Zombies and Democrats.

I haven't been following the AMC series, Walking Dead, but this weekend I saw an ad for it and began to investigate. The more I looked, the more I saw parallels between the zombies of the Walking Dead post-apocalyptic world and the Democrats of our world.

Let me tell you why you may want to forever refer to Democrats as the Undead.

For those of you unfamiliar with zombies, let me explain. Zombies are humans resurrected in an reanimated body that, while literally dead, exists only to kill humans and dine on their flesh. In the Walking Dead story, zombies have been created by a plague that infects everyone. If you succumb - whether naturally or by violence - you can reanimate as a zombie. If you are infected by the bite or scratch of a zombie, you move directly to the undead state. Zombies must be reduced to food processor by-product to be stopped. Usually a shotgun blast to the head or chest, an axe to the cranium or a grenade in the pants is the kind of violence required to stop an undead walker. How do you like the parallel so far?

 Consider the following. Zombies and Democrats are hell-bent on accellerating a condition of entropy. If the zombies succeed in killing and eating all humans, zombies will cease to exist. In other words, zombies are unsustainable even though they appear to be indefatigable. They just wreak havoc and ruin lives along the way. Similarly, Democrats pursue policies that suck the life out of the economy, kill jobs, force higher costs and grow only the most unproductive elements of the workforce.

Zombies and Democrats all behave the same way, even to their detriment.

In Walking Dead, humans change strategies, set traps and act resourcefully. But you never see a zombie learn from watching another zombie fail. A zombie comrade will lose the majority of his skull and its contents to a 180 grain .30-06 at close range, and the zombie parambulating right next to him is unfazed and undeterred. They pursue the same course that has failed to work for every other zombie that ever tried it. It's mindless, pathological, unnatural and bizarre. Democrats are the same way. Look how African Americans remain a largely impoverished group generation after generation, but loyal Democrats, because they are convinced that the Democrat Party has their best interests at heart. Really? Man, if I were Black I'd eventually look for a friend who did more than tell me how they were helping me while I'm wasting away. Especially when basically all the people who did me wrong were Democrats. And look how Unions talked themselves out of a dream job where you could have all the Ho-Hos you can eat! And why do Democrats allow environmentalists to talk people out of the quality of life they've always enjoyed. Like the lady on Extreme Home Makeover said, “I was Green back when it was called being poor.” Who wants that?

Zombies infect others who then become zombies. Democrats have a similar pathology of liberalism.

It's like rabies. If you get bitten or scratched by a zombie, you get the disease that turns you into a zombie. It's fatal, but you can spread it by biting or scratching someone else and while you're in that walking dead state, you exhibit an evolving surreality in your appearance and actions. Similarly, Democrats spread their pathology. Let's suppose you oppose same sex marriage. They'll argue that you're against love. You're not and you don't want to be thought of as heartless so you moderate your stand and eventually concede that it's possible for two men to love just like a man and a woman. Had you realized the discussion wasn't about love at all, you might have been inoculated. Instead, the liberal Democrats use your good will against you. They ask you to think with your feelings – like they do – and not with your intellect. That would be more like work.

Zombies feed off the flesh and blood of the living. Democrats feed off the sweat and blood of productive hardworking people.

You turn the corner in an abandoned neighborhood and suddenly there are two zombies chewing away on the body of a woman who has been pulled from her house where she had been busy preparing lunch for her kids. The zombies don't care if she's a mom, they don't care how taking her life may deprive her kids of a rich quality of life, the loving embrace of their mother or the food and comfort she can buy with money she might earn. Same with Democrats. You owe them and they are never satisfied. Feed them, raise their wages, excuse their lawbreaking and give them the vote, let them kill their offspring with impunity and they demand you donate to the charities that front for their abortion mills. They're insatiable. And if you think you've put them down for good, you're wrong. You have to make sure they're gone – like Dan Rostenkowski, John Edwards, Jim Traficant or Jim Wright. It takes a merciless blow to stop them. But it's kinda' cool.

There's an army of walking dead, staggering forward behind dead eyes, no future ahead of them but death, destruction, corruption, and though they are legion, they are leaderless and alone, undead victims of a pernicious pathogen, looking not to reason with, but to feed on the living.

The Meme that can Knock Out Obama

When I’m not ranting about politics I’m employed by US and foreign manufacturers to analyse their products and business models and create marketing communications strategies and tactics to improve their sales. A major part of that job is creative thinking that takes the available assets and known factors, powers them with the right words, and mobilizes them against the competition.

Every once and a while when looking at a company’s situation, an idea emerges that is so darned perfect for the situation you get really excited. Then the client gets really excited, then the market, and then - it works.

So, I was suddenly struck by an idea yesterday that puts Obama in a box he can’t get out of. It’s a positioning that forces him to deny soemthing that’s undeniable and explains all his bad behavior.

Barack Obama just isn’t into being president any longer.

It explains all the golf, the parties, the travels, the failure to call congressmen, establish comraderie, reach out to his peers in other countries, or establish a SOFA with the president of Iraq. He was so focused on the hunt that bagging the job was anti-climactic. He wanted to win the presidency, not actually be president.

Now, he’s caught in a horrible position. He has to run for the sake of his party, his ideology, the Wall Street donors that gave a fortune to his campaigns. But, sadly, he really isn’t into it. The pressure is aging him, he’s isolating himself more and more, according to reports. His second Chief of Staff just left a year early. His wife doesn’t even want to live in DC. The guy is stuck.

You don’t phone in the presidency from the golf course unless you’d simply rather be on the golf course. You don’t manage one or two signature pieces of legislation in four years unless you haven’t got the enthusiam to do a lot more. And then, how can you get fired up when your key achievement is about to be declared unconstitutional, and your big money bill was a failure that can’t be explained away under your own economic models. Frankly, the job may be too tough for him. After all, his only work experience, prior to politics, was as a community organizer - that’s not a slap at him, it’s just a fact. This job is a lot bigger.

But, Obama has no choice. He has to run and make it look like he’s into it - even if he’s not. The bloom is off the rose. The job is no longer cloaked in mystery and challenge. It’s a prison sentance. He’s hoping the next four years go fast.

If this “he’s not really into it” meme gets out there, it’s all over for Mr. Obama. It will be too hard to deny given his own actions and the circumstances around him. And, the closer we get to the election, the more it will seem to prove true.

If you communicate with a congressman, a Senator, a candidate, Reince Priebus or someone who can get this idea to the Powers That Be, please do. Or just retweet the link to this page.

It can’t hurt.

From Boer War to Bore War A Review of War Horse

Every New Years eve, my wife and I take in three movies. Then we head home to watch the Times Square festivities on TV. This year, because of the running time of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and War Horse, we really didn’t have time for a third - which is a good thing because there wasn’t a third movie we both wanted to see. TTSS wasn’t playing yet in Pittsburgh or that would have been our choice.

