Israel's Proper Response

There can be little doubt that Iran's esteem and clout rise as Arab regimes fall. Lebanon has fully become an Iranian proxy state with the rise of Hezbollah as the mad mullahs of Tehran edge ever closer to obtaining nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Israel may now find herself through no fault of her own back in a state of open hostility with Egypt, the largest Arab nation with a relatively modern arsenal largely supplied by the United States with vastly better equipment than that used to fight the Jewish state that was mostly supplied by the Soviet Bloc up through the 1973 War. A myth persists about Israel that the Jewish state has a massive standing army. In point of fact, almost all of Israel's strength is drawn from her non-professional defense forces, her reserves of citizen-soldiers. Any military action involving the reserve requires an expensive and somewhat time-consuming mobilization that Israel has been keen to avoid to not send the wrong message to her Arab neighbors (and to spare the expense of having large sectors of the private sector economy halted including of course, Israel's commercial aviation industry, from whose ranks the IAF, her air force, draws a portion of the Jewish state's full wartime strength). Israel can no longer afford to pretend that stability prevails where there is none and should adopt at least partial quiet mobilization now. Doing so will make Arab foes uncomfortable and might prompt escalation of their own but not further mobilizing now would be the height of irresponsibility, a sort of negligence that could leave Israel at the mercy of the Islamists as they rise.

The Arab Dominoes

While there may be no natural affinity between the Sunni populations rising up in the streets and the Shia Iranians, those new revolutionaries are wittingly or unwittingly doing Iran's bidding, particularly in Egypt. From the Middle Eastern perspective, it has often been said that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". In shedding leaders long seen as amenable to the West, America, and in the case of Egypt's Mubarak- more acceptable even to Israel than most ponderable alternatives, Iran is the one nation whose interests are most served. Not that Muslim Brotherhood members could reach accord on much with the Iranian mullahs, but both are favorably disposed to rid the world of the Jewish State of Israel. Even though Iran may not have a pronounced and direct role in the demonstrations on Egypt's streets, replacing Mubarak enhances the prestige and power of the most dangerous regime on earth- Iran.

When Mubarak Exits

Even if Hosni Mubarak somehow manages to withstand this current crisis, his tenure as Egypt's leader will likely end soon due to age and infirmity, and there is little chance his handpicked successor and son will be tolerated as leader by the now explosive Egyptian street. The question remains what will fill the power void after Mubarak leaves. I believe the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Sunni organization that spawned al-Qaeda, is in the best position to take over power and also maintain that anyone that claims power will do so by claiming Israel is the scapegoat for Egypt's many problems and abrogate the Camp David Accords; thereby resuming a state of hostility with Israel. No matter how odious Mubarak's rule has been, it has engendered a degree of stability that will vanish on his departure. But like all other things in life, at some point Hosni Mubarak will no longer be there.

Weir's Altered Universe

On this evening's Nightline, part of Bill Weir's introduction to the piece on Egypt's current struggle included a bizarre mention that Egypt somehow "defends Israel". In what cuckoo land does Mr. Weir reside? The Israel Defense Forces and Israeli people protect Israel- certainly no Arab or Muslim state or potentate. At best, Israel has endured a cold peace with Egypt that Israel achieved with enormous sacrifice at Camp David. Weir is utterly comical terming Hosni Mubarak a "defender" of Israel as he and his state-controlled Egyptian media constantly lambaste Israel that not even one Muslim nation will openly acknowledge as the Jewish state.

Not Jeffersonian Democrats

There is a precedent for popular revolution as we just witnessed in Tunisia and may be observing in progress in Egypt, Yemen, and perhaps other areas of the Muslim world. There was a people power rebellion against the Shah of Iran and look how well it worked out for America and the West when Pahlavi was deposed. Since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was brought to power with vast support on the street, Iran has devolved into the leading exporter of terror in the world and the source of new nuclear fears across the Middle East. Of course, there are major differences between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the countries currently roiled by dissent. First and foremost is that there is no charismatic figure like Khomeini that the protesters in any particular country are able to immediately rally around and proclaim or even accept as their new leader. Second, the rebels now are largely Sunni as opposed to those in 1979 in Iran who were then mostly Shia. And lastly, in Iran those backing Khomeini were almost exclusively Persian as Iran is a Persian country with only minority presence of Arabs, Kurds, and an admixture of other tiny racial and ethnic groups. What emerges from these seeming pan-Arab peoples' insurrection is any body's guess at this point, but this new dawn does not imply any embrace of democratic values and can only mean new and increasing headaches for the United States.

