Requiem and Rebirth

At last we say goodbye to 2009. Not a moment too soon.

For millions of us, this year has been overwhelming. We have seen things happen this year that we would never thought possible in the land we call home. If someone had told you two years ago that the United States federal government would, by now, have virtually nationalized the automotive, banking and insurance industries, you would have laughed in his face. Even Ayn Rand would have been hard pressed to invent scenarios to compete with the reality of 2009 in America. It has been a fierce onslaught of the unthinkable...each new heresy tumbling into the mix before the last has been fully absorbed. So many of us have spent the year reeling - bouncing from one disaster to the next, in full defensive mode, with little time, or energy, left for introspection. React, react, react! Must stop them! Don't bother me with details - just stop it, whatever it is! NOOO!!!

Now, as the rush and bustle of the holidays pass, we find ourselves at the dawn of a new year, a new decade, a new beginning. I have always believed the "next right thing" happens. Whether because of God, or fate, or luck, or the vibrations of the Universe, everything happens for a reason - though sometimes it's nearly impossible to imagine what that reason could possibly be, or how it could possibly be positive. Such is the situation in which we find ourselves tonight. What good could possibly come of the events of the past year?

For far too long, most of us have drifted through our days with little thought of the freedoms we, alone in the world, enjoy. We have been apathetic, more interested in movie stars than Constitutional rights. For decades, we have allowed the federal government to grow ever more bloated, infringing on ever more of our liberties, without so much as a whimper. Inch by inch, they were reeling us in, putting us under ever more bureaucratic control, and we paid little or no attention. We bore little resemblance to the great men and women of courage and character who built the framework of this great land. We were not worthy of the sacrifices so many have made on our behalf.

This year, all that began to change.

For the first time in my life, the people of this country are beginning to act, think and feel like true Americans. We have come out of our houses, into the streets, coming together as countrymen again, as part of something much larger than ourselves and our immediate families. We have begun to form networks, alliances, to plan for the future, to understand that we have a duty to take an active role in the preservation of our nation - a fact we had forgotten somewhere along the way. Faced with extreme adversity, strength is overcoming fear and Americans everywhere are standing up and speaking out. We know the battle will be long and hard, and that there is no turning back...the peaceful days of blissful ignorance are gone forever. It was our dereliction that brought us to this place, it will be our honor which will take us back. Like the founders, we fully understand that our liberties are worth any sacrifice and our cause is just.

Beware, Washington! Millions of sparks across this great land are beginning to merge and grow - soon the entire country will be engulfed in a wildfire the scope of which has never been seen. No more politics as usual. We will not be silenced, whether by bribery or intimidation, and we will not be worn down. We will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to put the federal government back in its place. Pat Caddell said it beautifully: "I have a message for the people in Washington, in both parties. The American people are coming, and they're coming for you."

This is a moment in history that has long been needed. Take a deep breath, my wonderful, freedom loving, patriotic friends. There will be little time for rest on the road to Judgment Day this November.

"No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny." ~Hannah Arendt

Just Doodlin'

Hi folks, I haven't contributed to this blog in a while. Sorry about that.
April and I have been very active, (she more than me) attending various functions having to do with the Tea Party Movement. But my favorite was when we drove to Lawrence, KS for a forum at the West campus. It was more of the same but with our probable candidate doing better than she had in previous forums. I was impressed when we walked through the door and our daughter introduced us to the president of the young Republicans Club. She introduced us and was obvioulsly at ease in this environment. She never ceases to amaze me. I am delighted to be amazed by our amazing daughter, Mackenzie. I'm quite sure I will continue to be amazed for the rest of my life. jc

Our one solution.

As we daily watch idiocy overflow from the halls of government, I am often inclined to think... "That's it... that is the straw that will break the camel's back!" Surely this latest foolishness will make people open their eyes and realize things are going all wrong.

Alas. What a mistake. I read letters to the editor of our local newspaper and see that ordinary, common folk, my neighbors, are in full support of what the government is doing. I watch panel discussions on TV, wherein one "strategist" argues against five level-headed people. The majority quote truths from past experience. The strategist insists they are not seeing the "whole picture".

I think of these people as "theorists", adhering to some theory they have learned and refuse to deny. They will never be persuaded by historical fact.

And so we have a great global dichotomy: China, a Communist nation, thriving because they are letting their people practice capitalism in a grand way. And the United States, a Capitalist country, struggling to subsist on the largess of China, because we are forcing our population into Communist ideology.

During World War II, General Douglas MacArthur faced an adversary beyond persuasion. He knew there was only one solution. He called it "Unconditional Surrender". That, he knew, could come in only one way: complete, absolute defeat of his enemy.

That is our only solution today. The people now driving our nation off the cliff will never be persuaded. They must be defeated, they must be denied the power to govern.

"This is John Galt Speaking" Part 10

"This is John Galt Speaking" Part 9

"This is John Galt Speaking" Part 8

Happy Thanksgiving

On this uniquely American holiday, so tightly linked to our history as a nation, I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude.

I am thankful for the wonderful, brave men and women of courage who left the safety of their homeland over 300 years ago to set sail into the unknown. They forged the original character of this fiercely independent and historically self-reliant nation.

I am thankful for the Founding Fathers, who, in their boundless wisdom, crafted the finest Constitution any country has ever known, granting, for the first time in histroy, true freedom to a people. Their sacrifices were epic, their vision unique and immutable.

I am thankful for all who have served to preserve our freedoms through the centuries, and to bring freedom to countless millions globally. The debt we owe them can never truly be repaid.

I am, of course, thankful for all of the traditional blessings of life, family and home. I am wealthy beyond belief, with a large, wonderful family, dear friends, a home I love and a job which affords me security and freedom from want.

This year I am perhaps more thankful than at any time in my life. This year I have discovered that there are, still, even in this age of decadence and failing morality, millions of God-fearing, red-blooded, brave, humble and dedicated patriotic Americans who still believe in and support the Constitution which is our greatest gift of all. I stood shoulder to shoulder with more than one million of them in our nation's Capitol in September, and will again next August. It is our greatest blessing of all in this era to have these wonderful souls who still possess the courage of the Founders and the strength of the original pilgrims, and are willing to sacrifice all that they have, including their very lives if necessary, to preserve the original vision that is this, the last best hope of the world.

As a firm believer that the "next right thing" always happens, I am even thankful for those in Washington, D.C. who have so obviously forgotten our history and the meaning our the founding documents, and seek to fundamentally transform this nation from the shining city on the hill into a ghetto of filth, poverty, misery and repression in the name of social and economic justice. Without them, the awakening from complacency and apathy that has been in place for the last century would not have occurred. Without their radical and absolutely un-American pursuits, true Americans would have slumbered on, allowing ever more of our freedoms and rights to be stripped away. The future is frightening and uncertain, but as long as good people who support good principles exist and refuse to remain silent, there is hope.

Thank you all. Happy Thanksgiving.

A Message to Moderates and Liberals from a Tea Party Patriot

Let's make a deal.

For years, Washington politicians have sought to divide us along party, race and ideological lines. You've seen them - they spew every kind of hateful venom imaginable about anyone who isn't in their clique...until the cameras leave. Then they are best buddies with the guys across the aisle, while we continue to look at those who disagree with us with suspicion...or worse. This is just wrong.

Remember the Constitution? The first three words of the preamble are "We the people." We. Not "some of us," "liberal people" or "conservative people." We the people. And then there's that old saying from the founding times..."United we stand. Divided we fall." We are divided, and we are falling. Precipitously.

The dollar is descending at alaming rates. Look at this graph. It tracks the value of the dollar against the Euro - the Euro, from financially strapped Europe - over the last five months or so.

That line just isn't going in the right direction. It should look like this one:



But, alas...no. That would be the unemployment rate. There's a pretty simple reason why these two charts are inverted from what they should be...easily illustrated by a couple more charts.