Dragon Tattoo? Go. Absolutely a terriffic movie. Lots of Hitchcockian elements, too, that were delightful. Rooney Mara is an amazing actress who transcends, in this one character, anything I ever saw Meryl Streep do. Note to Rooney - eat something, drink some milkshakes, beef up.

The only negative comments I read were in a few fan reviews. Some friends said the “sex scenes were too violent.” True, there’s violence and it’s distrurbing, but integral to the story. I really didn’t pay attention to those who said they preferred the Swedish version because I haven’t seen it. So, I suppose without that bias to influence me, I thought the film was great.

On the other hand, War Horse is so bad, so unredeemingly faulty, that I can’t spend this entry just praising Dragon Tattoo. I have to warn you about War Horse.

Briefly, it’s a bad story with poor character development, technically a throwback, and long and tedious. Oh, the acting is terrible, too.

The film opens as a young man witnesses the birth of a colt and within two minutes he’s decided he is going to devote his life to this animal. We don’t know why exactly, the kid has no other apparent interests. No girl friends, no friends at all, really. Everyone keeps repeating that there’s something special about the animal. Yeah. If you say so. Actually, the animal kept changing throughout the movie. Sure, it had to grow and age a little. But at one point, you could clearly see where his forehead star had been painted on over an existing diamond shape. Wierd, too, because they could have brought the horse with the natural star in for the close-up and then swapped them out for a wide shot.

As a colt, the animal warms up to the lad because he offers it a bright red apple. We see the animal react to the offer with interest, and when the camera cuts back to the young fellow, his apple is no longer ripe red. Okay. Then the kid once again extends the apple to the horse who continues to keep his distance. And back to the boy. Now the apple has a big bite taken from it but the kid isn’t chewing. So what is going on? Who is in charge of continuity?

Oh, and you can be sure the kid didn’t eat the apple because he can’t shut his mouth. I mean whether he’s talking or not, his mouth is always, always open. I remember my mother once said that was a sign of “adenoids”, whatever that means. His father is a stereotypical drunken, abusive Irishman (thanks a lot, Spielberg. Bet you love stereotypes as much as I do) enabled by his mother. Curiously, we find out at the outset that Dad had served with the British military in the Boer War. Ironically, boredom sets in not long thereafter and remains a leight motif. Here’s some of the flaws I found so vexing.

Dad’s Boer War regimental colors, we are told, are a good luck talisman, and are passed to each caretaker of the horse. They are such good luck that one guy gets killed during his first charge into battle. And just about everyone else who gets close to the horse suffers, too - including anyone who pays anything to own the horse, only to lose all the money they paid, along with all their worldly possessions like food, saddles and granddaughters. Though not the film’s intent, it’s clear, the horse, like most horses in stories, is a bringer of destruction.

But first, there was the farm field. The horse, named that timeless favorite of horse names - Joey, (not Flicka, not Silver, not Black Beauty...but...Joey) plows a field and that makes him a hero because he’s not a big powerful draught horse and the field was in horrible shape. Okay. But check this out. The field is on the side of a hill and it would make a better quarry than a vegetable garden. The landlord even advises the kid to start Joey (not a dancer) at the top of the hill so gravity will help him plow as he heads downhill. It makes sense, there’s at least a 15 degree slope and it’s hard work.

Nevertheless, the horse delivers, turnips get planted and they grow into beautiful plants about to be harvested. However, there’s suddenly a torrential downpour and the field - that hillside of gravel - is flooded like a rice paddy. Now, how you flood a hillside? That had to be the dryest piece of ground in Ireland. And lest you think I’m being picky, you have to understand how obvious this flaw is. Even the characters point out how steep and rocky the hillside is. Gimme a break.

Anyway, Joey (not a kangaroo) is sold to a soldier on his way to the fields of France and WW1, and we see it placed in a makeshift stall at their bivouac next door to a black stallion destined to become Joey’s second best friend. Farmboy says goodbye and promises to find Joey (not a lounge singer), which is how we know Joey will get lost.

By this point I recognized a directorial look reminiscent of Old Yeller. The sets, the story, the acting, the camera angles all look like vintage Disney. There’s even a full frame shot of Dad’s face with a glorious sky behind him. The only difference is Disney would have centered the guy and Spielberg chose to compose him off-center, which is more contemporary. But there’s something else vintage that drove me crazy. The lighting.

The lighting in War Horse sucks.

Like at the bivouac. You’ve got a light source, presumably the sun, coming from behind and left of the camera. To the right is a black horse. You’re not going to be able to see any detial in the horse’s face without a lot of light (there was a better way to do it and I suspect James Cameron would have thought of it) so they blew (or based on the color temperature one could say they blue) a ton of light onto the black horse’s face. Every time the horse nodded, the light shot under or over the horse’s mane and blasted the soldier behind him, turning him pale and blue.

It reminded me of the many old Westerns filmed in the Hollywood Hills at the same familiar rock outcroppings. Rock outcroppings have a lot of shadows so film crews would use reflectors to fill and provide shadow details. Characters often cast two shadows and moved through hot spots where crinkles on the reflectors were evident. Cheap looking.

The horse eventually encounters a portly old Frenchman and his grandaughter who were so over-the-top that I am convinced when they left the set of War Horse they spent their evenings as Tevia and Bielke. “Oooh Grandpere, may I ride ze horse to my death? Even zo ma bones, zay are zo brittle I must take ze green medicine?” So endearing I wanted to yell, “Shut up!”

I couldn’t get to know any of the characters. Maybe there were too many. They were introduced but not well developed. And the war scenes were impersonal. I don’t think there was a single image of an enemy shooting. There were long-range machine guns, mortars and artillary images. But no enemy in a trench drawing a bead. Very distant.

And the trench. That was another problem.

There’s a scene when the Brits have taken the German trench and there are German bodies scattered here and there still wearing gas masks. All of a sudden gas grenades hit the trench. Do you think anyone grabs a mask off a dead German to save his own neck? Have they no survival instincts? There are masks everywhere! Spielberg put them there cause they’re scary. But they’re not as scary as seared lungs, right?

And to make matters worse, farmboy’s friend is consumed by gas as he calls out to him, yet later, he’s okay and farmboy is the one with chemical burns. Bad luck, Old Bean.

Anyway, they’re about to kill the horse, which there’s a lot of in this movie, but he’s rescued by a miracle that anyone in the theatre could have predicted. He hears farmboy whistle for him the same way he did on the farm. Spielberg takes so long to develop this that I really wanted to shout (again) “Hey, Joey, get yer bloody ass over there.”

But I thought I shout at you, instead.

The Dutch Sanction

I read in The Drudge Report that Dutch scientists have mutated two genes within avian flu, H5N1, to make it more virulent, more contagious and more deadly - capable of being spread on the wind.

This makes those scientists more dangerous than the pathogen they have created.

