Populist anger towards both parties simmers in Heartland

As more proof that the silent majority is not too happy with either political party, I offer up this letter to the editor of my longtime hometown newspaper in Baton Rouge:

Letter: Where’s tax cut Obama promised?

Every hardworking, middle-class person should be outraged! Obama lied to us. That’s plain and simple.

He betrayed those of us who supported him in the belief that we would get a tax cut. Not only has he abandoned the overtaxed middle-class people who elected him, but he has continued former President George W. Bush’s policies of bailing out the ultrarich Wall Street clan, the auto industry and the banks with our money.

Bush and Obama have robbed us of our tax money, and we’ll never see it again. Certainly, President Obama can’t do worse than George W. Bush. Can he? Still, that’s no consolation.

Obama’s vague platitudes of “hope” and “change” are meaningless rubbish. They are empty slogans. Obama has proved to be as hollow and substanceless as his rhetoric.

The Democrats don’t care about us! The Republicans don’t care, either! Their only concern is perpetuating themselves in power.

We are black, white, Hispanic, Native American and Asian. The current oppressive political establishment (Democrat and Republican), which rapes us of our hard-earned money, knows no race, color or creed. We need a new political party in this country.

We believe in “one nation under God.” We value our God-given right to bear arms in order to oppose a potentially tyrannical government or a police state, as did our Founding Fathers. We believe in a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

It’s time for a true political revolution in America at every level of government before it’s too late.

Now, you can blame this kind of populist anger on people like Glenn Beck stirring the pot. But I say both parties are to blame for betraying the public trust and you only need common sense (in rich abundance in the Heartland) to figure that out. The people aren't all sure what the solution is, but everywhere they look they see problems and they are clearly fed up. The GOP would be foolish to think this necessarily benefits them since much of the anger is directed at what the GOP wrought during the Bush years.

For more proof, check out this article from the NY Times about disgruntled Obama voters in Iowa.

Folks are frustrated in the Heartland to say the least...

NY Archbishop condemns NY Times, Maureen Dowd

From the NY Post (H/T to Drudge):

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan has condemned The New York Times -- blasting the Gray Lady and its columnist Maureen Dowd for what he says are examples of unfair, prejudicial and just downright mean anti-Catholicism.

Dolan used his blog last Thursday on the Archdiocese of New York's Web site to rail against the Times a day after the paper refused to print his critique as an op-ed piece.

He singled out Dowd -- a poison-penned, Pulitzer winner and former Catholic-school girl -- for "the most combustible," "intemperate and scurrilous" "diatribe" she wrote on Oct. 25, which "rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish or African-American religious issue."

Read the full story here

More from the Catholic News Agency here.

From the bishop's blog post:

October is the month we relish the highpoint of our national pastime, especially when one of our own New York teams is in the World Series!

Sadly, America has another national pastime, this one not pleasant at all: anti-catholicism.

It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.”

Ouch!

I'd say the Archbishop is pretty ticked off at the NY Times. Read his full blog post here.

Ford: Bailout free since 1903 and $1 billion profit in Q3

From MSN Moneycentral:

Ford Motor (F) shares shot up 10% right after today's open after the company surprised investors with a third-quarter profit and bullish guidance for 2011.

As I said last year, my next car will be a Ford. Henry Ford's anti-Semitism is disturbing, but Ford is the only one left of the Big Three that isn't owned by the government and they make quality cars that Americans actually want to buy.

Full disclosure: my current car is a Saturn, which I inherited when my mother passed away. I tried to sell the Saturn and keep my beloved Honda Accord, but found it much easier to sell my Accord (I had 15 buyer requests the first day I listed it on Craigslist) than the Saturn, which generated cricket chirping on Craigslist. The Saturn had only 20k miles versus 110k on the Accord, so that made the decision a lot easier. I'm generally happy with the Saturn, which isn't as stylish as my Accord but gets the job done, but Saturns have terrible resale value and their share of strange noises. I'll drive my Saturn into the ground before I buy another car, but that next car will be a Ford.

Socialism FAIL: Cuba's illegal housing market

Only the NY Times could put a positive spin on housing in Cuba.

Their headline: With a Whisper, Cuba’s Housing Market Booms

Housing market? An illegal housing market because the government owns all housing!

But the people of Havana, it turns out, are as obsessed with real estate as, say, condo-crazy New Yorkers, and have similar dreams of more elbow room, not to mention the desire for hot water, their own toilets and roofs that do not let the rain seep indoors.

And although there is no Century 21 here, there is a bustling underground market in homes and apartments, which has given rise to agents (illegal ones), speculators (they are illegal, too) and scams (which range from appraising a dive as a dream house to backing out of a deal at the closing and pocketing the cash).

