CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Happy Thanksgiving Day 2010

The traditional Thanksgiving story is that some time in the fall of 1621, the settlers at Plymouth, Mass., held a feast to thank God they'd survived their harrowing first year in the New World.

They invited neighboring Indians, who had taught them agricultural skills critical to their survival. Together they celebrated their good fortune with a three-day feast.

There is a problem with the traditional story - no one invited the Indians.

The settlers threw the party for themselves. Members of the local Wampanoag tribe arrived only after hearing the English firing their arms in celebration. This view may be historically accurate.

A firsthand account of the original Thanksgiving is provided in "Mourt's Relations," a series of letters written in 1620 and 1621, primarily by settler Edward Winslow.

He writes of a harvest celebration, "at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor."

 Actually, the harvest of 1621 wasn't great at all. The barley, wheat, and peas the Pilgrims brought with them from England had failed. Fortunately, the corn did well enough that they were able to double their weekly food rations.

The Pilgrims were happy to be alive: The previous winter had wiped out 47 people--almost half their community.

What people are thankful for changes from year to year.

The Founding Fathers were happy to have established a government. And Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation expressed thanks that the Civil War had not destroyed the country.

On January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress. His "Four Freedoms" offered a vision in which the American ideals of individual liberties were extended throughout the world:

Four Freedoms We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want . . . everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear . . . anywhere in the world.

The speech inspired Norman Rockwell to create a series of paintings on the "Four Freedoms," including "Freedom From Want."

 Make sure to take time today to contemplate why you are thankful.

Image courtesy of the National Achieves.

The Fed's 'Quantitative Easing' - just another term for printing more money

Using xtranormal's Pawz characters, maleknoms has created a hillarious video explaining the Federal Reserve's latest policy folly - quantitative easing. Whats that? Watch the video.

After watching the video we understand why economists question the Federal Reserve's controversial attempt to spur the U.S. economy. President Obama defends this misguided policy because he is so desperate he will try anything to turn the economy around in time to avoid another shellacking in 2012.

Obama caves on tax increases

Obama accepts the new political reality and capitulates on his long campaign to sell what may call the largest tax increase in American history.

Senior Presidential Advisor David Axelrod tells the Huffington Post President Obama will accept an across-the-board continuation of Bush-era tax cuts. According to Axelrod, "We have to deal with the world as we find it."

Yes, elections have consequences. After making  "well over 100 calls" -- reaching out to every new Republican senator-elect and many of the incoming GOP House members, Obama "accepts" the political imperative, even if he doesn't get the policy imperatives for maintaining rather than increasing the current tax rates.

This is a huge victory for the campaign waged by the TEA Party Movement and many in the GOP, including Senators-Elect Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey to stop the huge Obama tax increase. Credit is also due to the post-election campaign wage by the GOP/TEA Party Movement victors to listen to the people, put the people back in charge and realize enough is enough.

The TEA Party Movement proved to be such a powerful force even Axelrod is wondering how Obama can work with the "new breed of conservatives."

Preventing the huge Obama tax increases is only the first step, now we must continue the fight to reduce spending and deficits and undo the Democrats' ObamaCare government takeover of health care.

True unemployment still at 17%

The government reports that the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.6 percent in October.

The government's broader measure of unemployment, sometimes referred to "true unemployment," is still at 17 percent. There was drop of 318,000 in the number of people employed part time but who would prefer full-time work. The drop resulted in a slight decrease in true unemployment from 17.1 to 17.0 percent.

The higher, more inclusive, unemployment number is buried in the government's monthly report as "U6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force" in "Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization." Unlike the "official" unemployment rate, the U6 number includes both marginal and part-time workers as the "true" or "real" unemployment level.

As explained in the video available here the number of people underemployed is equivalent to:

• The 50 largest U.S. companies (by number of employees) laying off all of their workers, hiring new workers, and then laying them off too.

• More than all of the employees in the U.S. manufacturing and retail industries.

• Everyone who currently has a job in these twenty-seven states: Alabama, S. Carolina, Kentucky, Connecticut, Oregon, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas, Utah, Arkansas, Nevada, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, W. Virginia, New Hampshire, Idaho, Maine, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming.

