Category: Uncategorized

Nov. 28, 2010

COLUMBUS: The Lame Duck Congress is back. If we expect the same lame results and lame excuses at least we won’t be disappointed. The problem with this Congress is when it comes to important bills they keep ducking. Our income taxes are set to go up, the death tax returns, and no money has been appropriated to run the government.

On income taxes, I heard Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on television today say that billionaires should be paying higher taxes. Well, nobody is keeping them from writing a check to the government instead of to their charities. But those two men seem to prefer to decide where their money goes instead of leaving it up to Congress.

Wikileaks is raising havoc again. This Australian fellow – I believe his name is Assange, yes, Judas Assange –  is publishing millions of secret messages stolen from the State Department. The news that these secret documents would be published made President Obama so mad he sent Assange an email.

If this had happened during World War II, do you think Roosevelt would have sent him a letter? Not a chance. General Eisenhower would have tracked him down and had him hung. And the traitors that leaked the information, too.

Assange says he is against war. If he wants to end the war, why don’t he publish secret messages from Osama bin Ladin and tell us where he’s hiding.

President Obama wants the Senate to approve a nuclear treaty. With all the threats coming from North Korea and Iran you might think this treaty discussion was with them. No, this treaty is with Russia. And the main argument with Russia is not over how many nuclear missiles each of us can have, but whether we can build a bigger defense to shoot ‘em down. Personally, I think we should sign the treaty, then go on building up our missile defense but keep it a secret. From the State Department. If they don’t know about it, neither will Wikileaks.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“A Lame Duck is a politician who has had his salary shot from under him.” WA #101, Nov. 16, 1924
“Well, the lame ducks met Monday and that’s why they are lame, is because their constituents were thinking faster than they was.” DT #1974. Dec 1, 1932
 “Everybody is knocking this lame-duck Congress, but do you know those fellows have a chance to make a real name for themselves… They know exactly how the people voted on every question that they will be asked to decide on. They know the majority didn’t want prohibition. They know everybody wants government expense cut in half. So when any question comes up all they have to do is read the election returns.” DT #1976, Dec. 4, 1932
 “Diplomats write notes because they wouldn’t have the nerve to tell the same thing to each other’s face.” Saturday Evening Post, June 9,1928

Nov. 21, 2010

COLUMBUS: If you’re one of those airline passengers fretting over the new security procedures, I suggest you call your doctor and request, as a precautionary measure, an “internal urological examination.” After they look around in there a while for kidney stones, even if they come up empty handed, those TSA pat-downs won’t seem so intrusive.

Ireland announced they need a bailout. I’ve always had a soft spot for Ireland. And I figure if every American who can trace their roots back to Ireland would send them a check for maybe $50, why that would help get them out of a hole. Of course it was the bankers who caused the financial meltdown (does that sound familiar?) so you may be reluctant send your dough to a country whose big bankers are just as shrewd, conniving, and underhanded as ours.

The United States is in a hole far deeper than Ireland’s. President Obama appointed a Commission to look for ways to eliminate the deficit and last week the Chairmen, Mr. Boles and Sen. Simpson, gave a preliminary report. From the reaction in Washington, you would have thought the world was ending. Republicans whined about paying more gas taxes and cuts to defense. Democrats howled about eliminating tax deductions, lowering tax rates, and the prospect that a 5-year old might have to work an extra two years before collecting Social Security. This yammering was caused by some reasonable men and women who have come up with ways to reduce our overspending by half. Imagine the ruckus if they had proposed eliminating it all together.

When you are spending $3.6 Trillion and taking in $2.1 Trillion, you gotta do more than skip a meal once in a while to balance a budget. One of their suggestions is to eliminate 20,000 federal employees (out of 200,000). I think it can work if we find the 20,000 who are responsible for spending the excess $1.5 Trillion every year, and get rid of them along with their budgets. We might lose a few Senators and Congressmen in the process (and a couple of Cabinet Secretaries), but that’s just the price you have to pay for sanity.

