment sector, according to the data.

Wall Street executives who supported Mr. Obama during the presidential campaign said there had been growing signs of discontent. These Democrats predicted that the unease would depress fund raising as the 2010 election heats up.

One major Democratic fund-raiser on Wall Street said that some people who raised money for Mr. Obama's campaign felt burned. "They put themselves on the line internally with their companies for Obama, and now they look stupid," this person said.

The White House referred calls seeking comment on Wall Street donors to the Democratic National Committee. A DNC spokesman said: "It's not surprising that Republicans are seeking money from the same banking industry they are the champions of. The relationship between Wall Street and Republicans is symbiotic."

Recently, Mr. Obama has repeatedly blasted the banking industry and Wall Street in speeches, leading critics to charge that he is vilifying Wall Street for political purposes.

"I see people that philosophically oppose Obama's policies getting a lot more engaged," said former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, who now serves as the vice chairman of investment firm UBS Securities LLC.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000142405274870357500457504361221646179...

From Canada: Conrad Black: Incompetent Obama teeters on the edge

Grandpa — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:10:56 -0800

Conrad Black: Incompetent Obama teeters on the edge
Posted: January 22, 2010, 11:00 AM by NP Editor
Conrad Black, U.S. Politics

The burning question after the Massachusetts Senate election is whether the administration responds by making a course correction to survive politically by jettisoning its policy core and cleaning up its methods, or 'doubles down,' as President Obama has implied, and escalates the ideological and guerrilla war for direction of public policy. This was a referendum on the Obama administration, including health care, not just on health care. Even less was it just the rejection of an astonishingly unappealing candidate, predestined to glory as a trivia question. John F. Kennedy took that seat with lashings of his father's money in an anti-Brahmin revolt against Henry Cabot Lodge in 1952, and was reelected by 864,000 votes in 1958. In the intervening years of Teddy Kennedy, the Democrats could have won with a candidate not confined to two legs and one head. This was less a wake-up call than a Te Deum for a dying and sweaty dream.

The president has three principal problems. He is well to the left of the public and of what he promised the voters in 2008, and it is an old, passe leftism, that is authoritarian, deviously presented and was discredited in this country decades ago; the sort of nostrums that caused Bill Clinton and others to become 'New Democrats.' He is increasingly perceived as having credibility problems and of being cold, cocksure, narcissistic and intoxicated by what he modestly called 'the gift' of his own articulation. And as president, he has been quite, and quite surprisingly, incompetent.

The second of these problems seems to prevent the president from appreciating the last. The only serious domestic initiative to show for the last year is an obscene stimulus bill that has had to be defended by the spurious supposition of 'jobs saved' since, contrary to promises, unemployment has risen by over five million after it was enacted. That target could have been attained without squandering 787 billion borrowed dollars.

Current economic projections call for massive debt increases of $1 trillion a year for a decade, with huge money supply increases that will make history not only by their size but, according to forecasts, by their non-inflationary nature, accompanied by tax increases that will, also miraculously, not retard recovery from the recession. No audible sane person believes this arithmetical fairy tale, including, one dares to hope, the president himself. It is a recipe for guaranteed stagflation and currency devaluation.

The administration bought wholly into the unproved claim that carbon emissions are causing global warming, but global warming has not, for the last ten years, been happening. The president padded around the Copenhagen global warming conference trying to generate enthusiasm for $100 billion annual transfers to the Mugabes and Chavezes, as well as the Chinese (the world's largest carbon emitters), as conscience-alleviating payments for the carbon emissions of the economically advanced countries. America's fellow culprits found less tangibly burdensome expiations. So will America.

Mr. Obama must have noticed that the science and the politics were wrong, and that the arithmetic was too. The whole concept, like his promotion of renewable energy, his cap-and-trade bill, his redesignation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and his pursuit of complete nuclear disarmament, is mad. It was a worthy encore to the president's previous cameo appearance in the Danish capital, where his and his wife's prodigies managed to bring Chicago in fourth in contention for the 2016 Olympics, (out of four competing cities).

