Alan Simpson (of Simpson-Bowles) is quite the quotable fellow. “Buckle up your guts”?!

FYI, I just added this detailed etymological entry on my website. If any one of you has a favorite “Simpsonism” that needs to be deciphered, please send it along.

“Buckle up your guts”

Alan K. Simpson, a Wyoming U.S. senator from 1979-1997, co-chaired President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with Erskine Bowles (leading to the more familiar name of “Simpson-Bowles”). Speaking about the Commission’s work, Simpson said in May 2012:

“But Simpson-Bowles, all day long they talk about it in here and it’s like a stink bomb in a garden party, it isn’t going away. Every person that has spoken has mention it. I am not in it for fame and fortune, but there it is. I will not use an old phrase our football coach at the University of Wyoming, but buckle up your guts.”

Simpson graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1954, so “buckle up your guts” probably dates from at least this time. A 1982 book about University of Tennessee football mentioned that “you had to buckle up your guts.” A 1994 book about the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas has Senator Alan Simpson telling Thomas, “Buckle up your guts, pal, and get on the field and forget all the other stuff.”

“Buckle up your guts” appears to mean that one should prepare one’s self for difficult times. The saying remains little-used.

Wiktionary: buckle up
Verb
to buckle up
1.(intransitive, idiomatic) To fasten one’s seat belt or safety belt.

Google Books
Orange Lightning:
Inside University of Tennessee football
By Mike Siroky and Bob Bertucci
West Point, NY: Leisure Press
1982
Pg. 30:
As for the difference between life on a team then and now, Claxton says, “If you wanted to make it here, it was no easy matter. You had to buckle up your guts and come on. If you couldn’t take it, well, as I said, they got it on a platter over here now.”

Google Books
Resurrection:
The confirmation of Clarence Thomas
By John C. Danforth
New York, NY: Viking
1994
Pg. 76:
In that call, and in a call the following Thursday night, Simpson (Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming—ed.) adopted the style and verbiage he learned from a football coach while he was in college. He recalls telling Clarence, “Buckle up your guts, pal, and get on the field and forget all the other stuff.” Simpson’s locker-room-style pep talk was borne out of his own experience, not only as a former football player but as a person who in his youth had spent a couple of nights in the Laramie jail and had been on federal probation for shooting mailboxes.

The Memoirs of Aditya
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Life At NITW-A Bitter Sweet Experience: Diary Post dated August 15, 2007
(…)
Because you have to once again buckle-up your guts to stand in yet another tunnel-long line only to know what your room number is, and mind-you, no proxy’s allowed here.

Yahoo! Finance
Re: JOElongs…-buckle up your guts…
29-Nov-11 08:45 pm
Yentabeans is one of the few posters who get it…everyone here who is thinking that this “recession” will end just like the others doesn’t understand the magnitude of the crisis that we are entering. Boomers will see the best and worst of times before they are buried. The worst is coming…

Huffington Post
Alan Simpson: Paul Krugman’s Work ‘Borders On Hysteria’ (VIDEO)
Posted: 05/16/2012 12:27 am
Alan Simpson, the former Republican senator from Wyoming who co-chaired President Barack Obama’s debt commission in 2010, took a swipe at one of his most fervent critics on Tuesday, saying that economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s work often “borders on hysteria.”
(…)
“It’s like a stink bomb in a garden party, it ain’t going away,” Simpson, who is known for his colorful turns of phrase, said. “Buckle up your guts.”

Zero Hedge
One Half Of Simpson-Bowles Goes There: “Krugman Borders On Hysteria”
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/16/2012 13:04 -0400
We have all thought it. We have all muttered it under our breaths (and some of us have even written about it on blogs) but the Keynesian Krusader’s borrow-and-spend-our-way-to-growth dogma was bazooka’d by former Senator Alan Simpson yesterday.
(…)
On Simpson-Bowles 2.0:
“All day around here they talk about Simpson-Bowles. They did not talk about Bowles-Simpson because the acronym there is too bad. It is BS. But Simpson-Bowles, all day long they talk about it in here and it’s like a stink bomb in a garden party, it isn’t going away. Every person that has spoken has mention it. I am not in it for fame and fortune, but there it is. I will not use an old phrase our football coach at the University of Wyoming, but buckle up your guts.”

