Why President-elect Obama won

Even more than a week after the election, nobody seems to be expressing the following points, so maybe the opinions are off the mark. I don’t think so, and I approve this message.

Barack Obama won for five main reasons. There might be 100 more but even the most significant of them only could come in at Number Six.

Here are the five main reasons, about which I will comment at length below: 1) The Media. Everybody can dance around that, but the media represent a highly powerful engine and serve to scare the daylights out of politicians while, with prejudice, sway the thinking of millions.

2) Bush hatred. Let us assume for the moment you don’t need an immediate further explanation for this.

3) The third reason Obama won was, no question about it, Senator John McCain.

4) For Reason Number Four, I copy Rush Limbaugh’s major point, the failure of the Republicans to be conservatives, and let the world know it. I am paraphrasing Rush but I think that’s close to what he said right after Election Day.

5) Reason Number Five is not overkill. It umbrellas a great deal. President-elect Obama knew how to deliver a manuscript speech from a Teleprompter. HIs first news conference after election last week confirms this point when Obama, at the brief news conference, demonstrated he is no master of the ad-lib.

As acknowledged above, there are other reasons that led to the Obama victory. But remember that more than 58,000,000 people voted for McCain, so the 7% difference in votes was anything but a landslide. It also bodes well for the opposition party four years from now if the GOP can wake up from its collective slumbers and blunders. In fact, it bodes well for the GOP in 2010 when the next House of Representatives races come up.

It is not my intention to try to list all the factors identifying victory and defeat. Blacks voted almost entirely for Obama. Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin drew many voters to McCain who otherwise might have stayed home on Election Day. She was much more effective than the media are admitting, yet she likely turned away some so-called “moderates” due to the disgraceful trashing she suffered. And so on. Victory has many fathers; defeat is an orphan.

So, back to Reason Number One. Many people in and out of politics do not want to give credit to the ability of the media to control this society. Such people are fooling themselves, but they are falling for the media feints. The media collectively did not just favor Obama; they were in the bag for Obama. They shamelessly bulldozed their biased support. It is a national disgrace and will not be corrected unless or until the people in journalism call cop.

As a generalization, the people in journalism mostly are liberals. That goes double for the educators in college schools of journalism. Generally, they are quite comfortable in their skins. Yet much of their work is journalistic fraud, an abrupt rejection of the Journalist’s Creed, which says “the supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service”.

If there was news favorable to Obama, it got front-page above-the-fold treatment. If there was a favorable McCain story, it was elsewhere in the paper. If there was a negative Obama story, you often only heard about it on the Fox News Channel. The so-called “Mainstream Media” ignored it, or countered it with bogus angles or otherwise “buried” it.

Deborah Howell in the Washington Post Sunday said stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Reporters, photographers and editors found the Obama candidacy more newsworthy and historic. For example, the op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces about McCain, 58, than there were about Obama, 32. The number of Obama stories during the past year, going back to last November, was 946, compared with McCain’s 786. After Obama eliminated Hillary Clinton, the tally was 626 stories on Obama, 584 on McCain. Obama was on the front page 176 times, McCain 144. This was just the Washington Post. While we have no comparable statistics, it is pretty safe to say that most newspapers’ coverages would reveal the same percentages of biases.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism found that from June 9 to November 2, two-thirds of the campaign stories in the national media were about Obama, 53 per cent were about McCain. (Of course, some stories were about both candidates.)

You will find elsewhere on this blog that I do not admire Katie Couric. She has enjoyed a kind of rebirth for her interview in September with Sarah Palin. What a joke. Katie interviewed Palin for two hours and aired just six minutes. Anybody could interview Katie Couric for two hours and clobber her. Couric’s questions were described as fair by the Mainstream Media. Several of those CBS-TV aired were not fair. One was when she asked Palin to list several of the U-S Supreme Court rulings she disagreed with. When the question was aired, I did a double-take, trying to think of even one Supreme Court ruling besides Roe vs. Wade.

I would like to ask Katie to name the last three years’ winners of Movie of the Year. After all, she was star of the TODAY show and should have broad knowledge of news. I would like to ask Katie to name the new President of Russia. She may know now it is Dmitry Medvedev, but “I betcha” she couldn’t have told you three months after he became President. I would like to ask Katie to name the Prime Minister of Canada. Even today. It’s Stephen Harper, Katie. But believe me, in interviewing Katie for two hours, my training would enable me to “sandbag” her in the fashion of the Mainstream Media, including Katie. While it would not be good journalism, it would be revealing. For that matter, Katie interviewed Palin after the Alaskan Governor had been a national candidate for less than a month. Katie would have been easy prey to question a month after she switched to CBS-TV.

