Joel's Rant
A Conservative Blog

Joel's Rant

4 Unlucky Marines

January 16th, 2012 . by joel

I’ve never been in a combat zone and I’ve never been in the military.  I avoided that in the 60’s when I was lucky enough, like many other men my age, to be safely ensconced in school.  Now, in my later years, I’m sorry I didn’t serve but I understand those words ring hollow today when I’m here in the present and some of my college classmates are remembered when I visit their names engraved in a wall. 

But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand war.  I certainly do, as do most thoughtful, thinking people, who similarly never served.  According to that crackpot, Ron Paul, I’d be unqualified to be the president because I didn’t serve.  Some of our greatest wartime presidents, FDR and Lincoln come to mind, didn’t serve either.  Neither did James Madison and James K. Polk, presidents during 2 of our 5 “declared” wars.  And neither did, of course, the greatest president in my lifetime, Ronald Reagan.  But Ron Paul’s an ass, so who of consequence really cares what he thinks? 

This brings me to my point.  By now you know that 4 US Marines were videotaped urinating on some dead Taliban bodies. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta called it “deplorable” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she felt “total dismay” after hearing the story.  There are several investigations underway by the Navy and the Marine Corps and others to see how such a terrible thing could happen.  I suppose there’s no way such a “travesty” could take place in our armed forces, during a period of war mind you, and our political class merely looking the other way, or letting it slide.  No, that could not be possible.

Here’s my take on this story. I’m glad those 4 Marines did what they did.  I’m just sorry they didn’t set those dead barbarian freak bodies on fire or desecrate them in some other way.  I’m just sorry they didn’t cut off their freak barbarian heads and kick them around like soccer balls and then fling them into a river.  They deserved to be desecrated and defiled.  Our soldiers are warriors, sent to a foreign battlefield to kill, conquer and vanquish the enemy. And they should be allowed to do so with speed and dispatch, the same way we fought our war in WWII. War is freaking war and people die and that’s what’s supposed to happen, for crying out loud. 

And how are our warriors supposed to psychologically handle that situation, the war situation, the same one Ron Paul claims I’m not supposed to understand because I’ve never been sent to fight.  How are they supposed to react after being in battle, with their very lives in constant danger?  Our vaunted leaders like Panetta and Clinton think our warriors should go out and kill the people who are trying to kill them first, and then when they’re finished killing the bad people, to apparently just shrug that off, like they would at the Pentagon or the State Department, and go back to nation building and maybe get some coffee.  Are they serious?  How can our warriors be expected to do merely that.  It’s not what reasonable people would do.  How did our warriors of WWII handle that and how did they regard those they had to kill?  With anger?  With depravity?  With worse?  Maybe. Probably.

And that’s as it should be, no?  When you put people, like our warriors, in harm’s way, we need to not be offended when they vent their rage and anger. That venting is exactly what freaking keeps them human beings, for crying out loud.

Civil War general, William Tecumseh Sherman, is well known for his quote that “War is hell.”  But that’s not his best quote.  His best quote would be “War is cruelty.  There is no use trying to reform it.  The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”  Now ain’t that the truth?

Our problem is that we are, through our sanctimonious leaders and the fifth-column mainstream media, trying indeed to reform it into something not quite so bad.  We now demand no collateral damage, no innocent’s being killed, no severity, only proportionality, defenseless rules of engagement that expose our own troops to danger and on and on.  And now we’re at a point where we have to fight a weak and insignificant-in-numbers enemy for a decade or more and still we’re not done. 

I say no.  We need to fight this war, and any war, with ferocity and focus until we have slaughtered our enemies and vanquished them from the field of battle, even if that battlefield is in a village or even a hospital.  Because that’s how wars are fought.  Because the crueler it is the sooner it will be over.  And yes, there will be dead people, and maybe lots of them.

And if we’re not going to fight like that, then let’s not send our precious warriors to fight at all.

And that’s all there is to it.


Trading freedom for safety

December 3rd, 2010 . by joel

A few years ago I decided I wouldn’t take my shoes off while going through the airport metal detector because I knew there was no metal either in my shoes or anything of the sort holding them together.  They were pure leather and stitching.  There was no possibility they would set off the TSA’s metal detector.  As I approached the detector the TSA agent asked me to remove my shoes, at which point I confidently told him I’d take my chances that the alarm would not go off. 

