He looked up from his bedside…sad,
And asked again, “Mom, where is Dad?”
She looked away to hide her dread,
“In Arlington,” she softly said.
Her teacher saw the tears again
From dark, brown eyes…a girl of ten,
And looked away…and looked outside,
“Since Arlington,” she barely sighed.
He held the picture in his hand,
Then placed it gently on its stand
And murmured, “God, his day is done…
At Arlington…my son, my son.”
She baked the pie – his favorite,
And spooned the grains to flavor it,
“That’s how he liked it…sweet,” she said,
“Now Arlington…Would I were dead.”
“Let’s raise a glass!” – the piercing cry…
The old man rasped, “To those who die!
To all who keep our freedom won
And find their way…to Arlington.”
She read again the last words sent
From him in battle-battered tent –
“I love you so…wife, daughter, son.”
She wept the words, “From Arlington.”
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Obama & the First 480 Days
It’s sad to watch President Obama sort of hung out to twist in the wind these days, though he’s caused much of the reason. There’s been great hope that as the first African American to hold the top job he would do well in his promise to bring CHANGE, literally to transform government into something better. Unfortunately, his first 16 months in office remind of the shaky start of the Carter administration in 1977, when Carter and his totally un-experienced crew rode into town. That administration never recovered and one wonders if Obama will ever “get it.”
Near the outset of the Q&A segment of his press conference on 27 May when he was asked about the government’s actions immediately after the oil well exploded in the Gulf, he answered that he called in Defense Secretary Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen to see what actions and materiel were available. That indicated how out of touch he was from the very beginning of the catastrophe. He should have called on the folks in the Energy Department, Homeland Security Dept. (especially FEMA), Interior Department (Mines and Minerals), etc. Later, he did contact the right people but why later?
The explosion occurred on 20 April but the president was not on-scene until 02 May, a lag of some two weeks, despite the fact that the spill was a disaster of incomprehensible dimensions. Nearly another four weeks would elapse before Obama would venture to the scene again, after stumbling through the press conference and trying to explain why help and expertise offered from 17 nations had not been accepted.
Obama did take responsibility, with perhaps the first indication being the firing of Elizabeth Birnbaum, the Mines and Minerals chief, too little too late and probably unfair. Birnbaum was primarily an attorney (Harvard Law, of course) and would not likely have had any idea of what to do about an oil spill anyway, except maybe to help hold the boot on the BP neck, as press pooh bah Robert Gibbs would have it.
Six months into his tenure, Obama accused the Cambridge police of acting stupidly. The primary target of that remark was a white policeman who was merely doing his duty, so was the president actually charging racism, an ugly business in the long, hot summer of 2009? If George Bush had made that statement about a black policeman, there might have been riots, with Jesse Jackson screaming out his tonsils and the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright pronouncing damnation on the nation in case God hadn’t noticed and was derelict in His duty.
The race-point becomes much sharper with Obama’s first appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor, without even a proper review of the case, had judged that New Haven, Connecticut, had the responsibility to promote black firemen over more qualified white firemen simply on the basis of their ethnicity. Her ruling was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court about a month after her appointment. Obama was aware of the SCOTUS impending decision when he nominated her.
Notwithstanding her egregious and almost incomprehensible lack of judgment in an eminently important matter, Sotomayor now sits on the SCOTUS. Did race play a part? Should Obama have waited for that decision before making an appointment? There was no hurry. In a sense, the SCOTUS also overturned Obama but he had the last laugh and knows that he might have the chance to square matters with another appointment or two…if race was an issue, that is.
The first African American in the presidency lost no time in telling the world that he felt the need to apologize for this country and proceeded to travel to such places as Saudi Arabia (nation of 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers) and Egypt, hotbeds of Islam (seats of terrorism), and do just that. He even went to Trinidad and appeared with Venezuelan butcher Hugo Chavez and sat, apparently numb, while Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega delivered a 50-minute diatribe accusing the U.S. of everything from terroristic aggression to keeping its boot on Central America’s neck, as Gibbs might have it. The prez might have walked out after about 30 minutes but he didn’t.
During his campaign in January 2008 Obama said that in his presidency electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Reason: Obama’s cap-and-trade program. During his campaign Obama promised to do away with the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” law in the military, signed by Bill Clinton. He apparently isn’t aware with regard to the former that the best science in the world has proven that the earth has been cooling since about 1995, thus people have not been causing it to melt.
Regarding the latter, without a doubt he’s aware that top officrs responsible for the day-to-day conduct of the armed forces (neither Gates nor Mullen, political appointees) believe this to be a serious mistake. The reasons are abundantly obvious and have been so for more than 200 years.
One could go and on listing the dysfunctions of Obama’s presidency, especially noting the czars who apparantly can bypass cabinet secretaries in decision-making and the nearly hysterical push to take over industry, banking, and financial institutions while planning for more takeovers. Strangely, Obama has a “plantation mentality,” i.e., government as benevolent slave-master. As he drives the nation toward bankruptcy, even the members of his own party will awaken to the fact that they’ve been had, actually admitting their compliant incompentency. Then at least hopefully, things will actually CHANGE.
With the chance to make the first African American presidency a superb endeavor, Obama up to this point has completely blown it, accepting victimhood as the ideal human condition and apparently never realizing how most Americans despise that concept.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Near the outset of the Q&A segment of his press conference on 27 May when he was asked about the government’s actions immediately after the oil well exploded in the Gulf, he answered that he called in Defense Secretary Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen to see what actions and materiel were available. That indicated how out of touch he was from the very beginning of the catastrophe. He should have called on the folks in the Energy Department, Homeland Security Dept. (especially FEMA), Interior Department (Mines and Minerals), etc. Later, he did contact the right people but why later?
The explosion occurred on 20 April but the president was not on-scene until 02 May, a lag of some two weeks, despite the fact that the spill was a disaster of incomprehensible dimensions. Nearly another four weeks would elapse before Obama would venture to the scene again, after stumbling through the press conference and trying to explain why help and expertise offered from 17 nations had not been accepted.
Obama did take responsibility, with perhaps the first indication being the firing of Elizabeth Birnbaum, the Mines and Minerals chief, too little too late and probably unfair. Birnbaum was primarily an attorney (Harvard Law, of course) and would not likely have had any idea of what to do about an oil spill anyway, except maybe to help hold the boot on the BP neck, as press pooh bah Robert Gibbs would have it.
Six months into his tenure, Obama accused the Cambridge police of acting stupidly. The primary target of that remark was a white policeman who was merely doing his duty, so was the president actually charging racism, an ugly business in the long, hot summer of 2009? If George Bush had made that statement about a black policeman, there might have been riots, with Jesse Jackson screaming out his tonsils and the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright pronouncing damnation on the nation in case God hadn’t noticed and was derelict in His duty.
The race-point becomes much sharper with Obama’s first appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor, without even a proper review of the case, had judged that New Haven, Connecticut, had the responsibility to promote black firemen over more qualified white firemen simply on the basis of their ethnicity. Her ruling was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court about a month after her appointment. Obama was aware of the SCOTUS impending decision when he nominated her.
Notwithstanding her egregious and almost incomprehensible lack of judgment in an eminently important matter, Sotomayor now sits on the SCOTUS. Did race play a part? Should Obama have waited for that decision before making an appointment? There was no hurry. In a sense, the SCOTUS also overturned Obama but he had the last laugh and knows that he might have the chance to square matters with another appointment or two…if race was an issue, that is.
The first African American in the presidency lost no time in telling the world that he felt the need to apologize for this country and proceeded to travel to such places as Saudi Arabia (nation of 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers) and Egypt, hotbeds of Islam (seats of terrorism), and do just that. He even went to Trinidad and appeared with Venezuelan butcher Hugo Chavez and sat, apparently numb, while Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega delivered a 50-minute diatribe accusing the U.S. of everything from terroristic aggression to keeping its boot on Central America’s neck, as Gibbs might have it. The prez might have walked out after about 30 minutes but he didn’t.
