REAL FEDERALISM NOW

Just in case you forgot...

2011-06-06T13:31:00.000-04:00

The following are 20 ways that the U.S. economy has gotten even worse since Barack Obama became president....
#1 In January 2009, the official U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. Today it is 9.1 percent.
#2 When Barack Obama took office, the number of "long-term unemployed" in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number is up to 6.2 million.
#3 When Barack Obama first became president, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $1.83. Today it is $3.79. This also affects the price of almost everything else that we buy.
#4 In April 2009, the average U.S. household spent approximately $201 on gasoline. In April 2011, the average U.S. household spent approximately $369 on gasoline.
#5 According to an article in the Daily Mail, the cost of a Memorial Day cookout was 29 percent higher this year than it was last year.
#6 When Barack Obama was sworn in, there were nearly 32 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are more than 44 million on food stamps.
#7 According to the U.S. Census, the number of children living in poverty has gone up by about 2 million in just the past 2 years.
#8 When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars. Today it is 14.3 trillion dollars.
#9 The federal government has borrowed 29,660 more dollars per household since Barack Obama signed the economic stimulus law two years ago.
#10 During Barack Obama's first two years in office, the U.S. government added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.
#11 The combined debt of the major GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae) has increased from 3.2 trillion in 2008 to 6.4 trillion in 2011. Thanks to George W. Bush, Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress, U.S. taxpayers are standing behind that debt.
#12 Under Obama, the U.S. trade deficit continues to grow. The trade deficit was about 33 percent larger in 2010 than it was in 2009, and the 2011 trade deficit is expected to be even bigger.
#13 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.
#14 Just since August, 2 million more Americans have left the labor force.
#15 In 2010, more than a million U.S. families lost their homes to foreclosure for the first time ever, and that number is expected to go even higher in 2011.
#16 The U.S. real estate crisis just continues to get worse. During the first three months of this year, less new homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period ever recorded.
#17 The U.S. dollar has fallen by 17 percent compared to other major national currencies since 2009.
#18 Faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries is rapidly declining. The mainstream news is not reporting on it much, but right now the Chinese are rapidly dumping U.S. government debt. That is not a good sign.
#19 When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850. Today an ounce of gold costs about $1500.
#20 Americans seem to be more pessimistic about the economy than ever. According to a brand new poll, 61 percent of Americans believe that they will not return to their "pre-recession" lifestyles until at least 2014.

EPA catagorizes a new hazzard to the environment: MILK!!!!

2011-02-02T18:58:00.002-05:00

I am not making this up…

The Manderins in Washington have truly lost their minds and have once again demonstrated that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing and a little bit of power is a catastrophe in the making…

The EPA has gone from defender of the environment and guardian against industrial pollution to a repository of inane and banal individuals with far too much power and too much time on their hands to abuse that power.

Not content to rail against BP and oil slicks in the Gulf of Mexico, they have a new target to focus on: Bossy the cow…..

In a regulatory move reminiscent of the prohibition on sales of peanuts in Lee County, Alabama, (after sundown on Wednesday’s), our federal government has now come up with laws on spilled milk. EPA has decided that since milk contains a low density "oil" in the form of lipids (fats), it has the authority to force farmers and the dairy industry as a whole, to comply with a host of new regulations: to file "emergency management" plans to show how they will cope with spilled milk, and how farmers will train "first responders" and build "containment facilities" if there is a flood of spilled milk. The question is now, what is the “threshold” of where one must comply with these new regulations?

At the moment, it seems to be concentrated on industrial sized operations but as we all know, there is always "mission creep" when government agencies are involved and people are looking to justify their exorbitant paychecks. The mind boggles at the possibilities…..

I can see the newspapers now……

“EPA sent enforcement teams to the Parker Elementary School in response to reports of spilled milk in the lunch room. Students were evacuated by EMS personnel and HAZMAT teams summoned to contain and clean up the spill. School district officials were cited for child endangerment and violation of federal law as it relates to control of potentially hazardous materials.”

“Joe Snerdly, local dairy farmer, was fined for tripping over and spilling a bucket of milk and not reporting it to federal officials and for not having an “action plan” in place to contain the spill. Local authorities were summoned (at great expense…) to survey the environmental impact of the spilling of less than 1 liter of this toxic substance. Officials were unavailable for comment pending a revised Environmental Impact Study.”

But all this begs the question… Will this law be limited to a particular species ?? What happens if other species can be covered by this law other than just bovines?

I can see the news reports now…..

“Mildred Smith, 20, of Kalamazoo, was arrested today for creating a hazardous work environment when she inadvertently discharged breast milk at her place of work today…. Ms. Smith, the mother of a 2 month old girl, allowed a small amount of fluid to discharge from her person forcing an immediate evacuation of the building and response by EMS and HAZMAT teams. The quantity of discharge was reported minimal, but given the discharge contained lipids that are a naturally occurring oils, the response was deemed necessary by EPA officials”

“The US Navy, in response to EPA regulations governing toxic discharges from ships at sea in and about the coastal waters of the United States, has forbidden sailors to “relive themselves in a sexual manner” due to the danger to the ecosystem and to the ship’s environment. This addition to naval regulations was instituted when EPA ruled that since male semen contains a substance known as Prostaglandin, a fatty acid substance which makes up a major portion of male seminal fluid, officers and men deployed either ashore or afloat are hereby instructed not to discharge seminal fluids into the shipboard environment or to allow untreated discharges into the open sea. Violations of this regulation are punishable under the UCMJ and under federal environmental regulations….”

“Los Angeles County officials have raided several San Fernando Valley locations known to be production sites of adult entertainment in an effort to curb the unchecked and unregulated discharges of toxic substances like male semen and female lactations. Concerns by EPA officials have nothing to do with the potential biotoxin levels but center on concerns that such discharges in vast quantities as are commonly generated in the multi-billion dollar porn industry, might create the potential for Exxon Valdez sized “ slicks” should these discharges reach the open ocean….”

The absurdity of Washington knows no bounds…….

Gov. Mike Huckabee and "Standing by" Mubarak.... Is this the smart play???

2011-02-02T18:54:00.002-05:00

I like Mike Huckabee.

I think of all the potential 2012 Republican challengers for the office of President, I like this former Governor of Arkansas the most.

He seems a kind, thoughtful, and ethical man. He has the folksy charm typical of most southern politicians.   The down-home congeniality and the seeming complete lack of guile engender a certain sense of well-being reminiscent of the feeling one gets from an indulgent uncle or even father figure.

But there lies the rub……

If Gov. Huckabee runs for President, he will face many complex challenges. The stagnate world economy, the burgeoning federal budget deficit, Islamofascism and terrorism, not to mention the rise of multi-national threats from places like Russia , North Korea, the emerging leftist powers in Central and South America, and the growing angst over the debt, jobs and the economy here in America. These and the multitude of other issues old and new will task any President as no previous President has ever been tasked before. He will have to show clarity of purpose, strength of character and a near maniacal attention to the details as none of his predecessors have ever had to demonstrate. As unfair as it seems, he will have to be all things to all people. All this begs the question: Does he have the gravitas for the job?

This week we have seen our most important ally in North Africa, Egypt, come apart at the seams. The regime of President Hosni Mubarak seems to be coming to an ignominious and violent end just as the regime of Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s did two weeks ago in the wake of riots over food prices and availability, and lack of economic opportunity.

President Mubarak was successor to Anwar Sadat, whose exit from power thirty years ago was precipitated by his own military who gunned him down during a military parade. Since the assassination of Sadat, peace has reigned between Israel, Egypt and the Kingdom of Jordan. Mubarak has honored the Camp David Treaty and has been helpful in other areas of Mideast security and cooperation. As consequence Egypt receives massive quantities of American foreign aid as a premium. That aid, in the form of out-rights cash grants and loan guarantees, has amounted to tens of billions of taxpayer dollars over the last three decades.

Foreign policy isn’t without its challenges and like family; we have very little choice as to who we can entreat. Many of the players are not the most savory of characters, but we must deal with them none the less, like them or not. Occasionally, we get lucky and have a meeting of the minds (and souls) like the relationship between Britain and America and pairings like Churchill and Roosevelt or Thatcher and Reagan. Other times, it’s much the opposite. Countries like North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran present great challenges and their leadership offers little in the way of cooperation or dialog. Then there are those who may be somewhat cooperative and capable of working in common cause, but their internal politics are diametrically different from our own. This is the dynamic we find in most of the world and in particular, what we find in the Islamic world. Most nations there are, to be blunt, dictatorships that may don the façade of “democracy” but fail to practice its precepts to any great degree. Some are hereditary monarchies who treat their countries as a “family business” and their people as vassals or if they are lucky, as dependents with little or no say in the affairs of state.

In an article published in the Jerusalem Post on February 2. 2011, Gov. Huckabee, when questioned on the events in Egypt and of the position President Mubarak found himself in, said “…it is going to be incumbent upon the US to reassure its allies that there is not going to be a consistency of abandonment when it comes to difficulty and troubles that a nation might face.” While a laudable position, one has to question its wisdom, or just how far the Governor would go in “reassuring"’ allies

The U.S. has relationships with many countries around the world and it would be safe to say, the internal politics and legal standards in most of them fall far short of what we in the U.S. would consider just or fair. Many nations are ruled by juntas, cabals, Presidents-for-life, or single party dictatorships.   While we espouse freedom, democratic values, and the rule of law, we end up doing business with those who care little for such lofty principles. Egypt is one such country.
President Mubarak has not played by the rules. He has violated the Egyptian Constitution and held office far longer than the law allows. He has ruled by edict at times and has banned any opposition political parties within Egypt. We in America do business with him because it serves our purposes to do so and peace is kept in a place where peace is scarce. It allowed a valued ally, Israel, to live without fear of invasion from its southern flank for over 30 years.
Unfortunately, this situation has come at a significant cost.

America made the calculation that we had to support an autocrat in order to maintain the peace.

America can’t and should not make a practice of pledging to “stand by” such regimes if their internal politics are such that they create the seeds or their own destruction. If we are to be true to ourselves and to the principles we so vociferously espouse to the world, we have to be more vocal and more insistent on certain standards of behavior from those we ally ourselves. We have to be up front with the world and with the people of those nations we do business with. We must tell them that while we may sympathize with their plight, we can’t and won’t interfere in the internal politics of any nation.     Far too often America has intervened and far too often we have been left in a worse position in the wake of that intervention. Iran is one such country.   In the 1950’s America instigated a coup (Operation Ajax) against the lawfully elected government and backed the autocratic rule of Shah Reza Pahlavi for three decades that followed until he himself was deposed by an even more autocratic and decidedly unfriendly regime to American interests. The people of Iran have long memories. They will more likely than not eschew re-establishment of anything resembling normal diplomatic or commercial relations with us again, at least for the foreseeable future This is one of many examples of just how badly this nation has calculated consequences for our actions.

Gov. Huckabee’s statement that we should stand by our allies is a laudable sentiment, but it should be tempered with a very strong, public equivocation that while we will honor agreements made and stand by the concept of peace between nations and the precept of defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations, no particular promise of fidelity or fraternity can or should be made to individual leaders or their governments, especially those who violate the very precepts freedom, liberty and self-determination that we in America hold dear.   We should not place the honor of our nation at risk by giving more than the most cursory amount of consideration necessary to do business with any country that abuses the rights of its people. To do so marks us hypocrites. It opens us up to internal and external ridicule over “human rights”.   It also creates situations like what we face with Iran who has now become a major military and foreign policy concern.

Gov. Huckabee needs to show less “Dutch uncle” and more adamance; a more pronounced line of reasoning in regard to relations with other counties.   He also needs to craft his statements to reflect that reasoning, especially when it concerns leaders and governments whose practices and internal dynamics are so decidedly different from our own. Egypt may be an ally as far as regional security is concerned, but America needs to take a more hands-off approach to the internal situation there. We have to let the people of Egypt know that we in America will do nothing to stifle their desires to force reform within their country and that while we look on with concern at the violence and pray for the safety and well being of the people of Egypt, it is a situation that only they themselves can solve. They must chart a path that is in their best interests and that when they are ready and if they are willing, we here in America will honor the agreements we have made with their country and work with whatever government they choose. We can’t afford more Iran’s……

My two cents on the Florida Obamacare ruling

2011-02-01T20:03:00.000-05:00

In the wake of the decision by Judge Rodger Vinson yesterday to strike down “Obamacare”, or if you prefer, “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, Public Law No. 111-148, I find myself wanting to join in and throw my two cents worth into the maelstrom of comment and thought on this huge yet very simple issue.

Simple in that it is not really about “Affordable Care” at all. In spite of what the Mandarins in Washington say on the issue, this law is really about the exercise of power; nothing more and certainly nothing less.

The nation was given a great gift by the Hon. Roger Vinson: A truly well thought out and sound legal decision based on rule of law and not on emotional tirades or blatant liberal bleating from activists in the public or private sector.

We were also treated not only to great legal and political theater, but to great statesmanship from the bench as well. It all began in the first few lines of the decision when Judge Vinson quoted James Madison in Federalist Papers, specifically Federalist 51, where he said:

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself”.

And so began what was to become in essence and in fact, a civics primer. One who’s material, substance, and spirit should have been familiar to the 111th Congress who passed this law in the first place as well as to the President who signed it into law, but was plainly found lacking in spite of the massive objections of most of the American people.

Not content with simply quoting one of the founding fathers of this nation, Judge Vincent then went into a tireless study of case law going back to Marbury v. Madison in 1803 to present day case law.

The issues in contention were wide ranging. They included but were not limited to the individual mandate, Medicaid funding, the standing of plaintiffs, and to Severability.

The individual mandate has been by far, the single biggest issue due to the government's contention that it is enforceable under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. In his decision, Judge Vinson stated,

"Never before has Congress required that everyone buy a product from a private company (essentially for life) just for being alive and residing in the United States."

Until the “New Deal” was instituted in the 1930’s the Commerce Clause was understood to exist as a way to keep the several states from creating trade and commercial barriers between themselves. This understanding was violated when the Roosevelt Administration coerced the Supreme Court to expand that interpretation during the initial days of the “New Deal”. This was accomplished by threatening to “pack the court” with new, more sympathetic judges who would allow nearly everything the Executive Branch and the Democratic-controlled Congress wanted. The then chastised and weakened Supreme Court inflated the clause into a general license for anything a majority party happened to favor.

Now we find ourselves with a law even more sweeping and more dangerous to the nation than the “New Deal” of the 1930’s. Not only is it dangerous to individual freedom and the concept of Federalism, but to the very survival of limited government in this republic. If this law were to stand, the precedent would be set and there would be literally no restraint on what the federal government could compel and command a citizen or private enterprise to do. Simply put, the government could, by fiat, or by regulation, demand that a private person or enterprise enter into contracts or engage in commerce as it deemed necessary. For example, should a majority of Congress and a President decide that electric vehicles are necessary to the preservation of a clean environment and demand that all automobile owners replace their internal combustion powered vehicles with electric vehicles as they are used in, and necessary to interstate commerce. In another example, they could make it obligatory to sell housing, even at prices below cost, to the homeless by the simple expedient of declaring homelessness a detriment to interstate commerce. The legal contortions are literally limitless and yet frighteningly real when one considers the thousands of laws that are passed in hundreds of jurisdictions nationwide.

Judge Vinson’s ruling brings all this and more into stark relief and hopefully, in the coming months and not years as some predict, this law will be permanently sent to the ash heap of history; a cautionary lesson in just how close we came to destroying our own nation and the freedoms we enjoy.

Gov. Brown of California fails to Govern... Uses Egypt riots to force fiscal policy

2011-02-01T14:34:00.000-05:00

From the Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2011,

"Citing the pro-democracy unrest in Egypt and Tunisia, Gov. Jerry Brown called it “unconscionable” that GOP legislators are vowing to block his attempt to ask voters to extend tax hikes to balance the budget.
“When democratic ideals and calls for the right to vote are stirring the imagination of young people in Egypt and Tunisia and other parts of the world, we in California can’t say now is the time to block a vote of the people,” Brown said in his first State of the State address in nearly 30 years".

Only a man known as "Gov. Moonbeam" could justify a tax hike from riots half a world away.... The ousting of a dictator in Egypt is hardly justification to confiscate more personal wealth. The real justification for this action is that California's legislature lacks the discipline or the personal honor to do what is right and proper which is to cut taxes and cut expenses to help jump start their economy and to preserve the job base.

Here in Virginia, we bit the bullet and massively cut expenses and taxes. We audited departments of government in order to have an understanding where the money went and how it was spent. As a result of this enlightened, conservative approach, hundreds of millions were found and people in charge were held accountable and we now have a budget surplus of several hundred million dollars to show for the effort.

As further consequence of this proper fiscal attitude, Virginia also has the highest bond rating of any state in the nation, while California sits at the bottom, with only Illinois ranking lower.

Are we in Virginia better than those in California? Are we some kind of superior species to those on the left coast? It is hard not to think so when we see the just how badly things are being done in the so-called "Golden State", and just how inane the political leadership is acting.

One thing more..... No bailouts for California- EVER!!! Your collective hubris got you there and your corrupt, "bought dog" leadership is keeping you there and we in the rest of the country will not readily consent to pay for your irresponsibility. Not now.... Not ever... Sic Semper Tyranis!!

The vote to repeal Obamacare is NOT a waste !!

2011-01-20T13:11:00.000-05:00

One of my liberal friends has said that this vote to repeal the Obamacare law was a waste of time and all a big show... I told him something that he certainly didn't agree with or want to hear.

It's a strategic move to have this vote even if it doesn't pass (and as it turns out, it did...).

The issue is important to both sides and the vote "pins down" legislators... It forces them to declare themselves (one way or the other) on the issue and when the heat gets worse, as more and more Americans begin to object to Obamacare, and they try and equivocate, they will get burned... Their vote will be "on the record" and they won't be able to dodge the bullet...

The vast majority want this law overturned now and they (the political class) know it. By forcing the vote and passing the bill in the House, the ball is now firmly in the Senate's court. If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ignores the call for a vote, if he refuses even to debate the issue, there will be hell to pay... Currently, in 2012, the Democrats are expected to have 23 seats up for election, including 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats, The Republicans are expected to have 10 seats up for election. Based on the results from the last election, the Democrats lost far more than the Republicans. If the issues are the same in 2012 (and I believe they will be...) and the Democrats become the "Party of NO" by denying debate and votes on bills in the Senate. Then the Dems will suffer for it badly, possibly even worse than they did this last go around. Also, there is the issue of redistricting which will also make re-election for Obama or for any Democrat in 2012 more difficult. So, in short, it isn't pointless.

Victory is not measured just in clear wins in floor votes, but in what potential damage can be done to the opposition long term. Having worked in several campaigns, you learn those things...

It's political jujitsu...

A set of ideas who's time has come ....again

2010-11-24T14:49:00.004-05:00

In a November 24th article by Jennifer Epstein in Polititico, Gov. Bobby Jindal made a rather impassioned statement on the merits of part time legislatures. In this article, he proposed not only making legislatures part time, but argued for term limits and restrictions on lobbying for current and former legislators.

Here is the comment I made on the Politico article:

Gov. Jindal has the right of it!!

Many state legislatures are part time, sitting only for a few months a year then adjourning.

Here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, our session begins in January and ends by March and the rest of the time, the representatives have real jobs in the real world with a few official meetings thrown in from time to time and the occasional special session should something unexpected occur. They have to live in their districts and with the consequences of their actions, facing the home folks most of the time. There is no place to hide, no way to dodge the consequences… There is no “bubble”.

It is an interesting fact that states with part time legislatures seem to have fewer budget problems than those with full time legislatures. Cases in point: Virginia, West Virginia, Connecticut, Montana and North Dakota all have budget surpluses and all are blessed with part time legislatures. The states and territories with full time legislatures like D.C., Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California all have massive deficits or serious budgetary problems.

Although hardly proof positive, it is an interesting trend that states with smaller “citizen legislators” seem to be more fiscally conservative and more economically run than those places where there is a full time “political class” at work all the time.

Perhaps there is a lesson for the denizens of Washington D.C in this.

The venerable and well respected journalist David Brinkley once lamented that western civilization, or at the very least, American democracy began its decline when air conditioning was installed in government buildings such as the Capitol Building and the White House, as well as other governmental edifices in the 1930’s thus allowing the legislature, the executive branch and government bureaucracy at large to remain in the nations capitol through the hot, humid and patently unpleasant summers typical of the upper Chesapeake. With this bit of alleged progress, the “powers that be” could continue to work through the languid summer days and nights, turning out ever more rules, regulations and laws and spending ever increasing amounts of taxpayer money. Conversely, they spent fewer and fewer days back home among those they supposedly represented, safe within “the bubble” from the slings and arrows of the home folks, appearing only to fund raise and run for re-election.

Yes, indeed, the Governor of Louisiana has it right. It is time for legislators to return home and live like the rest of us… Perhaps common sense will return when they do.

All Hail Obama Rex!!!

2010-09-09T15:45:00.003-04:00

It seems congratulations are in order for the honorable Barrack Hussein Obama, President of the United States.
This salute comes in honor of an achievement unparalleled in the history of our republic and indeed, the entire world. He has presided over a milestone event that the first 40 men who have held the illustrious office of President of the United States could not claim to have reached.

What, pray you ask, could it be that the "Anointed One" has done to warrant this notice?

It seems that our Commandante and Chief and those who serve his cause to bring "Hope" and "Change" to the masses and to "fundamentally transform America," have another achievement to celebrate. Having seized control of two largest automobile makers in the country, and having nationalized the health care delivery system in a legislative coup d'etat, they now can now add this little gem to their list of accomplishments....

According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, in the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 TRILLION dollars, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan. When President Reagan left office in 1989, the total federal debt held by the public (you, me, financial institutions, foreign governments, etc.) was $2.1907 TRILLION dollars. This number comes from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. In short, that means all U.S. presidents from Washington through Reagan accumulated only that much publicly held debt on behalf of American taxpayers. That's $335.3 billion less than the $2.5260 TRILLION dollars that was added to the federal debt held by the public just between Jan. 20, 2009, when" The Annointed One" was inaugurated (coronated?), and to think, August 20, 2010 will be the 19-month anniversary of Obama's inauguration.... It is truly an amazing thing!

Of course, being the competent, responsible administrator that he is, he did what all others in his position seem to do when confronted with the product of their poor stewardship of the nation's finances- he danced. In a style unparalleled since the days that Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire graced the silver screen, Obama did a "Potomac Two-Step" that would have made those old hoofers proud.

His claims about how he was and is "investing in America", that his "Stimulus Plan," which by itself added $787 billion to the debt, was the only thing that could be done, was necessary to save the country. The problem was and remains that the hemorrhage of cash has not just continued.... It has increased by order of magnitude!

Let's review:

AIG, the failed insurance and investment house received nearly $70 billion in bailout dollars.
Citibank Group and Bank of America receive $5 billion
General Motors and Chrysler received over $140 billion that they claim to have paid back but really haven't
Auto Industry Financing Program received $78 billion but has paid back less than half their "loan"
Bank bailouts via the Capitol Purchase program cost us $205 billion but less than half has been paid back
The Making Homes Affordable Program was given $27 billion, but that cash sits in lenders vaults unused for the most part because lenders are scared to loan it due to the present state of the economy, and the general tight lending standards that are being applied now in the wake of the Housing market meltdown.

These are just a few of the ways that congress and your President are running up the tab. The only problem is that someday someone will have to pick up the check and pay the toll.
And if all else fails and the whole rotten, corrupt mess falls to pieces, he can do one of the other time-honored practices of the Washington establishment….
He can blame Bush.

Obama slams Arizona before the world

2010-08-30T18:53:00.006-04:00

The outrage that is Barrack Obama’s Presidency continues as his internationalist streak once again rears its ugly head and overrides his sacred duties and responsibilities as President of the United States.

In what can be seen only as a tragically flawed act to appease the worst players on the international scene, the Obama Regime has created a report for release to the United Nations Human Rights Council. This particular group is charged with determining the level of compliance and actions of member states to principles established decades ago when the U.N. began weighing in on the concept of “human rights”. The problem with this concept is that the membership of this sub-group contain many of the worst offenders of “human rights” and make no attempts to adhere to the basic principles or concepts of “humane treatment” as defined in the U.N. Charter. In deed, many give only lip service to the concept.

Cases in point are Cuba, The People’s Republic of China, and Egypt. And yet another, Saudi Arabia; a theocratic monarchy that treats women as chattel property with virtually no rights to property or to due process of law. Many members are military dictatorships or quasi-democracies with single party rule. Truly they are fine examples to sit in judgment on the conduct of others when it comes to the rule of law and the fair and equitable treatment of people. The United State in 2007, disgusted by the hypocritical, anti-Semitic, and anti-American stances taken over the years, formally withdrew from the council, electing to just “observe” their activities. The Obamanites in the Department of State have now decided to re-apply for full membership. Not content with just sitting down with the bad actors on the council, the Obama Administration has decided to prostrate our nation before them. They are issuing a self-deprecating and demeaning report about the state of human rights in America. But the main item on this report is what makes it especially egregious.

The Regime has decided to give the actions of the State of Arizona top billing in their mea culpa opus to the U.N. Not content with abrogating their responsibilities to the citizens of this county, the Obama Regime has decided to bring ridicule and derision upon the sovereign State of Arizona and her people for daring to enforce existing federal immigration policy at the state and local level.

Arizona Senate Bill 1070, or SB-1070, was a bill passed by the Arizona legislature and signed into law by that state’s Governor, Jan Brewer. This was done in response to the utter lack of action on the part of federal authorities to curb the rampant illegal alien invasion of our southern border. Not only is illegal immigration an issue, but human trafficking and drug smuggling are also pandemic in the borderlands of the southwestern United States. The federal government has been completely derelict in its duty to secure the border, and the states in that region have been demanding action. Not content to just sit by and be invaded and victimized by drug cartel criminals, Arizona drafted then passed this bipartisan law that was a virtual mirror image of the federal immigration statutes with some additional language that permitted the local and state police to question the immigration status of any person they reasonable believed to be here illegally.

The usual suspects, Hispanic nationalist groups like “La Raza” (which means “The Race” in Spanish…) and others like the ACLU saw this bill primarily as racist. Their reasoning ran the gamut: the law was an infringement of federal powers and was essentially racist in nature; specifically, that it was designed to target Latinos only and that it would lead to racial profiling and harassment. Even though the law was drafted specifically prohibiting such activity, the leftist elites went to war against Arizona and Governor Brewer for daring to put the spurs to the feds over their inept action on immigration.

The Obama Regime, never content to let a crisis go to waste, mobilized the Legal Commissars in the Justice Department to file suite in Federal District Court to block the new law. They were successful in getting a court injunction of the major enforcement provisions of the law that required police to make inquiries of a person’s immigration status. This will likely put the law on track for review by the Supreme Court.

Arizona and her people are being held up to the world for official international review and criticism thanks to the Obamanites. I know of no other time in our nation’s history when a sitting governor, state, or state law has ever been held up to ridicule on the international stage, especially to likes of Communist China, Russia, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia who sit on the Human Rights Counsel, and the other paragons of virtue that make up the United Nations as a whole. It is a travesty unlike any that has ever been perpetrated before by the federal government.

It is unfortunate that our President lacks the character or propriety to even see this as the affront it is to the nation as a whole and to Arizona in particular. That American diplomats that are supposed to serve the interests of our nation are so shallow and so banal as to have even drafted such a document shows just how far we have fallen in such a short time.

Not content with bankrupting the treasury of the nation or nationalizing huge sectors of our economy, Obama now wishes to see the nation brought low and made a mockery of; a target ridicule before the entire world community, shredding our only real capitol in the world- our moral authority.

Mark Halprin/Time magazine ask for Republicans to "do the right thing..."

2010-08-16T14:10:00.002-04:00

I find it interesting Mark Halperin of Time magazine says that Republicans should "Do the right thing" when it is the Muslim community that should be asked to do so.... But then again, it seems the aggrieved are always asked to be tolerant and understanding. It has been a one way street in that regard. The only thing I agree with the author here is that Conservatives/Republicans don't need to bang the drum on this. Obama and his Progressive sycophant friends in New York are digging their own graves and the Muslim community will continue to demonstrate that their cultural norms and practices are incompatible with western norms of behavior and tolerance. If the Islamic community had any sense of decency, they would never have even considered this site as a place to put their Mosque/cultural center. I recall a similar issue occurring in Poland. In 1984 Cardinal Macharski, archbishop of Cracow, announced the establishment of a Carmelite convent in Auschwitz in a building on the camp periphery which had originally been a theater but was utilized during World War II to store the poison gas used in the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria. Needless to say, Jewish survivors and the Jewish community at large objected to this on similar grounds as 9/11 families and survivors – that it is completely inappropriate, unwanted and out of context with the nature and history of the location and what it meant to those who survived the camps and the families of those who died there. Needless to say there was a great fight over this issue between the Catholics of Poland and the Jew who see the site as hallowed ground. Eventually the convent project was canceled when the convent was relocated by direction of the Vatican. We face a similar issue in New York and unfortunately, we lack leadership with the sensitivity to veto this project. Nobody is saying that Muslims can’t build a mosque. The families and survivors of 9/11 aren’t saying it either. What is being said is that the location is wrong and that if “tolerance” means anything to the Islamic community, then they need to yield on this issue and relocate to another site a respectful distance from “ground zero”.

Atomic Apologies: Is the U.S. Ambassador going to say "Sorry for the nukes?"

2010-08-04T16:49:00.008-04:00

This is a re-post of an article I wrote in November of last year, when rumor circulated that the "Dear Leader" was going to Japan and "apologize' for nuking Japan at the close of World War 2.