Unexplainably enough (yeah, right!) the alarm did go off, supposedly because of my shoes, and I was told to wait for an agent to wand me.  And there I waited for about 45 minutes, for a one-minute wanding, almost missing my plane.

Clearly I was being punished for not following the ridiculous dictate that I remove my shoes that had no metal in them.  And isn’t that what’s happening today?  Either submit to a full body x-ray, that essentially renders you completely naked and in surprisingly humiliating detail, or endure the punishment of some TSA agent feeling your genitals and buttocks, and anything else within touching, groping and grabbing range.

And it’s the entire commercial flying population of the United States that must submit.  Not just terrorists or people suspected of being a terrorist, or people meeting the profile of a terrorist.  No, it’s everyone.  It’s as if the potential for terrorism exists exactly equally and randomly throughout the entire population of the United States.  Small children, grandmothers, old men in wheel chairs or using walkers, nuns, young mothers with pre-school children in tow, uniformed military and on and on.  It’s our neighbors, and friends, and coworkers and you and me.  Yet there’s not a snowball’s chance that 99.9% of them could even remotely be a terrorist, yet they’re considered equally as suspicious as a 20-something Islamic male in Arabian robes wearing a bandolier.  Is that crazy, or stupid, or incompetent or is something far more nefarious afoot? 

And why are “government officials” specifically exempted from complying with naked x-rays or sexual assault pat-downs when they board commercial flights?  Yes, they really are!  (For the same reasons members of Congress, the president and others are exempted from ObamaCare.  You see a pattern here, right?)

This isn’t just a trivial matter of submitting to a sexual assault so we can all be secure.  Security has nothing to do with this kind of out of control and lawless government behavior.  While we submit to degrading and invasive screening measures, our enemies, virtually all young Islamic men, will calmly shift bombs from their shoes and underwear to minimally screened cargo, or checked luggage, or carry PETN explosives onto planes in body cavities, or disguise them as allowable materials.  Terrorists adapt, no?

Anyone paying attention has already learned that the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) will not detect non-metal materials.  It will not detect plastics or powders and it will not detect anything shoved up someone’s nether-hole.  And right then and there the supposed safety, proudly provided to you by your federal government, vanishes to complete zero, and the government knows it; how could they not if you and I know it?  And what about trains, busses, subways, non-commercial air travel, sports stadiums, and all the other places where large numbers of anonymous people gather?  No, there’s no safety anywhere and the government knows it yet they continue to force people into a naked search or a sexual assault before getting on a plane.  What’s wrong with this picture?

Imagine if the Bush administration gave us this Faustian choice of either a taking naked x-ray or endure a sexual assault before we could board a commercial airline?  The ACLU would be screaming that Bush was violating the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, barring unreasonable searches and seizures, and calls for his impeachment would be heard throughout the Democrat controlled Congress and their minions in the liberal media.  Yet that’s not what’s happening.  The ACLU has not even made an appearance and the Democrats are nowhere to be seen.

So what’s really going on here?

I submit to you that what’s happening is very dangerous government behavior.  I submit that evil has an initial first step, a seemingly benign initial action, a beginning, in which a process is put into effect that is purposely meant to control a population, to condition that population to submit to “uniformed government authority” without question, to submit to a set of ironclad rules mandated not by Congress or elected officials, but by an unelected bureaucrat like the TSA Director, John Pistole.  Why does this unelected and unaccountable political appointee and protégé of that idiot Janet Napolitano get to make such draconian rules that cannot be challenged?  I submit this TSA behavior is that “first step” and this has got to stop.

In the wrong hands, the very word “safety” is a dangerous thing.  Throughout history, but particularly in the 20th century, the word “safety” has allowed dictators and villains to do whatever they want.  In order to be safe, we’re too often told, we need to give up some of our freedoms and liberties.  And that begins a rollercoaster ride to tyranny and worse.

In our country, actions to lessen liberties in exchange for safety have historically been tempered by third-party arbiters in the form of the judiciary and the courts.  There’s redress for grievances.  For example, supposed violations of the Patriot Act are played out in federal court and well founded grievances, if any, are alleviated.  But there is no third-party arbiter here in this TSA controlled world of commercial air-travel safety.  If you don’t submit, you don’t fly.  It’s as simple as that and you don’t get a lot of time to make that decision. So who’s not going to submit?

And then what exactly are you going to submit to?  Clearly the government is invested in the entire flying population going through the AIT and checking out your naked body.  That’s why the only available alternative, or punishment, for not going through the AIT is to undergo a sexual assault by a nameless uniformed bureaucrat. 

