tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54953159793036322012024-02-08T06:17:19.323-08:00A Patriot's History of the United States"A fluid account of America from the discovery of the Continent to the present day.." --The Wall Street JournalUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-8713145926690019522009-09-17T11:24:00.000-07:002009-09-17T11:43:45.563-07:00Great newsWhenever I have gone out to speak, one of the most common questions we get is, "When are you going to write a "Junior Patriot's History of the United States?" Well, it's under way. Mike Allen and I have contracted with writer Tony Williams to produce a 7th-8th grade level version of PHUSA. It will be self-published and we will have it out within the year. It will contain teacher questions, maps, and sources. <br /><br />Also, My most recent book, <span style="font-style:italic;">American Entrepreneur</span>, which is a history of American business, is now available from Amacom Press: <img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517YJVkWgUL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg">. This is an update and revision of my 2000 book, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Entrepreneurial Adventure</span> but in a trade version. (EA was a textbook and as such was very expensive and was not available in bookstores).<br /><br />Finally, <span style="font-style:italic;">48 Liberal Lies</span> is now out in paperback with a bonus lie about Alger Hiss.<br /><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51J7GBOK6dL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg"> <br /><br />All in all, a pretty good week.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-27445142533328591922009-09-11T09:20:00.001-07:002009-09-17T12:07:08.749-07:00Maybe Rudeness Has Its PlaceThe buzz over SC Congressman Joe Wilson's outburst during a speech to a joint session of Congress ("You lie," when Obama said that illegals wouldn't be covered in the health non-care bill) has even some on the "right" saying, "well, he's rude, but right."<br /><br />I had a wonderful lunch and discussion with a local entrepreneur and Republican who said he "cringed" when Wilson spoke up. "They'll just have more to attack us with," he said. I noted that they don't need anything to "hit us with," they lie all the time anyway. Moreover, as I now preach to every Republican audience I can find, the GOP has played nice for far too long. I'm sick to death of McCain-type reach-across-the-aisle politics. I'm ready for political combat.<br /><br />Now, I understand this is really tough for some of you. For some Christians, this seems to violate the "turn the other cheek" commandment; and shouldn't we just love our enemies? Well, a) we dun turned both cheeks and then some, and b) that love is to be extended on a personal basis. But this is politics, and Jesus kept them separate. Would Jesus have shouted "You lie!" if one of the Chief Priests had stated something blatantly false? Absolutely. He called them vipers.<br /><br />Our model for how to proceed in politics needs to be Saul Alinsky, not the Christ. Alinsky got it. So did Abbie Hoffman. Hoffman said when they occupied a college building, they'd issue a list of demands. When the administration met the demands, they'd just issue a new list. <em>It wasn't about the demands! It was about demonstrating political power toward breaking down the entire structure.</em> As I suggested a week ago, we need to get radical in terms of deconstructing the entire government bureaucracy. It needs to be a multi-front assault. <br /><br />Those like my friend who abhor "bare knuckle" politics would do well to look at the Founders. Oh, they tried to reach across the aisle for almost a decade. They appealed to the King. (No go). Then they appealed to Parliament (sound of crickets chirping). Finally they went straight to the British people. (No dice). At that point, Tom Paine said "tis time to separate," and Patrick Henry said it was either liberty or death. One of the most even-tempered and concessionary of the Founders, George Washington, grimly and reluctantly---but with murderous effectiveness---took up command of the Continental Army. John Adams, no stranger to a musket, took up his pen. Hamilton and Madison strapped on their sabers. Even the <em>Reverend Witherspoon </em>took off his collar and brought out his musket.<br /><br />When the opposition ceases to listen to you, and imposes unpopular and dangerous laws that threaten your purse and your life, Jefferson said, you have a duty to resist. We need more Joe Wilsons. ALL OF THE GOP MEMBERS SHOULD HAVE WALKED OUT OF THAT SPEECH. Because if the Republicans soon don't pay attention to the people, they will end up like the Tories after Lexington and Concord. Oh, and Jesus said, I think, that you were either with Him or against Him. We are rapidly getting that point with our elected plutocrats.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-80264772469312757652009-09-06T05:04:00.000-07:002009-09-06T05:29:41.703-07:00The New Media TriumphantFor those who remember the heady days of the Clinton scandal, when a single, virtually unknown internet site, www.drudgereport.com, pried open the Lewinsky affair and with it, Clinton's obstruction of justice, a replay has just been put up on the big screen in the endzone.<br /><br />FOX News, and specifically Glenn Beck, has almost single-handedly exposed "Green jobs czar" Van Jones as the radical communist America-hater he is, and forced his resignation. Even the Huffington-Puffington Post admitted Beck had his "first scalp on the wall." If Drudge was the "300 pound gorilla" in the mid-1990s with his ability to break news no one else could get, Beck has become the exposer-in-chief of the conservative movement in exile.<br /><br />Two facts are shocking about this Jones debacle:<br />*Number of words dedicated to Van Jones, last week, according to Byron York of the Washington Examiner (as of 9/5):<br /> Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the New York Times: 0.<br /> Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the Washington Post: 0.<br /> Total words about the Van Jones controversy on NBC Nightly News: 0.<br /> Total words about the Van Jones controversy on ABC World News: 0.<br /> Total words about the Van Jones controversy on CBS Evening News: 0.<br />*Number of calls for Van Jones to resign by major Republican officials:<br /> John McCain: 0<br /> Mitt Romney: 0<br /> Mike Huckabee: 0 (that I know of---perhaps he said something on his TV show, but I can't find a headline)<br /> John Boehner: 0<br /> Orin Hatch: 0 (but he had time to write a song honoring Ted Kennedy)<br /> Michael Steele: 0<br /> David Brooks: 0<br /><br />(Perhaps I'm wrong here, also, but I can't find that Sarah Palin issued a statement saying he needed to resign. On facebook, she urged her fans to watch Glenn Beck's show, but made no official comment last week on Jones).<br /><br />Now, these are stunning numbers. In my recent memory, it's <span style="font-style:italic;">the first time ever</span> that a major official in any administration has been forced to resign from a grass-roots movement, with no coverage or support <span style="font-style:italic;">at all</span> in the national press except FOX; and without the slightest pressure from the so-called opposition party. Rush was away last week, and guest-host Mark Steyn hit this pretty hard, though certainly not like Glenn Beck did. Beck is emerging as public enemy number one for the Left. <br /><br />What does this mean for the Tea Parties/Townhalls? <span style="font-style:italic;">MUCHO!<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span> (Little Spanish lingo there for all you illegal aliens). It means that increasingly, the grass roots is making a Gulf-War-type flanking maneuver around the entrenched obsolete Saddam line of the media <span style="font-style:italic;">and Washington</span> elites. I can't emphasize that enough: no major Republican officials, elected or wanna-be office holders, were out front on this guy. The people, through <span style="font-style:italic;">their</span> media, are increasingly shaping policy.