Wall of Worry

Investors have long uttered the adage that markets climb a wall of worry. Uncertainty fuels speculation, but January in stock trading conveyed bitter certainty. The month was the worst January in the history of market performance and the worst post-inauguration down-slide ever. Investors are voting with their feet. While the old-line press tries to insulate Obama by terming this the "Bush recession", the proposed stimulus Democrats pushed through in the US House of Representatives has no prospect of reversing the nation's economic ills. It is a leftist wish-list that rewards those who do not work with earned income tax credits-a misnomer for those who earn no income. This is simply a welfare measure by another name. The Democrats in the Senate may peel off the couple of Republican votes necessary to end the filibuster and pass this pork-laden monstrosity, but it won't have any salutary effects on the markets or prevent the nation from requiring further bailouts or falling into depression. The Democrats are talking down a reversible recession that could be solved by lowering taxes and the markets themselves if they are allowed to work, and trying to produce a bill that enshrines them in power for generations. Democrats in positions of power are evidently not overly concerned about tax burdens, today it was revealed that Tom Daschle was $120,000 in arrears to the IRS. This most-ethical administration doesn't mind a few tax-cheats and is hiring former lobbyists. They will gladly bleed the productive and pass laws they have no intention of complying with. If you fail to file, you may not end up in the Federal pen, you too may end up in the Obama cabinet.

The Saber Rattles

Bush Forty-three(43) was tested early in his administration in an incident almost forgotten because it was quickly overshadowed by 9/11. Two fighter jets were dispatched by the communist Chinese to harass an American P-3 Orion intelligence-gathering platform over international waters, one of several such incidents the Red Chinese had orchestrated. In the event, one of the Chinese planes actually flew too close in the attempt to buzz and collided with the Americans. Evidently, the Chinese pilot died and the disabled US plane made a forced landing on an island runway of a Chinese base. So, the untested Bush was tested early by the Red Chinese. Barack Obama is probably blissfully unaware in his self-satisfied reverie, immune from main-stream media criticism that North Korea is probing him now. The North Korean regime is the last bastion of Stalinism on earth. The brainwashed North Koreans are fanatical and cruel beyond comprehension. They have just thrown down the gauntlet to the South but not only the South Koreans, also to US tripwire forces in the DMZ. Obama does not understand the evil behind a movement that executes by firing squad-reads murders-her own hungry citizens who crossed into China to find food beyond roots, bugs, and clay, sadly the staples of their family diets but returned voluntarily with sustenance for their kin. The deranged Marxists killed a couple of dozen starving people for damaging the "prestige" of the nation by not starving to death in silence. The victims of this particular atrocity were almost all women. The North Korean barbarians also executed fishermen who had been blown out of their over-fished territorial waters by a storm but who returned to what they thought was the safety of their home port. Kim Jong-il is a tyrannical hunter and like all other predators, he smells weakness. He is not challenging simply Seoul but a White House that reeks of Obama's pretense. Obama can fool the gullible amongst the American public with his complicit media, but he can't dazzle the real fanatic evil-doers who oppose America's interests in the world.

Proud of GOP

The House Republicans stood together and refused to endorse socialism, declined to bless further devaluation of the dollar, and refused to rubber stamp Obamaism. Republicans now face no blame when the stimulus fails, as it must, and are still the alternative party to the leftward slide. Instead of a shirking, shrinking, and servile party, we have robust echoes of Reagan. In two years, more Republicans will join the ranks in Congress to reclaim the time-tested values that made America great.

Toward Better Health

One of the most expensive factors in the escalating cost of medical care is the heavy burden health care professionals are forced to absorb by having to practice defensive medicine. Tests that are not medically necessary become so out of an abundance of caution not so much for patient care but to insulate the provider from possible future litigation. Malpractice insurance becomes a huge expense for those in the medical field also necessitated by fear of lawsuit. Only a handful of lawmakers in Congress are or for that matter, have ever been doctors, but virtually every Congressional delegation is chock full of lawyers. So it is with state legislatures as well, attorneys crafting law that ends up feathering their own nests. This domination of the process of government extends to our President, a lawyer and also has adverse consequence for business which has to vet everything through counsel and insure itself against tort claims. The litigious climate forces up the cost of everything, but until legal laymen replace lawyers in large numbers in the law-making process, this will never change. I saw a warning printed on my airline peanuts, "this product may be produced at a plant that makes or processes peanuts." I never would have guessed.

Hush Mr. Rush

Rush Limbaugh is drawing the ire of both sides of the aisle as Congress follows Obama's lead down the primrose path to socialism. A Republican Congressman Gingrey, I believe, largely unknown outside his district, is trying to tamp down not only Rush's volume but obviously stifle the amount of criticism his constituents, who agree with the truth Rush is broadcasting, are sending him. Rush is only one voice, but it happens to be the voice of the people. Members of Congress like Gingrey won't squawk much when local content requirements or the imposition of a new Fairness Doctrine are put in place to deny the Right the forum that Rush created and the venues that took conservative thought from relative obscurity in The National Review to the groundswell of Reaganism and the tidal wave of Limbaugh.

Obama's Grave Miscalculations

Obama gave his first television interview and it happened to be to an Arab TV network. Did he try and put the fear of God into those who would attack America, her allies, or her interests? Did Obama tell the Islamists to think twice about the atavistic Dark Age violence they have returned to today's world? No, he offered more mea culpas for the actions of the nation he now leads. Obama is committed to talking to Syria and Iran. They will not recognize this as commendable outreach, but correctly see this as weakness and appeasement. Only Israel is dancing to Obama's tune. Israel stopped short of victory to end operations in Gaza before the Obama inauguration. Israel is already facing ceasefire violations with fatal consequences as an Israeli soldier was killed by a roadside bomb. Will Israel resume hostilities and finish off the genocidal Hamas terrorists who hold Gaza and prospective Palestinian statehood hostage now? No, Israel is not afraid of Hamas or any other Palestinian entity, or for that matter, the single or collective might of all the Arab states. Israel is in mortal fear of what the Iranian fanatics are developing and Israelis are also deeply concerned that her greatest ally America under the new President may betray Israel and the democratic values she and the US share selling out the Jewish state to the ravening wolves, Arab and Persian murderers.

Recipes for Disaster

Obama's plan for a green economic recovery began to emerge today. Far from creating burgeoning recovery, this plan will throttle the private sector and thwart real, sustained growth. Part of the plan will be to green two million homes. People worrying about where their next meal is coming from aren't going to be overly concerned with solar panels. What is needed is a lower capital gains tax, lower marginal tax rates or a flat or fair tax or a national sales tax with Federal income tax eliminated, and Bush's other tax cuts made permanent. Corporate taxes could be done away with to end double taxation. No wage or price controls are needed. No massive New Deal-style WPA programs need to be initiated. The private sector will create plenty of jobs if America lowers the capital gains tax rate which is already the second highest in the world or eliminates capital gains tax altogether. Energy supplies need not be green just cheap and reliable and this could be accomplished by allowing more oil drilling domestically and more refineries to be built, clean coal-fired plant construction and new nuclear plants. Jobs would thus be created in useful public projects rather than make work. Boutique-blend gasoline, now tailored with dozens of specific blends forced to be sold in different areas, should be eliminated with one standard across the country to enable refineries to produce a consistent fuel available everywhere and with lower costs associated with not having to duplicate effort. The fourteen(14) states that Obama is going to allow to mandate their own air-quality standards will only put paid to the American automotive industry as private enterprise just as having different weight and measure standards would make it impossible to operate business across state lines. Another formula for international disaster is being propounded by Jimmy Carter who simply refuses to recognize that good and evil exist and that the world's jihadists will stoop to any degree of savagery and barbarism to defeat the West. Israel is one of the front lines in the battle against Muslim extremism which is only willing to make temporary compromises to advance Jihad and has absolutely no interest in enduring peace. Carter, who unleashed this demon by not backing the Shah of Iran and permitting the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini, does not see any moral distinction between those who seek to live in peace with all their neighbors and those who would gladly cut their neighbors throat because the neighbor would not adopt Islam. Judaism does not seek to convert anyone, has never converted by the sword, and does not murder people for apostasy. The Iranian Shias are caught in an end-time cult that wants to bring back the Mehdi by sparking destruction and chaos similar to that envisioned in the Book of Revelations, and the Sunni Wahhabis, who spawned al Qaeda and gave us Bin Laden, will use all measure of violence to convert or kill those who believe differently. Jimmy Carter is no innocent abroad, he is an active ally of evil who seems to hold the same particular disdain for Jews that his brother Billy did.

