The Barry O Show on every friggin' channel...

Okay so they caught Obama with a copy of GQ featuring himself on the cover. Does that make him vainglorious? Of itself, probably not but his habit of running to the TV camera every-time he has something to say is a bit much. He pardoned a turkey and made and appearance to tell us how committed he is.

Yet, General McCrystal has been waiting months for an answer to his troop request and he can wait just a bit longer so Barak can reveal to the world his long awaited strategy on Tuesday evening during primetime. As I understand it, it will be a 45 minute speech complete with an exit strategy. Perhaps he plans to talk the Taliban and Al Qaeda to death. In the meantime the Brits are looking for their own exit strategy of having lost confidence in America’s prosecution of this war.

Add to this the upcoming Oprah-Obama Christmas special and let the self-aggrandizing behavior abound. Dang. Forgive me if I chuckle out loud just a little at this: “Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special”. This festive soiree will include interview with the president, a conversation with the First Couple and tour of the White House. Oh goodie! We get one of our presents early. Be sure to set your clocks to snooze. All this news comes on the heels of Oprah’s 18 month notice that she will be quitting her show. Perhaps she and Barry will change jobs as she has been so actively involved of late in politics and he in TV.

My dad used to say that Fish and House Guests both begin to stink after 3 days. While not exactly parallel to Barry’s situation I do admit his incessant presence on my TV stinks to high heaven. Barry if you are listening shut up already and do something that helps us. We don’t want to see your face we want to see jobs and smaller government. We want honesty and transparency. We want our freedoms and we want to keep what we earn. We want to be charitable on our own without your dictates and we want to worship God, in public, without shame, legally, and not according to the wacky few. We want a Republic and we want Health Care reform that isn’t loaded with your Socialist agenda.

You know I said we want. Let me rephrase: We insist! We even demand it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is a day for giving thanks and that I will do. I have so much to be thankful for that no brief article could contain it all. Mostly I am thankful for the life and health I have and those that share it with me. I am thankful for my faith in God who makes peace and living possible. For those closest to me I am most thankful that they have chosen to be there and for any willing to call me friend. I am thankful for forgiveness and that I have received so much of it and for the freedom it gives me to keep on trying.

Surely, I cannot but be thankful for the comforts I have and the warmth in my home and for the food on my table. There is nothing that I need and little that I cannot do fine without. Right now my soul and spirit are at peace and there is great joy. I would that my creator would grant that to everyone today yet I know that I too must play a role in that along with all that would call Him Father.

America, I am grateful for you and for all that you mean to me. It is an honor to be called by your name and to live in your bounty. And while there is much that I am concerned about in your future for today I will simply bless your name as tomorrow is another day; one on which I can again take up the fight to maintain the freedoms for our children and theirs. So for today I am at rest, at peace, and so very very thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Obama a Muslim?

On his radio show G. Gordon Liddy stated,

“I’m convinced that despite his protestations to the contrary, that Barack Obama is a Muslim. I don’t believe that he’s a Christian at all. I believe he’s a Muslim.” Former presidential candidate Gary Bauer stated “Well, you know the church that he famously or infamously attended was, was odd in many ways.”

Needless to say, comments like these are sending the Liberals to their keyboards like accounting clerks at tax time. Few comments posted are in support of the Idea that Obama could be a closet Muslim while I suspect that there are many Americans who suspect it. You don’t have to look long to see a pattern of Islamic favoritism in Obama’s behavior.

No sooner than the Senate announced that they intended to investigate Major Nadal Malik Hasan (the Fort Hood Mass Murderer) when Obama ordered them to back away stating that it was too soon to investigate. Initially all the media except Fox News were reluctant to tie this attack to terrorism. Most reasonable people could conclude Hasan was committing Jihad but were encouraged to maintain political correctness. Now even the most liberal of news sources are questioning this mans ties to Al Qaeda. He had multiple email accounts and donated thousands of dollars to militant muslim organizations but many just want to call it “temporary insanity”.

Let’s ignore that Hasan made all those anti-American statements about the Afghan and Iraqi wars and that he wrote dozens of emails to a known Al Qaeda clerica and that he yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he slay the innocent. Let us also ignore that he purchased two guns nicknamed “Cop Killers” for their ability to penetrate body armor and then sneaked them on base. Let’s forget that he gave away his possesions hours before he commited his treacherous acts knowing that he was soon to be in paradise with his virgins. On second thought let’s not forget these things. When did reasonable people loose the ability to think and add up the facts and come up with conclusions? It happened over time when left wingers said we were wrong and harsh in our thinking and we bought into it.


