NevadaBrad

I recently received a visit from Captain Obvious. It seems that both KJFK and KBZZ are owned by Americom Broadcasting. Oddly enough, Americom also owns four highly rated music stations, including Sunny 106.9. I’ve been trying to figure out why a company that owns so many successful stations would insist on trying to keep two unsuccessful talk stations alive. The music stations are acting like life support for KJFK and KBZZ. Unfortunately, there’s no hope of the talk stations being revived because the brains have been removed.

Michael Savage was mercifully removed from 99.1 FM Talk’s lineup and has now appeared on KBZZ from 3p-6p. Savage is lined up against Bill Manders on KOH and Lars Larson on KKFT. The full announcement can be read on KBZZ’s web site.

Savage is a tough one for me to understand. He didn’t last long on KKFT – about 9 months, I think. If I remember correctly he was on KOH for about 5 years. So, if the length of time Michael Savage lasts on a station is relative to the stations popularity then he should be on KBZZ until the end of the week. If he’s lucky. Michael Savage was ranked 3rd on the 2009 Talkers 250. According to Savage, “I guess people love my show because of my hard edge combined with humor and education”. I have another theory. First, we know that no one ever listened to Air America. We also know that, at least in Reno, Michael Savage is not successful on “conservative” talk radio stations. So, if conservatives aren’t listening to Michael Savage and no one is listening to crazy-lefty radio stations then we can safely deduce that the only people listening to Michael Savage are the crazy-lefties who think Savage is typical of conservative talk radio and they are trying to collect incriminating evidence against conservatives.

Just for the record, I listened to Michael Savage for a short while when he started on KOH. I also own a copy of The Savage Nation and have even read it. But then I wised-up and never looked back.

Speaking of programming changes, I also see that Cory Farley jumped from KBZZ to KJFK. Pros: KJFK is probably more in line with Farley’s politics, KJFK needs to fill up the programming now that Air America is deceased, KJFK has more listeners. Cons: I can’t really think of any. I mean, if Cory Farley switches stations and no one’s around to hear it, well, you know how it goes.

As I’ve mentioned before, Cory Farley can be downright hilarious. But when he talks about politics he’s unfunny and mean (kind of like how I am all the time). Given the dismal situation that Americom’s talk stations find themselves in I am interested to see how these changes affect their ratings. One things for certain – there’s nowhere to go but up.

I got so worked up about Harry Reid and all the people who donate money to him that I neglected my radio reviewing duties. Before I continue with the radio stuffins I’ll give you a couple little games to play. First, check out Harry Reid’s 2005-2010 top 100 donors at OpenSecrets.org. If you’re looking for an easy game, try spotting the personal injury lawyers that donate to Harry Reid. If you’re looking for a challenge, try figuring out why the list shows a $14,400 donation from “US Senate” and $13,200 from “University of Nevada”. I know that the University receives a lot of private donations, but as a state school what right do they have to being making these kinds of political donations? As for the US Senate, I’m certain that he’s not donating to himself through the senate. I mean, I’m pretty sure he’s not, right? Anyone?

But I digress. The real reason we’re here today is to catch up on what’s going on in the world of radio. Since this is the season of State of the Union and State of the State addresses we’ll call this the State of the Stations post. We have much to discuss since the last rating schedule we reviewed was for Fall of 2008. Since then the Spring 2009 and Fall 2009 numbers have been released. Arbitron still only lists four stations as talk format with only KOH and 99.1 listed as “News Talk”.

KBZZ (1270 AM) – After a dip in ratings in the fall of 2008 The Buzz made a nice little rebound. They climbed up to 2% in SP09 from 1.6% in FA08. But then they plummeted to a horrendous .4% in FA09. This ties them for last place among all stations of any format. The main personalities all seem to be in place, so I’m not sure why they’re doing so poorly. They still seem to be chasing the most uninteresting types of talk radio – maybe people have just decided to move on. Who knows? Who cares?

