For Marco Rubio being right on Barack Obama was a Pyrrhic victory

Marco Rubio’s campaign seems to have crashed on the rocks because of his… shall we say somewhat repetitive use of the phrase “Obama knows what he’s doing”, but the truth is, he was 100% right. The reason that so many people scoff at the notion that Obama knows what he’s doing is because the very notion of an American leader who seeks to destroy that which he leads is anathema to most rational Americans. And the truth is, Barack Obama doesn’t seek to destroy the nation he leads, he seeks to “fundamentally transform” it. Splitting hairs you might say, but there is a big difference between the two.

For Barack Obama the American glass is half empty. Sure, there’s water in the glass, but only what’s left after two centuries of whites stealing from blacks, Indians, Hispanics, after men taking from women and the rich taking from the poor. As such, it’s his goal in life to fill that glass up by redistributing that which has been stolen back to its rightful owners. At his very core Barack Obama is a divider – by race, by income by nationality among others – he is an anti-capitalist, anti western populist with fascist tendencies and no love for Christianity.

It’s only with that understanding that Rubio’s assertion makes sense. The nation that Barack Obama leads is not the same one most Americans live in. They inhabit the same geography, but they are not the same nation. It’s like the movie The Martian. Anyone watching it will recognize that it’s a serious movie that has a bit of levity scattered throughout. But somehow it was nominated for “Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy” at the Golden Globes. Most people would recognize that regardless of the category the Globes’ voters put it in, The Martian is no comedy. Similarly, the United States most conservatives inhabit is an imperfect one, but one full of opportunity, fueled by freedom and largely a force for good. For Barack Obama those same 57 states represent a nation defined by racism, inequality and oppression.

That is the nation that Barack Obama thinks he is leading and the one which he is seeking to fundamentally transform. And it’s easy to see that Rubio is right… he knows exactly what he’s doing. From Obamacare to the kneecapping of Chrysler shareholders to the using the IRS to muzzle Tea Party groups, it makes sense in the nation Barack Obama leads. This has been going on for seven years and most of the examples never find their way into the news. Here are three that recently did.

1. The Internet. The Internet may be the most egalitarian invention in the history of man. It has connected more people and given more opportunity to more people than any tool in all of human history. It was created by the United States and has been largely free from censorship and government controls since its inception. Barack Obama sees the Internet as a tool of American domination and therefore is moving to remove American control of it and give it to an international body that will leave the Internet’s freedom subject to veto and manipulation by such freedom loving nations as China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.


2. Economic freedom. American economic freedom is the engine that drove most of the world’s prosperity for a large part of the last century. The resilience and freedom of America’s markets and her entrepreneurs have led the world in almost every major economic development since 1900. American free enterprise has been the greatest driver of prosperity ever in human history, but under Barack Obama the United States has tumbled in economic freedom, to number 11 in the world (from number 6 when he took office.) And what causes such slippage? One thing: Regulation. Barack Obama sees America’s success as one of imperialism and outright theft, and he has used government regulation to stifle economic freedom at every turn, and the results have been devastating, resulting in the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression.


3. Government intimidation. Barack Obama is using the police power of government to achieve his ends. The Tea Party are not the only targets either. Barack Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was recently outed for coercing Ally bank to agree to pay almost $1 billion in fines for racial discrimination, despite the fact that that internal documents stated they had no complaints nor any evidence of actual discrimination. Barack Obama sees America through race colored glasses and feels it’s his role to use the power of government to readjust settings. From the NLRB to the FCC to HUD, Barack Obama seeks to use the government to control more and more of Americans’ lives, winnowing down the spheres of freedom within which the outcomes can be decided by hard work and the choices people make.

At the end of the day, Barack Obama does indeed know exactly what he is doing. He is laser focused on one objective: Diminish America. Reduce her influence on the world stage and suffocate freedom and free markets at home. If you’ve been paying attention for the last seven you’ve seen him doing that and much more, and doing it very effectively. It’s simply not possible to rack up that level of success – as Obama defines it – without knowing exactly what you’re doing and being very good at it. Sadly for Marco Rubio, being right was a Pyrrhic victory.

A Post Obama Top 10 List For American Prosperity...

