WTF

It is with regret that I write this, as, while I want to see a change of "furniture" in the Oval Office, I love to watch the man twisting in the wind.

The last few months have been a nightmare for Obama and that time has deeply unsettled the ruling liberal elites, so much so that even the Left has begun to turn against the White House. While the anti-establishment Tea Party movement has gained significant ground and is now a rising and powerful political force to be reckoned with, many of the president’s own supporters as well as independents are rapidly losing faith, with open warfare breaking out between the White House and the left wing of the Democratic Party.

While conservatism in America grows stronger by the day, the forces of liberalism are growing increasingly weaker and divided.

Against this backdrop, the president’s approval ratings have been sliding dramatically, with the latest Rasmussen daily tracking poll of US voters dropping to minus 22 points, the lowest point so far since taking office. While just 24 per cent of American voters strongly approve of the president’s job performance, almost twice that number, 46 per cent, strongly disapprove. According to Rasmussen,, 65 per cent of voters believe the United States is going down the wrong track, including 70 per cent of independents.

The average of all the polls now has Obama at over 50 per cent disapproval, a remarkably high figure for a president just 18 months into his first term. Strikingly, the latest USA Today/Gallup survey has Obama at just 41 per cent approval, with 53 per cent disapproval.

There are an array of reasons behind the stunning decline and political fall of the man, chief among them fears over the current state of the US economy, with widespread concern over high levels of unemployment, the unstable housing market, and above all the towering budget deficit. Americans are increasingly rejecting Obama’s big government solutions to America’s economic woes, which many fear will lead to the United States sharing the same fate as Greece.

Growing disillusion with this regime’s handling of the economy as well as health care and immigration has gone hand in hand with mounting unhappiness with Obama’s aloof and imperial style of leadership, and a growing perception that he is out of touch with ordinary Americans, especially at a time of significant economic pain. Obama’s striking absence of natural leadership ability (and blatant lack of experience) has played a big part in undermining his credibility with the US public, with his lackluster handling of the Gulf oil spill coming under particularly intense fire.

On the national security and foreign policy front, Obama has not fared any better. His leadership on the war in Afghanistan has been confused and at times lacking in conviction, and seemingly dictated by domestic political priorities rather than military and strategic goals. His overall foreign policy has been an appalling mess, with his flawed strategy of engagement of hostile regimes spectacularly backfiring. In addition, as for the War on Terror, his administration has not even acknowledged it is fighting one.

Can it get any worse for Obama? I do hope so. Here are 10 key reasons why Obama is in serious trouble, and why his prospects are unlikely to improve between now and whenever.

1. The Obama presidency is out of touch with the American people

The Obama presidency increasingly resembles a modern-day Ancien Régime, extravagant, decaying and out of touch with ordinary Americans. The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip to Spain at a time of widespread economic hardship was symbolic of a White House that barely gives a second thought to public opinion on many issues, and frequently projects a distinctly elitist image. The “let them eat cake” approach didn’t play well over two centuries ago, and it won’t succeed today.

2. Most Americans don’t have confidence in the president’s leadership

This deficit of trust in Obama’s leadership is central to his decline. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll “nearly six in ten voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country”, and two thirds “say they are disillusioned with or angry about the way the federal government is working.” The poll showed that a staggering 58 per cent of Americans say they do not have confidence in the president’s decision-making, with just 42 per cent saying they do.

3. Obama fails to inspire

In contrast to the soaring rhetoric of his 2004 Convention speech in Boston which succeeded in impressing millions of television viewers at the time, America is no longer inspired by his flat, monotonous and often dull presidential speeches and statements delivered via teleprompter. From his extraordinarily uninspiring Afghanistan speech at West Point to his flat State of the Union address, Obama has failed to touch the heart of America. Even Jimmy Carter was more moving.

4. The United States is drowning in debt

The Congressional Budget Office Long Term Budget Outlook offers a frightening picture of the scale of America’s national debt. Under its alternative fiscal scenario, the CBO projects that US debt could rise to 87 percent of GDP by 2020, 109 percent by 2025, and 185 percent in 2035. While much of Europe, led by Britain and Germany, are aggressively cutting their deficits, the Obama administration is actively growing America’s debt, and has no plan in place to avert a looming Greek-style financial crisis.

5. Obama’s Big Government message is falling flat

The relentless emphasis on bailouts and stimulus spending has done little to spur economic growth or create jobs, but has greatly advanced the power of the federal government in America. This is not an approach that is proving popular with the American public, and even most European governments have long ditched this tax and spend approach to saving their own economies.

