Death By Cultural Misunderstanding

"The Iranian terror plot: Why would Iran do it the way they allegedly did it?" So goes the title of an article by Allahpundit at Hot Air. It is representative of many, not only on the Internet, but across the conventional media. Allahpundit is not nearly as credulous as many and raises several good points.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is former Federal Prosecutor Andy McCarthy—whose article is also linked in Allahpundit's article—who concludes:

"But, as night follows day, the State Department and other administration officials are out throwing cold water on these claims with their usual tap dance: Iran is very complicated; the IRGC is like a government within a government; there are various rogue elements, so this was probably a rogue operation; just because somebody in the Iranian government may have been complicit does not mean muckety-mucks like Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei were involved; diplo-blah, blah, blah. It looks like we will keep chasing the Holy Grail — rationalizing inaction in the face of ever-mounting provocations while we keep searching for “moderates” embedded somewhere in the regime who will somehow maneuver Iran into a new era of good relations with the Great Satan. Continued good luck with that."

What we now know is that the Iranian used-car salesman from Texas who was apparently the prime broker in the plot was actually trying to arrange not only the murder by explosives of the Saudi Ambassador in a Washington DC restaurant, but attacks on American and Israeli embassies possible in simultaneous strikes. Not only was this used-car dealer traveling between Texas, Mexico and Iran, but was prepared to deliver $1.5 million dollars to the DEA informant posing as a representative of a Mexican drug cartel. It is not known with certainty, but it seems we may have intercepted this plot for no reason other than that the Iranians blundered—by pure chance—into one of our assets rather than the Mexican killers he sought. If so, this is truly one of the most remarkable cases of serendipity on record.

Some excerpts from Allahpundit:

"As Iranians struggled Wednesday to comprehend an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, analysts here agreed that even if U.S. charges of official Iranian involvement were true, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his government likely had nothing to do with the scheme…"

"The Quds Force is Iran’s A-team, equivalent to the Mossad in Israel. As Robert Baer, a former CIA analyst, told WaPo, “If they wanted to come after you, you’d be dead already.” And yet, their big idea for striking a blow against the Great Satan and its Wahhabist puppet in Riyadh was to … hook a used-car salesman from Corpus Christi up with an alleged member of a Mexican drug cartel? Seriously?"

In its 30-year history of attacking the West, the Quds Force went out of its way never to be caught with a smoking gun in hand. It always used well-vetted proxies, invariably Muslim believers devoted to Khomeini’s revolution. And when the operation was particularly sensitive, they gave the job to Lebanon’s militant Shi’ite Hizballah, organization the Iranians themselves had founded and which has an unsurpassed record in political murder. Hizballah has cells all over the world, including in the United States. But the point of it all was that if caught — and they were, more than once — Iran still enjoyed plausible deniability, a commodity in this business worth its weight in gold. So, if this plot was genuine, why didn’t the Iranians use tried and tested Hizballah networks and keep Iranian nationals, much less unknown Mexican narcos, out of it?"

Allahpundit suggests that the Revolutionary Guards have somehow gone rogue and are conducting, dangerous, provocative operations on their own, outside of the knowledge and control of the Iranian leadership. Another possibility is that the democratic Iranian opposition is trying to frame the Mullacracy in an attempt to bring the United States into a direct conflict that might unseat the hardliners, allowing democracy to flourish.

McCarthy is less apparently conflicted:

"Iran’s brazenness. It is surprising to hear suggestions that Iran has suddenly crossed a line by — allegedly — plotting to kill a Saudi diplomat on U.S. soil. As Iranian provocations go, this one is pretty tame. I related the history here a couple of years ago, and the best accounting is found in Michael Ledeen’s books — most recently, Accomplice to Evil. To highlight just a few things: Iran killed 19 members of our air force at Khobar Towers in 1996; it has had a working relationship with al Qaeda since the early nineties; it was likely complicit in the 9/11 attacks (a matter the 9/11 Commission strongly suggested — but on which neither the Commission nor anyone else in government followed up); and Iran has been plotting against and killing American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq for a decade. Compared to that rich record of direct attacks against Americans, the current plot is no more than par for the course."

In my conversations with adults, and in the classroom with teenagers, I am endlessly fascinated to discover that most Americans seem unable to truly understand that the peoples of other nations are so utterly different than Americans, so actually alien in the truest sense of the word. Americans seem to believe that since other peoples wear blue jeans, watch American movies, have McDonald's, speak English, even attend college in America they must be more or less unusual looking Americans with funny accents. My students, for instance, are universally amazed when they learn that hundreds of millions of people have never seen toilet paper, using their left hands instead.

In the same way, Americans tend to think of religion only within the American framework of separation of church and state and tolerance for the faiths of others. Americans may think adherents of some faiths to be a bit odd--holy Mormon underwear, people going to church on Saturday, eating only fish on Fridays—but they are generally accepting of that, and the fact that Americans are free to change religions and churches as often as they change their socks. Many Americans take their faith seriously, but the idea of killing in its name is—alien, as alien as the idea of being ruled by ministers, mutilating the genitals of their wives and daughters, killing their wives and daughters for violating family honor, killing friends, even family members who leave the faith, or killing anyone not of the faith for that reason alone.

Perhaps the most pitiful—and potentially deadly--example of American inability to understand Muslims in general and other cultures in particular is Mr. Obama who has a tendency to want everything both ways. Mr. Obama is Muslim, or at least, observant Muslims would certainly consider him to be Muslim. In every Muslim culture, the children born to a Muslim father are themselves Muslims. It is not a matter of choice. Muslims do not leave the faith, for if they do, they immediately become apostates and there is one punishment in Islam for apostasy: death. It is the duty of all Muslims to defend the faith by killing apostates.

Mr. Obama has declared himself to be Christian by choice, and has denied that he is, or ever has been, Muslim. His supporters cry racism and foul if anyone speaks or prints his middle name: Hussein. Yet for a Christian POTUS, he seems determined to do everything possible to support Muslim sensibilities and causes. For example, he told newly appointed NASA chief Charles Bolden that NASA's new primary mission was to make Muslims feel good about the scientific accomplishments of their ancient ancestors. Mr. Obama reflexively supports—or at the very least shows great deference toward—Muslim despots. Because of our cultural and Constitutional heritage, we think nothing of those who choose to change faiths, or who profess no faith. Not so in the Muslim world.

Mr. Obama traveled to Cairo and extended a hand to Muslims. What could they have thought of this? Did they recognize his Muslim middle name, hear his words of conciliation and peace, believe that he was one of them, a man they could trust and with whom they could do business? Hardly. Most would simply ignore him. True believers would want to kill him, not only because he is the President of the United States, but because he is a self-confessed apostate. The Iranians almost certainly see him as a weakling, a fool not to be feared but manipulated. They believe their actions against us will have few, if any, consequences, and thus far—since 1979--they've been right.

In a very real way, we are dealing with medieval thinking, a mindset that sees the world in black and white terms. There are the strong and the weak, the elect and infidels. There is, above all, the Dar al-Islam—the realm or land under Islamic control—and the Dar al-Harb—the realm of war or chaos, the land of the infidels where Islam is not in control. In the Dar al-Islam, Sharia—Islamic law—reigns supreme. It is a medieval code of conduct and justice administered by Imams, essentially Islamic ministers, who have absolute power over life and death. In Islam, there are no individual freedoms, not separation of church and state. The church is the state and individuals live—or die—at its whim.

Islam and Sharia are absolutely incompatible with freedom of religion and individual liberty. Christianity teaches the inestimable worth of each individual, the incalculable value of each human life, not just during its earthly journey, but because each human being possesses an immortal soul which can have, by means of faith, eternal life. These beliefs are the foundation of our Constitution and our criminal and civil laws, yet no American is required to pay them deference or to adhere to these beliefs. A nation where ministers decide civil disputes, hand down brutal, medieval punishments, treat women little or no better than cattle, afford children no rights at all, is almost unimaginable for Americans, yet this is the reality of daily life for the Dar al-Islam.

Christianity does not demand that its adherents conquer—in the spiritual or military sense—the world. It suggests only that they spread the Gospel; it is an entirely voluntary faith. Therefore, Christianity does not proscribe specific steps to be observed in the waging of war, nor does it demand that those who do not accept Christianity be treated as second-class beings, with a complete set of rules for how such beings may be enslaved, treated, taxed, even killed. Islam does all of this and more.

Winston Churchill observed that individual Muslims may have "splendid qualities," and indeed, most Muslims wish only to live in peace with their neighbors. However, it must be clearly understood that these Muslim are not, in fact, following the dictates of their faith. It is those who war against the Dar al-Harb who are being true to the letter and intent of their religion. And if there are only ten million such Muslims in the world—and there are surely that many—who are determined to follow the clear dictates of their faith to the letter, it's not hard to see the depth of our problem.

The leaders of Iran, those who so brutally crushed the Iranian democracy movement—the movement Mr. Obama studiously ignored—are very much determined to conquer the world for Islam, to turn the entire globe into the Dar al-Islam. The Koran holds special enmity for Jews, specifically preaching their destruction. It is no accident that Iran's leaders constantly refer to America as "the Great Satan," and Israel as "the Little Satan," for when they mouth these labels, they mean that Satan is the fount of all evil and must be destroyed by those faithful to Islam.

In waging war, Americans generally abstain from striking the first blow, are incredibly cautious about harming non-combatants, even risking and losing American lives rather than accidently killing innocents. Americans even avoid unnecessarily destroying property. For Americans, there are specific laws regulating the conduct of soldiers. None of this is true for Muslims waging Jihad—holy war aimed at establishing a global Dar al-Islam. They kill indiscriminately, ignore the international laws of war, use innocents as human shields, and commit inhuman atrocities as common practice.

In the pursuit of Jihad, Islam encourages and allows Muslims to lie to infidels. However, it requires Muslims to give infidels a chance to convert to Islam. If they do not, they may be slaughtered at will. When Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens America and Israel and suggests conversion to Islam, he is not doing this because he has a sincere religious concern for the souls of Americans and Israelis, but because he is adhering to Islamic rules for war.

Americans make the mistake of hearing what they think is yet another preacher trying to convert them and think ignoring them will have no consequences just as it does in America. They fail to realize that when they don't immediately convert to Islam, the safeties have just been released on Muslim weapons.

Jihadists recognize no international laws, no "international norms," no treaties, no diplomatic protocols. There is only the struggle to conquer the world, and apart from the Islamic rules for waging war, they observe no restraints, even killing other Muslims, which the Koran forbids.

Islam is a culture of death; Christianity is a culture of life. Islam preaches that the most sublime pleasures of paradise are reserved for those who die in Jihad. Christianity teaches love for all and the attainment of paradise through steadfast faith, mercy, kindness and tolerance.

One of the most dangerous misconceptions Americans have is confusing the political realities of America with those of other nations, particularly Islamic nations. "We can't attack Iran," our State Department says. "It's only the leaders of Iran that are bad. The people love us. There are many factions. There are moderates. Why, the leaders of Iran may not even know what is being done in their name!" Idiocy.

Doubtless many Japanese in 1941 had no desire for war. Many Germans were likewise peaceful people, but nations are responsible for actions done in their name, using their resources--$1.5 million and more in this case--pursuing their stated national goals. All of these factors are clearly present in the thankfully foiled plot.

Islamic nations, particularly rogue states like Iran—unquestionably the foremost terrorist nation on the planet—do not brook internal opposition. There is no democracy, no debate, no effective political opposition. Iron-fisted rule extends from the top down. And while it is true that millions of young Iranians think well of the United States and would welcome having the heel of the Islamic boot lifted from their collective necks, this is a tactical, not a strategic concern.

It is not as though we are contemplating turning all of Iran, or even its major populations centers, into a sheet of glowing, radioactive glass. Alone in the world we possess the military means to strike with amazing precision, severely limiting collateral damage. Our assets could, with a few days of overwhelming strikes, severely damage, even obliterate Iran's ability to produce nuclear weapons and wage war.

But Iran would be angry with us! Iran would strike out at us! Iran has been doing just that since 1979. Not only have its agents been caught on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have captured its munitions, specifically designed and manufactured to kill American soldiers. There is no doubt that Iran is arming and training our enemies, enemies that have killed Americans and the citizens of our allies. Iran declared war on us in 1979 and has been actively pursuing that war on multiple fronts.

Yet, Iran has exercised some restraint. Its leaders understand that in a conventional military conflict with the United States, it wouldn't last a week. But they also understand that we are tied down in two conflicts. It works with China, North Korea, Syria, any nation opposed to America, to keep us occupied, to limit our ability and willingness to respond. Above all, it knows that with Barack Obama in the White House, there is virtually nothing it cannot do—even producing nuclear weapons it has sworn to use against Israel and America—that would provoke Mr. Obama to punishing military action.

Would Iran conduct an attack against Americans that would cause hundreds, even thousands of deaths? Of course it would. Iran has been killing hundreds, even thousands of Americans for years. But iran has never done anything so brazen before! You mean like seizing hundreds of American diplomats hostage and keeping them for more than a year? You mean like killing hundreds of Americans through proxies and by providing purpose-built weapons to them? But this hasn't been Iran's modus operandi—their method of operation—in the past!

Even if that were true—and it isn't--it is now.

Mark Twain said that one should be careful in reading health books because they could die of a misprint. Americans must now be careful in interpreting the clear words and actions of one of our most deadly and determined enemies. They say: "we will kill you all," over and over again. If we don't take them at their clear words, if we don't understand their mindset, millions of Americans and Israelis could die of a cultural misunderstanding.

This Is A Parody--Right?

Well, now they've done it, and the United States is fighting back with every tool at its disposal:

1) The United States "…will use the plot to marshal international pressure…" against those responsible.

2) Attorney General Eric Holder said: "The United States is committed to holding [them] accountable for [their] actions."

3) A "State Department Official" called it a "flagrant violation of international law."

And then we brought out the really big gun:

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said we'd work with allies to "send a very strong message that this kind of action, which violates international norms, must be ended."

She also said:

This "crosses a line," and she and President Obama are calling international leaders to tell them what happened. She said Mr. Obama and she intend to "pre-empt" any efforts by [them] to deny responsibility, and to "enlist more countries in working together against what is becoming a clearer and clearer threat…"

One might be tempted to think that this situation—whatever it is and whoever it involves—is a very serious matter and that our government will respond with the kind of righteous rage demonstrated after 9-11. It is a very serious matter indeed, but that's where reality breaks down.

As reported at Fox News, we've intercepted an Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to America, with explosives, on American soil. Iranian members of the Quds Force," a paramilitary spy/internal security force pursued a hit on the Ambassador by trying to hire what they thought was a Mexican drug cartel to make the attack. Two Iranian agents were captured and others remain at large.

Would this be the same Iran:

1) that constantly threatens to obliterate Israel and the United States?

2) that has been killing Americans and American soldiers for decades?

3) that is the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the world?

4) that sponsors terrorists that kill the citizens of our allies around the world?

5) that threatens to turn the Middle East in a charnel house of unimaginable proportions?

6) that is feverishly producing nuclear weapons and which plans to use them in an EMP attack on America?

7) that is building missile bases in Venezuela and infiltrating every Latin American country that will have it?

8) that is working daily to infiltrate sleeper cells into America for future attacks?

9) that is working with cartels and Marxists south of our border to facilitate any and every kind of harm to Americans they can devise?

10) that declared war on us in 1979 when they seized our embassy and took hostages?

11) that is ruled by Islamist lunatics who want to provoke Armageddon because they believe it will produce the return of the "hidden Imam," and lead to a new caliphate?

Yes. It's that very Iran.

Our elected representatives are resolute and incensed:

"Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., urged the administration to revisit a request by dozens of senators to target the country's central bank, calling it the 'paymasters' for the Quds Force.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., called the plot an 'outrage' and called for increased sanctions against Iran.

[Senator Durbin has now, without question, cinched the title of the most-irony challenged politician of all time. He's calling for financial sanctions, which will have to be imposed through the cooperation of the very banks he first slammed with idiotic legislation, and then excoriated for implementing the completely predictable results of his ill-considered stupidity.]

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, speaking on Fox News, called the plot an 'act of war' against the United States.

'We have to do something,' he said, saying the specifics of the response should be left up to the Defense Department and the president."

And which serious steps commensurate with Iran's actions against us since 1979 is the Obama Administration planning?

"But a senior Defense official told Fox News the announcement Tuesday "'s not a trip wire for military action in Iran.' '
'No one should read into this as a pretense for any type of military response," another senior Defense official added.

Speaking to Fox News on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject, the officials said the Pentagon sees the alleged plot as a criminal act that is rightly being handled by the Department of Justice. "

"The Treasury Department said the other Quds officials named were also involved in the plot. The sanctions will freeze any U.S. assets held by the individuals and prohibit anyone in the U.S. from doing business with them."

Mrs. Clinton is reported to be planning to speak with the Swiss Ambassador to Iran who will in turn likely present a strongly worded message to the Iranians on our behalf.

There are several possible scenarios at play. With the Gunwalker debacle and the Solyandra scandal threatening to overwhelm the Obama Administration and absolutely devastate Mr. Obama's already fast-failing re-election chances, it is not outside the realm of possibility that the Obama Administration is exaggerating the involvement of the highest levels of the Iranian regime, and Stratfor, the private intelligence firm, is suggesting just that, according to Fox. However, Stratfor also notes that the Iranians have been conducting "preoperational surveillance," in the US, but have not yet carried out a high profile attack. Obamites would surely welcome the diversion of public attention from the alleged malfeasance and possible criminality of the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice, and a plethora of federal alphabet agencies. As more and more damning evidence against the Administration and its allies becomes public, the Obama Administration must be desperate to escape scrutiny.

A lengthy civilian trial—the Obamite preferred vehicle for dealing with enemy combatants--of Iranian agents extending well into the election season could potentially help Mr. Obama burnish his anti-terrorist warrior credentials when even the Lamestream Media has taken to calling him isolated and withdrawn from the day to day performance of his duties.

But the possibility that the Iranians, emboldened by what they must surely believe to be the unlimited fecklessness of Mr. Obama, would embark on such a provocative course cannot be dismissed. If Mr. Obama will take no obvious, affirmative steps to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons it has repeatedly sworn to put to immediate, genocidal use, why should the Iranians worry about Mr. Obama's response to a much lesser provocation? What will he do? Threaten to impose really serious sanctions by a date certain, and this time—unlike all the previous times--he really, really, pinky swear, double dog dare, means it?

What must the Iranians think of our response thus far? We're imposing sanctions on individual Iranian spies? American firms won't be able to do business with them? Just how many Americans firms, pray tell, do a considerable portion of their business with Iranian operatives such that these sanctions will have any effect—other than provoking uproarious Iranian laughter—on Iran? Will the threat of treating their spies as common criminals accorded the full protections of the Constitution the Iranians not only refuse to recognize but see as a sign of weakness strike fear into the hearts of the hardened terrorist murderers running that despotic nation? Will it cause them to abandon their nuclear designs? Beg for mercy and forgiveness from Israel?

At least Hillary Clinton knows the score. Our own "Lady Of Jello" knows that Iran's action "violates international norms." She recognizes that Iran represents a "clearer and clearer threat." She believes that working with other nations might "further isolate Iran." This is a parody—right? Right?

On the international stage, Mr. Obama has made several noteworthy accomplishments. One of the most remarkable has been making the French seem—compared to Mr. Obama--resolute defenders of freedom. Another has been making it possible for fiscal basket case nations to lecture us on our economic policies. But the most truly noteworthy accomplishment of Barack Obama and his Administration has been the absolute transcendence of parody. Ironhawk? The Onion? Reality? Who can say with certainty? Who would wish to expend the effort?

It is not unreasonable to wonder if even a nuclear attack against Israel, American interests, or even America itself would provoke the Obama Administration to anything beyond strong language, a stirring invocation of the "international community" and "international norms," criminal charges against individuals and sanctions which might "further isolate Iran."

America—and the world—will be very fortunate indeed if our many enemies do not take advantage of what they must surely believe to be a historic opportunity between now and November of 2012. On the other hand, with leadership that bows to despots, reflexively supports Marxist and Islamist despots and which actually delivers arms to our deadly enemies as a cynical and incredibly stupid means of imposing anti-freedom domestic policies, do we really need enemies?

Welcome to PoopStock

Here's all you need to know about the temper tantrum known as the "Occupy" movement, as a disgusting Occupy Wall Street denizen defecates on a NYPD car.

The photo seems verboten in the U.S. mainstream media that is cheering heavily for the movement as a counter to the Tea Party, even though the "Occupy" gatherings have nothing resembling a common cause, and seem to be nothing more than angry hipsters mad at everyone for not having an easy life of success handed to them on a plate, and union thugs trying to co-op the movement for their Democratic masters.

Crapping on America. That's Poopstock, and the "occupy" (bowel) movement in a nutshell (Credit for coining Poopstock goes to @SamValley).

A Hilariously Unscientific Poll

Consider this scenario: You have been told, at least five weeks in a row, by memo—memos it is your job to read and act upon—that something very wrong is happening. You do nothing, and things blow up in everyone's face. The boss asks you about it, and you tell him that you have no idea what's going on; you only found out about it when things blew up. He says: "Oh, OK then."

Right. How about if you say: "Oh, I didn't understand your question." Or "I was responding to another question about some other context." How about: "Memos? What memos? I never saw any memos." Or better yet: "Memos? I don't read memos!"

Q: What is the chance of keeping your job:

A) Zero
B) Zip
C) Less than nothing
D) Hahahahahahahahaha—gasp---hahahahaha! Keep your job?! Hahahahaha…

Comes now Tina Korbe at Hot Air who writes:

"It was never a comforting thought to think the Attorney General just can’t be bothered to read his weekly briefings, but it was at least plausible to think Eric Holder overlooked one or two memos about the pernicious and fatal Fast and Furious program. But make that five memos and the AG’s incompetence and negligence appear especially gross:
Senator Chuck Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa today said that Attorney General Eric Holder received at least five weekly memos beginning in July 2010, including four weeks in a row, describing the ill-advised strategy known as Operation Fast and Furious. The memos were to Holder from Michael Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center.

The Attorney General told Issa during a House Judiciary Committee in May 2011 that he had just learned of Fast and Furious a few weeks before. Yet, on January 31, in a previously scheduled meeting, Grassley personally handed him two letters about Fast and Furious. Grassley and Issa said they find it very troubling that Holder actually knew of Operation Fast and Furious much earlier, and in greater detail than he ever let on.

The memos specifically said that the straw buyers were 'responsible for the purchase of 1500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.'”

Mr. Obama also weighed in at a press conference on Thursday:

"I think both Holder and I would have been very unhappy if someone had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that could have been prevented by the United States of America."

So we now know:

1) Senator Chuck Grassley, on January 31, gave AG Holder specific information about Fast and furious.

2) Holder received at least five weekly briefings, very specific briefings, about the case beginning in July 2010.

3) In May of 2011, Holder told Rep. Daryl Issa in a congressional hearing, under oath, that he heard of the case only a few weeks earlier.

I'll give Ms. Korbe the benefit of the doubt and literary license for understatement. Is it plausible that Mr. Holder missed a memo or two? It's plausible. However, let's consider that Mr. Holder is a man intimately involved in an Administration famous of power mongering, ignoring the law, and micromanagement. Let's further consider his absolutely mind-blowing, bald-faced lying regarding his role in securing a pardon for Marc Rich. Incompetence? Negligence? Certainly, but that doesn't account for what now appears to be absolute proof that Mr. Holder was lying under oath.

I caught Lanny Davis, former Clinton lawyer and Democrat apologist on the O'Reilly Factor last night. He suggested—and this with a straight face—that Holder has no reason to lie. Well, apart from the fact that he may be implicated in multiple federal crimes including conspiracy, murder, treason, terrorism, etc., I'd have to agree with Mr. Davis. Yup. No reason to lie at all.

Gentle readers, let's hear from you. What do you say about these three questions:

1) Is AG Holder lying?

2) Is Mr. Obama involved (and lying)?

3) Did they push Gunwalker to build support for anti-gun policies they couldn't obtain through the Congress?

Guns, Irony and Prosperity

Time for a bit of heresy: In a way, I almost hope Barack Obama is reelected. Now I've done it. I know if he is reelected America is in deep trouble, Marianas Trench-deep trouble from which we may never escape, but I speak entirely selfishly. Mr. Obama has arguably been the greatest producer of political topics and satire for bloggers in American history. I have no doubt that Bill Clinton might have been in the running, particularly where steamy content and sexually oriented cheap and easy puns are concerned, but it wasn't until after he left office—literally with White House silverware and furnishings—that the blogosphere really took off as a true alternative to the Lamestream Media. We have Dan Rather to thank for that, which is a delicious morsel of irony in and of itself.

Allow me to clarify my heresy: I'll do all I can to defeat Mr. Obama and to overturn virtually everything he did. However, it is entirely reasonable to assert that the "most transparent Administration in history" has been a particularly rich source of hypocrisy, self-parody, outrage, and above all, irony. A prime example is the fact that Mr. Obama is arguably the greatest gun salesman of all time. A slightly less hilarious and tasty counterpart is that in destroying America's economy, he is driving America's gunmakers out of their traditional, coastal, elite environments into the welcoming arms of the bumpkins of Flyover Country, thus further impoverishing his base. Self-defeating irony doesn't get a lot better than that.

An August 9, 2011 story in the New York Times (I said this was ironic!) by Timothy Williams makes clear two trends: Firearms makers in the Northeast and California are considering moving away from the anti-gun, anti-business climates of their traditional, even historic home bases, and midwestern and southern states are competing to be their new homes. Considering the economy and the Obama Administration's never-ending anti-business policies and regulations, even New York Senator Chuck Schumer—one of the most anti-gun senators in American history—is getting on the bandwagon:

"In New York, Senator Charles E. Schumer issued a news release in May praising Remington after it agreed to move a factory from Maine, bringing with it 40 to 50 jobs.

The release made no mention of Senator Schumer’s record supporting gun control. Instead, it said Mr. Schumer had 'led the effort in Congress to repeal the law that limited competition for small arms contracts, so that Remington can now compete for small arms contracts with the Department of Defense.'”

Life doesn't get much more ironic than that.

For nearly two decades, South Dakota has been working to attract gun manufacturers. Many famous manufacturers of high-quality, top dollar firearms have relocated there, including HS Precision and Bar-Sto Precision Machine. SD Governor Dennis Daugaard actively recruits at gun and trade shows:

“'When we approach gun makers, we first make the cultural argument,' said Gov. Dennis Daugaard of South Dakota, a hunter… “People in business want to feel their business is wanted and welcome in the communities where they are located. In South Dakota, the culture is there. We don’t regulate firearms businesses out of existence.”

Irv Stone, owner of Bar-Sto Precision Machine, which makes competition pistols, moved to Sturgis, S.D., from California last year because he said he found it increasingly difficult to operate in an environment where guns are shunned.

'The cultural thing is like night and day,' he said. 'I felt like the bastard child in California. It is not a firearms culture. In California, it was like: ‘Eww, firearms. Really?’ Here, on the other hand, you are looked at kind of weird: ‘Oh, you don’t shoot or fish? What do you do?’"

Draconian firearms regulations have also encouraged gun makers to move. Micro-stamping is a technology that would require specialized firing pins, perhaps even extractors and chambers that imprint unique identifying markings on fired casings. Research has shown the technology to be highly unreliable at best. Requiring it would increase manufacturing costs and retail prices, and it can be defeated merely by swapping parts or the application of five minutes of filing. Aluminum or steel cartridge casings can defeat the technology entirely. It is particularly ineffective in revolvers which do not eject fired brass, and even where semiautomatic firearms are involved, all an enterprising criminal need do is pick up the fired brass. Manufacturers are, to say the least, unimpressed:

"Gun manufacturers say proposed micro-stamping laws could drive Colt out of Connecticut and Remington out of New York, which are among more than half a dozen states where the legislation has been introduced. California, which employs more firearms industry workers than any other state, has already approved a micro-stamping law that is pending.

Carlton S. Chen, a vice president at Colt, said the company would have few qualms about leaving Connecticut if micro-stamping became law.

'At that point, we and other firearms manufacturers doing business in Connecticut would need to seriously consider whether we should completely move ourselves out of Connecticut and relocate to a friendlier state,' Mr. Chen said in written testimony to a state legislative committee in 2008. 'The upshot would be a loss of thousands of jobs.'”

Illinois, home of pay to play and thuggish government, land where the dead rise from the grave for elections and almost exclusively vote Democrat, is also driving out manufacturers:

"And in Illinois, home to several large firearms manufacturers, a law would ban assault rifles and would prohibit manufacturers from selling guns to state residents.

In recent years, Illinois has lost Les Baer Custom Inc., a small company that moved to Iowa, as well as 1,000 Winchester jobs."

Not that Illinois is getting the message:

"Marcelyn Love, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity wrote in an e-mail, 'I am not aware of an increased effort by other states to lure specific manufacturing sectors from Illinois.'”

Perhaps Ms. Love might want to get in touch with Winchester and Les Baer.

This trend is not entirely Mr. Obama's fault of course, but it is precisely the Statist philosophy embraced by the blue states--which Mr. Obama embodies--that is all but forcing historic firearm companies to move to states where the political and cultural climates are far more welcoming, and where making a profit is actually understood to be a good thing for a private business to do.

Still, some blue states are fighting back—while simultaneously shooting themselves in the foot by pushing policies like micro-stamping:

"But the attempted poaching of its gun makers is not being taken lightly in Massachusetts, which is home to Smith & Wesson, the nation’s largest handgun manufacturer (founded in 1852) and the Savage Arms Company (1894), or in neighboring Connecticut, where Colt (1836), the Marlin Firearms Company (1870) and O. F. Mossberg & Sons (1919) are located.

In 2005, this small region produced 1.8 million firearms, according to the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council, about one-third of all firearms made in the country.

…Massachusetts has published a brochure promoting its firearms makers that traces the state’s gun culture back to 1777, when George Washington chose Springfield as the site of the country’s first arsenal.

…last year, when Massachusetts sought to ensure that Smith & Wesson stayed in Springfield, the state gave the company $6 million in tax credits to relocate one of its New Hampshire factories there. While the factory employs a modest 225 people, Massachusetts wanted to make sure the company would not start shifting operations elsewhere."

Despite a horrendously anti-gun, high-tax, and insane regulatory climate, Smith and Wesson is staying in Massachusetts—for now.

Here’s some additional irony: should Mr. Obama win a second term, the economy would almost certainly continue to decline, forcing more and more businesses and manufacturers—including gun makers—to more business friendly states with rational tax and regulatory climates, with low costs of living and welcoming populations. The more Democrats win, the more their stronghold states lose. Regardless of federal policy, blue states are increasingly cutting their own economic throats, benefitting the red states they so disdain.

Perhaps the ultimate irony, even more delightful than Mr. Obama's inadvertent support for the firearms industry he would be overjoyed to obliterate is the reality that he, in only a single term, may well accomplish more to advance gun ownership, the movement of manufacturers to states where they can expand and prosper, and will have increased the total number of guns and gun owners far more than any Conservative president could ever hope to do. Now that's ironic joy.

Barack Obama: Anti-Terror Warrior?

I was discussing the recent death of Jihadist Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Al-Qaeda honcho, in a CIA directed Predator drone attack, with an acquaintance. My acquaintance is a fellow I've known for several years who, while not a flaming Marxist, still thinks Barack Obama is slicker than sliced bread, though he is beginning to admit that perhaps a bit of mold is starting to form on the loaf (or is that the loafer?) He's obviously seeking reasons to maintain that old, tingle-up-the-leg, glistening pecs, Obama is a god fervor, and was going on about Mr. Obama's manly mojo in authorizing the strike on Osama Bin Laden and now, the vile and deranged al-Awlaki. To his way of thinking, this—and the fact that Guantanamo Bay is still open for business—is proof positive that Mr. Obama is a genuine, fire-breathing anti-terrorist all-American warrior for truth, justice and the American way. Oh yes: he was also exercised that al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was not given a proper civilian trial before being executed. Irony challenged, my acquaintance.

As to Awlaki's citizenship, the facts are clear. Awlaki was an American citizen, but a citizen who took up arms against America. We know this because he explicitly told us, many times, that he was at war with America. We know that he was a top enemy commander and that he was directly involved in the planning and execution of attacks against America, American interests and Americans, attacks resulting in American deaths, the Fort Hood attack being only a single example.
Arguably, this would make Awlaki guilty of treason, and if captured, he could be tried for that offense. However, capture and trial were not required for one very powerful and well understood—legally speaking—reason: we are at war.

It is hard for most Americans to understand this simple fact: we are at war and have been since at least the first attack on the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993 and probably since the Islamic takeover of Iran in late 1979. Because most Americans have to make no sacrifice, because the ongoing war does not disrupt or directly affect their lives in any way, the very concept of war seems a matter of semantics, a debating topic, not a deadly, personal or national reality. We will almost certainly be at war for a generation or more. We may not consider ourselves to be at war with our Islamist enemy, but he does not share our peaceful convictions.

In war, our declared enemies may be killed whenever and wherever they are found. This simple fact does not change because of the nationality of the enemy. This too is a well-settled fact of law. There are no clear demarcation lines on a worldwide battlefield. Americans have, in past wars, gone over to the side of America's enemies and have as a result become indistinguishable from any other enemy soldier or leader. We have killed them when necessary and captured them when possible. When captured they were tried by military commissions.

Some allude to the Geneva Conventions, but they fail to understand that any declared combatants that do not wear the clearly distinguishable uniform of their nation, that target civilians, that use civilians as shields, or who are non-state actors—all characteristics that describe our Islamist enemy—may be summarily shot when and where they are captured without trial. Such people have none of the protections the Geneva Accords provide to legitimate soldiers acting on behalf of their nation, nor do they deserve them. Even if Awlaki was captured, my acquaintance would doubtless demand that he be tried in a civilian court, a trial for which there is no legal requirement or historical precedence.

Some have suggested that due to the unique nature of our current world wide conflict, the Congress should enact standards for stripping Americans of citizenship so that they may be killed without trial when acting as an enemy of America, but this is unnecessary and likely designed to impede rather than assist America in her war fighting efforts. American and international laws and standards are quite clear on all of the issues involved and have been since the early 1900s.

Mr. Obama and his anti-terror bona fides are quite another matter. He has shown himself, long before his inauguration, to be a man who recognizes no Constitutional restraints, no legal obstacles to his policies and goals. Recall his pseudo-presidential great seal of Obama trotted out during the campaign. Recall his extra-constitutional "Office Of The President-Elect." One might assert that this simply reveals extraordinary arrogance and narcissism—and it does—but it goes much deeper.

There is more than sufficient evidence to acknowledge that Mr. Obama is at the least a Socialist, and likely, a Marxist. Socialism is essentially Marxism-lite. His background is steeped in Marxism, he actively supports Marxist goals, does all he can to damage our capitalist economy, reflexively supports Marxists and Islamists in international relations, and hires avowed Communists (Van Jones) and admirers of Communist murderers (Anita Dunn).

He came into office swearing to close Guantanamo within a year and searched desperately for an alternative, even planning to use an unused prison in Illinois. Fortunately, even in Illinois most people are smart enough to know that the last thing they want is to paint an enormous "come get us, terrorists" target on their community and that suggestion died, even among Democrats. He quickly discovered that no other nation—other than absolute terrorist regimes—want any of the psychotics inhabiting Gitmo, and was certainly told by his more rational advisors of the consequences of turning any of them lose, the reality being that all of the least dangerous were released during the Bush years and more than a fair share of them have returned to Jihad.

He believes that military commissions are evil and that Islamist killers must be accorded civilian trials, trials to be conducted in New York City. Understanding that they have a large terrorist target painted on their collective backs, New Yorkers, and their Democrat representatives, nixed that idiotic idea and to date, only one lower level Jihadist has been tried. The case was a near-disaster. He nearly walked and was convicted on only a single count. Even so, AG Holder—and certainly Mr. Obama—would close Gitmo and begin civilian trials in a second if they thought they could get away with it.

Mr. Obama came into office attacking everything Mr. Bush did, and did away with waterboarding, which had actually been used on only three high value terrorists to great effect. There is no doubt that in those three cases, the technique saved untold lives. However, he not only kept drone attacks; he increased their frequency. This may seem to run counter to his values, but is their epitome.

What would happen to Mr. Obama if we captured a high value terrorist such as Osama Bin Laden or Awlaki and he steadfastly refused to authorize the techniques necessary to extract information from them claiming the moral high ground? Mr. Obama would be in a very difficult predicament. If he authorized anything he had previously taken away, his base and the international community—particularly the Muslims—would go berserk. His political viability would be severely—perhaps fatally--damaged. Yet if he did not authorize whatever was necessary and therefore did not intercept and prevent damaging attacks, particularly on American soil, impeachment and conviction might be the least of his worries.

Drone attacks are the perfect solution. They allow Mr. Obama to adopt the persona of the resolute, anti-terrorist leader while avoiding any real downside. Surely, the usual Leftist suspects complain and raise specious legal and Constitutional arguments, but those have no real political or legal consequence, and other Leftists won't let such minor issues get in the way of enacting their larger agenda through Mr. Obama. There are no high-value terrorists who would not be waterboarded by any rational president, and not waterboarding lesser terrorists represents a much lower attack and political risk and a much more easily defended policy. Mr. Obama would need only to trot out another teleprompter reading with high and moral-sounding rhetoric, claiming that those who oppose him have un-American values. Simply capture no terrorists, kill them instead. That way Mr. Obama doesn’t have to put anyone in Gitmo, and he doesn't have to make any potentially politically harmful decisions.

My acquaintance made much of Mr. Obama's authorization of the raid on Bin Laden. He forgets, or never knew, that Mr. Obama dithered for a full day before authorizing the raid. His dithering cost an additional day due to unfavorable weather. Consider that: Having been in the loop from the first day of the planning phase of the operation, knowing that he would have to decide on capturing or killing America's most wanted terrorist enemy, when the operation was ready to jump off, he took an additional day to make the decision. He was actually seriously considering not doing it! There is every indication that Leon Panetta—of all people—had to insist that he do it.

Imagine what would have happened had he not authorized the raid. Could any American President survive having refused to capture or kill Bin Laden? Imagine if another Bin Laden ordered or inspired 9-11-like attack succeeded. Even democrats couldn't save Obama in such a case, though I have little doubt that the Lamestream Media would labor mightily to save him. Yet knowing this—I have no doubt the more rational among his advisors would have warned him of the dire consequences—he actually considered leaving Bin Laden unmolested. Does such a man deserve congratulations? Does such a man deserve credit for doing the absolute minimum any President must do, particularly considering he took a full day to make that decision after many months to fully consider every ramification?

By the way, wouldn't it have been useful to have Bin Laden? Wouldn't it have been of great value to squeeze him for every drop of actionable intelligence? To use that information to save lives, to pressure hostile governments, and to capture or kill other high-value terrorists? But to preserve Mr. Obama's Leftist street cred, Bin Laden had to die by SEAL bullet or Predator Hellfire. Imagine the Leftist uproar to try Bin Laden in a civilian court, particularly in New York. That's what happens when we elect a President that imposes Marxist values on our abilities to defend ourselves, but not on our enemies.

Barack Obama: all-American anti-terror warrior? I think not.

Gunwalker Analysis: Where Walsh was Wrong

Via Instapundit comes a NY Post op-ed by Micheal Walsh that excoriates the Obama Adminstration's murderous gun-walking plot, but I think he draws an incorrect conclusion.

...calling "Fast and Furious" a cockamamie operation gone wrong just isn't going to cut it anymore.

There are two possible explanations. The first is that the anti-gun Obama administration deliberately wanted American guns planted in Mexico in order to demonize American firearms dealers and gun owners. The operation was manufacturing "evidence" for the president's false claim that we're to blame for the appalling levels of Mexican drug-war violence.

If this is true, then Holder & Co. have got to go -- and the trail needs to be followed no matter where it leads. For the federal government to seek to frame its own citizens is unconscionable.

A second notion is that the CIA was behind the whole thing, which accounts for all the desperate wagon-circling. Under this theory, the Agency feared the los Zetas drug cartel was becoming too powerful and might even mount a coup against the Mexican government. So some 2,000 weapons costing more than $1.25 million were deliberately channeled to the rival Sinaloa cartel, which operates along the American border, to keep the Zetas in check.

Of course, there's a third explanation -- that both scenarios are true, and that those in charge of Fast and Furious saw an opportunity to shoot two birds with one Romanian-made AK Draco pistol.

After months of following and writing about developments int his case, the only scenario that makes sense is the first one, that the Obama Administration provided weapons to the Sinaloa cartel in order to frame American gun owners and American gun dealers and support the President's oft-repeated "90-percent lie." Obama has been trying to undermine the Second Amendment since his days as a director of the Joyce Foundation doling out grants to anti-gun groups and subverting Second Amendment scholarship by gaming law reviews. It is utterly consistent with his radical views and training.

The second option and third options, that the Sinaloas were armed to counteract the Zetas, simply doesn't make sense.

If up-gunning the Sinaloa cartel to counteract the Zetas was the goal, the State Department would not have been arming the Zetas with military weapons, nor would there have been any reason to arm domestic criminal gangs in Indiana.