KJFK (1230 AM) – There is no doubt that having a huge error in their slogan has hurt KJFK. On their web page their slogan erroneously proclaims KJFK to be “AM with IQ”. Proclaiming the slogan thus when they clearly meant it to read “AM with LOW IQ” shows sloppiness, which is an unattractive attribute. Nevertheless, KJFK also showed a substantial drop in ratings. After dropping from 1.7% in FA08 to 1.6% in SP09, they dropped to a painful 1%. This drop not nearly as substantial as what KBZZ suffered, but it’s certainly not good. Of course, Air America has been embattled for years and recently stopped broadcasting completely. KJFK primarily featured Air America programming before and I’m not sure what they’re going to do now. The Air America announcement could mean one of two different things. First, it could mean an improvement in KJFK ratings now that some of the crazies are not on their station anymore. Second, it could mean their certain demise. KKFT and KKOH offer far more interesting programming, so without a major leftie operation to provide programming I’m not sure how appealing KJFK will remain.

KKFT (99.1 FM) – After dropping from an outstanding 2.3% in FA08 to 1.4% in SP09, KKFT has slowly resumed marching upward. KKFT’s FA09 ratings are listed at 1.5%. With the exception of the bump in FA08 their ratings have been fairly steady and generally trend upwards. That said, KKFT seems to be entering adolesence. The station seems to be groping for a new identity, but it’s not clear what they are trying to achieve. The addition of Michael Savage was the first sign that things were about to get wonky. Last week the station replaced Michael Savage with Rusty Humphries – not a move that I expect will help. They also did a major scramble not long ago. Dr. Laura was bumped to the middle of the night and Tom Sullivan took her place. Dave Ramsey was moved from Saturday night to Sunday night. Tammy Bruce was eliminated entirely. There were other changes, as well, but I’ve included the changes that disappointed me the most. Tom Sullivan has actually been very enjoyable, but I miss Dr. Laura. Tammy Bruce and Dave Ramsey were great and I miss being able to listen to them. I hope KKFT finds its voice soon. Quality of programming seems to be going the wrong way.

KKOH (780AM) – KOH experienced the same bump that KKFT experienced. After rising to a phenomenol 13.6% in FA08 they sank back to 10.4% in SP09. From there they increased slightly to 10.5%. KOH continues to dominate the Reno market due to very solid programming. With Rush, Hannity and Levin the station features excellent national shows. Bill Manders offers a local program that thumps any other local programming. Part of the appeal of KOH is that I always know what I’m going to hear when I turn on the station. Changes are made rarely and are almost always for the better. Although I view KOH as a Goliath and I’m looking for a David to come along and humble them, I can certainly respect the appeal of the station.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Both KBZZ and KJFK seem to be in a tailspin and things are not looking good for either of them. Although KOH still crushes KKFT (for reasons discussed previously), KKFT continues to hold its own. Until KKFT gets settled I expect it to be a very slow ascent.

There was something else that I found interesting. KBZZ had a substantial dip in FA08. KJFK remained mostly static in FA08. Both KOH and KKFT had a nice bump in FA08 that was not seen on any of the other Reno stations. (A couple music stations had a bump, but nothing that seemed unique among their normal trends.) People obviously flocked primarily to KOH and KKFT for election news and information. I would have expected KJFK to get a similar bump. This is not good news for KJFK – they seem to be stuck with the same audience that they’ve always had. Listeners to not trust them to get information, even in an election that swung for their candidate. On the bright side, I think the bump is further evidence that KKFT is being taken seriously as a force in the Reno market for serious new and talk.

I’m not sure why, but all my Facebook friends are big libs. I haven’t added anyone, but several people have added me. One blessing is that I get keen insight into what kind of people voted for our supreme leader, President Barack Obama (mmm, mmm, mmm). I imagine some of these are average people that you might find waiting in line at Wal*Mart; however, some of these people spew some serious ugliness.

I believe that most people are decent people, but there are some psychos on every edge of the political spectrum. I also believe that the liberal/progressive edge stretches much further toward the center than you see with other political ideologies. Those on the left repeatedly label people racists just because they don’t agree with them. I contend that the actual number of crazies on the left is proportional to how many racists they think there are on the right.

