If you doubt that, take a look at announcements made in the days since Barack Obama won (?) his second term as President of the United States. Big companies like Walmart, Papa Johns and Denny’s are complaining loudly, but not nearly as vociferously as their employees will be when they realize their paychecks are shrinking – if they keep their jobs at all – and the customers whose bill for goods and services are ballooning due to Obama’s policies and health-care mandates are sure to join in the chorus.

Somebody, and it may have been Karl Marx, said that there are only two kinds of people in the world. To paraphrase, there are managers and there are workers. The two mind-sets are not interchangeable. One understands and embraces the laws of business and economics. The others do better when they are simply asked perform critical services for the management types. Both are indispensible. Together they can make the world go around, as the song from the musical Caberet so delightfully assures us, but when they are pitted one against the other, capitalism and the success it breeds go right out the window. Or, as I said before, elections have consequences.  This one with it’s divide and conquer strategies will have the consequence of manger-types making necessary cuts to wages, hours and benefits while worker-bees (many of whom voted for their champion Obama) will face the…you guessed it…consequences.

Of course all of us will pay a price. Whether you are seeking to invest in a can of apricots or iPad mini cases, the price is going up. (Hint: If you’ve not done your Christmas shopping yet, do it NOW. Do it TODAY. It gets worse from now on.) These are consequence which will be impossible to avoid. The innocents out there who imagine that rich folks will be the only ones to suffer have some bitter lessons coming. I wish it weren’t so, but if wishes were fishes, we’d all have a freezer full. Meanwhile, after the consequences are fully realized, there will be a serious about face in this country. Put in the form of a parable it sounds something like this, which I found in my email inbox a few years back.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. 

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that

Now, I, for one, take issue with Karl Marx and his dim view of the human animal. Nevertheless, I know there are students who study and those who don’t. There are hard workers and freeloaders in every society. When things are allowed to take their natural course, the freeloaders eventually catch on to the fact that panhandling, like elections and howitzers, has a mighty painful kick if you’re not expecting it. We’ll catch on eventually. Meanwhile, it’s enough to know that there are good decision makers, and then there are those who voted for Barack Obama.

I’m looking forward to next week when the bad political ads will quit and we can get back to those “not sold in stores” ads about items which are, by the way, sold in stores.  Of course, there is a nagging fear in the back of my brain that this particular election and its outcome will be up in the air for days – maybe weeks – as we enjoy (?) recounts and election contests across the country. There has been so much talk of election fraud – like the folks in the key swing state of Ohio who, in the course of early voting, find their Romney ballot being cast for Obama – I fear we’re in for a long, long election. Ugh.

Of course if there is the landslide in favor of Romney that pundits like Dick Morris predict, we might skate through the next weeks without revisiting the hanging chads and Supreme Court intervention we saw back in 2000. We might just luck out and find that on the morning of November 7^th, we have a new president, a Republican majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate and can look forward to hope returning to this great nation.

Of course, it’s also possible that Barack Obama will win. In which case, I plan to quit my part-time jobs and apply for food stamps. I’m tired of working my fanny off and ending up with less money than the welfare crowd collects. (I read last week that the average family who lives on government entitlements like welfare and food stamps collects something like $60,000 per year. I’m lucky to see a third of that.) If Barack Obama wins this one, I’ll put my political activism out to pasture for the last time. If the American public fails to see that this man and his administration have nearly destroyed all that makes America great, and are so vision-less as to give him a second run at the destruction of our values, I will have spent my passion for nothing. Well I won’t be entirely empty-handed. I will have those Romney/Ryan dust cloths as souvenirs.

So this morning, some folks are wondering if the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Sandy will lead to a changing of the election. The answer to that question is no. There may be changes locally – extended voting hours might help since there is the likelihood that voting will by necessity be done the old fashioned way – with paper ballots – since so many areas are without the electricity to power electronic voting machines. But overall, voting this election will be one of those patriotic challenges and patriots in the states hardest hit by Sandy will rise to meet that challenge.

