Purple People Periodical

Closing Arguments: Schaddenfreude, Reality TV, and No JUSTICE for Caylee Anthony

2011-07-23T11:42:00.000-05:00

It's FINALLY over! Both sides have been heard, the jury has decided, and Casey Anthony is a FREE woman forced into hiding to work out her demons, sort through offers, and plan the rest of her life which is once more her OWN. But is she really FREE? Can she go out for a cappuccino at Starbucks? Can she shop for a new dress at the local mall? Can she go into a public hair salon and get her hair styled? In theory, she can, but in REALITY she would be risking her LIFE. There is a very real and palatable HATRED of this woman the seeing her in public would likely generate and "Ox Bow Incident" mentality and end with her either being torn limb from limb, or at the very LEAST, lynched or beaten to death. Sadly it was that way LONG before the jury made it's ruling, which is why this woman has spent most of her pre-trial incarceration in ISOLATION. It was feared by the Sheriff's department (and RIGHTLY so) that she would not have survived in general population, especially since most of the women incarcerated with her were themselves MOTHERS or just women who had already concluded, like MOST of America, that she was a child murderer long before the first piece of REAL evidence had been introduced.

Why do so many people HATE Casey Anthony? It's only natural to want a guilty person to pay for his or her crime, but do we HATE everyone that's accused of murder in this country? I hope not because there are so many, we wouldn't have time for anything else, nor would likely live very long as HATRED is a very self destructive thing to carry around. It's physically, physiologically, and psychologically harmful to its host. Hatred is also highly irrational, esp when it's directed against a veritable STRANGER. It is usually NOT organic in nature, but a result of external stimuli. Germans didn't HATE Jews instinctively. They were PROGRAMMED to do so by propaganda from the Nazis. Anti-semitism results in PREJUDICE, bot not HATRED on it's own. To get to HATRED, you need provocation and that usually comes from media saturation.

That's what has been driving this ENTIRE case. Absent the media saturation, no one would know the names Caylee or Casey Anthony outside of the people who knew them on a personal basis before they achieved "realty TV star" stature and notoriety. Had either Caylee or Casey not been so physically attractive, the story would have remained a blip in the local Orlando news and been long since forgotten. So it's the MEDIA that jammed this story down our throats from day one. It;s media pundits and commentators that have driven this story, and in a fashion reminiscent of Jean Paul Marat's "Friend of the People" tabloid newspaper, ginned up the lynch mob mentality that sent thousands to the guillotine in an orgy of blood lust during the french revolution. Marat and Nancy Grace know how to gin up a lynch mob. Who can forget the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, or the total FICTION that was CALLED a rape case? When emotion drives the bus, the logical and rational "rules of the road" go right out the window, and that is EXACTLY what happened in this case. But where did the emotion come from and why did it get so intense?

At the heart of everything is a cherubic little two year old toddler named Caylee Marie Anthony. Who Gould see that little girl's pictures or videos and not just MELT? You would have to be INHUMAN to not feel sadness at the thought of that little girl being taken from her family by person or persons unknown; and lest we forget, that is how this case started. When her picture first popped up the cable news program as a missing person, my first thought was that she had been abducted by a child sex trafficker and, even after media pundits and legal analysts starting baying for her mother's blood, I maintained that the EVIDENCE supported that conclusion far more convincingly than it supported the premise that Caylee had been murdered, let alone that her own MOTHER was responsible for it. It was far more likely that Caylee had been abducted using a long can paradigm that had led THOUSANDS of young women into white slavery, the disappearing modelling agency. If your target was a CHILD however, the modelling agency wouldn't work, as a mother would tend to REMAIN with her child during the photo sessions. Far more likely would be a NANNY or daycare scenario, as a mother would be more likely to leave a child there for a prolonged period of time, usually to go to work.

Whenever I argued or defended this theory, I was ridiculed and attacked by people who had already made up their minds that Caylee was dead and Casey had killed her. I was called a dreamer, of thinking like a LAWYER (a pejorative in MY vocabulary) or of being interested in Casey or attracted to her, etc by people who ordinarily were liberal in their thinking and therefore open to possibilities outside the obvious, or at least imbued with the perception of having OPEN minds. Not in this case, however. With the EXCEPTION of a few lawyers who practiced criminal or defense law, nearly everyone I talked to regarding this case had concluded the worst and condemned Casey Anthony before there was even the slightest evidence that Caylee was anything but a missing person.

How then did a local missing persons case get to be a national media event with the appeal of a network produced reality television show? The simple answer is that it was turned into one by the 24-7 news media and non stop barrage of legal and media pundits and commentators that first created, then FED the addition to all things ANTHONY, much like the average heroin pusher will first create the dependence and then provide the supply of his TOXIC product. The "reality" in modern America is that it's sometimes difficult, if not IMPOSSIBLE do discern the difference between real life and reality TV. Some people used to believe anything they saw on TV. However, since the advent of "reality TV" it's soemtimes hard to tell what's "real" and what's "contrived" to LOOK real. Just as shows like "Survior" and "Jersey Shore" create "stars" of people who are talentless and mediocre at BEST, so too does a non stop media spotlight create another kind of "star" when it overdoses the public on a criminal defendant (ESPECIALLY and attractive one) like Scott Peterson (who to this DAY still gets love letters and marriage proposals even though he's been CONVICTED or murdering his wife and unborn child) and Casey Anthony, who's now free to PROFIT from being free to sell HER story to a publisher, go on media interviews for pay, and may even end up on a reality TV show, or the cover of HUSTLER. She, too has recived money from her legions of horny males fans, and a few marriage proposals as well. That would NOT happen if she were netiher HOT< nor prospectively looking at getting RICH.

Some of the hatred directed at Casey Anthony comes from the standard green eyed monster, JEALOUSY. Women are jealous of her because she's young, attractive, soon to be RICH, and will have her pick of men, including (in thir irrational minds and their husband's wildest fantasies) THEIR husbands. If you could treat the average couple on a couch watching Casey Anthony on the news like a comic strip and put a though bubble over their heads, you would see something like "She's HOT. I wouldn't kick HER out of bed for eating crackers) over the MAN'S head, and probably something like "BITCH. I wanna scratch her eyes out" over the WOMAN'S head. To be fair to the women, some of the hatred comes from the fact that these women are themselves MOTHERS and have natural maternal instincts when it comes to the welfare of children. Like Sarah Palin and her "mama Grizzlies" implies, women WILL protect their children and attack anyone who tries to harm them. The protective instinct is not limited to their OWN children, either. However, these dame women, more likely than not, know EXACTLY what the man next to them is REALLY yhinking as he stares at Casey Anthony, so they HATE her for THAT.

The other explanation for both the popularity of the Anthony case, and the anger over the verdict is the psychological phenomenon of "schaddenfreude." The term comes from the two german words meaning "damage" and "joy" and more simply put, it means that one takes pleasure in the suffering of another, esp another who ordinarily would have it much better than the person enjohing their suffering. In one of my favorite episodes of the series "Boston Legal", Betty White uttered the line that describes it best. She said "It's FUN to see PRETTY people fall." She was referring to Heather Locker's character being on trial for murdering her older and richer husband. That line has a missing subtext, however. It should read: "It's FUN f (for UGLY people) to see PRETTY people fall." It can also apply to the scenario in which it would be fun for POOR people to see RICHER people suffer. That mentalilty gas us Madame DeFarge and the French Revolution! But the conflict between the pretty people and the less than pretty people can be found everywhere as well. Think of the passions aroused against Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton when THEY were facing jail. It's the exact same thing with Casey Anthony.

If you look at the "angry mobs" outside the Orange County Courthouse and jail, you don't see many lookers in that crowd. That may have something to do with the fact that a face contorted in anger is rarely an attractive one, but even putting THAT aside, most of the people baying Casey's blood are much more like the "hound" than the "fox." This is not to say that everyone protesting outside the courthouse is only mad befcause they're jealous of Casey being young, HOT< and likely to make major bank, there are also MOTHERS and FATHERS out there as well as looks have nothing to do with THEIR anger and frustration at what they perceive is a system that failed to deliver JUSTICE for Caylee Marie Anthony and nay do the same for THEIR child some day, Regardless of the driver, it's the EMOTION that's in charge of these people.

Any average person has to believe that Casey Anthony had something to do with what happened to Caylee Anthony. She was the last person seen with her, she had motive, means, and opportunity, and there was a LOT of circumstantial evidence that could lead one to conclude she's involved. But it's a far crown from being INVOLVED, to being a cold blooded murderer who actred with malice and deliberation. Those are LEGAL standards, but such circumnstantial cases have sent many men and women to death rows who were later proved INNOCENT by advances in forensic technology such as DNA. There was none of that here, but the ABSENCE of it ahs to give one pause and create doubt, and by legal standard, that "doubt" MUST innure to the benefit of the Defendant, like her or not. Do I believe Casey is blameless in this case, not on your life. But suspecting is a lot different form having it proven to the legal standard. Like Johnny Cochran once said, "If the gove don't FIT, you MUST acquit." In a jury trial, only TWELVE opinions matter, and OURS are NOT among them.

Looking at the facts presented from a DISPASSIONATE prospective, which iis what JURORS have to do, There is no way to overcome the presumption of innocence beyond a "reasonable" doubt Courts exist to apply to LAW, and the legal standard for convinction is that the state must prove the DEFENDANT committed the crime charged "beyond a REASONABLE doubt." The sticking point in many people's craws is that word "reasonable" which makes since, since it's a SUBJECTIVE standard. To Adolph Hit;er. Josef Stalin, and Bill Ayers, GENOCIDE was "reasonable." To a liberal, NOTHING is reasonable because they are driven purely by EMOTION which negates logic and reason,. Either way, the only way to conclude the Casey Anthony wilfully MURDERED her child based on the evidence presented would be to let anger and hatred overrule logic and reason: and, fortunately for all FUTURE criminal defendants (of which ant of US can be one some day) that did NOT happen here. LAW is the result of the thoughts and actions of MEN, and as such it is NOT prefect. JUSTICE is the purvue of "god" or a "higher power" and is best left to him (or HER);

As for Casey Anthony, what SHE deserves at this time is to relegated back to ANONYMITY. She should be devoutly IGNORED. Do NOT buy her books, do NOT watch her on television or listen to any interview, close your wallets to anything Anthony, and justice will prevail because the only woman can PROFIT by her act or omission is iw WE buy anything form her. If WE stand firm and turn her off, tune her out, and shut her down, she will be punished far greater by Universal Justice than anything the State of Florida could have done to her. She's now a media junkie. She CRAVES attention, positive OR negative, and she has to have it. She's an attention junkie, and the best thing we can do is cut her off cold turkey. Let her return to a life of anonymity and a the only career for which she's qualified, the STRIPPER POLE. That outcome would FINALLY deliver JUSTICE, even if it IS only POETIC, for Caylee Anthony.

Journalism MALPRACTICE: "Liberals" Behaving BADLY!

2011-04-19T18:20:00.001-05:00

A few SHORT months ago, following the tragic shootings in Tucson in which a Federal District Court Judge and others were killed, and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was wounded, every Democratic Party power player and every liberal media pundit made teary eyed and impassioned PLEAS for civility and a decried the need for a "new tone" in political discourse. This was due in large part to the fact that they blamed the TEA party for the shooting, despite the fact that it was a LEFT wing loon that actually pulled the TRIGGER. They made a similar erroneous conclusion when ANOTHER left wing lunatic flew his plane into a building housing offices of the Internal Revenue Service. When did they stop hiring FACT checkers in the media, and if they DO still have them, they seem to be performing at the level of sleeping air trafic controllers these days. So, why haven't they been FIRED? Aah, they must be UNION so they CAN'T be fired for anything less than a CAPITAL crime and not without an act of Congress or the bureaucratic equivalent thereof.

After months of media diatribes about the need for "cilivilty" in our political discourse, the newly elected Republican Governor of Wilsconsin, the Hon. Scott Walker, attempted to carry out his mandate to reign in runaway government spending in his state which necessistated curbing the power and influence of public sector unions, and the ensuing protests commence and take on a tone of rheorc reminiscent of the WORST of the Viet Nam era protests. UNION goons harasss and even THREATEN state politicians and their supporters, trash and vandalize public property and the media is suddenly nowhere to be found. One Wisconsin TEACHER even went to far as to communicate TERRORISTIC DEATH THREATS to the republican politicians and again NOTHING from the press, or the LAW ENFORCEMENT community for that matter.

On Tax Day when TEA party members and supporters held rallies calling for less government intrusion into our lives and less government SPENDING, they were harassed and harrangued by UNION goons. While the MEDIA has never waivered in its' attempts to paint peaceful TEA party members as out of control crazy people, they consistently FAIL to report the FACT that it's the leftist UNION goons that are REALLY the out of control crazy people. If you compare the two sides OBJECTIVELY, it's the LEFTIST protestors that get arrested for disorderly conduct, vandalism, assault, etc. Not ONE Tea party member has ever been ACCUSED, let along CONVICTED for such behavior. If you look at the TEA Party Rally held in Washington DC, the grounds were left clean and litter free at the conclusion of the events, and no publci property was destroyed. Conversely, when the LEFT held THEIR rally, the City of Washington DC had to spend THOUSANDS on clean up, and police had made numerous arrests and issued even more summonses and citations for disorderly conduct. Last but not LEAST, several SEIU members were arrested for disorderly conduct and criminal trespass when they attempted to barge into the office of a state official in Seattle, and not one WORD of this appeared in the PRESS.

So, why isn't the "journalists" doing their JOBS? If you ask THEM, they ARE, and they are working harder than ever to keep pace with fast breaking news in a twenty-four/seven news cycle. If that's true and they ARE doing their jobs, they're doing them about as effectively as a sleeping air traffic controller, unless THEY have a different understanding of what their job IS than WE do. I never aspired to be a professional journalist, but I DID take a journalism ELECTIVE in college and in that course I was taught that the job of a journalist was the objective dissemination of INFORMATION. To the PROFESSIONAL journlaist, however, the job is more one of "shaping public opinon" which they do by editing the story and deciding what information the public should and should NOT receive. They think of us in the same way Jack Nicholson's character in "A Few Good Men" thought of Tom Cruise's character, namely that we can't "handle the truth."

The REALITY if not that we can't HANDLE it, but that if we were TOLD the TRUTH, we might come to the conclusion that the things the journalists and liberals in general support are not GOOD for this country and that's what they can't abide. They can't accept the FACT that America was at it's best BEFORE we became a progressively dominated "nanny state." Most people who live their lives in the progressively and marxist dominated professions will NEVER understand that big government is not the solution to our problems, but rather that it's the SOURCE of most of them. The best way to explain this view on the part of those who are of the progressive mindset is with this quote by Dresden James, who said: ‎"When a well-packed web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." That is why no liberal will EVER be able to relate to the average tea party member, or any small business owner. And WHO is that has been the most ardent SELLERS of the "well packed web of lies" that government FORCE and not individual initiative and personal responsibility, is the best path to prosperity. The two biggest "pushers" of the marxist DRUG are TEACHERS and JOURNALISTS.

In the case of TEACHERS they were first the addicts (victims of OTHER liberal educators who instilled in them a sense of victimization and need for social "justice" delivered by government) and now they are PUSHERS perpetuating a vicious cycle that's gone on for GENERATIONS now and results in students who can't read or write, but know that gay penguins are good and dodgeball is BAD. In the case of journalists, the same paradigm applies, but it is augmented and amplified because every "professional journalist" was trained in the Walter Lippmann model of journalism, aka PROPAGANDA.

Walter Lippmann was part of Woodrow Wilson's propaganda trio that included Edward Bernays and George Creel. These three were Wilson's allies in "persuading" the American oublic that we "needed" to be involved in World War I. Wilson's motivation for wanting us to get into this conflict was very simple. He saw it as the perfect way to bring out his "League of Nations" the precursor to the United Nations. Of course, trying to persuade the average American that his or her SON should risk DEATH for this lofty and imperious goal was gonna take a different method of "persuasion" which is where hs trio of propagandists come into play. In his book "The Phantom Public" Lippmann wrote "The hypothesis which seems to me the most fertile are that NEWS and the TRUTH are NOT the same thing and must be CLEARLY distinguished (emphasis added)." He goes on to say: "the function of news is to signalize an event. The function of TRUTH is to bring to light the HIDDEN facts, to set them into relation with each other, and to make a picture of reality on which can ACT" In other words, namely MINE, the "journalist" is, in FACT, a puppet master, NOT an honest broker of information. Is it any surprise then that the most infamous propagandist of them all, Dr. Josef Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of PROPAGANDA, read this BOOK.

Walter Lippmann is often hailed as the "Father of MODERN journalism" especially by students of the Columbia University School of Journalism where he is practically a DEITY. Columbia University has been the "mother ship" of American Communism (which is what many of the so-called liberals REALLY are) ever since the Nazis drove the Frankfurt Institute communists out of Germany and onto the faculty of Columbia University. So is it any wonder that students at THAT school of journallism would embrace PROPAGANDA as a means to their desired goals? In point of fact, the modern censorship and thought control phenomenon known as "political correctness ALSO originated at Columbia University, and was the product of Dr. Herbert Markusa and his colleagues, part of the aforementioned Frankfurt Institute Communists expatriated from Germany by the Nazis. Put marxists who worship at the alter of "political correctness" and "propaganda" together, and you have today's "Journalists."

The most "liberal" professions in the fabric of mdoern American society are the legal profession, the teaching profession, and the journalism profession. So, when teachers "misbehave" for political reasons, it stands to reason that their fellow liberals in the journalism profession would IGNORE of downplay that behavior so that the FACTS don't get in the way of the NARRATIVE they're trying to sell us. Teachers get a pass for bad political behavior, but they're front page news if they have SEX with a student. Criminal and terroristic death threats to opposing party policians-NOT news, but consensual sex with horny student-front page NEWS. It's all, quite simply, LIBERALS behaving BADLY!

The Baby Boomers, Our "WORST" Generation!

2011-02-09T14:48:00.002-06:00

"What's the matter with kids today?" is the title of a song from the musical "Bye, Bye Birdie" pretty much sums up everything I'm about to say about the generation that gave us hippies, "Hanoi Jane" Fonda, the "Easy Rider," Woodstock, and free lovin''. I'm referring of course to the "Baby Boomer" generation, those children born in the late 1940's following the end of World War II. This generation owes it's size and everything else to the fact that there were a lot of "hookups" happening when "Johnny came marching home" from the European and Pacific theaters. These actions had consequences, and in keeping with the morality of the day, these men and women got MARRIED and actually RAISED the children they had conceived during their drunken "hook-ups." Lucky for the BOOMER Generation, there WERE no Planned Parenthood abortion mills or free clinics around the corner to keep THEM from being born.

So how is it possible that the generation that survived the Great Depression and then fought and defeated the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan, came back home and led this country to one of the greatest periods of prosperity and growth the word has ever seen, produce a generation that in less than fifty years time would singlehandedly undo everything their parents and grandparents had done for them? Sadly, a significant portion of the blame rests wtih the Greatest Generation, themselves. They were so determined that their children should know none of the hardship and adversity that marred their younger lives that they were over-indulgent and over protective of their children to the extent that they literally spoiled them ROTTEN.

The GREATEST generation had grown up in a country that was in the grip of the Great Depression for mos of their lives. They had their CHARACTER forged in the blood and iron of World War II. They had know real hardships, deprivation, and seen all manner of human suffering and they were determined that their CHILDREN would not know such things if they could help it. This goal was made possible by the economc boom that followed the finish of both the WAR, and the economic policies of Frankin D. Roosevelt wnen a President with good old fashined COMMON SENSE took the office and proceeded to dismantle the maze of alphbet soup buracracies put in place during the New (or was it RAW) Deal. Truman understood that it was in fact these very policies that were responsbile for the United States being the ONLY country int he WORLD to have a GREAT Deperession, which had only ABATED during the war and reared its' ugly head once more when Johnny came marching HOME again and tried to a find a JOB that did NOT include catching bullets as part of its' enumeration of duties.

Thanks to the economic boom that Truman enabled, the children of the BOOMER generation were the first to grow up if not actually IN the LAP of luxury, they were in pretty closee proximity to it. It was THIS generation that was the first to expect new cloethes at the beginning of EVERY school year, catered birthday parties (complete with clown or magician), a backyard swimming pool, air conditioning, television, and the possibility of getting handed the keys to a new or late model used car upon reaching their seixteenth birthday and obtaining their driver's license. This was ALSO the first generation for whom the possibilty of a university education was more than a remote one. Sadly, many of the boomers did go to college wehre they ran smack into the waiting arms of communist ideologues tthat had been infiltrating the faculties of these colleges and universities since the early part of tghe twentieth century, when Americans learned the extent of the atrocities perpetrated by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution and Communism become the anathema to Americans that it did and SHOULD have REMAINED!

Imagine the pride shining in the eyes of parents of the GREATEST generation as they packed their wholesome, fresh faced, corn fed progreny off to college to become Doctors, or engineers, or even LAWYERS (which were still REPECTED in those days). These children would have opportunities the parents never even DREAMED of. Conversely, imaagine their HORROR when, a few short months LATER, they opened their door to find a greasy, long-haired, unhygenic, drug addled HIPPIE standing where there son had been, or if it's a daughter, add PREGNANT to the description, the father being one of her philosophy professors. Now imagine, that you've reovered from your initilal shock, only to find out over dinner that the child that had revered you as his HERO and wanted to be just like you, now referred to you as a "capitalist PIG" or "the MAN" or "the ESTABLISHMENT" or a "Bourgoisee criminal" and vowing to bring your entire way of life down around your ears. These were scenes that played out in American households all throughout the SIXTIES and SEVENTIES.

To be fair, not EVERY member of the boomer generation turned into a HIPPIE. Indeed, many of them, thanks to a strong Christian family upbringing, were able to resist the lure of marxism and the temptations of hedonism. It was for this reason that more extreme marxists like Bill Ayers opined that students needed to be radicalized at an earlier age, prompting many commynist thinkers and sympathizers to become teachers themselves and enter the elementary and secondary schools to being indoctrinating children that were less mature and less experienced. For these reasons, they were less likely to oppose the ideas being forced upon them by teachers more interested in creating future communistis than in actually TEACHING children to do anything productive, like READ. But that's a topic for a while different essay.

If there is a simple way to distill the real legacy of the boomers into something that will fit in a Twitter post, it would be that this generation destroyed the American concepts of personal responsibility, and the FAMILY. If you think about it logically, thanks to boomers actions no long have CONSEQUENCES, at leastt not PERSONAL ones, in theory at least.

Think about it this way. If you're sexually irresponsible, they created a pill to spare you those consequnces, and they'll give out condoms as well as teach you how to do things in school. if you STILL manage to and get KNOCKED up, they made it legal to murder the baby so it doesn't become a burden to you, and they'll even help you get around telling your PARENTS. If you opt to HAVE the child, you're eligible for all manner of free stuff from the federal and state government including unearned income tax cfedit, welfare, subsidized housing, food stamps, medicaid, etc. You've hit the JACKPOT.

Likewise, If you rack up debt you can't pay, no problem. They pass a law and suddenly you're FREE and CLEAR. If you take crazy risks run a business into the ground, no problem. Either the GOVENRMENT can bail you out, or you can go bankrupt, and as long as you haven't committed a criminal act (like a Madoff style Ponzii scheme) , your house, car, Rolex, and bank accounts are safe. Too bad the same CAN'T be said for your shareholders. This explains to conduct of Wall Street, Counbtrywide Morrgage, and FANNIE MAE and FREDDIE MAC in causing the recent housing and stock market MELTDOWN, but why it is that only Bernie Madoff lost everything and wen tto PRISON? Why is Angelo Mozilla still strutting aroudn free an dliving in his placial estate?

IN a different way of illustrating lack of personal responsibility, if a government wants to invade your privacy but that pesky FOURTH Amendment keeps getting in the way, no problem again. We'll just pass a PATRIOT Act, and suddenly, they can LEGALLY come into your home, business, bank account, mailbox or wahever whenever they please, and WITHOUT your knowledge, let alone CONSENT. The whole BOOMER generation thinks they can LEGISLATE anything, and that their drones in the LEGAL system and Judiciary will give them cover. Sadly, they seem to have been RIGHT in that assessment for the most part. Progressive or liberal activist judges have legalized CRIMINAL behavior msny times over.

Why do you think good little commies become either LAWYERS or Community Organizers? It's to FORCE legislation, or write law via the BENCH that they can't get through the ballot box such as ABORTION! No elected legislator ever passed a law legalizing abortion. That was done by the COURTS. Since the landmark and totally UNCONSITUTIONAL "Roe v. Wade" case, however, MANY legislators have voted to spend taxpayer dollars subsidizing the abortion INDUSTRY via Planned Parenthood, and now through Obama Care! Since the boomers entered colleges, more generation of Americans are becoming Teachers, lawyers, or community organizers than any other career fields. Wouldn't it nice if you could find a DOCTOR when you need one? Wouldn't it be even NICER to find MEN who know how to DO more than talk or type?

The BOOMERS have been on the political, social, and economic scene for nearly FIFTY years now, and in their wake is a country that went from a moral nation and an eoconomic and military superpower that produced the finest goods in the world and had a rock solid economy, to a national riddled with debt, social problems, economic misery, devalued currency and eroding freedoms. To see how much we've lost form what THEY inherited, you have only to watch old movies, find old newspapers on microfilm at your local library, watch reruns of "Happy Days" or even the more current show "Mad Men." I think one of the reasons for the popularity of THAT show, it that it reminds of the time in our history when it was really GOOD to be an AMERICAN! Clearly we've lost a LOT during the stewardship of the BOOMERS, and like the ripple effect created in a pond when you toss a rock in th ecenter, this generation has INFECTED every successive one in greater and greater numbers.

So, the next time you see an aged hippie boomer rolling down the road on his power scooter and you're sorely temptedto exact a little "poetic justice" by pushing it over on top of him, think again. The mantra of the boomers was "if if feels good, DO it" and though it may FEEL great to knock that old hippie over on his ass and crush him under his own scooter, don't DO it. In that way, you're REJECTING his entire philosophy of life, and only by doing THAT can we hope to being to clean up the MESS left to us by our WORST generation and restore this country to it's natural state of FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!

An Open Letter to All Celebutards!!!

2010-06-04T14:29:00.000-05:00

Dear Celebutards: (And you KNOW who you are)

Have any of you ever heard the phrase "biting off the hand that's feeding you?" Well, that is exactly what you're doing when you consistently attack this country's free market capital economy, for it is only THAT economy that makes your pampered, privileged, and overindulgent lifestyles possible. At the risk of breaching that dreaded "separation of church and state" you have been endowed by your creator with a gift. Whether that gift is a talent, athletic ability, the ability to string words together, or even just the vicissitude of good genes that makes you look good in jeans or a bikini, that "gift" together with some action on your part, enables you to live the lifetstyle and have the fame and adulation you now enjoy. It is that adulation that enables you to command attention when you speak. Sadly, most people don't actually LISTEN when you speak because they are too busy either mentally undressing you, or wishing that they WERE you to hear what you're saying. That enraptured state means that whatever you say will permeate the brains of your fans without any critical thinking intervention on their part so they will parrot what you say as if it were some kind of gospel.

To quote one of your own, the great Stan Lee, "with great power comes great responsibility" In case you don't recognize it, that was the sage Uncle Ben to the young Peter Parker, aka Spiderman. I realize that many of you did not ASK to be role models, and that you would probably rather NOT have gaggles of teenaged boys and girls aping your every move and hanging on your every word. In a perfect world that would not happen, but in THIS one, alas, it DOES. In a PERFECT world your drug and booze fueled exploits wouldn't get found the clock attention from tabloid press and the networks whose sole reason for existence is to expose us to what you do when you're not doing your so-called JOBS, bur without the Lindsey Lohan's of the world, where would the tabloids, the paparazzi, and shows like Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, or the entire E network be? But, because of the aforementioned entities, things you do and say are exposed to young and old alike so for God's sake please THINK before you speak.

