Rationing the Wealth

Has a poor person ever provided you with gainful employment? Has someone earning under $200,000 a year ever created a position in his Subchapter S corporation so that you could feed your family? The small business has always been the engine of hiring for the United States, but on warped and selectively-applied principle, Barack Hussein Obama assails this. What is being waged against the productive classes in this country is a crusade against private sector prosperity and a war on wealth with the notable exceptions of lucre gained by trial lawyers and select members of organized labor, particularly public employees and more particularly Federal workers for whom times are not so bad. But this limited sector of growth for a handful of millions comes at the expense of the rest of us. President Obama's mindset coming into office was no secret though rarely discussed in the dinosaur media. Barack Obama carried with him into the Oval Office a transcendent sense of indignation that capitalism had benefited some more than others and was determined to even the inequities out. The problem with this thinking is that in no way does handicapping the job creators help those who they employ or otherwise would employ if their income was not confiscated by confiscatory taxes. Research and development suffers, expansion and new business construction lag, and business can not afford to hire when you have President Obama in office who is spreading the wealth (which is code for misery surging up). The sad fact is President Obama told us at least twice of these intentions, once in the "Joe the Plumber" sound bite and then in his interview where he declared his determination to raise capital gains taxes even with the knowledge that higher capital gains levies would harm economic development. President Obama had no concern for practical considerations when he set upon this path that is ideological. Call it socialism, Marxism, modified Marxism, Leninism, progressive, or a product of the third way, whatever Obama has embarked upon is fundamentally un-American. The Founding Fathers and the original ethos was not to soak the rich, and President Obama is well aware that in implementing policies that are the product of class envy, he is in no way elevating the poor. Obama has to know that he is only hurting those he claims to wish to help. Obama's jihad on the free market may give brief satisfaction to those seeking schadenfreude against those who have a bit more than they do. This school of thought excites the radical crowd who think that by ruining the neighbor's garden, theirs will somehow grow better. Their notion is wrong as rain during a flood. Making the rich bleed does not offer a pauper a transfusion.

Such Easy Pickings

President Barack Hussein Obama appeared at the campus of the University of Wisconsin to energized, enthusiastic crowds. So what else is new- that an American college campus would be a bastion of enforced liberal idiocy that would give their first American Marxist President rock star treatment and rousing approval. The drones in the crowd were useful idiots, liberal to arch-liberal to Marxist professors, their brainwashed students who are taught to despise the capitalism practiced by their own parents which often affords these students the very opportunity to be there, and a large contingent of union workers including public employees who are out there to root for the fellow traveler at the top who keeps their bread buttered. Of course, Obama will still find raucous support, numerous attendees who bleed radical, and receive celebrity super star treatment from such quarters. I am sure there were even down home American families attending so that their children can grow up to say, "You know when I was your age, I got to see President Obama". None of this rekindled Democratic optimism suggests that that party will not lose their US House majority and many Senate seats in the November election.

The Family Business

The last Stalinist regime on earth is preparing for a transition of power with Kim Jong Il naming his twenty-six or seven year old son four star general. Not much is known about the younger Kim beyond the fact that he is taller than his father (as are most adult males around the globe) and that Kim Jong Un loves American professional basketball, the National Basketball Association, which certainly would qualify him to be a fourteen year old boy if not a military genius. North Korea is a state built on the blood and bodies of its own citizens who are mostly starving slaves, a dynastic enterprise held together by terror and murder and financed by proliferating weapons of mass destruction and counterfeiting currency (including the US dollar). In a nation that brought Christendom into that part of Asia and produced committed missionaries, now Christian practice can be a capital crime and the Kim family are venerated as living gods. That sad nation is so opaque one may only guess at how North Korea will progress under new leadership, but most North Korea scholars doubt much will change in the totalitarian dystopia. 

Fare Thee Well

I met him fifteen years ago when he was sixty-two, and I was young and foolish but knowing him made me wiser as he knew and taught the value of time, living by the aphorism "we are burning daylight". I loved and will always love his daughter. His fifth born of six and I spent what to then was a quarter of our lives together. Jake seemed as broad as the Appalachian foothills where I knew him and he seemed as permanent. But that of course was an illusion because all on this realm is fleeting. Jake could speak definitively on more subjects than you could imagine, from the Bible, which he properly reverenced, to the nation he loved and in whose uniform he served, to affairs of state where he always knew more than he would ever let on, to matters on the farm, to home, car, and industrial repairs, to construction, to golf and football where he excelled, but most of all, Jake listened and he cared. He could seem laconic or by virtue of his size, even intimidating, but when you got to know him, which was my privilege, he was quite the opposite. To those who did not know Jake Rainey- you missed out. To those who knew him, Jake will be sorely missed.

