Speaking Truth to Power

WEYI Channel 25, Saginaw's NBC affiliate, ran this story last Friday. It explains my departure from my job at United Way last summer.

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Canaries In The Echo Chamber

It's been said that any work of fiction written or performed after William Shakespeare, remains unoriginal. This is certainly true in the world of political reporting, where more often then not pundits and writers often share the same insights and reactions to news. However yesterday I came across an incident that suggests two such columnists may have attended the same briefing or overheard the same conversation at a Washington cocktail party. The synonymous idea is that President Obama needs to be more like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Both John Nichols of The Nation, and E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post, wrote columns extolling the necessity and virtue of BO becoming more like FDR. They both took the opportunity of the president's Thanksgiving Proclamation to assert this claim. Apparently, Mr. Obama, despite his eloquence, braininess, and mastery of the English language, comes up short in comparison to Mr. Roosevelt in word and deed. They extolled the pragmatic use of the former president's proclamations to lift the spirits of his audience and to energize them into helping him put his policies into practice. On the other hand, they both suggested that our current presidents' words were less than energetic, and bereft of any call to action to right this country from the ravages of the Bush years.

It's apparent that people are running for the exits now having witnessed the first year of our new presidents first, and hopefully last, term in office. It's quite a turn of events however when the very people who aided in the rise and coronation of Barack Hussein Obama now find him shallow and unequipped to remake the world into a progressive utopia. As Peggy Noonan points out in a piece in today's Wall Street Journal, "When longtime political observers start calling for wise men, a president is in trouble."

Happy Thanksgiving

Be back soon.

Game Plan

Phony job numbers. Nonexistent congressional districts. Policy goals built upon fraudulent climate data. Lies, deceit, obfuscation, not to mention communist and terrorist sympathizers, tax cheats, and just plain incompetence. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to hope and change, I give you the Obama Administration.

It's really quite fascinating if you can put behind the utter scope and magnitude of insincerity and deception being practiced on a daily basis by this president and his cronies on the American public. There are no rules of order, fair play, or honest engagement with this crowd. It's all very ACORN like, 24/7, without let up. I just hope the republic can survive him until 2012.

Come to think of it, let's not wait until then. Let's end this sooner rather than later. In 2010, let's elect a majority of Republicans, Independents, or whomever it takes, to reclaim the House of Representatives and the Senate with enough support to impeach this clown and send him back to Chicago. Perhaps then we can begin anew to reclaim this country for ourselves and our providence and cast aside the liberal groupthink that has dominated this country for decades.

Thanks to the succession of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama, Nixon's "silent majority" has re-awakened and found their voice in a variety of places like the Tea Party movement, 9/12ers, and other conservative groups. We know what we want now. We desire an end to deficit spending. We demand a government that can be trusted with every last dime and an honest accounting of such. We want smaller government with taxation and services that are equal to our needs, not our wants. We insist on justice for all and special favors for no one. We want to be left alone to earn a living and raise our families, unfettered by government interference and over regulation. We want our leaders to stand up to tyranny and to defend freedom. We need to secure our borders, defend our shores, and protect our allies. Simply put, we need a government that works for us not against us.

Gravediggers

They're so proud of themselves. Chests pumped in full senatorial plumage. "Ted was watching us," gushed Harry Reid, the Democrat majority leader wistfully reflecting upon the passage of a procedural vote on Obamacare that would have pleased the late Ted Kennedy. Once again, Democrat lawmakers in Washington are so pleased with their efforts to control one sixth of the U.S. economy and to add $2.5 trillion to our nation's deficit that they vote to do so only when they think that no one (besides Ted) is paying attention. In other words, the Democrats are more interested in paying homage to the dead than in respecting the wishes of the living.

On two separate Saturday nights now, within two weeks of each other, the Democrat-controlled Congress have collectively thumbed their noses at a majority of American citizens who oppose this legislation. Come hell or high water (perhaps both if Al Gore is right), Reid, Pelosi, et al, will continue to march down the path to government run healthcare much to the dismay of their constituents. And again we are left with this fundamental and overriding question: If Obamacare is so great and so necessary, why then does Congress and the President exempt themselves and their families from coverage?

Brain Dead

Would a smart man risk his reputation and a powerful office on an unknown outcome as inconsequential as an Olympic bid? Would an intelligent person risk his young administration and potential future legacy by delegating his economic recovery plans and his most transformative legislation to a bunch of power hungry progressives with a tin ear to the electorate? Not to mention picking an attorney general that chooses to put America on trial rather than the terrorists who wish to bury it. Or the fact that his decision making process, where American soldiers' lives are at stake, is slower than molasses and may soon jeopardize the outcome regardless of his final decision. The answer to all of the above would be no, unless you are the brilliant, smartest-guy-in-the-room brainiac that is Barack Obama.