In foreign policy, engagement with Iran and North Korea, appeasement of Russia, over Georgia and missile defense, attempting to bully Israel and to deny that there was an agreement between the Sharon and Bush (Jr.) regimes over settlements, and siding with Chavez and the Castros in the Honduran crisis against constitutional democracy and America's legitimate interests, have all failed, practically and morally, at least without knowledge of indiscernible and unlikely, contrary intelligence.
There have been no initiatives to reform NATO, the UN, the IMF, all in need of modernization, and there has been a regrettable delay in launching the long-promised and necessary measures to turn the Afghan operation into a success, while the U.S. and its allies have been milling about, losing ground and taking increasing casualties.

The fumbling over Guantanamo has been another fiasco, as attorney general Holder has acknowledged that it is an exemplary prison. But Obama has been entrapped by Teddy Kennedy's unfounded identification of Gitmo with Abu Ghraib. The president's reaction to the near disaster of the panties-terrorist in the skies over Detroit began with waffling from a Hawaiian luau, and gained altitude agonizingly slowly.

No one is audibly lamenting the retirement of George W. or throwing shoes at his successor's head because he speaks in sentences, but this president is bestriding the world as a flake, cow-towing to the Mikado, apologizing for President Truman's use of the atomic bomb, criticizing Roosevelt and Churchill's uninclusive approach to winning World War II, and Churchill and Eisenhower for disposing of the pajama-clad hysteric Mohammed Mossadegh as head of Iran.

And instead of sending the Congress completed bills and drumming up public support for them, as legislatively successful past presidents like FDR, LBJ, and Reagan did, he just rolls a Christmas tree into the Capitol Rotunda and invites Reid and Pelosi and their vacuum-cleaner committee chairmen to festoon it with their favorite pork baubles. Stealing the Alaska Senate election with the fraudulent prosecution of Senator Stevens, (since retracted), the Minnesota Senate election with the fraudulent recounts against Senator Coleman, and the unchallenging seduction of Senator Specter as he was circling the Republican primary drain in Pennsylvania, to get 60 Democratic senators, enabled the public purchase of party loyalty, the dismissal of sincere moderates like Senator Olympia Snow, (whose furrowed brow is a mortal challenge to Botox), for a bad health care bill that is not a reform. This was not what was thought to be meant by the slogan 'Yes we can!,' is not leadership, and the people, even in Massachusetts, don't like it.

It has been a year of fecklessness, amateurism, and posturing. Less that is useful has been accomplished by this president in his first year than by any president since Herbert Hoover, and he was ambushed by the Great Depression after seven months.

President Obama rose with astonishing speed from a more improbable sociological provenance than any of his 42 predecessors, an alumnus both of the genteel finishing school of Harvard Law and of the Chicago boiler room for hardball politicians. Neither his radical nor sleazy connections stuck to him. He deftly made an unspoken arrangement to liberate white liberal America from its guilt complex over historic treatment of African-Americans, and to banish the down-market Al Sharptons, Jesse Jacksons and Charlie Rangels as black spokesmen, in exchange for a one-way ticket to the White House. With this implicit, non-refundable offer in his back pocket, he almost effortlessly seemed to take the Democratic Party away from the Clintons and rode the trends, the economy, and the sclerosis of his opponent's campaign straight into the White House, with professional skill and elegance.

Withal, this president seems overwhelmingly confident, strangely detached, and, as Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan's leading speech-writer, and now one of the leaders of the Obama Buyers' Remorse Movement, wrote, 'cold and faux eloquent.' He is fluent and sonorous, but rather vapid. And now, Maureen Dowd, foxy doyenne of New York Times columnists and pin-up girl of the D.C. Democratic establishment, niece of FDR's top fixer, former co-leader, with Michelle, Caroline Kennedy and Oprah Winfrey, of the Obama massed, synchronized cheerleaders, has apostacized and reviled the president as a nasty egotist. When A Democratic president has lost Ms. Dowd and the Kennedys' Senate seat, it is time to return to the drawing boards.