Now word comes that the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, John Roos, will lead a delegation to the 65th annual commemoration of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Evidently the "Dear Leader" and his minions feel that we, the aggrieved party in that conflict, must demonstrate remorse for winning. That we must display regret for utilizing a weapon that Japan and Nazi Germany most certainly would have used on us (had they had it).

Showing up with an official delegation lead by our Ambassador, who will be undoubtedly asked for comments and sentiments, is just a really bad idea. Japan was defeated by this country and her allies by force of arms, and going to a Japanese city that was destroyed in that war serves no purpose. All a reasonable person could do is grieve over the loss of life in general and the reflect on how terrible the scourge of war is. But in the recent past, the "Dear Leader" has been anxious to minimize, criticize and indeed apologize for past actions of the U.S. He has even denied the nature of our nation and culture in order to curie favor in regions of the world where we are engaged in a struggle to preserve our civilization. Sending Ambassador Roos to Hiroshima or Nagasaki at this time, and knowing this administrations penchant for apologies, can only be viewed as an opportunity to lay low the sacrifices made by millions of service men and women and civilian scientist and workers who made victory possible.

If you read the following, I think you may get an inkling of what goes on in the head of Barrack Hussein Obama, The Apologist and Chief.

I guess President Barack Obama didn’t take any history classes when he was in school. Nor did he have a teleprompter available to refer to when queried about the historical significance of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in August of 1945.

The Community Organizer and Chief has embarrassed his country once again and made himself look the uneducated, uninformed and tactless rube when he was questioned by Japanese media during the joint press conference with the Prime Minister of Japan.

The reporter asked the President about his desire to visit those two cities and what his understanding was of the historical context of the atomic bombings of the cities and weather or not he felt the attacks were justified. Looking like a deer in the headlights, the President began a very disjointed reply about his desire to pursue an active anti-nuclear proliferation policy and how he has begun to cut back America’s nuclear stockpile. He commented on the unique perspective that Japan and her leadership had on the subject of nuclear weapons and their use. Then he commented on his lack of firm travel plans to either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The Stammerer and Chief then went off on a tangent about North Korea.

What was blatantly clear was that he was unprepared to for the question and equally unprepared to defend the actions of the United States or its leadership who at the time were fighting a war to preserve not only our freedom but the freedoms and the sovereignty of all the free nations of the world against the forces of German and Italian Fascism and rabid Japanese Militarism. In fact, he dodged the subject all together.

I don’t know who he thinks he is fooling by changing the subject. He clearly didn’t want to answer the question and was very uncomfortable with the subject. Uttering platitudes on the subject of non-proliferation is comfortable, appealing, politically correct, but most of all, safe. Defending the reputation and motives of a past administration desperate to quickly end a world war that had cost millions of lives by the most expeditious means possible, seemed beyond his capabilities. He seemed stymied by the prospect in fact.

It is unfathomable to see that over 60 years after the end of the second world war, we, the United States of America, are still having to explain our actions to the very people who attacked us on December 7th, 1941, or that we are made to feel as if we have somehow done something evil in using nuclear weapons to end the greatest war in the history of the world. It is the United States and her nuclear shield that has in fact deterred aggression in the world ever since the end of that war.

What were the alternatives?

Militarily, we could have blockaded Japan and just stood off and bomb them and shelled them and hoped they grew tired or hungry enough to surrender... The odds of this working were small. The fact that allied prisoners of war in their thousands were also being held in the home islands of Japan, suffering untold agonies and miseries meant that they would probably be wiped out as retribution by their desperate and angry captors who were not very humane with prisoners under the best of circumstances. Civilian casualties from an unrestricted bombing campaigns and from the starvation and disease that would have resulted from a prolonged quarantine and from continued military attacks around the clock, day in and day out would have been horrific. Casualties would have certainly been in the millions.

The option of just demonstrating the weapon to the Japanese rather than actually using it on them was not an option as we had so little material to use in actual weapons that we couldn’t risk expending it and it not have a tangible military result. Nor could we risk letting other countries know just how far we had progressed in the development of nuclear weapons, especially the Soviet Union, who we viewed as a potential rival in the future. There was also the altogether not unreasonable belief that even having seen a demonstration that Japan’s leadership would have acquiesced and given up.

That left a conventional amphibious and airborne invasion of the home islands of Japan.

The plans for that eventuality, Operations Olympic and Coronet were being formulated at that time. Previous attacks against Iwo Jima and Okinawa had given war planners some idea what to expect if the U.S. and her allies were to attempt such a venture. The prospects weren’t good at all. Unlike Europe where civilian populations were seen as non-combatants, and for the most part behaved as such, this would not have been the case with Japan. The militarist government there had conditioned and trained the populace over the previous years to take an active role in defending the home islands from invasion. If the civilians had actively resisted and the military elements in Japan proven as stubborn and intractable as they had in previous operations like Okinawa, the projected casualties on both sides would have been astronomical. The Okinawa, Iwo Jima and the Philippine campaigns were the basis used to gauge how a possible amphibious and airborne invasion of the home islands would be resisted. Okinawa had generated 72,000 American casualties in an 82 days action. The liberation of the Philippines took nearly a year, and cost Japan 336,300 dead and the Americans 62.514 dead or wounded. Iwo Jima’s “butcher bill” was nearly 22,000 Americans killed or wounded, with only a little over 1,100 prisoners taken out of a defending garrison of over 22,000 Japanese soldiers, marines and seamen.

In contrast, the planners of the invasion of Japan envisioned a nightmare scenario of over 1.2 million casualties to Allied forces and 5-10 million military and civilian casualties to the Japanese. With those sorts of numbers, it was no small wonder that any responsible, reasonable or humane leader would have looked for other options to that sort of body count.

When viewed objectively, when all the aforementioned options were looked at, even in hindsight, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the best options in a bad situation for all parties concerned. They provided a stark reality check to the leadership of Japan as to what their futures would be if further resistance continued. Were the results horrible? Certainly they were. Were the results desirable? When viewed against the possible loss of life and treasure in a conventional attack, the answer is and unqualified YES.

Too bad President Barack Obama didn’t seem to know any of this and too bad he seemed unable or unwilling to articulate these facts to the world at large.

Maybe he’ll get it right next time....

Amazing Grace History/"Amazing Grace" By Wintley Phipps

2010-07-27T16:24:00.001-04:00

I recently saw the most amazing video....

Mr. Wentley Phipps gave the most inspirational and musically interesting presentation I have heard in many a year....

I will let the Youtube video which went truly "viral" speak for itself. I think you will be impressed...

Christian or not, it is the best 9 minutes I have spent online in a while...

Foreign aid: It isn't aiding America.....

2010-07-27T12:02:00.002-04:00

In response to an article in the Reuters News alert dated 20 July, 2010 at http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/56091/2010/06/20-134522-1.htm .

One of the activities I always enjoyed in the Navy was the opportunity to visit ports around the world and to participate in volunteer aid ventures like fixing up a school or helping build a playground for kids in impoverished areas, or even helping orphans.

It has become clear to me however that what was once an individual effort from well meaning crews on a visiting ship to grateful recipients has become industry that is not only unappreciated but even counterproductive.

The attempt to "win hearts and minds" seems pointless if the people it is intended to help are resentful and even hostile to the efforts made. Since the people conducting aid operations (people like U.S. military) can't remain permanently to reinforce the commitment of bettering a situation in a given area, when they leave, there may be feelings of resentment or abandonment at the perceived lack of commitment. In my opinion, foreign aid rarely has the intended effect as it is seen as a "pay-off" or an attempt to curry favor- insincere at best, an insult at worst.

When we sailors went to do a project, it was done though local contacts made by our chaplains with local leaders who had specific needs and wants and who were appreciative and who understood that this activity was being done by men who were volunteering their time and efforts. It was understood that these men could be doing something else with their time but were willing to forgo well earned time off and the "usual and customary" activities of sailors on liberty, to help them. Going where we aren't wanted giving people "help" they don't want, need or appreciate is a complete waste of time and resources we as a nation can no longer afford anyway. What I did with my shipmates was always appreciated and when we arrived, did the work then left, we always felt we had done something meaningful and worthwhile; the work as meaningful to us and the community. Going into a situation with the specific, engineered purposes of winning "hearts and minds" is a very bad idea.... If the Kenyans need help with something, let them do the work themselves and if help is needed from us, let them know that it will be rendered if they ask for it. The same goes with supplying money and materials. If they want it, let them make the request.

Otherwise, butt out.

We can't really afford to be rebuilding latrines in Africa anyway. America is broke and we need to worry about our own situations and circumstances here at home.

Another immigration story........

2010-07-23T17:03:00.006-04:00

I walked into my home one evening and found that I wasn’t alone….

Sometime during the day, a visitor came calling while I was at work and made himself at home in my house without my knowledge or consent…

I am a peaceable fellow most of the time, but finding my home violated by this intruder really annoyed me as you can imagine, but I recovered my composure and approached the fellow who was seated on my couch enjoying a beer and some chips while watching my television.

A soccer match was on and the announcer in very loud and excited Spanish was calling the game, and my “guest” seemed not even to pay me much attention as he was the game. He was scruffy, and unkept. He looked as if he had had a rough time on the road - like one of those hobos one would see in an old movie or in old black and white pictures of “Okie’s” from the “Dust Bowl” in the 1930’s.

I walked over and stood a few feet from him, amazed at his calm demeanor and his seeming lack of concern at my presence.

His eyes shifted to me after I cleared my throat loudly as one is apt to do to get another’s attention.

I nonchalantly asked him who he was and what he though he was dong in my house.

His reply was that his name was Juan and that he had just arrive in the U.S. a few hours earlier and that he saw that my house, which was nicer than his house in Mexico, and decided that he would just come on into my house and take up residence. After all, he needed a place to live and a job because there were none to be had back home. Everyone in Mexico knows there was work here to do, and since he needed a place to live, it was only right that he should be allowed to be wherever he wished, as it was his “human right”, and since we “stole” the land from Mexico in the 1840’s anyway, he would stay here, in my house.

To say that I was dumbstruck by this litany would be an understatement.

He then informed me that he had already done a couple of chores around the house as a way to solidify his claim to be there: “to do the work that Americans won’t do”, like taking out my trash and washing the few dishes in my sink in the kitchen. He then said that since he had done all this work, he now had even more right to be there, and oh, by the way, he felt entitled to make himself a sandwich and have a cold beer too since he was hungry and hadn’t had a decent meal in days since before leaving his homeland.

Morbidly curious, I inquired as to what he planned to do.

He said that he liked my house and reiterated that since it was so much nicer than his in Mexico and since he had done work for me, that he felt entitled to continued occupation of my home and entitled to free food and beer, all this in exchange for doing a few chores around the place. It was after all only fair. Of course, he continued, I should also pay him for the work he had already done too, and if I would be so kind, would I please put him on my health insurance so he and his family, who would be joining him soon, could go to the doctor free when they arrived.

Incredulous, I then asked if there was anything else I could do for him and he gave a considered look.

“Si”, he said, “I want my 6 bambinos to have a better life than me so they must have an education…. I want them to go to your schools and because they don’t speak English, you must ensure that they get their education in Spanish, after all, they must have the best education possible and it would be racist to insist they learn English since they are Mexican… It would be culturally insensitive….”

“So let me get this straight” I asked with a certain note of sarcasm in my tone

“You have come here into my home without invitation. You, in fact, broke in. You think that this land where my house sits was stolen from Mexico 150 odd years ago, so by extension or by right, you feel that you are entitled to be here in this country paid for with the blood of America’s fighting men, and in the home that I built and paid for with my sweat and hard earned money. You feel that because you have done some work here or that because you are willing to do some work in the future, that you can just come here without so much as a “by your leave”- that you can just trespass here, that you and yours can just take up residence in violation of the law? Then you insist that I pay to educate your illegal alien children in Spanish because it is racist to insist they learn English, and then you demand that I provide you with medical care just because you are here and need it? Does that sum it up? Is there anything else I can give you?”

He sat there and thought it over for a long minute considering my question.

“Si, there is something else….” He replied

“I want to vote in the next elections so we can have a say in your affairs and in redistribution of your wealth so that we can keep getting all these great things we want from you and your country… I want amnesty for me and my family so we don’t have to stand in line to get our green cards and then get citizenship so we can then bring in all our relatives so they too can get a nice place to live, free education and medical care and so we can get all the other things we can’t in Mexico….”

“So why not just go the American consul in Mexico and begin the immigration process and do it right?” I asked.

He laughed and said “Why would I do foolish thing like that?!!”

“It takes months and month and you must fill out many papers and pay mucho dinero to go to Estatos Unitos that way…. Only a fool would do that!!!” he laughed.

“Many of my friends, millions of them in fact , have already come under the wire and they are not having to mess with silly papers or having to pay to be here…. They say Obama will give amnesty to us…that the Republicans will give it to us….why should we do it the hard way?”

"Only idiots and chumps do it the hard way... America is very forgiving of such things..." he said with a smile. "I know this because I have been caught and let go many times before."

I could hardly argue with him. He had a point.

”Anything else?” I asked, tired and sobered by the litany.

“Si, senior… Next time you go to market, would you get some Coronas and limes instead of Budweiser? I prefer a good Mexican beer….”

NAACP vs. The TEA Party....

2010-07-14T13:12:00.001-04:00

What we see with this diatribe by the NAACP is a pathetic attempt to remain relevant by demanding that a group with little or no central leadership control the actions of every person who may just show up at one of their events... Their complaint that signs showing the President in an unflattering or insulting way are "racist" is a totally bogus. History of protests in this country shows that cartoons and charactitures of political and public figures is normal and certainly not unprecedented. How many times have we seen demonic or even NAZI imagery used against Presidents like Ronald Reagan or the Bush’s? That sort of inflammatory imagery has been a regular staple of politics in America since colonial times when early Presidents might have been depicted as kings, animals or even women (something seen as a great insult at that time). It seems that the NAACP is hyper sensitive and over-reacting to protests against the man they perceive as “their guy”... their anointed one. They seem willing to play the "race card" at the drop of a hat even when he comes under what some may see as a legitimate scrutiny for his ill-conceived and badly executed policies. Perhaps the NAACP needs to take a step back and re-evaluate its mission statement. Maybe they should be more concerned with raising the standards of conduct and discourse within their own ranks and in the black community in general, and stop worrying about what others beyond their control are doing. Perhaps they should be more concerned with improving the status and condition of black Americans by advocating high character and by preaching personal integrity, personal honor and responsibility rather than getting mixed up in the political debate that is ever present. It is my personal opinion that the NAACP, realizing that they are loosing relevancy, has contrived this little tantrum of theirs to get back in the spotlight. Like all the others who rely on the industry of racism such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, et al, the NAACP needs to keep finding fault and fanning the flames where and when they can, and lacking any legitimate or useful contribution, has contrived to create this incident to get back their seat at the big people’s table; to be once again the leading advocacy group in the eyes of their fellow black as well as the leading voice in racial issues in America. It is truly pathetic that an organization founded to better the futures of people who were desperately seeking their place in the world should conduct themselves in such a base and tawdry fashion.

Appeals panel considers whether Obama is even American

2010-07-09T19:03:00.002-04:00

Appeals panel considers whether Obama is even American

I would love to see what would happen if the court rules that Obama is NOT a "natural born citizen" as is required by the constitution.....
What would happen with all the laws he has put into place and all the executive orders he has issued? More importantly, what of all the appointments he has made including Supreme Court justices? Would all of it become "null and void"?
I would argue that he would be guilty of treason for assuming office illegally and perpetrating a fraud on the American people by illegally assuming power in full knowledge that he was not qualified to assume. I would also like tho know who in the Democratic Party knew he was ineligible to run.

So many possible scenarios.....

STOP financing the enemy: We need a NEW energy policy NOW!!

2010-07-02T15:40:00.003-04:00

America needs a new energy policy desperately.

This nation is in grave danger due to our dependence on foreign oil for much of our energy which places us in economic jeopardy and threatens the security of if not the very survival of the republic.

Every year we send literally hundreds of billions of dollars overseas to pay for the oil and gas we consume. The monies used for this end up in the coffers of regimes that are at best only barely tolerant of us (Kuwait, Indonesia, Nigeria or Mexico), while others seem mostly ambivalent (Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States) or, and at worst, out right hostile (Venezuela and Iran). They are hostile not only to us, but to many of our allies as well.

Why does this present a problem? Why should we care what the “Oil Arabs” and the other less than friendly nations do with that cash? After all, it is their money now, right?

What does this have to do with us or our energy policy?

True enough that they sold the oil and we bought it and it is their money now. They have a right to do with it as they see fit, but why should we, the American consumer, bankroll those who may not have our best interests at heart? What could they be doing that is so bad as to warrant all this concern?

One of the many places oil revenue is used is in the funding of hundreds of “madrasa diniyyah” (religious schools) and mosques in many Muslim and non-Muslim counties throughout the world. This funding is done via so-called “charities”, many of which are bankrolled in whole or in part by our so-called ally, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While the funding of schools seems a noble venture on the surface, there is a very dark set of objectives underneath all those seemingly good intentions.

Most of these schools are built in Pakistan and other countries that have populations decidedly hostile to the west and to America in particular. In many of these schools and the attendant mosques that are built to provide “religious guidance”, the subject matter taught is decidedly not what you would expect to find in a school for young and middle school aged children in most of the rest of the world: reading, writing, arithmetic, the social sciences and literature.

Behind the establishment of the “institutions is a very ultra-conservative group who are adherents to the Wahhabi sect of Islam. They are found in positions of power within the ruling strata of the Saudi government. They even have control of the “religious police” who enforce the morality laws throughout the Kingdom, and are major sponsors of these schools. These Wahhabist are predominant in controlling much of the activity and influence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. By virtue of this influence, they have access to the vast wealth of the kingdom. Because they have so much influence and have the access to the wealth of the realm, the Wahhabists continue to funnel large sums of oil revenue (via their “charities”) from the royal treasury to programs in the madrasas and mosques they have built throughout the world. Their teachings are an extremely conservative (read: intolerant and militant) form of Islam. This sect has an abject intolerance of any sect, faith, practice or government that doesn’t subscribe to their orthodox views. This is the attitude, enforced, encouraged and taught by the sponsors of these schools. This highly orthodox view has metastasized, becoming more rabidly militant in nature in recent decades, especially when issues involving the west, Israel, America, and democracy are made a focal point. Their view of America, Europe, western civilization and our way of life is viewed by the sponsors and instructors in these schools and mosques with a vehemence and hostility that is nothing short of utter hate bordering on the psychotic.

Any act is viewed acceptable from their religious point of view because some mullah or imam has decreed it so: it is the will of Allah…. The young take it on faith and the young mind is bent and twisted to this world view.

There is positive proof that the real mission of these schools is not just to teach basic life skills but to also indoctrinate the young with a militant, viral form of Islam. This indoctrination of these young, impressionable minds in these petro-dollar funded schools and mosques, include children as young as 6 to 8 years of age, who sit in small groups reading and reciting from just one book, the Quaran. These recitations go on for many hours a day, day after day in endless rote memorization sessions until they have it memorized. Additional “training” is also given by the imams in their version of what the meaning of the Quaran is, according to their orthodoxy and political views. The children, imbued with scripture and anti-western propoganda, become dedicated to program of demonization, dialing back, and the eventual expunging of all western influence in their region of the world. The corollary to this is the eventual stamping out of any freedoms or progress enjoyed by minorities and women and the destruction of the west and the killing or subjugating of all infidel populations and infidel lands. In their eyes, these are seen as prime objectives in the life of any faithful Muslim who is true to the faith. To see proof of your oil dollars at work, one merely has to view the videos of the teaching sessions in these institutions or the sermons given by the imams and mullahs in the mosques or the street protests in any Arab or European capitol containing these Islamist radicals. Read the signs and hear the chants calling for Israel’s destruction, our destruction, or for Shiria law to become the prevailing law in the west, and you will begin to understand the threat. The young people in these protests are either products of these radical teachings or are being lead by those who are.

They want our constitution, our freedoms and our way of life to be erased, expunged, destroyed…..

If proof of this danger is needed, one has but to merely look at a roster of the 9/11 hijackers who destroyed the World Trade Center in 2001: 15 of 19 were Saudis and the mastermind, Osama bin Laden is also a Saudi.

All this hatred and all the terrorism it spawns today is funded in large part every time you fill your gas tank.

To put it bluntly, we are financing the means to our own possible destruction. We are providing for the scholarship of those who are murdering our countrymen and subverting our civilization.

What can be done to de-fang this monster that has risen from the sands of the Mideast? What can we do to take from them the ability to fund their operations? The only way is to remove the seemingly unending cash flow that funds our detractors and enemies.

Can we accomplish these aims?

The only way to accomplish this is to eliminate our dependency on their oil, thus drastically curtailing or eliminating all together their one and only dependable, large scale revenue stream, and thus removing much of their power and influence over us and those they threaten.

To say that America and the rest of the industrialized world have become hooked on easy access to cheap and plentiful petroleum from a very hostile and dangerous part of the world is to belabor the obvious.

That paradigm must change if we are to survive as a free and ever progressing civilization dedicated to the freedoms we have fought and strove for over nearly two and a quarter centuries.

America, as a nation, has all the resources necessary and most if not all the technology needed to become energy independent if we choose to deploy the new and existing technologies we possess and to free up domestically available fuels and resources, and reallocating them for different uses.

In short, the key to our independence lies in the immediate construction of the next generation of nuclear powered electrical generating plants and nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities and then reallocation of fossil fuels once used in electrical generation to new and/or different purposes which can be replaced later as new and developing technologies come on line or become more commercially viable.

At the moment, America is using a patchwork quilt of coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear, wind, solar, and hydroelectric power to generate our electricity. This is a hugely inefficient and costly conglomeration of sources for the largest national power grid on Earth to rely on. It is also very inefficient when you view the support required to administer, operate, maintain, feed (fuel), and develop upgrades to these many varied systems. Coal and oil which make up a bulk of the generating capability are dirty and produce many toxic emissions that must be scrubbed from their effluent and the sequestered in some manner to keep it from contaminating the environment. Natural gas, the second most common of the fossil fuels used, is much cleaner but still produces some undesirable emissions. Hydroelectric, the cleanest high capacity source of power, had reached its limits unless capacity can be increased by improving generating technology at existing facilities. It is NOT a forgone conclusion that this can or will be done to any great extent. One can not depend or plan on regular advances in technology to increase output. Creating more hydropower capacity generally requires construction of more or larger plants and dams or would require damming more rivers which is environmentally undesirable. There are also issues with availability of water to drive the generating turbines. Draught and increased need for fresh water by agriculture and cities, especially in the far west, has already adversely affected the sources of water to many dams already in existence like Hover Dam in the southwest, and the many dams in the northwest especially along the Columbia River.

Nuclear energy is the only safe, dependable, large scale, clean, (no greenhouse gasses or other chemical pollutants) and readily deployable technology out there that can deliver the vast quantities of electrical power we need to sustain our Republic. France generates upwards of 70% of its electricity from nuclear power. It seems strange and indeed counter intuitive that America, the nation that was the pioneer in the development of this technology, should rely so little on it. Nuclear waste from these facilities, which is the single major issue with nuclear power, can be dealt with if we reprocessed nuclear fuel as the French have learned to do. Utilizing “Breeder Reactors” which create their own fuel with little waste or utilizing reprocessing technology like the French, we could solve most of the problems created such as the recycling of the vast quantities of spent nuclear fuel rods presently being stored in cooling ponds at the nuclear power facilities now operational and radioactive waste that would be created by the reprocessing operations in the future, which seem the only serious impediments to nuclear energy, will be greatly reduced in volume from what now exists. What technology we lack, we can acquire from commercial sources in Europe, especially the French, under license or we can develop here.

It is very conceivable that electric cars powered by electricity generated by relatively clean and plentiful nuclear energy make sense as a competing choice of fuel source to gasoline or other fossil fuels. If the increase in the use of nuclear technology doesn't turn you on, then CNG or “compressed natural gas” vehicles would be the next best thing. They can run with existing technology (internal combustion engines) modified to burn domestically acquired gas versus liquid fuels like gasoline or diesel made from imported oil. T. Boone Pickens, a well-known oilman and entrepreneur has advocated a plan much like this whereby the long and short haul truck fleet in the U.S. would be given grants or loans to convert their trucks over to burning CNG instead of diesel. The conversion of 6 million vehicles over to CNG would reduce imports by nearly half just by itself. The only issues that need addressing are CNG distribution and filling facilities for these vehicles. Fortunately, natural gas is available most everywhere in America. It isn’t a process that could occur overnight but it could be done within a decade.

For those locations where such service is not available due to logistical issues, natural gas, like propane gas, which is used for all manner of uses in more rural areas, can be delivered in a liquid form by truck and then put into tanks like propane and gasoline for future use. Another option for consumers who live in more urban and even suburban areas, home filling stations can be set up and even metered for public use in communal living areas like apartment complexes, thus making it easier to fuel your vehicle without having to find a commercial filling station like we do when using gasoline or diesel. Unlike gasoline, CNG vehicle can fuel anywhere there is a source of gas that can be compressed. They can even incorporate compressors in the vehicles to take gas at “line pressure” and compress it in the vehicle if the vehicle operator is not able to find a standard fueling outlet. That is the beauty of the technology: flexibility as well as being eco-friendly. One additional benefit seldom mentioned is the reduction in operating costs of vehicles powered by CNG or electricity. Trucks and cars powered with CNG burn cleaner thereby reducing the amount of contamination of the lubricating oil in the engines, reducing the wear and tear internally and reducing the need for frequent replacement of the lube oil. Engines would last longer and emissions would be greatly reduced. Operating costs would be reduced as well, further reducing costs to consumers who rely on trucks, which is every consumer in the country.

My reorganization plan is simple: Electrical generating plants utilizing natural gas could be decommissioned and their fuel reallocated to motor fuel purposes as new nuclear plants came on line. Coal fired plants could be decommissioned as well and their coal “gasified” or converted to liquid petroleum for diesel fuel, lubricants or for industrial material processing (petrochemicals and other materials made from oil like polymers). This would free us from foreign oil for the most part and make America far less vulnerable to supply interruptions, external threats to the logistical train that supplies the petroleum we import, and the extremes of pricing in the international energy marketplace. Money sent overseas to hostile or potentially hostile regimes and regions of the world would be drastically curtailed or even eliminated and used to invest in energy, industrial projects and development here in America. We could even become net exporters of energy for the first time in decades!

To sum it up, we need to convert the vast majority of our electrical production to nuclear and hydro-electric and utilize this energy for both transportation (electrified rail and electric vehicles for personal and fleet use) and to traditional industrial and residential uses. This would free up less polluting, more available and deployable domestically produced fossil fuels like natural gas as motor fuel while gasified/liquefied coal products can be used for other purposes. When other technologies like use of biomass, wind and solar become more advanced, thereby more economical and deployable, we can use them to fill the gaps in the power grid as its demands grow. Bio fuels may in time provide a competitive alternative to CNG/LNG / Electrical powered vehicles, but are at present vulnerable to inclimate weather and variations in agricultural output. There needs to be more development of the infrastructure to produce fuel from bio resources and development of the transportation infrastructure for biofuel product s to market as many can’t use the same facilities, equipment or pipelines as are currently in use for petroleum products.

Within a generation it may be possible that we could see the end of gasoline powered vehicles as the major source of personal transportation in America. If a plan like the one I have just outlined is implemented, they will slowly but surely disappear as they are replaced by vehicles powered from alternative energy sources. Like the “Stanley Steamer” of the early 1900’s, gasoline powered vehicles could be rendered museum pieces or collector items in a generation or two, and eventually become quaint curiosities like the horse and buggy within a century.

Only America has these many choices and the technical acumen and economic capability to make such a plan a viable reality within the next 10-15 years, but we must begin now to bring it about before circumstances force our hand.

On a personal note......

2010-06-24T11:06:00.002-04:00

Recently, I spent a few weeks on "medical leave" for a chronic physical condition that I have suffered with for several years.

I won't bore you with the details, but I had some "trial surgery" and I think that it went well... No complications or problems with anything. I am hoping the doctors see things my way and will agree to continue with this course of treatment and get a little more comfortable and do more in the next phase since this one seems to have gone well....

I would like to thank all those who have given me their support and good wishes. This has been somewhat of a trial for me and my family and we all are looking forward to the next step in the process. I hope that the doctors are as supportive and will agree with further treatments along the lines we have just completed.

I would like to also go on the record and say that the facilities and the staff of the University of Virginia Medical Center were first rate and very supportive of me throughout the entire process. Granted, the many trips back and forth between Virginia Beach and Charlottesville have been a trial, but it has been a pleasure to deal with the folks up there. I would especially like to thank Dr. Raymond Morgan and his staff for all their help and understanding. Their consummate professionalism and humanity were a great comfort to me. Also, I would be completely remiss if I failed to mention the nurses and even the young interns who came and went. They too were also excellent.

I can honestly say that I didn't have a single noticeable "negative experience", which is rare today.

To my co-workers and friends at ABNB Federal Credit Union who have been so understanding and supportive, I am forever in your debt as well. You have all carried more water for me than Gunga Din; tolerating my foibles, distractions and neurosis when my condition made them manifest. I know it hasn't been easy for you all and I know that I haven't always carried my own very prodigious weight at times. I promises that that will change as my situation improves and I am able to do more to contribute to our mission statement, to provide superior customer service to the entire staff and membership of ABNB Federal.

Once again, my humble thanks to you all.....

Benjamin F. Snowden, Jr.

Another Islamic insult to New York....

