American Thinker is hands down the best site for finding writings from people who love this nation as founded and bring to light the darkness this administration is trying to cover us in. Some of what is in this article is down right scary. I said it many times this is not the nation it should be or could be. Bureaucrats and politicians are taking it away from us. Democrats and liberals need to be stopped before it is too late.
November 22, 2010
The Rise of Unchecked Presidential Power
By Robert Eugene Simmons Jr.
In order to achieve a dictatorship in a country, you have to go one of two ways. Either you have to foment a violent revolution, using the power of the military to seize the government, or you have to be voted into the position and seize the power slowly. In the USA, it is all but impossible to achieve the takeover via violent overthrow, and the separation of powers makes it difficult to take over via slow seizure of power. However, the plans of the progressives have been working steadily since the Woodrow Wilson administration, and the task is almost complete.
The legislative branch, for example, has ceded vast parts of its authority voluntarily. According the to the Constitution, only the legislature can make laws. Although not the first example of such an agency, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 is a good example. The EPA was founded by an act of the legislature and charged to protect the environment. Since then, the EPA has been writing "regulations" which are, in fact, laws. You can be prosecuted and deprived of freedom or assets for disobeying the regulations of the EPA. Instead of going through all the trouble itself, Congress has delegated the passing of environmental laws to an agency not beholden to the will of the voting public. There are dozens of other agencies so empowered to regulate everything from food and medicine (FDA) to airplane travel (NTSB and FHA) -- all making laws without even a tacit nod to the citizens.
In fact, there are, according to a recent article in the Washington Post, 1.43 million civilians working for the federal government in various bureaucracies, and if state and local governments are taken into account, the number spikes to near 21 million by some estimates. Contrast this with the mere 535 elected members of the federal legislature. Many of these agencies require Senate approval for the presidential appointee to lead them. However, others require no such Senate approval, and presidents often get around the approval process via "recess appointments" such as the one used by Obama in 2010 to install a new chief of Medicare.
Through the passage of the legislation known as ObamaCare, Congress has ceded all regulation of the health insurance and medical industries to the Department of Health and Human Services and the latter's presidential appointee. The financial services reform bill created the Financial Services Oversight Council and literally gave that council the power to regulate and monitor any financial transaction in America without a court order, as well as the ability to summarily seize businesses without judicial review or public disclosure. If passed, the cap and trade bill would give even more sweeping powers to the EPA.
However, the Federal Reserve is probably the single most dangerous entity in existence in America. The Federal Reserve has the power to create money electronically at will, set interest rates, and buy whatever it wants in the economy with practically no need to consult Congress for approval.
When it comes to violating the separation of powers and seizing executive power, no president has done more since FDR than Obama. What is more, Obama doesn't even try to hide the maneuvering, but instead does it out in the public eye. By his first state of the union speech, Obama had successfully passed TARP II and III, giving the secretary of treasury (executive branch) sole discretion over a sum of money equal to the budget of some small countries, and passed the stimulus bill, giving presidential allies big payouts. During the state of the union speech, the president brazenly said that he would establish his debt commission by executive order because the Senate refused to pass the bill that would have allowed it.
It is worth noting that an Executive Order is issued solely by the president and is virtually impossible to overturn. In order to overturn an executive order, the Supreme Court would have to strike it down (which has happened only twice) or the Congress would have to muster enough votes to overcome a presidential veto of a bill passed in direct contrast to the executive order. Therefore, an executive order is not really that far from a dictatorial edict, and Obama has made frequent use of the technique.
However, the Obama administration isn't picking on only the legislative branch. When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations should have the same freedom of speech in political campaigns as labor unions, Obama took the opportunity to publicly chastise the Supreme Court in his second state of the union address, while announcing his plans to circumvent the decision. The DISCLOSE Act, passed in 2010, went a long way toward that goal.
Obama's political appointees have also been active in the field of law enforcement. In August 2010, the Houston Chronicle reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ordered the dismissal of cases for deportation of illegal aliens who do not have felonies (other than the felony of illegal reentry) on their record. Furthermore, when two thugs with nightsticks from the New Black Panther Party were intimidating voters at a polling place, the Department of Justice charged the two defendants and received a summary judgment but were then ordered by political appointees to drop the case. According to whistle-blower DOJ Attorney J. Christian Adams, DOJ lawyers were ordered to not pursue any case for voter intimidation in which the defendant was black.
Never in the history of man has a government with highly centralized powers and minimal checks and balances ended well. Today, the executive branch in the USA has the power to do almost anything it wants. The legislature is all but powerless, having ceded all their authority to the executive-appointed bureaucracy. The judicial branch is still alive and kicking feebly, but the death or retirement of one conservative justice will put a stop to that. The law enforcement political appointees have become arbitrary in their enforcement of the law and politically motivated. Never has America faced such troubling times. All of this has been accomplished slowly and cautiously to avoid raising the alarm, because the powers involved definitely do not want to raise that alarm.
The only weapon left against the rise of the autocracy is the light of truth. If the vast majority of Americans, your neighbors and coworkers, knew all of this was going on, they wouldn't stand for it. Constitutional amendments would be passed, politicians would be dismissed, and corrupt politicians would be tried and jailed. We can only hope that the sword of truth can yet prevail. However, there is not much time left, and it is time we get to work in earnest.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
FBI: More Hurt Than Help in Oregon
Now let's see here. A dumb, stupid, semi-moronic 19 year-old Somali immigrant who worships Allah is tricked into planting a fake bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony by government agents. Said agents think so highly of themselves they go and brag about how they just caught another extremist. Why did they choose Mohamed Osman Mohamud? Did they maybe profile him? I am gonna go out on a limb and say, yes. Case closed he gets off as soon as he calls the ACLU. But now we have a hate crime to investigate in Corvallis. Someone tried to burn down this goat fucker's mosque. On purpose, can you believe that? Is it finally the beginning of Americans having enough of the islamists bullshit? Is this the first shot in this new war, it's Lexington and Concord so to speak. Honestly I hope so. Of course the AG is going to prosecute aggressively, what a fucking tool. I hope they never catch those responsible but they will get them because the ones who tried to burn down the center are not the brightest bulbs either, they only got the offices. Hate crime for trying to burn down a house of worship (even if the religion hates America) yes. Will young Mohamed be charged with a hate crime for willfully trying to blow up women and children? I think not. Great job FBI giving these fuckers another way to terrorize Americans at a simple ceremony. I hope no copycat bombings happen for real because it will be on your heads. Maybe you guys should have kept your mouths shut and your eyes open for real terrorists. Next time try not to break your arms patting yourselves on the back busting someone that was not a threat but you had to coerce into being one.
Fire Set at Oregon Bomb Suspect's Mosque
Published November 28, 2010
Associated Press
Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested in a sting operation as he tried blowing up a van full of what he believed were explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony, federal authorities said.
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Someone set fire to an Islamic center on Sunday, two days after a man who worshipped there was accused of trying to blow up a van full of explosives during Portland's Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Other Muslims fear it could be the first volley of misplaced retribution.
The charges against Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-born 19-year-old who was caught in a federal sting operation, are testing tolerance in a state that has been largely accepting of Muslims. Muslims who know the suspect say they are shocked by the allegations against him and that he had given them no hint of falling into radicalism.
The fire at the Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center in Corvallis was reported at 2:15 a.m., and evidence at the scene led authorities to believe it was set intentionally, said Carla Pusateri, a fire prevention officer for the Corvallis Fire Department.
Authorities don't know who started the blaze or why, but they believe the center was targeted because Mohamud occasionally worshipped there.
Arthur Balizan, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon, said there's no conclusive link to the bombing in Portland or specific evidence that it's a hate crime, other than the timing.
U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton vowed to prosecute the case aggressively.
"The fact is that violent extremists come from all religions and no religion at all. For one person to blame a group, if that's what happened here, is uniquely anti-American and will be pursued with the full force of the Justice Department," he said.
Mohamud was being held on charges of plotting to carry out a terror attack Friday on a crowd of thousands at Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square. He is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, and it wasn't clear if he had a lawyer yet.
On Friday, he parked what he thought was a bomb-laden van near the ceremony and then went to a nearby train station, where he dialed a cell phone that he believed would detonate the vehicle, federal authorities said. Instead, federal authorities moved in and arrested him. No one was hurt.
There were also no injuries in Sunday's fire, which burned 80 percent of the center's office but did not spread to worship areas or any other rooms, said Yosof Wanly, the center's imam.
After daybreak, members gathered at the center, where a broken window had been boarded up.
"I've prayed for my family and friends, because obviously if someone was deliberate enough to do this, what's to stop them from coming to our homes and our schools?" said Mohamed Alyagouri, a 31-year-old father of two who worships at the center. "I'm afraid for my children getting harassed from their teachers, maybe from their friends."
Wanly said he was thinking about temporarily relocating his family because of the possibility of hate crimes.
"We know how it is, we know some people due to ignorance are going to perceive of these things and hold most Muslims accountable," Wanly said. But he said Corvallis, a college town about 75 miles southwest of Portland, has long been accepting of Muslims.
"The common scene here is to be very friendly, accepting various cultures and religions," Wanly said. "The Islamic center has been here for 40 years, it's more American than most Americans with regards to age."
In Portland, residents are alarmed by the terror plot, but Mayor Sam Adams said they are "not going to let this change our values of being an open and embracing city." He said that he beefed up patrols around mosques "and other facilities that might be vulnerable to knuckle-headed retribution" after hearing of the bomb plot.
The FBI was working closely with leadership at the Corvallis center as agents investigated the fire, Balizan said. The bureau has established a telephone tip line and a $10,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest.
Wanly said Mohamud moved to the U.S. from Somalia as a young boy. Mohamud graduated from high school in the Portland suburb of Beaverton. He attended Oregon State University but dropped out on Oct. 6.
The Associated Press reached Mohamud's parents by phone, but they declined to talk to a reporter.
Isgow Mohamed, director of the Northwest Somali Community Organization, said he has known Mohamud's father, Osman Barre, since 1996.
"Both parents, mother and father, they are civilized people," Mohamed said. "They don't believe in killing even a small animal. So what do you think two civilized people, what their product will be?"
Barre has not spoken with his son since his arrest on Friday, Mohamed said.
Wanly described Mohamud as a normal student who went to athletic events, drank an occasional beer and was into rap music and culture. He described Mohamud as religious, saying he attended prayers in Corvallis once or twice a month over a year and a half.
Wanly, 24, said that in about 15 conversations he had with Mohamud, the teen rarely discussed religion. He said that may have been because Mohamud knew his extremist views wouldn't be tolerated, and suggested that Mohamud was influenced by radical teachings he read on the Internet.
"If a person has a type of agenda, he can find anything he wants on the Internet and block out everything else," Wanly said.
In the days leading up to his arrest, Mohamud's friends thought he appeared on edge, Wanly said.
"He seemed to be in a state of confusion," Wanly said. "He would say things that weren't true. He'd say 'I'm going to go get married,' for example. He wasn't going to go get married."
Mohamud is among tens of thousands of Somalis who have resettled in the United States since their country plunged into lawlessness in 1991. The U.N.-backed government controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu, the capital, while large parts of Somalia are controlled by the insurgent group Al-Shabab, which vows allegiance to al-Qaida.
Omar Jamal, first secretary for the Somali mission to the United Nations in New York City, told The Associated Press his office has received "thousands of calls" from Somalis in the United States who are concerned about tactics used by federal agents in the sting operation against Mohamud.
Jamal said there is concern in the Somali community that Mohamud was "lured into an illegal act."
An FBI affidavit said it was Mohamud who picked the target of the bomb plot, that he was warned several times about the seriousness of his plan, that women and children could die, and that he could back out.
Officials said Mohamud had no formal ties to foreign terror groups, although he had reached out to suspected terrorists in Pakistan.
After the FBI got a tip about Mohamud, an agent e-mailed him over the summer, pretending to be affiliated with an "unindicted associate" whom Mohamud had tried to contact.
Agents had some face-to-face meetings with Mohamud. On Nov. 4, in the backcountry along Oregon's coast, they convinced him that he was testing an explosive device -- although the explosion was controlled by agents.
On Friday, an agent and Mohamud drove into downtown Portland in a white van that carried six 55-gallon drums with detonation cords and plastic caps, but all of them were inert.
Fire Set at Oregon Bomb Suspect's Mosque
Published November 28, 2010
Associated Press
Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested in a sting operation as he tried blowing up a van full of what he believed were explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony, federal authorities said.
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Someone set fire to an Islamic center on Sunday, two days after a man who worshipped there was accused of trying to blow up a van full of explosives during Portland's Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Other Muslims fear it could be the first volley of misplaced retribution.
The charges against Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-born 19-year-old who was caught in a federal sting operation, are testing tolerance in a state that has been largely accepting of Muslims. Muslims who know the suspect say they are shocked by the allegations against him and that he had given them no hint of falling into radicalism.
The fire at the Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center in Corvallis was reported at 2:15 a.m., and evidence at the scene led authorities to believe it was set intentionally, said Carla Pusateri, a fire prevention officer for the Corvallis Fire Department.
Authorities don't know who started the blaze or why, but they believe the center was targeted because Mohamud occasionally worshipped there.
Arthur Balizan, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon, said there's no conclusive link to the bombing in Portland or specific evidence that it's a hate crime, other than the timing.
U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton vowed to prosecute the case aggressively.
"The fact is that violent extremists come from all religions and no religion at all. For one person to blame a group, if that's what happened here, is uniquely anti-American and will be pursued with the full force of the Justice Department," he said.
Mohamud was being held on charges of plotting to carry out a terror attack Friday on a crowd of thousands at Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square. He is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, and it wasn't clear if he had a lawyer yet.
On Friday, he parked what he thought was a bomb-laden van near the ceremony and then went to a nearby train station, where he dialed a cell phone that he believed would detonate the vehicle, federal authorities said. Instead, federal authorities moved in and arrested him. No one was hurt.
There were also no injuries in Sunday's fire, which burned 80 percent of the center's office but did not spread to worship areas or any other rooms, said Yosof Wanly, the center's imam.
After daybreak, members gathered at the center, where a broken window had been boarded up.
"I've prayed for my family and friends, because obviously if someone was deliberate enough to do this, what's to stop them from coming to our homes and our schools?" said Mohamed Alyagouri, a 31-year-old father of two who worships at the center. "I'm afraid for my children getting harassed from their teachers, maybe from their friends."
Wanly said he was thinking about temporarily relocating his family because of the possibility of hate crimes.
"We know how it is, we know some people due to ignorance are going to perceive of these things and hold most Muslims accountable," Wanly said. But he said Corvallis, a college town about 75 miles southwest of Portland, has long been accepting of Muslims.
"The common scene here is to be very friendly, accepting various cultures and religions," Wanly said. "The Islamic center has been here for 40 years, it's more American than most Americans with regards to age."
In Portland, residents are alarmed by the terror plot, but Mayor Sam Adams said they are "not going to let this change our values of being an open and embracing city." He said that he beefed up patrols around mosques "and other facilities that might be vulnerable to knuckle-headed retribution" after hearing of the bomb plot.
The FBI was working closely with leadership at the Corvallis center as agents investigated the fire, Balizan said. The bureau has established a telephone tip line and a $10,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest.
Wanly said Mohamud moved to the U.S. from Somalia as a young boy. Mohamud graduated from high school in the Portland suburb of Beaverton. He attended Oregon State University but dropped out on Oct. 6.
The Associated Press reached Mohamud's parents by phone, but they declined to talk to a reporter.
Isgow Mohamed, director of the Northwest Somali Community Organization, said he has known Mohamud's father, Osman Barre, since 1996.
"Both parents, mother and father, they are civilized people," Mohamed said. "They don't believe in killing even a small animal. So what do you think two civilized people, what their product will be?"
Barre has not spoken with his son since his arrest on Friday, Mohamed said.
Wanly described Mohamud as a normal student who went to athletic events, drank an occasional beer and was into rap music and culture. He described Mohamud as religious, saying he attended prayers in Corvallis once or twice a month over a year and a half.
Wanly, 24, said that in about 15 conversations he had with Mohamud, the teen rarely discussed religion. He said that may have been because Mohamud knew his extremist views wouldn't be tolerated, and suggested that Mohamud was influenced by radical teachings he read on the Internet.
"If a person has a type of agenda, he can find anything he wants on the Internet and block out everything else," Wanly said.
In the days leading up to his arrest, Mohamud's friends thought he appeared on edge, Wanly said.
"He seemed to be in a state of confusion," Wanly said. "He would say things that weren't true. He'd say 'I'm going to go get married,' for example. He wasn't going to go get married."
Mohamud is among tens of thousands of Somalis who have resettled in the United States since their country plunged into lawlessness in 1991. The U.N.-backed government controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu, the capital, while large parts of Somalia are controlled by the insurgent group Al-Shabab, which vows allegiance to al-Qaida.
