Crisis? No crisis with me.

A strong “conservative thinker”, James Carville, recently quipped;

“I have an announcement to make. Ronald Reagan’s big tent just collapsed in Upstate New York. It no longer exists,” Democratic strategist James Carville said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

This he said following Dede Scozzafava pulling the ripcord on her campaign parachute, but I suppose prior to her proving him once again an idiot by endorsing the Democrat in the race.

I beg to differ with the likes of Carville, and more recently Allahpundit in today’s piece at Hot Air he titled “Poll: 51% of Republicans would rather risk losing elections than win with RINOs”

In it he quotes a CNN Political Ticker poll which says in part;

The poll indicates that a slight majority, 51 percent, of Republicans would prefer to see the GOP in their area nominate candidates who agree with them on all the major the issues even if they have a poor chance of beating the Democratic candidate. Forty-three percent of Republicans say they would rather have candidates with whom they don’t agree on all the important issues but who can beat the Democrats.

He says it’s not a problem at the moment, “…but if/when unemployment starts to recover and the trend stabilizes, it’s a major problem.”

First, speaking for myself I don’t foresee a huge recovery in the cards considering;

1. The interest rates are artificially being kept low with the US printing money at an astronomical rate (see “hyperinflation“).
2. If to forestall #1 interest rates are raised, so too raises the interest on the debt that the Obama Triad is desperately trying to triple.
3. What does America produce today that other nations will buy?

   America got into this mess because it bought its own information. Its best information said that you can make huge money on debt, that you can give anybody a piece of plastic and move the merchandise, and that while 30% of your cardholders will default–you’ll still make money, gazillions of it. And because money buys power, you can write your own laws. You can make it so those deadbeat thirty-percenters have no choice but to pay you. You can make it so you can take their house, their car–not that you would, just that you could–and you’d be guaranteed at least another gazillion.

I’m no economist, nor do I play one here. I just don’t see anything good coming our way financially as a nation with the fiscal storm clouds on the horizon that even I can see from the ditch I dig. I’m not rooting for failure here, I just can’t see the things being done by this government as it is currently made up leading to anything but consolidation of their power and ruin for the rest of us.

So that leaves us with what kind of party do we want?

Well, what kind of party have we had for the last, oh I don’t know; say eight years? Are you happy with it? Generally speaking, when it comes to standing for conservative principles, I’m not by any means thrilled.

How many times did I yell at the air “Why won’t you idiots fight like ya got a pair?”

The left not only fights for every scrap it gets, it comes back again and again in a mass “human wave” attack for what it didn’t get.

Amnesty; got confidence in the GOP we have today when that comes up again next year? I don’t.

Stopping Obama’s march to plant radical judges from coast to coast-how’s that working out for you? 70-29 vote today on a judge who shouldn’t even be considered? Really, we have to sit and hope they stand up in the confirmation vote and hope it turns out differently?

Speaking again for myself, I’d rather have a strong minority party that will sustain a filibuster than a majority of squishes who constantly cave to the left.

My “Big Tent” includes all races and nationalities, not all ideologies. In a case where we have a clear choice between a conservative and a moderate, or even in a case such as in California with a known conservative like Chuck DeVore versus a mostly unknown, but suspect Carly Fiorina-go with the proven conservative.

What did Reagan think?

Those GOP forces who today misquote Reagan and have misunderstood Reagan’s idea of a big-tent need look no further than Mary Dent Crisp, once a prominent leader in the Republican party, who in 1977 was appointed its co-chair.

Crisp got the message, left the convention and signed on with the third party candidacy of a more moderate/liberal Republican named John Anderson.

Although Crisp had been a Republican longer than Reagan and had worked her way up the ladder of party leadership, Reagan was now defining what the party stood for and Crisp was outraged at the party’s new values on abortion and the ERA.

“Although our party has presented the outward appearance of vibrant health, I’m afraid we are suffering from serious internal sickness,” she said during platform committee meetings in 1980. “Now we are . . . about to bury the rights of over 100 million American women under a heap of platitudes.”

The next day Reagan showcased his big-tent philosophy, telling reporters that Crisp “should look to herself and see how loyal she’s been to the Republican Party for quite some time.”

I know, this is a lot of pasted stuff, but you have to see the finale.

In Reagan’s big tent, the likes of Arlen Specter would always have been welcomed, so long as they were willing to go along with Reagan, but the moment they stood in the way, as Mary Dent Crisp did, and sought to assert their policies on his vision for the party, they were shown the door. Today, the big tent that Reagan stitched together is in disarray, but if its leaders are to return from political oblivion, they’d do well to remember how Reagan went about constructing the tent and the philosophy that swept him, and two weak Republican successors who rode his political coattails into the White House, and build a tent which stands for key principles, yet never fails to welcome those who disagree, as honored guests.

First, he did indeed have a big tent, especially in 1984, which allowed 59% of the electorate to vote for him, but it was a tent of Reagan’s design in which those who disagreed with him had little say about how the tent was constructed, but were welcome to stay anyway. Pro-choice women were welcomed into the tent as voters so long as they didn’t try to change the party’s position on the issue of abortion, one which Reagan held dearly enough to have written a book about while still in office. Union members were courted by Reagan, so long as they didn’t mind Reagan’s tough policies toward organizing which included his firing of striking air traffic controllers and eventually came to be known as “Reagan Democrats.” Those jittery over Reagan’s bellicose statements on foreign policy were also welcomed, provided they could live with his tough posture toward communism. And even Rockefeller Republicans were allowed to stay in the tent so long as they realized that they were joining his party and not the other way around, that while they would be horrified by the new boss’s position on social issues for instance, they’d find something to cheer about in his tax cuts.

Reagan’s big tent also included some unsavory characters on the extreme right. While disavowing any connection to the John Birch Society, accused by some of having racist tendencies, Reagan invited its members into his big tent saying that if members supported him it was in indication that he had “persuaded them to accept my philosophy, not me accepting theirs.”

In contrast, Reagan considered members of what has derisively come to be known as “the religious right” as not a fringe group to be courted, but a foundational element of the big tent he constructed. Meeting with Christian leaders in 1980, he famously declared “You can’t endorse me, but I endorse you,” and made sure that platform committees that were to decide party policy were heavily stacked in their favor.

Interesting things from regarding the “Third Party” infection creeping through the ranks can be found here.

Bottom line for me: when it comes to weak kneed self-seeking squish Republicans whoring out their votes strictly to self-aggrandize and obtain power;

I don’t want ‘em in my tent.

Crossposted

The official US Navy history begins this way, with my link added;

In February 1903, the United States leased 45 square miles of land and water at Guantanamo Bay for use as a coaling (fueling) station. The treaty was finalized and the document ratified by both governments and signed in Havana in December 1903.

A 1934 treaty reaffirming the lease granted Cuba and her trading partners free access through the bay, modified the lease payment from $2,000 in gold coins per year, to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 U.S. Treasury dollars, and added a requirement that termination of the lease requires the consent of both the U.S. and Cuba governments, or the U.S. abandonment of the base property.

Base relations with Cuba remained stable through two world wars and the periods between, and did not significantly change until the Cuban revolution in the late 1950’s. That revolution led by Fidel Castro, began in the hills of Oriente Province, not far from the base.

On June 27, 1958, 29 Sailors and Marines returning from liberty outside the base gates were kidnapped by Cuban rebel forces headed by Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, and detained in the hills as hostages until they were finally released 22 days later.

United States and Cuban relations steadily declined as Fidel Castro openly declared himself in favor of the Marxist line, and began mass jailing and executions of the Cuban people. Cuban territory outside the confines of the base limits was declared off-limits to U.S. servicemen and civilians on Jan. 1, 1959.