Rather than continue to babble, I include here a few comments found in the comments of my Facebook friends:

I’m not cheating I’m not a Republican thanks

raggio with the help of the Clark County repugliKKKans have been robbing the clark county treasury my whole life ! I think he even uses the money to dye his hair as it has been many different colors over the years ! He’s really cute when it’s that bright orange !

…democrats=the ones with the brain !

Will they stop by and visit with the “C” street terrorist ensign in his bordello ?

Full disclosure – I clipped out some parts of the comments that were not specific to the point, but I did not change the intent in any way. I’ll also admit that most of these comments came from one angry person.

I will also state that there were a (very) few kind words about Bill Raggio that came from this group. And I would be negligent if I declined to mention that there is a conservative involved in many of these discussions that is seemingly incapable of making an intelligent point. To this person: I’m sorry if you ever read this, but someone needed to tell you.

Many comments described disappointment at leaders that voted against SB 283. One person chimed in with a comment about gay marriage not being ordained of God. One response read thus:

Which god ? john ensigns ???? newt gingrich’s ??? bush’s ???
cheney’s ???? hamas ????? pedophile priests ???? dali llama ?? the polygamy god ???there are so many that keep women as slaves and concubines I get confused !

Bush’s name was actually spelled to include a profanity so I modified the spelling.

I’m curious if this is typical of discussions between liberals/progressives. When I talk with my like-minded friends, I never hear this type of speech. There is frustration that our political leaders do not listen to the people that elected them. There is discussion about corruption among our politicians, which is most rampant among the Democrats. These discussions involve specifics like Reid’s ties to trial lawyers and our supreme leader President Barack Obama’s (mmm, mmm, mmm) unarguably dishonest entry into the political scene. There is talk about Al Franken’s loss in his senate run, followed by repeatedly recounting the votes until he showed a win. ACORN was involved in this race and it is obvious beyond all doubt that ACORN is a very bad organization.

The point is that among my friends I never hear ugly personal attacks about others regardless of how strongly we disagree. Attacks are always based on specific facts, even if some disagree on how to interpret the facts. (William Jefferson was testing ways to save money. Freezing is how you save food, right?)

When I read the discussion among my Facebook buddies there is one thing I have never read: Intelligent discussion or debate about anything. I understand that the smart people probably sit back and shake their heads while they let the less thoughtful go at it. I guess all I’m looking for is some thoughtful and insightful argument between people whom I don’t agree with. I’ll need to look elsewhere.

It’s that time again. More mindless blabbering about radio stuff. Since the last time I travelled this path I’ve done some thinking. Reader Rick posted a comment and asked the following questions:

Can you provide me with ratings for the weekday drive time?

Is Bill Manders so popular that KKOH continues to support and keep his program active?

Where does Bill Manders stand in the ratings?

I dug around quite a bit but couldn’t find any specific information to answer these questions. This type of detail is included in the reports that must be purchased (usually through a subscription). My curiosity does not lead me to pay money for this information. At least not right now. Or maybe ever.

Anyway, while thinking about this topic I came to the realization that I’m not a fan of local talk. “Reno’s Morning News” (Breakfast Club) may be great. Bill Manders may be King of Reno. But, personally, I’m just not a big fan of local talk. Like sushi or Macs, it’s not my thing. I used to like local talk. I loved Brian Maloney when he used to be on KOH. I also loved Ira Hansen when he was on KOH. I think Rusty killed it for me, though. He did a lot of good for our community, but that’s when I started to fall out of love with local talk. Even Ira Hansen, whom I loved on KOH, did not appeal to me as much when he reappeared on 99.1.

I only mention all this to identify that I am not impartial when it comes to discussing local talk. I suspect that Bill Manders is extremely popular. He’s been on KOH for a long time and KOH is usually pretty sensitive to programming the most popular (e.g. profitable) shows. If anyone would like to provide more specifics about the topic I would love the information.

The spring numbers are available, so I’ll be posting them along with my usual commentary shortly.

