Chicken Little has friends in Congress

Chicken Little has a strong following in Congress

 

As we enter the New Year and a new form of government – government by clowns – I am preparing myself for a flood of doom and gloom rhetoric that will especially emanate from the new disciples of mirth and silliness.  Before the coming of Spring rest assured we will be told of the pending destruction of the United States if the "people: don't immediately hit the rewind button on President Obama's two year reign as a secret foreign born Muslim pretender.   We will be told over and over that all of the laws and new regulations signed into law by this regime were done in complete secrecy and totally without the consent of the governed.  Even though this electorate generated more filibusters and 60% cloture votes than have been presented in the last half century.  Still they will want you to believe that Congress was never consulted on any of these rather earth moving new laws designed to benefit Americans and their children and strengthen social safety nets.  This type of "2012" destruction rhetoric, of course, has as much factual basis as does the Mayan "2012" predictions but it's nothing new.  Let me take you back to some of the previous doomsayers who saw total collapse in the Government's efforts to seek laws that directly benefitted our citizen's.

 

1.     "We are forcing all citizen's, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program.  It is socialized medicine, and one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."  (Ronald Reagan)

 

2.     "The Federal Income Tax," a Senator from New York said a century ago, "might mean an end of our 'distinctively American experiment of individual freedom.

 

3.     "Social Security is actually a plan to Sovietize America."  (Chairman, US Chamber of Commerce, 1935)

 

4.     "The minimum wage and mandated overtime pay are steps in the direction of Communism, Bolshevism, Fascism and Nazism."  (National Association of Manufacturers, 1938)

 

5.     After Brown v. Board of Education outlawed school segregation in 1954, 101 members of Congress signed a statement calling the ruling an instance of 'naked judicial power' that would sow 'chaos and confusion' and diminish American greatness. 

 

6.     In 1964, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal described civil rights marchers as "asking for trouble" and civil rights laws as being on "the edge of constitutionality."

 

The various bills laws signed into by Mr. Obama have, for the most part, joined this list of prophetic doomsayers.  I guess we should all begin digging our bunkers now and stocking up on food in preparation for the inevitable.  

Investment in the future

Being that I am one of the fortunate citizens in the United States to be the recipient of one of the best investments I ever made – Social Security payments.  Investment?  Have I been hitting the eggnog a bit too heavily or what?  Nope actually, I have been taking my son's advice.  As a licensed engineer, he has always extolled me to "do the math Dad.  Do the math first!!!  Well I did and was I ever surprised.  Now I doubt what I am about to lay down will convince any of my conservative friends that Social Security is not, in fact, an evil communist or at best, socialist plot, to enable our government to take control of our lives but I can lay down some math that is hard to debate.  Here goes.

 

Like most of my upper middle class senior friends, I receive around $1600.00 a month from an account in which I paid around $80,000 during my 40 + working years.  I would have received about $2500.00 a month if I had chosen to wait until I reached full tenure around my 67^th birthday.  I chose man early pay out option beginning at 62 since it is always a turkey shoot whether I would still be kicking at 67.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that I would probably live until I was 82 with a 25% chance that I would live until I was 90.  They did not take into account the bullet holes, high blood pressure, diabetes, Parkinson's et. al. that have made a home in my body.   I did take these into account and chose an early option.  I will continue to receive this monthly annuity until I die whenever that might be, and I can look forward to slight annual increases to boot, and yes, it is all taxable income so I do pay some of it back.   But, and this a big "but", my Social Security annuity is guaranteed by the US Government.  Okay "Free Marketeers", le's see what your private firms are offering. 

 

First and foremost virtually none of the available public annuity firms offer annual re-looks and annuity increases based on any facet of the US economic profile.  According to ImmediateAnnuities.com, a 66 year old man would have to pony up just over $128,000 into an annuity account to guarantee him an annual annuity of just $10,000.   Twice that amount for an annual annuity of $20,000 with no protection for inflation.  New York Life will give you a 0.3% annual increase as an inflation hedge but that same 66 year old man would need to cough up $180,000 for that cushion.   For those hardcore conservative "do it myself" crowd well look at these numbers.  The Employee Research Institute, a think tank specializing in retirement programs, notes that fewer than half of all US employees have saved even $25,000 towards their individual retirement plans, and only a third of these folks have saved $50,000.  Forty percent have saved less that $10,000 and a fourth of these good people have saved nothing at all.  To put these numbers in perspective, someone with $25,000 can buy into an annuity (with a .3% annual bump) that will return $1400 a year in benefits.  Increase that to a $50,000 account and your annual benefits jump to $2800.00 a year – or an income of about $54 a week.  Good luck with that. 

 

So when  we started to look for tax cuts it is amazing that we chose Social Security as the one major program to cut into with a taxpayer decrease.  Less money into the program means it will suffer even more than it is now which I detect might be the true rationale of the conservatives in Congress who sincerely hate this "benefit" program.  If they have  now decided to use the Social Security program as a political football, I thin it is only fair that they give us back the "football.  Since Ronald Reagan hit on the idea, the US Government has used the Social Security trust fund as a bank of first choice to balance out the books.  Reach in and jerk out a few billion and then issue some Federal Bonds as security for repayment.  OK – PAY US!!! And no more bonds please.  If the Federal Government would just pay back what it "borrowed" from the trust fund, the Social Security system would remain solvent for a century or more even with the ill-advised tax cut.  Are You Listening Out There All Of You Bubble Headed Tea Party Clowns?  The big bad government is doing big bad things to money that is not theirs.  Sic em!!!

A few things nibbling at my psyche

A few things nibbling at my psyche:

