O, A, M - The Three Stooges Redux

It's late at night in a cave just east of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border (or just west…depending on where U.S. drones are dropping bombs). Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda head honcho, and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hereinafter referred to as O, A, and M, respectively.

~O: The American elections are finally over and…praise Allah…Hussein has won. As they sing in democrat circles, "Happy Days Are Here Again." (starts singing)

~M (perplexed): What is this strange song…not even the whine of a muezzin with the tonsillitis sounds so…

~A: Stop it, Osama…Allah be mortified…he’s been listening to the short-wave Voice of America again, Mahmoud. Ever since we lost our Dixie Chicks CD he's…

~O: The whine of a sick muezzin! Is that what you said, Mahmoud? (brandishes AK-47) Allah prepare to receive a…ah well…Barry has won and he makes the whole world sing…

~M: Put that down, Osama…I was making a joke…Allah have a sense of humor…your commanding, majestic voice is what inspires beheadings, bombers, suicide pilots, rapes in Sudan and most everywhere else…in short, you are second only to Mullah Omar in inspiring…

~O: Second to Omar…surely you jest, Mahmoud. I’m second to no one. (points AK-47) I’m the…

~A: Calm down, Osama. The Barry who won is not the Manilow that makes the whole world sing, like you think. He's the great Obamessiah. Mahmoud only means that Mullah Omar is the Commander of the Faithful, making him – even with that one eye and not much education like I, as a doctor, have – the most esteemed Muslim alive, even if less than 30% of the Afghanis who appointed him can read…Allah be embarrassed! Besides, he has refused to turn us over to the evil Great Satan Cheney, who shoots innocent bird-hunters, and Omar could deliver us most any time. Imagine being shot in the behind with bird-shot!

~O (lowering the gun): Ah…you're right, Ayman…sorry, Mahmoud…it's living in these bat-infested caves all these years that's made my life, besides being one of supreme sacrifice, so miserable.

~A: Oh woe, Mahmoud…Allah take notice of the sacrifice of your servants. If we venture out to a Pakistani village the drones fly overhead and take pictures and if we venture for a night or two to Kabul, the evil Karzai sets his henchmen out to get us. Even now, he is begging the Americans to let Mullah Omar have safe passage to his tribe, never mind the ten million dollars the U.S. has promised as reward for him.

~O: Bah! Only ten million for that one-eyed Taliban. I'm worth 25 million U.S. dollars…Allah take notice…another reason for never getting too close to anyone, even in Pakistan, where that crooked widower of Benazir is president now and would sell his entire family for the price of a dozen Texas longhorns…

~A: Speaking of which, Mahmoud, have you brought us any steaks? All we have here is goat bologna, overripe figs, a few mushrooms and MREs the American GIs trade to the Karzai army for the caviar the Russians send us as a bribe to keep al Qaeda from flying airliners into all those skyscrapers they showed off during the Olympics, which is then traded back to the Americans for cigarettes. Oh…ha…ha…Allah be glorified…as if we had any more such brave pilots to send to the virgins!

~M: U-m-m-m. I understand that the main reason is that the Chinese won't issue driver licenses to good Muslims so they can attend Chinese flying-schools, like the stupid Americans did when…who was he…Slick Willie…was president. As for steaks, Mullah Omar told me to tell you that you can eat cake.

~O: Ah…Slick Willie…whew…whew…WHEW…WHEW…all those interns without these awful burkas…without much of anything…who could blame him for…WHEW!!!

~A: Allah be ashamed for Osama! Stop that drooling, Osama…your beard is getting matted. But to the business at hand, Mahmoud! What does the election of this Barry Hussein Obama mean for us?

~M: It means that he and I will talk without preconditions, which is the same as saying without being in the same country. Hoo-hah ! Allah be thanked for my wisdom…I have already sent word to this Rahm Emanuel, his assistant who they say sends dead fish to his enemies…most everybody…ha…ha…that the preconditions will be set by me, not by him…and that he'd better not reveal that to the stupid American citizens or I will have Ayatollah Khomenei pronounce a fatwa on the Howard Dean, the savior of the democrats. I heard that this Emanuel put a horse's head in Dean's bed…must have been the ultimate compliment…with plenty of blood!

~A: a-a-r-r-h-h-g-g-A-A-R-R-H-H-G-G-A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H…ON TO WISCONSIN…

~O (firing AK-47 at the ceiling): Shut up, Ayman…sheesh…look at these dead bats all over my prayer rug and mangy feathers in our hookah! Forgive him, Mahmoud…as you know, Ayman vents his frustrations and admirations by using the Dean scream…Allah be not deafened by this fool…not to mention us…and alerting the American Rangers who might be lurking anywhere these days!

~A: Allah be sanitized…you've upset our latrine ditch again, Osama, and now look at what's streaming under your prayer rug. Mahmoud, how long will it take to talk the Obamessiah into keeping troops in that accursed Iraq so they won't be sent here?

~M: Surely you jest, Ayman. I will talk the Obamessiah into taking all the Americans out of Iraq immediately so al-Maliki and the rest of us Shiites can take over Iraq and…

~A (brandishing AK-47): Stop right there, Mahmoud. (shoots AK-47 through the cave entrance, killing two bodyguards) What's this business about the Shiites taking over Iraq?

~M: Ayman, Ayman. The Shiites are 60% of the population…we're entitled…like that Father Pfleger said about Hillary while he was preaching and doing what the Americans call the bump-and-grind in that church that claims the Garden of Eden was in the Congo. Besides, Saddam and his Sunni gang ran the place for 25 years and killed 400,000 Shiites, give or take a few thousand…so it IS our turn.

~O: There is a certain weird logic to that, Mahmoud, but do you plan to talk the Obamessiah into taking all these UN troops, especially the Americans, out of Afghanistan, like you've promised.

~M: It's as good as done, Osama. Anyone who can thrill 200,000 in Berlin and make the leg of the American MSNBC guru Chris Matthews tingle can do anything. I'm making him a present of the state-of-the-art teleprompter – made in China – to let him know of my sincerity. And with the American economy going into the tank since the democrats have been taking over Congress since 2005, I plan to buy off the entire democrat caucus in both houses and talk the Obamessiah out of the White House, claiming no preconditions, and take over the government. It's all in that vision I had while speaking at the United Nations. What's in this hookah, anyway? (nods off)

~ A & O: 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

DNC Memorandum #38

Office of Dr. Howard Dean, chair-whoopee (the new SCREAM©)

***My allusion to being virtually certain of keeping my job in Memo #37 was actually another campaign ploy. I had decided long ago that one term would be enough but I needed to scare the republican governors into a panic when they met recently and roughed it in that posh Miami establishment. My ruse worked, as proven by their collective incoherence regarding whom they might choose as their next big-time loser chairing the RNC, thus total chaos in the Republican Party, already thoroughly trashed by my magnificent leadership since 2005. Any notion of fear concerning my job and a possible power-play by Rahm Emanuel, is without credence, since Chief Obama (thanks for the Native-American vote) knows who was right all along and who has won both the Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008. Also, Emanuel has never mailed me a dead fish and has insisted he will not do it again.

***President Obama, in looking over the newspapers and in a phone conversation with Dan Rather, has recognized that the current recession has built up to the current mess during the nearly two years that the democrats have ruled the Congress, including while both he and the vice president have been in the Senate (okay, once in a while). He’s indicated, therefore, that he needs a red/yellow/black/white-paper (diversity as god) explaining that the fault lies with the republicans. He would like an emphasis on the Hoover administration in the 1920s-30s, if that fits and assuming anyone remembers it, but feels it imperative that the actual blame be placed on the Reagan years, when prosperity and self-confidence got out of hand, thus nullifying the normal gloom and doom that should be present in the United Sates at all times, especially as noted by the Europeans, who recognize evil/shame when they see it. Since neither the Senate nor the House provided oversight of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in 2007-08, the housing problem is not to be mentioned in the paper, no matter how apropos.

***President Obama in a conversation with a fifth-grader discovered contrary to his belief that Nancy Reagan did not have séances in the White House when she was first lady. He also discovered that former first lady Clinton was into séances, and this explains her recent conference with him, though the official leak was about the State Secretary job, which Governor Richardson is seeking, as well as Senator Kerry and lots of other people. The wag who suggested that this is mostly because of all the free trips around the world having meaningless conferences and eating exotic food makes the position attractive has been assigned to registering voters for 2010 in the Everglades, where two staffers disappeared without a trace last summer. Though President Obama has indicated no faith in séances, he has suggested – off the record, of course – that he might do well to channel Aaron Burr…just in case Ahmadinejad, when they meet without preconditions, should suggest a mano a mano settlement with respect to Iranian nuclear allowance. Beheading-swords rather than pistols are the weapons of choice in Iran, so I’ve suggested channeling al Zarqawi instead, al Qaeda’s best butcher in Iraq until he was caught in the wrong house at the right time in 2006.

***The rumor that William Ayers will become the Secretary of Homeland Security and anti-terrorism czar has no basis in fact and all staffers are directed to make this known. The staffer who posted the notice It Takes One To Know One by the bottled-water keg and non-trans-fat, non-hamburger (eating grease okay if Senator Biden does), non-hotdog, non-dairy-product-of-any-kind, non-chocolate, non-smoking (smoking okay if Obama lights up), veggie-fortified, yogurt-enhanced snack-bar and body-mass-chart, carbon-cap-graph, endangered-species-obituary-wall-chart, blue-state-map, and Bush-dart-board has been disciplined by having to listen to Ayers’ statement “We didn’t do enough” 576,000 times. He can be visited at Maryland Insane Asylum but only during the periods when he’s in his straitjacket.

