Ryan as VP is a great plan

I realize I haven't been around much this month. Sorry bout that. Trying to move and got a little busy and a few things suffered for it. Don't believe I haven't been thinking about this place though. We still have to stay vigilant and make sure we get Obama on the unemployment line come Nov.

All that out of the way. Congrats to Mitt Romney for not screwing this up. In Paul Ryan you have a man that will destroy Joe Biden in every debate that they have for the VP's provided Obama and Biden are man enough to actually agree to any. Which I still doubt they will agree to any more than 1 or 2 and with this pick I don't believe Obama has enough faith in Biden to go against someone like Paul Ryan and actually not look, well exactly like Joe Biden.

Chavez endorses Obama

And the hits just keep on coming. First Steny Hoyer talks about how the BBA would make it virtually impossible to raise taxes, then Chuch Schumer wants to curtail your first amendment rights, Obama himself comes out and tells every small business owner they would be useless without the government, and now this.

The unthinkable tragedy in CO

Since in I'm in England I am sometimes a little behind on the news. Especially during the week. The tragedy that struck in CO this week was something that should never happen. When James Holmes opened fire on a Batman movie it was an unspeakable and senseless act that we will never understand.

How did this 24 year old grow up and decide that taking 12 innocent lives including a 6 year old  little girl for who knows what reason we will probably never really understand. I'm not sure that the human mind and psyche can understand and comprehend why people are driven to do things like this.


This type of crazed taking of life hurts the soul and makes you feel deeply for the families. A lot of people begin to come to terms with it by offering prayers and in some cases donations for the victims and their families.

Then there are some people who "never let a crisis go to waste."

Romney sets GOP record, raises 100 million in June alone.

Add that to the 77 million that he took in back in May and you have what is shaping up to be very interesting. Obama and his celebrity friends haven't been able to out gain Mitt since he got he nomination. Now with SCOTUS rallying the base in a way that I don't think Mittens ever could on his own, we are setting up for more whining from Obama.

My how times have changed.

Romney says Obamacare not a Tax and McConnel already squirming his way out of repeal.

Romney's problem stems from the fact that if he goes after Obamacare, Obama will come after him about Romneycare in Mass. So in an effort to try to walk a very fine line and not piss anyone off, he instead pisses everyone off. Well everyone that matters anyway.

McConnells problem is the same as John Boehner's, he has no spine, none, the man is a damn jellyfish. If he had a spine, we wouldn't even have Obamacare, and the debt ceiling debacle would have ended completely differently. If Boehner had a spine we wouldn't have had the Transportation-HUD bill pass recently as a combination bill so that he could get on vacation.

More Begging from Barack Obama

So I signed up a while back to receive all the Obama for America stuff. Mostly because I find it humorous to read. Then I realized that this stuff is comedic gold. Take for instance the latest message I got yesterday from Barack Obama himself.

I wonder if he actually took the time to write this out in his personal email account? Maybe that's what he does on all those flights on Air Force One.

Should we trust Romney, Boehner and McConnel?

The results are in, Romney is the winner from the SCOTUS decision on Obamacare, or at least his campaign war chest is. Romney and the RNC raised 4.6 million in the hours after the decision was announced from approximately 47,000 donors. That's a lot of extra cheddar to be hanging around all of a sudden to beat Obama over the head with.

I still believe that SCOTUS got it wrong on Obamacare. It was never sold, or supposedly intended to be a "tax" however that's what the government now has. The unfettered unlimited ability to do whatever they want and call it a penalty collected by the IRS and suddenly it's Constitutional.

Why do we have PEU's?

So with everything that just went down in WI and Scott Walker laying the beat down the way he did, I started to wonder why exactly are federal employees allowed to unionize? I understand the concept that some people believe that unions protect the worker, personally I think that's absolute crap, but some people out there still believe that Social Security will be there for them when they get old.

So I pulled EO 10988 signed by JFK on 17 Jan 1962 which basically gave public employees the ability to unionize. Why he signed this I personally don't know. Maybe he thought it was a good plan, maybe as one writer in the LA Times put it here that Scott Walker should look to Ronald Reagan for advice on how to not anger unions.

I believe we are looking at two separate times. Not just two different years but two completely different landscapes. I may be wrong but I don't believe that unions had acquired the foothold into politics that they have now with the democratic party or maybe it's just nostalgia on my part thinking that things were just simpler at that time.

In that article the writer claims that JFK signed that EO so to blunt the upcoming vote in Congress on a bill that would allow federal employees to unionize and give them more rights than what he felt they should have. Here is my question though, what was so bad about a federal job at the time that required employees to unionize in the first place? Or was it as I believe that Democrats saw a chance to create a brand new revenue stream that would always be in their corner since they allowed it to happen?