Welcome the Stranger

Nashville's English First initiative failed as the elites, the media, the leftist churches, synagogues, and mosques, and the mindless, confabulated what was a common sense measure to limit expense that would be incurred by having to publish every government document in multiple languages and to prevent the taxpayer from having to bear the cost of providing translators for the tower of Babel of languages that are now being spoken here often by people who did not even enter the country legally into what they termed as racism. Eric Crafton's proposal was distorted to be a discriminatory assault on Federal matching funds and even tourism. University heads gratuitously inserted themselves and encouraged the voting public and particularly their students to vote it down. College students who are not native to Nashville and have no desire to remain here after their studies should not be given the same standing in a vote as people who own property here, but of course, these youngsters who think they are idealistic but are in fact uninformed and naive, will negate your well-informed vote. They should stick to drinking beer and spreading chlamydia and save their leftism for their hometowns. Illegal aliens had no barrier to casting ballots either due to Tennessee's lax motor voter law. Nashville welcomes visitors from America or abroad and should continue, but the elites in Nashville and around the nation do not understand concepts as elementary as self-interest, sovereignty, and even self-preservation. Many of those who require government business in languages other than English have come from parts of the Middle East that spawn terror. Others have arrived here from the failed state of Somalia. Americans should not be forced to foot the bill for those who may be here to try and kill us. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, Robert Chertoff warned that the greatest threat to the inauguration ceremonies sprang from Somali terrorists. Not everyone who comes to Nashville wants gainful employment or to take in a show at the Opry.

The Kangaroo Court

Israeli soldiers, their officers, and political leaders may be subjected to criminal jeopardy for their actions in Gaza. Literally thousands of rockets and mortar bombs were fired at the innocent civilian populace of Israel after Israel voluntarily relinquished control of the Strip to give Palestinians the chance to build the institutions of statehood. The international community pledged to monitor the Gaza Strip border with Egypt to ensure that arms smuggling did not take place. The monitors were unarmed and were soon chased away by gunmen. The United Nations did not call for General Assembly measures or Security Council resolutions to condemn or reverse the smuggling that began apace. World bodies and large numbers of NGOs did not rise in protest as Kassams began to fly. Each one of these rockets was intended to kill, and by miracle, the actual number of casualties and deaths these attacks produced remained astoundingly low. But the situation, starting in the border community of Sderot and expanding outward, deeper into Israel, became intolerable with rockets, mortars, and Grad or Katusya-type missiles, no doubt supplied by Iran, threatening and disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis, including Bedouin, Druse, and Israeli Arabs. The Hamas terrorists chased out the Palestinian Authority security apparatus that had been established under international auspices with the consent of Israel and America's blessing to help facilitate transition of Gaza into the incubator of the nascent Palestinian state. Hamas with inspiration, training, and material support from the troublemakers of the Islamic Republic of Iran, murdered many of their brethren who supported Abbas and felt that by following Abu Mazen, they were on the path to statehood. Hamas and Iran are extinguishing that hope. Even when Hamas used explosives to blow huge gaps in the Egyptian border wall and fences to allow even more smuggling, the world did not shout its outrage, even though it was obvious that weapons and weapon components were being brought into Gaza by the ton. These munitions were clearly intended to make life unlivable, childhoods unbearable, and habitation impossible, anywhere in Israel within the range of fire. Now, after Israel exercised so much patience and restraint that she appeared weak, and finally had to respond to the staggered rocket launches that did not permit a moment's peace, the Roman Catholic Church, the United Nations, the leaders of other nations, and the world's media all rush to damn Israel. The Cardinal responsible for the Vatican Office of Peace and Justice actually had the gall to declare, "Israel has established the largest concentration camp in the history of the world in Gaza." It would behoove the Cardinal to get his facts straight, the rocketeers of Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees and Islamic Jihad built the wall and through their unrelenting campaign of terror against Israel, threw away the key. The Vatican, which also reversed the excommunication (for unrelated matters) of Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson, perpetrated the Inquisition, stood by largely silent through the Shoah, and then helped real war criminals-the Nazi perpetrators of genocide escape justice by facilitating their concealing identities and fleeing Europe, has no moral authority to criticize Israel's act of self-defense. Israel bent over backwards to avoid killing the non-combatants that Hamas was deliberately using as human shields. It is only natural in so many areas of the globe that have done everything they could to rid themselves of Jewish presence that they would embrace anything they could to justify their hatreds and put it to the young men of the IDF any chance they get. It is imperative that people of goodwill don't let them.

The Senior Statesmen

Bill Clinton took many opportunities to enhance his legacy and to take shots at his successor, even if that meant fracturing history. Jimmy Carter has continued to make a nuisance of himself internationally by turning out books and commentary bashing Israel. Ronald Reagan faded into the long goodbye of the prison of Alzheimer's which prevented further political participation. Bush Forty-one(41) largely avoided politics, but his patrician sense of noblesse oblige had him readily offering his services as a fundraiser and to coordinate aid after natural disasters often with Bill Clinton despite Clinton's criticism of both Bush Presidencies. Gerald Ford was largely silent after the White House, but had his thoughts published immediately after his demise. They were full of invective for conservatives in his own party. Bush Forty-three has been restrained and in all likelihood, will continue to be. Neither of the former Presidents Bush will speak about Obama overturning not merely their legacy but the traditions of the country and conservatives most deeply held values. The Bushes might start to squawk if Obama was going to have an American flag-burning on the White House lawn with Dick Cheney serving as a human pinata for honored guests Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. Otherwise, expect the Bushes to fade into obscurity without a fuss about the abortion-monger, gay-marriage boosting, anti-capitalist now in the Oval Office. Defending the patrimony and morals that made the nation just wouldn't be seemly.

A Sour Note

The classical quartet of some of music's foremost luminaries played a previously recorded track at the inauguration. Not much of a scandal as scandals go, but Obama is full of fakery. Atmospherics are essential to him, symbols matter. He has already broken campaign pledges about not hiring lobbyists, running the most ethical administration, and bringing in the new. He has refurbished members of the Clinton administration, right down to recycling the former first lady herself at the State Department. There is little "change" in D.C. The truth is emerging that he is not the raging moderate he campaigned as, but an abortion pusher and a radical. He is not pro-choice, a misnomer, but a proponent of wanton foeticide, if not downright infanticide (leaving babies who have somehow survived abortion to die unattended in broom closets was fine with him when he was in the Illinois state legislature). The old-line press is this apotheosis' team of apologists and flunkies and his adoring public are not reasoned voters but groupies.

Idealist Versus Ideologue

Obama declared yesterday that he was closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and insisting all interrogation comport with the army field manual "to live up to the ideals of our founding fathers". The revolutionaries who fought off the British Empire were pragmatists and not idealists. They were not afraid to dish out rough treatment to Tories. They were the most successful tax protesters in human history. Those patriots who crafted the Constitution did it in such a way as to protect freedoms and restrain government, but they did not write a suicide pact to give due process rights to odious foreign villains. They were thinkers and warriors who could never have conceived of an American leader who placed the rights of terrorists over the lives of his countrymen. Ronald Wilson Reagan was an idealist. He saw America as "the city on the hill". He would not tolerate triangulation to divide by race, sex, or income. He really saw his compatriots as Americans, not African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Muslim-Americans, or anything else. The current occupant of the White House sees every interest group and separates people that way. He plays the class envy card at every turn and he rose through the political ranks in the pews and with the assistance of Jeremiah Wright who was overtly belligerent to his own nation and white people in his sermons. Our President, I am sure would resent being characterized an ideologue, but it is becoming increasingly obvious early in his administration that he resents quite a bit about the country that put him in office.

