Monday, September 30, 2013

The Democrats' No-Lose Situation

     At midnight tonight the federal government technically runs out of money, unless the two chambers of the United States Congress and the President can agree on a continuing resolution to keep the government fully funded. Even in the event of a shutdown, the essential services of the federal system will remain in operation. So threats from the President and Democrats in the Senate that the military would not get paid, are just scare tactics to try and muster public sympathy and support for their position to protect ObamaCare at all costs. In a nut shell, that is what this whole kerfuffle is about. The President and Democrats in Congress are risking the nation's life and limb to protect a badly conceived, criminally passed, unconstitutional, nightmarishly implemented law, of which at last count almost seventy percent of Americans want no part.
     Back in the good old days when the Congress and the President hammered out and passed a budget every year, the threat of a government shutdown was much less likely. The Republicant-lead House has passed budgets without the Senate even considering them, and the President has submitted budgets that no Democrats voted for, let alone any Republicants. And over the weekend, when Republicants were passing a continuing resolution that funded the functions of the federal government, but delayed the implementation of ObamaCare for a year and repealed the medical device tax, the President was once again embarrassing himself on the golf course. And the Senate had closed up shop and made no attempt to look as if they cared one iota about the optics that presented to the American people. President Obama and Congressional Democrats can rest easy in the knowledge that all blame will be attached to Republicants, and that Democrats will be portrayed as saints by the media.
     For those who are given a false sense of comfort and solace by House Republicants seemingly having a backbone and passing a continuing resolution with the delay of ObamaCare implementation, do not be. After all, it was not that long ago they were talking about repeal, then defunding, and now it is simply delaying the implementation for a year. What is going to change in a year? The health care industry will continue to disiningrate due to the new law which will not even being fully implemented. The President and Democrats will blame Republicants for the mess because they opposed full implementation on the original timetable. The health care industry, and the nation, will be trapped in a limbo where the disastrous effects of the law will be felt by the American people and the opportunity will be presented to the President and Democrats to make the point that the mess was caused by delay of implementation, and not by the law itself. And just in time for next year's mid-term elections, when I am sure the Democrats will use the Republicants' refusal to implement as a rallying cry to win control of the House and a wider margin in the Senate.
     So the Democrats and the President find themselves in a no-lose situation. If Republicants cave, ObamaCare will be implemented on schedule and be impossible to put back in the bottle, and if some sort of agreement is reached to delay implementation, Republicants will be blamed for the disaster that the law has already created. Either way, it appears the hapless Republicants and the nation will once again wind up on the losing end of the Democrats power grab.
    
    
    

Saturday, September 28, 2013

The Support For Global Warming Dwindles Along With Its Scinetific Evidence

     The religiosity of the global warming political movement has been known for sometime by skeptics such as myself. It has only been the last few years, when all the dire predictions made by the purveyors of the global warming hoax have not materialized, that the general population has become weary of the proselytizing by people like Al Gore. Recently, at a conference where the former Vice President and climate change scam artist spoke, he claimed that "There should be a political price paid by anyone who denies man-made climate change."
     The former Vice President and current snake oil salesman, Mr. Gore, exemplifies the unwillingness of those of the Left to allow free speech when it conflicts with their agenda. Especially when that free speech is made substantive with facts and data. The truth of the matter is that none of the cataclysmic outcomes from global warming made by Al Gore and his band of pseudo-scientists and politicians for the last 30 years, have even come close to being brought to fruition. In fact, their own data shows that there has been no warming in the last 15 years. But the fact that there is no proof, they say, is proof of man-made climate change. Their "global warming" scam has so badly blown up in their face that they have had to re-brand it to "climate change."
     In addition to no warming of the planet taking place the last 15 years, and none of the dire predictions  rearing their ugly heads, there was the embarrassment of the Hadley Climate Research Institute at the University of East Anglia. This "research" center is one of the main feeder organizations for climate change "science" that is distributed to climate change cults throughout the world. A few years ago it was discovered that Hadley "scientists" shared emails that clearly showed a collusion to ignore any data that might disprove their previous conclusions about the horrors of man-made global warming. Additionally it was discovered that the computer models used to give evidence to the global warming argument were rigged. The data was hard-coded into the programming for the models so that no other result would be possible.
     Poor old Al Gore, he is screaming just as hysterically, but fewer and fewer people are listening. The cold, hard hand of reality has gently revealed to most Americans the complete clown-like persona of the former VP and the absolute vacuous nature of his cause. I expect in the coming years, as more and more people become aware of the biggest con ever to be perpetrated in the history of cons, Mr. Gore and his dwindling minions will be relegated to the very margins of society. We may even hear, at some time in the future, about a group of wild-eyed crazies, lead by a former Vice President of the United States, waiting in an open field for the mother ship to rescue them from a planet with a fever.  

Friday, September 27, 2013

The Helpless Nation

     With one of the worst post-World War II economies, the Middle East sitting on a powder keg, the reckless abandon with which the Federal Reserve is printing tens of billions of dollars every month to loan to the federal government, and on and on ad infinitum, the item most in the news lately has been the upcoming continuing resolution fight. The question that was on every one's lips, at least the lips on the Right, was "Will congressional Republicants stand for principle and fight the good and noble fight to de-fund ObamaCare?" With that question now answered, the non-support for Ted Cruz and his effort being more than sufficient evidence that they will not stand on principle, the more important question is, "How was government-run health care able to become such a prominent idea in the minds of so many Americans?"
     There was a time, not that many years ago, when the American people as a whole would have never allowed their representatives in congress to proffer such legislation that would take the responsibility of health care out of the hands of the individual and place it firmly in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. But come October 1, when online registration for ObamaCare commences, millions of Americans will run to their computers with their outstretched greedy little hands saying, "Give me, give me, give me, I am entitled." A sad devolution for the brave and the free who have been transformed into the helpless and the voluntarily oppressed.
     This growing helplessness in the United States that has spread like a cancer the last fifty years or so, has made inroads in every aspect of American life. I am amazed at the attitude of people not only feeling entitled to health care and prescription drugs, but to everything from cell phones to subsidies for installing insulation in their home. The financial crisis of 2008, resulting from the artificially overheated mortgage market, was partly the fault of government regulators and financial and mortgage industry players. But at its core, the crisis was caused by unqualified buyers who felt entitled to own a home, even if they could not afford one. This feeling of entitlement has continued with government mortgage assistance programs that use taxpayer dollars to provide mortgage help to individuals who are in over their heads.
     From every little inconvenience to every natural disaster, Americans have been trained to run to government like it is some national mother that is going to kiss the boo boo and make it better. While the funding of ObamaCare is an important question, a more important one is, "How do we gain back our independence as a nation?" The American people must be retrained to do for themselves and not expect some other entity to provide them their basic needs and shoulder their personal responsibilities. Because until this task is accomplished, we will be a helpless nation at the mercy of politicians who will gladly expedite the trading of our liberty for an ever-expanding government that they control. 

