Winter Activities

We are in for a busy winter. Both my boys have made their respective basketball teams. My daughter who is not sports minded is continuing her ballet, chorus and art club regimens, and will be soon joining a book club and in the spring trying out for the school musical.

I love it all. My wife was commenting that a colleague of hers at school was commenting that they would rather poke their eye out then go to all of these events that we go to. My ex wife goes to as much as she can but she too at times would like it to be not as much.

I do not claim to be a better parent, in truth it is not a huge sacrifice or any sacrifice at all for us to have our kids doing these things. I want them to get out in the world. We enjoy seeing their efforts. We wish them success and encourage them when they are frustrated and always applaud their efforts. If they stumble in areas of respect or sportsmanship we use them as teaching moments.

My middle son, my wife and I went out for dinner a week ago and he was commenting on his desire to own his own business. I was explaining to him that he would need to be independently wealthy or be able to gain a line of credit. Further explanation advised that a line of credit was gained by having a business plan and so on. My wife advised that with me the kids will never have a problem understanding that their is a real world out their.

it is a fine line. You want to shelter them as long as you can but you also want to develop character qualities that lead to success.

We love their games and activities. We consider ourselves lucky they want to stretch and branch out for these events. As we say soon enough it will be just us and the animals. Not a day we are looking for.

The TSA Patdowns

This country has major issues facing it from deficits to North Korea to unemployment. What story has received the most coverage by far over the last 10 days? The new passenger screening procedures that the TSA has implemented.

I have not flown recently and of course would not want my children to be scared so perhaps I make light of this. I am certain that in some rare instances customers are embarrassed and feel awkward. I am sure that little boys who have their shirt taken off and those with urine bags that get popped and other cases such as those feel badly.

Overall however when we step on a plane we want to be safe. The TSA, should someone get on a plane, and commit a terrorist act will be criticized heavily. They are in a no win situation.

I believe that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been poor choices. I think the amounts spent on all security measures are too much and think we all need to realize that the issue of security has been heavily politicized. However we do want the folks on the plane with us to be screened.

I think the agents need more training. I think the reasoning for what we are doing needs to be explained more clearly. Overall, however I think people need to grow up. If you are " felt up" it is to protect us. It is the world we live in. Do the terrorists win in the sense that we are inconvenienced? Yes. It is better than they having a successful attempt to take over a plane.

The Fonz Says

Flipping through the dial yesterday I came across a commercial for reverse mortgages with the spokesperson being Henry Winkler.

I am old. You are old when The Fonz is speaking to senior citizens trying to shill for a reverse mortgage company.

Couple this with my frequent landings on the new cable channel The Hub on Happy Days reruns and one falls into an oh my goodness moment I am old moment.

Watching the commercials Winkler still talks like the Fonz. It is jarring, a gray haired Fonzie telling us that by calling we have ( imagine Fonzie voice) " absolutely no obligation"

Wisdom comes slowly in life but realizing we are getting old sneaks up on you like a freight train or in this case like an old sitcom actor selling reverse mortgages.

The only thing worse than a Crazy Conservative

Recently WZON The Sports Zone radio station in Bangor, owned by Stephen King, changed its longtime format away from sports radio to become The Pulse a left leaning Progressive radio station with national shows hosted by Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz and the like.

In fairness to Mr. King it is his station and he does still appear to be committed to broadcasting local sports events and Dale and Clem do still have a show on each afternoon.

However being a left leaning moderate I can now say without a doubt that the only thing more annoying than listening to a crazy conservative is a whiny liberal. I find that the people on both extremes might well have an opinion I agree with the but the delivery of their message is such that they lose me. Liberal Democrats are the worst when on a forum supported by people of a like mind.

Recently I heard a caller talk about the need for Bush to be tried for War Crimes that he clearly has admitted to in his recent book. The host did not disagree but did offer that seemed an unlikely scenario.

I think Bush was a bad President and I agreed with few of his decisions but to suggest that we would try our President for war crimes is a ridiculous thought.

Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and the kooks of the right are as bad if not worse and this illustrates the point.

Just as television is fragmented and radio now is a series of niches talk radio is just a bunch of people who agree augmenting each others opinion.

What we need is an old early days of FM radio culture. A melting pot where people grow together. Those days are gone.

Spare me and spare us all from the talk radio mentality that threatens to make each and every rumor fact and each and every action filled with an evil intent.

The Presidents trip to India cost 200 million a day ..is just another example.

We all need to take a step back.

Blue Dogs and Olympia

The Blue Dogs are a group of conservative Democrats that have won election in districts that tilt Republican. In this time of extreme right and extreme left in Washington they are an endangered species and the last election made them more of one.

Blue Dogs caucus with Democrats but in order to remain viable in their own district they vote as much Republican as Democrat and force watering down of bills their Democratic party seeks.