The best part of the article is this gem:

Those fleeing the island also frequently downgrade their accommodations before going into exile, trading big places for small ones and using the money exchanged on the side to pay for their voyages — the Cuban equivalent of a home equity loan.

Read the whole laughfest of a story here.

CBS News screams "You LIE!" over stimulus job numbers

Hat tip to Ed Morrissey at HotAir.



More reporting like this from CBS and they'll soon be on Obama's enemies list of non-news organizations.

Meanwhile (another hat tip to HotAir), Paul Krugman is calling on the media to help health care reform across the finish line:

As a result, everyone in the political class — by which I mean politicians, people in the news media, and so on, basically whoever is in a position to influence the final stage of this legislative marathon — now has to make a choice. The seemingly impossible dream of fundamental health reform is just a few steps away from becoming reality, and each player has to decide whether he or she is going to help it across the finish line or stand in its way.

C'mon CBS! Get with the program! Do your patriotic duty and advance the Democrat talking points or else!

Schwarzenegger embeds F-bomb in veto

Arnold gets my first annual Nelson Rockefeller Award for this very creative veto letter. Arnie, Rocky would be damn proud of you today.

Arnold vetoed the bill because it was sponsored by a San Francisco assemblyman, Tom Ammiano, who days earlier told Arnold to "kiss my gay ass" and "You LIE!". For more context, go here. And no, this isn't a hoax. The letter is real.


Photo from San Francisco Bay Guardian, who broke the story here

I'll give Ammiano credit for his response to the letter.

From the SF Chronicle:

As for Ammiano, a professional comic in addition to being a liberal Democrat, he's playing it straight on this one: "They probably think they are even now," he said.

"I think it was very creative, and it's time to bury the hatchet," Ammiano added. "I'm not interested in prolonging it."

The hidden message - if that's what it was - "was certainly more subtle than 'kiss my gay ass,' " said Barbara O'Connor, political science professor at Sacramento State University. "But it shows the acrimony and bad feelings in Sacramento are pretty bad.

Read full story here

Of course, now Ammiano says the score is even after Arnold's humbling response. Mega kudos to Arnold for evening the score. Funniest thing I've seen in a long, long time. Stephen Colbert would be proud.

But Ammiano is right, it's time to bury the hatchet and move on. Touche, Arnold. Touche.

Former La. governor Dave Treen, 81, dies today

Former Louisiana governor, Dave Treen, the first Republican elected governor in Louisiana since Reconstruction, died today in suburban New Orleans.

Treen joined the GOP in 1962, when there were only 10,000 registered Republicans in the state of Louisiana. Treen served as Congressman from 1972 to 1980 and as governor from 1980 to 1984. He lost the 1984 gubernatorial election to Democrat Edwin Edwards, who is now in federal prison.

In 1991, Treen endorsed Edwards over David Duke during a year when "Vote for the Crook: It's Important!" bumper stickers were a common sight in Louisiana. As a school kid in Baton Rouge, I remember those days like they were yesterday.

We all knew Edwards was crooked as a snake long before the feds locked him away. But Treen knew a crook was far preferable to a former KKK Grand Wizard whose mea culpa seemed phony and disingenous. It was. So the crook is in the federal pokey and Duke is in the Ukraine spewing his hate and the state is far better off just as LSU is far better off both academically and on the gridiron.

Hurricanes are awful, but Katrina, Gustav and Rita would have been far more devestating during the dark days of Edwin Edwards and Curley Hallman. Louisiana suffered enough in the early 1990s under their abysmal leadership and management.

But back to Treen. In 1999, Treen faced off against David Vitter and David Duke (yeah, him again) for the 1st Congressional District. Duke endorsed Treen as payback for 1991's endorsement of Edwards. Well, Duke endorsed Obama for President of Kenya so he has a history of being cute and snarky in addition to his other lovely traits. Treen lost to Vitter by 1812 votes in a bitter contest. Treen put his hat in the ring again in 2008, again for the 1st Congressional District but later withdrew citing lack of time and resources.

Also in 2008, Treen endorsed centrist Mary Landrieu (D-LA) for reelection to the US Senate, proving yet again that he puts his state ahead of his party and politics. In another surpising move, Treen pushed for the release of his former opponent, Democratic Gov. Edwin Edwards, from federal prison. Though I'm pretty sure Treen strongly preferred that David Duke stay in the Ukraine or Tehran where he belongs...

In a state where colorful and politics go together like red beans and rice, Treen was delightfully boring, scandal free, a true pioneer and the first in a long line of Republican reformers in the Governor's Mansion.

He will be missed. Rest in peace, Governor.