If the president has a Damascene rendezvous with the real wishes of the American people and turns the White House bowling alley into a cram-course charm school, he can be a popular and successful president yet. An excellent bi-partisan health care bill that really is a reform can still be had and would be hugely admired, especially after this debacle. If he wants to double down on what we have seen in the last year, he will leave the White House in a submersible in three years.

For all the claims that the Republicans are too influenced by religious zealots and country club knuckle-draggers, the administration may be in the hands of 'redistributive,' pacifistic Kool Aid drinkers. If it is, the Republicans will have to elevate their 2012 presidential candidate this year. The office may, 213 years after the retirement of George Washington, actually seek the (wo)man, but not from what is conspicuously on offer now, from either party.

National Post

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/01/22/...

Real World Issues

cheekyredhead — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:35:56 -0700

Sitting with friends for coffee this morning I posed this question "What are the REAL world issues?" It was interesting the answers that followed in that conversation. My friends are a really diverse group of people. We are not a group of "oh yeah- we all agree on everything" bunch.
I gleaned from our conversation about REAL world issues...and they are as follows:
Americans are tired, angry, frustrated, and getting impatient. Many of those from the religious right who voted for Obama because of a desire to be part of history in the making...are now frustrated and suffering buyers remorse.
Sure he just got the Nobel Peace Price but as all will agree, he himself said he didn't deserve it. The liberal groups are giddy as children who have consumed too much sugar, beaming with pride that their savior that finally has had an undeniable accomplishment. They feel they are finally making all the rest of us see the brilliance of a man who many others feel has simply been riding a rainbow to a pot of gold.

Speaking of rainbows, lets now consider that bold announcement that Obama's newest goal is to end the "Don't Ask-Don't Tell" era within our military. Seems he has realized that with so many gays within our military it would not be cost-effective to bounce them out of there after paying so much to train them. I believe he stated something to the effect that "we need these people to fight" so in a way we can possibly say he implies that "they should have an equal opportunity to die" so that is a Hmmmm...moment.

There have been many soldiers who were given the boot from our military because of sexual status and it ended or side-tracked their careers. Can they now go back and be reinstated? More importantly will our military/government now change their discharge papers, changing them from "dishonorable" to now "honorable"...as our president has now decided they are able to go die with honor? I believe they should. To not change that discharge status would be a bit hypocritical wouldn't it?

Now...back to the religious right. How are they going to look at this action? Apparently our President has decided that gays have a right to die for their country, but he is still on the fence about whether they should be given the right to marry. Will the religious right simply decide that dying is something they are comfortable with and that Obama can just continue sitting there until the fence falls down?   I mean...why is it okay to die for the rights of all American citizens BUT you yourself as a gay are not given those same rights? I predict that fence will get very wobbly.

Speaking of fences... are we supposed to think our President has decided that guarding our borders is just not important?   The constant flux of immigrants has a direct impact on our nations economy.   The taxing effect on all of us as a result has become overwhelming...and I mean "stress" when I speak of "taxing" in this instance. We are tired and frustrated with the immigrant issue. Every political side will agree it is an issue we must address BUT it is an unpopular problem to attack....and yes....any action in this regard will be viewed as an attack.

Special interest groups would like us to "help" numerous individuals based upon numerous "hardships" but they aren't asking us nicely to be charitable. America has already been established as the most charitable nation in our world. Many countries depend upon that charity but due to our current economy and unemployment issues most Americans are saying charity MUST begin at home, but just "who" will be getting some help?

Americans are already spending over $2.9 billion and projecting an increase of another $200 million over the next six years for the ESL programs.  Considering that 6.4 million annually are "new unauthorized immigrants" (which apparently is the new politically correct way of referring to illegal immigrants) this will hardly best serve the 1.8 million who are here legally... this is obvious an issue our President should be taking action on.