So, brace yourselves. If the electorate returns Mitt Romney as the winner, we’ll be hearing a lot about the election being stolen by the weather. (Or decided by divine intervention, if you’re a Romney fan.) The states that are struggling hardest post-Sandy are generally highly populated blue States – places where Barack Obama is thought to have a lock on the win. The best news for Democrats is their election machine has been employing early voting to get it’s faithful to the polls before now and with great success, we’re told, so perhaps their firewall will remain intact despite the hurricane’s devastation. And, of course, the Democrats champion absentee balloting as well. It’s possible that those ballots already delivered or somewhere in the possession of the pony express as I write this will still win the day for Obama. It’s possible, but I doubt it.

The Democrats will blame Sandy for their losses next week. The rest of us will be busy rebuilding and preparing for a resurging America with Mitt Romney at the helm.

I visit the website daily now even though the big flap in the media has now calmed down and even the left-leaning polls are doing their jobs more correctly. It’s just fun for me to see that Mitt Romney is winning even in swing states thought to be solidly in the Obama column. Yay.

There also can be seen there the projections for congressional races which are also good news for Conservative voters. If these unskewed guys are correct, Republicans will own the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House come January. And, if you’re in the mood for icing and a cherry on top of that cake, it’s likely that Mitt Romney will be called upon to nominate two Justices to the Supreme Court in the next four years. Naturally, they will be quickly confirmed by the Republican congress. If ever the right had reason to celebrate, this is it.

Of course, there could be a cataclysm in the next two weeks which might change things. Some say,  and this includes my own handsome husband, that Barack Obama is not above pulling some kind of military shenanigans in order to Wag the Dog and distract the American public. There was a time when I could not imagine a national leader going to such lengths to win an election. Since I’ve come to know and understand Barack Obama, I put nothing past him.

For now I will revel in the excellent numbers and chuckle at the pitiful attempts of the Democrats to discredit Mitt Romney, whose squeaky clean record must be a source of great consternation to his opponents. Today is a great day to be a conservative.

Man. That’s got to hurt if you’re Barack Obama.

The editorial touts entrepreneurship and individualism as the way of the future and rejects Obama’s ever-growing government involvement in business. The endorsement, which acknowledges the two clear pathways the candidates offer, rejects Obama’s and encourages its readers to opt for the brand of hope and change Obama promised in 2008 but failed to deliver. The hope and the change is now the bailiwick of Mitt Romney.

Of course it helps that Romney is a Michigander and that his father, former Presidential candidate George Romney, was a “car guy” back in the day. The elder Romney ran American Motors from 1954 to 1962 and was the 43^rd Governor of Michigan and clearly engenders a good bit of respect in the Motor City. It’s good to know that sound business practices and private-sector experience is seen, by this newspaper’s editorial staff at least, as a promising path to the future.

The native son vote may just put Michigan into the Romney column and this endorsement will certainly help accomplish what’s beginning to look like a Romney landslide.

We already knew that Mitt Romney is a man who involves himself in the lives of others. We heard at the Republican National Convention that he shut down his entire business one day in order to help find the missing daughter of an associate. We learned that he and his family spent Christmas one year with a family whose sons had both been paralyzed in a tragic accident. (Then paid for their college education, by the way.) We learned that he sat with a dying boy in order to help the child “get his affairs in order.” Romney wrote the will which assigned ownership of the youngster’s favorite toys and treasures. So, I ask you, why would we be surprised to learn that he testified in court as to the character of a business associate? More to the point, what the hell business is it of Gloria Allred’s?

I feel certain that the court will deny Allred’s motion to unseal the court documents as they relate to an entirely unrelated set of humans. It might be different if it were the matter of a Romney civil matter, but it’s not. Shame on you Glora.

As far as the divorce papers between Michelle and Barack Obama, these things are, indeed, fair game. We, as voters, need to satisfy ourselves that our candidates are properly vetted. What I don’t get is how does marital strife is newsworthy? Anybody who has ever tied the knot knows that the first thirty years are the hardest. Troubles are to be expected and, if I might say so, for the first time in my history of observing the Obamas, I’m proud of their actions. They managed to stick it out which is, I think, a sign of maturity. (Perhaps the first I’ve seen from them.)

Unless it turns out that FLOTUS wanted out because the President prefers sex with men – a nasty rumor which has surfaced from time to time in his past – I can see no reason to drag these two humans through the muck. We already know everything we need to know about the President and, from my point of view, anyway, nobody in their right mind could blame Michelle for wanting to kick his fuzzy butt out the door. He’s a slime ball.