During his campaign in January 2008 Obama said that in his presidency electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Reason: Obama’s cap-and-trade program. During his campaign Obama promised to do away with the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” law in the military, signed by Bill Clinton. He apparently isn’t aware with regard to the former that the best science in the world has proven that the earth has been cooling since about 1995, thus people have not been causing it to melt.
Regarding the latter, without a doubt he’s aware that top officrs responsible for the day-to-day conduct of the armed forces (neither Gates nor Mullen, political appointees) believe this to be a serious mistake. The reasons are abundantly obvious and have been so for more than 200 years.
One could go and on listing the dysfunctions of Obama’s presidency, especially noting the czars who apparantly can bypass cabinet secretaries in decision-making and the nearly hysterical push to take over industry, banking, and financial institutions while planning for more takeovers. Strangely, Obama has a “plantation mentality,” i.e., government as benevolent slave-master. As he drives the nation toward bankruptcy, even the members of his own party will awaken to the fact that they’ve been had, actually admitting their compliant incompentency. Then at least hopefully, things will actually CHANGE.
With the chance to make the first African American presidency a superb endeavor, Obama up to this point has completely blown it, accepting victimhood as the ideal human condition and apparently never realizing how most Americans despise that concept.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Paul "PALINED" by MSM
Poor Rand Paul! He was on a remarkable high on the evening of 18 May because he had just trounced by more than 20 points Kentucky’s sitting Secretary of State Trey Grayson in the republican primary for the chance to run in November for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Jim Bunning. Then he got PALINED before he had time to properly celebrate, put both feet in his mouth in the process (or maybe not) and proved he wasn’t paying attention back in 2008 when the mainstream media represented by the likes of ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and the coastal news-rags had Sarah Palin for lunch…or thought they did.
One remembers ABC’s Charlie Gibson looking down his nose through those little spectacles and gravely intoning a question regarding what Palin thought of the Bush Doctrine. How many times has the average American citizen ever heard of the Bush Doctrine, whatever anyone says it is? Then, there was CBS’s perky Katie Couric strolling with Palin and gravely getting her take on the state of the economy/bank-bailout, all the while emitting that condescending smile of sarcasm silently shouting that Palin was a nutcase, ignorant as a gourd. Actually, Palin did pretty well and the trap that was set went for naught anyway since McCain never had a chance and wouldn’t have even if Freddie the Freeloader had been in Obama’s place, actually an improvement.
Paul made the mistake of speaking truth, i.e., what he actually thought, something no politician should do without serious aforethought. Kentucky’s attorney general, Jack Conway and Paul’s opponent in November, immediately showed up on – you guessed it – MSNBC with Chris Matthews and stated with resolute firmness that Paul had indicated that he was in favor of repealing the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s. Matthews, anti-everything Paul stands for, nevertheless had to set the record straight, i.e., that Paul had never made such a statement.
One wonders about attorneys-general these days. Connecticut Attorney General Blumenthal, also running for the Senate (Dodd finally mercifully gone), has stated over and over that he was in Vietnam back in the day, though, after receiving five deferments and joining the Marine Reserve, he’d never been near the place. Conway’s hero seems to be Dan Rather, but his blatant smear-tactic and outright lie will be used against him again and again. He needs for Rather to find him a document from an old typewriter once used in Pauls’ medical practice on which is noted Pauls’ membership acceptance to the Ku Klux Klan.
Paul made it abundantly clear in the initial interview with Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s current “meow person,” that he was against discrimination and in favor of the laws of the 60s, though he was about age 2 when the legislation passed, but that tidbit somehow got lost in translation…didn’t rise to the bait…er, trap. So…in comes Conway with the clincher and the whole MSNBC gang was left with egg on its collective face, just like CBS when Rather and his gang were proved to be liars of exceptional profoundness and faux methodology.
Paul merely tried to make the point that the government intervenes too much in the affairs of people who run their own businesses and individuals whose lives and decisions should not be disrupted/dictated by elected officials and bureaucrats. For instance, the city fathers in New York City are in the process of determining the proper salt-intake for its citizens’ digestive systems; the health-care legislation just passed mandates that citizens will either buy insurance or perhaps go to jail. In the city of this corner, restaurateurs, by government fiat, may not allow smoking in their establishments, notwithstanding the desire of the owners, though getting drunk is perfectly okay.
Paul embraces the TEA PARTY movement, a grassroots unorganized endeavor having as its keystone this notion, in part: too much government interference along with planned uninterrupted red-ink spending for as long as it takes to break the national bank and consequently inculcate socialism. That time is near. Paul has made it plain that the taking over of industries such as GM and Chrysler, financial institutions such as Freddie/Fanny and banks such as AIG is not acceptable in a republic. That kind of talk scares both republicans and democrats but it needs to be out there as it reflects the way most people feel in the country they see themselves losing…the loss of liberty and the chance to get along as they see fit within a reasonable framework of cooperation and laws.
The Obama administration, with all of its czars, is rapidly moving away from the constraints of the U.S. Constitution. Paul is the kind of person to turn it around; therefore, he is the current whipping boy of the MSM, Obama’s propaganda arm…and all for free.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
One remembers ABC’s Charlie Gibson looking down his nose through those little spectacles and gravely intoning a question regarding what Palin thought of the Bush Doctrine. How many times has the average American citizen ever heard of the Bush Doctrine, whatever anyone says it is? Then, there was CBS’s perky Katie Couric strolling with Palin and gravely getting her take on the state of the economy/bank-bailout, all the while emitting that condescending smile of sarcasm silently shouting that Palin was a nutcase, ignorant as a gourd. Actually, Palin did pretty well and the trap that was set went for naught anyway since McCain never had a chance and wouldn’t have even if Freddie the Freeloader had been in Obama’s place, actually an improvement.
Paul made the mistake of speaking truth, i.e., what he actually thought, something no politician should do without serious aforethought. Kentucky’s attorney general, Jack Conway and Paul’s opponent in November, immediately showed up on – you guessed it – MSNBC with Chris Matthews and stated with resolute firmness that Paul had indicated that he was in favor of repealing the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s. Matthews, anti-everything Paul stands for, nevertheless had to set the record straight, i.e., that Paul had never made such a statement.
One wonders about attorneys-general these days. Connecticut Attorney General Blumenthal, also running for the Senate (Dodd finally mercifully gone), has stated over and over that he was in Vietnam back in the day, though, after receiving five deferments and joining the Marine Reserve, he’d never been near the place. Conway’s hero seems to be Dan Rather, but his blatant smear-tactic and outright lie will be used against him again and again. He needs for Rather to find him a document from an old typewriter once used in Pauls’ medical practice on which is noted Pauls’ membership acceptance to the Ku Klux Klan.
Paul made it abundantly clear in the initial interview with Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s current “meow person,” that he was against discrimination and in favor of the laws of the 60s, though he was about age 2 when the legislation passed, but that tidbit somehow got lost in translation…didn’t rise to the bait…er, trap. So…in comes Conway with the clincher and the whole MSNBC gang was left with egg on its collective face, just like CBS when Rather and his gang were proved to be liars of exceptional profoundness and faux methodology.
Paul merely tried to make the point that the government intervenes too much in the affairs of people who run their own businesses and individuals whose lives and decisions should not be disrupted/dictated by elected officials and bureaucrats. For instance, the city fathers in New York City are in the process of determining the proper salt-intake for its citizens’ digestive systems; the health-care legislation just passed mandates that citizens will either buy insurance or perhaps go to jail. In the city of this corner, restaurateurs, by government fiat, may not allow smoking in their establishments, notwithstanding the desire of the owners, though getting drunk is perfectly okay.