This is Thanksgiving week. Besides being thankful for the farmers who provide the food for a bountiful feast, I’m glad to live in a country where a nut can write stuff like this and put it in a newspaper without fear of arrest or getting shot.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“This is Thanksgiving.  It was started by the Pilgrims, who would give thanks every time they killed an Indian and took more of his land.  As years went by and they had all his land, they changed it into a day to give thanks for the bountiful harvest, when the boll-weevil and the protective tariff didn’t remove all cause for thanks.” DT #417, Nov. 23, 1927.

 “I have been in twenty countries and the only one where American tourists are welcomed wholeheartedly by everyone is in Ireland. They don’t owe us and they don’t hate us.” DT #3, Aug. 1, 1927

 “A Senator named (Millard) Tydings the other day introduced a bill where the government couldn’t appropriate more money than was coming in. That is, if you didn’t have any money you could not dole out any. Well the Senate like to mobbed him. They called the idea treason, sacrilegious, inhuman and taking the last vestige of power for a politician, that is, the right to appropriate money which you don’t have.” DT #2024, Jan. 29, 1933

Nov. 14, 2010

COLUMBUS: Congress returns this week. Not the one you just elected, the one you just kicked out. They’re back in Washington to finish off bills in the next two weeks that they couldn’t agree on for the past two years. Of course, about 75 of them are there mainly to update their resumes and try to land a job with the Administration.

Congress knew for years about the income tax increase coming due January 1. Republicans say nobody should have to pay more, while the Democrats say only the two percent who pay about a fourth of all our taxes should get stuck with a higher tax.

The whole debate centers on who gets to spend the money. The government says, “Give us your money and we’ll make sure it’s spent. In fact for every ten dollars you give us, we’ll likely spend fifteen.” On the other side, the folks making over $200,000 say, “Leave us alone and we promise to spend it, not hoard it like we’re doing now. We’ll even hire some workers if we can find ones who want to work.”

The Federal Reserve didn’t wait for Congress or the President to act on jobs or anything else. They just went out, borrowed a printing press, and ran off $600 Billion in fresh bills. Now, these bills are real, you can spend them, but they’re going to drop the value of any dollars you’ve got in the bank the same as if they were counterfeit.

The Federal Reserve is telling people who squirreled away some cash, even if it’s barely enough to retire on, that you better spend it because a dollar today will be worth only ninety cents in a few months. But old folks want to put it in something safe, like CDs, and live off the interest. Seems mighty logical. But the Federal Reserve don’t want you to save because they plan to lower the interest rate to zero. Maybe not actually zero, but if it’s half a percent, and you managed to scrimp and save $200,000, you’ll only have $1000 a year in interest to live on.

The old commodity traders saw this inflation coming. They loaded up on oil, corn, wheat, copper, cotton and gold and drove the price of these commodities way higher than a few months ago. We’re paying more for gasoline, but not because it’s worth more; it’s because the dollar is worth less. Let’s hope it don’t go from worth less to worthless.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“An awful lot of people are confused as to just what is meant by a Lame Duck Congress. It’s like where some fellows worked for you and their work wasn’t satisfactory and you let ’em out, but after you fired ’em, you let ’em stay long enough so they could burn your house down.” DT #1980, Dec. 8, 1932

 “Now maybe a little shot of printing money would be just what this country needs.  They say there’s nothing that will make a guy pull his dough out of a bank and start buying something with it as quick as to know that his dollar is going to go down in value. Well, when money’s going down you want to have it in something besides a bank.  So a little scare might have been just what was needed to kind of get things started” Radio, May 26, 1935

Nov. 7, 2010

CLAREMORE, Okla: In the last hundred years, Democrats in Oklahoma have survived tornados, dust storms, wildfires, blizzards, floods, heat waves, and ice storms. But on Tuesday the wind that come sweepin’ down the plain was calamitous, a regular human catastrophe. This cyclone originated in Washington, and picked up speed the closer it got. As it roared across the state it flattened Democrat candidates, from U.S. Senate down to county dog catcher. Congressman Dan Boren was the sole surviving Democrat, and that was only because he dove into a fox hole.