This is once again a good time to recall President Obama's promises about his boondoggle stimulus package:

• When pushing for passage of his $800 billion so-called stimulus package, President Obama proposed five different goals over eight weeks for his boondoggle and finally settled on a claim that his bailout would create three to four million jobs.
• Team Obama used scare tactics to get the Democrat-controlled Congress to give him the massive spending bill dressed up as a stimulus. They assured us that without Obama's bailout the unemployment rate would reach 9 percent, but if Congress passed his boondoggle, unemployment would peak at 8 percent.

The unemployment rate scare tactic was contained in Obama's "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." At Innocent Bystanders, Geoff, has plotted the actual unemployment rates on Obama's prediction chart. Where are the jobs?

As we all unfortunately know, despite Team Obama's assurances unemployment not only surpassed 8 and 9 percent, it actually broke 10 percent.

When will Obama admit that his misguided tax, spend and borrow policies have not done the job and are epic failures? We may have so far avoided a double dip recession under Obama. But sadly, in less than two years, we have now seen true unemployment rise above 17 percent three times during Obama's presidency.

Senator-Elect Marco Rubio delivers Weekly Republican Address: enough is enough

This election the American people said enough is enough. That message was loud and clear. -- Senator-elect Marco Rubio

Senator-Elect Marco Rubio gets it. In today's Weekly Republican Address, Senator-Elect Rubio talks about what the Republicans must do to get the country headed back in the right direction:

• Govern as public servants who understand that re-election is simply a byproduct of good public service and good ideas;

• Stand up and offer an alternative to the policies coming out of Washington for the past two years;

• Put forward bold ideas and have the courage to fight for them;

• Prevent the massive Obama tax increase scheduled to hit every American taxpayer at the end of the year;

• Repealing and replacing ObamaCare;

• Simplifying the tax code; and

• Reducing the national debt.

Rubio understands better than many of us why America is exceptional:

I know about the unique exceptionalism of our country. Not because I read about it in a book, I’ve seen it through my own eyes. You see, I was raised in a community of exiles, by people who lost their country, people who once had dreams like we do today, but had to come to a foreign shore to find them.

Unlike many of our political leaders, Rubio asks us to hold the Republicans accountable to the ideas and principles they campaigned on.

Rubio is going to be a great U.S. Senator.

Watch the video of former Representative Rubio's address:

You can read the full transcript of Senator-Elect Rubio's address below:

"Hi, I’m Marco Rubio.

With Election Day now behind us, it’s an honor to talk to you about the opportunity before us – an opportunity to put America back on track.

For too long, Washington has taken our country in the wrong direction: bigger government, reckless spending, and run away debt. And though I’m a proud Republican, here’s the truth, both parties have been to blame.

This election the American people said enough is enough. That message was loud and clear. We Republicans would be mistaken if we misread these results as simply an embrace of the Republican party. This Election is a second chance. A second chance for Republicans to be what we said we were going to be.

America is the single greatest nation on earth, a place without equal in the history of all mankind. A place built on free enterprise, where the employee can become the employer. Where small businesses are started every day in a spare bedroom and where someone like me, the son of a bartender and a maid, can become a United States Senator.

I know about the unique exceptionalism of our country. Not because I read about it in a book, I’ve seen it through my own eyes. You see, I was raised in a community of exiles, by people who lost their country, people who once had dreams like we do today, but had to come to a foreign shore to find them.

For some their dreams were answered here in America, but many others found a new dream. To leave their children with the kinds of opportunities they themselves never had. And that is what we must do as a nation. To fulfill our sacred obligation to leave the next generation of Americans a better America than the one we inherited. And that is what this election was about.

In the past two years, Republicans listened to the American people and what they said is that it was time for a course correction.

The past two years provided a frightening glimpse at what could become of our great nation if we continue down the current path: wasteful spending, a growing debt and a government reaching ever further into our lives, even into our health care decisions.

It is nothing short of a path to ruin, a path that threatens to diminish us as a nation and a people.  One that makes America not exceptional, not unique, but more like the rest of the world.

As Republicans, here is what our commitment should be to you. Our focus must not be simply winning elections. It must be to ensure the next generation inherits a strong, free and prosperous America.