Freudian Slip?

Face it America. About 20% of America is telling the rest of us how we should think, what we should believe, and where we should put our faith. I say it is high time that we think for ourselves and make our decisions accordingly and the speak out for what we believe. Call me loonie but I believe Obama’s fond memories of the Islamic call to prayer run deeper than he wants us to know. His efforts to squelch the truth and to pander to the rights of terrorists are not the thoughts of a PRO AMERICAN president. There. I have said it. Comments welcome.

Obama: Calculating and Controlling

All of us have known someone who is a “Control Freak” and it may be we ourselves. Those who are the Controllers are under the impression that their ideas, methods, and procedures are the best way for things to be seen, done, or avoided. For those who are associated with these controllers, all their time is spent anticipating or being frustrated by the lack of freedom Controllers cause. Whether intended or not, it is extremely unpleasant to want to exercise a personal freedom, an opinion or an idea only to have it squashed by the nay saying of the controller. Even the control freaks freak-out when their ideas are challenged.

I think it would be fair to say that all of us want to control things to some degree dependent upon the situation. It is probably fair to say that we gravitate toward people who allow that freedom and avoid people who wish to control us. To the casual observer the people we choose to associate with or not to associate with may not be all that obvious. This brings me to the point of my article and that is the current style of the Government under Obama is toward control.

Anita Dunn was the White House communications chief until she stepped down on November 10th. In a famous video Anita talked about the Obama machine’s methods to “control the media.” She states:

"So it was very much we controlled it, as opposed to the press controlled it. And it did not always make us popular with the press. But we increasingly by the general election very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control.”

Now aside from her Maoist infatuation she tells us what the Obama administration was and is all about: control. This seems particularly specific to information and Anita and the White House became embroiled in a dispute about Fox News’s rights and legitimacy as a news organization. It appears that since Fox News couldn’t be controlled they had to be castigated.

There is an old saying about how a business gets and keeps its customers. “How you get them is how you keep them.” I think it an apt proverb for what we see as the tactics of this administration. Normally it is used to reflect upon service or quality. If you get your customers by good service you will keep them the same way. Not only is this the way to achieve your past results but to guarantee your future as well. So, if the Obama approach to winning America’s voters was to control the information they receive it is likely that they will continue to do the same. Actually, everything points toward this very thing.

Recently the Democratic Party of congress has gone toward this very same tactic of controlling information by holding secret meetings and locking meeting rooms to all but the chosen few. Even Nancy Pelosi’s recent press conference on Healthcare Reform was an “Invitations Only” event. Republican staffers were expressly excluded yet the guest list included scores of SEIU and Acorn members. Harry Reid went behind closed doors and refused to let the “other side of the aisle” into committee. All of this brings us to a very serious question. What is wrong with truth that would hurt us?

As recently as this morning, Obama has exhorted that Congress should not investigate the “Fort Hood Shootings”. He claims that it is too soon. Too soon for what? For whom? What harm could possibly come from investigating what transpired to allow 13 Americans to die and 30 injured. As an aside that 13 dead doesn’t include the unborn child that that murdered woman was carrying. No one has yet had the courage to call that murder. Ask the expectant father if when his wife was killed did he lose just a wife or a son or daughter as well. A brief Internet search revealed that 4 high profile murders where a mother and unborn child were killed resulted in 2 charges of murder and not one. Why not at Fort Hood? I could only speculate what Obama told Gates to tell the Generals at fort hood.

Someone very famous once said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.” They are so profound that they are engraved on the U.S. Supreme Court building in D.C. and they come from the one that so many would deny the right to worship him: Jesus.
So I guess you could say that when it comes to “O” I tend to think he is a little freaky…a super freak…when it comes to controlling. As for me I would find someone else’s company more refreshing.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

I am from the “Show Me” state Missouri. We are known for needing to see the proof and as such we often say show me. A few years ago we elected a dead man to the Senate and I thought I had seen it all. Sure he was well love but when Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash Missourians voted emotionally to re-elect him. His wife was appointed in his stead and I thought I had seen it all. What I have seen on the American political scene in this past year makes electing Mel look sane.