I am a moderate and I want moderates in office. But from a legislative standpoint having to serve a too conservative Democrat to get a bill passed makes your legislation you pass not as successful as those who voted for you in the first place wished. See health care and financial reform.

And in this polarized climate they lose in the close election back home anyway. A Blue Dog Democrat is an endangered species. They walk a line that is too small and trying to please everybody they please nobody.

Olympia Snowe one of the infamous Rhino's by conservative standards is going to face a primary challenge in Maine. My guess is she will survive it as Maine is not as radical as some states but in two years it could be. The primary system allows for small groups of energized voters to unseat candidates that will be stronger in the general election....see Christine O'donnell.

Orrin Hatch is another candidate who will face a primary challenge. When Orrin Hatch is not conservative enough I am not sure what one can do.

Olympia Snowe even if she wins reelection is going to be in such a minority in her own party that she will lose more and more power. Her only chance to remain a viable important Senator will be to flip to the Democratic side. So much for that Republican big tent that Ronald Reagan talked about.

Free versus Fair Trade

I am not an economist. I am sure that I do not understand trade. I know what I see however. We do not make anything in this country anymore.

In Maine our mills are going or gone. When I was a boy there were shoe making shops, chicken processing plants and many other things. These are not great jobs. Few people want to grow up to do these jobs and most who did wanted better things for their own children.

However not everyone can be a computer programmer. Paul LePage, who I do not support as Governor had a good idea in supporting vocational and technical education for that segment of the students who could gain by it. But we do not make anything.

So this morning I hear that China puts a 30 percent tariff on machinery that Caterpillar imports. As China is a huge growth market it is essential to Caterpillar to compete. With that tariff however they have to choose to build there.

Free trade is a joke. The United States is the biggest market in the world. China would collapse if they could not sell to us. If we stopped buying from them the whole China growth story would collapse as well. Oil prices would go down as they would not need as much. What would happen. I do not know what would happen but I know this if to be sold in America without a 25 percent tariff it had to be made in America it would be made in America.

No company or seller of consumer goods can do without this marketplace. They would have to stop moving jobs out of the country.

Many say this would bring about a trade war and collapse the world economy. How is that so. We sell less than one half of one percent of our overall trade to China and they sell a gigantic percentage to us. How do we lose that battle.

We are in a trade war now, just one we are losing badly and being good sports.

Everyday I wait for someone to say it is a National Security issue that we have to make things here and tariff things that are not. No one ever does.

I will wait

Obama and the Bush tax cuts

What is wrong with this President. When was he neutered? Can you imagine Bill Clinton with an opportunity like this.

The opposition party has just won big gains in the midterms and their number one issue is to make sure that tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans are extended. Better yet if they do not get these extended they will let the tax cuts given to the other 98 percent of Americans expire as well. That is you and me and everyone we know.


What a blessing. Can you imagine it. I have a bill right here in my hand that will extend the tax cuts for all but those who make less than 250K. But our Republican friends feel it is more important to protect those who have profited the most and suffered the least in this recession than to protect you.

Deliver a speech, go on television. You cannot lose on this issue. The Republicans will blink. It is a certainty that they will.

Here is the issue. Obama does not want to politic. I believe he thinks it is beneath him. I do not think he enjoys it. He is in the wrong business if he does not. When you are handed an issue like this and you let your chief advisers float a trial balloon that you know you have to compromise on this issue you are getting bad advice.


America likes a fighter. Fight. You will not get a better issue to extol the differences between the two parties than this.

The Deficit

So now according to the election, the Tea Party, the Republicans and even a reluctant Obama the greatest issue facing this country is the National debt.

It is a problem, a major problem. But for the most part this is just posturing from the Republicans. For a party to campaign on adding more than a trillion dollars to the debt in 10 years by extending the Bush tax cuts, rule out any tax increases and call for a balanced budget is just foolish.

Of course Americans get the government they deserve. Independents and moderates also are spooked about the debt. Rightly so.

But in regards to the debt we have a huge case of NIMBYism. Social Security cannot touch that I retire in three years, Farm subsidies no, cut defense well what if the shipyard in my state gets cut.

The truth is without defense and entitlement reform you will not fix the budget. Our military budget amounts mostly to a profit making institution for defense contractors and a jobs program for the towns and cities that make the products. Everyone wants America out of Afghanistan ( rightly so) but they do not want them out of New Haven, Bath or Long Beach. It is a farce what we spend on unneeded weapons in todays world. As Bill Maher says the Russians of 1982 will not be attacking anytime soon.