Paul embraces the TEA PARTY movement, a grassroots unorganized endeavor having as its keystone this notion, in part: too much government interference along with planned uninterrupted red-ink spending for as long as it takes to break the national bank and consequently inculcate socialism. That time is near. Paul has made it plain that the taking over of industries such as GM and Chrysler, financial institutions such as Freddie/Fanny and banks such as AIG is not acceptable in a republic. That kind of talk scares both republicans and democrats but it needs to be out there as it reflects the way most people feel in the country they see themselves losing…the loss of liberty and the chance to get along as they see fit within a reasonable framework of cooperation and laws.
The Obama administration, with all of its czars, is rapidly moving away from the constraints of the U.S. Constitution. Paul is the kind of person to turn it around; therefore, he is the current whipping boy of the MSM, Obama’s propaganda arm…and all for free.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Obama/Calderon Calumny
The transformation of U.S. governance promised by President Obama during his campaign was never more in evidence than during the circumstances surrounding the visit to this country by Mexico President Felipe Calderon, who in his opening remarks to the American people castigated the state of Arizona account its recently passed immigration law, actually just a state-mandated actuation of federal law ignored by U.S. law enforcement agencies and the White House. Ironically, the federal law is harsher than the Arizona law.
Calderon may or may not have read the law. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has publicly flayed Arizona for passing such a law (un-Constitutional?) even though he admitted in a Congressional hearing the other day that he had never read the law. It’s a lead-pipe cinch the president hasn’t read it, either. In fact, it seems that nobody in Congress or the Administration reads the laws handled these days – apparently not enough time especially in an election year when more important things such as incumbency are on the line.
More to the point, Obama joined with Calderon in that first approach to American citizens in excoriating a state legislature and governor in his own country, in which he said during his campaign that there were 57 such, though he might have been thinking of Heinz products (57 varieties) at the time, perhaps making Senator Kerry happy. One wonders if something this stupefying has ever happened before.
Even more to the point, it stands to reason that the visiting president would not have so insulted his host, the American president, unless there was some sort of collusion, i.e., that they had agreed that the insult would take place and that Obama would stand approvingly by, which is precisely what happened. In fact, Obama didn’t just stand approvingly by, he vocally smirked his way through an agreement that the wicked Arizonans were entertaining (gasp and four quivers of the liver) racial profiling. Did Obama imitate Holder, speaking publicly of the legislation without ever reading the bill? Three guesses, and the first two don’t count!
Insult was added to injury – or to insult, whichever – when Calderon addressed the Congress and reiterated his charge concerning the evil Arizonans, with democrats wildly applauding while republicans either sat still or didn’t show, necessitating filling their seats with members of the rabble, lest it appear that ALL the Congresspersons were not properly genuflecting at the feet of a superior being. It’s a wonder that Speaker Pelosi didn’t swoon and break her face. It’s a wonder that Veep Biden didn’t lean over and tell Calderon that that was a big #$%^&*&^% important speech.
Calderon also launched into a tirade concerning the evil Americans who provide the guns that Mexicans use routinely to kill each other – some 22,700 drug-related murders since Calderon took office in late 2006, according to Reuters of 22 April 2010. Those murders would have taken place, of course, if not one gun was even manufactured in this country because hoodlums have no trouble finding guns anywhere anytime when there’s money to be made by offing the opposition or conducting a routine kidnapping, another national enterprise in Mexico.
One has to believe that Obama had also colluded with Calderon in this interesting part of the SPEECH, another insult to the Americans, especially since no Mexican is forced to procure a gun from an American or anyone else. This is no brief for gun-makers in any country, but it needs to be remarked that law-and-order have broken down almost completely in Mexico, at least vis-à-vis the drug cartels, during Calderon’s tenure so he needs to look to his own responsibilities in this matter, not try to shift the blame.
To be fair, it needs remarking also that Calderon has tried, using even the army, to get and maintain control. Most likely, the problem is corruption that runs so deep in Mexico that even the policemen and soldiers can never be sure about whether or not there’s a target on their respective backs. Mexico can’t sustain its population; otherwise, the U.S. wouldn’t have its enormous illegal-immigration problem. The Soviets built a fence through Germany and other countries to keep the people home. Calderon seems to take the position that the U.S. should take up the slack. He needs to look to his own devices and at least help with border-control.
In the final analysis, President Obama sold-out his own country in this matter, acting as a shill in behalf of gaining amnesty for Mexicans who could be counted on to join the democrats in TRANSFORMING this great country from what has made it great to what will cause its gradual slide into mediocrity. Those Congressional democrats share his guilt but hopefully the American voters will have had a bellyful by November and begin turning things around.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Calderon may or may not have read the law. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has publicly flayed Arizona for passing such a law (un-Constitutional?) even though he admitted in a Congressional hearing the other day that he had never read the law. It’s a lead-pipe cinch the president hasn’t read it, either. In fact, it seems that nobody in Congress or the Administration reads the laws handled these days – apparently not enough time especially in an election year when more important things such as incumbency are on the line.
More to the point, Obama joined with Calderon in that first approach to American citizens in excoriating a state legislature and governor in his own country, in which he said during his campaign that there were 57 such, though he might have been thinking of Heinz products (57 varieties) at the time, perhaps making Senator Kerry happy. One wonders if something this stupefying has ever happened before.
Even more to the point, it stands to reason that the visiting president would not have so insulted his host, the American president, unless there was some sort of collusion, i.e., that they had agreed that the insult would take place and that Obama would stand approvingly by, which is precisely what happened. In fact, Obama didn’t just stand approvingly by, he vocally smirked his way through an agreement that the wicked Arizonans were entertaining (gasp and four quivers of the liver) racial profiling. Did Obama imitate Holder, speaking publicly of the legislation without ever reading the bill? Three guesses, and the first two don’t count!
Insult was added to injury – or to insult, whichever – when Calderon addressed the Congress and reiterated his charge concerning the evil Arizonans, with democrats wildly applauding while republicans either sat still or didn’t show, necessitating filling their seats with members of the rabble, lest it appear that ALL the Congresspersons were not properly genuflecting at the feet of a superior being. It’s a wonder that Speaker Pelosi didn’t swoon and break her face. It’s a wonder that Veep Biden didn’t lean over and tell Calderon that that was a big #$%^&*&^% important speech.
Calderon also launched into a tirade concerning the evil Americans who provide the guns that Mexicans use routinely to kill each other – some 22,700 drug-related murders since Calderon took office in late 2006, according to Reuters of 22 April 2010. Those murders would have taken place, of course, if not one gun was even manufactured in this country because hoodlums have no trouble finding guns anywhere anytime when there’s money to be made by offing the opposition or conducting a routine kidnapping, another national enterprise in Mexico.
One has to believe that Obama had also colluded with Calderon in this interesting part of the SPEECH, another insult to the Americans, especially since no Mexican is forced to procure a gun from an American or anyone else. This is no brief for gun-makers in any country, but it needs to be remarked that law-and-order have broken down almost completely in Mexico, at least vis-à-vis the drug cartels, during Calderon’s tenure so he needs to look to his own responsibilities in this matter, not try to shift the blame.
To be fair, it needs remarking also that Calderon has tried, using even the army, to get and maintain control. Most likely, the problem is corruption that runs so deep in Mexico that even the policemen and soldiers can never be sure about whether or not there’s a target on their respective backs. Mexico can’t sustain its population; otherwise, the U.S. wouldn’t have its enormous illegal-immigration problem. The Soviets built a fence through Germany and other countries to keep the people home. Calderon seems to take the position that the U.S. should take up the slack. He needs to look to his own devices and at least help with border-control.
In the final analysis, President Obama sold-out his own country in this matter, acting as a shill in behalf of gaining amnesty for Mexicans who could be counted on to join the democrats in TRANSFORMING this great country from what has made it great to what will cause its gradual slide into mediocrity. Those Congressional democrats share his guilt but hopefully the American voters will have had a bellyful by November and begin turning things around.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Kagan & the Paper Trail
This appeared in this corner in October 2005: “So the president has nominated another justice to the SCOTUS – Harriet Miers – and the screaming has already begun…from both sides. Leahy (sometimes irreverently referred to as Senator Leaky) is clearly aghast in that there is practically no paper trail by which to judge the nominee.” Miers later withdrew from the shootout/circus that often comprises most any Congressional hearing.