As that article even admits this was the dam breaking that allowed states, cities, and municipalities to begin to offer the ability of their employees to unionize. So thanks JFK for creating a parasite on the budget of every level of government throughout the country.

My real question though is this. If government is so good, and government and government alone knows how workers should be treated and what is fair, why did the unions need to exist in the first place?

In 2010 alone fewer than 1 million of the nations 3.5 million federal employees were unionized. Total with all federal, state, and local employees who were unionized fell to 36% in 2010. That was a drop of around 1% from 2009.

Per the Washington Post

About 984,000 of the federal government's 3.5 million full and part-time workers are union members, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. Union membership dropped 1.2 percent among federal workers from the previous year. 

Scott Walker dropped that number even further in 2012. The real question I want posed to Mitt Romney will you revoke EO 10988? If not, why not?

Personally we at The Handbook believe that the public unions can never be brought to a level where they will look at budgets with a realistic outlook in their demands and expectations until they are removed completely from the picture.

If 401(k) and IRA's are good enough for everyone else they are perfectly fine for your government employees. Why should any company, government included, continue to pay you after you are no longer a productive member of that entity?

In the interest of disclosure I am technically a federal employee as I am a member of the US Armed Forces. Just so there is no question I would be willing to sit down and look at the retirement packages offered to members of the military and look at other options with anyone who wants to. 

2/3 of people don't want Obamacare

The surprising part about this for me is that it is from the NYT/CBS poll. According to them 41% want the entire bill struck down, and 27% want just the mandate removed.

Since NYT/CBS came up with 68% who want at least some this law removed and only 24% that want to keep it in tact completely. Let's see computing NYT margin of bias in personal beliefs (calculator out) and I would assume that number of people who want to get rid of it in some fashion is closer to 75%. 8% of people polled wouldn't answer. I'm assuming that's the group that didn't understand what was going on or still believed that FDR was President and didn't know who this Obama whipper snapper was.




















 Now that being said. I don't personally know how much SCOTUS actually gives a damn what you and me think.

So after I saw the post on Hot Air, I was curious just how much the NYT was promoting this little bit of  news on their website.

Front page? Ha not there. Political section about half way down and not exactly in the boldest of prints. I understand this is different than the actual paper itself where the front page headline is the biggest headline. But this is like being buried on page 27 right behind the coupons. Not that I expect anything less from them. Now had this poll went the other way. Front page and probably had the entire homepage dedicated to it.

Although according to the NYT WI is in the toss up category come Nov and Obama is only 11 Electoral votes ahead. 217-206.

Welcome Back to the Handbook

So I went away for a little while. To the three of you that read this, well thanks for sticking around. I came back and had just one thought. This country has lost its collective frickin mind.

I see Mittens basically has the nomination wrapped up. Great! Of all the people running this is the guy we choose? Wow we are dumb. Let's just hope he doesn't screw it up.

Of course he couldn't have an easier opponent to defeat. Well at least it's an easy opponent with people who have actually been paying attention. The rest of em well, lets just hope most of them stay home in Nov.

 I also see that Bambi is missing the civility of the '08 election. Moe Lane at Redstate pretty much summed that one up nicely so just read his and tell me you don't agree.

Lets see Patterico has been SWATTED by a convicted bomber. Eric Erickson,  Aaron Walker and others have had the same done to them. Luckily for Eric he had notified his local police that something like this might happen. Aaron has been fired from his job and forced to move. Nope nothing wrong with that. Exactly what you would think would happen to someone who was exercising their first amendment right in the USSR. Wait, what was that? You said we're in the USA? Oh well then I'm sure the ACLU is rushing to his defense right? Oh still no? Hmm...
Not surprisingly Fox News is the only one that I can find picking up the story.

In other news the DOJ still doesn't like you.

We still have no jobs in this country. I'm sure that statement surprises all of you. But no really it's true. Our ability to create jobs sucks. At least that's what the Jobs Report keeps saying.

One last thing. Obama isn't even above 50% against Romney in CA. Obama is going to win CA, no one doubts that. But he Romney can keep it close and make him spend money there who know what can happen in states that can be flipped like FL, VA, OH, and maybe PA.

Once again sorry I was gone for so long. My goal is to at least put something up a little more frequent that every 3 months.

Rick and Newt both out in VA

Well this is depressing. Not so much from the fact that I wanted either of them to win, however more from the concept of now we only have Mittens and Ron Paul on the ballot in VA. That as Hot Air says is enough to make you want to indulge in some seriously hard liquor.

Sorry Ann but your WRONG!