Below the radar in the subject of the media, consider the way certain stories become recycled to promote liberal causes. One day I recall USA Today running its top story on an upturn in homeless numbers (the numbers themselves were comparatively insignifcant and would have been ignored with a Democrat in the White House) and across the page was a story about a slump in car sales. Right now the Big Three automakers are in big financial trouble, but do you know the “stimulus package” Obama promoted at his first post-election news conference could be correctly identified as a UAW bailout. The auto workers’ unions exercised their extreme power to achieve wonderful union contracts that cost the Big Three $72 per hour. It takes a lot of dollars to buy a car built by $72 per hour workers. It also costs more than $1,500 in the price of a new car to pay the worker his or her hospitalization costs. Foreign cars have much less in the price for employee medical benefits. For example, Toyota cars have $110 for employee hospitalization.

So when we talk about the Big Three, there is a lot to the story you may not be told. There were similar omissions in the recent political campaign coverage. You were fed liberal viewpoints but rarely conservative ones. And the weight applied almost always leaned toward Obama.

The second reason for the Obama victory, Bush hatred, was an overwhelmingly successful effort by (Reason Number One) the liberal media. President Bush did not receive objective reporting out of the White House and he was not shown the respect the office calls for.

For example, in San Francisco, 12,000 people signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush. Classless disrespect.

President Bush endured relentless attacks from the left while concurrently having to see conservatives abandon him.

I did not like everything Mr. Bush did during the past nearly eight years. I thought he should have responded to the opposition diatribes. He thought it would demean the office of the Presidency.

Unlike most Americans who opposed the war in Iraq, I support him. I have heard nobody on either side, really, observe that the Presidential campaign among Democrat Party candidates listed Iraq as the Number One issue. But that was more than a year ago. It hardly came up as an issue during the final two months of the campaign, thanks to the tanking economic news. The fact remains that Al Queda and similar enemies did not repeat the destruction of 9/11 because, frankly, they were afraid of George Bush.

But taken as a whole, no matter what Mr. Bush has done, he was blamed for everything. He remains despised by liberals while continuously disappointing the right, even though it should seem obvious that many of our nation’s current problems either existed long before Mr. Bush came to office, or are beyond his control.

Ironically, Obama will not suffer in the same disgraceful way. Attacks against Obama as President may sometimes be cruel and slanderous, similar to those against George Bush. But Obama will escape the same barrages because he will enjoy the fawning of a favorable liberally-biased media. Just as during the campaign, the media will serve to protect their chosen one.

Investigative reporter Jeffrey Scott Shapiro in the Wall Street Journal said our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world, he said, how disloyal we can be when our President needed loyalty — a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House. It was juvenile; it was often virtually childish.

The media fed off Bush hatred and disseminated it, broadcast it regularly.

The third reason for the Obama victory waS Senator McCain himself. At times I wondered how he could be so unwise as to avoid obvious chances of scoring three-pointers against Obama. McCain could have clobbered Obama on many points, many issues. But he seemed more interested in getting Boy Scout merit badges for good behavior, which helped him not a whit. McCain could have campaigned on the immigraton issue, from a conservative viewpoint. Support legal immigration, oppose illegal immigration. Forget the fact that George Bush was weak on this. In fact, it would have demonstrated a key issue where he disagreed with the President. It would have challenged Obama’s campaign speech that with McCain, you get another George Bush.

McCain was politically less than astute to pull out of Michigan weeks before election day. What a terrible negative image that portrayed. It would have been much better had Sarah Palin not mentioned it, but it demonstrates how reckless the move was that Sarah Palin wanted to see the decision reversed. She just should not have said so pubicly. Obviously, McCain never discussed the move in advance with his running mate. (The only other Palin gaffe, by the way, was her reference to looking toward 2012.) She has to be careful when she speaks her mind. Comments like that do show inexperience, but Palin was one of McCain’s good decisions, and generally, conservatives thank McCain for selecting her. They won’t admit it but liberal media types feared Palin because she was so effective in defining liberalism.