First, they have knowledge of a very deadly process that can be weaponized by merely releasing it. Think of it like a suicide bomber. A fanatic exposes himself and takes a trip around the world. The destruction would be measured in hundreds of millions of lives.

So what do we know of these scientists? We know they have bad judgment. They may also be naive and arrogant. In any case. We can be assured that this discovery, if true, will most certainly someday cause great damage unless some action is taken right now. We also know that the Netherlands is plagued by radical Islamists who have wantonly murdered to enforce their radical views and who regularly threaten the public with their lives should the Islamists simply be offended by a word or deed. Not harmed - just offended.

The threats are even greater than that posed by Oppenheimer’s crew when they created the atomic bomb. A bomb is so expensive only a state can afford to create one. Bombs cannot procreate and they are not dispersed by the wind. An atomic bomb or ten - however dangerous - are not nearly as dangerous as a deadly wind-borne virus, and that is what the Dutch have given us.

Unfortunately, these scientists could be so weak in terms of their morals or judgment that they would publish their findings - releasing their secrets to those who would use the virus simply to unleash misery upon the world. Or, they could be threatened and held hostage, their families or an entire group of people could be held hostage by terrorists, until the scientists relented and revealed their secrets. And terrorists do not seem to fear mutually assured destruction.

The discovery is an existential threat to all humankind, a threat greater than nuclear weapons.

The only solution, I’m afraid, is for a state to kill every one who worked on the project. It’s that bad. They should be assassinated and their work utterly destroyed. Unless you have a better plan.

Jonah Goldberg Inspired This Post

I just read his piece, “Newtzilla to the Rescue” and enjoyed the satisfaction of reading that an NRO superstar had reached the same conclusion I had reached, in many respects, about Mr. Gingrich. See Just Two Speeches Away from the Presidency.

Goldberg’s story got my hackles up by reminding me about the vocal GOP establishment and the Establishment/Media cabal, the writers and politicians who are attacking Newt and failing to offer a better alternative. What they don’t see, and what the Tea Partiers see clearly, is that Newt is never going to be the Not Romney. He’s gaining ground because he’s the Not Obama.

The Tea Partiers, bloggers, and Top Conservatives On Twitter that I know, want to see Newt eviscerate Obama. And while they do not care whether or not he performs that act metaphorically, they are imagining one grand debate. Think about it. You’d have teacher against teacher, grasshopper. Ego against ego. Chamberlain versus Churchill, Ken Jennings toe-to-toe with Big Blue Statist. Andrea Tantaros wrestling Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Yeah, maybe that’s just me. But you get the idea.

It would be the moment we have all been waiting for. Newt wielding his vorpal blade, “Mr. President, I knew Hubert Shlafly, Hubert Shlafly was a friend of mine (wait for it). Mr. President, you’re no Hubert Shlafly.”

Tears would roll. Sobs of joy would be audible from entire suburban neighborhoods. There would be fist bumps and the other thing people do when they jump into each other and slam their beer guts together. It would awaken America like Whoville on Christmas Day.

It really does come down to this. Newt knew to run against Obama from the start. He has honed his weapons and we know what is coming just as surely as we knew the plot for Home Alone Two.

Personally, I’m hoping for something on this order:

“Mr. President, I’m fairly widely regarded as a person with ideas, but I can say without fear of equivocation, that never in my wildest imagination did I think I would say these words to a president of the United States. Mr. Obama, you are a Marxist and therefore an existential threat to our Nation and its way of life. You must be defeated or we will all be defeated. Our dreams will cease to exist like they did for the people of the Soviet Union, our future will freeze in time like it did for the people of Cuba. Our government will become even more bloated and fetid like most of Europe is today. Now, that is not a deduction on my part. That is the only conclusion the American people can reach when they examine your very words. You renounced the free enterprise system in December 2011 when you stated clearly and in context that “Capitalism is a failure.” You have complained incessantly that there is a disparity between economic classes in America that you believe the government should fix by taking from the wealthy and distributing it to the poor - precisely how Marx defined communism. Even Robin Hood knew better. He took from the government and gave to the poor. He let the rich be. You know, envy is so unbecoming as to be regarded as sinful in some quarters.

You have made friends of the worst of America - it’s haters like Bill Ayers the terrorist bomber. Like the Black Panthers who violently threatened voters that might have denied you your office. Like the drug cartels who you hoped would help you persude the Congress to ban guns - though the lesson we learned is that we have much more to fear from government than we do from Mexican Drug Lords. Or, like the sadly misinformed Occupy movement who claim to be a 99 percent minority incapable of working within a system designed specifically to deliver up all of its power to even just 51 percent.

“You have shut down industry and lamented the loss of jobs. You have forced American companies to keep their money offshore yet admonished citizens to buy American.

“You have squandered the blood of heroes so you could remove our military from a conflict that is not over - just so you could appease your voters.

“You have apologized for our greatness, you have bowed to lesser nations and you have humiliated us across the world with the zeal of a missionary.

“You have spent this Nation’s treasure like a profligate. You have indebted us to a greater degree than all of your predecessors, combined. And, you have failed to take responsibility for the damage you have caused. Instead, you have, on every occasion, blamed President Bush for leaving this Nation in arrears.

“The truth is, Mr. President, until Mr. Bush’s last year in office - and despite the worst enemy attack on US soil in our history, our country and our economy was strong and people were at work. It was a Democrat-controlled congress that spent the money - you know Mr. Bush didn’t write the bills he signed. But you, you have had your own Congress, your own Senate - now that the people have taken back their House from you. So, when you complain that work remains to be done, one must wonder how you fail to realize that you could have passed any bill you wanted. You had all the votes.

“Now, you must run on your lack of a record. You have not just wasted the great opportunity and the incredible honor you were given. You have soiled it.

“I am here to take it back.”

Why Mark Steyn is Wrong about Newt

Yesterday, Mark Steyn subbed for Rush Limbaugh.

Don't get me wrong, I think Steyn is a terrific radio host, a superb wit, a true Conservative and the kind of guy who I'd like to call a friend. In fact, as it turns out we do have mutual friends. Maybe some day I'll get to meet Mark. I'd like that.

But yesterday he ranted on an on about Newt Gingrich, asserting that the large majority of the ideas that have caused Newt to be credited as a great thinker are horribly flawed beyond redemption. To hear Steyn tell it, if we weren't being seduced by Gingrich's debate style we would see right through these awful, convoluted, contradictory, Escher-like visions for a Gingrich world.

Mark may be right on all counts - but he has missed the point entirely. It's all about Newt as a quintessential American.

A few years ago I engaged in a political discussion with some friends in Madrid. My Spanish isn't that good so it was difficult, but I knew what they were saying. They were trashing George W. Bush over the war on terror, which at that time had progressed to Shock and Awe and no further. The discussion turned to generalizations about the people of America and their character. How could we, for example, not revolt when there was such an opposition of clearly strong, well verbalized and very public dissension, shared to a great an extent by these Spaniards, who had just elected Zapatero and had not yet seen their friends carved up by shards of what used to be a commuter train.