Notice what's about to happen? For the first time in American history, the National Debt is about to exceed our Gross Domestic Product! I know you know this, but think about it - the Gross Domestic Product is the sum total of everything produced in this country, by all of us, for an entire year. Every nickel of every wage, every dime of profit...all of it. And note the trajectory of the two lines - the debt is rising at a far faster rate than the estimated GDP over the next few years. Full disclosure: I pulled the debt numbers from the Office of Management and Budget - they are the White House's own estimate - but I estimated the GDP by taking the 2008 GDP and adding the same percentage to it each year as it rose in 2008 over 2007 - 2.58%. Given the unemployment chart above, this is likely to be a vastly inflated GDP amount going forward - but it's the best guess I know how to make.

Now look at this chart. It's a representation of the Debt as a percentage of the GDP since 1980.



Doesn't look like it's going to change course anytime soon. And, this does not include any new spending, like health care, cap and trade and whatever other diabolical plans Washington has for us.

Any rational person knows that you can't continue borrowing money you can't pay back. The interest on all of this debt was $22,831,444,696.60 in October! Actual hard numbers from the Treasury say that we are spending $736,498,216.02 every single day just to pay the interest on our country's debt. This is utter insanity, and is absolutely unsustainable.

Every other country on the planet is running full speed ahead away from the United States dollar. No one wants to hold them anymore...they know that our government is destroying their value. Soon inflation will begin, and it will take more and more of those increasingly worthless dollars to put dinner on the table for your family.

Do you realize, including all the money the United States government has borrowed and promised, every single citizen of this country is currently in debt for $344,848.00? Every citizen, not every taxpayer, or every household. Every single American, newborn to the grave. And still Washington screams, "Spend! SPEND! SPEND!!" How will you pay your share? How about your children? Will they thank you for bankrupting their future?

So here's the offer. I won't vote for any Republican incumbents this year if you will agree not to vote for any Democratic incumbents. Not a single one, on the national level. Throw them all out. This is not a single party problem, it is a corruption and power problem. Each party, when in power, tries to outdo the other's most recent performance. Sadly for America, they are fighting to see which party can destroy the country the fastest. Right now it's the Democrats, but it was the Republicans a couple of years ago, and, if they were to win big next year, it would be the Republicans again. Neither party is the least bit interested in what's good for the people who elect them anymore - it's all about their cronies and special interest groups. It's all about power and vying to see which elected official can manage to have his or her name on the most public buildings, streets, museums and airports. They have gone completely insane, all of them, and it is time for a mulligan.

In a little under a year, 33 Senators and all 435 members of the House of Representatives will be up for reelection. Vote them out. You don't have to vote for a candidate with whom you disagree - virtually every race has either a primary or an independent of some sort running - just vote against the crooks who are hell-bent on destroying our country. At this point, the student body from the average elementary school would evidence more wisdom and better judgment than these fools. It is time to send them home.

Let us come together as Americans, lock arms and stand up to the Washington, D.C. crowd. Tell them that we are done - that they no longer have our permission to force ever more government, ever more debt on we the people. Remind them that they work for us, and that their insubordination will not be tolerated any longer. If we do not, if we remain divided and bickering amongst ourselves, they will destroy what is left of our country and we will ultimately be permanently locked together - in the poor house, burning our worthless dollars for heat as we wonder where it all went wrong.

If you agree, please share this with everyone you know. Time is running out.

To The Liberals

it is a toss up as to who is most hated...

Is it George W. Bush and members of his administration?
Is it the C.I.A.?
Is it the U.S. Military?

And so, to their eternal joy, they have now created the opportunity to put them all on trial at once.

It will be an expensive and painful trial for America, but with the Dems, the means will justify the end.

The decision to try the 911 planners in New York, they say, is to prove that America is better than the rest of the world. And, they say, they are confident of a conviction.

I don't know how "the world" looks at that, but I want to know how you square the American idea of "innocent until proven guilty" with confident of a conviction?

But, that doesn't matter. They will get to vilify the C.I.A. as they endanger members of the U. S. Military and heap scorn upon everything ever done by George W. Bush.

The Jihadists are winning a huge victory here, even in the face of a guaranteed conviction.

Tea Parties: Misunderstood and Vastly Underrated

Just ran across this piece by Kyle-Anne Shiver in the American Thinker. It says it well.

Elected officials of every political stripe ought to be shaking down to their Gucci loafers and pumps. History is forming and firming up harder than the proverbial brick wall right outside their congressional glass house. Yet they seem utterly oblivious.

Since last April, I've written a few columns on the Tea Parties, but I had never actually attended one in person. I harbored a few misconceptions, formed at a distance through the media's drive-by lens. Being a woman who tends to cower in crowds and who loves the security and solitude of my little office-cloister, I had been content to write based on the observations of others. But an Alabama homemaker-turned-activist, Suzanne Green of Birmingham, pulled me into the bosom of the Tea Party movement along with the Rainy Day Patriots.

And, honey, I'm here to tell you, it's a fiery hot bosom indeed.

Click the link above and read the rest. Then get the hell out of our way.

While you were sleeping...

...your country went on life support.

In the middle of the night, on a Saturday, that paragon of American virtue, Nancy Pelosi, aided and abetted by the Thug-In-Chief's considerable power to bribe our elected "representatives," passed what The Wall Street Journal called the worst piece of legislation since the New Deal. By now, this is old news to those of us who pay attention, so I won't dwell on the details. We know who voted for this boondoggle, and we will deal with them in due course. Now, we must shift our focus to the Senate, and pull out all the stops to prevent this massive, unconstitutional infringement on our liberties from ever becoming law.

To my way of thinking, something much more important happened last night.

Last night the House of Representatives (or, more precisely, 220 of its members) officially declared that they have become a lawless, unregulated body. Despite massive opposition from the parties affected by this legislation, on the order of 100 to 1 against, 220 men and women voted to permanently destroy their country's prosperity and well-being. In short, they issued a formal declaration of war on the American people and the United States Constitution.

This will not stand.

I hereby pledge to stand against the tyranny that is being foisted upon us by Washington, D.C.

No longer will I be concerned with offending those of different political perspectives - you are wrong, too foolish or uninformed to know it, and I will not place my friendship with you ahead of the continued existence of my country.

No longer will I pull any punches regarding Barack Obama and his illegitimacy. I do not believe that he was born in Hawaii, I do not believe that he meets the basic qualifications to serve as President of these United States, and I will fight tirelessly to force him to prove me wrong.

No longer will I tolerate political correctness from any quarter. Islam is not the religion of peace, it is the religion of pieces. Their faith commands them to kill non-believers. Their laws demand the subjugation, or worse, of women. Their doctrine demands world domination, and they are well on the way to achieving it. Unless and until a majority of Muslims stand with reasonable people everywhere in unwavering condemnation of these tenets, I will oppose Islam and all that it represents.

No longer will I recognize as a right the ability of any elected representative to refuse to allow me to voice my opposition to their plans and policies. Screaming liberals in San Francisco and Massachusetts do not have the right to steal my freedoms without a whimper. I will call, mail and fax any Congressman I believe is wrong and will voice my opposition forcefully, with supporting arguments. They will ignore me at their own peril.

No longer will I pretend that there is anything reasonable about the Communist/Fascist agenda of the current administration. They do not have the right to pass laws which are in direct violation of the Constitution, and I, as a staunch supporter of that Constitution, refuse to obey their commands. I will give my liberty, or my life if necessary, to support the original intent of the founders of this nation.

No longer will I allow the condemnation of politicians or the media to influence my words or deeds. I am not a racist, a mobster, a potential terrorist or a right-wing nut. I am an American, in every possible sense of the word, and, like my ancestors, will speak out, loudly and often, for all that is right and true and just. If you disagree with my interpretation of the values and beliefs upon which this nation was founded, tell someone who gives a damn. I do not.

I am done. There can be no victory in this fight as long as we are willing to compromise. It's similar to being a little bit pregnant...ridiculous and impossible. From this moment forward, I demand strict adherance to the Constitution of the United States and will stand for nothing less.