America has a love affair with Top 10 lists. Probably the most well known is David Letterman’s “Top Ten List” that began as a throwaway skit on NBC 30 years ago and soon became a cornerstone of his program, even more so when he later moved to CBS. There’s also ESPN’s Top 10 Plays of the Day… and they even have a Not Top 10 list. And no walk through a grocery checkout would be complete with catching a glimpse of at least one magazine touting a Top 10 list of beauty tips, sexiest men or Hollywood divorces. Then of course there are the Internet’s ubiquitous click bait ads featuring “Top 10 things you didn’t know about…” this celebrity or that food or cute animals.

If nothing else, Top 10 lists are an attempt to focus attention… whether they are seeking to entertain audiences, sell magazines or drive online stats. They can however sometimes be things of consequence. This is one of those times, and this list is about more than just making viewers laugh or readers envious. It’s about the first ten (domestic) things the next president should promise to do immediately upon taking office from Barack Obama. While a complete list would no doubt be exponentially longer, a Top Ten list provides an opportunity to focus the attention of voters and candidates in the months leading up to next year’s election, and provide clarity about what a candidate’s priorities are.

Drum roll please…

Number 10: Refocus NASA on science and space exploration rather than “Muslim outreach”.

Number 9: Eliminate NLRB Ambush Election Rules – This rule is a giveaway to unions and dramatically ties the hands of employers seeking to present a balancing argument against unionization.

Number 8: Eliminate the HUD rule that seeks to “diversify” wealthy neighborhoods… or what I call the Obaminization of your neighborhood.

Number 7: Withdraw all NLRB lawsuits and actions seeking to apply Joint Employer legislation to franchisors. This position threatens the very foundation of the franchise model that has been so extraordinarily successful and has generated a countless choices for consumers, great wealth for entrepreneurs, and tens of millions of jobs across the country.

Number 6: Eliminate the EPA’s job killing and extraordinarily expensive rule requiring a 30% reduction (from 2005 levels) of CO2 emissions by 2030.

Number 5: Announce that the administration will work with Congress to repeal Dodd Frank… the disastrous legislative and regulatory leviathan implemented in the wake of the housing collapse.

Number 4: Repeal every Obama Executive Order pertaining to immigration and amnesty. Simultaneously announce that the administration will not engage in immigration reform until legislation is passed requiring work begin on a wall from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego.

Number 3: Announce that the Department of Commerce will immediately cease all efforts to relinquish control over the Internet and, further, announce that the contract that comes up for renewal in 2017 will be written for 25 years to preclude another attempt to internationalize control over the Internet.

Number 2: Immediately move to have the FCC repeal Net Neutrality and utilize all administration resources to block implementation and enforcement in the interim.

And the Number 1 thing the next president should do upon taking office is to immediately repeal all executive orders and eliminate all waivers pertaining to Obamacare. Simultaneously the president should send a team to work with Congress to repeal Obamacare and replace it, with the goal of passing reforms that allow free markets and entrepreneurship to provide solutions to tackle the American healthcare situation.

Of course this will not be enough, as there would be myriad things remaining to be addressed such as the oppressive tax code and tax rates, a failed federal education bureaucracy and a stultifying energy policy… and of course a catastrophically dysfunctional foreign policy. But by conspicuously unfurling a standard with such a list, a candidate would quickly put voters and the nation on notice that with him, or her, economic freedom, entrepreneurship and the pursuit of widespread prosperity would once again be primary forces driving US domestic policy. One can only hope that after the long national nightmare of Barack Obama’s reign the country still remembers what prosperity looks like and is willing to pull the lever for someone who understands how to achieve it.

So you want to fire an employee for calling you an %@#*&! in front of customers? Barack Obama says not so fast...

A few weeks ago I wrote about the National Labor Relations Board seeking to destroy the very nature of America’s most successful business models… franchising. While on occasion the NLRB will stumble across a real issue of consequence, the frequency of that is about the same as real data supporting the man made global warming hoax. More often the agency is simply a shill for labor unions and disgruntled employees.