The Monopoly Presidency

This forum has recently published a piece on how we are being drowned in debt by a President happy to print an ocean of fiat currency. But the misfeasance goes far beyond the spending spree. There is the rush to monopolize power and not even permit Congressional review of a class that heretofore barely existed- Presidential Czars. Then, there is demand from the executive of ever more broad and sweeping surveillance powers, with mobile vans being equipped with X-rays perhaps being permitted to peer into homes domestically and without the supervision of courts, to the President seeking the ability to eavesdrop on the Internet by requiring all American Internet service providers to provide the government with a "back door" to defeat encryption. President Obama now even evidently has compiled a "kill" list of twenty-five Americans to be terminated in the event of an emergency. This is all capricious rule that is normally expected only of tin pot dictators. Barack Hussein Obama spends us into unrecoverable debt as if he is only expending play money, but much more alarmingly, he arrogates unprecedented power to the executive branch without bothering to consult the co-equal US Congress or even troubling after warrants from the formerly co-equal Courts. Could we be witnessing a despot in the making?

Whither Wanders Turkey

Turkey was once called "the sick man of Europe". Her geographic location straddling Europe and Asia continues to leave Turkey divided between Continental aspirations such as joining the European Union and the beckoning of the other side- the Islamic world. Turkey has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but has not been a reliable ally to the United States, leaving America in the lurch in both her wars against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Turkey has gone from being less than trustworthy in defending the West's interests to downright hostile to the unifying values of Judeo-Christian civilization. In just the last several years, a Christian publishing house was attacked in Turkey and three members of its staff butchered, but what else would you expect from a nation that perpetrated the world's first genocide against her Armenian Christian minority early in the last century, has continued to persecute the tiny surviving remnant of said Armenian minority, even countenancing the murder by a Turkish nationalist of a prominent Armenian-Turkish journalist who was trying to highlight Armenians past brutalization at the hands of the Turks and their continuing repressed plight? Turkey has also kept its thumb on other small Christian enclaves in what fifteen hundred years back was the heartland of Christianity. Then, there is the equally oppressive treatment the Kurdish minority has faced to say nothing of the despotic treatment by Turks of the Cypriot Greeks. Now, in the last several months, Turkey has been pushing the delegitimization of Israel by sending the "Gaza Aid Flotilla" which was really nothing more than an active provocation if not an outright casus belli and doing all it could to prevent Iran's isolation. In fact, Turkey's active refusal to enforce economic sanctions on Iran may ensure that a shooting war is waged to stop Iran's budding nuclear weapons program. A porous border between Iran and Turkey actually brings us that much closer to all-out war. This all goes hand in hand with Turkey's increasing Islamization under Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Even though Turkey pretends an interest in Europe, the real aim of those who follow Erdogan is not to make Turkey more European but Europe more Islamic. Even something as cosmopolitan as a gallery crawl has become an act of courage in Turkey as the Islamists gaining ever more control over the formerly secular state feel their oats. See this link http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?category=TopStories&id=20100926/716d2514-2d0b-4c87-8d85-dffef4d4ef76 for how intolerant and insular institutional Turkey has become as it abandons European pretense to embrace true Islam. Events like these attacks wills surely teach the Turkish cognoscenti to openly consume alcohol in the Ummah or dare look at art. Who would have thought that Taliban-type action would gain purchase in Turkey?

Jokes on Us

Stephen Colbert, reputedly a comedic commentator, appeared before a US Congressional committee at the behest of Democrat US Representative Zoe Lofgren (who hails from the land of fruit and nuts cuckoo California) and managed to offend just about everybody. At a time of tremendous economic dislocation with the nation on the razor's edge, was it really a great time to have an entertainer (and here, I use this word advisedly) testify before the legislative body where Federal law originates in the United States? It is the perfect time because it perfectly reflects the contempt in which the political class now holds the people they govern. They formerly were much more careful about offending those who held their electoral fate with votes in the coming election, but these elites are not the brightest bulbs in the shed and figure that their constituents will not have the sense to send them home from the august body. I have said this once before on this forum- yesterday, the joke was on us but come November, you Democrats in the House of Representatives will find we have the last laugh.

