Meet Elizabeth Warren—Native American

Meet Elizabeth Warren—Native American

California is not the only liberal state with candidates who routinely lie and exaggerate those parts of their lives which will appeal to their large politically-correct constituency. If you can’t be a black woman, or a wise Latina, there’s always your popular victim ethnic background—be a Native American. I would use the old-fashioned “Indian,” but the Democrats have already proven they don’t much like Bobby Jindal.

So---here’s Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Senatorial candidate. She’s running against Republican Scott Brown. Brown won the seat that had been called the “Kennedy seat” for decades, handing the Democrats a very embarrassing defeat. The Democrats are not about to let that white, pickup-driving man hold onto that seat. So they picked a woman who has in the past claimed to be a Native American. In fact, it was one of the items which originally got her teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard.

The truth is that Warren is about as much a Native American as her counterpart, the disgraced Ward Churchill, former professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The number of Americans whose families have been here for a long time includes a great many who have some Native American blood. Most are proud of their heritage, but rarely declare themselves Native Americans when their genes are 1/32 or less tribal. If anything Warren says about her bloodline is true, she is at most 1/32 Native American.

Warren first tried to establish her political bona fides with the common folk of Massachusetts by calling herself “the Okie from Harvard.” She was indeed born in Oklahoma City, but has spent most of her life living elsewhere, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. But before she tried to pass off that ½ truth, she first did her 1/32 truth in order to get preference for her teaching positions. When early reports came out showing that she had at least distorted her ethnic heritage in order to get preference for teaching positions, she waffled.

Instead of addressing directly the issue of her thin Native American bloodline, she indignantly denied that she had ever used that heritage to gain an advantage over other applicants for the positions. Even if that was partially true, there’s no question that she enhanced the original story as she moved from job to job, by calling herself a “minority professor.” She attended professional meetings and forums specifically as a minority professor. But knowing the best defense is a good offense, she got officials at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, and the University of Houston to state the she had not used her Native American heritage in order to get teaching positions there.

Well, what else would you expect? The criteria for hiring one potential professor over another are very arcane and secretive, and in this day of affirmative action backlash and anti-discrimination public hiring laws, no institution is going to admit that ethnicity was a determining factor. Still, those same universities proudly went along with Warren’s description of herself as a minority professor. Needless to say, Warren is blaming Scott Brown partisans for raising a “phony issue.” The mainstream media are assisting Warren, of natch. The Washington Post asks "why is this non-issue being treated as if it were important news?"

For a law professor and now a professional politician, Warren is not very good at deflecting criticism or arguing a point coherently (which actually qualifies her to be Barack Obama’s next Supreme Court nominee). At a recent press conference, Warren babbled about her use of the minority professor gambit. “I listed myself for nearly a decade as a minority law teacher in order to connect with others like me.” She then stumbled over why she de-listed herself as a minority professor when she no longer needed the leg up.

And then she managed to prove herself another racist liberal by stating that she never really claimed to be a Native American, "it was all about stories passed on in her family for decades." Most importantly, she identifies with Native Americans because her grandfather “had the high cheekbones possessed by all Native Americans." Is that anything like “a typical white person?” The schools she taught at never listed her as being specifically Native American, but went along with the minority professor gag. She alone embellished her tribal roots.

If Harvard wasn’t affected by her claims which resulted in her hiring and granting of tenure, they did a very good imitation of it. When administration officials were questioned about the issue, the reply was that even though they had never hired a professor from a second-tier law school for a professor’s position, her expertise on debtor/creditor law pushed her into top contention. And they were proud to have such a notable minority professor. The Harvard Crimson was a bit less scrupulous about her claims. The campus paper published several articles in which Warren touted her connections to the Delaware and Cherokee tribes.

In the long run, this may be a tempest in a teapot. But given her exaggerations about being the Okie Harvard professor and a Native American, one has to wonder what else she has been distorting about her life and credentials. If this turns out to be a pattern, she may find that her attempts to blend in with the non-Harvard elite and to match Scott Brown’s genuine middle class values will end up simply looking ridiculous. Better to admit she is a Harvard elitist than to claim to be something she is provably not.

California is not the only liberal state with candidates who routinely lie and exaggerate those parts of their lives which will appeal to their large politically-correct constituency. If you can’t be a black woman, or a wise Latina, there’s always your popular victim ethnic background—be a Native American. I would use the old-fashioned “Indian,” but the Democrats have already proven they don’t much like Bobby Jindal.

So---here’s Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Senatorial candidate. She’s running against Republican Scott Brown. Brown won the seat that had been called the “Kennedy seat” for decades, handing the Democrats a very embarrassing defeat. The Democrats are not about to let that white, pickup-driving man hold onto that seat. So they picked a woman who has in the past claimed to be a Native American. In fact, it was one of the items which originally got her teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard.

The truth is that Warren is about as much a Native American as her counterpart, the disgraced Ward Churchill, former professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The number of Americans whose families have been here for a long time includes a great many who have some Native American blood. Most are proud of their heritage, but rarely declare themselves Native Americans when their genes are 1/32 or less tribal. If anything Warren says about her bloodline is true, she is at most 1/32 Native American.

Warren first tried to establish her political bona fides with the common folk of Massachusetts by calling herself “the Okie from Harvard.” She was indeed born in Oklahoma City, but has spent most of her life living elsewhere, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. But before she tried to pass off that ½ truth, she first did her 1/32 truth in order to get preference for her teaching positions. When early reports came out showing that she had at least distorted her ethnic heritage in order to get preference for teaching positions, she waffled.

Instead of addressing directly the issue of her thin Native American bloodline, she indignantly denied that she had ever used that heritage to gain an advantage over other applicants for the positions. Even if that was partially true, there’s no question that she enhanced the original story as she moved from job to job, by calling herself a “minority professor.” She attended professional meetings and forums specifically as a minority professor. But knowing the best defense is a good offense, she got officials at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, and the University of Houston to state the she had not used her Native American heritage in order to get teaching positions there.

Well, what else would you expect? The criteria for hiring one potential professor over another are very arcane and secretive, and in this day of affirmative action backlash and anti-discrimination public hiring laws, no institution is going to admit that ethnicity was a determining factor. Still, those same universities proudly went along with Warren’s description of herself as a minority professor. Needless to say, Warren is blaming Scott Brown partisans for raising a “phony issue.” The mainstream media are assisting Warren, of natch. The Washington Post asks "why is this non-issue being treated as if it were important news?"

For a law professor and now a professional politician, Warren is not very good at deflecting criticism or arguing a point coherently (which actually qualifies her to be Barack Obama’s next Supreme Court nominee). At a recent press conference, Warren babbled about her use of the minority professor gambit. “I listed myself for nearly a decade as a minority law teacher in order to connect with others like me.” She then stumbled over why she de-listed herself as a minority professor when she no longer needed the leg up.

And then she managed to prove herself another racist liberal by stating that she never really claimed to be a Native American, "it was all about stories passed on in her family for decades." Most importantly, she identifies with Native Americans because her grandfather “had the high cheekbones possessed by all Native Americans." Is that anything like “a typical white person?” The schools she taught at never listed her as being specifically Native American, but went along with the minority professor gag. She alone embellished her tribal roots.

If Harvard wasn’t affected by her claims which resulted in her hiring and granting of tenure, they did a very good imitation of it. When administration officials were questioned about the issue, the reply was that even though they had never hired a professor from a second-tier law school for a professor’s position, her expertise on debtor/creditor law pushed her into top contention. And they were proud to have such a notable minority professor. The Harvard Crimson was a bit less scrupulous about her claims. The campus paper published several articles in which Warren touted her connections to the Delaware and Cherokee tribes.

In the long run, this may be a tempest in a teapot. But given her exaggerations about being the Okie Harvard professor and a Native American, one has to wonder what else she has been distorting about her life and credentials. If this turns out to be a pattern, she may find that her attempts to blend in with the non-Harvard elite and to match Scott Brown’s genuine middle class values will end up simply looking ridiculous. Better to admit she is a Harvard elitist than to claim to be something she is provably not.

Meet Elizabeth Warren—Native American

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Barack Braveheart Strikes Again

Barack Braveheart Strikes Again

Recently we were treated to an “open mic” moment during which President Obama whispered to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that if Russia could just be patient, after his reelection, the American president would have more maneuvering room to “reach accommodations” with the former Soviet Union. Obama had already agreed to a nuclear arms reduction (likely to be unilateral) and cancellation of plans for a defensive missile shield in Eastern Europe (final agreement pending).

Obama has now been confronted with a fact that anyone with the least sense of history knows—but which he apparently does not. When dealing with autrocratic rulers like Medvedev (and soon his predecessor and successor Vladimir Putin), gestures of good will and offers of compromise are treated as weaknesses to be exploited. At an international conference in Moscow, attended by American State Department officials, General Staff Chief Nikolai Makarov responded to Obama’s overtures with a serious threat that indicated what the Russkies would do if Obama reneged on his cancellation of the missile defense shield.

Said the general of the potential missile defense shield: “A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens.” Translation: “If you do anything to protect yourselves and your European allies via missile defense, we will commit an act of war by destroying your sites.” In just a few decades we have gone from Ronald Reagan standing up to the Soviets in Berlin and saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” to an American State Department spokesman saying: “We will rebouble our efforts to seek common ground and to seek understanding.” If you can’t get your enemies to love you, at least you can make them fear you. They feared Ronald Reagan. They laugh at Barack Obama.

In an effort to tamp down the shock and anger felt by a large number of Americans at the Obama administration’s constant capitulation to a resurgent [Soviet] Russian empire, the same State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, attempted to make light of the Russian comment: “I’m aware of this kind of rhetoric being thrown around. [But] I would also just point you to the fact that outgoing President Medvedev also addressed the meeting that was taking place in Moscow, and he expressed confidence that despite differences, we’re going to be able to resolve those differences on missile defense.” Check out your history, Mr. Toner: “There are no offensive missiles in Cuba.”

“This is my last election,” Mr. Obama whispered to Mr. Medvedev. “After my election I have more flexibility.” This development alone points out that America must make this his last election and his first big electoral defeat. In fact, I’m hoping we give him enough flexibility to perform a physically-impossible act on himself. It’s bad enough we have a huge modern Caliphate to face in the years to come, but now we have a president who thinks that Neville Chamberlain did a dandy job of bringing peace for our time at Munich and wishes to accomplish the same kind of peace in Eastern Europe.

Any American general who states loudly and publicly a policy which is not consistent with that of his president will be fired. Any Russian general who states loudly and publicly a policy which is not consistent with that of his president will be fired on (as in “firing squad”). If Obama’s amateur diplomats genuinely think this is “just rhetoric” they have no idea of what incoming President Putin has engineered in the past, most particularly as head of the KGB. One has to wonder if the equally naïve and vastly more dangerous weak-spined President of the United States is acting out of foolish trust or merely simple fear.

Recently we were treated to an “open mic” moment during which President Obama whispered to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that if Russia could just be patient, after his reelection, the American president would have more maneuvering room to “reach accommodations” with the former Soviet Union. Obama had already agreed to a nuclear arms reduction (likely to be unilateral) and cancellation of plans for a defensive missile shield in Eastern Europe (final agreement pending).

Obama has now been confronted with a fact that anyone with the least sense of history knows—but which he apparently does not. When dealing with autrocratic rulers like Medvedev (and soon his predecessor and successor Vladimir Putin), gestures of good will and offers of compromise are treated as weaknesses to be exploited. At an international conference in Moscow, attended by American State Department officials, General Staff Chief Nikolai Makarov responded to Obama’s overtures with a serious threat that indicated what the Russkies would do if Obama reneged on his cancellation of the missile defense shield.

Said the general of the potential missile defense shield: “A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens.” Translation: “If you do anything to protect yourselves and your European allies via missile defense, we will commit an act of war by destroying your sites.” In just a few decades we have gone from Ronald Reagan standing up to the Soviets in Berlin and saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” to an American State Department spokesman saying: “We will rebouble our efforts to seek common ground and to seek understanding.” If you can’t get your enemies to love you, at least you can make them fear you. They feared Ronald Reagan. They laugh at Barack Obama.

In an effort to tamp down the shock and anger felt by a large number of Americans at the Obama administration’s constant capitulation to a resurgent [Soviet] Russian empire, the same State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, attempted to make light of the Russian comment: “I’m aware of this kind of rhetoric being thrown around. [But] I would also just point you to the fact that outgoing President Medvedev also addressed the meeting that was taking place in Moscow, and he expressed confidence that despite differences, we’re going to be able to resolve those differences on missile defense.” Check out your history, Mr. Toner: “There are no offensive missiles in Cuba.”

“This is my last election,” Mr. Obama whispered to Mr. Medvedev. “After my election I have more flexibility.” This development alone points out that America must make this his last election and his first big electoral defeat. In fact, I’m hoping we give him enough flexibility to perform a physically-impossible act on himself. It’s bad enough we have a huge modern Caliphate to face in the years to come, but now we have a president who thinks that Neville Chamberlain did a dandy job of bringing peace for our time at Munich and wishes to accomplish the same kind of peace in Eastern Europe.

Any American general who states loudly and publicly a policy which is not consistent with that of his president will be fired. Any Russian general who states loudly and publicly a policy which is not consistent with that of his president will be fired on (as in “firing squad”). If Obama’s amateur diplomats genuinely think this is “just rhetoric” they have no idea of what incoming President Putin has engineered in the past, most particularly as head of the KGB. One has to wonder if the equally naïve and vastly more dangerous weak-spined President of the United States is acting out of foolish trust or merely simple fear.

Barack Braveheart Strikes Again

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Trouble In Democratic Paradise?

Trouble In Democratic Paradise?

Much is being made by the mainstream media and the Democratic strategists about the allegedly tepid support that Republican presidential nominee-presumptive Mitt Romney is receiving from his fellow Republican power brokers. True or not, I have serious doubts that any Republican governor will withhold his or her support from Romney, let alone in a very public way. The same cannot be said of Barack Obama.

With all the advantages of incumbency and without the necessity of going through a bruising primary campaign, the president can’t even hold the Democratic governors together. West Virginia Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has gone on record as refusing to endorse Obama for reelection, but has also given some pretty strong reasons for his refusal.

Gov. Tomblin’s statement minces no words: “President Obama has apparently made it his mission to drive the backbone of West Virginia’s economy, coal and the energy industry out of business. That will not only hurt thousands of West Virginia families, it will destroy the economic fabric of our state.” Tomblin went on to say: “As a loyal member of the Democratic Party and as governor of our state, I will continue to do everything I can, including suing the EPA, to get the president to change the misguided policies that are hurting West Virginians.”

How long this will last and how much effect it will have on other Democratic stalwarts remains to be seen. But Tomblin is not the only important Democratic figure from a state heavily-dependent on the production and use of coal and oil for the health of their state economies. In addition, several Republican governors of coal producing/using states could quickly latch onto the same refrain (Pennsylvania and Ohio come to mind—both battleground states). Never mind the phony “war on women.” This is a real war on coal and oil, and now a Democratic governor has spoken the unspeakable.

Make no mistake. Tomblin is not about to become a maverick who endorses a Republican for president. West Virginia is a very poor state, with a large rural population and a significant portion of its population dependent on government handouts. But he has made a point which could resonate throughout other fossil-fuel states. And he has essentially “given permission” for other Democrats to remain loyal to their party without being loyal to the Great Job Destroyer.

Tomblin made it clear he is not a fan of either Romney or the Republican agenda, then proceeded to repeat Democratic talking points. Said Tomblin: “Mitt Romney is supporting policies that will end Medicare and Social Security as we know it. His policies will put more burdens on West Virginia families who are simply trying to make ends meet.” In other words, “I support Democratic policies which keep many West Virginians on the plantation and on the welfare rolls, but not a president who destroys union jobs and raises energy costs in quantum leaps.”

He concluded with “neither President Obama nor Governor Romney has earned my vote at this point.” That leaves open the question of whether he would reverse his position should Obama throw a few bones to West Virginia in the form of job incentives that are more apparent than real. That would be a real tightrope for both the president and the governor. Federal government handouts can go a long way toward greasing the wheels of currently-Democratic states.

West Virginia has a 2-1 Democratic registration majority, but has elected many Republicans to statewide and federal offices in the very recent past. Both the governor and Senator Joe Manchin (Tomblin’s predecessor in the governor’s mansion) are acutely aware that when it comes to unions and welfare, they are on solid ground. On the overall issue of jobs and the Obama ecoweenie attacks on coal production and coal-fueled energy their jobs are on shaky ground, and they know it. It doesn’t do them any good to support the United Mine Workers Union if the coal mines are forced to cease production and the state economy reaches final collapse.

In addition, Sen. Manchin has not endeared himself to the Obamacrats as he has implored the president to reverse course on “conscience waivers” in Obamacare to accommodate doctors religiously opposed to abortion and forced coverage for birth control and abortifacients. Blue Dog Democrats are a vanishing breed, but they haven’t yet gone entirely extinct.

So there appears to be a war going on in Democratic heaven. The question is, “who plays Satan and who plays God in this Paradise Lost scenario?” And then there’s always the question of which one will win.

Much is being made by the mainstream media and the Democratic strategists about the allegedly tepid support that Republican presidential nominee-presumptive Mitt Romney is receiving from his fellow Republican power brokers. True or not, I have serious doubts that any Republican governor will withhold his or her support from Romney, let alone in a very public way. The same cannot be said of Barack Obama.

With all the advantages of incumbency and without the necessity of going through a bruising primary campaign, the president can’t even hold the Democratic governors together. West Virginia Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has gone on record as refusing to endorse Obama for reelection, but has also given some pretty strong reasons for his refusal.

Gov. Tomblin’s statement minces no words: “President Obama has apparently made it his mission to drive the backbone of West Virginia’s economy, coal and the energy industry out of business. That will not only hurt thousands of West Virginia families, it will destroy the economic fabric of our state.” Tomblin went on to say: “As a loyal member of the Democratic Party and as governor of our state, I will continue to do everything I can, including suing the EPA, to get the president to change the misguided policies that are hurting West Virginians.”