Whither Hosni Mubarak

I sense that long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak will not retain his power over Egypt through the current crisis. He is widely despised by both the liberal intellectuals of his country and the large Sunni membership within the Muslim Brotherhood. The street protests are apt to continue unless and until Mubarak takes the path of Tunisia's recently departed leader and flees, or he may end up taking the path of Nicolai Ceausescu, the tyrannical leader of Romania who was executed by his own people.

Laugh a Minute

The key to assessing Barack Hussein Obama is not to take his rhetoric too seriously, because if it sounds like Obama is supporting America's foundational values or free market capitalism, Obama does not believe himself nor does he mean it. So last night, I heard a lot of empty words. I will not attempt a point by point refutation but will mention how Obama is still engaged in willful self-delusion, crowing about the US being on schedule to exit Iraq with no mention or consideration that Iran has entered the power vacuum America left there as we rushed to abandon any pretension of democracy and allowed the creation of a Shia surrogate state under Iran's sway. There was the typical retinue of victims who Obama's outreach has somehow salvaged shown to the television audience throughout the speech. Then, there was Obama attempting levity when introducing his determination to maintain Obama Care replete with its job destroying features, only conceding that some tweaking might be in order to reduce the newly engendered paperwork burden. Obama and the Democrat Senate are absolutely committed to ending private medical insurance including that provided by employers and fee for service medical care. They will broach no compromise with the GOP on this which is why Republicans must push for repeal until their numbers are large enough that repeal takes place with a completely different measure being passed to provide guaranteed access to insurance for those with preexisting conditions. Finally, Obama continued the push for the so-called "Dream Act", proving that he still does not take our sovereignty seriously and has no intention of enforcing secure borders. Last night's State of the Union could have left many a patriot crying, but I considered the source and laughed at him.

No Grand Oration

Barack Hussein Obama is no great communicator in the way of a Ronald Wilson Reagan, and he certainly has not (to this point anyway) delivered a speech that will endure like Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The most I will say for Obama is that he can adequately deliver remarks that others have prepared for him. Perhaps Obama could be dubbed "President Charlie McCarthy" or the "teleprompter king". I will force myself to watch Obama's State of the Union speech tonight for the sake of my readers, but I already know the gist of what Obama will convey, which will be: So long as Republicans do not attempt to thwart the Obama agenda and go along with Obama's budget busting against the interests and wishes of their own voters, Obama will continue the "pretense of the new civility" and act as though he can even abide the presence of GOP members in Congress. The comity will not long last.

To the Wire

Barack Hussein Obama's State of the Union address evening next will surely tell if Republicans are as gullible as I fear. There is much talk of the parties intermingling for the first time in seating which will conceal the degree to which Democrat numbers have dissipated. This Democrat-initiated ploy demonstrating a non-existent "new civility" will not even last as long as the supposed "new tone" after September 11, 2001. Non-partisan seating merely covers for the diminished power and prestige of Democrats in the new Congress. How can the GOP be such dupes as to fall yet again?

Why Cook Books

Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who was essentially unknown until he threatened to burn the Koran, has been banned from entering the United Kingdom. The previously obscure Reverend Jones joins right wing radio talk show host Michael Savage on the list of Americans to whom entrance to Britain is forbidden. There is no comparison of course between Savage who articulates the sentiments of millions of conservative Americans who are dissatisfied with both major political parties and Jones, who on the other hand, either staged a masterstroke of a publicity stunt by using the world media to broadcast a threat he never carried out or Jones who is a Visigoth on a par with book burning Nazis who was eventually cowled into submission after an earnestly intended provocation aimed at the world's Muslims. In any event, in a country like England that proclaims a respect for free speech and has indigenous Islamist agitators openly calling for violence on her streets, I think Savage certainly and even the primitive Jones should be permitted in to debate and defend the course of their actions and their ideas no matter how controversial because staid speech ruffles no feathers and therefore needs no protection, it is precisely only those notions that agitate that are the commerce of democracy.