Thursday, September 26, 2013

The Cruz Red Line

     As Texas Senator Ted Cruz was making his heroic 21 hour stand on the Senate floor against a government takeover of the United States' health care industry by the current administration, many in his own party abandoned him and the cause of liberty. These establishment Republicants, and some on the right in talk radio and elsewhere, were shamed by the illumination of their cowardice by Senator Cruz's heroism. Their shame took the shape of acrimony and recriminations against Mr. Cruz, who along with too few on the Republicant side, have taken the side of the majority of Americans who want no part of ObamaCare.
     The cowardice of those on the right that refused the gallant cause of liberty did so with the flimsiest of reasoning. They maintain that the health care law is so bad that it will die of its own weight. If they truly believe that, then what is the harm opposing the funding of this dying beast? Maybe it is that these Republicant scared little rabbits do not believe that it will die of its own weight and they are just as inclined to accept it as law and move on. After all, the Republicant establishment knows that no matter how much unconstitutional power the new law gives the current administration, one day they will be in control of the White House and have that power for themselves. And the real goal of the Washington establishment, whether they be on the Left or the Right, is control of the reins of big government.
    The fear (by weak-kneed Republicants) of a government shutdown is unfounded. Not only are the American people behind fighting ObamaCare by almost a 70% margin, but recent polling shows that the voters are split almost 50-50 on who would take the blame for a shutdown. In 1995, prior to that government shutdown, a similar poll showed that only 27% of people would blame then President Clinton and 46% would blame Republicants. So the idea that some Republicants refuse to shut off the spigot of funds to ObamaCare because they will be blamed for a possible government shutdown, is not only unfounded by the polling, but cowardice in its reasoning.
     Ted Cruz drew a red line, not an Obama red line that easily fades in the sunlight of difficulty, but a bright, bold, and indelible red line that says, "Here is liberty, come all you courageous enough to grab her mantle and fight for her honor." Unfortunately the weak and defeated Republicants of establishment Washington have forgotten that they have been given their positions by the grace of their fellow citizens to fight for the cause of liberty, not shrink from it. Thank God there are men like Ted Cruz, who still understand and believe in the founding principles of this great nation and will suffer the slings and arrows, some from his own side, to defend those most sacred values.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

The Myth Of The Fiscal Conservative/Social Liberal

     As I grow older, so the list of things that annoys me grows ever longer. One item that has maintained its inclusion on that list for many years is when anyone says they are a fiscal Conservative but a social Liberal. It is somewhat analogous to saying you are pro-gun but anti-bullets. And while not every issue that separates Conservatives from Leftists can be said to have an effect on the fiscal health of the country, most do. Therefore, it has always been my contention that it is impossible to be a social Liberal and fiscal Conservative, since the leftist social policies implemented by Liberals result in a fiscally unhealthy federal government and nation.
     The first illustration that I will proffer to support my position that it is near impossible to advance Leftist social policies and still maintain one's fiscal conservatism, is single-motherhood. Not only do Leftists tolerate single-motherhood, but they encourage it as a method to create more government dependence, thereby securing more votes for the politicians who support it. Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are spent every year, not only to financially support single-parent homes, but in additional drug treatment programs needed for, what studies have clearly shown, is a link between increased drug use and being raised in one of these homes. The other hidden cost to single-parenting is an increase in prison populations. Eighty percent of those incarcerated are from single-parent homes and they cost taxpayers billions of dollars every year to feed, house and guard.
     Another example that illustrates that Liberal social policy and fiscal conservatism are mutually exclusive is gay marriage. Once we redefine marriage away from its deeply rooted foundations that stretch back almost as long as man has existed on this earth, and transform it into simply a union between any two people that love each other, we have diminished the holy institution created for raising children and made it something much more profane. When traditional marriage is diminished in this way it causes its focus to be only on the two joining together and not on the benefit that that marriage and every other traditional marriage brings to a society. For all the reasons listed above, traditional marriage, and the children that are the offspring of such a union, is invaluable for creating independent citizens who add to society, not subtract.
     On issue after issue there is a direct correlation between socially liberal policy and increased financial burden to the federal budget and the economy. I think the tendency, especially the last five years, is for some people to want to claim the high moral ground financially and socially, not realizing that government incursion into the latter creates difficulty for achieving balance in the former. The people who say they are fiscal Conservatives and social Liberals have disassociated the cost of social policy from the equation. This allows them to think of themselves as fiscally responsible while at the same time supporting what they think of as compassionate programs. This kind of thinking is disastrous because the bane of our financial existence is the inability to make more citizens independent and the federal government more limited in its functions.
    

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The Smartest Guy In the Room?

     For the better part of the last five years, we have been inundated by people in the mainstream media and elsewhere on the left telling us that Barrack Obama is the most brilliant man who ever lived. They would have us believe that he is the smartest guy in the room, well maybe, if that room is Romper Room. I have always thought it was odd that the only proof for the President's brilliance offered by his minions is that he went to Columbia and Harvard, yet the President refuses to release his transcripts. And his public record from the 2008 campaign forward has not supported the claim of above average intelligence.
     During the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama claimed that he had been to all 57 states. Maybe he thought that places such as Germany, where he made a major campaign speech and handed out free beer to the crowd, were part of the United States. Further evidence of his ignorance on the composition and history of the country he now leads, was when he confused Memorial day with Veterans day. During a speech on the former he said he saw many of the men we honor on that day sitting in the audience. Of course this wasn't possible because the men we honor on Memorial day are all deceased. Veterans day is for honoring all Veterans of our military. The President has so little interest in and respect for the military that he thought the days were interchangeable.
     The President has also made basic grammatical errors, such as when he gave a prepared speech in which he enunciated the p in corpsmen, not once or twice but three times. Anyone can make a mistake when they are talking off-the-cuff, but many of the President's mistakes occur when he is making prepared remarks. One such example is when he stated in a speech that people in Austria spoke Austrian. An intelligent, worldly man would know that Austrians speak German and that there is no language known as Austrian. He also called the transcontinental railroad the inter-continental railroad. Again, a truly intelligent man, delivering a prepared speech, would know the difference between inter and trans.
     Some of the President's mistakes are arrogance-based, such as using phrases or terms when he really doesn't understand what they mean. An example of this is from 2009 at the stock market bottom. He said that stocks have never had such low profit to earnings ratios. Anyone familiar with investing would know that the correct term is price to earnings, earnings are profits, so the President's term makes no sense. I am sure that former President Bush, our only president to hold a masters in business, who the media use to imply was a dolt, knows that the correct term is price to earnings and not profit to earnings.
     I would not want anything I have said here to be taken to suggest that I think Barack Obama has below average intelligence, he certainly is a smart man, but no more so than most average Americans. The true gift our forty fourth President possesses is political shrewdness and the ability to speak for long stretches without saying anything, but convincing a certain segment of his audience that he is brilliant. Yes, Barack Obama is the smartest guy in the room, as long as that room is a sensory deprivation tank.
    

Monday, September 23, 2013

The Modern Day Civil Rights Industry Needs Racism

     The modern day civil rights industry has gone from obtaining previously denied Constitutional rights for minorities, which was achieved decades ago, to teaching minorities how to be offended by words, ideas and symbols. The legislation of the 1960s and 1970s, which guaranteed equal rights for women and minorities, does not have to be re-legislated every generation as the Left seems to want to do. The signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Act by President Obama early in his first term is a good example of legislation which will never help one person it purports to, unless that person is a plaintiff's attorney.
     Legislative efforts like Lilly Ledbetter are designed to increase not only the window of time one has to sue if they feel they have suffered discrimination, but the very "acts of discrimination" which become a violation of law. These "acts of discrimination" in modern times have encompassed not only what someone does, which previously defined when a law was broken, but what they think as well. The almost Orwellian nature of so-called "hate crimes laws" is exemplary of how far down the road of statism we have progressed as a culture. Our founders could not have imagined a country where a person could be charged with a violation of law simply for what they think.
     The recent Supreme Court's reversal of part of the Voting Rights Act of the 1960s was blasted by the Left as a grave injustice and a sure return to the Jim Crow South. But in reality, the part of the law dismissed was unfair to certain states in the South that were being punished by the law because of what happened in those states in the distant past. Truth be told, the Jim Crow laws of the South were not a function of a majority of Southerners being racists, but of the prejudice and bigotry of the Democrat politicians who passed them. If the general population and business owners were racists and acting accordingly, there would have been no need for laws to force them into behavior in which they were already engaged.
     Just as white, Southern Democrat politicians used their power to impose laws that discriminated against blacks in the so-called Jim Crow South, modern day race industry participants like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Barrack Obama and others, have used their influence and power to perpetuate the façade of endemic racism in this country. To admit that any significant progress has been made in racial discrimination over the last fifty years, like lifting the punishment on Southern states imposed by the Voting Rights Act, would be to signal the death knell for the "civil rights leaders" who have become wealthy by trying to extend that punishment to the widest swath of American public life as possible.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Pope Francis Joins The Left