6. Obama’s support for socialised health care is a huge political mistake

In an extraordinary act of political Hara-kiri, Obama leant his full support to the hugely controversial, unpopular and divisive health care reform bill, with a monstrous price tag of $940 billion, whose repeal is now supported by more than 55% of likely US voters. As was written before, the legislation is “a great leap forward by the United States towards a European-style vision of universal health care, which will only lead to soaring costs, higher taxes, and a surge in red tape for small businesses. This reckless legislation dramatically expands the power of the state over the lives of individuals, and could not be further from the vision of America’s founding fathers.”

7. Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill was weak-kneed and indecisive

While all of the spilled oil in the Gulf has now been thankfully cleared up, the political damage for the White House will be long-lasting. Instead of showing real leadership on the matter by acing decisively and drawing upon offers of international support, the Obama administration settled on a more convenient strategy of relentlessly bashing an Anglo-American company while largely sitting on its hands. Significantly, a loll of Louisiana voters gave George W. Bush higher marks for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with 62 percent disapproving of Obama’s performance on the Gulf oil spill. And isn’t it delicious when Obama goes to Brazil a few days ago and endorses that country’s efforts towards deep ocean drilling and, what is more, offers US help.

8. US foreign policy is an embarrassing mess under the Obama administration

It is hard to think of a single foreign policy success for the Obama administration, but there have been plenty of missteps which have weakened American global power as well as the standing of the United States. The surrender to Moscow on Third Site missile defense, the failure to aggressively stand up to Iran’s nuclear program, the decision to side with ousted Marxists in Honduras, the slap in the face for Great Britain over the Falklands, have all contributed to the image of a US administration completely out of its depth in international affairs. The Obama administration’s high risk strategy of appeasing America’s enemies while kicking traditional US allies has only succeeded in weakening the United States while strengthening her adversaries.

9. President Obama is muddled and confused on national security

From the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the War on Terror, President Obama’s leadership has often been muddled and confused. On Afghanistan he rightly sent tens of thousands of additional troops to the battlefield. At the same time however he bizarrely announced a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces beginning in July 2011, handing the initiative to the Taliban. On Iraq he has announced an end to combat operations and the withdrawal of all but 50,000 troops despite a recent upsurge in terrorist violence and political instability, and without the Iraqi military and police ready to take over. In addition he has ditched the concept of a War on Terror, replacing it with an "Overseas Contingency Operation", hardly the right message to send in the midst of a long-war against Al-Qaeda.

10. Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness

Obama has made it clear that he doesn't believe in American exceptionalism, and has morphed apologies for his country into an art form. In a speech to the United Nations last summer he stated that “no one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.” It is difficult to see how a US president who holds these views and does not even accept America’s greatness in history can actually lead the world’s only superpower with force and conviction.

There is a distinctly Titanic-like feel to the Obama presidency and it’s not hard to see why. The most left-wing president in modern American history has tried to force a highly interventionist, government-driven agenda that runs counter to the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and limited government that have made the United States the greatest power in the world, and the freest nation on earth.

This, combined with weak leadership both at home and abroad against the backdrop of tremendous economic uncertainty in an increasingly dangerous world, has contributed to a spectacular political collapse for a president once thought to be invincible. America at its core remains a deeply conservative nation, which cherishes its traditions and founding principles. Obama is increasingly out of step with the American people, by advancing policies that undermine the United States as a global power, while undercutting America’s deep-seated love for individualism and freedom.


We all remember that "Hope And Change" was the hype in 2008. It is rumored that the 2012 slogan was going to be "Winning The Future" until someone pointed out the initials spelled out "WTF".


My sentiments precisely! 

The Mugwump in the Oval Office

As the UN imposes its “No-Fly Zone” and as Gaddafi counters with a supposed Cease-Fire while combat still continues, it’s hard to know how the whole mess will turn out but it’s valuable to examine the possibilities in some detail.


"I don't think anybody disputes that Gaddafi has more firepower than the opposition," Obama said at a recent White House news conference.


"I believe that Gaddafi is on the wrong side of history. I believe that the Libyan people are anxious for freedom and the removal of somebody who has suppressed them for decades now. We are going to be in contact with the opposition, as well as in consultation with the international community, to try to achieve the goal of Mr. Gaddafi being removed from power,” Obama offered in response to journalists’ questions.


First, the comments at his news conference were most revealing. Let us examine that supposition: Is Gaddafi on the wrong side of history in the Arab world and are the Libyan rebels on "the side of the angels?


You do not have to get too far into Princeton scholar Bernard Lewis’ many penetrating histories and analyses of the Arab world and Islam before you recognize a pattern. For 1,400 years, we have seen an unvarying succession of rulers—Beys, Deys, Wazirs, Sultans, etc.—who have held power in this vast region. None has come to power through anything like the consent of the governed. Pericles of Athens? No. The Roman Senate? Not in the least.


The history of this region is replete with one strong man after another who came to power through force and who remained in power so long and only so long, as he had the ruthlessness to kill or exile any rivals for power.


