"I am not a crook. And if I am, it's all George Bushs' fault"

When I moved to Arizona about 3 ½ years ago I never dreamed that my new home state would soon be the center of a political storm over illegal immigration and that this would likely bring about a sea change in congressional representation,

For it wasn’t all that long ago when they fawned over him.

But now, three congressional Democrats from Arizona are twisting in the wind as their beloved party leader Barack Obama continues to punish their cash-strapped state with a costly and unpopular lawsuit designed to prevent the implementation of the new immigration law.

Now it’s Obama versus the people with congressional Democrats caught in the middle.

But things were very different on February 17, 2009.

The delegation standing on the tarmac was electrified with excitement as Air Force One rolled to a stop at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. The man who was the embodiment of their dreams – the man who would give everyone a job, apologize to the world for President Bush, punish the “rich people” who “earned too much” over the previous eight years, give everyone in the U.S. “free” healthcare, make the world love America again, and ensure a Democrat majority in the Congress for years to come was visiting Arizona.

There was the congenial Harry Mitchell quite giddy with anticipation snapping pictures as Obama stepped down from the aircraft. But Harry Mitchell is an elected member of Congress and he represents many thousands of Arizonans who expect to see more than a mere cheerleader, more than an adoring father-figure.

Today, Congressman Mitchell appears to be on a path to electoral defeat because of 18 months of cheerleading and adoration of a man with a self-serving agenda.

Things have become so bad that Mitchell has had to suggest to the “Dear Leader” that there might be better ways to spend the people’s money than by suing Arizona. Worse yet he has had to join the call to secure the U.S. border with Mexico, an idea that has been championed by Republicans for decades and by Tea Partiers and Minutemen for at least the past 6 years. But it is too little, too late as November will surely show.

And he is not alone as Gabriella Giffords of Tucson and Anne Kirkpatrick of Central Arizona try to retain their seats in Washington by renouncing their policy of following the leader.

So, what happened? What has changed in the last 18 months to force these Obama partisans to now disagree with him? And how could these elected officials have so horribly miscalculated the true sentiments of their constituents?

The answer is that they saw their hopes and aspirations in the embodiment of one man, one personality, one persona. Now they are in the midst of a painful process of discovering that Obama’s agenda was never about them, never about the Democratic Party and never about the United States.

They have been slavishly empowering a man who is committed to his own raw pursuit of power, and they are now finding themselves to be victims of that agenda.

But then again nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of politicians. As Exhibit A, consider the case of one Peggy West, a County Supervisor from Wisconsin who last week made this amazing statement about Arizona’s new immigration legislation.

“If this was Texas, which is a state that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this saying that they had a major issue with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would have to look twice at this. But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border.”

Heaven help us all.

The Dance of the Orbs

What a great weekend it was and yet it wasn’t.

It wasn’t because the US slinked out of the World Cup and England crashed and burned out of it..

On the other hand, there was a beautiful full moon and a lunar eclipse and there was other stuff ……

What I’m leading up to, in my annoying tortuous way, is to talk about the alignment of planets and other celestial bodies.

On my way home yesterday afternoon I learned that Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the senior senator was gravely ill. At that point, I took note and that was about it. I knew he was the King of the Congressional pork barrel and he knew that he once held some exalted rank in the Ku Klux Klan.

But then, early today, he died.

And then the planets began an eerie alignment not predicted by the astronomers as they had the lunar eclipse.

The Supreme Court of these United States ruled on a preposterous claim from Chicago that proposed that individual cities were not subject to the 2nd Amendment. That claim should not have prevailed and it didn’t. But the reasons why are interesting and, while those reasons should be acclaimed by liberals around this country, they won’t be. Let me tell you why.

After the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves in the South, many ex-slave owners and others were not happy. So, in order to try to provide as much protection as possible to the new “citizens”, the 14th Amendment was enacted.

Remember that the freed slaves knew who was responsible for their liberty. It was the by-now murdered Abraham Lincoln and his Republican party. Breaking into the cabins of ex-slaves were Democrats fronted by the Ku Klux Klan. And the idea of the 14th Amendment was to grant those newly “freed men” the same rights as every other citizen including the protection and provisions of the 2nd Amendment, namely the right to "keep and bear arms". Just like everybody else.

From my keyboard to G-d’s ears.

Then today it was, as Wellington noted after the Battle of Waterloo, “a damned close run thing” because the US Supremes only voted 5 to 4 to support both the 2nd and the 14th Amendment to the document they had sworn to uphold.

Then another planet swung into view as Elena Kagan drove up to the Hill to begin the confirmation process. And two other thoughts swung into my mind.

Do Elena Kagan and Janet Napolitano share the same fashion consultant? Or are they sisters? And you can come up with your own interpretation of that question.

Or is Obama just trying to remake the Court in his image? After all it was only 5 to 4 today.

And, speaking of image, consider this. If Kagan is confirmed there will be no White, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon Males on the Supreme Court.

Is this a true representation of the fabric of America?

I really try to ask more questions than I have answers for ......

'Cos, that's my role .........