     Sometimes the influence of Leftism on our culture is sublime and sometimes it is explicitly axiomatic, as was the case with a recent statement from the Pope of the Catholic church. Pope Francis recently bemoaned the fact that the church has placed moral doctrine over serving the poor, a more politically correct statement can not be imagined or expressed in or out of religious life. The founder of the Catholic church, Jesus of Nazareth, was explicit in reminding his followers that service to their heavenly father via living a moral life, was the only path to salvation. Helping the poor and disadvantaged is just one brick in the edifice of morality, not its foundation.
     But in this politically correct world driven by Leftist ideology, even the Pope of the church that Jesus built has succumbed to the notion that helping the poor is the primary function of faith-based and non faith-based organizations such as governments. If, as the Pope suggests, one only needs to serve the poor to gain entrance to heaven, and all that morality stuff is just fluff, then Adolf Hitler is a resident of paradise because he gave health care to millions of poor Germans who did not previously have it. Additionally, serving the physical needs of the poor without the slightest moral judgment of how their choices and behavior may have lead them to their current predicament, is not the basis of Christianity. High expectations for improving one's life through living a moral doctrine is the cornerstone of not only the Christian faith, but many others as well.
     I would recommend that Pope Francis needs a refresher course at Divinity School to remind him that the basis of the Catholic Church, as well as most other faiths, is the teaching and safekeeping of moral doctrine. If the main function of any faith-based organization is simply to serve the poor, it makes them no better than politicians in government who use serving the poor to increase their own power, influence and wealth. And if the Church does not have the preservation of God's morality as their core mission, then modern mores (if there are any) replace morality. Modern mores would have the Church softening their moral doctrine in favor of approval by the secular world. They forget that Jesus said, "If the world hates you, remember that they hated me first." Church leaders like Pope Francis are so afraid of that hate that they have all but abandon strict adherence to the moral doctrine that built the Church.  
     Of course, the goal of Leftism is to eliminate all absolutes, morality is an absolute and contemporary mores are fluid and change with the times. This is why one will hear Leftists in and out of the Church complain that it must "change with the times." Jesus did not preach his message, die on the cross for it and resurrect to give it and us eternal life, only to have that message changed and corrupted by modern values, whatever those modern values represent. Certitude of moral doctrine is the basis of the Church given birth by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and Pope Francis would do well to reconnect himself to that moral doctrine, for the sake of the Catholic Church and the world that needs it more than ever.
    

Friday, September 20, 2013

The Obama Doctrine=Support Authoritarianism

     There were several things wrong with President Obama drawing a red line on Syria, and then using Vladimir Putin as a big red line eraser. The flaccid attempt at leadership and intestinal fortitude by a man who has neither, not only made him look weak and ineffectual, but tarnished the reputation of  standing for freedom and liberty enjoyed by this nation for over two hundred years. Barack Obama enabling and facilitating, with the Russian's help, Bashar Al Assad remaining in control of Syria, tells every freedom lover throughout the world that they will not be able to depend on the United States of America for support in their struggle. One of the things that made the United States of America a beacon of liberty shining brightly throughout the world, was that we not only claimed that liberty for ourselves, but gave our support to all those who were oppressed for whom freedom was a saving grace.
     President Obama's non-support of the freedom fighters in Syria before the movement was overtaken with terrorists, is only now made worse by his quietly lifting the ban on supplying military aid to groups or countries with suspected ties to terrorism. But wanting to support not only our enemies in the Syrian revolution, but the enemies of personal liberty through the imposition of Sharia law, is consistent with a man who does not even support freedom in his own country. Illustrative of this fact is any number of laws rammed through Congress by this administration or created within the bureaucracy of the federal government.    
     The Syrian debacle is not the first time in his term as President that Mr. Obama acted to support the wrong side in the struggle for liberty. In May of 2009, shortly after Barack Obama was elected to the United States presidency, the Green party (nothing to do with environmentalism) in Iran took to the streets and rooftops to demonstrate against their corrupt and despot government for the rigged election they had just stolen. President Obama not only gave no support for the freedom movement in a country that is a major sponsor of terror, but seemed to support the oppressive Ayatollah regime. Without even the moral support of the United States, the movement was summarily crushed.
      President Obama again took the side of authoritarianism over liberty when he supported the Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, and condemned the Honduran Supreme Court for removing Mr. Zelaya from power after he violated the law and tried to disband the constitution of his country. But Mr. Obama's actions are completely consistent when put into the context of his systematic dismantling of the constitution he has taken an oath to uphold and protect. From not enforcing laws that interfere with his agenda, to creating laws in an unconstitutional manner through bureaucracies or by presidential fiat with the abuse of the executive order process instead of by way of the people's representatives in Congress, Barack Obama has been in sympathy with Manuel Zelaya in practice if not in execution.
        Time after time in the last five years when Barack Obama has been presented with supporting individual liberty or authoritarianism, his natural instinct is to decide in favor of oppressive central governments. Whether that oppressive government is in Syria, Iran, Honduras or in the cradle of freedom and representative government, the United States of America.     

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Paying The Price For The Chairman's Folly

     Yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman and economic dolt, Ben Bernanke, surprised all the market experts who were expecting him to announce a tapering and subsequent end to his 85 billion dollar a month bond-buying spree with his made-out-of-thin-air money. But the Chairman announced he would continue his economic insanity at full force, and the market responded with a resounding round of buying, sending them to record highs, not based on financial fundamentals, but on the actions of an out-of-control Federal Reserve.
     The reaction of the market shows just how much it has decoupled itself from economic realities and how committed Ben Bernanke is to a failing strategy. The Chairman began the academic exercise of bond-buying with the stated goal of stimulating the economy. He said the plug would be pulled on the program when the economy improved enough to meet even his lowered expectations for it, i.e., 6.5 percent unemployment and consistent 3 percent growth in the Gross Domestic Product. The reality that after years of Fed "stimulus" which has resulted in trillions of vapor dollars making a circuitous route into the stock market, having had no effect on the economy at large, has not seemed to phase Chairman Bernanke in the least. He is stuck-on-stupid with support for an economic theory, which by his own metrics, has failed spectacularly.
     A recent Wall Street Journal article reported that ninety percent of the benefit from Mr. Bernanke's "stimulus" has been reaped by the top five percent of wealthiest people in this country. So not only has Ben and Barack's plan for increasing employment and wealth for the middle and lower classes failed to achieve that goal, but it has had the opposite effect of widening the gap between top income earners and the rest of us. In fact, there are now more people unemployed, according to the work force participation rate, by number and percentage, than there has been in the last 35 years. Some stimulus the Fed Chairman and the President have cooked up, it increases the wealth of the very people the administration says it is fighting against for the benefit of the "little guy."
     Ben Bernanke continuing quantitative easing at full force even though it is failing, is a sign that he and the administration are operating from fear and are ignorant of remedies that would be successful. It is a little like a child who is afraid of the dark, and instead of turning on the light, he buries his head under the covers where it is even darker and more fearful. The light in the case of Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama is allowing the free market and the economy to self-correct without the heavy hand of government. For it is this heavy hand that has kept the economy stagnant, and according to some measures, deteriorating. The only two options available to one who is evaluating Mr. Bernanke is that he is purposely imposing his deleterious economic policy on the nation or he is economically ignorant, either way the great people of this country are the ones ultimately paying the price for his folly.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Complicit Republicant Party

