MUCKRAKER

Rape in the Military

2012-01-19T18:27:00.001-08:00

The government is its own worst enemy in the matter of first discovering the answer to a problem and, secondly, doing anything about it. This is not to mention that the government is front and center in making the problem, in the first place.

Defense Secretary Panetta was all over television the other day decrying the sad fact that there are so many rapes in the military, presumably reported by women, such fact being the key to solving the problem. The media is full of the subject and has remarked about the problem at the service academies. There were 3,191 and 3,158 sexual assaults reported, respectively, in 2011 and 2010. This seems to be sort of in line with previous years, even more reported for instance in 2009 (3,230). Panetta said “officials” claim that the current number of sexual assaults is about 19,000 (52 per day) since most go unreported. This is about one rape per 84 service-members, a bit hard to believe but so be it. One wonders, though, how anything that’s unreported is so categorically defined.

The genesis of the problem lies in the fact that political correctness insists that there’s no difference between males and females. This amazing philosophy is and has been carried out everywhere in government, from the halls of Congress through all agencies and into the White House. Since there’s no difference between the sexes, there has to be “equal opportunity” at everything and at every level in the military.

Common sense dictates that this philosophy is a bunch of baloney, but common sense and political correctness are mutually exclusive. Go into any city and take the biggest, strongest, meanest women in the local university, teach them to play football and schedule a game for them with an average high-school football team in the city. The boys would kill the ladies. There’s a difference.

That’s just a difference in physical strength and the “killer mentality.” Gender-wise, the difference between men and women is much greater and far more serious. The natural attraction – and often, exploitation – regarding the sexes is obvious to even a middle-schooler. Put the guys and gals together and expect to have problems, and not just problems perpetrated by the guys.

The government created the rape problem when the screwball Congress-people decided that men and women should be thrown together even in boot camps. The fact that this had to be changed (the Marines never even obeyed the edict), lest the fighting force be reduced to absolute minimums in the ability to wage war, has not registered yet with the elitists who clamor for some sort of “equality,” when in some areas “equality” does not exist, never has and never will.

The obvious solution to the current problem is the segregation to the nth-degree possible of men and women in the military. This is not to say women should not serve, merely to say that they should not serve alongside men in close quarters, including but not confined to combat.

Common sense dictates that the fact that they (women) have to report rapes means that they’re out of their depth physically (unable to defend themselves) and therefore are unfit for rigorous duty. This is a terribly politically incorrect statement but it’s true. If they can’t defend themselves physically, how can they be expected to defend not only their country but, more especially, their colleagues?

One-hundred-percent separation is not likely possible but it’s a lead-pipe cinch that something like 95% separation is possible. For instance, no women should serve on a naval vessel unless the entire crew is female. All-male crews have successfully defended the country for centuries, so why not try all-female crews, where, at least hopefully, there would be no natural rapes? The same is true for other military teams, though women should never be in combat for the obvious physical reasons, including on any ship.

Then, of course, there’s the “he said, she said” factor. A woman knows that all she has to do is say she’s been raped and, ipso facto, she’s been raped. In the civilian world, whether she’s told the truth or not, the name of her alleged rapist is spread all over the media, even though he hasn’t even been tried. There’s nothing fair about this but that’s the way it is. Her name, of course, is not divulged. The policy in the military is to transfer out of her unit any woman who claims she’s been raped. The possibilities connected to this allowance are obvious, ergo, reports of rape.

This isn’t to say that rapes do not happen or that they shouldn’t be prosecuted. Apparently, not many are; otherwise, there would be large-scale imprisonments and dishonorable discharges. There’s rarely a witness to a rape, hence, nothing short of DNA to use to convict, and even that’s questionable because the perpetrator can always claim consensual sex, which is hard to prove to the contrary. The answer is so obvious that it will not be entertained in this era of political correctness…simple segregation. Rules can be changed. People can’t be.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

What Would MLK Say Today?

2012-01-16T13:03:00.000-08:00

In a column of 16 January – Martin Luther King Jr. Day – Lexington Herald- Leader’s Tom Eblen remarked that if the assassinated rights-leader were in Lexington, he would make it a point to spend time at Main and Esplanade Streets with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, who are still demonstrating at that location but without camping out, of course. Eblen might also have mentioned that at one time this location was a slave-auctioning site, though, come to think of it, he probably did – a sort of veiled allusion.

There’s no argument with the annual observance plus all the streets, buildings and parks named after King, not to mention the multiplicity of statues throughout the country. He was a great man and represented/conducted a great cause – civil rights. He was one of the most important Americans of last century.

Connecting King’s cause with the Occupy cause, however, is an imagination too far. King’s cause was by way of erasing differences in the classes while the Occupiers have made it practically a religious effort to promote class warfare, with the final result being that the government will punish the producers, taking what they cobble together and re-distributing it to the non-producers, the virtual definition of socialism/communism.

The Occupiers’ main ally occupies the White House, though (with a wink and a nod) he has surrounded himself with Wall Streeters and conducts huge fund-raising rallies to cadge campaign loot from them…promising a billion-dollar effort to retain his seat. The fat cats don’t give huge sums without something in return, so the conclusion to be drawn is obvious. To his give-’em-the-spin credit (or blame), he has united the unions and the entrepreneurs, sworn enemies, in support of his incredibly flawed administration, defined from the get-go by a tax-cheat as the Treasury secretary.

The guest speaker at this year’s main event in Lexington is Marc Lamont Hill, a Columbia University professor and TV talking-head. From a telephone-interview with Hill, Eblen furnished this statement: “And the gap [between what is had and what is possible, presumably for African Americans] isn’t an intelligence gap, an effort gap, it’s an opportunity gap.” There may be no intelligence/effort gap, but there certainly is no opportunity gap. The civil-rights laws of the 1960s, not to mention even the use of National Guard troops in an effort to inculcate fairness in schools in the 1950s, were designed to guarantee against an opportunity gap, even to the point of establishing quotas.

In fact, the abuse of these laws was demonstrated by SCOTUS Justice Sotomayor, who, using ethnicity as qualifier, ruled against whites in a job-promotion case involving test-scores, and was overturned by the SCOTUS even as she was being confirmed. Hill is too smart not to recognize the gap that actually does exist, to wit, a morality gap.

This introduces another claim by Hill, namely, that America’s core problem is poverty. The largest segment of the population living in poverty is the single-mom-and-family category, especially in the black community, in which more than 70% of babies are born without fathers of record. Contrarily, in 1960 before passage of all the entitlement-legislation, about 75% of black families were headed by live-in parents. If not for an inordinate percentage of abortions in the black community, the numbers of blacks on welfare now would be astounding.

The almost indiscriminate breeding – lack of morals, to many – is responsible for poverty, with the heaviest onus borne by African-American men who do not support their children (especially not marrying their children’s “mothers”), forcing the taxpayers to do it for them. This is not hate-speech, as Eblen probably would have it, but just plain fact.

Rather than express the truth, Hill takes the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton positions – blame whitey. This wears very thin now, after 50 or so years, though the politically correct crowd, probably including Eblen, continues to flagellate itself over something for which it was not remotely responsible – slavery. Racist operators like Hill love it and make a cottage industry out of exploiting it. Only the gullible fall for it.

To see the disconnect of people like Hill with King, one has only to look at the 30-foot statue (tall as a three-story building) of King on the National Mall, created by movers and shakers in the black community. By contrast, the statue of Lincoln is 11-feet shorter and the statue of President Franklin Roosevelt, a four-term president, is merely life-size.

The King statue was designed in China, sculpted by a Chinese artist, delivered in pieces to the Mall and assembled not by Americans, union or otherwise, but by Chinese coolies. It’s no wonder that, towering Mao-like as it does over everything else, it could be called the Great Buddha on the Mall. King is depicted as looking (glowering) down on everyone and everything…within the shadow of the Great Emancipator and the World War II memorial. It’s an “in your face” monstrosity, something King would have rejected, preferring probably something on the order of a pensive Gandhi, perhaps his most important mentor.

Only someone who is politically incorrect would call attention to Hill’s propaganda and the garish statue, but so be it.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, POTUS & Carney

2012-01-13T16:22:00.000-08:00

It’s just past one a.m. in the little room off the Oval Office and Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego Mr. Hyde are meeting with President Obama and his press czar, Jay Carney, hereinafter referenced as J, H, O, and C, respectively, if not necessarily respectfully.

**O: Glad you could make it guys, you’ve always been a big help when I need…
**J: Does he never learn, Edward Hyde? We are not guys, especially to the colonists. We are sirs…okay we can be blokes here, Barry since this is so-o-o informal and…
**H: Quite so, Henry Jekyll, but I refuse to meet in this notorious room again. Either we go into the Oval Office or I – as you colonists so aptly put it – take a powder. You asked advice about the Tea Party in this room when last we met, meaning this room is profane and in deference to King George the Third, I…oh, speaking of powder, did you line up the howitzers and blow away the tea party as I might have suggested then?
**J: Easy there, Edward! He just means that the Tea Party should have been sweetened with your profound rhetoric, Barry, absolutely deep-sixed by eloquence and intellect delivered by state-of-the-art teleprompters…most likely my suggestion, though I don’t remember much except how Slick Will made this into a fun room, fit for any kind of orgy, real or imagined. (all enter the Oval Office) And these Styrofoam cups have to go, Barry…it’s fine china for tea or nothing.
**O: Jay, go rouse the kitchen crew and get some appropriate china and delicacies up here in ten minutes or less but don’t mention why…and bring me a beer.
**C: Aye aye sir, commander-in-chief, I’m on my way. (leaves)
**J: Commander-in-chief, Barry? That sounds so…well…haughty.
**O: I’ve commanded everyone to address me that way now since my hugely successful invasion of Libya and the offing of Osama. This month, navy obedience is the order of the day…or something like that…something military, in other words. I checked with the Salvation Army.
**H: Oh, I say, how quaint! Anyone gets out of line gets a good lashing at the mast…39 stripes, blood splattering all over the Congress…
**J: What Edward means is that the mark of a leader is his willingness to exact discipline and…
**H: Ah yes, Barry – Libya! What a stroke of genius and it took only seven months to put the buggers away. All those neighborhoods blown to smithereens by your bombs…blood running in the streets. I watched it every night on BBC, but, I say, Barry, I didn’t know you could invade a sovereign nation by executive order…reminds me of the glory days of Admiral Nelson.
**O: I went to the UN, Edward, or rather, I sent three ladies to work their charms on the UN and say that Qaddafi was mean and had to go and that I could ignore the Congress, the Constitution and the War Powers Act and anything else like maybe a town ordinance or something and just blow him away. (Carney returns, carrying huge tray)
**C: The kitchen crew told me where to go, Commander-in-chief, so I…
**J: Egad, Edward, all that mismatched china…and doughnuts…ugh! When will the colonists ever become civilized?
**H: I can see the papers now, Henry. Commander-in-chief has White House kitchen crew drawn and quartered – navy stuff there, Barry – for disobeying direct order, especially concerning crumpets.
**J: What Edward means, Barry, is that your justice is swift and that the kitchen crew loses a quarter’s pay – three months.
**O: Can we just get down to business. This beer is warm, Jay…ugh. And why are we here? I forgot and even JohnKerry couldn’t remember.
**C: Sorry, commander-in-chief, but the kitchen crew thought it was for our visitors – they drink it warm, you know. And I checked the teleprompter while I was gone and found that we’re here because of the Arab Spring.
**O: Okay, so my problem, gentlemen, is that there’s a threat of an American Spring coming up and…
**J: Aha! And if it goes like the Arab Spring last year, you might be on the way out…is that it, Barry?
**H: Oh…how marvelous! Blood in the streets of Washington, just like 1812 when we burned the place down…oh, hoo hah, what a show! Do you think there might be some beheadings…all those Muslims lurking here and there?
**J: What he means, Jay, is that your problem is serious since the apparatchiks also have to go when there’s a revolution.
**C: H-m-m-m.
**O: Let’s be serious here. We’ve just had Occupy Wall Street terrorists camping out in public parks and…
**H: And doing rapes and all sorts of strange things and using the police cars for bathrooms…
**J: Cool it, Edward. What Edward means, Barry, is that protests can be dangerous.
**C: You think we don’t know that, Henry? Look what commander-in-chief did in Libya to celebrate the Arab Spring…all those dead Libyans. Now we have all those students raising hell about Wall Street and…well, just about all the czars in the White House came from Wall Street. We’ve been in bunker mode, hoping the idiots wouldn’t find out.
**O: Let’s stick to the subject, Jay. Henry, what should I do about an American Spring? I can call out the troops, you know, but that seems so…well somehow fey.
**H: Oh, hahahahaha, I say bring out the Bradleys and mow ’em down on Pennsylvania Avenue.
**J: He asked me, Edward, not you. Edward just means that a show of force is sometimes necessary, Barry. He’s not suggesting you pull an Assad on them…just scare the bejesus out of them but don’t use m-16s.
**H: I say, Barry, it’s like FDR said…the only fear is fear itself or something like that. Besides, you did in the Libyans, so the only enemy you have to fear is by way of reprisal…
**J: And reprisal means the Libyans and the Libyans couldn’t beat your Girl Scouts right now, Barry, since you pulverized them although it took months, not days, as you promised. So, as you Americans say…not to worry! There will be no American Spring.
**C: In other words (starts singing), happy days are here again.
**O: Stuff it Carney and go get me a cold one.
**J: Come, Edward, I can stand the colonists for just so long…uncivilized creatures!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Brokaw, Obama & Libya

2012-01-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

I’ve just begun reading Tom Brokaw’s latest book, The Time of Our Lives. Each chapter begins with a fact and a question followed by three sections termed the Past, Present and Promise covering such subjects as education, government and social considerations.

I was brought up short on page ten with this paragraph: “The seething of the underclass [Arab Spring?] spread to Libya, where Moammar Gadhafi responded with vicious military attacks on the insurgents that drew international condemnation and resulted in NATO military help for the Libyan rebels.” (bold face mine). Whoa! Libya was attacked via executive order almost exclusively by President Barack Hussein Obama, who announced while beginning a vacation in Brazil on 19 March that he had ordered Americans to bomb the bejesus out of Libya (military targets, but what do bombs know?).

There followed intensive bombing of Libya primarily by the United States for ten straight days at a cost of $55 million per day, after which NATO was supposed to take up the action with Obama “leading from behind,” explaining that the U.S would merely continue to “support” the effort, which he said would be over in days, not months. The effort lasted for seven months and the U.S. wound up providing the lion’s share of everything such as the ammo and logistics, not to mention actual warfare. Cost to the U.S.: $1.1 billion.

In other words, Brokaw grossly misrepresented the truth. The Libya affair was exclusively an Obama project from the get-go, for reasons apparently known only to him since Libya, population two million less than that of New York City, with a troop-strength of only 76,000, has never been a threat to the United States or NATO, which, like the Pentagon, wanted no part of the affair but, also like the Pentagon, was bullied into it. Defense Secretary Gates described Obama’s massacre as done “on the fly,” i.e. with no planning, certainly not by the Defense Department. Both he and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen publicly announced their opposition in a Congressional hearing before Obama did anything. The president overruled them.

Obama instigated his own attempt at genocide by executive order, completely bypassing Congress, which was not consulted. Instead, State Secretary Clinton, U.N. Ambassador Rice and White House apparatchik Samantha Power took the project to the United Nations and bullied that bunch of screwballs into approving a resolution to establish a no-fly zone (done in about four days) and the catch-all mandate, “use all means necessary short of foreign occupation to protect civilians.”

The women’s case ostensibly had to do with Qaddafi mistreating his people, an everyday occurrence in the Muslim countries throughout the Middle East. For instance, this is from Voice of America on 21 December, “The United Nations says at least 5,000 people have been killed during the nine-month uprising against the government of [Syrian president Bashar] al-Assad.” In the early 1980s, some 20,000 Syrians were killed by the government of Assad’s father, then the president. This is everyday stuff where Muslims kill each other over religious matters and deciding who will run the country! One wonders if Brokaw thinks another NATO action in Syria might be forthcoming. Perhaps he will ask Obama.

Did Brokaw drink the Kool-Aid concerning Libya? Not likely! He’s smarter than that. The logical conclusion is that he spread the propaganda provided by the White House in the willful destruction of a sovereign nation, never mind that Qaddafi was a tyrant. Most Muslim head honchos are tyrants. His misrepresenting of the Libya matter is on about the same level as that of Dan Rather, his counterpart at CBS at the time, in Rather’s monstrous lie in 2004 concerning George Bush and the Texas Air National Guard.

On page 13, Brokaw wrote this concerning Richard Nixon (or Tricky Dick, as Brokaw called him): “His oval office was a bunker stocked with illegal conspiracies and presidential high crimes and misdemeanors.” Nixon, besides never attacking another nation (Cambodian incursion in 1970 was to interdict supply routes during Vietnam War), finally did bring an end to the Vienam War. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution requires that Congress declare war, but Obama made war against Libya without even consulting Congress. He committed a high crime or misdemeanor, and the War Powers Act was not a factor since Libya had not in any way threatened this nation.

This is the appropriate requirement of the War Powers Act of 1973 for the deployment of the military: “into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations.” The U.S. was not involved in any hostilities in Libya or anywhere near Libya when Obama ordered U.S. military action. When Congress declares war, the commander-in-chief prosecutes it, according to the Constitution. In the case of Libya, the United Nations declared war and President Obama prosecuted it. Shameful!

Brokaw, who no doubt took/takes pride in himself as an honest journalist, should have written that President Obama had committed an impeachable offense. Instead, he advanced the well-known agenda of NBC, his former employer, i.e., he provided cover for Obama. The U.S. didn’t even buy Libyan oil, but European NATO nations such as Britain and France did, so those nations had every reason not to disturb the status quo. To satisfy Obama, they spent their own resources for seven months…and for what? No one knows now who/what the government is in Libya.

Rewriting history is not attractive or honest. Brokaw should be ashamed.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Senators & Comacho

2012-01-05T13:08:00.000-08:00

In a monstrous display of hypocrisy, the Orange Bowl (04 January) head honchos accepted and then dis-invited Camacho sponsorship. The reason: Democrat Senators Lautenberg, Blumenthal and Durbin objected to Comacho, though they made no objection about other sponsors such as Bud Lite and Corona, beer-makers, and Bacardi, rum-maker. So…they were dismayed concerning Camacho’s legal cigars (surely shocked and appalled, the usual reaction by righteous senators when attacked by do-goodism) but figured beer and rum were okay.

After all, enjoying a cigar while driving might cause a bit of smoke to emanate skyward and cause global warming to melt the ice-caps and consequently waste the polar bears and cause Manhattan to become part surf and part beach, but driving while enjoying a good beer or a half-pint of rum could only cause someone to get killed, nothing serious. The choice was easy and the senators showed their superior intelligence in exerting their influence. By the way, the choice was also easy because none of this applied to their states.

This is no brief for tobacco, a harmful substance but certainly not more harmful than alcoholic beverages in any form. Indeed, where using tobacco may be harmful to an individual, it isn’t likely to cause harm to anyone else. Contrarily, the user of alcohol, besides also hurting himself just as in the case of tobacco, risks not only the possibility of hurting others but in thousands of cases every year causes death and destruction to others, making the probability quite substantive. Compared to the cigar-smoker, the imbiber of alcohol is a devil.

Apparently, the good senators felt that the cigar-flashing would deliver the wrong message to young people, as if the young people are not already more knowledgeable about both tobacco and alcohol (and all other drugs, of which tobacco is not one) than the senators. If that was their position, they were sending the message that tobacco is bad but drinking is okay; otherwise, they would have denounced all the forms of danger. To do that and be honest, they would have had to renounce both their drinking habits (if applicable) and the liquor lobby, the latter too great a sugar-daddy to politicians to upset.

The extreme irony, of course has to do with do-gooder Senator Dick Durbin, democrat of Illinois. This advocate for the youth is most famous for his comparing of American GIs (a segment of youth of which he has no understanding) in Iraq to Stalin’s murderous keepers of the Soviet Gulags, the equally murderous Storm Troopers of the butcher Adolph Hitler, who directed the dispatching of 11 million in the 1930s-40s, and Pol Pot’s murderers of millions in the “killing fields” of Cambodia – all recent history.

But that’s not all that establishes Durbin as a paragon of virtue with respect at least to the law and conscience. This is from the Chicago Tribune of 30 December 2008: "U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- Nevada) said in a statement this afternoon the Senate will not seat anyone Gov. Rod Blagojevich chooses to fill Illinois' vacant Senate post, amid word that the governor is set to name former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris. The statement also is signed by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who has repeatedly urged Blagojevich not to name a replacement for the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. The statement specifically names Burris, but applies to any choice the governor might make."

This is from Reuters of 30 December 2008: "KAILUA, Hawaii (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said on Tuesday he agreed that Senate Democrats 'cannot accept' any move by Illinois' scandal-tarred governor to name a replacement for Obama's Senate seat." Get the picture? Durbin joined Reid and Obama in purposefully attempting to violate the U. S. Constitution with respect to the requirements for filling a vacated Senate seat. They committed treacherous acts although they were not successful. Burris was seated and served out the term vacated by Obama. All three – Durbin, Reid, Obama – at this point were tinhorn crooks playing one of the lowest games of politics – ganging up on the perceived vulnerable.

All of this is part and parcel of why citizens hold politicians in such low esteem, including Obama, who stays below the 50% mark in approval ratings, though much of that is due to his blatant incompetence and his proclivity for using the executive to browbeat the Congresspersons and anyone else he deems worthy of his disdain. Disgusting!

Equally disgusting is the subject at hand. Three senators, either so blind to reality or so opportunistic that they can’t see beyond the bridges of their respective noses, disparage the least harmful of two substances in the name of protecting the youth while consequently approving the most harmful. So…does the above apply…or are they just dumb as gourds?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

PQRI...a Bad Joke?

2012-01-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

The latest bureaucratic muddle emanating from Czar-Land, otherwise known as the Obama administration, is something called the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, which ties the payment for medical treatment of old codgers, presumably anyone 65 and up and therefore on Medicare/Medicaid, to a report-card indicating physician-capability. Governmental bureaucrats with non-physician backgrounds will complete the reports that will separate the good doctors from the bad ones and determine the amount of reimbursement…or none…for each. It seems unclear as to what this amounts to vis-à-vis the doctors especially with respect to punishment or certification but, as Speaker Pelosi would counsel, this will be known only after the program is in place.

This could do for the elderly patients what No Child Left Behind has done for education – kill the process. NCLB has developed a national cadre of the mentally-challenged…a hopeless failure. The PQRI, hopefully, will not kill medicine, but don’t bet the farm. If it does, the old codgers may suffer and/or die but…hey…life is not forever.

PQRI will require a bureaucracy of immense proportions since there are some 800,000 practicing physicians in this country. Since it’s unlikely that the physicians will be required to take a written test (imagine the number of non-physician folks required to grade especially the essay questions), the appropriate bureaucrat will probably have to comb through records, follow-up on patient complaints, check the legal archives for lawsuits, practically live in hospitals and physician-offices and try to evaluate such hugely important things as bedside manner or the proper care of a hangnail.

One can imagine the bureaucratic red-tape connected to having a body exhumed in order to discover if a physician took out the wrong lung or left a wayward sponge among the pancreas, the better to determine if the surgeon was perhaps drinking on the job, a certain no-no in PQRI, and must therefore be given an “F” on his report card and, worse, paid nothing. One can just imagine the increased activity in law schools, which always benefit enormously when the Congress/administration comes up with new legislation/regulations concerning anything. Top Czar Sunstein, the chief among regulators, has already stated that animals should have access to lawyers, so one can only imagine how many lawyers will be needed by both bureaucracy and doctors to save the country from malpractice.

What would be the subjects of testing – operating-room procedure; time spent with patient; bedside manner; office manner; sterilization techniques; legible writing of prescriptions (although PQRI demands everything but probing for the appendix to be done electronically, including records and prescriptions); treatment of colleagues, including harassment of nurses by either doctor-sex; harassment of patients; proper suturing/stapling/bone-sawing; full disclosure of successes/failures regarding surgical procedures, including the number of patients who lived/died, and proper preparation of patient for appearing before the “death panels?”

Obviously, nothing but a hands-on approach could effect the proper grades for the physicians. Consider the bureaucrat observing a heart bypass operation despite the fact that he doesn’t know a respirator from an ATM and wonders if the doctor is in danger of freezing the patient to death in hugely lowering his temperature, standard procedure. A grader, probably in disguise, will have to be in or preferably near the hospital nurse-stations to observe physician behavior, with an especial eye to harassment, discrimination, and proper completion of forms, not to mention off-color or ethnic jokes in case someone is offended.

PQRI is an idea that should never have come, an absolute absurdity. The paperwork alone would be monumental, causing a huge increase in what doctors already have to charge in order to hire the huge staffs to handle it. To have government bureaucrats determining the amount to be paid case-by-case concerning Medicare patients is unthinkable. This is regulation carried to a degree unimaginable in a democratic society, clearly driving the health-care system into a socialistic venue, which has always been the goal of President Obama. One can expect that all the thousands of new workers will be unionized as Obama’s debts to union money and warm bodies slaving on the campaign trail will be discharged.

Regulations by czars such as those concerning the proper light bulbs and the proper structure of processed foods, and presidential executive orders such as the assault on Libya resulting in no one knows how many civilian deaths have been the name of the game during Obama’s tenure. The republican candidates are railing against this takeover of the country by stealth, and they’re right. The time has come to put a stop to it and hopefully that will happen in November with respect to both the unbelievably weak Congress as well as the presidency. If this doesn’t happen, this nation will join olde Europe in heading for the ash-heap of history.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #6

2011-12-29T11:18:00.000-08:00

From the office of the ChairWOMAN, 28 December 2011

***Listen up! Enough already about the 90 rounds of golf POTUS has played!!! This is the word to put out in Town Hall meetings. Ninety rounds at four hours each compute to only 360 hours (for recent Harvard graduates), or only 45 working days, just under three months. POTUS does golf for a reason, namely, to invoke awareness of the importance of staying physically fit; however, discourage any talk by unionists that workers should have ten weeks of vacation per year in order to stay fit and do better work as a result. Also, do not show close-up pictures of POTUS if there’s any of what appears to be nicotine stain on his fingers. If by accident such a picture is shown, explain that POTUS has a rare but harmless skin disease known as glandular annulares, or something like that, caused by an allergy to teleprompters, the implication being that he makes a tremendous sacrifice every time he favors the hoi polloi with an eloquent, erudite, non-plagiarizing (for VPOTUS Biden, little joke there), brilliant speech.

***There’s been talk about POTUS and FLOTUS hitting the Treasury for $4 million for the current Hawaii holiday (all the planes and personnel and vehicles and secret-service guys, hairdressers, valets, secretaries, for instance). This must stop immediately, with the explanation that POTUS decided the importance of visiting Hawaii (statehood – 1959), as the last frontier state, outweighed any expense. The other last-frontier state, Alaska (also 1959), was obviously too cold at this time of year so POTUS, FLOTUS and COPOTUS (children of POTUS, for Yale graduates on staff) will honor that state when the weather is warm and the golf courses include mostly grass…probably a few years from now when global warming has made Alaska habitable. Check former VPOTUS Al Gore for the timetable, but do not consult his Inconvenient Truth since that document has been thoroughly disproved now.

***All staffers who appeared at the recent Occupy Wall Street protests but were not arrested will be docked a week’s pay since the objective was to embarrass the police forces account their torture of democrat officials, so designated by your letters under my name. Also, all claims concerning rape, unbearable conditions in the parks, forced use of outside visible facilities (trees and bushes) for bodily functions, frostbite, bedbugs-infestations, cocaine-lite and uncured marijuana will not be honored since POTUS has demanded further cuts and less spending by the DNC, the latter not for public consumption in Town Hall meetings since they sound too republican. When protests resume in the spring, the DNC, on orders from POTUS since 2012 is an election year, will not participate for obvious reasons.

***As the presidential campaigns will be narrowed soon, republicans are expected to question POTUS’s decision to unilaterally and by executive order bomb the bejesus out of Libya in March and finally kill off Qaddafi. This sounds ominously like assassination, prohibited by law, so a red/yellow/black/white paper is to be prepared by the DNC explaining his actions (POTUS’s, not Qaddafi’s), something POTUS could do but for the time-constraints since he is in full campaign-mode. Suggestions concerning his reasons are to be dropped in the Biden Box (through the slot, for recent Harvard graduates) located by the George Bush dart-board. No reference is to be made to Libya’s population (2 million less than that of New York City), the miniscule size of Libya’s military, or oil, especially the latter, which the Brits and Frogs badly need. Also, explain how Libya differed from Syria (it didn’t, actually) since the republicans will taunt POTUS for not attacking Syria. Accuse them (republicans, not the Syrians) of being mean-spirited and unpatriotic.

***As the predictable massacres continue in Iraq now that the U.S. has pulled out, remind everyone in the Town Hall meetings – early if in bars, before the attendees get too drunk – that POTUS was always against that war but do NOT mention that he wasn’t in Congress in 2003 and had no vote. Also, do not mention that VPOTUS Biden and State Secretary Clinton both voted for the Iraq invasion and that Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator Kerry was for it before he was against it and that he mentioned that U.S. GIs who fought there were just guys who couldn’t cut it in college. Don’t mention that some 4,500 of them died, lest folks consider their deaths in vain.

***This is from Memo #4: “POTUS has expressed brilliantly that the high unemployment rate is due to the Arab Spring and the Japanese tsunami and nuclear meltdown. He has requested [from the DNC] a red/yellow/black/white paper explaining why this is the case. Not one paper of not even purple has been submitted and White House Chief-of-Staff Daly is threatening to replace me if POTUS’s explanation is not made available and teleprompter-ready within a week.” The ChairWOMAN has been lenient concerning this matter and has tried to mollify POTUS and Daly, especially by suggesting how to drop the unemployment rate overnight from 9% to 8.6% by just declaring that a few hundred thousand folks (who’s counting) had just quit looking for jobs. This is untrue, of course, but the media has accepted this as fact – okay, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, ABC, CNN – and have spread this propaganda quite well; however, the explanation POTUS needs for the reason the Arab Spring and Japanese stuff are responsible for the unemployment rate has never been offered. So, heads will roll if this matter is not cleared up, and an explanation claiming that POTUS misspoke due to golf-fatigue will not be acceptable.

***It’s untrue that VPOTUS said in a speech about fair-share that fair is a three-letter word. VPOTUS Biden has declared that he never said that and will not say it again. The exact quote: “Every millionaire should pay his share and that means a five-letter word – fair!”

***It has come to my attention that toilet paper is being used too fast in the Rest Rooms. Be advised that only one panel at a time is allowed, no matter the circumstances, and that Al Gore is keeping tabs and reporting – between massages – his results to POTUS, who has declared all polar bears, seals, and South Pole mosquitoes as endangered species. Also, make a big deal out of the warm winter so far but do not – repeat – do NOT mention last December, when the whole country was under megatons of snow and temperatures were far below normal. In the meantime: HAPPY HUNTING…make that NEW YEAR!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Political Correctness Gone Amok

2011-12-26T16:30:00.000-08:00

The gullibility (or intentional bow to political correctness) in this country regarding Islam and its adherents/leaders, especially its ayatollahs, imams and mullahs, etc., is galling. The Christmas-day bombing of a Catholic church in Madalla, Nigeria, in which some 40 people died, was carried out by radical jihadists, a euphemism for murderous imbeciles. It is yet another example of the well-documented requirement in the Koran, the sacred book of Islam written circa 600 by an alleged illiterate named Mohammad, that the “infidel” (anyone not a Muslim) must be killed at every opportunity, especially, one presumes, that can be designed as well as occurring by “accident.”

The Nigerian genocide – simply the latest of myriads of them in Africa by radical Muslims – was not one that accrued to an “opportunity.” It was a blatant, planned bit of butchery carried out in connection with a Christian observance, thus remarking the hated Christians as special targets in the name of “Allah,” the god of the Koran and not to be confused with the God of the Holy Scriptures. Iranian President Ahmadinejad and his on-site ayatollah, Hoseyni Khameini, have made it abundantly and publicly clear that the aim of Islam is the death of every Jew, thus the total condemnation of Judeo-Christianity.

The latest slap in the face to both the U.S. military and the public in general is the decision by the Obama administration to allow Muslim cadets in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) to wear scarves or turbans while in uniform, thus putting its imprimatur on Islam-as-acceptable, an act so despicable as to be considered treasonous. It is but the latest indication that President Obama seems more impressed with the first ten years of his upbringing as a Muslim than with his latter-day testimonies as to his Christianity, learned from his mentor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright, who likely would love nothing better than the denigration of the military.

It’s perfectly obvious that the president intends for that turban-policy to be inculcated (executive order by the commander-in-chief without so much as a mention to either the military or Congress?) as soon as possible in all the military branches. Imagine U.S. soldiers in their turbans facing the Taliban or al Qaeda butchers in their turbans. This is sickening. This is the way Obama attacked and devastated Libya – by executive order – so it’s perfectly reasonable to expect him to do the same in this matter. The wimpy Congress is not even a player – just roll over and play dead.

Now that the U.S. GIs have left Iraq, the massacres have begun…all perfectly predictable right from the start of the misguided nation-building effort that George Bush said at the beginning of his first term would never happen. He could have and should have declared victory in May 2003, brought the troops home and finished off al Qaeda in Afghanistan then. The same mistake is being made now in Afghanistan, not least because Americans do not understand Muslim thinking, i.e., that human life, far from being sacred, is expendable whenever some Muslim cleric says it is.

One has only to look at what’s happening in Syria when contemplating allowing the turban to be part of a U.S. military uniform. Muslims (symbolized by the turban/scarf) don’t enjoy killing just any old infidel much more than they delight in wasting each other. Folks who blame the U.S. for the tens of thousands of civilian lives lost in Iraq would do well to remember that virtually all of those lives were snuffed out as Muslims killed Muslims, as in Sunni vs. Shiite vs. Kurd vs. al Qaeda. In Syria, the Muslim government is killing Muslim citizens, just as happened in Yemen, Libya, Tunisia or other Islamic-controlled states. Saddam managed to kill 400,000 fellow Muslims.

When U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan perpetrated his very own massacre at Ft. Hood in 2009, he shouted “Allah Akbar” (or something like that), meaning that his was an act in the name of his god. He might as well have been wearing a turban, the better to display the symbolism involved, namely, that Muslims intend to set up a worldwide Caliphate, presumably cowing “mere mortals” into submission through their terrorist acts of mind-numbing insensitivity, especially regarding women and children. In Muslim-country, life is about the cheapest thing around.

This calls into question, notwithstanding all politically correct bromides to the contrary, whether or not an admitted Muslim should be allowed even to serve in the military, much less dress any old way. Hasan was/is the prime example of what any non-Muslim soldier would have to wonder about when a Muslim GI was at his back. Muslim Jihad “sleeper cells” are known to be in this country. What happens if a cell-member decides to pave his way to the 72 virgins by martyring himself while in the process of killing others? Hasan probably figured to be fatally shot on the spot but he lived, though he probably feels that some day he’ll make it to that paradise.

Turbans and/or scarves? Absolutely not! What happens if a Jewish soldier demands the right to wear a yarmulke instead of the proper uniform cap? What happens when a GI decides it’s against his religion (whether or not true) to wear any kind of headwear? Will Obama just “understand” and put out an executive order that all military folks can wear any old kind of hat/cap desired…or none at all? This administration operates perpetually in the silly-season, especially with respect to the military, of which it has virtually no understanding.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Professors & Facts...Mutually Exclusive?

2011-12-22T11:22:00.000-08:00

The consensus among “ordinary” people is that the administrations and faculties of most colleges and universities in the U.S. are somewhere near the far-left, lunatic fringe of the Democrat Party or perhaps some other ultra-liberal establishment like the Greens, or maybe something called “Nader’s Raiders.” Without question, these institutions, especially given the tenure factor, are often beset and stuck with profs who spread whacko stuff such as that of the infamous Ward Churchill, onetime prof at the University of Colorado.

In an essay of 2001, Churchill wrote that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the WTC were a natural and unavoidable consequence of what he viewed as unlawful U.S. policy, and he referred to the “technocratic corps” working in the World Trade Center as “little Eichmanns.” Pretty heady stuff and not too copascetic! Eichmann was prominent in the Hitler pogroms in which six million Jews, among about 11 million human beings altogether, were incomprehensibly tortured and killed in the 1930s-40s.

Robert Olson, a professor at the University of Kentucky, writes regularly for the Lexington Herald-Leader, Kentucky’s second largest newspaper, part of the McClatchy group. In a recent article concerning the U.S. pullout from Iraq and the state of the country left behind, Olson wrote, “Moreover, they [the Shi’a] were brought to power by a Christian nation for its own hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East.” It’s hard to imagine a greater lie than that. If the U.S. had “hegemonic ambitions,” it wouldn’t have pulled out in the first place or at least wouldn’t have before making arrangements preempting Iraq’s oil reserves for this country at this country’s stated price.

Olson also wrote this in the article, as mind-boggling as it is: “It is difficult for all Arabs, not just the Arabs of Iraq, to understand why a country like the U.S. — which fought a civil war in which 4 million people died to save the union — would so nonchalantly destroy another sovereign country.” The people trying to save the Union lived in the North, population 22 million in 1860. According to Olson, more than 18% of them died 1861-65 trying to save the Union. The paper has left that loony-tunes stuff in the online edition, so it apparently stands by Olson’s wacky claim. Weird!