I did not get into the weeds with them. I just asked them if they understood us, if they knew what was the essence of America. They did not, they didn't even know how to approach an answer. I explained, "America es una idea." That's it. That's why Steyn was wrong about Newt and why he thinks we're being lulled into embracing a dreamer of labyrinths.

The reality is that America, as an idea, is itself horribly flawed, very high maintenance, completely entropic, and overly complex to the highest degree possible without ceasing to exist - and yet it does. It continues to, I would submit, thrive. Yet, as Americans, we no more expect perfection from an idea than we expect sinlessness from Christians. It is only in the marketplace of ideas where American Conservatism values the effort even more than the outcome. We will invest our lives and our fortunes in a good idea and it has been that way from the beginning.

Because in the DNA of every American we have a reverence for ideas, we respect them, we cherish them, we spend our fortunes to nurture them. We name them; Mac, light bulb, TV, assembly line, Windows 7, movies, Blues, Rock 'n Roll, telephone, iPhone, MRI, One small step for man, cheeseburger, cowboy, oil well, Mach one, basketball, New York, LA, Peoria.

The earth is fertile here for the growth of ideas. So much so, even the seasons anticipate the harvest. We knew that each summer solstice brought with it a new iteration from the mind of Steve Jobs, for example. Yes, ideas grow very well, that's why some of our best traveled from somewhere else to be planted in our soil, traveling by Einstein, Tesla, Marconi, de Tocqueville among them. Okay, even Cowell.

Mark, when we look at president Obama, we see no ideas, we hear no plans, we gain no insights. He imbues within us no anticipation of an American Spring because he has no ideas. Ideas are so fundamental to American leadership that his lack of vision only gives life to the questions concerning his citizenship. What was the last great Kenyan idea?

But despite the fact that nothing has grown, we look forward to the fall harvest. We will pull out this weed, we will throw it on the compost heap, we will put it from our minds, we will briefly lament the lost season and then we will lovingly, respectfully, honor the idea that we are endowed by our Creator with the Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and then we will repeat the process until we get it right.

Irene. Big Deal.

The media are rushing to defend their over-coverage of the fizzled hurricane and, in the process, they’re forced to defend state, local and federal government actions. Already we’re hearing the dead being used as a defense. “Do you think the family’s of the six dead North Carolinians think the warnings were overdone?” was one defense this morning on Fox.

Of course, these comments are beside the point.

The point is that the government got several things wrong in a way that’s symptomatic of government’s major shortcomings. First, government is ham-handed. It is packed with people who think they know better than you how to run your life, and they do so without your consent. Mayor Bloomberg is a great example. If he’s not complaining about your diet, he’s demanding you leave your home because a storm is approaching. His excuse, in the case of the storm, is that you will put a burden on emergency services if you get into trouble. Problem is, while Bloomberg is not in charge of you, he is in charge of emergency services and all he needs to say is, “Fine, stay home. But when the storm’s blowing and you’re crying for help, we won’t be able to reach you so you’re on your own.” Fair enough. But don’t tell me I have to leave my house. You are not welcome to make any rules about my house. Period.

And NOAA. They got it very wrong. Today, they’re saying it’s better to over-predict than to under-predict and, by the way, they got the track exactly right. Well, let’s just predict rain for every day opf the week. If we’re right, nobody cares. If we’re wrong, everyone’s delighted with the sunshine. What a bogus argument!

It’s your job to get it right. You missed the dry air mass that interdicted the storm. You missed the extremely low pressure. You missed a lot of details.

The problem is, a government agency carries a certain elevated import or credibility that government agencies are not entitled to. They have never earned their credibility and every time they’re put to the test, they screw up. The government screws up about everything it touches.

Obama’s “Nice job, Brownie,” moment with Napolitano and Fugate was a Little League trophy ceremony. Congratulations on handling the storm of the century, er year, er week, so well. Okay, well here’s a thought. Do you think the families of the six dead in North Carolina think you did such a good job?

How I’d Explain the Debt Ceiling Crisis

If I were John Boehner, Speaker of the House:

“As you know, the Republican Leadership has been trying desperately since we were elected to the majority in the House of Representatives, to bring sound financial policy to our government.

But now, the President, the pilot of this great big corporate jet that we’re all riding in as a nation, has come back from his lofty perch in the nose of the plane to inform us that we’re running out of fuel, and we’re going down. Instead of telling us he’s going to throttle back, save the fuel we have left, and look for some soft turf for an emergency landing - he wants to know what WE’RE going to do about it. Turns out, he didn’t file a flight plan. He didn’t calculate how much fuel we’d need for our trip. And, he dumped a most of our fuel while we were in flight. Makes us wonder what he was thinking. Naturally, we make our recommendations - come down to earth, throttle back, measure your resources.

But instead, he demands to fill our fuel tanks with blood from the biggest and strongest of the passengers, the very one’s who’ll help us evacuate if we come down hard. Even if it would work, there’s not enough blood in all of them to make much difference. It would just make it worse for all of us. Clearly, it’s in our own best interests to resist that idea.

Since we have only a majority in the House it’s easy to accuse us of just blocking progress. But the polls show that most of you understand that what we’re blocking is just more of the same “tax and spend” that got us into this mess in the first place. On the other hand, what we’re trying to provide is leadership that you are not seeing from the President and the Democrat-controlled Senate. I deeply regret having to say those words because we Americans have a strong tradition of looking to the holder of the nation’s highest office with a respect that ordinarily would cause one to forebear such direct criticism. We have reached a point with his conduct, however, where such silence concerning it becomes tantamount to a lie.

For example, unlike the presidents before him, this President has failed to produce a budget for the operation of his government. The failure to lead this country financially is dangerous and irresponsible, and the condition we find ourselves in today is all the proof you need. Our national security is impacted by our financial stability.

But to threaten to not pay our military, or to criticise us when we try to step in and attempt fill the leadership vacuum makes us suspicious of the president’s abilities and intentions. We ask, “If he could lead, wouldn’t we be seeing it?” If he could do something good for the nation, wouldn’t he?

Here are four facts that are not in dispute:

-In just two years, this President has driven our nation deeper into debt than all the presidents before him combined.

-This President has failed to produce a budget for the operation of government.

-This President has given away the nations wealth on the promise of rapid reductions in unemployment.

-The President has failed to put before the American people any concrete plan, meaning even a single sentence in written form, as a proposal for solving the debt crisis.

This financial crisis is of his making. These four facts cast doubt on his ability and sincerity and may explain why he has been unable to make anything positive happen.