     The impending one-two punch to the fiscal sanity of this nation is right around the corner with the continuing resolution needed to fund the government for another six to eight months, and a raise in the nation's debt limit beyond the current 16.7 trillion dollars it has reached under Barack Obama. It is hard to believe that a little over four and a half years ago, when Barack Obama was sworn in as this nation's forty fourth president, our debt was around ten trillion dollars. This president has not only racked up more debt than any other in history, but more than the first forty two presidents combined. And he still has three and a half years left in his term!
     While spending more money than our nation has, over forty percent more at last count, is entirely on President Obama's shoulders and the shoulders of the Democrats in Congress, it has been congressional Republicants who have helped them to flourish in an age of continuing resolutions. At least since January of 2011, when Republicants took control of the House of Representatives, they should have required that the President and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hammer out a budget for the federal government every year as required by the Constitution. Instead, Repbulicants (new readers may notice I call them Republicants because they are not the least bit effective against Barack Obama and congressional Democrats) have allowed President Obama not only to shirk his Constitutional responsibility, but use the continuing resolution process, and threats of blaming a government shut-down on Republicants, to beat them into submission on a variety of issues.
     As important as previous continuing resolution fights have been, the current one is the last chance for Republicants, or anyone else for that matter, to cripple and hopefully bring about the demise of the President's government take-over of this nation's health care industry. Once the funding for the subsidies begin in January, whether the exchanges are properly operating or not, it will be impossible to pull the plug on the beast. Not only will ObamaCare ruin the best health care industry in the world, it will forever change the way U.S. citizens relate to their federal government and it will give that federal authority more power over the lives of individuals than ever before. And last time I checked, more government control in the lives of the governed is called tyranny.
     Some on the Right, like radio movie critic with delusions of being a Conservative talk show host, Michael Medved, have said that congressional Republicants should not even try to de-fund ObamaCare because the resulting government shutdown will be blamed on them and that is a losing political strategy. I am sure glad the colonists and our Founding Fathers did not feel that way or we would all be drinking tea, eating boiled tasteless food and walking around with bad dental hygiene.
    Where Mr. Medved et. al have it wrong is that de-funding ObamaCare is not a losing strategy, it is the feckless way in which Republicants implement that strategy that makes it more unlikely to be
successful. Those on the Right like Mr. Medved think we should not engage in a principled fight simply because our leadership in Congress is incapable of articulating the Conservative message. Maybe what we need is new leadership who believe in taking principled stands, not for political victory, but to preserve the liberty and freedom that the Founding Fathers bequeathed us and for which it is our responsibility to preserve for future generations.
    
    
    

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Here Is Something The Left Can Blame On Bush, But They Will Not

     During the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in March of 2003, the longest and most telegraphed lead-up ever, George W. Bush succumbed to the false sense of amour against criticism that he thought including the "international community" would bring him. If the Germans had as much notice about Normandy as Saddam Hussein had about the U.S. invasion of his country, France, along with most of Europe would have been ceded to Adolf Hitler in World War II.
     The long and slow germination of the seeds of war in 2003, done to curry favor with the "international community", allowed Saddam to move his weapons of mass destruction, presumably to Syria where they now have become a thorn in the side of both the United States and the "international community." Furthermore, President Bush failed to curry favor with the very "international community" he allowed to affect U.S. foreign policy. In fact, he was savaged for the rest of his term as president by the very people whose sensibilities he had taken great pains to mollify. But I do not blame the former President, at the time, I too thought it was a good idea to exhaust all diplomatic remedies before attacking militarily.
     I now see how flaccid and ineffectual the United Nations and the rest of the so-called "international community" are and that they can not be counted upon to make lucid decisions or engage in moral actions as they relate to human rights or the stability and security of any region of the world. This lesson was sorely lacking from my own curriculum, but should not have been from the former president's, who had the opportunity to witness the complete and utter bumbling incompetence of the United Nations up close and personal for years. First as the son of a two-term Vice President of the United States and one term President and then as a newly elected President himself.
     Had President Bush not given Saddam Hussein the time to move his chemical weapons to Syria, the current President could not have made his now infamous "red line" statement. Sans the "red line" statement by President Obama and the clown-like antics of his Secretary of State, Vladimir Putin and the Russians would not have had this opportunity to reduce American influence in a very strategic part of the world, and in the process make the United States of America look foolish and irrelevant.
     I suppose of all the things for which the Left tries to blame President Bush, I have never heard them say that because he did not invade Iraq sooner and prevent the movement of Saddam's weapons, President Obama was made to look like a fool. I am not holding my breath that I will ever hear such an admission from anyone on the Left, because to do so would destroy the fragile little fantasy world they have constructed from lies. Lies that include, but are not limited to, Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, their intellects are superior to common sense and rational thought and that Barack Obama possesses an acumen for world diplomacy that no other world leader can match. The Leftist world must be lonely and cold without the comfort and warmth of truth and reality.    
    

Monday, September 16, 2013

It Is Deja Vu All Over Again

     This past weekend, the United States and Russia reached an agreement on the Syrian chemical weapons stash. The details of the deal are a far cry from the administration's position just a week ago on "punishing" Assad for using chemical weapons on his own people. And it certainly is nowhere close to the administration's previous insistence that Bashar Al Assad must be removed as the leader of Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry said the deal would "verify, verify, verify" that Bashar Al Assad's chemical weapons stash was destroyed, but he did not say how that was to be accomplished.
     There was some mention of United Nations inspectors, sanctions and empty threats of "further action" if Assad violated the terms of the sketchy agreement. At this point the "deal" sounds much like the "deal" made with Saddam Hussein after the first gulf war which lead to a decade of obfuscation and downright deceit from the Iraqi leader. It also lead to the Russians selling United Nations contraband items to Iraq against the sanctions that were supposedly in place.
     The "deal" does provide Bashar Al Assad with a week to formulate a list of what weapons he has, quantities of such weapons and locations. I am completely confident that old Bashar will be totally forthright and honest when compiling this list (he says with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek). This list is eerily similar to a list that was required of Saddam Hussein about his weapons of mass destruction. Remember the thousand pages of gibberish Saddam handed over to the UN and the international community? The data dump included everything from popular Iraqi recipes to the shoe sizes of every person in the Hussein government. Unfortunately it was a little light on information about his WMDs. I would not expect Assad's list to be so blatantly disrespectful of the process, however I am not naïve enough to believe that he will reveal everything about everything as it relates to his chemical weapons.
     This "deal", hatched by the Russians and Assad to lure the United States into the trap of allowing the "international community" to orchestrate our foreign policy, makes our president and his administration look like a bunch of rubes in a high stakes poker game with professional card players. It is exemplary of the mistaken view that the Left has about our adversaries like Russia. Barack Obama, and the rest of the Left intelligentsia, see diplomacy as conflict resolution, while Vladimir Putin and the Russians see it as part of their asymmetric warfare strategy.
     I learned this lesson my freshman year of high school from one of my teachers. At the time, President Carter was giving away the farm in the now infamous SALT talks with the Russians. My wise teacher told the class that the Soviets (for you younger readers, that was what Russia was known as back in the days before they "got religion") had different definitions of words and that the United States must understand that going into any negotiations with them. He also said that their ultimate goal was domination and the spread of Communism, and deception was a perfectly legitimate vehicle for achieving that objective.
     Putting aside the tremendous boost this "deal" gives the Russian's prestige and influence in the Middle East and the deflation of American influence, it will have the effect of giving new life to the Assad regime and bolster his status as a legitimate player in the high stakes contest of world diplomacy. A contest in which President Obama and his buffoonish Secretary of State were just bluffed out of the biggest pot in recent history by a former KGB colonel holding a pair of deuces.   