Ushering in War

When the world's only superpower is supine, aggression becomes inevitable. When the leader of the free world adopts appeasement as foreign policy, malevolent regimes take full advantage. In a bizarre but sadly predictable turn, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is no doubt calculating but also seemingly unhinged by Western standards, spouted conspiracy theories about elements of the American government committing the 9/11 atrocity to somehow spare the "Zionist entity" (Israel) her fate as he was a guest of the US speaking at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City, the very town that took the brunt of the unprovoked terrorist outrage. So, what is the Obama administration response to this insult, this glaring provocation. Obama says America still wants a dialogue with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their little mad man spits in our eye on our soil while developing nuclear weapons to become the regional hegemon and threatens America with "war without boundaries" (in most translations of his remarks- war without borders, threatening American civilians and the homeland), and Obama wants to sing Kumbaya and give the living incarnation of Hitler today a hug. At the same time, Obama is exerting enormous public pressure on Israel, our only reliable ally in the Middle East to accede to Obama's demand to carve up the already tiny Jewish state and give large amounts of what little territory there is to a new Palestinian state that will be dedicated to Israel's destruction from the moment it is born. Obama even called for the creation of an independent Palestine by the time the UN holds the same General Assembly meeting at this same point next year. Obama is intent on pulling the rug out from our Israeli friend and comforting our Iranian enemy. The rogue regimes of the world smell Barack Hussein Obama's weakness abroad and are determined to exploit it. North Korea presses the South without fear of American reaction, Iran develops atomic weapons apace, devoting Iranian national assets in a NASA-type push over the finish line to being a nuclear-armed state, Venezuela subverts Latin America, and even our trading partner Red China arms up and drives conflict over disputed sea lanes with Japan. Freedom lovers in the United States fear Obama with justification, but international evil doers recognize a pronounced lack of backbone. Al-Qaeda and jihadists plot away, enemy nations script their plans, and Iran thinks Obama is a joke as they surge toward the weaponized nuclear threshold, knowing Obama will not raise a hand. Only the besieged Jewish state sees herself in Obama's cross hairs as he seeks to mollify the Muslim world by sacrificing Israel.

More on Morons

I was taken completely aback, aghast, flabbergasted, left almost speechless. Our President Barack Hussein Obama has declared that he is confident, certain that the United States can "absorb another terrorist attack". President Obama believes we could sustain as many as or more casualties than the original September 11 attack. We have waged two specific wars, accompanied by a global war on terror since then costing a trillion dollars and thousands of lives. There has been no business as usual since 9/11/2001. We have spent billions more than we otherwise would have on domestic security. We have subjected ourselves to ever more intrusive searches every time we fly somewhere. We as individuals have become more aware of our surroundings and potential threats that we never would have even noticed before the planes hit the towers. But "we" can absorb another mass casualty assault on the homeland- one which might destroy the airline industry, send people fleeing from the proximity of chemical plants or refineries, and further cripple our already flailing financial sector. We do not drive around in armored limousines accompanied by a couple of hundred Secret Service agents and uniformed police. We may be the ones riding a subway train who are blown to smithereens. Our children may be on the first school bus a jihadist decides to seize on our shores. President Obama, you and the well-protected elites that throng around you may well be able to "absorb" a terrorist outrage that your privilege gives you every chance of surviving. We mere everyday Americans who do not have bomb sniffing dogs clearing our path and a phalanx of bodyguards sure as hell can not "absorb" the next terror attack. We expect you to take your job seriously and have our government do everything humanly possible to prevent that ever happening. 

The Lesser Bad

When Barack Hussein Obama campaigned and later as President, he focused on "the greater good" which sounds magnanimous enough- a grand, uplifting sentiment. But in reality, this call for sacrifice is a beckoning to the collective and essentially un-American. Besides that rather Marxist notion put in practice does not work. Obama has feverishly implemented the new socialist agenda before Democratic Congressional majorities vanish with the coming election. In a lame duck session after the November vote but before the January swearing in of the newly gained virtually certain GOP majority in the United States House of Representatives, expect Nazi (oh, sorry I mean Nancy of course) Pelosi to rev up the pace of terminal legislation even more (terminal, because if these new measures go into effect, they will kill the nation). Lest we not forget, the US Senate too is in play with Republican chances now in the balance perhaps with the Joe Biden seat being contested by a Democrat who in college enjoyed an open infatuation with Marx and a Republican who went on a date with a Wiccan in high school. Between you and me, gentle reader, who do you think is more likely to fly back to her constituency on a broom, Christine O'Donnell or that San Francisco diva, (hopefully soon to be former) Speaker of the
US House Nancy Pelosi? Christine O'Donnell may not be the ideal candidate to stand for a seat in America's upper house (the Senate), but we can not afford a quasi-Leninist sitting in the Vice President's former seat. Scott Brown had done some unusual things in his youth before gaining the "Kennedy" seat from Massachusetts, and he is not the perfect Senator, but he is vastly better than Martha Coakley, his opponent, who would have been one more Obama rubber stamp. We will never find another Ronald Reagan, but we must elect conservatives who will arrest our slide into socialism.

