Wednesday, January 27, 2010

What have they done right yet???



“HOPE...”

“CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN...”

We have been told so many lies.... Yes, LIES.

I remember the old axiom “there are lies, damn lies and then statistics...”

I know that all politicians play it fast and loose with the truth regardless of party affiliation, but the level of deceit in the last year has been nothing short of legion.
With the election and coronation of Barack Obama and the sitting of the most liberal congress since the Roosevelt Era, we are confronting something that I had never expected to ever see; a neo-communist government in power that shows absolutely no compunction in lying right to our faces and doing so with utter contempt and with utter impunity. I remember the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed standing up in their respective houses of congress in 2008 and excoriating President George Bush for his outrageous spending and for his war policies. Yet they have spent more money in 1 year than he did in 8 years, and both wars continue unabated.

When we look objectively at all the promises and all the pledges made during the Presidential campaign and all the new platitudes that have been uttered since, we realize how little has been actually accomplished and from that what we can expect in the future.

We were promised bipartisanship, transparency, and expedient action in correcting the economic crisis we presently find our nation.

On November 5th, 2009, Sen. Barbara Boxer, in a move in direct violation of established Senate rules, conducted a committee meeting and vote to send the Cap and Trade bill out of committee on a 10-1 vote with no Republicans present. By the rules, at least 2 Republicans had to be present for a meeting to be held and a vote taken, but that didn’t seem to matter to the Democrats.

Once again, we see what the Democrats call transparency and bipartisanship.

When Obama and Company attained office they promised a myriad of things:

1. Close Guantanamo terrorist detention camps
2. Fight “Global Warming”
3. Get us out of Iraq
4. Improve our position in Afghanistan
5. Allow homosexuals to serve in the military
6 Come up with comprehensive immigration reform
7. Reform the health care delivery system

So how has our vaunted Nobel Laurite President and his sycophant congress done so far in attaining their objectives?

1. Guantanamo is still open and doing business. The problem with closing it is where do you put the terrorists? Do you bring them here to our shores or do you cut them loose back in their homelands or into a third party country? He doesn’t know.... Congress doesn’t know.... The American people intuitively know that they can’t allow those maniacs onto our shores as the Obama Administration had been planning and allow them access to our court system and to give them the same protections enjoyed by our citizens. Unfortunately, there seems to be an impasse at this point and other more pressing issues to be dealt with so, onto the back burner this issue has gone.

2. First of all: “Global Warming “is trash science. No real comprehensive proof exists to prove that it is real or that the planet is indeed “warming” at all. In fact, average temperatures worldwide have been going down over the last few years. The reason: the solar activity index (the amount of active solar activity such as flairs and discharges from the surface of the sun, sun spots etc.) is lower so the planet is cooling. Unfortunately, Al Gore and his buddy Barack Obama didn’t seem to get the memo nor have with much of the Left. They have bought into the radical eco-movement and now we all face that hideous Cap and Trade legislation which is still awaiting a vote in the Senate.

*Note: Since the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Al Gore has been “MIA”... He hasn’t made a single appearance or major policy statement. Could it be that the coldest winter in a decade has sent the “global warming crowd” to ground? Could be..

3. We are still in Iraq now 10 months after Obama entered office. We will be there at least a year more, until the Iraqi military and police forces have sufficient strength to stand on their own. This is roughly the same timetable the Bush administration had and that was lamented by Obama during his campaign. So much for “Change”....

4. According to former Vice President Richard Cheney, in March of 2008, then candidate Obama was briefed on the situation and strategy for future operations as recommended by the military in Afghanistan and asked the Bush administration to keep mum on the subject. The administration agreed to this as a favor to them but has since been accused of not having a strategy for comprehensive or effective actions in the beleaguered nation. Obama was sent a request by the theater commander requesting an additional 40,000 troops for service there, but that decision has been delayed months in the name of prudence.

I am reminded of a story of a similar force of American soldiers, caught in hostile territory, surrounded by enemies in a little known town in the French Ardennes Forrest, Bastogne.