How long this will last and how much effect it will have on other Democratic stalwarts remains to be seen. But Tomblin is not the only important Democratic figure from a state heavily-dependent on the production and use of coal and oil for the health of their state economies. In addition, several Republican governors of coal producing/using states could quickly latch onto the same refrain (Pennsylvania and Ohio come to mind—both battleground states). Never mind the phony “war on women.” This is a real war on coal and oil, and now a Democratic governor has spoken the unspeakable.

Make no mistake. Tomblin is not about to become a maverick who endorses a Republican for president. West Virginia is a very poor state, with a large rural population and a significant portion of its population dependent on government handouts. But he has made a point which could resonate throughout other fossil-fuel states. And he has essentially “given permission” for other Democrats to remain loyal to their party without being loyal to the Great Job Destroyer.

Tomblin made it clear he is not a fan of either Romney or the Republican agenda, then proceeded to repeat Democratic talking points. Said Tomblin: “Mitt Romney is supporting policies that will end Medicare and Social Security as we know it. His policies will put more burdens on West Virginia families who are simply trying to make ends meet.” In other words, “I support Democratic policies which keep many West Virginians on the plantation and on the welfare rolls, but not a president who destroys union jobs and raises energy costs in quantum leaps.”

He concluded with “neither President Obama nor Governor Romney has earned my vote at this point.” That leaves open the question of whether he would reverse his position should Obama throw a few bones to West Virginia in the form of job incentives that are more apparent than real. That would be a real tightrope for both the president and the governor. Federal government handouts can go a long way toward greasing the wheels of currently-Democratic states.

West Virginia has a 2-1 Democratic registration majority, but has elected many Republicans to statewide and federal offices in the very recent past. Both the governor and Senator Joe Manchin (Tomblin’s predecessor in the governor’s mansion) are acutely aware that when it comes to unions and welfare, they are on solid ground. On the overall issue of jobs and the Obama ecoweenie attacks on coal production and coal-fueled energy their jobs are on shaky ground, and they know it. It doesn’t do them any good to support the United Mine Workers Union if the coal mines are forced to cease production and the state economy reaches final collapse.

In addition, Sen. Manchin has not endeared himself to the Obamacrats as he has implored the president to reverse course on “conscience waivers” in Obamacare to accommodate doctors religiously opposed to abortion and forced coverage for birth control and abortifacients. Blue Dog Democrats are a vanishing breed, but they haven’t yet gone entirely extinct.

So there appears to be a war going on in Democratic heaven. The question is, “who plays Satan and who plays God in this Paradise Lost scenario?” And then there’s always the question of which one will win.

Trouble In Democratic Paradise?

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Fringe Follies

Fringe Follies

A couple of news items caught my attention earlier this week. I don’t know whether to call them a falling-out among thieves or simply cognitive dissonance. The left fringe is temporarily at war with the left fringe, and the right fringe is temporarily at war with the right fringe. It occurred to me that the two incidents are like deciding which disease to root for—cancer or heart disease. I opted for “neither.”

Follies on the Right: President Obama had just honored fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery this past Monday. During the proceedings, there were dueling dissidents at the outer edges of the ceremony. The crazed homophobes of the Westboro Baptist Church were putting on their infamous stage-show in which they held up signs reading “pray for more dead soldiers,” and “God hates your prayers.” Nice.

At safe arms-length was another fine American institution protesting the protestors. Was it the ACLU? No. Was it the armed forces chaplains? No. How about the VFW or the AmVets? No. It was that bastion of Christian charity—the Ku Klux Klan. Now we must be careful lest we believe the Klan was there to protect the interests of black or Jewish families attending the ceremonies.

The Klan was there to support generic soldiers who gave their lives serving an America that doesn’t actually exist. A pure, white, Aryan America that somehow mistakenly allowed non-Christian, non-Aryan people to fight for America’s causes. There wasn’t enough room on the Klan’s signs to clarify that they were protesting the Westboro gang’s disrespect for dead service men and women, except for those homosexuals, Jews, blacks, and other subhumans. So they simply held signs that evidenced their bizarre sense of patriotism.

The closest historical parallel that came immediately to mind was the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky. One wanted a lot of dead enemies, the other wanted a lot more dead enemies. Which was the greater monster is entirely debatable, though Stalin was the ultimate victor. From the viewpoint of civilization, being the victor in that battle of wills was a dubious distinction.

The Klan representative, Dennis LaBonte, said: As a military veteran and Imperial Wizard of a KKK chapter, we came in support of the troops. I think it’s an absolute shame that the [Westboro crowd] shows up and disrupts people’s funerals.” Westboro spokesperson Abigail Phelps responded with “the KKK has no moral authority on anything.” Isn’t that a little like one warthog calling another warthog ugly?

Follies on the Left: President Obama continues to spike the ball on the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. He continues to take mostly sole credit for the decision that brought down the world’s most wanted mass murderer/terrorist. The more he protests that his comments are not self-congratulatory and political, the more it becomes apparent that they are. In fact, as Republican candidate Mitt Romney pointed out “even Carter would have made that decision.”

That, after Obama’s team tried to convince everyone that Romney wouldn’t have ordered the capture and/or death of bin Laden as he hid out in plain sight in Pakistan. The truth is that the bravest thing Obama did was stand up to his own vice president who didn’t want to chance the capture or killing of the mastermind of 9-11 and other horrors.

So who was the biggest and most vocal critic of Obama’s crowing? Was it Republican speaker John Boehner? No. Was it a retired SEAL commander? No. Was it Vietnam war hero John McCain? No (well, not entirely no). It was Obama-swooner Arianna Huffington. She of the lefty Huffington Post.

Said the omnipresent and omniscient Arianna: “I agree with the Romney campaign (quick, grab my nitro tablets) that using the Osama bin Laden assassination, killing, the great news that we had a year ago, in order to say basically that Obama did it and Romney might not have done it—I don’t think there should be an ad about it.. To turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.” She obviously gets her speech-coherence lessons from Nancy Pelosi, but at least with Huffington, the point (if not the grammar) is easy to discern.

Huffington also took a couple of jabs at the Clintons. She drew a parallel to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 ad campaign which queried whether you would want her or Barack Obama answering the red phone at the White House at three in the morning when the voice at the other end was announcing a new terrorist attack. She criticized former President Bill Clinton for narrating the Obama ad that lionized Obama’s “brave decision” to take out bin Laden while indicating that Romney would not have made the same decision. “Totally unfair and untrue” says Arianna. And then there’s that small matter of Bill Clinton missing several opportunities to capture or kill bin Laden prior to the horror of 9-11.

Well, even the devil tells the truth occasionally when it suits his purpose. I’m just left wondering what Huffington’s specific purpose was (and is). Maybe she just accidentally expressed a thought that was both sensible and patriotic. Given the six months ahead, I’m sure she will find a way to backtrack in time for the presidential election.

A couple of news items caught my attention earlier this week. I don’t know whether to call them a falling-out among thieves or simply cognitive dissonance. The left fringe is temporarily at war with the left fringe, and the right fringe is temporarily at war with the right fringe. It occurred to me that the two incidents are like deciding which disease to root for—cancer or heart disease. I opted for “neither.”

Follies on the Right: President Obama had just honored fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery this past Monday. During the proceedings, there were dueling dissidents at the outer edges of the ceremony. The crazed homophobes of the Westboro Baptist Church were putting on their infamous stage-show in which they held up signs reading “pray for more dead soldiers,” and “God hates your prayers.” Nice.

At safe arms-length was another fine American institution protesting the protestors. Was it the ACLU? No. Was it the armed forces chaplains? No. How about the VFW or the AmVets? No. It was that bastion of Christian charity—the Ku Klux Klan. Now we must be careful lest we believe the Klan was there to protect the interests of black or Jewish families attending the ceremonies.

The Klan was there to support generic soldiers who gave their lives serving an America that doesn’t actually exist. A pure, white, Aryan America that somehow mistakenly allowed non-Christian, non-Aryan people to fight for America’s causes. There wasn’t enough room on the Klan’s signs to clarify that they were protesting the Westboro gang’s disrespect for dead service men and women, except for those homosexuals, Jews, blacks, and other subhumans. So they simply held signs that evidenced their bizarre sense of patriotism.

The closest historical parallel that came immediately to mind was the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky. One wanted a lot of dead enemies, the other wanted a lot more dead enemies. Which was the greater monster is entirely debatable, though Stalin was the ultimate victor. From the viewpoint of civilization, being the victor in that battle of wills was a dubious distinction.

The Klan representative, Dennis LaBonte, said: As a military veteran and Imperial Wizard of a KKK chapter, we came in support of the troops. I think it’s an absolute shame that the [Westboro crowd] shows up and disrupts people’s funerals.” Westboro spokesperson Abigail Phelps responded with “the KKK has no moral authority on anything.” Isn’t that a little like one warthog calling another warthog ugly?

Follies on the Left: President Obama continues to spike the ball on the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. He continues to take mostly sole credit for the decision that brought down the world’s most wanted mass murderer/terrorist. The more he protests that his comments are not self-congratulatory and political, the more it becomes apparent that they are. In fact, as Republican candidate Mitt Romney pointed out “even Carter would have made that decision.”

That, after Obama’s team tried to convince everyone that Romney wouldn’t have ordered the capture and/or death of bin Laden as he hid out in plain sight in Pakistan. The truth is that the bravest thing Obama did was stand up to his own vice president who didn’t want to chance the capture or killing of the mastermind of 9-11 and other horrors.

So who was the biggest and most vocal critic of Obama’s crowing? Was it Republican speaker John Boehner? No. Was it a retired SEAL commander? No. Was it Vietnam war hero John McCain? No (well, not entirely no). It was Obama-swooner Arianna Huffington. She of the lefty Huffington Post.

Said the omnipresent and omniscient Arianna: “I agree with the Romney campaign (quick, grab my nitro tablets) that using the Osama bin Laden assassination, killing, the great news that we had a year ago, in order to say basically that Obama did it and Romney might not have done it—I don’t think there should be an ad about it.. To turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.” She obviously gets her speech-coherence lessons from Nancy Pelosi, but at least with Huffington, the point (if not the grammar) is easy to discern.

Huffington also took a couple of jabs at the Clintons. She drew a parallel to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 ad campaign which queried whether you would want her or Barack Obama answering the red phone at the White House at three in the morning when the voice at the other end was announcing a new terrorist attack. She criticized former President Bill Clinton for narrating the Obama ad that lionized Obama’s “brave decision” to take out bin Laden while indicating that Romney would not have made the same decision. “Totally unfair and untrue” says Arianna. And then there’s that small matter of Bill Clinton missing several opportunities to capture or kill bin Laden prior to the horror of 9-11.

Well, even the devil tells the truth occasionally when it suits his purpose. I’m just left wondering what Huffington’s specific purpose was (and is). Maybe she just accidentally expressed a thought that was both sensible and patriotic. Given the six months ahead, I’m sure she will find a way to backtrack in time for the presidential election.

Fringe Follies

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Will America Follow England’s “Pride Decline?”

Will America Follow England’s “Pride Decline?”

With the London Olympics and the Sixtieth Anniversary (Jubilee) of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II about to arrive, one would think that English pride would be at its height. But it’s not so. The concept of English pride has declined steeply in the era of political correctness. The flag portrayed in the accompanying illustration is the Cross of St. George, patron saint of England. It is incorporated into the more familiar UK Union flag.

A recent survey in England showed that slightly more than eighty percent of English subjects feel pride when in the presence of the Union Flag (often called the Union Jack, which is accurate only when displayed on naval vessels). But less than two-thirds of Englishmen feel the same sense of pride when in the presence of the Flag of St. George, which represents England alone (without Ireland, Scotland and Wales). The Union Flag was created upon union in 1801 and shows the red cross of St. George (England), the white cross (saltire) of St. Patrick (Ireland) and the red cross of St. Andrew (Scotland) superimposed on the St. Patrick cross. Wales got short-changed because at the time of union, Wales was an integral part of England.

Research and think tank British Future conducted the survey. Without much in-depth comment, nearly a quarter of Englishmen questioned said that the Cross of St. George represented institutionalized English racism. Fewer than ten percent of Northern Irishmen, Scots and Welsh subjects said the same thing about their own flags. Unsurprisingly, though eighty percent of Brits said they felt pride in the Union Flag, only fifty-six percent of Scots and sixty-eight percent of Welshmen said the same of the venerable Union Jack. Northern Ireland goes along with the Brits, while the Irish who now have their own nation weren’t questioned.

England’s declining belief in its patriotic symbols is an increasing problem. The Union is in question when the anchor of the Union itself has a declining belief in its own worth. The United Kingdom is more than the sum of its parts. No individual nation within the Union can exert the influence the Union can. And the combined influence of the four entities as individual states would not match the influence of the Union alone.

There has also been a movement to replace God Save the Queen/King as England’s national anthem (sound familiar?). Most of the tunes suggested would be totally unknown to Americans, and obscure to most Englishmen. But the most commonly-mentioned and totally mystifying suggestion for the new anthem is Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, a tune very familiar to Americans and completely unrelated to patriotism in either nation.

St. George’s Day and Shakespeare’s birthday both occurred this past week. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “England little noted nor long remembered” the two celebrations. “Free men never, never, never shall be slaves” no longer resonates in a nation which has adopted American-style self-loathing and political correctness about race. One Brit drunkenly tweeted racist remarks about England’s black population and a famous black soccer-player who had a heart attack on the field, and was rewarded for his speech with a six month jail sentence for committing a hate speech crime.

At almost the same time, a twenty-one year old white female medical worker sitting on a bus bench was set upon by four black Somali Muslim women in the city of Leicester who proceeded to beat her senseless and kick her to the ground, all the while shouting “kill the white slag,” and “white bitch.” Their reward was to be told by a judge that he was very disappointed in their behavior, but sort of forgave it since the four were intoxicated and, as Muslims, unused to the effects of alcohol. No jail time, just a suspended sentence. Words are dangerous, acts are not. One of the four later remarked to a reporter who asked if she wished to apologize for her actions: “What, to the public? I don’t care.” Apparently the English agree with American liberals that only white people can be racists.

“Red Ken” Livingstone, former and perhaps future Mayor of London declared as part of his campaign that he wants to make London “a beacon for the teachings of Mohammed.” It seems he wants to finish the work he had advanced so well in his previous capacity as mayor. London used to be to England as San Francisco is to America—an island of insanity in an otherwise sensible nation. The polls and surveys are now showing that the rest of England is following London’s lead.

London is planning to draw off law-enforcement resources from throughout England for the London Olympics. They will be used to protect the celebrities and the international governing class who will be whisked to the events in private limousines in specially-designated traffic lanes. Thousands of English police will be taken away from their normal home duties. Gangs of thugs are already planning a repeat of the “free shopping” riots they fomented last year during massive looting of luxury goods at a big sale on expensive sneakers and state-of-the-art cell phones. The British government looked into those riots in which an estimated 15,000 thugs participated and concluded that the rioters weren’t at fault, it was poverty and excessive advertising.

Given the fervor surrounding the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman mess, the words of Daily Mail writer Peter Hitchens (brother of English-American writer Christopher Hitchens) sound eerily familiar: “The ‘criminals are victims’ mentality is now a defining feature of the ‘injustice’ system.” And then there are those demands to remove the Confederate Flag (the cross of St. Andrew, incidentally) from all state flags and to replace the warlike Star-Spangled Banner with a tune more appropriate. Maybe we could join England and institute Swing Low, Sweet Chariot as our national anthem.

With the London Olympics and the Sixtieth Anniversary (Jubilee) of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II about to arrive, one would think that English pride would be at its height. But it’s not so. The concept of English pride has declined steeply in the era of political correctness. The flag portrayed in the accompanying illustration is the Cross of St. George, patron saint of England. It is incorporated into the more familiar UK Union flag.

A recent survey in England showed that slightly more than eighty percent of English subjects feel pride when in the presence of the Union Flag (often called the Union Jack, which is accurate only when displayed on naval vessels). But less than two-thirds of Englishmen feel the same sense of pride when in the presence of the Flag of St. George, which represents England alone (without Ireland, Scotland and Wales). The Union Flag was created upon union in 1801 and shows the red cross of St. George (England), the white cross (saltire) of St. Patrick (Ireland) and the red cross of St. Andrew (Scotland) superimposed on the St. Patrick cross. Wales got short-changed because at the time of union, Wales was an integral part of England.

Research and think tank British Future conducted the survey. Without much in-depth comment, nearly a quarter of Englishmen questioned said that the Cross of St. George represented institutionalized English racism. Fewer than ten percent of Northern Irishmen, Scots and Welsh subjects said the same thing about their own flags. Unsurprisingly, though eighty percent of Brits said they felt pride in the Union Flag, only fifty-six percent of Scots and sixty-eight percent of Welshmen said the same of the venerable Union Jack. Northern Ireland goes along with the Brits, while the Irish who now have their own nation weren’t questioned.

England’s declining belief in its patriotic symbols is an increasing problem. The Union is in question when the anchor of the Union itself has a declining belief in its own worth. The United Kingdom is more than the sum of its parts. No individual nation within the Union can exert the influence the Union can. And the combined influence of the four entities as individual states would not match the influence of the Union alone.

There has also been a movement to replace God Save the Queen/King as England’s national anthem (sound familiar?). Most of the tunes suggested would be totally unknown to Americans, and obscure to most Englishmen. But the most commonly-mentioned and totally mystifying suggestion for the new anthem is Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, a tune very familiar to Americans and completely unrelated to patriotism in either nation.

St. George’s Day and Shakespeare’s birthday both occurred this past week. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “England little noted nor long remembered” the two celebrations. “Free men never, never, never shall be slaves” no longer resonates in a nation which has adopted American-style self-loathing and political correctness about race. One Brit drunkenly tweeted racist remarks about England’s black population and a famous black soccer-player who had a heart attack on the field, and was rewarded for his speech with a six month jail sentence for committing a hate speech crime.

