Sieg Heil ..........

Way back when, I was a Boy Scout: not for very long because the hat may have looked good on Smokey the Bear but looked stupid on me and I hated camping.

Some things don’t change over time as I still detest camping and hats are just for keeping the Arizona sun off my face.

But the Boy Scouts I knew did not practice shooting guns in response to “Border Violence” nor did they worry too much about “Disgruntled Iraq War Veterans” as potential “Right-wing dissidents".

But things change according to the New York Times and now the Boy Scouts of America in collusion with the Department of Homeland Security have enhanced the long-time “Explorer Program to do just that and I quote:-

“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.

It is all quite a step up from the square knot.

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy in Imperial County, California. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

"Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

Cathy Noriega, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns — known as air-soft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets — in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.

“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”

Just as there are soccer moms, there are Explorers dads, who attend the competitions, man the hamburger grill and donate their land for the simulated marijuana field raids. In their training, the would-be law-enforcement officers do not mess around, as revealed at a recent competition on the state fairgrounds here, where a Ferris wheel sat next to the police cars set up for a felony investigation.

Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, “Separate your feet!” as she moved to handcuff her suspect.

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

Remember that the DHS has only been involved with this program since May of last year. Imagine how loud would have been the liberal scream if the previous administration had come up with this.

Personally, it makes me uncomfortable on several fronts. For a start, it seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to the “Civilian Military Force” talked about by Obama at length on the 2008 Campaign Trail and since.

Then, perhaps my background and early history causes me to recall “Hitler Jugend”. Because the Hitler Youth replaced the Boy Scouts in the Third Reich in 1933.

And they had cool uniforms too ……….

Faction!

That’s a word I made up in order to represent a meld of “Fact” and “Fiction” and that which follows is probably just that. It’s been around the Web for a while and I’ve changed very little except to eliminate a picture which purported to portray Ashley and her grandfather because of possible copyright issues.

As I said, I cannot vouch for its veracity but that doesn’t really matter as the message is valid. Let’s face it, even Aesop’s fables were not exactly eye-witness accounts either but their morals have stood the test of centuries.


"John G. Is 63 years old and owns a small business. He’s a life-long Republican and sees his dream of retiring next year has all but evaporated. With the stock market crashing and new taxes coming his way, John assumes now that he will work to his dying day.

John has a granddaughter. Ashley is a recent college grad. She drives a flashy hybrid car, wears all the latest fashions, and loves to go out to nightclubs and restaurants. Ashley campaigned hard for Barack Obama.. After the election she made sure her grandfather (and all other Republican family members) received a big I told-you-so earful on how the world is going to be a much better place now that her party is taking over.

Having lost both roommates, Ashley recently ran short of cash and cannot pay the rent (again) on her 3 bedroom townhouse. Like she has done many times in the past, she e-mailed her grandfather asking for some financial help.".

Here is his reply:

"Sweetheart, I received your request for assistance. Ashley, you know I love you dearly and I ‘m sympathetic to your financial plight. Unfortunately, times have changed. With the election of President Obama, your grandmother and I have had to set forth a bold new economic plan of our own…'The Ashley Economic Empowerment Plan'. Let me explain.

Your grandmother and I are life-long, wage-earning tax payers. We have lived a comfortable life, as you know, but we have never had the fancier things like European vacations, luxury cars, etc.

We have worked hard and were looking forward to retiring soon. But the plan has changed.

Your president is raising our personal and business taxes significantly. He says it is so he can give our hard earned money to other people. Do you know what this means, Ashley? It means less for us, and we must cut back on many business and personal expenses. You know the wonderful receptionist who worked in my office for more than 23 years? The one who always gave you candy when you came over to visit? I had to let her go last week. I can’t afford to pay her salary and all of the government mandated taxes that go with having employees.

Your grandmother will now work 4 days a week to answer phones, take orders and handle the books. We will be closed on Fridays and will lose even more income to the Wal-Mart. I’m also very sorry to report that your cousin Frank will no longer be working summers in the warehouse. I called him at school this morning. He already knows about it and he’s upset because he will have to give up skydiving and his yearly trip to Greenland to survey the polar bears. That’s just the business side of things.

Some personal economic effects of Obama’s new taxation policies include none other than you. You know very well that over the years your grandmother and I have given you thousands of dollars in cash, tuition assistance, food, housing, clothing, gifts, etc., etc. But by your vote, you have chosen to help others – not at your expense – but at our expense. If you need money now sweetheart, I recommend you call 202-456-1111. That is the direct phone number for the White House. You can also contact the White House here: http://www/..whitehouse.gov


You yourself told me how foolish it is to vote Republican. You said Mr. Obama is going to be the People’s President, and is going to help every American live a better life. Based on everything you’ve told me, along with all the promises we heard during the campaign, I’m sure Mr. Obama will be happy to transfer some stimulus money into your bank account. Have him call me for the account number which I memorized years ago..