This Is Success?

Economists yesterday declared that America's recession ended more than one year ago. These rosy figures were released by those with a vested interest in seeing Obamaism thrive, and they are advancing the Obama agenda by creating artificial measures of progress to varnish the grim reality that is creeping socialism. Unemployment hovers around ten percent, trillions of dollars of net worth have evaporated, and the nation is burying itself in new debt, but as a truer metric of how dire the economic situation has become, more people are on some form of government aid, both in terms of raw numbers and percentage, than ever before. Hallelujah, raise three cheers, Obama the saviour is here. Barack Hussein Obama is doing precisely what he set out to do- dismantle the nation as we have known and loved her from the inside. And sadly, Obama is succeeding beyond his wildest dreams and our worst nightmares.

Leaving Loquacious Losers

The chattering classes were abuzz Sunday that a right-winger had stolen the Republican US Senate nomination in Delaware and another dreaded conservative had overturned a sacred moderate in Alaska. The talking heads were nearly certain these catastrophes spelt doom for GOP chances to regain the Senate (which had been portrayed as a long shot in any event, even before the primary victories of Miller and O'Donnell). But the dinosaur media cognoscenti have blissfully short memories and can not hearken back that it was Ronald Wilson Reagan who brought Republican power its heyday in the 1980s. The GOP flourished under someone who was no great compromiser but under a champion of principle, someone who never wavered from the political Right. The GOP reaches its apex not when it seeks to be the big tent and searches out least common denominator middle of the roaders (who tend to jump ship at the worst time) but finds eloquent messengers of the conservative ideal who bring the voters with them by force of the superior argument. A wishy washy centrist may gain a seat but what good is one more US Senator willing to join Obama on cap and trade or another shot of stimulus. Stand on your convictions conservatives, while Democrats take theirs to an appellate court.

Department of Miseducation

Conservatives, including tea party candidates, have faced scorn and ridicule for declaring that they favor abolishing the US Department of Education. This position is no heresy. Why is it forbidden to assess the efficacy of any particular Federal agency before more tax money is directed down what may have always been or may have become a black hole? First, ask the question, has American educational instruction demonstrably improved since the creation of the Department of Education and the elevation of a Presidential adviser to the level of a cabinet officer, the Secretary of Education? Sadly, to the contrary, all the efforts at nationalizing education have failed from the inception and feel good initiatives like "Head Start" through "no child left behind". Massive resources have been allocated (read as tax dollars squandered), but no substantive, quantifiable progress is manifest. With early intervention in pre-K (Head Start), statistics show gains evaporate by middle school. We would all like these programs to work, particularly in light of the vast amounts expended on them, but they simply can not. For education to improve, the focus must be local with as much parental involvement as possible, not doled out as yet one more mismanaged top down scheme from Washington D.C.

Contain Ali Bama

In the resplendent Arab tale of yore, Ali Baba led a band of forty thieves. Barack Hussein Obama's cadre is so much larger. Perhaps two hundred and fifty Obamabots in the United States House of Representatives who would not give a second thought to stealing your money through higher taxes and vastly more importantly, would filch your freedom. Out of the US Senate, probably fifty-eight without the scruples to resist a budding tyrant. But come November, we have some say in the matter and a chance to influence our own fate by voting some of the gang of Obama scoundrels out. 

Another Capricious Appointment

President Barack Hussein Obama has once again gone outside of the typical bounds of the United States Constitution in appointing Elizabeth Warren as what I will call the new "consumer" czar. She may be the most fair-minded person to ever enter the District of Columbia with Solomonic wisdom to boot, but why was the normal process of advise and consent of Congress bypassed? Why has she been placed in an ad hoc position on the whim of Mister Obama? How many extra-Constitutional officers does Barack Obama intend to appoint in the form of czars with mandates and authority which are unprecedented and at best nebulous to the American public? Why does the President feel the need to go around the US Senate (which at least for the moment, is still under the control of members of his own party)? Does Barack Obama feel fellow Democrats would not give such a reputedly staunch advocate of the middle class as Ms. Warren a fair hearing? Is there some past event or statement of Ms. Warren that could emerge that would cloud her chances of passing such scrutiny or taint the way the public would perceive her? We have had a process in this nation of laws that has yielded order and success, but now, we are "transcending" those traditional and Constitutional strictures to become a nation of elites being provided with unprecedented power to dictate the conditions and rules for our lives.