2010-05-26T16:15:00.001-04:00

A committee in New York has given the 'green light' for a group of Muslims to build a mosque adjacent to the site of the 9/11 world Trade Center attack. The crux of it is that they have to right to do so, as distasteful as it may be.

Having the "right" to do something however doesn't mean that it is the right thing to do.

Technically, I have the right to spout off pro-Nazi propaganda in front of a synagogue during the high holy days, but it would be extremely insensitive and horribly divisive to do so. The Imam who is in charge of this evolution and his crew say that they hope to bridge the gulf between Muslims and non-Muslims by building a mosque at the site near 'ground zero'. This is an obvious lie when you look at the anger and resentment to this project.

No bridges of understanding are being built and none will be if this plan continues. It may even set back relations.

The Cordoba Institute folks could have built a mosque anywhere but chose this particular site.

Why?

They had to know that they would cause problems, and they have for many who lost friends and relatives. If you look at what this attack did to the nation and to the city of New York in particular and how people view the area where the attack occured, you can understand why people view this place with reverence akin to what one might feel looking upon war graves on a battlefield. This construction would be analogous to the Muslims building the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Jews have suffered that insult for centuries. Christians have also been equally denigrated by conversion (read: violation) of their holy sites, too. The Saint Sofia Basilica, in Constantinople, the greatest church in the Eastern Empire was "converted" to a mosque in 1453 at the fall of the Byzantine Empire, then into a museum by a secular Turkey. This was a tremendous loss to all of Christendom, especially the Eastern Orthodox faith for many centuries.

Building at ground zero is just another Muslim insult to the non-Muslim world. It is a finger in the eye of the survivors and those who lost friends and loved ones. There is no other way to view it.

Perhaps political, and economic pressure can be brought to bear on the people who are making this happen. Perhaps the unions who control many aspects of construction, transportation and other "services" can make things difficult and therefore "persuade" the Muslims to build elsewhere.... anywhere but there. Or the Mayor and city agencies who grant building and use permits can be convinced via the political process to shut this project down.... Come on New York!! Get with the program and stand up for yourselves and let these people know that with 'rights' there are responsibilities, and one of these are to be a "good neighbor".

Muslims having a place to meet and to gloat about 'jihad', to have a place to pray for our destruction and the souls of those who are killing our young men and women as well as those who are allied with us in our struggle against these Islamic terrorists, and locating that place next door to what is essentially the largest 'war grave' in that War on Terror", is just plain wrong.

People of New York: Rise up and be heard!!!

Help them 'see the light', and demand that they who are advocating this project, shelve their plans forever, and behave as the sensitive, bridge building 'good neighbors' they claim to be.

Obama's "Katrina"...

2010-05-26T13:41:00.003-04:00

Why is anyone surprised by the lack of leadership during this ecological catastrophe?

I'm certainly not. I fully expected this to happen when the oil rig burned and sank...

I fully expected the E.P.A. to thwart Gov. Jindal in his attempts to save his coastal waters by denying him the permission to build sand berms to protect sensitive coastal habitats from the oil slick on the grounds that the berms MIGHT cause harm to the areas that were the construction was to take place. The absurdity of the argument is self-evident in light of what we know from the aftermath of spills in places like Prince William Sound, Alaska. The Eco-socialist of the E.P.A. are incompetent, didactic and reflect their boss's attitude and management style.

Obama and the “Cabal” have been behind the power curve from day 1. They have been disconnected from everyone from the beginning and now it is almost criminal just how unresponsive “The Regime” is. They haven’t had a formal press conference in over 200 days and have failed to be accountable to anyone for their actions. When Obama does leave the West Wing, he only ventures into friendly territory or in front of sycophantic crowds. Now it seems that he lacks any semblance of macro-leadership and now even liberal Democrat apologists like James Carville are getting fed up with the ineptitude. The federal response could have been so much more proactive than it has been. Even the Governor of Louisiana is to the point of risking jail an the hands of the Obama E.P.A. in order to do what what needs to be done to prevent further oil hitting the shoreline by building sand berms in violation of federal directives. If the feds think things are bad now, just wait until the Gulf Stream gets a hold of that slick and it ends up moving out of the gulf, past Florida, on the the beaches of south Florida and the Keys, then up the Atlantic coast… Somebody needs to impeach this idiot for incompetence and step in to do something before the slick reaches the Jersey Shore….

The pot calling the kettle black.....

2010-05-18T17:30:00.001-04:00

The pot calling the kettle black - OR - California’s governing entities and elites are hypocritical LOSERS

In the wake of the Arizona anti-illegal immigrant law, many cities, towns and individuals in my former home state of California have made great protest of said law citing the potential for racial profiling as well as other “humanitarian” concerns. In the customary and inflammatory rhetoric one expects from the leftists that seem to dominate there, Californians, from the political elite in all the major cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego, as well as media, sports and entertainment denizens have weighed in on just how terrible this new Arizona law is and how boycotts and protests should be carried out against Arizona and her business interests both in the state and without. No greater has been the noise coming from the Hispanic community, who seem to be engaged in completely balkanizing huge swaths of the American southwest, that support of their criminal (illegal) brethren who are sapping the very life and wealth of the areas they call home, all for the sake of selfish and do I dare say racial reasons.

What is most interesting is that Arizona is not the only state with a law that requires local and state law enforcement to ascertain immigration status. Nor has this been a new idea.

It seems that there is another bastion of racism for the liberals to rail against..... Another place where lawmakers in days gone by recognized the need of local and state law enforcement to do just that, enforce the law, because the Federal Government was failing to do so.

“That hideous, racist enclave!” you say.....

“Where is this fascist, racist place and who is in charge of it?” you ask?

Well, it’s the Golden State of California.

Arnold will be soooo proud.....

it seems that California Penal Code Section 834b reads very much in practice how Arizona’s new and much hated law reads. Take a look.....

California Penal Code Section 834b

(a) Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully
cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization
Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is
suspected of being present in the United States in violation of
federal immigration laws.
(b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected
of being present in the United States in violation of federal
immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the
following:
(1) Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen
of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent
resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time
or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of
immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall not
be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date and
place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding
documentation to indicate his or her legal status.
(2) Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien
who is present in the United States in violation of federal
immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal
justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or
leave the United States.
(3) Notify the Attorney General of California and the United
States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal
status and provide any additional information that may be requested
by any other public entity.
(c) Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city,
county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with
jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent
or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly
prohibited.

So it seems that if Californians were to actually follow the laws on their books, and that is a BIG if, they would have the authority to do exactly what Arizona is actively doing to rid itself of illegal aliens or at least make a dent in the problem by making things decidedly uncomfortable for them especially if they run afoul of the local or state authorities.

So where is the protest over California’s statute? Why aren’t the denizens of La Raza running amok in the streets protesting? Because the people of California and indeed many other liberal enclaves have been cowed and browbeaten into inaction. They have been lead to believe they would be labeled racist if they went after the illegal aliens in this country. They have been told it would be inhuman or unconstitutional or some other ridiculous notion

It is just a matter of following the law, and California won’t.

Arizona will and that is what seems to piss-off the Marxist/Socialist/Liberal illegal alien lovers.....

I will be booking my next vacation to Arizona.... where they appreciate the law.

We will soon loose access to the "High Ground"

2010-03-04T12:38:00.001-05:00

I am a real "Space Junkie" from way back... I remember sitting in my grandmother's living room watching Neal Armstrong taking the first steps on the moon and her remarking that she had gone from a "horse and buggy to the moon" in her lifetime. Seeing the space program dying a bit at a time has been hard for me and now that we as a nation are essentially broke financially, it seems almost inevitable that we will loose our edge over the rest of the world in space technology. It sticks in my craw to rely on Russia to get our Astronauts into orbit and perhaps beyond. China is coming on strong and soon the E.U. and India will have viable manned programs on their own sooner rather than later. The "no bucks, no Buck Rogers" axiom seems to be our future. As hateful as it is, we may just have to wait for commercial companies, companies like Boeing, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and others, to step up and do what NASA and the political savants in Washington who decide operational imperatives and budgets could not do: create a viable, commercially sustainable and growing space presence that will not be subject to political whim and mismanagement that seems endemic in the NASA administration and in the halls of power in Washington. Perhaps, someday, we will have leadership worthy of our dreams and aspirations as we once did when we went to the moon inside of a decade. It is clear that there is none to be found in either NASA or in Washington now, nor does any appear to be on the horizon. How pathetic...

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.....

2010-02-24T18:54:00.003-05:00

No great nation has shown themselves more pitiful than Russia....

Pravda, the “official” news organ of the old Soviet Union and the presently officious news organ of the new Russian Federation has been busy wielding their poison pens at a new target, Canada.

Not satisfied with letting the sports chips fall where they may and choosing to engage in their customary contrarian behavior, the Russians, via that press organ has been busy voicing a continual and demeaning diatribes against Canada and her Olympic efforts. They have questioned and commented on everything from the viability of Vancouver as a site for the games, to suggesting that the recent tragic death of Georgian luge rider Nodar Kumaritashvili was somehow Canada’s fault. They have even used the awarding of a gold medal for men’s figure skating to American, Evan Lysacek, instead of to their “golden boy” Yevgeny Plushenko, as fodder for criticism of Canada, even though the Canadians had no part in that decision.

I know that Canada and Canadians are perfectly able to stand and defend their own honor.

They don’t need me to do so here on their behalf.

They certainly have done so admirably enough for as long as they have existed as a nation and as a people. They have sent their sons and daughters to war in honorable defense of freedom and justice in two world wars. As an American of Canadian decent, I have a special feeling for the land and the people of the “great white north” who I call friend as well as family. When I read or hear someone pronounce scurrilous and unwarranted remarks toward those I feel some kinship to, I feel need to speak up.

Pravda’s recently assertions that Canada was in the “shadow of the United States”, and that by virtue of being our next door neighbor, that made Canada a “skinny weakling” of a nation. They also made the follow on remark that Canada was a mere “colonial outpost” to Great Britain. The sum total of these assertions was that neither the city of Vancouver nor Canada as a whole had any business hosting an event like the Olympics, something, incidentally, they have done twice before successfully. Strange that Russia questions it now since they attended the games in both Calgary and Montréal and have done well in both venues.

When did Canada or specifically Vancouver become such a terrible place to host an Olympiad?

This poisonous op-ed probably began to truly coalesce when the Russian found they were not doing as well as they hoped they would. The “medal count” was beginning to look decidedly lopsided toward North American teams and athletes. My guess is that this dissatisfaction needed a target. Canada, or specifically, the city of Vancouver and her Olympic organizing committee became that easy target. Knowing that the United States, quintessential target of all Russian/Soviet ire, would just laugh and inquire if the Russians would like some cheese with their whine, decided to stick it to Canada instead.

Let’s analyze:

Russia is the largest country on the planet with a land area approximately 7 million sq. km. larger, and a population 75% larger than Canada. But for all that vast size and population, it is Russia who has manifested the inferiority complex.

Canada, like Russia, is a polyglot nation. Both nations are made up of many peoples from all over their respective geographical areas. The difference is that Canada is made up of immigrants who voluntarily have made the choice to become Canadians and to become part of a free society based on the rule of law and on the traditions of fair play, economic and political freedom. Russia is a nation who’s history is covered in blood, and steeped in tragedy not only for her own indigenous Slavic peoples but of those who her rulers have conquered and subjugated over the last millennia. Rarely have Russians known a period of history where the political landscape was not controlled by despots or oligarchs or a period when the populace was not ravaged by war or in the throws of economic misery. I have yet to see lines of people at the Russian borders begging entry to their country, but I have seen lines at Canada’s ports of entry populated by those who wait patiently, and with hope for the future to enter and begin their new lives as Canadians.

As an American, I expect to be hated, envied, reviled and generally put down and upon by Russia and her ‘state controlled media’. For them, it is politic and sport. We have been rivals too long and both countries are too different politically or economically to get along and play nice with each other. There is too much history that they refuse to lay down and let go of to allow it. It is Russia who has a vast pool of talent to draw upon. When compared to Canada, the large athletic training infrastructure from the Soviet era could be utilized to increase their haul of Olympic medals. Blaming Canada for the lack of success (medals) is just wrong. It shows a lack of national pride and a lack of good sportsmanship.

It also shows a lack of class and graciousness, which elements most people in the know, see as hallmarks of the Canadian national character.

What have they done right yet???

2010-01-27T11:58:00.001-05:00

“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.

Obama's pittiful attempt to "cut the budget"

2010-01-26T13:32:00.001-05:00

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.

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

2010-01-21T12:17:00.001-05:00

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?

Let slip the bought dogs of special privilege..

2010-01-14T13:00:00.001-05:00

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.....

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

2010-01-09T09:28:00.001-05:00

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.

My response to the William Daley @ The Washington Post...

2009-12-24T14:00:00.001-05:00

William Daley of the Washington Post wrote an article that I took some exception to...

The link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122302439.html

Here was my comment:

Mr. Daley is correct in his observation that no side in any political system has a monopoly on good ideas. Where I believe he is mistaken is in his observation that the Republicans have been captured by their own radical fringe and that the Democrats have only to moderate their position. The Democrats presently in power are not Clintonians; they are extremists. They can't ‘moderate’.... It isn't in them.

Clinton was enough of a realist to moderate is position, thus stay 2 terms and be seen as "successful". Pelosi, Reed, Obama and their sycophants are ideologically incapable of making the changes necessary as Clinton once did. When Clinton tried to nationalize the healthcare delivery system in the early 90's he was excoriated and the plan shelved. Obama and his minions have made huge attempts to pass extremely leftist programs like ‘Cap and Trade’ and the so-called healthcare reform bill that just passed the Senate and faces conference committee review.

How did we end up where we are now? Republicans have fielded weak candidates and have not articulated strong conservative economic or fiscal plans. Their managing of the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq has been disjointed and poor, even if well intentioned. The Democrats came to power due to that poorly executed war policy and seemingly lackluster response to the economic problems that were beginning to come to light in 2007 and 2008. That protest vote brought charismatic radical leftists to power.

Conservative Republicans, who were generally ignored by the ‘Neo-cons’ who took control of the Republican Party after the Bush defeat in 1991, have now begun to reassert control of the party. This is best seen in the resurgent rise of Reaganesque Conservatives who are made up partly of conservative Democrats, who are fiscally conservative and who resent the massive debt Obama has run up and the radical nature of a majority of his policies; Independents who have seen the debt rise and unemployment swell nearly 3% in 11 months and no apparent plan to correct the job losses; and the more traditional conservative Republican elements who make up what is being called the "Tea Party" conservatives, who are livid at the massive debt, loss of jobs, fall of the dollar, and the seeming lack of assertive leadership when it is needed most. They resent the Obama ‘Apology Tours’ and the chummy behavior towards the likes of Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Daniel Ortega and the kowtowing to foreign potentates. They also resent the damage the neo-cons did to the party during the Bush II years and want to return to a more Reagan-like conservatism that seemed to them the best option for the country. They especially want tax relief for small business and reduction of the tax burden on those who carry a majority of the burden as key to stimulate the economy. There are even those who advocate a removal of the regressive personal and corporate income tax; a repeal of the 16th Amendment, and the establishment of the so-called ‘Fair Tax’, which would spur an immediate economic and business revival.

Mr. Daley is also incorrect in his assessment that the extreme liberal wing need only come up with a better way to sell their position to the American People...that they not surrender or in any way concede defeat in the wake of the rising tide of anger and vitriol. The problem with that opinion is that when surveyed, most Americans are conservative in their positions. Even abortion, the great litmus test of the left and the right, is less popular according to recent polls. What most leftist don’t understand is that what the “New Right” wants is a return to constitutional government, a more lawful and less radical, activist government. They have seen what the Obama Cabal has in store for the nation and are revolted and even frightened by that agenda. No amount of consoling or creative wordsmithing is going to sell a majority of the American people that multi-trillion dollar budgets and ever-mounting debt and confiscatory taxation or nationalized healthcare, or increasingly intrusive and extra constitutional activities is a good thing. Increasing debt ceilings, printing dollars by the billions, and borrowing cash from our adversaries to fund even more programs is a recipe for disaster, and every intelligent person knows it....except the Liberal Congress and Obama.

Into the breach, dear friends...The Senate passes their bill...

2009-12-22T15:08:00.001-05:00

Has anyone considered that the new Healthcare de-evolution bill that just passed the Senate may do for the insurance industry what the Community Reinvestment Act did for the banking industry?

In short, The Community Reinvestment Act required lending institutions to lend money to marginal characters living in even more marginal geographical areas. In time, this degenerated into the lending of money to people who began playing fast and loose, speculating on real estate with other people’s money. The insurance industry is on track to become like the banking and savings and loan industry when the government mandates are implemented and activated. We will see people who presently are unable to qualify for policies in the free market for many reasons, forced into that market at bayonet point (by the government) and private companies forced to sell them health insurance policies. The private insurers will be compelled to do so at that same governmental “bayonet point”. Meanwhile, as the persons with pre-existing conditions draw on the system, causing a corresponding increase in costs, the private insurers will loose billions of dollars due to extra claims, increasing the cost for the rest of the pool which will rise to cover those additional costs. So we will see nearly all Americans forced to pay into a system by force of law and see them additionally forced to pay what is in effect a ‘tax’ for healthcare to private insurers that will rise as the load increases.

What could very well happen is that people, who were paying their own way, will reach the breaking point when the costs become too great and simply opt out of the whole private health insurance system and pay the fine for non-compliance to the government rather than pay ever increasing premiums. That point could be reached relatively quickly for America’s employers who pay a large share of healthcare costs for their employees. As the costs rise to cover the additional costs of those who are brought on board due to federal mandate, employers may simply drop their employee’s coverages and pay the fines for not covering them. Young, healthy people who before didn’t pay at all because they were generally more healthy and made the personal calculation that they didn’t need coverage, will opt to pay the fines, which cost less than paying ever increasing amounts for coverage. This will still leave them effectively uninsured as they were before. These uninsured people would become a revenue stream to the government via the fines paid for non-compliance. One could argue that this is in effect, a way of taxing people and businesses in a new, and more cynical way.

As the pool of insured people falls in response to the increasing premiums, due in part to added burdens caused by pre-existing condition customers and due to losses of individual and business group policy holders, private insurers may simply shut down and drop health coverage as a product. If that were to happen en masse’, the nation may find itself with few if any health insurance providers. This is not a scenario beyond the pale when you consider that products like group annuity and whole life insurance have dramatically declined due to market forces. It is possible that these lines of coverage may in the fullness of time; disappear entirely, as the administration costs and servicing costs make them uneconomical to offer. If this were to happen with health insurance, what would happen to the existing policy holders? Who or what would rise to fill the void?

The answer seems obvious. The government would undoubtedly step in to fill that void they caused by their attempt to provide coverage to all in the first place. Single payer would become defacto as the government took over in the void created by them and all the worst case scenarios would come to pass: price controls, ‘death panels’ and eventually, rationing of care. Complete government control of the health delivery services of the nation would become a fact of life for all Americans, thus destroying arguably, the world’s greatest health care delivery system...

As the old Community Reinvestment Act began the march that lead to the collapse of the housing finance industry in America, these governmental mandates on the private health delivery and payment system will hasten the beginning of the march toward a single payer system. This system will ultimately control aspects of your life that were once the exclusive purviews of the citizens and their doctors, and lead to horrific deficiencies in quality and quantity of health services to the people of this nation. It will also lead to ultimate financial collapse of the governmental budgetary system as we would see crisis after crisis develop as we do now with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, only on a much grander scale. If one doubts the results, they simply have but to look north to Canada or across the Atlantic to Great Britain to see what single payer systems have done to healthcare in those nations. All the worse case scenarios have come to those countries including rationing, delays in critical services, and outright denial of services and cutting edge drugs and procedures due to cost or government regulation.

Is that what we want? Is that the best we can do for our country?

Global Warming...on Mars????

2009-12-22T14:56:00.001-05:00

According to award winning journalist Ron Bain and the website Space.com, Mars appears to be coming out of an Ice Age and is slowly warming. To the best of my knowledge, there aren't any humans there or any industries on Mars. To blame humans for Mars' apparently shrinking polar ice caps seems to be a difficult thing to do, though I am sure some attempt to minimize this fact will be made...

And that's the point. Planets change.... they are cyclic, even when there is no life at all on them. Glacial ice sheets form and then recede; continents drift; ice caps grow, fragment, then shrink; oceans grow and recede; atmospheric temperatures vary up and down, ranging from tropical to polar-like despite the latitudes. And all of these things have occurred on Earth. The all have happened long before man evolved as a species. They all have happened prior to the industrial age of man began. They are also happening elsewhere in the solar system too.

I wonder if it’s too late to let the folks in Copenhagen know.....

A note to Sherrie....

2009-12-16T20:13:00.001-05:00

In my response to a Facebook posting I was chastised for my views on Sarah Palin as a potential candidate in 2012. I felt her not a good choice in light of her past performance and her lack of experience. I was hit with a multitude of arguments why I was wrong including the slam that I was a "sexist". Anyone who knows me knows that that label is totally off the mark. Here is my reply to Sherrie. One thing I need to say is that I think Sherrie is a passionate advocate who believes in many of the same things I do.... but in this I disagree with her. Here is the excerpt:

Sherri.... I knew when I wrote my remarks, somebody would take exception...you did so here goes. I am an Objectivist. I always try and separate emotion from my decision making process when deciding things like who is going to lead the free world at the most dangerous time since 1930’s. I do so with as cold, ruthless and logical mindset as I can muster. I do this because when you are talking about the survival of the Republic, we can’t afford otherwise. Sarah Palin for all her attributes earlier on now has earned a less than passing mark as far as I am concerned as a candidate for the highest office in the land. There are OBJECTIVE reasons for this, none of which have to do with gender. She had reasons for resigning office as Governor. Fine...she had reasons, good ones even, but that doesn’t mean that her actions lack consequence. In my mind there are few good reasons to resign. Illness, indictment, arrest, or promotions are the reasons one leaves office early. The consequence is that you will most likely be unable to pursue further high office if the reasons aren’t administrative, like promotion. This is Palin’s problem. She left for what are essentially personal reasons and that smacks of a lack of fortitude..a "quitter" if you will, regardless the circumstances. Her leaving makes her a good mom, a good wife, and all that, but it makes her a questionable leader when the going gets tough. What happens if the stars cross in her life while occupying the White House? Will she bail then too? As a former military person, I know that true leaders can’t just quit because things become hard or inconvenient. I have made many decisions that were life and death caliber decisions. I made them and lived with the consequences. I question her ability to make those choices, especially if her family has to take a hit (for the good of the country). If she can’t do that, then she shouldn’t be in the big chair. Another thing Sherrie, why are you playing the "sexist" card??? That is like playing the "Race" card... You are better than that Sherrie...I know that. My remarks on her appearance are completely valid...Be objective...look at the men and women who are elected today...most are rated "very photogenic/telegenic" ...objectively, that IS an asset. I have worked on campaigns and know this is a fact. Understand this as well... I am a CONSERVATIVE.. not a Republican nor a Libertarian. Where you are also dead wrong is that there is nothing 'squishy' about me or my beliefs. As for what I "feel" about her...I don't. I don't "feel" about candidates. “FEELINGS” got us into the mess we are in now. We need some cold, hard, and yes, ruthless logic to fix what “feelings” have broken. You also mentioned my stooping to low levels... The only thing 'low' around here is the bar we as a nation have set for those we have been electing. Real achievement and real intellect and real experience and real courage under fire are what matter. Failure is NOT an option.

And so it begins........The Great Copenhagen Global Warming Swindle

2009-12-07T16:27:00.003-05:00

The Great Climate Change Lie-fest, A.K.A. : The United Nations Climate Change Conference has convened in Copenhagen, Denmark, today. It seems appropriate that this conference convenes on December 7th, exactly 68 years to the day that America was attacked by a foreign imperial power that attempted to destroy American sovereignty.

The great irony is that this time, we are architects of our own demise.

The great, Marxist / Socialist movements of the past and present has found a safe sanctuary in the United Nations, specifically; they have found aid, comfort and active assistance both political, scientific in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This cabal of third world and socialist politicians and scientists has found a method of unifying their efforts and perpetrating a massive fraud on the rest of the world. Corrupt and sympathetic scientists at such institutions as the University of East Anglia, which was revealed (by a whistle blowing computer hacker)to have been the epicenter of much of the fraud of Global Warming, was the point of origin for leaked documents and e-mails indicating that scientists actively manipulated data, destroyed data, actively subverted the peer review process and sought to “black ball” those who were in opposition to the orthodoxy of global warming from participating in peer review panels. These corrupt scientists freely admitted to having tailored data and results to fit their thesis that the earth’s climate was changing due to man made releases of carbon dioxide. Some e-mails even acknowledged that there were counter indicating data streams against their initial belief in global warming and lamented the fact that they could not explain the cooling that was occurring globally.

Diplomats with axes to grind from every third world cesspool, corrupted scientists, politician who are the bought dogs of special interests as well as left wing radicals, displaced and discredited when the Cold War brought their visions of world communism to an end, have found new purpose in attacking and destroying the great, productive and prosperous democracies of the western world. All this is being done in the name of the fantasy called Global Warming. The meet and greet in Copenhagen will try to cement a treaty that will result in the greatest transfer of wealth and greatest impediments to progress that have ever been conceived. Massive new taxes on all forms of energy, designed to “spread the wealth” between the failed, corrupt and inefficient third world and the free, prosperous and technologically advanced economies of the west. The costs of this agreement will be so large as to dwarf any financial or economic agreement or compact that has ever existed. Over 190 nations are participating in this process and all will be affected by the outcomes of this meeting. The fly in the ointment however, is that the entire process is based on what appears to be a lie.

Our government and special interests led by such luminaries as our own President Barack Hussein Obama and former Vice President Al Gore, both of whom seem to be more internationalist than American in their outlooks, are doing all they can to advance the agenda of this meeting. The fact that Al Gore has massive conflicts of interest in that he sits on boards of directors of organizations that profit handsomely from the Global Warming and alternative energy and technology industry seem lost to most people. That the leftist Congress and White House seem bound and determined to do all they can to tax energy production via the “Cap and Trade” legislation languishing on the back-burner of the U.S. Senate’s agenda and to prevent exploitation of oil, coal and natural gas discoveries all in the name of Global Warming.

What the American people seem not to realize is that this little meeting in Copenhagen has many other consequences that aren’t being published in the neo-Marxist press in this country. Willing stooges of the liberal Democrat party, they leave out very salient points about pending legislation and agreements like the treaty that will come out of Copenhagen.

The U.S. did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol which is set to expire in 2012. Copenhagen is designed to replace this failed treaty. Why did the U.S. not ratify the Kyoto treaty? Simply, it was an unfair and ruinously expensive enterprise that would have cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars with little or no effect on emissions levels due to massive exemptions on emissions to third world nations like China and India who were and still are considered developing nations. What is interesting is that comparing those nations who signed and did not sign, the U.S. as an outsider from the treaty did better on reducing emissions than did many signatories like Japan or Canada who ratified the agreement. This is a point that seems not to be talked about by the mainstream media here or abroad. The fact that such exemptions for nations like China and India would most likely occur again rendering the treaty pointless. It may also prove, like most treaties, unenforceable. If those 2 economies are exempted or given “special considerations” the brunt of attention will fall on the U.S. and other Asian counties and Europe, which are improving their emissions profile via technological advancements even without any treaty. As automobile, industrial and electromechanical devices and equipment becomes more efficient, the natural consequence of that increased efficiency is reduced energy use and reduced emissions.

Another point to be made is what the costs to the American people will be if these sorts of treaties and laws are passed into effect. Cap and Trade (the Waxman-Markey Bill) will cost the average American household of 4, approximately $3000.00 yearly and a loss of an additional 1 million jobs in the energy and higher emission industries. These are the most critical jobs in our economy as they are basically the heavy industrial areas needed to defend the nation and the agriculture industry which feeds us. Nobody seems to speak of the issue in these terms.

Having said all this there is an even more insidious agenda afoot that has only been mentioned in a couple of the more learned circles who have looked at the treaty in depth.

One of the major warnings about this potential treaty came from a most unexpected source. A British politician and hereditary Peer, Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount of Monckton and Brenchley, who has been instrumental in sounding the call to arms against this latest assault against the western world.

Lord Monckton has been a major critic of the concept of anthropogenic causes for climate change for decades. An advocate of the Solar Variation Theory which states that solar activity has caused and does cause changes in terrestrial temperatures.
Lord Monckton has made a review of the draft treaty and came to some startling conclusions.

Beginning on page 18 of the draft, there appears to be the beginnings of a scheme to create a transnational institution that will have governing powers that cross borders and take precedence over sovereign states’ established governments. The purpose of this entity is to give this as yet unnamed organization the power to circumvent national laws and directly intervene and control financial, tax, economic and environmental law in all signatory countries. The reasons for this are clear when you consider that with this sort of power, this new “government” would be able to levy taxes across national boundaries and cede monies to those whom they deem worthy of receiving them. These “adaptation debts”, paid by wealthy countries will flow to the favored developing countries supposedly to give those nations parody with the developed ones in mitigating climate change. Clause 33 on page 39 of the draft outlines the scope and amounts, some in the range of $70-$140 billion dollars a year. You, the American people will be paying this... on the top of any taxes that come from “Cap and Trade” which is still pending approval in the U.S. Senate.

During an interview with an Australian journalist, Alan Jones, Lord Monckton said “this is the first time I've ever seen any transnational treaty referring to a new body to be set up under that treaty as a 'government.' But it's the powers that are going to be given to this entirely unelected government that are so frightening." He added: "The sheer ambition of this new world government is enormous right from the start—that's even before it starts asserting powers to itself in the way that these entities inevitably always do."