Perhaps you can now understand what I’ve been saying all my life: those who vote for a president should consider the impact on the nation as a whole, and not be just concerned with what they can get for themselves. What Obama supporters don’t seem to realize is all of the money he is redistributing to illegal aliens and non-taxpaying Americans (the so-called 'less fortunate') comes from tax-paying families.

Remember how you told me, 'Only the richest of the rich will be affected'? Well guess what, honey? Because we own a business, your grandmother and I are now considered to be the richest of the rich. On paper, it might look that way, but in the real world, we are far from it.

As you said while campaigning for Obama, some people will have to carry more of the burden so all of America can prosper. You understand what that means, right? It means that raising taxes on productive people results in them having less money; less money for everything, including granddaughters.

I’m sorry, Ashley, but the well has run dry.. The free lunches are over. I have no money to give you now. So, congratulations on your choice for 'change'. For future reference, I encourage you to try and add up the total value of the gifts and cash you have received from us, just since you went off to college, and compare it to what you expect to get from Mr. Obama over the next 4 (or 8) years. I have not kept track of it, Ashley. It has all truly been the gift of our hearts.

Remember, we love you dearly….but from now on you’ll need to call the number mentioned above. Your 'Savior' has the money we would have given to you. Just try and get it from him. Good luck, sweetheart.

Love, Grandpa"

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

Guns and Roses ..........

Wow! What a response. And it came from two subjects contained in the last post. So let’s get the easy one out of the way first.

The little 3-year old girl who spent a night on an Arizona mountainside is fine. As I reported, she was very cold when the law-enforcement helicopter crew found her. Not surprising really when you consider the poor little mite was not wearing shoes or socks when she wandered off with the family dog, “Blue”.

Dog lovers will applaud the pet and their applause is so well-deserved. But I also want to applaud the human species. Aren’t we an amazing beast? There was a time when the Chinese left unwanted baby girls out on a cold hillside to die. I wonder how long that took?


Now the other subject is going to take a little longer and this one was triggered, no pun intended, by my recital about Dr. Amy Bishop.

“Don’t you see”, they screamed, “What happens when you allow guns to get into the hands of people”?

Actually I don’t. What I see is what happens when an irresponsible, liberal gets his or her hand on a gun.

Please forgive the tautology! Because, of course, I realize that liberals are irresponsible or they wouldn’t be liberals in the first place. I offer as my exhibits Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Barney Frank. And, I’m sure you can add your own ……….

Anyway, the British tirade continued and I read it and then I slept on it. And I started to think, probably at about 2 am. Somewhere between a little trip to the bathroom and finding a nice cool spot on the other side of my pillow, I came up with this.

For decades the British sought to ban personal guns. That effort culminated in the “Firearms Amendment Act of 1997 which made it virtually impossible for a British resident, legal or illegal, to possess a legal firearm.

According to the latest British government numbers for 2009, gun crime more than doubled in the previous decade.

And Australia’s experience is little different.

Now consider the case of Kennesaw, Georgia, where in 1982, the town passed an ordinance which required “every head of household to maintain a firearm and ammunition”.

That, in ensuing years, led to a 50% decline in crime.

What else has to be said?

Now should you go and out a get a gun?

Not unless, you feel the need and feel prepared to accept the responsibility and go through the training.

Now both owning and so-called “concealed carry” has enormous responsibilities which is why the latter is not granted lightly.

I live in an urban area with a superb police department but I know that their average response time to a 911 call is 12 minutes. I also, because I asked, know that in England it’s more than 15.

Do you feel lucky today?

The Bad, The Sad and The Aaah.....

Anyone who has ever called my home number and found me gone have encountered Clint Eastwood on my voice mail. Some find the message funny. Others, especially bleeding heart liberals which includes, by default most Obama supporters, find it hateful. I have one word for those………

Tough !

Since yesterday’s tragic murder/suicide in Austin, Texas, the drive-by media have been contorting themselves into pretzels in order to prove that the poor demented soul who piloted the Cherokee was somehow driven by “radical right-wing” influence. Or better yet, a Tea Party affiliate?

Let’s look shall we?

From what we know from the on-line message he left we know these things.

He was anti-religion.
He was anti-Bush.
He was anti-IRS.