At almost the same time, a twenty-one year old white female medical worker sitting on a bus bench was set upon by four black Somali Muslim women in the city of Leicester who proceeded to beat her senseless and kick her to the ground, all the while shouting “kill the white slag,” and “white bitch.” Their reward was to be told by a judge that he was very disappointed in their behavior, but sort of forgave it since the four were intoxicated and, as Muslims, unused to the effects of alcohol. No jail time, just a suspended sentence. Words are dangerous, acts are not. One of the four later remarked to a reporter who asked if she wished to apologize for her actions: “What, to the public? I don’t care.” Apparently the English agree with American liberals that only white people can be racists.

“Red Ken” Livingstone, former and perhaps future Mayor of London declared as part of his campaign that he wants to make London “a beacon for the teachings of Mohammed.” It seems he wants to finish the work he had advanced so well in his previous capacity as mayor. London used to be to England as San Francisco is to America—an island of insanity in an otherwise sensible nation. The polls and surveys are now showing that the rest of England is following London’s lead.

London is planning to draw off law-enforcement resources from throughout England for the London Olympics. They will be used to protect the celebrities and the international governing class who will be whisked to the events in private limousines in specially-designated traffic lanes. Thousands of English police will be taken away from their normal home duties. Gangs of thugs are already planning a repeat of the “free shopping” riots they fomented last year during massive looting of luxury goods at a big sale on expensive sneakers and state-of-the-art cell phones. The British government looked into those riots in which an estimated 15,000 thugs participated and concluded that the rioters weren’t at fault, it was poverty and excessive advertising.

Given the fervor surrounding the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman mess, the words of Daily Mail writer Peter Hitchens (brother of English-American writer Christopher Hitchens) sound eerily familiar: “The ‘criminals are victims’ mentality is now a defining feature of the ‘injustice’ system.” And then there are those demands to remove the Confederate Flag (the cross of St. Andrew, incidentally) from all state flags and to replace the warlike Star-Spangled Banner with a tune more appropriate. Maybe we could join England and institute Swing Low, Sweet Chariot as our national anthem.

Will America Follow England’s “Pride Decline?”

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Obama Sidesteps Congress—Again

Obama Sidesteps Congress—Again

Islamist-friendly Barack Obama has once again used his executive power to undo the work of Congress. Using his broad power to advance national security, Obama has restored a $192 million aid package to the Palestinian Authority. In one stroke of the pen he has further emboldened the Islamists and put an exclamation point on his hostility to Israel. Congress had frozen the funds in light of the PA’s attempt to gain official statehood at the United Nations.

The funds were also frozen because of internal actions within the Palestinian Authority. The PA authority president Mahmoud Abbas represents the Fatah faction, and was the almost automatic successor to Yasser Arafat. Given the hostility to the United States and Israel evidenced by both Arafat and Abbas, it would be expected that any American funds given to the PA would be done more as a bribe than anything else. And until the move for statehood at the UN, that was pretty much the pattern of both the Bush and Obama administrations.

But there is more involved than just the failed UN action. Like so many Middle East “governments,” the Palestinian Authority plays fast and loose with its foundational documents and veneer of democracy. When the Palestine Liberation Organization nominated its chairman Abbas to be president of the Palestinian National Authority, he ran as the Fatah candidate and won. The officially-recognized governmental organization is the Palestinian Authority, and as head of the Palestinian National Authority, Abbas became the official spokesman and negotiator for Palestine and the Palestinian Authority. Confusing enough?

In 2011, Abbas’s term as head of the government expired, but there was extreme unrest and dissension throughout the area, so he extended his authority for a year with very little political or legal authority to do so. In order to preserve his position, Abbas made a move which changed the entire formula. Abbas didn’t want to risk a civil war involving his main opposition, so he simply held out an olive branch and got the cooperation (and participation) of Hamas. And that’s where the trouble really begins.

Hamas is an official terrorist organization as defined by the United States Department of State. Combined with the move for statehood at the UN, this political arrangement was simply too much for Congress to accept, and the $192 million package was frozen. The language of the Congressional resolution (the Palestinian Accountability Act) states that “No funds available to any United States Government department or agency may be obligated or expended with respect to providing funds to the Palestinian Authority.”

Fatah was naturally opposed to Israel, wants it own nationhood to include significant land within Israel, and demands the right to share Jerusalem. But Hamas goes much farther than that. Hamas’s core political stance is that Israel must cease to exist entirely and become part of the Islamic nation of Palestine. Any supporter of Israel’s existence is an enemy of Hamas and therefore subject to attack by Hamas (and by implication now, by the Palestinian Authority). Even with the weak-spined Obama in office, the official position of America is that Israel is a legitimate nation and an ally of the United States. Both logically and rhetorically, that makes America and Americans subject to Hamas/PA attack.

Obama did another one of his “get it lost in the weekend news slump” maneuvers. He announced the waiver for the PA on Friday night at the end of the news cycle and just as Vice President Joe Biden was announcing that if Mitt Romney had been president, he wouldn’t have ordered the capture and/or death of Osama bin Laden. Put a big lie on top of another executive order, and the public will be too busy noticing the lie to notice the order.

Obama gave no details or explanation of his dismissal of Congress’s clear will except to invoke “national security.” And sadly, he is on fairly solid constitutional grounds. He, not Congress, is charged with conducting foreign policy. Most presidents will show due respect for the wishes of Congress, particularly the funding provided by the House of Representatives. But Obama is not “most presidents.” He enjoys ruling by fiat and using the Constitution against itself. He may not owe Congress an explanation, but he does owe an explanation to the American people and our ally Israel.

Islamist-friendly Barack Obama has once again used his executive power to undo the work of Congress. Using his broad power to advance national security, Obama has restored a $192 million aid package to the Palestinian Authority. In one stroke of the pen he has further emboldened the Islamists and put an exclamation point on his hostility to Israel. Congress had frozen the funds in light of the PA’s attempt to gain official statehood at the United Nations.

The funds were also frozen because of internal actions within the Palestinian Authority. The PA authority president Mahmoud Abbas represents the Fatah faction, and was the almost automatic successor to Yasser Arafat. Given the hostility to the United States and Israel evidenced by both Arafat and Abbas, it would be expected that any American funds given to the PA would be done more as a bribe than anything else. And until the move for statehood at the UN, that was pretty much the pattern of both the Bush and Obama administrations.

But there is more involved than just the failed UN action. Like so many Middle East “governments,” the Palestinian Authority plays fast and loose with its foundational documents and veneer of democracy. When the Palestine Liberation Organization nominated its chairman Abbas to be president of the Palestinian National Authority, he ran as the Fatah candidate and won. The officially-recognized governmental organization is the Palestinian Authority, and as head of the Palestinian National Authority, Abbas became the official spokesman and negotiator for Palestine and the Palestinian Authority. Confusing enough?

In 2011, Abbas’s term as head of the government expired, but there was extreme unrest and dissension throughout the area, so he extended his authority for a year with very little political or legal authority to do so. In order to preserve his position, Abbas made a move which changed the entire formula. Abbas didn’t want to risk a civil war involving his main opposition, so he simply held out an olive branch and got the cooperation (and participation) of Hamas. And that’s where the trouble really begins.

Hamas is an official terrorist organization as defined by the United States Department of State. Combined with the move for statehood at the UN, this political arrangement was simply too much for Congress to accept, and the $192 million package was frozen. The language of the Congressional resolution (the Palestinian Accountability Act) states that “No funds available to any United States Government department or agency may be obligated or expended with respect to providing funds to the Palestinian Authority.”

Fatah was naturally opposed to Israel, wants it own nationhood to include significant land within Israel, and demands the right to share Jerusalem. But Hamas goes much farther than that. Hamas’s core political stance is that Israel must cease to exist entirely and become part of the Islamic nation of Palestine. Any supporter of Israel’s existence is an enemy of Hamas and therefore subject to attack by Hamas (and by implication now, by the Palestinian Authority). Even with the weak-spined Obama in office, the official position of America is that Israel is a legitimate nation and an ally of the United States. Both logically and rhetorically, that makes America and Americans subject to Hamas/PA attack.

Obama did another one of his “get it lost in the weekend news slump” maneuvers. He announced the waiver for the PA on Friday night at the end of the news cycle and just as Vice President Joe Biden was announcing that if Mitt Romney had been president, he wouldn’t have ordered the capture and/or death of Osama bin Laden. Put a big lie on top of another executive order, and the public will be too busy noticing the lie to notice the order.

Obama gave no details or explanation of his dismissal of Congress’s clear will except to invoke “national security.” And sadly, he is on fairly solid constitutional grounds. He, not Congress, is charged with conducting foreign policy. Most presidents will show due respect for the wishes of Congress, particularly the funding provided by the House of Representatives. But Obama is not “most presidents.” He enjoys ruling by fiat and using the Constitution against itself. He may not owe Congress an explanation, but he does owe an explanation to the American people and our ally Israel.

Obama Sidesteps Congress—Again

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San Fran Nan Explains The Parties

San Fran Nan Explains The Parties

I just got my weekly e-mail from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (former Queen of the House of Representatives). I look forward to her missals each week because she is a genius at clarifying and elucidating the important issues of the day while explaining why Republicans are evil and Democrats are the Good Samaritans. This week she explained the difference between the parties in simple terms, comprehensible to even the most ignorant of voters.

You see, Republicans are only concerned with subsidies for big oil, while Democrats only wish to prevent breast cancer. It’s as clear as earlier Democratic slogans such as “food, not bombs” and “make love, not war.” Says Nancy: “Their priority is to protect the subsidies for Big Oil (capital letters are hers), while our priority is to prevent breast cancer, cervical cancer, to immunize children, so that they are healthy. It’s survival to women. And that just goes to show you what a luxury Speaker Boehner thinks it is to have good health care for women.”

Pelosi is of course doing a head fake to keep the public from noticing that the House Republicans had just passed a paid-for student debt relief bill which the Senate won’t even take up and which the president has vowed to veto if it ever reaches him. Bring the topic back to the “war on women” and the public will miss another Democratic stall tactic to prevent any worthwhile legislation from being passed.

She also muddied the facts by giving credit to Obama for the proposed legislation while blaming the Republicans for ruining it by proposing spending cuts to pay for the cost of buoying up the student loans—all in the name of the war on women. “Thankfully, our president went out, made the pitch to the American people with such clarity that the Republicans are now changing their mind and coming back and saying ‘okay we won’t have it (the loan interest rate) go from 3.4% to 6.8%, but in order to pay for it we’re going to make an assault on women’s health—make another assault on women’s health, continue our assault on women’s health.’” (Just in case you didn’t get it—it’s an assault on women’s health.)

And then came one of those brilliant Pelosi stream of consciousness clarifications of her beliefs: “We will not support a bill that robs Peter to pay Paul, which ostensibly supports a middle-class initiative on making those very same people pay for it. I don’t know what it is that the Republicans have against the idea that there’s a positive role that we can do in a public-private way to make America healthier. That a women’s [sic.]health is central to the health of her family, they consider it a slush fund to pay for women’s health. We consider it an absolute necessity and that’s the difference here.” Ah, now I understand. Don’t you?

What the genius from Sodom by the Bay was talking about (at least I think it’s what she was talking about) is the Republican plan to pay for the lower student government-insured loan rates with $17 billion saved in cuts to the prevention and public health fund portions of the Obamacare monstrosity. That would save $5.9 billion on the loans rates with the rest of the savings going to other needed government functions..

When asked about her “war on women” rhetoric and side-stepping of the issue of Obama multi-trillion dollar deficits, Pelosi insisted that it was not political posturing to go ballistic over $6 billion. “I don’t see it as any posturing. $6 billion is $6 billion.” In fact, it was so important that she already has the answer to the problem: “We say, okay, we want to pay for it (that would be a refreshing departure for Democrats), and we can pay for it by going to subsidies for big oil and gas. And what we see here is what are the priorities of the parties in Washington DC?”

She continues the stream-of-consciousness with: “We say big oil (small letters this time) and gas get subsidies to have incentives to drill so that they can make probably $1 trillion over the next ten years. Certainly, we could spare some of that money for the student loan—reducing the student loan interest. But the Republicans say No! Leave the subsidies for big oil intact and let’s take it out of our old favorite target: women’s health. And that’s just wrong.”

I haven’t heard that kind of clarity of thought since a college sophomore friend of mine got roaring-drunk and tried to explain quantum physics to me in five minutes. It’s easy to dismiss the ramblings of this botoxed beauty as insignificant. But we must remember that she is still the majority leader of the House Democrats, and speaks for the powers-that-be in that party.

I just got my weekly e-mail from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (former Queen of the House of Representatives). I look forward to her missals each week because she is a genius at clarifying and elucidating the important issues of the day while explaining why Republicans are evil and Democrats are the Good Samaritans. This week she explained the difference between the parties in simple terms, comprehensible to even the most ignorant of voters.

You see, Republicans are only concerned with subsidies for big oil, while Democrats only wish to prevent breast cancer. It’s as clear as earlier Democratic slogans such as “food, not bombs” and “make love, not war.” Says Nancy: “Their priority is to protect the subsidies for Big Oil (capital letters are hers), while our priority is to prevent breast cancer, cervical cancer, to immunize children, so that they are healthy. It’s survival to women. And that just goes to show you what a luxury Speaker Boehner thinks it is to have good health care for women.”

Pelosi is of course doing a head fake to keep the public from noticing that the House Republicans had just passed a paid-for student debt relief bill which the Senate won’t even take up and which the president has vowed to veto if it ever reaches him. Bring the topic back to the “war on women” and the public will miss another Democratic stall tactic to prevent any worthwhile legislation from being passed.

She also muddied the facts by giving credit to Obama for the proposed legislation while blaming the Republicans for ruining it by proposing spending cuts to pay for the cost of buoying up the student loans—all in the name of the war on women. “Thankfully, our president went out, made the pitch to the American people with such clarity that the Republicans are now changing their mind and coming back and saying ‘okay we won’t have it (the loan interest rate) go from 3.4% to 6.8%, but in order to pay for it we’re going to make an assault on women’s health—make another assault on women’s health, continue our assault on women’s health.’” (Just in case you didn’t get it—it’s an assault on women’s health.)

And then came one of those brilliant Pelosi stream of consciousness clarifications of her beliefs: “We will not support a bill that robs Peter to pay Paul, which ostensibly supports a middle-class initiative on making those very same people pay for it. I don’t know what it is that the Republicans have against the idea that there’s a positive role that we can do in a public-private way to make America healthier. That a women’s [sic.]health is central to the health of her family, they consider it a slush fund to pay for women’s health. We consider it an absolute necessity and that’s the difference here.” Ah, now I understand. Don’t you?

What the genius from Sodom by the Bay was talking about (at least I think it’s what she was talking about) is the Republican plan to pay for the lower student government-insured loan rates with $17 billion saved in cuts to the prevention and public health fund portions of the Obamacare monstrosity. That would save $5.9 billion on the loans rates with the rest of the savings going to other needed government functions..

When asked about her “war on women” rhetoric and side-stepping of the issue of Obama multi-trillion dollar deficits, Pelosi insisted that it was not political posturing to go ballistic over $6 billion. “I don’t see it as any posturing. $6 billion is $6 billion.” In fact, it was so important that she already has the answer to the problem: “We say, okay, we want to pay for it (that would be a refreshing departure for Democrats), and we can pay for it by going to subsidies for big oil and gas. And what we see here is what are the priorities of the parties in Washington DC?”

She continues the stream-of-consciousness with: “We say big oil (small letters this time) and gas get subsidies to have incentives to drill so that they can make probably $1 trillion over the next ten years. Certainly, we could spare some of that money for the student loan—reducing the student loan interest. But the Republicans say No! Leave the subsidies for big oil intact and let’s take it out of our old favorite target: women’s health. And that’s just wrong.”

I haven’t heard that kind of clarity of thought since a college sophomore friend of mine got roaring-drunk and tried to explain quantum physics to me in five minutes. It’s easy to dismiss the ramblings of this botoxed beauty as insignificant. But we must remember that she is still the majority leader of the House Democrats, and speaks for the powers-that-be in that party.

San Fran Nan Explains The Parties

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Marine Jackass Poster Gets The Boot

Marine Jackass Poster Gets The Boot

This past Wednesday, Brigadier General Daniel Yoo accepted the recommendation of the Marine Discharge Board and ordered that Sgt. Gary Stein receive an other-than-honorable discharge for posting an unfavorable picture depicting Barack Obama on a doctored Jackass movie poster. I’ve been having mixed feelings about the discharge during the entire course of the proceedings.

Sgt. Stein was first demoted to lance corporal as a result of his activities on Facebook. That seemed like sufficient punishment to me. But General Yoo and the Board decided that was not sufficient. Even a Commander-in-Chief who is in a permanent Jackass hole has a right to expect that his own men won’t attempt to embarrass him publicly. It also seems to me that anyone using Facebook should know by now that there is no such thing as a “private comment” on a site which is the epitome of the very public social network.

Nobody is more of a First Amendment believer than I. But Sgt. Stein forgot that he is a member of the Armed Forces, and the rules are different for them. The Uniform Code of Military Justice restricts the rights of active-duty service personnel from making disparaging public remarks about their commanding officers, and Supreme Court decisions have upheld those restrictions. The First Amendment doesn’t even protect employees who publicly criticize their companies and their bosses in the private sector. You’re free to say whatever you want, but you can’t say it while you’re working for the person or company you’re criticizing.

Which brings me to the point of truly admiring Sgt. Stein while at the same time wondering what his motivation was. Oh, I know the obvious part. He thinks Barack Obama is a dangerous, weak-spined, dishonest politician who shouldn’t be the commander-in-chief of a boy scout troop. But why now? The sergeant was months away from having his full military pension kick in. With an other-than-honorable discharge, he loses those benefits. That seemed foolhardy to me. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all, and nobody knows that better than a Marine for whom honor is a basic belief.

