The Leadership Deficit

President.  The very definition of the word president connotes leadership.  Indeed, we often speak of the President as "leader of the free world".  One of his jobs is the civilian head of the military as Commander-in-Chief.  A commander is a leader of troops.  He is the de facto  leader of the American people.

The President has no legislative powers besides vetoing or approving bills passed by Congress.  The President can ask for legislation.  He can try and persuade, he can take his case to the American people.  The president's sole job in these matters is to provide input and leadership.  He can ask, but he cannot introduce legislation or vote on it.  The only member of the Executive Branch that can vote on anything is the Vice-President and then only if the Senate has a tie vote.  He can break the tie.  It's happened numerous times by both parties, the last one being Dick Cheney.

What the president is not, is a dictator or king.  He is ultimately answerable to the American people for his leadership.  That's the theory, anyway.  Reality is sometimes different.

Essentially, the main job of the President of the United States is to provide leadership.  Leadership in war, in crises, foreign policy and the day to day functioning of the country.   

Harry Truman, in a press conference on January 31, 1946 set a reporter straight on who was in charge. 

5.] Q. Mr. President, do you support the State Department's policy that the United States should--

THE PRESIDENT. The State Department doesn't have a policy unless I support it. [Laughter] finish your question--I'm sorry.

Q. I mean with regard to the inter-American defense treaty, that we will not sign it if Argentina--

THE PRESIDENT. I don't know anything about any preliminary decision, or whether it will be signed or won't be signed, but whatever policy the State Department has, I will support it, or it won't be a policy. The State Department carries out the policies that are laid down by the President of the United States. (emphasis added)

In other words, he was LEADING, not following.

Obama does not lead.  He is often described - even by people on his side - as leading from behind.

Obama has no concept of leadership beyond being a dictator.  The problem with that is that Dictating id not leading.  Anyone can be a dictator.  Few are leaders.  This is not the first time the government has "shut down", but this is the first time the President has refused to cooperate.


The President cannot make laws or raise revenue - neither can the Senate.  From Article 1, Section 7:

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

The Senate can add amendments, but they cannot propose a bill that raises revenue and send it over to the House. 

For much of our history, we've had one or the other party in charge of one or more branches, sometimes all three, but a good share of the time, there is a potential for gridlock because one or the other has some say.  It has led to some pretty nasty fighting at times and some shutdowns, but every time it happened, the President showed leadership.  Reagan, Clinton, and even George W. Bush, had to deal with a hostile Congress.  They negotiated and we moved on.  Sometimes we went into shutdown, but we got through it and life went on.

What we have here is a failure of leadership.  Obama cannot lead because he does not know how to lead.  He does not know how to get people to follow him.  The Press follows blindly.  Obama doesn't have to do a damned thing and the press just carries his water.  Reagan could persuade.  Reagan could lead.  Bill Clinton could lead.  Obama is clueless

Leaders have vision.  Managers manage.  Management leads to mediocrity.  Vision leads to great accomplishments.

We have a deficit of leadership in the White House

Mike 

The World Since WWI

 CHAPTER ONE - The Beginnings

The The First World War is as distant to most Americans as the sun.  No one who fought in it is still alive to tell us about it.  It was the first war where air power played a significant part and the last major war that horses were used in a significant way.  It was a war that was ignited because of entangling alliances rather than the usual suspects of economics, ideology or religion.  In the end, the empires of Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia and the Ottomans ceased to exist.  Europe was redrawn and the losers were saddled with paying impossible reparations. 

Time Magazine, famous for its "Person of the Year" award, decided to name a "Person of the Century" when the the 20th century passed into history.  Readers were encouraged to submit suggestions and to vote on their favorites.  Just about every major politician, influential scientist and famous entertainer was on the list and then winnowed down to the final 100.  Their final choice of Albert Einstein, was perhaps a good second choice.  Certainly, the father of modern physics is a worthy winner.  My choice, was never on their list.