So when Obama tells us that Gaddafi is on the wrong side of history, we have to ask: Whose history? Muammar Gaddafi is certainly not out of sync with the unbroken history of his region and culture.


Second, Napoleon’s cynical comment that “God favors the side with the larger artillery” seems at least worth considering here. Napoleon may actually have had greater artillery support at Waterloo than his British and Prussian foes, but charging, bayonet-wielding British and Prussian infantry nonetheless defeated him.


We have yet to see in the ranks of the Libyan rebels, who seem to spend much of their time dangerously firing their rifles in the air, the kind of discipline, skill, and determination required to take down an entrenched tyranny.


Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, the hapless James R. Clapper, put his chips on Gaddafi’s surviving in testimony before Congress last week.


The White House was at pains to “walk back” Clapper’s statements, but he clearly said he expected Gaddafi to prevail.


Third, and this is most intriguing, where does that “wrong side of history” idea come from? Obama was at pains to tell the National Prayer Breakfast of his conversion experience. He certainly sounded sincere. However, “The Wrong Side of History” trope is drawn from Karl Marx. It presumes that there is a dialectic—a great impersonal, inevitable force moving through time and space. It presumes that history is going one way. Thus, to Marxists, you can be “on the wrong side of history.”


Not all “wrong siders” must be Marxists, of course. At the beginning of the 1990s, it was fashionable among big thinkers to speak of “the end of history.” It seemed then to some that democratic free enterprise systems had proven themselves superior by defeating Nazism and outlasting Communism and that there would be no reasonable debate about the future shape of governments and economies—only a variety of ways to get there.


That was before 9/11. That was before the U.S. and the Free World were confronted with a global conspiracy against religious freedom, constitutional government, and human rights.


We should have confidence that we must and shall prevail over jihadism. But one cannot say that our victory is assured by some inevitability of history. Ronald Reagan often said that every generation has the task of defending freedom. That task now falls to us.


Talk of the “wrong side of history” can only induce passivity. And it also invites the charge of arrogance. After all, who is this president to decree which way history is going?


So far, the history of this administration in foreign policy has been one of muddling through. It’s hard to be on “the “right side of history”, if such there is when most of the time you are straddling the fence.


This brings me at last to the "Mugwump" which is a mythical creature that spends its life sitting on a fence with its Mug on one side and its Wump on the other.


Or, in Obama's case concentrating on college basketball, a fact not overlooked by the European press and elsewhere. 

Ittai

I was born just before World War II and there is no doubt that some early experiences color my life to this very day. One was, and is, the Holocaust and the other is the treatment of Allied prisoners by the Japanese in Asia.

So I admit it, neither Germany nor Japan is my favorite nation. And, I remember when the now-dead Japanese emperor paid a state visit to London. The parade route was flanked by ex-POWs of Japan and, as Hirohito passed, they turned their backs.

However, Why no video of looters in Japan?

Japan's prime minister calls the 9.0 earthquake and the following tsunami the greatest crisis in Japan since World War II. Ten thousand people are feared dead. Millions are without power, and millions sleep outdoors in cold weather. But, we haven't seen looting. So this question was posted on Facebook and Twitter and the comparisons with Katrina and/or Haiti were inevitable.

"Race is not an issue," one said. “Third World countries like Haiti loot due to poverty. Japan is like America, an economic superpower. Plain and simple."

"Poverty equals crime" is the standard "plain and simple" explanation, especially to the left. The analysis contains holes big enough to drive a Hummer through.

In the "economic superpower" called America, we see widespread looting following natural disasters, as well as during power blackouts, "civil unrest" and basketball team victory celebrations. If we attribute this to American poverty, what about Japanese poverty?

"Japan Tries to Face Up to Growing Poverty Problem," read the headline of a 2010 New York Times article. Here are excerpts:

"After years of economic stagnation and widening income disparities, this once proudly egalitarian nation is belatedly waking up to the fact that it has a large and growing number of poor people. The Labor Ministry's disclosure in October that almost one in six Japanese, or 20 million people, lived in poverty in 2007 stunned the nation and ignited a debate over possible remedies that has raged ever since.

"Many Japanese, who cling to the popular myth that their nation is uniformly middle class, were further shocked to see that Japan's poverty rate, at 15.7 percent, was close to the ... 17.1 percent in the United States, whose glaring social inequalities have long been viewed with scorn and pity here. ...

"Following an internationally recognized formula, the (Labor Ministry) set the poverty line at about $22,000 a year for a family of four, half of Japan's median household income. Researchers estimate that Japan's poverty rate has doubled since the nation's real estate and stock markets collapsed in the early 1990s, ushering in two decades of income stagnation and even decline."

