The Generational Tricksters

For many an election cycle including of course the current one, the Democrat party has been peddling gross distortion about GOP plans and intentions to try and retain the ballots of America's senior citizens. These scare tactics involve charges that Republicans wanted to see Social Security "wither on the vine", that allowing workers to direct the investment of a small percentage of their withholding would destroy the non-existent Social Security "lock box", to really repulsive claims that the GOP wanted seniors eating cat food or denied life-extending medical care. The fact is that the Democrats are the ones who seek to ration and limit health care choices through Obama care. Pitting old against young is just one more Democrat attempt at triangulation, like tearing us apart on racial matters or even over sexual orientation. And the age ploy will now foist unrecoverable debt on the youth today and even on generations not yet born, a condition so aptly termed "generational theft" by Arizona Republican Senator John McCain. Dear elders, please do not listen to the fear mongering of the Left, we are all in the same boat together and instead of bailing, Obama's spending opens the floodgates to sink our national ship.

No Love Letters

An ominous threat was just delivered by some nefarious characters in some dark recess of the Middle East. People who are decent of any faith are conducting their daily lives mundanely just trying to make it into another day in many instances or even nobly in some cases trying to cure cancer or end hunger in this beleaguered world. Then there is a different mindset- a mentality that goes beyond the simply criminal and becomes as troubling as it is astonishing. Who spends their days and nights conceiving of a printer bomb, and then actually goes out to craft a couple? Who looks on the Internet or finds an old Chicago telephone directory to locate the addresses of two Jewish institutions it stands to reason have no connection whatsoever to Yemen (and probably have no members who have visited Yemen and few who could tell a listener anything about Yemen)? This is a very special case through a gift (the package bombs) from the frequently war-torn ancestral home of Osama bin Laden and now home to an American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki who has evidently become the source for ceaseless terror threats against the American homeland. Parcel bombs, printers rigged to explode, theses are gifts that keep on costing, from the enormous expense of flight and travel disruptions to the newly engendered need for enhanced security the new threat has caused, even without a single bomb actually exploding, the jihadists can claim a sense of victory. But thank God anyway that in this instance the plot seems to have been ferreted out and extinguished regardless of the cost.

Republicans Not Beloved

The GOP appears poised to make great gains in next week's elections, but these strides are not so much an endorsement of their ideas as a repudiation of Obama's. In many eyes, Republicans are merely Democrat-lite or sort of lesser socialists whereas the Democratic party has embraced redistributionist schemes and has become the party of full blown socialism in America. Conservatives were disappointed by the last President Bush's free spending (though it pales in comparison to Obama's deluge of debt) and especially outraged by the push for illegal alien amnesty that disgusted most of the political spectrum except entrenched business interests in search of cheap labor. No group was as aggrieved as aliens who entered legally and jumped through all the hoops that the United States imposes to gain legal residency. But then both major political parties were foisting line-jumping criminal aliens ahead of those who followed the proper processes of entry. Republicans have no panaceas because with such complex issues ahead, there are no easy answers, but at least they can if elected and if they stick to the principles of smaller, less intrusive government, stauch the national hemorrhage caused by Obama's overheated spending. But mark my words, if Republicans in name only sieze the day and make common cause with Democrats, there will be a third party emerging from America's conservatives, perhaps under the TEA (taxed enough already) party brand.

Politics of Particularism

Barack Hussein Obama is proving to be incomparable- an unmatched agitator and the most polarizing force ever unleashed on the American body politic. Rarely has an American office holder tried to deliberately tear the nation apart. Obama has pitted the poor against the rich in a manner not typical of a US leader but perfect for say a Chavez down Venezuela way. Obama has dealt the race card from the bottom of the deck from the Cambridge Professor "Skip" Gates incident on. Obama now rallies African-Americans to recapture their enthusiasm of 2008 and go out to vote in droves to save his socialist agenda. He is proving to be the consummate master in turning black against white. Obama and his minions are going retro trying to rekindle the 1970s concept of male chauvinism with a common tactic in this campaign of Democrat candidates having females voice "keep your hands off of our bodies" from the despicable Alan Grayson to the cloying Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida to the idiot Patty Murray in Washington state. Lets just reduce this epic election to men versus women on female reproductive rights (read as abortion on demand, which the Despot writer sees as little better than child murder). We already mentioned yesterday President Obama's entreaty that Latinos "punish" the Anglos so we see Obama pushing immigrants to turn on the native born.  We even have an appeal to have gay battling straight with the White House, which senses homosexuals feel let down on "Don't ask-don't tell", proudly releasing figures that they have appointed more open homosexuals than any previous administration in the lead up to the vote in an effort to reinforce Democrat appeal among gays as Obama even tries separating on sexual orientation to hold on to some votes. This President, his administration, and his party are the worst bridge burners in my lifetime- they are like Dixiecrats but instead of being solely racist they are attempting to rip America apart at her seams to install a redistributionist national ethos. 