I'm sick and tired of everyone in the media and elsewhere repeating this notion that Barack Obama is so smart. What proof do we have that this is true? His Harvard law degree? Just because he's articulate, speaks like an educated adult, and uses phrases like "false choice", doesn't make him smart. I suppose after George Bush, anyone that could string two coherent sentences together was bound to come off as brilliant, but c'mon. He won't release his college transcripts from Occidental or Harvard so how do we know he didn't fail biology or get a C in freshman composition. Because he wrote a book or two? So did George Bush, his dog Barney, and his dad's dog Millie.

There's Something About Sarah

Sarah Palin drew 60,000 at The Villages in Florida last September. The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate sits on Oprah's couch and the talk show mogul's ratings go through the roof. Thousands line shopping mall corridors just to get a glimpse of the former governor of Alaska. Millions will buy her book. Yet to the media elite in New York, L.A. and Washington, D.C., who continuously castigate and excoriate her, she is an inconsequential rube demagoguing her way through fly-over country as she clings to her guns and her religion. In other words, you should be afraid of Sarah Palin, be very afraid.

Why all the hate for this woman? What did she ever do to elicit such vitriol? Nothing she has ever done, no action taken on her part, has warranted the abject disgust and abuse this woman has taken at the hands of our national media. So she didn't answer a couple of questions quite the way she should have during the campaign. She answered more than enough of them right. She was the answer to millions of prayers and aspirations of hopeful Republican voters, most notably John McCains', who by joining him, single-handidly drew his ass out of the fire of a hopelessly pathetic campaign and gave it enough life to have a legitimate shot at winning.

Sarah Palin may not be the first woman elected as President of the United States. She may never be elected to another political office again in her life time. She may never again participate in Republican party politics. What Sarah Palin is however, is a powerful and welcome voice of conservatism in a country vastly in need of such.

Coddling Evil

As if the news that the Obama administration was making H1N1 vaccinations available to Gitmo prisoners before most of us in this country get ours wasn't shameful enough, now comes the real clincher. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, will be permitted to stand trial in New York City in a civil court. This decision by the U.S. Justice Department, under the auspices of President Barack Hussein Obama, is not only unconscionable but a direct affront to those that perished in the attacks, their families, and to their memories.

While many of us have been appalled at the speed and magnitude with which this president continues to try and remake this country into something that more aptly fits his own warped sense of ideology, this latest stunt wins first prize, hands down. President Obama and the rest of the blame it on America crowd will get their opportunity to put Uncle Sam on trial for the exploitation, degradation, and humiliation of the Muslim empire and all people of color. They will put before the world court, George W. Bush, for the unlawful invasion and summary destruction of an innocent and valuable member of the international community, as prosecuted by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Quaeda, and ably assisted by the U.S. Justice Department. God help us.

P.S. When I spellchecked, "Khalid", I was asked if my computer needed to learn this particular word or spelling. Unfortunately I had to enter yes.

What Political Correctness Has Wrought

When Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder chastised the U.S. as a "nation of cowards", he was speaking about our collective reluctance to honestly discuss our attitudes over skin color. While I disagree with his take on that subject, I do believe that America has become cowards to another fashion; political correctness. The pursuit of political correctness has continued to blind us all to certain realities. The latest reality, one that has been building for quite some time now, is that religious extremists of the Muslim variety live and flourish among us and continually work to destroy this country from within.

Paranoid xenophobic you say? Ask Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, now that he has regained consciousness, recuperating from his killing spree that took the lives of thirteen and wounded another 29 at Ft. Hood. Ask him if he should have been permitted to remain in the United States Army while the nation is at war against Islamic terrorists. Ask the white haired grandmother, or the young mother with a baby, why they have to remove their shoes or take a drink of the formula before proceeding to board an airplane. Ask the President of the United States why he feels compelled to throw our nation's Judeo-Christian heritage under the bus in a speech to a Muslim audience in Cairo. These are all examples of bending over backwards to accommodate and dismiss what we all know to be true. Practitioners and followers of the Islamic faith are solely responsible for 99.999% of terrorists acts against this country.

Why are we surprised then when we learn, once arrested or killed, that terrorists like Hasan, or Denver's Najibullah Zazi who is suspected of plotting to bomb New York city subways, or even the 9/11 hijackers, frequented American mosques where violent jihad was both condoned and encouraged? We fight and rail against the madrassas in middle eastern countries where intolerance is practiced and preached everyday, yet under our very noses, just down the street, that same anti-American garbage is continuously distributed and ingested.

