November 20, 2009
Excused Horrors – by Walter Williams
Excused Horrors
by Walter Williams
Last Tuesday, I had the pleasurable task of being Master of Ceremonies for the Atlas Economic Research Foundation dinner in Washington, D.C., that celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Founded in 1981, the Atlas Foundation assists the formation of free market think tanks around the world to spread the ideas of personal liberty, private property rights and limited government. So far, they have been successful in at least 70 countries. Attending the two-day celebration were think-tank representatives from many of these countries, including those from Croatia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, Mozambique, South Korea, Russia and Brazil.
Alan Kors, University of Pennsylvania history professor, gave the evening's keynote address. What he revealed about the dereliction and character weakness of academics, intellectuals, media elites and politicians is by no means complimentary, but worse than that, dangerous. Professor Kors said that over the years, he has frequently asked students how many deaths were caused by Joseph Stalin and Mao Tsetung and their successors. Routinely, they gave numbers in the thousands. Kors says that's equivalent to saying the Nazis are responsible for the deaths of just a few hundred Jews. But here's the record: Nazis were responsible for the deaths of 20 million of their own people and those in nations they conquered. Between 1917 and 1983, Stalin and his successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Tsetung and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese.
Professor Kors asks why are the horrors of Nazism so well known and widely condemned, but not those of socialism and communism? For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers. How much hunting down and seeking punishment for Stalinist and Maoist murderers? In Europe, especially Germany, hoisting the swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime. It's acceptable to hoist and march under a flag emblazoned with the former USSR's hammer and sickle. Even in the U.S., it's acceptable to praise mass murderers, as Anita Dunn, President Obama's communications director, did in a commencement address for St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral where she said Mao Tsetung was one of her heroes. Whether it's the academic community, the media elite or politicians, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism -- a system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other systems combined.
Academics, media elites and leftist politicians both in the U.S. and Europe protested the actions and military buildup of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately the breakup of the Soviet Union. Recall the leftist hissy fit when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire and predicted that communism would wind up on the trash heap of history.
Professor Alan Kors did not say this but the reason why the world's leftists give the world's most horrible murderers a pass is because they sympathize with their socioeconomic goals, which include government ownership and/or control over the means of production. In the U.S., the call is for government control, through regulations, as opposed to ownership. Unfortunately, it matters little whether there is a Democratically or Republican-controlled Congress and White House; the march toward greater government control continues. It just happens at a quicker pace with Democrats in charge.
You say, "Come on, Williams, there will never be the kind of socialist oppression seen elsewhere here!" You might be right because Americans have become very compliant with unconstitutional and immoral congressional edicts. But what do you think would happen if some Americans began to rise up and heed Thomas Jefferson's admonition "Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." and decided to disobey unconstitutional congressional edicts?
Wild Thing's comment........
“...the reason why the world’s leftists give the world’s most horrible murderers a pass is because they sympathize with their socioeconomic goals, which include government ownership and/or control over the means of production.”
Absolutely correct. Brilliant.
And also the Left gives Islam a pass for similar reasons.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
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November 18, 2009
Jihad and the Scandal of " Brain-Dead" Diversity by Mark Steyn
JIHAD AND THE SCANDAL OF “BRAIN-DEAD” DIVERSITY
by Mark Steyn
Shortly after 9/11, there was a lot of talk about how no one would ever hijack an American airliner ever again – not because of new security arrangements but because an alert citizenry was on the case: We were hip to their jive. The point appeared to be proved three months later on a US-bound Air France flight. The “Shoebomber” attempted to light his footwear, and the flight attendants and passengers pounced. As the more boorish commentators could not resist pointing out, even the French guys walloped him.
But the years go by, and the mood shifts. You didn’t have to be “alert” to spot Major Nidal Hasan. He’d spent most of the last half-decade walking around with a big neon sign on his head saying “JIHADIST. STAND WELL BACK”. But we (that’s to say, almost all of us; and certainly almost anyone who matters in national security and the broader political culture) are now reflexively conditioned to ignore the flashing neon sign. Like those apocryphal Victorian ladies discreetly draping the lasciviously curved legs of their pianos, if a glimpse of hard unpleasant reality peeps through we simply veil it in another layer of fluffy illusions.
Two joint terrorism task forces became aware almost a year ago that Major Hasan was in regular email contact with Anwar al-Awlaqi, the American-born but now Yemeni-based cleric who served as imam to three of the 9/11 hijackers and supports all-out holy war against the United States. But the expert analysts in the Pentagon determined that this lively correspondence was consistent with Major Hasan’s “research interests”, so there was no need to worry. That’s America: Technologically superior, money no object (not one but two “joint terrorism task forces” stumbled across him). Yet no action was taken.
On the other hand, who needs surveillance operations and intelligence budgets? Major Hasan was entirely upfront about who he was. He put it on his business card: “SOA.” As in “Soldier of Allah” – which seems a tad ungrateful to the American taxpayers who ponied up half a million bucks or thereabouts in elite medical school education to train him to be a Soldier of Uncle Sam. In a series of meetings during 2008, officials from both Walter Reed and the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences considered the question of whether then Captain Hasan was psychotic. But, according to at least one bigwig at Walter Reed, members of the policy committee wondered “how would it look if we kick out one of the few Muslim residents”. So he got promoted to Major and shipped to Fort Hood.
And 13 men and women and an unborn baby are dead.
Well, like they say, it’s easy to be wise after the event. I’m not so sure. These days, it’s easier to be even more stupid after the event. “Apparently he tried to contact al Qaeda,” mused MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. “That’s not a crime to call up al Qaeda, is it? Is it? I mean, where do you stop the guy?” Interesting question: Where do you draw the line?
The truth is we’re not prepared to draw a line even after he’s gone ahead and committed mass murder. “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy,” said General Casey, the US Army’s Chief of Staff, “but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.” A “greater tragedy” than 14 dead and dozens of wounded? Translating from the original brain-addled multicult-speak, the Army Chief of Staff is saying that the same fatuous prostration before marshmallow illusions that led to the “tragedy” must remain in place. If it leads to occasional mass murder, well, hopefully it can be held to what cynical British civil servants used to call, during the Northern Irish “Troubles”, “an acceptable level of violence”. Fourteen dead is evidently acceptable. A hundred and forty? Fourteen hundred? I guess we’ll find out.
“Diversity” is one of those words designed to absolve you of the need to think. Likewise, a belief in “multiculturalism” doesn’t require you to know anything at all about other cultures, just to feel generally warm and fluffy about them. Heading out from my hotel room the other day, I caught a glimpse of that 7-Eleven video showing Major Hasan wearing “Muslim” garb to buy a coffee on the morning of his murderous rampage. And it wasn’t until I was in the taxi cab that something odd struck me: He was an American of Arab descent. But he was wearing Pakistani dress – that’s to say, a “Punjabi suit”, as they call it in Britain, or the “shalwar kameez”, to give it its South Asian name. For all the hundreds of talking heads droning on about “diversity” across the TV networks, it was only Tarek Fatah, writing in The Ottawa Citizen, who pointed out that no Arab males wear this get-up – with one exception: Those Arab men who got the jihad fever and went to Afghanistan to sign on with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In other words, Major Hasan’s outfit symbolized the embrace of an explicit political identity entirely unconnected with his ethnic heritage.
Mr Fatah would seem to be a genuine “multiculturalist”: that’s to say, he’s attuned to often very subtle “diversities” between cultures. Whereas the professional multiculturalist sees the 7-Eleven video and coos, “Aw, look. He’s wearing … well, something exotic and colorful, let’s not get hung up on details. Celebrate diversity, right? Can we get him in the front row for the group shot? We may be eligible for a grant.”
The brain-addled “diversity” of General Casey will get some of us killed, and keep all of us cowed. In the days since the killings, the news reports have seemed increasingly like a satirical novel the author’s not quite deft enough to pull off, with bizarre new Catch 22s multiplying like the windmills of your mind: If you’re openly in favor of pouring boiling oil down the throats of infidels, then the Pentagon will put down your emails to foreign jihadists as mere confirmation of your long established “research interests”. If you’re psychotic, the Army will make you a psychiatrist for fear of provoking you. If you gun down a bunch of people, within an hour the FBI will state clearly that we can all relax, there’s no terrorism angle, because, in our over-credentialized society, it doesn’t count unless you’re found to be carrying Permit #57982BQ3a from the relevant State Board of Jihadist Licensing.
Ezra Levant, my comrade in a long battle to restore freedom of speech to Canada, likes to say that the Danish cartoons crisis may one day be seen as a more critical event than 9/11. Not, obviously, in the comparative death tolls but in what each revealed about the state of western civilization. After 9/11, we fought back, hit hard, rolled up the Afghan camps; after the cartoons, we weaseled and equivocated and appeased and signaled that we were willing to trade core western values for a quiet life. Watching the decadence and denial on display this last week, I think in years to come Fort Hood will be seen in a similar light. What happened is not a “tragedy” but a national scandal, already fading from view.
Wild Thing's comment........
The truth is we’re not prepared to draw a line even after he’s gone ahead and committed mass murder.
Steyn again relates to his audience the perfect observance.
Diversity, coupled with "political correctness", will be the impetus that kills America. Steyn nails it, again. ““Diversity” is one of those words designed to absolve you of the need to think.
Three strangers strike up a conversation in the airport passenger lounge in Calgary , Alberta , while awaiting their respective flights.
One is a native Indian from the Sarcee Reserve; another is a cowboy on his way to Lethbridge for a livestock auction. The third passenger is a fundamentalist Arab student, newly arrived at the University of Calgary from the Middle East . Their discussion drifts to their diverse cultures. Soon, the two Albertans learn that the Arab is a devout, radical Muslim and the conversation falls into an uneasy lull.
The cowboy leans back in his chair, crosses his boots on a magazine table and tips his big sweat-stained hat forward over his face.
The wind outside is blowing tumble weeds around, and the old windsock is flapping, but still no plane comes.
To break the silence, the Indian clears his throat and softly speaks: “At one time here, my people were many, but sadly, now we are few.”
The Muslim student raises an eyebrow and leans forward:”Once my people were few, he sneers, “and now we are many. Why do you suppose that is?”
The Alberta cowboy shifts his toothpick to one side of his mouth and from the darkness beneath his Stetson says in a smooth drawl,
“That’s ‘cause we ain’t played Cowboys and Muslims yet .. . . but I do believe it’s a-comin’..”
....Thank you Jack for sending this to me.
United States Army
1965-1971
Army Combat Engineers
Quang Tri & Chu Lai '68 -'69
67-69
Jack's blog is Conservative Insurgent
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November 15, 2009
September 10? It’s Worse Than That by Andrew c. McCarthy
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September 10? It’s Worse Than That
by Andrew c. McCarthy
‘September 10 America.” The phrase signifies a reprise of the “terrorism is just a crime” mindset that reigned in the years before the 9/11 attacks. Like other observers, I’ve groused in recent months that we are back to that self-destructive ethos. I was wrong. If the Fort Hood atrocity tells us anything, it is that things are much worse than they were before 9/11.
For one thing, 9/11 has happened. Before it did, perhaps we had an excuse. But we’ve experienced the wages of consciously avoiding Islamism. To have retreated into puerile fantasies about a religion of peace is, at this juncture, unfathomable.
Fathom it, though, we must. In 2008, I wrote a book called Willful Blindness to describe government’s stubborn refusal to deal with the nature and magnitude of jihadism when it first emerged as a domestic threat in the early Nineties. For a long time, I’d resisted writing about the experience of prosecuting Muslim terrorists. I’m very proud of what we did, but the story is a painful one of warning signs missed and lives lost. Having lived it, I wasn’t anxious to relive it.
Yet, more than a decade after Muslim terrorists declared war on the United States by bombing the World Trade Center, we were still making the same errors, with wishful thinking about Islam still substituting for sober analysis. It seemed important to go back to the beginning, to explore why jihadism is a profound threat, why we’ve underestimated it, and why it is so perilous to treat a national-security challenge as if it were a mere legal problem. In a display of my own wishful thinking
Wrong again.
The word incomprehensible does not do justice to the FBI’s conclusion that jihadist saboteur Nidal Hasan’s numerous communications with jihadist imam Anwar al-Awlaki were either (a) not significant enough to warrant further investigation or (b) significant but immune from further investigation on First Amendment grounds.
The first possibility would not pass the laugh test if this were a laughing matter. Anonymous government officials have suggested that the substance of the conversations was innocuous. That remains to be seen — we can’t know until we learn exactly what was said, how it was acted on, who else may have been in the loop, and so on. But even if you buy the innocent-substance theory (I don’t), the occurrence of the communications — between an Islamist infiltrator in our armed forces and a known al-Qaeda recruiter who ministered to some of the 9/11 hijackers — could not be more significant. The mere circumstances were more than enough to turn up the investigative heat.
That’s so palpable that we must worry that about the second possibility: That the FBI and the Justice Department have convinced themselves that the Constitution really is a suicide pact — that a mainstream construction of Islam, calling for our demise as a free people, is somehow insulated from inquiry because we don’t want to confront the stubborn fact that Islamist terror is instigated by Islamic doctrine.
Journalism in the last week has been a feast of fables about Islam, libels about military culture, and gut-wrenching accounts of sorrow and heroism. But the most disturbing thing I’ve read is Ron Kessler’s Newsmax column. It addressed little not already known about the mass murder, but Ron has singularly good sources in the FBI. He provides a window into Bureau thinking that makes the mind reel.
Besides grossly low-balling the number of U.S. mosques that propagate Islamist ideology — the Feebs say it’s about 10 percent of 2,000 mosques; it’s actually about six to eight times that amount — a top FBI counterterrorism official told Kessler:
Those who actively support extremist causes, say America is evil and deserves what it gets, and celebrate the death of soldiers, know they may come to our attention. So they don’t do it as openly now . . . . There was much more of that [before 9/11] because all of it was considered by Justice Department guidelines to be purely protected speech. We do not have incitement laws in America, but once an imam facilitates someone else taking action, he has crossed the line into material support and becomes our business.
Where to begin? Almost 17 years ago, after the Trade Center was bombed, the Justice Department did not believe a Muslim cleric had to “cross the line into material support” before he became the FBI’s business. Indeed, there were no “material support” laws until 1996. In 1995, as detailed in Willful Blindness, I led the team that convicted Omar Abdel Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh.” In essence, we prosecuted him for inciting terrorism — the thing the senior official tells Kessler isn’t a crime. Specifically, the Blind Sheikh was convicted of (among other things) soliciting an attack against a U.S. military installation (like Hasan just committed) and soliciting the murder of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
Solicitation is still a federal crime — and there’s no requirement that the incitement actually lead to a terrorist act. Moreover, even before anyone in America ever heard of al-Qaeda — even before there was a 9/11, or bombings of Khobar Towers, the U.S. embassies in eastern Africa, and the U.S.S. Cole — some of us realized that terrorists fueled by viscerally anti-American Islamist ideology, were at war with the United States. And guess what? There’s a statute for that, too: The Civil War–era seditious-conspiracy law makes the waging of such a terror campaign a 20-year felony. And there’s no carve-out for imams.
How was the Blind Sheikh convicted? By presenting to the jury his fiery sermons and private meetings with the faithful, often in mosques where he urged barbarous strikes against America, swaddled in accurate quotations of the Koran and other Muslim scripture. Of course, he claimed that such exhortations were protected speech. That is, he made exactly the same arguments the Islamist Left has spent the last eight years beating into the country, including into the Justice Department and the FBI. But back in 1995, those arguments were seen for the nonsense that they were.
There is no bar to the use of speech as evidence. The First Amendment generally prohibits the criminalization of speech itself — i.e., the act of communicating. But settled law holds that when prosecutors use your speech to prove crimes, there is no First Amendment violation. When the mafia boss tells the button-man “Whack him!” he doesn't get to lodge a First Amendment objection to the introduction of that statement at his murder trial. He’s not being tried for saying “Whack him!” He’s being tried for murder. The statement is evidence.
Nor does the principle change just because the speech happens to implicate religion. In America, you can believe whatever you want, but your actions must be lawful. Not surprisingly, the Blind Sheikh contended that his incitements to terror were beyond prosecution because he was practicing his religion: Specifically, he claimed he had simply been performing the traditional role of an Islamic cleric called on to determine whether proposed courses of conduct (in this instance, mass-murder plots) were permissible under Islamic law. Fourteen years ago, that contention was properly seen as frivolous. In America, we are not under sharia law — not yet. There is no religious exception for violent acts, conspiracies, and incitements to violence that violate American law.
So what has happened? Why did we know these rudimentary, commonsense principles in the Nineties but not now? Because incitement explodes the government’s “religion of peace” narrative. The incitement to Islamist terror is Islamic scripture. The Blind Shiekh was not a hypnotist or a particularly compelling speaker. His authority over terrorist organizations was rooted exclusively in his acknowledged mastery of sharia. Islamic scripture was the source of his power over Muslims.
To concede this would be to concede the obvious but unspeakable fact that there is a nexus between Islam and terror. That would harpoon the lovey-dovey dream that Islam and Western democracy are perfectly compatible. It would upset Muslims — especially the well-organized, deep-pocketed Islamic grievance industry. Today’s hip, progressive FBI, like Gen. George Casey’s modern, slavishly “diverse” military, doesn’t want to upset Muslims. Besides souring State Department cocktail parties and drying up funding for presidential libraries, upsetting Muslims would put a damper on our government’s lavish “Islamic outreach” efforts. These initiatives are premised on the delusion that we’ll stop more terror by having unindicted co-conspirators like CAIR teach Islamic “sensitivity” to our agents than by turning our agents loose to investigate CAIR and its ilk.
So the FBI ignores the significance of a terrorist cleric’s influence over an unabashed Islamist in our midst. After all, their contacts seemed to be religious in nature. We’re told, moreover, that we can’t do anything about the anti-American vitriol oozing out of Islamist mosques under the guidance of our friends the Saudis. After all, the vitriol hasn’t yet “crossed the line into material support.” By the time it does, you might have 13 corpses to tend to, but at least there will be lots to talk about at the next outreach conference — or the next time the attorney general decides to speak at a CAIR-fest.
The post-9/11 era was supposed to be about knocking down walls that obstructed effective counterterrorism. But behold the new wall, more insidious than its suicidal Nineties forerunner: the arbitrary barrier separating terrorism from “protected” incitement — the cagey, generalized, non-specific jihadist rhetoric that is the Islamist cleric’s stock-in-trade. Aside from not being required by law, this new wall will usually mean you can't go after the worst actors (the Islamic authorities and the terrorists they inspire) until after an attack has happened and Americans have been killed.
In other words, be prepared for more Fort Hoods. We’re not in September 10 America. We’ve managed to land in a much more dangerous place.
Wild Thing's comment.......
WOW! Excellent article!
Interesting remark made at the end of this piece about Eric Holder having spoken at the CAIR conference.
Can’t help but wonder if his decision to try Khalid Sheik Muhammad in civil court wasn’t the handiwork of CAIR . These are truly sickening times.
Islam should not be allowed in the United States. It advocates the violent overthrow of the government.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
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November 10, 2009
Call This Horror By Its Name: Islamist Terror by Ralph Peters
Fox News Analyst: Fort Hood Suspect 'A Protected Species'
Call this horror by its name: Islamist terror
On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting, "Allahu akbar!" ("God is great!") committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.
What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Fort Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of nondenominational shoplifting.
This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it's an act of terror. Period.
When the terrorist posts anti-American hate speech on the Web; apparently praises suicide bombers and uses his own name; loudly criticizes US policies; argues (as a psychiatrist, no less) with his military patients over the worth of their sacrifices; refuses, in the name of Islam, to be photographed with female colleagues; lists his nationality as "Palestinian" in a Muslim spouse-matching program and parades around central Texas in a fundamentalist playsuit -- well, it only seems fair to call this terrorist an "Islamist terrorist."
But the president won't. Despite his promise to get to all the facts. Because there's no such thing as "Islamist terrorism" in ObamaWorld.
And the Army won't. Because its senior leaders are so sick with political correctness that pandering to America haters is safer than calling terrorism "terrorism." And the media won't. Because they have more interest in the shooter than in our troops -- despite their crocodile tears.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan planned this terrorist attack and executed it in cold blood. The resulting massacre was the first tragedy. The second was that he wasn't killed on the spot.
Hasan survived. Now the rest of us will have to foot his massive medical bills. Activist lawyers will get involved, claiming "harassment" drove him temporarily insane. There'll be no end of trial delays. At best, taxpayer dollars will fund his prison lifestyle for decades to come, since our politically correct Army leadership wouldn't dare pursue or carry out the death penalty. Maj. Hasan will be a hero to Islamist terrorists abroad and their sympathizers here. While US Muslim organizations decry his acts publicly, Hasan will be praised privately. And he'll have the last laugh. But Hasan isn't the sole guilty party. The US Army's unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Fort Hood.
Given the myriad warning signs, it's appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Fort Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.
Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would've been gone with the simoom. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities. Now 12 soldiers and a security guard lie dead. At least 38 people were wounded, 28 of them seriously. If heads don't roll in this maggot's chain of command, the Army will have shamed itself beyond moral redemption.
There's another important issue, too. How could the Army allow an obviously incompetent and dysfunctional psychiatrist to treat our troubled soldiers returning from war? An Islamist wacko is counseled for arguing with veterans who've been assigned to his care? And he's not removed from duty? What planet does the Army live on? For the first time since I joined the Army in 1976, I'm ashamed of its dereliction of duty. The chain of command protected a budding terrorist who was waving one red flag after another. Because it was safer for careers than doing something about him.
Get ready for the apologias. We've already heard from the terrorist's family that "he's a good American." In their world, maybe he is.
But when do we, the American public, knock off the PC nonsense? A disgruntled Muslim soldier murdered his officers way back in 2003, in Kuwait, on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Recently? An American mullah shoots it out with the feds in Detroit. A Muslim fanatic attacks an Arkansas recruiting station. A Muslim media owner, after playing the peace card, beheads his wife. A Muslim father runs over his daughter because she's becoming too Westernized.
Muslim terrorist wannabes are busted again and again. And we're assured that "Islam's a religion of peace."
I guarantee you that the Obama administration's nonresponse to the Fort Hood attack will mock the memory of our dead.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Good article by Ralph Peters.
If Obama continues to refuse to recognize this for what it was, it's a open door for more to come. Why WOULDN'T more terrorists strike if all they have to do is position themselves and kill. Our country is doomed if everyone insists on burying their heads in the sand. How pathetic.
......Thank you SSGT Steve
SSgt Steve
1st MarDiv, H Co., 2nd Bn, 5th Marine Regiment
2/5 Marines, Motto: "Retreat, Hell"
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:48 AM | Comments (4)
Shooter Exposes Hole in U.S. Terror Strategy by Mark Steyn
Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
By Mark Steyn
Thirteen dead and 28 wounded would be a bad day for the U.S. military in Afghanistan and a great victory for the Taliban. When it happens in Texas, in the heart of the biggest military base in the nation, at a processing center for soldiers either returning from or deploying to combat overseas, it is not merely a "tragedy" (as too many people called it) but a glimpse of a potentially fatal flaw at the heart of what we have called, since 9/11, the "war on terror." Brave soldiers trained to hunt down and kill America's enemy abroad were killed in the safety and security of home by, in essence, the same enemy — a man who believes in and supports everything the enemy does.
And he's a U.S. Army major.
And his superior officers and other authorities knew about his beliefs but seemed to think it was just a bit of harmless multicultural diversity — as if believing that "the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor" (i.e., his fellow American soldiers) and writing Internet paeans to the "noble" "heroism" of suicide bombers and, indeed, objectively supporting the other side in an active war is to be regarded as just some kind of alternative lifestyle that adds to the general vibrancy of the base.
When it emerged early Thursday afternoon that the shooter was Nidal Malik Hasan, there appeared shortly thereafter on Twitter a flurry of posts with the striking formulation: "Please judge Maj. Malik Nadal [sic]by his actions and not by his name."
Concerned tweeters can relax: There was never really any danger of that — and not just in the sense that the New York Times' first report on Maj. Hasan never mentioned the words "Muslim" or "Islam," or that ABC's Martha Raddatz's only observation on his name was that "as for the suspect, Nadal Hasan, as one officer's wife told me, 'I wish his name was Smith.'"
What a strange reaction. I suppose what she means is that, if his name were Smith, we could all retreat back into the same comforting illusions that allowed the bureaucracy to advance Nidal Malik Hasan to major and into the heart of Fort Hood while ignoring everything that mattered about the essence of this man.
Since 9/11, we have, as the Twitterers, recommend, judged people by their actions — flying planes into skyscrapers, blowing themselves up in Bali nightclubs or London Tube trains, planting IEDs by the roadside in Baghdad or Tikrit. And on the whole we're effective at responding with action of our own.
But we're scrupulously nonjudgmental about the ideology that drives a man to fly into a building or self-detonate on the subway, and thus we have a hole at the heart of our strategy. We use rhetorical conveniences like "radical Islam" or, if that seems a wee bit Islamophobic, just plain old "radical extremism." But we never make any effort to delineate the line which separates "radical Islam" from nonradical Islam. Indeed, we go to great lengths to make it even fuzzier. And somewhere in that woozy blur the pathologies of a Nidal Malik Hasan incubate. An Army psychiatrist, Maj. Hasan is an American, born and raised, who graduated from Virginia Tech and then received his doctorate from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. But he opposed America's actions in the Middle East and Afghanistan and made approving remarks about jihadists on U.S. soil. "You need to lock it up, Major," said his superior officer, Col. Terry Lee.
But he didn't really need to "lock it up" at all. He could pretty much say anything he liked, and if any "red flags" were raised they were quickly mothballed. Lots of people are "anti-war." Some of them are objectively on the other side — that's to say, they encourage and support attacks on American troops and civilians. But not many of those in that latter category are U.S. Army majors. Or so one would hope.
Yet why be surprised? Azad Ali, a man who approvingly quotes such observations as "If I saw an American or British man wearing a soldier's uniform inside Iraq I would kill him because that is my obligation" is an adviser to Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (the equivalent of U.S. attorneys). In Toronto this week, the brave ex-Muslim Nonie Darwish mentioned that, on flying from the U.S. to Canada, she was questioned at length about the purpose of her visit by an apparently Muslim border official. When she revealed that she was giving a speech about Islamic law, he rebuked her: "We are not to question Shariah."
That's the guy manning the airport security desk.
In the New York Times, Maria Newman touched on Hasan's faith only obliquely: "He was single, according to the records, and he listed no religious preference." Thank goodness for that, eh? A neighbor in Texas says the major had "Allah" and "another word" pinned up in Arabic on his door. "Akbar" maybe? On Thursday morning he is said to have passed out copies of the Quran to his neighbors. He shouted in Arabic as he fired.
But don't worry: As the FBI spokesman assured us in nothing flat, there's no terrorism angle.
That's true, in a very narrow sense: Maj. Hasan is not a card-carrying member of the Texas branch of al-Qaida reporting to a control officer in Yemen or Waziristan. If he were, things would be a lot easier. But the same pathologies that drive al-Qaida beat within Maj. Hasan, too, and in the end his Islamic impulses trumped his expensive Western education, his psychiatric training, his military discipline — his entire American identity.
What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best-trained, best-equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that's the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy — in Afghanistan and in Texas.
Wild Thing's comment..........
Steyn is one of the great ones.
The Ft. Hood massacre was indeed terrorism, born by a Muslim. Regardless of what Obama may say, this was indeed a Muslim terrorist who shot over 40 people. He knew exactly what he was doing, and I’m sure has no remorse.
Those soldiers were killed or maimed and injured precisely because of their roles as defenders of US freedoms and upholders of the US Constitution.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:44 AM | Comments (2)
November 07, 2009
Muslim in Sheep's Clothing by Col Pappas
Muslim in Sheep's Clothing
by Col Pappas
Those watching events at Fort Hood have come face to face with the reality of Islamic jihad in America. No doubt excuses will explode with every possible defense of the indefensible, they tell us that Hasan was a patriotic American who because of harassment by some in the Army was forced to kill a dozen unsuspecting soldiers; and was therefore justified in his evil behavior. Those idiots are as evil and full of hatred as “terrorist” Hasan is. Patriotic?! Barbra Streisand! About as patriotic as Jane Fonda and John Kerry.
It should come as no surprise that arguments of that ilk will emanate from the political left. All the while Obama tries to spin it as GW Bush's fault, notwithstanding it was likely his “dithering” about Afghanistan that pushed Hasan over the top, one way or the other.
If memory serves one correctly, and it should, Obama apologized to the world for America's vigorous defense of itself. In that context, Hasan's expectations were evidently elevated to unrealistic heights and he subsequently felt betrayed that Muslim apologist and sympathizer Obama had not followed through on timely delivery of his oft stated pledge to immediately withdraw U.S. forces from the Republic of Iraq, to ostensibly focus on the “overseas contingency operation” in Afghanistan. A major but never mentioned issue for Islamists is the presence of foreign infidels in their “holy” lands. It was for that reason that the late (in my opinion) Osama bin Laden and his “friendly” band of jihadists opened the “holy” war against the “infidel,” “the great Satan” in the first place. Hasan is merely one of Osama’s mindless lemmings, and Obama a sympathizer, given Obama’s naturally spoken, “Muslim faith.”
Obama's “dithering” as it has been put, should come as no surprise given that he is likely stalling until after he receives the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to announce his decision, which incidentally may or may not be to increase force levels in Afghanistan. Consider this: how would it come across for Obama to commit additional forces to Afghanistan shortly before or at the same time he steps up to ‘kiss the rings” of the blithering idiots who awarded him the Prize?
In baseball parlance, Hasan’s was American jihadists' “strike one” in the “Ubeturass,” World Series
Semper Fidelis
Wild Thing's comment......
"Islamic jihad in America."......that is exactly what it was at Fort Hood. There should be more people forinstance in the media saying this.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:40 AM | Comments (2)
November 06, 2009
A Warning To All Americans by Naval Aviator, Commander Jerry Wilson
From Naval Aviator, Commander Jerry Wilson
We lived in California during the winters of 2007 and 2008. We became addicted to Fox News and watched O'Reilly and Hannity and Colmes every night. When we got back home, we upgraded our cable to get Fox. I watched the Presidential campaign very closely. Initially because I thought the Democrats would nominate Hillary Clinton and then in astonishment when they chose an even more hard-left candidate. All of last year I told everyone I could that Obama was not a Democrat, he was a Marxist. He is far to the left of any European leader and even our far left party, the NDP.
I read Saul Alinsky when I was in University. I studied him and his writing carefully. When Bill Ayers and his idiot wife were bombing and killing people at random in the Weather Underground. Weather Underground and the Black Panthers were closely allied. I read David Horowitz's account of changing from a Marxist to a conservative after seeing that the government was afraid to prosecute members of the Panthers for murdering his personal assistant. He suddenly understood the evil that Marxism really was.
After the student radicals failed in creating a Marxist revolution in the United States by violent means, they embraced Alinsky. You would be wise to read "Rules for Radicals" because it outlines how Hillary and Obama planned to get into power, and what they intended to do when they got it.
Socialism is not the correct descriptor for what Obama and the Democrats are doing. They are going to be much more far reaching than anything Sweden has ever been able to do. Obama is following Alinsky's plans, those set out in "Rules for Radicals" and his other writing. The Democrats are attempting to create one party rule in the U.S. and in achieving that, will create crisis after crisis by their own actions and use those crisis to nationalize the means of production in the U.S. You are in the middle of a communist revolution and few in the U.S. . can actually see it for what it truly is.
The U..S. is now on the path of financial destruction. The Constitution has been shredded and individual human rights are being trampled. In less than 8 months Obama has used a recession to take over the two largest industries in the U.S. He will debase the Dollar and is on the road to creating an incredible energy shortage that will allow him and Congress to take over the energy industry.
But by and large I think that by the 2010 elections, the Democrats will have gerrymandered electoral districts to the point that it will be impossible for them to lose control of both houses of Congress. The incredible increase in the money supply is going to create Zimbabwe and Venezuela style inflation, and with it, controls on the currency and the amount of money that can be taken out of the country.
I love America , I cannot believe how the ignorance of the American public has created a situation whereby they are going to lose their Republic and slip into an age of repression and tyranny.
I may be nuts, but so far I have been 100% in my predictions of what Obama was going to do, because I merely had to look at "Rules for Radicals" to see what was coming next.
I read Glenn Beck's book, "Common Sense" and in it re-read Thomas Paines pamphlet with the same name. I recommend the book.
When the storm finally hits (and it will), those of you who supported the Obama administration will be affected as well. It won't just be us gun owners or Flat-Taxers, or Pro-Lifers that get hit. You'll be right there next to us.
You all thought the Conservatives were nut cases. You know, all of us who believe in God, small government, the Second Amendment, etc. You thought you could just go back to sleep after the election was over. In your world, America will continue as before. You'll still have the same rights, the same nice house, the same big screen television. After all, your high school football team won and the other team lost - go team! Even if you have bothered to look up from the daily grind since Nov 4th, you dismissed everything that has occurred as "politics as usual-the same old stuff".
In the end, it'll all be OK won't it? Not this time.
There are a growing number of citizens in the US that are ready to fight to shut down the government's grab of personal freedom, it's blatant abuse of the constitution, and it's attempt to replace the American way of life with socialism. You have to listen carefully to hear them, but they are there. I won't start that fight, but when it goes down I will join it.
As for you, why, you'll be shocked because you didn't see it coming. And eventually you'll be saddened when you see that we have truly lost the way of life with which you grew up. You'll be saddened that your children and grandchildren live in a socialist, government-controlled gulag where their every movement from cradle to grave is tracked by the government. But most of all, you'll be saddened by the death of friends and relatives who are brave enough to fight and die for something they believe in.
You know, McCain wasn't much of a candidate. I'll give you that. He was the lesser of two evils for most of us. I don't blame you for not voting for him since, at the time, you didn't know what we all know now. But at least John McCain was an American. He was a supporter of the American way of life and he understood that you can't negotiate with terrorists. He understood and appreciated the sacrifice made by my father and other members of the Greatest Generation.
Mark my words friends. All across America groups are forming. They are forming out of anger and out of desperation at the thought of losing America .
They're not militia groups, terrorists as the Department of Homeland security would have you believe; they are Americans, loyal to the constitution. They are mothers and fathers and grandparents. They belong to groups like the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, the Peaceful Resistance, the Constitution Party, the Young Conservatives, the 9/12 Project, and Grassfire. Right now they are fragmented, each focused on their own cause.
But sometime in the next two years, our government is going to do something really stupid and these groups will come together. Watch for it, wait for it-get ready. It will happen.
When that event happens, whatever "it" is, our great country is going to plunge into chaos for a while.. I pray to God that we make it through that time and emerge a stronger, smarter country.
Naval Aviator, Commander
Jerry Wilson
Live Free or Die Fighting
Wild Thing's comment.......
We saw it so clearly that we couldn't believe that the rest of America couldn't see it too. And still there are so many blind to what is going on . don't understand is why people couldn't see it in these people before they voted for him and his buddies?? It was so evident that it was like a red flag waving before a bull.
Obama's every action has been to destroy the free market and republican principles of this nation. His every foreign policy move has weakened us.
It is his intent...it is all part of his fundamental change. He is a marxist ideologue and he, his adherants, and his handlers mean to destroy American as we have known it.
....Thank you Horace for sending this to me.
Horace
U.S.Army
Horace Smith, Pvt. E-1, USAR
1956-1964
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (3)
October 24, 2009
Our Constitution is on Life Support
Our Constitution is on Life Support
by Mark Alexander
"Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." --Benjamin Franklin
That wise old sage, Ben Franklin, was prescient back in 1748, when he issued his simple Rx for success. Unfortunately, the wealth and wisdom of generations of Americans have been progressively supplanted by our central government's exercise of unconstitutional authority.
In regard to wealth, I refer most directly to our government's colossal spending and debt accumulation, and unlawful taxation.
As to wisdom, well, there's not much of that emerging from government-run school systems.
Having already depleted the wealth and wisdom of our great nation, the Obama juggernaut is determined to do likewise to health, that third prong of Franklin's trident. If successful, then we may rightly fear it as a deathblow to the greatest experiment in human history.
Where is Doctor Franklin when we really need him?
Simpletons across the United States and, indeed, the world, are beguiled by the Democrat health scare cacophony. While so much has been said, so too has so little. And, as we approach the seemingly inevitable passage of some such diabolical legislation, almost to a citizen everyone is screaming, "Stop the world, I want to get off!" Indeed, only elitist Democrats are charging full-steam ahead, constituents be damned.
Intentionally lost in all this noise is the Leftist tactic of drowning its opposition in waves of excessive and ever-changing health care minutia. With the devil being so well hidden in the details, this ensures that we remain distracted while Rule of Law is further usurped by the rule of man.
As Patriots, we are summoned to slice through this diversionary blather. And, to obtain proper analysis of this overarching objective, we must seek guidance from our founding documents, the Constitution of the United States of America and its superordinate document, the Declaration of Independence.
In a search of the Constitution, we find that the words "health," "medicine" or "medical" are mentioned -- drum roll please -- not even once: not within the original text, nor within 220 years of amendments. (A search of the Articles of Confederation yields similar results.)
To some, this exclusion indicates that the Founding Fathers were unconcerned about the health of their countrymen. But, supporters of this argument expose their condescension, and it is here mentioned to disabuse them of their disdain. For our Founding Fathers sacrificed so greatly for the birth of our nation -- in both blood and treasure -- that to posit such indifference does a great and grotesque disservice to their honor and their memory.
To others, this exclusion indicates that health care was mercifully omitted since medical care of the 1700s was so "primitive" that the cure often caused more harm than the ailment. They further argue that, given the foresight of modern medicine, our Founders would have surely incorporated universal health care within the Constitution. But, supporters of this argument expose their arrogance, and it is here mentioned to disabuse them of their haughtiness. For the medicine of our Founding Fathers was actually advanced in its day, just as the U.S. medicine of today is advanced, and just as tomorrow it will be thought primitive. This, of course, assumes that we successfully restore Rule of Law.
Alas, we discern seemingly little counsel from the Constitution.
And, as we turn to the Declaration, a search for the words "health," "medicine" or "medical" once more yields exactly zero results. Furthermore, the itemized grievances therein make nary a hint concerning health, even considering the "primitive" conditions discussed above.
Alack, we also discern seemingly little counsel from the Declaration.
