Friday, December 4, 2009

Slaying The Hydra

Barack Obama has played more golf in 10 months than Bush did in his first two years. So what? Say his apologists; he has a stressful job, he needs to relax. This is nothing more than a 'manufactured controversy.' My personal litmus test for evaluating the actions of Obama has become this: if Bush did it, would I still be as upset? If yes, then I feel it's a legitimate beef. The big difference is that the media – our supposed watch dog – doesn't excoriate him for anything like they did with Bush. Rather, they defend him or even worse, ignore his foibles completely.

I could really care less about the golf. I know from experience you can get a lot done on a golf course. I've even played better while listening to a conference call on my Bluetooth because I not focusing on the minutiae of my swing. What's really sticking in my craw (at least right now) is that he's paying more attention to everything that doesn't matter than he is to things that do matter. He's attended 22 fund raisers so far (Bush did 6 in his first full year); he's given over 120 speeches as of mid October (one every 2.5 days); he dropped everything and flew to Copenhagen to pitch the Olympics for Chicago (and failed) but he couldn't attend the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall because of his busy schedule; he's bowed inappropriately to royalty, first in Saudi Arabia, then in Japan (faux pas at best – a deliberate message of submission and regret at worst) while snubbing the Royalty of our greatest ally; he's won the Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishing…nothing. He believes we can spend our way to prosperity despite hundreds of years of evidence to the contrary. He spent $300,000 of our money on 'date night' with his wife – TWICE! He believes making 95% of the population change their health coverage to accommodate 5% who need help is a good thing, and that adding millions to the insurance rolls and increasing the things that are covered, including pre-existing conditions that guarantee a loss, will somehow reduce costs. When Americans have stood up to both him and the congressional bobbleheads, we the people have been labeled all sorts of nasty things. He's personally appeared before joint sessions of congress to ram through the stimulus bill and the health care reform, yet he's dithered for months over sending troops to Afghanistan. While people have been dying half a world away, he finds time to blame Bush for not sending more troops while he was still president.

In other words, Obama is not leading, he's campaigning and seeing the world on our dime. It comes as no surprise to me that someone who had all of 185 days of experience as a US Senator before abdicating his responsibilities to Illinois and beginning his campaign for President that he would not know how to lead. The question is – who IS leading the country? One need not look beyond Axelrod, Emmanuel and the dozens of 'czars' with their dubious backgrounds to see that the leadership of our country is a hydra. When the unpleasantness of reality crashes down (Van Jones is a communist, Anita Dunn hearts Mao) Obama, Inc is loathe to admit imperfections in anything they've done, so they defend the indefensible until it becomes damaging to the collective to do so. At that point, the offending head of the hydra is lopped off, only to have two more take its place somewhere else. Of course, the media is too complicit in this charade to do any actual investigation. They leave that to professional, seasoned reporters like Hannah Giles.

In the end, I wonder how much any of this really matters. We're at a tipping point in the history of our nation. We have upwards of twenty million illegal immigrants in our country. The administration has every intention of giving them amnesty, getting them on the government dole, and giving them the vote. When that happens, we'll never see a conservative elected to major office again. Ben Franklin said "When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." 45% of the population already doesn't pay any taxes; when we add another 8% to that total, we're sunk. Demography, as they say, is destiny. We have this one change to seize ours. We take back congress in 2010 severing many heads of the hydra; then we take back the White House in 2012, severing the central head and burying it forever. It's either kill the hydra or go the way of the Soviet Union. What will you do today to help kill the hydra?

Friday, November 13, 2009

Calling a spade a shovel

Semantics are very important in politics. The wrong phrase uttered at an inopportune moment can sink a political career. Conversely, the right phrase said at the right time can make an immortal statement. "Four score and seven years ago"…"we have nothing to fear but fear itself"…"ask not what your country can do for you"…"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" As you read these words, you probably envisioned the men saying them[1].

Now, how about these: "read my lips; no new taxes" or "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Both of these lines are unforgettable, but for different reasons than the previous examples.

So, with all the eyes on a politician, the opposition watching for a misstep to take advantage of, it's not surprising that they are so careful with what they say, and the President gets the most focus of all. With all the goo-goo eyes the media makes at Obama, fawning over his celebrated oratory skills, it gets lost that what he DOESN'T say that can be just as important as what he DOES say. In the case of the Ft. Hood shootings, the word to be avoided at all costs is TERRORISM. If the attack was decreed to be terrorism, it would be the first attack on our soil since 9/11, and would be a mortal blow to Obama's credibility.

Enter the science of semantics. It was mass murder, a mass killing, the desperate act of a troubled mind, but it was definitely NOT the ideological act of a terrorist.

Then start the blame game. Psychiatrists who examined Major Nidal Hassan wondered if he was capable of something like this. The Army knew he was unstable but did nothing. The FBI knew he was communicating with Al Qaeda but didn't do anything with that knowledge. Everyone else is to blame, not Obama!

Why would I blame Obama? One of his first acts as president was to send a video to the Iranian people [2] telling them how much America admires them. The most beautiful sound in the world to Obama is not the National Anthem being sung before the World Series or church bells on Christmas morning; rather, it's the Islamic morning call to prayer. He's bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia, which was the first time an American president has done so. He went to Cairo at talked at length about how, like, totally awesome Islam is and how much the rest of the world owes Muslims for their contributions to society at large[3]. He gave two minutes of fluff and 'shout outs' in a speech on the day of the shootings before addressing the tragedy and cautioning not to jump to conclusions about the motives. He's repeatedly referred to Islam as a peaceful religion and is careful not to offend Muslims by referring to them as "Islamic Extremists," but has no qualms about his Department Of Homeland Security labeling people in our own country "Right Wing Extremists." And he's let Eric Holder run roughshod over the intelligence community for past perceived indiscretions. In light of the environment fostered in the last 10 months, can we fault the FBI for not labeling an Army Major as an Islamic extremist and potential terrorist? Political correctness has replaced honesty in our society, and that is obviously a dangerous thing.

Here are some things coming to light about Major Nidal Malik Hassan:

  • He shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is great in Arabic) before he peacefully opened fire, killing 13 people and injuring dozens more
  • He sent several emails to Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who has since praised Hassan's peaceful actions.
  • He felt Muslims should be exempted from being deployed to war zones where they will be killing fellow Muslims. Apparently deploying to kill Christians was not a problem for him.
  • He had personal business cards on which he declared himself to be a "Soldier of Allah."

As I said, political correctness has replaced honesty in our society. Let's call a spade a spade [4]; a terrorist act is committed with a ideological or political goal in mind. A mass killer goes to an office building in Orlando and kills 8 people because he believes the business is preventing him from getting unemployment. A terrorist kills 13 people in an Army base because he is a Muslim and wants to prevent the soldiers from killing other Muslims, and killing these soldiers is an acceptable form of protest in his mind.

Do the actions of Major Nidal Malik Hassan meet the definition of terrorism? What do you think?


[1] Well, except for Lincoln. Maybe you envisioned Hal Holbrooke in "North & South" in which case I recommend you visit Boone Hall Farm just outside Charleston, SC. You'll love it! But I digress…"

[2] Later Obama would later stand mute while these same people he professed his admiration for were gunned down in the streets of Tehran for protesting their election results.

[3] Go to this link to see a heavily edited video containing segments of this and other speeches: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28 It really is amazing the lengths to which he goes to pander to Muslims.

[4] No, it's not a racial slur. Look it up.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Things Were Not Always Thus (Part 1)

At the beginning of the movie "The 13th Warrior" (one of my favorites!), Antonio Banderas is on the deck of a Viking ship that is rocking violently in a storm. His voiceover says "I am Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, Ibn Al Abbas, Ibn Rasid, Ibn Hammad." [water crashes on the deck of the ship as waves batter it] "And things were not always thus. At one time, I was a poet in the greatest city in the world. Life was easy and I lived without care."

I feel that way about our political landscape now. When I think back over the last year and a half, it's amazing to me how far we've come from where we were. Eighty weeks ago, the GOP was gearing up for a fight with Hillary Clinton for the presidency. 56 weeks ago, John McCain's campaign was soaring, buoyed on the wings of Sarah Palin. 52 weeks ago, his campaign was souring, weighed down by a collapsing economy under the tenure of a Republican president, and Obama coasted into the presidency after 180 days of actual service as a US Senator (followed by his campaign, which last time I checked was still ongoing). He coasted, just like he did for the Illinois State Legislature, when his campaign staff meticulously disqualified signature after signature on his opponents ballot registrations until Obama was running unopposed [1]. He coasted, just like he did when he ran for the US Senate and a few months before the election word leaked out that his opponent had tried – unsuccessfully - to take his actress-wife Jeri to sex clubs [2]; after this revelation, Obama was again running virtually unopposed. Events sure have a way of repeatedly going Obama's way in a fashion that would raise suspicions at the black jack tables in Vegas. It's no wonder, then, that he and his team expected little to no resistance when his reign began and he began to shove his agenda down our collective throats.