This is my pledge to my country and my fellow countrymen. I hope you will choose to join me. Know this: I am fully aware of the magnitude of the statements I am making, and that this will be a battle which will consume the balance of my time on this Earth. It is not a commitment I make lightly, or in the heat of the moment. It is, for me, my only choice.

November 5

We had a little mini protest in our town today. About 50 locals showed up at the office of our Congressman (Harry Teague - Democrat). Each signed a message to the Congressman, urging a no vote on HR 3692 - the health care bill.

Later, our phone rang at home, and I answered. A recorded voice identified herself as a spokesperson for A.A.R.P., and urged me to contact my congressman to support the health care bill. The voice even offered to connect me directly for a no-charge call directly to my Congressman's Washington office. It took a bunch of button pushing, entering my zip code, and waiting through about ten rings, but finally a person answered from Congressman Teague's office.

I explained that I was opposed to the pending health care legislation and urged the Congressman to vote no. She asked for my name, promised to give my message to Mr. Teague and thanked me for my call.

This event gave me special pleasure. I had been a member of A.A.R.P. for a number of years - until this spring when I cancelled my membership. It was a joy to note to myself that their "get out the vote" operation had resulted in a protest "vote" to the Congressman.

A Letter to my Congressman

Congressman Moore -

Eleven years ago the good people of the state of Kansas saw something in you. They saw a man they thought they could trust to represent and protect their interests. They saw a man they thought shared their ethics, values and sense of personal responsibility. They gave you their vote, their confidence...trusted you to do what was in their best interest. In the years since, most of those voters have paid little attention to what you were actually doing in their name - they simply trusted you to do the right thing.

This year things are a little different. This year, we have video proof that there are people in the White House who are light years away from traditional Kansas values. From Van Jones, the self-avowed Communist, to Anita Dunn, who derives her political philosophies from Chairman Mao, right up to the President who spent 20 years attending a Black Liberation Theology church, these people do not see the greatness of this nation as your constituents do. Rather, they see this as a flawed society crying out for their control and micro-management.

In the Congress, the inmates are running the asylum. Nancy Pelosi's vision of Utopia may appeal to the left wing ultra liberals in San Francisco, but they certainly do not fit the founders' vision for this nation. Harry Reid has strayed so far to the left that even liberal and decadent Las Vegas is seriously considering firing him. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank bear more responsibility for our current economic meltdown than any other two living human beings. And still they thirst for more - more power, more control over the people of the United States.

This will not stand.

Congressman, you have a choice to make. Will you continue to vote the party line, showing complete disregard for those who have given you the honor of representing them in Washington? Or will you remember where you came from?

Surely you cannot agree that destroying our currency is good for the people you represent. Can you possibly believe that another unsustainable entitlement program is in the best interests of Kansans? Can you honestly claim that the billions in new taxes and massive controls of Cap and Trade are good for this nation? Judging from your complete absence from the public eye during the August recess, the answer is clear: you know that you are no longer serving those who sent you to Washington and you lack the courage to face us and hear from us first hand.

Sir, I appeal to whatever shreds of Kansas values still lurk somewhere deep inside you - stand up for your district! Your vote in favor of any more bloated federal government programs or policies would seriously risk the complete destruction of everything this country has spent two centuries building. Can you honestly bear to have that on your conscience for the rest of your days?

Do not take this country any further down the road to socialism. Do not allow your legacy to be so shameful. What may seem like going along to get along is destroying all that America represents. Each vote you cast becomes a permanent part of the history of our country - please make it a history that will continue to make us all proud of our nation.

We Are All Founding Fathers Now

Found this in the forums on As A Mom...I'm reposting it exactly as originally posted by Lori Yas.

My husband wrote this guest commentary for the Naples Daily News in May. If you agree with the content pass it on. It would be nice to even get into other newspapers.


MICHAEL S. YASHKO / Naples
Posted May 30, 2009 at 5 p.m.


We Are All Founding Fathers Now

Newsweek magazine recently proclaimed, “We are all socialists now.” Maybe it’s true. We just don’t seem to have it in us anymore. We’re no longer the country of rugged individualists portrayed in the movies. Americans have grown dependent on the federal nanny state. And, they seem to like it. John Wayne doesn’t live here anymore.

So, let’s gather in Philadelphia, draft a Declaration of Dependence and submit these facts to a candid world:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that without federal government intervention, we cannot take care of ourselves, our families or our neighbors; that we are endowed by the cynical benevolence of Washington politicians with certain unalienable rights, and that chief among these are taxpayer-funded happiness and well-being.

“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on our own inadequacy, we pledge to the federal government our blind loyalty, our incomes and our sacred liberty.”

But, maybe Newsweek was wrong — a modern day “Dewey defeats Truman” moment. Average citizens, previously too busy bettering themselves and doing right by their neighbors to be “activists,” are realizing that their country is being changed in a fundamental and irreversible way. America is finally succumbing to socialism’s 100-year assault on the founders’ Constitution.

We’ve reached a tipping point, a moment in history when the core philosophy of our nation is being reset for good.

Let’s face facts. We are founding our country anew. Only the Revolutionary War and Civil War periods rival the coming four years in importance. If we are intellectually honest and aware, it’s clear that we are being forced to choose: become full-blown socialists or turn back to our historical roots as a constitutional republic.

Time is short. This “third founding” will be complete within the next four years. This is our last chance to take back the power we’ve ceded to Washington.

Did Newsweek get it wrong? We’ll know soon enough. We’ll have an idea of what road we’re on after the 2010 midterm elections. The morning after the next presidential election, we’ll know for sure.

It’s late, but the battle of ideas has finally been joined in earnest. I say “in earnest” because people finally realize that both political parties are speeding us down F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom.” People finally grasp that the choice is not between Republicans and Democrats, but between an intrusive federal nanny state run by both parties or a movement by the people to take back the power originally reserved for them by the founders.

The founders’ constitutional republic protected individual liberty. Their decentralized government ensured that the people could govern themselves locally — those most directly affected had the most say. In the centralized, mass democracy we’ve become, this federalism is a historical footnote.

And, it wasn’t an accident. According to Claes Ryn, a professor of politics, the political philosophy which nurtured this federal monster is a “moral hoax” because it allows big government’s proponents to “ooze benevolence for people in the abstract.” They don’t have to do concrete things for specific people. It’s checkbook morality: “moralism made easy.”

The Supreme Court has aided and abetted this transformation of the founders’ Constitution by ignoring or rewriting the clauses limiting government power.

In “Restoring the Lost Constitution,” Randy Barnett vividly describes the result: “The Constitution that was actually enacted and formally adopted creates islands of government powers in a sea of liberty. The judicially redacted Constitution creates islands of liberty rights in a sea of governmental power.”

How do we tame this monster? Barnett answers in “A Bill of Federalism” (Forbes.com): We must demand that the federal government return the power it has usurped and restore the original balance of power between the federal, state and local governments.

But legally and politically, we can’t ignore the Supreme Court cases that put us here. We must amend the Constitution and reinvigorate our founders’ concept of federalism. Then, we can assume control over our own lives again, just as the founders intended.

Like the founders before us, we must debate this central question: What is the proper role of government in the lives of free people? Either we will re-affirm the philosophy and virtues of our founders and re-invigorate the constitutional republic they created, or we will take the final step to European-style socialism.

I see ahead the last off ramp on Hayek’s road to serfdom. Let’s take that exit marked “individual liberty, limited government and free enterprise.” Join the debate. We are all Founding Fathers now.



Yashko is the managing partner in Florida for the Roetzel & Andress law firm. However, he says these are his own views. He is a graduate cum laude of Northwestern University Law School.

Making it an artform

Who spends more than a million dollars to avoid showing their birth certificate?

I wouldn't spend ten dollars to avoid showing mine. I'm not a "birther" really, but I do find the question puzzling. There is no earthly reason a person would be so secretive if they had nothing to hide. Estimates say Obama has spent at least $1.4 million defending against case after case questioning his eligibility...he could have stopped them all by producing a single piece of paper. The certificate of live birth that was posted online has been proven to be a forgery, with a great deal of supporting documentation. What is he hiding?