If it were possible to summarize the past year it would take more time than either of us has but I can hit the highlights.

1. We elected a first-term Senator with no executive experience and a sketchy if not abominable past to the highest office in the land. He won’t allow any of his college transcripts be seen, albeit customary, and I know in my heart it is because his class schedule looked like a who’s who in statist philosophy and circumventing the Constitution.

2. We were promised a more transparent government and White House and if anything there is less transparency to everything Congress and the Administration does. Even when the White House release information it is done on their terms and to their drudges.

3. We were promised no more business as usual with pork-barrel projects and wasteful spending only to see:

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.
• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.
• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.
• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).
• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.
• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.
• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.
• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.
• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.
• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.
• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.
• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.
• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."
• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.
• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.
• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.
• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.
• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.
• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.
• $500 million for state and local fire stations.
• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.
• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.
• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.
• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.
• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.
• $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.
• $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.
• $850 million for Amtrak.
• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.
• $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.
• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.
• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.

…and the list goes on and on and on. Of late the Administration has been buying votes in Congress with more Taxpayer dollars and coming up with even more pet projects.

4. We were warned that when the 3 a.m. phone call came in their would be no one in the White House to answer the phone. Ring – ring, ring – ring, ring – ring. Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, and others are all ringing the phone off the wall not to mention that the American people are suffering.

5. Obama and his administration have installed some of the most misfit, communistic, ultra left leaning liberals to key positions and act surprised that anyone would take offense to them.

6. The new “I will reach across the aisle president” has only done so to slap the other side with insults, innuendo, and partisan remarks.

7. Oh yes. And the president who was to be for all of us cannot hear any of us that disagree with him. Obama has shown himself to be fussy, persnickety, petulant, and of an otherwise thin-skinned nature. No one’s perfect.

8. In the last 10 months Obama has played more golf, campaigned for more Democrats, and visited more monuments than Arnold Palmer, Bill Clinton, and Rick Steves respectively. And, while I can’t be sure of the number I believe Obama has made more TV appearances than Lassie.

9. While promising and failing at that Promise to close Guantanamo Bay Cuba for the detainees, Obama has managed to get 5 of the worst terrorists transferred to America to be tried with all the rights and benefits of American citizens. And I thought the way he behaved in Saudi Arabia and Egypt was inexcusable.

10. Number ten. Every good list has ten items and so shall this one. Obama has recognized that 12 million Americans have lost their jobs so he has a plan. He is going to have a Summit on the subject which is a fancy way to say, “Obama is planning a MEETING to talk about why no one has a friggin’ job”.

Lest I leave you having sounded cynical I would like to leave you on a positive note. Soon our president will be addressing us all again and he wants Congress to make spending cuts a priority. That should leave you laughing until the next time.

Oi Vey! Oi Vey! Now what Iran Say!

No sooner had I penned “Oi Vey” and now Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is demanding that Obama choose between Israel and Iran:

“The support of both Israel and Iran can’t go hand in hand…” according to the Iranian President.

This is the guy our president has hopes of negotiating with. It is hard to tell between “O” and “A” who is the crazier. Obama thinks he can shmooze Ahmadinejad and Mahmoud plans to continue his shtick of “Iran wants just a few more days” to build the bomb… oh, I mean to comply with the world’s wishes.

It would seem that if Israel is waiting on Obama to do something they might as well be waiting for Iran to become their favorite allies. Perhaps they should get in line with General Mc Crystal and those waiting for some support in Afghanistan. That this man would even think to issue such a statement and then expect anything from the civilized world is beyond understanding. Yet, we resist sanctions and blockades as we are expecting Mahmoud to act in good faith.

In the meantime, Iran continues to violate the civil rights of their people and send weapons to anyone who will use them against America or her allies. Just this past week Israel intercepted an arms shipment bound for Palestine. These of course were to help the peace effort and despite that the containers were marked with the Iranian symbols and the ships manifest showed the cargo as Iranian, they deny it.

There is one thing that is undeniable. Israel will not sit by idly forever. They cannot nor will they. They have “everything to lose” and nothing to gain. Think about it.

Oi Vay!

While I am not Jewish I find it interesting to surf the Israeli newspapers for their perspective on subjects that may be of interest to Americans. Needless to say their coverage of subject is specific to them but those topics of common interest often have information that we never would see in our media. For example how does this headline strike you?