In another venue, the Minnesota Free Market Institute, Lord Monckton gave a 95 minute address on October 14, 2009 during a symposium outlining what may be the greatest threat to the U.S. Constitution and our sovereignty in decades. An excerpt of this address can be viewed at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zOXmJ4jd-8 .

I encourage you to see this address to get the full picture of the danger posed by Copenhagen and any agreement that comes from it.

This revelation alone gives me pause enough to question the motives of our government and when viewed along with the evidence from the whistle-blower e-mails and documents showing a pattern of scientific fakery on the part of climatologists involved in the whole Global Warming effort; I think there is enough evidence to warrant shelving the entire process until all known data worldwide is made public and all processes used to evaluate that data is made fully public and cross-discipline reviews are done to establish the veracity of all the data on the subject. If the science is proved a hoax, all funding for any compromised scientists and institutions must cease and be repaid to the granters, and legal redress pursued against those individuals responsible for the hoax.

An open letter from a member of the "Greatest Generation"...

2009-12-07T00:54:00.002-05:00

This venerable and much honored WW II vet is well known in Hawaii
For his seventy-plus years of service to patriotic organizations and causes
All over the country. A humble man without a political bone in his body,
He has never spoken out before about a government official, until now.
He dictated this letter to a friend, signed it and mailed it to the president.

Dear President Obama,

My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13
of this year. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my
age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate. Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor, allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.

One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.

So here goes.

I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.

I can't figure out what country you are the president of.

You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:

" We're no longer a Christian nation"

" America is arrogant" - (Your wife even announced to the
world,"America is mean-spirited. " Please tell her to try
preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all
over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of
strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)

I'd say shame on the both of you, but I don't think you like America, nor
do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious
gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness
is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.

"After 9/11 you said," America hasn't lived up to her ideals."

Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn't mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.

I don't think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than
discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people
understood when they helped to get you elected.

Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.

Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don't, I'll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue.

You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of
murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.

And just who do you think you are telling the American people
not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13
of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don't want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts,
Who was putting up a fight? You don't mind offending the police
calling them stupid but you don't want us to offend Muslim fanatics by
calling them what they are, terrorists.

One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you're the
Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission,give them to him. But if you're not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political
strategy you're thinking of.

You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.

You're not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That's not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now.

And I sure as hell don't want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.

Sincerely,

Harold B. Estes

When a 95 year old hero of the "the Greatest Generation" stands up and speaks out like this, I think we owe it to him to send his words to as many Americans as we can. Please pass it on.

I love history

2009-12-02T20:08:00.001-05:00

I have never made any secret of that fact and consider myself fortunate to live in the times we find ourselves in. History is all around us and when we have opportunities to see it unfold before us we should feel ourselves fortunate, even if it is a negative event.

As I was growing up, the benchmark events were always marked by my elders who asked questions like “where were you and what were you doing when Kennedy was shot?” or “where were you when Pearl Harbor was bombed?” For my generation, the benchmarks were somewhat the same. The questions “were where you and what were you doing when Reagan was shot?” or “where were you when the towers fell..?” All these have been watershed events of our time. The problem is that in the not so distant past, we had leadership that followed through and would accept nothing less than absolute victory. That concept seems to have been lost to our political and governmental leadership and become nothing more than historical footnote. Neither we nor our leaders seem to know how to think things through or to follow through as we used to. Now we are involved in two major land actions in the Mideast and yet the concept of absolute victory seems as distant as the stars above.

Last evening, we had the opportunity to listen to the President of the United States give a speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point. As Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces, this venue is somewhat apropos considering that the young people who attend will most likely find themselves facing combat situations themselves in very short order. It is a situation I have found myself in when I was lucky enough to see both the President and the Secretary of Defense address us back in the 1980’s when the Cold War was still very real and the Soviet Union was still very much a threat to western security. I even had the privilege to spend some quality one-on-one time with the Secretary of the Navy, who during my period of service was a reserve Naval Aviator who did his requisite drill time with my squadron, flying the venerable A-6E Intruder with my old unit, VA-42 at NAS Oceana, Virginia. Seeing and talking with someone at that level, seeing them as people and not just positions is something rather special. I was just a junior enlisted man but Mr. (Commander) John Lehman never made me feel like an inferior underling. He respected my knowledge and experience with the weapons system that I worked on day after day, year after year. He was really a leader of men, and it showed when he was in and among those who were in his nominal if not actual charge. His leadership was real, and actual. Q.E.D...something that was demonstrated to us all.

President Obama is a gifted speaker. None can doubt that, but in the last few months it has become evident that his gift of speaking is no longer ringing well with the majority of Americans and is also loosing its effectiveness. Even in Europe, where they still were seeing him as the “Anointed One”, his words and behaviors are falling very flat. Last June, he insulted the French at the D-Day commemorations and has also gone on a host of world wide “Apology Tours” to Europe, Asia and to the Mideast. He told the world that America was going to step back off the world stage, and that we had made many mistakes, that we had been wrong about much. Then adding insult to that injury, the President made several major gaffs in protocol and custom by bowing before foreign potentates. That simple act was the last straw for most of us. It showed not humble respect as the folks in the White House thought it would. It was perceived as weakness, subservience and deference that a President of the most powerful nation on the planet does NOT do...ever. America fought a revolution against a despotic monarch over 230 years ago to have the right NOT to bow before such people. We in naval parlances saw that bow as something akin to “dipping the colors” to another nation’s vessel. That is something that is never initiated... ever. Others dip their colors to us first, and we may return that salute.

But as a matter of national dignity and sovereignty, Presidents don’t bow down...ever. Subjects bow. Vassals bow. Inferiors bow.... Not the American President.

He, unlike the leaders of the past, lacks the mantle of a true leader, and is shows....a lot.

When the President went to West Point, he was a man on trial. He and his staffers may not have realized it but he was. His remark made over a month ago that being in the presence of the military was a “great photo op”. That remark still weighed heavily in my mind. What an incredibly crass and disrespectful thing for a Commander and Chief to say to those whom he must lead to say. Essentially, he had characterized out troops as nothing more than window dressing...little more than props to be used in his pursuit of policy approval. The cadets at West Point have seen all that has happened over the last year and now have the measure of the man who is their Commander and Chief. By the expressions on their faces and the very overly polite and measured responses to his remarks, it is clear that they aren’t impressed. They clearly seemed to want to be anywhere but there. They felt undoubtedly like they were just another photo op.

Commentators like Chris Matthews at MSNBC said that Obama had been in an “enemy camp”..... It is utterly extraordinary that Mr. Matthews, a member of the so-called mainstream media would make that characterization. Labeling West Point an “enemy camp” and by extension, the cadets “the enemy” is unconscionable. What further amazes me is that he obviously didn’t pay attention to the substance or nature of the speech when viewed in context with the surroundings that it was given. Mr. Obama was in the very bastion of military orthodoxy. He was surrounded by those who have placed themselves into positions where they will possibly be called upon to fight and die for this country. The have made commitments that will last decades for some. He gave a speech that was one part Neville Chamberlain, one part George Custer, and no parts Franklin D. Roosevelt, for whom he tries to channel.

Why refer to the former British Prime Minister and the late U.S. Cavalry General? Mr. Chamberlain was the quintessential appeaser and apologist; the poster boy for denial in the face of potential conflict. General Custer was arrogant, felt he was infallible, and failed to recognize the danger the enemy presented and failed to utilize the superior capabilities available to him. He went off half-cocked as it were, to face a force he believed he could beat with a too small a force, in unfamiliar terrain. He engaged a motivated, determined, capable and well equipped enemy and came up short.

Objectively, the same can be said of our forces in Afghanistan.

The substantive points of the Presidents speech were that he would dispatch 30,000 additional troops, when his field commander asked for 40,000. He also outlined his exit strategy and gave a specific timetable on the withdrawal of our forces, 18 months hence.
The historian in me harkened back to World War II, and I imagined F.D.R and Prime Minister Winston Churchill sitting at a great conference table planning Operation Overloard, the liberation of Western Europe, with their theater commanders, Generals Eisenhower, Montgomery, and Bradley. I can just see Roosevelt saying something along the lines of “Sorry Ike. That invasion of France thing...that liberation of the Continental Europe thing you, Monty and Omar are planning.... well, it is just too much, too big, too costly and politically dangerous. Too many troops, too much equipment and by the way, you only have 18 month to finish the job against Germany. I’ll give you 25% fewer troops than you asked for and incidentally, I have already given the press a statement that will be in world wide distribution by lunch on our new war plans and policies....”

Obama has in effect if not in fact done just such a thing.

He has given General Stanley McCrystal, his theater commander in Afghanistan, less than he asked for, and is relying on others (Europeans) to make up any shortfall in troop numbers. He has also given specific information on when we will leave and under what circumstances. The enemy; Al-Qaida and the Taliban, now can sit back and formulate a counter-strategy to this new situation.

If one sits back and really thinks this trough, the multitudes of scenarios that come from Mr. Generalissimo & President Obama are truly scary. Let’s examine two possible and very real possibilities...

1. “The sit and wait them out” scenario.

The “Bad Guys” simply hunker down in the mountains and valleys in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and simply husband their resources: train up, acquire supplies, and build coalitions among the tribes in places like the Swat Valley and in Waziristan, recruiting and scheming away. Then when things have cooled off, and American and European troops have been drawn down according to the Obama war plan, they can slowly and quietly infiltrate back in and then when ready, strike in great numbers across the frontier and overwhelm the Afghan National Army and Government, which can no longer rely on massive back-up they enjoy now.

2. “The keep up the pressure and go after the Europeans” scenario.

The weak link in the present coalition is the NATO contingent. The threshold for casualties is much lower for those European governments who are operating forces so far from home. Other than the British and to a lesser extent the Canadians, the other forces present are token numbers at best. These smaller NATO contingents are operating in more humanitarian modes; training police, conducting civil affairs and some small scale security operations. If I was the operations planner for the opposition, I would target the smaller contingents of troops, inflicting and wounding as many of their forces as possible, and try to poison the European “street” against the Afghan operation. By inflicting body count on these smaller national contingents, the citizens in the affected countries may well demand their troops be withdrawn. This then would drive a further wedge between Europe and the U.S. and force the U.S. military to pick up the slack.
I , as operational commander of the opposition, might also at the very end of the 18 month period outlined by President Obama, mount a “surge” of my own, infiltrating fighters into the cities like Kabul and Kandahar and just before the major forces have departed, initiate a massive numbers of small attacks against Afghan National Army, police and government installations. I would especially target personnel; run up a body count as high as possible in order to demoralize and sew confusion. It would be politically difficult if not impossible for Obama and his European allies to reverse themselves and their militaries and redeploy back in country. It would take on a Vietnamese War-like tone and feel. The liberal, mainstream press, being useful stooges for the opposition, would make the logical comparisons to the Tet Offensive of that war, the liberal base of the Obama governmental coalition would turn up the heat on him politically and excoriate him if he attempted to retrench especially after beginning a long publicized withdrawal. The whole rotten, stinking policy mess would collapse around his head. He would then be forever “the President who lost Afghanistan”....

Both of these nightmare-like scenarios are very possible consequences of the Obama policy as articulated last evening. The question begs: Do Obama or his staff and sycophants realize what they have done? There are only three possible answers:

1. Yes, they know and don’t care if we loose, or

2. Yes, they know and they want to loose, or

3. No, they don’t know because he, as commander in chief and they as his group of advisers are totally incompetent and can’t understand military necessity, operational art, or the ramifications of incongruent and disjointed planning, obtuse Rules of Engagement, nor do they understand the enemy we fight.

I hope number 3 is the correct answer because number’s 1 and 2 would be too cynical or even treasonous to believe as possible.

If it is in fact choice 3, we can hope that our forces can hold the line and make some headway in spite of the lack of Administration support. We can also take some comfort in the knowledge that the mistakes and miscues to date can be corrected in 2010 and 2012 when sober and serious men and women of conscience and resolve can be put back a the helm of the Ship of State.

The Great Afghan Dither-ex

2009-11-23T17:45:00.001-05:00

In July of 1942, the Allies were fighting a defensive war with the Axis powers of Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Nowhere in the world were the forces of Freedom or Liberty gaining any significant advantage except perhaps in the Pacific where the U.S. Navy had just inflicted a major surprise blow against Japan at the battle of Midway, causing Japan to loose the cream of her carriers and naval aviators, and dealing a bitter defeat to the Admirals who led and planned the Pearl Harbor strike in December of the previous year.

America can find some glaring parallels today to what we faced 6 decades ago. We are fighting a war of attrition against another intractable enemy, Islamofascism. This enemy however, does not have a nation-state to call home as did the Germans or the Japanese. They live in small groups and fight asymmetrically in many locations throughout the world. Presently, however, we have come to grips with this enemy in the far-off reaches of southwest Asia in the borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This savage fight has cost us dearly but we have had some success, but more needs to be done and more will be needed from America and her Allies if we are to be victorious.

In June of 2009, the theater commander, Gen. Stanley McCrystal issues a report that summarized the situation in Afghanistan and ended by asking for an additional 40, 000 combat troops to help him increase the presence, increase pressure on the enemy and to expand security to the remote reaches of that country. These forces will be needed until the national Afghan military has sufficient training and capability to act on its own. This “surge” would be in the same vane as the successful one conducted in Iraq a couple of years ago.

Now we find ourselves 5 months later, getting ready to cook up Thanksgiving turkeys and the President has yet to make a decision as to weather of not he will honor the requests of his field commander, and give the support requested.

Why the dithering?

Why the vacillations?

If you look at the historic record, this lack of action seems laughable if not down right criminal. People are fighting and dying in a war against terrorists and the President and his sycophants sit around the White House, seemingly baffled as to what they should do. It seems that neither community organizing, nor a Harvard law degree gives a man the tools, talent or temperament to be Commander and Chief of the Armed forces any more than it gives him the insight to understand economics, the business cycle or the healthcare delivery system. One merely has to see look at the state of the nation and our war effort to see this. Q.E.D.

When looking at the historical record, I think back on those dark days of 1942, and look at all the challenges we as a nation faced along with our beleaguered allies, I can’t understand the leadership (of lack thereof) we have in Washington today. I feel we are really in greater trouble now then when we were then. In the waning days of July, 1942, the allies decided on a massive invasion of North Africa to begin the process of pushing back the Germans and forcing our will against the fascists. A newly promoted and untested commander, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was given the task of planning then leading an Anglo-American attack against North Africa and her Vichy-French garrisons.

In a matter of a little more than 3 months, Eisenhower and his staff had planned, staged and then executed the massive invasion of North Africa, called Operation Torch, which was hugely successful in forcing the German Africa Corps to turn from fighting the British in Egypt and to face a larger combined forces enemy in their rear. What did this action entail?

First; the quantity of forces must be looked at. Seemingly unlike Mc Crystal, Eisenhower was given all the support that a field commander could ask for. He estimated that the invasion would require the largest amphibious effort ever attempted to that time. Over 125,000 troops and support forces were involved in the landings. What makes all this so amazing is that all those troops were trained, placed on slow moving transport ships, with all their armor, ammo, fuel and equipment, then moved by ship over 4000 miles from their ports of origin and under fire, landed and then supplied over beachheads.

The planning for this operation was accomplished in it’s entirety in a scant 100 day’s time.

Flash forward 67 years...

Why is it that the Obama Administration can’t seem to make the decision to move a force a fraction of the size in manpower or equipment that Eisenhower had? Ike did his magic in the middle of a world war, when we were fighting over oceanic distances, with almost non existent air assets and at a time when it took weeks to move materials and forces anywhere. It isn’t as if our troops would be landing in Kabul or Kandahar under heavy fire or that we can’t airlift forces from places we control like Iraq or even from here in the U.S. This lack of support in Afghanistan seems to be a failure of will or a lack of tactical or strategic acumen by the national command authority. Like the Roman Emperor Nero, Rome is burning and Obama fiddles away....

Oh, God in heaven......

How much have the mighty fallen!!!

It’s amateur hour again and “failure IS an option”....

2009-11-18T19:22:00.001-05:00

Eric Holder, the Attorney General is not doing the right thing.

Obama and his administration are making another historically bad mistake.

What have they done now?

The administration has elected to move the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York Federal District Court. This is a huge mistake on so many levels that it defies logic or prudence.

Civil courts are designed to discharge justice on criminal and civil matters involving citizens and aliens that have been in the custody of civilian authority. This is not the case of K.S. Mohammad. He has been in the custody of military authority at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since he was captured. As the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington D.C., he committed acts of war against the United States. War is a military act and thus a military tribunal is more appropriate a venue for seeking redress against this man.

There are many issues that need to be considered, and Mr. Holder has not done so to any objective standard that can be judged reasonable. In fact, there is no known legal process in place to deal with this sort of situation.

First, as this will be a civil trial, how will the issues of military pretrial confinement (Guantanamo Bay), detention and treatment at the hands of CIA and military interrogators (the water boarding sessions) and lack of Miranda Rights (he was captured on the battlefield, not “arrested’ by cops on the street) be addressed? If he prosecuted in a civil court, aren’t the issues involving the lack of correct civilian treatment and observation of customary civil procedure and defendant rights going to be an issue? After all, any criminal is entitled to those protections and since he didn’t get them, doesn’t it logically follow that the possibility exists that there could be a mistrial or outright acquittal on the grounds that the defendant didn’t get due process protections and was denied his “civil rights”? On this, Mr. Holder is silent.

Secondly, there is the issue of his confession. He confessed his role in 9/11 and was later water boarded in order to extract additional information. It might be argued by the defense that his confession was coerced as well and that since he was “tortured”, he should be released. The “cruel and unusual punishment” issue will come up at some point too.

Thirdly, what about the defense for the accused? In a civil trial there is a discovery process. In this process, the prosecution must surrender all its information used to formulate its case and release a list of witnesses. That information will now be in the hands of people who are under no obligation to the nation to ensure that confidential elements don’t leak out. That means that potential witnesses on that list will now be known and at possible risk of retribution. National security data used in the arrest, and the content and scope of information extracted from the defendant during interrogation will most certainly make its way into the public domain, potentially destroying its value to those who are charged with the defense of the realm. This process will allow our adversaries worldwide information useful to them in countering our intelligence gathering efforts against them or allow them to gauge the knowledge of what we know from interrogations that were conducted in the past.

That begs the questions: What will be admissible? What will not?

Many of these issues make it possible that this process could go badly for the government, and in fact, could have many unforeseen consequences. There is the nightmare scenario of the defendant being found not guilty or this proceeding being declared a mistrial, or the judge could simply order him released on some technicality.

When asked what would happen if the defendant were found not guilty or the case thrown out; Attorney General Holder said “Failure is not an option”.

What is that supposed to mean? Does that mean that the fix is in on the terrorist trial?
Does that mean this is all just one, big kangaroo court...all for show, just like the old Soviet show trials that we saw in the bad old days of the Cold War?

There is also the issue of security.

Would you want to sit on a jury in this trial and risk becoming a target of jihadist cells here if you found him guilty or the target of ire and/or violent revenge from your fellow Americans if you found him innocent? Would you want to risk your families?

Would you want to be a judge in this trial for the same reasons?

What about the fact that now New York is now back in the spot light again? The terrorist element has a new reason to target New York and vicinity, as if they needed another reason to do something to that city and its people...

What about trial security? These folks love car and truck bombs and other such things. This makes a rational person wonder if anyone with intelligence and forethought considered any of these possibilities.

What about a possible escalation of terrorist activity to our nation or to our interests abroad? As Islamo-fascists worldwide see this legal evolution, it may become an impetus to act against us more than they have already.

The questions and issues abound. Attorney General Holder has no answers, just platitudes, assurances and no game plan that is discernible. He claims all is well and that the system will work as promised.
Are the people of this country ready to take the word of a man who helped get FALM terrorist released? How about trusting the motivations of a man who lets the likes of the New Black Panther Party get away with intimidating voters with clubs outside voting stations in California during the last general election? Do we trust the words and judgments of this man or his boss, Barrack Obama, to make this work?

In my mind, the jury is still out on that trust.

I like Facebook.....

2009-11-17T19:07:00.001-05:00

I admit that I like this social network site and spend an hour or two a day reading posts, answering inquiries and posting information on a variety of subjects. Facebook lends itself well to my newest passions, political and social discourse, commentary and blogging. It allows me to share and compare with others who view the world as I do and even those who don’t.

I have expanded my footprint on the web, and as a result of that expansion, I have received a great deal of feedback on my specific views and my personal life. I welcome and am thankful for that feedback as it keeps me honest. Some think I just espouse a partisan position without anything to back it up. They who think this would be very wrong indeed. What most people don’t know is that I spend a great deal of time looking up the information that I comment on then post.

One characteristic most people focus on when they look at my positions is how vociferous I am about my feelings, especially about the way the elitist leadership class has failed to govern well and true by constitutional principle. The failure to do so lies in both parties that dominate the political landscape we live. Somewhere we left the concept of rigorous constitutional adherence and began attempting to pursue something else entirely. That something else is the attempt to govern in an ad hoc/by-the seat-of –your-pants manner against common sense and against the constitution. Few people today remember the basics from high school civics, but Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution enumerates the specific powers of the Federal Government. These were all that the folks in Washington were supposed to do. The states and the localities and the people were to do the rest. We need to stick to these specifics and cut back on the extra-constitutional ones that have come into being. This federal power creep has robbed the American people of freedom and have put our nation into near-fatal financial jeopardy.

As of the last published reckoning I saw a couple of weeks ago, the present administration, led by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have borrowed and spent over $1.42 TRILLION dollars. None of this money is ours (America’s). It was borrowed, every dime of it, from Communist China, the Oil Monarchies in the middle east, or from private financiers in Europe and Asia. What responsible government borrows more (almost) money than it raised in tax revenue, especially when it is over 13 TRILLION in the rears already? What responsible government spends in 9 months more money than the previous administration did in its entire second term in office, especially with no discernible improvement in the national economic position which was promised?

Another bone of contention I have commented on, rather forcefully, I might add, is that the President is not acting as a Chief of State should. I am asked why I am so harsh a critic; why can’t I just give the guy a break. Why am I so mean or so disrespectful to he who must be obeyed?

The answer is that I am hard on anyone who shows abject and serial incompetence and banality. I was harsh on Bush for his war policies as he had demonstrated a lack of vision or historical understanding of how to properly wage war. Bush and his clan did not read history of the Mideast (or anywhere else for that matter...) and realize that unless you are ready to fight a total war, willing to root out and kill the enemy and break his stuff en mass, you will loose.

Obama and Company have made some horrible decisions and have demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of how our economy works. He and his minions are apostles of gospel of class warfare and wealth envy. Every policy and spending bill now on tap will result in higher taxes on the so-called “rich” and non-rich alike. 80% of Americans are employed by small businesses. The owners of these small enterprises do their business taxes on their personal tax forms, thus marking them as targets for additional attention of the Looters in Washington. These “rich” people, who are the job creators for most of us Americans, are going to be the ones who bear the brunt of all the tax schemes that Obama and Pelosi have in store. Since they are as myopic about economics as Bush was in the art of war, we can expect the economy not to improve much as government sucks up all the cash it can from the private economy (those “rich” folks)and shunt it to government spending programs for the Moochers and incompetents who tanked the economy. This will destroy the ability for their small business to have the capitol available to hire more people or to expand their businesses or to by the means to improve productivity.

My latest rant on the present occupant of the White House is his general deportment. As a former military type who had the pleasure and privilege to escort many VIP’s, their staffs and families about when overseas or here at home, I can tell you that Obama has made many serious and embarrassing gaffes in his interactions with other heads of state. These were of the sort that I or my shipmates would have been excoriated had we made them. We were briefed and trained better than that.

His use of the bow is especially heinous. The President NEVER BOWS...EVER! This is an act of a subjugation to a potentate or a King. We fought a revolution against a monarchy to have the right NOT to bow to anyone...ever. This has been the case since George Washington’s time and still goes today. Obama has done the bow-down on two occasions when it was very public and particularly distasteful; first, his kowtow to the King of Saudi Arabia, and second, the apology bow to the Emperor of Japan. As a matter of “bow etiquette” the second incident with the Emperor was done badly from the get go. Strictly speaking, only “subjects” bow. If you bow, you are showing subservience. By bowing, the President showed a perceived weakness and subservient posture to the Emperor. It was totally inappropriate. The Emperor comes from a country that uses the bow as a matter of courtesy and course. Obama obviously didn’t get the protocol brief or ignored it as you never shake hands when bowing nor do you bow lower than another unless showing contrition for some crime or misdemeanor to the person you are bowing to. Emperor Akihito looked surprised and embarrassed by the Obama bow and did not return it. He ignored it because it was done badly and to return it would have been to compound the error. The man is a walking, talking faux pas; a protocol train wreck incarnate. This may seem minor to the uninitiated masses, but in global statecraft, perception is reality.

One last thing I should like to address is my enjoyment of the shooting arts. I like guns for a multitude of reasons. As a resident of the sovereign Commonwealth of Virginia, I get to carry a concealed one and do so (from time to time). I have a very simple, unequivocal view on the subject. I have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms and exercise my right just as some exercise their right to free speech or to worship God in their own way. But above all that, I have a right to protect myself and those near and dear to me and my property. Make no mistake, I take this very seriously!

I also get a real charge taking a small slug of lead and placing it precisely down range exactly where I want it. I am very good at it and this month, my son, his girlfriend and a couple of old Navy buddies are going to go to the rifle and pistol range and punch some holes in some paper. This will be the last SHOOT-EX of the year due to the ever chilling weather, but I will still bask in the warm glow of comradeship and fun as we spend the afternoon all together punching holes in man-shaped silhouettes at long and short range. I firmly believe in the adage “Peace can only be achieved through superior firepower...” or a much more ancient Roman axiom “Si vis pachem, para bellum” or “If you want peace, prepare for war.” It works for nations, it works for people too.

Another Obama foreign policy blunder....when will they stop?

2009-11-13T14:15:00.003-05:00

I guess President Barack Obama didn’t take any history classes when he was in school.
Nor did he have a teleprompter available to refer to when queried about the historical significance of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in August of 1945.

The Community Organizer and Chief has embarrassed his country once again and made himself look the uneducated, uninformed and tactless rube when he was questioned by Japanese media during the joint press conference with the Prime Minister of Japan.

The reporter asked the President about his desire to visit those two cities and what his understanding was of the historical context of the atomic bombings of the cities and weather or not he felt the attacks were justified. Looking like a deer in the headlights, the President began a very disjointed reply about his desire to pursue an active anti-nuclear proliferation policy and how he has begun to cut back America’s nuclear stockpile. He commented on the unique perspective that Japan and her leadership had on the subject of nuclear weapons and their use. Then he commented on his lack of firm travel plans to either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The Stammerer and Chief then went off on a tangent about North Korea.

What was blatantly clear was that he was unprepared to for the question and equally unprepared to defend the actions of the United States or its leadership who at the time were fighting a war to preserve not only our freedom but the freedoms and the sovereignty of all the free nations of the world against the forces of German and Italian Fascism and rabid Japanese Militarism. In fact, he dodged the subject all together.

I don’t know who he thinks he is fooling by changing the subject. He clearly didn’t want to answer the question and was very uncomfortable with the subject. Uttering platitudes on the subject of non-proliferation is comfortable, appealing, politically correct, but most of all, safe. Defending the reputation and motives of a past administration desperate to quickly end a world war that had cost millions of lives by the most expeditious means possible, seemed beyond his capabilities. He seemed stymied by the prospect in fact.

It is unfathomable to see that over 60 years after the end of the second world war, we, the United States of America, are still having to explain our actions to the very people who attacked us on December 7th, 1941, or that we are made to feel as if we have somehow done something evil in using nuclear weapons to end the greatest war in the history of the world. It is the United States and her nuclear shield that has in fact deterred aggression in the world ever since the end of that war.

What were the alternatives?

Militarily, we could have blockaded Japan and just stood off and bomb them and shelled them and hoped they grew tired or hungry enough to surrender... The odds of this working were small. The fact that allied prisoners of war in their thousands were also being held in the home islands of Japan, suffering untold agonies and miseries meant that they would probably be wiped out as retribution by their desperate and angry captors who were not very humane with prisoners under the best of circumstances. Civilian casualties from an unrestricted bombing campaigns and from the starvation and disease that would have resulted from a prolonged quarantine and from continued military attacks around the clock, day in and day out would have been horrific. Casualties would have certainly been in the millions.

The option of just demonstrating the weapon to the Japanese rather than actually using it on them was not an option as we had so little material to use in actual weapons that we couldn’t risk expending it and it not have a tangible military result. Nor could we risk letting other countries know just how far we had progressed in the development of nuclear weapons, especially the Soviet Union, who we viewed as a potential rival in the future. There was also the altogether not unreasonable belief that even having seen a demonstration that Japan’s leadership would have acquiesced and given up.

That left a conventional amphibious and airborne invasion of the home islands of Japan.

The plans for that eventuality, Operations Olympic and Coronet were being formulated at that time. Previous attacks against Iwo Jima and Okinawa had given war planners some idea what to expect if the U.S. and her allies were to attempt such a venture. The prospects weren’t good at all. Unlike Europe where civilian populations were seen as non-combatants, and for the most part behaved as such, this would not have been the case with Japan. The militarist government there had conditioned and trained the populace over the previous years to take an active role in defending the home islands from invasion. If the civilians had actively resisted and the military elements in Japan proven as stubborn and intractable as they had in previous operations like Okinawa, the projected casualties on both sides would have been astronomical. The Okinawa, Iwo Jima and the Philippine campaigns were the basis used to gauge how a possible amphibious and airborne invasion of the home islands would be resisted. Okinawa had generated 72,000 American casualties in an 82 days action. The liberation of the Philippines took nearly a year, and cost Japan 336,300 dead and the Americans 62.514 dead or wounded. Iwo Jima’s “butcher bill” was nearly 22,000 Americans killed or wounded, with only a little over 1,100 prisoners taken out of a defending garrison of over 22,000 Japanese soldiers, marines and seamen.