If Japan's percentage of people living below the poverty line is about the same as ours, and if poverty causes crime as has been suggested, why isn't the crime rate in Japan about the same as ours?

San Francisco's Chinatown in the 1960s became one of the most impoverished areas in California. Public policy professors James Q. Wilson and Richard Hernstein wrote: "One neighborhood in San Francisco had the lowest income, the highest unemployment rate, the highest proportion of families with incomes under $4,000 per year, the least educational attainment, the highest tuberculosis rate and the highest proportion of substandard housing. ... That neighborhood was called Chinatown. Yet, in 1965, there were only five persons of Chinese ancestry committed to prison in the entire state of California."

Two low-income areas outside of Boston -- South Boston and Roxbury -- were featured several years ago in U.S. News & World Report. They had similar socio-economic profiles: high levels of unemployment; the same percentage of children born to single-parent households; and the same percentage of people living in public housing. But the violent crime rate in Roxbury, predominately black, was four times higher than that of South Boston, predominately white.

And, before someone starts yelling "Racism", that statistic stems from one Larry Elder who is a syndicated columnist and is African-American.

Culture and values explain why some countries and some communities experience crime, while others do not. This explains why many students from Asian countries outperform equally "disadvantaged" black and brown students from the same "underperforming" inner-city government schools.

Culture and values explain a 2011 article headlined, "New Zealand Police 'Sickened' at Looting in Quake-Hit City": "New Zealand police said ... they were 'sickened' at a spate of looting, email scams and bogus appeals for charity in the wake of the deadly Christchurch earthquake. ... Lootings and burglaries, including one at the home of a woman feared dead in the disaster, have also been reported, while fraudulent emails soliciting charity donations were also doing the rounds." The Japanese earthquake was over 8,000 times more powerful than the New Zealand quake earlier this year.

Culture and values explain the fear in Egypt and Libya of looting from museums that house precious historical and cultural artifacts.

Culture and values explain why in Los Angeles, a city with a 46 percent Hispanic population and a 10 percentage Asian population, one sees no Latinos or Asians holding up "Will Work for Food" signs. When South Korea played for soccer's 2010 World Cup, the Los Angeles Korean community received permits to view games on big-screen monitors in the streets near Koreatown. The police said the streets were more trash-free after the games than before.

Culture and values are not set in stone. They can and do change for the better -- especially when we accept responsibility and stop blaming bad behavior on poverty. Plain and simple.

And the Japanese word “Ittai” has no direct translation into English but it was used several times when the Japanese Prime Minister spoke to his country. Originally, I believe it referred to the “oneness” of a horse and its rider and that’s as close as I can get. But for those in Lake Havasu, "We're are all in this. We will either hang together or we shall surely hang separately."

Finally, remembering Katrina, where was the strident voice in Japan screaming for their FEMA trailer and their debit card?

A Tale of Two Liberals

Is the man bored or inept or what?


Even little Chrissy Matthews, his principal cheer leader, calls him Barack O'Carter.

The Middle East is burning and Japan is drowning and dealing with the possibility of a nuclear meltdown, U.S. gas prices are at an all-time high, unemployment is still at 9 percent at least, businesses are closing faster than they are opening, Washington has yet to pass a budget for the year, the National Debt is scheduled to hit $15 trillion this year.

So what's Obama doing? Golfing and filling out his bracket for the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament. Democrats and Republicans alike have been looking to the White House for leadership on pressing issues both domestically and for foreign policy options and have been met with nothing.

Yet they, and we, should not be surprised when Obama wastes his weekly radio address talking about gender inequality in this country. Note that gender inequality is OK in the Islamic world because, I assume, it’s their cultural norm just like most of the Shariah myths.

In the Illinois legislature, then State Senator Obama voted "present" 129 times. Today, he seems to be voting present on two major issues, Libya, the budget and anything else that requires a decision which may have consequences

National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told reporters last Thursday that the United States and other nations have "taken a range of steps ... to squeeze Gadhafi, to isolate him, really turn him into a pariah."

Ooh, that’ll really bring him into line!

Then I came across two others way of looking at it.

Two liberals, two views.

One said, the Libyan leader must and will go because Obama said so.

The other said that Gadhafi will tell him to pound sand and there is a lot of sand to pound in Libya.

But the steps, or the lack thereof, which the United States has taken may well have bolstered Gadhafi's determination to crush the rebellion against his regime.

On the one hand, we supported the United Nations resolution giving the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to prosecute Gadhafi and his minions. That means we have blocked off any escape route to a safe retirement.

On the other hand, we have interpreted the Security Council resolution ordering an arms embargo as applying to the Libyan rebels as well as the Gadhafi regime.

Or at least that's the interpretation of State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. An anonymous White House source said maybe the resolution doesn't apply to the rebels.

The White House has said the U.S. will send aid to the rebels and that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with their transitional council next week.

Aid, not arms -- a meeting, but (unlike France and Portugal) no official recognition. The president seems to be voting "present" once again.

It is understandable perhaps that he has not chosen to impose a no-fly zone, as Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry has urged -- military intervention is an enterprise with serious risks.

But the hesitancy to recognize the rebels as an alternative to a regime the president has said "must go," as urged by former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, is harder to fathom.

Meanwhile, the news is that Gadhafi's forces have captured cities both in eastern and western Libya that were held by the rebels. Military outcomes are hard to predict, but the time when we might have helped turn the tide against Gadhafi may have passed or be rapidly passing. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate committee he thought Gadhafi would survive.

Obama seems to be voting "present" on the budget, as well. His proposed budget for 2012 failed to address the looming problem of entitlements identified as critical by his own bipartisan economic commission.

He designated Vice President Joe Biden as his chief negotiator with congressional leaders on budget issues, at which point Biden embarked on a presumably previously scheduled seven-day trip overseas. Plenty of practical politicians would regard that as an insult meriting a two-word response with a tough letter to follow.

Meanwhile, the Democrats' claim that they were meeting House Republicans halfway on spending for the remainder of fiscal 2011 was quickly debunked by media fact-checkers, and 11 of the 53 Democratic senators voted against their own budget plan. Freshman Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia even took to the Senate floor to complain that the president was absent from the bargaining table.

The result is that the government is being funded for two- or three-week periods, with deadlines looming, negotiations going on and off -- and no one answering at (202) 456-1414.

One must admit that the issues involved here are difficult. The revolt against the Gadhafi regime in Libya poses hard questions, and even those advocating certain responses, like Kerry and Wolfowitz, admit that there is no assurance that they will work as hoped.

On the budget, the two parties are far apart. The House Republican leadership, responding to their 87 freshmen and to the voters' verdict last November, clearly have the momentum in pushing for additional cuts in spending.

Democrats, who increased spending so sharply in the stimulus package and budget passed in 2009, have principled reasons for resisting and probably hope that a failure to agree followed by a government shutdown will help their party, as they believe happened in the 1995-96 confrontation between Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton.

Voting "present" may be a responsible move for a legislator genuinely undecided about which way to go. But an executive voting "present" is choosing a course with consequences, whether he likes it or not.

"The buck stops here," said the sign on the desk of the 33rd president, Harry Truman, who was quick to make decisions -- sometimes too quick. But this guy ........

First Bumper Sticker for the 2012 Campaign

Perhaps because I’ll soon be in Europe for a visit, I’ve been paying more attention to what’s going on there instead of the Middle East or Wisconsin. And there really are some interesting “goings on”.

As Britain suffered through its coldest December in a century, families were forced to choose between keeping homes warm and feeding their children nourishing meals – thanks to climate policies that have forced extensive reliance on wind power and deliberately driven energy prices skyward.

Barely two months later, the UK’s power grid CEO informed the country that its days of reliable electricity are numbered. Families, schools, offices, shops, hospitals and factories will just have to “get used to” consuming electricity “when it’s available,” not necessarily when they want it or need it. A new “smart grid” will be used to allocate decreasing electricity supplies, on a rolling basis or according to bureaucratic determinations as to which consumers most need available power – mostly from wind turbines that provided a pitiful 0.04% of Britain’s electricity during its coldest days last December.

Meanwhile, the EU’s Energy Commissioner warned that German electricity prices are already at “the upper edge” of what society can accept and businesses can tolerate. Taxes, levies and regulations imposed in the name of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and global warming are forcing companies to relocate to other countries and causing “a gradual process of de-industrialization” across Germany.

Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for a full and independent investigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, its practices and suspect science. The IPCC no longer has integrity or credibility, he said, and some of its researchers “have shown themselves to be fraudsters.”

To all of which, the autocratic European Commission essentially said “Drop dead.” The EU, it decreed, will spend $375 billion (€270 billion) annually to slash CO2 emissions by at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, and 80% by 2050.

Welcome to the Third World, where costly electricity is available only from time to time, at unexpected hours, depending on bureaucratic whims and how much power wind turbines and other “environment-friendly” generators can muster.

Is the USA next in line? The United States is reaping imaginary bounties from its $814-billion “stimulus” spending orgy. It hemorrhaged $223 billion in red ink during February alone – on its way to a projected 2011 deficit of $1.5 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office reports.

Over 13.7 million Americans remain unemployed; another 8.3 million are involuntarily employed only part-time; black unemployment stands at 15.3 percent; and gasoline prices have hit $4 per gallon, foretelling more rough waters ahead for the still fragile US economy.

