The Great Red Spot

Change I Quite Frankly Wouldn't Have Believed A Year Ago

2010-01-19T20:24:00.004-06:00

Wow. Just...wow.

I had doubted that Obama was really as all-powerful as his supporters claim, but I'm here to tell you he's only one more miracle away from sainthood. Electing a Republican in Virginia isn't impossible (though harder than it was years ago). But New Jersey and Massachusetts? That's a miracle that I couldn't have seen coming.

Obama might actually be the savior of the once-drifting Republican party. Right now Juan Williams is telling him to keep on doing what he's doing. I agree wholeheartedly. There is nothing that Obama can't do! Keep it up, Barry! Please campaign for every Democrat across America! Travis Childers needs your help!

Donate to the Red Cross

2010-01-13T21:29:00.000-06:00

www.redcross.org

In Response to the Undiebomber...

2010-01-05T13:04:00.003-06:00

Our border security arrested independent war correspondent Michael Yon in Seattle. Why? For the heinous offense of refusing to disclose his income. Yon has since been released. To clarify: Your father can report you to a US Embassy as a terrorist threat, you can match up with every terrorist profile out there, and MI5 and the CIA can have you on their threat list...but don't you dare not tell the Border Guards your adjusted gross income!

Glad to know we're taking terrorism seriously.

Say it with me: Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.

I Would Be Remiss If I Didn't Do This

2009-12-05T21:48:00.002-06:00

Happy birthday, 21st Amendment. On this day in 1933, the efforts of busybody do-gooders to control the lives of everyday people crashed and burned. Here's hoping that there's a similar crash-and-burn coming with cap-and-tax and health care takeover.

I shall drink to your existence this very evening!

Bennie Thompson being investigated?

2009-12-05T08:54:00.004-06:00

I don't know if I would even know it if I wasn't a regular reader of Hot Air. The Cryin' Liar has nothing on the front page, and if any of their writers has blogged on it, that's news to me. The McCoy Journal is no better. I guess shaking down credit card companies for 15 grand in campaign donations-while threatening them from his position as Homeland Security Chairman-isn't newsworthy at all.

The sad thing is that Sid Salter has a blog up right now that is bemoaning the coverage of Tiger Woods' love life over the economy, the wars, and all the other apocalyptic news. And while I'm sick of Tiger talk myself, can't one of you guys be spared from the bar at Hal and Mal's to ask some questions, or is that too much to ask?

They seem to want to make all my "Congressman-for-Life" jokes come true.

The Horror!

2009-11-30T21:15:00.004-06:00

Did you hear? An ambitious, celebrity-craving couple talked their way into the White House!

I mean, the next thing you know, these goofballs will want to be on Oprah, have a weekly TV show, be on every magazine cover, and film a Thanksgiving commercial with Drew Brees. Their faces will be everywhere.

Oh, wait...

Obama Finally Saves Someone's Job...

2009-11-01T18:49:00.003-06:00

And it turns out to be a nutty would-be dictator in Latin America. Awesome. Amateur Hour continues.

Isn't it great

2009-10-03T12:03:00.002-05:00

...to have a president who loves sports?

This Is The Guy We Are Backing in Honduras

2009-09-27T18:38:00.003-05:00

Holed up in an Embassy somewhere in their capital, the exiled attempted dictator Manuel Zelaya has determined exactly who is to blame for his situation. It should come as no surprise as to the culprits.

Its the Joooooos.

Someone once said their are three levels of conspiracy nuts in the world. The first kind is kid of quirky but almost normal-seeming. The second gets into stem-winders on various organizations and people determining world events. The third does the same thing, except their conspiracy always ends up with the Joooooos controlling everything.

And Manuel Zelaya? He falls into the latter category. Apparently, he just can't take all the radiation and mind-altering gas that the Zionist Israeli commandos are pumping into the embassy.

And the position of our government is that he should be in charge down there. Sad, ain't it?

This Cannot Be!

2009-09-20T19:31:00.003-05:00

George W. Bush just flipped the coin for the first game at the new Cowboys Stadium. How can this be? Barack Obama is the first president to like sports! I know this because ESPN has told me so! Surely, there can only be one explanation. Jerry Jones is racist.

Sarcasm meters on high, please.

Oh, Hob Bryan

2009-09-20T10:34:00.008-05:00

"Every economist thinks we need more government spending to get out of this recession!"

Um, no. Not even close. I realize you were engaging in hyperbole designed to make the Governor look bad on education, but come on. Even some of John Maynard Keynes' biggest disciples can't get behind this mess we call "Stimulus." It's not even a real stimulus package. It's a handout every special interest in the country, with a few road projects thrown in. Oh, yeah...and we HAD to have it to keep unemployment below 9 percent.

