Pat Caddell: A Democrat Who Gets It
Pat Caddell
I have been arguing that President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have seriously failed their party; they have made repeated mistakes and miscalculations that have driven most independents and many Democrats over to the Republican side for the coming election.
The Democratic Pollster, Pat Caddell appears to agree with me. He is also predicting that the Republican Party will completely dominate the coming November midterm elections. Robert Costa at National Review has written an article that gives some of Pat Caddell’s ideas about the Democratic leadership and how they will fare in the coming election.
What is a Cassandra?
Ajax capturing Cassandra
If you have ever heard someone called a ‘Cassandra’ and wanted to know what the term meant; then you are on the right page. I was curious myself and researched the question and here is what I found—
–A Cassandra is someone who can accurately see reality or who can accurately guess what will happen in the future but is ignored.
The Israeli Flotilla Raid is being Criticized Incorrectly
Israel is now receiving widespread condemnation from government and institutional leaders from around the world. I have skimmed the internet, and almost all of the criticism that I have read had two things in common;
- First, all of the critics are saying the same thing; they are all singing from the same hymnal.
- Secondly, these critics all saying that Israel used disproportionate force in engaging the ship and this is what caused the deaths of 9 people.
The staff of Backbench Media criticizes the Israeli raid too; but in a completely different manner. Israel’s greatest mistake is that it violated military ideas formulated by the brilliant Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
How to Write Every Hit Song
In the interest of showing you just how easy it is to do amazing things; here is a YouTube Video that shows you how write almost every hit song.
The Axis of Awesome is an Australian comedy band that will take you through the music of about 50 bands by using only 4 chords. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
Which Party Controlled Congress?
Have you ever wanted to have an easy way to determine which political party controlled the federal government at certain times in American History? Well, I’ve created some information that might be of help. If you want a simple time-line of political parties in the US here it is: CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
Backbench Media’s top five pages:
1 The Richter Scale Equation – 31%
2 The Backbench Media Home Page – 10%
3 Bobby Orr – 8%
4 The Types of World Governments– 6%
5 Chris Christie: a Republican Who can Communicate – 4%
The American Empire isn’t Ready to Crumble Yet
The American Empire isn’t ready to crumble yet, according to an OP-ED in the New York Times that was written by Piers Brendon last February. Mr. Brendon argues that America has unique assets that will allow it to continue to be the dominant power in the world for the foreseeable future. These are assets that the British Empire didn’t have, and they are assets that even the Roman Empire didn’t have.
I have copied this OP-ED from the New York Times and pasted it below. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
Pelosi – Healthcare and Unintended Consequences
Nancy Pelosi was speaking at a meeting of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Washington DC when she responded to a question about the benefits of the healthcare bill. She gave the following foolish response;
“We see it as an entrepreneurial bill; a bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care.” CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
Chris Christie: a Republican Who can Communicate
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has that rare combination of both being a Republican and having the ability to communicate his thoughts. I don’t know why this combination is rare, but you could count the number of living, intelligent and articulate republicans on one hand.
Christie is a lawyer who has spent lots of time in court in various rolls, most famously as a prosecuting attorney and maybe that is where is developed his communication skills. He speaks directly and doesn’t seem to be worried about re-election and perhaps that has freed him to be able to speak his mind. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
How to make your Mountain Dew Bottle Glow in the Dark
You can now turn your bottle of dew into a glow in the dark fluorscent lamp.
I’ve never attemped this chemistry experiment and I don’t know why it would work; but here is a YouTube video showing how to do it. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
The Daily News and Views Page – Updated
I think that I have fixed the problems with the “Daily News and Views” page that is listed on the navigation bar above.
I will now look for some of the more interesting online articles and provide you links to them on that page.
The Phrase of the Day; Moral Hazard
If you are like me; you have heard the term “moral hazard” in discussions without completely understanding the meaning of the phrase. I think that this term is worth understanding since it applies to many situations that are occurring in our world; so I looked it up. Here is what I found.