Of course, I fully expect a shallow response to what I’ve just said. There will be those standing in the midst of the disaster crying, “how dare we speak ill of the President.” We’ll be upbraided by the President’s minions and the media sycophants for blaming him instead of addressing the problem. You’ll pardon us if we ignore that, if we refuse to engage in those diversions and instead insist that you pundits get serious and do your jobs.

You see, the facts are not in dispute. It IS the President’s problem. Now, we must try to solve it without his help and with our best ideas and intentions. We can’t all be the pilot, so we’ll have to do it somehow from the back of the plane, with the people’s help.”

The Hidden Problem with The Budget Deal

I used to produce TV advertising for a car dealer and as I write this I'm reminded of the saying, "It isn't the deal you got - it's the deal you think you got." In other words, even if you paid way too much, if you think you got a good deal, that's all that matters. I work with a guy who once visited a dealer and told him, "I only have $18,000 to spend, so I want your best deal." Guess how much his van cost.

But, I'm not going to pass judgment here on the deal Speaker Boehner thinks he got. Because we are still spending more than we collect, I do question the level of accomplishment. What really bothers me is quite different than the substance of the deal.

What really bothers me is the GOP's inability to communicate the many persuasive arguments they had in their pockets - that I believe would have allowed them to achieve much more than they did - by getting the preponderance of public opinion on their side. They have to learn how to fight and argue in ways that capture the public's imagination.

For example, their sole argument was framed around the two words, "cutting spending." That same rhetoric was employed the last time the two parties squared off over keeping the government open. By changing the meme, the GOP could have made it much more difficult for the Democrats to say, "There you go again." For example, if the GOP had said they are "cutting the cost of government," it would have more squarely represented what was actually happening, and it would have reinforced the reasonableness of the Tea Party's demands to cut the size and cost of government. We know the Democrats cannot successfully argue against cutting the cost of government. Everybody wants that.

Further, cutting the cost of government does not imply cutting services. For example, when you shop, if you ask for a discount it doesn't mean you get less of an item - it simply means you pay less for an item.

The GOP never brought the argument out of the stratosphere and down to the level where most people could undertand it. For example, why did they never take the two-percent Boehner was asking for and related it to a single dollar? Instead they were always relating it to several trillion dollars. How reasonable and easy it is to understand when you hear, "Speaker Boehner wants to cut the budget by 2 cents on the dollar." Immediately opposition seems unreasonable. Heck, he could have started at a nickel using that kind of rhetoric.

When the Democrats complained about cutting funding for Planned Parenthood and NPR, the GOP should have responded, "But they're not government agencies." You Democrats who are always talking about the sin of giving tax breaks to special interests have to be willing to do what you ask of others. Show us by your example. Let's see you have the guts to cut spending for your own special interests.

And when Harry Reid said the GOP didn't care about women, why didn't the GOP remind Mr. Reid that his Nevada is where politicians look the other way when women prostitute themselves. Is that how Mr. Reid shows his respect for women? Let's see a show of hands of all the Democrats who believe that prostitution in Nevada demonstrates a proper respect for women - if you do, you should be voting for Planned Parenthood - it'll help keep Harry Reid's prostitutes in business.

Why didn't Speaker Boehner simply say, "Look. Most people in this country are opposed to abortion. Most people in this country don't think the government should pay for it and most people think it's bad enough that it exists. Planned Parenthood is simply going to have to find another way to pay for abortions. That's what the people want and, while I cannot speak for the Democrat party, the Republicans are determined, to the best of our ability, to represent the people. As far as other health-related issues are concerned, there are plenty of places for people to go and we have many entitlement programs in place already for providing health care to the indigent. If those aren't working, then perhaps Mr. Reid should not have advocated so vehemently recently for more government care - but less.

See. There are lots of great arguments that could have been made to appeal to the public. They should be being made right now. Today. Because the fight has just begun.

*crickets*

Israel Security Is real. TSA is not.

Fifteen Hours ago I went through security at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. As I entered the airport, I was interviewed by a 20-something female who spoke perfect English, Hebrew and, no doubt a couple other languages. First she carefully checked my facial features - glancing back and forth three time - while holding my passport photo at the same elevation as my face. She asked me, by name, how I was doing, and she watched my face as I answered. I suppose if I didn’t react with familiarity to my own name I was to be quickly yanked from the line. I passed the test. 

She asked me questions about who I was traveling with, where I’d been, and if I had been responsible for my suitcase the entire time. Once satisfied, she motioned me over to an x-ray machine with a conveyor belt. A 20-something young man took my bag and labeled it, he scanned the bar code on the label and sent me to another line.

At that checkpoint, I took my suitcase to a countertop that had a permanent lectern of frosted glass elevated on stainless tubing. The lectern held touch screen displays left and right like an open book. As I approached my bag tag was scanned and the image produced by the x-ray machine was displayed after a couple finger-taps on the screen. Another 20-something female asked me to open my suitcase and I complied. She checked the screen and oriented the suitcase to the image. The dialog went something like this-

Her: (She picks a package out from between some clothes I had packed around it) What’s in here?
Me: A bowl.
Her: Where did you get it?
Me: I bought it in the Galilee, in Tabgha.
Her: Did you pack your suitcase yourself?
Me: Yes.
Her: Did anyone give you anything as a gift?
Me: No.
Her: Did you have your suitcase in your control the whole time you were in Israel?
Me: Yes.
Her: What is in these paper bags?
Me: Those are olive wood carvings.
Her: Where did you get them?
Me: Bethlehem.
Her: Did you buy other things?
Me: Yes.
Her: What did you buy?
Me: More of the same. Small items, mostly - souvenirs.

Her: Okay, you can close your bag.



What else do they do at Ben Gurion? They profile. Another group of caucasian Americans who had an Asian-American leader saw him pulled aside and interviewed for a half hour. A woman who left Israel a few days before her husband was interviewed alone, in a private room, by two men - one of whom was armed with an automatic weapon. She was repeatedly asked where he was, who he was with, what Arabs he knew, who his friends were in Israel and then she was asked the same questions over and over.

They use spies. There are people who walk around as though travelers, sitting at gates, watching faces and listening to conversations, who never leave the airport. I have seen them myself at JFK. After several hours I realized that some of the people I had noted who were meandering though the crowds waiting for flights to Israel were disappearing into a secure room where for just a moment, I saw several workers looking through suitcases. It was in a room with one-way glass and a combination of lighting and reflection allowed me to see for just a couple seconds. But it was clear as a bell what was going on.

But, there’s no pat down. There’s no radiation. No shoes come off, no computers come out of their cases, jackets are sent through the x-ray, but no belts come off. There’s a walk-through metal detector. And there are more questions at passport control.

It’s intelligent, respectful, and it works.

On the other hand, I was required to change terminals at JFK and just 12 hours after going through Israeli security, I went through TSA security. It might as well have been another planet, the differences were so extreme.