Miers came in for a lot of criticism from republicans, too, mostly on the basis of not having enough judicial experience for the job, if memory serves. So…when Miers stepped down, President Bush delivered the nomination of Samuel Alito to the august Senate Judicial Committee, and Alito, just as Chief Justice Roberts had done earlier in the year during his confirmation hearings, proceeded to turn the committee democrats upside down. The likes of Leahy, Biden, Durbin and Feingold were practically frothing at their collective mouths when the dust had settled.
Both Roberts and Alito had been appeals judges and both had enough paper trails to accommodate the senators with reams – yea, books – of material which their aides could (and did) constantly shove under the senators’ noses, the better to help them at least try to elicit a perjury charge. Neither Roberts nor Alito had even a legal pad on his desk but simply talked the tormentors into oblivion…from memory of cases, not from memos or notes.
Perhaps the only nominee in history with less of a paper trail than Miers is the current nominee, Elena Kagan. She’s spent most of her time either working in politics (Clinton White House) or in law schools as either professor (University of Chicago, colleague of Obama) or dean (Harvard Law), where she reckoned that military recruiters would not invade her territory but was turned around, of course.
Kagan wrote a thesis when she was a student that included this: “The story is sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than a half century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America.” Kagan noted that her interest in socialism was triggered by her brother’s radicalism. One can’t say that on the basis of this statement Kagan considered herself among the sad or even that she had the maturity at that time to form a valid opinion.
One notices, however, that a president who, despite all protestations to the contrary by him or others, is a socialist would be expected to appoint someone to the Court who would write something like that and be among the sad right up till now. Just like Kagan was reversed at Harvard, Justice Sotomayor was reversed by the SCOTUS when she attempted to void the civil-rights laws and insist that inferior applicants be favored over qualified ones with race as the determinant.
These folks, including Justices Ginsberg and the retiring Stevens (who spent half his time in Florida instead of in the hallowed halls from fall until spring each year), are not jurists but social engineers and consider their primary responsibility to be legislating from the bench those entitlements that can’t be gotten through the Congress. Obama provided the paradigm during his campaign when he complained that the U.S. Constitution didn’t deal with redistribution of the wealth, something, of course, that the founding fathers never even imagined – confiscation of personal possessions for any reason other than criminal, if that. Consequently, Obama needs justices who will un-constitute the Constitution.
This is from this corner in September 2005: “One remembers Senators Schumer and Durbin as they reacted to Roberts’ first nomination as the replacement for Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who retired not long before Chief Justice Rehnquist died. They made it plain that they intended to be the sharks in the water, and intimated that Roberts would struggle mightily to escape their blood-seeking incisors. They exuded the confidence of super-lawyers out to outwit even the craftiest of opponents. By the time the hearing was over, they had been reduced to sputtering whiners, reflecting a constant theme of the democrats, to wit, that they desperately needed to know the HEART of the judge. Imagine. Schumer and Durbin, senatorial pit-bulls, wanted to know if Roberts was a nice guy with honorable intentions.”
These characters, still in the game, will not be interested in Kagan’s HEART, which they know to be in the right place, on the side of those who insist on quotas and the right of the government to take whatever it (the president) feels necessary, such as General Motors, Chrysler, Fannie, Freddy, AIG, etc. One wonders if the republicans on the Judiciary Committee will be as sanguine as will be Schumer and Durbin, who in contemplating affairs of the HEART has compared American GIs with Soviet Gulag keepers and Nazi storm troopers, in their questioning of Kagan. Probably not! Of course, her paper trail goes through the Clinton Library, so Sandy Berger might be there right now stuffing his pants with appropriate documents.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Miers came in for a lot of criticism from republicans, too, mostly on the basis of not having enough judicial experience for the job, if memory serves. So…when Miers stepped down, President Bush delivered the nomination of Samuel Alito to the august Senate Judicial Committee, and Alito, just as Chief Justice Roberts had done earlier in the year during his confirmation hearings, proceeded to turn the committee democrats upside down. The likes of Leahy, Biden, Durbin and Feingold were practically frothing at their collective mouths when the dust had settled.
Both Roberts and Alito had been appeals judges and both had enough paper trails to accommodate the senators with reams – yea, books – of material which their aides could (and did) constantly shove under the senators’ noses, the better to help them at least try to elicit a perjury charge. Neither Roberts nor Alito had even a legal pad on his desk but simply talked the tormentors into oblivion…from memory of cases, not from memos or notes.
Perhaps the only nominee in history with less of a paper trail than Miers is the current nominee, Elena Kagan. She’s spent most of her time either working in politics (Clinton White House) or in law schools as either professor (University of Chicago, colleague of Obama) or dean (Harvard Law), where she reckoned that military recruiters would not invade her territory but was turned around, of course.
Kagan wrote a thesis when she was a student that included this: “The story is sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than a half century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America.” Kagan noted that her interest in socialism was triggered by her brother’s radicalism. One can’t say that on the basis of this statement Kagan considered herself among the sad or even that she had the maturity at that time to form a valid opinion.
One notices, however, that a president who, despite all protestations to the contrary by him or others, is a socialist would be expected to appoint someone to the Court who would write something like that and be among the sad right up till now. Just like Kagan was reversed at Harvard, Justice Sotomayor was reversed by the SCOTUS when she attempted to void the civil-rights laws and insist that inferior applicants be favored over qualified ones with race as the determinant.
These folks, including Justices Ginsberg and the retiring Stevens (who spent half his time in Florida instead of in the hallowed halls from fall until spring each year), are not jurists but social engineers and consider their primary responsibility to be legislating from the bench those entitlements that can’t be gotten through the Congress. Obama provided the paradigm during his campaign when he complained that the U.S. Constitution didn’t deal with redistribution of the wealth, something, of course, that the founding fathers never even imagined – confiscation of personal possessions for any reason other than criminal, if that. Consequently, Obama needs justices who will un-constitute the Constitution.
This is from this corner in September 2005: “One remembers Senators Schumer and Durbin as they reacted to Roberts’ first nomination as the replacement for Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who retired not long before Chief Justice Rehnquist died. They made it plain that they intended to be the sharks in the water, and intimated that Roberts would struggle mightily to escape their blood-seeking incisors. They exuded the confidence of super-lawyers out to outwit even the craftiest of opponents. By the time the hearing was over, they had been reduced to sputtering whiners, reflecting a constant theme of the democrats, to wit, that they desperately needed to know the HEART of the judge. Imagine. Schumer and Durbin, senatorial pit-bulls, wanted to know if Roberts was a nice guy with honorable intentions.”
These characters, still in the game, will not be interested in Kagan’s HEART, which they know to be in the right place, on the side of those who insist on quotas and the right of the government to take whatever it (the president) feels necessary, such as General Motors, Chrysler, Fannie, Freddy, AIG, etc. One wonders if the republicans on the Judiciary Committee will be as sanguine as will be Schumer and Durbin, who in contemplating affairs of the HEART has compared American GIs with Soviet Gulag keepers and Nazi storm troopers, in their questioning of Kagan. Probably not! Of course, her paper trail goes through the Clinton Library, so Sandy Berger might be there right now stuffing his pants with appropriate documents.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, May 14, 2010
SCOTUS & Lesbianism
Delicious ironies are the product of the Obama administration, perhaps the latest being the flap over SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan’s “sexual orientation,” most people probably believing she’s a lesbian, at least on the basis of the slack-jawed back-and-forth occurring in the blogosphere and even emitted from the White House. Ms. Kagan could clear up the matter in about one second by making a public statement so that all the world would know whether or not she’s “partnered,” either in a “loving relationship” or just through “fly-by-nighters.”