But I kept thinking about it, and began to wonder if rather than foolhardy, his actions were actually a high form of valor. The presidential election is mere months away, and when we elect a president, we elect a commander-in-chief. Perhaps Sgt. Stein had the same thought as Obama—“we can’t wait.” The safe course would have been to wait, collect his pension, and then go public after retirement. But the safe course would have meant that Sgt. Stein’s views wouldn’t have been heard until after the elections. Surely he must have known that his actions were not going to go unnoticed and unpunished.

The rules about making disparaging remarks are sufficiently vague such that the Department of Defense will be revising the rules to clarify what can be said and what can’t. That does seem to mitigate in Sgt. Stein’s favor. But long-standing civil and military legal precedent says that making a correction after the fact does not prove that those who made the corrections were wrong in the first place. The law favors improvement, and therefore doesn’t allow it as evidence of wrongdoing.

Sgt. Stein has received support from many sources, some obvious, others less so. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-California), who is a Marine Corps reservist, says that “there’s only one upside to this whole thing which is that the Marine Corps recognizes its guidelines are out of date and that they need to be updated.” But Sgt. Stein has also received legal advice and support from the ACLU, which believes that the First Amendment does apply to Sgt. Stein’s actions.

In the words of Yogi Berra, “it ain’t over till it’s over.” I have no doubt that Sgt. Stein will not go quietly. There are still procedures for having the decision overturned. It also seems unlikely to me that a man brave enough (or foolhardy enough) to call Obama a “domestic enemy” on a site he created (while on active duty) called The Armed Forces Tea Party is suddenly going to go mum. After all, Obama is a disaster both as president and as commander-in-chief, and as a civilian Stein will have access to an even larger audience to address with that obvious truth.

Moreover, whether Obama and the political generals like it or not, Stein will now have the full protection of the First Amendment as to political speech which he lacked as an active duty Marine. Whether he comes off as a man who risked his career to point out that the government is rotting from the head down or simply an angry dissident is up to Stein himself.

Thoughts, anyone?

This past Wednesday, Brigadier General Daniel Yoo accepted the recommendation of the Marine Discharge Board and ordered that Sgt. Gary Stein receive an other-than-honorable discharge for posting an unfavorable picture depicting Barack Obama on a doctored Jackass movie poster. I’ve been having mixed feelings about the discharge during the entire course of the proceedings.

Sgt. Stein was first demoted to lance corporal as a result of his activities on Facebook. That seemed like sufficient punishment to me. But General Yoo and the Board decided that was not sufficient. Even a Commander-in-Chief who is in a permanent Jackass hole has a right to expect that his own men won’t attempt to embarrass him publicly. It also seems to me that anyone using Facebook should know by now that there is no such thing as a “private comment” on a site which is the epitome of the very public social network.

Nobody is more of a First Amendment believer than I. But Sgt. Stein forgot that he is a member of the Armed Forces, and the rules are different for them. The Uniform Code of Military Justice restricts the rights of active-duty service personnel from making disparaging public remarks about their commanding officers, and Supreme Court decisions have upheld those restrictions. The First Amendment doesn’t even protect employees who publicly criticize their companies and their bosses in the private sector. You’re free to say whatever you want, but you can’t say it while you’re working for the person or company you’re criticizing.

Which brings me to the point of truly admiring Sgt. Stein while at the same time wondering what his motivation was. Oh, I know the obvious part. He thinks Barack Obama is a dangerous, weak-spined, dishonest politician who shouldn’t be the commander-in-chief of a boy scout troop. But why now? The sergeant was months away from having his full military pension kick in. With an other-than-honorable discharge, he loses those benefits. That seemed foolhardy to me. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all, and nobody knows that better than a Marine for whom honor is a basic belief.

But I kept thinking about it, and began to wonder if rather than foolhardy, his actions were actually a high form of valor. The presidential election is mere months away, and when we elect a president, we elect a commander-in-chief. Perhaps Sgt. Stein had the same thought as Obama—“we can’t wait.” The safe course would have been to wait, collect his pension, and then go public after retirement. But the safe course would have meant that Sgt. Stein’s views wouldn’t have been heard until after the elections. Surely he must have known that his actions were not going to go unnoticed and unpunished.

The rules about making disparaging remarks are sufficiently vague such that the Department of Defense will be revising the rules to clarify what can be said and what can’t. That does seem to mitigate in Sgt. Stein’s favor. But long-standing civil and military legal precedent says that making a correction after the fact does not prove that those who made the corrections were wrong in the first place. The law favors improvement, and therefore doesn’t allow it as evidence of wrongdoing.

Sgt. Stein has received support from many sources, some obvious, others less so. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-California), who is a Marine Corps reservist, says that “there’s only one upside to this whole thing which is that the Marine Corps recognizes its guidelines are out of date and that they need to be updated.” But Sgt. Stein has also received legal advice and support from the ACLU, which believes that the First Amendment does apply to Sgt. Stein’s actions.

In the words of Yogi Berra, “it ain’t over till it’s over.” I have no doubt that Sgt. Stein will not go quietly. There are still procedures for having the decision overturned. It also seems unlikely to me that a man brave enough (or foolhardy enough) to call Obama a “domestic enemy” on a site he created (while on active duty) called The Armed Forces Tea Party is suddenly going to go mum. After all, Obama is a disaster both as president and as commander-in-chief, and as a civilian Stein will have access to an even larger audience to address with that obvious truth.

Moreover, whether Obama and the political generals like it or not, Stein will now have the full protection of the First Amendment as to political speech which he lacked as an active duty Marine. Whether he comes off as a man who risked his career to point out that the government is rotting from the head down or simply an angry dissident is up to Stein himself.

Thoughts, anyone?

Marine Jackass Poster Gets The Boot

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No Pulitzer For Commentarama--Again

No Pulitzer For Commentarama--Again

For the third year in a row the brilliant publishers, editors, staff and commentators at Commentarama were denied the prize we so richly deserve. We didn't get it the first year because we were just starting up and they had no record to base the prize on (although that didn't keep Barack Obama from getting a Nobel Prize). What's their excuse this time?

Readers: I want you to throw your windows open, lean out, and shout "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." Obama and the Nutsocrats are always talking about fairness, but where's the fairness in denying us our prize? Did they give the prize to a traditional newspaper? Did they give it to a respected writer? Did they give it to Andrew Price for his seminal novel? Nope! They went out of their way to insult us.

Admittedly, we have never had one of our writers classified as a journalist so he or she could get handed an opportunity to ask B-Ho a question at a presidential press conference. But I did write a column for my high school newspaper, so I certainly have the chops (even if that was in 1962). And shouldn't that stream of angry letters to the editor I wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle count for something? We are serious journalists here, folks. But none of that matters. In order to make sure we understood this slap in the face, they gave the bloody Pulitzer to (God help us all) The Huffington Post.

Unlike HuffPo editor and publisher Arianna Huffington, I didn't flash my chest, marry money, pretend to be a conservative, divorce money, and become a born-again left wing radical. Nor did my ex-wife announce that after being married to me, she would henceforth prefer her own sex. Check her last name. It's her married name. She probably kept her ex-husband's name because StassinopoulosPo didn't have the same ring to it as HuffPo.

Our writers and contributors have genuine talent and experience in politics and business. Arianna hires has-been actors with a couple of screws loose, like Steven Weber. Her featured articles don't have the depth or gravitas to match ours. When was the last time Commentarama had a feature article entitled "Miley Cyrus Shows Her Legs Off" or "Kim Kardasian Kanye West Earrings: Reality Star Sports KW Initial Jewelry?" C'mon. Tell me. When?

The prize was given to the DailyKos Lite based on the report of (I can hardly write this) "senior military correspondent" David Wood. Wood has been writing repetitive and tough as jello articles for the HuffPo for about a year now. He writes in-depth articles about the sun rising in the morning and rat poison not being a good basic diet. But this time he wrote an article that you might actually be able to agree with, sort of. His prize-winner concerned the struggles of veterans and their families. I guess nobody has ever written on that topic before (except for thousands of articles in the past decade). In fact, Commentarama has written articles about veterans, their families and the wounded warriors. And unlike the HuffPo, we actually like those people.

I happen to agree with author Rem Rieder who said: "I think it's very healthy to see the Pulitzers have moved, albeit slowly, from a solely print focus. The world has changed dramatically. There's an awful lot of exciting developments with digital news operations." News? At the HuffPo? They write opinion disguised as news, where Commentarama writes opinion as, well, opinion. And in fact as for news, we've scooped the bigs a few times.

So in conclusion, Prize Committee Members, if you want to stay healthy, don't try snubbing Commentarama again at 2013's Pulitzer deliberations. Next year, I expect to be able to use the honorific "Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author, LawHawkRFD. Ditto for Andrew Price and BevfromNYC, the BoilerRoomElves and all our contributors. Be warned, Pulitzer Committee, be warned.

For the third year in a row the brilliant publishers, editors, staff and commentators at Commentarama were denied the prize we so richly deserve. We didn't get it the first year because we were just starting up and they had no record to base the prize on (although that didn't keep Barack Obama from getting a Nobel Prize). What's their excuse this time?

Readers: I want you to throw your windows open, lean out, and shout "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." Obama and the Nutsocrats are always talking about fairness, but where's the fairness in denying us our prize? Did they give the prize to a traditional newspaper? Did they give it to a respected writer? Did they give it to Andrew Price for his seminal novel? Nope! They went out of their way to insult us.

Admittedly, we have never had one of our writers classified as a journalist so he or she could get handed an opportunity to ask B-Ho a question at a presidential press conference. But I did write a column for my high school newspaper, so I certainly have the chops (even if that was in 1962). And shouldn't that stream of angry letters to the editor I wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle count for something? We are serious journalists here, folks. But none of that matters. In order to make sure we understood this slap in the face, they gave the bloody Pulitzer to (God help us all) The Huffington Post.

Unlike HuffPo editor and publisher Arianna Huffington, I didn't flash my chest, marry money, pretend to be a conservative, divorce money, and become a born-again left wing radical. Nor did my ex-wife announce that after being married to me, she would henceforth prefer her own sex. Check her last name. It's her married name. She probably kept her ex-husband's name because StassinopoulosPo didn't have the same ring to it as HuffPo.

Our writers and contributors have genuine talent and experience in politics and business. Arianna hires has-been actors with a couple of screws loose, like Steven Weber. Her featured articles don't have the depth or gravitas to match ours. When was the last time Commentarama had a feature article entitled "Miley Cyrus Shows Her Legs Off" or "Kim Kardasian Kanye West Earrings: Reality Star Sports KW Initial Jewelry?" C'mon. Tell me. When?

The prize was given to the DailyKos Lite based on the report of (I can hardly write this) "senior military correspondent" David Wood. Wood has been writing repetitive and tough as jello articles for the HuffPo for about a year now. He writes in-depth articles about the sun rising in the morning and rat poison not being a good basic diet. But this time he wrote an article that you might actually be able to agree with, sort of. His prize-winner concerned the struggles of veterans and their families. I guess nobody has ever written on that topic before (except for thousands of articles in the past decade). In fact, Commentarama has written articles about veterans, their families and the wounded warriors. And unlike the HuffPo, we actually like those people.

I happen to agree with author Rem Rieder who said: "I think it's very healthy to see the Pulitzers have moved, albeit slowly, from a solely print focus. The world has changed dramatically. There's an awful lot of exciting developments with digital news operations." News? At the HuffPo? They write opinion disguised as news, where Commentarama writes opinion as, well, opinion. And in fact as for news, we've scooped the bigs a few times.

So in conclusion, Prize Committee Members, if you want to stay healthy, don't try snubbing Commentarama again at 2013's Pulitzer deliberations. Next year, I expect to be able to use the honorific "Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author, LawHawkRFD. Ditto for Andrew Price and BevfromNYC, the BoilerRoomElves and all our contributors. Be warned, Pulitzer Committee, be warned.

No Pulitzer For Commentarama--Again

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Hail And Farewell, Chuck Colson

Hail And Farewell, Chuck Colson

Last Saturday, Charles (Chuck) Colson passed away at age eighty. I remember very well how much I despised him and the whole Nixon political tricks gang. To me, he was the face of political evil, the architect of Nixon's enemies list. My view of Colson altered radically over the years. From master political trickster, he became a man with a good and valuable mission.

My road to Damascus only involved a mere political conversion. Colson’s road was far more Pauline. Colson was tried, convicted and sentenced to federal prison on charges of obstruction of justice for trying to derail the investigation of Nixonian activities against Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Colson was released on parole after serving a year of his five year sentence. Part of the reason for his early release was his claim that he had found Jesus while serving his term and now wished to redeem himself by establishing a ministry.

My reaction to his release was the same as that of many lawyers and Nixon despisers—“where have we heard that before?” These “come to Jesus” moments are repeated on a near daily basis at parole hearings, and when the prisoner is released, there’s a 90% chance he will immediately revert to his old habits. I fully expected Colson to go temporarily underground and re-emerge as a political operative who left Jesus at the altar. Colson had been the chief political adviser and special counsel to a President. His fall from the pinnacle of power was great, and lesser men would have sought reaffirmation and a return to power. Not Chuck.

Obituaries on the left and right have covered Colson’s career and death. Some have been more unfavorable than others, and many expressed admiration for Colson’s genuine love for his newfound evangelical Christian faith, even when they did not hold the same views. Colson never wavered from that faith, and even wrote a book about his prison time and conversion entitled Born Again.

All the obituaries mentioned to a greater or lesser extent Colson’s founding of Prison Fellowship Ministries. Jim Liske, CEO of Prison Fellowship Ministries described it this way: “Prison Fellowship stated because Mr. Colson would not forget the men he did time with. He did time with them and wanted to make sure the message of true freedom in Jesus came to them.” Colson truly understood that stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. It is the imprisonment of the soul that the Tempter seeks.

My particular praise for Colson and grief at his loss goes deeper than the obituaries. Colson’s motives were pure. Mine are not as pure. Oh, I am very much a believer in Colson’s message to the imprisoned and the recently freed. But I see it in that light as well as another light that I consider equally important. Colson preached Christ’s message of love and redemption, of the “God of the second chance in the Nation of the second chance.” But he didn’t burden his sermon with comparisons or caveats. He leaves that to people like me.

Colson taught the way of forgiveness, and living the upright life after having lived an irresponsible or dangerous life. Many hardcore criminals listened, and have emerged into their communities to carry Colson’s message to those who are headed toward the same cycle of crime and imprisonment from which they themselves have now escaped thanks to Colson’s message.

But the fastest growing religion in the prisons today is Islam. And worse, the majority of those converting to Islam are becoming disciples of the most perverted version of Islamist thought—the Nation of Islam (aka the Black Muslims). While Colson taught the message of confession, forgiveness, redemption, and conversion to an upright life, the Islamists are preaching the message of hate, resentment, excuses and justification of their former lives by doing a better job of it after release.

Colson admitted that he deserved his punishment and would spend the rest of his life attempting to change his own life and that of his fellow prisoners. The Islamists blame the convict’s imprisonment on the system or the man, particularly the oppressive white man who is most likely a Christian or a Jew. No consciousness of guilt, no need for redemption, accompanied with a message of “next time you win. Colson preached that with God’s grace, the released convict could live the upright life. The Islamist preaches that upon release, the convict should seek revenge. Jesus forgives and cleanses the heart. Allah grants excuses and recruits his army of believers to game the system.

The Colson convert emerges clean of body and soul, ready to take responsibility for his own wrongdoing, seek forgiveness, and to become a valuable member of the society which he used to attack. The Islamist convert emerges clean of body, but dirty of soul, ready to destroy the society that wouldn’t tolerate his criminal activity previously, and now filled with both hatred and resentment toward the society which wronged him. At this point, the Islamist convert has been handed an excuse for his past crimes and a justification for ignoring the rules of an oppressive Judeo-Christian society and a secular government.

The true convert to Colson’s beliefs will abandon his evil ways and try to get others to do the same. The convert to Islamic radicalism may clean up his act and speak in religious style phrases, but he will represent what Christ warned us of—the wolf in sheep’s clothing. And for those reasons, I worry about the loss of Chuck Colson more than the average guy or gal. We need a thousand Chuck Colsons to counter the influence of the Louis Farrakhans. But I fear we are falling behind, and his guidance will be sorely missed.

Last Saturday, Charles (Chuck) Colson passed away at age eighty. I remember very well how much I despised him and the whole Nixon political tricks gang. To me, he was the face of political evil, the architect of Nixon's enemies list. My view of Colson altered radically over the years. From master political trickster, he became a man with a good and valuable mission.

My road to Damascus only involved a mere political conversion. Colson’s road was far more Pauline. Colson was tried, convicted and sentenced to federal prison on charges of obstruction of justice for trying to derail the investigation of Nixonian activities against Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Colson was released on parole after serving a year of his five year sentence. Part of the reason for his early release was his claim that he had found Jesus while serving his term and now wished to redeem himself by establishing a ministry.

My reaction to his release was the same as that of many lawyers and Nixon despisers—“where have we heard that before?” These “come to Jesus” moments are repeated on a near daily basis at parole hearings, and when the prisoner is released, there’s a 90% chance he will immediately revert to his old habits. I fully expected Colson to go temporarily underground and re-emerge as a political operative who left Jesus at the altar. Colson had been the chief political adviser and special counsel to a President. His fall from the pinnacle of power was great, and lesser men would have sought reaffirmation and a return to power. Not Chuck.

Obituaries on the left and right have covered Colson’s career and death. Some have been more unfavorable than others, and many expressed admiration for Colson’s genuine love for his newfound evangelical Christian faith, even when they did not hold the same views. Colson never wavered from that faith, and even wrote a book about his prison time and conversion entitled Born Again.