TSA eyes were not scanning me, my face, my demeanor. They were concentrating on what they’ve been trained to look at - paperwork, screens and images - processes. Am I putting things in trays that should go through the conveyor trayless? Yeah, that’ll help spot a terrorist. One of my traveling companions - a grandfatherly white man - was patted down. Ridiculous. All incidents have been caused by dark skinned, young Muslim men - none by 60-year old white German-American grandfathers. What you see in our airports is not security - it’s politics.

I had a plastic bag with two pounds of Dead Sea mud in an Army green Alice Pack that I carried on my back. The Israeli’s didn’t care - but the Americans missed it. It’s a liquid, a colloid, a prohibited soupy, viscous chemical mix, and they never even saw it. I know why, and if I wanted to transport an explosive, I know how it could be done now. Essentially, it slipped through because there’s no passion in the US for finding and outsmarting the terrorists - TSA just follows orders and uses no intuitive processes - because the TSA doesn’t really believe there are people who want to kill us.

That’s why we’ve had several terrorist incidents on our airplanes in just the past few years and why TSA has never caught a terrorist. The Israeli record is spotless.

Ding Dong the Bitch is Dead

Democrats and the mainstream media are whistling past the graveyard. They’re talking about Obamacare like it’s a tennis match. Durbin just yesterday, and others, are referencing the won/lost court case standings. Yes, two Federal Judges have ruled that the Affordable Care Act (gag) is legit - and two have ruled against the government.

But that’s not the way these things work. This is a lot more like hunting than tennis.

Two Judges decided not to shoot at the Healthcare Law. They left it alone. That has no impact on the law. It doesn’t make it stronger, and it doesn’t detract from it. It has no effect.

However, another judge did take a shot at the bill and wounded it (the Virginia case). That had an effect and the government is forced to appeal that case.

Judge Vinson, the Federal Judge hearing the case brought by Florida and joined by 25 other states, ruled the Act unconstitutional. He further said that he would not enjoin the government from enforcing the Act because he had rendered it null and void. In other rather uncivil words, he shot it in the heart at close range and killed it. It does not exist anymore. It is not a law, it has no force and it is as though it never passed.

The government hopes to win an appeal and win at the Supreme Court, but that is unlikely.

What must happen now is for pressure to be brought to bear on the Administration to agree to take the case immediately to the Supreme Court. The Court could hear and render a verdict on the case in less than two months, saving the country a lot of pain and money in litigation.

Here are two ways to pressure the Administration: First, the victorious states must announce that they accept the verdict and will not implement any of the mandates provided for in the former law. In other words, they show they understand how to win. Then, the House should refuse to consider any legislation until the Administration agrees to fast-track the case to the Supreme Court. I believe the House could appeal to the Court to do so because they should have standing in the matter - they created the bill.

Meanwhile, it would be better for McCain and Graham and Hatch to just keep quiet. Hatch’s plan to repeal the individual mandate would leave the question of Congress’ Commerce Clause power undecided by the Supreme Court. We need the Court to address and roll back that authority. And stripping an act which no longer exists of its authority is simply silly, a futile exercise. You guys don’t have any idea how winners act, do you. Buh-Bye.

This Should Scare You

All of us who have spoken publicly know that there’s the rare occasion when you must speak extemporaneously - and there's the norm, when you have time to prepare enough to make the speech look extemporaneous. Those are the best speeches.

It’s been 48 hours - enough time to let it settle in - since the State of the Union speech. My initial impressions have not been modified by the pundits, but they have been generally confirmed.

Essentially, it was a very poor speech. It rambled, lacked cohesion - even a theme - and it was full of inherent contradictions or statements that were false on their face. Obama talked about the country having great debt - yet he never took responsibility. Obama claimed we needed a Sputnik moment to replicate the commercial successes of the Space Program - yet he never mentioned gutting NASA’s budget and essentially shutting it down. Obama talked about American exceptionalism - but he praised not only the failed Soviet Union, but modern Communist China. Obama called for a budget freeze but in the same breath referred to it as a budget cut - and at the same time insisted we needed to hire 100,000 new teachers. His examples of American ingenuity, which he employed as a lever for more “investment,” meaning taxing and spending, were achievements which had been accomplished by people and businesses without any support or interference from the government. His joke about salmon fishing and canning regulation also fell flat - partly because it wasn’t funny, but mostly because he was making light of how his cronies spend most of their time - regulating, legislating and controlling other people’s lives. It was like he was mocking his audience.

But, what I haven’t heard said is how thin the speech was. It lacked the trappings of leadership. It was absent the heart-felt rhetoric or emotion or a personal conviction. I don’t think even Obama believed what he was saying. In fact, I’m certain he didn’t.

I remember a friend, a performer, once telling me that when you perform - you must not hold back. The audience can tell when you’r holding something back and they won’t like it.

In my opinion, we didn’t hear what Obama is really thinking, what he’s really planning for his next two years. But in our hearts, I suspect we know what it is, and we know for sure, it isn’t good.

Null and Void

Associated Press reported yesterday that several state legislatures are working on bills to nullify Obamacare.


“GOP lawmakers introduced such a measure Wednesday in the Idaho

House, and Alabama, Kansas, Maine, Montana, Oregon, Nebraska, 

Texas and Wyoming are also talking about the idea.”



At least one of those measures would call for the prosecution of anyone - including state officials - who refused to enforce the bill’s provisions. So, they’re serious.

But, according to the AP, “The efforts are completely unconstitutional in the eyes of most legal scholars because the U.S. Constitution deems federal laws ‘the supreme law of the land.’”

But one constitutional scholar disagrees. His name is Thomas Jefferson, he was intimately familiar with the Constitution and served as the third president of the United States. Though some today might regard the opinion of the Associated Press as more credible, in 1799, Jefferson wrote that "nullification ... is the rightful remedy" whenever the Federal government commits an act so egregious that the states cannot allow themselves to be compelled to submit. Jefferson created the doctrine to express his disgust with the Alien and Sedition Acts that were enacted by then-President John Adams during the war with France.

Certainly there is case law that clearly demonstrates the Supreme Court’s opinion that Federal Law supercedes state law. The Supreme Court may or may not one day turn a different direction. But in this case, we’re not looking at a clash between two contradictory laws. Nullification is a rejection of an act by the Federal government. In our opinion, the Constitution. It is, in effect, a means of suing the Federal Government outside of court by expressing simultaneously the state’s and the people’s sovereignty. Both of which, by the way, are guaranteed in the 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

There are already law suits between states and the federal government where the states are suing the Federal government for injurious legislation. Obamacare has recently been the subject of such suits filed by about half the Union. But, is that the only way to stop an out-of-control Federal government?

No. The ratification process enshrined within the Constitution shows that the Framers recognized the power and authority, post confederation, of state sovereignty. They allowed for any part of the Constitution itself to be altered if simply enough state legislatures so desired. That Constitutional authority does not suggest that the Federal Government, its Congress or its Supreme Court is the superior governing body. It suggests the opposite.