But at what cost is a full body x-ray to you?  The government claims it’s safe.  Do you believe that?  I, for one, absolutely do not believe the government’s pronouncements about the safety level of a full body x-ray that can see through your clothes with exacting detail yet will do you physically no harm.  How can that be?  And has the government ever lied before?  Draw your own conclusions.

By the way, did you know that there’s AIT technology that, rather than providing a detailed view of you naked, instead represents your body literally as a “stick-figure” that would only highlight your entire naked body if contraband were actually detected.  That’s true, yet it was rejected by the TSA.  Why do you suppose they rejected that plan? 

Maybe because nothing controls a person faster, and gets them to submit obediently without question, then by exposing them naked.  That’s a fact.  That’s why interrogators get their captors naked.  That’s why the CIA and other intelligence services use nudity on their captives; it makes them very obedient, very compliant.  And getting you to appear naked instead of as a stick figure will get you to be more obedient and compliant too.  And that’s why this TSA thing is so good for the government, because it begins a process, slowly at first, of getting people used to being obedient and compliant.  Am I wrong?  If I am wrong, then why don’t they use the stick figure AIT?

The TSA has been screening over 2 million passengers each year since 9/11.  That’s approaching 20 million people handled in some fashion by TSA agents.  How many terrorists have been captured, or stopped, or arrested, or identified?  If I’m not mistaken, I believe the answer to that question is zero.  None.  Nada.  Yet we continue this charade of safety.  Isn’t there a better way that does not treat every passenger in the country like a terrorist, and a naked terrorist at that?

I know most people will read this and assume I’m a nut.  But try thinking about this for just a few minutes before dismissing my argument here.  How can the government be so completely stupid and incompetent?  Is that possible?  I think not.  But I do believe in the government’s capacity to be evil, threatening and tyrannical.  By crafting aggressive TSA screening as a “safety situation” they can pretty much do whatever they want and most people will agreeably comply.  That’s how tyranny works.

Now here’s the really tough part.  Once you know the truth, the truth at least as I see it, then you have to decide how you’ll react when asked to step up for your full body x-ray.  How will you respond?  Once you know the truth, denial is no longer an option.

Remember this; when you trade freedom for safety you get neither.

And that’s all there is to it.


Destruction from an enemy within

August 7th, 2010 . by joel

It’s now official.  The people and the individual states of the United States, on one side, are now locked in a death roll with the federal government, on the other side.  It’s us versus them.  It’s good versus evil.  It’s the Founders versus the Marxists and their anti-American accomplices.  Don’t believe me?  How do you explain what’s been happening to our country over the past 18 months?

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is forcing Arizona to keep its border with Mexico open to illegal aliens despite the wishes of the American citizens who live there.  This federal government affront to the Constitution is clearly transparent when you consider that the Obama regime would never be taking this “open border” action if it was understood that illegal alien Hispanics, given the opportunity, would almost certainly vote for Republicans instead of Democrats.  You get that, right?  Otherwise, Obama’s rouge government would have the border closed in 20 minutes.  Turning the sovereignty of our country into a mere political calculation is the height of pure evil and is in absolute opposition to his oath of office to “….preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  Clearly this government respects the “rights” and “needs” of non-citizens, who given the chance will help the current group of Obama’s minions retain power, over the rights and needs of the real American citizens.  Obama’s ends clearly justify his means, no?

How about the Obama regime closing off-shore drilling for some unspecified period of time?  While it seemed the gulf leak would be the most unprecedented eco-disaster of all time, the results so far appears not to be the case at all.  It’s essentially not even in the news anymore.  In fact, even the New York Times is reporting that while sightings of tar balls and emulsified oil can be seen here and there (those are their words), the immense patches of surface oil that covered thousands of square miles of the gulf after the April 20th oil rig explosion are largely gone.  It seems the amount of oil dispersed, compared against the size and water volume of the gulf, is much like spilling a 12 ounce can of soda into the Superdome filled to the roof with water.  Even the marshes and wetlands are already recovering from the “disaster” and seafood has been declared safe to eat.