It would have been far cheaper and more effective to arm the Sinaloa cartel with untraceable automatic weapons from the black market.

No, the goal of the various Gunwalker plots is very clear. Elected officeholders and political appointees in the Obama Administration tried to frame American citizens in order to create the political opportunity to subvert the Bill of Rights. It will be up to a special prosecutor to determine the correct charges for such an heinous act, and determine if the actions of this corrupt government constitute an act worthy of a RICO prosecution, a prosecution for international terrorism as U.S. code seems to suggest, hundreds of counts of accessory to murder, arms export violations, or perhaps even treason.

No wonder the Obama Administration is fighting this investigation like their lives depend on it.

It very well may.

Raleigh Television Station Doctors Perdue Quote Via Selective Editing

From our imagined betters at WRAL-TV:

"I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover," Perdue said.

"The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines," she continued. "You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Perdue's support of tyranny was edited by WRAL to make it more palatable.

Here is the full quote:

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

I bolded the very important sentence that WRAL edited out that shows just how serious our state's governor is in her call to usurp the power of the people to hold elected officials accountable.

Why, it's almost like the media is protecting her...

New Audio: Perdue Was Dead Serious About Cancelling Elections

Listen to the audio yourself.

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

The bolded text is mine. The treasonous sentiment is owned entirely by a governor that should be rode out of Raleigh on a high-speed rail.

Trial Balloons for Tyranny?

North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue's dead-serious suggestion suspend elections wasn't an isolated incident.

Only days ago, former Obama OMB director, Citigroup executive, and current Council on Foreign Relations fellow Peter Orszag published an article in The New Republic entitled "Too Much of a Good Thing: Why we need less democracy."

It is stunning to hear any politician so openly discuss the throttling of democracy and the open suspension of our Constitutional rights. To hear two politicians beholden to the same political party and president make the same suggestion, within days of one another, is no accident.

Good News: When It's Time to Hang Tyrants, I Won't Have Far To Drive

I'll only have to go just up the road to the NC Governor's mansion, where they conveniently have some very nice oaks suitable for the kind of partisan zealot that would like to suspend elections in 2012.

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Those were the words in support of tyranny uttered by North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue to the Cary Rotary Club today.

Perdue's spokesperson is trying to write this off as hyperbole, but there was nothing in her delivery, nor in the context of her statements that suggested her words were anything but exactly what they appear to be.

North Carolina Republicans took control of the state legislature in 2010, the first time they've had control since 1898, and have created a powerful redistricting map that threatens to overturn the Democrat's dominance in state politics through a century's worth of gerrymandering.

Coincidentally, 1898 is infamous in North Carolina for another reason; the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection, in which the North Carolina Democratic Party and the Ku Klux Klan overthrew the Republican government of Wilmington, NC, killing dozens to perhaps as many as a hundred in the process. The Democratic governor Daniel Lindsay Russell effectively supported the violence, as did President William McKinley, who did nothing to bring the insurrectionists to justice. Josephus Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer (appropriately enough, the same news organ that brings us Perdue's comments) also was a champion of the insurrection, infamously the only successful coup d'etat in American history.

Is Perdue serious? Considering the history of North Carolina Democrats supporting tyranny and the destruction of the electoral process, it would be foolish to consider anything otherwise.

President Raised in Muslim Country Rips Jews

It's like his teleprompter hates him:

If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor. I have no problem with that.

Fuel Follies

Did you know that about 70% of all the consumer goods purchased in America are transported by truck? Understanding this bit of economic reality, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the price of fuel is directly linked to all consumer prices. This is fortunate in that Mr. Obama has charged our real rocket scientists to spend their time trying to make Muslims feel good about the scientific accomplishments of their ancient ancestors.

But Mr. Obama has reiterated, for what is it--the twentieth time?--that creating jobs is his first priority with handling the deficit following close behind. For a bit of perspective, let's journey back to April 8th when Mr. Obama ran into a man with a large family at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania. The poor fellow was concerned about high gasoline prices and suggested that Mr. Obama do something to lower them. Demonstrating the kind of common touch and concern for the little man for which he has become justly famous, Mr. Obama said:

"I know some of these big guys, they're all still driving their big SUVs. You know, they got their big monster trucks and everything. You're one of them? Well, now, here's my point. If you're complaining about the price of gas and you're only getting eight miles a gallon, you may have a big family, but it's probably not that big. How many you have? Ten kids, you say? Ten kids? Well, you definitely need a hybrid van then."

Yeow. Talk about foot in mouth disease. But Mr. Obama handled it in his usual style, even though off teleprompter:

"So, like I said, if you're getting eight miles a gallon you may want to think about a trade-in. You can get a great deal. I promise you, GM or Ford or Chrysler, they're going to be happy to give you a deal on something that gets you better gas mileage."

I'm sure a man with ten children can easily afford new vehicles at will. As you can see, Mr. Obama will not rest—except for rounds of golf and vacations costing more than a decade of most folk's annual salaries—until the middle class has some relief from high gas prices and the skyrocketing prices of frivolous consumer goods like food. He's our middle class warrior. He recently said so himself so it must be true. So let's all fast forward to the middle of August and a story by Jazz Shaw about Mr. Obama's newest effort on behalf of the middle class: That's right! CAFE standards for semi tractors!

Regular readers know that Mr. Obama is demanding a CAFE average of 54.5 MPG by 2025, but never before have the Feds meddled in the long haul trucking business in this way. Mr. Obama is now mandating that heavy-duty vehicles, work trucks and long-haul semis reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from between 9% to 23% by 2018.

Well now. Let's consider this for a moment. Truck owners and operators already know that their single largest fixed expense is fuel. They have every reason to buy the most fuel-efficient trucks they can afford and manufacturers have every reason to build such vehicles. The problem is that the laws of physics apply to semis just as they do to passenger cars. There are three primary ways to save fuel in motor vehicles: (1) More efficient engines and transmissions; (2) more aerodynamic vehicles; and (3) lighter vehicles.

Diesel engines are already quite efficient but some small progress can, and already is being made in increasing efficiency without sacrificing reliability and longevity. Transmissions are more problematic as manual transmissions are pretty much required and it is driving technique rather than the transmissions themselves that have the largest effect. However, in trucking time is money and driving more slowly is more costly. Aerodynamics and weight are closely intertwined because the only way to significantly increase mileage would be to make trucks smaller and lighter. Of course, doing this means smaller loads and more runs to transport the same amount of goods, all of which is reminiscent of Al Gore (this one, unlike the internet, really is his invention) mandating stingy toilets to save water, except that they flush so poorly that people often have to flush twice to finish the job, actually increasing rather then decreasing water use. Greenie types seem to have no understanding of the law of unintended consequences--not that they'd care if they did.

These new regulations can only greatly increase the costs of transporting the 70% of goods hauled by truck, which will directly increase all consumer costs, including gasoline costs—here comes the irony--because gasoline is virtually exclusively hauled by truck. Higher prices means lower hiring, more unemployment, less consumer spending, which means even less hiring, even more unemployment, even less consumer spending, which means…It's tempting to think that this—rather than what he says--is actually Mr. Obama's real policy. But he's the President of the United States. He wouldn't actually be trying to crash the economy. Would he?

And now for a final shot of outrage-fueled adrenalin to start the week: travel back with me to April for an article at MSN Money by Lynn Mucken. Ms. Mucken will explain to you why $4.00 a gallon—and more—gas is a good thing. I've no doubt Mr. Obama would agree, and he's the President, so we should do what he says. Shouldn't we?

After your blood pressure returns to normal, have a great rest of the week!

Obama Desperately Tries to Isolate, Polarize Blacks to Shore Up His Base

In one of the most transparently self-serving political addresses in U.S. Presidential history, a shameless Barack Obama attempted to isolate and polarize African-Americans in an attempt to shore up his crumbling base of support for his 2012 reelection campaign.

In a fiery summons to an important voting block, President Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and "put on your marching shoes" to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.

And though he didn't say it directly, for a second term, too.

Obama’s speech to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus was his answer to increasingly vocal griping from black leaders that he's been giving away too much in talks with Republicans — and not doing enough to fight black unemployment, which is nearly double the national average at 16.7 percent.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Barack Obama is not an African-American except in the most technical sense of the word, and arguably knows less about the "black experience" than any partial minority in American politics. He grew up as a Pacific Islander in Hawaii and Indonesia, but did not spend time on the U.S. mainland until he was already in college. Once there, he immersed himself in a culture that was the province of radical, higher middle-class and rich leftist whites at Columbia and then Harvard, who absorbed the son of a radical west coast hippie mother and communist father with open arms and a self-satisfied nod towards diversity.

I have spent more time "in the hood" than Barack Obama, who relates to the "black experience" about as well as I relate to the cocktail party concern circus in which he's embedded himself his whole life. He is an utter and shameless veneer of an black man, a race-hustling pusher that uses his skin-deep physical appearance to push the agenda of Manhattan, and Cape Cod, Berkeley and Beverly Hills.

It makes me ill to watch Barack Obama try to use real African-Americans as self-indentured vote slaves. But try he shamelessly does.

"Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes," he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. "Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do."

Barack Obama has a long history of helping himself by using the black community that he was never really a part of. He's treated them as stepping stones and chumps as he's enriched himself beyond his expectations and his competence.

The question is, will he be able to do it again?

MIKE ADDS:

Once upon a time in those thrilling days of yesteryear, the Lone Ranger and Tonto found themselves in great peril:

Lone Ranger: "There are indians to the left of us; indians to the right of us; indians before and behind us! Tonto, what are we going to do?"

Tonto: What you mean 'we' white man?"

Despite not being the first black president--an honor claimed by Bill "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Clinton--one would think

that the CBC would fully embrace Barack Obama, yet they do not. Their quarrel is not that Mr. Obama supports a society based on equality of opportunity; he absolutely does not. Many, perhaps most CBC members share that concept, being fully supportive instead of the Marxist goal of equality of outcome. Their quarrel is that Mr. Obama had not turned over a sufficiently large quantity of the property of others. He has not sufficiently coddled them and their version of the culture of victimhood.

Even so, some 90% of blacks will likely vote for Mr. Obama in 2012 in large part because he is black, if not in fact, at least in appearance and in the chosen cadences of certain teleprompter readings, such as those he employed when he most recently read to them. Bob is absolutely right: Mr. Obama's experience is far from that of most American blacks. Despite his literary claims to seek his black identity, he has steadfastly sought his inner Marxist, and has been remarkably successful in finding him. Despite the fact that most blacks are manifestly not Marxists, they will reflexively support a man who cares no more about them because of their skin color--and a racial heritage and culture he has never shared--than he does for any other American. He is above any identification with any particular nation. He is far more important than that.

Until black Americans can be content with being just Americans and can stop voting on skin color and the vain hope that black politicians will look out for some ill-defined set of monolithically "black" issues and concerns, they will never fully obtain the promise of America, access to which their parents and grandparents secured long ago.

Blacks hearing Mr. Obama's faux-black cadenced teleprompter readings might rightfully ask: "what do you mean 'we'?"

I Question His Definition of "Is"

Think Progress quotes the liberal saint of stained dresses once again showing the kind of brilliance that comes from a man whose oxygenated bloodflow goes mostly below the waist.

Clinton: 'There Is Not A Single Solitary Example' Of A Country That Has Succeeded With A Tea Party Philosophy.

Really? I think the Founding Fathers might just disagree.

Love, Loyalty and Leadership

At a meeting of the American Historical Society at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner proposed the Turner Thesis: America is unique—as are Americans—because unlike every other nation, we had a West to conquer. This both revealed and forged our unique national character. It taught us the meaning—meaning unique to Americans—of love, loyalty and leadership.

Fast-forward to September 14, 2011, North Carolina State University at Raleigh, a venue friendly—to say the least—to President Barack Obama. Mr. Obama is demanding, like an endlessly looped, stuck recording, that Congress pass his latest, non-existent, half-trillion dollar retread jobs bill. "I love you, Barack," blurts a voice from the adoring crowd. "I love you back," he replies, "but if you love me, you've got to help me pass this bill!" Mr. Obama's love is apparently conditional: one must first accept and actively support ruinous, socialist fiscal policies. What is most remarkable about this bizarre morality play is that it is utterly unsurprising and unremarkable.

Let's return to the beginning, to May 14, 1787, the State House in Philadelphia, the Constitutional Convention. There is no question of the president of the Convention. George Washington serves his new nation yet again. There is no oxymoronic leading from behind. Washington scarcely utters a word throughout the Convention; his steady presence is more than sufficient.

When the Constitution is finally ratified in 1788 there is no question of America's first president. With reluctance, George Washington serves once more. As he rides to New York to take the oath of office, Americans turn out to wish him well all along the way and he is moved to tears by their sincere appreciation for his character and accomplishments, yet he is distinctly uncomfortable for he knows that his example will establish precedence for all time for all who follow him. The adulation, even worship of kings and potentates can never be allowed to take hold in America. Washington is determined that there be no cults of personality.

Washington serves honorably, but always looking to the day when he owes no more to the future. He knows that the presidency is his for life—a virtual kingship is his—yet he chooses to close that option, not only for himself, for all. Other presidents--notably Bill Clinton--will flirt with a lifetime presidency, but Americans have always rejected such narcissistic overtures.

The Bible tells us that there is no greater love than that a man lay down his life for another. Americans have always embodied and practiced this love without reservation, not only for friends, but foreign strangers. True love is reserved for family and for those few friends whose character and accomplishments render them worthy of such devotion. Our forefathers the pioneers took these lessons to heart and passed them down, for they understood through hard experience upon whom they could rely.

Love cannot be wasted on politicians, for such is the infatuation of the teenage girl for the rock star regardless of how momentarily intensely felt. Loyalty to such people is wasted, for it cannot be reciprocated. Their loyalty is only to themselves, for most recognize no one and nothing greater than themselves. Their fame and popularity, based on the fickle preferences of crowds, propaganda and craven media support are ephemeral--fleeting. We owe our elected representatives only deference for their positions. Respect must be earned, each and every day, and freely given in recognition of character, morality and accomplishment.

For Americans, personal loyalty must be carefully, selectively bestowed. Few politicians are worthy of the least bit of it. Above all, it is given willingly, without reservation and with justifiable pride in America, to the American idea and ideals, to our national faith in what Americans alone can accomplish for good. What politician that does not gladly give his loyalty to America is worthy of the loyalty of a single American? The ultimate loyalty of all Americans must never be invested in politicians, for all fail, all pass away, but only in America which must ever endure.

While common in our military, true leadership is hardly common in our presidents. Election to office does not a leader make, though some would point to the fact that they have managed to be elected to several offices as proof of accomplishment and leadership. Leadership arises out of steadfast character and genuine accomplishment. Washington, Lincoln, Truman, Reagan, all men of character and real accomplishment rose to the challenge of the office. Barack Obama, a man famous for being famous, accomplished for being elected, has not and cannot.

Conservative radio host Andrew Wilcow suggests that the Obama sycophant expressing their love for Mr. Obama in Raleigh may have been a plant. This is a possibility not to be discounted for a White House infamous for its shameless stage-managing of Mr. Obama's public appearances, and which may be smarting from accusations that without his teleprompter, Mr. Obama is stilted and clumsy.

In either case, spontaneous or scripted, love expressed for a politician reveals a fundamental disconnect, even a repudiation of America.

Politician love is utterly misplaced, the stuff of cult-of-personality dictatorships. It reveals a sickness of the individual and national soul. Prior to Barack Obama, newsmen calling any president a god, worshiping the creases of their trousers, expressing amazement and admiration for their fly-swatting abilities or serially depicting them as pseudo religious icons with halos would have been thought deranged, but where Mr. Obama is concerned, such lunacy has become daily fair, remarkable only in its most insanely outrageous manifestations. In its intention and intensity, it is anti American, it rejects the example of Washington and embraces the worst aspects of the narcissism and vanity of the world's despots.

Mr. Obama is not worthy of the respect of any American. His character and accomplishments before and after assuming the presidency reveal a hollow man, a man who has actually admitted that he is an empty vessel—tabula rasa—a blank slate upon which the hopes—even the fantasies--of anyone may be drawn. Being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, not for any accomplishment—his chair behind the Resolute Desk was hardly warm—but for being Barack Obama, for some possible future accomplishment--is a case in point. Mr. Obama admitted that he deserved it not, yet revealed the depth of his character by accepting it knowing it to partially represent a crude slap in the face of America. This is a man whose loyalty is always to self, never America, which he sees as unremarkable, just one of many nations. He is a man who proudly announces his leadership from behind, who proposes non-existent bills and demands they be immediately passed, and who seeks to address ruinous deficits of his creation by means of class warfare and by creating yet greater deficits. This is a man who tolerates his Vice President calling fellow Americans "terrorist" and "barbarian" for daring to embrace the Constitution and demand fiscal responsibility.

The presidency of Barack Obama is the embodiment of a national holiday from responsibility and history. It is a departure from traditional and necessary American understandings of love, loyalty and leadership and a perversion of those essential, noble ideals. That such publically expressed, fawning devotion to a politician, particularly one of such abysmal character and destructive, anti-American intentions and accomplishment seems unremarkable to so many must stand as an urgent warning. It is an unmistakable indicator of how far we have allowed ourselves to stray from the path of liberty so carefully established by George Washington and so lovingly, carefully maintained by many that have followed him. It is a warning we fail to heed at our peril.

General Motors: American Jobs--For China?

The convoluted story of the Chevy Volt took another bizarre twist today with the publication of an Associated Press article detailing "cooperation" between General Motors and the Chinese government on electric vehicle technology, which inescapably means the Chevy Volt. It is, of course, the only electric vehicle (actually a ridiculously complex and expensive pseudo-hybrid) currently manufactured by GM, though an even more expensive version of the Volt is reportedly on Cadillac's drawing board and on the fast track for production.

The Volt's MSRP is approximately $41,000 and individual Volts have sold for up to $65,000. It's virtually certain that even fewer Volts would have sold without the $7500 government subsidy. Even with that generous subsidy—it's about double the cost of comparable conventional, high-mileage conventionally fueled compacts that actually get better mileage than the Volt—Volt sales have been abysmal (302 in August). But of course, the Volt isn't a product meant to survive in the free market, nor is it meant to turn a profit (GM probably loses money on every vehicle): it's an entirely political animal. It's difficult to imagine how much a Voltilac (Cadiolt?) will cost or precisely where the market for such a vehicle is. These days, Cadillac has become a brand built upon high performance, luxury and perceived prestige, none of which an even more ridiculously expensive Volt can possibly provide.

The AP story, as we’ll explore, dances around the reasons for this "cooperation." A Green Auto Blog story is more to the point, but for the moment, let's focus on the AP, which titled its story: "GM to Build Electric Cars in China, Protect Chevy Volt Technology."

The AP continues:

"General Motors Co. agreed Tuesday to deepen cooperation with its flagship
Chinese partner on development of electric vehicle knowhow amid pressure from
Beijing to hand over proprietary technology.

Investments and other details of the plan were not provided, and it was unclear if the agreement was the result of a renewed push by China to acquire advanced technology its own automakers still lack."

Right. It's unclear. But all is not smiles and fortune cookies:

"U.S. lawmakers have complained that China is shaking down GM to get the technology that drives the Chevrolet Volt electric car. GM plans to start selling the Volt in China by the end of the year, but its prospects are iffy because it doesn't qualify for a Chinese government subsidy that amounts to $19,000 per car. The government offers the subsidy only to electric cars made in China.

Lawmakers contend such requirements are unfair and may violate world trade rules."

Oh no! The Chinese Communists aren't playing fair! Who could possibly have imagined that? GM provides an unintentionally informative tidbit:

"But GM spokesman Jay Cooney in Detroit said the company has not been pressured by the Chinese government to share the Volt technology and has no plans to share it. He said GM is working with the Chinese government in an effort to get the subsidy for the Volt because it helps reach a government goal of getting more electric vehicles on the road.

The cooperation agreement was signed during a meeting of the U.S. automaker's board in Shanghai — a visit underscoring China's importance to the company's future. It was the GM board's first meeting outside of the U.S."

Hey, didn't the GM spokesman just say they have no plans to share Volt technology?

"'We can accomplish far more by working together than we can by working separately,' Tim Lee, president of GM International Operations, said as GM and state-owned partner Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp. signed an agreement on developing a next-generation electric vehicle platform.

The agreement 'to co-develop electric vehicle architecture is further proof of GM's and SAIC's plan to lead the auto industry in new energy vehicle technology," he said, describing the plan as a "very aggressive and challenging project.'

Cooney said the companies will work together to develop a new fully electric car. The Volt can travel about 35 miles on battery power, and a gas-powered generator kicks in to run the car when the batteries are depleted. The generator technology eliminates anxiety over whether a driver will run out of electricity."

Let's review:

(1) GM is going to "deepen cooperation with its flagship Chinese partner."

(2) GM's "flagship partner" is, in fact, the belligerent communist government of China, our undeclared enemy, the ally of our declared enemies (such as North Korea), a nation that reflexively works against American interests and is currently producing a massive military buildup obviously aimed at directly challenging American interests in Asia and the Pacific, and a nation whose generals and politicians often rattle their collective sabers at us. You know, those guys, our pals who flood our market with children's toys virtually dripping in lead-based paints.

(3) GM spokesman say they're not going to share EV technology with the Chinese.

(4) The Chinese are demanding that GM share EV technology or they'll do something absolutely horrible and unfair: Make Chinese peasants pay the full MSRP for Chevy Volts. Good grief! Even the evil running dog American capitalists don't do that! They're proletarian enough to provide a $7500 people's subsidy, and they're not even Marxists! OK, so having a Marxist president and government doesn't count.

(5) So GM is not going to share EV technology with the Chinese, except they're going "'to co-develop electric vehicle architecture," which is " further proof of GM's and SAIC's plan to lead the auto industry in new energy vehicle technology," all of which lack of cooperation and sharing with the Chinese will be a "very aggressive and challenging project."

(6) The primary method American diplomats use in negotiating with the Chinese, particularly under Democrat administrations, consists of the Chinese making outrageous, bellicose demands to which our diplomats respond by saying "OK."

What is the most unintentionally revealing part of the story? The Obama Administration, including Mr. Obama himself, has repeatedly said that they have no role, none whatsoever, in the day to day operation of General Motors, despite the taxpayer's continuing ownership of GM and GM's continuing loss of taxpayer money, the Volt being an excellent case in point.

As Americans have learned whenever Mr. Obama says "let me be clear," or in any way suggests that he's going to tell the truth, he's about to obfuscate and lie on a cosmic scale. While GM has, in recent years, demonstrated some familiarity with political lying –most notably it's "we paid off our government loans early by taking money from another government loan" ploy--Mr. Cooney does not seem to play in mendacity's big leagues.

Mr. Cooney's statement has an unclear pronoun antecedent. Does he mean to say that putting more EVs on the road is a goal of the American government or of the Chinese government? I suspect it's a Freudian slip. We know beyond any doubt that putting immature EV technology on American roads, regardless of whether Americans want it, is one of the foremost goals of the Obama Administration, which has made no secret of it. Mr. Cooney is merely confirming what those who have been paying attention to this debacle have long known: The Volt exists at the demand of the Obamites and their greenie bundlers and they will stop at nothing to promote it even if it again bankrupts GM, for real this time.

Green Auto Blog suggests a somewhat more pedestrian motivation for GM:

"As General Motors seeks to introduce the Chevrolet Volt to the Chinese market, it's counting on these subsidies to help make the car attractive to potential buyers. It could work, too, since the Chinese subsidies are large enough to essentially slice the Volt's MSRP in half."

Notice that if GM can get the communists to agree to extend their $19,300 per vehicle subsidy to the Volt, it would actually be affordable to American consumers, who, of course, won't be able to take advantage of it because, well, they're seriously disadvantaged by not being Chinese and living in America. It's difficult to believe that GM is making this deal—you know, the deal they're not making--for financial reasons. After all, no matter how large the government subsidy or which government pays it, GM is almost certainly losing money on each and every Volt that rolls out of the factory. There must be more pressing reasons for this non-agreement agreement. What could they be?

Mr. Cooney has provided the answer: The Obamites wants to put more electric vehicles on the road. Their green purity keeps them from realizing—or caring—about whether their EV flagship actually works, will sell in anything approaching fiscally rational numbers, or whether those EVs are on the road in America or China. The environmentalist virtue of displacing vehicles powered by evil carbon based fuels takes precedence over reality, politics, national security and certainly common sense. Let's not even try to bring rational business practices into this infernal mixture.

There is no doubt that GM will give away the EV technological farm to the Chinese—or the Chinese will steal it if they haven't already. There is also no doubt that whatever electronic technology they glean from this venture will be used to the maximum degree possible in military applications. Perhaps the Obamites have forgotten that the Chinese Military has its hand in every state-run business venture, and certainly controls all exchanges of technology with foreign states, particularly the United States. And have I mentioned that the Chinese are almost certainly behind a massive and ongoing cyber espionage and sabotage program against America?

On the other hand, the Obamites probably know all about it. No wonder they're behind this "very aggressive and challenging project."

I've long thought that if Mr. Obama loses his bid for office in 2012 that GM, which will almost certainly be thrown out into the cold, hard reality of existence in the free market, will dump the Volt like the economic albatross it is. The only way that the Volt could ever be profitable in America—absent unbelievable leaps in technology which could greatly extend its range and lower the price—is if manufacturing costs could be drastically lowered, and by drastically, I mean essentially cut in half. But of course, the only way to do that would be to outsource the production of the Volt, to move it to a country with very cheap labor costs, a country like—no! You don't suppose they're thinking about moving Volt production to China, do you?

A $20,000 Volt just might be at least marginally economically viable in the American market. But wouldn't that be a complete repudiation of Mr. Obama's serial promises to make American job creation his first priority? Wouldn't shipping the production of an entire model line of American vehicles to China be counterproductive to job creation in America? Wouldn't it in fact be strengthening an avowed, if not specifically declared, mortal enemy of America? OK, OK, maybe I'm exaggerating. After all, they probably only have several thousand nuclear warheads aimed at us. What's a few nucs between friends?

Surely Barack Obama wouldn't be un-American enough to benefit the Chinese communists at the expense not only of American labor, but national security, and all in the name of putting more EVs on the road? Why, that would be—unimaginable.

... Of a Miserable Failure

In 2007 and 2008 the signs were there and all too vivid for those who cared to look.

Unrepentant and continual contact with not one, but two of America's most infamous political terrorists. Ties to another mentor who was both an admitted child rapist and a radical. Befriending a radical priest that advocates lynching. Spending more than two decades in a radical church that is a blend of Marxist political theory and racial supremacy.

An short and undistinguished political career marked by radical positions, when he would even take a position at all. An incomplete, sometimes contradictory personal history and an unwillingness to divulge everything from his associates to his collegiate records. The padding of his resume.

But he was new, and charismatic. He was a handsome and gifted speech reader with a on-pitch delivery and a vague promise of "hope and change" at a time when much of the nation wanted to simply pretend everything that had happened from 9/11/01 onward was just a bad dream.

He wasn't a candidate.

He was an escapist fantasy for a nation worn down by protracted wars and deep domestic divisions. Looked at it objectively with the benefit of hindsight, it seems obvious that the Democratic Party could have run almost any fresh-faced candidate and won against the feeble and caustic old man offered up by Republicans.

Barack Obama was then, and always has been... a miserable failure (NSFW).

We all know that now.

Between arming drug cartels and street gangs with guns and grenades, and using his position to press for loans to campaign donors, Barack Obama will be lucky if his legacy is something other than a prison library.

We did this to ourselves and deserve every bit of what we're getting, America.

Perhaps you should research your candidates a little deeper next time, and cast your vote for someone with a proven track record of leadership, and not, as Obama has given us, "just words."

9-11's New Rallying Cry

On this hallowed day, I leave devotions to others. The Lord embraces his own; our concerns are, of necessity, more worldly. Perhaps the best way to honor those not lost, but murdered, ten years ago is to recognize the very real lessons of 9-11, lessons even more pressing today. Among them: Appeasement is disaster, medieval barbarians and contemporary despots fear only strength and we cannot afford Progressivism—we never could.

From Jimmy Carter's feckless encouragement of and mishandling of the Iranian hostage taking—an act of war—to Bill Clinton's dismantling of our human intelligence networks, to Barack Obama's continuing attempt to treat the world's most rabid terrorist murderers as common criminals, the evidence that progressives are as dangerous to our national security, to our very lives, is long-standing and unmistakable. We can't afford to ignore it any longer.

Mr. Obama's "smart diplomacy" has predictably made the world even more dangerous to freedom. Indeed, Mr. Obama has continued many Bush/Cheney policies, but this is not a result of his firm commitment to American Democracy and freedom, but because to do otherwise would have dissipated his political viability and even led to impeachment. We should waste not a single breath in praise of a politician doing the bare minimum any president should do.

Instead, let us remember and pay attention to these imminent threats:

1) Egypt now stands ready to take up Islamist rule and at the very least has abandoned its groundbreaking stance of non-aggression toward Israel. Unless Mr. Obama intends to abandon Israel in case of war—and this cannot be discounted (I'm sure this is much on the minds of Israelis)—heightened aggression toward Israel is heightened danger for us.

2) The "rebels" Mr. Obama supported with American air power in Libya are now revealed as Al Qaeda terrorists. This does not bode well for peace and democracy in North Africa, to say the least.

3) Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons proceeds at great speed. Iran continually swears that it will use nucs against Israel and us. We would be idiots not to take them at their word, yet "smart diplomats" are incapable of treating such unambiguously genocidal threats seriously.

4) Turkey is throwing off democracy in favor of Islamism and cutting its peaceful ties with Israel.

5) North Korea not only provides missile and nuclear technology to terrorist states, it is actively aggressive toward us and our allies, attacking at will. The Leaders of North Korea are easily deranged enough to use nucs or to provide them to terrorists.

6) China's aggression and military build up are a substantial threat not only to our allies and interests in the Pacific, but to our survival. Their serial cyber attacks on us are arguably acts of war.

7) The drug war in Mexico threatens to cause the failure of the Mexican state and to spill across the border in far more serious fashion than the relatively limited incursions we've already experienced. The Obama Administration responds by passing, through administrative fiat--bypassing the Congress and people--the DREAM act, and by using our law enforcement, diplomatic and national security apparatus to arm the cartels through the Gunwalker scandal.

These are far from the only threats facing us as a direct result of progressive policy and disdain for America. The media—a wholly owned arm of progressivism—has never shown the footage of innumerable Americans falling to their deaths from the Twin Towers, choosing a few final seconds of life and freedom rather than death by fire. They have withheld this footage not to spare our sensibilities, not out of concern for decency, but because they know that each and every falling body would only harden the resolve of Americans, would only pound terrible, final nails into the rotting coffin of Progressivism.

Honor those who died by restoring America, by restoring limited government, self-reliance, the work ethic, personal responsibility, and the unashamed, unreserved appreciation for all that America is and has done for the world. Take America back from those who deal with nuclear threats with repeated, weak threats of sanctions against terrorist despots that murder their own people. Take her back from those who see our defense budget as just another bargaining chip, from those who don't believe that America is in any way exceptional, from those who scorn and belittle Americans who believe in God and the Bill of Rights, calling them "barbarians" and "terrorists" and telling them to go to Hell. Restore it to those who will uphold America's sovereignty and who will restore and preserve her economic and moral might.

Our enemies have, for some time, been taking advantage of the perception of American weakness. If America is to survive in the brutal and endlessly perilous world Progressivism has so foolishly created, Americans must utterly and finally reject Progressivism beginning now, and in 2012. From this day forward, this should be 9-11's rallying cry that such an atrocity never be repeated on American soil.

Oh yes--we're actually at war against an enemy devoid of mercy. It might not be a bad idea to have a president who can actually say the word "war."

Triumphs Of Smart Diplomacy: #28,764

Crowds of Egyptian "protestors" attacked and breached the Israeli Embassy in Cairo on Friday, forcing the ambassador, his family and other staff to flee to Israel.
Egyptian military police helped them evacuate safely, but the police did not impede those seizing and ransacking the embassy.

According to Fox News, President Obama told Israeli President Netanyahu that he was working "at all levels" and also expressed "great concern."

The seizure of the embassy of a foreign nation is normally considered an act of war.

ObamaCare, the Stimulus (which name may no longer be spoken), leading from behind, overseas contingency operations, "reeducation," Gunwalker, single-handedly dismantling the Arab-Israeli "peace process," allowing Iran to build nuclear weapons, and now expressing "great concern" over the seizure and sacking of the Israeli Embassy. Is there anything Mr. Obama cannot destroy within less than three years?

Israel will be fortunate to survive the Obama Administration. We may not be in much better shape.

The World Turned Upside Down

The Associated Press nails Obama for lying about Son of Son of Stimulus, and the NY Times compliments Sarah Palin.

I think I need to lie down.

It's Muslim Day At Six Flags!

"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities."
Winston Churchill

"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Houston Bugle, Friday, September 2, 2011

SAN ANTONIO: As many as 4000 Catholics from around the state are expected to converge on Six Flags Rodeo Texas on Sunday for "Catholic Family Day," to spread the eternal truth of the Gospel and to assure Americans that Catholics are peaceful and mainstream.

Activities will include Catholic prayers and devotions, entertainment, socializing, and confessionals set up throughout the park. The event, which is open to the public, was organized by local chapters of the Knights of Columbus.

The interaction with the public at a popular, high-traffic amusement park will go far in reducing anxieties between Catholics and the larger community, said Steve O'Donnell, The KOC's local president.

"It's our community too, and we are mainstream just like anybody else," he said.

Local Baptist minister Paul Chilton observed: "the event is a sign of the gradual acceptance of local Catholics. After all, they're just like the rest of us, except for maybe the whole fish thing on Fridays."

Readers with a keen eye will recognize this "news" story as a parody of a recent story appearing on the Houston Chronicle's website titled "Muslim Family Day Will Spread Peace At Six Flags" (links at the end of the article) The event, reported with all of the diverse, culturally sensitive prose one might expect in such a story, reportedly went off without a hitch on Sunday, which is as it should be and less than surprising.

Why is this "event" news, and why should anyone care? Can't Six Flags, which took pains to note that it was not formally sponsoring Muslim Day, and which is a private, for-profit business have a Catholic day, or a Mormon day, a "celebrate little yapping, ankle-biting dogs day" or an "Aliens are coming to take us to Venus day"? Of course it can, and while most Americans would find devoting a day to a given faith a bit odd, most would shrug their shoulders and move on. Not so where Islam is involved, which is why the Houston Chronicle thought the event newsworthy and why CAIR sought to publicize it. Islam is indeed a special case, and with the annual approach of 9-11, now is a particularly good time to remember why.

Americans are a people who truly welcome all faiths and all peoples. As long as those peoples are willing to honor our Constitutionally established separation of church and state, they are welcome. Some might consider the practices of a given faith to be odd or perhaps even mildly sinister, but America has never been into the policing of thought, at least not too much thus far in the Age of Obama. Americans simply accept Muslims who are willing to assimilate. Such acceptance takes no conscious thought or action; it's merely taken for granted. Some, however, can't take "yes" for an answer and seek to stir the pot of intolerance. CAIR is among the most egregious pot-stirrers in America, and the Lamestream Media is not far behind.

In April of 2006, in an attempt to make, rather than report, the news, NBC sent men dressed in outlandishly Islamic clothing to a NASCAR race, hoping to record what they obviously hoped would be the intolerance and racism of the red-necked, gun and God clinging denizens of Flyover Country. NBC ended up with nothing to show for its clumsy efforts, which any NASCAR fan could have told them beforehand: Southerners—even NASCAR fans--tend to be polite people. NBC probably ended up with hours of tape of people of all races, genders and faiths saying "hello," "how are you," or "the men's room is down that way."

Americans, like Winston Churchill, are quite capable of understanding that most Muslims are not Jihadists and wish no one harm. However, most Americans are also aware that tens of millions of Muslims—even some in America--are Islamists and do wish not only to harm infidels but to subjugate the world. A global Caliphate will certainly not be compatible with amusement parks, just as prior to American intervention in Afghanistan, the punishment for kite flying could easily be death. Unfortunately, those Muslims who choose to assimilate are not following the literal dictates of their faith, in fact, they are commonly considered apostates by their more militant, scripturally adherent brethren who have no scruples about killing fellow Muslims who do not mirror their beliefs.

This is why CAIR promotes this, and similar events. CAIR, which has a long and well-documented history of support for Islamists and their goals, and its supporters surely understand that Muslims are universally accepted in American culture where people are judged by their character and actions rather than their faith. What CAIR seeks to do is to normalize Islamic practices as part of a long- term strategy toward its eventual goal: Islamic rule and the imposition of Sharia, or Islamic law. In essence, CAIR is hoping to gradually, subtly condition Americans to give them the unthinking acceptance and blindly ignorant tolerance necessary for Islam to prevail.

At a teacher, I find that one of the concepts with which my students struggle most is the idea that other cultures are not like Americans. They may wear blue jeans, listen to rock, eat at McDonald's and watch American movies, but they do not share our religious, political or cultural assumptions and beliefs. Islam admits no such thing as the separation of Church and State, which has been essential in establishing a nation where all faiths may practice freely. Islam is a complete scheme of theologically based government. It is anti-democratic—utterly incompatible with democracy and individual freedom--and is dedicated to enslaving the world and imposing Sharia.

Unfortunately, this global caliphate all good Islamists seek must be carried out by human beings who must, as best they can, try to divine the will of God, or Allah, as they prefer. Politicians are, of course, not fit to understand God's will (or even understand basic economics, particularly if Progressives), so only ministers may rule, and all law is based on the Islamic scripture and commentaries as interpreted by the minister/rulers. The Koran is quite clear about all of this, and even lays out precisely how war against the Infidels—that's all non-Muslims—must be waged.

When an Islamist terrorist leader issues a demand that a nation or people submit to Islam, he is not preaching repentance or engaging in mere rhetoric as Americans used to religious rhetoric would imagine, he is following the Islamic principles of war as outlined in the Koran. Muslims must first give an enemy an opportunity to convert, and if they refuse, may put them to the sword. Once conquered, Muslims may simply kill all of their enemies, or they may allow some to live. If they choose the latter course, they may institute Dhimmitude, allowing the conquered some measure of political, cultural and religious tolerance in exchange for the Jizyah, a tax which all Dhimmis must pay for the privilege. However, even in conquered people allowed this privilege, the fact that they are infidels always hangs over them like a sword of Damascus steel, for the fate of infidels and apostates in Islam is death and it may be imposed at any time.

It is particularly fascinating to find American politicians, ministers, gay activists, even feminists supporting Islamists and calling for "understanding" and "tolerance." Should Islam prevail, there will be no cultural or religious understanding or tolerance. There will be no Christian or other ministers, gays will be killed wherever they are found, politicians will be out of the job unless they are willing to convert to Islam and become Mullahs (Islamic ministers) and women will find themselves to be worse off than cattle, for in Islamic countries, cattle are often afforded more concern and care than women and girls. Genital mutilation, beatings, forced marriage, torture, the denial of even basic education, honor killings, and more are the fate of hundreds of millions of women in Islamic nations, particularly those with a more Islamist bent.

There is no need to publicize a Muslim Day at an amusement park any more than there is a need to publicize an Episcopalian day or a Lutheran day or an atheist day. All are accepted; all are unremarkable. All are, if not exactly mainstream, subject to the protections and legitimacy mandated by the Constitution. This goes beyond an earnest desire for acceptance and assimilation, yet it may provide a benefit CAIR could not anticipate.

Even as we remember those savagely murdered on 9-11, let us not forget that they died not as a result of an unfortunate accident, not in a tragedy, not as a result of an "overseas contingency operation," not because some felt aggrieved, not because of American domestic or foreign policy, but because we are, and have for decades been, engaged in a war for the very survival of Western civilization, a war we did not provoke, did not start, and would prefer not to have to fight.

Muslim Day at Six Flags in San Antonio, Texas was merely one small yet important propaganda effort in that war, a war we cannot afford to minimize, ignore or lose on any front.

Links For This Article:

http://www.chron.com/default/article/Muslim-Family-Day-will-spread-peace-at-Six-Flags-2153726.php

NASCAR: http://www.nascar.com/2006/news/opinion/04/06/cross.nbc.dateline/

CAIR Background: http://spectator.org/blog/2011/03/10/yes-cairs-terrorist-ties-are-r#

The Major Economic Salvation Speech

"Pass this bill." "Pass this bill." Pass this bill right now." "If you pass this bill…" "PASS THIS BILL RIGHT NOW!" And that—and more—was just the first 10 minutes of Mr. Obama's major economic salvation speech. It was like judging a round of beginning debaters, and very dim beginning debaters at that. And now we discover that there is, in fact, no actual—ahem—bill. Once again, Mr. Obama is expecting the CBO to score a speech. Obama uber-advisor Valerie Jarrett has admitted that the bill does not exist. They're still writing it, she tells us, and it will be delivered to Congress next week (maybe). Talk about a Pelosiesque "you'll have to pass it to find out what's in it," ploy!

And the way to promote job growth is for the Federal Government—you know, our "federal family"—to spend $450 billion dollars! That's roughly half the failed stimulis.