A Centrist Presidency

When Barack Hussein Obama was a United States Senator from Illinois campaigning for the nation's highest office, the dinosaur press worked awfully hard to conceal his radical associations and present him as a moderate. Certain black candidates who had striven before for high office such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton had not been treated quite as gently by the main stream media (MSM), as even the lackeys of the Left in the MSM could not avoid the race-baiting radicalism the Reverends had unleashed in the past. Barack Hussein Obama had what could have been an equally grave problem with his twenty plus year association with a black liberation theology cleric, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright which the old media assiduously covered up. No, Senator Obama was no flame thrower on matters of race or ethnicity but a unifier who would lead us out of the old racial morass. Yesterday, it emerged that President Obama had asked Latinos to "punish their enemies" and stand with their Democrat Party friends. Are these the words or sentiments of a bridge builder trying to form coalitions to further the common cause of advancing the nation or of an angry community organizer who far from not hearing the instigation and racial animus of Reverend Wright was there listening intently to take the lesson very well?  And for America's Hispanic citizenry of legal registered voters- do not let this charlatan separate you from the rest of America, Anglo and African or Asian American alike and transform us into an ethnically-divided cesspool to advance a corrupted system that punishes achievement while rewarding sloth and does not share the wealth but only spreads the misery across all racial and ethnic lines. Do not permit Obama to sever white from brown but remember how in Los Angeles Democrats stirred hostility between brown and black turning communities against each other for petty political advantage and that the single most identifiable Hispanic candidate in this election cycle is Marco Rubio who proudly carries the Republican banner in Florida.

Corrupted National Discourse

Rarely have the consequences of a particular American election been as high as they are now and never has campaigning been marked by such a dearth of civility in modern times. Other commentators have spoken of a coarsening of culture and I have mentioned incidents of this on the Despot forum, but what Campaign 2010 demonstrates is descent to new depths. All too often in this consequential campaign cycle the debate has resembled two playground jousters, children trading barbs in the schoolyard with "your mama" being replaced by "man up". Personal attack replaces thought about the nation's future in almost every race and this should cause great foreboding in the citizenry with stakes so high. This harangue reflects desperation rather than constructive debate or enlightened dialogue but maybe that is too much to expect from advertising agencies, campaign consultants, and the alley cats vying for office they represent.

Joe Wilson Democrat

A little known Democrat in the gubernatorial battle for the nation's smallest state has expressed a sentiment other Democrats likely share. Frank Caprio, running for the governorship of Rhode Island, has told our President Barack Hussein Obama "he can take his endorsement and shove it". This is a blow against the stature of the office of the Presidency and an assault on decorum that compares to South Carolina US Congressman Joe Wilson's "you lie!" moment during the State of the Union address, but this breach does not come from a rascal Republican but astonishingly from a down the line liberal fellow Democrat. Candidates are past being a little testy and this gross surliness is on full display in the waning days of this campaign.

Two Trillion Reasons

Americans as a rule like receiving value on their dollar and that concept holds true for their dollars confiscated in taxes. America's citizens would not be as dissatisfied with the performance in office of Barack Hussein Obama had his epic spending yielded full employment or even held joblessness at the promised eight percent, but raising the national debt two trillion dollars has yielded nothing except throwing good money after bad as far as many tax payers are concerned. This free spending of course was the primary impetus for the creation of the Tea Parties. There are other issues as well clouding the Democrat Party's future, specifically widespread resistance to the health care bill that was passed and became law against the wishes of most voters. Democrats who are sanguine now about their chances in this coming election are just whistling past the graveyard.

An Unsettled Matter

The Sunday morning policy wonk programs chronicled flux in many races and tightening in some. With the November vote right around the corner and ungodly sums being spent, naturally contests are becoming more competitive. Does advantage accrue necessarily to Democrats in these waning days? I would contend that it does not, even in some districts and precincts where President Barack Hussein Obama appears himself or dispatches his wife. In these areas, Obama becomes a handy in the flesh reminder of Obamaism and his presence may actually cost more votes than it gains. The GOP maintains a secure lead in the race for the United States House of Representatives, Republicans are exerting enough pressure in the US Senate that Democrats know that that too is in play, and few would dispute that Republicans are poised to win the majority of governorships being contested. In the event, many Democrat candidates may feel they were strangled in President Obama's coattails.

Iron Pyrite President

America was sold on a golden notion, something shining and new in the 2008 Presidential election. Otto von Bismarck was termed the "Iron Chancellor" for his spine of steel, his grasp of diplomacy, and his use of realpolitik. Bismarck was admired by his friends and feared by his enemies with great justification. Barack Hussein Obama is surely not made of sterner stuff and there is hardly a vague gleaning that remains of what was proffered in the promise of the Presidential campaign. There is no substance to the words assuring that unemployment would never surpass eight percent (8%)- that pipe dream vanished a few million jobless back. Racial reconciliation so longed for in many quarters and an essential selling point of "hope and change" went out the window as Professor "Skip" Gates broke in his own Cambridge door raising suspicions of anxious neighbors that caused them to summon the now infamous officer who Obama verbally attacked though admitting to not knowing the whole story to show our President was anything but a peace maker on matters black and white. As far as America standing with friends under Obama, ask Great Britain about the return of the Churchill bust, the sell out to Argentina on the Falklands by the Obama US Department of State under Hillary, the coming abandonment of Iraq to the tender mercies of Iran, the betrayal of the people of Afghanistan displayed by US willingness to start talks with their atavist Taliban former and quite possibly future oppressors, and of course, the astonishing serving up of Israel to the genocidal forces that surround her in the name of appeasement. If your hope was for a thriving private sector, Obama is changing us into a central planning, control economy with every aspect of our lives from our car buying decisions to our health care destiny determined by bureaucrats. To us they will be faceless, nameless, and unanswerable. We are in the final hours of being able to halt the slide. Vote those who are siding with Obama's assaults on liberty and self-determination out this November or by the next election America as we have loved her may be past saving. We were sold a bill of goods that what we were purchasing with Obama was gold when time has borne out that what we bought for our money (and oh so much of it in taxes and deficit spending as far as the eye can see) is a great hunk of iron pyrite, pretty to look at but in its essence- worthless.

