Summing It Up

America stumbled down a crooked path in 2008. We found our financial markets in the throes of what really was the worst reversal since the Great Depression, and not the fear-mongering rhetorical flourish Democrats trot out against Republicans in every election. We found conservatives have almost no home in the Republican party with the nomination of a fossilized moderate and the inclusion of a virtual unknown on the doomed ticket to placate real rightists. We found the faux conservative President continuing to push open-borders amnesty in the guise of comprehensive immigration reform and with the ascension of the Marxist-in-Chief, this is sadly a fait accompli. We have witnessed the boy-wonder achieve the highest office with untold cheating by ACORN and a complicit media that never bothered to mention to the public the fetid sewage that is Chicago politics until after the election. The media reports nothing remarkable about the Coleman-Franken contest with Franken now leading by forty-nine(49) votes in an election not-so-funny Al lost in November. We now find our nation being run by a party that will engage shamelessly in all sorts of chicanery to acquire and never relinquish power. We have no restraint in spending by either party with bailouts for bailouts, ineffective regulatory constraint, deliberate theft, and our oldest and most established companies either failing or essentially nationalised. We have instituted Western European socialism under a Republican President with ever more listing to the left promised by the new President who is beholden to a vast cabal of trial lawyers, homosexual activists, abortionists, gun-banners, dole-dwelling parasites, the campus cadre of communists and imbecilic idealists who are blissfully unaware of the dangers of our leftward plummet, and plain stupid folks who were convinced that all change (and we do need plenty) is in and of itself a good thing.

Foreign Interventions Redux

While Obama will orchestrate a hasty draw down in Iraq, it is quite possible that he will deploy US forces in Africa to the Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, and perhaps back to Somalia. Will the Congress which demanded votes on Bush's adventures be such sticklers when in comes to Obama and military deployments? Democrats have threatened to invoke the War Powers Act should President Bush feel compelled to use force to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. The Congress will grant Obama great latitude to deploy our forces where the US has no particular strategic interest. He will be able to enter unending African involvement unhindered. His unfettered reach will not solve the continents problems while Iran will arm up and Chavez will export insidious insurgency throughout Latin America. You can only keep your eye on the ball if you know where the game is.

Job One Bankruptcy

President Bush is evidently directing Secretary of Treasury Paulson to forestall the collapse of the US automotive manufacturers and allow Obama to ultimately solve the problems of the Big Three with a socialistic rescue of the UAW. Our Republican President has embraced the socialist tactics of French or Swedish leadership. At least there are enough capitalist Republicans left in the Senate to have prevented a bailout that would not have solved the structural deficiencies of the companies with their overwhelming legacy costs. There is a widespread misconception that all the jobs would cease to exist if GM or Chrysler took bankruptcy. Under Chapter 11, many of the positions would have been preserved and the corporations could have negotiated new labor contracts that would make their operations more sustainable. Chrysler may have been absorbed by another vehicle manufacturer. The court(s), judge(s), and receiver would not simply have padlocked plants and denied hundreds of thousands their income. As it is now, Obama will, probably in conjunction with a car czar, act by fiat and direct these companies to produce enviro-friendly compacts that few people will want and large families will find impractical. Tariffs and trade barriers will be imposed to prevent the importation of more desirable foreign models. Older vehicles will be legislated off the roads by strict emission/pollution controls that will force drivers to buy the new gas-savers or into mass transit. Fossil fuels will be saved, but freedom will be sacrificed.

Trial by Travesty

The pending charges against two members of the 101st Airborne are part of a disturbing, and I believe unprecedented (at least since the summary justice-injustice, of trials of soldiers during the American Civil War) trend. Blackwater contractors also face charges today. During Vietnam, William Calley and a literal handful of others faced charges similar to the allegations all too many of our troops are facing or have recently faced. What possible reason would the Blackwater employees have to shoot up an intersection except the ambush they described that they faced? If they wanted to massacre innocent Iraqis, there were plenty of more discreet ways to dispatch Iraqis, had that been their desire. These prosecutions have a chilling effect on combatants on the ground. A moment of hesitation in a life or death situation may cost US forces their lives or the lives of their comrades or even innocent Iraqi lives. A soldier, marine, or State Department bodyguard holding his fire out of concern for what a court may later determine may cost hundreds of lives as in the case of a truck or car bomber or dozens of lives in the case of a terrorist armed as in Mumbai with an AK-47 or AKM. President Bush, in the interest of preserving innocent life, should pardon these brave men now and ensure that other US contractors and troops never face the family breaking expense of litigation of this sort and its accompanying jeopardy. After all, Bush's decisions sent them into the line of fire in the first place.