Olson wrote this: “Not only did U.S. policies lead to Shi'a coming to power, but also led to the division of the country between Kurds and Arabs.” Olson apparently forgot that Saddam, an Arab, along with his Sunni-Arab cohorts, gassed and otherwise tried to kill the Kurds years ago precisely because there was a “division of the country between Kurds and Arabs.” When Saddam was captured, pilots from the U.S. and other nations had been flying 24/7 over Kurd territory for about 12 years to keep the butcher from continuing to bomb and gas them.

As laughable as it is, Olson wrote this concerning the pullout: “Washington saw the handwriting on the barricades: it was time to leave.” The schedule for leaving was set during the Bush administration and Washington (Obama) was merely implementing it, just as he was merely implementing an objective established before he took office when Osama was dispatched. Nothing new, although Obama-freaks seem to think he was virtually divine (or maybe a Navy Seal in disguise?) since it happened on his watch.

This is from the Miami Herald (also McClatchy) of 29 October: “First of all, the withdrawal date was set by a Republican president who began this war, George W. Bush. The Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq signed on November 17, 2008, when Mr. Bush was in the White House, leaves no room for ambiguity: ‘All U.S. forces are to withdraw from all Iraqi territory, waters, and airspace no later than the 31st of December 2011’.” Olson was not being just disingenuous, he was being dishonest.

This kind of misrepresentation is unconscionable and should be intolerable in the pages of a newspaper. If the editors expect to be taken seriously, they need to read Olson’s stuff before they print it. If they agree with him, they need to consider another line of work, else the paper’s credibility, if any, is out the window. The actual tragedy, however, lies in the fact that someone like Olson is turned loose on immature college kids to spread this kind of venom. As for the paper, it apparently considers its readers to be dumb as gourds.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Yanks Gone...Now, the PURGE

2011-12-20T11:02:00.000-08:00

This is from Reuters, 19 December: “Iraqi authorities issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Muslim Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi on Monday for suspected ties to assassinations and bombings, a decision likely to fuel sectarian tensions after the U.S. troop withdrawal.” A similar action in the U.S. would be a contingent of U.S. Marshals attempting to arrest Vice President Biden.

President Obama and Biden belong to different churches but to the same party. Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki is a Shiite, religion-wise, while his veep is a Sunni, so these two also don’t belong to the same mosque, there being tense and often bloody relations between Shiites and Sunnis. The political parties to which they belong don’t really matter, since the matter of life and death, as well as that of government, is posited on religion, not politics. Maliki, acording to Reuters, is also trying to get rid of his own deputy prime minister, Sunni adherent Saleh al-Mutlaq, through a parliamentary vote of no-confidence.

All of this would invite a bit of laughter if it weren’t so serious, at least for the Iraqis. One only has to imagine the U.S. president and veep being from different parties to see the analogy…wouldn’t work. The notion that Sunnis and Shiites will just bury the hatchet now that the heavy stuff is over constitutes wishful thinking. The heavy stuff – the purge – has not even started yet.

With only 40% of the population being Sunni, Saddam made the whole country his personal charnel house anyhow, beginning in 1979, dispatching some 400,000 souls and no telling how many others terribly tortured until his overthrow by the Yanks in 2003. He did it by using brute force. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. The American intervention has made it possible for the overwhelming Shiite majority to do its thing. Its “thing” will be treatment in kind – just human nature.

Remember Muktada al-Sadr, the bearded, diminutive Shiite cleric of some sort who put together a huge Shiite army and became a terrible problem soon after the invasion. He later cooled it a bit, then went off to Qom, Iran’s holy city, for a bit of theological training…at least that’s the word. In September, he told his followers to stop attacking Americans until after the end of the year, when there wouldn’t be any Americans. The betting here is that he will elevate himself, using his army, to the ayatollah-ship of Iraq someday, probably cementing his own brand of Shiite-ism with that of Iran. In any case, a few thoughts:

The Crescent-Scimitar of Hate

The future ayatollah had it right
And proved it in Iraq convincingly
That one day, Yanks all gone and out of sight,
Jihad would run its course bloodthirstily;
He proved it when he raised his own armed force
To fight the enemies of Shi’ite might,
Including Yanks and Kurds and Sunnis coarse,
His minions raised their prayers and made the fight;
Then, after using terror, bloodshed, fear,
He called them off…await another day,
The day when Yanks were gone and they would hear
The muezzins wail from towers…the time to slay;
The future ayatollah went to Qom,
The holy city in next-door Iran,
To study there Mohammad’s kingdom-come,
And there to plan his army’s Rubicon;
Not long before, the Sunnis fought Iran
And in the process used their poison gas,
Which means they gassed Shi’ites, with guilt of none,
And also means revenge must come to pass;
So…whether in Iran or in Iraq,
The future ayatollah will insist
All Shi’ites must unite in solid bloc,
Allow no Sunnis even to resist;
The Kurds will either die or bow the knee,
The future ayatollah will insist,
The sharpened Shi’ite scimitar will be
The fate of those who foolishly resist;
The Jihad knows no race or creed or plea,
The scimitar, fine-honed, will purge like fire,
The Sunnis, weak, will not be Muslims free…
They will be thralls or just to hell aspire;
The world will call the purge a civil war,
The future ayatollah will insist,
And then explain it as a holy war
From which Shi’ites will never cease, desist;
United Nations in its sessions met
Will panic at the ayatollah’s scheme
And pass its resolutions, tersely set,
To interrupt the genocidal theme;
The future ayatollah will then scoff
And go about his purge relentlessly
And claim such fiats nil…not worth a cough…
The Shi’ites’ sword will rule and make them free;
And then when Shi’ites rule each Arab state
And form the core of worldwide Caliphate,
They will deliver to the world its fate…
The crescent-scimitar of Shi’ite hate.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama's "Soul Brother" -- the Rabbi

2011-12-17T06:45:00.000-08:00

Much has been written and said about President Obama’s religion, especially since he made it clear in 2008 that he had been a part of the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright’s church for some 20 or so years, meaning that he had listened consistently to the reverend castigate the country which Obama wanted to lead. For instance, Wright had made it clear that the “white folk” had somehow afflicted the “black folk” with HIV/Aids.

Wright’s church – and Obama’s by extension – was/is a part of the denomination known as the United Church of Christ, which in 2005 officially made it clear that homosexuals should have the right to marry each other. That may or may not have anything to do with the complete 180-degree flip-flop that Obama managed between 2008, when he said marriage should be between a man and woman (as federal law requires), and now, when he claims that his church has it right, putting his imprimatur on eschewing the law as well as a multitude of state constitutions, which have it set in constitutional concrete that marriage is only between a man and woman.

For the first ten years of his life, Obama was raised as a Muslim, both his father and step-father being of that persuasion, the former an African and the latter an Indonesian. He has made it a point to apologize for the United States to nations that are nearly 100 percent Muslim, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He even, by direct order, attacked and destroyed Libya earlier this year, which is characteristic of Muslims in that they kill each other with about as much vim and vigor as they kill the “infidel.”

Now, it would appear that Obama has a “soul brother,” Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of New York City, who said this in a newspaper article the other day: “If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful [Christians], and emboldened faithful [Christians] can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants.” There’s not much doubt how the Rabbi feels about Christians, considering them about on the level of the occupants of a zoo, operating on instinct only.

This is what Obama said about working-class voters – most folks – in April 2008: “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Granted he didn’t say that for public consumption (seems like it was in the company of the Hollywood elite), but he left little doubt about how he feels about the part of the electorate that includes millions of people who call themselves Christians, i.e., about on the level of the zoo-crowd.

These men typify the cynical, elitist, often pseudo-intellectual university-faculty crowds that look down their noses at the hoi polloi, barely abiding their existence but, at least in Obama’s case, desperately needing them in order to carry out their quintessential degree of opportunism concerning the “bread of life,” as a Christian might put it. Anything goes in order to “get what I want.” This explains the Obama flip-flop on marriage in just a few months, assuming he wasn’t lying in 2008, though one suspects he was. He thinks he needs the miniscule homosexual vote now, takes his own party for granted and says what he thinks will sell.

In the process, Obama makes it clear that his Christianity is not like that of most Christians, to wit, that the scriptures graphically denounce homosexual behavior as abominable and sinful, thus homosexual marriage. Indeed, from Genesis to Revelation, the insistence throughout the Bible is that marriage is between a man and a woman, no matter who the Bible-writer is.

Though he tried desperately in that famous Philadelphia speech ostensibly on race but actually as an effort to vindicate Wright, whom he soonafter threw under the bus anyway, Obama made it plain how he feels about the “typical white person,” to whom he referred in the speech. One wonders, then, if his “spiritual” side is more Muslim than Christian or more nothing than Christian.

Perhaps the rabbi can be excused since he didn’t specify synagogues as objects for burning if Tebow should win the Super bowl, only mosques. Of course, he did mention that Tebow’s crowd might bash gays in the event of a win, and that certainly should put him in favor with Obama, who perhaps will invite him to the White House for a beer, maybe even with Joe Biden in attendence.

Since both men specifically accused Christians of the meanness attached to having a collective jaudiced eye toward immigrants, they would have much to discuss. In his campaign in 2008, Obama called for a national police force to be on roughly the same status as the nation’s armed forces. This reminds of Hitler’s Gestapo or Stalin’s KGB, of course, but it would ceratinly handle those dangerous Christians, especially around Super-Bowl time. The Rabbi might give this a thought. Obama already has.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Herald-Leader Hatchet-Job on Sergeant Meyer

2011-12-15T18:38:00.000-08:00

The Lexington Herald-Leader of 15 December featured banner headlines the width of the front page (10.5 inches) and 3.5 inches high concerning the fact that (gasp and three palpitations) there were some irregularities in the account concerning the awarding of the Congressional Medal of Honor to Kentucky Marine Dakota Meyer recently by no less than the president. The paper devoted 3.5 full pages in the First Section to the account, prepared by Jonathan Landay, a writer employed by the McClatchy organization, owner of the newspaper, who was embedded in the military unit in which Meyer saw action.

Granted that McClatchy, as well as the Knight-Ridder outfit from which it bought the paper a few years ago, occupies the left-lunatic fringe of the liberal establishment and would naturally turn a jaundiced eye on anything military, this still seemed a bit like overkill. Four people, each standing on a different corner of an intersection, would look at the same auto accident on a calm, cloudless day and come forth with four different accounts. McClatchy apparently believes that in a lengthy firefight involving multiple deaths and wounded everyone involved should recount exactly, precisely, unmistakably, and completely accurately every single thing that happened.

There were, as might be expected, some discrepancies in the accounts concerning the action, but the notion that Landay, who obviously had an agenda, should be taken more seriously than anyone else is laughable. The account deserved a significant mention, not an outright effort (including maps and huge pictures) to virtually demonize Meyer, who certainly did not request consideration for a medal. He was nominated, as per protocol, by his commanding officer. Landay, a civilian the troops had to be bothered with protecting instead of focusing entirely on keeping themselves and their comrades alive, predictably said Meyer deserved the medal, as if anyone should care what he thought. In the online McClatchy bio of Landay, there is no mention that he has had any military experience.

In April 2007, Landay appeared on the PBS leftist corner known as Bill Moyers Journal to condemn directly the mainstream media’s mishandling of its reporting of the Iraqi war as alleged by them and, indirectly, the Bush administration. Dan Rather, famous (actually, infamous) for perpetrating the fraud concerning George Bush and the Texas Air National Guard in 2004, also appeared on the program, so the Landay/McClatchy bias is obvious. Nobody gets farther left than Moyers or more unsusceptible to belief than Rather.

As for the current matter, expect editorial comment in the coming days to the effect that war is bad, shouldn’t happen, volunteers can expect to be killed and that not even a scintilla of discrepancy should ever infiltrate a government document or action, never mind that the paper has to do its share of corrections. Also expect an editorial concerning the near-majestic actions of the president in getting the troops out of Iraq, notwithstanding that he only fulfilled the plans put into place before he became president. After all, his Nobel Peace Prize, awarded after only a few months in the presidency during which he began his worldwide apology efforts, places him on a level that’s nearly otherworldly.

As for the H-L, it has a built-in proclivity for hatchet jobs on entities it doesn’t like and has shown in the past just how seriously it takes this important responsibility. For instance, it didn’t like the idea that Southland Christian Church, probably the second largest church in the state, didn’t hold services on Christmas Day in 2005, and castigated the congregation royally. There was a darker underlying element at work, however, i.e., that Southland represented to the paper the Christian mindset, which is anathema to the “enlightened,” notably those in the editorial department and the “mainstream media” in general.

Or take the “University of the Cumberlands Affair” of March 2006. On seven days of a nine-day period, the paper made the expulsion of a homosexual student who “outed” himself on the Internet just three weeks before the end of the semester, front-page-above-the-fold stuff, positioned in the area devoted to the most important news of the world. This says something about the managerial mentality and professionalism attached to this publication. The school was simply carrying out a school policy, which also meant expulsion for known adultery and fornication.

In addition to the huge front-page segments, pictures, and headlines, the paper dedicated a huge plethora of columns and pictures to the subject on its interior pages, all in the front (A) “news, editorial, op-ed” section. In the process, it furnished free-of-charge in the supposed “news accounts” the information that a protest drawing people from all over the state would be held at UC, Williamsburg, Ky.

In the TV news accounts of that “protest effort,” there seemed to be more interviews with law enforcement people, standing around sort of slack-jawed and obviously wondering why they were there, than with the participants. The paper said “about 50” showed up in a state with a population of about 4.2 million, so there might have been 35-40 actual participants. There were 1,700 students at the school, so it might be correctly assumed that their apathy was evident. They knew and subscribed to the rules.

The question remains, even allowing for the paper’s mindset: Why such an inordinate hatchet-job on Meyer? In each of the matters mentioned above, the paper showed a mean-spiritedness hard to understand but endemic to “liberal thought” in most any area.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

***Addendum: On 16 December, the Herald-Leader posted a small below-the-fold front-page article, with a relatively small inside continuation (one-sixth of a page) noting that both the president and the Pentagon will let stand the account of Meyer’s actions in 2009, notwithstanding McClatchy’s take on the subject based on the “report” of Jonathan Landay.

An Arab Spring in Iraq Soon?

2011-12-14T05:01:00.000-08:00

The Arab Spring, about which President Obama has spoken glowingly, has gone through the summer and fall with what appears to be disastrous results for Egypt, with the jury out regarding Tunisia. The other uprisings, such as in Yemen, are yet to be judged but one thing seems clear enough, to wit, that Sharia Law will come to the fore as its proponents subdue less sanguinary opponents. The Muslim Brotherhood and the disparate elements of al Qaeda will prevail, not least because the deaths of women and children are simply incidental to strategy requiring that terrorism be the weapon of choice.

A new Arab Spring is likely to take place in Iraq in 2012, not long after the U.S. military presence is nullified, with only a hugely bloated American embassy staff in place, as well as a virtual army of U.S. contractors, who will continue to throw away the hard-earned cash confiscated through taxes from U.S. citizens, at least that part which is not squirreled away by the chief pooh-bahs of the Iraqi government. Governments change…people do not.

Iraq is 60% Shi’ite and Iran is totally Shi’ite, thus this overwhelming match-up of militant religionists will cause blood in the streets. Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shi’ite cleric of some sort at the time, raised his own army after the 2003 invasion by the U.S. and the coalition and waged his own bloody, well-documented war, finally easing off and, according to Jihad Watch, April 2008, departed for theological study in Qom, Iran. He will be a main player in Iraq, perhaps rising to the office of Iraqi Ayatollah, in which case the Iran/Iraq axis will be united and violently opposed to the U.S. and will dominate the Middle East, while at the same time managing huge reservoirs of oil.

The greatly outnumbered Kurds in the Iraqi North, also in the proximity of large oil reserves, likely will not stand to be governed by the Shi’ites in the South, and the Sunnis – Saddam’s gang – will be under the gun big-time as revenge works its way through the system. The memories don’t even have to be long with regard to the 400,000 or so Iraqis killed by the butcher of Baghdad, beginning only some 30 or so years ago.

Civil War is a distinct possibility, if not a probability, and Obama, who seems to fancy himself a golden-voiced diplomat of sorts, as well as whoever succeeds him, will have little influence. Muslims have no qualms about killing each other, but then neither did Americans 1861-65. The difference: both the cause (unity) and the method, warring armies, not terrorism. Muslims, strangely, fight and kill over religious issues. Al-Sadr’s father, an ayatollah, was supposedly killed by Saddam, so revenge is in order.

For his part, Obama contributed to the Arab Spring by invading Libya in March, unprovoked but causing significant death and devastation to that benighted country, already beleaguered by Qaddafi. When he speaks of the military dead vis-à-vis Iraq, he speaks hypocritically. At least the Americans were fighting as an armed force for a cause that received the imprimatur and active support of other nations such as Britain. Obama seems to have acted on either a whim or to prove something.

Obama may have caused as many or more deaths, mostly civilians including women and children, and did it by executive order with no approach to or permission from the Congress. He made sure no American boot touched the ground, thus foreclosing any official report concerning his disgraceful action. Such arrogance and lawlessness are intolerable. In the process, he configured the assassination of a head of state.

Now, State Secretary Clinton is belaboring the Syrian uprising. She has met with something called the Syrian National Council and Obama has called for Syrian President Assad to step down, just as he did vis-à-vis Mubarak in Egypt and Qaddafi in Libya. Both of the latter countries are in a state of chaos. After apologizing to the world for this country, Obama has now become the ugly American, earning distrust throughout the Middle East.

Though he had no vote regarding the Iraqi action since he wasn’t in the Senate in 2003, Obama has boasted of his disapproval of that action; yet, without a by-your-leave from the American people through their representatives, he attacked Libya, population 2 million less than that of New York City. One wonders if he intends to lead NATO from behind again in an attack to wipe Syrian planes from the sky and arm the Syrian National Council. The president is a loose cannon but American citizens are not ready for another war with a country that is no danger to it or the rest of the world.

It’s no wonder the latest polls indicate that about 79% of Americans think the country is headed the wrong way, disapprove strongly of the administration and Congress, and have lost hope. God help the United States in 2012!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama Plays the Class-Warfare Card

2011-12-10T06:41:00.000-08:00

One of the most despicable elements regarding either campaigning or governing is the encouragement and exploitation of class-warfare; yet, this is precisely the anchor of the speech that President Obama used to brainwash vulnerable public-school students in his speech on 06 December in Osawatomie, Kansas. As has been the case throughout his presidency in various parts of the world, he used the occasion to apologize to children for the sorry United States of America, which he described as eroding.

He left the students with the impression that greedy rich folks are the reason for the sorry state of affairs, notwithstanding that he’s rich himself and that he and his wife have profited greatly from the system he routinely excoriates on his campaign junkets described as doing the nation’s business and paid for by the taxpayers, while other candidates for office must hustle the cash to do the same. This is blatant dishonesty, which, if they had any incentive (or maybe enough intelligence), the teachers would remark to the students, thus nullifying Obama’s bona fides as a role model or mentor.

The thing that rankles most, though, is his outright lying in that speech. Here is part of what he said: “We all know the story by now: Mortgages sold to people who couldn’t afford them, or sometimes even understand them. Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. … Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn’t have the authority to look at all.”

Rich people had nothing to do with the fact that people who couldn’t afford houses nevertheless were given the privilege of buying them anyway, with the certain outcome being that they would be foreclosed. This stupidity was the result of something that came out of the Congress mostly under the auspices of the Clinton administration.

This is from Bloomberg Business Week by Peter Coy of 27 February 2008: “Add President Clinton to the long list of people who deserve a share of the blame for the housing bubble and bust. A recently re-exposed document shows that his administration went to ridiculous lengths to increase the national homeownership rate. It promoted paper-thin downpayments and pushed for ways to get lenders to give mortgage loans to first-time buyers with shaky financing and incomes. It’s clear now that the erosion of lending standards pushed prices up by increasing demand, and later led to waves of defaults by people who never should have bought a home in the first place.”

For Obama to use his class-warfare position on this subject is beyond dishonesty… .it approximates the furtherance of fraud. It incites class-envy, something so graphically illustrated in the recent Occupy Wall Street movement, protesters demanding that the government set the wages of everybody so that equity is established without any reference to education, risk-taking, incentive or even work-habits. This is the socialist model or, even worse but applicable, the communist model, the very approach turned down by the Great Depression citzens of the 1930s, even though the unemployment rate averaged about twice what it is now. They were determined that government would not run their lives.

This is from the Glenn Beck Web-site of 23 September 2008: “President Bush publicly called for GSE reform 17 times in 2008 alone before Congress acted. Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded, as the President’s repeated attempts to reform the supervision of these entities were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those who emphatically denied there were problems.” For those who claim bias, Beck listed the warnings, beginning with 2001 and ending with 2005, and this site can be easily googled for verification.

The regulators dissed by Obama were part of the Bush administration and, instead of being part of the problem, were part of the answer, except that people like Obama didn’t listen, including republicans as well as democrats. Obama was a senator, though rarely in the saddle, from 2005 until 2009. All one has to do is check the times the regulators appeared before the appropriate Congressional committees to see where the fault lay. It was not with the regulators but with the supposed “fixers,” which proved that incompetents have no trouble being elected to Congress.

These are the average top-bracket tax-rates for the following decades: 1930s – 57.5%; 1940s – 85.4%; 1950s – 91.3%; 1960s – 78%; 1970s – 70%; 1980s – 48%; 1990s – 37%; 2000s – 36%. There was a time(s) when the legislators decided to finance the government on the backs of the rich. This was never fair, though it’s arguable that a progressive system, with the rich paying somewhat more than others since they have more materially to protect, might be fair. Currently , there are six tax brackets, with appropriate earnings-limits – 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35%, the latter for incomes over $379,150. Additionally, 47% of households pay no taxes, meaning that little more than half the workers/producers of wealth pay the whole freight.

Those in the top bracket pay 250% more of their income than those in the lowest bracket. When a lowest-bracket tax-payer remits $100 in taxes to the government, his counterpart in the top bracket pays $25,000. The lowest payer’s top earnings-limit is $8500, so he pays $850. The top payer’s lowest limit is $379,150, so he pays $132,702.50 at the same time. If he makes a million bucks, the government gets $350,000, or well over a third of his income. The president doesn’t think this is fair, says so, and, ipso facto, plays the class-warfare card. On a percentage basis, it is more than fair, but he intends to put the government’s back on a tiny number of people, letting them support in many cases those who live on welfare because its a way of life.

Make no mistake. Obama intends to drive the tax rates up on the rich this time and on everybody else next time. This levels the playing field and kills incentive.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Cain & the Ironies

2011-12-06T13:10:00.001-08:00

The ironies connected to politics are mesmerizing. Imagine, for instance, the deep-sixing by especially the mainstream media of Herman Cain in light of the reelection to the presidency of Bill Clinton, the darling of both the media and the Left, in 1992 and 1996. At least Cain denied all peccadilloes, for which no proof has ever been presented with regard to sexual harassment or infidelity. Paula Jones actually sued Clinton in 1994 over his crude propositioning of her in 1991…and won $850,000 worth of revenge. Or…there was Jennifer Flowers…remember her? She claimed a 12-year affair (sound familiar vis-à-vis Ginger and Herman) with Clinton and almost derailed his first run for the office in 1992. The public turned a blind eye. She had tape recordings – killers!

One wonders why the ladies came out of the woodwork to inform on Cain, when none of them offered a scintilla of proof. This is no brief for Cain but the coincidences are far too big a stretch. Attorney Gloria Allred even paraded Sharon Bialek through all the TV gossip shows to describe Herman’s advances in an auto but the only third party to the juicy affair was the spare tire, no help at all in her crusade. The logical question: What was in it for her and the other women and which PI fingered her for the duty? Could the DNC have provided the finances? Only the shadow knows.

Cain appeared to be weathering the storm regarding the first four ladies, who only talked of some sort of harassment, just their words against his. Ho-hum! After Clinton, this was Boy Scout stuff. So…a bigger gun was needed – Ginger White – the clincher (in more ways than one), who simply appeared on the scene and spoke of a 13-year relationship, sometimes (gasp) a sexual one, and, of course, explained that Cain had helped her financially. Was he buying something…or was he just big-hearted, as he said? Only the shadow knows.

Cain might have been guilty in every case, not that it would seem to matter all that much…after Clinton. If so, he might have fessed-up and beaten the rap. In this country, homosexuals are allowed to marry each other in some states so if sexual perversions vis-à-vis natural functions are acceptable what could possibly be wrong with simple infidelity? When he was shepherding the healthcare bill through the Senate in 2009, Senator Baucus was also settling his mistress in Washington, where she also coincidentally got a job in the Department of Justice. If he runs again, he will likely be reelected to the Senate, the obvious sleaze not a bother.

Obama will have a billion or so dollars to put into his campaign and his chances of winning are good. Incumbency has its advantages. If he were to run against another African American, however, especially at this time of recession with which Obama seems unable to cope, all that money might not do the job. One wonders if the White House and all apparatchiks connected thereto decided that the dirt just had to be found. So…the hunt might have been on.

Ginger White was a gold mine regarding juicy turpitude but one wonders what her motivation for coming forward was. After all, by her own account Cain had been her benefactor and might justifiably have been awarded a degree of loyalty. Why would she appear on TV throughout the world and announce she was a whore and that Cain was a solicitor of sex. She said there was no love involved, at least on her part.

There are billionaires in both parties, so coming up with enough cash to entice Ms. White into proclaiming her prostitution would be no problem. George Soros, the Far Left’s bagman, would count a million bucks just chump change. Could potential cash have been her motivation? Or…did Cain figure he’d better cut the affair, assuming it existed for the sake of argument, thus dropping her for fear she might “out” him, only to discover he might have saved himself the trouble? A scorned (and financially challenged) woman can be problematic. Only the Shadow knows.

And the sleaze goes on. One might think Newt Gingrich could not be worried about “outings” of one kind or another since his peccadilloes have been a matter of record for decades. But along comes Minority Leader Pelosi and threatens to expose stuff from a House-committee investigation of Gingrich long ago, thereby probably violating a House rule of some kind…but all’s fair in hate and war. The demos are good at digging up stuff and Pelosi is a good example of the corruption that thrives upon it. The democrats make noises that they hope Gingrich is the candidate because he would be so easy to defeat. Apparently, Pelosi would disagree. With his record, Obama needs to fear any republican.

In the meantime, all the other candidates need to understand that the private investigators and/or capitol staffers are digging.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Prexy - 2011-Version

2011-12-02T07:41:00.000-08:00

The prexy flew away today,
He does the same most every day,
He rides for free on Air Force One…
Reminds again…he said, “We won!”

He claims his work is never done
But leaves it on his desk undone
And claims to listen on those trips
But mostly rants with loads of quips.

His caucus fusses, fumes and fights –
Those Congresspersons feel his slights
And, wondering, cry “Uncle Tom,
Do you forget where you are from?”

He once would walk Chicago’s streets
To organize on south-side beats
But then he went to Washington,
Where life is easy…much more fun.

He found that Wall Street was his friend –
Discovered money…without end
And soon forgot those sidewalks bare…
To find him on them would be rare.

His game is redistributing
The wealth, of course, but everything,
Like medicines and plastic hips,
Explains it all in TV-clips.

He bit upon the baited hook
Of planet-savers who mistook
As truth outrageous, silly claims
By frauds that Earth was bound for flames.

And even when the frauds were caught,
Their work with lies so fully fraught,
The prexy would not change his mind,
Would lay harsh tax on all things mined.

The prexy says, “No drilling oil,
Far too unsafe for sky and soil;”
Its products cause grim C-O-2,
The very gas he exhales, too.

The theme was “Change” when he campaigned,
He thought the voters greatly pained
By what they saw – things getting worse –
And promised he would bring reverse.

He thought folks wanted Gitmo gone
And campaign-swore to get it done,
Alas, Gitmo is thriving yet
And will not die…not on a bet!

He thought to try jihadists here,
The biggest show in his career,
Alas, the public rose as one
And said, “No way,”…the public won.

He confiscated many banks
And threatened Ford, which said “No thanks,”
But took G-M and Chrysler, too,
And told the unions, “I love you.”

As if that was not quite enough
To save car-makers from his bluff,
He bribed with billions, making deals,
For trading clunkers for new wheels.

Some folks get sick, some live too long,
Some are obese or weak or strong,
The prexy knew that government
Should change this strange predicament.

And so he brought about healthcare
To see that government would share
Its wisdom with the sick and sore,
But, truth to tell, just call the score.

His grand idea, called stimulus,
Meant billions poured on all of us
To make jobs by the hundred thou –
It bombed and things are much worse now.

Alas! He brought more loss, not gain,
And greatly multiplied the pain –
He promised “Change” and kept his word,
He brought a change that was absurd.

He looked around for things that might
Take notice from his sorry plight,
He called upon his wisest geek,
Who said, “Just bomb a place that’s weak.”

And so he ordered out the planes
And missiles marking skyward lanes
To bomb back to the old Stone Age
The folks in Libya...what a sage!

The order was executive,
He knew that Congress would not give
Consent to bomb a sovereign state –
Kill innocents, both soon and late.

The Libyans never posed a threat,
Not then, not now, nor ever – Yet
They were the choice since they were weak –
The strategy…attack the meek.

And so the prexy proved his strength
By bombing Libya, width and length,
Announced it on vacation trip –
Brasilia…a deadly quip.

So now in Libya chaos reigns,
The liberated with new pains,
Disaster throughout all the land
Account the prexy’s brave new stand.

The prexy’s aim – revitalize
His base to help him realize
Another term to finish off
The U-S-A and all who scoff.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

"Debate" as Circus

2011-11-30T14:44:00.000-08:00

Perhaps in order to make use of free advertising as much as for any other reason, the republican candidates have allowed themselves to be manipulated into some sort of circus act, such as the “dancing bears,” under the euphemism “debates.” None of the campaign “debates” are actual “debates” but merely sideshows sated with sound-bites. A much better venue would be discussion-oriented sit-down sessions in which the candidates introduce their own subjects and then take the time to discuss their varying approaches to the nation’s problems.

Such an approach would be untenable now since there are too many candidates to allow for it; however, it could be pulled-off in groups of two or three and certainly should be the protocol for the actual “debates” once the field is winnowed down to two or three. This should also be the approach taken for the campaigns next year leading up to the election once the parties choose their respective candidates. Watching a two- or three-hour session between Obama and Gingrich or Romney could be enlightening rather than being bored to tears by an argumentative gaggle of moderators managing bells, whistles and lights and playing the gotcha game, with the candidates acting like schoolchildren.

Such sessions could be devoted to specific topics or, since one area of government impacts every other area, comprehensive discussions over an adequate period of time. I’ve watched little of the debates but enough to recognize that the self-appointed “stars” of the shows are the moderators, who seem far more interested in arguing their views rather than listening to those of the “debaters.” Their questions are longer than the answers – or at least seem that way – leaving the impression that they figure neither the candidate nor the public is up to speed and has to be educated before an answer can be understood. The networks, both traditional and cable, have their own agendas and seem anxious to advance them.

The media types classify themselves as journalists but often they are entertainers as well, such as when they do their “shows” on radio or TV. Scott Pelley of CBS, for instance, does “straight news” but probably considers himself more of a commentator. In the early days of the nightly news programs – the days of Huntley/Brinkley, for instance – fifteen minutes was all that was needed to report the world news of the day. Later, the time was increased to a half-hour (about 22 minutes of actual news), with longer programs such as CBS’s Sixty Minutes devoted to more comprehensive treatments of news events. In every case, the bias of the media entity could be engaged in an attempt to make the public think one way or another.

But the mother-lode of entertainment resides in the “debates.” News-people can take excerpts from these acts and use them in their supposed news programs. In this way, they can ridicule the candidates, taking nearly everything out of context if, indeed, there ever actually is a context. For instance, Rick Perry was ridiculed on one of the democrat-oriented networks the other day for noting the voting age as twenty-one, counter to Amendment XXVI of 1971. It was a simple mistake – the age had been 21 for scores of years until changed to 18 – but the gaffe was too good to let go. The same was true when he failed to remember one of the three cabinet departments he would eliminate if elected.

President Obama once indicated that there are 57 states in the Union. Perry would have done well to mention that. The president also referred to a military medical corpsman as a “corpse-man,” but Perry didn’t mention that. Brian Williams asked Perry about his sleep habits, implying that the governor surely could not sleep peacefully at night in light of the executions that take place in Texas prisons. Perry could have harpooned him for such a stupid and arrogant exhibition of sophomoric banality, but he didn’t. Herman Cain was ridiculed unmercifully for seeming not to know about Libya and the seven-month slaughter that Obama introduced to that benighted nation without so much as a fare-thee-well from the Congress.

The festive atmosphere attending the “debates” also makes them little more than circuses, with the attendees booing or applauding as the spirit moved them. These confrontations should never take place in front of an audience, since the principals could be expected to do more posturing for the cameras and mikes than disseminating information. In fact, they would be better done via radio, when complete attention could be given to what they say and not how they comport themselves before the cameras. One has only to remember that famous Nixon/Kennedy debate of 1960 to know this.

The stakes are too high to allow the frivolousness that accompanies the “debates.” Nor are the “debates” fair since the moderators give time to the candidates not on an equity basis but on their whims, those of the moderators, that is. Depending upon whom they want to ridicule the most or whom they want to help the most, they can configure these clambakes any way they please. By their willingness to be a part of these mismanaged affairs, the candidates become willing tools of people more interested in whatever turns them on than on speaking to the public good.

As the field is winnowed, the candidates left standing should insist to the networks that they intend to configure the “debates” in such a way that actual debating will take place, first among themselves, then with respect to the general election. To do otherwise is to allow themselves to be duped by the well-rehearsed moderator smoothies, who have complete control of what happens, the “stars,” in other words, and the establishments they represent. If the networks don’t like it, they can lump it, but that’s not likely to happen. The commercials are too important for that. Additionally, the “debates,” in the proper configuration, should be conducted only on the public television stations, with moderators (and commercials) a thing of the past as the candidates take over the management involving very high stakes.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Occupiers...Ignorant or What?

2011-11-28T08:17:00.000-08:00

Ironically, the Occupy Wall Street activity of the last few months eventuated from a call to action by something called Adbusters Magazine, a Toronto publication. A column by the magazine’s editor in chief and senior editor, Kalle Lasn and Micah White, respectively, appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader of 27 November. Presumably, there’s no Wall Street in Toronto, so the hassle in the park in New York City and in areas of cities throughout the U.S. was precipitated in Canada but carried out in this country.

Lasn and White wrote this: “For two heady months, the amorphous encampment in Lower Manhattan’s Zucotti Park had been the symbolic heart of Occupy Wall Street, the birthplace of the greatest social justice movement to emerge in the United States since the Civil Rights era.” They also referred to Zucotti Park as the movement’s “spiritual home,” whatever that means.

The park occupiers were expelled by New York’s finest at the behest of NYC Mayor Bloomberg after they had turned the privately owned park into a pig sty, as had also been the case in other “encampments” throughout the country, marked by everything from rape to doping to living in squalor. This doesn’t mean that there were no good folks involved, only that the good folks, if they ever had a cause, soon lost it to the usual anarchists and freeloaders who are always on the make toward getting something for nothing.

The occupiers moved on Wall Street to get “social justice.” Social justice is what anyone says it is, ergo, social justice is without definition. In other words, social justice was the only thing amorphous about the whole shooting match, not the encampment, which had a definite form, both the site and the collection of warm bodies, which could be identified by the naked eye as hard, shaped objects, making them counter to the definition of amorphous, which is “having no definite form,” according to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate, 11th Edition.

The definition of justice is “the administration of law.” The definition of social is “of or relating to human society.” So…if there is a definition of social justice, it might be “the governing of society,” probably the last thing in which the occupiers had an interest, at least with respect to the police…or, maybe the occupiers’ position was that government should completely run everyone’s life, a definition of socialism, which seems to be the preference of the president, also, though he’s been wise enough to stay out of the occupier mess, not least because he’s entrenched in the “Wall Street Evil” himself.

Lasn and White compared – and quite favorably – their movement with the so-called “Arab Spring” dustups in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia earlier this year and carried off by young people. They wondered why Obama, who has spoken glowingly of the “Arab Spring,” didn’t acknowledge them and claimed their people to largely be the ones who elected him.

Perhaps they didn’t understand that Obama had fashioned the Libyan debacle, causing the killing of thousands of innocent people in the bombardments – his version of inculcating the “Arab Spring” that lasted for seven months, notwithstanding his claim that the butchering would be over in “days, not months.” His version of the “Arab Spring” was exponentially bloodier than Egypt’s in Tahrir Square. He should be the occupiers’ version of Genghis Khan, who created the largest empire in the world, at least until the British came along. His commands to “charge” in battle were conveyed by the banging of huge drums…reminiscent, of course, of Zucotti Park.

The occupiers are out to get the top one percent and make them pay their fair share of taxes. This is from the Tax Foundation on 29 July 2009: “Indeed, the IRS data shows that in 2007—the most recent data available—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. … To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.” Nothing has changed materially since 2009.

What is the “fair share?” Presently, the top one percent pays the highest tax-rate of any group into the federal coffers – 35%. The lowest rate is 10%, but about 47% of households pay no taxes, so hardly more than half the population pays all the taxes. This means that nearly half the population has the power in the voting booth to tell the other half how its money will be confiscated and spent. When will the tipping-point come?