The 101st Airborne Division was cut off and surrounded by the German army intent on cutting the Allied salient in France as it advanced from Normandy. The Germans were intent on reaching the port of Antwerp, hoping to cut the British and American forces in half and denying the allies the use of the only heavy port facility in the region. The German Ardennes operations didn’t count on the stubborn defense of the road junction in a little known but very strategic town of Bastogne by a lightly armed group of paratroopers and some engineers and light artillery.

The Germans attacked and surrounded the Americans and a pitched battle ensued. As the Germans drove for the coast they completely encircled the town demanding it’s surrender. The General in charge of the defense, Brig. General Anthony McAuliffe sent back the now famous reply: “NUTS!” to the German commander. The battle continued in earnest but the lines held.

General Eisenhower convened a meeting to consider how to relieve the siege of the small French town and its defenders. General George Patton, while attending this meeting, told the joint staff of American and British field commanders that he could stop his advance in the south, turn 90 degrees along his axis of advance and surge his 3rd Army north over 100 miles while still engaged in an active battle and relieve the town. This would require him to move the 4th Armored Division, under the command of General Creighton Abrams (for whom the M-1 Abrams tank is named) from its position, north to relieve the town. This entire effort took place the week before Christmas, 1944 in the worst weather seen in the region in decades.

Why do I recall this battle?

Why do I bring up a battle in a war two generations ago?

I remember this battle because our troops in Afghanistan are in a similar circumstance. Although the Afghans hardly rate the same as the German Wehrmacht, our troops still find themselves surrounded and at risk of attack by a hostile force intent on their destruction. The enemy are not above using suicide bombers and other such tactics of terror. General Stanley McChrystal finds himself and his force needing relief and support, but unlike his predecessor, General McAuliffe, he is getting no support or relief from his boss, Barack Hussein Obama. While the likes of Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton moved heaven and Earth to relive a small French hamlet and its defenders in the dead of winter, surrounded by the enemy, Obama dithers and vacillates. The request for additional troops and support were made months ago, the White House is silent... unresponsive in fact.

What is taking so long?

What possible reason could there be to wait to sent additional troops to secure that country?

There is no reason. Either you have a plan, or some sort of strategy or you don’t. Either you trust your commanders in the field or you don’t. Either you are going to do what is needed to win or you aren’t.

Sixty-five years ago when faced with a similar situation, our military commanders chose to fight and to support those who were fighting. The civilian leadership; Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, gave all their full support to their theater commanders. They didn’t hesitate. They saw our forces in peril and using some personal initiative, skill, and no small amount of just plain old fashioned guts, persevered and succeeded.

Barack Obama and his staff of amateurs are proving just how low we have sunk. They are incapable of making a timely or coherent decision. What’s worse, they admit to not wanting to make a decision soon, because they don’t have a plan. They claim to be rethinking the strategy. That is an unacceptable position to take at this juncture. What has Obama been doing? Has he done nothing visa vie Afghan policy in all this time since attaining his high office? One can only suppose by the delays and deflections that the fate of our troops in Afghanistan don’t mean much to Obama or his minions. He is too busy nationalizing car companies and banks and too busy pushing state controlled health care and running up $1.45 Trillion dollar deficits.

5. Allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military presents many problems; social, religious cultural and disciplinary that are real and serious. Unlike the integration of women and minorities into the greater fighting force, allowing gays to openly serve presents some unique challenges in that the military is predominantly heterosexual and male. The esprit de corps and élan of the military is unique and as such, can’t be viewed the same context as civilian society where one has some freedom to refuse association with that which is objectionable or abhorrent to an individual. The military experience requires an uncommon bond of trust and intimacy of contact between members that is also unique. For military members not to have to deal with the added dynamic of same sex relations in the barracks is both desirable and indeed, necessary if trust and unit cohesion is to be maintained. Fortunately, the administration has not broached the issue. The subject has yet to come up and God willing, it won’t again anytime soon.