Saturday, September 14, 2013

The Dance Band On The Titanic

     It is said that the dance band on the Titanic played Nearer My God to Thee on the deck of the gargantuan ship as it sank into the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Some accounts even have the musicians on the ill-fated ship playing their instruments, seemingly oblivious to the rising waters that engulfed and finally drowned them. I am reminded of those musicians as I watch the stock market continue to climb higher among the rising waters of almost non-existent Gross Domestic Product growth, employment continuing to deteriorate, a government that prints 85 billion dollars a month to buy its own debt, a record hundred million people on some sort of government assistance, instability in the Middle East threatening to boil over into a regional war that may include the United States and a federal government that seems completely incapacitated by fear and incompetence.
     And yet, with the dire economic conditions engulfing our country, threatening to break apart the hull of our republic as surely as the frigid waters of the North Atlantic broke apart the hull of the Titanic, the market mavens continue to play their instruments as if nothing is wrong. But they are not playing Nearer My God To Thee, the tune they are bellowing on this sinking ship is Money For Nothing. And as long as they have a friend at the Federal Reserve in the person of Ben Bernanke, they can continue to play that song right up until the point that this nation's fiscal head disappears under the icy waters of economic realities, which are sure to make an appearance in the not-to-distant future.
     The problem with Ben Bernanke printing 85 billion dollars a month and using it to buy Treasury bonds for the purpose of keeping rates on those bonds historically low to drive money into stocks to keep them artificially high, is that at some point he will have to stop buying and start selling. And with no signs of the actual economic health of the country improving, and actually worsening when  ObamaCare is fully implemented, the money that Mr. Bernanke will be pulling out of the economy through his selling will not only collapse the market, but the economy at large. Unfortunately the people who will be hurt the worse are the middle-class and the working poor, who will lose employment and wealth from their retirement accounts.
     I recall, toward the beginning of the Obama regime, then Secretary of  the Treasury, Timothy "tax cheat" Geithner, told the Chinese that the United States was not and will not monetize its debt with the printing of dollars to buy its own bonds. Of course that is exactly what the administration was doing and has continued to do, only the last couple of years they have labeled it "Quantitative Easing." The stimulative effect that this monetizing of federal debt was suppose to have on the economy, has only served to stimulate the stock market. QE has become just another grand academic exercise imposed on the free market by people who never spent a single day actually working in that free market. The men responsible for the coming collapse, like Mr. Bernanke, will knock over the women and children as they lunge for the limited life boats that will take them to the safety of high-paying jobs in academia and in future administrations. And the rest of us will be the musicians on the deck of Titanic playing Whipping Post.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Whip Me, Beat Me, Make Me Vote Democrat !

     Recently, the largest labor union in the country, the AFL-CIO, put pen to paper and wrote a searing rebuke of ObamaCare, the law they helped ram through the United States Congress. Who would have thought that the union thugs that syphon members' dues to support their lavish lifestyles actually could write. It is hard to say whether or not the union leadership knew that ObamaCare would cause their members' premiums to skyrocket and their choices in health care to be virtually eliminated when they were using their thug tactics to help pass the law, but that is the result it has had. And it has not yet been fully implemented.
     Union leadership was OK with ObamaCare as long as it was only imposed on the great unwashed non-union workers in this country. But now that they have found out that their health care benefits will be lessened in quality and increased in cost, they are throwing a conniption. The AFL-CIO's protestations will not change the hearts of those law makers they think they have in their pockets, because those politicians value their Leftist ideology more than their union constituents. Besides, no matter how badly Democrat policies may affect union workers, their dues will still be syphoned to Democrat campaign coffers and union thugs will continue to organize their own brand of violent love-ins for Democrat politicians.
     In fact, the union constituency is much the same as other factions of the Democrat voting base, i.e., they have bought the myths and lies about Republicants and will never vote for them, no matter how badly the Democrats treat them. And treat them badly they do. Everyone of the Democrat constituency groups have done worse under the Obama administration than under the previous administration of George W. Bush. And Mr. Obama has been truly blessed to implement everything he has wanted to, and things have gotten worse for blacks, single women, Hispanics and yes, even union members. But Democrats know they can count on the votes of these groups, so they can continue to implement policies that are not in their best interest or the best interest of the country.
     The psychology behind these Democrat constituency groups continuing to vote Democrat, no matter how badly they are treated by Democrat politicians, is much the same psychology that motivates a woman to stay with an abusive man. The only difference is that the Democrat constituency groups seem to be willing participants in their own abuse. The AFL-CIO's blind allegiance to supporting ObamaCare when they thought it would not affect them, and their continued support of the Democrats who they now realize have cut their hours and given them inferior health benefits, it just one of many examples of the willing participation of Democrat constituencies in their own abuse.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

The Strategy Of The Smart People

     I have recently heard some supposedly smart people, who call themselves Conservatives, suggest that the best course of action for congressional Republicants to take with regards to ObamaCare is to do nothing. These political pontificators, whose intelligence is matched only by their naivete, hold the belief that with all the problems recently brought to light with the implementation of ObamaCare, it will become the train wreck that Democrat Senator Max Baucus predicted it would be. And this will cause congressional Democrats to throw up their hands and surrender their dream of a single-payer, government-run health care system without the Republicants firing a single shot.
     This misguided theory, held by otherwise intelligent people on the Right, has a flaw, it depends on the will of Democrats in Congress to do what is best for the country. It is almost as if these folks on the Right making these dire predictions for ObamaCare that consist of no Republicant involvement, still do not understand who Barack Obama and the hard Left are and the confiscatory, authoritarian ideology that drives what they do. Just to remind the smart people on my side of the aisle of what the object of the ObamaCare exercise is all about, it is to destroy private insurance so a new government edifice can be built in its place.
     The chaos of ObamaCare implementation was baked into the cake even before the law was committed to paper and rammed through Congress in a way that made the Founding Fathers roll over in their graves. The chaos created by the law mitigates commercial insurance involvement the further down the road of implementation the law travels. Recently there have been private insurance companies that  have stopped providing health care policies in certain areas of the country. The reason is the new law's virtual moratorium on health insurance profit. Aetna of New Hampshire comes to mind, and do not fool yourself into thinking there will not be more.
     I fail to understand how anyone, knowing that a single-payer, government-run health care system has been the goal of Leftists in and out of government for decades, can believe that that dream is going to be abandon simply because of implementation problems. Furthermore, I do not know why the smart people on the Right can be so obtuse about the intended chaos of implementation, when Barack Obama has publicly stated that his ultimate goal is a single-payer, government-run system. Connecting the dots would lead one to realize that in order for that dream to come to fruition, private health insurers must be driven away from providing health insurance policies. No folks, I think ObamaCare is here to stay because the Democrats and their Leftist ideology will ensure its survival, and those on the Right who are in a position to stop it have decided to let it stop itself. Sort of like driving your car toward a cliff at a hundred miles an hour and depending on someone to build a bridge before you reach the edge. This is the strategy of the smart people.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

What Is The Deal With The Russian Deal ?