I was going to write about this monstrosity in some depth, but all you really need to know is that it was essentially Mr. Obama telling Congress and the American people about how smart and wonderful he is and how only partisan, barbarian (thanks Mr. Biden!) terrorists could possibly oppose anything Mr. Obama wants.

Mr. Obama condescending and lecturing, Congresswoman Waters telling us to go to hell, VP Biden calling us Barbarians (in comparison with union thugs—see Bob's article on the Longshoremen and Rob's article as well), and now they want conservatives to come together in peace and brotherhood to spend money we'll have to borrow to do essentially nothing to actually create jobs? For them, it really is a feature, not a bug.

Oh, and does anyone really believe that when the ink is dry—if that ever happens—the price tag will remain at a mere $450 billion?

They really do think that the American people are utter morons, particularly those of us in Flyover Country. And yes, gentle readers, they do think and talk just that way.

PS: Biggest, most bald-faced lie: It's all paid for. Uh…the Super Committee will have to figure out how to do it!

Labor Union Terrorism Strikes WA State Port

Thugs first, last, and always.

Hundreds of Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha.

Six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said.

No one was hurt, and nobody has been arrested. Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting brake lines and spilling grain from car at the EGT terminal, Duscha said.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union believes it has the right to work at the facility, but the company has hired a contractor that's staffing a workforce of other union laborers.

They committed multiple counts of kidnapping, assault with deadly weapon, assault on a police officer, vandalism, property damage, and God knows what else, because they feel they have the right to take the jobs away from other people.

Expect either a half-hearted response or not response at all from the Democratic Party, including the President.

You will not see a forceful response from Homeland Security.

You will not see a forceful response from the Department of Justice.

This is precisely the kind of violence that they condone, and why the labor union constituency that are the enforcers of the Democratic Party must not just be controlled, but utterly destroyed.

Update: Shockingly, it's co-ordinated and happening at other ports.

ILWU is claiming that the actions must be local, which would be much more credible if ILWU International President Robert McEllrath wasn't personally leading the Longview assault and union rags weren't triumphantly showing photos of him being arrested.

Obligatory, Next-Day Reagan Debate Commentary

Rick Perry may as well have walked on to a bullseye instead of a stage last night at the Reagan Library, with fellow Republican Presidential candidates and the moderators doing their level best to tear him apart.

Overall, Perry held his ground, which is all you must do as the front-runner. He got testy with Mitt Romney, which was expected, and with Ron Paul, which is unnecessary (you don't punch down, and you don't engage crazy).

Mitt Romney, was, well, Mitt Romney. Incredibly polished, impeccably Presidential in his bearing, and yet so slightly off-putting and almost imperceptibly insincere. He's like a more refined version of Joe Isuzu.

Newt Gingrich showed us all he is still a masterful debater and personality, and I hope they keep him around well into the primary season if for no other reason than to drop like a sack of hammers on badgering moderators like we saw last night. He will not be President or the Veep, but he is a brilliant man, and whoever the eventual candidate would be smart to find him a place in their administration.

Herman Cain gave the most direct answers of the night, and impressed me with his ability to stay on message. He didn't duck or weave like the professional politicians, and had the kind of confidence that comes from experiencing real success. He and he alone stands on the stage as the only candidate in either party with a legitimate claim as a job maker. I want to see him around until the end, and suspect he would be solid Vice Presidential pick for the eventual nominee, where he could be set loose to promote job growth for the next four years.

There was also another Mitt Romney in a orange face and yellow tie. I think they called him Jon something.

Michelle Bachmann, God bless her, was neutered last night, primarily by the moderators, who all but excluded her. I quipped on Twitter that I thought she must have left early, and of course, Politico thought I meant that literally, when I was actually a bit ticked at the way the moderators focused on trying to destroy Perry and Romney instead of trying to provide an actual forum people could learn from.

I think there were a couple of other candidates, but they don't matter.

And there you are.

They Do WHAT?!

Submitted for your approval: A federal regulatory agency that, lacking a legal mandate to impose its will, encourages radical pressure groups to sue it so that it can claim that it is being forced to do what it, and the radical pressure groups, want to do in the first place. And that's not all. The agency has also paid one of the pressure groups to produce a do-it-yourself guide to suing the agency, and routinely pays the legal bills of the pressure groups it encourages to sue it!

How could any federal bureaucracy be so out of control? Why is such a bureaucracy allowed to exist? Go here to my latest Pajamas Media article to find out. Take your blood pressure medications first. You might want to sit down first too.

That Game's a Killer

So we have violent rhetoric from the Hoffa that's still above water to "take these sons of bitches out," and a nice little Brooklyn liberal who created a video game so that progressives can get whet their eliminationist instincts by violently killing Fox News personalities and conservative politicians... all under a shallow veneer of being a zombie killing game.

Yeah, right. It's the joy of killing zombies that makes progressives happy, not the enabling of their fantasy to murder real-life, flesh-and-blood conservatives that they loathe without facing consequences. It's like being Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, without all the nasty side effects. Win!

I have another one Starving Eyes Advergaming could develop.

It's called the "OZombie Shooter."

In it the Executive branch ships guns and grenades to Mexico, everyone dies, and the media tries to cover it up.

Real damn funny, isn't it?

If only it were a game...

Obama Stealth Socialism And The EPA

As a nation breathlessly awaits Mr. Obama's upcoming homily on his certain economic salvation of the nation, it might be good to recall that President Obama recently directed the EPA to put on hold proposed regulations that would have substantially ramped up smog control controls relating to ozone. The regulations, if imposed, would have hit American businesses with as much as $90 billion dollars a year in compliance costs.

This move has been met with praise from some quarters. Even Conservatives, who tend to want to respect their leaders and who tend to want to seek the good in them, even to the extent of giving due credit to political enemies who have sworn ever-lasting enmity against them, have also given cautious praise to the President. Perhaps a few are wondering if, at long last, Mr. Obama might be seeing the light—compact fluorescent light, not incandescent light, of course.

However, many Progressives, including virtually all environmentalists, are wailing, gnashing their teeth and rending their garments in expressing their disappointment, even outrage at Mr. Obama's enviro-apostasy.

All are wrong.

Barack Obama remains what he always has been: A Marxist-indoctrinated stealth Socialist. However, extraordinary circumstances of Mr. Obama's own making have forced him to temporarily bow to reality, not for the sake of reality, but for a far more important consideration: the sake of his own reelection.

To better understand what is happening, it may be useful to consider three discrete time frames: the upcoming presidential campaign (for Mr. Obama, the campaign is eternal), the lame duck post election day period from early November until the inauguration in early January of 2013, and the next presidential term.

On September 2, Friday, the traditional Washington bad news dumping day, the Labor Department admitted that in August, not a single new job was created (or presumably, saved) for the first time since 1945, and that official unemployment remained at 9.1%. Adding to the economic bad news, the Obama Administration also admitted that unemployment would almost certainly remain at 9+% throughout 2012. Historically, no president has won reelection with unemployment at such an elevated level. In fact, Democrats ruthlessly excoriated President George W. Bush for unemployment in the 5% range, which videos will make for amusing viewing during the coming campaign.

No doubt Mr. Obama, at the behest of his more occasionally rational advisors, has realized that unless he creates at least the appearance of moderating his reflexively anti-American, anti-business, rabidly pro-labor union and environmentalist core beliefs, his electoral prospects are grim at best. So why not announce a roll back (which can be reinstated when the heat is off) of a juicy, politically charged regulation about to be imposed by a much-reviled agency? It's a perfect, and perfectly predictable, stealth Socialist ploy.

Mr. Obama's base will be allowed, even encouraged, to complain while giving independents the illusion that he has suddenly discovered rational policy. Even some conservatives might be tempted to partake of the Kool Aid for they, trusting souls (suckers!), seek the good in others and hope for their repentance and redemption. Simultaneously, the more rabid environmentalists are unleashed to express vitriolic disgust. All the while, however, the wiser of the Socialist base know that Mr. Obama is winking at them and that they can't lose.

If Mr. Obama wins a second term, even if Republicans control both houses of Congress, America will see a blizzard of executive orders and bureaucrat-imposed regulations that will take a generation to undo, if such undoing is even possible. If he loses, America will experience a two-month blizzard of executive orders, regulations and pardons that will make Bill Clinton's pardons of Puerto Rican terrorists and of Marc Rich seem paragons of wisdom and rectitude in the administration of justice by comparison. In both cases, Progressives know that many such mandates, once established, will never be fully overturned. Despite their hatred for Ronald Reagan, Progressives ironically give him credit through their actions for his aphorism that the closest thing to eternal life we will ever see on Earth is a government program.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, Mr. Obama's actions are merely a cynical continuation of his standard operating procedure: If it can't be obtained legislatively, accomplish it by means of executive order or bureaucracy. Like a bargain basement children's party magician, with his left hand he misdirects, rolling back or temporarily delaying a handful of ruinous regulations and mandates, while with his right he imposes thousands of new, far more destructive regulations.

More than 4200 new regulations enacted since his election have been put into effect or will soon be imposed. Unless it is fully repealed, the more than 100 new federal bureaucracies conjured by ObamaCare will add thousands of additional regulations even more expensive, economy-destroying and enervating than those already imposed or planned, for the full impact of ObamaCare is not in those regulations written in the thousands of pages of the law, for in those which will be created by unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats. Mr. Obama will surely do nothing to ward off this perfect storm of rule making and imposition by the Socialist administrative state he has worked so hard to create. This is Mr. Obama's only true accomplishment, and it is to America's detriment.

It is Socialist orthodoxy, not rational thought or concern for America that drives Mr. Obama. It forces him to continue to double down on obviously failed policies rational men would have long ago abandoned, for the Socialist truly believes only two things: Socialism cannot possibly be wrong, and Mr. Obama and his cadre of self-imagined elite Socialists will succeed where all Socialists before them have failed. This may seem self contradictory, but that's certainly not Socialist thinking.

Rational people behold the abject failure and obscene waste of the Stimulus and vow never to repeat such an idiotic mistake. Socialists believe it failed only temporarily and only because it was too small. They demand more and even bigger and more wasteful Stimuli; they want to do more and spend more. Rational people behold Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and realize that they will soon bankrupt the nation. They want to take affirmative steps to retain necessary social protections for the deserving while preventing disaster. Socialists ignore the washed out bridge over the looming fiscal abyss and pass, against the wishes of the American people, ObamaCare, an entitlement which will, by itself, bankrupt the nation, even cynically stealing a half trillion dollars from its lesser brethren to prop it up.

If a Socialistic program is floundering, this can only be because insufficient socialism has been applied. If more is applied but still avails nothing, this can only be because conservatives are allowed to exist to oppose it or because the program has not had sufficient time to work its transformative miracles. Socialism is always and in all ways unfalsifiable; it cannot fail; it cannot be wrong.

Has Mr. Obama truly seen the CFL light? Ask Texas. If a January 1 EPA rule regulating cross-state air pollution goes into effect, Texas—and a great many other states—will have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade their coal-fired power plants. This despite the fact that even the EPA admits that Texas really doesn't contribute to the problem and has its own, stringent, pollution control laws. Mr. Obama, during the campaign, promised to essentially destroy the American coal industry and threatened to bankrupt coal-fired power producers.

The effects of such a regulation in Texas alone would be catastrophic. Texas, like most states, cannot do without a single megawatt of power. Any degradation in power production capacity would result in periodic blackouts in times of greatest demand, particularly during the summers, resulting in multiple deaths of the poor and infirm. Those of greater means will almost certainly install fossil-fueled generators, which will contribute to rather than reduce pollution, but Socialism cannot be wrong. Texas was never going to vote for Mr. Obama anyway, so why should he care?

Before the election, Mr. Obama earned the coveted title of the most leftist Senator in America, more left even than the sole self-identified Socialist. That title is surely richly deserved, unlike the Nobel Prize he won for being Barack Obama. Like all magicians, Mr. Obama deals only in illusion.

Liberal Academics Support Prejudices Against Conservatives

Specifically, a couple of college professors asked ambiguous questions and inferred racist intent from questions like these:

...Mr. Abramowitz also said they were more likely to harbor racial resentment, which he judged based on their answers to questions such as whether blacks could succeed as well as whites if they "would only try harder," and whether they agreed with the statement that Irish, Italians and Jews overcame prejudice and "blacks should do the same without any special favors."

Mr. Abramowitz said tea party supporters were substantially more likely than other voters to question how much effort black Americans are making to advance themselves, versus being held back by social factors.

You see, for liberal, often Marxist and truly racist academics, blacks are lesser humans, and they need subsidies, special treatment, and incentives. How else are they supposed to be "equal" unless we make them equal?

Tea Party supporters of every race view this as condescending rubbish with good reason; equality means everyone having the same opportunities, not ensuring that everyone has the same results.

In the eyes of the ignorati, however, such sentiments equal racism and bigotry because it doesn't embrace their belittling view of minorities.

Remind me again... who are the racists?

The Eco-Aliens Are Coming! The Eco-Aliens Are Coming!

In July of 2010, newly appointed NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was proud to announce the new mission given him by President Obama, the mission he considered most important to NASA: To make Muslims feel good about the scientific accomplishments of their ancient ancestors. Even then, Mr. Obama exhibited an almost divine prescience, for a year later, NASA no longer had the ability to send men into space, so why not focus on more Earthly pursuits? Exhibiting the same spirit that once landed men on the Moon, NASA has done just that.

According to Ian Sample of The Guardian, NASA has turned its legendary scientific brilliance and can-do culture to conquering an entirely new—if not essentially debunked and disgraced—frontier: Global Warming. Wait a minute! NASA is the National Aeronautic and Space Administration. Where’s the aeronautics or space in that? It’s actually spacier than anyone could have imagined.

According to NASA scientists and Pennsylvania State University, we can forget all of that Climategate stuff, and all of the other evidence indicating that the UN and other climate doomsayers have been more or less making it all up. There is now a new and far more compelling reason to bankrupt the entire world even faster than was thought possible through ObamaCare. Using the unfathomable brainpower of NASA scientists and the tenured fecklessness of academia, NASA has determined that the gravest threat to Earth is: Greenie space aliens.

Among the scenarios posited by this galaxy-class brain trust is the idea that alien civilizations watching Earth from across the vast expanse of interstellar space will be compelled to destroy Earth because they detect a change in Earth’s atmosphere due to greenhouse gas emissions. Being just about as green as they come (who knew the little green men were literal and figurative?) these advanced alien intelligences will be terribly offended by what we have done to our planet, so they will, of course, have to obliterate mankind. The authors wrote:

"These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets."

This is not, by any means, NASA’s first foray out of rocket science and into crackpot science. Dr. James Hansen (who was just arrested while protesting a proposed oil pipeline) of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has a long history of embarrassing NASA and reputable scientists with his global warming pronouncements, which have upon occasion forced NASA to disavow or walk back his alarmist claims. Even Hansen’s boss, after his retirement, stated that Hansen violated NASA’s official position on climate forecasting, and embarrassed the agency with his unsupportable claims of impending climate catastrophe.

Yet contact with extraterrestrial life is not beyond the realm of possibility, and responsible scientists have pondered it. Dr. Travis S. Taylor and Dr. Bob Boan published Alien Invasion: The Ultimate Survival Guide for the Ultimate Attack in 2011. The book was an outgrowth of a two-hour documentary produced for the National Geographic Channel in 2010. Taylor and Boan served as consultants for that effort. In the book (pp. 116-118) Taylor and Boan propose fourteen general reasons that might motivate an extraterrestrial visit, including a desire for conquest, food, resources, and a variety of other reasonable possibilities. Unsurprisingly, Earthlings being mean to Mother Earth thus sparking genocidal rage in a technologically advanced space-faring race is not among them.

No longer able to put men in space, reduced to begging the Russians for a lift on their 70s technology capsules for the short hop to the International Space Station and further reduced to serving as self-esteem coaches for cultures that are, for the most part, unable to design and manufacture toasters, NASA has fallen to trying to prop up Al Gore’s declining fortunes. Mr. Gore, obviously deranged as the global warming scam which provided such amenities as a 100 foot houseboat and a mansion that uses more electrical power in a week than most people use in a year collapses around his ears, dissolved into an obscenity-laced rant at an August 8 speech at the Aspen Institute. More recently, he branded as racists those who don't worship his AGW orthodoxy. Poor Al. People just aren't taking him seriously anymore.

It doesn’t take a doctorate in astrophysics to understand why this particular NASA rocket blew up on the launch pad, much like the August 24th launch of a Soviet resupply rocket. Let’s listen in on two alien scientists:

Alien Scientist #1: “Hey, look at this!”

AS#2: “What?”

AS#1: “Extreme range sensors indicate an infinitesimal increase in carbon dioxide concentration with a miniscule increase in global temperature on planet X-39822877B993XC988.1”

AS#2: “What! What are those maniacs doing to their planet! We must immediately rally a fleet and obliterate every sentient being on that planet that we may reduce carbon dioxide and the ambient temperature! We must…wait a minute; which planet did you say?”

AS#1: “Lemme check again…Yup, it’s X-39822877B993XC988.1 alright.”

AS#2: “How far away is that?”

AS#1: “Gimme a sec…uh, says here three trillion light years, give or take a billion or two.”

AS#2: “Three trillion…hmmmm, even at maximum glorg quotient, that's quite a ways…wait a minute, isn’t that the planet a deep space mission visited last clerch, you know, the one that sent back what the inhabitants call “television broadcasts?”

AS#1: “Now that you mention it, I think you’re right.”

AS#2: “Forget it. I’ve seen them. There’s no sentient life there.”

There are those who suggest that anything is possible, but they’re wrong. Monkeys are not going to fly out of my posterior. Barack Obama is not going to create jobs, Iran is not going to sue Israel for peace, and pigs aren’t going to achieve self-propelled flight. Of all of the potential alien visitation scenarios, this is probably one of the most far-fetched (apart from coming to Earth to get modest dressing tips from Lady GaGa), and besides, it’s a shameless rip off of a shameless rip off. One would expect rocket scientists to have a bit more imagination.

I refer, of course, to the classic 1951 classic SciFi film The Day The Earth Stood Still. At least the motivation of the alien visitor, Klatu, was remotely plausible. Alarmed at Earth’s nuclear weapon progress, his civilization, representing many alien races, delivered a warning: Expand Earth’s destructive tendencies beyond Earth, and face "obliteration."

Produced at the beginning of the Cold War, the film has a great deal of charm and delivers its message without Al Gorish condescension and pedantic hectoring. However, the idea that advanced aliens would take notice of a force as slight as a handful of low-yield nuclear weapons wielded by a barely advanced species requires a bit of suspension of disbelief. Why the aliens would be concerned about a species unable to travel even within its own solar system is an interesting question, as is why a race capable of obliterating entire planets via a single eight foot tall autonomous robot would be worried about a few miniscule nuclear explosives. But the film is well made and entertains 60 years later.

The first rip off was the 2008 Keanu Reeves vehicle of the same name. Reeves demonstrates his chops as an honor graduate of the Mt. Rushmore school of acting as an alien race comes to destroy Earth because we’re mean to it in a sort of vague, non-ecologically conscious sort of way, and probably because we eco-racists don’t listen to Al Gore anymore. Reeves is convinced to spare the planet by Jennifer Connelly, who could probably convince me that Al Gore actually won in 2000.

NASA’s rip off requires us to believe than an alien civilization sufficiently advanced to have mastered interstellar travel and with the power to obliterate an entire species on a given planet, ostensibly without harming any of the other flora or fauna, would even notice a completely unremarkable planet in a completely unremarkable star system in a completely unremarkable galaxy in a completely unremarkable corner of the universe. Such a species almost certainly wouldn’t notice if our sun went super nova, and we’re to think plausible that they’re measuring, across the unimaginable vastness of space/time--our global temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations as a sort of omniscient inter-galactic greenie police force?

To be fair, NASA has disavowed its own scientists involved in this scenario, much as it has done with Dr. Hansen from time to time, treating them all like the crazy uncle every family keeps locked in the attic. But perhaps all is not lost. If the alien greenie police do arrive to exterminate us, Mr. Obama can practice the smart diplomacy for which he is so famous. On second thought, maybe not: that would doom us for sure.

C-A-R-S-O-N is Just Another Way of Spelling R-A-C-I-S-T

The Congressional Black Caucus has beclowned itself yet again with ignorant, inflammatory and race-baiting rhetoric with comments like thse.

A top lawmaker in the Congressional Black Caucus says tea partiers on Capitol Hill would like to see African-Americans hanging from trees and accuses the movement of wishing for a return to the Jim Crow era.

Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana who serves as the CBC's chief vote counter, said at a CBC event in Miami that some in Congress would "love to see us as second-class citizens" and "some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me ... hanging on a tree."
Carson also said the tea party is stopping change in Congress, likening it to "the effort that we're seeing of Jim Crow."

Carson's comments—which he refuses to retract—are some of the most vile and volatile levied by members of the CBC as they travel on a national tour that seems to have the express intentions of fanning racial discord so that black voters react emotionally, instead of intellectually.

The caucus is attempting to drive in a psychological wedge and isolate African-Americans from the larger American community, and assert control over their votes by defining acceptable behavior.

According to the Congressional Black Caucus, it isn't acceptable to embrace values that champion small government, or lower rates of taxation, or spur innovation, or take concrete steps that actually create jobs, and it certainly isn't acceptable to think rationally about which political group serves the individual interests of your family and its circumstances.

Instead, the CBC wants each and every African-American beholden to them, and what they deem is acceptable. Who died and made them Massa?

The CBC wants blacks beholden to big government, robbed of the respect and the self-satisfaction that comes from being the master of your own destiny.

Let us state clearly, in no uncertain terms, that Andre Carson and his ilk support nothing less than the mental chaining of African American minds to the Democratic Party.

It is a shameful display of naked bigotry by small-minded zealots that are trying to bully an entire race into voting in a monolithic block so that this handful of bomb-throwers can personally benefit from the polarization and strife they insist on creating.

If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, and he really meant what he said about wanting all Americans judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, he would be appalled at these bigots in the CBC that claim the right to decide what all African-Americans should think and feel.

They are building a prison for those they should be uplifting, and that is anything but leadership.

MIKE ADDS: Q: What do Tea Party activists say when they meet a black person? A: Hello. What is conspicuously missing from Rep. Carson's narrative is anything resembling actual evidence of his projection of racist hatred on unspecified Tea Party supporters. However, evidence to the contrary, in the form of actual black people, can be seen at any and every Tea Party event throughout America. Rep. Carson is counting on two things: The media will slavishly report whatever he says while asking no questions about his complete lack of supporting evidence, and because the Tea Party is a loose federation of Americans of all political parties and walks of life who want smaller government and reduced spending, no unified Tea Party resistance will be raised against his irresponsible and race-baiting rhetoric.

Readers may remember that it was Rep. Carson, who with several other prominent members of the CBC, staged a stroll through a Tea Party gathering accompanied by a legion of video cameras on March 20, 2010. Obviously, they hoped that someone would say or do something they could turn to their political advantage, and when no one did, they did as Rep. Carson has now done: they made it up. Carson and the others claimed that they were pelted with racial epithets and even spat upon. The Lamestream media uncritically parroted their fabrications. A Washington Post account even called Carson "a revered figure on both sides of the aisle."

Unfortunately for Carson and his CBC co-fabricators--several of whom quickly went silent--despite multiple witnesses and multiple video cameras with unobstructed camera angles, not a single racial epithet or molecule of saliva was documented. Andrew Brietbart offered a $100,000 reward for video of such abuse of the tragic legislators. It remains unclaimed to this day.

Rep. Alan West (R, FL), a former Army officer, has informed the CBC that unless they repudiate Carson's comments, he will quit the CBC. That is statesmanship of the kind Rep. Carson cannot imagine. If Carson is indeed a revered figure on both sides of the aisle, those so uncritically bestowing reverence on the race-baiting Congressman might want to reconsider, just like Rep. West. Perhaps it is men like Rep. West who deserve a bit of reverence.

On Public Service: Dick Cheney

Not long ago I finished watched Sean Hannity's most recent interview of Vice President Dick Cheney on the occasion of his second autobiographical book In My Time (go here for Amazon ordering information). Mr. Cheney looks quite thin, if not exactly frail, and I learned that he has had a very rough year, including a five week period in an ICU during which time he was on a ventilator and in a medically induced coma for several weeks. He lost 40 pounds and is kept alive by a mechanical heart pump. These devices, in the past, were appropriate only for keeping very sick people alive long enough to receive a heart transplant, but as Mr. Cheney said, the technology is now sufficiently advanced that he is living quite well with its assistance without the immediate need for a transplant. This is remarkable indeed for a man who suffered his first heart attack at the age of 37.

I'll not go into the specifics of the interview, the content of which is very much in line with the contents of his book. Rather, my purpose is to honor a fellow Wyomingite and American who has for more than 40 years served his country with dignity and courage, despite suffering the kinds of health problems—to say nothing of mindlessly vicious attacks by the media—that would have sidelined a lesser man.

It was refreshing indeed to see a man with such a depth of experience, an experience that served him and America very well indeed during one of its darkest chapters. It was also refreshing to see a man whose experience has served to temper and even humble him, a man who chooses his words with care, yet does not hesitate to speak directly to issues of importance. Of course, Dick Cheney earned my eternal respect when he appropriately told the execrable Democrat Patrick Leahy, on June 22, 2004, what he might do with himself, a service provided for the victims of Leahy's leaks not alive to deliver that message in person.

What also impressed is that Mr. Cheney's life is, and always has been, an open book. We know precisely who he is and how he became that man. We know of his upbringing, his high school years in Casper, WY, his college experiences, and all of the details of his public service. This is not a man who has spent millions hiding his transcripts or birth certificate.

Mr. Cheney also takes, without prevarication or evasion, responsibility for his mistakes, even when they are painful, as was his accidental shooting of a friend. Dick Cheney is not the kind of man who blames others. He has always lived in a world where action—correct action and competence—matter and where words have value only in their service to the truth. He is, clearly, a serious man, a man any American should want on their side. We are, in fact, far better off because he was on our side for so long, because he was willing to come when called when it would have been far easier and more personally profitable to do otherwise.

Ultimately, my greatest portion of respect for Mr. Cheney lies in the fact that no rational person could ever doubt his devotion to America. It is there in his eyes and in the reverent tone of his voice as he speaks of his country and the honor of serving it. He surely believes that America is the one indispensable, exceptional nation. He knows that America is mankind's last, best hope. It is impossible to imagine Dick Cheney groveling to foreign dictators, bowing before foreign dignitaries, or in any way denigrating America, domestically, or particularly, abroad. He has never had any difficulty telling the difference between our allies and our enemies, and clearly understands that the only way to deal with the latter is to make them respect and fear America. He is more than capable of calling a war a war, and has no time for moral fecklessness.

I fear that Mr. Cheney will not be with us much longer, but pray that I am wrong. Still, even now, to paraphrase Shakespeare, nature might stand up and say, "this is a man." Even more, Dick Cheney is unmistakably an American. In this fallen world, to what greater title might one aspire than "American?" Mr. Cheney's advice to the disgraceful Leahy to those who imagine otherwise would be quite fitting.

How tragic, even heartbreaking, that those who now lead us cannot hold a candle to such as Cheney, yet foolishly consider themselves his superior.

God Speed Mr. Cheney. Grateful Americans honor your service.

It's Turned To "11"! Run! BUMPED AND UPDATED

BUMPED AND UPDATED:

While it is certainly reasonable and rational to be outraged at the Obama Administration's recent raid on the Gibson Guitar Company...What? The Gibson Guitar Company?! You haven't heard about that one? Les Paul is surely spinning in his grave.

This week the Feds raided Gibson, seizing what they claim are woods prohibited by various environmental regulations from importation and use. The most bizarre aspect of their raids seems to be that Gibson is not actually, you know, violating any American laws nor are the Feds enforcing any American laws. The Feds now seem to be enforcing Indian--as in the nation, not domestic indian--laws.

One of the truly good and Obamaesque parts of the whole sordid affair is that federal agents at our borders have for some time been seizing guitars if they suspect that portions of them were made--even decades ago--with wood that might, under some obscure treaty or foreign law somewhere, be somehow currently illegal, even if the owner could have had no possible way to know that. Apparently the feds intend to continue this practice as well. Guilty until you prove yourself innocent; it's the Obama way!

All I can say is thank goodness Mr. Obama is now focused on doing away with a handful of unnecessary, idiotic and nationally suicidal regulations--while simultaneously implementing literally thousands of unnecessary, idiotic and nationally suicidal regulations each and every year. And thank goodness someone is now dealing with the horrific societal effects of a bit of imported ebony or other semi-exotic woods, whether it's actually illegal or not. No doubt Gibson is responsible for most of Global Warming. Notify Al Gore!

Wait a minute! I'll bet this is just a part of Mr. Obama's never-ending campaign to save or create jobs! I wonder how much a federal guitar raider makes a year? Do they have groupies? Could be a pretty cool gig!

The best way to attack such totalitarian lunacy is through humor, and the invaluable Ironhawk has done just that to magnificant effect. Go here for the musical mayhem. Who knew this whole mess was related to Gunwalker?

With Barack Obama, we really do have to pick and choose our daily outrages. There are just so many. Rick Perry's promise to make Washington DC as inconsequential in our daily lives as possible is sounding more and more like the new "don't tread on me" every day.

UPDATE: 093011

From Tina Korbe at Hot Air comes proof that some people are beyond parody and irony. It now seems that a prominent member of the Obama Administration is also likely guilty of trafficking in precisely the kinds of woods and instruments crack federal guitar agents seized from Gibson. The environmentally insensitive, anti-globalist, fascist rare wood and forest hooligan is none other than---wait for it---Michelle Obama! That's right! It's the ten million dollar woman and First Lady of the United States. Check your dictionaries students, because when you look under "irony" and "hypocrisy" you'll find her smiling visage.

In 2009 Mrs. Obama gave French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy a shiny new
Gibson (there's the irony) Hummingbird guitar featuring an Indian Rosewood fretboard, which is one of the types of wood seized by the ever vigilant federal coherent fiber agents (that's the hypocrisy). The Hummingbird, long a feature of the Gibson catalog, is a high-dollar acoustic guitar featuring various expensive woods. Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy is a musician who has produced several albums.

There is, of course, one other possibility: Perhaps Mrs. Obama, acting undercover and in concert with an alphabet soup of federal law enforcement agencies, cleverly funneled that Hummingbird to Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy in the hope that French rock and roll cartels would use it in their criminal endeavors, thus stirring up the support of the American public for bans on domestically produced "assault guitars" and illegally modified automatic extra-capacity amplifiers that go all the way to "11."

Wait a minute…you don't suppose Nigel Tufnel is in league with them…?

UPDATE #2: 093011

As readers have suggested, there is clear evidence that the raid on Gibson could well be politically motivated. Go here to Hot Air for convincing proof via direct links that the Obama Administration would surely consider Gibson, whose CEO donates to Republic candidates, to be the enemy. C.F. Martin, perhaps Gibson's most direct competitor, is very much aligned with Democrat interests and uses precisely the same kinds of woods from the same sources as Gibson, yet Martin has never been targeted by the Obamites. In fact, there are many guitar makers both large and small, that use the same materials in their instruments and they too remain unmolested.

The question remains: Would the Obama Administration, steeped in the corrupt juices of the Chicago Political Machine, stoop to blatant, thuggish intimidation of political enemies? Would the most partisan and politically corrupted Justice Department in American history abet such overt attacks on the rule of law? Would Barack Obama, the man who even now is hard at work on a speech about how to create jobs, directly attack an American industry that not only gainfully employs many skilled, well-paid (though non-union) workers, and whose products are exported around the world?

The answer lies in each and every bit of "unexpected" horrific economic news. If that's not convincing, ask Boeing, the American oil industry, Texas, and American business, both small and corporate.

Thanks to Junk Science Skeptic for help in documentation before my day job allowed me the time for research.

Substance vs. Appearance

This is an interesting photo comparison I came across in the last few days. Trying to trace it back to its origin has been a bit like running a maze. It may have been originally posted by David Limbaugh, but apparently Limbaugh didn't know its origin and it has been posted in multiple other places. From what I can tell, Texas Gov. Rick Perry would have been about 22 years old in the photo, but I suspect that Barack Obama looks a bit younger than that. There's just no way to know for sure. If anyone has a solid lead on the origin of the photo, please let me know and I'll be glad to give proper credit.

What is fascinating is that in some cases, a picture really is worth a thousand words. On one hand, we have future Texas Governor Rick Perry, a young man with the right stuff. The Air Force does not allow just anyone to fly its jets. Being selected for pilot training says a very great deal about one's judgment, intellect, grace under pressure, courage and leadership ability. Completing pilot training says even more. Perry eventually flew C-130's--four engine cargo aircraft with amazing capabilities--all over the world. Not bad for a small town Texas kid raised on a ranch that graduated from a no-name, non-Ivy League school. Oh yes, and anyone involved in military aviation, despite its overarching emphasis on safety, is risking their life on every flight.

On the other hand, we have the young Barack Obama, future President of the United States. Virtually nothing is known about his college years. We have no idea which classes he took or his grades in those classes. All of this information is carefully hidden. By his own admission, he spent his time hanging out with Marxists and consumed at least his fair share of marijuana and cocaine. Judgment? Intellect? Grace under pressure? Courage? Risking his life? At least we know that his idea of leadership is "leading from behind," which in the real world, the world inhabited by Rick Perry (yes, and even George W. Bush) from a young age is the epitome of lack of judgment, lack of intellect, no grace under pressure, cowardice, no risks and of course, no leadership.

It is a sad commentary on contemporary America that anyone, let alone a substantial portion of the citizenry, viewing this post will almost certainly sneer at a young Air Force pilot, minimizing and denigrating his service, while simultaneously lionizing a young, Marxist doper unwilling to release most pertinent details of his past.

But Barack Obama was an Illinois State Senator and a US Senator! Indeed he was, and what were his accomplishments in those positions? I mean, apart from voting present some 130 times, including on bills he sponsored, as a means of leaving no political footprints? Apart from earning the title of the most leftist man in the US Senate, more left even than the only avowed Socialist? Apart from running for president most of his time in the Senate?

But he's the President of the United States! Indeed he is, and every one of his "accomplishments" has, in only 2.5 years, caused substantial harm to the nation. Those not yet fully implemented, like Obamacare, have been revealed to be lies and will surely bankrupt us.

But he got Bin Laden! He deserves credit for the absolute minimum any president should do? He dithered for a day on even that decision, causing an unnecessary two-day delay that could easily have allowed Bin Laden to slip through our fingers and endangered our troops. But he won in Libya! Well, if you consider constant hesitation and a complete lack of any policy for pursuing what he denied was a war or anything like a war, and having no idea who we were supporting winning, perhaps. But he has played more golf in 2.5 years than any other president in eight! Well, you got me there.

One can only hope that the Republicans use this, or something like it, in the campaign. But considering how often Republicans have pulled defeat from the jaws of victory, I'm less then encouraged.

Certainly, people change with time, and dissolution in youth doesn't automatically mean failure in adulthood. But sometimes, youth foreshadows the future. In the cases of Rick Perry and Barack Obama, this would appear to be very much the case. It's a matter of substance vs. appearance.

Obama's Illegal Alien Relative Gets Drunk, Nearly Hits Cop Car, Is Arrested. No, Not That Illegal Alien Relative. Another One.

The President's illegal alien aunt continues to suck off the public teat (and blames the system for it), but it looks like his uncle may be headed back to Kenya.

A number of media outlets have already reported that an illegal immigrant from Kenya by the name of Onyango Obama, 67, was arrested last week on Wednesday after he nearly rammed his SUV into a police car in Framingham, Massachusetts.

He was later charged with DUI among other violations. I spoke to Framingham Public Information Officer Lieutenant Delaney who told me that when Onyango Obama was asked at booking if he wanted to make a telephone call to arrange for bail, the Kenyan immigrant replied: "I think I will call the White House."

...

According to article, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement has warrant for his arrest and ICE previously ordered him to be deported back to Kenya. In the meantime, a judge has not set bail on the driving charges but ordered that he be held on the ICE warrant.

Oh, who am I kidding?

Aunt Zeituni is a welfare leech that thinks we owe her citizenship, and the government ha decided to let her stay in the country because of her relationship to the President, despite the fact she is nothing more than a drain upon the economy.

Uncle Omar will no doubt get the same sort of waiver—the Obama family exemption—and be allowed to stay, suck up money meant for citizens, and increase the national debt.

It is, after all, what all Obamas due, regardless of their citizenship.

Martin Luther King: Spinning Like A Lathe

Much has been written—at least in the conservative blogosphere—about the images of Mr. Obama produced by his eternal campaign and his slobbering worshipers. But for those not familiar with the issue, merely google "obama posters" and you'll see what I mean. Conservatives, and those who lived through the Cold War, have been rightfully appalled by the iconographic, fawning images because they are very much in the style of Cold War Communist propaganda iconography, imagery that reflected the hero worship of some of the most vile monsters humanity has ever produced, men like Stalin, Lenin, Mao and the lesser monster in terms of numbers of victims, Che Guevera. Equally appalling has been the starry-eyed worship of these images by Mr. Obama's leftist followers, people who are apparently unaware of the horrific parallels, don't care about them, or see in those parallels the kind of virtue and power sought only by the deranged and tyrannical.

It is with this in mind that I write about the recently unveiled Martin Luther King Memorial on the Mall in Washington DC. The centerpiece of the four-acre memorial is a massive, 30 foot tall statute of Dr. King, a work some eleven feet taller than the statutes of Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. The Memorial is the only such shrine on the Mall not dedicated to a former President. The statue is of a piece with Communist propaganda and rather than being rendered in the classical (ancient Greek/Renaissance) style as the majority of other monuments in DC, it resembles nothing so much as the massive, triumphal statutes of Chairman Mao (a dictator beloved of Obama appointees), arguably the most depraved—in terms of sheer body count—mass murderer and despot in the history of mankind.

The statute--amazingly--was carved by Chinese artist Lei Yixin who prior to carving the MLK statute, was best known—imagine this—for massive statues of Mao. Or perhaps I should observe that it is amazing only to those who consider America to be an exceptional nation and the beacon of freedom and liberty in the world, a nation that expended considerable blood and treasure during the Korean War fighting the Chinese and North Koreans that South Korea would not experience the kind of oppression and mass murder the Chinese—and later the North Koreans--visited on their own people.

By all means, go here and here for an American and a British take on the Monument.

Interestingly, this is not the first time an Asian was involved in controversy roiling around a Washington memorial. Maya Lin, at the age of 20, won the design competition for the Vietnam Memorial. Lin is a natural born American. In fact her parents fled China for America in 1949 when Mao came to power.

With emotions about the war still raw, opposition to her concept was angry and fierce, with some referring to it as "a black gash of shame." Others were upset that the monument contained no statuary reflecting the soldiers who served, nor was an American flag on display. Still, the monument was completed and dedicated on November 13, 1982

Over time, a flagpole was added, and finally, by Nov 11, 1984, a statue by Washington sculptor Fredric Hart entitled "Three Servicemen," was added. The statute depicts three Vietnam-era soldiers with correct uniforms and equipment as though emerging from the forest after a mission. These additions did much to silence opposition, and Lin's vision has been vindicated. The Vietnam Memorial is the most visited in Washington, and is renowned for its solemnity, dignity and emotional power.

Sadly, it is unlikely that the MLK Monument will ever attain similar status. The statue is clearly rendered in the Soviet/Mao propaganda style. King stands, his massive, stiff arms crossed, his visage not impassive and noble as in classical sculpture, but rather, stern, even angry and menacing. Unlike the graceful, lifelike fluidity of the statues of Jefferson and Lincoln, King—rendered in coarse, abrasive texture--appears more rock than man, more state-conjured goblin than human being, more stiff, grim, and threateningly stylized in the blatantly intimidating Marxist style, a style that does not inspire awe and reverence, but inescapably reminds the unwilling viewer of the consequences of failing to demonstrate sufficiently worshipful public deference. This is no idle threat even today in China where dissidents are often shot in the back of the head and their surviving relatives billed for the bullet. Most bizarre is the inescapable observation that Lei Yixin has carved Dr. King with unmistakably Asian features.

I suspect that as with so much else in contemporary America, some 25% of Americans—leftists all—will be thrilled with the statute, for it directly reflects their policy and political preferences. It symbolizes the strength, rigidity and inflexibility of the idealized leftist state, ostensibly caring for "the people" with appropriately soaring rhetoric, but in reality, more than willing to wield the iron fist of power, to crush any individual or disfavored group to achieve its ends, the Constitution and freedom be damned.

The rest of America will be, at best, ambivalent about it. Many will be as appalled as was I to see the monstrosity. But I suspect none would be as appalled as Dr. King himself, who was far from an admirer of Communist doctrine and its propaganda manifestations.

Yet another triumph for the Obama Administration. Yet another disgrace for America.

Becuase Ideological Conformity is More Important than Solutions

Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) is the latest member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to try to blame the problems of her constituents on anything but the policies she champions.

"When you look at African American males, 40% of them are unemployed, those under 30 years of age. I understand exactly the entire nation must be involved in this recovery but the black community is experiencing a great recession. That's what we're experiencing," Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) told MSNBC.

First, criminals are all but unemployable, and while blacks comprise just 12.6% of the U.S population, they make up 39.4% of the prison inmates in 2009 according to Wikipedia.