All the obituaries mentioned to a greater or lesser extent Colson’s founding of Prison Fellowship Ministries. Jim Liske, CEO of Prison Fellowship Ministries described it this way: “Prison Fellowship stated because Mr. Colson would not forget the men he did time with. He did time with them and wanted to make sure the message of true freedom in Jesus came to them.” Colson truly understood that stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. It is the imprisonment of the soul that the Tempter seeks.

My particular praise for Colson and grief at his loss goes deeper than the obituaries. Colson’s motives were pure. Mine are not as pure. Oh, I am very much a believer in Colson’s message to the imprisoned and the recently freed. But I see it in that light as well as another light that I consider equally important. Colson preached Christ’s message of love and redemption, of the “God of the second chance in the Nation of the second chance.” But he didn’t burden his sermon with comparisons or caveats. He leaves that to people like me.

Colson taught the way of forgiveness, and living the upright life after having lived an irresponsible or dangerous life. Many hardcore criminals listened, and have emerged into their communities to carry Colson’s message to those who are headed toward the same cycle of crime and imprisonment from which they themselves have now escaped thanks to Colson’s message.

But the fastest growing religion in the prisons today is Islam. And worse, the majority of those converting to Islam are becoming disciples of the most perverted version of Islamist thought—the Nation of Islam (aka the Black Muslims). While Colson taught the message of confession, forgiveness, redemption, and conversion to an upright life, the Islamists are preaching the message of hate, resentment, excuses and justification of their former lives by doing a better job of it after release.

Colson admitted that he deserved his punishment and would spend the rest of his life attempting to change his own life and that of his fellow prisoners. The Islamists blame the convict’s imprisonment on the system or the man, particularly the oppressive white man who is most likely a Christian or a Jew. No consciousness of guilt, no need for redemption, accompanied with a message of “next time you win. Colson preached that with God’s grace, the released convict could live the upright life. The Islamist preaches that upon release, the convict should seek revenge. Jesus forgives and cleanses the heart. Allah grants excuses and recruits his army of believers to game the system.

The Colson convert emerges clean of body and soul, ready to take responsibility for his own wrongdoing, seek forgiveness, and to become a valuable member of the society which he used to attack. The Islamist convert emerges clean of body, but dirty of soul, ready to destroy the society that wouldn’t tolerate his criminal activity previously, and now filled with both hatred and resentment toward the society which wronged him. At this point, the Islamist convert has been handed an excuse for his past crimes and a justification for ignoring the rules of an oppressive Judeo-Christian society and a secular government.

The true convert to Colson’s beliefs will abandon his evil ways and try to get others to do the same. The convert to Islamic radicalism may clean up his act and speak in religious style phrases, but he will represent what Christ warned us of—the wolf in sheep’s clothing. And for those reasons, I worry about the loss of Chuck Colson more than the average guy or gal. We need a thousand Chuck Colsons to counter the influence of the Louis Farrakhans. But I fear we are falling behind, and his guidance will be sorely missed.

Hail And Farewell, Chuck Colson

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Hangin’ Out In Jihadistan

Hangin’ Out In Jihadistan

Two items from the mainstream media this past week have turned me from my normal, placid, tolerant, loving self into a sputtering troglodyte (you do believe me, don’t you?). The first was the publication in the Los Angeles Times of some rather gruesome photos taken of US troops holding Taliban body parts (taken in 2010).

The other was the call for investigation of rocker and Second Amendment advocate Ted Nugent for “threatening” President Obama. Both items are proof positive that the MSM are in bed with the left wing of the Democratic party and are fully dedicated to skewing the “news” to fit their own agenda of painting the American military and angry conservatives as out-of-control mobs. The double standard is both palbable and obnoxiously left-loaded.

Let’s discuss the photo issue first. Despite ardent pleas from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asking that the Times not print the photos, the paper did so anyway. Panetta did not demand anything, but simply pointed out that the photos were not newsworthy (they’re nearly two years old), would stir up more hatred and violence by the Taliban at a crucial juncture in Afghan-American discussions of exit strategy, and would further endanger already-endangered American lives.

The Times metaphorically shrugged its shoulders and asked “so what?” If it bleeds, it leads. And if it causes more unnecessary bloodshed, so much the better. If the incident had been unknown until now (which it was not), there might be some justification for publication of the photos. But it’s what the photos don’t show that makes the publication at this time so reprehensible. Like the My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War, this would be a major revelation of US troops behaving barbarously by murdering innocent civilians and then celebrating what they had done.

But that isn’t even close to the truth. What the photos show is young men, frustrated by a war they’re not allowed to win, holding body parts of Taliban terrorists blown up by their own people. Dumb, uncivilized, and perhaps repulsive. But unexpected given the surrounding circumstances? I think not. This sort of excess and unthinking behavior has occurred in every war in history. The Times has succeeded only in making a bad situation worse without having contributed a thing to the cause of peaceful withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. What they have succeeded in doing is handing Hamid Karzai and his friends in the Taliban another propaganda victory.

So where was the Times, and its willingness to print gruesome photos, from the beheading of Daniel Pearl, to the hanging of American workers on a bridge over the Euphrates River, to the burning-alive of Christian churchgoers in Egypt and Nigeria? The paper suffers from a very bad case of selective sensitivity. Worse still, the political generals played fellow-traveler by immediately denouncing the soldiers rather than the publication of the photos. They essentially convicted the soldiers of war crimes without trial and without context.

The soldiers didn’t kill the Taliban whose body parts were being handed around. They are at most guilty of bad behavior after the fact. But the Taliban and their jihadist friends throughout the Middle East do the barbaric killings then celebrate by displaying their “prizes.” There is simply no comparison between the two situations. The Times doesn’t care. The paper and TV news refused to show taped film of innocent civilians jumping to their deaths from the World Trade Centers rather than be burned alive because repetition of the live shots would be insensitive. But showing testosterone-fueled and frustrated soldiers holding dismembered body parts that they didn’t cause is somehow necessary and newsworthy. Aw, horse manure.

And then there’s the Secret Service’s rush to talk to Ted Nugent about “violent” remarks Nugent made about Barack Hussein Obama. Clearly, Nugent is planning on assassinating Obama because he made some over-the-top statements about what he would like to happen in the future. Here are the “threats”: “Obama is a piece of s***, and I told him to suck on my machine gun. We’ve got a president and attorney general who don’t even like the Constitution. We’ve got four Supreme Court Justices who don’t believe in the Constitution. If you can’t galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney, we’re done.”

And now for the money quote: “Our president and our attorney general, our vice-president, Hillary Clinton, they’re criminals. They’re criminals! We are Braveheart. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.” Aha! Got it. Nugent is planning on beheading the entire Obama administration. Well, even I haven’t gone that far, but somehow I wish I had. Because, like Nugent, I would have been making a metaphorical comment on what Americans should do at the ballot box in November. And by the way, have I mentioned that I hate Obama?

When a jihadist says he wants to behead you, you had better be wearing a thick metal collar. But that’s another story altogether. The MSM now have a double-shot of pro-Obama vitriol to work with. They can now point to a potential mass murderer and tie him to Mitt Romney. Prior to Romney appearing to have sewed-up the Republican nomination, he was their favorite moderate. Now he’s a fascist and close friend of a dangerous wild man who wants to kill the president and his entire administration.

Somehow these alleged news outlets can tie Nugent’s statements directly to the Romney campaign, but see no connection between the vile and misogynist comments of million dollar contributor Bill Maher and Barack Obama. They can’t see the Nugent comments as angry but metaphorical remarks about getting Obama out of office, but they can entirely ignore MSNBC’s Ed Schultz saying that he’d like to rip Dick Cheney’s heart out. When they did mention it at all, they called it simple rhetorical zeal, missing the exact words: “Dick Cheney’s heart is a political football. We ought to kick it around and stuff it back in him.”

The Schultz venom was spat out nearly two years ago, but according to the L.A. Times standard, that’s newsworthy today. Still, as vile as those remarks were, I didn’t seen the Secret Service rushing to the MSNBC studios to question Schultz about his threat to a former US vice-president who still has Secret Service protection. Quite simply put, a threat that can’t be carried out is no threat at all. A thousand years of Anglo-American jurisprudence firmly establishes that. In the case of first instance, an English knight, angered at what another man had said, shouted “were it not for Assize time, I would lop your head from off your shoulders.” The ancient English court called it a “conditional” threat, dismissed the charges, and that has remained the law ever since.

Could any sane person honestly believe for a second that Ted Nugent is planning on donning a kilt, painting his face with blue stripes, mounting a horse, adopting a bad Scottish accent and charging into the White House to lop off Barack Obama’s head? Apparently, the MSM and the Secret Service think so. I do have to wonder if the Secret Service will bring Colombian prostitutes with them to the Nugent meeting. “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November,” sounds a lot like “Were it not for Assize time,” in other words a conditional threat which is no real threat at all.

Furthermore, we have gone England a step farther. It’s a thing called the First Amendment. It protects Schultz and Nugent equally. Most significantly it requires that if a threat actually has been made, it must also be a clear and present danger. By precedent, and even the standard of the questionable anti-terrorism statutes, neither Schultz nor Nugent poses a clear and present danger. More recently, on Thursday MSNBC “host” Martin Bashir used the Book of Mormon to condemn Mitt Romney to hell for “lying.” Good thing there are never more than twelve or thirteen viewers of MSNBC at any given time or we might have to take that as a serious threat.

Schultz concluded his diatribe with “I don’t want Cheney to go to hell, I just want him to get the hell out of here.” Allow me to up the ante. I want Obama and his entire gang of subversive crooks the hell out of here, and I want him and the whole left wing of the Democratic party to go to hell, the sooner the better. @#X$%F@#$%!

End of rant.

Note: Subsequent to the writing of this article, Nugent met with the Secret Service, and it appears this will go no farther. Nugent described the meeting as "solid and professional."

Two items from the mainstream media this past week have turned me from my normal, placid, tolerant, loving self into a sputtering troglodyte (you do believe me, don’t you?). The first was the publication in the Los Angeles Times of some rather gruesome photos taken of US troops holding Taliban body parts (taken in 2010).

The other was the call for investigation of rocker and Second Amendment advocate Ted Nugent for “threatening” President Obama. Both items are proof positive that the MSM are in bed with the left wing of the Democratic party and are fully dedicated to skewing the “news” to fit their own agenda of painting the American military and angry conservatives as out-of-control mobs. The double standard is both palbable and obnoxiously left-loaded.

Let’s discuss the photo issue first. Despite ardent pleas from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asking that the Times not print the photos, the paper did so anyway. Panetta did not demand anything, but simply pointed out that the photos were not newsworthy (they’re nearly two years old), would stir up more hatred and violence by the Taliban at a crucial juncture in Afghan-American discussions of exit strategy, and would further endanger already-endangered American lives.

The Times metaphorically shrugged its shoulders and asked “so what?” If it bleeds, it leads. And if it causes more unnecessary bloodshed, so much the better. If the incident had been unknown until now (which it was not), there might be some justification for publication of the photos. But it’s what the photos don’t show that makes the publication at this time so reprehensible. Like the My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War, this would be a major revelation of US troops behaving barbarously by murdering innocent civilians and then celebrating what they had done.

But that isn’t even close to the truth. What the photos show is young men, frustrated by a war they’re not allowed to win, holding body parts of Taliban terrorists blown up by their own people. Dumb, uncivilized, and perhaps repulsive. But unexpected given the surrounding circumstances? I think not. This sort of excess and unthinking behavior has occurred in every war in history. The Times has succeeded only in making a bad situation worse without having contributed a thing to the cause of peaceful withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. What they have succeeded in doing is handing Hamid Karzai and his friends in the Taliban another propaganda victory.

So where was the Times, and its willingness to print gruesome photos, from the beheading of Daniel Pearl, to the hanging of American workers on a bridge over the Euphrates River, to the burning-alive of Christian churchgoers in Egypt and Nigeria? The paper suffers from a very bad case of selective sensitivity. Worse still, the political generals played fellow-traveler by immediately denouncing the soldiers rather than the publication of the photos. They essentially convicted the soldiers of war crimes without trial and without context.

The soldiers didn’t kill the Taliban whose body parts were being handed around. They are at most guilty of bad behavior after the fact. But the Taliban and their jihadist friends throughout the Middle East do the barbaric killings then celebrate by displaying their “prizes.” There is simply no comparison between the two situations. The Times doesn’t care. The paper and TV news refused to show taped film of innocent civilians jumping to their deaths from the World Trade Centers rather than be burned alive because repetition of the live shots would be insensitive. But showing testosterone-fueled and frustrated soldiers holding dismembered body parts that they didn’t cause is somehow necessary and newsworthy. Aw, horse manure.

And then there’s the Secret Service’s rush to talk to Ted Nugent about “violent” remarks Nugent made about Barack Hussein Obama. Clearly, Nugent is planning on assassinating Obama because he made some over-the-top statements about what he would like to happen in the future. Here are the “threats”: “Obama is a piece of s***, and I told him to suck on my machine gun. We’ve got a president and attorney general who don’t even like the Constitution. We’ve got four Supreme Court Justices who don’t believe in the Constitution. If you can’t galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney, we’re done.”

And now for the money quote: “Our president and our attorney general, our vice-president, Hillary Clinton, they’re criminals. They’re criminals! We are Braveheart. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.” Aha! Got it. Nugent is planning on beheading the entire Obama administration. Well, even I haven’t gone that far, but somehow I wish I had. Because, like Nugent, I would have been making a metaphorical comment on what Americans should do at the ballot box in November. And by the way, have I mentioned that I hate Obama?

When a jihadist says he wants to behead you, you had better be wearing a thick metal collar. But that’s another story altogether. The MSM now have a double-shot of pro-Obama vitriol to work with. They can now point to a potential mass murderer and tie him to Mitt Romney. Prior to Romney appearing to have sewed-up the Republican nomination, he was their favorite moderate. Now he’s a fascist and close friend of a dangerous wild man who wants to kill the president and his entire administration.

Somehow these alleged news outlets can tie Nugent’s statements directly to the Romney campaign, but see no connection between the vile and misogynist comments of million dollar contributor Bill Maher and Barack Obama. They can’t see the Nugent comments as angry but metaphorical remarks about getting Obama out of office, but they can entirely ignore MSNBC’s Ed Schultz saying that he’d like to rip Dick Cheney’s heart out. When they did mention it at all, they called it simple rhetorical zeal, missing the exact words: “Dick Cheney’s heart is a political football. We ought to kick it around and stuff it back in him.”

The Schultz venom was spat out nearly two years ago, but according to the L.A. Times standard, that’s newsworthy today. Still, as vile as those remarks were, I didn’t seen the Secret Service rushing to the MSNBC studios to question Schultz about his threat to a former US vice-president who still has Secret Service protection. Quite simply put, a threat that can’t be carried out is no threat at all. A thousand years of Anglo-American jurisprudence firmly establishes that. In the case of first instance, an English knight, angered at what another man had said, shouted “were it not for Assize time, I would lop your head from off your shoulders.” The ancient English court called it a “conditional” threat, dismissed the charges, and that has remained the law ever since.

Could any sane person honestly believe for a second that Ted Nugent is planning on donning a kilt, painting his face with blue stripes, mounting a horse, adopting a bad Scottish accent and charging into the White House to lop off Barack Obama’s head? Apparently, the MSM and the Secret Service think so. I do have to wonder if the Secret Service will bring Colombian prostitutes with them to the Nugent meeting. “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November,” sounds a lot like “Were it not for Assize time,” in other words a conditional threat which is no real threat at all.

Furthermore, we have gone England a step farther. It’s a thing called the First Amendment. It protects Schultz and Nugent equally. Most significantly it requires that if a threat actually has been made, it must also be a clear and present danger. By precedent, and even the standard of the questionable anti-terrorism statutes, neither Schultz nor Nugent poses a clear and present danger. More recently, on Thursday MSNBC “host” Martin Bashir used the Book of Mormon to condemn Mitt Romney to hell for “lying.” Good thing there are never more than twelve or thirteen viewers of MSNBC at any given time or we might have to take that as a serious threat.

Schultz concluded his diatribe with “I don’t want Cheney to go to hell, I just want him to get the hell out of here.” Allow me to up the ante. I want Obama and his entire gang of subversive crooks the hell out of here, and I want him and the whole left wing of the Democratic party to go to hell, the sooner the better. @#X$%F@#$%!

End of rant.

Note: Subsequent to the writing of this article, Nugent met with the Secret Service, and it appears this will go no farther. Nugent described the meeting as "solid and professional."

Hangin’ Out In Jihadistan

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Could You Repeat My Job Description?

Could You Repeat My Job Description?

At a forum conducted at the Newseum in the nation’s capital, Justice Elena Kagan confirmed that she doesn’t have a clue about what the difference is between being a lawyer/advocate and being a judge/neutral referee. Said the former Solicitor General: “Sometimes I think that the job doesn’t really change at all.” That’s like a baseball umpire saying his job is the same as his former job as coach of one of the teams.

In fact, Kagan explained why the job as Supreme Court Justice is even easier than being an advocate for a particular case or client: “As Solicitor General, my life was spent trying to persuade nine people and now it’s just trying to persuade eight people.” This probably explains why she sees no problem with having been an active partisan participant in the early Obamacare court cases, and then refusing to recuse herself when the cases came before the Supreme Court on which she now sits.

She wouldn’t have to do much convincing of three of her fellow Newseum panelists. They included Red Sonia Sotomayor (a wise Latina) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (former ACLU attorney and extreme critic of the out-of-date Constitution). The third was the guest of honor—former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The occasion was the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of O’Connor’s appointment to the Supreme Court, making her the first woman to sit on the court.

O’Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but this was before the Republican war one women. Just as President Dwight Eisenhower once said that appointing Earl Warren to the Supreme Court was his biggest mistake in office, President Reagan proved that even great presidents make mistakes. O’Connor voted in favor of radically altering the constitutional principle of the government taking property for public use by converting it to taking of property for a public purpose. That isn’t a minor difference in wording, but a complete perversion of the clear words of the Constitution.

