CEO pay

How much top executives receive for compensation has hit the headlines recently, with average CEO's making 262 times the earnings of the average worker. The average compensation of a CEO at the top 1000 US firms was just under $11 Million in 2005. Liberals have posted their outrage at such high pay for bosses, while the workers struggle. Here is the money shot from this idiotic post.

We have seen the Republican economic policies in action. They create widespread inequality, massive amounts of debt and prey on fear and political calculation at the expense of 80% of this country.

This poster included in his diary that the gap between CEOs and workers was the second highest on record, yet he convienently left out this:

The ratio surged in the 1990s and hit 300 at the end of the recovery in 2000

Maybe for clarity sake, he could have popped this chart into the diary to show the growth in CEO pay over time. But for some reason he left both of these facts out. One possible reason: Bill Clinton was in office when CEO salaries were at all time highs. The enormous explosion in the pay differential occured under a Democratic administration. So if Republicans have caused high CEO pay, then Democrats really have the midas touch when it comes to making the nation's wealthiest even richer than the average joe.

More likely is that neither party has much control over how much corporate leaders are paid, anymore than they control how much some steroid injecting ballplayer or some botox injecting actress makes. But if you listen to these left wingers, it is Republican policies. This ignores how much some Democratic CEO's have made over the years. When Clinton was in office, Michael Ovitz, a big donor to Democrats made a huge chunk of change for 14 months of work, pulling in about $140 million when he was booted by the King of highly paid Democratic CEO's, Michael Eisner. Back in the Decade of Greed, Eisner made unbelievable amounts of money, pulling in half a billion in compensation in 1998, while Eisner's company was outsourcing film production to cheaper countries and using sweat shops for Disney clothing.


Detroit Congressman John Conyers is pushing a bill that would provide tax relief to corporations that limit CEO compensation to 100 times of their lowest paid workers. So Eisner, being the good Democrat that he is, would've needed to raised the pay of the dude in the Mickey outfit to $5 million a year to comply with Conyers' Patriotic Corporations for America Act. Does self described liberal Democrat Sumner Redstone pay his staff a fair wage incomparision to his huge salary? I wonder how much Gov. Jon Corzine paid Goldman Sachs' secretaries when he was CEO while he amassed a $300 million dollar fortune.

But it is all Bush's fault.

Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter reminds me a lot of Dennis Rodman. When Rodman played for the Detroit Pistons, he was a fan favorite despite his lack of offensive skills. He played his ass off doing the dirty work and the people of Detroit loved him for it. But greater fame was available for Dennis, not through his determination and his willingness to throw his body in front of much larger players, but by acting like a jackass. Rodman has said that Madonna gave him advice on how to behave in order to get maximum public exposure. So he started wearing dresses, coloring his hair, and writing a crappy book (which I did read) . All this idiocy did work, as Rodman because very famous nationwide and is still talked about to this day.

Which gets us back to Ann Coulter. Much like Rodman, she is loud, obnoxious and desperate for greater fame, at any cost. I have a hard time believing that she truly means everything she says. When she says "liberals hate God and America" she really can't mean that. There certainly are leftists who rip on their own country to such an extent that their patriotism deserves to be criticized, but many liberals have fought and died for this country. Also, the left has more atheists than the right and the anti-religious rhetoric from some on the left alienates more than a few moderates, however, there is a long tradition of progressive religious action, from abolition, civil rights, opposition to war and immigration.

Coulter's most recent flap comes from her new book and her subsequent publicity tour, where she has torn into some 9/11 widows who have made political stances. I have read opinions from some on the left who feel that people like Cindy Sheehan should be immune for having their viewpoints criticized, because they have suffered such awful tragedies. But once they enter into the realm of politics and start sucking the ass of traitors like Lynne Stewart, as Cindy Sheehan has, then the grieving mother or wife is open for judgement.

While it is ok to attack these people on their statements, I feel it is out of bounds to hit them personally like Coulter has. These women do not enjoy the ugly fact that their husbands were murdered by extremists, even if they seem to blame Bush more vocally than the terrorists. It just isn't enough anymore to take a person's opinions apart, it has to get ugly and personal. It is all through our culture. Howard Dean says he "hates the Republicans" and claims a lot of them don't make an honest living. And Dean is fairly well mannered compared to the blogs, messageboards and left wingers who have numerous competitions to compare Bush to Hitler.

