““Obamaphobia for Dummies”

If you’ve got it – you don’t get it.

“Obamaphobia” is herein defined as an emotionally ravaging, soul savaging, highly irrational fear of anything having the most remote connection to the 44th President of the United States of America.

For purposes of helpful diagnosis, the most obvious example can be found in the pejorative phrase “Obamacare”, a label immediately applied to The Affordable Care Act of 2010 by oppositional forces. By way of illustration, although national polling consistently reveals dramatic across-the-board majority support of the Act’s key elements, such approval drops significantly when presented as “Obamacare.”

A new Reuters poll in late June shows that while 56 percent of Americans claim to oppose the law as a whole when it’s spoken of as “Obamacare”, most of those surveyed emphatically back its primary components.

61 percent of respondents favor allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26. 72 percent wish to maintain the requirement that companies with more than 50 workers provide health insurance for their employees and a full 82 percent of respondents favor banning insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Other easy examples of Obamaphobia are the dozens upon dozens of outright lies fashioned by coldly cynical, brilliantly sophisticated, highly paid manipulators and fed to millions through the Internet, Talk Radio and Fox News. And I don’t mean good old fashioned, all American “spin.” They just make stuff up.

Consequently, many folks have honestly come to believe that Barack Obama is a Marxist-worshiping, Communist-kissing, Socialist-leaning, power-crazed, job-killing, deficit-loving, freedom-ending, dope-smoking, wife-swapping, orphan-strangling, Satan-worshipping African Muslim with suspiciously expansive ears hiding secret communications gear directly linking him through implanted microchips to invisible masters elsewhere — unknown and unseen.

The biggest lie of all is that our President “can’t run on his record.”

Kindly consider that Barack Obama has:

• Ended the war in Iraq.
• Completed planning to get us out of Afghanistan.
• Greatly increased access to health care for all Americans.
• Signed The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act for Women.
• Created at least 3 million new jobs through his economic recovery program.
• Protected Women’s Right to Choose.
• Closed the Medicare Prescription Drug “Donut Hole.”
• Forced Insurance Company rebates to consumers.
• Saved the American Auto Industry from collapse.
• Supervised our lowest Federal Tax rates in the last 30 years.
• Presided over the smallest increases in Federal spending of any recent President and
• Killed Osama Bin Laden.

Then compare Barack Obama to his presumed opponent in November — “Mighty Mitt.” Here he comes to save the day! “Mighty Mitt” — a wealthy, robotic, smarmy puppet of the ruling class who believes corporations are people, has kept five sons out of military service and changes his stories faster than a frog on fire. “Mighty Mitt” — judged by the British press as being “worse than Sarah Palin” following an epic display of horridly failed statesmanship at the Summer Olympics. What a tool. What a fool. Hardly cool.

The slowest snail on a fish tank wall should understand these things.

And spread the word —

“Obamaphobia” is for Dummies!”

“Uncle Jesse Comes To Town”

August-September 2012 Newsletter

As a Fourth of July sun baked down on hundreds gathered at Coarsegold’s Historic Village for the Central Valley Tea Party’s Third Annual “Family Freedom Fest”, the hottest rhetoric of the day was provided by Keynote Speaker Jesse Lee Peterson, author, radio host and founder of the South Central Los Angeles Tea Party.

His topic?

“Conservatives Fight Back Against False Racial Accusations!”

At this “family” event, staged in the presence of numerous small children and similarly impressionable adults, Mr. Peterson disavowed being referenced as an “African-American”, insisting that color and race should be set-aside in political discussion. He stated his conviction that “blacks are the only true racists”, having been duped into dependence upon and subservience to the Federal government from Lyndon B. Johnson and The Civil Rights Act of 1964 onward.

Peterson has also gone on record as being against women being given the right to vote, defining Islam as “an evil religion”, characterizing affirmative action as “racism in reverse” and believing that most blacks should be “sent back to the Plantation for a good hard education on what it is to work.”

Using the “N-word” in full at least a half dozen times to the delight of the crowd, Peterson’s most definitive statement described “Barack Hussein Obama” as a “far-left,” “liberal”, “white-hating”, “black liberation theology believing”, “wealth redistributing”, ”lying”, “weak”, “poor excuse of a man” — words greeted with sustained and thunderous applause. I have it all on tape.

Juxtaposed in stark contrast to a large American flag gently waving in the background — venomous hatred filled the air. And a Congressman was there.

Tom McClintock currently represents California’s 4th District, which now includes Oakhurst and much of Eastern Madera County.

Speaking immediately before Peterson and providing appropriate theme introduction, Representative McClintock addressed the audience on “The Principles of Freedom”, specifically citing “SEIU Thugs” as “a threat to free enterprise” and characterizing Chief Justice John Roberts’ ruling on The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as “an abomination” and “utterly catastrophic.” Droning from prepared notes, Congressman McClintock endorsed without qualification espoused goals of the national Tea Party movement.