Then there are the real hypocrites, like Michael Moore and Al Gore, who reap for themselves the benefits of free market capitalism while advocating for a form of governance that will effectively deny those same benefits to those who come after them. Michael Moore is the worst for he KNOWS that if he achieves the world he claims to want, he will have no place in it. It is only through free market capitalism and free enterprise that he enjoys the lifestyle and menu choices that he has clearly enjoyed with great relish. Hypocrites like these who talk the talk, but don't walk the walk make me ill. Though I totally disagree with the "greenies" like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ed Begley, Jr, Darryl Hannah, Matthew Modine, etc. I can at least respect them because unlike Moore and Gore, they PRACTICE what they preach. But Leo, you can only drive that Tessla sportscar and live in that green condo because people are willing to invest their hard-earnred GREEN so the studios can make your movies and people can buy tickets to SEE those movies. Again, I applaud you for your commitment to the environment, but remember that not everyone can AFFORD to do what you do. Same with Brad and Angie and all the other celebs that have helped out in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and again in Haiti. I applaud your generosity and your selflessness. But again remember that you could only DO those things because of the free market and capitalism.

The reason I chose the Sean Penn/Harvey Milk caricature as the illustration for this essay was that he and others in hollywood LIKE him bring to mind the old commercial that starts out with a soap opera actor saying "I'm not a Doctor, but I play one on TV" and then proceeds to advise us to buy some over the counter antacid. What does he know? He flat out said he's NOT a Doctor. At least that commercial was honest enough to give you a disclaimer so you could take the "doctor's" advice for what it was worth. Sadly, actors like Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Natalie Potman, etc. do NOT give you that disclaimer before they proceed to give political advice or speeches but c'mon, this is Jeff Spicoli we're talkin' about. Just cuz he's PLAYED politicians doesn't he he KNOWS politics. In fact he and his ilk are so far removed from the real world consequences of politics they have no business EVER getting involved in them, but thanks to Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack and their involvement the Kennedy campaign, there's been an unholy alliance between the fantasy merchants of Hollywood, and the political fantasies of Washington, DC. Problem is that WE in the REAL world have to LIVE with those politics, Hollywood is, for the most part, insulated by layers of wealth and privilege and therefore do NOT experience the horrors they inflict on us by virtue of helping elect "Stuart Smalley" to the United States Senate.

It's not at all surprising to me that more and more celebrity types seem to embrace the "total government" concept of Marxism. If they're under the age of 40 and attended public school, they've been indoctrinated by left leaning teachers and school administrators since pre-school. If they went on to attend college, as many actors and athletes did, the indoctrination went into overdrive. If they never got out of the protected bubble envicornment of academia and into the REAL world prior to achieving their "celebrity" status, they've never had a chance to learn the way th world REALLY works for themselves. I had the same public school education.indoctrination and also attended a very liberal univeristy, but it was my military service and business entrepreneurial adventures that taught me (the HARD way) that everything I had been taught to believe in was a crock of SAND. Today's youg people are having the same realizations I did, but sadly, thanks to liberal thinking a social experimentation, the lack the coping mechanisms to deal with their disappointments. This is the reason for the phenomenon known as the "quarter life crisis." In Hollywood, it's what happens when a child star can't make the transition to adult actor cuz he's no longer the cherubic cutie pie he was when he was six. In sports, it's when an athlete peaks in high school or college and never quite makes it to the big game. In business, it's when you realize there's no such thing as a participation triphy, and that if you mess up, you don't see a purple pen mark, you grt a PINK SLIP! If you've never been allowed to fail before, how can you be expected to handle a failure in later life?

The older hollywood liberal/radical types like Sean Penn are the product of indoctrination both in schools, and in their day to day acting experiences. They were first the protegees of actors from the Boomer generation, many of whom were the drug addled hippies of Woodstock, and they've become drug and alcohol addled themselves. Add to that a steady diet of memorizing lines written by writers who are (for the most part) to the left of Nikiti Sruschev going back to the days of the early twentieth century when Communism and Progressivism were hip, slick, and cool and attracted the likes of playwright Eugene O'Neil and Hollywood Ten writer, Ring Landner, Jr. and you can see how the post boomers come to think as they do. As many actors become producers, again due to the beuefit of free market capitalism, the cycle is perpetuated from mentors to protegees. Notwithstanding all the foregoing, Hollywood is a BIG Union controlled town, and all know where UNIONS come from. I'm sure that most of this is new information to you, and it's an arrogant person indeed that doesn't think he or she still has much to learn in this life. The reason the celebutards do not know these things is because they have not been permitted to LEARN them. Our history and the true nature of what it means to be an AMERICAN has been stolen from several generations of our citizens and it is only NOW that we're starting to realize this and seeking to regain that knowledge for ourselves.

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later, you run out of OTHER people's money." That's a quote from the "Iron Lady" herself, Britain's Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. So my dear celebutard, if yiou think your lifestyle will not be affected if the government you champion gets the total control it's craving, think again. If we are no longer a free marked capitalist economy, where will the money come from for YOU? There will only be ONE patron left that can afford you, and that patron will be the government. Evern wonder what it was like to be an enetertainment or sports celebrity in Nazi Germany? Wonder what it was like for Max Schmelling to return to Gernmany and face the likes of Hermann Goering and Adolf Hitler after getting his butt beat by a black man? I sure it was NOT a pleasant experience for him. And I have first hand knowledge of what it was like to be a dancer in the Moscow Ballet back in the days of Leonid Brezhnev cuz I met a woman who used to be one and subsequently became the mistress of the said Leonid Breznev, a man who was about as attractive to her as a bullfrog, but who was able to give her a nicer apartnment, better clothes, jewelry, etc. until he tired of her and moved on to a younger woman. She fell from grace almost as quickly and found herself in her middle aged years working in a factory that produced parts for tanks. It was NOT a glorious existence. Think it can't happen to you? You're too young to remember the days of the studio bosses, but how about the child stars of Different Strokes? Their fortunes were stolen out from under them and they turned to lives of prostitution, pornography and crime. They all DIED well before their time, too. Think it can't happen to you? If we get a Totalitarian government that craves money, how long do you think it'll be fore it wans YOURS? After all, when asked why he robbed banks, famed bank robber Willie Sutton replied, "cuz that's where the money is."

As a small business entrepreneur and free market capitalist, I don't begrudge you your success. I understand that your pretty face, hot body, talent pool, ability to punt, hit, or catch a ball, are your stock in trade. Unlike the President you so giddily supported in the last election, I don't think there ever comes a time that "You've made enough money." because I understand that as long as people are willing to buy what you sell, you're entitled to be paid. If you likeness sells tickets, DVDs, sports drinks, cereal, sneakers, etc., you're entitled to a share in that revenue and it should only be the free market itself that places a cap upon your earnings, not a governmental entity. I'm sure you see it the same way now that we're talking about YOUR money don't you? But if that government you champion takes away OURS, then we won't be able to hire people so neither we nor they will be able to buy those things, or tickets to see your movies, concerts, or sporting events. Should that happen, you won't have the millions to party with, either. And if that government chooses to increase the taxes you pay, how many of you will keep company with Wesley Snipes in federal court trying to protect what is YOURS from a greedy, grapsing, intrusive federal government. How long do you think it will be before that same government tells you what kind of content you can produce, or how much skin you can show, etc. Where does it end? The reality is, that it DOESN'T end. Power and control only create a desire for MORE power and control. If you think your parents and coaches are bad, try a nanny state GOVERNMENT on for size. I've SEEN what kind of government can do, and it's not pretty. I've walked in the ruins of the former Soviet Union and belive me, you don't want THAT here.

So, in conclusion, Dear Celebutard, SHUT UP and sing, act, dance, and hit, bounce, or kick that ball, or do whatever it is that you do to deserve your celebrity and notoriety (and believe me when I say for MANY of you, I have no CLUE what that is) secure in the knowledge that, unless we actually GET the government you champion, life will be wonderful for you. But leave the politics to those of us who live the REAL world and do the things that make your fairytale existence possible. If you continue to bite the hands that are feeding you, one day there might not be anyone left to do so. Can you imagine Michael Moore on a DIET? Unless you want to go back to waiting tables, digging ditches, or flipping burgers, be careful what you wish for because in the words of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, "that government that is big enough to give you anything you want is also strong enough to take away EVERYTHING you have."

Sincerely,

Silence Dewgoode (GOOGLE HER)
Flyover Country,(what the glitteratti refer to as the land between Hollywood and New York or Washington, DC) USA

The "Myth" and "Reality"of Health Care Reform

2010-02-26T12:25:00.014-06:00

Yesterday I, like many of my fellow Americans, lost several hours of my life that I will NEVER get back watching the "Blair House Dog n' Pony" show that was the Health Care Summit. The purported idea behind the "summit" was for Republican and Democratic congressmen to engage in a free and open exchange of ideas for reforming our health care delivery system with the President and members of his administration. On the surface this is what appears to have occurred, but as we're all too well aware, appearances can be deceiving. Since this Administration and Congress took power, that seems to have become the RULE itself, not the exception it was once thought to be. What became readily apparent to me, however, was that what was happening had absolutely NOTHING to do with health care reform at all. What health care "reform" is, and has ALWAYS been, is a naked power grab by the federal government of the United States. It is the latest in a SERIES of grabs, by this government for federal control of private businesses and industries with the SOLE aim of increasing the POWER of the federal government. This is FASCISM by definition.

When the Democrats initiated healthcare "reform" their stated goal was to bring down the cost curve, to allow for portability of insurance, to eliminate the pre-existing condition exclusion, and to ensure that the however many millions of uninsured Americans there REALLY are (since the number varies in each politician's speech) could obtain affordable healthcare coverage. Then the Democratic controlled houses of Congress managed to put together and pass two bills that accomplish few if ANY of their stated goals (according to a panoply of non-political business, economic, and insurance experts), expand the size and authority of the federal government, and cost the taxpayers approximately a TRILLION dollars above and beyond the current budget.

While the public had voiced it's disapproval at the directions the Democrats were taking their legislation at Town Hall meetings and tea party rallies, the Democrats chose to ignore their constituents and press ahead. But when word of the veritable "bribery" of Senators Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson became public knowledge, voter anger exploded and the Democrats lost their veto proof super majority in the senate as Massachusetts elected Scott Brown to the Senate head long held by the late democratic Senator, Edward M. Kennedy. This turnover of a once secure seat to a republican in the very democratic state of Massachusetts, together with rising public disapproval for their legislation, and the fact that all house democrats and several prominent senators have to face re-election in less than a year put the legislation on a very shaky footing. While the separate bills had passed in their respective houses, there were substantial differences between the two bills that would make reconciliation difficult if not impossible. To many, myself included, it appeared as though the push for health care reform was effectively stalled, if not dead.

Then, out of nowhere, it's back and now the Democrats realize they are going to need republican support to get health care legislation passed. Additionally, because of the upcoming election, they WANT the political cover of having republicans on board with this legislation. To this end, they have been courting the more progressive republicans in both the Senate and House and getting nowhere. For this reason, President Obama convened the Health Care Summit at Blair House so that prominent congressional democrats and republicans could get together with him and key members of his administration to try to arrive at a workable compromise legislation that could garner true bi-partisan support. To their credit, Republican legislators showed up and presented a variety of time tested and proven free market solutions which, if implemented, would likely produce the results the democrats claim to want, and without the trillion dollar price tag or need to expand federal bureaucracy. If the Democrats really wanted to fix the system, they would take the Republican's ideas, put them in the bill, and if they worked, take credit for fixing health care in the next election and, if they didn't, blame the Republicans in the next election. All this is merely academic at this point as health care reform is only the magician's assistant. The REAL "trick" in these pieces of legislation is the creation of an American replication of Great Britain's National Health Service.

The National Health Service of Great Britain is the largest single employer on that tiny island. One out of every three working adult Britains is employed by this agency. Of these only one out of three is a medical professional such as a doctor or a nurse. The rest are paper pushing bureaucrats. If you take into account all the workers of other British governmental agencies, nearly forty-five percent of all adult workers in England work for the government and one HUNDRED percent depend on that government for health care. This creates a large and LOYAL voting constituency for the Labor party resulting in that party's veritable stranglehold on political power for the majority of the past thirty years. A great French writer by the name of Alexis De Tocqueville once stated that "Democracy will endure until the day politicians discover that they can bribe the people with public funds." That is EXACTLY what has kept the Labor party in power, and this lesson has NOT gone unheeded by our own democratic politicians.

In addition to the INTENT of the health care "reform" legislation, there is a far more dire and (I HOPE) unintended consequence that can occur if this legislation is signed into law in it's present forms. The net effect of this budgetary nightmare might very well bring to fruition the Cloward-Piven Stragety, especially when combined with the unravelling of the Ponzii schemes that the Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs have become. Thanks in no small part to the Babt Boomer's free love and unfettered abortion policies there are not enough working adults in the private sector of the economy paying into the system to keep pace with the benefits that will have to paid out, esp if no new manufacturing or other capital producing jobs are created in the next ten years. To understand what the net effect of Cloward-Piven will be, you have only to look at what happened to the former Soviet Union, and what's happening in Greece today. Thst is Cloward-Piven in ACTION.

The total economic, political, and social upheaval in this country that would result is the revolution that many progressive Baby Boomers have been dreaming about and creaming their flower appliqued bell-bottomed jeans over since they were teenagers fornicating in the mud at Woodstock. The destruction of America as it has always been, and the remaking of it as a socialist UTOPIA is and has ALWAYS been the goal of the boomer progressives, and with this one piece of legislation, they may well be able to achieve that goal and put the final nail in the coffin that was once the United States of America.What Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground could not accomplish with their bombs, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid may be able to do with their two thousand page bills.

Woith the election of Republican Scott Brown and the loss of the democrats filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, we the PEOPLE thought we had ended this very existential threat. Sadly, healthcare reform seems to have had a "Lazarus" moment and is once again alive and well. Actually, the legislation is more like Michael Myers in the "Halloween" movies and we all know that you can't kill the boogeyman. But like the boogeyman, if you don't kill this legislation now and for all time, it will rise up again and kill you and yours, fiscally speaking.

If the Democrats are allowed to succeed in this, when we go on to our great reward, or punishment, as the case may be, we may very well have to face the Founding Fathers and account for the mess we made of their once noble experiment. Remember, these guys settled their differences with canes, swords, and pistols, and we may very well deserve the thrashing we will receive at their hands for what we have allowed to happen to what THEY bequeathed us. In less than fifty years time, these elitist idiotswill have rolled back every reform of humanism since the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. We think it no good thing that Islamic terrorists want to take us back to the Dark Ages, but in reality it's our own progressive elites that want to return us to the Dark Ages and feudal serfdom. I truly hope there is a special corner in the hottest part of hell for progressive politicians in BOTH parties for the part they have played in systematically destroying the last, best, hope for mankind and freedom in this world.

You MIGHT be a PATRIOT If: . .

2010-01-24T12:00:00.003-06:00

You MIGHT be a PATRIOT if:

1. You can say the Pledge of Allegiance with pride swelling your chest instead of a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach and the inate desire to remove the words "under God" from the last part of the final statement.

2. You believe that the FAMILY is the best environment for raising children, not the collective public schools, and that it is the FAMILY that should provide children with a moral, spiritual, and political foundation, not the SCHOOL and certainly not any individual TEACHER.

3. You think the United States Constitution should be READ and not read INTO by those office holders who have sworn the oath to support, protect, and DEFEND that said Constitution, not obliterate it with a series of laws designed solely to achieve or maintain their own political power and prestige.

4. You believe that man's rights come from GOD and Natures and not from any elected legislature, and further that that rights of life, liberty and the PURSUIT of HAPPINESS do not include a guarantee that one will BE happy, nor can any GOVERNMENT guarantee one's happiness by the passing of any law.

5. You believe that ones elected legislators are elected to REPRESENT their constituents not to RULE over them, and that a formal education, while necessary in preparing one for certain career pursuits, in no way renders one more intelligent or more entitled to power than one not so formally educated.

6. You believe that the right to vote is sacrosanct and should only be exercised by LIVING, BREATHING American citizens, properly IDENITIFIED as such.

7. You believe that the words "career" and "politician" should never rest together in the same sentence and be used to describe any one man or woman in his or her lifetime. Politicians should be more in the vein of the ancient Roman Cincinnatus, not CAESAR or for a more contemporary example, George Washington who not ONCE, but TWICE voluntarily relinquished power when he could have had absolute power for LIFE, nor Franklin Roosevelt who thought he should be President for LIFE, prompting our elected officials to pass a constitutional amendment ensuring there would be no more such ambitions realized in this country.

8. You believe in American exceptionalism and the power of the individual, and believe that we are citizens of the United States of America, NOT citizens of the WORLD at large.

9. You believe that the individual citizen cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without DUE PROCESS OF LAW, which means following the LAW, not DOING whatever the heck the government wants under COLOR of law.

10. You believe that your freedoms are rights are worth fighting to preserve AT ALL COSTS because like Patrick Henry and our forefathers, we are resolved to live and DIE as free men rather than to submit to slavery and tyranny, even from our OWN GOVERNMENT!

Where Have All Our JOBS Gone?

2010-01-13T14:54:00.002-06:00

In the days of the hippies and the Vietnam war protests there was a song frequently sung by the protesters called "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" It was a hit for the group "The Kingston Trio" and was based on a Russian poem called "And Quietly Flows the Don." The gist of both the song and the poem were that all things have both a cause and an effect and are cyclical in nature. In the song, the first question posed was "Where have all the flowers gone?" Answer: "Young girls picked them everyone." The next question was "where have all the young girls gone?" Answer" Gone to young men, everyone" followed by men to soldiers, soldiers to graveyards, and graveyards to flowers illustrating both the futility of war and the cyclical nature of all things using the flower as a metaphor for life. Makes sense, doesn't it? However, when the same question is posed about American jobs, too often the political ideology kicks in and the blame game begins. If you're a conservative, you blame the UNIONS. If you're a liberal or marxist, you blame big business and Wall Street. In either case, you'd be both wrong and RIGHT. To blame either faction as the sole cause of the eradication of the manufacturing sector of our economy would be an oversimplification and misinterpretation of the events that transpired to bring it about. In the period following the end of World War II to about the mid 1970's, roughly two thirds of the finished manufactured goods sold all over the world were made in the United States. During this period, we had relatively non-existent unemployment because anyone willing to WORK could find a job. Not only could one FIND a job with relatively little education or experience but one could support himself and his family in a respectable manner on what he earned from working at such a job. It was also possible to work that same job for twenty years or so and retire from it with a gold watch and a pension that, together with accumulated social security benefits, would allow one to live a relatively secure and comfortable retirement. To understand how we went from being the world's largest producer of finished goods to one of the world's largest consumers, you have to look at organized labor, progressive politicians, and the wolves of wall street. 'm not writing this solely for the purpose of bashing labor unions. Unions have done a lot of good things for the American worker. Without Unions, there would be no 40 hour work week, sick days, maternity leave, worker's comp, child labor laws, and a variety of other laws we take for granted in the modern workplace. At their inception, Unions were comprised of men who WORKED in the industry whose workers they represented. They were true peers of their fellow union bretheren, and as such, represented their interests with diligence and empathy. By the late 1950s however, unions had been corrputed by both organized crime, and management that had no relationship to or understanding of its' members as they had been hired directly out of college without having EVER done a hard day's work in their lives. In the 1940s, the unions had been infiltrated by organized crime families who used their dues pools and retirement pension funds to build casinos in Havana and Las Vegas. In the election of 1960, Kennedy family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy used this relationship to secure the election of his son, John F. Kennedy, to the presidency. From that time on, Union leaders saw the power and profit potential inherent in politics and became more concerned with their personal and political ambitions than the welfare of their members. Unions used their newfound legislative clout to get laws passed the strengthened their position in collective bargaining and to extort higher wages and greater benefits including "cadillac" health care benefits and stock options for their workers. This went on for a time until the cheaper imported manufactured goods began entering the country and finding their way onto store shelves. Free market forces put the American manufacturers in an untenable position between a rock and a hard place and they realized they could not continue in business if they couldn't be competitive in pricing their products. However, due to their high labor costs and union contracts, they could do nothing to bring down their manufacturing costs so they were hemorrhaging market share to the cheaper imports. This resulted in declining sales, declining profits, and declining share values. More than one manufacturer was run out of business altogether, but some found a way to shake the union yoke once and for all and still remain profitable and this is when the "Wolves" of Wall Street started to howl. In the Reagan era the 1980s, wall streeters coined a new term America's financial lexicon. This term was "maximizing shareholder value." It was this concept that gave rise to the corporate raider portrayed to perfection by Michael Douglas in the character of Gordon Gekko from Oliver Stone's classic movie "Wall Street." What the corporate raider did was seek out companies that had been declining in profits and share prices, but still had sufficient cash and assets to make the acquisition worthwhile. Raiders however had no intention of running the business once they bought it. Their purpose was to dismantle these corporations and sell off their assets because the companies were more valuable for their parts than for the corporation as a whole and functioning business. They would "maximize the shareholder value by buying the shares at or above market price thereby removing the shareholders from the business model. They would then either work with the existing board of directors to liquidate the assets of the corporation like its real property, inventory, fixtures and equipment or replace them with a slate of officers chosen by the liquidator specifically for this purpose. Employees would be immediately terminated because the board only has a fiduciary duty to shareholders not to employees, and the equipment would be sold off, normally to an overseas concern. The dirty little secret to this whole process is that before the takeover, the boards of directors would organize another company overseas in a country that was more hospitable to business and when the equipment and fixtures was sold, it would be that company, secretly owned and operated by the same board of directors, that would purchase the equipment and fixtures. The company would then set up a new company to import and sell to retail the products now manufactured overseas, and it's profit would come from the wholesale to retail sales model now in place. By this slight-of-hand, the corporations effectively reorganized, removed the union and the high labor and operating costs they would have paid in this country, and with a more streamlined business model in place, could realize greater profits than were realized prior to the "liquidation." New company name and no manufacturing jobs means no more UNION obligations. This process was repeated throughout the 1980s and 90s until the manufacturing sector of the American economy was all but EXTINCT, and it's not limited to manufacturing either. Try calling customer service for your credit card to airline today and you'll probably be talking to someone in New Dehli, India. Apparently it's cheaper to pay the long distance charges and the Indian wage than it is to pay Union scale wages and benefits in the customer service industry. The loss of the jobs was not the goal of either the unions or the progressives in government. The INTENT of the unions was to use government power that they bought and paid for to effectively steal the corporations and their profits from their rightful owners, the shareholders, as we saw in the rape of GM and Chrysler by both the UAW and the US Government acting in concert. The LOSS of the manufacturing jobs and resulting boom-bubble-BUST economic cycles was an "unintended consequence" of the progressive political and social agenda. Seems, however, that most, if not ALL of those progressive political and social agendas are fraught with the damages from the "unintended consequences" on progressives who don't think past the end of their upturned noses when implementing their ideologically driven, but poorly reasoned, agendas. At the beginning of this piece I referenced the song "Where have all the flowers gone/" I chose that song not only to illustrate the cyclical nature of events, but because it has a most appropriate tag line for our current economic and political situation. That line is "When will we EVER learn?"

Terrorists, Freedom Fighters, and PSYCHOPATHS, Oh MY!

2009-11-12T10:36:00.012-06:00

It has often been said that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Certainly this statement has been proven true at various times in recorded history. Few could argue that the Jewish patriots who died in the mountain fortress of Massada were freedom fighters, yet to their Roman overlords they were undoubtedly thought of as terrorists, and criminals. One of the earliest and more heroic of the "freedom fighter" genre, is Robin of Loxley, aka Robin Hood. This "outlaw" is still considered by many to be the protoypical freedom fighter and folk hero, but to the political establishment under the Regency of Prince John, he was undoubtedly considered an outlaw and a terrorist. But we need not look so far back in history or so far away as there have been more than a few notable examples of the Terrorist/Freedom Fighter dichotomy right here in the good old USA.

The first American example of the terrorist/freedom fighter dichotomy is the organization founded by Sam Adams prior to the start of the American Revolution, the Sons of Liberty. While to most patriotic Americans, these men were the original freedom fighters in our nation's history, to the Tory politicians and British loyalists as well as today's more liberal historical textbook authors, this was a terrorist organization. In the strictly esoteric definition of the word, the Sons of Liberty WERE terrorists. They often employed mob tactics and they did indeed terrorize the targets of their political disagreements. Sometimes this was simple intimidation done by vandalizing property or the more extreme measure of hanging the target in effigy or burning the effigy in front of the intended victim and his family. When the "simple" method failed, they sometimes resorted to the more "personal" attack on the unfortunate person manifesting in either simply assaulting the unfortunate individual, or the more cruel and extremely humiliating act of "tarring and feathering." In this practice, the hapless politician or government official would be overwhelmed physically, restrained, stripped to the waist, and his skin would be coated in hot tar and before the tar cooled, a feather pillow would be opened and the individual would be covered in a layer of chicken or goose feathers.

Now one can only imagine how painful being captured, assaulted, stripped, and painted with hot tar might be. Surely it resulted in second if not third degree burns to the skin as just as likely resulted in loss of a layer or two of skin as it was removed. Then, factor in the humiliation of being paraded around town to be seen by friend and foe alike in this most embarassing condition. Given that these barbarities were more often than not perpetrated as a result of political disagreements, you could easily conclude that the Sons of Liberty were indeed terrorists AND psychopaths, but they were "fighting" for the freedom of the American colonies from the tyranny of the British monarchy which makes them freedom fighters. And since we are the beneficiaries of that liberty they fought for, we should never think of them as anything BUT freedom fighters and patriots for that is EXACTLY what they were.

Another example of this dichotomy can be found in the person of John Brown. John Brown raised a civilian militia to fight to keep the then lawful institution of slavery out of Kansas, and ultimately to abolish the institution altogether and free the thousands of African slaves from bondage. His tactics included mob violence, vandalism, assault, arson, rape, and murder so in that regard he is both a terrorist and a psychopath. He was unapologetic about any acts and atrocities committed by him or his followers because he believed his cause justified his actions. This makes him a psychopath, but since he was fighting for the liberties of thousands of people who were in fact enslaved, he is also a freedom fighter. He met his end when he attempted to invade a federal arsenal to steal weapons to arm slaves so they would fight in rebellion against the lawful authority of the United States and when he was captured by then Colonel Robert E. Lee, he was charged with sedition and treason and executed as a criminal. To his victims he was a psychopath and a terrorist, but to history and to the descendents of those slaves, and to many other Americans today, he was a freedom fighter and a hero. Strangely the same can be said of Robert E. Lee as well.

To my possibly oversimplified way of thinking, to be labeled a "freedom fighter" you must FIRST be fighting for FREEDOM, either your own, or someone else's. The examples I've given thus far surely meet that test. However, there are those on the LEFT, especially the Hollywood Left, that want to consider the likes of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara (shown above), as the POSTER CHILDREN of freedom fighters. Sadly, I think the many Cuban expatriates who daily brave 90 miles of shark infested ocean in the flimsiest of homemade water craft for a chance at the REAL freedom of the United States, might tend to disagree with that characterization. Indeed, Fidel Castro WON his fight, so where's the FREEDOM he ostensibly fought for? It's nowhere to be found on the whole island of Cuba, if you believe the accounts of any resident of Miami's "Little Havana" district. The same can be said for any leftist country in the WORLD today, yet those on the LEFT side of our own political system continue to sing the praises of the likes of Karl Marx, Chairman Mao, Fidel Castro and now that latest liberal fantasy leader, Hugo Chavez. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that there are those on the LEFT that have NO understanding of what freedom actually IS. How else can you account for their embrace of totalitarian DICTATORS as freedom fighters.