Is this what they call “the fog of war?” Are we so caught up in the blood and gore that we’ve lost our humanity? Let’s use the information we already have to vote for the man whose values and history most closely fits with our own. Enough already.

I suppose they have stacks of data about how women select candidates. I’m even sure those data reflect that some women choose the “handsome” candidate. To my everlasting shame, my mother voted for Bill Clinton.  Twice.  Not because he was particularly gifted in foreign policy or economics, but because he was “pretty.” Nevertheless, we females have other priorities too and that’s what makes presidential debates like the one we saw on Tuesday so helpful.

Deep in our psyches, we ladies are always looking for protection. It’s built into us. The most primal parts of our brains, where our instincts live, are continually assessing dangers and making strategic moves to ensure the safety of our little families. We are attracted to strong-looking, athletic types who appear to have the capability of slaying those who would harm or injure us or our offspring. We look for ‘strong’ and ‘reliable.’ We look for ‘trustworthy.’  We look for that in husbands and fathers and we look for that in Presidents too.

In this election cycle, we females are closer to those fear-driven instincts than ever before. We recognize the looming dangers all around us. Some of us are out of work. Some of us recognize that the incumbent spends too much. (For every $7.00 the government takes in, it spends $11.00 and this is, of course, borrowed from other countries – other countries which don’t like our way of life and represent very real dangers to us.) We’re not inane enough to worry about birth control pills this time around. We’re too busy worrying about how we’ll feed our children.

Of course, the Obama administration has capitalized on the ‘grocery instinct.’ In an effort to paint himself as a good provider, Barack Obama has handed out food stamps like candy-corn at Halloween. He’s made other “good provider” moves as well, encouraging less work and more reliance on welfare checks. He made the Julia video in order to demonstrate that he and his government will be our Sugar Daddy from cradle to grave, and thousands upon thousands of women took the bait. For those women who are in such dire straights that they cannot see the big picture, this may serve to put Barack Obama in the ‘trustworthy’ category. The rest of us, though, must exercise a little more caution.

But, God, in His wisdom, created the institution of presidential debates in order that we might watch potential protectors in mock combat to see just which of the candidates appears to be more Presidential.  (Read reliable.)

In Tuesday evening’s debate, there is no doubt that Barack Obama appeared more reliable than he was in the first debate. At least this time he actually showed up. Mitt Romney, though, came across as the more solid protector. He was not shrill, even when he might have had good reason to be. He appeared to be more than just a good provider, he appeared to be kind, compassionate and thoughtful. (The secondary attributes which we females seek in a boss, friend, husband or president.) Females, for which both sides of this campaign are fishing, are schooling around the Republican candidate. Mitt Romney will take the female vote in spite of the efforts by the other side to demonize and diminish him.

It could also be that we just like the idea that he irons his own shirts.

Of course, thoughts of what Barack Obama can do to our country between November 7^th and January 20^th are a little frightening. Not only will we probably be faced with another holiday season featuring those scandalous Christmas ornaments bearing the image of Chinese Communist Chairman Mao (and the likeness of Barack Obama added to the statuary on Mount Rushmore) on the White House Christmas Tree, we’ll probably be forced to endure week after week of whining by the liberals that this is a nation of racists and idiots. Some predict there will be rioting in the streets. Way to put a damper on my election victory celebration! On the other hand, maybe some of the members of the left-leaning fringe will make good on their promise to leave the country after a Romney win. We can hope, anyway.

The real concern, from my perspective, is the likelihood that Obama will flood the National Record in his last days in office with Executive Orders, pardons and policy changes that will take the Romney administration a good bit of time to un-do. I distinctly recall Bill Clinton doing these kinds of things. Maybe George W. Bush did too, but I think those men are far less sinister than Obama is. Remember, this is a man with no respect for the laws of this land who has already employed executive fiat to circumvent the system very regularly in his administration to do things like gut the Welfare to Work program and bestow amnesty on millions of illegal immigrants. Who knows what he will do in his final hours to confuse and complicate the first days of a Romney administration.