The American people, on the other hand, are used to a certain level of apathy from our politicians. They make a lot of promises, bloviate, muddle through some legislation, but by and large they don't do a tremendous amount of damage; or if they do, the next guy (or gal) can undo it when the balance of power shifts. We've grown accustomed in many cases to voting for the least objectionable candidate, or blindly pulling the lever for the person with the 'R' or 'D' next to their name. Most people, if they're honest, would say they do more research when buying a new car, the latest generation plasma TV or iPod than they do when going to the polls. Some people are so jaded they think voting for the R or D doesn't even matter – they'll both just screw you in the end. I can and have identified with many of these attitudes at various times.

This is why the ferocity with which the Obama administration attacked their agenda has taken so many people by surprise, including congress. Take the stimulus bill – it was pushed through before anyone had a chance to read it, and no one really knew what hit us.

The omnibus spending bill, with it's hundreds of earmarks, was next. Obama had promised during the campaign (which still hasn't ended) to go through spending bills with a scalpel, removing earmarks and waste. He didn't even take a second look at the omnibus bill before signing it. We were left like a batter who just watched the first two pitches whiz by. We were down 0-2 in the count without even having the chance to swing.

We hit a foul ball into the stands with the House's crap & trade bill. Even if the eight RINOs had voted against it, it only means eight more democrats would have had to vote for it . It would have passed anyway, but we gave it a good fight, and the people started to wake up. Finally, people became alarmed at the spending and the nefarious methods being deployed to get us to foot the bill for this fiscal gluttony.

Like a college student waking up with a hangover wondering "What the heck did I do last night?", Americans are viewing the economic wreckage that we now have to clean up, and we're saying "not one more cent." People are either unemployed, about to be unemployed or have a job but in the back of their minds are wondering when the sword will fall on them. They're either facing foreclosure, a mountain of debt they can't pay off, or they're terrified to spend money lest they need it for that rainy day – and they see storm clouds on the horizon. Like the hung over college student who wretches at the thought of taking a drink, the American taxpayer sees the amount of spending going on, and feels sick. They know that in the end they are the ones left holding the bill; so they reject it.

Enter Obama and the Democrat controlled congress. At the very time when Americans are fighting to regain some fiscal stability and control over their destinies, the Obamacrats blow through the debt ceiling, recklessly approve legislation not because it's right but because Obama asks them to do so, blame the previous administration for their own actions, and they're not done yet! With health care reform, they have pitched legislation that portends to take away our control over choices in our healthcare and carry with it a great cost to boot. These changes only stand to benefit a small number of people. Consider:

  • Cuts to Medicare negatively impact seniors.
  • Plans to force all people to carry the prescribed levels of coverage negatively impact the people who are young and healthy and don't need gold plated coverage.
  • Plans to tax – I mean fine – people who don't buy insurance negatively impacts those who either don't want it or can't afford it.
  • Mandating what insurance plans must cover to stay in business negatively impacts the 90 % of the people who have insurance today and are largely satisfied with it.

With these changes being so negative to so many groups, and so many promises already broken, is it any wonder that people are skeptical? When elected officials can't or won't answer or explain things related to the plans proposed, is it any wonder we began to voice that skepticism? When politicians dismissed our skepticism, is it any wonder we began to protest? The politicians, with the help of the media, minimized the size of our protests; so we got organized and created larger protests. Rather than address our issues, or at least even play lip service to them, the media and the politicians openly mocked and insulted us [3], calling us racists, domestic terrorists and whatever other 'ist' they had handy. Is it a wonder, then, that we began to lose our tempers at town hall meetings?

Even in the face of massive opposition they still won't give it up. They know that even in their own party support is weak, so they keep saying that the 'nuclear option' where the legislation only needs 51 votes in the senate to pass, as opposed to 60, is being considered. Essentially they're saying "You don't like it? Too bad, we're doing it whether you like it or not." It seems they've forgotten that they work for us!

As this escalates back and forth, what is our next move? We're facing the possibility of our government breaking protocol to pass legislation that has overwhelming opposition from the people who elected these folks in the first place. If they do it, where do we go from here? A likely move will be to eject all the people who supported the bills and are up for re-election in 2010. Will there be open rebellion? Will Texas secede? Are we potentially facing a modern civil war? Your guess is as good as mine. However, I truly believe the DNC doesn't really care about the seats they'll lose, because they know that once they get this entitlement passed, even if they lose power in 2010, they'll get it back because step two is to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants. Naturalized citizens predominantly vote Democrat, so with heath care and an influx of tens of millions of Democrat voters, they will have created their nanny state. We want to boot them in 2010? You can't threaten them with taking away something they're prepared to lose. My advice? Work to defeat their agenda, but stock up on bottled water and canned foods…if this thing passes, life could get interesting, and we may all be saying "things were not always thus…."


 

[1] In the book "The Case Against Barack Obama", David Freddoso details how Obama talks of a speech he gave during this time being one of his best at that point in his career. The fact is, he could have stood on the dais and made fart noises in his armpits for 20 minutes; when you have no opponents it only takes one vote to win, and he could probably count in Michelle's support.

[2] This has been called the "sexless scandal" and many allegations have been levied that David Axelrod pushed hard on the Chicago Tribune to ensure this got a lot of press.

[3] When I think about Rachel Maddow using the phrase "tea bagger" as often as possible and chuckling to herself because she's so clever that she put one past the network censors, I want to vomit with rage.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Guilt By Association

After Bill Richardson, Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer withdrew from cabinet nominations, Geithner and Sebelius were confirmed even though they both owed years of back taxes, and Van Jones and Yosi Sergant were ousted from their czar posts, people assumed that there was a vetting problem in the Obama camp. "Who's vetting these people?" was the question asked. Implicit in that question is an assumption of innocence on the part of the administration. They didn't pick bad people; they have a poor selection process. The question that hasn't been asked, at least out loud by the mainstream media, is "Are these the people that Obama REALLY wants in place representing his administration?" What if the vetting process is working exactly as designed? Well, that just may be the case. Hillary Clinton recently called the vetting process "exhaustive." [1]

 
 

When I was young there were kids on the block that used to run around and cause trouble. Slingshots and BB guns were their common accessories, and there was a certain amount of lure that came with tools like that. Even though I went to school with them and knew them fairly well, I was forbidden from hanging out with them so I missed out on the all the fun. Then one night, shortly after my mom came home from a women's club meeting there was a knock on the door, and when she answered it, there was a policeman on the other side. He was looking for someone who had shot out a car window with a BB gun, and the shot had come from the bike path next to our house. I had just become the prime suspect. I swore I hadn't done it and it was true; another neighbor put the finger on the responsible parties, and all the kids who were with 'the shooter.' I was off the hook; they all got in big trouble. This was my first exposure to 'guilt by association.'

 
 

I tell this tale because it's relevant to our president. He has, for a long time, surrounded himself with people who openly hate our country, hate the government, and hold racial biases. He's supported organizations that have been exposed as criminal enterprises. He's been endorsed (sought their endorsement!) by a communist organization and selected communists to represent him in his administration. My parents didn't let me hang out with some of the kids in our neighborhood because they knew sooner or later those associations and the behavior they would encourage would get me into trouble. Is that going to happen to our president? It may already be starting.

 
 

If you go back to the 1990's, ACORN and the SEIU (local 880) were two of the groups who helped form The New Party in Chicago. This communist organization was frustrated with the centrist governing of Bill Clinton, so they endorsed candidates who pledged to push their agenda. Obama was one of those candidates, and members of the new party actively campaigned on his behalf. [2] Is this relevant? It may help explain the presence of communist Van Jones as the Green Jobs Czar. It certainly makes one wonder just how far to the left does Obama go?

