The president has reportedly rejected all options on Afghanistan presented to him by his national security team.

Repeat – Obama has rejected all options presented by his team.  Not George W Bush’s team, or John McCain’s team, or even Rush Limbaugh’s team.

Barack Obama rejected all options presented by the very people he selected to give him advice on matters he knows less about than all the other things he knows little about – but still is in charge of running.

According to AP:

Obama still is close to announcing his revamped war strategy, most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

What the..??

Instead of asking for more options he has asked how soon we can turn the country over to the locals.  Fine.  Is that not a decision?

If I were part of the esteemed media – I would report that the president HAS decided.  The decision is to get the f**k out of there – with the time line to be determined.

“Gee, it’s been fun guys, but I really have a thing…. so we’ll just be going now.  You can keep all the shell casings and extra body bags and, uh, here are some more Obama-Biden bumper stickers.”

He is taking his ball and going home.

Perhaps the mysterious attack at Fort Hood has him in a bind.  According to liberals, it is all our fault.  The 9-11 attacks, Ft Hood, or any other bad event is blamed on the USA and conservatives specifically.

We are just too selfish and greedy to get it.  So, Obama HAS decided.  He is not dithering or distracted by health care or the Koreas, or the conflict in Israel versus the Palestinians.  He has decided that our boys are coming home.

Perhaps he should just man-up and say it.  Many would oppose his decision, but it is his to make.  A leader would get out in front and make the announcement already.  Don’t wait for fancy speech writers or new updates to the teleprompter software – just spit it out.

Our finest men and women are in harm’s way over there.  They deserve better than this.

According to the Washington Post, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan warned a group of senior Army physicians that they should allow Muslim soldiers to resign as “conscientious objectors” if they want to avoid “adverse events.”

Maj. Nidal M. Hasan said that for certain Muslims, fighting against other Muslims would bring them to a level of internal conflict that could not be overcome.  He also had notes in his power point presentation (obtained by the WaPo) that used terms like “infidel” and “jihad” liberally.

It is not clear if Maj. Nidal M. Hasan himself requested a release from his obligation due to his objections to fighting against fellow Muslims in Afghanistan.

Happy birthday to all active and former members of the United States Marine Corps.

November 10, 2009 marks the 234th birthday of the US Marines.

USMC: 1775-Present

Captain Samuel Nicholas formed two battalions of Continental Marines on 10 November 1775 in Philadelphia as naval infantry. Since then, the mission of Marine Corps has evolved with changing military doctrine and American foreign policy.

The Marine Corps served in every American armed conflict and attained prominence in the 20th century when its theories and practices of amphibious warfare proved prescient and ultimately formed the cornerstone of the Pacific campaign of World War II.

By the mid-20th century, the Marine Corps had become the dominant theorist and practitioner of amphibious warfare. Its ability to respond rapidly to regional crises gives it a strong role in the implementation and execution of American foreign policy.

I have never known a fraternity of more noble, brave and honorable people.  Thank you all for your service to our nation.  Your sacrifices are not in vain, and they are not taken for granted.

Semper Fidelis.

As the media remembers the fall of the Berlin wall and stand mesmerized by archived video of their own reporters like Tom Brokaw at the scene, just remember that David Hasselhoff was not only a B-actor in the USA – but was a bona-fide rock star in Germany back then.

The “Hoff” almost got hit by a bottle rocket (1.52 of the clip) at the New Year’s Eve celebration there in 1989 just as the wall “fell” and he was at the height of his singing career.

Had that rocket hit him, who knows what would have become of his cheeseburger decades later?

The true “wall-crusher” in action – 1987:

Why did he do it?  Who cares?

How could he have done it on a military base, is what we should be asking.

John Farnam is right on with this:

Learned helplessness in the military.

Had Wednesday’s serial murders at Ft Hood taken place just outside the Base in the City of Killeen, TX, the murder suspect would likely have been gunned-down immediately by several Texas CHL holders.

Tragically, the murders took place in a “gun-free zone” (aka “criminal empowerment zone”), because in America, among those claiming to be active members of the “Profession of Arms,” no one is armed!

Reaction from the idiot Press were predictable:

They sought out anyone who would comment on the subject of personal weapons on base.  One representative fell into their trap and tried to defend Base rules that require  ”… anyone on Base with a weapon must have it out-of-reach and unloaded.”  However, as we all know, any gun that is  ”perfectly safe” is “perfectly useless,” and its owner is “perfectly  helpless.”

Base commanders apparently believe everyone should be disarmed and always ready to be victimized, rather than (Heaven forbid!) armed, trained,  and prepared.

Interesting philosophy, and it obviously “worked” perfectly!  Curious that the murder suspect himself apparently didn’t pay much attention to that particular rule.  Imagine that!

The fact is that the best, and only really effective, deterrent to criminal violence is good and decent people who are constantly armed and prepared. That practice has significantly discouraged all criminal activity every time it  has been tried.

It works.  Nothing else does!