***Work is progressing by the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (sic ’em with the HIV) Wright and Father Pfleger on the new definition of the “typical white person.” Senator Leahy, acting as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, asked to participate in forming the definition but was turned down by the reverends because of his proclivity to leak to any media person who will treat him with respect, not that any are known (little joke there). Michael Moore has scrubbed his new movie project tentatively entitled "The Great Satan is Red and Caucasian" in favor of a newer movie tentatively entitled “Calypso Louie Discovers Messiah.” The background music will be reggae and Harry Bellafonte will appear to sing the Fig-newton Boat Song.

***Applications are being taken now for those wishing to participate in President (remember to always use this title) Obama’s transition team. Rumors that chief-of-staff Emanuel insists on arm-wrestling every applicant are untrue. (A word to the wise, however – be sure to lose, the rumor being taken seriously that those who win are turned over for reeducation to the ACORN enforcement arm, trained by Ayers, in Chicago). Two bodies found in Lake Michigan bore DNC tattoos and tongue-rings with the DNC emblem engraved thereon and another top staffer with a strong arm and weak mind woke up the other morning to find a horse’s head in his bed.

***Your chairperson has taken no vacations since January 2005 and thus will take the rest of the year off…with pay. You will be working for a new chairperson early next year, whose first act will probably be to fire you, so be thinking of catching on with the staff of a new Congressperson. Suggestion: don’t show up for an interview wearing a tank-top or mini-mini-skirt, the usual thing around here. Some of these new congresspersons are yahoos and don’t know what’s cool yet.

***You will note from the above (for recent college graduates) that I am adding a new SCREAM© to my repertoire as I prepare for the banquet and liberal-university speaker-circuit (megabucks galore). Instead of the “On to Wisconsin” motif, it will be a simple but hugely amplified WHOOPEE!!! It will be a sort of cross between a Tarzan yell and a diesel-locomotive-horn and is already copyrighted, so you may not use it without permission. I will introduce the new SCREAM© in a speech sponsored by the ACLU at Guantanamo. It will be billed as the “I Have a Scream II” speech but will be directed toward the ocean in order not to offend the prisoners unless the Greens nix this plan account of disturbing the whale mating-calls. Until we meet again – HAPPY HUNTING…but not with Cheney.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Bailout...the Perfect Scam

The current bailout, if anything, proves that the American public is one huge "sucker," having been used by the powers-that-be in both the public and private sectors for whatever purposes serve their interests. The Freddie/Fannie debacle is at the bottom of the mess and this just about says it all since those agencies form a combine of public and private incest, with the illegitimate offspring being bankruptcy. The taxpayers – ordinary folks naively trusting both sectors – are hit with the loss, notwithstanding that hundreds of billions of bailout loot goes to the Chinese, the holders of immense proportions of American bad debt.

This, too, points to the problem. Why should the Chinese, who have experts of their own who should have knowledge of what’s been happening for years, especially since the democrats took over Congress in January 2007, get well at the expense of innocent Americans? If their experts let them down, then they should bite their own bullet – okay, they have, at least to an extent – and bail themselves out the best way they can. Last month, Treasury Secretary Paulson said, "We're not proud of all the mistakes that were made by many different people, different parties, failures of our regulatory system, failures of market discipline that got us here." Not proud? Egad!

The folks in the private sector function on the basis of profit and greed. The elected officials and bureaucrats in government are supposed to function as protectors of the public welfare. Former Fannie Mae CEOs Johnson and Raines are representative of both groups, especially with regard to greed. They milked their institution for tens of millions of dollars, cooking the books and using the government agency as a tool to feed their greed. That they can escape prison for their thievery seems impossible, but both men played significant roles in Obama's campaign until they were called out publicly, so the notion that the democrat "good ol' boy network," especially with a soon-to-be-democrat attorney general, will make them pay for their perfidy is just that – a notion.

Folks expect the private sector operatives to steal them blind whenever they get the chance or can make the chance, but they should be able to have confidence in their elected officials to keep those operatives as honest as possible, both management and labor. This is the worst part and involves both political parties. Either the elected representatives in both the Senate and the House are in on the deals (much proof of that lately)…or, they are collectively dumb as a gourd…or both.

The pointers to the current crisis have been evident for a long while and public pronouncements referencing it have been all over the place. This means that the solons should have seen the handwriting on the wall long ago and prevented the crisis from happening. Instead, despite testimonies in hearings and all the rest, they stuck their heads in the sand and let what they thought (or at least hoped) were the good times roll on. The simple truth that there's no such thing as a "free lunch" never seemed to register, so they let the smooth operators run the nation's business into the ground.

This has happened positively since the democrats took over both houses of Congress in January 2006. Perhaps it's instructive to ponder that the best way to turn a nation into socialism is to bankrupt it first. Obama has already made it plain that he intends to redistribute the wealth from the most responsible citizens to the most irresponsible. This amounts to punishing those who make the system work by taking what they can earn and giving it away. This is not a cold-hearted statement, just a fact.

As a result, the government now owns parts of banks, lending agencies, mortgage institutions, automobile manufacturing (courtesy of the average John Doe and the pensioners), and the list will go on as the operators see what they consider a good thing. The elected officials, who, along with Obama, clamor for a socialistic system are in the majority now and in a position to make the country the primary owner of everything. The fat cats don't think they have to worry about this approach because they are immunized through having plenty of everything, while the proletariat can eat cake.

The fat cats may err. The Olde Europe model is not likely to work in this country, not least because individualism is too strong a concept for the middle class, especially, to forfeit. This is ironic because Obama/Biden made their play to the middle class, with the notion clearly in mind to scam it just like the "shrewd" mortgage-makers didn't explain to their victims just how they could not actually afford the property they were letting them buy – and scamming the whole system in the process to feed their greed.

So…does Obama intend to keep printing money? Does he mean to extort the wealthy (whoever that is) or the high wage-earners, who can loophole the government to shreds, and reduce taxes on 95% of the population when 38% will pay no taxes in 2009 anyway? How does that work – monthly stimulus checks, perhaps? Perhaps he means to cream the top five percent and cut income taxes for the 62% who actually will pay taxes…minus that five percent, of course. That's wealth redistribution, but don't tell that to the 38%. They don't get a cut…they don't pay anyway, and they won't get a stimulus, either. Voodoo economics? Naw…socialism!

The founding fathers (even considering their own faults) would flip in their graves if they could see this pie-in-the-sky gang in operation. The stock market is in the tank and will stay there because Obama has made it plain that profit is bad and will soon indicate that the guilty will not pay.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

White House de Rigueur

Dear Barry,

I'm taking the liberty of making some suggestions relative to running the government and operating the White house. These thoughts have been crystallized through the hard knocks of experience, not gazing through a crystal ball or consulting the Oracle of Delphi, sometimes known more familiarly as Dick Cheney.

There's a small alcove to the left of the Oval Office, sometimes called the "crying room," although at least one president has used it for another purpose. It's good to repair there occasionally when events become a bit too much. I've spent time there since the election because it reminded me that I soon will have to buy my own plane and face the carbon taxes applied thereto. As a favor, would you ask Al Gore if there are any loopholes concerning this tax? Also, you may feel the need for this room when all the people who claim you promised them something for their vote (multiple votes, in Chicago) show up to collect. In your case, that line may reach to the Canadian border.

This room is stocked with super-strength Kleenex especially designed for protracted periods of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I used up to three boxes at a time myself when the mainstream media constantly harped on my alleged mispronunciation of nucular. Because of its therapeutic nature, it's the only non-partisan room in the White House, so I welcomed Senator Kerry there to handle his disappointment at discovering that the medals/ribbons he threw over the fence in 1971 would not be accepted in the Smithsonian.

Down the hall is a room designated VPHP, these initials standing for Vice Presidential Holding Pattern. It's equipped with everything needed to control a vice president who becomes a problem, usually by thinking for himself or saying what he thinks – or both. About the only time Cheney spent much time there had nothing to do with thinking, however, but as a hideaway from the press after he shot that guy in Texas. In the case of your vice president, you may need to furnish the room as an actual apartment complex, since you will be wise to keep him there indefinitely. You can't banish him there without cause, of course, but he will probably provide that in approximately the first minute of his first press conference.

Vice President Gore spent so much time in that room that it was called "An Inconvenient Room" by the press corps. During the Carter administration, it was called the "Mondale Malaise Room." This room has such things as a shock-treatment machine to help make the veep more amenable to reality and a hypnotist to help him recognize it. This is important since Senator Biden often speaks without benefit of either prior or present thought, such as when he implied some months ago that you would be a learning-on-the-job president.

There are two presidential disposal cans, in your case a blue one for actual trash and the chartreuse can for presidential news-leaks. This method was introduced when it was discovered during the Nixon administration that reporters routinely went through the trashcans behind the house of State Secretary Kissinger for any tidbit of information (translated, scoop). There's a code, of course, and the handful of press people that you can trust (but never bet the farm on these guys) have to be informed. For instance, if someone is to be fired, the name is slipped into an Ex-Lax box, thus indicating a purge is in order. By printing or enunciating this leak, a reporter simply encourages the official to resign, thus probably foreclosing a messy scene and doing you a favor in return for the favor (translated, poop-scoop).

Between the VPHP and the OO is the COSA (Chief of Staff Asylum). Chiefs of Staff have a reputation for approaching loony-tunes mode at times since they spend so much time on the job and always have at least five phones ringing/beeping/clanging at one time. Also, they have the messy job of being the surrogate in-your-face-creature for the president vis-à-vis anyone the press secretary also can't insult, as well as publicly insulting people the president can't afford to offend but also can't stand.