Robust off-shore drilling not only continues everywhere else in the world but the bidding for dormant gulf drill rigs is already underway.  It’s estimated that over 100,000 gulf state jobs will be lost, most forever, crippling local economies and spreading financial misery to more millions of Americans.  The Governor of Louisiana is now forced to fight the federal government moratorium in court again, much like what’s happening in Arizona, for the right to continue drilling.  Is it possible the Obama regime, and his rogue government, is actually attempting to starve the energy demands of the country and/or purposely creating victims of former oil industry workers and their families?  Do you still think this ban on continued drilling is a mere “safety issue?”  What do you suppose would have been the clean-up response of the Obama Interior Department had the oil leak been off the shores of blue states like Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland instead of red states like Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama?  What does common sense and your life experiences tell you?  And there’s more.

Why have the governors of 18 states demanded EPA rules favoring climate change legislation be rescinded?  Even more interesting is why the Troubled Asset Relief Program Special Inspector General (IG), Neal M. Barofsky, recently testified that decisions on which car dealerships to close as part of the auto industry bailout, closures the Obama administration forced on General Motors and Chrysler , were based in part on race and gender.  In effect, over 2000 dealerships were strong-armed into closing simply because they were not minority or woman owned.  Because of that, an estimated 100,000 people lost their jobs during a recession.  And the benefit to the car companies for this arbitrary Obama regime action was exactly zero, none.  In fact, the IG report shows the action to have been detrimental to the health of both car companies.  In response to the IG report, Obama’s “auto team czar” Ron Bloom admitted that the dealerships could have been kept open, saving those jobs, “but that doing so would have been inconsistent with the President’s mandate for “shared sacrifice.”  How completely loathsome is that?

Why did the DOJ let the New Black Panthers off the hook for obvious and malicious voter intimidation during the last presidential election with absolutely no apparent reason?

Why has the DOJ proffered rules and policies favoring the “rights” of terrorists while attacking CIA intelligence officers attempting to get information from them that would protect the nation from assault?

Why has the DOJ made it the policy of the federal government to see the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, tried for crimes in New York City, yards from ground zero, thereby allowing him the largest stage in the world from which to spin his tales of the need to destroy America? 

Why did the Obama regime agree to let the Lockerbie bomber go free?  Yes, they provided a copy of the letter they initially sent to Scottish officials making it appear, with a wink and a nod, that they opposed the release of the bomber, but Obama won’t provide copies of the two other missives they shared with Scottish officials before the bomber’s release on the grounds that any additional information about the matter being made public could make future relations with foreign governments more difficult.  How convenient.  So there’s more to the story but the Obama State Department won’t make public additional available information. Hmm……makes you wonder, no?  Whose side is Obama on, anyway?   

He and his rogue government certainly have a soft spot for killers, thugs, dictators and terrorists, and that’s no joke.  He really does. It seems he’d be much more comfortable having dinner with Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers than with you and our family.

Why was Elena Kagan, of all people, put on the Supreme Court?  Is it possible, or is it more likely, that she’s just a political operative of Barack Obama, whom she called one of her personal heroes?  Here’s a person with no experience as a judge, and virtually no experience as a litigator in court, and no experience outside the cloistered halls of academia, stating quite frankly and clearly that the government of the United States is not limited in any way from doing virtually anything it wants to do to the people of this country, a concept totally anathema to the Constitution and the Framers and Founders of this country.  Yet she can be on the court for another 20, 30 or 40 years or more, plying that kind of anti-American logic and helping transform America into something quite alien, and quite Marxist, from the country required by our founding governing documents.  And she’s just the newest of three others on the court who think like that.  One more and America will be lost forever.  Think about what kind of country your children and grandchildren will live in if Obama’s ever able to replace one of the conservative judges.

And what about news last week that the Congress finally passed, with virtually no Republican support, the unfunded extension of unemployment benefits which will require borrowing from China over $36 billion.  But that’s not all.  Congress also passed this week, also with virtually no Republican support, an unfunded bill to provide another $26 billion so that teachers won’t be laid off.  That’s another $62 billion borrowed dollars to accomplish some friendly sounding priorities, but how friendly are they really?  It’s amazing how in just about 18 months $62 billion went from being considered real money to now it’s just chump change.  That’s a real problem.

How many weeks should someone expect to receive unemployment benefits?  At what point do unemployment benefits become welfare payments?  How about 99 weeks?  How about 126 weeks?  We’re there now.  Let’s be honest for a moment.  How many people look seriously for a job until just before unemployment benefits are scheduled to run out?  Many of us know people that could be working but are instead waiting for the “right” position to become available or are taking a “vacation” as long as the government is willing to pay for it.  Let’s get real.