No one else notices these things, I guess, but here goes.

OBAMA TO BARNARD GARDUATES — “PERSERVERE! PERSERVERE!”
There is video at this site (it’s at the 20-minute mark) and here’s the text:

My last piece of advice — this is simple, but perhaps most important: Persevere. Persevere. Nothing worthwhile is easy. No one of achievement has avoided failure — sometimes catastrophic failures. But they keep at it. They learn from mistakes. They don’t quit.

However, Obama actually said “Perservere. Perservere.” That’s clear to me, but you can listen for yourself.

It’s good our teleprompter reader wasn’t addressing the “corpsmen” again.

Question: If Sarah Palin had said this, don’t you think someone would have picked it up and put it on the news and blogs? That’s double standard, no?

RACHEL MADDOW INTERVIEWS ELIZABETH WARREN AND NEVER ADDRESSES THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM.
Meanwhile, on tonight’s The Rachel Maddow Show, Elizabeth Warren was interviewed. They discussed Wall Street, but I won’t get into how Warren’s Fed-controlled “consumer protection” division is an unregulated, unaccountable monster.

There’s an elephant in the room. Breitbart reporters discovered that Elizabeth Warren isn’t even 1/32nd Cherokee. She claimed a minority status that is not factually true and that she never ever practiced.

Maddow never asked Warren a single question about the controversy.

I would say “unbelievable,” but unfortunately, it’s all too believable at MSNBC.

Obama Oozes ‘Jon Stewart’s Brilliant’ and ‘Amazing,’ More Credible Than ‘Conventional’ News –By: Tim Graham | April 25, 2012 | 14:33
– NewsBusters.org

What late night comedy bias, you say? I’ll show you.

When Barack Obama (D) goes on Jimmy Fallon’s show, he’s portrayed as Mr. Cool, with Fallon mouthing Democratic talking points.

When Michele Bachmann goes on Jimmy Fallon’s show, she’s greeted with the song “Lying Ass Bitch.”

Coincidence? Still not convinced that the late night “comedians” are all in the tank for Barack Obama?

Jonah Goldberg (Liberal Fascism) has a new book coming out, The Tyranny of Cliches. Even if you didn’t like the book (and no one’s read it yet), you’d want Jonah Goldberg on your show because it’s an election year, because he writes for The National Review, and because his opinion is of value.

Jon Stewart (Obama’s Mr. Brilliant) won’t have him on Stewart’s show. From Jonah Goldberg’s The Tyranny Blog at National Review Online:

No Rematch, Alas
By Jonah Goldberg
April 15, 2012 2:25 P.M.
Comments 13
Well, I got the word that “The Daily Show” has taken a pass on having me on to talk Tyranny of Cliches. The explanation that was passed on to me was that the book is too “one-sided” and that they don’t do books like that. As far as I can tell, that’s nonsense.

Of course, the show is free to have on whoever they want. I was just a little surprised. My last outing on the Daily Show was rather famous. Stewart went after me hammer and tongs for nearly 20 minutes and then they cut it down to five or six minutes, in ways — I’ve been told (I’ve never watched it) — that were quite friendly to Stewart (Here’s Mark Hemingway’s response at the time). I was hardly great, and I certainly should have prepared myself for such a hostile interview so early in the book tour. But Stewart was a mess.

Still not convinced that the late night “comedians” are all in the tank for Barack Obama?

Mark Levin has a popular radio show. Mark Levin is the bestselling author of Liberty and Tyranny and Ameritopia. As far as I can recall, Levin has not appeared on Jon Stewart’s show or Stephen Colbert’s show. Levin has also been banned or blacklisted by most every other MSM outlet that regularly features authors. There’s absolutely no excuse for that.

Still not convinced that the late night “comedians” are all in the tank for Barack Obama?

See Katie Pavlich Takes on Fast and Furious, Erick Erickson’s April 5th RedState article:

Katie Pavlich, Townhall’s News Editor, has a book out entitled Fast And Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up.

I think the media has spent more time doctoring 911 calls in the Trayvon Martin matter than focusing on what has happened along the border with Mexico. There has been some coverage and it probably would not have come to light except for CBS News’s initial reporting, but the scandal — and it is a scandal — has mostly flown under the radar.