A Guardian post claims that 30-percent of black men will go to jail.

So who is really to blame, the business community for not wanting to hire convicted criminals, or the culture and communities that allow such a high percentage of their young men to turn to a lives of crime and celebrate a popular culture of "thug life" that glorifies gang activity, violence, and misogyny?

The Great Society brought about by liberalism destroyed the black family unit, and Planned Parenthood is nothing more than slow-motion genocide being waged against African-Americans by white liberal cultural elites.

If black Democratic legislators were something other than Stepin Fetchits "out to get me mine's'" and cash in on the misery of their peers, they are a substantial enough force within Congress to effect positive change for their communities.

But they aren't there to enrich their communities.

Corruptocrats like Maxine Waters, Jesse Jackson Jr., Charles Rangel and others are there to personally profit at the expense of their communities, and instead of providing a way out, merely reinforce the broken system that that caused so many parts of what was once a thriving African-American middle class to implode.

From their perspective, it makes sadly perfect sense.

The unemployable and destitute will reliably keep voting for Democrats to ensure the table scraps offered by the Democratic party continue to come their way.

A thriving black middle class would turn their attention to matters of business and culture would break the Democratic stranglehold on the nearly monolithic black vote, and put shameless race-baiters out of work.

Wilson, et al find a wonderful scapegoat in vague claims of racism. It excuses the fact they've done nothing for their constituents, and serves to reinforce the low expectations that keep them chained to servant and victim mentality.

It's loathsome that a sitting Congresswoman is allowed to make such claims unchallenged, and sadly, completed expected.

I'm Takin' A Vacation!

What to make of Mr. Obama's Martha's Vineyard vacation? Some have suggested that considering the horrendous economic situation for which Mr. Obama bears primary responsibility, it is, as the trendy saying goes: "bad optics." Indeed it is. Others claim that Presidents are due their vacations, which also has the ring of truth. Others bewail the extravagance of the Obama family's choice of vacation spots and of the expense involved. The Obama's will be staying in digs reportedly costing some $50,000 per week, which is more than a great many Americans make in a year. There is indeed a case to be made for unthinking, uncaring extravagance.

All of this is disturbing too because the Martha's Vineyard excursion is hardly an isolated event. Combined with Mr. Obama's plethora of golf outings and his many command performance White House parties starring himself with a supporting cast of various celebrities, to say nothing of jetting on Air Force One on various "date nights," Mr. Obama has succeeded in creating a particularly unfortunate stereotype: The low roller suddenly come into money who lives large and fast and blows it all in an ostentatious display of greed and carelessness.

In Julius Caesar (Act. II, Scene I), Brutus speaks of those who climb the ladder of power too fast, and reaching its upper rungs, forget how they got there and the people they used and tend to abuse power. One might be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Obama didn't learn that lesson from Shakespeare, or the most important lesson: When the mighty allow themselves Hubris—excessive pride--they fall.

Yet this is far from the only evidence of Hubris. Mr. Obama recently went on a "jobs" bus tour of the middle states of flyover country. The two busses specially ordered and manufactured for this transparent campaign junket were painted Darth Vader black, which is as far as I'll go into the symbolism of that odd choice, except to wonder if perhaps some little bit of color, such as an American flag, might not be appropriate for Mr. Obama, who when last I checked was the President of the United States. Symbolism, you know.

What is most interesting is that prior to embarking on a bus tour to reassure America of his serially renewed, laser-like focus on creating American jobs, Mr. Obama chose a Canadian company to build his conveyances. Costing the American taxpayer $1.1 million each, the busses are among the most luxurious manufactured by Prevost of Quebec. Why so much? Armor, various conveniences, and of course the electronic and other support gear required by the Secret Service. The costs of housing, feeding and otherwise maintaining all of the minions of the Obama campaign machine on this trek are not yet available, but surely are not, as Dr. Evil suggested about the details of his life, "quite inconsequential."

Remarkable is that even as Mr. Obama ventures into the lands of those bitter clingers to God and guns who have antipathy for those not like themselves—which presumably includes Mr. Obama (such Olympian bravery!)—he hasn't the faintest notion of a plan to produce that about which he now, yet again, claims to most concern him: jobs. He has, however, announced that after Labor Day, when his Martha's Vineyard labors are done, he will deliver—a speech! Praise be! If I can only hang on until then! This particular speech, it is said, will reveal Mr. Obama's plan to produce jobs and to rescue the economy. It is even rumored that he will propose spending cuts far in excess of anything seen to date. However, considering that to date, nothing at all has actually been cut, two cents might qualify.

And here I have my quandary. I have often criticized Mr. Obama's class warfare and his Socialistic fixation on taking money from the rich and giving it, if not exactly to the poor, to those Mr. Obama feels more worthy such as starving labor unions, waifish community organizers, down on their luck car manufacturers, pitiful Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and similar down on their luck victims of Mr. Obama's policies. Such class warfare is indicative of bad breeding, of envy and of coveting a neighbor's possessions. It is a repudiation of the American values of hard work and industry, of self-reliance and pride. It ignores the fact that the creation and accumulation of wealth in America is not a zero-sum game. A dollar my neighbor makes is not a dollar that I can no longer make—at least not until Mr. Obama completes his dissolution of the economy.

It's rather hard to teach our children to take sincere pleasure in the good fortune and honest accomplishments of others, and to encourage them to engage in the character building and hard work necessary to do the same while supporting those who paint the industrious and prosperous as somehow indecent, heartless and even evil.

So bless his heart, may Mr. Obama and his family enjoy themselves on their vacation and on all the vacations, golf outings, date nights, White House command performances, campaign tours, and other frolics they can afford. The Obamas are apparently paying for their lodging on this particular trip, which is only right and I salute them. If I am to be consistent I must; we all must.

But we are completely justified in our disgust, perhaps even outrage, about $1.1 million dollar busses made in Canada. When last I checked, there were one or two firms in America capable of producing luxurious busses, perhaps for a bit less than $1.1 million. Some of these firms might even employ union employees. Look for the union label—in Canada? Of course I could ask whether it was really necessary to buy the busses at all, but that might make too much sense. No doubt future presidents can conduct their own Star Wars tours when possessed, as Chris Muir's Day By Day cartoon on August 17, 2011 suggested, by the power of the "Debt Side," which fits well when one is traveling in one's own personal "Debt Star."

Our annoyance entitlement also extends to all of the other ostentatious displays of wealth, power and excess in which Mr. Obama seems to revel, particularly since we are footing a substantial portion of the not inconsequential bills for these quaint and frequent gatherings of the self-imagined elite. We are on solid ground as well when we observe that the "optics" of much, if not all, of this seem particularly wretched, for they do make Mr. Obama appear to be a man who considers himself to be superior to the little people with whom he occasionally condescends to mix. At the very least, his leisure choices would seem to indicate a sense of entitlement far beyond what reasonable people would consider justified or wise. True believers would observe that the Scientific Socialists leading the masses on the path to socialist utopia deserve certain perks as a reward for all they have done for those incapable of understanding and appreciating their altruistic revolutionary labors. Fortunately, for the moment, Americans seem of a mind to boot them—and America—off the path.

So we begrudge not Mr. Obama's vacations. He is free to use his wealth as he pleases, for if he is not, one of the foundations of America, one of the cornerstones of good manners and character is illegitimate. But it does not violate the principles of good manners, or even the Ten Commandments, to consider any man's character as revealed by his choices and actions. Americans are rather good at those kinds of considerations, and they tend not to make the same mistakes twice. In 2012, they'll have the chance to rectify a very expensive mistake.

Self Defense Or Socialism?

Do you have an inalienable right to self-defense, or is the value of your life measured only in its utility to the state? Is your right to continued existence contingent on the whims of Socialistic politicians and their allies in the permanent bureaucratic class? Who is more valuable to society, a member of the producer class or a member of the parasite class? And how does the Gunwalker scandal relate to this?

My latest article, published by the good folks at Pajamas Media, brings it all together. My thanks to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit for linking to it.

Vacation + Presidency = Vacancy

Like OJ chasing the "real killers" of his wife and Ron Goldman across the golf courses and country clubs of America, Barack Obama is chasing economic recovery from one vacation hotspot to another as the economy falters.

In the third year of his Presidency, he still doesn't have plans to create jobs or reduce the deficit, and you won't see anything, either, until after Labor Day.

The official who disclosed details on Obama's jobs and deficit plans spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama has not yet disclosed them. No final decisions on the economic package have been made.

Seeking re-election in a dispiriting economic time for the nation, Obama's rollout plan allows him to come into September swinging after one of the roughest periods of his presidency.

The economy has improved from the deep recession Obama inherited, but growth and hopes have stalled.

The unemployment rate is at 9.1 percent. No president in recent history has been re-elected with a jobless rate nearly that high.

He doesn't want to do the work that goes with the job, he just likes the power and the perks. Far from being one of our smartest Presidents, Barack Obama is proving to be the most peevish and lazy President to ever occupy the Oval Office. The sooner he is primaried, the better it will be for both parties and the Republic.

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BEASTWEEK: Evil Christian Candidates Want to Rule World, Bring Back Slavery

Radical progressives are just peachy with 7th Century ideas if the offending party prays to Allah instead of Jehovah, but if you happen to be a Christian—especially a living, modern-day one—rest assured they can't wait to smear you as a nutter.

The author, Michelle Goldberg, seems to be a progressive feminist with half-baked delusions of Christanity tied together with murky and tenuous associations and assertions. It would be amusing if fellow leftists weren't so easily duped into thinking that such off-the-wall conspiracy theorizing wasn't well, the gospel.

And yet in every election in recent memory where the Republican challenger is a practicing Christian, the left trots out their "theocracy" scare card.

That Tina Brown's rage-rag is reduced to retreating to this schtick so early in the 2012 Presidential run merely serves to indicate how badly the left thinks Obama will fare.

The early panic is, I dare say, heavenly.

MIKE ADDS: I've been fascinated and disgusted by this utterly insupportable tactic of the left. The only truly political movement of contemporary American Christians was the Moral Majority, led by the Rev. Jerry Fallwell from 1979-1987. It collapsed of its own internal political and theological contradictions, and while it could claim some electoral successes, since its self-extermination there has been no organized Christian political movement that could claim even a tiny fraction of the influence of the Moral Majority.

Cal Thomas, a high ranking Moral Majority figure, left that organization in 1985 and in 2000, published Blinded By Might, in which he repudiated the imposition of Christianity through politics and once again fully embraced the Gospel. Many others have done the same.

In truth, the Christian political threat imagined by Leftists hasn't existed since before 1987. In fact, the Gospel does not support such political machinations and never has. The Rev. Fallwell and many of his followers were surely guilty of hubris, but were never capable of coming remotely close to imposing a theocracy. Ms. Goldberg and others are erecting a smokescreen to distract people from the real and continuing threat of Islamism and the related machinations of the Left. To paraphrase Shakespeare: "Methinks she doth protest too much."

Krugman's Sanity Leaves Via Anal Probe

The Nobel-winning economist has gone around the bend in trying to defend the failure that is Keynesian economics, and now admits that just about the only thing that can save the Obama presidency and his own delusions of adequacy are invading space aliens.

If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months. And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren't any aliens, we'd be better –

I think the next word out of his mouth before he was interrupted would have been "off"... and Krugman certainly is.

Off his rocker.

Why We Can't Afford to Have Ron Paul as President

A reader asked me why I have such a low opinion of Rep. Ron Paul and his fan base. I gave him a rather lengthy answer, but my opposition to the candidate himself is summed up well enough in this reference from Rep. Allen West, who has a much better grasp of the way the real world works.

Paul's "hand's off" philosophy if implemented after World War II, would have gleefully let Russia pile nuclear missile batteries in Cuba, and expand in Central and South America unopposed. It would have let the Iron Curtain extend fully over Western Europe, Africa, and the Korean peninsula. It would have certainly led to our decline as a world power, and quite possibly would have plunged free populations into tyranny, or even a third World War.

Simply put, Paul's beliefs, if implemented as policy, would constitute a clear danger to this nation's very existence.

My second objection to Paul is the cult-like followers he has attracted. That are every bit as zealous as the Obamites, and their constant screaming and yelling at events is off-putting (to put it mildly). I've seen enough of cult-leaders with destructive policy agendas. No more.

I'd contemplate sitting at home if it came down to Paul versus Obama. Sadly, I suspect more Americans would simply vote for Obama again in a landslide, assuring our fiscal collapse.

News That Doesn't Matter

In the Iowa Straw Poll, Bachmann edged out the insane clown posse, some dude from Minnesota came in a distant third, and the folks who are most likely to end up with the nomination weren't even on the ballot.

Next.

It is Going to Get Bad. It is Going to Get Bloody . The Question is How Bad, and How Bloody.

Over at Hot Air Jazz Shaw points to a new Rasmussen poll that indicates roughly half of Americans expect violence when it comes time to pay the piper.

Nearly one-out-of-two Americans (48%) think that cuts in government spending are at least somewhat likely to lead to violence in the United States, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. But that includes just 13% who feel it’s Very Likely.

A bit less than have thinks that cuts will not lead to violence. These would be you victims.

I stopped by one of my local gun shops Wednesday night to drop off a part I had that belonged to the owner, and the gentleman behind the counter (who knows me as a gun blogger) took just a few minutes to tell me about the significant increase in calls about firearms just this week.

The calls were in response to the S&P downgrade, the rioting in Great Britain, and the mob racial violence in the Midwest and Northeast in recent weeks. It can happen here, and people are starting to say so.

A majority of calls were from young families that had not owned guns before, but who were now concluding that they need firearms to protect themselves.

Interestingly enough, the majority of callers seemed to be requesting information about AR-15 pattern rifles, similar to what our military carries but without the option of automatic fire. Most of these callers were hit by the shock shock of the cost of an AR ($750-$1500 and up) and didn't have the money to purchase them, and so turned their attention to pistols and shotguns.

People are scared, and the clerk lamented that a lot of people now in the market aren't going to get the training they should, and are going to end up shooting people they don't legally have a right to shoot, and a lot of these people are going to end up in jail.

We're going to have to severely cut social programs. As much as liberals are burying their heads in the sand (or other warm, dark places) to avoid dealing with that fact, we simply have to cut spending, and that is going to mean significant entitlement reform. Combine that with an entitlement mindset and a consumer culture with eroding moral guidance, and you have the recipe for the kind of violence you saw in the United Kingdom, and the very distinct probability that it will happen here to some extent.

The big question no one can answer is that we don't know how widespread or deep the rioting and violence with occur.

Will it be mindless, but weapon-free looting and racial attacks like we've seen in recent weeks that just sent a few people to the hospital, or are we going to see cities burn again?

Will the violence be confined to small isolated incidents quickly stomped out by effective policing, or will President Empty Suit dither as America burns?

It is likely to get bad. How bad, we simply don't know.

Don't Listen to the Government. If You do, You're Going to Be Labeled A Terrorist Threat.

Mike Vanderboegh pissed me off last night. No, it wasn't anything he did. He simply emailed a link to his story about how the paranoid Obama Justice Department has decided to label a significant part of the population as a terrorist threat for buying common disaster preparation items.

Yes, while one branch of the government urges you to develop a disaster preparedness kit, another is poisoning the local police against you for doing so.

The FBI handout, entitled "Communities Against Terrorism: Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities Related to Military Surplus Stores" also instructs surplus store owners to:

"Require valid ID from all new customers.

Keep records of purchases.

Talk to customers, ask questions, and listen to and observe their responses.

Watch for people and actions that are out of place.

Make note of suspicious statements, people, and /or vehicles.

If something seems wrong, notify law enforcement authorities."

The handout also instructs surplus store owners to consider as "suspicious" anyone who "demands identity 'privacy'" or anyone who expresses "extreme religious statements" and those who "make suspicious comments regarding anti-US, [or] radical theology."

The list of items that the Feds consider possible indications of terrorist intent are common items set aside by disaster preparedness:

• Weatherproofed ammunition or match containers
  Weatherized ammunition optimized for long-term storage to avoid corrosion is very common, as is the bulk purchase of ammunition in general. Matches work best when they aren't soggy. horrors!
• Meals Ready to Eat (MREs)
  Without question, the single most common disaster preparation foodstuff, almost always bought by the case. Want to eat after a hurricane? You terrorist!
• Night Vision Devices; night flashlights; gas masks
  Night vision gear and flashlights are essential for search and rescue for those disasters not conveniently scheduled during the daytime, and have the added benefit of not ruining the night vision of those using them, causing temporary blindness as bright normal lights can. Gas masks can filter out the deadly toxins in molds (which is why you saw construction crews using them after Katrina) and some work as well to filter out particulate smoke and deadly chemicals from fires.
• High capacity magazines
  They are commodities, and your are supposed to have a minimum of five for each firearm for many shooting classes. A person with a half-dozen magazines ("high capacity" is a made-up term) or more for his or her weapon and steely nerve can face down crowds of thugs and looters like those that have set London ablaze.
• Bi-pods or tri-pods for rifles
  Make up your minds! you don't want people to have magazines, because you don't want them shooting with any volume of fire. Now you're trying to tell me you want to take away the weapons stabilization platforms that enhance accuracy? Is the FBI trying to encourage innaccurate shooting?

The more I see from this Justice Department, the more it concerns me that they are devolving into armed enforcers (and occasionally covert criminals) for the Executive branch, and that they are creating opportunities to envision solid citizens as threats to their power.

The Osama Bin Laden Dead Cat Bounce

Since the death of Osama Bin Laden, I've seen bits and piece on the Internet that suggest that Progressives and Mr. Obama himself are perplexed and frustrated that sending Bin Laden straight to Hell resulted in only the briefest PR bounce for Mr. Obama. Of course, Mr. Obama can't understand why every American isn't continually singing his praises, saying on more than one occasion, and with substantial indignation, "you [meaning the American people] ought to be thanking me" for this or that.

What is interesting and more than a little disturbing is that I've yet to see anyone touch on the reason. It's not rocket science; it is common sense. Perhaps that's why Mr. Obama and his Progressive sycophants—and the Media (but I repeat myself!)—can't "get" it.

So as a public service, to whatever degree trying to convince Progressives of common sense and the truth is a service (it's probably like trying to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig), I explain why Mr. Obama's "accomplishment" accomplished only a dead cat bounce.

First and most importantly, rational Americans see the accomplishment not as Mr. Obama's, but as our military's, most specifically as the accomplishment of SEAL Team 6. They also appreciate all of the other military and intelligence assets who worked diligently for years to make the successful raid possible.

Those who are well informed know that Mr. Obama dithered for so long to authorize the strike while our warriors sat, ready to go, awaiting his order. His dithering set the strike back a full day, increasing the risk of discovery and the risk that Bin Laden could have been tipped off. While Mr. Obama is due some credit as CINC for this raid, most people see his authorization not as evidence of military or leadership brilliance, but as the very least any American President should do in the same circumstances, yet Mr. Obama dithered for a day! Imagine the PR fallout if his dithering caused the mission to fail.

It's not hard to figure out: If you're the CINC, you ruthlessly pursue America's self-identified, deadly enemies and you have no hesitation in taking them out. This is the default position, the baseline, the absolute minimum required of any American President, yet Mr. Obama and his followers expect a massive PR bounce because Mr. Obama did the minimum? Because he simply did his job, though only after considerable indecision? Indecision about getting Osama Bin Laden?

As I write, I'm shaking my head in amazement that I have to explain this. I doubt that those for whom I am trying to explain are capable of accepting this little bit of reality. What do you, gentle readers, think?

Slutwalk Feminists: Too Dumb to Survive

The chronically confused pseudo-feminists behind the dim notion of "Slutwalks" have offered up some of the least effective self-defense tips ever offered to man or woman-kind.

Somehow, I don't think the girls have the guts to take Breda's far more effective advice of using something that experts agree works.

Radical Leftists Openly Plot Terror Attacks on Financial Centers. Obama Does Nothing. Media Ignores.

We've learned in recent days from such noted Constitutional scholars as Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) that peacefully protesting the government and asking them to undertake such radical tasks as spending within their means and acting within the Constitutional boundaries our Founding Fathers envisioned, amounts to terrorism.

Specifically, they are quoted as saying:

"We have negotiated with terrorists," an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. "This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money."

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies' misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: "They have acted like terrorists."

Like you, I view the peaceful demands for rational spending restrictions to be the exact same thing as suicide bombing, the sawing off of heads, or crashing airliners into skyscrapers... other than the fact that that viewpoint is certifiably insane.

That said, the media and progressive left (but I digress) certainly seemed to nod along with the suggestion, even when they didn't dare vocalize it.

The rhetoric was ratcheted down, but the underlying vitriol remained, when Standard and Poor downgraded the nation's credit rating from AAA to AA+, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Presidential adviser David Axelrod were quick to again try to blame the Tea Party.

Clearly, Democrats and the bobblehead media view any threat to the nation's credit or economic straits—no matter how farfetched or ill-conceived—as the equivalent of a terror attack.

So why aren't we hearing anything from the White House, Senate, House of Representatives or the editorial pages about the "days of rage," "occupation," and "revolution" targeting the heart of the nations financial sector?

A list of aligned terrorist groups (using the democratic definition) wants to Occupy Wall Street, and advocates the physical occupation and gridlock of our nation's financial nerve center... attempting the exact the same trauma on the U.S. financial markets as the late terrorist Osama Bin Laden did when he chose New York's financial district and the nation's leadership in Washington, DC as his primary targets.

US Day of Rage is one site promoting a takeover of Wall Street on September 17. Their message is as muddled as the logic of adopting a name synonymous with violence that birthed a terrorist group. Maybe they hope to attract bomb-builder and Obama mentor Bill Ayers as guest speaker.

Some in the media are noting the incredible lameness of the "cause," it's incoherence, and it's likelihood of failure.

That's fair.

But terrorist attacks are terrorist attacks, and those who commit them are not deemed to be terrorists only if they succeed.

If the Tea Party can be considered terrorists for merely standing up for traditional American values and fiscal common sense, then radical terror groupss attempting to interrupt the financial markets are most certainly worthy of being shot on sight by police.

I'm sure even our Vice President would agree.

Interest Clairvoyance

Just a few thoughts, gentle readers, on a rather remarkable but little reported factoid. Mr. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently announced that he would keep interest rates very low for the next two years. Does this sound remarkable? It should. Consider:

(1) The Fed virtually never makes long-range prognostications. Until now, Fed Chairmen have understood that the economy is prone to unforeseeable changes, and planning more than a few months ahead is foolish. The necessity of corrections is a reality that can't be predicted.

(2) Market forces beyond Mr. Bernanke's control can, and likely will, force interest rates up. The multi trillion pound wheel of the credit downgrade has already started rolling downhill and Mr. Obama and his economic cronies remain stolidly behind it, pushing for all they are worth.

(3) Artificially trying to keep interest rates low could have most unfortunate effects on the economy.

(4) The economy is—how to put this gently—unstable. One of the primary reasons businesses aren't hiring and building is because of this instability. They have no idea what the Obama Administration is going to do from minute to minute let alone two years hence. What Mr. Bernanke has said makes as much sense—and has much in common with—Soviet five year plans.

(5) The performance of every one of Mr. Obama's high-level economic appointees has been less than inspiring. In fact, Christine Romer, first chair of Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisors recently said that the American economy is "pretty darned f***ed." Ms. Romer, recently (thankfully!) retired from government service, was one of the primary architects of that f***ing. This is known as "irony."

(6) One might be forgiven for thinking that rather than being the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States of America Mr. Bernanke is the shadow chairman of the Obama reelection committee.

Unlike Mr. Bernanke, I can make a prediction that will almost certainly come to pass: If Mr. Obama is re-elected, even if interest rates remain low, American businesses will not celebrate by means of hiring and expansion. They will realize, then as now, that our economy is in fact, "pretty darned f***ed," and that Mr. Obama is the primary economic porn film actor. This too is commonly known as irony.

Typical Leftist Wants to Introduce Us to the Reeducation Camps

Via SayUncle, proof that the violent totalitarianism the pervades leftist ideology remains deeply rooted in their fragile psyches:

Many times I've riffed on a dark, delicious fantasy about rounding up Tea Bagger types and sentencing them to green re-education camps for minimum one-year terms. Not to punish per se but to expose these contemptible morons to facts, to truth, to the way things really are and how they're being played by the rich, and the fact that Boomers have taken almost everything and that diminished lifestyles and economic security are being bequeathed to Genx and GenY for decades to come, and that the best is definitely over.

Like Chance, I'd invite Mr. Wells and any assembly of his friends he can muster to try to make his fantasy a reality.

We're With Stupid

Or should I say, that I'm stuck with him until impeachment, his criminal trial, or his electoral defeat.

I'm sure everyone is rolling their eyes about the possibility of impeachment and a criminal trial, but you're not counting on his intellect the way that I am:

How many times have we heard it said that Mr. Obama is the smartest president ever? Even when he's criticized, his failures are usually chalked up to his supposed brilliance. Liberals say he's too cerebral for the Beltway rough-and-tumble; conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.

I don't buy it. I just think the president isn't very bright.

Socrates taught that wisdom begins in the recognition of how little we know. Mr. Obama is perpetually intent on telling us how much he knows. Aristotle wrote that the type of intelligence most needed in politics is prudence, which in turn requires experience. Mr. Obama came to office with no experience. Plutarch warned that flattery "makes itself an obstacle and pestilence to great houses and great affairs." Today's White House, more so than any in memory, is stuffed with flatterers.

Much is made of the president's rhetorical gifts. This is the sort of thing that can be credited only by people who think that a command of English syntax is a mark of great intellectual distinction. Can anyone recall a memorable phrase from one of Mr. Obama's big speeches that didn't amount to cliché?

Every bit of available evidence suggests that Barack Obama is every bit as dumb and arrogant as he appears to be. We're pressing forward with our Gunwalker investigation, and it appears more and more likely that fellow conspirators are going to turn against Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano, other agency directors, prosecutors, and the White House to save themselves from criminal prosecution for their roles in facilitating hundreds of murders.

Is our President a man evil enough to sacrifice the lives of citizens in two nations to push a policy goal? Read the evidence—or witness the on-going cover-up—and come to your own conclusions.

I'm rather fond of the mental image of ex-President Obama behind bars and facing trail in a Mexican courtroom.

Luckily for us, he's just unintelligent enough to put himself there.

Update: Via sue in the comments, another biting dissection of Obama's alleged intelligence:

It has become obvious, in a sense that cannot be denied, that Obama is a fundamentally stupid man. He has all the equipment, all the training, would probably do well on all the tests -- but it doesn't come together and produces no worthwhile results. He knows all the buzzwords, and how to get them across. He easily impresses crowds and onlookers so long as the questions don't get too detailed. But he can't turn any of this into action. Everyhing he touches, without exception, falls to pieces. He has no single political success to his record. His administration is one endless Gobi, lifeless and bare. Compared to Obama, even Warren Harding, the last man on everybody's list, looks like a beleaguered giant. What we have in Obama is the stupidest man who ever sat in the Oval Office.

That's one part of a harsh assessment. Make sure you read the whole thing.

Mike Adds: I'd quibble with the author in only one respect: there is no evidence that Mr. Obama has done well on academic tests, or that he would do well on such measures. I have no doubt that at least some of the people with whom I attended college would recall that I was quite good at test taking in general, but there appears to be not a soul who could say the same about Mr. Obama. In fact, there seem to be very few people who recall Mr. Obama doing what one does in college: attending classes, writing papers, etc. For an actual college student, college is more than a full time job, and when one is absent from work, so to speak, it is quite obvious. I rather suspect that his inability to test well, perhaps even to complete classes, is the reason that his undergraduate and graduate transcripts are protected by walls of security that would provoke envy in the CIA. Not the sort of thing one sees with the truly intelligent.

Rhetoric vs. Reality

Perhaps the most obvious sign of Mr. Obama's narcissism is his obvious belief that his words have magical powers. He has almost certainly used "I" and "my" more frequently and blatantly than the sum of all presidents before him. He surrounds himself with fawning sycophants, fake Grecian columns, the great seal of Obama, tells members of his party that they can't fail because they have him, travels to Cairo to show Muslims his glory, travels to Germany to show Germans and Europeans his glory, plays golf and vacations like there is no tomorrow and throws a massive, command performance birthday bash for himself—charging as much as $38,000 each for the privilege of attending—while the nation's economy is melting down in unprecedented fashion before a horrified world. He actually said that his reception of the Democrat nomination would be recorded by history as the moment that the seas began to recede and the planet began to heal! Yet all of that pales in significance compared to the narcissism of a man who firmly believes that what the nation—what the world—needs is yet another teleprompter reading from The One.

America is, more than anything, an idea. It is a set of beliefs and values that bind together peoples from all over with the world because they believe that only in America, only in a nation where individuals truly have inalienable rights, where there exists the rule of law, and where the government exists to ensure equality of opportunity, only there can they live in freedom. Only there do they have the opportunity, with the sweat of their brow, with their intellect and abilities, to thrive, to prosper and to instill the American ideal in their children. When enough of the residents of this nation no longer believe, when enough of those who live within our borders no longer see any advantage in being known as an American, America is over.

Our financial problems are a symptom. That we have allowed ourselves to fall into this abyss, and to continue to dig, indicates that many of us have abandoned the idea of America, if indeed they ever embraced it. Yet it is not too late. One of the most significant powers of the presidency is, as Teddy Roosevelt said, the Bully Pulpit. Our president can use the power of that pulpit to persuade, but only if he too believes in America. He does not. He believes only in the Socialist worker's paradise that, after the fundamental transformation of America through his brilliance, will exist.

Mr. Obama's August 8th speech was indistinguishable from virtually every other every other day speech on the economy he has to date given: class warfare, demands to raise taxes, blaming everyone but himself, suggesting that borrowing money to pay people to do make-work federal jobs will somehow lower the deficit, euphemisms, evasions, and as always, no actual plans, no actual proposals, no remotely rational solutions, not a dram of leadership. So impressed were the markets that mere minutes after his latest teleprompter readings, the stock market fell an additional 200 points.

Mr. Obama has truly established himself as the post-American president. He cares nothing for America, a nation he has spent his entire life criticizing. He cares nothing for Americans, a people he considers to be beneath him. He seems to be waiting for the real job, the job beyond, above the presidency, the really important job befitting his superhuman abilities to which he will ascend when he has transcended his labors ruling the ungrateful and unwashed. But until then, he will blame others, establish commissions, panels, and support economic advisors who have no experience in the real world, who can't so much as pay their taxes, and whose brilliant advice has flung us into the abyss, all the while blaming it on a loose confederation of Americans who argue only for smaller, more responsible government that lives within its means. "Tea Party Downgrade" my American posterior.

But above all, remember that for Mr. Obama rhetoric is reality. Talk, for the most narcissistic president in American history, is cheap indeed. While Mr. Obama seems to believe that whatever he says is reality, and as such, requires no actual actions that would make it manifest, rational Americans tend to want to see results. And now, international rating agencies want to see the same. Fewer and fewer Americans are bothering to listen to Mr. Obama—you've heard one Obama speech, you've heard them all--and few of those who do take anything he says at face value. Yet he cannot imagine that we don't eagerly anticipate his speeches, hang on every word, revel in his clichéd syntax as revealed truth and fall to the floor weeping that one so magnificent would take the time to speak to such as us: bitter God and gun clingers who have antipathy for those not like us.

That's narcissism on a previously unimaginable level. What we need is common sense--such as realizing that you can't save money by spending money—and a genuine belief in the idea of America. Leadership would be nice too, but only if it leads us away from the edge of the abyss.

Mr. Obama claimed that America will always be a AAA nation. Of course, he meant that he is AAA, and how dare anyone think otherwise. We are not, unlike the companies and unions Mr. Obama favors, too big to fail. Only results, not rhetoric will forestall that failure. And all Mr. Obama can do is talk.

Dow Down (Bumped) Closes -624.24 (-5.45%)

This isn't pretty.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has plummeted to begin the trading day after the nation's credit was downgraded from AAA to AA+ by Standard & Poor's after the market closed Friday.

Keep your fingers crossed, folks, that this is just a downgrade and that we aren't headed for a complete collapse of the economy as the Cloward-Piven-Obama left so giddily hopes it is.

Update: 10:15AM Down-down-down: Dow at -242.11.

Update: 10:30AM Dow at -343.15

Update: 11:00AM Dow at -347.84. Stabilizing?

I'm going to try not to look again until noon.

Update: 1:59PM G U L P! Dow at -445.85, and now below 11,000.

Update: 4:00PM Dow closes at -624.24 (-5.45%), but soon hits -633.17 (-5.53%) and continues to fall after hours.

Yeah. Right.

President B+ gives us a AAA.

He has to. Otherwise, it might interfere with really important matters, like using taxpayer-funded transportation to attend two fund-raising events tonight to raise cash for his reelection campaign.

S&P Now Downgrades Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

The hits just keep coming:

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Monday downgraded the credit ratings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other agencies linked to long-term U.S. debt.

The agency also lowered the ratings for: farm lenders; long-term U.S. government-backed debt issued by 32 banks and credit unions; and three major clearinghouses, which are used to execute trades of stocks, bonds and options.

All the downgrades were from AAA to AA+. S&P says the agencies and banks all have debt that is exposed to economic volatility and a further downgrade of long-term U.S. debt. Their creditworthiness hinges on the U.S. government's ability to pay its own creditors.

Expect the Obama Administration and their Democrat allies in Congress and the Media to now do the very best they can to utterly destroy Standard and Poor's.

They don't know how to solve problems nor do they care to learn how to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.

They just intend to shoot the messenger (again), while reassuring Turbo Tax Timmy he's doing a great job on the way to default.

Another D O W N G R A D E Possible in Just Months

While our favorite trolls continue to sippy-cup and regurgitate whatever talking point excuses the lefty elites trot out to explain away Standard & Poor's downgrading of the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+, the credit agency warns again that if reckless government spending isn't reined in, our debt crisis may force them to lower our credit rating yet again.

The U.S.'s new double A+ rating "could go down more in a time frame of six months to 24 months," to double-A, depending on government action to cut the deficit, John Chambers, managing director and chairman of Standard & Poor's sovereign ratings committee tells FOX Business senior vice president and anchor Neil Cavuto in an interview on FOX News Saturday.

That means the U.S. government effectively has until at least February to find additional cuts to meet S&P's demand for at least $4 trillion in total deficit reductions over the next decade. The debt ceiling deal cuts $917 billion over the next decade and at least $1.5 trillion from a new bipartisan super committee in Congress by November.

For the first time in history, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S.'s vaunted Triple-A rating to double A+ after the market's close on Friday night, a rating it has held at S&P since 1941.

You can repeat the basic economic facts on a middle school level as many times as you would like, and it will not matter.

Congress was given horrific power when allowed to spend without a requirement to balance the budget every year. We are now so deep in debt as a nation that there is no way—even with 100% taxation of the so-called "rich"—that we can ever raise taxes high enough to bring in enough revenue to offset spending. We must slash spending, and deeply, including the sacred cows of Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.

But progressive ideology demands followers to believe that:

• Government is the best mechanism to accomplish _______.
• If the _______ government program isn't working, providing more money to _______ is the solution.
• There will always be enough money to fund _______, we just need to raise taxes to pay for it.

As a result, we will continue to hear blame-casting from the political left and would be elites. They would rather demagogue those arguing for fiscal responsibility (and call them terrorists) and drive the country into default than be forced into recognizing that a free market economy will not work with their demands for an massive, all-providing government.

It is really too bad that they have so little faith in the intelligence, initiative, and grit of the American people.

We will not only handle the needed deep cuts to big government; we'll thrive as a result.

Of course, that is precisely their biggest fear.

The Wages of Progressivism

Mob violence—in Wisconsin? The birthplace of modern Progressivism? The state that until recently successfully resisted allowing its own citizens to lawfully carry concealed weapons? Wisconsin indeed, as Bob noted in his post titled "Just One More Reason To Carry A Concealed Weapon."

It would be tempting to observe that Progressivism has been less than a civilizing, positive influence in Wisconsin. Consider that union thugs disrupted the traditional Governor's opening of the Wisconsin State Fair, and the bizarre, Mad Max-like attacks on white fair goers by gangs of rampaging black thugs (oops! I mean: "disaffected youths of color expressing their legitimate grievances against the oppressive radical Tea Party power structure"). Yes it would be easy to say all of that and more, but this post is primarily a reminder of the realities of carrying concealed weapons, a practice that I suspect, given the behavior of unions and certain disaffected youths of color—to say nothing of Democrat politicians—will be much on the minds of rational, responsible residents of Wisconsin these days.

For those who would like to do more in-depth reading on the issues raised in this article, may I be so bold as to suggest a five-part series I wrote entitled "Me? Own A Gun?" The series explores not only the philosophical, but the moral, legal and practical issues in considerable depth. For that series go to these links:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

WHY CARRY A CONCEALED WEAPON?

The short answer is because evil exists and it can and will attack anyone at any place and time. Evil recognizes no boundaries, respects no persons, no race, no gender, no national origin. Evil exists to destroy, to humiliate, to maim and kill. It cannot be reasoned with or appeased. It must be confronted and obliterated. Anyone taking the links in the first two paragraphs will become acquainted with evil, and if they are wise, will realize that those innocents thrown to the ground and brutally beaten as they were leaving the Wisconsin State Fair certainly didn't expect to be attacked that night, nor did they do anything to provoke those attacks. That's the nature of evil, and evil is particularly likely to manifest itself in crowds, but we'll deal with that shortly.

Another part of the answer is because the police cannot protect you. In fact, the police have no legal duty to protect any given citizen, nor may they be successfully sued for failing to protect any individual. For those interested, the primary US Supreme Court case is Castlerock v. Gonzalez. In that case, the estranged husband of Mrs. Gonzalez kidnapped and killed their three daughters. Despite the fact that Mr. Gonzalez was violating a protection order, and despite the plaintive and repeated pleas of Mrs. Gonzalez over many hours the police did nothing, nothing that is until Mr. Gonzalez attacked the police station, firing a handgun. He was shot and killed by officers. The bodies of his daughters were found in his truck, which was parked nearby.

This might sound outrageous, but is actually quite sane. If any citizen injured by criminals could sue the police for failing to protect them, could any municipality afford a police department? Who would be a policeman knowing that their homes and property, and everything they might own during their lifetime would be forfeit for their failure to protect someone they could not possibly hope to protect?

Most importantly, we must consider the very nature of humanity and its primary imperative, more important even than procreation: The preservation of the self, or self-defense. This is actually the foundation for the positions of those on both sides of the politics of the Second Amendment: those who believe that the fundamental natural right is the right to preserve one's life versus those who recognize no such right, but tend to see individuals as valuable only in their utility to the state.

If you believe that each man must have the right to defend his life, it logically follows that each man must have access to the means to defend that life, for not every man is as large, fast, strong or martially skilled as others. This is particularly so for women who tend to be, on average, substantially smaller and weaker than men. If also follows that the means must not be restricted to only a single type of weapon, but to those weapons most effective and most conveniently carried by any man or woman. Circa 2011, this means the handgun.

If, on the other hand, you recognize no right to self-defense, the mere existence of such convenient weapons is an enormous threat to your view of the world, for they give any mere man or woman the power, literally in their hands, to resist the power of the state. As much as such people crow about their great concern for the welfare of "the people," it is clear that "the people" are only a politically useful abstraction, and that the individuals who make up "the people," have value only to the degree that they fully support the goals of the statist elite. All others are a threat and are the natural prey of the predators created by other statist policies who are, as members of favored victim groups, particularly useful to statists.

In Wisconsin, until recently, those who recognize no right to self-defense held sway. They are very, very angry that their power over the lives of others has been diminished, and they will not surrender that power easily or willingly, as the continuing turmoil in the land of cheese hats so clearly indicates. But do keep in mind the ultimate foundation of the struggle. Those who would deny the right and the means of individuals to maintain their very existence enable and support the kinds of mobs who attacked innocents at the Wisconsin State Fair.

Why carry a concealed weapon? Because it could be necessary at any moment and at any place, and without it, you or those you love could be maimed or killed. It's very much like a fire extinguisher. Most people will live a lifetime without ever having to use a fire extinguisher, but when they need one, they need it immediately, badly and nothing else will do. The same is true of handguns.

THE USE OF DEADLY FORCE:

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that each state has specific laws with specific language relating to the use of force, and of deadly force. It is always imperative to be intimately familiar with such laws. What follows are the general principles upon which the laws of the several states are based. They are a useful foundation for studying these issues, but again, the final word is found in state law.

There is a word for those who carry concealed weapons because they hope to use them, because they hope to harm and shoot others: criminals. The law abiding who are willing to spend time and money to be thoroughly vetted by the state in order to carry a concealed handgun are among the most law-abiding Americans and are arrested at rates far below the general population. Those whose permits are revoked are commonly less than a single percent of all licensees, and experience revocation primarily for inadvertent technical violations of the law such as accidently carrying their weapon into a prohibited place. No rational man or woman carries a handgun because they are looking for trouble, but because they know that trouble can be—at any place and time—looking for them. In fact, those who carry concealed weapons have a responsibility to go out of their way to avoid trouble. Criminals, tyrants and their sycophants relish the idea of harming others. The rational do not. They understand that to kill another is a terrible, life-changing event, something to be avoided at virtually all costs. However, they also understand that to be unprepared, to allow oneself or one's loved ones to be maimed or killed is worse.