China's Currency Conundrum

Red China has traditionally pegged the value of her currency to that of the US dollar which is increasingly fraught with peril for the Chinese as America spends herself closer to hyperinflation. The Communist leadership of China sees the looming danger as her own rate of inflation (that at least is accompanied by real growth) steadily rises in sympathy to the world's economic events and has been forced to have China's central bank raise the rate of interest on borrowing. Ironically, the specter of inflationary times haunts China because of that nation's burgeoning success. Some I am sure wish America had the same problem of having to hedge inflation against real growth in the economy rather than stem inflation against massive government machinations by way of stimulus and bailout. Now, which country is it that has the Marxist leadership?

A Glorious Century

America and the world had never experienced the kind of progress toward the benefit of the human race as the last century. Vaccines rendered then hitherto deadly diseases harmless. The production of the affordable automobile and the ready availability of cheap gasoline brought travel across the vast American continent within easy reach of the common man. The steady supply of electricity at low prices into the home gave us the safety of refrigeration and the comfort of air conditioning in the vast majority of homes. Now the environmentalists amongst us seek to reverse so many of those gains. They are pushing for electric cars that can be driven less than thirty miles in a day that must then be recharged overnight, rendering the type of travel we are used to impossible. The greens are also forcing us away from consistent inexpensive energy sources like coal and oil for the pipe dream of solar and wind generated power, obviously compromised by common events like cloudy days or times when the wind grows stagnant. Some cities are even turning off street lights for these three reasons: (1)cost-savings, (2)energy savings, and (3) most laughably of all, so people can enjoy the night skies and moon and stars with street crime bound to grow rampant in darkened places (the unintended consequence caused by these do-gooders). Even the life saving vaccines are under attack with parents believing rightly or wrongly that the administration of the vaccines will do more harm than the diseases that they are intended to prevent. I find it odd that a movement that calls itself "progressive" seems determined to reverse so much of the progress of mankind.

No Deviation Tolerated

The schemers who have propounded supplanting the real economy (such as it is) with an ersatz economy based on carbon-trading have just insisted that last year was the warmest year ever, acquitting their insistence that there is indeed man-caused global warming that is actually growing worse. Those who will profit from "green" initiatives have fully embraced this new orthodoxy along with many gullible followers who readily accept the doom scenario they have been presented and all who demur, skeptics holding different views or worse yet, conducting research to the contrary, are the heretics against this new "church". In many areas of the United States, this seems a very cold and snowy winter. If this be warming, may the Lord bring the temperature a wee bit higher, so that we may escape the deep freeze.

Our Master's Master

Barack Hussein Obama, who has been more obsequious to foreign autocrats than any other US President, was in his finest kowtow mode to the leader of Communist China who even "Light-Brain" Harry Reid aptly characterized as a dictator. The Red Chinese are being portrayed in our dinosaur media as the rising irresistible force, superior in every aspect in commerce, manufacturing, education, and even in "environmental ethics", which is odd for a country where two-thirds of the population still live (or not) in grim subsistence with levels of poverty unimaginable by any First World standard, where trade unionism is forbidden in any real and meaningful aspect (so that no Polish-style Solidarity Movement may arise), and where millions upon millions of drone workers are essentially held as prisoners in barrack or dormitory type housing and literally owe more than their souls to the company store that is always controlled at least in part by the People's Liberation Army (you know the one with the tanks in Tiananmen Square). So these thug tyrants hold eleven percent of America's debt- so what- we are the market for tremendous amounts of the goods they produce and no matter what else beyond thinking of us as potential buyers, they absolutely regard us as competitors and as the enemy.

Our Chinese Friends

The President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama is meeting today with the leader of China. One is fully interested and solely committed to advancing the interests of his own nation. The other has more esoteric interests in the betterment of the world. I leave it to the reader to discern which is which. One is absolutely proud of his nation and the other goes around the globe apologizing for his country's supposed sins and deficiencies. One leader is determined to raise the level of prosperity for individuals in his country, believing that a rising tide raises all boats, the other mocks "trickle down" theory and seeks to redistribute income according to the very Marxist ideal by "spreading the wealth" and is it not amazing that that leader is not governing Communist China but misleading America.