Now it seems to me that, if you had to assign a “target” based on those things you could make just as good a case, in fact probably better, for a left-wing nut. Well 2 out of 3 anyway because liberals love taxes and, by extension, those who collect them. Except, of course when the liberal is the one in the cross-hairs.

But, one is forced to ask, why doesn’t the MSNBC’s of this world try to find similar influences with a certain Dr. Amy Bishop of the University of Alabama?

Again, I feel forced to explain that the aforementioned lady is accused of pulling a handgun from her purse during a meeting of faculty and dispatching them to that eternal tenure in the sky.

Well, try this on for size.

Some 20-plus years ago, the, then, Miss Bishop shot and killed her 18 year old brother Seth. Now the Bishop family is/was very well connected in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and prevailed upon the District Attorney to drop any charges. The DA is now Congressman Bill Delahunt who is, of course, a Democrat.

Does the name Kopechne spring to mind? Or, if that doesn’t’, try Chappaquiddick?

So, we know that little Chrissy Matthews, or his even angrier big brother, Keith Olberman, doesn’t want to dig into the fact that Dr. Amy was obsessed with Obama and could not get enough of his ethos. And that fact alone is more than enough evidence to conclude that the woman is "off her trolley".


OK, we’ve done the bad. And so let’s move onto the sad.

Earlier today, I watched the Dalai Lama being hustled out of a back-door of the White House past a bunch of garbage sacks awaiting collection. Now this is so poignant and so sad for lot’s of reasons.

Clearly, my haircut declares that I’m not a Buddhist but I do believe the Dalai Lama is a thoroughly good man and, of course, Obama “dissed” him the first time around by refusing to meet with him at all. And we know now that the reason was the ChiComms.

So, the consolation prize seems to be the White House via the kitchen staff entrance. Now if only he were Moslem ……….


And now for the good and the "Aaah".

Sometime late yesterday, a little 3-year old was playing outside her home in Prescott, Arizona with the family dog and somehow the two wandered away. Down here in Scottsdale, it probably got down to the mid-50’s after the sun went down but up there it must have been low-30s at the most. Clearly, the parents were distraught and law enforcement threw everything they had it.

Early this morning, as the sun came up, a police helicopter crew spotted a little bundle on a hillside. Sure enough, there was the little girl and the dog.

Both are alive as I write even though we do know that she suffered some frost bite but, were it not for the dog who kept her warm enough ………..

Now You See It And Now You Don't .............

Maybe it’s because I’m not a fan of big American cities. Frankly, they intimidate me. Especially really big ones like Chicago or New York City and it’s not just the people. Most of them do not even acknowledge the presence of another human being among the throng of their own species.

So, in a way, I know where Obama is coming from. He comes from Chicago and, therefore, he understands street thugs because he is one.

But now, it seems, he’s decided to adopt some New York City street tactics as well. Perhaps it’s his version of crossing the aisle?

Do you remember back to the campaign trail? There, he was the master of oratory. Well he was until the teleprompter broke.

In the last 13 months, it seems he took some lessons from some brother in New York City and has learned the art of “Three Card Monte”.

For those from elsewhere across the oceans or for those from Lake Havasu, this lose-lose proposition is designed to separate you and I from our money. Put briefly, one is tempted to place a bet on a wager which cannot be won.

In Obama’s case, of course, it would come down to words. What else does a politician or a lawyer have?

During the State of the Union message a few weeks ago, Obama uttered the N word. No not that N word because that’s only used in the hood. No this N word was “Nuclear”. There have been those more cynical than I who have attested that his main reason was to prove that he could pronounce it and his predecessor could not.

Anyway, out came that N word and the greenies of the Left came unglued which only got worse when, this week, he decided to announce a federally guaranteed loan of $ 8.3 Billion to the “Southern Company”, This is the parent company of Duke Power and others who have wanted to build 2 reactors for years. In fact, for about 30 years because it’s been that long and more since the environmental whackos decided to force this glorious nation back by about 2 generations.

Luddites, thy name is Democratic!

So, was this weeks declaration good news? Not hardly.

See, one of Obama’s first moves was to abandon and close Yucca Mountain.

This has to be the middle of just about the most desolate area in Nevada but it had a couple of things going for it. It is, as I said both remote and desolate and its geology is stable which makes it as ideal as possible to store fuel rods as they bleed away their toxicity.

But Obama closed it and so now what?

Yet another Obama ruse. A new Sleight of Hand.

You put your money down and Obama will take it …………

Great Oaks from Little Acorns

It really doesn’t matter who said it first but millions of people around the world are now saying the same thing …….

Obama is a Slow Learner!