My personal experience with GITMO was in 1980 aboard a US Navy destroyer undergoing yearly refresher training. Back then the majority of US Navy ships were steam-powered, and juggling 1200 psi superheated steam boilers and related steam-powered equipment meant a lot could go wrong. Because of this, it was required to show proficiency in handling various system casualties and emergencies on an annual basis or after overhaul, and GITMO was where we were sent.

The facilities we experienced there on the few liberty hours we were allowed were amazing, and for most of us it required drinking large quantities of beer to enjoy them properly.

Included was a boat rental, where sailors loaded up two-person outboard motorboats with a couple cases of beer and headed off into the bay chasing dolphins and getting stung by the multitudes of tiny jellyfish that seemed to breed there. We’d attempt to get ahead of the dolphins, and then Seal-style with masks and fins would roll overboard to try to get a look at the critters underwater. The water was murky, viability was only about ten feet, but we had great fun trying. Great memories for me of that base, and I’m sure I’m not alone. Checking out the base website, I don’t believe I’d recognize the place today. It’s even better than it was.

Of course, today the base is known for the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and nothing else. A quick check of the Wikipedia links for the base reveals a host of leftist causes involved in discrediting the base, the personnel stationed there, and the former Bush administration for ever opening it in the first place. More here.

Many have toured the detention facilities since the Camp X-Ray days, and most open-minded people come away with a vastly different perspective than they had going in. Even NPR recently found “some surprising attempts at cultural sensitivity.”

Recently Steven Crowder made the pilgrimage, and of course, a video;

After a review of the video, it seems to me that the only ones at that base actually suffering are the ones whose job it is to guard the detainees.

I’ll make one prediction; Obama will eventually hand the whole base over to Castro, or try to.

Crossposted

I remember the first time I saw my youngest daughter. It was via ultrasound on a TV monitor as my wife’s doctor moved the unit over her belly.

The doctor paused over her head, and with the mouse added a smiley face and a “Hello Mommy” text balloon. We had a video tape in the machine, so our first home movies of our youngest were when she was right around 9 weeks from conception. She was alive, a tiny person moving around in the womb of her mother.

9 weeks.

A baby boy was similarly 9 weeks in his mother’s womb when his life was taken, along with his happily expectant mother, by an individual terrorist Jihadist, Muslim by faith, named Nidal Hasan. Hasan loved death more than Army Private Francheska Velez loved life, and the life of her unborn son;

Growing up, Army Pvt. Francheska Velez was a ‘fraidy cat’ - horror movies and bugs gave her the willies.

“When she joined the Army that all changed — in a good way,” Velez’s cousin Jennifer Arzuaga said. “She became stronger.”

Army strong. The 2006 graduate of Kelvyn Park High School in Chicago served in Korea and most recently in Iraq, where she drove fuel tankers.

She made her father proud.

“She was the best I have. The light of my family,” Juan Velez said of his only daughter. “She was living my dream — to be part of the military, part of the United States. To be part of something. Just to give back to the United States because this is where we are from.”

On Thursday, Velez, 21, was one of 13 soldiers killed and 30 wounded during an Army psychiatrist’s rampage at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas.

She was due back from Iraq on Dec. 10 but came home early after she found out she was three months pregnant. Her family was planning to visit her in Texas next month.

But on Friday, there came a knock on the front door of the Velez family’s two-flat in Chicago’s Humboldt Park community. Army officers had tragic news.

Francheska and her baby were dead. Forget the “how did Hasan slip through the cracks” aspect for now. Focus on the death toll. Why is it reported as 13, rather than the actual number of 14? Was the fact the child had yet to see the light of day a reason it should remain unseen by the news networks (including Fox, to my knowledge)?

Fourteen were killed at Fort Hood, not thirteen as reported all week long. Which official is correcting the death toll? I am. On the authority of being a mother who is multi-paragravida, meaning one who has given birth more than once, and on the authority of being a grandmother of five souls, I can, I think, count straight about this particular tragedy.

Francheska Velez was a 21-year-old woman, shot to death by Major Nidal Hssan at Fort Hood Army Base. Thirteen others were slain also.

Nine weeks into her pregnancy, Army Private Velez had just called her cousin in Chicago on Thursday to say how excited she was about the child growing inside her. By night, she and her child were both dead, bringing the death toll at Fort Hood to 14 total. Not 13.

It cannot be that media reportage follows a legalistic mean wherein a fetus is not considered a real person … as per damages in a trial, say of manslaughter, wherein a tiny dead child represents no lost income, or other actionable losses, for instance. Except for its very life.

It cannot be, can it, that such cruel death to mother and child are not reported accurately because someone fears calling a child a child, would lead to… what? Laws that hold life of a tiny child as real real life. That hold the life of a mother endangered in any way, as a real real life too?

All I know is that Cheka as her friends called Francheska, was– despite the ubiquitous ’stern’ look in her formal military photo– a darling, smiling woman who like many of our young, took her work in the military seriously and had done a tour in Afghanistan, and was retuning home to Chicago to have her child.

Her large family was excited about the new little life growing in their daughter, cousin, niece, granddaughter, and friend, for Cheka was a nurturing woman who loved nature, wrote poetry and did all the things all our young do, including making love. And thus, came the tiny child, a boy child, a son, a soon to be first-born precious child.

With a nation reeling at the news of the killings at a US Army base where one would think our troops would at last be safe from the ravages of a war so far away, it may seem trivial to quibble over the actual body count, particularly when one body had no real history as yet.

But didn’t it? Was the mother not happy, the family not excited? Didn’t Francheska daydream about baby names, feel her son move when she played music buy a certain artist, or worry about how to be the mother she wanted to be in the future?

Opinion Columnist Maria Vitale asks if additional charges couldn’t be added;

It was beyond heartbreaking, seeing a young widow pausing before a picture of her beloved soldier, killed not on the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan, but on the presumably safe spot of Fort Hood, Texas.

I had to turn away from the television screen, the pain on her face was so great.

In the massive media coverage following Major Nidal Hasan’s killing spree at the military post, I have heard over and over again about the death toll from the tragedy.

But seldom mentioned is the most hidden victim — soldier Francheska Velez’s unborn baby. Velez was on maternity leave when she stopped at Ft. Hood, where she and the child she carried in her womb fell victim to Hasan’s bullet.

In the interest of true justice, Hasan should be prosecuted under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as Laci and Conner’s law, named for the pregnant woman and unborn baby who were murdered in California by Scott Peterson, the baby’s father.

t would seem that the law applies in this case for three reasons: the act of violence was committed on federal property…the shooting was allegedly done by a member of the military…and the violence could be classified as an act of terrorism.

US CODE: Title 10,919a. Art. 119a. Death or injury of an unborn child (thanks Aaron):

(a)
(1) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in conduct that violates any of the provisions of law listed in subsection (b) and thereby causes the death of, or bodily injury (as defined in section 1365 of title 18) to, a child, who is in utero at the time the conduct takes place, is guilty of a separate offense under this section and shall, upon conviction, be punished by such punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct, which shall be consistent with the punishments prescribed by the President for that conduct had that injury or death occurred to the unborn child’s mother.

Okay, what is my whole purpose here? It seems I got sidetracked in the minutiae but more appropriately, I dragged you through my own discovery process.

The point is, I wince still whenever I hear “13 victims” when I know there is one more no less important one that never even got to cry out in pain…

…as many of us do from the pain in our hearts.

It’s 14 dead, not 13.