The voters have spoken and they have decided that the folks who put us into the economic mess we are in would, by some odd logic, be the best people to get us out.  Oh my!  Am I being unfair to the right?  Maybe but let's look at the numbers.  Ronald Reagan, the great spokesman for "trickle down economics," entered office in the blustery winter of 1981.  He called for a balanced budget amendment but he himself never submitted anything resembling a balanced budget.  In fact, he entered office with a national debt of $1.3 trillion dollars and by 1992 when he left the Whitehouse he had steered the country into a $4.17 trillion dollar indebtedness – a nice cozy four hundred percent increase.   Nice going for the conservative smaller government party.   Clinton took the reins in 1992 and to be frank, under his watch the government debt did increase but only by a mere $1.1 trillion dollars to just at $5.19 trillion.  He spent a good deal of his Presidency answering to his sexual missteps but he still was able to pay down a big chunk of the national debt before leaving office but it was to no avail since George W. Bush managed to surrender any of Clinton's savings in another demonstration of "trickle down" that took the $5.19 trillion dollar national debt and raise it to – are you ready for this -  $12.3 trillion dollars in just eight years.  This is what Mr. Obama was given on inauguration day and in less than two years he has not been able to wipe out what twelve years of conservative trickle down economics managed to build.  Shame on him for not being a magician.  The answer, as noted above, was to elect the same type of economic blunderers that created this monstrous international embarrassment.   In light of what has happened under the previous miscreants, here is what the new crew sees as the solution to what is in fact, their problem.  First they want to insure that the wealthy in the US continue to get wealthier by extending tax breaks enacted by Bush – the guy who took us from $5 trillion to $12 trillion in indebtedness.  This will add $700 Billion to the national debt under the trickle down theory that if the wealthy are made richer they will invest it wisely in industries that will hire us measly peons and everyone will be happy.  This raises an obvious question – at least obvious to me – if that theory is so valid why did Mr. Obama enter office with thousands a citizens a day being laid off.  The Bush tax cuts had been in effect for eight years and during that eight years there was no burst of entrepreneurism, no withering of unemployment lines and no sudden burgeoning of this Nation's industrial base.  On the other hand the rich did get richer – obscenely so - and the poor did get poorer, tragically.   In spite of these obvious and easily obtainable statistics, the GOP has held fast in their demand that the JP Morgan's of America deserve to become even more wealthy.   To push our nose into their mess even further, they want to eliminate the inheritance tax settling, as it turned out, for a compromise of 35% tax on all inheritances valued at $5M or more.  This affects less than 10,000 Americans.  So much for a government "of the people."   Can you think of any other bill that affected only l0,000 people and tied up congress for so long?  Of course not unless it's their absolute panic at the thought of having homosexuals serving in the defense of this nation.   The number is probably not 10,000 but even if it were more, so what!  I have served with men and women whom I knew to be homosexuals and if their job performance were less than exemplary I would have taken appropriate action based on their performance alone and not what they did in the privacy of their personal lives.  I know of one General Officer, now retired, whose homosexuality was a commonly known fact but his battle expertise was unquestionable.   Nobody seemed to care about his private life.  Yet we can spin Congress up to a fine pitch by even mentioning such an unforgivable prospect.  This same Congress wants to cut back on Social Security while disapproving unemployment benefits.  Who benefits by these national safety nets?  Nobody on Knob Hill I can assure you so why not eliminate them altogether since the "trickle down" from their tax breaks will most certainly fill the gap.  Do you really believe this?  It is going to be a long hard winter especially when the real clowns move into their new offices on Capital Hill.  I think we should all cash in our savings and invest in Brazilian bananas or anything more secure than our own economic future in the US. 

Now Who Can We Gut Next!!!

I have been following closely the growing debate on the movement to cut back the national debt so kindly left to us by the previous administration.    They arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with a SURPLUS and in eight years they had been able to dig that SURPLUS into a 1.5 trillion dollar debt.   Not too bad for a guy who supposedly had a degree in business from the Ivy League.   In less than two years the current administration has managed to wrangle this debt back a few billion dollars even in the face of the various non-funded mandates left at the doorsteps of most Americans.   The medicare pharmacy program – UNFUNDED.   Heck the two wars in the Middle East were UNFUNDED instead relying on special Congressional allocations requested as needed.   As usual, the very wealthy were exempted from feeling these growing tax burdens.   Now the citizens have once again demonstrated their total lack of long term memory and have decided that the entire problem is a creation of the current administration and have voted in virtual carbon copy of the boys and girls who caused the mess to occur in the first place.   These folks carry various banners calling for shrinking the government and elimination of all sorts of government programs.   Some of these new patriots have even called for the preparation of a forceful overthrow of the established government using weapons actually authorized by that same government.   Irony does not seem to bother them at all.    These are the same folks – Left and right, who find newspapers such as US Today to be so enticing since it manages to crush even the most complex issues into one or two paragraphs… "World War III broke out today.  Pictures on page three."    OK, now watch, here comes another one of those ironies.  The current administration formed a group of very smart people to look into ways to cut the budget obligations and went to great pains to make certain this Commission remained as politically neutral as possible.   Some members were old hardcore conservatives and some were tried and true bleeding heart liberals.  They have recently released a few of their ideas and as expected you could hear the cloth rending and ashes flying all over the nation.   OMG, they attacked virtually every sacred cow at the alter except of course the wealth of the very rich…Nope, that cow went untouched.   The middleclass were gored and re-gored again and again from proposals to increase Social Security retirement age to 68 to increasing co-pays for Medicare services.   Toss in a healthy proposal for a .15$ a gallon increase in gasoline taxes and mix well with the elimination of the middleclass' only REAL tax deduction – mortgage interest payments, and the aged and hardworking middle class are being asked again to shoulder the excesses of the public debt, little of which did they benefit from when it was being created.  In addition, they are proposing a 100$M cut to the Defense Department paid in part with a total freeze on military pay raises for a few years.   It was not stated but this would also entail a similar freeze on promotions for these men and women who have been asked to sacrifice so much already.    Actually this bit about whacking away at the military was copied almost intact from a previous axing of the military conducted by another President – Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Yep, old General Ike froze pay raises and promotions across the board for almost the entire term he was in office – eight years.   I was a young boy at the time but my Dad was a career soldier and a WW-II and Korean War vet.   Now that the Bush wars are winding down, our military is being asked to sit down and shut up and take whatever scraps our Congress may decide to toss their way.  Kipling said it best when he wrote the haunting paragraphs in his poem entitled "Tommy":

O It's Tommy this, an; Tommy that, an; Tommy Go Away,"

But it's "Thank you Mister Atkins,'  the band begins to play.

The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play.

O it's 'Thank you Mr. Atkins,' when the band begins to play."  

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap

An hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit

Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out the brute!"

But it's "Savuour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot.

An 'it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please.

But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool – you bet that Tommy sees!   

Of course the new faces on Capital Hill have screamed as though stuck with a poker as well as lots of the old crew.  Obviously they would appear to have other places where they can fin a few trillion dollars lying about.  Whatever!!!  It is such a great show to watch and would even more interesting if it were not so serious.  If just a few of the Commission's ideas are adopted and blended in with the REALLY crazy ideas tossed around by the Tea Party whackos, we are ALL in for a great deal of fiscal pain.  Get ready my friends…Mr. Bush's bills are coming due.

As I recall

As I recall …

It's 11/11 again and we are honoring our military members posted at some of the most glamourous locations and some of the most frightening and terrible places in the world.  We are actually celebrating the cessation of hostilities to end World War- 1 that had been touted as the war to end all wars.   This was touted as the war to end all wars but of course in about 25 years we were at it again.   My Dad was an infantry soldier in World War-II who participated in the Italian campaign and later, as a "second waver" at Omaha Beach in Normandy.  Six weeks later he was wounded in France and evacuated back to England and later to Ireland where he met my Mother and…well you fill in the rest.   Dad didn't get much a respite from the horrors of war since he was still on active duty in 1950 when he was sent to Korea for the next three years.  He arrived as a Master Sergeant and left with a battlefield commission and promotion to Captain.   Dad made the leap to Army Intelligence soon after Korea where he continued to confront the enemies of this nation as a silent warrior.   My time in hell began in December 1966 during my first tour of Southeast Asia.  I survived the Tet Offensive but I got in the way of an AK-47 30 Caliber rifle serving with Special Forces near the Ashau Valley in the northern border regions of Vietnam.  I returned for a second extended tour in 1970 and was there when we began the process of ceding significant portions of the country to the enemy forces of North Vietnam.   When I left in 1973, the war was actually over except for the final push by the North Vietnamese which happened with full evening TV coverage less than 18 months later.  Ironically it was my Dad's last war experience.  He was actually one of the many people who boarded helicopters on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon.   It was the first time America actually lost a war and make no mistakes, we lost it – simple as that.

Let's examine some of the myths from our participation in Southeast Asia. 