A resident psychiatrist is assigned to this room and has full authority for treatment, even using straitjackets as temporary therapy. I have authorized two psychiatrists for your Chief, Rahm Emanuel, who is known for having frothed at the mouth when he snarled at a short-order cook for taking a full minute to prepare a hamburger. There also are doggie-bones in the COSA now for when Emanuel feels the need to gnaw on something besides his fingernails (that missing finger an over-gnawed nail?).

Finally, in the sub-sub-sub-sub-basement there is a lounge-like hall called the Orgy Room. This room – furnished with the proper libations, equipment and personnel – is used for conferences with key members of Congress, with a sort of understanding that "anything goes." While I certainly never imbibe, I know that deals can be more easily struck after the key members have – shall we say – become oblivious of reality. I never enter until the time is right, and a good chief of staff calls the shot on the timing, provided he has not joined the orgy. If he has (you will know about Emanuel if he bites someone), then just turn out the lights.

These are just a few items of interest. Call me if you need more information. Feel free at any time the crying room doesn't do the job to come on down to Crawford and we can chop wood together while taking turns swearing at the Congress and other miscreants, such as our most hated talking-heads.

Sincerely,

George

And so it goes…Jim Clark.

DNC Memorandum #37

From the office of Dr. Howard Dean, chair-leader (Hooray for our side!)

***First, a word of appreciation for all the hard work. Our man has won and the nation will never be the same. The rumor that DCCC Chairman Rahm Emanuel, soon to be Senator Obama's chief of staff, has challenged me to a duel is untrue. The fact that I was right in 2005 and have been ever since regarding the management of the party has been construed by NBC/ABC/CBS/MSNBC/CNN and Dan Rather as a slap in Emanuel's face, thus properly demanding a duel a la Aaron Burr-mode, is the cause of this rumor. Dueling is against the law, of course, but if goaded I will suggest marshmallows at 30 feet, and the Honorable Right Reverend Imam Dr. Louis Farrakhan will be my second, having earned that right by correctly identifying Obama as the Messiah. In line to be Emanuel's second is Michelle Obama, having earned that right by correctly identifying the nation as being mean, thus an ideal location for a duel. In any case, a possible duel will not be fought in Pennsylvania, since the citizens there might clutch their Bibles and handguns together and accidentally kill someone while flipping to Psalm 23.

***It's been reported that Senator Kerry is seeking to be the new Secretary of State, and this office has been requested to make every effort to find the medals and ribbons he threw over the fence in 1971. He has presented a number of versions of this patriotic act, which obviously qualifies him for the post and could be used in his Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, though the senator has no clear memory of which medals or what fence or exactly what day were involved but is certain that it didn't happen in Cambodia at Christmas-time in 1968. Metal detectors will be assigned to staffers who are willing to search. In the absence of success, the rumor is that a medical doctor who can perform electoral miracles would be next in line and especially useful in dealing with Kenya's health officials, Prime Minister Odinga (Obama's cousin), and terrorists, all groups perhaps being the same.

***Senator Clinton has posted a notice on the bulletin board by the bottled-water keg and non-trans-fat, non-hamburger (eating grease okay if Senator Biden does), non-hotdog, non-dairy-product-of-any-kind, non-chocolate, non-smoking (smoking okay if Obama lights up), veggie-fortified, yogurt-enhanced snack-bar and body-mass-chart, carbon-cap-graph, endangered-species-obituary-wall-chart, and blue-state-map that she is accepting contributions to help pay back her $12.5 million loan to herself during the primary race. Those who can't give cash are invited to mow her lawn, do her laundry, write hate-republican speeches for her and carry signs at the capitol generally espousing her ousting of Majority Leader Reid. Use your ingenuity in doing this. For instance: STOP THE WHINE; CLINTON IN 09. The senator (or somebody – little joke there) is writing a book of explanation tentatively entitled "It Takes a Majority to Raise Anything."

***Incoming Vice President Biden exuberantly PROMISED in a recent speech that someone would throw a world crisis at President Obama within six months of next January 20. The recently announced deployment of Russian missiles near Poland doesn't count (this crisis rightly belongs to Bush and Cheney), even if it's true (unlikely), and no other evidence of world crises is currently extant or even predicted. Biden has requested a small group of the brightest staffers to volunteer for an effort to foment a crisis somewhere outside the country (maybe Tijuana), but not too serious to demand anything more than just a slight payoff (maybe just a couple million for somewhere like Grand Cayman Island). Volunteers will be responsible for all expenses (including burial, especially eventuating from an overdose). This means, of course, that San Francisco is not eligible, even though it has tried to foment a military crisis for Bush and even though its city council does not consider the city part of the U.S. Biden has made it plain that he simply cannot break a promise, especially since the campaign blew up his plagiarism gaffe again.

***Incoming Vice President Biden explained last year and until he dropped out of the presidential race months ago, with one-half a delegate, that the presidency is not an on-the-job-training exercise, so incoming President Obama has requested a red/yellow/black/white (diversity-cool) paper describing his completed training for the job. The staffer who comes up with this document will naturally use Obama's Berlin victory as evidence of world-affairs erudition. Consequently she/he/it will be given a trip to Berlin as reward but will have to pay all expenses. I never said that working at the DNC would be a rose-garden, and I won't say it again.

***Former Deputy National Security Adviser in the Clinton administration James Steinberg is rumored to be in line as Obama's National Security Adviser. This being the case, staffers are required to never mention the 1993 WTC bombing, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, the 1998 embassy-bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2000 USS Cole bombing, or 9/11. The reason is obvious, of course, and the 9/11 episode is mentioned because it, too, was hatched in the Clinton administration and everybody knows this – even in Appalachia and Arkansas. Also – and this is extremely important – never mention that no terrorist attacks have been made in this country since 9/11…again, for obvious reasons.

***I am virtually certain of keeping my job but am requesting that all staffers keep a lookout for positions calling for a first-class political/medical/propaganda ace in the slight chance that Emanuel or Speaker-Grandma Pelosi will demand a pound of Vermont flesh…and I don't mean that of Senator "Leaky" (couldn't resist) Leahy.

***There have been inquiries as to why Senator Obama made his victory speech in Grant Park without any supporters, campaign staffers, fund-raisers of $607 million, girls-for-Obama, etc., appearing with him on the stage. This was due to the precedent set by the Honorable Reverend Dr. Louis Farrakhan at the 2005 "Millions More" affair in D.C., who alone (okay, his daughter, too) spoke from the main throne while all other speakers, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and Dr. Julianne Malveaux, were forced to speak from the secondary throne. The Grant Park enthroning indicated that Messiah is set apart, just as was the case with the Greek columns at the convention in Arizona, notwithstanding that the Apaches and not the Greeks "inhabited the land." Give no credence to the rumor that President Obama will nominate SCOTUS judges who will promise to rule that the term "president" in the Constitution can be legally interchanged with "Messiah" or what any president chooses to rule appropriate. This does not apply to the vice presidency since the term Vice Messiah is a hopeless oxymoron.

***President (word just came that the senator requires that title now instead of waiting for the inauguration) Obama no longer has any need for red/yellow/black/white papers describing a typical Pentecostal and typical Muslim, since the election is over and so who cares what either one is. The votes are in. President Obama is also reconsidering the definition of a typical white person, also now that the election is over. No staffer need worry about having to work on this. The rumor is that the services of the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger have been engaged in constructing the new definition. When they have finished their work, Michael Moore will produce a movie on the subject tentatively entitled "The Great Satan is Red and Caucasian."

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Election Process - SICK!

Every four years the same hue-and-cry is heard, to wit, that something needs to be done about national elections resulting from campaigns that are far too long and are powered more by the money candidates can raise than by their resumes. This cycle has been the worst within memory reaching back to the 1940s, when the perpetrator of this corner took notice as an adult. Indeed, this cycle is marked more by its obscenity with respect to the garish commercialization of the office than by anything else.

The current trouble started back in the 1970s when the primaries came on line as the actual determinants with respect to the nominees. Concurrent with the rapidly increasing use of TV, candidates started early and made actual vocations of campaigning for months and even years at a time, notwithstanding that many if not most of them were already in elected offices and thus glaringly neglecting the duties which they had been elected to discharge and which they had sworn to carry out. Both Senator Obama and McCain have been AWOL in the Senate for so long that they might have trouble finding the restrooms, as has Senator Clinton, who’s actually been campaigning for the presidency since 2000, when she bought and paid for a New York Senate seat as a stepping-stone to the presidency after never having lived in that state.

Though popularity has long been a part of the process, the popularity contest this year has been obscene to the point of trivializing the election and the office…so obscene that the largest rally for any candidate was held in Berlin (not Ohio), Germany. The whole "world-affairs-education" trip made by Senator Obama (an admission of his almost total ignorance), in which he was fully prepared for the office, took a whole week to complete. It was a photo-op exercise, nothing more, nothing less.

Picking Sara Palin for his running mate was too transparent a gimmick on the part of Senator McCain, who must have felt that countering a black with a woman was the way to "back in." It was cynical, though it must be admitted that she has had far more actual experience at governing than any of the other three candidates, all of them senators who had never run any kind of operation, although McCain did take credit for "running" a U.S. Navy fighter squadron. While McCain and Biden at least had had decades of service in Congress, Obama, who took office in 2005, had pulled out of his Senate duties by 2006 to start campaigning and has done nothing else since then.

The parties need to get their acts together. The superficiality of the process was graphically shown this year when the democrat delegates of Michigan and Florida were not to be seated in the convention because the democrat pooh-bahs were miffed at their states' lunge toward the front of the pack with respect to holding their primaries. One remembers that famous TVed debate. Of course, when it became clear that Obama didn't have to worry – VOILA! – the rules were ignored. Disgusting!

Ironically, if a campaigner had to undergo a security check, Senator Obama probably couldn't pass it, mainly because of his close associations with well documented subversives, people like William Ayers and his partner-in-terrorism-crime-wife Bernardine Dorhn, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Louis Farrakhan, and the honchos in ACORN, a subversive organization dedicated to milking governments on all levels for everything it can get, as well as perpetrating fraud in its well-documented registration efforts.