Sometime last year, a Democrat-dominated Congress were shamed into cutting off all funding to ACORN because of the corruption and illegalities which swirled about this organization. Now remember, Obama worked for and/or on behalf of ACORN way back when in the “hood”. Perhaps ACORN even helped him to get elected first locally, then statewide and to position he now holds.

And so it was not surprising, when one digs into the Obama budget for next year, to find loopholes. Now is it lawyers who love loopholes or is it politicians who do or is it just Chicago a lawyer-politician thing? Anyway, buried in the minutiae of the budget is a provision to restore the funding to that highly-dubious organization. But, this time, it’s via the back door in the time-honored tradition of the Chicago thug.

The mechanism this time is to allocate $4 Billion as “Community Development Block Grants”. And included in the list of recipients is ACORN.

I’m sure they thought that would slip under the radar because the “bag men” would be the States. And it might have remained that way were it not for this writer and many others who watch these guys like hawks.

So what else is next?

Sometime, about a week ago. Obama assumed his professorial voice and pose and pronounced that. “No American Citizen, (Or anyone else for that matter) has a reasonable expectation of privacy as they use their cell phone”.

Last week, this view was endorsed by the 3rd Circuit of the Federal Appeals Court in Philadelphia who determined that our privacy rights as protected by the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment do not apply.

Clearly this issue is going to the United States Supreme Court but there is more as they say on the late-night shopping channels …………

Two years ago and even before that, Obama excoriated the Bush presidency for their determination to track terrorists by whatever means worked. And he was cheered on by the ACLU and by every commentator on every liberal-dominated TV news network. And that included ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and NBC.

Where is the outrage now?


And there is more even yet …….

Not just your calls can be tracked but also where you are where you make them. Note, I did not say when because that’s part of the normal data collection which is necessary for billing.

And again, the Obama administration does not need a warrant to demand those records. They do not even have to show “Probable Cause”.

Again, I plead where is the outrage from liberals?

Well I doubt you’re going to hear it any time soon.

As Obama takes the plunge in the polls, well it’s not all bad news for all liberals.

Just take a look at the picture at the top.


Well, it'll play in Plains, Georgia .............

Myth or Mythtake?

For a long time, conservatives wrestled with two issues. On the other hand, liberals rejoiced in both of them.

The first was the indisputable fact that Obama was and is Black, well partly anyway, and conservatives were reluctant to challenge the man because they knew that any criticism would immediately be labeled as racist. And that has indeed proved to be the case.

At the same time, liberals bathed in the man’s skin color. At long last, they could assuage centuries of inherited guilt and wash away the stain. Of course, liberals did what they always do with facts. First of all, they deny them and then they ignore them. How else could you rationalize that the politicians who fought the civil rights movement were largely Democrats? How else could you explain away the fact that the President who led the fight, both figuratively and literally, was a Republican in the person of Abraham Lincoln.

Surely one of the most reviled people in American politics in the context of civil rights was Governor George Wallace of the great state of Alabama. He was a Democrat.

Yet, the myth persists that the Democrats are the liberators and that the Republicans are the oppressors. Go figure?

Now before we tackle the second myth, let’s not forget Harry Reid with his now-denied assertion that Obama doesn’t have or use a “Negro Dialect unless he needs it”. Or, Clinton’s assertion that, “a few years ago this guy would be bringing us coffee”.

And now at last, we come to the second myth which is that conservatives are dumb and liberals are smart. Well, let’s see shall we, especially as Obama fanatics and the cheer leaders in the liberal media have been telling us for more than 2 years that we now have the smartest President ever. Really?

We know that Obama is teleprompter-dependent and I’m wondering just when that deficiency will be recognized by the American Disabilities Act as a legitimate disability. But, in anticipation of that, and because I’m a compassionate conservative we’ll skate quickly by some of the more obvious flubs such as:

Obama’s assertion that the US has 57 states. Clearly he confused that number with the number of Heinz varieties.

Obama’s assertion that “Corpse Man” is really pronounced “Core Man”. Who knows what reading method they taught in Hawaii or wherever?

And, every asthma sufferer knows the difference between “Inhalers” and Breathalyzers but not Obama it seems.

Now if the “smartest man ever to occupy the White House” can screw these up while he’s reading, when he is weaned away from his intellectual prop then anything can happen.

On Bloomberg last week, Obama began to boast about his next “Job Stimulus Package” and his determination that his plan to grant a few tax credits for new hires will do wonders for the employment numbers. Then he also insisted that he was encouraging banks to grant loans in order that they could increase their workforce.

There speaks the true academic who is telling business how to run their business. But he’s never done it. He’s never had to make payroll.