I thought that with my last post I was done with the trial lawyer thing, but then I started wondering again. Why do trial lawyers support Democrat candidates so disproportionately? Do they truly believe in the liberal/progressive cause? Or are they simply investing their money where they think they’ll get the most return?

It seems that these firms advertise on Fox News in a huge way. In fact, with the exception of the local attorneys that I’ve mentioned, all the lawyers I’ve listed are advertisers on Fox News (I’ve got a few more to add at the end of this post). If you can believe what the reporters and politicians say, Fox News is the equivalent of the devil. Or maybe Rush Limbaugh is the devil and Fox News is hell. If that’s true, then where does Glenn Beck fit in? I don’t know how it all works, but Fox News is supposed to be bad (although I’m convinced that anyone who demonizes Fox News has never actually watched it). Do these firms also advertise on MSNBC or CNN?

I was further annoyed by Harry Reid’s response to a message I sent him. In my message I expressed my concern that Washington seems hellbent on passing a strange health care bill but they aren’t doing anything to stop the bleeding when it comes to job loss. I also mentioned that in regard to health care I consider tort reform to be a legitimate problem – much more so than the issues addressed in the bill. He seems to be avoiding legitimate problems while focusing on things that are just not critical right now. Finally, I demanded that he consider the voice of the people and discontinue his support of the current Democrat health care proposals. As always, in his response he just explained to me why I’m wrong and why he’s right. In part his message said this:

Proponents of tort reform link the rising costs of premiums for medical malpractice insurance to the rising cost of personal and group policy health insurance and assert that limiting punitive damage awards could significantly reduce the costs of health care. Critics of tort reform note that caps on punitive damages at the state level have been wholly ineffective in reducing the cost of malpractice insurance and have only served to enrich insurance companies. Furthermore, because medical malpractice suits result in less than one percent 1% of total health care costs, tort reform would do little to lower the overall cost of health care.

Just once I would like to get a response that says something like, “I value your opinion and will absolutely make it part of my consideration.” It will never happen, though.

Why would Harry Reid support tort reform? According to OpenSecrets.org, four of the top 20 donors for his 2010 campaign are trial attorney groups that would certainly be negatively impacted by tort reform. The second ranked donor is none other than Weitz & Luxenberg, a group that was previously featured here. Counting donations only from trial attorney groups in the top 20 (Weitz & Luxenberg, Simmons Cooper LLC, Waters & Kraus and Cooney & Conway), Harry Reid has received $203,800. In other words, about .22% of his donors contributed more than 7.6% of his current donations. All four firms specialize in asbestos/mesothelioma litigation. There are several more firms in the top 100 and I’m sure even more among the more than 1,800 donors. So, Harry Reid is clearly beholden to a bunch of shady lawyers that aren’t even located in Nevada while openly rebelling against the people who put him in office.

As a comparison, I looked up the same information for John Ensign. I could not find one trial attorney group among the top 100.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have answers to my questions. In the meantime, here is more campaign contribution information for attorneys I’ve seen advertising on TV.

First, Baron and Budd. Steve Baron donated $6600 to – that’s right – John Edwards between 2004 and 2007. He also donated $4600 each to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, $2300 to Joe Biden and a whopping $29,500 to the DNC.

Russell Budd was even more generous. Again, $6600 to John Edwards between 2004 and 2007 with similar contributions to the other candidates. He gave $25,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2007 and $43,500(!) to the DNC in 2004. It used to be a free country, so I say use your money however you want. On the other hand, how many jobs could have been created with this money? Heck, give me the money and I’ll campaign for the candidates of your choice full time. The check should be for $133,900 (total contributions from 2004 to present). Or you can pay me cash under the table – I think that’s how Democrats work, isn’t it? But I digress.

Next is Adam Pulaski of Pulaski & Middleman. Of course, Mr. Pulaski donated to John Edwards, but it was a measly $1000 in 2004. More interestingly, he also gave a small donation to Ciresi for Senate. Mike Ciresi, of course, is the trial lawyer that was involved in the “big tobacco” class-action lawsuit. The one where he and his firm were thoroughly enriched through arguably devious methods. Strangely, Pulaski also donated a total of $7130 to Lindsey Graham in 2008. Why he would make a donation to a Republican senator from another state seems odd to me. This is certainly something I’m interested in researching further.