O’Connor actually wrote an opinion in an affirmative action case which stated that she “didn’t know if the law was constitutional or not.” Guess she didn’t quite comprehend her job description either. If a Supreme Court Justice can’t articulate her understanding of the law and the Constitution, who can? O’Connor went all touch-feely in an opinion overturning a state sodomy statute by saying that everyone “should be free to determine his or her place in the cosmos.” Yes, Madam Justice, but what about our place in America and the role of the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment?

Kagan’s deep involvement as Solicitor General in the politics and legal maneuvering surrounding the early phases of state challenges to Obamacare is well documented. E-mails to her subordinates about how to litigate the Obamacare cases abound. In one case, her e-mail after a dismissal of one of the challenges was “we won.” Considerable testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee expanded on those e-mails and the use of Kagan’s considerable resources and staff to defend Obamacare. All of that is perfectly acceptable and even good work for a Solicitor General. But a fair, knowledgeable and ethical Supreme Court Justice would see the clear conflict of interest and incompatibility of office in hearing cases she was deeply involved in.

Perhaps this will explain her confusion. When asked at the forum if sitting on the Supreme Court bench is still challenging for her, Kagan replied: “Oh, every day is a challenge. But, you know, for me, I had never been a judge before, and just figuring out the mechanics of the job—you know, I have these four clerks, what do I do with them? What is the best process for drafting an opinion? When do I read the briefs? Do I read them the day before, the week before?”

My answer to that is “why bother reading them at all since you were instrumental in writing briefs which are merely being rehashed in the consolidated Obamacare cases pending before your high court?” Many great Supreme Court Justices had no prior judicial experience. Lack of judicial experience is certainly not a disqualifier for a seat on the high bench if all the other positive indicators are there.

I know a great many very fine trial attorneys who would be terrible judges simply because they can't shift gears from advocate to neutral referee. Likewise, I appeared before many excellent appellate court judges who had never set foot inside a trial court and had never sat on a bench previously. And sadly, I also appeared before several trial and appellate judges who never should have been on the bench in the first place, let alone elevated to a higher court. It's called "judicial temperament." But lack of ethics should be a disqualifier at every stage.

Kagan outright lied and obfuscated when she was asked by the Senate Judiciary Committee about her personal involvement in the early Obamacare cases as well as the drafting of the original legislation. Even first year law students are taught the very distinct differences between the role of the advocate and the role of the judge (unless they took their courses from Kagan when she was a law professor at the University of Chicago or Harvard Law). It’s simple. If you were actively involved in the cases at an earlier stage as an attorney/advocate, you must not be involved in hearing and determining those same cases when they come before you as a judge.

Kagan’s refusal to recuse herself on the Obamacare cases at the Supreme Court is doubly-damnable, since she knows full well that there is no higher court to reverse her decision. That said, it is a rather routine lapse of ethics for a former member of the most corrupt administration in recent memory.

At a forum conducted at the Newseum in the nation’s capital, Justice Elena Kagan confirmed that she doesn’t have a clue about what the difference is between being a lawyer/advocate and being a judge/neutral referee. Said the former Solicitor General: “Sometimes I think that the job doesn’t really change at all.” That’s like a baseball umpire saying his job is the same as his former job as coach of one of the teams.

In fact, Kagan explained why the job as Supreme Court Justice is even easier than being an advocate for a particular case or client: “As Solicitor General, my life was spent trying to persuade nine people and now it’s just trying to persuade eight people.” This probably explains why she sees no problem with having been an active partisan participant in the early Obamacare court cases, and then refusing to recuse herself when the cases came before the Supreme Court on which she now sits.

She wouldn’t have to do much convincing of three of her fellow Newseum panelists. They included Red Sonia Sotomayor (a wise Latina) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (former ACLU attorney and extreme critic of the out-of-date Constitution). The third was the guest of honor—former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The occasion was the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of O’Connor’s appointment to the Supreme Court, making her the first woman to sit on the court.

O’Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but this was before the Republican war one women. Just as President Dwight Eisenhower once said that appointing Earl Warren to the Supreme Court was his biggest mistake in office, President Reagan proved that even great presidents make mistakes. O’Connor voted in favor of radically altering the constitutional principle of the government taking property for public use by converting it to taking of property for a public purpose. That isn’t a minor difference in wording, but a complete perversion of the clear words of the Constitution.

O’Connor actually wrote an opinion in an affirmative action case which stated that she “didn’t know if the law was constitutional or not.” Guess she didn’t quite comprehend her job description either. If a Supreme Court Justice can’t articulate her understanding of the law and the Constitution, who can? O’Connor went all touch-feely in an opinion overturning a state sodomy statute by saying that everyone “should be free to determine his or her place in the cosmos.” Yes, Madam Justice, but what about our place in America and the role of the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment?

Kagan’s deep involvement as Solicitor General in the politics and legal maneuvering surrounding the early phases of state challenges to Obamacare is well documented. E-mails to her subordinates about how to litigate the Obamacare cases abound. In one case, her e-mail after a dismissal of one of the challenges was “we won.” Considerable testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee expanded on those e-mails and the use of Kagan’s considerable resources and staff to defend Obamacare. All of that is perfectly acceptable and even good work for a Solicitor General. But a fair, knowledgeable and ethical Supreme Court Justice would see the clear conflict of interest and incompatibility of office in hearing cases she was deeply involved in.

Perhaps this will explain her confusion. When asked at the forum if sitting on the Supreme Court bench is still challenging for her, Kagan replied: “Oh, every day is a challenge. But, you know, for me, I had never been a judge before, and just figuring out the mechanics of the job—you know, I have these four clerks, what do I do with them? What is the best process for drafting an opinion? When do I read the briefs? Do I read them the day before, the week before?”

My answer to that is “why bother reading them at all since you were instrumental in writing briefs which are merely being rehashed in the consolidated Obamacare cases pending before your high court?” Many great Supreme Court Justices had no prior judicial experience. Lack of judicial experience is certainly not a disqualifier for a seat on the high bench if all the other positive indicators are there.

I know a great many very fine trial attorneys who would be terrible judges simply because they can't shift gears from advocate to neutral referee. Likewise, I appeared before many excellent appellate court judges who had never set foot inside a trial court and had never sat on a bench previously. And sadly, I also appeared before several trial and appellate judges who never should have been on the bench in the first place, let alone elevated to a higher court. It's called "judicial temperament." But lack of ethics should be a disqualifier at every stage.

Kagan outright lied and obfuscated when she was asked by the Senate Judiciary Committee about her personal involvement in the early Obamacare cases as well as the drafting of the original legislation. Even first year law students are taught the very distinct differences between the role of the advocate and the role of the judge (unless they took their courses from Kagan when she was a law professor at the University of Chicago or Harvard Law). It’s simple. If you were actively involved in the cases at an earlier stage as an attorney/advocate, you must not be involved in hearing and determining those same cases when they come before you as a judge.

Kagan’s refusal to recuse herself on the Obamacare cases at the Supreme Court is doubly-damnable, since she knows full well that there is no higher court to reverse her decision. That said, it is a rather routine lapse of ethics for a former member of the most corrupt administration in recent memory.

Could You Repeat My Job Description?

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The White House Becomes Tammany Hall

The White House Becomes Tammany Hall

It is both common practice and good insider politics to favor friends and leave opponents out in the cold. It becomes a scandal when the favoritism drifts into favoring friends who are using huge taxpayer “gifts” to damage an already sick economy. Even George Washington Plunkitt, sage of Tammany, knew where to draw the line. “There’s good graft, and there’s bad graft, and the successful politician knows the difference.”

Mr. Clean, aka Barack Hussein Obama, has apparently never heard of Plunkitt. Andrew Price and I have been discussing the culture of corruption surrounding The One. Here, I want to focus on just one aspect of that corruption. The graft, cronyism and official criminal actions of his despicable administration make Boss Tweed’s activities look like a church social. Only a Chicago politician could compete with New York’s Boss Tweed for blatant self-aggrandizement and public-be-damned arrogance. But at least Tweed cooked up most of his nefarious deeds behind closed doors and through surrogates. B-HO does it openly and calls it “progressivism” and “fairness.” There’s a special level in hell for such liars and hypocrites.

Stanford’s Hoover Institution Fellow Peter Schweitzer is trying to get the word out. He calculates that about 80% of all green-weenie pie-in-the-sky funds from the Department of Energy have gone to firms whose major executives, board members or chief investors were big contributors to Obama’s 2008 campaign and are expected to do the same in 2012. Schweitzer says that the Solyndra disaster was only the tip of the iceberg, and that the Obamacrats are finding it increasingly difficult to cover up the billions of dollars tossed at unworkable schemes piloted by Obama supporters.

Here’s how G.W. Plunkitt explained it. “If two companies come to me to get a big city contract to build a bridge, and one is Democratic and one is Republican, I look to the bids. If I know that both of the bidders use high-quality materials and experienced workers, and both have bid the same price, I will give the contract to the Democrat. He’s my friend, and there might even be something extra in it for me. But if the Democrat bids low because he’s going to use inferior materials and bad workers, I will not give him the contract and if the bid by the Republican is affordable, I’ll give it to him. Who knows? Maybe he will become a friend later. But that’s the difference between good graft and bad graft.”

Now I happen to think that Obama’s green schemes are dangerous to the national health and perhaps even to national security. As of today, I don’t think his intention is to reward friends who purposely endanger public health. But it is abundantly clear that he’s perfectly willing to squelch traditional energy production and punish his non-green “enemies” while throwing good money after bad at silly, unworkable, financially irresponsible projects that are unlikely to be viable in twenty years, let alone now.

On the other hand, endangering Americans with exploding and self-immolating electric vehicles is at least gross negligence. Risking leaving huge swaths of America without energy during freezing weather because the solar panels aren’t getting enough sunlight, the wind turbines have frozen in place, and coal and oil energy have been effectively banned could easily result in negligent homicide.

Throwing billions and perhaps trillions of taxpayer dollars at unproven schemes in a poor economy is bad enough. Doing it by throwing it only at friends and contributors who have no realistic hope of succeeding is at best unethical, at worst criminal We still haven’t received a clear answer on why DOE allowed Solyndra exec and Obama contributor George Kaiser to subordinate the taxpayers’ interest in bankruptcy to Kaiser’s own interest—a violation of federal rules.

Obama not only used his influence to push DOE into approving the Solyndra, Ener1, Solar Trust for America, Beacon Power and LightSquared loans, but financial experts inside and outside the government had warned him that those companies were not viable, regardless of the federal funds thrown at them. It is also hard to explain how pouring money into an outrageously expensive all-electric sports car made in Finland helps the American economy or creates American jobs.

But friends are friends, after all. For all the Obama talk of “renewable green energy” it quickly became apparent to anyone with eyes to see that the real motivator was (and is) rewarding campaign contributors. So take notice: Obama has instructed his Department of Energy to double-down and find more future bankrupt green energy companies with sleazy, incompetent boards and executives to spend taxpayers’ money on. There must be a wealth of flim-flam men out there, ready to take federal green energy money and kick it back to the President’s campaign before filing for bankruptcy protection.

Even Plunkitt of Tammany Hall would turn red with shame at this kind of cronyism.

It is both common practice and good insider politics to favor friends and leave opponents out in the cold. It becomes a scandal when the favoritism drifts into favoring friends who are using huge taxpayer “gifts” to damage an already sick economy. Even George Washington Plunkitt, sage of Tammany, knew where to draw the line. “There’s good graft, and there’s bad graft, and the successful politician knows the difference.”

Mr. Clean, aka Barack Hussein Obama, has apparently never heard of Plunkitt. Andrew Price and I have been discussing the culture of corruption surrounding The One. Here, I want to focus on just one aspect of that corruption. The graft, cronyism and official criminal actions of his despicable administration make Boss Tweed’s activities look like a church social. Only a Chicago politician could compete with New York’s Boss Tweed for blatant self-aggrandizement and public-be-damned arrogance. But at least Tweed cooked up most of his nefarious deeds behind closed doors and through surrogates. B-HO does it openly and calls it “progressivism” and “fairness.” There’s a special level in hell for such liars and hypocrites.

Stanford’s Hoover Institution Fellow Peter Schweitzer is trying to get the word out. He calculates that about 80% of all green-weenie pie-in-the-sky funds from the Department of Energy have gone to firms whose major executives, board members or chief investors were big contributors to Obama’s 2008 campaign and are expected to do the same in 2012. Schweitzer says that the Solyndra disaster was only the tip of the iceberg, and that the Obamacrats are finding it increasingly difficult to cover up the billions of dollars tossed at unworkable schemes piloted by Obama supporters.

Here’s how G.W. Plunkitt explained it. “If two companies come to me to get a big city contract to build a bridge, and one is Democratic and one is Republican, I look to the bids. If I know that both of the bidders use high-quality materials and experienced workers, and both have bid the same price, I will give the contract to the Democrat. He’s my friend, and there might even be something extra in it for me. But if the Democrat bids low because he’s going to use inferior materials and bad workers, I will not give him the contract and if the bid by the Republican is affordable, I’ll give it to him. Who knows? Maybe he will become a friend later. But that’s the difference between good graft and bad graft.”

Now I happen to think that Obama’s green schemes are dangerous to the national health and perhaps even to national security. As of today, I don’t think his intention is to reward friends who purposely endanger public health. But it is abundantly clear that he’s perfectly willing to squelch traditional energy production and punish his non-green “enemies” while throwing good money after bad at silly, unworkable, financially irresponsible projects that are unlikely to be viable in twenty years, let alone now.

On the other hand, endangering Americans with exploding and self-immolating electric vehicles is at least gross negligence. Risking leaving huge swaths of America without energy during freezing weather because the solar panels aren’t getting enough sunlight, the wind turbines have frozen in place, and coal and oil energy have been effectively banned could easily result in negligent homicide.

Throwing billions and perhaps trillions of taxpayer dollars at unproven schemes in a poor economy is bad enough. Doing it by throwing it only at friends and contributors who have no realistic hope of succeeding is at best unethical, at worst criminal We still haven’t received a clear answer on why DOE allowed Solyndra exec and Obama contributor George Kaiser to subordinate the taxpayers’ interest in bankruptcy to Kaiser’s own interest—a violation of federal rules.

Obama not only used his influence to push DOE into approving the Solyndra, Ener1, Solar Trust for America, Beacon Power and LightSquared loans, but financial experts inside and outside the government had warned him that those companies were not viable, regardless of the federal funds thrown at them. It is also hard to explain how pouring money into an outrageously expensive all-electric sports car made in Finland helps the American economy or creates American jobs.

But friends are friends, after all. For all the Obama talk of “renewable green energy” it quickly became apparent to anyone with eyes to see that the real motivator was (and is) rewarding campaign contributors. So take notice: Obama has instructed his Department of Energy to double-down and find more future bankrupt green energy companies with sleazy, incompetent boards and executives to spend taxpayers’ money on. There must be a wealth of flim-flam men out there, ready to take federal green energy money and kick it back to the President’s campaign before filing for bankruptcy protection.

Even Plunkitt of Tammany Hall would turn red with shame at this kind of cronyism.

The White House Becomes Tammany Hall

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Mohammed Loves Gay Marriage. Huh?

Mohammed Loves Gay Marriage. Huh?

Well, not exactly. But there’s some strange stuff going on here. It has been nearly impossible for conservatives to understand how leftist gay activists can be so tolerant of a religion which condemns them to rather grisly deaths. Now, several Muslim organizations in the West have begun to buzz about “gay marriage” not being any of their business. Homosexuality requires a death penalty, but maybe gay marriage is OK in the decadent West. Or something like that.

Muslim tolerance of gay marriage is about as mystifying as gay support of Islamist causes. Or is it? Marriage makes strange bedfellows (or was that politics?). The religion of peace spends considerable time promoting itself as the world’s largest charitable organization passing out loving gifts to fellow Muslims and the world in general. That way you won’t notice it has a bad habit of lopping off heads and blowing up skyscrapers.

The Islamists have learned a lot about propaganda and how to attain one goal by pretending to support an entirely different one. Do the Jihadis actually support gay marriage? Hardly—but if they can help to get the Western definition of marriage changed in relation to the sex of the partners, then there’s no logical reason to forbid traditional Islamic marital practices such as polygamy (and perhaps even child-marriage). Once you’ve eliminated sex as an issue, why not eliminate numbers or age as restrictions?

The loathsome Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has actually cluck-clucked at gay marriage in the West, but that’s those crazy degenerate Christians, Jews and pagans. Now CAIR is becoming an advocate of Western-style “tolerance.” They may not approve of gay marriage, but shucks, if that’s what the law allows in non-Muslim lands, so be it. In the Arabic versions of CAIR’s message, there remains the minor detail of beheading, hanging, or burying homosexuals alive. But those are eliminated for consumption in the West.

To date, there has been unanimity among the American federal government and all fifty state governments that polygamy must remain illegal. But that’s what the prevailing view was about gay marriage just a few years back. The Islamists see gay marriage as the camel’s nose (or some body part) under the tent. Some states have gotten courts to declare traditional marriage unconstitutional discrimination. In other states, the legislatures or the people have voted in favor of gay marriage. Our Islamist-friendly President went from opposing gay marriage to ordering his Attorney General not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

Whether the issue of same-sex marriage remains one of religious freedom or becomes a simple matter of leaving marriage to the clerics and same sex unions to civil law, the Islamists are seeing the extreme advantage of having non-traditional Western domestic unions embraced by constitutions, the law, and the majority of citizens. And thus the sudden public face of “tolerance” in the Western Islamic leadership.

CAIR spokesman Moein Khawaja said the following after New York legalized same-sex marriage last year: “Easy to support gay marriage today because it’s mainstream. Let’s see the same people [who advocated for same-sex unions] go to bat for polygamy. It’s the same argument.” Funny. That’s the same thing former Senator and former Presidential Republican primary candidate Rick Santorum warned about just a few years back. Nobody of any importance will criticize a sincere Islamist, but when Santorum said it, he was almost universally ridiculed.