Speaking of the NLRB, I generally don’t like to revisit the same topic when the first piece might still be stuck in someone’s mental cache. The last thing in the world you want a reader to say is “Didn’t this guy just write about this?” In this case however I’ll make an exception and take my chances…

If you’ve ever actually owned a business or run a business you know how difficult it can be to make a success out of it. The challenges are everywhere. From navigating through the web of federal, state and local government regulations to finding and keeping customers to making sure that you can pay the bills and keep the lights on… just doing the basic things to stay in business can be difficult. Some of the things you need to do are pretty straight forward… like what company are you going to select for your electricity to where you get your supplies to figuring out what your hours of operation will be. Other things are more difficult, such as figuring out which permits you need to apply for to deciding on your marketing strategy to setting your prices appropriately so that you can make a profit… even if that’s somewhere down the road.

By far one of the most challenging parts of any business is personnel. When it comes to looking at the keys to success of a business, there are likely few aspects that are more important and difficult as personnel. These are the people who are going to be greeting the customers or manufacturing the products or providing the services that you engage in and for which customers willingly exchange their money. (Obviously there are some businesses where a high ratio of the work done by machines, but usually those too are maintained by people.) Because personnel, the people doing the work for you is so important, the effort involved in attracting, selecting, training and managing employees is often disproportionately high relative to other aspects of the business.

In some industries, like financial services or auto mechanic or computer programming, individual compensation can be high because there are relatively few people who can do those particular jobs. In others, like dishwasher, burger order taker or cashier, compensation is usually lower because there are relatively more people who are capable and willing to do those jobs. In virtually all cases however the owner or manager has to interview, select and train their people.

Once the staff is in place, that’s where the real headaches begin. Managing schedules, apportioning assignments, giving responsibilities, basic supervision and of course managing personalities – which sometimes conflict – are all parts of keeping the business running smoothly whether you’re making widgets or selling drywall. In the restaurant business all of these come into play but there’s the added element of the employees interacting extensively with customers… who themselves can be fickle, demanding, indecisive and sometimes rude. It’s in this mix of sometimes controlled chaos, sometimes stark boredom that restaurant managers must figure out how to properly engage, motivate, reward and punish their employees in the right combination that keeps customers wanting to come through the front door. In the highly competitive restaurant space, a failure to do so can easily turn today’s hottest restaurant into tomorrow’s ghost town.

And it’s into this mix that Barack Obama’s NLRB has decided it insert itself. You fire two Hooters’ waitresses for cursing at another waitress in front of customers… The NLRB says not so fast. You fire a car salesman for cussing at you, calling you an idiot in the middle of a company meeting… The NLRB says not so fast. You fire a Starbucks barista for cursing at you and telling you to do the job yourself… the NLRB says not so fast. In a string of recent decisions the NLRB has decided for employees against employers in cases that in any rational universe would be open and shut. Employees are generally employed to do particular jobs, and to the extent that they do so effectively and the business prospers, they usually keep those jobs. But it’s the businesses who are paying them and when those businesses find the employees doing things that harm that business, they are generally within their rights to fire those employees. Unless of course Barack Obama’s NLRB decides otherwise.

So, in addition to everything from Obamacare mandates to rising minimum wages, the Obama administration is now suggesting that employers must endure verbal abuse and insubordination from their employees. It makes you wonder why anyone would ever choose to risk their capital, their time and their energy to try and start a business when the government decides it gets to make more and more of the key decisions upon which your success rests. At some point it’s no longer worth the effort and would-be entrepreneurs simply give up and decide to find a job rather than trying to build something new. The reality is, entrepreneurs have been throwing in the towel for years. With this latest set of rulings from Obama’s NLRB you should expect the number of towels piling up in the middle of the ring to grow.

McDonald's and the NLRB - those who can do, those who can't regulate...

Franchising has been nothing short of a spectacular success for America. From restaurants to hotels to auto shops to plumbers, franchising generates hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue each year and employs millions of people across the country.

Modern franchising as we know it was created a century and a half ago by Isaac Singer, an inventor, innovator and the founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Co. He had figured out how to manufacture and sell his sewing machines in enormous quantities but he couldn’t service them across the vast country. So he created a franchising operation… whereby he would license the sale and repair of his machines to local merchants for a fee. They in turn could harness his name and brand to help market their business. It was a win-win situation for everyone involved, including the customer.