<br /><br />The upcoming "march on Washington" may, or may not, be a Martin Luther King-type moment, but the reality is that even among activist conservatives, they still have to work and raise families and cannot just hop off to any protest they choose to attend. My guess is that whatever the numbers on September 12, they will wildly understate the real support that is growing out here for change, and not the "hopey" stuff promised by the occupant of the Oval Office. Even John McCain, a little slow on the trigger these days, said there is a "revolution" brewing; yet even McCain continues to ignore its concerns as he announces he wants to revive amnesty. <br /><br />If I have to guess, as of 9/6/09, whether we get a "health care" bill, my guess is yes. I don't know, yet, if it contains the "public option," but I do know that it will spark an even greater resentment among the tea parties, while eating into more of Obama's support among those who wanted to "just give him a chance." Well, they are seeing what happens when they give him a chance: he appoints America-hating radicals to give away their money!LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-65279385186713458122009-08-27T05:56:00.000-07:002009-08-27T06:14:49.366-07:00A Radical Approach to RestorationFolks, it's time we all realize something: government grows. That's what it does. We have this gauzed-lens view of the Founders like they were "small government" types. George Washington's first act was to create THREE new "cabinet level positions." Well, of course, there was no cabinet at the time. But did he think, "Gee, this will really increase the size and scope of government?" No, he thought, "We have problems and I need some help." Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Small Government, engaged the first American war overseas (and with darn good reason) and tasked his Secretary of the Treasury to create a massive "highways" bill (we'd call it, pork) that came in at about the size of the <span style="font-style:italic;">entire federal budget</span>.<br /><br />Now, look: I'm not bashing the Founders. I'm trying to show that even with the most cautious men, with the best of intentions, government takes on a life of its own, with its own "necessities" and things done "in the public interest." I think Madison said something to the effect that leaders can always come up with a reason to do what they want to do.<br /><br />Recently with the Obama near-dictatorship, there has been growing and renewed interest in the Constitution. That's admirable, but it was the Constitution that allowed Washington to add cabinets, Jefferson to try to pass a massive spending bill (it was defeated), Andrew Jackson to issue more vetoes than all previous presidents (thereby GREATLY expanding the power of the president), and so on. The problem is not the Constitution---the problem is that government's nature is to grow, and unless actively, deliberately checked at all times, it <span style="font-style:italic;">will</span> grow. The Founders thought that merely the presence of "checks and balances" would constrain it, but that has not proven so, unless those checks and balances are energized and activated by people whose overriding concern at all times is to restrain and reduce the power of government in people's lives.<br /><br />Therefore, I suggest a radical approach to restoring the intentions of the Founders. Whoever hopes to deal with this on our side must absolutely have a blueprint and a strategy for actually reducing or curtailing government. It must be clever. For all Reagan's greatness, saying "I'll cut the Department of Energy and the Department of Education" was not subtle, and was stillborn.<br /><br />Observe Obama. Notice how his radical crew already had the <span style="font-style:italic;">health care bill written</span> before they came into office. These radicals have been planning for this moment for decades! Well, this is the same attitude conservatives must have for "our" time. It must be even more thoroughgoing and deliberate than the "Contract With America." <br /><br />Say, for the sake of argument, Sarah Palin is the candidate in 2012 and wins. It's not enough that she says, "I'll veto any big spending or unconstitutional bills." At best, that is status quo, with monster government. There needs to be an activist, smart plan for a) consolidating almost all government functions into fewer agencies, then b) already having in place plans for reducing those agencies by the time the others "arrive." Thus, one by one the bureaucrats find themselves with, as the Japanese say, "window jobs" where they are dead ended and do no work. <br /><br />"But LS," you say, "many of them don't work now." Well, unfortunately, wrong. They do work, and every scrap of paper they generate is another slice of our liberty that disappears. The # of pages in the federal register has exploded. So one of the first things you have to do is to STOP THEM FROM WORKING. I don't know the full strategy yet, but one idea might be an immediate freeze on all non-defense activities. Yeah, that would screw up a lot, and a lot of people would be angry, and that's why you have to have the plan in place LONG before you get elected. Like Obama and his henchmen now, they intend to ride out the town halls and tea parties and pass health non-care no matter what the people want, then check back in two years. People do forget. <br /><br />Here's an even better idea: pass a law immediately upon taking control of Congress that instantly limits all congressmen and senators to . . . TWO STAFFERS! Imagine what a phenomenal impact that would have on our country! Who do you think wrote that stupid health non-care bill? It wasn't Pelosi or Reid. It was the staffers. Make the legislators answer their own damn phones and meet with their own constituents. If nothing else, they wouldn't have time to screw up our lives.<br /><br />Whatever the solutions, conservatives better figure out that citing the Constitution and hoping for restraint on the part of un-elected officials is simply not an option. We need a radical approach to restoration that involves a carefully crafted pre-strategy that is aggressively followed immediately. Think of Reagan: he knew that crushing inflation would cause a temporary recession, and yet did it quickly with enough time to ride it out. By 1986, he even got a GOP Senate after the results came in. Liberty requires not JUST vigilance, but occasionally, a little action.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-48954703350925303002009-08-24T02:46:00.000-07:002009-08-24T03:06:27.188-07:00Woodstock at 40 . . . er, wait, is it 40 already?The 40th anniversary of Woodstock passed last week and, I know, a number of conservatives are saying, "Yeah? So what? Just a bunch of (quoting my mentor Rush Limbaugh) maggot-infested, dope-smoking, plastic banana, good-time rock and rollers." First, Rush says that in jest: I hope you conservatives realize that he is a former DJ with great love for the music of the 60s and early 70s, who can quote the artist, date, and probably label of every hit in those years. Another staunch conservative, former Congressman from AZ, J.D. Hayworth, was also a DJ and sports announcer in Phoenix, and a third, the late Sonny Bono, not only listened to rock regularly, b<span style="font-style:italic;">ut we still listen to <span style="font-weight:bold;">his</span> music</span>!
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<br />I will come out of the closet: I was a rocker! I played for about 10 years, 4 of them on the road, and in the last band, "Rampage," I had the privilege of opening for "Steppenwolf," "Savoy Brown," and "Mother's Finest" (the latter still tours and kicks butt today.) I had hair down to my chest, and while I won't say I never did any drug, I can truthfully say that compared to most of that genre, "I never did drugs." If I inhaled, I didn't bogart any joints.
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<br />Unfortunately, I missed Woodstock, although I saw the movie perhaps 20 times. All of us did. We knew every guitar and drum lick. We could care less about a bunch of dirty, muddy, hungry hippies getting it on---we were into the music. And it is undeniable that the music was of, and from, that generation.