 
 

Obama's ties to Acorn didn't stop with the new party. He was part of a team of lawyers representing ACORN in their attempt to register voters in Illinois in 1995. They won, forcing Illinois to implement the law. Of course now ACORN is under investigation in several states for voter registration fraud, so they don't follow the law anyway. He also successfully represented a group of aldermen in getting ward boundaries redrawn. So with new wards favoring the aldermen, loosened voter registration laws and the endorsement of the New Party, Obama's political career was off and running. [3]

 
 

In politics, a favor given must be returned. Obama helped ACORN; they helped get him elected to the Illinois state legislature. Last year, they helped him get elected president. So it was no wonder when Obama came to the White House and forced the stimulus bill through it was loaded with pork that was going to go to "community organizations" like ACORN. They weren't going to get all of it, so say the apologists, but you can take it to the bank that they were going to get some of it. Then ACORN was going to be one of the groups helping with the census…the census that determines congressional districts. With a history of redrawing boundaries for political gain, savvy people grew nervous. Talk of using "sampling" to "extrapolate" numbers in the census did nothing to mollify critics.

 
 

Enter James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, two independent investigative reporters. The enterprising duo set out to see just how far they could get ACORN to go, and the answers shocked even them. Posing as a prostitute and a pimp, they went to several ACORN offices looking for assistance with taxes (turn $96,000 into $9,600? No problem!), housing (Want to run a brothel? Sure thing) and importing underage sex slaves (I have contacts in Tijuana! Gotcha covered!). Giles, in an interview with Sean Hannity, said that every single office they visited helped them. When you watch the videos, the people don't even blink at the requests they make. Acorn's nut has been cracked.

 
 

Of course, the apologists claim that Obama has no direct ties to ACORN. Please...John Gotti didn't pull the triggers, either, but he still wound up in jail. That it took a scandal this huge, this insurmountable, for the Obama and the left to abandon ACORN is telling, just as it was telling that it took ad-nauseum repetition of Jeremiah Wright screaming "God Damn America" for Obama to say he was no longer associated with him. The apologists at that time said that Obama wasn't in church for the bad stuff Wright said. He knew him well enough to use one of his lines as the title of his book (The Audacity Of Hope) but had no idea Wright hates America? Please.

 
 

Still, America elected him. It wasn't a landslide, but it was a convincing win. It SHOULD have been a landslide; he was running against a mediocre opponent who represented the party of the incumbent President, whose popularity was in the low 30's, in the midst of a financial meltdown. He was slick and well spoken, adored by the media who focused not on what he said but on how he said it. After 185 says as US Senator, he was on his way to the White House.

 
 

Anyone who read "The Case Against Barack Obama" was wise to his history and his tactics. I have to believe that anyone who read that book voted against him. Others voted for him simply because there was a D next to his name, or because of the R next to the other guy. I saw firsthand last fall while making calls for the Boulder County Republicans, that many Ron Paul supporters were so angered that McCain got the nod that they voted for Obama. He ran as a centrist, then upon coming to office he has pushed his agenda as far to the left as he could, and from the stimulus to pushing the health care debate, he has done things very quickly.

 
 

But people - 'we the people' - don't want to be governed from the left. In the midst of the recession, people are seeing the folly of using debt to get to the promised land. As houses get foreclosed upon, cars get repossessed, jobs continue to disappear and retirement plans no longer cover the goals set forth, people don't want risk; they want safety. Pushback against his policies has been rising, and may not have crested yet. The shine has worn off, and with the demise of ACORN, people may be waking from the dream of a new day to realize there is a nightmare below the surface, and that bodes not well for the president.

 
 

In the March 30th issue of Forbes, in his "Fact And Comment" section, Steve Forbes said "The President himself will start to see the light when his poll numbers crash below 50%, which they will if the economy isn't on the mend by Labor Day. Despite periods of suspension, the American system of checks and balances always reasserts itself." Well, the economy isn't on the mend, the poll numbers have dropped but Obama is pushing blindly forward, not only oblivious to the light, but to the cliff he's heading towards. Let's hope he doesn't pull the country down with him when he goes over.

 
 

[1] http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/hillary_usaid_job_search/2009/07/13/234892.html?s=al&promo_code=833F-1

[2] http://earthhopenetwork.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=3101

[3] http://archive.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/barack_obama_sought_the_new_partys_endorsement_knowing_it_was_a_radical_left_organization

Thursday, September 10, 2009

September 11th – The Year After


With all the current political strife, in the midst of the recession, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that we Americans, when united, are the most formidable force on the planet. Americans are the "sleeping giant" the Japanese awoke in 1941, and less than four years later we had routed both the Nazi regime and Imperial Japanese forces from their positions of power. We are, however, a people easily divided when we don't have a common enemy. The speed with which the partisan politics returned after the attacks on 9/11/2001, and the huge ideological divide currently reigning supreme in our land illustrates that sad fact.
 

On the first anniversary of 9/11, I felt a compulsion to talk to my team at work about what 9/11 meant to me. I composed a note that I emailed to them, and one of my team mates was so inspired by the note that he forwarded it to Lewis & Floorwax of 103.5 The Fox (a radio station in Denver, Colorado). The two deejays read the letter on the air, which I thought was remarkable given that I hadn't intended for it to be read to so large an audience. One of their comments was "this guy gets it" – which made me feel an even more remarkable sense of validation that yes, other people shared my worldview. This is one of the reasons I later started The Coyote page.
 

In 2008, on the eve of the 7th anniversary commemorating these horrible homicide attacks, I was looking for that letter and could not find it, so I reached out to the guy that had been so moved by it in 2002. His response was really humbling…here's an excerpt of his response (emphasis is mine):

"I couldn't find the file on my computer but I had a hardcopy that I keep with me. This was a very important letter to me that you wrote and I want to thank you for it. It means a lot to me."

He keeps a hard copy with him? When I wrote it, I never thought it would affect anyone so deeply, and THAT is why I write my articles and weekly Howls for The Coyote…if I could reach this guy and affect him so deeply, if I can do something positive for one person, then maybe here is a vehicle to reach other people.

In its entirety, here is my original note from 9/11/2002:

     I vividly remember a year ago, on the morning of Sept. 11th [2001], I was getting ready to leave for work. My girlfriend [1] was working from home and was on a conference call in her office. I went in to say goodbye and she put the phone on mute. She told me that one of the guys on her call said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. She asked if I would turn on CNN and see what was going on. When I turned on the TV the same images were on every channel; a churning cloud of smoke billowing out of the top of the lone building. I remember thinking, "where's the other tower?" I thought it must have been obscured by the smoke, or hidden by the tower they were filming. It was just a bad camera angle. I didn't find out until I was in the car on my way to work what I was not ready to believe with my own eyes; that one of the two towers had fallen as a result of what was now obviously a terror attack. Shortly after I arrived at work, the second tower fell. The Pentagon was the site of the third attack, and then flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania. The thoughts that seemed to be on everyone's minds were "Why?" and "How many more are out there?" and "What's next?" We worked through the day and tried to make sense of everything that was going on around us.
     The devastation was incomprehensible. The images of the people in New York, frantically searching for hope, holding up signs with pictures of loved ones who were missing were especially gut wrenching. I went through the first few days after the attacks feeling numb, and then feeling pain and anguish as the stories the survivors told would bring me to the verge of tears. At every turn the sorrow and the grief grew more and more overbearing. I knew that at some point the shock and the disbelief would begin to wear off, but every time I turned on the TV it killed me to see what was happening. Now, as more media coverage turns to the anniversary I am finding that while I am no longer shocked, the grief is still close to the surface.
     Whether you knew someone personally who was in the Trade Center or the Pentagon, or knew someone who knew someone who was there, the odds are you were not more than 1 or 2 degrees of separation away from New York or Washington DC that day. Somehow we all got through it though, each in our own way, at our own pace. We got on with our lives. We've made it through the first year.
     While words have a hard time describing the totality of this tragedy, there were a few things that came out of September 11th that were positive. For a brief while the bickering between our political parties stopped, and our leaders had a united purpose. At a time when we were faced with the worst things humans are capable of, we saw in the actions of the police, fire departments and medical and rescue workers the best that humans are capable of. There has also been a lasting sense of patriotism that is still going strong, at least among the citizenry if not the politicians.
     I attended the opening ceremonies of the Highland Games in Estes Park this past weekend. As part of the ceremony they played the National Anthem, and I don't recall ever hearing a crowd sing it so loud. The piper bands played "Amazing Grace" in honor of those who died in the attacks. There is no more sorrowful sound than bagpipes playing that song, and many people began to openly weep. It really hit home to me just how deeply the attacks still are affecting people. Our society has been scarred by these events, and while they took place a full year ago, at times it seems to me that it was yesterday, or the day before. There are many days and weeks since then from which I don't remember anything in specific, but that day is as sharp and clear in my mind as this very moment.
     At the Highland Games opening ceremony, the last speaker was the Commander of NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command center buried deep within Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. He spoke of that day, of the way the staff inside NORAD responded. He echoed the words we have heard from this nation's leaders many times. He said that every citizen of this great land has a duty to live their life, to go to work every day, to attend events like the Highland Games, football and baseball games, to show that the spirit of freedom cannot and will not be put down by cowards who live in caves and murder innocent people. I couldn't agree with him more.
     As the anniversary of the attacks is imminent we have a lot of uncertainty about what may happen. Many rumors and warnings of new attacks are flying about in the media, and certainly there will be a lot of trepidation surrounding the many memorial services. One thing I do know is that the sun will rise tomorrow and I have a job to do. I'm not a policeman, or a fireman, or one of the heroes in uniform actively fighting terrorism half a world away. But I am an American, and I will live like one. I will get up, go to work, and do my job. I play a role in the survival of this country, just like each of you, like everyone you see. I am an American, and no one will take that away from me.
[1] Now my wife.