6. Immigration reform is also a sore spot with the American people. Many of us who are born here and those of us who have intimate experience with the immigration system in this country recognize that reform is badly needed. The problem is that there is little political will to do what is needed to fix the problem for fear of offending minority groups here and abroad. The weakness of the political establishment on both sides of the aisle is shocking and disappointing. We can’t even build a fence to place a small impediment to those who cross our borders illegally. They refuse to actively pursue and deport illegal aliens. There is even talk of giving amnesty to those who are here illegally. This is giving the criminals a “get out of jail free” card in the game of life that is unacceptable and makes a mockery of the laws we have on the books that so many of us have jumped through. It is sickening and sad that the Administrations, both Republican and Democrat can’t seem to do what needs doing.

7. Health care is seen as a human right by some people. What those people forget is that true rights are given by God to man as a condition of his existence. Doctors treat illness. Medical schools, hospitals, drug companies and medical technology companies train, provide the infrastructure and products to the healer as well as the facilities that care for people. These actions and products are not created by as a consequence of “human rights” but as a commercial service between men and the rest of society. Obama and Company are seeking to change the entire equation by setting up the government as the arbiter of all medical service delivery and compensation in the nation. This “Change” is being facilitated by special interests via government fiat under threat of fines and imprisonment by that government. In spite of enormous objections to this policy, Obama and the liberal democrat congress have passed legislation out of the House of Representatives on November 7th of this year, which will place absolute government control over the most important services provided to any populace, control of life saving medical services. As the bill awaits its turn in the Senate, it seems obvious that most Americans reject the concept of government controlled healthcare, as witnessed by the huge rallies and town hall meetings in opposition. The liberal leadership seems so intent on ramming home this bill regardless of that opposition. We as a people can not allow government bureaucrats the ability to control health care delivery in this country. So far, opposition seems to have thwarted the bills, but it isn’t dead, just stalled. With the election of a Republican to Ted Kennedy’s Senatorial seat in Massachusetts, the Liberal Democrats have been stopped cold. They are now trying to regroup. It is no time to thump chests and declare victory.

We conservatives are in search of a party....

The Republicans have been out-gunned, outmaneuvered and self-destructive over the last 9 years. They abandoned principle in favor of “bipartisanship” when they had the advantage and now find themselves on the outside looking in. By abandoning conservativism in favor of neo-progressive bipartisanship, they became tools of Liberal Democrats. They became indistinguishable from the opposition and thus find themselves out of power and in gross minority status in both houses of congress. The vast majority of people in this country consider themselves more conservative than liberal (40% to 20% according to a recent Gallup poll). Republicans need to take heed of this and pay closer attention to the more conservative elements because they are the dominant force in this country. Conservatives also need to band together and help each other as well. Republican leaders still are not embracing the more grassroots movements that have come into being in the last year. The TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party movement has literally put millions into the streets of America, including over 1.5 million into the streets in Washington D.C. on 9/12/2009. They are a serious force to be reckoned with.

Perhaps, this time, the Republicans will get it together and do what they are supposed to do and truly listen to the nation.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Obama's pittiful attempt to "cut the budget"

Today, the Obama administration announced a freeze on government spending for non-defense related spending. DOD, Veterans affairs, Homeland Security and “certain foreign aid programs” would be exempted from the freeze as would most off budget items like Social Security, Medicare and most entitlement programs. This pitiful joke, Obama’s only recent attempt to even curb spending in any measurable way, will only reduce spending approximately $15 billion dollars next year when the Federal Government is projected to spend $1.3 to $1.4 TRILLION dollars more than is being raised in taxes. All this deficit spending will have to be borrowed from private equity markets and from overseas sources like China, Russia, Europe and elsewhere. This is assuming of course that they will buy the T-Bills and finance the debt....

Clearly, Obama and Company are not serious about cutting spending nor are they serious about deficit reduction if 90% of government spending is not subject to the freeze. The whole “freeze” will result in a savings of perhaps $150 billion over 10 years, a pittance when trillions are being spent. The scale of this savings is equivalent to a person saving $1.50 when you are spending $1500.00 more than you have available; a pitiful fraction of the total debt for next year. The fact that he and the Democrats who control the government think this is significant makes it all the more egregious. It also shows that Obama and the Liberal Democrats are not serious about any attempt to curb spending. If this is the best they could come up with, then they are a pathetic group indeed.