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<br />But it's also undeniable that Woodstock took on a mythology of its own, crafted by the Left, as an example of "peace" and "free love" and Rodney-Kingish "can't we all just get along." Ironically, much of the realistic writing about Woodstock has come from the Left. David Dalton, an acerbic writer who published a mag called <span style="font-style:italic;">The Gadfly</span>, noted
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<br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">[Woodstock] was to represent “a new stage in the psychic evolution of the world, a mass celebration of what the 1960s was all about,” </span> and "there was a lot made of how peaceful the event was. But what else would half a million kids on grass, acid, and hog tranquilizers be? Woodstock, if anything, was the point at which psychedelics ceased being tools for experience . . . and became a means of <span style="font-weight:bold;">crowd control</span>.</span>
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<br /> Dalton went on to describe Grateful Dead guitarist (now dead, but then a drug addict) Jerry Garcia as waxing on about feeling <span style="font-style:italic;">“the presence of the invisible time travelers from the future,”</span> apparently overlooking the reality before his eyes of <span style="font-style:italic;">“kids freaking out from megadoses of acid or almost audibly buzzing from battery-acid crank like flies trapped in a soda can."</span>
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<br />As I wrote in my forthcoming book, Seven Events that Made America, America,
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<br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">Two years later, one radical complained about the “rapes, the bad acid burns, stealing from each other, they, too were a part of the Woodstock experience . . . .” Woodstock concluded with Jimi Hendrix playing The Star Spangled Banner as masses of zonked out kids lay in mud and filth. It was a symbolic scene in so many ways. As the curtain came down, Hendrix—the concluding act---was only a year away from his own drug-induced death (joining Janis Joplin, who also performed at Woodstock, and Jim Morrison within a year). Even as his “truly apocalyptic” rendition of the national anthem blasted over a “battlefield, [with] zombies crawling over a field littered with paper cups, plastic wrappers, and half-eaten food, gnawing on corn husks, slobbering over ketchup- and mustard-smeared half-eaten hot dogs rolls, sprinkled with ants,” already the loose bond of political revolution and rock had permanently unraveled. None other than Joan Baez, the queen diva of protest songs, delivered a pragmatic assessment of the event: “it wasn’t any f__king revolution. It was a three-day period during which people were decent to each other because . . . if they weren’t, they’d all go hungry.”</span>
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<br /> Many Leftist writers tried to attach a political bent to Woodstock that simply wasn't there. When Yippie Abbie Hoffman tried to grab the mike during the Who's set, guitarist Pete Townshend smacked him over the head with his guitar, shouting, "Get the f . . . off my stage!" Hoffman came away from the event not only with a massive headache but severely disillusioned about the non-fusion of rock and revolution, asking, "Were we establishing a liberated zone or entering a detention camp?"
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<br /> In reality, neither. Rock was on the verge---unbeknownst to most Americans of any political stripe or age---of helping to bring down the Iron Curtain. That's one of the "Seven Events" that will be in the new book. I won't give it away now, but rock was far more powerful as a revolutionary force <span style="font-style:italic;">behind</span> the Berlin Wall than outside of it. And when the Wall came down, there was Rock, with the Rascals blaring out over boom boxes, "People Got to be Free." Amen, brother, and play it again, Sam.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-17093372269869100592009-08-12T08:30:00.000-07:002009-08-12T09:15:41.204-07:00The ScorecardKeep in mind my post last week that "they might not care"---that one reason so many Dems are ducking the town meetings, stacking them with union thugs, pre-admitting supporters, and all the other little commie tricks they use is an indicator that they plan to pass this no matter what. (FWIW, I ran that thought by Jim Geraghty of National Review Online, and he shared the same apprehension).<br /><br />Nevertheless, it is absolutely clear that the American public does not want health non-care, and they actually like their insurance companies, and that the Dems are coming apart at the seams over this. Here is the scorecard as of this morning:<br /><br />*In the Delaware Senate, a Republican took a seat held by a Democrat for 70 years.<br /><br />*In FL, a House seat, held by a Republican, saw the Republican re-elected.<br /><br />*Nevada polling shows Dingy Harry Reid running a full six points behind the state GOP chairwoman (whom I had never heard of). That is <span style="font-weight: bold;">not</span> a good sign for any incumbent, particularly the Majority Leader.<br /><br />*Barbara Boxer is polling in the mid- to low-40s in California. This is often "Lucy" pulling away the football, but is something to watch: if well-known Dems in this overwhelmingly Dem state are struggling, it should tell us something.<br /><br />*Obama is below 50% in two key states he carried in 2008, Ohio and Virginia---lower in the Old Dominion than in Ohio. But the trend is the same. People ain't happy. And early polling shows Dem. Governor Ted Strickland, who was bulletproof a year ago, slipping. Although George Voinovich is retiring (thank God), the little known Rob Portman, according to insiders is polling very well for his replacement. That would be a net conservative gain, not just a Republican "hold."<br /><br />*In both Virginia and New Jersey, the GOP governor candidates have significant leads over the Dems and in VA, the Dem is absolutely tanking.<br /><br />*Today's Rasmussen poll has opposition to a single-payer plan up to 57%, and support down to 32%, or essentially the core Democrat base who will almost never abandon Obama. <br /><br />*On the same poll, Rasmussen, who has made a mini-reputation out of a new "approval index" that measures the "strongly approve/strongly disapprove" I think misses the forest for the trees: the <span style="font-style:italic;">real </span> approve/disapprove now is a stunning <span style="font-style:italic;">48-52%</span>, or the exact opposite of the election results! This is a president whose disapproval was only 29% when he took office---a 23-point swing in some 200 days!<br /><br />*You might claim that Rasmussen is a "conservative" pollster (he was pretty good in 2008), but Gallup's numbers are falling too, only a few points above Ras's. In short, the Messiah's popularity is collapsing faster than NBC's ratings. The latest Quinnipiac poll has O's number in <span style="font-style:italic;">New Jersey</span> (!) down to only 56% <br />*Some other good news: Dem. Senator Arlen Specter has now said the protests are not "representative of America." Yes, this is good news. People are NOT going to tolerate this kind of arrogance and it helps ensure his defeat. Ditto on Missouri's Claire McCaskill.<br /><br />*The AARPies aren't even behind this bill, and Obama is rapidly losing the geezers. In fact, one poll I saw showed opposition among the over-60s was at an astonishing 67%, and the <span style="font-style:italic;">only group</span> supporting the bill was the 20-30 age group, which stands to reason, as they won't be a) paying any of the bills or b) generally have as many health problems. But if Obama can't get the AARPies fully on board, he's in heap big trouble.<br /><br />*And, the coup de grace, the "snitch" web site has completely backfired. Thousands of people have eagerly and voluntarily "turned themselves in" (you should all do the same and shut the darn thing down), and Obama had to backtrack yesterday. <br /><br />Is it all enough to stop this Obamination of a bill? I don't know, but we are closer than we were a week ago.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-77380522725570880742009-08-06T08:05:00.000-07:002009-08-06T08:16:15.311-07:00Grim ThoughtFor those of you (us) deeply involved in the Tea Parties and attempting to contact representatives about the health (non) care bill, well, I guess I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but I had a very troubling thought:<br /><br />They aren't going to listen to you. They don't care. Obama has likely made side deals with any "blue dogs" who are in vulnerable seats to ensure them government jobs if they get voted out. But regardless, Obama/Rahm Emmanuel view a loss of 30-40 seats next year as "acceptable casualties."<span style="font-style:italic;"> Their goal is to put in place a "doosmday machine" that would require supermajorities of committed conservatives in the House AND Senate to dismantle. </span>They are counting on the fact that it will be extremely difficult to ever amass such majorities. <br /><br />So you don't matter. All your marching, protesting, calling, faxing, e-mailing, which is noble and commendable and in a "normal" democracy would be effective, is not going to work on this bunch. That came to me when I tried to call BOTH my senators, one Republican and one Dem, over cap and trade. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Neither even had a human that would take a call: both went to voice mail that I'm sure was purged at 5:00.</span><br /><br />This is made much, much worse by a lapdog media that is every bit as bad as the old Soviet propaganda arms, <span style="font-style:italic;">Izvestia</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Pravda</span>. Town halls? We have already seen that the Dems are moving to "controlled" settings with "submitted" questions so they don't have to even take a question they don't want, much less listen to your voice.<br /><br />This is serious, serious stuff.<br /><br />Marching? You would have to literally shut down Washington. It can be done, but it's tricky. I think you have to have a "planned" non-planned event, without parade or speaking permits, where 4-5 million people absolutely bring that city to a standstill. People should drive "clunkers" there and when the traffic clogs, get out and walk away. You can claim later you feared for your safety. Imagine what would happen if even 2,000 clunkers were abandoned in the roads around D.C.? The Congresscritters would be stuck! Not all of them have helos. They'd HAVE to see the crowds, deal with them in some way. So would the media. Don't have "planned speeches." Just mill around, "looking at the sights," and maybe gather when someone starts to speak :)<br /><br />But we may even be beyond this kind of action. Obama is counting on the fact that once this is in place, he has three years to ride it out. So he loses 40 members of the House and 4-5 senators? There won't be enough to unravel this ball of confusion.<br /><br />The Joker poster is looking more accurate all the time.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-17377972085692672512009-08-04T09:45:00.000-07:002009-08-04T10:05:48.225-07:00The Poster, More on the Certificate, and Health non-CareFirst, I had a great time in Atlanta with the Southeast Homeschool Association parents and kids. Thanks for your support of <span style="font-style:italic;">Patriot's History of the United States</span>. <br /><br />Second, just before I left, Kelly Emick on this list sent me the following link<br /><br />http://www.dripbook.com/geoffalbores/book/words-shapes-colors <br /><br />which shows New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady on a jet, and in his lap is . . . <span style="font-style:italic;">A Patriot's History of the United States</span>! I know, it's hard to see, but some friends have blown this up, and my fine artist pal, Barney Geary, has promised to shoot me another version that makes the title clear. How cool. Of course, as a Cowboy fan, I would have wished it was Tony Romo, but I'll take it!<br /><br />Third, there is the "Joker"/Obama poster going around. Wow. Rush Limbaugh said we'd know we were starting to win when it no longer was "cool" to support this bozo, and the phenomenal popularity of posters like this tell me we are very, very close. And it fits: in "The Dark Knight," the Joker, as the butler Alfred said, "just like to watch things burn." He loves chaos, because it makes him more powerful. Obviously, however, "the people" are starting to get the message about this Joker. We see the town halls erupting---one I saw this morning from (I think) Green Bay, Wisconsin, was full of OLD PEOPLE. These are typically Dem voters. So slowly, the Dems are losing <span style="font-style:italic;">both ends <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span> of the voter spectrum. Moreover, this is the kind of image that completely defines and re-defines the public persona so carefully crafted over the last four or five years by the Obamanistas. <br /><br />Fourth, an update on the birth certificate issue: I am now leaning to thinking Obama was in fact born in Hawaii. I base this on a) the Hawaiian official, Fukino, who has seen the certificate (yes, the "long certificate") and said it was authentic and that Obama was a citizen. Now, I admit you can wordsmith Fukino's comments and somehow probably claim that it said something else, but I don't think so because b) there is a birth announcement in the <span style="font-style:italic;">Honolulu Advertiser </span> in August 1961, which would be hard to fake and impossible to think, back then, that it would be needed. <span style="font-style:italic;">It is true that that announcement has the wrong address on it!</span> Still, taken with Fukino's statement, I'll for the moment concede that Zero was born here.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">All that is irrelevant</span> because it is merely a symptom of the arrogance of this bunch that Obama will not produce any documents---his birth certificate, his Occidental College records, his Harvard records, his health records, or much else. What happened to "transparency?" There never was any, as we know. So I'll stipulate that Obama is a natural born American if the Obamanistas will concede that he has done everything in his power to cover up or obscure EVERY other document.<br /><br />Finally, the Health (non-) Care debacle rolls on, despite growing and heated opposition everywhere. I watched the youtubes of the Green Bay forum, the Pennsylvania town meeting, and heard the New York congressman facing his critics, and two things are clear: 1) a slim majority of the public really, really, really don't want this and a much larger majority are becoming uneasy; and 2) the Dems simply don't care. They are going to give it to you, whether you want it or not, because it's not about health care, it's about locking in a generation of voters and putting into place a system that will be damn near impossible to unravel or repeal. It's the legislative equivalent of begging forgiveness rather than asking permission, and don't think for one second these people will ask your permission for anything.<br /><br />My prediction is that unless these meetings get so numerous that they can't be avoided by the congressmen, so loud and angry that they can't be ignored, and in some way force themselves on the media, we are going to get universal health non-care. Again, it's not about health care, it's about erecting a bureaucracy that can't be repealed, destroyed, or rescinded. It's the equivalent of creating the Income Tax and the IRS in 1913. I plan to speak, to write, to march or whatever, but I am not optimistic because our opinions---even the opinions of their own Democrat voters---are irrelevant. Their goal isn't reelection, it's permanent quasi-dictatorship. I know that's tough to hear, here in America because we just don't DO that here . . . do we?LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-85305014376276347212009-07-29T04:33:00.000-07:002009-07-29T09:27:29.665-07:00The CertificateI believe men landed on the moon.<br /><br />I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in shooting JFK.<br /><br />I do not believe that the Bilderburgers or the CFR or any other international body (and certainly not "the Joooooosssss" control world affairs.<br /><br />I KNOW that Muslim radicals flew planes into the WTC, and that it was NOT the work of the U.S. government, and particularly not George W. Bush.<br /><br />And for a long time I believed there was nothing to this business of where Barack Obama was born. Now, I'm not so sure.<br /><br />In the past two weeks, there has been a veritable blizzard of screeching diatribes against the so-called "birthers," namely those who question Obama's citizenship. What's amazing is that half of these howls have come from people on the "right," such as Debra Saunders and Ann Coulter. There is an old, WW II maxim for bomber pilots: "When you start seeing flak, you're over the target." Based on the amount of "flak" that this issue is suddenly generating, I'd say maybe there's a target there.<br /><br />Not long ago Lou Dobbs of CNN (!, yes, CNN!), while not explicitly endorsing the issue, had on guests who were actually allowed to raise it. This birth certificate issue is so toxic that mainstream shows---even on Fox---refuse to touch it. Many conservatives are afraid of being labeled kooks. (That didn't seem to bother Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich in the campaign. True, neither got many votes, but you never questioned where they stood!) But this is not a kooky issue.<br /><br />Do I think Obama was born in the U.S.? Honestly, I don't know. But what troubles me is that it is so <span style="font-style:italic;">damn</span> easy to prove it, and that Obama has not done that: get the <span style="font-style:italic;">original, paper copy</span> and display it. The confusions by the "deniers" on this are remarkable: they say it has been verified, but some critics say that this "verification" took place after Hawaiian officials claim the records "were destroyed." Then there is the issue of the "Certificate of Live Birth" vs. a "birth certificate," and it appears you can be a non-citizen and get the former. Then there is the matter of the passport. Supposedly, Pakistan was on a no-go list when Obama went there; other officials say that's not true, that it was never on such a list. <span style="font-style:italic;">But what NONE of them have done is to produce Obama's passport!!!</span><br /><br />Now, folks, this is real simple. I'm sitting next to my desk drawers. On one side I can pull out my passport in 5 seconds. On the other, I can produce a physical version of my birth certificate in the same amount of time. <span style="font-style:italic;">I have not spent $1 million dollars trying to hide either, as Obama has.