 

As I read that last paragraph it becomes very clear to me that this September 11th we are facing a very different level of uncertainty. We have in power a president who relies on radicals, extremists and communists to help advance his ideology and a congress that openly expresses disdain as it looks down upon the people who put them in power in the first place. It occurs to me that there may be someone who CAN take away my right to be an American by ensuring that there is no longer an America that I can respect and love. This may be a tad melodramatic, but each day brings with it a new revelation, a new scandal, a new member of the administration who has dodged taxes, embraced communism, misused the power of taxpayer funded organizations to advance the president's cause, insults our intelligence or completely disregards our opinions. But I am an American, so I will continue to fight for what I believe to be right. I am an American so I will continue to exercise my constitutional right to freedom of expression.
I am an American…but I am not so sure our current leadership wants to keep it that way.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Land Of Confusion

If you can wade through the distractions this week (Obama's September 8th indoctrination of our youth, "I Pledge" video, etc,) health care reform is still the topic that needs our attention the most. The trillion dollar travesty is going to sink us into a hole we may never get out of. While the progressives have no problem with that, those of us that think America is a good an noble place who owes no one an apology for 200 years of fighting for our freedom and the freedom of others would like to see it maintain it's status as the greatest country on earth. The liberals are still using the tired old tactics of name calling and character assassination to make their points, but the public ain't buyin' it this time around. Here's a verbatim (spelling errors included) post which attempts to belittle Those Who Would Oppose The Chosen One (hereafter known as TWWOTCO):


 

"I was going to join this debate but since it seems that most who oppose healthcare reform still have yet to educate themselves by reading any of the propossed legislation, I will just say that my quess is these are the same people who want to keep there kids home from school because the president is going to talk to children about the importance of staying in school and getting educated."


 

I see what you're doing here and I don't like it. First, way to work in a defense of the Sept 8 Indoctrination Speech before it's even been delivered, but let's not get off track. I replied with a number of my talking points, and I closed my response with this message: "So please tell the great uneducated masses, exactly how is this boondoggle going to work. And I'm only being partially sarcastic...if you can make a better case for it than any of our elected officials, hats off to you." Of course he ignored this challenge and after numerous other people left comments he threw in the towel by saying "I give up ignorance is bliss so all should be happy here."


 

And this is the problem with this entire debate. The left is so desperate to pass this for the Chosen One that they shut out any and all comments to the contrary, and they lie, lie lie about it. Here are a couple of their lies:


 

  1. "This is an issue of vital concern to every American, and I'm glad that so many are engaged," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. "But it also should be an honest debate, not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortions, spread by the very folks who would benefit the most by keeping things exactly as they are."[1]
    1. I see what you're doing here and I don't like it. Let me translate this: "You're all a bunch of liars who would rape your own mother to make a buck. Shut up already!" Honest debate is taking place in the guise of Harry Reid having townhall meeting by invitation only, with the people who are aggrieved not being allowed in. Honest debate is taking place in the guise of Organizing For America coaching it's members to stand and chant "Health Care Now" to drown out when someone (TWWOTCO) disrupts a town hall meeting. These are ways in which the left encourages honest debate.
  2. In debunking myths about the health care plan, Obama said the overhaul would not use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions [1]
    1. Barbara Mikulski introduced an amendment to the bill that would provide for abortions. "Madame Chairman, would you be willing to put some language in that says, 'Not including abortion services'?" [Senator Orin]Hatch asked. "Then I think you would have more support." Mikulski concluded a convoluted response by saying, "So, no, I would not be willing to do that at this time." [2] This reminds me of the episode of the Simpson's where Marge asks Homer if he's licking toads (to get high) and Homer replies "I'm not not licking toads."
  3. Top White House advisers on Sunday challenged Republicans to offer alternatives and not simply criticize administration approaches [3]
    1. What happens when you offer alternatives? Ask John Mackey. He wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html ) with alternatives. The house bill? 1000+ pages. Mackey's plan? 8 bullet points, one page. The company, 270 stores and 54,000 employees, voted on the new plan and decided by a majority of 77% to go with the plan as Mackey describes in his op-ed. 77! That's even more, as a percentage, than voted for Obama. [4] What did Mackey get for his offer of alternatives? A liberal boycott of his stores. [5] I guess you could file this under honest debate as well.
  4. My favorite Obama line: "so let me be clear: If you like your doctor or health care provider, you can keep them. If you like your health care plan, you can keep that too."
    1. From HR3200, Page 16, section 102, subparagraph 2 [abridged]: You can keep your current coverage if the following conditions apply: Subject to paragraph (3) and except as required by law, the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing, from those in effect as of the day before the first day of Y1. In other words, if your co pay or any other terms or conditions change, you must enroll in a plan that meets the government approved standards even if that means dropping your current coverage. In 12 years with my insurer there has never been a year where the terms and conditions haven't changed. So - what the plan REALLY says is "you can keep your current coverage - for a while"
    2. Further, page 17, paragraph (b) GRACE PERIOD FOR CURRENT EMPLOYMENT BASED HEALTH PLANS.—Subparagraph (1) GRACE PERIOD.— subparagraph (A) IN GENERAL.—The Commissioner shall establish a grace period whereby, for plan years beginning after the end of the 5-year period beginning with Y1, an employment-based health plan in operation as of the day before the first day of Y1 must meet the same requirements as apply to a qualified health benefits plan under section 101, including the essential benefit package requirement under section. In other words, if your plan doesn't look just like the government plan, you must switch to one that does. So after five years it won't matter if you're in the government plan, they'll all look like the government plan. So sure, you can keep you coverage if you like it - as long as nothing in any of the Ts and Cs changes for five years, but sooner or later, you WILL eat this cooking.
  5. Right wing extremists shattered windows and vandalized the DNC offices in Denver, according to Pat Waak (Colorado Democrat Chairwoman). "Clearly there's been an effort on the other side to stir up hate. I think this is the consequence of it." [6]
    1. Turns out, the culprit was a left wing extremist with an arrest on his record for protesting at the RNC in Minneapolis last year. Even more damaging was the report that he worked for a democrat and was paid by the SEIU. [7] Rahm Emmanuel said "never let a crisis go to waste." He could have added "If there is no crisis, invent one."


 

While the left is disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst, those on the right do themselves no favors by blindly reposting or repeating material without doing a little fact checking and research. Facts are stubborn things, as they say. Liberals don't let them get in the way of their arguments, but they can't out-debate you if you have them in your arsenal. You'll know you've won when they say "I give up" and call you ignorant on their way out the door. As Ann Coulter says, if you don't leave a liberal in an impotent, sputtering rage, you're not doing it right.


 


 

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/22/obama-calls-for-honest-de_n_265936.html

[2] http://townhall.com/columnists/TerryJeffrey/2009/07/15/how_senator_mikulski_slipped_an_abortion_mandate_into_the_health_care_bill?page=full&comments=true

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/us/politics/20cong.html

[4] Contrary to the revisionist history of the Obanauts, he is not the most popular president in history. Day 1 of his presidency saw him ranked 7th among presidents dating back to Truman with an approval rating of 64. Who was more popular? Truman (81), Johnson (78), Kennedy (72), Ford (71), Eisenhower (68) and Carter (CARTER!) (66). After six months in office he had fallen to 10th place with a rating of 55; even the left's favorite punching bag (seriously, when will someone tell Olbermann and Maddow that he's not the president any more!?) George W Bush was rated higher (56) than Obie Wan Baloney after the first six months.