Generally speaking, one can use deadly force when there is an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death to oneself or another. The general factors, which must be present for the use of deadly force to be justified, are:

Means: The person or persons liable to be shot must have the means—a gun, knife, etc.—to make good on their threat.

Opportunity: They must have the opportunity to carry out their threat. They must be close enough and obviously able to carry it out. If they are waving a knife at you from 100 feet away across a river while threatening to kill you, they have neither the means nor the opportunity. If they have a gun, they arguably have both.

Jeopardy: They must be placing you in imminent danger. They must be demonstrating the intention to cause you or another serious bodily injury or death. Again if they are holding a knife from 100 feet across a river, you are in no real jeopardy. However, if they have a rifle, the moment it begins to swing in your direction, there is no doubt that you are in jeopardy.

I would argue that anyone carrying a concealed handgun has a duty to do all that they possibly can to avoid any situation that might turn into a deadly force encounter. If this means that there are certain places or situations that they must avoid, so be it. A large part of avoiding trouble is being aware of your surroundings, of developing situational awareness. Most people are blissfully unaware of what is happening around them; they cannot anticipate or identify impending danger. However, it is the nature of life that the unexpected can occur, and that is why we carry concealed weapons in the first place. This is also why enlightened states have enacted Castle Doctrine laws.

THE CASTLE DOCTRINE:

These laws basically allow citizens who are lawfully present in any place or vehicle at the time they are attacked to stand their ground and defend their lives or the lives of others. They have no duty to try to retreat or to run away, and the attacker, not their victim, is presumed to be at fault. In some states, prosecutors actually expect citizens to flee from their own homes when confronted by armed thugs in the middle of the night, and should they dare to defend their lives, they are likely to be prosecuted for killing those who intended to murder them in their sleep. Castle Doctrine laws prevent such perversions of reality and justice. They also prevent those injured or killed in the commission of crimes from suing their intended victims.

Those who don't believe in self-defense have screamed that Castle Doctrine laws will allow citizens to be vigilantes, murdering helpless criminals at will. Like their hysterical warnings about blood running in the streets when citizens are allowed to carry concealed handguns, these situations have also failed to materialize.

WISCONSIN AND STATE FAIR REALITY:

Let's take a moment to apply these ideas to the situations facing three citizens at the Wisconsin State Fair. None of these people were expecting trouble, let alone expecting to be placed in a situation where they could be maimed or killed, yet that is precisely what happened to them. Tragically, none of them were apparently armed. They were unprepared to protect themselves or others.

That said let's first examine the psychology of crowds, which is a well-developed field of study. People cloaked by the anonymity of a crowd are often willing to do things they would never consider doing when alone or with a friend or two. This is why gangs of people, gathered informally on the spur of the moment, or as an ongoing criminal enterprise, are so dangerous. Their numbers and the inherent difficulty of defending against them or of identifying individuals emboldens them.
The half-hearted kick delivered to the head of an injured victim by a member of a crowd carried along by the fervor of the moment might very well be the blow that imparts irreversible brain damage or which kills even if the person delivering that kick didn't intend to kill. Human beings are amazingly resilient and amazingly fragile. One blow in the right place can permanently cripple or kill.

In Wisconsin, there appears to have been a clear racial motivation to the attacks: blacks attacking whites unknown to them for no reason other than their race. While those who would deny us all self-defense are often very concerned about racial motivations, race surely meant little or nothing to the victims of their attacks, nor would it make their injuries more or less painful or lasting. While race could be a factor in a decision to use deadly force, it generally is irrelevant.

Let's also keep in mind that anyone using a firearm is responsible for each and every round they fire. We shoot only to stop, never to kill. We shoot because of the overwhelming necessity to stop our attacker(s) from doing what they were doing that gave us the legal justification to shoot in the first place. We shoot only to stop those who must be stopped, not people who present no threat of imminent serious bodily injury or death. If the attacker dies, too bad, but we shoot to stop them, not kill them. This means that the moment they cease their attack, we stop shooting, and if we can then immediately get to cover or another place of safety before calling our attorney and then the police, that's the smart thing to do.

In the practice of shooting to stop, we do not shoot to wound, or fire warning shots. Remember, we are responsible for every round we fire. Any round fired into the air in warning will come down somewhere, perhaps on someone. If you try to shoot someone in the leg, even if you are successful, will that prevent him from pulling the trigger of his handgun or from stabbing you with his knife? You shoot to stop, never to wound. Shooting to wound could even be used against you by an attorney arguing that you doubted your justification to shoot. Why else would you fail to shoot to stop?

This means that if you are justified in shooting another human being (to stop them) you may fire as many rounds as necessary with as large a gun as necessary to stop them, but the moment the threat ends, the shooting stops. If a single round from a .380 handgun will stop your attacker, great. If five rounds from a .45 are required, that's fine too. But remember, when they stop, you stop.

In many ways, the situation at the Wisconsin State Fair was a nightmare scenario for any law-abiding person, but it was more so for those carrying a concealed weapon. Some would be tempted to say that no one, therefore, should carry a concealed weapon, but then you would be placing yourself at the tender mercies of the crowd that injured so many at the Fair. Remember that the police, who were apparently present in some numbers at the Fair, did little or nothing to protect those injured, and apparently did little or nothing to arrest those who caused such carnage after the fact.

SCENARIO #1: Riding your motorcycle, you are pulled from your machine by a gang of 5-10 people who begin to savagely beat you. You have never seen these people before and have had no contact or confrontation with them before the moment they grabbed and began to attack you.

Regardless of your size or physical prowess, you are on the ground, already injured, and under unrelenting attack. By the circumstances and their sheer numbers, your attackers have demonstrated beyond any doubt that they have the means and the opportunity to cause you serious bodily injury or death, and they have already placed you in jeopardy. In fact, your only potential means of avoiding seriously bodily injury or death is a handgun, which can be employed even if you are injured or partially incapacitated.

Shooting two or three might be enough to send the rest fleeing, but you cannot be certain of that and must be prepared to shoot each and every person attacking you. Again, your goal is to stop them, to save your life. When they stop, you stop, but in this situation, you should immediately seek protection from any other potential attackers. The alternative is to place yourself at the mercy of those who have no mercy. Get to a place of safety and call your attorney and then the police.

SCENARIO #2: Driving out of the Fair in your car, you see a crowd of 5-10 people savagely beating someone who is on the ground, absorbing terrible punishment. You have a choice: watch in horror, turn your head and drive away, or intervene. Even if you could call the police, they could not possibly arrive in time to prevent the maiming or death of the victim.

If you choose to intervene, you need not shout warnings, but it would be a great idea to yell something clear and consistent such as "stop hitting him," "don't move," or "stop hitting him or I'll shoot." As they are clearly putting that person in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death, as the next blow could be the blow that inflicts that injury or causes their death, you may shoot to stop the assault. If necessary, you may shoot them in the back. This isn't a prize fight, and as the thugs will observe no rules, you will observe only the rules that apply to the use of deadly force, which do not require you to wait until a killer presents a range-perfect frontal silhouette prior to shooting. Waiting for a such a perfect silhouette might also indicate to a jury that you weren't really engaged in a split-second life or death struggle, but had the time to align potential targets before shooting.

Again, if shooting one of them stops the assault, great. But if not, you shoot at many as necessary to stop the assault.

SCENARIO #3: Waiting behind other vehicles while driving out of the Fair in your car, you are surrounded by a group of 5-10 people who scream racial threats, kick and beat your vehicle and appear to be trying to break in your windows. Your doors are locked and your windows are holding—for the moment. Are you and your family in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death?

If it is possible for you to immediately drive off, that would be the smart thing to do, even if one or more of the attackers is foolish enough to be in your way at that time. Remember that when behind the wheel of your car, you are in control of a deadly weapon—a weapon far more dangerous and deadly than any handgun--capable of mowing down everyone in your path.

This situation is somewhat problematic. The moment one of the thugs breaks a window, it would certainly be reasonable to believe that they intend to carry out their express and implied threats. Yes, it's annoying that they are damaging your vehicle, perhaps humiliating you in front of your wife and children, but cars can be repaired and feelings soothed, killing lasts forever. Certainly when they break into the car, and the moment they begin reaching for or striking occupants of the vehicle, the factors for the use of deadly force are present. However, even then you, sitting behind the wheel of a vehicle, unable to easily respond to threats in any direction, are at a distinct tactical disadvantage. The best possible option is using your vehicle to escape, so long as innocents aren't endangered. If any of your attackers find themselves inspecting the tread of your tires from close range, too bad. If not, shoot to stop, not only individuals, but the gang, as necessary. Remember that when they are stopped, you stop. You do not shoot people who are clearly running away or who have clearly stopped placing you or others in jeopardy. Escape to safety and only then call your attorney and then the police.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I've covered only the bare bones of the issues here. Being involved in any shooting surrounded by people is a nightmare. What if you miss and strike an innocent? What if one of your rounds penetrates one of your attackers and hits an innocent? There are an infinite number of what ifs involved in such situations, which is why it is always smartest for anyone carrying a concealed weapon to be so attuned to their surroundings that they avoid potentially dangerous places and situations.

However, even for the most prepared, avoidance or even escape are not always possible. Sometimes, you must be prepared to stand and fight, for if you are not prepared, if you can't fight, you or those you loved may be maimed or killed.

There are certainly those in Wisconsin—and elsewhere—who will examine the attacks at the State Fair and conclude that it was fortunate that no one there had a handgun, that everyone lacked the means to defend their lives. There are others, and I would assert that these are the citizens who are responsible and rational, who will see these attacks as clear evidence of the wisdom and necessity of being able and prepared to protect our lives and those of our loved ones.

Statists would also oppose a Castle Doctrine law, for it would give too much power to the individual. It would allow honest citizens to kill vicious criminal attackers and avoid being sued when those thugs were transformed in death into virtual saints. If the innocent can do that, the foundation of the statist worldview—the lives of individuals have value only in direct proportion to their utility to the state; they have no intrinsic value—crumbles. The law abiding would see the primary provisions of the Castle Doctrine as a logical extension of the right to self-defense.

Evil exists. The non-statist citizens of Wisconsin are now, perhaps, more aware of that never-changing, eternal reality.

Making The Grade

I just didn't expect it this early. I mean, Gov. Rick Perry (R) of Texas has not yet actually placed himself in the running for the 2012 Presidential race, so perhaps it's a bit premature for the Left (I was going to say the Media, but what's the difference?) to attack him. But then again, it's a different world these days, except when it's not.

By that I mean that one of the most tried and true Leftist attacks is to brand any Republican stupid, usually as evidenced by his SAT score or his undergraduate grades in college some 30-40 years ago. This particularly Leftist cannon has already been fired at Mr. Perry with the claim that he received a C or D or three in some of his undergraduate classes at Texas A & M, which college must, to any sophisticated journalist, surely consist of a pothole-filled dirt road leading to an outhouse and a renovated fried chicken restaurant.

Well, return with me now Gentle Readers to those thrilling days of yesteryear when Sen. John Kerry (D, N. Vietnam/Jane Fonda) was running against George W. Bush, both graduates of sainted Yale. The Left ran the usual academic attacks against Mr. Bush, representing him as an accented Texas dolt with a C or D or three in some of his undergraduate classes. Boy, wasn't that good for a few laughs around the more chic bistros frequented by the self-appointed elite? Well yes, until that is, it was revealed that Mr. Kerry's grades within those ivy-covered walls were even lower. Ooops. Suddenly that line of attack more or less disappeared as the attacks on the Swift Boat Vets—for daring to attack Mr. Kerry by stooping to revealing his actual record (such as his smiling portrait on the walls of the North Vietnamese War Museum shaking hands with equally smiling Communist murderers)—ramped up.

Now we have Governor Perry, a man with a long record of actual accomplishment and success in such insignificant endeavors as running a business and creating a climate conducive to jobs and economic growth, compared to the diametrically opposed record of Mr. Obama whose economic policy consists primarily of saying: "it's George W. Bush's fault! Nyaaah!"

"Oh yeah?" Say Obama sycophants and the press (but I repeat myself). "Perry got Cs and Ds at some no-name school in some backward, red state where everybody marries their sister—or something. So there! Nyaaah!"

Very well. Let's see Mr. Obama's grades then. In fact, let's see his undergraduate and graduate transcripts so that we can see not only which intellectually demanding courses he took, but how the most brilliant human being (a man who was actually able to swat a fly!) ever to walk the Earth fared. This information is currently classified somewhere above top secret in a classification so secret that no one, not even Mr. Obama, knows what it is. Wouldn't it be simple fairness for Americans to see Mr. Obama's brilliance? Wouldn't it be best to spread the grades around, so to speak? If Mr. Obama's supporters publicize Mr. Perry's grades, why shouldn't Americans expect to see Mr. Obama's grades?

How about it Mr. Obama? To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, a man whose words you seem more than willing to misuse: "Mr. Obama, tear down this wall behind which your grades hide!"

D O W N G R A D E D

Voting to give yourself more credit does not solve your spending problem. Any kid knows this, but Congress and the President thought they played by other rules.

They were wrong.

As a result, Standard and Poor's has downgraded the U.S. economy (PDF), marking this moment as the first time our nation's credit has ever been downgraded.

Further, S&P indicated that conditions for a further downgrade were possible in 12-18 months.

If you aren't sure what that means, let me translate it into more practical terms, when I compare it to the economic equivalent of an ELE.

If Obama really did intend to Cloward-Piven the United States intentionally, he has done so masterfully. We've just become the Nicolas Cage of world economies.

Great job, "elites."

You got the hope and change you were looking for.

Nation of Communists Awards Obama His Own Stamp

He has, after all, carried out their policy agenda for the United States better than even Putin could.

Here in the U.S. we're also thinking of commemorating the President's birthday, and I think we agree on the perfect product to bear his name.

"Shovel ready," indeed.

Another Nekkid Yankee Democrat Resigns Over Nude Photos

This time, a New Jersey Democrat, who claims he was "tricked" and says he may pursue legal action against the man who posted the pictures.

At least he wasn't dressed as a tiger.

Liberal Flash Cards

Times Columnist: Gee, those Tea Party Types are Just Like al Qaeda, Aren't They?

Joe Nocera, apparent survivor of literally thousands of Tea Party assassination attempts, bombings, beheadings, states that the real threat to the Republic is the, uh, American people:

You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them.

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that's what it took.

Unfortunately for Mr. Nocera, he and the rest of Amy Winehouse Left don't grasp basic principles most of us figured out in elementary school.

• You don't solve your cash flow problems by raising your credit limit. That only makes your inevitable bankruptcy that much more traumatic
• You don't cure an addiction by feeding it

The Tea Party legislators that the Times would like to portray as radicals and terrorists are in fact the only adults in the room. The GOP in general and the Democratic Party in it's totality are committed to making our debt crisis worse by raising the debt limit, ensuring that the government will spend more money that it does not have, driving us deeper into debt and closer to an all but inevitable default.

It is the professional political class that are the terrorists that threaten to blow the Republic apart, driving a truckload of explosive debt into the heart of the nation.

Instead of trying to head off the debt, Nocera snipes at the brave few who are trying to stop the truck.

Don't be surprised. What else should you expect from a radical leftist government headed by a man mentored by a real terrorist?

I Am A Terrorist?

"Joe Biden and Mike Doyle (D-PA) say so:

We have negotiated with terrorists," an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. "This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money."

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies' misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: "They have acted like terrorists," according to several sources in the room.

Let me tell you something, Mike and Joe.

When I plant a bomb outside your church...

...or kidnap your peers and torture them not for what they know, but purely to cause them the maximum amount of pain, just to send a message...

...or gun down citizens in the streets in a coup d'etat...

...then—and only then—will you have just cause for calling me a terrorist.

Until then, don't confuse your mirror with a window to my soul.

All You Need to Know About the Debt Deal

Only radical idiots think the debt bill accomplished anything.

It put bandage on a malignant cancer, but did nothing to stop its growth or spread.

This was and will continue to be a failure, ensuring an eventual and even greater default.

Debbie Downer Desperately Demagogues as Democratic Descent Deepens

If you don't have a President or a Party or a plan, maybe this is the best she can do:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Wednesday that House Republicans are trying to impose "dictatorship" through their tactics in the debt-ceiling negotiations. She said the GOP rhetoric could "spark panic and chaos," which she called "potentially devastating" to the economy.

The chair telephoned POLITICO to express "significant disappointment in where … Republicans have allowed this debate to degenerate."

Reality must be painful for the reality-based community. Democratic leadership, in the form of the President, is increasingly pathetic, offering no concrete solution of any sort to our budget problems. All Obama has done is whine and stomp his feet that he is unwilling to cut any of the trillions in spending he and his fellow Democrats have added in recent years, while insisting on raising taxes, a move certain to plunge us into a full depression.

Debbie Downer and Harry Reid have likewise offered no leadership or viable budgets, and instead merely snipe at the plans Republicans have offered.

The American people can see that it is the Republican Party, and only the Republican Party, that is offering budget plans. The Democrats are offering nothing but vitriol.

The American people are not blind, as much as the Democrats and media wish they were, and they will respond accordingly in 2012, if not sooner.

Details of the Obama Budget

Norwegian Lessons

By now, most are aware of the murderous rampage in Norway. The killer—who would want his name to be prominently mentioned—is a 32-year-old Norwegian. From what is currently known, he set off a bomb made of fertilizer and fuel oil in Oslo, killing seven, and approximately an hour later, took a boat to Utoya Island, a retreat center accessible only by helicopter or boat. Dressed in a police uniform, he called many of the youngsters on the island at a summer retreat to him and opened fire, eventually killing 86 and wounding—at the bombing and on the island--more than 90. His rampage was stopped when he was shot—he survived--by a police SWAT team, but it took approximately 90 minutes from the first shot until the police were able to find transportation and travel to the island.

His weapons have been variously described as a "machine pistol," an "automatic weapon and a pistol," and various other imprecise, uninformed media formulations. There was immediate speculation that the attack was another Jihadist outrage, which these days is far from an unreasonable assumption, but it seems that this attack was most similar to that in Tucson: the act of an evil man, acting alone in response to whatever demons pursued him.

The first question that usually comes to mind—or at least to the minds of the media—is: why? Why did this person do what he did? Is he a member of a favored victim group? Were his grievances—if they align with the favored socialist/statist narrative—legitimate, even understandable, or was he a "right wing extremist?" If so, not only is he to blame but any who might share any portion of his assumed political beliefs is also to blame, and yes, Sarah Palin has already been implicated.

The first question that usually comes to the minds of many politicians is: how can I use this to my advantage? This is particularly true of those who seek to increase the power of the state and suppress the freedom of individuals, men like Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel who endeavor to never allow a crisis to go to waste—when it can be cynically exploited for political gain.

If I was truly cynical—and I am, for Lily Tomlin was right when she said that no matter how cynical you get, you can't keep up—I'd be tempted to observe that the Obama Administration would immediately try to export illegally purchased American firearms to Norway, or that it would be discovered that they already had. Stranger things have indeed happened, have they not?

But for the time being, as we wait to learn the actual, as opposed to assumed, facts, our time would be best served by considering what can be learned from this latest massacre. I'll provide only three primary lessons, though there are surely more.

(1) Gun free zones are deadly. In this case, the entire nation of Norway is essentially a citizen disarmament zone. Even though many Norwegians own firearms, even the police do not routinely carry handguns. Utoya island was very much like American schools: isolated, vulnerable, and completely unarmed. In school attacks, and in the attack on Utoya Island, the final body count will depend on the lack of marksmanship and the humanity of the killer(s), who will be stopped only by the intervention of armed police. Even in America, it takes far longer for the police to respond to such attacks than most people realize. When seconds count, it will take the police tens of minutes to arrive and longer to react. On Utoya Island, the killer—exploiting a dream Socialist gun-free zone--had approximately 90 minutes to roam the island at will, killing at a truly leisurely pace.

In America and Norway, the Left is delighted to "send messages" and to express what they imagine to be moral superiority by declaring certain places to be "gun-free." They see such posturing as an important and meaningful accomplishment in and of itself. They are incapable of seeing, or accepting, that criminals care nothing for the laws they establish, and that while preparing for the mass murder of children, gun-free zone signs are not only not a deterrent, but a guarantee that they will be able to kill without impediment. In a very real sense, the murders on Utoya Island are the ultimate expression of the gun-free zone.

(2) Evil exists. The left sees all things through a political lens. All motivations, all meaning may be found in political ideology. Socialist/Statist/Leftist ideology is infallible, so it can never be mistaken. It can never be wrong. Any problems along the way must be attributable to the existence of Conservatism, which keeps Socialism from working properly, or to the fact that not enough time has passed for a given Socialist policy to work properly, or as in the case of gun control issues, insufficient Socialism has been applied. Not until all firearms are in the loving hands of the state can the state protect individual citizens, despite the fact that the state has no obligation—or intention—to protect individual citizens.

Because all is political, morality—to the small degree that leftists recognize its existence, exists only in service to the preferred political narrative. Concepts such as good and evil have no meaning unless they are politically useful, such as evil being applied to those who oppose righteous Socialist policy, which is inherently good.

This mindset inevitably leads to the search for motivations, causes acceptable to the Socialist political narrative. In the case of the Norwegian killer, much of the media has already branded him a "right-wing Christian Fundamentalist." To the Leftist media, no greater insult, no more damning sign of politically incorrect guilt, is possible. Yet even this epithet denies the existence of evil. To the Left, evil resides in the fact that the killer is right wing, Christian, and even worse, a "fundamentalist," whatever that might mean in this context. In a nation as far left as Norway, even those with slightly left of center political views might be considered irredeemable rightists.

One need not be a Christian to believe in evil, for evil is manifested most meaningfully in acts, not words. The most revealing evidence of evil in despotism is not in the despot's writings and pronouncements, but in the millions of innocents they slaughter. On Utoya Island, the killer dressed as a policeman, and knowing that kids would not be alarmed by an armed policeman, called them to gather around him and betrayed their trust in the loving state by shooting them. He spent 90 minutes, taking his time, calmly walking about the island and shooting everyone he could find, killing 86 and wounding a great many more. He reloaded multiple times. If this was not evil, evil has no meaning.

No motivation need be sought. No political arguments need be made. No one need be blamed except the killer himself and the author of all evil. Evil exists to destroy and cares nothing for politics except to whatever degree politics and those who live by them may be twisted to enable destruction of God's greatest gift: life.

(3) One indisputable fact remains: If a single, capable innocent on that island was armed, the killer could have been stopped and nearly two hundred children would not have been wounded or killed. Life could have been preserved and evil defeated. Evil cannot be appeased or reasoned with; it must be confronted and destroyed.

This was not possible because of what Socialists would surely consider one of their greatest accomplishments, an achievement they would see as indisputable evidence of more advanced evolution, of more enlightened humanity: the more or less complete disarmament of an entire nation, including its police.

The media and Norwegian and American politicians sharing the same political and social views will be unable and unwilling to recognize or accept this final, simple truth. They will argue instead for even more disarmament of the law-abiding and innocent, and the suppression of political ideas with which they disagree, even in a country that has no First or Second Amendments, for all must be made to serve the narrative.

We often rhetorically and cynically observe that someone is going to have to die before something is done. Ninety-three are dead and the Left is incapable of learning the painfully obvious, necessary lessons. The best the left can do, the best it will ever be able to do, is to call the killer a right-wing fundamentalist Christian—which to them says nearly everything--and blame Sarah Palin, which says the rest.

The Obama Zone

Let's take a journey, a journey into a dimension of self-delusion and inattention, a dimension of false hope and unwanted change. We're taking a trip to: The Obama Zone!

Consider these excerpts from a piece by Mike Allen at Politico via Jim Geraghty at National Review (via me):

"FLY ON THE WALL: Fifty of the most prized donors in national politics, including several hedge-fund billionaires who are among the richest people in the world, schlepped to a Manhattan office or hovered around speakerphones Tuesday afternoon [July 19, 2011] as their host, venture capitalist Ken Langone (pronounced LAN-goan), a co-founder of The Home Depot, implored New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to reconsider and seek the GOP presidential nomination…"

"Langone backed Rudy Giuliani in 2008, and his guests came from both parties, although most were moderate Republicans. Most are uncommitted in the presidential race. Participants who rank on the Forbes list of richest Americans included Bernie Marcus, Paul Tudor Jones (hedge funds; $3.3 billion), Stan Druckenmiller (hedge funds; $2.5 billion) and Bernie Marcus (Home Depot; $1.9 billion). Several of them said: I’m Republican but I voted for President Obama, because I couldn’t live with Sarah Palin. Many said they were severely disappointed in the president. The biggest complaint was what several called “class warfare.” They said they didn’t understand what they had done to deserve that: If you want to have a conversation about taxation, have a conversation. But a president shouldn’t attack his constituents — he’s not the president of some people, he’s president of all the people…"

Can you can sing, without error in note or lyric, the theme from Gilligan's Island? If, like me, you can, then you remember Thurston Howe III and his wife, Lovey. Howe III was billed as "the millionaire" ("and his wife") in the opening ditty. Now, of course, millions are little more than pocket change. Like Dr. Evil awakening after decades and trying to extort a million dollars, it seems innocent and quaint in our world of debts so large their adjectives defy the imagination. What does a trillion of anything look like anyway?

But on Gilligan's Island and in America today, the very rich are very different. They must be very different—almost alien--for how else can Allen's report make the slightest sense? I don't mean that they always wear ascots, yachting caps and blazers and talk as though their jaws are wired shut like Thurston Howe III. I'm talking about altered perceptions; very altered perceptions.

People who were paying attention during the 2008 campaign must have been aware of:

(1) Mr. Obama's ranking as the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate, to the left even of Bernie Sanders, the only self-identified Socialist in the Congress. In a Congress controlled by Democrats, leaning further left than any in recent memory that was quite an accomplishment.

(2) Mr. Obama's inadvertent bit of honesty in telling Joe The Plumber that he thought "spreading the wealth around" was a good thing.

(3) Mr. Obama's fervent desire to ensure that energy prices should "necessarily skyrocket."

(4) Mr. Obama's threat to bankrupt the coal industry.

(5) This charming off-the-teleprompter rant: "We can’t drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we’re living in the desert or we’re living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world’s energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we’ll be fine. Don’t worry about us. That’s not leadership."

(6) Mr. Obama's close association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, proponent of Black Liberation Theology the foundation of which is militant Marxism.

(7) The fact that Mr. Obama had no business or real world experience at all.

(8) A wide variety of comments and indicators revealing Mr. Obama's compulsion to tax, particularly the wealthy.

(9) The use, by Mr. Obama and his surrogates, of Socialist terms like "social justice," and "redistributive change."

(10) Mr. Obama's often stated promise to "fundamentally change America."

I could extend the list virtually to infinity, but the question remains: how could these people have been surprised by anything Barack Obama has done? I have to believe that most of them are not old money. They made their money in the real world, paying bills, making payroll, working with actual people, God and gun clinging people who live in Flyover Country. They understand that without the free enterprise system and democracy, they would immediately find themselves the victims of the redistributive change and social justice built into Mr. Obama's DNA. So how did they overlook in 2008 what is now so obvious in 2011? Unlike Thurston Howe III, they don't have the excuse of being marooned on a desert island for years.

And I'm afraid the referees have ruled the Sarah Palin excuse out of bounds. Apart from Bush 43, virtually every President has treated the Vice Presidency as though it was, in the words of FDR's VP, Texan John Nance Garner: "not worth a bucket of warm spit."

It never occurred to these people that Mr. Obama would not be business-friendly? They were unaware that Marxism and Socialism are all about class warfare and inherently hostile to democracy, capitalism and America? Did they think that when Mr. Obama repeatedly and fervently promised to fundamentally change America that he was talking about changing the color of blue jeans? Presumably these people are intelligent, or did people simply give them billions because they had kind faces?

Perhaps, having been slapped in their respective well-heeled faces by hope and change, they are now firmly living in the real world, in our normal, capitalistic, democratic, American dimension. And in that world, three things don't change: death, taxes and Barack Obama's socialistic designs on America. Hopefully, this time they'll put their money where reality is.

What Can A Man Of Barack Obama's Experience Accomplish? Part II

What Can A Man of Barack Obama's Experience Accomplish? Part II.

Links To Referenced Stories/Videos In This Article:

(1) For an article about Mr. Obama's only executive experience, go here.

(2) For a video of Jack Cashill explaining why Mr. Obama did not write his first book, go here.

Mr. Obama's only executive experience was his years (1995-1999) as head—appointed by unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers—of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization set up to disburse tens of millions ostensibly to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged Chicago children. Despite blowing through a truly huge sum (more than $100 million in only four years), Mr. Obama accomplished—according to the study of the aftermath by the Annenberg Foundation—absolutely nothing but wasting more than $100 million dollars of other people's money. It is not known if Mr. Obama knew that this was vital training for his future, but he obviously did not want anyone to know about his only executive experience, and despite the fact that the press did know about it during the 2008 campaign, it was not reported. Apparently pants creases and leg tingles override fiscal irresponsibility far more than was previously understood.

Mr. Obama has identified himself as a "constitutional law professor" at the University of Chicago, but he was actually listed as a "senior lecturer" during his brief tenure. The best evidence indidcates that the school was ordered to find Mr. Obama office space and to give him a class to teach. In academia, "professor" is the highest academic rank, normally awarded only to tenured teachers after many years of experience and many successful publications. Mr. Obama has none of these qualifications, and never went through the necessary process of being awarded professor rank.

Despite earning academic credentials in the law, there is no evidence that Mr. Obama worked for any appreciable period of time as a practicing attorney. He may be reasonably called a lawyer by virtue of having a law degree, but he apparently never kept offices, met a payroll, hung out a shingle, or even worked as a regularly salaried attorney for government. Instead, most of his post-Harvard days were occupied with his "work," as a community organizer.

In his own autobiographical writings, Mr. Obama admitted that he could not explain to even his closest friends what a community organizer actually did. The job apparently was self-appointed and had no salary or benefits, yet we know that it consisted, in part, of teaching "leadership training seminars" for ACORN—photographs exist of him doing just that, and ACORN leaders acknowledged it—despite his statements that he did no such thing (normal folks call this "lying"). Like much of the rest of his past, whatever accomplishments Mr. Obama made in organizing communities—whatever that might be--remain ephemeral.

There is considerable evidence, particularly that provided by Jack Cashill, that Mr. Obama did not write his books. In fact, given a substantial advance to write his first book—a remarkable accomplishment for a minor political figure and a first time author with no experience at all--Mr. Obama could produce nothing, yet was allowed to keep the advance. It is also known that he gave all the materials of his unfinished book to Bill Ayers, and lo and behold, the book is very much in the style of Ayers, whose writings—unlike those of Mr. Obama—are available for comparison. Yet we are expected to believe that a man who produced no academic or legal writing, no known writing at all, was capable, suddenly, of producing two hot-selling autobiographies. As a teacher of writing, I can affirm that the chance of such a thing occurring is vanishingly small. Writing, like any other human skill, takes talent and many years of effort and practice, which prior to the publication of his books Mr. Obama apparently never demonstrated. The ability to haltingly read from a teleprompter and the ability to write a book are two very different things.

Mr. Obama's election to the Illinois Senate was made possible when he knocked his mentor and primary opponent off the ballot. In that role he distinguished himself as one of the most liberal members of a very liberal body. His US Senate campaign was a case of déjà vu in that his primary Republican opponent bowed out of the race after sealed court documents relating to his divorce were mysteriously released to the press. Elected to the US Senate by the only state that still refuses to allow its citizens any means of carrying concealed weapons, Mr. Obama spent two years primarily running for president, yet still managed to be ranked as the most leftist member of the US Senate, to the left even of the Senate's only declared Socialist. His record of accomplishment in both bodies—scores of "present" votes aside--is essentially nonexistent.

It was during the 2008 campaign that Americans were introduced to what is arguably the most insupportably inflated ego in American history. All politicians need healthy egos. Mr. Obama makes the worst of them look like models of humility and mental health.

When he won the Democrat nomination, he modestly announced that history would record that event as the moment that the seas began to retreat and the planet began to heal. Most people would not be capable of thinking of themselves in such grandiose terms, and fewer would dare to say such a thing. Clearly, Mr. Obama is not restrained by the ethical concerns of mere men.

For a short time, until wiser heads prevailed, he began to speak behind a pseudo-presidential Great Seal of Obama. His campaign posters adopted the style and tone of Communist-era propaganda, becoming, for Americans unaware of the murderous history of Communism (or perhaps very aware), as iconographic as a Che poster. Upon election, he established the "office" and seal of the President-Elect of the United States, despite the fact that the Constitution, to say nothing of precedent, establishes no such office. His studied rejection of the Constitution revealed by these—and more-- exercises in self-glorification were merely warnings of things to come.

Real leaders never have to remind anyone of their rank or position. They know that those who feel compelled to do that are not leaders. For real leaders, it's simply not necessary. For Mr. Obama, it has been constantly necessary. In fact, he not only began his term in office as a non-leader, he and his spokespeople now seem particularly proud of his newly discovered concept of "leading from behind," which is demonstrative of even less leadership than not leading at all. For the real world—as opposed to Obama World—leading from behind is perhaps the most self-contradictory statement known to man. Real leaders would think anyone espousing such utter nonsense a fool.

One several occasions, Mr. Obama told Congressmen and Senators "I won." In a congressional meeting, he told Senator John McCain that the election was over, obviously making that point that since he won, there was no need for discussion; his way was the only way. This man of superior temperament often appear to be ready to blow sky high. He seems to be genuinely stumped and frustrated when others do not immediately accept anything he says as revealed truth and genius.

On notable occasions, he has invited guests to his speeches, such as the Supreme Court and Rep. Paul Ryan, seated them prominently, and then lied about their positions and actions and publically berated them. Such behavior demonstrates an extraordinary smallness of spirit, a lack of common courtesy and manners, and a streak of petty meanness. Embracing all Americans requires sincere respect for them and their views. Mr. Obama shows only contempt for those who do not slavishly praise his every utterance.

Mr. Obama's mistreatment and serial insults of our most staunch allies, such as Britain and Israel, and his betrayal of the Eastern Europeans have become the stuff of legend, as has his appeasement of and weakness toward our most virulent enemies. He even hesitated for a day in authorizing our military to take out Osama Bin Laden, a day turned into two days by adverse weather, time that could have blown the mission. Some presidents grow in office. They learn that their most cherished beliefs must be altered in the face of reality. Not Barack Obama, who seems to believe that reality must bend to accommodate him.

Mr. Obama seems able to respond to crisis only be means of speech making, which means teleprompter reading. Despite being lauded as an incredibly inspiring and gifted speaker he is at best, average. As a teacher of college speech, I would allow him no more than a C. His speeches are full of straw men and false choices. They are consistently characterized by misrepresentations and even blatant lies. His rhythms are halting, determined by his ability to read from the teleprompter screens as his head constantly turns right-left-right-left, causing odd and unnatural pauses in the middle of phrases and clauses. His pitch and volume consistently drop off the tabletop at the ends of sentences, causing the loss of final consonants. Rather than employing logic and compelling argument, he employs insults and ridicule of any who disagree with him. Such serial failings are not characteristic of an exceptional speaker.

Worse still is that his speeches are, as Texans would say: "All hat, no cattle." There are no specifics, no real proposals, nothing that would indicate precisely what he intends to do. There are only broad platitudes, partisan exhortations, appeals to high-sounding aspirations and vague values. Mr. Obama seems to believe that the American people want nothing so much as to hear yet another speech from him. He actually seems to think that when he speaks, reality changes to comport with his desires, or perhaps that reality is his desires. Fortunately, many Americans are beginning to catch on. They realize that if they've heard one Obama speech, they've heard them all, and they're equally uninformed.

And so we arrive at the present, at the debt ceiling negotiations, after Mr. Obama has increased the national debt to 25% of GDP, exceeding the height reached during WWII. The only budget proposal Mr. Obama has submitted had only one feature: boundless spending far into the future. It was so unrealistic, so out of bounds with even the free-spending, unlimited taxation ways of Congressional democrats that not a single one voted to support it; not one. Yet Mr. Obama wants what he wants and expects that he can talk Americans into giving it to him. After all, everyone has always given him whatever he wanted in the past. They have always praised him as being beyond the understanding and abilities of mere mortals. Why should things be different today?

Things are different because, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher's canny observation on the ultimate problem of Socialism, we have run out of other people's money. Margaret Thatcher, a real leader, understood such things. Mr. Obama, who leads from behind, cannot and will not.

What more should we expect of a man with no apparent past, with no experience holding down a responsible job, only one miserably failed executive experience, no legislative accomplishment, and whose only solution to any crisis is rhetoric? What can we expect of a man whose only firm principles seem to be unremitting class envy and warfare, hatred of America, reflexive appeasement of her enemies and contempt for her allies, disdain for the Constitution, and an unshakable commitment to control the lives of Americans to the maximum extent imaginable, and to raise any and every tax possible while spending more money than exists?

For such a man, there is no compromise large enough, no tax large enough, nor any expenditure large enough. One might almost be tempted to think that when Barack Obama said that he was going to "fundamentally change" America, he really meant that he intended to destroy it. That is likely the only thing a man of his experience is truly capable of doing.

Fair and Balanced With Political Donations, Too

Unlike, say, every other media company on the planet.

Political donations by News Corp., its employees and their families were evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with President Obama the all-time leading recipient, according to a report from the Sunlight Foundation.

The transparency watchdog noted Tuesday that Democrats received 51 percent of contributions while Republicans received 49 percent, despite the firm's highly publicized links to the GOP, such as a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association in August.

The donation balance seems to also carry over to legitimately balanced coverage of news events, which no doubt explains the popularity of their print and broadcast news outlets.

Wow: Ninth Circus Says Call for Obama's Assassination is Free Speech

I consider myself a free speech advocate as much as the next guy, but I never felt comfortable with calls for assassination being considered protected speech, and trust me, I've seen a lot of it... just on signs at lefty protests during the Bush years.

The ultra-liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagrees:

A divided panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that conviction Tuesday, saying Bagdasarian's comments were "particularly repugnant" because they endorsed violence but that a reasonable person wouldn't have taken them as a genuine threat.

The observation that Obama "will have a 50 cal in the head soon" and a call to "shoot the [racist slur]" weren't violations of the law under which Bagdasarian was convicted because the statute doesn't criminalize "predictions or exhortations to others to injure or kill the president," said the majority opinion written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt.

"When our law punishes words, we must examine the surrounding circumstances to discern the significance of those words' utterance, but must not distort or embellish their plain meaning so that the law may reach them," said the 2-1 ruling in which Chief Judge Alex Kozinski joined but Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw dissented.

The court seems to be saying that the message Walter Bagdasarian communicated wasn't a legitimate threat, and there was therefore not a crime, since a reasonable person should not have inferred that he had the means, motive and opportunity to carry out the threat or equip others to do so.

Am I reading that right?

I guess we can expect to see "Assassinate X with a Y" tee shirts popping up on web sites now.

Wonderful.

What Can A Man of Barack Obama's Experience Accomplish?

The stakes are enormous, even unprecedented, and the facts are clear: Our national debt has reached ruinous, astronomical levels and climbs higher every day. Mr. Obama has spent four trillion dollars in just over two years. The number is so large—and increasing daily--that it has almost no meaning for most Americans, yet Mr. Obama wants to spend much, much more. Virtually no one outside Paul Krugman thinks our current path of spending America into oblivion is remotely rational or sustainable, and even he is beginning to have the tiniest doubts. Moody’s is poised to lower America’s AAA bond rating, which would make it far more expensive to borrow and would almost certainly set off a round or murderous, Carteresque inflation, and that's the best case scenario. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security must be reformed. If ObamaCare is ever fully implemented, it will be sufficient, by itself, to bankrupt the nation, to say nothing about giving the government de facto power to mandate whatever it wants. Our revenues are sufficient to meet our needs, but our spending is completely out of control. If we don’t stop spending far more money than we could ever possibly have, America will go bankrupt, plunging the world into an economic apocalypse.

On one hand we have the Congressional Republicans, many obviously uncomfortable in stepping out of their business as usual comfort zones, but forced by circumstances and reality to actually stand up for no additional taxes and real spending cuts. Yet even so, they’re willing to give up more than two trillion dollars in additional spending, money we don’t have, money we will have to borrow. By any reasonable interpretation of “compromise,” more than two trillion dollars is quite a compromise.

On the other hand we have Barack Obama, President of the United States. Mr. Obama knows the state of the economy. He knows the state of the debt, yet he wants to spend more money than even the most craven politician prior to the advent of The One was capable of imagining. And to do this, he wants to raise taxes to unheard of levels. What is little known is that through ObamaCare and other devices, he has already imposed enormous new taxes that will by themselves drag down an economy seriously weakened by years of wild spending abandon by Democrats. Yes, Republicans helped, but the pubic knows who the real spending addicts are and soundly spanked the Democrats in 2010. Mr. Obama speaks of “a balanced approach,” yet his idea of balance is that the Republicans not only give him everything he wants, they must praise his patience and willingness to compromise—by graciously accepting whatever he demands--as well.