Solutions to this problem are not hard to recognize. If state primaries are to be held, they should all be held on the same day not more than four months before an election (July, first Tuesday). Campaigns should be legislatively sanctioned to begin eight months before the election (March). The conventions don't matter and could be held at any time. Vice presidents should be chosen in the primaries, not by the prez-candidate. Campaigning would then be prohibited before March of an election year, immeasurable relief for the public. There should be a cap on the amount any candidate can spend, no matter how much she/he raises. Actually, the intervals could be much shorter since both radio and TV make exposure so complete that everything a voter needs to know can be learned in a very short time.

Actually, the parties should like this approach. For one thing, campaigns wouldn't be started so early that changing world and national situations would necessitate constant changes in both philosophy and, more importantly, the spinning and speech-writing process. Case in point: the Iraq "Surge." This blind-sided Obama, who had already declared the Iraq effort a loss. Case in point: the Afghani/Taliban re-surge. This blind-sided McCain. The only wild-card thrown into the four months preceding the current election has been the economic mess, but even the run-up to that was perfectly obvious many months ago. The current Congress was totally asleep at the switch, led by Senator Harry "the Whiner" Reid and Speaker "the Grandma/Nanny" Pelosi, but McCain has had to take the hit since the democrats, playing upon a perceived ignorance on the part of the public, successfully laid it at the feet of Bush/McCain.

In any case, the constant theme sounded by the public for months has been along the lines of "Just get it over with!" This cycle has comprised irrefutable proof that the election process has been prostituted to the extent of being silly, superficial, dishonest and depraved. Enough already!

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

The Larry*Barry*Joe Show

It’s about 9:00 p.m. in the CNN studios in New York and Larry King, on his nightly program Larry King Live, is interviewing Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who are aboard the Obama campaign-plane. They are hereinafter referenced as K, O, and B, respectively.

~K: Welcome to the show, guys, but I gotta warn ya…none of those softball questions Rush Limbaugh accuses me 14 times every day of tossing to the democrats. You know I’m tough, but Limbaugh does it for the ratings. Just a sec…hello, caller, not now…get those #$#%&^ technicians on the ball back there…

~B: Naughty, naughty, buddy boy Larry, watch those open mikes, they’re killers…remember when ol’ Cheney told Leahy to…

~O: Um, er…never mind, Joe…er…eh…ah…these mikes are open, too…

~B: They are? Get those %$#&^* techies back there to…ladies and gentlemen, I promise you that in the first six months…

~K: No speeches, Joe, this is strictly Q&A and caller-questions time, so cool it and get ready for the toughies. I’m on your side, but the public demands fairness and…

~B: Okay, okay, it’s just that I’ve been in speech-mode lately and…

~O: Uh…ah, Larry…um…er, I’m always ready for the ah…um…whew…toughies because I always…uh...er…um…tell the truth every…

~K: I take it you don’t have a teleprompter handy there, Barry…it’s okay if I call you Barry? Okay…thanks…y’know…Barack sounds so…well…so…reminds folks of Mohamed Atta and…

~O: I don’t appreciate that, Larry, with…um…er all due respect…oh…ah…teleprompter…yeah…where the #$%&^% are those guys with the…

~K: No sweat there, Mr. Next President, no sweat, say…why do the fundamentalist, radical, rabid, numbskull radio talking-heads say you can’t speak coherently without…

~O: Ah…uh…sheesh…I don’t know…ah…um…I’m perfectly comfortable no matter…besides, Joe here..ah…er…said last year that I’m…ah…what was that you…

~B: Articulate, Barack…articulate.

~O: Is that ah…ugh…the opposite of um…plagiarism…eh…or something like that? (laughter)

~B: Okay, buddy, now we’re even. Besides, I didn’t steal that Irishman’s speech…and I certainly won’t do it again…sheesh…who cares what speech-writer one uses as long as…

~K: Hello, caller. You say you want to ask Senator Obama about spreading the wealth around? Okay, Barry, there’s a killer for you…right after this commercial. (pause) Now, let’s hear it, Senator.

~O: Well…ah…uh…I certainly didn’t mean to…mean to redistribute, that is…um…er…eh…a-a-a-n-n-d-d-d so you see…it’s just a sort of giving a tax break to aye…eh…95% of all the…

~K: What’s that, caller, you didn’t understand because only 40% of people pay taxes in the first place…how about that, Barry, the caller says that…

~O: The caller is obviously misinformed…uh…eh…now…that 40% will…uh…like Joe here says…

~B: I didn’t say anything, but what Barack means is that the middle-class will get well and the guys making over ninety-thou or so can eat cake and ante-up to the…

~K: Time for a break, guys. Tomorrow, the laughing clowns from Siberia will be here to…

~B: Laughing clowns from Siberia! Hey, Larry, nobody laughs in Siberia…they just starve, cough, sneeze and…run from the bears…oh…ha…ha… (pause for commercial)

~K: Okay, caller, forget the redistribute thing and ask Senator Biden why he would make such a racist remark about the Siberians. How about that, Joe, was that a racist…

~B: Nah…just a joke. Siberians are just as good as Pennsylvania coal miners…ladies and gentlemen, when Barack and I get to Air Force One we’ll…

~O: A-a-n-n-d-d…let me just say…er…uh…oh…I never said that…um…people in Pennsylvania hug…ah…er…their Bibles and…roust the…um…bushes for…uh…immigrants…I said…hey, wait a minute, Joe…uh…er…Air Force TWO is your…uh…

~K: Thank you, caller. Joe, the caller wants to know what the main issue is in this…

~B: No sweat there, buddy boy Larry. The main issue is a short three-letter word – JOBS! And, ladies and gentlemen, let there be no…

~K: No, caller, the senator is not drunk. JOB is a three-letter word and the S on the end doesn’t change anything…right, Joe?

~B: Right, Larry, like I said…jobs is the three-letter word we all must be concerned about, and ladies and gentlemen, when Barack and I and Michelle and Jill and…

~O: Let me just say, Larry, t-t-h-h-a-a-t-t not one person will be out of…uh…work when I’m…a-a-n-n-d-d…Michelle is proud of this country and never said it’s mean and won’t…uh…ah…er…say it again…and never said…um…eh…that I stink and…ugh…ah…throw my dirty socks…

~K: Remember, folks, Alec Baldwin will be here Thursday to explain why he’s still here after Bush won in 2000 and he said he was moving to France…and now, guys, a break to make some money. (pause) Hello, caller, you say you’re not sure where you are…sheesh…call 911…hello, caller, okay, got it. Hey, Barry, caller wants to know why you don’t show everybody your birth certificate. How about that…don’t they keep those things in Hawaii?

~O: That certificate of…uh…ah…live birth has been all over…over…well…the Internet and proves that I was born…a-a-n-n-d-d…well, Larry, here I am…what more does anyone…sheesh…need to know?

~B: Y’see, Larry, that McCain crowd keeps insisting that Barack here was born in Africa – Africa, for cryin’ out loud…bad as Arkansas…not even some civilized place like Delaware, so…

~K: What’s that, caller, you’re mad as hell and you won’t take it anymore and you’re calling from where…from…Nairobi…oh…sheesh…Joe, that’s the capital of Kenya.

~B: Kenya, Schmenia, Larry…oh…THAT KENYA, where Barack’s grandmother lives, and his step-brother that lives in that shack and…

~K: Yeah…THAT Kenya, Joe! What’s that, caller…what happens if Barry was born in Africa and gets elected…well, what happens, guys? You’re both lawyers. Will he also be president of Kenya, maybe? The caller wants to know if he can get on Medicare, food-stamps, the GI bill, Medicaid, and free medical insurance for his 28 children and counting.

~B: Naw, Larry, if that should be the case the Constitution would declare the vice president automatically to be the new president. Hey, maybe we should be in separate airplanes…ladies and gentlemen, I promise four more years of…

~O: Shut up, Joe! Where the #$^%$&*^ is that…uh…ah…well…teleprompter? Just a sec there, Larry, I have that…oh…er…birth thing covered in…um…em…whew…one of my speeches…hang on...

~K: And there you have it, folks, straight from the candidates’ mouths…just where they stand on everything. Be sure to tune in tomorrow night. Barbra Streisand’s bodyguard’s bodyguard will be my guest and promises to explain why Barry loves Hollywood fund-raisers.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Ayers, Universities - Obama

A measure of just how profoundly dysfunctional many if not most of the higher education systems in this country have become can be taken with regard to the current professorship of former domestic terrorist
(by his own admission) William Ayers at the University of Chicago. Indeed, a better term to describe the circumstance might be subversive. The nation was treated a few years ago to accounts of the idiocy/hate exhibited by Ward Churchill, professor then at the University of Colorado, but it’s no secret that college/university campuses are inundated now by faculty flakes, considered in an incestuous way by themselves to be the sophisticates of the nation, the elites whose ultra-liberal policies, while being incomprehensible to the great unwashed, self-identify them as the logical descendents of Socrates and Plato, while actually exposing themselves as the incarnation of Mickey Mouse.

The latest attention to be drawn to Ayers is remarked by the book Prairie Fire he and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, currently a professor in Northwestern University’s law school, along with two others, authored in 1974, in which the two identify themselves as communists and advocate the violent overthrow of the United States, using the tool of terrorism, i.e., the mutilation and killing of ordinary citizens, a la the methods used by the Muslim bombers. Notwithstanding the fact that the two are hopeless idiots and advocate treason, they are members of faculties of highly acclaimed institutions of learning, paid in part by the taxpayers. Ayers is unrepentant of his braggadocio regarding the bombings he and Dohrn pulled off in the 1970s, indicating regret at the time of 9/11 that he and his Weather Underground thugs did not create more carnage.