<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span><br /><br />So let me repeat: I'm not a "birther" yet. But I am a thinking person with a skeptical mind and, for something so easy to lay to rest, I find it deeply troubling that Obama has chosen to skirt the issue as he has. And to you conservatives who think this is a "problem" for our side, it's only a problem because of the constitutional chaos the REALITY of a foreign birth could cause . . . and ya'll know what I'm talking about. We'd have to get rid of the guy who is in there (an impeached Obama would become a martyr), we'd get that utter buffoon Joe Biden, we'd have to determine the legality of every single law or executive order this Marxist has signed. It would be a nightmare---and I suspect this, more than anything, is really why many conservatives don't want to "go there." But sometimes, you have to do what needs to be done.<br /><br />The "birthers" are getting lots of flak. Does that mean they are near a target?<br /><br />************ADDENDUM: Ok, I did some quick, but pretty detailed, investigation into this. I asked some direct questions and got some direct answers, some of which came from this site: http://www.westernjournalism.com/?page_id=2697<br /><br />I'm sure many of you have seen this before, but there is the upshot of this long and detailed analysis:<br />*There actually <span style="font-style:italic;">IS<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span> a clear difference between a "Certification of Live Birth" and an official "Birth Certificate." Using the former, you cannot get a passport, among other things. (Now, the terms Birth Certificate 3 and Birth Certificate 4 are from the Western Journalism Center, and not government terms.)<br />*According to the site, a "Birth Certificate 3" form involves the folling: "In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then, up to the first birthday of the child, a “Delayed Certificate” could be filed, which required that “a summary statement of the evidence submitted in support of the acceptance for delayed filing or the alteration [of a file] shall be endorsed on the certificates”, which “evidence shall be kept in a special permanent file.” In other words, a government official of some sort can issue this based on the statement of a family member up to one year after the fact and <span style="font-style:italic;">can even be issued on the word of one of the grandparents, and the mother or father do not have to be present </span>(!)<br />*But . . . a "Birth Certificate 4" type can be issued if "a child is born in Hawaii, for whom no physician or mid wife filed a certificate of live birth, and for whom no Delayed Certificate was filed before the first birthday, then a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth could be issued upon testimony of an adult (including the subject person [i.e. the birth child as an adult]) if the Office of the Lieutenant Governor was satisfied that a person was born in Hawaii, provided that the person had attained the age of one year.<br />*So Western Journalism Center concludes the certificate in question is either a BC3 or, if forged, BC4. Why would anyone think it might be forged? Because there was no internet in 1961, so there is no digital file. Therefore, "Given the statutes in force in 1961, the Certification of Live Birth proves nothing unless we know what is on the original birth certificate. There are several legal areas (involving ethnic quotas and subsidy) for which the state of Hawaii up until June 2009 did not accept its computer-generated Certification of Live Birth as sufficient proof of birth in Hawaii or parentage."LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-71077043775551910072009-07-22T09:59:00.000-07:002009-07-22T10:00:33.168-07:00Have you seen what's in this bill? CHILLING!Obama says idiotic stuff like "You'll still keep your doctor" or "You'll keep your existing health care." Has he even READ this monster?<br /><br />http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/07/whats-in-healthacre-bill.html<br /><br />Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of all employer that self insure!! Can you imagine what that will do to small businesses? Everyone will abandon “self insurance” and go on Gubment insurance. So when Obama says that there will still be private health care, it’s simply a lie: this mandate will force employers to just abandon their private plans.<br /><br />Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill – a government committee (!) will decide what treatments/benefits a person can receive.<br /><br />Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill - YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!! (We all knew this, because health care is rationed in Canada and Britain, but Obama kept saying it was not).<br /><br />PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided to all non US citizens, illegal or otherwise (!!)<br /><br />PG 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill - Govt mandates linguistic appropriate services. Example - Translation for illegal aliens<br /><br />pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue the Gubment for price fixing. No "judicial review" against Gubment monopoly<br /><br />pg. 127 Lines 1-16: Doctors will be told what they can make. Period.<br /><br />Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable HC accordng to the Gubment will be taxed 2.5% of income. (Now, my question: what if you sign up for the insurance and don’t pay? Will we have yet another bureaucracy to track down healthcare deadbeats?) Young people don’t use many medical services---why shouldn’t they put their money where they need it? Education, or housing? <br /><br />PG 253 Line 10-18 Gubment sets value of a doctor’s time, professional judgment, (Literally setting the value of humans).<br /><br />Page 280 Sec 1151 The Gubment will penalize hospitals for what Gubment deems “preventable readmissions” (translation: if the Gubment doesn’t think you should be admitted, forget it! You won’t be admitted because a hospital will be penalized for taking you!)<br /><br />Pg 354 Sec 1177 - Gubment will RESTRICT enrollment of “special needs” people (i.e., the very people who need medical care!)<br /><br />Pg 425 Lines 1-9 – Gubment will provide required “end of life” consultations, i.e., lobbying old people on their responsibility to die. <br /><br />Pg 429 Lines 13-25 – “advanced care consultation” may include an order for “end of life plans” (i.e., an order from government that you’re done).<br /><br />Same pg, Lines 13-25 –The Gubment will specify which doctors can write an “end of life” order, i.e., those whom they can control.<br /><br />Better speak up now before you are on the "advanced care consultation" list.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-4700997152673636442009-07-15T10:58:00.000-07:002009-07-15T11:19:08.483-07:00Angry? Maybe It's TimeRecently I had a talk with a colleague (one on my side of the aisle) about the increasingly dire threat posed to this country by the unholy trinity of Obama/Reid-Pelosi/ and the media. The upshot of this person's question to me was, "What can you say that will give me some hope? Some optimism? Is there a way we can reach the kids, the students, and the younger people?"
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<br />We aren't quite "done" yet, but the old thermometer is edging up by the day, and I don't mean global warming. Cap and Trade (i.e, "cap and tax") has passed the House and our hopes of avoiding federal enviro-nazis swooping into your homes and clamping down "do not sell" restrictions on your house until you comply with their inane regulations hangs on the votes of a few left-wing Democrat senators who in the past have shown no inclination to challenge Harry Reid. (You see, the Democrat Party has this habit of actually </span><span style="font-style:italic;">punishing</span> so-called "mavericks" who criticize Dem leadership. Real-life Gong-Show refugees such as Al Franken now will vote on your right to drive what you want and eat what you want. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. There is new twitter about the C02 pollution of <span style="font-style:italic;">computers</span>. Once the computer becomes the next SUV, what sites, exactly, do you think will be deemed the most "polluting?" You got it: Drudge, FreeRepublic; Redstate; and a host of conservative sites. Guess which ones will be ok? Huffington Post, MSNBC, and Daily Kos.
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<br />But it gets worse: the National Socialist (that would be Nazi, if you were in Germany) Health Care system that is now about to come up for a vote will absolutely eliminate private health care options. Do <span style="font-weight:bold;">not kid yourself</span>: They are going to say that they aren't going to interfere with your right to go to your "own doctor" or have your own "private health insurance." But there won't <span style="font-style:italic;">be</span> non-government doctors or private health insurance if the government mandates them out of existence. Do not forget that this was a major goal of Hillarycare just 15 years ago. Once people found out, it caused a firestorm---but times have changed. The media was atrocious then, but it's a 100% propaganda machine for the Left today. A few holdouts, such as Fox and Rush, remind me of the brave Dutch shouting at the stormtroopers before they were gunned down. If health care or cap and tax fail, the <span style="font-style:italic;">media will see it as the failure of their guy, and in their view, Obama must not be allowed to fail</span>.
