If Good Men Do Nothing

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”
– Edmund Burke

“If good men do nothing in the face of evil, are they really all that good to begin with?”
– Jonathon Moseley

GOP Campaign Consultants Badly Hurt Mitt Romney's Campaign

Mitt Romney failed to convince the voters that he would be better than Barack Obama -- because he never tried.  Simply saying that Obama didn't improve the economy is not a logical argument.  Voters are smart enough to ask the other side of the question:  Would you, Mitt Romney, be any better?  Yes, Obama has been a disappointment.  But does it logically follow that Mitt Romney is necessarily a better choice?

Unfortunately, Romney’s Presidential campaign (meaning the campaign consultants who usually ruin the Republican Party) ran a campaign on the strategy of saying nothing more than

• “Him bad! Me no him!”

A year ago Mitt Romney had tons of money and knew that the economy would be the #1 issue and would decide the election, if properly played.

So it is great that only a few days before the election 673 economists endorse Mitt Romney’s economic plan.

But why wouldn’t a campaign with plenty of money put that in motion up 8 to 10 MONTHS ago?

Mitt Romney has never tackled the most crucial question of the entire election:

“Sure, Barack Obama has not fixed the economy, but should we take a chance on you the Republican and the risk that you mght make things WORSE?”

If you are a voter who is hurting, you’re not happy with your life under Obama. But can you take a chance on the economy getting even worse if Republican policies would cause a re-run of the 2008 economic crash.

Cheerleaders for the establshment Repulicans fail to understand:

If you are a voter struggling with this economy, you survived (almost) one economic crash. You cannot afford to risk another economic crash. So if there is even the slightest chance that Republican policies might cause another crash, a rational voter would choose a bad Obama over a “worse” Romney (as they might perceive it).

Republican political gurus have run away from the issue, because they always run away from every issue and have the spines of wet linguni, for the last 4 years.

Well, now that negligence and cowardice is coming home to roost.

Republican gurus allowed Democrats to get away with bald-faced lies about what caused the Democrat-inspired economic crash in 2007 and 2008. EXIT POLLS RIGHT NOW are showing that a majority of those showing up to vote blame the bad economy on George Bush. That is very bad news for Romney, because it gives a clue to WHO is turning up to vote.

I have been in those meetings with self-proclaimed campaign experts when they wring their hands and squirm in their seats and wet their pants over the prospect of EXPLAINING something decisively and forcefully to the voters, countering Democrat lies, and taking a stand on anything. They think they are brilliant and clever by saying absolutely nothing of substance in a campaign.
While Mitt Romney has dramatically over-performed early expectations of him as a perceived establishment Republican, his actual campaign apparatus has struggled under the albatross of traditional Republican mistakes.

Delaware Election Results Explode Christine O'Donnell Myths

Delaware election results just dropped a nuclear bomb on political theories among Republican moderates and liberals.
 
In 2010, Christine O’Donnell got 40% of Delaware’s heavily-skewed Democrat electorate for US Senate, despite nasty civil war within the Republican party nationwide and in Delaware.

No, this is not about her. This is about YOUR understanding of how elections work and what is going on politically in Delaware.

In 2012, even Republican Mitt Romney only equaled in Delaware Christine O’Donnell’s vote — both at 40%.

How do all the “haters explain how Mitt Romney did no better in Delaware than Christine O’Donnell did for US Senate? Both got 40% of the vote.

In 2012, Republican candidate for US Senate Kevin Wade = 29%

Republican candidate Tom Kovach candidate for US Congress = 33.4%

Republican candidate for Governor Jeff Cragg = 28.6%

Republican candidate for Lt. Governor Sher Valenzuela = 37.1%

Republican candidate for Insurance Commissioner Benjamin Mobley = 36.8%

Now, let’s REVIEW.

WHY? TO LEARN. To PLAN for next time. To do better next time. To build a house on a firm foundation of sound strategy, not on clouds of self-delusion.

So if we put all the theories to the test…. Are all those theories wrong?

Why under the various theories did Christine O’Donnell do BETTER than all of these Republican statewide candidates?

If one's theories don’t work, do you re-examine our political theories, or do you dig in and believe in fairy tales?

Get Some SLEEP on Election Night -- We Probably Won't Know Results for 10 Days

I believe we will not know who our next President is for at least 10 days.  Ohio will be very close.  So a recount is likely.  And there are a huge number of Ohio voters who will be casting PROVISIONAL BALLOTS because they requested absentee ballots but did not return them, according to one report on Fox News (by a commentator not a journalist).  So when they go to cast their votes in person, they will be allowed to vote but only with a provisional ballot.  Those provisional ballots won't be counted for 10 days.  Not a recount.  They won't even be counted the first time for 10 days, while officials verify the voter.