The New Era

Obama promised changed, and for good or for ill, he is delivering. Time has been demarcated with BC often used to describe the ancient epoch before Jesus and AD to mark the more modern age. I purpose this new age of transformation be called "BO" or by Obama because it certainly is starting to stink and as Michael Dukakis put it, "the fish rots from the head down." How apropos for Obama who is in the process of taking the greatest and freest nation man has known into the toilet. I don't know if we will count ourselves fortunate to live in the age of "BO".

Chickens Coming Home

Obama is saying to Iran, "come, let us reason." Seeking reform is not a crime in many places, but Iran brutally suppresses internal dissent (to the extent that they just sentenced a pair of HIV research doctors for alleged espionage), dishes out rough treatment to peaceful protesters, executes more people than any nation but China, and is working at a feverish pace to develop nuclear weapons to destroy Israel and threaten her other neighbors. Iran is the rabid dog of the world, exporting terror, specifically backing Hizbollah primarily in Lebanon but whose tentacles have a global reach and the Mehdi Army which has fought Americans in Iraq. Iran wants to be the regional hegemon at the least and many in her theocratic power-structure are end-timers who seek to bring about the destruction of the world. Obama's victory is about much more than style over substance or the symbolism of measures like closing Guantanamo, his policies to overturn Bush even where the former President advanced our and the world's security, that he is engendering the sort of jeopardy that diplomats and Presidents are supposed to prevent. In retrospect, we may miss Bush and regret that McCain, who was a security first hawk, lost.

A Dangerous Incompetent

Bush Forty-three was cast as a dangerous incompetent by much of the media because he was afflicted with occasional bouts of verbal dyslexia. Obama may be a genuinely dangerously incompetent as was manifested in his having to ask White House Counsel Greg Craig the meaning of two executive orders the President himself had just issued and signed on matters of the gravest national import-that of our security. It did not appear that the President was trying to share the spotlight and give Craig his moment in the sun, but that Obama did not know the detail or significance of what he had created. I would rather have a less than loquacious leader possessed occasionally by an appearance of buffoonery but who always had his eye on the ball of national security than a figurehead who is letting others sweat the details or a darned fool who earnestly doesn't understand the stakes. America, we have bet our lives on this novice.

How Obama Operates

Obama summoned retired military leaders to meet with him today to "get their input" on the Iraq withdraw plan. Those summoned were "political generals" who agreed with every liberal initiative that had nothing to do with producing an efficient military force in the recent past. Women in combat-great. Gays openly in the ranks-terrific. Get rid of the "tail hook" officers-hurrah. They agree with a precipitous exit, hasty and exposing forces on the ground to unnecessary risks or they would not have been invited in the first place. These officers are the "amen choir" brought in to give cover to the political decision Obama had already made. There is no other voice or counter-argument being posited, only window dressing with plenty of brass to insulate Obama when things go badly. He can claim when our defeat is sealed in a war that was just about won under Bush/Petraeus that he was only following the advice of wise and experienced general officers. Another sage move by Obo is to close the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility which to the international left and Muslims, neither of which have our best interests at heart, is a symbol of American human rights abuses. Those held there include the alleged twentieth 9/11 hijacker (who has in fact bragged in court of his participation in the September 11 plot). This is a man who would gladly have cut a flight attendant's throat with a box cutter and was eager to fly passenger-laden commercial jets into packed buildings. He is not the only jihadist detained there who would love to kill a crowd of innocent Americans, even infants. These are monsters who needed to be monitored every second of every day by hard men and whose plans had to be ferreted out by interrogators using any means necessary. Other attacks were in the pipeline after September 11, and they were thwarted only because the conspirators were broken by techniques holier than thou Obama has pledged to eliminate. Can you imagine the anguish of the families of 9/11 victims now that Obama has shown he believes the Constitutional rights of foreign enemy combatants (a non sequitur, as those fighting out of mufti were never conferred any Geneva Convention protections or access to American courts in any conflict before) are more important than the American lives already lost or the pain that families in the future will have to endure because of this calculated lapse in our national defense, this willful self-imposed breech in the armour of the homeland?

Day of Decision

Today is the day to vote for English First in Nashville. The polls are open seven(7) to seven(7). Do not be dissuaded by propaganda or charges of racism or jingoism. Wanting a unified, traditional America is no vice. Go vote!

The Indispensable Man

Tim Geithner is evidently so crucial that the nation can not survive without him. The loyal opposition, otherwise known as the Republican rubber stamp, is set to approve the tax cheat's nomination to head Treasury. God forbid that Geithner chokes on a fish bone, is hit by a streetcar, or has insatiable craving for salmonella peanut crunch, we are all doomed. Can America not produce a competent leader for the Department of Treasury who does not enter under a cloud? Why is the GOP so docile and compliant with the socialist Obama, falling in line on every initiative with hardly a peep? This man will enjoy unprecedented control of a trillion or more dollars, yet he has already shown he is not worthy of our trust.

The Blood Libel

The BBC has reported the horrific story of an Israeli soldier massacring an innocent family in Gaza. The brute is purported to have fired an M-16 into a grandmother carrying a white flag, wounding her, instantly killing one granddaughter, injuring another baby girl so grievously that she too died soon afterwards, and that the third and last daughter of the same family lies, probably paralyzed in an Egyptian hospital after the unconscionable act. This report could be a contrived fiction, a tremendously embellished one, or one where details may have been inadvertently or deliberately left out. For instance, could an insurgent have been aiming an RPG at the Israeli tank mentioned in the story, been crouching just meters behind the family and using the family, perhaps without their even knowing, as human shields. I would not assume the worst about the conduct of the IDF and assuredly, after all this international notoriety-some might say incitement, the Israeli authorities will thoroughly investigate what transpired, and if the events were what the Palestinians have claimed, Israeli courts will bring the culprit and any accomplices to justice. If this is a smear, though as is likely, the investigation must debunk it before it takes hold like the Mohammed al-Dura allegations did. To borrow a phrase from old Sam Clemens, "a lie travels half way around the world before the truth can get out of bed."

Obama Repeats Oath

The President demonstrated devotion to good form in matters Constitutional by having Chief Justice John Roberts (no not the news anchor of the same name) administer the flubbed oath of office again out of an "abundance of caution". Let us hope Obama has equal reverence for the substance of the Constitution particularly the First and Second Amendments. If he does, the nation need not worry about losing conservative talk radio to Fairness Doctrine machinations or local content requirements, and we can sleep secure knowing no BATF agents will be storming our homes to disarm us. Somehow, I doubt Obama will be as diligent in dotting the i and crossing the t when it comes to the individual God-given liberties that made America.

Free Speech Stifled

Film maker and Dutch member of Parliament Geert Wilders is facing criminal charges for daring to bring up some uncomfortable truths about Islam. His movie Fitna is being called incitement because he dared to make a correlation between Islamist terrorist mass murderers who believed they acted under Koranic authority and often stated in their own last videotaped statements before they acted, that they were committing their acts in the name of Islam and therefore, that the Muslim faith has to bear at least some culpability in acts perpetrated in its name and called for in some of its sacred text. The London and Madrid atrocities were not carried out in the name of Christ or Judaism or in the name of Mars for that matter but were part of a Jihad intended eventually to bring down the West. Are the courts in the Netherlands giving up the most basic Western value, freedom of speech, out of fear of the shahid, the Muslim holy warrior so dedicated to Jihad that he wishes to die in the endeavor or were the Dutch courts bought and paid for with oil money? This prosecution is intended to stop criticism of Islam and will have a chilling effect on free speech. Only controversial speech requires the protection of government; otherwise we will all be living in a kumbaya kindergarten.