In contrast, the planners of the invasion of Japan envisioned a nightmare scenario of over 1.2 million casualties to Allied forces and 5-10 million military and civilian casualties to the Japanese. With those sorts of numbers, it was no small wonder that any responsible, reasonable or humane leader would have looked for other options to that sort of body count.

When viewed objectively, when all the aforementioned options were looked at, even in hindsight, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the best options in a bad situation for all parties concerned. They provided a stark reality check to the leadership of Japan as to what their futures would be if further resistance continued. Were the results horrible? Certainly they were. Were the results desirable? When viewed against the possible loss of life and treasure in a conventional attack, the answer is and unqualified YES.

Too bad President Barack Obama didn’t seem to know any of this and too bad he seemed unable or unwilling to articulate these facts to the world at large.

Maybe he’ll get it right next time....

Fallout from Fort Hood: Don’t allow Islamofacism lead to gun control

2009-11-09T17:05:00.001-05:00

In the wake of the Ft. Hood massacre, the gun control cabal has now found another cause to rally around.

There have been rumblings that the terrorist, Major Nidal Hassan used a “cop killer” gun in his assault on the unarmed soldiers preparing to deploy to Iraq. This is of course, the rantings of the shrill and uninformed anti-gun lobby and their willing accomplices.

The weapon in question is a FN Herstal Five-seveN Tactical Pistol in 5.7x28mm. This is a very finely made pistol is designed for close quarters combat (CQB) operations by military, police and civilians in need of an excellent personal defense weapon. The cartridges for this pistol come in many types and capabilities depending on the task and the user. The pistol also has the added flexibility for sporting use as it can be fitted with optics and can be used for hunting or precision shooting.

That this particular pistol is being called a “cop killer” is complete diatribe and just plays to the fears and emotions of the uninitiated in our population who have little or no knowledge of firearms. Let’s be clear on some facts here in the real world, not in the popular press pages.

1. The pistol in question is no more a “cop killer” than any other pistol made and available to the general population. In the hands of a trained military shooter it would be more effective only in the sense that the person using it has greater firearms proficiency than the average person. If I, a former member of the armed forces were so inclined, I could have probably done the same damage Maj. Hassan did with my 9mm Glock or my .45ACP Government Colt Automatic if I had prepared properly for the assault as he seemingly did. His only problem was the armed woman who actively objected to his shooting spree by shooting back, once again showing that an armed citizenry is the best defense against nut jobs, criminals or in this case, terrorists.

2. The Ammunition and gun in combination make it a “cop killer” argument is also false. As previously stated, the ammunition that can be used in this weapon comes in many types. There is a standard military “ball” cartridge, hollow point hunting cartridge, and “tracer” and armor piercing cartridges for military and police use only. We don’t know what Maj. Hassan used, but any of the cartridges available would kill a human, as would all similar types used in any other pistol in almost any caliber you could name. We must not allow the anti-gunners panic the populace in believing that they are in greater danger than before or that our police are facing a “super weapon” wielded by Al Qaeda wannabe’s. Nothing has changed since last week.

3. It is a well known fact that almost any rifle caliber of sufficient velocity and size will defeat a KEVLAR vest used by most police. Military grade vests are better, but much more bulky and used only by SWAT teams as they are not worn except in specific high-risk circumstances. My World War 1(1915) vintage British Lee Enfield Bolt Rifle will defeat police grade body armor easily out to several hundred yards, as would my model 1895 Krag Jorgensen rifle. Both these weapons are nearly 100 years old or older and both considered museum pieces. Why are they not labeled “cop killers”? My old CZ-52 pistol armed with ancient World War 2 vintage 7.62x25mm ammunition could very possibly defeat light body armor (class 1, 2, and 2A) as it does generate speeds in excess of 1400 feet per second. A common 12 Gauge shotgun armed with sabots (slugs) could also “defeat” light police body armor by delivering fatal or near fatal damage to personnel via blunt force trauma at close range.

We would do ourselves and the world a favor by not allowing ourselves to become overwrought by the events at Ft. Hood. We must remember that a weapon is tools. How that tool is used and by whom determines the good or evil of a thing or action. Major Hassan did evil by killing innocents, and should face the ultimate penalty for such an action. He used a tool in an evil way to do evil work. He could have just as easily have used a bomb or some other means of human destruction. The woman who took him out used her weapon for good, defeating a terrorist and defending innocent life. Her use of a firearm, like millions of other Americans have done before her, was the quintessential proper use of a firearm and should be lauded. We must not allow particular types and classes of weapons to become bogeymen for the anti-gun crowd. Terms like “cop killer” are created to incite and to inflame the unknowing and to create media buzz. We have to be objective and clear headed on what the problems are and how to solve them.

Maj. Hassan, his belief system and motivations were at fault, not the choice of weapon. The Army, neutered and corrupted by the Political Correctness/Multi-culturist idiocy that the rest of us find ourselves mired in, failed to act decisively in removing a malcontent from its ranks for fear of being labeled discriminatory, or racist. This nonsense must stop. A couple of years ago, a young Muslim convert committed fratricide within his own unit in Kuwait, in a zeal to punish the infidel for perceived crimes and misdemeanors against the faithful. It is time to seriously challenge the Islamic community here in America and demand that they police themselves, that they make a real and fundamental attempt to route out the dangerous radicals in their mosques and places of worship or face the whirlwind. It also may be time to take a serious look at the military’s policies and procedures on dealing with Muslim’s in its ranks and how they view their duties in the military and indeed how they feel about our nation. We can’t have an active Islamofacist 5th column within the very services that we rely on for our national security and survival. We should also consider a moratorium on further immigration from lands whose populations are predominantly Islamic as they do not seem to integrate well into our much more permissive and liberal culture. Why import potential trouble?

My open letter to Rep. Glenn Nye

2009-11-06T19:13:00.001-05:00

This is the letter I sent to my Congressman here in the 2nd district of Virginia. I cobbled this letter together as a way of voicing my displeasure at the attempt of Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the Liberal Democrats to blitzkrieg the Pelosi Health care bill through this weekend. We shall see what happens....

November 6, 2009

Hon. Glenn C. Nye

116 Cannon HOB

Washington, D.C.

20515

Dear Congressman Nye,

I wish to register to you my absolute and incontrovertible opposition to any measure presently under consideration in the House or Senate on the issue of healthcare reform.

We have seen so many versions of health care reform from both the House and Senate that most of the people of this nation are completely confused. Even legislators are confused as they themselves are forced to await simple language versions of the bill sent to committees for review and vote. The size and arcane nature not to mention the scope of the bills themselves preclude the average person, let alone Congress members or Senators from even reading and understanding the cost, benefits, detriments and effects of these bills they must consider.

The latest incarnation has been brought to us by Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. In a delusional flight of fancy, she and her denizens have drafted the largest, most convoluted piece of tripe to come down the pike yet. At 1990 pages and over 400,000 words, HR 3962 is by far the biggest health care / tax raising / freedom killing proposal yet in a cacophony of bills on the subject.

As contrast; the Social Security act of 1935 was only 50 pages and 15,600 words...

The Congressional Budget Office has made preliminary estimates that this bill will cost approximately 1.055 TRILLION dollars. Dollars that must be raised on the backs of individuals and businesses in an economy still reeling from the financial crisis the entire nation finds itself. The revenue to cover this will have to be borrowed from foreign sources like the Communist Chinese or the oil monarchies of the mideast, or generated via offsets from massive cuts in Medicare Advantage ($426 billion), tax increases ($572 billion), or by expansion of Medicaid enrollment by some 15 million persons due to expanded eligibility rules in the bill.

One of the interesting aspects of this bill is the list of revenue targets that Speaker Pelosi and Co. has created.

Medical device and drug makers: The House added $20 billion in taxes on sales of medical devices like artificial hips, pacemakers and heart stents to the legislation. The measure is even worse for the pharmaceutical makers, an industry that agreed to a deal with Obama and key senators to hold down its costs. Pharmaceutical companies agreed to pay protection to government up to $80 billion in the health overhaul. It would give the federal government power to negotiate (compel?) drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries.

Specific language in the bill has many facets. Some of the more glaring examples are:

Page 94 Section 202 (c) which will prohibit private insurance purchases not approved as part of the “public option” pool exchange created by the federal government. In other words, if you change job, and your coverage changes with employer after 2013 (Y1 or Year 1 of the start of enforcement), you MUST buy from approved plans via the government.

Page 110 Section 222 (e) states: “ COVERAGE UNDER PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE OPTION.— The public health insurance option shall provide coverage for services described in paragraph (4)(B). Nothing in this Act shall be construed as preventing the public health insurance option from providing for or prohibiting coverage of services described in paragraph (4)(A).
The aforementioned paragraphs 4(A) and (B) are specific abortion sections. 4(B) describes the abortion program elements that are allowed and 4(A) describes abortion prohibitions, which means that that Public Option Plans will be able to cover abortions...ergo, by extension; public monies will be able to cover abortions through this legislation.

Page 225 Section 330 allows for but does not require members of congress to enroll in the “Public Option”. Mind you, all the rest of us will be required to participate if we don’t have coverage or if our existing coverage’s lapse and we need to buy new plans or change carriers or coverage. Once again, congress has made a law that is elective for them but mandatory for the rest of us.

Page 297 Section 501 describes a 2.5% tax on individuals who fail to purchase “approved” insurance plans. This is in direct conflict with Barack Obama’s promises NOT to raise taxes on poor or middle income earners; those who make $250,000 or less.

Page 520 Section 1161 cuts more than $150 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, placing millions of seniors’ existing coverage in imminent jeopardy.

Page 704 Section 1308 provides for coverage of marriage counseling... There’s a vital service that needs government support subsidy and protection.

Page 1131 Section 1771 describes specific dollar amount increases in payments to the territories and possessions and protectorates of the United States that amount to billions in increased spending and subsidies to areas of the country that don’t have federal income tax burdens. We mainlanders in the 50 states will foot the bill for those who don’t have the same tax burdens that the rest of us do.

As you can see, I and my friends have spent several hours looking this bill over and are well versed in many of its aspects.

This bill is a major blow against all Americans who believe in freedom and liberty. Looking at the arcane legalisms are enough to put a speed freak to sleep, but if honest analysis is done by thoughtful people, it becomes blatantly obvious that the purpose of this bill is nothing short of placing all Americans solidly under the thumb of federal bureaucrats and removing choice from as to what health care we can expect in our futures and wealth from the private sector to government. Barack Obama said in a speech to members of labor unions prior to his election as President that he wanted to see America onto a single payer system like those used in Great Britain and Canada and other nations in Europe. He acknowledged that it may take many years, but that was his objective.

This bill will put that objective on a fast track. This bill will lead to huge increases in the deficit and in tax burdens and reductions in existing programs and coverage’s for most everyone.

The Second district that you serve is a very conservative one, and I am sure you are finding that my sentiments are quite common. I would sugjest you find it within yourself the will to resist the urge to follow the more liberal of your colleagues who favor this abhorrent piece of legislation. I further urge you in the most strenuous manner to actively oppose and strike this bill down, or you will most certainly find yourself facing an energized and hostile electorate in the 2010 elections next November.

Respectfully yours,

Benjamin F. Snowden, Jr.

1990 pages and 19 pounds of Insanity

2009-10-30T15:16:00.001-04:00

It seems that we now have incontrovertible proof that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has made a clean and total break from reality, if not sanity.

We have seen so many versions of health care reform from both the House and Senate that most of the people of this nation are completely confused. Even legislators are confused as they themselves are forced to await simple language versions of the bill sent to committees for review and vote. The size and arcane nature not to mention the scope of the bills themselves preclude the average person, let alone Congress members or Senators from even reading and understanding the cost, benefits, detriments and effects of these bills they must consider.

The latest incarnation has been brought to us by Her Majesty, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. In a delusional flight of fancy, she and her denizens have drafted the largest, most convoluted piece of tripe to come down the pike yet. At 1990 pages and over 400,000 words, HR 3962 is by far the biggest health care / tax raising / freedom killing proposal yet in a cacophony of bills on the subject. The Congressional Budget Office has made preliminary estimates that this bill will cost approximately 1.055 TRILLION dollars. Dollars that must be raised on the backs of individuals and businesses in an economy still reeling from the financial crisis the entire nation finds itself. Costs in this bill are somewhat offset by massive cuts in Medicare Advantage ($426 billion), tax increases ($572 billion), and result in expansion of Medicaid enrollment by some 15 million persons due to expanded eligibility rules in the bill.

One of the interesting aspects of this bill is the list of revenue targets that Speaker Pelosi and Co. has targeted.

Medical device and drug makers: The House added $20 billion in taxes on sales of medical devices like artificial hips, pacemakers and heart stents to the legislation. The measure is even worse for the pharmaceutical makers, an industry that agreed to a deal with Obama and key senators to hold down its costs. Pharmaceutical companies agreed to pay protection to government up to $80 billion in the health overhaul. It would give the federal government power to negotiate (compel?) drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries.

Specific language in the bill has many facets. Some of the more glaring examples are:

Page 94 Section 202 (c) which will prohibit private insurance purchases not approved as part of the “public option” pool exchange created by the federal government. In other words, if you change job, and your coverage changes with employer after 2013 (Y1 or Year 1 of the start of enforcement), you MUST buy from approved plans via the government.

Page 110 Section 222 (e) states: “ COVERAGE UNDER PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE OPTION.— The public health insurance option shall provide coverage for services described in paragraph (4)(B). Nothing in this Act shall be construed as preventing the public health insurance option from providing for or prohibiting coverage of services described in paragraph (4)(A).
The aforementioned paragraphs 4(A) and (B) are specific abortion sections. 4(B) describes the abortion program elements that are allowed and 4(A) describes abortion prohibitions, which means that that Public Option Plans will be able to cover abortions...ergo, by extension; public monies will be able to cover abortions through this legislation.

Page 225 Section 330 allows for but does not require members of congress to enroll in the “Public Option”. Mind you, all the rest of us will be required to participate if we don’t have coverage or if our existing coverage’s lapse and we need to buy new plans or change carriers or coverage. Once again, congress has made a law that is elective for them but mandatory for the rest of us.

Page 297 Section 501 describes a 2.5% tax on individuals who fail to purchase “approved” insurance plans. This is in direct conflict with Barack Obama’s promises NOT to raise taxes on poor or middle income earners; those who make $250,000 or less.

Page 520 Section 1161 cuts more than $150 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, placing millions of seniors’ existing coverage in imminent jeopardy.

Page 704 Section 1308 provides for coverage of marriage counseling... There’s a vital service that needs government support subsidy and protection.

Page 1131 Section 1771 describes specific dollar amount increases in payments to the territories and possessions and protectorates of the United States that amount to billions in increased spending and subsidies to areas of the country that don’t have federal income tax burdens. We mainlanders in the 50 states will foot the bill for those who don’t have the same tax burdens that the rest of us do.

This bill is a major blow against all Americans who believe in freedom and liberty. Looking at the arcane legalisms are enough to put a speed freak to sleep, but if honest analysis is done by thoughtful people, it becomes blatantly obvious that the purpose of this bill is nothing short of placing all Americans solidly under the thumb of federal bureaucrats and removing choice from as to what health care we can expect in our futures and wealth from the private sector to government. Barack Obama said in a speech to members of labor unions prior to his election as President that he wanted to see America onto a single payer system like those used in Great Britain and Canada and other nations in Europe. He acknowledged that it may take many years, but that was his objective. This bill will put that objective on a fast track. This bill will lead to huge increases in the deficit and in tax burdens and reductions in existing programs and coverage’s for most everyone.

The only positive thing I can see about this bill is that coverage for pre-existing conditions like insanity or other psychosis such as those suffered by Nancy Pelosi, architect of this disastrous bill, would most likely be covered. Maybe she can finally get some much-needed help.

Simple reasons to doubt "The Government Option"

2009-10-28T13:38:00.001-04:00

To those in the “Kumbaya Crowd” who think government health care will be a good thing, remember that government has never...not once EVER run a program of any real scale or magnitude that has worked as advertised, on budget or efficiently. Look at Social Security (it’s broke...congress raped the trust fund), Medicare (it’s broke too...), AMTRAK (never has shown a profit though mandated to do so...), and Postal Service (same as AMTRAK...). When government is slated to “compete” there is no competition. Private insurers work on an average 2.2% profit margin. The Government run health services and “insurance option” can loose millions and billions and run inefficiently because they aren’t held accountable and can always count on congress and by extension, the taxpayer to bail them out. Private insurers can’t do that, therefore are at a marked disadvantage. How long will it take for private companies to dump private coverage for the more “competitive” government plan, even if it isn’t as good a coverage just to reduce cost to them or to just pay the cheaper “fine” and not cover employees at all? Not long!! Then there is the cost...nearly 1 TRILLION dollars (probably more when all is said and done)...and no way to pay for it. All this nonsense, all that debt just to deal with less than 15% of the total population...
Oh, ye suckers!!!

Obama, the Budgetary Slight of Hand and “Obamacare”... Just more debt!!

2009-10-21T15:29:00.001-04:00

As if the entire Democrat health care debacle were not enough of a national disgrace, we now have another point of contention to argue with the powers that be.

One of the most boring, convoluted and confusing issues in government is the federal budget. Most people think this is a fairly simple thing in principle, but it most assuredly is NOT a simple thing because the entire process is a political and mathematical nightmare of biblical proportions. Nothing is as it should be and nothing is as it seems.

The language of the budgetary process is a unique dialect that defies all translation and is as understandable as Sanskrit or Urdu to the average guy on the street. No word in the language of the budget means the same thing as it would in common spoken or written colloquial English.

If one speaks of “spending cuts”, he is actually not cutting any money from a program of a service or agency. They are merely reducing the amount of the percentage of increase in a given line item expenditure. Nearly all government expenditures have built in increases year to year. The politicians who advocate spending cuts are just decreasing the increases, not actually cutting spending in any real sense, or measurable way.

An example is that Agency “A” has a budget of 10 million dollars this fiscal year. Each year, the administrator goes to congress and asks for an increase, say a 12 % increase in funding to cover pay raises, additional resources and other costs for the next fiscal cycle. After much debate in committees and many revisions, the congress agrees to a 10% increase. That means that now Agency “A” will have an additional 1 million dollars to spend the next fiscal year. If congress or the executive branch does a cut in expenditures as a way of placating fiscally conservative people who object to higher expenditures, they will routinely say something on the order of “Well... we will cut the budget back 10% on all discretionary spending increases or on all general increases...” That sounds like a good thing. Agency “A” should loose its 10% increase, right?

Wrong.

Here is what happens.....

Rather than revoke the entire increase, they cut 10%...off the increase. That means that Agency “A” will only have an increase of $900,000 rather than the 1 million they were originally slated to get. What most people think is that Agency “A” was not going to get its raise or that they might actually loose $1 million out of their total budget of $10 million, reducing them down to $9 million. They (congress) can say they cut spending “10%” and the public is duped to believe that the congress is actually cutting expenditures in a real and meaningful way. In other words, the politicians and the civil service administrators and the executive branch of government are all in it together to fool the tax payers into thinking one thing as they in fact, do another.

The budget process is so confusing and made overly complex on purpose in order to conceal and to mislead any casual reviewer as to its content. The reasons for this are that they, the political elites, don’t want the average person to understand any portion of the process nor do they want John or Jane Q. Public to truly understand the scope and depth of the budgetary disaster that faces this country. So in one of the great slights of hand since Houdini, the congress, who has the constitutional power of the purse strings, drafts a budget that is so confusing and mesmerizing in its complexity that most who attempt to read and understand may be rendered mute, eyes a glaze, while others may run screaming off into the night in frustration and some others may even succumb to madness...

In all seriousness though, the real subterfuge in the process is not the massive deficits that appear on the budget, but that little known bookkeeping trick called “Off Budget” spending.

What is this you may ask?

It is a trick, or if you prefer the truth, it is a LIE designed to protect the political backsides of the powers-that-be from getting excoriated by us, the American people, by concealing the true amount of spending of the Federal government. If they, the congress and the sitting President, were up front and truthful in putting ALL spending programs on the actual Federal Budget, there would be massive political upheaval and potential sanctions to whatever party was in power in the congress and to whatever President approved such inflated budgets. Granted, they approve deficit budgets now, but the “off budget” subterfuge hides the true scope of the practice of spending what we as a nation can’t afford.

Let’s look at an example. President Reagan and Congress placed strategic petroleum reserve spending off-budget in 1982. Instead of using other means to control the size of the deficit, such as raising revenues (taxes) or cutting spending, they used the trick of placing this program off-budget making the deficit seem smaller, even though the government still needed to finance (borrow the money) for this spending program to purchase oil to just store it...just in case.

The savings and loan bailout provides another example of this practice of hiding true costs of government from the people. The Bush Administration in the years 1989 through 1992 wanted spending on this bailout program, a huge spending program in terms of the overall budget, to be placed off-budget, circumventing balance budget legislation that was on the books. Congress retained some of the spending as on-budget so there was an appearance of propriety, while placing most of it off-budget to hide the true scope.

The other great lie that has been foisted on the American people is the concept of the “Social Security Trust Fund” which has become a great piggy bank that can be raided and exploited by the political powers that be for extra cash to fund pet projects of major expenditures. The Social Security system was supposed to help folks have something for retirement, but it has proven to be a pile of loot too big for the politico’s to resist.

Social Security trust funds are financed through dedicated payroll taxes. Because of the unique nature of the funding source, it is kept off-budget and its purpose is considered sacrosanct, to provide a decent quality of life for the elderly. The funds are off-budget, supposedly safe from expropriation. The payroll taxes levied on workers were raised in the 1980s producing vast surpluses in anticipation of the baby boomer generation retiring in the following decades. The problem is that the government has since returned to on-budget deficit spending as of 2001. This has led to the federal government to borrow from the Social Security trust fund surpluses to pay for other on-budget programs. This causes the trust fund to end up in deficit (little cash and many IOU’s from the treasury) and therefore unable to have sufficient funds on hand to pay out to the growing population of retiring citizens that are beginning to come on line, utilizing the program.

In other words, we have robbed from ourselves to cover up for the lack of fiscal discipline and foresight needed by our nation to survive and to be prosperous. All this has happened regardless of political party affiliation. Both Democrats and Republican have participated and are indeed continuing to participate in this great lie and need to be brought to heel. We need to stop the practice of keeping what is in effect, a duel set of books for the national budget. If we, the common citizens did this, we would go to jail. Congress and the sitting administration need to be held accountable for this travesty. We as people need clarity - we need the truth as to what our government spends.... no games, no slight of hand to hide the real fiscal situation.

We NEED the TRUTH!

So how are they going to hide some of the costs of the “Obamacare” health care reform package off-budget you may ask?

Where is the lie?

It is complex and but in effect, they will rob from Medicare by using a 12 year old piece of legislation as a model to fix doctor payments from the off-budget Medicare program and shunt the projected $250 billion dollars they expect to save over a 10 year period to cover the on-budget shortfalls caused by the costs of “Obamacare”. This results in doctors getting paid money for “Obamacare” and Medicare and the monies being shunted off as off-budget debt (that most folks don’t know about) increasing the national debt by $250 Billion dollars. It is a complete lie...A complete fabrication and if you wish to read further details of just how this fraud works please go to:

http://wsbradio.com/blogs/jamie_dupree/2009/10/medicare-doc-fix.html

This site has the whole sordid chapter and verse on this...

Medical marijuana and Federalism

2009-10-19T18:22:00.001-04:00

I am really torn on this issue as I am not a person who has ever used an illegal substance in his life nor do I personally approve of their use for recreational purposes. When it comes to the use of marijuana for medical uses, I find myself having to agree with advocates for several reasons. These reasons are political, philosophical, medical, legal and economic.

I wish to restate that I do NOT approve of drug use for recreational purposes... If a doctor were to see a valid therapeutic use for a particular substance, he should be able to prescribe that substance as he or she sees fit. Lawyers or politicians in charge of drug policy who have no expertise in medicine or biochemistry should probably butt out.

The use of medical marijuana has currently been approved in 14 states. Federal law has been very strict on the issue of not allowing the use of this treatment, and indeed, the FDA has not approved specific treatments. This conflict between states rights and federal law have been a huge issue and have impacted the doctor/patient relationship and ability of seriously ill people to seek whatever treatments they and their medical practitioners want to use. The Obama administration change of federal guidelines on prosecutions for distribution, sale or consumption of medicinal marijuana, provided that those activities are within the scope of existing state laws, should alleviate some of the problems we have seen occur. This change in policy does not give blanket approval to users and those who grow and sell the drug. Recreational users would still face sanction as would their suppliers. This change merely gives federal prosecutors more latitude in pursuing cases against users and dispensers of medicinal marijuana. Essentially, you could treat marijuana the same way opium is treated. It is used as a pharmacological product in such drugs a morphine, codeine, Percocet, and OxyContin.

Medically, there is ample proof that for certain patients, specifically those being treated for cancer who are undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments and who suffer from the pain and nausea associated with those treatments, the use of medicinal marijuana is beneficial. Treatments for those suffering from glaucoma have been proven as well in some studies here and abroad. These reasonable exemptions alone should be enough to trump federal regulation.

Politically, I have to admit that I see this as a winning issue among the more liberal and libertarian voter base. If use of marijuana is restricted to medical use, then it will be seen as humanitarian and thus palatable to most liberals even if it isn’t completely permitted for all uses. For the more libertarian voters who see any government regulation on the subject of drug use as undesirable or unconstitutional, it is a step in the right direction even if a small step toward complete decriminalization.

Philosophically, as a conservative, I have always been of the mind that the government that governs least, governs best and that we should adhere to a more strict interpretation of the constitution. Specifically, those powers in Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution should be the only areas where the Federal Government has sway. The rest of the regulations should be left in the hands of the individual state governments. Provided that purity was assured and dosages were uniform the same as other drugs that are dispensed today. That approach is the Federalist system in a nutshell.

The economic advantage to allowing medicinal use becomes evident when you consider the cost of enforcement activities in states that allow medical use. Law enforcement resources could be redeployed elsewhere allowing them to be utilized for crimes that are more serious in nature. The reduction of prison and jail populations would be an immediate positive result as well. There is also the commercial component to consider when you look at the revenue that can be generated for states and business that grow, process, and distribute medical grade marijuana. Sales taxes would help states generate revenue needed for support programs for those needing drug treatments. Jobs would be generated and other tax revenues would increase as well from the businesses and jobs created.

A Liberal Looses it @ Starbucks...

2009-10-15T16:03:00.001-04:00

I was asked one day what I did in the Navy....

This question was posed by a young (and as I was to find out, very liberal) fellow in the Starbucks that I frequented for my morning caffeine fix. He saw my old, beat-up squadron ballcap that I have worn off and on for over 20+ years and pegged me for a former serviceman. We had a companionable chat about my service while we waited for our turn to order. He said that he hadn’t served and then made his displeasure known about the activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. I just stood in line next to him, half listening and trying to decide if a Large or Grande sized morning cup would be enough. He, at some point in his anti-war soliloquy, as we meandered to the tables with our respective drug of choice, saw my “required reading” stack, which usually consists of a copies of the local paper, the Navy Times, and copy of some book that I am reading at the time. In this case it was a well-worn copy of radio talk show host Michael Savage’s book “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder”.

Upon seeing this in my stack of reading materials, he became nearly apoplectic. I, on the other hand, sat there quietly, with what some described later, a rather sardonic smile on my face, letting him rant on about how George Bush was the root of all evil and how he got us into all the troubles we are in now and how Republicans are the ones to blame for everything from global warming to the trains not running on time to the root cause of the common cold...

After about a 2-3 minute tirade, he finally ran out of steam. He stood there, red-faced, and without seemingly anything more to say, staring down at me as I calmly sipped my large Carmel Macchiato. He seemed to have run into a wall as his rant ran out. The place was dead silent as about 20 customers and assorted staff stood there staring at him and I. With total serenity, and in a seeming state of grace, I sat my coffee down and placed my hands on the table, fingers intertwined and steepled, and very quietly asked if he was finished. He stood there with a look of befuddlement on his face for a moment. Then in an attempt to begin anew his tantrum, he loudly demanded that I deny the substance of his indictment of the previous 8 years of Bush. The place was so quiet, you could hear a flea pass gas, and said the one thing I am sure he did not expect to hear. I told him that I agreed with some of what he said...

He seemed at the moment to be at a total loss as to what to say next. I think he was counting on a fight that wasn’t going to happen. He then seemed even more befuddled and asked why I wanted to read that crappy book by that fascist, hate monger Michael Savage. The morning crowd seemed to be half listening to us as they were consuming their beverages and pastry, attempting to listen to us and half paying attention to their own morning routines. I asked him as calmly and reasonably as I could, a series of questions:

1. Had he ever listened to the talk show host Michael Savage?

2. Had he read the book written by Michael Savage? If so:

3. What precisely did he object to?

From these questions we determined that he had not heard the radio show nor had he spent any appreciable time listening to talk radio of any type (all radio hosts were “wingnut” fascist and racists after all...). No, he had not read the book (wouldn’t waste his money on that crap...), and finally he could only admit to not being able to precisely tell me what he objected to in the book, but since it was written by a fascist “wingnut” wacko nut-job like Savage, it had to be full of hatemongering and other vitriol.

The sum total of the exchange was that he was utterly ignorant of what he was railing against and that all he had were insults and rash words, not fact or reason. In other words, he was a prototypical modern liberal.

