If ObamaCare Wins, Obama Loses

August 24, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Free Trade, Freedom, Government, Corruption, Health, Jobs, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, President, Society/Culture, Taxes, Welfare | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

“It’s like déjà vu all over again,” noted philosopher Yogi Berra is credited with saying. And so it is.

A liberal Democratic president has his heart set on pushing through a proposal strongly unpopular with most Americans. Enjoying substantial Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, he intends to win.

So it was in September, 1977 when Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal treaties to relinquish United States control. An Associated Press opinion poll conducted that month found that only 29 percent of Americans favored the pact. A solid 50 percent opposed it and 21 percent expressed no opinion.

Just as Barack Obama is determined to shove a government health care program down the throats of his protesting countrymen, Carter did what was necessary to get the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties. He cajoled, he promised, he threatened. It worked.
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The “most trusted man in America” reconsidered

July 21, 2009 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, Society/Culture | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

Just as the media – with the exception of Larry King – were finally getting over the passing of Michael Jackson came the news that former CBS newsman Walter Cronkite died. Cronkite was an iconic figure amongst his brethren and media encomia were suitably lavish.

Cronkite was recognized, we’ve been told over and over again, as the most trusted man in America. According to USA Today:

“How did he become ‘the most trusted man in America?’ It was a Roper survey for U.S. News & World Report, Cronkite once said, and he won ‘because they didn’t poll my wife.’”

Ever the skeptic, I tried to find that poll. The Roper Center’s Web site includes a link to data gathered for a 1974 “Virginia Slims American Women’s Opinion Poll.” Cronkite did indeed do better than any other male in that sampling. But note how the question was worded:
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Why I Quit The Reporter

February 2, 2009 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Communism, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, GOP, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, President, Socialism, Society/Culture | 2 Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

The Reporter, a suburban Chicago newspaper, included on its commentary page last week this editorial announcement:

“The Reporter newspaper regrets to inform our loyal readers that columnist Michael Bates has chosen to discontinue his services after nearly 20 years writing for our commentary page.

“Mr. Bates is a polarizing commentator beloved by some readers and detested by others. . . We know some readers won’t be upset by his departure, but we also understand those members of the unofficial Michael Bates fan club will be extremely disappointed. One or two readers have actually told us over the years that Mr. Bates’ column is the reason they read The Reporter.” The notice went on to say something complimentary about my writing and to wish my family and me well.

The statement was wrong about how long I’ve taken up space in The Reporter. It’s been well over 20 years. Then again, since the editor was in elementary school when I began cranking – the emphasis here is on crank – out a weekly column, his error is understandable.
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Include Me Out

January 25, 2009 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Liberals, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, Patriotism, President, Society/Culture | 1 Comment

-By Michael M. Bates

It’s numbing. The adulation, the elation, the mirth, the idolatry, the reveling in every possible facet of Obamaness. And that’s just the response of the mainstream media.

There was too much riveting coverage to fully absorb. You were no doubt stunned to learn, about every three minutes, that this year’s inauguration was historic. Stop the presses.

Unhappily, some stories didn’t receive as much attention as that revelation. One was Jill Biden confiding to Oprah Winfrey’s national audience that “Joe had the choice to be secretary of state or vice president.” Plugs quickly hollered “Shhh!” to his charming missus, but obviously she has as much trouble keeping her mouth shut as her husband. “OK,” she continued, “he did.”
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President Kennedy and the Mob

January 17, 2009 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Congress, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Government, Corruption, History, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, President, Society/Culture, Vote Fraud | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

Plans are moving forward to complete the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement. Known also as the Mob Museum, it will be an interactive attraction “dedicated to the history of organized crime and law enforcement.” One of the displays, in the organized crime section of the museum rather than the law enforcement area, should feature President John F. Kennedy.

That’s because the Outfit helped put him in the White House. Academics still captivated with the myth of Camelot may not buy that contention, but the evidence is pretty persuasive.

Tina Sinatra authored “My Father’s Daughter,” a book about her father Frank, in 2000. In it, she details how Frank served as an intermediary between Chicago crime chief Sam “Momo” Giancana and JFK’s father, Joseph Kennedy, in 1960.
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Roland will fit right in

January 10, 2009 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, Race, Society/Culture | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

Senate majority leader Harry Reid can be such a tease. On Sunday, the Nevada Democrat suggested that Illinois Gov. Blagojevich’s appointment of Roland Burris to replace The One in what is facetiously called the world’s greatest deliberative body might not be welcomed with open arms.