Another example the LEFT frequently get WRONG is the Islamic extremist/Terrorist. While celebrities like Roise O'Donnell proclaim that the muslim terrorists are just like we are, fighting for their home and family, you have to wonder what she's been smoking. First of all, most suicide bombers and terrorists HAVE no immediate families. Second, they represent no sovereign state, and what they are actually fighting FOR is to force the world into a state of total submission to a way of life not seen on this earth since the centuries were measured in single digits. What THEY are fighting for is the total antithesis of FREEDOM. And the WOMEN who champion their cause, would be the first to be killed by them. Rosie O'Donnell would certainly not enjoy a celebrity lifestyle under sharia extremism. She would even be KILLED for refusing to submit herself to a MAN as her husband. Her own FATHER would likely have killed her the moment she revealed her homosexuality to him because under sharia law, homosexuality by EITHER sex is a sin and therefore a CRIME. Look at how many muslim fathers are killing their daughters just for wearing makeup and tight jeans? Those guys are just so TOLERANT, aren't they?

Why the political and social LEFT in this country can't seen to grasp the simple FACT that there are people both in and outside this country who want to KILL us for no reason other than we EXIST, is beyond me. They want to deny civil rights and protections to AMERICAN citizens with whom they have a political disagreement on a daily basis, but they can't give our civil liberties to people who are neither entitled to nor deserving of them, fast enough. They want to deprive Americans of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, but they want TERRORISTS and KILLERS to have the full protections of our judicial system and our overall way of life, which these terrorists and killers want to wipe from the face of the earth. Does that make sense to anyone?

Last, but certainly not least, why is it that so many of the LEFT and extremists in both our country and the countries that spawn the most terrorism come from parents who have succeeded in thier lives allowing their children to have the best of everything at little to no effort on their part? Classic examples of this are Usama Bin Laden himself, Ayman Al Zawahiri, and even the "knicker-bomber" who tried to blow up the flight to Detroit on Christmas Day. These were all men who came from privileged and sucessful families. The most liberal men and women in this country come from country club backgrounds and ivy league educations. Even the "Mad Major" Nadal Hassan got the best education this country could offer for FREE, and look how he expressed his gratitude. Likewise with President Barak Obama himself, and William Ayers, Bernadine Dorn, Cass Sunstein, and Van Jones, too. The only exception to this is the hollywood celebrities, many of who came from middle class backgrounds or worse. THEY are liberals out of a sense of guilt, because that's the classic recruitment issue for liberals. They are apologetic and feel guilty for their success, just as they are ashamed of and apologetic for the stature of the United States in relation to the rest of the world. This perhaps accounts for their willingness, even EAGERNESS, to bring it to economic and social RUIN. Fairness is all, after all, if you're a liberal. To bad they don't feel the need to extend that "fairness" to the people that actually WORK for and EARN their success.

The thing the liberals just don't seem to get is that if they weaken this country, the people who will overrun it and want to kill us will make NO distinction between them and the rest of us. They may be USED, much as the "sonderkommandos" were used by the Nazis in the concentration camps to help control and exterminate their fellow Jews, but they will only be buying time, because their turn will come. I wonder how Susan Sarandon and Lindsey Lohan would like living in Usama Bin Laden's world? My guess is not very much, but if we get overrun by these extremists, that's EXACTLY the world we'll be living in. Do YOU want to see Megan Fox in a birkha r rather than a bikini on the cover of Maxim? I don't want to see her PERIOD, but if I did, I would want to SEE her cuz the visual is all there is from what I can tell.

As for psychopaths all terrorists are psychopaths, and SOME freedom fighters have a touch of psychopathy in their constitution as well. Anyone who can take human lives without regret, remorse, or even sympathy is a psychopath. As for politicians, there's some pathology at play there, too. There HAS to be to convert elected representatives into dictatorial rulers. And the way our current crop feel that their judgment is superior to the vast majority of their constituents can only lead one to the conclusion that they no longer feel any obligation to respect the will of the people they purport to represent. Thomas Jefferson, the founding father that founded the Democratic Party, once said: "When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is TYRANNY." That makes THEM tyrants, and the enforcement of their fiats is likely to make them terrorists as well. Whether it is arrogance, hubris, or chutzpah on their parts, our elected representatives have decided to use their political gang to hijack much of this country's economy and they are doing so without concern for political or judicial challenges that may ensue, To me, THAT'S terrorism on par with anything the Islamic extremists are doing. If Usama Bin Laden wants to destroy our way of life, he may already be too late because Barak Hussein Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are beating him to it.

Rage, Politics, and the Barrel of a GUN!

2009-11-07T16:00:00.005-06:00

In the past several days, indeed over the past several YEARS, we've seen more than a few people attempt to vent their frustrations and assuage their rage with loaded guns and a body count. I can personally recall the mass shootings at The post office, Columbine High School, The Atlanta brokerage office, Virginia Tech, and the college in northern Illinois. Just this week we've seen two back-to-back yet unrelated incidents at Fort Hood,Texas and an office in Orlando, Florida. While there is no definitive connection between any of these incidences, there ARE similarities in the motivation and causation of each. In every case just named, the shooter was a male who felt he was the victim of an injustice or injury that he felt powerless to resolve or ameliorate. His frustration builds , along with despair and rage in equal proportion until they reach critical mass and he decides his life is no longer worth living. However, instead of merely committing suicide, these shooters resolve to reclaim the power they feel has been taken from them, to go out in the proverbial "blaze of glory," and (in a poetic measure of "justice") take the people they feel are responsible for their miseries (no matter how inaccurate their perceptions) out with them. Though there are subtle variations to this basic architecture in each of these cases, the underlying foundations are uniform. Sadly, with our recessive economy, these incidents of sporadic violence are on the rise. This is nothing new as we've frequently seen upticks of violence in down economic cycles. During the depression we saw the rise of cold-blooded killer gangsters like "Baby Face" Nelson, "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. These people loved violence for the sake of violence and happily sprayed lethal streams of lead wherever they went. However, since their most frequent victims were banks and bankers, the "schaddenfreude" aspect of human nature kicked in, and we took a perverse pleasure at the violence directed at the banks, which many Americans perceived to be the cause of their miseries, and these thugs were turned into Robin Hood like folk heroes. In the economic miseries of the 1970s it was the radiical and violent groups like the Black Panthers, and The Weather Underground that were turned into the folk heroes of the leftists who wanted government collapse, anarchy, and power to the people. Sadly, some of these people survived, escaped the prosecution and imprisonment they so richly deserved, and mainstreamed back into society where their higher education was used to corrupt students and further their radical agendas by inflicting their radical ideologies on the youth of America. This campaign of indoctrination begins as early as preschool and kindergarten and continues right on through high school and college. It is no accident that the overwhelming majority of new voters register and support not only Democrats, but the most RADICAL and MARXIST of democratic politicians in every election cycle in which they can be counted upon to participate. Typically (and THANKFULLY) this is only a Presidential election, and even then only when a Presidential candidate actually appeals to them. This is why John Kerry did NOT get the same level of support from younger voters that Barak Obama did. Now, as for the political element in all of this, today we are faced with a very real existential threat to our American way of life and that threat does not come from a foreign power as in the days when the Soviet Union was the source of all evil in the world, but from our very own elected government. We have empowered the most radical slate of elected officials in our history, and every item on its legislative agenda is purposely designed to deprive American citizens of their freedom and rights to private property and personal wealth. Now the same was said of Franklin Roosevelt's administration and rightly so, but the difference between the Roosevelt government, and the current administration and congress is like the difference between the softer European socialism of France and Germany, and the hardline socialism of the former Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. We have empowered a cabal of elitist politicians that want to "fundamentally transform the United States of America" as if the present model which has taken us from horseback to space ships in less than 200 years isn't good enough anymore. This slate of politicians got elected by deceiving the majority of voters into believing that they were moderates with only the best interests of the American people at heart, when in reality they are firmly committed Marxist idealogues with only the maintenance and spreading of their own power and ideology at the root of every item on their toxic legislative agenda. We the PEOPLE know that if the Marxist/Democrats succeed in passing their slate of legislation, it will result in the greatest confiscation of property and restraint of personal liberty this country has ever seen and more than a simple majority of the people of this country want NOTHING to do with it. When we typically have a disagreement with our elected officials, there are several forms of political activity available to us to try to change their behavior. In ordinary circumstances we write letters to our congressmen to inform them of how we feel about their legislation or support and if enough people send enough letters, they get the message and alter their behavior. If letters aren't enough, we call them. If that doesn't work, we show up at their offices and make our feelings known, and if all that fails, we vote them out of office in the next election cycle. Today, much to our frustration and dismay, NONE of those measures seems to have any effect on these politicians. They are so driven and committed to their ideology, that they are not responsive to the wishes of the people they purport to represent. They seem to have forgotten that THEY work for US and not the other way around, although most of us typically have to work more than six months out of every year just to pay our taxes and fees, so that doesn't always seem to be the case anymore. The last and most extreme political measure available to people to protest against the policies of their government is the ballot. Though there was no election on a national scale, people who wanted to change the direction of our current government put their energies and money behind two gubenatorial elections to oust the democratic incumbent and candidate and elect conservative republican candidates. Though many Americans could not legally VOTE in either the Virginia or New Jersey elections (unless of course they belonged to ACORN), conservatives and republicans across the country gave financial and political support to the conservative republican candidates and these efforts succeeded in ousting the democratic incumbents and candidates in states that previously been solidly for democrats in hopes of sending these democrats on capitol hill a clear and unambiguous message to stop what they're doing or the same fate could befall them in 2010. This action was ignored, minimized as "state politics" and indeed, the democrats have even spun these elections as a political victory. So now we have anger at what our elitist politicians are trying to do to us, and a growing sense of frustration because we don't seem to be able to do anything about it. We HAVE written letters and even sent e-mails and tea bags only to be ignored. We've made phone calls only to speak to a third tier flunky who gives us a canned platitude in response to our concerns. We've also shown up and protested, first at town halls, then at tea parties, only to be ignored or worse, ridiculed and insulted. Tea Party protesters have been called everything from racists to nazis and branded as unpatriotic and un-American. Funny how the dissenters to government were heroes and patriots when it was democratic protesters against a republican controlled government. This hypocrisy, as well as the heaping of insult on top of injury only adds to the growing sense of frustration and rage building across this country. This elitist cabal of politicians, together with its' willing accomplices in the media and academia is now poised to ultimately destroy the American way of life as we've known it. They further intend to cede American sovereignty to the United Nations by signing its' Climate Control Treaty which amounts to nothing more than Cap n' Trade on a global scale. However, unlike Cap n' Trade which will merely cost lower and middle class citizens far more than they are likely to be able to afford in utility costs, as well as to cause every manufactured product still made in this country to cost more, the global version will permit an international government to further regulate our behavior and confiscate yet more of our personal property and freedom. This will devastate an economy already in peril, and will likely make the economic miseries of the 1970s seem like the "Happy Days" of the 1950s by comparison. The politicians elected to make things better are only amplifying the damage and committing generational theft by running up a tab that our great grandchildren may still be paying when they are senior citizens. So there is a great deal of fear and despair among free-thinking Americans who don't believe everything they see on TV, read in the New York Times, or have lived through the 1970s. Since no political solution has seemed to get the attention of these committed Marxist Democrats, what is left? When you have a large part of the population gripped in the fear of economic uncertainty and the TERROR of the intent of our elected officials and seemingly no way to effect their intention to radically alter or destroy the things we hold dear, you get that very volatile combination of despair and rage that can lead to violence against those perceived to be the cause of that suffering. Sadly, our congressmen and women seem to be oblivious to the growing danger that faces them as they proceed hell-bent on ramming their legislative agenda down our throats regardless of our wishes to the contrary. In that regard they are like a team of horses with blinders running at break-neck speed along the side of a steep cliff with us riding in the carriage being pulled along behind them. If they go right, they live and so we. If they go LEFT, they plunge off the cliff to their destruction taking US with them. Given those considerations, it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone to conclude that if they are successful, we might prefer death to life in the AmeriKa they would create. One of our most famous Founding Fathers, Patrick Henry, said "Is life so dear as to purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me give me LIBERTY or give me DEATH!" Given that mindset, what is to prevent someone from reaching that critical mass and taking his guns and directing their fire at members of Congress? After all, they do not have the protection that the President has, and they don't stay in Washington all the time, either. If someone takes out congressmen between now and 2010, depending on the laws in their states, such an act can force special elections in which conservatives can band together and get conservatives elected to replace the deceased Marxists thereby sending a CLEAR and unambiguous message that even the most committed Marxist demon-CRATS can only ignore at their own peril. Sadly, I fear there are those out there in what the coastal elites of Hollywood, New York, and Washington DC refer to as "flyover country" namely the rest of the United States in which REAL people live, that may be starting to think along these lines. I only PRAY this does not happen, for the result would be anything but the desired one and would more likely result in the total suppression of freedom of speech and assembly, the imposition of martial law, and the confiscation of all privately held firearms by the government and its' local, state, and federal police agencies. Just as John Wilkes Booth miscalculated the consequences of assassinating Abraham Lincoln, any conservative who undertakes this extreme action will likely do far more harm than good to his cause. The only real HOPE for CHANGE will come in the elections of 2010 and 2012. In the meantime, keep writing and calling your elected officials, and keep showing up at the tea parties and rallies. Despite the lies told by the media, these actions ARE having an effect because if they were not, health care legislation would have been passed by the Democrats a long time ago. No, my fellow Americans, we still have our rights to free speech, free assembly, and free (if not always FAIR) elections, and we can take heart that even ACORN can't steal an election if it's not close. We need to work together to get honest conservative candidates running in the primary process and supporting those candidates to secure their election to the House and Senate in 2010, and 2012! The BALLOT is still more mighty than the BULLET and we need to keep it that way if we are to remain the United States of America!

Throw Mama From the Train . . and Under the BUS!

2009-10-30T12:11:00.010-05:00

"Golden Years" is more than a song by David Bowie. It is the term that described the time that elapses from when a person retires from his or her chosen profession to the time that he or she "shuffles loose this mortal coil." Thanks in no small part to the rock-solid alliance between America's senior demographic and the Democratic Party, those "golden" years have heretofore been golden indeed. Senior citizens have routinely seen increases in their Social Security and Medicare entitlements over that past thirty to forty years, and they in turn have given their loyalty and support to democratic politicians. However, in the time since the near market collapse of September, 2008, senior citizens have seen thier "golden" years turn to lead painted with gold paint. Most seniors have seen their life's savings evaporate, whether in the stock market decline or in the real estate collapse, and they have seen their costs of living rising steadily. Now, thanks to the legislative agenda of the Democratic Party, they are looking as substantially higher costs on every single product and service they rely upon.

One would think that the old adage "dance with the one that brung 'ya" would serve to protect the senior population from the democrats' reckless and proflagate spending agenda, but the sad reality is that you would be wrong. In nearly EVERY version of the so-called "health care reform" bills, democrats in Congress are proposing paying for the new entitlement at the expense of the already troubled Medicare program. If you're a senior citizen on a fixed income, you can't help but wonder how the government is going to cut half a billion dollars from a program that's nearly bankrupt as things NOW stand, without severely curtailing your benefits, thereby increasing your COSTS. At a time in life when seniors HAVE to live on a fixed income and a tight budget, if their out of pocket costs go up, their quality of life MUST go down.

Today's senior citizens have been sacrificing their entire lives. This is the generation that saw us through the Great Depression, that fought and WON World War II, that fought and WON the Cold War, and that has worked hard all their lives to give themselves and their families the highest standard of living in the world. Now, in their twilight years, the democrats are demanding further sacrifices from our seniors because in passing any or all of its' legislative agenda, senior citizens are going to find themselves with health care expenses they can't afford to pay, utility bills they can't afford, and a social security check that will not get them from one month to anther without substantially reducing their expenses, thereby diminishing the quality of of their lives and severely diminishing the enjoyment of those lives. Just as it was before the Republican party passed the prescription drug benefit, seniors are once again looking at having to choose between healthcare, utilities, and food. They have been through too much to have to shop for their food in the pet food aisle at the local supermarket.

The reason I chose the title I did, was that in addition to incorporating a movie title, I have a seventy year old "mama" that will be very negatively affected by nearly every one of the democrat's proposed pieces of legislations. My mother has been through a LOT in the preceding decade or so of her life. She had a major stroke which left her left side completely paralyzed, a second minor stroke, open heart surgery to replace her heart valves, and last February she fell in or bathroom shattering her kneecap and requiring two surgeries, an extensive convalescence at a convalescent home which she had to pay for out of her own pocket because neither Medicare, nor her Medicare Advantage plan covered that particular expense. It came to more than $25,000.00 our of her pocket In the legislation now pending, a government bureaucrat might have concluded she was not worth all that expense and she might have had to languish in a nursing home for the remainder of her life wtih painful pins holding her leg together.

I also know that my mother's social security and pension benefits are barely enough to pay her bills as they are NOW. Imagine if Congress succeeds in passing Cap n' Trade and her power bills DOUBLE what they are now? If the proflagate government spending continues, inflation will make the dollar worth less and everything will cost more. How is someone on a fixed income who's not even confident in a cost-of-living adjustment to social security supposed to absorb this? Something will have to give, and that something will diminish the quality of enjoyment of life for most if not ALL senior citizens. And, for the record, it's not just ME saying these things. I heard all this and more when I took my mother to the local senior center earlier this week. The prospect of the looming health care reform bills is something that is TERRIFYING local seniors as well as anyone that has a health care issue.

So why would an organization as politically astute as the Democratic Party has proven itself to be in the past six years risk alienating its' largest and most reliable constituency? No single answer to that query makes any sense, but if you look at a variety of consequences, either intentional or unintentional, you begin to see a pattern emerging. Whatever politically esoteric label you want to put on democratic (and sadly, SOME republican as well) politicians, they are about ONE thing, and one thing only, POWER! They have something in their DNA that makes them think they are entitled to it. They forget that they work for US, not the other way around. They forget that they are representatives, NOT rulers.

Democrats in particular are infected with this disease of arrogance. When they lost Congress in 1994 and were related to the "cheap" seats for nearly twelve years, they SEETHED with rage and did everything they could do to undermine the republicans, and attempt to sabotage every program and policy regardless of the consequences to national security or public safety. Their attack dogs in the press virtually committed TREASON exposing our national defense policies on the front pages of ther papers and magazines. Any challenge of this nature, however, was met with the rhetoric about dissent being patriotic, and we should ALWAYS question our government. Funny how that seems to NOT be the case now that THEY control that government and they want to make certain that they never LOSE that control again. That's the only way you can explain the "double standard" democrats insist on hiding behind. So , assuming all this is true, you're probably asking "If democrats are all about keeping power, why would they risk alienating their most reliable constituency?"

The answer is simple and can be given in one word, MONEY. It takes a LOT of money to mount effective political campaigns, and senior citizens live mostly on fixed incomes. As the "baby boomer" generation retires, they go from being producers to being consumers and will be less likely to make the kinds of contributions to the democratic party coffers that they did as working people. The younger voting demographic, however, will be earning, paying taxes, and thanks in part to twelve or more years of liberal political indoctrination in schools, will be more likely to make their contributions to the democratic party. So the democrats are gambling that the money and votes they net from the younger demographic will be enough to offset the votes they MIGHT lose from the senior citizens. When it comes to the "boomer generation" the democrats know that more of those are lifelong liberals and believe that they will be far more likely to remain loyal to the democratic party regardless of its' policies.

Nevertheless, if is a real risk the democrats are taking. Younger people are notoriously unreliable when it comes to actually VOTING, esp in mid-term and more local elections. Another disadvantage of counting on the young is then they tend to get older, and with age some wisdom also sets in. In the words of the immortal Sir Winston Churchill, "If you're not liberal when you're twenty you have no heart, but if you're not conservative when you're forty, you have no brain." It's never too late to reform a liberal. If you doubt this, just look at Dick Morris. Last point is, that with senior citizens living longer, and being far more reliable voters, this ploy of catering to the younger demographic at the EXPENSE of the senior one, may very well backfire on the democrats. Only TIME will tell, and the time most telling will be in November of 2010 and November of 2012! As Rush Limbaugh so aptly put it, "I hope they FAIL!"

A Faded Label

2009-08-17T13:09:00.020-05:00

Several years ago following the passing of my father, my mother gave me the task of going through his closet, first to see if there was anything I wanted to keep for myself, second to determine which clothes were suitable for donating to AmVets and finally, which were beyond any further use. As my father and I were of different sizes, and our tastes rarely coincided, going through his closet was emotionally difficult, but the destination of most of it's contents was already pre-determined. I kept only a couple of coats, and the rest went straight to charity. However, what was up in his closet was only PART of the job. In the basement were several large trunks that, judging by the layers of dust on them, and the dirt around them, had not been moved or opened for at least a decade.

When I opened the first trunk, I was greeted wtih the scents of mothballs and mustiness that one would expect to find in a trunk that hadn't been opened since it was packed decades earlier. The first trunk contained women's clothing that I recognized as having been worm by my mother when I was a child. When I opened the second trunk, in addition to the smells, I was greeted by the sight of my father's naval uniforms and as I went through them, I could see his career progression from his days as a third class petty officer to that of a Master Chief Petty Officer. I saw his blues and whites, but I also found another very different uniform in that trunk, that of a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. My father was never a Marine, but HIS father was and what I was looking at was my grandfather's uniform from World War II. He was highly decorated for service in the Pacific theatre, including Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, and had achieved the rank of Sergeant at the time of his discharge. I knew I was looking at a real piece of American history and I felt a true sense of pride in the contributions my grandfather, my father, and to a lesser extent, myself have made to the safety and security of this country.

That "pride" all but evaporated when I opened the next trunk and saw, neatly folded and pressed, my father's favorite slate blue leisure suit from the decade of disco. I knew this garment very well as my father wore it everywhere he couldn't wear jeans or chinos. Suddenly I was a child again riding in the back seat of our 1969 Pontiac Catalina staring at the back of that suit, complete with a brightly colored silk shirt with a large spread collar that covered the jacket's collar, breathing in the plumes of cigarette smoke that wafted back from the front seat as disco tunes blared on the radio. Although he had a few leisure suits of varying colors, that slate blue one was his favorite so I had ample opportunity to commit it to to memory.

Further exploration of the contents of trunk found those brightly colored silk shirts with the spread collars, some sportcoats with very wide lapels, and ties as wide as lobster bibs reminiscent of the ones I saw in a "Kojak" rerun on late night cable television. Just as I was about to give up and consign the whole lot to AmVets, I found the piece de rsistance, a faded pair of Levi's blue jeans. They were clearly worn, but far from worn out. They were very stiff and smelled of mothballs, but were otherwise in good condition. I unfolded them carefully, half expecting to see a garish bell bottomed leg, but was pleasantly surprised to see the same standard boot cut jean that was in my own closet. The only thing left was to check the size to make sure I could actually wear them and next to the size tag, was a faded label that said simply "Made in the U.S.A." Like the jeans themselves, the label was faded from the many washings these jeans had no doubt been subjected to. As previously stated, my father practically lived in his jeans which means they were frequently washed, so I figured that one more such washing would take out the mothball aroma and a dose of fabric softener would make them wearable once more.

True to form, my father's Levis jeans did not disappoint. In the space of two hours, they emerged from the dryer virtually indistinguishable from any other pair of Levis or other jeans in my closet with one major exception. They were the ONLY pair to have the "Made in America" label. All the other denim jeans in my closet, inlcuding my other Levis bore labels that said they were made in such exotic places as Malyasia, Singapore, or the Phillipines. How could that happen to this most uniquely American item of clothing, created to fill a need expressed by the rugged miners of the California Gold Rush by a jewish immigrant tailor named Levi Strauss. In true American entreprenurial spirit, he saw a need, and created a product to fill that need, and in the process added a new term to the American lexicon, and created garments that not only covered the miners, but very soon covered the cowboy, the farmer, and every child from the streets of Brooklyn, New York to the beaches of California. It is nothing less than a stain on our national honor that this most American of products is now made in predominately third-world countries.

Sadly this stain is not limited to Levis. Indeed, most of the major brands I remember from my childhood are either no longer in existence, or are no longer made in the USA. In 1941 when my grandfather shipped out to fight the Japanese, everything he and his fellow Marines had with them was made here in the USA. This included the clothes on their backs, and the gear in their packs, the guns and ammo they carried, and the vehicles they rode in or marched behind. Sadly, the troops today wear or carry many items, including UNIFORM items, that are not made in the USA. They carry Chinese made knives, shovels, forks, canteens, etc. Their sidearms are made by Baretta, and even their UNIFORMS have labels indicating foreign manufacture. How, in the space of half a century, did we go from being the predominant manufacturer of finished goods that were desired by the world, to being the world's largest consumer of imported products?

The answer to this question is complex, and there are four actors that share responsibility for the fact that the manufacturing sector of the American economy is on life support. They are the labor unions, the government, the lawyers; and last, but not least, Wall Street. These four actors, individually, and in combination of one or more with the other have destroyed the business of manufacturing finished goods in this country. To understand how, you have to understand the basics of how a business works. There have been libraries full of books on this subject but, to put it simply, a business has to make a PROFIT to survive, let alone thrive.

In a manufacturing business the goal is to produce a finished product made from raw material and to sell that product for more than it costs you to make it. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, what does it really COST to make a product. You have to factor in three things. They are the tools of manufacture, the raw materials needed for the product itself, and the cost of labor. The tools includes the overhead required including machinery, computers, desks, chairs, office space, vehicles, etc. The raw materials are the components of the product itself such as plastic, metal, glue, staples, etc. The labor includes not only the factory workers, but also the secretaries, janitors, security guards, etc. All these elements factor into the per unit cost of the item manufactured. If one or more of these elements increases, then the cost of the finished item also increases. Accordingly, the more a manufacturer has to expend to produce each item, the more he has to charge the consumer to maintain an acceptable profit margin. Contrary to the popular belief of those on the ideological left, profit is NOT a dirty word.

Enter the labor unions, the government, and the trial lawyers all of whom add artificial cost to the manufacturing process and consequently the finished product. Labor unions focus their efforts on the labor side by extorting companies to pay higher wages and generous benefits, regardless of market conditions and other economic factors; and, (when they don't get their way) throwing child-like tantrums and shutting down businesses with strikes, sick-outs, and other such tactics. Ordinarily in business, labor would be the most fungible part of the manufacturing process as one worker can be replaced with either another more reasonable worker. When the union gets involved, however, replacement of workers is no longer an option. After all, the manufacturers are under contract with the unions, and (at least in THIS regard) contracts must be honored. If a company tries to evade the contract and bring in non-union laborers, enter the trial lawyers and pile on more cost. The only other option for a manufacturer is to employ technology to reduce the number of workers needed and thereby reduce his labor costs.

Labor unions served a need when they were first created. Before the unions came into being there was no forty hour work week, minimum wage, child labor laws, maternity leave, etc. These are things today's workers take for granted and they wouldn't exist without the labor unions, but these are Marxist organizations, and with all their initial reforms now codified into federal and state law, they are now only concerned with their own self-preservation. They insure this with political alliances forged with huge campaign contributions using their members dues and pension funds. They have long since outlived their purpose and in extorting companies the way they have, they have caused more than a few of them to close their doors permanently, or in the alternative, to cease manufacturing their products, and to buy them from a foreign source to re-sell them to wholesalers and retailers to realize the needed profit. When the unions were shown to be in league with organized crime, and were themselves exposed as criminal or quasi-criminal organizations, they should have been disbanded once and for all. We would ALL be better off today, especially in Detroit, had that happened.

In addition to the unions themselves, enter the government and it's onerous burden of rules and regulations which range from how many gallons of water your toilet can flush, to the precise angle a computer keyboard should be positioned to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome. Whether federal or state, compliance with these regulations adds enormous costs to the manufacturing process which must then be passed on to the purchaser of the finished product. Additionally, the United States has the second HIGHEST corporate tax rate of the industrialized nations, second only to Japan. As a result of this, it is difficult (if not impossible) to attract new business from foreign manufacturers. Exceptions to this are found in the automobile industry which has set up manufacturing plants in southern non-union, right-to-work states. These companies employ thousands, but if government passes the "cardcheck" bill and the UAW is able to invade these organizations and coerce workers to join the union, these foreign auto makers will more likely than not close these plants and take their business back to their own domestic facilities. They do NOT want to fall victim to the same forces that have all but destroyed General/Government Motors, and Chrysler/Fiat.

