Monthly Archives: June 2010

A LOOTER AND A CITIZEN

This short video will do your heart good. It might be called the act of a private public servant. The scene is Toronto.

SANTELLI FOR PRESIDENT !!

Rick Santelli loses it again. Who can blame him?

While Santelli is screaming stop spending in video, Paul Krugman is screaming increase spending in print in the New York Times.

IN TIMES LIKE THESE

Commentary.

“It is a gloomy moment in the history of our country. Not in the lifetime of most men has there been so much grave and deep apprehension; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. The domestic economic situation is in chaos. Our dollar is weak throughout the world. The political cauldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty. Russia hangs, as usual, like a cloud, dark and silent, upon the horizon. It is a solemn moment. Of our troubles no man has seen the end.”          Harper’s Magazine  1847

Dare we Hope our beloved land will once again triumph over trouble as it did in the wake of Harper’s nineteenth century view? Or is Change changing our path to that once trod by Rome?

“The Budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, assistance to foreign lands should be reduced lest the State become bankrupt. The people should … work and not depend on government for subsistence.”          Marcus Tullius Cicero   106 BC

So you see, some things just don’t change much over time, even a very long time. Madison, Adams, Jefferson and that whole crowd understood as much when they formulated our Constitution.

Bob B

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SENATOR ROBERT BYRD, R.I.P.


West Virginia has lost an icon. Robert Byrd was one of the most colorful members ever to take the Senate floor. One of his most memorable actions was the time when he stood at the mike on the floor of the Senate for 14 straight hours reading passages from the bible and favorites among his grandmothers cooking recipes.

Those were the days when the rules of the Senate required the continuation of active debate to maintain filibuster status to block voting on legislation to which you were opposed. Freedom to frame those arguments howsoever you choose is basic to our principles of government. Sen. Byrd applied the principle of freedom of speech and made a fool of the rules. You must respect the old curmudgeon for that.

Few people knew it, but until his death, as Secretary Pro-Temp of the U.S. Senate, Sen., Byrd was 4th in line for the Presidency. In practical terms it is little more than an honor as there has never been a tragedy requiring us to need to reach to the 4th on the ascendancy list.

In life we were adversaries, after his death we are not. We are glad his vote has been lost but sad his life has come to an end. We would not have had it this way. His inimitable elegant diatribes shall be missed. May he rest in peace.

Watch and listen to the video and meet a Robert Byrd you never knew to exist.

Bob B

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‘White Folk Done Took This Country’

Obama and Wright before political expediency

The irreverent Jeremiah Wright has bubbled to the surface again. In a week long seminar at Chicago University’s Theological Seminary you could have sat under the latest teachings of Obama’s “God damn America” minister and mentor.

The theme of his message, in his own words, was “White Folk Done Took This Country”. His audience was meager and mostly African-American.

“You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be a brother to white folk. And if you do not realize that, you are in serious trouble.”

They’ll step on you like a cockroach and keep on movin’, cause you not a brother to them.’ “

Martin Luther King, he said, “was misguided for advocating nonviolence among his people born in the oven of America.”

From the New York Post

In March, Wright told The Washington Post that he expects to speak to Obama again, when “he is out of the White House.” Last June, he told a Virginia newspaper that the only reason he and the president were not speaking at the moment is that “them Jews ain’t going to let him talk to me.

These are the teachings of the man our President has said did more to shape his life more than any other.

Bob B

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LAST WEEK

Week ending June 25, 2010

Monday
Speculation goes public that Rahm Emanuel will leave White House by November
Burn out, disagreements over strategy, Obama is uncompromising… or it may be Blagojevichgate

Tuesday
UK raises the VAT from 17.5% to 20%
A VAT is akin to a national sales tax. It This European invention will be coming to our shores.

Wednesday
MacChrystal is gone, Petraeus gets the duty.