How about those poor teachers that will be laid off without additional “emergency” funding?  And what will happen to the poor children without those poor teachers?  What about the fact that, according to the Cato Institute, public school employment nationwide has risen 10 times faster since 1970 than student enrollment?  That’s 1000%, for crying out loud!   Is it possible that teacher unions have held taxpayers hostage over the years, and that teacher salaries, which are only for 10 months of work,  are way out of proportion to what the market place should be paying, and that a huge number of administrative personnel should be removed, and that teachers are completely protected from the perils of recession when private sector jobs are not, and on and on?  But the Marxist government is beholden to teachers and other public employee unions in the way described in detail by the socialists of the past, including Karl Marx himself.  It’s part of his manifesto.  Instead of continuing to fund even higher the public education monstrosity of ineptness, there may not be another sector in the American economy more in need of reducing spending than public education.  But is anyone in our rogue government responsible enough to say that?

And then there’s the curious case of Dr. Donald Berwick.  Here’s a Marxist, apparently pretty good as a medical doctor, but who has stated convincingly that he supports a single payer plan for the country, marvels at the British health care model despite its failure, and supports emphatically the rationing of health care in America, yet gets to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) without a congressional hearing.  Barack Obama provided him with a “recess appointment”, an action permitted by the Constitution ostensibly for when, particularly in the old days when travel was difficult and time consuming, Congress is in a long term recess.  In this case Congress was in recess for only 2 weeks and in previous such appointments Congressional hearings had already taken place, like when Ambassador John Bolton was provided a recess appointment by George W. Bush.  The importance of hearings, of course, is so Congress can complete their constitutional responsibility to ask questions and make decisions about the people tasked with running important government business.  In this case no questions were asked of this guy, who is tasked with managing a federal agency with a budget over $600 billion, more than even the Department of Defense, and has responsibility for crafting the regulations required by ObamaCare.  You’d think people would want to know more about this guy, no?

Why then would the Obama regime want to keep Berwick from being grilled by Congress?  The answer, of course, is because he’s a rank political operative of Barack Obama, much like Elena Kagan and Sonya Sotomayor before her, and will do whatever is asked of him by Barack Obama.  Case closed.  The Constitution once again betrayed.

The theme of the Constitution is that the interest of the citizens must be paramount over the interests of the government.  The complete reversal of that theme, coupled by the fact that the Constitution is being willfully misinterpreted by the President, Congress and the Supreme Court, proves that there is no end to the destruction of our country from an enemy within.

And that’s all there is to it.


All lies, all the time‏

July 25th, 2010 . by joel

It was reported earlier this week that former Bush administration Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez was cleared by the Department of Justice of any wrongdoing related to his firing of 9 U.S. Attorney’s.  If you recall, the Democrats in the House and Senate, along with their compadres in the state-run media, created this controversy, politically damaging George W. Bush (GWB) and leading Gonzalez to subsequently resign his cabinet position. 

Besides the fact that GWB had every right, as the President, to fire these 9 people because they were political appointees of the Executive Branch, and therefore served at his pleasure, what’s interesting here is that the entire scandal was completely made up.  It was a lie. 

Just like the lie that GWB usurped constitutional authority by not getting search warrants before wiretapping suspected terrorists.  That lie was quietly put to rest by the Department of Justice, right after Barack Obama was sworn into office.  How convenient.  It was a very quiet announcement, but a lie nonetheless.

I remember another old lie, like the Valerie Plame case, in which a supposed CIA operative had been “outted” by GWB or Dick Cheney or someone in his inner circle.  In fact, Plame was not a foreign operative and was not protected by the laws making leaking her identity a crime.  In fact the leaker was Richard Armitage, Deputy Undersecretary State and a well known opposer of GWB’s foreign policy, and he was protected from being recognized as the leaker of Plame’s name by no less the weasel than Colin Powell.  Again, what’s interesting here is that the entire scandal was completely made up.  It was a lie.

Let’s fast forward to the present.

Last week it was reported that Federal money could be used to fund abortions.  That should come as a surprise since, unless you were living in a tunnel during the recent ObamaCare fiasco, you’ll recall Democrat Congressman Bart Stupak and his merry men were planning to vote against the bill unless federal funding of abortions was specifically removed from the bill.  To the health care reformers rescue came Barack Obama to sign an executive order forbidding such funding.  The fact that Obama’s action carried virtually no weight, and could be overturned by Congressional action, did not stop Stupak from caving.  The bill was passed; Obama signed it into law, and now guess what?  The funding is being provided anyway.  It was a lie.