I'd say about 90% of the time I truly enjoy and agree with what Ann Coulter writes. However, her latest article makes me think she might have hit the eggnog a bit early this year. Ann tries to convince us with missives about Newt's unelectability that Mittens is the only logical choice. Not only that but he is destined to become the nominee.

NH and the sane

About 10 days ago we here at The Handbook asked the question of could Mitt Romney lose NH. We did it based off of some polling that we had seen at various other blogs and such forth. Now getting closer we realize that even with the Union Leader endorsement Mittens is probably a lock for NH.

This is a problem. He would be a terrible candidate and an even worse president. Redstate made a point that if Romney does win then basically the entire campaign is going to be trying to paint him as John Kerry. That makes perfect sense. Idiot pol from Mass that can't seem to make up his mind about anything or take a stand on any position. Sounds awfully familiar to Kerry. Add to that the fact that Obamacare was based on Romneycare and you have even more things for O to piss off the conservative base with and make sure that he gets four more years of Hope to Change our country to a third world country.

Now surprisingly the one thing that Romney won't back away from is Romneycare. Which to be honest with you it seems to be the one thing that he is willing to stand on. Granted it's not like he can hide from it, but basically it tells us every thing we need to know about him. The only thing he's willing to stake out a position on that won't change is the fact we need more government in our lives.

Could Romney lose NH?

In my sporadic watching of news lately apparently there was a seismic shift that I can honestly say that I didn't see coming. When the Cain problems started I wasn't sure who would pick up his supporters but to be honest I never really thought that it could be Newt. Turns out I was probably pretty wrong.

According to a poll from Magellan Strategies in NH, Newt and Romney are now both virtually tied. With Mittens having 29% and Newt right behind at 27%. This is pretty impressive. I still want to see at least one more poll show this just to back it up, but if it's true. Oh the happiness. Mittens entire campaign I believe has always been to have a decent showing in Iowa then storm through NH, and build that air of invincibility. Well if he loses both or just barely covers in NH. Then what?

Combine this with the polls that came out showing Newt in or near the front in IA and you have something that I'm sure the Romney campaign never saw coming. Let's be honest here, none of us really saw Newt's rise coming. His baggage is suppose to be what prevents him from winning right. Well maybe this idea he has of coming out with all of it and laying it on the table is working. Now we get to see what happens when the oppo research really kicks into high gear on him.

Personally I think that the fav/unfav on Newt is pretty impressive in this poll. 59/31 with only 10 saying they don't have an opinion.

One other thing. Only Ron Paul, Newt, and Mitt Romney have favorable ratings. Everyone else is underwater, with the worst being Rick Perry at 21/66/12.

Hermain Cains Fall?

Herman Cain apparently doesn't like us here at The Handbook. Since our backing of him he seems to have gone out of his way to completely destroy his candidacy. Or maybe it's the Democratic Machine that hates us. Then again it could all possibly be coincidence.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Four years ago I wrote a blog on Townhall that I kept up with for about a total of 45 minutes. I have since beaten that record here. Thank you to both of you reading this.

Now four years ago remember we had about 400 people running for office it seemed and there was no way to figure out who anyone was, and the ones we knew none of us wanted. In the end we ended up with John McCain. Gee thanks guys. To everyone who believes that our current practice of picking our nominee is a good idea, please go run your head into a wall a couple dozen times. That may sound harsh but every 4 years or so that's basically what we do as conservatives. We allow a couple of selected states "cough NH, IA, SC cough" to decide who our presidential nominee is going to be. To say that I hate this process would be like saying that I only have a mild dislike of everything liberal.

UPDATED: Hermain Cains Problems

After the weekend we here at The Handbook had picking college and pro football games we should have known that openly supporting a candidate would probably doom them from the jump. Turns out we aren't completely paranoid.

Now the question becomes, are the allegations true, misconstrued, or completely fabricated. Well apparently there was a NDA signed by both of the women who were supposedly sexually harassed by Hermain Cain. He not surprisingly has come out and said everything is completely false. What else can he do come out and say, "Yup i did it, sorry bout that" cause that wouldn't have went over very well. Although denying it and have it turn out to be true would probably be even worse.

So the second question becomes where did this come from. Politicos source wasn't named and probably isn't coming forward any time soon. Redstate believes that it came from the Romney campaign since he's the only one so far that has shown a willingness to bring something like this out to muddy up an opponent. However Cain hasn't taken much support from Mittens and its not like they are going after the same demographic inside of the GOP anyway. However with our complete distrust and dislike of all things Romney we wouldn't be surprised. Question becomes though if it is proven to be Romney that shoveled this out and it turns out to be false accusations does it hurt Romney. My guess is no, since the people that are backing him are probably the same people that were backing him in 08 and would just call it oppo research.