In Claremore and Oologah, regardless of the election results, spirits were high for a birthday celebration. It started on Nov. 4 with a cake with 131 candles, and ended two days later with a parade. In between, the fourth graders of Oologah put on a musical program that would make any Vaudeville actor proud. In addition to dozens of family members, special guests were two ladies who played 12-year old twin daughters of mine in the 1933 movie, Mr. Skitch. They were funny in the movie, and are still a delightful pair.

Back to politics, the Republicans in Oklahoma, and a bunch of other states, have the yoke placed squarely on their shoulders. They’ve got to balance a budget without cutting off too many voters. All except California and New York. Those two will keep dropping deeper into debt, hoping the rest of us will feel sorry for them and throw down a rope. But they only want a rope, not to pull themselves up, but only if there’s bags of money attached to it.

President Obama admitted the “political cost of the health care bill was much higher than expected.” In other words, he was surprised it cost him 60 Congressmen and 7 Senators. What the rest of us are concerned about, but not surprised, is the dollar cost of the bill. The vast majority of Americans had it figured out even before Democrats got around to reading the bill, that it would cost us more.

The news about the higher cost finally reached the AARP this week. You’ve got to feel sorry for the thousands of workers for that outfit. They campaigned and lobbied and spent millions to get it passed, and now they find out their own health insurance costs are going up ten or twelve percent. The AARP was a fine organization aimed at helping retired people but it got off track when it let in people as young as fifty who are still working. Even if he’s not working, a man that young should be ashamed to claim membership.

Timothy Geithner met with Jon Stewart to discuss the economy. You may be wondering, What could a Treasury Secretary possibly learn from a comedian about economics? Well, in 1929, when Secretary Mellon had skimped and saved a surplus of $185,000,000, I offered this observation: “They are all arguing over what to do with it, but nobody has ever suggested applying it on our national debt, which is over $30,000,000,000.”  Well, I hope Jon gave him some tips on cutting spending because Mr. Geithner has no hope of ever seeing a surplus.

I read where the Republican candidate for governor in Illinois can’t figure out how he lost. “I was ahead in all the polls right up to election day.” The answer is obvious: Chicago. See, on election day, all kinds of people vote in Chicago, but these pollsters only call people who are alive.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“It’s going to be mighty hard after it’s over to tell which one to congratulate. If this depression stays with us, the loser Tuesday is going to be the winner.” DT #1951, Nov. 4, 1932

“There was nothing personal in the vote against you (President Hoover). You just happened to be associated with a political party that the people had just lost their taste for.” DT #1955, Nov. 9, 1932

Oct 31, 2010

COLUMBUS: This election campaign is climaxing in Ohio. Bill Clinton and Vice-President Biden were here. And President Obama was in Cleveland today pushing Democrats to vote. You know, when it takes a President to convince Cleveland to vote Democratic, prospects ain’t looking so good for Democrats.

Over in Yemen a few disguised bombs were air mailed by way of FedEx to the US. The good news, for now, is they were intercepted before any exploded. Yemen is an Arab country, pretty much controlled by Al-Qaida. Everyone knows Muslims did it. But you’ll be surprised how many TV commentators will question that conclusion. They’ll say, “It’s not fair to blame it on Muslims. Those bombs could have been put together and mailed by Jews or Hindus or even Methodists.”

When it comes to elections, there was one held in Indianapolis last week that hardly anyone can argue with. The National FFA selected their officers for next year and the President is from Oklahoma. Riley Pagett is a member of the Woodward FFA Chapter out in the  western end of the state. He and five other officers will be traveling the country, speaking on behalf of what we used to call Future Farmers of America. Several previous national FFA Presidents have gone on to outstanding careers and Riley is sure to join them, if we can keep him out of politics.