If all that weren't enough to run a manufacturer out of business, enter the LAWYERS. With lawsuits for everything from product liability, worker's compensation, employment discrimination and sexual harassment, many of which are dubious at best and fraudulent at worst, businesses are forced to pay out thousands in legal fees or increased insurance premiums, all of which must be passed on to customer of the finished product. Notwithstanding the actual costs of legal actions, there is also the TIME element invested in attending meetings, depositions, and trials.

As a result of these "artificial" costs, the cost of manufacturing a single finished product can more than TRIPLE the actual COST of manufacturing such a product. This forces a manufacturer to sell his product at a minimum cost to a wholesaler, who then sells it at a markup to a retailer, who then sells it at a markup to the final consumer. This means a "widget" that costs about $2.50 in raw materials has to be sold wholesale for $15, and ends up on a store shelf at $24.99. However, if sitting on the shelf right next to it is another "widget" that appears identical in every way to the domestic one, but is made in China, for $9.99, which one is the consumer going to buy? It's a no-brainer and this results in a drastic reduction in demand for the higher priced domestically manufactured products. Decreasing sales mean diminishing profits, which sends a corporation's stock prices plummeting downward.

Enter the fourth villain, Wall Street, and more specifically, the corporate raider. In the 1980's the financial geniuses on Wall Street coined the term "maximizing shareholder value." This innocuous phrase basically translates into the hostile takeover of a business enterprise by a Wall Street raider like the fictional Gordon Gecko in the Oliver Stone movie "Wall Street." the raider, sometimes known as "Larry the Liquidator" makes a stock tender offer to shareholders to pay them more than the stock's current par value so he can acquire a minimum of fifty percent plus one. When he has a majority of the company's stock, the Liquidator will elect himself and his employees or agents to the corporations board of directors and, in short order, he will close all the facilities, liquidate the assets of the corporation, and pay remaining shareholders their share of the profits from these sales. When the corporation is liquidated, it will be dissolved and fade away into the pages of history. This is only possible because the labor unions, government, and lawyers have made it difficult, if not impossible, for a corporation to manufacture a product domestically, and remain a profitable enterprise. Without profit, there is no business and a corporation is worth more dead and in pieces than it would be alive and functioning.

Sadly for the employees of a corporation, the board of directors is only beholden to shareholders, not employees and their unions seem to fail to mention this to them when pushing for a strike. Unions have driven more than one company out of business in my lifetime. Names like Pan-Am and Eastern Airlines come to mind, as do the other brands from my childhood like Quasar and Admiral. Toys that once filled my toybox like Matchbox, Hot Wheels, G.I. Joe, Tonka, etc. are still in existence but are today made in China or some other third world country, like the Levis I purchase today.

In those carefree days of the 70's when I was in elementary school, I'd come home in the afternoon, do my homework, and then plop in front of the TV set and watch reruns of "Lost in Space," "Star Trek," "The Brady Bunch," and other classic shows. During these viewings there would come a commercial jingle that started out with the phrase "Look for the union label when you are buying a shirt, coat, or blouse." This commercial was intended to persuade viewers to purchase only garments made by union workers from the International Ladies Garment Worker's Union and not clothing made in sweat shops by non-union illegal immigrant workers. The tag line of the jingle was "it says we're able to make it in the USA." This line implied that these workers were able to make things here in the USA, and that by purchasing these garments, the workers would be able to realize their share of the American dream. Sadly, this union, like the "Made in the USA" label seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur and the Dodo Bird. I can't recall seeing that IGLWU label on anything outside of my mother's closet in many a year.

The American economy was built on a free market capitalist system of enterprise. but that economy must have a REAL foundation. The economy is rated and valued by our level of production. The letter "P" in the GDP stands for "product." The problem with our economy these days is there is very little "product" in the American economy. We no longer make things in this country. For the reasons set forth earlier, our corporate function has shifted from the manufacturing model, to the import, wholesale, and retail model. Instead of "product", the economy floats on a sea of paper, and even the paper isn't always real when you consider futures and options. An economy built on paper cannot be strong. It is an illusion, at best. This has resulted in our boom, bubble, and bust economic cycles and the recessions are becoming more frequent and longer lasting, especially when the government tries to "help."

Anyone who has started or run a business in this country knows that you only succeed in SPITE of government, not BECAUSE of it. Trying to start or grow a business with a democratically controlled government is like trying to plant a vegetable garden in wet CEMENT. It's not gonna grow without the fertile soil, water, and careful tending. Consequently, in a country rife with union tyranny, high taxes, onerous regulation, and a lawyer's feeding frenzy, who in their right mind would start a manufacturing business in this country? Without such new businesses, where are the unemployed blue-collar workers supposed to find jobs?

We need to become a nation that makes things once more if we are ever going to rebuild our economy with a solid foundation and thus end the boom, bubble, and bust cycles that have wreaked such havoc. This can't happen until we start graduating more scientists, archictects, engineers, etc and fewer lawyers, stockbrokers, and political scientists which is what our colleges and universities seem to turning out in record numbers these days. Even President Obama has repeatedly said we have to start making things in this country. But his idea for how to accomplish this goal is to put unions in charge of growing business in this country. That's like putting a mortician in charge of a hospital. It's a conflict of interest at the very least, and a prescription for economic DISASTER.

The few new businesses that have come to this country from abroad have ALL set up their operations in right-to-work states because they know that runaway labor costs destroy profits and lose share values. The workers that are employed by these companies receive a fair wage, enjoy good working conditions, and have good benefits all without having to fork over a percentage of their hard-earned paychecks to unions. Don't plant your seeds in concrete if you want a garden to grow, and don't put unions into the business if you want them to thrive.

If you look at the union's track record, most of the manufacturing unions, like the companies they worked for, are GONE. With the exception of the United Auto Worker's Union, the strongest remaining unions are SERVICE unions. The reason for this is simple, you can't outsource a "service" oriented job. The same holds true for public employees unions like the ones in California. There are exceptions to this, and you can hear them for yourself when you call up your credit card company or Delta Airlines looking for customer service. You'll likely find yourself talking to someone with a distinct Indian accent, because these companies have decided its cheaper to pay long distance charges for foreign phone workers than it is to pay union scale to American ones, and there go more jobs.

Looking at things as they stand today, you have to wonder if we're ever going to be able recapture our glory days of the 1950s and pre-Vietnam 1960s. In the years following the end of World War II, Americans led the world in the manufacture of finished goods, technology, innovation, and we enjoyed a market share of more than 80% of the world's automobile purchases. Given the current state of that industry in this country, and the improving quality and affordability of foreign competition, it's far from certain we could ever recapture that market share. One thing is for certain, however, and that is that until the "Made in the USA" label becomes something other than an exhibit in a museum, we're not going to be able to "make it in the USA."

Reviolutionary War Redux: Townhall Turmoil!

2009-08-13T12:27:00.010-05:00

Like most Americans, I watched the events that occured outside a town hall meeting hosted by Missouri Representative Carnahan in which purple-shirted union thugs physically assaulted and injured Kenneth Gladney, a conservative African-American man as he was passing out buttons and flags bearing that most American of expressions "Don't Tread on Me." I watched this event with a mixture of horror and anger that literally DOUBLED when I learned that these thugs had been dispatched to this meeting and others like it by the WHITE HOUSE. I will not speculate as to the identity of the individual responsible, but I hope that will be the subject of SOMEONE'S investigation at some time in the future.

Both health care reform and town hall turmoil were topics of discussion at my weekly Toasmaster's roundtable. As you might exepct, the dicussion got someone heated and animated, especially given the fact that I'm outnumbered by liberals. These meetings sometimes take on the feel of an episode of "The View" which, for the record, I do NOT watch. I only see the segments that are aired as part of OTHER news programs. Following one of the more aminmated exchanges in which I called a liberal friend's charge that the people protesting and speaking out at these meetings were "hired guns," ridiculous, another friend of mine said "It's a good thing that town hall meetings were not like this before the American Revolution or we'd still be British." Like most things out of the mouths of liberals, this statement was heavy on emotion, and light on fact.

The fact of that matter is that pre-revolutionary war town hall meetings were very contentious events, often erupting in sporadic acts of violence. After all, they culiminated in the American Revolution. So, too, was the act of introducing hired muscle to disrupt such meetings a very colonial american concept. Understanding the significance of these events requires an understanding of the times in which they occurred. Since legitimate US history is no longer accurately taught in public schools, there are at least two generations of Americans that have grown up with out any real understanding of what this country is or how and why it came to be, so if you'll permit me, I'll enlighten you a little.

In the mid 1700s, the North American continent was not a united anything. The british controlled the original 13 colonies which occupied the east coast from Maine, then part of the colony of Massachussetts, down to Georgia. The French controlled most of the middle of the continent in the Louisiana terrirory which ran from Quebec down to New Orleans, along the Mississippi River. France and Britain were longstanding enemies and the French befriended native American indian tribes in their territory and encouraged them to make war against the British colonists' more western settlements. This resulted in a declaration of war by Britain against France and the British exported their army and navy to take on the French and the indians on the north american continent and high seas in what became known as the French and Indian War.

American colonists enlisted and fought with the british army as well as in independent colonial militias, and with the help of such future heroes as George Washinton, and Daniel Morgan, the british and colonial forces successfully prosecuted the war to victory, gaining new territories in the Ohio valley for the british crown. When the conflict was concluded, the vast majority of the british army returned to Britain, leaving only a few volunteer brigades to man the garrisons and the british forts to guard against any repeat of the hostilities by the french or the indians. Some of these troops had to be quartered in colonists' homes, for there were not sufficient military barracks at the forts to house them all. This was mandatory and there was no compensation offered to the inconvenienced colonists for the intrusion on their privacy. Though the soldiers received sufficient compensation to provide for their board, they often helped themselves to their hosts provisions and comandeered the furniture and horses of their hosts for their own personal use without offering any reimbursement. Needless to say, this did not endear them to their hosts and this anger would be demonstrated in later events.

With the hostilities concluded, the british parliament saw that its' treasury had been greatly depleted by the war, because wars as we know are expensive affairs. When parliament examined its' assets and liabilities, it concluded that it was only fitting that the American colonies should be required to recompense the crown's treasury for its assistance in defending the colonists. Ironically, had the colonists been included in these discussions, there might likely never have been an American Revolution, because it's only fair that they should help pay for their own defense. However, since American colonists were britsh subjects but not full british citizens, there was no right of participation in the governance of the empire. Consequently, the parliament passed the Stamp Act, assessing a surcharge on all paper products used in the colonies. The colonists had no idea what had occurred, except that one day a messager disembarked from a ship from London, went to the home of the Royal colonial governor, and from that time on, every paper product purchased in the colonies was suddenly far more expensive. That included playing cards which, in a time without TV's, computers, or IPODs, were the most common form of entertainment in the majority of colonial households.

The anger at having their homes invaded and their pockets picked by a faceless, non-inclusive bureacracy caused colonial Americans to pour into their town halls with the goal of venting and finding the means by which to redress their greivances. Initially all discussions were aimed at petitioning the King or the parliament for the repeal of the Stamp Act and the right to elect colonial representatives to the british parliament to represent the interests of the American colonies in legislation. However, another far more dangerous solution to the problem was also voiced at these meetings, that being the concept of American independence from Great Britain.

When word of this idea having been voiced reached the ears of the social elites, the landed gentry and wealthy merchant class of colonial society also known as Tories, they reacted in alarm. After all, they owed their fortunes to the largesse of the King as it was he or one of his predecessors that gave their family its' land or license, and the same King could just as easily strip them of it if he chose to do so. Even if they did not fall out of favor with the King as individuals, they also knew that if the colonies were perceived to be rebellious, the King or parliament could declare martial law and severely curtail freedom and thereby prosperity in the colonies. A merchant may not lose his import or shipping license, but if the ports were to be blockaded by the british navy, his business would definitely suffer.

With their selfish interests at heart, these societal elites attended the town hall meetings to promote the idea of petitioning the british governor, parliament or the King for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and the inclusion of the colonies into the parliament. These notables were intially very well received by the assembly. They were, after all, the celebrities of their time and it would be as if Donald Trump walked into a town hall today. However, when the citizens realized that these Tory elites were only there to preserve the status quo and protect their own selfish interests, the crowd turned on them. In those days, an angry crowd could do some serious damage to the target of their anger, such as severely beating them, or tarring and feathering them, in the most extreme cases. Consequently, these Tories stopped off at the local docks to pick up a burly stevedor or two to accompany them to these meetings as a bodyguard.

As the rhetoric and passions grew more heated, the Tory elites stopped attending the meetings altogether, as they did not feel safe in their persons when they did so. They still had a a compelling interest to keep the talk of sedition, treason, and revolution from the ears of the government so they came up with a different plan. Instead of taking some dockhands to protect THEM, they decided instead to recuit dockhands in larger numbers to break up the meetings and thereby keep the King's peace. Intially, this worked, but it had some serious and certainly unintended consequences.

The first of these was to compel the American Patriots, as they were now calling themselves, to fight fire with fire. Initially, the toughs that attended the town hall gatherings as bodyguards to the Tory elites were against the patriot cause. However, as they stood and listened to the arguments made, more than a few of them decided they would rather SUPPORT the patriot cause and many of these men joined with Samuel Adams to form the Sons of Liberty, a patriot organization that was formed specifically to do unto the tories as they were doing to the patriots. The Sons of Liberty were the precursors to the Continental Army, and engaged in tactics that can best be described as guerilla warfare against the Tory establishment. Sadly, they are being described by modern educators as terrorists, and equated with the likes of Al Quaeda.

A second, and probably greatest unintended consequence of the selfish goals of the Tory elites was to disenfranchise several of their own, and turn them into ardent patriots. Among these is wealthy Boston merchant, John Hancock, who would later serve as the President of the First and Second Continental Congresses. He and others like him committed their "lives, fortunes, and their sacred honors" when affixing their signatures to the Declaration of Independence which would not have been possible without them. More than one town hall meeting erupted in sporadic violence, either internally as participants assaulted each other, or externally as in the one the triggered the Boston Tea Party or tragically led to the Boston Massacre.

So, take heart Patriots. Continue to attend those meetings and speak your minds. It is our right and obligation as American citizens. Contrary to our own "tories" popular opinons, what's going on in today's town hall meetings is as American as mom, flag, and apple pie. For those entrusted with offices in our goverment to say otherwise just goes to show how ignorant and out of touch they truly are with what America is and has always been.

Today's elitist democrats that want to dismiss the tea parties and town hall meetings as noise, rabble, astroturf, etc. will continue to make their mistakes, but take heart because just as the Tory elitists of pre-revolutionary war America saw their tactics backfire and turn a crazy idea into the United States of America, so too will the dismissive and strongarm tactics of the modern Tories, our own (anything-but-Jeffersonian) Democrats, blow up in their faces. Considering what happened last time, I like the possibilities that could come from this very real movement to let the vox populi or "the voice of the people" be heard, if not undertood,and heeded. Should they fail to do so, the elitist democrats will likely pay a very heavy political price and we will once more live in the USA and NOT the USSA. In the words of the Gipper himself, Ronald Reagan, "government is NOT the solution to the problem, it IS the problem." So to the town halls we go, for where American began, there it shall continue.

Cops 'n Robbers: "Race" Ipsa Loquitur

2009-08-06T22:18:00.001-05:00

As a writer, I know that one of the worst sins a writer can commit is plaigarism. That said, let me give credit for part of the title of this essay to the great David E. Kelly and his team of writers of one of my all-time favorite telvision show "Boston Legal." It was from the title of one of (I think) the better episodes of the show that I took part of my title. In law there is term "res ispa loquitur" which loosely translated mean "the thing speaks for itself." The play on words, with the substituion of the word "RACE" is therefore self-evident, as it was to anyone viewing the episode. The plot from that episode is eerily similar to the incident in Cambridge, Massachussetts involving the Harvard professor and the Cambridge police department.

In the "Boston Legal" episode, a young African-American man was accosted by a Boston police officer while standing on a sidewalk in an affluent neighborhood staring at a house. When asked by the officer for identification, the man protested that he was doing nothing wrong and refused to comply with the officer's instruction. The officer then attempted to place the man under arrest and he fought against the officer garnering himself charges of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest. To wrap this up without re-writing the script, the liberal champion fictional lawyer Alan Shore, together wtih a young, black, and very attractive public defender make the case all about race and get the man acquitted on all charges, because as it turned out the man was just doing what he'd read in a self-help book about visualizing success so he could someday afford a home like the one he was looking at for himself which is clearly NOT a crime, and in fact, a pro-active and positive step to achieving what we all acknowledge to be the great American dream. This fictional story ends with hugs, handshakes, and smiles all around.

Before the officer had finished testifying, I knew two things. First was that the writers of the show were liberal. Second, that they had not interviewed a real police officer before writing the testimony script, or if they had, they chose to utterly DISREGARD what he or she actually TOLD them. I know this because of the way the "officer" answered the counsel's question, "is standing on a public sidewalk staring at a house a crime in Boston?" The "officer" answered "no," but any REAL police officer would have said something to the effect that while merely looking at a house is not illegal, being a lookout for a burglary or home invasion in progress is." There is also another act that often precedes a burglary or home invasion, and in the vernacular of law enforcement, it is often referred to as "casing" a place, that is watching it to determine the best time and circumstance in which to commit either burglary with no one home, or home invasion, when the presence of the home's owner is desirable to the criminals.

In a strange twist of life imitating art, we find ourselves in present-day Cambridge, Massachussetts with an incident eerily similar to the fictional episode of Boston Legal in some ways, and distinctively different in others. Similarities can be found in the venue, the nonexistence of an actual CRIME (albeit strong circumstantial evidence and therefore the need to investigate), the cynical use of the racial profiling charge by disingnuous individuals with ulterior motives, and the proverbial "happy ending" in which the conflict is resolved and everybody goes home as happily as they can under the circumstances. The most notable DIFFERENCE between the fictional story and the Cambridge incident is the sociological "stature" of the minority "actor."

In the fiction, the "actor" was a lower income minority who was looking to avail himself of the "Great American Dream" by personal initiative, such as reading self-help success books, and practicing the "visualization/actualization" technique by going to the nicer neighborhood and looking at the kind of house he hoped to one day own. Contrast this with Professor Gates, an academician at the pinnacle as his career as a member of the Harvard faculty. He's not staring longingly at a house from the sidewalk, he's choosing to break into his OWN house and, unfortunately for him, his neighbor did not recognize him. FORTUNATELY for him, he had a neighbor who was willing to do what she thought was PROTECTING his property in his absence, something many neighborhoods organize neighborhood watches to do. Also fortunate for the Professor, the police responded quickly to protect his property, something many minorities complain does NOT happen in their neighborhoods.

In her closing argument in the trial on Boston Legal, the pretty female, African-American public defender who was assisting the rich and liberal silk stocking lawyer Alan Shore, raised the argument that the defendant in that case was a victim of abuse by law enforcement known as DWB - Driving While Black. This is a racially incendiary term which is used to accuse law enforcement of targeting innocent black motorists for harassment in the hopes of finding evidence of some misconduct. It hearkens to the days in the deep south during the civil rights movment when civil rights leaders were detained on the roadside by law enforcement to give other members the Ku Klux Klan (of which most of the local officers were members) time to get some people on the scene to kidnap the hapless black motorist for some "reorientation." This could mean a whipping, a lynching, or any of the other horrors for which the Klan of that era was infamous. In the years following the civil rights movement, the police have frequently stopped black motorists and in doing so have effected numerous arrests for everything from possession and sale of controlled substances to catching parole violators or people in possession of burglary tools, illegal weapons, etc. Notwithstanding their successes, law enforcement officers have been discouraged from the use of their instincts under the pressure from the politically correct crowd and the label "racial profiling."

In the Boston Legal episode, as in the Cambridge incident, there was no racial profiling. I've already covered what happened in the fictional story, so let me address the events that occurred at the home of Professor Gates when Sergeant Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department responded to a dispatch call to investigate a possible break-in. What occurred can best be summed up as a clash between two strong-willed men with full heads of steam. Race played no discernable part in Sergeant Crowley's mindset as neither the 911 call that reported the break-in, not the dispatch transcripts reveal any suggestion of an African -American perpetrator. What he did know as he approached the door is that there was likely someon e in the house that did not belong there. What he did NOT know was who it was, how many, whether they were armed and if so, how heavily, whether there were hostages, or anything else that might affect the way he handled hinself in the situation. What he DID know is that whoever was inside had the proverbial "high ground," and that the second he went in the door, he could be a target from someone positioned to ambush him.

Sergeant Crowley likely went into the home after announcing himself. He most likely had his weapon drawn and levelled, and was probably holding himself in a classic dueling stance with his shoulders turned sideways to present as narrow a target as possible. When he gets into the living room, he encounters an older African-American man who was probably instructed to show his hands and possbly to assume a position against the wall. Upon ascertaining that there was no further danger to himself, Sergeant Crowley would have holstered his weapon, possibly frisked the man, and began to question him. At this point, Professor Gates likely informs him that he's the owner of the house and that it was he who forced the door either because he'd forgotten his key, or for whatever reason it didn't work. Proper procedure would require Sergeant Crowley to ask Professor Gates for identification both to ascertain his identity, and to confirm that he did in fact reside at that residence. Sinple enough when you think about it calmly and cooly and in hindsight, but if you consider that the sergeant was being verbally harangued by Professor Gates the entire time he was doing his duty, and add the fact that his adrenaline had been pumping mere moments earlier, you can understand how a routine situation could get out of control

Now that we've covered Sergeant Crowley and exp;ained some of what was going through HIS mind, let's look at Professor Gates for a moment. He's an older man who walks with a cane, which likely indicates some stiffness and discomfort in his leg, if not actual pain when he walks. He's been travelling all day, which means he's had to negotiate the hassles of two different aorports during the days travels and travails. Anyone who has been to an airport post 9-11 knows that the experience can test the patience of a saint. By the time the good professor gets to his door he's been through TWO airports, long lines, delays, inconveniences, etc. Imagine how he might be feeling when he's at his front door and all he wants to do is get inside, lose the luggage, change into something comfortable, pop open a cold Red Stripe, plop into his favorite chair, and forget the whole day. Imagine his fustration when he realizes he can't get IN to his own house, so he goes around back, decides to force the door, gets in, and in his own living room he's confronted by a police officer pointing a gun at him and ordering him up against the wall. That has be the straw that broke the camel's back for him.

Given that it was Professor Gates' temperment and his frustrations with the days experiences that caused him to harangue Sergeant Crowley, and given that neither of those two things would have been affected in the least by the presence of another officer, as all police officers are trained to follow certain procedures in a given situation. Professor Gates would likely have been just as belligerant to an African-American officer as he was to Sergeant Crowley. Any officer responding to that situation would likely have behaved in the same manner towards Professor Gates, and would have had the same heightened sense of awareness and adrenaline rushing that Sergeant Crowley had experienced. Professor Gates' race had NOTHING to do with Sergeant Crowley's reaction, as he would have most likely done the same thing had Professor Gates been of the caucasion persuasion. While I DO take issue with the decision to arrest the professor, I do NOT question the Sergeant's right to charge him for disturbing the peace under the circumstances. However, that complaint is usually presented in the form of a summons, NOT an arrest. Still, I have the luxury of hindsight, time, distance, and SAFETY from the situation to make my analysis, which was clearly shared by Sergeant Crowley's superiors in the Cambridge Police Department, as all charges against Professor Gates were dropped. All's well that end's well.

So where then is the "res" or "race" in all this? The answer is, like in many cases we hear about these days, it's either a non-entity or insignificant to the story as a whole. More and more, we are finding racial issues manufactured into the fabric of ordinary events, or even extraordinary ones. Most recently, it's been in levelling the racism charge against American citizens protesting government policies at tea parties and townhall meetings. The TRUTH of the matter is that the tea party I attended in St. Louis was a very integrated one. In fact, one of the speakers was Kevin Jackson, a black man and author of the best-selling book "The Big Black Lie," which talks about the negative effect liberal social policies have had on the African-American population since the 1960s. I've personally observed several large tea parties across the country since April 15 and most if not ALL of them have been thoroughly integrated not only by race but by political affiliation as well, meaning there were as many DEMOCRATS and Indpendents that supported and voted for Barak Obama as there were Republican and McCain supporters. But why let a little thing like the TRUTH interfere with liberal spin?

The simple truth is that there are now TWO generations in this country that have grown up in the "integrated" America following the landmark Supreme Court decisions of Brown v. Board of Education and Plessie v. Washington. My generation was the first, and second generation, or the hip-hop generation is the very personification of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. This is not to say there are not still racists in this country, because there are. But the mainstream, insitutionalized racism of Selma, AL in the 196os is no more. There is no one alive today that has owned or whipped a slave. There is almost no one alive today or in any position of authority, with the exception of Senator Robert Byrd, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Ironically, Sen. Byrd is a DEMOCRAT! Why then is racism still the prevalent social issue that is seems to be?

The answer to that question is both simple, and sinister. It's simple because there is a contingent of our society whose enire reason for being is contingent upon keeping the racial struggle, real or imagined, alive and well. It is sinister, because their motivations for doing so are selfish and they have no regard for the pain and suffering their actions prolong. Their political, social, or economic interests depend on fanning these flames whenever possible, and since the number of white on black racicial incidents is, and has been, steadily declining, they have to resort to manufacturing these claims to jusify their own purposes. Those who do this for political, social, or worst of all, ECONOMIC reasons deserve to have reserved for them a place in the hottest part of hell, for it is on THEIR accounts that we can't seem to heal the racial wounds in this country. My grandmother used to admonish me not to pick at the scabs when I skinned my knee because in her words "if you keep pickin' at it, it will NEVER heal." So to it is with the wounds of racism. If they're left alone, they will heal, but if they're continuously ripped apart by self-serving indiviuals who do NOT have our welfare in mind, those wounds will NEVER heal and we will never get past racial divides.

The other reason we can't get past racism in this country is that there is a contingent of our own population that believes that racisim and descrimination are perfectly acceptable behaviors as long as they're directed against the MAJORITY of our population. This is yet another steaming pile of the horse manure that passes for wisdom on the left. If racism and descrimination are wrong, then they are ALWAYS wrong, regardless of which way the "greater than" or "less than" arrow is pointing. Following the liberal's logic, Apartheid in South Africa or Sunni domination of Iraq would be perfectly acceptable, yet I doubt any self-confessed liberal would agree with those statements. Of course liberals don't consider themselves "racist" or "discriminatory" because they soften those harsh words in politically correct euphamisms like "affirmative action," "levelling the playing field," and "social and economic justice." What they FAIL to take into consideration is that the term "minority" is neither racial, nor pejorative, but DEMOGRAPHIC, and that blacks and hispanics are called "minorities" for a reason. In the words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?" To answer that, I will quote then presidential candidate Barak Obama, "Yes we Can," with the caveat "if you'll LET us."

Is There A LAWYER in the House?

2009-08-06T08:28:00.000-05:00

Like most of us who are getting older and feelng the effects of aging, I've come to realize that I am not the invulnerable superhero I've always believed myself to be. In my younger years I would have to be bleeding profusely from a gunshot or knife wound, or have a bone protruding through my skin to feel the need to see a Doctor. Now as I glide towards my golden years, I realize that the need to be able to seek quality health care is no longer the luxury it once was. Consequently I took it upon myself to make sure that I had health insurance so that when the inevitable aches and pains of later life set in, I would be covered. Little did I think at the time that it would be dealing with that selfsame health insurance company that would be the CAUSE of many headaches. This is because I, like so many others do, assumed the insurance company was my PARTNER in health, not the ADVERSAY to it that it turned out to be.

Insurance companies are private, profit-driven enterprises. This means they must take in more than they pay out in order to maintain profitability and thereby viability. In a market that is faced with a shrinking number of people paying premiums and ever-increasing health care costs, this has become a real existential battle for the survival of the industry. Every insurance company employs a battery of both lawyers and accounts because every decision on a claim is run through a model of risk/reward, cost/benefit analysis. To pay or not to pay, that is the question. If an insurance company opts NOT to pay a claim, there are risks inherent in that decision.