Owner Versus Caretaker

As was reflected in my blog post yesterday, many politicians including but certainly not limited to those in Nashville forget that they are merely servants sitting in office a short while and not our masters. Even last night, a council woman here in Nashville said that she would grant a reprieve to the Fairgrounds themselves, extending their use for one year, except for the track which she would demolish immediately and replace with "green space". Nashville, Tennessee is not Manhattan with three million people crammed into a couple of square miles. We have plenty of open spaces, people by in large have yards, and we do not need yet another municipal park with plenty existing already in the five hundred and thirty square miles of Davidson County. And how much hubris does a local council person have to possess to act like she owns our public facilities and can do with them what she wants on a whim? The citizens of Nashville do not abide by the grace of our mayor or council members, nor do we live under their sufferance. These people do us no favors, but we do quite a bit for them every time we elect them.

Sound Fiscal Steward

My hometown of Nashville, Tennessee is currently in the midst of a debate wherein our Mayor Karl Dean seeks to demolish our municipal racing track. This proposed action has roiled much of the public with stock car racing a particularly popular sport here in America's South. Let me preface the remainder of my remarks by saying I have no dog in that fight not being a fan per se, having never attended a race and rarely even catching portions of races when they are broadcast. Last night on WSMV, a long-time local sportscaster Rudy Kalis presented a balanced report on the future of the race course. Mayor Dean has at this late hour suddenly become a fiscal hawk so concerned with protecting the taxpayers' money according to what he claimed his anti-track motivation was in the Kalis interview. This is utter laughable nonsense worthy of nothing but scorn. Karl Dean is the same Mayor who pushed through the approval of a grandiose new convention center after our first municipal convention center, earlier constructed also with public money, became a white elephant. Despite much resistance among Davidson County voters, the convention center was pushed through the Metro Council. The measure was never put before the voters here as a referendum because Mayor Dean and the special interests behind him knew that if the matter was put before the public in this manner, it might not pass. Mayor Karl Dean is not Nashville's lord and master. Karl Dean does not own the track. Karl Dean is a self-characterized progressive. He is a free spender much in the same way as President Barack Hussein Obama except that Dean does not enjoy a Department of the Treasury that can simply print fiat currency. I implore my city's elected representatives in the Council to resist Mayor Karl Dean's imperious whims over local racing. The Fair Grounds Raceway is ours- not his.

Booth or Bardo

The Sunday morning political shows continued to ponder the tragic events that took place in Tuscon. All seem to wish to continue to in some way tie the tenor of political debate to the attempted assassination, if only to say in the future we could be a little nicer to each other. While I would not necessarily demur that we could still elevate the discourse, I am convinced the Left is using this horrific happening to quiet the Right which has in fact almost always maintained civility in presenting their clearly superior ideas. The discussion on these programs spoke of how Republicans and Democrats intend to sit mingled rather than in sections segregated by political party as they traditionally have during President Barack Hussein Obama's State of the Union address. This newfound comity is no true or abiding spirit but a short-lived stunt that will disappear as quickly as the Democrats sapped away at the supposed unity following the September 11, 2001 massacre. It will not last. I must continue to emphasize though that what occurred in Tuscon was not a traditional political assassination attempt but an act of wanton madness. The assailant was more Robert John Bardo than John Wilkes Booth and any attempt to attack our Second Amendment rights based on the Tuscon murders is foolhardy. If illegal aliens stage a home invasion in Tuscon using AK-type weapons with high capacity magazines, you had better hope the law-abiding citizens being attacked have similar armament to respond with- or you will have a different sort of Arizona atrocity with a newly disarmed citizenry only serving as easy prey for criminals who will never have any concern for legal niceties.

Cleansing for Tunisia

The people of Tunisia overthrew their long time dictator. Tunisia was anything but a paradigm of good governance and food prices were rising while job prospects were shrinking. The great problem now will be to prevent Islamists from filling the power void. Good luck to the long-oppressed Tunisian people.

A Moment's Reflection

Those sad, sad folk who dwell in what could have been and in what never was/ So heartfelt is the heartbeat of nostalgia/ They are left heartbroken on the nether shore/ For they were lost in the lands of Almost There or Nevermore.

