See Dick, See Dick Shill, See Dick take your money....

So Dick Morris, Clinton's one time pal and now a darling for the lunatic fringe on the right, wants to help you "protect your money and financial freedom" from:

President Barack Obama [who] is leading America down a dangerous path to socialism. But, en route, he will take us through an even longer recession than we need to have; rocketing inflation, and perhaps a second downturn to cure the inflation.

/yawn.

Dick Morris has "agreed to participate in a special seminar online called "The Call To Arms" hosted by my friend Christopher Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax as well as famed former CNN anchor Bob Losure."  He discloses that:

Even though they are paying me to send you this e mail; I have, in fact, invested my own money with them because I think they are onto something. We expect upwards of 250,000 people to participate.

OK, so if Dick Morris is in, I'm in!  I wonder if this is open to me too?

I want to encourage you to sign up for this "Call to Arms" online meeting. There is no charge to attend. After you sign up, they will give you FREE access to a members-only website. This site will help you protect your wealth and investments from the far-reaching hands of Barack Obama and the Democrats in Washington.

Woot!  I too can sign up for Call to Arms - just like good ol' Dick did.  So what's this call to arms thing all about?

On May 7, 2009, Newsmax hosted "A Call to Arms," a "national internet webcast" which invited viewers to pay $1,295 for a package including a year's worth of stock tips from Ruddy's "chief financial adviser." Ruddy wrote (PDF) that the "Million Dollar Secret Code" he promoted in the "Call to Arms" is based on the stock-picking of analyst David Frazier, whom Ruddy called his "private financial weapon." Ruddy stated that he was investing $1 million of Newsmax's money in the promotion, adding, "David believes he can bring a 50% to 70%-plus return over the next 12 months to this $1 million." The promotion would provide "About 36 Massive Profit/Minimum Risk Plays," in which "[y]ou will be given guidance about exactly what to buy, at what price, and how much. David Frazier will provide you with all of the research and analysis behind each recommendation. And you will get a 48-hour head start on me, before I can buy the exact same stock recommendations."

So....let's do the math

50% to 70% return on investment.  Wow - that's fantastic!  They believe in it enough to put one million of their own money into it.  Well hell - even if it only did 10% that would be pretty damn good!  If it is so good, why not sink all they have into what your "private financial weapon" has to say?  Why only one million?

They are gunning for 250,000 suckers, sorry I mean investors to fork over $1,295 bucks for "36 Massive Profit/Minimum Risk Plays."  250,000 x 1,295 = $323,750.000.

Lets say that their total capital outlay is one million dollars, with part of that going to their new friend, Dick Morris and to pay for the internet and mailing and promotion.

If, they got 10% of the 250,000 fools, sorry I mean investors to participate, that would bring in $32,375,000.

If involving Dick in this gets a 1% bite of the 250,000 idiots, sorry I mean investors they think are out there, well that's a net haul of $3,237,500.

1% of 250,000 is 2500 people that watch Fox News, are scared of Obama, and would believe that the Dick has found them away to protect their money.

2500 people is 50 from each state (probably more from Alaska and Arizona)

So if it costs a million bucks for them to put on this promotion, and they give advice and inform you of the risk, no laws will be broken and they will make 3.2 million dollars.

1 million invested as per Call to Arms = $750,000 maximum potential return

1 million invested IN the Call to Arms scheme = $3,237,500 potential based on 1% of the 250,000 targets they have set their sights on.

I wonder which path ol' Dick went for?  He does not say he is following their advice just that he "invested my own money with them because I think they are onto something."

You do the math.....

C'mon people use your head not Dick!


Source: Media Matters

Ben Stein's reality-check meter's day off

So Ben Stein has a column called "Dreemz" in the April edition of Newsmax the "Independent. American" magazine featuring the smiling faces of Victoria & Joel Osteen on the cover.