I, uh, think, uh, that, uh, that guy before me knew a thing or two. Darn it!

As I write, I am shaking my head in disbelief and it’s all rooted in this debacle over the McChrystal dismissal.

Should he have gone? Absolutely. There is a chain of command and with that comes a paramount responsibility. And it doesn’t really matter if the General made the reported remarks or if it were merely his aides. You wear the stars and the bars and you get the scars.

But here's the part of that social contract that Obama will will seemingly never, never get. It works both ways.

Obama doesn’t know squat about taking responsibility for anything, he has never been criticized for anything, he’s always been pushed forward and he’s never been the pusher, and he or his handlers will throw anyone under the bus. What’s the betting that Rahm Emanuel will be next?

But, I’m getting ahead of myself so let’s revisit the recent past.

For the entirety of his term in office, Obama has been trying to have it both ways on Afghanistan — refusing to make any actual decisions, while trying to avoid altogether reneging on his campaign pledge to win the war in Afghanistan at the expense of an Iraq effort he denigrated, and the success of which he has constantly denied.

His unwillingness, if not utter inability, to perform the Commander in Chief’s job was put on display for all to see in 2009, when he took a full 10 months to “review” the situation in Afghanistan (a job done for him, and handed over on a silver platter, by the outgoing Bush administration).

At the end of that interminable period, which saw American troops dying weekly while their National Command Authority wavered and dawdled, Obama finally made his Afghanistan policy public. He then issued a stream of platitudes and half-measures which reflected a lack of understanding about, and an overall unwillingness to accept, the facts on the ground in the region and the gravity of America’s fight there.

Obama eventually issued an order for 30,000 more troops to deploy to Afghanistan, to augment the paltry 33,000 already on the ground in a country the size of Texas. Of course, this bold move by the neophyte president was nothing of the sort; the 30,000-troop ’surge’ had already been set in motion by President Bush in November 2008, so all Obama did was fail to prevent it from being carried out.

While on the campaign trail, Obama decried the surge and ridiculed its proponents. Just as Senator Hillary tried to pillory the worthy General and accused him of being a liar. But, because of some parliamentary protocol or other, she had to insist that accepting the General’s view would require “suspension of disbelief”.

The bad news for most of the players portrayed above is that the surge in Iraq worked.

And here’s more bad news for them and for liberals everywhere. The new commander is called Petraeus and he was Bushs' general.

Remember him now? He was the one that Hillary and Obama tried to crucify and the liberal media swung on his feet as they did so.

When George Soros’ Moveon.org wanted to place an ad in the national media, they got it at a 50% discount from the New York Times. You remember this one surely? This was the one that talked about “Betrayus”.

Would you believe that was still up on Soros’ webpage until Obama appointed the general to take over in Afghanistan?

And would you believe the drive-by media who were howling for Petraeus’ execution now hail his appointment as “brilliant?

But I know at least a couple of people who will regard this as being just fine and I'm afraid there are more who feel the same way.

Fortunately though, those numbers dwindle every day.

Just give me the facts Ma'am.

I am in the “Opinion Business”. That’s what I do and that’s what this Blog is all about. In a way, that’s odd for me as I’m supposed to be a left-brained person; one that’s obsessed with logic and hard data.

But every now and again, I come across something or somethings that demand to be featured. And today is one of those occasions, so here goes:-

I don’t know about you but I hate shocks. I love surprises unless it’s a “Strippergram” which was sent to my office once but I don’t welcome shocks. And this is just that.

I’m prepared to bet that less than 1% of us knew this was barreling down at us and it revolves around healthcare.

Starting in 2011, your W-2 tax form sent by your employer will be increased to show the value of whatever health insurance you are given by the company. It does not matter if that's a private concern or governmental body of some sort.

If you're retired?

So what; your gross will go up by the amount of insurance you get. You will be required to pay taxes on a large sum of money that you have never seen. Take the tax form you just finished and see what $15,000 or $20,000 additional gross does to your tax debt.

That's what you'll pay next year. For many, it also puts you into a new higher bracket so it's even worse.

This is how the government is going to buy insurance for the 15% that don't, can't or won't and it's only part of the tax whammy.

When I heard this I wondered about its veracity so I went digging and here is what I found .....

On page 25 of 29: TITLE IX REVENUE PROVISIONS- SUBTITLE A: REVENUE OFFSET PROVISIONS - (sec. 9001, as modified by sec.10901) Sec.9002 "requires employers to include in the W-2 form of each employee the aggregate cost of applicable employer sponsored group health coverage that is excludable from the employees gross income."

Joan Pryde is the senior tax editor for the “Kiplinger Letters”. Go to “Kiplingers” and read about 13 tax changes that could affect you.

So what’s Obama going to do with all this extra tax revenue? Well for a start he’s got to finance House Bill 1388.

Huh? What’s that you say?

Read on and I’ll try to give you the condensed version.

The passage of HB 1388 authorized that $20,000,000 be spent to move members/supporters of Hamas, a terrorist organization, to the United States; housing, food, everything.