Little Billy Brainless

Little Billy Brainless is a recent graduate of an American public school. He is well versed in all the latest rap songs and wears his pants below his hips and his Fubu cap backwards. Little Billy can not name the current US Vice President or any President beyond Obama and the last President Bush who he has been taught to despise. Billy has an inkling that the US had a Civil War but doesn't have the vaguest idea what century it was in. I query Billy and he responds, "It was in the sixties- man", giving me brief hope, "the nineteen sixties" as my optimism instantly vanishes. "Hey, man didn't we fight that civil war you know in Vietnam over Martin Luther King or something...You know man one of my computer games is about that." While more and more of our most successful delay having children to focus on career until it is too late, Billy has no such constraint. Billy will father ten different kids with eight different women and give us the privilege of paying to raise them- an enterprise that after conception, Billy will have no truck with- which is just as well- as his parental involvement might inhibit the wonderful public education system from turning out equally vapid Sally, Sandy, Cindy, Candy, Carla, Queenie, Bennie, Barney, Bernie, and Barack Brainless.

Palin Constantly Demonized

If Sarah Palin is so vapid, dumb as a box of rocks as the dinosaur media portrays, then why is so much airtime being devoted to destroying her. Palin was directly accused of prompting the Arizona massacre with a months old map with districts where TEA Party candidates could win being visually highlighted as targets. Representative Giffords was not pictured on the map- merely her hotly contested district. Yet, this was said to have motivated the attacker until massive facts to the contrary emerged about the deranged assailant. When Palin spoke up to defend herself, she used the somewhat inartful phrase "blood libel" to describe the media campaign to pillory her. I think as a Jew who lost relatives in the Holocaust and had family members who were Rabbis, I can safely say that Palin is correct- she is being targeted for destruction just as Jews have been over the centuries- not because she is dumb but because Palin is a true conservative (and incidentally an avid supporter of Israel) and would offer a real alternative to the leftist agenda of Obama in the next US Presidential election.

Elevating the Dialogue

Did last night's message from Obama hit the right notes when it comes to "healing" the nation? Or did it continue to coarsen the discourse in some small way? I contend that Obama's call for more civility in the national debate subtly but deliberately perpetuates the myth that the Arizona perpetrator was somehow motivated by politics when in fact it appears he was obsessed with Representative Giffords in much the same way as Rebecca Schaeffer's murderer stalked her. There does not appear to be any connection whatsoever between politics on left or right and the actions of the lunatic responsible for slaughtering six innocent people. All in all, Obama's speech struck a chord but he need not have continued to tie politics to the assassination attempt.

Down Goes Lebanon

Barack Hussein Obama during his ascendancy to the United States Presidency promised to make the world a safer place. Before he had achieved anything substantive beyond gaining office, Obama was even rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize for his good intentions. So far under Obama's administration, the globe seems every bit as if not more dangerous than it would have been had his Republican opponent John McCain won the election. In point of fact, danger lurks in every corner of the globe. With Saad Hariri, Lebanon's Prime Minister, actually physically present in Washington, meeting with President Obama, the Hezbollah terror organization and its allies pulled out of Lebanon's fragile governing coalition, collapsing the government, and inviting violence in that fractious and bitterly divided nation. Not only is internecine violence between Shia and Sunni likely, the minority Druse and Christian communities are going to be dragged in, to say nothing of the very real possibility of Hezbollah initiating combat against Israel to serve the dual goals of (1)advancing what Iran wants and (2)rallying other Lebanese, who in the main will unite against the Jews, to the Hezbollah cause of resisting the "Zionist entity". Once again, Obama's attempts to advance peace have only made war more probable.

Social Disease Media

Everyone seems to be on or joining the ever growing social network that will remain nameless here but not faceless. This new form of communication has some obvious positives. You are able to connect with people you were close to years back and might otherwise have trouble finding if you could locate them at all. This reconnecting certainly has pitfalls of its own. I am sure many a spouse is less than thrilled that a husband or wife is now back in contact with the person they dated through high school or college but had not seen in the last decade or so. How many personal acquaintances are on there reminiscing about time spent at Lovers' Lake watching the submarine races, and how many marriages have been hurt by someone acting on a remembered youthful impulse? And then there are applications that might really threaten the security of the users' homes. One app allows you to follow where your friend is in the bricks and mortar world from the comfort of virtual reality. This particular app has the potential to create a booming business among burglars in housebreaking among those who do not have their privacy settings just right. But our latest means of connecting across continents is likely here to stay at least until we voluntarily sign-on to the next big thing that will likely be even more invasive and able to further disrupt our lives.