On a side note, those figures only reflect on what we spend on attempting to teach people to learn English. It does not reflect the amount we spend on printing many things (mandatory in California) in other languages. I should make an important distinction here.  The language we are being forced to print everything in California is Spanish. Not Korean, Chinese, Japanese, or any other language aside from English and Spanish. Why? Seems like only those immigrants are allowed to be "biased" against within the language spectrum which essentially underlines those who are just refusing to learn English even when given ESL classes.  In case I was being too obtuse here it is the Spanish-speaking who are refusing to learn. Nobody else seems to have an issue.
We cannot afford to spend, spend, spend and not plan. Planning would include bringing jobs back to America. Why don't we have an agreement in place like much of Europe which demands we hire within FIRST, and then after demonstrating an inability to find those employees here, allow an option to look elsewhere. American businesses need to have more enticements to keep those jobs here.

Frustrations abound and are numerous. Unemployment is the largest pending issue but it seems our President is making very little effort to give any attention to that dilemma which astounds us all.   He seems to be a child in a candy store who can't focus on which aisle to go down first. He just paces back and forth. Unemployment is already over 12% in California and approaching 10% nationwide.

That stimulus package has had little effect on the average man. It did not save jobs nor create new ones. It did however allow many of us to toss away perfectly functional vehicles and purchase new ones. Gee...that seems environmentally stupid.   Wait...it is also financially illogical.   The "average" American didn't need to acquire more debt and our environment didn't need to acquire more waste.

So the buzz changed to the Nobel Peace Prize and many of us wondered what the accolades were hiding behind the curtain of blind celebration. Could it possibly be the ACORN shock...that they will be given 75% of the fire-fighting funding after midnight October 31st? Wow...does our political machine believe that we will believe that suddenly ACORN is now supporting worthy causes and spending money wisely? Gosh...that was one short "time-out" for ACORN. I am having flash-backs to the Wizard of OZ..."Don't pay any attention to that man behind the curtain!"

Perhaps that Nobel Prize was the medal of bravery the wizard gave the cowardly lion BUT I can't help but remind myself that the cowardly lion had bravery he just hadn't discovered. Our leader is a bold man who has no issue with bravery. He fully supports the bravery of our troops giving their lives in a country which doesn't even appreciate their presence...won't give them the support they need to accomplish the goal they were sent there for, and when they return (if he succeeds in his goal) he intends to make future employers foot the bill for injuries obtained in combat. Gee...he wants to give accountability of government damages to corporate America. Yep...he is going to need that medal. It may be the closest he will ever get to peace.

Town hall meetings are going to be just the first wave of voices raised to shout "enough!" I predict there are gong to be many more loud protests...attempts to get our President to listen to our REAL issues...and they will continue until he does. Why? Buyers remorse. All those votes for Obama meant they were votes for change and the only change they are seeing is an increase in our nation's debt. Yikes. The shine has worn off and that illuminating glow of hope is a dim memory.

Fashism.com

audrabrookie — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:38:55 -0700

Fashism is a place to ask the question, "Should I go out like this." Users submit photos of themselves and pose their sartorial queries. Other people then vote and help them answer their question. You can also snap a photo in a store and email it directly to the site and save yourself from that all-too-common buyers remorse. Anyone can upload and vote on looks, but you have to sign up to comment. It's a crazy addictive site that will eat up your entire afternoon if you are not careful!

Biden’s Version

Grandpa — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:57:11 -0700

Biden’s Version
By the Editors (National Review Online)

There’s a line in the movie Dave in which a guy impersonating the president, looking for ways to cut the budget, asks his commerce secretary, “So, we’re spending $47 million so that somebody can feel better about a car that they have already bought?” It doesn’t cost $47 million to get Joe Biden to give a speech - he’ll talk anywhere, anytime, at great length, for free - and his address to the Brookings Institution on Thursday was intended to prevent buyer’s remorse. America already has bought the $787 billion stimulus package and will be paying off that bill for a very long time. Was it a good buy? Two hundred days later, unemployment still is creeping upward, almost at 10 percent, and the public is starting to wonder why it is getting so little bang for its buck. President Obama, just returned from Martha’s Vineyard, dispatched Biden to make Americans feel better.