1. Our loss in Vietnam was caused by a lack of support in Congress, the Press, the man on the street (Pick one).  NONSENSE!   We went from several hundred "advisors" to over 500,00 men and women in less than ten years.  We were supported by every non-nuclear weapon in our arsenal including Naval Carriers, Air Force heavy bombers, and ground force main battle tanks and long range artillery.   Our forces received generous pay increases virtually every year of the war.  No one ever said no to any legitimate strategy presented by our Generals except for missions that were clearly targeted at civilian economic infrastructures as forbidden by the Geneva Convention.   Congress rubber stamped everything.
2. Disaffection on the part of the civilian populace in the US demoralized the soldiers actually fighting the war and encouraged our enemies.  "Long haired hippies"  were as much a joke and item of derision among soldiers as they were in mainstream US.  We had AFN radio and the Stars and Stripes military sponsored newspaper and not much else in the way of new coverage from the U.S.   The enemy didn't even have either radio or press coverage for their forces.  They most certainly could not use demonstrations or similar activities in the U.S. as morale boosters.  They were motivated by a deep mistrust of non-Asians and a certain degree of deep rooted nationalism.  I participated in numerous interrogations of captured enemy soldiers but I never found even one who was a "card carrying" communist.  They were there because it seemed the right thing to do in support of their country.  
3. Soldiers returning from the war were routinely spat upon, hit with Umbrellas, mugged, insulted etc etc. as they walked down the street.  Nonsense!  This simply did not happen and anyone who says so will always preface their statements with the caveat that they knew someone who had this happen to them.   I wore a Green Beret and had a boatload of ribbons on my uniform.  I wore my uniform proudly in many, many cities, towns and villages and never once was I accosted or personally insulted.   Even proven "baby killlers" such as Lt. Calley never reported being accosted or otherwise insulted or confronted on our streets. 

Well that's all I have to say on the topic.  We MUST remember that we must never confuse the war with the soldier.  I was "for" Vietnam during my first tour but wide awake to the eventual unsuccessful outcome during my second tour.  I still went and served proudly since that was my duty.   My personal beliefs had no impact on how I conducted myself in the "woods."   I don't ever recall meeting a soldier who was in Vietnam to stop international communism or to answer a demand from his diety.   If I had met such people, I would have refused to have them on my Special Forces Team.

Separation of Religion and State

Normally in any election cycle the issue of religion in school comes up in some form or the other.  This year Ms. O'Donnel from New Jersey had a problem with Constitutional precedence pertaining to the intention of the founding father's when they penned the First Amendment to that great base document.  Other candidates have touched on this electrified issue.  Oh well…I am not going to get into the deep implications of the need for separation of religion from national politics since it will only cause people to get all huffy and silly in their standpoint on the issue.  Instead I will tell you my own little story of growing up in an America that did not keep their eyes on the impact of this issue on the people it was suppose to "protect."  I came to America from Ireland, a small country which can certainly boast being one of the most religiously biased nations in the world for lots of good and bad reasons.  I grew to adulthood in Southern California in a relatively small town atmosphere where virtually all of the larger religions were represented by its residents.  Religion was not something that was a normal topic of discussion except for the occasional crude or ugly stereotypical jokes passed between friends about one or more of the major religions.   This was in the mid-1950s so religion was in fact, a topic of instruction in the classroom normally handled by a weekly one two hour block of instruction presented by a visiting cleric of some sort.  To accommodate the non-Protestant students such as myself and my good buddy, Virgil Applebaum, on those days in which religion was taught, all non-Protestant students were led outside to waiting buses and vans and driven to our respective instructional sites.  The Catholic boys and girls were taken to St. Michael's Catholic Church for our weekly Catechism classes. Virgil and other Jewish students were taken to their Synagogue for Hebrew Schul.  Sounds like a solution right?   Here was a simple solution to accommodating all religions while keeping religious instruction part of the school curriculum.  Well it wasn't all twittering birds and soft breezes by any means and wound making causing all of the non-Protestant children the strongest advocates for absolutely no religious instructions during regular school sessions. Why?  Well here is what really happened.  Protestant children were told that Christian religious training would be provided in school on such and such a day.  Non-Protestant children would be provided transportation to their respective religious training site.  Remember now you are talking to pre-teens!  Here is what they hear.  "Christians who believe in God will be given religious training on such and such a day.  The children who do not believe in God will be taken out of the classroom and sent some other mysterious place that does not believe in God."  When we "pagans" returned to class to rejoin our classmates you can just imagine the remarks, taunts and personal insults that we endured on the playground.   When we entered middle school and later on high school formal religious instruction was no longer provided in any form but by then the die had been fully cast among my classmates.  I, like all Catholics, believed in some other type of God that was not Christian and very mysterious at best.  Same for Jewish students but even more so since they "denied" certain aspects of Christianity.  Do we really want to fill our children with these types of confusing images?  Just think what we went through for the six years that we were California elementary school students.  Now you know why I am so very very strongly opposed to any type of prayer or religious training in our schools. 

My Choice For Oppression

An exerpt from an article written by:

Sharon Davis

Professor, Ohio State University and author of

"Rising Road: A True Tale

of Love, Race and Religion

in America"

…..A radical religious group, lurking inside the country, owing loyalty to a foreign power, threatens America.  No one denies that its members have a right to worship as they please, but good Americans, patriots, feel compelled to call for curbs against the menace they present.  Because of the number of Americans sharing these fears, calls for restrictions on the religion are voiced openly and unapologetically, even proudly……The holders of such beliefs (are) not just some fringe crazies safely outnumbered by clear-eyed religiously tolerant neighbors.  To the contrary, widely popular (opposition) literature spilled from newsstands across the country like Sen. Tom Watson's Jeffersonian out of Atlanta and The Menace of Aurora, MO., whose subscriptions dwarfed those of the largest newspapers in New York City and Chicago combined.  Elections (are being) won on promises to oust (this threat).  Only true Americans should hold such positions, (goes) the warning, not (this threat) who *are) loyal first to their religious leaders (in foreign countries)….

The article goes on to describe with blistering details the various Federal and State attempts to circumvent the Constitution to counter this alleged threat.  The article also details the many acts of violence and death meted out to these people by these same "true Americans."  It is written by a noted professor but it is not about Muslims in contemporary America.   It is about Roman Catholic Americans in the 1920s.   Numerous laws on warrantless searches of Monasteries, nunneries and churches were written by several States.  Various murders of Catholic clerics and Congregationalist are drawn from various newspaper accounts.  Jews, Catholics and virtually all foreign émigrés were added to the hate roster of the burgeoning Ku Klux Klan.   In much the same manner as the forced incarceration of thousands US born Asian-American in the US, grand an elaborate apologies for our ignorance and shortcomings have been numerous but let's not forget we are not talking about ancient history here.  We are talking about several decades ago.  Will we continue down a similar road of ignorant blind hate towards our Muslim neighbors and then "make it all better" twenty or thirty years from now with some erudite apologetic blather about different times and different people?  Probably!  Then I am sure we will find someone else to hate since the American psyche does not seem to be able to function very well without someone to despise.  Whose next? Latinos – nah, they are already pretty much on the scope as targets already.  Maybe we will fall back on Eastern Europeans – they were always fun to tease.  Blacks? Probably not – hell they fight back and that is no fun.  I vote for those sneaky Canadians. Nobody can be that nice without some ulterior motive.  We need to start watching all of those Canucks now before it is too late.  Never trust anyone from Saskatchewan.  No way!!!  Yep, they are my choice and besides, we could actually drive to the war front when we invade those insidious folks from Montreal.         