However, neither do the Constitution nor the Declaration counsel us with direct verbiage concerning agriculture, textiles, construction and the whole raft of goods and services upon which those everyday necessities of food, clothing and shelter are stationed.
But, the Declaration does aver that all men are created equal, not of outcome but of opportunity; that they are endowed with the right to Life, not a guaranteed good life, not a guaranteed healthy life, but life with all of its miraculous potential; that they are endowed with a right to Liberty, the fusion of freedom and personal responsibility; and that they are endowed with a right to the pursuit of Happiness, the eclectic amalgamation of hopes and dreams and desires and necessities as defined by each individual -- not by faceless, nameless bureaucrats.
Furthermore, the Constitution's Preamble declares that its purpose is to establish Justice, the even-handed application of law to all citizens; to insure domestic Tranquility, the exclusion of class warfare; to promote (not provide) the general Welfare; and to secure the blessings of Liberty, there again, the fusion of freedom with personal responsibility.
So, our founding documents do guide us to proper health care legislation: for it is that which encompasses equality and liberty for consumers and providers alike; that which promotes life above death panels; that which encourages the medical hopes and dreams as defined by each individual; that which constrains, not magnifies, class warfare; and that which secures "the blessings of Liberty, to ourselves and our Posterity."
Anything more than this is an affront to constitutional order and Rule of Law. As Thomas Jefferson so keenly observed: "Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." And, it takes little thought, or even imagination, to extend his estimation to the current health care debate.
The bottom line is that Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution, which addresses powers of the legislature, never endowed Congress with authority to regulate or collect taxes for banking, mortgage or automaker bailouts. Neither does it present authority for them to subsidize production or service sectors such as health care. Indeed, James Madison wrote, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents..."
Sadly, not one Democrat bill addresses "health care" so much as it seeks omnipotent centralized government power and control, the currency of the Left. However, the proposals certainly betray the Left's condescension and contempt for Rule of Law, along with their frontal assault upon our Essential Liberty.
Patriot Readers, the U.S. Constitution is on life support. To prevent it from flat-lining, we must exude high dudgeon, we must slice through the Left's onslaught of minutia, and we must surgically endeavor with our every thought and deed to restore a healthy Rule of Law.
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Wild Thing's comment..........
Great column by Mark Alexander. I hope there is some way to stop this madness of this husseincare bill. The courts or someone has got to.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:49 AM | Comments (8)
October 07, 2009
Hypocrisy Of The Radical Left-A Call To Action by By Dr. Alan Bates, M D.
Hypocrisy Of The Radical Left-A Call To Action
How could a radical minority be elected by Americans to run our government particularly when that minority embodies values which are the antithesis of our founding documents and their emphasis on personal liberty? Most Americans value honesty, integrity, and self-sufficiency, and care not one whet about controlling others' lives. But that is hardly the case with the Far Left which has reached critical mass in Congress and the Administration.
There are two reasons for this.
The first is that those of us who hold our religious beliefs, morality, integrity and hard work as our guiding principles have been relatively silent and non-confrontational, with the belief that since our values represent those of the majority and are protected by the Constitution, that it is virtually impossible to see those who loathe such values elected to government positions and then move to take away our freedoms which were hard-won two centuries ago and defended in several worldwide conflicts. THAT is complacency!
Just as significant is the harsh reality that the values of the majority which made America a nation of dreams and opportunities have been increasingly challenged by individuals and groups who are opportunists in a perverse sense, waiting to take advantage of others through the development of various mechanisms of control. These consist of indoctination of the poor and uneducated, as well as redevelopment of school curricula which is (no longer not so subtly) designed to indocrinate our children so that they will submit to the far Left agenda as adults. Why have math, science and reading test scores of American children fallen behind those of other industrialized nations over the past two decades? For the Left this is all about CONTROL of others through destruction of capitalism and its incentives for personal success which have empowered America to become the strongest nation economically and militarily bar none
I cannot recall during my lifetime seeing our government dominated by those so at odds with the long-held values of the American majority. But after spending decades dumbing down our schools and gaining the support of the poor and uneducated largely through control of the major media, the Monster has taken control in Washington. Their hidden agenda is more obvious as each day passes.
For those of you who 'figured things would work out' and have looked the other way, your complacency in the face of insidious radicalism now permits these threats to your personal freedoms which are being systematcially attacked through very organized efforts at both the governmental and non- governmental levels. Witness the Democratic leadership threatening to force upon Americans unwanted and destructive government-controlled healthcare and energy legislation via 'reconciliation' (what a misnomer!). Witness the huge number of powerful 'czars' created by Obama without Congressional oversight, most of them former revolutionaries or off-the-wall weirdos with a personal agenda. Witness the Administration's naïve approach in dealing with Iran and the Taliban.
Witness the Attorney General playing a game of double jeopardy with CIA operatives who were already exonerated after investigations into 'torture' of captured terrorists. Witness the ACLU seeking to destroy religious expression in all public venues. And the list goes on.
Even after the Left's failed social engineering programs designed for redistribution of wealth through the mortgage markets led to the worst economic and financial collapse since the Great Depression, and even with the struggling Social Security and Medicare programs on the brink of failure because of their bloated bureaucracy and systematic looting of the Social Security "Trust Fund" for pork-barrel spending projects---yes, even after all this the Left presents us with unconvincing and hollow excuses buttressed by outright lies as to why we should allow them to overhaul and control the nation's entire healthcare system and our energy utilization.
Most of us know these issues would be best resolved and funded OUTSIDE the federal government as Conservatives have proposed. But the Congressional leadership is so dishonest that it will not so much as acknowledge the Republicans' affordable proposals through private sector intiatives as it 'interferes' with the their carefully orchestrated plans to ulimately control every part of our personal lives.
The time is NOW that believers in freedom, honesty, hard work, and charity stand up to the misrepresentations and lies of the Far Left and their abuse of powers which are not even sanctioned by our founding documents. Americans who have scoffed at conspiracy theories (including myself), or simply looked the other way, must now be vigilant and take every opportunity available to restore our government 'for the people and by the people' or we will very soon find ourselves as subjects of a tyrannical government.
The 2010 elections are critical, but until then we must increase our support for those Congressmen and media outlets which stand by our principles and boycott the rest. Are you willing to take a stand to save our children from the tyranny which opportunistically and insidiously waits in the wings?
Wild Thing's comment.......
Excellent article by Dr. Bates.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:40 AM | Comments (3)
September 30, 2009
Netanyahu’s Quiet Success by Daniel Pipes
Netanyahu’s Quiet Success – by Daniel Pipes
Almost unnoticed, Binyamin Netanyahu won a major victory last week when Barack Obama backed down on a signature policy initiative. This about-face suggests that U.S.-Israel relations are no longer headed for the disaster I have been fearing.
Four months ago, the new U.S. administration unveiled a policy that suddenly placed great emphasis on stopping the growth in Israeli “settlements.” (A term I dislike but use here for brevity’s sake.) Surprisingly, American officials wanted to stop not just residential building for Israelis in the West Bank but also in eastern Jerusalem, a territory legally part of Israel for nearly thirty years.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the initiative on May 27, announcing that the president of the United States “wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions,” adding for good measure, “And we intend to press that point.” On June 4, Obama weighed in: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. … It is time for these settlements to stop.” A day later, he reiterated that “settlements are an impediment to peace.” On June 17, Clinton repeated: “We want to see a stop to the settlements.” And so on, in a relentless beat.
Focusing on settlements had the inadvertent but predictable effect of instantly impeding diplomatic progress. A delighted Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority responded to U.S. demands on Israel by sitting back and declaring that “The Americans are the leaders of the world. … I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements.” Never mind that Abbas personally had negotiated with six Israeli prime ministers since 1992, each time without an offer to stop building settlements: why should he now demand less than Obama?
In Israel, Obama’s diktat prompted a massive popular swing away from him and toward Netanyahu. Further, Netanyahu’s offer of even temporary limitations on settlement growth in the West Bank prompted a rebellion within his Likud Party, led by the up-and-coming Danny Danon.
Poster showing Barak Obama in Arab headdress, seen in downtown Jerusalem on June 14, 2009.
The geniuses of the Obama administration eventually discerned that this double hardening of positions was dooming their naïve, hubristic plan to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict within two years. The One’s reconciliation with reality became public on Sept. 22 at a “summit” he sponsored with Abbas and Netanyahu (really, a glorified photo opportunity). Obama threw in the towel there, boasting that “we have made progress” toward settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and offering as one indication that Israelis “have discussed important steps to restrain settlement activity.”
Those eight words of muted praise for Netanyahu’s minimal concessions have major implications:
■Settlements no longer dominate U.S.-Israel relations but have reverted back to their usual irritating but secondary role.
■Abbas, who keeps insisting on a settlement freeze as though nothing has chaed, suddenly finds himself the odd man out in the triangle.
■The center-left faction of the Obama administration (which argues for working with Jerusalem), as my colleague Steven J. Rosen notes, has defeated the far-left faction (which wants to squeeze the Jewish state).
Ironically, Obama supporters have generally recognized his failure while critics have tended to miss it. A Washington Post editorial referred to the Obama administration’s “miscalculations” and Jonathan Freedland, a Guardian columnist, noted that “Obama’s friends worry that he has lost face in a region where face matters.”
In contrast, Obama critics focused on his announcing, just one day after the mock summit, that “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements” – a formulaic reiteration of long-established policy that in no way undoes the concession on settlements. Some of those I admire most missed the good news: John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stated that Obama “put Israel on the chopping block,” while critics within the Likud Party accused Netanyahu of having “prematurely celebrated” an American policy shift. Not so. Policy winds can always change, but last week’s capitulation to reality has the hallmarks of a lasting course correction.
I have repeatedly expressed deep worries about Obama’s policy versus Israel, so when good news does occur (and this is the second time of late), it deserves recognition and celebration. Hats off to Bibi – may he have further successes in nudging U.S. policy onto the right track.
Next on the agenda: the Middle East’s central issue, namely, Iran’s nuclear buildup.
Wild Thing's comment.........
BiBi Netanyahu is a good man and he loves his country. This is an excellent article by Daniel Pipes.
Obama better chill out on his demands to BiBi. I am so fed up with Obama threatening anyone that does not do what he wants or speaks the truth about him.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (2)
Where History Gets Weird
Where History Gets Weird
By Mark Butterworth
Barack and Michelle Obama find themselves in an odd psychological trap with Bill Ayers. It finally appears that Jack Cashill's landmark work in exposing the real authorship of Barack Obama's books, has found corroboration in "Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage," by Christopher Andersen.
The weight and plausibility of Cashill's findings of similarity between Ayer's writing and Obama's first autobiography were substantial, but now appears confirmed by Andersen.
Cashill quotes Andersen: With the deadline pressing, Michelle recommended that Barack seek advice from "his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers."
To flesh out his family history, Obama had taped interviews with various family members. Andersen writes, "These oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to Ayers."
This brings up a curious and odd psychological situation for the Obamas. They have become rich through the work of the white Ayers. Work that Barack Obama could never have succeeded at alone.
In fact, any study of B. Obama's own writing (what little there is), his speeches, and his extemporaneous manner of speaking demonstrate a singular lack of originality in expression, analogy, analysis, precision, concision, metaphor, and figurative language. Obama is hopelessly dull in prose and gassy in speech.
His second book, The Audacity of Hope, better illustrates Obama's tin ear, verbosity, pomposity, and dullness than the Ayer's penned Dreams From My Father, based as it is on his unfocused and platitudinous speeches.
There are meta-ironies wedged into the fact of Obama's wealth from the sale of his first book for he and Michelle.
Let's take Michelle first.
James Lewis noted in 2008: ". . . Barack and Michelle seem to suffer from real feelings of inferiority. Michelle is a Princess of Privilege -- Princeton University, Harvard Law School and her 300K job today. And yet, she tells us that she spent years feeling bad about being black in America, as she told the world in her undergraduate thesis, at the very time when blacks are moving ahead faster than ever before in human history."
Michelle wrote in her thesis introduction, "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," and that "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich (sic) I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second."
At best, she prophesied for herself a marginal future - "further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant."
She has proven to be resentful over the fact that her accomplishments have come through affirmative action and not merit as when told in high school she wouldn't qualify for an Ivy League college because her test scores weren't high enough, and later had trouble with the Illinois bar exam.
A lot of colleges like Princeton also do a bang up job of making sure that minority students (who have included Obama and Sotomayor) never bond early on with whites students by holding separate orientation sessions for them, thus further encouraging any sense of alienation and separateness they feel.
All of Michelle's adult achievements have come through whites. The Ivy League colleges, the law firm she worked at, and then the University of Chicago. The same is true for Barack.
As for Barack, he is half-white and raised as a relatively privileged white boy except for his time in Indonesia when he was bullied for being culturally different and black .
Culturally, though, Barack is white. He learned to think, observe, speak, and imagine life through white culture and family. His life story is the unrelenting quest to purge all that whiteness from himself that he might assume the mantle of his coal black father, and ascend to lead his "people" (the oppressed) to freedom and prosperity out of the hateful clutches of the White Man.
The way for Barack to escape the problem of thinking "white" was to adopt Marxism as a way out of his dilemma: a black who'd been raised white. He now saw the world in purely class and racial terms.
Yet, everything he is and became depended on whites. His privileged education, his community work, his law firm and professorship - all provided by whites.
And Bill Ayers, whose help in Obama's adult life remains hidden to a large extent, has nonetheless been critical. Especially for the money conscious Michelle who complained $600 from a tax rebate to folks was only good enough for a decent pair of earrings, and spends $540 for a pair of fashionable sneakers (or kicks).
"You're getting $600. What can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything. . . And then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings."
The Obamas, both of them, have been accused of being racists. Barack for his Marxist sentiments and worldview, his association with the vicious Rev. Wright ("white people's greed runs a world in need" which he wholeheartedly endorsed vuia 20 years' regular attendance), the remark of his grandmother being "a typical white person", comments in his books, "that's just how white folks' will do ya", and his classic explanation to a group of rich, elite whites how their low class brethren in Pennsylvania are "bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment".
But, some will say, the Obamas are surrounded by whites, they have white friends, they've always worked and played with whites. They can't be racists.
Liberals think that white racists, KKKers must hate all blacks. That's not how it works. A person can very much like, enjoy, work with individuals of other races without any difficulty, but find collective fault or general dislike for another race as a whole.
Barack gives Bill Ayers and the other whites of his circle a pass because they have transcended membership in an evil class of people by despising their own race as much as people from other races and cultures do. Marxists and liberals deracinate themselves in the eyes of people like the Obamas; just as people like Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Junior, Louis Armstrong, and numerous other blacks seemed deracinated and non-threatening to whites throughout the 50's and 60's.
Barack likes individual whites like David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, and so on, but he is filled with rage at whites in general for all that went wrong with his childhood, his abandonment by his father, and so forth; whereas Michelle was raised with a chip on her shoulder in white-run Chicago, marinated in the resentments and attitudes of Jesse Jackson and his ilk to blame everything wrong with blacks on slavery and unrelenting, ever oppressive racism of whitey.
Many critics of Obama have observed that the narcissistic Barack appears to be a compulsive liar. Part of that pathology, though, appears to be his ability to convince himself of things that never were.
He loves to repeat his life story in hopes of inspiring others how he was abandoned by his father at the age of two and managed to become President of the United States. Which is no mean achievement. Yet, the facts are that after his birth, his mother never lived with Barack Sr. again. Instead, his mother moved with their newborn baby a mere fifteen days after his birth to Seattle to go to school there.
Barack never knew his father at all. Not even as an infant or toddler.
Granted that his story of abandonment at age two is sad enough that it hardly needs embellishment, still, we see a crumb of pathos in that additional, fictional amount of time that says, "I did know my dad a little for a tiny little while." Kind of like, "we at least had Hawaii for a brief time together."
But he didn't even have that.
So here we have Barack -- raised by whites, protected and privileged by whites, guided by whites, funded by whites, managed by whites, and finally, elected by whites. And someone who has turned all his inner rage into a diatribe against the society of whites and its free markets, liberties, government, culture, traditions, and beliefs.
And we have Michelle, affirmed by whites, promoted by whites, enriched by whites, and angry that all her success came, not from her own community, but as spoils from condescending whites, liberal guilt and noblesse oblige to less brilliant "coloreds" such as herself.
Think of what they owe Bill Ayers and the trust they've placed in him. He could spill the beans of what he's done for them at any time, but he won't. Obama is his Manchurian Candidate, his Trojan horse, his Quisling for Marxism and the ruin of white America.
But Obama can't destroy America anymore than Wilson, FDR, Jimmy Carter could. He can damage it, but never transform it, which means Obama fails, retires to private life like Jimmy Carter. He can certainly enrich himself as an ex-President as Bill Clinton has done, but underneath it all there lingers the sub-conscious knowledge for he and Michelle that it all began with a lie, unearned wealth, and white privilege.
This is history being weird.
Wild Thing's comment........
Good article about Obama and Michelle, the implications are mind boggling.
Obama has done NOTHING in his ‘career’ other than be a minority. He brings nothing himself to the table. Obama never had to “adopt” Marxism-—he was in essence a red diaper baby who heard a steady stream of anti-American and anti-capitalist opprobrium from Gramps Dunham, Frank Davis, and Mommy Dearest, Stanley Ann.
He gravitated to the radicals and Marxists in school because he was just like them from the get-go. In fact, he could have given them lessons about how rotten capitalism was.
And, of course, Trinity UNC was just one more stop on the radical Marxist highway. The stuff Wright preached was standard fare for Barack Obama ...it was what he knew and what he has always believed.
Think of what they owe Bill Ayers and the trust they’ve placed in him. He could spill the beans of what he’s done for them at any time, but he won’t. Obama is his Manchurian Candidate, his Trojan horse, his Quisling for Marxism and the ruin of white America.
"But Obama can't destroy America anymore than Wilson, FDR, Jimmy Carter could. He can damage it, but never transform it, which means Obama fails, retires to private life like Jimmy Carter."
This at the end is the only thing I disagree with. Obama is dangerous much more then the others they are listed in the statement. He has done more in less then a year to mess with our Constitution then the others did and he has only begun. But the rest of the article is excellent.
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:40 AM | Comments (4)
September 29, 2009
An Enfeebled Obama by Caroline B. Glick
By Caroline B. Glick
If Zbigniew Brzezinski had his way, the US would go to war against Israel to defend Iran's nuclear installations. In an interview with the Daily Beast website last weekend, the man who served as former President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor said, "They IAF fighter jets] have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? We have to be serious about denying them that right. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not."
Brzezinski has long distinguished himself as one of the most outspoken Israel haters in polite circles in Washington. Under normal circumstances, his remarks could be laughed off as the ravings of a garden variety anti-Semite. But these are not normal circumstances. Brzezinski served as a senior foreign policy advisor to President Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, and his views are not terribly out of place among Obama's senior advisors in the White House. In an interview in 2002, Samantha Powers, who serves as a senior member of Obama's national security council, effectively called for the US to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians.
The fact of the matter is that Brzezinski's view is in line with the general disposition of Obama's foreign policy. Since entering office, Obama has struck a hard line position against Israel while adopting a soft, even apologetic line toward Iran and its allies.
For eight months, Obama has sought to force Israel to the wall. He has loudly and repeatedly ordered the Netanyahu government to prevent all private and public construction for Jews in Israel's capital city and its heartland in order to facilitate the eventual mass expulsion of Jews from both areas which he believes ought to become part of a Jew-free Palestinian state.
Until this week, Obama conditioned the resumption of negotiations towards peace between Israel and the Palestinians on such a prohibition of Jewish building and so encouraged Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas to further radicalize his positions towards Israel. Until Obama came around Abbas had no problem negotiating with Israeli leaders while Jews were building homes and schools and other structures in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. But with Obama requiring a freeze of all such construction, Abbas made clear in an interview with the Washington Post in May that he couldn't talk to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu without looking like a sellout.
At the same time, Obama made no equivalent demands of the Palestinians. He did not precondition talks on freezing illegal Arab construction in Jerusalem, or dismantling the Aksa Martyrs terrorist group, or even simply on setting aside the Palestinian demand that Israel release convicted terrorists from its prisons. To the contrary, he has energetically supported the establishment of a Palestinian unity government between Fatah and Hamas - which the US State Department has since 1995 designated as a foreign terrorist organization to which US citizens, including the US President are required by law to give no quarter.
As for Iran, during his meeting with Netanyahu in May, Obama gave the clear impression that the Iranian regime had until September to accept his offer to negotiate the disposition of its nuclear installations. But it is now September, and in its belated response to Obama's generous offer of engagement, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime rejected the terms of Obama's engagement out of hand. Obama did not retaliate by taking his offer to negotiate off the table or - perish at the thought - working to implement the sanctions he pledged would follow an Iranian rejection of his open hand. Instead, Obama announced that he is sending a senior US official to meet with the Iranians on October 1. And with that announcement, any residual doubt that Obama is willing to live in a world in which Iran is armed with nuclear weaponry dissipated completely.
In the meantime, in his address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday and in his remarks at his meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas on Tuesday, Obama made clear that, in the words of former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, he has "put Israel on the chopping block." He referred to Israeli communities located beyond the 1949 armistice lines as "illegitimate." Moreover, Obama explained that Israel can no longer expect US support for its security if it doesn't bow to his demand that it surrender all of the land it has controlled since 1967.
Apparently it is immaterial to the US leader that if Israel fulfilled his demand, the Jewish state would render itself defenseless against enemy attack and so embolden its neighbors to invade. That is, it matters not to Obama that were Israel to fulfill his demand, the prospect of an Arab war against Israel would rise steeply. The fact that Obama made these deeply antagonistic statements about Israel at the UN in itself exposes his hostility towards the country. The UN's institutional hostility towards Israel is surpassed only by that of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
So given Obama's positions towards Israel on the one hand and Iran and its allies on the other, it seems clear enough that the logical endpoint of Obama's policies would look something like Brzezinski's recommended course of action. Moreover, Obama's foreign policy as a whole makes it fairly easy to imagine him ordering the US military to open hostilities against a US ally to defend a US adversary - even as that adversary goes out of its way to humiliate Obama personally and the US in general.
Since Obama took office, he has been abandoning one US ally after another while seeking to curry favor with one US adversary after another. At every turn, America's allies - from Israel to Honduras, to Columbia, South Korea, and Japan to Poland and the Czech Republic - have reacted with disbelief and horror to his treachery. And at every turn, America's adversaries - from Iran to Venezuela to North Korea and Russia - have responded with derision and contempt to his seemingly obsessive attempts to appease them.
The horror Obama has instilled in America's friends and the contempt he has evoked from its enemies have not caused him to change course. The fact that his policies throughout the world have already failed to bring a change in the so-called international community's treatment of the US has not led him to reconsider those policies. As many Western Europeans have begun to openly acknowledge, the man they once likened to the messiah is nothing but a politician — and a weak, bungling one at that. Even Britain's Economist is laughing at him. But Obama is unmoved by any of this, and as his speech at the UN General Assembly made clear, he is moving full speed ahead in his plans to subordinate US foreign policy to the UN.
Obama's stubborn insistence on advancing his feckless foreign policy in the face of its already apparent colossal failure is of a piece with his unswerving commitment to his domestic agenda in spite of its apparent colossal failure. Obama's economic stimulus package failed to stimulate the US economy and increased the US's economic deficit to heights undreamed of by his predecessors. His nationalization of major US corporations like General Motors, his cash-for-clunkers program to stimulate the US auto industry and his massive encroachments on the banking and financial industries have done nothing to increase economic growth in the US and indeed, unemployment has reached generational highs. And yet, rather than reconsider his belief in vastly expanding the size of the federal government's control over the private sector, Obama has insistently pushed for further governmental control over the US economy - most notably in his drive to transform the US health care industry.
Both Obama's supporters and his opponents have claimed that his presidency may well stand or fall on his ability to pass a health care reform law in the coming months. But the fact of the matter is that if he succeeds in passing such a law, his success will be a Pyrrhic victory because Obama has promised that his plan will do the impossible, and therefore it will unquestionably fail. Obama has promised that the health care plan he supports will increase access to health services and improve their quality, but simultaneously will not increase the size of the federal deficit or be funded with tax hikes - and this is impossible. Obama's health care plan will fail either to pass into law, or if it becomes law, it will fail to live up to his promises.
Obama's failures in both foreign and domestic policy have weakened him politically. His response to this newfound weakness has been to put himself into the public eye seemingly around the clock.
Apparently the thinking behind the move is that while Obama's policies are unpopular, Obama's personal popularity remains high, so if he personalizes his policies, it will become more difficult for his opponents to argue against them.
But alasm this policy too has failed. The more Obama exposes himself, the less he is able to leverage his personal celebrity into political power.
The question for the US's spurned allies in general -- and for Israel in particular — is whether we are better off with a politically strong Obama or a politically weak Obama. Given that the general thrust of his foreign policy is detrimental to our interests, America's allies are best served by a weak Obama. Already this week Israel benefitted from his weakness. It was Obama's weakness that dictated his need to stage a photo-op with Netanyahu and Abbas at the UN. And it was this need — to be seen as doing something productive — that outweighed Obama's desire to put the screws on Israel by preconditioning talks with a freeze on Jewish construction. So Obama was forced to relent at least temporarily and Netanyahu won his first round against Obama.
During a television interview this week Senator John McCain was asked for his opinion of Brzezinski's recommendation that the US shoot down IAF jets en route to Iran in a hypothetical Israeli airstrike against Iran's nuclear installations. He responded with derisive laughter. And indeed, the notion that the US would go to war against Israel to protect Iran's nuclear installations is laughably absurd.
The weaker Obama becomes politically, the more readily Democrats and liberal reporters alike will acknowledge that attacking US allies while scraping and bowing before US foes is a ridiculous strategy for foreign affairs. Certainly no self-proclaimed realist can defend a policy based on denuding the US of its power and forsaking a US-based international system for one dictated by its foes.
It is true that a weakened Obama will seek to win cheap points by putting the squeeze on Israel. But it is also true that the weaker Obama becomes, the less capable he will be of carrying through on his bullying threats against Israel and against fellow democracies around the world.
Brzezinski: Shoot Down Israeli Planes If They Attack Iran
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who enthusiastically campaigned for U.S. President Barack Obama, has called on the president to shoot down Israeli planes if they attack Iran. “
"They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” said the former national security advisor to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in an interview with the Daily Beast. Brzezinski, who served in the Carter administration from 1977 to 1981, is currently a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Maryland.
“We have to be serious about denying them that right,” he said. “If they fly over, you go up and confront them.
His enthusiasm for President Obama has waned in the past several months. He recently told a London-based newspaper that the United States may be "sliding into a deeper conflict with various segments of the world of Islam ” because of the president’s failure to carry out his promises to the Muslim world.
Brzezinski said the Obama administration is "diddling around" in trying to reach an “evasive compromise” between Israel and the Arab world.
Wild Thing's comment........
Israel should drop this Brzezinski out of a plane along with bombs when they bomb Iran.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:40 AM | Comments (1)
September 27, 2009
"'Too Big to Fail?" by Mark Alexander
'Too Big to Fail?
by Mark Alexander
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington
"An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself... A murderer is less to fear." --Marcus Tullius Cicero
As reported two weeks ago in *The Patriot Post* (and practically nowhere else), Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the legality of the Obama-forced bankruptcy of Chrysler, LLC.
Mourdock is petitioning the Court to rule on Barack Obama's blatant disregard of the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, which explicitly authorizes Congress, and *not* the president, to determine bankruptcy laws. In particular, Mourdock is challenging the president's unashamed indifference to more than 220 years of bankruptcy precedent, which puts senior, or secured, creditors ahead of junior, or unsecured, creditors during bankruptcy proceedings.
With regard to the latter, BO unilaterally declared a 55 percent ownership stake for the UAW, a junior creditor, and he donated a 20 percent ownership stake to non-creditor and non-investor Italian automobile maker Fiat, which was also given options for an additional 15 percent. (Fiat exchanged not even one penny for its ownership stake or options, and the jury is still out as to the politics behind that unsavory deal.)
Adding insult to injury, BO announced that he would bestow senior creditors only 29 cents on the dollar for their bond holdings. From the onset of this fiasco, the largest senior creditors, representing $6.6 billion, calculated Chrysler's value to be at least 90 cents on the dollar. Other private and public senior creditors, representing $300 million, along with private analysts, concurred. Even Chrysler itself argued that it was worth more than 29 cents per dollar.
But, when BO and his Treasury thugs held firm, everyone prepared to do battle in bankruptcy court. Then, one morning, the largest senior creditors withdrew their opposition. In an act of cowardice, California and Michigan public funds decided to play along with Obama's scheme, so as not to jeopardize potential federal bailout moneys.
Only Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock, fiduciary of three relatively small Indiana public funds ($45 million total invested in Chrysler bonds), stood firm.
During the discovery phase, under threats and intimidation from the "tolerant" Left, Mourdock documented how the largest senior creditors had changed position because Obama officials had assured them overnight, Chicago-style, that they were "too big to fail," and that their substantial losses as Chrysler bondholders would be recovered through other government programs.
While a stay to prevent the Obama-forced bankruptcy was eventually rejected by the full Supreme Court, no ruling was ever made based upon the legal merits of the case. Hence, the appeal.
Of course, this is not the only instance where BO (and George W. Bush before him) has, with a Democrat-controlled Congress, used the "too big to fail" ploy. Banking, investing, insurance and mutual funds are other economic sectors that have also been usurped over the last 12 months by Big Brother.
While each of these events, in and of itself, has been devastating to our liberty and our pursuit of happiness, they have been mere tactics in an end-game strategy -- that of engendering Democrats themselves as too big to fail.
Obama's disregard of the Constitution is also evident in his naming of some 30 so-called czars, policy coordinators who usurp even Democrat-controlled congressional constitutional authority, bypassing the budgetary responsibilities of the House of Representatives and the advice-and-consent responsibilities of the Senate.
With Leftist Democrats in control of the House and with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (and an occasionally traitorous Republican), Democrats are ramming through legislation unwanted by the American public (Card Check, Cap-and-Tax, government-run health care). In addition, they are stonewalling certain investigations and pursuing others so as to suit their immediate political needs.
More egregiously, Leftist Democrats are surreptitiously scheming to legalize 30 million illegal aliens and to force same-day voter registration across the country, thereby allowing them to convert these freshly minted "citizens" into millions of new Democrat votes.
Another dire consequence of this veto-proof Senate majority is that Democrats are packing our courts with "living Constitution" judges. Unlike Democrat hero Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts to pack the Supreme Court directly, this modern Democrat tactic seeks to stock the appellate court level. After all, little attention is paid to appellate nominees, and appellate courts can be altered more stealthily than can the Supreme Court.
Significantly, packing the appellate level furnishes Democrats with a layer of insulation between their election-stealing shenanigans and the Supreme Court. If, for example, informed and patriotic voters were able to file suit over a rigged election (quite challenging and expensive, in and of itself), these "living documenters" could stymie or accelerate appeals, depending upon which rulings would support the desired outcome.
The fulcrum of this too-big-to-fail strategy is Obama's coercion of his own party members, especially those vulnerable in the 2010 elections. First, consider the frustration and outrage displayed during the August congressional recess. Then, consider Democrat incumbents' disdain and mockery of constituents who dared to challenge their Leftist agenda. Under "normal" circumstances, the prognosis for such an incumbent would be very dark. Alas, these are not normal days.
Be it by persuasion or coercion, every vulnerable Democrat is being forced to march in Leftist lock-step, to walk the plank on each and every piece of legislation, and, ultimately, to vote in favor of immigrant legalization and same-day voter registration to garner the ensuing millions of voters.
Couple these tactics and advantages with ACORN's illegal get-out-the-vote efforts, BO's hundreds of millions in campaign fund dollars, and the Democrat shakedown of industries and companies around the world, and the 2010 Democrat congressional candidates would appear to be positioned as "too big to fail."
Team Obama, however, lacks one major element in their nefarious conniving -- the truth. Indeed, it is their brazen lying, half-truths and obfuscations, which have awakened the sleeping giant of American Patriotism.
We are a generous and tolerant nation, the greatest in the history of mankind. We have freed other nations and peoples from tyrannies and oppressions, and we have done so at great cost of our blood and treasure. But, we have reached the limit with Obamanism, this nascent American Communism.
While *The Patriot Post's* motto, Veritas Vos Liberabit, takes its inspiration from John 8:32, "The truth shall set you free," as Ronald Reagan noted, "There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right."
And, Edmund Burke once noted, "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing."
George Washington urged, "We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times."
Are Obama and his Democrat minions too big to fail? I say, emphatically, NO! Indeed, they already are failures.
Still, there is much to be done to save our Republic. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, freedom is being hunted, reason is considered as rebellion and the slavery of fear makes men afraid to think. Fortunately, as Paine further observed, "[S]uch is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."
If we continue to shine the light of Truth, we may yet force these Leftist cockroaches to scurry for cover. Let us pray for Almighty God's guidance. Let us roll up our sleeves and extend to our posterity proof that we were worthy of the title "American."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Mark Alexander....his bio is also great and interesting
Publisher, PatriotPost.US
Wild Thing's comment.........
What an awesome column.
God bless Richard Mourdock and I hope and pray the Supreme Court does the right thing.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:48 AM | Comments (6)
September 22, 2009
Vietistan by Bruce Walker
Vietistan
By Bruce Walker
Barack Obama and the Democrats spent years defaming the national security policy of the United States during a time of war. This opposition transcends criticism of policy or attacks on President Bush. Senator Reid, while our troops were in the field, pronounced the Iraq War lost. Other Democrat senators equating the conduct of our soldiers with Nazis or with rogue forces that bombed villages. The Democratic Party feted such surreal conspiracy freaks as Michael Moore and appointed anti-American Marxists like Van Jones to important federal offices. "Bush lied, People died" bumper stickers popped up like ugly pimples on the back of countless vehicles in America. Our current Secretary of State essentially called General Petraeus a liar, without the slightest evidence.
Now, as Jeremiah Wright put it, "the chickens have come home to roost." The Democrats, indeed, those Democrats most vociferously hostile to our military forces and their commanders, now run Washington. They control not only the Executive Branch but also have comfortable, filibuster-proof majorities in both houses of Congress. President Obama and his party also have complete responsibility for what happens in our war on global terrorism.
Iraq, despite the protestations of Democrats in the years in which Bush was president, was in pretty good shape when Obama took office. The policies of President Bush, ultimately, prevailed. There are many things he might have done differently in Iraq and in other parts of the Middle East (overthrowing the terrorist sponsor, Syria, at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom comes to mind; giving all support short of direct military intervention to the Iranian freedom movement also would have been smart.) The salient fact, though, is this: under Bush, America was never attacked by terrorists and under Bush we did end the regime of a monstrous, anti-American thug in Baghdad. We also held Afghanistan and routed al-Qaeda there. The strategic strategy of Bush was similar to the strategic strategy of Reagan in the Cold War: we win, they lose.
Large numbers of Obama supporters, however, do not think that America should win the strategic war on terrorism. They blame the CIA more than al-Qaeda for the dangers in the world today. They view anti-American tyrants in Venezuela and Iran as democratically elected leaders, rather than the American people, as the heroes on the world stage. As Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a Democrat herself, said at the 1980 Republican Convention "They always blame America first." Nothing, really, has changed. Carter, toward the end of his presidency, seems to have "discovered" that Soviet Communism was aggressive, amoral, and armed. Teddy Kennedy, so recently eulogized for having done, really, nothing, visited with the Kremlin behind the back of President Reagan to try to weaken Reagan politically. LBJ learned the hard way just how hostile to American success many of his fellow Democrats could be.
During the Vietnam War, there were several thoughtful options. Was it in our strategic interest to stop Communism in Vietnam? Maybe so and maybe not. France was a SEATO member and the former colonial ruler of Indochina. Why was it not the duty of France to keep South Vietnam free? Britain was another SEATO member, yet our ally ignored its treaty obligations and even traded with North Vietnam. There was a reasonable argument that America should have stayed away from Vietnam and preserved our military strength and national will for threats which addressed us more directly.
Barry Goldwater advocated fighting the war, but using our overwhelming superiority in the air and at sea to directly attack North Vietnam. Our Iowa class battleships could hit almost any target in North Vietnam with very accurate sixteen inch naval gun shells at no risk of American lives (and we had four such battleships.) Mining Haiphong Harbor, through which the majority of North Vietnamese supplies came, could have been done without any risk of American lives. The suppression of air defenses by naval guns could have given our air forces the ability to disrupt or destroy almost everything of military or economic value in North Vietnam.
Instead, Lyndon Johnson valued international opinion, the support of fellow Democrats, and the fear of Soviet power more than he did the lives of the hundreds of thousands of conscripted ground troops that he sent into South Vietnam to try to win a guerrilla war in difficult terrain. Even worse, he crippled the operational actions of our ground troops by requiring White House clearance for artillery strikes and placing certain sanctuaries off limits. We bled because of his craven incompetence. We lost a war which we either should not have fought or should have fought and won.
It looks like Lyndon Baines Obama is about to repeat the mistakes of his Democrat predecessor. If our goal is to win in Afghanistan, then we should win. Obama should whip Democrats into support or silence. He should reach across the aisle to Republicans. He ought to apologize, even if indirectly, for demonizing President Bush and his war on terror. Obama shows no inclination to do either of those things.
If he is going to keep American troops in Afghanistan, those brave men and women deserve a commander-in-chief who is willing himself to make sacrifices for them. He should do what the military leaders in the region feel is necessary. He should explain to the American people our mission and our goals. He should speak of Afghanistan as part of "our common and united war on global terrorism." He should publicly insist our NATO allies to keep their forces, whether military or noncombatant in Afghanistan for practical and psychological reasons.
He won't. Obama will not withdraw from Afghanistan, but he will not really try to win. Like four decades ago, Americans serving their nation will be led by a leader who will not lead. Like forty decades ago, our brave countrymen will be killed and maimed for no purpose greater than the political cynicism of a corrupt politician. Obama will have his Vietistan and those who risk their lives for us will pay the price.
Wild Thing's comment.......
The left has never seen a war that they wanted to win.
RAC said it well!
"It's always nice to know that our corrupt politicians are more than willing to hide behind the dead bodies of our military which they hate so much. War is started by politicians, waged by the military, and ultimately decided by politicians. This is so wrong!"