Ben Stein sees Obama audacity of hope as nothing more than a child who thinks he will get a pony because they want one for their birthday. Apparently the audacity of stating that we will double our exports is too much of a stretch for Mr. Stein to accept, therefore deserving of ridicule for even mentioning it in the State of the Union address.

Can't be done! Mr. Stein emphatically believes, Magical Thinking that Obama guy does. Now whether or not we can double exports in five years is not what I want to debate. If you want to see some well reasoned arguments on this goal check this or this or this out.

They, like Mr Stein, think it's too lofty a goal, only they, unlike Mr. Stein, offer something tangible in terms of a fix that could help the cause instead of Mr. Stein's it-never-has-happened-so-it-can't-happen-Obama-suffers-from-a-"psychological disorder" diatribe that seems to be the standard discourse offered by these conservative leaning venues.

Now Mr.Stein is welcome to spew his beliefs in any way he wants. I have done the same in my blog, and I regret it now. It's name calling, attaching a negative image to the person all the while ignoring the issue. Obama does not have a "physiological disorder" as Mr. Stein wants his readers to believe. Nor is the goal of doubling exports unattainable making it magical thinking. It's a goal - a direction - here is what we want to do, here is what we will change to make it happen. The counter to this, as Mr. Stein so eloquently leaves out, is to have no goal. Would he have had an issue if Mr. Obama had said we will raise exports by 10% in 5 years? Obtainable - yes, but not very can-doish (i.e American ingenuity and drive).

Note: that's the importance of hope - the idea that things can change if we have the "audacity" to believe they can, that putting energy into something can - will - make a difference. Why this bothers conservative commentators is beyond me and seems to conflict with the magazine's cover that "faith can help in hard times." But I digress......

What really troubled me was that Ben Stein - this smart guy - or at least I thought he was smart - can make statements that fail the smell test (i.e. logic and or factual data) or what he calls his "reality-check meter."

Statement one: [in the State of the Union Address] "he did not repeat the decades-long promises to help keep Israel alive."

OK. we can debate if that's an important goal of America - but now's not the time. Obama did not mention Israel - that's "Jarring" to Mr. Stein. Apparently this has been done for "decades." Now I am going to exclude looking at Clinton's SOTU speeches and focus on Regan, Bush I, and Bush II because they are seen as imperfect - but conservative - by these new Tea Party thinkers. Now Obama has given two SOTU addresses, his first did, but this latest one did not mention Israel and Mr. Stein now finds Mr. Obama scary because of this.

So has mentioning Israel really been repeated in SOTU addresses for decades?

• Bush II did not mention Israel in 2002
• Bush II did not mention Israel in 2004
• Bush I did not mention Israel in 1990
• Regan did not mention Israel in 1988
• Regan did not mention Israel in 1984

So if not mentioning Israel in a SOTU address is "jarring," logically one would assume that Mr. Stein would find these other three president's SOTU address to be jarring as well.

Statement two: "He seemed to believe that he was presiding over a post-racial America when he won entirely by getting spectacular majorities of the black vote"

OMG! WTF? Did he really make this statement? Obama won because more people voted for him in states with the most Electorial college votes. If Black votes were the only thing that pushed him forward then he would have won in states that have the highest percentage of black voters (you know the South). But lets look at the numbers, shall we (Damn the data! It screws up what I want to belive!).

• Obama got 43% of the white vote which was more than Kerry got in 2004.
• Obama got 56% of the woman vote.
• Obama got 66% of the Hispanic vote.
• Obama got 66% of the votes from those that voted for the first time.
  

End of discussion on this. More people wanted Obama then just blacks. What an utterly stupid and ill-informed statement for Ben Stein to make.

Statement three: "He seemed to believe himself when he said he was going to read every line of the budget with its million of lines."

Here is what Obama said:

We will continue through the budget line by line, page by page to eliminate programs that we can't afford and don't work.