In fact, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Maryland have all released details of their high-risk insurance pool, known as the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP).  And just in case you haven’t yet guessed, these federally-funded PCIP’s were all found to cover abortions. 


Under Obama’s health care plan, each state will have its own PCIP to give temporary health coverage to those who can’t presently get health insurance because of a pre-existing condition.  The states can either create their own PCIP or allow the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to run their program directly.  The Secretary of DHHS, Kathleen Sebelius, has indicated that each state’s program will be “funded entirely by the federal government.”  $5 Billion is marked for this purpose.

So ObamaCare was passed because Democrats promised to reject federal funds to be used to pay for abortions, and then like magic, abortions will be funded up to 100% anyway. 

Now this is critically important so pay attention, even if you’re a liberal or believe in a woman’s so-called “right to choose” and all that.  It doesn’t matter a damn if you believe in federally funded abortions or not.  What’s important is that the government purposely and proactively lied.   Their entire aforementioned “rejection” of using federal funds to pay for abortions was a ruse, intended to make you think one way when in fact they planned to do exactly the opposite.  They pulled the old switcheroo, the old bait and switch, the old up yours with a hot poker and who cares.

Let me know when you become fed up with being played for a sucker and not a very smart one either.

This past week the Obama regime headed for court to defend its ObamaCare law, passed just a few months ago.  In the debate before the bill was passed Barack Obama claimed the law would require everyone to buy health insurance.  In an unforgettable televised discussion with ABCNews and George Stephanopoulos, on September 20, 2009, Barack Obama stated emphatically that the “universal mandate” was not a tax, and in fact was an insurance premium guaranteeing that those without insurance would not have to rely on government to pay their health care bills.  Barack Obama stated vigorously, and just as forcefully, that no one earning over $250,000 a year would see their tax bill go up by so much as a dime.  His words, not mine.

Incredibly, in the brief filed with the court, the Obama regime specifically referred to the mandate that every American buy health insurance as, in fact, a tax.  They actually call it a tax.  They knew all along this law could not stand constitutional muster by forcing people to buy a consumer product from a third party that they otherwise would not want to do business with.  They used to same exact argument FDR used to get the Social Security Act (SSA) through the Supreme Court in 1937.  FDR also claimed, in the debate leading up to the SSA vote, that what people would be forced to buy was insurance, but in their court defense called it a tax, the “FICA tax”. 

The Obama regime knew all along this universal mandate would have to be called a tax, and in fact is a tax.  But they dared not say so because otherwise it would have been rejected even by those Democrat fools in Congress that voted for it.  It was all a ruse.  It was deceitful.  It was duplicitous.  It was a lie. 

Also this week the Obama regime went to court to stop the Arizona immigration law from going into effect on July 29th as scheduled.  All along, for these many months, Barack Obama and his minions have been wailing against the law because it amounted to racial profiling, even though a simple reading of the 17-page law completely refutes that dastardly contention.  Astoundingly, in the brief filed with the court, the Obama regime did not mention racial profiling at all.  Instead Obama’s argument is that the Arizona law, they now claim, only supersedes federal law, which of course it does not. 

Wasn’t Obama’s demagogueing really meant only to stir up the racial passions of the left and Hispanics in particular?  Do you suppose Barack Obama and his allies would have taken up the mantle of racial profiling if Hispanics, stealing into the country, were likely to become Republican voters? 

So what was all that instigating stuff about “racial profiling” that filled up the 24/7 news cycle 24/7?  It was bullcrap.  It was a lie.

And what about the NAACP calling the Tea Party a racist organization?  No proof, no nothing, all lies.

And what about the Obama regime and their state-run media allies calling Fox News racist for airing the edited video of Shirley Sherrod?  In fact, the Department of Agriculture, and with the approval of the White House, had already fired Shirley even before the first mention of her name appeared in any show on the entire Fox News Channel.  Did you know that? 

Likewise, she was also denounced by the NAACP, who had the entire unedited tape in their possession all along since her speech was before the Georgia chapter of the NAACP.  But that didn’t stop the NAACP, another political arm of the Democrat Party, from calling Fox News racist.  It’s all a lie.

Another political arm of the Obama regime, MSNBC, filed a report last year about health care protesters showing up at Tea Party protests armed. I hear this all the time from friends of mine from the political left and is the source of a lot of this “tea partiers are racist” stuff.  In the report, MSNBC showed a man carrying an assault rifle and said “there are questions about whether this has racial overtones….white people showing up with guns.”  Of course, as it turned out, the guy carrying the gun was black. But you never would have known because MSNBC strategically edited the tape, so the race of the armed man wasn’t revealed. You just assumed he was white.  It was all a lie.
It’s always lies.

