IS IT TRUE September 20, 2012
IS IT TRUE that the only city in Indiana with a consolidated government is Indianapolis?…that Indianapolis consolidated under special legislation that is written so that no other city or county in Indiana can employ due to population criteria?…Evansville is the only other city in Indiana currently in the referendum process to unify city and county government?…if Evansville and Vanderburgh County consolidate under this statute, this community may be the only Indiana community to ever do so because the statute language has been amended to include a rejection threshold?,,, voters in the unconsolidated area of Vanderburgh County may be the only voters in the state of Indiana ever to be subjected to a shotgun wedding style consolidation process under the now amended statutory process?
IS IT TRUE that the Mole Nation tells the City County Observer that Evansville “First Lady” McClintock has been calling Neighborhood Association officers and “strong arming” them in attempts to intimidate them into supporting Yes! for Unification?… her efforts in large part have met with no success and have actually created some ill will in the community?…Hillary Clinton made Tammy Wynette’s song “Stand by Your Man†famous when her husband enlisted her to do his bidding and it looks like in modern day Evansville that “First Lady†Carol McClintock is doing her own Tammy Wynette or even a Hillary Clinton imitation?
IS IT TRUE local favorite employer and Evansville success story Berry Plastics announced yesterday that they will be offering shares to the public in an IPO in early October at a price that will make the company have a value of about $2 Billion?…the current majority owners are reported to have paid just over 10% over that in 2006?…if they were to unload their shares with the IPO which they likely can’t they would have to absorb a loss of over $200 Million?…that does now sound to great of a proposition but it is way better than the United States government has done with their investment in General Motors?…the USA would have to see the shares of GM increase from its current $22 price to roughly $53 per share (a 165% increase) just to break even?…at a respectable growth rate of 6% per year it will take the USA 16 years to get back its investment without taking inflation or a declining currency into consideration?…with those things considered the payback time may be over 30 years in the best case?…the management of GM was quoted last week as wishing the government would dump their shares at a loss so they could GET ON WITH RUNNING THE COMPANY LIKE A BUSINESS?…we wish Berry Plastics well with their IPO and are looking forward to getting a look at the prospectus to understand what the real financial condition of Berry really is and whether or not this is a good investment to consider?
IS IT TRUE that after two political conventions, planted videos from both campaigns, and gaffes from both candidates for President that the polls with decent track records are right back to where they were before all of this hoopla?…that if these polls are correct and the election were held today that both the popular vote and the electoral vote in enough swing states are within the margin of error and the end result could depend on what people had for breakfast before voting?…that candidates have both been floating in the 45% – 47% range when the Kool-Aid has found its way to the water treatment plant for a couple of months now?…the next opportunity for either candidate to move the needle favorable will come at the first debate in two weeks?…of course everyday is an opportunity for both candidates and their running mates to pull a Biden and say something incredibly stupid?…that incredibly stupid remarks do not seem to be making much difference in that 45% – 47% window that each candidate consistently gets?…that maybe just maybe if the candidates will start talking about them, economic plans will be what moves the needle and allows a cognizant choice to be made for president?…in the absence of understandable economic plans decisions will continue to be made on the basis of hate and envy which are despicable ways to choose the leader of the free world?
If Carol McClintock is so proud of her husband why hasne’t she taken his last name?
Meet Carol Winnenke, now this is standing by you man!
First lady of what? Oh, I get it. First lady of “I know it all”!
I heard that Carol called my neighborhood association president last week and was so aggresive that he hang up on her.
Everbody knows that she really run this city because the Mayor is “hen peck”!
I have to disagree with you on that cause our mayor isn’t hen pecked , he is just plain chicken shix
I heard that she was calling upon Neighborhood Presidents to make a stand on the unification issue. However, when she called me she did not ask for my opinion or endorsement. She was asking for our meeting time and dates.
I am not a Demo or a Republican. I just want to make sure that people know my experience and that it was not what is being reported here.
Brent Jackson
President of the Presidents Neighborhood.