Years ago, in all branches of the US Military, officers and staff NCOs were always armed with a pistol, on base, off base, in uniform, or not.  Being ever “armed and ready” was considered a point of honor!
To be unarmed was to be incapable of performing one’s duty.  Such a thing would be dishonorable.  Back then, we didn’t have mass murders on military bases!

Under today’s “enlightened” policy, even star-wearers are unarmed and helpless, foolishly relying upon some ill-defined “reactionary force” to protect  them, a force that will predictably arrive long after the damage has been  done.  Who own personal weapons, have local CCW permits, and acquire training outside the “System,” are now classified as “gun-enthusiasts” and are  thus highly suspect from that point forward, lumped in with lepers and child-molesters.

So long as professing practitioners of the “Profession of Arms” are pathologically frightened of guns and suspect of each other, we can look forward to more such mass murders of the defenseless.  And, I promise you, all will take place in “gun-free zones.”

As always, the real villain here is arrogance, the kind of personal vanity the ever precludes us from sincerely admitting we’re wrong and that we need to  change directions.

Learned helplessness?  Not a formula for victory!

John Farnam.

The home of all things political correctness is the current Democrat party.  The US media could now collectively be called “Pravda” as an homage to the former Soviet controlled media of yesteryear in the mind-numbingly stupid coverage of the shooting.

No one seems to know what drove the suspect (the man who shot lots of unarmed people) to commit his heinous act.  Really?  Why did Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan of Jordan and a practicing Muslim who was a pupil or congregant or whatever you call people who listen to radical clerics.  In fact, he was a co-congregant of the same Mosque where a radical DC-based Imam preached to two of the actual 9-11 bombers.

But, no one seems to know what drove him to shoot unarmed soldiers who were waiting to be processed for deployment overseas.  He yelled, “Allah akbar” for goodness sake!

Army officials have voiced concern about jumping to any conclusions about the motive, warning about a possible backlash against Muslim soldiers.

WTF?????

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is a radical Muslim.  It is okay to say.  I have friends and neighbors who are practicing Muslims and I cannot imagine them doing anything that approaches such a horrible act against anyone.  This guy was someone to watch and probably someone who should have been “profiled” had it not been for political correctness.

Political correctness (or political liberalism) is responsible for the deaths of these men and women.  Make no mistakes.  No, they didn’t pull the trigger but they are just as culpable.  It is their well-intentioned, but foolish policies that left these people unarmed and worse – unable to remove people like Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan so that he could not have gone on such a horrible rampage.

Over the weekend, I received this email and it covers the topic perfectly.  Marines are trained to kill with their guns.  They know what to do when attacked.  However, with current military policy spawned since the 1970s (the dawning of the age of Political-Correctness) the officer of the day is no longer permitted to carry a sidearm.  Had that simple rule been left off the list of too many stupid rules, it is likely that someone would have capped this angry man before he did much damage.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan knew full well that no one at that facility was armed and that emboldened this coward to start his shooting there.  Had everybody been armed, it is likely that he would never have risked such an act with the chances for survival at zero.

Hasan is awake and talking to doctors who treated him for his bullet wounds.  I hope he gets a chance to talk.  I’ll bet he voted for Obama.  His disillusionment over our continued presence in Afghanistan and Iraq in spite of Obama’s promises to get out must have driven him over the edge.

The media is quick to repeat the Obama team’s PR campaign against angry, white former military people.  Meanwhile, they wring their little hands over the fact that (sigh) he was a Muslim.

He went to the same mosque as 9-11 hijackers!  And he was counseling US soldiers who had limbs blown off.  Can you imagine his bedside manner?

Perhaps he was angry about alleged military torture of his brothers in arms and he wanted to do this so he could be tortured and then report on it.

How did this guy and his public comments not raise eyebrows?  The FBI said that this is NOT a terrorist act.  The media is scratching its collective head over this mystery.

Not terrorism?  If not, then what (tell us dear Pravda) is it?!?!!

“Freebies for the jobless” is the title of the CNN/Money article.  They chronicle a series of free services to the unemployed offered by caring (and very smart) business owners throughout the USA.

Haircuts, dry-cleaning, and free shoes for job-seekers are just a few of the products and services offered to those who need a small measure of help in their quests to help themselves.

The owner of National Drycleaners in Seattle summed it up best, “When you do good, good things happen.”

He got free publicity from the media, tons of goodwill in the community and a lot of grateful recipients who will no doubt return with their dry-cleaning once they land employment.  The other owners had similar stories.

Lost on the CNN/Money folks was not one DC bureaucrat was involved.  Not a single big-named program was necessary to start these small gestures of goodwill.  Just good people helping others in their communities.

How quaint?  How novel?  How non-progressive can one get?

The fools and charlatans in the House who erupted into cheers as their 1.2 trillion dollar nightmare billed as the saving grace for the health of Americans will pay for this folly with their jobs.  The rest of us will pay with our liberty and with our indebtedness for generations if it somehow becomes law.

By the slimmest of margins and a single RINO, the DEmocrats just sentenced the USA to a lifetime of indentured servitude.  I for one, am not cheering this Soviet styles initiative.