The term originated in the insurance industry and according to the dictionary; moral hazard is the lack of any incentive to guard against a risk when you are protected against it. The term has expanded over time to cover many situations outside of insurance. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
The Federal Government and Spending
Here is a chart from the Congressional Budget Office that says it all.
Unfortunately, any politician that wants to address this problem directly can kiss his or her career good-bye.
The Arizona Immigration Law Will Benefit Republicans
There was an interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle that spelled out how the Arizona immigration law will have few negative political consequences for Republicans.
You can read a few news reports that claim that the law will hurt the Republicans among Hispanic voters but realistically most of them vote for Democrats anyway.
Before the last election, John McCain pushed the Bush/Kennedy immigration reform bill in 2007. This bill was strongly supported by Latinos but was killed in congress. McCain was strongly criticized by conservatives. He put his political future at risk by his support for creating a path to citizenship for illegal migrants.
For his efforts McCain only won 31 % of the Latino vote in 2008. Meanwhile Obama helped kill that same bill and received 67% of the Latino vote.
As a result; one of two conclusions can be made, either the Hispanic voters will always vote strongly for the Democratic Party or immigration reform just isn’t as important to them as popularly believed.
Live Concert Videos of Rush
One of my favorite bands is the Canadian Progressive-Rock Band Rush. This talented trio features Geddy Lee on vocals, bass and keyboards, Alex Lifeson on guitar and the talented Neal Peart on Drums. Here are a couple live YouTube videos for your enjoyment.
Is there a better drummer than Neal Peart? CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
Public Support for the Arizona Immigration Law
The Arizona immigration law has drawn vocal opposition, marches and rallies and threats of boycotts. But what do most people think about this law?
Nationally:
According to a recent national Rasmussen Poll; “60% of voters nationwide favor a law that authorizes local police to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant, while 31% are opposed”.
In Arizona:
Most Arizona voters (57%) favor an immigration policy that welcomes all immigrants except “national security threats, criminals and those who would come here to live off our welfare system.” A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Arizona voters finds that just 27% oppose such a welcoming policy. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
Stock Market Returns over the last 12 Years
As everybody already knows, the American Stock market crashed in November of 2008. It hit bottom early in 2009 and then rebounded. As you can see from the stock chart below, the Dow Jones has nearly doubled from its lows and moved past the 11000 point level.
However if we look at this index over the last 12 years, we can see that the djia was above the 9000 level in 1998. This means that there has been only a 2000 point gain, or only a total of 22% increase during the last 12 year period.
This makes me wonder whether the strategy of buying and holding conservative American stocks is dead. We probably won’t have another 1929 stock market crash ahead of us, but is there any reason to think that we can make a reasonable rate of return by buying and holding the stocks of the dow jones industrial average?
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Obama’s 2010 Election Video and the Race Card
Obama plays the race card in order to generate enthusiasm for Democrats for the 2010 election. He uses the following phrase at the 2 minute mark of the following video:
“young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 to stand together once again.”
Could have Obama have choses better words? CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
Election trouble for Senator Patty Murray?
Senator Patty Murray of Washington State isn’t polling very well against various potential Republican opponents. This polling information is very interesting because she is in a Democratic State and the pundits have assumed that she would be re-elected.
A recent Survey USA poll shows that she receives no better that 46% support against any of her potential candidates. One possible candidate; Dino Rossi, leads her in the current poll by 52-42%.
Murray has been a Senator since 1992 and has won her elections by carrying from 54 to 58% of the vote and for her to be polling 42 to 46% has to be worrying for Democrats everywhere.
If the Republican can knock off someone like Patty Murray then very few national Democratic politicians are safe.
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PS. Don’t forget to check out my Daily News and Views Page for more articles.
Mr. Bean and British Health Care
Welcome to the future of your Health Care America! CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO »
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