And while we are beating up on John McCain, it is necessary to point out that his silence when there were negative stories did not make him look good. He needed to show some outrage when somebody asked him how many houses he owned. There were several ways he could have answered this that would have prevented the subject from showing up on the late night comedy shows.

And McCain was nothing short of stupid to alienate and ignore Rush Limbaugh.

Speaking of Rush, he described the fourth reason listed here for Obama’s victory. Rush put it at Number One. When you survey the American public, you find many people have more conservative viewpoints than THEY realize. Rush said the Republicans did not run on conservative issues, and this not only hurt them with conservatives but also denied them the opportunity to bring more voters into their camp. So Republicans need to recognize their conservative issues are far more powerful and universally appealing than they realize.

The fifth reason was the way Obama could appear impressive on the stump. He drew big crowds, thanks to extra efforts to attract audiences with rock shows, including that one in Berlin. He was especially effective in reading from a TelePrompter. He was not effective in ad lib situations, but even here, he is better than George Bush who became infamous for speech gaffes. The liberal media ignored Obama’s gaffes, such as when he made the reference to the nation’s 57 states, We don’t have 57 states, do we???

Jimmy Carter was a joke as President, and has continued to be the same as former President. It will be interesting to watch Obama to see if he can avoid becoming the remake of Jimmy Carter. Based on his liberal voting record in the U-S Senate and his leftist views and supporters, it will not be surprising if Obama mirrors Carter. Despite his fawning media, Obama will not have a cakewalk.

Ann Coulter put the status of Politics Twenty-First Century in focus by suggesting that Republicans show Obama the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that Democrats have shown “our recent Republican President”.

Katie Couric

To start off, this is an update entered Wednesday, October 18, 2006.  It is not a gloating statement  nor an “I told you so” but simply to point out that Katie Couric so far is not setting the world on fire at 6:30 p.m.  EDT or EST.  On Monday, October 14, the DrudgeReport gave ratings for Katie in New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, DC.  These were ratings for the LOCAL VIEWERS in each of the three markets.  In New York, WABC (Charley Gibson) was at 7.1, WNBC (Brian Williams) was at 5.3 and WCBS (Katie) was at 3.7.   In Los Angeles, KABC was at 5.9, KNBC was at 3.1 and KCBS was at 1.5.  In Washington, NBC was out front with a 9.3, ABC scored 7.8 and CBS (Katie) was at 2.5.

Then, on Thursday, October 26, 2006, the Drudge Report had even more sobering news for Katie and CBS:  on Wednesday night, she was SEVENTH in the ratings in Los Angeles.  Katie had fewer viewers in LA than a “FRIENDS” re-run, and also “KING OF QUEENS” and “MILLIONAIRE”. 

Katie’s rating in Los Angeles Wednesday (October 25) was a meager 1.1 with a 2 Share, which means just 2% of those who were tuned into television at Katie’s news time were watching her in LA.

 

  What follows is my “blog” on Katie from this past summer. 

This is NOT a sexist statement:  I will not watch Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News. So you and I are clear in the comments below, it has nothing to do with gender.   My reasons are not the same as Andy Rooney’s, but rather are of many years in the making, deep-rooted long before Andy thought he would be in any way affected by Katie Couric.

I  respect  any person who can attract a multi-million-dollar salary legally.  Whether they deserve it or not, the fact is the individuals can  laugh all the way to the bank.

So it doesn’t matter to me whether Katie Couric took a “cut in pay” to move from the TODAY SHOW on NBC-TV to the CBS Evening News.  Her annual salary will be in the millions, and she deserves credit for impressing her future bosses who agreed to pay her even above what her competitors are receiving.  Truth to tell, that DOES matter to me.  But it’s not my money, it’s NBC’s and now CBS’s.  They can afford her, whatever they pay her.

That is not a key point, except to Katie.

Katie… in this week’s Newsweek cover story …. is more or less commended for getting more ink during the week than the announced resignation of Tom DeLay.  She was featured in a recent story in the AARP Magazine.

Tim Russert, moderator of NBC’s “Meet The Press”, hired Katie in Washington in 1991.  She was a reporter on a local Washington TV station.  She was “Katherine Couric”.  Tim is the Bureau Chief for NBC News in Washington.  It always has been fashionable to hire liberals for network jobs.  You won’t find as much slant on this at the local stations, but they are themselves changing, as has been noted elsewhere on this blog. 

