‘Gravy trains are OK – as long as I’m on board’

The political right smells blood and as a result is ratcheting up its attack on O and his minions. The public is increasingly disenchanted with O's failure to muster the winds of change that people so desperately wanted. Instead, and like many before him, O seems to be living in a bubble totally oblivious to public opinion. One right wing commentator notes that no president in recent times has brought with him into office a political class that is reaping massive public entitlements and other rewards.

While the racial implications of this statement are staggering, major concessions have indeed been made to the poor and unemployed. Although there may be some social merit to the policies promoting such rewards, the growing numbers or chronically poor and unemployed suggest that an expanding number of our citizens are taking all they can get from a government willing to give all that we have. Like Toyota and BP, O seems to be putting profitability before quality in his desire to keep and expand votes for himself and the Democratic party. The unions have done extremely well by O, as has the automobile industry, the banks and just about everyone except America's onetime pristine backbone, the middle class.

The latest emotional issue to capture the hearts and minds of the public here is that of whether or not to construct an Islamic social and cultural center complete with mosque in the vicinity of 9/11's ground zero.

Reactions to this proposition are clearly and refreshingly bipartisan. Builders unions say they will refuse to work on the construction, the right say no way to construct a monument to Islamic victory in New York, and plain folk just shake their head in disbelief that the proposition could have gone as far as it has. What few proponents of the idea we have are largely individuals chained to a misguided interpretation of the Freedom of Worship clause in our Constitution.

The issue is not one of religious freedom, but common sense. The Muslims can build their monument somewhere else without hue and cry, but no, they are determined to build it near the World Trade Center Towers on the grounds that our Constitution gives them every right to do so. We are being impaled on our sword and many of us are so confused they don't know what to decide.

Some believe that the center, named the Cordoba Project, is a throwback to the Islamic historical pattern of constructing mosques on conquered land. The Project name supports this claim as, I have no doubt, so do millions of Muslims. Other Americans question the need for another Mosque in New York; after all there are already about 100 of them. When one hears about the resurgence of Islam, one does not think that includes America, but rather over there in some ambiguous place.

Also for expressed reasons of religious freedom, the Jewish mayor of NYC supports the application for building permission at the desired ground zero location. I say, it is time for a new mayor who can put things in perspective and who possesses the uncommon gift of common sense. We have too long been enchained by marginal and remote interpretations of our constitution that, when put in the mouths of our benighted lawyers, can justify anything.

The latest scam here has just recently been exposed. Remember when civil servants were on the lower end of the pay scale and behaved like it? Well, their behavior has not changed, but they are now well up on the pay scale with three digit salaries not uncommon. The scam, however, is not the big salaries, but the enormous pensions.

Somehow, particularly at state and local levels, civil servants have managed to manipulate the rules governing benefits and pensions whereby individual retirees are also issued pensions worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Police and fire retirees also draw large pensions and only after 20 years of service. The public is up in arms over these revelations and I fully expect a lot more of them to come. Finally, we know what is done with taxpayer money.