Ahmadinejad to Cancel Food, Fuel subsidies, for transfer to Nuclear Projects
This November 8th headline describes his government reallocating $30-$50 billion dollars to go towards their nuclear ambitions. This was approved by the Iranian parliament. Doesn’t this just encourage the heck out of you that playing nicey nicey with Iran is only hurting American interests. Rahm Emmanuel was to speak to General Assembly of the Jewish Federations as the keynote speaker in D.C. today. Perhaps he should “listen already to what they could tell him”. We are afraid of Sanctions because it might hurt the people that lunatic is starving.

Couple that with the latest Iranian solid fuel rocket, with 10 times the power of their previous Omid 1 rocky. They plan to put a satellite into orbit. Maybe later they can send the bomb as far as Warsaw or launch it from a ship to let’s say… Not let’s not. It will have a range of 2450 kilometers and will be able to support a fair size payload, I mean, satellite.

This with the fact that relations between Obama and Netanyahu aren’t exactly rosy… One Israeli describes Netanyahu’s perspective of America this way:
Netanyahu likes to say that the United States is big and that the Israeli public is mistaken in identifying the American viewpoint only with the president. The true America, Netanyahu says, begins 70 miles west of New York and ends 70 miles east of Los Angeles, and within this enormous space, Israel has millions of loyal supporters.

This writer goes on to point out that Israel’s diplomacy with the American is with a Novice in charge of a Superpower. When you put it that way I suppose Israel may have some serious concerns. We Americans seem to have little or no affect on Obama’s decision making. It is anyone’s guess what Obama may do, or as more often tends to be the case, what Obama won’t do.

Years in the Breaking...

Our government is broken. This should be a news flash but sadly enough it is just a declaration of “Old News”. For years we Americans have known that Congress was inefficient at best and that government in general did not represent the will of the people. Why we didn’t or couldn’t prevent this is the subject of a whole rack of books by pundits but we are still left with the decision of “What Now?”

Pelosi and Obama have now proven that the voice of the people is of no concern. It doesn’t matter how many people call, write, or visit their congressperson; what matters is that political pressure from inside the government will ultimately achieve the government’s goals. It is almost as if the government has morphed into a life form of its own. The Obama administration has shown that it will not respond to nor respect the overwhelming majority of Americans. Don’t bother to show up at the White House or on the steps of Congress because those inside are not listening.

Over the past several months we Americans have had to endure an absolute circus in Washington and to what end. Obama promised that his healthcare would win no matter what and to date he has been proven right. Regardless of the wishes of the Majority, Obama understood that with this congress he could impose his will by a series of political maneuvers. In fairness, he is not the first president to do this. He is just the one who is ignoring us now.

So where does that leave us? Should we, can we, dare we put our hopes in what the Senate does with healthcare or look to the 2010 elections. For me I never want to give up hope but sadly I find difficulty in hoping that liberty will be revived in elections that will return incumbents to Washington to ruin what fresh blood we are able to elect. I think all conservatives believe it is time for a good housecleaning in congress but I also think that it is unrealistic to expect it.

Last night as I lay awake thinking I realized that I am old enough to be long dead before the worst of runaway government can get me. As for my children and grandchildren I think they will see the brunt of it. The very thought of that has been the fuel of my political engine. Yet when I speak to my children about the dangers of this Administration, they are no more interested in the process nor informed about it than I was 20 years ago. It is their sense of “everything will be fine” and “I am too busy” and “I don’t know what to do” that makes the current tyrannical government actions possible. Surely Thomas Jefferson was right when he said that we citizens

“are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, that to right them…”

Jefferson went on to explain that government shouldn’t be changed until it reaches “absolute Despotism”. While “despotism” could elicit different definitions, this would be mine:

a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator, not restricted by a constitution, laws or opposition.

As such, I suppose every American will reach their own conclusions as to when and if the government is a problem and how severe. May God bless Americans.

When Pigs Fly

If you would have asked me when New Jersey was going to elect a conservative I would have told you “when pigs fly”. No this is not a reference to Chris Christie’s size though Corzine alluded to Christie’s girth. Now I find that as I watch the election returns some flying pigs are giving me hope. Virginia has already had a triple header with 3 conservative republicans elected and now it appears that New Jersey will surely have one also. I am sure to have to go to bed before the NY23rd race ends. I think I will go to bed with flying swine.