Via this legislation, Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in "migration assistance" to the Palestinian refugees and "conflict victims" in Gaza. The "presidential determination," which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States, was signed and appears in the Federal Register.

Few on Capitol Hill, or in the media, took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.

Now we learn that he is allowing thousands of Palestinian refugees to move to, and live in, the US at American taxpayer expense. These issues have been lost in the blinding bail-outs and "stimulation" packages.

Doubtful?

To verify it for yourself, try this link:

www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488

Allah Akbar


Or so I'm told

Do we care what the World thinks of us? Should We?

Shakespeare assured us that, "All the World's a Stage" but we need to remember that the stuff on stage is not real.

Some of the people who read this Blog do not live here. But they do provide input at times which I use. And so I asked myself the question above.

Even with Obama’s dip in the popularity polls in the UK because of his unrelenting attacks on British Petroleum the man is better liked there than he is here and the surveys confirm that.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project surveyed people in 57 countries and found that President Obama's approval ratings have slipped a bit among Europeans, Latin Americans, and Asians -- though he remains quite a bit more popular than George W. Bush was in his final year in office. But I caution anyone to wait a while until Obama is at the same stage in his term. His only term? From my lips to G-d's ears.

Liberals tend to care a great deal about the way America is perceived globally and will doubtless be gratified that their pin-up continues to score well in Brussels and in Timbuktu. They remind us that Thomas Jefferson himself bowed to a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind" when drafting the Declaration of Independence.

However, Jefferson had never attended a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. On June 18, the council voted by acclamation to select Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann to serve on its Advisory Committee. D'Escoto, a defrocked priest who served as foreign minister for Nicaragua's communist Sandinista government in the 1980s, was fully implicated in that regime's multiple and grievous human rights abuses.

This is not D'Escoto's first high-level posting at the U.N. He served as president of the General Assembly from 2008 to 2009, during which time he warmly embraced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and described the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as "atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations." He branded Ronald Reagan as an "international outlaw" and suggested that Israel is "crucifying our Palestinian brothers and sisters."

Well, perhaps the U.N. Human Rights Council isn't the best measure of world opinion. Even stipulating that the U.N. represents only the twisted posturing of a largely unelected, corrupt, and cynical collection of thugs, are global opinion polls useful guides to anything? Did you know that 63 percent of Turks, according to one recent survey, approve of polygamy?

Americans, one suspects, pay far more attention to these global popularity contests than other nations. Can you imagine Vladimir Putin or Hu Jintao poring over these results? Ah, 50 percent of Germans have a favorable view of Russia compared with only 38 percent of Brazilians! Fifty-eight percent of Indonesians like the Chinese, but only 39 percent of Mexicans feel the same! Summon our image-makers!

Obama's most concerted effort since taking office has been to improve America's image in the Muslim world. His first interview was granted to Al Arabiya. He traveled to Cairo to sprinkle the fairy dust, and filmed a fawning New Year's message to the gangsters who rule in Tehran. He has sent multiple envoys, most notably Senator John Kerry, to woo Syria's brutal Bashar al-Assad.

With what result?

As this survey indicates, Obama has achieved very little in terms of popularity in Muslim lands. After a short spike following the inauguration, approval of America has fallen fast. The number of Egyptians expressing confidence in Obama fell from 41 to 31 percent, and in Turkey from 33 percent to 23 percent. The Pew report notes that "Last year only 13 percent of Pakistani Muslims expressed confidence in Obama, but this year even fewer (8 percent) hold this view."

Who knows why so many respondents in Muslim countries are disappointed in Obama? It's possible, based on the way rumors and conspiracy theories metastasize in that part of the world, that many believed he was actually a Muslim Manchurian candidate and have been disappointed so far with the reality.

It's possible they expected a complete repudiation of Israel, rather than the icy disdain this administration has shown. It's hard enough to interpret the views of our own voters -- South Carolina Democratic primary anyone? -- the motives of foreigners are even more mysterious.

OK, popularity is slipping, but perhaps the apology tour/charm offensive has yielded dividends in policy support?

Nah. Not so much.

Syria has clutched Iran even closer to its bosom than before and has recently transferred Scud missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon -- all while the U.S. continues to grovel to al-Assad. Iran is racing toward nuclear status while essentially dropping the fig leaf of "peaceful" energy. Turkey, the Muslim nation with the warmest ties to the West, has accelerated its turn toward jihadism. Brazil has spurned the U.S. by embracing Iran and Turkey.

Machiavelli provides ballast for Jefferson: "And that prince who bases his power entirely on ... words, finding himself completely without other preparations, comes to ruin."

Bordering on the Criminal?

This White House must surely be one of the most mendacious in the history of our nation. When it’s not guilty of outright lies, the half truths, the parsing of words, the double-speak and downright dishonesty are the norm.

When Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona was granted an audience with the Anointed One several weeks ago she was assured that not only would the state’s southern border get 1200 National Guard troops but that representatives of Obama would be down there to see for themselves and report back. And specific dates were given for these activities.

Well those dates have come and gone and neither of those events have happened.