As Fox News reported on July 14 (here), Mr. Obama angrily and petulantly walked out of a recent negotiating session when mere Congressmen and Senators dared oppose his majesty.

“"I've reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this," Mr. Obama angrily exclaimed before storming out of the session.

Thus did Mr. Obama, who promised to unite Americans, who portrayed himself as the great healer, the man who would once again make America loved and respected, demonstrate his superior temperament and boundless intellect. Yet even before that ostentatious display of juvenile temper, Mr. Obama, representing the party that pretends to champion the poor and the elderly, threatened to cut off the social security payments of the poor and the elderly in August if he did not get his way. That'll show 'em who's boss.

Why would the President of the United States behave so…irresponsibly? What, after all, can a man of Barack Obama's experience accomplish?

In one sense, actual experience is irrelevant. The legacy media slavishly supports, even worships Mr. Obama. Even when he recently cut off White House Press Pool access (here) to debt ceiling negotiations because he was angered that the press wasn't appropriately respectful, they took the scolding of Press Secretary Jay Carney and wrote the usual puff pieces blaming everyone but Barack Obama, as usual, following the lead of the man who obviously abhors them.

There is no doubt that the press has supported and defended Mr. Obama like the useful idiots he certainly considers them to be. There is also no doubt that they will continue to support the man in whom they have placed all their hopes, the demi-god they worship. Google "Obama Halo" and you'll find innumerable examples of Mr. Obama given a halo, and not by one press outlet, not by a handful, but by too many to count. Such mindless, incurious fealty is very valuable to any politician, and particularly those with monumental delusions of grandeur.

Placing a halo around the head of a political figure may, to the media, be very symbolic, seemingly making them special, important, even deities. Perhaps they even believe that the God and gun clingers of Flyover Country would embrace such imagery, and therefore take to heart their word. The truth, of course, is that Christians find such mindless trivialization of the holy to be insulting, even blasphemous.

The most egregious and insulting example of this kind of false idol worship is the Easter 2010 New York Times image of the White House at the base of a cross, with Barack Obama, obviously speaking (giving a sermon?) superimposed in profile over the cross. It would be hard to imagine an image that Christians would find more abhorrent and disgusting.

As far as is known, Mr. Obama has not commissioned such images, but anyone with any knowledge of photography viewing these images understands that many are obviously posed, and posing requires the cooperation of the subject of the photography. Is it possible that the most brilliant man ever to occupy the Oval Office had no idea what all those photographers were doing? Has he never seen their photographs? It is also noteworthy that Mr. Obama has never—to my knowledge—made a public plea that such crude attempts at Newsweek-like deification cease. There is, in fact, reason to believe that Mr. Obama sees himself as more than man.

There is considerable reason to believe that the press, the press that called Obama a god, that was awe-struck by his superhuman ability to swat a fly, that felt tingles run up their legs at the mere thought of The One, and thought that he would be an excellent president because of the crease in his pants leg will be every bit as taken with him in 2012 as they were in 2008, perhaps more.

Stephen Marche, writing in a July 12, 2011 Esquire article, proclaimed Mr. Obama's narrative to be ancient, literary, the story of a modern Odysseus or Gilgamesh, a man of historic import and accomplishment.

According to Marche, Mr. Obama is more than man: he is myth. He is a legendary literary hero for the ages, and Marche lays out a list of characteristics of literary greatness to better illustrate his timeless narrative and glory. It is almost impossible to fully explain the delusional, drooling man-love Marche displays. However, it is frighteningly familiar to those who understand history and Communism. It is the cult of personality worship enforced in totalitarian nations like North Korea and Cuba. You really need to read it yourself. But here's a representational excerpt:

"We can finally see who he is, we can finally understand the reality: In 2011, it is possible to be a levelheaded, warmhearted, cold-blooded killer who can crack a joke and write a book for his daughters. It is possible to be many things at once. And even more miraculous, it is possible for that man to be the president of the United States. Barack Obama is developing into what Hegel called a "world-historical soul," an embodiment of the spirit of the times. He is what we hope we can be.

We love Obama — even those who claim to despise him — because deep in our hearts and all over our lives, we're the same way — both inside and outside our jobs, our races, our cities, our countries, ourselves. With great artists, often the most irritating feature of their work is the source of their talent. Obama's gift is the same as his curse: He's somehow managed to be like the rest of us, only infinitely more so."

Such psychosis cannot be parodied. If we endeavor only to be honest, we most certainly do not hope to be what Mr. Obama is. Fortunately, for those who are willing to acknowledge that Barack Obama is a mere mortal, there is compelling evidence that he is far more mortal and fallible than most.

Consider this: If anyone wished to discover the salient facts of your life, how hard would it be to find them? Would it not be easy to discover where you lived, where you went to school, your grades, where you worked? Wouldn't a relatively simple search turn up friends, neighbors, co-workers who would know a great deal about you? If you attended college, and particularly graduate school, wouldn't it be easy to find fellow students who could recount anecdotes about your time with them in innumerable classes? If you were a professional in a profession that required publication, wouldn't there be evidence of your writings, of your beliefs and values?

For normal people, all of this, and more would be easily found for in our paths, we leave behind innumerable records, records we're not even aware are being kept. I have little doubt that a search could reveal where I went to school in the third grade and my grades for that year. It would reveal where I lived and when, and my college classmates could certainly tell a story or two about me, and my grades in college could easily be found. But little or none of this is true about Barack Obama.

Normally, such anomalies, such missing stretches of time, the chronicle of existence, would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull to a professional, competent press, but they have been remarkably uninterested in the background of The One, and with good reason. They don't want to find what they know they would find. They don't want to have to report that the President of the United States is the least qualified, least capable, most fraudulent, and most narcissistic and arrogant man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Mr. Obama's college years are shrouded in mystery. His grades are unavailable. There seems to be no one who remembers him from his undergraduate years, at least not with the kind of memories one would expect of someone who shared the college experience with a superior being in the process of becoming. Perhaps this is because in his two autobiographies (as I recall, Benjamin Franklin satisfied himself with one) Mr. Obama notes that he consciously hung out with the radical—far, far left—elements in college, which is not exactly prime material for a presidential campaign bio.

At Harvard, Mr. Obama was awarded the presidency of the Law Review on the strength of his performance as Barack Obama, yet apparently produced no legal scholarship. At the least, none of it, or any of his work in college or graduate school at Harvard, has ever been revealed. Those who remember him recall that he occasionally stopped by the offices of the Law Review to allow others the thrill and inspiration of his presence, but apparently did no actual work. In a pattern that would eventually become practice, he led from so far behind that there remains not a trace of his leadership. There are no tales of his budding legal genius, no indicators of great promise to come in trial competitions or debates, none of the indicators and milestones one would expect of virtually anyone taking Mr. Obama's educational path. Odd for a man acclaimed by the press as one of the greatest orators in American history, a declamatory genius to rival Abraham Lincoln, with whom Mr. Obama has often compared himself.

Part II of this article will be posted on Saturday, July 23. It begins with Mr. Obama's only executive experience, his years heading the Chicago Annenberg challenge. It was a complete failure.

BREAKING: Brian Ross Treated as Biased Hacks Should Be Treated

The arrogant little carp was man-handled by security today as he tried to badger Rep. Michelle Bachmann after an event in South Carolina.

I've long documented the dishonesty of Ross, both in terms of agenda-driven bias and factual ignorance. He is very driven, which is a plus for an investigative reporter, but considering his propensity for hackish, agenda-driven reporting, I wouldn't let him anywhere near my candidate either.

Something's Fishy With This Story

The Daily Caller is running with a hit piece by Jonathan Strong, sensationally claiming that Michelle Bachmann suffers from debilitating migraines and that she engages in "heavy pill use."

And that's just in the headline.

I'm going to get out in front of this one and call "Bullshit."

I am one the few..we lucky few... that has been afforded the opportunity to experience cluster headaches.

They are every bit as much fun as the photo implies, and are worse than migraines (I've had those too, infrequently), and according to women who have experienced both, cluster headaches are worse than childbirth, and allegedly the worse pain a human being can experience. They get the nickname "suicide headaches" for a reason.

I say this only to establish that I know firsthand how debilitating the severest forms of headaches can be, and that leads me to strongly doubt that Bachmann could hold her present job—much less get through the frenzy of the early primaries—without having to cancel numerous appearances and interviews if her headaches were as frequent and intense as the article claims.

I'll be very interested to see how or even if she responds.

Mike Follows-Up:

Michelle Bachman has now engaged in a massive cover-up by telling what appears to be the actual truth (here): She occasionally gets migraine headaches and has prescription medication which effectively deals with them. This would seem to be the kind of media idiocy eruption that has been so common with Sarah Palin who is often accused--in hysterical terms--of saying something accurate and rational.

Migraine headaches can indeed be painful and annoying, but they are--obviously--treatable, and unlike some conditions such as epilepsy, do not prevent people from driving or even piloting aircraft. So if the government does not consider Michelle Bachman unfit to drive a car or pilot aircraft, perhaps she could be allowed to be a practicing attorney, hold public office (hasn't she already done this stuff?), or even--dare I say it?--become President of the United States? After all, a good number of Democrat politicians of the female persuasion are demonstrably bull goose loony, and Mr. Strong doesn't seem worried about them.

Of course, I could be wrong. Mr. Strong, any day, could come up with compelling evidence that various other Republican candidates have hangnails, post nasal drip, indigestion, once expectorated in front of women and children, masticate three times a day, or practice serial monogamy. You don't suppose Mr. Strong will provide the same kind of information about Democrat candidates, do you? Nah. Didn't think so. Considering what Ms. Bachman has accomplished at a relatively young age, most people might find this revelation to be evidence of strong character and determination rather than an impediment to doing what she has already proved herself capable of doing.

Bob was right: this is a fish story, but instead of being about the trophy fish that got away, this one is about the press trying to convince us they've caught a whale while displaying a minnow.

O'Keefe Strikes Again

This time, the goal was investigating Medicare fraud in Ohio, and as usual, they were way over the top.

In the video, the men explain to Ohio Medicaid workers that they are Russian immigrants who sell illegal drugs, drive a modified McLaren F1 sports car with a gold-coated engine, and use their underage sisters to perform sexual favors in exchange for drugs.

No Medicaid employee in their right minds would provide services to drug-dealing, child-pimping foreigners with million-dollar cars. Right?

Wrong.

Chevy Volt Update for 07-18-11

Among the predications I’ve made regarding Chevy’s Volt is that its costs, in general, render it ridiculously uneconomical. Not only does its sky-high MSRP of $41,000 ($33,500 with the federal tax credit) place it outside the consideration of most the population which must buy the car in large numbers in order for it to make the slightest profit, the replacement cost of its battery pack, the life of which no one knows, is at least $8000.00 and possibly more. It’s highly likely to be the most expensive part in any dealer’s parts inventory.

For those interested in reading my scribblings on the Volt, merely enter “Chevy Volt” in the site search window on the CY home page and it will pull up every article and mention. Incidentally, I saw my first Volt a few days ago in its native habitat. It was actually being driven and was apparently owned by an actual person. This is significant in that I live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex, an area--due to its high year-round temperatures--ideal for electric vehicles. It’s also an area with a very large and mobile population, a population whose work commute can easily exceed 100 miles a day. I’ve seen one Volt. Not a good sign for Chevy, particularly considering the likelihood that even at $41,000, Chevy is losing money on every Volt it builds.

But now comes interesting news from Green Auto Blog (here) about a Volt belonging to Cars.Com. It seems that Cars.Com’s long-term test Volt (sounds odd—“test Volt”--no?) was in an accident. And it cost $14,187 to repair. That’s right, nearly half its post-federal tax rebate cost.

Why would it cost so much? We all know that auto repair, and particularly body repair costs are very high, but even more so with the Volt. The Volt requires multiple heat exchangers, engine control electronics far more expensive that those in other vehicles, and a variety of other expensive differences that stuck the vehicle in the repair shop for nine weeks—more than two months. I'm sure that such things are far more expensive due to their rarity as well. It simply costs much more to manufacture 10 items than ten thousand.

Those driving the vehicle at the time of the accident are indeed fortunate that the battery pack was not damaged (apparently it wasn’t; there is no mention of this in the article). Lithium-ion batteries contain substances that must be separated at all times. If they are allowed to combine through even a pinhole, fire and even explosion are the rapid and inevitable consequences. In addition, the battery contains a great deal of electrical power such that it is actually dangerous, even potentially deadly, to the occupants of a wounded Volt, or to unwary first responders. This is true even for mechanics without the proper tools, safety equipment and training.

Hmm. If I was an actuary for an insurance company, I suspect I’d be advising my company to greatly increase the price—and greatly increase the deductible--of any Volt policy. Wouldn’t you?

So to recap:

(1) The Volt sells for $41,000, and as much as $65,000, yet Chevy makes no profit at all on the vehicle.

(2) Some dealers are applying for the $7500 tax credit themselves and selling essentially brand new Volts as used vehicles, for as much as $65,000.

(3) The Volt’s weak gasoline engine requires premium fuel and achieves less fuel economy than a great many conventional vehicles with more flexible and powerful engines that burn regular fuel (Fun Fact: Federal regulations prevent the importation of small, clean burning diesel engines that get 50 MPG or more. Such engines are common in European cars).

(4) Now we learn that repair costs for the Volt greatly exceed conventional vehicles in the same general class.

(5) The Volt’s real world electric range in real world driving conditions is apparently about 25 miles. No one knows how long a Volt battery will last or precisely how much it will cost.

(6) As I reported in prior posts, because of the ridiculously high purchase price, even if the Volt managed 200 MPG in a combination of electric/gas-powered driving, it would be virtually impossible for anyone to break even in fuel savings when compared with the cost of even high-end conventionally powered high mileage vehicles. With more realistic mileage figures, it would take about two decades. When one considers that at least one battery replacement would be mandatory in that time frame, breaking even on operating costs would be impossible. When one considers that very few people ever keep a car for its entire lifetime—and that life span is usually far less than even 10 years—breaking even or saving money is absolutely impossible.

But other than that, the Volt is a great car that will change the world, and everybody should buy one. Hey, if the Federal Government can make you buy a specific light bulb and health insurance, why not a specific car? And as long as the FG actually owns a substantial chunk of Chevy, why not the Volt? As Joe Biden would likely say, it’s the patriotic thing to do!

Added Note: A commenter on my last post on the Volt noted that he has ordered one and expects to be very happy with it, considering it to be superior to the BMW he is currently driving.

I thanked him for his comments, and replied :

"I care not what anyone else drives; they're free to buy what pleases them. This is one of the great things about America. What I am concerned about is the choices made by a company in which I am--through no choice of my own--part owner. In that case, I expect that company to build cars that make a profit. The Volt does not and will not, unless the government so regulates and mandates the free enterprise system that it will no longer be free and none of us will have the choice to buy whichever vehicle pleases us. I suspect that the Volt is part of the vanguard of that Socialist revolution.

By all means, buy one if you please and I hope you enjoy it. But my point remains: The Volt makes no economic sense for virtually all of the American public. No car company can remain in business manufacturing a product like that. The question remains: Why is GM manufacturing a car that not only makes no profit, but probably costs it money, and does not have the infrastructure--which is also ridiculously expensive--to make it even remotely viable? It would seem to have nothing to do with free enterprise and individual choice, would it?"

And this is the primary problem with the Volt. GM is far from sustainably profitable, having avoided a normal bankruptcy proceeding that would have allowed it to reorganize and would have allowed it to renegotiate its union contracts so that it could once again be profitable. Preserving union power and cash, was of course, Mr. Obama's main concern. Preserving the rights of shareholders and creditors and supporting the free enterprise system were not.

The result of this is that people who had legitimate financial stakes in the company were stiffed, wealth was not only not created but thrown away, and the American public will almost certainly take a bath to the tune of tens of billions that GM will never pay back. That and we, the taxpayers, still own $2.1 billion of preferred GM stock and 61% of its common equity. As an unwilling stockholder, I'm a bit concerned by a company building a car that makes not a dime of profit, and probably loses money. Shouldn't every owner of GM be concerned about that?

Contempt Of Cop

The good folks at Pajamas Media have been kind enough to post my most recent article on the police and photography (here). As many of you know, police officers around the nation have been harassing, arresting, even beating innocent citizens for the heinous offense of daring to photograph them in the pursuit of their duties. This article explains why, with some notable exceptions, the police have no such authority. Must reading if you plan to have a camera anywhere near a police officer in the future, even on your own property--you'll see what I mean.

"Don't Call My Bluff"

A real genius, this one.

When Cantor said the two sides were too far apart to get a deal that could pass the House by the Treasury Department’s Aug. 2 deadline — and that he would consider moving a short-term debt-limit increase alongside smaller spending cuts — Obama began to lecture him.

"Eric, don't call my bluff," the president said, warning Cantor that he would take his case "to the American people." He told Cantor that no other president — not Ronald Reagan, the president said — would sit through such negotiations.

First Rule of Bluffing: Don't let the other guy know you are bluffing.

As for taking his case to the people, the people have heard his long-winded, blame-shifting, class-warfare speeches, and like honey badger, we don't care. We know spending must be cut, and that a recession is a horrible time to raise taxes.

It's too bad he can't figure that out.

Somewhere Under The Radar: Importing Hamas

We know that President Obama likes to work “under the radar,” or in a manner that conceals his true intentions from the public, a public unlikely to approve of much of what he does. Most recently, Mr. Obama announced his under the radar work on gun control (here) to Sarah Brady of the Brady Campaign. We even learned that Mr. Obama has a White House “point man” on gun control policy, which certainly lends credence to the idea that he is working surreptitiously on gun control policies apart from the disastrous Gunwalker scandal that the Lamestream Media is now laboring to avoid reporting. The latest fruits of his under the radar gun control work were revealed by Presidential Press Secretary Jay Carney at a July 7th presser (here) where he announced that new gun control initiatives would soon be unveiled.

Days later, they were. Here are the highlights (go here for the story):

(1) A national electronic system designed to make background checks for handgun buyers simpler and faster, leaving an electronic paper trail under a law named for James Brady.

(2) A new reporting requirement that federally licensed gun shops report any person who tries to buy two long-arm weapons near the Mexican border over a five-day period.

(3) Tougher sentencing guidelines for straw buyers that Holder’s department pushed through procedural hoops at the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Another virtually unknown under the radar effort is Mr. Obama’s stalwart work to help terrorist immigrate to the United States. What?! President Obama is helping terrorists to immigrate?! Indeed, since January 27, 2009, and of course, it was done by mandate, not law. Here’s the relevant entry from the Federal Register (link here): February 4, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 22):

“Presidential Documents
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NOTICE: Part II
DOCID: fr04fe09-106
DOCUMENT SUMMARY:

[[Page 6115]]
Presidential Determination No. 2009-15 of January 27, 2009

Unexpected Urgent Refugee and Migration Needs Related To Gaza
Memorandum for the Secretary of State
By the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 2(c)(1) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 (the ``Act''), as amended (22 U.S.C. 2601), I hereby determine, pursuant to section 2(c)(1) of the Act, that it is important to the national interest to furnish assistance under the Act in an amount not to exceed $20.3 million from the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for the purpose of meeting unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs, including by contributions to international, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations and payment of administrative expenses of Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State, related to humanitarian needs of Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.
You are authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.


(Presidential Sig.)
THE WHITE HOUSE,
Washington, January 27, 2009
[FR Doc. E9-2488
Filed 2-3-09; 8:45 am]
Billing code 4710-10-P.”

What does this mean? It’s quite simple; almost as soon as Mr. Obama was sworn in, he allocated $20.3 million dollars to help Palestinians from Gaza immigrate into the United States. He has paid the way—with taxpayer dollars--for God only knows how many Gaza Palestinians to immigrate to America.

But this is about “refugees,” and “humanitarian needs of Palestinian Refugees and Conflict Victims.” Who could object to helping refugees and conflict victims? Anyone with a bit of common sense and a grasp on reality should be objecting.

Despite the media bluster about flotillas trying to deliver “relief supplies” to the horribly oppressed Gaza Palestinians, reality is quite different, and was in January of 2009 as well. Not only are the Israelis daily providing the Palestinians with food water, electrical power, medical care and virtually every other necessity of life, the UN and a wide variety of nations pour billions upon billions into Gaza every year. Oh yes, and the Israelis often intercept arms shipments meant for the “relief” of the oppressed Palestinians. America has also armed and trained their “police.”

The Palestinians are so oppressed that they have been building opulent shopping malls, and lobbing the occasional rocket, mortar round or advanced anti-tank round into Israel for many, many years. Any conflict suffered by the Palestinians in Gaza is entirely of their own making, and when their attacks on Israeli civilians result in Palestinian casualties from Israelis acting in self-defense, they don’t hesitate for a moment to rush their wounded into Israeli hospitals where they receive some of the best care the world has to offer.

Most importantly, Gaza is the home of Hamas, a terrorist organization whose reason for being is Israeli genocide. It gets even better as Hamas has recently joined in a political alliance with Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and is at least as vehemently bloodthirsty in its hopes for Israel as Hamas. Both enjoy considerable support from the largest exporter of Islamic terrorism in the world: Iran. You remember Iran, the country that has accepted Mr. Obama’s outstretched hand—and bitten it off at the elbow while it continues to build nuclear weapons.

This does not, of course, mean that everyone who lives in the Gaza Strip is automatically an Islamist terrorist, but there is no doubt that when you are dealing with a people who name streets and public buildings after suicide bombers and who raise their children to see killing Jews as the greatest pleasure and accomplishment life has to offer, it is highly likely that most people who live there are, at the very least, supportive of Jihadist goals if not willing to actively pursue such goals themselves. It is rather hard for Americans to forget video of Palestinians dancing in the streets in rapturous joy at the news of 9-11, and these are the poor victims of conflict, the refugees Mr. Obama wants to pay to come to America.

This, like so much else, about Mr. Obama is revealing of his beliefs and character. There is more than convincing evidence that he reflexively identifies with and supports America’s enemies, particularly Islamist enemies. In this case, Mr. Obama saw victims and refugees in a part of the world where there are no refugees and the only victims are those created by the Palestinian’s indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks on innocent Israeli citizens. So of course, Mr. Obama felt the necessity to use taxpayer dollars to facilitate the immigration of people who have sworn to destroy Israel, with the United States running a close second in the Islamist demolition derby.

It may be impossible to tell exactly how many actual Hamas sympathizers or terrorists have immigrated under this program, but it is entirely reasonable to believe that some have, and that even one is far too many. This is part of the legacy of Barack Obama.

Any Beltline politician looking to balance the budget could easily start with this $20.3 million dollar national-suicidal disaster. Come to think of it, I wonder how much money has actually been spent on this terrorist importation initiative? Twenty-plus million is chump change to Mr. Obama; surely he wouldn’t allow himself to be so restrained?

It hardly seems worth the effort, but saving 20 million here, a few billion there--pretty soon it adds up to real money. And it just might help keep terrorist sleeper cells out of America where they have the opportunity to create real victims, with the able assistance of the President of The United States.

Fear-Monger-in-Chief

Scaring grandmothers wasn't the hope or change we were looking for.

Desperate President Barack Obama is now trying to terrify seniors in order to "win" what he views as some sort of a game about the deficit.

President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.

"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.

The fact of the matter is that A) Social Security payments have been running at a deficit for years, and; B) the technological infrastructure of the system is so massive, redundant and complex that short of overt hostile military action to literally destroy it, or knocking down the power grid, it is not physically possible for the President and his cronies to stop payments.

It says something about the character of this man—or more precisely, his lack of character—that he seeks to terrify seniors into become a panicked lynch mob to serve his political will.

Mike adds:

Well, it's official: The President Of The United States is a cheap thug. As Bob noted, Social Security is so automated that it is unlikely that it could be stopped, but in the pursuit of partisan political advantage, I have little doubt that if anyone could do it, Barack Obama could. Socialists care only for the abstraction that is "the people." They care nothing at all for individuals who won't willingly support their schemes, preferably with cash. Such people are known as "useful idiots."

Presidential leadership is about making difficult choices and assigning rational priorities. Because Mr. Obama is virtually incapable of making difficult choices, he is content to "lead from behind," as he does with the budget. The debt ceiling--which is in place to keep irresponsible politicians whose only skill is wasting other people's money from literally spending America into oblivion--need not be raised. The alternative is to get spending immediately under control, but this is not a possibility for Mr. Obama. If the kitty is a bit short, his only solution is to rob pensioners? What brilliant, inspired leadership. No doubt our Treasure Secretary, Mr. Geithner, came up with that one. May I suggest a few additional alternatives?

Mr. Obama could--and should--have said:

(1) I can't guarantee that the EPA will be able to continue regulating American business out of existence while destroying jobs.

(2) I can't guarantee that the Department of Education will be able to continue wasting huge amounts of money while over-regulating school districts everywhere.

(3) I can't guarantee that the ATF will be able to continue allowing weapons to flow into the hands of domestic and foreign criminals.

(4) I can't guarantee that all of my unelected, unaccountable czars will be able to continue to subvert American democracy.

(5) I can't guarantee that the huge number of aides I employ in the White House will be able to continue to receive their six figure salaries.

(6) I can't guarantee that my dog, Bo, will be able to continue to fly on separate jets when I vacation.

(7) I can't guarantee that the government will continue to be able to afford the travel and security expenses for my golf outings and vacations.

(8) I can't guarantee that the Department of Energy will be able to continue to suppress energy development while continually suppressing job creation.

(9) I can't guarantee that the National Labor Relations Board will be able to continue to shill for unions while destroying jobs, forcing more jobs overseas, and helping the foreign commercial aircraft industry at the expense of our commercial aircraft industry.

(10) I can't guarantee that the Department of Justice will be able to continue to hire more and more communist lawyers so that criminals of the proper politics and race may be excused from their crimes.

(11) I can't guarantee that the implementation of Obamacare will continue, so I can't guarantee that its provisions will bankrupt America even more rapidly than anyone believed possible.

(12) I can't guarantee that America will continue to finance the UN so that its members can spit in our collective eye.

(13) I can't guarantee that the TSA will be able to continue to strip 95 year-old, terminally ill, wheelchair-bound cancer victims of their Depends, steal the property of airline passengers, or feel up six year old girls.

(14) I can't guarantee that I'm going to raise and spend a billion dollars so that I can be reelected to further crash the economy.

(15) I can't guarantee that America will be able to continue to afford smart diplomacy. [Whoa! That one's OK! That one's OK!]

I'm just a teacher and blogger so I don' know nothin' 'bout birthin' no gov'mint, but it would seem that in terms of priorities, there are thousands of government employees, boards, commissions, agencies and fiefdoms which could vanish from the face of the planet tomorrow without 99.9% of Americans experiencing the slightest inconvenience or harm. I suspect that if Mr. Obama actually wanted to deal with the deficit, actually cutting governmental waste, abuse and duplication, and doing away with anyone and any agency that is actually harming rather than helping the economy might be an excellent place to start. I rather suspect that people receiving social security have nothing to do with it.

If the Republicans don't run with this issue from now until the election and paint Mr. Obama as the class warfare loving, America-hating Socialist he is, they deserve to lose.

Watching the Big Spender-In-Chief

I'm watching Obama's presser this morning, watching his attempt to justify raising taxes in a depression. He is ideologically incapable of any meaningful cuts to big-government spending, which is precisely what you expect from a socialist. Of course, he says "balance" and "shared sacrifice" as way of avoiding saying the words "raising taxes."

He has no vision. He is incapable of fresh ideas.

He beats the same drum that big government advocates have pushed for decades. Sadly, I don't think that the Republican leadership is much different, it is simply a matter of scale, and how much they are willing to rob the taxpayers.

Of course, neither party has the political courage to say "no" to the special interest groups or risk losing an election. They are more interested in amassing and retaining power than providing leadership.

If they are not willing to explicitly acknowledge that we have to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, then they are not close to being serious. There will be pain, and people who will suffer. It is just a matter of how many, and how long, and the longer we wait, the worse it is going to be.

And so I am watching our President and nominal leader of the free world once demagoguing Republicans, playing class warfare by attacking "the rich," and trying to portray his own inflexibility and partisanship as some sort of virtue.

I hope that the GOP leadership has the guts to refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

I just don't think they are capable of it.

Chevy Volt Update for 07-11-11

As regular readers know, I’ve been following the misfortunes of the Chevy Volt and its relatives for some time now. Anyone interested in my writings on the Volt should simply enter “Chevy Volt” in the search feature of the CY site. You’ll find every article and mention there.

Of particular interest to you might be my analysis on real world costs of the Volt in an April 26 post (here). In that post, I compared, among other things, the difference in cost between a Volt and a well-equipped 40 MPG Ford Fiesta and found that if the Volt managed a real world MPG average of 120 (electric and gasoline), it would take a minimum of 14 years to make up the difference in initial cost between the vehicles in fuel savings. Actually, it would be more like 19 years, which of course means that for probably 99% of the public, buying a Volt would save nothing at all over a conventional, far more useful vehicle. It would almost certainly leave most owners deeply in the hole overall.

Now come Ed Morrissey at Hot Air with an article titled: “Hey, let’s spend millions to save $116,000!” In that article (here), Morrissey speaks of the Federal Government in San Diego, which is planning to buy 101 Chevy Volts and ten Nissan Leafs for federal employees. Of course, they’ll have to buy and install the necessary charging infrastructure too. I noted the cozy relationship between GE—which builds EV charging stations—and the Obama Administration in my April 21 PJM article on the Volt (here). As the title suggests, the “experiment” is a major boondoggle and will cost the taxpayers a great deal of money while saving nothing at all. It’s a progressive dream two-fer! By all means, revisit my articles and Morrisey’s as well.

What’s new is another New York Times puff piece on the Volt (here) by Joe Nocera. Published on June 25, it has all of the objectivity and insightful analysis we have come to expect from the Gray Lady. Actually, Nocera does make some reasonable assertions, such as this:

“Carlos Ghosn, the flamboyant chief executive of Nissan, has made a different kind of bet, placing his chips — billions of them — on the $32,780 Leaf, which has a 24-kilowatt battery pack that can get 73 miles to the charge. Mr. Ghosn is said to believe that range anxiety is overblown, and that once people become accustomed to an electric car, 73 miles per charge won’t be an issue. Well, maybe in Europe and Japan, but most analysts I spoke to think he’s likely to get his head handed to him in America, and I tend to agree.”

I tend to agree as well, particularly when much of America is nothing at all like the coasts or major cities, and a daily work commute often exceeds 73 miles. Keep in mind that the 73 miles about which Mr. Ghosn is so proud is a maximum obtained under absolutely ideal conditions. Real world mileage is probably closer to 50, and with the kind of driving most people do, likely less.

Mr. Nocera observes that people like to drive only proven technologies—indeed true—but makes a leap of faith:

“Which is also why the Volt is such an appealing alternative — “the right answer for right now,” said Michelle Krebs, a senior analyst with the automotive Web site edmunds.com. It gives people a taste of the electric car experience without sacrificing any of the things we expect in a gas-powered car.”

With its limited range and ridiculously long charging times, the Volt does indeed give “a taste of the electric car experience,” but it most certainly does require many sacrifices. Particularly under electric power, the heater is reportedly very weak, interesting in that the entire car—in battery mode—is also very weak in cold climates. And the gasoline engine provides no better—likely worse—mileage than comparable compacts achieve but also requires premium fuel.

Nocera notes that one of Chevy’s primary goals was a 40-mile range, which the Volt achieves (sort of, maybe, sometimes), however it requires compromises:

“The battery can’t be under the hood because a combustion engine is still there. So G.M. had to eliminate the middle seat in the back to make space for the big T-shaped battery the Volt required. Its small body… had to be made more aerodynamic because that was the only way to hit the 40 mile-per-charge mark.”

Unfortunately, real world experience is yielding all-electric range more like 25 miles because people insist on using such luxuries as headlights, taillights, turn signals, the radio, air-conditioning and any and every other electric function in a car which, in the Volt, quickly and dramatically drains the battery. Engaging in such foolishness as actually carrying passengers or cargo only makes things worse. Nocera did hit the mark with this observation:

“And for a car intended for the mass market, it’s awfully expensive. The Volt retails for around $41,000; from what I hear, that’s pretty much what it costs to build. G.M.’s profits on this first iteration of the Volt, in other words, are essentially zero. Though there is currently a $7,500 tax credit on electric car purchases… it won’t last forever. Consumer Reports has advised readers to avoid the Volt because it costs too much. G.M. badly needs battery technology to keep improving, both so that it can lower the cost of its electric cars, and begin making Volt-like vehicles in other sizes and shapes, including wagons and S.U.V.’s that will attract families. That’s the only way it will finally reach the mass market.”

Indeed. That’s $33,500 for a compact car with the kind of limitations that belie Nocera’s assertion of no sacrifice required. Again, compared with a great many conventional vehicles, the Volt offers no savings whatever in fuel or any other way regardless of how long it is owned. Factor in the $8000-$10,000 cost of a replacement battery (no one really knows how long the original battery will last), and the Volt makes even less economic sense than no economic sense, which is quite an accomplishment for GM as it struggles toward once again becoming a world-leading, profitable company while simultaneously dragging an enormous union chain and anchor.

But I’m afraid Mr. Nocera is missing the technological point. The only reason the Volt is as economical as it is—and it’s not economical at all when purchase price is considered—is its relative lack of mass and its aerodynamic shape. Try to upscale the concept into a station wagon or SUV and battery range will inevitably diminish below 25 miles. In order to have anything approaching reasonable acceleration and driving flexibility, it will have to have a substantially larger and more powerful gas engine which will get even worse mileage, presumably on premium fuel. Add more people and cargo than the current Volt is capable of carrying—which is rather the point of a station wagon or SUV--and every negative factor is increased. Only miraculous, impossible to predict leaps in technology could possibly make even the Volt commercially viable, to say nothing of larger, less aerodynamic vehicles based on the same concept.

Mr. Nocera observes that the Volt has “a better chance of success than anything else on the market.” He also believes that:

“Though the Volt has its share of flaws, it is unquestionably a good car. More to the point, as I discovered when I drove it, the Volt makes sense for the economic and cultural moment we’re in now. The psychological grip it held me in, the smugness I felt as I drove past gas stations, the way it implicitly encouraged me to stick with battery power as much as I could — others are going to feel that as well. Somewhat to my surprise, I actually felt a pang of enviro-guilt when I gave the car back and returned to my gas-guzzling ways. Mr. Farah told me that Volt owners often drove 1,000 miles or more before they needed to buy gasoline. I believe it. It has extremely high word-of-mouth potential.”

Mr. Nocera seems to have forgotten what he wrote only a few paragraphs earlier. The Volt absolutely does not make sense for the current economic moment. He wrote that the MSRP of $41,000 allows GM no profit at all, and as I’ve observed, not only does it have only a 25 mile range, it requires premium fuel and it’s impossible to recoup any savings from its combined electric/gas function compared with common conventional vehicles. But then again, perhaps Mr. Nocera is privy to magical Obamanomics reality of which I am simply too simple to understand.

He did hit on the Volt’s primary appeal: Cultural snobbery. He’s right: it’s all about “the psychological grip,” “…the smugness I felt as I drove past gas stations,” and even “…a pang of enviro-guilt when I gave the car back and returned to my gas-guzzling ways.” Poor Mr. Nocera! Couldn’t he just take Mr. Obama’s advise and get a car that gets better gas mileage? To be fair, some people—people with plenty of money—will no doubt buy the Volt simply for its novelty value or merely as a technological curiosity, but if we’re talking about a practical car for the public for the reasons the public needs a car, the Volt simply doesn’t qualify. Any station wagon or SUV built on the Volt platform with the current level of technology would be—if such a thing was possible—even worse.

Mr. Nocera concludes:

“The second thing it convinced me of is that the electric car is no longer some environmental pipe dream. Several years ago, I drove the Tesla, and though it was a wonderful experience, its high price and limited utility did not give me confidence that electric cars were ready for prime time. The Volt has made a believer out of me. At this moment of maximum uncertainty about how the future will play out, the Volt is comforting in its combination of new technology and old. Eventually, we’ll have batteries that can get 300 miles per charge, and an infrastructure solution that will replace gas stations. Eventually.

In the meantime, we’ve got the Volt. It’s a start.”

Again, I wonder if Mr. Nocera is suffering from short-term memory loss. His own arguments indicate that the Volt is indeed “some environmental pipe dream.” It is not a practical car. It is, at best, making no profit for GM at all. The technology still has not caught up to the hope of a viable electric car, which can fully and satisfactorily replace conventional vehicles, there is no electric car infrastructure and the Volt isn’t comforting to anyone with a grip on reality.

Will we have batteries that can get 300 miles per charge? Considering we’re stretching the current state of technology to manage 40, and considering that cold will drain the power of any battery, that seems like a very optimistic idea in a distinctly hopenchangey (all rhetoric, no substance) way.

As Mr. Nocera said: “In the meantime, we’ve got the Volt.” It’s a start in the same way that the EV-1 and the Edsel were a start. When Mr. Obama is out of office, and when the US government no longer owns part of GM—if GM survives at all—the owners of the corporation, if they are remotely rational, will do away with any product that is not producing a reasonable profit. The Volt will be number one with a bullet on that list.

Joblessness Increases, Stocks Dive, Natives Get Restless

Gotta love the Obamaconomy.

It makes my decision to cash in my stock options and convert them to an investment in bulk ammo look better all the time.

Broun: LOWER the Debt Ceiling

Today, I introduced a unique bill that goes in a completely different direction than everything else we’ve been hearing out of Washington. It would force politicians to start practicing what they’ve been preaching by lowering the debt ceiling from $14.3 trillion back down to $13 trillion. Admittedly, this is not your run-of-the-mill kind of law, but it would make it imperative for Congress to think outside of the box and come up with ways to pay off a portion of our debt while drastically cutting back spending. Since 1996, the national debt has increased by an inexcusable $8.79 trillion. I firmly believe that this calls for emergency measures to reduce the debt.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are equally responsible for the government's past fiscal irresponsibility. Sadly, whenever Congress has been given a chance to make a real impact on the budget, our spending habits, and our nation's livelihood, Democrats and Republicans alike have caved.

Moreover, in this time of crisis, liberals are pushing for a $2 trillion increase in our debt ceiling. And their only answer for our financial fiasco is to cut nothing and raise taxes on everything — which would simply give Washington more money to burn through. Even more disturbingly, under the president's budget proposal, the debt would double to $26.3 trillion by 2021, and he has no intention or plan to pay it down.

Sadly, this proposal, from Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun, is a non-starter due to inertia within both the Democratic and Republican parties. Both groups are wedded to big government, and the constant expansion of that government. They are equally intent on rocking the boat as little as possible to avoid making hard decisions, thinking that by going with the failing status quo they can protect their petty fiefdoms a bit longer, perhaps managing to get elected once or twice more and enrich themselves personally before or near-term economic collapse.

I suspect that there are less than a handful of legislators on Capitol Hill that really hold the nation's best interests at heart. When the collapse comes—and it will—I hope I live long enough in the ensuing carnage to see some of these bastards held to account by their constituents.

There's a Punchline In Here Somewhere

While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it's helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state.

As the Madison Capital Times reports, "Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a 'union-only' job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place." Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.

The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with Walker’s new law, they have no recourse.

Union thugs have been replaced by convicts.

I guess I'm a mean old conservative, but I'm thrilled by the prospect of convicts having to give something back to the society that has to deal with both their crimes, and bear the costs of their incarceration.

It's a bonus that the convicts are replacing unionized workers, saving the citizens monies to paid to those that I rather strongly suspect have been overcompensated for their labor—"landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance"—which sounds like jobs that should have been done by high school students on summer break for minimum wage in the first place.

Adventures in Smart Diplomacy, #2,783

THE SCENE: Conference Room at the Cairo Hilton, November, 2011.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “I want to welcome all of the delegates to this first, historic, outreach session of dialogue between the United States and the various member chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region…”

Egyptian MB Delegate: “We will destroy the Great Satan!” (Loud shouts, chants and applause)

Palestinian MB Delegate: “And the Little Satan too!” (More loud shouts, chants and applause)

HC: “…and I bring greetings from our President, Barack Hussein Obama, who…”

EMBD: “Apostate!”

Syrian MB Delegate: “Apostate!”

PMBD: “Death to America!”

Libyan MB Delegate (hesitatingly to PMBD): “Death to Israel too?”

PMBD: “Death to Israel too!”

All Delegates: “Death to Israel, Death to Israel!

HC: “Gentlemen please! We want to extend an open hand to you, so that we can engage in mutual respectful dialogue that will result in non-violent support for democratic principles of universal human righ…”

EMBD: “You must submit!”

HC: “Pardon me?”

EMBD: “You must submit to Sharia!”

HC: “It is important that we respect minority rights and fully include women in…”

PMBD: “Submit!”

LMBD (to PMBD): “Do we say that we will kill them all now?”

PMBD: “Yes! We will kill you all!” (Loud shouts, chants and applause)

SMBD (Whispered to EMBD): “What do the Iranians think?”

EMBD (Whispered to SMBD): “Death to America.”

SMBD (Whispered to EMBD): “What’s that? Death to Angola?”

EMBD (Whispered to SMBD): “No, no. Death to America, America the Great Satan…”

SMBD: “Oh! Right! (Louder) Death to America, America the Great Satan!”

