Winner in P.A.: All Democrats

As I noted yesterday, Rush Limbaugh and a lot of other Republicans don’t understand that they’re hurt by further extensions of the Democratic nomination process. Hillary’s win in tonight’s Pennsylvania primary will keep that process going.

I listened to both Hillary’s and Obama’s speeches and both were excellent. (I mean the delivery, not the content; the content was socialist.) Both keyed on the inflation and recession caused by Bush-McCain.

Neither keyed on the inflation as being caused by the lack of a gold standard and by the $3 trillion wasted on the Iraq War, although Obama did note the war’s cost, in lives and treasure.

What’s going on is that Democrats are forming themselves into the new winning coalition in American poltics. Their multiple interest groups are jostling for position to grab power for the long term, much as in 1932-36. If FDR could bring together blacks (who had been Republicans) and white segregationists into a new coalition, surely Obama — or even Hillary — can bring together something similar this year and in the near future.

Meanwhile, McCain is off somewhere, ignored. His party, which used to be the party of common sense and economic growth, under Bush has become the party of inflation, unemployment, foreclosures, rapid spending growth (faster than any time since LBJ) and endless, expensive war.

Republicans should hope that their loss will be modest, not generational; and that Democrats, after they win, continue their recent history of economic folishness enact massive tax increases that will bring Republicans back to power in Congress in 2010.

If Democrats recover the legacy of JFK — tax cuts and the gold standard — they could rule for several decades.

Reportedly, Obama is a cig smoker in private. If he adopts a public pose like FDR’s with a — jaunty cigarette holder in the picture — Obama will be a big winner for sure.

Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” another Republican disaster

I haven’t listened much lately to Rush Limbaugh because, with a Republican in the White House, he’s just a shill for Il Duce. But today I listened in.

Rush is running a scheme called Operation Chaos. It’s to keep the Democratic nominating process going on as long as possible. So, with Obama in the lead, Republicans are supposed to shift to the Democratic Party and vote for Hillary. This keeps her in the race, causing chaos.

Operation Chaos is about as well conceived as Bush’s Operation Iraqi Freedom. That is, it’s a disaster.

Operation Chaos means Obama remains in the limelight longer. He’s also challenged by his fellow Democrats longer, forcing him to improve his campaign.

Rush pointed out that, in the last debate, Obama was testy and didn’t like being grilled. What do you think he corrects that problem pronto? If the nomination were already his, there would have been no debate until the fall against McCain, when Obama’s problem would have been in a much bigger spotlight.

It also doesn’t make sense to have Republicans vote Democratic, many for the first time in their lives. By the time the November election comes around, many of these voters will have lost their jobs, seen their homes foreclosed, and had their pickups repossessed after paying $4 gas. Having once voted Democratic, they’ll be primed to do it again. Life is made up of habits.

Sure, Obama’s economic “recovery” program is a socialist disaster that would make matters worse. But if you’re kicked out on the curb and your wife and kids aren’t eating, you’re willing to take a whirl of the big Wheel of Democracy Fortune.

Operation Chaos? Would you believe it’s more like like Operation KAOS, after the bumbling enemy agency in “Get Smart,” and Limbaugh playing the role of Siegfried?

Arnold will increase taxes — as I have been predicting

When you’ve been following politics as long as I have — I still remember the 1964 presidential election, when I was 9 and valiant Barry Goldwater lost to the ogre LBJ — some things become inevitable.

In California, here’s the budget pattern: The wastrels in state government max out the state’s budget. A recession hits. Some cuts are made. But they’re not enough. So taxes are increased. That crashes the economy even more. The budget gets even worse. Even more drastic cuts are made. Taxpayers get sick of the high taxes and enact an initiative cutting taxes.

The process repeats itself.

Now that I think of it, it’s sort of like the plot of Arnold’s movies. I’ve seen almost all of them and, except for “Terminator I,” in which he played a villain, they all have the same plot, with Arnold being bested until the end, when he wins. So after raising taxes this year, watch for him to back a tax-cut initiative in 2010, when he runs for the U.S. Senate.