Most states have a state run insurance commission headed by a commisioner to help mediate conflicts between an insurance company and an insured over a disputed claim for coverage. If the insurance company can show legal or contractural cause for the denial of the claim, however slight, the insurance commissioner will usually side with the insurance company. Once it has done so, most states then allow for an insured to prosecute a case in civil court for breach of contract, bad faith refusal to pay a claim, or malfeasance against the insurer, but such claims are highly unlikely to succeed, and the lawyers and bean-counters of the insurance company know this. The out-of pocket costs to the insured to pursue these remedies is also often prohibitive, and the insurance company lawyers and accountants know this as well. Consequently, more and more claims are routinely being denied by insurance companies resulting in mounting health care costs to consumers, growing losses to doctors, and increases in fees for both medical services and insurance premiums in a vicious and self-perpetuating cycle. This is just one way lawyers, and to be fair, accountants are impacting health care costs. The other, and for more onerous way is in the area of tort law known as medical malpractice.

In the interests of full disclosure, let me state that I used to make my living as a paralegal and as such, I have worked for law firms that represented both Plaintiffs and Defendants in malpractice cases. I say this so you understand that I am not a layperson and that I have a foundation in both education and experience to support my hypotheses in this article, and that is what these are. That said, when I was a rookie paralegal fresh out of college I was working at my first firm in Los Angeles. This firm specialized in representing plaintiffs in tort cases, including medical malpractice. I remember going into the library to do a bit of research and finding a medical journal on the conference table. The journal was open to an article about the effect of medical malpractice lawsuits on the medical profession, and I remember reading a statistic that said something to the effect of "two out of every ten doctors practicing today can expect to see the inside of a courtroom in their professional lifetimes."

Cut to the future some thirteen years or so and you find me at the end of my paralegal career working for a defense firm in beautiful downtown Atlanta, and I'm looking at another medical journal article on the same subject. Only this time, the statistic reads more like "3 out of every 5 doctors in practice today will likely be sued for medical malpractice." That's an increase of 40% in less than fifteen years. What accounts for that dramatic increase in malpractice lawsuit filings in so short a time? I don't have the definitive answer to that, but I DO have a few ideas.

For one thing, when I first started in the professon, malpractice was a highly specialized area of tort law practiced only by the most successful and venerable of trial lawyers. These were the kinds of lawyers that drove the Mercedes and BMWs, wore the thousand dollar suits, carried the aircraft aluminum briefcases, and worked in highrise luxury office suites. It had to be that way because it was very expensive to successfully prosecute a malpractice case. Expert witnesses, jury consultants, etc were all very expensive and if you wanted to get the multi-million verdict, it cost a lot of money to prepare your case for trial. It was also hard to even get a case initiated because you had to have an affidavit from a doctor to attest that there was malpractice committed. This wasn't easy to come by since doctors used to abide by the old Reagan rule, "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican" or doctor, in this case.

After I moved to Atlanta and took the job with an insurance defense firm, I noticed that more than a few of the cases that crossed my desk had been filed by the type of lawyer I categorize as "Andy the Ambulance Chaser." You know the type I'm referring to. The middle aged frumpy man with a suit that hasn't been pressed since the day it came off the hanger in the store, shoes that are scuffed, with the heels worn round, and soles that look like they've walked 100 miles, driving an old four door sedan with dings and rust spots, and practicing law out of a store-front in a strip mall located off the frontage road behind a Stuckey's restaurant. These are the classic "turn-em and burn-em" lawyers whose practice is mainly personal injury cases of dubious merit, and the whole intent is to get a quick settlement from the insurance company without having to expend too much time, effort, or energy. This type of lawyer does not typically take on a medical malpractice case because it's just too much work.

I asked one of the partners how an "Andy the Ambulance Chaser" type lawyer could pursue a medical malpractice claim and he advised me that the only reason it was now possible was that a cottage industry had sprung up in the medical community. Doctors in their late 40s and early 50s who were fed up with hazards of the practice of medicine, practicing defensive medicine, dealing with HMOs and PPOs, etc. decided to take early retirement and quit treating patients. However, these doctors did not go south to Florida to sail their boats, play golf, dodge hurricanes, etc. Instead they adopted an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentatlity and opted to sell their services and expertise to the legal community as expert witnesses and consulatants. This enabled lawyers like "Andy the Ambulance Chaser" to gain access to a "hired gun" to get his opinion letter and jump into the arena that had previously been off his radar.

Even so, "Andy the Ambulance Chaser" isn't desirous of taking his cases all the way to the "twelve in the box," referring of course to a jury trial. He's still in the "turn and burn" mentality of negotiating a quick settlement for what we in the defense term "nuissance value." "Andy" knows the "cost/benefit, risk/reward" formula that insurance company bean counters use to decide whether to try or settle a case, so he makes enough of a nuissance of himself time after time to get settlement offers on his cases. Consequently, he is able to take on multiple cases, regardless of their merit, and the insurance company passes these costs down to the doctors via higher malpractice insurance premiums. The doctors in turn pass these higher premium costs onto their patients via higher fees, and the patients feed the higher fees to their insurance companies resulting in higher health insurance premiums, etc., and the wheel goes round and round.

In addition to the "Andy" lawyers out there, there are the big guns like former Senator and filanderer John "Hairdo" Edwards. Now these are guys of TV and movie legend that stand in front of the jury box and make the women swoon and the men think they've found a new best friend. This kind of lawyer tugs at the heartstrings of a jury and gets them to redistribute millions of insurance company dollars to the grieving widow of "Roger the Roofer," a middle-aged, overweight, hard drinking, chain smoking roofer who just happened to have the good fortune to die on the operating table of a renowned cardiologist, thereby attracting the attention of the firm of Dewey, Screwum & Howe, which employs the wunderkid "Edwards" and makes a cause celebre out of the overindulgent roofer that he would never have been had he merely survived his quaduple bypass operation. Never mind that his lifestyle LED to that operation, or that under the new Obamacare, he probably wouldn't be able to GET that operation, he is now the focus of considerable weeping and hand-wringing in a dog-and-pony show that is solely for the benefit of an audience of "twelve in the box." And the jurors lap it up and reward the "pretty boy" lawyer with the insurance company's millions like it was nothing.

Now if those jurors could only hear "pretty boy" talking about them at the trial prep meeting in his swanky highrise office the night before, it would be VERY different story, because most lawyers think of the average juror as someone "too stupid to get out of jury duty." They also regard inner city jury pools as the "money pits" or "honey pots" because the average resident comes with a lifetime's worth of liberally induced class warfare propaganda and can't wait to "stick it to the rich" doctor or insurance company. The irony is that he's only sticking it to himself and others like him, because insurance companies don't PAY this judgment, they COLLECT it from their customers, namely other doctors. This results in ALL doctors having to pay higher premiums for their malpractice insurance. The next time that juror goes to see his or her doctor, that doctor will pass along the increased costs of his malpractice insurance to that juror and the rest of his or her patients. Finally, when that juror submits the higher medical bill to his or her insurance company either the claim will be denied and he or she will be stuck with the higher bill, or the claim will be paid, and the juror will get a notice in the mail a few weeks later informing him or her that his OWN insurance premium will be going up. You've got to love the irony in THAT.

This calls to mind a scene from the movie adaptation of John Grisham's book "Runaway Jury" in which Gene Hackman plays a hard-bitten, cynical and RUTHLESS jury consultant. He's in the courthouse men's room with Dustin Hoffman who plays the plaintiff's lawyer, a frumpy, rumpled schulb who's in reality anything but. In the scene, the lawyer expresses his confidence that he's going to win the case, and Gene Hackman's character responds with something to the effect of : "So what if you do. Nothing's going to change. He's still dead. The only thing that will change is when the widow goes to visit his grave, she'll drive to the cemetery in a more expensive car, and when she's walking to the gravesite and she snaps a heel on the cobblestone walk, the heel will come off of a much nicer shoe. All the rest is just colored bubbles." Cynical, yes, but truer words were never spoken. And yet, when President Obama stood in front of an auditorium full of doctors talking about health care reform, he stated that he did NOT favor any cap on medical malpractice verdicts. Why on earth would anyone truly interested in reforming the healthcare insurance system say that?

The answer is very simple and was revealed in technicolor when both the House and Senate rolled out their 1000 plus page healthcare reform bills and in those mountains of paper, revealed their intent to create a government run insurance company to compete with those in the private sector. Now, if memory serves, we already HAVE one of those. It's called Medicare, but they want to create a whole new government entity to compete against companies like Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kaiser, etc. Afterwards, President Obama stood in front of his "pet" reporters and asked how such a public company could drive the private ones out of business. I noted he had his little "I know something you don't" smirk on his face as he asked this because he knows the answer all too well.

Private insurance companies have to be profitable to survive and even more so to thrive. In a nutshell, they must take in more money than they pay out. A public company, however, has no such requirement. Look at any government run business such as Amtrak, the Post Office, Medicare, etc. and you will find more red ink on their books that you'll find drops of water in the Red Sea. This is because public companies are backed by the full faith, credit, and printing presses of the US Government. They CANNOT fail. Additionally, most American businesses are protected from such disparities by federal Anti-trust laws that prevent price fixing and other unfair business practices. One of the only two exceptions to this protection is, ironically enough, the INSURANCE industry.

So here's where the rubber meets the road. By allowing the abuses of the legal system to continue to affect the healthcare and insurance industries, the government is basically guaranteeing that the private sector insurers will NOT be able to compete effectively against a public company. Remember that private companies have to remain profitable so they can't pay out more than they take in, and they have no control over things like litigation that drive up their costs, so they have no choice but to pass these costs on to the consumers. If the consumer sees a public company that will save them an appreciable amount of money on their health insurance, they're going to defect like lemmings. As these defections become more massive, you will see private insurance companies closing their doors and declaring bankruptcy until the government run company is the only one left standing. It's human nature to save money, especially when you're dealing with a federal government bent on sucking it out from our wallets like a hoover vacuum cleaner. If you doubt this, visit your local Wal-Mart sometime. It's a living illustration of the point.

Now that the government will be the only source for healthcare insurance coverage left in America, some things will happen very rapidly. First, the trial lawyers will be told the party's over and reform and verdict caps will happen. The government will do this because now it's protecting its' OWN assets. Second, the same Geithner gestapo that's controlling pay for Wall Street executives will turn its focus to our doctors and they'll be told what they can charge going forward. Makes sense that the government should control doctors pay since they're the ones paying them, right? Maybe, but I doubt that the average doctor will like being told he's going to make the salary of a mid-level government bureaucrat for the rest of his life. I further doubt that students trying to decide on their career choices are going to want to pursue a medical career that requires four years of college, four years of medical school, an internship, and residence only to find at the end of all that work that he or she will make less then an assistant manager at JC Penny assuming of course, there still IS a JC Penny chain that survives Obama-nomics. If we cannot recruit qualified applicants to our medical schools, what will we do next? We'll either have to incentevise students or lower the admission requirements, resulting in less competent professionals being responsible for our healthcare, not unlike what happened to our military when we were forced to lower recruiting standards to allow convicted felons to serve because we couldn't get enough bodies otherwise.

Most of the doctors in practice today are older men and women who will be retiring soon, and there are not a lot of new ones coming along to take their places. There will be even less of them entering the profession going forward because the financial incentive to pursue the career, given all the work and expense it will take, will be gone. People talk about the fear of rationing of health care, and they're right. When you have increasing demand, and dwindling supply, it's an inevitability. How that care will be rationed is something only the government knows, but my guess it will be something along the lines of how old you are, and how many productive years of tax paying you have ahead of you. Look out Seniors. Logan's Run may soon be a realty for you, although I don't think even THIS government will try to actually KILL you. They'll just make sure you only get the pain medicine or medical marijuana you need to keep you quiet while you wait to shuffle loose the mortal coil. Forget the quadruple bypasses, hip replacements, knee replacements, etc. that you're getting now, though.

I don't make these predictions as if I have a crystal ball because I don't. What I DO have is eyes to see, ears to hear, and a brain to think with. Is it an accident that we have almost as many people LEAVING this country these days as we have trying to get into it? Is it a coincidence that our insurance companies are trying to ship patients to India to have surgeries today because the cost is about ten percent of what it here, and if so, why is that? Most Indian doctors and surgeons were educated and trained in western countries, including the United States. They do their medical school, internships, and residencies here. Given that we have a serious shortage of doctors in this country, why would they choose to leave? They are given preferential treatment with regard to getting green cards and they can surely find jobs in our hospitals and clinics, and yet they choose to leave as soon as they complete their education and training.

I asked a friend about this one time and he told me that he saw what our doctors go through with the HMOs, PPOs, malpractice suits, etc. and he would NEVER consider staying here and putting up with all that. Furthermore, he told me that India has an emerging industrial economy not unlike our own following the end of World War II. What he is saying, in a nutshell, is that there are better opportunities available in India than there are here, and this was before the prospect of nationalized healthcare emerged on the horizon. He left to return to India more than 6 years ago. Why then would heart surgery cost $10,000.00 there and $100,000.00 here? Maybe it's because we're only training Indian doctors here, not their LAWYERS.

To summarize, every country that has undertaken to socialize medicine is full of horror stories. We have horror stories here, too, but they mostly involve INSURANCE coverage issues. Let's not overreact here and throw the baby out with the bathwater. We DO need some reform in our health care INSURANCE industry, but NOT in the actual practice of medicine. Let's keep doctors in charge of healthcare, not lawyers or government bureaucrats. We'll all feel better. If all of this has given you a headache, remember what the doctor says: "Take two aspirin, and call me in the morning." If congress does what it wants to do, you can still get two aspirin because they sell those at your local grocery store. However, when you try to call the doctor in the morning, you're going to be on HOLD for a long, long time.

Heil Hitler! Heil Obama! What the Heil is Happening Here??

2009-07-31T12:17:00.002-05:00

Ok Liberal Democrats. I've really been resisting the urge to compare the modern democratic national socialist agenda with what happened in Germany in the 1930's, but every time I turn around I'm running into liberal propaganda equating George Bush, John McCain or conservative republicans in general with Adolph Hitler and the Nazi regime. There's an old adage which says that "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," but as you persist in throwing rocks in your glass house, I'm just going to illustrate the many ways in which modern liberal democrats are much more in line with Adolph Hiler's Nazi movement than any conservative republican idea could ever be.

To be fair to liberal democrats, I'm not suggesting that liberal democrats want to commit genocide, conquer the world, or commit any of the other horrirs typically associated with Nazi Germany. What I'm comparing is the method by hich these comparable political ideologies acquired their power and the social, political, and enconomic environments that made these movement thrive and flourish.

The biggest single element that both German Nazis and American Liberal Socialists have in common in their spokesperson. In Germany, that person was Adolf Hitler. In modern socialist America, it's Barack Obama. What do Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler have in common? The answers might just surprise you. Again, I'm not suggesting that they are one and the same, far from it. But when you look at the two men side by side, and without the emotional disgust and revulsion that one normally associates with the name Adolf Hitler, you can see some similarities between the two men.

Let's start with Adolf Hitler, since the history has largely been written on him. Hitler came from modest means. Hist entire youth and early adulthood were marred by poverty and social ostraccism. His father died when he as young, and he was frustrated in his attempts to achieve recognition and success as an artist. He blamed this faiulre not on his own lack of talent, evident to anyone who has ever seen any of his artwork, but rather on a conspiracy of Jewish professors at the Vienna Art Institute. This belief that he was cheated by this ethnic minority formed the nucleus of his lifelong passionate anti-semitism. Obama was the bi-racial child of a divorced, single mother but even though he did not grow up in poverty, I am relatively certain he suffered some social ostracism as a child.

Hitler migrated to Germany around the time of the outbreak of World War I, so Hitler joined the German Army. He needed a job, and he wanted to ingratiate himself with his adopted country. As a soldier in the German Army, Hitler distinguished himself in combat and rose to the rank of corporal, quite an achievement for a non-German, and was even awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class. It was because of this distinction that Hitler was permitted to remain in the German Army after the mandatory downsizing of the Treaty of Versailles. This treaty restricted the German Army to less than 100,000 personnel. Obama never served in the military or saw combat, but he did engage in public civil service as a community organizer.

As part of his duties following the end of the war, corporal Hitler was assigned by his commanding officer, Captain Ernst Roehm (that's right, the same Ernst Roehm who would later head the Sturmabteilung, the SA browshirted stormtroopers), to attend political meetings to determine if any of the activities or topics of conversation could be considered subversive or illegal under the new Weimar Republican Constitution. Once such group was the German Worker's Party. Hitler attended a meeting of the German Worker's Party in a beer hall in Munich and what he heard there was a message that extolled the virtues of German ideals, the supremacy of German might, the and the ability of Germany to rise again and take its' place once more among the leaders of the world.

To a fervent nationalist like corporal Adolf Hitler, these words resonated and enthralled the young Hitler so much so that he not only failed to report the group, he actually joined it. When questioned by Captain Roehm about his experiences, he told Roehm that he did not see anything subversive or illegal about the group in that meeting, but that he should attend future meetings to make sure that there was nothing for the government to be concerned about. The next time Hitler attended a meeting of the German Worker's Party, he requested permission to address the meeting. As he was the group's newest member, they were only too happy to have him speak. When he spoke, his spellbinding oratory moved the group to such an extent that membership increased immediately, and Hitler was made the spokesman for the group from that time forward. Obama and the liberal socialists of the democratic party are also strong in the labor movement and enjoy union support. Is it a coincidence that the Nazi party started life as a labor union?

Ironically, Hitler knew that if this group were to become a political force that could achieve any significant political power, there would have to be some changes made. He started with the name of the group, because he understood instinctively that if the party were to achieve any success, it was going to have to appeal to Germans from all social and economic classes and a worker's party implied that the members were blue-collar laborers who carried lunch boxes was pumpernickel sandwiches and warm beer in the thermos. This image was not likely to appeal to the aristocracy, the illuminati, the glitterati, or the professionals he would need to attract to the party.

Germany, unlike France, Russia, and other countries that had experienced revolutions, did not disposses or murder its aristocrats when it became a republic. Even though Germany had been a feudal monarchy prior to World War I, and the ruling Kaiser and his family and court fled the country at the war's end, the German citizenry still had respect and admiration for its' nobility. Many of the heroes of the war were from noble families and Hitler knew he would need the support of men with Von in their names if he were to achieve political power. He also knew he would need to associate himself with academic, political, military, and celebrity personalities to increase his popular appeal. Sound familiar? It wasn't John McCain that was supported by the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg. Then factor in Colin Powell, Bruce Springstein, Kanye West, P-Diddy Combs, etc. and you have a modern comparison.

Regardless of his entourage, Hitler could not achieve any significant political successes until the advent of the Great Depression. It is only in a climate of economic misery and unbridled fear that the message of national socialism sounds even remotely attractive. Hitler used the Depression, the runaway inflation that made it necessary to take a wheelbarrow full of German currency to the bakery to buy a loaf of bread, and the rampant economic unrest to push his message of national pride, hope, and a return to past glories. Sound familiar?

With lines like "Germany forever," and "The German people are the rightful masters of the world," Hitler seduced the German citizens to support him, but even with all of these things going for him, he still couldn't win the power he sought. His newly named National Socialist, or "Nazi" party was gaining seats in the Reichstag, or Germany's congress, but it couldn't claim a majority against the communists, labor unionists, and worse, the democratic republicans who still believed in the viability of the Weimar Republic. Obama ran his campaign with slogans like "Yes we can," "I believe in you," "Our best days are ahead." etc.

Also problematic to Hitler's ambitions was the advocacy of the media against him. Newspapers and radio newscasters were trying to sound the alarm about Hitler and the true intentions of the Nazis. Unfortunately, Hitler had such reserves of cash and celebrity power that he was able to counter and ulitimately stifle and silence his critics. If you examine the ways this was done, you really begin to see some frightening similarities between Hitler's Nazis and modern liberal democratic politics.

First, the Nazis sued their popular appeal and celebrity endorsers to boycott and punish by economic means, any newspaper or radio program that spoke negatively about Hitler or the Nazis. Economic assault proved to be very effective, but sometimes even that wasn't enough. When the economic muscle failed, Hitler brought in the stormtroopers, the brownshirted thugs of the SA, to help the misguided writers, editors, or broadcasters see the light. Sometimes this was done by trashing the newspaper offices, destroying the presses, or burning down the building. If that didn't do it, the stormtroopers would kick in the door of a journalist or editor whose writing they didn't like and maybe kick in his teeth, break his arms or some other such violence. If the target were too popular for such brutality, then the Nazis would engage in the politics of personal destruction to silence their critics. This could be accomplished a number of ways, but the most common was to photograph the person talking to a little girl or gay man, and release the photo charging all manner of innapropriate conduct, labeling the man as either a pedophile or a homosexual, effectively marginalizing him and alienating his public followers. He could then be shipped off to a prison or conentration camp with little or no public outcry. The politics or personal destruction. Sound familiar? Just ask Joe Werzelbacher or "Joe the Plumber" as he's more appropriately known. Ask Sarah Palin, if you need another example.

Silencing one's political critics is essential when you're trying to promote an agenda that if it were ever objectively examined would be denounced and defeated. The Nazis systematically removed any and all independent media outlets by passing laws that made it a criminal offense to publish or broadcast anything not approved by the Nazi Party. Sound familiar? The liberal socialists are idealogically aligned with nealy all of the mainstream media, so there are no worries about unfavorable press there. The same is true with most broadcast and cable television channels. The only media the liberal socialists do not control is talk radio and the internet. Talk radio is almost exclusively dominated by popular and therefore powerful conservative spokemen and the liberal socialists want to silence these critics. Since they have failed to compete in the arena of ideas, they are turning to the same kind of government intervention that the Nazis relied upon, only now it's hypocritically referred to as the "fairness" doctrine. As for the internet, there have been rumblings about laws to require the registration of political websites. While this would seem to fairly apply to all such sites, it effectively draws a bullseye on the backs of conservative political writers. After all, if we register, then they know where to send the stormtroopers, don't they?

Now, again to be fair, I'm not saying that Obama and the liberal socialist democrats are the Nazis. I'm not suggesting they are even remotely as malevolent, meglomaniacal, or genocidal as the Nazis proved to be. What I AM suggesting, is that there are remarkable and frightening similarities about how they acieved their power, and how they are attempting to keep it. If this last election cycle proved anything, it was that Nazi political tactics are alive and well and currently being used.

For the unbelievers that doubt that today's liberal socialists don't have their stormtroopers, their gestapo, their SS, etc. you would be very wrong. Ever heard of ACORN? Those are the modern equivalent of stormtroopers, complete with kooky orange hats and uniform shirts. They are the thugs that strongarm the opposition by breaking into foreclosed homes, registering dead and fraudulent voters, and engaging in other quasi criminal enterprises they dismiss as "civil disobedience" when confronted with their acts. Not surprisingly, there was a federal investigation into the activities of this group before the recent election, but I'm pretty willing to bet that this investigation will either become a whitewash, or will be swept under the rug altogether given the political sympthies of the group and its long history with our own Supreme Community Organizer in Chief. Of course, in true Hitlerian fashion, if his stormtroopers prove to be too big a political embarassment, their might be another virtual "Night of Long Knives" in which Obama, like Hitler before him, determines it's more politically expedient to throw his stormtroopers under the bus and allow the justice department to prosecute them fully. Hitler used his SS, to arrest and murder the leadership of the Stormtroopers, including his old friend and Commanding Officer Ernest Roehm, when he needed the support of the German Army.

Who then are the modern liberal socialist's version of the SS? Well, that is a little more subtle a comparison. There are no uniformed, jackbooted, mass murderers in the liberal socialist party that I'm aware of. However, if you visit sites like "the Daily Coast," "The Huffington Post," "Move on.org" or others of this ilk, you begin to see some similarities to the ideological purity espoused by Heinrich Himmler. Though not a racial issue today like it was with the Nazis of history, ideology has replaced race in the modern liberal socialist dogma. Today it is not Jews that are the target of liberal socialist ire, it is the "rich." Ironic when you consider that most of the liberal socialist poster boys and girls are themselves "rich." Still, it is the "rich" that are demonized and attacked by the liberal socialists. But the issue of Race is also alive and well, as the liberal socialists have proved more than once. They are perfectly willing to play the race card and any opportunity and brand anyone that disagrees with them as "racist."

Could today's "rich" end up in concentration camps? Well, read the editorials and blogs that call for the removal from office, and criminal prosecution of the Wall Street Banking and Trading executives that the liberal socialist propogandists blame for today's economic woes. Noticeably absent from the calls for incarceration, are the liberal socialists whose social engineering hubris is equally to blame. I'm not defending the Wall streeters here. If they violated laws, they should be held accountable. I don't think anyone doubts that Bernie Madoff deserved his fate. There is, however, something funabmentally wrong with the notion that executives who ran a business and achieved economic success for their efforts should be punished for doing the things that have made them successful in the past merely because they were forced to take govermnent money. Still, these executives may well be made scapegoats for the ills of today's society much in the same way the Jews were scapegoated by the Nazis. It is equally disingenuous behavior on the part of the socialist regimes whether in Germany in the 30's or here today.

Now, maybe next time you see an ACORN worker on the street in their conspicous bright orange shirt and hat, give 'em a "Heil." They might just "heil" you back. And now that I've sufficient degressed myself, I'm getting the "heil" out of here to go do some serious drinking. 'Til we "meet" again.

Here Comes Da Judge!

2009-07-28T20:30:00.001-05:00

I had just started writing this piece when a friend on mine asked if it were not redundant in light of my previously released piece, "His-PANIC" which addressed some of the concerns about the nomination of Judge Sonya Sotomayor to replace retiring Justice David Souter as an Associate Justice in the Supreme Court of the United States. I replied that while there were similarities, the previous piece, "His-PANIC" dealt with the racial factors inherent in the nomination and how both Republican and Democratic senators should handle the confirmation hearings about this nominee. With this article, I'm addressing the role of judges and justices in general in the interpretation and enforcement of laws that make the framework for the rule of law that is so essential to the structure and foundation of our democratic republic.

In the interest of full and fair disclosure, and because some of what follows will come across as being somewhat esoteric, let me preface the following by saying that I come by my knowlege of legal and judical practice and procedure very honestly. In addition to having a bachelors degree with a pre-law concentration, I also have the benefit of over ten years of experience working as a litigation paralegal. Additionally, I had the benefit of having as a mentor, a close family member who served as a Circuit/Superior Court Judge for more than thirty years. I also had the pleasure of cultivating personal friendships wtih judges of both the elected and appointed varieties as a result of my political activities over the years. Accordingly, my opinion on these subjects is more than the average layman's opinion.

Like most of the country, I first heard the name Sonya Sotomayor when she was first floated as a potential nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. When I first saw a photograph of her, I knew that identity politics were in play. I also knew that she would have a compellling story, and that she would he a highly qualified jurist, because the democrats are all about the rule of law, or more to the point, the MANIPULATION of the law to suit their political ideology. Democrats have been using the court system for DECADES to force laws and policies on this country our legislators (and the VOTERS who elect them) never intended. Republicans have joined in this practice more recently. By packing courts with "ringer" judges that will rule in accordance with the wishes of politicians, but enable them to avoid political liablity for these acts, the politicians are using the judiciary as "unelected legistlators," a role for which the judiciary was NEVER envisioned or intended by our Founding Fathers as set out in the U.S. or State Constitutions

The Supreme Court was established in Article III of the United States Constitution. Article III, Section II defines the juridiction of the Supreme Court and provides a framework for the kinds of cases the Court may hear and determine. The Court first asserted its jurisdiction in the landmark case of Marbury v. Madison, which established the precedent for judicial review of laws passed by the Congress and their compliance with the Constitution. The whole rationale for the Supreme Court was that the framers of the Constitution understood that an elected President and Congress could collude to pass laws that would enfringe on the rights and liberties of the citizens, and could become every bit as tyrannical as the British King Geroge we had just sent packing. They also understood that elected legislators and Presidents would be beholden to their electorates, and the whims and caprices of the passions of the moment, because they were all about getting elected and re-elected. Politicians, therefore, must sometimes subordinate their better judgment to satisfy the demands of voters, who sometimes do NOT think about the long term effect of their acting on their momentary passions.