Speaking of elections, if you are visiting the United States either legally or illegally, and you’ve got a hankerin’ to vote Tuesday, go to Arizona. See, two federal judges ruled that you don’t have to be an American citizen to vote in Arizona.  I know a few Canadians who may fly south early just to have a say in how this country is run. From now on, when it comes to questionable election results, Arizona will rank right up there with Chicago.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers: (on elections)
“We cuss ‘em and we joke about ‘em, but if they wasent in (Congress), why, they would be doing something else against us that might be worse.” Saturday Evening Post, July 24, 1926

“Our system has been that when a man is defeated at election he is appointed to a bigger job than the one he was defeated for.” DT #1346, Nov. 16, 1930

“In this country people don’t vote for, they vote against. The votes was against Hoover [in 1932]. It doesn’t matter who was running.” Radio, June 9, 1935

“A  flock of Democrats will replace a mess of Republicans in quite a few districts. It won’t mean a thing. They will go in like all the rest of ’em, go in on promises and come out on alibis.” WA #403, Sept. 14, 1930

Oct 24, 2010

COLUMBUS: President Obama is crisscrossing the country campaigning for Democrats. Sarah Palin is doing the same for Republicans. Don’t know if it’ll help anybody, except maybe the opponents.

Most Democrats running for Congress swear that if elected, they will vote with the Republicans. And the Republicans vow they will never repeat the mistakes they made from 2002 to 2006. With the mishmash conglomeration that’s gonna get in there, Lord knows what shape we’ll be in by 2012.

As bad as the TV ads are, a surefire way for a candidate to get more votes would be to announce, “I’m stopping all campaigning. No more blistering ads, no long-winded speeches, no harassing phone calls. I’m gonna stay home for the next week, sit on the back porch and contemplate our future. Call me if you want to talk.  Here’s my  number ______.”

Baseball decided they should start the World Series before Halloween. The Texas Rangers are in there for the first time, taking on the Giants of San Francisco. All the big baseball experts from east of the Mississippi were hoping for a few November night games in the balmy climates of New York or Philadelphia. They’ll find that these boys out West can play the game too, if they bother to watch.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers: (on election campaigns)

“Come pretty near having two holidays of equal importance in the same week, Halloween and Election, and of the two, election day provides us the most fun. On Halloween they put pumpkins on their heads, and on Election day they don’t have to. Candidates have been telling you that if elected they would ‘pull you from this bog hole of financial misery.’ Now is a good chance to get even with ‘em by electing ‘em, just to prove what a liar they are.” DT #1334, Nov. 2, 1930

“My idea of the height of conceit would be a political speaker that would go on the air when that World Series is on.” DT #683, Oct 3, 1928

“There should be a moratorium called on candidates’ speeches. From now on they are just talking themselves out of votes…  You can do everybody a big favor by going fishing, then come back next Wednesday and we will let you know which one is the lesser of the two evils.” DT #1948, Nov. 2, 1932

 “All you will hear from now until the [election] will be: ‘We must get our government out of the hands of predatory wealth.’ ‘The good people of this great country are burdened to death with taxes.” WA #86, Aug. 3, 1924

“The promising season ends next Tuesday, and at about 8 o’clock that same night the alibi season opens. Can you remember back when the promise was made on both sides that ‘The campaign will be run on a high plane’? This campaign ends Tuesday, but it will take two generations to sweep up the dirt.” DT #706, Oct. 31, 1928

Oct 17, 2010

COLUMBUS: The federal deficit is $1.3 Trillion this year. The President says the economy is improving because last year it was $1.4 Trillion.
President Obama was back in Columbus today. He’s been in Ohio a dozen times lately, rounding up votes. He’s telling Democrats, “Even if you don’t have a job, vote for the Democrat anyway. No use for both of you to be unemployed.”
Speaker Pelosi’s comment about “more bang for the buck” is getting attention. You would be surprised the number of Democrat candidates who are carrying rifles in their TV ads. In West Virginia, Joe Manchin is not only carrying, but firing. He shot a hole plumb through the Carbon Tax and Trade bill. A lot of Democrats in Congress are taking aim at Pelosi.
Every candidate has been asked exactly how they will cut the deficit. Nary a one has been honest enough to answer, for fear of losing a couple of votes.
Here’s what I suggest for a candidate to announce next week, “Let’s raise the Social Security retirement age to 70 or 72. There will be no inflation adjustment for next year because there was no inflation. Be patient because inflation will take off sooner or later, and we’ll scrape us a small increase for you. For those on Medicaid, you better find a way to live healthier because you’re gonna pay half. Same for Medicare except you pay a quarter, including for drugs. For unemployment, forget about 99 weeks of checks. With my plan, the first week you get 100 percent, and it declines every week until after 29 weeks it’s zero. Currently you wait till the checks stop, then find a job. From now on, you decide how low to let it go before you get off the couch. We’ll raise the income tax, but only on the half that aren’t paying any. It’ll only be 5 percent, and it will give these poor folks a stake in wanting government to spend wisely. We’ll eliminate all public employee unions. If you want to join a union, work for a private company. We’ll phase out home mortgage deductions. It’s the tax advisors that convince people to keep a maximum mortgage until they’re 80; take out that loophole and they’ll pay off the house by 50 or so, and be glad of it.”
For any candidate who will make that proposal I can guarantee one thing: on November 2 he’ll lose. But in 5 to 10 years, people will be telling him he was right.
The rescue of those 33 Chili miners was an inspiring engineering achievement. A determined President went out and got the brightest, most experienced drillers in the world and turned them loose. NASA helped design the recovery capsule. And the miners were brilliantly organized and disciplined.
The first big football poll came out tonight. Oklahoma and Oregon are on top, and that means only one thing. Next Saturday, look for them to get beat.