David Middleman of Pulaski & Middleman gave only a small $500 donation to Mike Ciresi in 2007. If it’s quality and not quantity that matter, then consider that the only money he donated went to a scummy trial attorney from another state.

As a side note, considering that Ciresi suddenly found himself with painful gobs of cash he seems to be pretty stingy with his money. He gave $1750 to a Minnesota congressman and $2300 to Hillary Clinton. Someone needs to ’splain to him the rules.

I saved the least interesting for last. I couldn’t go on and on about these attorneys without mentioning Fox News mainstay Binder & Binder. You may remember Charles Binder. He wears a hat:

Charles Binder of Binder & Binder

It seems that most of his donations are for local people, but when he supported a presidential candidate he went for John Kerry (woo!). Same goes for Harry Binder. Each made a $2000 donation to John Kerry – nothing else too remarkable otherwise. There was a large donation to the DNC by a Charles Binder, but I couldn’t confirm this was the same person. BUT, Charles Binder has a program on Air America, so that should be entered into evidence. I’m not sure whether this firm technically counts since they specialize in dealing with the Social Security Administration. I’m inclined to call this business legitimate, but I”ll let you make the call.

Sorry – lots of words and nothing very interesting. I hope I’m done with this subject. Something new next time – I promise.

Since my last post regarding trial lawyers, I did a little more research. Specifically, I paid a little more attention to the ads that were on TV and I looked at the local trial lawyer pool to see how they compared. I shouldn’t be surprised by what I found, but I will admit I was a little disappointed.

I saw ads for additional firms that were advertising for whatever it is they advertise for (mesothelioma, asbestos exposure, drug side-effects, etc. – pick one). One was Weitz & Luxenberg. Perry Weitz donated $28,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, in addition to $2300 and $2000 to John Edwards (WHAT!?!) for his 2008 and 2004 presidential runs respectively. He also gave $6600 collectively to Biden and Gephardt for their campaigns.

Working alongside Mr. Weitz is Arthur Luxenberg. He also donated $28,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, as well as $2100 and $2000 for John Edwards 2008 and 2004 campaigns. Collectively he also gave $8820 to other Democrat candidates since 2004. He actually donated $2000 to Joe Lieberman in 2004 – by far his least extreme donation.

So, I decided to look at some of the personal injury lawyers local to the Reno area. When I searched on Google the first firm that came up was Bradley, Drendel & Jeanney. I grabbed information for Bill Bradley, Joseph Bradley, Thomas Drendel and William Jeanney. Their donations break down as follows:

• Bill Bradley – $2300 to John Edwards in 2007 and $1000 to Harry Reid in 2008
• Joseph Bradley – $1000 to John Edwards in 2007 and $1500 to John Edwards in 2004
• Thomas Drendel – $2000 to John Edwards in 2007 plus $1000 each to Harry Reid, Jill Derby, the Nevada State Democratic Party and the DNC
• William Jeanney – $1500 to John Edwards in 2004 (Juanita Jeanney also gave $1500 to John Edwards in 2004)

It seems like there may be a pattern, but I can’t quite pick out what it is.

While looking up information, one name came up regularly – Peter Neumann. He is also a trial lawyer in the Reno area. He is apparently a very successful lawyer because he gave almost $36,000 to Democrat causes and candidates in 2008, almost $25,000 in 2006 and more than $30,000 in 2004. He even gave $1000 to Al Franken in 2008. Strangely, he also donated $3100 to John Edwards in 2008. Oops, that’s not strange. I meant it was strange that he only donated $500 to John Edwards in 2004.