Tim told the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Gail Shister  (who writes columns on television):  “I saw a spark, an energy, a tenaciousness.  She was all over the place.”

Tim mostly does not show his own liberalism.  But there, in commenting on Katie Couric, he clearly was.  But this is not about Tim Russert’s own liberalism, which, as indicated above, does not reveal itself very often.

He said he thinks Katie Couric will succeed as anchor for CBS News. 

Part of the problem here is that the three major networks’ early evening newscasts have been transformed into treatises for senior citizens.  As a senior citizen, I feel insulted.  The so-called “magazine pieces” on television news started back when I was working as a TV reporter.  In those days, they were founded on journalistic principles.  Today, the magazine pieces are fluff and often liberally, not journalistically, oriented.  I am not going to cite examples here.  Just listen to any of the three networks any evening.  Not only is there the liberal slant (Brian Williams on NBC is the least guilty) but there is the constant effort for magazine pieces aimed at the assumed major TV audience of the newscasts:  older people.

Will Katie Couric attract younger viewers?  That is probably going to be her main appeal, although the “audience” that tuned to her on the TODAY SHOW also can be counted on to be somewhat loyal to her on CBS.  Yet the young people, generally speaking, are not tuned in to the news of the day.  If you listen to Jay Leno or Sean Hannity doing a MAN ON THE STREET interview, you find that young people have almost no clue who national figures are.  They probably can tell you all about the kind of guitar a rock star has, but they don’t know who the Vice President is.

A long-time star of the news spot Katie will occupy later this year, Walter Cronkite, applauds the selection of Katie Couric.  He occupied the chair from 1962 till 1981 when whatshisname took over.  To hear CBS tell it, Walter was “the most trusted man in America”.  Of course, this ignores the fact that the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC enjoyed a higher audience.

“I think she’s a terrific choice,” said Walter.  “I’ve followed her.  I knew her work apart from TODAY SHOW.  She’ll be fine.”

That line is precisely why I am writing this.  Katie’s work apart from the TODAY SHOW was a collection of liberal diatribes masking as journalism.  She started with the completely biased reporting she did on the Clarence Thomas (Anita Hill) Senate confirmation hearings. Along with millions of others, I watched those hearings virtually non-stop, and was appalled at her reporting.  I could not believe she would be long for the job once the coverage was concluded.

Sad to remark:  NBC News loved her.  There was more bias in her reporting than you’ll see in a month of reporting on all three networks of the evening newscasts.

The Media Research Center has done an outstanding job of compiling Katie’s liberal diatribes. citing year after year of her various liberal slants. Check out  http://www.mediaresearch.org and put “Katie Couric” in the search line.  They currently have more than 900 “links” to Katie, and while it takes a while to retrieve the various items, the summary is absolutely riveting and compelling:  Katie Couric is a flaming liberal, and likely will emerge as more of a biased reporter than Dan Rather in the same spot.

She starts on CBS-TV September 5th, the day after Labor Day. She may enjoy an early boost in the ratings due to viewer curiosity.  Sorry, I won’t be among her viewers. 

She is replacing Dan Rather, and more recently, Bob Schieffer.  The irony of Bob Schieffer’s tenure during the past year is that he has garnered better ratings than Rather.  Schieffer is a nice fellow, but nevertheless decidedly on the liberal side, based on his questioning on FACE THE NATION, which he hosts each Sunday morning. 

Said Bob Schieffer:  “I’ve known Katie Couric since she broke into journalism and she’s going to be a great addition to the CBS News team.  She’s tough, she’s fair, she’s a straight shooter…..  She’ll be terrific.  Just watch.” 

The comment is carried in TV ads on the air this summer.  Of course, CBS would not quote him saying something negative.  And I suppose he pretty much feels the way he is quoted above.

Not so Andy Rooney.  Andy Rooney is clearly a liberal, admits it and lets it all hang out. But he doesn’t dig Katie Couric.  It should be noted that Andy favors good journalism, with an aim toward objectivity  (except on SIXTY MINUTES, where he appears!!).  He doesn’t think Katie will be a benefit to CBS  just as he thought Dan Rather was a poor excuse for a TV anchor.