My choice is not a household name.  If you said his name to most people,they would look at you like you spoke several syllables of baby talk.  No one outside of ardent historians and geeky, trivia buffs would recognize the name of Gavrilo Princip.  Mr. Princep was the Serbian Nationalist who pulled the trigger and assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia as they rode in a motorcade through the streets of Serejevo.  That act triggered the declarations of war that ignited WWI.

That war, the armistice and the ensuing final Treaty of Versailles may have ended hostilities, but they were the seeds of a world-wide great depression and the subsequent rise of Hitler and his National Socialists.  The bad end to WWI led to WWII.

When the world did not turn to Marxism as predicted by Marx, especially after such a conflict as WWI, they needed to search for answers.  After the war, the middle class became quite well established.  Surely they couldn't have been that far off in their predictions.  A group of committed Communist ideologues founded the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main.  It became known informally as the "Frankfurt School".  It's main focus was to figure out where Marx went wrong.

They determined that if true Marxism was to be brought to bear, they would have to destroy every aspect of western culture in order to destroy the middle class.  The destruction of the middle class, and it's institutions, from the churches, to the schools, from art and literature to music and entertainment, all of it had to be completely redone in order to  shape the world into the Marxist new world order.
Soon:  Chapter Two
Mike

How Much?

I like beer. I do!  I don't drink it until I'm knee-walking, commode-hugging drunk, but I enjoy a brew or two now and then.  Besides, hangovers just plain suck.

I don't drink the BudweiserMillerCoors yellow fizzy water.  I like a little flavor in my brew and serving it so cold as to give you brain freeze so you don't have to taste it is pointless.  I like a madly hopped IPA as much as an honest to goodness malt bomb, depending upon my whim.  Imperial stouts and and Cascadian Darks (Black IPas) are my favorites, but there is an unapologetic malt bomb called Quilter's Irish Death from a small brewery in Ellensburg, WA  that absolutely satisfies my sweet tooth in a big way. They actually call it "beer candy".

I'm not a rich man so I do have to pay attention to the dollar sign.  Rarely will I buy a twelve pack of anything - or even a sixer.  Usually, I'll buy a 22 oz bomber of something to enjoy on an evening.  Most of the beer I buy is with a meal at a restaurant.  Here in WA, a lot of the restaurants serve good brews.  That doesn't mean I'm cheap, it's just that I don't drink a lot.  I've paid more for one beer sometimes than most people pay for a six pack. 

This morning, I read about this: 

 A dozen people recently paid two grand for a bottle of beer at Portland’s Hair of the Dog brewery. The bottle has been dubbed the most expensive beer in the world.

Are you freaking kidding me?  $2000 for one lousy bottle of beer.  I don't give a rabid rat's rear end how good it tastes, there isn't ANY beer worth two grand!  If I had two grand just laying around ready to be spent, I'd put it toward a new lens for my camera!  Hint:  If you have a couple thou laying around and are feeling generous...Christmas is coming!  I want something for my bucks, not something I will piss away a half hour later!

I don't care if you have the money to piss away.  By all means, drink up!  I'm not jealous, but as much as I like beer, I'd rather have the lens, thank you very much.

Mike

Silencing the Lambs

He's a product of Detroit's mean streets.  His parents divorced when he was only eight.  His father Robert, was a Baptist Minister. His mother, Sonya, was an under-educated domestic servant who often worked eighteen hour days to provide for her two young sons.  Ben, was the youngest, his brother Curtis is two years older.  He was a poor student, often at the bottom of his class, plus he had anger issues.  Ben was headed for a lifetime of trouble --  or so logic would seem to dictate. 

Ben's mom, Sonya, had other ideas. Her boys were not going to end up spending their best years rotting in a jail somewhere.  Ben's TV time was limited and he had to read two books a weak and write reviews of them.  He soon started liking it and realized he was actually pretty smart.  Sonya told him that he could be anything he wanted to be.  He was soon at the top of his class.  He still had his anger issues and they would not begin to get under control until he tried to stab someone.  By luck, grace, fate or whatever you want to call it, the knife broke on his target's belt buckle and in his panic and fear, he turned to the Bible.  In Proverbs 16:32, he found salvation: "Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city" 

Long story short, Ben changed his life around, worked his way through school.  He went to Yale and then to the University of Michigan Medical School.  Ben became Dr. Benjamin Carson, a world renowned pediatric neurosurgeon at John Hopkins and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Hard work, a deep and abiding faith, and a belief in his own abilities helped him overcome what might have been a wasted life.  Because of him, thousand of children are alive.