These questions, despite my efforts to ignore this nonsense and focus on the issues, have been haunting me for months. Now, I can add many more questions, thanks to an article I read today. Do you have more than one Social Security number? Do you know anyone who does? Is it even LEGAL? Somehow, Dear Leader apparently has several. Why?

Why are there no records of his life, his parents' lives, even his grandparents' lives?

Why does no one at Columbia remember him? Why isn't his picture in the yearbook? Who paid for his Harvard education? Why is his Selective Service registration altered? Who the hell is this man who so loves collecting radical friends and associates?

Click here and read the article at the link. It asks these questions, gives a great deal more background information, and will make even the most gullible Obamabots wonder. But hurry...before it, too disappears.

Embarrassed, again!

In the 1960s, during the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, then first lady Ladybird Johnson gave voice to a big campaign to restrict billboards. They "polluted" the view, you know!

At the time, I was managing a radio station in Kansas. Along with most other radio people, I strongly opposed Mrs. Johnson's campaign. While we were, indeed, a news disseminating medium, we were also an advertising medium, and sorely needed all the advertising dollars we could attract. Billboards were a tough competitor for those ad dollars, because most billboard ad contracts were for extended periods of time. When an advertiser bought a bunch of billboards, his ad budget was locked up for several months, perhaps even a year. I would have loved to have seen that competition removed from my world.

But radio people worried that if the government could wipe out billboards, radio could become their next target? We already had people complaining that our towers, like billboards, were an eyesore. Mostly, however, we just resented the government taking action against a legal, legitimate business.

Eventually the anti-billboard campaign petered out. I don't know how much we broadcasters helped make that happen, but I have always been proud that we stood up.

Now our government is waging war on Fox News Channel. Glen Beck, one of the Fox commentators, believes the White House is planning to "punish" FNC. How might they do that? Well, maybe they could prevail against Comcast, Time Warner, and the satellite companies, to refuse to carry FNC.

Do you see the other networks - cable or broadcast - coming to the defense of FNC? To my great embarrassment, you do not.

Recently, the so-called mainstream media (a term used to distinguish the big news outfits from bloggers, columnists and other small voices) have embarrassed me repeatedly. When CNN furrowed their brow and did a "fact check" of a Saturday Night Live comedy skit critical of President Obama, I almost wept.

When I ran a radio station, it was not a business. It was not a job. It was a love affair! Our radio station did things that made me enormously proud. Once a local newspaper did a story praising our coverage of a tornado threat. Once the vaunted New York Times mentioned our station in a story about talk radio, then a new phenomena. Another time, that same New York Times did a story about our station staging a promotion (celebrating the opening of a new municipal airport) wherein a young woman - my wife - was given her first flying lesson and soloed the plane, all in one day. The first time a woman had ever done that. Each of those events made me so proud.

The most salary I was ever paid in radio was below today's minimum wage. But, we were doing some great things. It has been thirty five years since my last day in radio. For thirty five years I have been proud to tell people of my 25 year radio career.

Today... well, how can you brag about having been a part of an industry that now is an embarrassment?

UPDATE:

Wow! ALL members of the White House Press Corps refused to participate in the interview of a Czar if Fox was excluded! There is hope... once infected by the journalism virus, it apparently is not so easy to expunge it!

The Destruction of a Nation

Membership in As A Mom hit 50,000 today. Fifty thousand Americans, mostly women, though there are a few men, all terrified about what is happening to our country.

This organization has been an incredible, eye-opening experience for me. The personal stories are diverse beyond imagination - we are moms, grandmothers, stepmothers, guardians, women who hope to one day become moms. There are women of every imaginable size, shape and color, from every state in the land, every political party, every walk of life. Women who have gardens and can most of their own food - women who don't know how to boil water.

In all our diversity, there is one common thread. Every one of these fifty thousand women believes that our nation is in mortal danger.

Even before the election, Barack Obama was tearing this country apart. I have read countless stories of grandmothers who can no longer see their grandchildren because they tried to convince their own daughters that this man posed a grave threat to our future. The mothers chose a politician over their own mothers! Military moms are torn between pride in their children and fear that the incompetance in the White House is forcing those children into unbearable situations and risking their lives for a cause that will soon be abandoned. We have black moms who are furious beyond words at the way people of color are being made ever more dependent on the handouts that are destroying them.

Moms are teaching other moms how to prepare for Armageddon - what to stock up on, how to store it, even discussing building fallout shelters. The fear is everywhere. The pleas for someone to tell them what to do, how to change things, how to stop this collision with disaster are the conversation threads with the most responses. Every new news item brings a new chorus of "What are we going to do?" Every day reveals a new threat, a new cause, a new worry that our freedom is being stolen from us in ever bigger grabs. There are so many perceived threats it is impossible even to remember them all, much less fight them.

Against all odds, this little gathering of women is networking, sharing knowledge, advising those who seek it, posing and debating ideas and plans of attack. Many turn to God, certain that He will provide - while others advocate upping the ante through civil disobedience...or perhaps worse? Always left unspoken is the thought that the day of armed resistance may be approaching. So many of these women have never given politics more than a passing thought in their lives, but are now prepared to do whatever it takes to defend the nation they never realized they loved. There are those who are confident - real pioneer spirits - who are prepared, who could live indefinitely off their stockpiles and their land, and there are those who no longer sleep and can barely eat because their fear has overwhelmed them.

If anyone had told me a year ago that I would be part of such a group, I would likely have laughed at them. Now, I wish our numbers were 100 times what they are.

My mind keeps going back to the Anbar Awakening in Iraq. The turning point in the war there - the moment when the citizens collectively stood up and said, "Enough!" Finally, Americans are standing up and saying the same. It feels like a wildfire from my perspective, spreading out of control across the nation, and it is the best thing that has happened in this country in my lifetime. In the face of the greatest potential for destruction that our nation has ever faced, the American spirit is shining through. We still lack organization, and many of our members are very uneducated on the issues, but with each passing day more join our ranks and we become a bit more of a force, more determined and better prepared to prevent the destruction of our nation.

Perhaps Glenn Beck is right. Perhaps it will be the Moms who save us after all.

Be afraid, America. Be very afraid.

More Sanity from Bob "Thomas Paine" Basso

Just Doodlin'

Well, hello again my conservative friends. How are you today? I hope everything is going well for you.
I went to my dermatologist on Tuesday afternoon and she removed a few cacti that were protruding from various places on my upper body and I'm hurting a little. April has been wonderful helping me remove and replace the bandages.
This might be a little weird, but it reminds me of our government. There are a few, actually quite a few, malignant growths in congress and, if, they could be surgically removed, the rest of the body would be better. We can surgically remove those cacti from the governing body by surgically voting for the opposite member. It's unfortuante that there is only one other party for which one can vote, isn't it? I don't know how many of you out there can remember Dave Garaway on the "tonight" show, but he had a comedian on one night around election time and this comedian was putting on a spoof about a man from the moon and an earthlig talking about the candidates. The comedian asked the man in the moom how many candidtes there were for the office on the moon and the response was 56. Wow!!! 56??? Yes, earthling, how many do you have? The answer, of course was 2. 2??? How can you get by with 2? What happens if you don't like either one??? What does happen if you don't like either one? It seems we vote for the one we dislike the least. What a sorry state of affairs. We can't change that by 2010, but we can start working on it. We can have the liberal democrats, the moderate republicans, and the conservative Constitutionalists. Wow, that's a mouthful. But, think about it. The rinos are more liberal than JFK was when he ran as a democrat.
What is happening to our country? I am outraged, but I don't want to beat that to death. We need to do everything we can do to win our country back. Write and call your representatives. Attend Town Hall meetings. Go to rallys. Sign petitions. Call you neighbors. Enlist the aid of all those on your email list to support the true constitutionalists in your area. Most importantly, VOTE!!! Talk to you soon, jc.