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<br />Even still, I hear people who want to "get past all this partisanship." Sorry, but GROW UP. Our system from the beginning has pitted one group against another out of fear of the very giant government that is metastasizing before our eyes. James Madison didn't like "parties" or "factions," but he finally admitted that they were absolutely necessary to fragment power. In Washington today, however, we nearly have one political party: the Democrats, who march in lock step with Obama, and the cowardly Republicans who, aside from a few heroes (John Kyl, Jeff Sessions, Jim DeMint come to mind in the Senate, and most of those remaining in the House) are merely "me-too Democrats."
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<br />For our system to work, there has to be a clear choice, not a mushy middle, because the mushy middle always, always, always gravitates left. There is a "presumption of power" on the Left---conservatives, by nature, do not like government, don't trust it, and do not want to use it to advance their ends, which they see as advanced through liberty, individual achievement, and entrepreneurship. If Republicans do not unite 100%---and soon---behind the idea that the unholy trinity must be stopped dead or we will not have the American Republic that we have all known all our lives, it may soon be too late. Maybe it's time all of you got just a little mad.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-17249441809608737792009-07-07T14:55:00.000-07:002009-07-07T15:02:24.785-07:00Zero's numbers starting to dropThe latest Rasmussen poll has O's numbers at the lowest they've been, 52%-47%; Rasmussen's goofy, but somewhat useful "strongly approve/strongly disapprove" number is now at -3 (also the lowest it's been, or 33 strongly approve and 36 strongly disapprove); and Quinnipiac has a poll out today on Ohio, always a key state, showing Obama at under 50% (49) for the first time. Remember he took OH with over 52%.<br /><br />To quote Rev. Wright, "the chickens have come home to rooooossssssttt." What to look for: that 33% strongly approve are the kool-aide drinkers and African-Americans. That number wouldn't change if Obama stood on a platform in Jerusalem and said, "I am the Anti-Christ. Now let's go to Babylon!" George W. Bush simply did not enjoy that same race-based frothing support, or, to put it another way, his supporters actually evaluated what Bush <span style="font-style:italic;">did</span> and they didn't always like it. <br /><br />There was never a question in my mind that he would fall into negative territory. The issue has always been, "How far would he go to destroy the country before he got there?" I think we see the answer, namely, "a long, long way." This is why the Dems are moving so ridiculously fast on "cap and trade," health care, and soon, immigration reform (i.e., amnesty). The longer any of the takes, and the more people actually examine the policies, the less they like them. And the less they like his policies, the more likely they are to start to take a second look at the man. (I know: "The Man, the Messiah").LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-33771935233207213732009-07-01T13:55:00.000-07:002009-07-01T14:00:15.617-07:00Restaurants heading southSome of us have been marveling at the way travel and restaurants appear to be showing no signs of the recession. How can so many people be eating out and going to Vegas if things are so bad? One explanation has been a "whistling past the graveyard" approach that denied reality---until it caught up. Well, perhaps things are catching up.<br /><br />Yesterday, new unemployment numbers were bad, and the consumer confidence numbers were worse. Today, we have this news from the restaurant industry that for the first time in five months, the index of restaurant activity is down (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/whoops-the-restaurant-industry-is-backsliding-2009-7">Business Insider</a>). Once the reality of the bad economy starts to hang on Obama, his already sagging poll numbers will start to look like President Bush's.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-87481926954798150122009-06-26T09:56:00.000-07:002009-06-26T10:49:52.552-07:00In the end, he was no longer thrilling but goofyIn a searing commentary, recalling the quip that it's wrong to speak ill of the dead, but it's ok to comment favorably on the obituary, Mark Steyn ("Beyond the Pale" <a href="http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/2196/28/">click here</a> ). Steyn noted that Jackson <span class="MSinsideitem">was invited to speak at Oxford, where "he called on the world to adopt his Children’s Bill of Rights, including 'the right to be thought adorable' and 'the right to be listened to without having to be interesting'. The right to a $30 million out-of-court settlement, won by a 13-year old former playmate of his, was not mentioned."<br /><br />As one who has fond memories of the album "Thriller," I was saddened to learn of Jackson's death---but the Michael Jackson of 2009 was not the Jackson who sang and danced his way into the title the "King of Pop." That Jackson died sometime in the 1990s, drowned in a sea of weirdness. In the end, he was no longer thrilling but merely goofy. Appearing in a burqa? Dangling a baby off a balcony? A bazillion plastic surgeries? (You know you've gone overboard when Joan Rivers starts doing jokes about your plastic surgery).<br /><br />So let us remember the Michael Jackson of "Thriller," of "Smooth Criminal," of "Billie Jean." Heck, let us remember the Michael Jackson of "I Want You Back" and "I'll Be There." As for that other guy, God have mercy on his soul.<br /></span>LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-30155744601472362122009-06-24T06:09:00.001-07:002009-06-24T06:18:43.099-07:00A Magnificent CharterLast week I had the privilege of researching in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA. Not only is it one of the most beautiful spots on earth---completely wasted on leftist Golden Staters---but it is a treasure trove of scholarship waiting to happen. However, there is also the RR Presidential Museum attached to the library, which is a must-see for anyone who loves the Gipper. Not only does it contain materials relevant to Reagan, but it also features traveling exhibits, such as (this month) the Magna Carta of 1215 A.D.<br /><br />For those of you unfamiliar with this, the Magna Carta is the predecessor to the U.S. Constitution. The "Great Charter of Freedoms," as it's called, came from a revolt by English barons that involved (naturally) taxes, infringements on the use of lands, private property rights, and above all, a right of rebellion should King John get out of hand. Although the principle was established, no nobles had ever before applied it to a king, and it laid the foundation---admittedly often broken over the next 500 or so years---that kings were subject to the law. Although John reneged on this clause as soon as he signed it, sparking a civil war, he issued it again when he began to lose. Power, as Mao said, must come from the end of a gun (or, in this case, a crossbow) after all.<br /><br />By the way, the document itself had to have been written by Smurfs with x-ray vision. The print is "mouse print," and, of course, in Latin. I asked my trusty squire, Antonius Historicus, to translate it for me, but I realize many of you may not have access to his services. (Seriously, it was already translated, and the Reagan Library has copies in English, not far from a display of the Gipper's jelly bean jars.<br /><br />Ronald Reagan certainly "got" the essence of the Great Charter. Perhaps a certain ruling monarch today might wish to pay a visit to the Reagan Library and Museum, if he can break away from his date nights.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-44903565936189044142009-06-21T16:13:00.000-07:002009-06-22T19:01:28.084-07:00Is this the Poland/E. Germany Moment for IranWatching the events unfold, I notice that while there has been some death, and some bloodshed, what is remarkable so far is <span style="font-style: italic;">how little</span> shooting is going on. This could all turn in a matter of minutes, but it's starting to resemble Poland or East Germany toward the end, where the police/military were reluctant to fire on protestors and just "hoped they'd go away." Obviously, this isn't happening in Iran.<br /><br />More important, how wise does President Bush now look for putting (admittedly flawed) democracies on each side of the "Islamic Republic?" Did you see the picture of the woman with a sign that said, "Regime change!" Who do you think she was referring to?<br /><br />Meanwhile, the current oaf in the Oval just sits, hoping that a winner is clear so he can jump on board without risk. It's the epitome not only of gutlessness, but of indecision and absence of policy.