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (7)
September 13, 2009
"We've Figured Him Out" by Ben Stein
As President Barack Obama's poll rating head south, Ben Stein explains why in The American Spectator:
Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?
Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:
The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.
They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.
Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.
The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.
Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.
The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.
Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.
There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America .
Wild Thing's comment.........
Ben did good, thank you. I agree, I think that is one of the big reasons Obama is in such a hurry. He knows people are waking up to what he is FINALLY!
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:47 AM | Comments (2)
September 06, 2009
"I am Tired" by Robert A. Hall
"I am Tired" by Robert A. Hall
Robert Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the
Massachusetts State Senate.
This man makes so much sense that it is hard to believe he has served as a
politician from Massachusetts. Never, ever have I heard anyone from that
state speak with such lucid common sense and a grasp of what exactly is
going on in today's world.
"I'm Tired" by Robert A. Hall
I'll be 63 soon. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce, and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18 Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in
sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.
I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth around" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy or stupid to earn it. I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes." Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I'm willing to help
But if they bought Mansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them with their own money.
I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros, and Hollywood entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for Christian people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela. Won't multiculturalism be beautiful?
I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers" ; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to. I believe "a man should be judged by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin." I'm tired of being told that "race doesn't matter" in the post-racial world of Obama, when it's all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of US Senators from Illinois.
I think it's very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation.. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.
I'm tired of a news media that thinks Bush's fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama's, at triple the cost, were wonderful. That thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control
weight and stress, that picked over every line of Bush's military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his, that slammed Palin, with two years as governor, for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever.
I Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News ? Get a clue.
I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America, while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue, or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.
I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five
miles to our jobs. We also own a three -bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's, and if you're greener than Gore, you're green enough for me.
I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don't think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs.
And I'm tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana. I'm tired of illegal aliens being called "undocumented workers," especially the ones who aren't working, but are living on welfare or crime. What's next? Calling drug dealers, Undocumented Pharmacists"? And, no, I'm not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I'm willing to
fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military... Those are the citizens we need.
I'm tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things
happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years-and still are?
Not even close.So here's the deal. I'll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who
ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we'll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.
I'm tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers-bums are bipartisan. And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois, where the "Illinois Combine" of Democrats has worked to
loot the public for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama's cabinet as well.
I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers, and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught..
I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor. Speaking of poor, I' m tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor." The poverty pimps have to
keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination, or big-whatever for their problems.
Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my grandchildren.
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A little more about Robert Hall
Robert A. Hall joined the Marines in 1964, upon graduation from high school in Collingswood, NJ. In 1966, he volunteered for Vietnam, serving what he calls "an easy tour for a Marine" as a Radio Relay team chief. Following his discharge as a corporal in 1968, he attended Mount Wachusett Community College and the University of Massachusetts, graduating in June of 1972 with a degree in Political Science.
In November of that year, Hall was elected to the Massachusetts state senate, defeating a powerful Democrat by a nine-vote margin (out of over 60,000 votes cast) in a 4 to 1 Democratic district that had not been won by a Republican since 1938. Hall was 26 at the time. He was re-elected four times by large margins, and in 1976, was nominated by both the Republican and Democratic Parties, defeating a Democrat by running on stickers in the Democratic primary. He was the Republican Whip of the senate when he retired undefeated in 1982.
While in the senate, Hall rejoined the Marine Reserves, serving from 1977 until time conflicts with a new job forced him to leave the Corps in 1983 as a Staff Sergeant. He also earned a Masters Degree in History in 1980, taking night courses at Fitchburg State College. Since leaving politics, Hall has successfully managed non-profit associations for 23 years. A Certified Association Executive, he is currently Executive Director of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry in Madison, WI (www.aacd.com), where he lives with his wife, Bonnie. Hall is a frequently-published freelance writer, with opinion columns, articles, short fiction and poetry appearing in over 50 national and local magazines and newspapers. His work is included in Chicken Soup for the Veteran's Soul; and in Before the Memories Fade, published by Author House.
Wild Thing's comment.......
Great writing thank you Mr. Hall. I have the book "Chicken Soup for the Veteran's Soul". And this is the second time I have read something he wrote. I really like it.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (7)
September 01, 2009
Health Care Bill Breeches IRS Privacy
Health Care Bill Breeches IRS Privacy
By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann
08.31.2009
As if Obama’s health care proposals were not flawed enough, CBS News reports a previously unnoticed provision of the bill which makes a shambles of any privacy surrounding your federal tax returns. Under the House bill, the IRS is required to make available to the new government Health Choices Commissioner” established by the legislation and to each state health program all of your personal tax information.
In a blog, CBSNews’ Declan McCullagh reports that “Section 431 (a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted grow income, the number of dependents, and ‘other information as is prescribed by’ regulation” to the “new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs.”
And, McCullagh also reports that, under Section 1801(a) “the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a ‘low-income prescription drug subsidy’ but has not applied for it.”So the Health Choices Commissioner and anyone in his office, the fifty state health programs and their staffs, and the vast Social Security Administration will all now have access to your personal tax information. It might as well be published in the newspapers. The rationale for providing this confidential tax information to all these people is not only to check on the eligibility of those who are seeking federal subsidy – a possibly appropriate use of it – but, also, to those who have not applied but might be eligible. This later20provision essentially authorizes the Social Security Administration to seek and obtain anyone’s income tax information under the guise of determining if they should have applied for a subsidy.
In his blog, McCullagh quotes Tom Giovanetti of the Institute for Policy Innovation as saying “How many thousands of federal employees will have access to your record? The privacy of your health records will be only as good as the most nosy, most dishonest, and most malcontented federal employee.” And not just your health records, your financial records too!This legislation requiring an agency-to-agency transfer of confidential tax information runs against the general policy of the Privacy Act which prohibits such a paper flow. Generally, information has to come from the individual involved and cannot simply be passed from one government bureau to another. The IRS takes particular pains to keep tax returns confidential and leaks are rare. But this legislation will end any hope or pretense of privacy.
Wild Thing's comment......
But....but Obama is above all laws. Could obama leave any part of our existence alone? I guess he will have his ACORN pod people working on this too.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:49 AM | Comments (6)
Election Puts Anti-American Radicals In Charge...by Dr.Alan Bates
Election Puts Anti-American Radicals In Charge: The Inarguable Evidence
Dr.Alan Bates
Never would most of us conceive that self-avowed Marxists and Communists would be placed 'in charge' by a man poorly vetted and elected by complacent voters to the highest office of our government. The radicals of the late 1960s and onward, many of whom participated in violent acts against America and advocated violent overthrow of the US government, have very effectively used their networks to amass huge sums of campaign money from unions and overseas anti-American pro-Marxist factions to buy national television network time in order to convince a 'dumbed down' younger generation and minorites that they offer changes which will accrue to their benefit, thus essentially accomplishing an infiltration of government through non-violent means.
The factual reality is summarized below (without iterating detail due to space limitations). Now that Obama and friends' intentions are being discovered belatedly by many, his advisors and sheeple followers cannot figure out any better strategy than to insult their critics as being racists, since Barack Obama happens to be partially black. What convenient tools skin color and dwelling on past inequities are for disarming their adversaries! That however is purely projection of their own neuroses upon others who merely see the Administration and its many appointed Czars and officers for what they truly represent. It is their way of distracting the naïve masses away from any chance they will also recognize what the rest of us understand before a totalitarian takeover of our nation is complete.
So who are Obama and his mentors?
Mr. Obama's real resume is replete with symbiotic associations and participation with admitted anti-American radicals many of whom advocated destruction of American 'imperialism' and capitalism even if through violent means.
The lineup includesWilliam Ayers, Khalid Al Mansour, Rhashid Khalidi, and Jeremiah Wright along with their mentors Sol Alinsky and James Cone. While space here is too limited to lay out the chronology and details, you can read about some of these individuals online: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2169. Some of the organizations which they used to front their anti-American cause included Weatherman (Weather Underground), STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), the Woods Foundation of Chicago, the Arab-American Action Network and ACORN (Associations of Community Organizations For Reform Now) which received major funding from Annenberg Challenge while Obama was director. According to Worldnetdaily, while "Obama chaired the board of the CAC, more than $600,000 was granted to an organization founded by Ayers and run by Mike Klonsky, a former top communist activist. Klonsky was leader of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, which was effectively recognized by China as the all-but-official U.S. Maoist party."
Most of these groups have committed crimes against the United States and its citizens with Weather Underground responsible for at least 30 bombings according to Ayers. Ayers himself, who escaped conviction (due to a legal technicality) for the crimes he admitted to----bombing the NYC Police Headquarters in 1970, the Capitol Building in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972----stated in his book Fugitive Days that he does not rule out committing similar acts in the future. Notably, Obama was director of CAC, codirector of the Woods Foundation and served as the legal reprentative for ACORN which ultimately helped him win his elections. And lest we not forget another mentor to Obama mentioned in his book Dreams From My Father as 'Frank', who has been identified as Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis. And does it not instill confidence to read Obama's statement from Audacity of Hope: "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction"?
What about 'Van' Jones (real name Anthony Jones), who was appointed by Obama to the newly created green jobs advisor position which takes charge of coercing a paradigm shift in the nation's energy policy to 'green energy' and away from fossil fuels which are vital to our international security? Jones was a founder of the Communist revolutionary organization STORM, and it was he who led a vigil the day after the mass murder of '9/11' to express solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as what he called the victims of "U.S. imperialism" around the world. The fallacy of manmade global warming is beyond the scope of this commentary, but it a tool of Marxists to convert our nation to a Fascist state through redistribution of wealth to the poor and to foreign fascist regimes under the guise of 'saving our environment' while simultaneously barring development of our abundant fossil fuel resources which are vital to our national security.
And Jeff Jones, cofounder of Weather Underground with Ayers, is the New York chair of the Apollo Alliance which is designing the White House's stimulus package and assisting the state of New York in how to spend their stimulus money.
And how about Mark Lloyd, 'FCC Diversity Officer and avowed pro-Chavez radical recently appointed by Obama to rein in free speech over the airways by reorganizing the FCC and placing a tax equal to annual operating costs on local radio stations to be paid to their respective state NPR station or lose their license to a minority owner? His allotted budget is half a billion dollars! This represents the repudiation of freedom of speech.
What does it take to wake Americans to the internal threat posed by radicalism which has infiltrated the top levels of our government?
Ask yourself why Obama pledged to balance the national budget when in fact he has now committed more to our national deficits than all past presidential administrations combined at the expense of future generations. The current deficit projections are 9,000,000,000,000. dollars, which could ultimately destroy the value of the US Dollar, leading to out-of-control inflation and ultimate collapse of the US economy (a perfect setting for destruction of capitalism and instituting a Fascist regime?).
What did Obama's chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel mean when he said he wanted to use severe economic weakness as an opportunity to make changes in America?
How could Obama appoint a string of tax-cheats to top positions including the Secretary of the Treasury?
Why did Obama in concert with the UAW take control of the failing domestic auto industry and appoint a czar who has zero experience in business?
Do not such giveaways as 'cash for clunkers' play right to the benefit of UAW and serve as examples of redistribution of wealth at the expense of taxpayers?
Why do Obama and his socialist collegues want to take over the nation's healthcare system which comprises almost one-fifth of our economy, including gaining access to personal financial information?
Why did Obama promise to remain Israel's ally but now abandons Israel and asks the Jews to turn over half of Jerusalem to the Palestinians with no offer to help Israel in the event of an Iranian attack?
Why did Obama internationally apologize on behalf of the United States for past defense against tyranny?
He views our nation as an imperialist nation of arrogance rather than a noble nation which has occasionally made errors. He is the first President to chastise our allies and appease our enemies! Why is Obama developing a 'national security force' which in its early stages is known as 'Organizing For America' (OFA) and which targets young college students who will be brainwashed with the philosophy of fascism? Will they be the 'browncoats' of yesteryear?
Why has Obama through Attorney General Eric Holder handcuffed and taken over the CIA, which has long been the most critical independent information-gathering resource safeguarding our national security?
Why does he reveal and condemn CIA's interrogation methods which were previously approved by Congress and cleared by the Justice Department, as though to demonstrate to terrorists that they need not fear us, even while the terrorists decapitate innocent captives?
In conclusion, Mr. Obama exhibits personal characteristics of narcissism and arrogance partly veiled by his spoken empathy. He ignores our national well-being as he fulfills promises and payback to his radical associates at the expense of national financial solvency and individual liberties, which heretofore have been defended during two world wars with great sacrifice. Some of the electorate have let their guard down, and now we must defend against the Administration's attempts to move control of the census to the White House so as to prevent those currently in power from permanently stealing elections through continued funding of ACORN and other radical groups which have no conscience or respect for existing law.
The United States is now immersed in the 'perfect storm'---a severe financial calamity the stage of which was set by socialists during the Carter years, and a pack of wolves who have carefully laid their framework over the past decade to achieve their transformation of capitalism and personal liberty to fascism or worse. Americans have several ways to stop this process with the most peaceful being the elections coming up in 2010.
Meanwhile we must all write or call our national and state legislators and ask them to protect our Constitutional rights and the nation's remaining cracked foundation. Speak out now or be content with accepting the ultimate demise of your liberty.
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Wild Thing's comment......
Great article and extensive about Obama and his anti-American radicals.
After all these months I still am shocked that someone, Obama was voted into power. He has not done one thing I could even say well ok that is ok but all the rest you do is against America. The people, the radicals as the article says, every one of them, people that do not love America either just like Obama.
I am wide awake but the shock persists all the same.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:44 AM | Comments (4)
Coal Cellars and Common Sense by Don Bendell ( Vietnam Veteran)
COAL CELLARS and COMMOM SENSE
by Don Bendell
As Vietnam veterans; for decades, we were like the shiny black lumps in our coal cellar when I was a little boy. That coal bin was dark, cold, scary, and out of sight of the neighbors. That is where the American public shoveled all of us after Vietnam. Out of sight, out of mind after-all. We were not seen or heard from for years, except as psycho killers in movies and TV shows. War is always hell, but a lot of our real pain came from the heartbreak of Americans not giving us enough credit. Newsmen said it, so many thought we all lost our values and character that we grew up with. Instead, in the publics’ minds; amazingly, we became brain-washed, robotic killers, and rapists after only a year or two of military training. Please! It was chilly and emotionally-barren in that coal bin all those years, because we, “Vietnam Untouchables,” were blanketed by an icy coldness of public shame and apathy.
Then, a few years ago, we came into vogue. Even the left saw us as fashionable, so now there are 11,000,000 Vietnam vets running around. Except for one problem, there were only 2.7 million of us in Vietnam. People finally learned though that we are not sociopaths, that only 17% of us were black, which was commensurate with that racial percentage nationally, that we did not mostly come from low income families, and most of us were; like me, volunteers, not draftees. And so many more myths about Vietnam have been exploded.
So what now, a parade, a national holiday? No, our President and our congressional leaders, instead of honoring us, want us to start figuring out how we want to die, (so we will not be a burden to their spending plans, I believe). I have a copy of Obama’s now infamous “Death Book for Veterans.” It is actually called “Your life, Your Choices,” and camouflages itself as a guide for living wills. In actuality, it encourages euthanasia if you feel depressed, are wheelchair–bound, in a nursing home, are a burden to loved ones, either emotionally or financially, or in similar circumstance. And this book is real; morbid and shameful, but real. There is page after page about “pulling the plug,” the horrors of comas, and other debilitating conditions. It is indeed a macabre guide, and much unlike any military field manual I have ever read. This one is how to lose, not win.
Since FDR was wheelchair-bound as our President, I wonder how he would have felt about self-euthanasia. Then I remembered that the President and Congress are too good for our health care plan. In fact, if our health care system is so bad, why didn’t Teddy Kennedy go to Canda, Great Britain, or maybe Cuba for his brain cancer? Why do all their terminal cancer patients come to the US for care? And, do you know what they call many of them who don’t? Corpses.
Any nation takes care of its troops during war, but the true test of a nation’s greatness is how that nation treats its warriors when they come home. Can they seek shade, rest, and peace on the porches of America or must they immediately head for the coal chute “out back?” Obama and Congress want us to save them money and head to the boneyard so they can spend some more.
The problem is that this is not just about vets. It is about a government-run and mandated healthcare program for America. I am a disabled Vietnam veteran and am treated by government-paid doctors, nurses, druggists, and administrators. In other words, I am taken care of by government-run healthcare through a dysfunctional bureaucracy that is broken. No, not broken, trashed, in case you haven’t read. Now, get this: Our leaders in Washington want to create a much, much larger bureaucracy in the midst of a recession and saddle our entire nation with what my brother vets and I go through but on a grander scale. What are they, nuts?
Let’s see, just in 2009 alone, our government began “Cash for Clunkers,” and it went broke in just weeks. People traded in big American-made cars, and most purchased new foreign-made cars. Wow! The government sure is taking care of American auto workers . . . not. Car dealers have not been paid their promised federal dollars either.
How about the still-naïve one-third of Americans who want Big Brother to provide us with Obamacare? How has our government done over the decades managing other federal programs? Just look at: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Amtrak, Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security. And say, what about the US Postal Service? Even the President joked in a speech in August about their incompetence compared to FEDEX or UPS. Do you want to go to the post office on the day that some worker comes in “disgruntled?”
We have legislators actually suggesting we copy Great Britain’s healthcare system. In Great Britain, MS patients are forced to wait two and a half years there for the latest MS medicines and treatments. I have two daughters with MS, probably because I was exposed to Agent Orange. One of them is even a liberal and may even want Obamacare, not realizing what will happen to MS patients if it happens.
Over two-thirds of Americans, democrats and republicans are against Obamacare, but legislators at town halls are still trying to cram it down our throats. They are not listening to the majority, only their own spin-doctors insulting us, the citizens. Our so-called leaders forgot that the hidden coal in the coal cellar of my youth, also provided my family with life-giving warmth and comfort during the cold Ohio winters. Similarly, my fellow veterans and I did not lose our warmth or fires of passion hidden away all those years.
These “empty suit” pinheads in Washington think I am going to let my daughters get re-victimized? The real problem is, that just because some us were dumb enough to elect them, they think we are all stupid. I have news for them and any of their co-dependent hangers-on just wanting more government freebies. Veterans are not like giggling, slogan-chanting Woodstockers and peaceniks. American veterans actually risked our lives for what we believed in. In Vietnam, 58,000 gave up theirs. It is not just veterans though. It is an American public, democrats, republicans, and independents who feel like me: I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.
Ronald Reagan was faced with a greater recession, higher inflation, much higher interest rates, and much higher unemployment than Obama faced. Democrats and Republicans alike voted for Reagan, and he drastically cut taxes and immediately started us on the road to recovery. Obama put us $3 trillion deeper in debt with a worse economy to show for it. Reagan studied world leaders before becoming President. Obama’s mentor prior to heading off to college was Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Communist Party USA, who was a heavy pot-smoker, and wrote a porno book. Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama have one major similarity though: One term Presidents due to pie-in-the-sky unworkable fiscal policies.
The first thing we must do to fix our sky-rocketing medical care is not talked about. If a surgeon passes gas in the operating room, a patient files a multi-million dollar lawsuit against him for causing air pollution. Trial lawyers run the democratic party and a good portion of the republican party. We must force our legislators to pass good, rock solid tort reform legislation. The insurance premiums doctors, especially those in private practice, and hospitals, pay is through the ceiling.
My Solutions:
1. Tort Reform: We must get the size of lawsuits, especially in the medical profession, significantly lowered back to earth, insurance rates will come down, and health care costs will start dropping immediately.
2. Conservatives must take back the congress in 2010, lower taxes, and ease the ludicrous government regulations. “Checks and balances” works.
3. Moderates and Conservatives must unite behind one common Reagan-like Presidential 2012 candidate who understands economics.
4. We must continue tea parties, phone calls, emails, and faxes to our legislators.
5. We must start supporting those who want to run for Congress who have proven they want to serve country first, not self, and not party.
6. While we are at it, regarding the various attacks now on-going against our Constitution, let’s just use the 2nd Amendment for example. 11 years ago, Great Britain outlawed private ownership of firearms. Their Violent Crime Rate increased by over 340%. It was worse in Australia. In comparison, NOBODY will ever break into my house or carjack my car. Why? People know, either my wife or me will shoot them very dead with very large bullet holes ventilating their carcasses. Pretty good motivation to obey the law around my property and family.
7. And speaking of the Constitution, our nation only functions with our system of checks and balances. Czars are not accountable to anybody, and that must be changed by Congress. The unethical utilization of that loophole tells me all I need to know about Obama’s so-called “transparency in government.” Action walks and BS talks.
Freedom is a very jealous mistress. To possess her, we must reject her longtime competitor; slavery to governmental intrusion. Lady Liberty will not accept a divided allegiance, and freedom comes as a package deal. With freedom comes responsibilities and consequences. Government intrusion is the dirty lonely coal cellar, but freedom is like soap. It smells sweet, is clean, and loses all its effectiveness if it is watered down.
May God bless America, and may Americans get back to praising God.
Don Bendell, 62, is an author of 26 books, including his newest novel, DETACHMENT DELTA, about modern day Delta Force, which was released worldwide in January, 2009 by Berkley Books (Penguin-USA), with over 2,000,000 copies of his books in print worldwide. Don is a popular editorialist who has appeared on FOX NEWS LIVE, and many national radio shows. A 70% disabled vet, Don served as an officer in 4 Special Forces (Green Beret) Groups, including a 1968-1969 tour on an A-team in Vietnam, as well as in the Top Secret Phoenix Program and has two sons in Special Forces. A 1995 inductee into the International Karate Hall of Fame and a Grandmaster in 5 martial arts, he and his black belt master wife, Shirley, also own karate schools in southern Colorado. Don is “a real cowboy with a real horse” and lives outside Florence, Colorado.
You can write to him at don@donbendell.com
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Thank you Don for your column, fantastic! And for your service to our country.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:40 AM | Comments (6)
August 23, 2009
"Now is the Time to Take a Stand!" by Col. Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret.
It’s time to take the tea party movement directly to Washington, D.C. Please join thousands of local organizers and grassroots Americans from across the country as we gather in our nation’s capital to deliver a message to the politicians: Enough!
Everyone is gathering on 9-12-2009 to deliver our message in person that we’ve had enough!
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Now is the Time to Take a Stand!
by Col. Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret.
Days after he was sworn in Obama repeatedly warned that without the economic stimulus of 787 billion dollars it would be catastrophic for the economy. That was after the Bush Administration had already foisted the 700 billion dollar Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP on to American taxpayers. Then on top of those two the Democrat Congress enacted an additional 400 billion dollar omnibus spending bill. So, in less than six months, two administrations, one Compassionate (stealth socialist) Conservative and the other, "spread the wealth around" (socialist in all but the name) placed over 1.8 trillion dollars of additional tax burden on American taxpayers, with the Obama government planning to spend more money than all previous administrations in the entirety of the county's history, combined!
Part of the present problem is that instead of helping the economy, both actions only helped the rich to hold onto their "troubled assets" and has done nothing for Middle America, much less the poor. In fact, fear mongering about the economy over the past two years by Obama and other democrats during the campaign, is at the heart of loss of consumer confidence and has been so successful with the help of the media that when combined with the likes of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd forcing banks to make toxic (that were predictably non-performing) loans to unqualified buyers, combined with oil speculators driving the cost of energy through the roof succeeded in bringing the economy crashing down.
Having fostered, if not created this recession the political left is now full force doubling down with excessive spending, and imposition of government programs that will destroy the economy if allowed to go forward. And, according to Obama that is precisely his plan, why else would he recently say that, "the economy is on track" as the economy tanks? Once national economic collapse is achieved the political left will wave its ugly tentacles, stand on its hind feet and try to declare the end of free market capitalism as a matter of law. Should that succeed, the bright shinning light of the world will plunge to third world darkness, tin-horned dictator actors presuming to be gods will either carve up their own little fiefdoms, or using a "re-educated" military impose the same totalitarian evil empire upon Americans that were the hallmark of tyranny for seven decades under Leninist/Stalinist communism in the USSR. Think it can't happen? Think again. I never thought the U.S. would come this far, this fast. If the left has its way, the United States will join the line of great nations that rose and fell, and it will happen right before our eyes.
The American political left has steadfastly argued that their brand of socialism/communism would be different because of their superior vision, moral authority and culture. Yet all the while they have systematically destroyed the Judeo-Christian culture that actually made America the greatest country the world has ever known; and, in the name of being law abiding citizens we have let them. The left has been replacing the Judeo-Christian way using the courts and their propaganda arm, the so called, mainstream media with a hedonist, godless, secular society all in the name of "Progressive" politics.
These are not true liberals, they are vicious, hateful, evil people whose objective it is to destroy America, and they have the temerity to call themselves "patriots." Barbra Streisand! Or, as General "Stromin" Norman Schwarzkopf liked to say, "bovine scatology!"We have in the democrat controlled government a façade of righteousness and heart of evil. Obama's Chicago style governance is repugnant to those who understand liberty, free markets and a free society. Anyone who knows anything knows that conservative Americans believe in and practice charity to a far greater extent than any political so called, "liberal" ever imagined or dreamed of doing. We don't need government forcing us to do anything. Maybe it's about time that the silent majority engages in some civil disobedience of its own, such as praying in school, and other public places. What are they going to do lock up over 250 million American conservative taxpayers? I don't think so at least not for now. However, believe me, the loons on the left would evaluate if not act on the notion of killing those who resist them. After all, that would have the salutary effect of reducing the number of people and their damaging effect on the environment. Right? Additionally, it would reduce the size and cost of universal health care. Killing the opposition is the hallmark of socialists and communists, and just because this is America doesn't change that. Anyone who knows non-revisionist history knows what happened in Russia, China, Cuba, Germany, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Iraq and every other country dominated by socialist thinking and governance. The time has come to take a stand, to push back against decades of tyranny by the ideological minority on the left (they comprise 29% of the population), and be ready for a long and difficult fight. Join the March on Washington scheduled for September 12.
It is time to actively express outrage at the behavior of democrat Washington elitists and let them know that Americans are going to take this country back from their "Manchurian" objectives and consign them to history. And if perchance RINOs think they are untouchable, think again; this is not a game. What America needs is: smaller, less intrusive Constitutional government, lower taxes, a balanced budget, borders closed to illegal entrants, and strong, vital Armed Forces.
Be visible, patient, persistent, and be steadfast. Plan to drive in and out of Washington either the same day or over two days; stay with friends, or whatever accommodations you can arrange, take plenty of water, wear comfortable clothing and shoes, an umbrella as a shield from the sun, and be prepared to walk. Those who are not able to participate financially or physically join local events; but engage in all legal activity that expresses outrage at the direction that the political left is trying to take the country. Encourage your friends to join the March or participate in local events. It's time to turn this around, put a stake through the "vampire's" heart and never let it happen again.
Finally, this could actually be a blessing in disguise, because now the majority can see the danger clearly for what they are.
Semper Fidelis
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Wild Thing's comment........
Col. Pappas is always good. It sure is time to take a stand, speak out and let our voice be heard.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:49 AM | Comments (4)
August 21, 2009
Socialism by Any Other Name by Col. Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret.
Socialism by Any Other Name
by Col. Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret.
For those who still want Obama to succeed, they must be oblivious to what made America the greatest economy in the history of the world, and that the debate is not about health care, it is about control and changing of the US free market system to a socialist/communist government economic system. What is “spreading the wealth around,” otherwise? The mindless attacks by those on the left (who incidentally have benefited more under the free market system than any other people in the history of the world), on conservative writers, commentators and TV hosts illustrates the weakness of their arguments in the face of widespread, increasing public opposition. Their arguments about Medicare and Medicaid in support of government run programs are so pathetic that they are laughable. In fact take a minute and laugh at them.
Everyone knows that Democrats and most other politicians know better what is good for America than do the people who elected them. They are the smartest, most eloquent, most knowledgeable, most likeable, the smoothest, and most trustworthy; and therefore they are the “elect.” All except Barney Frank whose arrogant attitude means the American mainstream would do well to lick his loafers.
As one who has had significant experience with perpetrators of fraud while working in government, on the internet, and in business, it is noteworthy that people with attributes noted above are the most frequent perpetrators. They are the ones who would take grandma’s last pennies and run to the bank; they promise the sun, moon and stars and make it believable; then when things go wrong, they are skillful enough not only deflect blame, but to spread it around to others, even to the victim. They never see anything that they did or might do would be wrong and always paint themselves as the victim.
In a recent attempt at fraud, a telephone marketer who was selling business insurance contacted my business. I informed her that the business was well covered and appreciated her interest, but “no, thanks.” She asked me to confirm that the nature of the business was flooring, that is, carpet, tile, wood, etc. Then immediately exclaimed “serendipity” because she needed carpet, and requested I visit, measure and provide an estimate to carpet hers and her husband’s home. Later that day she “dripped with honey” as I proceeded to measure and diagram the floor plan. After selecting a style and color, and as I prepared the estimate, she described her telephone marketing work and experience. Then she suggested that she would like to do telephone marketing for my flooring business. It seemed to have possibilities so I engaged her further. Then after providing the carpet estimate, I thanked her and left with the expectation of hearing more from her later.
The following day she faxed a couple of contacts and shortly afterward called on the telephone. Keep in mind that I met this person only once, one day earlier. The essence of the discussion was that she wanted me to advance her credit toward the purchase of the selected carpet in exchange for time she spent contacting potential customers. Further, she wanted me to go ahead with the installation and would pay it off by means of referrals. I explained that I would be happy to work with her but would pay a commission only after a sale had been consummated, not before. I also explained that I did not offer store credit. Then she began to spin along the line that she deserved better treatment and that I should extend credit during these difficult times. I restated that the store did not offer credit, but if she chose I would be happy to accept her credit card as the means of payment.
By the end of the conversation she was whining that I should trust her, that she had been in the marketing business for twenty five years and that I needed to engage in due diligence to confirm her credibility. Checking her out would not change the no store credit policy for her, or anyone else, and would also not change the policy regarding first earning a commission before payment was proffered.
During the two day, on again, off again dialogue, this person endeavored to obtain a product without payment, with no money down and after offering two referrals that came out of the telephone directory as a gesture of work ethic. When I didn’t bite, she proceeded to attempt to intimidate me by asserting that I was unethical for not believing her and unfeeling for not “working with her.” What do you think, was she a liberal or a conservative?
This episode had the ring of a number of issues: entitlement, demand for credit, inability to pay, personal feelings and fraud in the solicitation; have a familiar ring? It is a good example of the something for nothing, progressive, socialist redistribution of wealth scheme.
If your Representative or Senators do not listen and enact “single payer” (code word is for “socialist”) health care; and cap and trade (code for tripling the cost of gasoline and other forms of energy) legislation being advanced by Obama and socialist democrats in the Congress, dump them and don’t look back.
Semper Fidelis
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Fantastic! I agree, dump them and don't look back.
This next election I pray with all my heart people stick to their guns and vote these horrible pwoer hungry politicans out.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:46 AM | Comments (4)
August 20, 2009
"Back on Uncle Sam's Plantation" by Star Parker
Back on Uncle Sam's Plantation
by Star Parker
Six years ago I wrote a book called Uncle Sam's Plantation. I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside the welfare state and my own transformation out of it.
I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas -- a poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on capitalism.
I talked about government programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children (EANF), Section 8 Housing, and Food Stamps.
A vast sea of perhaps well-intentioned government programs, all initially set into motion in the 1960s, that were going to lift the nation's poor out of poverty.
A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those who accepted the invitation switched mindsets from "How do I take care of myself?" to "What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?"
Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems -- the kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others.
The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broken black families.
Through God's grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.
I had the privilege of working on welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican Congress and signed 50 percent.
I thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our poor black communities and replacing it with wealth-producing American capitalism.
But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite direction.
Instead of poor America on socialism becoming more like rich American on capitalism, rich America on capitalism is becoming like poor America on socialism.
Uncle Sam has welcomed our banks onto the plantation and they have said, "Thank you, Suh."
Now, instead of thinking about what creative things need to be done to serve customers, they are thinking about what they have to tell Massah in order to get their cash.
There is some kind of irony that this is all happening under our first black president on the 200th anniversary of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.
Worse, socialism seems to be the element of our new young president. And maybe even more troubling, our corporate executives seem happy to move onto the plantation.
In an op-ed on the opinion page of the Washington Post, Mr. Obama is clear that the goal of his trillion dollar spending plan is much more than short term economic stimulus.
"This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America 's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, healthcare, and education."
Perhaps more incredibly, Obama seems to think that government taking over an economy is a new idea. Or that massive growth in government can take place "with unprecedented transparency and accountability."
Yes, sir, we heard it from Jimmy Carter when he created the Department of Energy, the Synfuels Corporation, and the Department of Education.
Or how about the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 -- The War on Poverty -- which President Johnson said "...does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done. It charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty."
Trillions of dollars later, black poverty is the same. But black families are not, with triple the incidence of single-parent homes and out-of-wedlock births.
It's not complicated.. Americans can accept Barack Obama's invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they can choose personal responsibility and freedom.
Does anyone really need to think about what the choice should be?
Wild Thing's comment.......
Star Parker should get more press she is good.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:45 AM | Comments (5)
August 19, 2009
Keep the Pressure On! by Col. Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret.
by Colonel Bob Pappas, USMC, Retired
When Jimmy “Caata” moved into the White House in January 1976 it was like the Beverly Hillbillies coming to Washington. From my position at the Pentagon 4E 789 where I served as Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, until I left in September 1977, then from more distant observation from Japan then Camp Pendleton, California, the four years of the Carter Administration played out as a combination of comedy and tragedy.
It is not necessary to draw the parallel here, because the similarities of then and now should be obvious. The distinction is that the current occupant is of dubious eligibility to serve, despite “official” statements to the contrary, has zero management experience, and is an ideological socialist if not communist. Despite lopsided support and funding, and all the negative press heaped on John McCain and Sarah Palin, the reality was an election that was relatively close.
Obama promised that he would bring “change” to America leading chants of “yes, we can.” He promised to totally change the economic system, (for lemmings, that’s from free markets to socialism/communism); to spread the wealth around; to withdraw American forces from Iraq immediately upon becoming President; to immediately close Guantanamo Bay; to focus on and win in Afghanistan; to sit down without preconditions with America’s enemies; to “restore” America’s place of respect in a malcontent world; to increase the price of energy; to enact universal health care; to rein in the compensation of top level CEOs; to put the brakes on credit card lenders; to not raise taxes one penny on the middle class and etc., to note a partial list.
What Obama had in mind when he promised “total change” was precisely what America is witnessing unfold, the destruction of the greatest economy in the world to be replaced by pervasive government, in short socialism the intermediate step to communism; and he’s using Rham Emmanuel’s “don’t let a good crisis go to waste” as his entrée.
I am no fan of those who manipulate stock prices for their personal benefit to the detriment of average American investors; no fan of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank; no fan of inept regulators, tax cheaters, and lying, cheating bankers; I am no fan of oil and housing speculators and if it were up to me would overhaul banking and financial markets. Aside from that I would cut taxes, reduce the size of government, get it out of the way and let Americans do what they do best, and that is to be innovative and entrepreneurial.
I am also no fan of excessive government programs and self-serving, careerist politicians the latter of which represent the large majority of Washington’s political class without regard to party. Left to me, I would invoke the essence of the Declaration of Independence
(“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,…”)
against the present tyranny and reduce to rubble their cozy relationships with special interests represented by lobbyists. Undoubtedly, there are some who deserve the continued support of the silent majority, but they are few and far between. We should follow Jesus’ lead, but instead of chasing the money changers out of the Temple, we should drive government thieves out of Washington.
Is it any wonder that American’s are angry about the manner which this Administration and Democrat Congress are “rhaming” legislation through without reading, without debate, without the consent of the American people? This is a Republic not a Democracy but one does not expect one’s representative to go to Washington, and equipped with the blinding enlightenment gained from the wallets of lobbyists, abrogate their representative function.
Bill Clinton may think that Obama’s popularity would rebound with passage of universal health care, but as one American told her representative at a recent town hall meeting, “the sleeping giant has awakened,” so, for “Slick Willie” “it ‘ain’t’ goin’ back to sleep.”
Jimmy “Caata,” served one term and so will Obama, then after taking their country back, Americans will undo the damage. In the process Obama and his socialist vision for America will disappear into the dust bin of history forever. For now, Obama urges a fight using his union and ACORN thugs, with his admonition to “push back twice as hard.” Okay. This is not Russia 1917, or Germany 1933, and he will get more fight than he bargained for.
KEEP THE PRESSURE ON AND DON’T QUIT!
Semper Fidelis
Wild Thing's comment.......
The Col. is absolutley right, he is always so good.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 08:44 AM | Comments (6)
August 14, 2009
What Obama and My Wife Have in Common....by Chuck Norris
Chuck Norris says, "I agree with CNN's Lou Dobbs ... make public your original birth certificate"
What Obama and My Wife Have in Common
Dear Mr. President:
First, happy birthday. I do hope today is an enjoyable day for you and your family. Coincidentally, I also will be celebrating this week the birth of someone dear to me, my beloved wife, Gena, whose birthday is Aug. 9.
Speaking of birthdays, I couldn't help but hear and read all over the news this past week about the fresh attention to your constitutional eligibility and natural-born citizen status. I hardly can believe that individuals are offering bounties — one for $100,000 — for any personal witness or sufficient evidence to your American birth.
Believe it or not, I'm not writing you to challenge whether or not you were born in America, though I see nothing wrong with the American public's voicing that constitutionally based grievance with someone in your esteemed position. As one blogger wrote, after all, "We aren't talking about a 12-year-old qualifying to play Little League here." Or as Ronald Reagan once said, "Trust but verify."
I must admit that I find it a bit of a groundless stretch not to believe in the birth announcements in two major Hawaiian newspapers in August 1961, in which Hawaii's Health Department would have been required to post information it received directly from hospitals: "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Hwy., son, Aug. 4." Nevertheless, that proof doesn't answer why you refuse to reveal your original birth certificate and end the growing tides of controversy.
I'm writing you because this is no longer a matter merely about proving you meet a presidential prerequisite in the Constitution. Refusing to post your original birth certificate is an unwise political and leadership decision that is enabling the "birther" controversy. The nation you are called to lead is experiencing a growing swell of conspirators who are convinced that you are covering up something. So why not just prove them wrong and shut them up?