Anyway, the Chronicle reports on the plot of the budget:

As state lawmakers carry on a raging debate over how to solve California’s fiscal crisis, they agree on one thing: The situation is getting worse.

The budget deficit for the fiscal year beginning July 1, which was estimated two months ago to be at about $8 billion, is now expected to widen to as much as $14 billion….

For the upcoming fiscal year, the deficit is expected to be “at least $11 billion; $12 billion to $14 billion is probably the right range,” Ducheny said.

With the fiscal crisis deepening, many legislators agree that cutting expenses may not be enough by itself to balance the budget, and that generating additional revenue through taxes and/or fees will probably have to be part of the equation….

“You won’t have a lot of time to dither,” said Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland. “If we don’t get this budget done during the middle of the summer, we’re going to be broke.”

Wouldn’t that be nice if the whole state government — followed by the feds and the locals — shut down permanently. Then these wastrels would stop robbing me. But it ain’t gonna happen.

For what will happen, watch any of Arnold’s movies.

Bill Maher: Mr. Unfunnily Politically Correct

The least funny man on earth is Bill Maher. He once had a show called “Politically Incorrect.” I watched it one night because local novelist Dean Koontz was on it. Maher was not funny, but he was the epitome of political correctness. The last thing he was, was “politically incorrect.”

A friend of mine recently lamented going to one of Maher’s comedy “shows” somewhere here in Southern California. “Every other word was the f-word,” my friend said. How can somebody with such a limited vocabulary be funny?

Compare Maher to my favorite, Groucho Marx. “Say the magic word” and he’d have you howling for an hour. When Warner Brothers threatened to sue for copyright infringement because its film “Casablanca” was followed by Groucho’s film “A Night in Casablanca,” Groucho wrote them:

Apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city and holding it as your own. For example, up to the time that we contemplated making this picture, I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers. However, it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received your long, ominous legal document warning us not to use the name Casablanca. It seems that in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather, while looking for a shortcut to the city of Burbank, had stumbled on the shores of Africa and, raising his alpenstock (which he later turned in for a hundred shares of common), named it Casablanca. I just don’t understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don’t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.

Now that’s funny. Not an f-word among it.

Groucho must have had the future blighted by Maher in mind when Groucho said, “I thought my razor was dull, then I heard his speech.” Or, “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” Or, “I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book.”

And Groucho’s brother Harpo could keep you laughing just as long as Groucho without saying a word. Then he’d play his magical harp.

Anyway…

Maher reportedly just made fun of Pope Benenedict XVI, who’s visiting America. I don’t know the details, and don’t want to know them.

Charlie Reese, one of my favorite columnists and not a Catholic himself, has a great column on Maher and the Pope:

It’s not a free-speech issue. It’s an issue of good judgment and good taste, or more specifically the lack thereof. Just because we can do something or say something doesn’t mean we should. I personally don’t think people’s faith, whatever it is, should be mocked, nor their religious leaders ridiculed.

Why give religious leaders a free pass? Because it is a serious thing to cause someone to lose his or her faith. It’s not the same as learning that your favorite movie star is a mean drunk or your favorite politician is a crook. That kind of knowledge doesn’t alter your worldview. You already knew some people get mean when they drink and that some politicians are crooks. You just pick someone else to support.

But suppose you lose your faith in the existence of God? That alters your worldview like an earthquake. It opens up the abyss of nothingness and meaninglessness. It causes a person to question everything he or she ever learned about the world and about good and evil. That’s far too serious an impact on a human being to be inflicted by some cynical comic in search of a cheap laugh.

Right.

I like to laugh a lot. For example, as you may have gathered, I’m a big Marx Brothers fan. But I hate blasphemous jokes, or jokes that seriously attack someone’s religion.

Another problem is that, although I’m one of those people who has a hard time remembering how to tell a joke exactly (I seem to be better at ridiculing immediate circumstances), the one exception is that I remember anti-religious jokes. Maybe because my hatred of them is burned into my brain. So I try to avoid them.