Today, it's inching toward 10.

The fact is, we cannot spend money that we don't have. The cuts are painful but necessary. If we didn't have so much useless bureaucracy in our education system (Bolivar County, I'm looking at you with your six school districts serving 40,000 people...DeSoto manages just fine with one, serving over 100,000) this might not be happening. There are also antiquated positions within the state (the Public Service Commission, which has steadily become less important over the past 60 years, comes to mind).

There is no horrible motive behind this, Senator Bryan. There is reality. And the reality is, with a bad economy, we can't afford to do things the way they've always been done. Come to think of it, we haven't been doing things well in education anyway. If there ever was a time to clean house, this is it.

Never Forget

2009-09-10T21:05:00.000-05:00

Ted Kennedy Dies at 77

2009-08-26T18:52:00.003-05:00

Ted Kennedy certainly lived a full life. Dying today at 77, he leaves behind a family, a number of grandchildren, and millions of dollars. He also leaves with a reputation as a statesman and a champion of "health care reform," a bill of which will likely bear his name when it comes to the floor of the Senate.

But in the midst of the sadness for a man who lived to three score and seventeen, we shouldn't forget Mary Jo Kopechne, dead 40 years now. Her life ended at ust 28 years old, and the main reason is Edward Moore Kennedy, who cravenly left her to drown as he swam to safety. A diver sent into the car believed she was alive up to 2 hours after the Senator drove off of a bridge. Had he been Edward Smith or Jones, he likely would have done a nice stretch of time in a penetentiary for his conduct. However, as one of our exalted elites, he was allowed a slap on the wrist. For his negligence, his driver's license was suspended for six months.

Six months of being driven around by other people for killing someone.

So weep for Teddy Kennedy, Lion of the Senate. Weep harder still for the young woman whose life ended because she trusted him, who has been largely forgotten today. It is she, not his years in Washington, that he should be remembered for.

Bad News on the War On Terror

2009-08-06T05:55:00.002-05:00

The Director of the GI Joe movie says "It's not a George Bush movie, it's a Barack Obama movie."

In other words, expect Duke to wait three days after COBRA attacks, then decide that we don't want to be seen as meddling.

I Love the Dos Equis Commercials

2009-08-03T20:57:00.002-05:00

I can't help it. "Even when he's on the wrong side of the tracks, he's on the right side." It's like Chuck Norris played by Ricardo Montalban. The conceit is that there's nobody cooler or smarter on the planet than the Spanish guy with the beard.

The commercials are so awesome that the President decided that he had to be in one. So he invited two regular guys and Joe Biden to film it...

Oh, wait, that wasn't it?

See, here's the thing. "The Most Intersting Man in the World" got replaced this week by "The Most Self-Important Man in the World." Thankfully, according to the press, President Obama has healed the nations' racial wounds and moved us past race.

But wait...didn't he do that last summer, too?

Frankly, the whole "post-racial" thing was overblown, much like everything about Obama. Obama is a talented opportunist, a man with the ability to make cutting your own hand off sound perfectly reasonable. But you can only go to the well so many times, like a flamethrowing pitcher who never learns another pitch. Eventually, they catch up to you. And that's started to happen; the Obama Show is wearing itself thin.

Look on the bright side, though, Mr. President. You now have your own little Dos Equis statement: "He can heal the same racial wound...twice."

Sorry About Not Posting More

2009-07-26T21:25:00.001-05:00

I've been dodging greedy tonsil-hungry doctors all summer.

One Small Step For a Man...

2009-07-20T21:45:00.001-05:00

Here's hoping we get back sooner rather than later.

Can I Get Something Off My Chest?

2009-07-17T18:11:00.005-05:00

Obama's first pitch Tuesday night sucked. No two ways about it.

Do you know how you can tell it sucked? Because ESPN has spent the last three days replaying it over and over again, and talking about how great it was. I have seen some first pitches in my life, and that one took the taco for bad first pitches. William Howard Taft, the first president to throw out a pitch, must be rolling over in his grave at the thought of how awful the pitch was.

Let's break it down:

1) The delivery: Awful. Clunky and ungraceful. Obama can speech with the best of 'em. His windup, on the other hand, is awful. And don't give me the excuse of a bulletproof vest. GWB and Reagan threw strikes wearing them, and both of them from the rubber, not the foot of the mound.

2) The result: Albert Pujols sat right on top of the plate. He had to move to keep the ball from bouncing in front of him.