Crossposted

To me, East Germany was just a nation behind the Iron Curtain that would always be walled off.
Ronald Reagan saw differently;

Arriving in Berlin on June 12, 1987, President and Mrs. Reagan were taken to the Reichstag, where they viewed the wall from a balcony. Reagan then made his speech at the Brandenburg Gate at 2 PM, in front of two panes of bulletproof glass protecting him from potential snipers in East Berlin. About 45,000 people were in attendance; among the spectators were West German president Richard von Weizsäcker, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and West Berlin mayor Eberhard Diepgen. That afternoon, Reagan said,

“We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Even with Obama building walls in Europe, we celebrate the fall of one;

1. Pelosi’s ToDo List: (7) Convince BlueDogs that #HCR will not raise taxes; (8) Stab their eyes out to keep them from reading the bill. #tcot17 minutes ago from web
   • Reply
2. Pelosi’s ToDo List: (5) Convince Dems #HCR will not raise the deficit; (6) Convince Dems that the sky is not blue. #tcot18 minutes ago from web

   • Reply
3. Pelosi’s ToDo List: (3) Convince BlueDogDems that #HCR will not fund abortions; (4) Convince Progressive Caucus that it will. #FAIL20 minutes ago from web

   • Reply
4. Pelosi’s ToDo List: (1) Convince Hispanic Caucus that HCR will not exclude illegals; (2) Convince BlueDogDems it will. #FAIL21 minutes ago from web

Silly woman has her hands full.

So do we.

Crossposted

via Tony Katz on Twitter;

Hope N Pepsi?

Okay, pink box, obviously has to do with breast cancer awareness. But seriously, how long do you think PepsiCo has been waiting for a chance to do this?

Just sayin‘ is all.

Crossposted

I first posted about this Saturday, and since then it has grown in size to the point it needs an update.

Michelle Malkin picked up on the event and boosted it hard via Twitter and her site.

Mark Levin is now on board, and will be there as he announced today on his radio show. His site gives a bad link, as the info has since changed and is moved to Michele Bachman’s House.gov site, although that may change yet again. [It did, Levin now links here]

Smart Girl Politics is now involved, as are the Tea Party Patriots.

The list is growing, to track events as they occur, follow the Twitter search tag #Housecall. There are people throwing together buses and carpools, splitting the cost of traveling, popping up and coming from all over the country; PA, Ohio, Texas, New Jersey. Every time I look, there are more.

People are cashing in their frequent flier miles, hitching rides, driving their own cars fifteen hours with no idea where they’ll stay when they get to DC, because they know; this is the line in the sand, it can go no further.

There is also a Facebook group dedicated to the event, but it doesn’t appear to be directly linked to Bachmann, although I could be wrong.

This directly from Michele Bachmann’s House.gov site;

Washington, D.C., Nov 2 -

WHAT: Health Care “House Call” on Washington Press Conference

WHO: Republican Members of Congress
Americans concerned about our health care future
Other Guests - TBA

WHEN: Thursday, November 5, 2009 from 12:00-1

WHERE: East Front Steps of the U.S. Capitol (House Side)

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann released the following statement as the House of Representatives approaches a vote on the Democrats’ health care reform proposal:

“The American people spoke loud and clear at town hall meetings all across the country throughout August. But, it would appear that Congress didn’t hear a word they had to say. The Democrats’ latest health care proposal unveiled late last week may be packaged a little differently, but it’s the same old bad bill as before.

“This bill is a trillion-dollar, budget-busting, government takeover of our health care system. It will put bureaucrats between people and their health care. It will lead to rationed care, hurting the most vulnerable amongst us first. It will break the bank, leaving our children to pay the bill with diminished freedoms and dwindling prosperity.

“The American people need to stand up again and make sure that Congress hears them this time. Speaker Pelosi is putting her bill on fast track to a vote – and it remains to be seen if the House will even get a chance to vote on the commonsense Republican alternatives. The people need to make a House Call on Washington this week and tell their Representatives to vote no to a government take-over of one-fifth of our economy. This is gangster government at its worst.

“I urge all Americans to come to Washington this Thursday. Come and meet up with your Representative and tell them that you want to control your health care.”

Bachmann today on Hannity’s radio show called this moment in our history “the Super Bowl” over health care. The calls and emails, the faxes and letters, are now having a limited affect on Congress critters. You now need to look them in the eyes and ask them; “Are you going to destroy my health care?”

Pelosi’s health care bill creates one hunderd and eleven (111) brand new federal bureaucracies, and that list of evils is growing as fast or faster than the opposition to it.

Bachmann also called Obamacare “The crown jewel of socialism”

You’ve spent months now at tea parties and town halls. Your message has been loud and clear: Keep your hands off my health care!

But, Congress hasn’t noticed. Speaker Pelosi is plowing full-steam ahead with her budget-busting government takeover of your health care.

It’s time to take the town hall to Congress. Come this Thursday to Washington and see your Member of Congress. Tell him or her face to face what you think of their health care bill.

[UPDATE] Links and updates with everything you need to know about DC Nov 5th

The time is now, the balloon is up.

Crossposted

via The Right Scoop

Michelle Bachmann was interviewed by Hannity (not sure what date because the FNC Hannity site is a mess, but I assume Friday Oct. 30), during the interview Hannity describes the “Government Option” as a “funnel that’ll eventually suck everybody into it”.

Bachmann says the bill will “…collapse private insurance so that everyone will fold into a single-payer government system…”

I think of it more as a black hole who’s immense gravity will warp the very space around it, pulling people out of their orbits and sucking them into the doom that is Barney Frank, Pelosi, and the left’s concept of health care with only one choice in America; one run by a corrupt, inept group of leftist Democrats.

From Michelle Bachmann’s home page;

Come to Washington on November 5th and tell your Representative to keep their hands off your health care!

If you can’t make it to Washington, go to your Member’s district office. And, if you can’t do that, you need to call and email. We can defeat this!

The Time: 12:00 PM
The Place: The steps of the US Capitol
The Reason: Stop the insanity from spreading any further

Crossposted

The “lede” of this Reuters article on President Obama’s trip to Dover Air Force Base last night made my skin crawl:

“DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Delaware — President Barack Obama saw first hand the human cost of the Afghanistan war as he welcomed home on Thursday 18 soldiers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents killed in Afghanistan this week.

“Obama, flying in his Marine One presidential helicopter, landed shortly after midnight in Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, home of the United States’ largest military mortuary and main point of entry for U.S. service members killed abroad.”

No, the president didn’t see the human cost of war. He saw some coffins and a quiet ceremony — that is, a small and sanitary portion of the toll. The human cost of war is far messier. It is blasted lives and unanswered questions. It is broken hearts and minds. It is widows raising children alone, and children who won’t know their fathers. It is mothers outliving their sons. It is as painful as life can be.

One commenter here I think accurately captured my view, as well as setting the author of the piece he was commenting on straight;

Yes, Barack Obama was right to see coffins coming back from Dover. However, he was wrong to take cameras along. He was leeching off of their sacrifice at a time when he is taking hits from left & right about his inability to make up his mind about what to do in Afghanistan.

If, like Bush’s trips to Iraq & Afghanistan, he had gone without bringing or notifying the press and there had been cameras there that later released footage of President Obama, that would be fine.

However, since the NYT article (before it was scrubbed) said that the pictures were taken specifically to show his concern over the decision in Afghanistan, that degrades this into propaganda, not true mourning. So, not only is he playing games with our soldiers lives, he’s playing games with our dead as well.

As CinC Obama should pay his respects to our war dead. What he shouldn’t do, however, is bring cameras along to prove something, whatever it is. It’s not what you’re seen doing, Sir, it’s what you do.