Said Andy on IMUS IN THE MORNING June 22:  “My problem with Dan was always that you knew where he stood politically.  And the fact that he stood on my side didn’t have anything to do with it.  I thought he was a bad representative of the liberal side because he was SO OBVIOUS with his opinions.  There were just little words he used when he was on the air that made it apparent to everyone that he was a liberal Democrat.  And Walter Cronkite on the other hand had the same liberal Democratic opinions as Dan had but you would never know it.  No one knew it during all the time Cronkite was on the air.”

About Katie Couric coming to CBS??  Said Andy:  “I’m not enthusiastic about it.  I think everybody likes Katie Couric.  I mean how can you not like Katie Couric.  But, I don’t know anybody at CBS News who is pleased that she’s coming here.”

CBS is arranging for Katie to go on a “listening tour” in at least six cities this summer.  She will meet with viewers who will give her their ideas on how CBS should report the news.  That is a laugh-and-a-half. 

Over the years, television people have organized so-called “focus groups” to tell them why they tune into TV news.  By and large, these focus groups courageously say they turn on TV news to get the weather.  And boy, do they get the weather.  The TV newscasts “lead” with the weather if it rains (see other item in this blog on this remark).

So, come September, Katie Couric may be giving us the weather !!!  Now, lesseee…… how can you give a LIBERAL WEATHER FORECAST  ???

In mid-July now, Katie has given her new bosses something else to think about:  she told “Access Hollywood” she would NOT venture in the Middle East to cover that hot spot  (Israel and Lebanon for the moment).  Said she:  “I think the situation there is so dangerous, and as a single parent with two children, that’s something I won’t be doing.”

Katie will have great appeal to the wusses of our society !!!

 

Arabs Having Ownership at Six American Ports

Let’s see.  The story is that a company known as Dubai Ports World had just about completed a deal,  a $6.8 billion acquisition of a British company, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company.  Dubai Ports World, of the United Arab Emirates.  That one.  This is where Tiger Woods wins golf tournaments  (Dubai). Oh yes, the same one that made it into the 9/11 Commission Report when the United Arab Emirates biggees were playing footsy (going hunting?) with Osama Bin Ladin.

Yesterday, the news secretary for President Bush, Scott McClellan, said:  ”In hindsight, when you look at this and the coverage that it’s received and the false impression that is left with some, we probably should have briefed members of Congress about it sooner.”

As the great, learned Harvey Diltitcher once said, PERCEPTION IS REALITY.  The deal looks dead.

Is it dead?   At least many people think so.   Don’t hang on every word here:   there may be something more to the whole story, and we may never hear of all of the devils in the detail.

Many people are dumping on the deal.   Unfortunately, and this is the only obvious conclusion that can be drawn thus far:   the Bush administration did not umbrella the deal properly for public consumption.

It depends on what damage control develops, and whether the possible underlying aim of the deal, if any, is impossible to achieve now.

So now we have to wait two or three years for somebody to write a book exposing what was happening here.

The problem is basic.  It is the taint.   The perception.  President Bush says the United Arab Emirates is a good ally of the U. S. especially in the fight against terrorism.  The U. S. was doing the deal under the radar, it seems, because incorporated in it was an agreement for DP World to reveal records on demand about “foreign operational direction” of its business at  six U. S. ports  (Philadelphia,  New York,  Baltimore,  Miami, New Jersey and New Orleans). 

It is confusing that the White House says President Bush did not know about the deal until recently.   You have to proceed with the conclusion that Scott McClellan does not dispense lies in any situation.  This would seem to indicate nothing about terrorism was below the surface. 

Probably nobody except one of those CIA whistleblower guys (traitors, maybe) will reveal whether the deal included a method of the U. S. to infiltrate more of the Middle East.   At least this time, no whistleblower apparently surfaced this deal, but that’s beside the point.

Because Homeland Security was the lead agency in shepherding the deal, it seems to me there was more here than the perception of Arabs running six U. S. ports. 

On his radio talk show this morning, Michael Smerconish (Radio Station WPHT, Philadelphia) spent most of his three hours going over Pages 137-138 of the 9/11 Commission Report.  There, you can read the account of how Richard Clarke somehow queered a plan to bomb Osama Bin Ladin in 1999.   

