Bundy's hoof in mouth disease

The internets are buzzing today with the death of Cliven Bundy. No, not the physical death, but the political death. His remarks about the plight of blacks in America have politicians and pundits scrambling to step away from him, to push back from the table and end their support for his fight against the Bureau Of Land Management. And like sharks drawn to blood in the water, liberal progressives are attacking with fury.

I have yet to see the full context of his remarks - I'm sure he didn't just get up and start talking about the plight of blacks, something had to lead into that topic - but it's unfortunate he's not a better speaker. In later remarks he clarified that what he was saying is that blacks are essentially slaves to government now and he wonders if their plight is no better under the government thumb than it was under slavery.

And thus, he stepped on the political landmine that progressives try to plant everywhere. They have so successfully established the rules of this game that like Global Thermonuclear War in Wargames, the only way to win is not to play. The intention of the left is to get people on the right to say anything about race, then brand them as racists in the usual list of publications like Slate, Huffpo, CNN, ThinkProgress, etc, and thus force the rest of the conservative world to hang them out to dry. And of course, the game only works one way. These same publications can put words in people mouths, interpret things however they want and bash whites all they want with no repercussions at all. Then people like Barack Obama will, with a straight face, say that we need to have open and honest conversations about race. Don't fall for it. They'll take what you say and use it out of context to make it sound racist...and if they can't do that, they'll just declare it to be racist based on their own prejudices, repeat that opinion in a hundred syndicated posts, and then your goose is cooked. Don't fight the allegations and the lies go unchecked. Fight them and they just play the comments in a loop for the entire time the issue is in the news.

For example, a recent CNN post on the Bundy comments says "But experts on race and politics say the comments, much like those of rocker Ted Nugent, who created a firestorm when he called President Barack Obama a "subhuman mongrel," also speak to complicated and deeply fraught cultural tensions running beneath the surface in some segments of America." In one fell swoop, the author has taken Bundy's "That's what I'm wonderin'" comments and tied them to Obama via Ted Nugent. See how they made his comments to be much more than they already were?

Calling the president a subhuman mongrel is certainly disrespectful (and redundant - if one is a mongrel they are by definition subhuman) but is it racist? Where have I ever heard someone refer to blacks as mongrels? Oh yeah, I remember. It was Barack Obama. On The View. (USA Today: Obama said...African Americans are "sort of a mongrel people," when asked why he identifies himself as black rather than of mixed race, given that his mother was white. "We're all kinds of mixed up," he added. "That's actually true of white people as well, but we just know more about it.")

My belief as this relates to Clive Bundy is that the pro-oppressive government propagandists are trying to drive a wedge between Bundy and his supporters that have, for the moment, held the BLM at bay. I'm encouraged that I'm on the right track with this theory when DNC spokeman Mo Elleithee says "If you ever want to be taken seriously for your outreach efforts, you might want to start by not defending racists." I'm confused though, if Elliethee is referring to Bundy, who simply 'wonders' if blacks are better off being slaves to individuals or to the government, of if he's referring to Nevada pugilist Harry Reid, who in addition to calling Bundy and his supporters domestic terrorists also thinks Obama was successful in his bid for the presidency because of his "light-skinned" appearance his ability to speak "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

The race game is so rigged in favor of Democrats that even a real, honest-to-goodness racist will never be called a racist - as long as he's a Democrat. Exalted Cyclops and founder of the Sophia, Virginia chapter of the KKK Robert Byrd personally recruited more than 150 people into the anti black organization. In 1946 he wrote a letter to Mississippi Senator Theodore G. Bilbo saying "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side ...Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels [there's that word again, uttered by another Democrat. No wonder they think Nugent meant it in a racist tone - that's exactly how Democrats use it!], a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." In 1947, the year Jackie Robinson started at 1st base for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Byrd wrote to the KKKs Grand Wizard "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation." You would assume that the party that wants to lynch (sorry, couldn't resist) a cattle rancher would of course DESTROY someone who publicly, proudly wore the white hood of racism. Right? Right? Wrong.