If the Democrats were truly serious, this action should have been done when Obama entered office last year. It should have included all programs and departments (except Defense) and every department in government should have been ordered to cut spending and some should have been done away with altogether, like the Department of Education.
Every agency in government should be ordered to justify it’s existence and if it is redundant or duplicated at the state level or within another federal agency, then it should be done away with. The entire federal government could be scaled back as much as 10% immediately and more as redundant and superfluous departments and agencies were shut down or scaled back.

Another way to reduce costs is to decentralize the geographical locations of federal agencies away from the D.C. metropolitan area which would reduce the costs to the government by relocating agencies and departments to areas that are less expensive to operate from. The state of the art in communications and computer technology make this more than possible. This would also have the added effect of increasing the quality of life of the staff and reducing commutes, reducing the living costs of staff and reducing the costs of operations for the agency by utilizing existing commercial space in other locations versus using that may actually cost more to operate from. As most federal agencies and departments are located within the 50 miles of Washington D.C., relocation would have the added benefit of reducing traffic and reducing the need to build additional roads and reduce stress on the transportation infrastructure, and would reduce overall energy consumption. Relocating all but the most senior department and agency heads from the D.C. are would also allow for lower payrolls as the costs of living in other areas are generally lower than what most staffers are experiencing while living in northern Virginia or southern Maryland.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

The latest outrage...Forcing You to buy T-Bills....

Today the Federal Imperium will raise the debt limit once again 1.9 TRILLION dollars.

That’s one thousand, nine hundred billion dollars.....

Has the Obama administration and the Pelosi/Reid Congress lost their collective minds?

Have any of you out there realized that every penny of this money must be borrowed, that the Treasury of the United States must go out and act like Dickens character Oliver Twist, hold out their alms bowl and ask the world “Please sir, may I have some more?”

How humiliating....

How pathetic...

How utterly irresponsible.

His Majesty Obama and the Imperial Congress have spent more money than any administration and congress, or set themselves up to exercise the ability to spend more money in less time than any group of individuals has ever done in the history of mankind.

There is an interesting question that needs to be asked and answered, however.

With our largest creditors like China, the Arab oil monarchies and Russia divesting themselves of holdings in dollars, the question begs, who is going to lend us the money?

Who is going to buy all those T-Bills?

Back in 1994, the Clinton Administration floated (leaked) a plan to force private pensions to give up their cash by forcing them to buy T-bills instead of private securities. They were going to, in effect, force them to buy government securities. Now it looks like that plan, which Clinton abandoned, may be on the table again.

With the world looking at U.S. Government debt instruments as so many junk bonds, rumors persist that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid may be after your pension funds. They may be setting the stage to rape the cash from your 401K’s and your other private pension savings (IRA’s or other plans) and use the power of the Federal Government to force them to give them the cash for T-Bills.

How would you like that?

How would you like to be forced to buy federal debt that other world governments won’t buy because they don’t trust our government and its financial policies?

What excuse will they use?

They will use the excuse that they love and care about you and they want to they want you to have a “guaranteed stream” of income and that T-bills are a great investments and that they are going to “ensure” that you get a great return on your plans by requiring private plans to contain a percentage of T-bills into their private portfolios. The question is what the percentages will be and when it will happen. The word on the street is that the plan will happen prior to the 2010 midterm elections.

Why you may ask?

Because the Democrat leaders know that in November, 2010 the real possibility exists that they will loose so many seats in the congress that they will be unable to force such a measure through like they are attempting to do with the health care bills.

So... How is that “Hope” and “Change” looking for you now?




Thursday, January 14, 2010

Let slip the bought dogs of special privilege..

And the beat goes on......

President Obama and his buddies keep up the pretense of being reasoned and “fair”, yet they are anything but...

The latest outrage is the corrupt deal that has been hatched to exempt union healthcare benefits from the tax on so-called “Cadillac Healthcare Plans”. So, what are “Cadillac” plans? They are plans that have a particularly high level of coverage or coverage for things that are not traditionally covered by most plans. These plans may have high payouts for catastrophic illness or injury. They may have coverage for thing like hospice or long term care, or may have riders that cover some cosmetic and reconstructive surgeries that most plans don’t usually cover.