Update on Liberal Democrat Cat

The liberal Democrat cat is no longer begging at our door.  The cat was last seen running off with another, bigger cat.  Yup.  Typical.

Barack Obama Fails his "Hurricane Katrina" Moment - or What They Don't Teach You in Harvard Policy Seminars

by Jonathon Moseley

George Bush as Commander in Chief supplied fuel to the troops fighting in Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, in spite of the complete absence or breakdown of all infrastructure, including electricity.  George Bush flew emergency food supplies to many places around the world, including air dropping military Meals Ready to Eat (MRE's) into Iraq and Afghanistan and other countries.

After a much milder Hurricane Sandy, Barack Obama cannot supply fuel or supplies to New Jersey, a few miles from some of the busiest ports in the world, where railroad tracks converge from around the country.  Unlike Katrina in New Orleans, Winter temperatures are dropping from a hurricane that was geographically huge but mild in strength compared with Hurricane Katrina.  

Gas shortages are crippling fire departments, police departments, ambulances, EMT's, hospitals, electrical utility repair crews, delivery trucks bringing supplies to civilians and the public in general.

The quickest way to illustrate what Barack Obama is failing to due is to recommend what the Commander in Chief (POTUS) should have done from the first moment that gas shortages were reported.  And the moment New Jersey Governor Chris Christie realized that the White House was not getting it done, Christie should have acted as follows.

If I were advising NJ Governor Chris Christie, I would even now recommend:

1)    Acting as commander in chief of the New Jersey National Guard, immediately call the Secretary of the Air Force.  Speaking as the National Guard of New Jersey, formally make the following requests.  No doubt there is a protocol for the National Guard borrowing assets as needed.  Hang the protocol.

o   use of the gigantic tanker air craft that can fly enormous loads of gasoline around the world.
o   use of ordinary cargo planes that can fly supplies around the world.
o   identification by the Air Force of the most suitable landing strip in the New York / New Jersey region.
o   immediate use of cargo aircraft to air-lift heavy cargo helicopters, including helicopters capable of moving huge fuel bladders, tanks or tanker trucks by helicopter, along with the apparatus to fill the bladders or tanks from the tanker planes. 
o   immediate use of cargo aircraft to air-lift food, bottled water, tents, blankets, and generators to the identified airport as a distribution point.
o   officially request the use of heavy-lift cargo helicopters to distribute food and bottled water from the airport to the areas hardest hit, probably using shopping mall parking lots cleared by police to land.
o   officially request the use of those heavy-lift cargo helicopters to distribute fuel from the tanker plane(s) to local gas stations with the longest lines (if landing areas nearby are possible) or at a relay point if necessary.
o    Ideal would be heavy-lift helicopters that could move fuel tanker trailers, drop the tanker trailers in open spaces in shopping mall parking lots, where the truck "tractor" can be married up with the tanker trailer for immediate delivery to nearby local gas stations.  (Note that municipalities sometimes have their own filling depot for police cars, fire trucks, etc.)
    
2)   Get the CEO or operations head of the major oil companies on the phone, in person, and demand to know within 2 hours what the New Jersey National Guard can do to help the oil companies supply all fuel and energy needs, backed up by other State National Guards and/or the US Air Force by borrowing their assets and the US Navy.

     Governor Christie should give the heads of the oil companies his personal cell phone number and warn them that if they hit an obstacle, his personal cell phone in his pocket had better ring or there will be hell to pay.

3)   Ask the oil companies where there are ample supplies of gasoline where an Air Force tanker can land nearby and fill up on gasoline and fly it to the New Jersey / New York area.

4)   As Governor, Christie would need to settle up for the costs of the gasoline by paying the oil companies the normal wholesale price and charging the local gas stations what they would have paid for it from the oil company, and probably giving the gas free to police stations, fire departments, EMT's, ambulances, electricity repair crews, etc.  But the transportation and delivery costs would have to be chalked up to disaster relief.

5)   People are homeless in some cases.  They are desperate, and panicking not knowing what they are going to do.  Winter is coming.  People could be without homes being rebuilt for a couple of months.  The region should have more than enough motel and hotel space, but people without power at their own homes are filling hotel and motel rooms.  But the affected area is blessed by excellent sea access.