I sat there looking up at him and didn’t really have to say much at all. He began looking around at the other customers and staff people and realized that they were looking at him like he was the fascist wacko nut-job lunatic. A couple of people were even giggling at him sotto voce, and that finally seemed to bring him around. He looked back at me and I sat, tranquil as a statue of Buddha, waiting. I didn’t say a word; I just sat there, looking at him. He instantly realized as he looked around that he was the sole focus of two-dozen souls that were looking at him with various expressions ranging from bemusement, to annoyance and some, with outright contempt. I then held up the book with the cover facing to him and pointed to the title of the book, with emphasis on the “Mental Disorder” portion of the title, then pointed at him with a smile on my face. He looked at me directly, seemingly embarrassed by what had just transpired, and sheepishly muttered a quick and shallow apology, while beating a hasty retreat. With a smile and a chuckle, I and my fellow caffeine mainliners resumed our respective morning routines.

The manager came up to me some time later after the morning rush had died down and apologized for the incident. I assured him that I was fine and that I wasn’t put-off. He told me the fellow that had accosted me was a regular and that if I needed or wanted anything to let him know. I told him that all was well and that I had actually somewhat enjoyed the diatribe as it reaffirmed what I had always believed about most people on the Unreasoning Left. They are an angry and self-absorbed lot with no idea what they really believe. Most of the charges that we spewed were right out of the Democrat talking points that we all hear in the media. Not a single original idea or salient point in the whole rant. Liberals don’t exercise reason but seem to live on platitudes and emotional drivel. They claim a love of freedom, but shout down those who speak freely and persecute those who attempt to live their lives in liberty. They don’t understand the price of freedom or liberty nor do they appreciate the sacrifices that must be made to maintain those hallowed states of being. My morning coffee companion certainly didn’t. It is becoming plain to me that the Washington establishment has lost sight of it as well.

Throwing the dollar under the bus...

2009-10-14T18:36:00.001-04:00

As we come to the close of the year, we have many challenges facing the country. These challenges seem nearly insurmountable. This very morning, I learned that the dollar, the currency that has been the world’s reserve currency for nearly 65 years, is facing disaster. The government has so inflated the money supply that the currency is nearly worthless on the world markets. We have so much debt that the world believes us incapable of anything resembling fiscal responsibility. There are rumblings that the world financial community might even throw the dollar “under the bus” in favor of the Euro or the Yen or a commodity like gold or a combination of all of the above. This would be a disaster for us as a country as we have relied on dollar supremacy to fund the ridiculous spending practices of our government.

In the seminal work, “Democracy in America”, by Alexis de Tocqueville, the author stated “a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it”. Both major political parties, Republicans and Democrats have been guilty of this. He further stated, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money”. In that, Masseur de Tocqueville was a prophet. We have now reached the point where reason has been suspended in favor of more largesse for the people at public expense. The costs of which can be funded or financed via taxes or debt which can be deferred. The congress and the executive branch have seemingly lost control of themselves in an effort to see who can give away the most to the greatest number of people, thus “buying” the votes necessary to remain in power. The level of dependency on selling our debt overseas has reached critical mass. What’s more, the major holders of the mortgages (Communist China, Russia, and the Persian Gulf oil monarchies) that have been written on our futures are seemingly positioning themselves to call the notes.

What of the responsibility of the people in this rising tide of financial and social decay?

They, the people, are absolutely responsible for what we suffer today and must now reassert the common sense and fiscal responsibility necessary to reverse certain disaster. True conservatives must stop being so one-dimensional in their views, so stuck strictly on a single issue like reproductive rights, gun rights, gay rights or indeed, “rights” of any group or individual. We must begin to look outside our own pet concerns and worry about the very survival and solubility of the republic. Without our fiscal, monetary, and general economic issues being addressed and made secure, those other concerns become immaterial as the nation will cease to exist. The people must stop electing politicians to office just because they bring home the cash and benefits they have become accustomed to. We must realize that we can’t expect government to provide for our every need and want, to “level the playing field and ensure prosperous outcomes for all”. We must insist instead on the freedom to pursue our own means and insist government stop spending beyond its means and financing all manner of government give-aways on the backs of those of us who are productive and taking care of ourselves.

All men (and women) may have been created equal endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, such as Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, but nowhere, anywhere does it say that all will have an equal outcome of their pursuits or that they will all attain Happiness, even at the expense of their fellow man, thus depriving them of their full and just due.

We have to make fundamental changes in what we can expect government to do, and indeed what it should do. If we don’t, the rest of the world will force the issue, and when it happens (not “if”...) it will be very ugly indeed. Already Russia, Communist China, the Arab oil states in the Persian Gulf are beginning to make loud noises that in the near future, they won’t take our dollars for oil and other goods we rely on everyday. If that happens, if they kick the dollar to the curb as a reserve currency, this nation will see financial and economic damage worse than anything that was seen in the 1930’s. For those who think this can’t or won’t happen, I ask them to consider that the nations that hold our debt are in much better shape economically than we are and that they are developing nations who could survive any economic hit that would occur if the dollar collapses. They have the mineral and economic resources, the political will, a singularity of purpose and an intrinsic dislike of America and her institutions that would allow them to make the calculation to dump the dollar and/or call our Treasury Notes at the first opportunity, and failing to pay back what we owe, the world would and could simply let us go, and we would be powerless to stop the disaster that would follow.

I am reminded once again of Masseur de Tocqueville and his view of Americans. He said in his book “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

I think we have the time to correct what needs to be corrected if we muster the will to end the liberal penchant to create dependency. We can reverse course from certain disaster if we revive conservative practices and instill conservative principles into the next generation. We must elect conservative candidates to elective office so that they can begin to dismantle and reverse the destructive policies of their predecessors. We must completely discard the antiquated 19th century tax system and system of financial supports and ruinous bail-outs that are crippling the private sector and impoverishing the nation by removing capitol from the system to support failing businesses because they are allegedly “too big to fail”. We must make it possible to utilize our natural resource base again and to revitalize our industry so we can employ Americans and make the products that Americans can buy. We must encourage businesses to start here or come here instead of outsourcing or moving off-shore, especially in the manufacturing sector. We must free the people of this country from the crushing burdens that government has placed on them by casting off old ideas of entitlement and dependency and encourage self-sufficiency and enterprise that built this nation in the beginning.

We have always been the nation of big ideas and even bigger accomplishments. We can still be that if we return to the roots of what made us that for over two hundred years. The time to repair the faults is at hand.
As we come to the close of the year, we have many challenges facing the country. These challenges seem nearly insurmountable. This very morning, I learned that the dollar, the currency that has been the world’s reserve currency for nearly 65 years, is facing disaster. The government has so inflated the money supply that the currency is nearly worthless on the world markets. We have so much debt that the world believes us incapable of anything resembling fiscal responsibility. There are rumblings that the world financial community might even throw the dollar “under the bus” in favor of the Euro or the Yen or a commodity like gold or a combination of all of the above. This would be a disaster for us as a country as we have relied on dollar supremacy to fund the ridiculous spending practices of our government.

In the seminal work, “Democracy in America”, by Alexis de Tocqueville, the author stated “a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it”. Both major political parties, Republicans and Democrats have been guilty of this. He further stated, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money”. In that, Masseur de Tocqueville was a prophet. We have now reached the point where reason has been suspended in favor of more largesse for the people at public expense. The costs of which can be funded or financed via taxes or debt which can be deferred. The congress and the executive branch have seemingly lost control of themselves in an effort to see who can give away the most to the greatest number of people, thus “buying” the votes necessary to remain in power. The level of dependency on selling our debt overseas has reached critical mass. What’s more, the major holders of the mortgages (Communist China, Russia, and the Persian Gulf oil monarchies) that have been written on our futures are seemingly positioning themselves to call the notes.

What of the responsibility of the people in this rising tide of financial and social decay?

They, the people, are absolutely responsible for what we suffer today and must now reassert the common sense and fiscal responsibility necessary to reverse certain disaster. True conservatives must stop being so one-dimensional in their views, so stuck strictly on a single issue like reproductive rights, gun rights, gay rights or indeed, “rights” of any group or individual. We must begin to look outside our own pet concerns and worry about the very survival and solubility of the republic. Without our fiscal, monetary, and general economic issues being addressed and made secure, the rest are immaterial as the nation will cease to exist. The people must stop electing politicians to office just because they bring home the cash and benefits they have become accustomed to and realize that we can’t expect government to provide for our every need and want, to “level the playing field and ensure prosperous outcomes for all”. We must insist instead on the freedom to pursue our own means and insist government stop spending beyond its means and financing all manner of government give-aways on the backs of those of us who are taking care of ourselves.

All men (and women) may have been created equal endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, such as Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, but nowhere, anywhere does it say that all will have an equal outcome of their pursuits or that they will all attain Happiness, even at the expense of their fellow man, thus depriving them of their full and just due.

We have to make fundamental changes in what we can expect government to do, and indeed what it should do. If we don’t, the rest of the world will force the issue, and when it happens (not “if”...) it will be very ugly indeed. Already Russia, Communist China, the Arab oil states in the Persian Gulf are beginning to make loud noises that in the near future, they won’t take our dollars for oil and other goods we rely on everyday. If that happens, if they kick the dollar to the curb as a reserve currency, this nation will see financial and economic damage worse than anything that was seen in the 1930’s. For those who think this can’t or won’t happen, I ask them to consider that the nations that hold our debt are in much better shape economically than we are and that they are developing nations who could survive any economic hit that would occur if the dollar collapses. They have the resources, the political will, a singularity of purpose and an intrinsic dislike of America and her institutions that would allow them to make the calculation to dump the dollar and/or call our Treasury Notes at the first opportunity, and failing to pay back what we owe, the world would and could simply let us go, and we would be powerless to stop the disaster that would follow.

I am reminded once again of Masseur de Tocqueville and his view of Americans. He said in his book “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

I think we have the time to correct what needs to be corrected if we muster the will to end the liberal penchant to create dependency. We can reverse course from certain disaster if we revive conservative practices and instill conservative principles into the next generation. We must elect conservative candidates to elective office so that they can begin to dismantle and reverse the destructive policies of their predecessors. We must completely discard the antiquated 19th century tax system and system of financial supports and ruinous bail-outs that are crippling the private sector and impoverishing the nation by removing capitol from the system to support failing businesses because they are allegedly “too big to fail”. We must make it possible to utilize our natural resource base again and to revitalize our industry so we can employ Americans and make the products that Americans can buy. We must encourage businesses to start here or come here instead of outsourcing or moving off-shore, especially in the manufacturing sector. We must free the people of this country from the crushing burdens that government has placed on them by casting off old ideas of entitlement and dependency and encourage self-sufficiency and enterprise that built this nation in the beginning.

We have always been the nation of big ideas and even bigger accomplishments. We can still be that if we return to the roots of what made us that for over two hundred years. The time to repair the faults is at hand.

Soooo.... Can Barack accept and actually get the Nobel Peace Prize Legally?

2009-10-09T16:43:00.001-04:00

I just thought of this a moment ago....

Can President Obama legally accept the Nobel Peace Prize?

Doesn’t the prize include cash and a medal?

According to Public Citizen, a governmental watch dog organization and the Department of State who manages the vast collection of gifts that are given to our government employees including Presidents and Vice President, an employee of the Executive Branch may accept a gift only if it is unsolicited and:

• Favors or benefits are not offered under circumstances that might be construed by
reasonable persons as influencing the performance of their governmental duties;
• Gift is not cash or a cash equivalent (e.g. stocks and bonds);
• Gift is valued at $20 or less; and the
• Aggregate value of gifts from one source in a calendar year is less than $50.
These limitations seem to make Executive Branch gift rules very strict. However, numerous exceptions reduce the scope of regulation dramatically.

Exceptions to Executive Branch Gift Rules

An employee of the Executive Branch may accept gifts that exceed the $20 value limit for individual gifts and $50 annual limit for gifts from one source if they are subject to one of 12 exceptions:
1. Anything for which the employee pays the market value, or does not use and
promptly returns. If it is not practicable to return the item to the giver because it is
perishable, it may be given to an appropriate charity or discarded.
2. Gifts based on a personal or family relationship. Relevant factors in making such a
determination include the history of the relationship and whether the family member or
friend personally pays for the gift.
3. Discounts and similar benefits that are not directly related to government
employment.
4. Awards (other than cash) and honorary degrees with an aggregate market value of $200 or less. If aggregate market value is in excess of $200, acceptance is contingent
upon the written determination by an agency ethics official.
5. Meals, lodgings, transportation and other benefits that result from the outside
business or employment of that employee or his/her spouse. The benefits should be
customarily provided and not offered or enhanced because of the government employee’s
position.
6. Gifts in connection with political activities permitted by the Hatch Act. An employee may take an active part in political management or in political campaigns. Meals, lodgings, transportation, and other benefits in connection with such active participation may be accepted.
7. Admission into widely attended gatherings. An employee may accept free admission
to represent the agency as a speaker or panelist by the sponsor only. If the event is
considered to be in the best interests of that agency, the employee may accept free
attendance as a gift from a person other than the sponsor of the event only if there will be
more than 100 persons expected to attend and the free admission has a market value of
$285 or less.
8. Social invitations from persons other than prohibited sources or where there is no
admission charge. An employee may accept food, refreshments and entertainment, not
including travel or lodgings, at a social event attended by several persons.
9. Meals, refreshments and entertainment in foreign areas.
10. Gifts to the President and Vice President. Both offices may accept any gift on his own behalf or on behalf of any family member, provided that such acceptance does not violate conflict of interest or anti-bribery laws, or the Constitution of the United States.
11. Gifts authorized by supplemental agency regulation. An employee may accept any
gift if it is specifically authorized by a supplemental agency regulation.
12. Gifts accepted under specific statutory authority.

I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that exemption 10 and 12 of the above rules exemptions might allow the President to accept the prize. However, I am not sure that he would or should be allowed to keep the cash. In fact, it would be politic to give the cash award to charity. As for the medal, it is 200 grams of gold, so its market value would exceed the limit of what he would be allowed to accept. It could end up in his Presidential Library after he leaves office.

Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize.... How did that happen??

2009-10-09T14:28:00.001-04:00

This morning, I awoke to the news that President Barack Hussein Obama was the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

For the record, I wish to congratulate Mr. Obama on his award and wish him well. It is an achievement that has been won by many of the great men and women of the 20th and 21st century, 4 of whom were Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the United States. America has had many winners since the prize was first awarded in 1901. Indeed, more Americans have one the award than any nationality in the history of the prize. As an American, I feel a certain pride and satisfaction in this.

On November 27, 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, giving the majority share of his fortune, received in large measure from proceeds from his invention, Dynamite, to a series of prizes, known today as the Nobel Prizes. As described in Nobel's will, one of the prizes was dedicated to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". Since the inception of the prize 23 American citizens and U.S. based organization have now been given this prestigious award, and now President Barack Obama becomes the 24th American recipient.

When you look ant the list of names and organizations, the record of achievement and dedication to the betterment of all mankind becomes clear. Some of the more notable American winners are President Theodore Roosevelt; for his efforts to bring a treaty of peace between the Empire of Japan and Imperial Russia. Another sitting President, Woodrow Wilson was given the award for his founding of the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations Organization we know today. American based organizations like The American Society of Friends (Quakers) Service Committee, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and International Campaign to Ban Landmines have all been recipients. Other notable awardees include Secretaries of State like Cordell Hull, George C. Marshall, for whom the Marshal Plan was named, and Henry Kissinger, who shares the prize with his North Vietnamese counterpart for their work to end the war in Vietnam.

Other notable winners include such persons as the Reverend Martin Luther King for his work in Civil Rights, Elie Wiesel, for his Chairmanship of the Presidential Commission on the Holocaust, which was charged with bringing the horrors of that genocidal act to the attention of the American people and to the world. Former President Jimmy Carter, who as a sitting President, helped negotiate a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt at Camp David, and who continued his humanitarian efforts even after leaving office. As the Nobel committee stated in his award citation: "For his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development".

As one can see, the list is a long, and distinguished.

The Nobel Committee has awarded this prize many times over that last century and all the winners have had legitimate and notable achievement. Agree or disagree on the actual effectiveness of their work, they made great efforts to promote peace, justice and the betterment of the human condition.

When one looks at the latest award, one is apt to ask, where is the notable achievement? Where is the noble work? What war has been stopped or prevented? What treaty has been struck? Where has a conflict been resolved? What proposition of peace has has been made? The Nobel Committee is free of course, to award to whomever it chooses, it is after all is said and done, THEIR award.... But when one looks at the people who have won this prize, when one looks at the body of work done by those who have achieved these accolades, President Barack Hussein Obama is NOT an obvious choice by any means. His nomination is reported to have been made two months prior to his ascendancy to the office of President of the United States. He had only achieved notoriety on the world stage by virtue of his running for office and for his campaign promises. Since his ascendancy to the office of President, he has made many speeches, mostly geared to presenting apologies to the world for the actions of the nation he now is chief executive of. He has made overtures to nations seen as tyrannical and dangerous. And in some quarters his actions have made America seem less strong, even weak and accommodating to those who suppress human rights and freedom.

Perhaps his more conciliatory tone is viewed as positive for world peace. It is conceivable that the Nobel Committee saw in the campaign rhetoric and in the sitting President we have today something more. According to the citation, the award was given for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples". A very noble sounding sentiment.... It is a grossly broad, nebulous and generalized sentiment.

Let’s review the record.

By his own account, Barack Obama had virtually no body of work beyond local (Chicago) community organizing. Indeed, until less than 2 years ago was just a candidate for the office of President, who has only recently attained office and any authority or real, meaningful public forum to “promote” anything. This award seems the act of individuals who have bought into the cult of personality instead of looking to actual good works in the name of peace. Is the world so bereft of deserving persons who have an actual record of achievement in forwarding the cause of world peace, that they felt obliged to give it to a man who’s only achievements to date are increasing his nations indebtedness, making a couple of apologetic speeches to a hostile audience deriding his own country and its foreign policy positions which have ensured the peace, security and the very existence of the western world for over 60 years? Where and what were the “extraordinary efforts” cited in the citation?

As an American, part of me is proud he won. It is hoped that it may set a good example to young and old people alike that great things are possible for those who strive to attain excellence. God knows, we need as many “Good Examples” as we can get. But on a deeper, less nationalistic or idealistic level, I am less than enthralled. It seems that the Nobel Committee is giving the award not for actual good works, actual “extraordinary efforts”, but for good intentions. His actual work, nothing except speeches and ideals and notions. I ask myself and indeed the committee: Does Barack Obama, the Apprentice President of the United States, meet the criteria of “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”?

Somehow I think someone, somewhere, was not keeping to the spirit or the letter of intent of the award. Was this the best possible choice? Was this the best the folks in Stockholm could do?

I had hoped for something more...

I had hoped for something real...

One great observation about Health Care...

2009-10-07T11:39:00.002-04:00

While scanning Face Book, I found this little gem...

I told Nancy that I was going to steal this...

I hope she doesn't mind.

"We're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he
doesn't understand it,
passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts
themselves from it,
signed by a president that also hasn't read it, and who smokes...
with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes,
overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke.

What possibly could go wrong?"

Nancy Meinhardt-
10/7/2009

Ray LaHood OD's on Kool-ade.......

2009-09-23T20:35:00.001-04:00

The other token Republican in the Obama Administration, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, has been sipping the Kool-ade again....

He has joined the rest of the rest of Obama’s sycophants in decrying the lack of civility in the way the opposition media deals with his boss’s policies. In an interview with the Columbus Dispatch, Secretary LaHood lamented the "harsh discourse in Washington has probably reached an all-time high", He further stated that the blame for this came partly from "all of this trash talk about the process and about politicians 24/7" on cable television and talk radio”. What does he expect? Does he not understand the word “opposition”? Does he not grasp that the more conservative voices in this country are not simply going to be silent or polite as the Congress and the White House ram any old piece of legislative tripe down our collective throats?

What is amazing to me is that we are even having this conversation at all. The administration and the Congress have brought all this on themselves by their actions with Cap and Trade and the Obamacare Health care bills that they have put on the table. The attempt to ramrod these budget busting, job-killing, and economically unsustainable bill through has brought down hell and furry on their collective heads, and they deserve every syllable and ounce of vitriol that has been blasted at them. He also included remarks about cable TV news shows, LaHood stated, "Look, you know as well as I do that there's not enough news for 24 hours, so what happens is that these channels keep repeating politicians yelling at one another or people that are all exercised, and that gets people all revved up”. He continued the “...it also gives the idea that maybe these politicians don't know what they're doing."

The problem with Mr. LaHood is that he is too concerned about “getting along” and not doing the right thing. People need to get exercised, get focused and get vocal to oppose that which is destructive to the nation as a whole. We are in debt many TRILLIONS of dollars to governments that are not friendly to our interests such as Communist China and the Oil Kingdoms of the Persian Gulf. They hold the mortgage to our collective futures and we all need to get angry and exercised at the continued arrogance of the administration and this Congress in trying to sell us on a plan that will lead to greater debt and spending, more government bureaucracy as well as lead to the potential nationalization of the health care delivery system of this nation.

If Mr. LaHood wants to be concerned about incivility, he has only to look at the people he works for in the White House. These are the same people who play the race card against those who object to the policies of the first black President, labeling them as racists.

As a person who has been married to a person of another race and has a bi-racial child, for whom I am very proud, I resent the administration and their supporters for the tone and substance of their partisanship. What they say and do is based on defending the cult of personality of Obama where the conservative media is concerned with the actual policies and personnel that are making those policies.

I think Mr. LaHood needs to do his job as Transportation Secretary, and stay out of the larger conversation. He obviously just doesn’t understand the vast majority of people really don’t want what his boss and his cronies are selling.

He needs to get a clue and maybe start drinking tea instead of Kool-ade...

The Obama Medicine show continues...

2009-09-22T12:53:00.001-04:00

The mainstream media stenographers (they aren’t really journalists anymore...) have been missing the boat for quite sometime. Their adoration of all things Obama have kept them from acting as they should, the watch dogs of the other three estates of government.

In the wake of the media blitzkrieg this last Sunday, we find that the President is still unable sell his program of government control of the health delivery system. Prior to that media blitz was the interview that occurred on September 9th, 2009. This glaring example of intellectual ineptitude was when David Axelrod one of the Presidents closest advisors was asked by Wolf Blitzer of CNN why the people couldn’t just be allowed to buy insurance across state lines, Mr. Axelrod dithered badly, uttering platitudes about how the states regulated their insurance markets and when Mr. Blitzer further pressed Mr. Axelrod why the feds couldn’t pre-empt the state regulators and force competition allowing the people to buy across state lines, Mr. Axelrod said that wasn’t the way the administration wanted to go.

Here is a transcript of the exchange between Mr. Axelrod and Mr. Blitzer:

BLITZER: Why not break down the state barriers and let all of these insurance companies compete nationally without having to simply focus in on a state by state basis?
AXELROD: Because we are trying to do this in a way that advances the — the interests of consumers without creating such disruption that it makes it difficult to move forward.
BLITZER: Why would that be disruptive? If Blue Cross and Blue Shield or United Health Care or all of these big insurance companies, they don’t have to worry about just working in a state, they could just have the opportunity to compete in all 50 states?
AXELROD: But insurance is regulated at the — at this time, Wolf…
BLITZER: But you could change that. The president could propose…
AXELROD: …state by state.
BLITZER: The president could propose a law…
AXELROD: That is not…
BLITZER: …changing that.
AXELROD: That is not endemic to the kind of reforms that we’re proposing or that…
BLITZER: Why not?
AXELROD: …that…
BLITZER: Why not?
AXELROD: …we think — we’re proposing a package that we believe will bring that stability and security to people, it will help people get insurance, it will be — it will lower the costs and that can pass the Congress. And that has to be the test. We’re not into a symbolic expedition here. We’re trying to bring real relief to hardworking middle class people in this country. We believe the plan that we’ve outlined will do that.
BLITZER: Because I want to move on, but if the president wanted great competition — greater competition — he could say let’s change the law and let these health insurance companies compete nationally.
AXELROD: I’m not sure, Wolf, that that would — that that would end the debate that you asked me about in the first place. And, you know, I think that the idea that he’s proposal will promote that. Others have other ideas. But they are not central.
What is blatantly clear is that “competition” means different thing to different people, and those differences lie along ideological and philosophical lines. If you subscribe to the usual, dictionary version, it is the freedom of like entities to go head to head and provide like products and services at market price in direct competition with each other. If Mr. Axelrod is to be believed, the Liberal Democrats have a far different idea of what constitutes competition.
What is also clear is that the administration doesn’t even want to try opening the broader market to competition.

It is clear to see by the most casual observer that the administration doesn’t want to face the possibility that simple, less complex solutions to health care costs reduction are not part of the agenda, which begs the question, what is the agenda? As with all government, the objective is control: control of the health delivery system in the United States. The government wishes additional bureaucracy and therefore will need additional funding to setup and run that bureaucracy. Additional funding means more taxes and more administration which requires more staff and more bureaucracy to administer those staffers, and so on and so on... It becomes a self-perpetuating, ever-increasingly complex of government regulation and taxes, all of which is controlled by an ever growing pool of government bureaucrats. Through this leviathan of control, the government can force the people and the insurance industry to do whatever they want us to do and we will have less choice, less freedom and less availability of products as private payers disappear from the scene do to the excessive government meddling and control.

This is what we have to look foreword to in the weeks and months to come as the Obama Medicine show continues its attempts to foist its graven vision of health care reform on the American public.

Welfare for the 4th Estate…

2009-09-22T10:42:00.001-04:00

Seems Barack Obama wants to preserve the old line print media that was so supportive of his candidacy and of the Democrat agenda. In a world where advertisement revenue is the lifeblood of newspapers, declining revenue is causing many newspapers to die off. Levels of earnings are a levels not seen since the 1960’s and with the exorbitant legacy costs of pensions and health benefits added to the expenses of major daily papers, profits are virtually non-existent. Falling advertizing dollars are a trend that has been an on-ongoing issue 2006 when many businesses began limiting their expenditures on print ads in the beginning of the economic downturn. The competing mediums of television, radio and on-line advertising has also cut heavily into newspaper revenue.

Several well known papers have closed since 2007 such as the King County Journal, The Rocky Mountain News, Tucson Citizen, Baltimore Examiner and the Albuquerque Tribune have all gone the way of the dinosaur. While 43% of respondents to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in March, 2009, said that the loss of the local paper would hurt civil life significantly, only 33% said that they miss the paper should it no longer be available. One of the greatest challenges faced by newspapers is the fact that there are so few Generation Y readers. Pew Research found that just 27% of Generation Y – those born in 1977 or later – read a newspaper the previous day. That compares with 55% of those born prior to 1946.

In light of the growing atrophy of the print media in America, Barack Obama has said that he would be “happy to look at" bills Congress may propose that would give struggling news organs tax breaks if they were to restructure and become nonprofit businesses. A senate bill, S-673, has been introduced by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). The so-called "Newspaper Revitalization Act,” would give news outlets tax deals if they restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. This would in effect make the newspapers that restructure, state subsidized via the tax code.

It is very possible that Obama’s concern is actually an covert attempt to save his media base of support rather than support the print journalists for their own sakes or because they are so important to the health of the republic.

The alternative media is making vast inroads into the readership of local and regional print dailies. The so-called Blogosphere has become an important source of information and debate that has in effect begun replacing the Op-Ed pages of local daily papers. Websites like The Drudge Report, Breitbart Online and the online sites of news organizations like the FOX and other smaller news sites are winning greater popularity as they are constantly available via computer, PDA and cellular devices. They are also constantly updated, sometimes hourly when an event warrants.

The other great challenge faced by print and electronic media outlets is the issue of credibility. In the last two decades, the steady erosion of the so-called mainstream media has been notable. The amount of investigative journalism has fallen off in favor of politically correct reporting. Content geared to a younger demographic hungry for fluff and frivolity has trumped hard nosed, fact based reporting. News programs and newspapers are formatted to resemble magazine shows and gossip rags seen at supermarket check stands, have replaced the nightly news broadcast and the evening paper as sources for an ever shrinking viewing and subscribing public.
To demonstrate just how far the so-called mainstream media has fallen, the exposure of ACORN as a corrupt organization was accomplished not by a large, respected organ like the New York Times or one of the broadcast outlets. A twenty-five year old documentary film maker James O'Keefe and a 20 year old female journalism student, Hannah Giles, mounted a sting operation that would make the FBI proud. In a hidden camera expose' reminiscent of the type of reporting done in the old days of “60 Minutes”, they approached ACORN offices in 4 cities around the country and asked for help in setting up a home based business. This wouldn't normally be a bad thing, except the business in question was a brothel dedicated to the exploitation of children brought to this country from Central America for the sexual amusement of pedophiles. ACORN employees were anxious to help not only to get the couple a house but to help cheat the tax man and even get their under aged employees over the boarder from El Salvador via an underground railroad-like smuggling outfit that the San Diego ACORN operative claimed to have ties to in Mexico.

What was truly remarkable about the exposure of this corrupt organization was that the entire so-called mainstream news industry in this country, with the exception of the FOX network and a few websites like the Drudge Report and BigGovernment.com, virtually ignored the story. Only after a week of videos was aired on FOX and after the Blogosphere got a hold of the story and sprayed it all over cyberspace did the neutered media begin to react. Within a week, the Census Bureau cut its ties to ACORN and the Senate had voted to de-fund ACORN. A couple of days after that the House of Representatives voted to defund ACORN removing all government funding from that organization.