Every elected politician and government appointee from the President down to the newest enlistees in the armed forces takes an oath the "support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" prior to their entry into office or commencing their service. Sadly for us, some of them shed that oath the second they enter their offices and start promoting their social ideologies and political agendas which are sometimes CONTRARY to that very oath. When this occurs, it is to the judicial branch that We the People must look to preserve our rights and liberties. The framers of the Constitution understood this, foresaw it, and for this reason, built the judiciary to be free of the caprices of contemporary politics. Accordingly, once appointed, a federal judge or supreme court justice can serve for the remainder of his life, or as long as he or she so desires and cannot be removed unless they are impeached by the house and found guilty in the senate of serious criminal wrongdoing. This is NEVER happened to an associate justice of the Supreme Court and very RARELY happened to any members of the federal judicial branch. The most recent example I can think of is the case of Federal District Court Judge Alcee Hastings, who is now a serving member of the House of Representatives.

Though the office of a Federal District or Appellate Court Judge or Supreme Court Justice is not a political one, per se, candidates must be nominated and confirmed by elected politicians. These politicians look for judges and justicies that are sympathetic to their political and social ideologoes and agendas because they look to the courts to provide cover and in some cases to take on the role of legislators to protect the politicians from the wrath of the voters when laws may be unpopular with their constituents, but nonetheless support the politicians political or social ideological beliefs.

There are two kinds of judges or justices one can expect to see on the bench. The ones that read into the Constitution and legislation what they choose to support their own political or social beliefs are colloquially referred to as "activist" or "liberal" judges or "legislators from the bench." The other kind of judge or justice is the one that actually reads the Constitution or the law for what it says in black and white and doesn't attempt to read "into" it, his or her own personal politcs or ideas of "social justice" or "empathy." These are referred to as "strict constructionists" or sometimes "conservative" judges or justices. Sadly, there are far more of the former, than the latter sitting on our courts today. At a time when our rights to property, and even life itself, have never been more precarious due to the behavior of an elected President and Congress who have abandoned their oaths of office the second their hands came off the Bible, We the People have never been more dependent on a judiciary that actually FOLLOWS the Constitution as the framers wrote it and intended it. We are faced with government tyranny and corruption as never before and the stakes have never been higher.

In the weeks leading up to the senate's judiciary committee hearings, I did extensive research on the more recent rulings of the Hon. Sonya Sotommayoras well as some of her earlier decisions on the district court bench. I reviewed my research with friends in the legal profession, as well as active jurists and found that her rulings are both fair, and supported by statutory and case law precendents. Her judicial record is both impressive, and conservative though I would stop short of actually calling her a "strict constructionist." Likewise, I do not consider her remarks made at hispanic organizational meetings to rise to the level of indemic racism, and further consider attempts by politcians and political pundits to brand her as a racist on par with David Duke of the KKK, to be neither warranted nor accurate. I was particularly offended by a photoshopped representation of her in Grand Dragon's robes. I guess the election of our first black president hasn't moved us to that post-racial nirvana we were led to believe it would.

A very wise man, a career jurist, and my childhood mentor once told me that I should refrain from drawing a conclusion or making a judgment until it was absolutely necessary to do so. He went on to say that when it WAS necessary, that I should only make my judgment with the evidence of my own eyes and ears and not to rely on the reporting of others. If the past election cycle coverage has taught me anything, it is NOT to trust any so-called journlist for a fair and objective reporting on any political or social issue ever again. To that end, I did my own research and reading of Judge Sotomayor's judicial opinons, discussing them only with men and women more qualified than I to analyze them. I also sat through every agonizing second of the dog and pony show that passed for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on CSPAN so as to avoid the spin applied by reporters and political pundits alike. Despite numerous temptations to change the channel or pop in a DVD, I watched virtually every second of the speeches, the questions, and most importantly the ANSWERS to make my own independent evaluation of Judge Sonya Sotomayor and her fitness to be the next Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

When all was said and done, I arrived at two distinct, and (some might argue) disparate conclusions, or such was the consensus at my Toastmaster's Rountable group discussion earlier this week. The first conclusion was that the Hon. Sonya Sotomayhor is a very impressive woman with a personally inspirational life story, an impressive ciriculum vitae as both a lawyer and a jurist, and that she is in every way highly qualified for the office she aspires to enter. I also believe that she will, in fact, be affirmed to that position for both political and social considerations. While I don't wish to opine that she is an "affirmative action" candidate, I will not hesitate to state that her nomination is the result of the "identity politics" for which both political parties have become renowned in recent memory. Conservatives, anxious to avoid a repeat of the Robert Bork debacle, nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court believing that the Democrats would risk the support of the African-American community if they attacked him too viciously as they had Robert Bork. But for the emergence of the Anita Hill sexual harassment charge, his would have been a relatively passive and successful nomination and a political victory for conservative republicans. He did manage to get confirmed despite the best efforts of senate democrats, and I firmly believe that with Judge Sotomayor, history will repeat itself.

This, too, is the case with the nomination of Judge Sotomayor, and the Democrats have even gone so far as to verbally warn Republicans that they proceed against this nomination at their own peril, meaning they risk losing any support from the Hispanic community if they are perceived to have a bias against Judge Sotomayor for any reasons that can be deemed to be racial. When the facts fail, resort to the racism charge. In point of fact the Republicans have bent over backwards to avoid any racial component in their questioning of Judge Sotomayor, with the exception of asking her to explain her thinking when she repeatedly made her more controversial remarks as both a Federal District and Appellate Court jurist. The republican senators focused their questions and comments more appropriately on her judicial rulings, including the now infamous Ricci case which has since been reversed by the United States Supreme Court, though Judge Sotomayor relied on existing statutory and case law in sustaining the judgment of the District Court dismissing the case. We can only speculate as the whether or not she might have ruled differently if the plaintiff in "Ricci" were of Hispanic or African-American descent.

My second, and more controversial conclusion, judging by earlier reaction, is that if and when she is confirmed as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Sonya Sotomayor will be every bit the liberal judicial activist that the republicans fear she will be. Now, I can hear the questions forming just as they did in my Toastmaster's roundtable when I was asked how, when conisdering her judicial record, I could conclude that she would totally change her judicial philosophy if confirmed. This is why I disclosed the fact that I had been privy to inside information from other judges. As a result of this special insight, I am aware of several fears shared by judges in general, but only TWO shared by ALL judges regardless of their jurisdiction or party affiliation.

The first universal fear shared by all the judges I know regardless of the demographic differences, is the fear of the loss of control of their courtrooms. This is a very real, visceral, fear that was illustrated and justified all too well a few years ago in Atlanta, Georgia when an escaping felon took the sidearm of a deputy sheriff and shot and killed several people in the courtroom, including the Judge. After this event, even the most liberal of judges, whose rulings had previously gone against the Second Amendment and groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA), suddenly found gun ownership to be a good thing. Many of them even started carrying their own firearms, in and out of court. There is nothing like seeing a collegue murdered to change a liberal judge's religion when it comes to firearms.

The second universal fear, and more relevant to the conclusion I reached about the Hon. Sonya Sotomayor, is the fear of having a judgment reversed by a higher court on appeal. This is the equivalent of getting your examination back in school with the dreaded red check marks. A reversal says to the judge "you got it WRONG," Reverals can have a detrimental effect on a jurist's career, esp if such reversals are frequent, and involve high profile cases with political implications. While reversals do NOT impune a judge's qualifications, they can lead a politican or layperson to conclude the judge may be less than competent. If a judge's appointment to higher office is a matter of political contention, numerous reversals can be used to justify NOT supporting the judge's nomination, as the reversals of Judge Sotomayor's rulings, including the "Ricci" case, have been used by the republican senators to challenge her qualifications for higher office.

Judges and lawyers alike have a colloquial expression for being reversed on appeal. It is called "being spanked on appeal." Unless these judges and lawyers are closet masochists, that would seem to imply that reversal is, at a minimum, an unpleaseant experience for a judge. It is for this reason, among others, that judges in lower courts tend to make their rulings conservatively to avoid the dreaded "spanking." The higher up in the chain a judge goes, the less fearful he or she is of the "spanking" consequence. Since there is no higher judicial authority in the country than the United States Supreme Court, and even if a justice's opinion is in the minority, it is not considered "wrong" and will be represented in the published opinion. Therefore, when a jurist is appointed to the Supreme Court, he or she is free to exercise his own opinons without fear of reversal or admonition, whereas as a judge in a lower court, the same jurist might tend to be more conservative in her or her rulings. For this reason alone, a judge's record on the bench is not an accurate predictor of how he or she will behave when all judicial constraints are removed and the said jurist is free to "let his or her freak flag fly,"

Ironically, this is EXACTLY what happened in the case of Justice David Souter, the man retiring from the Court creating the vacancy now being filled. Justice Souter was appointed by George H.W. Bush, a conservative republican president, who believed that he was appointing a conservative justice who would interpret the consitution literally. His vetting team concluded that then Judge David Souter was such a jurist based partly upon his judicial record, and in part upon the extensive interviews they had with the prospective nominee. Apparently Justice Souter was able to provide the team with the answers they wanted, because he got the nomination and he got confirmed. Since his confirmation, however, Justice Souter has ruled liberally more than sixty-five percent of the time, and if often referred to as one of the four liberals on the bench. Clearly, he was able to deceive the Bush vetting team, the President himself, and the senate judiciary committee to get the job, and once ensconced, was free to be himself, a liberal judicial activist.

In the Hon. Sonya Sotomayor, I see very many of the same chameleon qualities that we failed to see in then candidate Barak Obama. While her statements and answers in her confirmation hearings were well reasoned, I could tell she had been prepped very carefully and was, in fact, going to her memory to respond to questions that should have been second nature to her. Like the President, she backpedalled away from not only her record, but also a lifetime of political and social views that she had clearly heretofore embraced. This was reminiscent of the way then candidate Barak Obama threw his pastor of twenty years acquaintance, under the proverbial bus when he became a political liability. Suffice it to say, the logical conclusion is that Judge Sotomayor has been prepped by the same deceptive bunch of experts that caused us to elect a President that is NOTHING like the candidate sold to us under very FALSE pretenses. In short, I don't TRUST her and I don't know which Justice will show up to work on that First Monday in October. Will it be the one she's been all her life, the wise latina woman who will make better decisions than a white man, or the more moderate, and constitutionally faithful one she tried to convince us all she was in a week of hearings before the senate judiciary committee. One thing I am comfortable in saying is that the old expression "birds of a feather flock together" seems to be very much applicable to the present situation. I believe that President Obama would not nominate anyone that he didn't think shared his judicial and social philosophy. I believe he is intelligent enough and skilled enough as both a politician and lawyer to recognized someone who is aligned with his model of the world, and who will likely perform in the manner he expects her to. I do not think he is a man who can be easily fooled, but I also believe that his ego is such, that he may actually believe his press clippings and if that is the case, he might not be able to acknowledge the possibility that he is wrong in his assessment. Judge Sotomayor could turn out to be nothing like he thought and therefore be a pleasant surprise to those of us that want a justice who reads and applys the Constitution as written. Only time will tell.

As to how this likely appointment will affect the current makeup of the Supreme Court, there will not be an immediate impact. The current court consists of four justices that are considered liberally biased and frequently rule for the left side of an issue, four justices that are purported to be conservatives and frequently rule on the right side of an issue, and one lone justice that is referred to as the "swing voter" because he cannot be pinned with either a liberal or conservative judicial bias. Whether this is because he is the only justice who is faithfully adhering to his oath and genuinely trying to make his rulings in accordance with the Constitution, or because he is weak, and moderate in his views and can be readily persuaded by either argument. I can't say. I do not know the man well enough to speculate. I only know that at times I am very grateful for his support, and at other times I curse him for his vascillation. Isn't that always the way it goes?

With regard to judicial nominations, this round goes to the democrats. I congratulate President Obama for a very politically well reasoned and diabolical pick in the person of the Hon. Sonya Sotomayor. He found the one candidate who could actually survive the nomination process virtually unscathed, and claim a bi-partisan victory in the process. Whether you agree or disagree with his political and social philosophy, you have to give the man his due in that he is one formidable politician. Whether the credit for this goes to him or his handlers is a matter for specuation. But he did this without the aid of a teleprompter, cliffs notes, or any other crutch traditionally employed by politicians to help them make their points without making Biden-style gaffes. The republicans wisely chose to not waste their ammo against the unassailable Judge Sotomayor, but the equally, or perhaps MORE important issues of Cap n' Trade, and National Health Care Reform are battles still to be fought, and that fight may well end up before the Supreme Court of the United States where then Associate Justice Sonya Sotomayor will be able to answer our burining question "who will she be tomorrow?"

July 4, 2009, The Dis-Spirit of '76!

2009-07-07T15:19:00.010-05:00

I LOVE the Fourth of July holiday! It is a time when American pride is at its' height. Summertime is in full swing, families are usually beginning or ending their summer vacations, school's out and will not be restarting for at least another month and a half, and it's generally a very happy and festive time. It is a time for watching fireworks, cooking hot dogs, burgers, steaks, brats, etc. It's a time for getting together in the great outdoors with family and friends, most of whom will be decked out in red, white, and blue apparell, waving flags, and singing songs about America and American pride. This has been the sum total of my forty-six years of experiences with this national holiday.

Of all the celebrations I remember, the one that stands out most in my mind is the one from our national bi-centennial in 1976. At a time when our nation was recovering from the Vietnam conflict, Watergate, years of economic malaise, we managed to put all of that aside and come together as we hadn't been able to do since World War II to celebrate our nation's 200th birthday. I remember well, that every square inch of the city was draped in either a flag or red, white & blue bunting. You couldn't walk a foot without bumping into someone wearing either a tricorn hat, an Uncle Sam styled stovepipe hat, or a revolutionary war era costume. Even more than the costumes themselves, were the SMILES on everyone's faces as they embraced and attempted to propound the Spirit of '76. This past weekend, a mere 33 years later, there was little if ANY of that sort of thing in evidence.

In the four years following the bi-centennial, the Carter years, national morale went into a steep nosedive. To be fair, we were still reeling form the ravages of Vietnam and Watergate when we elected President Carter, but it was his domestic and foreign policies, which culminated in the capture and holding of our embassy personnel as hostages for more than a year while we did NOTHING to effect their rescue, that had our national morale at an all time low when we elected former actor and Governor of California, Ronald W. Reagan to oust the innefectual Carter from the White House.

Reagan's greatest political asset was his abilty to communicate with the people of this country and appeal to our patriotism and national pride. He made us proud to be Americans, once more, and inspired the patriotic anthems "Pround to Be An American", by Lee Greenwood, "In America," by the Charlie Daniels Band, and a slew of other musical tributes, including one by noted liberal, Bruce Springsteen, called "Born in the USA." Even though the latter was not written to celebrate America or Reagan, it was still played as though it were. President ?Reagan restored our national pride in many ways, including but not limited to the freeing of our hostages, the support he gave the Polish labor movement, Solidarity, and his challenge to Soviet Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall." He never flinched on the world stage, and he NEVER showed even the slightest sign of weakness in this country. He also NEVER apologized for or about anything the United States had done, said, or stood for, especially on foreign soil.

Contrast that to our current President who has circled the globe, pretty much on his knees, apologizing to friends and foes alike for all things American. Contrast the optimism and hope of Reagan with our own First Lady's comments about not having pride in her country at any time in her adult life, including the Reagan years, prior to 2008 when her husband was nominated by the Democratic Party as it's presidential candidate. Would Nancy Reagan ever have made a comment like that? I don't think so. In fact, this President has spent more time on his knees than Debbie did the whole time she was doing DALLAS! I hope he has a good pair of knee pads because I have a feeling he's not through groveling just yet.

The final blow for me came this past weekend, our Fourth of July Independence Day holiday, when this selfsame apologist-in-chief actually had the temerity to apologize to ENGLAND for our own Declaration of Independence and by extension, our very existence. His next stop is Russia where he'll be right at home among fellow Marxists like Putin and Medvyedev. I wonder what he'll apologize for THERE. Winning the Cold War, perhaps, Salt, Detente, Perestroika? The possibilities are endless.

The worst part about all of it is that it's for NOTHING. He's not going to win one point in either popularity or gain one concession as as result of his prostration before the thugs and dictators of the world than he would have gotten making his requests in the same manner used by George W. Bush. The difference is that the world leaders RESPECTED George W. Bush, even if they didn't always say so. They KNEW he wasn't a man they could mess with, and that he would back up his words with decisive action if necessary. They have NO such illusions about Barak Obama. In all fairness to President Obama, he may very well be able to act if necesary and all the supplication may just be a tactic to engineer a specific outcome. At some point in time, however, he's got to realize that it is not only ineffective, but that it makes our country look weak and inconsequential in world affairs. He's being punked like a freshman nerd in the high school playground on the first day of school. This is evidenced by every two bit thug and dictator doing pretty much whatever he pleases these days. Iran is escalating it's nuclear production and has no intention of abating this no matter what takes place in any discussion with this president or his representatives. North Korea is firing off missles and exploding bombs like there is no consequence for doing so, because at this time there ISN'T. Thugs and dictators don't respect social niceties, they respect only what they FEAR and they do not fear Barak Obama. They see him, unfairly or not, as a weak willed dilletante they can push around at will, and they are doing so daily. How can we feel a sense of national pride with such a leader?

In all fairness to President Obama, this is not all his fault. patriotism and Americanism has been under assault in this country in earnest since the Vietnam era. Our television and print news media, entertainment media, music, movies, schools, etc. have been systematically programming their audiences with the none to subtle message that America is BAD and that the bad things happening in the world are somehow OUR fault. There are at least TWO generations of students that have pretty much been indocrinated since preschool to think this way. There are at least THREE generation of college students, including the baby boomers like Bill Clinton, that have been programmed with this and other marxist ideologies since college.

Traditional American ideals and values, such as Christianity, liberty, self-sufficiency, free enterprise, capitalism, etc. have been under constant seige by the Left for DECADES. When Hillary Clinton referred to that "vast right wing conspiracy" that was out to get her husband, she indavertently exposed the very real "vast LEFT wing conspiracy" that had been in existence since the late nineteeth century. This freudian slip was the result of a psychological phenomenon known as "projection," which means that you "project" your own ideas or behaviors onto others as either a coping mechanism to help you deal with them, or as a form of subterfuge to distract your opponent from what you yourself are doing. This is a technique often employed by philandering spouses when their mates become suspicious of their behaviors. The cheating husband whose wife is getting suspicious of his late night "business meetings" will suddenly turn and accuse the wife of having an affair. It puts her off her guard and on the defensive and takes her focus off of him and what HE is doing. This is the same reason magicians often have beautiful leggy girls in skimpy attire as their stage assistant. It is not by accident, but design, as they know that the audience will be more likely to stare at her LEGS and NOT his HANDS, so he can complete his illusion without his methods being detected.

This left wing seige began with the publication of "A Communist Manifesto" by a writer/philsopher named Karl Marx. This philosphy was embraced by academic institutions the world over and has been effective in indoctrinating both democrats and republicans alike. Marxist indocrinees are responsbile for the existence or organizations like the ACLU, labor unions, and community ordganizations like ACORN. Students of these teachings have graduated and become television and print journalists, hollywood actors, directors, and screenwriters, educators, law enforcement officials, etc. These teachings have been at least partly responsible for the moral decay experienced by our society and the war on religion, family values, and our sense of pride in our national identity.

It continues to this day in the relentless assault on the Bush administration by both the Obama administration and it's sycophants and toadies in the congress. For what is the Bush administration, but the long legged magicians assistant designed to keep our focus looking backwards so we don't see what our governement is doing in the present time. In point of fact, nothing President Bush did puts our lives and lifestyles in peril half as much as what's being done today and we need to keep our focus on that. Democratic congressmen and senators aren't all true believers and many of them are betting their re-election on President Obama's popularity ratings. If they continue to fall as they have been, you're going to see these career politicians start backing away from him and his policies like rats off of a sinking ship. It is for precisely this reason that the administration is in such a rush to get Cap n' Trade, National Healthcare Reform (a euphamism for socialized medicine), and maybe even a SECOND stimulus passed and signed before that can happen.

Cindy Hale wrote "Governments don't take away the rights of free people in large blocks but in small chips that are barely noticed, until one day you wake up and realize you are no longer a free people." Whether liberty is lost in a sudden violent hail of bullets or legislated away in thousand page bills passed over a period of years, the net result is the same. It's gone, and as long as keep electing the same kind of politicians to public office, it's NOT coming back. Our founding father Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that there were three rights endowed by our Creator and not by government. These were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Liberty is second only to LIFE in that trilogy. He further started the then New Democratic Party to safeguard against the legislating away of any of these rights by the creeping bureaucracy of an expansive federal government. Today it is that self same Democratic Party that is doing precisely what Jefferson warned us against for he understood that although these rights come from God, not government, they CAN be legislated away. Eleven score and thirteen years later, my how things have changed!

In spite of outward appearance however, the Spirit of '76 is alive and well. It was evident in the Tea Parties of April 15, and July 4, it's evident every day on the internet and certain television stations, and it is only going to grow as our President and Congress continue to try to legislate us into a socialist model of utopia in a vainglorious effort to preserve their political power and polish their legacies. Still, as long as we remember the words of yet another founding father, Virginian Patrick Henry when he said "Is life so dear as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me LIBERTY or give me DEATH!" While I don't believe anyone in the Obama administration or the Congress of the United States desires our deaths per se, I DO agree with Patrick Henry in that a life without liberty is a mere existence and not worth the effort. So, unfurl your flag, dust off the tricorn hats and keep going to meetings, websites, tea parties, and ultimately the voting booths and keep the Spirit of '76 alive and well so that we may proudly celebrate our Tri-Centennial in 2076.

California DREAMING

2009-06-30T16:37:00.002-05:00

When I woke up this morning the LAST thing I had planned to do was write anything of a political nature. I was working on a nice blog article about the passing of Farrah Fawcett, which has all but disappeared from the public notice in the media tsunami over the equally untimely and tragic passing of Michael Jackson. So there I was writing my little personal tribute to the woman whose face and figure helped get me through the "awkward" phase of adolecense when I heard President Obama's dulcet tones telling us that we should model our national energy policy after that of the State of California, and that we as a country should be more like California. So much for the Farrah piece because I can't let a man with such a large microphone spew out inaccurate, false, and deliberately misleading statements without challenging them. This is supposed to be the job of the press, but since they are too busy obsequiously fawning over their hand-picked and annointed messianic symbol to do their JOBS, I guess it will be up to people like me, so here goes. I lived in California in the Reagan 80's and even then, California had a serious pollution problem. I remember in Los Angeles, we got daily smog reports with the morning weather and traffic, and as long as I can remember, California cars have had significantly stricter requirements for automotive emissions than the rest of the country. Despite all this, you could still see a brown smog cloud hanging over Los Angeles, especially in the summer months and it made being outside, nearly unbearable at times. Clearly some reforms were needed, and they were being undertaken by the last good Republican governor to run the Golden State, Pete Wilson. When Californians elected liberal democrat George Dukmejian, the enviornmentalists where pretty much given the keys to the kingdom and free reign over the Sunshine State. I'm glad I got out of there before that happened, especially in light of what followed. To be fair to the environmentalists, the Golden State of California was a mess in many ways. We're all familiar with the story of Erin Brockovich, thanks to her book, movie, and portrayal by academy award winning actress Julia Roberts. She took on the largest power company in the state over the issue of toxic waste coming from a power plant. When Dukmejian was elected, he targeted the largest power companies in the state, forcing them to close a number of power plants deemed hazardous to the environment. This is all well and good, but if you take power plants off line, what happens to the power they generate? Do we stop using less just because we're making less? In the case of California, the power companies tried to make up the shortfall by rehabilitating some of the closed plantsto bring them back online. This was rejected by the government. The utility companies then wanted to build a nuclear power plant as nuclear power is cheaper and less polluting than coal or oil run plants, but thanks to the specters of 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and The China Syndrome, the state refused to allow nuclear power. The companies attempted to increase output from the remaining plants, but consumption was too high. This forced the power companies to make up the shortfall by buying electricity from out of state companies at a premium. As businesses do, they pass their cost increases down to their customers, and California residents saw their power bills increase exponentially. This is something we might ALL be able to relate to soon, if Cap n' Trade passes in the Senate and gets signed into law by The ONE, himself. When people are unhappy the complain to their representatives and the unhappy Californians were no different. The problem is, that when you ask politicians to solve a business problem you get a political rather than an effective solution. The same held true in California, and instead of allowing the power companies to create more power by opening a plant or easing environmental restrictions, the government of California decided to regulate the rates utility companies could charge their customers, regardless of the costs those utility companies incurred to produce that energy. This created an inbalance which the government then offset by paying subsidies for the power purchased from out of state. All was well for a time. The people were happy because their utility bills were leveled off, the government was happy because the people were happy, and the power companies were not quite as happy, but they weren't hemorrhaging money so they weren't unhappy. This would have gone on smoothly, but as i pointed out earlier, the state was being overrun by the enivronmentalists and their lobbyists. This resulted in more and more regulation and restrictions on the power plants, which in turn resulted in decreased power production and increased purchasing of power from outside the state and premium rates. The subsidies in place were no longer adequate and the State of California refused to either increase the subsidies, or relax the regulations to allow the power companies to generate more of its own power. The power companies then made the decision produce as much of its own power as it could given the regulations, purchase only as much additional power as the subsidies would cover, and if that weren't sufficient, then there would be blackouts. To minimize the discomfort to the residents, the blackouts were allowed to roll from one end of the st ate to the other keeping the outages to a minimum, and the inconvenience to the residents to a minimum. These rolling blackouts earned then Governor Grey Davis the less-than-flattering nickname of "Grey-Out Davis." They also got California's legilslators costituents calling their representatives again. Consequently, Governor Davis and the legislature decided to increase the subsidies to the power company to stop the blackouts, but then decided to announce an increase in the state's property taxes to help pay for it. That tax increase announcement was the straw that broke the camel's back and caused the citizens of California to rise up, recall, and replace Gov. Grey-Out with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a.k.a the Governator. Whether that was a good thing or not is a matter of public debate. I won't get into that issue here. In conclusion Mr. President, if we're going to emulate any policy of California, it should NOT be an economic or ENERGY one. We don't need skyrocketing utility bills or rolling blackouts on a national level. We also don't need to be swimming in a sea of red ink that makes the Red Sea look like a kiddie pool by comparison. If there is ANY policy of California we might WANT to emulate on a national level, I vote for the ability to recall and ineffective or downright dangerous chief executive. THAT policy I could support with a clear conscience.

His-PANIC!

2009-06-03T20:45:00.012-05:00

When Barak Obama was elected, I PRAYED that his term would pass without any of the nine Supreme Court Justices retiring or passing on. I only asked for a four year moritorium because I believed then, as I believe even more NOW, that he will be a one-term President. I also believed that he would, at some time, overreach his authority as President and perform some act that he was not constitutially empowered to do and, in this area, he did NOT disappoint me. Thanks to his unprecendent seizures of banks and auto companies and, his forcing salary caps and bonus restrictions on private companies, as well as his firing of General Motors' CEO Rick Wagner; and, his strong-arming of a bankruptcy court judge to deprive Chrysler and General Motors' bondholders and shareholders of their rights under federal laws, he has opened himself and his administration up to legal and political drama.

Clearly, there are numerous grounds for legal challanges against this administration. In our entire history there has only been one attempt to nationalize a private enterprise and that occurred when Harry Truman attempted to nationalize the steel industry during the Korean war. Now granted, this was about settling a strike that was hurting our war effort, but notwithstanding this, the courts struck this down as unconstitutional and that case is controlling to date. A legal challenge against these actions is the only recourse we have to protect our private property rights. As voters, we can do nothing against this administration before November, 2012. However, the bondholders and shareholders can take the administration to court to seek injunctive relief. Due to the unprecendented nature of events, any such challenge would likely reach the Court of Appeals, or even the Supreme Court.