The Survival Instinct

The BBC showed a massive crowd in Mumbai chanting "death to Pakistan". With these rival nations as the sub-continent's nuclear powers, many observers are alarmed by these bellicose Indian demonstrations. Other observers were gladdened that somewhere the people were not so weakened as to abandon the primordial calling to endure, to cling to the killer instinct that has allowed man to survive against the ravages of nature and of other predators even against the predation of one's fellow man. When the hunter becomes the hunted, he must have the will to use all the tools in his arsenal, all the arrows in the quiver despite what UN General Assembly resolutions might say or war crimes proceedings in the Hague. No comparable fervor to the righteous rage of Mumbai existed in the US after 9/11. I saw no gathered masses shouting "death to Afghanistan", "death to the terrorists", or even "death to the Taliban" after the bloodletting. We are so restrained in the USA that we take al Qaeda murderers to a tropical island and fete them with new prayer rugs and Korans and ethnically appropriate food while they cut their captives' heads off with rusty knives. Why, we are so civilized that we are working out trial procedures for Osama bin Laden for the eventuality of his capture. It seems resistance to our own annihilation has been bred out of many Americans. Thankfully, there are still fighters in the ranks who have what it takes. Certainly not all of the warriors are in uniform. Would anyone be surprised to see an automotive worker someday flatten Brian Ross whose catty report about private jets broke the momentum for the Big Three bailout? Most UAW members still have the backbone to defend their livelihoods and the continued prosperity of their families. A nation and her people need hard men to keep them safe -even if the hard man is an inarticulate bumbler climbing on a fire engine or wearing a skirt as in the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher.

Perhaps Faith Misplaced

Pastor Rick Warren has presented President Bush with an award for his fight against AIDS, particularly the $45 billion dollars that Bush has directed to Africa. President Bush sent our money, so the taxpayers collectively should receive the award. If this beneficence was the right thing, then why is it award worthy in the first place? And I doubt Jesus would have been handing out awards to Herod, Pontius Pilate, or Caesar. I don't quite know the scriptural basis for rewarding leaders for their stewardship. A good shepherd is simply expected to tend his flock-he doesn't merit a plaque for it.

The Shrinking President

Our current President (we only have one at a time regardless of how it now appears) has had opportunity after opportunity to do the right thing throughout his career but has failed to act. He is not driven by principle nor moved by pragmatism, but base cronyism seems to be his guiding ethos. Harriet Miers' Supreme Court nomination is proof of this. Did Bush stand on conservative belief in free speech and veto campaign finance reform? Did he allow the largest entitlement expansion since LBJ with the prescription drug benefit? Did he pardon ICE agents Ramos and Compean who wounded an armed fleeing drug trafficker in the buttocks or David Olofson who had a technical failure on a borrowed gun at a firing range? When he was governor, did he spare Karla Tucker who had become the cover girl for reform and who had served twice the time of the average murderer? Did Bush stand for free markets or did he endorse the unprecedented bailout with inherent risk of abuse or even outright fraud with the massive amounts of money involved and the power once again given to friends of friends that accompanies it? The President and his successor now have the chance to avert the potential unconventional attack that a report says will strike the US in the next five(5) years. If Bush announces that national policy will be to obliterate two major cities in any nation that can be tied to a biological or nuclear attack, the terrorists may have second thoughts. A proposal after the 9/11 assault to blow up Mecca if any subsequent mass casualty attack takes place also holds water particularly since a Saudi cleric endorsed unconventional attacks on America killing up to ten(10) million in a fatwa. The Saudi authorities did not take him into custody or force him to retract the mass murder decree. Should an event happen perpetrated by Islamic extremists against the heartland, Bush and Obama must let it be known that the US will unleash the whirlwind.

The Vast Conspiracy

President Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the military industrial complex. Paranoiacs see Jews, Freemasons, Trilateralists, Bilderbergers, the Illuminati, or some other malign force as controlling events that shape the world. Perhaps, it is simpler. Statists, from your neighborhood pencil-pushing bureaucrat, to your first President Bush with his "New World Order" are bent on advancing government intrusion into your lives. They see their own actions as benevolent even as radio frequency identification chips are placed in every product, people are told they can not smoke in their own apartments, and members of both parties including both Presidential nominees advocate for comprehensive immigration reform which amounts to an open border amnesty. Americans are led by one worlders. The departing President Bush is no jingoist or nationalistic cowboy. He is an internationalist. So is his successor. Obama and Bush are fellow travelers.

On Media Polemics

Last night, Obama aired his infomercial filled with sob stories and vacuity. This 30 minute cliche was greeted as holy writ by the paleolithic media. ABC's Terry Moran had a candy-eating grin as he waxed delight about Obama but turned dour when discussing McCain. Elizabeth Vargas behaved as a if a skunk had entered her tent with an expression of contempt on her face as she interviewed personable, approachable, earnest, and capable Sarah Palin. Network media flacks must sit in front of mirrors to practise the countenance of antipathy for Republicans and the smiling visage for Dems. President Bush is greeted with dripping sarcasm and overt hate by entertainers such as Letterman and his audience. For those who follow Judaism, the name Haman from the Purim holiday evokes hisses and the use of a rattle noisemaker to show him as the embodiment of evil. So, it is with Bush. There is a conditioned response that Bush is evil incarnate. The media has so poisoned public perception that the leader who has kept us safe since September 11 is regarded as a dunce. Obama who is hailed by Terry Moron-not a typo, Stephanopolous, and the rest is no genius. He said there were fifty-seven(57) states. He clearly does not understand that his tax increases will stifle any chance at economic recovery. He said in his ad last night that to improve education he will spend more and pay teachers better. What needs to be done to fix education is to restore discipline to the classroom and accountability to teachers. Allowing competition to government schools with vouchers will also help. Republicans are not perfect, but Obama is no Messiah.