At the same meeting, Obama told the governor that no decision had been made on the possibility of legal action against the state by the Attorney General, Eric Holder and that according to Janet Napolitano, the Director of Homeland Security, the situation at the border was much improved and that crime and illegal crossings were down.

If that is the case, perhaps someone can explain to me why in several wild life reserves and other national parks that same Homeland Security administration has ordered that signs be erected warning people to stay away because of drug cartel activity. And, Oh by the way, those reserves are in Arizona not Mexico. And while we are at it perhaps someone can also explain why off-duty Nogales police officers have been warned by the cartels that they should turn a blind eye to what is going on or risk assassination.

Surely Janet Napolitano went to the border when she was governor of Arizona and when she did she must have seen the human detritus because it’s impossible to miss the discarded clothing, the food containers, water bottles, soiled diapers and human waste left behind. Not to mention the odd Koran or prayer rug but that's a different issue for a different time. And has she not passed onto Obama the tragedy of murdered Arizona ranchers and Border Patrol agents who are regularly shot at?

Then a couple of days ago before Arizona was informed, Hillary Clinton, in of all places Ecuador, decided to make Holder’s mind up for him by announcing that the Feds were going to use the courts in order to overturn SB1070. And if you don’t already know, that is all about Arizona’s right to enforce its sovereign borders and give peace officers the tools they need to do their job.

But I’m sure you do know all that and as Governor Brewer said, “We'll see you in court”.

Despite the fact that the Milwaukee City Council and its School Board have decided to join in with the “boycott” of things Arizonan, we’re not done yet.

Since SB1070 was signed into law, Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona’s 7th District has paraded a succession of children in front of anyone who will listen and we have been subjected to their tearful testimony about their plight as native-born Americans of illegal parentage.

Well we can stop that as well by applying the full weight of the Constitution's 14th Amendment which states that. “ All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Before we go any further, it’s important to understand the event which brought this Amendment into being which was the ending of slavery at the end of the Civil War. The importation of slaves from across the Atlantic had ended in 1853 and clearly most of the slaves still extant had been born in this country and, equally clearly, were subject to its jurisdiction.

But that is not the case for the children of illegal immigrants any more than it is for the children of foreign diplomats who are born here. Therefore, it is clearly legal and constitutional to deny birth certificates to these so-called anchor babies. And in the vain, but almost certainly futile hope, that Milwaukee will not increase it’s clamor about racism it’s interesting to note that several countries around the world have enacted similar legislation in their own countries and for the same reasons including the British in 1994.

And let’s see what Obama, Holder and Napolitano do about it.

Nobody loves me, Everybody hates me ........

If my dislike and distrust of Obama’s regime and its policies were not founded on such visceral disagreements, I might feel sorry for the guy. But they are and I don’t.

Sometime last week, Obama and the new British Prime Minister spoke on the phone as the latter asked the former to ease up on the bashing of “British Petroleum”. This attack, and that’s how it has been perceived on the right side of the Atlantic, has caused a sea change of opinion with regards to the Anointed One’s popularity. Not that they get to vote but Obama will take adoration wherever he can find it.

All day yesterday, media outlets were hyping the first address to the Nation from the Oval Office. And then it happened and the White House waited for the flood of plaudits from the likes of MSNBC and the New York Times. And they waited, and they waited ……

Almost to a man, the Left lambasted it and with good cause. Even Olberman and little Chrissy and Maureen Dowd and David Gergen could not be relied on for a good word. So when he of the tingly leg votes merely “Present” and when the socialist Brits turn their backs, where is a narcissist to go?

According to a national poll out today there is one demographic group that remains loyal. With people making less than $2000 per month support for Obama is resolute. Of course, they don’t pay income tax and they get most of the actual and proposed benefits and so that may have something to do with it.

But now let’s take a look at the speech but before we do, let’s review this regime’s success so far.

Unemployment is close to 10% despite the pledge to hold it at 8 if the “stimulus” package passed.

Our balance of payments and the subsequent national debt is twice as bad as it’s ever been even under the evil Bush.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae failed on Obama’s watch and directly because of Democratic policies.

We spent billions bailing out the auto industry and we got what?

As anyone in any border state can tell you the flow of illegals into this country goes unchecked and unabated while states like Arizona are castigated for doing the job the Feds won’t do.

Obama's bowing and scraping tour of the Middle East did not end Islamic terrorist attacks on the US as witnessed by the "Panty Bomber" last Christmas and the attempt in Times Square last month.

And for Code Pink, we are still in 2 wars.

So why on Earth should the American public feel good about Obama’s ability to lead on anything or deliver on his promises?

Instead, taking Rahm Emanuel’s mantra to heart, Obama decided to use this crisis to his political advantage and push for passage of “Cap and Tax” legislation in the Senate. Would somebody tell me just what is “clean, profitable energy”? If such a thing existed or was even on the far horizon, would we not see Exxon Solar or Chevron Wind? Those corporations are not in the business of oil. They are in the business of profit for their stockholders. And you don’t have to drill anywhere in order to find sun and wind.

And he was so proud of his moratorium on ocean drilling. But, think about this; Right now there are 33 very expensive oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico but, rest assured, the companies that operate them will not allow them to sit idle for very long.