3) Cominsky Field. I can forgive the misproununciation of the name (Comiskey, but southsiders say it like that). It hearkens back to Jeff Gordon's awful "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"...in which he referred to Wrigley Stadium. Say it with me, Dear Leader: Comiskey Park.

4) The "Obama as Regular Joe" story. I hate these. Somehow, being a sports fan is unique? Did no other president like sports? I mean, other than Reagan, Ford, Nixon, Kennedy, Eisenhower (all college football players), GHW Bush (Gold Glove baseball player at Yale), Carter (High school basketball star), and GWB (former baseball owner) there's not a president in recent memory who loved sports like Obama! Spare me. The man's spent some time talking about the BCS! He's just like you and me! Gag.

One more reason to hate the worldwide brainwasher.

A Little Something Different on the 4th

2009-07-04T10:08:00.001-05:00

Today, 70 years ago, Lou Gehrig gave this speech.

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career to associate with them for even one day?

Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert - also the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow - to have spent the next nine years with that wonderful little fellow Miller Huggins - then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology - the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy!

Sure, I'm lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift, that's something! When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that's something.

When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles against her own daughter, that's something. When you have a father and mother who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body, it's a blessing! When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed, that's the finest I know.

So I close in saying that I might have had a tough break - but I have an awful lot to live for!

Lou Gehrig - July 4, 1939

One for the "Wait A Second" Files

2009-07-01T15:59:00.002-05:00

Two weeks ago, meddling in Iran's elections-which were a farce, you know it, I know it, and the Mullahs know it-was the worst thing in the world. Couldn't help at all. Never gonna do it. Chalk it all up as "rigorous debate" amongst the Iranians. (Who knew debate class could now be taken with sniper rifles, internet jamming equipment, and random disappearances? Fun for everyone!)

Of course, the same can't be said of the situation in Honduras. That required immediate denouncing, even though a Chavez-style takeover was the plan of the president there. Everyone else in the country apparently was staging a coup-designed to STOP THIS GUY FROM BECOMING A DICTATOR. Those guys? Staging a coup. No debate here. Just coup.

Amateurs.

Et Tu, Golden Boy?

2009-06-29T21:56:00.003-05:00

Its funny that the Golden Boy decides NOW that galavanting around not doing your job is a bad thing. Too bad that for his entire tenure in Jackson, that's pretty much all he did. Charlie Mitchell is too nice to say it; I'm not.

There's a Claim of The Day if ever there was one.

Well, Since They Think You're Meddling, Mr. President...

2009-06-18T12:42:00.001-05:00

By all means, sir, proceed to meddle.

Seriously, Will SOMEBODY in this Administration Show Support for the Iranian People?

2009-06-15T23:17:00.006-05:00

If there has ever been a chance in the last 30 years that that the regime of Mullahs and lunatics running Iran can be overthrown, its right now. Yet nobody in our administration wants to be the bad guy on the international scene and demand that the Iranians allow for an audit of their election and not crack down on their population. Uh, news flash, Barry: You got to vote "Present" in the last job, not this one.

Admittedly, the "reformer" in Iran is only slightly less nutty as Mahmoud. But this can be huge in walking Iran back down from the ledge, after thirty years of killing Americans and Israelis and Lebanese and Iraqis and God knows who else. Freedom had false starts in Hungary in '56 and Czechoslovakia in '68. They've been waiting 20 years in China since Tiananmen. Twenty years may be too long to wait in Tehran.

The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc

2009-06-06T17:24:00.002-05:00

Text of the famous Pointe Du Hoc speech by President Reagan, June 6, 1984

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor."

I think I know what you may be thinking right now -- thinking "we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day." Well everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him -- Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, "Sorry, I'm a few minutes late," as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.
There was the impossible valor of the Poles, who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold; and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland's 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots' Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's "Matchbox Fleet," and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: "Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do." Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.
When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance -- a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. The Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II. Twenty million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We're bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we're with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."
Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

Where To Begin on The Egypt Speech?

2009-06-06T16:20:00.003-05:00

So many things, so little time...

Nuclear Power for Iran? No Problem! Nuclear Power for the US? What, are you crazy or something?

People building houses=People getting shoved in gas chambers.

Can't tell others whether or not to have nukes...but Iran, you can't have nukes.

While there was a lot of good in the speech, is it really anything we haven't heard before? Religion of peace, not at war with Islam, Democracy is great...wasn't there some other guy who made that speech a million times? The main difference is this time, the speaker gets to brag on his Muslim heritage, and make a few empty plattitudes, plus mangle history. You know, basically make the typical Obama speech. Might they listen? Here's hoping.

Bottom line, Obama is still campaigning. And that's great for him. For the rest of us...that's up in the air.