Byrd was elected to the state Senate in 1950, a scant 3 years after his racist screeds and written support of the KKK. He was elected to the US House in 1953, the US Senate in 1959, and there he remained until his death in 2010. Far from distancing themselves from his racism, the Democrats named him to chair the Senate Appropriations Committee three separate times, named him Senate Majority leader twice (him and Harry 'light skinned negro' Reid - two peas in the DNC Senate Majority leader racism pod) and FOUR separate times he was named the Senate President Pro Tempore. This last role acts in the vice president's stead when the veep is absent from the senate floor and is 3rd in line of succession to the president. From Excalted Cyclops to 3rd in line to the presidency...no one pulls support away from racists like the Democrats do.

Even the president gets in on the act. Democrat Lyndon Johnson said (though the left denies it) that with his entitlements he would "have those niggers voting Democrat for 200 years." Only 2 people supposedly witnessed this remark so the left says it's bunk (how many witnesses are required to make it valid? Three? Four? Ten?) but his proven, recorded use of the word nigger in other comments makes this not much of a stretch to believe. But he gave us Medicare, y'all, so it's ok.

Then there's Bubba. Bill Clinton was quoted as saying to Ted Kennedy "A few years ago, this guy [Obama] would be getting us coffee."

The racism in this comment is not overt, but it was enough for Reverend Al Sharpton to use it on Hannity to deploy a tried and true Democrat tactic to defend sitting Senate Majority Leader Reid - that of diversion.

"I think what Bill Clinton said is something you ought to be dealing with. I have said, and you know I said it, that that was far more far disturbing and I think it was far more offensive [than what Reid said.]"

Hannity asked, "Was it racist?"

Sharpton responded, "If he meant that he would have been serving because he was black..."

If. Only a Democrat gets the benefit of 'if.' Ted Nugent got no such qualifications on his 'mongrel' comment. If a conservative says something it's automatic that the left will consider it racist.

Which beings me back to Bundy. His understanding and beliefs about the plight of the black community has nothing to do with whether or not the BLM is justified in stealing his cattle and slaughtering them. It's a tactic designed to force people to push back from the table so the BLM can do what it wants without facing an outraged public. It's just a shame that he gave them the ammunition to deploy this maneuver, and it's a bigger shame that it's worked.. Hannity, one of his most vocal supporters in the media, has stopped supporting him. If I were Hannity I would say "This is America. We don't have to agree with people, we don't even have to like them personally, to support their rights to private property. We don't take people's property just because we find their comments distasteful. Rights are not determined by an individual's popularity."

In this country, we'll never have any productive conversations about race because the left doesn't want to solve any racial problems, they want to use race as a weapon in an ongoing political battle. People like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson make a living from racial division. Too many people benefit from the racial division industry for any of them to change now. As conservatives, we need to push past this noise and stick to the issues. Progressives can't win an argument based on the facts or issues. They can only win based on emotion and we need to stop letting them get away with it.

Obama Talks Income Inequality

"Hello everyone. It's me, your leader, elected twice by the smart half of country, Barack Hussein Obama. All of you in flyover country might want to skip this speech. I hear that Duck show is on, it's probably more to your taste anyway.

"In the next few months I am going to be pounding away at a topic that is very important to 99% of Americans. Income inequality. Because Republicans are demons from hell, they don't care about the poor. I've heard they use poor people as firewood to heat their massive, massive homes, while they write massive checks to Halliburton and the Kochs. That's their economic platform, I swear! Prove me wrong, people!

"Anyway, the rich are getting richer and the poor get poorer. The people on the right - that's any of the racists who disagree with me, by the way, just to help you identify who these ignorant rubes are - will try to tell that is how capitalism works. They'll tell you that when you work hard, you get wealthier, and that if you sit back and let the government take care of you you will get poorer. I say hogwash.

"Take for example the Affordable Care Act. Before the affordable care act, there were millions of people uninsured because they could not afford insurance. Now everyone HAS to have insurance. Sure, many of you can't afford it still, but you HAVE it, and that makes you richer. You're felling better already, I can tell. Critics will point out that more people have LOST their insurance than have gained it. This may be true, but those people already had it. They were rich. Now they're less rich. See how much better off you are by comparison? You're welcome.

"You can expect to hear many more awesome examples of how I am helping poor people as we get closer to the midterm elections. Remember - we democrats want to make you wealthy by giving you services you don't want at prices you can't afford. Republicans want you to work for what you get and make your own decisions about what products to buy, how to spend your money and what is best for you and your family. I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like it takes a whole lot of effort, and that's probably the last thing you want to do with your time. AMIRIGHT?!

"Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get to MO's 50th birthday party. She's just back from a typical poor man's $4,000,000 vacation and if I don't get over there, there will be hell to pay. I have to greet Jay Z, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Samuel L Jackson, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J Blige, Angela Bassett, Gayle King, Ashley Judd, Billie Jean King (hooray for gays, right?), Rachel Ray, SIR Paul McCartney, John Legend, James Taylor, Magic Johnson, Alonzo Mourning, Emmitt Smith, a bunch of billionaire corporate CEOs and some guy who costs $100,000 per night to spin records. DJ Cassidy, I think. You know it goes down in the hood, right? I feel ya!

"So until next time, you all keep signing up for the benefits I, your kind benefactor, magnanimously authorize to be released to you. I may look like I'm hanging with the rich folk, but trust me, I've got your back. Now, where did I put that knife....?"

On Boston, And The Shitty State Of Our Media

I need to rant about this while it's still fresh in my head. This is my catharsis...sometimes I have to just get this stuff out so I can clear my head and move on to something more productive.

I started running in 2003 when, in our family's self-flagellation ritual, I stepped onto the scale before Thanksgiving dinner to record my weight. We always weigh before and after to see who eats the most. I stared incredulously at the number.

200.

At five foot six inches, 200 is not a number you want to see related to your weight. Life's tough enough when you're short, but short and fat (and balding!) is a recipe for disaster! And so I started running.

I did 5Ks in 2004, 10Ks in 2005, and a half marathon in 2007. I figured that I would peak there, but I work with a lot of runners, one of whom is an 'ultra-runner' - he has run 100 mile or 24-hour races dozens of times. He's done the Leadville 100 eight times (maybe nine, I forget). It's hard not to get caught up in the spirit of the thing when you're around people like that.

So I ran my first full marathon in 2011 - the Colorado Marathon in Ft. Collins, CO - and I finished in five hours and 46 minutes. I was slow, I was in agony for the last 7 miles, but I finished and I swore, now that I had done a full marathon and could check it off the bucket list that I would never do another one.

In 2012 I ran the Denver Rock & Roll Marathon. I trained harder and finished in 4:52, much improved over the previous year, and was in much better condition when it was over.  I almost immediately registered for the next one.

In 5 days I'll be running the Salt Lake City Marathon. I'm 40 pounds lighter than I was in 2003, and a good deal faster than I was last year. On April 7th I finished a 1/2 marathon in under 1:55, which is no small feat at age 43. I'm primed and ready for this race.

And then come the events in Boston today. As a runner, as a marathoner, I know what it takes to train for a marathon.  I've run more than 500 miles and spent more than 85 hours on the roads training for Salt Lake. I'm expecting to come in about four hours and 20 minutes - or an hour and five minutes slower than what it takes for a 43 year old man to qualify for Boston. That's what makes the Boston Marathon so special. For many people it's the culmination of years of training, countless injuries overcome, thousands of miles logged, many, many disappointments and setbacks until finally, there's that race where everything goes right, and you earn your ticket in. And that's just to get there.  Once you're qualified to run the race, then you have to begin training for one of the most historic and toughest courses the sport knows.

So for many people, running in Boston is the culmination of a lifetime's effort and more often than not it's the only time they're going to get this chance. Every person on that course has that thing in common - they all did the work, they all made the qualifying time, they all know what it means to run on those streets. There's a solidarity among runners at every event, but at Boston, they all had to do more than just register and pay a fee - they had to earn their entry with blood and sweat. In that, they're all equal. It's about as apolitical an event as you can get.