"The Saddest Place"

NBC's Brian Williams introduced tonight's evening news by declaring rather floridly that he was reporting from "the saddest place". I think it is highly inappropriate and not possible to so quantify grief. Is that ground in Arizona any more hallowed than the Arlington National Cemetery where those whose lives are stolen in their youth before the flower of life has a chance to bloom are buried when they fall in service of our country? Would you characterize Ground Zero from September 11, 2001- where a hole remains where once the towers stood and where a wound is being rubbed raw by the proposed construction of a mosque (not exactly a happy place by any means particularly for the families who lost loved ones there and especially for those whose relatives were so vaporized that the location remains their forever grave as there was not enough left to recover to identify to repatriate any physical remains)- as just as sad? Are these open wounds to our national psyche any less because one more tragedy befell the nation in Tucson? Williams is no doubt correct that the massacre sight is a grim place but no sadder than Fort Hood where the Muslim US Army Major went off or the University of Texas clock tower. Arizona is the freshest injury but no more tragic or inexplicable than any of the others.

Suspension of Speech

Perhaps the single most dangerous bit of exploitation and opportunism stemming from the Arizona tragedy is the legislation proposed by Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Robert Brady that effectively criminalizes political dissent. Brady's frontal assault on the First Amendment involves making it a crime for anyone to "use language and symbols that could be perceived as threatening or violent against a Federal official" according to an interview this opponent of freedom gave on CNN. This proposed bill is so vague and subject to being so over broad that it would stifle political dialogue as we have known it under our First Amendment. The deliberate result of this would be to chill criticism of precisely those politicians and officials who deserve it the most. We at least for the moment retain a tool more powerful than any weapon and that is the ability to vote out of office such foes of liberty.

The Unworthy Effort

America's leftists, the dinosaur media, and political elite are falling over themselves to make hay from the Arizona tragedy. They are broad brushing the right with blame when it appears the assailant is an unbalanced individual with leftist leanings. The chattering classes and gun control advocates are attempting advance firearms restrictions nationwide through this sad event and a recent school shooting where an assistant principal was murdered. In the latter incident, the boy who opened fire and later killed himself was the son of a police officer who allegedly used his Dad's service weapon. Are we going to ban guns from the homes of the very police charged with public safety? The Arizona gunman released a "goodbye" statement on the Internet, evidently believing that he would die in his effort. Such a dedicated fanatic could easily have soaked fertilizer with gasoline and loaded himself with rusty nails and ball bearings to make himself into a human bomb and created equal or greater carnage than he sadly managed. The gun was not the culprit, the sick perpetrator was.

A Cheap Shot

The attempts to blame the Arizona tragedy on the TEA Party are hideous. Representative Gabrielle Giffords' father can be forgiven besmirching so many good people due to the extreme stress he is obviously under, but the same can not be said of the partisan vultures in the dinosaur media. ABC was particularly offensive at the end of their Saturday evening news in a program devoted entirely to the attack when they sent out specific best wishes only to the families of the US Representative and the Federal judge who was killed without any similar language about any of the other victims whose lives are equally valuable to their families. This assassination was the work of a paranoid suffering grievous delusions, not by a politically motivated actor. The shooter is no rightest- he has a You Tube video out burning an American flag, an act no TEA party members who tend to be super-patriotic would ever countenance any more than they would ever condone such a senseless mass murder.

Tumult and Turmoil

It is looming before us and in fact has already started. The scum in the dinosaur media are praising the cloying, petty, and dangerous tactics that the Democrats have employed. Reading the US Constitution, the document that is the bulwark of the Republic, is a "stunt" and a "fetish". Republicans are called out as "hypocrites" and "liars" over the most mundane of procedural matters in the US House of Representatives with two members chastised for not being physically present during the mass swearing-in, as opposed to Democrats who are not mentally present from the moment they are elected until they are ushered out of office. In the august upper chamber (the US Senate), Democrats are given credit for foresight when they move to eliminate the right of filibuster as we are told they are now fighting Republican "obstructionism", just as the Gang of Fourteen was feted for taking the opposite tack a few years back for preventing the so-called nuclear option and preserving the filibuster when it served the interests of Democrats back during the term of the last President Bush. If these ploys are already seen right after the new Congress is sworn in, just imagine how much worse the situation will become over the next two years through an election cycle that includes the US Presidency.