We will govern as public servants who understand that re-election is simply a byproduct of good public service and good ideas. And most importantly, we will stand up and offer an alternative to the policies coming out of Washington for the past two years.

The challenges are too great, too generational in scope for us to be merely opponents of bad policies. Instead, we will put forward bold ideas and have the courage to fight for them. This means preventing a massive tax increase scheduled to hit every American taxpayer at the end of the year. It means repealing and replacing the disastrous health care bill. It means simplifying our tax code, and tackling a debt that is pushing us to the brink of our own Greece-like day of reckoning.

For many of us coming to Washington for the first time and others returning to serve, it’s a long way from home.  A long way from the people whose eyes we looked into at town halls, at diners or roundtables, and promised that this time it would be different. That if you elected Republicans to office again, we would not squander the chance you gave us, and we must not. Because nothing less than the identity of our country and what kind of future we will leave our children is at stake.

That is our commitment and from you we ask this: hold us accountable to the ideas and principles we campaigned on.

This is our second chance to get this right.  To make the right decisions and the tough calls and to leave our children what they deserve – the freest and most exceptional society in all of human history.

Thank you for listening, God bless you and your family, and may God continue to bless the United States of America."

Mitch McConnell on listening to the voters

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell spoke to the Heritage Foundation this morning on listening to the voters and getting to work.

Leader Mitch McConnell started off by recounting how he had offered to work with the President Obama and the Democrats on issues of mutual concern. But instead Obama and the Democrats chose to go their own way. The following are excerpts from his speech:

"For the past two years, Democrat lawmakers chose to ignore the American people, so on Tuesday the American people chose new lawmakers. They held their elected representatives to account. And they demonstrated to all of us that Constitutional conservatism is alive and well. This isn’t a reason for Republicans to gloat; rather, it’s a time for both parties to realize who’s really in charge — the people

[. . .]

While the media was still groping to define the 2008 election, Republicans were taking stock. We knew the principles that had made our party great were the same principles that had made America great, and that if we were going to solve the problems of the day, we would have to embrace and explain those principles, not discard or conceal them. So we renewed our commitment to our core principles — win, lose, or draw.

[. . .]

And that’s why this, in my view, was the single most important thing Republicans in Congress did to prepare the ground for Tuesday’s election. By sticking together in principled opposition to policies we viewed as harmful, we made it perfectly clear to the American people where we stood. And we gave voters a real choice on Election Day."

McConnell also talked realistically about what the Republicans can do when the President has the Veto and a majority in the Senate:

"Oversight will play a crucial role in Republican efforts going forward… Through oversight we’ll also keep a spotlight on the various agencies the administration will now use to advance through regulation what it can’t through legislation.

[. . .]

We will vote to freeze and cut discretionary spending. We will fight to make sure that any spending bill that reaches the Senate floor is amendable, so members can vote for the spending cuts Americans are asking for. We will push to bring up and vote for House passed spending rescission bills."

In addition, McConnell addressed his comments about making Obama a one term president:

"Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office. But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things. We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday’s election. But we can’t plan on it.

 [. . .]

On health care, that means we can — and should — propose and vote on straight repeal, repeatedly. But we can’t expect the president to sign it. So we’ll also have to work, in the House, on denying funds for implementation, and, in the Senate, on votes against its most egregious provisions."

 Finally, Leader McConnell said he hasn't given up on working with Obama:

"The White House has a choice: they can change course, or they can double down on a vision of government that the American people have roundly rejected… When the administration agrees with the American people, we will agree with the administration. When it disagrees with the American people, we won’t. This has been our posture from the beginning of this administration. And we intend to stick with it. If the administration wants cooperation, it will have to begin to move in our direction.”

 [. . .]

Republicans have a plan for following through on the wishes of the American people. It starts with gratitude and a certain humility for the task we’ve been handed. It means sticking ever more closely to the conservative principles that got us here. It means learning the lessons of history. And, above all, it means listening to the people who sent us here."

Well said.

'The Final Act' - elections have consequences

It's election day. Elections have consequences. VOTE!

Watch the latest video in the terrific series from the Republican Governors Association -- "Remember November: The Final Act." The video tells the story of why every American should Remember November!

Vote, do it now.