I Just Know They Would Not Lie To Me

I find myself looking forward to the world after 2 November.  The people of the United States will cast votes for "change" in much the same manner that Germans cast votes for change in the 1930s.   Anything just has to be better somehow than the people they elected last time.  Yes, they seem to forget that little fact – virtually everyone of the key players on Capital Hill were put there by the same people who are screaming for change now.   At any rate, we will probably turn over the control the legislative body to the "other side" by close of business on 2 November and if we are to believe the millions of dollars worth of campaign propaganda being poured out over our media, by 3 November everything should be OK again in America.  The evil liberals will have been vanquished and the true patriots of the conservative party will now steer us to a new horizon of wealth and prosperity.  I personally will not accept anything less from them.  I mean they did promise me didn't they?   I guess I will learn to get along without my Social Security annuity and of course without the new health care law, I will have to learn to get along with less coverage since I probably will not be able afford the premiums what with my Social Security being cancelled and Medicare being downsized and all.   I am a 100% disabled Vet so I am excited about the idea of full privatization of the Veteran's Administration.  That should be really neat.  With no continuation of extended unemployment insurance, the soldiers returning from the end of the ten years of Mideast war might have a little bit of a financial burden to deal with but with all of this new instant prosperity, they should be able jump right into this new prosperity.  Banks and lending institutions will be able to shrug off any new rules under the new folks and before long even the poorest and most humble in our society will be able to commit to a 3500 square foot home with in-ground pool.  It will be so neat.  Of course by undoing the last two years of legislation, it will result in a bit of a roadblock on Capital Hill but the conservatives have spent the last two years training the American public to accept total cryonics in the legislature so we will not be surprised to see everything continue to freeze up.  Won't that be fun?  Of course Muslims, homosexuals, Latinos, and the mentally challenged in America will find things to be a little cool for a while but all they have to do is renounce all of those bad things and act like the rest of us and everything will be OK.   I am sure it will be really neat.  Of course if the conservatives and their Tea Party cultist do fail to succeed in their promised Eden, they will insure a second term for the current Chief Executive.  All he would have to do is point in "their" direction for any failures in not solving the recession, the crashed housing market, the unemployment problems, "bailouts", health care programs, trade deficits, and social welfare problems.  But I am sure they would not lie to me and they do in fact have some sort of secret plan to fix all of these things in the next two years to prevent a second term by the current POTUS.  I am sure of this since they certainly would not lie to me!

Interesting Times

I am 66 years old and have survived a lot of things in my life including over a dozen US Presidents.  Except for the first couple (Truman and Eisenhower), I recall each of their terms in either lesser or greater detail.  Through all of their tribulations, I still recall many of their momentous decisions, good and bad in terms that caused my current political ideology to grow and become part of me.   I was a soldier in Vietnam when I voted for Nixon's first term and probably BECAUSE I was a soldier in Vietnam I could not foresee another minute let alone another four years with this person in charge of my future.   One President, Johnson, was so immune to the trappings of power that he chose not to seek a sure second term knowing that our involvement in foreign entanglements was so dangerous that the country needed someone else with a clearer understanding of those complexities.  I recall an old Chinese saying that explains how I feel now – "May you live in interesting times."  My father, a fluent Chinese linguist and cultural Chinese expert noted that this saying was actually more of a curse than a casual greeting.  He was right.  I have lived in interesting times some of which were so frightening and filled with anxious foreboding that I honestly believed at the time that my "interesting times" were rapidly coming to an end.  Through it all, I considered myself a true patriot willing to make whatever sacrifices necessary to insure the continuation of this nation's great promises to itself, its citizens and the rest of the world.  The funny part was that I considered almost everyone I knew to be equally motivated to work towards the noble goals of this nation.  I was never afraid of my government not because I was naïve but rather because I understood and firmly believed in the security afforded to my fellow citizens by the string and viable system of checks and balances.   I understood democracy and saw it as a beacon of hope for the entire world and the people lucky enough to live in this country.  There were scandals involving some of our elected officials usually involving greed or sexual misconduct but after we stopped tittering like school children we usually managed to take the appropriate steps to punish or censor these misdeeds and I trusted in the system to carry out these punishments on behalf of the citizens of the US.  I felt great distress for people forced to survive under "banana dictatorships."  I was amused at actual democracies having a devil of a time maintaining any sense of dignity as they elected and then ousted their leadership almost monthly.   I cannot actually ever recall watching a nation attempting to maintain its own form of leadership and laughing about their stupidity and blundering ineptitude.  I took all forms of government serious even the flawed ones.  They were NOT laughing matters because they, regardless of how small or large, affected us all.   Now I am witness to the greatest nation in the world doing its utmost to become the laughing stock of all nations, good or bad.  We are preparing to go to our polls to elect individuals to the "greatest deliberative body the world has known" and with such a great responsibility facing us, we have managed to assemble a veritable Barnum and Bailey side show of candidates and seem totally incapable of stopping this tragedy from occurring.  Consider that these dozen or so side show freaks have at least one thing in common – world class hypocrisy.  All of these dancing bears are vowing to hate big government and want to emasculate ot to something resembling a national level receptionist desk whose only function is to wait for someone to call and challenge us to war.  In the meantime what is left of the government should not have any voice in any matters pertaining to its citizens thereby forever burying Mr. Lincoln's belief in government of the people, by the people and for the people.  Yet these same pseudo-anarchist are spending literally millions of dollars each to insure they acquire a seat in this hoped for waddling eunuch that used to be a beacon of hope.  Just a quick review of what these dozen or so freaks and geeks are seeking:

1.      Abrogation of the US Civil Right Act and all legal precedence involved in this nations attempt to bring equality to its citizens. 

2.      The dismantling of the US Social Security system and its role as a safety net for its aged and disabled citizens.

3.     The dismantling of the US Department of Education and the ceasing of its role in insuring that even the poorest school districts receive assistance in educating our greatest assets – our children. 

4.     The dismantling of the Medicare system which currently enables our citizens the ability to receive at least emergency and necessary health care. 

5.     The dismantling of the US Department of Transportation thus eliminating this nations capability to move its commercial goods and security machinery across this great country.  

6.     Dismantling and in a couple of cases the actual elimination of the US national taxation system.  No money will mean no government.

7.      Eliminating or at least severely limiting the ability of emigrants to enteer this country thus stagnating our ability to learn from the great wealth of experience these cultures bring to a nation. 

8.     Elimination of any US national department or agency that does not pay its own way, inhibits any type of commercial ventures or does not actually add to the national GDP.   No support to the fine arts, national parks system, any programs overseeing potential pollution and quality of life issues.  

9.     All welfare programs (naturally) thus putting millions of our citizens out on the streets to fend for themselves, even those citizens suffering from mental or physical disorders that may well make them a danger to themselves and those around them.  

 Oh heck, why go on.  It's in all the newspapers.  I just have to imagine a junket to one of the NATO countries by one or more of these dozen or so clowns.  Imagine the Prime Minister of England trying to conduct a meaningful dialogue with the Belle Of Delaware and her past as a dabbling witch.  How would the Chancellor of Germany react to conversations with the Darling of Nevada who would try to explain the concepts of trading chickens for health care.  Well you see where this could lead.  We may well have to spend at least fifty years just trying to regain some semblance of dignity in the world.   Have a nice day – and please please please Vote!   