In fact, the whole war on our Southern border, the kidnappings and killings spilling over into our country, etc. really have not made major, sustained national news.

I’ve been waiting for Katie Pavlich to be interviewed by Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. It appears that she’s not been invited on either show. Because, really, why would you want to talk intelligently on an Obama administration scandal and destroy the late night Obama-is-wonderful narrative?

Several weeks ago, Stephen Colbert did interview conservative author Charles Murray, who has a new book called Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. The interview did not go well.

Colbert brought up ancient Media Matters talking points on The Bell Curve. Murray said that those were old, false talking points that had nothing to do with his writing. Colbert proudly declared that he hadn’t read any of Murray’s books.

Jonah Lehrer, for example, wrote the book Imagine: How Creativity Works and recently appeared on Stephen Colbert’s show, again using an alleged Albert Einstein quote on creavity that Einstein never said. There are 95 Google News hits for Lehrer and his book, compared to just 31 Google News hits for Katie Pavlich and her book on Fast & Furious. Clearly, a muddled book on “creativity” is at least three times more important to the MSM than a new book on an Obama administration scandal with at least one dead body.

The late night “comedians” told lazy Republican “jokes” all through primary season. There were nightly Rick Santorum sex “jokes.” There were “jokes” about Michele Bachmann’s husband appearing gay. There were “jokes” about Mitt Romney’s sons. (Hey, aren’t families supposed to be off limits?) There were lazy Newt-is-fat jokes. Every night, over and over, rinse and repeat the same jokes.

Now that the primary is over and it’s Mitt Romney against Barack Obama, the late night comedy shows appear to have lost all oxygen to breathe. They can’t and won’t make fun of Barack Obama. The Mitt Romney “jokes” are all super stale by now. There’s only the issues, such as the five trillion dollars that Obama has added to our national deficit. But there’s not one joke to be told there!

The GSA and Secret Service scandals should hae provided some fodder for comedy, but the late night comedians weren’t too interested in these Obama administration scandals.

I watched last night’s shows (Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel) and it was a sad sight to see of all filler material. It felt like they were dying for the next Amy Fisher-Joey Buttafuoco nonsense (my classic MSM example of media drivel) to occupy the news for the next seven months.

Here’s a challenge, my late night unbiased ones. Cover the issues in a fair manner. Discuss “Fast & Furious” and stop avoiding it. Discuss what a $16 trillion deficit means. Discuss the economic riots in Greece and Spain that soon might be coming here. Discuss the next round of terrorism planned by Van Jones and the “Occupy” crowd.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke today, but no late night comedian found anything funny to say about him. You know why? Because here’s a dirty little secret–the late night smart ones have no clue about our financial system to even prepare to make the jokes!

Social Security going bankrupt? Medicare going bankrupt? No jokes there!

Hey! Mitt Romney put a dog on the roof of his car thirty years ago!!!!

SUMMARY
We have Barack Obama saying he adores the late night comedians and we have Jimmy Fallon mouthing Democratic talking points. Conservative authors such as Mark Levin, Jonah Goldberg and Katie Pavlich have apparently been blacklisted.

The Mitt Romney “jokes” are already ancient and the late night comedians are scrambling for material.

However, if any of them would see the truth about America, there is plenty of material to talk about. There are issues that affect all of our lives and the very future of our country. USE IT!

“The phrase ‘working mother’ is redundant.”

That’s a great line, and it comes from actress Donna Reed (It’s a Wonderful Life) at least as early as 1963. Erma Bombeck, Joan Lunden and many others have used the line. Democratic operative Hilary Rosen has used quite the opposite.

You can put this one on bumper stickers if you like.

Here’s the entry on the saying that I added just last month for my etymology website of Americanisms:

Entry from March 18, 2012
“The phrase ‘working mother’ is redundant”

“The phrase ‘working mother’ is redundant” means that if a mother doesn’t have a job in the workplace, she still works doing cooking, cleaning, shopping, and many other tasks. The saying is most often attributed (since at least 1985) to Baltimore writer Jane Sellman, but Sellman wasn’t the first to use it. Erma Bombeck (1927-1996), a syndicated newspaper columnist who wrote humorous pieces about being a housewife, was also credited with the line in 1985.

The saying has been in circulation since at least 1963, when an ABC-TV press release stated that the actress Donna Reed (1921-1986) “thinks the term ‘working mother’ is ridiculously redundant.”