Once the barriers are down, what’s left to stop the centuries old practice of polygamy and child-marriage? Who would have the right to criticize or ban communal marriage? So I’ll go Santorum and Khawaja one step further. No law should forbid marriage between loving companions, which explains why there are a lot of nervous-looking sheep out there. Is bestiality the new “love that dares not speak its name?” And how long will it be before it becomes mainstreamed? But that's another story altogether.

For now, the questions are many. Will America relax its traditional standards to allow polygamy on grounds related to religious tolerance of sharia law? Will gays and lesbians then demand equal rights to polygamy? Will radical feminists demand the right to polyandry? Will Hugh Hefner come out of a coma long enough to demand the right to marry all his Playmates? Enquiring minds want to know.

Well, not exactly. But there’s some strange stuff going on here. It has been nearly impossible for conservatives to understand how leftist gay activists can be so tolerant of a religion which condemns them to rather grisly deaths. Now, several Muslim organizations in the West have begun to buzz about “gay marriage” not being any of their business. Homosexuality requires a death penalty, but maybe gay marriage is OK in the decadent West. Or something like that.

Muslim tolerance of gay marriage is about as mystifying as gay support of Islamist causes. Or is it? Marriage makes strange bedfellows (or was that politics?). The religion of peace spends considerable time promoting itself as the world’s largest charitable organization passing out loving gifts to fellow Muslims and the world in general. That way you won’t notice it has a bad habit of lopping off heads and blowing up skyscrapers.

The Islamists have learned a lot about propaganda and how to attain one goal by pretending to support an entirely different one. Do the Jihadis actually support gay marriage? Hardly—but if they can help to get the Western definition of marriage changed in relation to the sex of the partners, then there’s no logical reason to forbid traditional Islamic marital practices such as polygamy (and perhaps even child-marriage). Once you’ve eliminated sex as an issue, why not eliminate numbers or age as restrictions?

The loathsome Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has actually cluck-clucked at gay marriage in the West, but that’s those crazy degenerate Christians, Jews and pagans. Now CAIR is becoming an advocate of Western-style “tolerance.” They may not approve of gay marriage, but shucks, if that’s what the law allows in non-Muslim lands, so be it. In the Arabic versions of CAIR’s message, there remains the minor detail of beheading, hanging, or burying homosexuals alive. But those are eliminated for consumption in the West.

To date, there has been unanimity among the American federal government and all fifty state governments that polygamy must remain illegal. But that’s what the prevailing view was about gay marriage just a few years back. The Islamists see gay marriage as the camel’s nose (or some body part) under the tent. Some states have gotten courts to declare traditional marriage unconstitutional discrimination. In other states, the legislatures or the people have voted in favor of gay marriage. Our Islamist-friendly President went from opposing gay marriage to ordering his Attorney General not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

Whether the issue of same-sex marriage remains one of religious freedom or becomes a simple matter of leaving marriage to the clerics and same sex unions to civil law, the Islamists are seeing the extreme advantage of having non-traditional Western domestic unions embraced by constitutions, the law, and the majority of citizens. And thus the sudden public face of “tolerance” in the Western Islamic leadership.

CAIR spokesman Moein Khawaja said the following after New York legalized same-sex marriage last year: “Easy to support gay marriage today because it’s mainstream. Let’s see the same people [who advocated for same-sex unions] go to bat for polygamy. It’s the same argument.” Funny. That’s the same thing former Senator and former Presidential Republican primary candidate Rick Santorum warned about just a few years back. Nobody of any importance will criticize a sincere Islamist, but when Santorum said it, he was almost universally ridiculed.

Once the barriers are down, what’s left to stop the centuries old practice of polygamy and child-marriage? Who would have the right to criticize or ban communal marriage? So I’ll go Santorum and Khawaja one step further. No law should forbid marriage between loving companions, which explains why there are a lot of nervous-looking sheep out there. Is bestiality the new “love that dares not speak its name?” And how long will it be before it becomes mainstreamed? But that's another story altogether.

For now, the questions are many. Will America relax its traditional standards to allow polygamy on grounds related to religious tolerance of sharia law? Will gays and lesbians then demand equal rights to polygamy? Will radical feminists demand the right to polyandry? Will Hugh Hefner come out of a coma long enough to demand the right to marry all his Playmates? Enquiring minds want to know.

Mohammed Loves Gay Marriage. Huh?

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Leftists In Paradise

Leftists In Paradise

California taxpayers pony up just under three billion dollars a year to support the 230,000 students attending the various campuses of the University of California. And that doesn’t cover the even-larger California State Universities and Colleges System. Recently, the UC faculty was criticized for serious bias toward liberal and leftist causes by the National Association of Scholars. There was an immediate professorial backlash.

This tale relates to the UC system but could just as easily be applied to almost any other other state university system as well as the entire Ivy League. The National Association of Scholars (NSA) was not soft in its criticism of the university. It spoke plainly in its report. “The UC system does not help students to learn how to think, but rather teaches them what to think.” After twelve years of indoctrination in the public schools, far too many students are perfectly willing to accept whatever their professors tell them at face value. Academic inquiry beyond the most basic of questioning is treated as a sort of mental illness.

The report goes on to say that the lockstep professors have “turned UC campuses into a sanctuary for a narrow ideological segment of the spectrum of social and political ideas.” In 1999, a report by political science professor showed that nationwide, Democrats outnumbered Republicans nearly five to one. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. In some departments, the ratio was staggering. In the English departments, the margin was eighty-eight to three, and in social science departments eighty-one to two.

By 2007, a new study using the same criteria found that the overall ratio had increased to eight to one in favor of liberals. No longer feeling any obligation to hide their specific political leanings, twenty percent of social sciences professors and twenty-five percent of sociology professors readily identified themselves as “Marxist.” And as genetics has proven that incest produces idiot children, so the inbreeding older leftist professors have produced young professors leaning even farther left. When the teaching assistants, assistant professors and associate professors move in to replace the older full professors, the 2011 NSA study (A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California) concludes that the ratio is likely to go to fifty to one.

The California head of the NSA, professor John Ellis, became the front man for deflecting the inevitable denials and accusations coming from the leftist professors. His major critic was Berkeley professor Robert Anderson. Anderson called the report short on facts but long on innuendo and anecdotes. Professor Ellis minced no words after receiving the criticism: “I don’t know any polite way of putting this—but he’s lying.” Ellis cited not only verifiable statistics, but examples of how academia continues to move left and create “victim” majors which perpetuate their agenda.

Professor Ellis’s primary example is a required Berkeley history course for those who pursue a major in history. The course is entitled The United States from Settlement to the Civil War. That hasn’t changed since I was a bright-eyed freshman at Berkeley in 1962. So what has changed? It’s the description of the goal of the course: “To understand how democratic political institutions emerged in the United States in this period in the context of an economy that depended on slave labor and violent land acquisition.” Nothing about freedom, abolitionism, the Constitution, the Enlightenment, or anything neutral or positive. Just the usual slavery and oppression.

No longer expected to look at issues, realities, time-frames, varying views, logic, economics, historical perspective, or comparative governments, the UC student now has the course predigested for him or her, and has been told the proper conclusion. Many will never know that all their course materials will now contain only those things which support the leftist view. They will finish their courses thinking they have been educated rather than indoctrinated.

According to the leftist professors, who the studies have shown to be a heavy majority, America was born, grew, and perpetuates itself on fundamentally evil racism, slavery and economic exploitation of what today are referred to as minorities. Having indoctrinated the students into thinking that America has been evil from the get-go, it’s easy to move on to today’s victimology--the sufferers from gender discrimination, homophobia, ethnic exploitation, sexism, speciesism, lookism, and the whole panoply of “isms.” Hovering over it all is the greatest criminal ism of all—capitalism.

California taxpayers pony up just under three billion dollars a year to support the 230,000 students attending the various campuses of the University of California. And that doesn’t cover the even-larger California State Universities and Colleges System. Recently, the UC faculty was criticized for serious bias toward liberal and leftist causes by the National Association of Scholars. There was an immediate professorial backlash.

This tale relates to the UC system but could just as easily be applied to almost any other other state university system as well as the entire Ivy League. The National Association of Scholars (NSA) was not soft in its criticism of the university. It spoke plainly in its report. “The UC system does not help students to learn how to think, but rather teaches them what to think.” After twelve years of indoctrination in the public schools, far too many students are perfectly willing to accept whatever their professors tell them at face value. Academic inquiry beyond the most basic of questioning is treated as a sort of mental illness.

The report goes on to say that the lockstep professors have “turned UC campuses into a sanctuary for a narrow ideological segment of the spectrum of social and political ideas.” In 1999, a report by political science professor showed that nationwide, Democrats outnumbered Republicans nearly five to one. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. In some departments, the ratio was staggering. In the English departments, the margin was eighty-eight to three, and in social science departments eighty-one to two.

By 2007, a new study using the same criteria found that the overall ratio had increased to eight to one in favor of liberals. No longer feeling any obligation to hide their specific political leanings, twenty percent of social sciences professors and twenty-five percent of sociology professors readily identified themselves as “Marxist.” And as genetics has proven that incest produces idiot children, so the inbreeding older leftist professors have produced young professors leaning even farther left. When the teaching assistants, assistant professors and associate professors move in to replace the older full professors, the 2011 NSA study (A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California) concludes that the ratio is likely to go to fifty to one.

The California head of the NSA, professor John Ellis, became the front man for deflecting the inevitable denials and accusations coming from the leftist professors. His major critic was Berkeley professor Robert Anderson. Anderson called the report short on facts but long on innuendo and anecdotes. Professor Ellis minced no words after receiving the criticism: “I don’t know any polite way of putting this—but he’s lying.” Ellis cited not only verifiable statistics, but examples of how academia continues to move left and create “victim” majors which perpetuate their agenda.

Professor Ellis’s primary example is a required Berkeley history course for those who pursue a major in history. The course is entitled The United States from Settlement to the Civil War. That hasn’t changed since I was a bright-eyed freshman at Berkeley in 1962. So what has changed? It’s the description of the goal of the course: “To understand how democratic political institutions emerged in the United States in this period in the context of an economy that depended on slave labor and violent land acquisition.” Nothing about freedom, abolitionism, the Constitution, the Enlightenment, or anything neutral or positive. Just the usual slavery and oppression.

No longer expected to look at issues, realities, time-frames, varying views, logic, economics, historical perspective, or comparative governments, the UC student now has the course predigested for him or her, and has been told the proper conclusion. Many will never know that all their course materials will now contain only those things which support the leftist view. They will finish their courses thinking they have been educated rather than indoctrinated.

According to the leftist professors, who the studies have shown to be a heavy majority, America was born, grew, and perpetuates itself on fundamentally evil racism, slavery and economic exploitation of what today are referred to as minorities. Having indoctrinated the students into thinking that America has been evil from the get-go, it’s easy to move on to today’s victimology--the sufferers from gender discrimination, homophobia, ethnic exploitation, sexism, speciesism, lookism, and the whole panoply of “isms.” Hovering over it all is the greatest criminal ism of all—capitalism.

Leftists In Paradise

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Ya Can’t Make This S—T Up

Ya Can’t Make This S—T Up

San Francisco would be expected to be the place where you would find the most wasted taxpayer money for Democratic pet projects. You wouldn’t be far from wrong in assuming that. Even when the city (along with the state department of transportation) spends federal funds on a worthwhile project, they will always find a way to spend large sums frivolously along with it.

And so it is with the highway improvements needed to repair the approaches to the Golden Gate Bridge. In 2009, the Obama administration used federal stimulus money to fund a major portion of the $1.045 billion project which widens, improves and adds seismic protections from Doyle Drive in the Presidio to the actual approaches to the bridge. So far, not too outrageous. State and federal highways have long benefited from government/private business cooperation and the project generally inures to the public benefit. In other words, people who paid the taxes which funded the projects generally got their money’s worth.

But government has a way of gilding the lily with little “additions” that drive the cost up with no discernible public benefit. San Francisco is the capital of the ecoweenie, feelgood, waste the taxpayers money nation, and it found a way. With the help of the EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Presidio Trust, the National Park Service and a couple of local busybody ecofreak organizations, the government spent over $205,000.00 to relocate (drum roll)—a bush. You see, the bush ended up smack dab in the footprint of the new roadway.

This poor little orphan bush had struggled mightily to hide behind other less honorable bushes and trees, so until the clearing began, nobody noticed that such an important bush existed in the way of the new approaches. Aha!, you say. Just another bush. But you would be wrong. It’s the beloved and rare arctoslaphylos franciscana commonly know to us commoners as the Franciscan manzanita. Wild Franciscan manzanita had been considered extinct, but somehow some sneaky manzanitas elsewhere had managed to produce this orphan.

The cost of the removal on top of all the studies to determine that the bush was indeed a Franciscan manzanita was approximately $100,000.00 alone. The total also included the replacement of the bush with a less endangered species somewhere along the side of the new roadway. On top of those costs, an additional $5,000.00 for each of three botanical gardens to house the progeny of the orphan has been set aside, plus another $1,500.00 for long-term storage of 300 seeds collected from the orphan (now the “mother”) bush. How a “mother” plant produces fertile seeds without a “father” remains unknown.

Now exactly what makes this wild bush so important and so unique? Simple. It’s “wild.” As opposed to the hundreds of Franciscan manzanitas that grow in domestic gardens and nurseries. As the wild manzanita began to disappear when patches of wilderness in San Francisco were covered over with urban development, manzanita fanciers collected them and grew them at home or in nurseries which provide decorative flora for gardeners and landscapers.

But the ecoweenies didn’t want to hurt the wild manzanita’s feelings, and got massive government machinery in motion to relocate the poor little orphan. Here are some interesting facts that I didn’t know, and perhaps you didn’t either. There is a hierarchy of flora. This “wild” manzanita got special attention because it popped up on its own with no human assistance. If it was grown in a botanical garden, however, it would be called “extinct in the wild” but would still have ecoweenie protection. The hundreds (perhaps thousands) of these bushes grown in residential yards and pots are simply called “domestic.”

So if you took the orphan bush, mixed it in with those in botanical gardens, and threw in a few hundred domestic manzanitas for good measure, could the “experts” tell which was which? The answer is “no.” They are absolutely, 100%, botanically identical. There are no hybrid Franciscan manzanitas, nor are there any genetically-altered Franciscan manzanitas. There are only Franciscan manzanitas, wild, domestic, or protected.

So after $205,000.00 plus, what have the ecoweenies actually protected? An orphan purebred Franciscan manzanita transplanted to a protected location to keep it from mixing its seeds with manzanitas which aren’t purebred Franciscan. There are different variations of the manzanita bush throughout California, and the orphan-savers don’t want those mongrel strains mixing with the noble Franciscan variety. I guess it’s OK to spend an extra quarter million on translocation (the ecoweenie word) rather than just planting it somewhere else.

Here’s the best part. The cost of a purebred Franciscan manzanita at reputable local nurseries is about $15.98. But then it wouldn’t be “wild” and therefore wouldn’t require several dozen overpaid bureaucrats to study it and move it. In fact, you could pay for the nursery’s bush and move it yourself in the back seat of your car or the bed of your truck.

San Francisco would be expected to be the place where you would find the most wasted taxpayer money for Democratic pet projects. You wouldn’t be far from wrong in assuming that. Even when the city (along with the state department of transportation) spends federal funds on a worthwhile project, they will always find a way to spend large sums frivolously along with it.

And so it is with the highway improvements needed to repair the approaches to the Golden Gate Bridge. In 2009, the Obama administration used federal stimulus money to fund a major portion of the $1.045 billion project which widens, improves and adds seismic protections from Doyle Drive in the Presidio to the actual approaches to the bridge. So far, not too outrageous. State and federal highways have long benefited from government/private business cooperation and the project generally inures to the public benefit. In other words, people who paid the taxes which funded the projects generally got their money’s worth.

But government has a way of gilding the lily with little “additions” that drive the cost up with no discernible public benefit. San Francisco is the capital of the ecoweenie, feelgood, waste the taxpayers money nation, and it found a way. With the help of the EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Presidio Trust, the National Park Service and a couple of local busybody ecofreak organizations, the government spent over $205,000.00 to relocate (drum roll)—a bush. You see, the bush ended up smack dab in the footprint of the new roadway.

This poor little orphan bush had struggled mightily to hide behind other less honorable bushes and trees, so until the clearing began, nobody noticed that such an important bush existed in the way of the new approaches. Aha!, you say. Just another bush. But you would be wrong. It’s the beloved and rare arctoslaphylos franciscana commonly know to us commoners as the Franciscan manzanita. Wild Franciscan manzanita had been considered extinct, but somehow some sneaky manzanitas elsewhere had managed to produce this orphan.

The cost of the removal on top of all the studies to determine that the bush was indeed a Franciscan manzanita was approximately $100,000.00 alone. The total also included the replacement of the bush with a less endangered species somewhere along the side of the new roadway. On top of those costs, an additional $5,000.00 for each of three botanical gardens to house the progeny of the orphan has been set aside, plus another $1,500.00 for long-term storage of 300 seeds collected from the orphan (now the “mother”) bush. How a “mother” plant produces fertile seeds without a “father” remains unknown.

Now exactly what makes this wild bush so important and so unique? Simple. It’s “wild.” As opposed to the hundreds of Franciscan manzanitas that grow in domestic gardens and nurseries. As the wild manzanita began to disappear when patches of wilderness in San Francisco were covered over with urban development, manzanita fanciers collected them and grew them at home or in nurseries which provide decorative flora for gardeners and landscapers.