Historic quote from Will Rogers: (Note that 2010 is kinda opposite of 1930.)
“My advice is, keep the Republicans in power. Otherwise you will add to the unemployment for, if you throw a Republican out there is nothing else he can do, while a Democrat must be able to making a living out of office. Otherwise he would not be living.” DT #1335, Nov. 3, 1930

10-10-10

COLUMBUS: The news got even worse for the Democrats this week. Unemployment is stuck at close to ten percent, and one out of every seven Americans are poverty stricken. And more of them than ever live in foreclosed homes in the suburbs.

Of course it was moving to the suburbs that caused a lot of these problems. When everyone lived in a big house in town, maybe with your in-laws and a bunch of kids, you could walk to work or school. I blame Henry Ford. When he started making the Model T Ford so cheap that just about anyone could afford one, why we moved out of town, built our own house and drove everywhere. Now you’re stuck with two cars and two mortgages. And when your two jobs disappeared, sharing a big house in town don’t seem so bad.

Speaker Pelosi announced that the best economic recovery plan is to hand out more food stamps and unemployment checks. She said that will give the “most bang for the buck.” Well, I don’t know what economist she has been talking to, if any. I figure the loudest bang you’ll hear from these out-of-work men will be when they go into the woods aiming to shoot a buck. That can get you more meat than a month’s worth of food stamps.

We only have three weeks till the election. Can you survive that long? With some of these political ads on TV, you’ve got to not only cover your ears and close your eyes, but hold your nose, too. There seem to be more polecats running than usual.

Everybody knows there will be a bunch more Republicans elected to Congress. But the Democrats aren’t giving up without a fight. Why, there’s a few Democrat candidates cussing the President more than the Republicans are.

In West Virginia, the governor is running for Robert Byrd’s old Senate seat. He has come out against just about every one of the President’s policies, but still claims to be a Democrat. Most voters are telling him, “You stay as Governor and let us send someone else to clean up Washington.”

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“We’ll hold the distinction of being the only nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile.” Radio, Oct. 18, 1931

 “There is something about a Republican that you can only stand for him just so long. And, on the other hand, there is something about a Democrat that you can’t stand for him quite that long.” DT #1955, Nov. 9, 1932

(After the dedication of the new Will Rogers Hotel in Claremore, Oklahoma) “I know now how proud Christopher Columbus must have felt  when he heard they had named Columbus, Ohio, after him.” DT #1111, Feb. 16, 1930

Oct. 3, 2010

COLUMBUS: McDonald’s may be dropping health insurance for their employees and that’s got Democrats in Congress concerned. After November, that’s where some of these folks may be working.

As for McDonald’s, the folks who should be concerned about health insurance are the ones eating there. But really, I’m not going to take potshots at any hamburger joint. I’ve raised (and eaten) enough beef in my time to know it won’t hurt you. If you want to stick to eating only vegetables, that’s fine with me. But I’ll take my chances with ham or steak or chicken breast meat along with potatoes, soup beans and onions. And cherry pie. Now that’s good eatin’.