Perhaps the initial irony lay in the fact that a blogger mentioned what he thought to be her “gayness” simply in passing, actually considering that quirk to be a marvelous proof of “diversity-as-superior-to-any-consideration,” in appointing SCOTUS folks, especially since even the evil military will not put up with a homosexual, though Obama intends to change that, perhaps the tip-off that he was not surprised in the least at the NEWS, the gossip. After all, they had had a long professional relationship. Just imagine – a sitting lesbian on the Court! Ah, diversity, thy name is…well, never mind.
The irony of the irony is that the matter is not so much about whether or not Kagan is a lesbian but about whether or not she has ever “outed” herself, the going thing these days in the postmodern generation engendered in the sixties entailing the philosophy that “if it feels good, do it.” The extension of that phenomenon now is to “come out” or “tell all” or “be sexually superior through perversion” and thus be glorified for being diverse! Has anyone seen some “gay blogging” that crows about the fact that “gayness” has arrived finally and that payback time is here, sort of the philosophy evinced by the Obama crowd with respect to reparations in whatever form they take, beginning in the 60s with the establishment of quotas, more recently sanctioned by SCOTUS Justice Sotomayor, though she was turned upside down on that one.
Flash back to October 1964 to see how things have changed. President Lyndon Baines Johnson was standing for reelection in November when his top aide, Walter Jenkins, was apprehended by the police not far from the White House getting it on with another man in the toilet of the YMCA, known as a gathering place for homosexuals then. The intensive attempts at a cover-up failed so LBJ fired Jenkins. Nowadays, Jenkins would have been glorified as a paragon of diversity, a virtual role model for exhibiting moral superiority and sophistication not endemic to the masses.
Did Obama know all of this homosexual stuff, which seems to have been common knowledge in Kagan’s neck of the woods? If he didn’t, he should try another line of work. If Kagan is smart, she will make a statement clarifying the situation right now and get this mess out of the way, dodging the snickering to be heard in her confirmation hearings. Otherwise, the paparazzi will chaperone her to every location she frequents…probably will anyway. She’s a virtual shoo-in in the Senate and would be even if she wore rings in her nose and used only one-syllable words. If the president can hang-on to Attorney General Holder, who admitted he had never read the Arizona immigrant law even though he had already made judgments about it publicly, he could hang on to an orangutan as a SCOTUS justice.
The big deal in the media involves pointing out all the “firsts.” This is meant as some kind of do-good public service even though it actually demeans the person noted – the first ethnic to hold this office or that, the first woman to operate a garbage truck, the first O.J Simpson-type to get away with murder, etc. Fairly or unfairly, this approach also points out that this person’s group was somehow deficient before the first “first” made the scene. So now…is Kagan the first lesbian, but only the third woman, of course, to make the SCOTUS? If so, shouldn’t Obama trumpet that as a huge step forward in the civilizing of the American public? After all, in his church membership in the former Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright’s church, he was part of the United Church of Christ denomination, which officially sanctioned same-sex marriage in 2005.
There’s a federal law passed in the 1990s that mandates marriage as only between a man and woman. In most states there are either laws or Constitutional Amendments that indicate the same thing. In terms of the nature and biology of the human species, the laws are more than just abundant…they’re so self-defining as to need no elaboration. This doesn’t mean that Kagan should be denied if she’s a lesbian. It means that the public and the senators have a right to know, since no matter how it’s approached homosexual behavior and philosophy are, by definition, totally counter to normalcy, a condition one would hope a SCOTUS justice would possess.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Perhaps the initial irony lay in the fact that a blogger mentioned what he thought to be her “gayness” simply in passing, actually considering that quirk to be a marvelous proof of “diversity-as-superior-to-any-consideration,” in appointing SCOTUS folks, especially since even the evil military will not put up with a homosexual, though Obama intends to change that, perhaps the tip-off that he was not surprised in the least at the NEWS, the gossip. After all, they had had a long professional relationship. Just imagine – a sitting lesbian on the Court! Ah, diversity, thy name is…well, never mind.
The irony of the irony is that the matter is not so much about whether or not Kagan is a lesbian but about whether or not she has ever “outed” herself, the going thing these days in the postmodern generation engendered in the sixties entailing the philosophy that “if it feels good, do it.” The extension of that phenomenon now is to “come out” or “tell all” or “be sexually superior through perversion” and thus be glorified for being diverse! Has anyone seen some “gay blogging” that crows about the fact that “gayness” has arrived finally and that payback time is here, sort of the philosophy evinced by the Obama crowd with respect to reparations in whatever form they take, beginning in the 60s with the establishment of quotas, more recently sanctioned by SCOTUS Justice Sotomayor, though she was turned upside down on that one.
Flash back to October 1964 to see how things have changed. President Lyndon Baines Johnson was standing for reelection in November when his top aide, Walter Jenkins, was apprehended by the police not far from the White House getting it on with another man in the toilet of the YMCA, known as a gathering place for homosexuals then. The intensive attempts at a cover-up failed so LBJ fired Jenkins. Nowadays, Jenkins would have been glorified as a paragon of diversity, a virtual role model for exhibiting moral superiority and sophistication not endemic to the masses.
Did Obama know all of this homosexual stuff, which seems to have been common knowledge in Kagan’s neck of the woods? If he didn’t, he should try another line of work. If Kagan is smart, she will make a statement clarifying the situation right now and get this mess out of the way, dodging the snickering to be heard in her confirmation hearings. Otherwise, the paparazzi will chaperone her to every location she frequents…probably will anyway. She’s a virtual shoo-in in the Senate and would be even if she wore rings in her nose and used only one-syllable words. If the president can hang-on to Attorney General Holder, who admitted he had never read the Arizona immigrant law even though he had already made judgments about it publicly, he could hang on to an orangutan as a SCOTUS justice.
The big deal in the media involves pointing out all the “firsts.” This is meant as some kind of do-good public service even though it actually demeans the person noted – the first ethnic to hold this office or that, the first woman to operate a garbage truck, the first O.J Simpson-type to get away with murder, etc. Fairly or unfairly, this approach also points out that this person’s group was somehow deficient before the first “first” made the scene. So now…is Kagan the first lesbian, but only the third woman, of course, to make the SCOTUS? If so, shouldn’t Obama trumpet that as a huge step forward in the civilizing of the American public? After all, in his church membership in the former Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright’s church, he was part of the United Church of Christ denomination, which officially sanctioned same-sex marriage in 2005.
There’s a federal law passed in the 1990s that mandates marriage as only between a man and woman. In most states there are either laws or Constitutional Amendments that indicate the same thing. In terms of the nature and biology of the human species, the laws are more than just abundant…they’re so self-defining as to need no elaboration. This doesn’t mean that Kagan should be denied if she’s a lesbian. It means that the public and the senators have a right to know, since no matter how it’s approached homosexual behavior and philosophy are, by definition, totally counter to normalcy, a condition one would hope a SCOTUS justice would possess.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Sunday, May 09, 2010
DNC Memorandum #13
From the office of Tim Kaine, commissar, 08 May 2010
***Please be advised that the title noted above, there being no exception taken to it (or at least by anyone who carries weight), will be retained indefinitely and that the Democratic National Committee will now be known, beginning with this memo, as the Democratic National Commissariat. This is in no way connected to the habit of the evil one, Rush Limbaugh, in referring to the administration as a regime instead of a government. The change is being made solely to indicate that a commissariat is useful in supplying food to the needy and in no way reflects a commissariat as defined as a department in the former Soviet Union. Proof, of course, lies in the fact that errant staffers will not be shot at sunrise, as was the case with the Soviets, but will simply be sent to the Durbin Gulag and Killing-Field Center for re-indoctrination in the fundamentals of the Commissariat. Senator Durbin is preparing a seminar entitled “How the President and I Almost Single-handedly Denied Senator Burris a Seat in Congress,” thus exposing the need for a new U.S. Constitution allowing for a U.S. Commissariat instead of a government by the people.