In 1945, the highest tax rate was 94% as World War II ended and most other brackets involved high percentages as well. The top rate stayed in the 90s until 1964, when it was lowered to 77%. All Citizens were paying off the unavoidable war costs (the costs also connected to the Korean War 1950-53) as well as financing the Marshall Plan that helped salvage Europe. In 1964, the lowest rate was at 16% but the government got its house in order. Nothing today is remotely comparable to these events. Since then and especially concerning the housing bubble that caused the current recession, the government has gotten its house out of order and needs to implement drastic austerity, not new giveaways or tax hikes.

Both democrats and republicans have advanced the notion that the government is the “sugar daddy” and entity of first resort in the matter of living the good life. Lasn and White referenced the civil rights enactments, apparently as great examples of “social justice.” What they didn’t mention was the fact that the entitlements have been the direct cause of the disintegration of the African-American family in creating a permanent underclass perpetuated generationally and with enormous costs paid by all taxpayers. If they think this outcome represented “social justice,” they have no sense of history.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Macho Entertainer or Humble Grunt?

2011-11-26T04:33:00.000-08:00

The Thanksgiving weekend, on the basis of sheer volume of games alone, furnishes the penultimate look at the crudity and coarseness that virtually define the sport of football, especially on the professional level. The game has always been marked by a certain viciousness, but the current product has changed the way the viciousness is administered, the main difference between now and other years being with the intent to hurt the opposing player rather than simply neutralize his effectiveness. The use of steroids and other “performance enhancing” drugs has contributed to the mayhem as multitudes of players, “bulking up,” have sacrificed long-term health for short-term success and dollars.

The game has also changed drastically with regard to on-field behavior. Taunting the opposition and committing personal fouls are commonplace. Celebrating, especially in calling attention to oneself, has become irksome, especially since the notion of sportsmanship has been all but laughed to scorn. The ridiculous body contortions such as the beating of one’s chest (like the apes in the jungle) or the banging of bodies against those of teammates or the silly skipping or jumping into the stands to be congratulated by the spectators cheapens the sport, though not the athletes, who rake in millions. According to Bloomberg Business Week of 27 January 2011, the average yearly NFL player-salary is $1.9 million, with the average career lasting 3.5 years. A multitude of careers last much longer, increasing the salaries exponentially so that the player who uses good judgment can retire at a young age in exceedingly comfortable circumstances.

The National Football League teams entertain millions in the stands and tens of millions couch potatoes watching the games on TV. It’s a big business largely built on sensationalism (bone-breaking and concussions, for instance, or race-car wrecks) and supposedly separates the men from the boys, as claim other pro leagues. The real separation occurs elsewhere:

Macho Entertainer or Humble Grunt

On touchdown turf he struts his stuff,
As if to say, “I am enough
For folks to see an earthly god
On what I turn to sacred sod.”

He flashes tattoos, arm-long length,
Slam-dunks to show his super strength
And does a dance around his foe
To taunt and prove him just too slow.

He knocks it way beyond the fence,
He is the best – just common sense –
He pumps his arm while rounding third
And gives the pitcher…yeah…the bird.

He skates his man into the glass
And breaks his skull – ain’t that a gas –
And waves his stick to celebrate
The blood and gore…the fans elate.

He gently bumps the fender…so…
One-hundred-eighty miles to go –
Just one more fiery spinout bright,
One less to pass to racing’s height.

He does a header to the sphere
And then another at an ear
And trips the goalee, breaks his knee,
Waves to the crowd, “Just look at me!”

They put their millions in the bank,
With just themselves alone to thank
For derring-do to entertain…
Just playing games…and being vain.

And meanwhile, bivouacked in the sand
Are citizens whose noble stand
Means life or death throughout the world,
Where freedom’s flags are tightly furled.

They do not strut or taunt or tease
Or act like asses in wealth’s ease,
They grimly act when duty calls,
Face bullets, never soccer balls.

Or, they are camped in mountains steep
And know no ease…and poorly sleep…
And fight each minute of each day,
With no timeouts to get the play.

They do not strut or tease or taunt
Or flex their biceps thus to flaunt
How great they are, how great their wealth –
Oh no…their lives depend on stealth.

On touchdown turf he struts his stuff
And in his mind he is enough;
The G-I has it rough and tough,
And only he is quite enough.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Penn State...Just Normal?

2011-11-23T10:47:00.000-08:00

The Penn State affair regarding the alleged pedophilia of a former football offensive coordinator has stirred the nation into spasms of discomfiture, just as the same subject has done with respect to the Catholic Church and its predatory priests. This indicates that there’s yet a modicum of decency in this country and an aversion to sexual perversions, at least regarding this particular manifestation.

This, however, presents a question about how deep into decency the public is. Many polls indicate – and in some states legislation has confirmed – that a large segment of the society approves of marriage between two men or two women. Indeed, President Obama, in a flip-flop from 2008 that could only accrue to inordinate campaign opportunism concerning the office, has indicated that he approves of two men walking the aisle in sacred ceremony. This is an actual placing of his imprimatur on homosexual behavior that is intolerably gross and filthy at best, and criminal at worst.

Those who argue the reverse may be quick to say that there’s a difference between consenting adults and put-upon children. Not so fast. The sanctioning of homosexual marriage is also the sanctioning of homosexual adoptions or the birthing of children by surrogates to be raised in homosexual households. This exposes them to weird sexual practices never meant by either nature or God, as manifested by the structure of the human body and mind, to say nothing of the scriptures, though the former alone (for the benefit of the atheists) is proof positive that homosexual behavior is unnatural and unseemly.

Being reared in such a household is bad for reasons of physical as well as mental health. An eminent physician, Dr. James Holsinger, was nominated by Bush 43 to be surgeon general a few years ago. He was not only deep-sixed by then-senator Ted Kennedy, before whose committee he had to appear (I watched the hearing), but also suffered condescension from the senator that was so hypocritical as to be laughable.

Dr. Holsinger had prepared a paper some time before that outlined the physical injuries to be experienced by homosexuals during what they, as well as the politically correct, call sexual intercourse of one kind or another. Actually, it was a clinical stating of the obvious, such as what happens during anal or oral sex-play. The senator considered that carefully researched and prepared paper a horrendous example of political un-correctness but, of course, had never demonstrated his disdain of his own church (Roman Catholic) for the same reason by just leaving it.

The point of the paper was, simply, that homosexual behavior is physically harmful. This doesn’t even take into account the proclivity for HIVAids accruing to homosexuals, who are probably known as much for their “promiscuity” as for anything else. They engage in orgies without discrimination, disregarding the effect their behavior might have on others. Apparently, the senator, whose private life read like an open sewer, was not impressed with merely observing the obvious.

One of the most sickening examples of moral turpitude occurred during the presidential campaign in 2008 and was foisted off on the public by the democrats in their primary-campaigns. It was that famous (or infamous) “debate” conducted by a LGBT (or something like that) group in which all but two of the many candidates, Biden and Dodd, participated. They had the good sense not to place their public stamp of approval on perversion, no matter how they felt in private. I watched some of it and was sickened by the fawning of folks like Hillary Clinton, transparently pandering to practitioners of perversion and thus awarding unnatural behavior their stamp of approval.

This “debate” was indicative of the acceptance by much of the public – in the name of recognizing diversity as god – of being fair to all. It’s reflected in the public schools, in which sexual activity of any kind by students is practically sanctioned as absolutely unavoidable to the point of being virtually encouraged, the philosophy being ascendant that “normal” people can’t and shouldn’t try to withstand the primitive urges one might observe in a zoo or stockyard. Their bottom line, after all, is simply that people are just animals under another name.

So the president thinks men should marry men if the urge so drives them. What, then, does he think about pedophilia between “consenting” participants, or what does he think about marriages among those who don’t like the restraint of its existing just for “pairs?” Why not marriages for groups? What does he think about incest, which, after all, is just a privacy matter – right?

Yes…the Penn State affair furnishes a venue for a thorough self-examination in this country with regard to what’s acceptable in an orderly society. Unfortunately, the nation is tilting toward perversion as normal, a certain predictor of a society rotting from the inside, not being overtaken by an outside force. After all, in changing his position, doesn’t the president feel that the nation is now more prurient-oriented than it was in 2008? He’s campaigning again, so it’s fair to assume that premise.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Penn State Affair

2011-11-19T07:11:00.000-08:00

The recent scandal at Penn State regarding its former football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky is not in the league with the priest-pedophile peccadilloes and cover-ups that have virtually defined the Catholic Church for a decade or so, but it’s just as bad in terms of the harm done to individuals. The effort made by the administration of Penn State, i.e., the officials who should have taken immediate and drastic action, reflects that of the Church in keeping everything quiet and just moving the perpetrators from one assignment to another. This represented criminal activity by both the Church- and Penn State-officials.

The Grand Jury report concerning this matter outlines the harm done by Sandusky to a number of victims, all minors and victims of pedophilia/child molestation at his hands and graphically described in the report. There’s no way to know how many other children and teenagers he violated. Athletic director Tim Curley and university vice president Gary Schultz, who was in charge of university police, were indicted on charges of perjury in their grand jury testimony and for failure to report the incident to legal authorities. Both men stepped down after being indicted but the school’s trustees also fired Penn State president Graham Spanier and football coach Joe Paterno.

Strangely and while there have been firings, the eyewitness to the incident leading to the Grand Jury report, Mike McQueary, also an assistant coach, has only been placed on administrative leave. By his own account, he made no effort to stop the obscene machinations used by Sandusky on the boy, aged 10 or 11, in a shower facility. Instead, he left the scene and didn’t report the incident until the next day when he approached not the men responsible for the conduct of the university or the university police or the city police but the football coach, Joe Paterno, who reported the incident to Curley the next day. McQueary later changed his story but it has not been confirmed or corroborated by the officials he cited.

Sandusky retired in 1999 and had no connection to the football program or university, though he was still allowed to use Penn State facilities, such as the weight room and showers. This is not unusual on probably most campuses. One can only wonder at the possible number of civil suits against Sandusky, Penn State officials and the university as other men come forward in the coming days to level charges regarding their experiences with Sandusky when they were much younger.

The attempt at cover-up is not unusual with regard to the university, or most institutions, for that matter. One of Penn State’s professors, Dr. Michael Mann, was caught up in the “climate-gate” scandal a few years ago when it was discovered through the “outing” of e-mails that he and climate researchers in England had perpetrated a fraud with respect to any significant manmade global warming. They were high-profile operatives in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and their work precipitated the dire predictions about people virtually killing existence through pouring carbon dioxide into the air.

Actually, the earth as a whole has been cooling for a number of years, simply going through a climate cycle. A faculty committee at Penn State (no outsiders) reviewed Mann’s work last year to assure that it met proper academic standards. He was cleared of any wrongdoing, despite the e-mails and the findings of Mann’s peers. The integrity of the university was thus protected, never mind that leaders throughout the world still take the dire predictions seriously. Indeed, the U.S. House even passed a cap/trade bill designed to make energy costs skyrocket. The Senate hasn’t touched it.

The firestorm that’s ranged around Paterno is the puzzler. He fulfilled his chain-of-command responsibilities when he informed Curley, part of the school’s administration, of the matter but apparently did no follow-up with respect to actions taken…or not taken. Detractors seem to be saying that he was derelict in his duties, even though he was not a witness to anything. He has said himself that he wished he had done more. Did he mean follow-up or do the detractors believe he knew of Sandusky’s perfidies already and hadn’t stopped the man?

At age 84 and in his forty-sixth year as head coach, Paterno had already been under extreme local pressure to step aside from coaching even though his teams were doing well. He had given no indication that he would, so could the attack on him have been one of opportunism satisfied? That’s possible but it doesn’t account for the general public’s reaction. Linking him with the pedophilia, as if he had somehow given his imprimatur to Sandusky’s evil, seems far too big a stretch. In any case, stripping him as well as his teams of all recognition concerning the achievements they made is what some people want. The whole affair is messy but this seems a bit much.

Sandusky had already given evidence of unacceptable behavior with boys. People who knew of this and did nothing are culpable, including Paterno, although it’s hard to do much without either an accuser or an eyewitness. The eyewitness failed and the university failed. The jury is out on Paterno.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Tyranny - VETERANS DAY

2011-11-11T17:06:00.000-08:00

The recent attempts in England, Spain, and other European countries, not to mention in Islamic-controlled countries throughout the world, by jihadist fanatics to kill innocent people in order to make some kind of point is just the latest example that tyranny-by-terrorism is the weapon of choice by the religious cowardly in its effort to control the world. The penultimate example in this country was experienced on 9/11

By contrast, when the colonists fought tyranny in order to gain independence, they fought against an army, not against women and children. That's the difference between civilized people and animals, notwithstanding any allusions to "Allah," the cult-figure of worship, along with Mohammed, around which Islam is configured. Hopefully, those with illusions that the Islamic cutthroats can be neutralized in any other way than military defeat will not ascend to high office in this country, since tyranny is a perennial threat to every generation and must be defeated in every generation.

Unfortunately and despite the fact that Libya has never posed a threat to this country, President Obama introduced terrorism as a weapon of choice last March when he ordered the decent members of the military of this country to commit violent acts against Libya that were certain to kill/maim innocent women and children. Joined later by NATO, to its eternal shame, Obama saw that this terrorism continued for some seven months (he said it would last “days”), with no accounting of civilian losses, certain to be many thousands. The result seems to be the introduction to Libyan society of Sharia Law, which is both anti-American and anti-women. It’s also the result of using terrorism, a shameful outcome. Tyranny, whether advanced by terrorism-by-air or boots-on-the-ground, is intolerable and must be fought. This is appropriate on Veterans Day 2011.

The muffled sound of drum and fife
And musketry in mortal strife
And voices raised in anger, pain,
Or mourning those among the slain
Are sensed when contemplating still
The carnage of a Bunker Hill,
When only battles - bloody, fierce -
The wall of tyranny could pierce.
Then comes to mind the gory scenes
From Queenston Heights to New Orleans
When tyranny again was banned
Upon the sea, upon the land;
And one can sense again the sound
When roaring cannons shook the ground
And mortal men...to make men free...
Would enter immortality.
On Shiloh’s bloody ground that day
They died with valor in full sway,
Or Gettysburg...Chancellorsville,
Where brothers each might brother kill;
One hears the massive, tragic groan
As tens of thousands would atone
- With blood - for hated slavery...
The vilest form of tyranny.
When jaded beasts oppress the poor
And close to them sweet freedom’s door,
It falls upon the free...the strong
Throughout the world to right this wrong;
At Santiago, brave men fell,
And San Juan Hill became a hell,
But men who found eternity
Gained entry scourging tyranny.
Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood,
Where thousands died, but others stood
Their ground with blood and sweat and fears,
And buried comrades through their tears;
And one can sense the frightful sounds
Of tanks and planes emitting rounds
From lethal, modern weaponry
To end the threat of tyranny.
To end the threat of tyranny? -
Ah...no...remember Normandy,
Or Iwo Jima, Anzio,
Where once again the blood must flow;
And one may close the eyes and see
And hear the mighty guns at sea
And wonder why it all must be...
But knows deep down...end tyranny.
So listen!...hear the muffled roar
Of new jet planes now bound for war,
Of new invasions from the sea,
The dying fighting tyranny;
And names like Inchon, Pork Chop Hill,
And Bloody Ridge - remembered still -
Assault the mind, yet augur peace,
In hope that tyranny will cease.
But hope, though strong, has little worth
As long as despots roam the earth,
As long as beasts whose prime resource
Is tyranny...forge brutal force;
So listen...as the jungle screams,
And those who die are shorn of dreams
At Pleiku, Khe Sanh, and Da Nang,
Where flags from coffins daily hang.
No…evil tyranny survives,
Each generation robbed of lives
Attempting to wipe out its curse,
Each war the next one to rehearse;
Recall the battle in the sand -
Exploding missiles as they land
On Persian Gulf, Kuwait, Iraq,
Mad tyranny again to block.
As in most centuries before,
The twenty-first begins with war
When evil men in Allah’s name
Torch innocents in jet-fuel flame;
Their leaders learn that they will pay
In Afghan mountains day by day,
Or in Iraqi towns and sand
An awesome price when good men stand.
************
In tranquil fields throughout the world,
Our dead are marked by flags unfurled,
Or marked by nature’s restless waves,
Beneath the seas in timeless graves;
Yes, thus it is, and thus will be...
Until God’s final, terse decree...
But until then, now strong and free,
The decent must kill tyranny.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Bialek...a Fraud?

2011-11-08T19:13:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the most serious problem President Obama and the Democrat Party see currently with respect to the 2012 election is Herman Cain, not because he’s a republican but because he’s an African-American republican. If Cain should become the nominee, Obama and the democrats couldn’t possibly play the race card, which is their ace-in-the-hole in most every circumstance, whether political, moral or whatever. The democrats have always taken the black vote for granted (94% or so democrat-guaranteed), and black votes – with little or no payback – can swing elections. If even 30% of blacks voted for Cain, the antithesis of the Jesse-Jackson-gimme-philosophy, Obama could be in trouble.

The power of incumbency is legendary and hard to thwart. This, coupled with the fact that the republican white candidates have elicited only tepid interest from the public, gives Obama a distinct edge. So…getting rid of Cain is the main objective of the democrats now. The quickest and surest way to neuter a candidate is to dig up dirt. Enter the still nameless women, at least one of whom accepted a bribe in the 1990s to keep quiet about an alleged incident involving Cain (though she has just favored talking if ALL the women with grievances will hold some kind of affair and concentrate their attacks on Cain), another who claimed to have officially complained back then and another who has simply said Cain did something.

All of this rigmarole comprises “he said, she said” stuff, hardly convincing though Cain might actually have offended these women, who, however, have claimed no physical impropriety by Cain. Now, enter a gal who says she wants to put a face on the problem with Cain. She does what any thinking gal would do and hires a lawyer. Why does she need a lawyer? Cain is a public figure so she could claim he stripped naked and spent a month with her in Timbuktu…and get away with it. Instead, she described a scene with Cain in an automobile, with no witnesses to corroborate anything and thus no story.

She needs a lawyer to steer her in the right direction regarding TV appearances, books – maybe even a Playboy centerfold, from all of which elements the lawyer will share the proceeds. The woman, Sharon Bialek, claimed she just wanted to set the record straight about the lecherous Cain and vindicate the women who remain anonymous by choice, having been terribly mistreated but unwilling to face the public. Anyone believing that is invited to buy the proverbial bridge for 99 cents.

Women are the smarter of the sexes and some have determined that in this chivalrous society they can publicly accuse any man of anything – real, imagined, or maliciously contrived – and be both automatically believed and protected from being identified. The man’s reputation is of no consequence whether or not he’s guilty of anything. The media loves this stuff and is complicit in whatever subterfuge or opportunism is involved. Accusations regarding sex never go away, whether true or not, so the man’s reputation is forever sullied, no matter his innocence.

With her background, Bialek might actually help Cain. She’s had nine jobs over the past 17 years and for living arrangements is shacked-up with her “fiance,” euphemism for current live-in-guy-or-gal. She filed for bankruptcy in both 1991 and 2001 and had a baby in 1999 that eventuated in a paternity lawsuit filed against her. As anyone can see, her background is impeccable. If she felt compelled to look out for the interests of other innocent women, she could have contacted any number of media outlets but apparently she felt that contacting a lawyer would be the proper thing to do.

According to the Associated Press, partly on the advice her then-boyfriend, a pediatrician, Bialek claims she set up a meeting with Cain in order to get his help in her job-search some 14 years ago but one has to wonder (perhaps along with Cain at the time) if she was just offering her services. As proof of Cain’s chicanery, she has offered the fact that she told at least two people about the matter at the time. When CNN’s Piers Morgan asked for their identification the other evening, her lawyer, Gloria Allred, informed him that their identities couldn’t be divulged, so the public is being asked to accept her word, as loony-tunes as that is. A simple phone call to Cain, whom she supposedly already knew, would have sufficed in the first place, so one wonders why she had to travel from Chicago to Washington for the tete-a-tete.

As of July 2009, Bialek also owed $5,100 in back taxes, according to the Associated Press, but that’s small potatoes compared to Treasury Secretary Geightner’s tax-cheating. With Allred in tow – or vice versa – Bialek has made the morning TV circuit, describing the sleaze, and had her CNN 15 minutes of fame with Morgan, the current Larry King clone, who would feel uncomfortable asking anything of substance. One remembers his recent attempt to put words in Harry Connick’s mouth. Connick was having none of it. Okay…that’s the most of Morgan’s clambake I’ve ever seen but it was enough.

Even though the Bialek affair is weird and totally devoid of credibility, it’s probable that the mainstream- media crowd will “find” other surprises, since it acts as Obama’s propaganda arm. “Finding” someone as unbelievable as this woman bespeaks desperation accruing to the need to deny a black republican the nomination. This is not to say that nothing happened with respect to the whole matter. It is to say that accusations without proof that can be connected to names are unacceptable, another way of saying that much of the media wallows in yellow journalism, as well.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Whither Now, Kentucky Schools?

2011-11-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

Aaron Hughey, professor of counseling and student affairs at Western Kentucky University, posited some important principles and consequent suggestions in an article in the Lexington Herald-Leader of 03 November.

Hughey: “Customization is more important than conformity.” Customization is possible regarding private schools and to some extent public universities. In terms of public education, customization is rarely an option since it nearly always means not a one-on-one student/teacher ratio but at least much smaller classes in which a student is availed of more of the teacher’s time and energy.

Since a public-school math teacher may have five classes of about 27 or more students each (my personal experience), he has to conform his approach to a pattern designed to reach learners on different levels of ability, attempting to help everyone but absolutely bringing the brightest to their potential. He uses the materials made available by the system (conformity) but attempts customization on a per student basis rather than an institutional one. “Tracking” is a dirty word in the education establishment driven now by political correctness, so the teacher is left to carry it out in the classroom.

Hughey: “Relationships are more important than rules.” I believe the opposite. Hughey explained that “some” degree of order and uniformity are essential but that the teacher-pupil relationship (whatever that means) is more important. Ask any Marine “boot” if he likes his drill sergeant. Most boots will scream NO, but they will also admit that the sarge teaches them how to save the lives of themselves and their comrades while doing their jobs. There’s no substitute for discipline, defined as “training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character,” and even less of a substitute for “some” discipline.

This will sound like nit-picking but the dress of teachers today is a tipoff on how they regard education. As a teacher, I wore a tie and coat every day to school, making me different from the students in a very formal way. Nowadays, male teachers are shown on TV in T-shirts and jeans (with or without holes in the knees) and female teachers in just about every costume imaginable, with the most unattractive ones (and those with plenty of cleavage) seeming to be the most popular.

I addressed each student as Mr. or Miss plus last name, never by the first name. But I had a ball and lots of laughter in class, especially when the most salient points were being made. Friendliness is fine. Fraternization, as in the military between officers and enlisted men, is loony tunes. It was always understood when frivolity was in and out of order, and that he/she who decides is the teacher. Math is a demanding academic discipline (so are many others) and should be approached as a “no excuses/nonsense” matter. Students should be held at arms-length and should understand who’s in charge.

Hughey: “People are more important than policies.” Students have nothing – or should have nothing – to do with policies, while policies have everything to do with students, meaning that policies are more important than students. Can anyone imagine a school-board or university board of trustees made up of students as policy-makers? When asked by a TV interviewer recently in New York City what the purpose of the current Occupy Wall Street circus is, a young lady (lots of students in this effort) indicated that it was to force the government to set all wages, thus eliminating the wealthy. Imagine that lunacy as a government policy!

Hughey indicated that the status quo must go. This is what the Kentucky Legislature thought in 1990 and damned the state with the Kentucky Education Reform Act, most of which has been rescinded in increments but not until damage was done to a whole generation or more of students, not to mention making frauds/cheats out of whole school systems/teachers/administrators who ill-used tests and bribed students. The major thrust of the act was to enhance student self-esteem, apparently whether deserved or not. Result: Disaster in virtually every measured (and over-measured) academic area, especially reading, math, and science. The status quo was eminently superior to KERA, though wise systemic change is inevitable.

Hughey: “Individuals are more important than institutions.” Similar to the above, schools impact students but students do not impact schools; otherwise, there would be five study halls, recess, lunch and phys ed. during a normal day. Hughey is right in decrying the forcing of everyone into the same mold; however, public education is forced to deal with reality, not wishful thinking. The key involves strong discipline, able teachers and strong family support, the lack of the latter a major problem now.

In a recent year, 40% of the education-department graduates at Kentucky State could not pass the test required of potential teachers in order to teach but had the opportunity to just keep taking the test. This was unconscionable. In other years, they would have been hired anyway and allowed to un-educate young people. Mediocrity begets mediocrity.

Brought into existence by KERA, school-based councils, made up of three teachers, two parents and a principal or administrator had about 95% control of everything, including curriculum and even the hiring of principals. Within systems, especially large ones, this meant students passed from elementary-school through middle- and high-schools while possessing no standard backgrounds at any level. Result: Only 43% of schools in Kentucky met all the federal requirements of “No Child Left Behind,” as the result of testing earlier this year. Only 42% of high school grads last May were ready for college or career. Only 29% at one Lexington High School were ready.

The old ways may be thought too anachronistic to matter today but the proof is in the pudding.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #5

2011-10-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

From the office of the ChairWOMAN, 28 October 2011

***LISTEN UP! The ChairWOMAN is not just unhappy with current performance – actually lack of it – but is furious and will add any staffer to the unemployed gang who is not giving 110%. She is holding down her job in the U.S. House, even voting occasionally, while directing this most important of all democrat organizations…more important, even, than the former ACORN. POTUS’s approval rating is slipping and the White House has made it plain that the main reason is the failure of this organization to make the president’s case, or at least make it better than Press Secretary Carney, who has given a new profoundness to the term “uh.” The excuse that neither Carney, I, nor any staffer knows what POTUS’s case is will not fly. He knows what his current jobs-legislation is and that’s all that matters, at least according to Minority Leader Pelosi, who has said that, like the healthcare legislation, the details will filter out after passage. The keyword to use in any discussion is “infrastructure,” which can mean hiring people to work for the government on anything from bridges to dentures, providing they’re union-members (the people, not the dentures, for recent Harvard graduates). Besides, people in the Southeast and Southwest (except for my Florida county) don’t know what infrastructure means, so this is a good, strong organizing word that cannot be connected in any way in my county with “hanging chads.” For Yale grads, “infrastructure” does not mean “buildings that can be seen only at night through the use of weird goggles.”

***This is from Memo #4: “POTUS has expressed brilliantly that the high unemployment rate is due to the Arab Spring and the Japanese tsunami and nuclear meltdown. He has requested [from the DNC] a red/yellow/black/white paper explaining why this is the case.” Not one paper of not even purple has been submitted and White House Chief-of-Staff Daly is threatening to replace me if POTUS’s explanation is not made available and teleprompter-ready within a week. LISTEN UP! I have no intention of coughing up $200 thou because my staff is plagued with dimwits. Besides, I’m tired of sitting through all those House monstrosities run now by the republicans and have no desire to attempt living on just a paltry representative’s salary of $174,000 + all the good stuff the peons don’t have, like healthcare out my ears and pensions to die for (little black humor there). The staffer who prepares this paper will be awarded a ticket to the next NASCAR race or NFL game in North Carolina, whichever has the most blood and gore to offer – little joke there, for any member of Yalie Skull-and-Bones.

***The White House has put out a statement to the effect that the president had had a long day, complete with a wrist-sprain on a chip shot from a manhole cover, when he said in March that he would take care of Qaddafi in days, not weeks. He simply misspoke in that he meant to say “in months, not years.” The statement also includes the information that for the same reason (except it was an approach shot from a golf-cart road) the president forgot to announce his war on Libya in Washington before leaving for vacation (badly needed, obviously) and thus had to announce it in Brazil between the main course and dessert at a bash in Brasilia. Please present this perfectly reasonable explanation at all town-hall meetings in New Hampshire, preferably early in the ones held in bars account drunks may not believe it.

***Everyone is directed to support the current Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, notwithstanding the hardships of living in parks and having to search for rent-a-toilets while dodging tear-gas canisters and/or fraternity brothers looking for girls to invite to their parties. POTUS is in complete agreement with whatever the protestors are protesting and is requesting red/yellow/black/white papers regarding what that is. Anyone arrested is on his/her own but is directed herein on the threat of death-by-firing-squad not to mention the DNC. It’s not okay to call the effort “community organizing gone ape,” never mind anything Limbaugh says.

***IMPORTANT: Do NOT – repeat – DO NOT ridicule the current plethora of republican debates or anyone connected to them. Do NOT even quote what the debaters say about each other. They are being closely monitored at DNC headquarters. At present, especially with POTUS in a sort of free-fall regarding popularity, the republicans are doing a wonderful hatchet-job on each other, besides trivializing their campaigns/positions in arguing about Romney’s groundskeepers and Perry’s accusing himself of being so poor at debating that he will just skip it on his way to the White House, thus making himself suspect in the event of the three a.m. call. A poor debater could hardly be expected to dispatch Libya in a matter of years, if not decades. POTUS did it in just seven months and only murdered a few thousand. Who’s counting, and they all look alike anyway. If this killing is mentioned in town-hall meetings, simply say “ce la vie” (pronounced say-luh-vee, in case Carney is snooping). That’s French and most folks, drunk or sober, will never admit to not knowing what it means, even though it’s regularly in the Crosswords, and assume it’s a profound word of wisdom.

***Important note: The DNC/White House is against drug-testing anyone receiving welfare benefits, including the old codgers on Medicare, who are generally full of pain medicine for something or other and have paid their fair share into Medicare anyway. This is a privacy matter and people receiving entitlements are also entitled to conduct their lives as they see fit, including staying numb/drunk/giggly and on another planet most of the time. Hammer on this in all meetings and in all Occupy-Wall-Street protests, but be careful of those with glassy eyes and rings in ears, nose, lips, tongue, love handles, navel, and areas seen only when flashed. This does not apply to DNC staffers, most of whom are on welfare because the CHAIRwoman owes it to all contributors to spend their money wisely.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Take Back the Country...Oh Yeah!

2011-10-26T10:52:00.000-07:00

The campaign season is in full swing…well, actually the campaign season is always in a swing of some degree. For the president, the current campaign has been going on since the end of his last campaign in 2008. Before that, he was in campaign mode in 2005 by the time he had been in the Senate long enough to find the chamber and maybe even the restrooms. Maybe he didn’t start until 2006, but then it’s hard to separate campaigns from speeches, fact-finding trips and most anything else that gains the attention of the public…so who knows?

Look for the usual clichés to be mouthed over and over and over…like this one: “It’s time to take back our country!” The word “back” can be an adjective, adverb, verb or noun, though noun is out in this case since the country is not the back of anything, though some campaigner might claim it (the body/country, presumably including its own back…or front for that matter) is being wagged by the insidious tail, meaning, of course, the other party or cutthroat bureaucrat or, currently, the collective White House czars.

Or…let “back” be an adjective, having this connotation according to the dictionary: “being in arrears: OVERDUE,” in which case how could it possibly be taken “back,” since it’s already completely broke and “in arrears” to the nth degree, about as far back as it can get? Or, another adjective definition is simply: “not current.” Does the candidate want to take the country back to “not current,” i.e., behind the times? Maybe that’s good campaigning since folks are always yearning for the “good ole days,” at least until they’re reminded of the outhouses, no electricity and the streets filled not with CO2 as the vehicular exhaust but with “stuff” that smells b-b-a-a-d-d and ruins the carpet.

Consider “back” as an adverb, with one of the dictionary definitions accruing thereto being “in a delayed or retarded condition.” There are many uncharitable folks who claim that this definition precisely describes the current administration, while the administration insists that it aptly describes anyone with whom it disagrees, like smart aleck economists who claim that goading/legislating people into buying houses they can’t afford and will lose is not copasetic since mortgages should not be negotiated within a range reaching from one-payment-per-month to no-payments-in years, with China holding the paper and the taxpayer finally footing the bill.

But if the country is to be taken to a “delayed or retarded condition,” perhaps the candidate will simply campaign on the idea of delaying all payments, except all the military spending and entitlements, of course, which means that it can’t delay paying much of anything, such non-non-payment leading to…yep…retardation, defined as “slowing up especially by preventing or hindering advance or accomplishment: IMPEDE.” Obviously, this approach won’t work because Obama has already done that, a sort of enhancement of the entitlement programs of the 1960s, which have failed miserably to do much more than establish a permanent underclass.

As a verb, “back” has as one definition: “to get into inadvertently,” such as a quarterback dropping back to pass and getting concussed by a linebacker on steroids. That’s precisely what has happened in the last three years with respect to the humongous mess occasioned by Obamessiah and his disciples, otherwise known as czars. This has been government by the Kiddie Korps operating on the principle that “leveling the playing field,” i.e., redistributing the wealth, will make everyone happy except the earners…but, who cares about that minority anyway? After all, inadvertence is better than nothing…isn’t it? Ask the q-back.

So, it makes perfect sense to adopt this same approach, described as “Let’s get into something else inadvertently,” understanding that even if it’s inadvertent the outcome will be anything but what the country has suffered lately and thus can’t be all bad and might even be good. Listening to the wannabes chop each other off at the knees in the squirrelly debates suggests that many outcomes are possible, inadvertent or otherwise. It’s hard to keep score, though, as wannabes tailor their ideas, programs and mutual recriminations to fit whatever state they’re gaming.

“Take back,” of course, depends on “take” to mean anything in the first place, so “take” is defined as “to get into one's hands or into one's possession, power, or control.” One remembers Obama’s previous campaign emphasis on the structuring of a national police force, a sort of civilian army commanded by the POTUS, also the commander of the military, which he might send off to liberate Timbuktu, a la Libya for instance, while the police force subjugates the citizenry at home.

The president said this in Colorado in July 2008: “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” The mainstream media never mentions this, of course, not that it’s anything but a loony-tunes statement by someone wandering off the teleprompter to say what he actually thinks. One can mention names of aliens, both past and present, that represent this view but it’s considered racist/gauche to do so, if not outrageously contemptuous of political correctness.

Nowadays, the ballot-box determines the “taking back” of the government but one wonders how long that will obtain.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Libya, Uganda...Obama's Legacy?

2011-10-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

This is from ABC News of 18 March 2011: “President Obama told a bipartisan group of members of Congress today that he expects the U.S. would be actively involved in any military action against Libya for ‘days, not weeks,’ after which he said the U.S. would take more of a supporting role,” according to sources. The president TOLD Congress what would happen. He did not ask for any sort of approval, simply ordering the military to start bombing the bejesus out of Libya, population 2 million less than that of New York City.

Almost seven months to the day later, Qaddafi has been killed. So much for Obama’s ability to understand military matters or his ability to tell the truth, since the U.S has always been involved in far more than a supporting role, whatever that was supposed to be, at a cost of well over a billion dollars, presumably borrowed from China. Since Libya has never been a threat, military, economic or otherwise, to the U.S., there was no reason for this country’s killing of innocent Libyans, so the question of the entire enterprise has to do with the president’s reason, which seems to be that Qaddafi was a mean man and had to go (State Secretary Clinton said so). Nobody with walking-around-sense believes this, but the truth will out and will probably have to do with Libyan oil, not bought by the U.S. but by England, France, Germany and Spain, the NATO biggies, the partners in crime.

The president’s latest entry into military operations is also taking place in Africa, the ordering of about 100 military personnel into Uganda, smaller than Wyoming and a bunch of other U.S. states, to help the Ugandan government capture another bad guy, Joseph Kony, head of something called The Lord’s Resistance Army. According to the Washington Times of 19 October, the Ugandan military estimated this year that only 200 to 400 fighters remain in the LRA. The Libyan military numbers 50,000, of which forces a number have fought against the al Qaeda-connection butchers in Somalia, making them battle-hardened and not exactly in need of training, which has been given as the reason for the infusion of U.S. troops.

So…the president sends 100 people in to help a 50,000-man military establishment capture a bad guy (was Hillary consulted?) leading some 300 or so other bad guys? Does Obama expect anybody with a warm forehead to believe this? Can Defense Secretary Panetta – with a straight face – actually spout this line? Or…could oil again be the catalyst for such outrageous drivel, not in terms of military strength, obviously, but for darker reasons?

World Net Daily of 15 October linked ultra-liberal billionaire George Soros with the oil industry in Uganda. Soros is a darling of the left, funding numerous liberal front-groups in the effort to turn this nation into socialism, perhaps as a part of a sort of global socialist state, the thing that appeals to President Obama, who went to the United Nations (one-world government) to cover his derriere in the unprovoked attack on Libya. The Ugandan government tightly controls the oil business, according to WND. Soros seems to be the go-to guy for any cause that purports to degrade capitalism, which could make Obama listen to him, especially in an election year. Soros needs to control the oil business in Uganda…VOILA!…send in the troops, even if they’re just for show…or to put the arm on Uganda President Museveni.

According to Wikipedia, at least 4,991 to 6,652 civilians have been reported killed in Libya by October 17, 2011. According to Wikipedia, a total of 12,770 to 16,073 deaths have been reported. These are presumed to be “ball-park” figures, not exact. How many of the killed, wounded and missing can Obama claim for the U.S. as the result of his actions, particularly during the first ten days of the conflict, when he spent $55 million per day decimating the Libyans, claiming that only military targets were in play? Bombs and missiles, besides often being fired erroneously at targets, make no distinction between the innocent and the military.