Still more on the march

I've resisted the urge to post so many videos, but this one is really something special.

As A Mom...nears 25,000 members!

And has spawned a partner site - As A Dad! Nothing going on there yet, but we can fix that! Come on, Dads, Stepdads, Granddads and others...sign up!

UPDATE: As A Mom...now near 45,000 members! Groups are forming, plans are being made. The Moms will take back America!

Just received this email from As A Mom...

Subj.: On As A Mom...: chat is temprarily turned off .

A message to all members of As A Mom...

we have over 10,000 members trying to get approval chat was eating bandwidth .
will be turned back on after we get this list widdled down a bit .

thank for you patience
Mary C
Groups Moderator/tech support

Visit As A Mom... at: http://asamom.ning.com

--
To control which emails you receive on As A Mom..., go to:
http://asamom.ning.com/profiles/profile/emailSettings

It is a good day for America.

Can you feel it?

Almost smell it in the air?

Today was a very good day for America.

This has been a very, very good week for America.

The momentum is beginning to shift. The Olympics loss was a huge blow for Obama and the White House at large (particularly Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and, of course, Michelle my Belle...who could ask for anything more?). After all their sacrifice, and the prodigious carbon footprint their jaunts (plural, they flew separately) loosed upon the poor, defenseless Earth, they didn't even get a bronze. They were dead last. It is not possible to be more last than they were. The world has utterly rejected the messiah...he no longer warrants initial caps.

The Moms group is what I have been looking for - for a very long time - but I didn't know it. I have spent countless hours crawling around conservative forums, looking for a cause...an aging rebel with so much information to share, and no one to talk to who doesn't already know all of it.

For the last month or so, I've been trying to figure out how to reach out to women. More than 50% of women are Democrats. This is illogical. Well more than 50% of women are mothers, the vast majority of them good, loving mothers. They care deeply about their children and the future. If they understood what Democrats stood for, there is no possible way they could support the dismal future continued progressive rule would bring. The only possible explanation is that they are uninformed. This I can handle.

There are more than 9,400 members in the As A Mom... group now. They are reading my blogs, watching my videos, asking me questions. I have found my niche.

There are many other well-informed, passionate and engaged women there, also sharing their knowledge. The range of topics is wonderful, the depth of understanding impressive. This is going to make a difference. A big difference.

Beck is after Valerie Jarrett now. The White House is badly wounded and losing influence on every front. We are gaining in strength, knowledge, determination and number. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

We have to redouble our efforts. The message is starting to penetrate, despite the dearth of media coverage. We have thirteen months until the election - there is no limit to what we can accomplish!

And we have thousands (9881 now!) of motivated, hungry, excited recruits. I was in chat on there tonight, mocking Dear Leader, leading chants of FIRED UP! READY TO GO! They are. Like you can't imagine.

This is a very good day for America.

I am a bad, terrible person

But I just can't get enough of this screen.

Let this be our battle cry

This is perhaps the most amazing video I have ever seen.



Every American needs to see this video. Share it everywhere!

This is very, very good. Very.

Did I say very?

As A Mom...

Glenn Beck is featuring Moms prominently in the fight to take back our country, and the Moms are stepping up! I joined As A Mom... Wednesday night, when there were a few hundred members. There are now almost 6,000, and it's growing by leaps and bounds.

There are groups for special interests and individual states. We have moms, stepmoms, grandmoms, Mr. Moms, foster moms and mom wanna-bes. We have moms in every size, shape and color, with one common thread that runs through us all: We love our kids and our country, and want both to have wonderful futures.

These moms are already making huge contributions to each other, giving advice, sharing stories, giving each other strength. It's a beautiful thing to behold.

We have also started Facebook groups, national and some states...not sure what all is out there right now. I'm an admin on the national group...since Beck went on the air, I've approved about 20 requests to join.

Finally, someone has given women some recognition and respect, and they are running with it. They are planning a Million Mom March on D.C. next year - wanted to do it on Mother's Day weekend, but cannot get a permit for that weekend. The National Park Service is being very uncooperative, so one of the moms is going to go visit them in person and put them in time out! We will have a march, and it will be a thing of beauty!

Tell every mom you know...and then get out of our way!

The lightning strike picture of Corcovado is beautiful!

Up close it is touristas, antennas and missing tiles!

Drudge "strikes" again

Still above the banner headline "THE EGO HAS LANDED," Drudge has updated the picture:



For those of you who aren't as twisted as Matt and I, this is, I believe, the 125-foot statue of Jesus in Rio de Janeiro, being struck by lightning. The symbolism, of course, is that Rio, and it's "oh-so-appalling-to-the-left" religious sculpture, have struck down the left's Messiah like a bolt of lightning. Just fabulous!

Now here's some indoctrination I can support!

Matt Drudge gets it

CHICAGO OUT IN FIRST ROUND!

Behold the downfall of Dear Leader!

Kansas Citians always were pushy

Obama Nation Billboard Draws Attention
New Sign Along I-70 Has Motorists Talking

BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. -- Drivers on Interstate 70 can barely see the billboard but once they do the message has been gaining attention.
The billboard is located along I-70 between the Adams Dairy Parkway and the Grain Valley exits. The billboard reads, "How do you like your change now? Obama Nation. They are coming for you! The Taxpayer. First and Second Amendments are in jeopardy. Live free or Die." There is also a hammer and sickle on the sign.
People said they might not agree with the sentiment of the sign, but they felt it was a matter of free speech. Others that KCTV5 talked to said it is offensive and should come down.
A pastor who drives by the sign during his daily commute to his church said he lived in England for years and he agreed with the message.
"We lived in a socialist society and I guess what I am seeing in America is that we are pushing to some of those ways now," he said. "Especially the hospitalization. It's taken away some of our freedoms as Americans."
KCTV5 could not reach the owner of the billboard. The mayor of Blue Springs said his office has gotten calls and e-mails about the sign.

Just Doodlin'

I've been listening to our favorite radio personalities and am aghast at the tricks the dems might be able to play to get the health care bill in as an amendment to a bill that they've been sitting on just for this purpose. If they make it an amendment to a bill that's already been approved, THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO VOTE ON IT!!! What the hell is going on with these rotten bastards? Our country is going down the toilet and those elected officials in DC that are supposed to be working for us are fiddling while the USA burns. Couple this with cap & trade and that old joke about the 2 line incometax return will have been correct...

Line 1. Income?
Line 2. Send it in.

I have been writing and faxing and calling and so far, I can't feel comfortable that I've done a damn thing. I can only take a little comfort in knowing that I tried. That won't do me any good when Social Security and Medicare dry up. I do know this, my grandfather told me never to trust a democrat. I never have. But, unfortunately others do. I can't imagine how those people think. I can't imagine that the people who voted for Obowma don't feel cheated. They must perceive by now that he is doing everything he can to make this a socialist country at best and a faschist country at worst. He is glorifying himself with symbols and songs and poems. Don't you believe for one minute that he didn't have somthing to do with this idiosy that's going on in classrooms all over the country. Burlington, NJ was just the first one to get caught. The man is a sociopath. We are in danger, Will Robinson.......

Call, write, fax, email, stand on your desk and scream, but make sure those low life bastards in Washington know that: We're mad as hell and we aren't going to take it anymore! jc

More from the Young Cons

My old ears can't keep up...lyrics are here.



Apologies for the width - this was their narrowest option.

Memories

There are no words

How the Mighty have fallen

It's a pretty pathetic state of affairs when the French are scoffing at us for being yellow. I was going to excerpt this story, but just couldn't find a place where I was willing to stop...

Sarkozy's Contempt for Obama
By Jack Kelly

The contempt with which the president of France regards the president of the United States was displayed in public last week.

Nicolas Sarkozy was furious with Barack Obama for his adolescent warbling about a world without nuclear weapons at a meeting Mr. Obama chaired of the United Nations Security Council last Thursday (9/24).

"We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth," President Obama said.