But in making his case for the stimulus, Biden - exaggerated. Just a little. First, he offered a revisionist history of the financial crisis and the administration’s response to it. Biden said that when Obama took office, the economy was “on the verge of failure. Credit was frozen. Businesses couldn’t borrow for inventory, much less expand or hire.” Not really. By January, the worst of the crisis had passed. Problems remained, but the credit markets had mostly thawed, aided by unprecedented interventions from the Treasury and the Fed to guarantee interbank lending.

Biden also exaggerated when he said, “We took the very unpopular, but necessary, step of rescuing the banks.” Actually, the Bush administration did that. The Obama administration’s only notable contribution to the constellation of bank bailouts was the Public-Private Investment Program, a dimly burning star that tanked with investors when it was unveiled and hasn’t really been heard from since.

“And now,” Biden added, “although there’s a long way to go, eight out of ten of the largest financial institutions in America . . . have repaid the government in full, and, I might add, at a $4 billion profit for the taxpayers.” As Biden failed to mention, that $4 billion profit is dwarfed by the hundreds of billions in debt and dubious equity the taxpayers still have tied up in failed companies like AIG, Citigroup, and Fannie and Freddie, much of which is unlikely ever to be profitably resolved. A long way to go, indeed.

Biden said that the administration “took action in stabilizing the housing market, allowing responsible homeowners to stay in their homes. And we’re beginning to see the results of that.” But the administration’s efforts have not had much of an effect on foreclosures, primarily because the slice of borrowers who are good loan-modification risks is relatively small. Most borrowers who fall behind in their payments either catch up eventually without help or can’t catch up no matter what.

That’s four big exaggerations or omissions, and we haven’t even gotten to the stimulus yet. Biden kicked off this portion of the speech with a silly metaphor. Critics of the stimulus, he said, call it “a grab-bag of too many different programs. But the fact is . . . the Recovery Act is not a single silver bullet. I think of it as silver buckshot, as opposed to a single bullet.” This is an illuminating analogy. Think of the stimulus as scattering the nation’s silver instead of hitting targets with precise shots.

According to its starry-eyed backers, the stimulus was supposed to fund hundreds of infrastructure projects, create thousands of “green-collar jobs,” put millions back to work - fast. But the money for such projects has slowed to a trickle. Instead, the bulk of the stimulus has gone to pay for tax rebates, income redistribution, and bailouts for fiscally incontinent state governments, all of which Biden ignored in his speech.

On tax rebates: “My Republican friends - as my mother would say, God love them - forget that they insisted on $288 billion in tax cuts.” Wrong. The tax rebates in the stimulus were included to fulfill Obama’s campaign pledge that 95 percent of Americans would receive a tax cut. It’s strange that his administration would “blame” the Republicans for insisting on tax rebates that Obama now wants to extend. If it had been up to conservatives, the tax cuts would have taken the form of rate reductions, not rebates.

On income transfers such as extensions of unemployment benefits, food stamps, and Medicaid: “I know my Republican critics think maybe we shouldn’t do that. Maybe that’s the difference between being a Democrat and a Republican. . . . I believe this was the right thing to do morally.” Putting aside the question of whether these programs are morally virtuous, Republicans opposed these provisions of the stimulus bill because they all but locked states into making “temporary” extensions of these programs permanent, inflicting enormous expenses down the line. This is why some governors, such as Rick Perry of Texas, said thanks, but no.

On state bailouts: “Ask the governors, Republican and Democrat. Without the billions of dollars in Recovery Act stabilization funds coming in, could they have maintained essential services in their states?” That is mostly true of Republicans named Arnold Schwarzenegger and of Democrats in blue states that have redefined “essential services” to include six-figure annual pensions for state employees and health insurance for “children” up to the age of 25.

As far as infrastructure spending is concerned, Biden talked a good game. But a brutal fact-check issued hours after the speech by the Associated Press noted a number of exaggerations and omissions in this part of his speech, too. Biden neglected to mention the dramatic slowdown in highway spending, numerous complaints of waste because of a lack of competitive bidding, and more than $1 billion spent to “repair” bridges that passed recent inspections with high marks.