So to hear that Wolf Blitzer has already speculated - in the absence of any evidence whatsoever - that 'Patriots' may be behind the bombings galls me to no end. We must not rush to judgement about any Muslim (Ft. Hood, anyone) who is involved in terrorism, but every time something happens, the media - Brian Ross with the Aurora shooting, now Blitzer in Boston - have no compunction about politicizing the event and smearing the (take your pick - Tea Party, the GOP, Patriot organizations). I'm sick of it.  Almost simultaneously, while Blitzer is bashing on Patriots, I'm hearing (and this is unconfirmed) that they have a Saudi national in custody who was seen putting backpacks in place where the explosion happened - yet Blitzer doesn't mention that.  It may well prove false, but the link to 'Patriot's Day' involvement probably will as well. He should just say they don't know who did it, or why, and leave it at that. Each and every time the media has blamed the Tea Party, or conservatives, or whatever their term for someone on the right is at the moment, they have been incorrect in their assumptions. And, when the facts become known, they never, ever report on the reality and are never held to account.

Nidal Hassan - Muslim, tied to Islamic fundamentalists (Obama: 'don't rush to Judgement')
Faisal Shahzad - Pakistani national, trained by the Pakistani Talibab (NY Police Chief: 'it could be a lone wolf terrorist and not an organization')
Jared Loughner - registered Democrat. (Sarah Palin made him do it)
James Holmes - registered Democrat, Occupy Wall Street supporter (reported falsely to be a Tea Party member)
Adam Lanza - registered Democrat (reported falsely to be an NRA member)

Don't get me wrong - I really don't care about their political affiliation because evil is evil, regardless of the cloak it wears. But if it's worth mentioning that there may be some minute chance that it was a Tea Party member, or an NRA member, etc. who did something horrible, then it's equally important to mention it when it turns out they're Democrats, or Occupy Wall Streeters, or Muslims, you know, just to ensure that they got it RIGHT. At least that would be important if there was a shred of integrity left in our media, but there isn't. They flack shamelessly for the democrats because, well, most of them ARE democrats. It's getting to the point that I can't stand to even watch half of the TV channels because they're so anti gun, anti religion (anti Christianity, anyway), anti traditional values, anti Constitution...well, anti ME. I'd say I've lost all respect for journalists, except that there ain't that much respect there to begin with. It's so pervasive at the networks that it's even corrupted the shows I watch, like Hawaii 5-0 which featured a 5 minute rant by Dan-o when a gun shop owner was a caricature of everything the media and progressive pols make gun owners out to be. I turned it off, wrote a scathing note to CBS and have never watch the show since - and that's a shame, because I think McGarrett is pretty cool, and that Kono is easy on the eyes. In any case, by dropping this show I've gained back an hour of my week.

On the plus side, as I've stopped watching the shows that piss me off, I've found more time for writing, buying guns and ammunition, and stirring the pot on Facebook.

And running, which I'll be doing for (hopefully) about four hours and 20 minutes on Saturday, with my head held high but with a heavy heart for those who, after Boston, will never run again.

Hey, Feinstein, it's all in the data, stupid!

This is something that I will be expanding on in an upcoming post, but this is an excellent primer. On the Coyote Facebook Page I've quoted a lot of stats recently about crime in the US. I have used this same data source (the FBI Unified Crime Reports) for my data.  I completely agree with this guy (and his subliminal insertions) that the pundits (Piers Morgan) and the politicians (Diane Feinstein) are cherry-picking the data they want while ignoring the fact that we are safer, less likely to get robbed, attacked, raped or murdered than at any point in the last 20 years. In fact, one report I read (and I still have to locate the data source) said that our murder rate hasn't been this low since 1928.

So, the quick gist is we ALL need to keep pointing to the data.  When a gun-grabbing liberal tells you that assault rifles are the cause of all of our problems, respond with "Can you explain the logic behind your statement when ALL rifles account for just 2.5% of the murders in the US?"

When they say that hi capacity magazines are the cause of all of our problems, calmly point out that after the previous hi-cap magazine ban ended in 2004, the murder rate has dropped by 15%. How can those two statements - hi cap magazines cause our murder rate to go up, and the murder rate has dropped after hi-cap magazines were once again readily available - co-exist?  They cannot; one of them has to be false, and we have data on our side here.

We're not going to change the minds of people like Diane Feinstein, Her first thought when she gets up in the morning is "how can we limit the freedoms of the people?" and her last thought before going to bed is "how can we consolidate more power into the hands of the government?"  We can, however, sway the people who aren't vested in the debate but are only spoon fed half the story by the media. We do that with education.