In his trademark high-pitched voice that thrills Canine-Americans everywhere, Reid said of Burris’s becoming a senator: “It’s going to be very difficult for that to occur.” Then, realizing that his statement could possibly offend felons or other core Democratic constituencies, he backed off slightly with “I’ve learned, being a senator for the time I have, that anything can happen.”

That someone like Reid is the Senate majority leader is corroboration of how right he is.
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Requiescat in pace, Uncle Sam

January 4, 2009 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Business, Communism, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Jobs, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, Society/Culture, Taxes, The Law | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

2008 will be known as the year the United States set aside any pretense of free enterprise. A nation that had flourished with the concept of limited government economic intervention turned to the seductive allure of massive federal intrusion. Washington will now more than ever redistribute wealth in the name of compassion, pick winners and losers, and decide how the fruits of your labor will be spent.

Admittedly, we’ve been heading in that direction, sometimes gradually but inexorably, for decades. James Madison, often identified as the father of the Constitution, would have been astonished by the shift. He’d written: “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. . . ”

When the ostensible crisis hit last fall, everyone from President Bush to Barack Obama insisted that Congress needed to take immediate action to bail out the financial industry. Sounding like used car salesmen, they argued it couldn’t wait for a month or even for a week; a $700 billion deal had to be cut now. The details could all be sorted out later.
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Roddy, We Hardly Knew Ye

December 20, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Barack Obama, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, Society/Culture | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

Our president-elect said in 2002: “. . . right now, my main focus is to make sure that we elect Rod Blagojevich as governor. . .” Obama’s White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has bragged that he, Obama, and two another party loyalists “were the top strategists of Blagojevich’s victory.” Like other major Democratic politicians, Obama had absolutely no doubts about the character of the man they made governor. That’s their story and they’re sticking with it.

What they had to have known back then was that their candidate, who ironically campaigned against Republican dishonesty, was himself a product of the Chicago Machine, hardly a prototype for good government. Roddy didn’t wed just any foul-mouthed gal; tactically, he aimed for the stars. His wife is the daughter of a powerful alderman.

In endorsing Rod’s opponent in 2002, the Chicago Tribune reported everything voters needed to know:
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Bring back test patterns

December 14, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Entertainment, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, Society/Culture | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

The head of NBC told an investor conference Monday that his network may have to cut back on its programming. “Can we continue to program 22 hours of prime-time? Three of our competitors don’t. Can we afford to program seven nights a week? One of our competitors doesn’t,” he said.

His candid admission put me to dreaming of an appetizing if improbable prospect: That some television stations might actually go off the air, at least for the night.

Many baby boomers grew up before network and cable stations operated 24 hours a day. Not only that; most of us actually survived.

Much of today’s late night/early morning programming may be slightly less than scintillating (ever catch Bobby Vinton peddling the “Lifetime of Romance” oldies collection?), but most TV outlets refuse to go off the air, even for a few hours.
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Fun and Game Boys at Guantanamo

December 7, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, President, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, War on Terror | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

Raul Castro is, at 77, Fidel’s kid brother. When Fidel’s health forced him to take a break from full-time dictator duties, he installed baby brother as president.

Raul swiftly demonstrated his leadership skills by consulting with some of the wisest people available. You know, deep thinkers like Hollywood millionaires. Recently he met with actor and activist Sean Penn.

The performer wrote in The Nation magazine of his meetings with Raul. According to Penn, Castro the younger is open to getting together with Obama. The Cuban said the setting would have to be a neutral one, perhaps Guantanamo Bay.
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Slummin’ with Barry

November 23, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, President, Society/Culture, The Law, Vote Fraud | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

Mrs. Clinton assumed full taunting mode in a January Democratic presidential candidate debate. She aggressively battled “bad” Republican ideas, she told Obama, “when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Rezko, in his slumlord business in inner-city Chicago.”

Obama feebly replied he was merely an associate at a law firm that represented a church group working with “this individual” and had done a few hours legal work. Hillary could have attacked Obama for accepting political contributions from Tony Rezko at the same time the real estate wheeler-dealer victimized African-Americans struggling for survival in his properties’ squalid living conditions.

It’s a persistent situation. Barry’s a millionaire, yet seems unable or unwilling to shake his connection with slums.
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A nation of Peter Pans

November 15, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Budget, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Elections, Family, Government, Corruption, Health, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, Security/Safety, Socialism, Society/Culture | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

Author J. M. Barrie gave literature Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up. Government, by encouraging people to not assume the responsibilities of adulthood, is fashioning a nation of Peter Pans.

Many health insurance policies allow parents to carry their children as covered dependents until they turn 19 or, if a full-time student, around 23. That’s changing. Two years ago, New Jersey required health insurance companies to extend coverage to qualifying children up to age 30.