“If you look at the Recovery Act as a two-year marathon,” Biden said, “we’re at the nine-mile mark. . . . Two hundred days in, the Recovery Act is doing more, faster and more efficiently and more effectively than most people expected.” To the contrary: There are plenty of reasons to think that the stimulus has been as inefficient and ineffective as its critics feared it would be - unemployment is getting worse rather than improving as predicted, countries that spent less on stimulus (and those that employed tax-rate reductions), are recovering more quickly, etc. - and Biden’s exaggerations only served to highlight these reasons.

We don’t feel better. Do you?

How to Influence a Liberal (But Not a Lunatic)

Eleuthera — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:28:58 -0700

By Robin of Berkeley
August 13, 2009

My Open Letter to Liberals (American Thinker, July 31, 2009) sparked some concerns from readers that I had returned to the warm embrace of Mr. Rogers. Several kind souls even offered to spirit me away to safer pastures, sort of like a conservative witness protection program.

I can understand why it might have looked like I relapsed, perhaps by inhaling too much medical marijuana. But truly, there's a method to my madness.

I get it; evil exists, and it's running rampant all over the country and spreading like wildfire. The meanest, most sociopathic fringes of the far left have been set loose, like rabid beasts unleashed from a cage, and they're sinking their diseased fangs into conservatives. And there's more people foaming at the mouth every day.

But this is part of the Left's plan: Keep conservatives so agitated that we can't tell the nice liberals from the maniacs. There's a term for it in psychotherapy: hypervigilance, and it's associated with trauma. I don't know about you, but the constant cruelty, combined with the real threat of communism, is making me feel pretty traumatized these days.

But it's a particularly maniacal method that commies use: set their dogs on us so we feel persecuted (because -- hello? -- we are being persecuted). Then discredit, ridicule, and label us "paranoid." It's sick, it's vicious, and it's all part of their game plan.

So I'm not writing for the brain dead and the possessed. I deal with them sparingly and only for a darn good fee for a 50 minute hour.

But there have got to be others out there like me, with the potential to see the light. Yes, there are countless subhumans, but their mouths are bigger than their numbers. I was heartened that there were even two thoughtful liberals among the postings to my Open Letter. While I didn't necessarily agree with their views, I was pleased they were tuning in to AT, and that they were expressing themselves respectfully.

I'm reaching out to those liberals who haven't lost their marbles yet. So I want to roll out the welcome mat to: Hillary supporters and other Democrats who chose Obama as their second choice; conservatives who punished Republicans but didn't bargain on Marxism; Ron Paul supporters who are looking for safe harbor; centrists who voted for Obama but are alarmed by the extreme left turn; and Obama supporters who liked him but now are having buyer's remorse.

As a therapist, I foster change. So I'm trying out in the cyberworld what helps my clients. For instance, here are some techniques:

1. Tailoring my words to the audience. I used a phrase like trauma in my open letter because that's a word on liberals' radar.

2. Engaging people: If I make them feel comfortable via empathy, they may stay awhile and start listening.

3. Zooming in on common bonds: I referred to experiences that unite all people, such as the search for happiness and our mortality.

4. Acting in unexpected ways: Liberals assume I'll be all snarky. If I'm not like this, it's harder for them to dismiss me.

5. Externalizing the problem: This is a handy technique borrowed from narrative therapy. If people don't feel blamed, they're more likely to change. So in my piece, I cited big government as our common foe, rather than point fingers at Obama and the Democrats.

6. Cultivate doubt: Spot the vulnerability and plant seeds of uncertainty. As an example, I was speaking to a colleague who depends on health insurance for his private practice. I expressed skepticism that ObamaCare will keep paying for therapy. (The look on his face: priceless.) Creating doubt can be as simple as a mystified look or a well placed "Really," as in, "Oh, you still believe in Obama's stimulus plan. Really? "

Another handy trick: instill doubt by making people feel separate, isolated. We are pack animals and most of us don't like to feel alone in a crowd.