Stand for Something

Republicans have a duty to block Tim Geithner's appointment as Treasury Secretary. A man who admits to "careless" omission in his own tax filing can not be given the broad latitude to control the economy or responsibility over the Internal Revenue Service. How can Senators have any confidence that Geithner won't be careless again in much weightier issues and how can IRS agents follow the lead of a man who will be left to say, "do as I say not as I do"?

In the Wilderness

Obama has daunting tasks ahead of him that he is ill-equipped to address. Other than an ability to deliver a prepared text seamlessly, I see no gravitas or special ability here. A man is in office who can only offer up the failed attempts at solutions from the past, mimicking FDR with the imprimatur of Paul Krugman to back him up. The fix for banking is to remove the toxic debt, much of which was generated by government regulation forcing loans to those who were not credit-worthy and agitation by groups like ACORN against the practice of "redlining" which was supposed to be discriminatory but which was aimed at denying loans to people who had no prospect of ever paying them back. If an area had a substantial default rate with high percentages of slow pays and no pays, a bank was simply giving money away by making loans there. These sub-prime loans and almost certain to default mortgages have us in the mess we are in today, but the remedy is not nationalization of the banks but having the toxic debt removed from the books and the burden taken by the government that engendered the problem in the first place with its market manipulation to prevent the "sin of redlining". Removing the toxic debt was the original plan floated for TARP, but it seems to have made too much sense for Paulson to implement so the TARP funds were directed elsewhere. Nationalized banks, central planning, and a command economy will only create more misery.

Question of Integrity

Those who have read this blog on multiple occasions may recall ads used to appear here. I as the author and editor of this web log had joined a service called AdSense that GOOGLE affords its publishers that was supposed to offer recompense. I never made any effort to artificially inflate my web hits or ad clicks nor encouraged others to, yet I was stricken from the program. The powers that be at this immense corporation somehow ferreted out some canny manipulation on my part. This is remarkably funny to me because I have no knowledge of html code, am not the least bit technically savvy, and am on a dial-up Internet service provider. Someone might conclude that I was removed from the program because I enunciated a right-wing opinion. It was certainly well within the company's discretion to do so. They can act arbitrarily as was clearly disclosed in their terms and conditions. After all, I am not the murdering government of Red China who those phony "do no harm" heavy GOOGLE operators kowtow to with their self-imposed censorship, complying with mass murderers' demands, and probably providing the Chinese authorities with the means to know who is daring to speak against them online, I'm just a bitter clinger flipping through my Bible in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Eager Beaver

Barack Obama could not wait to get to work today. He threw himself into signing executive orders, proving there is not a lazy bone in his body. He can't wait to go about the business of ruining the country. He is portrayed as a real go-getter as opposed to the media characterizations of his predecessor. Just a couple of days ago, Bush was smeared with "he never let two wars and the economic collapse stand in the way of his leisure time" with Lester Holt of NBC reporting that Forty-three had visited Camp David more than one hundred and forty(140) times, not to mention his trips to Crawford. Even Bush's exit was not treated with grace by the dinosaur media, and the poor departing President was even jeered with "na-na-na-he-he" on the inauguration podium. The old-line press are political partisans, and the chanters are utterly lacking in class.

Drowning in Sorrow

Ted Kennedy threw a damper on the party today. People rushed to the aid of the Senator from Massachusetts which seems to be more than he ever did for Mary Jo Kopechne. The socialized medicine bill that passes will bear his name and be in his honor. Even if Kennedy is deceased, he will still demonstrate a remarkable facility to separate us from our money and our freedoms.

Let's Fake History

During one of last night's network evening newscasts, an African-American college history professor educated me about the hidden history of Washington, D.C., a report which was devoid of reality and meant to incite. I found slaves built every bit of our nation's capital city. While blacks, both slaves and freed men who had bought or otherwise achieved manumission labored significantly in Washington's construction, so did white men under indenture, white bond servants, and both white and black craftsmen (masons, carpenters, etc.). The story was a deliberate effort to elevate the supposed suffering of one group while obliterating the real contributions of all others. Stories like this are meant to lay the groundwork for reparations and to keep the African-American community inflamed. Instigating such dissonance in what should have been a time of celebration for the intended audience is disheartening. For a few days at least, could the mainstream media promote racial harmony and try to unify the nation?

Coronation and Adoration

A sea of believers witnessed the beatification this morning. They are devout, fervent, Obama's attraction deeply felt. The crowd's affinity was not something I had ever seen from an American audience directed at a politician. For me, the audience's slavish worship evoked a rally in Pyongyang. This is distressing, even deeply disturbing-these followers would do literally anything for the new great leader. I saw a white woman, blond and about thirty by appearance, holding her daughter with a tear in her eye. I felt like the Frenchman in the famous photograph as the Nazi occupation troops goosestepped into Paris. He was probably a veteran of the slaughter of the trenches and surely a lover of libertie, egalitie, and fraternitie, and he wept as he saw le Republique die. I too mourn for the liberties lost, for what the election will cost us. Obama will deliver the change he campaigned on-the question is what will we do to thwart him? If we can stop his initiative to national health care, the largest leap toward socialism, perhaps we can restrain the leftward slide. Physicians can start with their role as educators to explain how Obama's plan will ration care, deprive patient choice, and be mandatory. The Democrats will play the class envy card about how affluent doctors have become, and it is imperative that conservatives stand up and say that supporting one's family is not greed, and doctors should enjoy the same rights with their fee for service models after expending so much time and energy on professional education. training, and certification as athletes and performers (who often have much greater incomes) do. American medical professionals and our researchers have produced the most advances and the best patient care in the world. Before Obama initiates his program, doctors may have to collectively withhold all elective care to demonstrate to the public just how valuable and vital their day-to-day contribution is. Obama will deprive doctors who are literally lifesavers while boosting so-called "teaching professionals" because the education unions backed Barack to the hilt. So, we will have entrenched incompetents whose main achievement in life was earning a teaching certificate being buoyed with more pay, benefits, and tenure opportunity while professionals who were not at the bottom of their undergraduate classes, struggle to meet their obligations because Obama intends to impose socialized medicine.

Wail Freedom's Passing

The lovers of liberty lie row on row/ Their blood the axle grease of liberty/ They stand silent sentinel across the Potomac plain/ They willingly paid the price/ The ultimate sacrifice/ To earn what we are about to give away/ Do not squander their precious gift/ Soil the flag they died to lift/ Remember we are more than a body of land/ No measure of devotion is too grand/ The time has come to take a stand

No More Stagecraft

Obama painted a wall today at a teen homeless shelter. During the campaign, he incongruously played basketball wearing a necktie. Does he need a valet, a dresser, or Michelle to put a tie on him that does not clip on? The pantomime of painting was done to promote national service, the kind of volunteer work that Obama will try to compel on the Maryland model of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. This kind of two minute photo-op theater is meant to show the virtue of the three hundred hours or so that Obama will steal from you or your school-age children (service required for graduation, for scholarship eligibility, for grants, etc.). Walter E. Williams and Thomas Sowell will argue now against this conscripted labor just as the late Milton Friedman fought involuntary servitude including the military draft which also may be reinstated to share the misery. Forcing volunteerism is just as perverse as paying volunteers in the AmeriCorps model the Clintons initiated and advanced. There is merit in national service, but that contribution should come from the heart and not an edict.

The Last Hurrah

W. in the eleventh hour finally did the right thing at least partially, by commuting the sentences of ICE agents Ramos and Compean. He should have pardoned them and done it sooner, but at least, he is trying to leave us smiling. I am saddened that Bush was neither compassionate nor conservative in his role as President. I will not be praying for Obama's success but for his conversion, nor will I endorse the poor judgement of his voters (or their vested interest or just plain stupidity), but I will pray for my nation.