Perverse Political Agenda

The recent movie "Howl" advances the homosexual game plan and in so doing is perfectly in keeping with the sick mindset of the main pervert it chronicles- one Allen Ginsberg. The old saw when people still had some restraint and decorum went this way: Two homosexuals were recounting their exuberant night together when some heterosexuals drifted over. The first gay said to the second, "We best hush up now, some straights are in earshot." The second homosexual said with a wink, "No, now is the time to raise our voices, so we can spread it around." And spread it around they have, social destruction, the dissolution of the sanctity of the family, chronic and fatal diseases, ranging from hepatitis, to antibiotic-resistant venereal disease, to acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Allen Ginsberg is no longer alive to see it but we are counting the cost of the damage he did every day.

Sad Young Man

The Tennessee Titans, my hometown professional football franchise, are parting ways with their titanically talented and titanically troubled star quarterback Vince Young. Young possesses as much physical ability, as much raw athleticism, as anyone at his position in the National Football League. He has had a spate of problems though after sustaining an on-field injury and being booed by his own fans a few seasons back. That episode purportedly left Young so despondent after being feted all his life previously for his football accomplishments that he left his house without his wallet and identification but with a gun. Young suffered another injury in the last game he played in his club's just ended season and not realizing the severity and with his natural competitiveness, wanted to go back in- a request his coach rejected with the player not aware that he had been pulled for his own protection- his own safety and the preservation of his future career. Young immaturely threw parts of his uniform into the stands and this evidently sparked more of a spat with his widely-respected head coach Jeff Fisher in the Titan locker room. Fisher has never been seen as a martinet and has in fact been regarded as a "player's coach". This kind of confrontation between leader and subordinate could not be tolerated. Something had to give and that appears to be waiving a tremendous player as soon as league rules permit in February. Vince Young has some demons to overcome and those of us who have admired his skill and fortitude on the field wish him well in that effort. Young certainly deserves a second chance more than Mike Vick did.

The Navy's Message

In relieving (the somewhat ironically named) Captain Owen Honors as commander of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, the Obama administration has sent the navy, in fact the whole military a message that can not be misconstrued. The production of some parody videos was undeniably uncouth, but for an organization charged with dropping laser-guided bombs to blow terrorists to smithereens, decorum is not the utmost virtue. Captain Honors' real offense is that he included homosexuals in the pejorative display and they are the new sacred cows of the politically-correct, all-inclusive United States military. If the then executive officer had included everything but gays in the video, he might still have a career to look forward to in the military, but the deviants who were formerly drummed out now seem to be running the show at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which redounds across the Pentagon, and like a social disease, through the United States military. Officers should realize Captain Honors was cashiered as one NBC report termed the video for "gay bashing".

America's Bankruptcy Crisis

According to The Wall Street Journal, the number of Americans forced into receivership last year rose nine percent. The number of more than one and one half million was a recent record as tabulated since the US bankruptcy law was reformed in 2005. The United States of America is rapidly becoming a bankrupt nation populated by a bankrupt citizenry. Declaring bankruptcy was once considered a badge of shame but now is becoming so alarmingly common and sadly necessary for many families that a stigma is no longer attached. But what does it do to a national psyche and an ever more beleaguered one at that as the country follows a self-destructive free spending path? No nation has ever survived such a hemorrhage with the greenback, of late the reserve currency of the world, becoming worth less on the path to a hyperinflation that could render it essentially worthless. You may soon find America and Zimbabwe with a par value on fiat money. "Sound as a dollar" will soon be heard as damned with faint praise indeed.

Grand Old Time

Has a US President ever racked up frequent flier miles as quickly as Barack Hussein Obama? Has a first family ever lived it up so lavishly at taxpayer expense as the Obama clan? The Obamas have certainly not let ten percent unemployment or a catastrophic recession cramp their style. They moved on up and are eating cake without relentless media reports about the homeless or jobless which comprised so many newscasts going back to the Reagan administration. No one lambastes Michelle Obama for her seeming extravagances the way they chided Nancy Reagan for one set of White House china. Arriving a few days early before Barack in Hawaii cost taxpayers thousands but that was no where near as expensive as her jaunt to Spain. But it is all good- we deny our public masters absolutely nothing.

A Mexican Standoff

I once again don the soothsayer cap to tell of the virtual certainty of gridlock in the new Congress. As much as much of America would like it, I foresee absolutely no possibility of the repeal of Obama Care taking place though there is a forlorn hope of a remote chance that some or much of the health care scheme will be reversed in the courts. So long as Democrats retain control in the United States Senate, turning back the Obama care debacle legislatively will be impossible. Not only would majority Democrats have to abandon their former course in large numbers, those that leave the President would have to be sufficient to overcome Obama's certain veto, which sadly, is never going to happen. But the deadlock legislatively will not be solely on health care, but almost across the board as both Republicans and Democrats dig in their heels. I see heretofore unimaginable acrimony, but one trend will continue and that is that the dinosaur media will single out the GOP for calumny, attacking only the Right for gross partisanship and obstruction. The "Party of No" will be bandied about quite a bit in the moribund media for the next two years. Inability to pass legislation that is ultimately destructive of the country is a good thing though, and it will be up the conservative thinkers to convey that to the public.

Christians Under Siege

Christians have recently been murdered by the score in Iraq, Nigeria, and Egypt by some practitioners of the so-called religion of peace (and as an aside, I think hostilities will resume against Christians in Sudan very quickly). This is a trend bound to continue and worsen in this new year as aggressive jihad is openly preached with no great backlash and no solidarity marches with Muslims in these countries rallying to support and defend their Christian neighbors. Quite the contrary, reports have emerged in Iraq of Muslims who have lived alongside their infidel countrymen for generations waiting to pick off their property like vultures when the Christians are forced to flee for their lives to Iraqi Kurdistan or Jordan. And what is world Christendom doing to defend their brethren? Absolutely nothing besides a few speeches emanating largely from the Vatican. There are still US forces in Iraq who could if ordered do a great deal to protect concentrated Christian enclaves in Baghdad but so long as Obama is President that order will never come. Pity the poor Christians across the Dar es Salaam (realm of peace) who must hide in fear and try to survive as dhimmi.

Hoax and Shame

Great expectations accompanied the ascension of Barack Hussein Obama to the highest office in the minds of many Americans. Many of those supporting Obama knew little of him beyond his sloganeering about "hope and change". News reports about the relatively obscure young US Senator from Illinois portrayed him as a "raging moderate", a pragmatist, a compromiser, and even a coalition builder who had worked closely with Republicans to get things done for the good of Illinois back when he was a state legislator representing part of Chicago. Obama's support for allowing newborns to die by deliberately withholding medical care if they somehow survived an attempted abortion was only mentioned during the Presidential campaign by the so-called right wing press in new media. Obama's radical affiliations were whitewashed in the dinosaur media with only one inquiry forced on George Stepanopoulos by Sean Hannity about Obama's twenty plus year membership in Reverend Jeremiah Wright's black liberation theology church. The gullible in the voting public were even told this friend of Weather Underground terrorists was a devotee of Ronald Reagan and Abe Lincoln. His long-term progressive streak was brushed over to dupe moderate voters who otherwise would have likely backed McCain. And since he has been in office Obama has shown his take on compromise with the GOP- which is picking off a few Republicans in name only to give unpopular legislation a sheen of bipartisanship before it is shoved down the throats of a wary and unwilling public as we witnessed in the Obama care spectacle. 2011 may not be quite as awful as 2010 as the GOP managed in the last election to win the US House of Representatives but look for more Chicago-style guttersnipe techniques from Obama and his Democrats and his handmaiden main stream press and watch out especially for rule by regulation (coming close to rule by decree) as Obama foists more radicalism upon us through the administrative process of agencies working under the executive branch (such as cap and trade through EPA mandate). Obama practices an odd kind of outreach where opponents must go along with him and his leftist initiatives to gain modest concessions like the renewal of the Bush-era tax cuts which merely kept the economy from falling deeper into recession- and the amazing aspect of this is-in the reports of old-line media, Obama is granted all credit for this, extending tax rates he fought tooth and nail against to achieve redistribution from the so-called rich and suddenly on ABC, CBS, NBC, and America's newspapers, these are Obama's tax cuts and he was for them all along to sustain the economic recovery. Barack Hussein Obama is a committed socialist (if not an outright Marxist) and anyone who voted for him under the premise that he would be the "great unifier" was sold a bill of goods.