Power Mad Democrats

President Obama fired the head of General Motors-this is extraordinary. Unprecedented actions continue with Barney Frank pushing the innocuous-sounding Pay for Performance Bill of 2009 through his committee. This bill will allow the government to set salaries for those employees of companies that accept or have accepted bailout money (government aid). Not merely a handful of executives would be subject to government limits on pay but virtually any worker. The lesson companies must take from this is do not accept government aid. If you dance with the devil, he always names the tune. Even if companies decline assistance or even are in sound financial health, these power-mad Democrats may extend their reach and dictate their salaries as well. Obama glides smoothly down the slope of restricting liberty with his party cheering each socialist overreach and his mass media amen choir expediting rather than investigating which used to be the job of journalists. Any critic of the new Marxism is turned into an object of derision and nothing stands in the way of an unalterable decline.

One Million Bonds

Ian Fleming, an author of some repute, created a character with a license to kill. In Lahore, Pakistan, a terror group acting under its religion-or its distortion of its own religion, murdered a number of innocent coreligionists. This has become common in the practice of Jihad from Pakistan to New York City. Under color of faith or the guise of martyrdom, these nihilists and atavists are destroying any possibility of peace. If even one in a million Muslims shares this perverse vision of what Allah wants, this tiny minority still has the determination and power through self-sacrifice and mass murder to force the West into extreme measures which will inevitably harm innocent Muslims and further stoke the fire of a new type of world war by radicalizing even more Muslims who will feel targeted and join the Jihadi cause. Even if only one percent of Muslims share the evil tenets of al Qaeda or the warped belief in a twelfth Mahdi that is more than a million people who think their faith gives them a license to kill.

Ignore the Rhetoric

I watched the anointed one on the Bob Schieffer show. I was probably one of the few who found the Sunday show on CBS (Communist Broadcasting System, Central-planning Bureau of Stalinism, Congratulation on Becoming Socialists-insert own line here) since almost nobody watches. Obama has a remarkable facility to tailor a palatable message-why he sounds like Reagan when he wants to, but underlying (and I emphasize lying) Obama's words are his true sentiments which he revealed to Joe the plumber in an unguarded moment. On the war front, "BO" sounds a bellicose as Patton to Schieffer, but his real intentions were revealed when the administration said it was seeking "moderate Taliban", an oxymoron if there ever was one, to dialogue with-Barack Hussein Obama finds America responsible for everything she has suffered and even blames us for Mexico's drug war. Obama disdains the military even more than Bill Clinton did. It is a shame that all of Obama's questioners are his handmaidens committed to perpetuating the manufactured presidency.

Rushing Toward Destruction

In addition to dismantling free market capitalism and revoking our foundational ideal, Obama is determined to retreat to defeat in Iraq and give back blood-bought gains and make an anemic effort in Afghanistan. When half a million or more (I have heard 750,000 from one defense expert) combat and support troops would be needed on the ground to secure victory, the "unserious one" is sending seventeen thousand and four thousand military advisers. Obama will talk a good game-he always does, but he will not commit sufficient resources to win the counter-insurgency. By not sealing victory, he is guaranteeing perpetual fighting until he or his successor, if that successor is of a like mind, withdraws in defeat. Isn't it nice that Obama pretends the justice of this cause as if he needs to justify Bush's original intent which everyone but insane leftists and Jihadists themselves recognized all along? It is a shame that so many nations proclaimed unity with the US after September 11, 2001 but so few did anything to match their rhetoric. Only a lack of will could have cost civilization this war-which is exactly what the US and our European allies are displaying.

Sub Specie Aeternitatis

Evil has existed since man's memory runneth not to the contrary. So, too, has naivete. Those who consider themselves moral, decent people (or leaders) have often sought an accommodation with evil. They include the pre-World War II appeasers and the appeasers of this generation. They are attempting to coerce Israel, the front line for democracy and Western values, to make compromises with the modern face of evil, a genocidal, nihilistic brand of Islam characterized by the obligation of Jihad. Netanyahu is not a barrier on the road to peace. Criticism of Islam is not by its nature inflammatory-those Muslims who seek reform of their own faith are by their actions-critics. To fall in line with those who urge limits on speech to protect this or any other faith advances totalitarianism. Any suppression of speech to spare feelings is an affront to universal human liberty. Silencing those who don't tow the party line and embrace political correctness will go a long way to losing the war which isn't after all against Islam or even terror but is the struggle to advance freedom and as Natan Sharansky has stated it, democratic values-as democracies virtually never make war on each other.