Is Obama’s modus operandi better than that of other world leaders, including Syria’s Assad and Yemen’s Saleh, who are doing what Qaddafi is accused of doing when Obama attacked him. Perhaps Obama – ironically the recipient of a Nobel PEACE prize – has concluded that he’s configured payback for the PanAm 103 crash in 1988 that eventuated in 270 deaths, 259 of them passengers and crew on the plane, and for which two Libyan operatives were brought to trial, one sentenced to life (and later released) and the other judged not guilty.

The mainstream media is falling all over itself to applaud the brave, courageous Obama, when even his own military chiefs, then Defense Secretary Gates and then Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen, advised against the Libyan bloodletting. Gates described it as “on the fly,” i.e. without any planning. That makes it easy to see why something that was supposed to be accomplished in days, not weeks, took seven months and thousands of lives. This isn’t a brief for Qaddafi, without whom the consensus is that the world is better off. With the proper planning by actual military people, the losses would have been much lighter.

The question for Obama: Is Syria next…or Yemen…or Saudi Arabia?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

"Debates" - Silly Drivel

2011-10-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

The republican candidates seem to have either a death-wish or are naively under the impression that virtually free public exposure is cost-effective vis-à-vis campaign expenses with regard to what have been labeled “debates,” numbering about eight now and comprising a traveling circus that trivializes both them and the process. The latest was essentially a shouting match undoubtedly savored by its sponsor, CNN, as a prime example of bickering wannabes who lack even the social graces, much less the intellect to govern the country. This, at a time when the nation is headed by a sophomoric administration and sliding toward oblivion.

Disclaimer: I felt from the start that the “debates” (or whatever they are) were hugely inappropriate at any time a year before the election in 2012, and that the fewer the better. I listened to maybe ten minutes of one of the first ones and finally about the last half of the most recent one on 18 October. However, that was enough enlightenment, especially as informed by my reading about them or hearing about them in the media, most of which wallows in the slimy process of using the “debates” to slime the republicans, who, however, do a masterful job of that themselves. That was certainly the case on the eighteenth. The notion that seven or eight people will have the time to discuss a given topic – much less a plethora of them – in a two-hour (sans commercials) time-frame is loony-tunes…not worth the time.

Largely as a result of the “debates,” the media talking-heads, pollsters, commentators and campaign gurus have made it a point to handicap the candidates, much as the odds-makers do with respect to sports. The public is invited to keep score, being forced in the process, of course, to try to separate fact from fiction with respect to not only the assertions of the wannabes but also the agendas of the various and assorted media and polling operations, which seem able to come up with data satisfying a given agenda. So…the democrats have pollsters, the republicans have pollsters, the newspapers have pollsters, the politicians have pollsters, etc., ad infinitum.

The media advertises which candidate will be the “target” before each debate, depending upon what the polls are showing in a given time-frame and/or what one or a bunch of the candidates have said lately. Perry has been a target recently, though the media seemed to believe that Cain would be the target on the eighteenth since his 9-9-9 plan has been much in the news lately, not that there is such a thing as a 9-9-9 plan because not even Cain seems to know exactly what it is. Actually, it’s a gimmick purporting to lower income taxes, making everyone happy, while at the same time adding a 9% sales tax to the sales taxes levied already in 45 states. It’s a “rob Peter to pay Paul” scheme that fools no thinking person.

The shallowness that marks the “debates” was enhanced by Brian Williams in MSNBC’s crack at the republicans when he questioned Texas governor Perry about the governor’s sleep habits vis-à-vis the executions in Texas, the obvious implication being that Perry was uncivilized at best and an outright murderer at worst. This was silliness to the nth degree by an “anchor” earning manifold millions each year but capable, nevertheless, of coming up with something as wacko as that. (I heard that one myself in my brief surfing activity, and am still laughing.) Perry could have asked Williams how he slept since General Electric, 49%-owner of NBC, paid no taxes last year.

Romney has repeatedly demanded that Perry “repudiate” a statement made by a Baptist preacher and Perry-supporter to the effect that Mormons are not Christians. Perry has said he disagrees with the preacher, which, by definition, is a repudiation of the statement. Romney, in other words, doesn’t know the meaning of the word “repudiate.” What Romney actually wants Perry to do is repudiate the preacher, i.e., cut off all connection. One of the definitions of repudiate is “to refuse to have anything to do with.” To make a demand like that is exponential silliness, but this is the level on which the “debates” are posited.

These silly “debates” are the product of an absolutely bankrupt/corrupt primary system, with state party-organizations, like schoolyard second-graders, now trying to “jump the line” to go first. Now, it appears that New Hampshire will opt for its SACRED primary to be held in December, with all the media biggies and candidates trudging through the sleet/snow/cold to gather in bars and town-hall meetings to cogitate and deliver oracular pronouncements. They should all be happy for Florida to go first for perfectly obvious reasons.

The old party-conventions, complete with smoke-filled backrooms, were eminently superior to the current process. Absent a return to that, all primaries should be held on the same day, probably about May 1. This would allow these confrontations called “debates” to take place between January and May, if necessary – and most of them are not. The actual winners are the media folks who manipulate the wannabes and make money off the mostly meaningless exercises.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Cain's Gimmickry?

2011-10-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Gimmicks are the mother’s milk of candidates for most any office, not least because they seem to provide both simple and immediate answers to problems that are far too complicated for either easy or quick solutions. In 2008, Senator McCain had a huge problem occasioned by the fact that his campaign, if not completely bogged down, was going nowhere fast. Solution: Put Alaska Governor Sarah Palin on the ticket, never mind whether or not she had any presidential credentials. She was a woman. This was the penultimate in gimmickry. It didn’t work for McCain, of course, but it made an instant celebrity of Palin, not to mention a very wealthy person account her being exponentially opportunistic and smart enough to milk the whole sordid affair for every last cent.

This is not to imply that Palin was anything but bright. And she was far better prepared for the presidency than Obama but that doesn’t mean much in terms of conducting the office. One of Obama’s gimmicks as president has been speechifying, thus freeing himself from the rigors of governance through keeping the minds of the people on his words, not his actions or inactions. This has involved a certain amount of egomania, such as exhibited in his recent speech to Congress, conducted in the imperial pomp and circumstance of a state-of-the-union message, notwithstanding its importance being neutered by its postponement account another political circus (one of those squirrelly debates that mean nothing) and then having its schedule determined by a ballgame.

The best example of gimmickry currently may be the “9-9-9 tax-plan” espoused by republican candidate Herman Cain. This is not to say that Cain is not a knowledgeable and valid office-seeker. It is to say that he has brought it forth summarily without a thorough explanation of how the plan works. Indeed, even he has indicated that it is still in the working stage. He has made significant changes in it as the campaign has progressed. No one seems to know precisely what it is and can’t know as long as he changes his mind about it.

Apparently, his main selling point has been that the plan will bring in as much revenue as is currently being brought in under the current system, but that the sources of the revenue will be reconfigured so that everyone will suffer less and be happy. There would be a flat income tax of 9%, a flat corporate tax of 9%, and a flat sales tax of 9%. With the exception of the latter, the other rates are considerably lower than current rates, at least for those actually paying taxes, remembering that 46% of the population pays no taxes now. Presumably, his program would affect some or most of those people with respect to only the sales tax.

Forty-five states raise revenue through sales taxes, with California’s the highest at 8.25%. Adding a 9% federal sales tax would bring that burden to an intolerable 17.25%. Imagine paying $234.50 for a lawnmower costing $200. Does Cain mean to place a 9% sales tax on food? A family of four with an annual income of $35,000 has to eat as much as a family of four with an income of $100,000. If each family spends $600 a month on food, the former will have $27,800 left at the end of the year while the latter will have $92,800. Cain’s plan hurts the worse-off people big-time while not materially affecting the better-off.

Consider those two families with respect to the 9% income tax. The former will pay $3,150 in taxes and have $31,850 left while the latter will pay $9,000 and have $91,000 left. Again, Cain’s plan hurts the worse-off while greatly benefiting the better-off. The former is in the current 25% bracket while the latter is in the 28% bracket, another example of benefiting the better off at the expense of the less well off. The earner making $400,000 is now in the 35% bracket (taxes=$140,000) but in Cain’s 9% bracket he would pay $36,000, a huge benefit of $104,000, three times as much in tax-break alone as the $35,000-a-year guy makes in wages.

Actually, there’s no argument with the income-tax aspect. People should have the right to equitably keep what they earn. Everyone receives the same government-services as everyone else, but Cain will have a hard time selling this since the nation has been in “progressive-tax mode” for decades. His 9% sales tax is too off-the-wall even to consider, especially if it applies to food and is added to the already over-the-top gasoline taxes charged by states and the federal government.

So…is Cain indulging in gimmickry that sort of sounds good until examined carefully? The Kentucky sales tax on automobiles is 6%, high enough. Adding 9% to that in buying a car for $25,000 means paying a tax of $3,750 or $28,750 altogether in one of the poorer states. That will be a hard sell.

Sounds like gimmickry!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Hippy Autumn

2011-10-06T10:20:00.001-07:00

There can be little doubt that President Obama has looked with great favor on the “Arab Spring,” as largely proven by his encouraging the masses to take to the streets through announcing to the world that the leaders of their countries had to go, never mind how. The results have been predictably abysmal since the masses were leaderless, clueless, and without resources except for a multitude of warm bodies to take up space. In the process, this country lost its only Middle East Arab (Muslim) ally when Obama decided that Egypt’s Mubarak had to go. The resulting vacuum of leadership is obvious unless one considers that the army should operate the government.

The president has been given a pass by the mainstream media concerning his overt participation in the Arab Spring, the attack in March upon Libya, population two million less than that of New York City and owning a military of 76,000 troops compared to the U.S. number of GIs at 1.6 million active troops. This was an invasion of another sovereign nation, entirely unprovoked and carried out by executive order with not so much as a fare-thee-well from the elected Congress, the only Constitutional establishment that can declare war. The feckless Congress has done nothing but ooh and ah and cluck its collective tongue while furnishing the funds for the bloodbath Obama has wreaked on innocent Libyans who just happen to be in the wrong place when the missiles and bombs commit their bloody mayhem.

Obama has made it plain that Constitutional government is not his bag. He made this abundantly clear from the outset when he showed his agitation toward the founders account their failure to provide for the proper distribution and redistribution of wealth. He showed it again when in his healthcare enactment he signed a document requiring citizens to buy insurance whether they wanted/needed it or not, not to mention the turning over of this most valuable aspect of life to the government to decide who gets what treatments or medicines, where and when.

The worm is turning, however. Obama has delighted in his participation in the Arab Spring, though he’s studiously avoided action concerning Syria and Yemen and Saudi Arabia, but now he’s facing his own “Hippy Autumn,” as graphically epitomized currently in the protests in New York City. These participants also make up a clueless gang without any leadership but with obvious resources since its members are well-fed and full of energy. So far, there is no coherent agenda, except for the demand that equity be granted everyone in the matter of income. Whether by college student or union member, this equity-mantra represents the intention of taking the country into socialism…reward not by merit but by governmental fiat.

The president, down in the polls, faces a dilemma, to wit, that, while he also is a socialist but still constrained by the Constitution, he needs to be reelected by a population that is not socialist, sees through his agenda no matter how passionately advanced by the left-liberal media it is, and is sick and tired of trying to find a modicum of assurance in a country that is almost totally leaderless, totally bankrupt, and totally disdained by other nations as just another successful nation trading its top standing for third-world status, with apologies all around for its very existence. This essentially has little to do with party, although republicans should be making political hay of the whole mess. They aren’t because they lack the necessary guts to call out Obama and cut him off at the knees.

So…how will Obama handle the Hippy Autumn? The hippies are his kind of people – wannabe “community organizers,” a euphemism for operators interested in putting the arm on the producers/workers to gain the products of their labors. New York’s finest arrested 700 of the “peaceful protestors” the other day, thus begetting weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. How dare a civil society remove despoilers from public property!

Will Wall Street confines be another Tahrir Square? Should the Autumn Hippies move their operation to Washington? Are they so ignorant that they don’t understand that Wall Street is what it is because Congress is what it is? The housing debacle that brought this economy down was for all practical purposes enacted into law by elected officials, who were either unbelievably dumb or too job-obsessed or greedy to put party and political ambitions before principle.

The 47% of the population that pays no taxes but can vote can just about confiscate at will or will be able to soon. This is Obama’s crowd. Welcome to the edge of the cliff.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Commemorations...Sometimes Excessive?

2011-09-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

There’s a tendency in this country to overdo it when addressing tragedies such as deaths. The excess is usually enhanced in the death of a young, as opposed to an older person, though the “young” identification can be quite high, often with the attached circumstance of the survivors – young children or a large family, for example, or the excess may involve victims dying through abnormal circumstances such as on 9/11 or in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

The disagreements connected with planning and constructing a “proper” monument/memorial for the 9/11 victims, or the Oklahoma City victims of 1995, or the 49 victims of a plane crash in Lexington, Ky., in 2006, not to mention the expense, can make memorials something of a hassle, though those who die in the line of duty deserve recognition. The word “hero” is overworked and seems to include anyone who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, not just those who voluntarily placed themselves in harm’s way and lost their lives.

On average, about the same number of American GIs as the 343 NYC fireman on 9/11were killed or died during every ten-day period in the 4.5 years of actual combat during WWI and WWII, nearly 522,000 or about 319 per day. During the Civil War, 427 Americans died per day (623,026 in a population of only 35 million, nearly 2%) through both battle and disease. By comparison, less than two GIs per day have died in the Afghan/Iraqi conflicts over the last ten years. It took 60 years for a WWII memorial to be built on the mall in Washington, but only ten regarding 9/11 in New York City. Strangely, there are memorials on the National Mall in Washington for the Korean and Vietnam veterans but none for those of WWI, though there were more than 21,000 more WWI deaths than in the other two combined.

The capriciousness is remarkable vis-à-vis the establishing of memorials. Compare the elaborate and costly WTC memorial to the very plain Pearl Harbor memorial (USS Arizona) dedicated to nearly the same number of dead to get an idea of zaniness. The former involved mostly civilians simply at work, the latter mostly military (2,335 American GIs voluntarily serving in harm’s way and only 68 civilians).

State, local and the federal governments paid $15.8 billion to survivors of the 9/11 victims, or 42 percent of the total, with an average of $3.1 million per recipient, according to the Rand Corporation, January 2005. By contrast, about all the survivors of the victims in the Oklahoma City bombing received was a two-year reprieve on income taxes. Amazing! This is not to say the government had no responsibility in either case. It is simply to point out the apparent excesses. The mourners of 9/11 became instant millionaires, largely due to taxpayers, but not the mourners in Oklahoma City, or concerning the USS Cole or any battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Breaking precedent this year, a memorial to a civilian, Martin Luther King, Jr., rather than to military or other government personnel, was established among its four-acre compound on the National Mall. The inordinate excess is seen in its three-story figure of King, far taller than even Lincoln and dwarfing all other individuals honored there. It’s more like a huge stern Buddha with crossed arms staring down at the actual military heroes memorialized, not surprising since it was designed by a Chinese citizen and sculpted by him in China, then merely shipped to this country and put together by Chinese laborers. Exponential excess added to exponential insult!

Perhaps a difference concerning excess can be seen in the difference between the interminable, religiously-sanitized ceremonies in NYC and the service at the Pentagon on Sunday. There were no non-singers with guitars in Washington, for instance. The service was clearly Christian, complete with prayers and hymns played by the Marine Corps band and sung by the Navy Choir. It was terribly moving. The National Anthem, for instance, was sung by a Navy singer with a trained voice performing the anthem as precisely written, not by some celebrity singer attempting to improve it but only butchering and making a mockery of it. The performance of Battle Hymn of the Republic was magnificent. The essentially non-melodramatic speeches by Joint-Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen, CIA Director Panetta and Vice President Biden were appropriately poignant but brief and right on the mark.

The current generation, geared to excess and self-preservation, seems to have a hard time confronting death or even in getting things in perspective. It was not always so.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obamacomedy!

2011-09-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve read that the TV sitcom Seinfeld is among the best viewing in TV offerings, probably even in reruns, assuming that one can make it through the requisite number of commercials. I daresay it’s won many awards, although I’ve never seen a Seinfeld episode. I can remember seeing snippets when searching for something else, which probably explains why I never tuned it in on purpose. In another life, I withstood the commercials to watch stuff like Gunsmoke or Bonanza, but being bored stiff by sometimes off-color sophomoric humor is not my thing.

All that to say this…the best entertainment currently is found by just watching or reading the news in the media. Comedy pervades the nation’s capital these days and simply taking note of the antics of elected officials and bureaucrats is enough to induce hilarity. Even though the news is important, the purveyors of it these days, especially on the distaff side, consider it as entertainment and dress for it, showing as much cleavage, thigh, off-the-shoulder frocks and that which must be most constantly monitored (or not) by the crossed-legs-toward-the-camera position.

Reporting an ax murder or the wipeout of a platoon in a skimpy cocktail dress and sporting blue eyelids seems somehow incongruous, but the show must go on. Meanwhile, the mentally-challenged newsmen are dressed to the nines from neck to toe as if on their way to a funeral. The double-standard is never more obvious than it is among the news anchors. A guy dressed like Walter Cronkite seems believable, while a gal emulating Gypsy Rose Lee seems more recognizable on a street-corner, no matter the subject of the news.

But I digress! The Keystone Kops could not have caused greater laughter lately than that cooked up by the pooh-bahs. POTUS is in full campaign mode and made a three-day “listening tour” through Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois (actually only about 380 miles) the other week, transmogrifying the term “listening tour” into “official business,” thus financed by the taxpayers with a huge saving to his war chest. He needed a couple buses at $1.1 million each under which he had thrown no one, like the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright, meaning that they had to be new and un-bottomed. They were made in Canada, since nothing bearing the “Made In America” tag could be trusted. The taxpayers are still laughing/weeping at this joke. Great entertainment!

After tirelessly listening nearly 400-miles-worth over three days, POTUS needed a vacation, lest PTSD accruing to bus-fatigue (trauma worth a Purple Heart) impair his readiness as C-in-C for a three a.m. emergency call, so it was off to rough it at Martha’s Vineyard. Apparently, he and the First Lady went on “his” and “her” Air Force planes to MV, since flying to blue-collar Peoria to pick up POTUS would be somewhat demeaning for FLOTUS, a world traveler. The unwashed in the boonies are still laughing at such sacrifice, something POTUS has called for regularly. After all, POTUS and FLOTUS used only three Air Force planes for their famous Big Apple “date.”

Even better comedy was in store concerning the PROCLAMATION by POTUS that he would do a second state-of-the-union address to Congress on 07 September, labeled a “Jobs (three letter word according to Biden) Speech.” House Speaker Boehner was not consulted…a trifle. The date was obviously set because the republicans were doing a debate on that evening – this time sponsored by MSNBC – but POTUS had forgotten that MSNBC is his main propaganda arm and felt commercially threatened. The rumor was that Chris Matthews had a seizure nearly equal to the leg-tingling that renders him immobile during any POTUS speech.

What is a POTUS to do in such a predicament, besides stamping his feet or beating on the floor? To insist on the seventh is to be like a commander-in-chief, except that Speaker Boehner, who owns the house reservation service, is not in the military…but posed a compromise – change it to the eighth. What a brilliant nice non-partisan idea! POTUS/C-in-C accepted – all in the spirit of goodwill – but probably remembering that Boehner never salutes.

The Law of Unintended Consequences struck at this point, to wit, that Green Bay plays New Orleans on the eighth at the same time – easily attracting millions more than a POTUS speech, with or without teleprompter full of entertaining (maybe even – gasp – off-color) witticisms/jokes/whatever. Actually – unkind to so say – the speech itself will probably be a joke, like Seinfeld, a rerun. Not to worry…brilliant minds at work – contact the teams and tell them to change the game…the C-in-C speaks. However, Packers and Saints also don’t salute, so POTUS, ever the knowledgeable fan, will go off early and have the perfect excuse for no time-killing processionals, handshakes, backslaps, ovations, amens and hallelujahs. He could’ve tried Friday night but that’s high-school-football-night, a no-brainer.

There’s nothing more entertaining than comedic politics, occasioned by foolishness conceived accidentally. Nobody could make this stuff up. Nobody could write a script so completely trivializing a POTUS address to Congress.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

National Mall Travesty

2011-08-27T18:09:00.000-07:00

There’s a tendency in this country to overdo it when addressing tragedies, victories, defeats, deaths, successes, as well as ethnic-defined accomplishments regarding all races. To comment on this subject is to invite criticism, even charges of racism or worse…if there IS anything worse. Perhaps the most profound excesses have to do with death, particularly death as experienced in tragic circumstances for which the deceased bore no responsibility such as a plane crash or involvement in war.

The excess is usually enhanced in the death of a young, as opposed to an older person, though the “young” identification can be quite high, often with the attached circumstance of the survivors – young children or a large family, for example. The disagreements connected with planning and constructing a “proper” monument for the 9/11 victims, or the Oklahoma City victims of 1995, or the 49 victims of a plane crash in Lexington, Ky., in 2006, not to mention the expense, can make memorials something of a hassle, though those who die in the line of duty deserve recognition.

An egregious example of overdoing it is seen in the 30-foot-tall statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., not because King doesn’t deserve recognition, including a statue, but because of the flamboyance exhibited by the out-sized statue accompanied by the four acres of land and other accoutrements connected with it that actually trivialize the memorial. The effect is a sort of garishness that demeans one of the great men of the twentieth century.

The height of the statue equals that of a full three-story building. By contrast, it is eleven feet taller than the nearby statue of Abraham Lincoln. Even if Lincoln had been sculpted as standing, his statue would still be shorter than a three-story building. The mall includes statues and monuments remarking the heroic figures that have made the country what it is – people in government service, often spending years in mortal combat, and, of course, sometimes dying by the hundreds of thousands in the process.

King’s is the only statue on the mall of a private citizen, yet it towers above all other statues, as if meant to denigrate the services of people such as the 405,000 American GIs, including blacks, who died in World War II or the 58,000, including blacks, who died in Vietnam. Even Lincoln, besides being a president, fought in a war, albeit not one of great significance. By contrast, the statue of FDR, a four-term president, is merely life-size.

Perhaps adding insult to injury, whether or not intentionally, the group controlling the MLK project had the statue designed by a Chinese sculptor and actually produced in China. After promising to use American union labor in constructing the memorial, which came in pieces from China, the group reneged and used unpaid Chinese laborers, notwithstanding that King was gunned down during a trip in Memphis in 1968 to support sanitation workers.

One might suppose a black American sculptor would have been engaged for the project, or at least an American, but such was not to be the case, which might also make one wonder if there was an “in-your-face” motive, especially noting the outrageous size underlying the project, whether or not consciously so. Facts are hard things with which to argue and the fact that the memorial was outsourced to communist China gives the appearance that it was never meant to reflect anything American, meaning that the sponsoring group perhaps wanted no connection of King to the U.S.A. If so, more’s the pity.

The King speech most closely connected to the area involved was his “I have a dream” offering delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. President Eisenhower had already used troops in Little Rock many years before to integrate a school, but King’s speech was a precursor to the civil rights enactments by Congress of the 1960s. It was an important speech remarking the right of every American to try to achieve his/her goals…on an equal footing.

The enactments resulted in a comprehensive example of the law of unintended consequences. Far from culminating in helping African Americans accomplish their dreams, the civil rights laws eventuated in nightmarish results, most notably the disintegration of the African-American family, the basic unit of any society.

A three-story statue of Mao Tse Tung would be expected in China, where communist rulers think big when commemorating themselves…or Russia’s Stalin – egos demanding out-sized memorials. Think the famous statue of Saddam being torn down in Baghdad. On 09 April 2003, CNN reported the statue to be as tall as four men – some 24 feet. This about says it all. Notwithstanding whether or not the statue belongs on the mall at all, the MLK Memorial Foundation exhibited a total lack of taste and delivered an undignified memorial, more like pop art than a serious subject, a monstrous Buddha-like object looking DOWN on everyone.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Minority Rule

2011-08-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

The decision of Bell County High School officials (Kentucky) to dispense with the offering of a prayer before a football game, a longtime tradition, was supposedly based on the requirement of the First Amendment to the Constitution. The officials were reminded in a letter from an outfit in Madison, Wisconsin, that they would be in line for an expensive lawsuit if the exercise was continued, claiming it to be a violation of that First Amendment.

The prayers are usually offered in behalf of safekeeping for the players, who ironically are about to commit mayhem upon each other, and for other generic concerns such as safekeeping for military personnel as well as guidance for the nation’s leaders. The efficacy of such prayers is not the issue. The recognition of God is the issue, even though no recognition/establishment of any religion is offered.

The exact wording of the First Amendment as related to this matter: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The applicable definition of religion: “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.”

In a prayer, there is no attempt to respect or disrespect or even to acknowledge an establishment of religion. There is no attempt to recognize or advance any cause, principle, or system of beliefs. There is only the addressing of God for a certain result, as well as the offering of thanks for whatever is conceived of as a gift from God, either past, present, or future.

The prayer, therefore, besides having nothing to do with religion, by definition cannot in any way injure those who believe God doesn’t exist. They consider themselves outside the activity altogether, thus cannot possibly be harmed. To them, the prayer is no more than a harmless comic strip. They hear no sermon, are not victims of evangelistic effort, are not coerced in any way, and are not victims of religious teaching. Neither words nor a moment of silence do any harm.

So, the prayer does not represent an establishment of religion. Indeed, prayers are offered before the daily activities in Congress even though those prayers, as part of actual government operations performed in government facilities, not at a mere ballgame, would seem far more condemnatory, if out of order. The inscriptions of God on coins and official documents and government buildings, in state constitutions, and in certain oaths that are affirmed furnish proof that God does not represent an establishment of religion. God just is…or isn’t, depending on individual preference.

But suppose the prayer is considered an establishment of religion, in this case established by the School Board reflecting the will of the citizens. According to the First Amendment, Congress shall make no law prohibiting its exercise. The amendment says nothing about when or where or how or by whom the exercise may or may not be conducted.

The amendment was enacted to prohibit the state from affirming a specific official religion, as was the case during colonial rule vis-à-vis the Anglican Church, with Queen Elizabeth II as the present Supreme Governor and titular head of the Church. The amendment was also enacted so that people could not be constrained from observing a religious exercise if collectively they so desired, no matter the location. It’s doubtful that any cleric was/is paid for praying at a ballgame, so the prayer is not taxpayer-supported, therefore not an infringement on any tax-paying atheist’s rights. If/where this is not extant, the status quo can be changed.

Rule by the minority has become the norm in this country not just concerning religion but concerning virtually everything. For instance, the notion that men should marry men because a miniscule minority says so is unconscionable and represents an act in violation of federal/state laws as well as against nature itself, without remarking any religious context,

The Judeo-Christian God was part, if not the foundation, of the founding documents. The miniscule minority is trying to erase God. The Wisconsin group has some 125 members in Kentucky out of a population of 4,339,367, amounting to an infinitesimally small .003%.

Rule by the minority shouldn’t happen as long as no one gets hurt, as in this case.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama & TREASON

2011-08-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Much has been made in the liberal media of the fact that Texas Governor Rick Perry used the term “treasonous” in his remarks about Fed Chairman Bernanke’s continuing to print money, thus devaluing the dollar without solving any problems. Indeed, President Obama, the darling of the liberal media, very condescendingly suggested that Perry was new to the game of presidential politics, did not understand the value of words spoken by those elitist/intelligent enough to engage the game, and that everyone should “cut him some slack.” The president was actually saying that Perry is as dumb as a gourd and that he should be paid no attention because of his stupidity.

The irony, of course, lies in the fact that the media is either so shallow or so agenda-driven as the propaganda arm of Obama’s presidency and now his campaign that it failed to pick up on the fact that the president has practically made it a mantra lately to describe the Congressional republicans as “treasonous.” Treason amounts to the putting of something ahead of the welfare of the country, so when the president accused the republicans of “putting party ahead of the country” he actually accused them of treason. Thus, the question that should be asked is, “Should the citizenry cut the president some slack for being so obviously mentally-challenged that he couldn’t understand what he actually has been saying, especially on his recent tax-paid campaign through three states.”

Words do come back to haunt but in this case regarding what actually amounts to treason regardless of how the words are used, the candidates will do well to express themselves accurately, not as expressions designed to merely “snow” the public. Perry was not out of order simply because neither he nor Bernanke nor anyone else is forced to agree on the meaning of treason as it relates to the economy. Don’t cut him any slack because he misspoke because he didn’t. Also, don’t cut him any slack because he seemed to lack the astuteness or guts to stick by what he said. He had a point. Bernanke DOES seem to be putting politics above country.

While Perry expressed a problem with one man, Bernanke, Obama threw his unspoken but just as obvious accusation of treason at a whole congregation of folks – those treasonous republicans who he claimed put party above country. He didn’t mind putting party and personal privilege above country when he used tax-bought buses, Air Force I and a gaggle of secret service agents and other taxpayer-funded officials for the purpose of campaigning for another term. The ridiculous assertion that he was on a “listening tour” or some such other silly description comprises an insult to the collective intelligence. He made far too many speeches for his effort to be other than blatantly political. The “listening tour” was designed not for him to listen but for the citizens of Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois to listen to him campaign.

Notably, the president while in Illinois was quite near Michigan, where the unemployment rate stands at 10.9%, which is 20% above the national average. He would have gotten an earful in that state if he actually had been interested in listening, but Michigan is automatically democrat and blacks are automatically democrat, so what would have been the point of conducting a “listening tour” in that state? Iowa’s unemployment rate is 6%, so those folks needed badly to instruct the president on their hardships. Iowa’s population is 2.7% black while Michigan’s is 14.2% black, or 426% greater than Iowa’s, so what was the use of preaching to the choir…or listening, for that matter? The white folk in Iowa needed instructions.

By going to Iowa instead of Michigan, did the president put the comparative prosperity of Iowans above the comparative poverty of Michigan, thus committing treason with respect to people who have much greater need to have him “listen?” The president, already providing a shaky administration, is so disconnected with reality that he can’t even see what the citizens can easily see, to wit, that the president has no clothes?

Is it possible for a president to commit treason with respect to his own convictions vis-à-vis the welfare of the country, especially if they are strongly enough held to make a profound issue of them? In 2008 when Obama was vying for the vote, he was adamant and quite publicly so that marriage should only be between a man and woman, which, of course, was/is also the law of the land. However, in 2011 the president believes that marriage should also be between a man and a man, clearly in violation of federal and state laws in nearly all states, not to mention a multiplicity of state Constitutions.

Obama is blatantly putting personal opinion above what the vast majority of the country’s citizens believe is best for the nation and enacted into law. Iowa’s Supreme Court handed down a ruling recently that a man may marry a man, thus committing treason as a state. Obama felt quite at home there, since both he and Iowa share that description – TREASONOUS!

“Listening tour?” BAH…HUMBUG!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #4

2011-08-16T16:35:00.000-07:00

From the office of the ChairWOMAN, 16 August 2011

***Listen up! The chairWOMAN (me, for recent Harvard grad-staffers) is fed up with the terminology being used by some DNC smart-alecks referencing the current bus-tour by POTUS. The bus is NOT to be called the Mobile Mortuary because of its completely black color, including all windows, nor is the effort to be characterized as the Under-the-bus Tour. The rumor that POTUS has said anyone using that term will be assigned to the complaint desk in Baghdad is untrue and POTUS has said he will not say that again. In addition, any remarks concerning what goes on behind those totally black windows will not be tolerated, except as they relate to POTUS planning his September jobs-program between town-hall meetings and speeches, which are essentially the same. The fact that there are two of these buses has nothing to do with nobody but the Secret Service knowing on which bus POTUS is riding. In any case, at just a paltry $1.1 million each, who would care if POTUS took ten buses, his family (Kenyans included) and half the population of Honolulu? As POTUS has said before, WE WON!.

***All staffers are to refer as often as possible to POTUS as the Commander-in-Chief. This is important because Texas Governor Rick Perry has entered the republican circus for the nomination. Perry spent five years in the Air Force in the 1970s as a pilot, flying all over the world, meaning that he has military experience, something that perhaps only Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who also spent five years in the Air Force as a doctor, can match. This makes a problem for POTUS, who has finally learned how to return a salute but now has to appear more macho than ever. In this regard, emphasize that POTUS is now leading from behind in perpetuating the highly important Arab Spring through unilaterally (Congress a bunch of chickens who would have said “no”) attacking powerful Libya, which boasts a troop-strength of 76,000, and has a huge population just two million less than that of New York City. This has been a daring example of military-use; however, do not mention that POTUS said Qaddafi would be gone in days, not weeks. Simply mention that POTUS did not mention months, another example of his superior intellect.

***With regard to the forgoing, be advised that Dan Rather is said to be investigating whether or not Perry has been given favorable treatment by the Air Force, perhaps by letting him be an officer/pilot rather than a tail-gunner, which is what his father was in WWII, or a surfer, which is what Obama was in the 1970s. Rather had a problem with Air Force typewriters of the 1960s but is open to any suggestions regarding Air Force typewriters, especially in Texas, during the 1970s-era. Any former colleague of Perry who can testify to even so much as Perry’s shoes not being properly shined during inspections is requested to contact the office of the ChairWOMAN immediately. Anyone having knowledge that Perry might have returned late from a furlough (delicious AWOL stuff) will be rewarded handsomely for any information and may remain anonymous. Even bogus information will be entertained on the basis of Rather’s being able to make it authentic. Now is the time for all democrats to come to the aid of their country…or something like that.

***POTUS has expressed brilliantly that the high unemployment rate is due to the Arab Spring and the Japanese tsunami and nuclear meltdown. He has requested a red/yellow/black/white paper explaining why this is the case. He would prepare it but he’s booked up until November 2012, even though press-person Carney has promised to give the reasons any day now. Carney isn’t clear about the Arab Spring and hasn’t the time, anyway, since he’s in charge of town-hall teleprompters and the teleprompters to be used at bedside in case POTUS is awakened for an emergency at 3:00 a.m. Also, the yellow/black/white/red paper (note diversity in colors compared to the above paper) explaining why POTUS is leading from behind in Libya has not been received – not even one. See to this at once. The chairWOMAN would take care of this but spending 100 hours a week in the work of the House and doing this job, too, leaves no time for such activity.

***POTUS has requested that Iowa be made to appear as the most advanced state in the Midwest since its Supreme Court has made it official that men can marry men. This contravenes state and federal law (DOM ACT, 1998), which states that marriage must be between one man and one woman. The justices apparently made no further restrictions concerning marriage, so it may take place between men-and-men, not just man-and-man. In other words, the more the merrier, so emphasize that Iowa, as a democrat state, is on a par now with San Francisco, where anything goes. The subject of group marriages will be taken up by the DNC very soon, the better to present the party as forward-looking and fun-loving. POTUS, as everyone knows, has changed his position on this subject from the one he held in 2008 but the rumor that he said exotic-marriage sounds exciting is untrue and he’s said he will not say that again.

***Finally, the tour-buses will not be used for more than three or five days a year, so the OMB has suggested they be rented out for weddings and funerals, not that all such are the same, though some may be. This is a time-saving one-time-for-all thing, meaning that those attending a funeral can be transported immediately to the grave-site without the bother of a funeral procession, and then back to their cars, which can be parked in most any WalMart lot. The same is true for weddings, without the bother of finding the reception-location…just stay in the reclining seat and leave the driving to the non-drunk.

***Good teleprompter-constructors and speech-writers are always in short supply so be advised that applications will be taken for these positions. POTUS, who understands the profoundness of his gravitas and worries that he sometimes speaks “over the head” of his audiences, has said that speeches are always to be directed toward those on the level of a seventh-grade education, so the field is wide-open and the more illiterate among the staff may have an excellent chance of succeeding.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama's Solution - TAXES!

2011-08-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

England is afire and has been for a number of days now. The excuse of a police shooting was turned into riots by people who make no apologies for the claim that they intend to have what the rich have, the rich being most anyone who works and tries to make the economy sustainable. It is the result of class-consciousness carried to the extreme.

The socialist government is supposed to guarantee that everyone has the same “things” as everyone else. It’s supposed to do this by taxing the workers to a degree that will take care of everybody cradle-to-grave. Eventually, as is happening now in Greece, Spain, England, Italy and now France, the government will bankrupt itself, can no longer feed the classes, and the classes take to the streets. For these countries, it’s virtually too late to do anything constructive, a lesson that is almost too late for the learning for the U.S.

The top tax-rate in England is 50% for those making over 150,000 pounds ($241,950). This doesn’t touch all the other taxes they pay, so the better off are being taxed inordinately at a rate that still can’t support the system. The next step down, tax-wise, is at 40%, (those making over $56,900), both rates far above those paid in this country, yet the economy can’t be sustained. Germany’s tax rates are similar (top rate at 45% but with corporate rate at 33.3%).

The corporate tax-rate in this country stands at 35%, among the four highest in the world, in which the average rate among developed nations is 25%. By contrast, the corporate tax-rate in Canada is 16.5%, its way of proclaiming to the world that it’s ready to do business, create jobs and hopefully enlarge its individual tax base to the point that it can support its essentially socialistic system. The top individual rate is 29% but applies to all income above $128,800, as compared to Obama’s goal of 39.6% on all above $250,000 (for starters). The corporate tax-rate in China is 25%. Is it any wonder that shoes and nearly everything else bought in this country are made in China?