Obama's Rooting Section

The fervent Leftist partisans that comprise the dinosaur media are aghast that America is rejecting Obamaism. The main stream media (MSM) has done its level best to promote Obama's redistributionist scheme with its totalitarian creep and now is in horror that they have not succeeded in being able to "reeducate" the masses to embrace socialism. The MSM displayed collective bemusement that the public had given an all-time low job approval rating of forty-four percent for the Obama Presidency. I am amazed that with ten percent unemployment (and that is in my opinion a low ball figure) that Obama's approval numbers are actually not even lower. The old line press will certainly redouble their efforts in these last days before the election to salvage Democrats and defeat Republicans, but their manipulation at this point is a forlorn hope sent to fall on the hill of Obama's arrogance. 

Tamp Down Voting

Democrats are actively besmirching their GOP opponents not so much to gain votes in the coming election but to suppress the overall vote tally as they know after standing so closely with President Barack Hussein Obama in advancing his unpopular agenda that voters will never forgive and that there is no way they can garner their votes. But if enough dirt is dished on their opponent, these Democrats hope ballots will not be cast for them either as potential voters throw up their hands and say "I can not vote for either of these scoundrels. I will simply stay home and not vote this cycle." So much bile is being spewed in the political ads I characterize it as "turn-off television" and "run-away radio" as these smears may be meant to leave citizens saying (to borrow from Shakespeare) "a pox on both your houses". If enough revulsion is created and most are sufficiently repulsed, Democrats may figure that their turnout of hard core supporters, labor activists, ACORN types and the fraud and vote manipulation they bring might yet still bring sufficient weight to carry these elections. The personal attacks launched against Republicans are not meant to necessarily woo votes for Democrats but to hold down overall voting where dirty tricks  (like illegal alien votes, double voting, and dead people casting ballots) may be enough to carry the day. 

Drunk with Power

ABC News reports today that malfeasance is not limited to Federal office holders, but hold on to your hats, extends into state legislatures. Brian Ross evinced evident shock as he explained that five journalism students had infiltrated a conference for state office holders held in Louisville, Kentucky but with cameras openly displayed to reveal some disturbing antics. ABC may well release similar astounding revelations such as the sky is blue and birds fly in it. Among  ABC's filmed alleged transgressions was that conference participants imbibed Kentucky whiskey as a favored libation. Politicians consuming liquor should be as much of a surprise as finding fish in a koi pond. In my home state of Tennessee, corruption investigations have been fruitful and yielded convictions proving that while neither party is immune from illegal conduct that Democrats seem to be caught for it more often with a three to one ratio over GOP members facing charges in the last cycle of indictments in what was called "Operation Tennessee Waltz" and our only Governor being removed in modern times for corruption being another Democrat Ray Blanton. Tennessee serves as a fair example but Illinois could stand out too with the last Governor Rod Blagojevich (also a Democrat) being banished from office early and convicted on one Federal charge while likely facing retrial on others on which the jury deadlocked. No party has an exclusive lock on ethics nor is either major party immune from corruption which is no rare commodity but has infected the body politic from top to bottom. Selling of office or letting it for a few pieces of silver compromises our Republic to the core. Most everyone figured many politicians were less than scrupulous but when young ABC producers capture our legislators' follies on camera, it is stomach-turning. Those who are elected to represent the people have just enough hubris to think they can get away with almost anything. They will find the next time they stand for reelection may be a sobering experience.  

Flood of Mud

The Democrat party has unleashed a torrent of mudslinging to cascade across the American body politic to drown both virtue and reason. These insults range from individual Democrat candidates smearing their Republican opponents to a bizarre national strategy to taint the United States Chamber of Commerce as a nefarious organization trying to subvert the democratic process using foreign money. On the individual candidate front, perhaps those representing the GOP should ask rhetorically or in debate if the Democrats now vilifying them and throwing dirt based on allegations from the distant past (as far back as college in the Rand Paul Kentucky US Senate race) expressed similar misgivings about having Teddy Kennedy serve in positions of leadership for several decades after killing a girl or Robert Byrd directing their party for a half century or so after playing a leading role in the Ku Klux Klan. Nothing any Republican candidate did that is currently running sinks to the level of disgrace that did not disqualify these dirty Democrats (or Barney Frank of the male escort service in his basement scandal, the late Gerry Studds having homosexual relations with an underage page incident, the currently serving New York US Representative Charles Rangel using our tax dollars for his personal fiefdom while not paying his own taxes, or the ongoing allegations against long-time Democrat US House member Maxine Waters, inter alia). A party rolling in a pig waller should be quite cautious when asking who muddied the carpet. And the new jihad against the Chamber of Commerce simply defies logic. Does the Democrat party really want to create the impression that they are at war with business? Evidently so, and far from backing away from that tack, Nancy Pelosi redoubled that attack in an event for a labor union yesterday. Yes, in this hyper-aware era, people are paying close attention to the charges Democrats are making and they will remember them for exactly what they are in November. 

Paris Is Threatened

France has been one of the more docile and mostly benign world powers with a tradition of appeasement that stretches back to the Second World War. Now however, France seems to have made herself a target for world jihad with a small troop contingent serving alongside the much larger American and other allied forces in Afghanistan and a decision to ban the burka made for domestic political considerations. The hostility France's activism provoked seems to have animated an active threat by al-Qaeda. Evidently landmarks as famous as the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame are now under threat along with other places of renown where tourists gather. Emerging concurrent with the France warning is a report that the leader of al-Qaeda himself Osama bin Laden has been hidden in relative comfort in the homes of members of Pakistan's version of the Central Intelligence Agency- the ISI. Whether there is any truth to that or not, is it not amazing over ten years since bin Laden took credit for the bombing of the USS Cole and almost a decade since the September 11, 2001 terror atrocity that mere mention of his name kindles such fear (and the massive and costly security precautions such alarm engenders)? If bin Laden had not ever existed, it would have made a good turn for the jihadists to invent him, to simply make up a bogeyman to frighten the West at every suggestion that some new terror attack is on the horizon. The sad fact now exists that if bin Laden were captured tomorrow, we would still be locked in a clash of civilizations for generations.