The account tells about the planned attack on a hunting camp where Bin Ladin was in the vicinity of the Sheikh Ali camp in the desert south of Kandahar, Afghanistan.  The attack was called off, according to the Commission report, because a United Arab Emirates prince also was there, along with others from the UAE.   A UAE airplane had brought the hunters to the desert camp.   The CIA not only did not want to kill a UAE prince, they were not convinced they could be sure of getting Bin Ladin.  It doesn’t take one of them there rocket scientists to conclude that some Arabs from the UAE were enjoying some leisure time with the world’s Number One terrorist.

We are in a war.   It is a peculiar war because our enemies do not wear uniforms.   However, we may have to keep reading between the lines on the port story.   It does not seem very logical that the U. S. government would be doing a deal with Arabs during a war  unless there is something there under the radar we don’t know about.   

After all, we do not want our U. S. government to broadcast the location, date and time of our next “attacks” against terrorism.

Maybe a method of fighting terrorism has been killed.   If so, it is unfortunate, and another casualty of war.  But obviously, the President’s news secretary was right yesterday:    they didn’t do it correctly …. because

 ……….   Now most people think it was wrong. 

MAYBE THE LAW IS A ASS

This comment includes a quote from Charles Dickens.   A further explanation of   THE LAW IS A ASS  (sic)  may be found on another post on thishere blog.   Look for  “A PLEA FOR OVERTURN OF NJ DOT LAW”.   Here, then, is this particular post:  

Dr. Laura says:  WHATEVER THE LAW SAYS, DO.  You would think that would be a liberal talking.

What does a liberal say, then?

On the May 27, 2001, “MEET THE PRESS” (NBC-TV, with Tim Russert), James Carville, chief apologist for William Jefferson Clinton, dismisses the law (Carville is a lawyer).  Challenged by Russert, Carville snapped:  “The law is just a sheet of paper!”

So, it depends not on whether you are conservative or liberal; it depends on what suits your purpose.

As the learned Harvey Diltitcher once said, if the facts are on your side, try the facts.  If the law’s on your side, try the law.

The NJDOT conveniently elects for the latter.

Lawyers are ruining our society

On the Internet, somebody once said, there are 10,000 jokes about lawyers.

But the lawyers are no joke.

While some of them do essential work (example:  public prosecutors who put the bad guys in prison), lawyers, in general, are ruining our society by running our society.  And lining their own pockets simultaneously.  They are in control of your lives.  Perhaps you don’t realize it, but YOU are the ones doing the lining.

Lawyers will be the last people on earth to admit this.  And, of course, you KNOW they are costing “people” alot of money, but you probably haven’t realized how much effect they are having on your life.  But, you figure, what can you do about it?

In our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson et al complained that the King of Great Britain had “erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Alas, the King of Great Britain has been replaced by thousands of “lawmakers” who spend their days in the Congress and state and local legislatures of this land, mostly, it appears, finding new ways to generate lawyer fees, often due to more and more governmental regulations. They do this through the swarms of new laws and expanded government.  Is it un-American to ask whether this nation has become “a multitude of New Offices”?

The Declaration of Independence was signed by 56 men.  Fewer than half (24) were lawyers.  We should have stopped there.

On a national basis, and on the state and local scene, we have far too many legislators (read that:  lawmakers).  In Philadelphia, for example, can you tell me what logic there is in having 17 members of City Council?  In Philadelphia, there are 10 “district” council members and seven “at-large” members of Council.  The “routine” is just that, and should be handled by fewer than 10, effectively seven or five.

In Pennsylvania, there are 203 state representatives and 50 state senators.  Will somebody tell me why we shouldn’t operate with, say, 50 state representatives and 20 state senators?

And Congress??  Heaven forbid!  We have 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 United States Senators.  And each one of ‘em is working like the devil to write a bill that becomes law with THEIR NAME on it!  Think of how many bills are written into law!  Many tax and regulate and cause us no end of bureaucratic obligations.  Knock off alot of those state representatives and state senators, and city council members, and most of the 535 birds in Congress, use the saved office budgets and hire the fewer persons needed to implement the fewer laws that are needed to run this nation.

Alot of them are lawyers.

And they pass laws to tax and regulate you and me.  And this not only causes unwieldy big government but also hits you and me in the pocketbook.  And we have to spend alot more of our time complying with the regulations and filling out and filing the many tax forms that hit the average individual and business.

Did I hear somewhere that the paper for the printing of the tax code weighs 80 pounds?  And did I hear somewhere that something like 36,000 laws tell the American public what to do?