Neither of these pathetic Presidential candidates of the major parties will do anything about the core problem we face as a country – namely that our military is being used to prop up a petro-dollar scheme that is in its its first throes of death.
When this scheme dies completely, and OPEC nations are persuaded by China that they, not the US, can offer their despot leaders better protection from coups and unrest, the American system will completely collapse. All of the money-printing and bailouts in the world couldn’t save the system then.
There is no nice way of saying this, but unless we do something now to let the necessary pain come and let all the bad debt get purged from our financial system, we will continue to slide no matter who is President or who is in Congress.
Brad, I don’t agree with everything you write. I’ll never agree with some of what you believe. But you are a highly skilled writer, and one of the best bloggers City County Observer has. Moreover, you appear completely dedicated to using your talents on behalf of the Libertarian cause, regardless of what arguments other readers may offer.
I wish you’d write an article especially focused on the ideas you express in the first paragraph of your comment: “namely that our military is being used to prop up a petro-dollar scheme that is in its its first throes of death.”
I saw a special by Leslie Stahl, produced a few years ago, where the sheik who controls Saudi oil production claimed it cost the Saudis about $5 a barrel to extract crude oil from their production fields. He then said that it takes about $55 a barrel for the royal family to support Saudi society, which I presume to mean support 50% unemployment without allowing a revolution or coup.
This same Saudi prince also said it would take something like $125 a barrel for the Iranian sectarian facists to support their regime, which was a fairly scary side note.
In another interview earlier this year, I heard that same Saudi prince say he would be satisfied with a steady $70 per barrel OPEC price control, because that would satisfy the Saudi Royal Family’s and Saudi government’s needs while at the same time discourage alternative energy development in the U.S., which I took to mean continued U.S. economic addiction to oil, and U.S. foreign policy protection of its extraction and transportation.
“I saw a special by Leslie Stahl, produced a few years ago, where the sheik who controls Saudi oil production claimed it cost the Saudis about $5 a barrel to extract crude oil from their production fields. He then said that it takes about $55 a barrel for the royal family to support Saudi society, which I presume to mean support 50% unemployment without allowing a revolution or coup.” (Soon2B)
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Since you like CBS style reporting I assume you also like NPR, so I will relay this information from their website:
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150444802/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised
Oil is a commodity that is produced world wide and the Saudis do no have a lock on it. The problems we have with them are the same problems we have trying to deal with any other Theocracy, oligarchy, or dictatorship. If they want to treat their people like crap there is scant little we can do except in extreme situations where UN sanctions can be achieved.
NEW YORK TIMES [Business Day]
Energy & Environment
March 22, 2012
“There is no question that many national security policy makers will believe they have much more flexibility and will think about the world differently if the United States is importing a lot less oil,†said Michael A. Levi, an energy and environmental senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “For decades, consumption rose, production fell and imports increased, and now every one of those trends is going the other way.â€
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Why do you guys want to beat up on your country all the time? I don’t get it.
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Soon2B,
Wow. Can’t believe we see eye to eye on anything at all. I guess that’s refreshing to know you’re not completely hopeless. 😉
Pressanykey,
Why do I criticize my government so much? Seriously? It’s because I am a damned patriot. That’s why. That’s what real patriots do…they question. They don’t just lie down like dogs and beg to be spoon fed government lies. And for the record, one of the last people I’d ever listen to is someone from the Council on Foreign Relations.
On this subject of our petrodollar hegemony, you have no clue what you’re talking about. My advice to you is watch this and pay attention: http://vimeo.com/5372026
Start the video at the 1:40 to watch a speech that – if you properly understand it – could change the way you look at your world, my friend.
Turn off Fox News. Seriously, your brain will thank you, AND you’ll be a better conservative for it. If you don’t want to watch the video, fine, let me give you the short version…
Since our government closed the gold window completely in 1971 we have been in collusion with the OPEC nations to provide them security in exchange for exclusive pricing of their oil in US dollars. This is the ONLY thing propping up our dollar and keeping it the world’s reserve currency. It’s not because we’re so damned great and free like some would have you believe. In fact, we produce very little any more, but consume very much, and it’s all done on the backs of our poor military men and women, who are beginning to wake up to how they’re being screwed, by the way.