***Apologies all around for referencing the recent Ft. Hood incident as the “Major Hasan Massacre” in Memorandum #12! Presidential Press Secretary Robert Glibs (okay, Gibbs…little joke there) has made it plain that Major Hasan most likely suffered through a disadvantaged childhood, was bullied in kindergarten, and was not allowed to register to vote as a member of the Terrorist Party. These things contributed to his cold-blooded killing of 13 people, according to the office of the Attorney General, and his restraint in not firing faster is a point in his favor. Suggesting that his connection to Yemen resident and highly respected cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who recommends murder of all infidels (and re-murdering of those already dead), had anything to do with the Ft. Hood disturbance will not be tolerated in the DNC, and any staffer who so suggests will be sent to the DG&K-FC mentioned above for further re-indoctrination. It has only been six months since the Ft. Hood disturbance, so those suggesting that justice is too slow should understand that an understanding nation should not expect a trial, if any, for at least ten years, during which Major Hassan will undergo therapy, rehabilitation, if necessary, and a shot (no pun intended) at a good pension.
***Michael Moore’s new movie tentatively entitled “Obamessiah Redeems Fannie/Freddie” with the sub-title of “Goldman-Sachs and the Lost Covenant” is temporarily on hold while explanations are prepared concerning why so many Wall Street-types are on the payroll of the administration and why the contributions to the president’s campaign by the honchos at Goldman-Sachs meant nothing since they amounted to only a million or so dollars, hardly enough to bribe a two-story-man to steal an earring, let alone influence a campaign or curry a favor. As he waits, Moore is planning another flick tentatively entitled “Shootout at the BP Corral,” in which the hero, Two-Spout Glibs, plants his boot on the villain’s neck and pours 5W-30 in his ear until it shoots-out his mouth, an indication of death by oil slick.
***Regarding the president’s recent statement concerning the Arizona Immigration Law’s effect on a citizen taking his offspring to the ice cream parlor only to be harassed by a policeman stupidly demanding to see some ID, thus humiliating the parent, terrifying the child and causing melting ice cream to cover the floor and consequently making the store susceptible to lawsuits by anyone slipping in it, the president insists he never brought up this subject and will not do it again. The president was merely making the point that parents should be diligent in making sure their children eat only the proper amount of ice cream, if any at all, and that under rules being developed by the ice-cream-obesity czar any parent seen to be negligent is liable to be arrested and charged with child abuse in the 3rd degree for children 10 lbs overweight, 2nd degree for children 20 lbs overweight, and 1st degree for children considered obese, under new DNC suggestions to Congress for legislation or the health-care protocol, whichever comes first. Also, children may turn-in their parents for being either overweight, underweight, or causing them any undue wait…for anything, including ice cream.
***This is a campaign year and all staffers are urged to contrive friendliness-for-effect and make themselves available to the appropriate candidates for canvassing, polling, stuffing envelopes (and ballot boxes in Chicago), answering phones, etc. Rings and tattoos on any part of the anatomy are acceptable in California and Massachusetts, as well as low-rider jeans in most states as long as the crotch is not lower than the knees and pubic hair is covered (bending over may present problems in the Bible Belt unless you’re backed up against a wall). Be careful with rings. A college student working for Howard Dean in Iowa in 2004 wearing multiple rings in both nostrils, both ears, tongue, lips, chin, navel, love-handles, and points farther south was struck by lightning, with her insurance ruled invalid account the suicide clause. Learn to drive a 20-year-old pickup and chew tobacco or dip snuff in NASCAR country and how to stomach grits in the entire Southeast. In the South and Midwest, quote scriptures you think you’ve heard and learn some rap for the cities, but glorifying cop-killing and gang-rape is strictly prohibited even if directed toward republicans.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
***Please be advised that the title noted above, there being no exception taken to it (or at least by anyone who carries weight), will be retained indefinitely and that the Democratic National Committee will now be known, beginning with this memo, as the Democratic National Commissariat. This is in no way connected to the habit of the evil one, Rush Limbaugh, in referring to the administration as a regime instead of a government. The change is being made solely to indicate that a commissariat is useful in supplying food to the needy and in no way reflects a commissariat as defined as a department in the former Soviet Union. Proof, of course, lies in the fact that errant staffers will not be shot at sunrise, as was the case with the Soviets, but will simply be sent to the Durbin Gulag and Killing-Field Center for re-indoctrination in the fundamentals of the Commissariat. Senator Durbin is preparing a seminar entitled “How the President and I Almost Single-handedly Denied Senator Burris a Seat in Congress,” thus exposing the need for a new U.S. Constitution allowing for a U.S. Commissariat instead of a government by the people.
***Apologies all around for referencing the recent Ft. Hood incident as the “Major Hasan Massacre” in Memorandum #12! Presidential Press Secretary Robert Glibs (okay, Gibbs…little joke there) has made it plain that Major Hasan most likely suffered through a disadvantaged childhood, was bullied in kindergarten, and was not allowed to register to vote as a member of the Terrorist Party. These things contributed to his cold-blooded killing of 13 people, according to the office of the Attorney General, and his restraint in not firing faster is a point in his favor. Suggesting that his connection to Yemen resident and highly respected cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who recommends murder of all infidels (and re-murdering of those already dead), had anything to do with the Ft. Hood disturbance will not be tolerated in the DNC, and any staffer who so suggests will be sent to the DG&K-FC mentioned above for further re-indoctrination. It has only been six months since the Ft. Hood disturbance, so those suggesting that justice is too slow should understand that an understanding nation should not expect a trial, if any, for at least ten years, during which Major Hassan will undergo therapy, rehabilitation, if necessary, and a shot (no pun intended) at a good pension.
***Michael Moore’s new movie tentatively entitled “Obamessiah Redeems Fannie/Freddie” with the sub-title of “Goldman-Sachs and the Lost Covenant” is temporarily on hold while explanations are prepared concerning why so many Wall Street-types are on the payroll of the administration and why the contributions to the president’s campaign by the honchos at Goldman-Sachs meant nothing since they amounted to only a million or so dollars, hardly enough to bribe a two-story-man to steal an earring, let alone influence a campaign or curry a favor. As he waits, Moore is planning another flick tentatively entitled “Shootout at the BP Corral,” in which the hero, Two-Spout Glibs, plants his boot on the villain’s neck and pours 5W-30 in his ear until it shoots-out his mouth, an indication of death by oil slick.
***Regarding the president’s recent statement concerning the Arizona Immigration Law’s effect on a citizen taking his offspring to the ice cream parlor only to be harassed by a policeman stupidly demanding to see some ID, thus humiliating the parent, terrifying the child and causing melting ice cream to cover the floor and consequently making the store susceptible to lawsuits by anyone slipping in it, the president insists he never brought up this subject and will not do it again. The president was merely making the point that parents should be diligent in making sure their children eat only the proper amount of ice cream, if any at all, and that under rules being developed by the ice-cream-obesity czar any parent seen to be negligent is liable to be arrested and charged with child abuse in the 3rd degree for children 10 lbs overweight, 2nd degree for children 20 lbs overweight, and 1st degree for children considered obese, under new DNC suggestions to Congress for legislation or the health-care protocol, whichever comes first. Also, children may turn-in their parents for being either overweight, underweight, or causing them any undue wait…for anything, including ice cream.