A Note To MY Teabag Friends

I am watching the upcoming November mid-term election scenario with a great deal of interest and amusement.  In typical Ugly American form, if someone does not understand you, then you must yell louder.  Anyone who has traveled outside the US and have seen our noble citizens in actions know exactly what I mean.  If you ask a German for directions and they may well shrug their shoulders noting that "Ich kann kein Englisch sprechen.  Es tut mir sehr leid."   Often as not the American response is to first enunciate each English language word slowly and with great emphasis and grotesque lip movements.  This is then followed by continuing to speak slowly and with great emphasis but only now they increase the decibel level and continue to do so until out of frustration they note how stupid the Germans are for not being able to speak English even though their country as existed for several centuries longer than the US and its wonderful citizens.  That same warped logic train for communicating has now become the norm for some of our emerging political sects. 

First is the assumption on the part of these emerging political cults that they, and only they, are capable of divining the true word and all other political groups are not just misguided bit in fact totally wrong and are using this ignorance to destroy the very essence of America.  Everything that the current administration is doing is wrong even if that administration is simply carrying out legal mandates proscribed and approved decades earlier.  With an almost religious zeal they arrogantly call upon the "people" to support their attempts to seize the government in the polls and voting booths so that they can put a stop to the current administrative policies, abrogate policies decided upon by the majority of Congress and to begin dismantling this thing we call the Government into a much smaller, weaker and less expensive form of management.   These groups and sects feel no need to provide any substantive ways to either replace or modify these programs except to say they will "cut them."  Their list of "bad" programs that they would "cut" include the entire US Department of Education;  Social Security and Medicare;  the Department of Health and Human Services; support for civil rights initiatives;  most of the Department of Internal Revenue; almost all arts and entertainment subsidies; farm subsidies; all financial oversight programs; and by projection loads and loads of staffers and support personnel in all branches of the government.  They offer no "replacements": so we are left with the planned removal of all of the above listed support programs.  Some have even called for greater emphasis on returning power back to the States making the US a country of 50 competing self-governing entities with little if any loyalty to a central government.  Fifty little min-counties with competing political and social views who supposedly will no longer need Federal highway dollars for their roads, Federal funds for their schools, Federal support for their internal health systems.  

It would be nice if these cultist would explain how current support to US citizens would be modified or deleted completed.  I receive lots of benefit checks from my almost 40 years of public service.  Some of those benefits include disability payments for wounds and injuries received while on active duty as a soldier fighting for this Nation.  Which one of these benefit programs are they going to attack?  My military retirement?  My Social Security monthly allotment?  My Veteran's Administration Disability payment?   My military educational benefits so that both my wife and I can gain additional training?  Which one do they believe I no longer deserve?   Which one?  Tell me before I enter the voting booth so I can make a knowledgeable decision and not a decision based solely upon you increased volume of yelling.

Burn Baby Burn

Nothing so clearly demonstrates a sense of biased , prejudice and deeper down, fear and anxiety than the whole concept of book burning.  When a leader of a nation or a small cjurch decides to burn a specific book they do so because they are unable to intelligently discuss the merits or lack of merits of the book.  There  are a number of books that I find to be of questionable merit, integrity or worth to mankind as a whole.  My opinion is drawn from the fact that I actually read these books and compared them to my own I f to belief system and past experiences.  Based on my actual knowledge of these books, I am prepared to argue my point of view but only to the point that I accept the fact that my adversary may also hav e a conflicting point of view, no matter how silly I may think it is, and fore that reason, I may shake my head in disbelief and frustration but I would never interpose myself in any plan that would attempt to restrict others to draw their own conclusions.  In other words, no matter how stupid I think a piece if literature may be, I could never support any attempt to restrict someone from reading it.  The Quran is a religious document with as much historical bonafides as the Christian New Testament or the Hebrew Pentateuch.  No one knows who actually wrote the books of the new testament with the exception being the works of Paul. The other books of the new testament were written from oral traditions finally captur3d in written form by scribes and other nameless religious leaders.  If the nee testament were a contract, no court in the land would accept it as valid/  The five books of the old testament, while being more strictly controlled in their transcription process are written anonymously.  The Quran, on the other hand makes a point of notifying the reader that these are the words of a prophet who was illiterate and therefore the words were passed on verbally to scribes and relatives after the events in question.  No one, therefore, has the monopoly on blind ignorance following written words by people who are not the original authors.  Who then gave either of thew major religions the right to claim absolute authority on what is right or wrong.  As it turns out, from reading all three versions of religious dogma, none of the big three claims absolute authority and all make considerable room for dissenting ideas and provide for systems of tolerance of these dissenting ideas.  It is only when we turn over the concept of interpretation to individuals do we encounter problems.  All of a sudden we find individuals who have apparently set up a private email address to the deity and now become the deities private spokesman to the exclusion of all others.  No debate, no dissension allowed and no ability or wish to use anything even resembling human intellect in the entire process.  I am sorry that this miserable little minister is so afraid of the written word that he feels the need to burn it.  It is a shame that he cannot see that such intolerant acts have such grim and brutal historic precedence.  I doubt his educational background is notable and his concept of the Christian religion is certainly very lacking.  If his act of conducting a mass burning of the Quran leads to violence and deaths against the men and women serving in Islamic nations, then he must bear full responsibility and answer to their families and hopefully to a saddened and angry God.     

OMG - the sky is falling!!!

 

Sighhhh!!!  America, must you go out of your way to make yourself a public embarrassment?  As someone who has spent a considerable time living outside the U.S.A., I have grown weary of what America says about itself and not what people outside the US say about them.  We are our worst PR enemies.  I speak another language well enough that I am often mistaken for a European (Hollander, Dane, etc) but NOT as an American.  You would be surprised what folks at a beer table say about "Yanks" when they believe there are no "Yanks" at the table.  I can only surmise from these past experiences what is being spoken about concerning America's latest obsession with "hallowed" grounds.  Let me first note that the entire issue on the "hallowed" ground surrounding ground zero is a New York City issue.  Five blocks away from ground zero there is an already existing Islamic Mosque.  It has been there for over fifty years.  No one has asked them to move from this location since 9/11 and no one has accused the congregation of being wild eyed terrorist.  But of course that Mosque is FIVE blocks away and not THREE blocks away.  Now the Islamic believers want to use a building that they own located three blocks away from ground zero as an Islamic Cultural Center.  It will not be a Mosque but more like a recreation site for believers in Islam.  The fact that it is two blocks closer (and shielded from ground zero by an entire city block of high rise buildings) has somehow created a mysterious power to corrupt and somehow threaten the people of New York City.  Incidentally the power of Islam to impart supernatural powers on its followers was the only legitimate reason that the Guantanamo prisoners could not be tried in New York City. Obviously these powers would have given them the opportunity to overpower 8,000 New York police officers, at least that many Federal guards and 12 million citizens of New York and escape into the darkness to reign terror on all of America.  Them Islamic folks are one powerful group of wizards.  So now we are all upset about people in the US exercising their right of free worship and the unobstructed free practice of their religion not for legal reasons but rather because it is "insensitive."  Of course, American "true blooded" Yanks who carry insulting banners at the funerals of fallen soldiers is OK and we cannot prohibit their right to commit this rather "insensitive" act.  How many streets, buildings, homes etc. have good old white America built on native American "hallowed" grounds?  Did we ask them first?  Does the "Trail of Tears" ring a bell about what happened when native Americans had the audacity to complain about the abuse of their ancestral and "hallowed" grounds?  Chicago, Los Angelas, Tucson, Miami, are just a few of the US major cities built on grounds once held entirely by proud native American entities.  If American wants to honor "hallowed" grounds, might I suggest Selma, Alabama and its civil rights abuses or all of Texas and it's wanton and illegal confiscation of land belonging to another sovereign entity.  Incidentally, being "hallowed" ground in New York City has not slowed the promulgation of new peep-shows and porn shops surrounding ground zero but that is OK.  Obviously, nothing more American than a peep-show.  Yes America, we all know how much you honor our "hallowed" grounds if only you could just once actually read the US Constitution you might be surprised at just how legal these Muslims are acting on this issue.  