We have military bases all over the Middle East in areas like Saudi Arabia, and that cause problems with the Muslim population because they perceive us as infidel occupiers in their Holy Land. In fact, this was one of the explicit reasons Bin Laden gave for the attacks of 9/11. It’s like if we went into India and opened an abattoir, or if we walked into a Tibetan Buddhist Temple and pissed on a statue of Buddha. It’s bad foreign policy and it causes hatred and blowback.
To go one deeper than that, in the year 2000 Saddam Hussein was threatening to price his country’s oil in Euros instead of dollars. Our leaders manufactured a reason to take him out, even though he was a paper tiger without so much as a scud to his name. That didn’t stop us from linking him with Al Qaeda (even though he’s a completely different sect of Islam than Bin Laden) and telling all manner of false tales from “he had yellow cake uranium” to he has “finished WMDs in mobile trucks”. It was all complete LIES.
Iran has also threatened to price its oil in Euros and open and oil bourse to trade in Euros. They were soon thereafter labeled part of the “Axis of Evil” by our Propagandist in Chief.
More recently, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was in talks with other African nations about creating a currency backed by gold and pricing their oil exclusively in the new currency. You can google this. I couldn’t even begin to make this stuff up! His country was bombed back to the stone age by drones on the orders of a Nobel Peace Prize winner, even though he had been a thorn in the side of the West for decades. Suddenly, he had become a real threat.
Most of our Wars you never even hear about. They are started by our own CIA covertly. We go into nations and stir up unrest among the populace, turning them on their leaders, who have done something to piss us off. Then we turn our controlled media on the situation to sell the American public a pack of lies that will get us into another war, a war that will prop up our dollar hegemony and make bankers and industrialists rich.
It’s kinda like the Robert’s Stadium ordeal on a massive scale, but instead of demolishing a Stadium needlessly to create a park and spend lots of money, we might needlessly spend lots of money killing a few hundred thousand people and call it “collateral damage” while installing an autocratic puppet regime in some poor country we want back under our thumb.
We are importing a mere 12.9% of our oil from the Persian Gulf, and only 8.1% of that comes from Saudi Arabia.
If countries in the region, like Egypt choose the Koran as their constitution we will always be at odds with them. I am not for scrapping our constitution in order to get along with them.
They have a poop load of petrol dollars in the region, why haven’t their countries prospered more? Theirs is the ultimate “trickle down” system where you see the worlds biggest luxury yachts in a country where people are still plowing ground with oxen and wooden plows.
But I am glad you responded because it has given me more insight into what you believe. It is pretty much the standard mantra we hear from the left: this country has been successful, and that is a bad thing. Well I say we have been successful BECAUSE of our Constitution.
BTW, such an erudite gentleman as yourself knows that the list of people who have attended a CFR meeting reads like an international whos who, and American attendees are no different. Anyone who is invited is going to attend.
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Your wisecrack about which news channels I watch was typical, for just for your edification:
Note: FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity returned to their normal ratings, again reigning as the top cable news programs.
Primetime P2+:
FNC: 2,736,000
MSNBC: 1,618,000
CNN: 652,000
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Evidently I am in good company.
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Stop with your straw man arguments… You obviously didn’t read or listen to a thing I just said if you think I’m some “leftist”. That might be a convenient explanation for your crumbling “left vs. right” worldview, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. I am a capitalist. I believe real, free market capitalism WITHOUT government intervention is the best system man has yet devised. I also believe crony capitalism (what we have now) is the worst.
As for your Fox News stats… You’re right, I stand corrected. What’s popular is always right. I forgot that important adage. What you’re missing is Fox News is far from “conservative”. They espouse on the whole a neo-conservative and oftentimes “evangelical” or “Christian Zionist” worldview, which is a far cry from the true peace-loving paleo-conservatism of Robert Taft. Dwight Eisenhower was a damned WWII General and still had the good sense to warn his nation of the coming military industrial complex.