As to the NYT piece, Morrissey wrote;

Originally, the New York Times reported on President Barack Obama’s visit to Dover AFB and the arrival of fallen serviceman by explaining that the White House wanted Obama to be seen as concerned and aware of the sacrifices made in America’s war policies:

A small contingent of reporters and photographers accompanied Mr. Obama to Dover, where he arrived at 12:34 a.m. aboard Marine One. He returned to the South Lawn of the White House at 4:45 a.m.
<…>
The images and the sentiment of the president’s five-hour trip to Delaware were intended by the White House to convey to the nation that Mr. Obama was not making his Afghanistan decision lightly or in haste.

Following that link now, the second paragraph quoted is nowhere to be seen. The Jeff Zeleny report contains no editorial announcement of changes after its publication, and no indication of any retraction. Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette and Nice Deb both noticed the change, however, and Greyhawk also noticed that the NYT didn’t quite redact that paragraph from everywhere on its servers. The story now reads like this:

The trip was a symbolic one for Mr. Obama, given the gravity of his coming announcement of a new strategy for Afghanistan.

The image of the commander in chief standing on a darkened tarmac, offering a salute to one of the soldiers, highlighted the poignancy of a decision he is facing.

This is the human cost, Sir, and gratitude is appropriate.

Next time leave the cameras home, it’s not about you.

Crossposted

h/t Levin

Strange things sometimes happen in California, that pretty much goes without saying. As someone currently residing in the state, I see my share, believe that.

One thing I’m not often treated to out here is a Democrat in state government actually telling the truth (without spin) about the fiscal swirl the state is currently taking around the toilet bowl.

An alert reader at the Sacramento Bee took a video clip of an otherwise boring informational hearing and thoughtfully slapped it up on YouTube which was shared with the SacBee.

HotAir got hold of it as did Joel Fox of Fox&Hounds Daily who said;

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer generated a storm last week with his testimony before the Senate and Assembly Select Committees on Improving State Government.

He warned that public pensions and health care costs could bankrupt the state, that taxes will not go up, and that the legislature should clean up its act by getting rid of “junk” bills. An edited clip of his testimony can be viewed here.

Some might argue this was Lockyer’s Nixon-to-China moment, telling his Democratic colleagues to deal forthrightly with the state’s fiscal realities. In FlashReport, Former Republican State Senator Ray Haynes that Lockyer as the state senate leader had a different view of pensions, but now welcomed him to the fight.

I heard Levin today amazed by what he heard Lockyer saying, as was I when he shared it with his audience. I combine Levin’s audio with the YouTube video below.

Levin goes on to say that you’ll never see a national Democrat figure with the guts to say these things, because he or she would be excoriated by their peers. Full audio here and clip begins at 55:30.

How long has the left been in charge in California? Even Democrats are throwing their hands up at the mess their own side has created. Look how much faster Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have been able to push the US economy toward where California is today?

California is the perfect example of how bad things will get nationally, and everybody needs to know that.

Before it’s too late.

Crossposted

Every once in a while you hear something on the radio that absolutely slaps you in the face with an “Oh my God” moment.

For months we’ve been getting into what the leftists and statists have been trying to do to our country, and what will become of us as a nation if they succeed.

Listening to the F. Lee Levin show today he read something on air that blew me away with it’s simplicity in tying everything together, and it set my alarm bells ringing. Okay, I’ve been into this for months, but at a micro level; only seeing the task at hand; defeating this destructive agenda on a vote-by-vote basis. Making the phone calls (in my case, to Boxer and Feinstein, which are pretty much throwaway calls), sending faxes, emails, and helping others to organize.

In other words, deep into the weeds. Much like a logger who sees the next tree, and the next, and the next, I was missing the enormity of the forest. I knew the future would be bleak if this agenda passed, but I never allowed myself to imagine it because defeat was and remains unthinkable.

But, driving on my three weekend an month part-time job with the AM radio on, Levin began reading and I had to roll up the windows and lean in to catch it all;

In explanation for her “yes” vote on the Max Baucus created health care bill, Maine Senator Olympia Snowe said:

“Is this bill all that I would want? Far from it. Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls.”

Senator Snowe is probably right. History is calling. What she has wrong is history’s message. History is calling with the warning that tyranny is at our doorstep.

The tyranny that threatens us is not the same brand as the violent police states of the 20th century. Tyranny in America will look more like the misguided utopianism that has taken England from being the greatest, freest nation on earth to the frail remains of a world power it is today.

History called on England in the aftermath of World War II. During the war, the Axis Powers threatened England’s very existence. In such dire circumstances it became necessary for the entire country to work under central direction to achieve its military objectives. However, after the Allied Forces retook Europe, England believed that wartime-style government planning should continue. The government proceeded to dismantle what, in many ways, was once the freest economy in world history.

Now, over 60 years later, we see the results. England — the leader of the industrial revolution, the empire over which the sun never set, the parent of so many of the great modern republics — has descended into doldrums of mediocrity.

There’s more that ties everything into the battle for health care reform in the United States, go here and check it out, then pass it on. It’s important, really.

Maybe I’m just alarmist and there’s some hidden court trick that will work with the Appeals Courts who are increasingly more and more leaning to the left. I somehow doubt that though.

Forget who may or may not run next year for now. Real leaders have their chance today to rise to the top and help get the brakes put on this leftist agenda, lets see them do it. The heroes of this year can claim the leadership mantle in 2010 and beyond. Too often a person will see the people moving in a certain direction and rush out in front pretending to have been there all along, and they’ll shout “Follow me!” We see who they are, they aren’t fooling anybody anymore.

This is for all the marbles, and 2010 or 2012 won’t mean a thing if this isn’t stopped right here.

Right now.

Crossposted

First some background via American Thinker;

Obama’s oratory of Hope and Change has proved to be nothing more than camouflage for a realpolitik of Fear and Loathing, his broad smile at the teleprompter just a distraction while Obama’s heavies deliver a kidney punch to perceived enemies. Welcome to politics — the Chicago way.

Rolling out their attack from a War Room that seemingly ignores the nation’s real enemies abroad and instead turns its guns inward to its own people; they take on Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and anyone else that uses the administration’s own words to paint the real picture of what’s going on in DC.

Obama’s attack on Limbaugh was conceived last spring. Politico reported then that a cabal of top Obama advisors initiated what Politico called ‘Operation Rushbo’ to “roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era.” With conspirators including consigliere David Axelrod, Obama’s press puppet Robert Gibbs, and Chief of Staff — and chief enforcer — Rahm Emanuel, there can be little doubt that Obama, himself, greenlighted the strategy.

But as we’ve seen lately, it isn’t limited to El Rushbo, Fox and talk radio;

–He has smeared medical doctors with reckless charges that they administer unnecessary courses of treatment for profit, e.g., tonsillectomies and limb amputations.

–He publicly berated Chrysler’s senior creditors as a “small group of speculators” who “endanger Chrysler’s future by refusing to sacrifice like everyone else,” merely because they wouldn’t acquiesce to his demands and insisted on asserting their contractual rights.

–He has demonized “big oil” and other energy producers, free market capitalists, corporate executives, pharmaceutical companies, Republicans who oppose his health care plan as dishonest and partisan, the wealthy, municipal policemen who dared arrest his Ivy League professor friend for disturbing the peace, pro-lifers, global warming skeptics, the CIA, the military, the best health care system in the world, and George W. Bush every time he needs cover for the inevitably negative consequences of his policies.

–He uses his White House blog to attack his political opponents.

–He condemned opponents of amnesty for illegal aliens as “demagogues.”

–He foreshadowed his true nature in the campaign with his spontaneous denunciation of small-town Americans as bitterly clinging to their guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.