This is a very important argument to those of us who see the strength of this nation, believe it or not, in its diversity - cemented by its great brotherhood - formed of a single idea. States that pass nullification laws are expressing their exquisite understanding of our freedom, and their willingness to participate in a Union of States, only as long as they are held sovereign. It is a midway point between oppression and secession.

Cruel and Usual

The shooting at the Safeway may make it more difficult for those who are desperately seeking greater border security by playing into the hands of the Obama Administration and the Liberals who want porous borders. As usual, their minions are out making cruel accusations, trying to stir the pot with perverted statements.

The shootings in Tucson will make it seem to many as creating an extremely difficult situation for those who want more force on the border. Anything seen as presenting a violent potential will be used by the perverted Left as an example of violent speech.

Therefore, the time is right now to get out in front of this argument with some thoughtful and simple-to-understand comments to defeat the Left and rally the people who might otherwise be crestfallen by the turn of events in the face of their dire need for security.

Here are the words that need to be said in order to create a pre-emptive argument:

The lack of focus on the border may have been made even worse by this psychopath’s attack on our Republic. We must not be distracted from the greater peril.
The shooting at the Safeway is over, but the decapitations, the drug trade, the invasion of our sovereignty continues unabated. Will Obama speak to that?
As bad as it was, the shooting at the Safeway pales in comparison to the violence in Mexico that’s behind the drug trade coming across the border.
Why does Obama give more attention to the actions of a psychopath that threatened the life of one Congresswoman than he’s willing to give to the actions of a cartel that threaten entire States?
The Left is quick to make cruel accusations against their fellow Americans, yet where there is real crime, by foreign invaders, they are silent. It is time for them to join Americans everywhere and stand up for our sovereignty.


Oh, and when they make a cruel accusation, don’t address it. Just tell them it’s cruel, which makes it psychopathic - wanting deliberately to hurt innocent people is sick - and that it’s unfounded, and well beneath the standards you have set for yourself for public discourse. That ought to do it.

Deathers

Like you, I’ve been consumed and saddened by the shootings in Arizona. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make sense of it. Of course, that’s a futile effort. The shooter was irrational, crazy, maybe knew right from wrong, but you can’t rationalize an irrational act.

The really egregious part, the part that’s stirred the biggest reaction, has been the perverted attempt by politicians to try to elevate themselves and their political ideologies by standing on top of the corpses so they can get more attention. It’s an act that may actually be more twisted than the shootings themselves because it’s done by seemingly rational people. The pain inflicted by them on perhaps millions of others by accusing them, their words, and their beliefs of evoking any part of this tragedy is plainly an act of pre-meditated cruelty. And cruelty is psychopathic.

Why would they do it?

We all know someone who manages to turn the conversation around to them, no matter what the subject. It gets annoying. Like, “But enough about me, what do YOU think of me.” So, after you suddenly realize what you’re hearing - and how often it happens - understandably, you try to analyze your friend, why does she do that? Is she so insecure? Or maybe it’s the opposite, she’s so egocentric that she really only sees the world in the first person.

Perhaps, finally, you realize you can’t really know the answer, so you settle for the only facts you know for sure- that it’s symptomatic of something, that she does it, she does it constantly, and she does it predictably.

That’s where I’m at with the Liberals and Progressives. I can’t really analyze them, but I know what they’re doing is wrong and why it’s wrong. I know it’s cruel, and I know cruel is sick. But I’ve also just realized that what they’re saying is their most common discourse. They are obsessed with death as a tool for political ideology, while it seems quite clear that the opposite political ideology embraces discussions of life.

Sarah Palin was quick to point out that Obamacare’s rationing would lead to Death Panels. Proved true by the release of a private Democrat document. The progressives are still apoplectic for being called out - no doubt one of the reasons they chose to turn demographic targets into metaphoric rifle scope images on a Palin campaign piece.

Abortion is an easy example. As clearly as it seems to Conservatives that a death results, Progressives and Liberals have spilled drums of ink attempting to deny that anything but a surgery takes place. All I know is that when I have surgeries - the cells removed and destroyed all had my DNA - not someone else’s.

Why do the Liberals want a body count of US war dead, and not a body count of the enemy. To impose their cruelty. They want it to hurt, all the while they decry torturing our enemies.

Something is happening as you see the Liberals and Progressives sink further into the Dark Side. Their cache is fading, their credibility is being eroded by simple observation, their words are cutting more and more people who once felt there was truth in their claims that they represented the thoughts and dreams of their constituents - now, a lot of those dreams have turned to nightmares, and very few others have those thoughts, thank God.

So now, when the perverted legislative initiatives are presented once more to ban criticism of politicians and ban guns and ban public meetings, people will see more clearly what is happening. Free speech is inversely proportionate to political violence. But these politicians are opportunists. They are trying to make us believe that the behaviors of a sane society should be regulated on the basis of the acts of the insane among us.

That thought sits just a bit farther down the same scale of irrationality the shooter sits on.

Thoughts on the Giffords shooting.

Guns
Anyone who has lived in this country for even the past few years has learned that we are a place where some people kill other people with guns. That’s a crime everywhere, so people who do that are not only morally wrong, they are criminally wrong, too. Only a very, very, very small percentage of people who ever own a gun use it to shoot someone. Nevertheless, a lot of people, including some who own guns, are continually trying to restrict gun ownership by rational people, on the basis of the behavior of irrational people. This shooter is clearly as irrational as they come.

Politics
When the president talks about a nut shooting someone, it tells the other nuts that they can get the president’s attention this way. Bad idea. He said nothing that he couldn’t have said on paper. He referred to the Congresswoman in the past tense though she is still very much alive, and he really added nothing. Bad form.

When the Daily KOS makes the Congresswoman a political target of its venom and then burns up the social media accusing every Republican and Conservative it can name for provoking this individual, it reflects the same dementia inherent in the shooter. This shooter needed no provocation and left zero evidence he had been provoked by anyone other than some of the best known Leftists - Hitler, for example - whose Mein Kampf was on the shooter’s recommended reading list.

Reaction
Some conservatives called for not politicizing the act. Of course, that’s not possible. Assassination is patently political. But the hasty reaction from Paul Krugman and the Daily KOS, are indicative of a deep sickness that appears to thrive in the political Left. It’s important for the Right to refuse to debate whether or not this criminal was provoked by the Tea Party or Sarah Palin, but instead, to simply respond, “That’s sick thinking, take it somewhere else.”

Government Warming

Picture those Goriffic glaciers, as massive sections let go and crash into the green-blue water sending up huge plumes of spray. Edited to appear like they’re rushing into the sea, the visuals show slab after azure slab break away - calve, I think they call it - and drop violently into the drink.