If an employer or an individual person buys one of these plans on their own, then President Obama and the Liberal Democrats, in their warped sense of egalitarianism, see this as a patently unfair act and thus worthy of taxation. So, if you as an employer, or you as a private individual decide to cover yourself or your employees with one of these plans; if you see fit to provide or purchase one of these plans for you or yours because you want to ensure that they have the highest, most comprehensive coverage possible as a perk of your employment(incentive) or as a way on ensuring your own maximum level of health and wellness, you are somehow exercising an injustice against society, that you are being unfair or greedy or evil.

That is unless you are a member of the protected classes: labor unions who have won these kinds of benefits through collective bargaining (extortion) with businesses who employ union members. Why do they get a pass? Why are they being given exemption from this most heinous tax? Shouldn’t people who attempt to cover themselves, their families, and those who cover their non-union workers be lauded for their attempts to provide the best coverage possible? Why is it that the Liberal Democrats want to punish those folks but are willing to exempt so-called trade unions?

That’s an easy one.....

The Liberal Democrats in Congress and the White House, lead by President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid are paying back their union buddies for all the support they were given during the election and for what support they will get in the future. In other words, they are showing themselves to be the bought dogs of “special interests” above and beyond any level ever seen. As this is being written, the leaders of the autoworkers union, SEIU and the AFL/CIO are meeting with members of the White House and will be meeting with congressional leaders later to hammer out those ill-gotten exemptions. To those non-union members who voted for Obama and Co. and who have coverage by one of these policies, all I can say is: Oh, ye suckers!!

Then there is as onerous tax on medical equipment and prosthetics. Taxing a person for their wheelchair or for their CPAP machine or nebulizer is a truly heinous thing, yet the Liberal Democrats are including such a tax in the new healthcare reform plan.

So we have a plan that taxes granny’s wheelchair and oxygen tank, or Uncle Phil’s prosthetic arm, or my CPAP machine. So in short, we get to watch the allies of the Liberal Democratic Party get spoils and pay-offs for past and future support at the expense of the rest of the nation, and we get to see taxes on medical necessities. All of this is being done to you, the average hard working American. All this is being cobbled together, negotiated and formulated behind closed doors in the basement of the nation’s capitol, or in the back offices of the west wing without any input from anyone but the Liberal Democrats and their sycophants and fellow travelers. It was supposed to be a “transparent” process, a bipartisan process, all done before the CSPAN cameras so we, the People, could see it. This is what His Majesty Obama had promised many, many, times. So far, there has been nothing... not one hour’s worth of video showing the negotiations. There has ben no bipartisanship. Indeed, they ‘loyal opposition’ have been totally shut out of the process.

So much for his promises...

So much for Hope and Change.....

Saturday, January 9, 2010

James Carville on Full-Body scans...."Tape measure anyone?"

I want to thank James Carville, Democratic Apologist Extraordinaire, and political gadfly for his remarks Friday on WTEM’s Tony Kornheiser Show. In the contentious national and international debate over Full-body scans of airline passengers, Mr. Carville provided one of the most sophomorically humorous, yet “real” remarks on the subject.

Mr. Carville, an advocate of the full-body scan, said that if the screeners were so inclined, the were free to take a measurement of a certain intimate anatomical appendage that only he, his wife, Republican Apologist Extraordinaire Mary Matalin, and perhaps his personal physician should be familiar with. To say that I was surprised by this would be an understatement. I was so taken aback that I replayed the remark a couple of times just to be sure I heard it correctly. Much to my chagrin, I had.

The man lacks class and decorum necessary for a serious T.V. audience or to be part of a national discourse on a major issue involving the health and safety of millions of flyers worldwide, not to mention people on the ground....

Then I thought about it again, and smiled...

It WAS an absurd, course, tasteless and completely inappropriate remark. But it was a funny, funny remark, in a Lenny Bruce / Richard Pryor sort of way.

So lighten up people. Take it in the spirit that was intended and then consider the source.