With any luck at all there will also be a Republican House and a Republican Senate sworn in after this election. But, in the case of Congress, there are the same lame-duck concerns around what the defeated will do to out of spite. I’d like to think that these men who are supposed to represent the best and brightest ofAmericawill behave like statesmen. But, you see, I remember the past four years. I know just how petty they can be.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I’d much rather face these little difficulties in the wake of the Romney win than contend with the alternative. Four more years of Barack Obama might be enough to make ME move toCanada.

I wondered last night, though, at the way in which Vice President Joe Biden excused away the administration’s pitiful handling of the Libyan murders of four American citizens including Ambassador Chris Stevens.  Biden told us last night that the White House was not told that the people on the ground in that volatile country wanted more security personnel. He also told us that the intelligence which the White House disseminated to the American people….the big fib about the “spontaneous” demonstration over an obscure YouTube video…was the best intelligence available.

First of all, if you watched the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing earlier this week, you know that requests were, indeed, made. Not just one either. MANY requests for more security were made. Those requests were refused.

Secondly, since the president of Libya was saying the attack on the Benghazi consulate was a deliberate terrorist attack within 24 hours of the event, wouldn’t the Leader of the Free World and his side-kick question the “intelligence” they were given?

Perhaps the chain of information broke down somewhere along the way. Whether it did or did not, the point is this; the buck stops at the President’s desk. He is completely responsible for the actions of every last staffer in his administration.

It makes me sad to hear a man as important as the Vice President of the United States of America stumble over something as simple as the facts. That this administration thinks we are so gullible that we don’t see that fumbling, halting storyline as part of an effort to delude us until AFTER the election makes me want to slap somebody upside the head. (That somebody, of course, would be Joe Biden whose condescension last night I found to be insufferable. You can lead me anywhere, Joe, but don’t ever try to push me and never, EVER, lie to me.)

It comes to this. These men knew or should have known what was up in Libya BEFORE it came to violence. If they did not know, they are incompetent. If they did know and didn’t do anything to prevent the carnage, they are incompetent. If they lied to the American people in order to keep their political balloon from deflating, then they are both incompetent and they are criminals to boot.

The good news about last night’s debate is that it got me fired up again. I’m going to do some door knocking this afternoon and pass out a few Romney/Ryan pins. Even though Paul Ryan came off looking good last night, the Romney/Ryan ticket still needs all the help they can get.

First of all, let us say that lives were lost. That’s tragic and is made even more so when we learn, as we did yesterday, that the loss of life could have been avoided by the simple act of setting aside this administration’s political image as the maker of Middle East Peace and putting boots on the ground of the Benghazi compound in the way of armed security for our now dead Ambassador. This administration screwed up royally. Then, to make matters much, much worse, they lied to the American public for weeks upon end. Why? Because this president is in a very heated political race. The news of his failures in Benghazi would have impacted upon his political future. (I’ll let him figure out for himself that the lies and the cover-up were far more damaging to his future than the mistakes were. He’ll have lots of time to think after he’s defeated on November 6^th.)

Is it appropriate to make this horrible failure a political one? Yep. It surely is.

You see, when President’s send troops into harm’s way, they ought to be held to account for the loss of blood and treasure which comes with war. I have no doubt that leaders who must make the decision to go to war are haunted by the specters of fallen soldiers day and night for the rest of their lives. Yet, nobody chides the opposing side of the political aisle for “politicizing” the deaths of soldiers in service to their country.  We all know that wars are political and are the result of political decisions. Of course, that doesn’t make the loss of a loved one any more tolerable. Any loss of life as a result of an individual’s voluntary decision to go forth and serve this great nation is a death to be held in great reverence. Those deaths, however, should never be in vain. We owe it to the fallen to learn from their sacrifices.

I’m sure the men who lost their lives in Benghazi would tell us that to die in service to their country was their greatest honor. They would also suggest that we look into the mistakes which were made and fix the problems which led to their tragic ends. Because, you see it IS political.

Now, that the Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is holding hearings to determine exactly what went wrong in Benghazi, Democrats are squealing “FOUL.”  Over and over during yesterday’s televised hearing, the Democrats on the dais were sniveling about the ‘politicalization of this tragedy.’ Translation: “How dare you point out the President’s failed policy this close to an election?”

My question: “How dare YOU, Congressman Cummings, trivialize the deaths of any brave defender of this Nation by excusing this President’s lies?”