–His administration has likened “tea party” protestors to an “angry mob” and “potential terrorists.” His adviser David Axelrod has said they “are not in the mainstream and not in the majority” and represent “the angriest and most strident voices.”

–In reference to opponents of his health care scheme, he said in a speech to a joint session of Congress, “I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it.” He also said: “I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so (Democrats) can clean up the mess.” And this: “If you misrepresent what is in this plan, we will call you out.”

–He has targeted and vilified the entire insurance industry for daring to oppose his plan, describing them as “those who would bend the truth — or break it — to score political points and stop our progress as a country,” and accusing them of “filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads … designed to mislead the American people.” Even the liberal New York Times acknowledged Obama’s use of “unusually harsh terms” in attacking the industry as being “interested only in preserving their own ‘profits and bonuses.’” And in a true Stalinesque intimidation move, he is threatening to repeal the industry’s antitrust exemption.

It all seems to inevitably come back to the Obama Playbook, written back in 1971; which Heritage sews together nicely in their Oct 21st post in First Principles.

So Lamar Alexander comes to the podium on the Senate floor and offers the White House a warning. Speaking from personal experience as a staff aide in the Nixon White House, he should know.

“An ‘enemies list’ only denigrates the Presidency and the Republic itself,” Alexander said on the Senate floor. “These are unusually difficult times, with plenty of forces encouraging us to disagree. Let’s not start calling people out and compiling an enemies list. Let’s push the street-brawling out of the White House and work together on the truly presidential issues: creating jobs, reducing health care costs, reducing the debt, creating clean energy.”

Politico gleefully points out this quote;

“According to Politico,” Alexander said, “the White House plans to ‘neuter the United States Chamber of Commerce,” an organization with members in almost every major community in America. The Chamber had supported the president’s stimulus package and some of his early appointments, but has problems with his health care and climate change proposals.”

They offer the full text here, and you can watch it below as well.

Senator Alexander’s main suggestion;

“An ‘enemies list’ only denigrates the Presidency and the Republic itself,” Alexander said on the Senate floor. “These are unusually difficult times, with plenty of forces encouraging us to disagree. Let’s not start calling people out and compiling an enemies list. Let’s push the street-brawling out of the White House and work together on the truly presidential issues: creating jobs, reducing health care costs, reducing the debt, creating clean energy.”

I think we can pretty much discard any possibility of working together with this bunch. They’ve declared total war on anyone not enthralled by their “Hope and Change” mantra, which I’d say includes Sen. Alexander.

Rush pointed out yesterday suggesting Obama try to “get along” and “work together” is pointless;

This is like telling the KGB to stop spying on people. This is like telling Castro to stop torturing dissidents. It’s like telling Kim Jong-il, “Hey, you better not launch that missile.” It’s like telling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “You better not! You better not or we’re going to really get into some diplomacy.” What? Tell these guys to stop their enemies list? (stifling laughter) Don’t make me laugh, although I can’t help but laugh. Anyway, I know he knows these words are not going to have any impact; he just wants to get the words on the record. But this is how these people operate! There won’t be an opposition by the time they get through.

Crossposted

Okay, we got our jollies when the Nobel Prize Committee deigned to give this year’s Nobel Peace (Appease) Prize to “Hope and Change™”, because let’s face it, it was absurd.

Michael Steele, the RNC Chairman, put it this way;

“”The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?’ It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights.”

Indeed, there were quite a few who more probably made actual sacrifices that could’ve gotten the award and were ignored; on this I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Steele.

Barbara Boxer, however, decided that to suggest anyone other than “The One” should receive recognition must be the Taliban personified in America;

A tune from the DNC songbook sung by the left’s nastiest senator, capped by a trill of irony when she wonders why people have to spoil the day by being mean. I’m reasonably sure that Steele’s knock on The One’s record wasn’t a veiled call for him to hand over Afghanistan and Israel to jihadist nutbags, so there’s a pretty sharp distinction with the Taliban and Hamas right there. But never mind that. Can we use this as a “teachable moment,” maybe, to settle two political matters that are hazy right now? One: Is the Taliban an enemy or not? Boxer seems to think yes, which is fine by me, but that’s very much not a melody from her party’s songbook. And two: Is it okay or isn’t it to compare the other party to terrorists? I’m fine with it — after hearing Olbermann liken the GOP to jihadis umpteen thousand times, it’s water off the back by now — but there are few things the left seems to enjoy than a good fake-outrage conniption whenever some Republican pol (or center-leftist!) breathes the words “Al Qaeda” and “Democrats” in the same sentence. Street fight, or being overcome by the vapors? Just pick one already.

Again, she who thinks the rhetoric in American politics is becoming “unnecessarily mean”, unless it’s a Democrat spewing the rhetoric blows the needle off the Irony Meter.

But Babs has a history, doesn’t she? She demands respect not earned in showing disrespect to a Brigadier General who has earned it.

She showed disrespect to the black CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce in suggesting all their hard work and research on what affect Climate Change™ would have on jobs could be summarily dismissed by waving the mere opinion of “another black group” in the air.

Mr. Alford, as you remember, went round and round with Senator Barbara Boxer* over some racial attitudes that the latter has yesterday; he expanded on this a bit more. Highlights from the interview:

• He and the NBCC are not shills for Republicans.  In fact, they’re going to be on the other side on the health care issue.  Mr. Alford himself is an independent.
• This level of racially-motivated condescension is all the more outrageous because he’s never been treated like this before, in over a decade of testimony.
• Mr. Alford’s - fully justified - outrage seems based on the fact that he was there to testify as a representative of a Black business organization, and Senator Boxer kept treating him as a Black representative of a Black (business) organization.  Who was Black.  Like all these other Black people who agree with Senator Boxer, so their Black opinions were just as relevant as Harry (Black) Alford’s.**
• So if you’re going to dispute a report being used by the NBCC, and you simply must get your own Black people to back you up, they’d appreciate it if you went and got ones who can at least address the issue from an informed state.
• And, oh yes: Boxer and staff ran away surprisingly quickly after the hearing.

She also attacked the black, female Secretary of State of the United States of America, for basically not having children.

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, an appalling scold from California, wasted no time yesterday in dragging the debate over Iraq about as low as it can go - attacking Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for being a childless woman.
Boxer was wholly in character for her party - New York’s own two Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, were predictably opportunistic - but the Golden State lawmaker earned special attention for the tasteless jibes she aimed at Rice.
Rice appeared before the Senate in defense of President Bush’s tactical change in Iraq, and quickly encountered Boxer.
“Who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price,” Boxer said. “My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young.”
Then, to Rice: “You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family.”
Breathtaking.
Simply breathtaking.

Breathtaking isn’t even the word, Barbara Boxer needs to be replaced, badly.

Chuck DeVore is the one real conservative in the running from the GOP side to date. His campaign released a video here which ties the whole thing together, also recently posted a diary along these lines. You should take a look.

Crossposted

From a Gold Star mom;

It was a nasty evil thing to do back during the Vietnam war. People would call families claiming to be the military and tell their son had been killed and the family would later find it was a lie. Mental and emotional abuse and torture of the worse kind. Well what once was old is new again… but still just as evil and heartless. Only this time the media is being compliant.

Calls are being made to families and the words no family with a soldier wants to hear are uttered ” We regret to inform you”… Only to find out their soldier is alive and well. It’s done to break morale and inflict injury on the families. Not only that but on our troops also. Now instead of our soldiers being able to completely focus on their mission they have the burden of worrying about something like this happening to their loved ones who are suppose to be safe at home.

She’s referring to this story via CBS News. Notice the headline.

