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The Specter of a Lame Duck Congress

I have no idea what is going to happen in the November congressional elections, but it seems the polls — for what they’re worth — predict a huge Republican win. It may or may not happen, I just don’t know, but if it does and the aisles of Congress are littered with Democrats who will be kicked out in the New Year, will they feel they don’t have anything to lose and try to pass the remainder of their socialistic agenda before they’re forced to leave. And if lame duck Democrats try to do this will the Republicans and remaining Democrats who will return have the guts and the honor to block them? Will they let cap and trade, card check and all the other catastrophic crap they have proposed be passed? America has not even begun to feel the lash of Obama’s whip from the legislation his sycophants have already passed. The cost of health care insurance is already going up in anticipation of the restrictions Obamacare will put on insurance companies. The federal unemployment numbers continue to hover right around 10% and there’s no telling what the actual numbers are. The economy is headed for the pits and you could run out of ink trying to add all the zeros to the national debt. How much more can this nation take? We may well find out with a lame duck Congress, a room full of ticked off losers who want to show the country that they’ll still have their way although the very programs they would be passing into law are what got them kicked out of office to start with. But let’s just get something straight; just because somebody has an “R” after their name doesn’t mean they are the kind of conservatives it will take to undo some of the damage Obama and the Democrats have done. Remember some of them were bitter disappointments voting for bills they knew their constituents were against and some of them sold out for favors only them and Obama’s operatives know about. I don’t claim to know what it will take to bring America out this morass we’re in but there are a few common sense factors that are tried and true. The old Democrat mantra, “tax cuts for the rich” is misleading it’s not the rich they’re hurting when they raise taxes. The rich people are going to get along just fine. They’ll just hang on to their money instead of investing it in businesses to create more jobs. The card check proposal is nothing short of ridiculous. What business is it of anybody’s how somebody casts their vote for union leadership or anything else for that matter? This just opens someone up for intimidation and ostracizing and subverts the very heart of the Democratic process. Nobody even knows how the health care fiasco will play out, even those in Congress who sold out the people who voted them in to pass it. But there’s something I can guarantee you; the cost of health care will go up instead of going down as Obama said it would. In fact it’s going way up. If nothing else, the new bureaucracies it will take to administer and enforce it will see to that. Obama is insincere in really wanting to do something to bring down the cost of health care as no meaningful bill could possible leave out tort reform. If we’re not going to let our troops win the war in Afghanistan, we should just write off that part of the world and bring them home. Why keep dribbling American lives down the drain in a country where most of the people don’t want us there to start with. The only way we’ll ever destroy the Taliban is to accept tremendous collateral damage to the civilian population and evidently we’re never going to do that so why stay? A year or so after we pull the troops out of Iraq that country will go right back to what it was except this time the mullahs in Iran will be calling the shots. The most dangerous and powerful enemy in that part of the world is Iran; they export terrorism and arm our enemies. Until something meaningful is done about them our efforts in that part of the world are meaningless and any victory is temporary. Playing politics with the energy production in this country is going to play out to be a stupid and horribly costly mistake because one day. Sooner than later, the oil from the Persian Gulf will suddenly stop coming to this country. We should be drilling in ANWR, and the shale deposits in our western states and bring these sources on line before this catastrophe happens. I agree that we should be pursuing alternative energy sources for all we’re worth, but let’s face it… We’ve been pursuing them for years and are not anywhere near the point that we can depend on them. Let’s go for it, make an all out effort to harness wind and water, create fuel cells, build nuclear plants, discover non-food supply sources of ethanol. But in the meantime, we’re going to need petroleum and we’re not going to get it by the feeble and superficial gestures the federal government is making. You want alternative energy? Make it profitable for the private sector. Get out of their way and it will happen. A government that sues a state for keeping the law and turns a blind eye to sanctuary cities for breaking it is seriously out of balance and needs to have its priorities adjusted. Let’s hope that will happen in November.

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The Specter of a Lame Duck Congress

NBC Chief Jeff Zucker Open to Political Run, Bringing Couric Back to Network

We’ve heard the knocks on NBC and the institutional bias that exists in its network – from the subtle spin in its flagship network’s news coverage at NBC to the over-the-top bias at its cable news channel MSNBC. So maybe the man behind the curtains at NBC Universal would like to be more overt with his opinions – as a politician? On MSNBC’s Aug. 25 “Morning Joe,” Jeff Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal, addressed both his possible political aspirations and bringing back one of the network’s former star personalities. Host Joe Scarborough asked Zucker where his political interests were at this stage. “You know Joe – look, politics is something I’ve always had an interest in,” Zucker said. “It is something I’ve always thought about. It is not something that is on my current radar. It’s not something I’m thinking about in the next few years, but it is something that I would always consider. I think – I love politics. I would love to give back. I would love to serve. I would love to do something, but it is not imminent. It’s nothing now.”  That set Zucker up for a question from Scarborough – if he was holding out to bring Couric back to the peacock network where she was a fixture at NBC’s “Today” from 1991 until 2006. “You are going to wait until you get Katie Couric back at NBC then you’re going to get into politics?” Scarborough asked.  It’s been no secret the Katie Couric project at the “CBS Evening News” has not produced the results that were anticipated. Couric’s broadcast just tied its all-time low in total viewers with an average of 4.89 million tuning in during the five days. Zucker dodged Scarborough’s inquiry, but Scarborough continued to press him on the topic.  ZUCKER: I think those are two separate issues there. SCARBOROUGH: Is Katie coming back to NBC? ZUCKER: Well I think she is fully ensconced in a job today and she’s happy where she is. SCARBOROUGH: No, she’s not. Come on. You’re talking like a politician. She hates it over there. ZUCKER: Oh, I don’t know that’s the case. SCARBOROUGH: No, it’s the case. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: That’s not politically correct. SCARBOROUGH: Since she doesn’t like it where she is — ZUCKER: I thought we were talking politics here for a second. BRZEZINSKI: I was going to ask you about the mosque. SCARBOROUGH: This is your first press conference here buddy. So since she doesn’t like where she is, since you have a great relationship with Katie, would you like Katie Couric back at NBC? Zucker relented, saying he would be open to the possibility of Couric returning to NBC in some capacity. “I always said that, look Katie would be a great addition wherever she is,” Zucker said. “If the time were right, I think that’s something we would look at. But she’s under contract now, and I think she’s happy where she is, whether you believe it or not, so I’m not going to wade into that controversy.”

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NBC Chief Jeff Zucker Open to Political Run, Bringing Couric Back to Network