Granted, eating a half dozen Big Macs every day might not leave you feeling chipper. But neither would five pounds a day of broccoli.

Rahm Emanuel is returning to Chicago to run for mayor. Politics in Washington was too mild for him. In Chicago he can cuss out the gangsters and a few stray Republicans.

Washington is deserted. With less than a month till the election, Congress decided it was more important to go home and tell the voters how they intend to vote instead of actually voting. If you want to know where your candidate stands on income tax rates, inheritance taxes, or immigration, just ask. But you can only vote for the person, not how he will vote. In the Lame Duck session, he might do just the opposite. In that two week session after the election, Speaker Pelosi says they will vote on twice as many bills as they have in the previous two years.
In California, the race for governor heated up. Not over how to fix a Fifty Billion Dollar deficit, but rather Meg Whitman’s maid who was fired more than a year ago. It seems Jerry Brown just learned the maid was a Mexican working here illegally, and made an example of her. On TV, Whitman said, “She told us she was legal, we treated her like part of the family, and paid her $23 an hour.” The next day two million Californians called Whitman’s campaign office. Not to volunteer, not to complain, but rather to apply for the maid’s old job.

The government announced a warning for anyone traveling to Europe. Al Qaeda is threatening to blow up Europe like they did New York. Well, your odds of being wiped out by a terrorist are probably lower than being killed by a teenager texting while driving. Threat or no threat, here’s what I suggested in 1930: There ought to be a law against anybody going to Europe till they had seen the things we have in this country.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:
“I’ll bet there is more fool things done for publicity’s sake that defeat their own purpose than ever aided it.”  DT #1816, May 19, 1932
“Being serious or being a good fellow has got nothing to do with running this country. If the breaks are with you, you could be a laughing hyena and still have a great administration.” DT #1315, Oct. 10, 1930

Sept. 26, 2010

COLUMBUS: Lindsay Lohan is back in a Hollywood jail. Meanwhile in New York the young woman hiker that Iran let out of jail for $500,000 met with Iran’s Ahmadinejad. She asked him to release the two guys that were with her but they could not agree on a price. Personally, I think we should offer a trade. Iran gives us the two men, and we give them Lohan and Paris Hilton.

Congress announced they do not have time to vote on the income tax bill until after the election. The voters already know where their Congressman stands on health care, the energy tax and illegal immigration, so Speaker Pelosi does not want to saddle the voters with having another hot issue to keep track of. On November 2, they’ll just have to guess whether their Senator or Representative is for or against ‘em. Of course the same bird that says he’s against a higher income tax now can turn around and vote for it after he’s knocked out.

One reason Congress is short of time is they invited comedian Stephen Colbert to testify about his views on farming. In his entire life he worked exactly one day on a farm so naturally Congress wanted to find out what he knew.

If Congress had invited some actual farmers and ranchers they could have heard the real scoop on agriculture. But farmers in the Midwest are all harvesting their corn and soybeans this month and don’t have time to go to Washington, even to ask for relief.

Congress also put off a vote on the inheritance tax. If you die now, your family gets to keep it all. But if you wait till January to die, the government gets first crack at your fortune, and all the heirs get is a check for what’s left over. Rich old folks will be wary of what Christmas packages they allow under the tree. If it’s ticking, out it goes.

Have you noticed that cars today don’t have bumpers? They used to be strong steel that protected your car when, for example, you bumped into another car while parallel parking. But now these so-called bumpers are self-destructing, plastic coated cardboard that collapses at the first hint of a slight bump with another so-called bumper. In the old days if your car rolled into another one at 3 miles per hour you got a slight jolt. Now what you get is a repair bill for $4000.

I read in the Sunday paper that in Cuba, businesses can now hire people to work for them. Maybe we ought to try that.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“Everything is changing in America. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke, when it used to be visa versa.” DT #1966, Nov. 22, 1932

“Now they got such a high inheritance tax on ’em that you won’t catch these old rich boys dying promiscuously like they did. This bill makes patriots out of everybody. You sure do die for your country if you die from now on.” DT #1767, March 23, 1932