At the last reporting period, Tom McClintock lists “Cash on Hand” for his fall campaign at $346,534 against our own Jack Uppal’s more modest $12,902. Adding a double digit Republican over Democratic registration edge into the mix makes odds for victory seem utterly impossible, except for the fact that McClintock provides us with a perfect contrast between chains and change — a critical comparison of selfish robotic control by puppets of established wealth against the sharing forces of true social justice.

Congressman McClintock remains an enthusiastic supporter of the Paul Ryan Budget Plan. Fox-enthralled Yosemite seniors should be reminded that this bill would end Medicare as we know it, replacing it with a voucher system to buy health insurance coverage on the profit driven open market. Actuaries say the fiscally conservative amount of the vouchers would not be nearly enough to replace coverage lost with the end of Medicare.

Given the obvious demographics of our District, I suggest this single issue can carry the day for Jack Uppal — if we can summon the will to back him with time and commitment and help define this moment in history.

As Henry Kissinger once said to President Nixon — ”Our position in this matter has the added benefit of being true!”

“The Reign at Bain”

“There’s room at the top they’re telling you still –
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill –
If you want to be like the folks on the hill.”

John Lennon — “Working Class Hero” (1971)

I fired twenty-eight people in less than a year.

In the final decade of the last century, massive consolidation of corporate holdings was well underway. My broadcast profession was no exception.

Late in the first Bush administration, our Federal Communications Commission doubled prior ownership restrictions on radio stations, allowing the acquisition of two FM and two AM licenses in any market by a single entity. And we can’t blame just Republicans. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, signed by President Bill Clinton and supported in Congress with bipartisan unanimity, doubled things again. Many companies came to own eight radio stations in a single city and these corporations were purchased by even larger groups which operated hundreds of outlets in dozens of states.

Senior management positions were reduced by well over 60% in the first two years. The savings were incredible. Serious format competition was eliminated in many instances with former promotional dollars flowing to the bottom line. Cash flow was superb. Commercial rates started to climb with clients often paying considerably more for significantly less. Investors were ecstatic. And these were the early days.

In 1998, an outfit called Gocom Communications purchased WKBN-TV, a big CBS Television affiliate in Youngstown. Wanting to add five radio stations to their Ohio holdings, Gocom’s primary investment group, Bain Capital, made a multi- million dollar loan conditioned on my involvement as Vice President/General Manager. I ran WBBG/WRTK/WICT/WWSY/WPAO through the end of the year, faithfully executing dozens of faithful employees upon the altar of corporate efficiency. Thinning the herd. When I would fire no more, they fired me.

“Corporations are people too!” — Willard “Mitt” Romney (2012)

“The Corporation” is a 2003 award-winning documentary film detailing how modern-day corporations are systematically designed to behave with the clinical symptoms of a complete psychopath, including utter disregard for the safety and feelings of others, difficulty maintaining human relationships, deceitfulness in business practices, an incapacity to experience guilt, and a tendency to ignore social norms and respect for the law. If corporations were actual human beings, their behavior might often land them in jail or a padded cell or tightly strapped to an execution gurney.

Responding to accusations of having shipped American jobs overseas in the interest of corporate profit and personal enrichment, supporters of Mitt Romney last week ran a million dollar TV campaign in targeted markets calling Barack Obama a liar. The next day, startling revelations in the Boston Globe and Mother Jones magazine completely vindicated our President and provided ever- increasing anxiety among traditional Republicans.

I wanted to share my own experiences to offer personal testimony verifying observations as outlined in “The Corporation” — characteristics dramatically and specifically evident in relation to Bain Capital and, particularly, to Bain’s Chairman of the Board, CEO and single shareholder, Willard “Mitt” Romney.

Social justice and economic fairness have no place at Bain Capital or other practitioners of vulture capitalism.

Along with other tottering investments, Bain Capital was successful acquiring controlling interest in Clear Channel Communications for $18.7 billion dollars in 2008. Clear Channel has licenses for over 850 radio stations, including KALZ-FM, KBOS-FM, KCBL-AM, KFBT-FM, KHGE-FM, KHGE-FM, KRDU-FM, KRZR-FM and KSOF-FM in Fresno. They also own syndication companies offering exclusive rights to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin and Michael Savage with 5,000 affiliates reaching 190 million listeners a week.

The newly renamed Clear Channel Media and Entertainment Company is now $19.9 billion in debt, having lost over $200 million last year alone. Mitt Romney, although allegedly now “out of the picture”, still has a huge financial stake in Bain as the body count continues to mount.

Jerry Del Colliano, one of the industry’s most respected analysts, estimates that around 10,000 people have lost their jobs at Clear Channel properties over the last few years with more coming. Jerry tells the Sierra Star, “What they are likely to do is kick the can down the road and refinance at higher interest rates. After all, Bain makes money whether Clear Channel succeeds or fails.”

Willard “Mitt” Romney does know how to make business work — for himself — at the expense of — who cares how many?

Having perfected the art of smiling as he kills.

Just look.