Now I don't think he meant he would "personally" read the budget, I think he meant he and his staff would. Kind of like reading assignments in college - you divvy up the work, meet, discuss, that kind of thing. Now Mr. Stein's point regarding how "he would know from reading a line for a dam in Idaho whether or not that money was spent wastefully" is a valid question, but the gist of the argument was it can't be done so don't even try and by saying that's what you plan to do - you know - get all fiscally with the budget - just makes you seem a "huckster" or a "self-deluder."

This isn't dreamland Obama is in, its a direction, a goal, a methodology. That's what leadership is all about - pointing the ship in a direction. The direction of increasing exports and removing wasteful spending from the budget is not magical thinking, require superhuman feats, or is living in dreamland, unless of course what you really want is the ship to stay in port and the nightmare for all us have-nots to continue. If you don't like the direction articulate a better direction and then state why.

Stick to selling credit score services - your "reality-check meter" has gone off prematurely making your writing seem a bit...well... Anyone?....Anyone?....Bueller?.....

It's just the usual noises

I'm traveling this week, so I spend time listening to non-NPR radio and am forced to endure Fox News in the lobby of hotels where they serve "breakfast."

I am getting tired of rebutting ignorant talking heads and poison spewers who want to further their own greed. But that seems to be where this blog is going.

I would prefer to look at an idea and write about the pro's and con's, you know, make some consilient inductions about stuff. Instead I write to counter speech that is neither enlightened nor informed. So along with [c]hristain radio, "Fox and Friends" I got to read a magazine in the lobby called Newsmax.

Newsmax is one of the nation's leading independent news site focusing on breaking news, politics, finance, personal health, technology and entertainment ...

Independent? Really, with articles titled:

• Jeb Bush exclusive interview: Obama charting "dangerous" course
• Jeb's real take on Sarah Palin
• 24 seats the GOP can grab in November
• Exclusive: ADL's Foxman gives Obama an 'F' grade
• Whistle-blowers claim Voice of America is pro-Iran
• Al Gore sees errors in climate claims
• Should the U.S. Postal Service be scrapped?
• Obama surrendering America's Internet control
• Ben Stein: What scares me about Obama
• Dick Morris: How Republicans will recapture the Senate
• O'Reilly and Beck's "Bold and Fresh" tour
• Prepare now for when Bush tax cuts expire

See a theme here?

It was Ben Stein's article that got me - again - wanting to counter a type of discourse that I find disappointing and destructive. Now Ben Stein is what I thought an intellectual, you know smart, reasoned, informed. All the things required to make a sound argument for or against something.

What he wrote was anything but and instead was just another drop of poison added to the water in an effort to perpetuate an agenda that Obama is the source of all that ails America (vote him out - vote us in).

Conservatives had eight years to make things work, they had Both the presidency and both houses of congress, and we ended up with no changes to our have/have not health system and an economic meltdown that should have been foreseen by those in charge (I saw it coming) and rectified. Instead the "best government is no government" approach was allowed to manifest itself firmly with 'what did you expect? results'.

So now we have a new guy in charge with new ideas. Eight years was enough time to get it rolling along smoothly. It didn't - which means those policies did not work, could have worked better, or only worked for some (the only ones that really mattered?).

There is a reason why guys like Ben Stein want nothing changed, why Rick Perry wants government to be inconsequential in our lives. They have everything they need and change could - could mind you - change that balance.

It is true that a rising tide raises all boats but it is also true that keeping the number of boats in the bay as low as possible means more available for those lucky enough to be in a boat. There is an atmosphere of greed being sold as real Americanism. We earned it - they get a free ride. A have and have-not society only leads to confrontation.

There is a need for reasoned debate on how to move this country forward. Right now the loud mouths are telling us that doing nothing is better than trying something different. That's good for them that have but not good for them that don't.

So that's how I see it - that's my bias, my slant, my mood. Now on to Ben Stein's Obama is scary article.