Sudan- Intrigue Abounds

The Jerusalem Post carried a story broken by CBS in the US that Israeli planes had destroyed a weapons convoy bound for Gaza as it crossed Sudan. Would it not be wonderful if some nation was willing to stand against the arbitrary power of the Sudanese regime, so willingly used against the innocents of Darfur and formerly against Christians and animists in other parts of the country? Whether it was Israel or the US that staged the alleged attack-hurrah-someone is standing against mass murder and the export of terror. Maybe if more nations acted in this manner against evil, terror could actually be vanquished.

Obstacle to Peace

The last question Obama answered last night reveals quite a bit about his perspective on the Middle East-and should be alarming to those who support Israel. Instead of disputing the premise of the question from an AFP reporter, Obama went along with the idea that Netanyahu and Lieberman might present barriers to peace. Obama could easily have deflected the question by saying "both sides" or "those who harbor terror", but instead, Obama said he would be "persistent".  "BO" accepts that Israel is the stumbling block to peace. Israel has always wanted an enduring peace and has made and is willing to make enormous sacrifices to obtain it. The Palestinians who are not the only enemy Israel has to deal with, by in large, do not want peace, but favor the removal or subjugation of Jews in the Holy Land. Never forget that the Palestinian Liberation Organization was formed to battle and overturn Israel in 1964-three(3) years before Israel came into possession of what most of the world terms "occupied territory" which more appropriately should be called "disputed territory". The West Bank is not the objective of the Palestinian struggle-the true aim of the Jihad against Israel is genocide, expulsion, forced conversion, turning Jews into dhimmi or into corpses. Israel, no matter the leadership, advances the prospect of peace. If the Arabs disarmed, there would be peace. If Israel disarmed, annihilation of the Jews would ensue. Peace will come only with a reformation of Islam when Muslims abandon the idea of conversion by the sword. Obama does not and will never recognize this glaring fact.

Government for War

The nation of Israel under the leadership of Prime Minister-designate Benyamin Netanyahu is forming the coalition required to govern Israel's Knesset-a fractious parliament. Netanyahu is building a broad government including what some would say is the incompatible leftist Labor party. The Labor party is led by Ehud Barak, a great military hero, former prime minister, and current defense minister. Barak is serious about the security of Israel. Even if he has made less than perfect decisions in the past, Barak knows the Iran nuclear threat poses an existential danger. Atomic Iran is forcing strange bedfellows in Israel, and the situation in Middle East is about to reach the boiling point. This coalition is constructed to defeat Iran and within months, before Russia deploys the S-300 in Iran, it will hit critical mass. No matter what Obama says and the current of world opinion, the new Israeli leaders will not tolerate Iran attempting nuclear genocide.

The Radical Idea

If Obama and his Democrats are able to demonize enough businesses, they believe the American people will gladly embrace socialism. Government causes the crisis we find ourselves in with regulations against "redlining", forcing bank to issue sub-prime loans which the borrowers could never pay back. Government oversight is so lax that Madoff criminality ensues on a different front, but to Obama and his minions, free enterprise is the culprit. Government washes its hands, absolves itself and passes the buck to those who actually built prosperity for the nation. This is all part of an effort to alter America irrevocably. If we are lucky, we may become a relatively benign socialist country with only slightly less civil liberty-only a few of our God-given rights stolen. If Obama is as determined as I think he is-we are on our way to a Trotskyesque, Marxist enterprise with very few freedoms preserved and very few places to flee. "BO" is an implacable opponent of the values of the Founding Fathers, and there may not be enough opposition in the Congress to stem the leftist tide.