Instead they will be redeployed, perhaps to Mexican or Venezuelan waters, and we will have taken another step towards European fuel prices. And the wells they drill will still be in the Gulf.

And, by the way, if the oil industry deserts the Gulf, 120,000 jobs will go as well.

How’s that Hope and Change working for ya?

Hmmmm! Note to Self..........

Monday, Bloody Monday!

That is surely the sentiment being echoed by the supporters of England in the World Cup. But for others it was a great weekend..

But for still more; in fact for most of the world, it’s not so good.

Some have been sounding the alarm about this government’s mounting debt for decades. In the past, they were generally dismissed as alarmists crying wolf. Today, however, most Americans clearly hear the lupine claws of national debt scraping at the door.

More and more Americans now share the unpleasant feeling that our nation (indeed, the entire Western world) has edged up to some sort of fiscal precipice.

Moreover, the concern is not sparked by a specific policy or confined to a particular demographic or interest group. According to the polls, a clear majority of Americans now expect our military might to fade over the next two decades. By a three-to-one margin, they believe their children will inherit a country on a downward trajectory. Nearly half say it is no longer possible for a person to work hard and become rich.

As Obama admitted at Carnegie Mellon University recently; there is a growing “sense that the American dream might slowly be slipping away.” Unsurprisingly, trust in government has cratered. “Just 22% say they can trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time,” the Pew Research Center recently found. It’s among the lowest ratings in half a century. Congress now suffers the lowest favorable rating (25 percent) in a quarter century of Pew surveys.

Call it the New American Malaise. Is malaise justified? You betcha’. Consider these facts.

Soon foreigners will own a majority of our debt — and we are getting deeper into hock to them every day. Last year marked the single largest expansion in government debt ever. Federal debt alone accelerated past the $13 trillion mark last week. Obama’s own budget forecast reflects a cock-eyed optimism about our fiscal future, yet even it projects total U.S. debt will rise from 2009’s 53 percent of GDP to 90 percent by 2019. And most economists will tell you that an economy can handle between 30 and 40 percent debt as a percentage of GDP. But a nation’s economy starts to get into trouble when that ratio gets up around 60 percent of GDP. When it gets up to 80 percent of GDP, basically an economy can’t handle that for very long.

The day of reckoning may already be here, according to a new study by the International Monetary Fund. It pegs our “general government gross debt” for 2010 at 92.6 percent of GDP. By 2014, the IMF estimates, government debt will pass the 100 percent–of–GDP tipping point (hitting 106.4 percent to be exact) and keep on going.

To forestall a Greece-like fiscal catastrophe, the IMF says, lawmakers must act now to reduce government debt by more than $1.6 trillion. Instead, Congress is looking to pass an “extenders” bill that will run up hundreds of billions more in debt. And the economic consequences are severe. Each 10 percent–of–GDP increase in debt, the IMF has found, slows economic growth by 0.25 percentage points per year.

Another just-reached tipping point makes it harder for Congress to paper over its excess spending. Social Security is now operating in the red, six years earlier than expected. Until recently, Social Security payroll taxes were Uncle Sam’s cash cow, subsidizing other federal programs to the tune of $100 billion–plus annually. Now, all those revenues — and then some — are needed just to cover each month’s Social Security payments.

For now, it’s debt and more debt, as far as the eye can see. And debt is expensive. How expensive? Interest on the national debt will triple over the next six years, to approximately $600 billion per year. By 2017, interest payments on the debt will exceed federal spending on education, energy, transportation, housing, and environmental protection combined.

But the real malaise makers are tipping points that suggest bigger government and higher taxes may be irresistible: Last year, 47 percent of all American households paid no income taxes. (It was only 32.6 percent in 2007.) Soon a majority of Americans may see government spending as a free lunch — a fount of more and more benefits that costs them nothing.

The government’s role in our health sector is growing so fast that before long, government programs will account for a majority of all heath-care spending. By 2012, nearly three of every four American children could be eligible for government-run health care. Can we really “bend the health-care cost curve” down when so much health care is “free”?

USA Today recently identified “a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.” As a share of personal income, paychecks from private business are now at an all-time low, while government-provided benefits have never been so high. Unions now represent more government employees than private-sector workers. It’s no accident that public-sector unions have injected themselves forcefully into virtually every recent state and federal battle over taxes and spending. Their interests are higher taxes and bigger government and it really adds up.

Preliminary research for the Heritage Foundation’s next Index of Dependence on Government indicates that dependency increased more in 2009 than at any time since the Jimmy Carter era. The largest spike in dependency came in the areas of health and welfare. As dependency soared, economic freedom waned. Last year, the United States fell from the ranks of “economically free” nations, according to Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom. Today we are the Land of the “Mostly” Free. The prime reason for our historically poor showing: our internationally high levels of debt, spending, and taxation.

But do we really need to act now, as the IMF suggests? Europe has been a slow-motion fiscal train wreck for decades. Don’t we have at least that long before we need to get serious? Maybe not.

Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson recently challenged the conventional wisdom on what he describes as “a theory of imperial rise and fall” whereby empires “appear, rise, reign, decline, and fall according to some recurrent and predictable life cycle.” Under this theory, the decline of empires is “slow-acting, with multiple causes.”But, Ferguson asks, what if history is not cyclical and slow moving but arrhythmic — at times almost stationary, but also capable of accelerating suddenly, like a sports car? What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night?

Indeed, Ferguson recounts the history of decline in empires as geographically and chronologically distinct as ancient Rome, the Bourbon monarchy in France, the British Empire, the Ming dynasty in China, and, of course, the Soviet Union. Ferguson contends that these empires dissolved rapidly, often within a single decade. The fall, moreover, often stems from “sharp imbalances between revenues and expenditures, as well as difficulties with financing public debt.”

The implications for the U.S. are profound and alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly, indeed, as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2009 of more than $1.4 trillion — about 11.2 percent of GDP, the biggest deficit in 60 years — and another for 2010 that will not be much smaller. Public debt, meanwhile, is set to more than double in the coming decade, from $5.8 trillion in 2008 to $14.3 trillion in 2019. Within the same timeframe, interest payments on that debt are forecast to leap from 8 percent of federal revenues to 17 percent.

This fiscal weakness may not be the proximate cause of a crisis, but could work to weaken a long-assumed faith in the United States’ ability to weather any crisis. Ferguson concludes with a sober warning:

But one day, a seemingly random piece of bad news — perhaps a negative report by a rating agency — will make the headlines during an otherwise quiet news cycle. Suddenly, it will be not just a few policy wonks who worry about the sustainability of U.S. fiscal policy but also the public at large, not to mention investors abroad. It is this shift that is crucial: a complex adaptive system is in big trouble when its component parts lose faith in its viability.

Conservatives must not only acknowledge the severity of our current situation, but prepare and promote serious alternative policies to fend off precisely the sort of sudden and cataclysmic financial meltdown of which Ferguson writes. Malaise won’t cut it. Only swift, wise fiscal action will do. And the really worrying thing is that Obama and the Democratic led Congress don’t get it. Indeed they seem hell-bent on making it worse as the fiscal projections indicate.

How’s that Hope and Change working for ya?

A Liitle Interlude for the Weekend

Here is something to help make Obama's speeches almost tolerable. Just print out this page, distribute it to friends, listen... And follow the directions below.

Rules for Bullshit Bingo:
1. Before Obama's next televised speech, print your "Bullshit Bingo" card.
2. Check off the appropriate block when you hear one of those words/phrases.
3. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout "BULLSHIT!"

Testimonials from past satisfied "Bullshit Bingo" players:

"I had been listening to the speech for only five minutes when I won." - Jack W., Boston

"My attention span during speeches has improved dramatically." - David D., Florida

"What a gas! Speeches will never be the same for me after my first win." - Bill R., New York City

“The atmosphere was tense in the last speech as 14 of us waited for the fifth box." - Ben G., Denver

"The speaker was stunned as eight of us screamed "BULLSHIT!" for the third time in two hours."

Angles - Both Acute and Obtuse

Any regular reader of this Blog will know that I normally stick to national events with a few excursions into Arizona politics and, every once in a while, into international stuff.

But today I venture into another state’s affairs. In fact two, but more of the second one later.

First let’s look at Nevada and the primaries there earlier this week.

Clearly my interest is that one of the incumbent senators is Harry Reid who is way past his “Sell By Date”. His opponent in November will be staunch conservative Assemblywoman Sharron Angle who swept from also-ran status to a stunning political upset that pundits said would “long be remembered.

”"We have completed the first step to taking back our U.S. senate seat," Angle told supporters. "We need to say to Harry Reid, you have failed and you are fired."

Now according to Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, “It’s no big deal”. But just as soon as she finished whistling past the graveyard, her diminutive buddy, little Chrissy chimed in with his take and denounced the Tea Party as a bunch of old, armed, dissatisfied white people.

But there is another point of view and without little Chrissy's inherent bias.

“The Tea Party can take a lot of the credit for this upset,” Larry J. Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics said. He added Angle’s come-from-behind victory “will be long remembered.”

“And I think it tells us something about the tea parties,” he added. “The tea party doesn’t just want candidates who agree with them on the issues. They really want an authenticity. They want someone who’s totally outside the establishment, someone who doesn’t reek of politics as usual, and that’s what they have with Sharron Angle, who’s of, by, and from the grass roots.

And Harry Reid wanted to run against her -- now we’ll see if that was a good choice.”

Angle is a former teacher and five-term state representative. She sponsored the Proposition 13 measure in Nevada that put a hard cap on future property tax increases.

Reid is expected to portray her as an extremist out of touch with mainstream politics. On her Web site, Angle supports closing down the U.S. Department of Education because she considers its federal role in education unconstitutional. And that’s not going to sit well with government unions.

So even though Angle appears to have an 11 point advantage over Reid who knows what Democratic voters will stand for?

