"The Donald" "Trumps" Obama

Interesting to see today that President Obama apparently released a copy of his "Certificate of Live Birth" showing that he was born in Hawaii. President Obama called the speculation about his birth certificate over the last 2 to 2 1/2 years a "side show with carnival barkers" when there is important stuff to do such as the amount of people looking for work, high gas prices, and getting the budget and deficits under control with these issues not going to be solved if we are distracted and vilifying each other. All well and good; HOWEVER, IF President Obama has just released his certificate of live birth certificate 2 1/2 years ago when Hillary Clinton and others first brought up this question then this would not have been an issue at all. It took Donald Trump, a new book by Jerome Corsi, and a recent poll which stated that 38% of the American People don't believe or have doubts as to whether President Obama was born in the United States. President Obama said he had "no time for silliness" and "better stuff to do". So, the president is essentially blaming others again for a controversy that he created and that he could have solved. Probably George W. Bush had something to do with this situation.

Donald Trump was instrumental in getting President Obama to comply with this basic request to release his birth certificate and in this case "The Donald" Trumps" Obama. Now, Mr Trump raises some additional questions such as why are President Obama's college transcripts sealed and how did Obama go from Occidental  College to Columbia to Harvard. If our great wise president did so well in school you would think he would want the whole world to know about how well he did and how smart he is.

Yes, the president has many important things to do such as get ready for an interview with Oprah Winfrey and later attend some New York fundraisers for his campaign and tie up some rush hour traffic today.

Spring is in the Air

Spring is in the air and on the ground. Here is a little photograph of part of the front yard of a house in Brewster, Mass I inspected today which had thousands of daffodil flowers as well as numerous forsythia bushes which line the front of this property. The owner of this home told me to drive down a certain road until I saw a lot of yellow. Sure enough, I drove down the road to the yellow and then said "Hello" to the owner.

"Tony Morrone, A Loyal Employee"

Just got back from celebrating my brother Scott's 50th Birthday today as we had dinner in the "North End" of Boston at "La Familia Giorgio's". Everyone had plenty to eat and later we decided to drop in at an "Espresso" restaurant to top off our hearty meals with an authentic espresso. For those of you who have never tried espresso coffee let me tell you that although espresso is served in a small cup, espresso coffee can sure wake you up. We also wanted to see if "Tony Morrone" was still working there as he is quite a fixture at this espresso place and we always enjoy seeing him. "Tony" is originally from Bologna, Italy and came over to America with his Mom and Dad when he was only 6 years old. His parents found work at this espresso restaurant and "Tony" first started working there when he was thirteen washing dishes and sweeping the restaurant floors. Over the years "Tony" graduated from dishwasher to busboy and then as a waiter. Now over sixty years later "Tony" still works as a waiter both for lunch and dinner and every working day he is still identified by his red flower carnation and black bow tie. "Tony" would often tell us stories about his years in the restaurant and coffee business and all the famous boxers, politicians, and sports celebrities he has met over his long career . So here's to you "Tony Morrone"; it was good to see you again, keep up the good work and may you enjoy many more happy and healthy years. "Keep Smiling".

"Underwhelming Cut"

It was interesting to see that the potential federal government shut down was averted at the "11th hour" with a compromise deficit reduction of 39 billion agreed to by the president, Senate majority leader, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. While 39 billion is nothing to sneeze at, when compared to an over 1.5 trillion dollar budget deficit shortfall for this year and a potential 1.7 trillion dollar deficit for 2012 and a current 14.3 trillion total current deficit; 39 billion in cuts is somewhat  of an underwhelming cut and maybe amounts to about "a half of one drop in the deficit bucket".

Only in Washington can a reduction from a proposed budget amount be called a budget cut even if the budget item ends up being a higher amount than was present the year before. For example say the year before a budget item was 50; then the next year this same budget item is budgeted for 70. Budget reduction forces come into play and after intense deliberations a compromise is reached for 60 for this item with a 10 unit savings even though this 60 amount is higher than the previous year's amount of 50.

I saw a clip on television where Senator Obama in 2006 voted against extending the debt ceiling when the total federal governmental debt was "only" 8 trillion dollars at that time. Senator Obama said that increasing the debt ceiling was a sign of a failure of leadership and America deserves better. It will be interesting to see President Obama's upcoming speech to see if he proposes any specific cuts and or whether he proposes any tax increases after just recently agreeing to extend the "Bush era" tax rates that were due to expire. If President Obama does propose some cuts will Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) label the president "extreme" like he is trying to label the Republicans and "tea party" member?