     A couple of days ago, President Obama was deep into the bribery, arm-twisting and intimidation of trying to get the votes in Congress to give him cover to do some wrist-slapping in Syria with a couple of United States' missiles. Many experts were pontificating at how fragile and unstable the situation in Syria had become, and no matter what the U.S. did, it could bubble over into a regional conflict that would involve Israel and the United States in a full-fledged, boots-on-the-ground war. And then like magic, Vladimir Putin stepped out from behind the Iron Curtain to broker a deal that would save the day, and more importantly, Barack Obama's need to be a leader.
     There are several questions I have about the so-called Russian deal. First, who comprises the "International Community" to whom Assad is supposedly handing over his chemical weapons for safe keeping? Secondly, how does this yet-to-be-named group, called "The International Community" verify that any weapons Bashar places in their custody are all the chemical weapons he has and that he is not holding any back for future use? Third, are the chemical weapons in the hands of the Al Qaeda-lead rebels to be handed over to "The International Community" as well, or proof be shown that they do not have chemical weapons?
     The motivation for the Russians' deal-making is two-fold, one is to keep their debtor, Syria, from becoming a parking lot and therefore being even less likely to repay the Russian debt. And two, this "deal" is the perfect opportunity to drain even more power from the United States with respects to its influence in the Middle East. The cost of the Russians forcing Bashar Al Assad (the proxy of the Russian's proxy Iran) to "part" with his chemical weapons is most likely the fulfillment of Barack Obama's promise made before last year's election. Remember when he told Russian President, Medvedev, that he should transmit a message to Putin that after the U.S. election, Mr. Obama would have more flexibility in reducing the United States nuclear arsenal? One does not have to be a genius to figure out that Barack Obama's newly found flexibility will be the vehicle with which he will repay Putin for saving him the messiness of military intervention in Syria.
     The solace and downright exuberance over the Russian deal is exemplary of the willful blindness on the Left to believe that everyone, especially Communists, have only good and pure intentions. Russia is not brokering this deal to be magnanimous humanitarians, but because of their ulterior motives. People, especially on the Left, forget that ever since Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Union in the cold war in the 1980s, they have been working hard to be a fly in our ointment. Their non-support of the Iraq invasion, not on any moral or diplomatic basis, but because Russia had continued to trade with Saddam Hussein in violation of United Nations' sanctions, is just one recent example. Does anyone on the Left or the Right really think Bashar Al Assad would have jumped so quickly at this deal had it come from anyone else? Our leaders would do well to look this Russian gift horse right in the mouth and say, "No thank you."

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

The Incredible Credibility Argument

     One of the main reasons given by its supporters on both the Left and the Right for missile strikes in Syria, is to save the credibility of the United States and President Obama. The theory goes that since President Obama spoke about chemical weapons being used in Syria as a red line that would change his "calculus" for intervention, the U.S. is on this runaway freight train and can not get off. Even though last week, President Obama un-spoke the "red line" comment. It is fascinating to watch a media, that five years ago was anti-military intervention anywhere, now salivating to "punish" the Assad regime with missiles that are etched with the name of the great avenger, Barack Hussein Obama. Oddly enough, President Obama has said that his credibility is not at risk, taking away the core reason that has been given by the media and other pro-intervention types.
     President Obama's statement that claimed everyone in the world has their credibility at risk , even America, and his remains unchallenged, shows not only how disconnected the President is from any semblance of a coherent foreign policy, but from his own country as well. He is somehow outside America and above the human frailty of having one's credibility called into question. The President, as well as the supporters of military intervention in Syria, forget that credibility is not won or loss by a single event or decision, it is developed over time, with the aggregation of many decisions and actions. Barack Obama can not risk his own credibility because he has none, and he can not risk America's credibility because she has an almost 240 year history from which her coffers of credibility have been supplied.
     Some of the very same people that said our nation's credibility was at risk of being destroyed with military intervention in Iraq, are now saying that that same credibility is in peril if we do not militarily intercede in Syria. In Iraq, we faced a dictator who had already invaded his neighbor and threatened the free flow of oil that is vital to the world's economy. Bashar Al Assad, as brutal a dictator as he is, has never engaged in either of the previously mentioned behaviors. And now the President, who was elected to "end wars, not start them," has not only allowed U.S. foreign policy to be determined by statements he made and then unmade, but has looked like a petulant child with his exclusion of his own credibility from the massive risk pool he has helped create.
     Not only has the President's credibility been shattered with the American people, but around the world with our allies and enemies alike. The mantel of leadership waits to be lifted and employed, but Barack Obama does not possess the credible strength to take it upon himself, this is to the great peril of the United States and the world.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Un-Accomplishment Has Become A Virtue

     The parent told the child that he was a winner just for trying out for the baseball team, even though he did not earn a place on the roster. And so goes the mistake in our culture that is repeated with alarming regularity and has accelerated over the last 20 years or more. It is the age of un-accomplishment, where children are told that they "are all winners" and every one gets an award, even if you struck out every time at bat and dropped every fly ball that came to you in the outfield. These children have grown into adults who feel entitled to remain emotionally as children because they have been taught that they "are special just for being you." No further requirement is expected from them, so no further effort to accomplish is engaged in by them.
     The modern self-esteem movement that began to infect our society through the school system twenty years ago, not only accepts inadequacy and incompetence, but it requires and elevates them to the status of veneration. At the same time, virtues of hard work and accomplishment are downgraded to second-class citizenship to the new age teaching of not only failure equaling success, but of non-participation equaling it as well. How many children who end up living in their parents basements as adults, were inculcated by their parents and teachers with self-esteem simply for getting out of bed everyday?
     Our culture has reached the dubious precipice of having elected twice the exemplar of the self-esteem movement, Barack Obama. Mr. Obama's election to the presidency was more historical because of his personal lack of accomplishment, than it was because he was the first black person to hold that office. And even though Barack Obama is old enough to have missed being in elementary school when teachers were doling out self-esteem to their students like bottomless Pez dispensers, he some how managed to reach the highest political office in the country with a resume' that substituted relevant experience with entitlement to the job. The dangerous aspect to the self-esteem movement has been that it has populated this nation with enough of its graduates to elect someone as wholly unqualified to the presidency as Barack Obama.
     Being special means one has actually accomplished something, e.g., made the team, hit a home run or caught that fly ball that saved the game. Being special means something of substance and it is defined by the results of action, not simply by meaningless measures that fall outside the bounds of accomplishment. We would do well to teach our children that while they will always be special to us, the world requires proof of their worth through substantive and positive results of their actions. 