I agree with CNN's Lou Dobbs, who was chastised by his own media outlet for demanding the release of your original birth certificate. Why was that such a bad request? We certainly know why Jon Klein, the president of CNN/U.S., thought it was a bad idea. He previously declared that CNN researchers had determined that your 1961 birth certificate no longer exists.
But Hawaii officials confirmed again last week that they indeed have your original birth certificate on file.
Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, repeated her October 2008 statement that she had seen with her own eyes the "original vital records."
Some claim that even you cannot see or request your own personal birth certificate because Hawaii's disclosure law (Hawaii Revised Statutes 338-18) states that "it shall be unlawful for any person to permit inspection of, or to disclose information contained in vital statistics records, or to copy or issue a copy of all or part of any such record."
But the law further states that Hawaii's Health Department "shall not permit inspection of public health statistics records, or issue a certified copy of any such record or part thereof, unless it is satisfied that the applicant has a direct and tangible interest in the record " (emphasis added).
Isn't categorically satisfying constitutional requirements for a president or answering the First Amendment grievances of hundreds of thousands of Americans or ending a national debate or healing a country's divisions enough "direct and tangible interest"?
Mr. President, as more and more people realize that you are refusing to release your original birth certificate, further questions will fuel the fires of debate or at least hinder the embers from ever being snuffed out. Questions such as, "Does it really contain the Hawaiian physician's name?" "Does it disclose something other than his birthplace that he wishes others not to see?"
Of course, not every U.S. citizen has access to his original birth certificate, but you do, and yours is the only one under debate. As valuable as copies can be, textual critics know that nothing outweighs an original, especially when only it contains the information under question.
Again, why don't you simply request, release and give permission to make public your original birth certificate?
Mr. President, you promised the American people that you are "committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government." In fact, in your July 23 prime-time news conference, you said that your administration has been more transparent than previous administrations: "I think that we have provided much greater transparency than existed prior to our administration coming in."
So again, I ask: Why not live out that transparency promise by posting your original birth certificate and end the division and debate?
Well, I have a birthday to plan, so I had better get going.
Again, happy birthday, Mr. President.
Yours Truly, Chuck Norris
To find out more about Chuck Norris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK NORRIS
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Good for Chuck. And oh and don't have a nice day Obama...heh heh
Posted by Wild Thing at 08:47 AM | Comments (4)
August 13, 2009
"When in the course of human events…"
"When in the course of human events…"
By Justin Williams
Many historians agree, the United States of American was founded with federalism at its core. This meant that each state would have it's own jurisdiction to govern its citizens on all accounts that were not granted to the federal government or banned to the states.
A "state" is defined by Merriam-Webster as "a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory; especially: one that is sovereign" [emphasis theirs]. But it is clear that the states that were once near-independent bodies are now nowhere near sovereign.
And increasingly, as the Obama Administration turns the screws on states rights, the sovereign citizens are fighting back.
They understand, as did the founders, that the centralization of power was a bad idea. As Thomas Jefferson put it "The way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to."
Federalism, through the competition between states for taxpayers, gave citizens of the United States another mechanism to check their governments -- and that was with their feet. But, like other well-intended programs, it didn't take long for the federal government to encroach upon this vital principle.
One example of this is the legislation called the No Child Left Behind Act, which brought blankets of red tape into a sector of the government that had historically been reserved for the states. And the usurpacious Interstate Commerce Act has imposed myriad restriction upon the individual states tying funding to meeting dictates.
But, millions of Americans now decided that enough is enough, and Obama's health care and economic "reforms" have finally triggered a states right revolt. Thirty-seven states have proposed a resolution to exert their state as sovereign. And more are expected to follow.
The Governor of Texas, Rick Perry (R), has been one of the staunchest supporters of reinstitutionalizing state rights ever since legislation was proposed by the federal government to socialize health care. He stated, "that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state..." and suggested the possibility of secession.
In short, the current growth of government under the past two administrations has put the states in a situation where they must threaten to leave the union -- all because the federalism ideal has been forgotten.
While the founders argued that the states needed a central authority to defend themselves against a common enemy, they did not make the argument that the states should give up their sovereignty to achieve that. And, they never even remotely imagined that the "common enemy" would become the federal government itself.
But that is exactly what has happened.
Of course, the Obama Administration and Congress are showing no signs of stopping the fleecing of the American people. So, the states and the people have decided to stand up and take back their state sovereignty before their state citizenship, like private health insurance becomes, a thing of the past.
Soon, the "feds" may be faced with a dire choice: either return to the tenets of federalism or be prepared for today's "ragtag army" of rebels to echo the actions of the founders and "dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another."
Mr. Obama, meet Mr. Jefferson.
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By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept,
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare,
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare,
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Today, it would seem, the United States has seated as president a man who possess no value for the tenets of Natural Law; who sees no duty to maintain the beacon of freedom and liberty; and who purposely and deliberately turns a deaf ear to the cries for freedom from every corner of the Earth in deference to the will of the one-world philosophy of neo-Marxism.
Today, because of neglecting our constitutional duty to civic responsibility and governmental oversight, politics has replaced government and Marxist collectivist ideology has replaced the philosophies and belief systems of our Founding Fathers.
Today, we are told by the powers that be that if you believe in defending the United States Constitution, that if you believe in the sanctity of our Charters of Freedom, that if you believe in sovereignty and allegiance to our great nation, that the Department of Homeland Security considers you someone about whom they should be concerned.
....Thank you Richard for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:47 AM | Comments (5)
August 12, 2009
Dirty Secret No. 1 in Obamacare by Chuck Norris
Dirty Secret No. 1 in Obamacare
by Chuck Norris
Health care reforms are turning into health care revolts. Americans are turning up the heat on congressmen in town hall meetings across the U.S.
While watching these political hot August nights, I decided to research the reasons so many are opposed to Obamacare to separate the facts from the fantasy. What I discovered is that there are indeed dirty little secrets buried deep within the 1,000-plus page health care bill.
Dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is about the government's coming into homes and usurping parental rights over child care and development.
It's outlined in sections 440 and 1904 of the House bill (Page 838), under the heading "home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children." The programs (provided via grants to states) would educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.
The bill says that the government agents, "well-trained and competent staff," would "provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains ... modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices," and "skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development."
Are you kidding me?! With whose parental principles and values? Their own? Certain experts'? From what field and theory of childhood development? As if there are one-size-fits-all parenting techniques! Do we really believe they would contextualize and personalize every form of parenting in their education, or would they merely universally indoctrinate with their own?
Are we to assume the state's mediators would understand every parent's social or religious core values on parenting? Or would they teach some secular-progressive and religiously neutered version of parental values and wisdom? And if they were to consult and coach those who expect babies, would they ever decide circumstances to be not beneficial for the children and encourage abortions?
One government rebuttal is that this program would be "voluntary." Is that right? Does that imply that this agency would just sit back passively until some parent needing parenting skills said, "I don't think I'll call my parents, priest or friends or read a plethora of books, but I'll go down to the local government offices"?
To the contrary, the bill points to specific targeted groups and problems, on Page 840: The state "shall identify and prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families."
Are we further to conclude by those words that low-income families know less about parenting? Are middle- and upper-class parents really better parents? Less neglectful of their children? Less needful of parental help and training? Is this "prioritized" training not a biased, discriminatory and even prejudicial stereotype and generalization that has no place in federal government, law or practice?
Bottom line: Is all this what you want or expect in a universal health care bill being rushed through Congress? Do you want government agents coming into your home and telling you how to parent your children? When did government health care turn into government child care?
Government needs less of a role in running our children's lives and more of a role in supporting parents' decisions for their children. Children belong to their parents, not the government. And the parents ought to have the right -- and government support -- to parent them without the fed's mandates, education or intervention in our homes.
Kids are very important to my wife, Gena, and me. That's why we've spent the past 17 years developing our nonprofit KICKSTART program in public schools in Texas. It builds up their self-esteem and teaches them respect and discipline. Of course, whether or not they participate in the program is their and their parents' choice.
How contrary is Obamacare's home intrusion and indoctrination family services, in which state agents prioritize houses to enter and enforce their universal values and principles upon the hearts and minds of families across America?
Government's real motives and rationale are quite simple, though rarely, if ever, stated. If one wants to control the future ebbs and flows of a country, one must have command over future generations. That is done by seizing parental and educational power, legislating preferred educational methods and materials, and limiting private educational options. It is so simple that any socialist can understand it. As Josef Stalin once stated, "Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."
Before so-called universal health care turns into universal hell care, write or call your representative today and protest his voting Obamacare into law. Remind him that what is needed in Washington is a truly bipartisan group that is allowed an ample amount of time to work on a compromise health care law that wouldn't raise taxes (for anyone), regulate personal medical choices, ration health care or restrict American citizens.
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Wild Thing's comment......
Total control means total control! The left wing Democrats want them schooled in left wing dictatorial indoctrination.
This proves once again this bill has very little to do with health care.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:50 AM | Comments (14)
August 08, 2009
"Spreading the Wealth Around" by Col. Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret.
"Spreading the Wealth Around" by Col. Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret.
by Col. Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret.
The political left is always amusing; especially amusing is the "one" in the White House. But in this instance the amusement is different. The left is amusing because it utters false information, not because they are funny. The amusing part is that they actually believe that cogent people believe them.
At the top of their list is the ABSOLUTE falsehood that Obama does not want a single payer system (government run) of healthcare. Democrats' treatment of that subject does not even qualify as spin; it is an out and out distortion of the truth, a lie. If the Democrats in Congress are so out of touch with and so driven by their ideology that they feel compelled to cram their overreaching, socialist version of health care down the throats of the American people, they are about to learn that despite all of their efforts and their alliances with their propaganda arm, the so called, "mainstream media," that they will be voted out of office in crushing defeat. That's good. But in the meantime they may succeed in passing their toxic legislation and that's bad. Further, any legislation they enact will necessarily have to be repealed, and "empty suit's" veto will be overridden. The rendition of examples could fill a number of pages, but this one will suffice.
It is amazing that many continue to refer to Obama as a 'liberal." Message to those who have that mistaken opinion: This guy is no a liberal; he is a committed socialist, if not a communist, with mounting evidence that the latter is likely. Watch what he is doing, not on what he is saying. What he is doing is socialistic in virtually every context from fiscal policy to health care; from abortion to ownership of what were once private companies. From news conferences to twitter; he chafes that the Constitution restricts government's role, on the contrary he is an advocate of expansive and invasive government.
Underneath Obama's charming smile, and it is indeed charming; underneath those eloquent "words, just words" is a malicious, hate America, racist, bigot whose evident objective is to destroy everything that has made America great. The latter greatness has afforded even those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder better opportunity, more abundant prosperity and better health care than any nation on earth, ever, without exception!
The most recent "twitter" of dubious legality from the Obama White House is for neighbors to spy on neighbors, specifically for anyone engaged in any activity that seems "fishy" as it relates to opposition of pending health care legislation, to report it to the White House. That, dear reader has a familiar "Cold War" ring to it, except in Cold War days, the "report your neighbor" tactic was used by communists to intimidate, persecute or prosecute anyone who didn't agree with the communist party. Now it's a different name and location but the same tactics.
It is increasingly evident that this administration is a coalition of leftist liberals, socialists, communists and Chicago thugs. A look at the list of the White House roster of czars alone confirms that observation. To be fair, Obama has at least two and there are probably more, patriotic Americans on his team: Retired Marine General Jim Jones as National Security Advisor; and Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. Most others seem to be of the tax cheat, drug addict, communist or socialist variety. So far, this administration makes the marijuana smokers of the Clinton Administration seem patriotic, albeit less sexually fixated, or at least I think so for now.
Not much ruffles me, but when my fellow Americans are so utterly disconnected from what the socialists/communists are succeeding at doing in this country it kinks my rope. Good, decent, law abiding Americans are just cruising along without a clue as to what is going on around them; and that of course is precisely what the vicious loons on the left want. Where's the media, with the possible exception of FOX News and sometimes it too is suspect? Where's the quality investigative journalism? Where's the journalistic integrity? The short answer to each is: they are cheerleaders for the left; they are more interested in Obama's golf game; and they have none!
Too many give Obama a pass for his lack of experience. Everyone had to opportunity to know what he was before the election if they paid the least bit of attention; there was plenty of information available for even the least curious. But they didn't pay attention and even now too many are either asleep, duped, or drugged.
Too many want to give him time; I don't, I've read his books! This man is motivated out of bitterness, manifest racism, and hatred of American success out of some distorted psychological notion of social vengeance, not justice; "No! Not God bless America, God damn America," said Obama's Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who either molded Obama's view or the two were symbiotic. Obama sat for twenty years at Wright's hate filled "feet" and did not do one thing, nada, zilch, nothing to bring unity between the races, then has the temerity to call the Cambridge police "stupid" for making a perfectly legitimate arrest; and, now the most he can do to bring unity is to have a beer garden photo op at the White House? What a crock! Anyone who falls for that tripe deserves the impending re-education camps he has in store for them.
A national TV host recently asked his guests who appeared individually, what kind of grade Obama should have for his first six months in office. His question missed the entire target; this is not about a grade, this is about Obama changing the country from a free market, Constitutional Republic to a government run/controlled socialist dictatorship with himself as dictator. If the vast and too silent eighty percent majority allow the activists in the twenty percent minority to lead them around by the nose down the socialist path, it will be tragic. Reach over and do something "fishy" to wake them up, so that you too can be on the White House enemies, twitter list!
Patriotic Americans must not allow the Democrats to ram down our collective throats a form of government that we do not want. At the current rate this is soon to be no longer a country where the government is of the people, by the people and for the people. It is rapidly CHANGING into a government, of the government, by the government and for the government where the people work to support that government. Why else do you think that Obama has accrued more National Debt in six months than all other administrations in the history of the country combined? Answer: So that wage earners will be forced to turn their wages over for Obama (higher taxes, get it?) to "spread the wealth around." Get it?
The latest email from the White House is to thirteen million of its campaign supporters urging them to go to Congressional Town Hall meetings to silence the "angry mobs." Now that has the potential to get really interesting.
If thou sleepest, WAKE UP!
Semper Fidelis
Wild Thing's comment........
Awesome article by Col. Bob Pappas. He is always so good. Gio bless him for saying it like it is and not being PC about it. I am so sick of some of the writers and TV hosts walking on egg shells. This is about our country and it is life and death for it to survive, the last thing we need to do is be PC with Obama or anyone else that is the enemy of our country.
"A national TV host recently asked his guests who appeared individually, what kind of grade Obama should have for his first six months in office, His question missed the entire target.".....
The host is is writing about is the jerk Bill O'Reilly and he is right about him.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:44 AM | Comments (6)
July 30, 2009
We've Figured Him ( Obama) Out by Ben Stein
We've Figured Him Out
Ben Stein
( Ben is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator.)
Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?
Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:
The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.
They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.
Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.
The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.
Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.
The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.
These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.
Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.
There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.
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Wild Thing's comment..........
Some people are waking up, but the damage is done. I really am praying the Obamacare and Cap and Trade can be stopped . To have the most dangerous man in America elected to the highest office in the land is a shock I won't get over.
The politicans think that they are invincible, and we have allowed them to think that. We have to take that away from them. The many phone calls telling them they will not get another vote from us has got to open their eyes and they have to learn we mean it.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:40 AM | Comments (9)
June 08, 2009
Know thy enemy: This is not your mother's Democratic Party
Know thy enemy: This is not your mother's Democratic Party
by Andrew Breitbart
(Andrew Breitbart is the founder of the news Web site www.breitbart.com and is co-author of "Hollywood Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon - The Case Against Celebrity." and Big Hollywood blog)
The Democratic Party's attitude to elections is admirable: Win. And recent history has shown it will do anything to do so.
When, if not now, will Republicans develop such a fighting spirit?
Democrats invest - with taxpayer money, mind you - in groups like ACORN that, among other sordid tactics, seek out Skid Row bodies and wheel them to polling places. All the Democratic National Committee needs are vans and smelling salts. Pop culture and the "education system" have done the rest, making "D" the default choice on Election Day.
Democrats brazenly take policy positions - think government services and even amnesty for illegal immigrants - not because they are the right thing to do, but because they are time-tested demographic bribes. Forget cigarettes and beer, Democrats would distribute needles, methadone, medical marijuana and biscotti in voter goodie bags if they could get away with it.
Democrats long ago jettisoned America's melting-pot ideal - E Pluribus Unum ("Out of Many, One") - because it imperils their campaign for permanent rule. Splitting the country into separate identity groups and playing them against each other works a lot better. And anyone who disagrees is a racist.
Win. Win. Win.
One of the first things President Obama attempted to do after taking office was to take control of the Census Bureau, an act that could redraw congressional districts and ensure Democratic majorities for years to come. The new president also etched out an enemies list, focusing on conservative talk-radio hosts, including Rush Limbaugh. He also appears to have singled out Fox News. Comedians and mainstream journalists who are usually contemptuous of government bullying and First Amendment threats also continue to do the president's bidding.
These overt political gestures were done amid economic chaos and mainstream media delirium to ensure permanent victory for a newly radicalized Democratic Party. Moveon.org, George Soros and the ghost of Saul Alinsky are in charge now. It's not just "tea party" protesters who think we've tilted far left. Self-avowed anarchists and open socialists proudly brandished Obama placards at well-attended May Day parades.
When elected, the Democrats dole out billion-dollar bonuses to their core supporters at taxpayers' expense. Witness the $787 billion stimulus package, an orgy of special-interest payback for labor unions, liberal activist groups and multinational corporations. One would be hard pressed to name a Democratic policy that is motivated more by principle than by winning.
Where is the media to expose this blatant corruption when the media are in the middle of the pile? NBC News, whose parent company General Electric is getting billions in stimulus cash to perpetuate Democrat-friendly "green" technologies and health care information systems, is at the forefront of a bizarre campaign to act as a check on the party that is out of power, not the party in power. NBC anchor Brian Williams bowed to the new president; MSNBC is a Fellini-esque exercise in liberal triumphalism.
With Democrats holding comfortable majorities in the House and Senate, as well as controlling the executive branch, it's only logical that the mainstream media to focus their scrutiny on Mr. Limbaugh, ex-Rep. Tom DeLay, former President George W. Bush and Sarah Palin, the governor of one of the least populous states. Right?
NBC News and MSNBC are certainly not along among the government watchdogs that have been tamed. The New York Times expends its considerable yet waning clout to ensure that our future is in a one-party state. Vocal, liberal Hollywood celebrities - on the same page as the Huffington Post and Keith Olbermann - spread the venom by making membership in the Grand Old Party seem like an anti-social act for young voters.
Such brazenly reprehensible Democratic lawmakers as Nancy Pelosi, John P. Murtha, Barney Frank, Harry Reid and Christopher J. Dodd are not trotted before the media because of their telegenic appeal and oratorical skills, but to act as symbols of what politicians can get away with it. It's a big-league taunt - like gang members in prison sporting "tear" tattoos under their eyes to brag about their kill count. Yeah ... What are you going to do about it, Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell?
Yet Democrats at least wield a logical and workable strategy to defeat their enemy. And "enemy" is precisely how they view the Republican Party.
Republicans, on the other hand, act like a snobby condo board and appear to seek out potential voters for their savoriness. The party expects pre-existing respectable organizations, Protestant churches in particular, to do the heavy lifting. In this day of dwindling Republican appeal, the party's ace in the hole is heard at the end of the polling day: "Have they counted the overseas military vote yet?" It's amazing Republicans ever win.
Most disturbing, Republicans seem to think Democrats can be their friends. Not only does the Republican Party not have a Ronald Reagan, the Democratic Party has no Tip O'Neill. Washington doesn't have end-of-the-day, cross-party social sessions over single-malt scotches. There is no bipartisanship that doesn't end in Republicans acquiescing in defeat of their core principles. A coordinated Democratic campaign against mainstream middle-of-the-road Republicanism is here to stay. And our strategy, as best as I can decipher it, is to be more liked than the last go around.
In the next election cycle, things need to be drastically different. Democracy is not Augusta National Golf Club. It's a messy free-for-all, and in a two-party system, the GOP will not survive if it doesn't accept the fact that the Democrats are its enemy and that it must begin to play for keeps. That means finding another Lee Atwater - only meaner - and not apologizing when we get him.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Wow! Excellent piece!
What Breitbart is saying was demonstrated in action yesterday in the European Elections in Europe, particularly in France.
GOP and all Conservatives should take note and study these elections closely.
France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy began a detailed, meticulously planned and executed, politics as blood sport campaign to demolish the leftist opposition, and did it.The PS (Socialist Party) was in total disarray after two years of Sarko, and in his strong campaign in the EU elections, the Socialist were literally wiped out. This giant tsunama reverberated in a wave of Rightist victories throughout Europe. I always remember when the President of France came here to visit President Bush, how much he loved America and was such a refreshing change from the past president of France. A night and day difference and what Obama is with his hate for our country. I am no hufge fan of Nichoas Sarkozy, but when he does something right I sure willl give him credit and this he has done right.
BREITBART SAYS:
“In the next election cycle, things need to be drastically different. Democracy is not Augusta National Golf Club. It’s a messy free-for-all, and in a two-party system, the GOP will not survive if it doesn’t accept the fact that the Democrats are its enemy and that it must begin to play for keeps. That means finding another Lee Atwater - only meaner - and not apologizing when we get him. “
Posted by Wild Thing at 07:50 AM | Comments (8)
June 04, 2009
Obama Knew What He Was Getting With Sotomayor
Obama Knew What He Was Getting With Sotomayor
by David Limbaugh ( this is Rush's brother)
It amazes me that for all the attention Judge Sonia Sotomayor has attracted for a racially charged statement in a 2001 speech, few are tying her attitude to President Barack Obama's. Just as he knew precisely what his 20-year pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was about and approved, he knew, prior to nominating her, what Sonia Sotomayor is about and approved. In both cases, he just didn't want us to know.
In her 2001 speech at Berkeley, Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Obama's apologists claim Sotomayor's statement was taken out of context. But the context of her prepared remarks makes the statement more -- not less -- incriminating.
The sentences preceding the statement were: "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge (Miriam) Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice (Sandra Day) O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am ... not so sure that I agree with the statement."
First, it's important to note that she's not talking about trial judges, for example, who might be more or less lenient in their sentencing within the prescribed sentencing guidelines, but about appellate judges applying the law.
Next, Sotomayor is not just saying that as imperfect human beings, judges sometimes rule differently because, try as they might to be impartial, no human being can be totally impartial.
Nor is she merely saying that women, based on their gender, rule differently from men or that those of different nationalities rule differently based on those differences, but that they should do so and that their rulings usually are superior because of it.
Are you getting this? She is saying women and minority judges should not even strive toward objectivity, impartiality or blind justice, but should indulge their subjective experiences to apply the law with partiality aforethought, presumably to remedy past perceived or actual wrongs, even if unwarranted by objective application of the law. They should ignore or twist the law to achieve their desired policy result.
To the objection that Sotomayor was just theorizing in a harmless speech, I would respond by reminding you -- again -- of her pivotal role in that now-notorious concrete case of Ricci v. DeStefano, in which she summarily and cavalierly affirmed a district court's decision to cheat firefighters of their duly earned promotions because no black candidates passed the tests.
Talk about empathy all you want, but she and her fellow judges displayed no empathy for those who played by the rules. With strokes of their pens, they discriminated against successful candidates and caused them real damage by changing the rules after the fact -- not to mention the damage their ruling might have caused to the quality of fire departments, whose job is to save lives and property.
Those ordinarily quickest to cry "racism" are expressing outrage that certain commentators have used that term to describe Sotomayor's statements and rulings that would be universally condemned if made by, say, Trent Lott. But the fact remains that Sotomayor apparently approves of reverse discrimination, and President Obama must have known that in advance. Obama is a militant proponent of get evenism, that is, using the power of the state -- actually, misusing the power of the state -- to even the score for minorities and/or the economically less fortunate.
It was Obama, after all, who said: "Solving our racial problems in this country will require concrete steps, significant investment. We have a lot of work to do to overcome the long legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. It can't be purchased on the cheap." Are we to assume that the Civil War and the civil rights movement were "on the cheap"?
And it was Obama's Justice Department that just inexplicably dismissed a slam-dunk case against the New Black Panther members who intimidated voters and polling judges at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008. This, despite the fact that one civil rights lawyer said it was the most blatant form of voter intimidation he had ever seen and the fact that the defendants didn't even bother to file pleadings with the court or raise any defenses to the charges.
Whether or not race played a factor in this dismissal, President Obama has a long way to go before claiming he's a post-racial president. Reverse discrimination is still discrimination, and reverse racism is racism. None of us is exempted of our duty to rise above them.
Wild Thing's comment........
If ANY of the quotes attributed to the newest nominee to the Supreme Court had been uttered by an individual whose last name ended in (R), there would at this moment be an uproar throughout the land that would shake the heavens.
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....Thank you Jim for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:45 AM | Comments (4)
May 24, 2009
"Cheney Takes On The Man"...... by Kevin Jackson
I love it when the bad guy wins and gives it to "the man." Finally in the Bizarro World that is now Amerika (it's spelled 'left'), the bad guy finally won. Of whom do I speak? I speak of Cheney, a true patriot—publicly exposing Obama, a complete fraud.
Lamestream media to the rescue, because their messiah is getting publicly flogged. To think that we were told how "smart" Obama is. Well if brains were dynamite, Obama couldn't blow his nose! So taking on Cheney, a true intellectual with a real track record of achievement is just asking for trouble.
So we get reports that America is experiencing "Cheney overload." This is liberal code for "Cheney is too effective, let's create public opinion that he is the Anti-Christ." Maybe the Left is tired of Cheney, but conservatives are energized. I predict many fence-sitters are as well. "Feels good don't it!"
In confronting the worst president in history (and Obama ain't even finished polishing his turd) Cheney was absolutely brilliant—the epitome of leadership. Cheney has no dog in this fight, no agenda. As he said, he has "no favors to garner." Cheney desires but one thing…to protect America.
He speaks with eloquence and passion—backed with substance! For you liberal idiots who think the teleprompter president is riveting, take a gander at "the bad guy," the old white Republican boogeyman. Cheney speaks with the passion of reality, and not the fad of idealism.
Meanwhile, "Junior" is still trying to sell America on the idea that he is willing to do anything to protect America—anything except [fill in the blank]. In typical Obama style, he accomplishes two things in his speech: (1) demonize the previous administration for protecting us, and (2) blame America for terrorists wanting to kill us.
According to Obama, Americans are barbarians, and Bush is the former Chief of the Barbarians. Sort of like another "great" racist Democrat president Andrew Jackson calling the Native Americans "savages" for protecting their lands and families. That makes me a proud "savage."
No surprise here, but Obama wants to reserve the right to do exactly what the Bush administration did! [pp] "Just in case I need to, I reserve the right to unsay what I just said, and do what Bush did." What else is new?
Yet again Obama confirmed what conservatives know about liberals—they don't love America; they tolerate America. Liberals want to declare veterans and hard-working taxpaying conservatives as extremists; and declare terrorists as "man-made disasters."
It is long overdue that somebody stepped up and confronted the lunacy of the Left. Who better than a 40-year veteran of Washington, and no-nonsense guy like Cheney—a man of real accomplishment and credentials. Cheney has forgotten more about running a country, than the no talent hack currently occupying the void will ever know.
Barack "Empty-suit Apologist" Obama believes that the way America treats people trying to kill us has made the people trying to kill us more determined. Really? How much more determined can you get than vowing and attempting to kill us? Is there a level of heinous above that?
Here's the wrap:
Obama has produced no evidence that harsh interrogation didn't work. However, he has implied that he may have been able to coax critical information out of our enemies—maybe?
Coincidentally, the documents are unavailable—ObamaSpeak for "the documents are being altered so that I won't look like a liar. If not doctored, they will be destroyed." Or they are being put in the same vault that holds his university records and his Kenyan birth certificate.
America is fortunate to have true a patriot, a real "bad guy" like Cheney to confront the evil that now occupies the White House. I love the irony this time of the bad guy winning and sticking it to "the man." I also like that America is finally exposing who "the man" really is.
That's my rant!
Kevin Jackson
The Black Sphere blog
A lilttle about Kevin.........
"Due to the death of my mother when I was 5, I was raised by my grandparents who were staunch Democrats. I recall as a child watching Reagan give a speech in his unsuccessful run for the presidency. After Reagan finished, I said to my grandparents, “Why are we Democrats, when what we believe is what that guy [Reagan] just said?” Thus was the birth of The Black Sphere.
I am just a poor kid, who was fortunate enough to have been exposed to what the world has to offer, and I was raised to be an optimist. My grandparents instilled in me a “no excuses mentality” and work ethic. That is my definition of America,"
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Wild Thing's comment..........
Love it from the Guardian....
"Dick Cheney: Washington trembles at the return of 'Darth Vader'"
Dick Cheney was a formidable backroom operator during his eight years as vice-president in the Bush administration. Having abandoned his short-lived retirement in Wyoming, he is now leading the Republican charge against Obama from the front.
Part of the explanation for the bout of jitters is that Obama is struggling to contain an ever-growing row over the future of Guantánamo Bay and the security apparatus created by the Bush administration as part of its "war on terror". But there is another factor: the return of an opponent the Democrats had thought of as politically dead: Dick Cheney. The sinister, reclusive figure at the heart of the Bush administration, who attracted labels such as Darth Vader and Dr Strangelove, has returned to the heart of Washington and is causing havoc.
He has forced Obama on the defensive for the first time since becoming president, giving demoralised Republicans something finally to cheer about.
"Cheney is seriously the only person who's got the White House to change its policy," Dan Senor, a foreign policy adviser in the Bush administration, told the Washington Post
Cheney has rattled Obama over the proposed closure of Guantánamo and the CIA's use of waterboarding. And not only Obama, but the next most prominent Democrat after him, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who on Friday refused to answer any more questions about whether she had been briefed by the CIA about torture six years ago. She denies she was: the CIA says it did.
The conservative Weekly Standard is also cheering. Another influential conservative, William Kristol, writing in the current issue, said: "While most senior Bush alumni were in hiding, Dick Cheney - Darth Vader himself, Mr Unpopularity, the last guy you'd supposedly want out there making the case - stepped on to the field. He's made himself the Most Valuable Republican of the first four months of the Obama administration."
LOL I love this so much! The democrats are hating it, Obama is not liking it and uncomfortable.
Have any of you noticed yestersday when they played snipets of Obama talking his voice is weak. At first I thought he might be sick or have a cold. But honeslty the more I thiink about it and the reaction Cheney has gotten, I have to wonder if it is just that Obama has gotten the wind knocked out of him by VP Dick Cheney.
Thank you God!!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:44 AM | Comments (8)
May 20, 2009
American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper
American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper
Stanislav Mishin
The article has been reprinted with the kind permission from the author and originally appears on his blog, Mat Rodina
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.
Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.
So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.
Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.
So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.
The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.
The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
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Wild Thing's comment..........
We have a president too far left for Pravda; but the MSM assures us that anyone who opposes him is an ‘extremist’.
This is an interesting article and he says a lot of things that are very acurate as to what has been happening.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:55 AM | Comments (14)
May 08, 2009
"Being Ann" ~ by Lisa De Pasquale
Being Ann
by Lisa De Pasquale
When Ann Coulter was a little girl she wanted to be “head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a Republican president.” Or a “fairy princess.”
Instead, Coulter became the Rush Limbaugh of the printed word. She is author of six (soon to be seven) New York Times best sellers, a nationally syndicated columnist and one of the most popular speakers among young and old alike. Coulter has become the most successful conservative writer working today, with more than 3 million books sold. No 21st century conservative writer—male or female—comes even close. Like Limbaugh, her audience keeps growing. When a new book is released, liberals and delicate self-proclaimed conservatives say that “this time she’s gone too far” and predict the end of her career. The book then sells better than her last. She drives the Left into a sputtering rage, and she loves it.
I first met Coulter at the 2000 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. Following the success of her first book, “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton,” Coulter was given CPAC’s Conservative Journalist of the Year Award. That year she also spoke at Young America’s Foundation’s journalism lunch. She has remained a favorite of young conservatives for her tenacity, wit and accessibility. Like many of them, she became active in the conservative movement during her college years.
During a time when famous people brag about their difficult childhood and airing family secrets become a badge of honor, Coulter doesn’t apologize for having a normal childhood in New Canaan, Conn. She says her parents, John and Nell, were “immeasurably important” in shaping her beliefs and career choices.
After years of boisterous political discussions with her parents and brothers around the dinner table, Coulter would blossom in the liberal stronghold of higher education. As one of Coulter’s close friends told Time magazine, “For a younger girl with two older brothers, you’ve got to learn to mix it up, stand up for yourself. Older brothers are not going to cut you any slack. If you say something stupid, you figure, next time, I’m going to be better at it.”
Coulter left Connecticut to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. She said, “During my first few years of college, I was a community organizer of sorts—I went to sorority and fraternity parties, met lots of new friends, played lacrosse, went to church, chatted in the library and danced at Ujama House parties.”
It wasn’t long before she started making waves on campus. Cornell, which continues to be a breeding ground (or cemetery) for liberal thought, was the perfect environment for Coulter: “My junior year I became more of a think-tank- type political activist upon noticing I was at a world class university and hadn’t really been taking advantage of it.”
Coulter co-founded the conservative Cornell Review, which still exists today. She then went on to the University of Michigan School of Law. “I founded the University of Michigan chapter of this kooky, radical fringe group that believed in individual rights, the rule of law, and the Constitution of the United States of America, known as ‘the Federalist Society.’”
One of the highlights of her time in law school was bringing in Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia through the Federalist Society. Much like she does when faced with a hostile crowd or commentator, Coulter thrived in the liberal campus atmosphere. “To quote Bill Ayers,” she told me, “I don’t regret one minute of my student activism. In fact, I wish we had done more.”
A few years ago, I met the niece of Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, who also attended Cornell around the same time as Coulter. Though they didn’t know one another, Luce’s niece was the photographer for the Cornell Review and other campus publications. Like Coulter, Ambassador Luce reached the height of success within the conservative movement. She was a playwright, managing editor of Vanity Fair, staunch anti-Communist, ambassador to Italy and congresswoman from Coulter’s hometown district. While at the University of Michigan School of Law, Coulter became a fan of Ambassador Luce and her smart-aleck writing.
One summer afternoon in 2000, Coulter and I spent hours in the Manuscript Room of the Library of Congress, combing through some of the more than 800 boxes of personal and professional papers that had belonged to Ambassador Luce. Coulter was keen on finding a biting line she remembered then-Congresswoman Luce saying on the House floor to a liberal congressman. She found the line and quoted it in her weekly column a few months later.
Coulter loves finding a tidbit of information or unknown fact. Though it goes unnoticed by right- and left-wing commentators alike, many of Coulter’s “outrageous” statements tend to become conventional thinking. “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” impeached a President. “Slander” busted the elite media. “Treason” vindicated Sen. Joe McCarthy and put Democrats’ patriotism into the public square. “Godless” shed light on the religious cult of liberalism. Her newest book, “Guilty,” goes a step further to expose the phony “victims” propped up by the Left.
On March 23, 1999, Coulter gave her first college speech for Young America’s Foundation (YAF) at Brandeis University. She has since spoken on more than 60 college campuses and is YAF’s most popular speaker. The foundation also says that their Ann Coulter poster is the most popular in their poster series. It graces the walls of campus dorms, military barracks across the world, and my office.
This is a wonderfully written 2 page article on Ann Coulter, to continue reading PLEASE CLICK HERE.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
I am glad we have people like Ann on our side. What a huge difference in the two parties, we just need to make the gap wider like it used to be.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:40 AM | Comments (4)
May 05, 2009
"CHECK, PLEASE! " by Mark Steyn
CHECK, PLEASE!
Steyn on the World
Tuesday, 05 May 2009
HAPPY WARRIOR
At the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, they’re premiering a new ballet about a young French boy who’s befriended by a giant helium-filled balloon. Any balletomanes at the US embassy might be forgiven for assuming it to be some hastily concocted metaphor to Euro-American harmony in the Age of Obama: a lithe young Continental prancing around the stage enraptured by his dazzling bag of gas. But, as it happens, The Red Balloon is an adaptation of some fey French movie from the Fifties, when a twirling Euro-ninny and his novelty gasbag were the stuff of cinematic whimsy and not the twin pillars on which western civilization has come to rest.
As is now well known, President Obama’s outreach to the Europeans – talking up the Continent’s “leadership” in the world and managing to keep a straight face while doing it – went unreciprocated.
When it came to the good war – Afghanistan, the one the anti-Iraq types claim to be in favor of – Nato, a “military” “alliance” of 28 countries, rewarded the impeccable multilateralist with an extra 5,000 troops - or approx 180 soldiers per nation. And by “soldiers” they don’t mean men with guns who fire them at the enemy but “non-combat” forces who man the photocopier back at the barracks while the Third Infantry Division and a few brave lads from Britain, Canada and a couple of other places are up in the hills sticking it to the Taliban all day long. Our allies are happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with us, as long as there are a couple of provinces between their shoulders and ours.
On the other hand, the Obama happy talk seemed to go down well with the North Koreans, who promptly held one of their missile tests, and with members of the piratical community, who seized an American vessel for the first time in a couple of centuries. As the New York Times headline writer put it: “Standoff With Pirates Shows U.S. Power Has Limits.”
Well, all power has limits. Today, the salient feature of the modern world is the urge to self-limit. The wealthiest jurisdictions on the planet have no “power” as it’s conventionally understood – and, indeed, that’s the point: They’re projecting post-power power, which, being that it’s non-existent, has no limits whatsoever.
In 2002 the Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen gave a speech in London saying that “the EU must not develop into a military superpower but must become a great power that will not take up arms at any occasion in order to defend its own interests.”
Good luck with that. Mr Lipponen objected to my derision by suggesting I’d missed some subtle nuances of his along the way, but for the life of me I can’t see what they are. Aside from anything else, anyone urging a Continent capable of “taking up arms” would be up against basic Euro-math: You can have massive welfare or a credible military, but not both. Indeed, with Europe’s deathbed demography, the former is barely affordable even without the latter.