Military Wrongly Told Dad Soldier-Son Died
(AP)  Military officials say they’re investigating why an upstate New York man was told his son had been killed in Afghanistan when the soldier was alive and well.

Ray Jasper of Niagara Falls says he was camping Sunday when he received a call on his cell phone from a woman who said she was a military liaison. He says the woman told him his son, Staff Sgt. Jesse Jasper, was killed in action Saturday.

The father says he later called military officials to get details of his son’s death and was told that his son is alive. Ray Jasper says the officials couldn’t explain the earlier call.

The father says his son called from Afghanistan and said he would talk to his commanding officers about the call reporting his death.

First, as anybody with a Google search capability could tell you, the military does not notify next of kin by phone.

From the US Army’s own guide (my bolding);

b.  The Army’s policy is to make personal notification to the primary next of kin (PNOK) and secondary next of kin (SNOK) of the deceased soldier within 4 hours after notification of the death.  Notification should take place during the hours from 0600 to 2200 local time unless otherwise directed.  The time limits established for notification may have to be adjusted due to distances involved or other conditions, such as adverse weather.  All attempts will be made to notify the PNOK first, if your efforts to contact the PNOK are unsuccessful, then contact the Casualty Area Command (CAC), immediately for guidance.

It’s the one of the hardest jobs anyone in the military will be called upon to do. Various movie accounts show the telegram arriving from the War Department with “We regret to inform you…”, some even delivered by distraught cab drivers.

The cinematic scenes makes it all so much easier to believe that someone on base would simply pick up the phone, and call some soldier’s father to pass on the bad news, especially at CBS News. But they don’t exactly have the best history of checking facts, do they?

Mom goes on;

Another version of these calls is to tell you your loved was wounded.. usually these call request a verification of the soldier’s social security number and then the soldier’s identity is stolen. If these people are not oblivious to the family’s suffering they are just as evil.

These types of calls and attacks on the families of our troops are terrorism in themselves. I am getting very angry and sick of the abuse put up on our troops and their families…

Stranger than even the phone games they play, is one that I can’t even wrap my mind around from October 2008, Via Blackfive from Clarksville, Tennessee;

FORT CAMPBELL, KY–  On Thursday, October 30, a military family member reported two men pretending to be a casualty notification officer and chaplain visited her home and falsely notified her that her deployed Soldier had been killed.
The man impersonating the notification officer was wearing a Class A “dress green” uniform and the other was wearing civilian clergy attire.

This is the part I can’t conceive, it occurred on base;

There have been a few incidents of this nature in the past two months involving family members living off post, but Thursday’s incident occurred on post. The spouse did not allow the pair into her home and when they left contacted the Family Readiness Support Assistant and Rear Detachment Commander to confirm the information. The command let her know her spouse is still alive and worked to put him in contact with her as soon as possible. Military police were notified and a police report was taken at the scene.

Again, my bolding for emphasis; “…a few incidents of this nature…”? As in, this goes on all the time, but finally it made the news.

As War On Terror News suggests;

While these seem to be isolated incidents, many go unreported and there is a need for families to become proactive in combatting the grisly acts of the perpetuators.  Families should first *know* that the Military will never give this bad news over the telephone.  The Military will always report it in person.

If a family member receives such a phone call, one should immediately go into investigative mode.  Write down the number from Caller ID.   Ask for the name and number of the caller.  Keep the person on the line as long as possible.  Call your telephone provider and report the malicious call and ensure the phone company records the information from the caller for a police report, immediately after the call.  Record as much information as you can about the caller on paper or computer file (many phones have a text notes function) to include the voice patterns and any dialects of the voice you can identify.  Then call the police and military with the information you have.

If the caller has falsely identified themselves as a member of LE or the Military, there are additional charges that can be filed against them.  The bottom line is that the malicious call is itself a crime
If it seems that this is a pet issue of mine, it is because I know of (and considered to be an isolated incident) a case where a teenage daughter in High School received a text message from an untraced number stating “Your dad is dead” one day before he was killed.  It wasn’t clairvoyance.  It wasn’t ESP.  It wasn’t a prophecy.  It was simple meanness that coincided with his sacrifice.

It went unreported.  Catch these people if they attempt to victimize you.

My suggestion to those merry pranksters on the left; as you sit at St. Arbucks sipping your lattes, scratching your too cool wannabe goatees, and pecking at your Mac Books to compose you Hate Bush thesis, cut down on the caffeine before some stupid idea like the above occurs to you and you end up the one who’s family gets a phone call…

…from the Coroner.

Crossposted

From Moonbattery

Chinese Human Rights Activist Hu Jia - imprisoned for campaigning for human rights in the PRC, not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China’s communist system. — not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. (Not to mention the symbolic value of awarding a Chinese dissident on the 20th Anniversary of the Tianenmen Square Massacre.)

Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute has built nearly 80 schools, especially for girls, in remote areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past 15 years - not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Jordan who risks his life by advocating interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims, also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar. She currently leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and serves as the U.N. special envoy to Darfur and is apparently also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

It seems to the Nobel Committee that no good deed should go unpunished, and empty Hope and Change promises are rewarded.
Moonbattery puts it best;

The Nobel Committee has truly beclowned itself this time. The Peace Prize has meant nothing since 1994 when it was awarded to Yasser Arafat to reward his lifelong pursuit of Jew-killing. In times since, it has been awarded to Jimmy Carter and Al Gore for their lifelong pursuit of not being George W. Bush. Now, it’s been awarded to Barack Hussein Obama for his lifelong pursuit of being Barack Hussein Obama.

And the left is, as usual, up in arms that anyone would dare question Obama’s award.

From: Sean Stutzman sean_stutzman@hotmail.com
Subject: Affirmative Action
Date: October 9, 2009 1:06:06 PM EDT
To: Erick-Woods Erickson

F**k you, you racist piece of s**t! Was it because of affirmative action when Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Prize? What about Nelson Mandela? While I don’t necessarily agree with Obama winning the Peace Prize this early in his Presidency either, to invoke affirmative action is just low. I’m telling you this as a white, United States Marine from Texas, so you can’t dismiss me as some left wing idiot. I read what you wrote and got pissed off enough to write you back. So when a white Marine from the south calls you out for being a f**king bigoted a**hole then perhaps you need to reevaluate yourself.

Sir, you are an idiot to even think of equating Barack Obama with anyone listed in your rant. Those people actually did something significant, which included sacrifice.

Oh, an update via @calebhowe

Crossposted

After what I can only describe as an amazing month of August with thousands of Americans going to Town Hall meetings with their elected representatives to express their views, the month of September actually managed to top it.

Specifically September 12, 2009 will for me be the date the New Radicals went from their birth in February, beyond baby steps, to outright learning to walk and talk.

People from all walks of life, all races, all levels of income, marched on Washington, DC to express their displeasure at the speed and expense of reforms initiated by Barack Obama and the Democrat led Congress.

The main message; slow down. Think about what you are doing and what will be the consequences of your actions. Don’t fix what isn’t broken, and take the time to do it right when you fix what is.

Contrary to what many are saying in the old guard main stream media, it’s not a movement born of hate; rather of love. Love of one’s own country, neighbors, and children. A love that says; “You don’t have to destroy to change”.

Now these people are being called “Racists™” and they don’t understand why.

Not so very long ago, they heard the words;

“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, “WE ARE AMERICANS AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!”

The United States of America is a country where the very founding was born of dissent, protest, and disagreement. In fact, reaching back to those historic protests in Boston Harbor is to invite the vilest of derogatory innuendo from those who seek to disparage and demoralize an entire section of America who happens to disagree with the methods and ideology of this administration.