The Quote Garden
Quotations about Mothers
The phrase “working mother” is redundant. ~Jane Sellman

Zazzle.com
Jane Sellman Motherhood Quote Postcard

30 August 1963, Evening Times (Cumberland, MD), “TV Press Releases Odd” by Rick Du Brow, pg. 6, col. 3:
From ABC-TV: “Donna Reed, star of ABC-TV’s ‘The Donna Reed Show,’ thinks the term ‘working mother’ is ridiculously redundant. ‘Anyone ever hear of a non-working mother?’ she asks.”

Google Books
A Family Album:
Portraits of intimacy and kinship
By Thomas J. Cottle
New York, NY: Harper & Row
1974
Pg. 190:
Estelle Downey’s words remind me that the term “working mother” is redundant.

Google Books
Relating Work and Education
Edited by Dyckman W. Vermilye and William Ferris, American Association for Higher Education
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers
1977
Pg. 88:
… work in our industrial society than our redundant term working mother.

Google Books
Back to Work:
How to re-enter the working world
By Nancy Schuman and William Lewis
Woodbury, NY: Barron’s
1985
Pg. 2:
On this note, humorist Erma Bombeck is quoted as saying, “The term working mother is redundant.”

Google Books
New Woman
Volume 15, Issues 4-6
1985
Pg. 116, col. 3:
The phrase “working mother” is redundant. — Jane Sellman

Google News Archive
22 February 1987, Toledo (OH) Blade, “‘Real’ Men Make Coffee” by Erma Bombeck, pg. P1, col. 3:
It became a status thing, signifying there were shared duties in the home and they were liberal enough to realize the term “working mother” was redundant.

28 August 1987, The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA), “Pot au Feu” by Myriam Guidroz, pg. F6, col. 3::
The French call redudancies in grammar “pleonasmes vicieux” or literally “vicious redundancies.” In my estimation, no redundancy is more vicious than the expression “working mother.”

All mothers work; some (perhaps the majority today) work for money in addition to taking care of their children.

Google News Archive
3 October 1987, Bryan (OH) Times, “People in the News” by William C. Trott (United Press International), pg. 6, col. 1:
JOKE’S ON ‘GOOD MORNING AMERICA’: Joan Lunden is getting funny. Lunden, who is on the verge of leaving “Good Morning America” to start her own daytime variety talk show, made her stand-up comedy debut Thursday night as New York’s Catch a Rising Star club.
(…)
“Working mother—isn’t that a redundancy?” said Lunden, who recently had her third child.

2 May 1991, Daily Herald (Chicago, IL), People, sec. 1, pg. 2, col. 6:
Today’s chuckle
Thursday, May 2, 1991: Repetitive redundancy of the year:
“Working mother.”

Google Books
The Quotable Mom
By Kate Rowinski
New York, NY: Main Street
2004
Pg. 171:
The phrase “working mother” is redundant.
JANE SELLMAN

“Texas has a lot of electrical votes” (Yogi Berra?)–The Lone Star State Dictionary (barrypopik.com)

How about a Glenn Beck-Mark Levin moderated Republican debate to that Texas winner-take-all?

This is the third post to attempt at least some relevance for Texas Republicans after Tuesday’s widespread declarations that the race is over. See:

1. I’m a Republican in Texas and I’d like to cast a meaningful vote in a presidential primary
2. BREAKING NEWS: Texas primary moves to winner-take-all?

Here’s the upcoming debate schedule, from 2012 Election Central:

There are no more Republican primary debates scheduled for 2012.

That’s great–no debate for Texas! We’re the biggest Republican state, and we don’t get anything?

On December 20, 2011, in Des Moines, Iowa, there was an ABC News debate.

On January 7, 2012, in Manchester, New Hampshire, there was another ABC News debate.

On January 8, 2012, in Concord, New Hampshire, there was an NBC News debate. That’s right–TWO debates for New Hampshire, ZERO debates for Texas!

On January 19, 2012, in Charleston, South Carolina, there was a CNN debate.

On January 23, 2012, in Tampa, Florida, There was a Tampa Bay Times-NBC News debate.

On January 26, 2012, in Jacksonville, Florida, there was a CNN debate.