Obama blaming Republicans for stone-walling the extension of unemployment benefits to 126 weeks (that’s pushing 3 years my friends) and for being cold and cruel, yet all Republicans wanted was for the extension to be paid for.  Did you know the $862 Billion stimulus still has $400 Billion unused and the extension could have been paid out of that without having to borrow additional money from the Chinese to pay unemployment benefits?  And if the stimulus was really working, why would unemployment benefits have to be extended to almost 3 years?  It’s all a lie.

Obama declaring 3 million jobs created or saved, yet not being able to provide any data, at any time, under any circumstances that would back up that nonsensical claim?  It’s all a lie.

Black Congressmen claiming they were spat on, and had racial epithets shouted at them, at the April 15th Tea Party protest on Washington.  Never has anyone provided any evidence that ever happened.  With every camera, seemingly in the entire world, focused on the black congressmen’s walk through the crowd, has any image shown any of the claims to have happened?  There is even a $100,000 standing reward for anyone who can produce any evidence anything untoward happened.  Yet nothing.  No evidence.  None.  Guess what?  It was all a lie, a lie meant to denigrate and cast aspersions on the peaceful protestors.  It doesn’t get much more vile and loathsome than that.

It’s as if our country is being run by the Mafia, except even Tony Soprano went on vacation once in a while and let all his victims breathe for at least a while.  This is worse, much worse.
So here’s a question.  How can a civil society continue to exist if the government and its leaders, and the media that support them, lie to the people regularly and with pathological ease?  The answer is it can’t.  We’re headed for disaster.

 And that’s all there is to it.


The Reverse Universe‏

July 3rd, 2010 . by joel

My favorite political movie is “V for Vendetta” (2005) in which a masked freedom fighter takes up arms against a totalitarian government and urges the citizenry to fight the oppression of the state.  Since the main character is a super-hero named “V” you obviously need to suspend some disbelief to make this work, but work it does, all too alarmingly well.  What I find most chilling in this story is how the tyrannical government purposely and clandestinely creates a frightening crisis, then uses its power to “resolve” the catastrophe, but in the process takes complete control of the population. 

Yes, a crisis can indeed be considered a terrible thing to waste.  The blatant tyranny that takes place in V’s world, once uncovered, is easy to understand.  But in a movie you’d assume the depiction of evil would have to be at least somewhat blatant since the “hero” only has about 120 minutes to reestablish justice, and secure domestic tranquility, so the moviegoers can walk away and still be able to sleep at night.

Real life isn’t restricted by artificial time frames like that and so malevolence, or the appearance of it, isn’t always so noticeable, even when starring you straight in the face.  Having said that, consider the following.

Is it possible that the oil gusher in the Gulf is being viewed by the Obama regime, not as a crisis that needs to be corrected as quickly as possible, but rather as an opportunity to advance the Democrat’s economy-killing energy bill?

Don’t believe me?  Even after more than 75 days, in which over 100 million gallons of oil have already spilled into the Gulf, and expectations are that at least an additional 100 million gallons will be spilled before a second “relief” well is drilled in August, the Obama regime still rejects help from 13 countries that have offered oil skimmers and technical expertise.  Of the 2000 skimmers in the American skimmer fleet, only 400 are operating in the Gulf.  The Jones Act, which would allow foreign ships into the Gulf to help with the cleanup, has not been waived (George Bush waived the Jones Act 4 days after Hurricane Katrina).  Obama has not waived the Davis-Bacon Act, which prevents non-union labor from helping with the clean-up.  Obama has not suspended FEMA contracting and bidding rules, which would provide for more rapid assignment of contractors to help with the clean-up.  Coastal governors have not been allowed to dredge their coastlines to create barrier islands.  Obama’s EPA will not relax the 15 parts per million restrictions, required during normal times, on the amount of oil remaining in discharged water, meaning water must be continually re-cleaned before returning to the Gulf, thereby taking more time and effort to keep the cleanup moving forward.

In other words, every single positive proactive measure that could be taken to lessen the spill’s impact has been rejected or delayed, the exact and complete opposite of what one would expect in such a dire circumstance.  Instead, the only actions taken by the Obama regime in response to the spill have been to blame the crisis on George Bush and set an energy and economy destroying moratorium on off-shore drilling that was overturned by a federal judge, who’s reasoning in demanding the overturn was essentially that Obama’s action was self-serving, questionable and stupid (although he made it sound more scholarly).