It occurred to me that this is a metaphor for our society more than a lesson in global climate change. We are being ripped apart one slab at a time. As Dennis Miller might say, “we’re being sliced and diced like a sheep that just accidentally wandered into Osama Bin Laden’s cave in Tora Bora.” He might say that.

The point is, it’s a thousand cuts...we’re not paying attention to these Socialists, and we should be:

They said they wanted to preserve the land for us. So they took it from us.
We can’t build, sell, hunt on, cut a tree or even pee on that land now.
They said they wanted to end poverty. So they took money from those that had it.
 We still have plenty of poverty. It lives in the ghetto the government created.
They said they wanted to provide affordable health care. They took more money.
 As many as 50% of doctors report they may leave the profession. (CNN)
They wanted to make air travel safe, so they took guns away from passengers.
9-11 would not have happened if there had been armed passengers.
They said they wanted better schools, so they raised taxes and built palaces.
Test results are worse, not better in the US.
They said they wanted to stimulate the economy so they spent $900 billion.
Unemployment rose to about 10 percent.
They said they wanted to stimulate car sales so they created cash for clunkers.
Taxpayers bought the junk. After the event, people stopped buying cars.
They said they wanted to protect our borders from illegals. So they voted to make illegals, legal.

It just goes on and on. Nothing they do works to help us, it always involves taking our money and wasting it, and it usually has a negative result. It just continues to erode our nation - each time Congress acts, it wounds us. It removes some of our fiber and our flesh and it leaves us weaker.

The system is broken. The government is corrupt. The people have had it.

What’s next isn’t pretty.

“Poppies!”

“And now, my beauties, something with poison in it, I think. With poison in it, but attractive to the eye, and soothing to the smell.” -Wicked Witch of the West, The Wizard of Oz.

Matt Drudge links to a story today about Wikileaks that reveals US concern over homosexuality and pedophilia in Pashtun Afghanistan. Is there any other corruption that Muslims can rationalize? They can kill their own wives and daughters, any non-believers, any defilers, any foreigners, anyone who does just about anything that someone doesn’t like. According to the story in the Washington Examiner (Afghan sex practices concern U.S., British forces), Pashtun men are practicing rampant pedophilia and homosexuality, despite the Moslem prohibition against homosexuality. I mean, who’s surprised that there are no rules. I’ll bet the goats aren’t even safe.

But it is another reason to make me wonder what we are hoping to accomplish in Afghanistan, and how we’re going about it.

A culture that condones, accepts as normal, the sexual assault by men on little boys is not a culture - it’s a hell on earth. Read or see The Kite Runner if you think we need to view Afghan culture through a different lens. I’d recommend the lens of a 12 power Leupold like the one on my Belgian .30-06.

Here’s the topic sentence. Sorry I took so long but the aforementioned helps set the stage.

If we were serious about Afghanistan we would forever poison the poppy fields - carpet bomb, agent orange, dirty nuke, irradi-f’ing-cate them. But we let these buggars keep growing the stuff that they use to poison our kids while they defile their own.

You really want to insist that we view Afghanistan like Afghanis? Then I say we blow them all to hell, because that’s the way tribal people think. Honor/Shame. Offense/Absolute Punishment. Individual Affront/Tribal Debt.

Our president, who may himself have been a “little boy” once according to some reports, has shied away from a meaningful and quick (meaning violent and remorseless) solution to the war. Like most Democrats, he listens too much to diplomats , who have failed by definition (there is a war, after all). This is a time to kill, President Mom Jeans. Killing the poppies kills the Taliban.

The Consent of the Governed

What we have witnessed from the Lame Duck congress is nothing either party can be proud of.

The Democrats have not learned their lesson. They are ideologues plowing headlong through their agenda like they’re delivering a kamakaze to the Ship of State. They are hiding legislation that has been defeated inside legislation that is being voted on. They are refusing debate, refusing compromise, refusing the clarion call of the people who said, “This will end.”

And the GOP is no better. I heard Lindsey Graham speak today in opposition to a piece of legislation and he was the weakest, most passionless and ineffective speaker I have probably ever heard. Is he a lawyer? Really?

Mitch McConnell doesn’t impress. We should have stopped everything. We had 40 votes and he didn’t have the guts to tell Scott Brown, “Scott, have you met Marco Rubio? Because he’s going to get a committee and you’re going to get a broom. He’s going to be president and you’re going to lose your re-election bid.”

Here’s the problem. 13% approval means that if the next Congress wilts under the media spotlight, the jig is up. Meaning they have to be Chris Christies, not John McCains.

The people have already withdrawn their consent. That’s what the thirteen percent means. If they do not see results, there will be a revolt. First there will be an economic collapse and soon blood in the streets. And because the military is largely conservative, the military may join the people. The borders will be ignored by our government and foreign invaders will form an insurgency in our own country. The internecine fighting and the insurgency will be too much for the government and it will collapse.

Yeah, I’m out there.

So, what is it I’ve speculated on that has no basis in fact?

Doomed to Repeat

The Obama Administration, or more accurately, The Obama Cartel, has up to now managed a very clever sleight of hand. They have bemoaned the chaos, violence and mayhem south of the border, and used it as a distraction from their own complicity.

Would anyone assert that we, with or without Mexican help, are incapable of routing the Mexican Cartels? We better be, because they’re coming for us with machetes and grenades.

Yet, The Obama Cartel, an organized crime syndicate with its own national flag, has refused - that’s the word - refused to seal our borders and/or prosecute a war against the invaders and terrorists who have no regard for life, limb, property or sovereignty. That makes Obama complicit.

The fact that the Obama Cartel has made it a policy to do nothing, shows why community organizing is not a suitable preparation for executive leadership. Rather, a world history course would have been a better path. Because, had Obama studied history, he would realize that the very words, “Vandals” and “Barbarians,” which we use today to describe remorseless thugs and Union bosses, were vast tribes of people once engaged in precisely the same occupation that today’s Mexican cartels engage. They crossed borders, raided, raped, pillaged and murdered. By 500 AD, the Vandals, Barbarians and their cohorts took over nearly the entire continent of Europe by employing the same methods the Mexican terrorists are using on us today.

Oh, you may have heard of the government the Vandals and Barbarians toppled - it was called the Roman Empire. Like the United States, the Romans were known and feared for their strong military, too. So don’t feel secure - be very afraid.

Sorry to say, but all of this is the good news. The bad news is in the next Chapter of the history book Obama never read. In that chapter, the Vandals and Barbarians are displaced on the lower rung of humanity, around 600 AD, by another group of border raiding nation killers who attack with even more bloodthirstiness - the Muslims.

And today, thanks to his politics and his commitment to doing nothing about the problem, Obama’s Cartel has invited BOTH Muslims and Barbarians to our gates.

History suggests that through his ineptitude, Obama will help accomplish a destruction that will earn him an infamy greater than Emperor Nero’s. I pray it passes over you and your loved ones.

ILTG