Stupid Outdated Constitution

I think it is time someone speaks up in favor of the US Constitution and not as a critic.  When the NRA was finally able to get the courage to actually bring the matter of gun ownership to the attention of the Supreme Court, I waited quietly for their decision.  In all of the huffing and puffing that both sides have demonstrated on the issue, this was the FIRST time that the NRA decided to test their stand in court.  I was not surprised that this Court voted in their favor since it is top loaded with some rather extreme activist Judges as evidenced by other decisions oozing out of their minds.  In the end, they decided that our fore fathers meant for all Americans to be armed to the teeth as a matter of self-protection.  In reading the various documents of that era, it was pretty obvious that arming themselves as a "well regulated militia" was designed to provide a ready reserve military arm to counter threats from the government and from foreign intrigues.  As much as I disagreed with this decision, I respected the Court's authority in this matter and began my own style of peaceful protest.  I do not own a firearm so the forearm companies will starve if they are depending on me.  I will not remain in a retail outlet if someone enters bearing an openly displayed weapon and I tell management why I am leaving.  If their business is more preferential than mine, so be it.  If I see someone with an openly displayed weapon enter a Federal facility (Federal Courthouse, Federal lands, etc.), I report the violation immediately to the police.  I am a real nuisance but all I am doing is obeying the law and assuring that the law gets obeyed by others.  You see, I really appreciate the presence of the US Constitution and it's legal arbiter, the Supreme Court.  Keeping this personal position in mind, I find our lawmaker's latest assault on this wonderful document to be not only abhorrent but bordering on treason since they are attacking the basis for which this nation was formed.  I am speaking of the assault on the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution which was first proposed on 13 June 1866 in the ashes of the Civil War.  It was ratified by 2/3^rd of our Congress two years later on 9 July 1868.  This was not, therefore, rush to judgment but the result of due deliberation.  Our forefathers knew what the impact of this law would be and voted it into law.  At the time there was great concern that we would turn into a mongrel nation and that a flood of Chinese workers would overwhelm our electorate.  In actuality, the thrust of the law was to provide citizenship privileges to slaves recently released slaves from the former Confederate States by noting simply that "All persons born or naturalized in  the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State in which they reside."  Pretty simple language and the various predictions of overwhelmed electorates never came about.  It has been the law of the land for almost 150 years and has served us well.  As noted in the above quote from the Amendment, diplomats would not have their children covered since they are not "subject to the jurisdictions" of the United States.  Now several Congressmen from several States want us to change the 14^th Amendment to preclude children of undocumented aliens from being considered as US citizens.  Unless your white hood has baked your mind in the hot sun, it is obvious who this change movement is meant to target – our Latino/a brothers and sisters from the South.  12,000,000 illegals will marry and have kids and these kids will then become a voting bloc.  If you have spent a career opposing the presence of these people in a nice white America, such a voting bloc could present a real job security threat.  Do you think "illegal" Canadians worry about their kids being accepted as Americans?  I doubt it.  This effort to push for changes in the 14^th Amendment did not occur until we started seeing more and more Hispanic surnames holding office in the various States throughout this country.  OMG, if we don't do something quick, democracy will enable almost anyone to hold public office and majority groups will now be able to set policy.  We simply cannot have such a situation in a democracy so let's alter our perception of what constitutes a democracy.  We should be very proud of these lawmakers since they have taken the stand that they and only they really know what was going through our fore fathers's minds. We probably need to begin looking at freedoms of religion next since those evil Moslems want to build a Mosque on private lands in New York "near" ground zero.  After that let's check out freedoms of the press, speech and protections of our persons places or things – you can never be too careful you know.             

Doncha just luv it??!!

I am dropping this entire article into my blog noting that it relieves me immensely to realize that I am not the only person who believes America has gone a little short on common sense and integrity.  I am writing this even now as the news is reporting some Baptist minister is sponsoring a Burn a Quran Day at his "church".  I can only shake my head and recall that my brother was murdered in Ireland in 1988 for being a Catholic.  I hope (and excuse me for saying this) that this "ministers" church is scheduled to be on the evening news as the typical seasonal report noting that his building in town was the only building wiped out in a small tornado that didn't kill or hurt anyone...you know the story...we see it all the time...

In my own State the Attorney General. Mr. Cuccinelli, is suing the US Government to oppose the recent health care reform.  Again, a separate State deciding on which "laws of the land" they will chose to obey.  Break out the grey uniforms and we might want to think about reinforcing Ft. Sumpter. 

...and yes I am worried about this country...

The state of America? Hysteria

• Tim Rutten

Hysterical moral panic seems an apt description for our fevered political condition

ByTim Rutten

July 31, 2010

la-oe-0731-rutten-20100731

If you reengage the American media after a month out of the country, as I've done this week, it's hard not to conclude that hysteria is now the dominant characteristic of our politics and civic conversation.

How else to explain the fact that questions like secession and nullification — issues that were resolved in blood by the Civil War more than a century ago — have come alive again and are routinely tossed around, not just by fringe figures but by Republican officeholders and candidates?

For example, Zach Wamp, a Tennessee congressman who opposes the recently enacted healthcare reforms and is running for governor, told an interviewer that he hopes "the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government." Meanwhile, GOP candidates for statewide office in various Midwestern and Southern states are promoting the notion that states ought not to enforce any federal law not approved by at least two-thirds of their state legislators. It's as if John C. Calhoun suddenly had risen from the grave and had a talk show.

In Nevada, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate has discussed abolishing Social Security and darkly mused over whether Washington's alleged overreaching may require a "2nd Amendment solution." That means guns, a prospect that could be facilitated in one state after another by an outfit called Appleseed, which holds weekend seminars whose participants are given a mix of Minuteman pseudo-history and instruction on marksmanship.

Meanwhile, attempts to repeal sections of the Constitution continue apace. The so-called 10thers, who want to roll back 100 years of federal law and regulation in order to assert rights under the 10th Amendment, are almost unremarkably ubiquitous in the GOP. Candidates across the country pining for "tea party" support have endorsed repeal of the 17th Amendment, which would end popular election of U.S. Senators and return their selection to state legislatures, a step that theoretically would "restore states' rights."

The most popular such movement involves abolishing or gutting the 10th Amendment as a way to deny American citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Even the ostensibly moderate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has signed on to that one, while Rep. Louie Gohmert (R- Texas) speculates that such children actually are terrorist moles planted here to grow up as U.S. citizens as part of a long-range plot.