The U.S. economy can’t be sustained under current law but when Obamacare is added it will further crumble, never mind any of the glorious statistics that have been presented, although no one seems to know what’s actually in the new law. These countries have found it out the hard way, though Germany may last a while longer. In 1966, Medicare cost to the government was $3 billion, with the House Ways/Means committee projecting its cost for 1990 to be $12 billion.

The actual governmental outlay in 1990 was $107 billion, a mistake in prediction of 3,467%. That just about says it all with respect to the government’s understanding of economics/demographics. The outlay in 2010 was an astronomical $458 billion, an increase of 328% in just 20 years, while population of those 65 and over grew by only 1.3% from 1990 to2010. That is an amazing almost unbelievable discrepancy vis-à-vis reality. No legislator in Congress read the whole healthcare bill and it’s a lead-pipe cinch the president didn’t, either, but on the basis of history, when it kicks in (2014, well after Obama’s reelection effort) it will be a budget-buster.

Private insurance agencies handle all Medicare claims, not the government. The government got out of this complicated business a long time ago, realizing it couldn’t administer its own programs. If and when Obamacare gets real, the bureaucratic quagmire will only worsen, with layers of overlapping bureaucracy similar to that which already exists in all areas of government. Congresses have tweaked the original Medicare bill through the years, as in 2003 when prescription drugs became a part of it, but by far the main reason for its out-of-control costs is corruption.

Anything that belongs to the government actually belongs to no one, thus open season on the government till, in this case by the pharmaceuticals, doctors, lawyers and hardware providers and individuals who can figure a way to game the system. As a for instance, U.S. Attorney Stephen Pence estimated that while Dr. Steve Henry was lieutenant governor of Kentucky 1996-2001, he committed fraud amounting to between $400,000 and $600,000 account not being present in surgical procedures for which he billed Medicare/Medicaid. Henry settled for $162,000.

Part of the tragedy in the socialist health systems is the rationing of care and the long lines, for which Obama wants taxes raised (his 39.6% for the better-off just the start), but it’s been proven that constant raising of taxes, besides not saving the economy, degrades all the goods and services. These countries go after the middle class just like they go after the biggies, and this is also Obama’s agenda, notwithstanding any of the high-flown rhetoric about saving the middle class. The middle class to Obama is the unions.

At any rate, increasing taxes is not the answer. A complete revamping of government enterprise is.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Boogity Boogity Boogity Amen!

2011-08-03T11:57:00.000-07:00

For some strange reason, there just has to be a prayer preceding the action at sports events, notwithstanding that prayers per se have fallen out of favor with every entity from Atheists United to the ACLU. Here is the prayer offered before a NASCAR race in Nashville the other night by Pastor Joe Nelms:

“Heavenly father, we thank you tonight for all your blessings. You said ‘in all things give thanks.’ So we want to thank you tonight for these mighty machines that you’ve brought before us. Thank you for the Dodges and the Toyotas. Thank you for the Fords and most of all thank you for Roush and Yates partnering to give us the power we see before us tonight. Thank you for GM Performance Technology and the R07 engines. Thank you for Sunoco racing fuel and Goodyear tires that bring performance and power to the track. Lord, I want to thank you for my smokin’ hot wife tonight, Lisa. My two children, Eli and Emma, or as we like to call them — the little E’s. Lord I pray you’ll bless the drivers as usual tonight. May they put on a performance worthy of this great track in Jesus’ name. Boogity boogity boogity. Amen.”

One can only wonder how that entreaty rates in the Great Beyond, especially when – at the encouragement of NASCAR pooh-bahs – the drivers bump their opponents’ cars during races, sometimes causing dangerous high-speed wrecks, in order to get a high-powered edge for their “mighty machines” that God has “brought before us.” One can just see the angels in the clouds covering their eyes at the prospect of a crashing, smashing spinout, perhaps sending a new traveler to the pearly gates. Of course, the pastor prayed that the Lord would “bless the drivers as usual,” so was that supposed to invoke no trip that night to bivouac with St. Pete forever? Who knows?

How would such a prayer go preceding a hockey game, another sport in which a premium is placed on fights and skull-creases? First would come thanks for the lethal hockey sticks/clubs/whatever that make mayhem (and good gate receipts) possible, not to mention the padded armament worn by the players to ward off fatal injuries, at least. If the presiding invocator should have a smokin’ hot wife, he naturally would give thanks for such a blessing and hope no one is checking her credentials while he’s blessing the gladiators. If he should become suspicious he can just borrow one of those hockey sticks aka weapons and imitate the players.

Football is almost as sacred in this country as prayer itself, so there must be a prayer before an NFL game, in which, after the prayer is offered beseeching the Lord to “protect as usual,” the gangs of millionaires will proceed to knock the stuffing out of each other, sort of daring God to let anything bad happen since the reverend had specifically requested deliverance from all concussions, broken bones, torn tendons, and displaced kidneys, as well as ruptured tattoos. The reverend wouldn’t have to worry about his wife, no matter how “smokin’ hot,” since the NFL cheerleaders take care of that part of prayerful concern. As for the proper fuel, he would simply express thanks for the steroids and human-growth-hormones that make the macho-men fearless, lean and mean enough to totally disable anyone who gets in the way. As for putting “on a performance worthy of this great” game, the reverend could pray that no player will hurt/embarrass himself through celebration-gyrations after cracking someone’s collarbone, known to have completely thrown crotches out of sync and sometimes cause broken ribs.

A prayer before a soccer match is always in order. After all, people who bounce hard balls off their heads and occasionally crash their heads into the heads of other people trying to do the same thing to them definitely need help of an otherworldly nature…a higher power. The reverend might pray for a minimum of concussions, since concussions are expected to happen, else the players would protect their heads from both balls and other heads. Even the macho footballers dare not go into combat bareheaded since a simple concussion is preferable to an all-out skull-fracture, the obvious intention of any linebacker worth his tattoo vis-à-vis any quarterback (or for some linebackers, just anybody still on his feet, wobbling or not).

A prayer before a basketball game was once unnecessary since the sport was classified as “non-contact.” No more! Weight rooms are designed to make the famous HULK appear as a pantywaist compared to the seven-foot behemoths who roam under the basket these nights looking for their prey, usually other behemoths returning the compliment. The resulting collisions, calculated to rev up the fans exponentially (especially if blood spurts on the sensitive referees) are definitely a subject of prayer, since the multi-millionaire players involved might actually get mad and kill a totally expendable referee…may the reverend pray him onward and upward in that case. In other words: Boogity boogity boogity. Amen.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Hillary Rides Again!

2011-08-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

State Secretary Hillary Clinton blew into Istanbul, Turkey, a couple weeks ago and announced to the world that Libya had a new government, one that she personally approved…well, what would any government be if she didn’t personally approve of it? The Libyans didn’t take a vote concerning their new government and Libyan President (or whatever he is) Qaddafi didn’t resign or appoint it, but there it was – signed sealed and delivered by Hillary of derring-do fame when she dodged those bullets in the sniper infested fields of Bosnia, circa 1996. Don’t believe it? Just check the campaign of 2008 for all the grisly particulars.

This new government is something called the Transitional National Council (TNC), though it doesn’t seem likely that anyone quite knows who runs the thing, how it’s financed, and exactly how Hillary decided it was just the cat’s meow for improving not only Libya but the whole world, which is in her hand. Take that, you fundamentalists! You thought the whole world was in God’s hand, you cretins! Now you know, so shape up.

Seems that a “gang of thirty,” with Hillary presumably the main equal among equals scrounged from various and assorted governments, had met about four times to decide about Qaddafi, whom President Obama said back in March would have no country to rule in “days, not weeks,” courtesy the U.S. Air Force. It’s been about 140 days since then, but what’s a month here or there (or even a year) when Obamessiah has made a pronouncement from the sacred press-room of the White House? Actually, the gang-of-thirty ostensibly met to decide about the makeup of the post-Qaddafi era, but Qaddafi hasn’t accommodated the group yet by providing the post to its era.

Why have a TNC, in the first place? Libyans will do what Muslims do all the time anyway, i.e., fight among themselves, so what does it matter what the government, if any, is? Hillary’s husband knows beyond a doubt what is is. For one thing, if a new Libya government installed by Hillary et al takes over, couldn’t it just take all of Libya’s now-frozen assets and spend them…on the Libyans, of course, at least that part that doesn’t go into those deep bureaucratic pockets. But what would the ever hovering United Nations think of such a robbery, seeing as how the TNC doesn’t signify there? Only the Shadow (and Hillary) knows.

It seems that at least 32 nations are in it with Hillary/Barack against poor old Qaddafi. In fact, Germany has loaned (or will loan) $144 million to the Libyan rebels, who presumably will divvy it up amongst themselves…and why not? After all, Libya was a disaster area for Germany in World War II. Not even the mighty Rommel could defeat the Brits and Patton. It’s payback time. A “Group of Fifteen,” including Clinton, will also coordinate aid for Libya, which, being translated, means Uncle Sugar will be doling out billions to pay off some entity for being nice, as per usual in these matters of high diplomacy.

But…why not? Obama is on track to spend a total of 1.1 billion taxpayer-dollars by the end of September in the ongoing effort of “leading NATO from behind” in killing enough Libyans to make even Qaddafi think twice. There’s no telling how many innocent Libyans U.S. and NATO forces have killed since 19 March, but, after all, they’re killing Libyans in order to keep Qaddafi from killing Libyans. So, it makes perfect sense – right?

Left to their own devices, Qaddafi and the rebels probably would have made some kind of peace by now – Mid-east peace, that is, which essentially means fighting until neither side has anything to gain and everything to lose – of what’s left, of course, if anything. This is what’s going on in Syria and Yemen now, but nothing has been heard from the gang-of-thirty about those places. Meanwhile, in liberated Tunisia and Egypt, folks have chosen up sides predictably and set about doing each other in…perfectly normal for Muslim countries. The Egyptian army and police have just cleared the squatters out of Tahrir Square, that veritable bastion of niceness earlier this year. Can Camelot be far behind?

So…Hillary has approved a new government for Libya…hallelujah! The top general in the rebel force, presumably TNC to the core, has just been assassinated, unfortunately, so what else is new? He wasn’t killed by Qaddafi…he was killed by members of his own rebel army…so go figure. Surely Hillary will come to the rescue and surely goodness and mercy will follow Libya all the days of its life. So there, all you fundamentalists! Hillary leads through the green pastures to the still waters.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #3

2011-07-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

From the office of the ChairWOMAN, 22 July 2011

***Listen up. Discipline has been lax lately and will not be tolerated. I’ve set the example for toughness with my speech in the House by calling out Congressman West, who may think his Bronze Star and 22 years in the military is a match for WOMAN. A mere lieutenant colonel, probably lower than a sergeant – who cares – he dared to disagree with a DNC chairWOMAN, probably the second most important person to the First Lady in the country now. In response, West said I am the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member of the U.S. House of Representatives. I wear that badge proudly and advise all women staffers to become the same. Do NOT – repeat – do NOT mention in any meeting that Congressman West was not in the chamber when I took him on. The rumor that I had him called to the phone before I spoke is untrue, and I won’t do that again.

***Republican harridan Michele Bachman is unfit to be president because it is well documented that she has migraine headaches, a debilitating ailment that would make her dangerous if called at 3:00 a.m. in the midst of one of those attacks, especially requiring a decision as momentous as whether or not the breakfast eggs should be scambled or taken on the half-shell. State Secretary Clinton stated that she would be fine at 3:00 a.m., but she didn’t have migraines. POTUS is also clear-headedly wakeable at 3:00 a.m. and keeps a teleprompter handy at his bedside programmed to answer any emergency. All new campaign materials are to include information concerning the ravages of migraines, complete with diagrams of how they disorient the brain and distort performance accruing to even well-prepared teleprompters, much less the ones used by POTUS, who does not suffer from migraines despite his ramblings during press conferences, concerning which POTUS has announced officially that SACRIFICE is a keyword in his campaign, on which he plans to spend a billion big ones, roughly 67 times the GDP of Tuvalu, an important ally in the Pacific.

***My patience is running thin concerning the red/yellow/black/white paper that POTUS has demanded be prepared explaining why he is still leading from behind in the Libya shootout. Not one has been received except those from recent Harvard graduates that blame George Bush for not stopping the carnage he started in March. These reflect the party-line that Bush and his father were/are/will be responsible for everything bad at least through 2050 but simply form too big a stretch. The Harvard gang is being sent to the Durbin Reeducation Camp for a remedial course in something as soon as Durbin decides what their problem is, other than LSD, Mary Jane, Meth, Ecstasy and the like. They will be treated gently and not accused of being what Durbin has described American GIs to be: SS troops (Nazis), keeper of the Gulags (Soviet KGB), or killing-field operators (Pol Pot).

***There’s been talk around the water-fountain (only bottled, since D.C. water is suspect) that POTUS has decided to lead from behind regarding the space program, leaving it to the Russians, Frenchies and any other entity that can get anything off the ground (besides U.S. missiles over Libya or Iranian rockets from Gaza over Israel). POTUS has correctly concluded that people can’t live comfortably on the moon, so what’s the use? The rumor that he has stated that neither golf nor cigarettes will ever be available on the moon, besides the fact that Air Force One can’t even get there, much less land, is untrue and he will not make that claim again.

***IMPORTANT NOTICE: In the interest of gender equality, bathrooms exclusively for men and women only are being abolished in the headquarters building, except for the chairWOMAN’S suite. These outdated facilities have to remain there since uncultured visitors might be traumatized by the new emphasis on unisex. This new arrangement will place men and women on an equal footing with the waiting in line problem, the effort geared officially toward erasing male insensitivity and indirectly toward getting even with the &%^$#&^ so-and-so’s. Any male staffer caught outside in the tree-area will be disciplined severely, perhaps made to canvass South Carolina and eat grits three times a day. VPOTUS has stated that this is a big #%*$^# deal, so pay attention.

***Notwithstanding the evidence in all the history-books that a nation is headed for oblivion when homosexuality becomes all the rage and men marrying men makes perfect sense, the DNC is instituting a new policy of nullifying the Equal Opportunity Act in its hiring policies, giving homosexuals (actually the GLBTW gang) first dibs on every job that comes open, with the blessing of POTUS (executive order), of course, who thinks men marrying men is cool and maybe even exciting, perhaps even improving dunking techniques and chip shots. On applications, homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, in-betweeners and whatevers will not be required to fill in the gender blank but, if they prefer, may check any box they like or make up a new gender, though a description must be submitted in the latter case. Bestiality, however, will not qualify since People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) claim this designation humiliates and discriminates against animals, most of whom cannot write or even hire lawyers, the latter an absolute necessity in working for the government.

***POTUS is being regularly referenced by evil republicans like Allen West (see above) and evil news outlets such as Fox as “the dear leader” and, while he enjoys the warm-fuzzy nature of the appellation, suspects the term is often used sarcastically, perhaps even juxtaposing his regal bearing with that of Kim Jong Il, that snipe in North Korea. POTUS is probably a nine-iron taller. Staffers are warned not to use this term, even in friendly town-hall meetings, and to stamp their feet and exit any un-friendly town-halls if the term is used.

***Finally, POTUS is tired of the charge by republicans that, while they’ve presented deficit-reduction and other fiscal plans, he has presented nothing, which is true, of course. Needed immediately by POTUS is a complete economic plan. POTUS would take care of this but he is booked solidly through November 2012 and simply hasn’t the time. Every staffer – repeat – EVERY staffer is to have a plan (preferably 25 words or less) on the chairWOMAN’S desk by in the morning. Anyone not responding will be disciplined by walking the Mall come hell, heat or high water for 12 hours. Note: When placing the plan on the chairWOMAN’S desk, don’t even think about using the toilet, either one of them.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Libya & the "TRUTHERS"

2011-07-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

After every calamity of any substance, some government agency or Congressional body conducts an investigation or hearing to discover what caused the problem, usually with the stated purpose that the effort is designed to effect adjustments so that the calamity can never again happen. With respect to either government or private enterprise, the primary purpose, however, is to fix blame. This is especially true with government since elected officials are always in campaign mode and looking for ways to point the finger at opponents.

Also after every calamity of substance, some sort of “truther” organization will come on line to dispute the findings of the official body. There was an investigation/hearing into the Pearl Harbor massacre back in the 1940s (FDR knew all about it beforehand); after Katrina in 2006 (the House democrats didn’t participate since the official version was on point, but the truthers fingered FEMA); concerning the Iraq War (9/11 conspiracy by Bush/Cheney/Osama and known about by Bush beforehand); JFK assassination in 1963 (take your pick of conspiracy theories, including that LBJ did it); and more recently, torture (Bush approved it and practically wrote the torture-manual).

Usually, the truther-stuff is laughable but it seems to provide great entertainment and, of course, furnishes an outlet for whatever political agenda any group/individual has. For instance, President Obama was gung-ho against the Patriot Act until he got elected. Recently, he signed law to continue that act upon realizing that he’d get the blame if anything untoward happened that could have been prevented by its use, which abridges no one’s rights, or at least those who have nothing to hide.

It hasn’t been held yet and, of course, will not be held unless and until the republicans have the power to do it (and they do in the House), but Obama’s personal declaration of war against Libya will someday be investigated, as it should be, especially since Congress was not even consulted, much less given an opportunity to approve or disapprove. The president simply got a UN resolution and ordered the U.S. military to attack a nation posing no threat to any other nation, including especially the U.S. Libya’s total population of six million souls is two million less than that of New York City, and it was/is virtually defenseless. The plan was to just bomb the bejesus out of Tripoli/Libya and hopefully kill Qaddafi in what Obama said would take days, not weeks. That was nearly four months ago.

For the sake of argument, assume that a hearing/investigation is held and that Obama’s actions will be certified as perfectly desirable since, being a superior human, he substituted his choice of Libyans to be killed for that of letting Qaddafi make his own choice of which Libyans to kill. The latest “truther” organization to answer this could be something called the Questionable Affairs Department for Discovering Avaricious Fuel Invaders, known by its obvious acronym, QADDAFI.

This organization claims that Obama, Biden, British Petroleum and its Middle East tyrant-connection, Ahmadinejad, met secretly in a New York mosque to plan the March 19 attack on Libya in order to guarantee that its oil operations either be shut down or simply overrun with a view toward directing its shipments to Marseilles or San Francisco, where strange things happen as a matter of course and no one would be suspicious of oil tankers from Libya with blood-stained decks tying up at Fisherman’s Wharf.

Such “truther” notables as former general Wesley Clark could head QADDAFI, which has already also discovered that the Gulf oil spill last year was also planned by O,B, BP and A, who have captured most of the millions of gallons and have them stored in a huge underground cave in the Pacific island-nation of Tuvalu, elevation 15 feet and therefore susceptible to quick ingress and egress of product, which can be used at any time to flood the market and bankrupt selected nations or simply stack euros and dollars in banks in the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, or Switzerland, where partners-in-crime Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and Osama (RIP with the virgins, although he didn’t fire a shot) stashed all the Saudi money they received account of 9/11 action.

The truth seems perfectly obvious. Why would Obama spend $55 million a day for ten days straight in March dropping bombs and missiles on Libya for no logical reason other than OIL, the only industry other than camel-rehabilitation that Libya has. The Foreign Legion doesn’t count except for the elements paid by Qaddafi. Obama is up to about $750 million now and counting ($1.1 billion by Oct. 1), with Congress, in another of its frequent moments of lunacy, probably on line to give him at least until the end of the year to finish off Qaddafi, with the provision that body-counts may not lawfully be publicized, especially those of children.

The truthers know that LBJ colluded with Fidel to off JFK, that Bush 41 colluded with the whole world to do Kuwait, Bubba colluded with Tito’s ghost (channeled by Hillary and Eleanor’s ghost) to do Bosnia, and that Bush 43 colluded with Cheney, Halliburton and Osama to do 9/11. The Obama/Biden/BP/Ahmadinejad conspiracy to reduce Libya to rubble makes eminently more sense than any of the others.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

New Protective Order - Worthless?

2011-07-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

Steve Nunn, a onetime Kentucky legislator and governor-aspirant, shot and killed Amanda Ross, a state employee, in late 2009 after she had obtained a protective order against him in Fayette County Family Court. Since the two were not related, one wonders why anything was done through a Family Court. It would seem that the protective order should have simply been secured in whatever other court has always administered them. Recently, Nunn confessed guilt instead of going to trial, thereby bargaining his way out of a possible trip to the execution chamber, whatever it is now.

As a result of this sordid event, the state legislature spent an inordinate amount of time in 2010 – instead of passing a budget – debating and passing some sort of law requiring anyone with a protective order against him to be tracked via GPS, necessitating that he wear some sort of device at all times. There was great debate – much ado about very little – and a weak bill of some sort was coughed up. Some counties are not equipped to satisfy the law and all the counties are strapped for cash and probably won’t do much anyway. The budget was finally signed on May 30 in, of course, one of those boondoggle-for-the-lawmakers “special sessions.”

How does the tracker, assuming someone has to be monitoring the appropriate devices, know how close an offender is to the aggrieved, anyway, if he/she doesn’t know where the aggrieved is? Or, does the wearer of the device just have to stay away from a particular area, meaning that the order is virtually useless and assuming that the protective order doesn’t amount to house arrest?

There’s nothing new about protective orders and “domestic” violence. An inordinate amount of time and resources are expended by law-enforcement agencies and the courts in taking care of this stuff. While it’s true that in some instances vulnerable people need help, in many if not most instances the people who need these orders, or think they do, have brought much of their difficulty upon themselves and then expect the officials to bail them out of the messes into which they’ve gotten themselves.

Ross and Nunn had co-habited, apparently had fought, had split, and apparently Nunn figured the publicity had cost him a good state job. Who knows what else had been going on in this seamy business? The point is that the two had done their part in bringing about all the mess, including the protective order and murder. This happens all too often, especially with women who take their panties off one time too many and wind up with a problem when they turn the old boy away, perhaps for another old boy.

This may sound crass but taxpayers have a right to be unhappy when they spend money to clean up the messes caused by these woeful indiscretions, whether through domestic violence that often costs the lives of law-enforcement officers or just piling the courts with junk, the supposedly aggrieved either participating in the violence (he warn’t all that bad so the police [or po-lice] shouldn’t have been here even though I called them) or rescinding the orders.

Bottom line: Nunn would have carried out his objective even if he’d been wearing a GPS bracelet on both ankles and around his neck. The ladies need to understand that they should choose wisely, not party indiscriminately, stay sober, and avoid adultery and fornicating. Sound insensitive? So what!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama's Libya-Rape Continues

2011-07-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

ABC News, 18 March, concerning Libya: “In his meeting with Members of Congress today, sources tell ABC News, President Obama said he expected that the period that the US would be involved in heavy kinetic activity would be ‘days, not weeks,’ after which he said the U.S. would then take more of a supporting role.” Assuming that “kinetic activity” does not include the use of drones and that “supporting role” does include the furnishing of bombs and missiles to NATO nations which, coincidentally, just don’t have any more missiles and bombs to fire upon the Libyans , the president has carried double-speak, teleprompted or not, to a whole new level.

This is the definition of “kinetic” (Merriam-Webster, 11th Collegiate): “of or relating to the motion of material bodies and the forces and energy associated therewith.” In other words, anything this country has done regarding Libya at any time is “kinetic.” U.S.-GI-material-bodies were ordered by the commander-in-chief to kill Libyans, starting on 19 March and (through NATO, owned and controlled by Obama) continuing until today. They used material bodies called bombs and missiles to do so, and Obama has continued that use until today.

So…everything that has been done and/or used since 19 March can be classified as “kinetic” (not just the first ten days when the U.S. spent $55 million on the project each day) and “supporting role” (both in the first ten days and now). Current cost in dispatching Libyans/Muslims to eternity continues to mount.

ABC News, 15 June, concerning Libya: “In a report revealing that the total cost of US intervention in Libya as of June 3 has been $716 million and will reach $1.1 billion by the end of September, the Obama administration today told congressional leaders in a report that the role of the US military is so limited, congressional authorization is not needed.” The president said “days, not weeks,” but apparently he didn’t consider that the 105 or so days or the 15 or so weeks since 19 March actually amounted to days/weeks, or maybe he was thinking of months, now up to 3.5 months and counting.

Obama invested $550 million tax-dollars in the Libya massacre in the first ten days and is on line to invest another $550 million by the end of September, the latter, of course, in a non-kinetic supporting role, which is just as kinetic as the first kinetic role. One wonders if he thinks the general population is so collectively dumb that it can’t figure out both the kind and volume of his subterfuge.

One wonders, also, about Congress, which in Obama’s mind seems not to exist, and perhaps for good reason. The president obviously is accountable to no one. He unilaterally declared war on Libya – without even a presidential proclamation, to say nothing of one from Congress – and ordered decent men to commit murder on a nation with a population two-million less than that of New York City that has never been a threat to this country in either words or actions. The representatives and senators had no say in the matter, meaning that the people didn’t, either. The collective congressional spine is made of jelly and the citizens are un-represented. The founders of this nation would flip in their graves.

The people who have the greatest dread of war, as well as the consequent motivation to do anything to avoid it, are those who have experienced it…those who have seen and smelled the blood, gathered the dead and ministered to the twisted and torn bodies of the wounded. The president can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a Libyan when the planes or drones are heard overhead. He also can’t imagine what it’s like to administer bombs and missiles on innocent people, never mind the talk of taking out only “strategic targets.”

The bombs in Libya have been falling in residential neighborhoods, with Obama and NATO insisting that the targets were legitimate, usually “command-and-control centers.” Just one malfunctioning part of a bomb or missile sends it anywhere but where it’s intended to blow up “things.” That means that the carnage is anywhere an errant or even a properly functioning device lands. People are where the things are…euphemistically labeled “collateral damage.”

If there were a reason for all the Libyan bloodletting at the hands of Obama and NATO, there would be no condemnation of it. As it is, Obama has much innocent blood on his hands and is aiming to be smeared with much more. Disgusting! It’s long since past the time to stop the killing.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Fragile Freedom

2011-07-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

“Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.” ~ Ronald Reagan, from his first inaugural speech as governor of California, January 5, 1967

This gem of wisdom from former president Reagan is particularly apropos currently as Americans celebrate Independence Day. The tendency is to think of freedom only in terms of attaining and maintaining it through the trials and tribulations of war. This was the tool of necessity – certainly not the weapon of choice – that was used to form the United States. Blood was shed as the seed…the nation germinated and grew from it.

Freedom for the nation as a whole was threatened by the secession-states in 1861. Whereas the nation was declared on 04 July 1776, it was re-declared both symbolically and substantively 04-06 July 1863 at Gettysburg exactly 87 years later, with respect to the shedding of blood. The war that developed as a result of the former was long and bloody. So was the war vis-à-vis the latter, of which Gettysburg was but one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles. When this writer was born, there were a number of Civil War veterans still alive. To him, therefore, that victory has a unique meaning, especially since his great-grandfather and two great-uncles, all immigrants born in England, fought in the Union Army.

Freedom, however, can be lost un-militarily and it is this fact that should concern the nation currently. This has to do with Reagan’s observation that freedom is a “fragile thing.” Even now, when both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars were/are little more to today’s youngsters than stuff in history books, young people will fight and die for what they have – fragile freedom saved through the shedding of blood. They know the good life, especially as compared to the lives of people in other countries.

The present danger to freedom is not susceptible to military action. It’s the danger that either creeps or quickly strikes from within. In his 2008 campaign, President Obama spoke of the need to rewrite the Constitution in order to provide for the redistribution of wealth, i.e., taking possessions from one person and giving them to another, in this case probably through taxation. He also spoke of the need for a national police force, reminding those old enough to remember of Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s KGB. This represents two dangers to freedom – denial of ownership and the force to make it stick.

In 2008, the president said he intended to make electricity rates “skyrocket” and that he would see to it that those who presumed to build coal-fired generators would be bankrupted. The House, with no member having read the bill that would make this happen, went along with its approval of the cap/trade legislation but the Senate won’t touch it for good reason. So, the president, through his czars/regulators, is attempting to make it happen administratively. The president claims his action is to protect the climate from manmade warming, but by now everyone knows that manmade global warming is a hoax, so the president’s agenda seems to be the sinking of the economy through pricing power, its providers and its users out of the market. To what end? Total control of the population!

The president’s healthcare bill, also unread by legislators, was passed through the browbeating of legislators and finally through outright subterfuge involving Congressional parliamentary maneuvers. It’s common knowledge now that this unbelievably expensive program represents the government’s attempt at total control of its people through its bureaucracy making all medical decisions, thus stealing the freedom of life itself – perhaps the most telling one – from the citizenry.

Obama has surrounded himself with perhaps 35-40 “czars” who are responsible only to him and whose collective job is to regulate everything and everybody to an extent designed to usurp individual freedom – the saving of people from themselves. The fact that this is happening is proof that freedom is what Reagan said it is – fragile. The eroding of freedom eventuating in Socialism – the welfare state – has been creeping-up on the citizenry for some time but is now quickening its pace. Is the nation about to lose its freedom…forever, as Reagan said would be the case if and when it is lost?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama - War Criminal?

2011-06-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

Though it has no police powers or police force, the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, has just issued an arrest warrant for Libyan strongman/dictator Muammar Qadaffi. Presumably, any individual, military force, nation or group apprehending Qadaffi must turn him over to the Court so he can be tried on the charge “crimes against humanity for killing civilians who rose up against his rule,” according to the Associated Press, 28 June. Presently, Qaddafi is more or less hunkered down and dodging bombs and missiles being rained upon him by the U.S. and NATO, though obviously not in its usual “peace-keeping” mode.

Similar “crimes” have been the order of the day in the Middle East since time immemorial, with a few others also in motion now in places such as Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia and, of course, Iran. The word from Libya is that hundreds have been arrested, injured or killed, with reasonable grounds that Qaddafi and his son were responsible. Of course, the figures are without verification (always hundreds or thousands in these dustups – no one knows). The current figures in Syria in that ongoing bloodletting is something like 1,400, but where do the figures come from? Only recently has strongman Assad allowed any reporters in.

So…Qaddafi is in trouble with the Court because he allegedly has killed Libyans, his own people. He probably has…probably quite a few of them, and he promised to maintain his methods, like all the other dictators, until the insurgency is stopped. There probably is proof of this, though it has never been brought forward. Perhaps – if it had either the authority or the funds – the Court should offer a $25 million reward for the capture of Qaddafi (but not for killing him – that would be un-Courtly). After all, the U.S. offered that reward to anyone leading to the capture or killing of bin Laden, about which the president crows on a daily basis. Bounty-hunters would crawl out of the woodwork all over the world, especially in Somalia, where flesh-trading and kidnapping are a way of life.

Beyond a shadow of doubt and with abundant proof, however, the president of the United States has ordered his military to kill Libyans, beginning last March and continuing until now, with no end of the killing in sight and with some $750 million invested in the project already. His claim to have handed the killing operation off to NATO is, as Veep Biden would have it, FLUFFERNUTTER, the appellation he ascribed to John Edwards’ speeches in 2008. The U.S. owns NATO lock, stock and barrel and finances its operations as well as kicks in with human resources. At a word from Obama, the killing would stop immediately. Virtually all, or at least a huge part, of the killing was done by the U.S. in the first ten days of Obama’s massacre, while NATO was deciding whether or not to do as told by Obama and continue the carnage.

Since it is abundantly demonstrable that Libya had not attacked the U.S. and had made no threats to do so, as well as it being a public record that Obama did not consult Congress as required Constitutionally
for the act of war he committed, there is an extreme irony. Under current law and the manual for courts-martial, “An order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate. This inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.”

Since the president was not acting in defense of the nation in attacking Libya and therefore willfully committing warfare, he was committing a criminal act (murder), thus violating his responsibility as commander-in-chief and citizen. Since the president was guilty of committing the same crimes as the Court accused Qaddafi of committing, i.e., killing Libyans, he was (or should be judged) just as guilty as Qaddafi under the aegis of the Court in the Netherlands. In other words, if Qaddafi is a war criminal, so is Obama.

The further irony lies in the fact that a service-member might well have been absolved of any order-disobedience because of being ordered to commit a criminal act (murder of innocent civilians). Indeed, both Defense Secretary Gates and Joint-Chiefs Chairman Mullen had publicly advised against Obama’s off-the-wall, totally wacky action, apparently taken on a mere whim without even sufficient military or post-war planning, as evidenced by Gates’ further description of the action during his trip to Russia as the hostilities began: "We haven't done something like this, kind of on the fly before." He obviously was out-of-the-loop.

There can be no greater arrogance or infamy than willful killing. The president will not be hailed into Court in the Netherlands, though he for no reason has attacked a weak nation with a population two million less than that of New York City…sort of like a lion attacking a mouse, except that the lion has a reason. One wonders if Obama has a reason for continuing the massacre, and if it might have something to do with NATO members Britain, France, Spain and Italy vis-à-vis Libyan oil. One hopes not.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Three Caveteers

2011-06-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

It’s midnight in a cave somewhere in the mountains just east of the Afghan-Pakistan border. Ayman al Zawahiri, new al Qaeda chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, and Bashir al Assad, Syrian head of government, are meeting. Hereinafter, they are referenced as Z, M and A.

**M: I’m tired of meeting in these caves, Ayman…Allah be praised anyway…and would rather meet somewhere else, preferably in my safest of all countries.
**Z: Bah, Mahmoud, you Shiites are all alike…Allah be disappointed…tenderfoots…
**A: That’s tenderfeet, Ayman. Your Arabic translation of the western words, besides being scandalous in the first place are…well…I lived in England for years and I know…
**M: One more word about Shiites, Ayman, and…Allah forgive me for not making it a suicide assassination…I’ll have you dispatched to the devil. (reaches for AK-47)
**A: Fellow Muslims…Allah, forgive us all…let’s not fight among ourselves! Let’s show disrespect for the Great Satan by speaking in English…or American…or whatever the actual tenderfeet class is speaking these days in the U.S., which has as many strange accents as…takes folks in Mississippi, for instance, a full minute just to say good morning and everything is in Spanish these days…hoo hah…try to get American on the telephone!
**M: Well, I hate these caves…Allah be not blamed for caves…but I understand a drone dogs your every move, Ayman, so you can’t leave the country…so…no offense intended. (puts away the AK-47)
**A: So, why this urgent meeting, Ayman? I can hardly afford to leave Damascus…Allah, give me safekeeping…while there are still insurgents to be shot down in the streets.
**Z: Yes, Bashir, not since your father shot them down like the dogs they are have you had such an opportunity to keep order in your country. What was it…20,000 dispatched by Hafez to the hereafter, with blood in the streets? Allah be praised for sanctioning bloodshed! That was about eleven years after he took charge, about the same as since you took charge.
**M: I notice the Great Satan president Obama is not threatening any action toward you, Bashir, even though he is killing Libyans right in their houses with his bombs…Allah, take revenge on the great Satan!
**A: The Obama is smart enough to pick on the weakest of nations if he feels, as American presidents sometimes do, that he is entitled to at least one war.
**Z: Allah be amused…the Obama says he is killing Libyans for humanitarian reasons…oh hoo hah…humanitarian reasons! (giggles wildly) Everyone knows he is the lackey for the Brits, Frenchies, Latinos and Italians, who get their oil from Libya and are tired of paying those humongous kickbacks to that serpent Qadaffi. The Great Satan has spent $750 million and counting while the others say they are out of ammunition, planes, rockets, missiles and everything else. O hoo hah! The U.S. gets no oil from Libya but Obama tries to kill Qaddafi anyway.
**M: Back to the subject, Ayman! Why are we meeting in this bat-infested cave? How is it that you’ve been in these miserable caves while bin Laden was living in luxury until some Pakistani gave him up for that $25 million reward?
**Z: That’s just it…Allah be beseeched for a little luxury to go along with the bat-droppings. (brushes his hair) The Pakistanis loved Osama because he gave them money. I can’t even feed all my wives and children, much less bribe the Pakistanis to hide me as they did Osama and even furnished him a TV so he could watch the soaps and the reality shows from the evil Great Satan…all those women not wearing burkas…Allah be shamed.
**A: So what do you want, Ayman? I don’t have all night.
**Z: I’m sure you’ve heard that I’m now the head of al Qaeda…Allah be praised for his wisdom!
**M: So, how many competitors did you knock off, Ayman, to get the top job? From what I’ve heard, most of al Qaeda’s assassins hate your guts so you must have gotten to them before they got to you.
**A: Or did you take a vote…oh hoo hah…take a vote in al Qaeda…Allah be amused, Ayman.
**Z: Not funny, Bashir. As a matter of fact, Osama planned it that I would take his place if it ever came to that. Why do you think I’ve been number two all these years? Actually, it’s a dangerous job. Instead of a paltry $10 million on my head, I’m sure now that the Obama will raise it to the same as Osama’s – a cool $25 million. How many goats and poppy fields would that buy, Bashir? Even my bodyguards have bodyguards.
**M: So you’re a big deal now, Ayman…so what else is new? Allah, do not look upon this boredom. What do you want from us?
**Z: Part of the deal I made with the other leaders to get this job included my promise to infiltrate and/or attack Guantanamo and grab Khalid Sheik Mohammad from the Americans, sort of an eye for an eye since the SEALS not only grabbed Osama but shot him, too. So, I need help and…
A: Oh…hoo hah, grab Khalid from the Americans…Allah forgive this fool. You have as much chance of that as Mahmoud, here, has of getting the bomb.
**M: (grabbing his AK-47) Them’s fightin’ words, pilgrim.
**Z: Oh…so you’ve been watching the evil Great Satan TV, too, Mahmoud. Hahahahaha! Fightin’ words, pilgrim…oh hoo hah.
**M: (fires gun into the ceiling) Oh no…not again. (wipes bat-feathers and -intestines out of his eyes). You did that or somebody did that the last time I met with you and Osama. Look, the latrine is running under your rug, Ayman…I’m outta here. (leaves)
**A: Me, too, Ayman…Allah, have mercy on this Sunni madman. What you need are the armies of China, Russia, Pakistan, England, France, and even the Taliban if you can find Mullah Omar.
**Z: But the Castro brothers have already agreed to give me the key to their side of Gitmo so I can just slip in and…by the way, Bashir, I have to pay for that key…so… (Assad leaves) a-a-r-r-g-g-h-h-A-A-R-R-G-G-H-HA-A-R-R-G-G-H-H!!!!!!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #2

2011-06-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

From the office of the ChairWOMAN, 22 June 2011

***Listen UP! There has been dereliction of duty in the DNC. A request was made in last month’s memo for a red/yellow/black/white-paper describing the reasons POTUS has been bombing Libya since March. Thus far, only two papers have been received, with one locating Libya in California and the other wondering if Libya is in POTUS’s denomination and needed retribution instead of prayer. Both were from Harvard graduates, who have been assigned to the Everglades for door-to-door organizing. Since 24 Libyans, none of whom were soldiers, were wasted in raids over the weekend, either NATO’s aim is worse than Cheney’s or there’s something rotten in Demark (not a racist remark because I say it isn’t). Possible research sources are Britain, France, Italy and Senator McCain, all of whom are gung-ho for wiping Libya off the map without putting boots on the ground. If possible, make the paper 25 words or less since POTUS maintains that amount of verbiage to comprise the attention-span of the public. This is why his speeches are long and often…no harm can be done after the first 25 words, whether teleprompted or not.