America depends on abundant, reliable, affordable energy – 85% of it hydrocarbons. Coal generates half of all US electricity, and up to 90% in its manufacturing heartland – versus 1% from wind and solar. Newfound natural gas supplies promise a sea change in US energy supplies and electricity generation. However, oil still powers transportation, shipping and petrochemicals – and in 2010 the United States exported $337 billion to import 61% of this precious liquid fuel.

Thankfully, the Obama Administration, environmentalists and (mostly Democratic) politicians take this situation very seriously, and are doing something about it … according to their parallel universe.

Democrats are willing to trim up to $5 billion from the $3.8 trillion 2011 federal budget (0.15%), while Republicans insist that $57 billion (1.5%) should be “slashed.” As to reducing the deficit by increasing revenues, most of that discussion still centers on raising taxes on whatever “rich” people are still out there. On the energy front, things are truly disconnected from reality.

Unlocking America’s still abundant hydrocarbon resources and unleashing our innovative, hard-driving free enterprise system would generate hundreds of billions of dollars in leasing, royalty and tax revenues for federal, state and local governments. It would put millions back to work … help staunch the flow of red ink … keep tens of billions of crude oil spending and investment in America … and create enormous new wealth, instead of redistributing a dwindling pool of old wealth.

We must drill safely, use fuel more efficiently in vehicles and power plants, and get more from every underground reservoir. And we could do so, if government would allow it.

Just consider the incredible revolution that the genius of American capitalists has presented the world: hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” to tap previously inaccessible oil and gas deposits. This technology has turned “depletion” and “sustainability” claims upside down. It has already doubled US natural gas reserves and given North America over a century of recoverable gas, at current consumption rates.

It is also unlocking oil wealth in the vast Bakken shale formation of Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan. Oil production there has already soared from 3,000 barrels a day five years ago to over 225,000 today. The US Energy Information Administration says it could reach 350,000 barrels a day by 2035; industry sources say it could top a million barrels by 2020. Related oilfield employment has soared from 5,000 to over 18,000 in the same five-year period, and could eventually reach 100,000 jobs. At $100 a barrel, even 350,000 barrels a day could mean $1.6 billion in annual royalties, from Bakken oil alone.

The new Made in America technology is already changing energy, economic and political landscapes in Europe, and will soon do so across the globe. It is a technologically possible and economically affordable solution that generates bountiful jobs and revenues – as opposed to pixie dust solutions that require perpetual subsidies and address speculative problems. Offshore and ANWR drilling could do likewise.

Unfortunately, the White House, Environmental Protection Agency, Interior Department, and too many in Congress, courts and state legislatures are determined to restrict and obstruct this hydrocarbon revolution. They want to select business winners and losers, force America to convert to expensive, subsidized, unreliable, land-intensive wind, solar and ethanol power – and tell people how much energy they can have, and when.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is using groundless claims about possible groundwater contamination to delay fracking operations. Because Congress rejected cap-tax-and-trade, she has rewritten the Clean Air Act to label plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide a “pollutant” and restrict CO2 emissions from power plants, refineries and other facilities. That will further increase energy costs for families and businesses, forcing more companies to lay more people off or close their doors – even as China and India build new coal-fired power plants every week, sending global CO2 levels higher and higher.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has shut down leasing and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, put tens of thousands out of work, ignored court orders to end his moratorium, and issued decrees that make millions of additional onshore and offshore acres off limits to drilling. He has blocked exploration in ANWR because its oil riches won't make us energy independent (as though even massive wind, solar, ethanol and electric car programs would do so).

Obama wants oil, gas, coal and electricity prices to “skyrocket,” to make “green” energy appear more attractive. Energy Secretary Steven Chu wants to “boost the price of gasoline to levels in Europe” – over $8 per gallon! Most of all, these anti-hydrocarbon politicians want a self-sustaining political-environmentalist-industrial-public sector union complex based on government subsidies to favored industries and companies, in exchange for campaign contributions that will keep them in power.

And don’t even bother bringing up nuclear energy. That idea was thoroughly quashed years ago and just when you think you’ve heard it all, some liberal greenie today was on record saying that he hoped that the seismic disaster in Japan does result in a nuclear accident or better yet a Chernobyl-style meltdown for obvious reasons. And you’d better believe that if one is saying it, a whole lot more think it.

This palpable, intolerable insanity must end. It’s time to tell Congress and the Obama regime we need real energy for real jobs, real revenues and a revitalized America. And we need it now.

Yep, I do .......

If you’d blinked at the wrong moment earlier this week, you may well have missed the official announcement from the Obama regime that a keystone, cast in concrete, gilt-edged, kosher for Passover, promise of the 2008 election campaign was being ‘thrown under the bus’.

Gitmo is not closing and military trials of suspected terrorists will continue as will long-term detention without trial.