Consider the Palmetto State otherwise known as South Carolina. The Democrats there just selected one Alvin Greene as their candidate to confront Senator Jim DeMint even though Mr. Green is still facing an obscenity felony charge.

Even more than that, poor Mr. Greene is functionally illiterate, didn’t campaign and it isn’t clear to me that he knows what he’s running for. The first time I heard about this I thought it was a spoof but then I watched the obnoxious Keith Olberman last night …….

If Olberman had found himself up against a Republican interviewee he would have taken him apart shred by shred without regard for the person’s inherent inadequacy. Heck, he tried it often enough with President George W. in absentia.

Perhaps, the saddest part of the whole thing and not just for poor Alvin but for the democratic voters of South Carolina as well, was his truthful assertion that he got 59%.

Exit polls indicated that Mr. Greene won because his name was at the top of the ballot.

A Wealth of Stealth

There are many, many examples of this but I’ll make the question as easy as I can.

What did Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Cuba have in common?

Well that’s easy enough I’m sure. They all became one-party dictatorships.

Now here’s a follow-up question which may not be quite as easy. What was the first action of these one-party leaderships? And, if you want to throw into the mix Venezuela and the People’s Republic of China that’s OK too.

In every case they took drastic action to restrict the press and other media outlets to proclaim the party line and the party line only.

Even England, which is often regarded as the cradle of modern democracy, still has a mechanism which used to be known as a “D Notice” and is now called a “DA Notice” which stands for “Defence Advisory Notice” and it is an official request to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of national security.

There have been similar attempts here especially by the Left to do something similar. Lately there have been calls to revive the “Fairness Doctrine” in reponse to the actual and impending demise of several newspapers and the success of the Right as personified by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.

Well, I can tell you this, I watched a Bill Maher hosted show last Saturday and there was no attempt on that program to present anything other than a glowing endorsement of Obama and his policies thinly disguised as humor.

And that’s OK because I don’t have to listen to it. Just like I didn’t have to listen to Al Franken on Air America of blessed memory.

Then there was the attack by the Obama Regime on Fox News in order to freeze out this lone voice of conservatism among the news channels. This was brought to a screeching halt by the other news outlets who recognized that they could be next.

I was reminded of the shock and surprise that would be seen on the face of a lion if the rest of the herd of wildebeest came to the rescue of their downed colleague.

In any event, Obama’s back-door attempt to control the media failed as behind it all, there is a nasty little impediment called the “First Amendment to the Constitution” which among other things says “Congress shall make no law ………………..; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ……

We already know that Obama and his regime don’t revere the United States Constitution the way they should nor in the way their predecessors have. Has Obama forgotten that he promised to preserve, protect and defend that very document?

Of course we know that to a Chicago lawyer, a sworn oath means nothing and we also know, because he’s said it, that he regards the Constitution as a hindrance to his ideology. But he’s stuck with it or is he?

Enter the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with a 47 page report examing the possibility of granting “tax exempt status” to those newspapers who “report correctly”.

Can you spell “Pravda” or “Volkischer Beobachter”?

Fuzzy Math, Fuzzy Logic or just Fuzz

Not that I planned it, but yesterday’s post provides an excellent segue into today’s.

This morning Obama hailed the monthly unemployment numbers as some kind of triumph for his administration’s programs.

I'm sure that the Obama faithful will applaud but today's market didn't and with due cause.

Now, as I’ve wondered before, is the man naïve, or is he a liar or is he stupid?

Let’s see if this little analysis will help answer that question.

Today’s number revealed a gain of 431,000 jobs in the previous month. Great, right? However, all but about 10% of those were temporary government jobs for the work of the census. And they’ll go away very soon.

Perhaps the sooner the better because all government jobs do is to cost the rest of us money.

Take for example a pretty low-level government job which pays $45,000 per year. Do you wanna take a stab at how many “real” jobs will be needed to pay the taxes to fund that paycheck?

Well it’s about 10; so in order to fund 100,000 government positions there must be 1 million taxpayers in the private sector. Now, according to this month’s numbers we’re going the other way to the extent that we’re completely upside down. At the very least, perhaps we can live with 1 one government job for every 9 in the private sector.

But flip-flop those numbers and disaster awaits and that’s where we are.

And this is where yesterday’s post and this one intersect because the European mindset and the Obama model show frightening congruence.

If the answer to a nagging unemployment problem is to create more government jobs then maybe everyone should work for the Feds. Now don’t think that hasn’t been tried because it has and it has failed miserably every time. Take a look at the old Soviet Union or Mao’s China or today’s Greece.

So I go back to the question. Is Obama naïve, stupid or a liar? Or is he trying to destroy this country deliberately?

Or What?

And you can provide the “what”.

An Epiphany of Sorts

Some people who read this Blog know that I was not born in the United States. And I ask you, dear reader, to indulge me for this one post. Or, you could ignore the whole thing and wait for the next one.

On December 10, 1915, Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech at a gathering of the Knights of Columbus at which he said,

“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism…. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.”

Now you may wonder if I’m about to launch another assault on the subject of illegal immigration but I‘m not.