***Account former Congressman Weiner’s bizarre activities of late, liberalism has been given a bad name and, consequently, must be refurbished. The wag who posted on the bulletin board that a Weiner/Frank garnished with exotic sauces will soon be served in the House cafeteria has been banished to digging up dirt on Rand Paul, starting with the fact that the latest al Qaeda goons were arrested in his hometown. In any case, the Weiner/Frank will be served with the usual – catsup and mustard. A good starting point for reestablishing credibility will be researching all Congressmen and CongressWOMEN to discover how many served well in either Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, but certainly not in both. That would only add to the problem.

***Make every effort to quash the rumor that the First Lady and her mother and daughters each had her own Air Force plane for the goodwill trip to South Africa. The rumor has come about, apparently, because POTUS and FL needed three planes just to have a date in NYC soon after the wearying inauguration. Also, no mention is to be made concerning the actual number of planes, helicopters, armored cars, secret service agents, hairdressers, marines, personal chefs, personal dry-cleaners, costume/dress designers, vegetarian gurus, food-tasters, etc., were needed for this important trip. When questioned about these apparent extravagances, mention that Hillary visited at least 75 countries when she was first lady and even camped out in Morocco.

***In town-hall meetings, stress the fact that SCOTUS erred in ruling against the class-action suit brought against WalMart by 1.6 million women employees or former employees. Though eight justices agreed in one part of the ruling, the main ruling was agreed to by five men. All the SCOTUS women voted to make the 1.6 million plaintiffs wealthy even if bankrupting WalMart were the outcome. This is further evidence that men are not capable of running the country, and no apology is offered herein to DNC male-staffers who might think of suing the DNC over this statement. It is not discriminatory or sexist because the chairWOMAN says it isn’t. Facts are facts.

***Chief DNC propagandist and movie producer Michael Moore is planning a new movie tentatively entitled The Guantanamo Brief. It will feature the actions of a Mississippi lawyer protecting a president from underhanded actions by scurrilous republicans determined to stop POTUS from closing the terrorist prison on the island shared with Cuba. Moore has been denied the use of Guantanamo as the location by the military but is appealing to POTUS, who, as commander-in-chief in an election cycle, is deciding whether or not to intervene, meaning that he’s keeping a close eye on the polls. If POTUS reads the polls as negative, the movie location will be moved to just the other side of the gate at Guantanamo and rented from Fidel Castro or his brother Raoul (who knows who’s calling the shots there?), who has promised Moore that he will furnish all the torture-victims for the realistic torture-scenes, actual water-boarding included, even though it has been declared as non-torture since it neither injures nor kills. Moore is deciding whether or not Cubans could be made to look like Arabs and is devising applications for potential Obama-look-alikes.

***Be aware, account the Libyan action, that the term “no-fly-zone” has been redefined. It now includes, besides planes and helicopters, birds (especially birds of prey), butterflies and other creatures that can be used for carrying chemicals or small nuclear warheads and programmed as to available sites for dive-bombing activity. This explains why NATO pilots often kill civilians, the reason being that their ammo has already destroyed creatures defying the new no-fly-zone, which nevertheless lack the mass to slow the ammo before it hits the ground or a child or whatever else has no right to be in a certain place at the wrong time. This is very important to POTUS since the old no-fly-zone was accomplished four days after the action started on 19 March, while attacks have been continued ever since, meaning that this should be part of the reasoning as the red/yellow/black/white-papers are prepared. Also, since Defense Secretary Gates announced in Moscow that the action was done “on-the-fly,” implying no planning, the actual definition for this term is “strategic planning via leading from behind,” thus describing POTUS’s genius in military matters.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama's Illegal War

2011-06-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

This is from the New York Times of June 17: “WASHINGTON — President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations. Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.”

The president’s rape of Libya for reasons known only to him since nobody with walking around sense would swallow some kind “compassionate considerations” is now not only a war of choice but one of stark illegality. Without even consulting the Congress, the president, in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution, has commited U.S. military and treasure to what amounts to the inculcating of a “killing field.” First the U.S. and now NATO at Obama’s behest, have been “shooting fish in a barrel,” since the Libyan military is virtually powerless against them.

First advertised as the instituting of a “no-fly zone,” the actions have deteriorated into taking sides in a civil war, with the U.S. and NATO just as responsible for the bloodshed as any group on the ground in Libya. The no-fly zone was accomplished within four days of the first U.S. bomb/missile raid on the hapless Libyans. Now, it appears that the targets are residential neighborhoods, although NATO honchos are condemning Qaddafi for using mosques and play-fields as shields, according to the BBC. What did they expect as they rained death on anything and everything, moving or non-moving?

Defense Secretary Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen both went on the record as advising the president that attacking Libya was a bad idea. When Obama pulled the trigger, Gates was in Russia and termed Obama’s war as something “done on the fly,” meaning with little forethought and even less methodology, since Obama seemed to believe that wars could be won just by bombing the enemy into submission. Since Obama also had no exit strategy or even the definition of an end of hostilities, “on-the-fly” was an even more apt description defining the actions of someone with not even one hour’s experience in the military or, certainly, how and when to even use it.

U.S. Constitution Article I(8): “The Congress shall have power…to declare war.” U.S. War Powers Act, 1973, Section 3: “The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and after every such introduction shall consult regularly with the Congress until United States Armed Forces are no longer engaged in hostilities or have been removed from such situations.” Then comes the requirement cited in the article above concerning Congressional authorization, scaling back or getting out altogether.

From the get-go, Obama has engaged in what amounts to terrorist activities, the killing of civilians. Libya, population two million less than that of New York City, has never posed a threat to this nation, has never attacked it, and has a military of only 76,000 troops, as opposed to the U.S. contingent of 1.6 million active duty and about 3 million altogether. There was not one American interest abused or one American citizen in danger in Libya at any time this year. There was not one reason for Obama’s war, no matter what he claims. His job is to protect the interests and welfare of American citizens…ONLY. Meddling in the affairs of other nations without a compelling reason is not the president’s business.

It’s probable that no U.S. president has ever been as unprepared for office as Barack Obama. Even worse, it’s doubtful that any president has ever learned less on the job once in office. Obama has reverted to the monarchical model in his presidency, having appointed 35-40 czars (no one knows how many) answerable only to him in setting up regulations designed to run the country into the tank. The latest regulations, designed to put coal-fired generating-plants out of business or make electricity rates “skyrocket” (as he promised in his campaign), or both, has just been awarded a two-month abeyance. Apparently, someone has reminded him of November 2012.

Only a socialist/communist/fascist leader could have the arrogance of instituting his own war. This is something Hitler did in the 1930s-40s. The American GIs lacking any provocations by Libya but dropping bombs on ordinary citizens anyway deserve better than to be ordered to commit such atrocities. One wonders where the Congress is. Sadly, Congress probably wonders where it is, too.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Dear President Obama,

2011-06-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

In connection with your current effort in Libya, I’m offering the services of the Institute for Modifying All Governmental Entities (IMAGE, for short). It’s the job of IMAGE to enhance the persona of a client in such a way as to make him/her appear acceptable to the public regardless of how brilliant, incompetent, stupid, or just squirrelly he/she (equal opportunity, diversity, multiculturalism, ethnicity, creed, etc. always observed respectfully) may be. Speaker Boehner is publicly on your case presently regarding all those Libyans you have ordered killed in behalf of saving other Libyans’ lives, or something like that. This is not a criticism of your heroic effort, just stating facts. Senator McCain was in Libya in April and said the Libyans you’re saving are his heroes, besides being nice people we can trust.

The arm of IMAGE that would be appropriate at the beginning is the seminar entitled Waging Alien Readjustments, or WAR, for short. You are entitled, as any president is, to conduct at least one war, with two or more even better. Your problem now is that you have told a number of heads of governments to get out of Dodge (little old-west levity there, meaning “run for their lives”) but some of them have refused to do so and have even had the temerity to pay no attention to you, an actual act of diplomatic war, figuratively speaking, requiring not diplomatic revenge, but a reasoned explanation of why they should obey the loudest mouth in the world. WAR operatives can help you form these reasoned arguments, even if there aren’t any, and explain why you can’t just order world leaders around or accuse them of acting stupidly, as you have done with regard to white policemen.

The arm of IMAGE that would obviously follow is the Bureau for Utilizing Loquaciousness in Liberty-Yammering, otherwise known as BULLY. In connection with Libya, you have done what any playground monster would do, namely, pick on the smallest available potential victim. Libya’s population is two-million less than that of New York City and Qadaffi has to make do with hired assassins from the Congo or somewhere, so you could hardly lose, although you actually do need to give Qadaffi the “Osama treatment” before Boehner starts blathering about NATO’s costs, which are mostly borne by American taxpayers. Your choice of Libya for your war was not the problem; rather, you haven’t explained why you chose it. No one expected you to invade Russia or China or even Syria for your war.

Both the Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1973 have to do with your responsibility to protect the public from invasions, etc., but you haven’t explained how Libya was a clear and present danger to this country. BULLY operatives would prepare your teleprompters in such a way as to make the case that Qaddafi threatened the whole world with his huge army (76,000 troops) during his UN speech in 2009 about global things. Also, when he pitched his tent in New York City and demanded camel-space in violation of city ordinances, he was obviously sending a message that a hotel might come under attack at any moment, meaning one that he had planned but obviously went awry. See the difference between all that compassion-dribble and far better, more reasoned propaganda? BULLY would also help you explain why you didn’t listen to the military guys, Gates and Mullen, both of whom said publicly that attacking Libya was strictly bananas.

The next entity in IMAGE that would help you is the Agency for Rationalizing Arab Beheadings and Stoning Prerogatives in Rebellions/Insurrections Necessitating Gravitas, otherwise known by its acronym, ARAB SPRING. This is right in line with your glorification of all the people in the streets this year in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and now Libya, despite the fact that a slew of them have already been buried on the same day their protests took place. If you had been in IMAGE’s care, you would not have encouraged young people, for instance, to take the fall, but old codgers, who are pretty well washed up anyway. ARAB SPRING will help you explain to the American people that Muslims are happy and of no threat, and that their requirements for societal welfare are just different from those of even hillbilly Kentucky. Instead of an eye-for-an-eye, they sometimes require a whole body-for-an-eye. It’s just a matter of degree.

The second area of ARAB SPRING, regarding gravitas, has to do with your needed efforts to convince Arabs and Muslims that they need to have better reasons for cutting off limbs, for instance, just for stealing a loaf of bread. Or, you need to convince them of the need to explain to the world how their punishment is better than civilized punishment, to wit for instance, that a one-armed teenager will have a harder time breaking and entering in order to steal another loaf of bread, or in this country, Lebron James sneakers. This will require IMAGE-ARAB SPRING to work with your state department, but a bit of caution is in order regarding personnel. William Ayers, your friend and mentor, of Weather Underground – Community Organizing fame, is not a candidate for dealing with the Muslims since he is just like them. The Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright might be helpful since he’s made it clear that one can damn this country but still thrive quite well in it. That should make any Arab happy and score points for you in 2012.

Hoping to hear from you.

Respectfully,
I.M. Reverself, CEO
IMAGE

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Weiner's Partners in Crime

2011-06-13T18:31:00.000-07:00

Everyone is piling on Congressman Weiner now and, of course, he deserves it as more of his disgraceful shenanigans are exposed almost daily. His claim to be seeking solutions (would Obamacare cover it?) for his problem seems vague enough. Is he having a “Tiger Woods Moment?” No such thing as sex-addiction has ever been declared by any psychiatric or social or psychological agency, so all the stuff about treating it is smoke and mirrors.

Interestingly, not much is said about the fact that on the other end of all Weiner’s tweets or Facebook whatevers – everything from phone sex to lewd pictures? – is a gaggle of females, many if not most of them perfectly willing to go along with the sleaze. They’re characterized in the media as “victims,” the watchword of modern-day America – everybody just has to be a victim of some kind – while poor Weiner is the only villain. Gimme a break!

I surfed onto Hannity the other evening (I’m not a Hannity type) and who was there all the way from Seattle or somewhere out west but the (gasp) college student victimized by Weiner, naturally just horrified – actually, amused – by the whole thing and obviously enjoying her 15 minutes of fame. She’s 26, a single mom (child’s father not mentioned) and a veteran of the U.S. Army, hardly a naïve college girl being seduced by a lecherous old congressman. She was as calm and collected as anyone could hope to be on Fox News, not the least bit upset. Even Barbara Walters or Diane Sawyer couldn’t have made her weep bitter tears of trauma, though they might talk her into suing Weiner. That would be a great story.

Well…the network girls have dragged out Sanford, Spitzer, Edwards and hammered them, the cads, with great fervor, but don’t mention the distaff operatives involved in their hanky-panky. They even dredged up poor old Gary Hart and resurrected him from the eighties, the better to make their case that men are animals while the women are poor things just USED – oh, mercy, bless them all – by the insensitive creatures. An errant Congressman is not to be tolerated while practitioners of the oldest profession are to be pitied and glorified for showing strength amidst catastrophe. Egad!

I surfed onto ABC the other morning (okay, just five minutes, admittedly) to discover Christiane Amanpour conducting a panel comprised of some of the highest-profile women to be found anywhere. I gathered in my short viewing that the girls agreed that women are team-oriented and get things done while men are competitive to the point of pushing themselves at the expense of everything and everybody else, the devil take the hindmost. Oh…those cro-magnon-types…keepers of the Glass Ceiling, the devils!

The cutest irony, though, concerns the cuties who do these shows – not all but many, especially news and commentary – and take the lead in crucifying poor Weiner. That infamous press conference of his is still playing, and the cuties, who make sure to exhibit the greatest possible cleavage and the most possible thigh-skin put the dagger in Weiner’s back while displaying the most amazing come-ons ever imagined by the girl-on-the-move, doncha know. They give a show-and-tell lesson about how Weiner got hooked…or “hookered.”

The cuties contrive to give learned opinions (oh, the legal eagles among them) and talk about tornadoes and murders and Middle-East blood-in-the-streets while being painted and primped to the penultimate like they just dropped in for less serious things while on their way to the nearest cocktail party. While their male counterparts are dressed to the nines head-to-foot, suit-and-tie, they come in dressed off-the-shoulder (or sometimes off of more) and, prim and proper with their legs crossed just so, seeming to tease the camera-man about a possible crotch-shot lapse.

Let’s face it. Weiner has had it. I don’t care if he resigns or not. After all, the people elected him, and Congress has featured, does feature, and will always feature strange people, so Weiner is not necessarily out of place. If Slick Willie, who makes Weiner look like a Boy Scout, could hold the presidency, Satan itself could hold a seat from New York. In both perverted behavior and consummate lying, Weiner could never hold a candle to Bubba, who actually discovered what “is” is, perhaps the greatest lesson learned from his peccadilloes. Maybe Weiner will discover what “are” is, or maybe that should be what “are” are. Who knows…or cares?

In the meantime, let’s hear it for the girls who do the necessary in order to seduce these weak legislators and then make hay of it (how smart they are!) and the girls in their iffy clothes (or non-clothes) who make the Tube even boober as they juice up the nightly news and the morning doldrums.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Weiner Warped in the Whirlwind!

2011-06-06T17:04:00.000-07:00

The fact that New York Congressman Weiner was messed up in some sort of sexual business, albeit, at least according to him, at a distance and not involving intimacies, is not exactly surprising since this kind of stuff has been going on with elected officials virtually since the birth of the nation. The fact that he lied through his teeth about his rather sordid behavior when caught also was not surprising. This seems to be the knee-jerk reaction of politicians – perhaps most folks…who knows – when they’re caught in some sort of skullduggery, so what else is new?

The fact that Weiner called a press conference – not in Washington but in New York – to apologize all around to everyone he hurt, especially his wife, and to call himself out as a liar was not surprising, either. After all, he was caught and had no other option short of emigrating to Borneo. The fact that he stated his intentions to make no response of any kind concerning the dirt that is sure to be coming along was not surprising since to do so would merely enhance his guilt. In any case, he’s assured of soft treatment by the so-called mainstream media because he’s a democrat and because he’s Obama’s man Friday.

Weiner made it plain in the press conference that he would not resign his seat, as a New York colleague, also caught recently in shady stuff, did, as have many others. After all, former New York attorney-general and governor Eliot Spitzer, caught in a sordid business with high-priced prostitutes, resigned and is now doing quite well at CNN, a mainstream outlet, conducting his own talk-show and probably making bigger bucks than he ever would have as governor, at least as far as salary and not kickbacks are concerned. Sleaziness as a silent part of a resume apparently speaks well for broadcasters at CNN, so if worse comes to worse and Weiner should be forced out he could figure on a plush job at CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS or maybe the New York Times, though he would probably favor TV, the better to show his anatomy.

The most disgusting thing about the affair, however, is the fact that a Congressman, supposedly a mature man who understands the seriousness connected to his job, could be caught up in the often, if not essentially, juvenile exercise of tweeting, texting, sexting or participating in Facebook or some other online silly bare-all vehicle, in which everything from the lurid to the totally inane, insane stuff is posted for all the world to see. Weiner made a laughingstock of his very position, one to which most folks – the voters – attach grave importance.

Weiner placed himself on the same level as a hormone-driven-high-school-sophomore boy, who’s likely to tweet before he thinks or place some ridiculous picture of some part of his physique on the internet, never realizing that it can be passed around the world in minutes, no matter how obnoxious or embarrassing to his family. Apparently, it never occurred to Weiner that all his tweeting and face-booking – even phone conversations…maybe phone sex a la Bill Clinton & Monica? – could come back to haunt him, even though after sitting through myriad hearings or congressional sessions he had to know how easy it is to surf the internet and find all kinds of incriminating stuff. Should one believe he was just plain stupid?

There’s a darker angle to this matter. On the basis of what Weiner did – with all other officials having the same online/electronic tools at their disposal – should one wonder how trustworthy these public servants are? Congressmen in both Houses have access to sensitive information, often delivered behind-closed-doors-only. How susceptible are they with respect to blackmail when to be embarrassed or – worse – lose their positions could be an outcome if they don’t “cooperate?” This makes Weiner’s utter lack of plain common sense all the more graphic.

In fact, his lack of plain common sense was vividly portrayed in that weird press conference that was actually co-opted for a while by his tormentor, Andrew Breitbart, when he said he would not resign – this despite the fact that he himself was in the process of destroying any credibility he might expect people to believe he had/has. One of his “ladies of interest” has indicated publicly that she talked on the phone with Weiner while he was in his office using a telephone, both provided as resources by the taxpayers. This is patently a no-no and will now be front-and-center in the House at the very time important matters are on the agenda. One suspects the democrats are hoping the problem will go away, meaning that Weiner will go away.

Oh…well…at least Weiner’s wife didn’t appear with him like a zombie standing by her man. Good for her!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

U.N. Mandate Distorted by Obama

2011-05-25T18:20:00.000-07:00

From the UN Security Council of 17 March:

SECURITY COUNCIL APPROVES ‘NO-FLY ZONE’ OVER LIBYA, AUTHORIZING ‘ALL NECESSARY MEASURES’ TO PROTECT CIVILIANS, BY VOTE OF 10 IN FAVOUR WITH 5 ABSTENTIONS

Demanding an immediate ceasefire in Libya, including an end to the current attacks against civilians, which it said might constitute “crimes against humanity”, the Security Council this evening imposed a ban on all flights in the country’s airspace — a no-fly zone — and tightened sanctions on the Qadhafi regime and its supporters.

Adopting resolution 1973 (2011) by a vote of 10 in favour to none against, with 5 abstentions (Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russian Federation), the Council authorized Member States, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack in the country, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory — requesting them to immediately inform the Secretary-General of such measures.

What began as the establishment of a no-fly-zone (described by Defense Secretary Gates as an “on the fly” operation, translated unstructured) has become an all-out war, with the heaviest NATO bombing to date on Tuesday the 24th, a total of 2,500 air-strikes in the last two months. As far as is known, there is no exit plan/strategy, just continued bombing.

From the New York Times, May 22: “Samantha Power, a human rights crusader, is a member of the National Security Council, which advises President Obama on foreign policy. For nearly 20 years, since her days as a young war correspondent in Bosnia, Ms. Power has championed the idea that nations have a moral obligation to prevent genocide. From her perch on the council, she is in a position to make that case to the commander in chief — and to watch him translate her ideas into action.” Perhaps such as Libya? Disgusting!

It may be that the president fancies himself as a “humanitarian interventionist,” someone who takes a look at various parts of the world and decides that he’d better fix them, even if killing a bunch of innocent people is in the mix. His glorification of the current “Arab Spring” and consequent urging of young, inexperienced, unprepared Middle Easterners to take to the streets, a la community organizing mode, and turn themselves into cannon fodder in the process is disingenuous at best and criminal at worst.

Continuing his Osama victory lap in Great Britain, the president described the action vis-à-vis Libya of this country and England, along with the rest of NATO, as the saving of lives. For more than two months the U.S. and NATO have been bombing Libya in order to save lives? For the first ten days of the rape of Libya, the U.S. was the main player, spending $55 million per day raining death and destruction on Libyans in order to save lives. Since then, the U.S. has been quite active in its role supporting militarily the intrusion into that civil war, no matter the president’s silly reference to non-kinetic participation, something he seems to define as absolving him of responsibility regarding the War Powers Act.

In March, Obama said regime change was not the aim of the U.S. in Libya; however, he and British Prime Minister Cameron, in their joint press conference, made it very plain that regime change is the goal, notwithstanding anything the Security Council mandated, none of which was to effect a regime change in Libya, also a member in good standing in the United Nations. England and France, oil customers of Libya and probably tired of having to deal with Qaddafi, who doubtlessly takes them to the cleaners in behalf of his own corruption, have a high-profile stake in Libya and probably laugh behind Obama’s back, thinking to use him.

This whole sorry episode is indicative of just how lightly the major nations, including the U.S., take the UN. Obama, in his humanitarian interventionist role got a mandate not from the U.S. Congress, which would have been the normal procedure, but from the UN Security Council, which held its collective nose and approved an invasion/attack on Libya to “save lives.” This resolution has been turned on its head by Obama, the UN be damned. He has used it to declare war on a sovereign nation that has never posed a threat to the United States, and especially not in any recent history, i.e., Obama’s lifetime.

Obama has done to Libya what the Japanese did to Pearl Harbor in December 1941 at the cost of 3,000 American lives. No one ever mentions how many Libyans have been killed by U.S. bombs and missiles. The Europeans don’t have many of these weapons, if any. It is known that Qaddafi’s son and three grandchildren were killed in a raid on their house in a residential neighborhood. The targets are supposed to be military in nature but that approach seems to have gone out the window.

In other words, the U.S. and NATO have assumed the posture of terrorists, the killing of women and children and one can only wonder how the people in uniform feel about this. The UN objective, no matter its illegitimacy, was accomplished long ago. Now, Libya is just a killing field.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama & the War Powers Act

2011-05-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

The profound contempt President Obama has for the U.S. Congress is seen in both his unilaterally going to war with Libya (actually no war at all, just a “turkey shoot”) without so much as a congressional by-your-leave and his failure to accede to the requirements of the War Powers Act of 1973 after having committed decent American troops to what amounts to monstrous atrocities, the murdering of women and children in the streets and in their homes. The president announced military action 19 March against Libya while in Brazil and did not return to Washington for some five days. The objective was to establish a no-fly zone over Libya.

By the end of five days, the no-fly zone, apparently only the ostensible (not actual) objective of the UN-Security-Council sanctioning (no Congressional sanctioning), had been firmly established. No Libyan planes or helicopters were flying then and haven’t been flying since. Instead of currently carrying out the no-fly-zone UN mandate, the president, using NATO now, has chosen sides in what amounts to a civil war in Libya and has chosen to kill his choice of Libyans, rather than allow Qaddafi to kill his choice in the process of maintaining the government.

Of course, Obama has said that Qaddafi must go and is now using what amounts to terrorist tactics – killing innocent civilians as per the 9/11 format – in order to avoid embarrassment. What other reason could he have? He has also suggested that Syrian strongman Bashar al Assad must go but, predictably, does not intend to make that stick, using military action. Indeed, neither the Congress nor the UN, both bodies too weak to be taken seriously anyway, would dare to approve another bloodletting such as Libya. In this regard, it’s important to note that neither Libya nor Syria has ever posed and does not now pose a threat to the U.S. or any other nation except perhaps Israel, which is an ongoing affair since 1948.

To see the degree of contempt mentioned above, one has only to remark this part of the War Powers Act: SEC. 5. (b) Within sixty calendar days after a report is submitted or is required to be submitted pursuant to section 4(a)(1), whichever is earlier, the President shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces with respect to which such report was submitted (or required to be submitted), unless the Congress (1) has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces, (2) has extended by law such sixty-day period, or (3) is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States. Such sixty-day period shall be extended for not more than an additional thirty days if the President determines and certifies to the Congress in writing that unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of United States Armed Forces requires the continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing about a prompt removal of such forces.

The rape of Libya has gone on now well past the 60-day limit, with the president not acceding to its mandate and having no reason not to extract troops since the troops are not threatened by any military or other action. The weak excuse that…well…no president has taken the Act seriously doesn’t wash.

If American citizens had been under threat in Libya – okay, but the 60 days are up. Bush 41 did the Noriega thing in Panama in 1989, where there were 35,000 Americans who could have been in danger considering the political situation…or not. The mess was over in some two weeks. Reagan did the Grenada thing in 1983 where a few hundred American students might have been in danger. This affair was over in a few days, but, unfortunately, 19 Americans were killed. Reagan committed Marines to Lebanon later in 1983, with 241 being killed by a suicide bomber, the matter settled immediately, although all U.S. troops were not out until about three months later. In that case, there were hostilities, nothing like Libya.

Carter did the hostage thing in Iran in 1980 and that catastrophe was over in hours. Ford did the Mayaguez piracy-rescue in May 1975 and it was over in four days. Obama did the Osama assassination – or at least it’s officially reported that he gave the order – and it was over in a few hours. Since 1973, this resolution does not seem to have been violated even once. Obama has no intention of honoring this resolution because he considers Congress unimportant, beneath contempt, with using the Courts as his method of operation, if using anything legally at all.

From the New York Times, May 22: “Samantha Power, a human rights crusader, is a member of the National Security Council, which advises President Obama on foreign policy. For nearly 20 years, since her days as a young war correspondent in Bosnia, Ms. Power has championed the idea that nations have a moral obligation to prevent genocide. From her perch on the council, she is in a position to make that case to the commander in chief — and to watch him translate her ideas into action.” Perhaps such as Libya? Disgusting!

It may be that the president fancies himself as a “humanitarian interventionist,” someone who takes a look at various parts of the world and decides that he’d better fix them, even if killing a bunch of innocent people is in the mix. His glorification of the current “Arab Spring” and consequent urging of young, inexperienced, unprepared Middle Easterners to take to the streets, a la community organizing mode, and turn themselves into cannon fodder in the process is disingenuous at best and criminal at worst.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #1

2011-05-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

From the office of the ChairWOMAN, 12 May 2011

***Listen UP! I’m the first WOMAN ever to be elected to a complete term as DNC ChairWOMAN. I’m known as aggressive, opinionated, always right, and a slave-driver (not a politically incorrect term, since I say it isn’t) who expects undivided loyalty to the CAUSE, 99% of which is ME. Step out of line or, worse, don’t follow the line, and I’ll give you the “Trump Treatment.” For recent Harvard grads on staff, that means the “pink slip.” For recent Yale grads, that means “FIRED.” For everyone else, it means long days and nights on the job, no excuses, no refusals to watch Michael Moore movies (no matter how stupid), and a weekly essay of no less than 1,000 words on the accomplishments of the president. Anyone caught plagiarizing will be disciplined by listening to tapes of all the Biden speeches since 1988. In the meantime…hello there! My favorite food is cactus casserole; favorite pastime, exercising at my George Bush dartboard; favorite TV personality, Chris Matthews, with whom I share leg-tingling when POTUS teleprompts. DNC Memos are being renumbered, the last one being #22 in March – a brand new start is especially needed since the House was lost in November and POTUS polls are not good.

***There’s been talk, I understand, that I can’t be both DNC ChairWOMAN and a House member, along with the suggestion that I choose one or the other or at least forfeit the $200 thou this job pays. Be advised that I’m known as the bionic WOMAN and can function 24/7, be fully awake in three seconds flat at three a.m. (eat your heart out, Hillary – little joke there), and have better sense than to pass up a good thing. The former chairman, a mere man, was a governor when he took this job and nobody complained. Both jobs are fulltime requiring fulltime pay and I’ll be devoting at least 100 hours a week total to the efforts, especially since my vote in the House is worthless now anyway. Besides, Speaker Pelosi has approved of this arrangement, and the wag who suggested she did because she wanted me out of her hair will be disciplined when found.

***The president has directed that DNC Headquarters will be the greenest spot on earth. Either arrive at work by foot or on bicycles or in electric cars (not hybrids, for Princeton grads…they use gas). Those without funds for an electric car or fear that an encounter with an 18-wheeler in one would mean certain death are instructed to look for work elsewhere. Thermostats will be set at 60 degrees in cold weather and 81 degrees in warm weather, except for my office and adjacent kitchen and conference-room, which has to be used for consulting with people unused to the rigors of community-organizing and therefore susceptible to physical trauma. Only one panel of toilet paper per trip to the john is allowed and those who have a problem with that may shower on their breaks up to three times a day. Tires on vehicles will be checked weekly and staffers not obeying the PSI requirements will be docked $5.00 per tire. Lighting will be used only when speeches are being prepared. On cloudy days staffers may use flash-lights but only those with rechargeable batteries. Miners’ helmets are recommended but not required. I’m making a zone within five miles of Headquarters a smoke-free area, so be forewarned. Processed food or soft drinks may not be brought in lunches, and anyone smelling of a Big Mac when returning from lunch will attend nutrition conferences weekly for a year. This is just a heads-up…more rules will be forthcoming.

***The president has requested a red/yellow/black/white paper to be prepared detailing the reasons he decided to bomb Libya, felt it necessary to announce his decision in Brazil, then handed the matter off to NATO ten days later. Since his actions have caused sudden death and much other mangling to no telling how many Libyans, who have never posed a threat to this country, some callow Congressmen have wondered about a hearing on the matter since they were never consulted. The president would do this but he’s in campaign mode now and hasn’t the time. Besides, he knew there were good reasons but has forgotten them in the wake of handling all the world’s troubles from San Francisco eastward to San Francisco and single-handedly getting rid of Osama bin Laden in the process. Do NOT – repeat, DO NOT – mention that there’s oil in Libya or that al Qaeda is behind the uprising.

***As the campaign progresses, the theme is to be “Saving the Future,” especially important since the recent past has been so completely lost. Please note that in keeping with POTUS’s key position, George Bush is to be blamed for everything bad. Also note that POTUS is deep into prayer affairs now – Easter prayer, breakfast prayer, and the latest, Latino prayer this morning. He quoted Deuteronomy (not Geronimo for recent Wellesley grads) this morning: “Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” In case some of your Town Hall people view that as degrading to Jews, Egyptians, or both, make certain that POTUS didn’t mean either population is strange but deserves love anyway, the reasons for which are left up to you.

***The watchword for POTUS has become “gutsy” or “gutsier” or, depending on the crowd, “gutsiest.” This has arisen from the Osama-caper, but staffers are warned not to give any credit to CIA Director Panetta, who rumormongers insist had the whole thing planned out for a long time. It was POTUS’s call, the gutsiest one made since Lincoln sent Sherman through Georgia. The rumor that POTUS made the call while making a quadruple-bogey on a par-3 is untrue. It was only a triple-bogey.

***That wraps it up for now. For the next week at ten a.m., I Am Woman by Helen Reddy will be played over the intercom. I hope you will be standing, the same as if you were listening to America the Beautiful…you know, the national anthem.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Correct Osama Pix

2011-05-09T17:55:00.000-07:00

Irony with regard to the antics of President Obama just multiplies. At his direction, no pix of the dearly departed Osama in his shroud could be shown else there would be increased violence to the U.S. and the whole world by hordes of furious Muslim men standing in line to sign up for whatever jihad activity is available or designed by bin Laden before he was wasted. Nor is the irony lessened by the many conflicting reports by the administration that have been foisted on the public to the point of enhancing glazed eyes and jaws agape.

Instead, Obama is releasing pix designed, whether knowingly or not, to make Osama appear in a seedy bedroom to be everything from a hair-dyeing, narcissistic gigolo to a doddering old gray-bearded fool with an attention span so short that he operates his TV remote every two seconds to either change stations or just have fun pushing the little button. The jihad crowd might have appreciated fantasizing its leader cavorting with the 72 virgins in Paradise and, being all shot up, enhancing world opinion of Islam as bloody and fearless. The current effort insults and supposedly infuriates the jihadists more than ever.

Now, sadly, it develops that Osama didn’t even reach for his AK-47 to make the fight, thus automatically making himself ineligible for the virgin-scene. Obama apparently has not considered that making Osama go out as a woman (chattel) instead of a man indicates a putdown of the world’s most worshiped Muslim…enough to infuriate the jihadists into a hissy fit of screaming temper-tantrums and all-around ill humor profound enough to make them actually angry, not that it matters since they couldn’t hate this country any more than if Obama himself had done the chopper number.

Even worse, the only person in Obama’s bedroom to challenge the SEALs was a woman, who was shot in the leg for her trouble. Of course, there have been so many versions of the affair placed before the public by various administration officials that just the ambiguities are enough to make even the American public mad, to say nothing of the Muslims, who probably consider the whole pattern of contradictions done on purpose just to humiliate them all the more…Muslims not even being worth the trouble of truth-telling.

CIA Director Panetta reckoned publicly that the “death” pictures would be shown. Obama nixed that with the silly excuse noted. Americans had a right to see that account. State Secretary Clinton has praised the cooperation of Pakistan (whether for this caper or not unknown here). Panetta made it clear publicly that the Pakistanis knew nothing of the operation, which he apparently had planned and set up long before it was pulled off. Otherwise, it would have needed days or weeks to get up and running after a presidential okay was given. By that time, Osama could have been warned (maybe by a U.S. player).

This, of course, points to the claims/accounts that are all over the Internet of what actually happened and, if only partly true, indicate a virtually incomprehensible White House bizarreness that would lead one to consider the president as “leading from behind” (if at all), something of which the president is already accused in his “Libya Caper.” Plainly, he and his gang initiated that blood-letting affair and then just stepped away, virtually washing its collective hands of the whole mess.

One thing is certain, to wit, that every effort is being made to assure the public, regardless of the actual circumstances, that Obama was tough, rough and ready to do the necessaries. Obama has said publicly that there was only a 45-55% chance that Osama was in the raided compound. If that was the case, one can bet his military and intelligence advisers would have said the operation was too iffy to take a chance, especially in terms of the danger to the SEALs. It’s practically a lead-pipe-cinch that the CIA was virtually 100% sure that Osama was where he was apprehended. Does the White House believe the public is exponentially gullible?

If the public has been sold a bill of goods in the accounts furnished thus far, the truth will eventually come out. It might take a while, especially during the quadrennial electoral silly season, but, especially since someone might already be talking (and very convincingly), the truth will come out. If and when that happens, citizen-angst will build. It would be much better for the White House to handle this matter now, else a book next year like the one that helped sink John Kerry in 2004 could be devastating for Obama.

The wagons may have been circled but the proper attack could be calamitous. The supreme irony would have been seen in the capture of bin Laden. No enhanced interrogation now, so no info from him! Nowhere to put him except Guantanamo, which is not supposed to even exist now, by order of…yeah…Obama. Osama had to die.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

No End-Zone Spike...No Pix!