Solved That One

Barack Hussein Obama's unbelievable record of accomplishments continues to grow. He would halt global warming and reverse the rise of oceans; he has already been awarded with the Nobel prize in advance for ushering on this globe its peace, he has done what he set out to do with the trillion or so dollar stimulus, the around trillion more in bailouts, and lest we forget, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that the last President Bush initiated with the staunch backing of both McCain and Obama with 700 million more dollars that was to save our financial institutions and homeowners in the mortgage meltdown. Yes, President Obama certainly fixed the mortgage mess and preserved so much home ownership with the trillions already spent except that last month's figures are just in and they record the worst month ever for home repossessions. Oops- just like the wonderful creation of jobs (green ones to boot) that was promised, the best efforts of Team Obama on homes has fallen flat and all that was lost in the brave Obama attempt was financial and fiscal stability in the United States for generations. "Jobs, jobs," they had pledged to create and there are no jobs. Foreclosures banished to the ashbin of history they had assured, yet a multitude of homeowners remain trapped in that net. There is no Hippocratic Oath in politics, but perhaps there should be. The only thing worse than a do nothing Congress and administration is a governance that does quite a lot... of harm. 

Mere Public Relations

An American woman, who should never have been detained in the first place (with two male US companions, who are still unjustly held), has been released on bond to great international media fanfare by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The living incarnation of Adolf Hitler today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being given great credit for Sarah Shourd's manumission, even said in the American press by both ABC and NBC news to have stood up to the Iranian judiciary to facilitate her flight from Tehran. A battle over process took place between the judges and Ahmadinejad according to these main stream media flacks, but Ahmadinejad stood firm for the female American prisoner. Utter hogwash is spewed by our dinosaur press to improve the image of the man who wants to initiate World War III. Hitler too kissed babies when it advanced his evil purpose. He sent his minions to crush infant skulls on brick walls. Ahmadinejad is no different- he has no humanitarian impulse, only the calculating mind to manipulate our useful idiot network news outlets, who would never dare report that Iran is a fiat state run by him and a handful of reactionary mullahs.

Their Tortured Narrative

A light bulb breaks in Poughkeepsie- blame George W. Bush. A tire goes flat in Peoria- can only be the fault of George W. Bush. A man stubs his toe in Pacific Heights- stoop to new depths by putting the onus squarely on George W. Bush. You see the problem is surprisingly simple: We have spoiled, incorrigible children in the White House eager to take credit for any good though they in all likelihood had no hand in it whatsoever and that it occurred not because of but in spite of their efforts. The Obamabots shirk responsibility for their own many failings and shift all blame to George W. Bush and the previous administration. Team Obama never owns up to the truth that the most consequential part of the deficit rising under Bush took place only after Democrats won the US House and Senate in 2006 and ballooned the Federal budget far beyond what Bush had proposed or requested. And the Obama cadre is contemptuous of the American people to boot. Over the weekend, we learn that President Obama's new chief economic advisor Austan Goolsbee is a real card, a natural born comedian named the funniest man in Washington. That is just grand, at a time of dire consequence, where matters must be addressed immediately and seriously, the Dauphin in the Oval Office has a brand new court jester. And the laughs just keep on rolling with the nation's regulatory czar Cass Sunstein calling us "Homer Simpson" Americans. Just what we need, to be held in equal esteem to a boob of a cartoon character by one of the most powerful figures in the administration who unknown to most, has the power to control many aspects of our lives. I think there were and are more capable and heroic patriots than old Homer, and many are just itching to cast their vote in November. Then, in the coming election, you in the Obama crew will find out the feeling is extremely mutual. Dear Cass and Austan, when sensible adults regain control of Congress, you will see the joke is on you.

Paranoid or Prescient

Israel has issued the signal warning that Iran has years ago initiated a national goal of creating atomic arms and viable systems to deliver them. The warning went essentially unheeded with some marginal sanctions to inconvenience the Islamic Republic but nothing being done that would actually thwart Iran from weaponizing nukes. Today, reports emerged that America's European allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization suddenly declare the need for missile defense out of an abundance of concern over Iran whose growing menace they assiduously avoided seriously addressing up until now. Presumably, Iran is so close to the point of no return in gaining atomic warheads that Europe must now hedge its bets that Iran will act either rationally or in self-interest. Israel had promoted the seemingly obvious intentions and looming threat of a fanatical mullah state armed with the ultimate weapon and perhaps willing to bring forth the End Times to summon the Mehdi, but the Jewish state was presumed to be exaggerating the threat to cause an over-reaction in the West that would mitigate the need for Israel to launch such preemptive action themselves. The Israelis were perceived as egging on unnecessary sanctions or even military action, using hyperbole and ginned up intelligence estimates to motivate America and her allies to declaw what was basically only a threat against the Jewish state. Only now and possibly too late, Europe is waking up that it too may be under Iran's proverbial guns (in this case, nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles) and requires a credible shield. This realization, this belated awareness means little in the Middle East where even the Arab nations around the former Persia are left to fend for themselves and are in some cases, even at this late hour, starting their own nuclear programs, which will mean proliferation and catastrophic instability. For years, Israel has urged the world to act seriously to deter Iran's burgeoning nuclear ambitions but was rebuffed. Now the West and the International Atomic Energy Agency concede Iran is not transparent and may be embarked on a hidden weapons program, but there is still no consensus to act to blunt Iran's aggressive plans. In Europe, the only unity that exists is a determination to protect themselves- Israel and her Arab neighbors under threat of extortion or obliteration by Iran be damned. So, before the mad mullahs and Ahmadinejad cause a nuclear mushroom cloud over where Tel Aviv used to be, Israel must prevent that by any and all means, even if that means the Jewish state must act alone and for herself. 