Where was the so-called mainstream media? Where was the New York Times? Where was the Washington Post? Where was the White House press corps? None of these organs asked questions about ACORN, the sitting Presidents favorite community organizing group. It makes a reasonable person ask the question; are the liberal members of the press covering for this corrupted agency in order to shield the President? Are they embarrassed that a popular and influential group like ACORN, so close to the sitting Presidents heart, has been shown to be an outfit that would be willing and able to assist in forming a child prostitution ring in 4 major cities in America? Or are they just embarrassed that two twenty-something’s showed them, the establishment media for what they are, lazy, ineffectual, and corrupted and inconsequential in the new age of the internet and the blogosphere.

In a recent interview, President Barack Obama said:
"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,"

Sounds like he is worried that he can’t control the media or message anymore...

It seems the President did lie…by omission.

2009-09-18T14:07:00.001-04:00

It seems the President Obama did lie…by omission.

In the joint session address on health care he specifically said that illegal aliens would not be covered by any bill he signed.

Guess what. The current bill does. Because it does NOT specifically forbid them coverage, they can get coverage. They will come up with some way to weasel them into the program on humanitarian grounds or some other method, and here is how they will most likely do it…

We have now heard from Barack Obama’s his own lips how he will end-run around any prohibition. He wants to give amnesty to illegal aliens. He said as much in an address in a Wednesday evening speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

He stated, “Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken,” He further stated “That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.” He added “If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all."

If that doesn’t sound like an official intent to give amnesty to illegal aliens, I don’t know what does.

I remember my own experience when I was helping my foreign bride go through all the bureaucracy to become a resident alien after we were married. We spent money we couldn’t afford but we did it. We filled out form after form and did interviews. We had photos taken and waited interminable hours to get through each step. It took months for her green card to come and we had to wait for it before she could work full time legally. We suffered economic hardship because of the bureaucracy and now all those people who are here illegally may get to avoid all that. It makes me resentful and it should make those who went trough the process resentful, too. It makes me feel like a chump for following the rules…

I have a question for the President….

Since these illegal persons will seeming have the privilege of committing felonious acts simply by being here, without sanction or consequence, what felonies do I, as a citizen of the United States get to commit, and when may I exercise that privilege? After all, I have been her all my life. I own property and I have paid my taxes and followed the rules. Why can’t I get away with something, too? I actually have a real stake in this country. I have served in America’s military, defending her from all enemies, foreign or domestic. I always paid my own way and have never been a burden on society. Shouldn’t I, an honorably discharged veteran of the naval service, who has served in time of war, get a proverbial “Get out of Jail FREE” card for my efforts?

Fair is fair, after all…

It is only equitable and logical…

Unless, of course, you are just trying to buy the votes of all those people you want to make legal. Just a few more bodies for the Democrat voter roles… What a cynical and blatantly political act. Anyone with a drop of political acumen can see why Obama wants this. Illegal’s made legitimate would be beholden to Democrats who gave them access to liberal plantation and all the social services they want, at the expense of those who have been born here, legally immigrated here, paid taxes here, or are here following the rules.

As angry and betrayed as I feel by the prospect of an Obama end-around on this issue, I really feel sorry for those immigrants who did follow the rules to come here and live in this country. Any attempt to legitimize those who came illegally, would be a slap in the face to all those who played by those rules; did the paperwork, waited in lines at I.N.S., paid their money, did the interviews and background checks, and then waited sometimes years to be recognized as resident aliens and then eventually, American citizens.

Amnesty makes a mockery of the entire process that others have gone through. It is patently unjust to do that to those people.

Why we should care what Jimmy Carter thinks….

2009-09-17T18:01:00.003-04:00

Just when we thought the dialog on the Rep. Joe Wilson’s call-out on President Barack Obama, calling the President a liar, was finally beginning to simmer down, former President Jimmy Carter, arguably, the most discredited, ineffectual and naive man to occupy the office in recent history, decided to weigh in with his two cents worth. Once again defying the custom of former President’s maintaining silence on public issues, Mr. Carter has fanned the flames by suggesting that the white congressman from South Carolina had malice in his heart against a black President.

It is absurd to make this connection as there is no proof whatsoever that Rep. Wilson has any animosity against people of color.

Mr. Carter said in an interview with NBC News, “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American”. He further said, "That racism inclination still exists, and I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of belief among many white people -- not just in the South but around the country -- that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply.”

Mr. Carter, once again, has stirred the pot of animosity. He has made a statement that is terrifically divisive and unfair to the congressman from South Carolina. Has Mr. Carter some special, unique and omniscient knowledge of the hearts of the American people? What gives him the right to make such an egregious, universal statement? Has Mr. Carter not found enough to do in his dotage? Isn’t hob-knobbing with terrorist groups and dictators not enough for him, that he must now must slander the people of this nation, accusing us of being racists if we happen to think that Barack Obama is dead wrong, and that we question his ideology and his commitment to the improvement of the nation?

Mr. Carter could do us all a favor and go back to pounding nails for “Habitat for Humanity”, and leave politics, statecraft and race relations to those who have the with and the acumen to understand them.

He obviously doesn’t. His record on that score is infamous; he arguable had the most failed Presidency in the last half of the 20^th century. Yes, perhaps he should go back to Georgia, and keep to the old tradition that former Presidents keep to themselves and manage their own affairs, and keep out of the public discourse.

How can we as a nation make things better for all people when people like Mr. Carter ascribe a racial component to legitimate opposition? This creates a resentment that would not necessarily have been present previously, had the conversation remained in the political and ideological realm. To suggest that opposition to policy is solely due to race is a disservice to the nation. It creates a “bunker mentality” to groups that are accused of being discriminatory, stifling real and useful discourse, and creates the air of “protected class” status for those who use that gambit against their political rivals. It can become a millstone around the neck to those who use the tactic by actually creating racism where it previously didn’t exist. Logic and human nature being what they are may see some reconsider racial tolerance and acceptance. After all, what good does it do to try and set aside the entire cultural and historical baggage associated with race relations in this country if we keep getting beaten down with it, or have past behavior thrown up into our collective faces at every turn? Why try to find common ground with those who look different, act different, or believe differently if the only pay-off is to be labeled a racist if we happen to disagree on some issue? It is true that there are some who don’t like the fact that a black man occupies the White House; it would be naïve to suggest otherwise, but to make the wholesale assertion that ALL opposition is race based, is absurd and creates race based animosity where none may have existed before.

There is also a small possibility that it may even hurt future candidates of color because some of the voting public will not like to see a repeat of this racial acrimony should other minorities attempt to seek office. Some voters may just decide that it isn’t worth it to them to vote for minorities candidates if it follows that disagreement equals racism. It would be easier to simply not to back minority candidacies and avoid future problems. This would be a huge tragedy for all Americans as We, the People could be denied the best and brightest men and women for office because it’s just easier to exclude, rather than deal with the potential slander.

Then again, maybe that’s what they Liberal Democrats want….

It would be a self-fulfilling prophecy and confirmation of the liberal world-view that America is an inherently racist country, beyond hope and redemption without the blessings and programs only liberalism provide.

It is also my belief that there is an industry that exists to profit from racial inequities whether real or imagined. Men like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have enriched themselves to the tune of millions of dollars and created empires based on reverse race baiting, accusing enterprises and individuals of discrimination and racism when no absolute proof exists, and then extort money or favors from the accused. It is a tremendously effective tool to mute opposition.

America has come so far in the 40+ years since the Civil Right Act was signed into law. Nobody with any intelligence would argue that we still have some work to do to ensure that progress continues toward a truly color blind society, free of base prejudices’ that have so divided us as a nation. I believe that the day will come when we will look back and wonder how all those who came before could have been so ignorant to look at people and measure intellect, competency and character by some superficial differences in color, appearance, or national origin.

I hope that that day comes soon.

My response to Glenn Greewald, from "ACORN Apologetics" by Joseph Lawler, American Spectator Online

2009-09-17T16:07:00.001-04:00

This is my comment to an article in the American Spectator website on 9/17/2009.

Joseph Lawler outline the arguments made by ACORN apologist Glenn Greenwald that Wall Street's abuses exceed anything ACORN has done because they are doing good works for the poor and down-trodden and that the relative dollar amounts should excuse them from all the harangue and vitriol.

Here is my response:

Venality and corruption abound in Washington. Nobody questions that there is waste, fraud and abuse in all areas, and that Wall Street has that problem as well. Whenever people are exposed to huge sums of money, be it public or private money, there is bound to be some graft and corruption. It is something we all agree is a bad and should be fought, and prosecuted whenever misconduct or malfeasance it is found. When comparing ACORN to Wall Street, however, let us remember that despite all the faults that one may find with the financial industry, at least they never showed a willingness on multiple occasions to give aid, comfort and support to people in setting up a criminal enterprise to traffic in young children across international borders to be used as sex toys for degenerates, and to out and out defraud the government in the process. Stealing money is one thing, sex slavery of minor children is quite another. And to think, ACORN is up for 8.5 billion in stimulus cash... Makes one wonder how many kiddie brothels ACORN could help fund with that chunk of change... Hey ACORN... Can you say R.I.C.O. ???

STRIKE 3....Maybe for ACORN

2009-09-14T13:39:00.001-04:00

The young, intrepid and courageous reporters have stuck again at the corrupt organization, ACORN…

Last week it was Washington D.C. and Baltimore.

This time, in Brooklyn, New York….

Once again, our faux pimp and hooker have taken their “show” on the road to the “Big Apple” and we have seen, once again, that the criminal enterprise known as ACORN has shown it’s true colors as an aider and abettor of child trafficking, child prostitution, and tax fraud. When asked about what was necessary to set up a brothel and how to hide the proceeds, they were given specific information how to hide the cash (in a can in the backyard!) and how to characterize the young lady’s employment as that of “Performance Artist”. When asked how they should deal with their El Salvadorian child prostitutes, they were told that they could make them dependents for tax purposes.

Officials at ACORN have threatened lawsuits for Defamation of Character…

“Defamation of Character" implies that they HAVE character.....

Hey ACORN...Can you say "R.I.C.O.”?
They are totally corrupt...
Corruption in ACORN seems systemic when you look at how many investigations and irregularities have been found involving them. Barrack Obama was a trainer and legal defender of this organization, so one is apt to wonder what he knows and how much responsibility he has in shaping the tactics and practices of the apparently criminal enterprise. Why hasn't the U.S. Attorney opened a RICO investigation? The corruption is nation-wide, therefore can be looked into by the Feds. Perhaps Obama is shielding his buddies at ACORN from federal scrutiny... Maybe it is time for those of us sick of the corruption to take matters into our own hands like some folks in Ohio did and file our own suites...Any organization that would help set up a criminal enterprise that assists in the trafficking and exploitation of children for the sex trade, and then assist with the "paperwork" to make it all legal-like even if fraudulent, is beyond inhuman.

Hey ACORN....STRIKE 2 !!!!

2009-09-11T19:53:00.001-04:00

To paraphrase an old movie and book title, once seems to be not enough for the folks at ACORN...

Two expose' videos put out in the last 48 hours by 2 very brave young people have shown just how venial and corrupt ACORN truly is. There might have been a valid argument that this is a smear campaign by Republicans to discredit the organization, but when you have voter fraud cases in 2 states and now these videos from 2 other areas of the country, it is blatantly apparent that there is a culture of corruption that leads all the way to the highest levels of our government. The President of the United States has publicly commended this organization for its efforts on many fronts including voter registration, which now are under investigation in several states. Obama has so many ties to this organization going back over a decade that one is apt to wonder what he knows about them and if he has had any knowledge of past acts like the ones seen in the videos.

Conspiracy to aid and abet child trafficking and child molestation, tax evasion, and fraud should rate a look-see by the U.S. Attorney... Since the whole organization seems corrupted (Indictments in Florida and Nevada..), they should be shut down and their leaders and lieutenants tried and jailed. Perhaps a look at the voter registration efforts by ACORN on behalf of the Democratic Party should rate a look as well since the Demos have seen to it that ACORN gets federal funds...over 8 BILLION dollars worth...

I say the videos tells the whole sordid and felonious story... These are the sorts of people the Democrats are in bed with...People who would willingly and happily help the criminal element game the system and set up brothels stocked with illegal alien/child prostitutes in your backyard. These are degenerates of the highest order. There is no excuse. No cover or pit deep enough to hide for those who would aid and abet that sort of thing.

Hey ACORN....Can you say R.I.C.O. ???

P.S. At least Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts had gay ADULTS turning tricks from his home...not kids!!

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK, FOLKS

Welcome to Cloud Cuckoo Land!!

2009-09-10T19:44:00.001-04:00

In the wake of President Obama’s speech Wednesday night, I have stopped and reflected on the words and substance of his address to the joint session of congress. My initial reaction was that he was back on the campaign trail running for office again. He is a good speaker, maybe even a great one when he attempts to move the crowd. The problem was that when you strip away the platitudes and the rhetoric, what are you left with?

The essence of the speech was that we have to reform healthcare or else….

Well, for those who have been without health insurance, as I myself have been on occasion, I can certainly sympathize. But the bottom line is that the republic will not collapse if the status quo continues. But if this bill, HR 3200 does make it to the President’s desk for approval, we may very well hasten the bankruptcy of the country, and disrupt permanently, what is arguable the best healthcare delivery system in the world.

This is not rhetoric, it is fact.

Keep in mind these 2 indisputable facts:

1. Congress just raised the national debt ceiling to 12 TRILLION dollars this week
(that’s 12,000 BILLION dollars…) If you need a visual, it would be enough dollar bills to reach the moon and back over two and a quarter times if you laid the bills end to end…

2. The Obama Administration and the Democratic controlled congress have spent over 1.38 Trillion dollars since January, 2009. That is 4 times what the previous administration spent in its last year in office.

The President said on Thursday, the day after his address, at his cabinet meeting that the status quo could NOT be maintained and we had to do something because so many Americans were going bankrupt and that people were dying for lack of care. Well Mr. President, that may happen from time to time to a few, and yes, it is tragic when it happens, but ultimately, if you destroy the economy of the country, if you set up a system that bankrupts the entire nation trying to provide services to everyone, we are all in a great deal more trouble than those unfortunate few.

But let us not focus just on that one point. Let us look at what is known to be in the actual bill and look at what is on the record, from the Presidents own statements.

The first thing that I would like to make note of was the numbers of uninsured or under insures people the President said would be covered. We have heard repeatedly from the administration and from the congressional leadership that there were 45-47 million people needing help. Inexplicably, last night the number dropped to 30 million…. How did that happen? Where did 15-17 million people go? Perhaps he removed the illegal aliens from the mix? OK, I am fine with that… But why were illegal aliens in the computation in the first place? Why was the higher figure bandied about as gospel? He stated categorically that illegal aliens were not going to be covered by his program. If that is the truth, then why were they a computed factor before? Were they going to be covered prior to his speech last night? Who was lying to whom about this?

The Congressional Research Service published a report in August 25, 2009 that outlined the coverage of illegal aliens in HR 3200. According to the report:

“ H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitizens participating in the exchanges whether the noncitizens are legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently.”

So in effect, the President did lied…… Big surprise there, right?
Another point that needs to be made is that on 2 occasions, attempts were made by Republicans to put in specific language that would specifically bar illegal aliens from getting taxpayer assistance in acquiring healthcare. One well known attempt was by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nevada, who tried to introduce an amendment that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack Obama. The House Ways and Means Committee defeated the Heller amendment by a 26-to-15 vote along straight party lines, and followed this action by passing the 1,018-page bill by a 23-to-18 margin, with three Democrats voting against the plan. Incidentally, he also put in for an amendment that would require Congressional members and their staffs and other government employee to be made part of this plan, but the Democrats on the committee struck that down as well. What is good enough for us is evidentially not good enough for them.

So much for principle of bipartisanship…

So much for equal protection under the law…

Then there is the really shaky economics of this program, which will, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan agency of Congress, cost the taxpayers an estimated 1 TRILLION dollars to help an estimated 45 million people (or is it 30 million…). According to the President, he would not sign a bill that added “one dime to the federal deficit”. Well, I believe he believes that. And because I believe he believes that, he is the most dangerously ignorant individual to occupy the office of President in a very long time. He seems not to have a clue as to how the real world works or any concept of business, economics or human nature. One thing is certain, he may be a great community organizer, but he’s a lousy mathematician.

He stated that that he would fund most of this program from savings from reductions in waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid; Most of it… meaning more than 50% of it, or more than 500 billion dollars using the C.B.O. numbers.

Well, isn’t that great! I can’t wait……

Wait a minute…. Why haven’t they made these sorts of efficiencies before? Why is there so much waste, fraud and abuse in those programs now? Why hasn’t Congress or the administration dealt with this already? Is there over half a Trillion dollars in savings that can be had from cutting waste, fraud and abuse from Medicare and Medicaid; to be transferred from those programs? If there is that much inefficiency, that much waste and fraud in those programs, why on earth would we trust Obama and his sycophants in congress to start up a whole new and ruinously expensive program to deal with less than 10% of the population (by his new, revised numbers) and that in effect puts major controls on 16% of the national economy? It is utterly incomprehensible how anyone could honestly look at this plan, read it and do the basic math and see anything but disaster for the nation.

I have an idea…

Why don’t the powers that be prove their contention that they can do all they say they can. Let’s see if they can come up with the monies they say they can BEFORE they pass this egregious piece if legislative pap. Let them prove to all of us on both sides of the political spectrum that economies to existing government programs can be made without cutting services to Medicare or Medicaid and that there won’t be a drop in service quality. Let them show the fiscal and administrative chops to make these 2 programs run the way they should have been all along BEFORE they get their hands on the system the rest of us depend on? It is truly unbelievable that Obama and his minions are pushing this when they haven’t demonstrated an ability to deliver on any aspect needed to fund this program without busting the budget. Let them prove their competency. Lets see if there is any credence to anything they say.

Wake up, ladies and gentlemen……

Our leadership is in cloud cuckoo land.

Good enough for thee, but NOT good enough for me!!...

2009-09-09T17:38:00.001-04:00

This is the message we get when the government exempts itself from the laws and regulations that it passes. Health Care Reform as it is presently being sold to the rank and file citizen will exempt the political class in Washington contrary to popular belief, and White House assurances.

Rep. Dean Heller, R-NV, during a Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives, attempted to add an amendment during the meeting just before the recess began that would have required Members to be covered by the so called “Public Option” plan if it was approve for private citizens.

Big surprise, the Heller amendment was shot down by ALL 21 committee Democrats. Not a single Democrat voted to be part of this supposedly good plan for the rest of us. Yes, BIG surprise there...

That vote is indicative of the reality that any bill requiring Congress to be covered by the same health care as the public has absolutely NO chances of being enacted. It seems that the golden rule truly applies… Those who control the gold make the rules for the rest of us, and exempt themselves.

How good can the “Public Option” be if they won’t give it to themselves?

By the way, just in case you didn’t know it, f Congress and their staffs and families presently get health insurance coverage through the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), which offers enrollees nearly 300 choices among a variety of plans, coverages and costs.

The FEHBP also covers most federal employees, and federal retirees, and all members of the House and Senate (Congress) though the latter (Congress) has additional perks of office that make their health coverage far better than that available - or affordable - for the vast majority of working Americans. One of these perks include admission to Federal Hospital facilities like Bethesda Naval Hospital and it’s VIP wing.

Obama speaks to the kids.....

2009-09-08T13:49:00.001-04:00

Today, President Obama is speaking to the children of the nation in their school rooms.

According to the text of the speech, which is VERY long and punctuated with an excess of personal pronouns, he will extol the virtues of education and encourage the youth of America to pursue education. It will be a very vanilla speech as speeches go. Hopefully it will touch a child or two, encouraging them to stay in school and to achieve excellence.

Unfortunately, the more conservative elements in this country made a great issue of the address and have been complaining that the entire evolution was a attempt to indoctrinate the kids. There were criticisms of the after speech activities that were posted to the Department of Education’s website. The specifics were that the speech and writing assignments were an indoctrination tool, cultivating the cult of personality of Obama.

All this was put out into the mainstream media and onto the blogosphere prior to any transcript of the actual speech being made public. Predictably, the ensuing harangue began almost immediately and built to a crescendo at the same time that Van Jones was (probably) being thrown under the bus by the White House. Weather he arises again like Lazarus to hold some back-office position is yet to be seen, but you can bet we have not heard the last of Mr. Jones.

All the hoopla over the President’s address begs the question as to weather the liberals have rope-a-doped conservatives by salting the already charged political environment with what appeared to be a potential propaganda play by Obamanites; Create a predictably pseudo-political workbook assignment for the kids to be done after the speech, one that has the tone and effect of aggrandizing a presidential cult of personality. A predictably volatile reaction ensues, only to be shown to be all for not. The speech is rather bland and apolitical. As of today, the offending after-speech assignments are gone from the D.O.E website. The bait and switch is now complete.

The mainstream media will predictably say in the wake of the speech, “what was the big deal?” The independent crowd will say “where is all the controversial stuff you conservatives said was it this speech?” and the Obamanites will get the last laugh as they may have had a couple different versions of this speech available depending on the reactions to the concept.

Under fire, they withdrew the offending assignments after the storm began. They complete their operations to make the right look like a bunch of whiners by releasing a toned down schoolhouse address (their version of Plan “B”). The bottom line is that too much was made of the president’s speech to the school kids.

Based on my own experience, as the father of an active son who is now in college, most of them won’t remember it past next week, if even that long. The attention span of kids in class is limited to the length of a sitcom segment or music video at the most. The content of the speech will not do much more than provide a Sominex moment to the youth of America. When I read the text, I felt like Tip O’Neill during a State of the Union address…drowsy by the time I finished. We must maintain focus on the speech that really matters and that is the one President Obama will give to Congress on Heath care reform. We must all keep after the congressional representatives and keep after the senators as we get down to this major threat to personal freedom and independence.

August Recess is over. Now the real fight begins….

Putting more lipstick on the pig.....

2009-08-27T16:32:00.003-04:00

How predictable…

We all have been watching as Sen. Ted Kennedy slowly passed from the scene before our eyes. It is a sad thing indeed. Camelot has finally been laid to rest with the passing of the last scion of the original Kennedy Clan. It is a hard thing to watch, to see someone who has been so visible and so much part of the body politic for so many years fade away. Few can deny he was a very prolific and important legislator for his party and for the nation. But what also can‘t be denied either is that his reputation as a politician has been greatly tarnished by his sordid and questionable actions when not doing the peoples work on the floor of the Senate.

Sen. Robert Byrd, a man who is believed to be the greatest scholar and certainly the longest serving Senator in the history of the republic has called for the renaming of the excremental healthcare nationalization bill, H.R. 3200, after his late colleague. This happened within hours of the senator’s death; almost as if it had been planned in advance.

Many pundits and those in positions to comment on the opposition to Obamacare, predicted this possibility as far back as January when the healthcare agenda of the Democrats came to the forefront, and Senator Kennedy’s condition became more generally known and his prognosis was publicized. These seemingly callous remarks at the time by those who oppose the liberal agenda of the new congress and administration in the White House faded away but now seem prophetic now that the senior senator of Massachusetts has passed into history.

This also proves the desperation and lack of character of the Democratic leadership. They can’t seem to get it done with logical, reasoned, and factual arguments when it comes to the nationalization of healthcare. Even with decisive majorities in both houses of congress, they must resort to this cheap attempt to appeal to the emotions of the American people. It is without a doubt, the most cynical, calculated and blatantly disingenuous act to play on the emotions of the American people, and on their fellow legislators we have seen in some time. It proves that when all else fails, that when the people, who have seen just how bad this bill is going to be for them, who are revolting en masse against this ill-conceived piece of legislation, the liberal leadership of this nation will do anything including shameless emotionalism to accomplish their ends.

To borrow a much uttered axiom from the past; if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.

If you re-brand this hideous piece of legislative tripe after a respected deceased member of the Senate, it is still a hideous piece of tripe, period.

We can’t allow this callous and calculated act of emotionalism to cloud the issues that face us as we debate the attempt at a de facto governmental seizure of the health delivery system. As much as the storied Kennedy name carries so much emotional weight and indeed, mystique in so many quarters, in so many ways, we can’t let that redefine and obscure the facts that the nation can’t afford the largess of this plan. Nor can we afford to allow the government to make this big play power grab of something this important. There are too many unanswered questions. There are too many government fiats allowed in H.R. 3200 that should not be permitted. There are fiscal issues, privacy issues and treatment issues that should be the exclusive province of the patient/doctor relationship, not that of government apparatchiks with unlimited power and authority who can act with impunity and without recourse to those who will be under their control.

I make no secret of my distaste of the late senator. I didn’t see him as anything other than a man with many serious character flaws that has managed to dodge responsibility for actions that would have put any of the rest of us in prison for decades. Yes, he did some good things, and should be given kudos for those things, and yes, he was elected by the people of his state, but I think it was more sympathy for his family’s personal and public tragedies, rather that true merit, greatness, or legal scholarship that has allowed him to attain high office and skate away from the consequences of his actions. People in his position should be a cut above the rest of us; their personal and professional conduct, sense of honor, decorum and legal scholarship should be held to a higher standard that the average man on the street. No man is perfect, but he was so very far from perfect. Now in a trite attempt to save H.R.3200 by renaming it after Sen. Kennedy so the Democratic troops will rally around it shows just how much the leadership of the party in power has slid.

It is truly pathetic and we are not amused…. for is truly not a laughing matter…

We are not fooled either …and no matter how much lipstick you put on this legislative pig, it is still a pig.

Putting more lipstick on the pig.....

2009-08-27T16:32:00.001-04:00

Ted Kennedy is gone... Camelot ends without a BANG ...

2009-08-26T15:42:00.001-04:00

The Pinko-Commie Libs are making appeals to the masses to name the nationalization of healthcare legislation after Ted Kennedy......
Just when you thought that they couldn't stoop to lower levels, they come up with this little gem!!!
Naming this aberration of a bill after a guy who got away with manslaughter seems appropriate somehow... There is a symbiosis to this…
Name the bill that could codify the administrative manslaughter of those deemed unworthy of help by government fiat for a man who committed manslaughter… and got away with it… Yes, how appropriate indeed!!!
My Mary Jo rest in Peace finally....

Just a little something I heard this morning...

2009-08-17T15:28:00.005-04:00

While listening to Neal Boortz on my morning commute, I heard Neal read a letter from a fictitious owner of a fictitious company about, based here in the Tidewater (Norfolk, to be precise) area, of southeastern Virginia. The letter was symbolic and profound in its reasoning. The letter to was to the employees and the families of those employees. It was simple, but quite eloquent. It explained why Obama's plan to fund all matter of programs via tax increases on the "RICH"...whomever they may be...depending on who in the Democratic party they ask, was a bad idea. I think it was as good an illustration of what can and will happen to many if not the preponderance of small businesses her in the United States if the Liberal Democrats continue to run amok in Washington D.C. We as logical, reasoned people must do all in our power to bring the ruinous brigands to heel as soon as possible be they destroy the nation via debt and tyranny. you can read this fantastic piece of prose at:

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2009/08/just-a-little-company-gettoget.html

Read this soon and pass it on to your friends.....

Liberals twist the “General Welfare” clause to mean a “Right to Healthcare”

2009-08-13T19:30:00.002-04:00

When we read the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, it says:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The “general welfare” clause has been used repeatedly as justification by liberal elements and so-called “progressives” for many pieces of legislation over the last 75 years. It began in earnest with the election of the most imperial of all presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

More recently, the Clinton Administration took up the issue of so called health care reform arguing that there was great desire in the country to nationalize the private healthcare delivery system in this country and to model it on along the lines seen in other western democracies. The reasons on the surface seem benign enough, so that all citizens who had no existing private coverage may enjoy equal access to quality care. This all sounds great, even noble and desirable. The problem is that when you strip away the high sounding, warm and compassionate rhetoric, there were some real conceptual problems with the idea of universal healthcare.

When Bill Clinton was elected President, one of the first priorities of his administration was to begin the process of establishing a universal healthcare program. First Lady Hillary Clinton, in league with others, were tasked by the President to come up with a viable program. The problem was that the plan that was formulated was far too ambitious in scope. Specifically, they attempted to provide universal coverage and private market regulation, drafted regulations that required private employer mandated coverage. They also planned enforcement of regulations and coverage via a “national health board”, and to transform the delivery system for medical care through a “managed care” model. Attempting any one of these objectives would have been difficult at best, but attempting all at the same time, and attempting to plan them in secret, was the only spark needed to begin the firestorm of opposition that would see this plan laid waste, never to be revived for the entirety of the Clinton presidency.

With the election of Barrack Obama, the dominant liberal wing of the Democratic Party has once again taken up the gauntlet and moved with what some see as precipitous speed to ram though both the House and Senate a new bill, H.R. 3200, the so called “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009”.

This bill has been touted as a solution to the problem of insuring the 45 million people the administration claims are not covered by health insurance and who need to be covered by some sort of scheme. This plan to provide coverage for so many people has become the signature legislative issue of Obama’s first year in the White House. It has also become the single most contentious issue of the new President’s term. So contentious in fact that in spite of massive majorities in both the House and Senate, there has been a massive groundswell of anger among most conservatives and many moderates who had supported Obama’s election to the Presidency.

One of the major points of contention is the cost, estimated to be in excess of 1 TRILLION dollars. Another point of contention is more esoteric; that the federal government has no constitutional authority to in effect, nationalize the health delivery system of the nation. This is a very serious point as it will mean that no longer are your health care decisions exclusively under your personal control, but now the shared purview of government bureaucrats, who will have a say as to what levels of care you will receive and who as well as what will be paid for services rendered. In deed, they may have the FINAL say.

One of the major justifications is the “Responsible Nation” principle; that a responsible, wealthy, modern, industrialized nation-state has an obligation, indeed a responsibility, to provide this sort of universal medical program for its citizens. They cite the other nations of the world as example, with the same kinds of programs the Democrats wish to emulate. Their justification being that we, the United States, the leading democracy, the wealthiest, most powerful nation on the planet, should be able to provide care for all.

They also use the argument that healthcare is a right, granted by the Constitution as described in the preamble, specifically, the “General Welfare” clause. They who wish this sort of program reason that the very health of the citizenry must be looked out for and that this justifies their attempt to initiate and execute the nationalization of nearly 20% of the national economy. It all sound so reasonable, so humane, so compassionate, until you strip all the rhetoric away and see that it is: a complete fabrication that can’t be sustained.

The Constitution has many parts. The preamble is designed to state broad goals of government. Some are quite specific. “Establish justice” implies that government should be the agent to ensure that justice be meted out fairly to all. “Provide for the common defense” states plainly that the government has the obligation to defend the realm from enemies both foreign and domestic. The line “promote the general welfare’ has been expanded and stretched far beyond what the original framers of the document intended. The intention was that government should encourage the general prosperity by preventing if possible, ill-conceived, damaging or improper acts from occurring that violated the enumerated powers, thus harming the general welfare of the state and its people. The constitution was writen giving specific responsibilities to federal government, outlined absolute rights of the citizens (the Bill of Rights) and left the states and the individual citizenry all other powers not specifically enumerated in the document.
The problems we find ourselves in today are directly attributed to the damage done by the Roosevelt Administration nearly 80 years ago.

In the 1930’s, limited, constitutional government was threatened, then destroyed when Franklin Roosevelt attempted to get many of his “New Deal” policies passed through congress and into law. We were in the middle of a depression and the economy was in a shambles. The programs that were passed were challenged by many and then eventually found their way to the Supreme Court. After much argument and serious judicial review, the laws were found to be unconstitutional. These challenges began in 1935 and over the next 16 months, the court reviewed 10 specific laws and struck down 8 of them as failing to meet the test of constitutionality; they violated the premises of “enumerated powers” granted to the federal government in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. Any powers not specific to this article are reserved to the states or to the citizens.

Roosevelt desired powers similar in scope to those needed in time of war to accomplish his goals. The economic emergency he felt justified his actions. Like today, many very poorly considered, poorly drafted pieces of legislation were put through with very little if any debate. Some were not even printed up prior to a vote so they could be read and reviewed, and were simply passed without any review. Since the president and his party enjoyed overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate, there was little the opposition could do to stop it. Very similar conditions exist today as then.

After the Supreme Court struck down these laws, the President, in effect, declared war on the Supreme Court. In March of 1937, in a “Fireside Chat” radio broadcast, he stated;
“we have therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself.”

In a letter to a representative from Pennsylvania, he urged passing of the National Bituminous Coal Conservation Act, in spite of the knowledge of the doubtful nature of its constitutionality.

The elections of 1936 further empowered and emboldened the Democrats and gave further power to Roosevelt to enact his policies. What happened next was what historians refer to as the “The Revolution of 1937” when the President began an active , punitive campaign against the last bastion of conservative, constructionist interpretation of the Constitution, The United States Supreme Court. The president attempted to “pack the court” by adding additional justices to the bench, using the pretext that the elderly justices, many of whom were over 70 years of age, needed the additional help due to the excessive case load.

This was an obvious subterfuge, but sufficiently scared the Chief Justice, Charles Evan Hughes, that he attempted to formulate a plan to protect the courts traditional role as “guardian of the Constitution”. His actions were based on the premise that loosing a tactical fight with Roosevelt over some issues would prevent losses on a larger scale in order to allow for ultimate judicial supremacy on more weighty and important issues later.

The make-up of the court was fairly even with 3 more liberal justices, 2 moderates, 4 conservatives; Hughes was one of the 2 moderates. The other moderate, Justice Roberts, was encourage to move left of center to remove the impetus for Roosevelt’s court packing scheme. Unfortunately, the rulings that were made then have given us many legacy issues that we have today, one specifically, Social Security, continues to be one of the biggest wealth transfers in the country. The justification for all that Roosevelt did was the “general welfare’ section of the preamble.

From the moment Chief Justice Hughes caved, and the principle of “general Welfare” as justification for government larges was made legal precedent, the public had in effect, been granted access, via their elected representatives, to the public purse for private use, through entitlement programs. This was the first trip down the slippery slope that has now become economic disaster for us today nearly 80 years later. One wonders what Mr. Chief Justice Hughes would say if he were alive today to see what he had wrought.

In 1951, Justice Roberts wrote:
“In looking back, it is difficult to see how the Court could have resisted the popular urge…an insistence by the court on holding federal power to what seemed it’s appropriate orbit when the Constitution was adopted might have resulted in even more radical changes to our duel structure than those which have gradually accomplished through the extension of limited jurisdiction conferred on the federal government.”

There was little erosion in the intervening years due to World War II, the Korean War, and the fairly conservative years under both Eisenhower and Kennedy. It wasn’t until the Johnson administration that we saw the complete disintegration of the “enumerated powers” barrier.
The arrival of the “Great Society” programs were the death knell to States and individual rights and the breach that allowed the federal government to provide “something for everyone”. Congress lacked the political will or fiscal discipline to reign in spending. In the name of social justice and egalitarianism, the government, using the justification of improving the “general welfare”, once again, began routinely running massive deficits that have continued to this day in ever increasing amounts. There has been virtually unlimited tax/borrow and spend activities without any real abatement. The spending that can be justified using “general welfare” as a basis has allowed Congress and the President to enter into a bidding war with the public, each out-bidding the other in the attempt to buy the favor of the people. Individuals within and outside of Congress compete for votes and power by attempting to out promises the other to gain advantage and hence, more power via the public purse.

As of today, August 13, 2009, the United States is the biggest debtor nation in the history of the world. We have this year, accumulated $1.3 TRILLION in additional debt which is nearly 4 times the debt of the previous year. The total accumulated public debt of the United States is approximately $12 TRILLION dollars. The amounts seem impossible, almost unfathomable. But it is real and a fatal danger to our Republic and our traditional way of life. This debt must be paid off someday by someone- perhaps, our grandchildren or great grand children.

It may take that long….

Now the new Obama administration, even more liberal, even more “populist” than we have seen before, possibly even more damaging than Roosevelt’s administration was, has risen to power and has begun a process to in effect, nationalize the health delivery system of the nation. They make many claims, promises much to assuage the fears of the masses, but it is clear that if they get their way, we will see the greatest hit against the original intent of Constitutional government since 1937. It will definitely be the greatest reduction of personal freedom and liberty ever seen in modern times and We the People, could well see the public debt increase to the point of national insolvency.

This must stop…

In order to save the Republic, we must stop and then begin to roll back the trend to spend public money for maintenance of individual people and the financing of private enterprise like the bail-outs and “stimulus” payments we have seen pass this year. We need constitutional amendments that repeal the income tax, the most regressive, and debilitating tax on prosperity there is, and to limit the scope of taxing and spending power that can be done at the federal level. We must insist in a “Balanced Budget” amendment that will force under penalty of law, the Congress and the Executive Branch to account for all monies spent and collected and report it to the people, then balancing the spending of government funds to match revenues in each budget year. The several states need to reassert their traditional roles and insist on their sovereign rights and prerogatives by reasserting their authority under the 10th Amendment. If the Federal government encroaches, the states and individual citizens must act either individually or collectively to put down the encroachment on their prerogatives.

By conducting themselves as they did, President Roosevelt and Chief Justice Hughes, set into motion much of the framework that now encumbers and entangles us today. James Madison, when asked specifically about the “General Welfare” clause, if it was a grant of unlimited power, he replied in a letter to Henry Lee, “If not the means but the objects are unlimited, the parchment (the Constitution) should be thrown into the fire at once!”

Poetic Justice.......

2009-08-12T13:56:00.002-04:00

I recently receive an e-mail from a friend that had a letter attached. The letter was from a corporate CEO who was addressing the subject of how the business was going to survive in the new political and economic environment. Here is the text of the letter:

Dear Employees,

As the CEO of the organization, I have resigned myself to the fact the Barrack Obama is our President and that our taxes and Government fees will increase in a BIG way. To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to increase by about 10%. But, since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal estate of the economy, we will have to lay off sixty of our employees instead. This has really been bothering me, since I believe we are family here and I didn't know how to choose who would have to go.

So, this is what I did. I walked through our parking lots and found that sixty 'Obama' bumper stickers on our employees' cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go. I can't think of a more fair way to approach this problem. They voted for change, I gave it to them.

I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.

Poetic Justice!!!!!

Greetings from "The Mob"....

2009-08-12T13:50:00.001-04:00

I have to laugh at Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats who seem somewhat upset that We, The People, have risen up in righteous indignation, to protest the government’s attempt to, in effect, nationalize the American health delivery system though the so-called “Public Option” insurance system. As Arlen Spector, Nancy Selibus, and many others in Congress and the Senate are discovering, a majority of the citizenry showing up are very upset with their actions to fundamentally change the system we enjoy today. We have seen “Town Hall” meetings turn into free-for-alls where house members and Senators have been called to task for their seeming lack of knowledge, concern, and reckless zeal to get this program through the congress without even being read or seen in finished version, then debated. What they seem to forget it that they work for us, and we will not simply sit by and let them ramrod though another faulty, ill-conceived piece of legislation.

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, has called those of us who vociferously object to any intrusion in a system that is the best in the world at delivering state of the art medical services, a bunch of Un-American, NAZI-ish, thugs. Personally, as a former service member who has served this nation in time of war and peace, resent the characterization of common people, concerned for their very lives and the lives of those they love as essentially unpatriotic at best or seditious and even fascist at worst.

People like Ms. Pelosi and her liberal, Democrat colleagues, criticized efforts to combat Islamo-fascism and terrorism guise of terrorists like Al Queda in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were very vocal and even violent protests against the “War on Terror”. Some criticized the protestors as being “Un-American” and “Un-patriotic”.

That was wrong.

They who protested had a right to voice their dissatisfaction of policy as that is their constitutional right. It is clear no however, that now the shoe is on the other foot. Now the liberal establishment, lead by Obama, Pelosi and their sycophants, both in and outside of government, are getting to experience the sort of resentment, vitriol and anger that they themselves regularly put out against the previous administration for it’s policies. How can they claim to be serving America and her interests, but show such hatred and condescension to regular Americans?

It’s simple really. They don’t like regular Americans.

If you are Not a UNION member, or a liberal activist member of some organization like ACORN, or if you are able to take care of yourself, and don’t need to live off government larges, they see you as the “enemy” and as an obstacle to their agenda and objectives. Specifically, an obstacle to their objective: to nationalize the health delivery system and ultimately create a single payer medical system here in America. They deny this, of course, but it is the stated objective as articulated by Barack Obama as far back as 2003, when he addressed the AFL-CIO and touted the idea as something that may take a decade or two to accomplish; that it was an achievable goal, provided that they (the Democrats) took back control of the House, Senate and White House.

Well, they have and now done just that, and in spite of his denials now that he only wants a “public option” (some sort of publically funded insurance program), we see from the Democratically controlled House of Representatives, a plan that is nothing more than a plan to begin the slow death of the best system of public and private payer plans in the world today. It is amazing and nearly incomprehensible that so many can’t see the obvious and fundamental change that this will cause if it passes both houses of Congress and is sighed into law.

So many of us who have followed this whole process see that the now-desperate Democrats and the Chicago Gangster/Daley Machine transplants in the White House are beginning to resort to the vilest tactics that their collective histories can recall to get what they want at our expense. Just like days of old, they are using intimidation and thug tactics reminiscent of the days when guys like Hoffa, Fitz Wallace, and Tobin used to “get the rank and file in line.” They are calling on folks from SEIU Service employee’s International Union (the Purple Shirts) and others to shout down, intimidate and even rough up and physically confront those who object to the Democrat agenda. There has been no violence at any of the “Town Hall” meetings until the Unionists showed up and began their tactics. There have been scuffles and arrests and the blame has been put on those who are objecting to these so-called reforms.

To make matters even more suspect, some Congress members and Senators have decided that they will not have meetings with constituents, but will have phone conferences and one-on-one’s in their district offices. This dodge tactic is basically a way to avoid facing their critics and to limit the scope and volume of decent that is voiced to them. They can then say that they (the member) did their due diligence; that they had a public discourse, and that they now can vote with a clear conscience. What they don’t truly understand is just how far behind the power curve they really are in regard to public feelings on the issue of Health Insurance/ Health Care Reform. They think by using “Chicago Tactics” that they can just run roughshod over opposition that they will ultimately win the day. We must continue to apply pressure to all branches of the government involved in this naked attempt to destroy private health insurance and to nationalize health delivery in this country.

One way to fight this process is to vote in the next series of off-year elections that will occur very soon in most states. We must hand the liberal Democrats a stunning and complete defeat to show them and their party that we, solid, thoughtful and independent and conservative minded people will not tolerate government meddling in private affairs, medical choices and additional public debt that would result from a “public option” health plan.

We all see regularly how well Medicare and Medicaid are run: constant mismanagement, lack of funding, constant quality and service availability issues and a host of other short comings. Now the Democrats want to put an additional 45 MILLION people on what is in effect, medical welfare. There are serious questions like:

Who will pay for this?

Who will be allowed to use the plan?

Will U.S. Taxpayers have to pay for the healthcare of illegal aliens?

Will Medicare and Medicaid go away and this new program replace them?

Will government employees be forced to use this plan in place of their existing coverage?

Where will the 45 Million uninsured get their care?....Where will all the extra doctors, nurses, medical and lab staff, administrators and facilities come from when all these people come on line as covered persons?

Who will pay for these facilities, equipment and who will train all the additional people to staff new facilities?

Who will be exempted from this plan…and why? This is a big question as I understand there are “protected classes” of people that are exempted from this new plan.

If there are no good answers to these questions, then this whole idea needs to be scrapped and shelved until reason and logic are restored to the process, because the many hundreds of pages we have seen amount to nothing more than typical Government meddling, as well as potential fiscal suicide.

Bring the cash home!! We need it here....

2009-08-05T19:07:00.002-04:00

I heard something this week that really surprised me. On a morning talk show, I heard that private U.S. investment overseas amounted to somewhere in the neighborhood of
13.8 to 14 TRILLION dollars. I went to the Bureau of Economic Analysis website and looked up the last report they issued back in July, 2008; the actual number on their chart was 14.98 TRILLION dollars. These are dollars that are in effect, lost to America. These dollars are lost to businesses here that need capitol for expansion, and for entrepreneurs wanting to start business and industry here in America. We must find a way to entice these dollars back here to our shores where American workers, American entrepreneurs and consumers can benefit.

How can we accomplish this? How can we return these invested dollars that have been getting better returns than U.S. investments, back to our shores? The solutions are obvious. We must give incentives that are, at worst, revenue neutral to Government and that are revenue positive for the investor.

Those thousands of billions of dollars earn great returns for the investors and generate no revenue for our government in taxes, and no benefit to the vast majority of the nation. If government policy was altered to encourage those dollars back onshore, we would all benefit. The easiest way is to make any investment here more attractive than a similar investment overseas. The easiest way to do that is to change tax law to encourage investment in America. The extraordinarily high corporate tax rate, the second highest in the world, and the confiscatory rates on capitol gains drive dollars overseas, have driven dollars away from this country. What precisely should be the government’s response?

1. Eliminate any capitol gains on returned dollars that are invested here.
2. Exempt these dollars from corporate or personal tax liability on the profits.

The obvious response from many who favor the tax system as it is, would violently object to this suggestion. They would say that this is a break for the rich and that normal, average Americans would get nothing out of such a deal. I would argue that as of now, they get nothing anyway. Dollars overseas raise no revenue for the government. Although the government would be forsaking immediate gratification by taxing these dollars, they would notice an immediate change in available liquidity in the private sector as dollars entered our economy. As businesses were started or expanded, more workers would be employed and tax revenue would increase as payrolls began to increase and as commerce increases. This was seen in the 1920’s, 1960’s and in the 1980’s when tax rates were cut by the Reagan administration.

It is interesting to note :

1. The increases in the 1920’s after the income tax was re-established by constitutional amendment, The share of the tax burden paid by the individuals seen as rich (those making $50,000 and up in those days) rose drastically as rates were reduced. The share of the tax burden borne by the rich increased from 44.2 percent in 1921 to 78.4 percent in 1928. It wasn’t called the “Roaring 20’s “for nothing!

2. In the 1960’s, President Kennedy’s tax cuts increased revenue by 57 percent between 1963 and 1966, while tax collections from those earning below $50,000 rose only 11 percent. As a result, the rich saw their portion of the income tax burden climb from 11.6 percent to 15.1 percent.

3. In the Reagan years, the share of income taxes paid by the top 10 percent of earners increased by nearly 10%. The percentage climbed from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988. The top 1 percent of earners saw the share they pay in income taxes climb even more drastically; from 17.6 percent in 1981 to 27.5 percent by the close of 1988.

If the U.S. government implemented these sorts of tax policies, the increase in tax revenue would be demonstrable as has been seen on 3 separate occasions in the last century. These increases are by no means the only actions the government needs to engage in. Spending deficits must be brought under control, and the existing public debt must be brought down.

What must occur is a corresponding decrease in public spending in concert with the increases in revenues to conquer the debt. This would in turn, increase confidence in the U.S. economy overseas and at home. It would reduce interest rates as government would no longer be competing with the private sector for capitol. The available pool of investment capitol would increase, and investment in research and development would rise. We must do everything possible to encourage the increase reconstruction of the U.S. manufacturing base and the U.S. energy base.

We need to focus investments into areas of the country where unemployment and de-industrialization have occurred, but we must make it friendly for entrepreneurs and large businesses to start or expand in these areas, to reduce overhead, and to reduce interruptions in production and productivity. In areas where new business is desired, “Special Economic Zones” need to be established. Right to work laws need to be established to allow wages and work rules to be set by employers and individual workers. America is in a global economy, and employers need the flexibility and freedom to set and adjust wages and staffing levels without the additional burden of Union entanglements. All tax liability on capitol gains need to be waived indefinitely in these zones, and corporate income taxes need to be cut to a fraction of levels that exist today.

It has been demonstrated that if we enacted these steps, we would undoubtedly experience a financial, economic and industrial renaissance on the order of what we has in the 1950’s when we were the most prosperous nation on the planet. As countries like Communist China, and India, and other nations in the Far East and Europe rise to challenge us, we need to get our house in order now, before it is too late.

Update on the "Cash for Clunkers" program

2009-08-04T16:03:00.001-04:00

The Dept. of Transportation has refused to release data on the 157,000 rebates issued thus far for review or analysis by Congress or the public.

It would be nice to see what sorts of vehicles are being bought with the help (cash) from the public purse. Are domestic automakers reaping the benefit from these "clunker coupons" or are foreign automakers getting the lion's share of congressional largess? We may never know until all the dust has settled and billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on this boondoggle.

Initial estimates that have been seen indicate that 6 out of 10 sold via this program are either Toyota, Hundai, or Honda. There is no indication if the vehicles sold are even ones made in the good old U.S. of A.

Before we spend another 2 BILLION dollars on this U.A.W. welfare program, let's see where the cash is going and who is really benefiting.

Cash for Clunkers runs out of gas...and it should!

2009-08-04T15:29:00.001-04:00

The senate is having problems convincing republicans to approve further spending on the “Cash for Clunkers” program that ran out of money this week.
This should be a slam-dunk for the Democrats, but apparently it isn't. The additional $2 billion sought was to allow the program to continue so that Americans can get a subsidy to swap out less efficient, polluting gas guzzlers for more efficient, cleaner vehicles. These subsidies are from $3500-$4500 per qualifying vehicle. One of the problems with this program is the “qualifying” part. It only applies to vehicles that are manufactured after 1986. This seems strange if the goal was really about getting dirty, inefficient, gas guzzling vehicles off the road. It would make sense to want ALL vehicles who are in existence, all vehicles who get poor mileage, which may or may not have pollution control systems like catalytic converters to be eligible for the program. The program supposedly forces dealers who take these trade-ins to destroy the vehicles so they can't end up back on the road. Why are older vehicles excluded?
The other requirements, such as having to have owned, insured and registered an operational vehicle for at least a year prior to trading in that vehicle, prevents people from just buying a junk yard vehicle and swapping out for a new vehicle. This makes some sense.
The problems with the program are great. It is reported that dealers have given these rebates, but the government has been slow to pay the dealers back. Nearly half of the monies given out by dealers have yet to be paid back to the dealers. The mountains of paperwork to wade through to qualify a buyer and his trade in are daunting. Some buyers are finding out that manufacturers rebates can't be used with the government subsidy and that any discounts on vehicles some would expect to get, are not being offered as dealers feel no pressure to negotiate.
Many trades in vehicles find there way to the secondary market to be resold. Some end up in dismantling facilities to become spare parts for other vehicles if their condition is such that they could not be resold as a running, salable vehicle. The vehicles brought in under this program must be rendered inoperative (crushed). The regulations stipulate this therefore their value as potential spare parts for like vehicles still on the road is negated. This is having the unintended consequence of creating a potential shortage of core spares for reconditioning for the vehicles still on the road. Perhaps this is intentional. Who suffers for this except the less affluent that need to keep their vehicles on the road with those spare parts that will now become even scarier than they were, therefore more expensive and hard to find. Have a 1989 Ford Taurus wagon with a bad transaxle? Maybe you can't afford the rebuild but you might get one from the junk yard.....ooops! They are out of them and the local supply is all crushed by the government edict. Now what? Maybe you can find one on the web and get it shipped to you at a greatly inflated price.
This is just one scenario of course......

Maybe this whole program is a bailout for Detroit in disguise. The Unions and their workers are getting canned right and left, and the government is THE major stockholder on G.M. What better way to get some cash flow to “Government Motors”? What better way to get cash funneled to their union buddies while looking “enlightened” and “green”. The problem is that “Clunker Coupons” don't do much except add to the deficit and do little to increase the national wealth as most of the cars sold are old inventory that is being burned off, ding little to return auto workers to their jobs. Also most of the vehicles sold are small cars that have little profit margin for the automakers. The staple of the most profitable vehicles sold in the past were SUV's and full size pick-ups which are not the sorts of vehicles most folks are buying these days.
There might be a spike in the GDP in the third and fourth quarter which should make Obama and his minions crow with delight, making claims that all is working to plan and that recovery is just around the corner.
Certain quarters in Washington seem surprised that this program has dispensed so much cash so fast. Why should they be surprised? When you subsidize an activity, you get more of it. The U.S. Government has now become the go-to guy for cash, giving money to car buyers at our expense just so they will buy a car which they probably would have bought anyway. The automakers are off the hook, not having to make the best deal they can, or give the customary incentives to lure buyers. They also get to sell off old inventory without having to work hard or bargain hard for the deal. It is a win/win for the government and automakers, but a loose/loose for the average Joe who get to pay more taxes to service the debt, see more deficit spending, and they get to subsidies their neighbors’ car purchase via their taxes. For the car dealers, they get to sell cars, fill out massive quantities of government paperwork via a slow and sometimes intermittent website, and then wait around for the government to pay them back for the “Clunker Coupons” they redeemed. Some dealers report that the website has crashed repeatedly making it difficult if not impossible to process the rebates.
So much for government efficiency.... And these folks want to control our healthcare.....

We need the "Laporte Plan" for Health Care Availability Reform

2009-07-29T18:25:00.001-04:00

In short, it is a joint public / private approach that should provide a solution for most people needing coverage...

The main points are:

1. A 5% increase in premiums which are matched by the insurance carrier
2. This goes into a fund-an uninsured healthcare fund. (similar to the uninsured motorist fund that already exists for our car)
3. Utilizing the Medicare Cost Reporting System already in place the funds will be distributed.
4. Most hospitals have Urgent Care facilities which are adjunct to the hospitals Emergency Departments. This would serve as the Primary Care Physician Services.
5. Other services beyond the abilites of the Urgent Care facilities would be handled by the hospital that owns them.
6. The uncovered patient can be issued a card which would grant them access to the Urgent Care facility.
7. The uninsured patient would have to prove that he/she was here legally.
8. A small $5 copay for PCP and $20 for Hospital would reduce people who are abusing the system.

The impact is minimal to the hospitals as many already have these facilities and the start up for one is about $150,000.
The impact to the average consumer is minimal. The Urgent Care clinic is not so luxurious that there is not an incentive to accept traditional insurance and move off these rolls.

Bruce A LaPorte

A NEW Approach to Health Care Coverage for the Uninsured...

2009-07-27T17:26:00.003-04:00

After speaking to many, the consensus seems to be that the United States has the finest Health Care available in the world...

Few debate this unless you are seeking some "alternative" treatments or wishing to become a "medical tourist" seeking cheaper alternatives to what we have here, or seeking treatments that are not approved here. Either way, you have the freedom to make that choice and you are the ones who must live with those choices. Many thousands come to America for treatment because we have the most advanced system of medical care in the world. If you want the cutting edge stuff, the U.S. is you first choice. Most rank and file hospitals here are far and away better equipped, cleaner, and have better trained staffs than most any other hospital systems in the world.

Ask many Canadians who were denied timely or effective treatments back home if we don't provide first rate service...

A friend of mine, Bruce Laporte, who has been in the medical billing and medical practice management for nearly 20 years, has told me that the problems we have in covering so many people today is quite easily corrected with a very simple, and already familiar method used to cover those who have no automobile insurance. We need, in effect, an “uninsured patient pool” plan like the uninsured motorist pool presently used in all the states of the union, run in a similar fashion, and funded with both public monies and insurance company monies. This grouping plan will in effect act as a massive PPO insurance group plan to cover all those needing coverage, and would be run, under oversight of existing state insurance boards, and would require very little federal oversight or intervention. It would be the perfect counter to “Obama Care”….

The outline he sent me is below……….

Health Care Reform Proposal

The recommended solution for the current manufactured health care crisis is a hybrid of the HMO system, the military medicine system and the automobile insurance system that we already know in this country. This would effectively cover the uninsured and if properly implemented could be a replacement for the Medicaid system.

1. Mandate an uninsured care card; to be distributed by Health Care Carriers, who will be responsible for the assigning of PCP for the uninsured claimant.

2. Similar to the Military “Sick Call” use Urgent Care facilities, many already exist and are owned by local hospitals.

3. Require a co-pay of $5 for the individual, this will reduce those who are abusing the system since they would have to pay into the system through this responsibility, they would exercise more caution in the use of the system.

4. The Urgent Care would serve as PCP and therefore Gatekeeper for the patient to receive non-emergency care. The emergency care would be treated at the hospital in the emergency room and subsequent care in accordance with normal protocols.

5. The uninsured patient who chooses to elect this ‘coverage’ would have to produce the insurance card and the insurance carrier would be required to issue to only those persons with a valid legal status to be in the United States.

6. The Urgent Care facility would be paid a ‘capitated payment’ for each patient assigned by the insurance carrier for each facility. The capitated payment would be all the urgent care facility, plus the $5 co-pay would obtain for services and therefore would be required to manage the care cost effectively.

Financing

1. Discontinue Medicaid program in favor of this program; redirect those resources to this program to be administered by the private carrier.

2. Currently we have an ‘uninsured motorist pool’ where everyone pays for those persons who do not have auto insurance coverage. Adopt a similar method for health insurance, everyone who has health insurance pay an additional 5% for their coverage.

3. A pool from those 5% premiums would go to a pool and be distributed by the private carrier assigned.

4. 50% of the pool would go to the Urgent Care facilities for the purpose of covering the capitated payments for each patient.

5. 50% of the pool would go to hospitals for the management of the patient’s health beyond the urgent care’s abilities.

6. The dispensation of the capitated would be a formula of the total number of patients enrolled in this non-insurance, divided by the total allotted for the pool.

7. The dispensation of the hospital’s additional funding would be based upon the Medicare Cost Report which is already a requirement.

8. Limit liability for the Urgent Care and Hospitals for non-insured patients to reduce the malpractice insurance costs.

Benefits to the Hospitals

1. Urgent Care triage would reduce the number of Emergency Room patient’s who use the ER as their Primary Care Physician and reduce wait times for everyone.

2. Hospitals would be able to provide care, in accordance with guidelines for this non-policy just as they would any other real insurance policy.

3. Hospitals would have limited liability to reduce costs.

Benefits to the uninsured and Medicaid patients

1. The Urgent Care facilities would provide the same level of care that is given to our Men and Women in the Armed Forces. If this is not sufficient service then we need to address the level of service that the Men and Women in the Armed Forces receive.

2. The Urgent Care Facilities would be adequate but the ‘doctor on call’ would be serving as the PCP and therefore if the patient wants a relationship with their own PCP, they could get private insurance and then pay into the system instead of just taking out of the system.

3. Medicaid patients would not be incentivized to stay in Medicaid, currently Medicaid patients are seen by the same primary care doctors in the same offices as those who pay for services and therefore there is no incentive to be independent.

Benefits to the Private Physician

1. Medicaid patients and their very low reimbursement would be at the Urgent Care facilities and NOT in private practices which could be used by persons who have real insurance.

2. Reduction of bad debt by patient’s having the option of obtaining traditional insurance, paying out of pocket or going to a Urgent Care facility. This would reduce costs and help prevent all the private practices from going out of business.

If you are interested in Bruce's plan or have any questions on it, please contact him via his FACEBOOK.COM page or at bruce.laporte@yahoo.com for additiona detail.

I think this plan has merrit as it is a hybrid of existing protocols and would keep government intervention and expense to very low levels. That alone, makes it a winner in my book. It also can be administered state by state which is in keeping with our system of state rights and responsibilities demarcated from the federal level control.