[5] http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33188

[6] http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_13199902

[7] http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/08/breaking-denver-vandal-worked-for-dem.html


 


 

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

H1N1 – The Gathering (political) Storm

I will dive into this topic in a little more depth later...but I want to get these thoughts out there before the rest of the pundits.

The health care debate has stalled the reform bills, at least temporarily. People have grown weary of the spending, the government largess, and in the current economy they're crankier than normal anyway, so they've been spoiling for a fight. What the Obama team needs is a good crisis to distract us from how bad this legislation is and make us more pliable and open to pushing it through congress. What to do, what to do...[go into liberal mindset]

Aha! On the horizon - SWINE FLU! If it hits badly enough, and people start dying - WOW, that would really make a case for health care reform, right? Because if we had universal health care, everyone would have received a vaccination and no one would have died! Those evil Republicans must not care about your grandmother if they let her die from the swine flu, right? Let us pass the bill and this will never happen again!

But how to get the message out in a sufficiently scary way so we can use the politics of fear? If only we had a media that was complicit with our agenda. Oh wait, silly me, we do!! MSNBC, NBC, ABC - start doing your pieces on this scam - er, crisis. Warn people about the 500,000 plastic coffins the WHO and CDC have being stored outside the Atlanta airport, talk about the deaths being double to triple the normal death rate from the flu...do everything you can to scare people. Then we can beat them with the H1N1 club until they relent and let us pass the appropriate-length non-pork filled bill. Maybe it will actually be bad enough that we can suspend civil liberties and shut people up by force!

[come back to reality]...ugh. That was nasty in there! I feel dirty.

Will H1N1 be a big deal? I don't know any more than the rest of us do. The media seemed disappointed that round one didn't kill more people. Remember, if it bleeds it leads, and no blood makes for dull programming. The better question is: Will the administration use any and all means necessary to get health care reform passed, at any cost? You bet. You heard it here first...if H1N1 doesn't actually make you sick, prepare for the coverage and the political drafting off of its wake to make you ill anyway.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Is there a doctor in the house?

When I was in India in 2004, there were many, many things that were a culture shock to me. One in particular was the traffic. It's so thick that on the way to work in the evening (I was working the North American schedule – eleven and a half hours behind India) that we never got above 30 miles per hour (at 4 AM it was a different story…). After night after a particularly slow trip to work, one of the people I worked with asked how fast I drive in when I drive to work in the US. I told them that it was not unusual for me to go 80 or 85 MPH. They asked what the speed limits are, and I said that I drive as fast as I can afford. They didn't get it so I elaborated that as long as I didn't have too many tickets on my record I could afford to drive over the speed limit.

"But that is against the law." One of the Indians said to me.

"Yes," I tried to explain, "but as long as I have enough points on my license and I can afford the fine there's no reason to drive slower than I want to as long as I'm not being reckless."

She persisted. "But why would you intentionally break the law?"

Someone came and got me at that point and further saved me from labeling myself a criminal. The conversation has stuck with me through the last few years as an example of the culture clash between a moral relativist society (ours) and a karmic society (theirs). While I was in India I remember seeing several PC monitors with a scrolling screen saver that said "Integrity is doing the right thing – especially when no one is watching." This lesson historically has been lost on me with regard to speed limits (ok, even not so recently…I am going to traffic court at the end of September) and it is lost on much of our society. Most disturbingly, we are led by people at all levels of our government who hold more than just the laws regarding traffic speed with contempt. Witness:

  • Rod Blagojevich (attempted to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat)
  • Tom Daschle (tax problems – only came to light after his name came up as a potential for the DHS cabinet post)
  • Tim Geithner (tax problems – only paid when he was named to the treasury post)
  • Bill Richardson (pay for play scandal – only came up when he was being considered for commerce secretary)
  • Barack Obama (left 15 of 17 parking tickets in Cambridge, Mass unpaid until he got serious about running for President in 2007)
  • Most recently, David Axelrod may be getting $2 million from his former company, Phrma, which just worked a behind-closed-doors deal with Obama in a follow-the-money tale worthy of any Cheney-Haliburton rants the liberals love so much.

It seems the Democrat motto is "Integrity is doing the right thing ONLY when other people are looking."

To be sure, there are people on both sides of the aisle who violate the law or other moral standards. Republican Senator Larry Craig was arrested for lewd behavior in a public bathroom, placing him in the illustrious company of Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens and singer George Michael. No Democrat would ever let us forget Nixon. However, I don't recall such a large number of tax dodgers and bribe takers ever associated with one party, let alone one person.

The Democrats want us to believe that the government is the solution to all of our problems. Obama has said as much in one of his first televised speeches. It seems to me that rather than the solution, government is part of the problem, and this administration keeps pushing more of it down our throats. Obama says that the key to our economic recovery is health care reform (it was the stimulus, but once that passed, the blame had to move to the next bill that needed to be passed). While I agree that our health insurance industry is fraught with issues, I think the government is the system that is sick and needs medical attention. With the number of pols getting caught for their legal transgressions, how many haven't been caught? Like a cancer patient, our government has become rank with tumors and now it's time to operate. Only when we've removed the cancerous politicians and replaced them with healthy, fresh ones who believe you should do the right thing especially when no one is looking, will we have a shot at healing the rest of our country's problems.

The great thing in all of this is that you and I are the surgeons here. We operate with our right to vote, and if we use it wisely we can bring this patient back from the brink of death. Surgery is scheduled for November 2010…will you be ready to operate?

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Who will speak up for us?

The phrase "death panel" is now being bandied about in reference to the Obama health care plan. Sarah Palin coined the phrase in a statement where she said that a system that judges the people's eligibility for health care based on their level of productivity in society is evil. And I agree.

The question I can't answer is why the Democrats are surprised by the allegations. Since there is no single plan in existence, but pieces of several different plans, we're left to draw our own conclusions about what we do know. We know that the Dems are pro abortion, we know that Ezekiel Emmanuel wants to assign worth to people based on their level of genetic perfection (or lack thereof) or their age and has been named to the group that one version of health care reform would have making these kinds of decisions, and in extreme cases (like Peter Singer) we know that they think infanticide is permissible and actually preferred. Obama has responded to the protests by calling on his shock troops (the Service Employees International Union and Organizing For America) to hit back at protestors "twice as hard." At least one town hall meeting led to SEIU members beating a conservative merchant in the parking lot. Nancy Pelosi brings up the specter of Nazi-ism when referring to the protestors, but all the things listed off in this paragraph are tactics the Nazis used in the 1930's and 40's to first grab and then desperately attempt to cling to power. While I am sure that Pelosi uses the Nazi reference as a scare tactic to conjure the horrible images from World War II and attempting to link them to the Republican Party, either she's ignorant of history or simply doesn't care to remember it before defaming her opponents.

The Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Worker's Party and was founded in 1919 prior to Hitler's involvement (though he quickly took it over). The members of the party called themselves "National Socialists" not "National Conservatives." The Nazis, like the Democrats of today, were proponents of eugenics. The Republicans are not. The Nazis, like today's Democrats, had the general public turn in names of people who were spreading dissent. The Republicans have not. The Nazis, like the Democrats, used the nation's youth to strengthen their position and propagandize the Nazi message. The Republicans have not.

Hitler, upon taking over as Chancellor Of Germany, wasted no time taking over the entire government, using the 1933 fire at the Reichstag as an excuse to suspend civil liberties. This is a common charge levied at Bush and the Patriot Act post-9/11. The logic seems completely lost on the Democrats when looking at their own actions. The Cash-for-clunkers web site disclaimer authorizing the government to access your PC – all data, including emails and financial records – doesn't seem to faze the liberals at all. The white house "snitchline" – the request by the white house to turn in people who send emails or engage in casual conversation that is 'fishy' with regard to health care - is redolent of Nazi Germany when there were spies everywhere and no one dared speak out in public for fear of being captured by the SS. What does the white house intend to do with this information? Imagine if Bush had done this! The outrage would have been deafening – but here, the people being vilified by congress and the media are the people who are speaking out and exercising their right to free speech and assembly.

"We are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries…" is a quote that could easily have come from Obama, but it's actually from Hitler. The tactics of class and racial warfare were used effectively in Germany in the '30s and '40s, and are being used in America today. Obama started out pushing for healthcare reform…but as resistance has built against it he has switched to calling it health 'insurance' reform and he has turned to the best club in his bag – the Evil Capitalists (previously it was the oil companies, but having almost reined them in with crap-n-trade, he's attacking, in this case, health care insurance CEOs). He even chastised the health insurance companies, as if this is a crime, for making the most evil of all evils - "record profits" - in the middle of a recession.