The Double Game

ABC news reported that David Headley who allegedly served as the scout for an al-Qaeda affiliate in preparation to launch the Mumbai terror attacks was serving on the Asian subcontinent as a paid informant of the American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). This revelation is disturbing enough but then there emerges another claim that Headley's wife had warned American authorities prior to the terror massacre that her husband had gone rogue and was now working with terrorists. This is one of at least several alarms raised by family members that individuals were about to commit or advance the commission of acts of jihad that US authorities let slip by including the chance to arrest the infamous Christmas underwear bomber before he boarded his flight and very nearly succeeded in bringing down a packed jet only failing because his bomb failed to fully ignite. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's own father had taken the extraordinary step of alerting the US State Department that he feared his son had been radicalized. Whether it is a clear pattern of personal action that should have signaled our military and law enforcers to be alert such as the correspondence of the Fort Hood murderer with Yemen before his deadly rampage or relatives taking the courageous step of coming forward, America becomes negligent when such warnings are not promptly investigated. There is another game afoot in Pakistan with the Pakistani intelligence service ISI or members therein playing both sides in the war on terror. Perhaps, David Headley will reveal if he had any ISI handlers during the terror mission in a bid for leniency.

For Shock Value

The United States has been in a long-running currency dispute with Red China over China's maintaining an artificially low valuation for the yuan versus the American dollar. There is no doubt that this unfair practice has injured the USA; however, the Communist Chinese are right to contend that their mercantile practice and national fiscal policy have nothing to do with the current US economic crisis. Even a Marxist nation like mainland China knows redistributionist schemes have not worked, do not work, and can not work and will readily point the finger at US domestic spending as the source of America's fiscal woes. Our own quasi-Marxist leader President Barack Hussein Obama will not accept China's sage economic advise and will continue to scapegoat China, the last President Bush, and anyone else he can to evade responsibility for his own mismanagement of our economy. Until the Obama team is ushered from the White House, we will have to resist the primrose path to socialism.

Democrat Pep Rally

Yesterday, President Barack Hussein Obama reduced himself and his office to an appearance on a network synonymous with boozy, promiscuity-filled reality television- you know the one famous for having airheads ask holders of august positions in government if they wear boxers or briefs. This forum was billed as a "town hall", but the producers took pains to make sure the crowd was composed of the photogenic and not comprised of many inquisitive young Republicans. Any penetrating questions were likely screened by President Obama's team in advance so that a proper answer could be generated and fed into the teleprompter. And lest there be any question of bias, MTV made their leanings obvious by excluding any GOP response. This pandering to the inexperienced and all too often empty-headed may garner a few Democrat votes in the coming November contest, after all, Obama now completely controls the student loan process on which many in the audience probably rely so as to avoid having to enter the real world and attempt to find an ever more scarce job and try and make their way as a taxpayer in the workforce. But this kind of political chicanery is to be expected, what is more intolerable but equally apparent is the open rooting for Democrats on the dinosaur media networks, particular NBC and more particularly MSNBC. These General Electric outposts have bent over backwards to protect Democratic candidates while demonizing Republicans. Do not be disheartened patriot, whatever these hacks say in the run up to November is not likely to change many minds and we should still be able to reverse the socialist slide in the coming plebiscite.

The Knight School

In the context of the American political process regarding female candidates from the Republican Party contesting male Democrats chivalry is dead, buried, decomposed, and then dug from the grave like Oliver Cromwell for the summary humiliation of having its severed head placed on barbaric display. Just look at the way Christine O'Donnell is being pilloried by Chris Coons and his local and national media surrogates in the Delaware US Senate campaign for the so-called Joe Biden seat. And then there is the repugnant slur used by Jerry Brown's close circle calling his opponent (please gentle reader forgive the unexpurgated language as an accurate quote must be used herein) a "whore". This term is applied to one of America's great ladies who has lived a near ideal life in making one of America's corporate megaliths eBay a household name, marrying a neurosurgeon, and by most accounts having a wonderful family. So a political hack who failed as Governor Brown seeks to impose his old tired tax and spend liberal ways over the new ideas so successfully implemented in business by Meg Whitman on reeling California. Between Jerry Brown's rehashed no idea and Whitman's new idea, I think it is time for Californians to give running state government like a business and in Whitman's case a highly successful business a try. Who knows, with a little luck, Whitman may even salvage the state.

To the Surface

The world, at least that part of it that still values the sanctity of human life rather than reveling in murder and bomb-vest martyrdom, celebrates the rescue of the thirty-three formerly trapped Chilean miners and the monumental courage of the six volunteers who risked their own lives descending two thousand feet under the earth to collect them. Those six should be hailed the most for such selfless action. But many other grim aspects have risen to the surface as well. In the Middle East, a sellout of Israel is afoot by the Obama administration that seems bent on sacrificing America's one consistent friend in the region to placate Muslim animus. This appeasement mentality of Obama has already led to the US essentially conceding both Iraq and Lebanon into the Iranian sphere of influence, and now even permeates the conflict in Afghanistan with a new announced American willingness to speak to the Taliban. One must wonder what there is to negotiate about with seventh century atavists who despise women and shielded and sponsored al-Qaeda in the run up to and after the September 11, 2001 attacks in which a similar heroism was exhibited by American first responders as we have just seen in Chile with more than three hundred US firefighters having their lives taken in the quest to save others. Then there is the conservative colossus beginning to surface in America proper as November's election approaches. This freeing force will make the trees tremble in the fall shaking down the leaves of liberalism as the sleeping giant once roused will rid the Congress of those who do not hold liberty dear. All decent people herald the glorious exercise of freedom whether it is demonstrated in incredible bravery under the ground in Chile or a rendezvous with destiny climbing up burning towers in an attempt to save strangers though inside each emergency worker seeing the damage knew the World Trade Center was bound to collapse. They have risen as our best.