Before my wife met me, she had very limited exposure to firearms. Her family doesn't hunt, and after returning from Vietnam her father had seen all he wanted to see regarding guns, so she wasn't raised around them like I was.  She could not have told you the difference between an AR-15 and an M-16. When the media shows B roll footage of fully auto M-16s or M4s being fired, but deceptively talks about the AR-15, it is actively helping distort the dialog, and it's effective at doing so. My wife often says that before she met me she thought that gun control was a GOOD thing based only on what the media says about it. Now, even though she has no interest in owning or shooting a gun herself, she's an ardent supporter of the 2nd Amendment and she was converted not by confrontation, but by my fact-backed positions about gun ownership.

So while we may all agree that the gun-grabbers are insane with their lust for power and control, and that they care not a whit for public safety, before labeling EVERYONE who is anti-gun as a whacko let's try to win over the people who are victims of the media. Keep the facts handy and present them as often as you can. Get people THINKING about this issue rather than REACTING to it.

PLEASE shut your hypocrisy pie-holes.

Hollywood celebritards are at it again, releasing a PSA asking for Americans to 'ask for a plan' from the government in response to the Newtown shooting. I know that a bunch of these folks don't really buy the shit they're saying, they just do what their agents tell them. "It would boost your profile if you do this PSA" or "You'd look a more compassionate to audiences if you do it," and so on. Since I don't even recognize about half of these idjits, I would say they NEED some profile boosting, but this ain't the way to do it.  If you haven't seen this PSA, take a minute and 23 seconds to watch it:

The ones I did recognize on first watch were Jeremy Renner, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Jessica Alba, Julianne Moore and Chris Rock - all of whom I know from movies that have in some capacity glamorized gunplay (whether justified or not) so I would beg them, please, for the good of all, so I can in good conscience keep watching your movies, PLEASE shut your hypocrisy pie-holes. When any of you turn down $20 million to be in a movie that uses guns and excessive violence because of your principled stand against gun violence after Newtown, then maybe I'll give two squirts about your opinion. Until then, please just entertain me like the dancing monkeys that you have chosen to be.

I wish there was a video that highlighted the depth of their hypocrisy.  Oh, wait, there is: this video (which came up when I searched for the one above) says it better than I can. Watch it. I'll wait.

Ok, they found clips that I never even knew existed. You know what, here's my offer to these stars: Give it back. Give back EVERY PENNY you made from these movies or TV shows to the families of the tragedies you are so dithered about.  If ALL OF YOU do that, I will give up my guns. But unless you're ready to give up all of YOUR blood money, please pardon me if I ask you to kiss my pucker when you make a hollow but sincere sounding 83 second video designed at assuaging YOUR liberal guilt. You see, unlike you, I've never publicly encouraged anyone to commit wanton acts of violence or been paid to commit pretend murders on screen, or crowed about how great it was to 'kill all the white people in the movie." That my friends, is on you. Work it out with your therapists.

Mean while, in the real world, more than 2100 murders per year (about 23% of all gun-murders in the US) are committed by illegal immigrants who SHOULD NOT BE HERE in the first place (murders by 'rifle', which I assume to include the horrifying 'assault rifle' accounted for 2.5% of murders in 2011, by comparison). How about a plan to fix THAT, you Hollywood hypocrites? We've only been asking for that for a decade now (or more) and it falls on deaf ears.


I'll have more on this in a future post, including flaws in the lawmakers decision process (assuming their goals are to reduce violence).  For now, suffice it to say that securing the borders would do a great many things for the nation, potentially cutting murders by 23% being one of them. Let's get the RNC and the NRA to work that into their narratives and see what happens. Contact the NRA, the NAGR, your representatives and senators today and tell them to seal the borders if they want to have an immediate, significant, meaningful reduction in gun violence.

Silver linings

The end of the year is always a time of reflection. For me, there's not a lot good to reflect on this year, and it goes beyond the election results, which, while they are depressing, are not the end of the world. No, from a personal perspective, it's been a rough year for my family, and it's not over yet.

In August, I had an uncle pass away quite unexpectedly. He had apparently been ill for a while, but never shared with the rest of the family just how ill he had been. He had purposely become more estranged from the family to try and keep us from worrying over his condition. At the same time, my grandpa Billy's health was beginning to decline.  As it turned out, my uncle's funeral was at the end of August, and four weeks later we were back at the funeral home having services for my grandfather.