Very Unhappy Hour

Nine years after the first plane hit the tower, they gather. Some stoic, some as disconsolate as the moment they realized that their loved one would never be coming home, all of them burdened by a crime most monstrous that defied logic, defiled religion, spat in the face of human decency and showed that our enemy lacked even a scintilla of compassion or empathy normal in Homo sapiens. We were and are facing an atavistic antagonist, a throwback to the unenlightened time of Mohammad, and a butchered faith that has turned into the faith of butchers. Not one person in those towers, in the Pentagon, or on that flight that ended in a Pennsylvania field deserved their fate beyond the nineteen subhumans who committed the deliberate carnage. Time does not heal all wounds, none of my best friends are Muslim and the two Muslims I knew most closely, one in seventh grade and the other in high school despised in the first instance me as a Jew and in the second, hated America (or at least our teen girls) for their supposed lax values and low virtue, morals he imagined and that he claimed put the United States in disrepute. Arshad, I will die a proud Jew and if you do not like it, get the hell back to Pakistan, and Shuab until you can claim some accomplishment for your native Bangladesh, you have little margin to criticize the United States which sheltered you, gave you better opportunity, and certainly a better life than you would have had if we had not welcomed you as an American.

Mining Fool's Gold

The voter, the citizen, and the tax payer have been played for gold-plated fools. The political class has made us the miner and the mine as we toil to feather their nest. We labor hard and harder and only they are rewarded for it. They have grandiose ambitions and ostentatious plans from (in many instances) the local, (often) the state, and (invariably) the Federal level. Nationalisation of car companies, student loans, large swathes of the financial and insurance industry, and finally health care by Washington, more intrusive state busy bodies, and unnecessary and unaffordable local projects (in the case of my home town of Nashville- a Rolls-Royce gilded convention center as convention business collapses nationally, even in Las Vegas). Those governing us have no judgement and no discretion and are spending like there is no tomorrow as my nearly ninety year old father suggested as though they conceive of what they take from us as "Monopoly money", as if it is entirely theirs and play money to boot. Something Dad never even saw in the Great Depression that he supported his parents and four sibling through- this group in power acts as if the bill will never come due, but it must be paid in full by us and our children and succeeding generations, and it is a bill that if not soon contained will drown the nation in forever debt.

All Consuming Hatred

Hitlerian book burnings- sound like an apt idea? Those who burn books will soon be burning people, but those most fervent and dogmatic followers of Islam, the most dedicated adherents to the Koran are already burning people, completely innocent people going to work in New York towers, people of other faiths who have the misfortune of encountering Islamists in London, Madrid, Bali, Thailand, the Philippines, or Israel, and most of all, other Muslims who conceive of Islam differently or who just happen to be in the way of this warping of Islam become nihilism. And this hate breeds indiscriminate violence- what other faith group sets off car bombs in public markets assuring mass murder and the carnage of women and children? What religion is so misogynistic in the world today? A shaheed does not display Islam's strength when he martyrs himself in the willful murder of others. Quite the contrary- when Islam shows such intolerance and inflexibility by refusing to even hear much less debate other religions' merits, Islam is portraying crumbling weakness. When in an open forum, people can compare the message of a particular faith group and decide to adopt its practice, that is a show of tolerance and strength but when a religion compels compliance with not a metaphoric but literal sword, that becomes an evil religion. Debate the Koran- do not burn it.  