Why aren't the profits of Google (which as a percentage were higher than Exxon-Mobile's vilified 'record' profits) being targeted? In terms of people making obscene sums of money, why doesn't he want to go after Oprah Winfrey? She makes more than 10 times the average CEO salary (from the Forbes 400). Why isn't her $260 million income subject to the same scrutiny? George Soros is worth an estimated $11 billion. Why isn't he on the list? Earlier this year, after adding in language to the stimulus bill that allowed payment of already committed bonuses, Obama has encouraged people to protest at AIG executives houses, causing them to fear for their lives and seek police protection. Is it right that our President helped make people fear for their lives? Where's the outage? Apparently, having wealth or earning a significant sum is only bad if you don't directly support the president (though AIG did support him, so it's a double cross that they wound up in the line of fire). Like so many things with the liberals, the traffic only flows one way.

As for racial warfare, well, if you disagree with Obama you are a racist. Just ask Janeane Garofalo – she'll probably call you an ignorant redneck too. She doesn't even need to know what your objections are…if they're not what Obama wants, you're a racist. If you brand his style of government 'socialism,' you're a racist. The word is being used so much it's losing its meaning, and that is a dangerous thing for America.

The folks are starting to see things for what they are – a left wing organization has control of all branches of our government, and it will stop at virtually nothing to get what it wants. As Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org said after the 2004 election: "We bought it [the Democrat Party], we own it and we're going to take it back." And so they have. With the American people recognizing what is happening, we now have a fight on our hands. For the first time in my life time, we also have a president who is willing to literally send people out to actually fight us in the streets. He has the unwavering support of the Speaker Of The House and the Senate Majority Leader, who both follow his bidding without question while viewing the American people with contempt, and a media that blatantly fawns over Obama and actively demeans the American people. If this continues, my prediction is there will be real trouble and people will be hurt or killed in the process.

I'll close with a classic poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller (written about Germany in World War II):


They came first for the communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

With the white house trying desperately to silence dissent over health care, how long will it be before we create a poem like this for our own countrymen? At no time in recent history has an American President been so desperate to silence all voices of opposition and so active in making happen; if he succeeds with this attempt, who is next? Who will speak up for us? Freedoms are lost a little at a time, and once lost they are gone forever unless a rebellion occurs. Everyone should be concerned about the direction in which things are headed.


 


 

Friday, August 7, 2009

The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks

Ok, I've voted in the CSU vs CU poll (go Rammies!), used up all my stamina and energy in Mafia Wars, gone through my email and deleted all the spam, caught up with everything on the Facebook news feed…Now it's time to work on this week's Howl.

It's hard to talk about anything except the battle over health care. Things have gotten interesting this week as the American people seem to be waking from a slumber and they're cranky. They should be. Not only are We The People about to get a royal screwjie over health care, but for those who dare dissent, the media minimizes us as 'the fringe;' the elite snobbery that is the democrat-led congress says we're not sincere and are only getting angry because we're being paid to do so. Someone please beat Pelosi and Reid with the condescension stick and tell them we're angry not because we're getting paid to be angry, but because we want to keep our pay! What dolts.

We're going to play a game called 'connect the dots.' Ezekiel Emmanuel (Rahm's brother) has said that 'communitarianism' should guide who gets what health care. Why should we care what he thinks? Mainly we should care because he's been named by Obama (can you say 'nepotism?') to the Center Of Comparative Effectiveness Research (that's the first dot). What is the CCER? On page 501 of the House health care bill, the Center is described as (abridged) being responsible for conducting research "with respect to the outcomes, effectiveness, and appropriateness of health care services." Appropriate is the operative word there (second dot). Emmanuel is on record as saying that he feels that a way to reduce health care cost is to deny care to those who are "prevented from being participating citizens…An obvious example is not guaranteeing services to a person with dementia." (third dot) Answers.com has a good definition of dementia. It even provides numbers like the following: "Dementia affects 5–8% of all people between ages 65 and 74, and up to 20% of those between 75 and 84. Estimates for dementia in those 85 and over range from 30–47%." Fourth dot. Chances of developing cancer if you're over 65 are double that of someone under 65. Fifth Dot. Cancer treatment can be very expensive. Sixth dot.

So…Emmanuel is part of the group who decides what treatments are appropriate under the proposed health care plan. Starting at age 65 and rising steeply after 75 the incidence of dementia increases dramatically, as does the risk of cancer. Treating cancer can be very expensive. Emmanuel feels a way to reduce costs is to not guarantee coverage to people with dementia. Are the dots connecting? Can you see the picture forming? Does this sound like we're being set up for rationing of care? It sure does to me.

The libs can see that we're onto them, and they're going all in on this one. Liberal columnist Froma Hanop, writing for the Providence Journal, penned a piece with the fair minded title "Republicans Looking Crazy On Health Care." In it she said that she didn't think it had to be said, but apparently it does: "No one is trying to kill grandma." Well, Froma, Republicans didn't say that. In a roundabout, connect the dots kind of way, Ezekiel Emmanuel did. Well, more accurately he didn't say he wants kill grandma; he just doesn't want to help her live longer; so she'll die sooner rather than later. On the bright side, we'll have lower health care costs, which I'm sure will be a great comfort to grandma's family.

Who's crazy here? Conservatives, for wanting to have freedom of choice in their health care? Or liberals, who are so desperate to control every aspect of our lives that they are telling us that this plan will give everything to everyone, it won't change anything already in existence and won't cost a nickel more. This plan sounds an awful lot like the Shmoo.

The name calling is typical of liberals. Liberals probably think that Hanop showed remarkable restraint by not prefacing 'crazy' with 'bat-shit' when naming her op-ed piece. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. And that brings me, finally, to my point.

Liberals operate from bizarre world, where everything is the opposite. Or maybe they've been brainwashed reading 1984 and think newspeak is a GOOD thing. In either case, what they're really practicing is called 'projection.' Freud coined the term to describe someone who, rather than deal with their own undesirable traits, motivations, actions, feelings or desires will assign them to someone else. Liberals do this with constancy and precision. Witness:

  • Obama recently sent an email saying that the GOP would be resorting to scare tactics to stop the health care legislation from moving forward. He then used a scare tactic by saying that if we don't pass the bill, "health care costs will double, millions more will lose their coverage and state governments will go bankrupt."1 In practically the same sentence he predictively accused (Minority Report anyone?) the GOP of using a tactic he himself used in the next sentence!
  • People like Joy Behar say that Republicans need to get over the fact that we lost the election, but can't stop complaining about the President's actions. President Bush, that is. Um..Bush isn't in office any more. Who needs to 'get over it?'
  • The recent town hall meetings that have been interrupted by people who are fed up with being lied to are labeled by the left as being 'planned disruptions' and that the people are planted by the evil insurance captains of industry (whenever a liberal needs a villain, they just use class warfare and conjure up a CEO somewhere. In their mind he probably wears a top hat and has a waxed handlebar mustache and walks around saying "you MUST pay the rent!" But I digress). They can't fathom that normal everyday people would take time from their day – at their own expense – to go voice their opinion. The reason they can't fathom people doing this without being paid is that they pay people to do things like follow the Americans For Prosperity bus from stop to stop, or bribe young people with college grants if they will be community organizers.
  • The people disrupting these rallies are filled with hatred and violence…yet no one has been hurt and no windows have been broken. But there are plenty of examples of violent liberal protests.2
  • Obama in a speech asked that Republicans not engage in 'revisionist history' – then went out on the Apology'09 tour, telling various nations that:
    • Russia 'helped us' get to space. If by helped he meant 'competed against' I guess he's right. Is he next going to tell the Germans that they helped us win World War II?
    • The cold war ended because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe decided it would end peacefully, completely omitting the Reagan 'peace through strength' doctrine or his speech at Brandenburg Gate.
    • America has an interest in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. Unless you mean in Iran. Or North Korea. Or Burma.

When you see the mass of things the liberals actually do that they imagine that the Republicans are guilty of, you begin to think that they actually are clinical in their projection. Saul Alinsky even taught this pathology. Rule number 5 of his "Rules For Radicals" states that "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions." Hmm….maybe they're not as crazy as I think….