Omar Jamal, first secretary for the Somali mission to the United Nations in New York City, told The Associated Press his office has received "thousands of calls" from Somalis in the United States who are concerned about tactics used by federal agents in the sting operation against Mohamud.
Jamal said there is concern in the Somali community that Mohamud was "lured into an illegal act."
An FBI affidavit said it was Mohamud who picked the target of the bomb plot, that he was warned several times about the seriousness of his plan, that women and children could die, and that he could back out.
Officials said Mohamud had no formal ties to foreign terror groups, although he had reached out to suspected terrorists in Pakistan.
After the FBI got a tip about Mohamud, an agent e-mailed him over the summer, pretending to be affiliated with an "unindicted associate" whom Mohamud had tried to contact.
Agents had some face-to-face meetings with Mohamud. On Nov. 4, in the backcountry along Oregon's coast, they convinced him that he was testing an explosive device -- although the explosion was controlled by agents.
On Friday, an agent and Mohamud drove into downtown Portland in a white van that carried six 55-gallon drums with detonation cords and plastic caps, but all of them were inert.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Obama Is So Clueless
This pretty much keeps with the last post's theme of Obama being a complete incompetent moron. Of course, those words are not used but you will find them if you look. Great piece with interpretations that you will not read anywhere else.
November 14, 2010
Clarice's Pieces: Restoring American Stature Abroad
By Clarice Feldman
With his characteristic inability to carry his thoughts to a logical conclusion, President Obama seems to have missed that his constant denigration of his own country and apologies for its actions (which, in fact, require none) diminish not just the USA, but its leader, as well. Apparently, he thought such conduct would make him appear greater than us, when, in fact, it only reduces his own power abroad. So the man we were told by his supporters would restore American stature abroad has diminished our standing and his in one stroke. He seems not to understand that in cutting us down to what he thinks is America's appropriate smaller place on the world stage, he has turned himself from a lead role into a supporting actor, or even worse, a bit player.
As Obama and his party suffered an historic defeat at the polls, he and the first lady hied off to Asia in an obvious attempt to change the subject. Maybe he did change the subject, but not as he expected. The topic is now how he's run out of chips and allies both at home and abroad. Aside from his narcissistic attempt to single himself out above the nation he represents, why has he proven such a flop abroad?
(a) No one's paying attention to details
Sometimes, pictures do convey things better than words. This picture of this first lady in Indonesia with the president and Indonesia's prime minister tells us a great deal if we study it carefully.
Yes, Michelle Obama looks tacky and ill-dressed. So badly decked out that a rear shot of the threesome makes it look as if she hastily threw this pantsuit over a sleeveless dress she'd worn elsewhere during the day -- as she might have had this mosque visit been an afterthought or the protocol about appropriate garb been ignored. Yes, she looks angry and uncomfortable, but there's more. Keep looking and you'll see a White House in utter disarray and a president who has allowed his wife to be publicly discomfited and humiliated.
As is customary when visiting a mosque, the Indonesian leader, Barack, and Michelle are shoeless. As an insult to her, the carpet spread over the hot, sharp bricks they are walking on is wide enough for only two people. It would be rude for Michelle to walk ahead of the two men, it would diminish her to have her walk behind them, and doubtless it would be a diplomatic gaffe if the Obamas walked together behind or in front of their host. So we have a picture of the first lady, poorly garbed, hobbling barefoot over hot, sharp bricks while her husband and the host smile and chat in comfort on the carpet. Any reasonably adept advance team would have prevented this by making sure the first lady received the respectful treatment of a place on the carpet or an invitation to another event. After the fact, one wonders, assuming this was an unanticipated breach of etiquette, why the White House allowed these pictures to be taken and released.
Just another sign that no one's in charge and no one pays attention to details, from the president on down.
The trip was altogether unpleasant for Michelle, I should think, because the Indian press was fairly brutal about her clothing choices. And so halfway through her husband's term, she is learning something about the style press -- at least abroad: A woman's rave reviews for style on the fashion pages depend largely on her husband's favor in their eyes. I don't think it will be long before the national press starts to get honest about the First Lady's often bizarre fashion picks. When the Washington Post's Robin Givhan says it's time for Michelle to drop the ammo belts, you'll know Obama has lost favor with the chichi left.
Just another sign that no one's in charge and no one pays attention to details, from the president on down.
Bigger goof-ups followed on the Asian trip.
(b) He is being swayed by the rent seekers in his party, not the nation's best interests
1.South Korea
Former President Bush negotiated a deal with South Korea. All Obama had to do was travel there and sign it, and he could have claimed (however falsely) the credit. The UAW thought the agreement wasn't green enough for them and asked for and got some last-minute changes. It might have served the UAW's interests to get these "green" changes, but apparently the South Koreans felt the last-minute changes were not to their liking. No deal. No photo op showing how the lightbringer is uniting the world. In fact, a bad sign that the various protectionist forces in his own party are forcing out the free traders with likely terrible consequences for a battered world economy. With no clearly articulated philosophy of international trade except caving in to various interests who back him, it is natural that neither the nation's nor the world's best interests will be served in the remaining two years of Obama's term.
•(2) The G-20
Obama may be the last standing believer in the G-20 in Keynesian economics as the rest of the world shifts away. The adults at the G-20 regardless of the political suasion of their leaders -- Britain, Germany, China, and Brazil -- acknowledged that debt reduction was the first step in dealing with the global economic crisis. Obama, instead, insisted that more money be spent to "stimulate" the world economy -- money that at home has not stimulated our economy and largely gone to pay off his friends and supporters. Things got so bad that others, including China, a large holder of U.S. debt, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan accused the U.S. of deliberately weakening our currency to gain competitive advantage.
Tom Maguire has the last word this week:
IT'S ON TO THE NEXT TRIUMPH! Obama explains his latest successes:
Setbacks aside, Obama claims stronger global hand
YOKOHAMA, Japan - President Barack Obama claimed a stronger hand on the world stage Friday despite electoral defeats at home, failure to get a free-trade agreement with South Korea and lackluster international support for his get-tough policy with China on trade and currency disputes.
A few more strong hands like this and we will be out of chips.
America's standing abroad will not be restored until Obama is out of office, a fact that is now crystal clear.
November 14, 2010
Clarice's Pieces: Restoring American Stature Abroad
By Clarice Feldman
With his characteristic inability to carry his thoughts to a logical conclusion, President Obama seems to have missed that his constant denigration of his own country and apologies for its actions (which, in fact, require none) diminish not just the USA, but its leader, as well. Apparently, he thought such conduct would make him appear greater than us, when, in fact, it only reduces his own power abroad. So the man we were told by his supporters would restore American stature abroad has diminished our standing and his in one stroke. He seems not to understand that in cutting us down to what he thinks is America's appropriate smaller place on the world stage, he has turned himself from a lead role into a supporting actor, or even worse, a bit player.
As Obama and his party suffered an historic defeat at the polls, he and the first lady hied off to Asia in an obvious attempt to change the subject. Maybe he did change the subject, but not as he expected. The topic is now how he's run out of chips and allies both at home and abroad. Aside from his narcissistic attempt to single himself out above the nation he represents, why has he proven such a flop abroad?
(a) No one's paying attention to details
Sometimes, pictures do convey things better than words. This picture of this first lady in Indonesia with the president and Indonesia's prime minister tells us a great deal if we study it carefully.
Yes, Michelle Obama looks tacky and ill-dressed. So badly decked out that a rear shot of the threesome makes it look as if she hastily threw this pantsuit over a sleeveless dress she'd worn elsewhere during the day -- as she might have had this mosque visit been an afterthought or the protocol about appropriate garb been ignored. Yes, she looks angry and uncomfortable, but there's more. Keep looking and you'll see a White House in utter disarray and a president who has allowed his wife to be publicly discomfited and humiliated.
As is customary when visiting a mosque, the Indonesian leader, Barack, and Michelle are shoeless. As an insult to her, the carpet spread over the hot, sharp bricks they are walking on is wide enough for only two people. It would be rude for Michelle to walk ahead of the two men, it would diminish her to have her walk behind them, and doubtless it would be a diplomatic gaffe if the Obamas walked together behind or in front of their host. So we have a picture of the first lady, poorly garbed, hobbling barefoot over hot, sharp bricks while her husband and the host smile and chat in comfort on the carpet. Any reasonably adept advance team would have prevented this by making sure the first lady received the respectful treatment of a place on the carpet or an invitation to another event. After the fact, one wonders, assuming this was an unanticipated breach of etiquette, why the White House allowed these pictures to be taken and released.
Just another sign that no one's in charge and no one pays attention to details, from the president on down.
The trip was altogether unpleasant for Michelle, I should think, because the Indian press was fairly brutal about her clothing choices. And so halfway through her husband's term, she is learning something about the style press -- at least abroad: A woman's rave reviews for style on the fashion pages depend largely on her husband's favor in their eyes. I don't think it will be long before the national press starts to get honest about the First Lady's often bizarre fashion picks. When the Washington Post's Robin Givhan says it's time for Michelle to drop the ammo belts, you'll know Obama has lost favor with the chichi left.
Just another sign that no one's in charge and no one pays attention to details, from the president on down.
Bigger goof-ups followed on the Asian trip.
(b) He is being swayed by the rent seekers in his party, not the nation's best interests
1.South Korea
Former President Bush negotiated a deal with South Korea. All Obama had to do was travel there and sign it, and he could have claimed (however falsely) the credit. The UAW thought the agreement wasn't green enough for them and asked for and got some last-minute changes. It might have served the UAW's interests to get these "green" changes, but apparently the South Koreans felt the last-minute changes were not to their liking. No deal. No photo op showing how the lightbringer is uniting the world. In fact, a bad sign that the various protectionist forces in his own party are forcing out the free traders with likely terrible consequences for a battered world economy. With no clearly articulated philosophy of international trade except caving in to various interests who back him, it is natural that neither the nation's nor the world's best interests will be served in the remaining two years of Obama's term.
•(2) The G-20
Obama may be the last standing believer in the G-20 in Keynesian economics as the rest of the world shifts away. The adults at the G-20 regardless of the political suasion of their leaders -- Britain, Germany, China, and Brazil -- acknowledged that debt reduction was the first step in dealing with the global economic crisis. Obama, instead, insisted that more money be spent to "stimulate" the world economy -- money that at home has not stimulated our economy and largely gone to pay off his friends and supporters. Things got so bad that others, including China, a large holder of U.S. debt, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan accused the U.S. of deliberately weakening our currency to gain competitive advantage.
Tom Maguire has the last word this week:
IT'S ON TO THE NEXT TRIUMPH! Obama explains his latest successes:
Setbacks aside, Obama claims stronger global hand
YOKOHAMA, Japan - President Barack Obama claimed a stronger hand on the world stage Friday despite electoral defeats at home, failure to get a free-trade agreement with South Korea and lackluster international support for his get-tough policy with China on trade and currency disputes.
A few more strong hands like this and we will be out of chips.
America's standing abroad will not be restored until Obama is out of office, a fact that is now crystal clear.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Nero Fiddled...
If this guy isn't Nero I do not know who is. This fucker just does not care a single shit about this country or the people in it. Black or white. It is all about him getting his. I have been saying everything in this writing for years but the American public voted for him anyway. Please someone, anyone out there tell me where we muster. This article, while telling the truth, maintains no revolutionary undertone. What is in it could have been written by me; only not so eloquently...
November 12, 2010
The House Should Curb Obama's Extravagant Lifestyle
By Lauri B. Regan
Pundits, political analysts, and politicians on both sides of the aisle have offered their recommendation for items which should be placed at the top of the 112th Congress's legislative agenda. Surprisingly, in light of the negative press the Obamas have received relating to their recent junket to India, so far as I have seen, not one person has suggested including legislation limiting the amount of taxpayer funds that may be expended on presidential trips -- official or otherwise -- and the White House party budget. Like all government agencies, the White House operates on the basis of appropriations that originate in the House of Representatives, and it is incumbent on the House to exercise its responsibilities in guarding the taxpayers' money.
The beauty of our governing system of checks and balances is that presidential overreach can be curtailed by Congress. To borrow the president's own analogy, the voters decided to ditch Obama's drive to take the country on the road to the farthest reaches of the left's progressively ideological hopes and dreams. They instead elected legislators who represent the more reasonable values of mainstream Americans, who reside on the center-right side of the highway. We can therefore expect that over the last two years of what is expected to be Obama's only term in office, Republicans will keep Obama in check, making the passage of any further ideologically driven domestic legislation highly unlikely.
And as Republicans promise to end the earmarks that infuriate so many Americans, the "Young Guns" should add one more notch to their holster. They should draft a bill that prohibits the profligate spending of Obama, who, in addition to misunderstanding the mandate of the American people upon his election in 2008 as well as the "shellacking" of the 2010 midterms, completely misunderstands that he was hired as an executive to run the country, not anointed a king to feed on the fruits of the labor of hardworking taxpayers.
Headlines scream of offensive details regarding Obama's trip to India. Much of the reports is speculative, including the exact number in the entourage (while the White House denies that there are 3,000 individuals on the trip, reports indicate that the security detail alone includes 600 Secret Service and FBI employees) and the number of planes, helicopters, and other armored vehicles brought along to ensure that the president travels in the style to which he is accustomed. Furthermore, it appears as if coconuts have been removed from trees, outposts have been erected to watch for aggressive monkeys, and a bomb-proof tunnel was built to enable the Obamas to safely visit the Gandhi Museum.
Apparently, the news that the entourage would be accompanied by 34 warships was a rumor, while the story that the president took over the entire Taj Mahal Palace Hotel was not. And while the White House denies that the trip will cost American taxpayers $200 million a day, officials have refused to reveal the total cost, claiming such information is confidential. The point really is not the exact figure. The point is that the citizens (and the world) not only believe the obscene $2-billion estimate, but they have also come to expect this from the Obamas.
Americans have come to expect Michelle to wear $500 sneakers and carry $2,000 purses while dining on lobster and caviar prepared by her personal chef and traveling to five-star hotels on the Spanish coast. They are used to her wastefulness -- and her hypocrisy, considering the lavishness that occurs while the Obamas ask Americans to make sacrifices for the good of the nation, vacation on oil-stained beaches off the Gulf of Mexico, and have patience while the president socializes the economy against the will of the people.
It is time for Congress to intervene and put the kibosh on the spending of a president who has no idea, or who does not care, that his behavior is highly inappropriate. He parties continuously at the White House, entertaining his Hollywood supporters with music, dance, fine food, and wine. One would have expected that the 2010 midterms would have provided a much-needed reality check and led to the end of the glitz and glamor. Apparently not, and it is therefore time for the parents to cut off the apron strings, tear up the credit cards, and budget the children who seemingly were never taught the value of a hard-earned dollar.
Americans do not begrudge their chief executive for taking vacations or entertaining heads of state who visit the White House. But they do resent a president who lacks the humility to recognize the state of the U.S. economy, lacks the empathy to feel for the country's unemployed, and reeks of self-entitlement. The Obamas continually miss the message the American people raised during the controversy over the building of the Ground Zero Mosque -- just because something is legal, that does not make it ethical. From Charlie Rangel to Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi to Barney Frank, the Washington establishment's cluelessness is astonishing. But the cleanup must start at the top.
So it is time for the Republicans who took control of the House and weakened the Democrats' hold in the Senate to put an end to this nonsense. In Obama's post-election speech, he mentioned that he was humbled by the results. But the president has proven that he lacks the humility that a man of his stature should have, that he is incapable of learning from his mistakes, and that he views taxpayer funds as an endless bank account from which he can draw at his leisure. He has further demonstrated that he lacks the sense of decency, common sense, and good judgment required for responsible decision-making. This was obvious from previous overseas trips in which Obama's modus operandi involved bowing to foreign leaders, reaching out to America's enemies, and apologizing for America's greatness. This trip is simply more of the same.
Not long after entering office, Obama stated, "I won." At the time, he was directing that admonition to Republican legislators whose ideas were anathema to him. But the king of double-speak may also have been referring to winning the jackpot. It is easy to imagine the Obamas toasting champagne their first night in the White House, smiling at their newfound fortune. Like winning the lottery, they assumed they won a future filled with unrestricted spending and limitless income at their personal disposal. It is time for the Republicans to cut down Obama's out-of-control spending not only in terms ending the enactment of wasteful stimulus packages and socialist entitlement programs, but also in terms of the Obama family's extravagant lifestyle, which far surpasses that of any sane person's wildest dreams.
Lauri B. Regan is a lawyer at a global law firm in New York City and a regular contributor to AmericanThinker.com.
November 12, 2010
The House Should Curb Obama's Extravagant Lifestyle
By Lauri B. Regan
Pundits, political analysts, and politicians on both sides of the aisle have offered their recommendation for items which should be placed at the top of the 112th Congress's legislative agenda. Surprisingly, in light of the negative press the Obamas have received relating to their recent junket to India, so far as I have seen, not one person has suggested including legislation limiting the amount of taxpayer funds that may be expended on presidential trips -- official or otherwise -- and the White House party budget. Like all government agencies, the White House operates on the basis of appropriations that originate in the House of Representatives, and it is incumbent on the House to exercise its responsibilities in guarding the taxpayers' money.
The beauty of our governing system of checks and balances is that presidential overreach can be curtailed by Congress. To borrow the president's own analogy, the voters decided to ditch Obama's drive to take the country on the road to the farthest reaches of the left's progressively ideological hopes and dreams. They instead elected legislators who represent the more reasonable values of mainstream Americans, who reside on the center-right side of the highway. We can therefore expect that over the last two years of what is expected to be Obama's only term in office, Republicans will keep Obama in check, making the passage of any further ideologically driven domestic legislation highly unlikely.
And as Republicans promise to end the earmarks that infuriate so many Americans, the "Young Guns" should add one more notch to their holster. They should draft a bill that prohibits the profligate spending of Obama, who, in addition to misunderstanding the mandate of the American people upon his election in 2008 as well as the "shellacking" of the 2010 midterms, completely misunderstands that he was hired as an executive to run the country, not anointed a king to feed on the fruits of the labor of hardworking taxpayers.
Headlines scream of offensive details regarding Obama's trip to India. Much of the reports is speculative, including the exact number in the entourage (while the White House denies that there are 3,000 individuals on the trip, reports indicate that the security detail alone includes 600 Secret Service and FBI employees) and the number of planes, helicopters, and other armored vehicles brought along to ensure that the president travels in the style to which he is accustomed. Furthermore, it appears as if coconuts have been removed from trees, outposts have been erected to watch for aggressive monkeys, and a bomb-proof tunnel was built to enable the Obamas to safely visit the Gandhi Museum.
Apparently, the news that the entourage would be accompanied by 34 warships was a rumor, while the story that the president took over the entire Taj Mahal Palace Hotel was not. And while the White House denies that the trip will cost American taxpayers $200 million a day, officials have refused to reveal the total cost, claiming such information is confidential. The point really is not the exact figure. The point is that the citizens (and the world) not only believe the obscene $2-billion estimate, but they have also come to expect this from the Obamas.
Americans have come to expect Michelle to wear $500 sneakers and carry $2,000 purses while dining on lobster and caviar prepared by her personal chef and traveling to five-star hotels on the Spanish coast. They are used to her wastefulness -- and her hypocrisy, considering the lavishness that occurs while the Obamas ask Americans to make sacrifices for the good of the nation, vacation on oil-stained beaches off the Gulf of Mexico, and have patience while the president socializes the economy against the will of the people.
It is time for Congress to intervene and put the kibosh on the spending of a president who has no idea, or who does not care, that his behavior is highly inappropriate. He parties continuously at the White House, entertaining his Hollywood supporters with music, dance, fine food, and wine. One would have expected that the 2010 midterms would have provided a much-needed reality check and led to the end of the glitz and glamor. Apparently not, and it is therefore time for the parents to cut off the apron strings, tear up the credit cards, and budget the children who seemingly were never taught the value of a hard-earned dollar.
Americans do not begrudge their chief executive for taking vacations or entertaining heads of state who visit the White House. But they do resent a president who lacks the humility to recognize the state of the U.S. economy, lacks the empathy to feel for the country's unemployed, and reeks of self-entitlement. The Obamas continually miss the message the American people raised during the controversy over the building of the Ground Zero Mosque -- just because something is legal, that does not make it ethical. From Charlie Rangel to Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi to Barney Frank, the Washington establishment's cluelessness is astonishing. But the cleanup must start at the top.
So it is time for the Republicans who took control of the House and weakened the Democrats' hold in the Senate to put an end to this nonsense. In Obama's post-election speech, he mentioned that he was humbled by the results. But the president has proven that he lacks the humility that a man of his stature should have, that he is incapable of learning from his mistakes, and that he views taxpayer funds as an endless bank account from which he can draw at his leisure. He has further demonstrated that he lacks the sense of decency, common sense, and good judgment required for responsible decision-making. This was obvious from previous overseas trips in which Obama's modus operandi involved bowing to foreign leaders, reaching out to America's enemies, and apologizing for America's greatness. This trip is simply more of the same.
Not long after entering office, Obama stated, "I won." At the time, he was directing that admonition to Republican legislators whose ideas were anathema to him. But the king of double-speak may also have been referring to winning the jackpot. It is easy to imagine the Obamas toasting champagne their first night in the White House, smiling at their newfound fortune. Like winning the lottery, they assumed they won a future filled with unrestricted spending and limitless income at their personal disposal. It is time for the Republicans to cut down Obama's out-of-control spending not only in terms ending the enactment of wasteful stimulus packages and socialist entitlement programs, but also in terms of the Obama family's extravagant lifestyle, which far surpasses that of any sane person's wildest dreams.
Lauri B. Regan is a lawyer at a global law firm in New York City and a regular contributor to AmericanThinker.com.
Monday, November 22, 2010
2010: The Year of the Republican Iraq Vet
Great informative piece on vets in the new Congress. Hopefully they can bring back some light to the struggles of our servicemen and women both doing the fighting halfway around the world and those that return home and need help. Clearly the media has forgotten that men and women are still in harm's way over there. But even worse, there is not even one story in the media about all of the good they are doing over there. Surely this week either of the top two dickheads will go overseas to photo op with the troops praise them to their faces and talk shit about them on the way back home to their inner circle of America hating douchebags. Hopefully these men will live up to their promises and our expectations. I congratulate them all and wish them the best of luck.
November 11, 2010
2010: The Year of the Republican Iraq Vet
By Kieran Michael Lalor
When the 112th Congress is sworn in, all eight Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans in the House will be Republicans.
This scenario was impossible to imagine just four years ago, when Patrick Murphy (PA-8), a JAG officer with the Army's 82nd Airborne, became the first Iraq vet in Congress. The so-called "Blue Dog" from the Philadelphia suburbs became the Left's point man for cut and run in Iraq and the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which bars openly gay military personnel.
In his first term, Murphy penned a book with the triumphant title Taking the Hill: From Philly to Baghdad to the United States Congress. After a convincing win in 2008, Murphy was being groomed for a Senate run. But last week he lost a rematch to Mike Fitzpatrick by 54% to 46%.
Also defeated was Democrat John Boccieri (OH-16), an Air Force Major elected in 2008 after serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Dogged by his flip-flop from opposing ObamaCare to supporting the health care overall, Boccieri didn't put up much of a fight losing to former Wadsworth, Ohio mayor Jim Renacci 52% to 40%.
Marine Corps infantry officer Duncan D. Hunter (CA-52), who joined the Marines the day after the attacks of 9/11, won the San Diego seat his father held in 2008. Hunter coasted to reelection with nearly two-thirds of the vote. Mike Coffman (CO-6), who resigned as Colorado State Treasurer in 2005 to serve in Iraq as a Marine officer, was also elected in 2008 and easily defended the central Colorado seat on November 2.
Joining the two Marines in the Iraq vet caucus will be five soldiers and an airman.
Allen West (FL-22) served in Iraq as a battalion commander for the Army's 4th Infantry Division. He also served in Afghanistan, where he trained Afghan officers. After putting up a tough fight in 2008 and earning 45% of the vote against Rep. Ron Klein, West kept campaigning into the 2010 cycle, becoming the top fundraising challenger in the country. With a big war chest, nearly four years of tireless campaigning, and an inspiring speaking style, West shellacked Klein, winning 54%-45%.
Another unsuccessful 2008 Iraq vet candidate who was able to accomplish the mission in 2010 is Steve Stivers (OH-15). Called to active duty in October 2004 while serving in the Ohio Senate, Stivers served in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and Djibouti as a battalion commander.
Thought to be the winner on election night 2008, Stivers ultimately lost a recount to Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy. No recount was necessary after round two as Stivers rolled to victory 54%-46%.
In 2006, Army JAG officer Tim Griffin was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. He served in Mosul, Iraq as a member of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team Brigade Operational Law Team, for which he was awarded the Combat Action Badge. From 2006-2007, he served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin won the seat vacated by Democrat Rick Snyder with 58% of the vote against Democrat nominee Joyce Elliot, the Majority Leader of the Arkansas Senate.
Dr. Joe Heck (NV-2), a tactical doctor with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department SWAT team and an osteopathic physician, serves as a colonel in the United States Army Reserve, where he commands a Medical Readiness Support Group. Heck served as a combat surgeon in Iraq.
A state senator from 2004 to 2008, Heck was originally a gubernatorial candidate but shifted his sites to a congressional race against incumbent Rep. Dana Titus. In a closely watched race for the Las Vegas-based seat, Heck defeated the freshman Democrat 48% to 47%, with 2,000 of the 267,000 votes cast separating the two candidates.
In New York's Hudson Valley, retired Army Col. Chris Gibson (NY-20) challenged Rep. Scott Murphy, who won the seat in a 2009 special election after Kirsten Gillibrand was appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Hillary Clinton, who was appointed Secretary of State.
Gibson is a veteran of 24 years of active military service, including four combat tours in Iraq. He recently commanded the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team during humanitarian efforts in Haiti. The former West Point instructor didn't announce his candidacy until April but managed to win 55%-45% in the district where there are nearly 70,000 more Democrats than Republicans.
Finally, in Illinois' 11th District, Air Force pilot Adam Kinzinger took on freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson. When not flying for Uncle Sam, Kinzinger is something of an amateur crime fighter, who saved the life of a young woman violently attacked by a knife-wielding assailant. The 32-year-old former Mclean County board member saw the woman being assaulted, wrested the knife away from the perpetrator, and pinned him to the ground until the police arrived.
Kinzinger won a decisive 57%-to-43% victory and was just named to the GOP's transition team.
The historic election of these six remarkable men doubles the number of Iraq vets in the House. The presence of this critical mass combined with the fact that they are all of the same party will no doubt have a significant impact on the conduct of the Global War on Terror and shape all areas of Department of Defense policy.
Kieran Michael Lalor is a Marine Corps veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the founder of the conservative political action committee Iraq Veterans for Congress. He is also the author of the newly released book This Recruit: A First Hand Account of Marine Corps Boot Camp Written While Knee Deep in the Mayhem of Parris Island (www.thisrecruit.com).
November 11, 2010
2010: The Year of the Republican Iraq Vet
By Kieran Michael Lalor
When the 112th Congress is sworn in, all eight Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans in the House will be Republicans.
This scenario was impossible to imagine just four years ago, when Patrick Murphy (PA-8), a JAG officer with the Army's 82nd Airborne, became the first Iraq vet in Congress. The so-called "Blue Dog" from the Philadelphia suburbs became the Left's point man for cut and run in Iraq and the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which bars openly gay military personnel.
In his first term, Murphy penned a book with the triumphant title Taking the Hill: From Philly to Baghdad to the United States Congress. After a convincing win in 2008, Murphy was being groomed for a Senate run. But last week he lost a rematch to Mike Fitzpatrick by 54% to 46%.
Also defeated was Democrat John Boccieri (OH-16), an Air Force Major elected in 2008 after serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Dogged by his flip-flop from opposing ObamaCare to supporting the health care overall, Boccieri didn't put up much of a fight losing to former Wadsworth, Ohio mayor Jim Renacci 52% to 40%.
Marine Corps infantry officer Duncan D. Hunter (CA-52), who joined the Marines the day after the attacks of 9/11, won the San Diego seat his father held in 2008. Hunter coasted to reelection with nearly two-thirds of the vote. Mike Coffman (CO-6), who resigned as Colorado State Treasurer in 2005 to serve in Iraq as a Marine officer, was also elected in 2008 and easily defended the central Colorado seat on November 2.
Joining the two Marines in the Iraq vet caucus will be five soldiers and an airman.
Allen West (FL-22) served in Iraq as a battalion commander for the Army's 4th Infantry Division. He also served in Afghanistan, where he trained Afghan officers. After putting up a tough fight in 2008 and earning 45% of the vote against Rep. Ron Klein, West kept campaigning into the 2010 cycle, becoming the top fundraising challenger in the country. With a big war chest, nearly four years of tireless campaigning, and an inspiring speaking style, West shellacked Klein, winning 54%-45%.
Another unsuccessful 2008 Iraq vet candidate who was able to accomplish the mission in 2010 is Steve Stivers (OH-15). Called to active duty in October 2004 while serving in the Ohio Senate, Stivers served in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and Djibouti as a battalion commander.
Thought to be the winner on election night 2008, Stivers ultimately lost a recount to Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy. No recount was necessary after round two as Stivers rolled to victory 54%-46%.
In 2006, Army JAG officer Tim Griffin was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. He served in Mosul, Iraq as a member of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team Brigade Operational Law Team, for which he was awarded the Combat Action Badge. From 2006-2007, he served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin won the seat vacated by Democrat Rick Snyder with 58% of the vote against Democrat nominee Joyce Elliot, the Majority Leader of the Arkansas Senate.
Dr. Joe Heck (NV-2), a tactical doctor with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department SWAT team and an osteopathic physician, serves as a colonel in the United States Army Reserve, where he commands a Medical Readiness Support Group. Heck served as a combat surgeon in Iraq.
A state senator from 2004 to 2008, Heck was originally a gubernatorial candidate but shifted his sites to a congressional race against incumbent Rep. Dana Titus. In a closely watched race for the Las Vegas-based seat, Heck defeated the freshman Democrat 48% to 47%, with 2,000 of the 267,000 votes cast separating the two candidates.
In New York's Hudson Valley, retired Army Col. Chris Gibson (NY-20) challenged Rep. Scott Murphy, who won the seat in a 2009 special election after Kirsten Gillibrand was appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Hillary Clinton, who was appointed Secretary of State.
Gibson is a veteran of 24 years of active military service, including four combat tours in Iraq. He recently commanded the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team during humanitarian efforts in Haiti. The former West Point instructor didn't announce his candidacy until April but managed to win 55%-45% in the district where there are nearly 70,000 more Democrats than Republicans.
Finally, in Illinois' 11th District, Air Force pilot Adam Kinzinger took on freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson. When not flying for Uncle Sam, Kinzinger is something of an amateur crime fighter, who saved the life of a young woman violently attacked by a knife-wielding assailant. The 32-year-old former Mclean County board member saw the woman being assaulted, wrested the knife away from the perpetrator, and pinned him to the ground until the police arrived.
Kinzinger won a decisive 57%-to-43% victory and was just named to the GOP's transition team.
The historic election of these six remarkable men doubles the number of Iraq vets in the House. The presence of this critical mass combined with the fact that they are all of the same party will no doubt have a significant impact on the conduct of the Global War on Terror and shape all areas of Department of Defense policy.
Kieran Michael Lalor is a Marine Corps veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the founder of the conservative political action committee Iraq Veterans for Congress. He is also the author of the newly released book This Recruit: A First Hand Account of Marine Corps Boot Camp Written While Knee Deep in the Mayhem of Parris Island (www.thisrecruit.com).
Thursday, November 18, 2010
I Guess Gov. Christie Ain't Such a Bad Guy
This uber liberal cunt is moving to New Jersey? WTF?!?!?! Chicago is not liberal enough for you anymore? Maybe she is just a closet fan of our "take no shit from liberals" Governor Chris Christie. After all our state is coming back on the job market front we are now below the national average. We were above it when he took over. We could use her tax revenue being that the previous governor pushed billions of dollars out of state. Unfortunately though in New Jersey there is no tax on food, if there were our deficit could be eliminated by her and her alone. Quite the conundrum about her moving here isn't it? Let's face it the fewer liberals the better for all.
By Jennifer Keil
(NewsCore) - Oprah Winfrey is eyeing a new house in the New Jersey area, the New York Post reported Thursday.
The TV titan -- whose new network is slated to launch in Los Angeles next year -- quietly slipped into town Wednesday for a house-hunting expedition along the banks of the Hudson, sources said.
Among the homes on her must-see list was a $68 million mansion on the sprawling grounds of the old Frick estate in Alpine, NJ, the sources said.
Oprah's three-car convoy, including two black SUVs and a van, pulled into the ritzy enclave before noon Wednesday, a source said.
Workers and others on the grounds were asked to make themselves scarce while Oprah checked out the five-story, 19-bedroom and 12-bathroom spread, according to one source.
"Her people requested that everyone leave the house so it would be empty when she walked through," the source said.
Alpine last year was named by Forbes magazine as the most expensive ZIP code in the country.
Its celebrity residents include Eddie Murphy, the Jonas Brothers and CC Sabathia.
The estate eyed by Oprah is the most expensive in Alpine, with walnut and marble floors and Venetian plaster walls.
It features a carriage house, English gardens, a library, ballroom, movie theater, tennis court, saline pool and wine cellar.
By Jennifer Keil
(NewsCore) - Oprah Winfrey is eyeing a new house in the New Jersey area, the New York Post reported Thursday.
The TV titan -- whose new network is slated to launch in Los Angeles next year -- quietly slipped into town Wednesday for a house-hunting expedition along the banks of the Hudson, sources said.
Among the homes on her must-see list was a $68 million mansion on the sprawling grounds of the old Frick estate in Alpine, NJ, the sources said.
Oprah's three-car convoy, including two black SUVs and a van, pulled into the ritzy enclave before noon Wednesday, a source said.
Workers and others on the grounds were asked to make themselves scarce while Oprah checked out the five-story, 19-bedroom and 12-bathroom spread, according to one source.
"Her people requested that everyone leave the house so it would be empty when she walked through," the source said.
Alpine last year was named by Forbes magazine as the most expensive ZIP code in the country.
Its celebrity residents include Eddie Murphy, the Jonas Brothers and CC Sabathia.
The estate eyed by Oprah is the most expensive in Alpine, with walnut and marble floors and Venetian plaster walls.
It features a carriage house, English gardens, a library, ballroom, movie theater, tennis court, saline pool and wine cellar.
Faith vs Politicians
Now we all know that I do not have any faith in our elected officials and even less faith in their staffers and yes men. So how in the fuck are the United States Congressmen and Senators going to repeal ObamaCare? Do I think it is a good idea? Hell, yeah! Do I think it needs to be done? Hell yeah! Do I know it HAS to be done? Hell Fuckin' yeah!! Is it going to get done? Sadly, no. The Capitol Building is a den of thieves and thievettes. Sure the TEA Party candidates talked a good game on the campaign trail but let's face they do not have the moral fortitude to stand up to backroom deals of favors of money and power. I hope they do but I will admit not only skepticism but total and utter lack of faith in the Congress of the United States of America. This I can honestly say is my saddest post. What took our founding fathers years to plan, build and perfect is now totally unrecognizable. They have squandered the Founder's gift to all of us and shame on us for letting them. This piece, from American Thinker, thinks it can be done. Maybe you have more faith than I.
November 09, 2010
Yes We Can Repeal
By Christopher Chantrill
Last week, the MSM Tingle Brigade all of a sudden discovered, in President Obama's post-election news conference, that Obama just didn't get it, didn't understand the message from the voters. "That Tin Ear," wrote the London Economist.
What did the brainiacs expect? President Obama is not going to tell the world that yes, he's sorry that he and Nancy Pelosi sacrificed a whole generation of Democratic moderates on the altar of universal health care. He's not sorry at all. It was all worth it because he and she got ObamaCare passed.
Real liberals agree with the president. A liberal acquaintance told me she heartily approved of Nancy Pelosi's achievements, just like Susan Estrich, who applauded: "Nancy Pelosi, Superhero."
We should all congratulate Obama and Pelosi. They used their Liberal Hour just as FDR and LBJ did before them. They passed historic progressive legislation in the teeth of opposition from the reactionaries. Admittedly, Democrats suffered a nasty reverse in the midterms, but so did FDR in 1938 and so did LBJ in 1966. Admittedly, the American people are still opposed to ObamaCare, but Democrats think the American people will soon change their minds. After all, the American people love Social Security and Medicare. Republicans wouldn't dare repeal them.
Whatever Obama and the Democrats say, their strategy from here is to ambush, feint, and delay all attempts to repeal ObamaCare. They will pull all the plays out of their old reliable playbook: the compromise play, the bipartisan play, the for-the-children play, the extremist play, the mean-spirited play. Will it work? Nobody knows. President Obama doesn't know; the Republican leadership doesn't know. But the strategy has always worked in the past, so it stands to reason that the president will use it now. No doubt he feels pretty confident about the outcome.
I talked to a rank-and-file Democrat, a union carpenter. He doesn't think ObamaCare will be repealed, either.
For Republicans and conservatives, this is the Conservative Moment. This is the opportunity to take a big government program and repeal it. We want to send a message to the ruling class that never again should they dare to push a comprehensive and mandatory progressive government program through on a partisan vote in the teeth of the opposition of the American people, not even in a once-in-a-generation Liberal Hour.
When we repeal ObamaCare, it must be on a bipartisan vote. In both the House and Senate we need a credible group of Democrats joining with Republicans to repeal it. It doesn't matter whether they vote for repeal out of conviction or out of the fear of defeat. There must be a bipartisan vote to repeal. Then the ObamaCare repeal will echo down the years as a terrible warning to all progressives. Then progressives will remember not the successes of FDR and LBJ, but the dreadful memory of the Obama overreach extinguishing the millennial hope for comprehensive cradle-to-grave administrative health care forever. The best outcome would be repeal in 2013 after another six Democratic senators and 30-40 Democratic representatives bite the dust.
Will the American people support repeal when push comes to shove? There's a good chance they will. That's because of Irving Kristol's Rule of Social Programs. When you want to help the poor, Kristol wrote back in the 1980s, you must deal in the middle class.
The trouble with ObamaCare is that it cannot deal in the middle class. The middle class already has health insurance. Just like HillaryCare, the fundamental fact about ObamaCare is that the middle class is going to get stuck with the bill for the 30 million without health insurance. If you don't understand that, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Leaving aside peace and justice and compassion and caring, the fact on the ground is that the 30 million don't need health insurance because they don't have any assets. You can't lose your home to medical bills if you don't own a home.
One of the under-appreciated weaknesses of liberalism is that there's a huge disconnect between the official liberal narrative and the facts on the ground. Liberals talk about issues and peace and justice and sweetness and light, but politicians understand that the game is about getting reelected. Democratic voters understand that it's all about My Benefits. Republican voters understand it's all about My Taxes. Ordinary Americans know it's all about jobs, jobs, jobs.
Right now, nobody is much interested in the liberal narrative or the needs of elected politicians. That's because it's pretty obvious to ordinary Americans that ObamaCare isn't good for jobs, jobs, jobs. It's pretty obvious to Republicans that ObamaCare isn't good for My Taxes. And there's a chance that the odd Democrat may soon tumble to the notion that another big entitlement might be a threat to My Benefits.
If we can repeal ObamaCare, it changes welfare-state politics forever.
Christopher Chantrill is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. See his usgovernmentspending.com and also usgovernmentdebt.us. At americanmanifesto.org he is blogging and writing An American Manifesto: Life After Liberalism.
November 09, 2010
Yes We Can Repeal
By Christopher Chantrill
Last week, the MSM Tingle Brigade all of a sudden discovered, in President Obama's post-election news conference, that Obama just didn't get it, didn't understand the message from the voters. "That Tin Ear," wrote the London Economist.
What did the brainiacs expect? President Obama is not going to tell the world that yes, he's sorry that he and Nancy Pelosi sacrificed a whole generation of Democratic moderates on the altar of universal health care. He's not sorry at all. It was all worth it because he and she got ObamaCare passed.
Real liberals agree with the president. A liberal acquaintance told me she heartily approved of Nancy Pelosi's achievements, just like Susan Estrich, who applauded: "Nancy Pelosi, Superhero."
We should all congratulate Obama and Pelosi. They used their Liberal Hour just as FDR and LBJ did before them. They passed historic progressive legislation in the teeth of opposition from the reactionaries. Admittedly, Democrats suffered a nasty reverse in the midterms, but so did FDR in 1938 and so did LBJ in 1966. Admittedly, the American people are still opposed to ObamaCare, but Democrats think the American people will soon change their minds. After all, the American people love Social Security and Medicare. Republicans wouldn't dare repeal them.
Whatever Obama and the Democrats say, their strategy from here is to ambush, feint, and delay all attempts to repeal ObamaCare. They will pull all the plays out of their old reliable playbook: the compromise play, the bipartisan play, the for-the-children play, the extremist play, the mean-spirited play. Will it work? Nobody knows. President Obama doesn't know; the Republican leadership doesn't know. But the strategy has always worked in the past, so it stands to reason that the president will use it now. No doubt he feels pretty confident about the outcome.
I talked to a rank-and-file Democrat, a union carpenter. He doesn't think ObamaCare will be repealed, either.
For Republicans and conservatives, this is the Conservative Moment. This is the opportunity to take a big government program and repeal it. We want to send a message to the ruling class that never again should they dare to push a comprehensive and mandatory progressive government program through on a partisan vote in the teeth of the opposition of the American people, not even in a once-in-a-generation Liberal Hour.
When we repeal ObamaCare, it must be on a bipartisan vote. In both the House and Senate we need a credible group of Democrats joining with Republicans to repeal it. It doesn't matter whether they vote for repeal out of conviction or out of the fear of defeat. There must be a bipartisan vote to repeal. Then the ObamaCare repeal will echo down the years as a terrible warning to all progressives. Then progressives will remember not the successes of FDR and LBJ, but the dreadful memory of the Obama overreach extinguishing the millennial hope for comprehensive cradle-to-grave administrative health care forever. The best outcome would be repeal in 2013 after another six Democratic senators and 30-40 Democratic representatives bite the dust.
Will the American people support repeal when push comes to shove? There's a good chance they will. That's because of Irving Kristol's Rule of Social Programs. When you want to help the poor, Kristol wrote back in the 1980s, you must deal in the middle class.
The trouble with ObamaCare is that it cannot deal in the middle class. The middle class already has health insurance. Just like HillaryCare, the fundamental fact about ObamaCare is that the middle class is going to get stuck with the bill for the 30 million without health insurance. If you don't understand that, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Leaving aside peace and justice and compassion and caring, the fact on the ground is that the 30 million don't need health insurance because they don't have any assets. You can't lose your home to medical bills if you don't own a home.
One of the under-appreciated weaknesses of liberalism is that there's a huge disconnect between the official liberal narrative and the facts on the ground. Liberals talk about issues and peace and justice and sweetness and light, but politicians understand that the game is about getting reelected. Democratic voters understand that it's all about My Benefits. Republican voters understand it's all about My Taxes. Ordinary Americans know it's all about jobs, jobs, jobs.
Right now, nobody is much interested in the liberal narrative or the needs of elected politicians. That's because it's pretty obvious to ordinary Americans that ObamaCare isn't good for jobs, jobs, jobs. It's pretty obvious to Republicans that ObamaCare isn't good for My Taxes. And there's a chance that the odd Democrat may soon tumble to the notion that another big entitlement might be a threat to My Benefits.
If we can repeal ObamaCare, it changes welfare-state politics forever.
Christopher Chantrill is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. See his usgovernmentspending.com and also usgovernmentdebt.us. At americanmanifesto.org he is blogging and writing An American Manifesto: Life After Liberalism.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
What is Worse ... Bureaucrats or Politicians?
From the American Thinker page I give you a story from a man with the patience of a saint. I personally would have buried that man in that hole. If everyone in government would just use a little reason every now and again people like me would not be talking about 'revolution' and 'wanting to take our country back' but if government workers could think they would be in the private sector, wouldn't they?
A Septic System at the Crossroads
By Roland Toy
The county building department inspector and I were finally standing on the sand next to a hole the size and shape of a vertical grave. According to his business card, young Craig (so we'll call him) was a deputy sanitarian. He was there to approve the hole for a percolation test. If, after 48 hours of a continuous trickle from a hose, no standing water were visible in the hole, the county would approve a septic system, and I could get on with building my family's house.
I was thinking "bless deputy sanitarians everywhere" for the same reason people say "thank God for aspirin" after a headache goes away. The percolation test was going to be a formality. The building site was on a sand dune hundreds of feet deep, near the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. Even if the trickle lasted a century, there would be no standing water in the hole. The building department had run out of reasons to obstruct my project.
A hundred and thirty-three days earlier, I had submitted plans for my house to the county building department. A month later, the department sent a letter explaining that the proposed septic system had to be relocated sixty feet to the east of a location the county had approved earlier. However, in recent months, a bald eagle's nest had been spotted in adjacent public lands, and the county now required a buffer between the nest and any development on my property. Fine. I had seen a bald eagle soaring overhead -- once with something that looked like a small animal it its claws. Anything for the symbol of America. And the septic system relocation was less than trivial, a few steps in one direction in the midst of millions of acres of sandy wilderness that was already officially sanctioned for a septic system.
The problem arose when the relocation required a new permit application, complete with fresh paperwork, hefty fees, a two-week waiting period for public input, and a new soil study by a professional soil engineer on a county-approved list.
I called the man who had signed the letter and appealed to his common sense, to his engineering acumen, and finally to his decency. Any moron could see that the septic system could be nudged a few feet with zero environmental impact -- the approved sand dune was the same whether 8' or 80' or 8,000' feet from the property line. What could possibly be accomplished by breathing life into a new bureaucratic tangle? But in the end, my entreaties failed, and the conversation amounted to mutual declarations of war. I backed off when he began making vague references to a possible environmental assessment report. Thus began a slow-motion shell game in which a bureaucrat, after extracting an extortionate fee, transferred irrelevant paperwork from one file folder to another. Some highlights of that loony process ($2,831.00, 103 days) are shown below:
•Submit plans to county ($450.00).
•County disapproves plans, requires variance.
•Variance request submitted ($125.00).
•Request denied. New application and soil study required.
•At an arbitration meeting ($250.00), the arbitrator rules for the county. Not technically a county employee, he's on a chummy first-name basis with the county representatives.
•Start new application ($125.00) and commission a second soil study ($1,350.00) by an engineer on the county-approved list .
•Plan reviewers fail to show for a meeting. They're at a 'team-building' retreat. In an unpleasant scene, two customer service representatives complain about my attitude after I tell them that for the non-meeting I had to drive 180 miles over winding mountain roads.
•County approves new septic system location.
•Craig makes site visit for percolation test ($541.00).
Back at the percolation test, all that was history. I understood it and wasn't destined to repeat it. But Craig had been leafing through his papers for a long while. "Is there a problem?" I asked.
"Your soil engineer isn't on the new approved list."
"He's gotta be there. You guys gave me his name."
Craig pulled out his cell phone and spoke intently with his superiors. Eventually he hung up and said, "It's probably nothing serious. But something's screwy with the new list, and I can't do the inspection until the paperwork is right."
"What's the problem?"
"We're not sure yet, but your engineer just isn't on the list."
"So you don't know how long it's going to take to fix or if it can be fixed?"
Craig muttered abjectly, "I'm sorry. I'm still on probation and they audit me."
Like contentious litigation, every interaction with the building department had a tendency to take on an unpredictable life of its own. This was a moment of truth. God may have understood the SNAFU that had kept my engineer's name off the list, but I didn't. When does reasonable accommodation become craven appeasement? Would I continue working with the totalitarians who were polluting my life? Would I start another round of telephone tag, being stood up at meetings, preparing for rigged arbitrations, and paying the fees? Would I have to commission yet another soil assessment, the third one that would reiterate what everybody already knew? Or would I draw a line in the literal sand and rebel against the yoke of tyranny? A crazy image flashed through my mind. I was in the percolation test hole with a rifle, holding off swarms of g-men in bulletproof vests as helicopters and a lone bald eagle circled overhead.
At the same time I empathized with Craig. He sure looked wretched. He probably just felt lucky to have a job, maybe with a wife and baby in a starter home. Did he also imagine himself at a crossroads? Was he sensing that every governmental subjugation of a citizen is important? That in the final analysis, all oppression is inflicted, and fought, one person at a time? That maltreatment over something as trifling as a septic system has colossally corrosive effects on the workers paid to enforce the maltreatment? Was he asking himself what kind of public servant he was going to be? Or was he just alarmed at the murderous look on my face? Because I also sensed young Craig might need to be strangled.
After several terrible moments, Craig looked at me with resolve, and spoke. Since then, in dark moments when I have feared that our republic is doomed, Craig's inspirational words have rallied me to have hope for our future. He said, "Mr. Toy, turn on your hose."
A Septic System at the Crossroads
By Roland Toy
The county building department inspector and I were finally standing on the sand next to a hole the size and shape of a vertical grave. According to his business card, young Craig (so we'll call him) was a deputy sanitarian. He was there to approve the hole for a percolation test. If, after 48 hours of a continuous trickle from a hose, no standing water were visible in the hole, the county would approve a septic system, and I could get on with building my family's house.
I was thinking "bless deputy sanitarians everywhere" for the same reason people say "thank God for aspirin" after a headache goes away. The percolation test was going to be a formality. The building site was on a sand dune hundreds of feet deep, near the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. Even if the trickle lasted a century, there would be no standing water in the hole. The building department had run out of reasons to obstruct my project.
A hundred and thirty-three days earlier, I had submitted plans for my house to the county building department. A month later, the department sent a letter explaining that the proposed septic system had to be relocated sixty feet to the east of a location the county had approved earlier. However, in recent months, a bald eagle's nest had been spotted in adjacent public lands, and the county now required a buffer between the nest and any development on my property. Fine. I had seen a bald eagle soaring overhead -- once with something that looked like a small animal it its claws. Anything for the symbol of America. And the septic system relocation was less than trivial, a few steps in one direction in the midst of millions of acres of sandy wilderness that was already officially sanctioned for a septic system.
The problem arose when the relocation required a new permit application, complete with fresh paperwork, hefty fees, a two-week waiting period for public input, and a new soil study by a professional soil engineer on a county-approved list.
I called the man who had signed the letter and appealed to his common sense, to his engineering acumen, and finally to his decency. Any moron could see that the septic system could be nudged a few feet with zero environmental impact -- the approved sand dune was the same whether 8' or 80' or 8,000' feet from the property line. What could possibly be accomplished by breathing life into a new bureaucratic tangle? But in the end, my entreaties failed, and the conversation amounted to mutual declarations of war. I backed off when he began making vague references to a possible environmental assessment report. Thus began a slow-motion shell game in which a bureaucrat, after extracting an extortionate fee, transferred irrelevant paperwork from one file folder to another. Some highlights of that loony process ($2,831.00, 103 days) are shown below:
•Submit plans to county ($450.00).
•County disapproves plans, requires variance.
•Variance request submitted ($125.00).
•Request denied. New application and soil study required.
•At an arbitration meeting ($250.00), the arbitrator rules for the county. Not technically a county employee, he's on a chummy first-name basis with the county representatives.
•Start new application ($125.00) and commission a second soil study ($1,350.00) by an engineer on the county-approved list .
•Plan reviewers fail to show for a meeting. They're at a 'team-building' retreat. In an unpleasant scene, two customer service representatives complain about my attitude after I tell them that for the non-meeting I had to drive 180 miles over winding mountain roads.
•County approves new septic system location.
•Craig makes site visit for percolation test ($541.00).
Back at the percolation test, all that was history. I understood it and wasn't destined to repeat it. But Craig had been leafing through his papers for a long while. "Is there a problem?" I asked.
"Your soil engineer isn't on the new approved list."
"He's gotta be there. You guys gave me his name."
Craig pulled out his cell phone and spoke intently with his superiors. Eventually he hung up and said, "It's probably nothing serious. But something's screwy with the new list, and I can't do the inspection until the paperwork is right."
"What's the problem?"
"We're not sure yet, but your engineer just isn't on the list."
"So you don't know how long it's going to take to fix or if it can be fixed?"
Craig muttered abjectly, "I'm sorry. I'm still on probation and they audit me."
Like contentious litigation, every interaction with the building department had a tendency to take on an unpredictable life of its own. This was a moment of truth. God may have understood the SNAFU that had kept my engineer's name off the list, but I didn't. When does reasonable accommodation become craven appeasement? Would I continue working with the totalitarians who were polluting my life? Would I start another round of telephone tag, being stood up at meetings, preparing for rigged arbitrations, and paying the fees? Would I have to commission yet another soil assessment, the third one that would reiterate what everybody already knew? Or would I draw a line in the literal sand and rebel against the yoke of tyranny? A crazy image flashed through my mind. I was in the percolation test hole with a rifle, holding off swarms of g-men in bulletproof vests as helicopters and a lone bald eagle circled overhead.
At the same time I empathized with Craig. He sure looked wretched. He probably just felt lucky to have a job, maybe with a wife and baby in a starter home. Did he also imagine himself at a crossroads? Was he sensing that every governmental subjugation of a citizen is important? That in the final analysis, all oppression is inflicted, and fought, one person at a time? That maltreatment over something as trifling as a septic system has colossally corrosive effects on the workers paid to enforce the maltreatment? Was he asking himself what kind of public servant he was going to be? Or was he just alarmed at the murderous look on my face? Because I also sensed young Craig might need to be strangled.
After several terrible moments, Craig looked at me with resolve, and spoke. Since then, in dark moments when I have feared that our republic is doomed, Craig's inspirational words have rallied me to have hope for our future. He said, "Mr. Toy, turn on your hose."
Monday, November 15, 2010
Hollywood Left = Laughs
The left is a gift that just keeps on giving out laughter for us. Really do these Hollywood types ever really listen to themselves when they talk because clearly they do no think before they speak. I give you, from American Thinker, Cher and her thoughts, yes, that Cher.
November 06, 2010
'A Dumb Woman Is a Dumb Woman'
By Jeannie DeAngelis
Cherilyn Sarkisian, better known as "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" singer Cher, claims to "dislike politics and says she's not a registered Democrat." While swearing aversion to all things political, Cher has visited the White House to dine with former President Jimmy Carter and professes love for Joe Biden, a man the Academy Award-winning judge of character and intellect once described as caring, goodhearted, and smart.
The supposedly politically neutral female half of the late Sonny and Cher duo also believes that socialist Dennis Kucinich "has great answers," and during Hillary Clinton's "Senate thing," she pitched in to help after spending "a lot of time just sitting" with the former First Lady.
Antiwar Cher also holds firmly to the belief that "[w]ords are like weapons; they wound sometimes," which is a curious sentiment coming from an apolitical woman who has a tendency to label most Republican politicians "stupid."
In fact, prior to George W. Bush being elected president, Cher registered an opinion of the Republican candidate in the following way: "I don't like Bush. I don't trust him. I don't like his record. He's stupid. He's lazy."
Usually when one person calls another person "stupid," it's because the name-caller views himself or herself as more intelligent than the callee. Evidently, the way Cher throws around the word "stupid," the high school dropout clearly considers diva brainpower superior to a traditional Yale and Harvard education.
Prior to the 2000 election, Cher felt compelled to perform a public service by sharing with American women and minorities the admonitory view that "[i]f you're black in this country, if you're a woman in this country, if you are any minority in this country at all, what could possibly possess you to vote Republican?"
Ms. "Words ... wound" Cher eloquently cautioned against voting for Bush by saying "[h]as everyone lost their f---ing minds? Doesn't anybody remember the illustrious Reagan-Bush years when people had no money and no jobs? What has happened to people's memories? It's like they have Alzheimer's or something."
While meant for the betterment of all Americans, Cher's instructive comments tend to emphasize the political threat that "Jerry Falwell ... born again Christian" types, in the mold of G.W. Bush, pose to women and minorities. Nevertheless, Cher, having a history of public exhibitionism which over the years has consistently placed the sisterhood in a demeaning light, has zero compunction about censuring Republicans.
If female exploitation is Cher-the-whiz-kid's main concern, maybe the raven-haired senior citizen in garter belts could "turn back time" and explain why, during the "illustrious Reagan-Bush years," she chose to dance around in a fishnet body stocking under a bikini on the upper deck of the USS Missouri battleship. Way back in 1989, Cher, microphone in hand, skipped to and fro in front of a large group of sailors who whistled and directed catcalls toward her mostly-bare buttocks, and who did so while her 12-year-old son Elijah Blue Allman accompanied his scantily clad mother on the guitar.
If one definition of stupid is "poor decisions and careless mistakes," Cher's behavior in the Long Beach Naval Shipyard certainly fits the criteria. Maybe young Cherilyn was absent or had already dropped out of school when "stupid" was reviewed on the vocabulary list.
Despite her lack of better judgment and less than brilliant personal behavior, the profoundly perceptive singer recently felt compelled to once again convey another articulate opinion of two female governors in Vanity Fair magazine. Cher expressed horror over the former governor of Alaska in the following way: "I got so obsessed with [C-SPAN] that it was kind of interfering with my life. Sarah Palin came on, and I thought, oh, F- - -, this is the end. Because a dumb woman is a dumb woman."
Ms. Sarkisian continued to speak out. On the subject of Arizona governor Jan Brewer, she declared that "[s]he was worse than Sarah Palin, if that is possible. This woman was like a deer in headlights. She's got a handle on the services of the state, and I would not let her handle the remote control."
Evidently, Cher not only feels qualified to identify the intellectually challenged, but the woman in the "towering 2-foot headpiece made of rooster feathers" also believes she has the adroit ability to spot gifted brilliance in random people. The self-professed politically neutral performer labeled Bush, Palin, and Brewer as "dumb" and "stupid," but recognized President Barack Obama's "intelligence" and "spirit" as "so great" that she predicted America's first black president would be able to do "more than anyone could possibly do," whatever that means.
Based on Obama's presidential performance thus far, Cher should avoid both punditry and prophecy.
The historical election of brilliant Barack prompted Ms. Cher to express relief, confessing that "Republican rule almost ‘killed' [her]" and that although not a registered Democrat, she "does not understand why anyone would want to be a Republican."
Having to endure the heartbreak of a daughter named Chastity transforming into a son named Chaz didn't kill Cher. Being married to Greg Allman during the height of his cocaine, heroin, and alcohol addiction didn't kill Cher. Going under the scalpel so many times that she dubbed herself "the plastic surgery poster girl" didn't kill Cher, but having George W. Bush for president nearly killed her?
Cher's personal lifestyle choices, contradictory statements, colorful language, partisan denials, and chauvinist statements may make the singer/actress a perfect candidate to host her own show on MSNBC. But then again, the former Mrs. Bono's flippant use of the word "stupid" could jeopardize future opportunities to fulfill the role of an off-the-cuff pundit.
Waxing philosophical, Cher once said, "Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great." Ironically, "stupid" is also defined as "foolish." Labeling Republicans "stupid" proved that Cher Bono was unwittingly referring to herself when sharing the opinion that "a dumb woman is a dumb woman."
Author's content: www.jeannie-ology.com
November 06, 2010
'A Dumb Woman Is a Dumb Woman'
By Jeannie DeAngelis
Cherilyn Sarkisian, better known as "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" singer Cher, claims to "dislike politics and says she's not a registered Democrat." While swearing aversion to all things political, Cher has visited the White House to dine with former President Jimmy Carter and professes love for Joe Biden, a man the Academy Award-winning judge of character and intellect once described as caring, goodhearted, and smart.
The supposedly politically neutral female half of the late Sonny and Cher duo also believes that socialist Dennis Kucinich "has great answers," and during Hillary Clinton's "Senate thing," she pitched in to help after spending "a lot of time just sitting" with the former First Lady.
Antiwar Cher also holds firmly to the belief that "[w]ords are like weapons; they wound sometimes," which is a curious sentiment coming from an apolitical woman who has a tendency to label most Republican politicians "stupid."
In fact, prior to George W. Bush being elected president, Cher registered an opinion of the Republican candidate in the following way: "I don't like Bush. I don't trust him. I don't like his record. He's stupid. He's lazy."
Usually when one person calls another person "stupid," it's because the name-caller views himself or herself as more intelligent than the callee. Evidently, the way Cher throws around the word "stupid," the high school dropout clearly considers diva brainpower superior to a traditional Yale and Harvard education.
Prior to the 2000 election, Cher felt compelled to perform a public service by sharing with American women and minorities the admonitory view that "[i]f you're black in this country, if you're a woman in this country, if you are any minority in this country at all, what could possibly possess you to vote Republican?"
Ms. "Words ... wound" Cher eloquently cautioned against voting for Bush by saying "[h]as everyone lost their f---ing minds? Doesn't anybody remember the illustrious Reagan-Bush years when people had no money and no jobs? What has happened to people's memories? It's like they have Alzheimer's or something."
While meant for the betterment of all Americans, Cher's instructive comments tend to emphasize the political threat that "Jerry Falwell ... born again Christian" types, in the mold of G.W. Bush, pose to women and minorities. Nevertheless, Cher, having a history of public exhibitionism which over the years has consistently placed the sisterhood in a demeaning light, has zero compunction about censuring Republicans.
If female exploitation is Cher-the-whiz-kid's main concern, maybe the raven-haired senior citizen in garter belts could "turn back time" and explain why, during the "illustrious Reagan-Bush years," she chose to dance around in a fishnet body stocking under a bikini on the upper deck of the USS Missouri battleship. Way back in 1989, Cher, microphone in hand, skipped to and fro in front of a large group of sailors who whistled and directed catcalls toward her mostly-bare buttocks, and who did so while her 12-year-old son Elijah Blue Allman accompanied his scantily clad mother on the guitar.
If one definition of stupid is "poor decisions and careless mistakes," Cher's behavior in the Long Beach Naval Shipyard certainly fits the criteria. Maybe young Cherilyn was absent or had already dropped out of school when "stupid" was reviewed on the vocabulary list.
Despite her lack of better judgment and less than brilliant personal behavior, the profoundly perceptive singer recently felt compelled to once again convey another articulate opinion of two female governors in Vanity Fair magazine. Cher expressed horror over the former governor of Alaska in the following way: "I got so obsessed with [C-SPAN] that it was kind of interfering with my life. Sarah Palin came on, and I thought, oh, F- - -, this is the end. Because a dumb woman is a dumb woman."
Ms. Sarkisian continued to speak out. On the subject of Arizona governor Jan Brewer, she declared that "[s]he was worse than Sarah Palin, if that is possible. This woman was like a deer in headlights. She's got a handle on the services of the state, and I would not let her handle the remote control."
Evidently, Cher not only feels qualified to identify the intellectually challenged, but the woman in the "towering 2-foot headpiece made of rooster feathers" also believes she has the adroit ability to spot gifted brilliance in random people. The self-professed politically neutral performer labeled Bush, Palin, and Brewer as "dumb" and "stupid," but recognized President Barack Obama's "intelligence" and "spirit" as "so great" that she predicted America's first black president would be able to do "more than anyone could possibly do," whatever that means.
Based on Obama's presidential performance thus far, Cher should avoid both punditry and prophecy.
The historical election of brilliant Barack prompted Ms. Cher to express relief, confessing that "Republican rule almost ‘killed' [her]" and that although not a registered Democrat, she "does not understand why anyone would want to be a Republican."
Having to endure the heartbreak of a daughter named Chastity transforming into a son named Chaz didn't kill Cher. Being married to Greg Allman during the height of his cocaine, heroin, and alcohol addiction didn't kill Cher. Going under the scalpel so many times that she dubbed herself "the plastic surgery poster girl" didn't kill Cher, but having George W. Bush for president nearly killed her?
Cher's personal lifestyle choices, contradictory statements, colorful language, partisan denials, and chauvinist statements may make the singer/actress a perfect candidate to host her own show on MSNBC. But then again, the former Mrs. Bono's flippant use of the word "stupid" could jeopardize future opportunities to fulfill the role of an off-the-cuff pundit.
Waxing philosophical, Cher once said, "Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great." Ironically, "stupid" is also defined as "foolish." Labeling Republicans "stupid" proved that Cher Bono was unwittingly referring to herself when sharing the opinion that "a dumb woman is a dumb woman."
Author's content: www.jeannie-ology.com
Friday, November 12, 2010
Islam Really Does Scare Liberals
Still trying to catch up on my reading on the American Thinker site. This is yet another gem from that site. It is getting closer to the stuff that fires me up "radical islam" hell yeah. Commies, islam and liberals. All pestilence must be eradicated from the earth.
November 05, 2010
For Libs Who Just Got Scared
By James Lewis
Bill Maher, the biggest mud-thrower on the left, recently had his Juan Williams moment. He's afraid that radical Islam will take over the world.
Ten million other libs who get their news from comedy shows can finally admit they're scared, too. They were just waiting for PC permission to think what everybody else in the world has thought for decades. Bill Maher has given them permission to feel fear.
Radical Islam should scare you.
If you're a liberal, please memorize this, because there will be a quiz -- soon enough.
Keep an eye on the headlines. There will be a terrorist strike, and not just one. It will happen in the Muslim world, which means our media will pretend it never happened. Or it will happen in the West, which means that even some liberals will find out -- so that they can go back to denying, rationalizing, and blaming George W. Bush for the new fascist, imperialistic threat.
For decades the left has been in swaggering denial about Islamic imperialism even though it's right in front of their eyes. If they had read a smidgen of history, they would know that Islam has been the most successful imperialistic war culture since the 7th century: more successful than Soviet imperialism, much more persistent than Nazi imperialism, and more real than Coca-Cola imperialism (which exists only in liberal fever swamps).
The Soviets lasted less than a century. The Nazis lasted for thirteen years. Islamic Imperialism has existed since the 6th century, and it has conquered a third of the world. Islamic reactionaries have now oppressed women, Christians, and Jews wherever they take power for more than a thousand years. Hitler boasted about only a thousand-year world empire. Muslim reactionaries have had their empire for a lot longer than that.
The Muslim world has tried to leave Islamic radicalism behind. After World War I, Ataturk outlawed the symbols of the Ottoman Empire. The Shah of Iran tried to move Iran past the Islamic reactionaries. Egypt tried a military overthrow of the religious establishment. Turkey and Iran were models of modernization in the Muslim world. Many other Muslim countries tried to follow those models.
Then Jimmy Carter allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the Shah in 1979. Khomeini promptly started to kill all his opponents, especially the liberals. He got into a war that killed a million people and tried to overthrow the Saudi regime across the Gulf. Twenty years later, Turkey elected an Islamist, and today Turkey has now joined Iran on the radical Islamic front. Pakistan already has nukes and a pervasive indigenous Islamic fascist movement. Israel is surrounded by Islamic fascists in Gaza and Lebanon, controlled by a wannabe Hitler in Iran who doesn't let a day go by without threatening a second Holocaust.
And then, on 9/11/01, nineteen Saudi terrorists killed almost three thousand people in New York City and in Washington, D.C. But actually, that was the second time they tried. The same crew tried to blow up the Twin Towers in 1993, but Bill Clinton forgot to tell us about it.
Astonishing, liberals were still in denial after 9/11. Their heads were buried so deep in the slime of ignorance that they kept explaining away every Islamist murder and cultural provocation. They elected Barack Hussein Obama to prove to the world how lovable they all are and invented the oxymoron "Islamophobia" to explain why millions of people with common sense were scared.
You cannot have "Islamophobia" in the real world, because a "phobia" is an irrational fear. You can't have an irrational fear of somebody pointing a gun at you. That is a rational fear. "Islamophobia" is an imaginary word from people who never check an English dictionary.
Fear of Islamist violence is not a phobia. It is seeing what's real, because it keeps on happening. In Iraq, thousands and thousands of women, men, and children have been killed by purposeful truck bombs in street markets. And no, it wasn't George W. Bush who killed them. It was al-Qaeda paid by Saudi billionaires, Islamic terrorists paid by Iran, and a lot of bombers paid by Iraq's old fascist party, the Ba'ath. It all adds up to really evil mass murders by terrorist throwbacks to the Dark Ages. But the Left just blamed it on Bush.
Now George W. Bush is out of office, and even liberals can no longer believe their own fairy tales. After all, Obama has bowed down to the Saudi King and to the Emperor of Japan. We've apologized! We elected Barack Hussein Obama!
Why don't they love us now?
If any liberals are reading this, a word of advice. Try reading what the Islamic radicals are writing. Look at the video propaganda campaign they are streaming to the West on MEMRI.org. And keep in mind that children in Gaza, Cairo, and Tehran are watching this stuff day after day after day. It's the biggest brainwashing message they will hear all their lives.
You might also notice that Israel is only one of their enemies. They hate America and Europe. They hate Sweden. They hate liberalism. Islamic radicals constantly kill militant Marxists, believe it or not (just like the other way around). They also hate Hindus, especially in the Kashmir. They hate Buddhists. That's why the Taliban blew up those giant Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan. They hate free women.
Ignore the disinformation from the media for a day or two.
Try to find some facts instead.
You'll be amazed what you will find.
I dare ya.
November 05, 2010
For Libs Who Just Got Scared
By James Lewis
Bill Maher, the biggest mud-thrower on the left, recently had his Juan Williams moment. He's afraid that radical Islam will take over the world.
Ten million other libs who get their news from comedy shows can finally admit they're scared, too. They were just waiting for PC permission to think what everybody else in the world has thought for decades. Bill Maher has given them permission to feel fear.
Radical Islam should scare you.
If you're a liberal, please memorize this, because there will be a quiz -- soon enough.
Keep an eye on the headlines. There will be a terrorist strike, and not just one. It will happen in the Muslim world, which means our media will pretend it never happened. Or it will happen in the West, which means that even some liberals will find out -- so that they can go back to denying, rationalizing, and blaming George W. Bush for the new fascist, imperialistic threat.
For decades the left has been in swaggering denial about Islamic imperialism even though it's right in front of their eyes. If they had read a smidgen of history, they would know that Islam has been the most successful imperialistic war culture since the 7th century: more successful than Soviet imperialism, much more persistent than Nazi imperialism, and more real than Coca-Cola imperialism (which exists only in liberal fever swamps).
The Soviets lasted less than a century. The Nazis lasted for thirteen years. Islamic Imperialism has existed since the 6th century, and it has conquered a third of the world. Islamic reactionaries have now oppressed women, Christians, and Jews wherever they take power for more than a thousand years. Hitler boasted about only a thousand-year world empire. Muslim reactionaries have had their empire for a lot longer than that.
The Muslim world has tried to leave Islamic radicalism behind. After World War I, Ataturk outlawed the symbols of the Ottoman Empire. The Shah of Iran tried to move Iran past the Islamic reactionaries. Egypt tried a military overthrow of the religious establishment. Turkey and Iran were models of modernization in the Muslim world. Many other Muslim countries tried to follow those models.
Then Jimmy Carter allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the Shah in 1979. Khomeini promptly started to kill all his opponents, especially the liberals. He got into a war that killed a million people and tried to overthrow the Saudi regime across the Gulf. Twenty years later, Turkey elected an Islamist, and today Turkey has now joined Iran on the radical Islamic front. Pakistan already has nukes and a pervasive indigenous Islamic fascist movement. Israel is surrounded by Islamic fascists in Gaza and Lebanon, controlled by a wannabe Hitler in Iran who doesn't let a day go by without threatening a second Holocaust.
And then, on 9/11/01, nineteen Saudi terrorists killed almost three thousand people in New York City and in Washington, D.C. But actually, that was the second time they tried. The same crew tried to blow up the Twin Towers in 1993, but Bill Clinton forgot to tell us about it.
Astonishing, liberals were still in denial after 9/11. Their heads were buried so deep in the slime of ignorance that they kept explaining away every Islamist murder and cultural provocation. They elected Barack Hussein Obama to prove to the world how lovable they all are and invented the oxymoron "Islamophobia" to explain why millions of people with common sense were scared.
You cannot have "Islamophobia" in the real world, because a "phobia" is an irrational fear. You can't have an irrational fear of somebody pointing a gun at you. That is a rational fear. "Islamophobia" is an imaginary word from people who never check an English dictionary.
Fear of Islamist violence is not a phobia. It is seeing what's real, because it keeps on happening. In Iraq, thousands and thousands of women, men, and children have been killed by purposeful truck bombs in street markets. And no, it wasn't George W. Bush who killed them. It was al-Qaeda paid by Saudi billionaires, Islamic terrorists paid by Iran, and a lot of bombers paid by Iraq's old fascist party, the Ba'ath. It all adds up to really evil mass murders by terrorist throwbacks to the Dark Ages. But the Left just blamed it on Bush.
Now George W. Bush is out of office, and even liberals can no longer believe their own fairy tales. After all, Obama has bowed down to the Saudi King and to the Emperor of Japan. We've apologized! We elected Barack Hussein Obama!
Why don't they love us now?
If any liberals are reading this, a word of advice. Try reading what the Islamic radicals are writing. Look at the video propaganda campaign they are streaming to the West on MEMRI.org. And keep in mind that children in Gaza, Cairo, and Tehran are watching this stuff day after day after day. It's the biggest brainwashing message they will hear all their lives.
You might also notice that Israel is only one of their enemies. They hate America and Europe. They hate Sweden. They hate liberalism. Islamic radicals constantly kill militant Marxists, believe it or not (just like the other way around). They also hate Hindus, especially in the Kashmir. They hate Buddhists. That's why the Taliban blew up those giant Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan. They hate free women.
Ignore the disinformation from the media for a day or two.
Try to find some facts instead.
You'll be amazed what you will find.
I dare ya.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Veteran's Day
To be honest I went back to read my past Veteran's Day post and I can say that in my heart this is still how I feel and hopefully always will. We owe these men and women so much we must try to the little things, at the very least, for them. So I give you my last two Veteran's Day posts.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Veteran's Day
Yes it is their day, not yours and mine, it is a day to thank those that lived to tell the tales of the heroes left on battlefields far away and some from long ago. It is our duty to thank these men and women that have put their lives on the line for Liberty, Freedom, America or so we are told. We know they do it for each other, and that is enough for it is in each other they can trust and it is with each other they can survive. From Lexington and Concord to the Heat of Iraq and the cold mountains of Afghanistan young men and women left the comforts of home for the frightening hell of combat. Where do we find such people, is what some ask. Very simple in the big cities and small towns all across this great country. After all this is The United States of America and we have had the finest humanity has had to offer for the last 232 years. I salute you all and send out a heartfelt thank you.
I ask you, the reader, to please donate to any and all veteran assisting organizations out there. Many of the military blogs to the right will tell you more about these organizations. Those who serve deserve our support even after their tour of duty is over.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Veterans Day
I know many people who have served in our armed forces in both peacetime and war. World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Gulf War and Iraq and Afghanistan and action less Cold Warriors. Some are friends of mine that I would trust with my life, some are guys I grew up with and have not seen in years. Some were strangers that have become friends, some were friends of my parents and some were friends of friends. They all have one thing in common. They are all better than me. When I say that I mean it and I am someone who thinks very highly of myself. When you look at a veteran you have to look at them differently you have to understand that these are people who have seen things that for some reason we have been spared the sight of. The life for war veterans should be like King said in Platoon "the rest of your life is gravy." In recent years I have made myself more aware of veterans and always ask if someone has served and thanking them if they did, maybe buying coffee if in an airport or near a coffee house. It is not enough, I know, but what else can we do. People always say it is the little things in life that make it great. I hope so, but we should do all we can for our vets. Without them there would be no little things.
These days the main debate of our politicians is government paid health care for everybody. Clearly this is a communist idea and against American principles. But I do solemnly believe that those that have served and were honorably discharged have earned the right, nay the entitlement of free health care forever. I am not talking about some government plan either I am talking top of the line and getting to the front of the line. Are you telling me that some WWII vet with medals out the ass should have to suffer at a government run VA facility while some 4F gets to see world renown doctors because he didn't serve and got rich? Yes it is a tough issue, I know but something must be done for them, all of them, from PTSD patients to Agent Orange cancer sufferers, to those too old to care for themselves. Forget the millions of useless welfare mooches there are people out there that have earned the right to get free health care and a pension. Enough of how the welfare system screws the vets in favor of lazy shiftless turds.
Armistice Day came along to signal the end of "The Great War" or as we call it now World War I, the "war to end all wars." How naive. There is just too much evil lurking in men with power soul's. Every day I respect our veterans more and more. Putting their lives on the line doing their duty. The wars we are fighting today and the constant rotation back to combat is hard on the men and women and families to whom we owe so much. It was the same for Vietnam vets and their 365 and a wake-up and the World War II vets and the points system. Any war any time all veterans and their families deserve our respect, admiration and thanks. Find out what you can do for them and do it; when we needed them they were there, it is the least we can do. So much will go left unsaid in this post so I will end with this: Thank you Veterans, for keeping our enemies at bay, and the sacrifices you have made. Peace to all of you for the rest of your days you have earned it.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Veteran's Day
Yes it is their day, not yours and mine, it is a day to thank those that lived to tell the tales of the heroes left on battlefields far away and some from long ago. It is our duty to thank these men and women that have put their lives on the line for Liberty, Freedom, America or so we are told. We know they do it for each other, and that is enough for it is in each other they can trust and it is with each other they can survive. From Lexington and Concord to the Heat of Iraq and the cold mountains of Afghanistan young men and women left the comforts of home for the frightening hell of combat. Where do we find such people, is what some ask. Very simple in the big cities and small towns all across this great country. After all this is The United States of America and we have had the finest humanity has had to offer for the last 232 years. I salute you all and send out a heartfelt thank you.
I ask you, the reader, to please donate to any and all veteran assisting organizations out there. Many of the military blogs to the right will tell you more about these organizations. Those who serve deserve our support even after their tour of duty is over.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Veterans Day
I know many people who have served in our armed forces in both peacetime and war. World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Gulf War and Iraq and Afghanistan and action less Cold Warriors. Some are friends of mine that I would trust with my life, some are guys I grew up with and have not seen in years. Some were strangers that have become friends, some were friends of my parents and some were friends of friends. They all have one thing in common. They are all better than me. When I say that I mean it and I am someone who thinks very highly of myself. When you look at a veteran you have to look at them differently you have to understand that these are people who have seen things that for some reason we have been spared the sight of. The life for war veterans should be like King said in Platoon "the rest of your life is gravy." In recent years I have made myself more aware of veterans and always ask if someone has served and thanking them if they did, maybe buying coffee if in an airport or near a coffee house. It is not enough, I know, but what else can we do. People always say it is the little things in life that make it great. I hope so, but we should do all we can for our vets. Without them there would be no little things.
These days the main debate of our politicians is government paid health care for everybody. Clearly this is a communist idea and against American principles. But I do solemnly believe that those that have served and were honorably discharged have earned the right, nay the entitlement of free health care forever. I am not talking about some government plan either I am talking top of the line and getting to the front of the line. Are you telling me that some WWII vet with medals out the ass should have to suffer at a government run VA facility while some 4F gets to see world renown doctors because he didn't serve and got rich? Yes it is a tough issue, I know but something must be done for them, all of them, from PTSD patients to Agent Orange cancer sufferers, to those too old to care for themselves. Forget the millions of useless welfare mooches there are people out there that have earned the right to get free health care and a pension. Enough of how the welfare system screws the vets in favor of lazy shiftless turds.
Armistice Day came along to signal the end of "The Great War" or as we call it now World War I, the "war to end all wars." How naive. There is just too much evil lurking in men with power soul's. Every day I respect our veterans more and more. Putting their lives on the line doing their duty. The wars we are fighting today and the constant rotation back to combat is hard on the men and women and families to whom we owe so much. It was the same for Vietnam vets and their 365 and a wake-up and the World War II vets and the points system. Any war any time all veterans and their families deserve our respect, admiration and thanks. Find out what you can do for them and do it; when we needed them they were there, it is the least we can do. So much will go left unsaid in this post so I will end with this: Thank you Veterans, for keeping our enemies at bay, and the sacrifices you have made. Peace to all of you for the rest of your days you have earned it.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Happy Birthday Marine Corps
Since 1775 Marines have fought in every "clime and place." I for one am extremely grateful for each and every Marine who has fought "our country's battles" today and days gone by. Without them we certainly would not be here enjoying everything we have. I cannot express my appreciation and admiration I have for Marines and their families. Thank you all so very much. Happy 235th to The Corps.
And when to Heaven's Gates he comes, to Saint Peter he will tell,
"One more Marine reporting sir, I've served my time in Hell."
U.S. Marine Corps Hymn (Marine Hymn)
From the Halls of Montezuma
To the Shores of Tripoli;
We fight our country's battles
In the air, on land and sea;
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title
of United States Marine.
Our flag's unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in ev'ry clime and place
Where we could take a gun;
In the snow of far-off Northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes;
You will find us always on the job--
The United States Marines.
Here's health to you and to our Corps
Which we are proud to serve
In many a strife we've fought for life
And never lost our nerve;
If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven's scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines.
And when to Heaven's Gates he comes, to Saint Peter he will tell,
"One more Marine reporting sir, I've served my time in Hell."
U.S. Marine Corps Hymn (Marine Hymn)
From the Halls of Montezuma
To the Shores of Tripoli;
We fight our country's battles
In the air, on land and sea;
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title
of United States Marine.
Our flag's unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in ev'ry clime and place
Where we could take a gun;
In the snow of far-off Northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes;
You will find us always on the job--
The United States Marines.
Here's health to you and to our Corps
Which we are proud to serve
In many a strife we've fought for life
And never lost our nerve;
If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven's scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Pay No Attention to the Communists behind the Curtain
Been saying this from the start yet the only ones we see keeping this alive is American Thinker. Great site. These communist/socialist assholes need to be hung up in the town square and beaten to death. But in towns like Chicago and Washington D.C. socialists and communists are welcomed instead of killed. Where have you gone Joe McCarthy? Real Americans turn their lonely eyes to you. Yes I am one of those that believe ol' Joe did good for America. He set a precedent for the rest of us to follow and even today all these years after the fall of the Soviet Union I still view commies as America's worst enemy. Joe died long before I was born. Islamofascists attack us, commies try to change America.
November 01, 2010
Pay No Attention to the Communists behind the Curtain
By Robert Knight
The evidence is overwhelming. The media interest is zero. The UFO strategy is in force.
Let me explain.
I'm talking about the unsolved Weather Underground murder of San Francisco Police Officer Brian V. McDonnell. A bomb placed on Feb. 16, 1970 outside the Golden Gate Park police station ripped through Sgt. McDonnell, who died two days later. His killers never paid a price.
Apart from simple justice, here's why this open case still matters. According to testimony by undercover FBI agent Larry Grathwohl, William Ayers was almost certainly involved. Ayers helped launch Obama's political career in 1995 at his home in Chicago and served on two boards with him. Ayers told Grathwohl that Ayers' wife, Bernardine Dohrn, planted the bomb. In 1971, the FBI found Ayers' fingerprints and those of other Weather Underground terrorists in an apartment that had been a bomb-making factory.
Because of prosecutorial errors, Ayers went free, boasting, "Guilty as hell, free as a bird." Dohrn remained underground until 1980, spent jail time for lesser charges, and then went on, like Ayers, to be a professor at a major college. Ayers was at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Dohrn is at Northwestern University.
On Oct. 21, Larry Grathwohl told his story at a seminar at the National Press Club sponsored by America's Survival, Inc. Moderator Cliff Kincaid, who recently obtained a 601-page FBI file of Barack Obama's communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, unveiled a raft of speakers and evidence pointing to manipulation of American liberals by actual communist revolutionaries.