What infuriated President Sarkozy was that at the time Mr. Obama said those words, Mr. Obama knew the mullahs in Iran had a secret nuclear weapons development site, and he didn't call them on it.

‘President Obama dreams of a world without weapons...but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite," Mr. Sarkozy said.

"Iran since 2005 has flouted five Security Council resolutions," Mr. Sarkozy said. "North Korea has been defying Council resolutions since 1993."

"What good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community?" he asked rhetorically. "More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe out a UN member state off the map."

If the Security Council had imposed serious sanctions on the regimes which are flouting UN resolutions, the resolution Mr. Obama proposed about working toward nuclear disarmament wouldn't have been so meaningless, Mr. Sarkozy implied.

"If we have courage to impose sanctions together it will lend viability to our commitment to reduce or own weapons and to making a world without nuke weapons," he said.

The extent of President Obama's naivete - or duplicity - was on display Friday at the G20 summit when the president, flanked by Mr. Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, revealed to the American public that Iran had a second nuclear weapons site on a military base near the holy city of Qom.

News reports indicated Mr. Obama had been briefed on the site before his inauguration. But he's been conducting his foreign policy as if the mullahs could be trusted.

"Iran has been put on notice," President Obama said in Pittsburgh.

Iran responded to being "put on notice" by testing Monday two ballistic missiles that could carry a nuclear warhead 1,200 miles.

It was to protect Europe from such missiles that the ABM system President Obama abruptly cancelled earlier this month was designed.

Obama administration officials said the ABM cancellation - regarded as a betrayal by Poland and the Czech Republic, where the missiles and radars were to be located - actually improved U.S. security, because it has made Russia more amenable to sanctions against Iran.

The UN Security Council has never passed strong sanctions against Iran because Russia and China have vetoed them. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he still doesn't like economic sanctions, but will support them if diplomacy fails. China remains opposed.

President Obama shouldn't count on Russian support, said Soviet expert David Satter.

"Words are cheap for the Kremlin and the Iranians are aware of this," he said. "The Russians, having endorsed sanctions, will now find hundreds of reasons why any specific sanctions package is unfair...The reason is that support for Iran is Russia's most important trump card in foreign relations and there is little likelihood they will give it up."

Iran has been put on notice before. At the G8 meeting in Italy in July, Mr. Obama and other leaders set a "firm deadline" of Sep. 10 for the Iranians to make a serious offer to negotiate about their nuclear program. When the mullahs blew him off, Mr. Obama quietly extended the deadline until December.

December could be too late. "Tehran soon could have humankind's most frightening weapon if substantial diplomatic progress is not made in the coming days," Rep. Howard Berman (D-Cal), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Saturday (9/26).

If severe economic sanctions are not imposed immediately, in months if not in weeks, only a military strike will b e able to prevent an Iranian bomb.

But after sternly lecturing Iran on its international obligations Friday, President Obama didn't call for sanctions. He called for more negotiations. And then, as the Iranians were spitting in his eye with the missile test, he jetted off to Copenhagen to lobby to have the 2016 Olympics held in Chicago.

No wonder Nicolas Sarkozy holds him in contempt.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg

Wesley Pruden, editor emeritus of the Washington Times, takes a sobering look at Dear Leader.

Reality bites Obama's 'West Wing'

The White House is a risky place for on-the-job training, as Barack Obama and the rest of us are learning. But the president doesn't deserve all the blame for the installation of a handsome but unprepared matinee idol in the toughest job in the world. The adoring cult, the 53 percent of the giddily oblivious electorate that took a flyer on Election Day, deserves most of it.

Matinee idols only do what matinee idols do, look pretty and inveigle softly with practiced seductiveness. Trouble arrives when the matinee idol and his public confuse role with reality. Reality arrives with the surprise and impact of a lemon-cream pie in the face.

Nasty surprises abound across the real world. Iran completes a third round of testing of Shahab-3 and Sajjil medium-range missiles capable of hitting not only Israel, Eastern Europe and several Middle Eastern countries but, if all that were not sobering enough, several U.S military bases as well. Venezuela boasts that it's working with Russia and Iran in finding sources of uranium, the key ingredient of nuclear weapons technology. China says it will display new "upgraded missiles" in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Red China. India announces that it can now make nuclear weapons up to a strength of 200 kilotons, four times over the line that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty pledges signing nations not to cross.

This is the fine mess Barack Obama told us would never happen if Americans would elect him to soothe the fears of the frightened and bank the ambitions of evildoers of the world. Suddenly, the president has to deal with headaches, a thousand town halls, with hundreds of thousands of angry bigots, racists and Nazis of hysterical liberal imagination jeering his scheme to take over the health care of the nation, never prepared him for. He's got headaches no speechwriter can cure.

There's a good deal more at the link, and, while it's well worth the read, it doesn't come close to enumerating all the troubles about to befall the White House.

The upside-down foreign policy practiced by the Kumbaya King is about to come crashing down on all our heads. In every instance, this administration has taken the wrong side. The tasteless gifts and obvious snubs to Britain, the bow to the Saudi king, the letter to the wrong president of France were just the beginning. Obama and his idiots have placed us squarely on the wrong side of every conflict - Iran, Honduras, Israel/Palestine - as he seeks to lift and legitimize every despot and dictator at the expense of our allies. If he has the opportunity to do real harm, as in Poland and the Czech Republic, he embraces it. If not, insults, even Arabic insults (showing the soles of his shoes during a conversation with Netanyahu), suffice for the time being. Obama and his party have glorified and strengthened the Castros, Chavez, Putin, Ahmadi-Nejad and Zelaya while denouncing, humiliating or dismissing almost every ally we have.

What's more, President Hopenchange is stalling on Afghanistan for purely political reasons. So intent is he on his socialist takeover of our healthcare industry, he will not spend what little remaining political capital he has with his own party on doing the right thing for the men and women who are risking their lives in what he used to claim was the important war. Not only is he not properly managing American involvement, he is working hard to offend most of the allies who have, for eight years now, endured the slings and arrows of their own constituents to stand by us in the battle. Why would Poland continue to risk lives in Afghanistan? Soon enough they can expect to need their forces at home, though they have little hope of resisting the onslaught that will surely come from Russia.

It does not take a foreign policy expert to know that alliances between Russia, Iran and Venezuela are not in the best interest of these United States. With a little help from China, and the continuing economic foolishness of Washington, they will destroy us without firing a shot. They have the power to destroy our currency and, with it, what remains of our tattered economy.

Millions of ordinary American citizens are standing up against this onslaught of ignorance that is clearly annihilating our nation - and being called fringe groups and domestic terrorists for sounding the alarm. In the span of slightly more than eight months, a handful of fools are systematically dismantling what millions have spent two centuries building and we're supposed to sit quietly by, holding our tongues as all we hold dear is shredded. No responsible citizen, however pacifist, can be expected to deny their own self-interest and their children's futures for even a good cause, much less the suidical course we find ourselves following. Is it any wonder they're afraid of the threat from within?

Questions for Obama and Congress

What do you see as the end game?

Seriously. What do you think is going to happen here?

In response to your ever increasing intrusions into every aspect of our lives and your constant bullying and belittling of our values and convictions, we continue to step up our response. With each new unconstitutional measure that you attempt to stuff down our throats, despite majority opposition, our ranks grow and we become more determined.

So where do you expect this to end?

Do you honestly believe that by becoming more and more overbearing and by unleashing your union and community organizing buddies to try to intimidate us that you can make us all go away? Do you think we're that shallow?

Do you suppose that you can use your pawns in the fringe media to marginalize us? Do you really think that our friends and neighbors will accept the description of the New York Times over their own knowledge of our principles and values?

Do you honestly believe that you will win?

Let me give you my answer to these questions, then you can have some time to think about your own.

We will not be silenced. We will not be intimidated. We will not be cowed by lies about our motives or our character. We are not posturing or performing for the cameras - we are fighting for the survival of all that we hold dear. For us, losing is not an option.