Lights, Chimera, Action

As the authentic drama of the mine rescue unfolds in Chile, plenty of phoniness is being offered in the campaign season back in the US. First there is Barack Hussein Obama's preposterous allegations trying to paint the United States Chamber of Commerce as some nefarious organization trying to use foreign money to interfere in the American political process, and this charge is coming from a character who used more donated funds from some genuinely suspicious sources than any previous candidate for any office in US history in his run toward the Presidency. No doubt Obama has intimate knowledge of questionable campaign funding as he was the beneficiary of millions of dollars from abroad as he sought the Oval Office. If the origin of any GOP money is undetermined, indeed find out from whence it came, just make sure to hold Democrats to the same level of scrutiny. Then there are local ads being run across the country portraying Republican office seekers in the worst possible light- negative campaigning in the politics of personal destruction writ large on our television screens. I would not be surprised to see a Democrat run an ad like this: "I am not saying my Republican foe scoundrel that he is eats babies, but if you have a newborn or toddler, you would be well advised to keep him away from this reactionary's kitchen." Of course, no Democrat is actually suggesting this, but their concocted charges are just as ludicrous. Why I would wager every individual seeking office has a skeleton or two in his closet. That does not make them unelectable, it merely means they too are human with all the fallibility that involves. Under the standards of today's campaigns, after Mary Jo Kopechne and the Chappaquiddick tragedy, do you think Edward "Teddy" Kennedy could have ever been elected to the US Senate? Made-up scandals should not disqualify honorable individuals from public service in this nation. Send the real charlatans who are looting America's Treasury packing. 

Late Lamented War

The President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama declared over a year ago that he was uncomfortable with the concept of victory in Afghanistan. Since then, President Obama has initiated and maintained rules of engagement (ROE) for US forces (and more broadly, the international forces in Afghanistan) so restrictive as to ensure there will be no victory for America and her allies there. Beyond those ROE so constraining that there is no way to win, the United States is acting like France in the World War II era looking for a way to surrender. American foreign policy now seeks a path to appease the Taliban rather than to defeat them. The world's lone superpower is capitulating to an Islamist, Sharia-imposing ragtag band of vicious murdering terrorist thugs. The supposed "good war" that during the Presidential campaign of 2008 and actually well before that, since soon after hostilities began was the conflict in Afghanistan as opposed to Iraq that the Democratic Party supposedly wanted to wage to win to eliminate the threat of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, but now is the fight that Democrats and President Obama are rushing to abandon. Suddenly, the true antiwar radicalism of the Democrat Party as a national entity has fully emerged. The focus on drawing down from the Iraq War to focus on winning in Afghanistan was only a veneer, a ploy to club the last Bush administration and Republicans with, not a sincere effort toward winning. US casualties have skyrocketed in Afghanistan under the current President's leadership as Obama split the baby with his generals and did not authorize the full amount of troop surge those military commanders including those on the ground there had sought, all the while, increasing mission range to much broader areas of that inhospitable country and boosting mission tempo. This while our forces hands are tied by the most limiting rules under which US forces have ever been forced to fight. The first US effort at total war was directed by Lincoln and Grant in the American Civil War and conducted by Sherman on his "march to the sea" where he demoralized the civilian populace of the South by means of sufficient destruction of all productive resources that the Confederacy was so wounded that the will to continue the fight was lost. However objectionable this tactic may seem now, there is little doubt that the brutality unleashed led to the more rapid capitulation of the Southern Confederacy. During the Second World War, the United States did not confine fighting strategy to a scrupulous standard and in fact some might say in instances like the fire bombing of Dresden was little better than our Axis enemy as we engaged in moral relativism and means to an end attacks that left hundreds of thousands of innocent non-combatants dead. Yet this deliberate bloodletting was considered an oxymoron of a "good war" and even termed so by such illustrious liberals as Studs Terkel, who realized that in the fight against totalitarianism and fascism, all out war was the only way to triumph. America and her allies will never pacify the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban by waging a Marquess of Queensberry campaign; all this will achieve is an enormous amount of unnecessary and avoidable casualties amongst the good guys (our side) in a struggle of attrition with an opponent who believes that he is religiously mandated to die as a martyr to his faith and declares that he loves death more than the infidel loves life. The war in Afghanistan is eminently winnable even if waged without a single ally by the United States alone, all that is required is the will to triumph and absolute dedication to do whatever is needed including distasteful brutality as was manifested in the Second World War and that we visited upon ourselves by ravaging the Confederacy in the American War Between the States. In this day and age of asymmetrical warfare and weapons of mass destruction, there is no virtuous way to wage war- only the realization that our adversary is evil incarnate and that we do not lose our righteousness of cause using every method available to defeat him. Any effort that does not reflect absolute resolve as a nation by the United States is a recipe for further conflict, further US casualties, more attacks by Islamist terrorists on the homeland, and ultimately futility and disaster.