<br /><br />**Update, 6/22/09 10:00 pm EST: It appears that a few more people have been shot, and that the police are routinely now shooting in the air. That's still interesting. Imagine Stalin's secret police shooting at anything but bodies.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-76836220635119064112009-06-21T05:29:00.000-07:002009-06-21T06:09:31.293-07:00<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span>LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-32700779131155521032009-06-12T06:54:00.001-07:002009-06-12T07:21:27.456-07:00Colin Powell: the Black PerotTwittering nabobs of the drive-by media are salivating to front Colin Powell as some sort of "spokesman" for Republicans (though certainly not conservatives). The publicity-hungry Powell has taken the bait, jumping on every talk show or media outlet he can to blast conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh. He, not they, he suggests, should be the "voice of the Party."<br /><br />I might actually go along with the old general if, in fact, he were the general of old. Consider Colin Powell at the 1996 Republican Convention:<br /><br /> "President Reagan will always be the president who restored the fighting strength and spirit of America's Armed Forces. Ronald Reagan, the great communicator, who gave voice and image to the power of democracy as the way to a better future for all the people of the world."<br /><br />And President George W. Bush? Powell said this of Bush:<br /><br /> [He] took us through the end of the Cold War and the defeat of communism. George Bush the statesman, George Bush the statesman and my boss who led us to a great victory in the Persian Gulf War."<br /><br />So far, so good. What did the Time-Warp Powell say about family and values?<br /><br /> "Children learn values by watching their parents in their homes. Values which are then reinforced in their churches and in their places of worship, in the schools and in the communities in which they live. That's why we Republicans believe that the family, fueled by values, must be restored to the central place in American life if we are to keep the dream alive. "<br /><br />And taxes and economic growth? What say you alternative universe Powell?<br /><br /> "We are the pro-growth party. We are the party committed to lessening the burden of taxes, cutting government regulations and reducing government spending, all for the purpose of generating the higher economic growth that will bring better jobs, wages and living standards to all our people. We believe there are better ways to take care of Americans in need than the exhausted programs of the past. All of us -- all of us, my friends -- all of us must be willing to do with less from government if we are to avoid condemning our children and grandchildren with a crushing burden of debt that will deny them the American dream. "<br /><br />Good job, general. But what about big government? <br /><p> "I became a Republican because I believe, like you that the federal government has become too large and too intrusive in our lives. We can no longer afford solutions to our problems that result in more entitlements, higher taxes to pay for them, more bureaucracy to run them and fewer results to show for it. I became a Republican because I believe America must remain the leader of the free world. Republican leadership, a Republican president, will bring greater conviction and coherence to our foreign policy -- and will guarantee that our Armed Forces remain the strongest and most capable on earth."</p><p>Wow. Doesn't sound anything like Barack Obama, the big government, high-tax, omnipotent authoritarian that <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Powell endorsed and supported for president in 2008!</span></span> Now, to be fair, in 1996, Powell also stated he was for affirmative action and was "pro-choice," and he nodded approvingly more than once to "compassion" and ending "corporate welfare." (Oops. Better tell Zero about that one!) But overall, that alternative universe general is 180 degrees off from the guy who said Americans were eager to have bigger government and couldn't wait to pay more taxes.<br /></p><p>So why does Powell command <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> support among Republicans, let alone a great deal of fawning by otherwise sensible people? I call it the Black Perot effect. In 1992, Ross Perot came out of nowhere to get 17% of the national presidential vote, probably electing Bill Clinton (that remains debatable among scholars). But the point is, most Perot supporters didn't have a clue what he stood for. Heck, Ross didn't know what he stood for.<br /><br />"Larry, we're gonna get under the hood, see, and take a look." That was his solution to everything---that and to draw up a chart he could use on Larry King. Yet Perot was exceptionally popular. Why? My theory is that Perot appealed to the "common sense Americans" who can't understand why it's so hard to do the right thing and end a stupid welfare program, or STOP SPENDING MONEY. They do, in their daily lives. Why can't the government?</p><p>More important, however, Perot also included a great number of professional Republican-haters. By this I do not mean Democrats---they are on another planet when it comes to Republican hate. I mean ordinary people who through their schools and the media and Hollywood have been convinced that Republicans are "for the rich," and since they ain't rich, Republicans must be against them. But the key feature is that since Perot had <span style="font-style: italic;">no</span> actual policies that could be studied, no plans that could be questioned, he managed to skate along for months without serious media criticism, and affected a national election.</p><p>Powell is a Black Perot. He has no specific policies on anything except he's "for" affirmative action and abortion, which stands him in good stead with a few Dems who on most other issues don't like big government but who crave "fairness." But how would he handle the GM bailout? He won't say. What about Iran? "We need more dialogue." (This is a leftie codephrase which means, "We won't stop you, no matter what you do"). And best of all---from this voter segment's perspective---Powell is (shhhh) <span style="font-style: italic;">black</span>. So Obama was a two-fer---assuage white guilt and vote for the young, hip guy even though he's a socialist. Powell is a three-fer, allowing people to assuage white guilt, support a black man full of compassion on the "right" issues, who <span style="font-style: italic;">may </span>(we hope, we hope, we hope) have the right positions on big spending and taxes and the economy.<br /></p><p>In fact, Powell is much worse than Perot, who at least had the courage to run for president and put what few and flimsy ideas he had to the test.<br /></p><p><br /></p>LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-37373350261585776102009-06-11T04:10:00.000-07:002009-06-11T04:16:09.118-07:00The Private Sector is in a BullfightAnd it's the bull. So far, Obama's picadors and toreadors have stabbed, slashed, and otherwise compromised the bull of American capitalism. Don't kid yourself: they're going for the kill. Most of the crowd is cheering, but a few are starting to figure out that when this bull is gone, there is no more meat, ever. Moreover, a few are actually starting to worry about what it will be like to be the next "bull" when this one is gone---because there <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> be another bull.<br /><br />The unbelievably idiotic and dangerous decision of the United States Supreme Court to deny the Chrysler bondholder claims---and thus reverse the holdings that have stood for almost two centuries in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Dartmouth</span> case, whereby a contract is a contract---is just one more example of the reality that there can be no compromise with <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> branch in this current government group. We need a thorough housecleaning, including the Court, beginning with this racist Sonya Sotomayor. If I, as a professor, dared say publicly that because I'm a white male I'm "wiser" than all those black folk (or "them Jews" as Rev. Jeremiah Wright called them yesterday), then I'd rightly be out on my ear. The fact that she is even being considered for this position is deeply troubling, and old and ailing Ruth Buzzie Ginsburg will be the next to retire, allowing Zero to stick in an even more radical woman/lesbian/black/homosexual/Hispanic/whatever.<br /><br />Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. Or, better yet, get active. Get very, <span style="font-style: italic;">very</span> active. We truly don't have much time.