The General Welfare

The wave of conservatism crested/ But it's ideas were never bested/ Most of the warriors just walked away/ They abandoned the field of play/ Left the hustings yesterday/ Allowing Marxists to hold sway/ So can we get our nation back,/ Restore the rightward track?/ Yes, if we take another tack/ Stand up, speak up, use our precepts on the attack/ Editorialize, criticize, put truth to their lies/ Do not sit back and watch as liberty dies

No Conservative Party

There was a robust and growing conservative movement that was marked by the Gingrich revolution and the ascension of Republicans to lead the US House of Representatives in 1994. The rise of the Republicans was catalyzed by embracing the concepts of originalist intent in matters Constitutional and limited government everywhere but national defense. State and municipal leaders would bring the decision-making process closer to the people, with local control dictating how tax dollars would be spent. Republicans even floated the idea of eliminating the Federal Department of Education as those closest to the schools would best know how to direct them. States' rights would be sacrosanct. Bush Forty-three (as opposed to Chuck Foreman forty-four) never governed as a movement conservative as President and by the end of his second term, was more or less, a socialist. There were only a few dozen consistent conservatives in the Republican ranks in the Congress. Can these few right-wing stalwarts muster enough support to thwart Obama's Utopian and anti-Constitutional measures? Will they stand against the lionized and lauded schemer to protect free-market capitalism? A few bold outriders will speak up in opposition, but Obama will carry the day, and at best, we will live under benevolent Western-European style socialism with immense tax burdens and diminished freedom. At worst and my impulse says this is the despotic direction, we will have an American version of Hugo Chavez who will trash the Constitution and with many willing accomplices, including the judicial elite, essentially rule by fiat after silencing right-wing talk radio and either outright seizing guns and ammunition or imposing so many regulations and taxes on the Second Amendment right as to make it moot. If the Senate rubber stamps tax cheat Geithner to run Treasury and gun-banner Holder to run Justice, on what issue will they rally their courage to slow Obama down? Answer: they won't.

Rose Colored Blinders

Obama is remarkably venerated by the dinosaur media and even late night comedians. His dubious associations and dangerous policy positions hardly are mentioned and never are scrutinized. His call for sacrifice is not examined. Bush was constantly criticized throughout his first Presidential campaign, accused of conspiring with his brother Jeb, then Governor of Florida, and Katherine Harris to steal Al Gore's legitimate victory which did not happen in the 2000 election but seems to be precisely what Democrats are doing today in Minnesota with Al Franken. The late pair of Ann Richards and Molly Ivins were trotted out to tell the world what a bastard George Bush was by lying about his record in Texas. Prior to 9/11, the mainstream media did everything it could to poison the well in regard to George Bush. Nothing Bush did or said would have redeemed him in the eyes of the Bush haters though there was a brief respite from most of the venom that lasted for a few months after the September 11 al Qaeda mass murder. All the monologues and jokes about Obama are gentle and elevating. Obama's gaffes are ignored (57 states, dozens of "uhs" in extemporaneous speeches) while Bush was made to look a buffoon with every malaprop incessantly repeated as fodder to diminish not only him but to make his supporters look foolish-how could you have voted for an imbecile who can't say "nuclear" or "strategy"? Obama is above criticism. He is seen by his devotees including those with press cards as infallible. He absolves his nominees such as Tim Geithner much like the Pope. His plan for the nation will punish the vast majority who are not upside down in their homes or facing foreclosure to bail out those who often deliberately overextended themselves. If someone has been responsible, scrimped and saved, Obama will now grab more away. Obama will reward the parasitic at the expense of the productive. He is demanding greater sacrifice from many who unlike Obama, volunteered for military service, who unlike Obama, took great personal risk to open business and meet payroll, who unlike Obama, who had racketeer Tony Rezko to help foot the bill, sweat blood to earn a down payment and stay current on their ordinary houses, not multi-million dollar properties where a criminal has your back. Obama is the icon, the idol of not only his voters but of the press whose purported mission had been to question, to speak truth to power, to be adversaries to those who rule over us. Now they are Obama's most prominent boosters. To paraphrase The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the media is making the myth, they are broadcasting the legend before the Marxist neophyte has even taken the oath of office.

English Only Distortions

My hometown of Nashville, Tennessee is currently debating an English first amendment that would make the native tongue the official language in all issues but public health and safety. There are deliberate misrepresentations by opponents of the measure including those supposedly objective local media members. They use "English only" and seldom mention the public health and safety exemptions. Proponents including Councilman Eric Crafton who originated the measure have been harassed. The Councilman maverick has even had his life threatened. Support for this initiative should be common sense. On one side of my family, I am a second generation descendant of a man from Poland who made a point of emphasizing English as the language of success with opportunity being greatly increased for immigrants by a rapid assimilation of the language of commerce and culture. He pointed to British literary giant and fellow Polish expatriate Joseph Conrad as an example of what mastery of the language could produce. A Japanese American and hero of the conservative movement, S. I. Hayakawa, was one of the first nationally-known backers of this helpful concept which promotes more rapid transition by immigrants into Americans and reduces expense on taxpayers who would otherwise be responsible for providing translators and duplicating the publication of documents. One of the most galling aspects of the campaign has been hearing that so many of Nashville's elites including the Governor, Mayor, and the heads of Nashville's colleges and universities have gratuitously inserted themselves into the debate against the dreaded "nativists", and the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau, a government entity has even given $5000 to the campaign to defeat the English first measure. How are government agencies permitted to engage in political advocacy particularly when their viewpoint if adopted creates additional costs for the taxpayer and should be seen as using the taxpayers own funds against them to feather their governmental nest?

Cornucopia of Emptiness

There is a time of plenty, but there is never plenty of time/ This flooded desert yields a treasure trove of deeply held regrets/ A bank vault filled with IOUs and debts/ A king's storehouse of guilt and shame/ Perhaps I should have changed my name/ I know no esoteric arts/ I haven't broken a thousand hearts/ But then I never ran off and left/ Or turned to a little theft/ I always believe I will win the next day/ That's why I pray you stay/ But I guess if you do go away/ I'll still have to go on with the play/ I suppose the show will go on even after both of us are gone/ On the downward slope you can hold on to hope/ Grab for the rope as the avalanche of dreams cascades down/ And you feel you are starting to drown/ Burned to a cinder, turned to ash/ When we have outlived our cash/ All that remains is our trash/ Well, now it's time to dash before our values begin to clash/ Don't leave annoyed, after all we still have this giant void/ Enjoy this wealth of poverty/Bereft of all our property/ Surrounded by this last lament/ Where to go when your last dollar is spent/ The air leaked out of the ball/ I am left to ask, "Did my life just stall?"/ Nobody has seen it all/ But we are in free fall.

Bush's Swan Song

Bush delivered the coup de grace to the Republican party last night with his final address to the American people. He claimed there had not been a terrorist attack in the US since 9/11 which ignores the LAX EL Al counter murders of Victoria Hen and Yaakov Aminov and the Seattle JCC shooting spree which left Pamela Waechter dead. In the President's world, it seems Jews and Israelis don't count which is why, I suppose, the US abstained in the latest UN vote against Israel (and not for the first time in this administration either). Bush did not fulfill his promise to stop Iran nukes and did not stand by America's only democratic ally in the Middle East against forces that seek the eradication of the Jewish state. Bush leaves the economy a shambles. Bin Laden is alive and well enough to threaten in recorded messages. No one has been executed for perpetrating the September 11 atrocity. Those in American security services who were asleep at the wheel and allowed the al Qaeda menace to rise, flourish, and act in the bloodiest attack ever on American soil had their failures whitewashed. Bush and most Republicans betrayed conservative principles, allowing the enormous influx of illegal aliens, expanding entitlements to unprecedented levels, basically Federalizing education with No Child Left Behind, attacking free political speech with McCain-Feingold, and in the end, with lax oversight permitting the collapse of the economy, Bush began the imposition of socialism. The Democrats should love Bush Forty-three; he did more singlehandedly to destroy the Republican party than any Democrat ever did.