Not surprisingly, the sycophants in the mainstream media did their level best either to ignore this announcement completely or to put a positive spin on it by emphasizing the job creation for the US officials charged with housing these thugs. And the New York Times went one better when they managed to blame it on President Bush.

Up until now our liberal scribes and pundits have savaged the Bush administration as being a privacy-shredding, terrorist-suspect-abusing tyranny on the march. Now that Obama is in charge, they lamely suggest that "the government" has failed, but with no president's name attached in the blame game.

For years, the media insisted that the terrorist holding pen at Guantanamo was a horrific stain on our global reputation. It was a "cancer" (CBS's Bob Schieffer) and the networks uncritically aired Amnesty International quacks denouncing it as "the gulag of our time." Any denunciation had the words "Bush" and "Cheney" inexorably attached.

But now the outrage has died, and the story is being downplayed, since the Evil Bush is no longer the target. Take the case of Gitmo prisoner Ahmed Ghailani, who participated in the U.S. embassy massacre in Tanzania in 1998. When the federal judge crippled his trial in mid-October by omitting a witness, ABC and NBC skipped over it. "CBS Evening News" offered an anchor brief, with Couric calling it a "big setback for federal prosecutors." Nothing was attributed to the Obama administration.

On Nov. 17, when Ghailani was convicted on one count and acquitted on 284 others, Couric did call it "a major setback for the Obama administration." But by the next morning, CBS anchor Erica Hill was back to the generic: "The verdict is in for the first Guantanamo detainee to be tried in a civilian court, and it is being seen by some as a serious setback for the government."

NBC acted like this was barely news. "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams glossed over it for about 100 words: "There's a split verdict tonight in the case of the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in a civilian court, and it's being seen tonight as a message to the Justice Department that these Gitmo terrorism cases are going to be hard to prove."

A terrorist walks on 284 out of 285 charges and Brian Williams calls that a "split verdict."

The next morning, "Today" also disposed of the story in 40 seconds, but at least Ann Curry used the O-word: "The decision could undermine President Obama's plan to put other Guantanamo Bay detainees on trial in civilian courts."

ABC tossed off a few sentences on their evening newscast, with anchorman George Stephanopoulos admitting, "This is something of a setback for the Obama administration."

But ABC's Jake Tapper was the exception to the rule on "Good Morning America" with a full news report that let critics speak. He balanced an anonymous administration spokesman strangely boasting that Ghailani had been "incapacitated" with Rep. Peter King's statement that this "demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration's decision to try al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts."

What all this underscores yet again is that all of the liberal media's tub-thumping for civil liberties and against Guantanamo sounds a lot less principled and a lot more partisan. Why was it a "gulag" at Gitmo under Bush, and not Obama? Why was Bush "undermining civil liberties," and Obama isn't?


Because parents always come to the defense of those they created. 


Heaven only knows, the media created Obama.


And, as English judges used to say as they donned their black caps before handing down a death sentence...........


"And may G-d have mercy on your soul.

One and One are Two. Two and Two are Four .................

I have no doubt that my view is biased but when people try to tell me that elections are pointless because "all politicians are the same" without regard to their party stripe, I disagree. There is one difference as far as I’m concerned and moreover, it says a lot.

Conservatives do Facts. Liberals do Feelings.

Here is a prime and recent example of the latter by the Democratic Congressman from Illinois’ Second District, one Jesse Jackson Junior, the son of the Rainbow Coalition’s rabble rouser and extortionist-in-chief, the Reverend Jesse. Anyway, here is the chip of the old block on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday.

“Mr. Speaker! I believe that the answer to long-term employment is in the United States Constitution. Well, let me say that a little differently.  It's not in the Constitution of the United States - it should be in the Constitution of the United States. And one of these days we're going to get there.

We need to add to the Constitution the right to a family to have a decent home.  What would that do for home construction - in this nation?  What would that do for millions of unemployed people?  We need to add to the Constitution the right to medical care. How many doctors would such a right create?

We need to add to the Constitution  of the United States, the right to a decent education for every American. How many schools would such a right build from Maine to California? How many people would be put to work building roofs and designing classrooms? Every student with an iPod and a laptop? How many ghettos and barrios would actually be touched by such an amendment?

In fact, very little - that we pass in the Congress of the United States even touches the long-term unemployed. Only thing that touches them that this Congress has access to, that can actually change their station in life, is the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, there is an even greater America that's in front of us. It's the America that adds to our founding documents these basic rights...”

Is there any wonder why our economy is in the parlous state it is when such “Chicken in Every Pot” blather is mouthed by one of those charged with finding the money to keep this nation afloat?

Out of a national debt of 14 Trillion dollars, the Democrats and Obama claim to have seen the light and are trying to fob us off with a cut of 6.5 Billion while those on the other side of the aisle are going for 61 Billion. Clearly that is better but nowhere near to that which is needed. Recently I said so to a couple of liberals and they challenged me to do better “without hurting the most vulnerable in our society”.