Relations Between Nations

All too often where aid between nations is involved, the benefactor nation trades charity for resentment. America has offered friendship or even liberation only to be met with enmity or worse- violence. When embarking on a foreign enterprise (or what the old Politburo types would call an adventure), instead of gratitude, America's best efforts have evoked hostility. When observing reaction to our outreach, I am reminded charity begins at home and of George Washington's admonition to "avoid foreign entanglements", but then I end up sounding like Ron Paul. Once commitments have been made though and those who stood with the US have their necks out, America is obliged to stand with them. If America abandoned Afghanistan tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of lives would be forfeit because brave Afghans served as translators for our forces, coordinated distribution of US aid, or even had the temerity to teach in or attend a girl's school. Once America has made a promise of liberation or worse yet, nation building, the die is cast, even at a cost of ten thousands troops sacrificed and a trillion dollars expended. All else in the context of the Taliban throwbacks is unconscionable.

Friends Like These

Much American blood was spilled and treasure spent to liberate Iraq from the clutches of the genocidal tyrant Saddam Hussein. While officially the combat role of United States forces has ended, more than fifty thousand Americans in uniform remain in country serving largely as trainers and advisers. Despite the still robust and capable American presence, Iraq is slipping firmly into the sphere of influence of Iran. The majority of Iraq's populace are themselves Shia and the government of Iraq is ever more openly standing with America's regional nemesis the Islamic Republic of Iran. US sacrifice to free Afghanistan seems similarly squandered as the government of Hamid Karzai may not be wholly legitimate having arisen in this term from a suspicious election and is without doubt riven with corruption with President Karzai's brother linked to the opium trade. Then there is the little matter of attempted rapprochement with the Taliban which is being implemented with the blessings of the Obama administration. The Taliban remain the antithesis of Western values and one of if not the most intolerant and misogynistic groups that has existed in enlightened times. These benighted atavists have apparently received active encouragement to stage more anti-American attacks in recent days by another alleged friend of America, the government of Pakistan. Pakistan has exhibited the actions of an implacable foe since the inception of the Terror War, with the Pakistani equivalent of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the ISI providing inspiration and material support for Osama bin Laden to found al-Qaeda and subsequently continuing to aid both al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban since then. Our Pakistani ally even had elements of their intelligence agency involved in the Mumbai terror slaughter that left several American citizens dead. There can be little doubt that as America pressures her one true Middle Eastern friend Israel back into suicide borders, that the United States can not afford such duplicitous friends as are rearing their heads in the Arab world and the Asian subcontinent.

Such Pretentious Conceit

Those currently imposing their rules on the rest of us are consumed with incredible hubris and accompanying this is the wonderful ability to cast blame on others for their own failings and a readiness to claim credit for the accomplishments of others. These traits of our current elite ruling class are reinforced by false pride of moral superiority, certitude, rectitude, and triumphalism (not one of which is merited). These politicians in Washington who deign to take away our self-determination and dictate our destiny are by in large not able to repair their own vehicles, maintain their own properties, fix their own toilets, and in a survival situation, it is highly unlikely that they could even set a snare trap to catch the family dinner, but they are well and capable of forcing you to buy a particular health insurance policy or forcing you to purchase a light bulb that will contaminate your house with mercury should it ever break. Then we have last week where Vice President Joseph Biden, a walking gaffe if there ever was one, lambasted an audience of supporters as the most "dull" that he had ever seen- coming from a dullard like the Vice President some might contend Old Joe was calling the kettle black. But Biden's criticism was no slip of the tongue or mere one off as this administration is putting narcissism on full display with President Barack Hussein Obama himself chiding his 2008 supporters earlier for their "lack of enthusiasm" about the coming November election. This "blame the base" to invigorate it seems to be a tactical decision to actually motivate lagging Democrats but more than that to have someone beyond themselves to point the finger of blame at if the party does sustain an epic loss in the coming vote. This scapegoating of supporters may avoid soul searching self-scrutiny in high Democrat circles but it is doubtful that the elites in that flagging party can ever rekindle the spirit of 2008 where even to many of his most vociferous backers Barack Hussein Obama was a blank slate onto which the naive could transfer their hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Now that the electorate knows Obama and the elite ruling cadre well, for their pride and their prejudice, they will never be able to put one over on us again.

Department of Destruction

In the pantheon of the Presidential wrecking crew, I coined the mythic employment eradication czar yesterday which is in addition to my previously mentioned Department of Miseducation (good for indoctrination but for comprehensive instruction on the basics not so much), and am wrapping the Federal non-entities that sadly seem very real though they may not exist in corporeal form, into the Department of Destruction which though it is not a budget item in any omnibus bill may have more power at the moment than the Department of Defense. This newly initiated fiction of the Department of Destruction can be seen at work depriving California farmers of water which destroys their crops and livelihoods in favor of preserving an insectoid fish. The Department of Destruction can be observed without too much difficulty using its disinformation office to artificially tamp down jobless numbers and create the impression more jobs have been created than there actually are. High on the target list of the Department of Destruction is wealth creation. There will be none of that here (at least not from free market capitalism, crony capitalism and corporate welfare are alive and well and tort lawyers are thriving). The Department of Destruction is hard at work trying to take your medical destiny away from you and place it in the hands of unanswerable bureaucrats. All in all, this new phenomenon of a pooka Department of Destruction does not confine itself to any building but is becoming a real and all encompassing threat to wealth, health, freedom, and jobs. Let us just hope that in November the Department finds it has a very short tenure.