Shortly after 9/11, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, John Manley, conceded that his country was dining in the best restaurants without paying its way – or, as he put it, "You can't just sit at the G8 table and then, when the bill comes, go to the washroom." That’s the sort of straight talk politicians do when they want to sound as if they’re getting real but have no intention of doing so. And so the horrors of 9/11 faded, and Canada and Europe resumed their habit of dining at the Nato table and stampeding for the washroom when the check came. The idea that Continental nations are going to find money to upgrade their militaries any time soon is delusion: A few years ago, the US spent 3.4 per cent of GDP on defense, the other Nato members spent on average 1.9 per cent. The most recent figures show the US spends 4 per cent, while the rest of Nato now averages 1.7 per cent – and it’s mostly high wages for unionized armies keeping it even at that level: The Continental country with the highest defense spending is Greece, and that’s almost all on personnel. The average age of a Belgian soldier is 40 – which at least ensures that the eternal Democrat plaint that we’re sending “our children” into harm’s way is replaced with the faintly surreal alternative of sending our late middle-aged into harm’s way.
Meanwhile, Susan Rice, America’s UN ambassador, urges Iran to “halt its illicit nuclear program” and “take the steps that would enable it to be a responsible member of the international community”.
You mean like Belgium or Finland? Lacking the exquisitely refined sensibilities of Mr Lipponen, the mullahs can’t see what’s in it for them.
My old colleague at The Daily Telegraph in London, the historian Sir John Keegan, likes to say that “without armed forces a state does not exist”.
The European Union exists only because for half-a-century they’ve been under American military protection: Promoted as a counterweight to the US hegemon, the EU in fact exists only because of it.
So what happens when America embraces Euro-sized government? The US can’t buck the basic arithmetic any more than Sweden can: A social-democratic America at home presupposes cuts in Pax Americana abroad. Those allies in tough neighborhoods – Israel next to Iran; India next to Pakistan; Japan next to North Korea; Eastern Europe in the shadow of a resurgent Russia – have already noted America’s passivity in the face of explicit threats. But eventually Western Europe will, too: at the top table, the big guy is heading for the washroom.
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Wild Thing's comment........
"The Red Balloon is an adaptation of some fey French movie from the Fifties, when a twirling Euro-ninny and his novelty gasbag were the stuff of cinematic whimsy and not the twin pillars on which western civilization has come to rest."
Obama...the Red Buffoon.
"Any balletomanes at the US embassy might be forgiven for assuming it to be some hastily concocted metaphor to Euro-American harmony in the Age of Obama: a lithe young Continental prancing around the stage enraptured by his dazzling bag of gas."
LOL Steyn can really turn a phrase .
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:40 AM | Comments (4)
April 30, 2009
Muslims: 'We Do That On First Dates'
by Ann Coulter
Without any pretense of an argument, which liberals are neurologically incapable of, the mainstream media are now asserting that our wussy interrogation techniques at Guantanamo constituted "torture" and have irreparably harmed America's image abroad.
Only the second of those alleged facts is true: The president's release of the Department of Justice interrogation memos undoubtedly hurt America's image abroad, as we are snickered at in capitals around the world, where they know what real torture is. The Arabs surely view these memos as a pack of lies. What about the pills Americans have to turn us gay?
The techniques used against the most stalwart al-Qaida members, such as Abu Zubaydah, included one terrifying procedure referred to as "the attention grasp." As described in horrifying detail in the Justice Department memo, the "attention grasp" consisted of:
"(G)rasping the individual with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion. In the same motion as the grasp, the individual is drawn toward the interrogator."
The end.
There are rumors that Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney wanted to take away the interrogators' Altoids before they administered "the grasp," but Department of Justice lawyers deemed this too cruel.
And that's not all! As the torments were gradually increased, next up the interrogation ladder came "walling." This involves pushing the terrorist against a flexible wall, during which his "head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a C-collar effect to prevent whiplash."
People pay to have a lot rougher stuff done to them at Six Flags Great Adventure. Indeed, with plastic walls and soft neck collars, "walling" may be the world's first method of "torture" in which all the implements were made by Fisher-Price.
As the memo darkly notes, walling doesn't cause any pain, but is supposed to induce terror by making a "loud noise": "(T)he false wall is in part constructed to create a loud sound when the individual hits it, which will further shock and surprise." (!!!)
If you need a few minutes to compose yourself after being subjected to that horror, feel free to take a break from reading now. Sometimes a cold compress on the forehead is helpful, but don't let it drip or you might end up waterboarding yourself.
The CIA's interrogation techniques couldn't be more ridiculous if they were out of Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch:
Cardinal! Poke her with the soft cushions! ...
Hmm! She is made of harder stuff! Cardinal Fang! Fetch ... THE COMFY CHAIR!
So you think you are strong because you can survive the soft cushions. Well, we shall see. Biggles! Put her in the Comfy Chair! ...
Now -- you will stay in the Comfy Chair until lunchtime, with only a cup of coffee at 11.
Further up the torture ladder -- from Guantanamo, not Monty Python -- comes the "insult slap," which is designed to be virtually painless, but involves the interrogator invading "the individual's personal space."
If that doesn't work, the interrogator shows up the next day wearing the same outfit as the terrorist. (Awkward.)
I will spare you the gruesome details of the CIA's other comical interrogation techniques and leap directly to the penultimate "torture" in their arsenal: the caterpillar.
In this unspeakable brutality, a harmless caterpillar is placed in the terrorist's cell. Justice Department lawyers expressly denied the interrogators' request to trick the terrorist into believing the caterpillar was a "stinging insect."
Human rights groups have variously described being trapped in a cell with a live caterpillar as "brutal," "soul-wrenching" and, of course, "adorable."
If the terrorist manages to survive the non-stinging caterpillar maneuver -- the most fiendish method of torture ever devised by the human mind that didn't involve being forced to watch "The View" -- CIA interrogators had another sadistic trick up their sleeves.
I am not at liberty to divulge the details, except to mention the procedure's terror-inducing name: "the ladybug."
Finally, the most savage interrogation technique at Guantanamo was "waterboarding," which is only slightly rougher than the Comfy Chair.
Tens of thousands of our troops were waterboarded over the past three decades as part of their training, but not until it was done to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- mastermind of the 9/11 attack on America -- were liberal consciences shocked.
I think they were mostly shocked because they couldn't figure out how Joey Buttafuoco ended up in Guantanamo.
As non-uniformed combatants, all of the detainees at Guantanamo could have been summarily shot on the battlefield under the Laws of War.
Instead, we gave them comfy chairs, free lawyers, better food than is served in Afghani caves, prayer rugs, recreational activities and top-flight medical care -- including one terrorist who was released, whereupon he rejoined the jihad against America, after being fitted for an expensive artificial leg at Guantanamo, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
Only three terrorists -- who could have been shot -- were waterboarded. This is not nearly as bad as "snowboarding," which is known to cause massive buttocks pain and results in approximately 10 deaths per year.
Normal human beings -- especially those who grew up with my older brother, Jimmy -- can't read the interrogation memos without laughing.
At Al-Jazeera, they don't believe these interrogation memos are for real. Muslims look at them and say: THIS IS ALL THEY'RE DOING? We do that for practice. We do that to our friends.
But The New York Times is populated with people who can't believe they live in a country where people would put a caterpillar in a terrorist's cell.
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Wild Thing's comment.........
Another winner by Ann. I love her humor that she adds and the title is perfect.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:40 AM | Comments (16)
April 26, 2009
"Pantywaist" Obama Doing the Job For Our Enemies
Barack Obama and the CIA: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?
Is it just me?
by Gerald Warner
If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.
Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.
That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.
"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.
So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers.
Obama promised his CIA audience that nobody would be prosecuted for past actions. That has already been contradicted by leftist groups with a revanchist ambition to put Republicans, headed if possible by Condoleezza Rice, in the dock. Talk about playing party politics with national security. Martin Scheinin, the United Nations special investigator for human rights, claims that senior figures, including former vice president Dick Cheney, could face prosecution overseas. Ponder that - once you have got over the difficulty of locating the United Nations and human rights within the same dimension.
President Pantywaist Obama should have thought twice before sitting down to play poker with Dick Cheney. The former vice president believes documents have been selectively published and that releasing more will prove how effective the interrogation techniques were. Under Dubya's administration, there was no further atrocity on American soil after 9/11.
President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?
Wild Thing's comment.........
Good read...Loved this line: “President Pantywaist Obama should have thought twice before sitting down to play poker with Dick Cheney. “
"Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail."
The 60s radicals are now running the country Obama is much better fit to be a member of the Black Panther Party or the Weather Underground with his buddy Ayers then he is to be president. He is the biggest danger to our country. That would make him in violation of the oath of office to protect the nation. There is no bigger threat to America than it’s poser fake president. He is malignant destroyer, filled with hatred for what he wants to destroy.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:46 AM | Comments (6)
April 25, 2009
Ann Coulter's Mother Passes Away
Nell Husbands Martin Coulter
A lot of people claim to be my No. 1 fan -- God bless them -- but my true No. 1 fan left this world last week. My mother quietly stopped breathing last Tuesday, as she slept peacefully, holding my hand.
She was the biggest fan of all of us -- Father, me and my brothers John and Jim.
After reading the eulogy column I wrote for Father last year -- not to excess, probably only about 4,637 times -- Mother realized to her chagrin that she wouldn't be able to read the eulogy column I'd be writing for her, and started hinting that maybe I could rustle up a draft so she could take a peek.
But I couldn't do it, until I had to.
The only thing Mother wanted to be sure my brothers and I included in her remembrances were her contributions to the Republican Party, the New Canaan Republican Town Committee and the Daughters of the American Revolution.
She was a direct descendant of at least a dozen patriots who served the cause of the American Revolution and traced her lineage on both sides of her family to Puritan nonconformists who came to America in 1633 seeking religious freedom on a ship led by Pastor Thomas Hooker. Or, as Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano would call them, "A dangerous right-wing extremist hate group."
Even back in the Puritan days, Mother's female ancestors were brought up on charges for their heretical dressing styles (and then sassed the judge). During the Revolution, one female ancestor, Effie Ten Eyck Van Varick, contributed to the rebel cause by donating lead for bullets from the curtain weights in her home in what was, even then, traitorous, loyalist Manhattan.
Mother's deep-seated political activism saved me on more than one occasion.
At the 2004 Republican National Convention, I was taking my parents to a lot of the parties in New York and, at one of them, Herman Cain walked up to me and told me he was a big fan even though I probably didn't know who he was.
Cain was the former president and CEO of Godfather's Pizza who was then running for the U.S. Senate from Georgia. I had seen him on Fox News' "Cavuto" -- but I couldn't remember his name for the life of me.
Luckily for me, Mother was standing next to me and she piped in, "I know who you are -- I donated to your campaign." Thank you, Mommy!
Mother probably contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to various conservative outfits over the years -- all in her little $20 checks -- especially to any organization that claimed it was going to stop Hillary. In fact, if they mentioned Hillary in their letter, Mother sometimes made it $25.
My brothers and I always figured we'd have no inheritance, but there would be a lovely memorial to Oliver North somewhere.
Mother may have thought her most notable characteristic was her Republican activism, but, for the rest of us, it was her constant, unconditional love. She was a little love machine, spreading warmth and joy wherever she went.
Every time she'd see me, even after just a few days' absence, she'd hug me as if I had been lost in the Himalayan Mountains for the past 20 years.
On Mother's birthday last year, I had a dinner party for her with Rush Limbaugh, Conrad Black and my friends Peter and Angie.
Mother was always delighted to be with people talking about politics -- actually she told me that, lately, she was delighted to be around any conversations that didn't involve who had a doctor's appointment or who had died that day.
So I let her stay up until 3 a.m. that night, well past her bedtime. Mother was so happy that after I had her all tucked in and the lights out, I heard her singing herself to sleep.
Even on the rare occasions when I'd be cross with her, she'd completely forget about it, and within 10 seconds would be telling me what a wonderful, precious daughter I was. My brother Jimmy found out recently that she'd even forgotten that he had caused her to miss Reagan's first inauguration by getting in a car accident the night before we were leaving -- and she never should have forgotten that.
Everyone wanted my mother to be his mother. (The "his" in that sentence is grammatically correct and Mother would never let us forget it.) I'm sure everyone thinks he has the perfect mother, but we really did.
Since I was a little girl, friends, relatives and neighbors would bring their problems to Mother. She had a rare combination of being completely moral and completely nonjudgmental at the same time -- the exact opposite of liberals who have absolutely no morals and yet are ferociously judgmental.
You could tell Mother anything, get good counsel and not end up feeling worse about yourself.
Several of Mother's New Canaan friends sent us notes last week, calling her a "gentle lady" and remarking that she never had an unkind word for anyone.
As a family member, I can assure you that -- much to our annoyance -- she really did never have an unkind word for anyone. I mean, except Democrats, but not anyone she knew.
Whenever the rest of us would be making fun of someone -- trust me, always for good and sound reasons -- Mother would somehow manage to muster up a defense of the miscreant. Father would always smile and say, "Your mother defends everyone."
She was, in fact, such a "gentle lady" that I had to go to her doctors' appointments and hospital visits with her and be her Mother Lion. If officious hospital administrators had told Mother to get off a gurney, go outside in the pouring rain and stand on one foot for three hours before the doctor would see her, she'd thank them profusely and apologize for being such a bother.
She viewed her doctors' appointments as social visits, which is the other reason I'd have to go with her, to make sure we eventually got around to the business end of the appointment.
When she began her final decline last fall, she had to go to her Connecticut doctor without me to find out what was wrong. This was the first time she didn't seem to be getting better after a chemo treatment.
So I had been worrying about her appointment all day, but when I called her that night, she immediately turned the subject to me and asked me how my book was going.
I insisted on knowing if she had seen the doctor and she perked up and brightly told me that, oh yes, she had seen him, he had all my books in his office, he was worried about Obama, too, and he has such beautiful children!
Before she launched into a spirited discussion of his children's extracurricular activities and triumphs on the athletic field, I had to ask her, "Mommy, did the doctor happen to say anything about why you're feeling lousy?"
It turned out, of course, that it was the ovarian cancer -- as well as the massive amounts of poison she had been receiving to kill the cancer over the past five years. That was the beginning of the end.
Now I'll never be able to introduce my Mother to friends and surprise them with her charming Southern accent.
And I'll never see my mother's beautiful face again, at least not for the next several decades here on Earth. I've been looking at her across the room in doctors' offices over the past few years, thinking to myself: There will come a point when you won't see that face again.
Her angelic face always looked like home to me. My whole life, as soon as I'd see my mother's face I'd know I was safe, whether I was a little girl lost in a department store or a big girl with a problem, who needed her mother.
Thanks to the doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and mother's fighting Kentucky spirit, we got to see that face much longer than anyone ever expected.
So now she's with Daddy and Jesus. Every single day since Daddy died last year, Mother would say how much she missed him and gaze at his photo, telling us what an amazing man he was and repeating his little expressions and jokes. Even though I miss her, I'm glad they're together again.
I don't know about Jesus, but I think Daddy was getting impatient. But Mommy was always running a little bit late.
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Wild Thing's comment.........
God Bless you Ann. My Condolences to you and your beautiful family for the loss of your mother. God Bless
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 07:40 AM | Comments (6)
April 23, 2009
"Arrogant Americans, Mr. President?" by Peter Heck
As I was sitting in church waiting for the start of the service, my grandpa came walking towards me pointing his finger. No matter how old I get, and no matter how long he's been out of the U.S. Navy, that's still an intimidating sight. As he approached me, his voice quivered as he said, "We saved that continent twice...how dare my president apologize for this country's arrogance." My grandpa is right. Americans need not apologize to the world for their arrogance; rather, Americans should apologize to their forefathers for the arrogance of their president.
Barack Obama's first foreign trip as President of the United States has confirmed the naiveté so many of us feared during the election cycle. But worse than that, it has also demonstrated that our president suffers from either a complete misunderstanding of our heritage and history, or an utter contempt for it. Neither is excusable.
Garnering cheers from the French of all people, President Obama declared, "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." Consider that Obama spoke these words just 500 miles from the beaches of Normandy, where the sand is still stained with 65 year old blood of "arrogant Americans."
Indeed, columnist Mark Whittington observes, "One should remind Mr. Obama and the Europeans how America has 'shown arrogance' by saving Europe from itself innumerable times in the 20th Century. World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the wars in the Balkans were largely resolved by American blood, treasure, and leadership." But all that appears lost on the president's seemingly insatiable quest to mend fences he imagines have been tarnished by the bullish George W. Bush.
If Obama wishes to continue trampling the presidential tradition of showing class to former office holders and publicly trash Bush for his own personal gain, so be it. But all Americans should make clear that no man - even if he is the president - will tarnish the legacy of those Americans who have gone before us. Ours is not a history of arrogance. It is a history of courage, self-sacrifice, and honor.
When abusive monarchs repressed the masses, Americans resisted and overthrew them. When misguided policies led to the unjust oppression of fellow citizens, Americans rebelled and overturned them. When millions of impoverished and destitute wretches sought a new beginning, Americans threw open the door and welcomed them. When imperial dictators were on the march, Americans surrendered their lives to stop them. When communist thugs threatened world peace, Americans bled to defeat them. When an entire continent was overwhelmed with famine and hunger, Americans gave of themselves to sustain it. When terrorist madmen killed the innocent and subjugated millions, Americans led the fight to topple them.
This is the legacy that generations of Americans have left. If President Obama seeks stronger relations with the world community, perhaps he should begin by reminding them of these very truths, rather than condemning his own countrymen on foreign shores.
This "obsessive need to put down his own country," has caused blogger James Lewis to call President Obama a "stunningly ignorant man" who has evidently never spoken to a concentration camp survivor, a Cuban refugee, a boat person from Vietnam, a Soviet dissident, or a survivor of Mao's purges.
Unfortunately, I can no longer bring myself to give Mr. Obama that benefit of the doubt. Not after looking at the pain in my grandpa's eyes...a man who still carries shrapnel in his body from his service to this country.
As a student and teacher of history, I recognize that America has made mistakes...plenty of them, in fact. But one of the great things about our people has been their courage and humility in admitting and correcting those mistakes. God willing they will prove that willingness again in four years and correct the mistake that is the presidency of Barack Obama.
Wild Thing's comment........
I have never heard of this writer before, he is excellent. I really like what he wrote.
Obama is a traitor to our country!!! We used to punish traitors, how pathetic we are as a nation that so many no longer care if we have traitors in our government. I wish only those that voted for this Muslim would be the ones to pay the price for putting this guy in office.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 07:40 AM | Comments (9)
April 22, 2009
"The Audacity of Vanity" by Charles Krauthammer
Special Report with Brett Baier, the panel including Charles Krauthammer, was especially prescient in describing the pitfalls of Obama's South American visit, his time with Chavez, his complacent acceptance of Daniel Noriega's 50-minute anti-US screen, as well as America's endurance of Mahmoud's tirade about Israel being a "racist regime."
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The Audacity of Vanity
By Charles Krauthammer
Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast -- a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins -- would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.
What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Ronald Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.
Who is Obama representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush the elder -- who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap -- called "a Europe whole and free"?
Does Obama not see the incongruity? It's as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech. (The Germans have now gently nudged Obama into looking at other venues.)
Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?
Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.
Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.
After all, in the words of his own slogan, "we are the ones we've been waiting for," which, translating the royal "we," means: " I am the one we've been waiting for." Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his lectern, until general ridicule -- it was pointed out that he was not yet president -- induced him to take it down.
He lectures us that instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" -- a language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is 'merci beaucoup.' " Obama speaks no French.
His fluent English does, however, feature many such admonitions, instructions and improvements. His wife assures us that President Obama will be a stern taskmaster: "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism . . . that you come out of your isolation. . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?
We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas.
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Robert Godwin, PhD (Clinical psychologist) also weighs in on pathological and malignant narcissism:
“Obama seems to suffer from malignant narcissism whereby he feels he is exceptional, acts like he is exceptional and his followers believe he is exceptional. On the basis of his followers opinion, Obama feels even more justified in his exceptionalism...”
To nail that reality down further:
“..The pathological narcissist imagines he’s giving you milk when he’s actually feeding you poop; in short, he’s not a bountiful breast but a toxic a$$hole. Once you get a feel for this, you can really appreciate the ubiquity of the dynamic. Ever wonder how Noam Chomsky can be so prolific? Because the large intestine never sleeps. Likewise, mass culture is a sewer. Literally. ...
Look at Obama. What is he? That’s part of the problem, because he clearly doesn’t know. He’s certainly not “priestly” or spiritual, based upon his long-time membership in a racist cult. He’s not intellectual, based upon his skin-deep grasp of the issues, and a mind that seems to consist of little more than recycled leftist cliches with no discernible center. He’s not a warrior; quite the opposite, as he has no feel whatsoever for military culture. He’s not a leader, as his basic masculinity is too much in doubt. He’s pretending to be something, but even he doesn’t seem to know what it is. Apparently, he wasn’t even a good community agitator, like Al Sharpton. ..” ~ Gagdad Bob (Robert Godwin, PhD)
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Wild Thing's comment........
This is such a great column. I have always like Charles Krauthammer. He really nails it.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:40 AM | Comments (8)
April 20, 2009
"President of the World" by Victor Hanson
The globe is hearing a deeply pessimistic view of what America was and is.
by Victor Davis Hanson
Given Obama’s performance on his recent trip, three developments were quite astounding.
First, despite this fresh climate of atonement, there was a complete absence of a single apology from any other foreign leader — odd for the new shared spirit of multi-polarity and reciprocity.
Not a word came from Britain about colonialism. Nothing from Germany on the Holocaust, or its trade with Iran. Not a peep from France about Algeria or Vietnam.
Turkey was mum on the Armenian killings and its own tough anti-Kurdish policies. Russia said nothing about the 30 million murdered by Stalin — or its present assassinations abroad, much less its leveling of Grozny or its destruction of Afghanistan. Nothing came from China about the 70 million who perished under Mao or its present role in subsidizing North Korean nukes — or its violation of global copyright laws. We won’t hear anything in the “New Asian Hemisphere” about Muslim Uighurs or Tibet.
Second, there was no other example of “He did it!” about supposedly inept predecessors. Mr. Medvedev said nothing about Putin’s brutish rule. Sarkozy and Merkel did not trash the shady Chirac or Gazprom’s bought lobbyist Schroeder, and their role in harming the Atlantic alliance. Gordon Brown was quiet about Tony Blair and Iraq. China did not mention a reset button. The new Berlusconi did not trash the old Berlusconi.
Third, we saw no concrete evidence of any help — or hope and change — from any foreign leader. Zilch. There were expectations of American concessions, but nothing new or helpful from anyone else.
Instead I think a number of astute foreign leaders — rivals, enemies, and friends alike — have already drawn the following conclusions.
I. An Obama visit
A vast entourage will descend on your capital in campaign mode. Most of your functionaries will wish to get a photo-op with the rock-star president. The American president at some point will request a “town-hall meeting,” press conference, or open-air handshake session with the crowd. All this is largely for domestic consumption back home, and is designed to offer an antidote for the concessions or apologies that follow. It is quite successful in generating temporary goodwill toward the new Obama administration.
II. “I’m sorry.”
Obama will apologize for almost anything one can imagine. First comes the generic lamentation about Bush, the need for a reset button, and America’s characteristic “arrogance.” Then there are the “we are at fault” lines on spec, tailor-made mea culpas for the country in question.
If you are Turkish and Islamic, you get a threefer: the morally equivalent reference to the American treatment of the Indians, the pledge that we are not at war with Islam (forget that no president ever said we were), and the reminder that we are not a Christian nation.
In Europe, you receive apologies for Bush, Iraq, and the financial meltdown. Each leader gets a unique version of Obama’s somewhat narcissistic “Them, not me” — either a strain of something like “Bush did it” or “Every American except me is arrogant.” We can console ourselves only that Obama has not contextualized or apologized to the Somali pirates — yet.
III. “You’re Right!”
Differences that your country has with the United States will be resolved in your favor. Foreign leaders already sense that Obama’s success hinges on his “hope and change” ecstasy back home — which cannot for long sustain stories of difficult diplomacy and public manifestations of international trouble and acrimony, of anything really that suggests he is not mesmerizing the world in the manner he did the American electorate.
Europe? Take your pick. No more combat troops to Afghanistan; an international financial “czar”; no additional financial deficit stimuli; no Guantanamo prisoners on European shores; American acknowledgment of culpability for the financial crisis; no mention of Europe’s own reckless lending, protectionism, or pre-September 2008 declining GDP. But goodwill aplenty.
China? It gets praise when it ridicules the dollar, but offers no help on North Korea. Nothing new about trade violations. Hope is expressed that they will still buy our growing debt.
Russia? Let us count the ways. No more missile defense for Eastern Europe; no mention of Russia’s human-rights violations or its policy of serial assassination abroad; de facto abandonment of advocacy for former Soviet republics’ autonomy; Russia’s energy blackmail is Russia’s business; no help with de-nuclearizing Iran.
Turkey? Yes, Europe must let you in the EU. The new Danish NATO supreme commander must apologize for defending free speech — and, as relish, hire some of your generals; continued American assurance that we are not a Christian nation.
The Islamic World is not to be inconvenienced by any mention of radical Islam, or 9/11, or of the endemic pathologies that nourished al-Qaedism in the first place — such as gender apartheid, religious intolerance, autocracy, statism, and tribalism. Instead there is plenty of Bush-bashing, courting of Iran and Syria, caricatures of the “war on terror,” and talk of Iraq as a “mistake.”
IV. “Them”
Then comes the “separation.” Obama makes it clear to any host or foreign leader that both he and his vision of America are strangely exempt from America’s past, from Bush, and from our innately arrogant nature. That is accomplished in a number of adroit ways. There is evocation of his once-taboo middle name “Hussein” to win affection in the Middle East, but also to suggest a more Third Worldish resonance such as “I am one of you too who has grievances against ‘them.’ ”
He is beginning to mention the novelty of his racial heritage a lot, usually in the context that we are now in a new world of Obama, and that his very presence is a rejection of the old and illiberal America.
That the veteran Colin Powell and Russian-speaking Condoleezza Rice ran American foreign policy the last eight years, in a way unthinkable in Europe, is never voiced. Suggesting that China would have an Uighur foreign minister, that Saudi Arabia would have a Christian foreign minister, that France would have an Algerian foreign minister, that Germany would have a Turkish foreign minister, or that Russia would have a Chechen foreign minister is as absurd as suggesting that a Powell or Rice was never a big deal.
So what Obama leaves out about America is telling. He touches on slavery, lack of voting rights for blacks in the South (although he conflates this issue and implies to foreigners that African Americans could not vote in the North as well), our past treatment of Native Americans, and the dropping of the bomb against Japan.
These transgressions are rarely put in any historical context, much less referenced as sins of mankind shared by all of his hosts (the pedigree of murder, exploitation, and rapine of his foreign interlocutors is quite stunning). We don’t hear many references to the American Revolution, or the great tradition of American ingenuity embodied by Bell, Edison, or the Wright brothers.
We hear nothing about our Gettysburg, or our entry into World War I. Iwo Jima and the Bulge are never alluded to. Drawing the line in Korea and forcing the end of the Soviet monstrosity are taboo subjects. That we pledged the life of New York for Berlin in the Cold War is unknown. Liberating Afghanistan and Iraq from the diabolical Taliban and Saddam Hussein is left unsaid. The Civil Rights movement, the Great Society, affirmative action, and present billion-dollar foreign-aid programs apparently never existed. Millions of Africans have been saved by George Bush’s efforts at extending life-saving medicines to AIDS patients — but again, this is never referenced.
V. What’s Next?
At present the world is watching, probing, and digesting the Obama presidency. But it has already concluded that Obama is nourished by applause and will work to maintain it — not merely for personal gratification, but because he realizes that loud public endorsement is essential to his perpetual candidacy, given its absence of experience and sagacity.
Those abroad are also reassured that the American media, so heavily invested in hope and change, will do almost anything to transmogrify American embarrassments into Obama successes. Meanwhile, the contours of the new world order are clear. Iraq’s democrats are snubbed; Iran’s cutthroats are courted. A Saudi royal receives a bow; the British queen, a presumptuous squeeze — while her prime minister receives unplayable DVDs.
Pakistan released Dr. Khan and wants us to idle our Predators. Iran is adding to its centrifuges. North Korea will ready ever-more missiles. Syria lectures on the putative peace it is begged to participate in. The former Soviet republics will fall back into line, closing American supply bases or bracing for the next Putin push. Israel gets a Charles Freeman nomination; Gaza a billion U.S. dollars in aid.
The odious governments of Cuba, Libya, and Syria quite logically have now expressed warmth of some sort for Obama and expect similar treatment in return. Russia fears little challenge to the reestablishment of its 19th-century influence. Pirates in Somalia, though slightly fewer in number today, likely have little to fear going forward.
Europe had better prepare for its own defense. So should Japan. They may get more expressions of outrage when crises loom, more calls for U.N. action, but not much more than that. Expect a world of more nukes, not fewer — in direct proportion to Obama’s calls for their entire elimination.
In short, we have a return of Jimmy Carter’s postnational idealism, but this time with the charismatic face of a Ronald Reagan. For 40 years we have had well-meaning moral equivalence, utopian pacifism, and multiculturalism taught in our schools, and we are now learning that all that was not just therapy, but has insidiously become our national gospel. The world is hearing a deeply pessimistic view of what America was and is — now offered in mellifluous cadences by a messianic president who not so long ago in more unguarded moments called for more oppression studies and reparations.
President Obama will get his much-needed praise and adulation abroad, and Americans will finally be somewhat admired for a while. And thereafter, there will be real hell to pay — either abject U.S. appeasement as the world heats up, or some sort of frantic eleventh-hour hyper-response to restore stability and lost deterrence.
Just watch.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Just brilliant, Hansen nails it again. He must be seething with frustration. I know I am.
"Obama will apologize for almost anything one can imagine. First comes the generic lamentation about Bush, the need for a reset button, and America’s characteristic “arrogance.” Then there are the “we are at fault” lines on spec, tailor-made for the country in question...In Europe, you receive apologies for Bush, Iraq, and the financial meltdown. Each leader gets a unique version of Obama’s somewhat narcissistic “Them, not me” — either a strain of something like “Bush did it” or “Every American except me is arrogant.” We can console ourselves only that Obama has not contextualized or apologized to the Somali pirates — yet."
Europeans love American Presidents who slam Americans.
Apologies for the pirates are emerging. As one liberal opined, "What you have to understand about the economic problems in this part of the world is..." They're just "troubled youths" suffering from colonialist oppression, you see. They hijack ships for reparations, Obama hijacks a country.
Obama is NOT an American and has no clue what it means to be an American. The ONLY thing that animates Obama is his vision of remaking 'America' in his own image. He will make America suffer; and he will proudly put his 'big O' name on it.
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:50 AM | Comments (16)
April 04, 2009
Hunting for the Government Goodwrench Office
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Hunting for the Government Goodwrench Office
by Lee Cary
I’d like a new pickup truck and the GM models look nice. So I went hunting for the government office that will stand behind warranties, just in case.
So I searched for the government office I’d contact if GM didn’t do all I thought it should to honor the warranty on any new truck I might buy. I believe in contingency planning.
I looked for a phone number for the Federal Warranty Guarantee Service. None. How about a Department of Government Motors Vehicle Warranties (DGMVW) on the internet? Nope.
When you don’t know what animal you’re hunting, you go to the zoo and scan the options. I printed out a healthy list of agencies from the Federal Citizen Information Center on-line. A few looked promising.
I called the National Technical Information Service. I know the workers who repair vehicles in dealerships are often called “technicians.” The nice person at the NTIS told me they only sell scientific documents to the public. Strike one.
Next, I called the Consumer Product Safety Commission hot-line. If I have trouble getting my prospective vehicle repaired by the manufacturer, GM in this case, and I drive it – that’s can be safe, right? The nice person there said they couldn’t help. He suggested I call the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). At last I had a hard lead and felt like the third try would be the charm.
The nice man at the FTC said that, yeah, he’d heard the news that the federal government was going to stand behind GM and Chrysler warranties (I don’t like Chrysler trucks, sorry), but he’d heard no further information about it. And, he didn’t know anyone who had. He suggested I call my congressman. Strike three.
I gave it one more swing, and called the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration. I explained the trouble I was having trying to find out how the U.S. government was going to stand behind vehicle warranties, and said I hoped that - since a vehicle on the highway that wasn’t operating properly because the warranty hadn’t been honored must surely represent a safety issue - maybe they could help me. No can do.
When President Obama declared that, from that day forward, the U.S. government would stand behind GM and Chrysler vehicle warranties, I suspect there was, and still is, no mechanism to do that.
I think I’ll just keep driving my old Toyota Tundra. It’s paid for.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Love how Lee Cary wrote this article.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 AM | Comments (8)
March 25, 2009
Mark Levin’s Book "Liberty and Tyranny"
Mark Levin’s "Liberty and Tyranny"
From Rush about this book:
"Liberty and Tyranny is a conservative manifesto and it is brilliantly written, because while it is constitutional, it is easily understandable, it is a page-turner as a novel is, and you don't find books like this that can make that claim. It is now number one at Amazon.
There are a few people who are out there fighting for our liberty. I'm one of them; Sean Hannity is another, Levin, a bunch of them out there, and we are being characterized as mean and angry, and we are being characterized as people who just say "no" to Obama. The nice, smooth, suave, debonair, yuk-it-up guys are the ones taking away our liberty. They are the ones who are usurping the Constitution and assaulting capitalism and individual liberty and freedom on a daily basis. You see, blunt, tough talk often is what you get from honest people. Smooth, evasive straw man arguments emanate from dishonest people. Now, unfortunately that's confusing to the governed because of their ignorance and the fact that their emotions are easily manipulated.
Now, Mark Levin, who is he? He's a legal scholar. He's a constitutional scholar. He runs the Landmark Legal Foundation. He was chief of staff for Ed Meese when he was attorney general in the Reagan administration. Mark Levin is a bare knuckles fighter for freedom. The left labels him mean and angry, while Obama is labeled as compassionate and reasonable and engaging, while fighting to snatch liberty from people at every turn with a heart that is as cold as ice. So we've got Levin's book, Liberty and Tyranny, it embraces liberty. It's out. It is number one wherever books are sold. Obama's plans, they're also out. They're taking it away. You can read them every day in the Washington Post, open the New York Times on Sunday, the Washington Post today, executive pay limitations, not just on TARP bailout companies, but all companies. Geithner wants to be able to take over any company that he wants to be able to take over.
The Barack Obama take-freedom-and-liberty-away from people plan is out there, and it's published in the newspapers every day, it's on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN every day and every night. Mark Levin's book is also out, embracing liberty. There is an epic struggle that is underway, public sector versus private sector, collectivism versus the individual, liberty versus tyranny, good versus evil. You can sum all this up by saying there's an epic struggle underway, good versus evil. Our country has mislabeled scholars, journalists, late-night funny guys and Washingtonian wizards of smart, spew a relentless stream of propaganda smearing the people who fight for liberty.
They label freedom fighters as the bad guys. We're told that people like Mark Levin are the ones wearing black hats. You have to make it easy to see who to root against. We're told that people standing up for individual liberty, which, by definition, are people opposed to the Obama administration, we are the black-hatted people, we are the people you need to be afraid of, we are the ones fighting for your liberty and freedom, and we're supposed to be the ones you need to fear.
While those taking your liberty away are on Leno, they're on 60 Minutes, they're on the covers of pop culture magazines, they're trying to appear nice and funny, and one of us. It's the so-called good guys, folks, who are the ones laughing about the economy, insulting special-needs children, instigating mob rule in Connecticut, and taking time out to slander Justice Scalia as a homophobe. That's the latest from Barney Frank. That's all about the Defense of Marriage Act, and all Scalia's ever said, "I don't see marriage in the Constitution, so I don't think we should be ruling on this." Scalia is thus labeled a homophobe by Barney Frank, when all Scalia is is a brilliant constitutional scholar, as is Mark Levin. Liberty and Tyranny.
Unfortunately, it's difficult for too many Americans to know who is fighting for our liberty and who isn't. But Levin is. I can't emphasize this enough. I don't want to overdo it. It's a great book and it does meet the requirement that so many of you have asked me about. "Rush, what can I read to explain conservatism?" This starts at the founding, comes to the present, shows you the bastardization that's happened in this country. You won't recognize your country after you read this book, and that's good.
You need to understand what the left has done and how far we have come from the principles and concepts of our founding to where we are now. This is the kind of book that people will read in the bathroom with a flashlight on college campi. This is the kind of book that people will send with no return address to their parents, boyfriends and girlfriends.
This is the kind of book that's going to spread like wildfire through the underground. People who read it won't admit to having read it, they'll just claim what they've learned from it as their own knowledge. It will be passed around in various places in a plain brown wrapper, with whispers, "Read this. Don't tell anybody where you got it." And at some point, after all this happens, Levin will come under assault from the wizards of smart, and sadly, Levin will come under assault from the pseudo-conservatives on our side, the moderates, self-proclaimed, who will be threatened, 'cause this is not just an explanation of Reaganism.
This is not just an explanation of conservatism as it applies today. This is the history of the United States and how our country is being lost. It also has at the end of the book some things you can do, 'cause people also ask, 'What can I do? Okay, I've read it, what can I do?" The important thing here is to read this and to pass it along.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Fantastic, Mark Levin is so good and he deserves this book to be at the top and stay there for a long time. This book really is excellent.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:40 AM | Comments (2)
March 16, 2009
Dick Morris Asks: "Is Obama Competent?"
Does Obama Know What He Is Doing?
by Dick Morris
Conservatives are so aghast at the huge spending going on in Washington and the $1.75 trillion deficit (13 percent of our gross domestic product) it is causing them to overlook an even more basic question about the president:
Is he competent?
Does he know what he is doing?
To be specific: Does he know how to do anything other than spend money? His stimulus package, of course, took no special ability. He left the details of the projects up to the House Democrats, who are more than willing to fill in the blanks. But his two other major initiatives -- his banking and mortgage relief plans -- are both flawed and highly unlikely to solve their respective problems.
Indeed, they are so wide of the mark that one has to ask if Obama is not only a radical but also an incompetent.
The bank bailout plan seems to be largely stillborn. Having wished that the private sector would flock to invest in toxic assets if they are offered the right incentives, the treasury secretary is still hoping. Crossing his fingers seems to have replaced effective policy in his planning. To date, no massive infusion of private sector capital seems in view, and Washington is doing little more than writing checks on its overdrawn account to prop up the failing banks. That doesn't take a genius. But the difficult task of relieving the banks of toxic assets so they can rekindle the flow of loans seems to be beyond the ability of the president and his administration.