At its most basic level, franchising is a vehicle that allows for the replication of a successful business model. Let’s say you live in Richmond and you pour all of your money into opening a restaurant. Thankfully you become an immediate success. Seeking to build on your success you explore opening a second location. Borrowing the necessary money is unpalatable so you consider franchising. In franchising you let another person put up the money to start a store just like yours, but they own it. Typically they will pay you an upfront fee and a small (usually 3-5%) percentage of your revenue, and in return you give them the secrets to your success, rules about things like logos, signage, buildings, how the food must be cooked, the kinds products offered and various other product and marketing elements. And you handle much of the regional or national marketing. You have then become a franchisor and the person who opened and owns your brand's new unit is a franchisee.

Franchising is popular for a number of reasons. From a franchisee’s perspective they don’t have to invest the time and money that often goes into the hit or miss journey of finding what will work in the market. Someone else has already found the secret sauce. Not every franchisee is successful, but they have a greater chance of finding success than someone who is starting from scratch.

Franchisors like franchising because it gives them an opportunity to expand their brands and revenue without having to take up the management of or the capital expenses necessary to open a new unit. In addition, the success of any franchise is heavily dependent on local conditions such as real estate value, demographics, household incomes, traffic patterns to name just a few. Franchising gives companies a local partner who knows the local market far better than they probably could from across the country.

From the success of companies like McDonald's to Hilton Hotels to Jiffy Lube and thousands of others, franchising has been a spectacular success in the United States. Which makes one wonder why Barack Obama wants to destroy the model.

While the president hasn’t said that specifically, his leftists on the National Labor Relations Board have let it be known that that is their plan. At the end of June the general counsel of the NLRB announced that it plans to treat franchisors as “joint employers” as it relates to the unionizing rights for and wages paid to franchisee employees.

The goal of this announcement is to allow employees of franchisees to sue franchisors for the right to unionize and eventually negotiate on wages and benefits paid by their franchisees. This, despite the fact that “franchise contracts explicitly state that franchisees are independent and have complete authority over their own employees”. Labor costs are inherently local, and the familiarity of local partners with local conditions are a key to a restaurant company's success. That is one of the key foundations of franchising.

And so it goes. Just as the Community Organizer in Chief used to fund and train ACORN members to intimidate banks into making sub-prime loans in Illinois, his NLRB has decided that it will kneecap one of the most successful business structures in human history to advance the unionizing goals of the Communist leaning SEIU. The reality is, most franchisees are small businesses sweating to eke out profit margins of 10%. Those franchisees, with their tight margins and fierce competition can little afford the inefficiencies unions invariably introduce or the wage hikes that usually follow. By seeking to use the profitability of McDonald's the franchisor to drive the pay scales of it's 13,000 restaurants makes little sense. Should the franchisee in Live Oak, Florida be forced to pay the same wages paid by a franchisee in New York City where the cost of living is three times as high? If McDonald's is going to be forced to pay the wages for local franchisees shouldn't they then be entitled to a share of each unit's profits? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of franchising in the first place?

Not surprisingly, if this move by the progressives in the Obama administration survives the outcome will not be good for workers. While some may indeed earn a higher salary, it’s likely that many of them will lose their jobs as franchisees turn to computers and mechanization to reduce labor costs. Already there are machines in the market that can make hundreds of hamburgers per hour… and they do it without picketing, without taking cigarette breaks and without clamoring for higher wages.  So just as the know nothings who passed Obamacare cost employees jobs and others their health insurance, they will be doubling down on "joint employers" and it will be the workers themselves who are harmed.  

This move by the NLRB is simply more proof that the Obama administration is filled with people who have no idea how the world actually works. They hide behind the advice of left wing ivory tower academics and try to apply that advice to places where people have to actually produce to succeed. At a time when more businesses are failing than are starting and a record number of Americans are out of work, the last thing America or American workers need is for small businesses to take another body blow from the people in Washington who wouldn’t know how to run an actual business if their lives depended on it.

Americans enjoy an orgy of fruit while the roots of Tree of Liberty are shredded...

Americans are busy people. In one respect we are no different than any other people on the planet… our primary needs are food, water and shelter. Beyond that however, Americans enjoy a life of leisure that virtually no one else on the planet enjoys. Not leisure measured in hours worked as the French, Germans and workers in virtually every other developed country work fewer hours per year than Americans do. No, what’s different is that leisure time in the United States has so many ways of being spent. Motocross. Shopping. Television. Amusement parks. Golf. Swimming. Skiiing. Football. Baseball. Horseback riding. Golf. Off track betting. Gymnastics. Theater. College classes. Karate. Star Trek conventions. Habitat for Humanity. BBQ competitions. Susan G Komen Race for the Cure. This is only a tiny fraction of the myriad ways Americans have at their disposal to entertain themselves or spend their leisure time.