The AIG Pretext

Barack Hussein Obama is using the reprehensible conduct of a small division of the American International Group as the small end of the wedge to pry apart capitalism. He is using a handful of examples of bad conduct as an indictment against the free market. "BO" will use these abuses to overturn our nation as we have known it, but only if we let him. If conservative Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats from swing districts can unify and hold out, in less than two years, a more conservative House of Representatives may be in place to thwart His Highness for what will hopefully be the last two years of the one-term Obama Presidency.

Pakistan Versus India

The border region of Kashmir is heating up once again between the sub-continent's two nuclear powers. India is already in a state of agitation after the Mumbai massacre and the little match of some cross-border exchanges of fire might be enough to ignite the torch of war-perhaps even a nuclear exchange. Not surprisingly the unserious novice in the Oval Office has hardly uttered a word about the Kashmir conflict or the Mumbai outrage; perhaps, Obama thinks nothing of consequence ever happened on earth until his ascension.

Obama's Evil Doers

I watched Jay Leno last night, something I had not done since a homosexual character called Ross or Russ the intern said the sushi being served tasted like a.s (expletive expurgated) while visiting the Japanese guest house at the Utah winter Olympics. I don't find Leno and his score of writers funny-except for his warped appearance caused by his gargantuan chin. I tuned in because "BO" was coming on. Obama was masterful at deflecting blame while saying the buck stopped here. The unfunny comedian who makes far more than almost any Wall Street bonus and Barack denounced the AIG greedsters in particular and speculators in general. Our President is a vicious class-envy promoting redistributionist and the supposedly avuncular talk show host was more than willing to try and make Obama look good-even at that, Obama managed to insult retarded people with his remark comparing his lack of bowling skills to Special Olympics. Obama's Tonight Show segment was disheartening, but three less public Obama initiatives should terrify. 1.) Obama is purported to be in the process of disarming our well-trained commercial pilots who are the last barrier to a repeat of 9/11. 2.) Obama is reported to be planning to release some of the Gitmo prisoners onto US streets, making a domestic terrorist atrocity almost inevitable. 3.) Obama sent the bloodthirsty Iranians a message that a new era of relations between the US and the Islamic Republic was coming-evidently based on "mutual respect". These are the Iranians who publicly hang homosexuals, murder minorities (such as practitioners of the Baha'i faith), and who have made it a national goal to wipe Israel off the map. Welcome to the rule of the anti-capitalist appeaser-the worst of all worlds Presidency.

Bibi and Slobo

There are grotesque comparisons being made to Israel and Serbia, Israel and South Africa in the bad old days, and even Netanyahu and Milosevic. In the first instance, Israel is a beleaguered democracy surrounded by hostile nations. Even Jordan and Egypt who have signed treaties with Israel do not have Israel's best interests at heart. Syria, Hizbullah-dominated Lebanon, and Iran are determined in their current incarnations to eradicate Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians and too many restive Israeli Arabs agree with the genocidal objectives of the mad Mullahs of Tehran. Slobodan Milosevic was a petty thug who came to power in an undemocratic manner; Benyamin Netanyahu is coming to power the same way as Obama did, through electoral processes (though Israel's messy parliamentary system requires coalition building). Netanyahu has never employed any of the ethnic cleansing tactics that the Serbs used against Bosnians, Kosovars, or Croatians. He is a defender of Israel-not an aggressor in any aspect. The international left and Jew-hating rightists are also calling Israel an apartheid state. It is Palestinians who won't permit Jews to live among them. Palestinians murder their own who sell land or property to Jews. There are more than a million Arabs in Israel with full citizenship rights and Palestinians in the so-called West Bank. How many Jews are living in Gaza? The only apartheid that exists in the Middle East is the denial of rights to non-Muslims who are forced to live as dhimmi across the Arab world. Jews would be content to live with Arab neighbors as equals, but Muslims do not by in large share that sentiment.