So when an acquaintance made a nasty crack about Palin, I looked puzzled, then said, "Oh, you don't like her? I do." When she recovered from shock, she sputtered, "I don't know anyone who likes her." I answered, again appearing bewildered, as though I'd never heard an anti-Sarah crack in all my life, "Really? Everyone I know respects her. Did you know that she's one of the few successful women politicians who got there on her own?" To her credit, she backed off and apologized (Yay! There's at least one liberal out there who is operating on all cylinders!)

6. Storytelling: This is a great technique culled from the master hypnotherapist, Milton Erikson. (There's much talk that the left has used hypnosis on us for decades, so it's time we get in on the game.) Erikson would subtly influence his clients through subliminal methods like storytelling. Rather than confront a client's defenses, he'd meander in and out of their unconscious, like a graceful ballerina. For instance, with his son who suffered from a chronic illness, he'd tell stories about a hardy tree outside his son's window, using the tree as a metaphor for overcoming great adversity.

So, here's how I used it with a friend who was waxing rhapsodic about Obama's stimulus bill. Rather than challenge her, which would have started a no-win argument, I listened, then we chatted about something else, and then I said the following:

I've been thinking a lot about my parents; they died four years ago this month. I didn't appreciate them much as a kid, but now I really do. It blows me away how my grandparents arrived here from Tsarist Russia dirt poor to only face horrendous prejudice and poverty. But they literally kissed the ground when they got off the boat at Ellis Island. There was no government assistance back then. The Jews helped each other, just as all the immigrants did.

My grandparents raised their children in conditions that would be considered impoverished today but they never complained. My parents were also so grateful for the little they had, and they just loved this country. Sometimes I feel so ashamed of later generations. We have light years more than they ever did, and yet we always want more; we never say thanks. I wish my parents were around so I can tell how grateful I am to them and the sacrifices they made.

Then, as I observed my friend's utter incredulity and confusion, I changed the subject.

Think subtlety won't do the trick? The Left has managed to put half the country in a mass hypnotic trance using these strategies.

7. Last but not least: Allowing people to safe face. People will not change if they feel stupid or ashamed, even if the truth smacks them in the face. Robert McNamara elucidates this principle in the documentary, The Fog of War. According to him, the planet was saved because JFK permitted Khrushchev to remove missiles from Cuba on his own volition, thereby preserving Khrushchev's image.

For instance, if I say, "What in the world made you vote for Obama? Didn't you see all the warning signs," the person will get defensive and dig in his or her heels. But if instead I remark, "I think the media has been negligent in giving us the honest facts about Obama," or, "I remember voting for so and so and being sorry about it afterwards," then you help them save face.

So these are some of my therapeutic trade secrets. Is it a pipe dream to think I can sway a wavering liberal? Perhaps.

But I keep reflecting on a story about Suzuki Roshi, a beloved Buddhist teacher in the 60's. He was giving a talk and declared, "Life is impossible." A student raised his hand and asked, "If life is impossible, how do we do it?" Suzuki responded, "You do it every day.'"

So I'll keep trying to make a difference even if it sometimes feels utterly futile and impossible. But that's what the hoodlums want us to believe, isn't it?

pricey dicey

Walto012 — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:56:12 -0800

So i drove to the nearest Urban outfitters this week ( which is not close) and picked up the skirt and the belt. I am usually a sale rack kind of girl. i always have buyers remorse and end up returning things. This being the case my boyfriend basically forced me into buying something i really love and coughing up the cash, rather than buy something i kind of like that i probably wont ever wear. He is always the rational one. So i tried it on and i loveeeeed this skirt but i nearly died when i got rung up. i returned a few things so i didnt actually have to pay for it, but still.I still dont think i can justify keeping it. haha Long story short here is the look! :D

Tee- F21,
Belt- Urban Outfitters
Skirt- Urban Outfitters,
Purse- F21,
Nylons- Alberstons,
Boots- Reflection

They do this just to keep us in suspense..

kastarte2 — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:54:08 -0700

Polls now show Obama's lead significantly narrowing.