Anyway, my happiest day will be the last one I hear or see Bill Maher, or a reference to that unfunny, politically correct apparatchik.

Thank you — and the Wayne Eagle on Judge John C. Seiler Sr.

I want to thank everyone who sent condolences on the death of my father, whether you sent them by email, by snail mail, or put them up as comments on this blog. I appreciate it.

The Wayne Eagle, the hometown paper of the town I grew up in, ran a fine article about Pop, who was the city’s first judge. It adds some details and color to what was in the Prescott Courier obituary that I wrote.

I’ve long realized that my own political views were formed less by the theories I read than by my experience growing up the son of a judge in a small town, population 19,000. Pop was the judge in our city from when I was age 5 to 30. In high school, kids called me “The Judge,” which I always liked. From when I was a child just interested in politics until now, to me government should be small, local, honest, and just.

Let me cite just one example. During hart budget times one year, the Wayne City Council decided to cut costs in city departments. They sent an efficiency expert to examine my father’s courtroom operations to find ways to cut waste. The efficiency expert concluded that Pop spent too little. Of course, my father didn’t use that as an excuse to spend more. He always was careful with the taxpayers’ money.

The winner of all 8 elections in which he ran as judge, he believed that democracy only worked when it was close to the people. My father always lamented how the distant, unresponsive, bumbling federal government expanded to take over so much of local city life, including his court. But that’s a story for another day.

Here are the main parts of the Eagle article:

——————————————–

April 10, 2008

Community mourns loss of original judge

Scott Spielman
Editor

John Seiler, Sr, the first elected judge in the city, died Saturday morning in Prescott, AZ. He was 90 years old….

“I thought he was very good, very fair,” said former City Manager Tom Daily. “He treated everyone the same. He didn’t have any favorites. He was a good judge for the City of Wayne.”

He was active in the community during his tenure, too. He was a member of the Wayne Kiwanis Club for more than 50 years.

“He had a good relationship with the community,” said Wayne Mayor Al Haidous. “I used to see him around and he always took the time to talk with me.

“I always respected him a lot,” Haidous added.

Current City Manager John Zech said he met Mr. Seiler when Zech came to work for the city in the 1970s. He was instrumental in planning the move from the old courthouse on Michigan Avenue to the current location on Sims Avenue. [Note: The move to the brand new court house took place after my father retired.]

“He was a neat guy,” Zech said. “I enjoyed working with him.”

Ret. judge Carolyn Archbold tried to unseat him during the end of his career, but Mr. Seiler was re-elected. He stepped down during the middle of that term and Archbold was subsequently appointed.

Two years later, he and his wife, Caroline, retired to Prescott.

Haidous said he left a strong legacy, though.

“He served the community and he served it well,” said Haidous, who is planning to hold a moment of silence for Mr. Seiler at the next city council meeting. “He’ll be missed.”

Local citizen

After the article is a comment by a local resident that expresses how he acted as a judge, and what citizens thought of him:

Robert M Shackelford:

Ahhhh yes I remember twice in my misspent youth being in front of Judge Seiler. Once when the court was on Biddle or maybe Newberry before urban renewal and once when it was on Michigan Ave. West. He was stern but understanding and I came out the better for the experience. My condolences go out to his family.

A widow’s ticket

OK, one more story. Once an old widow came before my father’s bench to pay a parking ticket. She poked around in her change purse for some money, pulling out couple of crumpled $1 bills.

“What’s are you doing,” the Judge asked.

“I’m not sure I have the money, Judge,” she said. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“The I suspend sentence.”

“Suspend sentence? Did I do something else.”

“No, Ma’am. It means you don’t have to pay anything. The City doesn’t need the money that badly.”

A smile came to the face as she left the courtroom.

Phone

For about the last 18 months of his life, I called Pop every day. It was good just to talk to him about anything — politics, family, TV shows, sports, doctors– sometimes for half an hour.

Now I can’t.