Tony Rezko’s favorite Democratic governor, Illinois’ Milorad Blagojevich, used his amendatory veto authority this year to do the same. The covered “children” need not be students nor even live with their parents.
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Why the race was lost

November 7, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, GOP, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, President, Race, Society/Culture | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

Castro this week described Obama as “more intelligent, cultured and levelheaded than his Republican adversary.” The American people agreed. So let the finger pointing commence. In no special order of consequence, here are a few probable reasons for the GOP loss:

  • The candidate. John McCain wasn’t conservatives’ first, or even fourth, choice for nominee. Infinitely preferable to Obama, he nonetheless carried too much baggage for many in the party’s base. Legislative liaisons with Teddy Kennedy and Russ Feingold on matters like immigration and campaign finance didn’t inspire confidence. Neither did McCain’s late conversion to tax cuts. Not discussing the Jeremiah Wright connection, a sensible basis to question his opponent’s judgment, was unwise. Bringing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the ticket did help a lot. People who dislike her would never have voted for the GOP anyway and she was a huge asset to the campaign. McCain’s estrangement with the rank and file never fully healed. When the Republican Party stops serving as a vehicle for conservatism, it falters.

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The young will pay for a President Obama

November 1, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Budget, Business, Congress, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, President, Security/Safety, Socialism, Society/Culture, Taxes | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

It’s lamentable that Obama and Biden only tell the truth when people give them money. It was at a San Francisco fundraiser that Obama voiced his belief that residents of small towns in Pennsylvania and elsewhere “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

More recently Biden told contributors at a Seattle fundraiser:

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”
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Birds of a feather Barack together

October 26, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, President, Socialism, Society/Culture, Taxes | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

An ABC News/Washington Post poll shows more than half the respondents don’t think Barack Obama’s association with unrepentant 60s terrorist William Ayers is a legitimate issue. It’s old news. Such reasoning suggests that in about 30 years Obama can serve on boards with bin Laden, visit Osama’s home and take political contributions from him, just as he’s done with Ayers. After all, that 9/11 stuff will be old news by then.

Offering no basis for his assumption, Obama says he “assumed that (Ayers) had been rehabilitated.” Yet in Ayers’s 2001 book he wrote that he can’t quite imagine bombing a building today, “but I can’t imagine entirely dismissing the possibility either.”

Then there’s the lovely Mrs. Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn. It was, let it not be overlooked, also in her living room that candidate Obama had his political coming out in 1995. Dohrn saluted Charles Manson after a 1969 killing spree in which pregnant actress Sharon Tate was stabbed with a fork:
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Another Great Depression?

October 18, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Business, Communism, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, President, Socialism, Society/Culture, Taxes | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

It looks as though John McCain is respectfully campaigning himself into the footnotes of history. Polls with Barack Obama winning by double digits are an indicator. So are predictions of a Democratic landslide by longtime GOP operatives such as Ed Rollins. McCain backers stand up at rallies to voice their exasperation that he’s not doing enough to win. Obama presents a clear, though hackneyed, message; McCain appears tentative and inconsistent.

Thus far, McCain fears that highlighting Obama’s relationships with ACORN and Jeremiah Wright - matters that directly reflect on Obama’s judgment - will lead to additional scathing attacks like the one from a black congressman comparing McCain to the segregationist Democrat George Wallace. So the Republican nominee, after reaching across the aisle to bail out Wall Street and people who made bad decisions, emphasizes how adroitly he reaches across the aisle. That’s a real crowd pleaser among Republicans cautioning that Obama, Pelosi and the other hooligans are bent on imposing socialism. The candidate is starting to make the listless Bob Dole look driven.
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Cubs carry a devilish burden

October 12, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, Michael M. Bates, News, President, Security/Safety, Society/Culture | No Comments

-By Michael M. Bates

This begins with an apology. Last June a column from your humble servant focused on Barack Obama’s refusal, after initially approving the idea, to hold frequent town hall meetings with John McCain. I wrote: “When it comes to confronting McCain, however, Barack folds like the Cubs in September.”

I was wrong. Not about the pusillanimous Obama, but about the Cubs folding in September. They made it all the way to October this year before folding like a cheap and, as in Barry’s case, empty suit.

In spring training, pitcher Ryan Dempster predicted the Cubs would win the World Series this year. That sounded familiar. A year earlier, pitcher Carlos Zambrano ventured the same prophecy. That was about the time manager Lou Piniella spoke of instilling a “Cubbie swagger” in the team. Bet he’d love to have that line back.
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Help the Soldiers!


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