"Won and Done"

Congratulations to the UCONN Men's Basketball team for last night clinching the NCAA National Championship in a 53-41 hard fought defensive victory over the Butler Bulldogs. The UCONN Huskies didn't win "pretty" and a lot of people are complaining about the "style" of win as this game was a "grinder" with Connecticut only scoring 19 points in the first half and trailing Butler at halftime 22-19. Last night the maxim "Defense wins Championships" was in effect as this young UCONN team held Butler to an 18.8% field goal percentage which is a record low scoring percentage with 10 blocked shots by the Huskies who outscored Butler 26-2 "in the paint". For people who appreciate defense, this game was surely a masterpiece of "lock down aggressive full effort" that will be studied by basketball purists for years to come. This team defense to me rivals the "1990 Dream Season" at UCONN which featured a full court pressure"helter skelter steal curtain" defense and fast break basketball.  UConn contested almost every shot by Butler with the exception of a few long 3 point Butler field goals. Butler themselves played a good defensive game and the combination of good defense by both teams, "tight rims", playing in "the dome" on an elevated floor probably as well contributed to a low scoring percentage by both teams.

UCONN won because they scored more points than Butler; and isn't that why they keep score? With the exception of the "Slam dunk" contests where style and creativity are judged; the winning team always scores more points by "Putting the ball through the hole" with no extra points being granted for spectacular slam dunks or "pretty and smooth" long distance jump shots. Only in sports such as ice skating and gymnastics do "style points" count when they judge contestants from a "perfect 10" and deduct for efforts that don't meet with perfection.

The Connecticut Huskies "out willed" Butler in this National Championship and Butler hurt their cause by missing quite a few free throws as well as their record low shooting percentage. This year UCONN, lead by All American Kemba Walker, with a young supporting cast of freshmen Jeremy Lamb, Shabazz Napier, Roscoe Smith, Tyler Olander, Niels Giffey, sophomores Alex Oriakhi and Jamal Coombs-McDaniel, and seniors Donnell Beverly and Charles Okwandu came together as a team and accomplished their ultimate goal. With a record of 32-9 this season, UCONN did not lose to any team outside of the Big East Conference where they finished 9-9 but won the Big East Tournament Championship by winning 5 games in 5 days at Madison Square Garden in New York City earlier in March. UCONN started the season last November by winning the Maui Classic in Hawaii and of course ended the season by winning the National Championship. In every tournament with a "one and done" format with a trophy at stake for the winning team, the Huskies prevailed. Now that this basketball season has ended  this Connecticut Men's basketball team can truly say that they gave their maximum effort with some "pretty" wins along the way, some clutch game ending shots by Kemba Walker, some "win and advance grinder games", but all in all they accomplished their team goals and brought home a 3rd National Championship as they "won and done" a good job so to speak. This memorable season will be hard to top.

"Who's Extreme?"

Say what you will about the democrats such as Senator Charles Schumer, (NY) who was recently overheard discussing the democrat's "marching orders" on their goal of trying to paint the "tea party" members and republicans as "extreme"; they do spend a lot of time trying to shift the blame for the out of control federal fiscal mess away from themselves while trying to get the public to believe that the proposed efforts by the tea party members and Republicans to make some sort of cuts in federal spending as just too painful and "extreme". Democrats also seem to put a lot of emphasis on whether certain Republican political leaders are "intelligent, smart, etc. versus their so called wise, astute, smarter candidates and leaders.

I say it is democrats like Senator Schumer and others that are the extremists. Is it "extreme" to try to reduce the over ONE TRILLION dollar annual federal budget deficit? I think it is "extremely stupid" that democrats such as Senator Schumer seem to think that going along year after year with trillion dollars deficits each year is perfectly fine and that any cuts in the federal budget are just too much. The democrats seem to be focused on a political strategy of shutting down the federal government but blaming the Republicans for the shut down. I hope the American public doesn't buy into this strategy. The "extreme" position, I think is to continue down the road to Federal governmental bankruptcy by not addressing the current budget shortfall. This is not to say that some Rebublicans are not to blame for some of the budget deficit; but, I think that currently the Republicans have shown that they are the "party of change" as they are at least trying to bring the federal budget under control while the "status quo big government democrats" cling to the current unsustainable overgrown and overreaching federal budget situation.

So, who do you think is extreme? The big government democrats or the republicans who are trying to trim some of the fat out of the bloated federal budget? The election in 2010 said that the democrats were on the wrong side of the issues as the Republican candidates with the help of the "tea party" took over the gavel from Nancy Pelosi.