Grand Collective Delusion

Obama's core constituencies were often self-deluded. For some of his black supporters, Obama would make every day a Utopian Juneteenth. They would never have an unaddressed need again. For his leftist peaceniks, he would flee the field of combat in Iraq and subsequently in Afghanistan as well. The Code Pinkers must be disappointed that Obama has dragged his feet on the path of capitulation, but don't be alarmed Fellow Travelers and Muslims, Obama is still determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on both fronts, even if it is now "slowly, slowly". For Jews who thought Obama would be a great friend of Israel-particularly with Jews David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel as close advisers, oops, think again. And for conservatives who convinced themselves that Obama was a raging moderate and would govern as a centrist, you duped yourselves, didn't you?

Capitalism Being Demonized

AIG behaved outrageously and Democrats are seizing on the unsavory conduct of this company and renegades like Madoff to make the case against free market capitalism. No doubt Goebbels would have been proud. Obama is a new incarnation of Huey Long. His populist rhetoric is aimed not at the particular entity he picks as target of the day but at the very economic system that gave us more than two hundred years of prosperity. There have certainly been recessions, panics, and a Great Depression, but if markets are allowed to work without the ruining hand of government manipulation, economic growth can return and be sustained. AIG or Madoff are easy to villify but they don't represent free enterprise any more tha William Calley represented the US Army. Resist the temptation to lean toward central planning; once we have socialism-we are over as the America the founding fathers envisioned.

Wine in Tennessee

In many states, wine is available in grocery stores but not in my home state of Tennessee. Whatever the stated rationale-less driving under the influence, public drunkenness, etc.-the actual reason many in the state legislature do not want to see consumers benefit from less expensive wine in groceries is simple. Those who are corrupt or merely less than scrupulous know it is next to impossible to extort a bribe or a kickback from a major national retailer like Walmart or Kroger. It is much easier to shakedown Mom and Pop corner liquor stores than to put the arm on these behemoths. Sure, the big boys may contribute to campaigns legally but there is so much more off the books shenanigans possible if the giants are kept out and the small stores are subject to the whims of legislators or regulators who could be on the take, or subject to being bought or sold, or favorable to a little cash persuasion. Many of those railing against the evils of wine today in the legislature will imbibe more than a little for St. Paddy's Day-nothing better for some of those self-righteous hypocrites than a whore and a tipple.

Brilliant, Flippant, Wrong

Last night, I dined at a Japanese establishment that attracts the cognoscenti and elite (and us, who probably don't fit either category). We were seated next to a table with three sushi connoisseurs who were obviously possessed of more than a little learning. This modicum of knowledge led to them mocking the existence of God and endorsing evolution in their early conversation. I engaged in some light banter-discovering I had attended the same secondary school as one of the diners who was now a classmate of this evening's date at a prestigious Eastern university. Her father was the third member of the party and a university (a school I briefly attended) professor. They were discussing all sorts of early Western and Eastern (Shinto) mythos which seemed to hold great water for them while the true Uncaused First Cause was worthy of ridicule. It is amazing that people so bright can not see the forest for the trees.

Russia Smells Fear

The neophyte in the Oval Office is about to be rolled by the thugs in the Kremlin. Today, reports have emerged that both Venezuela, under aspiring Stalinist Hugo Chavez, and Cuba are offering to host Russian heavy bombers. It is doubtful that any previous President would have tolerated this, even during the heat of the Cold War. Remember the quarantine Kennedy imposed during the Cuban missile crisis. Our untested leader will hardly squawk-he is even weaker than McGovern would have been if America had been so brainwashed as to elect him. Many hunters occupy high office or pull the strings of nominal leaders. Medvedev and his puppet-master Putin know a fellow predator is not guiding America, but that our alleged leader, at least the one running us into the ground is no hunter at all, but when in comes to international weakness and capitulation, Obama is an easy mark, prey to those who practice realpolitik with iron fists in velvet gloves-or just plain-old mailed fists as the case may be.