Billy was 95 and had led quite a life, and not to discount my uncle's life story, that's what I wanted to spend some time on today. Back in 1986 my real grandfather died from complications of emphysema. Billy, the man who would later become by grandmother's second husband, lost his wife to cancer about the same time, but more on that in a minute.

Billy was a 30 year veteran of the United States Army Air Corps/United States Air Force. He was stationed on Sai Pan in World War II where he was awarded (I believe) the Legion Of Merit. He was a mechanic and the unit he led were critical in their role in keeping aircraft operational. In one 72 hour stretch they serviced, repaired and rearmed planes non-stop for the duration, and their ability to keep planes in the air during this stretch of time was of critical importance to the war effort. If you asked him about it, he would say he was just doing his job, but the letter that accompanied the medal we found in a box in his garage said otherwise. But that's typical of people like Billy. Humility is first amongst their virtues.

He served in Korea and later in Vietnam before retiring from the service in 1971, at which time he went to work for IBM and retired for the second and final time in 1982 at age 65. After losing his wife to cancer he started walking with a seniors group at the mall in town. You could find him there most mornings, walking the perimeter of the mall with other seniors and drinking a cup of coffee after logging his miles. At least, that's where my grandma found him in 1992. A friend of hers forced her to introduce herself to him, and he asked out for date that very night. Those Air Force boys move fast! She said 'yes' and a whirlwind courtship ensued.

They married that year and Billy and Grandma traveled the world. He took her to Australia and Europe, bought her a mobile home and traveled the US, wintering in Florida or Arizona, or where ever she wanted to go. We used to joke that Billy still had his original nickel, because he never spent money on himself (he was angry when we bought him a new 32" TV because the old, 20 inch quasi-color unit still worked fine...but once he saw his first Broncos game on it he stopped complaining).  But, though he only ever spent money on what he needed vs. what he wanted, with grandma it was a different story, because he sure didn't think twice about spending money taking care of her. To him she was a need, not a want. We never had to worry about her after they met because we knew he would provide for her.

After a second marriage that lasted longer than most people's first marriages, Grandma buried her second husband in early October. Now 96 years old, she's had more than her share of tragedy, as you might expect from someone who's been on Earth for almost a century. She's outlived her 9 brother's and sisters, and has buried two of her own children (one this August) and 2 husbands (the second in October). In a weak moment, she'll tell me she doesn't know what she's going to do, but she'll catch herself and say "I'll get through it. I'm a tough old bird."  She still drives herself to the store, gets her hair styled once a week and gets dressed up when I go have lunch with her (even if we don't go out), and always wears a pair of earrings I got her for Christmas when I was a teenager. After everything she's been through she still pays attention to the little things.

Tragedy has struck again as my wife's grandmother fell and broke her hip and had to have it replaced. She's not recovered from the surgery well and we're now keeping vigil waiting for the inevitable, which we're told will probably come this weekend. My grandma and my wife's were not close friends but always enjoyed each other's company at family get-togethers. So Grandma calls to check in and see if there's anything she can do, and tells us she's praying for her. Even after all she's been through this year, she's not feeling sorry for herself, but rather is worried about my wife and her family. Even though she pays attention to the little things, she still sees the big picture.

So now it's Thanksgiving. Our dinner tomorrow will be a somber one, with long shadows cast over it on both sides of our family. Seats at the table will be empty that have not been in decades, if ever, and my first thought is that I don't have a lot to be thankful for this year, other than it's almost over. But that's not true. Despite the hard times this year, I'm thankful that my grandma had 20 years with Billy. I'm glad that I got to know him. In the end, I knew him longer than my real grandfather. He demonstrated the value of thrift, that hard work is its own reward, that humility and perseverance will carry far in life, and that doing good things makes a difference to people around you. I'm also grateful that all of this has brought me closer to my grandmother. I've learned more from her about my family's history this year than I have in the previous 42. I've reconnected with cousins and made plans for next year with extended family. I've seen my side of our family pull together in the face of multiple losses this year, and now we're going through it all again on my wife's side as we have another loss looming in the near future. So yes, it's hard to be thankful if you dwell on the losses.  But when you pay attention to the little things - the lessons left behind, the connections made or re-made, and the big picture things like what lies ahead for the rest of us, and how we can impact the lives of others then yes, there's a lot to be grateful for.

I also know that ours isn't the only family dealing with losses this year, and that our personal tragedies aren't even the worst we could be facing, so that helps put some perspective around it for me.  Whatever is going on in your world this year, I hope you have a good Thanksgiving and find much to celebrate. Life can be painful, but life is good.

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here...

"Give us your poor, your tired, your huddles masses..."
This is the message that we have put at our (legal) gateway into our country, and the ethos by which we have lived for generations. Last night, that message changed. Now it reads:

"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here..."

If you come to America looking for a better life, you will not find it here. You will find only more of the central planning, totalitarian socialist programs that have been destroying ways of life globally for more a hundred years. Oh sure, it's not that bad - yet. But this is how it begins. Government intrusion is going to grow. UN interference in our sovereignty is going increase (and had anything good ever happened with UN intervention?). The things people are trying to escape by coming to America are now taking root on our shores. Our problem is we're playing checkers while the left is playing chess.  And face it, conservatives we got played masterfully.

• The media is public enemy number one. They successfully turned Hurricane Sandy from a lesson in FEMA unpreparedness (seriously? 7 years after Katrina and this is the best our government could do?) into an Obama success story (with the help of Chris Fucking Christie).
• In 2010 we were FURIOUS that Obamacare was passed against our will.  Remember, some 70% of the population was against the law back then. Had the election been that year, Obama would have been tarred, feathered and rode out of town on a rail. Yes, the DNC took a thrashing in the House, but so what? With the senate in their hands all they have to do is ignore everything the House does, and nothing gets done.  That is called 'Republican Obstructionism' by the America hating left, by the way.  In 2010 we mocked - MOCKED - Obamacare because it didn't even take effect until 2014! What a folly, we said. No, it was genius.  For in 2012 when people were casting their ballots for president, they had forgotten how mad we all were about Obamacare. We tried to make it an issue, but the masses, two years down the road, said "the law was passed and the world didn't end." and they cast their votes for Obama.  Yes, we were played.
• Women's issues haunted us still. We lost two senate seats because two candidates said foolish things about abortion and rape while preaching to the converted.  Here's a clue for GOP candidates - you do not have to say one word about abortion to get the votes of pro-lifers. They will vote for you because they will NOT vote for a Democrat. Instead, we march forward, high on our moral horse and banging the drum about abortion, and it costs us election after election. We should just get out of the way. It's mostly liberals/leftists having abortions, and this will sound horrible, but if they want to commit societal suicide, why should we stop them? Let God judge them, not us. And government funding of birth control - what is $9 a month paying for birth control if it keeps a liberal from being born and voting for more liberal causes 18 years later? Let's keep raising a generation of conservative thinkers and let them screw and murder themselves out of demographic relevance.
• We let the cult of personality beat us. Despite the fact that the elites in the country - members of the reviled 1% - like Clooney and Streisand and Hanks and Spielberg all live in a world completely different than the rest of America, somehow their support resonated with people. We need to find a way to counteract that. Part of their message, as mentioned above, is 'if it feels good, do it.' That's a cool, easy sell to young people. Churchill had a saying - if you're not liberal when you're 20 you have no heart; if you're not conservative when you're 40 you have no brain. Well, we need to make the 40 year old mindset cool to the 25 year olds.
• The Ministry Of Truth has hooked the country up to an IV drip of lies and propaganda. The truth will never get out as long as they have control of the message. Starve them. Cancel your newspaper subscriptions. Stop watching their shows. Stop going to the movies. Vote with your feet until they listen to reason.

We need to entrench. We need to get up, gear up, and be ready to endure the next four years. I call on all conservatives to ask their local GOP "what are we going to do to make our local community more Republican over the next four years? What are we going to do to raise our profile?" Republicans in general give more time and treasure to charity than democrats do - this is a proven fact (see the book "Who really cares" for evidence). Democrats have successfully co-opted that image for themselves. Republicans have always been the champions of liberty and equality, and democrats have co-opted that for themselves too. What are we going to do to take that back? If your local GOP doesn't have an answer, then tell them they'd better come up with one, because if they don't, the GOP won't be relevant ever again.