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Analysis Of August Jobs Report

     The unemployment data released yesterday was dismal, giving anyone with even a modicum of intellectual honesty cause to admit that after five years of Obamanomics, the nation is in worse economic health than when Mr. Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009. And with the coming implementation of ObamaCare, one should not expect that the employment situation is going to do anything but deteriorate further.
     The overall jobs added to the economy in the month of August was 169,000, short of economists lowered expectations of 180,000, and not even in the same ball park for recoveries from previous recessions. The modus operandi of  post-World War II recessions has been robust economic growth within ten months of their official end, which for the Obama recession was over four years ago. Robust economic growth means a Gross Domestic Product that is growing at over four percent, not the struggling two percent of the Obama recovery. A robust recovery also includes job growth that approaches, or in the case of the Reagan recovery, exceeds half a million jobs a month.
     Two data points from Friday's jobs report that are very concerning are the number of part time workers in the work force and the overall work force participation rate. The number of part time workers who desire full time work increased by thirty percent over the previous report, not exactly a sign of a recovering economy. The work force participation rate is the percentage of working age adults that are employed, which has now dropped to its lowest level in thirty five years. There are now 90 million people not working in this country who meet the requirements of being employable. Ten million more than when President Obama began his term in January of 2009. If the work force participation rate was the same as it was when President Obama first took the oath of office, the unemployment rate would be almost 11 percent.
     Remember in the beginning of his first term when President Obama was trying to sell his almost trillion dollar stimulus plan to the United States Congress and the American people? He said that passing the stimulus would ensure that by the end of his first term the economy would be adding half a million jobs a month and the unemployment rate would drop below six percent. Not only did his promises not come close to being realized, but in many ways the country is in worse fiscal shape than when he first darkened the threshold of the Whit House with his "Hope and Change." Ten million people have given up looking for work in the Obama economy and have dropped out of the work force, companies are switching more full time workers to part time because of ObamaCare, there are now a record 100 million people on some sort of government assistance and the federal government has been borrowing itself into financial oblivion while Ben Bernanke continues to print 85 billion dollars a month to buy government bonds just to prop up a stock market that has become dependent on the sugary liquidity provided by an out-of-control Federal Reserve.
     The worst loss of the Obama tenure has been the loss of the very thing he promised, i.e., hope. The American people's expectations have been lowered below the threshold of what was once the standard of economic excellence and dominance that was assumed to be the constant companion to the liberty we use to enjoy in this great nation. Sadly, both our economic excellence and our liberty seem to be slipping further out of reach with every passing day of the Obama presidency.
    

Friday, September 6, 2013

The Chaos Theory

     Barack Obama is not a complicated man to figure out. He is, in essence, the embodiment of the core element of community organizing. In that rather dubious profession, the object of the exercise is to use chaos, whether real or created by the organizer, to inculcate or increase hatred, fear and anger in the masses for the purpose of empowering the organizer. The target of the hatred is the organizers political opposition or the wealthy. Fear is generated among the "organized", the source of that fear being those who are the target of the hatred generated by the organizer. And finally, the organizer whips the crowd into a frenzy of anger to affect some political change that only benefits the organizer and his buddies in the political class. This process is what I call, "The Chaos Theory." The community organizer feeds on chaos like the dung beetle feeds on the excrement of others.
     The chaos theory as it relates to Barack Obama has been full throttle in the Middle-East in the last five years. When Barack Obama took the oath of the office for the first time in January of 2009, the Middle East was by no means a Disney World. But Iraq was making great strides towards self government, Afghanistan was holding its own against a Taliban resurgence and Egypt was lead by a dictator who kept the peace in his own country and between his country and its neighbors. Al Qaeda had lost 60% or more of its troop strength and over a third of its top leadership had been decimated, and the terrorist organization was severely weakened. Libya, while under the control of another dictator, Khadafy, was not causing any problems to speak of, just some saber-rattling every now and then.
     Since the beginning of the Obama Presidency, he has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq by pulling out our troops too early, threatening the fledging democracy's survival in the face of an Al Qaeda resurgence. Mr. Obama has also forced the United States military to leave Afghanistan with its tail between its legs as it beats a hasty retreat. The President of the United States facilitated the removal of an American ally in Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, and his replacement by the terrorist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, and now refuses to support the Egyptian military against the Brotherhood. Barack Obama fomented the hatred against Khadafy that resulted in his lifeless body being dragged through the streets of Tripoli. And the rebels who took his place have a radical Islamic ideology and ties to Al Qaeda. And now President Obama has created even more chaos in Syria by allowing a legitimate and pro-Western rebellion to be hi-jacked by radicalized Islamists who now control the movement and will replace Syrian Dictator, Bashar Al Assad, with a much more dangerous and oppressive government based on Sharia Law. The President's response is to help the Al Qaeda-lead rebels to remove Assad from power.
     My contention is that the chaos facilitated in the Middle East the last five years by Barack Obama, is just "community organizing 101." It is a purposeful attempt to interrupt the free and cheap flow of oil, while at the same time restricting exploration and procurement here at home. This creates more opportunity to grow government even bigger for the purpose of developing so-called "green" energy. Once it is understood that the end goal of the radical Leftist President, as it is with all radical Leftists, is to grow the power of the federal government, then chaos in the Middle East becomes, in the words of Rohm Emanuel, just another "crisis" by which President Obama can "do things he wouldn't normally be able to do."  Those "things" always lead to a less-free, less-secure and less-Constitutional America.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

The Depravity Of Barack Obama Matched Only By That Of The Media

     The unwillingness for the media to show any tenets of journalistic integrity with regards to probing the depths of President Obama's depravity, says more about their own corruption than it does of his. In fact, the media is a willing participant in Mr. Obama's deceit, even gleeful help maidens in the venture. This is best exemplified with the claim by President Obama that he never drew a "red line" with regards to Syria if chemical weapons were found to have been used. The President's "red line" statement was made in public to countless news outlets and recorded for posterity. The existence of the statement has caused the President to disclaim it, and even more, it has caused him to claim that the American people, the United States Congress and even the international community are to blame for the "red line."  Barack Obama is the only one to be held blameless, which is the narrative that the President's lapdog media will breathe into existence through their disgusting magic of information manipulation.
     The detachment of the President from his own words is reminiscent of the Benghazi affair, when the President and his administration claimed a terrorist attack was a spontaneous demonstration in response to an anti-Muslim YouTube video. These claims were made hundreds of times in a two week period after the attack, thirteen times just in the President's United Nations Speech alone. Recently, the administration has said they never made such a claim. And because of an ideologically chained media, the lie will magically become truth, or at least what too many low-information citizens will believe as truth.
     The Founding Fathers knew that men in power were susceptible to corruption and depravity, that is why they created the first amendment to the Constitution to protect free speech and allow the press to keep a check on our leaders. They also knew that the only way for free people to remain free is through a free press, rigorously committed to revealing the truth. The Founders would never have foreseen a day when those enabled by the power of the Constitution to hold our elected officials' feet to the fire of truth, would violate their own ethics of journalistic probity and the tenets of honesty to enjoin themselves to an oppressive and corrupt ideology.   
     The reader may be shocked by my use of the word "depravity" to describe the President of the United States, and may be less surprised by its use to describe the media. But our Founding Fathers would have held the opposite sentiment, holding the people and their press in higher esteem than those who governed them. That is why they gave such power to the individual and to those charged with informing them. It is a shame that our modern-day press has chosen to trade their freedom, along with ours, for the tyranny of ideas that are the antithesis of the Constitutional freedoms given to us by the Founders.
    