More Socialist Advocacy

ABC morning morons, Roberts and Cuomo, marveled at the Finnish early childhood development program that mandates that employers give new parents large amounts of paid leave to care for and bond with their babies, and the wonders of the Finnish educational system in general. Diane Sawyer who generated the story from Finland and the New York anchors were trying to illustrate the lessons we can take from this socialist paradise. I'll help them draw the conclusions that they will miss. In a small, culturally homogeneous country with a Lapp indigenous minority and only a few well-absorbed refugees from the Third World, almost unlimited educational advancement is possible, but in the polyglot US, with plenty of teeming refuse who were poor and illiterate in their own countries, the Finnish model can never translate.

The Malmo Lesson

I had read about violence during Israel's Davis Cup match with Sweden in the Jerusalem Post. Today, on CBN is saw it vividly displayed. The origins of the street conflict were documented in much greater detail by the Christian network that actually sent reporter Dale Hurd to Malmo. Hurd described how Sweden's generous treatment of refugees brought an influx of Muslims, now about twenty-five percent of the Malmo population. These guests made no particular effort to assimilate and become more Swedish-and the Swedes did not mandate any sort of cultural immersion program on which government subsidies or remaining in the country should have been contingent. The guests are now taking over the house and according to the Hurd report, any Swede who stands up to them is termed a fascist or racist. Defending one's religious heritage-Judeo-Christian-or patrimony of the Western canon is neither racist nor fascist, just essential to survival. Would that the protest was limited to one city in Sweden-I have just read that Muslim demonstrators shouted down returning UK forces in Luton as "butchers". These brave service personnel had just returned from a tour devoted largely to protecting innocent Muslim life. They certainly were no butchers. The West must soon wake up that there is a religion cum political movement bent on world domination including the imposition of Sharia law that despises traditional Western values, but will gladly use our freedoms (which they loathe), our willingness to provide refuge, and even our own welfare support programs to undermine the very societies that welcomed them as guests, and provided them incomes and protection. Even the most gracious host sometimes has to ask an unruly guest to leave.

Gun Rights Imperiled

Two paroxysms of "gun" violence, rocked the world in the last day. One in Alabama, with relatively easy access to guns and ammunition and one in Germany with relatively restrictive gun laws. Both attacks must be viewed with utter revulsion-but neither should be used as the excuse for tighter gun regulations. These regulations are self-defeating and only make the law abiding public more vulnerable to those criminals who ignore the law no matter what it is. If someone has a determined criminal mentality, will a law on paper stop them from obtaining an illegal gun? Only in an absolutist regime, with every inch of every house searched with a fine-tooth comb, every metal shop where a zip gun could be fabricated closed, and every inch of ground explored with metal detectors, could guns be seized from the public fully, and if such draconian action were attempted, even those dispatched to take the weapons might well turn their guns against those initiating the orders, or an enraged public might righteously storm government arsenals and overturn this action that resists the most basic natural law, the right to protect oneself and one's family. My deepest sympathies are extended to the victims of both outrages, but don't use madness as a pretext or rationale for stealing one of our most basic, God-given, human rights.

The Scattershot Presidency

Obama has diffuse objectives, rather than the surgical focus that most effective leaders have. He is like a priest on a bloody battlefield, administering last rites left and right, more concerned with speed than accuracy. This is an apt analogy for someone giving last rites to everything the nation has held sacred for more than two hundred years.

Here's Voter Remorse

Buyer's regret seems to be sinking in with Warren Buffet as he is starting to appreciate that his Marxist neophyte sometimes referred to here as "BO"-as in body odor-is sinking the nation. So many were sold a bill of goods on hope, moderation, optimism for a post-racial future, but they are betrayed on all counts. Supposedly post-racial Obama won't even fire his attorney general (a gun-banner) after Holder says whites are cowards on matters racial. Obama simply says he wouldn't have chosen those words. So, does our President agree with the underlying sentiment? So many voted for Obama on the premise of party first. Many Jewish supporters of Israel cast their votes for Barry, but Barry may well end up burying the Jewish state. Black voters cast their natural affinity vote, many expecting an immediate improved lot in life, but like everyone else, African Americans are being pulled down by Obama's economic mismanagement. Lifelong party first Dems and union members are being sucked into the recession vortex, and even if they are not willing to admit it yet, it was anticipation of Obama's socialism and its implementation once in office that have created the worst economic climate since the Great Depression (and unlike Democrats who persistently trot out this as rhetorical flourish to gain votes of the ignorant, we really are in the hell of catastrophic recession which may soon be depression due to Obama's utter incompetence). The only question is: what will be left to repair or save if the Democrats ever give up power?