If one were to compare the spectrum of activities available to the average American with the equivalent spectrum for any other country on the planet it wouldn’t take long to see an enormous difference. None of this came about by accident. The reason Americans have dozens of sports and thousands of activities to participate in from grade school to the senior center is because the nation has been so prosperous for so long and the nation has exemplified creativity for things both consequential and not. The result is a nation where most people have available a level of entertainment and leisure that would put to shame anything Louis the 16th or Marie Antoinette might have ever imagined.

One consequence of a life filled with a plethora of options is that Americans get very busy. So busy in fact that they forget to pay attention to things that are far more consequential than who got kicked off the island this week, how many Facebook friends they have, or will little Timmy’s self esteem be forever damaged if he doesn’t get picked to play this weekend. Of course I’m talking about civics, or more specifically, government. In a perfect world no one would have to pay attention to the government because it would run like a well oiled machine in the background and it wouldn't get in anyone’s way. Alas, even Ben Franklin knew such a perfect world did not exist: “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Every two years the cacophony that is American life is made that much more dissonant by our elections. Most Americans, however, unfortunately, spend less time learning what’s really at stake in those elections than they do selecting teams for their March Madness brackets or deciding who they want to vote for on American Idol.

This might have been acceptable 100 years ago when the federal government was relatively small and had little discernible impact on the lives of most Americans. Today, when the octopus of the federal government controls virtually every aspect of our lives, it’s simply not. There is a tipping point in every endeavor in life, and the lifecycle of a Republic is no exception. Leaving the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin was asked: “Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” He responded: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Two hundred and twenty years later we are on the verge of losing that Republic. The problem is simply that too many Americans have no idea what the danger is, and have little interest in finding out. They’ve spent so much of their lives enjoying the leisure and entertainment conditions our Republic has made possible that they have forgotten that the foundation of freedom and prosperity upon which those conditions are built are not ordained by God, not set in stone and are not guaranteed. Indeed, America with her freedoms and prosperity are far more fragile than most Americans recognize.

One simple example. Two weeks ago President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board sued Boeing for locating its new 787 Dreamliner plant in South Carolina, a right to work state. The NRLB is supporting the unions in Washington State where Boeing already employs tens of thousands of workers. The company made no secret of the fact that it chose South Carolina because it could not afford more of the five crippling strikes it had suffered over the last 20 years in Washington. At the most basic level, the federal government is claiming that it has the power to decide where a company can invest its own capital. If Uncle Sam can decide where and when a company can invest its money, they it can just as easily decide where a person spends his or her money, (say... unionized Kroger rather than non union Wal-Mart) where he or she can get a job, buy a house or what kind of a car they can buy. At some point doesn’t anybody begin to wonder if there are any limits on government at all?

Because there are so many instances of federal overreach, and their names sound so benign - American Recovery & Reinvestment Act - if conservatives were to point out every potential threat and the inherent dangers of a government that recognizes no limits on its power, they risk being labeled being political versions of the boy who cried wolf. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is indeed a ravenous pack of wolves at the door of the American Republic and they are dressed in ill fitting donkey costumes. The problem is that most Americans are too illiterate in civics or too busy enjoying their lives to take the time to even look through the peephole.

The question is, can anyone shake the American people out of this political stupor long enough to recognize the danger they face? Will Americans rise to the occasion in 2012 or will they instead eat the fruit of the tree as its roots are cut.

To paraphrase Martin Niemöller:

First they raised the minimum wage and I cheered because I had a job…
Then they destroyed public education and I didn’t act because I sent my kid to private school…
Next they limited cable rates and I applauded because I saved $20 a month.
When they came for my light bulbs I didn’t react because it made me feel good to help the environment…
One day they said ethnicity was more important than ability for college acceptance but I said nothing because I’d already graduated…
They increased taxes on the rich and I didn’t care because I wasn’t rich.
Then they came for my gun, my car, my job and eventually all of my choices but there was no one left to stand with me because no one remembered what real liberty was or how it was supposed to be protected in the first place…