Wielding Warren Buffett

President Barack Hussein Obama deigned to grant ABC an interview, parts of which aired on Good Morning America today. Obama expressed determination to prevent the "top two percent" from receiving an extension of the Bush tax cuts (evidently, almost at any cost, including loss of the Democrat majority in the United States House of Representatives and quite possibly even the US Senate). And what sword does President Obama draw to defend an enormous tax increase on job creators in the teeth of a recession? America's wealthiest man- Warren Buffett, who is for good or ill, the face of capitalism, sometimes money guru to Obama when it serves Obama's interests to pretend to be a friend of market-based enterprise (that is when Obama is not issuing Soviet-like six year plans . . . no, wait, those wily old Russians only issued five year plans), or as in the Stephanopoulos interview today where Buffett is the foil compared to an average family whose tax break might enable them to buy a new computer where it means absolutely nothing to Mr. Buffett. The one aspect that President Obama consistently forgets is that money that people sweat blood to earn is not his money. It is not up to Obama to spend your money. The first decision should be yours to make, next your family should determine how the fruit of your labor is directed, and then lastly, the government as we are not subjects living under a king's sufferance but citizens enfranchised by our Constitutional Republic. Obama can gladly accept Warren Buffett's endorsement and praise, listen to Buffett when he cares to, and use Buffett to represent all that is wrong or right with our economy or America at any given moment, but unless I own Berkshire Hathaway shares or do business with some of Buffett's concerns, whatever Mr. Buffett does has no impact on that thin dime in my pocket. On the other hand, Obama can confiscate my earnings. Let the President find some other grand example for Joe and Jane Mainstreet who has more relevance than the wizard of Omaha who if he should be known for anything beyond personal wealth, may henceforth be called the "tree killer king" as not a week goes by without receiving one or more unsolicited and unwelcome mailings from Geico. 

Grieve Gargantuan Government

"Ultimately, the government is responsible for giving you everything"- this sentiment was surprisingly not expressed by Barack Hussein Obama, you can not put this particular jewel on him but by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but make no mistake, Obama has the power and has been implementing massive, unprecedented programs that attempt the cradle to grave Utopia Schwarzenegger spoke of but did not have the reach to put in practice. Only a wildly out of control Federal government could achieve that but remember any entity powerful enough to do everything for you has the ability to do anything to you. The United States should not be heartened but terrified of a "socialist safety net".

In Plain Sight

What sort of leader spends trillions of dollars that America does not have on programs that the citizenry neither needs nor wants (and by no close run margin either with at least sixty-five percent declaring opposition to Obama care in polls)? Not a traditional Democrat certainly who would have natural concerns about retaining power by holding on to office in the next election, but a creature unseen before in the American body politic- a blind ideologue. And what of this new ideology possessed of a certitude that defies logic- is brand Obama progressive? Is Obamaism populist? At least it attempts to be rhetorically from spokesmouths, Democratic flacks, and the Teleprompter in Chief himself, but it fails in the undertaking and comes out churlish and surly with just the right amount of arrogance thrown in to make those who demur from the policy not merely opponents but in many cases, people who well and truly disdain the President. I do not hold an iota of personal animus toward the man as it was easy to predict what those voting for Obama would be buying when I initiated this blog in October 2008. I said it then and I say it now after one thousand and three posts and millions of words in evidence- Obama is achieving precisely what he aimed for- the destruction of the United States as we have known her and her transformation into abject socialism which is what any nation receives when they usher a Marxist into the highest office. Obama made little effort to conceal his redistributionist leanings either- remember "Joe the plumber".

Democrat Preservation Plan

The Obama administration is pushing for a new stimulus bill under a different name as "stimulus" now has such negative connotations with much of the voting public. Initially, Team Obama proposes spending fifty billion additional dollars ($50,000,000,000) on roads, railroads, and airport runways, along with modernizing the air traffic control system to limit delays and expedite air travel. If eight hundred billion dollars of stimulus the first time around with Obama did not restore confidence in the economy and restore prosperity- how will this relative pittance? Answer: It will not. It can not, and it is not intended to- the new spending proposal is merely a pre-election ploy to dupe the gullible into voting Democrat. There is no great Obama plan for saving us; there exists only a deliberate effort by Obama to transform us from a free market based capitalist engine of prosperity into a planned economy, share the suffering socialist misery. That is why the never intended to be very stimulating "stimulus" plans have yielded less than nothing. 

Iran Commissions Murder

The Sunday Times has broken a story about five Iranian companies paying the Taliban $1000 for each US soldier killed and $6000 for every US vehicle destroyed. If this report is true, this is an act of war by Iran against the United States and must be treated as such. Even if these bounties are offered by alleged private entities, the fact that Iran is not cracking down and stopping them is a casus belli- just as if some American company offered one million dollars for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's head and our government knew of it and did nothing to stop it. Willful inaction is a tacit endorsement and Iran has done much more than that by backing Hizbollah in Lebanon in executing the US Marine barracks bombing that left over two hundred Americans dead, to seizing the American embassy in Tehran in the distant past, to funding both the Mehdi Army and Hizbollah in Iraq as they fought US forces in the more recent past to justify a harsh American retaliatory response. America can and should end the mullah regime and liberate the Iranian people from their tyrannical masters.