The China Test

Obama is being tested by the Communist Chinese who so recently were being feted as our financial rescuers by our Secretary of State. Just days after Hillary Clinton's begging mission, US surveillance ships found themselves confronted by Chinese vessels in international waters. Expect Obama to show his pusillanimous nature when confronted with real foreign threats. He will show no spine against North Korea either, but he will gladly confront allies in peril like Israel and slap Great Britain in the face. Obama will suppress internal dissent but will slink away from real enemies and international bad actors particularly those who pose consequential threats. In the realm of national security, Obama will be found lacking.

The Bredesen Quandary

Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen is concerned Tennessee's unemployment insurance program will soon be strapped for funds and is going to raise the state unemployment insurance tax to address this, which is absolutely the worst action the Democrat can take at a time when businesses are operating on ever smaller profit margins or increasingly as is the case, running in the red. In a climate, where many companies, large and small, are on their last legs, this tax increase may be the straw that breaks their back. Even if the businesses survive, they may have to layoff workers to pay the new unemployment tax increase. Bredesen's reasonable fear that unemployment will rise will thus become self-fulfilling prophecy.

Shiva at Work

Shiva, the destroyer in the Hindu religion, is in office in Washington. In this incarnation, he goes by the name Barack Hussein Obama. He has managed to destroy more wealth, more quickly, than anyone in human history. Under his stewardship, trillions have vanished into the ether. I have contended for some time, going back to the campaign and before, with his long associations with Marxist Bill Ayers and his extended membership in racist, anti-Semite, anti-capitalist Jeremiah Wright's church that destroying prosperity was Obama's intention. He as much as admitted it with the Joe the plumber slip. Obama will equalize outcomes-he will see to it that we are all poor before we are all dead. That is why I have termed "BO" "the great leveler".

Opposite of Leadership

Obama is displaying political acumen in driving his agenda forward at an unprecedented pace. This success does not amount to leadership any more than Hitler's or Stalin's did. Accomplishing objectives such as effective retreat or surrender in two wars, appeasing enemies, pressuring allies (with sufficient coercion to cause their doom), and wrecking the economy are not worthy goals even if "BO" hits the mark on all counts. His targets should be Islamic extremists not Israel, creating vibrant growth in the private sector with lower taxes, not stifling it with punitive ones, and spreading democratic ideals, not retreat to defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq, giving up gains purchased with so much blood. Obama may run off a long list of first hundred day check marks, but the world will be much worse off for it.

A Foolish Appeaser

Barack Obama declared his intention to seek rapprochement with "moderate" elements within the Taliban to bring them into the political process and bring peace to Afghanistan. The idea that there are any Wahhab fanatics who comprise the Taliban-a collection of hardened Sunni extremists who are the most violent misogynists who have ever lived and who gladly employ horrific barbarism to advance Islamist tyranny,  who can be negotiated with, is absurd. These terrorists, who gladly hosted bin Laden and al Qaeda and offered him their protection even after the September 11 attacks, must be defeated on the field of battle. There is nothing to talk with them about-they are wanton murderers who kill under the guise of religion and enforce their will by publicly executing those who demur often by beheading as was the case when a twelve year old boy was made to sever the head of an alleged American spy with a dull blade. The Taliban murdered a woman because her profession was dancing. If it took re-instituting the draft to put sixteen million men under arms as we had during World War II, it would be worth it to rid the world of this atavistic scourge. There are no moderate Taliban to engage any more than there were moderates among the Iranian ruling cadre during Iran-Contra.  Our Secretary of State rushed this week to appease the recently aggressive Russia, blaming the breakdown in relations between the countries not on Russia's bad actions that included invading a former Soviet republic, cutting off natural gas to neighbors in the heart of winter, and a campaign of murder against critics including reporters in Russia and even a former Russian agent in London, but on the Bush forty-three administration for a supposedly bellicose anti-Russian posture that never existed. Relations worsened with Moscow solely because Russia is turning herself back into an aggressive tyranny just as she was in the bad old Cold War days under the imprimatur of Soviet Communism. It is a shame there are no Jack Kennedys or "Scoop" Jacksons left in our ruling party who seek to confront and defeat evil in the world, rather than seek a cowardly compromise with it.