Oh...did I mention that the world renowned neurosurgeon was a conservative?  Indeed, Dr. Carson is a Tea Party style conservative.  And why, after that lengthy introduction do I bring his particular brand of politics to the fore?  Because it is his politics that the administration tried to silence him.

Dr. Carson spoke out against President Obama and his healthcare debacle at the National Prayer Breakfast a few months ago.

Shortly after that rather public shellacking of Obama by Dr. Carson, some folks with calculators, computers and copies of his tax returns knocked on his door and said they wanted to audit his real estate holdings.  Finding nothing, they then started a full and complete audit of his tax records.  Again, they found nothing.  Dr. Carson, a deeply religious man, is honest to a tee and did not cheat on his income taxes.

Oppressive regimes need to control the message that gets out.  They need to stifle those who would speak out against them and they do this in several ways.  Some places just throw their adversaries into a prison or they just disappear quietly in the middle of the night.  Another way is by intimidation.  In the US, we haven't resorted to the two ways yet (as far as I know), but the government is now using intimidation and what better way than the threat of the IRS. 

The IRS has near Gestapo powers when it comes to auditing your taxes.  They obviously did not intimidate Dr. Carson.  Seriously, you just aren't going to make someone from the inner city of Detroit sweat much. 

But the message was sent.  I'm quite sure they didn't expect to find much if anything on Dr. Carson, but how many others were silenced.  Even if your taxes are in order, everyone fears the IRS.  Maybe it was just a coincidence, maybe it wasn't.  I think it it was intimidation and so does Dr. Carson.

What better way to keep the lambs silent!

Mike

The Zombie Apocalypse Is Here

America is headed down the toilet.  The flush handle has already been pulled and the water is swirling.  As evidence, a video came out today from a late-night comedy show, the host being a young man named Jimmy Kimmel.

Since I don't watch much TV, I've never seen the show.  I'm not sure when Mr. Kimmel's show airs here in Western WA, but given that I must be up early in order to be to work by 6AM, it's on probably long after I go to bed.

Cutting to the chase, the show released a video of Kimmel setting up a "man in the street" interview.  The Kimmel Show people asked people if they preferred "Obamacare" or "The Affordable Care Act."  Watch this:



 If you watched this and you didn't know the difference before, you now know that they are one and the same.  "Obamacare" is just what it's called or nicknamed.

This is the problem with our country today.  Most people don't have a clue about what really goes on in Washington DC.  I'd be willing to bet a paycheck that if I went down onto 6th Avenue a couple of blocks from my house, most people could not tell me who the Speaker of the House is, who the Minority Leader is, what Harry Reid's job is and quite possibly even who the Vice President is.

Scrolling down Yahoo.com's portal page, there are a few articles mentioning the shutdown, but everyone of them are anti-GOP.  On the other hand, those are buried beneath two stories about Cyprus, an archaeological find, Saturday Night Live's debut, an NBA team's news and something about Angelina Jolie.  In other words, most people won't even see the stories about the shutdown and if they do, they will just see headlines such as: 

• Republicans Are No Longer the Party of Business
• The Reckoning the Republicans Need :The government shutdown exposes the party’s failure to learn from its mistakes.

Of course the news media, for the most part, is happy that most people don't know the difference between a legislative bill and duck's bill. Sure they report, but they also decide.  They decide what news you will hear and they decide how it will be presented.  

That sounds somewhat cynical, but it's  the truth and even the networks will admit it if pushed hard enough these days.  They've tried to appear to be neutral and above the fray over the years, but most will admit their bias when shoved into a corner.  