Today it’s all changed. Today when they disagree with the President of the United States they are called racist and worse.

Even a certain bitter, inept ex-president is getting into the act.

To my way of thinking, someone who seems to always pull the race card out first is probably hiding some racist thoughts of their own.

Possibly Jimmy Carter’s head is stuck in the 1940s segregated south, or stuck someplace considerably darker (my preferred explanation), but after railing his Anti-Semitic rants against Israel in a book endorsed by none other than Osama Bin-Laden, he came out against the people of the United States calling them, in essence, racists;

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African American,” Mr. Carter told an NBC interviewer.

“I think it’s bubbled up to the surface, because of a belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African Americans are not qualified to lead this great country.”

Carter only vocalizes what seemingly a majority of the left is already thinking; that anyone who disagrees with Barack Hussein Obama only does so because of the color of his skin, not the content of his character or lack thereof.

In honor of the start of the NFL football season, I’m throwing the B.S. flag on the race play.

Best stated by @snarkandboobs in her post here;

I’m really tired of trying to explain to the Left that they are the ones who see color everywhere and in everything and that they are reprehensibly diminishing true acts of real racism; in fact, they are diminishing and demeaning the entire Civil Rights movement.

Searching pictures of the recent 9/12 gathering in DC I’m hard-pressed to find examples of the racists cited by the leftist Jimmy Carter.

I don't see racists here

Nor here...

Here possibly

There’s at least one ex-president who should’ve stuck to building homes for the homeless. After he lent his name to Habitat for Humanity, it was forgotten or at least forgiven what a horrible job he did as President.

For Middle America, it’s all flooding back to us now.

Thanks, Mr. Carter.

Ass.

Crossposted

Back in February, a little over a month in office, Obama lifted the restrictions on the press using dead soldier’s pictures; I was pissed. Then, as now, I apologize for any bad language that may escape me.

Michelle Malkin today posted this (via Blackfive), and now I am beyond words.

And the predictable Huffington Post, ever as vile as its Troll-doll namesake, Arianna, decided to unleash Greg Mitchell;

Going back to 2002, I have been writing about the shameful reluctance, even refusal, of U.S. media outlets to carry graphic images of the true cost of our wars, to Americans, in Iraq and Afghanistan — dead or even, in many cases, gravely wounded U.S. soldiers and Marines.

Earlier today, the Associated Press — bucking the wishes of the Pentagon and the victim’s family — decided to go ahead and transmit such a photo.

The “man” then goes on to call the dying Marine’s picture splashed around for all the other trolls to use in their feeding frenzy “tasteful”. I’ve seen the picture, it is not.

To his credit, SecDef Gates, as noted in the links, said;

“Out of respect for his family’s wishes, I ask you in the strongest of terms to reconsider your decision. I do not make this request lightly. In one of my first public statements as Secretary of Defense, I stated that the media should not be treated as the enemy, and made it a point to thank journalists for revealing problems that need to be fixed – as was the case with Walter Reed.

“I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard’s death has caused his family. Why your organization would purposefully defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me. Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right – but judgment and common decency.”

Gates is a replaceable gear in the machine, and as such his remarks will no doubt be discarded by the AP hacks and HuffPo bridge-trolls. Besides that, George Bush(tm), therefore “I inherited”.

I’m calling on my Commander in Chief to formally call the AP as well as Huffpo on the carpet, publicly and loudly, if he ever hopes to earn the respect of those he’s supposed to  command.

Of course, at the root of all this is the Disassociated Associated Press and their decision not to abide by standing poilcy not to allow pictures of dead and dying serviceman and women to be published if the family requests that specifically, as was the case here.

Again via Blackfive;

The AP reported that the Marine’s father had asked – in an interview and in a follow-up phone call — that the image, taken by an embedded photographer, not be published.

AP reported in a story that it decided to make the image public anyway because it “conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.”

How much more plain did it have to be? Exactly what more needed to be said to convey the message that the photo was definitely not to be published?

I’m calling (a voice in the wilderness?) on the Pentagon to reject any and all embed requests from the AP for some meaningful specified period of time. This can not be allowed to stand. There are and should be consequences for violating standing orders that all service members know well.

As Michelle stated; “But ambitious, agenda-driven members of the MSM don’t let rules or wishes get in the way of a good story”

This time it should cost them, and cost them plenty.

[UPDATE-Event deleted from site, guess it wasn't such a good idea after all?]

It was to be a day of remembrance for the victims of 9/11, and a reminder to always be vigilant; the eleventh of September was to be Patriot Day;

In the United States, Patriot Day occurs on September 11 of each year, designated in memory of the nearly three thousand who died in the September 11, 2001, attacks. Most Americans refer to the day as “Nine-Eleven (9/11),” “September 11th,” or some variation thereof.

On September 4, 2002, President Bush used his authority created by the resolution and proclaimed September 11, 2002, as Patriot Day.

U.S. House of Representatives Joint Resolution 71 was approved by a vote of 407-0 on October 25, 2001. It requested that the President designate September 11 of each year as “Patriot Day.” President George W. Bush signed the resolution into law on December 18, 2001 (as Public Law 107-89). It is a discretionary day of remembrance.

Initially, the day was called the Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims Of the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001.

Weak on national security as Democrats invariably are, it simply wouldn’t do to have the rascally Republicans continue to own the issue. What to do?

Take the issue away by making 9/11 about Obama’s issues, Obama’s people; in short about Obama.

Moe touched on this re-branding earlier, now Obama’s minions put it on his website.

[My emphasis]

2 PHONE CALLS ON 9/11 - Illinois! (Health Care Organizing Event)

All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.

STAY HOME FOR THIS EVENT! DO NOT GO ANYWHERE!
Stay HOME:
—* The Event consists of ALL OF US Making Two Phone Calls on one particular, single day.
—* We call each of our State Senators (phone numbers are below) on that day.

What day? Our US Senators return to DC the Tues after Labor Day. That next FRIDAY, Sep 11, is Patriot Day, designated in memory of the nearly three thousand who died in the 9/11 attacks.

Yes sir, that’s what I want our own Dear Leader putting up there for the world to see, calling those who disagree domestic terrorists.

They don’t stop there. Any of you reading this related to Bin Laden? Seems so;

—* RECLAIM OUR LAND FROM THE HEIRS OF, YES: BIN LADEN *—* YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE *—

In case you haven’t seen it in the News: Republican Representatives, Senators, GOP Party Leader, GOP Political Machine top personnel (e.g., Gingritch), etc etc etc — they’re ALL every one of them applauding and encouraging their zealot-horde by merrily referring to them as “Proud Right-Wing Terrorists”. Google it - I’m not pulling your leg.

Ok, enough already.

The site is Organizing for America, whose DNS is http://www.barackobama.com/

Who owns it?

Registrant: Obama for America
233 N. Michigan Ave Suite 1100
Chicago, Illinois 60601
United States

Administrative Contact:
Admin, Admin admin@barackobama.com
Obama for America
233 N. Michigan Ave
Suite 1100
Chicago, Illinois 60601
United States
3128192008 Fax –

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)

Domain Name: BARACKOBAMA.COM
Created on: 28-Dec-04
Expires on: 28-Dec-15
Last Updated on: 16-Oct-07

Anybody shocked that it would come around to Chicago? Anybody have doubts that Obama has at least some control over its content; marching orders via Rahm Emmanuel?

Now he wants to take 9/11 and rather than we be vigilant and remember those who perished, we should be “patriotic” by supporting leftist causes, such as the “Public Plan”.

I’d say there should be some fast explaining from the WH. I realize this is an Illinois event listed on the site, but the site uses His name, His brand, and I’m guessing His re-brand.

