Day: June 9, 2010

Women Rule Mid-Term Elections

Inkwell Institute

2010/2012 Election Series

For the most part the normal mid-term election primaries are about as boring as watching flies mate…for the most part the 2010 ones were No exception…..but…..there were few races that caught my eye….why?  Women!  I like women and political women are just hot…for the most part…but this time around there was more to the campaigns than just political diatribes…..to be honest there was some real funk going on…..

Meg Whitman in Calif has spent over $80 million in a primary and the general is coming on strong……is the running of a bankrupt state really worth $80 million?  Fiorina will take on Boxer for the Senate seat as the outsider……

South Carolina, the attractive Tea Party candidate has won a run-off for the GOP nomination, Nikki Haley, even after allegations of a couple of sexual affairs were thrown around….she said she would resign if they can be proven…keep an eye on that see if that campaign promise will be kept….

Blanche Lincoln has pulled her political butt out of the fire by making a comeback against Halter in the primary and now she will move on to the general against the GOP candidate and will most likely lose her seat in the anti-Washington sentiment of the Arkansas voter.  But I think that her voting record and campaign donations may bite her harder in the butt than labor did in the run-off.

But the favorite of all the races has been Nevada…..one candidate wants to use barter like chickens for health care to bring down the cost but the best is the one that is currently in the lead……Angle….the whackier of the women in this race…..she does not think that alcohol should be legal, she wants to pull out of UN, wants to disband Social Security, just a few of her more scarier of beliefs…..the good news is that she will most likely face Harry Reid for the Senate seat….he should have an easy campaign….that is assuming that the people of Nevada are not complete idiots.

Women have had this mid term dance a bit more interesting than it would have been without them…at least for me….the mid-term elections are usually just a rubber stamp of the political dance and then when it becomes something more….thanx to the American voter and their anger at the way Washington is doing business….

Assault On The Public Sector

Inkwell Institute

International Studies Group

European Desk

I know there will be opinion upon opinion about the new government in the UK…..there seems to be the same anger there as in the US, but I would like to hear from my friends in the UK on a story that I read…..please, I just want a take on the story, I am not condemning or condoning…just wondering…..

In a story by Chris Talbert:

Conservative Chancellor of Exchequer George Osborne and Liberal Democrat David Laws, chief secretary to the Treasury stood side by side to announce a £6 billion package of cuts on Monday. Laws said that the announcement was intended to send a “shockwave” through every department of government.

The package of cuts reflects the priorities set out last week in the coalition’s Programme for Government. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and his Liberal Democrat deputy Nick Clegg unveiled the programme amid some nervousness from the Tory right, which feared that their visceral class instincts might be toned down by the presence of Liberal Democrats in the government. But, as the Daily Telegraph immediately recognised, “behind some obvious Lib Dem language, the hard-line Tory policies have survived almost precisely intact”.

I realize that every country has to make decisions on where to cut the “fat” but is it the best place to start?  Could not the bureaucracy of these countries be the place to start?  Maybe save the entitlement programs for last?  I realize this is not the only answer but is it just easier to attack entitlements first?  It seems so in the US….entitlements are ALWAYS the root of all deficits…..the Boogie Man if you will……..