The Brown Danube

Hungary is beset with an ecological disaster and a human tragedy as a toxic sludge spill took several lives and ruined a substantial area of that nation. The red sludge is now seeping into the mostly pristine blue Danube that winds its way through central Europe. As a Tennessean who has personally experienced and suffered property damage in a thousand year flood and whose state also witnessed a toxic Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash spill, I can empathize with what Hungarians are now facing and the problems which may harm other Europeans down river from the tragedy. A flood is an act of God while a sludge spill like this betrays man's unsteady hand. Let us hope the resilient and resourceful Hungarians who climbed so quickly from their Iron Curtain chains can rise once again with the spirit that has unified them since the Magyars. 

Employment Eradication Czar

Another jobless report emerged yesterday with Automatic Data Processing, the nation's largest payroll firm and ironically a company brought to the public eye by New Jersey Democrat US Senator Frank Lautenberg, announcing that private sector payroll dropped more than thirty-nine thousand (39,000) jobs last week. This piece of bad news has arrived just after President Obama pledged thirty billion more dollars for stimulus to prompt small business hiring. It seems that the private sector was none too enthused and might actually start creating more jobs if the Bush tax cuts are extended or vastly more employment if marginal Federal income tax rates are lowered and/or capital gains tax rate is diminished. All I can figure and what we all might conclude is that somewhere in the labyrinthine corridors of power in Washington, there may exist perhaps in a secluded office near the Bureau of Land Management or perhaps in a tunnel under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a hidden Czar, after all Obama has empowered so many it is rather hard to keep track, a mythic figure not charged like Van Jones was with any sort of job creation but responsible for just the opposite- making sure we never arrive back near the eight percent unemployment that President Obama promised when he was campaigning that the United States would never surpass under his stewardship. What's a few million unemployed more or less between friends with such good redistributionist intentions?

Political Blood Sport

Campaigns for public office have always been contentious. They have sometimes turned vicious, after all to borrow from a greater wit, "politics ain't beanbag". So it should be no surprise that in an era of such tumult, some campaigns have turned angry. The best example of a candidate venting his ire in this cycle may well involve sitting Florida Democrat US Representative Alan Grayson. Grayson or the team concocting his advertising thought of a way to eviscerate his Republican opponent Daniel Webster by heavily editing remarks Webster had made about Biblical views that were empowering to women and gave out of context excerpts that conveyed the opposite meaning. The ad went so far as to have a woman doing a voice over say "Taliban Dan keep your hands off of our bodies". In earlier times, before the alternative conservative media sphere of FOX, right wing radio hosts, and bloggers existed, the main stream dinosaur media might have let the ad stand, but under the New Media spotlight even the dinosaur press had to come out with reports that the Grayson TV spot twisted Daniel Webster's words to distort their plain meaning into something sinister that was never spoken by the GOP standard bearer. In this particular race, Grayson's wrath has come back to bite him with a dip in the polls after the unfounded negative ad came under national scrutiny. In this case, the raging Grayson seems to have been hoisted by his own petard.

Burka Ban Bantustan

Muslims in France are concerned that they are being confined in a permanent underclass and singled out by the recently passed prohibition on the face covering garment frequently worn by traditionally observant women. The actual number of wearers of burkas, hijabs, or niqabs is relatively small, probably numbering in the few thousands out of a Muslim community of around six million. But far beyond raw numbers, the sanctions against this practice have evoked outrage through large segments of the French Islamic community and perhaps more importantly, to Muslims worldwide. France is actually under increased threat of terror because of the ban, but at times, standing on principle has an associated cost. France may have managed to avoid the post-September 11, 2001 threat that struck at the heart of other European powers- notably Madrid (the train bombings) and London (the 7/7 mass transit attacks), and Moscow (for reasons more connected to the Chechen conflict) by distancing herself from the US particularly in the Iraq endeavor (which from France's perspective was an adventure). The best efforts of Jacques Chirac and Bernard Kouchner to not offend the great Ummah had to be squandered though to protect the foundational values of the French Republic. The burka ban is not the problem, but the all-encompassing covering was a symptom of a community of France that refuses to integrate and assimilate and share the national culture. The law of the Republic has heretofore not been an impediment to Islamic integration and many French of the Islamic faith have made headway in society precisely when they abandon practice including religious attire that keeps them separate from the majority at large. Very few Muslims in France who retain the wall of habitual practice around them have made great strides into enterprise or become anything other than welfare wards of the French state. Only when those trapped by orthodox Islamic practice embrace the community that surrounds them are they able to escape the poverty that they complain is imposed upon them with their presence in France. Those now shouting the loudest that their rights are being infringed do not recognize that a door is being opened to them affording an opportunity to greater prosperity through fuller integration into the French nation. 

Already Failed Governor

California has experienced good, bad, and indifferent governance over the last half century. The Golden State was fortunate enough to select Ronald Wilson Reagan as leader before he ascended to the higher Presidential stage. Pete Wilson was capable enough and during his tenure the state did not drown in debt or break off the continent and sink into the Pacific Ocean. Gray Davis was so exquisitely inept, California's electorate removed him from office early rather than allowing him to finish off the state by concluding his term. Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced the recalled Democrat Davis and has fought a mostly unsuccessful holding action to save the formerly Golden State. The Governator put up an early fight before succumbing to public employee unions and after showing his fecklessness, suddenly discovering his latent socialist tendencies and embracing his inner Kennedy (if Arnold was not born to the blood, he certainly contracted a bad case of liberalism perhaps through osmosis from Maria Shriver). Not far behind Davis in crashing a once great state though was Jerry Brown- with his pie in the sky progressiveism, savvy voters did not call him Governor "Moonbeam" for nothing. Yet Jerry Brown is purportedly about tied in the polls with a fantastic and capable businesswoman also seeking to serve as that state's governor Meg Whitman. Ms. Whitman's acumen helped turn eBay from a small almost unknown Internet auction company into one of the web's powerhouses. Whitman is certainly not the kind of conservative firebrand that I would prefer but I do not reside in California, and Meg Whitman's moderate position on social issues and immigration may appeal to the centrist voters who do live there. I can not imagine why Californians would afford another big spending, social radical to further damage the state. Preserve your own sanity, vote Meg Whitman.