Poverty of Reason

Barack Obama is offering nothing novel with his proposals on public works, health care, or education. FDR thought the government could invigorate employment and poured massive amounts into the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, and other New Deal programs that most economists now believe extended the depression. FDR (and Herbert Hoover before him) raised taxes and erected barriers to free trade just as Obama is doing. Taxes and tariffs will not renew prosperity but delay if not preclude recovery all together. Universal care schemes exist throughout the developed world. They lead to delayed care, care rationing, and the denial of vital but expensive procedures or medications that extend life but do not stand up to cost/benefit analysis by government bureaucrats. Money is being poured into public k-12 education with public school teachers consistently making more than their parochial or private school counterparts. Bringing discipline and accountability back to elementary and secondary public education could work and wouldn't cost a penny. This President really has little interest in growing minds though, if it conflicts with his ambition of growing unions. Educators' unions will thrive under Obama, students will suffer. Autoworkers from the American labels may well end up owning the car companies with the government in a public-private partnership. These employee owner with government's socialist intrusion situations may extend to other businesses as well. Obama is re-instituting the LBJ welfare state, but with his higher income tax proposal for high earners, it should be renamed "the war on prosperity" instead of "the war on poverty". Obama is determined to force Americans to rely on government-he is even reducing the deduction for charitable giving at a time when Americans need charity more than ever. Obama's mean-spirited action here is meant to induce an even greater dependency on government. While none of Obama's ideas are revolutionary, the speed with which he is initiating them is shocking. It is reminiscent of the meth-addict who is convinced he has less chance of being stopped by the police if he stands on the accelerator driving through rush hour traffic. The end of this story is always grim.

Riding It Down

I used to have plenty with little to worry about/ Now, I have little with plenty to worry about/ I see with great clarity that this is Obama prosperity/ Barack even attacks charity/ He believes there should be no disparity/ That we will all share misery equally/ The "Great Leveler" will knock us all down/ Where we come crawling on this new beggars' ground/ We who built and saved/ We who gladly gave/ Obama will hound us to the grave/ This is, after all, the way Marxists behave.

Rotten in SEC

ABC news has been revealing some disturbing allegations the past two days. Yesterday, ABC reported that some Countrywide executives are buying up foreclosed property on loans they generated that were untenable so-called sub prime to begin with for pennies on a dollar. That no regulatory mechanism is preventing this is scandalous. The story today that was broken by Brian Ross chronicled how the regulator responsible for IndyMac bank knew of the books being "cooked" and permitted, according to Ross, even expedited it. This bureaucrat was tied to the Keating scandal years ago, yet remained in government according to the ABC report. Whether the Securities and Exchange overseers were negligent or corrupt (perhaps receiving bribes, kickbacks, or a stake in the foreclosed properties themselves) is open to speculation and should be thoroughly investigated.

Jihad Strikes Again

Two days ago, Lahore, Pakistan was rocked by violence as the Sri Lankan national cricket team came under attack by fourteen(14) gunmen. By miracle, none of the young athletes were slain but six of their Pakistani protectors were, along with an innocent bystander. The culprits made a clean escape after the sustained attack. This outrage bears the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda assault. Never forget the Bali bombings coincided with a large, well-publicized international rugby competition, and in that massacre, some of the athletes sadly were amongst the many innocents murdered. That these terrorists would gladly assail sportsmen from a strife torn country like the former Ceylon is ghastly as cricket is one of the few things that unite Sri Lankans whether they are Sinhalese, Tamil, or even members of the Muslim minority. Once again-those committing violence in the name of Allah managed to murder their own coreligionists. Like so much of world Jihad, the objectives of this attack seemed more nihilistic than devout.