Unlike our forefathers, the brilliant patriots who founded this country and crafted the finest Constitution ever known, we have nowhere else to go. There is no frontier left to conquer, no speck of unclaimed land upon which we may begin again, however difficult it may be. There is no country which even remotely compares to this, no system of government which we find palatable except for our own. We built this country with our brains and brawn, we are this country. We have been bred in freedom for too many generations to give it up while we still draw breath. If we lose our liberty, our children's futures, we lose our very reason for existence. Fiercely independent and personally responsible, we would rather perish than condemn ourselves and those we love to lives of oppression.

You seem to think that you can wear us down, that there is some magic number of affronts to our liberty that will force us to throw in the towel. Rest assured there is not. We will resist tyranny forever. There is no amount of fascism or socialism that we consider acceptable - the more you try to force upon us, the more determined we become to throw off that which has been previously accepted.

You say that we are a tiny minority, that our views do not represent the mainstream. What do you know of the mainstream? As you sit in your ivory towers, surrounded by greedy minions who affirm your every pronouncement in hopes of being tossed a crumb, what do you know of real America? As you play your games with our tax dollars, attempting always to amass more power to feed your insatiable egos, what do you know of the travails of the average man?

The outcome of a contest can often be predicted in advance if the goals and motives of the combatants are understood. We are fighting for our very lives - you cannot trump that cause.

We will work tirelessly to see those of you who have forgotten that you are public servants removed from office. For us, there is no option. You, on the other hand, have a choice to make. Will you fulfill your oaths to protect and defend the Constitution which we hold dear, or will you continue to advance your agenda of unsustainable government control and expansion? Will you honestly attempt to serve the best interests of the majority of the people, or will you persist in your attempts to suffocate the very life and spirit from the productive masses? Will you place principle ahead of party, or promote corruption and cronyism? Your answer will determine your fate. Choose wisely.

You see, we cannot accept your chosen course. We cannot succumb to your vision for a transformed nation. We seek only to live our lives in peace and freedom, never to incite violence. But like the founders, we will risk it all to preserve our vision of freedom. Like Patrick Henry, the choice for us is clear. If we can have no liberty, we would prefer death.

Ah, Melanie...I do adore you

Melanie Phillips, author of some of my favorite pre-election editorials, takes Dear Leader to task for his appalling foreign policy record to date. I quote her in entirety here...some things are just too good not to steal.

Who does he think he's kidding?

On Wednesday, Barack Obama addressed the UN. If this was supposed to be a triumphant projection of the wonders of his foreign policy, his timing was singularly unfortunate. It was as if he had unveiled his shiny new bus after the wheels had come off and the engine had fallen out.

His speech set out the approach that we all know by now: soft power, apologising for America, hand of friendship extended to enemies of America, upholding human rights for enemy combatants, desire to channel foreign policy through the club of terror UN, ‘engaging with the world’ and ‘leading by example’ -- particularly by apologising for America. This approach was to be the antidote to the supposed gung-ho militarism of George W Bush. Swords would be beaten into ploughshares, genocidal lunatics would swap recipes and holiday snaps with their erstwhile victims and there would be peace on earth and the brotherhood of man. But we can see that everywhere Obama has applied this policy approach it has failed, humiliating America by revealing it to be weak, incompetent and naive to the point of imbecility and thus strenghtening the enemies of America and the free world.

In the Middle East, his policy has collapsed. Obama’s giant grovel to the Muslim world in Cairo failed to shift any belligerents or impress the rest.

His extended hand of friendship to Iran’s murderous regime had the effect of abandoning those Iranians who are fighting and dying for freedom from tyranny, while failing to stop, delay or in any way deter Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

He made America less safe by abandoning the central European missile defence shield against Iran, showing contempt for Poland and the Czech Republic along the way.

He has rewarded North Korea for its continued belligerency by agreeing to its demand for bilateral talks.

His engagement with Syria has failed to end its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

As far as Israel and the Palestinians are concerned, Obama marched his troops to the top of the hill only to have to march them down again with their tail between their legs. In response to his bullying over the settlements, Israel faced him down by agreeing to a Palestine state; but stipulating that for this to happen the Palestinians must accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. With the Palestinians loudly refusing to do so, thus demonstrating that it is they who refuse to accept a two-state solution, Obama has nevertheless forced ‘peace process’ negotiations to restart between Israel and a Palestinian leadership which refuses to accept the existence of Israel and says there is nothing to discuss. While he grovels to America’s enemies, Obama continues to treat its ally, Israel, as an enemy. As former UN ambassador John Bolton observed:

The most significant point of the speech was how the president put Israel on the chopping block in a variety of references, from calling Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegitimate to talking about ending ‘the occupation that began in 1967.’

On TV Bolton also said:

As I say, I think it’s the most anti-Israel speech I can remember by an American president, and the important thing is, when you have the Palestinians in as a weak of a position as they are now, and to have Barack Obama be their lawyer in effect, puts them in a very strong bargaining place.

Meanwhile, Obama is now dithering disastrously over his own policy in Afghanistan which he is trying to ditch. Having previously announced a ‘surge’ there of more troops he is now refusing to provide them, thus causing a major rift with the American commander in Afghanistan. As the Times reports:

He has now ordered a major review of that very strategy and refused to heed the demand by General Stanley McChrystal, the US ground commander in Afghanistan, for an urgent increase in the number of troops. General McChrystal said that without more forces immediately the war could be lost within 12 months.

The Washington Times cuttingly explains why Obama has produced the ‘worst foreign policy ever’:

Actions in Mr. Obama's world are consequence-free. The only country the Obama team has tried to strong-arm is Honduras, which is desperately trying to stave off a socialist takeover by an anti-American autocrat whom the State Department has concluded is worthy of full U.S. support. This has delighted Cuban dictators Raul and Fidel Castro and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, who are very willing to let the United States carry their water. Venezuela, meanwhile, has signed a major arms deal with Russia, continues to build the anti-Gringo ‘Bolivarian’ bloc, bullies U.S. ally Colombia and plans to launch its own nuclear program.

Then there is the catalogue of Mr. Obama's embarrassing moments on the world stage, a list which includes: giving England's Queen Elizabeth II an iPod with his speeches on it; giving British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a collection of DVDs that were not formatted to the European standard (by contrast, Mr. Brown gave Mr. Obama an ornamental desk-pen holder made from the oak timbers of Victorian anti-slaver HMS Gannet, among other historically significant gifts); calling ‘Austrian’ a language; bowing to the Saudi king; releasing a photo of a conference call with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which the president was showing the soles of his shoes to the camera (an Arab insult); saying ‘let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s’; saying the United States was ‘one of the largest Muslim countries in the world’; suggesting Arabic translators be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan where Arabic is not a native language; sending a letter to French President Jacques Chirac when Nicolas Sarkozy was the president of France; holding a town-hall meeting in France and not calling on a single French citizen; and referring to ‘Cinco de Cuatro’ in front of the Mexican ambassador when he meant Cinco de Mayo. Also of note was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton giving Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a ‘reset’ button with the Russian word for ‘overcharge.’

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so frightening that the leader of the western world, in the face of a war to destroy that world, should be so utterly incompetent and out of his depth. The biggest and most immediate danger, of course, concerns Iran. The US hand of friendship has been spurned. Iran is poised to get the bomb. The question, though, is whether underneath all the boilerplate leftism, the gross naivety and astounding incompetence Obama is -- when push comes to shove -- a pragmatist. His adviser, the appalling bigot Zbigniew Brzezinski, has said the US should shoot down Israeli warplanes should they attack Iran. But as I have remarked before, despite his own manifest distaste for Israel Obama might yet be sweating on Israel doing precisely that. His people say they are acutely aware of the danger that he may be judged by history as the US President who allowed Iran to go nuclear on his watch, with the unconscionable consequences that would follow. As his foreign policy goes belly-up, Obama will have to choose whether to continue with his suicidally idiotic approach or dramatically switch course.