This has become important because of the now-obvious close connection Ayers and Dohrn have with Senator Obama, just one element of which was helping launch Obama’s career in the Illinois State Legislature, where his most remembered achievement was voting present some 130 times instead of taking a stand, except, of course, in an instance such as when he voted against life-saving efforts in behalf of an aborted fetus that happened to live (shouldn’t punish the mother with a baby). Obama has tried mightily to throw Ayers under the bus, just as he did under tremendous pressure regarding his pastor Jeremiah Wright and supporter/nutcase Father Pfleger, but these entities haunt him and mark him as a radical, not the “healer” he purports to be. A man’s character is defined by his friendships.

This has nothing to do with academic freedom…it has everything to do with who is allowed to impress gullible teenagers and 20-somethings. It’s one thing to teach objectively about different governing processes, but quite another to do it from the standpoint of having “been there, done that” with respect to criminal acts. Ayers and Dohrn are tinhorn would-be dictators in the mode of Hugo Chavez, before whom Ayers made this statement in a speech in Venezuela in 2006: “Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large." Ayers teaches in the education department at the University of Chicago, and Dohrn purports to teach law. Ayers has not changed by now and had not changed through the years of his close association with Obama.

Ayers was 30 years old when Prairie Fire was cursed into existence, so no slack can be cut him for the crimes committed as a 20-something or younger, when he could have been expected to be dumb as a gourd. He still had that juvenile mindset, the same as that of the skinheads, and has it until this day, as evidenced in his Venezuela speech. He even bragged about getting off, account of prosecutor errors, with the remark: "guilty as hell, free as a bird."

Not surprisingly, among the folks to whom Prairie Fire was dedicated are Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Senator Robert Kennedy in California in 1968 when Kennedy was trying for the presidency, and H. Rap Brown, aka Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin after converting to Islam, former member of the Black Panthers, a group of thugs bent on violating innocent people as a means to an end. Both men are still incarcerated in U.S. prisons. Actually, Brown turned out to be a petty thief and murdered an Atlanta policeman in cold blood. Ironically, Ayers, owning precisely the same adolescent mindset as Sirhan and Brown, is not in prison for his crimes but instead teaches at the prestigious University of Chicago. This is enough to induce vomiting on a grand scale.

The pooh-bahs in the institutions of higher learning have turned their ivory towers into facilities eliciting snickering and ridicule by the vast majority of Americans, who have sense enough to get in out of the rain and therefore sense enough to understand subversion/idiocy when they see it. When unrepentant anarchists of the ilk of Ayers and Churchill and Dohrn are allowed to spread their garbage on the unsuspecting youth of the nation, those who provide their soapboxes are as guilty as they. All the academic degrees in the world do not change this…they, too, are subversives.

With respect to any connection of these people or their philosophies to Senator Obama, the voter has to decide. In this corner, he hasn’t been able to throw his friends far enough under the bus. Indeed, in this corner, Obama seems connected hip-to-thigh with Ayers and his views, not of physical violence (even Ayers knows better than that) but of a societal violence that does mean change, but not the kind that will help the nation. Obama is at least a socialist, and that’s bad enough.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

The Feckless Congress!

The financial mess currently plaguing the nation may have an upside. Much has been noted lately about the leaning of the Obama/Biden ticket toward socialism, i.e., government in complete control of everyone's existence from the cradle to the grave. Obama's recently expressed preference for "spreading around the wealth" is straight from the socialist agenda and, translated, means government making the decision about who gets to have money and how much of it…regardless, of course, of any mitigating circumstances such as brains, risk-taking, or just plain good luck.

This socialistic notion and its results have been graphically demonstrated lately by especially the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fiascoes, indicative of how government entities or quasi-entities can completely mess up a system based on normal human behavior. When such agencies are influenced or actually operated by people who are either dumb or corrupt, or both, the result is chaos. For instance, the latching of the now-defunct Countrywide mortgage outfit with anybody or anything connected to government leads to a small number of crooks getting well on the backs of millions of innocent, trusting citizens.

As the late Henny Youngman might have put it: "Take my Congress…please." The Congress in its urge to make sure everyone owned a house blessed the nation with the agencies mentioned above. Later, Congress virtually mandated that these agencies see to it that this "house-ownership" happened whether the buyers could afford their houses or not. So…it happened…in spades. People who could not afford the homes they bought – at least on a "sliding-interest scale" – were stuck with eviction notices when the lenders said, "Pay up or get out." The trouble was exacerbated, of course, when the artificial "bubble" connected to the mortgages burst, not to mention that the value of their "investments" plummeted to the point that buyers were paying for what was approaching nothing…or at least something not worth the original investment.

In short, while there may have been substance initially to what Congress did, the substance was completely destroyed when the purely socialistic approach of everyone being reduced to the lowest common denominator – house ownership – was put in place. Whereas, before, citizens had worked to build up down payments and then buy houses they could afford, the scheme came to be that the down payment wasn't all that necessary, and that neither was the fact that the buyer could actually pay. What DID matter was that the books be cooked so that the "operators" could collect fat bonuses. The little people stuck with the problem could eat cake.

But it gets worse. Not only do the little people stuck with the problem have to eat cake…so do all the people since the taxpayers have to come along and bail out everything from banks to mortgage houses to…yeah…Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, all because Congress in its wisdom decided that socialism was the way to go. This destroyed the institutions people had used to store up reserves for their retirement or to pay for college or any number of objectives costing money. Government tinkered with the "market concept," a natural phenomena setting prices and rules of economic engagement. The result was that the nation was shocked toward socialism, with the government taking part or complete ownership of banks and other lending agencies stuck with paper representing losses of incomprehensible magnitude.

Then…of course…all the finger-pointing! One remembers the video (available on the Internet unless recently taken down) of the hearings in the House in 2004, when the likes of Congressman Barney Franks, now chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and colleagues Gregory Meeks and Maxine Waters, still on that woeful committee, virtually slew figuratively the government regulator who was trying to explain the problem that was leading to the current mess. They would have none of it, Waters extolling the virtue of one of the biggest crooks, former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, who was forced out of his job because of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal and has enjoyed his voluminous golden parachute ever since while functioning as an Obama financial adviser.

Yeah…that's right. Raines has been advising Obama about finances. Most recently, though, Congressman Henry Waxman, Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, tried to tie the whole mess to former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who didn't have the temerity to tell Waxman that all he had to do was examine the feckless House and discover the socialism that is overtaking the nation. Waxman and all the other solons make a big deal of their absolutely inexpendable duties concerning oversight. That's OVERSIGHT! So…where have all the OVERSIGHT gurus gone? This problem was festering in 2004 and the oversight that was supposed to be in place was out of town…permanently.

So! Is there an upside to the current mess? Yes, indeed! Just maybe – don't bet the farm – the Congress will get its house (both houses) in order and do the job to which its members have been elected, i.e., stop the slide into socialism, which will turn this country into another "Olde Europe." Nah…remember the S&L bailout back in the late 80s? Apparently nothing was learned, and there are a bunch of folks still in Congress who were there then. Follow the money…consult Abramoff, for instance, or Congressman Jefferson, who still can't account for the $90,000 being in amongst the frozen chicken-wings, while he occupies his solon's magisterial seat and laughs all the way to the bank. At least Abramoff went to jail.

Socialism, thou art something called Greedy Wimp, and thy name is Congress! And the president's part in the deal is actually not worth a cuspidor of warm spit, no matter what Obama and McCain say.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

The Biden & Powell Show

The presidential campaigns, otherwise known as silly seasons, have entered the home stretch, this fact alone cause for one to breathe a deep sigh of relief. Both camps have bent so far over backwards to accommodate every whim and fancy of the public – real or by them imagined – that they are now insulting the intelligence of the body politic, which instinctively and on the basis of history knows that the rhetoric is just that – rhetoric, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The inanity (that approaches insanity) reached a new intensity on the 19th in Seattle when democrat veep contender Biden promised – that’s PROMISED – that within six months after the election there will be a crisis. His words: "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy." He probably meant the "Cuban Missile Crisis" of October 1962, which did not come within six months of Kennedy's administration that began in January 1961 but nearly two years later. Nor did the world try Kennedy's resolve, just Nikita Khrushchev and the Russians.

The proper analogy, of course (what did Biden know and when did he know it?), had to do with the disastrous "Bay of Pigs" episode in April 1961, a mere three months after Kennedy took office. With Kennedy's approval and expected full-support, the Cuban freedom-fighters took on Fidel Castro and his murderous communist army but did not receive the expected support and were thoroughly and bloodily defeated. This was Kennedy's "world" challenge during the first six months and he failed miserably. One's eyes glaze over at the thought of what Cuba might be today if Kennedy had acted differently, but one thing is certain – there would have been no missile crisis in 1962, with the whole world wondering at the possible devastation caused by a "hot war" instead of the "cold war" that was in place between the USA and Russia at the time.

Biden, obviously without realizing it, was making the point that there needs to be a seasoned statesman at the helm if a threat actually does take place within six months…or any number of months. John McCain would fit that role, notwithstanding that Biden called Obama a "brilliant 47-year-old senator." Indeed, his comparative youth and grossly apparent inexperience vis-à-vis those of McCain prove the point. Biden's foot rests – whether comfortably or uncomfortably – in his mouth much of the time…like the time in a democrat debate (conducted by ABC's Stephanopoulos) when he said, concerning Obama, that the presidency is no place for on-the-job training.

