WhatFinger


Al Kaltman

Al Kaltman is a political science professor who teaches a leadership studies course at George Washington University. He is the author of Cigars, Whiskey and Winning: Leadership Lessons from General Ulysses S. Grant.

Most Recent Articles by Al Kaltman:

Are California’s Public Schools Adopting Joseph Goebbels’ Educational Model?

With 325,000 members the California Teachers Association is our nation’s largest teachers union, and as such the CTA should be expected to be in the forefront of the fight to insure that California’s students receive quality education. The CTA does list as one of its primary goals the planning and executing of “programs and strategies to enhance the quality of education for students.” Does this mean that the CTA is leading the charge to improve the educational performance of students in California’s public schools?
- Thursday, July 11, 2013

Barack Obama’s web of health care lies continues to unravel

Ulysses S. Grant believed that the best way to insure the repeal of a bad law was to vigorously enforce it. Barack Obama seems to believe that the best way to keep a bad law on the books is to delay the implementation of it. His decision to delay the implementation of the employer mandate sections of the Affordable Care Act make sense only if you accept the premise that the law is so flawed that it would be disastrous to put it into effect, and therefore it needs to be amended or repealed.
- Wednesday, July 3, 2013

A Look at the UK’s NHS—A Cautionary Tale

The head of the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS), Sir David Nicholson, has refused to accept responsibility for the needless deaths that occur daily at NHS hospitals by claiming that these deaths are not a result of mismanagement but instead are due to inherent "systemic" failings.
- Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Romney fails to face up to the issue of illegal immigration

When Ronald Reagan campaigned for the presidency, the American people knew where he stood on every issue. They understood that Reagan had strong convictions, and that he was clearly and consistently enunciating the policies he would follow if elected. Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan, but when it comes to addressing the problem of illegal immigration the American people deserve better than the candidate that the Governor has morphed into.
- Friday, June 29, 2012

An Open Letter to Governor Romney

Dear Mitt, I received your letter asking me to pledge my support and make a contribution of up to $2,500 to your campaign for the presidency. The letter is disappointing. In its four single-spaced pages, there are only two short substantive paragraphs that criticize President Obama’s performance. In those you discuss the increase in the Federal budget, the growth in the deficit and the number of unemployed. What I find sad is that you got two out of the three wrong, and your errors are in the President’s favor.
- Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Obama’s Half-Truths and Big Lies

Joseph Goebbels was of the opinion that it was easier to get people to believe a big lie than a small one. President Obama seems to agree, but not completely. He thinks that the way to get people to believe in big lies is not to have them stand alone but rather to wrap them in half-truths.
- Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Obama’s Attempt to Reshape Capitalism

In People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character, published in 1954, David Potter made a compelling case for the proposition that the United States is a nation whose national character has been shaped by the perception that there is limitless economic abundance. He argued that Americans believed that wealth could be created while Europeans believed it could only be redistributed. Americans and Europeans would both answer “I do!” to the question “Who wants to be a millionaire?” The difference was that Americans believed it was possible, with the right combination of intelligence, hard work, a little luck and good timing, to become a millionaire. Europeans held no such illusions.
- Friday, February 3, 2012

Obama’s Orchestration of the Republican Nomination

While pretending that Mitt Romney is the Republican they fear most, the Obama Reelection Campaign, with the help of the mainstream media, has been doing what they can to help the Governor secure the nomination.
- Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Icy Arab Spring

He left us and we rejoiced; then an even more unbearable person came.—Arab Proverb The euphoria that followed the initial outpouring of support for the protestors in Tunisia and Egypt has started to fade, and even the liberal media outlets are starting to acknowledge the harsh realities that are flowing from the Arab Spring.
- Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Obama’s Rush to Announce the Death of bin Laden Will Prove Costly

President Obama deserves a great deal of credit for authorizing SEAL Team 6 to take out Osama bin Laden. While some Americans have been outraged by his self-congratulatory pronouncements, most have been so delighted that bin Laden finally got what he deserved that they seem willing not to notice that instead of heaping praise on the men and women of our intelligence services and the military who are the real heroes of this story, Obama acts as if he did everything himself, everything that is except pull the trigger. One can forgive the President for self aggrandizement. Obama is a politician, and the death of bin Laden has given his approval rating a much needed boost in the polls.
- Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The President Goes on Spring Break

Today (Saturday, March 19) French President Nicholas Sarkozy is hosting a summit of world leaders to discuss the implementation of the United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the implementation of a no-fly zone over Libya. British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, will all be in attendance. When the world’s leaders sit down together, the man who should be at the head of the table, the leader of the free world, will be conspicuous by his absence. President Obama felt he had more important matters to attend to than the Libyan crisis. Last night, he and his family flew to Brazil for Spring Break.
- Saturday, March 19, 2011

The Naked Truth About TSA’s Full Body Scanners

In his end of year message to TSA employees, TSA administrator John Pistole patted himself on the back for his “wise financial stewardship.” He was referring to the one billion dollars that TSA has spent to install 500 Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) full body scanners at US airports. Pistole plans to install 1,300 additional AIT scanners at the cost of another two billion hard earned taxpayer dollars.
- Monday, January 3, 2011

The SEIU Assault on American Colleges and Universities

Unheralded and virtually unnoticed, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been pushing its way into the halls of America’s universities and colleges. Not content to restrict its activities to food workers and non-supervisory personnel, the Union has moved on to organizing part-time faculty.
- Monday, November 8, 2010

A three step plan for halting the influx of illegal aliens

Two of the iconic phrases that best describe the American experience are “nation of immigrants” and “land of opportunity.” For over 300 years people from around the world have flocked to these shores. They came in search of the American Dream: liberty and prosperity.
- Friday, July 2, 2010

The Obama Administration Spits in the Face of Great Britain

On Friday, Philip J. Crowley, the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, reaffirmed the Obama administration’s position that with respect to the dispute between Great Britain and Argentina over the status of the Falkland Islands, the US stance is one of neutrality. He repeated Secretary of State Clinton’s offer to mediate the dispute.
- Wednesday, April 28, 2010

A Feckless Response

Feckless can mean irresponsible, incompetent, ineffectual, feeble, weak, futile and useless. All of the possible meanings for feckless apply to the US Government’s response to the incident involving the Qatari diplomat who Wednesday lit up on United 663 while on route to Denver.
- Friday, April 9, 2010

The Fishy Smell from the White House’s Plans for Federal Control of Health Care

The White House has warned the American people that “there is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.” Since the White House can’t keep track of all of “these rumors,” Linda Douglass, the director of communications in the White House Health Reform Office, has aske d the American people to help her target those individuals who fear that Obama intends to eliminate private health insurance and curtail health care for the elderly: “If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."
- Friday, August 7, 2009

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