Social Security will be in the black until 2037. That in itself will tell you that Social Security concern is just a stalking horse for cutting entitlements across the board. You could extend that 10 to 20 years by raising the cap amount that can be taxed for social security. This is not a problem. Plans to fix social security are a hoax being perpetrated on a public that should know better. Reagan, Reagan of all people fixed social security for 50 years with a payroll tax adjustment and if Reagan can we can.

Medicare is a problem as is Medicaid. Let us not forget however that the one way to fix all this is with single payer. Clearly that is not happening anytime soon.

Here is the fact. Americans have an all volunteer military, over the last 20 years our brightest minds have gone to Wall Street to make a quick sleazy buck and not into science, medicine and technology as they have in the past. We are selfish. It is not just us, Europe is fighting this same fight only they have a huge safety net that is being trimmed. We had a modest safety net that is some would like to gut.

Can this be fixed. It would seem likely it will. Thomas Jefferson said that once citizens learn that they can vote themselves the treasury a country is in trouble. We are in trouble.

The average American thinks not of his country or his state or his town. There is no shared pride and no shared experience and certainly no shared sacrifice.

It is a worry

The Election

As we are nearly a week out from the mid terms it is time to take a look at what this election meant and did not mean. There are those that argue that Obama by trying to please everyone, to get Republican cooperation, did too little on stimulus, financial reform and health care and thus did not get the results he wanted as in the stimulus or the ability to tout his achievement such as in financial reform and health care. Indeed Democrats ran away from those bills in the election.

It is as if you were a contractor and spent a year building a huge house and yet did not advertise that when you sought to be hired for your next job.

Others would argue that Obama's left leaning agenda just is not palatable to what is repeatedly stated to be a center right country.

I think the failure is widespread. First and foremost the economy was a wreck when he took office. Obama won a clear majority and the public was on his side. FDR when he took office in the throes of the Depression did not try to work with the right, Ronald Reagan raised taxes when he took over California in 1966 knowing that in that first year everything he did he could blame on having to fix the previous administrations mistakes.

Simply put the stimulus was too small. Much too small. Republicans who lined up against it should have been called out. If they had used the filibuster on a larger amount he should have gone on television and stated his case. He would have won.

The health care bill was a wreck because he did not participate until the very end and by then the words death panel and government takeover were in the lexicon. Orchestrated resistance from the right scared some Democrats and it simply took too long. If he wanted this to be his signature achievement he should have sold it. Again how hard would it have been to go on TV and in a populist measure say that all Americans should have the same access members of Congress have. Or to blame insurance companies. I have said in my own statements that anything the insurance companies are against must be good for the average citizen. This is true. This could have been an easy populist sell but he lost control of his message.

Perhaps for me the biggest disappointment was the financial reform bill. The bill that passed was gutted. Too big too fail still exists. Paul Volckers suggestions were not heeded. How easy could it have been to come out as a populist standing against Wall Street who caused this whole economic downturn. The bonuses after the fact and yet the Republicans rallied against the financial reform bill saying it would allow more bailouts. Again, message stolen. The bill is lukewarm and useless.

Obama is likable but one gets the sense that he has never dealt with adversity in the political arena. I told a Democratic friend of mine that I had doubts about how he would do against a strong Congress and it seems to be the case.

Now he has lost his majority and will have to negotiate or let nothing happen. The time for being tough was when he had his mandate. He did not need Republicans and he could in those first six months have gone over the Republicans head to the American people. He did not.

The only thing that prevents me from considering him a likely one term President is that we do not know how the whole Republican party schism that is pending with the Tea Party will play out. Sarah Palin getting the nomination seems insane but were that to happen one has to assume that independents would flock to Obama and her nomination would energize the left.

But a strong Republican governor would seem to be a more likely candidate and the electoral math for Obama is very poor indeed.


A final note. It is only two years in and things can change. However ex presidents usually have a voice. Jimmy Carter has been an envoy around the world. Reagan was revered by his party. Bush the senior has done many good things and Bill Clinton is still the Rock Star of the Democratic party. As I think about Obama I cannot think anyone would ever value his opinion on political matters except as an example of what not to do.

Is their time to fix this. Yes. But I do wonder if he has the political instincts and just as important the political will to do so.

Governor LePage

Leading in all the polls it was still a long night for Paul Lepage. Around 11 AM on the day after the election Elliott Cutler conceded. Lepage, trailing when all the cities sent in their votes slowly picked up ground as the vote counting in the rural areas came forth.

Clearly at this moment in time my political views are not in the majority but it does amaze me that the areas of the state with the most economic problems are those that vote Republican the strongest. That would not seem to make sense.

However clearly a message has been delivered. People are scared about their futures and are willing to try something new. LePage will have a state senate that is dominated by Republicans and should be able to get some of his ideas through.

What those ideas will be remains to be seen but it is my experience that being upset over his victory will do not good. Most people once in office govern to the center and I suspect LePage will do the same.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out.