Israel's Lost Victory

For Israel, in the struggle against the genocidal Islamist terrorist organization Hamas, what constitutes victory? Israel went to war to end rocket and mortar fire on her civilian populace. The Kassams and mortar strikes continue unabated and are now supplemented by Grad missile attacks which are deadlier and have a longer range. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier taken hostage more than two(2) years ago, remains captive. His release should be demanded in any ceasefire agreement, but Shalit's plight has almost gone unmentioned during the current conflict. There are no reports that the IDF has rooted out Shalit's abductors and brought them to justice. While many smuggling tunnels into Gaza have been destroyed, others have survived and there is no apparent mechanism in place to prevent future smuggling either through tunnels or wall breeches. Israel no doubt has done great damage to Hamas, to the Gaza civilian population in which the terrorists operated and hid behind as a shield, and to her own international reputation particularly among those who were possessed of a tinge of Jew-baiting in the first place. Has the assault on Hamas generated enough qualms in the terrorists to stop their firing or caused sufficient revulsion among Gaza's beleaguered people to cause them to say no more and throw the terrorists from their midst? On the contrary, Hamas has deliberately exposed Palestinian civilians to ever greater danger, so that they could exploit their civilian casualties in the media and to curry the favor of world public opinion which has sadly or cynically obliged them and blamed only or mostly Israel for her effort at self-defense, thus rewarding terror and prospective genocide. I am not one who argues that any Israeli military action further radicalizes the Arab or Muslim street. The Koran and generations of anti-Israel and Jew-baiting incitement already did that. The Arab street has never and will not foster the idea of peaceful co-existence unless Islam undergoes tremendous internal reformation. Prior to the Gaza involvement, many of the practitioners of the religion of peace wanted Israel erased and Jews annihilated and the Gaza fighting has done nothing to diminish this, but in reality, it hasn't exacerbated it either. While the IDF has been dominant tactically, Israel has not achieved her strategic objectives. The Kadima government will herald victory as will Labor's Ehud Barak, who seeks Israel's highest office. Tzipi Livni, who is also a Prime Ministerial aspirant, has signed Memorandum of Understanding with the US which will bind Israel but which the terrorists will ignore. It is vexing that Israel may have launched the war, no matter how justified, in part as selfish calculation by members of the political eschelon and in the event, ended the advance too soon so that Livni and Barak could prematurely proclaim victory. As in Lebanon with Hizbullah and the last conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Israel has bled her enemies but not removed the threat. Temporary solutions and truces that only the Jews embrace will never lead to a lasting peace in the Holy Land.

The Goose Jihad

Al Qaeda has been training suicide geese at a secret school in Waziristan. They are determined, dedicated, fearless, and flight worthy. Mother goose, these are some bad mothers. They are shahid squads who have been taught to blend in with Western flocks. Beware of them because they could strike at any time in ways the best Western intelligence agencies can not anticipate.

Collapse Is Inevitable

The bell is tolling for the US economy and any bailout now will only postpone the day of reckoning. Only after bad debt and economic chicanery (as in Madoff) are purged and the catharsis of cleansing takes place can true recovery begin. Until then, TARP and the automobile company (UAW) bailout are forestalling catastrophe but in so doing, feeding inflation with the potential even for hyperinflation approaching levels of Wiemar Germany or Zimbabwe. The financial institutions simply could not be allowed to fail because they underpin the entire economy. The financial system had to be buttressed to sustain all the other industries which were contingent on it. Inconsistency in saving some firms but allowing others, as in the venerable Lehman Bros. to fail, fed the instability. Markets need predictability and investors can't afford chaos. Foreclosures are in some cases the sole fault of the borrowers, but other unwary home buyers were duped and deserve some consideration from government. As for GM and Chrysler, they had such legacy costs that the UAW had to make concessions. There may be a case for some level of protectionism where currency manipulation as in the Chinese Yuan has taken place and where the American worker faces competition from what is essentially slave labor. Automotive workers and others laboring in manufacturing can and should not be expected to work for slave wages such as those provided by companies in China, Vietnam, and even Mexico. The green and New Deal-type measures Obama is proposing have no prospect of bringing the nation out of recession and Obama's suggested tax cut is too small and directed too narrowly to cure what ills.

The Tennessee Turncoat

Kent Williams, like Shadwell is sure to sink/ Like other skunks, he sure does stink/ You can count on him to count you out/ Now his voters sure have something to shout about/ But he has supplemented his legislative pay/ By picking up thirty pieces of silver along the way

The Judas Goat

In stockyards, a goat finds gainful employment and at least temporary job security by guiding other animals to the slaughter. Republicans in Washington learned a bit about betrayal several years back when Jim Jeffords took Republican party campaign funds, the ready assistance of the state and national Republican party, ran as a Republican, said he was a Republican in his ads and campaign literature, won election to the US Senate as a Republican and then decided to abandon his party and his voters by caucusing with the Democrats. In my home state of Tennessee, we have another politician who has decided to stab his party and the voters of Tennessee in the back. This walking pile of offal is named Kent Williams and he has conspired with Tennessee Democrats to make the ballot meaningless thus depriving us of our most basic freedom and may well be on the way to stealing other rights. Do you think a man who so readily sells out colleagues and constituents would have any problem voting to end right to work in Tennessee, long a dream of pro-labor Democrats and the unions? Do you think a man who turns on his friends can be counted upon to stand up for our gun rights? Do you think Kent Williams will hold firm against homosexual marriage or fight to defend any of the most basic values of his fellow Tennesseans? The Democratic party of Tennessee had already spit in the face of voters in this election cycle by denying Rosalind Kurita the nomination she had fairly won. But the judicial elite so far have not seen fit to give Kurita or her voters a chance in court as evidently the votes cast by citizens don't matter, only what party bosses decide has any standing. Kurita had voted against a Lieutenant Governor who was nearing ninety(90) and no longer seemed fit for his job, angering fellow Democrats. She had the courage not to march in lockstep with her Democratic compatriots and voted in the best interests of her constituents and the state by electing someone as Lieutenant Governor who did not drift off to sleep during state Senate sessions and who still knew what century this is. Do you think a party that is willing to use all sorts of machinations to preserve its perks and power will really go to bat for anything as inconsequential as your rights, anything as trivial as your income, anything so ephemeral as ethics, anything so esoteric as honor? Rosalind Kurita equals honorable politician (too often an oxymoron). Kent Williams equals Judas.

Pillory Hillary Please

Confirmation hearings for Hillary Clinton will hardly be probing and she will doubtless be confirmed. She and Bill, who was disbarred as I recall, will not have to account for any past action (transgressions such as the cattle futures payoff coup, the Rose law firm billing records, the Loral sell the Chinese accurate missile delivery capacity fiasco, or anything else). The future conflict of interest issue will not be addressed either with the Clinton Library being allowed to release an annual list of contributors but not the amounts they are giving. Perhaps the amounts don't matter, anyone who would sell the Lincoln bedroom could be bought cheap. Obama and the Clintons have said that Clinton will thus disclose more than any other former President which is utter sophistry as no other former President has had a wife seek the high office of Senate or the lofty position (perch for her as I see her as a carrion-munching vulture) of US Secretary of State. It is however a done deal, the cowardly lion Republicans won't press her hard on any of these issues or on the arcane Constitutional provision of her voting to raise the Secretary of State's salary while she was in Congress which should technically disqualify her. She's in, don't sweat the details and so is gun-banning, pardon pusher Eric Holder as Attorney General. After being accused of wanting to starve children and kill old people, all but a handful of the Republicans have lost the stomach for the fight. So when they have Hillary in the cross hairs, don't expect them to miss-they're afraid to even take the shot. And the press doesn't care to look too hard either, they have become the boot lick, lick spittle, toady lapdogs, a totally owned subsidiary of the Democratic party. A conservative opposition party in Washington which used to be the GOP is long past due.