Anyway, I could go on all day like this, but there really wouldn’t be a point. In an extremely inaccurate stab, I went back to the Fundrace webpage and typed “trial lawyer” into the occupation field and did a search. The result showed that trial lawyers had donated $25,551 to Republican candidates and $164,048 to Democrat candidates. The flaw is that this number does not include large donations such as the $28,500 donations made to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee or the DNC, for example. It also only gives a sampling – it’s not a complete list. I’m not sure how the page selects which donors will be included – it could be weighted heavily toward Republicans or Democrats. At face value it certainly illustrates what I’ve been trying to say.

Trial lawyers contribute more to our country’s health care problems than insurance companies. When trial lawyers are spending so much money making sure other trial lawyers are legislating then we can be assured that we will never see tort reform. We will never see our health care system improve. We will only see the corruption spread. John Edwards is the poster boy for what’s wrong with our legal system. Instead of despising him, the trial lawyers generally celebrate him and use their money to try to make him (or people like him) our president. To me, this is absolutely terrifying.

There is good news, though. If you are having trouble figuring out who to vote for, just look at who the trial lawyers are donating money to and then vote for that persons opponent. It makes research much easier. Had you done this, you would have voted against Harry Reid, Dina Titus and Jill Derby. It seems like a pretty safe system to me.

I finally did it. I took myself down to the county offices and changed my voter registration. I am now registered as an NP.

This is not the first time but it will be the last time until something drastic changes. I originally registered as an R right out of high school and voted in my first election five months later. My dad was a D, so I don’t remember how I ended up an R.

So, I first changed my registration in 2001 after the election of George W. Bush. I strongly supported him and was giddy when he won (yes, he was elected and not selected). One of the first things he tried to do was shove amnesty down our throats. I was so disgusted by this that I changed to an IA. The tragedy of 9/11 happened shortly after that and a lot of things changed. The Ds became very mean and hateful and seemed to quickly forget that our status as Americans came before our political affiliation. Partisan politics resumed and the vile things that came from the Ds was so offensive to me that I re-registered as an R to show support for President Bush.

As President Bush’s second term rolled along it became clear that his values were not quite in step with the people of this country. He again started pushing for amnesty and then saddled us with Medicare reform that only caused our hole to become deeper. As a capstone, near the end of his presidency he pushed for the original economic stimulus plan. Everyone seemed to know that it was a bad idea, but he pushed for it anyway. Then our supreme leader, President Barack Obama, came into office and continued the policies of President Bush.

It is clear that both major political parties are out of touch with the people of this country. I have chosen to shed my R because I’m tired of choosing the lesser of two evils. I can readily admit that President Bush made some major errors. I am further disgusted by news of John Ensign’s affair. I refuse to argue that he has done well for Nevada even though he has made such an egregious error in his personal life.

This is my challenge to any Ds that may be reading this: Admit that our supreme leader, President Barack Obama, has been a failure. Quit supporting his outrageous policies and hold him accountable in the same way that you would hold an R accountable. Hold Senator Reid accountable that same way you have held John Ensign accountable for his mistake. Finally, quit complaining about people in the townhall meetings and support them the same way you supported those who protested President Bush throughout his presidency.

Stop letting Washington pit everyone against each other! I’ve taken a step and I hope everyone reading this will find a way to take a step for themselves. There is no better time to start cleaning out Washington than now.

Last month I pondered on Obamacare and mentioned that we should be addressing the legal issues with health care rather than revamping the entire medical system. I was thinking about this again yesterday and a question came to mind: why don’t progressives want to touch tort reform? Of course, it seems that all politicians are unwilling to tackle tort reform; however, the Democrats are in total control with our supreme leader, President Barack Obama, at the helm. Thus, the question falls squarely on them.

No answer is necessary. It didn’t take long for me to figure it out for myself.

Have you ever seen the TV commercials about mesothelioma, asbestos exposure or side-effects caused by any of a million different medications? It’s almost always the same handful of lawyers – James G. Sokolove seems to be the most common. I have always considered these people to be among the lowest of lifeforms on the planet. So, when dealing with health care reform, I began to wonder why the Democrats don’t address attorneys who keep health care costs high through malpractice lawsuits and other class-action lawsuits. I looked up some contribution information for the first law offices that came to mind. Of course, Sokolove was an obvious choice. I also looked at Reich and Binstock since they’ve been advertising lately. I wasn’t surprised by what I found.