Among the speakers was New Zealand blogger and investigative reporter Trevor Loudon, who uncovered former "green jobs czar" Van Jones' communist background, which led to Jones' resignation in 2009. Jones is now back at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress.
I spoke as well, reporting on the FBI file on Harry Hay, a Communist Party member off and on from 1934 to 1948 and a founder of the Mattachine Society, an early homosexual activist group. Hay also co-founded the Radical Faeries and championed the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Hay was cited as an "inspiration" by longtime homosexual activist Kevin Jennings, whom Obama appointed as the nation's "safe schools czar" at the U.S. Department of Education.
Another speaker was Paul Kengor, best-selling author of a new book, Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century. Dr. Kengor has the goods on numerous leftists, including the Hollywood Ten, who became famous during the McCarthy era. Four of them, according to FBI files, actually had Communist Party cards with membership numbers. It might be good to recall this the next time you see the media describe them as the "famed Hollywood Ten."
The evidence is so obvious that communists infiltrated many liberal causes and unions and that the liberal media have looked away while crying "McCarthyism." I call this the UFO strategy. Even if you actually saw a UFO, you'd be considered, uh, crazy. What's different here is that the communist influence on America's Left is no delusion. It is thoroughly documented.
On Oct. 23, Kincaid, with a video camera, confronted both Ayers and Dohrn at an environmentalist event in Washington, D.C.
Kincaid: "Why did your husband tell [undercover FBI agent] Larry Grathwohl that you planted the bomb?"
Dohrn: "That is so stupid." She went on to deny involvement.
Kincaid then asked Ayers about the dedication to radicals in the 1974 manifesto Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism that included Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. Signed by Ayers, Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Celia Sojourn, the manifesto says, "We are communist men and women, underground in the United States for more than four years ... The only path to the final defeat of imperialism and the building of socialism is revolutionary war ... Without armed struggle there can be no victory."
Kincaid: "Mr. Ayers, if you're anti-war, why did you dedicate your book to the assassin of the leading anti-war candidate in the country?"
Ayers: "You're delusional." He walked away while others blocked the camera.
In an onstage presentation, Dohrn addressed the charges in a pamphlet that Kincaid had circulated. She said, "We live in a time of greater polarization, of hate speech and hate talk. ... We were never terrorists. It's all crap." That flatly contradicts a New York Times interview published on Sept. 11, 2001, in which an unrepentant Ayers said, "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough."
Dohrn also misrepresented what she and Ayers were doing in the 1970s -- aiding and abetting communism: "We were trying to stop the murderous assault that for 10 years killed three million people in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and U.S. service people. It was the right thing to do."
In his Oct. 21 presentation, former FBI agent Grathwohl noted that no anti-war literature was found in the Weather Underground bomb factory, just communist booklets urging violent revolution.
In any event, the anti-war movement was instrumental in the U.S. pullout in 1975, leaving Cambodia at the mercy of Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot, who killed more than two million of his countrymen. For Dohrn to claim that she and Ayers were merely peaceniks when they were in fact agitating for a communist victory is a lie worthy of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's novel 1984.
This all should be very hot stuff, given Ayers' and Dohrn's long association with Barack Obama and their continuing activism, which includes, according to Kincaid, recent visits to Hugo Chávez's Venezuela and with radicals in Gaza. But the press is silent. They have spent far more time, personnel, and treasure searching Sarah Palin's garbage cans.
On May 22, 2008, Kincaid held a seminar unveiling evidence about Frank Marshall Davis and his eight years influencing a young Barack Obama in Hawaii. Among the speakers was Herb Romerstein, the dean of researchers on communism, whose work has spanned six decades. The Big Media skipped it, except for the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who ignored the facts and viciously ridiculed the gathering, calling Romerstein "a living relic." Milbank likened the event to a "UFO convention."
The UFO strategy. It's very handy against a mountain of inconvenient facts. But facts are stubborn things.
Robert Knight is a Senior Fellow at the American Civil Rights Union, and the author of the recently updated Radical Rulers: The White House Elites Who Are Pushing America Toward Socialism (2010, www.radicalrulers.com).
November 01, 2010
Pay No Attention to the Communists behind the Curtain
By Robert Knight
The evidence is overwhelming. The media interest is zero. The UFO strategy is in force.
Let me explain.
I'm talking about the unsolved Weather Underground murder of San Francisco Police Officer Brian V. McDonnell. A bomb placed on Feb. 16, 1970 outside the Golden Gate Park police station ripped through Sgt. McDonnell, who died two days later. His killers never paid a price.
Apart from simple justice, here's why this open case still matters. According to testimony by undercover FBI agent Larry Grathwohl, William Ayers was almost certainly involved. Ayers helped launch Obama's political career in 1995 at his home in Chicago and served on two boards with him. Ayers told Grathwohl that Ayers' wife, Bernardine Dohrn, planted the bomb. In 1971, the FBI found Ayers' fingerprints and those of other Weather Underground terrorists in an apartment that had been a bomb-making factory.
Because of prosecutorial errors, Ayers went free, boasting, "Guilty as hell, free as a bird." Dohrn remained underground until 1980, spent jail time for lesser charges, and then went on, like Ayers, to be a professor at a major college. Ayers was at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Dohrn is at Northwestern University.
On Oct. 21, Larry Grathwohl told his story at a seminar at the National Press Club sponsored by America's Survival, Inc. Moderator Cliff Kincaid, who recently obtained a 601-page FBI file of Barack Obama's communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, unveiled a raft of speakers and evidence pointing to manipulation of American liberals by actual communist revolutionaries.
Among the speakers was New Zealand blogger and investigative reporter Trevor Loudon, who uncovered former "green jobs czar" Van Jones' communist background, which led to Jones' resignation in 2009. Jones is now back at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress.
I spoke as well, reporting on the FBI file on Harry Hay, a Communist Party member off and on from 1934 to 1948 and a founder of the Mattachine Society, an early homosexual activist group. Hay also co-founded the Radical Faeries and championed the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Hay was cited as an "inspiration" by longtime homosexual activist Kevin Jennings, whom Obama appointed as the nation's "safe schools czar" at the U.S. Department of Education.
Another speaker was Paul Kengor, best-selling author of a new book, Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century. Dr. Kengor has the goods on numerous leftists, including the Hollywood Ten, who became famous during the McCarthy era. Four of them, according to FBI files, actually had Communist Party cards with membership numbers. It might be good to recall this the next time you see the media describe them as the "famed Hollywood Ten."
The evidence is so obvious that communists infiltrated many liberal causes and unions and that the liberal media have looked away while crying "McCarthyism." I call this the UFO strategy. Even if you actually saw a UFO, you'd be considered, uh, crazy. What's different here is that the communist influence on America's Left is no delusion. It is thoroughly documented.
On Oct. 23, Kincaid, with a video camera, confronted both Ayers and Dohrn at an environmentalist event in Washington, D.C.
Kincaid: "Why did your husband tell [undercover FBI agent] Larry Grathwohl that you planted the bomb?"
Dohrn: "That is so stupid." She went on to deny involvement.
Kincaid then asked Ayers about the dedication to radicals in the 1974 manifesto Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism that included Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. Signed by Ayers, Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Celia Sojourn, the manifesto says, "We are communist men and women, underground in the United States for more than four years ... The only path to the final defeat of imperialism and the building of socialism is revolutionary war ... Without armed struggle there can be no victory."
Kincaid: "Mr. Ayers, if you're anti-war, why did you dedicate your book to the assassin of the leading anti-war candidate in the country?"
Ayers: "You're delusional." He walked away while others blocked the camera.
In an onstage presentation, Dohrn addressed the charges in a pamphlet that Kincaid had circulated. She said, "We live in a time of greater polarization, of hate speech and hate talk. ... We were never terrorists. It's all crap." That flatly contradicts a New York Times interview published on Sept. 11, 2001, in which an unrepentant Ayers said, "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough."
Dohrn also misrepresented what she and Ayers were doing in the 1970s -- aiding and abetting communism: "We were trying to stop the murderous assault that for 10 years killed three million people in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and U.S. service people. It was the right thing to do."
In his Oct. 21 presentation, former FBI agent Grathwohl noted that no anti-war literature was found in the Weather Underground bomb factory, just communist booklets urging violent revolution.
In any event, the anti-war movement was instrumental in the U.S. pullout in 1975, leaving Cambodia at the mercy of Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot, who killed more than two million of his countrymen. For Dohrn to claim that she and Ayers were merely peaceniks when they were in fact agitating for a communist victory is a lie worthy of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's novel 1984.
This all should be very hot stuff, given Ayers' and Dohrn's long association with Barack Obama and their continuing activism, which includes, according to Kincaid, recent visits to Hugo Chávez's Venezuela and with radicals in Gaza. But the press is silent. They have spent far more time, personnel, and treasure searching Sarah Palin's garbage cans.
On May 22, 2008, Kincaid held a seminar unveiling evidence about Frank Marshall Davis and his eight years influencing a young Barack Obama in Hawaii. Among the speakers was Herb Romerstein, the dean of researchers on communism, whose work has spanned six decades. The Big Media skipped it, except for the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who ignored the facts and viciously ridiculed the gathering, calling Romerstein "a living relic." Milbank likened the event to a "UFO convention."
The UFO strategy. It's very handy against a mountain of inconvenient facts. But facts are stubborn things.
Robert Knight is a Senior Fellow at the American Civil Rights Union, and the author of the recently updated Radical Rulers: The White House Elites Who Are Pushing America Toward Socialism (2010, www.radicalrulers.com).
Monday, November 8, 2010
Government Power Undermines Empathy
I got this article off American Thinker, yes again, but it is an eloquent way to say that government and liberals fuck us all without permission and not even any KY. This is why we want dems dead. Not even they laziest free thinking American (read non-liberal) will stand for being told what to do, think, or buy from the government.
Government Power Undermines Empathy
By Joel F. Wade
Empathy: The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also: the capacity for this.
- Merriam-Webster's dictionary
The fundamental quality of human relationship is empathy. Empathy enables you to understand another person's situation, make sense of his behavior, and distance yourself from you own initial self-absorbed reaction to what other people do. It is a supreme expression of consciousness, providing the ability to wait a moment and consider what's happening before acting.
Freedom and capitalism encourage empathy; government power and administrative nitpicking undermine it.
Before trade, the primary interaction among people of different groups was war. The enemy was not considered human; there was no reason for him to be. There was no benefit to expanding the range of empathy beyond one's group. Outside people did not exist within the moral circle of another tribe, and they did not enjoy the benefits of human empathy.
This all began to change with the beginnings of trade about 80,000 years ago. That's when we see marine shells painted and strung as necklaces far from the sea in Africa (see Matt Ridley's book, The Rational Optimist). How did they get there? From people outside the tribe who had something to trade. These shells were used as a medium of exchange, and it was the beginning of a visible expression of our common humanity.
Free exchange is the form of social interaction that most encourages human empathy. When you want something, and somebody else has that something that you want, you have several choices: You can steal it, you can beg him to give it to you, you can ask to borrow it, or you can exchange with your interlocutor something that has an equal or greater value to him.
Begging, borrowing, or stealing all put you in a position which naturally diminishes your empathy. The other person becomes "the thing that possesses something I want." If I use force to steal or appeal to the generosity of another to lend or give me what I want, it puts both of us in an adversarial position toward one another, or at the very least into a sort of dominant/submissive relationship.
The free trade of capitalism, on the other hand, encourages empathy. If I trade with somebody, we are equals. We have to consider each other's interests, likes, desires, and dislikes in order to make a good trade.
Free trade encourages very different people to seek common ground, to understand different ways of living so that we can understand what each one wants and effectively sell things to each other.
In a very real, social sense, it is trade that has brought out the very best of humanity.
Trade does not make everybody angels, and it does not negate human nature. But it does encourage us to understand and accept human nature, and it gets us to look for what's true about people as a consistent way of life, because by doing so we become more effective and successful. But this is not something that can be forced; free trade requires the ability for individuals to choose to do what motivates them. Free trade requires freedom.
The contemporary antithesis is the attempt by some people to use the force of government to make people do things -- like forcing new "green" technology to be (somehow) invented and used or forcing those who create wealth to spread their wealth around to those who do not.
These kinds of ends are pursued by people who consider themselves deeply compassionate and who consider those who oppose such government force cold and uncaring. But they confuse controlling and giving things to people with compassion.
I had a conversation recently with a retired schoolteacher who was singing the praises of President Obama's policies. She said that she wants more entitlements. I pointed out how many of the people who create wealth are leaving California for the very reason that the government is taking too much of their wealth to pay for her entitlements. She responded, "That's why it's good that Obama is enforcing these policies throughout the country so that the wealthy can't just leave." I pointed out how many of the people who create wealth are leaving the country, too. She responded, "That's why I like that Obama is making it more difficult for the wealthy to leave the country and avoid paying U.S. taxes."
Nowhere in this conversation did I hear from her any appreciation of "these people who create wealth" as people. Rather, these people were seen by her as "the wealthy" -- not people, but things that should give her more of what she wants.
This is the problem with greed and envy (which are clearly two of this woman's driving emotions): they cause us to think of other people not as people, but as things. They serve to diminish our capacity for empathy, and they reinforce our sense of other people as objects. It is this lack of empathy that makes it possible for people to do horrible things to one another.
When people on the left talk about compassion, it is really an abstraction. Their compassion -- at least as they express it politically -- is based upon an idea they have of how we all should be; they want us to be like their image of us. Like bad stage parents who try to force their kids to fulfill their own ambitions, folks who seek to use government force to make us better people are not thinking about real people at all.
But their actions, their wishes, their ideals affect real, live human beings, with very personal experiences, relationships, ideas, and beliefs -- and a very real human nature that will not be molded like so much clay in an administrator's hands. Those on the left look upon humanity as small children look upon a blob of Play-Doh, and they work like crazy to squish us and form us and flatten us into the shapes that they long for humanity to become.
This is not empathy; it is magical thinking.
Empathy is encouraged by trade and individual liberty. Individualism is not some cold-hearted selfishness; it is the condition under which real people can care for, respect, and understand other real people.
The way to encourage greater human empathy is to affirm and champion the freedom of the individual, including the freedom of the individual to trade what and how he or she wishes.
This is what our founders did, and they created the foundation for the most benevolent, powerful, and compassionate country that this world has ever seen. It is our task to ensure that our gift of liberty does not perish from this earth in the name of the childish fantasy that people can be forced to conform to an ideal.
Joel F. Wade, Ph.D. is the author of Mastering Happiness: Ten Principles for Living a More Fulfilling Life. He can be reached at jwade@drjoelwade.com.
Government Power Undermines Empathy
By Joel F. Wade
Empathy: The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also: the capacity for this.
- Merriam-Webster's dictionary
The fundamental quality of human relationship is empathy. Empathy enables you to understand another person's situation, make sense of his behavior, and distance yourself from you own initial self-absorbed reaction to what other people do. It is a supreme expression of consciousness, providing the ability to wait a moment and consider what's happening before acting.
Freedom and capitalism encourage empathy; government power and administrative nitpicking undermine it.
Before trade, the primary interaction among people of different groups was war. The enemy was not considered human; there was no reason for him to be. There was no benefit to expanding the range of empathy beyond one's group. Outside people did not exist within the moral circle of another tribe, and they did not enjoy the benefits of human empathy.
This all began to change with the beginnings of trade about 80,000 years ago. That's when we see marine shells painted and strung as necklaces far from the sea in Africa (see Matt Ridley's book, The Rational Optimist). How did they get there? From people outside the tribe who had something to trade. These shells were used as a medium of exchange, and it was the beginning of a visible expression of our common humanity.
Free exchange is the form of social interaction that most encourages human empathy. When you want something, and somebody else has that something that you want, you have several choices: You can steal it, you can beg him to give it to you, you can ask to borrow it, or you can exchange with your interlocutor something that has an equal or greater value to him.
Begging, borrowing, or stealing all put you in a position which naturally diminishes your empathy. The other person becomes "the thing that possesses something I want." If I use force to steal or appeal to the generosity of another to lend or give me what I want, it puts both of us in an adversarial position toward one another, or at the very least into a sort of dominant/submissive relationship.
The free trade of capitalism, on the other hand, encourages empathy. If I trade with somebody, we are equals. We have to consider each other's interests, likes, desires, and dislikes in order to make a good trade.
Free trade encourages very different people to seek common ground, to understand different ways of living so that we can understand what each one wants and effectively sell things to each other.
In a very real, social sense, it is trade that has brought out the very best of humanity.
Trade does not make everybody angels, and it does not negate human nature. But it does encourage us to understand and accept human nature, and it gets us to look for what's true about people as a consistent way of life, because by doing so we become more effective and successful. But this is not something that can be forced; free trade requires the ability for individuals to choose to do what motivates them. Free trade requires freedom.