What I am going to do is to personalize the sentiment expressed by Teddy and this all really crept into my consciousness slowly but in the last few weeks it blossomed with a bang and I’ll attempt to tell you how and why.

A few weeks ago, I picked up European friends from the airport and we went for dinner on the way home. As I know Arizona law, I did not take my trusty Glock 23 into the restaurant but left it in my car. Perhaps predictably, one of the people demanded to know why I was armed.

Now, just saying that I was exercising my Second Amendment right wouldn’t have cut it so I ignored the inherent barb even though I do hold a Concealed Carry Permit.

I knew that the issue was unlikely to be left there and would be raised again with the implicit scorn of European “superiority”.

Even so, it was with no glee that I read of the gunman in England who yesterday killed 12 and wounded many more before turning the weapon on himself. On the phone later my friend protested that no one would weed their front yard with a firearm strapped to their hip, so what use would more lenient ownership legislation serve.

Well, actually I would if I’d already heard that a crazed killer was on the loose in my neighborhood.

But this is the modern European mindset. It is the same mindset that, when asked who was primarily responsible for his safety stated that, it was the police.

You have only to look at the mess in Greece to see that Europeans, by and large, want to turn to government for everything and the sad thing is so far they can. My friends extolled all the programs they were receiving and couldn’t understand my opposition based on the fact that I wanted to know who was paying for them.

There were several more issues which divided us but none more than this, perhaps best exemplified by the following.

On June 11, the soccer World Cup competition starts in South Africa and the very next day the United States is pitted against England. I will be rooting for my country, these United States and that will be regarded as treasonous by some.

Put bluntly, Teddy was right then and he’s still right now.

Let Nation Speak Peace Unto Nation

For reasons I don’t pretend to understand, suddenly a couple of days ago, I seemed to have become the unofficial spokesman in Scottsdale for the state of Israel.

Clearly, the question was the interception by the Israeli Defense Force, (IDF) of the so-called “humanitarian” flotilla from Turkey to the Gaza.

When I spoke to a friend in England it was obvious where he stood based upon his understanding which he had gleaned from his local news outlet, primarily, I’m guessing the BBC....

That same person had visibly bristled when, in the past, I had suggested that that previously respected organ of independent reporting wasn’t anymore and hadn’t been for years. But I sensed that and I tried to respond accordingly even when he demanded to know what the United States was going to do.

Now given Obama's reticence to do anything but bow when faced with a foreign situation, my suspicion was not much. But I felt the need to say something and so I came up with this snappy rejoinder.

“So what would you expect Israel to do”, I asked.

And his response to mine was, “I knew you’d say that”.

Now that kind off lucid intercourse isn’t going to get us too far in this debate or any other for that matter. So perhaps it’s time to establish a baseline for discussion. And then we’ll see where you stand as will I.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but Israel isn’t exactly the flavor of the month in the Middle East. Even before 1948 its very presence started wars and since 1948 that pattern has continued on and off.

Yeah, Yeah, you say, I know all that but let’s get to Gaza.

Very well, let's but please allow me one other bit of more recent history.

About 5 years ago, Israel was pressured into ceding the Gaza to the Palestinians and it did. The reaction of the Arabs was to trash a vibrant flower industry as well as the rest of the area’s agricultural infrastructure.

Then in 2007, Hamas became the defacto government in the territory and celebrated its ascendancy by launching rocket attacks into Israel. Those rockets were not accurate but Hamas didn’t care about that. They are terrorists by definition whose modus operandi is terror. So it didn’t matter to them what they hit; Jews, Arabs, Christians, citizens, tourists, whatever.

More than 5000 years of history have taught Jews many things and patience is one of them. But there is a limit.

Most of Gaza’s border abuts Israel but a little in the south is next to Egypt. That nation did not want to be identified with the Gaza-generated violence and so it scrutinized carefully any and all material destined for the frontier.

But that left the ocean which is what the latest hoohaw is all about.

Upon the refusal of all Arab countries and the UN to monitor shipments into Gaza, Israel was forced to establish a naval blockade for its own protection. A line was drawn and publicized and the “boatilla” was just the latest among many to try their luck.

Before I go any further, Israel has always permitted unlimited food and medical supplies into Gaza. I’m sure that instinctively you know that but just in case.

Until fairly recently Turkey has been as close to a friend as Israel has in the Arab world. But, even there recent developments such as the emergence of “IHH” which is a branch of radical Islam is barely kept in check by the military-backed government.

And it was “IHH” that financed and equipped and manned the “boatilla”.

Even after warnings by Israel before they left and during their voyage, they crossed the line and the IDF was left with no choice but to intervene.

Now, let’s assume for a moment that 8 small boats needed 600 crewmen. And let’s assume they were all necessary and let’s assume the cargo was all legit why not sail into Ashdod and save some broken heads and lives.

But no, the “crews” decided to fight and some got killed.

I can hear my British friend now talking about “International Waters.”

Really.

So Kennedy should have waited for the delivery of rockets to Cuba?

So, when England was in a war against Germany, what difference did it make to the U-boats what kind of water they were in?

As I said earlier, “What choice did Israel have?”