     As Governor, Christie's staff should hand him the phone number of the heads of the cruise ship lines.  The cruise ship industry is over-built.  Most companies have older ships they are retiring and replacing.  The disaster will likely leave people not taking cruises.  Ask if an older cruise ship, perhaps one of many decommissioned, could be rushed to New York harbor to provide temporary housing for the homeless.  Getting an older cruise ship re-programmed or re-positioened and into place could take a week or longer.  But the sooner they start the sooner it will be done. 

6)    As commander in chief of the National Guard, call the Secretary of the Navy and request whatever ships can be rushed fastest to New York Harbor, followed quickly by the "small" aircraft carriers (by modern standards) known as Amphibious Assault Ships like the Kearsage.  Navy ships are capable of creating vast amounts of fresh water from sea water.   Amphibious Assault carriers have the helicopters and/or hovercraft to deliver water and supplies over a wide distance. 

      Some navy ships could provide immediate living quarters for the homeless

7)    Quite naturally, all resources both Army Corps of Engineers and private companies are needed to restore electrical power.  Certainly this is being done.  But moving around the area quickly is a problem.  The New Jersey National Guard and if necessary resources from other State National Guards or the US Air Force should fly these crews around in helicopters to be able to restore power as quickly as possible.

      Now, is there any of that which President Barack Obama could not have ordered almost a week ago, last Tuesday?   Although Obama is not prepared by policy seminars for handling such a crisis, his staff also has seriously failed.  Presidential staff who are not rookies should have handed the President action memos clipped in urgent-action file folders ready for the POTUS to simply scan and sign, to set all of this in motion last Tuesday.

                          ###
Jon Moseley

THIS KITTEN IS A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

At my parents' house, we've picked up a wild stray kitten.

But the kitten is a liberal Democrat.

I put a little food half-way down the driveway.  But the cat is still begging for food at our front door.  If the cat would just go out and look, there is food sitting out there half-way to the street.  But instead the cat is meowing insistently at our front door.

If it wasn't so busy begging at the door, and went out hunting, it would find the food 

It's a very small kitten.  And it's already had enough to eat today.  Earlier in the day, I already fed the cat more than enough for one day for one kitten.  Yet the cat is still neowing insistently at the door begging for more.  Then it was meowing at the back door.  And at the neighbor's door.  And then again at our back door.  

The island has wild cats.  The feral (wild) cats have kittens. 

So this kitten at our door has never been domesticated.  It lives in the wild.  It has never lived in a house nor been fed by a family.

Yet somehow it knows to come begging at the door of a house?  It instictively knows to beg.  This cat is a liberal Democrat.

Thousands of years before cats started to live as house pets, cats were living in the wild.  They can find their own food.   But this one was born to beg.

In fact some people here want to get rid of the feral cats because they eat the "curly tail" lizards that are a symbol of island life here.  And they also catch and kill the wild parrots (occasionally).  So there is a war between the defenders of the wild cats and the defenders of the parrots and curly tails.

Now a cat's natural food in nature wouldn't appeal to me.  But for thousands of years little cats have been eating things that don't sound so great to humans but are appropriate for them:  Bugs, lizards, mice, birds, etc.

Yet I felt bad after the hurricane blew through.  Still, I didn't want the cat to get in the habit of coming to our door and expect to get fed every day.  So I put some food down the driveway toward the road, away from the house.  I was hoping to slowly get the cat looking farther and farther away from the house until the scraps were out on the road.

If it found some food after searching for it, it would develop the habits to survive.  It wouldn't know who put the food out there.  So it would learn to search instead of begging -- but the search would be rigged with something to find.  

Instead, the cat just sits there on the doorstep meowing. There's food out there.  I put it there.  It is not very far at all.  And it's really, really obvious.  It's next to a tuna fish can with fresh water in it that used to be at the door.  There's nothing else around on the gravel driveway.  But the cat is so busy begging it doesn't see it.

This also makes me think about how God looks at us.   God has placed what we need all around us.  But we can't find it because we're not looking.  Or maybe looking in all the wrong places.  God probably has his hand on His forehead, so to speak, amazed that we haven't found what He has provided.  It's not hard to find.  It's our attitude that is the problem.  If this cat were not so determined to beg, it would take about 3 minutes to find the food.

Most of all I want the cat to learn how to fend for itself.  It's a wild cat.  There is plenty out there to eat.  So the kitten needs to learn how to live off the land.  After all, we're not always here staying at this house.  So if the cat becomes dependent on hand-outs at our door, it won't have anything to eat when we're not here.