First, Sokolove is based in Massachusetts and contributes a LOT of money to political causes. His contributions include $8,600 to John Edwards for his 2008 presidential bid. This is on top of a $28,500 contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He also had some smaller contributions to people like Mike Ciresi, most famous for his role in suing “big tobacco” where his firm collected at least $440 million in fees. Sokolove also donated $25,000 to the DNC leading up to the 2004 elections, in addition to at least $2,250 for John Edwards. It seems that Sokolove was donating thousands more to Edwards through family members, but that involves some speculation outside the scope of the current subject.

Next I looked at Dennis Reich of Reich and Binstock. His contributions were far more modest, but would you like to guess who has received his money in the past? Of course, John Edwards received a $1,000 donation for his 2004 presidential bid. Quite measly compared to the $5,000 he gave to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the $4,600 donation to Hillary Clinton leading up the the 2008 election.

Finally, I looked at Robert Binstock of Reich and Binstock. Shockingly, he gave $2,000 to John Edwards for his 2008 bid. He has also donated to other Democrat lawyers running for public office.

I’m all for anyone supporting anyone they want. The issue is that one of the biggest problems facing our country is rampant abuse of our legal system. Unfortunately, it seems that the people causing the problem are also the same people financing the party in power. The obvious solution, tort reform, is off the table because that would alienate a core constituency for the Democrats. The trial lawyers are supporting each other and working to elevate each other to positions of power. To take someone who abuses the law and put them them in a position where they are writing law seems to be a bad idea…

Almost as bad as putting a community organizer in the White House.

Just for the record, I am continuing to look into the subject and will gladly report any similar circumstances among Republicans. If you have useful information about this subject please feel free to contact me or post a comment. I collected information from a variety of sources, but was able to find corroborating information at http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/.

I find it interesting that during Bush’s two terms most of the critical comments made toward President Bush centered around his ability to speak, his intelligence, his supposed dodging of military service and so on. There were a few attacks that could be argued legitimately, such as the war in Iraq; however, this constituted the minority of attacks on President Bush. Now that Obama is in office the exact same attacks continue on the man that is no longer president.

For example, while cruising Facebook I recently viewed a picture of Barack Obama talking on a cell while walking across the tarmac. One person commented on the photo as follows: “So thankful we elected a president who not only can communicate in complete sentences, but knows how to use a cell phone!”

Right-wingers have attacked Obama on matters of substance with very few attacks lowering to the level of malicious and unfounded personal attacks. Yet again, the left and the right set themselves apart. While the left spent eight years calling Bush a bumbling idiot (a tactic which was not eliminated, just shifted to Sarah Palin), our current president is trying to fundamentally change our country by destroying everything good that America stands for. And the left has nothing to say about that. In fact, they can’t wait to help.

What’s more, the left constantly demanded records on Bush’s military service, univeristy transcripts and more. They jumped on the forged documents like they were candy because they were so eager to have some dirt on the president. If I remember correctly, I don’t think it took even 24 hours for the documents to be proven false. When Bush’s university transcripts were finally released, lefties dropped the subject fast because it showed that Bush (the “dummy”) actually had higher scores than John Kerry (the “intellectual”).

Now, when a legitimate question about Obama’s citizenship comes up they refuse to press the matter. If Obama is a citizen, simply release the birth certificate and end the debate. The continued denial and secrecy about the matter only makes President Obama look guilty.

While the right generally seeks to hold both sides accountable, the left will support any corrupt politician on their side and denounce any opposed. If we could work together instead of divided, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are now. We aren’t going to get out of this mess until those on the left recognize Obama for what he is.

I don’t think I’ve seen a single marmot at all this year. I think they sense what Obama’s doing to our great republic and they’re hiding. I bet that if we get rid of Harry Reid all the marmots will finally come out of hiding. We’ll see them shopping at Wal*Mart and stuff. I just hope they stay out of the self-checkout line. I bet they’re slow…