So Mr. Obama let me explain it to you because you clearly don’t get it even though your adherents still hail you as “Messiah”.

Any business, small, medium, large or a guy in his garage, does not seek tax credits or help from a bank in order to hire people. He or she goes that route because they see more business on the horizon. And now they don’t.

In the meantime, Obama declared that he “was now ‘agnostic about middle-class tax hikes”. Now I can’t claim that he won his election on his promise of “not one dime of increased taxes for those families earning less than a quarter of a million dollars per year, but I’m sure it helped.

So, yet another campaign promise gets thrown under the bus doesn’t it?

And, finally, if this White House is to retain any semblance of credibility, they’re going to have to rein in Joe Biden.

Because, according to Uncle Joe, our presence will not leave Iraq until we achieve success. When pressed on what defines “Success”, Joe declared that. “Success is what we say it is”.

Now that’s a winning strategy if ever I heard one!!

Is that a threat or a promise?

Again, I have fought bringing up this topic for all kinds of reasons.

I suspect that I’m going to tee off people I hold dear who still choose to live in that environment. I also know that some in this country view Europe as the “promised land”.

But, having stuck a toe in the water, it’s time to dive in because procrastination is not going to make it feel any warmer.

One of the reasons that Europe could contemplate their Socialist lifestyle is because, for the most part, they don’t have to spend the money on military expenditures because the US provides their strategic defense.

But even being excused from those fiscal chores is not enough, it seems, to ensure Utopia and pay for it.

Ostensibly, this post is not about Obama but let’s wait until we get to the end and perhaps it will be.

They are called the PIGS — Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain. What they have in common is that all are facing deficits and debts that could bring on national defaults and break up the European Union.

What brought the PIGS to the edge of the abyss?

All are neo-socialist states that provide welfare for poor people, generous unemployment, universal health care, early retirement and comfortable pensions. Most of those programs consume 40 percent to 50 percent of their gross domestic product annually which is a crushing burden on the private sector.

Dying populations is a second cause.

After two world wars, the Europeans lost their faith and embraced hedonism and materialism, “la dolce vita”. Large families fell out of favor. Women put off marriage and babies, and went to work. Birth control and abortion were made readily available in every country and, if not, just across the border.

For 30 years, the fertility rate of Europe has been below the 2.1 children per woman necessary to replace a population. In Russia and Ukraine, a million people disappear yearly. In Western Europe, the passing of the native-born goes on quietly, as Third World peoples come to fill the empty spaces left by the aborted and unconceived.

Turks are in Germany. Pakistanis, Indians, Arabs and Caribbean peoples are in Britain. Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccans occupy the southern coast of France and the banlieues around Paris.

These newcomers have neither the education nor skills of the Europeans. Hence, they earn less and contribute less in taxes, but consume more per capita in social benefits.

As the number of young entering the European labor forces shrinks, the number of seniors and aged grows. And thanks to advances in medicine, these retirees live lengthening lives. Thus the burden of pensions and health care grows steadily and the need for higher taxes and larger worker contributions increases.

Then there is globalization. In Europe, wages and taxes are high, regulations heavy, unions strong, and lawyers ubiquitous.

Manufacturers, to cut costs, have been outsourcing production to where the labor is cheap and abundant, the unions are nonexistent or weak, and health, safety and environmental regulations are lax.

Welcome to China.

Greece is the first European nation to hit the wall. As an EU member state, she is obligated to keep her deficit to 3 percent of GDP. But this year's is 12.7 percent, and Athens needs to issue $75 billion in bonds alone to finance the deficit and roll-over debt. The markets, however, are rating Greek bonds as risky bonds.

To borrow, Athens must pay more than twice the interest rate which Germany pays. Faced with strikes by public employees and students, Athens appears to lack the political will to make the cuts necessary to bring the budget back toward balance.

As Portugal, Ireland and Spain gaze on, Greece approaches a moment of truth. Should she default, their bonds, too will plunge in value out of fear of a copycat default, and the interest rate they pay would also rise. They, too, might then take the Argentine road.

Is there a way out?

One option is for the EU to bail out Greece with a huge loan. But if Greece cannot meet her debt obligations now, how could she pay back the loan? And if the EU cannot compel Greece to make deep budget cuts today, what leverage would the EU have after bailing out Athens and removing today's pressure on the government?

A second option is to call in the International Monetary Fund, which imposes tough conditions on nations receiving IMF loans — the Third World therapy. But problems would arise here, too.

First, it would be an admission that the EU cannot manage its own household.

Second, the largest contributor to the IMF is Uncle Sam aka you and I. Why should America bail out Greece, when the EU is larger and richer?

Where Greece is at today, however, we may all arrive tomorrow.

In every Western nation, government is growing beyond the capacity of taxpayers to bear. Deficits and debt are surging. Not enough children are being born to replace parents. The immigrant poor who consume more than they contribute are coming to take the empty places. Seniors and elderly are growing as a share of the population. Companies are saying goodbye to the West and moving offshore to low-wage lands.

The West begins to look like yesterday, while the East begins to look like tomorrow.

The West is approaching a crisis of solvency and of democracy. We shall see if democracy, which grew popular lavishing benefits upon all, is strong enough to start clawing them away. Or will democracy try to keep piling the burden on the producers until they rebel or depart?

Will Obama hear this fire bell in the night from across the Atlantic?

Somehow I doubt it because ingrained Socialist beliefs make very effective ear plugs.

Even in Minnesota .........

I’m trying something new which is to incorporate some graphics and/or pictures into this Blog and so, I thought I’d start with this.

This picture has recently appeared by the side of an Interstate in Minnesota. You can tell it’s from there by the frigid landscape and the leafless trees. Oops and it’s a big Oops, that could apply to the vast majority of this Nation this winter. There are 3 major benefits. For a start it ticks off the liberals where ever they are. And it shows that, even in Minnesota which is not the most conservative of states, there are still those who think. And it gives a tweak to Al Gore. Where is he in the middle of the coldest season for years?

It is moments like this which cause the White House to lash out. Does their petulance show no bounds? Well, probably not when one considers the spoiled little boy in the Oval Office. Consider this …….

Yesterday, White House deputy national security adviser John Brennan denounced conservatives for criticizing his boss’s boss because he claimed that such criticism aided Al Qaeda and others.

Funny how that never occurred to him and his fellow Democrats when George W. Bush was in the White House and this is what he said.

“Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. They will, however, be dismantled and destroyed, by our military, our intelligence services and our law enforcement community. And the notion that America’s counterterrorism professionals and America’s system of justice are unable to handle these murderous miscreants is absurd.“

The Democrats don’t have a very long memory, nor do they have much of an attention span. Let’s take a trip down Nancy Pelosi’s memory lane shall we?

“Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he’s not a leader,” Pelosi said. “He’s a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.” “He has on his shoulders the deaths of many more troops, because he would not heed the advice of his own State Department of what to expect after May 1 when he … declared that major combat is over,” Pelosi charged. “The shallowness that he has brought to the office has not changed since he got there.”“Not to get personal about it, but the president’s capacity to lead has never been there. In order to lead, you have to have judgment. In order to have judgment, you have to have knowledge and experience. He has none,” Pelosi said.“This president has demonstrated very clearly that he does not have the capacity to present a plan to transition,” she said. “he only way we can get more troops from other countries is to have a president who respects the other countries. It’s hopeless for George Bush. He has made it hopeless.”

Brennan and others in his party are now worried that the Obama Administration’s failures most especially in the area of Foreign Policy might just result in a loss of power and a lot of Democrats sitting on their own front porches come December 2010. They have good reason to fear just that but still seem to be under the impression that the only reason anyone is criticizing Obama is because of some perceived political gain:

Then he went on to say, “Politics should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.”

Apparently Brennan didn’t tie off with Pelosi before making such a claim:

“The risk in many of us speaking out in the way that I’m speaking out to you right now is that people will say, ‘Oh, it’s just political,’ ” Pelosi said.

But to return to the main theme of criticizing presidents and their policy, let’s not forget one of Hilary’s screeches on the campaign trail, “We have a right to debate and disagree with any administration, and to suggest otherwise is unpatriotic.”

But to answer the question asked at the start of this post.

Yes, Mr. President, I do miss you and so do millions of others across our country.

Perhaps, not quite yet from sea to shining sea but certainly from our northern border to Nogales.

G-d Bless America!

Obama Defense Force?

I’m really not one for conspiracy theories but this has me wondering ………

Back in 2008, Congress authorized the creation of the “Council of Governors” as part of the “National Defense Reauthorization Act”. But Obama waited until now to activate it.

Let’s talk about what that is and then you can decide for yourself.

As currently proposed, it will consist of the governors of 10 states. Half of them are Democrats and the other half are Republicans.

The “charter” of this group is to “exchange views, information, or advice …. on matters involving the National Guard, homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.”

Now you can parse those words three ways from next Sunday but one phrase sprang into my mind and that phrase is "Martial Law". Oh Boy, are these guys worried or what?