On February 22, 2012, in Mesa, Arizona, there was a CNN debate.

There are a few Fox News/Huckabee events on the list, but basically, we’ve had debates controlled by CNN, ABC News and NBC News.

Glenn Beck is located in Texas. He has a popular national radio show and GBTV.

Mark Levin has a popular national radio show and is a bestselling author.

It’s often asked why MSM hacks control our debates, but not some of our leading conservative voices.

Mitt Romney has been invited, but he’s not yet accepted, an open invitation to talk with Mark Levin on his radio show. This is simply amazing to me for a supposedly inevitable Republican candidate for president.

SUMMARY
A conservative debate is a free advertisement for conservatism. Texas deserves a debate.

If you don’t think Glenn Beck and Mark Levin could do a good job, suggest others. Please send this suggestion to Glenn Beck and Mark Levin, if you can.

All I’m saying in these three posts is that Texas Republicans deserve meaningful participation in the selection of the Republican nomination for president.

“Winner-take-all” would make the May 29th Texas Republican primary perhaps somewhat relevant. The RNC must get it done right now.

On Wednesday, I posted here “I’m a Republican in Texas and I’d like to cast a meaningful vote in a presidential primary.”

One comment was titled “100% agree nomination process is messed up.” Another comment was titled “Re: Non Republican states end up picking our nominee.”

One comment cut right to the point: “Texas delivers more electoral votes for the GOP nominee in every Presidential election. Texas has a lot of clout, why they don’t use it baffles me. If I lived in TX I would be calling for the heads of the GOP party leadership. How much more incompetence do GOP voters in TX have to put up with.”

Texas Republicans are so worthless that we don’t even have a Republican debate. It’s over! Vote for the Massachusetts liberal because others have selected him for you!

From the Austin American-Statesman:

Effort would change Texas primary to winner-take-all, benefit Santorum
By Chuck Lindell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 10:00 p.m. Thursday, April 5, 2012
Trailing badly in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, Rick Santorum is banking on a fast-moving effort to change the Texas primary into a winner-take-all affair, sending all 152 eligible delegates to the state’s top vote-getter.

Weston Martinez, a Santorum supporter and Texas Republican Party official, said Thursday that he has lined up enough support to call the party’s executive committee into an emergency session to consider the change.

Martinez said a winner-take-all format could rescue the Texas primary from potential irrelevancy after delays caused by redistricting lawsuits pushed the election to May 29.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Could Texas be big player with winner-take-all GOP primary?
Posted by Peggy Fikac on April 5, 2012 at 7:30 pm
(…)
Changing the Texas rules – which now provide for a candidate to get delegates based on vote percentage in the primary – first would require a petition signed by 15 of the 62 Executive Committee members for an emergency meeting, which would have to be held in 14 days.

From the Texas Conservative Republican News:

Thursday, April 5, 2012
Urgent: Texas GOP “Winner Take All”
Emergency SREC Meeting
Now it is time to take it to the next step. Now it is time to do something that we should have done a long time ago. Now is the time for Texas Republicans to have a voice and be relevant. It is time to go back to winner take all!

We need 15 members of the 62 Texas Republican Party State Republican Executive Committee members to sign a petition in order to call for an emergency meeting of the SREC to change the Texas GOP rules back to us being a Winner Take All state instead of being proportional.

We already have 15 or more members ready to sign the petition to call this emergency meeting.

SUMMARY
It’s pathetic that Texas Republicans can’t pick a Republican nominee for president. Why? Because Virginia knocked everybody but Mitt Romney and Ron Paul off the ballot? Because Romney won a few blue states? No one cares about Texas?

“Winner-take-all” is the least the RNC can do at this point.

If the RNC doesn’t do it, it will only show that the process is rigged.

Either way, Texas wuz robbed.

It’s over?!?

This happened four years ago. It was over. John McCain was the candidate. I was told to rally around John McCain because I had no choice. And I did rally around John McCain.

Now, I’m told to rally around Mitt Romney, because…

…someone else chose him for me.

Texas is a large Republican state, and Texans don’t count?

Maybe I want to vote for Rick Perry. Maybe I want to vote for Ron Paul. They’re from Texas.

Maybe I want to vote for Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich.

Look, I used to be a Republican in New York City. I know what casting a meaningless vote is like.