You have to admit that you just need something to hope for in these times. As reported by Susan Ferrechio in the Washington Examiner:

The $787 billion stimulus bill was passed in February and was promised as a job saver and economy booster. Here is where some of the money went:
- $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.
- $30 million for a spring training baseball complex for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.
- $11 million for Microsoft to build a bridge connecting its two headquarter campuses in Redmond, Wash., which are separated by a highway.
- $430,000 to repair a bridge in Iowa County, Wis., that carries 10 or fewer cars per day.
- $800,000 for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa., serving about 20 passengers per day, to build a backup runway.
- $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women.
- $2.3 million for the U.S. Forest Service to rear large numbers of arthropods, including the Asian longhorned beetle, the nun moth and the woolly adelgid.
- $3.4 million for a 13-foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross U.S. 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla.
- $1.15 million to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lake bed in Guymon, Okla.
- $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades.
- $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased.
- $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn.
- $173,834 to weatherize eight pickup trucks in Madison County, Ill.
- $20,000 for a fish sperm freezer at the Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery in South Dakota.
- $380,000 to spay and neuter pets in Wichita, Kan.
- $300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money.
- $1.5 million for a fence to block would-be jumpers from leaping off the All-American Bridge in Akron, Ohio.
- $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago.
- $356,000 for Indiana University to study childhood comprehension of foreign accents compared with native speech.
- $983,952 for street beautification in Ann Arbor, Mich., including decorative lighting, trees, benches and bike paths.
- $148,438 for Washington State University to analyze the use of marijuana in conjunction with medications like morphine.
- $462,000 to purchase 22 concrete toilets for use in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri
- $3.1 million to transform a canal barge into a floating museum that will travel the Erie Canal in New York state.
- $1.3 million on government arts jobs in Maine, including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for storytelling and $12,500 for a music festival.
- $71,000 for a hybrid car to be used by student drivers in Colchester, Vt., as well as a plug-in hybrid for town workers decked out with a sign touting the vehicle's energy efficiency.
- $1 million for Portland, Ore., to replace 100 aging bike lockers and build a garage that would house 250 bicycles.

With all this pork it’s clear why we see flying pigs!

Amazed

When you get right down to it keeping up with the Political Landscape in America is absolutely boring to a great many. Unless you are a political science major or one of the few people who are inexplicably drawn with every fiber of their being to the latest news, it is just not all that interesting. If you are a blogger you stand a better chance at an audience if you offer some advice on designing twitter backgrounds or a better way to get gum out of hair.

Once again, I have had to come to the hard realization that a great deal of Americans are not now, nor soon likely to become interested in Obama and his radical regime. Thomas Jefferson wrote some 230 years ago “…that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves…” and not much has changed. I heard another version of Jefferson’s wisdom years ago that went like this, “the pain that we feel is preferred to the pain that we fear”. In essence it seems that humans will tolerate much to avoid risking worse.

Having spent my complete existence studying human behavior, religion, philosophy and the like I continue to be amazed by above mentioned phenomenon. Still, there is that “flashpoint” just when oil becomes hot enough to the instantly burst into flames and a similar one for humans when they will rise to their feet an rebel against tyranny. While I see a great many Americans seriously concerned about the troubles of the days, I see a vast group that are so absorbed by their day to day lives that they cannot smell the smoke nor feel the heat of the flames engulfing them.

Recently I had the chance to ask some family members about what they thought of the State of the Union and what they knew about current important issues. Well there seemed to be little knowledge about what was going on and not any real concern that anything was all that amiss. My attempts to draw attention to issues of concern seemed to do more to prove my insanity than to educate. I believe that I may have actually caused them to question the validity of what I was trying to say. Fair enough. Declaring that you think Obama has full intentions to remake this nation into something of his choosing does sound a bit extreme. Still, I was left with the impression that whatever happened would be fine and did not merit them looking into it.

Needless to say I walked away from that conversation less that gratified and even a little offended that my opinion carried so little weight. I hadn’t be push or sanctimonious and tried to present fact with verifiable sources. Yet, I failed to make any noticeable difference and do not expect that they will be of any help on Election Day. But, do not misunderstand. I don’t think these folks abnormal but rather quite normal. The storm troopers boots will have to hit their front porches before they sound the alarm; if even then. As for me, I continue on: amazed.