Two things caught my eye today after a 10-day hiatus with computer problems and pressing business and health issues. One is the flap over touching Queen Elizabeth. The other is the worst fast-food restaurants in America. Americans have a fetish for both. We must live dull lives if our heroes are royalty, actors, musicians and athletes. Yes, they play a role in our lives. Mostly for diversion and occasionally for inspiration. So what if the queen puts her arm around Michelle Obama. What does it matter...

President Obama’s busy schedule will take him to Trinidad later this month for a summit with Latin American leaders. The top item of discussion: Suspending travel and remittance requirements to Cuba as a first step in ending the 50-year-old trade embargo against the Communist-ruled island. I say the time has come. And so does a vast majority of Cuban Americans. It has never made sense to me that the U.S. engages in trade with China, a Communist nation, and not Cuba under the rule of the Castro...

Candidate and now President Barack Obama vowed he could make the tough decisions. The one he announced Monday withholding additional federal aid to General Motors and Chrysler was a doozie. The new tough guy on the block basically fired GM’s chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr. for driving too slow in the fast lane. That’s a savings of $1 a year. At the same time, Obama showed his forgiving side. He allowed GM 60 more days to offer a restructuring plan. He granted 30 days for Chrysler...

President Obama’s announced new foreign policy shifts in Pakistan and Afghanistan leaves little doubt the war against terrorists in that Middle East region is his. We see it as his Vietnam. The mission is simple but altruistic: Eradicate Al-Qaeda and the terrorist factions of the Taliban, restore the infrastructure of Pakistan, train the Afghanistan army and police and rid its government from corruption. Unlike his predecessor George W. Bush whose secondary mission was to establish democracy...

The dirtiest word in American society is not a four, but a five-letter word spelled t-a-x-e-s. The mere mention of raising taxes by any politician is an automatic death sentence. Give Republicans since the Reagan administration credit for transforming the meaning of taxes from a necessary devil to the horrors of Satan. Not to be outdone, most Democrats in Congress rubber-stamp the new translation because their constituents demand it. Americans are a funny lot. They complain vociferously about potholes...

Contrary as I am, several years ago I began answering health coverage insurance ads received on the Internet and postal mail. They promised a blissful, worry-free life in what is laughingly referred to as my “golden years” for a “very small premium or no premium at all.” Right. In each case, the happy talk from the insurance company sales people switched from euphoria –calling me Jerry or Mr. Remmers (usually mispronounced) to sir — to funeral parlor tone. That’s...

Embattled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in an effort to restore his credibility outlined an unprecedented plan before a Congressional panel Tuesday that would give his department powers to seize non-banking financial companies. The new powers would regulate large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds. The government through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation at present can seize only banks if they are on the verge of collapsing. At first blush, the plan in its broadest outlines...

Democrats in Congress and perhaps even President Obama are making a colossal misjudgment by taxing the bejabbers out of compensation rewards to employees of bailed out financial firms. The tax is a pre-emptive strike at a select few and can be viewed as prohibited by Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” Certainly, cooler heads can prevail and find other remedies to collect in some circumstances what constitutes ill-gotten...

There was less tsk tsking than I suspected after President Obama’s comparison of himself to that of a Special Olympics participant when it comes to his bowling prowess. Obama uttered the remark mocking himself on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” Thursday. Even so, he apologized today to the head of the Special Olympics program. We still live in a politically correct world and sometimes it approaches the absurd. No one likes being the butt of a joke but it is clear the president’s...

I’m a regular follower of Chris Matthews’ “Hardball” show on MSNBC and learned over the years that he occasionally zeroes in on a political concept that deserves merit. On Thursday’s show Matthews outlined a tactic to bypass the Senate’s filibuster rules in which the Obama administration could present its entire domestic programs under the umbrella of a budget resolution. He calls it “The Big Casino.” Think about it. All of Obama’s programs on...

America awakened today feeling much better about themselves after a three-day binge. Nothing like a good ass-kicking of our latest favorite bogeyman, American International Group. Let’s review. The insurance giant awarded $469 million in “retention payments” to 418 employees, some of them driving the once proud firm $1.6 trillion in debt. On the premise of AIG being too big to fail, the government pumped $170 billion and took 80% control to keep the company afloat. The bonuses for...

There is a knee-jerk reaction from President Barack Obama all the way down to the the bum on Main Street voicing outrage that $165 million in bonuses will be paid out to employees of American International Group from equity provided by taxpayers bailout funds. No question it appears these people through what Obama said Monday was “recklessness and greed” destroyed the giant insurance company and contributed immensely to the meltdown of the financial sector of the economy. The feds have...