John C. Seiler Sr., Rest in Peace

What follows is the obituary I wrote for my father for the Prescott Courier:

————————–

John C. Seiler Sr. died on April 5, 2008, in Prescott at age 90. He was born on Dec. 15, 1917, in Detroit, Mich., the son of John and Marie (Ziegler) Seiler. John graduated in 1935 from Henry Ford Trade School and in 1950 from the Detroit College of Law.

He was predeceased by his beloved wife, Caroline, to whom he was married for 52 years, and by one brother and two sisters.

He is survived by three children, John Jr., Caroline, and Edward; three grandchildren, Meranda Curiel, Carrie Rose, and Christoffer; and five great-grandchildren, Steven, Samantha, Jacob, and Jordin by Meranda, and Ian by Carrie.

John was a tool and die maker until 1941, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving until 1945 and rising to the rank of Captain in World War II, fighting across France and Germany. After the war, he became a lawyer in 1950. In 1960, he was elected a judge for the city of Wayne, Mich., and until 1985 presided over the 29th District Court. In 1987, he and his wife, Caroline, retired to Prescott. He was a member of Kiwanis for more than 50 years.

John was an exemplary provider and protector, a beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, who is greatly missed by his family and friends.

Services will take place at 11 a.m. on Thursday, April 10, at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix.

Blog break because I’m mourning my father’s death

My father died Saturday morning. Except for an obituary in a couple of days, I won’t be blogging for a while. Check back every now and then.

John C. Seiler Sr. was a wonderful husband, father, provider, protector, tool-and-die maker, Captain of the U.S. Army in World War II, lawyer, judge, and friend. He was 90.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon him.

Let’s trade Gov. Arnold for Gov. Bobby

In major-league sports, teams often trade players to bolster their rosters. So why not trade politicians?

California should trade veteran Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to Louisiana for Gov. Bobby Jindal.

In Baseball terms, Arnold is fan favorite, but an aging, steroid-pumped designated hitter who mostly strikes out. Bobby is a hot rookie phenom who resembles Willie Mays, hitting for power and running like lightning.

Arnold has been a dismal failure as governor here for five years. After Gov. Gray Davis was recalled in 2003, Gov. Arnold was elected to solve the state’s chronic budget deficits and promised “action! action! action!” Instead, he has passed not a single balanced budget and only made matters worse.

By contrast, Gov. Bobby Jindal just was elected and is taking real action! action! action! Jindal, reports Erik Erickson, in just 4 months has enacted a major ethics reform and comprehensive tax cuts:

Many newspaper reporters across the state were stunned a Louisiana Governor would actually govern on the same issues on which he campaigned, and they were even more startled that the Louisiana legislature passed all eleven of the Governor’s tax initiatives, mostly by near unanimous votes. The only controversial bill was legislation to give tax deductions to parents who home school their children, yet even it passed.

Next, he’s going to work on school reforms, including school choice and performance-based pay for government school teachers.

And he’s doing all this as his state still recovers from Hurricane Katrina, and the government incompetence in the storm’s aftermath.

Gov. Arnold, ostensibly a “Republican,” blabs about “post-partisanship.” Gov. Bobby, by contrast, displays the competence and mastery of policies Republican governors once were know for.

Jindal is the son of immigrants from India. Although he has spent his career in government, he’s sort of like California state Sen. Tom McClintock in that he has used that experience not to plunder taxpayers, but to cut government and make it more efficient. Louisianans had the sense to put Bobby in their state house. California’s silly voters preferred Arnold’s glitz to McClintock.

It looks like Jindal is going to wrap up fixin’ the Pelican State pretty quick. So why not trade for him? He would become governor of California puts the luster back into the Golden State.

Why would Louisiana want, in return, a massive failure, Gov. Arnold? After Gov. Bobby is finished, Louisiana will be fixed for good.

So new Louisiana Gov. Arnold would have nothing more to do than add Hollywood glitz and glamour to the New Orleans tourist industry.

That’s a fair trade.

Congress is making blood money off of our troops

There’s plenty good money to be made,
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade.