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-8686953154051307452009-06-04T04:24:00.000-07:002009-06-04T04:45:49.341-07:00Obama's Velvet Deception in CairoGotta hand it to him, this guy is a master of gently twisting phrases to sound non-threatening when, in fact, they are 100% distorted and extremely dangerous. In Cairo today, Obama managed to distort both the Koran (nuthin' "holy" about it) and the Holy Bible. (BTW, for the record, there really can only be one "holy" book. Either it's the Koran or the Bible, but it can't be both, because it's <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">God</span></span> who determines what is holy, not man.) Anyway, the Bamster proceeded to cite some phrase from the Koran saying it captured what Muslims believe.<br /><br />While the Koran may indeed say "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another," that is completely irrelevant to what Islam holds as its single defining verse, "There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." There is a yawning chasm between the two <span style="font-style: italic;">concepts.<br /><br /></span> It is also irrelevant that the Talmud says "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace" if the <span style="font-style: italic;">commandment</span> of the Torah is "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is One, the Lord is God." Obviously if the Lord is God, Allah ain't, and "promoting peace" in the Talmud <span style="font-style: italic;">first</span> comes through accepting that fact.<br /><br />And yes, the Lord Jesus said "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" and yet at the same time the single clear message of the New Testament is not that verse, but John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall have everlasting life." The call to peace comes <span style="font-style: italic;">from</span> that faith---the practice of peace does not yield eternal life.<br /><br />These are not minor religious quibbles, but the essence of fundamental world-views that in fact require one or the other to dominate. That domination does not necessarily have to be bloody, and the <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">very examples of Islamic "tolerance" that Obama cites</span></span> came only after wars in which Islam defeated elements of Christendom. (By the way, the phrase Obama cited urging Muslims to peace, namely "he who saves a life saves the world," was first a <span style="font-style: italic;">Jewish</span> saying.<br /><br />A couple of final words---because I could turn this post into a book: it is a-historical and utterly, well, stupid to find some "Muslim history" in America. Obama cited a treaty with Morocco by John Adams, without noting that the same Thomas Jefferson whom he later praised wasted no time going to war with the Barbary States over their barabaric practices of enslaving sailors and passengers at sea; that he did so without a declaration of war (just as George W. Bush did with Iraq, using a Joint Resolution); and that he engaged in a "preemptive war" just as Bush did by taking on <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> Barbary states---not just the one that actually declared war on us---in an 1804 version of "you're with us or you're with the terrorists."LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-59484322457445247572009-06-03T15:31:00.000-07:002009-06-03T15:32:47.752-07:00NCR Relocation Aided by . . . Stimulus $$Folks, the scuttlebutt here in Dayton, just confirmed by a source at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Dayton Daily News</span>, is that NCR, which over the weekend announced it would pull out of Dayton (it's home for forever) and relocate in Atlanta, GA, has been made possible in part by Georgia <span style="font-style: italic;">stimulus money.</span><br />For those who haven't followed this, in the Dayton area this is huge. NCR (National Cash Register) is <span style="font-style: italic;"> the</span> main private sector business in the Miami Valley and is a tradition. James Patterson (then head of NCR) personally handled most of the relief efforts in the massive flood here in the 1900s. The company said that in addition to "incentives," the Atlanta area has a much higher % of 26 to 40 year olds to draw from; and also OH has the 46th worst business climate in the nation; and also we have, er, WINTER.<br /><br />But this takes the cake: Dayton officials were whining that they hadn't had a chance to make a counteroffer (to which I noted that their "chance" has been going on for 20 years and no one listened). All the while, it's Obama stimulus money that sealed the deal. And here's the kicker of kickers: GA went for McCain, and OH went for Obama. Oh, the irony.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-72466143656977221512009-06-02T03:51:00.000-07:002009-06-02T03:54:34.897-07:00Star Trek: Movie Review<p>This is simply a great movie. For those of us who grew up first on the television series, then the series of motion pictures, then "The Next Generation," this is the TV series on special-effects steriods, and in my opinion the second best movie of all Star Trek movies, next to "The Wrath of Khan." </p><p>The first 20 minutes is jarring, and you have to pay attention. It runs the viewer from Capt. Christopher Pike (played by a one of my favorites, Bruce Greenwood), to the evil Romulan Nero (Eric Bana, sans Hulk get-up), to the young Spock, to the risk-taking James T. Kirk (played supremely in this role by Chris Pine), then finally to the late-teen Spock who chooses Star Fleet, played by Zachary Quinto. Yet somehow the editors managed to keep the essential plot lines straight. Kirk is exceptionally bright, but a hell-raiser. Uhura (Zoe Saldana) is as beautiful as can be, and ironically has no interest in Kirk but rather is in love with Spock. Kirk proceeds to get beat to a pulp by almost everyone in this movie. (First it's cadets from Star Fleet, then Spock, then the Romulans. You begin to think Kirk was taught to fight at UN peacekeeper school). </p><p>Above all, what makes the movie is the development, on multiple levels, of the friendship between Kirk, Spock, and to a lesser degree, Bones (Karl Urban) and Scotty (Simon Pegg). John Cho plays a straight Sulu, thank God, and Anton Yelchin does a good job as Checkov. </p><p>The plot revolves around the "prime"/older Spock (Leonard Nimoy) trying to save Romulus in the future, and failing. Somehow, the evil Romulan Nero comes through a time warp to the past to destroy Vulcan out of revenge---and to make the young Spock watch! </p><p>Don't get wrapped up in debating the "time continuum" stuff, just go with it. There is a glitch with this at the end (the same person cannot exist in two places at once, or two people from different times can't co-exist, or . . . ah, forget it). </p><p>Instead, just enjoy the origins of the comeraderie, the sexual tension between Spock and Kirk over Uhuru, the one-liners, and above all, the fantastic way the actors adapted the characters to their own personas while maintaining much of the original Kirck/Scott/Bones/Spock personalities. At times, you can almost see Shatner coming through Pine; unfortunately, at times, Urban tries a little too hard to "be" Bones, and of all the characters, his is the least developed in terms of motivations or past. But the friendship between Spock---at any age---and Kirk is wonderful, if rocky at first. When Spock prime says to Kirk, "I am, and always have been, your friend," it brought a tear to my eye as I recalled Spock dying to save the Enterprise in "Wrath of Khan." </p>If CGI had existed in 1966, instead of cardboard sets, <i>this</i> is what <i>that</i> Star Trek might have looked like. Enjoy. Live long and prosper, unless, of course, you are Spock prime speaking to Spock in which case, as he noted, "It would be self-serving."LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-17192864419507111842009-05-30T12:21:00.000-07:002009-05-30T12:23:15.089-07:00Here is the kickoff!This is the official blogspot of "A Patriot's History of the United States." As we get things rolling, I'll provide one contribution a week. We are also working on getting at least 3-4 "youtube" videos of me discussing some of the <span style="font-style: italic;">48 Liberal Lies About American History</span>, and we'll have a link up for my 30-minute video directed by Bob Parks, <span style="font-style: italic;">Reagan: The Cold War and a Speech</span>.LShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292059876243510527noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5495315979303632201.post-28659346611263326392009-05-30T09:24:00.001-07:002009-05-30T09:24:58.788-07:00Link to main site: <a href="http://www.patriotshistoryusa.com/">http://www.patriotshistoryusa.com/</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0