"(CNN) – With five days until Election Day, there are signs the presidential race may be tightening, according to a new CNN poll of polls.

According to an average of several recent surveys, Barack Obama's lead over John McCain is down to 5 points nationwide, 49-44 percent - a gap that is 3 points less than it was earlier this week, and nearly half what the margin was one week ago.

The closing of polls late in a presidential race is not unusual: Sen. John Kerry lost his 2004 White House bid despite holding a slim lead over President Bush in its final days. Then-Vice President Al Gore trailed Bush by 5 points in early November before the two essentially split the vote days later.

“It’s possible that McCain will continue to close the gap over the final few days of the campaign,” said CNN Senior Political Researcher Alan Silverleib. “Presidential elections often tighten up at the end, especially if there’s not an incumbent on the ballot. Voters sometimes experience a degree of ‘buyer’s remorse’ before settling on a new president."

Historically, however, only one presidential candidate in modern history has come back from the deficit McCain faces to win an election - Ronad Reagan in 1980."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

It's worse than we thought

skb9850 — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:53:31 -0800

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/dpatton/2009/dp_02102.shtml

It's Worse Than We Thought
By Doug Patton
February 10, 2009

Perhaps it was all the hoopla about the historic nature of Barack Obama's presidency. Maybe the hype of election night and all that talk about wishing our first black president well actually made us all believe, for just a fleeting moment in time, that things would not be as bad as we feared they would be. It turns out they are worse.

After the president's first press conference, it was clear that he is completely in over his head. His long, rambling answers to the questions directed to him went from tedious to boring and finally to embarrassing. The man really doesn't know what he's talking about.

Iran's attitude has been "unhelpful" in the search for peace in the Middle East? What kind of analysis is that? They threaten to wipe Israel off the map every chance they get! Unhelpful?

Then there is the bloated, pork-laden, so-called stimulus package the geniuses in Congress have devised to fulfill their leader's vision of how to "fix" the economy. Having failed to garner a single GOP vote for this boondoggle in the House, Obama worked very hard to wine and dine and charm the three most liberal RINOs in the Senate (Collins, Snowe and Specter) to vote for it. Like the emperor sporting his nonexistent new clothes, Obama can now claim minimal bipartisan support for this unconstitutional transfer of wealth.

Most Americans (especially those who voted for him) are reluctant to turn on their new president just yet. It's like an increasingly intense case of buyer's remorse. You loved the product on the store shelf. So how can you feel this nagging desire to return it? And just when you think you made a terrible mistake, you have this sickening realization that all sales are final.

As for the "stimulus" bill itself, there is a sense that the president and his Democrat Congress want to ram it down our throats before anyone can sift through the bill's laundry list of liberal fantasies and hold it up to the ridicule it so richly deserves.

But aside from the waste, the pork and the needless spending provisions of the bill, there are aspects of this legislation that make it dangerous. In a Bloomberg News commentary, Betsy McCaughey writes:

"Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion...Senators should read these provisions and vote against them...The bill's health rules will affect 'every individual in the United States.'"

McCaughey reports that the bill calls for all medical treatments to be tracked electronically by a new federal bureaucracy known as the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, which will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is administering what the federal government considers appropriate and cost effective health care. All this is the brain child of former Senator and disgraced tax cheat Tom Daschle, who recently had to withdraw his name from nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The goal, writes McCaughey, is "to reduce costs and guide your doctor's decisions. These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, 'Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.' According to Daschle, doctors have to learn to give up autonomy and 'learn to operate less like solo practitioners.'"

Hospitals and doctors that are not "meaningful users" of the new system will face penalties. "Meaningful user is not defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose "more stringent measures of meaningful use over time."

Daschle says health care reform "will not be pain free." Seniors, he says, should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. And you thought the government wouldn't ration your health care.

These provisions, combined with the unprecedented spending of this bill, prove once more that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are destined to repeat them. As we used to say in the days of fighting Hillary Care, if those on the Left ever realize their dream of universal health care, we will finally have a bureaucracy with the efficiency of the Post Office, the frugality of the Pentagon and the compassion of the IRS.