— “I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag,” by Country Joe and the Fish

It remains curious that a Democratic Congress elected in November 2006 specifically to end the Iraq War, hasn’t. More U.S. troops are in Iraq now than before that election. So much for “democracy.”

Here’s the reason. AP reports:

Members of Congress have as much as $196 million collectively invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the onset of the Iraq war, according to a study by a nonpartisan research group….

The study found that more Republicans than Democrats hold stock in defense companies, but that the Democrats who are invested had significantly more money at stake. In 2006, for example, Democrats held at least $3.7 million in military-related investments, compared to Republican investments of $577,500.

And Bush and Cheney, of course, are up to their necks in Halliburton and other firms that profit from war.

This war isn’t about exporting “democracy,” or stopping terrorism, or ousting Saddam, or finding WMD. It’s about war profits.

Patriots fight and die; chickenhawks stay home and collect the cash.

All the tears by the chickenhawk Bush administration and the just plain chicken Democratic Congress for our dead and wounded troops are crocodile tears.

As the character King (David Keith) says in the movie “Platoon” about the poor doing the fighting:

Ever’body know, the poor are always being [expletive deleted] over by the rich. Always have, always will.

Obama’s daughters and abortion

Pro-lifers are upset that Obama said, if his daughters got pregnant and wanted an abortion, he wouldn’t “punish” them with a baby. One hopes that, in real life, he would discourage them from having abortions.

But it’s also upsetting that he brought up his daughters in the campaign, especially on this issue. His daughters’ only place in this campaign is to look cute in photo ops. They shouldn’t be brought into the abortion debate, or any debate. What he’s talking about is the killing of his own grandchildren.

Moreover, in America, 40% of abortions are of blacks, who are but 12% of the population. So the black abortion rate is almost 4 times as high as the white rate.

Then there’s the recent publicity that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest operator of abortion mills, also targets racist fear of blacks in its fundraising. As revealed in a series of exposes by The Advocate, a UCLA student newspaper, PP encourages donors who want to make sure abortions eliminate blacks.

Here’s the conversation, from the audio link:

Planned Parenthood:“Planned Parenthood Administration, this is Lisa.”
O’Keefe:“Hi. I am interested in making a donation today.”
Planned Parenthood:“Let me put you through to Tim in our development office.”
O’Keefe:“Is there anyone I can speak to now?”
Planned Parenthood:“Me.”
O’Keefe: “Who am I speaking with now?”
Planned Parenthood: “My name is Lisa Hutton.”
O’Keefe: “Lisa, what is your position?”
Planned Parenthood: “Administrative assistant.”
O’Keefe: “When I underwrite an abortion, does that apply to minorities too?”
Planned Parenthood: “If you specifically want to underwrite it for a minority person, you can target it that way. You can specify that that’s how you want it spent.”
O’Keefe: “Okay, yeah, because there’s definitely way too may black people in Ohio. So, I’m just trying to do my part.”
Planned Parenthood: “Hmm. Okay, whatever.”
O’Keefe: “Blacks especially need abortions too. So, that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Planned Parenthood: “Well, for whatever reason, we’ll accept the money.”
O’Keefe:“Great, Thank You.”
Planned Parenthood:“Mmmm, hmmm.”

That’s what abortion in America really has been about, folks. It’s not about “choice,” except the choice of racists to get rid of blacks (and get rid of Latinos, who are more than 50% of abortion victims in California). Babies always are good, beginning at conception, no matter what their race or ethnicity. Killing them is always a great evil. The “choice” to kill is always a lie.

Planned Parenthood foundress Margaret Sanger even wrote in a letter:

We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

No wonder rap music, the poetry of modern blacks, is anti-abortion. Poets, as Ezra Pound said, are the antennae of the human race. Black poets know what abortion is doing to the black race.

In “Retrospect for Live,” Common raps:

Must have really thought I was God to take the life of my son
I could have sacrificed goin out
To think my homies who did it I used to joke about, from now on
I’ma use self control instead of birth control
Cause $315 ain’t worth your soul
$315 ain’t worth your soul
$315 ain’t worth it