In 2004, there was the slogan “Vote or die!” Maybe that should be changed to “Vote? Why?”

I feel like I’ve been disenfranchised.

No, I’m not going to vote for Obama in November. But can a Texan please be able to choose the Republican candidate?

I get to vote on May 29th.

It’s over?!?

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has a new book out called Drift. I won’t review it because I’d have to buy it. The Soros-funded Media Matters assigns 10 people to each Glenn Beck book, but I’ll just have to go by her Amazon.com book description:

“One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1792. Neither Jefferson nor the other Found­ers could ever have envisioned the modern national security state, with its tens of thousands of “privateers”; its bloated Department of Homeland Security; its rust­ing nuclear weapons, ill-maintained and difficult to dismantle; and its strange fascination with an unproven counterinsurgency doctrine.

Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow’s Drift argues that we’ve drifted away from America’s original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails. To understand how we’ve arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today’s war in Afghanistan, along the way exploring the disturbing rise of executive authority, the gradual outsourcing of our war-making capabilities to private companies, the plummeting percentage of American families whose children fight our constant wars for us, and even the changing fortunes of G.I. Joe. She offers up a fresh, unsparing appraisal of Reagan’s radical presidency. Ultimately, she shows us just how much we stand to lose by allowing the priorities of the national security state to overpower our political discourse.

Ronald Reagan’s radical presidency? (rolls eyes)

What about Nobel Peace Prize recipient Barack Obama’s illegal wars? Clinton’s military action in Bosnia? She talks about all that, doesn’t she?

I’m a quotation researcher and I’ll look up other quotes in the book if sent to me, but let’s look at “One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier.” Here’s the actual quote (in a June 3, 1792 letter to Mr. Hammond):

I told him that the idea of having no military posts on either side was new to me: that it had never been mentioned among the members of the executive: that therefore I could only speak for myself and sa that, prima facie, it accorded well with two favorite ideas of mine, of leaving commerce free, and never keeping an unnecessary soldier; but when he spoke of having no military posts on either side, there might be difficult in fixing the distance of the nearest posts.

Jefferson never wrote “One of my favorite ideas is…,” but he wrote “two favorite ideas of mine.” Maddow leaves out “leaving commerce free.” Jefferson’s words, like the Constitution, are living and breathing and we can change them to fit the times and our tastes.

Let’s go back a few sentences earlier:

To influence the Indians, to keep off a rival nation and the appearance of having a rival nation, to monopolize the fur trade. He said he was not afraid of rivals if the traders would have fair play. He thought it would be better that neither party should have any military posts, but only trading houses. I told him that the idea of having no military posts on either side was new to me: …

The context was trade with Indians (Native Americans). Jefferson was not talking about the defense of the United States against another nation.

Strictly speaking, nobody wants “unnecessary” anything. When I was in New York City, I fought against unnecessary government (the useless office of “Public Advocate” and the powerless offices of the borough presidents). Businesses cut down on unnecessary packaging of their products to save money. We can disagree on what’s necessary — there’s the rub — but once something is deemed “unnecessary,” then who needs it?

Jefferson’s “never keeping an unnecessary soldier” was saying something that no one can disagree with. However, he was wary about “having no military posts on either side.”

SUMMARY
When people take a quote, it’s usually taken out of the surrounding context. Can it at least be quoted correctly? If Jefferson never said “One of my favorite ideas is…,” then how can this be a valid quote?

What else is wrong with this book?

“What that?”
– Jeff Ward, afternoon radio host, Newsradio KLBJ, Austin, TX, on Friday, January 20, 2012, when asked about the NDAA.

We tend to think that everyone knows about the self-imposed destruction this country is going through. I know all the Obama scandals on blogs such as this one and many more. And then something like this happens, and you realize that the media, where most people get their information, is just so clueless and pathetic.

Jeff Ward works the afternoon drivetime show on Newsradio KLBJ in Austin, Texas. His job is to know the news. He knows a lot about “Pointy Boots” (Texas Governor Rick Perry). Alex Jones has a weekend show on KLBJ; a casual check of Infowars.com would have told Ward about the NDAA.

Here’s the Wikipedia page for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012.

For Jeff Ward’s information, the NDAA was controversial because it allows indefinite detention of Americans on American soil without formal charges and without a trial. One would think that’s unconstitutional, but our legislators and our president (sworn to uphold the constitution) should have been our first line of protection, not the courts.