But conservatives can dismiss the utter failure of Obama's bank rescue plan, saying that he doesn't really want it to succeed. He probably wants to nationalize the banks -- and never let them go. But he can't say that, yet, and has to make a good show of doing all he can to rescue them before swallowing them whole.
But then came Obama's mortgage rescue plan, an equally flawed proposal. Clearly, Obama, liberal that he is, wants his rescue plan to work. He is anxious to bail out homeowners facing foreclosure. Those are his constituents, after all. But the mortgage rescue plan he has proposed will fall far short of the mark.
Incredibly, it excludes anyone who has lost their job and can't afford to make their payments, even if they were to spend 31 percent of their income trying to do so. If you can't come close to affording your mortgage, even if only because of a hopefully temporary loss of employment, forget about it. Obama is not going to help you.
Nor will he help you if your mortgage exceeds your home's value. One out of five mortgages now fall into this category. Obviously, the fall in property values occasioned by the depression will put more and more homeowners in this category. Certainly, a great many of those who need relief to keep their homes find that the amount of their loan exceeds the value of the underlying house and land. But they can expect no help from Obama's rescue plan.
Why would a liberal be so callous? Why would he leave so many out in the cold? Could it be that Obama simply lacks the competence to figure out how to help these folks? Could it be that he cannot devise a counter to his financial advisors who presumably wanted to exclude these folks?
And ... who induced these poor folks to buy homes they couldn't afford, anyway? It was the Clinton administration's Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros who urged Fannie Mae to spend 42 percent of its money buying mortgages for lower-income people and who suggested that they no longer require down payments. And it was his successor, Andrew Cuomo, who upped the ante to 50 percent of the Fannie portfolio. After Democrats inveigled people to buy homes they cannot afford, how can they justify passing a plan that excludes them from assistance?
It appears that Obama is at sea when it comes to financial policy, economic recovery planning and credit rescue efforts. We are not only stuck with a radical and a socialist, but possibly an incompetent one at that!
Wild Thing's comment........
Good article by Dick Morris and some things to think about.
By our standards, no he does not know what he’s doing. Hahaha
But his agenda is to destroy our country as we have known it so I say YES he does know what he is doing.
All in one month the Obama and his cabinet picks along with the rest of the Democrats in power, have put through his abortion culture of death bill to be able to kill live babies that survive abortion, he has insulted our allies, apologized to the Taliban, doubled the national debt, quadrupled the deficit, and killed the national economy. He's destroying Capitalism one step at a time so he can turn the USA into a 'socialist utopia'. (yeah, I know. That's an oxymoron lol )
Obama's call for "change" and "unity" is not so much an invitation but a command.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 07:50 AM | Comments (16)
"Sticking it to the young" by Mark Steyn
Sticking it to the young
by Mark Steyn
'Yes, we can' may become 'On second thought, no, we can't'
Just between you, me, and the old, the late middle-aged and the early middle-aged - isn't it terrific to be able to stick it to the young? I mean, imagine how bad all this economic-type stuff would be if our kids and grandkids hadn't offered to pick up the tab.
Well, OK, they didn't exactly “offer” but they did stand around behind Barack Obama at all those campaign rallies helping him look dynamic and telegenic and earnestly chanting hopey-hopey-changey-changey. And “Yes, we can!” Which is a pretty open-ended commitment.
Are you sure you young folks will be able to pay off this massive Mount Spendmore of multi-trillion-dollar debts we've piled up on you?”Yes, we can!”
We thought you would say that! God bless the youth of America! We of the Greatest Generation, the boomers and Generation X salute you, the plucky members of the Brokest Generation, the Gloomers and Generation Y, as in “Why the hell did you old coots do this to us?”
Because, as politicians like to say, it's about “the future of all our children.” And the future of all our children is that they'll be paying off the past of all their grandparents. At 12 percent of gross domestic product, this year's deficit is the highest since World War II, and prioritizes not economic vitality but massive expansion of government. But hey, it's not our problem. As John Maynard Keynes observed, “In the long run we're all dead.”
Well, most of us will be. But not you youngsters, not for a while. So we've figured it out: You're the ultimate credit market, and the rest of us are all pre-approved!
The Bailout and the Tarp and the Stimulus and the Multi-Trillion Budget and Tarp 2 and Stimulus 2 and Tarp and Stimulus Meet Frankenstein and The Wolf Man are like the old Saturday-morning cliffhanger serials your grandpa used to enjoy. But now he doesn't have to grab his walker and totter down to the Rialto, because he can just switch on the news and every week there's his plucky little hero Big Government facing the same old crisis: Why, there's yet another exciting spending bill with 12 zeroes on the end, but unfortunately there seems to be some question about whether they have the votes to pass it. Oh, no!
And then, just as the fate of another gazillion dollars of pork and waste hangs in the balance, Arlen Specter or one of those lady senators from Maine dashes to the cliff edge and gives a helping hand, and phew, this week's spendapalooza sails through. But don't worry, there'll be another exciting episode of Trillion-Buck Rogers of the 21st Century next week!
This is the biggest generational transfer of wealth in the history of the world. If you're an 18-year-old middle-class hopeychanger, look at the way your parents and grandparents live: It's not going to be like that for you. You're going to have a smaller house and a smaller car - if not a basement flat and a bus ticket. You didn't get us into this catastrophe. But you're going to be stuck with the tab, just like the Germans got stuck with paying reparations for the catastrophe of World War I.
True, the Germans were actually in the war, whereas in the current crisis you guys were just goofing around at school, dozing through Diversity Studies and hoping to ace Anger Management class. But tough. That's the way it goes.
I had the pleasure of talking to the students of Hillsdale College last week, and endeavored to explain what it is they're being lined up for in a 21st century America of more government, more regulation, less opportunity and less prosperity: When you come to take your seat at the American table (to use another phrase politicians are fond of), you'll find the geezers, boomers and X-ers have all gone to the men's room, and you're the only one sitting there when the waiter presents the check. That's you: Generation Checks.
The Teleprompter Kid says not to worry: His budget numbers are based on projections that the economy will decline 1.2 percent this year and then grow 4 percent every year thereafter. Do you believe that? In fact, does he believe that? This is the guy who keeps telling us this is the worst economic crisis in 70 years, and it turns out it's just a 1 percent decline for a couple more months and then party time resumes?
And, come to that, wasn't there a (notably unprojected) 6.2 percent drop in GDP just in the last quarter of 2008?
Whatever. Growth may be lower than projected, but who's to say all those new programs, agencies, entitlements and other boondoggles won't also turn out to cost less than anticipated? Might as well be optimistic, right?
Youth is wasted on the young, said Bernard Shaw. So the geezers appropriated it. We love the youthful sense of living in the moment, without a care, without the burdens of responsibility - free to go wild and crazy and splash out for Tony Danza in dinner theater in Florida where we bought the condo we couldn't afford.
But we also love the idealism of youth: We want to help the sick and heal the planet by voting for massive unsustainable government programs.
Like the young, we're still finding ourselves, but when we find ourselves stuck with a medical bill or a foreclosure notice it's great to be able to call home and say, “Whoops, I got into a bit of a hole this month. Do you think you could advance me a couple of trillion just to tide me over?” And if there's no one at home but a couple of second-graders, who cares? In supporting the political class in its present behavior, America has gone to the bank and given its kids a massive breach-of-trust fund.
I mentioned a few weeks ago the calamitous reality of the U.S. auto industry. General Motors has 96,000 employees but provides health benefits to more than a million people. They can never sell enough cars to make that math add up. In fact, selling cars doesn't help, as they lose money on each model.
GM is a welfare project masquerading as economic activity. And, after the Obama transformation, America will be, too.
The young need to recognize that this is their fight. They need to stop chanting along with the hopeychangey dirges and do something more effective, like form the anti-AARP: The association of Americans who'll never be able to retire.
Wild Thing's comment.......
What a great commentary! He does it with such great humor, but he’s dead serious.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:45 AM | Comments (4)
March 11, 2009
ROCK Barack and his Baracksheviks ~ by Darth
On July 4, 1976 our nation celebrated it's Bicentennial - 200 years of freedom and liberty. How ironic that a United Kingdom musical group, Hot Chocolate, had their hit - 'You Sexy Thing' - rise to #3 on the U.S. Billboard Chart. You guessed it, it's time again to ROCK Barack and his Baracksheviks with......
YOU $EXY THANG!
by Darth
We peeps believe in miracles BRO BHO
Where are you really from
You sexy thang
Obamanation have seen the miracles
Since you came along
You sexy thang
Stimulus right into our wallet and purse - surprise
You sexy thang Mista Barack Star - we mesmorized
Neva stop what yo doing bro
Love what yo doing to me
My man "YES WE CAN" Candy Man to me
No more house payments... Free college .... It's on
Reparations signed, sealed, delivered ...
The BRO BHO Manifesto - begun
MO money... MO coin ... MO ripple, t'bird, and da wine shabang
Keep on taxen the crackers Prez Robbing Hood
You sexy thang.... Sooooooo glad
Bankruptsy is in, bad credit is cool, accountability for fools
Dig Marx, Lenin and Obama - Bye bye capitalism - WE RULE
Yesterday I was broke and poor and desperate people
Hello middle class and $350,000 crib, with a groovy steeple
MO OMNIBU$ bread.... MO Porkulicious spending gravy baby
Barackshevik Revolution in the USSR
A new United Socialist States Republic
A $EXY THANG
Wild Thing's comment.......
LOL this is great Darth, thank you.
giggle I am NO fan of Oprah so she gets to be in the graphic. She thinks Obama is sexy......YUK!
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:50 AM
| Comments (7)
Rush to Judgment by Mark Steyn Kathryn, in all the Rush-bashing, I was more disturbed by Michael Steele's wretched performance. His initial reaction — that Rush's show is "incendiary" and "ugly" — revealed: a) that he never listens to it; b) that he takes his cues from the mainstream media, for whom Rush is invariably "angry". They don't listen either. Rush is a lot of things, but "angry" isn't one of them. If you catch him for 20 minutes, you know he's full of fun, laughing it up, having a grand old time. There are a lot of angry talkshow hosts out there bellowing at the world for three hours a day, but Rush isn't one of them. (Full disclosure: I guesthost for Rush once in a while, and regard it as a signal honor for a sinister foreigner such as myself.) This first reaction is disturbing for two reasons: first, given the size of Rush's audience, it's something an RNC chairman should not be so obviously foreign to; second, it's not encouraging when the de facto face of the party accepts so unthinkingly the liberal/media framing of the issue. Then we come to Mr. Steele's second response - his reaction to the reaction to his original reaction: By apologizing for his first remarks, he opened the door for his DNC opposite number to make sport of the way he was kowtowing to the "ugly" Limbaugh. So a man who apparently shares the elite's disdain for Rush and his audience nevertheless feeds the impression that the Republican leadership is prostrate at his feet: the worst of both worlds. In two brief soundbites, Mr. Steele has managed to suggest to his own party base that he has a lazy disposition that reflexively shares the liberal biases, and to allow the wider world to portray him as a craven squish. This is not encouraging. At the very minimum, he does not appear ready for primetime.
. Mark Steyn is always so good! When an imbecile like D.L. Hughley is able to outfox you in a debate, it's time to hang it up. Michael Steele was on Sean Hannity yesterday, and Sean was practically telling him what to say, and he was still blowing it. Earmarks, for example. He agreed with Sean several times that it’s a shame Republicans have 40% of the earmarks in the budget, and they really need to explain to their voters that “not this year, not in this economic climate, wait for a year or two” and when things get back to normal they can resume bringing home the bacon “for that hospital or clinic.” No, Mr. Steele, not next year, not ever. Earmarks and pork are part of the problem, on principle. We shouldn’t be sending people to Washington to get other people’s money and bring it back for politically selected spending. Period. The other day Laura really did an awesome rant about what Michael had said and done. Before he came on she said she wanted to ask him some questions about what had happened and let him explain. Anyway, Michael came on her show and she said perhaps he got caught up in the moment, but it was still wrong no matter what. He had a chance to say something that could make up for it but instead he said everyone says things that can be taken wrong. sheesh Then Laura said, well Michael I have to ask you about something that bothers me even more then what you said about Rush although as you know I let you have it pretty strong the other day about it. What I have to ask you is about when D.L. Hughley and his guest were saying that the Republican Convention was like Nazi Germany, you nodded and said yes and nothing else. Let me play it for you Michael and I want you to tell me why you did this. She played back the tape and he got audibly upset I could tell just from listening to Laura play the tape. She then asked him well Michael what do you have to say to that. Michael said, Laura there are only 30 or so blacks visibly in the Republican party in leadership so I feel...... Laura cut in and let him have it. She minced no words in her being upset about his initial reaction on the tape and also his explanation for his agreement. Then he was thanked for being on her show and it was done. She went on to the next thing. This is so telling, there is an inner deep seeded anger that I thought Michael did not have. I was upset about both the things Michael did, the Rush thing and also the Nazi Germany thing, BOTH imo will not go away and his explanation only cemented it how he truly feels. Also please be sure to catch the very beginning of the video. It starts off when they are coming back from the break and you can hear very clearly Larry King says... "Jesus Christ" .
....Thank you Darth for writing this.
Darth
U.S. Airforce
C-5 loadmaster
84-97
March 05, 2009
Rush to Judgment by Mark Steyn
Wild Thing's comment.......
On Laura Ingraham's radio show yesterday she had Michael Steele on for a few minutes.
Here is a good example for Michael Steele to look at . Bobby Jindal on Larry King ( this is the part where he comments about Limbaugh, Michael Steele and wanting Obama to fail.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (6)
March 04, 2009
Sweet Home Obamy! by Darth
In 1974, southern rockers - LYNYRD SKYNYRD - rocked the southern rock world with 'Sweet Home Alabama'.....
Now, it's time to ROCK Barack and his Baracksheviks with:
$WEET HOMEY OBAMY!
...... GIVE IT UP!
BIG government keeps on spending
DC's new homey one from Kenya's kin...
Polluted mainstream media elite infatuation love in
Barack Hussein Obama promises everythin...
Hell yea... I know it's a sin... Yes
Blowhard Matthews, Oberman and Blitzer sing praises about him
The 'Have Notsi' comrades voted the good ole GOP down
I hope the flag wavers will remember
The Baracksheviks don't need them around anyhow
Chorus:
$WEET HOMEY OBAMY
Former red states are turning blue
$WEET HOMEY OBAMY
Karl Marx and Castro's dreams are coming true
At 1600 Pennsy they love Obamy... True...True...True
The 'Have Notsi' socialists did what they had to do
Too bad GOPhers, the Obama Manifesto doesn't bother me
Does free housing, college and health care bother you
NO NEED TO TELL THE TRUTH
$WEET HOMEY OBAMY
Former red states are turning blue
$WEET HOMEY OBAMY
Karl Marx and Castro's dreams are coming true...
YES WE CAN, OBAMY!
Wild Thing's comment.......
Good one Darth, haha I love it.
....Thank you Darth for writing this.
Darth
U.S. Airforce
C-5 loadmaster
84-97
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:45 AM | Comments (3)
February 28, 2009
SURVIVOR...... by Darth
" We have been beaten up, degraded, and mauled daily by Barack Hussein Obama and his Baracksheviks, along with his neosocialist waffen media machine since last November. This morning I heard the following song from 1982 while driving home from work. For Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty of old and of yesteryear, and for our heroric soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen fighting in our war against tyranny and Islamofascism like our forefathers had done in the past, defending our freedoms and liberties that many take for granted " ~ Darth
here's............
SURVIVOR - The Eye Of The Tiger !
Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive
So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive
Chorus:
It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watchin' us all in the eye of the tiger
Face to face, out in the heat
Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry
They stack the odds 'til we take to the street
For we kill with the skill to survive
(Repeat Chorus)
Risin' up, straight to the top
Have the guts, got the glory
Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop
Just a man and his will to survive
(Repeat Chorus)
THE EYE OF THE TIGER...
THE EYE OF THE TIGER...
THE EYE OF THE TIGER...
THE EYE OF THE TIGER!
Survivor (1982 - CBS Scotti Brothers) is Stephen Ellis, Frankie Sullivan, Dave Bickler,
Jim Peterik and Mark Drouboy.... FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!
Wild Thing's comment......
Thank you Darth this is great. It’s very important to have the eye of the tiger.
....Thank you Darth for writing this.
Darth
U.S. Airforce
C-5 loadmaster
84-97
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (2)
February 25, 2009
" Socialistic."...... by Darth
Stevland Hardaway Judkins Morris was born in Saganaw Michigan on May 13, 1950.
He later CHANGED his name to Stevland Morris, and then to Stevie Wonder. This talented blind Motown singer, song writer and multi-instrumentalist rose to stardom by the age 12. His 1972 album - Talking Book - included one of his greatest hits ever -
SUPERSTITION. We'd like to honor the former 'El Toro Negro' R&B, soul, funk and psychedelic superstar with our rendition of SOCIALISTIC!
Very socialistic, the writings on the wall
Very socialistic, Wallstreet's in a downfall
Barack Hussein Obama baby, voted in by ACORN and the lower class
Four or eight years of bad times, your good times are in the past
When you believe in things you don't understand
Now millions suddenly prosper
Socialistic is the way
Very socialistic, doubt if your race takes a stand
Redistribute yo money to others... YES WE CAN
Weaken US in class warfare, making others strong
Uncle Sam is no longer healthy, RIP, dead and gone
When your income goes to comrades by popular demand
And YOU suffer
Socialistic leads the way, yeh, yeh
Very socialistic, nothing more to say
Very socialistic, Marx... now Obama's here to stay
BRO BHO's arrived baby, voted in by ACORN and the lower class
Four or eight years of bad times, your good times are in the past
When you believe in things you don't understand
Now millions suddenly prosper
Sociaistic is on the scene today, yeh, yeh, yeh!
Wild Thing's comment.......
This is great Darth, and I always hear the music playing in my mind as I read the lyrics you did. haha
....Thank you Darth for sending the article to me.
Darth
U.S. Airforce
C-5 loadmaster
84-97
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:47 AM | Comments (2)
February 23, 2009
"Dirty Money" by Darth
Texan Don Henley is a superstar in the music world. He performed countless hits as a member of The Eagles, and as a solo musician. He romanced Stevie Nicks, 007 Bond Girl Lois Chiles (Moonraker) and Battlestar Galactica's Maren Jensen. In 1995, Don married Texas model Sharon Summerall, who suffers from MS, and they have three children... From his hit DIRTY LAUNDRY ........
Darth has done a great job of updating it to............
DIRTY MONEY
We make our money off hard working taxpaying dudes
Obamessiah gives us $TIMULU$ MONEY we can use
Obamanation digs it when GOPhers and blue dogs lose
We love our dirty money
We could have lived in the ghettos, but we wound up here
We simply wait for Mr. Mailman to come monthly and appear
Thanks for paying our rent and college tuition suckers
Socialists love our dirty money
Take your money... Never enough
Take your money ... Don't frown
Take your money ... Hard working chumps
Take your money ... From the wallets of GOP and NEOCON clowns
Take your money ... You lost. BRO BHO won
Take your money ... Too bad losers in red state towns
Got orgasmic libtard media Obama babes
That come on CNN and MSNBC at five
They gleefully tell ya about the $TIMULU$ Bill freebies
From the Washington DC CCCP jive...
Dig this Obamanation infatuation love fest
Marxists love their dirty money... simply the best
Can we get mo money
Is Wallstreet dead yet
Mao said America would fall from within
Capitalism is in its final days flower power children
Wanna make a bet
THE PEOPLE demand more dirty money
1600 Pennsylvania Barack House won't tell ya what's going on
You don't really want to know just how far its gone
Just leave well enough alone
Spending our dirty $TIMULU$ money
Dirty CNN mainstream spin
Dirty progressive lies
Obama Manifesto has proportionately sliced up the economic pie
Baracksheviks want your dirty money
Obamanation: The Land of $pendo
Bye bye lower class. Now rejoice, dance and sing
America is finished. All is sad and done
You lost. BRO BHO won
Collect your $TIMULU$ MONEY!
.
Wild Thing's comment.......
That come on CNN and MSNBC at five
They gleefully tell ya about the $TIMULU$ Bill freebies
From the Washington DC CCCP jive...
Watching some of the TV political talking heads some of them act like it is Christmas and they can hardly wait for the money to arrive. Sickening.
....Thank you Darth for writing this.
Darth
U.S. Airforce
C-5 loadmaster
84-97
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:47 AM | Comments (5)
January 22, 2009
"The Obama presidency: Here comes socialism" ~ Dick Morris
The Obama presidency: Here comes socialism
by Dick Morris
2009-2010 will rank with 1913-14, 1933-36, 1964-65 and 1981-82 as years that will permanently change our government, politics and lives. Just as the stars were aligned for Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and Reagan, they are aligned for Obama. Simply put, we enter his administration as free-enterprise, market-dominated, laissez-faire America. We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, or Sweden -- a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private-sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes.
Obama will accomplish his agenda of "reform" under the rubric of "recovery." Using the electoral mandate bestowed on a Democratic Congress by restless voters and the economic power given his administration by terrified Americans, he will change our country fundamentally in the name of lifting the depression. His stimulus packages won't do much to shorten the downturn -- although they will make it less painful -- but they will do a great deal to change our nation.
In implementing his agenda, Barack Obama will emulate the example of Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Not the liberal mythology of the New Deal, but the actuality of what it accomplished.) When FDR took office, he was enormously successful in averting a total collapse of the banking system and the economy.
But his New Deal measures only succeeded in lowering the unemployment rate from 23 percent in 1933, when he took office, to 13 percent in the summer of 1937. It never went lower. And his policies of over-regulation generated such business uncertainty that they triggered a second-term recession. Unemployment in 1938 rose to 17 percent and, in 1940, on the verge of the war-driven recovery, stood at 15 percent.
But in the name of a largely unsuccessful effort to end the Depression, Roosevelt passed crucial and permanent reforms that have dominated our lives ever since, including Social Security, the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, unionization under the Wagner Act, the federal minimum wage and a host of other fundamental changes.
Obama’s record will be similar, although less wise and more destructive. He will begin by passing every program for which liberals have lusted for decades, from alternative-energy sources to school renovations, infrastructure repairs and technology enhancements.
These are all good programs, but they normally would be stretched out for years. But freed of any constraint on the deficit — indeed, empowered by a mandate to raise it as high as possible — Obama will do them all rather quickly.
But it is not his spending that will transform our political system, it is his tax and welfare policies. In the name of short-term stimulus, he will give every American family (who makes less than $200,000) a welfare check of $1,000 euphemistically called a refundable tax credit. And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever-expanding welfare checks from the government. The dependency on the dole, formerly limited in pre-Clinton days to 14 million women and children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, will now grow to a clear majority of the American population.
Will he raise taxes? Why should he? With a congressional mandate to run the deficit up as high as need be, there is no reason to raise taxes now and risk aggravating the depression.
Instead, Obama will follow the opposite of the Reagan strategy. Reagan cut taxes and increased the deficit so that liberals could not increase spending. Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so that conservatives cannot cut taxes. And, when the economy is restored, he will raise taxes with impunity, since the only people who will have to pay them would be rich Republicans.
Complete article found HERE
Wild Thing's comment........
Like a lot of Dick Morris predictions, I hope he is wrong about these also. But it is a very interesting article and one that I think is important. I never ever want to have my head in the sand or close my eyes to what is happening or mighit one day come to pass. Not when it comes to our country. If we know ahead of time the possibilities both good or bad then maybe we can be prepared in some way, if nothing else how to handle it.
Our best hope I think is his being fooled by the press fawning into overplaying his hand. The sooner the better. And one other thing, there actually are some dems in power that will vote against Obama's programs and his wanting to spend, spend, spend.
The GOP has ceased to be an effective opposition party and if they don't get their act together and vote agaisnt all these things that will hurt our country Obama would want to do then when will they, if not now when. They cannot wait till the next election because by then it will be too late.
If a majority of the electorate remains passive and easily dazzled by the celebrity cult they’re promoting, they can keep this going indefinitely no matter what kind of damage they do. It’ll be like Mussolini’s Italy with a smiley face.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:48 AM | Comments (6)
January 17, 2009
Murder Spree By People Who Refuse To Ask For Directions
Murder Spree By People Who Refuse To Ask For Directions
by Ann Coulter
In a front-page article on Jan. 2 of this year, The New York Times took a brief respite from its ongoing canonization of Barack Obama and returned to its series on violent crimes committed by returning GIs, or as I call it: "U.S. Military, Psycho Killers."
The Treason Times' banner series about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans accused of murder began in January last year but was quickly discontinued as readers noticed that the Times doggedly refused to provide any statistics comparing veteran murders with murders in any other group.
So they waited a year, hoping readers wouldn't notice they were still including no relevant comparisons.
What, for example, is the percentage of murderers among veterans compared to the percentage of murderers in the population at large -- or, more germane, in the general population of young males, inasmuch as violent crime is committed almost exclusively by young men?
Any group composed primarily of young men will contain a seemingly mammoth number of murderers.
Consider the harmless fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons -- which happens to be played almost exclusively by young males. When murders were committed in the '80s by (1) young men, who were (2) Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts, some people concluded that factor (2), rather than factor (1), led to murderous tendencies.
Similarly, for its series about how America's bravest and finest young men are really a gang of psychopathic cutthroats, the Times triumphantly produced 121 homicides committed by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in order to pin the blame for the murders on the U.S. military.
Perhaps the Times' next major expose could be on how a huge percentage of murderers are people who won't ask for directions or share the TV remote.
Let's compare murders by veterans to murders by other 18- to 35-year-olds in the U.S. population at large.
From 1976 to 2005, 18- to 24-year-olds -- both male and more gentle females -- committed homicide at a rate of 29.9 per 100,000. Twenty-five- to 35-year-olds committed homicides at a rate of 15.8 per 100,000.
Since 9/11, about 1.6 million troops have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. That makes the homicide rate among veterans of these wars 7.6 per 100,000 -- or about one-third the homicide rate for their age group (18 to 35) in the general population of both sexes.
But fewer than 200,000 of the 1.6 million troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been women, and the murder rate for the general population includes both males and females. Inasmuch as males commit nearly 90 percent of all murders, the rate for males in those age groups is probably nearly double the male/female combined rates, which translates to about 30 to 55 murderers per 100,000 males aged 18 to 35.
So comparing the veterans' rate of murder to only their male counterparts in the general population, we see that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are about 10 times less likely to commit a murder than non-veterans of those wars.
But as long as the Times has such a burning interest in the root causes of murder, how about considering the one factor more likely to create a murderer than any other? That is the topic we're not allowed to discuss: single motherhood.
As I describe in my new book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. (The second strongest factor is owning a Dennis Kucinich bumper sticker.)
By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced.
A 1990 study by the left-wing Progressive Policy Institute showed that, after controlling for single motherhood, the difference in black and white crime disappeared.
Various studies come up with slightly different numbers, but all the figures are grim. A study cited in the far left-wing Village Voice found that children brought up in single-mother homes "are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home."
With new children being born, running away, dropping out of high school and committing murder every year, it's not a static problem to analyze. But however the numbers are run, single motherhood is a societal nuclear bomb.
Many of these studies, for example, are from the '90s, when the percentage of teenagers raised by single parents was lower than it is today. In 1990, 28 percent of children under 18 were being raised in one-parent homes -- mother or father, divorced or never-married. By 2005, more than one-third of all babies born in the U.S. were illegitimate.
That's a lot of social problems in the pipeline.
Think I'm being cruel? Imagine an America with 60 to 70 percent fewer juvenile delinquents, teenage births, teenage suicides and runaways, and you will appreciate what the sainted "single mothers" have accomplished.
Even in liberals' fevered nightmares, predatory mortgage dealers, oil speculators and Ken Lay could never do as much harm to their fellow human beings as single mothers do to their own children, to say nothing of society at large.
But the Times won't run that series because liberals adore single motherhood and the dissolution of traditional marriage in America. They detest the military, so they cite a few anecdotal examples of veterans who have committed murder and hope that no one asks for details.
Wild Thing's comment.........
The NYT is trying to post an association of serving in Iraq and murder, when in fact such veterans are less likely to commit this crime than others in the same demographic.
Coulter noted that there is a factual correlation between between single motherhood and numerous social ills. I believe our government with all the programs from the LEFT has done more to encourage this then anything else. Because they want to replace fathers with a government.
Awhile back I did a post about how TV commercials are really ripping apart families. They do all they can to try and make the Dad look stupid, or silly not funny but silly, clumsy, can't do anything. It is a bad thing what they are doiing and it is propaganda. I really believe the far left want to destroy the family. They have tried their best to take over the raising of a child on some subjects that should be left to a parent to discuss with the child for one example.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:47 AM | Comments (16)
January 14, 2009
Attitude is Everything
Attitude is Everything
by Joseph Kinney
........About Joseph Kinney
A native of Kansas, Joseph Kinney joined the Marines after completing high school where he became a infantryman serving in Vietnam. Badly wounded, he was discharged, graduated from college, and became a senior aide in the United States Senate. He is writing a book on the role of church and family in the making of America's warriors. He lives in Pinehurst, NC.
.
Thirty-nine years ago I was shot in an ambush while a Marine on a night patrol in Vietnam. I had potentially fatal wounds to my chest and a serious wound to my right leg. To put matters bluntly, I had never been more terrified in my life. Would I die? And if I died, would I go to heaven? I also thought about the buddies I was leaving behind. Somehow, I wanted to believe that they would be better off without me to slow them down.
The next morning I woke up at a hospital in Da Nang. The doctors told me that my days as a fighting Marine were over. Somehow, I felt that I had more to give but wouldn't get the chance.
My history is relevant only because there are huge differences between then and now when it comes to our Wounded Warriors. For the past couple of years I have had the privilege of knowing Col. Jack Cox (USA, ret.) who is a stalwart in the Wounded Warrior Program at Fort Bragg. He has been a great friend and mentor, and has taken the time to introduce me to some of this generation's wounded.
There are at least two important differences between my generation and the young men I have seen at Fort Bragg's Womack Hospital which is near where I live. For openers, the Army acts as if the wounded person is going to remain forever a soldier. That is their basic operating assumption moving forward. Second, the attitude of these kids is amazing. These brave warriors, no matter how badly wounded they are, believe that they will soon be back with their units fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Today, there are 17 Marines who are amputees fighting in Iraq. I am certain that there are as many soldiers doing the same for the Army.
Recently, I received a widely distributed email from Col (Dr.) Brett Wyrick. He was a trauma surgeon at Balad Air Base in Iraq. He wrote: "If I ever hear (anyone) griping and complaining, I jump into them pretty quickly, now. Most people over here have nothing to gripe about compared to Marines. Marines are different. They have a different outlook on life . . .
"One Marine Private was here for several days because he was a lower priority evacuation patient. He insisted on coming to attention and displaying proper military courtesy every morning when I came through on rounds. He was in a great deal of pain, and it was a stressful to watch him work his way off the bed and onto his crutches. I told him he was excused and did not have to come to attention while he was a patient, and he informed me he was a good Marine and would address '. . . Air Force colonels standing on my feet, sir.' I had to turn away so he would not see the tear in my eye. He did not have 'feet' because we amputated his right leg below the knee on the first night he came in.
"I asked a Marine Lance Corporal if there was anything I could get him as I was making rounds one morning. He was an above the knee amputation after an IED blast, and he surprised me when he asked for a trigonometry book. 'You enjoy math do you?' He replied, 'Not particularly, sir. I was never good at it, but I need to get good at it, now.' 'Are you planning on going back to school?' I asked. 'No sir, I am planning on shooting artillery. I will slow an infantry platoon down with just one good leg, but I am going to get good at math and learn how to shoot artillery.' I hope he does.
"I had the sad duty of standing over a young Marine sergeant when he recovered from anesthesia—despite our best efforts there was just no way to save his left arm, and it had to come off just below the elbow. 'Can I have my arm back, sir?' he asked. 'No, we had to cut it off, we cannot re-attach it,' I said. 'But can I have my arm?' he asked again. 'You see, we had to cut it off.' He interrupted, 'I know you had to cut it off, but I want it back. It must in a bag or something, sir.' 'Why do you want it?' I asked. 'I am going to have it stuffed and use it as a club when I get back to my unit.' I must have looked shocked because he tried to comfort me, 'Don't you worry now, colonel. You did a fine job, and I hardly hurt at all; besides I write with my other hand anyway.'
Now, please tell me that these young guys aren't the Greatest Generation that has ever lived.
Wild Thing's comment........
I have such tremendous respect for those that have served our country, in the past and those in the war we are in now. Everyone of them is a true warrior. I agree with this writer and Marine Joseph Kinney. His writing is powerful and I wish everyone could read this.
Thank you with all my heart to those who have served and are serving now.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:50 AM | Comments (7)
January 12, 2009
"One Pissed-Off Dude" by Gary Graham
One Pissed-Off Dude
by Gary Graham
I’m an American. This has always been my favorite label, but of late even that has seemed to mean less and less. Being called an American used to carry with it a certain pride and esprit de corps that now apparently is dated and passe. How else can one explain the rash of America-haters in our midst who only claim pride in America if a Leftist resides in the White House, and can only back a war effort if the decision to go to war was that of a Democrat.
I’m a Conservative. And I am also an actor who lives and works in Hollywood. Many of my friends advise me to keep that on the down-low, advise me to not speak up lest I scuttle any future employment prospects, so predominantly liberal is the entertainment biz. And yet I persist.
You see, I’m one pissed-off dude.
I’m told I’ll hurt my career if I continually spout off about Liberalism — which I see as a growing cancer in our society. Worldwide, I’ve seen Liberalism metastasize into virulent incarnations of Socialism, and, left unchecked, even into its malignant cousin, Communism. Only the arrogant or the somnambulist would think such a thing could never happen here. It’s a matter of increment. Once a group organizes into a coalition, it’s a short step to claiming the right to the property of another group. All that is necessary is for an individual’s right to personal property to become a secondary concern. The ‘needs’ of the group must supercede, dontcha know. It’s a vicious cycle – wants become needs become rights. The fact that the thievery is done at the behest of a ‘civilized’ government does not sanitize the crime.
“At least the highwayman has the decency to wear a mask.” – Author unknown.
So I’m told I should shut up. I make my living in the Hollywood community, and Hollywood is by and large run by Liberals. I’m told I need to stay quiet when the Left has their way over issues that affect my daily life. I’m told I need to learn how to get along with the Left, learn how to compromise. I need to be more open-minded. I need to be more tolerant.
I say F T S. Ask your 9-yr-old if you have trouble deciphering that. (No, wait, don’t.)
I don’t want to get along with the Left. I want to take them down. I want to expose their idiocy for what it is and reveal it as a harmful, dangerous succession of lies and deceptions. My friends say that that effort, aside from being fruitless, will cost me work. It will cost me my career. And I say Wait-a-minute, Bucko. Those folks who founded this country were willing to risk not only their careers, but their property, their families, their very lives…the least I can do in standing up for our precious freedoms is risk a silly television career. Not to compare myself with the brilliant thinkers who declared themselves independent of England and framed our Constitution…but those were some pretty pissed off dudes too. Compared to that, loss of a little TV or movie work seems pretty inconsequential. So in honor of Pissed Off Americans past and present, I rant.
I’m pissed off that everyone seems okay on having to press one for English. We’re supposed to be tolerant and understanding that maybe some folks who now live here (legally or not) might have trouble understanding what I’m saying to them if I speak in my native tongue, regardless of the extra cost to the rest of us. FTS.
I’m pissed that my sweet well-wishing friends and acquaintances now say “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas. Oh, we don’t want to offend the non-Christians, they’ll say. Again – FTS. ‘Happy Holidays’…nice and non-specific, soothingly generic. In keeping with the spirit of the season, I try not to show it – but I roll my eyes. Jeez, could you be any more spineless? Everybody walk on eggshells for the rest of your lives, living in perptual fear someone who holds a different religion, or sexual preference, or nationality is going to suffer some little offense if you actually wish them a lovely Christmas. “Oh we don’t celebrate Christmas.” “Oh, I’m so terribly sorry, I don’t mean to offend you. Please enjoy the Holiday of Winter Solstice and Earth Renewal Day or whatever your heart leads to celebrate, if indeed you are even feeling like celebrating anything.” Shut up! Smile and say thanks. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Ramadan, Soulful Kwanzaa…whatever. Smile and say Thanks.
Can we all stop taking ourselves so damn seriously for half a minute? Hey – life ain’t a popularity contest. So grow a pair. Speak your mind and if someone can’t handle it, request that they take a hike. How the hell did we ever survive life before the all-knowing, all-caring ACLU began to run interference for all our tender sensibilities? It’s a wonder any of us grew up without some crippling psychosis that drove us to chop up our grandmother. I’m old enough to remember when Common Sense ruled the day. (*cue the Cranky Old Man music)
It irks me that Democrats are always looking to raise my taxes. I’m patriotic if I take it up the bum and don’t squeal. What’s worse, they don’t even have the integrity to call them taxes. They call them ‘fees’, or even, ‘contributions’. As I learned the word, a contribution is a volitional act. Left to free choice, I say I choose to not contribute more than I already do. Let all those who say we are overtaxed stand up with me. Those who think different can form a line to the left…and we on the right will leave you completely free to contribute more. Raising taxes takes food off my family’s table. I regard people who advocate doing so in the same vein as I would the burglar I confront in the dead of night – an enemy.
I’m pissed that I study the political issues of the day, educate myself, stay informed daily by a multitude of news sources from all slants…and yet, come election day, my informed vote is cancelled by some numbskull who votes for the nicest smile, who doesn’t know who the current vice-president is, or which party controls Congress, and what’s more, doesn’t care. Am I the only one who thinks a basic intelligence and general knowledge test should be a prerequisite for voting for our leaders? No? Too radical a notion? Well, then, why not just make the winner of American Idol president and save all the drama? Everyone can text in their vote. And Paula, Randy, and Simon… the new cabinet. “Tonight the State of the Union speech will be sung by the President, backed up by Rascal Flatts…and special guest duet with Secretary of State David Archuleta…”
I’m pissed off by how soft many in our nation have become. How whimpy the tone, how spineless the resolve. What happened to that brutally real notion that people should be held responsible for his or her actions? Nowadays, it always seems to be someone else’s fault, whatever it is. Got a life of poverty, it’s rich folks doing it to you.