The time has come for President Barack Obama and his Democratic loyalists to stop whining about inheriting all the problems the Bush administration dumped on us. They knew that from the get-go and most intelligent Americans accept it as fact. So, let’s get on to governing us out of this economic and geo-political hornets’ nest. Obama himself not only artfully slurred President Bush during his inaugural speech but in recent weeks has ratchet up the rhetoric. One can hardly blame him as...

It’s not as sexy as Stewart vs. Cramer but the message Chinese Premier Wen Jiaboa sent Friday about reckless spending devaluing the U.S. dollar must have jolted the Obama administration about its orgiastic stimulus investment plans. “Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I’m a little bit worried,” Wen said at a news conference Friday after the closing of China’s annual legislative session. “I would like to call on the United States...

These gun massacre sprees in schools, townships and churches are a painful reminder we live in a culture inhabited by a lot of seriously sick people who are ticking time bombs. Any number of variables seem to set them off. The most recent tragedies: A 17-year-old gunman in Winnenden, Germany, killed at least 16 students and teachers at his former school Wednesday before he died. In rural Alabama on Tuesday, Michael McLendon gunned down 10 people, including at least five of his family members, before...

As sad as it is to say, it is impossible to gauge whether Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit is cooking the books to save his job and his company. Or is the troubled gigantic financial institution really on a road to recovery. Pandit reported in a letter to employees Monday Citigroup had an operating profit of $8.3 billion before taxes and “special items” through the first two months of the 2009 quarter, according to The Associated Press. Investors frantic to find any positive...

Here’s the shortest blog I ever wrote. I have two words for President Obama rescinding Bush’s ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research today. It’s an expression in Latin. Laudate deum.

Liberal comedian Al Franken wrote a book titled Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot. Conservative David Frum wrote this week’s cover story for Newsweek Magazine under the title “Why Rush Is Wrong.” I have avoided the comic opera now playing between Limbaugh and the White House which has borrowed Clintonian tactics of setting up Rush as a straw man. Despite how much Rush huffs and puffs, he represents to me a loud out-of-touch voice of the conservative movement and thereby a blotch...

As I was setting my clocks forward an hour this morning, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was the only sane person in this world asylum. What an absurd practice. What difference in anyone’s lives does it make by adjusting our clocks by one hour to when the sun rises and sets? Apparently I am not alone. Marc Pascal, certainly a brighter light bulb than myself in this area, explains the archaic and convoluted historical logic of this practice in a guest column for The Moderate Voice where...

President Barack Obama Monday is expected to fulfill a campaign promise by rescinding federal funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. It’s expected to reopen a moral debate which could become more divisive than the ideological political confrontation over rescuing the economy. For me it’s a no-brainer. Diabetes has ravaged my body for a quarter century. Extended research jump started with renewed federal grants holds promise for a cure not only for diabetes but many others...

For weeks now, I have been hiding behind the bushes poised to pounce on a Congressional earmark that epitomizes pork barrel spending. Thanks to the Associated Press I found what I was looking for: A $1.7 million earmark for pig odor research in Iowa from its senator, Tom Harkin, a Democrat. When you stop yukking — and it may take weeks because this story has legs — consider yourself living downwind from a hog farm. “You hold your breath and when it’s really bad you get the...

President Barack Obama launched a summit of health field representatives Thursday in the first step to reform the nation’s beleaguered health care system. “Those who seek to block any reform at any cost will not prevail this time around,” Obama said in opening a White House conference, where he promised to reduce health costs and expand coverage. He said doing nothing is not an option. May I be so humble as to suggest leaving another option off the table: Fear mongering by reform opponents...

Lost in the roaring rhubarb between conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele was Newt Gingrich’s speech last Friday before the Conservative Political Action Conference.

If there’s one thing Americans love, it is political drama played out in the struggle for power. We see it now in the unfolding turf battle between President Barack Obama and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The fact they are both members of the same political party is irrelevant. Pelosi is captain of her ship. Obama is commander-in-chief of all Americans. Their agendas and priorities oftentimes are not on the same page. It’s a toss-up who needs whom more. Pelosi was architect of...

If energy analysts are correct, American motorists should see a drop in gasoline prices beginning in April. That is if market demands truly drive the market price. If not, Big Oil is putting the screws to us once again.