Thursday
Obama and Medvedev do Burger King
Well, it was Ray’s Hell Burger’s, a sort of upscale Burger King

Friday
The New York Times expresses their “glimmers of hope” for the Democrats in November
They can hope, but what is coming is change.

Gallop reports
Self proclaimed Conservative in America outnumber self proclaimed Liberals 42 to 20

Bob B

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BLAGO, OBAMA, and JARRETT MADE SIMPLE

Obama wanted the vacant Chicago Senate seat, correction, Illinois Senate seat to go to Valerie Jarrett. Blago wanted  an appointment to the President’s cabinet. Blago thought they had a deal. Obama says – what deal, I never talked to Blago. The question is, whom should you believe, the Chicago politician or the other Chicago politician.

Blago could have settled for a reasonable fee from Jessie Jackson Jr.  However, he thought he had a better deal but it did not pan out. There are many disappointments in the life of a politician.

Nancy Pelosi fears investigations. I can understand that. The Hill reports that in a fund raising letter,

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is asking supporters for contributions to help prevent the “subpoenas and investigations” that would result from a GOP majority.

After her promise to “drain the swamp” she has reason to fear oversight will show the swamp has turned into a cesspool under her leadership. The Tea Party is Patriotic, not Nationalistic. According to George Orwell, Nationalism is the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than to advance its interests. Patriotism is devotion to a particular way of life which one believes is the best in the world but with no wish to force it upon other people. Patriotism is by its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. Soros and Obama have joined in urging Germany to increase their spending as a means to stimulate economic recovery and support EU nations with greater levels of debt. What they are calling for is what Random Thots calls International Socialism. It would tap the wealth of one nation that has acted responsibly in order to benefit other nations whose irresponsible spending led to the problem in the first place. Soros and Obama are urging a policy that would increase the debt of the EU’s strongest member and support the continuation of the policies that are leading other nations to bankruptcy.

Bob B

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THE MacCHRYSTAL AFFAIR

The hardest thing about being a General is you must send honorable men to their death. Knowing you are fighting for victory of good over evil is what sustains you through every sorrowful personal letter you must send to parents and wives. When your Commander in Chief sees no evil and commands you to fight, not for victory, but just to reach a date, what do you do? When the enemy has been given the date you are to lay down your arms, defeat is assured, deaths are rendered vain. By what sense of valor can you send more men to die for a date?

General MacChrystal was torn asunder by the burden, as must be other commanders in the field. But what he did was wrong. He was forced to retire by his own actions and deprived the Army of a hero. The proper thing would have been to (1) request a personal meeting with the President, (2)tender his resignation, (3) hold an immediate press conference and air his views as a civilian. It would be clear that the General’s resignation was a sacrifice born of conviction and the Army would have had a new hero.

Bob B

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SOUTH THRU THE SUEZ

THE USS TRUMAN IS AMONG THE ARMADA

First it was seven, and then it was eleven, now it is twelve U.S. Navy warships passing through the Suez Canal on their way to…? The destination remains undeclared but no one doubts that it is the Indian Ocean and the coast of Iran.

Let’s look at some dots to connect.
Ahmadinejad has promised to eliminate the nation of Israel and hasten the return of the twelfth Imam. He has recently announced the creation of a second reactor for enrichment of uranium more powerful than the first. Iran’s progression toward the goal of nuclear armament has continued unfettered. There is no reason to assume the first attack would be limited to one bomb.

More dots.
On April 15th the New York Times quoted a National Intelligence Agency report saying” Iran would probably be able to produce a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015”. It is now 2010 and a half. If nuclear attack is to come, waiting for the enemy to drop the first atomic bombs is not an option for tiny Israel. Netanyahu is a man of action and understands the very survival of the nation he leads is at stake. Riyadh has just cleared a path and granted permission for Israeli war planes to cross Saudi Arabia shortening the route to Iran. A Muslim nation is facilitating a Jewish nation in a potential act of war upon a Muslim nation.

Those are the dots. No matter how you choose to draw the lines, the picture tells us we are indeed, living in serious times.

Bob B

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