Corrupt and Corrupting

Yet another member of the Obama Cabinet has a tax problem. After issues arose with Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner and were deemed so severe with Tom Daschle that he withdrew his name from nomination, former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk had to deal with his own tax troubles as he is seeking to become US trade representative. This administration was supposed to be the most ethical-this was the Obama campaign claim. Obama's cadres are proving to be as or more tainted than any administration in our history. This goes straight to the top to the largely unreported and therefore almost forgotten Rezko scandal. But malfeasance is not the only or anywhere near the main problem. The back breaker is the culture of dependency that Obama is perpetuating and growing to unprecedented levels. He is creating a all-encroaching government where we will all become wards of the state. He is bailing out the shiftless and punishing those who work and save. What incentive is there to labor diligently when government will steal the fruits of those labors? A tax increase in the teeth of recession, a cap and trade carbon limiting scheme, and a national health system will subdue any prospect of recovery. Reversing the welfare reform that has proven so effective by taking people from the dole to gainful employment (passed under Clinton), will not show compassion but remove initiative. Why work when the government punishes those who do with progressive tax rates penalizing increased success, when you can sit back and wait for your government check? Why sweat to pay your mortgage, if your neighbor who didn't will receive a hand from Uncle Sam (Ho Chibama) to stay in his house? With sugar daddy Barack in office, only suckers work hard.

Lunatics Run Amok

North Korea has declared her imminent intention to launch a satellite which will actually be the test firing of a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile. The North Korean leader, the last Stalinist tyrant on earth, is reputed to have suffered a health setback. The cult of personality that drives his nation may see his departure as the start of the Apocalypse and attempt to unleash the end of the earth in his honor. Just as Russians fell in droves in the Great Patriotic War (World War II) with megaphones blaring to advance for Mother Russia and Papa Joe (Stalin), the North Korean military may abandon rational considerations like survival when Dear Leader is fading. The world has abandoned sanity with its rush to rebuild Gaza. America is committing herself to providing nine hundred million dollars to these Palestinians who murdered a US State Department security team during the last Bush administration. Palestinians who routinely denounce and demonize the United States, who trample and burn the American flag side by side with Israel's banner, and who celebrated September 11, 2001 by dancing in the streets, firing off their AKs, and giving out candy, will receive US largess while continuing to launch the rockets at Israel that provoked the Israeli response in the first place. The push for a national heath care rationing system is underway and coming into full force with ABC Obama propagandist doctor Tim Johnson saying Americans must be "shamed" into a socialist medical allocation system. As the country is struggling to survive economically based on how poorly the government has directed so much else, do we want bureaucrats hovering over and directing the life and death decisions about our families' health? Internationally, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama want to institute a world recovery plan. Isn't it enough that they are bankrupting their own nations-now they seek to expand this unaffordable and ultimately self-destructive beneficence to the rest of the world? Finally, the US announced it would provide the American International Group (AIG) with thirty billion more dollars in bailout funds-its fourth government handout-after AIG announced a loss of 61.7 billion dollars in the fourth quarter. This staggering sum is more than the annual gross national product of many countries yet one American company managed to drop it in three(3) months. An ordered world can not survive such madness.

Cantor Is Yellow

I had some hope for Eric Cantor before he proved himself to be a wishy-washy pantywaist today on Stephanopoulos. Clever George got the nitwit to repudiate Limbaugh and thereby tacitly endorse the Obama drive to socialism. Cantor could easily have said, "Obama must fail because his statist agenda will ruin us. Our ideas, Republican plans are the right and only path to save the country." But Cantor has no balls, when they circumcised him the mohel missed the foreskin and a great tragedy befell the Cantors and the country. Where is a Goldwater, a Gingrich, or a Reagan to be the firebrand to rally us against our own destruction. Where is the Buckley to turn away this insipient capitulation to Marx? We need more Limbaughs and can't afford too many more Cantors.