The point is simply this:  Most Americans do not have a clue. They are zombies who feast not upon brains, but upon the salacious and the titillating. They can tell you the stats of their favorite ball player or what movies their favorite star has appeared in.  They know who Honey Boo Boo is, but they couldn't tell you who their Senator is or where Syria is on a map.

And that is why this country is in the shape it's in.  Politicians from both parties bank on the fact that you don't know an elephant from a jackass (I suppose there isn't much, these days!) or a senator from a sanitation worker...hmm...maybe not a good analogy there either.  

The apocalypse...is nigh.

Mike

Ending the Impasse

First the background in case you just emerged from a cave.  Today is day two of what is called the shutdown. Everything considered to be "non-essential" is supposed be completely shutdown; the doors locked and the lights turned off.  The employees are furloughed without pay and  a myriad of overlapping bureaucracies grind to a halt.  There is a law  that pretty much outlines it and the administration must make careful decisions as to what stays open and what closes down.

Essentially, the military, most law enforcement, the FAA and other such functions remain, either at full strength or at reduced levels.  Congress, it seems is essential and they still get paid.

It's amazing.  So far we've survived, but not without enough finger pointing to make it appear to be a circular firing squad.  Seriously, a case could be made to blame the whole lot of them.  The GOP wants to de-fund or push back Obamacare and the Democrats, seeing a political advantage (aided by their bretheren in the press) have decided to not negotiate on any part of the spending bill.

The vast majority of Americans see Obamacare as a bad law.  It is not going to deliver what the President (or any other Democrat) promised.  Premiums will go up, your coverage will change and you will most likely not be able to keep your current doctor.  No matter, it's the president's signature legislation and the Democrats are not about to admit it's the worst thing to come out of DC since...well since there's been a DC.  They will not give in and as stated, they are happy for the press to blame the party that is willing to negotiate as being the ones who will not negotiate.

Wayne Allyn Root, writing for Fox News, just might have the best idea yet to get over this impasse: 

Here’s a way to turn this into a “win-win” for the GOP. Republicans will in fact end the government shutdown, pass the budget, and fund ObamaCare if this one single simple demand is met: 

 REMOVE ALL EXEMPTIONS, EXCEPTIONS, AND WAIVERS TO OBAMACARE. 

 It’s that simple. The message is: If ObamaCare is so good for the people, then let everyone have it. Right now. This instant. The poor, the rich, the big unions, the big corporations, the politically connected, the lawyers, the lobbyists, and of course, Congress, too. Everyone means everyone. “Everyone” must specifically include Senators, Congressmen, their staffs, Obama himself, Michelle, Sasha and Malia. It’s everyone in the rowboat, or no one.

 What a great idea!  If it's good enough for one American, then it should be good enough for everyone.  No unions, business or personal exemptions. 

It's genius in its simplicity. 

Think of Obama's only two options at that point. He can either tell the American people that government will stay shut "Because I refuse to force corporations, unions, and Congress to live by the same rules as the rest of you"....or he can immediately re-open the government and fund ObamaCare, but cause a war inside the Democratic Party by abandoning his big corporate donors and unions.

Either way, he loses.

Checkmate!  Game, set and match!  That fat lady's song is over.

If the GOP has any sense, or decides to grow a pair, that is exactly what they should do.

Mike

RESURRECTION!

Since the demise of "THE VIOLENCE WORKER" several months ago, I have kind of missed blogging.  It can be so cathartic.  I decided to resurrect the blog, but do it a little bit differently.  Yes, you'll still get my biting conservative commentary, but it will also include all of my passions, from family to photography and anything else that demands a comment from me!

I decide against use the VW name because I think it turned some people off.  Some people just never got the joke.  I have the archives stored away some place so I may resurrect a post now and then.

I decide on Blogger over Wordpress for now.  Wordpress gave me so few options for customization. Typepad (my old host) was way too much money for very little service.  We'll see how it goes.  As usual, blogs evolve.  So did my last one and I assume this one will as well.

If you like what you see here, feel free to share it on whatever social network/s you are plugged into.

Suggestions and comments are always welcome!

Mike