Colin Powell got into the silliness act, also on the 19th, when he indicated on NBC's Meet the Press that Sarah Palin would not be ready to be president if called upon. That may or may not be true, but the fact is that Palin has run and is running the government of the largest and most strategically located state in the Union. Her executive government experience is more extensive than that of Obama, Biden, and McCain. Powell also has never run a government, so he seemed a bit silly. The fact that she has far more experience than the man in the top spot on the democrat ticket, considerably inferior in experience to his own veep choice, simply proves that Powell has an agenda, perhaps already including a "trade-off" position in an Obama administration in exchange for an endorsement.

The Powell-position in that interview that rankles the most, however, was his glib position that it would be okay for even a Muslim to aspire to be president of this country. His statement: "Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?" That question went away beyond the pale, and he should apologize for making it, especially to all those who have lost family members and loved ones at the hands of states whose governments are actually run by Muslims. Either Powell is totally ignorant of the spiritual demands of Islam, one of which is that the infidel (translated American) must be killed whenever possible, or he was trying to offer an apologetic for an African American to be president – a purely racial thing, in which case he was playing the "race card" and should apologize for that, also. He's had all the best of it with respect to opportunity and had no business being that divisive.

Powell is entitled to support Obama but can't escape the disloyalty involved, especially being given the positions by Bush 43 and Bush 41, respectively, to hold the State Secretary and Joint Chiefs offices. One got the idea in watching his performance that he was maybe indulging in a bit of "payback" time. It was Bush 43 who actually was the mover and shaker in Desert Storm and Powell probably blames Bush 41 – instead of himself – for what he now probably considers a mistake vis-a-vis his speech at the United Nations prior to the Iraq Conflict. He was his own man and if he didn't feel comfortable with his job he should have resigned. On Meet the Press, he was forced to defend that speech, but allowed, in typical buck-passing mode, that the Congress had already voted Bush authority to conduct a war.

Actually, one can't laugh at the silliness…times are too volatile for that, militarily and otherwise. When adding a feckless Congress, the actual reason for the current financial crisis, to the campaign madness/silliness, one totals up misery. One thing is sure, to wit, the candidates, media, and public are so self-centered right now that there's no mention/concern much for those in the hellholes of Iraq and Afghanistan, another way of saying that treasure trumps blood and national security is secondary to personal greed. Sad.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #36

From the office of Howard Dean, M.D., chair-bailout (save Fannie Mae)

***Great success is being achieved in the current voter-registration drive, although time is running out for this vital activity. The DNC is being augmented in this effort by ACORN, the propaganda-and-protest outfit in Chicago that launched Senator Obama on his political career in Illinois. ACORN has submitted 200,000 registrations in Ohio that have been questioned but the secretary of state has been upheld by the Court regarding her refusal to examine them or make them public or something like that, not that it matters since enough registrations have been submitted elsewhere making thousands of homeless people eligible to vote to take up the slack. Please be advised that a street number must be part of the address when registering these people. The names of bridges or park benches may not be used, for example. Also, rehab-centers do not count, nor does the Salvation Army headquarters or any library. Registering people more than once is allowable only if by mistake, but mistakes are NOT – repeat – NOT punishable by law even if the mistakes are multiple. Also, the staffer who mentioned that a registrar must feel of the registrant’s forehead to determine whether living-or-dead has been transferred to West Virginia, where residents are known to train pit-bulls to answer the doorbell.

***In light of the bailout legislation (or rescue or whatever else it’s called), be careful about bringing up the subject of home ownership, which has been promised by all the democrats to all people whether afforded by applicants or not. Do NOT – repeat – DO NOT use the phrase used by Senator Obama in Ohio the other day, to wit, that "spreading around the wealth is a good idea," or something like that. Even "Joe the Plumber," whether a plant or not by either campaign and not to disparage that noble profession, called that socialism and, whether that's what Senator Obama wants or not, is anathema to the great uneducated public that connects socialism with something bad. The senator had been warned by this office not to use the phrase "redistribute the wealth" so he used the term "spread around." Either term is unacceptable, except to the freeloaders, notwithstanding that the freeloaders should be registered the same as everyone else, twice or thrice if possible (little joke there, for ACORN). The senator has said that he was misunderstood and actually said "spreading around the debt is a good idea." That also sounds too republican so don't use it. In any case, the senator has said he didn't do it and will not do it again, whatever he means.

***A new line is to be taken on the "Bill Ayers matter." Whereas the line before has been that Senator Obama hardly knows this man, who did bad things when the senator was only eight years old, since he lived in Hawaii at the time (or maybe Indonesia – doesn't matter) and couldn't possibly have met him then or even know about the bombings since he didn't read anything but Dick & Jane and never watched the Evening News. Since it's now common knowledge that in a party in his own living-room Ayers launched Obama into the Illinois legislature and helped fund his campaign, the line now is that Ayers and the senator simply wanted to show the value of diversity, multiculturalism, non-discrimination and tolerance. Explosives were never discussed at that party, which was also hosted by ACORN. Also stress that the senator had never heard of the Weather Underground at the time he met Ayers and that he still had never heard of that organization until some time in 2007, about the time he heard for the first time, on that subversive Fox News agency and by a TV-surfing accident since he made it a practice to never watch Fox, that the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright had called on God to damn this country and that his friend Tony Rezko was being investigated.

***Father Michael Pfleger has agreed to do his "Hillary Was Entitled" performance at any fund-raising event in which the donor promises $1,000. He will appear just as he did in the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright's church, complete with sound effects (whooping, hollering, floor-stomping, clapping sound-track with bongo accompaniment) and will autograph anything within reason. He has agreed to do the same bump-and-grind choreography that he used in the church, including clutching his head as if in distress. Discussions are ongoing with the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright regarding the possibility of his appearing at fund-raisers to repeat his "damning act," as well as his National Press Club appearance and some other interesting sermons concerning one damnation or another, but he justifiably is demanding a percentage of the contributions as reparations, so the arrangements remain tentative. These are to be private affairs, obviously, so be governed accordingly. The rumor that I will attend and repeat the DEAN SCREAM© is untrue, but Michael Moore has agreed to show his latest film, Alaskan Amazon Amok, featuring an evil female governor bashing baby seals in the head, drilling for oil through grizzly-bear hibernation caves, frog-gigging and rabbit-hunting with a 5,000-watt spotlight, and seeding catfish ponds with bales of hay while secretly signing away the Aleutian mineral- and oil-rights to Hugo Chavez.

***Disregard the conservative talking-heads' claims on their frenetic radio programs and/or TV extravaganzas with all those pretty girls (plenty of cleavage showing) screaming at each other that the race is tightening. Senator Obama is stretching his lead. Be careful not to mention his insistence that illegal immigrants be awarded driver-licenses or that Hamas is pulling for him and accepting contributions from their terrorist-members (at knife-point, of course – little joke there) in his behalf. Thirteen of the 9/11 bombers had driver-licenses and eight had even registered to vote, so this subject does not play well except on the coasts and in Vermont, the areas sophisticated enough to appreciate the senator's position. As explained by the senator, the great unwashed, especially those in Pennsylvania and south of the Mason-Dixon line, have the quirky notion that rifles, Bibles, and immigrant-hunting go together, so anyone having an accent – real or imagined – is not to canvass in those areas. This includes everyone from New England and New York City. If cornered by a redneck(s) anywhere, immediately start reciting the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm or sing any hymn made famous by Elvis Presley. In the event that none of that works, be sure to have a proper will in the proper place and remember that the DNC does not carry medical insurance on anyone, despite Senator Obama's promise that such will be the case when he's elected.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Comrades!

It's a little past midnight on a yacht halfway between Key West and Havana. Present are William Ayers, his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, Raoul Castro, and Hugo Chavez, hereinafter referenced as W, B, R, and H.

~W: Good of you to ask us to this little midnight soiree, comrade Raoul, and the cigars and champagne are outta this world. Reminds me of the heady days in Greenwich Village…back in the glorious 60s and 70s when…

~R: Greenwich Village…oh…ha…ha…Greenwich Village where your cohorts blew themselves up trying to make a little bomb to blow up a dance for the GIs…all those nails flying!

~B: Not funny, Raoul, even if you are the head man in Cuba now. They died for the cause…just like Che Guevara. We had the same philosophy as you and Fidel – terrorism and bombs.

~W: They were brave victims of the decadent U.S., which even then – as John Kerry so delicately put it – was telling its GIs in Vietnam to cut off ears as trophies and shoot teenagers in the back as they ran…

~H: As the Rev. Dr. and whatever else Jeremiah Wright said so eloquently in his church, not that I believe in church, God DAMN America…and good riddance.

~R: And that brings us to the purpose of this meeting, comrades, to figure ways to see that Barack Hussein Obama – that name has SUCH a ring to it – or anyone else besides a republican is elected in November, even if it means also putting that bumbling Biden in Air Force II. He said president Roosevelt made a speech on TV in 1929…oh…ha…ha…

~B: At least Barack didn't put that witch Hillary on the ticket…imagine her and ol' Slick officially back in Air Force II and riding all over the world to spread their…

~H: Ha…ha…Bernardine…a little meowing, huh? Hillary would've figured a way to get Air Force I back and put Barack in a Piper Cub. We couldn't have manipulated her in a million years. She would have done socialism in her own way and shut us out of practically the whole hemisphere.

~W: Great fun, Hugo, and Bernardine (glowering) does get carried away at times. I call it the "Manson Syndrome." Charles Manson was her hero...

~B: Yeah…the way they butchered those Hollywood types and scattered blood all over half a county…whew…wish I coulda seen it! I never got to stick a fork in anybody's stomach…too busy hiding out all those years.

~R: Back to the subject please. With the U.S. government taking over the banks and giving away houses we have the perfect opportunity to socialize the cowboy's doll-house since the bankers are already following the money and bribing the suckers…just like any good capitalist politician does. Greed trumps the general welfare every time.