2011-05-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

One would like to think that the successful dispatching of Osama indicated to the world, especially Muslim nations, that this country will not stop responding when attacked until the attacker is either brought to justice or killed, sometimes the same thing. The president has expressed the fear that showing pictures of Osama at his bitter and much-sought-after end would inflame Muslims and make them try to “get us.”

The Muslims could not hate us more than they already do if we blew Afghanistan clear off the map, so showing Osama in his shroud would not change a thing. The jihadists already laughingly hold this nation hostage, what with their determining things such as how to get aboard a plane without losing all attempts at cool or looking both ways quickly and then running like mad when departing a subway train or wondering if that lady in the long dress and head scarf is actually a man (or woman) with TNT strapped about his midsection. Now they hold this nation hostage in the simple matter of what can be shown – or, in this case, not shown. Disgusting!

No…surely Obama is not so dumb that he can’t understand what everyone else knows, and that no pictures of anyone connected to the whole affair need be shown, thus bringing no one under threat of a fatwa that already exists against all infidels, in any case. Added to that, of course, is the inevitable growing of the feeling of the citizens that something is rotten in Denmark and that the president has an agenda.

But the prexy has said we simply can’t “spike the ball in the end zone” by showing Osama “at rest” (leaving one to wonder if a “slam dunk” might serve), the better not to appear to be gloating. Well…okay, but there’s a little problem with his decision, namely that gazillions of Muslims throughout the Arab world – if the news accounts are reliable – don’t believe the mighty Osama is dead, ergo, that the fight against the Great Satan must continue as he directs it. It’s barely possible that they might become believers if copies of the one-eyed corpse were distributed and actually decide that it’s just not worth it anymore.

Obama apparently has not objected to all the video seen 24/7 of the results of U.S. planes and those of other nations raining death upon innocent civilians in Libya (97% Muslim)…pictures of the bodies in the streets and the demolished buildings and the reporters oohing and aahing over the evil Qaddafi while standing in the rubble caused by Obama/NATO and reporting about such things as the murder of Qaddafi’s son and three grandchildren, all dangerous to the world. The wrecked house, in the middle of an ordinary neighborhood, was shown all over the Internet and TV, as has been the bloody picture of Osama’s son, killed in the SEAL attack.

So…what’s the agenda? Perhaps it’s simply that Obama has no stomach for exhibiting the pictures of a prominent Muslim…too insulting, even for the monster Osama. So…pictures of bloody-headed Libyans don’t merit protection from view, thus inciting more danger…but Osama does? One would think that the graphic picturing for some six weeks now of Libyan atrocities managed by Obama and NATO would inflame Muslims and, using the Obama take concerning safety, should be shut down, at least as far as all that are taken by the government.

It isn’t known here if Obama has precluded from view pictures taken by this government of the Libya carnage. Perhaps he has…but the horse is out of the barn anyway, courtesy of the media. And diligent Muslim operatives would have no trouble pinpointing the put-upon GIs and others responsible for carrying out the directive of the commander-in-chief, with respect to fatwas.

Obama’s perfidy in Libya has been in full view, with no doubt about his “gutsy” decision back in March to “establish a Libyan no-fly zone,” a feat that was accomplished in about four days or less, presumably with a minimum of lost lives, at least by Muslim standards. But the attacks by NATO at Obama’s behest have continued apace, so what is the reason for them now? There is no reason, of course, no exit strategy, no group with which to parley with reference to a new government. Actually, nobody in this White House seems to know much of anything except that Obama has told Qaddafi his time has come.

About those pictures of Osama vis-à-vis those of Libya? Maybe it’s simple (gasp) discrimination! How could a measly dead Libyan possibly be compared to the grand butcher of them all, someone too sacred to be shown with part of his head missing? In death, ironically, Osama has shared the plight of his partner in crime, Mullah Omar, head of the Taliban, who lost an eye in the Afghan-Soviet war of the 1980s. One wonders if Obama will send the SEALs after him, as well as Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama’s second-in-command.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The "Most Gutsiest" Call

2011-05-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting picture in the Lexington Herald-Leader of 03 May of the group in the White House watching the events of the Osama-caper including President Obama, members of the National Security Team and others, among whom were veep Biden, State Secretary Clinton, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates. Counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan was also in the picture. Later, he would make that famous statement about the president: "one of the most gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory." One can just see the president climbing in a helicopter off to waste Osama in a blaze of glory…air-condioned helicopter, of course.

Brennan is the ultimate apparatchik and on the basis of that statement alone remarked himself as a hopeless sycophant…or at least someone with a terribly short memory. The president ordered up the wasting of one man – Osama. Just a few weeks ago, apparently beyond Brennan’s memory unless it’s quite selective, the president ordered up bombing and missile raids on a virtually defenseless country in the full knowledge (unless he’s a complete idiot) that not one but many Libyans were going to die as the result of his decision. Of course, those raids were not within Brennan’s purview since Libya didn’t/doesn’t pose a terrorism or any other kind of threat to this country. But Brennan would probably affirm that the Libya decision did not compare to "one of the most gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory."

Irony connected to that picture is so palpable it could be cut with a knife. Clinton appeared not in Congress but in the UN Security Council in March to successfully strongarm an approval resolution for establishing a no-fly-zone over Libya. The only reason was that Libyan strongman Qaddafi (like any other Middle East potentate worth his salt) was using planes in killing some of his people, who were attempting to overthrow the government. Obama gave the order (not a “gutsiest” one, of course) on 19 March. By 23 March, a British officer claimed that the Libyan Air Force no longer existed – destroyed on the ground, ergo, the need for the no-fly-zone had been nullified. End of story?

Well…no! It turns out apparently that neither Clinton nor Obama, presumably, actually meant that ploy as primary; rather, the Libyan people just had to be protected from their government, meaning that NATO, strongarmed by the Obama/Clinton team into taking over the killing as Obama withdrew from his “not-gutsiest” decision, would continue the bombing, finally managing on one sortie to hit a house in an entirely residential neighborhood ostensibly to kill Qaddafi, probably a “gutsy” but certainly not “gutsiest” move, of course, but only managed to kill Qaddafi’s son and three grandchildren, all unarmed but dangerous to Libya and the world.

More irony connected to that picture! Defense Secretary Gates and JCC Chairman Mullen had advised the president that his and Clinton’s scheme was not a good one, would cost Libyan lives (possibly those of U.S. GIs, too) and should not be inculcated. They each told of their advice on the various TV shows. Perhaps this irritated the president, who obviously wanted to prove he could tell Middle East dictators when they should get out of Dodge…and make it stick. In any case, he showed his disdain for the advice of actual military men with huge experience by heeding Clinton despite the fact that neither he nor she has any military experience whatever.

During her campaign against Obama in 2008, Clinton described her military experience by describing more than once in detail how she, a civilian, had macho-wise waded through sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996, apparantly forgetting that her visit in Bosnia was well-filmed and documented, showing her being welcomed with flowers by a pretty little girl standing next to both Bosnian and U.S. officials. For a lie of that magnitude, she was made State Secretary. Obama simply ignored his experts but makes no pretense to military expertise. After all, it’s been NATO’s problem ever since he handed it off about ten days and $550 million after he began the carnage.

With respect to Osama, the leader making the “most gutsiest” decision in Brennan’s memory got it right in his plush office in Washington and the SEALs did the dirty work. Since he can’t seem to get Qaddafi the old-fasioned way, i.e., by bombing neighborhoods 24/7 (whether by NATO or U.S. planes), one wonders if perhaps he’ll try the SEALs. Hopefully, they wouldn’t vomit.

And then, there’s Syria, Yemen, Jordan…and many more points east needing for dictators to get theirs. Only the “gutsiest” prevail. How “gutsy” a decision would it take, for instance, to grab Kim Jong Il – far, far east?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama's Unspeakable Jihad & Fifth Column

2011-04-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

Suppose George Bush, without any consultation with Congress, had simply ordered the U.S. military to rain bombs and missiles on Libya, or any other country. The leftist mainstream media would have called him everything from Hitler to Mao to Stalin to Pol Pot to Kim Jong il to Saddam to Hirohito to Genghis Khan and all other butchers in-between through all the ages. The media would have crucified him.

In addition, suppose that had happened despite the fact that Libya posed absolutely no threat to this or any other country, owned a population two million less than that of New York City, and had surrendered its weapons-of-mass-destruction establishment to this country years ago, when Bush actually was the president and when Libya’s Qaddafi probably looked at what was happening in Iraq and felt himself thus well-advised in doing so. The media would have insisted upon impeachment, conviction and expulsion from office, not to mention dragging Bush before some war-crimes court, here or elsewhere.

In addition, suppose Bush had presented a plan for obliterating Libya to the United Nations Security Council in order to gain some sort of approval for his bloodletting of Libyans, without mentioning, of course, that he was merely taking sides in a civil war, something any president worth the title would do. The media would have castigated him for surrendering U.S. sovereignty to a gaggle of freeloaders in New York City living the good life.

In addition, suppose Bush had instructed NATO to prepare to take over his murderous scheme because the U.S. was getting out, having started the bloody ball rolling for ten days at $55 million per day and figuring that was enough. The media would have accused him of pulling another Vietnam – lots of firepower and lives lost without any intention of seeing the little infamy through. The media would have accused him of being guilty of “crimes against humanity” and weakness.

Suppose Bush had flown to a resort in Brazil as the perfect location for announcing his “liberation of the Libyan people.” The media would have laughed him to scorn, accused him of being too cowardly to make the announcement at home and thus face the U.S. public, and suggested that he took too many vacations.

Suppose Bush, after cavorting in Brazil, had cruised Air Force One to visit other vacation spots for the next five or so days, living it up while his subordinates were left to handle his little war, answer to the press, and otherwise do all the dirty work attendant upon a dirty, underhanded operation. The media would have accused him of dereliction of duty and putting personal preferences before doing his job.

Suppose Bush had started the Libya operation, complete with numbers of attempts at assassinating Qaddafi (while denying that, of course), but insisted that Qaddafi was not a target and that Libyan regime-change was never a goal or even a consideration. The media would have accused him of subterfuge and perfidious conduct, as well as not being too bright, since the public could see right through such deceit.

Suppose Bush had given the Libyan rebels assurance, implied or otherwise, that he was solidly behind them and would furnish humanitarian help, translated by the rebels as arms and ammunition, but had refused to give them so much as a single m-16. The media would have flayed him for having dealt deceitfully with the “PEOPLE,” first abandoning the project to a reluctant NATO and then opting himself out of the whole mess.

Suppose, when Qadaffi had figured out how to thwart the air attacks by concealing light armaments/vehicles within the population, Bush had simply decided to bomb the military targets anyway, thus unfortunately killing all sorts of civilians – women, children, the old, etc. The media would have accused him of being heartless, insensitive…a murderer of the most vulnerable.

Yes…it’s easy to see where this is going. Two things stand out: (1) Obama, without even a minute’s worth of military experience, has instituted the calculated murder of civilians, an unwarranted attack on another nation, and a display of arrogance that’s unprecedented. (2) A subservient mainstream media has taken no notice of his perfidy on any bases, especially moral/ethical grounds. It’s as if to the media he has done no wrong, when it’s obvious to everyone else that he has waged and continues to wage a singularly gratuitous bloodletting that’s appalling, especially in current American history.

It was said that Reagan was the Teflon president. If that was so – and it wasn’t – Obama, as far as the media is concerned, is absolutely bulletproof. Morally, he is bankrupt, and that’s the worst sort of bankruptcy imaginable. In eloquence, he compares to Reagan like a clown, and his all too frequent speeches of high-flown rhetoric are as sounding brass, signifying nothing. Worse, he has caused honorable men in the military to commit murder on an unsuspecting nation. Intolerable!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Trump on the Stump?

2011-04-27T16:56:00.000-07:00

On the morning of 27 April appeared some of the best entertainment imaginable. There was Donald Trump holding a press conference at the airport in Portsmouth New Hampshire and, among other things, boasting that he had forced President Obama to finally release a copy of his official birth certificate for all to see. This, said Trump, allowed the attention of the nation to be turned toward the actual problems the nation faces.

Trump is good at this sort of thing, much better than Obama, who drags out his a-a-n-n-d-d-s-s interminably while he dreams up an answer (actually a short speech) to a reporter’s question, realizing that the reporter these days is also a commentator and will embellish his reporting with the proper interpretation determined by his (the reporter’s) agenda or that of his establishment. Trump simply shoots from the lip and is not above dissing a reporter, as he showed when he asked one such if he was intelligent.

Apparently watching Trump’s TV extravaganza as he tore into the White House on Libya, economics, Obama’s school-records, Chinese hoodwinking of the administration, oil and how to get it or drive down its price, Obama appeared abruptly in the White House press room, thereby automatically commanding the TV apparatchiks to cut off Trump and put himself in the spotlight. This was so transparent that one still laughs. There’s nothing like one-ups-man-ship to put an agitator in his place.

The president gave a short speech and just as abruptly exited the Press Room, leaving the reporters’ dropped jaws to slam the floor together. He characterized Trump as a circus barker and his birth-exercise as a sideshow featuring silliness, then went on to state the usual/obvious boilerplate about people out of work and serious issues (serious stuff) needing to be addressed. He then cruised Air Force One to Chicago for more pressing matters – the serious “stuff” he mentioned being the taping of a show with Oprah Winfrey, and, of course, those fund-raising gigs.

Trump mentioned one aspect of the current presidency that rings a bell for its sheer truthfulness, i.e., that the mainstream media has protected Obama throughout his presidency…a sort of fifth column. One such instance pertains to Obama’s personal war on Libya, waged without even consulting Congress. He simply gave the order back in March to bomb the bejesus out of Qaddafi and then went off to Brazil to announce that he had instigated the war, spending some $55 million per day for ten days and then strong-arming the whole mess off onto NATO.

The mainstream media hasn’t called him on this. Obama has chosen his side and entered a civil war in another country, one that posed no threat to this country or any other country. The mainstream media hasn’t called him on this. At his command, Libyans have been slaughtered by U.S. missiles and bombs. The mainstream media hasn’t called him on this. Even Fox News seems to have given him something of a pass, notwithstanding that he has ordered the killing of civilians, since bombs and missiles just go where they’re aimed and don’t know one Libyan from another.

As a result of Obama’s personal war, blood has flowed in the streets in much greater quantity than would have been the case if he’d minded his own business, not to mention that a man who calls himself a Christian perpetrated it, not out of a defensive posture or because of an actual or perceived threat (Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively) but for reasons impossible of belief, namely, that Qaddafi was about to kill some of his people. Killing some of their people is what Arabic/Muslim leaders do as a matter of course…nothing new. The mainstream media don’t ask Obama how he feels about his gratuitous murdering of innocent people. That would be gauche. Anyhow, he may not have thought about that.

This gives the Muslims the perfect opportunity to claim that Christians and so-called Christian nations are no better than they and their nations in the business of spilling innocent blood whenever such action seems propitious. This stinks but the mainstream media have given Obama a pass on his causing this unwarranted vulnerability (and that of the U.S.) to being criticized as no different from Qaddafi, Assad, or the other Muslim butchers. Obama played God, deciding which Libyans would die and which would live. This is ungodly arrogance on a scale hard to imagine…but the mainstream media is not interested because the emperor (their darling) has no clothes.

Yeah…Trump might be right on. The political gurus said Reagan – a mere movie actor – couldn’t govern, but he was one of the best presidents ever. Trump – also an entertainer, among many other things – might be just the man for the job.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Senator Visits Libya!

2011-04-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

Senator Lindsey Graham delivered himself of this profound statement to CNN’s State of the Union program 24 April: Qadaffi “needs to wake up every day wondering ‘Will this be my last?’” Senator John McCain intimated over the weekend, after a “fact-finding” trip to Libya, that President Obama should just get it over with in Libya, whatever that means. Most military gurus suggest that putting troops on the ground is the only way to just get it over with, but Obama has promised to not only not do that but that no arms to the Libyan insurgents would be forthcoming, either. Ditto for NATO, Obama’s current surrogate in war-making.

One would have hoped he would know better, but Obama has taken a tiger by the tail concerning Libya, whether by listening to these two arrogant senators or his mushy-headed Amazons, State Secretary Clinton, UN Ambassador Rice, and National Security Council honcho Samantha Power, whose shtick apparently is that revolutions can be started in small countries if big countries will stir up strife, as per Libya, the raison d’etra being that there are (gasp) oppressed people in those countries yearning to be free. Some folks believe Power pushes this agenda in order to somehow make it work against Israel, for which she apparently has no love.

It’s hard to imagine a U.S. senator saying what Graham did about a head of state, even though he has the right to hate Qaddafi with a purple passion. He proved that senators can wallow in stupidity and still get elected. Lots of folks do. It’s hard to imagine a U.S. senator spending a handful of hours on foreign soil and deciding publicly that the rebels are okay-guys deserving of U.S.-accomplished victory, but that’s what McCain did, having no way actually to know anything about these “good guys.” He then extended his Easter vacation to Cairo for reasons upon which one can only speculate.

In a recent hearing, the intelligence was delivered from a reliable source that elements of al Qaeda had been noticed in the rebel contingent, something Qaddafi had already determined and made known…pooh-poohed for his trouble by this government. This is no brief for Qaddafi, but to be bombarded by a country to which he poses absolutely no threat and see his own people slaughtered in the air attacks is something that shouldn’t happen, another way of saying that Obama must be easily influenced by people with agendas and no common sense, the latter which element he seems to share.

It must be galling to the president that the senator he defeated in the presidential election of 2008 has made it his business to decide when this country should jump a small country of 6.3 million population, determine how it should be done (but not with a handoff to NATO), go to the battlefield and from there tell the world how the current stalemated situation should be handled.

It must be galling to the president in light of this stalemate confirmed by his own top military advisers that he listened to his Amazons caterwaul about Qaddafi killing his own rebels and insist that he “just do something,” like the scared spouse screaming at her husband upon spotting a mouse in the house and heading for the stairs. “Just doing something” has amounted to wholesale slaughter but the girls apparently hadn’t thought of that…or maybe they cogitated that they and the UN should decide which set of Libyans should die, choosing the gang in Benghazi to live over Qaddafi and his loyalists. After all, don’t they all look alike?

The Yemenis are slowly but surely agitating their 32-year strongman Saleh out of office without any help from the U.S., though Saleh is this country’s only Arab ally anywhere. Al Qaeda and/or the Muslim Brotherhood, sworn enemies of this country, will be taking over Yemen, just as will be the case in Libya if Qaddafi goes. Obama should be hoping that both strongmen stay the course.

Then, of course, there’s Syria, where strongman Assad has his army shooting the agitators in the streets, something the Amazons apparently haven’t caterwauled about to the UN. Syria is now a Libya look-alike, but McCain had this to say on 25 April on NBC’s Today show: "I don't see a scenario right now or anytime in the near future where the injection of U.S. or NATO military action would in any way beneficially help the situation, I'm sorry to say." Wouldn’t help??? Is that the understatement of the year? If exactly the same thing being done to Libya wouldn’t help Syria, why keep on devastating Libya?

With a president declaring war no. #3 that a senator says is not being fought correctly, what’s a citizen to do? Add a deep recession to the mix with workers walking the streets and the dollar losing value exponentially…food and gasoline prices out the top…a Congress in constant civil war. Maybe Senator Graham had the grim answer: “Citizen needs to wake up every day wondering ‘Will this be my last?’”

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Deadly Folly of Obama, McCain et al

2011-04-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

Predictably, a U.S. senator has gone to Libya during the spring recess to “get the feeling on the ground,” the senator this time being McCain, not surprising since it was he, and senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham (known as the “odd quartet”), who practically frothed at the mouth in urging President Obama to start wiping out Qaddafi and his squirrelly Libyan government back in March. Perhaps Minority House Speaker Pelosi and Senator Kerry will also visit in Benghazi, as they did not too long ago in Damascus to “consult” with Syrian strongman Assad, a chip off the old Assad block as he copies his dad in butchering Syrians in the streets.

Don’t look for McCain or the others to urge Obama to install over Syria a “no-fly zone,” otherwise known as entering into a nation’s civil war on the side of the “people” (75 killed on the latest “Great Friday”) who have about as much chance at toppling Assad as the Benghazi crowd has of toppling Qaddafi, at least until much later, after the U.S. has helped probably thousands to their deaths. The president has resorted now to the use of drones instead of planes on the bombing runs, the better to guarantee against an American’s being killed, something the American public wouldn’t appreciate in what is a non-war of Obama’s personal choice. One U.S. plane has already gone down, but the airmen were rescued by the “right” side. Had that not happened, they would be prisoners of war.

Defense Secretary Gates, while in Russia in March, indicated that the war was being conducted “on the fly,” another way of saying with no real plans, exit strategies or any cohesion with possible “friends,” the “people,” doncha know. He had already inveighed against it, as had Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen, who has just said in Baghdad that the whole affair will end in stalemate. McCain has looked the situation over now and demanded that Obama get on the ball and get the thing over with, as if Libyans loyal to Qaddafi don’t exist and are simply cannon fodder.

Qaddafi has already been told through the media worldwide that there will be no ground troops sent by NATO, now the manager of the non-war, and that arms will not be given to the fighters, so why should he just fold his tent and silently slip away? The drones are attacking targets in Misrata with alleged precision, though everyone knows that the missiles they fire can’t tell one Libyan from another. This is the kind of insulting propaganda that strips from Obama, McCain and all the rest any credibility.

The only things surpassing in intensity the sheer arrogance of Obama and McCain and his senate cronies are either ignorance of the Middle East or simply a vendetta for Qadaffi, whose nation the U.S. removed from the list of terrorist nations a while back, and who transported his entire nuclear program (if not his whole WMD capability) to the U.S. years ago. The arrogance of Obama in recently telling longtime government-heads, Egypt’s Mubarak, Yemen’s Saleh and Libya’s Qadaffi, that they must step down is virtually incomprehensible, sort of like campaigner Obama suggesting he would militarily intervene in Pakistan if that nation’s honchos didn’t get rid of the Pakistani/Afghani Taliban within its borders. He, of course, has proven that to be an empty threat.

As for ignorance, it should be clear by now that the U.S., no matter its good intentions, cannot effect Jeffersonian democracy (or any kind of democracy) in any Middle East country. Obama and his warmongering crowd apparently haven’t caught that. So far, they’ve had enough sense not to arm the Libyan rebels and for good reason. They have no idea who these people are. Qaddafi has said they’re the al Qaeda gang and he might be right. After all, he’s on the ground. Al Qaeda is definitely not welcome in Yemen or Saudi Arabia, both of which countries are constantly on the move in destroying it.

By gratuitously attacking Libya, a country that presents absolutely no threat of any kind to this country and in fact never has, Obama is alienating countries like Saudi Arabia, a vital component in this country’s oil-supply chain. The Saudis were happy for Bush 41 to neutralize Saddam in 1991 and thus save Saudi Arabia, Saddam’s actual goal. Ditto for Bush 43 vis-à-vis Iraq, thereby lessening the threat of Iran. But now, the U.S. is seen, justifiably in its Libya carnage, as having ulterior motives, and those motives might well have to do with the oil that Libya sells to France, Germany, Britain and Spain, the main players besides the U.S. in NATO and the current “no-fly” bomber-gang murdering Libyans on the ground.

The whole thing stinks, with probably the least capable president in all of history conducting what amounts to a war-crime regarding Libya.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Shoulder-to-Shoulder...a Farce

2011-04-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

The problem with many church leaders in the U.S. is that they, regardless of what they might say, never actually understand the church-state juxtaposition, especially as applied constitutionally. They make high-flown pronouncements about the value of separation of church and state, essentially that neither may violate the responsibilities/positions of the other, but, in fact, meddle in the affairs of state all the time, though they bristle at the slightest suggestion that the state infringe upon their “freedom of religion.”

Recently, Congressman Peter King of New York, ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, held a hearing on 10 March regarding possible Muslim radicalism in this country, insisting that not to hold the controversial hearing would be a craven surrender to political correctness. King gave a number of examples of actual incidents and plots conceived by Muslim men, such as the failed Times Square bombing and the slaughter at Ft. Hood carried out by Major Hasan. King had in mind the home-grown terrorists such as those exposed recently in England or Netherlands or Denmark.

This apparently rankled some of the church leaders, who banded themselves together in something called the Shoulder-to-Shoulder Campaign, and delivered a strong statement against the hearings, also on 10 March. Here is a brief segment of its long statement: “Spiritual leaders have a moral responsibility and a sacred calling to categorically denounce derision, misinformation or outright bigotry directed against anyone, regardless of faith community.” The self-proclaimed “spiritual leaders,” representing millions of members of various faiths, missed the purpose of the hearing and essentially called King a misinformed bigot – a brotherly Judeo-Christian approach, of course!

One can’t know if President Obama was aware of the S-to-S statement but he showed his concern for Muslims nine days later when, without even consultation with Congress, he ordered an all-out air attack by U.S. planes and missiles, including long-range bombers, on Libya, a poor 97%-Muslim country of 6.3 million people, two million less than the population of New York City. The U.S. bombing went on for days (and still occurs “when needed”) until Obama passed the slaughter of Libyans off to NATO to continue his personal war. Was he also a misinformed bigot or are Muslims in other countries somehow different from those in the U.S., notwithstanding their shared belief in the Islamic holy book, the Koran?

Will S-to-S make a statement with regard to the president’s bombing of and otherwise assaulting Libya –a dreary land 92% desert or semi-desert which hasn’t since the day of Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates been a threat to this nation and even submitted its nuclear program to this country a while back? Did his action, involving the murders of many, not rise to the level of a Congressional hearing held in the interest of safety for citizens, which so lathered S-to-S recently? Apparently S-to-S believes it was not as serious even though Muslims have been slaughtered, since no statement has been forthcoming.

In thinking about the goals of Shoulder-to-Shoulder, one wonders if the organization plans to make a statement in support of the United Church of Christ and critical of the U.S. government vis-à-vis the country’s laws inveighing against that denomination’s official position, since 2005, that men may marry men and women marry women. Isn’t the Defense of Marriage Act passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in the 90s a violation of the UCC’s freedom of religion? The Rev. Geoffrey Black, S-to-S Steering Committee member and head honcho of UCC, surely would appreciate such a statement.

One should not hold his breath until Shoulder-to-Shoulder issues profound statements with respect to both of these subjects. In both matters, government or a government official arguably interferes with specific groups of people – Muslims (though in another country) and homosexuals in this country, not to mention an entire denomination, the United Church of Christ. Where is the outrage that S-to-S exhibited with King’s above-board, transparent and quite logically held hearing just to look into the matter of terrorism? Germany closed a mosque in Hamburg recently because terrorist plots were being hatched there. It’s been discovered that mosques form the breeding ground for terrorist activity elsewhere.

There’s nothing wrong with “doing good,” probably what the spiritual leaders thought they were doing. They couldn’t have been more wrong in slandering King and his hearing, his effort at “doing good” far outweighing theirs since it involved not perceived political incorrectness, but public safety. If the American Muslims feel insulted they should forswear their holy book that plainly doesn’t just approve of but demand “death to the infidel” whenever possible or made possible. Not even their “spiritual leaders” – or especially those leaders – have said this edict is not there. Evidence of it is seen throughout the world on a daily basis.

Shoulder-to-Shoulder is a farce and should be disbanded.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama's Bay of Pigs

2011-04-18T04:48:00.000-07:00

In the year of President Obama’s birth in August, the most disgraceful military episode of probably all U.S. history, known as the Bay of Pigs, took place in April in Cuba. Obama has just totally duplicated the Bay of Pigs disaster in Libya, an episode just as disgraceful as that of 1961.

One wonders if the president has any sense of history. In the Bay of Pigs event, the CIA had trained a small army of Cuban exiles to invade Cuba with the intention of wrestling the country from Fidel Castro, who had become its communist dictator. The critical ingredient to success lay in the support of the U.S. Air Force, as promised, to supply the vital air cover for the men storming the beach. That support was withheld by President Kennedy and the effort was crushed. The result remains obvious.

Flash forward to April 2011. In the preceding month, President Obama declared his personal war on Libya, particularly its strongman ruler, Muammar Qaddafi, without bothering to consult Congress. Instead, he sent State Secretary Clinton and U.S. UN Ambassador Rice to the UN Security Council to get approval of his war. Reluctantly, the approval was granted by a slim margin, a number of states choosing not to vote.

The vague UN resolution was about establishing a no-fly zone and protecting the people, whatever that meant. The U.S. was the heavy hitter as the assault started on Libyans, notwithstanding that they, instead of being protected vis-à-vis the resolution, were being killed. It was sort of killing one set of Libyans to protect another set of Libyans, which, of course, makes no sense. The objective was to take out military installations, but bombs and missiles just kill anyone who happens to be hanging out at the wrong place.

Establishing the no-fly zone was a piece of cake, but that was never the actual objective, which was to get Qaddafi out of Libya, whether or not with his toes turned up, but with the latter as the best choice. Naturally, there had to be somebody to take charge when Qaddafi was hammered but nobody seemed to have thought of that. The “people” to be protected seemed to be those in Benghazi, but there was no leader and only a ragtag collection of militants who celebrated everything from a birth to a wedding by firing their guns in the air.

The action was essentially a unilateral one cooked up by the U.S. but could not appear to be such since that wouldn’t set well with the citizens, who understood that the U.S. was already up to its ears in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. UN-approval didn’t set well, either, since Obama had supplanted his own Congress with that collection of mostly U.S.-haters.

What to do? Shove the whole thing off on NATO, thus relieving Obama of the unilateral criticism, actually an empty gesture since the U.S. is the major player in NATO. Obama took care of that problem by withdrawing U.S. air support shortly after the bombardments had started, with the promise of more help if needed and air support such as furnishing refueling tankers for the planes of England, France and anybody else’s that wanted to pound Libyans to death in order to save the “people.”

Sound familiar? Withdrawn U.S. air-capability spelled doom for the Cuban exiles. Withdrawn U.S. air-capability regarding Libya set the NATO nations to arguing, some of them refusing to drop bombs on Libya and all of them refusing to put boots on the ground. This left the “people” (whoever they are) without the air support necessary to fighting Qaddafi, who in the meantime replaced his tanks and other exposed armaments with light armaments such as guns on pickups and, of course, parked them conveniently in towns, the natural result being NATO killing civilians in order to protect the “people.”

The U.S. pullout, planned though it was, amounts to a Bay of Pigs move, the “people’s” army being left with some light armament sent by Qatar, for instance, but unable to dislodge Qaddafi with it and fighting with undisciplined ragtag gunmen shooting in the air for most any reason and castigating NATO for not bailing them out. As for the weapons, no one knows who’s using them, probably al Qaeda or the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood gang. As for NATO, it has no stomach for the mess but will still keep flying and bombing…to save the “people.” The “people” are now stranded…like the Cuban exiles of 1961.

Did Obama think he needed his own war in preparation for the election in 2012? Bush started two, after all, and got reelected; however, neither would have happened without Congressional approval. Ah well…Libya – just 6.3 million population and with 92% of its land desert or semi-desert – was a nice place to start a war. Wonder what Obama’s exit strategy is? Only the Shadow knows.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Under-the-Bus Gang Rides Again!

2011-04-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

It's mid-afternoon in a room over the Anything Goes Bar on a busy street in South Chicago. In attendance are university professors William Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright and presidential adviser Robert Gibbs, hereinafter referenced as A, D, W and G, respectively.

**W: Welcome, Mr. Gibbs, to the Union to Negate Demeaning of Erudite Realists, Theologians and Honest Educators Basic to the United States.
**G: The what?
**W: You mean you don’t know what the…in fact, I figured you’re here to join, now that you ain’t in that Washington nuthouse anymore.
**A: Maybe you’ve heard of it by its Acronym, Gibbs, Under the Bus. It’s made up of the people who’ve been…
**W: kicked off the team because they stand up for…
**D: Oh…don’t be so whiny, Rev. Just because Barry had to disown you after that awful performance at the National Press Club…after all, you got your reparations in the 1960s and…
**W: We ain’t got no reparations yet Bernardine, and I’ll thank you to call me Doctor, not Rev.
**G: Could we just get down to business here, folks? I’m on a tight schedule as an adviser to Commander-in-Chief Obama and…
**A: What’s with the C-in-C stuff, Gibbs? Can’t you just say…
**G: Oh…sorry about that. The comman…er…Barry required all the staff to address him as Commander-in-Chief at all times except in public and…well, the habit’s hard to break. Anyway, Barry asked me to consult with you guys concerning the current campaign so…
**W: I suspect he also told you to make sure nobody saw you consulting so that’s why we’re in this fleabag bar and probably house of the risin’ sun on these other floors. (starts singing) There is a house in New Orleans…
**D: That’s not exactly a hymn Dr. Wright.
**W: I know, I know, but I like the tune. You oughtta hear Louie play it on the violin…gives it real passion…risin’ sun passion…no burkas there…no nothin’ there…talk about passion…hoo-hah!
**G: Louie? Who’s Louie?
**A: Louis Farrakhan, of course…surely you’ve heard of Calypso Louie, sometimes called the enforcer and head of the Nation of…
**D: Islam…right in these United States. (laughs maniacally) You know…Malcolm X is in his grave/Wrong, of course, but oh so brave! Ah…gunfire in the night…GLORIOUS…although I would have preferred a knife in the ribs…no fun at such a distance. Charles Manson would have been much more creative and…
**A: Yeeeaaahhh…maybe thrown a grenade down his skivvies like that plane-bomber last Christmas…like we threw in the Pentagon back in the day…ah, we didn’t do enough…that’s what I told them after 9/11…shoulda gone for old Tricky or Lyndon…whoever…
**G: Look…like I said…I’m on a tight schedule. You can reminisce after I leave. I WILL leave before you do since Barry said for me not…
**W: to be seen with the Under-the-Bus crowd. Yeah…that might look bad, what with these Pentagon-bombers runnin’ loose and teachin’ all those kids here how to hate America.
**D: Oh yeah, Jeremiah…oh yeah! You’re a fine one to say that after your God-damn-America sermons
(laughs hysterically) and blaming Uncle Sugar for clobbering the black folk with AIDS…AIDS, for Satan’s sake. What a miserable death…COOL.
**G: Back to the subject! Look, the comman…er, Barry…is getting a lot of questions on Libya so he told me to ask you specifically about that issue and…
**A: ISSUE? That’s no issue…that’s a genuine problem…whether to go on killing Libyans to keep Libyans from killing Libyans or just let them kill each other without blowing all that cash on bombers and missiles and all the time telling the Frenchies to get their act together and be our proxies in the killing.
**D: I’m for landing the troops and arming them with machetes because that’s so…well, AFRICAN. (laughs uproariously) Chopping off hands and arms and legs and a head once in a while…SO African…all that blood in the streets…WHOOPEE!
**A: Yeeaahh…so MUSLIM, too. I understand Barry’s deep into Islam anyway and a few beheadings on TV might just do the job…scare old devil Muammar out of his skull and right into…hey…Gitmo! Let’s hear it for Guantanamo! (clapping by A, D and W)
**W: Throw a little AIDS his way, too. That’ll get his attention…there is a house…h-m-m-m-ms…
**G: Look, I’m serious about this.
**A: We are, too. Barry’s way too soft…sent those three girls off to the UN to tell that sob story about something that hadn’t even happened…got nine votes…or was it eight…to just bomb the Libyans right back into Mohammad’s seventh century.
**G: He’s got nothing against the Libyans…just Qaddafi!
**D: What’s one Libyan over another? That’s discrimination…huh, Jeremiah?
**W: Well…yeah…I guess. Anyway, the seat of civilization was down there around the Congo anyway, so one Muslim’s the same as any other…or maybe I better talk to Louie about that and get back to you, Glibs…er…Gibbs, I guess it is. I always thought you were kinda glib except when you said uh, which was about fourteen times a sentence. Carney started off about the same way but maybe he’ll…
**G: Oh yeah…oh yeah! You got any idea how hard it is to stay one step ahead of those media nutcases? I used that uh to give me time to think. One wrong word and the comman…er…Barry would look bad and sic Biden on me…wake him right up and tell him to give me what-for. (hesitates) Guess you guys are telling me that you think Barry should send in the troops…is that it?
**W: Well…he started it, didn’t he, and then invited NATO to take over and called off the troops? Now the chickens have come to roost…just like Hiroshima and…
**A: Right sermon, wrong war, Jeremiah. But, yeah, Glibs, just tell Barry we’re taking up money for him down here and to send in the clowns…no wait…send in the troops. The clowns are all in Washington.
**G: Right! Got it! Thanks…now just give me five minutes start.
**A, D, W: a-a-r-r-g-g-h-h-A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H-A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H!!!!!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama's War...Personal & Disgraceful

2011-04-11T18:15:00.000-07:00

At the end of his inaugural speech in March 1861, Abraham Lincoln said this: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.”

At that time, a provisional constitution providing for secession had already been approved by six states and only a few days after Lincoln’s speech a permanent constitution was approved, with Jefferson Davis elected as president. Other states would follow suit in the South but, of course, neither Lincoln nor the U.S. Congress recognized the new pseudo-nation. Earlier in his speech, Lincoln had mentioned that two things could happen vis-à-vis governance – amend the Constitution or rise in revolution. The rest is history as revolution was engaged by the Confederacy.