Nothing quite tops the anti-Muslim hysteria, which has led people to organize opposition to the construction of new mosques in places from Lower Manhattan to Temecula. One candidate for statewide office in Tennessee — somebody should examine their water supply — argues that the 1st Amendment does not cover Muslims.

Some inclined toward therapeutic explanations of history might attribute all this to a kind of collective post-traumatic stress syndrome engendered by the lingering, still-unresolved aftermath of the horrific events of 9/11. Others might point to the dislocating effect of electing an African American president to govern a society in which strong currents of racial anxiety still eddy beneath the surface of everyday life. Perhaps both forces act in unseen concert.

Back in the early 1970s — an era whose tumult we yet may come to regard as benign — social scientists here and in Britain coined the term "moral panic" to describe what can happen when groups of people are seized by an exaggerated fear that other people or communal forces threaten their values or way of life. The scholars described those who promoted the panic's spread as "moral entrepreneurs" — a term that takes on a deep resonance when you consider the commentators and politicians who have attached themselves, and their interests, to the "tea party" and its attendant movements.

In the midst of moral panic, inchoate indignation stands in for reason; accusation and denunciation supplant dialogue and argument; history and facts are rendered malleable, merely adjuncts of the moral entrepreneur's — or should we say provocateur's — rhetorical will. As we now also see, a self-interested mass media with an economic stake in the theatricality of raised and angry voices can transmit moral panic like a pathogen.

Looking around the United States in the summer of 2010, hysterical moral panic seems an apt description of our fevered political condition.

timothy.rutten@latimes.com

Where did all the oil REALLY come from?

I don't have any answers to the issue I am going to raise here but I just wanted you to think about a problem that has bothered me for some tome now.  It goes right to the heart of another issue – how easy it is to promulgate a lie on the American people.  To best understand what I will cover you need to begin thinking in very large numbers.  OK here goes nothing.  Imagine a Jurassic era world with an unusual trait.  It seems all of the animals in this area are gathered in about a dozen places in this world.  They are not just gathered at these sites but they packed in almost shoulder to shoulder for miles in all directions.  They live their lives in this manner and die virtually at the same site in which they were born.  These are not little barnyard animals but rather behemoths weighing in at over fifty tons adult weight.  They have been gathering at these sites for millennia in a world that must have been simply overcome with enough flora, fauna and fresh water to feed these millions of animals and the supply of food and water has been continuous for the same number of millennia that the animals have existed.  When they die, they apparently do so in similar close order fashion and apparently with each succeeding death stacked on top of the preceding death.  Then something in this strange world happens that causes these huge piles of cadavers to become covered with some substance that prevents these bodies from simply withering away into dust.  Instead they are completely covered and shi4elded from the natural influences that would shrivel these bodies into nothing but rather they continued to sink deeper and deeper into the earth where pressure and other natural forces drains and coverts the hydrocarbons from these bodies and deposited them into deep pools to await harvesting by man millions of years later.  That is how we are supposed to accept the formation of deep oil in our mantel.  Now let's look at this fairy tale a little closer.  One dinosaur under the most perfect natural conditions would produce a couple of barrels of oil.  Now that presumes that no other predator ate some of the deceased dinosaur.  It also presumes that the body was not allowed to be exposed to a week or two of sunlight and air which would greatly decompose the cadaver.  Instead it presumes that the dead lizard gets buried under a very deep covering of protective silt almost immediately and then be subjected to just the right amount of heat and pressure to cause the chemical change required to covert the rotting corpse into petroleum.  Now since our oil deposits are found in only a few narrow geographic areas of the world, this dead animal would have to have been accompanied by billions of like animals all of whom died, got covered immediately and were then exposed to the identical chemical and physical processes needed to convert them to oil.  This fairy tale also assumes there was enough of these well handled cadavers to produce the billions of gallons of oil that we have harvested in the last century or so at a rate of about one hundred gallons per adult beast.  Oh oh…now that pesky thing called math takes over.  Even if you can accept that in about ten places of the world over a period of about a million years, all the animals of the world came to one of these sites to die and be covered over completely the number requirements simply does not compute.  There simply were not enough animals to produce the amount of oil we have thus far harvested.  Remember these brutes would have eaten tons of food each day and the billions of animals that would have had to exist at one time just so maybe a couple of hundred thousand got a "proper burial" does not conform to what we know or surmise about how they lived and roamed the earth.  So if billions of dinosaurs gathering in Prudhoe Bay, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia or Odessa, Texas didn't produce the oil what did?  A Russian astrophysicist named Andre Velikov came up with a much more believable solution.  Let me know if you want me to let you in on his theories.  They are really fascinating.    

Let's look at some "facts" instead of hype

In the following few paragraphs, I am going to try to I am going to try my best to be as neutral as I can noting only the facts as I see them or have read about them in various media.  The topic is the current administration and how it has been treated by the press and my friends and neighbors.  I will undoubtedly make a mistake or two especially in regards to actual numbers and statistics but look past these errors for what I am really trying go convey in the message. 

To begin with, it was a monumental vote that placed a black man at the helm of this great nation.  Much of what has happened since then is that simple fact in itself.  Not only has a liberal moved into the Whitehouse, property often thought to belong only to the Conservatives, but a black liberal on top of it.  A person holding a political office in rural West Virginia confided to me that although she was a yellow dog democrat she simply could not bring herself to vote for a black.  I heard this not once but literally dozens of times from all sorts of voters during the election and though I may have at first attempted to take the time to explain Mr. Obama's agenda, I soon realized that this door was closed and that was that.  Since taking the Whitehouse, America has allowed its 1950s style fears to once again take over.  Mr. Obama was not looked upon as a prominent lawyer who sold over two million copies of his book BEFORE he ran for national office.  Nope, he was the reincarnation the Black Panther, Black Muslim, civil rights marching radical extremist who somehow illegally stole the office of the Presidency and now, that he is there he has some secret socialistic jihad agenda to destroy America.  So far he has not sought to take anyone's weapons away from them and has not decreed Christianity forbidden.  He has won all of his major actions by clear majorities and in most cases super majorities of Congress.  He eschewed backroom politics in favor of presenting his issues openly and in some cases to public forums and at none of these did I see a single leather coated black beret body guard.  Yet even though the voice of the people as expressed in its Congress has spoken in favor of his major policy decisions, a very loud minority within the Congress has in essence said that the people are wrong and that they, this very vocal minority, will speak over the wishes of the people. 

Let's look at just a few of the half truths or outright deceptions being given out as fact to the American people by this vocal minority. 

1)   The President will pay for his health care reform by cutting Medicare for the aged.

            Truth:  Mr. Obama noted he will help pay for his health reforms by eliminating   $500M from Medicare in the form of attacking waste,      fraud and abuse in   Medicare. Last week he conducted a seven State raid and stopped $250M insuch abuse.  Another six or seven States and he will have met his goal and no money will have been cut except money being paid to criminals.

2)  Mr. Obama must accept a lion's harem of the responsibility for not taking immediate steps to stop the BP oil spill.

