Friday, April 30, 2010

Four Dollar Gasoline

Any endeavor humans embark upon carries a cost and a risk. Someone fell in the shower this morning and a pedestrian will die under a car somewhere today. Oil drilling comes with inherent dangers, to those working in the field (as in the eleven oil rig workers off Louisiana who were just tragically lost) and for the environment itself. But the benefit of cheap, abundant petroleum far offsets the risk. Nothing man has produced to this point can replace the gasoline-powered motor as the literal engine of prosperity. So, when David Axelrod says today that no new drilling will be allowed by the Obama administration until the cause of the Gulf of Mexico tragedy is found, it is bound to drive oil prices up and inhibit economic growth. Stopping new drilling, which is already slowed to a glacial pace by existing regulation and litigation by environmental interest groups, will only drive the price of gasoline up that much more just as we are entering the peak summer travel season. As schools are out and vacationers are planning their annual road trip sparking the highest sustained demand at any point in the year (Christmas boosts demand as well but not increased gas use for several months), there will be no chance of an increase in supply to keep prices at the pump steady. In fact with even one deep water well offline, our monopolistic adversaries in OPEC, the likes of Chavez's Venezuela and the September Eleventh Saudis, may further restrict their flow here to squeeze us. As our use rises, and availability contracts, we will see four dollar a gallon gasoline and perhaps long lines at gas stations despite exorbitant, extortionist prices at the pump. And that is precisely the way the Al Gores and Barack Obamas of the world who never want to share the wealth but always seek to spread the misery want it- punitive gas prices stifling free movement in America.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Wreck Center

Today, the dinosaur media gleefully reported that Boy Scouts could now earn merit badges for mastering video games. This is a far cry and quite a step away from collecting an award for assimilating a skill so frivolous as life saving. The erosion of values and common sense certainly did not start and will not end with a zany decision by a scouting organization. I would say one early hallmark of the rising idiocy was the creation of midnight basketball under Bill Clinton. This program continues (almost exclusively in the inner-cities) in rec centers but seems racist to its core with an opportunity directed largely at young black men who face record unemployment, not to attend midnight job fairs, visit a twenty-four hour job bank, learn valuable, marketable skills at an all-night computer lab, or even visit an extended hours library (with those resources actually pared down as cities shorten library hours or close them due to tight budgets and constraints on spending worsened by the Obama recession), but they can line up a three pointer or try a flashy dunk- no doubt impressive athletic feats but unlikely to garner a good job with lifetime security which tends to come from developing brain as opposed to brawn. If you are playing a basketball game until two (2) a.m., it is highly unlikely that you will be up and at a productive job at eight in the morning. Boy Scouts playing Grand Theft Auto or young urban unemployed perfecting their jump shots tend not to do much to enhance our nation.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Doing Business In

Observing the spectacle of Senators (or Congressmen) who are equally if not more culpable in the economic crisis, grilling executives, makes one wonder if America will ever recover or become a larger Greece or Portugal- ready to tumble. While not an apologist for Goldman Sachs or in any way condoning any impropriety on the part of banks, mortgage lenders, or brokerage houses that contributed to the crash, one must remember that government with its insistence on lending to those who were not credit-worthy started the avalanche to begin the fall. When John McCain presciently warned of the coming reckoning, Democrats actively thwarted any reform that could have staved off the recession. Had it not been for the government forcing lenders to extend credit with aggressive action against supposed redlining the subprime market would either never have come into existence or only become a fraction of what it ultimately mushroomed into, and damage from subprimes could have been easily contained. The government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae further exacerbated the rapid decline with leadership at the GSEs evincing blunder and corruption by rewarding themselves lavishly for taking unrecoverable risks (with taxpayer money). So government action, not Goldman Sachs, allowed the subprime vehicles to come into being, and government regulators inaction permitted the subprime market to spiral to collapse, with Securities and Exchange personnel who should have been monitoring the situation and enforcing our laws, evidently not asleep at the switch, but in a number of cases, carefully scrutinizing pornography on government time and the taxpayers' dime. While financial institutions are not blameless and should be held to account, responsibility for the debacle must be placed at the feet of many of the sanctimonious politicians, particularly Democrats, who blocked timely reform when it could have mattered. The United States had up until Obama's Presidency been known as a nation entrepreneurs, industry, and innovators could do business in, but with Obama grabbing ever greater power, it seems many populists and demagogues in office are intent simply on doing business in.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Nelson Rides Again

Democrat US Senator Ben Nelson who recently made himself notorious during the ordeal that eventually passed Obama care, has demonstrated once again that his loyalties lay not with Nebraskans, but with one particular Nebraskan, in the debate over the proposed overhaul of financial regulations. And this one Nebraskan has contributed mightily over the years to Nelson's political fortunes, with more than $75,000 in contributions from Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway people helping Nelson secure his victories. It seems this amount which is Nelson's largest backing throughout his career has him bought and paid for- whether or not what he does in the US Senate reflects what Nebraskans other than Warren Buffet actually want for their state and their nation. Seventy-five thousand dollars is a pretty small price for a multi-billionaire to pay for a pocket Senator.

Monday, April 26, 2010

America, the Disappointed

Even some of Barack Hussein Obama's supporters must feel letdown as promise after promise is broken and claims such as Team Obama's health care numbers are refuted. This administration has a pronounced lack of couth (with Joe Biden's "big f...ing deal" during the Obama care signing), seemingly matched only by mendacity, and the President's haughtiness. And what should be most alarming is Team Obama's attempt to criminalize dissent. Suddenly, if you demur from party line, you are seditious. Imagine if this sentiment had prevailed in the media during the last Bush Presidency when anti-war protests actually disrupted Congressional hearings and some of those opposing Bush, thought nothing of burning our own flags. Then, according to the left, dissent was the highest form of patriotism, but now according to many of these same people, oppose Obama and Obamaism and you are a traitor.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

The Porous Border

What recourse did the state of Arizona have except to pass legislation to protect her citizenry when the Federal government has effectively abdicated our national sovereignty? Mexico has fallen into a state of anarchy near the US border with criminal gangs engaged in open war between themselves and against the Mexican police and army to gain control of the lucrative drug trade. There in Northern Mexico exists chaos and descent into madness with mass abduction, cold-blooded murder with no consideration for innocent bystanders , and even the beheading of law enforcement officers. Journalists and even US diplomats have fallen in the carnage, but when an Arizona rancher is gunned down on US soil, Arizona as a state must react, precisely because the Federal government which has the charge to do so, has failed so miserably, with criminal negligence allowing illegal aliens, drug smugglers, and perhaps even jihadists across the border that Washington fails to protect. If D.C. was not deliberately ignoring its duty to protect us, Arizona would not have needed to act on her own.

The Lion's Fall

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave the world generations of entertainment, some even transcending mere movies to become high art. Oh what a state poor Leo has fallen to, without even the resources to produce the next James Bond film. But ensconced in an industry that is all too often an affront to family values, an assault on virtue, and an offense against Christianity, other institutions in the movie industry may soon follow. How many people want to lay down a hundred dollars for a night of family entertainment to have their core beliefs mocked and insulted?

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Our Scarlet Letter

(With apologies to Hawthorne). T has become the bete noire to the Democrats, the dinosaur press, and the old RINOs (Republicans in name only) in the GOP establishment. T even supposedly threatens national security with former President (who should wear an A of his Boldown) Bill Clinton saying that tea partiers and their voices on the radio will spark violence. The words of our inspirational leaders have even been termed "sedition". Who could ever have thought that those seeking reasonable taxation, responsible government spending, and accountability in office would be considered so dangerous?

Friday, April 23, 2010

The Sullied Sentinel

The Securities and Exchange Commission has been charged with stewardship over our financial system. Apparently, we have not been left with a fox guarding the hen house but with the fox and vixen having quite a bacchanal inside. A number of SEC employees, including some at senior levels, were allegedly using their government computers to surf pornography, in some cases for hours at a time. We must conclude that during a period of unprecedented Madoff-style impropriety, alleged and in some cases, in fact confirmed outright illegality occurring right and left in US markets, those charged with regulation and enforcement were not carrying out the duties for which our tax dollars are confiscated, but doing what those fleeced taxpayers do not even want to imagine on Federal payroll time.

The Hostile Takeover

Not content with spending us into a potential oblivion of inflation, Barack Hussein Obama wants Congress to grant him essentially arbitrary powers to control the financial sector. He is seeking and, with Democrats in charge of both the House and Senate, will likely gain the authority to influence outcomes, to reward friends and punish critics on Wall Street, and to do so without judicial review, merely with the stroke of a pen by he or his cadres granted sweeping regulatory and enforcement power. If one fancied oneself a civil libertarian and was uncomfortable with the last President Bush, who was staid and restrained, claiming he needed enhanced surveillance abilities to conduct the war on terror, how could you possibly be comfortable giving a radical this much hold on the economy- your financial destiny? On the aforementioned inflation front, the sword of Damocles of a coming Wiemar or Zimbabwe has started descending on our heads with food prices at the wholesale level surging the most in twenty-six (26) years last month carrying the Labor Department's Producer Price Index up seven-tenths of one percent (0.7) when analysts, the so-called experts anticipated it would only rise four-tenths (0.4). Food prices climbed 2.4% and that is one cost each and everyone of us will be forced to bear (assuming we all eat and do not rely entirely on Food Stamps). I would not trust Obama and his team of ivory tower leftists to successfully run a mall kiosk, but we are expected to rely on them to operate everything else as their takeover widens to additional portions of our economy.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Rummage Sale

The stock markets in the US have indeed risen since Obama's ascendancy, but not so much due to flight to quality, or flight to safety (there is little safety in a casino- with investors too often engaged in a crap shoot rather than an act of reason or faith), or any such jejune Ben Graham notions. Value investment seems quaint in the age of Madoff and Stanford. The decision to invest or continue to put dollars in stocks was not a reflection of confidence- certainly not an endorsement of Obama and his fiscal policy, but predicated because the yield on other safer investment vehicles was so low, with passbook accounts earning almost nothing, certificates of deposit paying little, Treasuries showing little demand as even China begins to back away, and corporate, municipal, and other bonds often yielding more but with accompanying risk that sometimes enters the category of junk bonds. Commodities, particularly the precious metals, gold and platinum, have simply soared so high that they have priced out many investors. They have of late offered great returns but in so doing have reached a per ounce price most investors can not or are not prepared to offer. And soon, the partying by resurgent Wall Street may end with Obama now pushing his financial overhaul bill, that Obama is out flacking for today, which may impose such an onerous regulatory regime that the kibosh will be put on future stock market recovery.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Our Scratch Golfer

No one would deny that there is turmoil in America. Unemployment percentage hovering near (or into) double figures, foreclosures at record numbers, epic homelessness, a 3.2% decline on average in individual incomes, two active wars and a worldwide war on terror- no one could doubt much of America is suffering. But not so with the bon vivants, world travelers, and good time Charlies at the White House, who are enjoying the perks of office like no administration that has served before (and hopefully will ever serve again). We have learned that President Obama is an avid golfer, playing at least thirty-two (32) rounds of golf in his early tenure in office, eight (8) more matches than the twenty-four (24) that the last President Bush played during his entire two term, eight (8) year Presidency. Is it good to know that in a time of economic dislocation, vicissitudes facing the average family, real peril from Islamist extremists that the President can so easily take his mind off all of our problems? There is an historic precedent, where a national leader has occupied his time with something other than worrying about the travails his citizenry faced- a fellow named Nero reputedly fiddled while Rome burned.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The Old Guard

Tonight, I had the good fortune to renew my acquaintance with former Congressman Bob Clement who I had initially met on a tour of Cumberland College (now University) where he was serving as president in the mid-1980s. Clement made a run for mayor of Nashville in the last election cycle, where unfortunately he was defeated by Karl Dean. Clement sprang from the line of honorable Democrats, men like tax-cutter John F. Kennedy who was a hawk on defense and Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a staunch anti-Communist who always stood for the refusenik prisoners of conscience held by the Soviet Union. These strong Democrats and many of their Southern colleagues were good stewards of the taxpayers' money, recognizing just how hard families had worked to earn it. I sense that had Clement won the mayorship, he would have thought long and hard before embarking on Nashville's convention center project, unlike the free spender who took the office who did not seem concerned about a billion dollar expense in the midst of a nationwide recession. Like many Democrats today in Washington, our mayor, Karl Dean evidently thinks a billion dollars 'tis but a trifle. I was glad to meet Bob Clement again- it is just a shame I could not call him Mr. Mayor.

Man Versus Volcano

Even as I write today, an orchestrated effort is taking place to blame man for climate change and impose a regulatory regime including cap and trade that will burden much of the world's population while enriching the few including Al Gore and General Electric immeasurably. Just how puny man's role is in altering the climate of the globe has been aptly illustrated by the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland. The BBC reporter stationed near the volcano said today that at the start of the eruption, the volcano was spewing "five hundred (500) tonnes" of pollution into the atmosphere per second. A vulcanologist in another report said that more contaminants had reached the atmosphere from the single Iceland event than all man's activity in Europe since the start of the Industrial Revolution. It should be apparent that man's meager ability to influence climate is dwarfed by a single action of the Lord.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Trial and Error

Barack Hussein Obama is taking us from our position as the nation that leads the world to just one more ever-declining country. Obama has managed more than a modicum of success in advancing his legislative agenda but Obama's victories have actually been bereft of accomplishments that help the vast majority of the American people. Neither Team Obama nor the mainstream media seem at all concerned beyond an occasional rhetorical flourish about "laser-like focus on jobs" that our nation now seems to have permanently doubled her number of unemployed that should be considered acceptable. If you have a widely socialistic society like Western, Middle, and Northern Europe (Scandinavia), high numbers of jobless are the norm. But for some reason, analysts seem to be baffled and mystified that when you transfer and apply socialist government beneficence here, our unemployment numbers jump accordingly. That is why virtually every week, so-called experts express "surprise" or even "shock" that the jobless crisis does not abate. As it is or should be evident that Obama's cures are not healing the economy, it should be obvious that we must take a new path. There is no grand recovery, only a Federal government and bureaucracy surging toward all-encompassing power. Do not be dismayed though, we may yet be able to prevent ourselves becoming a shadow of our former selves but much more like Europe by casting our ballot with conservative candidates in November. Let Obama keep "the new normal" and restore America in the coming elections.

The New Normal

Massive unemployment, a loss in personal income of 3.2%, and ever more onerous regulation and taxation grinding small business- is this what America will come to accept as the "new normal"? These conditions have become endemic in the cradle to grave welfare states of much of Europe and that seems to be what Barack Hussein Obama is intent on delivering here. Can you imagine the hue and cry in the dinosaur press if Bush were still President and ten percent unemployment prevailed? Can you hear the calumny if a Republican President was overseeing shrinking incomes for almost all of the American citizenry? We would never hear the end of GOP-bashing until some clear-headed Democrat like Obama was elected to the Oval Office to save the day- except, of course, it is precisely Obama's policies that have engendered our economic catastrophe.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Their Infinite Madness

Does extending the unemployment benefit to ninety-nine (99) weeks create a single job in the private sector? To the contrary, the action just taken by the US Congress and signed into law by President Barack Hussein Obama actually stifles the expansion of business which will be asked to pay more job-sapping taxes to fund growing government costs. Every scheme to help us that is emerging from Washington only puts that much more strain on markets seeking equilibrium with the heavy hand of government warping real sustained and sustainable economic recovery. We are mired in Federal debt and Obama is making sure, it will only grow worse. Under the twisted logic of Obamaism, why not make the unemployment benefit permanent, then no one need ever stoop to the actual performance of physical or mental labor, but at some point, someone actually must pay for all this generosity.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Our American Stalwart

Some in the dinosaur press and others in the political classes whose interests it serves are attempting to compare our current President Barack Hussein Obama to the greatest United States leader in modern times Ronald Wilson Reagan. This is a gross mischaracterization and a standard where Obama falls far short. Ronald Reagan embodied American optimism, he did not go around the world apologizing for our alleged misdeeds but rightly heralding our greatness and exceptionalism. Reagan was not embarrassed by our strength, nor negotiating it away but doing everything he could to enhance it. Reagan did not want to further a multi-polar structure of world power unlike Barack Hussein Obama who seems determined to squander America's strategic advantage but Reagan was aiming to defeat our super-power rival, the USSR and managed to vanquish the Soviets. Reagan stood by allies in their time of need while it seems Obama is content to sell our allies out (as may be readily seen in his treatment of Israel). Reagan was the foremost advocate of free market capitalism to ever sit in the Oval Office which is why the United States overcame the near depression Jimmy Carter had left us toiling under- those who under the Georgia peanut farmer could find work anyway. In any event, Ronald Wilson Reagan was indubitably induplicable, with his incomparable leadership returning us to our "shining city on a hill" while Barack Hussein Obama is a Trotskyite who is glib when reading from his teleprompter but is pushing the greatest nation there has ever been into the gutter.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Go Lonnie Go

Republican Congressional candidate Lonnie Spivak has stood to the defense of Constitutional freedom by launching a suit on First Amendment grounds against Obama's care scheme. With the able support of Nashville area attorney Jim Roberts, perhaps this can be the start of thwarting Obama's march toward tyranny. The case will be brought on religious grounds and a similar approach was earlier suggested by nationally-syndicated radio talk show host Michael Savage who cited the case of the Schechter Brothers v. Franklin Roosevelt as an example of how the religious approach could be successful. There will certainly be difficulties ahead with attempts to deny standing but the court at some higher level may grant certiorari and our freedoms that Lonnie is defending may yet be vindicated. (Note: the author was aware of the coming litigation due to a telephone interview with candidate Spivak but honored the request to embargo the story until the suit was filed and Mr. Spivak could announce it himself).

This is the actual site detailing the lawsuit.

Value Reduced Government

Obama economic advisor and former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker (who was despised by many for initiating twenty percent interest rates to tame inflation) has recently proposed that the United States adopt a value added tax to mimic Europe on its path to economic self-destruction. Instead of making a serious attempt at curbing out of control spending by the Federal government, the thinking advocated by Volcker would only further sap this nation's already battered productive capacity. But pulverising the private sector is par for the course in this administration that routinely attacks our freedoms, our personal values, and, of course, the foundational values that made the nation.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Tax Freedom Day

April 15- today should be emblematic of a national tragedy as almost half of the filers (and this is an ever-growing number under Obama) pay no Federal Income Tax, increasingly becoming dependents, almost wards of the state. Many never wanted to join the dependency class but have no choice as Obama is the worst "job killer" that we have ever had in the Oval Office. Obama seems determined to stifle the private sector and his policies are taking formerly productive people through fiscal mismanagement and over-spending the likes of which has never been seen before and forcing them into becoming Italic"dole dwellers". It really is or should be simple logic- the more the Federal government taxes, the less we have to spend, and it has always been our freedom to risk, our industry, and our ingenuity that have grown our prosperity. When America thrives, it is never thanks to government generosity flowing from politicians in Washington. Redistribution schemes never work, unless your ultimate aim is to spread the poverty.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Lost Is Found

I have for the second time on this forum the chance to chronicle a modern day miracle (the first being my humor piece The Goose Jihad on January 15, 2009 to celebrate the Hudson forced landing in which by God's grace and the pilots' and flight crews' skill, all survived). I spent large portions of my youth in Florida, second throughout my life only to the time I have spent in my own home state of Tennessee. I know how rough and foreboding the back country can be, complete with snakes and alligators, and dense foliage that makes an easy walk impossible in many places. An eleven year old girl, Nadia Bloom had disappeared in these certainly inhospitable and possibly dangerous surroundings and been missing for four (4) days. As hundreds sought after her, some must have feared the worst, but one man, James King, who literally brought his Bible, kept the faith, and decided to listen for and heed the voice of God. And like Moses being guided to the Holy Land, James King was led to the girl in distress. With God's help, James King rescued Nadia Bloom from her peril. God bless them both.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

America's Torpor Ending

I sensed the rising after September 11, 2001, but it was for too many uneven and short-lived. Even the comity between the parties in Congress ended after a few weeks with Democrats using Bush as a target and striving to divide the nation. Some individuals' patriotism surged and remained high, and they became, in some cases, politically involved for the first time in their lives, but far too many were only briefly aroused and returned to their slumber. Now, though, after the public will was ignored in the health care debate, people who were never interested in politics are for the first time becoming involved, making monetary contributions to candidates who share their views, displaying bumper stickers and yard signs, and participating in political rallies for the first time ever, with many attending tea party events. People who were apathetic or actually had antipathy to politicians ("they are all liars, thieves", etc.) are now actively seeking out those seeking office who promote smaller, less intrusive government. Some becoming involved are people who fear their own government for the first time. The self-satisfied stupor some were in is rapidly ending with Americans waking to their love of country being challenged, their values being mocked, and their country being pulled out from under them by the quasi-Marxist in the White House.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Myriads More Mired

Barack Hussein Obama campaigned that if elected, he would be a peace President. Obama promised he would end the illegitimate involvement that the last President Bush had started for the United States in Iraq. Iraq is teetering on instability with a renewed al-Qaeda bombing targeting embassies and even more disturbing, bombings aimed at reigniting sectarian violence between the Shia and the Sunni from which al-Qaeda is composed and draws its strength. Even the recent election in Iraq is causing problems with the result in dispute and this may provoke further chaos. US troops are still there and still dying despite Obama's promises to his peacenik base that they would not be. In Afghanistan, the conflict is even worse, with a massive US reinforcement arriving but being tied down by the most restrictive rules of engagement any American forces have ever been called to fight under- essentially being asked to serve as moving targets, as our casualties there skyrocket. US generals even publicly announce where our forces will next strike (Kandahar) hoping Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists will depart before our forces arrive to avoid a bloodbath. So to both the leftists who brought Obama into office hoping for a speedy US retreat and to right-thinking Americans who seek victory and know it can never happen with our rules of engagement tying our hands behind our backs, Obama's war policy must be a major disappointment.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Conjurer's Pride

Barack Hussein Obama is a magic man. He is able to take over large swathes of the private sector, not with a wand, but by the stroke of a pen. Obama can provide universal medical care without so much as breaking a sweat, and without rationing or (according to his minions) an additional burden of taxation on most of the citizenry. And all the while, maintain his supercilious petulance with his manner of "I could not care less about any of you serfs- you common people". Yes, Obama is so cool (some would say cold) that he can summon all this help for we poor folk from thin air even though he seems not to care an iota if we have any prosperity or freedom left.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

More Moral Inversion

The Obamabots that comprise the dinosaur press heaped praise on soon to be departing Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Paul Stevens yesterday. They lavished garlands on him for his staunch opposition to the death penalty while heralding his strong pro-choice stanch. So in the minds of the leftists who gladly serve as Obama's flacks, preserving the lives of the most heinous murderer is a great virtue but protecting the most vulnerable and innocent life, the developing human fetus, is a vice. So the supposed Republican who moderate President Ford placed on the court turned out to be a leftist in the making, using his judicial robes to hide his inner radical. Barack Hussein Obama will not try to mask his wolf in sheep's clothing but will nominate an outright activist, liberal jurist to the highest court. Some Republicans in name only, members of the Gang of Fourteen, particularly Lindsey Graham might even endorse Obama's presumptive Justice on the grounds that no matter who Obama nominates, he is entitled by his Presidency, all his nominees will be liberal, and Steven's replacement will not shift the ideological balance of the court. Just because all Obama's appointees will turn out to be liberal horrors on the court, there is no reason GOP Senators have to go along with them. Advise but do not consent and soon we will have both chambers of the Congress back.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Reject Obamaism Outright

November will be the first chance for most of us at the ballot box to reverse the direction with ever larger and more intrusive government at home and weakness that invites aggression abroad where Obama is taking the country. If you are in an area represented by a supposed Blue Dog Democrat perhaps someone who talks the talk and sounds like you, remember that they are closet Obama henchmen who permitted Nancy Pelosi to become their Majority Leader and "Light-Brain" Harry Reid to lead the Senate. If you want to see ultimately where Obama policies lead, look at the European Union in general and Greece in particular. The EU is wailing under the weight of her own market manipulation by means of taxation and Greece has become such a cradle to grave dependency basket case that only a rescue package from the International Monetary Fund can stave off the calamity of collapse complete with renunciation of debt that would probably spark worldwide depression. Greece through an over-generous social safety net destroyed her own productive capacity and that is precisely where Obama is taking us and no one is big enough to bail the US out when we face our own reckoning if these quasi-Marxist policies are allowed to continue. When you vote in November, pull the lever or push the button for conservative candidates who know government must take its hands off the throats of business and permit the markets to work, to find and restore their own equilibrium and bring America back to the free market capitalism that created our prosperity.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Every Last Bit

From monetizing US debt to begging to borrow from our Red Chinese adversaries, the Obama administration seems to want to milk or bilk every last productive resource from the US private sector which has become the target of  this administration and its Democrat handmaidens. Paying for the non-stimulating stimulus would have been hard enough, but add the Obama health scheme, and possibly cap and trade facilitated through the Environmental Protection Agency without even seeking a Senate vote and we have a fiscal train wreck, an unrecoverable economic disaster in the making. 

All Credit Due

Surprising only the so-called experts, first time unemployment claims rose yet again "unexpectedly". This should really be a shock to no one as American society  is being forced to bear the cost of items it neither wants nor needs with resources that it does not possess, but this is not a recipe for recovery, nor does it facilitate growth in the private sector, nor is it long sustainable. And that is what we are now encumbered with- the burden of government metastasis, of stimulus that only stimulates more bureaucracy and ever-expanding governance and it will break US.

All Due Credit

The United States never permitted the Soviet Union  or her successor states to dictate our defense posture under any previous President. US defense policy was predicated on our needs and the requirements of our allies. President Barack Hussein Obama promised change, and he is definitely different. Obama has allowed Russia to dictate terms to us and in so doing, has sold out the Czech Republic which had pledged to host our missile defense at the cost of angering Russia during the last Bush administration. Obama who is now an honored guest of the Czechs at a signing ceremony with Russia that makes us less secure, pulled the rug out from under the Czech Republic, an ally who willingly took a risk for us. This should be instructive to Israel about Obama's sense of loyalty, as the Jewish state is being asked to "take risks for peace", of course, with no Palestinian interlocutor who truly wants or can deliver peace. Once again, we see a situation where Obama demonstrates moral inversion with twisted values that make us all less secure. The lesson of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and START was that any nation with whom you need an arms control treaty with is likely to violate said treaty at the first opportunity and subject you to verification procedures that it will not accept for itself or will reserve a right for itself to back out. Worthless signatures on papers with which only we comply and that ultimately only cost us are the almost inevitable result. And that was the beauty of Reagan- he recognized that there could only be peace through strength, making him the anti-Obama. No Cold War victory (the fruits of which Obama is now bent on squandering) could have been possible without Ronald Wilson Reagan. Reagan was the essential leader. Not the Solidarity resistance led by Lech Walesa, not the moral authority of Pope John Paul II, or even the alliance with the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher- though all certainly contributed, certainly not Gorbachev who receives credit fashionably in the dinosaur media and academe, but who without the push from Reagan would have been content as just another strongman commissar. Reagan won the Cold War, not through compromise, but by spending the Soviet Union into oblivion withe the Strategic Defense Initiative. Whether the leftist apologists at the Union of Concerned Scientists realized it or not, Reagan's strategy was not necessarily  to create an impervious barrier to Soviet missiles, but to force the  flagging Soviet economy suffering under central planning to compete with our research and development expenditure, a strategic premise that Reagan knew their moribund system could never survive under- and it did not. We won, the West triumphed; through strength, Reagan prevailed. 

An April Fool

A Qatari diplomat evidently took an unauthorized smoke break on a commercial airliner bound from Washington D.C. to Denver,  and then joked about it, prompting F-16s to scramble and endangering the passengers, crew, and innocents on the ground with his ill-considered and irresponsible attempt at humor after his flagrant disregard for our rules and law. The US should pressure Qatar to remove his diplomatic immunity and prosecute him to the full extent of the law. In failing that, he must be declared persona non grata and expelled from the country. Civil suits should be brought against him by the airline, the airline's personnel who were placed in needless jeopardy, and his fellow passengers, and he or the government of Qatar should be made to pay the cost of the entire exercise. It is long past time that  arrogant, wealthy, spoiled Arab diplomats are allowed to trifle with our lives and our nation. 

The Genuine Article

On these pages, I have exercised the chance to articulate much of what I oppose. I now welcome the opportunity to declare someone who I am for- Lonnie Spivak for US Congress, to unseat Obama rubber stamp Jim Cooper, who no longer holds Tennessee values or his constituents' interests dear. Lonnie Spivak is the candidate that best represents the original principles of the Founding Fathers, a family man and common sense conservative, who recognizes smaller government means more freedom and wants to end the free spending D.C. orgy and return the US to the path of fiscal sanity. Lonnie has had enough of politicians going to Washington to become entrenched and ossified in self-perpetuating incumbency, no Robert Byrds for Tennessee, and Lonnie favors sensible term limits. Spivak reflects and represents all that is good about Tennessee. Let us send him to Washington to help return the country to one that Washington, Adams, and Jefferson would recognize, not one where Jim Cooper pretends to serve us while helping Barack Obama become our master. Vote Lonnie Spivak

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Arms Control Fantasy

My maternal grandparents owned a liquor store in what progressively became a rougher neighborhood. They suffered nine armed robberies, and I am sure, hoped that the police who responded to these assaults had the most comprehensive training and the best weapons available to protect besieged merchants and innocents in the community from the felons. I am also sure that my grandparents would have preferred that the thugs did not even have access to a sharp stick or a rock. The law-abiding people of the world generally recognize that those who enforce the rules need state of the art weaponry to protect the sheep from the wolves who would harm them. So, it is or should be with the US nuclear arsenal, one possessed by a good and moral country that protects nations from nuclear peril imposed by malign nations across the globe. That is why those with good sense must stand opposed to the bizarre moral inversion of Barack Hussein Obama's new nuclear use doctrine, as Obama is so filled with naivete that he operates in his own pretend realm where all polities are morally equal and none should have access to the world's most dangerous weapons. There is a glaring flaw in Obama's reasoning. The world's leading nuclear-armed democracies (the US, the UK, France, Israel with her alleged atomic arsenal that stands as a deterrent to genocide) have been, are, and should continue to be the world's policemen, while totalitarian countries, who are the thugs around the globe, must be prevented by these policemen from ever acquiring nuclear weapons that they would use to extort their neighbors or as is the case with a nation led by religious fanatics as in Iran, use atomic weapons for the purpose of trying to summon the Mehdi by initiating the End Times. America's nuclear weapons have served as a net positive for the world by fostering stability and contributing to good order, but if a less scrupulous nation, namely Iran, gains nukes, the end of the world may be drawing near.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The King's Horses

The United States is abandoning her strategic advantage and deterrence capability with Barack Hussein Obama's announcement that America gives up her right of nuclear retaliation in almost every circumstance including chemical or biological attack (which could yield as many casualties and be just as devastating as an atomic bomb), emanating from any country that adheres to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (which theoretically at least would mean, the US still might respond with nuclear weapons to attacks by Iran or North Korea). Obama has already said the US will not modernize our nuclear arsenal which means other nations may develop weapons that we have no means to counter and our existing stockpile of atomic weapons may deteriorate perhaps rendering them unstable or even inoperable if our defense ever requires their use. What sounds good in an ivory tower classroom of some Utopian professor, may have real world consequences in application that make every one of us and our families less safe. In addition to breaking our economy in ways that may prove to be irreparable, Barack Hussein Obama is making each us less secure and more, not less likely, to become victims of foreign attack.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Shame of Incumbency

Politicians in past election cycles have returned to their states or districts bragging of all the pork they have brought home, or all of the power they have amassed as senior statesmen, heading important committees or subcommittees, and flouting all that clout to dazzled constituents. Today, with unprecedented Federal spending engendering unprecedented deficits, I wonder if any Representatives or Senators will have the temerity to try such a line, touting their odious abuse of power. Unfortunately some moderate Republicans or Republicans in name only are standing for re-election. Among their number are erstwhile Presidential candidate John McCain in Arizona who is facing consistent conservative J. D. Hayworth in the GOP primary and Lamar Alexander who made common cause with Obama by approving Sonia "Soviet" Sotomayor for the United States Supreme Court and on cap and trade. Instead of expressing pride in their service in Washington D.C., far too many of our members of Congress should hide their heads in embarrassment for how they have facilitated the fall of the country so far, so fast. 

Sunday, April 4, 2010

He Is Risen

No, this is not a reference to the Messiah but to one who seemingly has a Messiah-complex of his own. America as a nation has battled tyrants since we overturned our very own monarch, King George III in our Revolutionary War. We have crossed oceans to defeat dictators far from our own shores. Now, for the first time in our glorious history, we have our despot in the making scheming to deprive us of our rights and freedom. Under the leftist chimera of "social justice", we are being told we are permitted to keep less and less of what we earn for the benefit of our families to have the fruit of our labor ripped away from us and given to shiftless people we do not know. How this can be termed justice is mystifying. Do those social engineers now manipulating us not remember that our own revolution to end British rule essentially began as a tax protest?

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Our Un-American President

Richard Nixon had detestable personal characteristics including a rampant paranoia that people were out to get him (of course, leftists, particularly in media, were out to get him). What Nixon did to himself, his office, and the nation was about perquisites and not so much about imposing Nixon's personal will on the citizens of our nation. Nixon's misconduct pales in contrast to the fiat rule being imposed by the new triumvirate, led by Obama and pushed through by Pelosi and Reid. The new direction is anti-Constitutional in nature. The will of the people is being trodden, deliberately and flagrantly, to flout their power over us, They are our rulers and masters and we are their subjects. My blog was named "despot in waiting" before the 2008 Presidential election. With Obama care, despot is here.   

Friday, April 2, 2010

Thank Our Savior

For a portion of the world's population, today is the time to show gratitude to one who has done so much- no I am not referring to Jesus, but talking about the slavish, fawning devotion to Obama emanating from the dinosaur media that happens to coincide with Good Friday. "Hallelujah", trumpet the godless in the mainstream press, our lord Obama has spurred the creation of 190,000 "corporate" jobs this week- an absolute fiction, a numbers trick that only works if you discount those hired as temporary workers for the US Census, when the real numbers that the propagandists are actively covering-up to aid and promote their man Obama reflect a still sputtering economy. Those heralding the President's achievements on health care, an arms control agreement with the Russians (who after Communism collapsed were supposed to be our allies by many of these same journalists), and the manipulated job figures are being praised on high by those who hate America as it was founded to begin with- their exhortation to hail their god is "Obama...Obama...Obama".

Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Job Killer

Piling unrecoverable costs on America's businesses seems to be the primary goal of the Obama administration. Health insurance mandates, cap and trade costs, burdensome regulation are being foisted on America's private sector employers who dare not raise prices to recoup because customers are already not flocking to buy in what even Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner admitted today was a horrible employment picture because of the scope of the recession. A company can not pass costs on if customers have no money for discretionary purchases and are leaving in droves anyway. Democrat politicians led by Barack Obama have contended that we "must spend our way out of recession" which is like drinking one's way into sobriety. With unemployment remaining dire, only a Republican Congress being voted in in November may stave off the "great national hangover."