Coulter's act does pay her quite well, her books, while having many factual errors and distortions, sell in massive quantities. Which makes her similar to Michael Moore on the left. Democrats would be smart to use her the way the right used Moore as lightning rod for all that is wrong with the left. In doing this, they should avoid using some of her tactics. The morally credibility goes away quickly when liberals call her "Man Coulter" or "Ann the Man". She says enough on her own to offend, the piling on is just as mean spirited as what the left accuses Coulter of behaving like.

Are we closet liberals?

Some commentators have been using a Pew Research Center poll to show that most of the country are liberals but are just too clueless to realize it. Molly Ivins wrote a column on this which listed a slew of items that would lead one to believe that there may be something to this:

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

The above was directed at Hillary Clinton as a challenge to start adopting a more liberal agenda and to leave her conservative ideas behind. If such a huge portion of Americans are so willing to adopt such a progressive slate of ideas, certainly Democrats would be pushing all these proposals, and voters in liberal states would be taking charge and demanding these things.

On the environment, 77 percent believe the nation should do whatever it takes to protect the environment. Sounds like an endorsement for Al Gore and a slap at George Bush. Or maybe it just means that people are full of shit. How many of these 77% own a gas guzzling SUV? I don't know the answer, but I do know that John Kerry's family owns an SUV, and environmental champions like Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Laurie David fly on private planes.

So how many of these responders car pool, have solar panels on their houses, drive a Prius, take the bus, turn off their air conditioners, or follow the "if it's yellow, be mellow" rule when using the toliet? If so many of us answered the question by saying we should do "whatever it takes," these measures should be widely adopted by now.

Californians had a chance in the June 6th, 2006 election to enact a tax increase on only the wealthy in order to provide preschool education to all its citizens. The proposal failed badly, not even getting 40% of the vote in a state that solidly voted for John Kerry in 2004.

The poll also states that 65% of the population wants a single payer system and is willing to pay for it. So you would expect to see this thing moving along. Shouldn't a liberal state adopt something like this, provide its citizens with health coverage for all because a huge majority wants it? Oregon put this on their ballot.

If this country is all for single payer, one would expect a blue state like Oregon to be in full support of this measure, yet 79 % voted against it. Maybe it is easy to be a liberal in a survey, when you don't have to actually write the check, but when you are alone in the voting booth and have the choice to raise your own taxes, it isn't as simple.

None of this is to debate the merits of pre-school education or health care reform, but to show that surveys like this aren't so useful. If Democrats use this as a sign that the country is ready to take a sharp turn to the left, I think they are kidding themselves.

Gay Marriage

The first time I heard about this issue, my gut reaction was that marriage has always been between a male and a female, so why change it? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I really couldn't come up with a reason why people in relationships that they wish to make permanent shouldn't have that right. This is one of a growing number of issues on which I find myself at odds with the Republican party.

I do understand that having an amendment would save a lot of court battles regarding states' rights, whether a marriage in one state has to be recognized in another, and whether the Defense of Marriage Act is constitutional, but avoiding the enrichment of lawyers is not a good reason to add something to the Constitution that takes away rights. We once had a steaming pile of crap added to our Constitution that took away our rights, and we all know how wonderfully prohibition worked.

The preservation of the sanctity of marriage is cited by many who oppose marriage between homosexuals. How have heterosexuals treated the institution? Celebrities are a bigger threat to this sanctity than gays. Britney Spears went on a Vegas bender a while back and ended up married, only to immediately regret it (after seeing that load she is married to now, I think she should have kept the first one). Jennifer Lopez is younger than I am and is on her third marriage. Rush Limbaugh can't seem to settle on a spouse, and keeping up with Newt Gingrich's love life gets a little complex at times (and it is also a very disturbing visual). Of course, their lives are none of my business, but that is the point of legalizing same-sex marriage. Their marriage does not affect mine and it never will.