But the ecoweenies didn’t want to hurt the wild manzanita’s feelings, and got massive government machinery in motion to relocate the poor little orphan. Here are some interesting facts that I didn’t know, and perhaps you didn’t either. There is a hierarchy of flora. This “wild” manzanita got special attention because it popped up on its own with no human assistance. If it was grown in a botanical garden, however, it would be called “extinct in the wild” but would still have ecoweenie protection. The hundreds (perhaps thousands) of these bushes grown in residential yards and pots are simply called “domestic.”

So if you took the orphan bush, mixed it in with those in botanical gardens, and threw in a few hundred domestic manzanitas for good measure, could the “experts” tell which was which? The answer is “no.” They are absolutely, 100%, botanically identical. There are no hybrid Franciscan manzanitas, nor are there any genetically-altered Franciscan manzanitas. There are only Franciscan manzanitas, wild, domestic, or protected.

So after $205,000.00 plus, what have the ecoweenies actually protected? An orphan purebred Franciscan manzanita transplanted to a protected location to keep it from mixing its seeds with manzanitas which aren’t purebred Franciscan. There are different variations of the manzanita bush throughout California, and the orphan-savers don’t want those mongrel strains mixing with the noble Franciscan variety. I guess it’s OK to spend an extra quarter million on translocation (the ecoweenie word) rather than just planting it somewhere else.

Here’s the best part. The cost of a purebred Franciscan manzanita at reputable local nurseries is about $15.98. But then it wouldn’t be “wild” and therefore wouldn’t require several dozen overpaid bureaucrats to study it and move it. In fact, you could pay for the nursery’s bush and move it yourself in the back seat of your car or the bed of your truck.

Ya Can’t Make This S—T Up

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San Francisco Goes Schizophrenic

San Francisco Goes Schizophrenic

Even as a conservative wandering in the wasteland of leftist San Francisco, I did realize that not all San Franciscans march in lockstep. I admit I am still addicted to reading the San Francisco Chronicle, despite all my efforts to stave off the craving. In one day, two very contrary things were discussed on the news pages (such as they are). One came from the omnipresent Nancy Pelosi, the other from a grass roots movement

First, Nancy Pelosi made another of her tear-filled speeches at the 25th anniversary celebration of the AIDS quilt. But it is also the 25th anniversary of her first election to the House of Representatives. The speech was aimed far more at the latter than the former. Pelosi continued her endless diatribe about the Republican “war on women.” The rhetoric came after polls showed that the Democrat strategy of conducting gender politics was having some effect, but before a Democratic operative insulted Ann Romney for “never having worked a day in her life.”

Pelosi understands the dilemma of the working woman raising kids. Just ask her nannies, maids and au pairs. She has long been in the forefront of radical feminists who believe that stay-at-home moms spend all their time watching soap operas and taking naps. Women who stay home to rear their children and run their households are a cancer on society, living a life of ease and accomplishing nothing of any importance. Although she has been instrumental in screwing up the economy so badly that most women have to work just to supplement the family’s income, she is indignant that some women have been fortunate enough to be able to choose to stay home with the kids.

Her claim is that [presumptive Republican nominee] George Romney and the Republican Party have alienated millions of American women. The early polls even showed that there was some truth to that, but failed to notice that a united Republican Party could turn that around with a concerted effort to dispel the foolish concept of a Republican war one women. Mitt Romney himself has more female advisors than Obama ever thought of having.

Pelosi then launched into a discussion of how women have been more seriously impacted with unemployment because of the "Republican recession" than men. She then took the lead from Politifact and the New York Times and claimed that Romney’s facts were misleading. Romney pointed out that Obama’s policies have resulted in women comprising 92.3% of the Obama-era unemployed. She and her mainstream media friends admit that the figure is factually accurate. But they say that the fact that more men than women were laid off or terminated at the end of the Bush era makes the facts “accurate but false.” The sound of spin is deafening.

Therefore, something verifiable is “accurate but false.” They prefer the other kind of truth. The New York Times and CBS News headlined the Dan Rather “disclosure” of George Bush’s military record, only to find out the disclosure was faked. Their response, it was “fake but accurate.” Huh? That means that Democrats prefer fake and arguably inaccurate to verifiably accurate but arguably taken out of context. Truth is an elusive concept, but I’ll take verifiable facts over fake documents any day in the week. No wonder so many people wonder if Barack Obama’s birth certificate could be both faked and inaccurate.

Pelosi cited Republican budget proposals as proof that women are under attack in the areas of funding for Medicare, health care and contraception. Obviously, just like the Obamacare bill which she voted for so she could see what’s in it, she is against the Ryan proposals which she hasn’t read either. Her statement is both fake and inaccurate. In fact, it’s an outright lie.

Now, for the other side of the coin. On April 14 (Tax Day Eve), the Tea Party is going to have a major demonstration--in San Francisco. The main body of demonstrators will gather at 1 PM in Justin Herman Plaza. For those unfamiliar with San Francisco, the Plaza is located at the intersection of The Embarcadero and Market Street where the downtown, financial and tourist/commuter districts converge. It is often used for gathering demonstrators together for a march up Market Street to the heart of the retail district at Powell and Market where the famous cable cars turn around across from the largest shopping mall west of Chicago.

Anti-Tea Partiers frequently tell us that the Tea Party movement is losing steam. That is not true, though it has been less visible recently as it gains strength within the Republican Party. This demonstration would tend to prove they are wrong. For the first time, ten separate Bay Area Tea Party groups are banding together for one united activity in the homeland of the progressive enemy. It isn’t exactly Washington crossing the Delaware, but it ain’t bad.

As the Occupy movement watches its numbers dwindle from attrition and arrests, the Tea Party will be entering one of its main San Francisco encampments. Tea Partiers are so conscientious that they may not only clean up after themselves, but also after the filthy Occupiers as well. The City Sanitation Department should give them an award. San Francisco’s KSFO radio station is providing special guest talk radio’s Melanie Morgan, who will encourage the demonstrators to wave their “Nobama 2012” giant fingers (an homage to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's finger-wagging airport confrontation with The One).

The Chron actually reported the planned gathering without the usual editorializing on the news pages. The readers’ online letters to the editor were not nearly as neutral. Views ranged from “Is it the same tea party which destroyed America’s credit rating” to “Major Tea Party rally planned? So what? So there will be maybe 25 teabaggers?” Given its history, the Chronicle will undoubtedly use the same numbers in its report on the demonstration itself as the wishful readers are citing in advance.

One thing you can be sure of, the paper will minimize the numbers and effects to satisfy its leftist bloodlust. “Speaking truth to power” is a liberal phrase which is never applied by liberals to conservatives.

Even as a conservative wandering in the wasteland of leftist San Francisco, I did realize that not all San Franciscans march in lockstep. I admit I am still addicted to reading the San Francisco Chronicle, despite all my efforts to stave off the craving. In one day, two very contrary things were discussed on the news pages (such as they are). One came from the omnipresent Nancy Pelosi, the other from a grass roots movement

First, Nancy Pelosi made another of her tear-filled speeches at the 25th anniversary celebration of the AIDS quilt. But it is also the 25th anniversary of her first election to the House of Representatives. The speech was aimed far more at the latter than the former. Pelosi continued her endless diatribe about the Republican “war on women.” The rhetoric came after polls showed that the Democrat strategy of conducting gender politics was having some effect, but before a Democratic operative insulted Ann Romney for “never having worked a day in her life.”

Pelosi understands the dilemma of the working woman raising kids. Just ask her nannies, maids and au pairs. She has long been in the forefront of radical feminists who believe that stay-at-home moms spend all their time watching soap operas and taking naps. Women who stay home to rear their children and run their households are a cancer on society, living a life of ease and accomplishing nothing of any importance. Although she has been instrumental in screwing up the economy so badly that most women have to work just to supplement the family’s income, she is indignant that some women have been fortunate enough to be able to choose to stay home with the kids.

Her claim is that [presumptive Republican nominee] George Romney and the Republican Party have alienated millions of American women. The early polls even showed that there was some truth to that, but failed to notice that a united Republican Party could turn that around with a concerted effort to dispel the foolish concept of a Republican war one women. Mitt Romney himself has more female advisors than Obama ever thought of having.

Pelosi then launched into a discussion of how women have been more seriously impacted with unemployment because of the "Republican recession" than men. She then took the lead from Politifact and the New York Times and claimed that Romney’s facts were misleading. Romney pointed out that Obama’s policies have resulted in women comprising 92.3% of the Obama-era unemployed. She and her mainstream media friends admit that the figure is factually accurate. But they say that the fact that more men than women were laid off or terminated at the end of the Bush era makes the facts “accurate but false.” The sound of spin is deafening.

Therefore, something verifiable is “accurate but false.” They prefer the other kind of truth. The New York Times and CBS News headlined the Dan Rather “disclosure” of George Bush’s military record, only to find out the disclosure was faked. Their response, it was “fake but accurate.” Huh? That means that Democrats prefer fake and arguably inaccurate to verifiably accurate but arguably taken out of context. Truth is an elusive concept, but I’ll take verifiable facts over fake documents any day in the week. No wonder so many people wonder if Barack Obama’s birth certificate could be both faked and inaccurate.

Pelosi cited Republican budget proposals as proof that women are under attack in the areas of funding for Medicare, health care and contraception. Obviously, just like the Obamacare bill which she voted for so she could see what’s in it, she is against the Ryan proposals which she hasn’t read either. Her statement is both fake and inaccurate. In fact, it’s an outright lie.

Now, for the other side of the coin. On April 14 (Tax Day Eve), the Tea Party is going to have a major demonstration--in San Francisco. The main body of demonstrators will gather at 1 PM in Justin Herman Plaza. For those unfamiliar with San Francisco, the Plaza is located at the intersection of The Embarcadero and Market Street where the downtown, financial and tourist/commuter districts converge. It is often used for gathering demonstrators together for a march up Market Street to the heart of the retail district at Powell and Market where the famous cable cars turn around across from the largest shopping mall west of Chicago.

Anti-Tea Partiers frequently tell us that the Tea Party movement is losing steam. That is not true, though it has been less visible recently as it gains strength within the Republican Party. This demonstration would tend to prove they are wrong. For the first time, ten separate Bay Area Tea Party groups are banding together for one united activity in the homeland of the progressive enemy. It isn’t exactly Washington crossing the Delaware, but it ain’t bad.

As the Occupy movement watches its numbers dwindle from attrition and arrests, the Tea Party will be entering one of its main San Francisco encampments. Tea Partiers are so conscientious that they may not only clean up after themselves, but also after the filthy Occupiers as well. The City Sanitation Department should give them an award. San Francisco’s KSFO radio station is providing special guest talk radio’s Melanie Morgan, who will encourage the demonstrators to wave their “Nobama 2012” giant fingers (an homage to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's finger-wagging airport confrontation with The One).

The Chron actually reported the planned gathering without the usual editorializing on the news pages. The readers’ online letters to the editor were not nearly as neutral. Views ranged from “Is it the same tea party which destroyed America’s credit rating” to “Major Tea Party rally planned? So what? So there will be maybe 25 teabaggers?” Given its history, the Chronicle will undoubtedly use the same numbers in its report on the demonstration itself as the wishful readers are citing in advance.

One thing you can be sure of, the paper will minimize the numbers and effects to satisfy its leftist bloodlust. “Speaking truth to power” is a liberal phrase which is never applied by liberals to conservatives.

San Francisco Goes Schizophrenic

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Chris Christie Scores A Goal

Chris Christie Scores A Goal

There are many of us conservatives who have problems with Chris Christie’s politics. Anthropogenic climate change and the appointment of a sharia-compliant judge, for starters. But even his critics have to admit that when Christie gets it right, he’s a hoot. George Bush got plenty of press when he announced that “I wish they weren’t called ‘the Bush tax cuts.”

Christie’s remarks got far less press. Bush introduced Chris Christie at the Bush Institute Conference on Taxes and Economic Growth, in New York City. He prefaced Christie’s remarks with a humorous jab: “I compliment the governor’s enormous personality.” But he also took a more serious tack by complimenting Christie on his belief in the individual.

After Bush’s sunny speech and pleasant introduction, Christie took the microphone and announced “I haven’t seen a less optimistic period in the country in my lifetime.” He did clarify that there were plenty of enthusiastic conservatives who were optimistic about a Republican victory in November, but that fact doesn’t change the basic downer that the Obama administration has been.

Indicating his belief that a continuation of Obamacrat leftist class warfare would be disastrous for America, Christie said: “Government’s telling people to stop dreaming, stop striving, we’ll take care of you. We’re turning into a paternalistic entitlement society. That will not just bankrupt us financially, it will bankrupt us morally.”

Then came the money quote that won’t make headlines in the mainstream: “We’ll have a bunch of people sitting on a couch waiting for their next government check.” After that, he provided examples of the alternative which the Republican Party is likely to embrace after the nomination is settled once and for all. He used his own state and his own programs as an example. He vetoed the legislature’s “millionaire’s tax” (a carbon copy of the Buffett Rule that Obama is promoting twenty times each day). He also cited his own plan for instituting an income tax reduction of 10% across the boards, as well as his pro-growth policies without big government handouts.

Christie also talked about a concept that doesn’t please true believers on the right (or the left)—compromise. Compromise, standing by itself, is neither good nor bad. It’s what is done with the compromise that makes the difference. Though some of us may think Christie has compromised too much on certain specific issues (see first paragraph, above), his discussion of true believers is right on the money. We’ve discussed that issue multiple times on this site.

Said Christie of his own relations with the opponents in the legislature: “We developed relationships with the other side of the aisle that allowed them to trust us. And that doesn’t happen overnight. Day after day after day you have to sit with our colleagues and convince them of the goodness of your spirit and of the understanding that compromise is not a dirty word.” While Democrats in the national legislature (Congress) blame budget paralysis on the Republicans, the truth is that the Democrats have been utterly intransigent, refusing to listen to even the most lukewarm of Republican proposals. As long as they have their socialist President, they feel they have cover for their failure to accomplish much of anything except the doomed Obamacare.

Regardless of what we may think was a “good” compromise or a “bad” compromise, his words were right on the money. “The subject of compromise has itself become a controversial concept. As ideological purity has come to be valued above all, we’ve forgotten that we’re not just responsible for our moral claims, but also for the consequences of our actions and inaction. He then went on to personalize the issue by quoting Michael Novak: “I learned that I must never again seek moral purity at the expense of responsibility for the results.”

That would be consistent with Ronald Reagan’s acceptance of 80% conservative Republicans. But even more aptly, it fits into the ancient adage that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” Meanwhile, we can hope that the couch potatoes waiting for their government checks will be too lazy to get off the couch to go to the polls. Otherwise, conservatives have already lost the 49% of Americans who pay no income taxes while complaining that their government checks are too puny.

There are many of us conservatives who have problems with Chris Christie’s politics. Anthropogenic climate change and the appointment of a sharia-compliant judge, for starters. But even his critics have to admit that when Christie gets it right, he’s a hoot. George Bush got plenty of press when he announced that “I wish they weren’t called ‘the Bush tax cuts.”

Christie’s remarks got far less press. Bush introduced Chris Christie at the Bush Institute Conference on Taxes and Economic Growth, in New York City. He prefaced Christie’s remarks with a humorous jab: “I compliment the governor’s enormous personality.” But he also took a more serious tack by complimenting Christie on his belief in the individual.

After Bush’s sunny speech and pleasant introduction, Christie took the microphone and announced “I haven’t seen a less optimistic period in the country in my lifetime.” He did clarify that there were plenty of enthusiastic conservatives who were optimistic about a Republican victory in November, but that fact doesn’t change the basic downer that the Obama administration has been.

Indicating his belief that a continuation of Obamacrat leftist class warfare would be disastrous for America, Christie said: “Government’s telling people to stop dreaming, stop striving, we’ll take care of you. We’re turning into a paternalistic entitlement society. That will not just bankrupt us financially, it will bankrupt us morally.”

Then came the money quote that won’t make headlines in the mainstream: “We’ll have a bunch of people sitting on a couch waiting for their next government check.” After that, he provided examples of the alternative which the Republican Party is likely to embrace after the nomination is settled once and for all. He used his own state and his own programs as an example. He vetoed the legislature’s “millionaire’s tax” (a carbon copy of the Buffett Rule that Obama is promoting twenty times each day). He also cited his own plan for instituting an income tax reduction of 10% across the boards, as well as his pro-growth policies without big government handouts.

Christie also talked about a concept that doesn’t please true believers on the right (or the left)—compromise. Compromise, standing by itself, is neither good nor bad. It’s what is done with the compromise that makes the difference. Though some of us may think Christie has compromised too much on certain specific issues (see first paragraph, above), his discussion of true believers is right on the money. We’ve discussed that issue multiple times on this site.

Said Christie of his own relations with the opponents in the legislature: “We developed relationships with the other side of the aisle that allowed them to trust us. And that doesn’t happen overnight. Day after day after day you have to sit with our colleagues and convince them of the goodness of your spirit and of the understanding that compromise is not a dirty word.” While Democrats in the national legislature (Congress) blame budget paralysis on the Republicans, the truth is that the Democrats have been utterly intransigent, refusing to listen to even the most lukewarm of Republican proposals. As long as they have their socialist President, they feel they have cover for their failure to accomplish much of anything except the doomed Obamacare.

Regardless of what we may think was a “good” compromise or a “bad” compromise, his words were right on the money. “The subject of compromise has itself become a controversial concept. As ideological purity has come to be valued above all, we’ve forgotten that we’re not just responsible for our moral claims, but also for the consequences of our actions and inaction. He then went on to personalize the issue by quoting Michael Novak: “I learned that I must never again seek moral purity at the expense of responsibility for the results.”

That would be consistent with Ronald Reagan’s acceptance of 80% conservative Republicans. But even more aptly, it fits into the ancient adage that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” Meanwhile, we can hope that the couch potatoes waiting for their government checks will be too lazy to get off the couch to go to the polls. Otherwise, conservatives have already lost the 49% of Americans who pay no income taxes while complaining that their government checks are too puny.

Chris Christie Scores A Goal

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