We will soon know whether pragmatist Obama will win over ideologue Obama. Meanwhile, however, America’s 44th President is fast turning into a lethal joke. Iran, North Korea and Russia are laughing. Those who fear for the future of the free world are shuddering, aghast.

Positively poetic, madam.

IBD Agrees

That Pelosi is dangerously hypocritical. And they say it a bit more artfully than I did (no pun intended).

Thugs, Tea Parties And Treacle

Politics: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi berated town hall and tea party protesters this month, tearfully warning they'd incite violence. Well, there's been violence all right, at Pittsburgh's G-20. But it wasn't the tea partiers.

It takes gall to characterize ordinary Americans, freely exercising their rights of speech and assembly in civic forums, as "mobs" while ignoring a pack of leftist thugs now smashing a U.S. city. But that's what Pelosi did, directing her righteous tocsin to the Norman Rockwell-like gatherings of Americans who opposed her expansion of government this past summer.

"I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw ... I saw this myself in the late '70s in San Francisco," Pelosi said, choking up, her eyes brimming with tears.

"This kind of rhetoric is just, is really frightening and it created a climate in which we, violence took place and ... I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made," she told a congressional forum Sept. 17 in a bid to silence peaceful protesters.

Scroll ahead one week to the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh: Some 1,000 hooded rioters descend on the city waving signs such as "Smash the G-20" and "Eat the Rich." Many take "direct action" to "challenge capitalism" in what organizers brazenly call an "unpermitted protest."

Unlike the town hall citizens, they didn't "hurl" statements — just tire irons, bricks and rocks, in an effort to damage private businesses.

"Sometimes you just got to say f--- it and get down," read a Web statement by the organizers "Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project," making no secret of their intent to wreak mayhem.

"Despite the use of rubber bullets, chemical weapons, and LRAD (noise) attacks, demonstrators remained on the streets for hours and actions continue across the city," the group's press release read.

By that they meant attacks on 13 pre-picked Starbucks stores, a Whole Foods, an American Apparel, a Trader Joe's, U.S. military recruiting stations, check-cashing outlets, 13 PNC bank outlets and other institutions, all conveniently listed as possibilities on a Google map. Many of these places saw smashed windows and graffiti attacks after they turned up on the blacklist.

This kind of violence is nothing new. It was found in Seattle in 1999, where former Obama administration green czar Van Jones got himself arrested. It was repeated at other summits in Turin, Italy; Washington, D.C.; and London. These leftists detest capitalism, abhor private property — and have ties to the Democratic Party.

The unwillingness of the Democratic establishment to defend free markets emboldens the rioters. In destroying private property and impeding trade, these anarchists prove their aims aren't democratic. They resemble the mobs of Castro's Cuba who engage in violence against citizens to enforce conformity.

The outrage of it all raises questions about Pelosi's real agenda in her one-sided criticism of tea partiers. By criticizing only tea partiers and ignoring rampant thugs, she seeks to repress peaceful dissent. With that setup, it's no surprise that there's a mudslide of violence now rolling down on us from an energized radical left.

What racism?

With all the claims of racist being tossed around, some are saying that President Obama may be setting race relations backward in the U.S.

I think the opposite may be true.

After last November's election, pollsters said the "black community" voted 95% for Obama. Many accused the "black community" of being concerned only with skin pigment, and said that fact alone hurt race relations.

May I opine?

In the first place, what exactly is the "black community"? Do you remember the Harper Lee book, To Kill A Mockingbird? As I recall, at one point in the book, one of the characters said words to the effect that if a person has one drop of Negro blood in their veins, that makes them a Negro. Is that how we identify the "black community? today?

Even if you believe in the pollsters who surely drew blood and searched for that one drop, I don't think the strong African-American support for Barack Obama means much more than the bleacher-bound football fan screaming enthusiastically "We won!" But, if the 95% number is correct, what about the other 5%?

Yeah, what about them? Thanks to the Obama generated controversy many white Americans are hearing about (and from) them, and listening to them, for the first time. The large number (even if a small 5%) have spoken out in a way that has made many white people fully understand the depth of intelligence, awareness, logic, - help me fill in more laudatory adjectives - of many African-Americans.

I am a little reluctant to start naming names, because I know I can't remember them all. Still, I must mention Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Walter Williams, Ken Blackwell... and the women... Star Parker, Deneen Borelli, and all the others.

And, you know something? I question if any of these great and wise Americans have any ties to Africa, so why do we make a point of calling them African-Americans? You look at their photographs and sometimes you can't tell if they even have that one drop.

These men and women are demonstrating the wonderful truth that being an American has nothing to do with ethnicity, race, ancestral origin, or anything other than spirit and character. And I believe they are improving race relations beyond anything the social engineers have ever accomplished.

As athletes and musicians have proven for decades, when you truly admire someone, none of that race, religion or color baloney means a damn thing. Thanks, Barack, for arousing these admirable Americans and motivating them to speak out against your flawed policies.

Ledeen: Iranian leaders "dead men walking"

Michael Ledeen has a number of recent posts on his blog, Faster, Please!, indicating that the fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran is imminent. There's far too much to post here, but click over and give it a read...best news I've seen in days.

A Hat Tip to...Barney Frank?

Good ol' Barney, the primary facilitator of the subprime mortagage debacle which is largely to blame for our current economic crisis. One of the biggest problems in Congress today. Bet you never thought you'd hear me praise him, huh?

Well, perhaps pigs are flying. Or hell has frozen over. But, at least on the surface, it appears that Barney is on the right, er, correct side of an important issue...ACORN. John Fund explains.

Ex-Friends of Acorn
Acorn twisting in the wind.

It was a bad news day yesterday for the community organizers at Acorn, now caught up in Day 15 of a burgeoning scandal that has seen the group condemned by Congress and its financial records subpoenaed by Louisiana's Democratic attorney general.

Last night, the Internal Revenue Service severed its ties with Acorn, which had been an IRS partner in providing low-income workers with tax preparation assistance.

But the real body blow came when Rep. Barney Frank abruptly threw Acorn under the bus, telling Fox News: "I think they have forfeited their right to get [federal] funds."

Mr. Frank said he had been incorrectly quoted previously as saying he would have voted against a motion last week cutting off the group's access to the federal gravy train. He couldn't resist a partisan jab, however, noting that Acorn had received $14.2 million in federal housing funds during the Bush administration -- a fair point.

Mr. Frank also appeared unsympathetic to Acorn's latest attempt to change the subject, a lawsuit filed yesterday against two filmmakers who had videotaped Acorn employees in several cities offering tax evasion advice to a supposed prostitution ring. The suit alleges the filmmakers and news site Breitbart.com violated a local law banning unauthorized taping of individuals. Legal analysts largely panned the case, noting that Acorn had filed the lawsuit jointly with two former Maryland Acorn employees who had previously been fired for the behavior caught on the videotape

Mr. Frank had no comment on the merits of the suit, but did offer this pithy summary: "People have said, 'Well, the sting [against Acorn] is terrible.' I will tell people there is a great defense against being stung. Don't do the kind of things that put you on television."

Great start. Now how about some sanity in the health and energy arenas?

Mr. Gaffney, you are much too kind

Frank Gaffney in the Washington Times:

The Obama doctrine
Capitulation sugarcoated with smart words

Undermine our allies. Embolden our enemies. Diminish our country.

Those nine words define the Obama doctrine with respect to American security policy. All three elements were much in evidence in the president's benighted decision last week to cancel the "third site" for intercontinental-range missile defenses in Eastern Europe. They will be on display as well during this week's several conclaves with foreign leaders.

The cumulative effect is predictable: A world in which the United States has fewer friends, more enemies and fewer options for assuring its security.

[snip]

Make no mistake: With such steps, Mr. Obama is systematically diminishing the United States, effecting its transformation from what was once called "the world's only superpower" to a nation subordinated to the demands of international consensus, organizations, "peer competitors" and even rogue states.

[snip]

Saul Alinsky would be proud.

The rest can be found here, and it is well worth the click.