HC: “But we only want outreach and mutual understanding and respect for universal principles of human rights, and…”

All Delegates (sing-song): Death to America, Death to America, nanner, nanner nan-ner…”

Two recent articles should worry rational Americans, for it has been announced (here) that Hillary Clinton is now “welcoming dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood.” A recent Pajamas Media article (here) contains very disturbing allegations regarding Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin. It seems that Abedin, an Egyptian Muslim, is a member of a family intimately involved in the Muslim Brotherhood, and that she has never been properly vetted for her position.

Informed readers will recall that Abedin is the wife of former Democrat Congressman of New York, Anthony Weiner, he of “Weinergate” infamy. Much ink has been spilled bemoaning her disgrace at the hands--and other parts--of her husband. What is not widely known is that Weiner is Jewish and Abedin, Muslim. Let us consider why we should be concerned, as Hillary Clinton, and presumably the rest of the Obama Administration, is not.

The Muslim Brotherhood is arguably the oldest, most influential and most extreme Muslim organization in the modern world. Founded in 1935 in Egypt, its most modern jihadist incarnation began in 1952 when Sayed Qtub, arguably the modern father of the Jihadist movement, returned to Egypt. He had been studying, of all things, American Literature at the University of Northern Colorado. The behavior of American women he saw in movies and in society in general—remember, we’re talking about the early 1950’s—convinced him that western society and Christianity were depraved and turned him irrevocably toward Jihad. His writings had a major influence on Jihadist thinking, an influence still being powerfully felt.

With branches in at least 70 countries (Hamas is the Palestinian branch), including America, the MB is very influential to Muslims around the world. Fatwas—religious edicts—issued by MB mullahs (priests or pastors) are taken very seriously in the Muslim world. A 2004 Fatwa by MB Shiekh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, for example, proclaiming the religious duty of Muslims to abduct and kill Americans in Iraq was widely observed and cost many lives.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s motto is: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Americans tend to analyze such things through the lens of America’s tradition of tolerance of all faiths and of the separation of church and state. Observant Muslims do not think of themselves as Egyptians or Yemenis—for example--who happen to be Muslim, but as Muslims first and foremost. Their nationality and loyalty to any nation tends to be far down on their list, after being Muslim, family, tribe, clan, and other concerns, if it registers for them at all. When Muslim Brotherhood members speak of jihad and “dying in the way of Allah,” they are not engaging in pandering or politically correct rhetoric but expressing their duty and willingness to die killing anyone they consider the enemy of Islam.

It is, for Americans, a bizarre paradox that American Muslims, people who identify themselves as loyal Americans who happen to practice Islam, people who would not take up the call of Jihad, are different from Jihadist Muslims, from Muslims who support the MB. In fact, these American Muslims are seen as apostates, fit only for death, by their more radical co-religionists. In fact, Muslims not taking the path of Jihad are not truly observing the dictates of their religion, not the other way around.

By turning his back on long-time American ally Hosni Mubarak, President Obama set into motion a chain of events, which will inevitably result in MB control over Egypt. In fact, the MB had been outlawed in Egypt since 1954 until it was recognized as a legitimate Egyptian political party in June of 2011. And now, our Secretary of State wants to palaver with the Muslim Brotherhood because the MB will almost certainly have powerful influence, if not absolute control, of the Egyptian state after the September, 2011 elections.

Consider that the MB certainly considers all Americans to be infidels, fit only for slavery, conversion to Islam and Sharia, or death. This is not political rhetoric read from a teleprompter, but the life and belief and passion of all observant Muslims who follow MB philosophy. They particularly consider women to be nothing more than chattel, the possessions of men. For Muslim males who are not posturing for the sake of keeping up a deception for gullible westerners, Hillary Clinton is nothing more than a blatant insult, a symbol of all that is corrupt and morally bankrupt in western society. Dialogue with her? They would murder her if they could for what she represents. Approach her as an equal, with mutual respect and understanding to achieve Democracy? The very idea is absolutely foreign to everything they believe and are.

Prominent MB thinkers have already been speaking of completely Islamicizing Egypt, and calling her archeological treasures such as the pyramids and statuary “idols.” This is significant in that Islam brooks no depictions of Muhammed, Allah, or photographs, statues or similar images, considering it to be idolatry. They would gladly do to Egypt’s priceless treasures what the Taliban did to Afghanistan’s priceless and irreplaceable Buddhist statuary: destroy it as contrary to the Koran.

Do they honor Barack Hussein Obama? After all, he has a Muslim middle name of historical, religious significance. He was born of a Muslim father and attended Muslim school in Indonesia as a child. On the contrary, because he has publicly identified himself as Christian, the MB certainly considers him an apostate. There is only one fate for apostates in Islam: Death. Islam does not smile kindly on those who decide to embrace another faith. Remember: In Islam there is no separation of church and state, no tolerance for other faiths. Of course, for the time being, the MB will pretend respect. Another teaching of the Koran is lying to Infidels.

What of Huma Abedin? Yes, she is a modern, apparently westernized Egyptian who has, of all things, married a Jew. The problem is that her family has strong MB ties and is active in support of MB goals even today. Americans again have difficulty understanding what this means. It is not uncommon for Americans to have family members of another faith, or who might hold extremist beliefs of one kind or another. We do not automatically believe in guilt by association. Where Muslims are concerned, particularly Muslims of the MB, we must seriously consider the possibility.

No self-respecting MB follower would embrace the marriage of a child by a Jew. The MB has never expressed support for Israel’s continued existence, or for the long and happy life of any Jew. That no prominent MB spokesman has publicly denounced Abedin’s wedding to Weiner is significant. Such a prominent and symbolic union would not go unnoticed, for MB Muslims do not marry non-Muslims.

If Abedin has not been properly vetted, this is a very serious matter indeed, for Abedin certainly has access to some of American’s most closely held secrets. Even if that was not true, she would be able to provide vital intelligence, even unwittingly, about the intentions, beliefs, needs and weaknesses of America’s leaders (those not already blindingly obvious) to those who would see us all dead. Could the lack of objection to her marriage to a Jew reflect her usefulness to MB objectives? At the very least, the Obama Administration should provide convincing proof of Adedin’s comprehensive national security vetting. If it does not exist, what is she doing as the deputy COS of the Secretary of State, regardless of her background?

And so the Obama Administration, having sabotaged the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, having ignored a genuinely democratic popular uprising in Iran, having allowed America’s allies—imperfect allies in an imperfect region, but allies nonetheless—to be deposed, is ready to hold a dialogue with the fruits of their fecklessness. They are anxious to politely chat with those who would, if they could get away with it, gladly murder them.

Can they be that dense? Is it possible that the self-imagined and press-anointed most brilliant man in the world—Barack Obama—and the self-imagined and press-anointed most brilliant woman in the world—Hillary Clinton—don’t understand the true nature of the Muslim Brotherhood and the global Islamist movement which threatens the very existence of western civilization and modernity? Or do they actually believe that they are so smart, so good, such superior examples of humanity that the brilliant force of their personalities will cause all obstacles to their progressive goals to fall down before their majesty? The Muslim Brotherhood is surely not impressed.

I lived through the Carter Administration and never imagined that I would see a President who would best Mr. Carter for sheer incompetence and damage to America and the world. Mr. Obama has already won that dubious prize, and in his desire to dialogue with those whose idea of dialogue is a dull, rusty knife applied slowly to the throat, he will set a new standard for all time, a standard that I pray will never again be attained. We’ll be lucky enough to survive him.

“Smart Diplomacy” indeed.

Economic Reality Strikes Teamsters Shop; L.A. Times Columnist/Sockpuppet Hardest Hit

Michael Hiltzik has his diapers in a bunch because BMW made the business decision to layoff a parts distribution warehouse full of union workers making $25/hr with health benefits. The company will instead rely upon outside logistics contractors for their parts depot work.

It's brutal, and people who lose their jobs don't often happen to find a new one soon. Companies and people alike are barely scrapping by, and all of us are trying to save money where we can. That is our economic reality.

Many Americans—particularly those on the left—can't seem to grasp that you cannot legislate prosperity. You can demand that companies provide salary "x" or benefit "y" through law or collective bargaining, but at the end of the day, you are faced with the harsh economic truth that government isn't nimble enough to react to market forces, and unions exist to benefit their executives, not the rank and file. This leads to scenarios where people are paid more than what their actual skill-set is worth, and that creates the opportunity for more efficient vendors to move into a market segment and make all companies involved more profitable.

On the personal, human level, these sorts of decisions are incredibly painful. Having gone through the dot-com crash of the early 2000s, layoffs and personal bankruptcy as a result, I know that as well as anyone.

But even were things were bad for me, I knew that when the market is allowed to correct itself it lifts the entire economy, and that leads to prosperity across the board for everyone. Unions and big government retard that growth opportunity, make things stagnant, and ensures eventual, inevitable failures.

Hiltzik's writing is emotional and touching and certainly captures the human drama of what these individual families are now having to face. It is too bad he couldn't use that same talent to explore why the layoffs at this plant means jobs for others in the parts business elsewhere, or how the money BMW will save here will be used to create opportunities and jobs elsewhere throughout the company, and lead to a stronger company overall.

The Re-Creation of the New American Man

July 4, 2011 is a day of celebration, and so it will be for most Americans. They will celebrate independence, the independence of the former colonies from Great Britain, the establishment of America as an independent nation, the one exceptional and indispensable nation among all nations. But most of all, they will celebrate the independence of the American spirit, for the creation of America was, in a very real sense, the creation of a new man. Marxists and Socialists are obsessed with creating the new man. Americans—as Americans tend to do—simply ignored government and did it themselves. We need to do it again.

The new American owed allegiance to a voluntary confederation of fellow Americans. He honored no king, no all-powerful nanny state. He expected to prosper on the strength of his own character and the fruits of his own labor. The truth was important to him, and the nation was built on the strength of each man’s word and sealed by handshakes. He indulged in no juvenile cults of personality and chose his leaders—men such as George Washington—based on their character and accomplishments, character and accomplishments that were well known and demonstrated and renewed day by day, just as his character and accomplishments were demonstrated and renewed day by day.

The new American—and many generations to come—lived by simple, basic principles: hard work, honesty, doing what was right, living within their means while working to increase not only their means, but the means of their children. He understood deferring pleasure to a better, more secure day and he understood self-sacrifice. He was willing to help his neighbors because he knew that they lived their lives as he did, and that they were willing to help him for the same reasons. For him, laziness and a lack of industry were debilitating character flaws, not victimhood to be embraced and rewarded.

America was born an exceptional nation by virtue of her people and their creation: The Constitution. They understood all too well what we seem to have forgotten. When we turned our backs on self-sufficiency and hard work, when we became victims instead of doers, when we began to believe that character didn’t really matter, when we came to see the truth as nothing more than slippery rhetoric in the service of individual, selfish agendas, when we stopped being willing to pay our fair share and expected instead to be given our living by others, America started on the road to becoming just another failed socialist state.

And so we elected Barack Obama to atone for the sins of our ancestors, to demonstrate enlightened, contemporary civic virtue. We elected a man who believes that America is exceptional just as the citizens of other nations believe themselves to be exceptional. As he once said, “words, just words,” for if everyone is exceptional, in truth, no one is exceptional. If everyone is above average, average has no meaning. If all are equally worthy, equality has no meaning. The Founders understood that to be equal meant to be created by God, equal in humanity, in intrinsic human worth and dignity, and deserving of equal, unbiased treatment under the law. Mr. Obama and his supporters would have us believe that equality has to do with taking from some and giving to favored others. They buy the juvenile notion that apparent equality of outcome is far more important than equality of opportunity. This is the basis of Marxism, socialism and its fellow travelers.

The causes of our downward spiral are familiar to anyone who has been paying attention. Too many of us have abandoned the principals that make us great, that make us Americans. An instructive example is home ownership.

I am tempted to say that when Democrats in the 1970s began to say that every American should have their own home, they did this with the best of intentions, but the results of this bit of rhetoric surely say otherwise. Every American should own their home. It’s a lovely--if simple-mindedly emotional--sentiment, and that’s where it should have stopped, but socialists see sentiments—emotions—as reality, and they tried to manifest an emotion.

The problem goes back to our founding, to self-sufficiency, to the notion that we must live within our means, individually and as a nation. To the simple principle that we would not only build, but would live in the house we could afford and that when we could afford bigger and better, only then would we attain that house and the house after it. Apartments are a manifestation of that simple virtue. They are recognition that not everyone can afford a house, and our system evolved in recognition of that reality. If one could not afford a house, no bank would loan money that could never be re-paid. Even if one foolish enough to try to buy what they could not afford applied for a home loan, banks would not willingly assist them in destroying themselves and their families.

Rational people know that a mortgage payment is only the beginning, basic cost of home ownership. Maintenance, tools such as lawn mowers, utility bills substantially greater than those of apartment dwellers, insurance, furnishings, and myriad other expenses greatly expand that low, convenient monthly mortgage payment. For this simple reason, generations of fiscally responsible Americans deferred home ownership until they were certain they could actually—what’s that archaic word?—oh yes, until they could actually “afford” it. Even if they could never afford it, most could live in apartments that are the envy of most of the population of the world.

But Democrats knew better. They felt that everyone should have a house. It goes without saying that such trivial factors as being able to afford the mortgage payment, to say nothing of all of the incidental but necessary expenses of home ownership, were of no concern, and lenders were pressured to loan to those they knew would default. This was seen as compassionate, as building a better, more diverse and tolerant America, for who should not own their own house? What kind of cruel Republican would stand in their way? Surely such people were discriminating! Surely they were racists! Compassionate, caring, progressive government knew best, the free market be damned! And the free market was damned; all of us were damned.

Loans were made by lenders who knew they would never be paid, but they were willing to make such loans because they were backed by Fannie Mae, backed on the assumption that the Federal Government would make good those bundled loans when they inevitably defaulted. Many of those banks are no longer in business and other teeter on the edge of insolvency. Some banks resisted the siren song of diversity and compassion and remain strong today, but enough went along, and finally, circa 2008, the bills became due. All of that debt was bundled and packaged, and deferred and rolled over until it became so large that it reached critical mass—as everyone knew it eventually must--and exploded. So many mortgages were in default, mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--and by implication, by the public—that the whole house of cards collapsed and the bailouts and stimulus and the “summer of recovery” (remember that one? Last summer?), where nothing was recovered, began.

The Revolutionary generation could have told us this would happen. In fact, they did. The founders knew that when people discovered that they could vote themselves other people’s money that would be the beginning of the end for America. Circa 2011, about half of Americans pay no income taxes, none at all and many are given tax “rebates” because they do not pay taxes. A tiny percentage of the evil, greedy rich evilly and greedily pay most income taxes, and the rest are paid by an increasingly small middle class of producers, people who still actually produce goods, services and wealth in a manner that our forefathers would recognize and of which they would approve.

We have created an enormous and growing class of consumers, of people who do not for a moment think that they must live within their means, of people who do not expect to work for what they receive, of people who expect government to provide for much—or all—of what they have. And we have elected a man who believes in all of this, and more. Our president wants everyone to attend college on the public dime. The public dime is our tax dollars and whatever money can be begged and borrowed from nations that hate us and would delight in our destruction. As this is being written, Mr. Obama and his advisors are apparently seriously considering merely ignoring the law, ignoring the debt ceiling and spending as much money—money we do not have—as he pleases. His pleasure is unlimited. The Democrats in Congress have broken the law by not producing a budget, and proudly announced their intention to continue breaking that particular law, for they know that any budget they produce would enrage even the enervated American public. Most Congressional Democrats are more than willing to spend us into oblivion. A surprising and disgusting number of Republicans have been, and are, willing to assist them, even now.

The wreckage has become so obvious that all of Mr. Obama’s primary financial advisors have, like rats, deserted the sinking ship of state. All, that is, with the exception of the tax-evading Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who has had to recently sort of deny pervasive rumors of his impending departure. Presumably, Mr. Obama will now bring in the second string team to finish an already losing game.

We know that Socialism doesn’t work. It is the opposite of what Americans once knew and believed. It is anti-democratic and anti-American. Its foundational principles depict men as vassals of the state, as simpletons and weaklings unable to understand their own needs and unable to provide for themselves and their families. This is the very opposite of America. Yet Mr. Obama and the self-appointed better classes embrace it even as it has ruined the rest of the world, even as those sad, failing and failed nations struggle to abandon it. Margaret Thatcher was right. The problem with Socialism is that you always run out of other people’s money. And so we have.

Forget that Obamacare is not yet fully implemented and that if and when it is, it will, by itself, absent any other looming financial debacle (our other bankrupt entitlements), bankrupt the nation. The idea that tens of millions of uninsured Americans could be fully insured and that our costs would be lower and our medical care improved was a blatant lie from the beginning, a lie the new Americans of 1776 would have immediately recognized and rejected, as the majority of contemporary Americans continue to reject it. Consider what revolutionary era Americans would have thought of a president who so casually lied on such a grand scale. That we find it not only unremarkable, that we have come to expect it, clearly illustrates our national dissolution and despair.

But on this 4th of July, as fireworks soar into the night sky, so too may our hopes. All is not lost, not yet anyway. Even if a surprising and disgusting portion of Americans no longer believe that America is the one exceptional and indispensable nation, billions around the world do and they would, if they could, vote in the most sincere manner possible: they would vote with their feet and move here to become what far too many of us, starting with our president, no longer appreciate. They know what it is to be an American. They have no doubt of its distinction and value.

We may yet stave off disaster and decline. Such things are a matter of choice. By embracing the simple truths by which the first Americans lived their lives, we too may restore America to what she should be, to what she must be if mankind is to have true hope rather than the ephemeral hope of teleprompter-driven political rhetoric. It will not be easy, and it will take generations, but once again, we must—as Americans and as America—learn to live within our means and to provide for ourselves. That process has, weakly, already begun. It will truly begin with the removal of Barack Obama from office in 2012. It will continue when Americans once again embrace freedom and remove from office those who would destroy it. It will continue when Americans no longer tolerate those who do not tolerate them, domestically and around the world.

So on this July 4th, celebrate, but never forget that we remain free because of the continuing sacrifice of better men and women than ourselves. If we fail to honor their sacrifice and embrace and live the values that made July 4 more than just another day on the calendar, America will soon dissipate, like a brilliantly exploding firework against the night sky, flaring briefly and brightly, but gone forever. We will end not with a bang, but a whimper. America deserves better. The world deserves better.

Only the recreation of the new American Man, not by the government, not by fiat and mandate, but by Americans themselves, can reverse our disastrous course.

Liberal Wisconsin Justices Looking Bad in "Chokegate"

I've had my hands full lately focusing on the Gunwalker investigation, but I have been at least reading along with what some are calling "Chokegate" (Ann Althouse has done a great job staying on top of this story).

Long story short: a liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice named Ann Bradley has apparently tried to claim that another Supreme Court Justice, David Prosser, "choked" her.

The story had been leaked to a George Soros muckraking group, and then the incident seemed to get turned on its head when other witnesses came forth to indicate that while Prosser did put his hands up and touch Bradley's neck, it is because she was coming at him with fists raised, meaning the contact was defensive in nature, and Bradley was the aggressor.

The plot appears to be thickening now, with news that Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson may have had a hand in orchestrating the leak in an attempt to get the conservative Prosser impeached.

As the investigation moves forward, it appears than instead of collecting a conservative scalp, that the two liberal Wisconsin SCOTUS justices may face impeachment instead. If they are impeached—and that is far from certain at this point—Republican Governor Scott Walker will have the opportunity to add two conservative justices to the bench.

It appears that the plot to frame up Prosser has backfired spectacularly.

I can only wish for such a happy ending for all of convicted felon Soros' investments in deception.

The Rhetoric of Losing--Everything

President Obama’s recent speech on Afghanistan was of a piece with his standard rhetoric, with one possible deviation: He only said “I” thirteen times by my count of the speech released by the White House prior to the delivery of the actual speech at West Point. I suspect that with his poll numbers at historic lows and his reelection campaign foremost on the minds of the occupants of the White House, the wisdom of more frequently using “we” has gained some urgency.

According to media accounts, few Americans watched the speech. This is unsurprising in that Mr. Obama is certainly the most over-exposed president in history. One would think that by now, someone on the White House staff would have figured out that the American people do not long for just one more Obama speech on any topic, but apparently making the I/we transition has, to date, fully occupied their attention and rhetorical energies.

A great many media outlets have covered the primary thrust of the speech: we will be pulling out of Afghanistan on a predetermined schedule and regardless of the strategic or tactical conditions at the time. It has also been noted that General Petraeus is less than thrilled with this idea. One would certainly hope so.

My intention with this post is to speak to several of Mr. Obama’s statements, which have, for the most part, escaped comment in the legacy media and even in the blogosphere. None of these comments, which are embedded among the numerous clichés and gaseous tropes, is original; they, in various formulations, have often flowed across Mr. Obama’s teleprompter screens in the past. The value in speaking to these comments is that their frequent repetition almost certainly reflects the fact that they represent Mr. Obama’s fundamental values. That should worry us all.

“For there should be no doubt that so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe-haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve.”

Actually, there is considerable doubt about this, most recently demonstrated in Mr. Obama’s failure to support allies throughout the world. Israel certainly has reason to doubt, and so do all of the leaders throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East and even NATO allies whose requests for American aid in Libya have been, at best, slow-walked. Even in the case of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, Mr. Obama took nearly a full day to make a final decision as our assets stood, on alert, ready to go. His inability to make the decision cost a second additional day due to weather conditions and might tend to make reasonable people doubt his commitment in such matters even where Osama Bin Laden was involved.

“And even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance. These long wars will come to a responsible end.”

If our departure proves—as it is likely to do—that all America’s enemies need do is wait until we grow tired and announce our departure date—a responsible end to the war is the last thing likely to happen. As has often been observed, Mr. Obama does seem to have an aversion to saying “victory,” and apparently, an aversion to achieving it.

“Instead, we must rally international action, which we are doing in Libya, where we do not have a single soldier on the ground, but are supporting allies in protecting the Libyan people and giving them the chance to determine their destiny.”

Uh, I’m confused. It has been widely noted that NATO does not have sufficient combat power to accomplish much of anything unless America is bearing most of the burden. According to our NATO allies, we’re not providing any real leadership in Libya, and Mr. Obama has announced his pride in “leading from behind” in that endeavor. Apparently Mr. Obama and his advisors consider “leading from behind” to be a good thing, a strategy so strategically innovative and brilliant that it has been accompanied by fighting the first war that does not actually involve “hostilities.” Rhetoric is a flexible thing indeed in the hands of Mr. Obama. So, apparently, is leadership.

‘Above all, we are a nation whose strength abroad has been anchored in opportunity for our citizens at home. Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource – our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industry, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy.”

Where to begin? Opportunity for our citizens at home is apparently to be won—along with the future--by destroying the coal and oil industries, destroying Boeing, nationalizing 2/3 of the American automobile industry, driving gasoline prices and unemployment through the roof, squandering nearly a trillion dollars on a stimulus that didn’t stimulate anything, and the list goes on and on. We are in a time of rising debt and hard economic times not because of our expenditures on war, but because of Mr. Obama’s ruinous economic policies and his emphasis on suppressing the private sector while enriching the public sector and unions.

Live within our means? Not when Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats are grimly determined to continue to spend money we don’t have--in unbelievable quantities--and to raise taxes so that they can do just that. Amazingly, they are talking--with straight faces--of a second, more expensive stimulus. Mr. Obama has admitted long ago that there never were any “shovel-ready jobs,” and has recently joked—in very bad taste—about that near-trillion dollar waste of money we didn’t have.

While our infrastructure is in need of repair, much of it is not the business of the federal government, and because our national debt has reached unheard of levels, there is no money to be had for that purpose. Mr. Obama and the Democrats will not admit that we have no money and that none of this may be reversed without substantially reducing spending, something they are genetically incapable of doing. Remember too that the Democrats, in violation of federal law, have not produced a budget for nearly 800 days, and have announced their determination to continue to violate that particular law rather than revealing their true intentions to the public.

It is in Mr. Obama’s so often repeated as to be unremarkable cliché about finding new and clean sources of energy that we see Mr. Obama’s most fundamental beliefs. He has long had the idea that what he says must be reality because he has spoken it. Is there any sentient being alive who does not realize that discovering “new and clean sources of energy” would make them instantly richer than Al Gore or John Kerry? Unfortunately, the laws of physics are not cooperating.

The problem is that rhetoric does not equal reality. None of the sources of energy currently under development, none currently known to man, can replace fossil fuels despite the most fervent wishes of Mr. Obama and his environmentalist allies. Wind and solar cannot, even if developed to a degree beyond their proponent’s wildest dreams, replace more than a tiny portion of our nation’s energy needs. Not only that, the very same environmentalists consistently oppose, delay and stop solar and wind projects across the nation. It almost makes one think that finding new sources of energy really isn’t their ultimate goal.

While Mr. Obama, his Energy Secretary Mr. Chu and various of their sycophants would be delighted to force Americans—for the sake of what they believe to be worthy Progressive goals--to abandon their cars, freeze in the winter and bake in the summer, most Americans realize that their lives, and the lives of their families, rely on affordable energy and that there is simply no even remotely viable replacement.

Would Americans accept new, clean sources of energy? Absolutely, but only immediately viable and affordable replacements for our current energy sources. What, pray tell, might those immediately viable and affordable replacements be? Rhetoric doesn’t fill fuel tanks and money “saved” by virtue of not being spent on the military, even if is not wasted on other boondoggles rather than being used to pay down the debt, cannot alter the law of physics and produce magic new forms of energy.

And finally: “America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.”

Uh, Mr. Obama, we already have a nation here at home. What we need is for you to quit deconstructing it. We’ll take it from there.

Anthony Weiner And The Social Contract

Bob and I have dedicated a reasonable amount of pixels to the continuing story of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Deciding whether to cover such stories is always somewhat difficult. On one hand, a great many people have done, and likely are doing, the sorts of things Rep. Weiner did, and worse. We’re not covering those people and likely never will.

Therein lies the most compelling reason to cover Rep. Weiner. Not because he is a Democrat and this is a Conservative blog; not because his behavior is particularly salacious and therefore likely to increase readership; not because of his photos (we have not published those and likely never would; doctors and police officers know one great truth: most people look better with their clothing on); and certainly not because everyone else is covering it—we like to cover things others don’t think to cover. We cover Rep. Weiner because some people, by their own choice, place themselves in positions of public trust.

I know what you’re thinking: Trust?! Trust politicians?! There is no doubt that many—Republican and Democrat alike—are not worthy of trust. But the simple truth is that most are worthy of trust, to at least some degree. It is tempting indeed to believe that all politicians are liars, cheats and thieves, and sadly, there are good reasons to be so cynical. Lily Tomlin was very much on the mark when she said that no matter how cynical she got, she couldn’t keep up.

The modern era of political cynicism might be said to have started during the Clinton Administration. A great many politicians—some of them Presidents—prior to Clinton engaged in sexual adventurism, but Mr. Clinton introduced many innovations, including taking phone calls from Congressmen while receiving fellatio. He also told perhaps the most memorable political lie of the digital age, angrily shaking his finger in America’s face through the camera lens while intoning that he did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky. Of course, he did, and compounded the lie by more lying. He was impeached (only the second President in history) but not convicted, was eventually convicted of perjury and lost his law license, but retained his office. The Clinton era came to a fitting close when his staffers vandalized the White House on their way out the door and the Clintons stole substantial White House furnishings, which they were eventually forced to return.

Now, we are saddled with a President and a Congress that forces through, without a single Republican vote, the most massive, anti-freedom legislation in history, legislation that the majority of Americans did not want and still do not want, legislation that by itself will bankrupt the nation. Mr. Obama insults our allies, appeases our enemies, makes the Middle East less rather than more safe, single-handedly destroyed the Israeli/Palestinian peace process, conducts the most opaque administration in memory while claiming to run the most transparent, claims that we will be able to keep our current insurance knowing it to be a lie, claims to be for universal energy development while doing everything possible to impede it, and the list goes on and on and on.

Why shouldn’t we embrace cynicism? Why should we care anymore?

Democracy requires trust. America is a nation built on trust. Americans have always believed that a man’s word is his bond, and built cities and made fortunes on the strength of a handshake. We have to believe, if we are willing to walk out our front doors every day and deal with the world, that others are, for the most part, trustworthy. We must believe that most Americans embrace the social contract, that they will voluntarily obey the law, that they will practice sincerity and honesty, and that they will not purposely seek to harm others. We must know that our rights to property, and all of the rights expressed and implied by the Bill of Rights are essentially intact. When a sufficient number of Americans cease to believe in these principles, when they cease to embrace the uniquely American social contract, America is lost.

That’s why we have to force ourselves to care about people like Anthony Weiner. He chose to place himself in a position of public trust, and by that choice, he accepted his part in the social contract, just as I have, on many occasions in my life, accepted places in the social contract that in very real ways set me apart from most Americans. When I enlisted in the Air Force, I accepted limitations on my freedoms and the reality that I would be held to a substantially higher standard of behavior than most Americans. When I became a police officer, I did the same, and I did it yet again when I became a teacher. Even as I write this essay, by the nature of my employment as a teacher, I willingly submit to the reality that I must abide by a more stringent code of conduct than most of my fellow Americans. The same is true of doctors, librarians, many other professions and trades, and yes, politicians.

There are simply things that Congressmen—and others—cannot do and retain their positions of public trust. We all can agree that when they break the law, when they misuse their positions for personal aggrandizement or gain or when they wrongfully enable the personal gain of others, they are unworthy of their office. But there are a great many other things that, while not specifically illegal, they simply cannot do. They cannot do them because they are morally, practically wrong, because they reveal serious character flaws, because they demonstrate appallingly bad judgment, because they demonstrate that they cannot be trusted, that their handshake means nothing and that their words and smiles are as likely than not to hide deception.

There are many who argued that if Rep. Weiner had simply told the truth his admission would have been sufficient. He should have been allowed to keep his office. Imagine the red faces of those folks after the continuing, and ever more tawdry, revelations that have, to date, come to light (yes, I know that some people are beyond embarrassment and shame). Others have suggested that no matter what he did, he should stay in office because of his political utility to the Democrat party. Some have even suggested that a double standard exists, that the public expects far less of Democrats than Republicans particularly where moral issues are involved, and there is evidence to suggest that this is not an unreasonable belief.

But all of this, too, misses the point. Rep. Weiner violated the social contract, a contract that demanded more of him than of Joe Average American, a contract that he willingly sought through multiple elections and willingly accepted. If America is to rebound from our current difficulties, if America is to remain the one unique, indispensable nation, we must demand that all those with whom we deal are trustworthy, and we must be trustworthy ourselves. Political affiliation has nothing to do with this despite what some might say. Trust transcends political lines. If it does not, if it cannot, America is lost and all that we will do over the next few years is to play predetermined parts in a tragedy written by our apathy, by our own inability to believe in ourselves and in our ability to truly embody America. We have no choice but to demand that our politicians honor, defend and protect the social contract, and of course, the Constitution.

Anthony Weiner has finally resigned. I will be relieved and pleased if I never again write a word about Anthony Weiner. The social contract is still intact, though never free from the forces that would rip it asunder. No man of good will takes pleasure in the misery of others, yet only a fool fails to learn from the willful, serial mistakes of others.

One of the truisms I tell my students over and over again is that times change, but people don’t. Hubris—excessive pride—brought down the privileged and mighty in ancient Greece and it does no less today. Arrogance, narcissism, lying, mistreating others, all of the things Mother warned us about, have never stopped being destructive, yet too many never seem to change.

Perhaps the most important lesson we can learn from the Weiner affair (and note how it is almost impossible to speak of this tawdry episode without inadvertently punning or writing a double entendre; God does indeed have a sense of humor) is that politicians—and many other Americans—must be held to a higher standard of behavior, for it is they that have chosen to inhabit the highest levels of moral certitude, and we do no credit to ourselves or to them when we allow them to abuse the example they have sought and accepted. We really do owe it to ourselves. We owe it to America.

Weiner Out, Err, Leaving Congress

The disgraceful Democrat is finally quitting, presumably after acquiring a golden parachute from the Democrat Party to step down.

Expect a lengthy screed at the Daily Kos later in the day blaming Andrew Breitbart for any missing furniture as Weiner's staff—err, personnel—heads for the exits.

She'd Heard the Lies Before

Thoughts from someone that survived communism in the Soviet Union:

My husband and I applied for US citizenship the day we became eligible. I think my examining officer got the shock of his life when during the interview I recited the Bill of Rights, named all Supreme Court justices and added the names of all elected officials of the state including our hapless congressman. Talk about useless knowledge! After that we proudly voted in every election, but the idea of venturing a political opinion never crossed my mind (an unfortunate result of being brought up in a totalitarian society where keeping your mouth shut is a basic rule of survival). There was something unseemly in proclaiming my deep love and appreciation of America for all to hear.

When candidate Obama showed up, I realized that I had heard his typical stump speech every single day of my old Soviet life from big and small Communist party bosses -- the same structure, the same cadences, the same bogeymen, the same demagoguery, the same targets. The American people had no defense against this rhetoric. The result of the elections was totally predictable. To me it was a "Back to the Future" moment.

Imagine you are having a terrible nightmare. Just as you are about to suffer torture or certain death, you wake up and realize the sun is shining, your family is peacefully sleeping, and everything is in place. After enjoying a few blissful moments, you turn your head and see that hideous monster from your dream coming after you for real. This image described the trajectory of my life perfectly. Running from Communism, finding the safe haven and a new life, and now to have the same wrecking crew coming even here?

Weiner Still Sexting Porn Star After His Perversions Were Revealed

The perverted New York Democrat continued to talk to former porn star Ginger Lee after the story of the scandal broke, encouraged her to lie about their relationship.

And even with the scandal blowing up in his face, he couldn't quit talking about his junk:

According to Allred, Weiner wrote Lee, "Alright, my package and I are not going to beg. We both see the hazard of going down the path of comparative sexiness."

In another email also read at the press conference, Weiner wrote, "You aren't giving my package due credit."

In yet another, Allred said Weiner wrote, "I have wardrobe demands, too. I need to highlight my package."

Anthony Weiner is the self-gratification poster child for the Democrat Party.

The Palin Switch

Regular readers have long suspected this, and I’d hoped to keep it secret as long as possible, but now I’m out of the closet. Yes, I’m—gasp—conservative! I suppose I’m what might be called a quiet conservative. I’m hardly a political evangelist, running about verbally assaulting complete strangers in the hope of converting them to the one, true political/economic faith. I’m happy to converse with just about anyone on any topic, and put my opinions in writing for those who might agree and those who might not, but I always expect to discuss them with reason and civility. Indeed, I look forward to it.

I’ve found that Conservatives are generally willing to discuss political, economic and cultural issues with civility. There are exceptions, of course, but I’ve found this to be generally true. On the other hand, I’ve found Liberals to be generally unable to discuss such things with civility. All too often, they become very angry and emotional, and begin to fling about accusations of my hating this or that group, wanting to take food out of the mouths of poor children, my obviously ardent desire to murder various foreign minority groups (all non-white of course), racism, sexism and various other “isims.” There are, of course exceptions to this as well.

With that background, I provide the true, recent story that follows without comment. Make of it what you will.

Several of us, people involved in a long-term musical endeavor, were waiting for a performance. One gentleman was talking about going on a driving vacation through a considerable portion of the Western United States in the near future and was commenting particularly on the number of states he expected to visit. Quite innocently, I joked that he might take the Obama tour and visit all 57 states.

Everyone present chuckled, everyone that is except for one young fellow who was obviously unaware of the reference. I explained that it was a gaffe made by Mr. Obama during the 2008 campaign. He looked at me blankly for a moment, blinked, and in an excited, loud voice launched into a verbal assault on Sarah Palin! It was as though I had somehow thrown a secret Palin switch, which once thrown, required a complete, non-stop, pre-recorded recitation of Palin’s idiocy and all-around sub-human status. The effect was surprising as he was speaking in an animated manner unusual for him, as though he was on a sort of automatic pilot and could not stop until the entire recording was complete.

He became increasingly loud and incredulous in stating that Palin actually said that Paul Revere warned the British during his famous ride. His expressions and manner were surprising. None of us had ever seen him behave that way before, despite having known him for at least a year. This particular example of Palin’s stupidity seemed to be his ultimate proof of her sub-normal IQ, and was clearly what he considered his most convincing proof.

I traded surprised glances with several people and quietly pointed out that Palin was in fact correct, and that Revere did warn the British after he was captured. I explained that numerous historians confirmed Palin’s accuracy. He stopped only long enough to blink, and then immediately continued as though the Palin switch had been interrupted for only a second and immediately reset. He continued for another few minutes, finally winding down—the recording apparently complete--and resuming his normal tone of voice and demeanor as we sat quietly, watching the spectacle.

Minutes later, we performed as we had on many previous occasions, and he was quite himself again.

CNN Pushing Long-Debunked Cartel Guns Story To Protect Obama Administration during GunWalker Hearings

I had this as an update to the previous post, but it deserves it's own.

CNN has decided to engage in fact free anti-gun propaganda this morning on behalf of the Obama Administration, co-incidentally on the second day of Congressional hearing that promise to excoriate Eric Holder's Department of Justice in general and acting director Ken Melson's BATF in specific.

The BATF is under fire for supplying more than 2,500 firearms to Mexican narco-terrorists as part of a poorly-conceived operation that turned the U.S. government into the largest single supplier of cartel weapons found north of the border. These weapons have been used to murder two U.S. law enforcement officers (Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata), and were used to gun down 150 Mexican police officers and soldiers.

CNN has chosen to trot out a variation of the 90-percent lie, a bit propaganda debunked by the ATF two years ago.

CNN claims:

More than 70% of 29,284 firearms submitted to the U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for tracing by the Mexican government during 2009 and 2010 originated in the United States, according to the report.

"Congress has been virtually moribund while powerful Mexican drug trafficking organizations continue to gain unfettered access to military-style firearms coming from the United States," said Sen. Diane Feinstein of California.

In a letter this month to Feinstein, the ATF acknowledged that the United States keeps no record of criminal firearms seized in Mexico and that "the Mexican government does not submit every recovered firearm to ATF for tracing."

As a result, the ATF-provided figures may not be representative of all firearms recovered by Mexican officials.

"May not be representative."

You think?

Of the 100,000 weapons recovered by Mexican authorities, only 18,000 [out of the 29,284 submitted. -- ed.] were determined to have been manufactured, sold, or imported from the United States, and of those 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers.

We now know that of those 7,900 firearms supplied to the cartels via U.S. gun shops, roughly 2,000-2,500 were forced on BATF's orders making them the largest single direct supplier of cartel weaponry (not counting the thousands of military weapons the U.S. indirectly supplies).

The actual figure is that a little over 5-percent of cartel weapons have come from border gun shops, and that translates to less than one gun per shop in the region.

Of course, neither the Obama Administration nor CNN want to share that factoid, as it undermines their shared goal of pushing for more gun control laws.

Here's an idea.

If you want to stop Mexican cartels from getting U.S. weapons, have the U.s. government quit supplying the weapons.

Through legal and illegal means, it is the U.S. government the primary supplier of cartel guns.

If you really want those responsible for running guns to narco-terrorists to be put behind bars, put Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and Ken Melson on trial.

Of course, that is precisely what CNN is trying to avoid.

New Hampshire Man Arrested for Extreme Liberalism

When liberalism isn't a persistent vegetative state, it's a faked brain injury.

A 23-year-old man pretended he suffered from a brain injury so an unsuspecting in-home nurse would change his adult diaper, police said.

Eric Carrier, of 95 Granite St., Hooksett, turned himself into police Tuesday after a warrant was issued charging him with indecent exposure.

Carrier allegedly faked having a severe brain injury that would require him to wear adult diapers. A nurse caring for him became suspicious, police said.

Carrier was attempting to live the dream of every young liberal, becoming so dependent on others that he can't even wipe his own ass.

(H/T Hot Air headlines)

Weiner With Honey Mustard, Please. Hold the Statutory Rape

We've wondered for over a week about Democrat Anthony Weiner's explicit sexting with at least six women, especially as it appears that at least two of the young women engaging in conversations with the disgraced Congressmen may be minors.

Patterico has been all over the story of the under-aged girls—the part of the story the MSM is trying to hardest to ignore—and may not have the smoking gun, but the circumstantial evidence is adding up.

Ethel: I love 69ing big hunt + like to use honey mustard as lube. Ohh yeahh baby I love bdh weiner May 22

Ethel on Tumblr, quoting Weiner: "I came back strong. Large. In charge. Tights and cape shit…" My favorite congressman<3
May 26

You can choose to believe that Ethel, who publicly declared her love for Weiner repeatedly, and who had no compunction about dirty talk in public, turned prim and proper when Weiner talked to her in private . . . about his cape and tights. You can choose to believe that he didn’t know Ethel was underage, despite her youthful appearance, mentions of high school, and profile talking about marching band.

Sure, you can believe that if you want.

Anthony Weiner should resign from Congress, today. There is no way this story gets better, and every indication it will only get worse.

Weiner "Dumb and Defiant"

Call it partisan if you must, but it seems that most people—including many leading Democrats—would seem to agree with the image and teaser for this Fox New story.