While I think this debate makes Republicans look bad, there is little room for moralizing from Democrats. It was their two term president who signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOMA

Liberal bloggers have decried opposition to gay marriage as an example of horrible bigotry on the part of the right. Ohio Democratic house candidate Paul Hackett (and former Netroots hero) went even further, by saying this:

Hackett said in a Jan. 15 column in The Columbus Dispatch: "The Republican Party has been hijacked by the religious fanatics that, in my opinion, aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden and a lot of the other religious nuts around the world." Hackett also said the practice of denying homosexuals equal rights is un-American. The newspaper asked Hackett if that meant the 62 percent of Ohioans who voted to ban equal marriage were un-American.
"If what they believe is that we're going to have a scale on judging which Americans have equal rights, yeah, that's un-American," Hackett said.


So according to this line of thinking, Howard Dean, the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (who voted for DOMA), and Pres. Bill Clinton are all hateful, bigoted, and anti-American. DNC Chairman Howard Dean recently went on The 700 Club and attempted to get some of those Confederate flag-waving voters by stating that the Democratic Party platform says that marriage is between a man and a woman. However, that is not what the platform states. Not sure what is funnier, that a guy like Dean, who once seemed proud about his relationship with the gay community, is now attempting to stroke off Pat Robertson, or that this brilliant guy doesn't even know what his party platform is on a very explosive issue.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/05/051106dean.htm


If those who are opposed to gay marriage are constantly bombarded with insults, it will be more difficult to turn their opinion around. Dismissing these people as bigots is not going to win their hearts and minds on this issue. As for changing the Constitution, how about getting rid of the Electoral College instead of wasting all our time with something that no one believes will pass?

American Idol

One of the more tiresome stereotypes that elitist liberals love to throw at America is that we are uncultured, uneducated and lack the sophistication of our European allies. Lately, the popularity of the television show American Idol is used as evidence of American idiocy and simplicity. It probably doesn't help that all the winners of American Idol have been from red states, which some on the left falsely believe have lower IQs than those in the blue states. http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_voter_iq.htm


A recent movie serves to reinforce this. The tag line from "American Dreamz" states:

Imagine a country where the President never reads the newspaper, where the government goes to war for all the wrong reasons, and more people vote for a pop idol than their next President

To start, the votes for the final of the most recent American Idol totalled about 63 million, while over 120 million voted for president in the last election

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197019,00.html?sPage=foxlife.foxnews/americanidol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2004_(detail)#Grand_Total

Also, these numbers aren't even fair comparisions, because all you have to do to vote for American Idol is call on the damn phone. To vote for President, you have to be 18 years old or older, you have to register, and you have to haul your ass to a polling site to vote. My 10 year old daughter voted for American Idol. And unless you live in Chicago, you aren't allowed to vote for President more than once; on AI you can vote as often as you want, and you don't need to be a citizen to vote.

Another lame part of the complaint implies that this is a uniquely American trait. This ignores the fact that the show was based upon a British show called Pop Idol, that quickly spread throughout the world, to countries like France, Germany, Canada, India, Australia, and many more. But I guess it doesn't serve the left's agenda to say, "We Americans are just as dumb as the French, Germans and Brits."

http://www.fremantlemedia.com/page.asp?partID=349


The first Swedish Idols series, Idol 2004, also launched on TV4 in September last year achieving market shares up to 80% higher than the broadcaster’s average. In Norway, Idols is now the most successful programme in TV2’s history, with 1.47 million viewers watching the final results show. Meanwhile, in France some 6.4 million viewers tuned into to Nouvelle Star, the local version of Idols, making it the highest rated show on M6 in 2005.


Another example of this elitism was on a liberal website, "Democratic Underground." One poster made the usual moronic math error about the vote totals, while decrying the idiocy of the voters. He also went one further, complaining that those watching American Idol shouldn't be doing so, because it distracts the public from all that is going on in the world. How dare we watch people sing while the United States turns into a Nazi state?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2646695

I love how someone who doesn't understand 3rd grade math is making fun of the intellect of "63.4 million" people.

Like no one during the Great Depression or WW II ever watched a Three Stooges short. No wonder people turn away from this political philosophy, one that dismisses the majority as a bunch of rubes while those who "get it" are busy listening to Noam Chomsky lectures or the latest insane ramblings of Hugo Chavez praising Carlos the Jackal.