The Package Deal

A so-called "Blue Dog" Democrat named Lincoln Davis is seeking reelection to the United States House of Representatives. Congressman Davis is undeniably nowhere near as radical as most other Democrats in the House but that does not mean he in any way merits being given another term. Yes, Davis is a genuine moderate, expressing even some conservative views, but if the contingent of centrist Democrats manage to hold on to their House seats that will keep the radical Obama agenda right on moving. Imagine when you see Davis operating his bulldozer in his current campaign advertisement that there is an angel on his shoulder, but this cherub is actually somewhat less than angelic, it is the beaming (probably plastic surgeon constructed visage of one Nancy Pelosi), because ultimately a vote for Lincoln Davis, no matter how independent he claims to be in his ad is a vote for the San Francisco Speaker of the House. In an different election cycle, retaining a Lincoln Davis would not be the end of the world, but in these times, allowing Davis to continue to represent Tennessee in Washington is placing a nail in your own coffin if you value freedom.

We Forbid You

Americans have never been fond of imperious decrees- just ask King George III. We do not by in large cotton to hearing "we forbid you" from elites who deceive themselves into believing they are our betters. People do not like finding out that "we require you" to purchase a certain type of light bulb particularly after noticing the one grandma used seemed to work just fine. Americans are naturally resistant to being told "we mandate you" buy not just any old health insurance but the one these ruling class dictators determine is right for us- free choice for them but not for you. Peon, you used to be called citizen and enjoy some degree of self-determination but under Team Obama with co-captains Reid and Pelosi, someone else is controlling your decision making from automobiles and appliances to end of life care. There is a term in the American South "yellow dog Democrat" which means that supporters of that now inglorious party would vote with that ticket even if the candidate were a "yellow dog". In November, if you love the nation as we have known it, you had best vote "calico cat Republican". Vote for your GOP US Representative candidate or Senate seat seeker even if they are a calico cat or Delaware witch for that matter. 

Diane Sawyer's Whitewash

The dinosaur network ABC led by rapidly fading beauty queen Diane Sawyer will sanitize Islam for consumption by the most gullible members of the American public who would accept without skepticism what the main stream media (MSM) is feeding them. The zeitgeist of the American propaganda machine that is the MSM has been and will continue to be in the ABC network push to educate the US on Islam a cover-up of the incendiary aspects of that faith. Islam is the most violent and least tolerant faith practiced today. The networks will not expose this but will actively keep Americans in the dark about the bellicose nature of the Koran and the Hadith. Muslims are instructed in their holy writ not to take to themselves a Jew or Christian as a friend. They are told it is permissible to lie to those of other faiths to advance Islam. In one Hadith, Jews are targeted for universal destruction in jihad: "Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say, 'oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!'" This command to the Muslim believer has never been rescinded and applies as much today as when it was written. Will Diane Sawyer clear matters up and prove there is no anti-Jewish component in Islam by asking every one of her interview subjects if they agree Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state in the Middle East? No, she will not introduce any context that makes Muslim practitioners appear intolerant or Islam look bad. Homosexuals are also singled out for murder under Koranic practice with death considered the appropriate punishment for same sex relations. This is not mere rhetoric, Iran has actually hanged gays under this religious mandate. Saudi Arabia is the heart of Islam hosting Mecca where every believer is commanded to go at least once in his life, if he is able on the Hajj. Saudi Arabia's religious authorities forced girls back into a burning school to their deaths because they had fled the flames without their veils. Saudi Arabia still chops hands off alleged thieves, beheads so-called criminals, and even engages in crucifixion under religious justification. Does that atavistic practice seem like something a peaceful religion would countenance? Does any other faith venerate suicide killers, called shahid in this day and age and will Ms. Sawyer ask her interview subjects their position on martyrs? Will Ms. Sawyer mention that of fifty-two shooting conflicts extant at this moment, why fifty involve Muslim combatants. Will she ask about Muslim attacks in the Philippines, Thailand, Xinjiang in China and Muslim violence against their Han neighbors, about Kashmir and the dispute between Pakistan and India and the Islamist terror unleashed on Mumbai, mass murder by Salafis across North Africa and the Maghreb including long and bloody insurgent campaigns in Morocco and Algeria, to the Bali bombings, to the worst terror ever visited on American shores on September 11, 2001 which led to US incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq and to a lesser extent Yemen, to the attempted genocide of Christians and animists in Darfur in the Sudan, to Somalia where Islamists are attempting conquest, to the train tracks of Madrid and the theater in Moscow, to mass transit in London on 7/7, to Jerusalem (not al-Quds) where lives are taken by this faith of peace, to the first day school slaughter in Beslan, to continuing simmering hostility that requires peace keepers in the wars initiated by Muslims in the Balkans in Bosnia and Kosovo, to Muslim killing Muslim and Kurds are suppressed by Turkey, Syria, and Iran. Certainly the vast majority of Muslims are not active terrorists, but there is simply no credible way to claim Islam is a peaceful faith. There exists no massive groundswell in the Ummah to combat Islamist violence or there would be considerably less of it. Almost everywhere on earth where tensions simmer and blood is drawn, Islamists acting under the color of their faith are the culprits. Diane Sawyer will do all she can tonight to dissuade you of this, if you decide to watch her.