While Weiner Cheates, Huma is Pregnant

My word. Just when I think my disgust level for New York Democrat Anthony Weiner has bottomed out, he finds a way to sink to a new level. Yesterday we discovered that a pair of shock jocks had posted a picture of the fully-exposed Congressman to their web site which moves the allegations from the realm of titillation to self-made pornography composed by a sitting member of Congress.

If that wasn't bad enough, we now discover that Weiner's online affairs were going on not just after he was married, but while his wife Huma is pregnant.

Their marriage has become the subject of intense speculation and scrutiny amid an embarrassing online sex scandal.

Now, Representative Anthony D. Weiner and Huma Abedin are about to make news of a different kind: they are expecting their first child.

Ms. Abedin, 35, is in the early stages of pregnancy, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

The pregnancy, which the couple have disclosed to close friends and family, adds a new dimension to questions about the future of their marriage.

I feel so sorry for the tribulations she is going through as the result of her depraved and perverted husband, a man without honor or the vaguest sense of moral decency. Were she my friend or daughter, I think I would advise her to evict the Congressman and begin divorce proceedings against him, shooting for full custody for the child.

Weiner has proven to be an unfit human being, and would likely be an unfit father as well. Huma and her child deserve what every family should have, in the form of a moral, loving, dedicated and decent father and husband. The kind that doesn't spread photos of his schlong to every woman he meets in cyberspace, or who apparently planned to cheat on them in the physical world with at least one of his online mistresses.

Huma's employer, Hillary Clinton, once said it takes village to raise a child. She wasn't wrong about that broader point. Both Huma and the baby would be better off if they exiled Anthony Weiner from their lives, and their nurture and care was provided by people worthy of their affection.

Weiner's Downfall

It was inevitable.

From FTR Video.

Update: Radio shock jocks Opie and Anthony have posted a X-rated photo sent by Anthony Weiner to one of the young women. I will not post it here nor link to it, but you can rest assured that the Congressman is completely compromised.

The House Democratic leader has to force Weiner out over this, or lose the few shreds of ethical credibility that have left. Former DNC Head Tim Kaine has already called for Weiner's resignation.

Weiner, like Hitler, seems to have been undone at the Battle of the Bulge.

Leftist "Comic" Says He Would Assassinate Palin

Obama mentor Bill Ayers, himself an advocate for executing up to 25 million Americans in "reeducation camps, would no doubt approve.

In responding to a question about former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's appearance on "Fox News Sunday," in which Palin defended her interpretation of what happened during Paul Revere's pre-Revolutionary War famous ride, Titus launched into a description of what he would do if Palin were elected.

"You know what man?" Titus said. "I am going to literally — if she gets elected president, I am going to hang out on the grassy knoll all the time, just loaded and ready — because you know what? It's for my country. It's for my country. If I got to sacrifice myself, it's for my country."

It's not for your country, Chris. It's for your lock-step, childish, and violent ideology.

The Unbearable Lightness of Weiner

“I don’t believe that I did anything that violates any law or any rule.”

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has finally come clean and admitted, albeit vaguely, that he engaged in what is commonly known as “sexting” for years, prior to and after his recent marriage, with multiple young women, apparently around the nation. In the furtherance of his “social intercourse,” Weiner sent multiple photographs of himself, including various body parts, to these women. However, unlike former Rep. Christopher Lee (R-NY), who was recently caught up in a similarly self-generated predicament, Weiner will not resign. Note his quote, which appeared on the June 6th edition of The O’Reilly Factor. While by the standards of DC sex scandals, Weiner’s serial transgressions are relatively tame, the situation does raise many interesting questions about not just Rep. Weiner, but us.

Just as they were anxious to defend and absolve Weiner of any and all guilt, many—including elements of the Lamestream Media—are equally anxious to put the affair behind them. Some have already observed that he did apologize and admit wrongdoing. He said that he took responsibility for his acts. Indeed, we all sin. We all behave foolishly from time to time. Americans do tend to be a forgiving people, particularly when those seeking forgiveness do so sincerely and with genuine contrition.

Unfortunately, Rep. Weiner, for more than a week, lied to the nation, his wife, his constituents and his Congressional colleagues. For more than a week, he not only attacked Andrew Brietbart, actually accusing him of nefarious deeds and lying, but he encouraged others—by his example--to do the same. As it turns out, Mr. Brietbart reported only the facts. Everything he reported has been proven true, and he actually withheld particularly damaging and sexually graphic photos that Rep. Weiner sent to women. Yes, he did apologize to Mr. Brietbart, but was it sincere? Did he show contrition? What responsibility, exactly, did he take?

Rep. Weiner apologized because he had no choice. The story expanded far beyond a single college girl in Seattle and a vague photograph of a semi-erect Congressional “member” in nondescript gray undies. It was going to expand—explosively--even further. Even ABC News was about to run an interview with one of the women involved. If Rep. Weiner admitted his wrongdoing and apologized as soon as the matter became public, he would have a reasonable claim to sincerity. So much for sincerity; how about contrition?

There is little doubt that Rep. Weiner feels sincerely badly that he was caught. Who wouldn’t have such feelings in his place? But his press conference seemed less an act of contrition than an act of justification and lawyerly weaseling around the rules and the Law. Rep. Weiner observed that he didn’t violate his oath to uphold the Constitution and that he didn’t violate any rule of the House of Representatives. What about the trust of the people? What about the trust of his colleagues? What about upholding the honor of the Institution? What about setting an example of rectitude and dignity for the nation and the world? As a member of the party of the President determined to make America liked and respected around the world above all else--even our relationships with our allies--doesn’t this sort of thing make American look just a bit smaller, less dignified and worthy of respect?

What responsibility did Rep. Weiner take? Is he planning to volunteer at the Nubile Twitter-Addicted Home For Easily Visually Stimulated Girls? Has he promised not to do it again, or to at least send pictures of himself in better taste? Former Rep. Christopher Lee actually took responsibility. He recognized the damage he did to the Institution, to those he loved, to those who supported him, to the public’s respect for Congressmen, and to his party, which lost his seat because of his lack of self-control. As far as we know, he engaged in a single incident rather than many incidents involving many women over several years. He resigned, and by so doing, limited the damage to everyone involved, and demonstrated real sincerity and contrition. He demonstrated that he understood that it really wasn’t all about him, that politics does not, cannot, take precedence over honor and genuine personal responsibility.

Some are also suggesting—as some will in such situations—that it’s all a matter of Rep. Weiner’s personal life, and as such, it’s not the public’s business. Bill and Hillary Clinton used this tactic with notable success on “60 Minutes,” and the public bought it. But Mr. Clinton, by himself, burned out a great many such tactics, tactics no longer available to politicians. Not, that is, unless character and sound judgment in our elected federal representatives matters not at all.

Without a doubt, there are many areas of a politician’s life that should always remain out of bounds. The sexual thoughts or private—as in within the walls of their own homes with their consenting spouse—behaviors of any of our representatives (or co-workers, for that matter) might well shock at least some portion of the population, but unless there is a clearly demonstrable harmful link between them and that person’s official actions, it really isn’t the business of the public. That is not the case here.

Wouldn’t any reasonably intelligent person know that putting multiple photographs of themselves and their body parts out on the Internet—over years—to women he did not really know, would inevitably be exposed? Imagine further that the reasonably intelligent person was a Congressman, and not just any one of hundreds of Congressman, but an abrasive mouthpiece used on a regular basis to attack anyone and anything opposing the Democrat agenda, an image regularly plastered across American TV screens. Wouldn’t that reasonably intelligent person understand that as a Congressman, his life and behavior were under a powerful and omnipresent microscope? Wouldn’t he understand that he not only would be held to a higher standard, but that he should be held to a higher standard? Or, like all too many politicians of all political affiliations, would he serve as yet another pedestrian, sordid proof of Lord Acton’s aphorism that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely?

Rep. Weiner’s judgment was, to put it kindly, faulty. There is also a kind of cruel irony in this situation in that he married, and not long ago, an aide to Hillary Clinton. She and Mrs. Clinton will certainly not lack for topics of mutual concern and sympathy in their future conversations. I bring this up not to be cruel, but to point out the wreckage Mr. Weiner’s actions has caused.

Rep. Weiner, like far too many before him, has trivialized the Congress, if such a thing is any longer possible. He has confirmed, if any confirmation was required, that a moral double standard exists. Republicans doing what he has done are through, and justly so. But it would appear that no one expects Democrats to behave with dignity and honor. I wish that were not true, for what it says about us all—not just Democrats—bodes ill for our survival as a people and a nation. I have little doubt that, like Charles Rangel and other Democrats before him, Rep. Weiner will be re-elected by his very liberal New York Congressional District. Most will not waste a second reflecting on what that says about them.

Absent new revelations, it does appear that Rep. Weiner did not violate the law or the rules of the House of Representatives, but that’s not the most important consideration. A mere lack of rule or law breaking are not what define us as individuals or as a nation. Ultimately, we all, Conservative and Liberal alike, might want to reflect on the perilous times that surround us, times that might very well see an end to the America and the American ideals so many have bled to build and maintain. And in reflecting on them, we might want to honestly ask, is Anthony Weiner—or anyone like him--the best we can do?

Anthony Weiner to Resign For Sexting Young Women

The only question now is whether or not he knows it. What an arrogant, duplicitous, cheating little jerk.

I hate to point out the obvious, but all the leftists that have been shrieking that Weiner was hacked now look like fools, and poor souls like Kossack "Stranded Wind" have destroyed their credibility for a lifetime.

Whine on You Lazy Diamond

Boo-freaking hoo:

LAST October, I won the Nobel Prize in economics for my work on unemployment and the labor market. But I am unqualified to serve on the board of the Federal Reserve — at least according to the Republican senators who have blocked my nomination. How can this be?

In case you haven't been paying attention for the past half-decade, the Nobel Prize has been reduced to absurdity. Even Paul Krugman has one. ManBearPig got on for junk science that was debunked. Our current war-monger President, who is fighting what the left used to call "an illegal war" in Libya, and which is supplying drug cartels with heavy weapons in Mexico via his BATF, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize before he even finished moving into the White House.

A Nobel means nothing.

The reason you were blocked Mr. Diamond, is that you are a Keynsian hack, with no understanding of real markets. The idiocy you espouse has led us into the largest recession on this side of the Second World War.

You weren't hired, because you aren't up to the job.

Let Them Eat (Even Less ) Cake!

It is an article of faith among Socialists that Socialism cannot possibly be wrong. When any socialistic policy is failing, the only possible explanation must be that socialism has not had sufficient time to work its magic, that insufficient socialism has been applied, or that evil capitalists are hindering ultimate, inevitable success, often by their mere existence.

Economic news has been so bad of late that the Lamestream Media has, for the most part, dropped the modifier “unexpected”—as in “Huge Drop in Home Values Unexpected,” or “Unexpected Record High Unemployment Surprises Obama Administration”--from its coverage of the death spiral of Mr. Obama’s socialistic economic policies. Even so, Mr. Obama and his minions continue to claim that it’s only a “bump” on that glorious revolutionary highway to complete recovery. They claim that they “saved or created” this or that number of jobs, and that without their brilliant socialistic manipulations, things would be much worse. That we are already broke and borrowing at the rate of billions per hour means nothing to the determined Socialist, for there is no possibility but the ultimate triumph of Socialism.

This pathology—for it is nothing less—is individually debilitating. Combined with a pathological narcissism the likes of which America has, prior to the advent of Mr. Obama, never experienced, it is likely to debilitate the nation.

A recent rare accidental Administration truth-telling (here) illustrates the degree to which one may become so impaired that reality becomes a nothing more than an infinitely changeable concept, which may transmogrify into whatever shape is politically useful from moment to moment. Socialism rejects conventional reality and constructs its own. Spending far more money than you have therefore becomes merely an opportunity to print and borrow money and to endlessly spend the money that isn’t real.

Consider the case of the “let them eat cake” attorney. Obama Solicitor General Neal Katyal appeared before the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on June 1 to defend the ObamaCare Individual Mandate. The mandate requires every American to buy government approved insurance or be fined by the IRS. Never before in American history has the federal government tried to assume the power to force Americans to buy a consumer product against their will. The Obama Administration seeks to justify it under the Commerce Clause. The law does have a very limited “poverty” exception, which exempts some from buying insurance.

Under questioning from the court Katyal said that the justices were playing a “game” which he could also play, and said that people could avoid the mandate simply by choosing to make less money.

People can choose to make less money. It is now well known that Mr. Obama’s claim that those who like their current insurance can keep it is, and always was, a lie. For most Americans, ObamaCare means that their insurance rates will go up, substantially up, because they must buy policies mandated by the government which will inevitably include coverage they neither want nor need.

The magic Socialistic “Stimulus” package that was guaranteed to keep unemployment below 8% is universally acknowledged as a complete failure. Official unemployment is now at 9.1%, but in reality, it’s nearly 16%. People are struggling to find any work. More Americans are on food stamps than at any time in American history. Gas and food prices are skyrocketing—just as Mr. Obama promised during the campaign—and the dollar is being seriously devalued by mass printings of greenbacks (Quantitative Easing). We’ve already had QE1 and QE2 and our tax-avoiding Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, is planning QE3.

The private sector needs to create a huge number of good paying jobs—people making more, not less money—but Mr. Obama’s lunatic socialistic policies prevent it. And against this backdrop, the Solicitor General of the United States argues that Americans can avoid having to pay far more of their rapidly deflating incomes in unwanted and unnecessary insurance by voluntarily choosing to make less money.

It is possible that Mr. Katyal, as a lawyer, is merely employing whatever outlandish argument popped into his head at the moment in the service of defending the indefensible. Lawyers do have to do that upon occasion. However, it is more likely that for Mr. Katyal, as a good Socialist, “The People” exist only as an abstraction in service to the State. It may not occur to him that people simply cannot, indeed will not, choose to lower their incomes. They certainly do not consider our economic situation a game, individually or collectively. For most Americans, less income would mean the loss of their homes, cars, and a descent into genuine poverty and misery. Considering the times, it is amazing that any rational, humane Administration official would even think such a thing, to say nothing of saying it. However, Socialism is neither humane nor rational.

But I’m sure that if a sufficient number of Americans voluntarily lower their income, the economy, which is experiencing momentary “bumps,” will be greatly stimulated. All you have to do is believe in the ultimate triumph of Socialism—unless of course, you’re one of those Capitalists who actually believe in object reality. But who does that anymore in this brave new Age of Obama?

When the Nazis Come, They'll Sport Chaps

...and they'll come from San Francisco.

Oops, He Did It Again

Anthony Weiner may have sexted lewd photos of himself before:

Of course, the simplest explanation of the scenario is that he had, in fact, tried to send a picture of his genitals to a 21-year-old Washington state college student. Weiner has denied that in public and in private. Two people who spoke to him privately said he had suggested that, as one said, "he took or sent a photo or photos like this at some point — but in this case actually was hacked/set up, perhaps with a posting of one of his own photos or something very similar."

"If that is the reality, there is no magic, good way to handle it," Dezenhall said. "You have what lawyers call a 'bad fact.'"

Note this is one of his protectors trying to help Weiner (therefore pushing the improbable hacking angle) that states the Congressman has a history of this kind of behavior.

Oh well, At least his real name works for a stage name once he finally resigns and begins his new career doing porn full time.

Goin' Up Around the Bend

It's dead simple.

Anthony Weiner took a dick pic and wanted to send it to a young woman who is not his wife. Instead of hitting "D" (to direct and privately message) the young lady, he hit "@," posting his pecker to the world, or at least the 40,000 or so people that were following the congressman at the time.

He realized his mistake and erased it quickly, but not quickly enough. He was caught, literally, with his pants down. From there, it has only gotten worse as the arrogant New Yorker has fanned the flames of scandal in one of the most disastrous political damage control campaigns in recent memory.

It has now gotten so bad that Weiner has even been forced to admit that there are other pictures of his package.

"I have photographs. I don't know what photographs are out there in the world of me," he said in one cable news interview, asked whether he'd ever snapped a photo like that of himself.

In another interview, Weiner acknowledged "it could be" the case that one of his private photos spilled onto the Internet.

Taking his own words at face value, the only rational conclusion is that Weiner did exactly what he is accused of doing.

And then there is something called a "Stranded Wind," which has created increasing more elaborate and fanciful conspiracy theories in an attempt to scapegoat conservatives for Weiner's transgressions.

Stranded Wind's latest claim is that Andrew Brietbart is behind a nafarious scheme to frame Weiner in order to protect Supreme Court Justice from (left-wing) allegations of tax evasion for not complying with disclosure requirements on financial forms. Like significant players in Obama's cabinet, Thomas made amends when the discrepancy was pointed out. I'd note that this even less than it appears to be, Thomas merely failed to disclose his wife's source of income, he wasn't a tax cheat like, say, the Treasury Secretary.

So how does a picture of a New York Congressman's erect member keep Clarence and Ginny Thomas out of jail for "corruption" in Stranded Wind's fantasy?

It's like this:

1. Breitbart frames Weiner with dick pic
2. ?
3. Thomas doesn't face charges for his non-crime

If you think it sounds familiar, well, it does.

Stranded Wind apparently thinks that Andrew Breitbart is MacGyver enough to use Weiner's wiener to pick Thomas' cell lock even though, uh, Thomas isn't under investigation—or even the suspicion of wrong-doing—outside the wild and loopy world of Stranded Wind's fantasy land, where Karl Rove was frog-marched to jail and George Bush was executed for war crimes.

There is crazy, and there is weapons-grade crazy. All I can say about Stranded Wind is that national security demands that we make sure the Iranians don't put this Kossack in a centrifuge.

A Holmes Twist for Weiner

And by Holmes, I mean Sherlock.

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

This is one of the most recognized quotes attributed to the fictional detective, but perhaps we need to go one better as we look at the continual, improbable, and ever more conspiratorial fantasy excuses that progressive bloggers are offering up to explain how a picture of a man's package was sent from New York Democrat Rep. Anothony Weiner Twitter account to a comely co-ed when his wife wasn't around.

The old saying that "truth is stranger than fiction" is indeed true often enough to make it a maxim, but the fact remains that reality is far more often boring and rote. Those events that break from the tedium of normalcy are sadly more likely the result of stupidity than brilliance, and Weiner's scandal is no different.

While it isn't appropriate for Holmes' fictional character, a real detective in this world is more likely to agree with the following.

"When you have eliminated the improbable, whatever remains, however straightforward and anticlimactic, must be the truth."

By far, the mostly likely scenario is precisely what appears to have occurred: Anthony Weiner tried to direct message (DM) a picture of his "package" to a co-ed, but mistakenly posted it to the public-facing side Twitter of instead.

That's it.

No grand conspiracy. No technological wizardry. Just a horny Congressman with loose morals and bad judgement.

Weiner is trying to save his marriage and his Congressional seat, so he has every reason to lie. Progressive bloggers want to protect one of their champions, and they have every reason to muddy the waters and offer a string of ever-more-fanciful excuses to try to get him off the hook.

But the most likely truth is simple.

Weiner did it.

Weiner Claims "System was Hacked" Which Makes FBI Investigation Imperative

Let's just play this through.

The Congressman asserts, "My system was hacked. Pictures can be manipulated. Pictures can be dropped in and inserted."

So he wants to now change his story for the third time (from twitter account hack, to "prank," to "system hack"), implying that someone was able to take control of his personal computer, scrape data from the hard drive, and then use that high level of access and control of his system to post Weiner's wiener on Twitter at roughly the same time the Congressman was, shockingly, online and using twitter.

We are now asked to believe that Weiner's PC was compromised, but that since it was his personal computer and not his government computer, cyber-crimes units of the federal government should not be brought in to investigate.

I beg to differ.

Federal computer systems or private, Congresspersons are privy to classified information, information that can mean millions of dollars in the event of industrial or commercial espionage, or the lives of our soldiers and citizens if the information compromised involves infrastructure or military secrets.

Further, it is reasonable to believe that if his private system was indeed hacked as he asserts, then the information on that computer could provide evidence of who hacked it, information that federal cyber-crimes units must have to catch the hacker or hacker responsible before they penetrate more sensitive systems.

After all, an embarrassing wiener picture stolen today could be nuclear secrets stolen tomorrow.

New York Congressional Representative Anthony Weiner simply has every obligation to turn his computer over to the FBI for investigation. It is simply a matter of national security.

Either that, or a lying crap-weasel meant to DM one of his little tarts with a tawdry photo, but because of his innate stupidity, posted it for all the world to see instead.

Yeah... Like you, I think the FBI should investigate, just to be sure.

Weiner Lovers are Insane

New york Democratic rep. Anthony Weiner could have easily stopped the burgeoning "Weinergate" scandal in its tracks with a simple statement:

"I did not send that tweet. It is not a picture of me. Law enforcement has been notified and we will prosecute the person who sent this photo to the fullest extent of the law."

But as we all know, Wiener had the opportunity to say those things and instead imploded. He refused no less than four direct appeals by the media to deny that the erect member in the photo belonged to the belligerent member of Congress. Instead he evaded, hemmed and hawed, looking all the more guilty with each and every second.

Miraculously, there are still hardcore progressive zealots on the interwebs still insisting that Weiner is absolutely innocent, and that conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart is somehow to blame.

Really, folks?

We've referred to the far left as the "community-based reality" (a play on their claim to be a "reality-based community") for a long time because of their penchant for concocting and then following conspiracy theories with religious fanaticism. Their contortions to blame right wing "hackers" for Weiner's unseemly tweet and spiraling collapse of evasions and non-denials, however, really drives home the fact that some are simply insane.

Putz Putts, Disrespecting the Dead

You'd never know it occurred thanks to the US media that dutifully ignored the story, but Barack Obama used Memorial Day as an opportunity to squeeze in a round of golf for the ninth weekend in a row.

Can you imagine David Cameron enjoying a round of golf on Remembrance Sunday? It would be inconceivable for the British Prime Minister to do so, and not just because of the usually dire weather at that time of the year. Above all, it would be viewed as an act of extremely bad taste on a day when the nation remembers and mourns her war dead. I can’t imagine the PM even considering it, and I’m sure his advisers would be horrified at the idea. And if the prime minister ever did play golf on such a sacrosanct day he would be given a massive drubbing by the British press, and it would never be repeated.

Contrast this with President Obama’s decision to play golf yesterday, Memorial Day, for the 70th time during his 28-month long presidency. For tens of millions of Americans, Memorial Day is a time for remembrance of the huge sacrifices made by servicemen and women on the battlefield. The president did pay his respects in the morning, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, but later in the day traveled to Fort Belvoir to play golf. The story has not been reported so far in a single US newspaper, but was made public by veteran White House correspondent Keith Koffler on his blog.

It took a British paper to report this story of Americans least favorite socialist dishonoring the dead. Obama simply doesn't know how to be Presidential, or perhaps he simply doesn't care how this will be perceived.

I can't wait until this man is driven from the office he continues to denigrate.

Media Ignores NY Rep Anthony Weiner's Cyber-Sex Story

NY Congressman Anthony Weiner was caught sending pictures of his uh, thinly-covered namesake, to a young woman who was not his new wife. This is the kind of story that ends political careers and forces resignations, but the MSM is dutifully ignoring this transgression... for now.

His wife won't buy his alibi. Neither should we.

Weiner should resign in disgrace, but I doubt the New York Democrat has that much honor.

Socialistic Energy-Lite

Those troublemakers at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are up to their usual tricks and have produced a outrageously scandalous report calling into question the motives of The One. It is available here. But first, a bit of background.

Communists, and their less murderous, Communist-lite comrades, Socialists, are masters of deception and propaganda. So adept are they that they long ago coined a term to describe the simpletons who believe their propaganda and are thereby motivated to betray and harm their own countries: “useful idiots.” The American left has always provided a ready supply of useful idiots who are praised by the elite to their faces, but reviled behind their backs, for Marxists love only true believers.

A part of this contempt for all but their own kind is apparent in their frequent rhetorical affection for “the people.” In reality “the people” are merely an abstraction, the non-existent body of subjects whose support for and love of their betters and rulers is unquestionable. Such caring for “the people” is ephemeral, particularly when it is applied to individuals, about whom Marxists care not at all, particularly if those individuals fail to demonstrate the proper respect and appreciation for the accomplishments of the glorious revolution and the elite who lead it.

The Obama administration often speaks of the wonderful, virtually unimaginable benefits of its policies for “the people.” Mr. Obama has even scolded the public when it has shown insufficient appreciation for his munificence stuffily sniffing that the public should be thanking him instead. Nowhere is Mr. Obama’s Marxist faux-fealty to “the people” more evident than in his energy non-policies.

Actually, it may be unfair to say that what, to any rational member of “the people,” would seem to be a complete lack of a coherent policy is in fact no policy. Mr. Obama’s policy is actually quite clear, and he and his various czars and functionaries have often and openly talked about it. From Mr. Obama’s campaign promise to make energy prices “necessarily skyrocket,” to his observation that the rest of the world won’t allow Americans to drive SUVs and set their thermostats for comfort, to his vow to bankrupt the American coal industry to Dr. Chu’s explanation of the necessity to make American gasoline prices rise to European levels of $10 per gallon or more, it’s obvious that he truly intends to bankrupt Americans, making it impossible for them to drive, heat or cool their homes, and destroy the American economy, all in the name of helping “the people,” of course.

What’s that you say? How can policies that harm every individual who constitutes “the people” help “the people?” They can’t, but anyone who recognizes that obviously isn’t one of the docile, easily controlled subjects so beloved of Marxists, but a counter-revolutionary unwilling to sacrifice for the good of “the people.” Remember, please, that the scientific Marxists, the elite, must never stoop to living under the same strictures imposed on “the people.” There must be some rewards for ceaselessly laboring on behalf of “the people,” or who would wish to become one of the elite? What’s that? The elite appoint themselves and suck the lifeblood of the people? They always have? So what’s your point?

Finally, even the Congress, including the occasional Democrat, is awakening to the reality that Mr. Obama actually intends to bankrupt the nation and “the people.” The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s report explicitly reveals that the Obama Administration’s energy policies are responsible for higher oil and gas prices because the Administration wants higher oil and gas prices. Who woulda’ thunk it? I’ve often written about Mr. Obama’s stealth agenda, an agenda that deceptively pushes action on many fronts:

(1) Public persuasion. This is the first, public front in which Mr. Obama has tried to use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to convince “the people” that their ruin is actually their salvation. As Mr. Obama’s default position is to speechify in the apparent belief that everyone in the world wants nothing so much as yet another Obama teleprompter reading, this suits him well. This first step is always closely aligned with:

(2) Legislation. When Democrats controlled the Congress, Mr. Obama was able to push through ObamaCare despite the fact that a clear majority of the public did not, and does not, want it. However, even with control of Congress, he was not able to pass Cap and Trade, which would have given him absolute control over the daily lives of “the people,” enabling Obama bureaucrats to regulate the very air they breath. When legislation fails, there is always:

(3) The Administrative State. Where the first several steps fail, Mr. Obama makes an end run around the legislature by means of his appointed, unaccountable czars and innumerable bureaucratic functionaries, constantly growing in number and boldness, who not only have the power to make up the rules as they go, but to harass, obstruct, punish and harm anyone who might try to stand in their way. Bureaucrats can, on their own initiative, bring economic development and activity to a halt. By ensuring that only like-minded sycophants are in bureaucratic positions, Mr. Obama need not stoop to issuing specific instructions: they know what to do. Freedom Of Information requests? Hahahahahahaha! You must be a Republican! In the unlikely event that this cannot bring about the required results, there are:

(4) Environmentalists and Similar Groups. Whatever can’t be obtained through the first three steps can be obtained—and opponents impeded and punished—through the efforts of environmentalists and other advocacy groups, who commonly use:

(5) The Imperial Courts. By appointing the “right” kind of judges and/or jurisdiction shopping, predictable rulings are easy to obtain. Whatever mischief bureaucrats aren’t able to secure can often be accomplished through liberal, activist judges. The best part is that their decisions are the law!

But that’s immoral! Underhanded! Un-American! Right. What’s your point? Marxists recognize no outcome but victory by any means necessary, legal or illegal. They will do whatever is necessary to win, and minor, irrelevant impediments like the law, the Constitution or the welfare of individual subjects do not trouble them at all.

This, gentle readers, is what has been happening for the first two years of the Obama Administration. Should he win a second term, even if Republicans control the Congress, expect no restraints whatever in the use of steps 3-5. It, after all, is for the good of “the people.” Individuals need not apply.

Leadership and Statesmanship

In the last few days Americans were given the opportunity to observe, firsthand, the extremes of leadership and statesmanship. Even the American Congress, as dysfunctional as it often is, responded to the obvious difference. It is a lesson we should take to heart.

Tiny, democratic Israel is a nation in the middle of the world’s roughest neighborhood. Since its birth, its Arab neighbors have repeatedly tried to wipe it, and its people, from the face of the planet, and on several occasions, they came disturbingly close. Since their last bloody failure, they’ve never renounced their genocidal dreams and have instead resorted to terrorism, costing thousands of lives.

The Palestinians have rewarded Israeli offers of peace and generous gifts of land and infrastructure only with renewed terrorism and barrages of rockets. Their founding documents cry for genocide. They raise their children to hate and kill and die. They send women and the mentally disabled to attack the innocent as suicide bombers, and honor mass murderers as national heroes. Even their children’s TV shows preach hatred and murder. At the news of 9-11, they danced in the streets for joy.

Even so, the Israelis, each and every day, provide the Palestinians with food and water, and their hospitals save the lives of those who sometimes try to return laden with explosives, determined to kill those who selflessly saved their lives. They hide weapons and house terrorists near and in schools and hospitals, and use women and children as human shields. When the Israelis fight back to stop terrorist and rocket attacks, their military operates under the kind of restraints that place their soldiers at risk, just as our military does.

Syria and Iran sponsor terrorists with arms, money and training, and actively seek nuclear weapons, weapons they will surely use. Iran makes no pretense about its genocidal intentions and routinely declares its hatred for and hostile intentions toward America with fervor and venom second only to that it reserves for Israel. Both have helped Hezbollah stockpile huge numbers of rockets and other weapons in Southern Lebanon, a nation they’ve ruined and brutalized over many years in their insane, anti-Semitic hatred.

The North Koreans have been actively helping Iran and Syria in their nuclear and missile programs. Turkey is becoming much less secular and more actively Islamist, and is overtly backing away from any friendly relationship with Israel.

Egypt is now on the verge of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover. The Muslim Brotherhood is the foundation of the modern Islamist movement. They will surely abrogate the long-standing peace treaty with Israel, greatly increasing the danger of a catastrophic war in the region.

Against this backdrop, against this undeniable state of affairs and the danger it presents not only to Israel, but to the peace and stability of the world, Barack Obama sees only moral equivalency. His teleprompter generated rhetoric indicates clearly that he sees Israel as the foundational regional problem and that he simplistically believes that if only Israel makes whatever concessions the Palestinians wish, peace will be realized and all of the blood-soaked grievances that have washed over that part of the world for millennia will be healed. He is incapable of understanding that it is not possible to make peace with a people who not only live to kill you, who not only raise their children to kill you, but who never fail to take every opportunity to declare their genocidal intentions. With all of this, and more, incontrovertible evidence available to him, Mr. Obama demands that Israel carve up the nation so as to ensure its doom.

On May 24, speaking before the Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu demonstrated real statesmanship. Instead of tailoring his rhetoric to meet the political needs of the moment, he spoke from unshakeable moral conviction, and even the jaded denizens of Congress recognized the genuine article when they saw it. Mr. Netanyahu was unfailingly gracious to Mr. Obama, the man who has often insulted and tried to humiliate Mr. Netanyahu. He demonstrated, naturally and with grace, the kind of strength, conviction, moral fiber and class that Mr. Obama so often lacks. Mr. Obama fails in foreign affairs because he reflexively sympathizes with our enemies and disparages our friends. In this and in much more, he does not truly represent the interests of the United States. The same certainly cannot be said about Mr. Netanyahu. Israel is the better for it; America is not.

Perhaps the best way to sum up the reality of the Middle East, a reality that Mr. Obama refuses to acknowledge, or is perhaps unable to recognize is to understand that if Israel’s many enemies gave up their genocidal hopes and lay down their weapons, there would be peace. If Israel lay down her weapons, there would be genocide.

In pursuing such a stubborn, arrogant, petulant posture toward our vital regional ally, the only established democracy in the region, a people and nation to whom civilization owes a great debt, Mr. Obama actually makes war far more likely. Weakness never establishes peace, and the enemies of Israel and America have surely seen little but weakness from Mr. Obama. Understanding this, and experiencing Mr. Obama’s most recent teleprompter readings, what Israeli can now reasonably believe that Israel can rely upon America under Mr. Obama?

Mr. Netanyahu said it best: “Israel is not what’s wrong about the Middle East; Israel is what’s right about the Middle East.” That it is virtually impossible to imagine Mr. Obama speaking such a simple truth speaks volumes. Mr. Netanyahu is truly a leader and a statesman. The President of the United States, to our disappointment and peril, is not.

Fonda Suggests He's Teaching His Grandkids to Snipe Obama

The man who became a legend for playing a counter-culture biker nicknamed "Captain America" might be getting a visit from the Secret Service for comments made in France some may interpret as an assassination threat:

Peter Fonda, the star of Easy Rider, suggested to Mandrake that he was encouraging his grandchildren to shoot President Barack Obama.

"I'm training my grandchildren to use long-range rifles," said the actor, 71. "For what purpose? Well, I'm not going to say the words 'Barack Obama', but …"

He added, enigmatically: "It's more of a thought process than an actuality, but we are heading for a major conflict between the haves and the have nots. I came here many years ago with a biker movie and we stopped a war. Now, it's about starting the world."

I hope the irony isn't lost on the political left. The actor who helped personify their 1960s counter-cultural movement has now rebelled against it's failures to the point he is encouraging taking up arms against it.

Sadly, there is some merit to Fonda's observation that Obama and his Marxist-Socialist allies are running the Cloward-Piven strategy to perfection. Obama's wrecking of the economy is intentional, as are his machinations to dramatically increase energy prices and roil ties with our traditional allies.

The intent is to isolate America, and make it impossible for Americans to survive without capitalism being overthrown for the Marxist-Socialism fantasy Obama has been mentored to favor his entire useless life.

Fonda should not have mentioned assassinating Obama. That was stupid. Training his grandchildren in the use of arms, however, is a very prudent decision considering the path we are being forced down by would-be authoritarians.

BREAKING NEWS: Squishy Massachusetts RINO Acts Like Squishy Massachusetts RINO

I'm sorry if I don't get bent out of shape to hear that Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts is going to side with the Democrats and vote against the Ryan Plan.

Why can't I go along with the Ryan Medicare plan?

First, I fear that as health inflation rises, the cost of private plans will outgrow the government premium support— and the elderly will be forced to pay ever higher deductibles and co-pays. Protecting those who have been counting on the current system their entire adult lives should be the key principle of reform.

Second, Medicare has already taken significant cuts to help pay for Obama's health care plan. The president and Congress cut a half trillion dollars to the private side of Medicare — meaning seniors are at risk of losing their Medicare Advantage coverage.

Another key principle is that seniors should not have to bear a disproportionate burden. But that doesn’t mean we do nothing. If Medicare is to survive for current beneficiaries and future generations, we must act. The sooner Congress addresses this, the less painful it is likely to be — but more difficult adjustments will be required if we delay.

We should start by making improvements to the traditional Medicare plan.

Of course, like most politicians, Brown doesn't actually suggest any meaningful improvements to the "traditional Medicare plan," because that would mean addressing the fiscal issues, which would lead back to the Ryan plan being the most viable option anyone has offered to date.

Brown does the "traditional politicians plan" instead, and kicks the can down the road so that he doesn't have to deal with it today. This of course insures that when it finally must be addressed in a few short years that the trauma to society will be far more drastic.

The House and Senate game of "kick the can" is little different than someone with cancer refusing to acknowledge they need treatment. It is going to be unpleasant no matter how you choose to deal with it, but the consequences of waiting makes the prognosis ever more dire, and limits treatment options to dangerous and high risk-methods.

Travel Site to Ideological Lapdogs: Get Bent

Felon-funded Media Matters has been trying to undermine Fox News, and launched a campaign against the network's advertisers. One of those targeted advertisers, the travel site Orbitz, said they aren't going to be drawn in to that nakedly partisan game.

The effort by liberal media watchdog group Media Matters to convince half a dozen leading national advertisers to pull their dollars from the Fox News Channel got a high-profile snub Thursday when Orbitz, the travel company, not only declined to participate, but fired back at Media Matters, calling the "Drop Fox" campaign a "smear effort."

...

But Orbitz shot back, describing Media Matters as “\"a political organization that has been funded pretty extensively to go after one network, and we aren't going to engage in that fight," Orbitz spokesman Brian Hoyt told The Hollywood Reporter.

Eric Boehlert and the rest of Podesta's team of angry misfits are paid extremely generously to do one thing, and that is attack conservatives. They are nakedly biased with the clearest of one-sided agendas, and it is good to see that there are companies out there who won't be bullied by their partisan attempts to stifle dissenting voices.

Tales From The Republican Foot-Shooting Race

The Republican campaign for 2012 is going great guns--if you’re a Democrat. Once again, prominent Republicans seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of possible victory by not merely shooting themselves in the foot, but by emptying multiple magazines into their own feet. Yes, it’s early, but let’s have a brief review of the most recent Bizarro-World Republican behaviors.

The I Hate It/I Love It Candidate: Mitt Romney recently addressed long-standing conservative concerns (here) about RomneyCare by absolutely praising and standing by RomneyCare! Not only is RomneyCare a clone of ObamaCare which is performing more or less exactly as ObamaCare will certainly perform (not delivering on its promises, not improving things, and costing huge amounts of supposedly unforeseen money), but it makes Romney seem like the dictionary definition of hypocrite when he swears that he’ll repeal ObamaCare while praising its smaller brother. Despite his demonstrated ability to raise loads of money, he is not endearing himself to the conservative base.

The "Republicans Are Every Bit as Bad as Democrats" Candidate: For an educated man who served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich makes almost unbelievable mistakes (here). Only a few days after declaring his candidacy, Gingrich blew himself and his candidacy up by violating Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment never to speak ill of fellow Republicans. Gingrich claimed that there is such a thing as “right wing social engineering” in the same way that such policies exist on the left. He also said that he supported a “variation” of the ObamaCare Individual mandate, and attacked Paul Ryan’s economic proposal as it relates to Medicare.

Let’s count the ways that Mr. Gingrich stepped on his tongue. Paul Ryan is arguably the only member of Congress who has proposed a comprehensive, serious, well thought out proposal that can actually stave off and improve our looming national economic disaster. Ryan is one man that every rational Republican will want to have on his side in the 2012 campaign. Ryan responded: “with allies like that, who needs the left?” “Right wing social engineering?” Restoring fiscal sanity, adherence to the Constitution and the law and reducing the size of government constitute right wing social engineering? Conservatives don’t think that way; leftists do. Gingrich supports a “variation” of the individual mandate, the single most egregiously unconstitutional and destructive part of ObamaCare, the part without which the entire Rube Goldberg contraption collapses? Mr. Gingrich has apologized to Rep. Ryan, and he and his publicity staff have been feverishly backpedaling in recent days, but the conservative base does not seem in the least impressed. Thanks for the shortest presidential campaign in American history, Mr. Gingrich, and thanks for writing highly effective Democrat campaign commercials for the Dems. As a historian, I’m sure you can appreciate the inherent irony.

The Smart Diplomacy Candidate: Jon Huntsman, former Utah Governor and current Ambassador to China is making considerable noise about running for president. Some conservative and many pseudo-conservative figures have been saying that when the public starts hearing from Huntsman directly, they’ll be very impressed. He recently announced that he firmly believes in global warming because “90% of scientists” believe in it (here). It is that kind of comment that makes one wonder if Huntsman can actually read, and if so, whether he actually reads. Not only is that statistic ludicrously incorrect, all of the best evidence since the inception of Climategate indicates clearly that the Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Chaos house of cards has almost entirely collapsed because it is one of the largest and most costly frauds every perpetrated. Huntsman did allow, however, that he now believes that Cap and Trade (Tax) is no longer viable. This means, of course, that at one time, apparently recently, he thought that one of the most egregiously stupid and economically destructive leftist power grabs in history was a good idea! And this is a Republican candidate? Has he no idea of mainstream conservative thinking on this issue?

At this stage, one is tempted to wonder which party’s nomination these guys are seeking. Again, it’s early, but it’s a shame--and a potential tragedy--that prominent, ostensibly Republican figures, are behaving and sounding anything but Republican. It would be ironic and bizarre indeed if Conservatives had to hold their collective noses to vote for the eventual Republican nominee running against, of all people, Barack Obama. It is not outside the realm of possibility that a significant number of conservatives might simply stay home rather than vote for anyone who is so obviously far afield of genuinely Conservative values and principles.

Agreement with Mr. Obama is not, under the present state of American decline and danger, a sign of bipartisan cooperation, but a glaringly obvious indicator of a lack of understanding of the nature of Democrats and of the dangers we face. The Democrats care nothing for the Constitution and will do anything necessary to win. Republicans must not aband