Why would the Obama regime do that?  What’s the rationale?  What do you suppose would have been Obama’s response to the crisis had it affected 4 blue states instead of 4 red states?  Would the delays, rejections and inactions indicated above have taken place had Deepwater Horizon exploded off the shores of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Delaware?

Consider what that means?

Then there’s the curious case of the “slam-dunk” voter intimidation case being dropped against the New Black Panther Party.  In case you’re not aware, armed thugs of this group were stationed outside a polling place in Philadelphia during the November 2008 election to keep white folks from voting, and there’s extensive video and audio to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  The fact that the New Black Panther Party perpetrators refused to challenge the Justice Department’s case against them might signal even they understood the gravity of the situation.  And then, just literally moments before justice was to be announced, and completely out of the blue, the Obama regime terminated the case, all charges, except for the most minor dropped, and everyone allowed to walk away free of harm. 

What the fudge is going on here?  Blatant voter intimidation and no action taken?  The most sacred right of American citizens completely trampled on and no Justice Department action taken?  Is it possible that this is what can be expected from a “terrorist-sympathetic” Justice Department filled with pro bono Al-Qaida lawyers?  Does it matter that one of the perps, Malik Zulu Shabazz, was a previous visitor to the White House personal residence last year? 

Consider what that means?

And what about Elena Kagan being nominated to the Supreme Court?  Here’s a person who has essentially served only in administrative positions being awarded a lifetime opportunity to shape the futures of every American for literally generations to come.  Yes, she was a clerk for Thurgood Marshall, served in an administrative capacity in the Clinton Justice Department, was the Dean of the Harvard Law School and Solicitor General (SG) of the United States.  Yes, many credentials.  Interesting that as the SG, she actually only argued one single case, and very poorly, before the Supreme Court herself, leaving all the other cases to underlings.  Interesting too that she was never a judge herself, or has written anything of scholarly substance in her entire life.  Interesting too that she believes the Constitution of the United States allows for books to be banned if they’re “too extreme” and that the government can literally force Americans to eat 3 fruits and vegetables every day.  She actually said those things.

In other words, this person, who alleges to “love the law”, believes there are absolutely no limits to what the government is allowed to do to YOU.  No limits at all.  She actually believes that.  While she claims most sincerely to “love the law” she demonstrates through her own words that in reality she hates the governing document of our nation, Constitution of the United States.  And this is the person Barack Obama has nominated as the final arbiter of everything Obama.  Why do you suppose he nominated her above all the other liberals he could have nominated?  Is it because she’ll do whatever the Obama regime wants done?  Does that make her a political operative of Barack Obama?

Consider what that means?

Consider the news this week that Bucyrus International, a mining equipment manufacturer in Wisconsin, was denied a contract this week by the Obama regime to build machines for the Indian mining industry.  Because mining coal contradicts the Obama regime’s stance on global warming and green house gas emissions they will not allow Bucyrus to build those mining machines.  The cost to the company will be over 1000 jobs and $300 million in sales.  India, incidentally, immediately turned around and accepted equipment bids from companies in China and Belarus, so those jobs and that money will go to one of those countries instead.

So here Obama’s political agenda has cost this company dearly and its workers even more.  Here the government of the United States has taken action, for purely political reasons, to interfere with and quash the actions of a private sector company doing legitimate business in the free-market.  Where in the Constitution does the president or government get the authority to do that?  How will that power be translated to the health care industry once the new laws regarding that sector go into effect just a few years from now?

Consider what that means?

Consider the finance bill making its way through Congress and how that will affect the new fees you’ll need to pay for your banking business and the obstacles that will prevent even the most liquid people from getting loans and mortgages, yet does not mention the spending gusher (already over $150 billion and growing) at Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac in any of the bill’s over 2000 pages.  And consider the Disclose Act, also making its way through Congress, that will essentially set up differing standards for who is allowed to exercise “free speech” and who is not and how that will affect your use of the Internet.  And what about the coming VAT tax and all the other plans for taking as much of your money as possible?

Consider what that means?

Consider that, since January 2009, every action this Obama regime has taken, or has plans to take, is aimed and focused at controlling you and stealing and limiting your liberty.  Consider that.  Consider “V”.

And that’s all there is to it.


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