Next comes the Perry campaign. While it hasn't proven itself to be involved in such things publicly so far Hot Air isn't so sure that it's Mittens and also claims that a witness is has come forward. Seems more likely since the support that Cain has garnered seems to have mostly come from the Perry campaign. They are both going after the social and fiscal con inside the GOP. Of course that could still leave Bachmann and Santorum, but I doubt if either is spending the little money they are bringing in on oppo research like this.

For a palate cleaner Cain is still showing strong support in both Iowa and SC. Does it hold up? I don't know. If the one female is allowed out of her NDA and has something along the lines of a blue dress to prove it all happened the way its been reported then I think Cain is sunk. Of course if this doesn't come out until after he has the nomination sewn up then, well O gets 4 more to ruin everything that is America.

Until proof comes out that he is actually guilty of this and that each of these women weren't paid just to go away on frivolous claims we here at The Handbook will continue our support of the Cain candidacy, that being said if the claims prove to be true, well..



Update: Apparently a third woman has come forward claiming that she was invited back to Cains corporate apartment. To say this looks bad is an understatement however this woman decided not to file the suit back when she knew about the other two already settling their cases. So if this really is true then obviously it wasn't money she was after.

This is from NBC News via the AP

The unidentified woman never filed a complaint but said she considered it, according to the AP. The behavior was characterized as "aggressive" and "unwanted."
The woman spoke to AP only on condition of anonymity, saying she feared losing her current job and the possibility of damage to her reputation. According to the AP, she said that Cain had told her that he had confided to colleagues how attractive she was and extended an invitation to his corporate apartment outside work.
NBC News has not verified her claims.

I know shocking I would read NBC news but I was looking for the worst possible spin of the story.

Herman Cain: The only real option out there

 For those of us with a very strong conservative streak in us saying that the fields for POTUS for the last few election cycles has sucked would be a gross understatement. No one has really come out and just been honest and principled in their views. Ok well one has, but lets be honest Ron Paul ain't exactly what were looking for in a President. Although I would contend his intentions are good and having him as POTUS right now would still be better than whats there. 

 In the last election cycle I would have bitten the bullet and voted for Mitt Romney. I felt at the time even with his inability to have a backbone and take a stand on anything at least he could have competed in the debates with O and probably made him look silly most of the time on economic issues. I cannot do that this time around. The movement and progress that we have made over the last year or so with the mid-terms and the Tea Party just will not allow me to compromise that much on what I believe this country needs.

 That brings us to who I feel not only could win the nomination but also win the general. Now I do not really care about the establishment and their belief that its Romneys turn. Or that he is the most presidential looking or whatever ignorance they are spitting out to try to convince us that a Northeastern Gov who created socialized medicine in his state is where we should go.

 Thus enter Herman Cain. I'll admit when he first came out I like most people didn't give him much credence. First off I knew nothing about him and secondly I wasn't sure if he was actually able to put together a campaign and do everything that would go along with that. What we are seeing now is that the more people find out about him the more that people like him. Yes, just to get it out of the way he makes mistakes, he misspeaks, he screws up, hes  a novice at running a campaign, and you know what I'm completely fine with all of that. It proves more to me that he is being honest. He is coming out and saying what he believes, mostly because he doesn't have the staff to prep him or teach him about all the other things that politicians worry about and frankly we here at the Handbook like that a lot.

 I don't want a cookie cutter politician that always smiles never shows emotion and always has the perfect answer that actually answers nothing. I don't want sound bites. I want policies, I want beliefs. Take his 9-9-9 plan, is it perfect? Absolutely not, however I believe hes showing a willingness to work it and mold it into a plan that could actually work. Without him you don't get the Perry plan, you don't have Mittens coming out saying that he would be willing to possibly flatten his tax plan out.

 Face it whether you like Cain or not he is setting the agenda right now for the debates and the policies coming out of the Republican candidates. Even doing so and being attacked at each of the last couple debates he is still the front runner. Why? Because people want someone who is honest, and doesn't three polls, four studies and a teleprompter to tell him what his positions are on things.

Romney has position shift (FLOP)

In an act that would really surprise no one, Mitt Romney has once again changed his position on an issue. This time its Global Warming, or is it Climate Change now? The handbook has a hard time keeping up with the consistent name changes.

According to The Hill Mittens has now decided that he is no longer sure about what causes global warming. Al Gore is not going to be happy about this. After all this debate was suppose to be settled years ago. Either way Mitt realized that 25% is his ceiling and in an attempt to convince conservatives he is one of us he just decides to switch one more time. After all this is politics and who's really paying attention.