The contemporary antithesis is the attempt by some people to use the force of government to make people do things -- like forcing new "green" technology to be (somehow) invented and used or forcing those who create wealth to spread their wealth around to those who do not.
These kinds of ends are pursued by people who consider themselves deeply compassionate and who consider those who oppose such government force cold and uncaring. But they confuse controlling and giving things to people with compassion.
I had a conversation recently with a retired schoolteacher who was singing the praises of President Obama's policies. She said that she wants more entitlements. I pointed out how many of the people who create wealth are leaving California for the very reason that the government is taking too much of their wealth to pay for her entitlements. She responded, "That's why it's good that Obama is enforcing these policies throughout the country so that the wealthy can't just leave." I pointed out how many of the people who create wealth are leaving the country, too. She responded, "That's why I like that Obama is making it more difficult for the wealthy to leave the country and avoid paying U.S. taxes."
Nowhere in this conversation did I hear from her any appreciation of "these people who create wealth" as people. Rather, these people were seen by her as "the wealthy" -- not people, but things that should give her more of what she wants.
This is the problem with greed and envy (which are clearly two of this woman's driving emotions): they cause us to think of other people not as people, but as things. They serve to diminish our capacity for empathy, and they reinforce our sense of other people as objects. It is this lack of empathy that makes it possible for people to do horrible things to one another.
When people on the left talk about compassion, it is really an abstraction. Their compassion -- at least as they express it politically -- is based upon an idea they have of how we all should be; they want us to be like their image of us. Like bad stage parents who try to force their kids to fulfill their own ambitions, folks who seek to use government force to make us better people are not thinking about real people at all.
But their actions, their wishes, their ideals affect real, live human beings, with very personal experiences, relationships, ideas, and beliefs -- and a very real human nature that will not be molded like so much clay in an administrator's hands. Those on the left look upon humanity as small children look upon a blob of Play-Doh, and they work like crazy to squish us and form us and flatten us into the shapes that they long for humanity to become.
This is not empathy; it is magical thinking.
Empathy is encouraged by trade and individual liberty. Individualism is not some cold-hearted selfishness; it is the condition under which real people can care for, respect, and understand other real people.
The way to encourage greater human empathy is to affirm and champion the freedom of the individual, including the freedom of the individual to trade what and how he or she wishes.
This is what our founders did, and they created the foundation for the most benevolent, powerful, and compassionate country that this world has ever seen. It is our task to ensure that our gift of liberty does not perish from this earth in the name of the childish fantasy that people can be forced to conform to an ideal.
Joel F. Wade, Ph.D. is the author of Mastering Happiness: Ten Principles for Living a More Fulfilling Life. He can be reached at jwade@drjoelwade.com.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
President Obama and the Radical Socialist Agenda
I got this from American Thinker, still the best website for conservative writings. Been saying this from the start of your president's rise finally someone did some real research and put it in a book. Long overdue but the truth about president fuckface is finally coming to light.
October 30, 2010
President Obama and the Radical Socialist Agenda
By Janice Shaw Crouse
Stanley Kurtz's new book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, is a detailed look into the forces that shaped Barack Obama. Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has written a highly detailed and definitive account of the president's conversion as a radical activist; he provides minute and abundant evidence confirming the long-disputed label of "socialist" that has dogged the president since his undergraduate days. Kurtz describes Obama's ideology as "stealth socialism" and called his views "Barack Obama's secret." In the preface of the book, Kurtz writes, "The president has systematically disguised the truth about his socialist convictions, sometimes by directly misrepresenting his past and sometimes by omitting or parceling out damaging information to disguise its real importance."
Kurtz begins his account in 1983, presenting evidence that Barack Obama, then a senior undergraduate at Columbia University, attended several annual sessions of the "Socialist Scholars Conference." Kurtz describes the shift of strategy that took place at that meeting to turn the socialist movement from its goal of "nationalization" to community organizing as the best means of promoting the movement during the Reagan administration. Kurtz details the evidence that Socialist Scholars conferences influenced Obama and refutes the president's claim that his embrace of community organizing was an "impulse." Instead, in Kurtz's fully documented account, the Socialist Scholars conferences provided the future president with a vision for transforming America, as well as a way for black Americans to be the driving force behind that transformation through the efforts of the Midwest Academy, a training institute that Kurtz credits with Obama's political ascendancy.
Many of the "class warfare" themes that dominate President Obama's current rhetoric are rooted in that period of his life -- such as the "haves" v. the "have-nots" and big business v. the poor. Kurtz shows that the influence of Chicago politics on the future president's life began at that time with his involvement with Chicago mayor Harold Washington. President Obama extols Washington -- a politician Kurtz says openly identified with Chicago's socialists and the person Kurtz credits with overthrowing the "centrist Democratic machine" in Chicago -- as his "political idol" and role model, along with Saul Alinsky, for his political life.
It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of Harold Washington and other Chicago radicals in the 1980s in shaping the politics of Barack Obama. Kurtz details the ways that Washington spearheaded the radicalization of the Democratic Party and shifted the party's focus to building coalitions of poor and minority voters. He also shows how groups like ACORN functioned to swell the party ranks and fuel the anti-business and class warfare agendas. Perhaps more importantly, Kurtz traces the influence of friends and associates from that era of Obama's life who are now among his most controversial political advisors and appointees. Kurtz describes them: "Barack Obama's colleagues and mentors were some of the smartest and most influential stealth-socialist community organizers in the country. Their strategies of political realignment and social transformation guide the Obama administration to this day."
Kurtz's research reveals the intricate, though sometimes "stealth," connections between Obama and the "populist" radical coalitions of the 1980s. Those connections included links to Jeremiah Wright's radical activities, as well as the activities of coalitions like the Midwest Academy, the Illinois Project Vote, and the "Public Allies" projects.
More troubling than any of the obvious, open, and/or stealth associations are the instances where Kurtz details the ways that President Obama "distorted" and "obfuscated" the record of his involvement with ACORN and his relationships with his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and his mentor, Bill Ayers. Kurtz notes that the deceptions include accounts in the president's memoir, Dreams of My Father. These deceptions, according to Kurtz, are dangerous because "we will be irreversibly down the path toward social transformation before we recognize as a nation what's at stake. The strategy of achieving socialism through a series of 'non-reformist reforms,' so popular among American's community organizing elite, is premised on precisely that deception."
The patterns of behavior, distortion, and rhetorical devices that characterize President Obama's rise to political prominence are disturbing on numerous fronts. The "obfuscation" about his past alignments and associations is particularly troubling, as is the evidence that he continues to govern as president under the same ideology that guided his past behavior and associations. If the driving forces behind his past political ideology and associations remain constant -- as Kurtz's account seems to substantiate beyond refutation -- the questions about his strategy for implementing his vision for change are legitimate and crucial for the future of our nation.
With the 2010 election just around the corner, Obama is engaging in a nationwide campaign similar to the one he waged for the presidency in 2008; his get-out-the-vote strategy is targeting the youth, minority, poor, and women's vote. As centrist independents, all varieties of conservatives plus Tea Party voters look at his past through the lens of Kurtz's exhaustive and thorough research, all have far more information about the "transformation" that the president promised in 2008. Through Kurtz's book, the political picture is crystal clear, and the president's purpose is painfully obvious.
What is equally certain from the evidence Kurtz presents is that the prospect for the nation's future depends upon the results of the 2010 and 2012 elections. We cannot, however, wait until 2012 to place checks and balances on the radical policies and purposes of this most ideologically driven of presidents. As Norman Thomas said, "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."
Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., is author of Children at Risk (Transaction, 2010) and is senior fellow of Concerned Women for America's think tank, the Beverly LaHaye Institute.
October 30, 2010
President Obama and the Radical Socialist Agenda
By Janice Shaw Crouse
Stanley Kurtz's new book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, is a detailed look into the forces that shaped Barack Obama. Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has written a highly detailed and definitive account of the president's conversion as a radical activist; he provides minute and abundant evidence confirming the long-disputed label of "socialist" that has dogged the president since his undergraduate days. Kurtz describes Obama's ideology as "stealth socialism" and called his views "Barack Obama's secret." In the preface of the book, Kurtz writes, "The president has systematically disguised the truth about his socialist convictions, sometimes by directly misrepresenting his past and sometimes by omitting or parceling out damaging information to disguise its real importance."
Kurtz begins his account in 1983, presenting evidence that Barack Obama, then a senior undergraduate at Columbia University, attended several annual sessions of the "Socialist Scholars Conference." Kurtz describes the shift of strategy that took place at that meeting to turn the socialist movement from its goal of "nationalization" to community organizing as the best means of promoting the movement during the Reagan administration. Kurtz details the evidence that Socialist Scholars conferences influenced Obama and refutes the president's claim that his embrace of community organizing was an "impulse." Instead, in Kurtz's fully documented account, the Socialist Scholars conferences provided the future president with a vision for transforming America, as well as a way for black Americans to be the driving force behind that transformation through the efforts of the Midwest Academy, a training institute that Kurtz credits with Obama's political ascendancy.
Many of the "class warfare" themes that dominate President Obama's current rhetoric are rooted in that period of his life -- such as the "haves" v. the "have-nots" and big business v. the poor. Kurtz shows that the influence of Chicago politics on the future president's life began at that time with his involvement with Chicago mayor Harold Washington. President Obama extols Washington -- a politician Kurtz says openly identified with Chicago's socialists and the person Kurtz credits with overthrowing the "centrist Democratic machine" in Chicago -- as his "political idol" and role model, along with Saul Alinsky, for his political life.
It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of Harold Washington and other Chicago radicals in the 1980s in shaping the politics of Barack Obama. Kurtz details the ways that Washington spearheaded the radicalization of the Democratic Party and shifted the party's focus to building coalitions of poor and minority voters. He also shows how groups like ACORN functioned to swell the party ranks and fuel the anti-business and class warfare agendas. Perhaps more importantly, Kurtz traces the influence of friends and associates from that era of Obama's life who are now among his most controversial political advisors and appointees. Kurtz describes them: "Barack Obama's colleagues and mentors were some of the smartest and most influential stealth-socialist community organizers in the country. Their strategies of political realignment and social transformation guide the Obama administration to this day."
Kurtz's research reveals the intricate, though sometimes "stealth," connections between Obama and the "populist" radical coalitions of the 1980s. Those connections included links to Jeremiah Wright's radical activities, as well as the activities of coalitions like the Midwest Academy, the Illinois Project Vote, and the "Public Allies" projects.
More troubling than any of the obvious, open, and/or stealth associations are the instances where Kurtz details the ways that President Obama "distorted" and "obfuscated" the record of his involvement with ACORN and his relationships with his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and his mentor, Bill Ayers. Kurtz notes that the deceptions include accounts in the president's memoir, Dreams of My Father. These deceptions, according to Kurtz, are dangerous because "we will be irreversibly down the path toward social transformation before we recognize as a nation what's at stake. The strategy of achieving socialism through a series of 'non-reformist reforms,' so popular among American's community organizing elite, is premised on precisely that deception."
The patterns of behavior, distortion, and rhetorical devices that characterize President Obama's rise to political prominence are disturbing on numerous fronts. The "obfuscation" about his past alignments and associations is particularly troubling, as is the evidence that he continues to govern as president under the same ideology that guided his past behavior and associations. If the driving forces behind his past political ideology and associations remain constant -- as Kurtz's account seems to substantiate beyond refutation -- the questions about his strategy for implementing his vision for change are legitimate and crucial for the future of our nation.
With the 2010 election just around the corner, Obama is engaging in a nationwide campaign similar to the one he waged for the presidency in 2008; his get-out-the-vote strategy is targeting the youth, minority, poor, and women's vote. As centrist independents, all varieties of conservatives plus Tea Party voters look at his past through the lens of Kurtz's exhaustive and thorough research, all have far more information about the "transformation" that the president promised in 2008. Through Kurtz's book, the political picture is crystal clear, and the president's purpose is painfully obvious.
What is equally certain from the evidence Kurtz presents is that the prospect for the nation's future depends upon the results of the 2010 and 2012 elections. We cannot, however, wait until 2012 to place checks and balances on the radical policies and purposes of this most ideologically driven of presidents. As Norman Thomas said, "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."
Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., is author of Children at Risk (Transaction, 2010) and is senior fellow of Concerned Women for America's think tank, the Beverly LaHaye Institute.
Sack Lunches
Now I do not know if this is true or not Snopes.com has it as undetermined. Frankly I don't give a shit this is how we should be writing about America's Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen and how they are treated by it's citizens.
Sack Lunches
I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned
seat. It was going to be a long flight. 'I'm glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap,' I thought.
Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation.
'Where are you headed?' I asked the soldier seated nearest to me.
'Petawawa. We'll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we're being deployed to Afghanistan
After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached the east, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time...
As I reached for my wallet, I overheard a soldier ask his buddy if he planned to buy lunch. 'No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch. Probably wouldn't be worth five bucks. I'll wait till we get to base.'
His friend agreed.
I looked around at the other soldiers. None were buying lunch. I walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty dollar bill. 'Take a lunch to all those soldiers.' She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. 'My son was a soldier in Iraq; it's almost like you are doing it for him.'
Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, 'Which do you like best - beef or chicken?'
'Chicken,' I replied, wondering why she asked. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner plate from first class.
'This is your thanks.'
After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane, heading for the rest room. A man stopped me. 'I saw what you did. I want to be part of it. Here, take this.' He handed me twenty-five dollars.
Soon after I returned to my seat, I saw the Flight Captain coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked, I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the numbers only on my side of the plane. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand and said, 'I want to shake your hand.' Quickly unfastening my seat belt I stood and took the Captain's hand.
With a booming voice he said, 'I was a soldier and I was a military pilot. Once, someone bought me a lunch. It was an act of kindness I never forgot.' I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the passengers.
Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my palm.
When we landed I gathered my belongings and started to deplane. Waiting just inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another twenty-five dollars!
Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their trip to the base. I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five dollars. 'It will take you some time to reach the base. It will be about time for a sandwich. God Bless You.'
Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their fellow travelers.
As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only give them a couple of
meals. It seemed so little...
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.'
That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.
Sack Lunches
I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned
seat. It was going to be a long flight. 'I'm glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap,' I thought.
Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation.
'Where are you headed?' I asked the soldier seated nearest to me.
'Petawawa. We'll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we're being deployed to Afghanistan
After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached the east, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time...
As I reached for my wallet, I overheard a soldier ask his buddy if he planned to buy lunch. 'No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch. Probably wouldn't be worth five bucks. I'll wait till we get to base.'
His friend agreed.
I looked around at the other soldiers. None were buying lunch. I walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty dollar bill. 'Take a lunch to all those soldiers.' She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. 'My son was a soldier in Iraq; it's almost like you are doing it for him.'
Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, 'Which do you like best - beef or chicken?'
'Chicken,' I replied, wondering why she asked. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner plate from first class.
'This is your thanks.'
After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane, heading for the rest room. A man stopped me. 'I saw what you did. I want to be part of it. Here, take this.' He handed me twenty-five dollars.
Soon after I returned to my seat, I saw the Flight Captain coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked, I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the numbers only on my side of the plane. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand and said, 'I want to shake your hand.' Quickly unfastening my seat belt I stood and took the Captain's hand.
With a booming voice he said, 'I was a soldier and I was a military pilot. Once, someone bought me a lunch. It was an act of kindness I never forgot.' I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the passengers.
Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my palm.
When we landed I gathered my belongings and started to deplane. Waiting just inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another twenty-five dollars!
Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their trip to the base. I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five dollars. 'It will take you some time to reach the base. It will be about time for a sandwich. God Bless You.'
Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their fellow travelers.
As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only give them a couple of
meals. It seemed so little...
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.'
That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
I'm Back...S.O.S. in Washington.
So why would I return now you ask. Is it because the republicans won the House back and closed the gap in the Senate? Hell no I could not give shit less about what happens in Washington. It just so happens that the huge project I have been working on at work is winding down. So I will be working less and typing more. Let's talk about the election. Lots of promises coming out of the mouths of republicans. Can they deliver? We'll see. Hopefully they will stick to their promises. But Washington D.C. is cesspool. It corrupts and changes people for the worst. Some people cannot shake drugs and it ruins their lives. Our elected politicians get sucked in to the abyss of money and power and it ruins our lives. But I am getting ahead of myself the new congress has not even been sat yet. We still have to watch what these current crop of douchebags are going to do in the next two months. Now is not the time for celebration now is the time for vigilance and steadfastness. The Reid/Pelosi faction of the Obama regime will pass all the anti-American legislation they can before they lose control of the congress. How will they get this done? Plain and simple the republican infighting, that has already begun, will get them to take their eyes off what the dems are doing and voila, we are a European state. With as always, an assist from the liberal media which will cover said infighting 24/7. As usual dear readers it is up to us. We are citizens not subjects and every asshole politician in America needs to be reminded of that fact.
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