Time and Space

Physicist Stephen Hawking has long been regarded as one of the most intelligent people in the world, if not the most brilliant figure in science today, but even genius has flaws. Only the Creator, the Uncaused First Cause knows the genesis of the universe, and we are so infinitesimal in His sight that we will never begin to apprehend Him, His scope, His breadth, His love to have allowed us to even ponder the imponderable. Hawking's attempt to rationalize our beginnings without God is like a single ant constructing a moon rocket. Ain't gonna happen. So when a scientist embittered by his own disability lashes out at what he says is not there, we may see it as a prayer of a different sort, an act of defiance against the very parent who made it possible for the rebel to conceive of anything.

Enter the Vacuum

ABC had another astounding report on Good Morning America by Claire Shipman. With stakes in the Middle East that could not be higher, Claire Shipman, in her story on the Netanyahu-Abbas peace summit, highlighted Hillary Clinton's position as one of the "more popular" members of the Obama administration. She marvelled at Hillary's appearance, reporting that people liked the US Secretary of State's new hairdo. Yes, with the rising menace of a nuclear Iran which Shipman's report failed to mention entirely, praise came forth for Hillary's "hair". We have the survival of the Jewish state in the balance with Israel's dissolution in stages being plotted and the threat of outright obliteration by atomic Iran on the horizon, but Claire Shipman is content to massage a vicious leftist crone's ego over her coiffure or perhaps her pretty new outfit. Get real here dinosaur media, the fate of civilization is being threatened and Hillary Clinton is part of the problem not part of the solution and that would be the case if she had Medusa's snakes adorning her blond locks or Telly Savalas' shining pate.

Another Great Forum

A new conservative website has been created by the brothers Hunter to disseminate the message of the Tea Party and the American right. In some ways, a compiler site like the Drudge Report but with catchy graphics introducing the pieces, http://www.teadump.com/ may well take off as another great voice of the conservative ascendancy. Give teadump a try- you will like what you see.

A Beautiful Sentiment

In their joint statement, US President Barack Hussein Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, and Mahmoud Abbas set forth their vision. President Obama, as might be expected, spoke of delivering a world at peace for our "children and grandchildren"- a noble notion indeed. And equally eloquent in expressing hopes for peace was Israel's elected leader, who also expressed himself in flawless English. Then Abbas spoke in Arabic and threw in a sour note calling Israel's creation there in the White House more than sixty years ago, "the nakba" which is Arabic for "the catastrophe". Does this characterization of your negotiating partner's beginnings seem to indicate a commitment to the quest for peace? In any event, Abbas can not deliver as any promises he makes will not be kept by the Palestinian people who are represented by Hamas' more hard line positions and would follow Hamas' more militant dictates and ignore whatever pledges Abbas might eventually make. Then there is Obama's talk of the future about those "children and grandchildren" which is curious coming from the American leader who is saddling his own nation's future generations with more debt than any nation (In fact, all previous nations and generations in human history combined have not spent so much so fast.) has ever had to contend with and which those future Americans will be dealing with having to endure debt service payments higher than budgets for defense and having a substantially lower standard of living than Americans enjoy today. Under Obamaism, there can be no greater inheritance of peace and prosperity. Socialism unleashed can never create better futures.

Price of Peace

Another four Israelis have just been murdered, one a pregnant woman, to usher in another round of farcical negotiations all about process but never about that which can not be achieved- true and lasting peace. The old expression "two to tango" has never been more relevant than in the context of peace talks. Let us say one side is willing to make all sorts of concessions (and has already- giving away vast swathes of what was to start with already a limited territory) and the other side holds fast with demands that if implemented would lead to the inevitable annihilation of the side which favors compromise. This is the situation as it prevails today vis-a-vis Israel/the Palestinian Authority (PA) which is somehow considered an arbiter of peace in spite of constant incitement against the Jews emanating from all its official organs and right out of the mouth of its leader Mahmoud Abbas. The PA has in any event little natural constituency with most Palestinians favoring Hamas' public determination to obliterate the Jews outright over the old Palestinian Liberation Organization "plan of stages" which is also irredentist but will allow for gradual eradication of the Zionist entity to facilitate the piecemeal removal of Jewish presence on the land which Abbas and his ilk favor. US President Barack Hussein Obama may indeed impose a Palestinian state, but this action will bring no peace- only ultimate End Time world war, dooming everyone to rapid destruction. Like so much else of Obama's meddling, supposedly with only the best of intentions, the Washington talks are a recipe for disaster.