As far as “scrapping the Constitution in order to get along with [Muslims]”… Who said anything about doing that? I’m for FOLLOWING the Constitution and not attacking countries as part of some nation-building scheme or UN mandate. I’m for pulling out of the UN and minding our own damn business. I’m for following the Constitution and making Congress at least take a formal vote on a Declaration of War before invading a country. I’m also for following the Constitution in cases of international terrorism or piracy and issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal, which is what should have been done in Afghanistan instead of the full scale invasion we so unwisely undertook. If ever there was a case of a nation ignoring recent history to their own detriment, that was it.
The Soviets tried occupying Afghanistan as well. Didn’t work out so well for their Empire. We’ve been bogged down there for almost 11 years now – making it the longest war in our nation’s history, and we still arrogantly try to sell the line to the American people that we can secure that nation and give it democracy. What a joke.
It reminds me of Hitler trying to invade Russia and fight a war on two fronts forgetting that Napoleon already tried that once.
Besides, the real reason we are in Afghanistan is to secure the opium poppy fields, which the Taliban had all but completely eliminated prior to 9/11. Research it.
In conclusion, our little tiff here is illustrative of the schism currently taking place in the Republican Party. We have people like you who cheer for war with Muslims because you mistakenly believe it’s ‘patriotic” to do so, and you have people like me who see through the bullshit and are tired of America trying to be an Empire and police the globe.
I have heard your message before from others right here on CCO long before you showed up. You may have a better command of the English language than they do, but the message is the same. It has more in common with Saul Alinsky and the “beat up America” crowd than it does with the beliefs of the majority of Americans, who btw, when asked, say they consider themselves conservatives.
Obama has been a train wreck. His economics have failed, his diplomacy has failed, and his Joe cool persona only works on air heads who probably won’t be voting anyway.
I said he was not ready for the job, and he has proven me right.
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Again, you are arguing against me as if I support Obama and I do not. You’re using straw man tactics to give the appearance to the casual observer that you’ve won a debate against some leftist Obama supporter, when all you’ve done is change the subject away from the real issue at hand. “Hey, look! A squirrel!”
Brad,
I don’t care what name or label you call yourself, but your thinking and ideas are spot on!!
Just sayin. Please keep up the blogging and posting.!
Thank God that we have a one term Mayor and a (self proclaimed) one term “first lady” of Evansville. One year down and three to go.
Three long years down a drain of debt.
Historically, the mayor’s wife has always been referred to as the First Lady.
I sometimes use the Term “Creep” for particular Males, –but in this case, I think “CREEP” fits Ms. Winnecke to a T!
What a contemptable CREEP Deluxe!
Whats wrong with this picture? Carol “the great” should be doing the “Go Chicken Fat Video” and the Mayor should be calling the neighborhood association in be half of the voting “Yes for Vandygov” group and not Carol “he great”!
Wasn’t Carol “the great” a key advisor to Russ Lloyd, Jr. when he was Mayor? Enough said!
Looks like Lloyd can’t catch a break. He is Weinzapfel’s puppet during the day and McClintock’s puppet at night. 3 more years and he can go back to just being McClinton’s man servent.
She had no “charm” 30 yrs. ago, and hasn’t aquired any.
I feel sorry for the Mayor because he has to put up with Carol’s self serving crap all the time.
Fact, the Mayor is really a nice person. Carol needs to worry about selling houses and let the Mayor run the city!
Fact check! When Carol was Evansville Parks Director and/or County Commissioner how many blacks work for her? Answer-very few.
All of a sudden she is now claiming to be the great white hope for the black community.
What a phoney!
Don’t worry, the Civic Center rank and file got her number.
Is it true….. That the same group of people who conceived of, crafted, financed, and continue to promote the consolidation of the city of Evansville government with Vanderburgh County are essentially the same group of people who have pushed the City of Evansville to the brink financially?
Is it true….. That they now wish to be rewarded for their destructive behavior with the ability to do the same thing for the combined governments of Vanderburgh County and the City of Evansville?
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