Maybe they're more cagey than crazy. It's important that we recognize this tactic for what it is, and not be intimidated by it. Take ridicule away from Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher or Janeane Garofalo and what do you have left? They have nothing else in their tool kit. They're just sad, angry people still punching at President Bush and looking for the next conservative boogeyman to lash out at. Just remember, it's all projection. They ridicule conservatives because they're intimidated by them. Use that to your advantage. Stand firm on a fact-based argument and all the projection in the world cannot save them in the end.

1 I turned this 'fishy' behavior in to the whitehouse.gov snitchline.

2 http://www.republicanoperative.com/forums/left-vs-right/13087-documented-cases-liberal-violence-intimidation-vandalism.html

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Healthcare Rally Had Great Turnout!

The Americans For Prosperity 'Hands Off My Healthcare' rally was great! I'll post pictures and video (if I can figure out the editing piece) later on.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Obama’s War On America

    I know that the Beer Conference is all the rage right now, and is a nice (purposeful?) distraction from the health care debate, but I'm not going to talk about either one of them. Instead I want to discuss the war that is waging in our country. If you follow Bill O'Reilly he calls it "The Culture War." Whether you believe it's real or not, you're going to have to pick a side. (Though if you're reading this, you probably already have.) The opposing forces are, in simple terms, those that want to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and those that want to take those fruits, put them in a big basket, and distribute them to the masses as they see fit.

    Before I get into the meat of this issue, let me discuss an interaction I had recently. It's no secret that politics divide people faster than a Yankees-Mets world series would split New Yorkers, but I've never seen it as clearly as I did a couple of weeks ago. I recently posted a video to my profile page (before I started The Coyote fan page) that took a street level view of the Canadian health care system, the point being that emulating this system is not a good path for this country go down. One of my friends left a comment that said people should stop drinking the "kool-aid" that Obama is offering. Another friend responded with the following, quoted verbatim: "Drinking the Kool-Aid? Heck I'm showering in it. I brush my teeth with it. I swim in the Kool-Aid! It is good to see people like yourselves going out on a limb sticking your neck out for the most rich and powerful. way to go guys. maybe dick cheney will taking you hunting one day."

    At first I was stunned. Someone I friended on Facebook, someone I went to high school with, partied with, and had a measure of respect for, essentially just said he hopes that I get shot. Never one to shy away from a debate, I replied, asking him if he had even watched the video – that it showed pretty clearly that the poor are not helped by socialized health care as only the wealthy can afford to go to the private clinics, etc, etc. His response? He de-friended me. He took his ball and went home. See, without knowing it, I had crossed the line in the sand that he had drawn. I can only assume that he has some deeply held beliefs – maybe a relative was denied care because of a pre-existing condition, or is facing bankruptcy trying to pay for a traumatic illness – that have colored his world view. Or maybe, like he admitted, he simply drinks the Kool-Aid. Whatever the case, he was obviously not interested in a debate. He's closed off his mind to any ideas other than those to which he subscribes, and rather than play nice he found it easier to drop me as a friend. At first it bothered me, because I knew him from before any of us even thought about these kinds of things, and I was honestly happy to reconnect with him after 20+ years. Besides, there's something so final about clicking on the "remove friend" button. It was like being erased. But the more I thought about it, the more OK I became with it. It's a free country, after all, and until the government takes over our social calendars no one MUST be friends with another person, either in person or virtually. Anyway, if it was that easy for him to drop me, we couldn't have been that close to begin with, right? This Facebook friendship became a casualty of war.

    This exchange highlights just how serious this war is. Bill Whittle, in a great video piece (1) says that this is a fight to the death between populists and elites. A fight to the DEATH! That may seem like alarmist language, but obviously, since he wants me to be shot by Dick Cheney, people like my erstwhile friend take it pretty seriously. I think it's time that we do the same. In his video Whittle mentions "Rules For Radicals." There's no question that our president is a student of Alinsky. Michelle Obama has spoken (2) about hearing Barack speak, and how his words were so moving. They were almost word for word from Alinsky. In the prologue for Rules, Alinsky writes that the book "is for those young radicals who are committed to the fight" and that "The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away." Let that ruminate for a minute…the original community organizer, who has inspired our president, wrote this book specifically for people committed to the FIGHT to TAKE AWAY from those that have and GIVE to those who don't. Redistribution of wealth? Why not? It evokes images of Robin Hood, standing up for the oppressed, except in Obama's view, the oppressed are a fraction of the population. He knows that government can't make men richer, but that it can make them poorer, thereby shrinking the gap between them and taking power away from the old guard in the process. Once we're made poorer by policies like the stimulus and cap and trade, we'll still have our health, right? Well….not so fast. We could very well be losing control over our very health and well being too.

    It gets better. Has anyone wondered why Obama is so perplexingly pessimistic? Why, within days of his inauguration, he says the sky is falling and as a result drives stocks down to prices not seen since 1996? Why is he going on this apology tour of the world? Why is he constantly telling us that our history is horrible, that we've all been lied to and that we're victims of the past administration, or that we're a racist nation, or that the wealthy are horrible people? Why does he play the class warfare card and lie about CEO pay (3) to get people fired up? Why does he tell us that without his plan, health care prices will double, millions will go uninsured and the government will go bankrupt? (4) The reason why is in Rules For Radicals too: "They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution."

    Why does, in the White House email regarding health care proclaim that "Over the next month there is going to be an avalanche of misinformation and scare tactics from those seeking to perpetuate the status quo"? Go back to Rules For Radicals: "Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical." So we see how effective nationalized health care will be in advancing his radical agenda and we protest; he's thinking a move ahead and predicting the response so he can say "see, I told you so."

    But isn't he looking out for us? He says he is…he says what he does will be better for everyone! Again, look to Rules For Radicals: "Goals must be phrased in general terms like "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," "Of the Common Welfare," "Pursuit of Happiness," or "Bread and Peace."

    So, fellow conservative thinkers, libertarians, politically agnostic agitators, whatever your stripe is, if you value the freedoms we have too often taken for granted, if you don't want to see the United States made into something else, now is the time to stand up. Thomas Jefferson, a member of a group of men (The Founders!) who would know better than any of us what the boot heel of oppression feels like, said "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." We are there, at that precipice, ladies and gentlemen. It's time to stand and deliver. If you don't think the Obamacrats are going to fight to the death, I will leave you with one final lesson from Rules For Radicals:

    "In war the end justifies almost any means."


 


 

  1. http://tinyurl.com/lkwmyl

  2. http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/08/figures-michelle-obama-quotes-lines.html
  3. http://tinyurl.com/lq2qzs
  4. White House email correspondence "What Health Care Means To You"

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Veritas et libertas ultra omnis sunto – Truth and liberty above all

During Obama's umpteenth presidential address to sell to the public on yet another costly government experiment, he inadvertently said something that may be more prescient than he realized. At one point during one of his rambling, incoherent examples of why he thinks we should have the government control our health care, he said that people will have to make sacrifices like "Giving up paying for things that don't make them healthier." Then he said something about having a blue pill and red pill and if they do the same thing but one costs twice as much, why pay for the costlier pill? I don't know if that was his whole point or not, because I drifted away to a scene from "The Matrix."

For those who haven't seen it, here's a quick summary (from http://www.arrod.co.uk/essays/matrix.php)

"The Matrix is a film filled with religious and philosophical symbolism. The plot supposes that humans live in vats many years in the future, being fed false sensory information by a giant virtual reality computer (the Matrix). The perpetrators of this horror are machines of the future who use humans as a source of power. Humans are literally farmed.

The central character of the film, Neo, is presented to us in the opening part of the film as a loner who is searching for a mysterious character called Morpheus (named after the Greek god of dreams and sleep). He is also trying to discover the answer to the question "What is the Matrix?"

Morpheus contacts Neo just as the machines (posing as sinister 'agents') are trying to keep Neo from finding out any more. When Morpheus and Neo meet, Morpheus offers Neo two pills. The red pill will answer the question "what is the Matrix?" (by removing him from it) and the blue pill simply for life to carry on as before. As Neo reaches for the red pill Morpheus warns Neo "Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.""

How fitting is it that Obama chose those colors the pills in his example? Red – the color attributed to the Republican Party, as in "Red States" is the color of the pill that reveals the truth. The blue pill, for Democrats, carries on with the lie, keeping people in ignorance. Could that be any more appropriate for this debate?