The Suicide Cultures

Obama, in his latest interview, said he wants a certain level of sacrifice from all Americans; he wants all of us to "have a little skin in the game." America will not fall under the weight of small tax increases or increased regulation, though these little interventions won't pull the nation out of her economic nosedive either. Americans have always been willing to shed their blood and give their treasure in the righteousness of the cause of liberty but when it comes to deliberately ending one's life for a cause, Americans don't hold a candle to some other societies. The Japanese in affairs of honor or in defense of the nation have always been willing to commit seppuku, hari kari, or serve as kamikaze. Japanese even killed themselves in tribute to pop stars who had ended their own lives or joined pacts as sorts of self-murder cadres. Of late fortunately, suicide has been less of a group activity and national pastime for the Japanese. Suicide bombers seem to have become all the rage across the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and directed against Israel. Muslim suicide bombers were relatively rare in Afghanistan although their number has spiked recently. Even London and a Russian rock festival felt the explosive sting of the ultimate Jihadist. The Islamists can not take credit (blame) for the innovation of the modern man-bomb. That distinction belongs to the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka who are not Moslem and who have also commonly used female bombers. But have no doubt, Muslims originated the martyrdom concept of shahid and are more than willing to place their own women, who are subject to honor killing, and children in harm's way. That can be observed in Gaza today.

Fawning Over Obama

George Stepanopoulos gushed over the President-elect on Sunday just like a thirteen year old girl who has just discovered boys. Obama was tossed softball questions which he seemed prepared for, as if he or his minions had already seen the script. The press, which has been ruthless in attacking George Bush, seems to have a new mission. Obama will not be an adversary to be regarded skeptically but Great Leader in the North Korean sense. The mainstream media will beg for interviews with the new President, not to put him on the spot, but to show their adulation. The new media mantra will be "oh come let us adore him."

Abandonment Issues Abound

The Republicans disregarded the conservative principles of Goldwater and Reagan that first gained the American West then made the South a solid GOP stronghold and turned the Republicans into the dominant, majority national party. The US abdicated her sovereignty by leaving the Southern border unguarded and the Hispanic population surged and their culture flourished, meaning that African American and poor white labor was supplanted along with Anglo-Saxon custom and tradition and her Afro-Caribbean influence which were formerly considered essentially American. US industry, which after World War II was the workshop of the world, was first threatened by the rise of industrial Japan with her total quality management model as was propounded by an American, W. Edwards Deming, and her generous subsidies to Japanese companies to allow them to dump televisions and consumer electronics underselling and destroying American competitors, and then was ultimately replaced almost all together because of high labor and benefit cost and union work rule constraint with trade agreements such as NAFTA making it profitable to move American manufacturing outside the country. America induced capital flight with the second highest capital gains tax in the world. Even many call centers fled abroad often landing in India and causing no end of US consumer frustration. The Democratic party eschewed their commitment to robust national defense and the containment of Communism that were exemplified by Jack Kennedy and Scoop Jackson. Europe left Christendom to embrace an admixture of hedonism and the sincere worship by many of Islam and welcomed hordes of third world refugees to subvert the formerly dominant culture. Europe placed the burden and expense of her security on the US even necessitating American military action in the Balkans as states broke up and order disintegrated. NATO did not step up in Iraq at all or sufficiently in Afghanistan to make it a viable strategic alliance. The US is Michael and the NATO allies are the four other Jacksons. Russia ran from her brief flirtation with democracy under Yeltsin to return to strongman and Mussolini mimic Putin. The world dispensed with traditional morality with the great bacchanal of the 1960s. Mothers departed from raising their children as the viciously progressive income tax necessitated families produce two incomes, one to live on and one to pay the tax burden. Educators gave up teaching the classics and critical thinking in favor of I'm OK, You're OK non-competitive, values neutral instruction and copious leftist indoctrination. The ACLU and judicial elites first conspired to remove God from the classroom and then from the public square. The trial bar and legislators crafted law to remove personal responsibility and common sense. Bureaucrats and social engineers crafted sufficient regulation and the affirmative action quota system to drive out business and eradicate the entrepreneurial spirit which made America the land of opportunity and to create favored classes at the expense of the majority race and of white males in particular. Regulators failed to enforce financial rules and executives did not exercise fiduciary responsibility. President Bush threw in the towel on free market capitalism and basically nationalized large swaths of the American economy. Then the US and the world abandoned "never again" contentions and no Iran nukes leaving the Jewish state vulnerable. Finally America shunted aside logic and elected a Marxist neophyte as her President.

The Bear Wakes

Russia showed her teeth with the attack last year on Georgia after manufacturing a provocation that would have made Stalin proud. Just as the Soviets had expansionist ambitions, Putin's (not Medvedev, he is a figurehead) Russia seeks to rekindle the greater Russia at least in the territory comprising the Soviet states less the small Baltic region of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia who are now firmly in the camp of the West. Russia clawed at the Ukraine with the natural gas cutoff which also served as a little saber-rattling to the rest of Europe to let them know that the Russian state is still a military super-power and a force to be reckoned with, and can play dangerous games at will such a denying much of Europe its source of heat at the coldest time of year. Putin and his lackey Medvedev no longer broach internal dissent, routinely disrupting even the small rallies against what has become totalitarian rule. Numerous reporters who have investigated or criticized the regime, have been attacked, some even killed to silence them. Russia even orchestrated the murder of a former spy who had become a detractor in the heart of London. Russia is aiding proliferation and propping up the regimes that most threaten the West and Israel, readily supplying Iran and Syria with advanced weapons and helping Iran to complete her nuclear project. Russia today is every bit the source of mischief and instability she ever was.

Foolish Fiscal Fantasy

Obama wants nearly a trillion dollars to stimulate the economy in addition to the seven hundred billion already appropriated for the Paulson plan. The government can not even precisely account for much of the three hundred fifty billion dollars already spent. Obama's premise of a surge up prosperity as opposed to a David Stockman/Reagan style trickle down can not work. If the poor knew how to spread prosperity through industry and entrepreneurship, they would not be poor in the first place. The only job creation occurring will be the growth of government jobs. Low and middle income people with ambition, ability, and substance have not remained static in the capitalist America of the past. They have enjoyed incredible upward mobility and not because of a five hundred or thousand dollar government stimulus check. If a person were not satisfied with his station in America, it was possible to rise above it. The US is not Victorian England where people were hidebound by class. Just look at all the Asians who have come here with nothing and within a few short years end up owning a business and within a generation have their children enter the professions. They did not come here to sign on to the dole. Obama's plans from energy with massive expenditures on greening fuel with international demand for gasoline drying up making it very affordable, to medicine, to give free care (that is free for the recipient but glaringly expensive for the taxpayer) to dependent children up to age thirty(30) will at best bring us an extended recession under Northern or Middle European-style socialism. At worst, the US may find herself in an unending depression with entrenched Democrats cum Marxists running most every aspect of American lives.

The Distorted Portrayal

War is like making sausage, inherently and unavoidably an ugly enterprise. The world media is readily showing graphic images of injured or dead children to demonize Israel without any attempt to put the suffering in context. No Palestinians would have been injured if after Israel evacuated her citizens from the Gaza Strip leaving greenhouses and industry in place for the Palestinians to attempt to build their own prosperity, the Palestinians had embraced this opportunity to govern themselves in peace and prove themselves a reliable neighbor and a partner in peace. Had the Palestinians chosen this path, they would have a state today quite possibly with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. In the event, rather than responsible government, the Palestinians descended into internecine violence with Hamas gunmen chasing out the PA and with Hamas, nihilistic at its corps, being voted into power by the residents of Gaza. The citizens of Gaza selected this terrorist entity to run their affairs in a more or less fair plebiscite, rejecting even the phony overtures of peace of the rival Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas which holds nominal power for the Palestinians of the West Bank who left to their own devices would also favor the rejectionist position of Hamas. That state-controlled media or Al Jazeera would make Israel the bugbear is no surprise but that the so-called free press in the West would mimic this Jew-baiting lie, parrot those who advocate the eradication of Israel, is shocking. Even the scorecard is perverse, seven hundred to ten, as these numbers do not take into account that the Hamas terrorists have intentionally embedded themselves where any action to deter their rocket and mortar fire is bound to produce civilian casualties. For all the bloodshed on both sides, only the terrorists are to blame.

The Stacked Deck

That the United Nations would pass resolutions critical of Israel, that the Security Council would call for an immediate ceasefire that would leave Hamas in situ to fire rockets at Israel and proclaim their victory- that of a terror group over a democracy, should surprise no one. The die was cast with the composition of the UN with tyrannies outnumbering democracies many times over as members of the august body, with some of the democracies having age-old animosity toward Jews as is reflected in their perpetration of the Shoah or active collaboration with the Nazis or calculated silence over the Holocaust when even public declarations offered the chance to slow the German machinery of genocide, participation in pogroms, and even in the Inquisition. These nations which could not wait to rid themselves of Jews, can never be counted on to fairly assess a moral equation between Israel and those who are committed to destroying the Jewish state. They will always seek some flaw in the conduct of today's Jew to justify the anti-Semitic actions of their progenitors. If Jews may be portrayed as Nazis (a gross falsehood and mischaracterization of the ethical conduct of the IDF by the way, as no military force in history has gone farther to protect innocent life even imperiling Israeli troops to protect people who are in favor of the removal of the Jewish state at a minimum and more often than not would support the genocide of Jews), the destruction of the Jews of Europe becomes easier to rationalize. Arab and Muslim members of the General Assembly will vote against Israel at every turn. Nations in the thrall of the left the world over will routinely denounce Israel. Israel's restraint of using surgical precision and jeopardizing their own ground forces will win few friends in the UN as multi-lateralism has become the enemy of democracies acting in their self-interest in general and Israel protecting herself in particular. It is disheartening though that in the waning days of the Bush administration that the US did not veto the UNSC ceasefire resolution that if implemented, rewards terror and the deliberate use of Palestinian civilians as hostages for Hamas or Hamas's willing accomplices as human shields to defeat this imperiled democracy only inviting future attacks by Hamas, Hizbullah, and their sponsor Iran.

No Justice Crowd

Recent riots in Oakland were sparked by the death of an unarmed man at the hands of the police. The street violence is a response by anarchists, sociopaths, and the kind of help-yourself entrepreneur who had a heyday after Katrina. The property damage has been inflicted largely on minority-owned business and has nothing to do with legal outcomes of this case. Assuredly, if police conduct was suspect, it will be fully investigated and prosecuted. If California authorities hesitate, have no doubt the Obama Justice Department will see that justice is served. Only agitators and opportunists can continue to shout "no justice-no peace".

Some Informed Speculation

Whether Hizbullah launched the rockets into Israel will soon become apparent. If the attack is a limited barrage, it may have been generated by al Qaeda sympathizers or Palestinian groups such as the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command). If the missile fire is sustained, there can be no doubt that it is generated by Hizbullah, in all likelihood at Iran's behest. Hizbullah is no mere terror group but an integral force now in the government of Lebanon. Hizbullah has increased the size of its arsenal, its range, and lethality since the last war. If this is an assault by Hizbullah, Israel can not mount only an air war or a charge to the Litani to counter it. She must wage a war of sovereign states against not only Hizbullah, the terrorist organization that has muscled its way into the governance of Lebanon but against the Lebanon Armed Forces(LAF) which acquiesced and allowed genocidal Shia Islamists to share power, and against the institutions of the compromised Lebanese state. Watch for Syria to maneuver forces to threaten Israel on the Golan as well and don't be surprised to see a terrorist foray there as well facilitated by Assad or permitted by him.

The Second Front

Missiles rained once again on the civilian populace in Israel. Ominously, they did not fall only on Sderot and the region abutting Gaza but fell all the way across the country after being fired from Lebanon. Israeli strategic planners no doubt anticipated this contingency. This could well be the nasty handiwork of Hizbullah and could have been coordinated by the merchants of menace in Tehran. If Iran has a nuclear warhead ready and a viable delivery system, they may use it soon and test the new President as he never imagined.

No Peace Possible

Israel should not accept a truce with Hamas even if the terrorist group publicly accepts the terms because the Islamic guerrillas will only use it to rearm and recuperate. There are, of course, deep and justified concerns on Israel's part that refusing any pretense of a truce will invoke the wrath of the international community and engender sanctions against the Jewish state, but Israel's primary objective now must be the elimination of any Hamas capacity to mount attacks against her. If the perception is allowed to exist that Hamas defeated Israel by surviving and maintaining a military capacity, Hamas may soon overwhelm the forces of Abbas in the West Bank and pose an ever greater threat to the Jews and a larger stumbling block to any prospect of even achieving the patina of peace which might be approached with the Palestinian Authority under Abu Mazen but which ultimately will never bring peace either as the vast body politic of the Palestinian people, their Arab brothers, and Muslims in general will never allow peaceful co-existence with such an alien entity to their way of thinking as a Jewish state smack in the middle of the Ummah. The peace process is a chimera made of whole cloth and moonshine. It is all process, Israeli territorial concession but no peace and never peace and no prospect ever of peace. Would you want to be on a train running perfectly on schedule but about to drop off a cliff?

Celebrity Obsessed Culture

The media mania over the tragic death of the son of a star whose fame crested with Urban Cowboy, more than a generation ago, rebounded briefly with the bloody Tarantino film Pulp Fiction more than a decade ago and has waned ever since, and a mother actress who were it not for her marriage would be largely unknown is amazing. To have maudlin music accompany national news stories along with reportage debunking ideas some seem to hold about the non-traditional religious entity the couple belongs to is astounding as well with an abundance of real hard news about the war on terror, the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the looming depression, the Israel-Hamas clash, the Presidential transition, indeed even H5N1 bird flu returning to Asia and claiming a life in Beijing, all of which could drastically affect thousands of lives, being mostly unreported. Of course, the press tries to dress up the story with a tie-in to the broader implications of seizure disorder, but make no mistake, this is bread and circus to distract from real concerns. Even the President-elect's selection of his Surgeon General reflects this celebrity worship trend. A TV doctor is picked, an M.D. with broad public visibility already from his stint on CNN. This TV star will help facilitate our transition into socialized medicine, an issue with much broader implications than whether the Travoltas follow Mary Baker Eddy or L. Ron Hubbard.

Join the Bandwagon

While Israel has enjoyed consistent US support from the Bush administration, Obama may alter the strategic balance in the Middle East by abandoning Israel to her own devices at a time when the Jewish state faces an existential threat from Iran and may well have to counter this new nuclear menace alone and under international sanctions. Israel's alleged attack on two(2) UN schools in Gaza will militate toward the UN taking action against Israel and come January 20th and the new administration, the US will stop using her Security Council veto to stave off hostile measures punitive to Israel. The US will simply abstain from voting and Israel will be punished for attempting to defend herself or the US may affirm progressively tougher measures such as those used to fight South African apartheid until Israel is forced to give up any territory the world deems occupied and is left totally vulnerable with indefensible borders and an extant atomic threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran. All this because Hamas was savvy enough to fire from the environs of the schools to force Israeli forces to respond to protect themselves. In this world of upheaval, Muslim fanatics who should be fully and solely held to account can triumph by sacrificing their own women and children and blaming Jews. How disgusting.

Feed Notch Babies

Social Security has sent smaller checks to those born between 1917 and 1921 in one instance and extending to those born up until 1926 by other measures than to other Social Security recipients. This is unfair as these people paid into the system their whole working lives and formerly millions now sadly only thousands who remain alive, stood to save democracy by entering US forces in World War II. Now, at the end of their days and for far too many in diminished circumstances worsened by the recent market collapse, they could benefit by having Social Security send checks commensurate with all other recipients. This would be a form of stimulus and would be more equitable and compassionate than much of the stimulus Obama has offered. It would restore unquestionable fairness for everyone who receives Social Security and would allow these elders to finish their lives in dignity. If Democrats object which would be unlikely as they are already committed to a trillion dollars or so of deficit spending, a means test could be imposed to preclude millionaires from receiving the enlarged benefit although they paid as much into the system as their poorer peers. To Obama and Congress, there is still time to do the right thing.