Pardon me, but is this not ridiculous?

Lawyers in America’s legislatures have spent the past 200 years drowning us in regulations and taxes (and tax returns).  We broke from the Mother Country to escape taxation without representation.  Now, we have taxation WITH representation, with the representation overwhelmingly in the form of sharks from the legal profession.  The major firms have HUNDREDS of lawyers.  There have to be grievances and violations right and left, all over the place, to generate work for all these attorneys. and fees, and more fees, and still more fees.  Even the law departments of our governmental agencies justify their employment by suing seemingly anybody with a big company and big buckos to be had.  Example, Bill Gates and Microsoft, a pathetic effort by our United States Justice Department.  Microsoft was forced to spend millions to defend itself from what primarily is a bogus federal lawsuit.  And the tobacco industry!  It does not matter whether you smoke or not.  The lawsuit against the tobacco industry really impressed the anti-smoking lobby.  But the lobby was a pawn.  It was all about fees for lawyers, and delayed, albeit unworthy, tax revenue for states.  It was all about money.  And that’s what lawyers are about.

Oh, sure, they “love” the law.  They keep society on a law-abiding course.  But the cost is prohibitive.

Many of the laws regulate without corresponding proper, effective enforcement.  The lawmakers whose name is on the bill signed into law can have back pain from patting themselves on the back for their acumen.  The rest of us must accept provincialism throughout our society.  And, without a lull, the lawyers keep collecting more and more fees.

Inside these NEWS items from GSS Tours is a report on how New Jersey regulates the motorcoaches that operate in the Garden State.  Just attacking the overbearing laws is a huge task.  This is why so many laws not only survive, but multiply in their applications.  The average small business owner does not have the time to fight the laws and regulations that so effectively pin him/her down.  And states pass laws that probably or in fact do violate the U. S. Constitution.  Included here, we contend, is the New Jersey law calling for unannounced bus inspections.

But here’s the rub:  you have to GET A LAWYER to fight the improper law.  You cannot ask the state lawyers to help you!  They only serve the Governor and the state legislature.  IMAGINE THAT!  Our taxes pay the salaries of all governmental employees, yet they do not really “work” for us, if they are lawyers.  Does anybody know this???

While this has practical application, it nevertheless unfairly hamstrings the private citizen who has a legitimate grievance.  Should not the public lawyers have the additional responsibility of evaluating and testing the rulings they previously had “approved”.  The governmental law departments have no “Customer Service Window” to help the public.

So, these bus inspections are conducted often almost daily in Atlantic City, and they likely are in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.  But the Governor and the state legislature, who approved the state law(s) applicable, will not initiate a review of their skullduggery.  Why should they?  Admit they may be wrong?  Admit they are over-regulating?  And why should the New Jersey Attorney General test whether he, or his predecessor, made a mistake originally by declaring the legislation constitutional which ultimately is used in such a dictatorial fashion.  Yeah, in a letter to the Governor, it was suggested that the procedure reminds one of the stories from 60 years ago (read this  “Gestapo”).   It is unbelievable.

The situation certainly is no joke.  It’s the lawyers.

In Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, the cost of malpractice insurance is becoming prohibitive for the average family practitioner.  Costs have mushroomed in recent years, increasing into the many thousands of dollars.  The typical family doctor cannot keep up with the premiums.

Of course, you can blame the insurance companies, as they are partly to blame.  But primarily, it’s the lawyers.  The lawyers file their huge claims for anything from improper surgery to hot coffee in the lap.  Juries, especially those in Philadelphia, are generous to the poor plaintiffs.  The financial awards turn into huge rewards.  And the lawyers get one-third to one-half of the money.

Lawyers know their annual income is directly affected by how aggressive they pursue lawsuits.  It doesn’t matter if they are chasing ambulances or hammering doctors, the goal is the fee.  And the greater the fee, the bigger their home, the snazzier their car.  While lawyers cannot stand to hear the criticism, and hide behind a holier-than-thou attitude, lawyers are perhaps the greediest profession of all (and that even includes the sports pro athletes).  Greed fires malpractice claims.

The situation is getting worse, America.  You ought to recognize and realize that YOU are allowing this to happen.  Just keep on giving plaintiffs 1,000 times more than they may deserve.  And, pray tell, just WHO do you think, ultimately, is paying the bill for the greed?