Into this muddled morass of facts and circumstances comes the Hon. Sonya Sotomayor, the nominee for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court being vacated by the current Justice, the Hon. David Souter. Justice Souter was appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, and was believed to be a conservative leaning Judge at the time of his appointment. Contrary to this belief, Justice Souter has ruled with the liberal justices more the sixty-five percent of his time on the bench. Clearly, replacing him with an equally liberal justice does nothing to change the balance on the court at this time. Still, every prospective justice should receive proper vetting by the United Sates Senate prior to his or her confirmation, and this is where we find outselves.

Sadly, there is more to this story because the liberal Democrats of the Senate, as well as the White House Press Secretary are playing traditional identity politics with this nomination. They are doing the typical quota-filling tokenism with this nomination, and they are daring those on the right to "proceed at their peril" when it comes to the vetting process required by law. They are betting that any challenge to this nominee will cost the Republican party any propect of support from the Hispanic community in upcoming elections. Where was this concern for THEIR support from the Hispanic community when THEY were ripping into Alberto Gonzales? The simple answer is that is was nowhere to be found. This is probably because it is all a load of BULL.

What the press may not want you to remember is that the senate democrats demonstrated the very bigotry then now warn the republicans not to display when it came to the nomination of the Honorable Miguel Estrada, to the Court of Appeals. Miguel Estrada is a judge with an American story every bit as impressive as Judge Sotomayor's is. Why then, you may ask, is there not an Appellate Court Judge named Miguel Estrada? The answer is a bit more complicated. Liberal democrats have this "token" mentatlity when it comes to minorities. They like to be the first to put a "first" in a position of authority or responsibility. That would not have been a bar here as there were already Hispanic judges at the Appellate Court level, namely Judge Sonya Sotomayor. And what was their excuse for the treatment shown to Alberto Gonzales when he was nominated for Attorney General. He, too had a very compelling American story, but that didn't seem to matter to the senate democrats, including the self-righteous Senator from New York, Charles Schumer, and the junior Sentaor from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The actual reason there is no Justice Estrada on the Court of Appeals has nothing to do with his being an Hispanic, and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that he believes the role of a Judge is to take the laws written and enacted by the legistlature (i.e. the Constitution), and apply it, as written, to the fact pattern of the case at bar. This is the mark of a CONSERVATIVE judge. Now in contrast to this, the liberal democratis believe that it is the role of the judge to write new legistlation from the bench if the laws on the books do not comply with said judge's political ideology. This is the mark of a LIBERAL judge, or judicial activist as they are sometimes called. This is the contrast between what liberal democrats want in a Supreme Court Justice and what conservative republicans want in a Supreme Court Justice. Clearlly there are maked differences between the two, and it is those differences that need to be fully exposed during the confirmation hearings.

Barak Obama is a liberal democrat, and notwithstanding the fact that his is himself a constitutional scholar, clearly favors the liberal activist judge model. He would not have nominated Judge Sotomayor if he did not belive she shares his belief that it is the role of the judge to make law from the bench, a function NOT intended for judges by our founding fathers when they penned the Constitution. The founding fathers built in a system of checks and balances to keep any one branch of the government from becoming more powerful than any other. The founding fathers intended for elected legistlators ALONE to write laws, and for the President alone to be able to approve or veto them. This is because these officials are the only ones accountable to the voting public.

The role of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary is to safeguard the Constiution and ensure that neither legislators nor Presidents would enact laws that were contrary to the tenets of the Constitution. They did this to ensure that neither political expedience or popular prejudices would upset the balance of power and emperil the rights of American citizens. The founding fathers intended the rule of law to be sacrosanct and for the government to honor contracts and respect private property rights and individual freedoms of all citizens, except under such circumstances as conviction of a crime or enforcement of a civil judgment. The conduct of this administration flys in the face of these protections and clearly warrants a judicial review.

In the hearing for Judge Sotomayor, you will not hear a peep from the democratic senators about the role of the judge, judicial activism, or anything else that could be perceived as a negative against this Judge. Just like President Obama, the liberal democrats in the Senate believe this nominee is EXACTLY what they want, an activist judge who legislates from the bench, and they will do NOTHING to expose this and emperil their nominee. It is left to the republicans in the senate to actually do their jobs and show the American people what kind of judge this nominee actually is, and to further illustrate to the American public the contrast between what democrats want in judges and what republicans want in judges so that the people can decide for themselves who best represents their interests in these and and other matters.

It is these distinctions between republicans and democrats that have been sorely lacking in the past eight years. Ive often posed the question: "Are congressional republicans transvestite or transsexuals?" Now before the gay rights types go nuts on me, it should be clearly understood that the vast majority of transvestites are HETEROSEXUALS, so there is no homophobic intent here. I merely pose the metaphor because I can't decide if congressional republicans are merely dressing and acting like democrats, e.g. transvestite, or if they've had full gender reassignment surgery to become democrats, e.g. transsexuals. In the case of Senator Arlen Specter, this is no longer a question. He's CLEARLY a post-op democrat. The jury's still out on Senators Susan Collins, and Olympia Snow. I'm reasonably secure in declaring John McCain a transvestite in this metaphor.

While the republicans clearly must distinguish themselves from their democratic counterparts and actually DO their jobs vetting this candidate, they must also beware and avoid falling into the trap set for them by those very democrats. To do this, they need to avoid the Rush Limbaugh example of comparing Judge Sotomayor to David Duke. To be fair, Rush never actually did this, but the facts are irrelevant to the liberal media and he's been widely reported as having done this. While Rush can defend himself, quite ably, the example is very real. Republican Senators and political pundits alike must avoid the race issue altogether. In the first place, it's irrelevant. Nobody, including Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, thinks that Judge Sonya Sotomayor is anything like David Duke. The comparison is ludicrous at best and to make it puts the republican party at real risk of coming off to the Hispanic voters as being either racist or xenophobic.

The way to avoid this trap is simple. Treat Judge Sotomayor first and foremost as a qualified judge with an inspirational American story and an equally impressive ciriculum vitae, as well as a seventeen year history that reveals how she interprets and applies existing laws to the fact patterns of her various cases. Use the facts and judgments in these cases to show clearly how she interprets the role of a judge in constitutional questions and bring out facts that support her comment that it is actually the appellate court judge that makes law and sets policy. Also, bring out the fact that she has been reversed three out of her six times on appeal to higher courts, including the Supreme Court to which she now apires to sit. Lastly, show her the deference and respect you would show any woman in her position. Do that and you will not antagonize or alienate the Hispanic community, Most importantly, you must give people a choice if you wish them to make one so the differences between senate republicans and democrats must be clearly illustrated.

The worst thing republican senators can do is try to play to the media. This is a losing proposition from the very start. For a republican, you will be about as successful in appeasing the press as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was in trying to appease Adolf Hitler. It's NOT gonna happen, because neither Hitler, nor the press, come to the table with honest intent. No matter what republicans do, they're gonna be shredded in the press. If they go soft on Judge Sotomayor, theyre going to be portrayed as weak and innefectual, a judgment that will be SHARED by their voting constituents. If they do their jobs and bring out the truth about the judge, they will be portrayed as racist, sexist, and mean spirited for sure, but this is irrelevant because regardless of any spin applied by reporters or pundits, the viewing public will also see the tape of the hearings themselves and no one will doubt the evidence of their own eyes, especially if the press reports to the contrary. No one trusts the media anymore, so don't worry about that audience.

As for the Hispanic community, if you don't disrespect the judge personally or make any derrogatory statements about her race or anything personal to her as a woman, you won't have a problem there, either. Trust that our fellow Americans are not blind to liberal hypocrisy, which is about the only thing that is transparent about them. In this, they are as transparent as Saran Wrap. Contrary to the liberals world view, Hispanics are a proud and diverse group. They do not see themselves as "victims" and will not forgive the liberals for their condescension and hypocrisy when it comes to their treatment of minorites. It is pure hubris on the part of the liberal democrats to think that any minority group "needs" their largesse in this day and age. No one, least of all Hispanic Americans, wants to dine on government cheese. We tried that for the three decades between the 1960s and the 1990s. It was called welfare and it was a liberal democrat named Bill Clinton that ended it.

In summation, the gauntlet has been thrown down by the evil Sir Charles of Schumer. Republican senators must now do what medievil knights have always done in this situation. They must pick up the gauntlet, slap the said Sir Charles of Schumer across the face, forcefully (figuratively speaking, of course), draw their swords, and engage the challanger in combat. Retreat is not an option, because then as now, if you retreat, you will lose your honor, integrity, and in all likelihood, your jobs. Accordingly, I say this to the senate republicans: "DO your jobs and vet this judicial nominee thoroughly and respectfully if you want to KEEP your jobs in the next elections; and, most of all, do not PANIC,

The Devil-lution of the Modern Liberal!

2009-05-14T20:15:00.044-05:00

My conservative friends are fond of tossing around the statement that "the only GOOD liberal is a DEAD liberal." When I hear this phrase, I'm often heard retorting that they should "bite their tounge" because without political liberalism, there would be no United States of America today. The truth of the matter is that our founding fathers were ALL political liberals. But as another old saying goes, "the devil is in the details."

The concept of "innocent" political liberalism can best be exemplified in a quote by Robert F. Kennedy which said something to the effect of "Some men see the way things are and ask Why? I see things as they never were and ask Why Not?" The "innocent" liberal honestly wants to do the most good for the most people and is not about his own self-aggrondisement. Likewise, he or she wants to make a better world, but unlike the not-so-innocent idealogues, does not come from a place of hate, especially when it comes to America. The "innocent" liberal is aware that we have less than pleasant chapters in our long and diverse history, but can also appreciate all the good that this country has done in and for the other nations of our world. Then there are the not-so-innocent politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, etc. who are all about their own wealth and power. Then, last but not least, are the committed idealogues like Rosie O'Donnell and Janeane Garafalo who genuinely HATE this country and all it stands for but probably have no rational foundation for this hatred or any conscious knowledge of WHY they have such rage and hatred in them.

Thus the modern liberals can be broken into 3 types. The first of these is the "innocent" liberal. This type of liberal can be summed up in the Three Musketeers motto, "all for one and one for all." Personalities that represent this type would be George Cloobey, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Darryl Hannah, Matthew Modine, etc. These are people that put their money where their mouths are and actually WALK the walk, not just talk the talk. While I may disagree with them politically, I respect them personally and they do a lot of good in the world.

The second type is the "not-so-innocent" type. This would include the career politicians such as Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, etc. These can be summed up by altering the Three Musketeers motto as follows: "all for one and that ONE is ME." Celebrities can also fall into this type as well. These are the ones that put their names and faces out front of any political or social cause they get involved in, but that involvement is more about self-promotion than doing anything for anyone else. I'm not going to name any specific celebrities here, but you know who they are. These are the types that run around the globe taking smiling photos with some of the world's worst dictators and happily take starring roles in movies that are going to bomb at the box office to bolster their political bona fides. Also included in this category would be hypocrites like Al Gore and John Edwards. Al Gore espouses environmental causes like Global Warming but puts down one of the biggest carbon footprints attributable to any single human being on the planet. Likewise, John Edwards runs for President espousing family values and concerns for the poor when he is unfaithful to his wife, and lives like a Roman Emperor.

The last type is the commited idealogue. This type hates all things American, and spends all his or her time telling anyone that will listen what a horrible country this is and what awful people we Americans are. This is the category I reserve for Al Franken, Rosie O'Donnell, and Janeanne Garafalo. These people cannot love this country and knowingly say and do the things they do on a daily basis. Several leading Democratic politicians fall into this category as well, but I'll not feed their egos anymore by mentioning them here.

The ancient oriental general/philosopher Sun Tzu made two statements in his treatise "The Art of War" that were eerily prophetic to our current political situation. The first statement is paraphrased as: "The closer the enemy is, the harder he is to see." The second statement is paraphrased as: "In order to defeat an enemy you must first be able to identify him." When Howard Dean succeeded Terry McAuliffe as head of the Democratic National Committee, I remember reading and hearing statements from various political pundits that the Democratic Party had been hijacked by its' liberal wing and that it was no longer Grandpa's Democratic Party. Like most things reported in the press, some is true, and some is innacurate.

The Democratic party is no longer Grandpa's Democratic party, that's for sure. To clarify, only ONE of my grandfathers was EVER a Democrat but he would have ripped up his membership card if he could see them today. The media's deception is in the identity of the hijackers themselves and this is largely because the media has been complicit in the hijacking process. The hijackers of the Democratic party of Thomas Jefferson and dear old Grandpa are neither liberals, nor Democrats. They are the resurgents of the American Communist Movement and Party.

Now, before you go relegating me to the status of that crazy old uncle that every family has and doesn't claim, let me clarify a couple of points. I am well aware of the negative visceral reaction most Americans have to the words "communist," "marxist," and "socialist. Like most things we base on emotion, the facts tend to get lost in the feelings and more times than not, we get it wrong. When I refer Communism, I'm not talking about the former Soviet Union, North Korea, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela. The sad truth is that the actual practice of communism as defined by Karl Marx in his book "A Communist Manifesto" occurs in only one country that I'm aware of and that country is Israel. True communism is not the central form of government in Isreal, but it is the form of government in the agrarian kibbutz comminites. There, the maxim "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs is actually put into practice effectively.

The countries that purport to be communist countries have about as much to do with Marx's philosophy as the Islamic terrorists have to do with the Quoran. The Soviet, Cuban, and North Korean governments are totalitarian dictatorships and not communist despite their usurpation of the title. I could call myself Hercules, too, but it does not mean I can bench press half a ton. Still, so as to remain on point, the communism I will be talking about here is the philosophy as defined in the Manifesto of Karl Marx.

The book "A Communist Manifesto" was first published in Germany in 1848 as a work of philosophy, not a political writing. As such, it was embraced by the universities and colleges in Europe and The United States. It was so embraced because at the time the words had not been tainted by the bloody deeds of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution. The book itself speaks of nothing resembling the totalitarian dictorships of Russia, Cuba, and North Korea, but rather of a socialist Utopia in which all are equal and no man is richer or more important than any other. It is this last concept that makes the work appealing to the liberal minds of college students to this very day. The difference is that the students who began class after the 1920s were not aware of what it was they were studying or by whom they were being indocrinated. The reason for this is that by the mid 1920s the deeds of the Bolsheviks were well known and words like "communism," "marxism," and "socialism" had taken on the more sinister connotations we have of them to this day.

As to how all of this ties today's liberal Democrats with the American Communist Party, the string that tied the bow for me came in this quote from Norman Thomas, the last man to run for President in 1948 on the American Socialist Party ticket. He said, "The American People will never knowlingly accept Socialism, but under the label of "liberalism" they will accept every fragment of the Socialist progam until one day America will be a Socialist nation without ever knowning how it happened." This idea a socialism-by-stealth fits perfectly with the program of indoctrination disguised as education adopted by the Communists that became university and college professors following the demise of the American Communist Party in the aftermath of the "red scares" of the 1920s.

The American Communist Party as a political organization came into being in 1919, even though Communism as a philosophy had been generally accepted and embraced by academia since the 1850s. American Communists, emboldened by the Russian Revolution and the establishment of a communist state, decided the time was right to bring similar change to the American way of life. Unfortunately for the founders of this party, the atrocities of the Bolsheviks in Russia came to light causing the public to react violently against all things communist. To see how dangerous it was to be a communist in America in the 1920s, watch the movie "Reds" starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton. Given that declaring oneself to be communist could result in anything from arrest to assault and battery, most American Communists felt that discretion was indeed the better part of valor and abandoned the party opting for safety over ideology.

Americans thought they had seen the last of the Communists in this country, but like the cockroach, communists don't go away. They hide out of sight and flourish in the shadows. Like the cockroaches who scatter when you turn on a light as a survival instinct, so the communist hid from the light of public scrutiny, but they were committed more than ever to their goals of making America a utopian state. To accomplish this, they needed to be able to get their message to people open-minded enough to receive it and what better place can this be accomplished than in colleges and universities. Students are by their very nature open to new ideas and what better way to get a message to young, eager, and captive minds than from the bully pulpit of the university classroom.

Now if you walk up to a liberal democrat and call him or her a communist, they will probably respond to you by calling you something very insulting. They may deny the allegation outright, but more often than not, they'll just attack you. The degree and nature of the attack will depend largely upon whom you attach the communist label. If you choose a minority female like Shelia Jackson-Lee or Maxine Waters, you'll be called racist, sexist, and stupid. If you choose a minority male like Jesse Jackson, Jr., you'll be called racist, and stupid. If you choose a caucasion female like Hillary Clinton, you'll be called sexist (although she'll probably use "mysogenist" because she did go to Wellesley and Yale after all). Finally, if you choose a caucasion male like John Kerry, you won't be called anything. He'll just look down his nose, his upper lip will make a snarling gesture demonstrating utter contempt for you as he opines that you don't understand what you're talking about (elitist for "stupid"). This was seen many times in his presidential campaign, especially when the press actually did its' job and asked him tough questions or questions that clearly made him uncomfortable.

The sad reality is that many of today's liberal communists don't realize that they are, in fact, the idealogical successors of the original communist movement because their indocrination was most likely done without revealing to them either that they were being indocrinated or by whom. I doubt seriously that in the wake of the red scares, a communist professor would stand in front of his class on the first day of the semester and announce that he was a communist and he was going to make communists out of them. If he didn't get beaten to death by his students, he would certainly have been out of job when one of them reported him to the dean. So it's most likely that this indocrination would have been by stealth. Likewise, I doubt any college professor in the 1920s would have whipped out a copy of "The Communist Manifesto" and lectured from it openly. More likely, the professors would have started with Plato and the importance of the State over the individual and progressed from there. Still, if today's liberals don't realize they are indocrinated communists, it's only because they don't WANT to know, or better still, they don't want YOU to know. Another juicy little secret is that the indoctrinated ones are not just on the the Democrat side because, contrary to popular belief, Republicans go to college, too.

In spite of what I just said about the Republicans, it is in the Democratic constituency that you see a veritable rogues gallery of American Communist legacy organizations. First among these is the American Civil Liberties Union, often jokingly referred to as the Amercian Communist Lawyers Union. As with most jokes, we laugh because they're funny, but they're funny in part because there's some truth in the humor. The same holds true here because even though the letter C in ACLU doesn't stand for Communist, in many ways it really IS the American Communist Lawyers Union. The initial director, Roger Baldwin, as well as initial members like Crystal Eastman, and William Z, Foster were purported to be card carrying members of the American Communist Party. This is not to say that the ACLU hasn't done some good for our citizens in its history, but in the time since the Vietnam era, the ACLU has been more about attacking our American values and way of life than anything good it may have done before. This makes sense when you consider that in order for the Communist ideas to succeed, you first have to remove morality from the American psyche and the best way to do that is to attack the foundation of that morality, our Christian values. Regrettably, they have succeeded in this endeavor all too well.

Next up in the communist cavalcade are the unions. While they will strenously object to any links between unions and communism, the fact of the matter is that the labor movement did not exist in this country until the communinsts came together. Unions will argue this point by saying that the labor union goes back to the guilds that have been around since Egypt was building pyramids. This is true, in part, but the fact remains that there was no organized labor union in this country until 1875, well AFTER Karl Marx published his Communist Manifesto. Unions also point to the Upton Sinclair novel "The Jungle" which served as an expose on the conditions for the workers in an industrial manufacturing plant and called for workers to organize to protect themselves from corporate abuses. While it's true that "The Jungle" was published in 1906, well before the American Communist party came into being in 1919, its' writer, Upton Sinclair, studied Marxism in college and was an avowed Socialist, which was the same as a Communist, especially after the "red scare" of the 1920s. That the letter "U" stands for Union in the ACLU is NOT a coincidence. Unions owe their existence to the efforts of the American Communist Party, whether they want to admit it, or not.

Last, but certainly not least, is the group, ACORN. This body of community organizations owes its' existence and sustenance to Saul Alinski, author of "Rules for Radicals" and a hero to the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Alinski was himself a community organizer dedicated to the proposition that communities should organize and use their organization to bring down both the goverment and business structures of the United States. His "rules" combined with the lessons of Nicolo Machiavelli provide the blueprint by which the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, our first Communist President, ushered in the "politics of total destruction," a practice honed, perfected, and used with deadly precision by the modern communists of the Democratic party and their supporters to date; and, "political correctness," an insidious form of censorship and thought control and prevents us from speaking our minds in most situations.

Ironically, all these organizations, the ACLU, labor unions, community organizers, and communism itself all come from the latin word "unum" meaning "one." The word is featured in our own national motto "E Pluirbus Unum," meaning "from the many - ONE. Our founding fathers interpreted this to mean from the many, i.e. the 13 colonies, come the ONE, the United States of America. Our current liberal communist democrats interpret this to mean: "from the many, our private wealth and property, to the ONE, the Federal Government. Like a swarm of termites, these liberal communists have infected and infested both the super structure and infrastructure of the great House that is the United States of America. Like a large Victorian mansion so infected, that house is today buckling under its own weight and in serious danger of a total collapse. Now that we have, in fact, become the Socialist country we have so long feared, somewhere in the vast reaches of the infinite universe, Norman Thomas is smiling.

THIS 70's Show

2009-04-02T12:18:00.002-05:00

When I think of the 70's a myriad of images comes to my mind. On the one hand there's the fashions, like the leisure suit, platform shoes, spread-collared shirts unbuttoned to the waist with layers of gold chains handing down onto hairy chests, the smell of Aqua Velva, Brut, Hai Karate, and other best selling fragrances, etc. There's also the images of John Travolta in his white polyester suit and black shirt disco dancing across the screen or bopping down the streets of Brooklyn in his leather jacket and long hair, movie s like Jaws, Star Wars, and more. And who could forget Charlie's Angels and that poster of Farrah Fawcett in the swimsuit? But, not all the images I recall from the 70's were as good. I also recall the long lines at gas pumps, double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, and events like Watergate, The Iranian Revolution and Hostage Crisis, etc.

I can't decide which images disgust or frighten me more. There is the image of my parents decked out in the fashions of the day practicing their disco moves in our basement with their friends, or the ones that showed up on the television night after night on ABC's "The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage" which propelled Ted Koppel to stardom and served to create the long running "Nightline" series on ABC News. There were the conversations about the latest fashion trends, esp the ones that took place at my house when Dad put on his first leisure suit, and the ones I remember about how they were going to pay the bills this month because everything seemed to cost so much more than it had a few short weeks ago. I remember the discussions about whether my Mom should take extra shifts at the hospital or whether Dad should get a part-time second job. I also remember my grandparents talking about what became of their money as well, and they were what I considered "rich" at the time.

As you can see, the 70's was not as it is shown in the popular sitcom "That 70's Show." Sure the hairstyles and clothing are somewhat accurate, but there seems to be no mention of the economic and social malaise that plagued the country from the late 60's until the early 80's. Notwithstanding the fact the the show at issue is a sitcom, still you would think there would have been some allusion to the realities of that decade. If I had to guess a reason for these critical omissions, I would imagine it had something to do with the fact that the writers of that show were either not alive or not old enough to really REMEMBER the 70's.

The same must be true of the writers of textbooks used by middle and high school students today, because I find the same lack of historical accuracy present in those tomes. But this is not by accident. After all, if you distort history when teaching it to those too young to have experienced it first hand, eventually those young people will outlive the ones that actually lived the history, so the only recollections to survive will be the distorted ones learned through the schools effectively re-writing and thus changing history. If those who cannot remember the past are truly condemned to repeat it, then we're in for a nightmare of epic proportions.

In all the reasearch I've done on the history of the 70's I can find any number of references to Watergate, Nixon, the evil Republicans, the Vietnam War Protests, Kent State, etc. What is surprisingly absent from these historical references is any mention of the double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, out of control drug and sexual behaviors, the anarchy of groups like The Black Panthers and even The Weather Underground (Bill Ayers, ring a bell?). Also missing is any suggestion as to the CAUSE of the economic miseries endured throughout the 70's. It is our own "lost decade" and this fact seems to have been "lost" to the liberal writers of history.

Fortunately for me, I don't have to rely in these libral historians for my recollection. When the 70's began, I was a student in elementary school. When they ended, I was graduating high school. I was too young to get into the discos and lose myself in the cocaine and casual sex of the disco era. I didn't get my first fake ID card until after I had graduated from high school and was on active duty in the US Navy so I actually REMEMBER the 70's quite well. I also had the good fortune to take one of the only economics courses in college I was able to stay awake in from a professor who was so hell bent on discrediting Ronald Reagan's economic policies, that he was forced to look honestly at the economic misery of the 70's and at it's root cause. That root cause, in a nutshell, was the rampant overspending by the US Government in the 1960s.

Now let's disect that statement a bit because I realize it is a loaded one. That said, look at what was taking place during the 1960s. At the beginning of the 60s, Kenendy was President and in the first year of his term we had the Bay of Pigs debacle, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the beginnings of the Vietnam Conflict. You also had the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, and other such societal changes. After Kennedy's assasination in 1963, Lyndon Johnson took over the Presidency and in relatively short order, the conflict in Vietman was escalated to a full blown war, necessitating great increases in spending, and at the same time, you had the creation of the welfare state, ironically referred to as "The Great Society." Wars are expensive, as we've just had a recent remider of, and social engineering is, likewise, very expensive.

Ironically, it was the latter, the welfare state, that so bloated the federal budget that we were in deep deficit spending before the end of Johnson's first term of office. The argument for the Great Society was that with the new found freedoms earned as a reasult of the civil rights movement, the US had a duty to help care for and support minorities as they were integrated into our society. While this sounds good, as most liberal social engineering programs do, it was a LIE. Lyndon Johnson, like Andrew Johnson (no relation) before him, was a rabid racist. He did not want minorities integrated into society, but rather wanted to keep them segregated on their side of town without using the "S" word and offending his liberal constituents.

The whole premise of the welfare state was to say to minority citizens that if they would agree to live where the government told them to, and vote the way the government told them to, that the government would see to it that they would have everything they needed to live comfortably, if not well, and that all they had to do was to behave and stay out of everyone else's way. Rather than integrating minorities into our society it had just the opposite effect, as most social engineering programs do. It created a welfare dependent class that contributed nothing but debt, illigitimate children, and drugs to our culture. This resulted in increases in welfare recipients and the prison population all of which were spiralling out of control until the system was finally reformed by one William Jefferson Clinton. But the evils of welfare is the subject for a whole different article altogether.

The point of the comparison was that the spending of the 60's was what caused the double digit inflation and unemployment of the 70's. Now the difference between the spending then, and the spending now is that in 60's we were spending our own money. We weren't borrowing it from the Chinese or anybody else. Also, the social security trust fund was still intact and not a Ponzi scheme like it is now. Add to that, the amount of spending then pales in comparison to the amount of spending now, even after you adjust for inflation, cost of living increases, etc. If spending our own money caused us to lose a decade, what do you think spending borrowed money will do?

%o put it in the form a model everyone can relate to, this would be the equivalent of attempting to save money by not paying your monthly bills with your salary, but rather by taking out a credit card for each such bill, paying the bill with the credit card, and making the minimum interst payment on each card every month. In the beginning you would save money by making only those minimum payments instead of paying the full amount of the bill, but how long would it take for you to max out that card and have the minimum payment ballon to where it exceeded your regulary monthly bill payment? Now imagine doing that for every bill you have each month. Eventually the minimum payments would exceed your bills, your cards would be maxed out, and the bills would keep on coming. No one in their right mind would do that, would they?

Well, you might think that, but in my 10 plus years working as a bankruptcy paralegal I saw exactly that same scenario over and over again. This is exactly what our own government is doing as we speak. If spending REAL money caused us to lose a decade, imagine what we're looking at with what's happening today?

Every time I hear some politician or political pundit talking about today's economy being the worst since the Great Depression, I want to scream at my TV "What about the 70's you Moron?" Sometimes I even DO, because most the politicians and pundits ARE old enough to have some memories of that "lost" decade, even if they were too busy doing coke and having rampant casual sex in the local disco to remember ALL of it. But for those of whose only reference to the 70's is the sitcom "That 70's Show," or the distortions of liberal historians, THIS 70's show is not going to be a sitcom and it's going to last a lot longer than half an hour.