***This is a campaign year and all staffers are urged to contrive friendliness-for-effect and make themselves available to the appropriate candidates for canvassing, polling, stuffing envelopes (and ballot boxes in Chicago), answering phones, etc. Rings and tattoos on any part of the anatomy are acceptable in California and Massachusetts, as well as low-rider jeans in most states as long as the crotch is not lower than the knees and pubic hair is covered (bending over may present problems in the Bible Belt unless you’re backed up against a wall). Be careful with rings. A college student working for Howard Dean in Iowa in 2004 wearing multiple rings in both nostrils, both ears, tongue, lips, chin, navel, love-handles, and points farther south was struck by lightning, with her insurance ruled invalid account the suicide clause. Learn to drive a 20-year-old pickup and chew tobacco or dip snuff in NASCAR country and how to stomach grits in the entire Southeast. In the South and Midwest, quote scriptures you think you’ve heard and learn some rap for the cities, but glorifying cop-killing and gang-rape is strictly prohibited even if directed toward republicans.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Thursday, May 06, 2010
The Prez & Civil Discourse
One wonders sometimes if elected leaders or bureaucrats weigh their words before speaking, especially in light of remarks they have made in other days. In his commencement address the other day at the University of Michigan, President Obama cast an aspersion at the angry rhetoric-mongers who denigrate government as "inherently bad" and said their off-base line of attack ignores the fact that in a democracy, "government is us,” according to the AP.
Well…yes! Of course, his press guru Robert Gibbs (also known as Glibs) said the other day that the administration will keep its boot on the throat of British Petroleum until it stops that awful oil leak in the Gulf. One suspects that Glibs…er Gibbs, wasn’t aware of the president’s stance regarding public discourse. Even at that, a boot is a better metaphor than a guillotine, a symbolic one of which Glibs…er Gibbs, applies to his own throat quite often in his rambling discourses to the Press Corps.
Glibs…er Gibbs is not even above telling an outright lie, surely a no-no according to the Obama philosophy of more civil discourse. The intrepid disseminator of what passes as bona fide news from the administration claimed out loud enough for all to hear, film and record that Michael Brown, FEMA director a few years ago, said that the Obama administration actually perpetrated that oil spill for nefarious reasons. Brown not only didn’t say that on the Fox News Cavuto program but he said nothing that could even be construed as what Glibs…er Gibbs, claimed. His exact remarks were made available again on 05 May so everyone could check out the enormity of the lie. Glibs…er Gibbs, obviously should not go out in public un-chaperoned by a teleprompter.
The prez even resorted to naming names in his speech, proving that he’s maybe more aware than people think of what is being said behind his back. He mentioned that people who watch/listen to pundit Glenn Beck should check out the Huffington Post, an online publisher; however he didn’t suggest that Post devotees try listening to Beck. Guess where the opprobrium applies. Of course, he did say that New York Times readers should also check out the Wall Street Journal, but then he didn’t suggest reciprocity in that case, so one wonders if he still considers the Times, known for its inaccuracies, as part of what some call the state-owned press, a propaganda arm for Obama and cohorts.
It may be that CBS news guru Katie Couric bedazzled New York Mayor Bloomberg the other day and made him remark that the Times Square bomber might have just been dissatisfied with the Obama health-care mishmash, so apparently one is to believe the mayor speaks disrespectfully (uncivilly) of those who disagree with the prez. The bomber turned out to be a Muslim-butcher wannabe but, of course, he could have been a naturalized Muslim butcher-wannabe angry over that health-care plan, so give hizzoner some slack.
The prez managed to remark that police in the Boston area acted stupidly last year. That seems a bit much vis-à-vis civil discourse and warm fuzzies all around, especially since he didn’t know what he was talking about. He might at least have just suggested that the police could have asked the man arrested if he would like for someone to pick the lock to his house (or someone’s house), but then picking locks also sounds a bit shady, especially for the police.
The prez might have been just a bit uncivil during his campaign when he referenced the “typical white person,” giving his grandmother as an example, as being uncomfortable around other ethnics, assuming that whites are also ethnics, something not usually acknowledged by the mainstream media. But then, of course, all whites look alike anyway, don’t they? The prez hasn’t indicated what a “typical black person” is, but one suspects a bit of reciprocity from a Harvard Law grad, i.e., that blacks are uncomfortable around whites. Does that sound civil?
Perhaps the prez concocted the unkindest, uncivil discourse during his campaign when he mentioned in conjunction with Pennsylvanians (probably only meant republican Pennsylvanians – he didn’t say) that they are likely to be trip-wired Bible-toting, gun-slingers on the lookout for those “untypical white persons” called immigrants, or maybe illegal immigrants. But don’t all immigrants look alike anyway, especially if they’re in the poor, tired huddled masses yearning to be free…or something like that?
Perhaps Mr. Glibs…er Gibbs, might elucidate to the hoi polloi in behalf of explaining those squirrelly Pennsylvanians yearning to be free from tacos and refried beans. In the meantime, everyone should use only the most civil discourse, perhaps defined as just the opposite of what the rap-crowd puts out, what with its glorification of cop-killings and gang-rapes.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Well…yes! Of course, his press guru Robert Gibbs (also known as Glibs) said the other day that the administration will keep its boot on the throat of British Petroleum until it stops that awful oil leak in the Gulf. One suspects that Glibs…er Gibbs, wasn’t aware of the president’s stance regarding public discourse. Even at that, a boot is a better metaphor than a guillotine, a symbolic one of which Glibs…er Gibbs, applies to his own throat quite often in his rambling discourses to the Press Corps.
Glibs…er Gibbs is not even above telling an outright lie, surely a no-no according to the Obama philosophy of more civil discourse. The intrepid disseminator of what passes as bona fide news from the administration claimed out loud enough for all to hear, film and record that Michael Brown, FEMA director a few years ago, said that the Obama administration actually perpetrated that oil spill for nefarious reasons. Brown not only didn’t say that on the Fox News Cavuto program but he said nothing that could even be construed as what Glibs…er Gibbs, claimed. His exact remarks were made available again on 05 May so everyone could check out the enormity of the lie. Glibs…er Gibbs, obviously should not go out in public un-chaperoned by a teleprompter.
The prez even resorted to naming names in his speech, proving that he’s maybe more aware than people think of what is being said behind his back. He mentioned that people who watch/listen to pundit Glenn Beck should check out the Huffington Post, an online publisher; however he didn’t suggest that Post devotees try listening to Beck. Guess where the opprobrium applies. Of course, he did say that New York Times readers should also check out the Wall Street Journal, but then he didn’t suggest reciprocity in that case, so one wonders if he still considers the Times, known for its inaccuracies, as part of what some call the state-owned press, a propaganda arm for Obama and cohorts.
It may be that CBS news guru Katie Couric bedazzled New York Mayor Bloomberg the other day and made him remark that the Times Square bomber might have just been dissatisfied with the Obama health-care mishmash, so apparently one is to believe the mayor speaks disrespectfully (uncivilly) of those who disagree with the prez. The bomber turned out to be a Muslim-butcher wannabe but, of course, he could have been a naturalized Muslim butcher-wannabe angry over that health-care plan, so give hizzoner some slack.
The prez managed to remark that police in the Boston area acted stupidly last year. That seems a bit much vis-à-vis civil discourse and warm fuzzies all around, especially since he didn’t know what he was talking about. He might at least have just suggested that the police could have asked the man arrested if he would like for someone to pick the lock to his house (or someone’s house), but then picking locks also sounds a bit shady, especially for the police.
The prez might have been just a bit uncivil during his campaign when he referenced the “typical white person,” giving his grandmother as an example, as being uncomfortable around other ethnics, assuming that whites are also ethnics, something not usually acknowledged by the mainstream media. But then, of course, all whites look alike anyway, don’t they? The prez hasn’t indicated what a “typical black person” is, but one suspects a bit of reciprocity from a Harvard Law grad, i.e., that blacks are uncomfortable around whites. Does that sound civil?
Perhaps the prez concocted the unkindest, uncivil discourse during his campaign when he mentioned in conjunction with Pennsylvanians (probably only meant republican Pennsylvanians – he didn’t say) that they are likely to be trip-wired Bible-toting, gun-slingers on the lookout for those “untypical white persons” called immigrants, or maybe illegal immigrants. But don’t all immigrants look alike anyway, especially if they’re in the poor, tired huddled masses yearning to be free…or something like that?