Alcohol addiction, substance abuse, your mother never said she loves you. Having trouble finding work, it’s the white, black, purple guys keeping you down. Your car company is going under, it’s the unfair business practices abroad and an economic downturn. Hey, nimrods – newsflash. LIFE IS HARD. The End. Get used to it, suck it up, get some spine, invent some if you have none, and GET ON WITH IT!!!! I’d like to offer, in utter compassion, and speaking on behalf of at least several like-minded bretheren out there, a class-action BITCH-SLAP to every mamby-pamby, limp-wristed douche-bag of a complainer who has the audacity to hope that we hard-working, God-fearing, America-loving taxpayers should be forced to give you one penny of our income to enable you further in your responsibility-shirking, self-destructive habits. Get your collective shiite together, friends. I am not, nor are my friends, my brother’s keeper. Though my heart is open enough to come to someone’s need should an honest and sincere calamity befall a brother or sister… when did destitution become a virtue? Did my snooze button malfunction causing me to oversleep a couple decades? When did begging become a noble venture? You see them standing there bravely, “God bless”and something about ‘can’t find work’ scrawled on their cardboard. Victims of society, of Bush/Cheney, of Ronald Reagan, of any heartless Republican administration. And worse – hey, I’ve seen the sign people on the offramps, I’ve seen the green flow as we assuage our prosperity guilt – these guys are cleaning up! Am I in the wrong business? When, dear friends, did panhandling become a lucrative industry? FTS!
(Side note: I’ve personally offered several of these beggars who had written “Will work for food” to buy them lunch if they’ll do some yard work and fence painting for me, and the reaction was always the same. Hell no! They just want cash, right now! Hmmm…and yet the sign said… Forget about the begging, whatever happened to truth in advertising?)
Who can identify virtue, when there is no shame?
And speaking of shame…have you on the Left no shame when it comes to calling evil EVIL? What’s in a name — a terrorist by any other name is a ‘Jihadist’. A freedom fighter. A rebel. But when are we going to admit that there is an evil movement out there dedicated to our destruction. And it ain’t Sarah Palin and George Bush. It’s radical Islam and they want to cut your personal head off simply because you’re not throwing in with them.
You’re not on your knees worshiping their boy Allah, so for this you and everyone like you all over the world must die and die now. But wait, it’s a ‘religion of peace’, we’re told. Wow, not the last time I looked. If Islam is a religion of peace, where are all the peace-loving Muslim leaders decrying the radicals’ murderous actions? The beheadings, the suicide bombings, the IED’s, the blowing up innocents on buses? Where are the peaceful Islamists’ protests against Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, et al? You are a frog in a pot, Lefty – being boiled slowly, apparently too slowly for you to notice. Too much Climate Change on your mind to notice that the barbarians are at the gate. When the Nazis stormed into Jewish homes in 1939 I’m sure there were more than a few head-in-the sand myopic residents screaming about the troopers tracking mud on the carpet. If only they had had the ACLU to save the day… Human rights and clean carpets surely would have abound.
Speaking of climate change, while we’re at it…if the argument is over…and the facts are clear…how is it we can predict the climate twenty years hence, when we can’t even predict with much accuracy if my ass is going to get wet attending my friend’s kid’s Bar Mitzvah next weekend. When did we give the title to anyone with a PhD in front of their name the added moniker of ‘Soothsayer’? I read Paul Erhlich’s book, THE POPULATION BOMB in the early ‘70’s and it scared the begeebers out of me. By his prediction, each human being in 2008 would have less than a square meter of space to live in. (William F. Buckley voice: “Ahh…Mr. Erhlich was unavailable for comment, ahhh… but stressed the importance of keeping his line clear, lest the Nobel Prize committee call.”) And Mr. Gore – I do believe in Climate Change. It’s called summer, spring, winter and fall. Happens each year whether I drive my SUV or not. FTS!
Before I came up with the inspired notion of tossing my life away and becoming an actor…I was fully ensconsed in the science department at the University of California, Irvine. I know the way it works. The professors confided in me. You need a problem to study, better yet a crisis, or you don’t get funding for your research. It’s that simple. One professor of botany told me that these very high-tech ultra-violet cameras we were frolicking through the fields looking at flowers through cost the University $200 thousand dollars. Off my open-mouthed gape, he shrugged, “Gotta spend the money, or next year they cut us back.” So yeah, you’re going to find a ton of scientists who swear we’re killing the planet…and we desperately need another three million dollars to study the problem.
I’m confident I could find two hundred accredited scientists to join me in an exhaustive study to find out why belly button lint is demagnetizing the moon leading to global flooding…if only Bill Gates will step up with some coin. FTS!
Lastly…can we finally be done with all the hatred? George Bush is very soon to be out of a job. Time to let up on him a bit, don’t you think? Erase the hate, Lefties. You can stop proclaiming him to be the anti-christ, evil incarnate, the boogeyman, Darth Vader, or the Heartbreak of Psoriasis. The guy did his best. Like him, don’t like him, he kept us from attack for seven-and-a-half years so let it go. Your guy is in now, so relax. Have fun again. Laugh without derision. Smile without the snide. You remember how? Take off your flak jackets, it’s going to be okay. Our brave warriors did some serious ass-kicking in the Middle East, and though there’s no shortage of crazy Islamo-fascist bad guys yet to come, at least they know who they’re f*cking with.
Somehow along the way, so many of you forgot one simple, undeniable tenet: We’re the good guys. We’re not imperialists, or else we would’ve nuked the oil countries into radioactive dust, then moved in and taken the oil. We don’t ‘torture’ prisoners, or lawyers for the Gitmo ‘detainees’ would have CNN photographing the horrid scars and missing limbs. We don’t bully smaller, less developed nations. On the contrary, we expend our more precious asset: the blood of our brave, bright and courageous young men and women – all in committed effort to free them from despotic, brutal dictators. We are not brash. In 1991 we amassed a coalition of 34 nations before we acted to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, and this after months and months of negotiations and U.N. resolutions. Twelve years later after waiting six months and seeing fourteen U.N. resolutions ignored by Hussein, George W. Bush had accrued a multi-national coalition and a majority vote in Congress before sending troops into Iraq. We are the big dog on the block. And yet we ask no penance from lesser countries. Instead we offer aid in the form of cash, medicine, and humanitarian help. When we go after bad guys in war, we don’t carpet bomb, or blow up civilian-filled buses. We have smart bombs that pinpoint targets to limit collateral civilian casualites. We’re the good guys. Only an entrenched self-loathing hatred of America will prevent you from seeing that. If that’s the case, you have my sympathy. But don’t let the door hit you on the way out. And yes, this is our country, whether a Democrat of a Republican occupies the White House.
Yeah, a lot of things piss me off. But I’m a ridiculously happy guy. I’m blessed with a wonderful family, terrific friends (many, many of them Liberals, oh yes), a strong Faith in God and a sweet certainty that this nation is on the side of good in the world…and that that good will overcome the bad.
I was asked by the founder of this site to write an article… an ‘opening salvo’. Considering who might read it, and who in Hollywood might be incensed, the temptation to parse words and couch my opinions was strong. But the guy in the mirror counsels me the loudest. I was always impressed with John Hancock, when, reminded that signing one’s name to that Declaration in Pennsylvania could very well lead to their deaths…solemnly stepped forward and with grand flourish signed his name in huge, legible script. In that grand spirit…
I hereby declare my independence…from the small-minded, America-hating, race-bating, Christian-bashing, class-warfare-waging, politically-correct, collectivist, Liberal Hollywood establishment.
Anybody got a problem with that, I’ll mapquest you directions to my front door, we’ll settle it like men.
Wild Thing's comment..........
This is an awesome article! A big thank you to Gary Graham for writing what needed to be said.
Somethiing about Gary you might like to know.
"Gary Graham was born in Long Beach, California and grew up in and around Orange County. The son of a medical doctor, he too aspired to a career in medicine. However, despite showing prowess in the medical sciences, Gary left pre-med to study theater arts at the University of California, Irvine, in the early seventies, before he won his first feature film role opposite George C. Scott in “HARDCORE.” Since that time Gary has appeared in numerous feature films such as “ROBOT JOX”, “THE LAST WARRIOR”, “MAN TROUBLE”, and “HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS”, many TV movies and series, and from 1990 to 1996 starred as Matt Sikes in FOX TV's “ALIEN NATION”. More recently he was seen in recurring roles as Capt. Ingles on “J.A.G.” and as Ambassador Soval in “STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE”. Still active in the film business, Gary now is a producer for the new reality TV show, “THE ULTIMATE SHOOTER” and is working with Jace Hall and HD FILMS at Warner Brothers writing and producing the new internet webseries, “WHAT IF..?” He lives in a small town outside of Los Angeles, where he enjoys spending time with his family, working weekends as a volunteer Ski Patroller, golfing and flying."
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:50 AM | Comments (22)
December 21, 2008
Yes, Delaware There Is A Santa Claus!
Yes, Delaware There Is A Santa Claus!
The DOVER POST
By Darth
Delaware, your disbelieving politically correct friends are incorrect this time. Perhaps they have been bitten by the humbugs from Christmastime past, or have been negatively influenced by modern day Scrooges and Grinches. Yes sir! Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas and Kris Kringle are alive and well!
Oh, what a yuletide joy, to see the faces of children after seeing what Santa Claus has delivered under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning! Only a few hours before, while tucked into their beds, they dreamed about eight rugged reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh from the North Pole skies down to Austrailia, and across the seas to the Hawaiian Islands...
Yes, Delaware, Jolly Old St. Nick exists on radio broadcasts, television shows, movie screens, and can be read about in dictionaries, books, novels and even on the Internet.
More importantly, Santa Claus lives in the hearts and minds of Christmastime believers worldwide. He lives in the writings of Washington Irving, Clement Clarke Moore, Charles Dickens and Thomas Nast.
Not BELIEVE in Santa Claus? You might not as well believe in kindness, goodness, charity and goodwill on earth! True, there are times when Santa Claus can't be seen, but does this mean that he doesn't really exist? I ask you, Delaware, can we really see kindness, charity and goodwill all the time? Can hope and faith be gift-wrapped and sealed with a pretty ribbon or a bow?
NO Santa Claus?
Thank God that Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas and Kris Kringle exist today, and live forever and ever through the ages.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, Delaware!
Wild Thing's comment.......
Thank you Darth for being a part of Team Theodore and for this article.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (4)
December 15, 2008
Dear Car Czar.... by Oliver North
Dear Car Czar
by Oliver North
To Whom It May Concern:
Forgive the ambiguity of the salutation; I didn't know whether to address this missive to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and "Dear Car Czar" just sounded so, well, tacky.
Let's cut to the chase. I need a new car. I'm not asking for a bailout or anything like that. I just need some good advice, and I am hoping one or all of you can help. Here are the facts:
First, we only buy American cars in my family. My dad fought in World War II, and I always have been afraid he would rise up out of the grave and haunt me if I bought one of those Japanese or German machines. Perhaps you can recommend a pill or some kind of counseling for this problem.
I currently am driving an 8-year-old Oldsmobile, and the odometer is pushing a quarter-million miles. Yes, I know that makes me part of the problem. My wife and I just don't buy cars often enough because we don't buy things we can't afford. Silly, I know, but after 40 years of marriage, we're kind of stuck in our ways.
If it makes any difference, in my family we also have a Chrysler PT Cruiser and a Ford truck. They all are paid for, so I guess we don't qualify for federal help in paying them off. And that gets me back to the big question: What kind of car should I get?
During my career, I've driven jeeps, Humvees and even a few tanks. I once owned a Shelby Cobra, but we traded it in for a station wagon when we started having kids. My wife suggested that given my advanced age and the sad state of our economy, I should get a Winnebago. She says that way, if the bank foreclosed on our home, at least we would have a place to live.
I can't get a new Oldsmobile (is that an oxymoron?) because GM doesn't make them anymore. Speaker Pelosi said, "Come March 31, it is our hope that there will be a viable automotive industry in our country." "Hope"? I'm shopping in Virginia. Where is Hope?
In the past when I shopped for a new car, I asked friends about their recent purchases, read newspaper advertisements, paid attention to television or radio commercials, and picked up Car and Driver magazine. After compiling what Washingtonians call a "shortlist," I consulted Consumer Reports to determine how my choices ranked against similar autos. Then I bought what I could afford from a dealer I trusted.
Given what happened on Capitol Hill this week, it's clear that my way of car shopping is hopelessly outdated. Today's experts on the automobile that's best for my family and me are the members of Congress. (Please note that this acknowledgment is not meant as a slight to President-elect Barack Obama, known in our house as "PEBO." During the recent presidential campaign, PEBO admonished us all to keep our tires properly inflated. Thank you for the tip.)
PEBO's help notwithstanding, the recent congressional hearings raised questions I never had thought to ask when car shopping. For example, Sen. Chuck Schumer told auto executives that it is "unacceptable" to continue building cars with internal-combustion engines and that I should be able to buy a "plug-in hybrid electric car." Does Mr. Schumer know of such a car I can afford that would allow me to make my daily 150-mile round trip commute? If I don't make it home, will he give me a ride?
Can you give me a hint as to which of the Big Three automakers Congress will allow to survive? Will you permit the dealer where I purchase a car to stay in business? Should I get the extended warranty?
While driving, I listen to talk radio and would like to have satellite radio installed, but not if Congress is going to insist on the Fairness Doctrine. Will you?
If I get the tow package, will Sen. Chris Dodd accuse me of owning an "inefficient, gas-guzzling" vehicle and of dismissing "the threat of global warming"?
If I put down a minimal deposit at the time of purchase and then wait a few months and default on my loan, will the federal government bail me out? Because the feds will own the automakers, should I call the Department of Transportation or the "car czar" when I need a tuneup?
The best solution for my problem is to have a member of Congress join me while I hunt for a new car. I hope the member you assign can "kick the tires" and answer some of these questions — and one other:
Congress has insisted that auto company executives achieve performance standards or be financially penalized. The CEOs of Chrysler, Ford and GM all are working for $1 per year. Shouldn't congressional pay be adjusted the same way?
Oliver North
Vietnam Veteran
Unit 3rd Battalion 8th Marines
2nd Marine Division
Wild Thing's comment.........
LOL I love this article North wrote.
PEBO = President-elect Barack Obama
Or it could be hahaa
PEBO = Pretend Emperor Behaving Obnoxiously
Hahahaha Love that Oliver North.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:50 AM | Comments (14)
November 17, 2008
Orwell's Children
Orwell's Children
By Bruce Walker
It has been sixty years since George Orwell wrote his chilling dystopian classic, 1984, and it has been thirty years since we saw the creepiest example of educated and free people willingly walking into a living dystopia.
November 18, 1978, three decades ago, 918 people drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. Jim Jones, the communist leader of Jonestown, Guyana, had become "Big Brother." Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda films and condemnations of capitalist and imperialist America blared continually to the subjects of this island of Leftist Hell.
Jonestown ended in mass suicide, but the real horror was that ordinary people, Americans like you and I, had become so decoupled from reality and morality that they could be led to surrender everything, even their lives, intoxicated only with the venom of modern Leftism. These were Orwell's Children.
We are drifting into the sort of horrific future he described. Too many of us for comfort or solace have become just like the denizens of Jonestown: Orwell's children -- a new generation of creature enraged into constant militancy against eternal enemies, oblivious to the notion of a Blessed Creator, melded into the consciousness of the party hive, divorced from history, hypnotized by images, inoculated against reason, stripped of family, and existing only to serve the cause.
Orwell did not write his book in a vacuum. 1984 describes the Soviet Union (the book describes Stalinist Russia so well so that subjects of that evil empire wondered when Orwell had lived there, though he had just described what he saw from the outside.) 1984 also describes Nazism and every other odious totalitarianism, which its secret police and propaganda machine and atomized subjects. But Orwell was very much also writing about the democratic western nations. His book was a warning of what could happen here. Oceania, the only totalitarian superstate actually descried in 1984, was largely America and the British Empire.
There were specific elements necessary for nations with a heritage of freedom to slide into the most absolute and abject slavery. These elements existed in Nazi Germany, they existed in Soviet Russia, and they exist in our free democracies today.
What are the characteristics of the Orwellian state?
Start with God. He must go. The great Russian novelists knew this: "Without God, everything is permitted." In Oceania, God simply does not exist. The Nazis bragged that they would raise a generation "...without ever having heard of the Sermon on the Mount or the Golden Rule, to say nothing of the Ten Commandments." The Soviet persecuted anyone who followed the God of Jews and Christians.
God is hounded in our world today. A generation of Orwell's Children are growing up without thinking about God at all or thinking that God is a silly idea cherished by sillier old fogies.
Truth must go too. Nazis embraced the "Big Lie." Soviets denied that honesty, per se, mattered. In Orwell's Oceania, the Inner Party members learn to even lie to themselves and to hold utterly contradictory beliefs at the same time. Truth and honesty have little meaning to Orwell's Children in our world. All truth is relative, all honesty a sham.
Language must be brought to heel. The Nazis did this by inventing meaningless words like "Aryan science." Marxism foisted upon us words like "capitalism," which means nothing at all but which has so infected our minds that we reflexively use this silly nonsense word instead of freedom. Politically correct language is rampant. We come to view words like "discriminate" as inherently evil, and other words like "viable fetal mass" have replaced the reality of murdered babies.
Image and symbols replace words. Hitler, whose disciples seldom recalled what Hitler said, always recalled the raw imagery of their leader. Stalin's portrait was as inescapable in the Soviet Union as the portrait of Big Brother in Oceania. We live in a word of symbols and images. Conservatives succeed in books and talk radio, media that deal in words. Orwell's Children live in the realm of symbols and images.
Immutable oppressors are the final nasty element in dystopia. Hitler blamed Jews for everything. Stalin blamed kulaks and his enemies in the party for everything. Subjects of Orwell's Oceania saw Emmanuel Goldstein as the eternal, immutable enemy of the party. Today there is a drearily predictable list of oppressors. Christians, men, white people, the "rich" (whatever that is supposed to mean), America, and Israel are oppressors and nothing can ever change that.
Orwell even told us, by name, the professionals who would lead us into the nightmare of 1984: "sociologists," "teachers," "bureaucrats," "journalists," "professional politicians," "scientists," "trade union organizers," "publicity experts," and "technicians." (The term "community organizer" was unknown to him.) Those who enslave were those who taught students, who created the news, who sat in the halls of government power, and who defined official "truth" (at least truth de jour.)
Orwell's Children live among us now, not in tiny numbers in weird Marxist cults like Jim Jones' People Temple, but as leaders of Congress, as the establishment of academia, as the producers of news and entertainment, as the administrators of public schools...
Education, science, technological gadgetry, good medical care - all of this can not stop us from sliding into a massive Jonestown, a realized Oceania, a place marked by Dante's grim caution "Abandon hope, all you who enter here."
We are all anchored in belief, but it is what we believe that matters. We can believe in the lies of Big Brother, which change each day with the needs of the party or we can believe in the truth of a living God. We can become the children of Orwell or the special creatures of God. Everything -- our nation, our world, our families, our communities -- flows from that choice.
Wild Thing's comment........
This is a great and really interesting article, and break down on "Orwell children" so to speak.
How often do we hear in the media where they will not say the word God. They say higher being or some other stupid use of words that imo take away the respect for God. I don't want allah, some stupid cult rock the followers of Islam worship. I don't want a higher being, if I wanted that I would look to Nicholas. heh heh He is awesome. (hmmmmm ...thinking here, I should show him I said that he will smile).
I want my God to be God. And for those Jewish friends of mine G-d to be G-d.
I am so grateful, every day I pray and say thanks for those of all of you in my life, my online family that I know you all and who do I thank????? I thank God not some higher being.
Jim Jones called himself “socialist” in the last will and testament tape made as the Kool Aid was passed. He followed Marx and Lenin and had nothing to with religion in general or Christianity in particular. Her makes it clear on that tape. He hijacked a Christian church to build a Communist commune.
And about education, the Founders believed in promoting education, BUT there's a huge difference between promoting public education and socialized education.
.....Thank you James R McKenna for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (10)
November 16, 2008
American Troops in Afghanistan Through the Eyes of a French OMLT Infantryman
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American troops in Afghanistan through the eyes of a French OMLT infantryman
The US often hears echoes of worldwide hostility against the application of its foreign policy, but seldom are they reached by the voices of those who experience first hand how close we are to the USA. In spite of contextual political differences and conflicting interests that generate friction, we do share the same fundamental values - and when push comes to shove that is what really counts.
Through the eyes of that French OMLT (Operational Mentoring Liaison Teams) infantryman you can see how strong the bond is on the ground. In contrast with the Americans, the French soldiers don’t seem to write much online - or maybe the proportion is the same but we just have less people deployed. Whatever the reason, this is a rare and moving testimony which is why I decided to translate it into English, so that American people can catch a glimpse of the way European soldiers see them. Not much high philosophy here, just the first hand impressions of a soldier in contact - but that only makes it more authentic.
Here is the original French article, and here is the translation : Translation done by to Jean-Marc Liotier.
“We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while - they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy. To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army - one that the movies brought to the public as series showing “ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events”. Who are they, those soldiers from abroad, how is their daily life, and what support do they bring to the men of our OMLT every day ? Few of them belong to the Easy Company, the one the TV series focuses on. This one nowadays is named Echo Company, and it has become the support company.
They have a terribly strong American accent - from our point of view the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I have to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious minutes trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word? Whatever state they are from, no two accents are alike and they even admit that in some crisis situations they have difficulties understanding each other.
Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine - they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them - we are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans.
Here we discover America as it is often depicted : their values are taken to their paroxysm, often amplified by promiscuity and the loneliness of this outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley. Honor, motherland - everything here reminds of that : the American flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other than to hold high and proud the star spangled banner. Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location : books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions : the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.
And they are impressive warriors ! We have not come across bad ones, as strange at it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be. Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy side, all of them provide us everyday with lessons in infantry know-how. Beyond the wearing of a combat kit that never seem to discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet, combat goggles, rifles etc.) the long hours of watch at the outpost never seem to annoy them in the slightest. On the one square meter wooden tower above the perimeter wall they stand the five consecutive hours in full battle rattle and night vision goggles on top, their sight unmoving in the directions of likely danger. No distractions, no pauses, they are like statues nights and days. At night, all movements are performed in the dark - only a handful of subdued red lights indicate the occasional presence of a soldier on the move. Same with the vehicles whose lights are covered - everything happens in pitch dark even filling the fuel tanks with the Japy pump.
And combat ? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all - always coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks : they switch from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with the ennemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting : they just charge ! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask questions later - which cuts any pussyfooting short.
We seldom hear any harsh word, and from 5 AM onwards the camp chores are performed in beautiful order and always with excellent spirit. A passing American helicopter stops near a stranded vehicle just to check that everything is alright; an American combat team will rush to support ours before even knowing how dangerous the mission is - from what we have been given to witness, the American soldier is a beautiful and worthy heir to those who liberated France and Europe.
To those who bestow us with the honor of sharing their combat outposts and who everyday give proof of their military excellence, to those who pay the daily tribute of America’s army’s deployment on Afghan soil, to those we owned this article, ourselves hoping that we will always remain worthy of them and to always continue hearing them say that we are all the same band of brothers”.
Wild Thing's comment........
Oh my gosh I love this write up, what a GREAT write up, awesome. I am so proud of our troops.
A big thank you to the French troops too!!
The photo at the top of the post can be found HERE if you would like to see more photos. They have put a lot of photos there.
....Thank you Tom for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:48 AM | Comments (4)
November 07, 2008
“We are going to lick them out of their boots!” ~ Sheridan
A FLAG, ON A HILL
by Bill Whittle
As Civil War battles went, it was a small and insignificant affair. But in terms of story – and especially, in terms of lessons – it’s one of my favorites.
The war had not yet fully turned in October of 1864. And even though Stonewall Jackson had been dead for well over a year – killed by mistake by his own men at the Battle of Chancellorsville -- the Shenandoah Valley still belonged if not to Jackson then to Jackson’s ghost, for it was there that he and his “foot cavalry” had won their eternal place in Valhalla. Jackson’s tactical brilliance and the endless series of Union routs still hung like clouds of gunpowder in the valleys and hollows of the Shenandoah.
And so it came a no surprise to either the Union or the Confederate soldiers on the banks of Cedar Creek to see, once again, a blue rout – men throwing down rifles and knapsacks and running for their lives, dodging perhaps the few hissing musket balls fired at their backs but completely unable to escape the jeering and the insults and that high, horrible Rebel yell, as that pack of feral wolves descended on their camps, drank their coffee, ate their rations and sat going through their personal effects, admiring photos and reading letters from their sweethearts. Not a loss, but a rout. Another rout. The latest in an ongoing series of routs without end, or so it must have seemed.
The Union general was a young man, new to his command, and who in point of fact had been back in Washington during the defeat. But as he rode toward the sound of the guns that morning, curiosity turned to apprehension, and apprehension to something worse, as he crossed Mill Creek and came upon a low hill, to see before him “the appalling spectacle of a panic-stricken Army.”
Phillip Sheridan was his name, described by Shelby Foote as a man with the face of a Mongol Warlord and a hair so short and dense it made his head look like a bullet with a coat of black paint.
Sheridan’s first instinct was to form a straggler line and prepare for the final Rebel assault. But the Rebels were too busy celebrating. And after he caught his breath, Little Phil noticed something surprising: not a broken and routed army, fleeing for their lives, but small groups of men boiling fresh coffee, speaking to one another calmly and cheering him as he rode by.
One of his aides described him at that moment: “As he galloped on, his features grew gradually set, as those carved in stone, and the same dull red glint I had seen in his piercing eyes when, on other occasions, the battle was going against us, was there now.”
You bet it was.
The closer Sheridan came to the battle, the more cheerful and animated his defeated men became. Encountering a small group of them, Little Phil would stand in the saddle, and give a jaunty salute – as if to congratulate them on a great victory, rather than another humiliating defeat.
The result was electric, if not universal. Amid the cheering, one infantry colonel – whose descendents perhaps would go on to become campaign advisors – stood in Sheridan’s path and begged him not to go on.
“The army’s whipped!” he cried.
“You are, but the army isn’t,” growled Sheridan, who then put the spurs to a horse who’s back was taller than he was and rode to the scene of the disaster, shouting, “About face, boys! We are going back to our camps! We are going to lick them out of their boots!”
His men were not beaten. They just needed leadership.
“We are going to get a twist on those fellows, men!” he shouted, pounding down the pike. “We are going to lick them out of their boots!”
And that’s what he did, too. He and his routed army went back to that field and licked those Rebels right out of their boots.
“Run!” he shouted, standing in the stirrups. “Go after them! We’ve got the God-damnedest twist on them you ever saw!”
Battles don’t always go that way. But sometimes they do. It depends on whether the individual soldier still has any fight in him.
It has been a source of delight for me these past few days to see nothing but evidence of this, all across our defeated lines. Nowhere have I heard a shred of defeatism or despair. On the contrary. In point of fact, the magnanimity and graciousness I have seen in defeat in so many places on the right tells me that this is a eager and seasoned army, one able to look defeat in the face and own up to the errors in tactics and strategy that got us there. And nowhere do I see a call to abandon our core principles and sue for terms, but rather that our loss was caused precisely by our abandonment of the issues we which hold dear and which have served us so well on battlefields past.
So consider this, my fellows in arms:
On Tuesday, the Left – armed with the most attractive, eloquent, young, hip and charismatic candidate I have seen with my adult eyes, a candidate shielded by a media so overtly that it can never be such a shield again, who appeared after eight years of a historically unpopular President, in the midst of two undefended wars and at the time of the worst financial crisis since the Depression and whose praises were sung by every movie, television and musical icon without pause or challenge for 20 months… who ran against the oldest nominee in the country’s history, against a campaign rent with internal disarray and determined not to attack in the one area where attack could have succeeded and who was out-spent no less than seven-to-one in a cycle where not a single debate question was unfavorable to his opponent – that historic victory, that perfect storm of opportunity…
Yielded a result of 53%
Folks, we are going to lick these people out of their boots.
There is much to do. That a man with such overt Marxist ideas and such a history of association with virulent anti-Americans can be elected President should make it crystal clear to each of us just how far we have let fall the moral tone of this Republic. The great lesson from Ronald Reagan was simply that we can and must gently educate as well as campaign, and explain our ideas with smiles on our faces and real joy in our hearts, for unlike the far-left radical who gained the Presidency on Tuesday, we start with 150 million of the most free and intelligent and hard-working people in the history of the Earth at our backs, with a philosophy that -- unlike theirs, which has resulted in 100 million dead in unmarked graves -- has liberated and enriched more people and created more joy than any nation or combination of nations in our history.
How can we lose this greater fight, my friends? How can we lose, unless we give up?
Wild Thing's comment........
A Cedar Creek Conservative? You bet I am. This is excellent, I hope you have time to read it. It will make you feel better and see how different we are too compared to the left when they do not win. We don't give up, we get mad, shocked too, but there is still that what can we do now to win again, to protect our country, to fight back for the Red, White and Blue.
And you know what my wonderful friends? We have the heroes on our side, all those who know the taste of Freedom like none other, our Veterans and troops today.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:45 AM | Comments (16)
October 18, 2008
Gettysburg, PA. A Gift of Hallowed Ground
Battle of Gettysburg, 1883; at Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania
A gift on hallowed ground
GETTYSBURG, Pa.
In 1863, 11 major roads converged on this town. Which is why history did, too.
The founding of the American nation was the hinge of world history: Popular sovereignty would have its day. The collision of armies here was the hinge of American history: The nation would long endure. Which is why 200 or so generous private citizens recently gathered here for a quiet celebration of their gift to the nation — a sparkling new Museum and Visitor Center that instructs and inspires.
In 1997, Bob Kinsley, a contractor in York, Pa., decided that something should be done about the decrepit facilities for explaining the battle and displaying its artifacts. His determination survived more than 50 public meetings and three congressional hearings, and two years of resistance from rival bidders, some Gettysburg merchants and people who think the private sector takes up space that the public sector should fill.
He started the Gettysburg Foundation and hired Bob Wilburn, who had administered Colonial Williamsburg. Wilburn raised the $103 million that built the new center, which includes a theater for the scene-setting film narrated by Morgan Freeman, and the Cyclorama, the circular painting that depicts Pickett's Charge on the battle's third and final day. Americans today are so constantly pummeled by a sensory blitzkrieg — the sights and sounds of graphic journalism and entertainment — they can hardly fathom how the Cyclorama dazzled viewers when displayed in 1884. Magnificently restored and presented, it is still stunning.
The Gettysburg Foundation's work includes recovering battle sites from urban encroachments.
It recently bought the 80-acre Spangler farm. The house, which was behind Union lines, was used as a hospital for both sides. Gen. Lewis Armistead of Virginia died there. He received his mortal wounds during Pickett's Charge, leading the deepest penetration of Union lines on Cemetery Ridge at the spot now known as "the high-water mark of the Confederacy."
Recently, a Gold Star mother visited Gettysburg, after driving by it often en route to visit the Arlington grave of her son, who was killed in Iraq. She was especially moved by these words from a Gettysburg newspaper published four days after the battle:
"Every name . . . is a lightning stroke to some heart, and breaks like thunder over some home, and falls a long black shadow upon some hearthstone."
Gettysburg still stirs, but not as it used to, or should.
In "Intruder in the Dust," William Faulkner wrote:
"For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets. . . ."
Faulkner's sentence continued; you have just read less than half of it. To continue in his style:
Ours would be a better nation if boys and girls of all regions, and particularly the many high school and even college graduates who cannot place the Civil War in the correct half-century, could be moved, as large numbers of Americans used to be, by the names of Gettysburg battlefield sites, such as Devil's Den, the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield, Culp's Hill and Little Round Top, instead of being like the visitor here who said it is amazing that so many great battles, such as Antietam and Chickamauga and Shiloh, occurred on Park Service land; and another visitor who doubted that the fighting here really was fierce because there are no bullet marks on the monuments.
Ten years ago, this column asserted that disrespect for the national patrimony of Civil War battlefields should be a hanging offense, and said:
"Given that the vast majority of Americans have never heard a shot fired in anger, the imaginative presentation of military history in a new facility here is vital, lest rising generations have no sense of the sacrifices of which they are beneficiaries."
Today, at an embarrassing moment of multiplying public futilities, private efforts, in collaboration with the National Park Service, have done something resoundingly right that will help a normally amnesiac nation to long remember.
Wild Thing's comment........
As I was growing up, my Father took us on a vacation every summer. He wanted us to see America and it is something that will be with me always.
He would tell about the history of places as we went to them. When there were tours we would take those as well. Williamsburg,Arlington, the Unknown Soldier, Mount Vernon, battlefields, The Capitol, the many monuments in D.C. , the House of Representatives and the Congress, The White House, and every place across our land that had historical values to the history of our country, and even the UN had a tour we that we took. His pride in our country was contagious and his gratitude for our troops, and our Veterans of all our wars was a passion. The UN tour showed me about translators and how the massive rooms were set up to accommodate each country involved. I remember my Father telling me how wrong it was to have the UN and how it started and was something against our country and one day we would regret it even more then we did back then.
He took us to Boston, one of my favorites perhaps because it was his as well, to Boston College one of the schools he had graduated from and showed me a room with a map in it. A map so massive that one had to walk around it, like the size of a small football field. How it had cities marked with tiny lights that would first be hit in an attack on our country. Places with no names to them that were military places permitted to be known only in a general way of their location. I remember that map as though I am there right now.
The education I will always be so grateful for and when I read articles like this one memories flood my brain and heart as well.
My Father impressed on me how important our countries history was and not just to know our past but to with our future too that might help in knowing the why of things and how dangerous some things can be if allowed to happen.
I am always glad when our historical places are cared for and appreciated. It is sad to me how few care to teach their children, they rely on a teacher at school and simply that is a waste of a dream because our schools do not teach much anymore. Instead they teach sex to kindergarten age kids and condom use to gradeschool children. How to have same sex dress day and teachers taking a class to see them marry a same sex lover as a school field trip., appreciate Muslim day and their Islam and Quran. All these things ripping about our country, weakening it, raping the very history that made us great. Destroying the memories of our founding fathers and so many things. Then we ask why do people fall for an Obama so easily, how can they not, they are brain dead. They know more about rappers then Paul Revere. The go by democrats telling them how weak they are, what losers they are and how the government will ride in and save the day. They grow up believing that Republicans invented and kept alive slavery when it is the Republicans that fought for their freedom.
Instead of bus loads of people being hauled off to voting places, buses should be taken loaded with these people to places of history and teach them the truth. Few know even how our government works , few know how much and how little the Presidents power encompasses. How Congress works and what it is meant to be about, how many Senators there are they don't even know. How there is meaning in every action done at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, what is the Pentagon and why is it built the way it is and what does it do.
Sorry for going on like this, but like I said my brain is flooding with memories and how far we have moved away from so many things as a country and pride in all these things.
....Thank you GM Cassel AMH1(AW) USN RETIRED for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:44 AM | Comments (16)
October 08, 2008
Kenya Holds Corsi 'incommunicado'
Kenya holds Corsi 'incommunicado'
NAIROBI, Kenya – The government of Kenya is holding WND senior staff reporter Jerome Corsi incommunicado at the airport until he departs the country after police shut down a scheduled news conference in which he planned to announce the findings of his investigation into Barack Obama's connections in the country.
Corsi, the author of the No. 1 best-selling book "The Obama Nation," was picked up by authorities at his hotel at 9:45 a.m. and detained at Nyayo House, the provincial headquarters for Nairobi.
"Just as we were about to start the 10 a.m. press conference at the Grand Regency Hotel in Nairobi, Kenyan immigration approached us and detained us," Corsi told WND by telephone this morning. "Tim Bueler, my publicist, and I are now in the immigration offices, with our passports taken. The immigration officer told the press, 'There is no problem, and Dr. Corsi is a friend of Kenya.'"
Corsi and Bueler are booked on a British Airways flight to London tonight, an airline agent confirmed to WND. But Joseph Farah, WND editor and CEO, said he was in touch with Corsi until about 9:30 a.m. Eastern today and has not been able to reach him for several hours.
"We also hear unconfirmed reports from the government claiming it has 'deported' Corsi," Farah said. "Since Corsi was scheduled to leave the country today, this would seem to be a strange action from a government that was well aware of Corsi's presence, his travels and his activities in the country for the last week."
Peter Mbae, a Kenyan publicist who arranged the news conference, told WND he spoke with an immigration officer who confirmed that Ministry of Immigration authorities are holding Corsi and Bueler at the airport until their flight tonight.
Their movements are restricted, and they have no access to telephones, Mbae said, citing the officer.
Corsi had extensive meetings with top Kenyan officials upon his arrival. His visit and his activities during his stay have been well-known to authorities at the highest levels.
A senior immigration official in charge of investigations, Carlos Maluta was quoted by the Associated Press as saying: "We still haven't decided what to do with him."
Despite reports elsewhere to the contrary, Corsi has not been arrested or charged with any offense.
An official with the Embassy of Kenya in Washington said he was unaware of Corsi's detention. The Ministry of Immigration in Nairobi could not be reached for comment. WND tried again, later, to contact a spokesman for the embassy and was told by a receptionist the official word is that Corsi was not detained. "He's enjoying his holiday in Kenya," she said.
Obama has a long history of connections in Kenya, where his father worked as a government economist. Corsi documented this history in his book and went to Kenya to find answers to lingering questions – particularly about the links between the presidential candidate and Kenya Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Corsi had promised a news conference today that would "expose details of deep secret ties between U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and a section of Kenya government leaders, their connection to certain sectoral groups in Kenya and subsequent plot to be executed in Kenya should Senator Obama win the American presidency."
Meanwhile, the management of the hotel where Corsi was scheduled to hold the press conference has repudiated its plans to provide the facility.
In a press release, the hotel said: "We would like to assure our business partners and the public at large that Laico Regency Hotel is a law-abiding institution and does not condone any smear campaigns. The management cannot allow such activities to take place."
Corsi told WND he has been assured he will be released soon. He had planned to leave the country tomorrow, arriving in London first and the U.S. Friday
A hotel worker in Nairobi told Reuters Corsi was picked up as soon as he walked into the hotel for the scheduled press conference: "He was walking in and then some immigration officers who were following him snatched him. It happened so fast, they just vanished with him."