A leader would take charge, unless he is in charge.

H/t perpetual muckraker LadyImpactOhio

Crossposted

As a military person, there’s a hole in my heart where a President used to be.

I didn’t agree with George W. Bush politically all the time (enough to vote for him twice), but one thing I did agree with; he did his best for his troops.

Make the argument, if you will, that troops in Iraq were lacking proper armor prior to the ‘03 Iraq invasion. I was issued a post Vietnam era flak vest (bullets would soar through these unhindered), an M-16 (A1 lower receiver with an A2 upper, too long in the barrel for our convoy use), and while our MOPP gear was state of the art, it came in unfashionable woodland camouflage pattern rather than the more appropriate desert camo we needed for where we were.

Funny part to the MOPP gear camo pattern. Sitting at chow prior to the invasion kick-off, we were watching some US carrier crew on the flight deck conducting preparedness drills for chemical/biological warfare. To a man, they were wearing our desert camo pattern MOPP gear! Useful no doubt on a carrier at sea.

What the above boils down to, is that while it may be fashionable for the left to blame Bush for lack of proper gear, the real culprit was the Peace Dividend coined by the GHWB administration, and carried through and repeated endlessly by one Bill Clinton. After what seemed like endless budget cuts, the high-tech weapons systems were given priority and the “Humvees”, etc. were deemed to be “fine as is”.

So yeah, we were as a Seabee unit not expected to be the “tip of the spear” as our brother Marines and the Army were, so we accepted the gear as what we needed for where we were and who we were.

We did at least know one thing, we had a Commander in Chief who cared and loved his troops.

I saw a video posted to Facebook tonight which prompted me writing this tonight (that and I’ve had too much coffee). It’s titled “US Soldiers Hate Barack Obama”

Do we really hate Barack Obama?

No.

Do we believe Barack Obama likes us?

No.

My personal feeling, as I posted in the comments on Facebook, were these;

I don’t hate him, I just don’t think he likes us very much; sees us as tools. If you lose or break a tool, get another one, cheap as possible.
GWB came to served us Thanksgiving dinner in Iraq, went to see the wounded regularly in various hospitals.
He was a President who I believe genuinely loved the troops.

Naturally this was followed immediately by a lib, who wrote;

Rick Fisk

If Bush liked the troops so much, why did he send them to Iraq and Afghanistan to get hurt and dead?

Erick Brockway

To defeat an enemy who wants civilians like you hurt and dead.

Rick Fisk

Really? LOL.Muslims want to kill your mom. Why Iraq? It had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.

Erick Brockway

Guess you weren’t paying much attention back then?
Put away you lib talking points flash card set and think.
Sigh.
Saddam Hussein, to keep his own people under control and keep Iran from getting ideas, kept up a shell game to on the one hand make people think he MAY have WMDs hiding somewhere. Whether he did and destroyed them, or got them out of the country, is not the point.
He failed to disclose. He was supposed to disclose. He used them in the past. As we got close to Baghdad, we were issued NEW MOPP gear, because if we crossed into the city, he threatened to use them on us.

We believed him. He’s dead now.
Get it?
Probably not.
And they want to kill YOUR mom, mine died when I was 12

Why do I bother?

I did a Google search. There were hundreds of pictures of GWB visiting troops in the hospital. Same search, Obama’s name, well you get the idea. One with SecDef Gates visiting troops.

“But Erick, Obama’s only been in office a few months! No fair! Besides that, George Bush!”

I really don’t think it’s going to matter; six months or six years. The man Barack Obama can’t relate, can’t identify with a service to one’s country that involves possibly losing one’s life or taking a life.

His idea of service seems to be service to others that benefits oneself politically, or benefits one’s own political party. One’s own team. One’s own color. One’s own race.

As I sit here trying to wrap this up, I’m watching a channel I really never knew existed on TV; The Pentagon Channel. They just told me there are people still dying in Afghanistan. Notice anything missing?

The “Running Tally” seems to have stopped.

Gone is the tagline; “…bringing the number of US troops killed in [fill in the blank] to…”.

Oh yeah;

I Won

Crossposted

h/t to Amy who is righteously outraged…

You’ve stormed the beaches of Normandy. You saw guys you went to Boot Camp with, been through Basic Infantry School with. Ate chow, pulled them out of the dumps when they got “the letter” from their girl, saw them mowed down when the ramp dropped on the Higgins boats before they even fired a shot.

You climbed Mount Suribachi and planted the flag, floated over Berlin like a balloon in a B-17 like a sitting duck waiting for the black cloud with your name on it.

You froze at the Chosin Reservoir, drowned in your own sweat while dodging bullets in Battle of Ia Drang.

Your grandkids write you today from Iraq and Afghanistan, they use different words but they describe the same things you lived through years ago. The baton has been passed, you did your duty.

Now, sadly, as you approach your twilight years there’s one last duty to consider. This comes down from the top.

You have a decision to make. Your government needs to distribute its dwindling resources carefully; therefore they’d like you to consider ending your life early;

The VA’s unofficial living will, an end-of-life planning document called “Your Life, Your Choices,” [.pdf download] is being circulated throughout their hospitals and nursing homes across the country. In the beginning, it was given to any debilitated or aging veterans, but since last month the VA has instructed that it is to be given to all patients along with counseling from the healthcare practitioner.

It gets worse. There are 3 conditions that are listed to make the patients feel guilty if they choose life, stating that the patient “caused severe emotional burden for my family,” “can no longer contribute to my family’s well being” and is “a severe financial burden on my family.” The intent of those statements is to make it clear to patients that choosing life is selfish and would hurt the ones they love.

While suggesting that someone write a living will may not be immoral, “Your Life, Your Choices” is written in such a way as to steer the patients toward death, full of leading questions and statements about the suffering patients would undergo as well as the burden they would place on their family if they remained alive.

There is a section titled “What Makes Your Life Worth Living,” in which various conditions are listed and the patient is to check a box with answers of “difficult, but acceptable,” “worth living, but just barely,” or “not worth living.” To their credit, there is also a box for “can’t answer now.” Some of the conditions listed are that the patient “can only get around in a wheelchair” and “spend all day at home.” The former is insulting to anyone confined to a wheelchair and the latter describes my state when I was unemployed.

Is this a croc of s**t or what?

It’s beyond the pale after all you gave for your country that the VA at the direction of the CinC would even consider pushing crap like this on vets;

“Your Life, Your Choices” presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political “push poll.” For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be “not worth living.”

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to “shake the blues.” There is a section which provocatively asks, “Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘If I’m a vegetable, pull the plug’?” There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as “I can no longer contribute to my family’s well being,” “I am a severe financial burden on my family” and that the vet’s situation “causes severe emotional burden for my family.”

[snip]

This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable. Worse, a July 2009 VA directive instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to “Your Life, Your Choices.” Not just those of advanced age and debilitated condition—all patients. America’s 24 million veterans deserve better.

You duty, as I see it, is to keep track of your brothers in arms and make sure the VA isn’t pushing this crap on them. It’s bloody hard enough dealing with life these days as it is, with investments dwindling and the country looking more and more like it’s circling the toilet bowl, without this kind of garbage.

You remember the tenets of small unit leadership? If you were an LPO or an NCO and still keep touch with some of the guys, give ‘em a call and see how they’re doing. They’re still your people.

You may know someone from the Legion hall or VFW who stopped showing up recently, check up on them, just to say “Hi” if nothing else.

We stuck together through some harsh times overseas, and today unfortunately there are harsh times ahead as well.

There’s a country to take back, I know you’re still up to it.

“Illegitimi non carborundum” via @VladimirRS

Crossposted