Yet political correctness warns us not to be too judgmental of our Muslim neighbors. Just last month, U.S. Airways settled a lawsuit brought by six imams, or Islamic religious leaders, who were arrested and removed from a flight in 2006. Terrified passengers and crew members reported suspicious behavior by the imams prior to boarding and once seated on the plane. This included speaking loudly in Arabic, refusing to sit in their assigned seats and instead sitting in pairs on aisle seats, ordering lap belts that went unused, saying disparaging things about President Bush and the Iraq war, and mentioning al Quaeda and Osama bin Laden. A Minnesota judge who sided with the imams in the case noted that they were subjected to "extreme fear and humiliation of being falsely identified as dangerous terrorists" and said "similar behavior by Russian Orthodox priests or Franciscan monks would likely have not elicited this response." Quite right your Honor, because Fr. Molotov and Brother Beretta, while having dangerous sounding names, have no history of flying planes into buildings, bombing embassies, trying to sink our ships or gunning down our soldiers.

Media Monster

Today on Morning Joe, Mika Brzenzinski indignantly complained of the attention that former Miss USA runner-up Carrie Prejean, continues to receive for any and all of her exploits post pageant. While she may have a point, it should be remembered however that it was people like her, and other media elites, who upon being pushed and prodded by progressives' gay rights agenda, created Ms. Prejean in the first place. Furthermore, remember that what Carrie Prejean was pilloried for, her opinion in support of traditional marriage vs. same sex marriage, is the same opinion shared by President Obama.

An Aha Moment

10.2% unemployment, in the wake of a $787 billion stimulus plan, is not what Obama had in mind when he signed that particular legislative feces into law. But then again jobs, particularly ones that are based solely on generating an income for both the provider and the employee, may never have held the same import for Obama as say, healthcare reform, global warming, or apologies for American transgressions. In By The People, a new HBO documentary on Obama's presidential campaign, during a scene in which the candidate is prepping for a debate with contender John McCain, Obama needs help trying to remember his campaign platforms. After someone speaks off camera, Obama says, "Oh yeah, jobs! Hopefully that won't happen during the debate." Too bad it didn't. Maybe the nation could have been spared his ignorance of the concept.

Smelling Salts Please

It's been interesting watching the Democrats try and explain what happened to them on Tuesday. Listening to Nancy Pelosi or Rep. Clyburn (D-SC) you'd think the country had only 48 states and NY 23 encompasses all of that territory. Just this afternoon, Rep. Clyburn said the reason their candidates won in NY and CA was that they ran on Obamacare and other federal issues. He went on to explain that the Republican victories in gubernatorial races in NJ and VA were based on local or state issues and that federal issues were not a consideration. In other words, the Democrats want you to believe that when President Obama campaigned for both of the Democrat candidates in NJ and VA, healthcare, climate change, or union expansion was never mentioned.

What Tuesday's Election Means

1. Obamaism has been gravely wounded, perhaps even (and hopefully) fatally so. While the Democrats currently hold the majority in Washington, they now know that the policies behind the rapid expansion of the federal government, combined with unsustainable and continued deficit spending, along with the many other utopian ideals of the progressives, will not be supported by a majority of Americans.

2. Independent campaigns, like Doug Hoffman's in New York, Christopher Daggett's in New Jersey, and Ross Perot's in the 90's, while perhaps charming to some, only serve to dilute and disperse the very real anger and frustrations of those who have become disenchanted with our two-party system. Better to pick a party and work from within.

3. While the New York 23rd might not be the best test of Sarah Palin's attempt at going rogue and garnering support for her brand of conservatism, it does tell me that she has little crossover appeal on left-leaning moderates.

"But Captain, You Told Me..."

In the movie Mr. Roberts, James Cagney's character Capt. Morton, in a fit of frustration over a questioned order which had previously been given to Lt. Roberts (played by Henry Fonda), says "Never mind what I told you, I'm telling you!" Sound familiar?

Congressional earmarks. Remember them? Remember how candidate Obama, then President Obama vowed to end them, even after signing into law over 8,000 that were neatly tucked inside the $410 billion omnibus spending bill last spring. Or better yet, just last August, the President told an audience of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, "if Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with a bunch of pork, I will veto it." But just last week, the White House signaled their support of the latest Defense Department spending bill which includes almost $3 billion in earmarks. When asked why the President's actions don't always match his rhetoric, the White House responded that it was never their intention to end the practice of earmarks in one year. "The president has been clear from Day One: He wants to change the way business gets done in Washington." Yeah, right.