            Truth:  Under Federal law passed under George W Bush, when an oil disaster occurs, the offending oil company is the action agency to halt the spill.  The US Government does not have any indigenous oil spill equipment in its arsenal    and must rely on private industry to react accordingly.  Would sending 10,000 or even 50,000 National Guardsmen have helped.  Not likely since they are trained for population control and not oil spill cleanup.  The US Coast Guard was on site within hours and stayed there until even now.  National assets (satellites and spy type planes) were put at the disposal of the cleanup effort the same day.  Mr. Obama visited the site within seven days but note that the presence of the President at such catastrophes is not a help but rather a hindrance.  Security procedures, dog and pony shows and low level politicians seeking photo ops do not assist anyone.  Think back on every time you saw the President and all of the toadies who gathered around him.  Not much beach cleaning was going on was it?

3)  Mr. Obama should have out his best brains on the problem to stop the oil spill.

            Truth:  He did and guess what? Brain trust advised against most of the gimmicks now being put into place by the same toadies who gathered around the President.  Sand berms?  They are using sand from the ocean bottoms right off shore which deepen the harbors and dramatically change the tide patterns  ESPECIALLY during tidal surges that accompany hurricanes.  Good luck New Orleans.   The berms are also made of sand which will at first soak up the oil then when the first hard wind comes and sloshes over the berms they will dissolve in the rush of the oncoming water and release their soaked up stored oil much further inland now driven by this tidal surge.  Good luck upper Mississippi River basin.  But Bobby Jindal knows more than all the scientist so the berm building goes on. 

Those are just a few items from the current headlines.  Undoubtedly the Tea Party will be able to conduct its scare campaign against blacks and liberals and gin up a lot of spit and vinegar but in the end – inside the voting booth, the American people have a way of shoveling their way through the cow dung and I expect they will do so this coming November as well.  If they do fall victim to the hype, much like a bad haircut, it is only a matter of time until they can see what they have unloosed upon our nation and allow the same voting booth fix the problem.

Have We Gone Totally Crazy?

Just look at some of the stories floating around the ether lately and you can get a real deep sense of anxiety on where this nation and it's citizens are headed.  The Governor of Louisiana signed into law a new bill now making it legal to carry a concealed weapon into church.  I distinctly recall Catholic Mass being held under a very large nylon cargo parachute as big as a circus tent.  Less than ten miles away, our soldiers were engaged in a nose to nose fight with enemy soldiers near the road to the Ashau Valley.  Men were dying in the obscenity of war but guess what?  We had to stack our weapons outside the chapel during services.  We did so without griping or yelling some idiocy about our Second Amendment Rights even though we were actually the "militia" referenced by the founding fathers.  Go figure!!  Now our good citizens are espousing a need to defend themselves in church.  First and foremost let's not forget that this is "God's House" and if he/she decides to mug you in Church for whatever reasons, your silly sidearm is not going to be much of a deterrence against his/her omnipotence.  If, on the other hand, you are concerned with your safety being threatened by mere mortals...maybe you need to consider another church.  Have we gone totally crazy??

 

We accept the government's authority to require us to register dogs, cars, motorcycles, airplanes, voter registrations, explosives, fishing and hunting licenses, sporting licenses i.e parachuting, hot air balloons and our ability to receive public utilities in our homes.  Yet when we ask our citizens to register their private firearms the squall can be heard all the way to Timbuktu.  The same squealers scream even louder when we try to control how many guns they can purchase and to whom they can sell these obscene tools of human death.  These whiners note their opposition in some obscure mumbling about their fear of the government and the anticipation that such registries would be used to confiscate their weapons when the government finally gets too strong.  This attitude makes these little boys and phallic symbol worshippers little more than an underground future terrorist organization bent on destroying the government when "they" decide it has become too powerful.  Bubba, I am not sure I want you to be the one making that critical choice in the future of democracy.  But don't worry, we know where you live, what type of car/pickup you drive, what kind of dogs you own, where you do your hunting and fishing and how you voted last term.  If we take away your dog and pickup truck Bubba, and then suspend your fishing and hunting license we will have effectively disarmed you.  We are watching you!!!  Have we gone completely crazy?? 

 

The Gulf of Mexico has become a greasy mess and is slated to become even worse.  Yet amid all of this gushing oil, we find two very weird groups of people both related in their causes and both as nonsensical as the other.  One group strongly opposes and moratorium are further deep water drilling to permit the Government to check safety features and emergency procedures.  The other related group strongly wants more drilling to begin.  In both case the reasoning stems from the supposed loss of income that drilling rigs bring to the economy.  Of course the fact that the gushing well is doing it thing BECAUSE no one was checking their safety procedures and no one had any ideas how to stop a broken well does not seem to matter just as long as "I get mine!!!"  Of course the destruction that this well has caused will ultimately impact everyone on the coast and perhaps everyone in the US and possibly the world does not seem to matter as long as "I get mine first!!!"  Have we gone completely crazy?? .    

God Bless America

Eighteen months into his term of office, President Barack Obama is faced with an unusual, even ironic, situation.  It would seem that several US States, Arizona topping the list, have indicated a desire to abrogate the Constitution of the United States.  It the intention of Arizona et. al. to simply decide that the powers granted the the Federal Government by that wonderful Constitution, are better served by the individual States.  I speak of course of Arizona et. al. deciding that they will now begin to control immigration into their separate State.  The next step, of course, would be issuing Arizona Passports, Arizona International Customs Procedures, issuance of visitor visas, international banking rules, interstate trade and transport requirements and the list goes on probably ending somewhere around the time Arizona begins issuing its own currency and stamps.  The founding fathers recognized the inherent problems and road to failure that would be paved if the separate States were given powers that overlapped into the interest of the other States or worse, ignored or trumped the national laws.  Arizona wants to deny the right of teachers to teach the English language if they have any sort of accents.  This presumes that anyone in Arizona or any other States can actually presume to speak anything resembling true English. I find it curious that the citizen's of Arizona want us to believe that their porous borders are something that occurred last Wednesday or something.  Of course the relative free access across the Arizona borders has been a reality since Arizona was a Territory awaiting Statehood.  What they are not telling us is that the "problem" did not become a problem until the numbers began revealing a creeping parity between the numbers of Latinos in Arizona and the number of "whites."  Before the fifties and sixties, along the various Southwestern States, there were no Spanish surnames holding political office.  Now it is common to see Govenors, Mayors, Police Chiefs and all points in between doing great jobs and bearing those wonderfully melodious Latino names.  This not only indicates more awareness on the part of the Latino community but it also indicates a growing legal voting block and now "Whitey" seems to be getting scared.  If we listen to the people of Arizona going through their daily whine sessions, we are suppose to believe that the Federal Government is not doing enough to stem the tide of illegal immigration.  We are suppose to make another 6,000 trained border patrol agents materialize out of thin air.  Failing this we are suppose to give Arizona 6,000 armed military personnel to carry out their secessionist aims and goals.  Imagine 6,000 young soldiers walking the streets of Arizona's major cities stopping anyone who "looks suspicious" and demanding proof of citizenship.  "Arizona uber alles".  Fortunately the US Government has a doctrine of Posse Comitatus which forbids the military from conducting routine police activities except in times of declared national emergencies.  As for coming up with another 6,000 border agents - not likely!   Even though Arizona believes they are the most important piece of real estate in the known world, the Federal Government has thousands of miles of other border areas to protect. Let's see what happen when a black President now interposes himself in a State's attempt to secede  from the Union.  I personally think Arizona should shut their pie holes since the Latino community will very soon have a voting majority and then we'll see how well "whitey" likes being profiled and questioned about their right to walk the streets of Arizona.