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) said that the “indefinite detention” language came from the president. President Barack Obama–during an election year, no less–insisted on having indefinite detention of Americans in the bill!

When, in a rare case, the NDAA made the news, the public was usually told that this was not in the bill. But it was.

The bill was signed into law on December 31, 2011, when no one was looking. Obama issued a signing statement–essentially, a non-binding pinky swear–that the bill did contain the power to indefinitely detain Americans, but don’t worry, he wasn’t planning to use that absolute power. Pinky swear!

Both SOPA and PIPA very nearly passed. If it had been timed right over the holidays like the NDAA, both would be law by now. So, my fellow freedom-loving Americans, in addition to indefinite detention of any American without trial, the government would have had the power to control the Internet and to shut down any website at any time. Ever seen the Internet in China? This is what we want?

SUMMARY
The main topic of Jeff Ward’s Newsradio KLBJ show had not been the NDAA (that he had never heard of). It was Newt Gingrich’s ex-wives.

Yes, ABC News had made Newt Gingrich’s marriages an important topic. Sure, it’s common knowledge to everyone who follows politics, and anyone can find this out in a simple Internet search. But this information about Newt Gingrich’s ex-wives must be shoved in all our faces right now, and we must discuss every detail about it right now, because the media tells us to.

While the NDAA, SOPA and PIPA slide in through the back door, destroying our constitutional republic.

Our country cannot survive four more years of Barack Obama. All of our freedoms are at risk. Forget about liberal bias–the media has no idea how to do its job. There are conservative ideas vital to the safety and security of every American, and Newsweek and Saturday Night Live discuss stuff like Michele Bachmann’s eyes.

Jeff Ward is more of a libertarian and isn’t a typical Austin Democrat/liberal. The KLBJ shows before his are Rush Limbaugh and Neal Boortz. I just shake my head and cry.

Does anyone else see a problem here?

In about an hour from now, Stephen Colbert (of Comedy Central) will make a major announcement. It’s already been leaked–he’s giving his PAC to Jon Stewart and Colbert is forming an exploratory committee to run for president in the Republican primaries. Big mistake, Stephen. You’re not running, so get out and stay out now.

Yes, Colbert it polling one percentage point ahead of Jon Huntsman in South Carolina (Colbert’s home state). Yes, Colbert has name recognition. Yes, he wants to be included in a Republican debate. And yes, comedians such as Pat Paulson and Mort Sahl have become involved in the political process.

Now, let me count the ways how this can (and will) go wrong.

Who can forget when Colbert testified before Congress in the Stephen Colbert Comedy Central character. Congress may be a joke, but he wasted people’s time. Colbert tried to get serious during the testimony, but that’s a bit too late.

Colbert has a highly successful television show. Will he give that up for a few months? Probably not.

Does Colbert even have a message? Judging from his PAC, I’d say the answer is “no.”

And if he does get 1/6th of debate time, he’ll just make a fool of himself. It’s very, very different to tell jokes without a script, in a limited time period, and in a situation where the snark is not welcome.

Colbert has been ripping into Republicans lately. If there has been a single joke about Barack Obama or Michelle Obama, maybe I missed it. Running in the Republican primary would be the last step of anti-conservative bias.

Mr. Colbert, you can be a funny guy. But there are limits that you don’t want to cross, for your sake and for this country’s.

Barack Obama is running unopposed. Colbert could easily get the support to have a one-on-one debate in Democratic primaries. But he won’t do that. So don’t do this.

From the New York Times:

On Thursday night’s “Colbert Report,” Mr. Colbert took it a big step further, handing control of his group to his friend and fellow host Jon Stewart so that he can legally run for president, or at least pretend to. Mr. Colbert, who has comically flirted with — and mocked the possibility of — runs for political office before, said he would form an “exploratory committee for president of the United States of South Carolina.”

Riffing off his claimed dissatisfaction with the Republican front-runner, Mitt Romney, Mr. Colbert has repeatedly suggested to his fans that he should hop in the race. A write-in bid in South Carolina, where Mr. Colbert grew up, would almost certainly create some media excitement in the days leading up to the Jan. 21 primary, but probably less electoral excitement.