"Obama is revered in Kenya for his paternal roots here and as a flagbearer for Africa on the international stage," explained the Reuters dispatch.
Kenyan TV station KTN said Corsi may be sent home due to lack of a work permit. However, Corsi met with top officials in Nairobi earlier this week explaining in detail the purpose of his visit and sharing copies of his news releases and books.
UPDATE:
DISPATCH FROM NAIROBI
Sendoff to Corsi: 'See you in hell'
Soldiers with automatic weapons detain author of 'Obama Nation'
Posted: October 07, 2008
8:00 pm Eastern
NAIROBI, Kenya – WND senior staff reporter Jerome Corsi today was refused permission to hold a scheduled news conference about his investigation into Barack Obama's Kenyan links by Kenyan immigration officials and soldiers armed with automatic weapons who then took him to his departure flight and made it clear he was not welcome to return.
"Don't ever come back. See you in hell," Corsi reported an unidentified official told him as the author of the No. 1 best-selling book "The Obama Nation" was delivered to a flight departing from Nairobi for London.
Corsi documented the ordeal and dispatched a report to WND from his telephone later in the brief period between the time authorities returned his belongings in preparation for his departure and when the British Airways jet took off.
"We were detained and lied to all day," Corsi wrote. "The immigration officer at the hotel 15 minutes before the press conference this morning said we only needed to come to the immigration headquarters downtown for a few minutes and that we would be back to the hotel for the press conference with only a few minutes delay."
That, however, was not to be the case, as Corsi and Bueler would find out soon after they left their hotel.
"We got brought to immigration headquarters by what turned out to be about a dozen immigration officers plus military armed with automatic rifles," he reported. "Tim got placed in the back of the vehicle and was surrounded by the armed military. I was in the front between the driver and the top immigration officer who first identified himself at the hotel."
Kenyan authorities took their cell phones and passports, even while explaining the Americans were "not under arrest."
Hours later, two lawyers appeared before the author and his publicist, although they had not been requested.
"About 1:30, the chief immigration officer demanded we accompany him immediately to the airport – we were told immigration needed to verify our air tickets, which always were for this flight tonight," Corsi wrote. "The tickets were always e-tickets and could easily be validated by computer from anywhere."
But Kenyan immigration officials then explained the men's entry cards had been "lost" and that Corsi and Bueler had to be at the airport to help investigate what happened.
In addition to being held incommunicado, the two also were held without food.
"We were offered no food until Tim began feeling a problem with his blood sugar, then around 2:30 p.m. the head immigration people allowed one of the immigration officials to accompany us so we could have 'no more than 15 minutes' to buy something to eat,'" Corsi wrote.
Eventually, they were taken from the holding facility to the airport.
"We were led out of headquarters by [the] back stairs and elevators, to avoid the press that had followed us to headquarters and was still waiting for interviews," Corsi reported.
"We went to the airport via armed caravan," Corsi added, and on arrival the two Americans were told to go into a "holding cell" already containing other possible deportees.
"We refused, demanding to know if we were being charged with any offenses, where our lawyers had gone, and why we had to be locked up, when all day we had been lied to and told we would be released 'soon,'" Corsi reported.
The instructions to go into the holding cell were repeated several times, always without success, he said.
Late in the afternoon the two were told they would be allowed to board the British Airways flights to London and "that we had committed no offenses and were not being deported," said Corsi.
But authorities still kept the cell phones and passports.
"About 6 p.m. our lawyer arrived with our luggage, which we had not been allowed to go get or pack," Corsi wrote. "We had no place or opportunity to consult with the lawyer, who was asked to leave once we got our bags."
A brief meeting with Richard Nicholson, the vice consul in the U.S. embassy followed.
"He, too, confirmed we had done nothing wrong and were not being deported," Corsi wrote.
It was shortly after that, when authorities returned Corsi's cell phone, that he was able to provide this report as the British Airways flight prepared for departure for London.
Wild Thing's comment............
Obama using his pull in Kenya. Looks like Obama and his thugs are out to muzzle anyone and everyone who comes up with info about B.Hussein Obama's past.
....Thank you Mark for the article.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:47 AM | Comments (4)
September 25, 2008
GREAT Ann Coulter Article
They gave your mortgage to a less qualified minority
by Ann Colulter
On MSNBC this week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter tried to connect John McCain to the current financial disaster, saying: "If you remember the Keating Five scandal that (McCain) was a part of ... He's really getting a free ride on the fact that he was in the middle of the last great financial scandal in our country."
McCain was "in the middle of" the Keating Five case in the sense that he was "exonerated." The lawyer for the Senate Ethics Committee wanted McCain removed from the investigation altogether, but, as the New York Times reported: "Sen. McCain was the only Republican embroiled in the affair, and Democrats on the panel would not release him."
So John McCain has been held hostage by both the Viet Cong and the Democrats.
Alter couldn't be expected to know that: As usual, he was lifting material directly from Kausfiles. What is unusual was that he was stealing a random thought sent in by Kausfiles' mother, who, the day before, had e-mailed: "It's time to bring up the Keating Five. Let McCain explain that scandal away."
The Senate Ethics Committee lawyer who investigated McCain already had explained that scandal away – repeatedly. It was celebrated lawyer Robert Bennett, most famous for defending a certain horny hick president a few years ago.
In February this year, on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," Bennett said, for the eight billionth time:
"First, I should tell your listeners I'm a registered Democrat, so I'm not on (McCain's) side of a lot of issues. But I investigated John McCain for a year and a half, at least, when I was special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the Keating Five. ... And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of, it is John McCain is an honest man. I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him."
It's bad enough for Alter to be constantly ripping off Kausfiles. Now he's so devoid of his own ideas, he's ripping off the idle musings of Kausfiles' mother.
Even if McCain had been implicated in the Keating Five scandal – and he wasn't – that would still have absolutely nothing to do with the sub-prime mortgage crisis currently roiling the financial markets. This crisis was caused by political correctness being forced on the mortgage lending industry in the Clinton era.
Before the Democrats' affirmative-action lending policies became an embarrassment, the Los Angeles Times reported that, starting in 1992, a majority-Democratic Congress "mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains."
Under Clinton, the entire federal government put massive pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton's secretary of housing and urban development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low- to moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001.
Instead of looking at "outdated criteria," such as the mortgage applicant's credit history and ability to make a down payment, banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named "Caylee."
Threatening lawsuits, Clinton's Federal Reserve demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage. That isn't a joke – it's a fact.
When Democrats controlled both the executive and legislative branches, political correctness was given a veto over sound business practices.
In 1999, liberals were bragging about extending affirmative action to the financial sector. Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein hailed the Clinton administration's affirmative-action lending policies as one of the "hidden success stories" of the Clinton administration, saying that "black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded."
Meanwhile, economists were screaming from the rooftops that the Democrats were forcing mortgage lenders to issue loans that would fail the moment the housing market slowed and deadbeat borrowers couldn't get out of their loans by selling their houses.
A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted, food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed. Democrats set an affirmative-action time bomb, and now it's gone off.
In Bush's first year in office, the White House chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, warned that the government's "implicit subsidy" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, combined with loans to unqualified borrowers, was creating a huge risk for the entire financial system.
Rep. Barney Frank denounced Mankiw, saying he had no "concern about housing." How dare you oppose suicidal loans to people who can't repay them! The New York Times reported that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "under heavy assault by the Republicans," but these entities still had "important political allies" in the Democrats.
Now, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, middle-class taxpayers are going to be forced to bail out the Democrats' two most important constituent groups: rich Wall Street bankers and welfare recipients.
Political correctness had already ruined education, sports, science and entertainment. But it took a Democratic president with a Democratic Congress for political correctness to wreck the financial industry.
OH and one more thing I just saw this photo of Ann, I thought you might like to see it.
Wild Thing's comment..........
"A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted, food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed. "
I love how she puts things .
Ann coulter BRILLIANTLY (again) lays out the facts that it was DEMOCRAP policies that caused this mess.
Obamarama should be SCARED S***LESS that this will be made public.
I wish they would READ this on FOX and put it on the front of every newspaper!!!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 PM | Comments (4)
September 09, 2008
The Loony Left Hemisphere by Russ Vaughn
The Loony Left Hemisphere
James Lewis in his September 6th posting, ‘The End of Boomer Weirdness,” sent me scrambling to Wikipedia to find the meaning of the term hebephrenic. What I found there led me to this:
A form of schizophrenia in which affective changes are prominent, delusions and hallucinations fleeting and fragmentary, behavior irresponsible and unpredictable, and mannerisms common. The mood is shallow and inappropriate and often accompanied by giggling or self-satisfied, self-absorbed smiling, or by a lofty manner, grimaces, mannerisms, pranks, hypochondriacal complaints, and reiterated phrases.
Upon reading that, the first light bulb that popped on was, Alan Colmes! followed closely by, Ellis Henican and Bob Beckel!” But then with further reflection, I realized that many, if not all, of these diagnostic terms could be applied fairly to far too many of the liberal spokespersons we see on television, in particular the references to self-satisfied, self-absorbed smiling, or by a lofty manner, grimaces. Just think of all the smug, smarter-than-thou, liberal talking heads those words describe: Olbermann, Matthews, those View broads, all through the major networks, ad infinitum. And consider how the self-satisfied smile usually comes at the end of a successful rattling off of a string of memorized DNC talking points. The lofty manner and grimaces accompany the rebuttals from their conservative counterparts.
Think about what you’ve been watching for the last few years and tell me I’m wrong.
Now he’s not one of my favorite talk show hosts because of his bombastic style but, to his credit, Michael Savage has been saying for several years that Liberalism is a mental disorder. I believe I’m beginning to agree with him. Suddenly, expressions like Loons on the Left and Kool Aid Drinkers are beginning to take on new meaning. Lewis, in his AT article cites Polish scientist and author, Count Alfred Korzybski who coined the term unsanity to describe this sort of collective, unhinged behavior by entire segments of society. By the Count’s accounting, they may not be certifiably, committably insane but they are definitely operating with far too many screws loose. That’s not the Count’s medical terminology, by the way, but mine.
When I talk to family members and friends who are readily sucking up Obama’s version of Jim Jones’ purple, Flavor-Aid cocktails, I am aware that no amount of reasoning is going to sway them from their feelings that Obama is The One. What does provide a ray of hope and sanity is that those truly unsane are still in the minority and suddenly an antidote has arrived for those only minimally afflicted: Sarah Palin.
The Glamorous Gov, possesses an oft-noted, naughty librarian look that conceals an iron-willed political competence that when they get glimpses of it in her public pronouncements is turning the unsane on the left totally insane. Just when Us magazine, with their frothing denunciation of McCain’s butt-kickin’ BatGirl thinks they have her teetering on the edge of the topmost floor of the New York Times Building, they look down and its their own toes they see tottering feebly on the edge of the abyss. Holy Palony, Pinch!!! What mystical powers are we up against???
And Pinchy Boy’s New York Times, which is the institutional exemplification of full-blown, beyond treatable hebephrenia, has deployed a battalion (or is it a brigade? Libs have problems with math and military terms, you know) of investigative reporters to the Far North to dig up dirt on the Gov which could explain their lack of manpower to send any investigative reporters to Chicago to conduct any sort of professional journalistic probe of the nefarious Daly Machine which has seemingly produced a presidential candidate out of thin air with an even thinner résumé. All of which leaves me to ponder:
Has the whole damned world gone crazy? Nope, just the freakin’ Left Hemisphere.
Russ Vaughn
Vietnam 65-66
....Thank you so much Russ.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (6)
September 01, 2008
The Hostess With The Moosest by Mark Steyn
The hostess with the moosest
Over in the Frumistan province of the NR caliphate, our pal David is not happy about the Palin pick. I am - for several reasons.
First, Governor Palin is not merely, as Jay describes her, "all-American", but hyper-American. What other country in the developed world produces beauty queens who hunt caribou and serve up a terrific moose stew? As an immigrant, I'm not saying I came to the United States purely to meet chicks like that, but it was certainly high on my list of priorities. And for the gun-totin' Miss Wasilla then to go on to become Governor while having five kids makes it an even more uniquely American story. Next to her resume, a guy who's done nothing but serve in the phony-baloney job of "community organizer" and write multiple autobiographies looks like just another creepily self-absorbed lifelong member of the full-time political class that infests every advanced democracy.
Second, it can't be in Senator Obama's interest for the punditocracy to spends its time arguing about whether the Republicans' vice-presidential pick is "even more" inexperienced than the Democrats' presidential one.
Third, real people don't define "experience" as appearing on unwatched Sunday-morning talk shows every week for 35 years and having been around long enough to have got both the War on Terror and the Cold War wrong. (On the first point, at the Gun Owners of New Hampshire dinner in the 2000 campaign, I remember Orrin Hatch telling me sadly that he was stunned to discover how few Granite State voters knew who he was.) Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are more or less the same age, but Governor Palin has run a state and a town and a commercial fishing operation, whereas (to reprise a famous line on the Rev Jackson) Senator Obama ain't run nothin' but his mouth. She's done the stuff he's merely a poseur about. Post-partisan? She took on her own party's corrupt political culture directly while Obama was sucking up to Wright and Ayers and being just another get-along Chicago machine pol (see his campaign's thuggish attempt to throttle Stanley Kurtz and Milt Rosenberg on WGN the other night).
Fourth, Governor Palin has what the British Labour Party politician Denis Healy likes to call a "hinterland" - a life beyond politics. Whenever Senator Obama attempts anything non-political (such as bowling), he comes over like a visiting dignitary to a foreign country getting shanghaied into some impenetrable local folk ritual. Sarah Palin isn't just on the right side of the issues intellectually. She won't need the usual stage-managed "hunting" trip to reassure gun owners: she's lived the Second Amendment all her life. Likewise, on abortion, we're often told it's easy to be against it in principle but what if you were a woman facing a difficult birth or a handicapped child? Been there, done that.
Fifth, she complicates all the laziest Democrat pieties. Energy? Unlike Biden and Obama, she's been to ANWR and, like most Alaskans, supports drilling there.
Sixth (see Kathleen's link to Craig Ferguson below), I kinda like the whole naughty librarian vibe.
.
Wild Thing's comment............
Great Mark Steyn piece... as usual he nails it to the wall.
An American War Hero and an American Female Pioneer Hero vs A Communist Wannabe and a career Socialist.
....Thank you Rhod for telling me about this newest writing by Mark Steyn.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:47 AM | Comments (8)
August 24, 2008
Obama's Swift Boat? by Russ Vaughn
Obama's Swift Boat?
A week ago an old Marine buddy sent me a link to a You tube video that after viewing it, caused me to sit momentarily stunned by the horror of what I had just seen and heard. The video was that of nurse, Jill Stanek, who had in a completely straightforward and highly effective manner related how she had cradled a dying infant that had been dumped in the dirty laundry room of the Chicago hospital where she worked, following an abortion procedure the unfortunate baby had just survived.
Stanek's wrenching account of how that baby had fought for forty-five minutes to live but finally died in her arms, is one of those rare experiences that reaches into you and grabs you like a heart attack. If you have not seen it by now, here it is:
If you come away from that video with less than a heavy heart, I don't think you'd be someone I'd care to number among my friends. Do not, however, think that I am some kind of hard core, under any and all circumstances pro-life conservative because I'm not. However, I am adamantly opposed to the cold, heartless infanticide depicted in this video and I am totally opposed to any politician who would permit it to be public policy as Barack Obama apparently did while serving in the Illinois Senate.
While watching Sean Hannity interview Ms. Stanek, it suddenly occurred to me, Jill Stanek could very well be Obama's Swift Boat Veteran. Her recounting of how Obama coldly disregarded her heartfelt testimony regarding the issue of these induced labor abortions and the horrifying consequences which she had personally experienced as a result, gives us a glimpse into the heart of this so-called Messiah that is nothing less than chilling. I believe every American who views that video can't help but come away from it with questions about whether or not this is the kind of man we want as the leader of our nation.
But then, we must realize, he was merely a state senator and not a presidential candidate so decisions about leaving live infants alone in a hospital's cold, dirty laundry room to helplessly die without any human warmth, love or contact were obviously above Mr. Obama's pay grade.
Last week at Saddleback, he reminded us they still are.
Russ Vaughn
Vietnam 65-66
.....Thank you Russ. This is so important!!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (21)
August 18, 2008
"The Clueless White Guy Vote" by Russ Vaughn
The Clueless White Guy Vote
Contrary to their politically correct aims, the advertising industry in this country has created a voting bloc that I am positively sure they never intended. I refer to all us Clueless White Guys, that resentful constituency that for years has endured a constant onslaught of television commercials in which the white male is always the bumbling buffoon, while minority males, black, Asian and Hispanic are always the cool, in-tune, in-the-know dudes who always, effortlessly get it, whatever it may be.
Variations include the Clueless White Guy being totally oblivious to the obvious worth or value of whatever is being sold in the commercial while his wife or some other female, usually a racial minority, demonstrates with over-done grimaces or knowing smiles just what a total and complete dumbass the white guy is.
I have no children so I've never had to suffer the indignity of spending an evening watching television with my kids where at least every fifteen minutes or so that demographic which I represent is subjected to ridicule by the corporate sponsors of the programs I'm watching. Still, I have to wonder, don't those fools realize the influence fathers have on the buying decisions made by their families? Don't any of the corporate wunderkind ever question the wisdom, or lack thereof, of insulting that demographic which controls the buying decisions, especially of big-ticket items, in a majority of American households, especially the most affluent ones?
And yes, I know, it's just all in good fun and to take offense is being silly and hypersensitive, or at least that's what all these advertising whizzes would be quick to tell us were we ever to mount an organized protest. And I would agree if such commercials were merely sometime things and if black, Hispanic and Asian husbands and fathers were depicted occasionally as hapless losers, just like their white counterparts; but that's not the case.
In fact, this phenomenon has become so widespread that even my wife now sits and shakes her head ruefully when we see it played out again and again. And that brings up another issue, the ancillary effect of such advertising where it has become so prevalent that now the offense extends to those family members who happen to love their white fathers and husbands and are fed up with seeing them constantly portrayed as maladroit dopes.
So all you smug, elitist, politically correct liberals in the business of making these commercials should give some thought to the inestimable backlash voting bloc that you have cluelessly created out here with your steady drumbeat of ridicule of white males. Take just a moment to wonder as to just how many clueless white males, their wives and their adult children are going to go into the voting booth in November and express their frustration with your constant condescension by the only means available to them:
Their vote for the only white male in the race, the one the media loves to portray as clueless.
And it's not because they are racists that these folks will vote this way; to the contrary, many white Americans who might have voted for a first black president will not do so precisely due to their heretofore, unexpressed resentment of your unceasing, smug portrayals and precisely to prove you wrong. In fact, I'm wondering how many white males may go into the booth intending to vote for Obama and at the last minute remember a particularly insulting commercial and think, "Well, screw them!"
This reaction may be comparable to the reasoning we hear from the liberal media who claim that the 93% of blacks reporting their support for The One are not racists. We hear that this is a completely understandable skewing, given the history of oppression endured by that demographic and their need to find a champion to advance the healing process. Please don't think I'm trying to equate the malignance of slavery and Jim Crow with this current campaign of ridiculing of white males, which does indeed pale in comparison. But before you accuse us of whining, consider this: if we are whiners, why have you not heard more complaints, earlier and louder from this caricatured cohort? We have endured the indignities with graceful (dare I say manly) silence and only now have I raised the issue in the context of how it relates to the coming election.
If you creators of these commercials think you are cleverly and harmlessly assuaging the resentment of minorities by constantly and very publicly maligning white males, you are badly mistaken. You are only transferring resentment from one group to another and in doing so may be creating a backlash vote not against the first black presidential candidate for his race but rather a protest vote against yourselves, the too politically correct media industry that slavishly supports him. On a broader scale, the overt bias in the news media for any Democrat candidate may be creating a similar backlash vote and for similar reasons, but that's a topic for another article.
All of this, your mocking of white males and your idolizing of The One, will result in yet one more demonstration of that fatal flaw in too many liberal minds, the inability to foresee the unintended negative consequences of your supposedly good intentions: the clueless white guy vote.
We'll just have to wait until November to see if I'm right.
Russ Vaughn
Vietnam 65-66
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Wild Thing's comment...........
It has always bugged me how fathers and men are portrayed on television, in the ads and in sitcoms. They make men look like they could not do anything and that men are stupid, clumsy, helpless fools.
A couple of years ago I noticed it had begun and then last year it got even worse and showed up more often, to the point a person would have to be brain dead not to notice what is such obvious propaganda to dumb down America, the family and the leadership of the man in the home. I have ranted about it just to the TV haha but it has really been getting worse and worse.
I realize how things happen, slowing, inch by inch, step by step things like this worm their way into the mind of the public then one day what was thought to be just stupid ads we find more and more people believing this baloney.
Then we hear talk shows with liberals telling us how men are no longer leaders in the home, how the home itself has changed and how yes government is needed to take the leadership to run the lives of the citizens.
Children taught to disrespect the father in the home simply by propaganda they see on TV, that insults the man of the house.
Sooooo I am thrilled that Russ wrote this, I think it is excellent.
....Thank you Russ
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:45 AM | Comments (7)
August 03, 2008
A Personal Note from John O'Neill Regarding New Obama Book
The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate
A Personal Note from John O'Neill
Dear Friend,
As you may recall, I was privileged to play a role in helping prevent John Kerry from being elected president when my fellow Swift Boat Veterans and I released the book Unfit for Command. As liberal as Kerry was, America faces an even more liberal threat today: Barack Obama. Fortunately, investigative journalist and National Review Online political reporter David Freddoso has written the book every voter needs to read: The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate.
Uncovering stories the mainstream media has neglected, Freddoso reveals Obama for who he really is: the U.S. senator with the #1 most liberal voting record in the Senate. And a politician whose rhetoric of "change" does not match the reality of his corrupt, "Chicago-machine politics" background.
Moving past Obama's inspiring speeches and say-anything-to-win campaign tactics, Freddoso outlines Obama's extreme, far-left legislative record and his questionable associations with both criminals and radicals. From Obama's repeated support for the Chicago patronage system, to his hard-line position of no restrictions on abortion, The Case Against Barack Obama offers the cold, hard facts about this man who would be our next president.
As American citizens, it is our right and duty to question the background, character, and proposals of any candidate who could be our next commander in chief. Democrats and the media are not holding Obama accountable, so conservatives must. I'm grateful to David Freddoso and my publisher, Regnery, for finally revealing the man behind the myth.
I urge you to read The Case Against Barack Obama. I also recommend that you buy copies for your friends and relatives who may consider voting for Obama. They deserve to know the truth, too.
Please click on one of the links below to order your copy today.
Sincerely,
John O'Neill
Wild Thing's comment.........
I am glad all these books are coming out now. I guess they wait till it gets closer to the elction to get these out in the stores.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:45 AM | Comments (4)
August 01, 2008
Jerome R. Corsi’s New Book “The Obama Nation”
Jerome R. Corsi’s new book “The Obama Nation”
The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality by Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D. In this thoroughly researched and documented book, the No. 1 New York Times bestselling co-author of “Unfit for Command” and senior staff reporter for WND explains why the extreme leftism of an Obama presidency would leave the United States weakened, diminished and divided, and why Obama must be defeated — and how he can be. By tracing Obama’s career and influences from his early years in Hawaii and Indonesia, the beginnings of his political career in Chicago, his voting record in the Illinois Legislature, his religious training, his religious conversion through his recent involvement in Kenyan politics, his political advisers and fund-raising associates and his meteoric campaign for president, Jerome Corsi shows that an Obama presidency would, in his words, be “a repeat of the failed extremist politics that have characterized and plagued Democratic Party politics since the late 1960s.” Corsi examines: Obama’s extensive connections with Islam and radical politics. Wild Thing's comment....... Corsi was on Hannity's show last night. He was excellent!!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM
| Comments (4)
My concerns for America Obama sowing socialist seeds in young people by Jon Voight We, as parents, are well aware of the importance of our teachers who teach and program our children. We also know how important it is for our children to play with good-thinking children growing up. Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset. The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America. The Democrats have targeted young people, knowing how easy it is to bring forth whatever is needed to program their minds. I know this process well. I was caught up in the hysteria during the Vietnam era, which was brought about through Marxist propaganda underlying the so-called peace movement. The radicals of that era were successful in giving the communists power to bring forth the killing fields and slaughter 2.5 million people in Cambodia and South Vietnam. Did they stop the war, or did they bring the war to those innocent people? In the end, they turned their backs on all the horror and suffering they helped create and walked away. Those same leaders who were in the streets in the '60s are very powerful today in their work to bring down the Iraq war and to attack our president, and they have found their way into our schools. William Ayers is a good example of that. Thank God, today, we have a strong generation of young soldiers who know exactly who they are and what they must do to protect our freedom and our democracy. And we have the leadership of Gen. David Petraeus, who has brought hope and stability to Iraq and prevented the terrorists from establishing a base in that country. Our soldiers are lifting us to an example of patriotism at a time when we've almost forgotten who we are and what is at stake. If Mr. Obama had his way, he would have pulled our troops from Iraq years ago and initiated an unprecedented bloodbath, turning over that country to the barbarianism of our enemies. With what he has openly stated about his plans for our military, and his lack of understanding about the true nature of our enemies, there's not a cell in my body that can accept the idea that Mr. Obama can keep us safe from the terrorists around the world, and from Iran, which is making great strides toward getting the atomic bomb. And while a misleading portrait of Mr. Obama is being perpetrated by a media controlled by the Democrats, the Obama camp has sent out people to attack the greatness of Sen. John McCain, whose suffering and courage in a Hanoi prison camp is an American legend. Gen. Wesley Clark, who himself has shame upon him, having been relieved of his command, has done their bidding and become a lying fool in his need to demean a fellow soldier and a true hero. This is a perilous time, and more than ever, the world needs a united and strong America. If, God forbid, we live to see Mr. Obama president, we will live through a socialist era that America has not seen before, and our country will be weakened in every way.
This is really a good column he wrote. Voight has been boldly speaking out against the Marxist positions of Barack Obama for awhile now. It takes big cojones for a Hollywood actor to speak out against socialists.It is too bad the way the showbiz industry is so socialist and communist. So this is extra nice to see this when an actor takes a stand.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:45 AM
| Comments (8)
His 20-year religious affiliation with the black-liberation theology of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama’s continuing connections with Kenya.
Obama’s involvement in the slum-landlord empire of Chicago political fixer Tony Rezko.
Obama’s far-left domestic policy.
Obama’s anti-war, anti-nuclear foreign policy.
Soon after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Corsi began investigating Obama’s personal and political background. This book, with more than 700 footnotes, is the result.
July 31, 2008
"My concerns for America" by Jon Voight
Wild Thing's comment.......
....Thank you Jack. Jack's blog is
Conservative InsurgentJuly 28, 2008
"When Barry Comes Flyin' Home Again.." by Russ Vaughn
"Best appreciated when humming the tune of the popular Civil War song, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again," or the Irish folk classic, "Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye."
Also, with sincere apologies to my Hibernian forbears whose folk lyrics and music I keep misusing for political purposes. Somehow, however, I think their Irish eyes are smiling." --- Russ Vaughn
.
When Barry Comes Flyin' Home Again...
When Barry was comin' to see the troops, hooah, hooah;
The brass they made us jump through hoops, hooah, hooah.
With sand in our boots in sweat in the eye,
We stood in the sun ‘til we liked to die,
But it all was for naught, cause, "Barry we never saw ye."
He met all the generals sure as life, hooah, hooah;
He picked their brains about the strife, hooah, hooah.
But a private soldier he never met,
He's comin' home an' he still ain't yet,
But all we can say is, "Barry we never saw ye."
Our wounded off to Landstuhl go, hooah, hooah;
To stabilize there for America, Ho! hooah, hooah.
But Barry there ignored our troops,
To go to the gym and shoot some hoops,
So all our wounded can say is, "Barry we never saw ye."
So this whole damned trip was just a show, hooah, hooah,
Using us troops to make it so, hooah, hooah,
He wants to be our commander in chief
But has of our mission no true belief,
So all we can say is, "Barry the devil with ye."
When Barry comes flyin' home agin' hooah, hooah
We'll remember how Barry used us then, hooah, hooah
And vote for the warrior who bore the pain,
Who earned our respect that's John McCain,
And we'll all be verily sayin' "Barry we never saw ye."
Russ Vaughn
Vietnam 65-66
....Thank you Russ.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (9)
July 16, 2008
If The Left Wins
What Liberals Dream Of
by David Strom
Conservatives are in a funk—one that threatens to turn into a full-blown retreat from the battlefield of ideas.
Everywhere I turn I encounter conservatives ready to give up for the next few years. After all, many of us rightly feel a bit betrayed by our elected officials given how badly they performed over the past few years. And many conservatives are hoping that two or four years of liberals actually running things will wake America to the dangers they face.
It’s hard to blame people who feel that way, but they couldn’t be more wrong.
Even a mere two or four years of liberal ascendency in Washington policymaking could do immeasurable damage to our economy and our freedoms—damage that could take years or decades to repair, if ever. Once a liberal policy is in place it is almost impossible to reverse it.
Don’t think that a few years of liberals in charge is that dangerous? Just take a moment to consider what liberals dream of doing once they gain absolute power.
There is no aspect of our lives—none—that today’s liberals concede is off limits to the meddling use of government power. In their vision there is no dividing line between the public sphere and the private sphere. Limited government is a concept that makes no sense to them......
Energy policies are just the tip of the iceberg—although control over energy gives government control over pretty much the entire economy already.
In a world run by liberals literally no aspect of our lives will be outside the legitimate regulation of government. That is because anything—even what temperature you like to keep your house—can be turned into a matter of legitimate public concern.
Everything we do, including breathing, eating and of course procreating, can be argued to have an impact on those around us or the great mother earth. And if it affects others, it can and should be regulated by those who know best, at least according to the liberals.
Liberals want to regulate just about everything: where we live, what fuels we use, what car we drive, whether we can drive or be forced to use government mass transit, where we send our kids to school, what doctor we see, and even to what extent we express our approval or disapproval of others’ lifestyles. It’s hard to find something liberals don’t want to regulate.
Is that a world you want to live in?”
Whatever our personal feelings, conservatives simply can’t afford to indulge in the funk many of us have fallen into. The price we pay for handing absolute power over to liberals is just too high.
What’s at stake are the very concepts of personal liberty and limits to government power.
We can’t afford to just walk away from this fight.
Wild Thing's comment........
This is excellent we saw what happened with Carter he gave away fthe Panama Canal do we have it back? No.
We saw what happened when Bill Clinton personally approved the transfer to China of advanced space technology that can be used for nuclear combat. source HERE
The documents show that in 1996 Clinton approved the export of radiation hardened chip sets to China. The specialized chips are necessary for fighting a nuclear war. And all the other things he did against that were against America and help for China.
And of course none of that was able to be reversed either.
Add in to that facter what Clinton did to our military, downsizing it.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:45 AM | Comments (14)
July 14, 2008
Tony, We're Proud We Knew Ye by Russ Vaughn
Tony, We're Proud We Knew Ye
You're on the road to eternity, huroo, huroo,
Your spirit's flown your soul is free, huroo, huroo,
With wringin' hands and tearful eyes,
We pray you hear our mournful cries,
And we all feel so sad today,
But, Tony, we're proud we knew Ye.
Where is that voice so smilin' mild, huroo, huroo,
That drove the White House press so wild, huroo, huroo,
Where are those eyes that sparklin' smiled
With which our hearts Ye so beguiled,
Oh darlin' boy you made our day,
Ah, Tony, we're glad we knew Ye.
We'll miss that spirit that loved the run, huroo, huroo,
That flashin' smile for everyone, huroo, huroo,
That mike Ye wielded like a gun,
But never wounding anyone,
Oh your sparklin' spirits flown away,
Sweet Tony we're goin' to miss Ye.
We're sad young lad to see Ye gone, huroo, huroo,
But glad your sad ordeal is done, huroo, huroo,
With sorrowed hearts we accept you're gone,
But know your goodness still lives on,
Oh, Tony Snow, we must let go,
But, Lord, we were blessed we knew Ye.
Russ Vaughn
Vietnam 65-66
Author's note: I am so saddened that we have lost this bright spirit, this so very talented young man. I do not know if Tony Snow is of Irish extraction, but his origins are in Kentucky which was mainly settled by the Scots-Irish, of which I am one with my American roots in that region as well. For that reason, I chose to make my tribute to Tony a derivation of the old Irish song, "Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye."
The music for the American version of this ballad, When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again, can be found here.
Listening to it as you read my words may help you better appreciate this tribute. It is a simple tune and these are but simple words, so it is easy to sing them. I think Tony would like that, hearing all us singing him off on his eternal journey.
....Thank you Russ so much for this poem you wrote and your notes along with it as well.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (6)
July 12, 2008
We're Oh So...... by Russ Vaughn
We're Oh So...
Russ Vaughn
We’re hip, we’re cool and oh so arty;
We’re Democrats, the smarter party.
We’re sophisticated unlike you;
We understand merci beaucoup.
We’re urbane while you’re provincial;
We’re worldly-wise, so existential.
We’re cultured, complex, so refined;
We’ve left you ignorant serfs behind.
We’re witty authors of clever puns,
While you clods cling to God and guns.
Were you not so closed and clannish,
We’d have you peons speaking Spanish.
We say all this with knowing smirks;
We’re Democrats, you red-state jerks.
Russ Vaughn
Vietnam 65-66
...Thank you Russ for writing this and sending it to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:55 AM | Comments (8)
July 01, 2008
"The Axis of Idiots" by Sergeant Major J.D. Pendry
(Too bad we don't have folks on Capitol Hill willing to speak out like this. J.D. Pendry is a retired Marine Sergeant Major who writes for Random House. He is eloquent, and he seldom beats around the bush! )
"The Axis of Idiots"
Jimmy Carter, you are the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the runner-in-chief.
Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the U.S.S. Cole and the First Trade Center Bombing and Our Embassy Bombings emboldened the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately, they grew bolder, until 9/11/2001.
John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam . Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You've accused our military of terrorizing women and children in Iraq . You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, the same words you used to describe Vietnam . You're a fake. You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did the Vietnamese. Iraq , like Vietnam , is another war that you were for, before you were against it.
John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can't win militarily in Iraq . You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof and said we should redeploy to Okinawa . Okinawa, John? And the Democrats call you their military expert! Are you sure you didn't suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You're a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You're not a Marine, sir. You wouldn't amount to a good pimple on a real Marine's butt. You're a phony and a disgrace. Run away, John.
Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot, who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned Southeast Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? Lord help us! See Dick run.
Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster-sized pictures from Abu Ghraib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraqi's torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news, Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrated another beheading for you. If you truly supported our troops, you'd show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese led to a communist victory there. You're a bloated, drunken fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your wide, gin-soaked rear-end in Washington .
Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, the Holly wood Leftist morons, et al, ad nauseam: Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied, that the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers, that we should leave Iraq , you give the Islamic butchers - the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers - cause to think that we'll run away again, and all they have to do is hang on a little longer. It is inevitable that we, the infidels, will have to defeat the Islamic jihadists. Better to do it now on their turf, than later on ours after they have gained both strength and momentum.
American news media, the New York Times particularly: Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one united with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can't strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country.
Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer.You are America 's "AXIS OF IDIOTS." Your Collective Stupidity will destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist-abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don't ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam .
If you want our Soldiers home as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies.
Yes, I'm questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I'm also questioning why you're stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don't deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war, this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it.
No, Mr. President, you don't get off the hook, either. Our country has two enemies: Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within. Your Soldiers are dealing with the outside force. It's your obligation to support them by confronting the AXIS OF IDIOTS. America must hear it from you that these self-centered people are harming our country, abetting the enemy and endangering our safety.
Well up a little anger, please, and channel it toward the appropriate target. You must prosecute those who leak national security secrets to the media. You must prosecute those in the media who knowingly publish those secrets.Our Soldiers need you to confront the enemy that they cannot. They need you to do it now.
Semper Fi
J. D. Pendry
Sergeant Major, USMC, Retired
....Thank you Mark for sending this, it is awesome.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:47 AM | Comments (11)
June 30, 2008
So Tell Us, Sen. Obama, 'Who Else Sent You?' by Russ Vaughn
So Tell Us, Sen. Obama, 'Who Else Sent You?'
Russ Vaughn
It was, of course, inevitable. How could any politician rise so quickly on the legendarily corrupt Chicago political scene and be as pure as Obama's devoted followers were purporting him to be? The question in the minds of skeptics was, "Who sent you?"
Well now we're beginning to find out and it ain't pretty. In a lengthy, and amazingly frank, Boston Globe article depicting the dismal results of Chicago's attempt to develop and manage low income housing through private developers, we see that the candidate of change is nothing more than another Chicago machine-generated pol with his feet firmly mired in the muck of corruption of the city he chose to make his political base.
From the Globe article we learn that Tony Rezko, FOB, (Friend of Barack's) whom we have known up to now only as a corrupt developer, was and is, in fact, a slum lord, although on a much grander scale than what we usually associate with that term. Using government subsidies which Obama helped them obtain, Rezko and other FOB's, some now actively associated with his campaign, developed low income housing with fancy sounding names and substandard construction within Obama's state senatorial district.
The article points out that it was Obama's law firm and Obama himself that represented these slum lords when angry tenants complained about overflowing sewage, inoperable heating units and rat infestations. And guess what? Just as we're expected to believe that Obama sat in his church for twenty years and never heard any of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's racist diatribes, now we're told Obama was unaware of the slum-like conditions his constituents were living in, conditions directly attributable to the thievery from public coffers of his political cronies like Rezko.
But getting to a partial answer of that old Chicago test of cronyism, "Who sent you?" will require you to read to page seven of the Boston Globe article where you find this:
"All the while, Tony Rezko was forging a close relationship with Barack Obama. When Obama opened his campaign for state Senate in 1995, Rezko's companies gave Obama $2,000 on the first day of fund raising. Save for a $500 contribution from another lawyer, Obama didn't raise another penny for six weeks. Rezko had essentially seeded the start of Obama's political career." [emphasis added]
Thirteen years later, the now out-of-business slum lord, Tony Rezko, is a convicted felon and on his way to federal prison, while his political protégé is trying to become the head of the federal government. Do you suppose foreign-born Tony understands irony? Do you think he's scrabbling to find Eric Holder