“Try this,” I said and I went on to ask three questions.

When was the US Department of Education created?

What is its current budget?

How many children did it educate last year?


OK. Times up! The answers are 1979, 48.8 Billion and 0. That’s right Zero.

You see, I’m a conservative and I do Facts

Education of our children is a function of the states and counties. If you don’t believe me, take a look at your Property Tax bill and see how many of your dollars go to schools. But, if we assume that in 1978 the US Dept. of Education had no budget because it didn’t yet exist and that 33 years later we’re up to 48.8 Billion, simple arithmetic reveals a total outlay of over 829 Billion.

“So for the best part of 1 Trillion dollars, we have not educated 1 child,” I triumphantly but sadly announced.

“But, But,” my liberal listeners spluttered. “It must have helped the education process in other ways besides teaching directly.”

I was ready for that one and I asked two questions in response.

Like what?

Do you really believe that the standard of education is better now than it was 33 years ago or when you graduated?

The Silence was Deafening!

Let My People .....................

And

For hundreds of posts now I’ve tried to find a cartoon to introduce the topic but today’s subject cannot be trivialized. So that explains the picture above and now read on.


Sometimes the stars align and the alignment bodes well and sometimes, according to the astrologers, they don’t.


And right now they don’t.


Thank heavens for the US Supreme Court when, however odious, the Court upheld the rights of the Westboro Baptist Church from Kansas to be repugnant. The First Amendment prevailed as it should have.


Contrast that with the rightful expectation of American citizens to equal treatment under the law. And it’s not just the law, it’s the Constitution.


After stonewalling a Congressional investigation for two years into accusations of race-based law enforcement, Attorney General Eric Holder finally snapped and started flexing the Black Panther tattoo on his biceps in front of his mixed race interrogators.


The Attorney General seemed to take personal offense at a comment Culberson read in which former Democratic activist Bartle Bull called the incident the most serious act of voter intimidation he had witnessed in his career.


I have not edited the following text and so that which follows is theirs, and theirs alone, without grammatical amendment from me. Even though it needs it desperately.


“Think about that,” Holder said. “When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia; which was inappropriate, certainly that…to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people,” said Holder, who is black.


Hmm, is 1960s Alabama on trial today?  Apparently so. Again. As institutionalized white-on-black crime is non-existent these days, Holder feels it necessary to put his thumb on the blind scales of Justice and reconcile the cosmic ledgers against Crackerdom.


Presumably, “my people” aren’t all Americans. “My people” are his people it seems.


Black Panthers making threats and brandishing batons and making racial slurs to voters in front of a Philadelphia polling station on election day are “his people”. Being forced to enforce the laws, that is his function, against “his people” is anathema to what Equal Rights Under the Law means to Eric Holder.


Is Eric Holder the Black Bull Connor? His strident defense of the indefensible grounds would certainly suggest it. Like Connor, his unapologetic advocacy of segregated justice has motivated more people against him than to his side.


This episode, which Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, calls “the most blatant form of voter intimidation I’ve ever seen”—began on Election Day 2008. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia.


One of them, they say, brandished a nightstick at the entrance and pointed it at voters and both made racial threats. Mr. Bull says he heard one yell “You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!”


In the first week of January, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring voters with the weapon, uniforms and racial slurs. In March, Mr. Bull submitted an affidavit at Justice’s request to support its lawsuit.


When none of the defendants filed any response to the complaint or appeared in federal district court in Philadelphia to answer the suit, it appeared almost certain Justice would have prevailed by default. Instead, the department in May suddenly allowed the party and two of the three defendants to walk away.


Against the third defendant, Minister King Samir Shabazz, it sought only an injunction barring him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia polling place for the next three years—action that’s already illegal under existing law.


These are the defendants that Eric Holder identified as "my people". 


In a slam dunk case, waiting for the verdict, he dropped the charges and then has refused any inquiries as to why for almost two whole years.


But now we know. He’s righting historical wrongs from 50 years ago. A lifetime ago. And so is his boss who has the biggest chip or chips I've ever experienced on anyone's shoulder.


Eric Holder should never have been given the job in the first place and, absent that, he should be impeached yesterday and his bigoted reign at Justice cannot be over soon enough. 


As long as The Klan With A Tan is lynching the rule of law, there is no faith in the DOJ while Blind Justice swings from its tree.


It's a good job, therefore, that the Judicial branch of our government understands their responsibilities because the Executive surely doesn't.


And bear in mind that Holder did not take this position alone. Read the latest book of Kenneth T. Walsh where Obama is quoted as saying that “racism is a key component of the Tea Party”.


Yep, he really said it! And I'm darned sure he meant it.