Perhaps Mr. Glibs…er Gibbs, might elucidate to the hoi polloi in behalf of explaining those squirrelly Pennsylvanians yearning to be free from tacos and refried beans. In the meantime, everyone should use only the most civil discourse, perhaps defined as just the opposite of what the rap-crowd puts out, what with its glorification of cop-killings and gang-rapes.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, May 01, 2010
The Derby, Hard Times & Tiger
This is the beginning of the lead editorial in the Lexington Herald-Leader of 01 May: “We need the [Kentucky] Derby to refresh our souls. Since the last Kentucky Derby, life has been hard: Unemployment has risen, government treasuries have emptied, the drumbeat of scandals has continued unabated, Tiger Woods has become human.”
Well…yes! Since the passing of the stimulus legislation in March 2009 that was supposed to save the country from bankruptcy and hold the unemployment level to 8%, times have been hard. The nation lives on money borrowed from all over the world, principally China, and unemployment stands near 10% (part-time census-taking thousands don’t count), so souls need refreshing, although a better idea might be the refreshing of the wallet.
The solons in Congress have managed to empty the government’s treasury and many state legislators are in their van, while the drumbeat of scandals all the way from being perpetrated by dogcatchers to senators continues apace. Actually, nothing new! While shepherding the health-care bill through the Senate last year, for instance, Senator Baucus also had to get his mistress settled and employed in Washington – more than a senator should have to face at one time.
But (gasp and five palpitations of the spleen) Tiger Woods has become human. This is a revelation accruing to a wisdom that boggles the mind and could come forth only from the editorial offices of the H-L, compared to which the Oracle at Delphi is kindergarten-level, i.e., IQ-less. Whereas the Tiger was once considered otherworldly and quite above the mere victim-hood of the masses, remarked as applying to most everyone virtually on a daily basis by the paper, he has now shown his true self and succumbed to – ALAS! – normalcy.
And how did that happen, you ask! To answer blatantly or bluntly might be so indelicate as to be unprintable, so one must dance around the particulars, lest political incorrectness or discrimination or bigotry or multiculturalism/diversity-insensitivity be charged. To put it nicely, the Tiger has discovered an addiction for the remedy of which he has sought and is still seeking therapy, the better perhaps to overcome the disease and once again rise above being merely human.
Magnanimously, he has done the nation a service by calling attention to this addiction, occasioned by too much sex (or the chasing/craving of it)…in other words, the Tiger is a sex-addict, placing him in a position of victim-hood not experienced (or enjoyed) by more than a few. Never mind that he would not have revealed this important malady if he hadn’t tried to drive his Cadillac through both a fire-hydrant and a tree, thus causing trauma to all three. Whether or not he was suffering from a nine-iron to the head by his wife at the time has not been established.
Of course, one is left to wonder exactly what the editorialist meant in ascribing to the Tiger the mundane circumstance of being merely human. Did he devolve into this condition because his addiction was so thoroughly “outed” by his accident, which occasioned femme-fatales from here and yon to crawl out of the woodwork and squeal about their all-expense-paid-and-then-some escapades with the Tiger, no matter how quirky? Don’t all males have those escapades, thus proving the Tiger to just be one of the boys…merely human?
Or…does the Tiger’s humanness accrue to his well-staged and now frequent apologies for being a bad boy, especially a bad boy who’s been caught? Or, has his humanness been proven beyond doubt by simply running a car into a fire-hydrant and tree while cold sober but apparently befogged? Don’t all humans ram their cars into things that go bump in the night at one time or another…proving they’re just human, after all?
Or, maybe the editorialist simply meant that the Tiger was reduced to being human because times have been hard since the last Kentucky Derby? Well…of course! This is from ESPN of last October: “Woods had earned $895 million going into 2009, according to Forbes.com. Adding the $10.5 million in prize money from this season, the FedEx bonus and more than $100 million in annual off-the-course earnings, Woods has topped the 10-figure mark.” Hard times will reduce a person to being…well, sometimes even less than human. Check out the nearest jail for some testimonies.
In the meantime, hopefully the Tiger will get a complete cure, assuming that there actually is such a thing as sex-addiction and that he actually wants to get rid of it. Stay tuned to the H-L for updates concerning information noting that the Tiger has overcome whatever has turned him into being human and therefore, by its renewed absence, transmogrifying him into his former state of being supernatural.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Well…yes! Since the passing of the stimulus legislation in March 2009 that was supposed to save the country from bankruptcy and hold the unemployment level to 8%, times have been hard. The nation lives on money borrowed from all over the world, principally China, and unemployment stands near 10% (part-time census-taking thousands don’t count), so souls need refreshing, although a better idea might be the refreshing of the wallet.
The solons in Congress have managed to empty the government’s treasury and many state legislators are in their van, while the drumbeat of scandals all the way from being perpetrated by dogcatchers to senators continues apace. Actually, nothing new! While shepherding the health-care bill through the Senate last year, for instance, Senator Baucus also had to get his mistress settled and employed in Washington – more than a senator should have to face at one time.
But (gasp and five palpitations of the spleen) Tiger Woods has become human. This is a revelation accruing to a wisdom that boggles the mind and could come forth only from the editorial offices of the H-L, compared to which the Oracle at Delphi is kindergarten-level, i.e., IQ-less. Whereas the Tiger was once considered otherworldly and quite above the mere victim-hood of the masses, remarked as applying to most everyone virtually on a daily basis by the paper, he has now shown his true self and succumbed to – ALAS! – normalcy.
And how did that happen, you ask! To answer blatantly or bluntly might be so indelicate as to be unprintable, so one must dance around the particulars, lest political incorrectness or discrimination or bigotry or multiculturalism/diversity-insensitivity be charged. To put it nicely, the Tiger has discovered an addiction for the remedy of which he has sought and is still seeking therapy, the better perhaps to overcome the disease and once again rise above being merely human.
Magnanimously, he has done the nation a service by calling attention to this addiction, occasioned by too much sex (or the chasing/craving of it)…in other words, the Tiger is a sex-addict, placing him in a position of victim-hood not experienced (or enjoyed) by more than a few. Never mind that he would not have revealed this important malady if he hadn’t tried to drive his Cadillac through both a fire-hydrant and a tree, thus causing trauma to all three. Whether or not he was suffering from a nine-iron to the head by his wife at the time has not been established.
Of course, one is left to wonder exactly what the editorialist meant in ascribing to the Tiger the mundane circumstance of being merely human. Did he devolve into this condition because his addiction was so thoroughly “outed” by his accident, which occasioned femme-fatales from here and yon to crawl out of the woodwork and squeal about their all-expense-paid-and-then-some escapades with the Tiger, no matter how quirky? Don’t all males have those escapades, thus proving the Tiger to just be one of the boys…merely human?
Or…does the Tiger’s humanness accrue to his well-staged and now frequent apologies for being a bad boy, especially a bad boy who’s been caught? Or, has his humanness been proven beyond doubt by simply running a car into a fire-hydrant and tree while cold sober but apparently befogged? Don’t all humans ram their cars into things that go bump in the night at one time or another…proving they’re just human, after all?
Or, maybe the editorialist simply meant that the Tiger was reduced to being human because times have been hard since the last Kentucky Derby? Well…of course! This is from ESPN of last October: “Woods had earned $895 million going into 2009, according to Forbes.com. Adding the $10.5 million in prize money from this season, the FedEx bonus and more than $100 million in annual off-the-course earnings, Woods has topped the 10-figure mark.” Hard times will reduce a person to being…well, sometimes even less than human. Check out the nearest jail for some testimonies.
In the meantime, hopefully the Tiger will get a complete cure, assuming that there actually is such a thing as sex-addiction and that he actually wants to get rid of it. Stay tuned to the H-L for updates concerning information noting that the Tiger has overcome whatever has turned him into being human and therefore, by its renewed absence, transmogrifying him into his former state of being supernatural.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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