Thanks in no small part to this admininistration's unrealistic attitudes towards the production of domestic energy, we're likely to see a repeat of another familiar icon from the 1969s. I remember very well the long lines at the local gas station or the sign "Sorry, Out of Gas" that appeared at the most inopportune of times. Like it or not, gasoline is the life blood of this country and as long as alternative energy is not in our foreseeable fugure, we're going to have to provide the oil we need domestically which would help solve the unemployment problem to some extent, pr we're going to have to continue to transfer massive asmounts of our wealth to nations that do not have our best interests at heart. We can no more stop using gasoline than we can stop using oxygen and if you think the French went wild over lack of bread, wait til you see Americans without affordable gasoline or other energy. Exploiting the tragedy of the gulf rig explosion to artificially reduce the supply and increase the cost of energy to the average citizen is reprehensible at best. Likewise, closing down offshore oil rigs will only lose many more jobs, result in the rigs being dismantled and taken to a more user friendly location, and the oil that should be ours will be lost to the Chinese now drilling off the cuban coast in SHALLOW waters. Where's the sense in any of THAT?

Unlike the REAL 70's which we got through in discos, snorting coke, and boffing our brains out with any partner that would stand still and let us, this generation is not going to have such pleasant diversions. But, for the benefit of those that missed the original "lost decade", thanks to our failed war on drugs, the coke supply is still up to meeting the demand, and thanks to liberal social engineering in our schools, casusal sex is as plentiful today as it was then. Finally, thanks to "Mama Mia" you can still hear ABBA on the radio, in FM stereo instead of AM mono this time. Who says you can't improve on an original?

The French Revolution: Not So Long Ago and Not So Far Away.

2009-03-25T21:06:00.002-05:00

Lately there have been many comparisons made of current events with troubling historical events such as Ancient Roman times, the Dark Ages, the Spanish Inquisition, or any number of historical events in which a supposedly civilized society lost its conscience or sense of morality. No historical event illustrates this more than the French Revolution. While it began with the noblest of motives, it quickly degenerated into one of the bloodiest and most reprehensible events in human history. Sadly, what’s happening in our modern and enlightened society seems to bring to mind events that transpired in France in the year 1789.

Then as now, the people were taxed mercilessly by a government that was all about
rewarding the privileged few at the expense of the majority of the population. In 1789 France, this privileged few were the aristocrats that ruled France. The taxes that supported their lavish lifestyles were borne by the majority of citizens that did not enjoy these lifestyles, nor could they enjoy much of the fruits of their own labors as most of what they earned was confiscated by tax collectors. Add to that, the national economy was in shambles due to rampant overspending by the King and the ruling classes in supporting not only their lavish lifestyles, but also in supporting and funding our own revolutionary war against Great Britain.

Then, as now, reports of lavish lifestyles and wasteful spending by the privileged
aristocracy angered and enraged the population. While they starved in the streets, the Royals and aristocrats lived well, dined gluttonously, spent lavishly, and average citizens were paying for it with their taxes. Add to that frustration, a famine that devastated the country’s grain crop resulting in extremely inflated prices for the most basic staple of the common french man’s diet, bread, and you have a powder keg of pent up rage and frustration ready to blow. That’s exactly what happened on July 14, 1789 when the enraged citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison fortress, overpowered the few guards on the premises, slaughtered them and the governor of the prison, freed the prisoners, and demolished the structure with their bare hands.

To be fair, the French Revolution started out like ours did, with noble intentions to make life better for all French citizens, not just the privileged few in the aristocracy or clergy. When the French Assembly convened in the tennis courts of Versailles and took the now famous “tennis courts oath” resolving not to disband until France had a Constitution and Bill of Rights of its own, they could not have foreseen the carnage that was to follow in the name of the new France. Likewise, they could not know that their experiment with liberty, equality and fraternity would end in utter failure, and with a return to oppressive dictatorship under a gent named Napoleon Bonaparte. If they had, maybe the whole revolution would not have taken place, for who in their right mind would consent to such bloodshed and brutality if there were nothing to be gained on the other side of it?

How then did the noble experiment spin so wildly out of control and become the horror
show we know today as “The French Revolution?” The answer is not a simple one, but
it can be explained as follows: A select cabal of elitist ideologues seized control of a country from the elected legislature by creating a climate of crisis, fear, panic, and blind anger and used the “will of the people” excuse to justify tyrannical behavior. This same elitist cabal then used a complicit media to keep the people in a frenzied “lynch-mob state” and used that mob to enforce its will on an entire population. Sound familiar? It should because it’s happening right in front of our very eyes. Thankfully, we haven’t yet regressed to the mob violence or the class genocide, but we’re moving in that direction at a frightening pace.

In eighteenth century France, the populace driver was an underground newspaper
called ironically enough, “L’Amie de Peuple” (translation: The Friend of the People).
This paper was run by a professional malcontent by the name of Jean Paul Marat. Mr.
Marat had been living in the sewers of Paris before the revolution as he had failed at every commercial endeavor he had undertaken. To be fair, it wasn’t always possible to rise on one’s own merit in the feudalistic social order of pre-revolutionary France, but this man was nothing more than an angry, hate-filled, zealot who saw his opportunity for personal power and glory in the climate of the revolution. He was like the Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken of his day and he rose to national pre-eminence like Andy Griffith’s character in “A Face In The Crowd.”

He used his new found power to wreak havoc on the french population. His rants
resulted in multiple acts of barbarism, including murder, rape, pillage, and other crimes which would have met with severe punishment in a civilized, law abiding society. His word alone was enough to send hundreds of innocent people to the guillotine. As a direct result of one of his rants, the citizens of Paris raided a french prison where there were prisoners awaiting their so-called “trials” and executions, and basically committed wholesale rape, robbery, torture, and murder in the name of the revolution. Ironically, the barbarism was conducted in a large cell that had a mural of “The Rights of Man” as codified by the French Assembly at the beginning of the revolution. As if in homage to the term “poetic justice,” Marat was murdered by a woman who concluded that the country she loved would be better off without him. She paid for her crime gladly, and today she’s considered a hero in France. Her name is Charlotte Corday.

Contrast that to the way the modern media, both the so-called “legitimate” press, and
the less revered blogosphere has been ginning up anger and hatred against the
executives and employees of AIG. I remember just a few short years ago that AIG ran
an ad campaign touting themselves as “the biggest insurance company in the world you
never heard of.” In many ways, I wish that were still a true statement. How then do a
bunch of homeless, disheveled malcontents end up protesting on the front lawns of AIG
executives’ homes in Connecticut? Answer, the media, in conjunction with self-serving
politicians, ginned up a mob mentality that not only led to such protests in the streets, but also empowered unscrupulous congressmen to pass a law designed solely to
confiscate wealth. This law is a violation of the very Constitution they took an oath to support, but they were bolstered in this effort by the lynch mob mentality that boosts its’ approval ratings (albeit temporarily), and if the law is later struck down as unconstitutional, they can tell the voters that it’s not their fault.

This makes the very real (unfortunately) Barney Frank more like the character of
Madame DeFarge from Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.” He sits at the foot of
the guillotine knitting while his victims lose their heads and complains when the mob
makes too much noise causing him to drop a stitch messing up his knitting. Never mind
he is one of the causes of this misery, he’s’ only TOO happy to lead the charge against those he can point the finger of blame towards keeping it away from himself and othersof his ilk.

The bloodiest carnage of the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, was the brainchild of an Avatar class of elitists led by Maximilian Robespierre, and they had the audacity to call themselves “The Committee for Public Safety.” Using the pretexts of a looming war with other European monarchies, together with the economic crisis that was threatening to topple the fragile government, these committee members effectively suspended the new constitution and took absolute power unto themselves, ostensibly just until the crises had abated. Ironically, this committee saw to it that most of its former colleagues in the full assembly were declared enemies of the new republic and sent them straight to the guillotine. In point of fact, very few of the men that took the “Tennis Court Oaths” lived to see the government they had envisioned become a reality.

I would hate to have been one of those French politicians that had to stroll the streets of downtown Paris and see all the blood soaked into the street stones from the guillotine scaffold only to realize that he was responsible for that. I would hate to have a been a French politician that had to look into the faces of children in the orphanage in Paris and realize that he was responsible for making those children orphans.

So maybe you politicians in Washington can take a lesson from what happened in
France those many years ago. When you pander to the mob, you empower and
unleash that mob, and then you bear responsibility for the consequences of that
decision and of the mob’s actions. A mob is not a sentient body. It does not think, it does not reason, it runs on pure unadulterated emotion, usually anger or fear. Once unleashed it cannot be controlled effectively and very often turns against those who unleashed it in the first place. Such was the case in the French Revolution. Every member of the Committee for Public Safety met an unnatural end, most on the
guillotine to which they had consigned so many others.

Likewise, the members of the media, both the “legitimate” press, and the blogosphere
might want to consider their responsibilities as well. It’s easy to spew venom and vitriol from the virtual safety of the internet and then disavow all responsibility for what ensues. But just as we enjoy the privilege of freedom of speech (for now, anyway), we also have a responsibility to use that speech judiciously. We cannot legally scream “Fire” in a crowded theater and escape the consequences of that action. Yet that is what many so-called journalists and bloggers do every day. What happens when the wife or child of one of these AIG executives gets hurt by a protestor? Even if the harm is not intended, how are we going to feel if it happens? I would like to think we’re all human enough to say that we would feel terrible if someone actually got hurt. If that is the case, then we need to think before we write. If that is not the case, then keep doing what you’re doing and cheer loudly when the guillotine gets erected in Times Square.

Was Our Economy Murdered? A Grand Jury Case for Indictment On a PREMEDITATED MURDER Charge!

2009-03-09T14:51:00.000-05:00

The following article is being presented as if it were a criminal case being presented to a Grand Jury to secure and indictment against the defendants believed by the police and prosecuting attorney to have committed that crime. When a crime is suspected or has occurred, most citizens react by calling this police. Police work and crime detection are as much about luck and hunches as they are about actual physical evidence and the proverbial “smoking gun.” It is no wonder they sometimes get it wrong. That said, I firmly believe that MOST police officers and honest well-intentioned public protectors, but like any other human group, you got good ones, and corrupt ones. This is exactly why it takes more than a cop hunch to put someone in prison or to death. That’s what jury trials are for. But before you can get to a jury trial, a charge has to be filed with the court. That charge can be based on a prosecutor’s affidavit or an indictment by a Grand Jury which means that a panel of ordinary citizens has concluded that a crime was committed, and that the accused defendant probably committed it. It is that proceeding that I’m going to replicate today. I will be the prosecutor, and you Dear readers will be my Grand Jury.

My burden will be to prove that our economy was, in fact, the victim of a crime and that>the crime charged is attempted murder. It is only attempted murder at this time because our economy is not dead, contrary to liberal media opinion. It has been grievously injured and could possibly die, but as of now it’s very much alive if not well. Most states define attempted murder as the commission of an act with the unlawful intent to deprive the victim of his life. It would also be desirable for the accused to have failed in that attempt so that the does not get increased to murder in either the first or second degree.

My subsequent burden will be to show that the person or persons against whom this indictment is sought had to motive, opportunity, and criminal intent to commit the crime charged, and to present evidence to show that they, in fact, did commit the crime charged. In assessing culpability, the grand jury *you, the readers) are not required to find guilt or innocence, only probable cause that the crime was committed and that the accused could have committed it.

Could the economy have been Murdered, or was the economic decline just a result ofnatural market forces? There are compelling arguments to be made for both sides, but one of the more compelling arguments supporting foul play is the overwhelming benefit to one of the accused from the economic tsunami. The ONLY beneficiary in all of this is the Democratic Party. No private enterprise, private citizen, or public entity other than theDemocratic Party and its candidates benefit from this economic malaise. But the Democrats are not the only ones accused here.

To understand why both Republicans and Democrats stand accused, you have to first understand how the economy was injured. We can all agree the tsunami, for lack of a better term, occurred in mid September of 2008, but that wasn’t the first potentially fatal blow. The first potentially fatal blow to this economy occurred shortly after the election of the Democrats to majority in the House and Senate. They passed a law that reinstated the mark-to-market accounting rule that had been removed ironically by the Roosevelt administration to help bring about recovery from the Great Depression. This was done in response to the Enron collapse, but it had the unintended (or intended) consequence of setting up the financial sector of are economy for fiscal Armageddon.

The longest occurring and most lingering assault on the economy has been a verbal one by Democratic politicians and their allies in the media. Democrats or their surrogates and sympathizers have been trying to talk down the economy since before the 2006 midterm elections. They first tried a frontal assault on the economy, telling us that the economy was not good. This flew in the face of record high indices, free-flowing credit, and all appearances to the contrary so it failed. Not to be discouraged, the Democrats resorted to a classic from their play book, class warfare. They changed the premise from a bad economy to an unfair one in which only the rich were benefitting. Even this failed and the Democrats were left with no other strategy than to lie to the voting public and promise that if they were put in power they would end the war in Iraq.

This was disingenuous at best, and an outright LIE at worst. Any one who was taken a high school civics course knows that only the President of the United States to order our armed forces to engage in or withdraw from combat. The Democrats knew, and hoped the voting public didn’t, that the most they could do with withdraw funding from the Defense Department which would essentially leave our troops naked in the field. No clear thinking politician would dare attach his or her name to such a bill. Only the most committed ideologues would even consider such a thing, and then only because they knew it wouldn’t pass. This makes the promise they made to the voting public a false one, and true to form, they failed which infuriated the far left but not the majority of Democratic voters.

To make matters worse for the Democrats, our troops (aided by the surge of new forces) started winning in Iraq despite the best efforts of the Democrats to convince us otherwise that the war was, in fact, lost. No matter how they proclaimed the statistics were wrong, and that General David Petraeus was a liar (i.e., the “suspension of disbelief” comment by then Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton) the facts spoke for themselves. Casualties were down, elections were held, Iraqi troops were taking the field and taking control, and all evidence showed we were winning the war. The Democrats knew they would not be able to win in 2008 on that issue. They had lost credibility promising to end the war, and now that we were winning it, the war rage vote would not be enough.

Enter once more, the economy. It was still at record highs and the Democrats knew that unless something changed dramatically, they might not be able to take the White House or keep their control of Congress. Shortly after January of 2007, Democratic supporters on the blogs began a “whisper” campaign about the economy. This time instead of a frontal assault, the bloggers started reporting that the economy was not sound. It was not “real.” Words like “illusion,” “smoke and mirrors,” “house of cards,” etc. started appearing in the texts and it wasn’t long before these sentiments started finding their way into the mainstream media coverage of economic news.

Not surprising, as the rumors grew and spread, the stock market traders reacted by short-selling financial stocks, driving their prices and perceived values downward. Not long after this started, credit rating agencies like Moodys and Standard & Poores announced that they were lowering the credit rating of investment banks like Bear-Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman-Sachs, and any other bank that traded in mortgage security instruments backed by sub-prime and conventional loans. The decision of the rating agencies was made across the board and did not take into account the fact that most of the mortgage loans were paying.

Once the credit ratings were lowered, the investment banks found themselves in the unenviable position of going from having balanced books with cash reserves to being insolvent overnight. They did the only thing they could do, which was to scramble to sell assets to raise capital. Under the newly reenacted mark-to-market rules, however, the value of the assets had so fallen that it was impossible to raise capital in a timely manner. For Bear-Stearns, this meant a shotgun wedding with our government holding the shotgun, but for Lehman Brothers, there was no relief and it was forced into bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was the second domino to fall, and set off a chain reaction that is still going on Wall Street. Had the government known of the events to follow, it would likely have reversed its decision not to save Lehman Brothers but, as in all things, hindsight is 20-20. The identity of the person that made the decision to allow Lehman Brothers to fail is not known, but it is certain he or she was an employee or officer in the previous administration. As to what happened after Lehman Brothers, we have only to look at our 401K statements and the Dow Jones Industrial Average to answer that.

The final question to answer is the why of it all. To answer that, you simply have to look for the answer to one question: who benefitted? Who is the sole beneficiary to all of this economic chaos and misery? The only beneficiary I can find is the Democratic Party and its political operatives and supporters such as the media. AT the time of the economic collapse in September of 2008, John McCain was ahead in the polls, and the Republican’s “Joe the Plumber” anti-socialism message was beginning to resonate. Add to that the resurrection of the Reverend Wright ads and controversy and Obama was flailing and losing ground. Then, the economy collapsed and this single event followed by the serio-comic response of John McCain and the government as a whole in passing the Trouble Asset Recovery Program, put the Republicans on the mat never to return.

Had it not been for the economic meltdown, John McCain might well have won the presidency and even if he did not, it is relatively certain that the Democrats would not likely be enjoying their hold on absolute power in Congress right now. Now, I’m not saying that the politicians in the Democratic Party intentionally visited this much misery on the country merely to win an election. Politicians, whatever their ideology, go into public service to help people and I’m not yet jaded enough to say otherwise. You may think me a Pollyanna for this belief, but until the evidence to the contrary is more than anecdotal, I remain a true believer. This nobility is reserved solely for elected politicians. However, for every politician you see on stage, there’s an unseen force of a few to thousands of nameless, faceless political operatives and supporters you do not see, and these people will stop at nothing short of criminal behavior to get their candidate elected. It seems that, given the
evidence of this last election cycle, that we can no longer exclude criminal behavior, especially on the Democratic side of the aisle. After all, it was democratic supporters like ACORN and the preppie college students in Ohio that committed countless cases of voter registration and outright voter fraud, and it was democrats that refused to install any credit card security software on their sites resulting in numerous allegations of credit card fraud.

The last item I wish to present is that the Democratic Party is the only party whose membership consists of a core of ideologues that believe no one is entitled to private wealth and that such wealth should be confiscated by the government and redistributed evenly to all citizens regardless of whether they had anything to do with its’ creation in the first place. This constituency would think nothing of wiping out the wealth and retirement savings of millions of American because they do not believe anyone is entitled to private wealth in the first place and that the temporary misery is justified by the liberal utopia they hope to create. It’s like my parents used to tell me as they were spanking me with a paddle, “its for your own good and you’ll thank me for it someday.”

So in conclusion ladies and gentlemen of the Grand Jury, I submit that I have established more than enough evidence to conclude that our free market economy was and IS the victim of the crime of attempted murder and that said crime is ongoing to this day. Now that Obama and the Democrats are the doctors charged with saving this economy, they continue the assault against it every time they open their mouths. It is almost as if, rather than employing heroic measures such as CPR, defibrillation, administering medicines like epinephrine, etc, they are putting a pillow over the face of the economy to hasten demise. Fortunately, they are just as much a failure at that as they have been about everything else thus far because our economy is not dead.

This concludes my presentation to you, the members of my grand jury, and I now charge you to return a True Bill of Indictment for the crime of attempted murder against the following defendants: The United States Governments for the years 2006 to the present, including former President George W. Bush and current President Barack Obama, the Democratic Party and its political operatives and supporters from the last election cycle, including the main stream media coalition, and last but not least, the greedy and unscrupulous wall street traders that orchestrated the demolition and devaluation of the financial stocks by short selling and other strategies designed to force stock prices down for their own personal enrichment regardless of the consequences to others. This case is respectfully submitted for your consideration. Thank you for your attention.

Is There Anything Fair about the "Fairness" Doctrine?

2009-02-23T14:34:00.000-06:00

Like so many other government ideas, the "fairness" doctrine is a deliberate misnomer. The innocuous sounding words totally obfuscate and distract the reader from their true meaning. If the "fairness" doctrine lived up to its' name, it wouldn't be such a bad thing because fundamentally we're all for fairness and equality, or so the politically correct among us would have us believe.

The problem is that if the "fairness" doctrine were what it purported to be and were "fairly" and bi-laterally applied, it really would improve the balance of ideologies because it would actually give conservatives more of a voice in the traditional network and cable television media, which are now predominantly sources for liberal propaganda as opposed to honest and accurate journalism.,

If there were anything "fair" about the fairness doctrine, you would see liberal idealogues like Chris Matthew of MSNBC paired with a conservative bloviator like Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity. In fact, every mainstream news or political program on every other station than Fox would actually be "fair and balanced" for a change. That is how we can know that there is nothing "fair" about the fairness doctrine. If there were, conservatives would be for it and liberals would be howling against it.

As things now stand, the liberals are championing the "fairness' doctine because they see it as a vehicle with with the either censor, or better still, eliminate the one platform that conservatives have to voice their opposition to the liberal steamroling of everything conservatives believe in and support. The talk radio format is predominantly conservative because if you really listen to the liberal talk radio programs, they are nothing more than angry diatribes by failed and frustrated actors and comedians and their content is nothing more than "Bush is bad." Who in their right mind is going to listen to hours of that?

Consequently, liberal talk radio shows have been commercially unsuccessful. This is the free market place judging the quality of the product, NOT the political censorship claimed by the left. But like most liberals, the leftist idealogues cannot accept that it is their PRODUCT that is defective so they run to the government and/or the courts to give them a "bailout." Rather than improve their product and put on programming th

So onceat's actually entertaining, they prefer instead to have the government force their square pegs into our round holes with the force of a mallet.

If this is allowed to occur, radio stations that carry programs like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, etc. will be forced to give similar time allotments to people like Al Franken (if he's not too busy screwing up in the senate to keep screwing up on the radio), Janeane Garafalo, Randy Rhodes, etc. Whle some liberal entertainers are able to put on an entertaining and comercially successful program, the number of liberal radio failures far outweigh the successes. The only successful liberal radio hosts I can think of are Don Imus and Stephanie Miller, both of whom I actually enjoy listening to.

What the liberals don't seem to get is that no one likes to listen to angry diatribes when they're driving in their cars or sitting in their homes. If liberal radio programs would focus on entertaining as well as bloviating negativity, they might find a receptive audience somewhere. Rush Limbaugh gets accused of being an angry man all the time, but if you actually listen to what he says, his message is very positive, not unlike the messages of Barack Obama, at least BEFORE he was elected. But once again the libs show their true colors and their distrust is not disdain for the free market and the judgment of the American Public. They would rather have the government force their excruciatingly dull and unpleasant diatribes down our throats than to follow the lead of shows like Saturday Night Live and add some decent content to entertain their audiences inbetween the torture sessions that liberal talk can be equated to.

If this "fairness" doctrine passes, the radio stations will be forced to air these ratings duds and will be hard-pressed to find advertisers willing to pay to run their ads in the time slots when no one is listening. This is because despite their best efforts to force their programming on us, we the listening public still have the right to vote with our radio dials and the off switches. They can lead us to their brackish water, but they can't make us drink it and the advertisers know this. This is why Air America failed as a commercial enterprise and all other such programs devoid of any entertainment content will do likewise. What this means is that radio stations will be giving advertisement time on liberal talk radio shows free with a gallon of gas.

What's next for the socialist left? If they succeed in putting radio stations out of business, will they then come after the internet? Considering so much of their message and support is due to the internet, they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they try to do so. Of course, considering liberals are famous for forming "circular firing squads" when they attempt to do anything, we can only hope.

If the "fairness" doctrine were really fair and the net result of it would be more shows like "Hannity & Colmes," I would be the first in line to sign a petition in favor of it. As much as I disagree politically with Alan Colmes, the ping-pong effect between him and Sean Hannity and the rigorous questioning and rehabiliting of guests that were either liberal or conservative by a moderator of the opposite political ideology was a good thing. If we can't have civil but spirited political debate in this country, we really are in the last days of the great experiment known as the United States of America. I pray this is not the case. Won't you pray with me?

A Conservative Defends Speaker Nancy Pelosi

2009-02-21T11:52:00.000-06:00

When the trillion dollar pork-a-pa-looza masquerading as the "National Recovery and Reinvestment Act"first came to light and I actually began READING the bill, I was outraged at the Democrats exploitation of the fear, pain, and suffering of the American people as a justification for the implementation of every knee-jerk liberal social engineering and wealth confiscation idea that had been gathering dust on their desks for as long as some of them have been in office, and others of them have been alive. I'm astounded at all the fear mongering and sense of urgency ginned up by the Democrats in order to sell us on this package of pork. I believe the terms used were "catastrophic," "depression," etc. I also believe the justification for the bill was that it had to be "timely," "targeted," and "temporary.

In reading the 500 or so pages that I've actually been able to digest, I can't find anything that meets the 3-T challenge. What I've found instead is a mass of programs that have basically doubled the amount of future discretionary spending that will be a part of the Federal budget for years to come. The Democrats have had their absolute power for only two months now, and in that time they have managed to spend over a TRILLION of our tax dollars and double the discretionary budget . I shudder to think what the next 22 months have in store, because it will be at least that long before we the people can do anything to change the path to political socialism and runaway inflation that we seem to on.

No one has taken more fire from us than Madame Speaker, Nancy Pelosi herself. For the way she shut out the Repulican members of the house from the legislative process, she deserves the heat. She and her liberal Democratic ilk now own this bill lock, stock, and two smoking barrels. The congressional Republicans were well advised to steer clear of it, and those RINO (Republican in Name Only) senators that facilitated its' passage will likely pay a political price in the future.

Notwithstanding this, Madame Speaker Pelosi has also been harshly criticized for her own slice of pork, the tens of millions of dollars she wants to protect the marshes that are home to a cute little mouse. She has been called many names, including but not limited to, "Minnie Mouse," Mighty Mouse," and "the Mouse that Roared" to name a few. The problem is that in her own roundabout way, Nancy Pelosi's pet project may just be the best thing about this pork-laden boondogle. It may be the only project I've found that will actually accomplish the stated goal of creating a real job.

Now I can hear the jaws dropping out there and I can only imagine that you all might be thinking I've traded in my trademark Java for some liberal kool-aid, but you would be wrong and I encourage you to read on and hear me out. What happens when you artificially protect the natural habitat of an animal? Simply speaking, you enable that animal to survive and thrive. What happens when rhodents thrive? They BREED at the speed of light. So, when the marshes are filled with millions of new mice then those mice are going to feel cramped and they're going to fan out all over San Francisco and the surrounding area.

Picture what is going to happen some fine morning when Nancy Pelosi or one of her liberal gal pals on Nob Hill reaches into the china cabinet to get a bone china bowl for her morning cereal and finds mouse turds in it. She might first drop the bowl, shattering it into bits. Then, aggrieved by the tragic loss of a piece of her favorite china, the grief will turn to rage and she'll either pick up the phone herself or direct her maid to do it for her, and call the exterminator. This scene will be played out in houses and apartments all over the city because people universally react this way to vermin.

One of my favorite actors of all time, James Woods, in his portraryal of powerhouse attorney Sebastian Stark uttered a line that is a pithy as it is brilliant. He was investigating a homicide in Malibu and a lifeguard informed him that the tenant of a pricey beach house had asked him to run people off of his "private" beach. As he heard this, Sebastian Stark said, "They're all liberals until someone blocks their ocean view." Simply put, liberals will champion causes like the marsh mouse, until that mouse has the audacity to invade their homes. Then, the mouse be damned, it's time to call the exterminator.

This brings me to my point that Nancy Pelosi my be the only legislator whose pork project will actually accomplish the goal of creating new jobs, or saving old ones, in the foreseeable future because if San Francisco gets overrun with mice, the exterminators will either hire new workers or refrain from laying off any of their current ones. This can occur within the next two years because of both the limited life span of mice, and the alarmingly rapid rate at which they reproduce, especially when their habitat is artificially protected.

Therefore, in her own way, the Speaker is actually going to use her tens of millions (chump change compared to some of the other projects in the bill) to create new jobs. Granted, it's an unintended consequence of the government's typical approach to problem solving, i.e. trying to lower the river instead of raising the bridge. Still, the new hires at the exterminating companies can thank Speaker Pelosi for the good fortune. So God Bless you, Nancy Pelosi and later we can take a moment of silence for the rhodent holocaust that will surely follow.

So, there it is. Nancy Pelosi may be the only legislator whose fingerprints on this bureacratic nightmare can actually be linked to a new job created in the next year or two. And if you disagree with me, then you sir, madame, or (since we ARE talking about San Francisco here), anyone inbetween, are worse than Greg Gutfeld.