The bill was titled, the “Affordable Health Care for America Act”, or H.R. 3962 in a very Orwellian nightmare that is really happening.

The bill restricts insurance companies from denying coverage based on existing conditions (guaranteeing rate increases for all and possibly an exit from the market altogether – which will enable what the democrat/statists want – a single payer (government-run) plan.

Welcome to the economic gulag.

The media dutifully ginned up bogus poll data to support Obama, Pelosi and other democrat-hacks to vote for this bill that costs 1.2 trillion dollars but won’t add a dime to the debt – or so they claim.  The alleged cost savings will be so great that we will actually save money.

How stupid do they think we are?

Meanwhile, don’t you think the insurance industry can lawyer-up and take their case to the Supreme Court over some of these ridiculous regulations?

House of Representin’ – dumbest people on earth will give us the worst health care possible (they’ll just rename it “best”): CLICK ON IMAGE FOR VIDEO

Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a vote on the sweeping health care legislation for Saturday (or perhaps Sunday if Obama/Pelosi arm twisting is necessary).

I thought we were supposed to expect a new level of transparency?  I thought this was a new era in letting the sunlight shine down on the workings of government as it does important work for the American people?

Voting on Saturday when most don’t pay any attention is weak.  Moving it to Sunday is worse and twisting arms in machine-politics-style is just plain wrong.

You knew the media was going to bat for the democrats, but this is ridiculous.  The polls are rigged to show support for the nonsensical approach by House and Senate democrats. The polls are also split for the president again.

After a more than eight year hiatus, personal approval versus presidential job performance/initiatives is back (now that a democrat calls the White House, “Home”).

Polls say that Obama is more popular than his ideas.  The last time you saw anything like that was back prior to the W-era in Washington.  Remember the late 1990s?  Clinton always polled better in job performance than if people were asked about him as a person while his “bimbo eruptions” were in full swing and his perjury was on full display.

The ramrod is out and the democrats plan a full-fledged assault on liberty.  Bet on a few “Blue Dog” cave-ins and a bare minimum majority to pass this disastrous legislation cobbled together by Nurse Ratchet (Pelosi) herself.

Meanwhile – the “Associations” get it wrong – back these idiotic proposals

The AMA and AARP both caved into pressure from the fascist techniques of the democrats and fell into line.  You know it when you see it – the arm twisting and implied threats and media marginalization of you and your organization if you don’t join the cause.

The fact is – both organizations just sold their own members down the river.  The AARP said that this horse-crap House legislation will bring down reimbursements to doctors (how is that hope and change working for you MDs?) and it will make more affordable coverage available to all Americans.  They haven’t seen what the “public option” has done for health care in Massachusetts or for high wind insurance costs in Florida.  In both cases, the system got worse.  Costs went up and choices went down.

And while the nation is not looking, all of the “help” from Washington just generated the highest unemployment figure since 1983 (10.2%).  How is that hope and change working for you?

“I weep for the future” – the Chez Quis maitre-d’ in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The AARP is publicly supporting the House version of the alleged health care reform legislation.

This does not bode well for that organization’s future membership count.  Senior citizens are not buying into the Hype and Change garbage pumped out by House and Senate Democrats.  Overwhelmingly, seniors are opposed to the changes proposed by Nancy Pelosi.  Nevertheless, the AARP leadership deems it a worthy endeavor.

Could any of this have to do with the AARP’s own liabilities with respect to health care benefits?

The AARP is already on board with the liberal ideology that you can and should get something for nothing.  They have an article on their website that endoctrinates members by telling sob stories like the guy who wanted to fulfill his “moral obligation” to provide health care coverage for his 14 employees.  But with costs of coverage skyrocketing, he actually had to ask his staff to kick in 25% of the cost.  Sob, that meant a pay cut for them.

Well hell’s bells people!  What do you think you have been getting to date?  It was and is a free ride – at least it WAS a free ride (with insured getting “free” coverage from their employers and then the costs from the care to the big users of care getting shifted to the non or low-users).

Now that we can’t keep sweeping the costs under the “coverage” rug anymore because the lump is so big, people are crying the blues.

Why aren’t we just paying wages in cash and letting people buy what they need and want for themselves.  I am sick and tired of all the bullshitting going on by politicians and businesspeople.

The altruistic government created this mess through the complex tax code that gave us tax-free benefits in the first place.  Now that everybody got used to getting their health care from their employers “cost free” (or mostly cost free), the same employees can’t deal with the reality that this government created health care system has broken our economic backs.  It has rendered our society as incapable of prioritizing their spending as much as Soviet citizens after the collapse of their communist system.

The AARP leadership must not follow through on this leaked story.  If they back this new government plan to attempt to fix the old government plan which led us to our current system, they will lose members.  Not just a few either.

If you don’t believe me – look at the video.  I would hate to be a local representative dealing with the mob that will be demanding a refund of their dues.

Last August – the AARP was videotaped ignoring the views of its own members.  The AARP does not care what their own members think or want for that matter.  They mistakenly believe that by expanding Medicare, which is broke – by the way, the system will get better for AARP members.