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Saving Presidential Face

     The Syrian situation appears to be heating up with the help of Republicants in Congress as they prepare to vote on military action in a place where there is no U.S. national security interest. The two salient points for me that have been illuminated with the passage of the last week are the inclusion of Congress in President Obama's decision on what action will be taken in Syria by the U.S. military, and the almost Pavlovian way in which the Left, in and out of the media, have condemned Bashar Al Assad for the chemical attack in a suburb outside Damascus two weeks ago that killed 1400 people.
     Last week, when United Nations inspectors were still dodging bullets on their fact-finding mission to the Damascus suburb where the deadly attack occurred, President Obama and his minions were making the case to the American people, as well as to Republicants in Congress, that he could act alone and did not need congressional approval to use military force in Syria. Now the President is seeking congressional approval like a teenage boy seeks out the approval of the teenage girls that he spent most of his early childhood teasing and pulling their pigtails. The reason is clear, i.e., the President, with his inaction for two years while tens of thousands of Syrians were dying in the uprising, and because he shot off his big mouth about a red line being crossed with chemical weapons, has painted the United States into a proverbial corner. He needs cover if things go badly in Syria, he needs his favorite whipping boys, the Republicants.
     The automatic acceptance by those on the Left, in and out of the media, that Bashar Al Assad ordered the chemical attack, when there really is no conclusive evidence to support that supposition, has played into the Obama regime's agenda to advance as truth that which they do not know to be true in order to support his decision. In the Summer of 2012, rebel forces took control of a Syrian government installation where chemical weapons were known to be stored, and then Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, said that those weapons may have fallen into the hands of the rebels. Now the Obama administration is flatly saying that the rebel forces could not have been responsible for the recent chemical attack in an effort to frame the Assad regime, because they had no access to chemical weapons of any kind. I guess the President has conveniently forgotten about last Summer's raid, where it is very likely the rebels could have acquired chemical weapons. I have no love for Assad, I am just saying that the evidence does not show conclusively who used the weapons, and the rebels did have motive and opportunity.
     So far I have heard people on the Right and on the Left support military action in Syria. Of course the action is to be limited in scope and duration, giving the target of that military action ample time to move installations and weapons and hunker down until the American storm is over. On the Right (sort of) are the usual suspects, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and the rest of the Democrat-lites in the Republicant party. I even heard Senator McCain say that Bashar Al Assad must be punished for the attack, showing once again how his years in Washington have diminished the good Senator's ability to think for himself and corrupted his moral compass. Since when is the United States military a tool to be used by politicians to "punish" leaders who may or may not have used chemical weapons on their own people? And many of those supporting military intervention seem to have only the flimsy reason of President Obama's "red line" comment several months back.
     I suppose we are to believe that our military personnel, our allies in the region and our common sense which would prevent us from actually helping our enemy which now populates the rebel movement, should all be put at risk so that our President can save face and play golf with a clear conscious.
      

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

The Rudderless Nation

     The United States of America has always been special because we have been a nation of laws, and not a nation of men. But that is not to say that the people we elect to high public office are not an integral determinant to the direction of the country, especially the President. For it is from the Oval Office that policy agendas are implemented and sold to Congress and the people of the United States. The President of the United States is analogous to a rudder on a boat, he provides the steering mechanism by which the nation presents itself, not only to its own citizens, but to the rest of the world.
     If there is one salient conclusion that can be taken away from the 30-month turmoil in Syria, it is that the United States has been rudderless for the last five years. Strong and decisive leadership is the cornerstone to the edifice of a purposeful nation, it is also something, unfortunately, in which the current occupant of the White House is wholly deficient. A leader is the first one into the water and the point man for the rest of the expedition as they make their way up the treacherous mountain to the summit. In Syria, as he has done during so much of his term as President, Barack Obama has not lead, instead waiting for someone else to do the job, or for the situation to magically resolve of its own accord. Mr. Obama's inability to be motivated by moral certitude has facilitated the deaths of over one hundred thousand Syrians since the uprising began over two years ago. Earlier action may have saved tens of thousands of lives and not allowed Al Qaeda to co opt the rebellion.
     But Syria is just a current illustration of the ineptness of this President to lead. He has been unable to work with members of the opposition party in Congress, instead choosing to mock, intimidate and demonize them in public. He dragged his feet on the Gulf oil spill early in his first term, waiting a full six weeks to take action, and then his first instinct was to send lawyers to the affected area to initiate the Justice Department shakedown of BP.  President Obama has not even shown a modicum of leadership when it comes to his own agenda items, like health care, instead opting for out-sourcing his responsibility of leadership to others. Even with his only claim to fame in his first term, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, he was dragged kicking and screaming to the decision by Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta and others after three times refusing to give the go ahead order on the mission.
     When a watercraft has no rudder by which to steer, it drifts aimlessly in the open waters. There can be no better illustration of this than the current state of America ushered in by the Obama regime. In foreign policy, we have become the paper tiger that Bin Laden said we were in the 1990s which lead to the 9-11 attacks. Our friends, like Poland, Czechoslovakia and others know that they can not count on us, and our enemies like Iran, Syria and Russia know that they can bully us into inaction or delayed action to their benefit. Domestically, the rudderless nation is adrift in the economic sludge of over-regulation and high taxes. Four years since the official end of the recession and our leaderless nation has struggled like an injured animal to crawl to the safety of prosperity, only to find that our own federal government has blocked the pathway with its boot of oppression.
     The rudderless nation that has resulted from five years of Barack Obama is in danger of drifting so far off the course of self-government and liberty that the Founding Fathers set for it, that it may never regain the proper heading again. And this would not only be a tragedy for this great nation, but for the world that depends on our leadership to show the pathway to the light of liberty and freedom.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Labor Day, A Celebration Of Union Bosses And The Democrat Politicians Who Love Them

     I do not celebrate Labor Day in the traditional sense of throwing laurels at the feet of organized labor who have visited much destruction upon our country, both economically and morally. It has always seemed a bit odd to me that the country would celebrate, with a day off of work, the very activity that is essential not only to personal wealth and satisfaction, but to the economic and moral well being of the nation as a whole. Celebrating Labor Day is a bit like celebrating a proper diet, it is just something in which one must engage if one wishes to be content, healthy and prosperous. Many are under the mistaken assumption that Labor Day is actually about those who labor, and not as I believe, about the corrupt and morally inferior labor unions who engage in a daily pursuit of benefits without a commensurate amount of merit.
     Since the days of the 1930s when James Hoffa Sr. was using his mob-backed muscle to bust heads and force unionization upon the country, the unions have always had an unholy alliance with the seedy underworld of our society. Today, the connection is not so clearly with mob influence but something worse, i.e.,  Democrat-controlled government entities. I say worse than the mob because the mob has no ability to make laws  or collect taxes. I see no reason to celebrate the unwilling confiscation of union members' hard-earned dollars through dues, and the distribution of those dollars to Democrat politicians who only institute policies which have a deleterious effect on the very workers who unwittingly support them.
     In the mid-1950s, when George Meany helped marry the American Federation of Labor to the Congress of Industrial Organizations, forming one of the largest labor unions in the country, today simply known as the AFL-CIO, he created an irresistible power structure and source of money that was duly recognized by Democrat politicians as an endless supply of campaign funds. Where James Hoffa, and his organization, the teamsters, were inextricably linked at the hip with organized crime, George Meany and the AFL-CIO had a similar relationship with Left-leaning politicians who controlled the United States government. Not that politicians of the 1930s, like Franklin Roosevelt, did not benefit tremendously from a cozy relationship with organized labor. But it was not until the 1950s and 1960s forward that both entities became more sophisticated at perfecting the money laundering scheme between Democrat politicians, who syphoned taxpayer dollars to the unions, and the union bosses who then paid off those politicians using taxpayer money and members' dues to fund Democrat political campaigns.
     I do not wish to end this post leaving the false impression in the readers' mind that I am anti-labor, just the opposite. I support all those who quietly and efficiently strive for excellence in their chosen work and are paid fairly by employers operating in the free market. I support men and women keeping more from the fruits of their labor, without having it confiscated by over-reaching government or union bosses. And finally, I support all those who take pride in their work, whether it is performing surgery to save someone's life or cleaning a toilet on their hands and knees, because I believe in the dignity of both functions as necessary to our society. And I do not need a day of hot dog-eating, beer swilling and parades to remind me that engaging in labor to feed one's family and contribute to the moral fiber of the culture is something that use to be expected of every citizen.