Clearly, every governor of every state has the constitutional authority to mobilize their own National Guard. What is new here is the possibility of doing just that across state lines.

Why would they want to do that? Well, look at one member of this “Council”, namely Governor Jay Nixon of the great state of Missouri. He was the author of the letter to the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano in which he warned about ex-military personnel as likely internal security threats. Then Secretary Janet lumped those patriots in with “right-wing militias”, gun owners and anybody else she and her boss didn’t like.

And now we start to see where all this concern came from.

On the one hand, the “Tea Party” held its first convention in Nashville, Tennessee this past weekend and that followed on the heels of the election losses in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. On the other, is a Gallup poll today which showed that 80% of Americans disapprove of the liberal Democratic Congress. And the same poll shows that 90% of independents share that same view. Remember those, the people who actually decide elections.


As I said, inside the Beltway they sense the pitchforks being retrieved from the barns and the smell of torches being lighted.

Let’s see who’s right?

Thought for the Day

Well, it's SuperBowl Sunday when this Nation can subliminate domestic worries for a couple of hours. However, I was sent the text that follows and, while I wish I'd written it I did not. Nor do I know who did.


"The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency.

It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.

The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.

The republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."


Again, H.L Mencken springs to mind when he observed that "Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American people".

Go Saints but, I must confess, I think the Colts will prevail.

"We The People" .............

Article II of the United States Constitution says it all …………

“No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; …

Up to now, I have resisted this topic for many reasons.

About 40 years ago, I yanked my baby daughter's wrist as she tried yet again to pull a plug from an outlet and poke a little finger somewhere in between. Of course, my daughter yelled and so did her mother. But I remember picking her up and sitting on the couch with her as the yells started to subside into sobs. And, just before she nodded off, I said, "Sweetie pick your battles, because this one you were never going to win”.

Some will scream about decades-old child abuse and others will wonder where the heck we’re going with this post.

Now I agree that the evidence grows and grows, judging by the number of lawsuits both filed and pending, that there may be real reasons to question this man’s eligibility. After all, one has to produce some evidence of one’s natal origin for all kinds of reasons. Getting a passport springs to mind.

The point is, if we assume for the sake of the “Birthers,” that Obama does not qualify under Article II, what do we do then?

I suspect that, the perks of the White House apart such as Air Force One and the imperatives of Saul Alinsky’s doctrines, he’d love to leave the job. Perhaps he wouldn't go back to breaking heads in the hood but I'm sure he'd find work that was meaningful to him. How about Al Jazeera for a gig? Of course, Michelle would kill him if he resigned, but let’s assume he’s gone by whatever mechanism, we’d wind up with Joe Biden.

Now, we all know that, in spite of the hugs much evident at photo ops, Obama and Biden don’t like each other very much and I doubt that Biden would do much of anything if he wound up in the Oval Office. And there is good reason to believe that mainly because he doesn't know anything and he's never had an original thought in his life. But, and there's usually a "but" .............

And the but is, for conservatives like me, that would be very bad news indeed.

So, Birthers, please back off. Not because you may not be right but because you may win that battle but lose the bigger war.

The longer Obama stays there while the Constitution runs it’s course, the better become our chances of destroying the liberal left in this country and consigning it to the obscurity of political Purgatory for the rest of my lifetime. And then it's up to those who follow.

G-d Bless America!

Black Friday ...... If you're Obama

Last year Obama did not attend the National Prayer Breakfast. Perhaps the date clashed with some Muslim festival or an organized mugging by the Service Employees Union.

Or maybe, just like W who had a problem with “nuclear”, Obama knew he had a mental block with the word “corpsman”. But this year that word came up again and Obama mangled it, twice!

No wonder he let his petty frustrations show as he wondered why he was in his job in the first place. Well, we’ve already discussed that he has a very short attention span and that his typical tenure in any job is about 2 years. For the first time in his life he faces criticism and he does not like it. Now very few people do especially politicians but they take it as part of the job but not Obama. He takes every barb personally whether they’re deserved or not. Tough! Obama it’s only going to get worse.

Let’s do a quick review if I may. Obama was going to:

Kill off Fox News. Didn’t happen.
Win the Olympics for Chicago. Didn’t happen.
Close Gitmo. Didn’t happen.
Get Healthcare passed. Didn’t happen.
End wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Didn’t happen.
Cap unemployment at 8%. Didn’t happen and we’re now at 10.

What did happen was that Obama and his team repeatedly threw proposed and actual cabinet members under the bus and I won’t bore you with that list because we’ve talked about it before.

And how can we forget the influence of Obama, first on Virginia and then on New Jersey and most famously and latterly on “Teddy’s Seat”.

Then there was his determination to move the terrorist trials to NYC. Good luck Obama. Here’s an idea; let’s hold those trials in DC because, after all, 911 was an attack on the whole country and not just on New York. Or better yet, put the trial on Capitol Hill or in the White House because we know the security there is first class.

So with all those successes under his belt no wonder Obama needed a party and so he’s planned one for the Super Bowl on Sunday and he invited all 4 senators from Indiana and Louisiana. Every one declined.

These people are running away from Obama as fast as they can run. And the media is in on the stampede as well and the latest two that I know about are Christopher Buckley and Bob Herbert. The former is the son of William F. who must have been turning in his grave until the son just wrote an article called “The Audacity of Oops”. And the other is a writer for the New York Times who recently penned a column entitled, “ Who is Barack Obama?”

Too bad that he and his employer didn’t ask that question and others like it a couple of years ago.

To me, the bottom line is exactly that of Bob Herbert’s. Who is Obama? A radio host this week offered 3 choices. He’s a Marxist. He’s an Ideologue. He’s an Idiot. I would offer one more. He’s a Liar.

Or, perhaps, as the Mayor of Las Vegas put it, “He’s a Slow Learner”.

And, so it seems are Democratic politicians as a herd. Rumor has it that, having failed with healthcare, Obama may spur them to tackle his next priority which is "Immigration Reform".

Oh Boy, I do hope they do because that would be the coup de grace in the midterms in 2010. If the Hill thought that healthcare raised a firestorm, they’ve seen nothing yet.

Oh G-d, Please, Please, Pretty Please ……… Don’t pull the stupidity gene just yet.

And two final indignities if I may.

The “Obama Store” at the Union Station in Washington DC has closed. And the “Obama Girl” is looking for a new beau.

Happy Friday!!

The Fox and the Chicken House ..............

One of the biggest mistakes that this White House has made in the past 13 months was to attack Fox News. Not that I care one way or the other and I certainly don’t have any skin in the game but the furor caused people to take a look at the cable news channels.

And that included Fox, of course, but while they were in that part of the media spectrum, some viewers took a look at CNN and MSNBC as well. Well that backfired didn’t it? Fox is, and has been for the last 2 months by far the leader in terms of market share.

Honestly, and I do try to be honest, I think there are at least 2 reasons for that. For a start, when the viewers punched that station up on their remote, they found news. Admittedly it had a conservative slant but the alternatives were even worse. And their alternatives are what? Heck, even Headline News beat out CNN even with their resident Al-Jazeera apologist.

So now we come to MSNBC. Way back we had little Chrissy Matthew’s tingly leg. Then he outdid himself last week with the “temporary Black amnesia” bit.

But MSNBC hasn’t nearly run out of kooks yet while they still have Keith Olbermann who has to be one of the most angry people in the world except for Barney Frank and, perhaps, Obama’s wife.

Anyway, Olbermann refused to be outdone and so he has just pronounced the “Anointed One”, as one of the thousand top brains in this country.

Now I really felt better. But only for the briefest of moments. Because that was when I started looking at Obama’s budget.

The total bill is, according to Obama, $3.8 Trillion and I won’t bore you again by some meaningless exercise about what a trillion really looks like. Instead though I had a flash-back to the 2008 campaign trail when Obama, just before he fed the masses with an impossibly small number of loaves and fishes, declared that President Bush’s latest deficit was “unsustainable”.

That deficit was under $500 billion while today’s projection is $1.6 Trillion. More than 3 times the “unsustainable”.

But he did announce cuts, all of which will cost jobs. Probably to the tune of more than 500,000. Does Wal-Mart need that many more “greeters”?

For a start, manned space flight is off or we’ll just have to thumb a ride from the Russians or somebody. NASA, it seems, is destined to monitor “Global Warming” which we know is bad science, failed science, disproved science but the myth fits Obama’s agenda which is all about control.

I spent the bulk of my working life in the computer industry and we’ve all seen the rooms full of processors and disk drives and printers and consoles which constituted the mainframe era.

But now you have your PC or Mac at home. You have your DVR. You have your iPhone. Put just your home PC and your DVR and your cell phone together and also add the processors in your car and you have way more computer cycles than all that room-full of equipment. And the driving force was NASA and the need to build smaller, faster, smarter

Now they won’t get it, but when the mouth-breathing liberals tell you that the only positive things to come out of the NASA programs were Tang and Velcro and pens that write upside-down, tell em,

Send me a text message!.

And then ask 'em how it was going to to get from them to you.

Duh! And the eyes glaze over!