At another point in the movie, when the crappiness of real life is weighing Neo down, another character, Cypher, says to Neo "I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?" Many people ask themselves that every day. I know I was perfectly content a year and a half ago, conservative but not politically active. I couldn't have told you who my senators were, what congressional district in which I reside, or any details of pending legislation (except for what the media chose to tell me). Then I read the book "The Case Against Barack Obama." It was like taking the RED pill.

The Democrats want people taking the BLUE pill. When Obama trots out his numbers, like the 47 million people who are uninsured, he hopes people won't read articles like this one: http://tinyurl.com/n6clof that cut the legs out from under that argument. When he uses a figure like $700 per month for insurance as an example of the high cost of insurance, then says people are paying "thousands of dollars in hidden costs" in their insurance premiums, he doesn't want us to scratch our heads and say "wait a second…$700 per month is $8400…thousands per year in hidden costs means at least $2000….so 25% is 'hidden costs?' Where do these numbers come from?" He doesn't want us to ask questions like that because we then might question the sources of that data, and of other data like the 'hundreds' of letters he gets from people begging him to help them with their health care costs. What about the hundreds of letters telling him to leave their insurance alone? Do they not count? Suddenly I'm feeling a little disenfranchised. Here are some other BLUE pill moments from his speech and Q&A:

I don't think anyone will argue with the idea that health care could be reformed for the better. But there are myriad other options that are not being considered simply because they're offered by conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, or by Newt Gingrich's Center For Healthcare Transformation. They promote choice, efficiency and keep the government out of the middle of things, and therefore we're asked to take the BLUE pill.

I say resist the urge to keep the blinders on. Take the RED pill, discover the truth, and fight to keep your liberty.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

What "Clerks" can teach us

In the movie "Clerks" there's a scene where a customer in a video store asks the clerk, Randal, if either of two movies is any good. The scene plays out as follows:

Indecisive Video Customer: They say so much, but they never tell you if it's any good. Are either one of these any good? Sir?
Randal Graves: What?
Indecisive Video Customer: Are either one of these any good?
Randal Graves: I don't watch movies.
Indecisive Video Customer: Well, have you heard anything about either one of them?
Randal Graves: I find it's best to stay out of other people's affairs.
Indecisive Video Customer: You mean you haven't heard anybody say anything about either one of these?
Randal Graves: Nope.
Indecisive Video Customer: [turns around, then shows Randal the same movies] Well, what about these two?
Randal Graves: Oh, they suck.
Indecisive Video Customer: These are the same two movies! You weren't paying any attention!
Randal Graves: No, I wasn't.
Indecisive Video Customer: I don't think your manager would appreciate it if...
Randal Graves: I don't appreciate your ruse, ma'am.
Indecisive Video Customer: I beg your pardon?
Randal Graves: Your ruse. Your cunning attempt to trick me.

I submit that we, the public, have been behaving like Randal. For too long now we have allowed our government and our media to perpetrate a ruse upon us. Slowly and insidiously liberal/progressive agents have infiltrated all levels of government (aided and abetted by the media), and in the absence of attention from us, they have come to believe that they can do whatever they want. Go back to Clinton. The general public didn't really pay much attention to him until the sex scandal broke open. Then - and only then - did anyone care what was happening in the White House. End result - he was impeached. Impeached! But what does that really mean? Apparently nothing. He should have been disgraced and forced to leave Washington in shame, one of only two US Presidents to be impeached, but instead he completed his term, wrote a book and made millions. Nixon resigned rather than be impeached, and he is a perpetual punch line, the epitome of evil to the liberal set, but Clinton, who was actually impeached, is a hero and everyone should go read his book. After all, until Obama, Clinton was our first black president. His wrist-slap impeachment emboldened the rest of our government. With no consequences for an actual impeachment, all bets were off. The media realized it could spin anything and people would believe it, and so we arrive at where we are today. Examples:

Government:
  • Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) inserted language into the health care bill that will allow for coverage of abortions. When called on it, she fussed and fidgeted and gave an evasive answer. That should be for the opposition like blood in the water for a shark. Orin Hatch (R-Utah) even asked her at one point if she would insert the line "except for abortions" into the amendment so that she could garner more support. She declined. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania) said he could not support the amendment because she made it so vague. A Democrat said that! The amendment passed anyway.
  • Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colorado) inserted language into the cap & trade bill that helps provide business to New Resource Bank in San Francisco, the nation's first so called "green bank." The problem is that Perlmutter is an investor in this bank. So is his ex-wife. So is his father. Can you say "undisclosed conflict of interest?"
  • Colorado is on a roll. Governor Bill Ritter just awarded the law firm of Hogan and Hartson a no-bid contract to review the disbursement of Colorado's stimulus money ($40,000 of which has already been paid to the law firm for their services...how many jobs were created from that? I can guess...). The problem is that Hogan and Hartson is Ritter's former employer and several of the lawyers are Ritter supporters. Two of them, who are working directly with the money that has partially gone to them, are direct contributors to the governor's campaign.
Media:
  • Sarah Palin never said "I can see Russia from my house." That was Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live (while her impression was nearly spot on, I have a hard time believing that pundits and wags can't tell them apart). However, Palin's original statement has been lost and the country thinks that is what she actually said, thanks in no small part to it's being repeatedly attributed to her by the media. Back to the TOTBL (tactic of the big lie): if you repeat it often enough, it becomes the truth.
  • Maureen Dowd plagiarized a passage from another writer, changing only one phrase from "we were looking" to "the Bush crowd was looking." Aside from that passage, the two paragraphs were exactly the same - more than 40 words, identical, in the exact same order. That has to be like picking a 40 digit powerball winner! Supposedly she was told by a friend to make the point and somehow between the friend telling Dowd to make point and the actual making of the point she came up with the identical thought as the other author, only Bush-bashing for three words instead of using the royal "we." Did she lose her job? Get excoriated by her peers for committing what has to be the worst offense one journalist can inflict upon another? Nope. She apologized - without admitting she did anything wrong. End of story.
  • Bill O'Reilly's column this week dissects a piece in Newsweek where Palin, conservatives at large and Fox News in particular are attacked. O'Reilly's point is that if Newsweek were to openly say "we're trying to build a liberal/progressive base to keep us in business, and this opinion piece by a committed leftist is part of that strategy" there would be nothing wrong with it. But they didn't - they presented it as though the author was a Newsweek columnist. In reality he's a blogger who has an axe to grind against Fox News and lists among his interests "conservative failure."
So you can see the tactics being employed against the American people. As a politician you can do whatever you want with legislation, even if it directly benefits you, and no harm will come you as a result of it. Journalists can repeat lies, misrepresent their status and even steal from each other and that's all OK in today's America - as long as it benefits the liberal/progressive agenda.

You know what? I don't appreciate their ruse.

Sources:
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=101270487461&h=MqCyq&u=ST-EP
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/15/perlmutter-provision-would-aid-familys-green-bank/
http://cbs4denver.com/local/ritter.stimulus.hogan.2.1080748.html
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2009/05/18/the-maureen-dowd-plagiarism-scandal/
http://www.billoreilly.com/newslettercolumn?pid=26893

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Here's a widget to track the status of H.R.3200 America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009:


Sunday, July 12, 2009

Note to Michael Bennett

Senator Bennett,

I recently wrote to you regarding my concerns about Sonia Sotomayor. On June 5th you provided an eloquent response. One line from your note was: "Her skill and fair-mindedness on the federal bench has won the praise and support of Americans from all walks of life." Has it not also drawn scorn from people from all walks of life? Indeed, hasn't she had several decisions appealed and ultimately overturned?

You also said:"She brings with her a compelling life story and personal experience that will add to the Court̢۪s diversity and its shared understanding of how its decisions affect the daily lives of hardworking Americans." Are these now the qualifications for a Supreme Court Justice? Justice is supposed to be blind to race and gender - all people are equal before the law. Why then is race and gender - "diversity" - a qualifier for the supreme court? Her cases that have been appealed have been overturned more often than not, she feels that gender and race trump rule of law, and that the courts are where policies are made rather than enforced. Judges have been rejected in the past based on lower rates of overturned judgments, but you seem willing to look past this serious issue.

Activist judiciaries are usurping the power of the legislature, and yet the Senate, including you, seem to be determined to rush to confirm Sotomayor. Your note to me closed by saying that you value the input of Coloradoans. Is that really the case? I wonder only because, based on your response to my note, you seem to have made up your mind on Sotomayor before the confirmation hearings have even begun. I fully anticipate that the Democrat led Senate will confirm Sotomayor. I fear it will be done without a serious look at her record, and generations of Americans will pay the price for that haste.

Sincerely,

Richard Baker