On 12 April 1861, Jefferson Davis ordered the shelling of Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, S.C., by confederate forces, beginning the four worst years in U.S. history, by the end of which the combined count of dead soldiers of both sides would be 625,000, or an average of an unbelievable 435 per day. The document ending the war was signed by southern General Lee and northern General Grant on 09 April 1865.

Lincoln’s duty – preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution – was codified in Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution. As commander-in-chief (Article II, Section II), it was his job to actually raise and use a military force sufficient to put down a rebellion. Since the CSA was not an actual government, the seceding states were in a state of rebellion and the Congress had no state/nation against which to declare war, its responsibility under the Constitution. It was Lincoln’s war. He could either fight it or cave.

Presidents have gone to the Congress for declarations of war on a number of occasions. Congress declared war on Mexico in May 1846. War was declared by Congress on Germany in April 1917. Declarations of war took place by this country in 1941 against the Axis nations.

However, when significant military force is seen to be needed with no state/nation against which to declare war, presidents consult Congress and get its approval, such as against the Viet Cong (1960s) and the Taliban in 2001. Or, when a group of nations, including the U.S., agree that significant military action is necessary against a threatening entity, the president will consult the Congress, such as regarding Kuwait in 1991 (UN) and Iraq in 2002-3 (coalition). In these cases, a clear and imminent threat to the interests of the U.S. was involved but Congress participated formally in the process.

There has to be a reason for a president to act in what amounts to a police action such as President Reagan’s brief aerial assault on Libyan strongman Qaddafi in 1986, probably the first attempt against international terrorism. Intelligence had indicated that Qaddafi had at least harbored, if not ordered, terrorists to kill Americans in Berlin. There’s never a reason for this or any other nation to assault another nation or other entity without cause, i.e., a definite and imminent threat to a nation’s security.

President Obama has recently made a practice of arrogantly informing long-time heads of other governments that they should step down, in the process encouraging if not inciting their constituencies to take to the streets in rebellion. Think Egypt’s Mubarak, Yemen’s Saleh and Libya’s Qaddafi. Mubarak did step down and the resulting military government has lately killed citizens in downtown Cairo. Saleh and Qaddafi have paid Obama no mind and are doing what Lincoln did.

The actual disgrace to the office of U.S. president happened, however, when Obama, without consultation with Congress and in the face of absolutely no threat from Libya, perhaps one of the weakest nations in the world with a population of only 6.3 million, simply ordered U.S. forces to bomb and rain down missiles on that nation for days in March, even though his own Defense Department warned against it. Obama had told Qaddafi to step down. Qaddafi demurred, ergo, bomb him out…for the innocent victims, just too bad. That’s personal. Americans are still helping NATO (with the Congress not consulted) kill Libyans.

Newsweek called it “Hillary’s [State Secretary Clinton’s] War.” No…it’s Obama’s personal war. His military would have been justified in refusing the order to attack a virtually defenseless nation, at least compared to the mightiest military in the world. His action, especially without even a hearing in Congress, was reprehensible, sanguinary, and an act deserving of impeachment. Could it be a war-crime, as well?

What would Lincoln think?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama's War - WHY?

2011-04-06T19:07:00.000-07:00

The treachery of President Obama is becoming clearer each day as the so-called Libyan “protesters” and NATO, now supposedly without the “combative” help of the U.S., duke it out in the sand with Qaddafi. For no apparent reason under the well-known sun, Obama simply declared his own personal war on Libyan strongman Qaddafi, sent his minions to the UN to somehow gain the Security Council’s imprimatur for his action, and then set about bombing the bejesus out of Libyans, military and otherwise, letting the blood flow freely.

The president’s military establishment advised against the action for reasons that any John Doe can understand but that were apparently beyond the president’s pay-grade…or were they, i.e., do military considerations per se have anything to do with the president’s agenda? With absolutely no military experience at all, he proceeded to overrule people who understand quite well the ramifications of war.

Nor did the president go to Congress, even though he had a month to do so. The “protesting” in Libya started on 15 February and the UN vote was taken on 17 March. With over a month to appear before Congress to lay out his plan, which involved making war just as in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, the president took a pass, never mind the seriousness of the issue. Why? Because he knew the Congress would not approve.

So…after sitting on his hands for a month, Obama recognized that all of a sudden there was an emergency with no time to waste and sent the gals off to the UN to push the Security Council panic-button, with enough states not voting to deliver an edict by the barest margin…and the bombs and missiles started raining down on the Libyans, a sort of genocide with Obama instead of Qaddafi killing Libyans, military and otherwise. After all, bombs and missiles are not choosy about whose body parts get spread here and there.

The “no-fly zone” was a red herring for the obvious reason that Qaddafi would put no planes in the air and every responsible person knew that to be the case. The Libyan plane destroyed by the French was a trainer and it was on the ground. The other part of the UN resolution having to do with “protecting Libyan citizens” meant that the action could be what anyone said it was.

So…that second part became the operative strategy and the “protection” amounted to taking the side of the “protesters” in an actual military operation against the government, notwithstanding that no one knew exactly who the protesters were, what entity(ies) was supporting them, or who their leader was, assuming they had one. The Frenchies recognized some entity as perhaps a government-in-waiting, but that was worth nothing. Obama announced his action in far-off Brazil and didn’t make it home to conduct the war for some five or so days.

No head-of-state in his right mind would undertake a hazy operation such as this, especially just on the say-so of some totally non-military advisers – in this case, apparently, State Secretary Clinton, UN Ambassador Rice, and Obama insider Power – who claimed that Qaddafi was ABOUT to commit genocide on his people. He hadn’t done it but they said Qaddafi would – on the basis of something he said – which most folks would have questioned as simply propaganda.

There had been no mass murders though Qaddafi obviously planned to put down what he considered a rebellion, just as did Lincoln in 1861. The ladies provided the perfect excuse for attacking Qaddafi…to save lives, even though lives had been lost for months in Cote d-Ivoire, with Obama doing nothing, despite the ease of intervening in that African coastal nation.

None of this makes sense, especially since the lives of American GIs were involved and Libya posed absolutely no threat to this country, so the obvious question becomes…why? The population of Libya is 6.3 million, two million less than that of New York City. Part of the answer can be seen in the constant spiking of gasoline prices. Obama had to know this would happen when he invaded an oil-producing country, if only by air. He also had to know that Qaddafi, if pushed to the wall, would probably destroy the oil facilities, thus keeping gas prices on the rise.

This makes one remember Obama’s claim during his campaign that he would make electricity prices skyrocket, largely by penalizing the coal industry and thus shutting down much of manufacturing as well as depleting personal incomes. The Libyan thing is a sort of godsend, allowing him to make war to further destroy small entrepreneurs’ ability to stay in business by pricing gas/oil out of their budgets and further eroding Americans’ earnings by robbing them at the gas-pump. Conclusion: Socialism!

Too big a stretch? Too tough on the president? Already fighting two wars for which there had always been a reason, why would he get into another for absolutely no reason and then get right out, which he did? All that was needed was the dustup and oil prices would “skyrocket.” By getting out and leaving NATO holding the bag, he removed potential criticism for the possible loss of American lives, such as could have happened if the American airmen in that jet that crashed had wound up in Qaddafi’s hands instead of those of the insurgents.

One hopes that such is not the case. One wonders, also, if Libya will be Obama’s “Bay of Pigs” - attack the enemy and then desert the ally!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama, the Constitution & War

2011-04-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

Despite his obvious efforts to separate his approach to matters regarding world affairs from that of former president George W. Bush, President Obama has actually been emulating Mr. Bush, angering and bewildering Obama supporters. His flip-flop on Guantanamo and the Patriot Act are examples. He has decided now publicly that U.S.-ally Yemeni President Saleh has to go under the bus, just as he’s decided lately that the Egyptian and Libyan presidents had to go.

There’s reason to be concerned about his Yemen announcement in light of his actions pursuant to his Libyan announcement last month, i.e., his subsequent making of war on Libya and announcing that NATO would continue the war as the U.S. pulled out of all but a “support” role and after spending probably $650 million or so in the process. The president’s arrogance has no limit.

The obvious question has to do with what the president intends to do since “citizens” protesting in Yemen have been killed just as was the case in Libya, with Obama ginning up his war on Libya ostensibly to protect them from Qaddafi, who continues to insist that he has a right to put down a rebellion, as does Saleh. Does Obama intend to “protect” Yemenis by making war on Yemen, then maybe passing it off to NATO or the EU or some other body? Who knows?

This brings up the matter of presidential responsibilities vis-a-vis the requirements/allowances of the U.S. Constitution. Did the prexy have the right to attack Libya and does he have the right to do the same regarding Yemen or any other country whose head-of-state he decides should get out of Dodge? Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution:“The Congress shall have power…to declare war…to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.”

Article 2, Section 2: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and of the Militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States,…” The president is given the specific power to conduct the military operation if Congress declares or otherwise (under the laws) mandates military action.

It seems clear enough constitutionally that the president carries out the enactments/resolutions of the Congress but does not make policy decisions regarding armed conflict and certainly does not make war as his prerogative, which is precisely what Obama did regarding Libya. Indeed, if insurrections and invasions were to be included as those happening in other nations (Libya, for instance), according to the constitution he would have been required to act in behalf of Qaddafi, not against him.

This military meddling in other nations’ affairs is not the requirement or allowance of the Constitution, of course, but does emphasize when the Congress/president can instigate or carry out military action regarding this nation, i.e., to put down insurrections and/or invasions, as, for instance, in the case of the Confederacy in 1861 or the Barbary pirates off the coast of Libya in the early 1800s, when the buccaneers “invaded” American ships.

Libya obviously did not invade or otherwise violate this country last month; therefore, according to the Constitution, neither the Congress nor the president had any right to bomb sovereign territory and murder Libyans, an absolute act of war, exactly like the action of the Japanese on 07 December 1941 at Pearl Harbor, which did result in war being declared by the Congress, not the president, who then conducted the war. In his action, Obama became a Hirohito, not a Roosevelt, not an attractive comparison.

If the main premise for Obama’s virtually unilateral action has to do with humanitarian considerations, as seems to be the case, this country/president, even if constitutionally allowed, would need a military of many millions to handle the whole world, especially the Middle East and Africa (particularly in Muslim-controlled countries), in order to protect the many populations affected.

Many governments are changed on the point of the sword and blood routinely runs in the streets (think Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Ivory Coast, and many others besides Libya currently), with outcomes that are unpredictable and consequent conditions not necessarily being improved as the result of either in-state actions or interventions by other countries. How many governments does Obama intend to attack?

In any case, the president did not act within his constitutional authority; rather, he acted quite outside it.
He compounded his unconstitutional approach by also deciding when the U.S. would essentially withdraw from the action he initiated, something that should have been decided by Congress if he had wisely approached the lawmakers in the first place, thus initiating and ending his own war. The “no-fly zone” and “citizen protection” elements of the UN resolution have actually become a ground war, a killing-field the Security Council may not have envisioned.

Since the actions by Bush and Obama vis-à-vis congressional oversight/declarations and on-the-ground situations were distinctly different, no comparison can be made concerning their actions. Bush gained approval from Congress. Obama gained approval from the UN. His responsibility was to the people of the U.S. through their elected representatives, not the UN or Arab League. Actually, Obama should have listened to his Defense Secretary and Joint-Chiefs Chairman, who warned against his action.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Presidential Misspeak

2011-03-31T11:01:00.000-07:00

This is what the president said in his “Libya Update” speech of 28 March delivered not in the Oval Office but in an auditorium filled with military officers down upon whom he could look from his platform position: “And tonight, I can report that we have stopped Qaddafi’s deadly advance.” Since then, the Libyan rebels have retreated and are in danger of losing the whole ballgame.

Qaddafi’s troops were not advancing at that point but were themselves, thanks to the mostly U.S bombers and missiles, in retreat. The prez said that NATO would take over on 30 March but that didn’t happen until 31 March. In the meantime, Qaddafi started using vehicles not easily spotted from the air as his well-trained fighters used the rebels’ own tactics (pickup trucks with machine guns, for instance) to counter-attack successfully, not even using the roads in the desert to outflank the insurgents.

Also in the meantime, NATO operations commander Admiral James Stavridis testified in a Congressional hearing that there is evidence that al Qaeda operatives are among the rebels/insurgents. Qaddafi had already asserted that the revolt was managed by al Qaeda but, of course, was pooh-poohed for saying that.

To add to the president’s disingenuousness is the fact that he said no U.S. boots would be on the ground in Libya. There are CIA operatives on the ground there now and they were likely on the ground when he made that statement. It comes to light now that he has also signed a “secret” go-ahead for possibly arming the rebels since they are in dire need of weapons. Problem: The insurgents haven’t yet been identified and have no apparent leader. So…does the president plan to send weapons to people he doesn’t know but can be certain that some if not most of them will wind up in the hands of al Qaeda.

In his speech, Obama said this: “Our military mission is narrowly focused on saving lives.” He had to know that in that assemblage of military experts his words were meaningless. It’s been obvious from the get-go that the president’s objective – after he finally decided on one – is to see that the insurgents wage a war eventuating in the death or ouster of Qaddafi, although he also said that neither removal of Qaddafi nor regime change was an objective. It’s hard to imagine oxymorons of that magnitude.

During his presidential campaign, Obama said this: “The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” The day before the “update” performance, defense secretary, Robert Gates, said that the crisis in Libya “was not a vital national interest to the United States.” In other words, Obama committed an un-Constitutional act, by his own accounting.

The president said this: “As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than keeping this country safe.” He also said this: “There will be times, though, when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and values are.” So…which is it? Obviously, Libya has posed no threat to this country’s safety, so apparently the president has gone to war in order to protect “our values and interests.” What “values and interests” did Qaddafi threaten? None, of course! In fact, Qaddafi had been removed from the terrorist list some time ago and even turned his “nuke effort” over to the U.S.

England, France, Spain and Italy (NATO’s “big” members) import Libyan oil and it’s a leadpipe cinch that Qaddafi was extorting huge sums of money from them for the privilege. Doesn’t every dictator do that? What about the French and Saddam…or Kofi Anan’s son…in the kickbacks? So…why not just get the U.S. to finagle a stop to that? After all, to some extent (mostly slight, except perhaps for England), these countries had helped a bit in Afghanistan or Iraq. The U.S. spent $550 million in blasting Libya in the first 10 days or so of the action and continues to spend monstrous sums on the effort.

Or…is the consensus right in determining that Obama’s war was largely the result of the pressure brought by the president’s Amazons – State Secretary Hillary Clinton, UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Obama’s foreign policy guru Samantha Power, whose husband, Cass Sunstein, just happens to be the prexy’s “regulation czar,” possibly the most influential voice in his regime? It would be a tragedy of immense proportions if this were the case…and it probably is. The blood and treasure of this country spent to satisfy some bureaucrats in nothing more than a civil war in a country of 6.3 million people? That would be disgusting.

During her campaign for the presidency, Secretary Clinton completely fabricated a monstrous lie and repeated it over and over regarding her running under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996. It never happened and the mystery has to do with why she made up all that. She had to know that her lie would come to light. The president in his campaign made a statement upon which he has just perjured himself through his actions. These are the people running this country. What a shame!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Libya "Update" - Fiasco!

2011-03-29T05:52:00.000-07:00

In his “Libya Speech” of 28 March, President Obama became the political equivalent of Pilate, washing his hands of the violence connected to his rape of Libya and turning the whole mess over to the NATO rabble for the furtherance of the crucifixion of Qaddafi. It needed ten days or so after he began the carnage for him to come to this point but he majestically proclaimed this fact with a toss of the head as he bid a fond adieu to NATO, effective 30 March, with best wishes, of course.

Obviously uptight, Obama seemed to be trying to convince himself of what he was saying and gave repetition/redundancy a new life. He could have been through in ten minutes but he belabored his subject to the point of boredom. He began, as always, with high praise for the military but had to be somewhat flustered by all the military brass before him, and none smiling. The officers recognized his floundering and had to wonder why he hadn’t at least tried to explain his actions when he instituted them and no doubt were wondering why he called his presentation an “update,” not an explanation of his actions.

The reason, of course, was the fact that he had no clear plan from the get-go in order to present one, simply mentioning (or maybe it was State Secretary Clinton, certainly not the military) that he would start the operation – just establishing a “no-fly” zone – and then, apparently without consulting the alliance, that NATO would take over. His primary reason for the action seemed to be that Qaddafi was attacking his people but didn’t mention that his people had taken to the streets first.

This is no brief for Qaddafi, a cruel man, but no different from the other Muslim dictators that brutalize their people….like Assad in Syria or Saleh in Yemen currently. Regimes generally change on the point of the sword in the Middle East so the Libya issue was sort of just normal – civil war among the tribes with the strongest and/or meanest taking over, or the current despot winning reelection the mid-east way, with blood in the streets. Nothing new!

Obama was sure to mention Iraq – the great mistake – sort of in the vein of Jimmy Carter, never one to pass up an opportunity to slam Bush 43, even – or especially – while on foreign soil. Obama chose a “foreign” theater with a huge captive audience, ironically, of the military, to speechify formally (complete with teleprompter) to his people instead of in the Oval Office, which is where he should have been alone, not making a speech but simply explaining his actions personally. This was the way of both Bushes and Reagan, as well as Clinton…same day stuff, not an “update” after a five-day vacation in Latin America plus the weekend NCAA earth-shaking dribble-derby. He even compared Libya to the Bosnia actions (apples to oranges), extolling the speed of his maneuvering (actually his bumbling) while obviously denigrating that of Clinton.

Whether as simply disingenuous or plainly stupid, Obama apparently didn’t realize in slamming Bush again that he had done just what he said he was against in 2002-03 – invading another country without cause, though he failed to mention that Bush had gone to the Congress and secured approval, whereas he hadn’t bothered. The military brass must have winced when he said that non-military means would be employed from now on to bring Qadaffi to his knees, thus giving away the game and encouraging the dictator to sweat out the rebels.

The president said, “Moreover, America has an important strategic interest in preventing Qaddafi from overrunning those who oppose him.” Defense Secretary Gates, sitting before him, had stated days ago that this was not true, meaning that Gates was either stupid or a liar…or that Obama was. The citizen can make the call. Libya’s entire population is 2 million people less than that of New York City. Qaddafi’s troops number 76,000, compared to the total military of the U.S. – 3.3 million, counting the Reserves and National Guard, with 1.4 million on active duty. Should Americans shudder at the magnitude of Qadaffi’s “strategic” threat? Obama has been on the stump lately ranting against “bullying,” and gave an exact example of it in Libya.

If little Libya was of strategic interest, just think of the strategic interest of Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria and Iran vis-à-vis the current Libya-like repression in those countries. It’s a lead-pipe cinch that Obama has learned in Libya (or has he?) that he needs to stick to giving odds on the NCAA and never again attempt to plan military operations (either when or how), especially as designed by State Secretary Clinton, as apparently in this case. She’s off to Europe to make the case but should only resign. As for Obama, impeachment would be too nice. The patients are running the Washington asylum.

But it’s like Obama said in his best “in-your-face-America” posture concerning his prerogatives…We won!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Imperial Presidency?

2011-03-26T18:24:00.000-07:00

In November 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama introduced (actually introduced by Sen. Reid in Obama’s name) a Senate resolution stating that President Bush did not have Congressional authorization to use military force against Iran: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that nothing in the... resolution [amendment] previously adopted, or any other provision of law.. shall be construed to authorize, encourage, or in any way address the use of the Armed Forces of the United States against Iran.

Obama was busy campaigning, presumably, for the election in November 2009 (two years is such a short time-frame) that he had to have Reid to be his proxy for this vitally important document. Iran posed no direct threat to the U.S., so Bush might have needed to pay attention to Obama’s intellect…except for the fact, of course (war powers act?), that the Iranians were extremely well-documented as providing the IEDs that were used to kill U.S. soldiers 24/7 in Iraq. The devices and/or other devices were actually stamped as Iranian in origin. Bush, as he had done before, would have consulted Congress anyway since that made more sense than to just start bombing another country.

Whoa! On the basis of his own resolution, how did Obama get authorization to just start bombing Libya one night, announcing that war-act in Brasilia, Brazil, and then continuing to be AWOL for five days while U.S. Bombers and missiles slammed the bejesus out of Libya, population 6.3 million, 2 million less than New York City?

Was Libya furnishing military materiel in Iraq or Afghanistan? Well…no. Had Qaddafi flown planes into the Empire State Building? Well…no. Did he have WMD secluded somewhere in the desert? Well…no. In fact, hadn’t Libya coughed up its WMD to the U.S. years ago? Well…yes.

Obama precisely emulated Emperor Hirohito vis-à-vis 07 December 1941, when Japan almost took out Pearl Harbor, killing nearly 3,000 GIs and brought America into WWII. He plans to speak to the nation on 28 March to explain his incredible attack on a soveriegn nation that posed no threat to this country but he might be much better served at this point to keep his mouth shut. How can he explain away something as bizarre and obviously illegal as that?

Obama has proven beyond doubt that he’s reckless, arrogant and insensitive to the putting of U.S. GIs in harm’s way for no reason at all with regard to the national interest, which is all that’s supposed to concern him. In his campaign, he threatened to take military action in Pakistan if elected if the Pakistanis didn’t try harder to take out the Taliban. Imagine what would happen if he decided the time had come now, what with Pakistan having atomic bombs here and there.

Wait, some slack, please! The dear leader got his authorization from the United Nations. That’s all that was necessary – not that stuffy, slow Congress that Constitutionally has to declare war – because the world is just one great international community and he was just listening to his “gang-of-three” Amazons reminding him that mean people have to be wasted so the little people can be protected.

So…he dropped some bombs on Qaddafi’s house…and apparently missed. But he’s still trying, so his heart’s in the right place. It would be hard to make all this up…but there it is. And…puhleeze, don’t mention Reagan’s dropping bombs on Qaddafi’s house back in the 80s. He had well-documented cause and explained it quite clearly and immediately (the same day)…and it had nothing to do with authorization from the UN, which ought to either be disassembled entirely or marooned on some island on the Equator. Oh yes…Reagan announced that event in the Oval Office, not in some foreign capital.

Former president Clinton was impeached for perjury, telling a lie under oath. His lie didn’t hurt anyone and the Senate didn’t convict him and expel him from office. Obama, without any authorization or valid reason regarding the national interest, has done something that has caused the deaths of no telling how many Libyans who happened to just be in the wrong country at the wrong time. Should one assume he was just ignorant of the proper protocols for attacking another country? If so, should he just perhaps resign. After all, President Nixon didn’t cause profound death and grief, but he resigned simply because he tried a cover-up, which also didn’t hurt anybody.

Then, there’s the policy angle. Obama said Qaddafi had to go but that his bombing was not meant to cause him to go and/or effect regime-change. What, then, was it for – actually called kinetic military action or something like that? Who knows? Oh yes…to protect Libyans from Qaddafi. That’s weird since the president, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has joined Qaddafi in the killing.

This is what Qaddafi said in his famous (infamous) speech at the UN in 2009, “We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as president of the United States.” Oh yeah?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

New Military Method - "On-the-Fly"

2011-03-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

Defense Secretary Gates introduced a new facet of the president’s “Obama Doctrine” in Russia the other day, namely, the “on-the-fly” approach to waging…well, whatever Obama is waging in Libya these days. It can’t be called war – far too sanguinary. Besides, if it were war, he might be expected to present his plans for it to Congress.

That’s where waging war “on-the-fly” comes in – no actual plans, just haul out the bombers, missiles, and whatever else is handy and “bring it on.” So…since there are no plans for waging anything, Congress doesn’t need to be in the loop. The big deal is to save Libyan civilians from Qaddafi, so the solution is to bomb the bejesus out of Tripoli and elsewhere and kill other Libyans in order to save Libyans. Sound crazy? Of course not! Super-intellectual Obama would never do anything crazy. Obama has said Qaddafi is not a target, but his compound has been bombed more than once. That’s real intellect in action.

The big news of the twenty-third is that Syrian forces wasted six…you guessed it…Syrians in one day. They were protesting, like those squirrelly Libyans, so they had to go. The word was bandied about that they had their weapons and whatever else stored in the…yep, the mosque. Sound familiar? They just closed one of those warmongering mosques in Berlin recently…but in Syria, whose strongman Assad is a “brother” of the first order to Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Assad’s gang killed six Muslims in their mosque. Never mind killing them in the street.

If the Obama Doctrine is to be followed in Syria, it can be expected that some sort of action “on-the-fly” will be necessary since there isn’t time to get a plan ready. After all, a plan for Libya couldn’t be conceived in nearly a month, necessitating pulling off last week’s strictly “on-the-fly,” with the added advantage of not having to present it to the Congress. In fact, Obama started the action and immediately left the country for a few days living it up south of the border, so he was unavailable anyway.

Then, of course, there’s Yemen (fighting in the streets) and Saudi Arabia (protesters all over the place), meaning that innocent people have to be protected throughout the Middle East. These things have been going on for quite a while but Obama’s folks have no plans ready so maybe there will be more stuff done “on-the-fly,” the better to save Muslims from Muslims by killing Muslims.

Of course, Defense Secretary Gates and his crowd over at the Pentagon didn’t want to do anything concerning Libya, already in deep do-do in Iraq and Afghanistan and understanding that killing one group of Libyans in order to save another group of Libyans doesn’t make a lot of sense. Military minds can be so technical!

So, besides Senators McCain, Lieberman, Graham and Kerry (about as weird a combination as possible), who has instigated this absolutely essential “on-the-fly” operation in order to save Libyans from Libyans? Could it be the Amazons – State Secretary Clinton, UN Ambassador Rice, and Obama’s foreign policy guru Power?

These gals must be on to something…they got the Security Council to go for a Libyan operation, although they probably didn’t mention that it would be done “on-the-fly,” i.e., with virtually no planning at all. The distaff side of government can be rough and tough, although the boots on the ground and in the air are 99.9% male. And the Congresspersons can just…well, they aren’t doing much now anyhow. Apparently, the feminine approach is to save the “people in the streets” no matter how many lives that costs.

Of course, the gals got hoodwinked…but that isn’t said pejoratively. They got the (drum roll, please) ARAB LEAGUE to throw in with them. The Arab League was instituted back in the late 40s and its first expression of goodwill was a war on Israel. That didn’t work, obviously, so now the League has decided all these years later to try its luck on Muslim Qaddafi, whom its members don’t like anyway.

The Amazons were simply naïve. They didn’t realize that the mark of an astute Muslim is the power to outwit his adversary, in this case Obama and the Amazons (sounds like a rock band). The League promised to deliver both airpower and troops in the fight against Libya. Instead, the League has been whining that the U.S., Britain and France have gone too far – Libyans have been (gasp) killed. Count the League out. It was smart enough to get the westerners to do the dirty work, while the League puffs on its collective hookah and laughs at the Amazons, whom it thinks should be kept in the kitchen, pregnant and barefoot anyway.

Obama mistakenly assumed and said publicly that NATO would take over the task from the USA or act in support…something like that. That won’t happen (the NATO honchos in a fierce argument) and it appears that the Brits and Frenchies will continue the important work of killing Libyans to save Libyans.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Libya...Whose War?

2011-03-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

This is the last paragraph of a Reuters account of 22 March: “On Monday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the mission should be limited to creating a no-fly zone and that Italian planes taking part would not open fire.” If Italian planes won’t open fire, why would they even be in the air? This account is quoted here just to point to the fact that NATO members are nowhere near any decision/consensus concerning which country does what, when, and where, as well as who will run the whole shooting match, apparently dividing it into military and political components.

It’s probable that NATO members would just as soon not get caught up in an obvious violation of another nation’s sovereignty, just as has been the attitude of U.S. Defense Secretary Gates for the other reason that pouncing on Libya presents a bloody mess when this nation doesn’t need another war. To show his concern, he has been in Russia. To show his concern, Obama, disregarding the position of his own military leadership, has been out of the country since he directed the military to lower the boom on Qaddafi. What was/is he thinking?

The NATO members are squabbling apparently to an extent that will make the alliance fairly useless, especially since Qaddafi won’t put up any planes for them to shoot down and no one wants to put an army on the ground. The UN is supposed to regiment peace-keepers, not armies of aggression, but has passed a resolution for Libyan action (setting up a no-fly zone) and obviously leaving it up to NATO or any other entity so inclined to do the dirty work, another way of fingering Uncle Sam for that privilege. Obama has been suckered.

According to Reuters, Obama, trying to avoid getting bogged down in a war in another Muslim country, said on Monday that Washington would cede control of operations within days and NATO would have a coordinating role, but NATO ambassadors are arguing about that. Has NATO ever conducted a no-fly zone? Not likely. Peace-keepers are ground troops, not fighter/bomber pilots.

What right did Obama think he had to simply implicate NATO, in the first place? After all, Turkey, 99.8% Muslim, is a key member of NATO and might not appreciate NATO bombing Libya, which is 97% Muslim. NATO-member Albania is 70% Muslim. It’s one thing for Muslims to kill Muslims, which they do routinely, but quite another thing for other folks to kill Muslims.

Security Council members China and Russia did not approve, but also did not veto, the UN sanction of the no-fly zone. Now, however, China is calling for an immediate cease-fire, according to Voice of America. Cease-fire of what? The no-fly zone? The Libyans? The Arab League approved the UN action but now has “reservations,” after offering no help. What reservations? Obviously, the Libyans will continue to fight each other, notwithstanding anything called-for by China, the Arab League or any other entity.

With the president AWOL in Latin America and the Defense Secretary schmoozing with the Russkies in the midst of all this action, the message should be clear that, especially since Obama has already telegraphed that no American foot will touch Libyan soil, another way of announcing that no foot of any other nation is likely to land in Libya, Qaddafi will probably have to be killed as the only solution. Obama has already said he had to go but that the USA is not interested in regime-change. This is the penultimate oxymoron and indicates the total lack of leadership (or brains?) in Washington.

Defense Secretary Gates made it abundantly clear in a recent Congressional hearing that instituting a no-fly zone meant knocking out ground anti-aircraft installations on the ground first, clearly implying that Libyans would be killed, an act of war. As it turns out, the planes also strafed/bombed Libyan army units such as tanks, totally illegal as a no-fly requirement and certain to cause civilian deaths/injuries, as well. In other words, the mission itself was violated. Why kill Libyans when they are perfectly capable of killing each other?

The whole world is watching one of the most botched-up international actions imaginable. The insurgent Libyans have no leader and no identity. Qaddafi has said that al Qaeda is his real nemesis. He may be right. No one seems to know who is being helped…just a group known as “the people.” Muslim-dominated countries change leadership the old-fashioned way – through coups of one kind or another. The West simply can’t understand this and, absent any self-defense threats, go merrily along trying to make democracies out of un-democratic people.

More’s the pity in this country, with leadership apparently having no understanding of history…or even of the present.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The U.S. & Civil War

2011-03-21T12:47:00.000-07:00

The U.S. went to battle in Afghanistan and Iraq for reasons of national interest – 9/11 and the determination by the top international intelligence agencies that Saddam had WMD, which he probably transferred to Syria from Sept 2001 through January 2002. These were not civil wars, as was not the UN-approved Kuwait dustup in 1991.

Abe Lincoln and the North aided and abetted by Jefferson Davis and the South conducted a civil war (Americans fighting Americans), with the Confederacy recognized by no other power as a government, though the South longed for Britain as an ally and fired the first shot at the North. No other country came to the aid officially of either side, though trade continued by individuals. There might have been allies except that no one could figure how the war would turn out and couldn’t afford to take a chance on being on the wrong side.

This is the same setup in Libya – a civil war, with Libya (Qaddafi) desperately needing and not getting allies. Obama, without consulting Congress, committed the U.S. to help the rebels, who have no leader and no identity, and thus no accountability responsibility. In effect, he attacked a sovereign nation that posed absolutely no threat to this country, never mind the angst a lot of people here and abroad have toward Qaddafi. This was an act of war. In both the Afghan and Iraq affairs the president not only consulted Congress but sought and acquired approval.

Obama, who wouldn’t know an M-16 from a Chevy tie-rod, seeks to govern by executive order and through the courts. After giving his “war on Libya” order, he conveniently left the country for a few days. The command center for the operation has been on a U.S. destroyer, though Obama has declared that no ground troops will be used, something no military man would ever divulge, and American planes and missiles have been used to kill civilians.

The Defense Department fought with the State Department over the issue, with Obama/Hillary (after weeks of position-changing) winning out over the military experts, who wanted no part of this new and probably endless conflict – at least until Qaddafi is killed, with the latest effort to get him apparently a failure. The conditions in Yemen and Bahrain and to a lesser extent in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria are exactly like those in Libya and likewise no threat to this country. What will Obama do about them? He has said he intends to “handoff” the Libya matter to the Europeans and the Arab League after he’s done the dirty work. That won’t happen because they lack what it takes.

As for the Arab League, fuggeddaboutit. The only thing Muslims enjoy more than killing Americans/ Jews is killing other Muslims. After the League got in bed with Obama and the Europeans and the bombing started, however, the League decided that the whole thing was too violent and that their new “friends of the Evil West” had simply gone too far and were (GASP!!!) actually killing Muslims, apparently never realizing that bombs/missiles don’t always hit the intended targets, never mind that Muslim homicide/suicide bombers dispatch Muslims all the time…on purpose…just routine stuff!

So…will any Arab country actually contribute any effort in the Libyan matter? After all, the word is that the Europeans and Obama/Hillary wouldn’t lift a hand if the Arab league didn’t agree to the carnage. Now that the carnage has started (and no one seems to know what this country’s plan is), don’t look for much if any help from Jordan, Egypt or even the Saudis. In the first place, they don’t have much to offer, and in the second place, why bother as long as they can dupe the guilt-ridden westerners into doing ALL the dirty work.

An interesting if not morbidly hilarious aside has to do with Nany Pelosi’s sojourn in Italy, ostensibly to hold talks with Italian officials, including the defense minister, according to The Blaze of 21 March. Probably no one in this country would have known about this little vacation, except that she had to spend a brief time in a hospital, and the word got out. The U.S. Embassy in Rome declined comment.

Maybe Obama thought his reelection prospects needed a war of his own on his resume. One can only hope for his removal in 2012. His presidency is an anomaly without peer. Civil wars belong to the countries in which they are waged. If Qadaffi goes down, al Qaeda will have a new training-ground much closer to the U.S. than located farther to the east.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

A Time to Speak...and Not to Speak

2011-03-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

An important component of leadership is not in just knowing what to say but also in knowing when and when not to say anything. President Obama has seemed unaware of this in recent days, not only in his performance in foreign affairs but in domestic matters, as well.

On the domestic front, this is from the Washington Post of 17 February: Obama accused Scott Walker, the state's new Republican governor, of unleashing an "assault" on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would change future collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.

This is from Fox News of 25 February: When candidate Obama was campaigning in South Carolina in 2007, he said he was proud to wear the “union label” and that if workers were denied rights to organize or collectively bargain when he was elected, “I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I'll will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America.”

It seems from the former quote that the president recognized the necessity, according to his philosophy, of doing what he promised in the second quote. Either he misspoke (politicians never lie) in one or both of those quotes, or he simply didn’t mean what he said, actually misspeaking (but not lying, of course). In any case, he was not seen, whether in comfortable shoes or not, walking a picket/protester line in Wisconsin. Words have a way of coming back to haunt.

Obviously, Obama should have said absolutely nothing with respect to the Wisconsin affair. In South Carolina, he clearly was pandering, often called campaigning, wherein the truth is actually not expected in presidential politics. However, a lie is a lie is a lie.

In foreign affairs, the president would have done well to say nothing recently. He decided that Egyptian President Mubarak should leave office, called him on the phone to tell him so, and then sent an emissary to make sure Mubarak understood Obama’s edict. The emissary disgreed publicly with the president after he had arrived on the scene and observed the actual facts.

Mubarak did leave office eventually (not just when the prez told him to) but not because of Obama’s edict; rather, he got out of Dodge because his army would not be expected to fire on fellow Egyptians. Egypt now is in turmoil, with the latest fad being a monstrous effort to drive Christians from the country. There’s no significant governmental structure and chaos will prevail. Obama would have been better off to keep his mouth shut. Ditto for State Secretary (rubber stamp) Clinton, both of whom tried to run another country’s government.

Or…take the case of Libya. It took a while as people died in the streets (was Obama on a lengthy learning curve?) but finally Obama told Libyan strongman Qadaffi to make haste and take a powder. Qaddafi demurred, knowing that in his rule the army and hired mercenaries WOULD fire on Libyans, thus making Obama’s edict worthless and a subject of ridicule throughout the world.

This would not necessarily be the case if President Obama had done anything to back up his edict to Qaddafi. There was much talk of a no-fly-zone and this was even approved by the Arab League, amounting to making war on Libya. Obama certainly was not prepared to do that and so sanctions have been put in place instead, as if they mean anything.

The president hasn’t been as feckless as the French government, which recognized officially an opposition “government,” knowing full well that it wouldn’t lift a finger to help that group of insurgents. The fact remains, however, that he has talked the walk but will not walk the walk, not least because this country will not stand for another Middle East dustup. Obviously, he should have kept his mouth shut.

The president’s words about unionists and collective bargaining meant nothing. His words concerning both Mubarak and Qaddafi meant nothing. In none of these cases was he prepared to actually DO anything. Talk is cheap. But the greater truth is simply that there are times when there should be no talk at all, such as when no action is planned…or, when action IS planned. Most often, silence is golden.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark