The Rational Jingo

New Blog

2010-09-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

Part political. Part social commentary. A little inane blathering. A smattering of insight. A whole of of opinion.

Cadence Rolls In

Keeping With Last Nights Post

2010-08-19T06:09:00.000-07:00

Looks like my hunch was right. Awoke to this headline. Weekly Jobless Claims Post Surprise Jump, Hit 500,000

Come on, Republicans, no more "all mosque, all the time". It is time to go for the jugular on the economics front.

Obama: Recession Recovery to Take a Few More Years

2010-08-18T18:18:00.001-07:00

On the perpetual campaign trail in Washington, today, Obama stated that wary, financially strapped Americans were going to have to wait a few years for economic recovery.

Wow. Did I hear that right? A few years? What happened to the summer of recovery? The green shoots that surely must be full grown trees by now? Has Obama jumped the shark here? I will be the first to admit Americans have short memories but I am guessing most are going to remember that they have been out of work for two years, when the strip malls in their communities were not boarded up and when they could afford the little luxuries that they once took for granted. Just a hunch.

Assuming this is not Obama's "Fonzi moment", why would he say this? What does he know about the economy that we do not know? Perhaps the next job numbers can not be massaged and we are going to breech the 10% unemployment mark? That would be a huge psychological blow to the American people. It would also be an albatross around the necks of Democrats heading into the midterm elections.

July unemployment was at 9.5%, almost a full 4% higher than July 2008. The Labor Department reported first time claims for unemployment benefits jumped to 479,000 last week from 460,000 a week earlier. The median duration of unemployment has jumped to 26 weeks and is growing. This is already the longest recession since the depression.

Obama concluded his appearance accusing the Republican party of offering cynicism and fear. So, projecting another few years of downward economics and declining standard of living is pushing optimism? It may be, because this country will not recover under the Obama administration. It may not survive a second term.

TOTUS (x2) Hits the Gulf Beaches

2010-08-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

Doesn't everyone pack a couple of teleprompters for an overnight vacation?

Nobody Likes A Freeloader

2010-08-11T08:05:00.001-07:00

You have got to give it to her. If nothing else, the chick has stamina. Hot off the red eye from her Spanish holiday she headed straight to Maryland for a little day trip and impromptu tour of the State House. This is impressive. Travel is exhausting. She is some sort of (un) lean, certainly mean, traveling and eating machine.

According to yesterday's Washington Post : (snip)

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/annapolis/2010/08/michelle_obama_daughter_visit.html

The visit was described as a "private tour" and a Washington Post reporter with an office in the State House was told to leave the building as the Obamas arrived. Other reporters were told they could not enter the building once the tour had begun. Several House and Senate staffers who were allowed to remain inside said they were told to turn away down hallways or into offices as the family passed. Outside a crowd of about 50 onlookers were pushed back three times, ultimately across a roadway.

It seems the nomenklatura act may be wearing a little thin with the American people. Today's Rasmussen shows Obama tied with his lowest approval ratings to date.

www.rasmussenreports.com

Obama Approval Index: -22 (Matches all-time low for this president)
Strongly Approve 24%
Strongly Disapprove 46% (Matches highest for this president)
Total Approval 43%

The Obama train wreck gathers steam. This time with Madame Mo at the controls, her highly inflated self image altering her judgement, blissfully unaware of the wreckage in her path.

All aboard, next stop, the Gulf and Martha's Vineyard.

Juan William: Old and White? Need Not Apply.

2010-08-09T07:20:00.001-07:00

I see a lot of outrage over this statement in the echo chamber. I think Juan is right. Well, a man ahead of his time, let's put it that way. But don't worry, right wingers and libertarians. It surely won't get worse than this.

We Are the Ones

2010-08-07T07:26:00.000-07:00

There is no denying, we are at a pivotal point in, ofcourse, national history but also in our movement to restore the country. As we approach these important elections in November we can expect the ratcheting up of demoralizing and negative spin coming from the leftist favoring media. This is why it is important to remind ourselves and our fellow conservatives, that is precisely what communists do. They try to win via intimidation and overwhelming their opponents.

We are hearing the narrative already. The Tea Party Movement is floundering. We are losing steam. There is in fighting among various components of the movement. The Tea Party Movement is leaderless. Nothing will change with Republicans in charge. We can not possibly gain enough seats to make a difference.

It is easy to fall into their trap. And conservatives do it all too often. Even more important to point out is the idea that we can not allow ourselves to put too much hope in this one election. Conservatives every where are similar. We are not activists by nature. We would simply like to get back to the business of our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Our largest risk is when this election doesn't allow for that, many on our side will be discouraged and shrink from the responsibility we have and in turn, hand the left more power.

We have escaped the nets for a reason. This is our time. This is our moment. We either hold on to everything our forefathers gave us or we lose it all. November is just the begining of a long hard fight. Man up, buck up and hold on to your hats.

Even if a Sex crazed Poodle Wants to Run With the Dogs..

2010-07-30T14:24:00.000-07:00

Well, he has gotta piss with the pack. And when the pack is a group of ruthless, power mad, bad men hell bent on world domination, you better hope you can keep up. When you become a liability to the pack, you are own your own. Such is the lesson Al Gore maybe is learning in recent weeks? Tip: if you are a two bit political figure with fading looks, limited intelligence and really, really limited likability factor, perhaps retiring and taking up an adjunct professor gig would have been a better long term plan. Sales pitch man for a really iffy, junk science based scam to pilfer a huge chunk of western wealth that is apt to be exposed is probably not a safe long term plan.

Two more massage therapists have come forward to expose Al's propensity for chakra healing, standing naked in their presence and asking for "additional services". It seems these latest requests were a little more clear than asking for simple chakra releasing. You have to admit, the unravelling of Al Gore is a little suspect.

I have to question the clarity of thought of the person who first said, "We need a pitch man, any ideas? How about failed presidential candidate and clear lunatic Al Gore?" Perhaps there were reasons we can only suspect. He was probably easily malleable, just corruptible enough and he did seem to have some sort of passion for this sort of anti-progress environmentalism. Having written a book on the topic in 1992, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, he had just enough knowledge on the subject to seem somewhat convincing and trainable in the newer areas of the sciences based on mankind destroying the earth.

And it worked for a while. He made a movie, people went and saw it and went to hear him speak. He won some awards. The fact that he was amassing wealth like a prohibition liquor distiller still didn't seem to dissuade most. He was jetting around the world, leaving a carbon wasteland in his tracks and still the awards and accolades kept coming. Last we knew, he was allegedly reaching billionaire status.

Then it all came tumbling down. Leaked emails from the East Anglia University revealed it was all based on faulty and manipulated data. Then emails surfaced showing cover ups were institutionalized to suppress these facts. Climate Gate, though never covered by the old media, put Al Gore's circus side show in jeopardy. He was being met with ridicule and taunts in airports in city after city. For a brief time, he was not making public appearances.

Here we are a few short months later and Chakra Gate emerges. Coincidence? We can only surmise. While I don't doubt he may have engaged in this behavior, you do have to question the timing.

The Ultimate Game

2010-07-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

The Ultimate Game is a study performed in the 1970s by Werner Guth. The premise is of the game is simple. There are two players. Player One is given a sum of money and told he must give Player Two an open amount. Player Two can either keep the money and both players keep their sum or reject the offer and both players walk away with nothing.

Ofcourse, the only motivation for Player Two to reject the offer is to punish Player One. It is also in Player Two's best interest to accept whatever sum is offered him, knowing he will receive nothing if he does not. Surprisingly, most offers resulted in about half of them money with cooperation and mutual benefit being the outcome.

Now, what gets really interesting and should help you destroy any argument any Marxist can muster is the results where the game was played with fifteen varying tribal societies. The societies that were most closed off, less engaged in trade and more advanced economic systems were the least generous and rational about the outcome.

Machiguerna (slash and burn) farmers from the Amazon averaged just 15% give away. And nearly all would be recipients rejected the offer.1

Players most integrated in modern markets such as the Orma Nomads from Kenya or the Achuar subsistence gardeners of Ecuador offered up nearly half, similar to their western counter parts.

What can we take from this game? That self interest raises all boats. Trade and commerce based on mutual self interest results in more generosity and the more people have access to these ideas and their results, the more people will prosper and work in cooperation. Self interest was the motivating force in the cases were the people gave more, not altruism.

1. Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist-How Prosperity Evolves (New York: Harper Collins, 2010) 87-88

Did You Receive Your Donated Polish Blanket in the 1970s?

2010-07-04T05:34:00.000-07:00

I had a political conversation that other day with someone who seemed to think that the youth of this country seemed inclined toward Marxist ideas because they see their own parents unfulfilled by materialism and the chase of material pursuits. I begged to differ. The problem, I explained back, was that we had a youth that knew nothing else. They have only a perspective of relative affluence (typically, the wealthier the more attracted to these ideas the youth can be). It is an issue of perspective. I explained most of the world would sever a limb to come to the this country and "not be satisfied" with all we have.

It's easy to it on your western engineered computer in your ergonomically correct chair with your $5 organic Chai tea in your $45 Abercrombie shorts and fantasize about a Gilligan's Island existence because you have to go to work on Monday morning. There is a reason why a young girl from the Chinese countryside will take a job in a sneaker factory working fourteen hour days and sleeping on a cot in a room with a dozen other Chinese girls working the same job. The fact we are so wealthy we 'measure consumer confidence' while a hundred nations still measure water production, food, and other neccessities is mind boggling when you think about it.

Forget freedom for an instant, assuming we have a contingent of people who have little concern or understanding of freedom. From a purely material perspective, how do you make people understand what it would be like once you cross that line? How do you teach those lessons without all of us having to endure the lessons and hardships in real time that would be the most effective teachers and leave the strongest impressions?

Listening to Alex of the Hyphenated American Blog Link being interviewed on the Jimmy Z show it became obvious to me that we have a valuable resource of American citizens who carry with them the experience and stories of life behind the Iron Curtain and other various utopias around the world. Most of them do not have blogs or the compulsion to tell their stories but as they age we run the risk of losing these stories and real world testimony.

I urge these people to tell their stories. They do not need to be harrowing tales of the Solzhenitsyn variety, sometimes it is the simple stories of day to day life that are the most striking. I have good friends who are immigrants from Poland. They are of the age to remember it all and they are the biggest advocates of freedom one could meet.

A story, Garajnia, the wife of the couple, told one year over Christmas dinner sticks with me. She spoke of the "blanket drives" they were forced to partake in. Polish families were forced to donate blankets for the "poor and disadvantaged" children left on the cold streets the in oppressive capitalist United States.

"Imagine" she said, "here we were, not a pot to piss in, giving away our blankets. Blankets that we often needed. Because, you know, consumer goods were not easy to come by, even if you could afford them."

"Did you believe any of it?", I asked "Did you know we had so much and that it was a complete lie?"

"Yes, we knew, she said but we went along with it anyway. What else could we do?"

People like this are a valuable resource and an underutilized tool in our toolbox. If you know someone like this, urge them to tell their stories, especially to our youth. If you are one of these people, spread the word. Write, lecture, preach and educate. Time is short and patriots are few.

The Most Efficient Destroying Machine

2010-07-02T05:38:00.000-07:00

Economic warfare. By far. It has historically been the most effective tool of the tyrant. A type of warfare that has typically been waged against a perceived enemy ginned up by the state. This manufactured hatred gives the state the green light to squash the "enemy" as the protected and threatened segment of the population feels almost obligated to allow it to occur because after all it is in their or the country's defense.

We need to only look back as far as Stalin's war on the kulaks. Kulaks were the higher income earners of the peasant farmers who, many times, had land holdings. They resided in the Ukraine which was the "bread basket" on the former Soviet Union. Because they held land and were independent economically they were not easy converts to the forced collectivization and seizure of their property. Their independence and rebellion was a thorn in Stalin's side and it had to be crushed.

Crushing them was a multifaceted plan. First, they needed to be perceived as the enemy. It is interesting to note that the peasant populations of Russia had little to no ideas of the kulaks as a class until Communist propagandists began the program of implementing the idea into the heads of the people. Ofcourse what was considered a kulak was a moving goal post and could change at the whim of the power holders. Hiring labor, owning any amount of land deemed "abnormally" high at any given time, commercial farming and money lending were just a few of the revolving door of offenses to have one deemed an enemy of the people and a kulak.

Step one, define the enemy. Complete. Fairly easy to do when rousing the common human emotions of envy and greed.

By 1928, the Soviet Union was experiencing food shortages. The solution by 1929 was forced collectivization of the farms. In very short, the land and animal holders rebelled and the state squashed the rebellion. Purge after purge was introduced. The death count has never been able to be calculated. However, the resulting famine and horror undoubtedly led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, as many imprisoned and forcibly relocated and millions of ruined lives as well as a culture and way of life destroyed.

This was economic warfare and famine used to decimate political enemies. People who stood in the way of "hope and change". This is a very abbreviated account and entire books have been written about this engineered famine but the formula is the same the world over. Case in point, the communist regime, Khmer Rouge, in Cambodia who engineered a class of people known as the "New People". Again, a changing cast of characters consisting of sometimes city inhabitants, educated people, businessmen or anyone with foreign contacts. The same formula was used in Mao's China.

It is extremely important to educate ourselves and others about the tactics used by the left historically and to look around us today and look how those very same tactics are being used today. There is nothing new under the sun. The left may be relentless in their pursuits but they can never be accused of being creative or original. They aren't hauling people off to the gulags because they do not have to, the resistance isn't there. But, they are focusing in on and isolating their enemies. And economic warfare is being fully implemented to break the backs of these enemies. The economy isn't recovering, because it isn't supposed to. It might be hard to wrap your head around but if you believe in the individual, have anything to lose and honor American principles and traditions -- you are in the crosshairs.

The Left Can't Lead - Who Knew?

2010-06-03T02:00:00.000-07:00

I am reading commentary after commentary of shocked journalists and politicos who are just astounded to find out -- Obama can't lead. He's a flounderer, a staller, a back bencher and an incompetent. Do I inhabit an alternative universe? No one saw this coming?

Obama is a media created myth who is more than likely a puppet for far more sinister forces. Problem is, those sinister forces have a belief system rooted in Marxism also. I do not know if they are any more capable than he. It's easy to destroy things. Much harder to govern and develop functioning systems that keep the people out of the streets with burning pitchforks. Much harder to extinguish that burning fire for freedom that exists in so many human beings.

Most importantly for leftism to exist, even in it's more democratic forms, anywhere in the world it needs, at least, one engine of productivity to cling it's parasitical claws into. We were that engine.

The plans for global governance, carbon taxes, control of free information and pillage and plunder of the American middle class, while reliant on chaos, left out one large factor. Reality. Real live, big problems are building and building. They require a leader who has real executive and leadership experience. One thing is clear, this puppet is lost. The entire Potemkin Village he has built around him in Washington appears to be equally as lost. Deer in the headlights.

The left only operates from a position of strength from the sidelines and armchair quarterbacking. Ginning up class envy and creating divisions is what they do best. Those are skills that are safely practiced from a position of non-leadership and taking on the status quo. That is why leftism, historically, is a revolutionary movement. Beyond the revolution, it falls apart. Then it is either reforms to free market solutions, mass imprisonments, deaths and tree bark soup for dinner or huge segments of underground economies that go, largely, ignored.

To know the future we must remember the past. Obama's decisions are rooted in his leftist ideology. His lack of decisions are because leftism holds no answers for the problems he faces. He is building with a faulty blueprint and old, used unstable foundation in a neighborhood of houses that were built on the same. Problem is, all those houses collapsed some time ago and the left refuses to acknowledge that fact.

Strange Wind Blowing

2010-05-26T02:48:00.000-07:00

There is a strange wind blowing, can you feel it? I am reminded of the old, supposedly, Chinese proverb, "may you live in interesting times". There is no mistaking that, the times they are a' changing.

Europe is disintegrating right before our eyes. A fabricated construct of people who do not even necessarily like each other, not only, from country to country but sometimes, even, region to region. In it's ashes we will probably see the emergence of a hard left. The Europeans will never abort communism - they, after all, they invented it. Our notion of "saving" Europe from communism was a seventy year foolish quest, which will now end. They lust for communism, and they will get it sooner than anyone thinks. It is 50 years too late and justly deserved.

North and South Korea are on the brink of war. Nuclear powers, both. Let us not forget we have 28,000 troops on the border of North Korea and we currently have no leadership. None. What happens when Korea goes hot and 28,000 US troops are caught in a crossfire with no leadership or support from Washington?

Oil is leaking into the gulf, Israelis are performing frequent and serious bomb shelter drills with their citizens, The US is on the verge of economic collapse, Japan is even worse off , Venezuela is taking full advantage in South America and I do believe we are nearing the first battle salvos of the war of the Southwest, if they haven't occurred already.

The world is going to hell and Obama is driving us there on the short "green" ethanol fueled bus. Not only that, without getting too much into his psychology, which is an endlessly fascinating subject for me, Obama is giving the impression of someone who is about to unravel.

What does America look like when the dust settles? That is the question that determines the fate, not only, of Americans but of the entire world. America, the concept, is an anomaly, not just in recent history but in human history. Actually, the American 20th century was entirely an abboration in the history of the world. Think about this, at one time we had 80% of the world’s GDP and not even 10% of the world’s population. Americans really have been spoiled like no other people with peace, prosperity and a bubble that allowed a spoiled warped perception to take hold.

All that is ending. We will lose our innocence and ignorance in the next decade. Serious damage is being done to the country.
Most places, you can’t walk outside, or turn on your television and see the damage yet, but it is most certainly taking place. This is a battle to determine which belief system will prevail—individual freedom, or “shared sacrifice”.

They do not call it communism when it comes. Communism starts in meeting halls and in union marches. It won't come with tanks rolling down the streets or midnight raids, that all comes later. Today's communist party consists of about 25 people and a xerox machine. Almost nobody is a formal communist any more. By virtue of leftist infiltration of the educational system going back 70 or more years, people have been taught to believe everything the communists believed in, while laughing at the idea they are communists. Mere use of the label provokes laughter.

This is the international globalist communist revolution the left planned for since it's inception. The chaos all around it is it's oxygen. Freedom is very fragile and Americans, by-and-large, have grown extremely arrogant. Much more prideful than the founders and more than our own grandparents who feared and loathed communism for good reason.

---KMBR

Have Rickshaw Will Travel

2010-03-25T04:19:00.000-07:00

Waking up is getting dicey these days. I wake from one Obama Marxist induced nightmare to the next on this oddly unbumpy road to the "total transformation of America". Today I woke to a news report that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood "has announced that federal transportation policies will no longer favor “motorized” transportation, such as cars and trucks, over “non-motorized” transportation, such as walking and bicycling".Link. Yup, as we always knew, they are coming after our cars next. Because what is more symbolic of American liberty than the automobile? That's right, nothing.

How am I going to get the groceries home from Costco on my bike you ask? They have an answer for that also in Totally Transformed America. It comes from the granddaddy of societal transformation and planned sustainable living, the Soviet Union. It is called the CommieBloc™ apartment housing. It will be close to work and near public transportation. And because food will become so prohibitively expensive, you will never really be buying in bulk anyway. Soon you'll be paying $5 for about two ounces of jelly just like the Europeans. You Americans are all too fat anyway and, really, you never did spend enough of your discretionary income on food.

I am thinking of those great societies that bike and walk as a main mode of transportation. Mao's China, North Korea. Folks, this is typical 3rd world and 2nd world mobility. For those of you who haven't watched this youtube I urge you to.

This is Obama's vision for our future. A great Leap Forward to the 19th century.

It's Time To Start Using the C Word

2010-03-23T01:15:00.000-07:00

Communist. Use it. I employ it every time, here in Sweden, when asked how I like Barack Obama. People need to see it for what it is. Socialism is just a small pit stop on the long or short road to Communism. Socialism is not an end goal. Given enough time and no one left to keep it in check, it will always lead to hard totalitarianism.

What is happening to Americans today is very foreign to most. People like me having been sounding the alarm bells for years but, even I, sure as I was had my moments of doubt that it was actually happening here and to us. Americans have that certain sense of naivety and optimism. An unyielding belief that "it can't happen here". There is no denying at this dark moment, it is happening.

I can promise you that as you look to the system to correct itself and get us back on course, our system and laws of governance are being dismantled. I read blogs and media outlets speaking under the assumption that the government is still there, still listening to them, still guided by the constitution. That is the voice of the naive and those that still have not grasped the magnitude of what has transpired in this country.

We are losing our country. This is happening. This is not just a bad administration that we have to endure for four years while we go on drinking our Starbuck's and watching American Idol. We have never had a cabal of communists in power and a huge segment of the population that has been ideologically contaminated by methods of subversion. Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had a healthy contingent of Americans who understood the basic pillars of our society and were versed in American exceptionalism.

Not so today. We sat back as they infected our schools and popular culture. We watched as they taught our children we were bad, our system was bad, that communism wasn't really that bad. We let them intimidate us when they called us McCarthyites and laughed at us for being stuck in the "cold war mentality". You allowed them into your homes while your children performed energy audits and as the cartoons sunk the messages into their impressionable heads. We allowed it all to happen. Well, because, hey, it can't happen here. The Wall came down, every body is drinking Coke and watching re-runs of Friends.

It all looked so normal. Meanwhile, they were busily infecting and replicating, spreading their diseased way of thinking. Even so, they still do not have all of us, not even most of us. Many of us escaped the nets and many are old enough to not have been exposed to the mindwashing. However, they know they do not need a majority. Through history they've never needed a majority. They know they only need a healthy enough sized group of fellow travelers, true believers and useful idiots. What they rely on is our cowardice and aversion to risk.

It is time for all good American's to once again answer their country's call because I can assure you the communist's in our halls of government woke this morning, looked around , saw no resistance and took that as a sign to press on. The speed at which we fall increases with every achievement of the collectivists. Now is not the time to be sheepish or intimidated. If more and more Americans don’t fully grasp just how desperate our situation is, and rapidly, their complete victory is imminent. We then become just another leftist country to be fitted for one world government shackles.

You Say Freedom, They Hear FREE

2010-03-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

We all need to be Francisco d'Anconia now. And we are going to need a few Ragnar Danneskjölds also. Readers of Ayn Rand should understand what that means.

There is just not much else that can be said. Thought, but not said.

Until Socialist Amerika collapses. America, the great experiment, is over.

"Prepare to get schooled in my Austrian Perspective"

2010-03-15T06:01:00.000-07:00

Do You Know What a SDR Is?

2010-03-13T02:11:00.001-08:00

I did not know until just recently. You should know, if you do not. And I guarantee you, if you believe at all in the pillars of limited government that America was built on, this will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand at attention. SDR stands for Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). Think of them as a security, similar to a treasury bond.

The value of SDRs is determined by a mixture of international currencies including the Dollar, the Euro, the Yen, and the Pound.
They are not considered currencies at this writing as it is not something you or I could buy and trade. Make no mistake, SDRs are a world currency. Since the economic meltdown began, SDR circulation has increased 100x.

As countries are quietly dropping their dollars, all the while professing their faith in the dollar, they are lapping up these SDRs. As countries are shedding their dollars, who do you think is suspected to be the largest investor in US treasuries? The Federal Reserve. Yes, it appears we are printing money to buy our own debt to keep the dollar on life support.

BUT, at the same time, we are also investing in the SDRs. The U.S. Treasury quintupled its supply of SDRs in August of 2009. Why would we do that? If we were indeed confident that the US dollar was going to be not only the world reserve currency but also in existence, why would we be investing so heavily in SDRs?

To anyone paying attention, it is more apparent by the days that the structure for a world governance is being set up all around us in broad day light. We are now witnessing the planned, pre-positioned fall of the Republic.

1980 Redux?

2010-03-09T01:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Newsbusters rain an article titled "Dan Rather: Articulate Obama Couldn't Even Sell Watermelons". Link Yeah, that guy. The retired in shame newscaster who was so partisan he actually teared up on television, while reporting, when John Kerry lost. The same guy who had to leave his decades long "journalism" career in shame because he used fabricated documents to to help further that same progressive candidate.

Another article yesterday posted on Yahoo News yesterday, taken from Time, is titled "How Obama is Making the Same Mistakes as Bush". Link Makes one wonder, have we reached he tipping point? Are the liberals getting to the point where they turn on Obama?

Upon further inspection of both articles, it is obvious the liberal media still has no love loss for the Republicans or Bush but they are not puff pieces meant to bolster the anointed one either. Dare I say, they are nearly critical of Obama?

Makes one warm and fuzzy, echoing a time of our last radical Democratic President. The days of the sweater and the gas lines. Twenty one percent interest rates and humiliating foreign incidents. A president, who one minute would be heading out to Camp David to usher in a Peace Accord and micro managing the Whitehouse tennis court the next.

It's 1980 and the left wing in the Democratic Party almost all supported Ted Kenendy in his primary challenge against Carter. It turned into a bitter nasty battle. The party in 1980 left their convention split. Many liberals abstained from the vote by staying home in November, or else voted for the third party, John Anderson. Their anger was palpable. More so than usual.

Bottom line, Carter won the primary and lost to Reagan. The moral of the story, the incumbent never gets thrown over board. The Democrats and their MSM apparatus either go down with the ship, correct course (very unlikely) or fracture. The cracks are beginning to show.

Obama Enlists Emathy Enducers to Flood Talk Radio

2010-03-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

The freakshow that is the Obama administration continues to sink to creepier new lows. They have set up a website designed to encourage their followers to flood talk radio with personal stories. They instruct them to tell "personal" stories illustrating how lack of health care coverage has had an impact on the lives of themselves, friends and family. The website gives them appropriate questions to ask and specific talking points.

You can visit the website at Radio Barack Obama . Yeah, they are still using his name as a promotional gimmick. I can guess this is only a selling point with the diehard kool-aid drinkers at this point.

They've broken it down into three easy steps. It is a clear of an admission as we will ever get that, as far as Obama supporters go, keeping it simple is mandatory. These are many of the same people who couldn't maneuver the Palm Beach butterfly ballot and inadvertently voted for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore in the 2000 election.

The three steps basically tell you, the moonbat, to 1. listen 2. use the approved agit pop supplied by the Obama administration on the website when calling and 3. to report back to the Obama administration what your experience was. There is a bunch of other propaganda for the already seriously deluded, some disclaimer that the website was powered by "hope" and ofcourse, the ever popular, Obama logo.

Creepy. Sad. Pathetic. Desperate. Inappropriate. All adjectives that come to mind.

It brings to light the modus operandi of the Democratic party, though. It's the psychology behind the token victim in every debate or State of the Union address. People prone to emoting hear the tale, see the ad, their mirror neurons fire and they feel empathy. They feel inclined to vote Democrat, support Oprahite policies or, at minimum, become too intimidated to refute them. They want everyone to believe thy are caring people. Hence flooding talk radio with sob stories.

Do those ascribing to leftism have a sort of addiction to the feeling of an empathy induced need to act and then having it satisfied by doing a sort of symbolic act? Is this why they spend time trying to conjure up feelings of empathy for distant people that they can "fix". Is this why they do not seem to give one iota that the cures are so many times worse than the conditions?

That would explain a lot of otherwise difficult-to-understand behavior by the left: (1) the obsession with "caring" and "commitment", (2) the support of candidates and laws that have nothing to do with fixing the "crisis" (3) ritual, symbolic acts that make them feel they have helped the distant people or things (moveon.org meetings), sitting naked in trees in Berkeley (here, the target of empathy is a tree), buying carbon credits (here, the entire earth), voting for a democrat; and (4) the conviction that anyone who does not agree that their symbolic acts are stupid and morally inferior.

Ofcourse, the use of this website to power that addiction to empathy and try and spread it upon the saner faction of the population is just politics as usual. A president afraid of talk radio stooping to new lows of using his less than stable base to do his bidding.

Sycophancy Should Not Be a Resume Enhancer

2010-02-24T04:14:00.000-08:00

"What’s really going on, I think, is that the nature of class war has changed. The old virus has mutated. The old social and political divisions have given way to two new classes — rather as on the trains. Those in economy are most of us, paying for the comforts of those in first class. And those in first class are the new political class — all those who owe their advancement and their security and their pensions and their privileges not to their backgrounds or their talents, or even necessarily their political parties, but to the state and our taxes."

Minette Marrin.

I think she is on to something and though this author is British and writing in reference to Britain the same phenomenon is reaching the shores of the United States. As Americans, we reject largely, the idea of nobility. Particularly special status granted by birth right or favor. We, largely, reject the notion of special status by way of unearned and undeserved privilege.

Yet, we can see it and sense it in the halls of our governments, in the schools of our communities and in the offices of our civic leaders. It is exactly the disgust we feel toward such a system that is fueling the tea party movements. Everyday, ordinary Americans, incidentally the people who have made this country the engine of the world, are recognizing that the world of the ivy leaguer and the VIP by name is worse off than the world would be if ran by Mr. and Mrs. Smith of Main Street. They also see that they are the people solely responsible for funding this orgy of incompetence sure to bring about heir own demise. They are funding their own destruction and they want it to stop.

Americans will entertain the notion of nobility only so far. They accept the movie stars and their offspring living lives of opulence. Maybe because of the knowledge that so many have come from nothing and so many never will enter that stratosphere. Maybe, too, because they receive something in return, diversion and entertainment. They also have a sort of schadenfreude when they see through the tabloid windows that all is not perfect in the lives of opulence. On some level, too, exists a knowledge that their wealth and prestige is earned through some control of the consumer. We choose whether to dish out ten bucks for the latest Brad Pitt box office release or to pay $17 for the Miley Cyrus t-shirt.

We also accept our Bill Gates and Steve Jobs model moguls. Largely self made men or women who won the lottery of life through determination, skill, smarts, timing, intuition and luck. People who, in turn, have brought us products or services that have revolutionized our lives for the better. Again, we got something out of the equation. Millions of others road their backs to lesser but still beyond their dreams standards of living.

However, these new elites -- we gain nothing from their self imposed status. They ride our backs to comfort and prestige. They do not create wealth. Rather, they destroy it. They do not elevate citizens or inspire them to higher levels. Rather, they encourage and institute policies that insure the citizen's own permanent mediocrity in the name of equality.

What is worse, they divide people. They pit one group against another against another to keep the ire and attention directed anywhere but at their own ineptitude and their own lack of greatness. Like bulldozers, they make their way through our society destroying and devaluing everything they come into contact with. They rouse the rabble and on the backs of the poor they claim to represent they ride their first class seats and make permanent offices in their ivory towers.

Like a bolshevik street fighter in the early 1900's, I watch as the public grows weary with the gluttony of the political class. Everyday, more would welcome watching this new nobility stripped of their positions of prestige and be forced to survive in a world where sycophancy is not a resume booster. The world most of us choose to live in.

h/t to Samizdata http://www.samizdata.net/blog/

Unity of an Economically Conservative Cause

2010-02-22T05:21:00.000-08:00

Ron Paul gets a bad rap with conservatives. Mostly because he has a contingent of staunchly ideological supporters who are as equally malcontented as any leftist you will come across. Reading the rabid responses to Paul's victory in the CPAC poll told the story of the chasm that exists with conservatives today. We can nearly all agree on the things we do not want however we cannot come to a meeting of the minds on just what it is we do want.

Instead of , at least, reveling in the idea that people, particularly young people (it was pointed out on FOX this morning that the CPAC poll was influenced by a large number of people 25 and under) are open to the ideas of limited government, abolishing the Fed and the message of our Founding Fathers, posters on leading conservative message boards are throwing out adjectives such as mentally unstable, nuts, kook and whacko. Hardly inclusive talk that is looking for common ground to secure the leadership position in Washington come 2012.

Ron Paul is as clear a litmus test on limited government as we might get for a long time. He has a pro-freedom resume that is solid. Yet, we are told over and over again that he is not conservative because of his "only respond if attacked foreign policy". When did an interventionist foreign policy agreement become the litmus test for conservatism?

True, Paul does not understand radical Islam and the threat it poses to western civilization. Conservatives do not understand we are not going to save western civilization by fighting half hearted wars in countless foreign countries all while Islam proliferates in the capitals of Europe and American cities. Something has to give.

Ron Paul isn't going to win the GOP nomination, but he's bringing new, young fiscal conservatives to the cause. When they come to that cause rather than the leftist dogma they were steeped in from cradle to grave we need to embrace that hope. Not only American youths either. Young minds from Istanbul to Oslo are listening to his message and are hearing ideas they have never heard before. For all their lives they've been bathed in cheap Social-Democratic rhetoric and all of a sudden they have a man talking something that stirs them.

As conservatives of all stripes, we need to come together on the principles of liberty we can agree on. All the other stuff, we can work out later. We must understand this one salient point of history; no republic ever fell due to invasion or due to being conquered from outside. Every single republic, from the beginning, fell due to internal economic policy failures. It is for that reason alone, that Ron Paul cannot be dismissed, even for his other errors.

At this standing Barack Obama can not beat any single unified candidate in the 2012 general election. His 41% strongly disapprove numbers are largely irreversible. A single unified fiscally sound and conservative candidate is unbeatable. The trick is keeping our marriage of convenience together and not slipping into 1992 Perot style defeat. The times are too serious and the stakes too high.

Help Wanted: President of the United States of America

2010-02-16T04:51:00.000-08:00

Coming off the wire from AP today is the announcement that Obama's advisors, in reaction to criticism that he is no longer connecting with the milk cows (that would be us), is reverting back to :

-- More direct rapid response to criticism....

-- More events at which the president speaks directly to the public without the filter of the media...

-- Carefully choreographed interactions with the press. Unlike news conferences that are unscripted and can cover many topics and put reporters in competition with the president for the spotlight, the Obama team is trying to place a premium on its media interactions. (taken from AP article via Fox News Link)

I had to check the calendar. Groundhog Day was a few weeks ago, wasn't it? I was not aware we ever left "campaign mode" so how is it he is retreating back to it? Are we going into "campaign mode" on steroids? It is times like these I am thankful to be out of the country. I rarely have to withstand his appearances.

All this in the same 24 hour news cycle where Al Gore makes his reappearance reaffirming that all things climate are "worse than we thought". It might lead one to conclude that all the leftist indoctrination centers where these folks cut their teeth are only focused on the gaining of power. Things kind of fall apart for them with the actual governing once in power or once things are looking to be going their way. It seems they've only mastered "Down For the Struggle 101" and "Getting the Masses All Hopped Up on Class Envy".

I wish I knew which of his advisors was telling him, "Yeah, we agree with you, it isn't your policies, it's just the fact that the guy who lost his job ten months ago and is losing his house has not really heard your message. Once you can convince him that change is hard and he is just the cannon fodder for this sort of change, he'll get it"

What is telling is that Obama does not perceive himself as doing anything wrong. He thinks he is just saying it wrong. Somehow, he feels, he can convince us. Just like with Iran or jockeying for the Olympics, Obama believes his mere presence solves problems. That is why he feels the need to go to the American people without the filter of the media. Which, incidentally, was exactly what George W. Bush needed to do. It is exactly what Obama does not need to do.

I reckon the American public has seen enough Obama to last them a long good while.

Most of the Americans who do not embrace socialism see him for exactly what he is, an old school radical socialist with the ideals of a 19 year old university student. You have to wonder, does he have one competent advisor to tell him, "Campaign time is over, these are serious times. It is time to lead"?

Hate To Say We Told You So

2010-02-11T03:28:00.000-08:00

Ah jeez, no one saw this one coming. The New York Daily News (Link) reported yesterday that Obama is now "agnostic" on possible tax hikes for households making less than $250,000 a year. The poll on the page shows 81% of readers think it is a terrible idea. I wonder how many of them voted for Obama? Perhaps, it is a great idea. We should all share in the misery of Obamonamics equally, especially people who voted for it. Maybe then, a few more eyes will open a more will see just how far down the road to serfdom they are.

To those who voted for Obama and believed he was not going to raise their taxes, point you to the ever reassuring and motivating advice of Michelle Obama on Good Morning America earlier this week, "Change is hard, no one said it was going to be easy." (That's Obamafamilyspeak for "let them eat cake"). Hmmm, maybe that is why the kids are all so fat, so much Obamanomics cake. See youtube video at about 3:14 mark Link

Obama is quoted as saying, "The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table. So what I want to do is to be completely agnostic, in terms of solutions." Have you ever come across a leftist who had any other solution than raising taxes? Just look to Greece and California, hanging by a thread over the cliff, and the state's only solution in both instances is "raise more taxes". It is like believing the cure to your lung cancer is smoking five packs of Camels a day rather than undergoing surgery and chemotherapy.

No, it is worse than that. It is like just being diagnosed with lung cancer and visiting a ward of people on their death beds who tried the 5 packs of Camels a day treatment and then visiting people who have survived lung cancer by using surgery and chemotherapy and still saying, "You know, I think I am going to go with the Camels route, it's never worked before". It is just that crazy,

Let us contrast agnostic Obama with campaign trail Obama on September 12, 2008 in Dover, New Hampshire: “I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.” How many times did he repeat that? Hundreds, easily.

Obama is finding out what we have known all along. The herd is a bit thin at the 250k and above mark. Oh, and we told you so.

Ich Bin Ein Lemming

2010-02-09T04:10:00.000-08:00

Imagine it is about 1924 in the new Soviet Russian Ukraine and for analogy purposes we have the technologies we have today. Imagine again, for analogy purposes, a tractor company airing an ad that shows Ukrainian and Russian citizens being visited by the "collectivization police". (admittedly, this is asking for a lot of poetic license as there would be no advertising, tractors, televisions or disposable income to support such endeavors in the Soviet Union, but bear with me) Images might be shown of people helping the Ukrainian farmers, farming their own plots of land or tending to their livestock. The "collectivization police" would be shown harassing, roughing up and inspecting the people thought to be engaging in these acts. Incidentally, all three of these examples were deemed illegal in the Soviet Ukraine in the mid to late 1930s by Josef Stalin.

The commercial might then show the Kulaks (displaced Ukrainian farmers) living "special settlements" in the wilderness of Siberia or working on the collectivists farms and the "collectivism police" then happily interacting with the rest of the population who were not considered "enemies of the people". The message, subtle, resistance is futile. Just comply.

Looking back, would we have found humor in the prophetic ad? For satire to work there must be an element of truth and this hit right on the nerve. I fully understand the extent to which the green movement wants to go, not to save the environment, but to nourish their pathology. I have talked to "progressives" who would have no problem with a representative of the federal government coming into your home for an “energy” audit. These people and their useful idiot supporters would welcome the Green Police. I have little doubt enough of them would welcome "green" punishments too.

Ofcourse I am writing in reference to the now highly talked about Audi Superbowl ad. It was a great ad. Albeit, a little disturbing coming from a German carmaker though I am sure the concept materialized on 5th Avenue and not the Unter den Linden. It was for all intents and purpose a brilliant ad that more than accomplished it's mission. It has people talking and thinking. I just wish it ended a little differently.

We were left with the final message that depicted tacit acceptance of green fascism. The message: you need to buy a eco friendly car to avoid getting hassled by the government but it doesn't have to be a goofy golf cart. Look, it can be an Audi! A sort of Neville Chamberlain like approach to fascism.

Sign of the Decline

2010-02-06T03:10:00.000-08:00

News broke last year informing the residents of Phoenix that we were now living in the kidnapping capital of the country. Though it had reached a small decline in 2009, the Valley of the Sun had reached a 10-year high in 2008 with 359 kidnappings. Authorities were quick to try and relieve fears by insisting most kidnappings were related to the drug cartels. However, the metro are was seeing a sharp increase in abductions for the purpose of child prostitution and what is termed as "express kidnappings". "Express kidnappings" are abductions in which victims are held for a short time and either used to extort money from family members or forced to deduct money from their bank accounts.

I do not know what is more disturbing the idea that it is happening or the idea that we are adding slang language to our lexicon to describe these acts. This is how the decline into the third world happens. Not with a single cataclysmic event but with a slow trickle of rot and ruin. Suddenly, we have all adapted.

I would even venture to say if we go third world, the term third world leaves the lexicon. It just becomes the way things are. For the whole world.

Large healthy middle classes are what provide for stability. A country can handle a certain number of very poor people but not a majority. That means the hard working but not overly educated or especially brilliant guy gets to have a decent enough job that gives him something to care about.

The important class is the middle class. All third world countries have a small wealthy class and a vast poverty class. Mexico for example is one of the world's wealthiest nations. The rich class is small but extremely wealthy and decadent. There is a tiny middle class. The majority are very, very poor. Poverty leads to desperation. All the child labor laws in the world will not stop a hungry, amoral and ambitious sort to sell off a mouth that they can not feed. Or conversely to nab one off the street to make a few thousand dollars.

Often making the Argentine analogy, I think it is important to point out that Argentina was once on the trajectory to be like the United States. European immigrants, often times, were torn between choosing the United States or Argentina. It was the world's tenth wealthiest nation in 1915. That should be where the similarities end.

The decline was not sudden as many would lead you to believe. It was a slow death brought on by decadence of ruling European blood lined elites, welfare statism and the borrowing, spending, printing and debt to pay for those welfare statist promises.

I follow the Surviving in Argentina blog with some degree of regularity and I was disturbed to see his February 5th posting was titled Kidnappings in the USA: How to Prepare for Them. Link. He gives the warning that "how suddenly, things that supposedly didn’t happen anymore, like kidnappings, well they do."

Obama Fatigue, Liberty and Political Transformations-Not Necessarily Related

2010-02-01T06:08:00.000-08:00

I am finding myself suffering from Obama fatigue or even just sheer government idiocy fatigue. After watching the State of the Union Address, it appears Obama is poised to continue off the cliff. The only real question remains how many of us he succeeds in taking with him, how much of his agenda can be blunted and what exactly will happen in the 2010 elections. Until then, it is a watching and waiting game. Hoping also. Hoping that enough Americans awake and embrace liberty. But it seems the further one is from true liberty the less they know it's true meaning or can even envision what it would look like in it's practical form.

If liberty were to come, there is even the gamble that many would reject it in it's whole.

Some time ago, I read a piece by Solzhentsyn in which he said many people in this country believed their carefree life would continue on forever, unabated, no matter what they did. It was a keen observation. The way they were raised by parents in a country of unprecedented comfort and wealth that spoiled them. Not only their way of life but an improvement of it was a conditioned expectation. In reality, freedom can not survive irresponsibility.

Socialism and big government foster that irresponsibility. Socialism is an ideology wherein everyone owns each other, but, ultimately, nobody owns themselves. Everyone is owned by a coalition of resentful busibodies, leeches, incompetents, and demagogues. However, the idea of not owning one's self is attractive especially if they are free to engage in vice. Vice is then repackaged as a substitute for freedom.

I would guess it holds true that many conservatives or libertarians can admit to once being more socialist in nature. Growing up in upstate New York I was always intuitively more conservative than nearly anyone I encountered. That being said, the tide all around me was so low, that all things relative, my beliefs were pretty statist, looking back. My first tour of living in Europe cured me of any leftward idealists thoughts I might have. I saw first hand the discrepancy between our lives and what, in reality, was another of the "richest" nations lives. There was no comparison and the backwardness of their societies was palpable.

My abject fear of ever having such a society foisted upon us made me more nationalist, certainly jingoistic. Having the luxury of time I was able to ferret out the differences and feel out the small day to day nuances. For instance, watching as a man refused to move simple box 100 feet because moving boxes was not in his contract was a one day cure-all for any union sympathies I might have had. Also watching my neighbor take a full six weeks off of work for hay fever as he spent his days reading the paper and taking every meal out in his garden was another memorable eye opening observation. Observing human nature as it was, not as I wanted to believe it should be, was key in understanding the failures of collectivism.

As it is, no one talked me out of socialism. Like most, I had children, got a mortgage and saw how confiscatory it was to the typical family. Realistically, it took years to go from "talking point repeating drone" to conservative. Even still my political awareness is evolving. I am still recognizing the places where I accept the premise of an authoritarian big government. The places where, I myself, may reject liberty.

Did Obama Ever Imagine the Tea Party Movement?

2010-01-26T02:14:00.000-08:00

A like minded cyber friend asked this question yesterday and I thought it was something we may have never asked ourselves and, yet, for such a simple question it is incredibly key. I do not think he did. I do not think he planned for them, anticipated them, understands them, gets them, knows how to react to them or has a plan to counteract them. Obama has never faced true conservative opposition before. It does not exist in Chicago. Other warring members of the corrupt Democrat machine? Sure, and he knows how to deal with them.

For a man with maybe slightly higher than average intellect and questionable psychological stability, does he have the stuff to face serious or principled opposition? How will he handle the presumptive scenario of sharing power with a tea party influenced senate or house? He came to power in a state with no real Republican presence, let alone a conservative or principled presence. Remember this is a guy who won his senate seat when his primary opponents were all disqualified for one reason or another.

He tells the story now of having gone door to door meeting the folks and getting his message out. Not so much. He was successful in challenging enough signatures on his opponents petitions to have them disqualified. Including the incumbent, Alice Palmer. Essentially he ran unopposed.

From what we have seen this far, this is not a man who makes compromises. Beyond the Alinksy inspired rhetoric and packaging there exists not much else. I doubt he ever imagined more than a small amount of polite hemming and hawing from the "extreme" right wing that he could easily marginalize and paint as voices from extremists.

His bag of tricks are like pebbles to the kevlar vest of the Tea Party Movement. In fact, they have begun to actually strengthen the movement as they are now proving to work against him. His silk tongued vocabulary and a narcissistic ability manipulate had always outwitted those around him in his circles of the politically correct vacuum of academia and in the snake pit of Chicago politics he was used as a tool by others more cunning and ambitious then he. He simply had to modify the shtick to the new circumstances. If one study his history you'll find that the pattern is essentially the same. All pomp, no circumstance.

He is utterly ill-equipped to hash out an effective strategy for the Tea Party Movement. It is why one day he is populist Obama, the next he is lashing out at Fox News, freezing spending and the next he is on vacation or not heard from for a few days. We have watched him richochet from thing to thing, searching for a strategy and hoping if he throws enough crap against the wall something will stick. With his limited patience and experience, he gives none of it enough time to see if it will work.

Watching his speeches in the last few days, his tone seems more erratic and certainly more paranoid. He keeps making references to unnamed "theys". "They'll say this, they'll say that about Obama". What is November going to look like if the mid-term results come out as unfavorably as they many predict?

It is interesting to note, there are precedents in history for this sort of unravelling. In the mid 1960s Soviet Union, after Khrushchev's policies eroded his popularity, he was put on a little "working vacation". Even in our own history, one have to only look back so far as the 1970s to reference a time when the Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, took on more and more responsibility as the Nixon lost power, sometimes actually omitting Nixon from policy meetings. It is also widely believed that Kissinger, raised the nation to DEFCON 3 without first getting President Nixon's approval, on the evening the Soviets threatened to send troops to th region.

Realizing the situation is fluid and anything can change, he could prove me wrong and turn this thing around. However if we continue on the trajectory that we are on and the American people still reject Obama's cure all potion of Marxist medicine, all bets are off.

Thank You Massachusetts! Thank You Real America!

2010-01-20T02:07:00.000-08:00

'It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well- informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." —Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, January 8, 1789.

Let's revel in this moment, bask in the warm glow of the sun that is the significance of this election before returning to the battlefield. No Republican has won a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts since 1972. Thank you obama. I said, as early as September, obama may turn out to be our biggest asset. ( and my prediction holds true.

Actually, a Republican has not held this seat for much longer than even that.

This particular seat has been filled by Democrats since 1953 when JFK was first elected to fill it. When he left to become president, he was succeeded by Benjamin A. Smith, Democrat, who filled the seat from December 27, 1960 – November 6, 1962 until Teddy was elected in 1962. Teddy held the seat continuously from then until he died, at which time he was temporarily replaced by Democrat Paul Kirk.

The obama administration has officially ended a 57 year reign by Democrats in Massachusetts.

Why Barack Won't Moderate

Despite this slap upside the head, I believe we will continue in this direction with the Obama administration. he won't take this as a cue to moderate, to reread the pulse of the nation or to rethink the country and his agenda. He is the agenda.

To change course and moderate, obama would need to demonstrate a trait that he has thus far shown us he is completely devoid of, humility. Or, at bare minimum, he'd have to be able to fake it really well ala Bill Clinton. He shows little aptitude for that sort of ego hampering expediency that Bill Clinton excelled at.

Also, he is a true believer, something of a purist. This is a guy who did not go to great effort to hide who he was. The American people went to great effort to believe he was something different. He has been very open since his first fundraiser in Bill Ayers living room, he wants to "build coalitions of power to bring about redistributive change." These are his words.

Question is, now hobbling on one leg and limping along, how much fight does barack obama have in him? After watching him for twelve long months, I dare say, not much. Ofcourse a lot depends on the people surrounding him but from this vantage obama is an achiever when the achieving is made easy for him.

Ten Year Old Kid Throws Obama Off His Game

2010-01-18T02:22:00.000-08:00

Here is Obama at a rally Sunday to bolster support for floundering Massachusetts candidate Martha Coakley. And he was not looking too confidence inspiring or presidential. I do not know if it was that the kid threw off his teleprompter timing or if he was that visibly "deer in the headlights" having to face confrontation but he was clearly off his game. That is the game of demonizing insurance companies, the entire finance industry, pharmaceutical companies, coal companies, Tea Party enthusiasts, townhallers, plumbers and truckers. Whew, the list is getting long.

Even more delicious is the idea that obama could not even fill the venue. That is right. The magic man, a few days before an election of such importance, could not fill a 3000 seat auditorium. Reports are that it was somewhere between half to 3/4 full. Meanwhile the Scott Brown rally in Worchester was filled to capacity of 3000 people with another thousand waiting outside. Even more telling, prominent and even left wing media voices are beginning to show cracks in their unwavering support. It is getting too hard to cover for the failure that he is.

Regardless of the outcome in Massachusetts tomorrow, the Democratic regime have got to be scared witless over this wave of voter backlash. They must know that if this can happen in the bluest of blue states, very few are safe. Lacking in any previous management or leadership experience, one wonders how a narcissist like Obama will deal with a major defeat. Judging for this youtube, not very well.

A Somewhat Close to Anarcho Capitalism Success Story

2010-01-14T03:57:00.000-08:00

Ivorian tax-free rebel city flourishes

...Soroland may not be a breakaway zone, but for seven years the inhabitants of this zone have got used to living without government taxes, customs charges and even water and electricity bills...

I have to admit I have a growing curiosity about the ideas of anarcho-capitalism and it's feasibility. Perhaps it grows out of my growing discontent with the state, any state. The idea of anarchy used to bring me images of malcontented youths throwing rocks through Starbuck's windows. Typically, those are socialist anarchists and they do constitute the largest block of anarchist thought.

Anarcho Capitalism is defined as an individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and the elevation of the sovereign individual in a free market. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services are provided by voluntarily-funded competitors such as private defense agencies rather than through compulsory taxation, and money is privately produced in an open market. Because personal and economic activities are regulated by the natural laws of the market through private law rather than through politics, victimless crimes, and crimes against the state are rendered moot.[1]

My interest in AC began after learning more of Taoist thought in ancient China. The Taoists advocated pure freedom from the state, no interference by the state in economy or society. The Taosists were found by a contemporary of Confucius, Lao Tzu. Similarly to the Randian objectivist philosophy, Lao Tzu taught that it was the individual and his happiness was the integral component of a workable and healthy society. He had a healthy distrust of centralized governments and rightfully so as he lived in a time of turbulence, violence and abusive state power.

He was especially critical of the war making ability of the state. " "The people hunger because theft superiors consume an excess in taxation" and, "where armies have been stationed, thorns and brambles grow. After a great war, harsh years of famine are sure to follow."

His basic tenet is familiar to libertarians. Keep government simple and inactive. The antithesis to what we are witnessing in the United States and most of the world today.

It would certainly take a seismic shift in thinking, one perhaps brought about by calamity. Argentina shows a prime example of the state dissolving into anarchy. Areas of Mexico, the favelas in Brazil, many other countries are in the terminal phase of statism. It too idealistic to hope that in the face of government failures we will see more people running from government, instead of running to it for solutions? The example above, coming from Africa of all places, gives one a glimmer of hope.

Double Billing

2010-01-13T05:30:00.000-08:00

Obama is said to be making the announcement tomorrow that he plans to charge fees to the "fat cats" in the financial firms to the tune of 120 billion dollars. It is being packaged as a tool aimed at recovering tax dollars from government-rescued financial institutions. In reality, the taxpayer paid for the bailout once and will pay for it a second time when the banks pass those fees on to you.

Businesses do not pay taxes. Banks are businesses. They are tax collectors. Everyone who uses a bank will be paying this. If you are rich, you'll be paying. If you are poor, ditto. Add in onto to all the other hidden taxes and fees you pay.

Obama will five another prime time speech telling us how he really nailed those fat cats in the banks. The financial illiterates among us will think Obama is looking out for them in the misguided belief that Obama is finally giving it to those greedy bankers with their outrageous bonuses. The "I buy a new cell phone and spend $200 a month on lattes" simpletons won’t even notice the new and creative ways that the banks will recoup the revenue: overdraft penalties, ATM charges, etc. And who exactly will that squeeze the most? Clue: It won't be the guy with a couple of homes and a driver.

From just a glance it would just appear that Obama is economically clueless and I am sure he is. At closer scrutiny, his administration knows what they are doing and where these fees will come from. He has a promise to live up to. "If you make less than $250,000 I promise you will not see a tax increase"

He didn't raise your taxes. He stuck it to those greedy bankers. He is just sticking it to greedy Big Pharma. Just sticking it to those evil wall Street Executives or however the villain of the month is. This is how he gets to tax the middle and lower class, by proxy.

Cocaine in the Whitehouse

2010-01-12T02:03:00.000-08:00

ha! If you haven't seen this already, I bet that title got you. I know it got me when I woke this morning to see the chatter on the right wing sites. It was that same feeling I got when I was in eighth grade and I saw the box under the Christmas tree that was just the perfect size of the fashionably trendy Aigner purse that was all the rage that year. Oh please, let it be so.

More than likely too good to be true.

What it is is a dig (or dugged) "scoop" linking to a page that shows an iphone image of what appears to be cut lines of cocaine and the GPS coordinates tracking the image to (dun, da,da, dun...) the Whitehouse. Link

But, wow, what great political theater. Is the stupid party finally getting smart and ruthless? Ofcourse, I would love to live in Mayberry and play by the Mayberry rules but a tiger is a tiger. And if getting down into the gutter with the Democrats is what it takes to beat them back, by all means...let me put on my shit kickers.

Before we feel guilty let us remember the constant lies and distortions from the Democrats for eight years. Remember the time President Bush choked on the pretzel because he had fallen off the wagon and was drinking like a first year frat boy all with his hands on the nuclear trigger? I can not recall how many different versions of the Bush has fallen off the sobriety wagon we had to endure.

It isn't all too unbelievable. Low approval numbers, plummeting economy and just generally in over his head. He has admitted cocaine use in his past. Maybe the story goes, he's reverted back to old habits under the stress. Before you know it, it gets a life of it's own. Kinda like half the population who thinks Sarah Palin said "I can see Russia from my house" because they heard it so many times. In the words of Hank Rearden, "people will repeat it because they've heard other people say it".

We can not say for sure who is responsible for this internet posting, true or false. They left no text, no message and no disclaimer. All we were left with was suggestion. Sometimes suggestion is enough. Problem is, his hard core supporters, would only find him more endearing if this posting were found to be true.

It's Starting to Look A Lot Like...Able Danger

2010-01-08T05:29:00.000-08:00

You will probably have to dig that one out of the vault and dust it off. In short order the pieces will come together for you.
In 1999, the Pentagon established an intelligence unit called Able Danger, assigned to seek out and identify al-Qaeda cells and members for U.S. Special Operations Command. This group reportedly used data mining from open sources.

Approximately August or September 2000, Able Danger identified an al-Qaeda cell in Brooklyn. An intelligence official and Rep. Curt Weldon claim that the AD unit identified Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, and included a photo of Atta.

Able Danger analysts recommended the information be passed on to the FBI so that the cell could be rounded up. Accounts various new sources at the time indicated that Pentagon lawyers decided that anyone holding a green card (as it was believed the cell members did) had to be granted essentially the same legal protections as any U.S. citizen. Thus, the information Able Danger had gathered could not be shared with the FBI, the lawyers concluded. This was keeping with “the wall” philosophy and policy established in 1995 by Assistant Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, in which intelligence and law enforcement were directed to go beyond what the law requires to keep intelligence-gathering and criminal law enforcement separated.

More than a decade of lackluster response to Islamic terrorist attacks on American interests. Bill Clinton, of the same mindset, treated those attacks as criminal activities, rather than terrorist actions. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The result-September 11th.

Fast forward eight or so years to December 25th, 2009. I can not say for certain what walls were dismantled and have subsequently have been rebuilt by this change in administration from one who clearly understood the terror threat to a healthy degree to one that is completely clueless and clearly negligent. I can only make assumptions from what my lying eyes are telling me. We went from eight years of being attack-free and back to complacent to where we are now. Something has gone awry.

As a result, when I hear Obama state essentially that this was same breakdown in intelligence that caused 9/11 and that President Bush had eight years to fix it and didn’t, my sensibilities get just a little offended. Nearly a decade without another attack is quite an achievement. One that can not be belittled, stolen or rewritten.

One year into the Obama administration and it safe to predict national security will be it's demise. The only question that really remains are what form the final push will take and how many of us it takes down with them. Obama has and continues to embolden our enemies and continues down a very perilous path. He seems clueless as to what the logical results will be.

New Digs...

2009-12-16T05:01:00.000-08:00

I am proud to announce that Kook has invited me to be a regular contributor over at he and Andrew's crib. My posts can be found over at Keeper of Odd Knowledge. At least until they kick me out. (:

http://keeperofoddknowledge.blogspot.com/

COP15 Morons On Parade

2009-12-14T05:00:00.000-08:00

I am seeing pictures and hearing reports coming out of the Global Tyranny fake climate conference and I have to say, I do not know which is more bizarre-what is going on with the elites inside the conference or what is going on with the drones outside the conference. I keep seeing signs that say "Fuck the System". Um, yeah sparky, you are the system's wet dream walking around in the Copenhagen drizzle all pumped up on "climate justice". Whatever that is, it is another popular catch phrase in barista land. Someone, please, remove the word justice from their new unabridged PC version of Mao's Little Red Book.

Let's keep in mind, most of these "protestors" come from Scandinavian and Western European countries. Are they really that eager to pay $50 for a hamburger, paying the $25 they are currently paying is not enough? Who and what exactly are they protesting? The globalist elites are there working to usher in their dream of a one world government, communist utopia. Apparently it is what they want. Stores devoid of goods to buy and lots of time off. So, why the protests? It seems they are in agreement. They wish to be subjects in a feudalist society and the UN and WTO toadies inside seek to do nothing more than accommodate their every wish. Who is it, I wonder, that they think is going to pay for "climate justice". Hint it won't be the bankers, the elites or anyone in that conference. It will be the jackasses outside the conference and their families.

I don't see the debate. What's the problem?

Maybe they need to do a better job at articulating just what it is they want and they better do it quickly. If this treaty gets signed, the days of jet setting around the globe to attend protests will be coming to a close. In fact, the days of jetting off anywhere will become so prohibitively expensive, at best they will be able to tell their grandkids about the days when air travel was cheap enough for the common man. Ofcourse, that is if they have grandkids, with the new population controls that will come with this new unelected and unaccountable governing body.

So, when they finally get what they want: a huge, unelected, unaccountable to anyone global instrument with the full authority to control the air, the land, the sea and everything under it -- and they do not like the results, and I promise you they will not like the results, who do they complain to? How do they air their grievances? By the ballot box? The only purpose of your ballot box, anymore, is to elect figureheads that provide the appearance of a function of local government. Nope, their officials are now in offices in places far from them. They are represented by no one and must answer to governance unaccountable to anyone.

Save the world? Even if the world were in peril, it would be a better alternative than what these malcontents have planned for us. The one bright patch -- the useful idiots are usually among the first to go.

Resistance - It's the New Black

2009-12-10T00:23:00.000-08:00

I guess the appropriate questions are along the lines of what is next? I hate to see the glass half empty but I am a realist. Our 200 plus year experiment with freedom, unique to human history, is coming to a close. The EPA ruling on carbon dioxide effectively legislates Cap and Trade. Even still, Cap and Trade has already passed one house. Add Cap and Trade to health care "reform" and the free market is off life support and into flat lining territory. The final kick to the head, just to make sure it is dead, will be the the upcoming stimulus programs.

We are leaderless aside from Maoist, communists and spineless career politicians too afraid or too lacking in conviction to lead. Obama will have transformed the country as he promised. Barring some act from the heavens, I see no reasonable prospect of reversing any of this. We will soon be Europe. Only without the United States to prop it up or to compare it to. Meaning, they aren't even done with Europe yet. This gives the communists the green light to destroy the small vestiges of life left in Europe.

As I have written many times before: we have to learn from history and take our cues from history. Communist movements are never a united front. There are factions. Less than true believers who believe it can only be taken so far, reformers who wish to re-instill pieces of the free market or democratic principles. Then there are always the true believers. Those who are not swayed by others suffering, the true sociopaths of history. These factions work to our advantage.

We need only to look to the USSR and the early split leading to the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks factions. The Mensheviks were the moderate Marxists who believed in following Marx's strategy of capitalism leading to the revolution. Lenin, of course, believed that step could be skipped. In short time, the Mensheviks were completely marginalized. This led to Menshevik arrests, jailings, exiles and worse.

Mao's China saw similar divides. The Cultural Revolution was the backdrop for a struggle for power between the more moderate members of the Chinese Communist party and the Gang of Four, a faction of the CCP led by Mao's third wife Jiang Qing.

My point is that the only way to ever keep a lid on freedom movements is with the barrel of a gun. In the short term, destroying people economically and using the threat of destroying them economically works. It can only work for so long because more and more people ultimately have less and less to lose. The most dangerous man is the man who has little to lose or the man who has already lost so much. Our job in the short term as quiet, independent and thoughtful citizens is to work to destroy the societal apparatus of this new tyranny.

I read a lot of armchair warrior talk about armed revolution. It can not happen. It would play into their hands and provide them the cover to call in the jackboots. Remember, without violence none of this is sustainable long term especially without the golden goose of the United States. Without the American economic engine of the world, it all collapses and it collapses quickly, historically speaking. Armed revolution: not going to happen. Unless, the military took a stand, it would be useless against the countless para-military units of the alphabet agencies and their technical abilities.

I have actually had thoughts lately about the survival of the republic, which is understandable. Then my thoughts have moved more to a really unfamiliar and unsettling place, should the republic in it's present form survive? Is it too big? Would a republic form of government be more sustainable in a smaller union? Can the northeast and left coast be saved? Do I really want to co-exist with these people anyway?

Which brings me to the idea that the road back may be through state rebellion. That is where our power resides. The power of the people. Think of a handful of states refusing to comply. Entire states refusing to turn over income taxes revenues and declaring their sovereignty. Think of how hard Texas, a state with a rich history of succession talk, is going to be hit by the EPA regulations. It is not a far stretch to imagine Texas leading the way with other southern or western states to follow. We need that first state to have enough and stand up to enforce the 10th amendment and uphold their sovereignty. Others states will follow.

This is where our hope resides at the moment. Starving the beast and working to bring it all down. As the communists like to say, "the worse, the better". Spend as little as possible, work as little as possible, invest nil and surround yourself with people with experience in life skills and skills that may help you in the future. Conversely, be prepared to share these skills with others. Educate, read and understand the histories of these movements. Remember, in the end, a small group of freedom loving patriots brought down the Soviet Union. Appeal to your local and state officials. Work to bring patriotic Americans into these local seats of power.

Resistance. Learn it. Live it. Know it.

The Engine of the Word Is About To Stop

2009-12-09T07:35:00.000-08:00

It seems some mainstream pundits are finally catching on to what is at stake. We are in the midst of a worldwide communist coup disguised in terms of the environment and the green revolution. Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer went as far to say that the EPA's power grab this week was a catalyst for a revolution in this country.

A little late to the party, Charles. Especially for an acclaimed intellectual such as yourself. I guess people, even some students of history, often doubt the capabilities of evil in men. Often times they believe we have progressed beyond those times.

Saul Alinski suggested using the environment to push his radical agenda. Find something that can not be refuted, something everyone can agree upon as "good".

These people always knew that there was not a climate crisis. It was always a tool to achieve what they had not been able to achieve before. Ever. Worldwide domination. It was not that that they felt communism was not tried by the right people as many believe. They knew that their error was leaving any spark of life, innovation and wealth left on the planet. With control of the world's resources, they have latched onto the perfect solution to that problem.

Human ability to adapt to misery is remarkably high. In less than a generation, bread lines could easily be viewed as common place and normal. Children's minds can easily be educated to believe how lucky they were to be spared the capitalist system that left people hungry and sick in the streets.

The engine of the world is about to stop. It is either going to be a steady drop into the abyss or one very bumpy ride.

The First Objective of Business

2009-12-07T04:08:00.001-08:00

I am about to state something very controversial to the left. The first objective of a business is to stay in business. People do not risk everything they have, often times, to create entities to employ others. They only hire others when they have so much business the only way to continue getting and keeping new business is with additional bodies and brains. It is that simple. To believe anything else, is to engage in utopian thinking.

The left has zero understanding of this. Perfectly illustrated by Barack Obama's own words last week. Obama seemingly never having actually held a job, let alone run a business and has never left the left wing bubble of academia, rabble rousing and the political class.

OBAMA: Despite the progress we've made, many businesses are still skittish about hiring. Some are still digging themselves out of the losses they incurred over the past year. Many have figured out how to squeeze more productivity out of fewer workers. And that cost-cutting has become embedded in their operations and in their culture. That may result in good profits, but it's not translating into hiring and so that's the question that we have to ask ourselves today: How do we get businesses to start hiring again?

Let me also call in the words of pied piper of the deranged left, Michael Moore, to get a more thorough understanding of the mindset.

"F##k all these small businesses — f##k ‘em all! Bring in the chains. The small businesspeople are the rednecks that run the town and suppress the people. F##k ‘em all. That's how I feel."~Micheal Moore

Where do you even start with this stuff? The chief reason the left is able to get away with this is that our young people are absolutely clueless and have been brainwashed for most of their young lives to see the government as the source of all good things and private industry as the harbinger of all of life's ills. But it is one thing when it is a 21 year old college student who wants to throw a brick through the Starbuck's window. It is quite another when it is the leader of what is left of the free world saying hopelessly ignorant and irresponsible things such as:

Many have figured out how to squeeze more productivity out of fewer workers.

Obama is so completely and hopelessly ignorant of the real world he actually thinks that a businessman adjusting his operations in order to meet changing economic conditions is some kind of trick of exploitation and greed. He actually believes this stuff. What is next? Hiring quotas? Taxes on lay offs and not meeting quotas? 32 hour work weeks?

People are not hiring because of his administration. They have zero faith that things are going to improve. Some are even closing the doors in anticipation of how bad things are going to get.

These are common sense laws of supply and demand. Calling it the "new" economy, "green" jobs" or whatever collectivist code word is in vogue does nothing to change it. Supply and demand.

Say, I am a businessman, and once I reach a certain level of profit, I can and need to hire help. Employee and I make more money, and we soon reach enough profitability to hire employee #2. In comes Government with taxes, fees and regulations I must comply with. Profit level decreases. Government returns and taxes me even more. Now, I must lose an employee. Government is threatening me with more taxes by promising the country free stuff. I do not replace employee #1 and I think about losing employee #2.

The effects ripple. I am no longer as productive. The guy down the road where I buy product X to make my product Y is getting less orders from me and people in my similar situation. And there are many of us. He makes adjustments and has to reduce his workforce. Like dominoes we all fall.

It's simple, basic and irrefutable common sense. There are no alternatives. They've all been tried. You can relabel collectivism, repackage it, re-brand it, and villainize free market principles and business all day long but at the end of the day collectivism still fails everywhere it is implemented.

Flat Speech, Empty Suit

2009-12-03T02:19:00.000-08:00

Forget the Afghan strategy and the half measure of troop allocation to the war, let's just focus on the content and delivery of his speech at West Point on Tuesday evening. It was strange. It was filled with his usual narcissistic overtones but there was an element of desperation that he is accustomed to never having to sink to. He was forced to try and act the statesman. This forced performance was no doubt due to to low job approval ratings.

It was a tough audience. The vast majority of the cadets have a natural aversion to every word out of his mouth and their unanimated faces showed what their disciplined actions and words can not. Despite his attempt at tough talk, they know his heart is simply not in it. He’s doing what is expedient. They know they are stuck in a leadership vacuum. He did not turn on the charisma, he knew they did not buy it. They have his number, by and large.

He was in enemy camp when he gave this speech and in true form he thought he could talk his way out of it, explain his way into making his detractors like him. He was on the defense the whole time and it was where many of "I's" in the speech came from. It was a "please understand where I am coming from" speech but the problem was those that disdain him understand him all too well. We've heard it all before and we've seen the results of his kind all too many times.

He never looked directly into the camera. Anger, bitterness and defeat marked his tired face. This commander in chief stuff is for real and you can not vote present forever. As with everything he does he was trying to give the appearance of having it both ways, all while keeping the agenda moving forward. Send troops but not the number needed. Send troops now but bring them home in time for elections in 2012.

He was out of his league Tuesday and his discomfort in the arena showed. It was not the shrinking crowd of the fawning worshippers. it was an audience of the strong, the courageous and the honorable. Young Americans willing to die, willing to fight for ideals and willing to face horrors most of us will never know. They don’t fear him. They don’t respect him. In a room full of such potentially real and really earned greatness, he could never shine. On some level, he knew this.

If a 12 Year Old Can Grasp What is Happening...

2009-12-02T01:11:00.000-08:00

why is it so many adults seemingly can not? Probably because this kid, at her ripe old age of twelve, knows more accurate history than most current MBAs.

I am lying in bed, reading with my daughter, the twelve year old. I am reading a book titled Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. A highly recommended read, by the way. It is the story of a woman's six and a half year imprisonment in Mao's Communist China.

I get to a particularly poignant part and I read it to my daughter. It goes like this:

..They smashed flower and curio shops because they said only the rich had money to spend on such frivolities. Other shops were examined, and goods they considered offensive or unsuitable for a socialist society they destroyed or confiscated. Their standard was very strict. Because they did not think a socialist man should sit on a sofa, all sofas became taboo. Other things such as inner spring mattresses, silk, velvet, cosmetics and clothes that reflected fashion trends of the West, were all tossed onto the streets to be carted away or burnt. Traditionally, shops in China had borne names that were considered propitious, such as Rich and beautiful for a fabric shop, Delicious Aroma for a restaurant, Good Fortune and Longevity for a shop that sold hats for older man, etc. When the government took over the shops in 1956, the names had not been changed. Now, condemned by the Red Guards, they were forced to be changed to something more revolutionary. Uncertain what alternative would be more acceptable, large numbers of shops chose the name East is Red, the title of a song eulogizing Mao Zedung. The Red Guards had removed the goods displayed in the windows of the shops and replaced them with Mao's official portrait...

I then asked my daughter who that sounded like today and if she'd have a hard time imagining today's "liberals" performing the same types of acts. She said, "It already sounds like California and the bans on big screen TVs". She is right, it was a parallel I hadn't even drawn.

It is our responsibility to keep this history alive. Your children will get it better than you think and they'll never learn it in school. It is also important to note that the average age of a Red Guard Soldier was somewhere between 12 and 16 years old. If you do not help shape your child's mind and teach them independent thought, someone else will fill that vacuum. (cue in videos of school aged children singing praise to Barack Hussein Obama. mmmm, mmmm, mmmm...)

In the words of the great Ronald Reagan:

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

So, how do we turn them off?

2009-12-01T00:46:00.000-08:00

I am talking about the disciples of the Al Gore New Church of Global Warming. Now, that what we thinking people have known all along has been proven to be true; global warming is a big, fat scam designed to pilfer wealth and freedom from, mostly, Americans. Whatever are we going to do with all the followers that are all hopped up on global warming hysteria?

Oh sure, they can still carry around little net bags to get their groceries and ride their bikes but they are going to have a harder time getting mostly everyone else to go along with them. And that is what it was really always about, wasn't it? It was never about saving the planet. It was about reducing us all to one level. No longer would they need to feel inadequate. They longed for the razing of the McMansions and they were giddy at the prospect of forcing us all into the cities and onto public transportations. Yes, those breeding bourgeoisie were finally going to get theirs.

It was never an issue getting the Europeans to go along with it. They already pay most of their income to the government, what's a few more percentage points? Plus, they have always been known to cut off their nose to spite their face, if it meant knocking those fat and stupid Americans down a few pegs. In Copenhagen, they are already powering their Christmas tree display with human produced energy ala Fred Flintstone. You already see more bikes than cars in Copenhagen so the lifestyle change wouldn't be so dramatic. What's a few thousand years anyway?

Global warming was an easy sell for urbanites who misjudge the state of the entire planet based on their experience living in filthy and polluted looking cities. If you are constantly inhaling fumes from city buses or looking out at the haze hanging over LA it is probably very easy to just assume the world is going to hell in a hand basket and somebody (meaning someone in the government or someone with a lot of letters after his name) needs to do something.

My prediction, these sheep will not be deterred and will be just as willing to be led by the global warming hucksters. Even with the evidence that it is all a big fraud. Even with the untold damage that this type of conformist thinking is going to do to our scientific bodies and minds. These people, the true believers, will not be deterred and we are stuck with them. They have found their perfect cause and they are not going to give it up that easily because it was never about the planet. It was about envy and filling a vacuous hole in their soul.

The Soviet Files

2009-11-30T06:29:00.000-08:00

This image was taken in the old Soviet city of Pripya. Pripya was a model Soviet city set up for the workers of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The sign and door on the left leads to the free drinks used to lure voters to come and cast their futile vote in the one party totalitarian system. The sign and door on the right leads them to the voting area. (or vice versa, as I do not read cryllic).

It was a practice adopted in many areas of the former Soviet Union to encourage participation in a sham of a system and one the citizens had long lost faith in. This sign was frozen in time as the city's inhabitants had to flee that fateful day, leaving all infrastructure and personal belongs as they stood. As was the case with most things in the USSR, payment came with vodka and a day off. The day after voting day became a national holiday so that the workers could recuperate after the days binge before. A drunk, cynical and work avoiding populace is an easy to control populace. The Soviets learned these lessons well and implemented them generously.

It is not much difference to the future the modern Democrat party has planned for the United States. They already entice voters with cigarettes and petty cash. They are doing the best they can by way of ACORN manufactured voter fraud to ensure one party rule and controlled opposition. The evidence mounts proving that today's progressives are yesterday's Soviets.

How & Why Communism Always Ends Badly For The Useful Idiots

2009-11-28T23:49:00.000-08:00

The letter below by Cynthia McKinney to Obama perfectly illustrates what is happening to his support on the far left, social justice, nouveau communist wing of his party. These are people who were radicalized. Now the radicals, all hopped up on communist rhetoric of social justice and "peace" are turning against him.

Obviously, no sane leader, even one as ideologically pure and incompetent as Obama, is going to actually fully implement any of these ideas. However, these people are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli. They can not turn it off and by nature they are malcontents. They are people who find their salvation in airing grievances. They have been conditioned to find injustice under every rock.

It is at this point in history that they have typically out-lived their usefulness. It is about now when things start to get ugly. We have all the pieces in position. A megalomaniac and soulless leader in power. A leader willing to use small children to further his cult of personality. Barack Hussein Obama, mmmm, mmmm, mmmmm....Sinking approval ratings, rejection of his "five year plans", cover by a corrupt and complicit media. Every day he proves himself without sympathy or empathy. A man who has envisioned youth corps to be trained in his twisted Marxist world view. Also a man, who we can now see, as no intention to moderate, no Plan B and no room for humility.

No, I am not saying history will undoubtedly repeat itself in the here and now. I am only pointing out we have all the pieces in place. Maybe for the first time in our history.

Cynthia McKinney to Obama 'war criminal accessory': Immediate ceasefire, withdrawal, end drones

Open Letter to Obama: Please Bring Out Troops Home Now!

By Cynthia McKinney

November 22, 2009

Mr. President:

I am writing to urge you to announce an immediate cease-fire followed by a withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan in the fastest way consistent with the safety of our forces.

I urge you to end the use of Predator drones that kill civilians.

I call upon you to cease all covert operations in Africa, Asia, and North and South America.

Too many of your military advisors are implicated in torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace. Your Justice Department operates at the zenith of injustice, defending Bush Administration criminality in U.S. Courtrooms.

I wrote to you earlier suggesting that if you did not investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration, you would be viewed as their accessory. Sadly, war crimes and torture are now committed with your name on them.

Please bring our troops home now.

Cynthia McKinney

Less than 10% of Obama Cabinet Has Real World Experience

2009-11-27T01:57:00.000-08:00

Ofcourse, we already know anyone prone to this ideology probably would not have any private sector experience. Most of the issues real people face in their day to day lives are just theory to them. They've never had to stretch a paycheck or work a second job to make the mortgage. That is why a $12 light bulb or an $900 electric bill does not deter them from achieving their goals.

The results of their failed ideology are also not real to them. They do not feel them so they are easy to dismiss. It is why the Obama's can thoughtlessly plan lavish parties while people scrape by in the worst economic climate in recent history. The American people through sheer dereliction of their duty as citizens have ceded control over their lives to people who have never left a campus or a cushy job provided to them by the pedigree of their name and connections.

We can see that the results are a disaster. Our governing bodies have become an adult day care center for a group of left wing theoreticians.

Are There No Men In Washington?

2009-11-25T02:53:00.000-08:00

I forget the movie's title but I remember the scene. Fiction or not, it instantly made me love Ahmad Shah Massoud, the assassinated and much loved by many leader of the Afghani Northern Alliance. He looks to his American counter part and he asks, "Tell me, are there no men left in Washington, or all they all cowards?"

Where are the men in Washington? Where is the Republican leadership?

We have the corruption by the left in full view, ready to be exploited. I hear crickets chirping from the direction of the RNC.

1) Climategate
2) SEIU intimidation and vote fraud in California
3) incriminating ACORN documents

Is there a mission? A plan? A cohesive strategy afoot?

Or are nearly all of them compromised? Have they all been bought off by the globalist financiers of the global warming agenda?With a few exceptions such as James Inhofe and Ron Paul, the Republican party is acting like controlled opposition.

That's my assumption until proven otherwise. They cannot all be this spineless.

Healthcare is Here!

2009-11-22T00:32:00.000-08:00

Wow, shouldn't we all be giddy about this? Oh, that's right I will be the guy paying for it. That makes us months closer to Going Galt as they say. It's time for anyone with any means to do what they can to protect what they have and do what they can to make less. Capital flight, already high, is going to be unstoppable now. Look for Americans to find innovative ways to escape this monstrous system. I have already read ideas of setting up medical cruise ships on international waters.

Sure, it isn't a done deal but rarely does a bill make it out of committee fail. The options from this vantage are not pleasant. This nightmare passes and the country goes bankrupt, this nightmare passes and the country falls into civil war, or it fails when the two branches cannot agree.

I’m surprised by how little the first two options bother me.

For My Good Friend MOTUS

2009-11-20T10:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.michellesmirror.com/
Somehow, these got past you. I needed to bring it to your attention. You'll probably be working damage control all weekend. Sorry!

Losing a War You Won Centuries Ago

2009-11-19T01:27:00.000-08:00

Spain's first Islamic party is set to run in a local election in 2011. Islam is Spain's second largest religion, making up only 2.3% of the total population. The Renaissance and Union of Spain Party, headed by Mustafa Barrach, a former journalist and Arabic professor in Granada. The party seeks to attract the country's 1,300,000 Muslim residents in Spain but also gather supports from immigrants who total 10% of the Spanish population. With moves afoot to legitimize illegal alien residents it could well put that number over two million and growing.

What does this mean for the future of Europe, as it is certainly showing us a trend? There is a huge clash of civilizations on the European continent. Large and largely uninterested in integrating Muslim populations grow and continue to out breed the indigenous birthrates. Although, there are new statistics that show an uptick in the indigenous populations and a slower line of growth in the Islamic populations.

What will the introduction of Islamic political parties mean to the dynamic of Europe and Islam? It might not be all bad. No doubt, the inception of one party will spread across all western European countries with sizable Muslim populations. It will "out" Islam for the political system that it is. There is no give to Caeser what is Caesar's in Islam. The church and the state are one. There is no higher authority than Islam. This will be out in the open for all to see.

It will create a clear line of delineation between those Muslims who desire to integrate and be part of European society and those that choose to identify themselves with Islam first and foremost. At that point, Europe will have some decisions to make. None of them pleasant. My personal belief is that the most peaceful resolution we will see on the European continent will be areas of autonomy for the Islamic populations. I think it is the most likely considering the softness of the average European and his contemporary level of willingness to sacrifice, especially in blood. One thing is certain, the two can not coexist.

It will be devastating to the socialist parties. Similar to American politics, the socialists rely on keeping the minorities on the plantation. Never improving their lot but having a captive demographic. Anything that disempowers the socialists is positive at least in the long term. They wreak havoc wherever they are allowed to consolidate power and they are the very reason we even have to discuss this topic.

Islam will then no longer have the cloak of the socialist movements to hide behind and the socialists will no longer have their votes. I am watching with much interest just how the softer and welfare state breast fed 21st century European attempts to remove the modern Ottoman presence.

Core Convictions

2009-11-17T01:29:00.000-08:00

I had a fellow conservative tell me Sarah Palin "prostituted herself by going on Oprah’s show" yesterday. I could not disagree more. Palin, every time she steps into the lion's den, amazes me with her bravery and courage. Most conservatives do not have enough courage of their convictions to speak up against the office liberal bully let alone take on the entire Washington power structure, both Republican and Democrat, single handedly. She arms herself with nothing but her core convictions. That is what having core convictions should be all about.

Everyday Sarah Palin is out there, the leftists who have devoted so much time and energy into destroying her become a little smaller. She is David to their Goliath. As conservatives we should witness their impotence and savor it. Every day she is left standing and stronger, we should draw strength from ourselves.

She walks into the eyes of the storm and comes out with her convictions in tact. She isn't knotted into a pretzel to try and meet them half way as so many "conservatives" do. She does not seek their acceptance on their terms. She only lays out who she is and what she believes and doing so tries to weave a web of invitation to join her.

We need more people made of the stuff of Sarah Palin. We could learn a lot watching the bravery of this woman. We'd do well trying to emulate it. They have thrown everything they have at her and she is still standing, stronger than before and with a smile on her face. If this little lady from Wasilla can stand up to the leftists, we can do the same in our schools, in our communities, at the deli counter, by the water cooler, etc. She shows us, through it all, they aint nothing you don't give them the power to be.

2009-11-16T02:57:00.000-08:00

http://diversitylane.wordpress.com/

Spot the ONLY man in the Photo

2009-11-13T02:40:00.000-08:00

I will give you a hint, he's not on the right.

There have been several signs of a growing rift between the Obama administration and Israel. This week, Netanyahu leaving the Whitehouse without either party giving comment, was just one more indication that Obama is getting ready to send Israel to it's place under the bus.

Obama is not fit to lick the boot heels of Prime Minister (ah, it warms my heart to use those words again) Benjamin Netanyahu, that much is obvious. Netanyahu is a statesman who understands the threats to his tiny nation. Obama is an appeaser and despiser of the people he claims to represent. Two men who could not be more different.

There is zero common ground between a man who believes Iran's mullahs can somehow be reasoned with and man like Netanyahu who understands the belief system of the apocolyptic jihad, the second coming of the 12th imam and it entails. We are led to believe they are at an impasse over Israeli settlements. It is safe to assume it goes much deeper than this.

Netanyahu knows that Israeli National Security is in mortal danger with a terrorist sympathizing administration in power in the United States. He also knows that "diplomacy" with the mullahs in Iran is a complete waste of time, which is something any defender of western civilization is short on. Netanyahu knows, ultimately, at some point, Israeli will be forced to confront this threat by themselves or engage in some very strategic and critical thinking using the best problem solving skills the Mossad has.

Obama is playing with the big dogs now, conspiracy theories aside. This is not Rahm and some other two bit Chicago thugs hatching up a shake down of a land developer in Illinois. This is the big leagues. Netanyahu is nothing if he is not a survivor, both physically and politically. This can be evidenced by the fact that he's still breathing oxygen, no small feat for an Israeli Prime Minister. My money is on the only leader left of the free world.

Some Things Just Need Addressin'

2009-11-12T06:43:00.001-08:00

This outfit would be one of them. What the hell is that? Part mechanic on the bottom half? Part Sasha or Melia's puffy shirt. Roy Orbison's hair. Every tone of grey covering the color spectrum. Untucked t-shirt. Is there no one this woman can trust that will tell her the truth? No one can be this fashion challenged. Is she drunk? Legally blind?

Ft. Hood

2009-11-11T05:24:00.000-08:00

There are many who are very quick to ensure that the terrorism label is not given to the incident at Ft. Hood. I think it is more appropriate to call it an act of war and to call Hasan a foot soldier. He died in the line of duty in his call of Jihad and the Holy War. He died killing, mainly, soldiers of the opposing army. Although he wore the uniform of those same soldiers his words and his deeds made it clear what side of the war he owed his allegiance.

Whether or not we are engaged in a war with radical Islam, radical Islam is engaged in a war with us. Their spokesmen have repeatedly told us as much. Their followers tell us daily in chat rooms all over the internet. We interrogate and apprehend their soldiers regularly abroad and in our cities. This is the truth whether or not the White House, the military chain of command or a sizable chunk of Americans will admit it. We now know from more than one example, the seeds of radical Islam have been sown far and wide within our society and within the military.

The policy of the American leadership seems to be a game of whack-a-mole and hope that they can keep these incidents spaced out enough so as to not have to take any decisive action. As long as they happen on small scales and happen relatively infrequently, I believe they think they can control public outrage and reaction. It seems to be a strategy that is working. However, time does not appear to be their friend.

Try as they might, politically correct smoke and mirrors can not replace the truth and reality. Next time it may be a school as in the manner of Beslan, Russia or an attack on the magnitude of 9-11. The spin and psychobabble will no longer have the market appeal as it has today and the American anger will not be as rational or as manageable.

Diversity Trumps National Security

2009-11-10T05:17:00.000-08:00

"As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse." -- Army chief of staff General George Casey

To pick solely on General Casey would be disingenuous. It would be the height of naivety to think ridding our armed services of General Casey would brighten our prognosis. Although, he may very well share this belief, he is just following orders. Do any of us believe that the Obama administration would put anyone in that position who would have any other mind set?

What is Casey really saying here? Is he telling us in not so many words that we need to accept that there will be casualties in the left's war on American tradition? Basically, in a nutshell, yes. For diversity over all, we will be expected to accept a payment of toll in blood.

Everything is Free but Nothing is Readily Available

2009-11-09T03:39:00.000-08:00

Or so the old saying went about the former Soviet Union. Most Americans do not know and many would not even care the the former Soviet Union was the first country to have free healthcare as a "right" for all written into it's constitution. With the revolution and the pollyannic belief that everyone could be made equal came the dismantling of what was the old Russian medical system into the new system ushered in by the Bolsheviks.

First let us remember that the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917. Life spans were shorter and life on the whole was harder. The system as it stood was basically a free market system of sorts. Doctors, who were highly educated and respected, were guaranteed a high standard of living. The people paid for the services. Doctors sometimes gave their services freely or accepted whatever could be offered as payment- livestock, leatherwork, food, etc.

Was it perfect? Is anything? A little known fact is that the Russian medical system and Russian medical research in the early 1900s was internationally recognized.

Usher in Lenin and the Bolsheviks who tear it all down. Oh boy, is this ever starting to sound familiar? They tear it all down to rebuild it. Now everyone is equal and has access to the same medical care. The greedy doctors and the greedy rich can no longer have the best of this system. The system is gone. The private clinics are gone.

The doctors are no longer the best and the brightest but are chosen but virtue of status in the Soviet system. Yes, some animals were more equal than others. Enrollees into medical school were chosen by social class —worker, peasant, or intellectual. Not long after the Soviet affirmative action system was expanded to include gender and ethnic classifications also. Every class, gender, and ethnic group had a quota for admission into institutions of higher learning.

All this should be sounding very, very familiar by now. Very familiar.

Rather than choosing a physician, you were appointed to medical facilities in your area. You had no choice who you saw. Instead of the market dictating salaries and medical expenditures, they were now part of a fixed budget expense in the Soviet balance sheet. Doctors were put on fixed state salaries and required to see as many people as they saw fit or didn't see fit. What did it matter anyway? Getting rid of a bad doctor or a drunk doctor was virtually impossible in the now completely unionized, state owned system.

Did the Bolsheviks or their class of elites use this medical system? Ofcourse not. They had access to their own, special medical care complete with western technologies and medicines. They were not going to be subjected to the low par and filthy conditions of the people's system. As a side note, our leadership does not even give the pretense of pretending to subject themselves to the system they are forcing upon us.

No Soviet citizen really knew much else. As a closed society, they were told they had the best of the best. They were told how fortunate they were because the American capitalist system had people dying in the streets. Those that knew better were either disposed of or kept their mouths shut to avoid being disposed of.

In short, by the end of the 20th century Soviet Russia had one of the poorest medical systems in the world. Now imagine the Soviet medical system in a world where say it could only be held up in comparison the the DHS in Britain or the Canadian system? Suddenly the bar is much lower and that is by design. One day it will be our children who believe they are receiving the best of the best and there will be nothing exceptional to compare with the substandard. It will be the norm if this is not stopped and, as was often the case in our history, it is the cognizant 30 percent among us that are the last vestige.

"When she walks in a room, folks just explode"

2009-11-05T04:03:00.000-08:00

These would be the words of newly re-elected Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) when speaking of Sarah Palin. It is no secret how the conservative base feels about Sarah Palin. It is also no secret that she injected what little life John McCain's campaign had into it. Myself, an Arizonian, who had never and would never pull a lever for John McCain sheepishly carted myself to the polls last November 4th and with much enthusiasm filled in the little circle next to her name, wishing his name were absent.

Now, now we have a senior Whitehouse official (surmised to be Axelrod by HotAir) claiming a 2-0 victory against Sarah Palin. You just can not make this stuff up. Is there any precedent for this? Has there ever been a sitting POTUS at war with not only an entire news organization, half the country AND his defeated Vice Presidential candidate while solidly frozen in a state of inaction when faced with decisions to be made in real, live shooting wars? I have to guess not and that this is unchartered territory. Can you imagine Karen Hughes coming out the days after 9-11 and railing on about how Bush is 2-0 against Joe Lieberman?

State schooled, redneck Sarah scares the pants off of them. And she is free to do it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, thanks to the short-sighted and not so forward thinking Democrats making it impossible for her to do her job in Alaska.

The beauty of Palin is she is young and has many years to gain experience and credibility. In the meantime, she is a highly effective force when it comes to energizing conservatives, focusing the light on Obama and the Democrat misdeeds, clearing out the RINOs, bringing in the bacon and showing the Democrats for what they are.

We do not know who the candidate will be in 2012. My hunch is it will not be Sarah Palin. Not yet. Until then, we still get to savor her effectiveness and sleep well knowing that lil' ol' Sarah and her Facebook account holds as much or more political influence than that of the POTUS. I can see their defeat from my house and Sarah Palin is instrumental to making it happen.

Do we really, really need moderates?

2009-11-04T04:52:00.000-08:00

I am talking about the wishy, washy convictionless, easily malleable . Does the Republican party really need them to win elections? To some extent we do. However, I do not think we need as many as we have been lead to believe we need.

What we do need is to get that large chunk of conservatives to the polls. We need the conservatives. As many as we can get. We do not get conservatives to vote by appealing to moderates or liberals. It just does not work that way.

When they speak of the independent vote, many, if not most, are conservatives. The critical factor dictating the future of the nation is not party membership, but adherence to certain philosophical and ideological principles. If they agree with our platform, maybe 80 percent of the time, they are worth working to keep. If not, we can not stray from our convictions to attract them. The cost is too high.

Moderates are like spoiled teenagers. When times are good, they feel confident and test their boundaries. When times are bad, they run back to the adults. They look to the stability the conservatives provide. As the pendelum shifts, so does their loyalty. You can't build a party catering to them.

As conservatives, we have to remember we are not going to win every election. We can live up to our principles and work from there. We must remember that every step is a building block. The great things that Reagan acheived did not happen overnight. There will be setbacks along the way. It was a good night last night. We still have much work to do.

Republicans and Stockholm Syndrome

2009-11-03T01:50:00.001-08:00

What is it with Republicans and Stockholm Syndrome? You see it time and time again. I am specifically thinking about Newt Gingrich and his endorsement of Dede Scozzafava in the upstate New York -23 district. I understood his "big tent" reasoning but he continued to dig his heals in even after Hoffman overtook Dede in the polls and even after more and more disconcerting facts about her came to light. Scozzafava is no moderate Reublican, she is a out and out statist.

Only when she left the race and endorsed the Democrat did Newt finally admit "regret" with his decision. This would not be his only lapse of judgement. I can recall video of Newt buddying up to San Fan Nan in twisted agreement over the threat of climate change. It is safe to say Newt's political days are over. Kaput. We are turning out the lights on you, Newt. Fox News commentator? Sure. Presidential Material? Not so much.

Republicans all too often fall prey to the syndrome of Stockholm. The beltway does something to them but I see it all around me as well. They develop an undeniable hunger to be respected by the Beltway Establishment and their "smart" and less than tolerant of any other views liberal friends. What non-leftists will never understand, it seems, if you do not share their world view liberals will always hate you and will never accept you. You are only as good as the last issue you agreed with them on.

So many ask, "the blue print for conservative victory is right in front of them, why don't they follow it". They do not follow it because it takes guts. They.do.not.have.the.cajones. They are afraid of being called racists, bigots, homophobes, religious fanatics and whatever else is in the liberal playbook. It has not changed in decades and it works because the Republican leadership refuses to fight it.

It is much easier to go long to get along. Especially when you have an opponent who so readily dives into the mud pit and you are worried about getting your new white shirt dirty.

The American Oligarchy

2009-11-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

The RINO Wing of the Republican party, particularly the Bush family, is busy grooming it's own Barack Obama. I have already had these thoughts about the role they intend for George Prescott Bush. The fact that he is shipping off "for war" at the ripe, old age of 33 as Lieutenant in the Navy Reserve, assigned to an intelligence unit, pretty much solidifies my suspicions.

It will be portrayed as though "P" as he is called (very original) is shipping off to war. That should insult your sensibilities. He's not going to war. He'll be positioned as an intelligence officer sitting safely behind a desk shuffling paper somewhere in the rear without ever having fired a weapon. Like his uncle, he will get his credentials as a warrior without seeing battle. His role will be exaggerated to his political benefit.

The really convenient thing about "P" is that he happens to be, imagine this, half Mexican. He is the offspring Jeb and his Mexican born wife Colomba. The catapulting of Prescott into the political arena fits right into the world of identity politics we have allowed them to build for us. It certainly looks like the Bush family had a long term vision while "W" was embracing the invasion of our southern border and desire to grant amnesty of up to 20 million illegal aliens, most from Mexico.

An oligarchy is a form of government where most or all political power effectively rests with a small segment of the society. Oligarchies, often found in Latin America, are generally controlled by a few powerful families whose children are raised and groomed to be heirs of the power of the oligarchy. It is rarely, if ever, to the betterment of those governed. You won't find a strong middle class; an oligarchy is usually characterized by a very small upper or elite class and a very vast lower class. They govern in secrecy.

It would sure be a lot simpler to shift away from the shining city on a hill if a good quarter to a third of your population knows of no other governing system and is completely at home with this type of governance. Even easier if they know nothing of your values or traditions.

As Americans we need to reject this notion of breeding through pedigree into the power structure. We have already seen the fruits of this system: worthless rich patricians with no viable life experience supported by parents, family name, ivy league education and whatever else until they can worm their way into politics, which is one of the few areas where they are employable. It's true of the Bushes, the Gores, the Clintons, the Kennedys, etc. People who, in a sane world, could not get elected as dog catcher.

We need leadership. We need leadership that will put American interests first. We are a nation of 300 million people, we can do better than the families listed above.

Peggy Noonan Gets It Right?

2009-10-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

We're Governed by Callous Children
Peggy Noonan is, at least, moving in the right direction in hopes of finding some redemption after her loss of reason during the election season. However she could garner back a bit more respect by acknowledging she was very wrong and very misguided in 2008. She has not come this far yet. It seems the cocktail party circuit elites are finally starting to get a clearer picture of just how off the tracks things are.

However, Peggy still does not realize she falls among the naive she writes about. She attributes the destruction of the country to wanton ignorance and disbelief that the country has limited strength when it comes to enduring the blows it is receiving. Perhaps, she is self reflecting and explaining away her miscalculations when hopping aboard the Obama Express.

On some level, maybe, she wishes to absolve herself of some of her guilt. Peggy Noonan and the liberal Washington DC insider wing of the Republican party contributed in no small way to this Maoist onslaught. In their elitist shells they hold nothing but contempt for the people in "flyover" who actually make the country work. They disassociate themselves with the "teabaggers" and the people who attended town hall meetings to try to participate in the Democratic process and prevent a disastrous bureaucracies from being imposed on us. They sit back and watch as patriotic Americans are ridiculed and painted as radical right wingers and hate mongers.

Noonan is still a bit guileless when it comes to Obama, many of his appointments and much of the far left wing of the Democratic party. They are not deluding themselves or unable to grasp that our system and way of life can not support the endless assaults. They know full well the results of their efforts.

They are subversive forces working to destroy the country. None of their actions stem from confused optimism, bubbled lives of privilege that make them unable to imagine anything else, etc. They are tearing down that which they seek to rebuild. Obama has said nothing contrary to the point.

They seek to build a country and a world where all prosperity, power and material gain comes from the government. They feel their places, their children's places and their children's children's places are secure in this hierarchy. They do not worry for their future. There will be no bread lines or death panel decisions for the ruling class just as there never was in Soviet Russia, Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba, etc.

This is where Peggy still does not quite get it. More often than not it was the sons and daughters of the abundance throughout history who sought to tear it all down.

Hillary Meets Herself

2009-10-29T03:05:00.000-07:00

Hillary had a lively exchange with, well, herself of decades ago in Lahore, Pakistan yesterday. When a idealistic young student accused Washington of forcing Pakistan to use military force on its own territory.

Her response, ""If you want to see your territory shrink, that's your choice." She then added she believed it would be a bad choice.
she was also quoted as saying, ""There is a war going on and the U.S. wants to help Pakistan be successful".

Can anyone imagine the Hillary "I loathe the military" Clinton of yesteryear using this speech?

I am not saying Hillary has become conservative or even has a firm understanding or respect of American ideals. Though, I will say she is far warmer to them than any time except maybe her Goldwater Girl days. It is funny what reality can do to youthful idealism.

Tough and Skinny

2009-10-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

Proving that it is always all about him once again, Barack Obama, rebuked opposition today at a few separate Florida fundraisers.

"There are people saying mean things about me and folks are worried." Uhh, yeah. Enough about us Obama, what about YOU? Never mind the war in Afghanistan, never mind the double digit unemployment, never mind the imploding dollar. He is going to address the big meanies talking trash about him.

Is this guy made of crepe paper?

"Just 'cause I'm skinny doesn't mean I'm not tough. I don't rattle," Obama said, tongue in cheek and with his fake down home accent.

Seriously though he does have a spine of steel when it comes to the misery of Americans. He is not moved by it one iota. Troop deaths do not show the wear on his face the way they showed on President Bush's face. He is steely cold when it comes to bludgeoning a baby's head in a botched abortion attempt or denying healthcare to an elderly grandmother. For sure, there is some there there. He conserves it, for the struggle of his leftist utopia.

War for the Soul of the RNC

2009-10-26T02:44:00.000-07:00

I am all over the board on the issue of the future of the Republican party. I keep reading the idea that the brand is so tarnished that it is not worth trying to salvage it. Conversely, I know the dangers of third parties in this country. They tend to fracture the coalitions that build the parties, leaving the party still in tact to benefit. We saw it with the election of Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton never saw more than forty five percent of the popular vote. However, the injection of Ross Perot into the election gave him the room he needed to win the election, both times. Our elections are that close that any defection guarantees a Democrat win.

The cold hard reality is that the Republican leadership has been steadily drifting slowly to the left for well over a decade. With every issue that they have abandoned core conservative principles, they have lost more and more members and supporters. Like a a tree shedding it's leaves, the Republican party has been leaving voters in a political no man's land. Through the years, I have watched the chasm grow through immigration issues, nation building, spending, political correctness and nearly every other left wing idea that comes down the pike.

I have seen it on the micro-level on the barometer of the state of the Republican party and largest conservative website, Free Republic. Countless members have left. Lines were drawn. Sides were taken. Bad blood and animosity formed. We were fractioning and with every issue it seemed we were doing it more and more.

So many of us were placated during the Bush years. I am guilty of this myself. He was our guy and, hell, he was not Clinton or (shudder) Al Gore. We were making money and times were good. Sure he was spending like a drunken sailor, sure the border was open, sure he seemed a little unprincipled but we hung on to the things he did right. Meanwhile, the party held onto to their belief that their future was on the left and march left they did.

I also accept we have a healthy contingent of people on the right who will never be happy. Nothing will ever be conservative enough for them. No one passes their litmus tests. The founding fathers could be reborn and brought back down to earth and the malcontents among us would find reasons why they are unprincipled and not true conservatives. They are problematic but not an excuse to accept leftism without abandon.

In the next two years, the fight for the soul of the Republican party will be fought out. We see the beginning salvos at this point. The election in upstate New York is one such pivotal event. We have a bonafide conservative Republican, Hoffman, standing up against a more liberal than the Democrat Republican, Scozzafava. There is a civil war happening in the Republican party at this very moment. The first front on this war is against the unprincipled and soulless RINOs. We must purge the party of the coreless and cowardly who have time and time again capitulated to the Democrats and inturn turned the country over to a merry band of real, live communists.

In the coming elections we will know the direction of the party and if our future lies as a part of it. In upstate New York, if Hoffman wins, there will be many nervous establishment Republicans. If Scozzafava wins, it will only harden their stance that the liberal Republican way is the way to go. Most importantly, these watershed elections are a test of our might and ability to effect the future of the nation.

Barack's Missing Executive Experience Found!

2009-10-23T02:22:00.000-07:00

For those of you who think Barack Obama would not know a balance sheet from a two-ply sheet, details have finally emerged that Obama does actually have some real life, executive experience. Two children have been found in Indonesia and said to have run a kool aid stand with Obama.

Obama, they said, promised all the residents in the neighborhood a sweet and tart mixture of the most fabulous kool-aid imaginable. He painted glorious pictures of the thirst quenching beverage while reading speeches written by, Andidi, one of the three partners in the stand.

"When it came time to mix up the kool aid, Barack was no where to be found, instead he told us to just take the ingredients from the Wijaya family down the street", claimed the third partner Rahmet.

"It was all ready strange", claimed Andidi, "Barack never actually showed up to his shifts to man the booth but instead was found in the recreation hall dancing and eating Happy-Tos. Sometimes he would be bowling or other times playing basketball."

Rahmet told us the prestige that came with running the stand may have gone to his head. "He asked the art department to design an insignia for him, everytime he spoke he had everything surrounding him emblazoned with this strange logo". "We didn't care about some stupid logo, man, we just wanted him to help us mix up the kool aid".

He seemed to develop and insane obsession with the competing and opposing drink stand the next neighborhood over. He incessantly tried to discredit them and began spreading rumors that the kids who ran the stand peed in the kool aid. Subsequently, he asked everyone in the school to not visit or talk to the kids who ran that drink stand.

"He was always with two other kids, one kid who was a ballet dancer and the other who sported a Hilteresque mustache. When we had any questions, you know, just wanting to know why he wasn't actually showing up or doing any of the work, we were told to take it up with them. That's when I found the dead fish in my bed."

At that point the Andidi and Rahmet just continued to do the work of running the lemonade stand and putting Barack's name on it. By then it was too late. The competing drink stand was growing leaps and bounds. Andidi and Rahmet finally grew tired of Barack's empty rhetoric and joined forces with the other stand.

"It was then that we found him, in the park, standing on a rock giving a speech to about five kids. He was saying "I am not tired, I am just getting started..I'm not tired at all".

Omelettes, Eggs and O's Mop

2009-10-21T04:17:00.000-07:00

Ofcourse, I am referencing the words often quoted to numerous collectivist regimes but belonging to French Revolutionary Maximilian Robespierre at the eve of the bloody French Revolution. "One can't expect to make an omelet without breaking eggs"

Obama keeps referencing his use of a mop to clean up the messes left behind. Many probably think he is pointing his finger to President Bush when he makes that statement. I would guess he is referring to the entire past 233 years.

Good thing he has this mop because he may be needing it to clean up a whole slew of eggs in his tireless effort to transform America...or is it the world?

Maybe he could start by cleaning up the dog poop on Air Force One. Just a thought.

The World They'd Build

2009-10-19T05:20:00.000-07:00

Equality, egalitarianism, fairness, a more equitable society -- these are all phrases the left like to throw around. Really, though what can history tell us about the world they seek to build from what would be the ashes of the American dream?“

History tells us they intend to build a two tier society. They intend to to take their rightful place as a large part of a distinct elite class. The talk about egalitarianism is just a tactic used to ferment execration resulting in the destruction of those who have achieved elite status by traditional methods. This would include wealthy business people, people who are not of the pedigree of politically connected families, people not of protected status via race, sexuality, victimology or simply people who were not educated into their line of thought in Ivy League institutions. These are the people they resent. The people from whom they have garnered their superiority.

It was Joseph Schumpeter, Austrian economist, who gave an explanation why those in academia hate their own country. If memory serves he suggested that the professoriat hated the USA on account of hot dog vendors making more money than they. They simply couldn’t abide a country where a laborer could make more money than those in ivory towers. There’s some truth to this; people generally hate what they envy. It can not go without saying, these are the sort of individuals who support Marxism and, by default, Obama's vision to fundamentally change the world.

Make no mistake, not one of these people intend to be subjected to the grey and unanimated life they wish to inflcit on most of us. Not one. They may pose for photo ops with, for instance, bicycles but they have no intention of using one as their main mode of transportation. They will never be subjected to their health care plans just as their children, now, are not subjected to their public schools. The only difference will be you will no longer have the option of progressing to this class through the old methods of hard work, sacrifice, maybe a good idea and a little luck.

America was the one, true egalitarian society. The socialistic and communistic train that we are on is the anti-thesis of American values and it will build a society that most Americans would never recognize.

Where does it end?

2009-10-18T08:52:00.000-07:00

The evidence mounts that something is very wrong in the halls of our government. We now know we have a self-professed admirer of Mao Tse-Tung in an appointed executive position of policy in our White House. Anita Dunn, passionately and unhesitatingly, invoked the life and work of a mass murderer of somewhere between 20,000,000 to 70,000,000 of his own people. Mao Tse-Tung was easily the largest killer in the 20th century.

The average man on the street does not know this. He knows nothing of this history. That is why and how these fellow travelers have gotten as far as they have. Americans tend to be a naive and trusting people. We have a national mindset of "it could never happen here". Relatively speaking, most have lived charmed lives of ease and security. Couple that with an academic ignorance of the world and history around them and it makes them ripe for such a picking.

This ignorance of history is precisely why America has no idea what Obama means when he speaks of fundamental changes to our country. What we are witnessing in the United States is a classic revolution. Revolutions are never supported by the vast majority but they generally idly sit by, watch and endure the results.

White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn's words were:

"In 1947, when Mao Tse Tung was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai‑shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, “How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this against all of the odds against you?” And Mao Tse Tung said, you know, “You fight your war, and I’ll fight mine.”

Funny how she worded it as "his plan to take over China". Was this deliberate white washing or bonafide ignorance? His plan was to eliminate classes completely and to do so by eliminating the people and the memories they had of such a system. He was largely successful.

My opinion still stands, only with more evidence strengthening it, we have had a coup by Marxists. Our country is in the midst of a constitutional crisis and the vast majority do not know it. I do not even think the spineless and ineffective Republicans and supposed conservative Democrats are aware of it.

2009-10-18T06:49:00.001-07:00

Jingo Art

2009-10-15T05:41:00.001-07:00

Perpetually Undecided

2009-10-15T04:27:00.000-07:00

The undecider has decided he's close to deciding on a decision regarding Afghanistan. Actually, it has been said that after five "intense" information gathering meetings, he is fixing on making a decision. He is deciding to decide. After one more meeting which is going to occur sometime next week.

Administration spokesperson and all around annoyance Robert Gibbs has said he doesn't know how long it will take to make the decision but he estimated weeks. Great news if you are one of the guys (or gals) in Afghanistan that has stuff blowing up all around you and you are reaching into your pocket making sure you still have a copy of the Miranda rights handy.

Have no fear troops, Obama is in the "decision making process". Whatever that means. I do not know if the process started before or after Latino Dance Night at the Whitehouse on Tuesday but we have arrived to the critical point of deciding. Perhaps he was deciding while doing his one and only patented dance move with Thalia? Maybe he does his best deciding while recreating? He seems to do enough of it.

Being something of a procrastinator and all around unproductive sort myself, I know all too well talking about deciding is generally cover for "I don't have a frikking clue what to do next" or "I really need to do this but flying to Copenhagen would be so much more less taxing". I engage in this practice quite often. I recognize the symptoms. Except my decisions are usually unimportant and do not effect anyone's lives.

Sigh, meanwhile all this deciding talk has made me realize I really miss "the decider". At least he actually made decisions.

Déjà vu All Over Again

2009-10-14T10:26:00.000-07:00

After Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement that sanctions against Iran were not in the foreseeable future I got this sinking feeling we've been here done this vis-à-vis Iran, the bomb and the Clintons. Maybe because we have with Pakistan.

Let's do a little recap:

1989-1990--reports of secret construction of nuclear research reactor with components from Europe.

July 1991 - Reliable reports from Islamabad confirm that Pakistan had frozen production of HEU and halted the manufacturing of nuclear weapons components.

1992--Pakistani foreign secretary publicly discusses Pakistan's possession of `cores' of nuclear devices.

Late 1992 -- The US Government determines that China had transferred items controlled under the international Missile Technology Control Regime to Pakistan.

25 August 1993 -- The United States imposed "Category Two" sanctions against certain Chinese and Pakistani entities that were involved in an M-11 missile-related transfer, which is prohibited under US law.

Late 1993 -- The Clinton Administration, citing what it considered to be asymmetrical treatment accorded to Pakistan and India over their respective nuclear programs, proposed revising the amendment and certain "country-specific" sections of the Foreign Assistance Act. The administration argued that by the time nuclear nonproliferation provisions had been added to the Foreign Assistance Act, India had already acquired the capability to build nuclear weapons and thus Pakistan had borne the brunt of most United States sanctions.

April 1994 - Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott visits Islamabad to propose a one-time sale of F-16 fighter aircraft to Pakistan. Delivery of the planes would be contingent on specific commitments from Pakistan regarding its nuclear program, including a verifiable cap on the production of fissile materials. Talbott states that there is "broad agreement" between the United States and Pakistan on the goal of "first capping, then reducing, and eventually eliminating weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles from South Asia."

March 1996 -- Pakistan commissioned an unsafeguarded nuclear reactor, expected to become fully operational in the late 1990s, that will provide it with a capability to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

Late 1996 -- Pakistan's main nuclear weapons laboratory, the A.Q. Khan Laboratory in Kahuta, purchased 5,000 ring magnets from China. The ring magnets would allow Pakistan to effectively double its capacity to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons

06 September 1997 -- Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif claims Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons, saying that: "Pakistan's nuclear capability is now an established fact. Whatever we have, we have a right to keep it...." production.

28 May 1998: Pakistan detonates five nuclear devices.

History is about to repeat itself with the second Islamic bomb. If this weren't enough it appears that Poland and the Czech Republic were not thrown under the Obama bus in a back room deal but more as a gesture of good will in hope that Russia would compromise on the Iranian issue. The Russians told Obama to go pound sand. It is at this critical point when we are now negotiating from a position of weakness.

2009-10-14T08:22:00.001-07:00

Socialism in Guyana

2009-10-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

-had to share this excellent first hand experience.

By Rehana Wolfe,

Imagine for a moment what life would be like if you had to queue up at every grocery store just to get basic food items for your family. While you’re standing in line, your palms get sweaty , your heart pounds hard against your chest. Waiting to get to the point of sale seems like an eternity. While in line, your fear intensifies with every step forward to the counter. Your fear is that you would have spent several hours in line only to be turned away at the counter with the dreaded words, 'sorry, come back next week. We just ran out of ….' For many, this is a difficult scenario to comprehend, but for my generation and that of my parents, this was reality during the 70’s and 80’s in Guyana, South America when we lived under the dictatorship of Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, the first President of this small South American country of only 83,000 square miles and a population of under one million people.

Guyana, once a British colony, gained its independence in 1966 under the leadership of Burnham. Under his ideology of nationalization and self sufficiency, he gradually steered the country into the abyss of socialism from 1966 until his death in 1985. In an already poverty stricken environment, 1966 marked the beginning of political and economic chaos accompanied by growing racial tensions between the East Indians and Blacks who together form the majority.

Guyana, conquered from the Dutch, came to be developed under British rule. Under the British Slave Act, shiploads of African slaves were cast on the shorelines of Guyana, followed by indentured laborers from India, Asia, and Europe. These slaves and laborers were brought to Guyana to work on the sugar plantations.

After Burnham gained Guyana’s independence in 1966, his political platform and cabinet were very race oriented, empowering the Blacks and resulting in growing tensions and dislike for each other among the Indians and Blacks. There were no general elections between 1966 and 1985. Human rights and civil liberties were suppressed. There were many political assassinations of brilliant scholars and political activists who tried to bring change to Burnham’s socialist regime. Two unforgettable assassinations were Walter Rodney and Vincent Teekah.

The tensions between the Blacks and Indians continued to grow and eventually rose to the level of riots, looting, burning, and killing. I’ll never forget the riot of 1971. At eight years old, it would be my first glimpse and real understanding of the racial pain. It was a beautiful day. At around 9 a.m., the sun shone in all its glory but the calm and beauty of the day was disturbed by the echoing cries of people running for cover as the loud bang of gunshots filled the air. My sister and I were at school when suddenly my Dad burst into the classroom and grabbed us without much explanation. He had to brave the violent streets on his bicycle, dodging bullets to get his two daughters back home safely. My Dad put my sister and me on the bike, both on the middle passenger bar and pedaled as fast as he could to get us home safely. When we got there, he rushed us into the living room (which was upstairs) and told us to lie on the floor behind the sofas. There would be many more of these riots in the years ahead.

Let’s go back to the scene at the beginning of this story. Many institutions were nationalized; travel and foreign currency were restricted. Therefore, waiting in line for basic food items was the norm. Burhnam’s idea of self sufficiency meant that we produced our own flour, rice, sugar, etc. Of course, importation of these items was illegal. Many businessmen tried to smuggle them in but couldn’t meet the demand. While Guyana could supply itself with rice and sugar, we could not produce wheat flour (He urged the people to make flour from rice), milk, and other nutritional foods.

Infant formula was not sufficiently available. Mothers improvised to feed young babies. The baby formula ration was one five pound can of per month. How did working mothers feed their babies when they were not available to breast feed? I was one of those mothers who added pureed plantains to the formula to make it last until it was time for the next can.

Many things were in short supply. At the gas station where we purchased propane cooking gas by the canister there were lines too. And not every day, only on certain days when the canisters were in stock. Here the lines would form the previous evening. At around 6pm people started taking their positions to make sure they were among the first 20 or 50 or whatever the quota was that day. They would take turns sleeping and watching each other ‘s position until dawn.

Electricity was another big problem. It was constantly interrupted – to the point where many residential areas would go without electricity for an entire day or night. This affected not only electrical appliances but also the flow of water to our homes. We were constantly keeping buckets of water for the shower, toilets, and all other needs.

Education was good until the student got to the university. A four year college became a three-year one, with the third year being obligatory national service. After graduation, students often had to sign a five year contract with the government. One had to work for the government and could not leave the country during this period.

All travel abroad was controlled. Permission to travel abroad was granted only after your tax records were checked and it was confirmed that you were tax compliant. Foreign currency restrictions were tracked by stamping the last page of the passport with the date and amount of cash issued per trip.

Guyana’s socialism gradually faded after the death of Burnham in 1983. And it wouldn’t be until 1992, after 28 years of dictatorship, that Guyanese citizens would experience their first free and fair election. Cheddi Jagan would become President – yes the same guy that lost the rigged election to Burham in 1963.

In conclusion, I must say that amidst all these sufferings and struggles, one cannot leave amiss the emotional distress that a population suffers from under socialism. While trying to find food, and nurture growing babies, families yell at each other in anger and frustration – life becomes a barren desert upon which love and compassion are hard to cultivate.

Rehana Wolfe, born in Guyana, now lives in Pennsylvania. She has a Master's degree in Communications from Villanova University.

"You're Either With Us...

2009-10-13T02:14:00.001-07:00

Or with the terrorists". Everyone remembers President George W. Bush's ultimatum sounding words in the days following 9-11. Fast forward eight years. My how things change! It is a similar rallying cry. However it is now "It's us against them". Only this time the "them" is Fox news and by default conservatives, Republicans and anyone who dare question or criticize the Obama administration's inability to put together a cohesive strategy on any front.

Again, it makes you question if Obama has any political instinct. Fox News is in the midst of it's best year yet. They are not only soaring with the cable news competition but they are cutting in to other viewing network share as well.

The left wing remains in denial. All Faux News viewers are stupid, old, white, less intellectual, etc. Saul Alinsky #RULE 5 is employed with full force: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. And yet, Fox soars. Ten years of ridicule and self righteous bashing and Fox only grows in profitability and popularity.

Yet never meeting a dictator or mass murdering totalitarian he would not have a Come to Jesus Meeting with, Obama declares war on Fox News. To what ends?

Under normal circumstances, Fox will not be damaged by this. Fox has more viewers on an off time slot than any of the other networks, probably, combined at prime time. However, Obama’s popularity and political capital will suffer. As he becomes more and more impotent, he shows every indication making more and more desperate moves. Making normal circumstances an endangered species.

We keep waiting for some fruit of his tenure to come to fruition. Yet, it never does. In his world, taxing is investing, winding down the clock with incessant debate is action, and his ever constant campaigning is leadership. With this nine month blue print we see what the results are going to be. Stagnation, higher unemployment, lower popularity, more scrutiny, loss of congressional seats and, hope against hope, the nails in the coffins of healthcare and climate change taxation.

His war on Fox News is a Chavez styled move and there is no doubt it comes straight from the top. Obama is completely intolerant of criticism and dissent. The question remains how far will he go to silence it?

Next Stop-Failed State?

2009-10-10T01:03:00.000-07:00

Conspiracies theories aside, these are the people calling the shots. This image portrays the scene as 50,000 people showed up in Detroit hoping to get one of the 5,000 applications available for aid money to be released from the stimulus funds. Chaos ensued, fights broke out, police were called in and a handful of people were taken away in ambulance. The YouTubes tell the story. When interviewed the stimulus seekers said the money was coming from "Obama's stash".

The most dispiriting aspect of this scene is that these are the people that are now in charge and they have elected one of their own. That isn't meant as a racial remark, it is a mentality observation. Talk show hosts compared this to the Katrina aftermath. They are wrong it is more like Zimbabwe with little smatterings of Argentina and Yugoslavia thrown in for seasoning.

This is a growing subculture. A free republic can not withstand this kind of wanton ignorance, systemic immorality and inability to control impulse. It's mostly urban but the mentality is alive and well in the rural areas as well. It is a black thing, a white thing and a brown thing. Truthfully, it is more prevelant in African American communities because that is where Democrats have had a stranglehold on power. It’s the result of seventy-five years of New Deal liberalism and nearly fifty years of the “War on Poverty”. When I wrote the other day of the results of a system making people less, this was exactly what I had in mind. People who otherwise may have made their way except for the spirit crushing policies of the programs above.

What has changed in the least century? Unemployment in Detroit hovers at about 20 percent. I would wager it is higher. Those are Great Depression numbers. However during the Great Depression people pulled together. They did anything they had to do to get by. A large enough chunk in the image above would just assume shoot you for the $20 in your pocket than mow your lawn for it. The next time the media pundit tells you this is the next great depression, remember this is not your grandparents "Great Depression, this is something else entirely. It may be the beginnings of a failed state.

The Guy Who Didn't Win the Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T03:28:00.000-07:00

Meet 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, Greg Mortenson. Mortenson is a New York Times best selling author and a man who is responsible for dedicating his life to building schools for girls in Pakistan. His belief is that education is the key to stopping middle eastern violence, especially education of the women. His reasoning is that male suicide bombers must go to their mother to ask for permission to fulfill their missions.

With, in large part, help from Mortenson Pakistani school enrollment went from 800,000 in 2000 to 8.4 million in 2008. You can frequently find him on the lecture circuit telling his story of education, failure and triumph over failures. This man was one of many in a record year of Nobel Peace Prize nominees.

Meet Barack Obama. 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Nominated after sitting in the office of the United States Presidency for two weeks. Reads a teleprompter really swell. Um, yeah, that's about all I have got.

What we should walk away from this with, if we haven't already with previous winners Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat, is that the Nobel Peace Prize is a political basketball. It is rewarded as a political gold star with no real basis of accomplishment. Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize simply for rejecting the ideals of his own country. It shows of the extreme levels of anti-Americanism in the institutions the left has co-opted. Most importantly it shows us the insular and corrupt group think the left engages in when gathered together in their institutionalized circle jerks.

It is beginning to make the days of Khrushchev beating the shoe and simultaneously yelling "We will bury you!" at the UN seem like the good old days. We are living in precarious times.

Let's Stick With The First BOR

2009-10-08T02:45:00.000-07:00

Cass Sunstein, Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, has written a book which calls for a second Bill of Rights. This, apparently, complemented his conference at Yale Law School where he calls for a reworking of the constitution by the year 2020. Because, you know, the founders weren't insightful enough we need the likes of Cass Sunstein *shudder* telling us how we are going to live. Sunstein's list of rights read something like the how I would have liked to see the world when I was seven years old and really could not comprehend why it just was not like it should be. It's the stuff of small child fantasy.

"Mommy why can't we just not have money and go to the store and get whatever we want?" Who has not been asked that by their children? I have, years ago, by my, now, 12 year old daughter. I remember the conversation vividly and the funny thing is when I explained the "why" to her, she got it. She didn't like it any better but she grasped it and it is a lesson that has stuck with her to this day.

Except, Sunstein is a grown up. He shapes and molds young thinkers in our most prestigious and respected universities. And he is in the halls of our government today. Sunstein has a whole spectrum of crazy ideas from limiting and criminalizing free speech to extending legal rights to farm animals we tend to rely on for protein sources. However, like most leftist radicals, he speaks the quiet, careful and thoughtful educated speak of an Ivy Leaguer. The kind of serious, polished demeanor and bio that would lead one to take him seriously and would never associate with crazy.

Behold his eight simple mandates:

1) The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

2) The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

3) The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

4) The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

5) The right of every family to a decent home;

6) The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

7) The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

8) The right to a good education.

"Decent" home, "good" education, "adequate" food -- sure leaves a lot of wiggle room. I am guessing as the five year plans keep on expiring what constitutes good, adequate and decent becomes a little less good, adequate and decent. Good healthcare can become an aspirin and a dirty cot, a decent education can become sharing the same book for 10 students, decent housing can become Soviet style three families sharing one apartment where the heat sometimes works. You can bet, like every other experiment in Utopian style remaking of society, it will. When enough of the people who make society work finally object to being financially obligated by force to support the voracious appetites of those who do not or who were made less by such a system.

How about we just stick to being the place where you have the opportunity to acquire these things through hard work, effort and, even, a little luck? It is a formula that has served us (and the rest of the world) well for 229 years. It is the reason why more people dream of coming here and risk life and limb to do it. How about we reject the recycled utopian worldview that holds humanity in contempt, and that has enabled some of history's worst mass murderers and suffering?

The American Consumer, The Great Bolsterer

2009-10-07T00:35:00.001-07:00

I have been pondering two questions for the past few days.

1. How much has the American consumer subsidized the European decades long experiment with socialism?

2. If our system continues the lurch leftward what will then be the effect on all the countries we have, in effect, been propping up?

I was thinking about Norway and how the socialists in that country have been successful using the countries vast oil wealth to, essentially, buy off the population. Which then led me to the conclusion that it is because, in great part, of American consumption and innovation that the oil has the value that it does. They can balk and turn their noses at us, but we have been the enablers of socialism on much of the European continent.

Another way we have done this is by providing Europe with protection and our military might. This saved them countless billions over the decades, billions which have allowed the welfare state mentality to flourish and take hold in the psyche of the people. Although Europe was and continues to be heavily influenced by Marxist intellectual thought, perhaps allowing them to feel the pain of such a system would have allowed ideals more closely aligned with ours to gain a foothold in the collective mind of the people. While we were fly swatting leftist regimes around the globe, we allowed Europe to become what it is today. Like a child playing parent to an over-indulgent and dysfunctional parent, we were the enablers.

Healthcare is another sector that we have continued to let feed off the trough. 70% of pharmaceutical research funding comes from the United States. Both US and European drug companies sell their products for a premium in the US. European countries with socialized medicine sell these same medicines at or just above cost. In other words, the American free-market consumer subsidizes the European socialist counterparts in the prices paid for needed medicines. Then we allow Europeans and like- minded left leaning Americans to question how a first world country could not have socialized medicine.

Instantly, we can see in this example what will happen if we continue in the direction we are headed. If the Obama administration is successful in nationalizing the American healthcare system one of two things will happen, either the funding for research will dry up or the costs for drugs in Europe and Canada will increase. Those are the laws of the market.

The United States consumer and standard of living has been propping up the European (and Canadian) love affair with socialism for at least the last half-century — in all sorts of ways.The European elite leadership may be, at least, somewhat aware of this and, on some level, they must know if they kill the golden goose Europeans will start to look inward rather than to the United States for their ills. Additionally, I believe it may be a part of why we are seeing quite a bit of defiance toward the Obama administration coming from the European continent.

However, the average European citizen would never believe this. They buy the Marxist opiate hook, line and sinker. I interact with them in cyber-space regularly. They really believe the state “gives” you everything you need—your health, your childcare, takes care of old age, removes the responsibility of adulthood. It may be well past time the Europeans were taught a valuable lesson--no socialist society has ever succeeded without subsidy from somewhere else, namely the much sneered and jeered American consumer.

The Mrs.

2009-10-05T05:06:00.000-07:00

<

I have to admit it, I have developed a sort of odd fascination with Michelle Obama. Daily, I search Free Republic to see what fashion faux paux she committed for the day. Each extravagant and self indulgent outing gives up more and more insight into her person. And I am hooked. I like to study personalities and hers is nothing if not casebook.

How high up will her belt be today? Is she still wearing the green pumps with every outfit? How big is the bow today? Why, with all her resources, did she never get that highly unattractive under-bite fixed? How much did she spend on her sneakers? Inquiring minds need to know.

I have to admit I never liked her. She always came off as angry and mean spirited to me. The more of herself she shows us, the less I like her. But, she is something like a well written villain on a soap opera, she is the reason you keep tuning in everyday. You just can not wait to see what disaster she will be in the middle of next.

Interestingly enough, I am finding out that I am not the only person with this syndrome. Blogs devoted to her are popping up all over the ether. I came across two just today.

Antidote to Mrs. O's Mania and Style

Michelle Obama's Mirrors Blog

I have to admit I am a little envious I did not think to do this first. I'd never run out of material. Another thought, I think we might be hitting on a cottage industry here.

Embarrassment of Olympic Proportions

2009-10-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

They say the number one rule of selling anything is belief in what you are selling and conveying that enthusiasm to the prospective client. It's easy to sell the notion that we are a bad, bad country that needs atonement when you believe it and your clients already believe it too. It is a bit difficult to sell a vacuum cleaner when just last week you were selling the competing vacuum cleaner and pointing out all the flaws and deficiencies of the brand you are trying to sell today.

I have to admit I have a bit of schadenfreude today. Watching Michelle and Barack fly back to the United States without the olympics was enjoyable. As a rule, I don't find pleasure in my country losing anything. However, the last thing needed was a city as corrupt and dangerous as Chicago on the world stage. The last thing Barack Obama needed was a shallow victory to distract attention away from his mounting pile of failures. The American public has short memories and is naively forgiving.

The humiliation by the fiasco in Copenhagen should be examined by the left. I doubt it will be and more than likely they'll give shallow excuses. I have already begun hearing murmurings and "analysis" of the institutionalized racism in Europe. Left wing blogs are purporting that Europe still has a long way to go when it comes to overcoming racism. I find that interesting considering they are usually busy holding the United States up as THE racist society. The left is nothing if they aren't expedient when it comes to manipulating their opinions.

Additionally, they should really examine the idea of being "liked". The narcissist of Barack Obama never entertained the notion that he was not going to win the olympics. He felt his simple presence was enough to do the trick. Common sense adults should now know different. Europeans embraced Barack Obama simply because he was destructive to the United States. They reject leaders like George Bush because , although maybe often misguided, they do put the best interest of our country first. Be it consciously or subconsciously they were not embracing the man himself but the idea of bringing us down a few pegs.

Barack Obama is his worst enemy. His inability to be humble and realistically evaluate himself are hurting him. His thin skin is growing thinner. He does not see himself the way the, soon, majority of Americans see him. His continued pushing of Michelle Obama into the spotlight shows how out of touch with mainstream America he is. She is offensive, elitist and angry. Yet, he continues to allow her to be thrust out into the public eye whether it is pushing healthcare or trying to bring home the olympics. Regardless of how many times she appears on Good Morning America to talk about organic vegetables or how she maintains the tone in her arms, she does not resonate with anyone other than his hardcore supporters.

There have been many times we have seen examples of the lack of respect of the office he holds. The cheap and unthoughtful gifts to the Queen of England were a prime example. Investing the prestige of the office of the presidency was a colossal blunder. Aside from foreign and the right wing niche media, this will never properly be addressed. The water carriers in the US mainstream media will spin it into a positive. Although, as they keep trying to repolish this turd, most of us are beginning to notice he is not any of the things they are trying to tell us he is.

Now, he is back in the Oval Office. Back to the issues he successfully avoided for the last 24 hours. The news cycle, to all but the political junkies, was co-opted by Obama, Oprah and Michelle's junket to Copenhagen and that was by design. Now instead of rallies and olympic coverage they are forced to cover more serious issues. A floundering healthcare bill, eroding approval numbers, the "dismal September jobs report", 10 percent unemployment, mounting terror intelligence and American blood spilling in Afghanistan are all the hot plates on his desk at the moment. I predict another diversionary boonboggle in less than two weeks.

Ahmadinejad's Demons

2009-09-30T03:11:00.001-07:00

A Child of the Revolution Takes Over · By Matthias Küntzel

During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran’s forces were no match for Saddam Hussein’s professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child’s neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.

At one point, however, the earthly gore became a matter of concern. “In the past,” wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettelaat as the war raged on, “we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the minefields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone.” Such scenes would henceforth be avoided, Ettelaat assured its readers. “Before entering the minefields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves.”

These children who rolled to their deaths were part of the Basiji, a mass movement created by Khomeini in 1979 and militarized after the war started in order to supplement his beleaguered army.The Basij Mostazafan – or “mobilization of the oppressed” – was essentially a volunteer militia, most of whose members were not yet 18. They went enthusiastically, and by the thousands, to their own destruction. “The young men cleared the mines with their own bodies,” one veteran of the Iran-Iraq War recalled in 2002 to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine. “It was sometimes like a race. Even without the commander’s orders, everyone wanted to be first.”

The sacrifice of the Basiji was ghastly. And yet, today, it is a source not of national shame, but of growing pride. Since the end of hostilities against Iraq in 1988, the Basiji have grown both in numbers and influence. They have been deployed, above all, as a vice squad to enforce religious law in Iran, and their elite “special units” have been used as shock troops against anti-government forces. In both 1999 and 2003, for instance, the Basiji were used to suppress student unrest. And, last year, they formed the potent core of the political base that propelled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—a man who reportedly served as a Basij instructor during the Iran-Iraq War—to the presidency.

What if You Threw a Foreign Policy Crisis and Nobody Came?

2009-09-30T02:51:00.000-07:00

No one showed up, not the corrupt and defunct press, not the President of the United States of America. That's is where we are. We are in the midst of a foreign policy disaster. A vacuum of leadership grows wider by the day. On two fronts we see unravelling. Afghanistan, the righteous war according to the left, and a belligerent, about to go nuclear, Iran. And where is the President? He and the Mrs. are off on separate planes to Copenhagen to win the olympics for Chicago.

Wouldn't this normally be a task for an underling at the State Department? It is another example of Obama voting present, running away to his comfort zone of campaigning and speaking to adoring crowds when the pressure is on.

A Show (Presidency) About Nothing

2009-09-29T02:18:00.000-07:00

I will admit that sometimes it is hard to look at things with the stone cold stare of neutrality. Putting ideology and biases aside is not always easy, especially when one is a devout ideologue. I can be certain though it is becoming pretty apparent that we have a complete incompetent in the Oval Office. Something along the lines of an executive level Dennis the Menace. It is safe to predict that if he were anybody's employee in the private sector he’d be fired. If he were an investment you’d sell now just to cut your losses.

He is reminding me more and more of that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer kinda gets a job. It goes like this:

KRAMER: What did you want to see me about, Mr. Leland?

LELAND: Kramer, I've.. been reviewing your work.. Quite frankly, it stinks.

KRAMER: Well, I ah.. been havin' trouble at home and uh.. I mean, ah, you know, I'll work harder, nights, weekends, whatever it takes.. (OK, admittedly THIS part takes MUCH imagination on the part of the reader)

LELAND: No, no, I don't think that's going to, do it, uh. These reports you handed in. It's almost as if you have no business training at all.. I don't know what this is supposed to be!

KRAMER: Well, I'm uh, just--tryin' to get ahead..

LELAND: Well, I'm sorry. There's just no way that we could keep you on.

KRAMER: I don't even really work here!

LELAND: That's what makes this so difficult.

We have Kramer at the helm. Incidentally, there is also an episode where Kramer becomes a communist after he is influenced by Elaine's boyfriend. Except, our Kramer is not experimenting. He is the real deal.

Merkel Wins Another Term

2009-09-27T11:49:00.001-07:00

Students of history will remember that Margaret Thatcher was elected as a conservative in England in May, 1979. Similar to today, it was a dark time in America with Jimmy Carter at the helm.

Congratulations Germany! Sie haben gut!

Off to Copenhagen

2009-09-23T23:29:00.000-07:00

will return Tuesday...

The Worker's Paradise of Chavez

2009-09-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

Chavez Farm Coop (there's that word again!)

Do you need any more evidence?

2009-09-22T02:53:00.001-07:00

I keep reading the question--"Did Obama take the wrong side in Honduras". To which the only and obvious answer would be--YES! Obama IS the wrong side.

Would Obama choose to back the Chavez style and backed president, Zelaya, who upon the end of his first term moved to change the constitution so that he may remain in office. Would you expect anything than the answer to be yes at this point? Ofcourse, he did.

Would he still support him even though he did this through deliberately unconstitutional means by way of his own referendum, without the congressional authorization demanded by Honduras's constitution? Without a doubt. And he'd go so far as backing the classification of the military installing the rule of law as a "military coup".

Has it ever been the policy of the United States of America to back the subversion of a democratic country’s constitution in this way?

Honduras’ constitution was changed in the 1980s and it uses the United States constitution as its blueprint. They expressly prohibited any person from holding more than one Presidential term or even suggesting that the constitution be changed specifically due to the region’s history of Marxist dictatorships.

Wasn't it our policy at one time to spread the ideals of democracy and the rule of law?

Zelaya is currently finding refuge at the Brazilian embassy in Honduras. De facto leader, Michelleti has asked Brazil to hand over President Zelaya from their embassy. Some in Honduras believe the only way Zelaya could have gotten in was through Palmerola US air base. Rumors abound that the Clinton/State dept flew him in to the base and them had him transported by helicopter to the Brazilian embassy.

There is no real evidence that points to that occurring at this time. Recent experience and Obama's track record can lead one to their own conclusions. We are, however, left with this impression: Obama involves himself in Honduras to save a fellow leftist who will spread revolution with the help of Ortega, the Castro's, and Chavez. It is most ominous that the government of the United States is condemning and punishing the peaceful, freedom-loving people of Honduras for their refusal to accept communism.

Who They Are

2009-09-18T00:51:00.000-07:00

I have to admit I do not watch Jon Stewart, I do not really fit his demographic. However, I am aware of the pull he has in pop culture circles. He tends to appeal to that, "I am so smart, I hate all sides equally but funny how it is I always side with the statists" crowd. They annoy me. They probably annoy me more than the actual statists themselves. I have no use for fence sitters, I find them to be mostly cowards.

That said, I watched the linked clip that Flopping Aces had posted on their blog featuring Jon Stewart commenting on ACORN. Link

What struck me was how honestly surprised Jon Stewart was that this was the face of the Democratic base. Of course, I know of the limousine liberals and the upper echelon white elitists who vote Democrat--the circles Stewart, no doubt, travels in. But, I also know if Democrats had to rely on these people to get elected they might garner 10% of the vote.

I also know a vast chunk of the people who are attracted to the northeastern liberal message are those people in the ACORN videos. Stewart, in his own comedic covered way, seemed really blown away by this revelation. It was not the down trodden guy with his lunch pail on the way to the mine or the single mom working three jobs, exhausted and just trying to get some amoxicillin for her kid's ear infection.

It was the lowest common denominator. People in survival mode putting a very cheap price tag on life. Stewart seemed perplexed that decades of the Great Society have done little but let loose on this country a significant population of feral animals and that many of them vote and are politically active supporting the same people and policies he does.

It is said to get actually "clean" someone's mind of leftism, they need a SEE (Significant Emotional Event) to occur. I have an acquaintance who claimed for him it was watching the Vietnamese leave their country in whatever makeshift boat they could find. Many dying before reaching safe shores. Quite a few, ending up in NW Florida where he was living as a Marxist at that time.

Their relief and gratitude to be in the United States of America hit a nerve with him. Slowly he began to question his beliefs. He started to see there was something very wrong with his world view. That many good people, faced with such traumatizing life or death events, at the hands of a system he completely devoted himself to, could not be wrong. Finally, he witnessed the Cambodian atrocity. He began to think for himself and he was forever changed.

He made it out. We can hope these ACORN videos begin the process in some of the minds of the left. I have to believe many watched in eye opening disbelief as Jon Stewart appeared to.

Joe Six Pack Meet VAT

2009-09-17T03:08:00.000-07:00

Until now, the United States has been VAT free. With the signing of socialized medicine we will undoubtedly see the implementation of a VAT or value added tax. I would venture to guess it starts at about 15% and creeps upwards as the program falls further and further into the red. Sweden, where I currently reside, has a VAT tax of 25% on most goods and services. Yes, you read that correctly. 25%.

The VAT tax, basically a sales tax, is a consumption tax. It will be levied on top of your federal and state income taxes, your state sales tax and whatever other taxes you are subject to. It isn't getting much talk in the media leading me to believe Joe Six Pack does not even have it on his radar screen. I don't think he knows it is coming.

Understanding the numbers is paramount to understanding the need for a VAT tax. According to factcheck.org approximately 2% of Americans will make over $250,000 this year. Though the Democrats are operating by giving the assumption that taxpayer funded healthcare will be afforded by taxing this segment of the population, it is painfully obvious that there are not enough "rich" out there to pay for this massive entitlement.

What this is, essentially, is a back door middle class and lower class tax increase and a big one. It is a job killer, a consumption killer and an economy dragger. It increases the price of goods at each stage of production and it ushers in consumer prices far more than simply increasing them the simple percentage of the tax. Here in Sweden, it is not uncommon to pay 2, 3 or more times the prices in the U.S. for common everyday goods.

The result? You think twice before buying anything. Personally, I am waiting for trips back to the US to get much needed items. Jeans, a new iPod, etc. Many Swedes have told me how they "stock up" on items like jeans, foods, liquor when traveling. Not to mention, the black market that begins to flourish in high taxation environments. All opportunity costs that can not be weighed in when figuring statistics and studies.

Fortunately, the taxes come before the benefit with this healthcare scheme. Taxes will begin immediately and the "benefit" does not come until 2013. I am only hoping that the American people will not stand for the Europification of their country and the backlash will be staggering.

Relative Deprivation

2009-09-15T01:17:00.000-07:00

Politics today works hand in hand with relative deprivation. Our politicians, primarily on the left, foster it, encourage it and then use it to their own advantage. Relative deprivation, a term used by sociologists, can be described as the state in which a person who is lacking something believes they are entitled to it simply because others have it. It is a condition as old as mankind and has probably been capitalized on since the time man began living in organized settlements.

Relative deprivation gives oxygen to the concept of social justice. Social justice is nothing more than a buzzword of the left to encourage class divisions. It is also a gift that never stops giving. Because relative deprivation is, just that, relative, they could never run out of social injustices. The people always have voids to fill, and what they are hungry for is always something that do not yet have but others may . Yes, the poor will always be with us if the goal post is constantly moved.

Social justice folklore tells us we have rights to many things. Rights to shelter, food, safety, employment, etc. The ever growing list is now inclusive of health care. Common sense would tell you, something that is required to be produced through effort and creativity can never be a right.

In a free society with fluid classes it is the height of irresponsibility and short-sightedness to foster these illusions for political gain. Of course, we have two segments of the political class that are guilty of doing just that. The first would be the actual true believers and the second would be those who do not really believe it, think about it or the ramifications but they know it substitutes for real ideas and solutions. Neither politician has a place in the United States of America.Unfortunately our halls of government are littered with such people starting from the highest office. In short, we have a government of rabble rousers.

Angry Dad at the Podium

2009-09-10T02:52:00.000-07:00

If you are not on board with Obama's new vision for America, well then, you are obviously too stupid to "get" it. And if you are caught telling anyone why, well then he is "going to call you out". Admittedly, I was expecting a little more than patronizing parent mode yesterday evening. Honestly, my fear was that he was going to be at the top of his game. After all, he had weeks of off-time to prepare.

Maybe it is that the shine came off. We all have those moments when we go home with our shiny new trinket straight off the showroom floor and suddenly in the dimmer lights of our home--it isn't so shiny. When we go to turn it on, it isn't working quite the way the salesman made it work. When we dig out his phone number to call him and ask some questions, he isn't the same charismatic guy, who hours before, got you drunk on his enthusiasm. That's the feeling a lot of Obama supporters must be feeling.

At what point does your greatest asset become a detriment? Probably when you over use it or use it in every situation especially when it is not called for. So becomes the case with the "magical" oratory skills of Barack Obama. Admittedly, I only watched part of it. It is about as much as I can handle. I have never been moved by any emotion other than revulsion watching the hypnotized masses engage in their twisted cult of personality when witnessing him speak. However, from what I did see and read, it looks like if that is all he has got-Obamacare may well be dead.

Obama went into the speech last night with the charges that he was too vague, speaking in platitudes and not giving enough concrete, nuts and bolts information. Instead he tried to show up and deliver the magic, slip the audience a rufie of feel good platitudes and poetic exaggerations of semi-truths. Except what we witnessed was more of an angry campaign version of Obama. He was working on turning on the magic, and there were hints of it, but frustration, anger and a hint of desperation shined through.

Did the speech change any minds last night? Did he offer any new details? Most importantly is he answering the one question we are all asking, "Sounds great, now how are you going to pay for all this?" As far as I could tell is was the same bill, with the public option at the same costs that magically "won’t add a penny to the deficit”. He droned on about bipartisanship while chastizing Republicans. At the same time promising to "eliminate fraud, waste and abuse”. All in all, nothing new. Perhaps, he just hoped his recently vacationed vocal chords were going to make all the difference.

Too Funny

2009-09-08T01:18:00.000-07:00

You're The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me

2009-09-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

If conservatives needed a new theme song, this would be it. Obama is shaping up to be bad medicine for what ails an apathetic nation. He is reminding an opiated with comfort population that was more interested in American Idol or what flavor of latte they were going to order about politics, civics, prosperity and why they matter. It is a painful lesson, but one the country needs.

Contrast that with another Bush or worse, a moderate Republican like McCain. It would have been more detrimental, long term, to have four more years of reaching across the aisle and proliferate spending. At the same time these lukewarm Republicans gave the media the tools it needed to paint "conservative" as something it was not.

No, this is good. Obama is liberalism wide out in the open for all the country to see. Dishonest, fanatical, fascist, tyrannical and dangerous. The more eyes that open, the more angry the public gets. What we are witnessing is a healthy display of appropriate anger. It is important that we not let people immobilized by guilt and timidness describe it as anything but that.

Ofcourse, it could be too early to sing. Looking back to the makeover Clinton made in his floundering first term, to all of us it is apparent what Obama needs to do at this time. Before it is too late he would need to undergo a Clinton-like remaking to make himself more in tune to the middle of the country. However at this writing, he seems to be losing what political instinct he had, the mask is coming off and he seems to be heading toward a point of no return.

The difference is, and it is a significant one, Clinton could do a major rebranding because he was never ideologically pure. He never let anything trump his political survival. Most of all, Clinton wanted to be liked and, at his best, he was likable. Examination of the moves he was willing to make to come back with a vengeance in 1994, signing welfare reform and axing the toxic Hillary healthcare, tells us he was less an ideologue than a pragmatist.

Obama could do all of the same things. He needs to do all of these same things but he doesn't have the the psychological make-up that would allow him to do so. He is an ideologue. More so, his ideology defines him. It is more than the fact that he was raised and steeped in leftist ideology, he was, but it is more an issue of what the ideology has given him. Acceptance, elitist status and a shell of armor for the delicate narcissistic personality. He has never left the shelter of left wing comfort bases: academia, law and political office. In the bubble of leftism, Obama has been twice protected because of his race.

Outside of magic rhetorical skills, he is elitist, condescending and insular. Clinton, for all his faults, was never any of those things. Bush had a stroke of insularity but at the same time he was folksy. You felt like you could belly up to the bar and talk about last night's Ranger game with Bush. Not so with Obama and people feel that. It's almost painful to watch him try to fake it.

Instinctively they seem to be catching on that at the crux of it, Obama appears to be unable to understand just how offensive many of his recent moves are to the vast majority of Americans. He does not feel the patriotism that comes so easily to us. It just does not compute. It is because his mind has been contaminated with leftist ideals hostile to this country. Simply put, he does not come off as one of us--because he is not.

What do you do when your enemy is destroying himself? You become the roadrunner to his Wile E. Coyote. You count on him to continue the pattern of behaviors he is known to engage in. Our task as conservatives is is to shine the light on every move, educate and to be ready in 2010 with a clear alternative to socialism.

Comrade Green Jobs

2009-09-04T03:51:00.001-07:00

I have a question. Does Obama have any friends who are not America-loathing, Marxist or black theology types? Actually two questions because the answer to the first is becoming quite apparent. Is there no end to this line-up of, would be comedic if it weren't so damn serious, cast of characters?

Enter stage left, President Obama's controversial environmental adviser, Green Comrade Van Jones. Jones has claimed that he wants to shelve grey capitalism for a green jobs movement, that the USA was an apartheid regime and has stated that he believes Bush has something to do with hatching up the plans for 9/11. He has stated 9/11 was a Republican campaign ad.

I do not know that the Whitehouse has been this big of an embarrassment since Jimmy Carter. To fairly put it in perspective though, I think most of Carter's bumblings in the 1970s were born out of basic misguidance. It was not until after he left office and knew his legacy was being the worst president in recent history and the butt of many jokes that he truly developed an undeniable hatred for his country. Obama's disdain for his country was well established long before he took office.

Let's keep in mind Presidents select appointments from lifelong political circles of friends. The only circle Obama knows is comprised of communists, black radical communists and did I say communists? To any of us that have been paying attention, none of this is a surprise. This is the the trust barrier and in a sane nation would be the barometer of who and what he is. It would not surprise me, in the least, if tomorrow Hugo Chavez was given a Czar's position in his cabinet.

A big show of gratitude to Glenn Beck for exposing Van Jones. Each day Beck puts his neck out there and fights for the survival of this nation. It is rumored that Jones will take him rightful position under the bus with Wright, Ayers and the grandmother. Let us not forget, though, Jones is only the symptom of a much more widespread disease. With Obama radicals like Jones are like buses. There will be another one to come along in fifteen minutes.

How did we get here?

2009-08-28T02:23:00.000-07:00

"He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative."

G.K. Chesterton

I open with that quote because it is among one of my favorites and because it helps illustrate my point or rather my inquiry. A question I have been asking myself quite a bit lately as yet another young person, embracing Marxist ideals, acts as though he is somehow some sort of utopian building non-conformist.

How did we ever get to the point where the youth of our country identify with nanny statist authoritarians and turn their noses at the true home of rebelliousness? How is it that the very people who should most embrace individuality and systems that foster creativity, opportunity and freedom turn their back to it and instead align themselves with people who want to tell them how to manage every aspect of their lives from cradle to grave?

It is completely backwards. Modern "liberalism" or statism is so at odds with everything that should attract the young that, if you stop and really think about it, it is staggering. It also shows what a grievous error it was allowing our educational institutions and popular culture to be co-opted by the Marxist movements.

While we true Americans were pacified, minds like Bill Ayers were instructing the next generation of minds. As we have now see and as was told to us by the Soviet defector, Bezmenov, in 1985, the beauty of the system is that it is self-replicating. Each generation of useful idiots turns out the next generation of useful idiots. The minds, as Bezmenov points out, are "contaminated, programmed to think and react to certain stimuli". They typically can not be reasoned with, facts do not resonate.

Each day young minds are bombarded with Marxist ideals. Ridicule is the tool used to ensure their complete demoralization. We see how dissent is treated by the progressives among us in classrooms or the media. Imagine a young mind being twisted and turned by these forces day in and day out. It takes a strong constitution to withstand that sort of scrutiny and humilation. Most do not have it. Mixed with the idealism of youth and the need to conform, most surrender.

What is obvious now is that the damage has been done. Our institutions of education, civil service, entertainment and media are filled with minds and ideas hostile to American ideals. How do we undo the damage? Can we undo the damage? How do we stop it going forward? How we get back to a place where our youth is taught principles and ideas that are favorable and in the best interest of American society and founding principles? Is it too late?

Kristallnacht Attempt in Denver

2009-08-26T00:17:00.000-07:00

I really do not know how much more evidence we need that to be aligned with the far left in this country there has to be a multitude of screws loose. Well, make that any country and at any time in history. The far left is a refuge for malcontents, misfits, outcasts and raving nutters. It is one big coalition of miscreants and because there is never any shortage of those raw materials they continue keeping on. Generation after generation they need to be beaten back. They are something like an ideological Terminator.

Today a 24-year-old man arrested on suspicion of smashing eleven windows at Colorado Democratic Party headquarters. He wore a shirt over his face, as he and another man fled the scene on bicycles. Fled the scene on bicycles--all I need to know right there. They were liberals.

The man in question does not appear in the state's voter registration database, a person by his same name in November 2008 received $500 from a political 527 committee called Colorado Citizens Coalition for Communications. What really should be investigated, and I am not expecting it anytime soon, is whether someone connected with any of the groups he is associated with paid him to fake an attack on the Democratic headquarters so that the blame would be placed on the “right-wing mob of extremists”?

State Democratic Party Chairwoman, Par Waak when asked for comment initially blamed tensions over the healthcare debate. She then added, "Clearly there's been an effort on the other side to stir up hate. I think this is the consequence of it". Let me see if I understand this. It is all the fault of opponents to the healthcare bill that this guy smashed up some windows at the Democratic party headquarters? Mmmkay. If I thought we had that kind of control over liberal behavior, I'd be mixing up a big vat of kool-aid and inviting them all down to Guyana for the weekend.

I see it as another fake attack or act performed by the left and made to look like the work of their opponents. The demonization of the health care bill’s opponents using the same tired old playbook they have been using for decades.

The Democrats are running a little scared right now. They see this healthcare debate as their battle of Ten-tsin for Chairman O. As the wheels continue to come off, be prepared for more staged acts of violence looking to incriminate right wing crazies. As they lose traction the acts will ramp up in frequency and seriousness. Every scenario in history points to it. Let's remember, these are the same people who ripped over ten million people from their homes from 1929 to 1932 in Soviet Russia. Oh sure, their names and faces are different but they are made of the same stuff and just as dangerous.

Funniest youtube to date..

2009-08-24T03:02:00.000-07:00

David Horowitz Writes..

2009-08-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

August 22, 2009

The so-called “liberal establishment” today is a leftwing establishment. Unlike Buckley, I identify with 50s liberals like John F. Kennedy, whose politics in my view were identical to Ronald Reagan’s. My political enemies today — Ward Churchill, bell hooks, Cornell West, Nicholas DeGenova, the editors of the Nation – have views of the capitalist and individualist West that are identical to those of the cold war “progressives” who supported the Communist bloc and its cause and who have absolutely nothing in common with JFK or the liberal establishment at Yale in the 1950s whom William F. Buckley opposed. Mattson treats Buckley as the avatar of the conservative rebellion and I share that view. But I have never embraced a theo-centric conservatism such as that common to Buckley, Kirk and Whittaker Chambers. These three anchor their conservatism in a religious faith. I do not. I am an agnostic. I have outlined my own conservative philosophy in The Politics of Bad Faith - a book Mattson also has not read. My conservatism is conceived as an effort to defend the principles of the American Founding. It is true that according to the Founders we derive inalienable rights from “Our Creator.” I agree that rights have to be derived from a source other than human will. If Mattson has another way to ground rights that are inalienable without invoking a “Creator,” I’m all ears, but until then this agnostic will defer to the Founders

As an agnostic conservative myself, and yes there are many of us, I can identify with what Horowitz writes. My exception would be that I recognize that our core principles as conservatives come from the Judea Christian values that our country was built on. Most of our laws are derived from the ten commandments. I accept that and I accept those values as the basic building block to our society. I think the founding fathers appreciated this fact and even though they came from a mixed theological perspective, they appreciated that we should conform our lives to this sort of natural law.

However, to deflect to the Founders completely misses something. Socialism is tied to atheism, and liberty to, at least, the remote possibility of the existence of God. It is where the agnostic differs from the athiest. Agnostics are not prone to proselytizing and trying to enforce their lack of faith on others. They are open to idea of God and see the shortcomings in any humanistic basis to governance.

The HAPPY Act

2009-08-21T04:25:00.000-07:00

In the ever growing and ever widening use of the tax code for vote buying there is a bill being introduced into the House by U.S. Representative Thaddeus McCotter (R-Michigan). It is House Resolution 3501, aka the Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years, or HAPPY Act. This bill if passed would amend the Internal Revenue Code to allow an individual to deduct up to $3,500 for qualified pet care expenses.

I like tax deductions and I'll take them anyway I can get them. You have to wonder though, how long will it be before we start hearing the cries, "Veterinary care is a right" or "we demand free pet care". Next election cycle, both sides will be finding pet care sob stories to draw on for emotional based support. Stories of vets amputating legs for a quick $20,000 or Obama telling us how he watched on as his childhood dog die helplessly while he called from the dog's bedside trying to find good quality care for the pooch. The opportunity here for pandering and drawing on the old heartstrings is endless.

Let's not even state the obvious, OK let's state the obvious-they don’t even let you deduct the first $3,500 in medical expenses unless you make under a certain income level. I would imagine the guys making over a certain threshold will not qualify for this deduction either. You know, all those tax cuts for the rich. I have to wonder how long before there is an earned income pet credit also. Why not? Pay the guy who doesn't pay any federal taxes for having a dog or other "qualified pet". (Section 224, article d)

Lunacy like this is the reason we have a tax code of more than 67,500 pages. It is time to stop tying bills to the federal income tax code and time to stop buying votes with it.