~H: Si, si, Raoul! That's so much easier than shooting up the countryside and scaring everyone into submission like we do in our part of the world, huh, Raoul…may Che rest in peace. Having to off – as they say in the American gangster movies – a few hundred citizens is always messy.

~R: Si, yourself, comrade Hugo, though Fidel likes to put them in the prison, too, and pull out a few of the fingernails or do a little water-boarding and sometimes break a few of the bones…but back to the subject…if we can bring socialism to the U.S. we can also get some new missiles from Putin…maybe even some extra oil since socialist countries always stick together in the war on the fat capitalists, and this time we can maybe get the Muslim terrorists to stick with us…until we off them, of course.

~H: You must get up early to off the Muslims, Raoul, and even then you will find them sticking the sword in your back or drawing it sharply across your throat…with all of it on al Jazeera's evening newscast. I have a good friendship with Ahmadinejad but would never turn my back to him or eat anything he hasn't tasted first.

~W: But with a name like Hussein, Barack has a head start, never mind if he even knows or not what we have in mind. My way is the best, though…

~H: You mean when you said in your speech in my Venezuela a couple years ago, "Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large."?

~B: Yeah…that's it, Hugo. What do you think Bill and Barack were doing with those millions of dollars given by those naïve, goody-goody billionaires that were headed for improvements in the public schools in Chicago…teaching history or English or algebra? Hah!

~R: You mean they were teaching the revolucion, eh, Senora? Has the revolucion happened in Chicago yet?

~W: Nah…but we're working on it. I teach education at the University of Chicago and Bernardine teaches law at Northwestern, so we've already started our cadres. The people who run those institutions think we're the best social engineers ever imagined, but they never hear of Marx or Lenin from us, the fools. They use taxpayer money to pay us to socialize the taxpayers…what a racket, if I do say so myself! Anyway, bloodshed – the ideal way – is out, and Barack would not go for that anyway.

~H: So…you are saying that Obama is a socialist?

~B: Of course he is! Have you read or heard of the tax-increases he proposes when elected, though he always has the perfect argument for explaining that they're actually tax CUTS…oh…ha…ha? TAX CUTS…how rich! We will have socialized everything…health, transportation, automobiles…

~R: But senora, does that mean people will have to wait months for even a simple tonsillectomy, like right next-door in Canada, or order cars five years in advance?

~B: Of course it does, but those of us in the hierarchy will not wait for anything, and sooner or later we will have the military under control and that, as you know, both of you, is the way to keep the masses of idiots under control…right?

~W: Besides, who among the suckers need to have cars? By the time the masses are reduced to the lowest common denominator, only those of us at the top will have any money for buying anything.

~R: But that is the way it is in my Cuba and has been for many years, especially since the Russians left us high and dry in 1989. The taxis are at least 40-years-old. And Fidel and I want for nothing. You're right.

~H: And that is the way it is in my Venezuela, but my oil wells make enough for the little people to have food, while I have cash stashed all over the world and call the U.S. president the devil…right in the United Nations.

~W: Let's raise a glass then and have a go at that great chorus, "Happy Days Are Here Again!"

~H: What is the catch, amigo Bill? This is too easy.

~W: Money is the catch, comrade Hugo. Barack has plenty, but needs more to fight McCain, who keeps reminding people of me, thus the need for more expensive propaganda to make them forget about me. That's why I'm here. You're expected to put a cool twenty million in MoveOn.org for George Soros to spend explaining why Barack is the last best hope. The gullible Americans will believe anything if it's said over and over.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Character Counts!

It's crunch-time in the electoral process now and folks need to take a hard, level-headed look at the candidates from not only the standpoint of the issues but – and perhaps more importantly – from the standpoint of character, or, at least, background. Senator McCain's background is virtually an open book, with very little left to the imagination. Liberals like to poke fun at his fifth-from-the-bottom standing in his Naval Academy graduating class, but only the naïve take such things as bedrock proof of anything. Neither U.S. Grant nor Dwight Eisenhower were anywhere near the top of their respective classes, yet they are among the five most noted generals in the nation's history. Eisenhower also conducted an 8-year presidency, while McCain has been in Congress since Senator Obama was 22 years old, or more than half of Obama's life.

This is not the case with Obama, at least with respect to his early-adult years, when friendships and associations probably made lasting impressions that could be bellwethers with regard to his approach to governance and government structure. Specifically, his years at Columbia, especially, but also his years in law school at Harvard might have been marked with behaviors and associations that he would just as soon not be public knowledge. Since his years at Columbia, particularly, are shrouded in mystery apparently by design, one can only conjecture as to his activities, friendships, and philosophies.

Much has been made of his association with University of Chicago Professor of Education William Ayers, the self-admitted domestic terrorist operating in the hippy-dippy Weather Underground gaggle of societal misfits of the 1960s-70s. Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, were forced underground themselves in the 70s, taking it on the lam because of their bombings of government buildings. Unrepentant to this day, Ayers has claimed publicly that he wished his gang of hoodlums had done more damage. They escaped prison when they surfaced in the early 80s because of legal technicalities, specifically prosecutorial errors. They were guilty as sin and in their twisted ignorance boasted such.

The effort has been made to brush off the rather extensive connections between Obama and Ayers, the notion that they were mere acquaintances being operative. Most of the "facts" presented have to do with connections established in the 90s. It's instructive, however, to note that Obama attended Columbia in the early 80s (graduated 1983) at perhaps about the time Ayers was attending Bank Street College, next-door to Columbia. Could this have been when the two actually met? Obama could answer this question in a heartbeat, but has offered little, not even his academic thesis, about the Columbia years. Ayers went on to get his doctorate at Columbia Teachers College in 1987. Now, he teaches at U of C, where someone with his sleazy background seems to fit right in. Dohrn is a law-school professor at Northwestern, despite the fact that both of them should probably still be in some federal penitentiary. This is indicative of the sorry state of university campuses these days.

This is what Ayers said in a 2006 speech in Venezuela in the presence of Bush-hater Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez: “Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large." In other words, the U of C allows a two-bit rabble-rouser like Ayers to spread this manure on its students, but, more importantly, how might this manure affect Barack Hussein Obama, whose Illinois legislative career Ayers personally helped launch?

Ayers and Obama in tandem spread millions of dollars around Chicago in the last decade or so, mostly foundation money and supposedly in the interest of education. What kind of education? In whose hands did the money wind-up? Assuming some of it actually went for instruction and remarking Ayers' nutcase statement in Venezuela, what kind of instruction? Thousands of dollars were also spread into the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright's church, where Obama spent 20 years in attendance but by his own account not hearing the obscene preaching of anti-American Wright, through whose raucous performances one could hardly sleep. Does Obama share Wright's "liberation theology," a primary component of which is the demand for reparations?

It's instructive that Mohamed Atta, pilot of one of the planes connected to 9/11, possessed a valid driver license (Florida). So did 13 of the other participants, and eight even registered to vote, using those licenses, as hard as that is to believe. Most citizens are dead-set against illegal/transient immigrants having driver licenses, but not Senator Obama. He's in favor of these licenses. So was Senator Clinton until she saw the light during the campaign and backed away from her high-profile support. What does this indicate about Obama? Does he actually believe that illegals should be allowed this kind of identification, which is about all that's needed to make any transaction or provide evidence of legality for any reason? Or…is he in favor of them solely for the purpose of garnering the Hispanic vote, in which case he would put citizens at risk and at the mercy of people like Atta and the 18 other murderers who pulled off 9/11? If so, he presents a character-flaw of immense proportions.

The issues are important in this election, but despite all the yelling and screaming that "It's the economy, stupid," it's not the economy that's most important. The vital issue has to do with national security, without which the economy would be of little if any consequence. Obama has graphically indicated his naïve approach to this vital area of governance. His overseas swing just prior to the democrat convention was pure theater, nothing more. Ostensibly, the trip was to be a "learning experience" to prepare him in a week's time to understand the world situation and the answers to all the problems connected to it. Instead, it was a celebrity effort made to somehow snow the American public into believing that he is something special, acclaim almost guaranteed in Europe, where socialist governments are the norm.

In other words, it was the "messiah effect" he was after…the great deliverer from the Great Satan, as Iranian president Ahmadinejad would have it…the prince of peace from the most powerful military machine in the world…come to turn the dreaded U.S. swords into plowshares and pruning-hooks. Herein lies Obama's greatest character-flaw, notwithstanding his statements to the contrary. Never has the nation been in greater need of a leader with a military mindset, and McCain, notwithstanding all his anathema-components vis-a-vis conservatives, is that leader. The economy, with the nation's leaders dangerously tilting it toward socialism as the result of their sheer incompetence and/or greed, will make its way, but not if the country is at the mercy of its enemies, as it well could be with Obama at the helm.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Debate III - Wasted Time

The latest presidential debate, in Nashville 07 October, besides being obviously rigged by the moderator, Tom Brokaw, or his outfit, NBC News, was about as boring and bereft of substance as possible. Neither Senator Obama nor Senator McCain could seem to put three complete sentences together, and Obama, as usual, greatly overworked his delivery of the drawn-out word "and," apparently using this ploy to conceal the time it took him to frame an answer to a question. McCain overused the word "friends" to the point that one wonders if he didn't use that term for the same reason, like Senator Biden constantly uses "ladies and gentlemen" as if he were talking to anyone else.

The economy was the main subject and neither candidate seemed to have a clue as to what needs to be done, now that the Congress has acted, and Brokaw asked the dumbest of questions when he asked both men whom they would appoint as Treasury Secretary to run the show. What candidate in his right mind would actually answer such a silly question; yet, both Obama and McCain actually did, although neither was dumb enough to mention anyone for sure. Go figure. McCain did say the government should buy up $300 billion worth of bad mortgages, making one wonder if he was maybe just having a bad day.

The outgrowth of the debate – worse than the first one and unbelievably worse than the debate between the veep candidates – seems in this corner to be that none of the above is suitable for the presidency. This country is hurting for leadership but the candidates seem hell-bent on establishing every position in light of the latest poll. There's nothing wrong with people changing their minds about most everything over time, but the changing of one's mind on a daily basis is a bit much. Brokaw chose all the questions – supposedly among "tens of thousands" (his term) submitted, as if anyone would believe this – and used none having to do with abortion, judges, immigration, same-sex marriage, infanticide – in other words, none that could embarrass Obama. As for the wars – absolutely nothing new!

The only debate that would actually matter at this time is the debate that would take place between the Congress and the devil, with maybe the Archangel Michael as the moderator. Obama and McCain threw out numbers all over the place – numbers reaching from the millions to the trillions – until one's eyes just glazed over. These guys and certainly no one in Congress have even a slight idea as to the actual costs of anything. Worse, expediency seems to be the operative modus operandi with respect to the election – just tell the folks what they want to hear, not what the facts are.

McCain appeared slap-happy on the subject of non-partisanship, as if that solves anything. Fourteen senators ("gang of 14," seven each of democrats and republicans) used non-partisanship in the SCOTUS nominations to protect the filibuster rule a couple or so years ago. This is a rule that should die a natural death, tying up the Senate on any matter that can be decided by less than 60 votes, no matter how important. The House has no such rule. Elections are not held to make everyone come out even. They're held to decide a winner, whose job is to set the direction, not pander.

So…back to the Congress and the devil, the main subject of debate being which entity involves more deceit. Especially in light of the S&L debacle just 20 years ago, one could expect that the Congress would have seen to it that such a thing never happened again, with the taxpayer being stolen blind in the redistribution of wealth from those who earn and spend wisely to those who don't. Instead, this miserable Congress – no matter the party in the last few years – has totally neglected its oversight responsibilities, not because a few good men/women with good sense wouldn't have achieved them but because there's so much incest in the lawmaker-lobby gang that insane offspring – let the good times roll – is the result.

What did the debate reveal besides the fact that the country is rudderless and will likely remain so? McCain harped on the fact that he has a plan for just about everything, something nobody believes, though he certainly has more presidential bona fides than Obama, who made himself look so silly in his Grand Excursion to Europe to "learn the facts of life and ham it up in Berlin" before the democrat convention that he can't be taken seriously. Brokaw was careful to skirt the "associations issue" for either man, since McCain's would involve military folks who fight and die for freedom, while Obama's would include terrorists like his career-launcher Bill Ayers, who would cavalierly blow-up American citizens, and rabid anti-Americans like the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger, the latter two nutcases clerics, not to mention crooks like Rezko.

The country should be spared another debate. The three so far have been moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS, Gwen Ifill, and Tom Brokaw. Lehrer at least tries for balance on his News Hour. Ifill has a book coming out in January that will feature Obama, and Brokaw represents a network so obviously in Obama's corner that his choice drained credibility from the entire process. The latter two should be allowed nowhere near a debate, and the truth is that the milieu provided by Pastor Rick Warren back in the summer is by far the best, with the candidates not tip-toeing around all the issues but just actually saying what they think without fear of instant one-upmanship by the opposition.

On a scale of one-to-ten, this debate rated a one, barely.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

F(r)iends of Barry

It's about 2:00 a.m. in Chicago in the basement/den of William Ayers, infamous Weather Underground domestic terrorist of the 1960s and launcher of Barack Obama's legislative career. Present are Ayers, Father Michael Pfleger, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, the Rev. Dr. Imam Louis Farrakhan, and Michelle Obama, hereinafter referenced as A, P,W,F, and O, respectively.

~A: Okay…so we all know why we're here. We're known as the "friends of Barry" and some folks are trying to make him look bad because he's our…our…

~F: Go ahead and say it, Bill…he's our patsy this time around…useta be Jesse…but he's old stuff now, especially in this values kick the Baptists and Pentecostals are on…him with that mistress and no tellin' how many others of 'em here and there…

~O: Not funny Minister Farrakhan…this is a mean country, like I said in North…or was it South Carolina. I don't remember…all Crackers look the same anyway.

~P: This mean country drove Jesse to find a "comfort woman," like the Japanese did in World War II with all those Korean women…Korea was a MEAN place, just like China and all those islands out there…MEAN people…just like here! I read about it in seminary.

~W: Tell it, brother…amen!…you're right…hallelujah…(voice rising)…God don't bless no America…No…NO…NO!…NO!!!!…God DAMN…

~P: Calm down, Jeremiah, this is a quiet neighborhood…(giggles)…unless Bill here misfires while making a bomb to blow up the Pentagon or some other ghastly government facility and sends us all to…

~A: Not funny, Father, not funny. Those stupid comrades that blew themselves up in Greenwich Village back then were high on something or other…maybe LSD…that O'Leary kook hooked a lot of them. If all of us had stayed off the stuff in '68, we'd have blown that Demo convention clear across Lake Michigan…made it a part of Canada, where socialism proves its superiority. Anyhow, we're here to try to undo whatever damage we might have caused Barry because we befriended him…Michelle here even married him.

~F: Okay…I take it back, Michelle. I'm just bitter sometimes…that Calypso Louie thing. Barry's not our patsy. In fact, some smart-aleck republicans are claiming that we – except you, Michelle – have been HIS patsies all along, that he's used us to get out voters, wangle money from anywhere and everywhere, legally or illegally and…Jeremiah, I even sent a note to our good buddy, Muammar…remember that wild time we had in Libya with him…whew…those houri-dancers…different world 25 years ago!

~O: U-u-m-m-m…this IS a MEAN country, Minister Farrakhan, even if I said I wasn't proud of it until…you do play a mean fiddle, though, so that may actually be a compliment. And all those bodyguards you have point right to your importance, not to mention that award by Jeremiah last December.

~P: It's that Palin woman! She's been harping everywhere about Bill and that bunch of anti-Vietnam idiots he headed…what were they thinking when they shot those guys and robbed that Brinks…

~A: (jumping up): Take that back, Father. We were not idiots…we were the only sane people in the whole country…Jane Fonda said so…and so did John Kerry, and he even threw his medals or something or other right over that fence…and talked about our GIs scalping ears and killing 200,000 poor souls a year…said it right to that Congressional committee.

~P: Okay, Bill, put down that poker before you hurt somebody. I didn't mean idiots – a Freudian slip – I meant patriots, of course. But that Palin woman…man, when she winks in those speeches…whew…

~W: Watch it there, Father Mike. You're not s'posed to be influenced by those obvious sin-devices. You're s'posed to be thinkin' o' reasons she shoulda had for aborting that Downs Syndrome kid o' hers.

~P: Good grief, Jeremiah! You're as hypocritical as that witch Hillary that I crucified right in your own church…talk about the Salem gang that hung witches back in Massachusetts…(giggles)…hey…tell us about the houri-dancers you and old hypocrite Louie here watched with Qaddafi back in…

~A: Stuff it, Mike. Notice I didn't say Father Mike this time – another Freudian slip – I forgot while ago that an atheist never uses religious titles, even for people in his own family, much less tinhorn preachers…

~W: You lookin' at me, Ayers…or even at Father Mike here? Tinhorn preachers! We preachers practically own this whole end o' Chicago, and we get out the vote. We put out the word and the people clap and holler and jump up and down and scream "We ain't takin' it no more…we gonna throw the HIV…WE GONNA PUT IT RIGHT BACK ON WHITEY AND…

~O: Stop it, all of you! I hear children crying next door, what with all this screaming. You're proving what a MEAN country this is…all that yelling at each other. I'm beginning not to be proud…

~F (humming Shall We Gather at the River)

~A: What's that supposed to mean?

~F: That means we help Barry the most by making sure all the folks – especially the few million dead ones…this is Chicago, after all…ha, ha, ha – get out and vote…(sings) Where bright angel feet have trod…oh…oh…With its crystal…

~P: tide forever…and then along came Barack and Hillary screamed "I'm entitled"…

~A: I mean…what can we…shut up, Mike…that old sermon in Jeremiah's church has been played enough on YouTube, with you doing a bump-and-grind in accompaniment, and I'm sick of it. What can we do publicly to help Barry?

~O: May I suggest – except for me, of course – a mutual disappearing act…complete silence…maybe a religious pilgrimage – except for you, Bill – to Tripoli to seek out spiritual encouragement and a few mil shekels. Bill, you could just head on down to Venezuela and help your old buddy Chavez…or maybe go over and comfort Fidel…maybe show him how to make the latest plastic under-the-dashboard bomb for bureaucrats who don't rate chauffeurs…use your specialty, in other words.

~A: Oh well…just kick back then, everybody…that's a great idea, Michelle…it's refreshment time and I'll go get the Kool-Aid and cookies. (exits)

~W: Did he say KOOL-AID?

~O, P, W, F: I'm outta here!!!!!

~A (returning): Ingrates! Now where did I put that long fuse…the one for Camp David…

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Fannie/Freddy & the Crooks

Fiascos that are forgotten are always replicated in another time or generation by people who either through sheer incompetence or greed manage to go for broke. In the 1980s – not that long ago – the fiasco was played out in the savings-and-loan debacle, with the government (taxpayers) called on for bailout. The players, however (at least the ones who didn't go to jail), came out okay. The U.S. taxpayers coughed up $124 billion in the bailout, which began ironically during the presidency of another George Bush. The fat cats made their play on the backs of the "little people."

This is from the New York Times of 30 September 1999: "Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called sub-prime borrowers." In other words, a quasi-governmental agency was being virtually coerced to take over loans that would in time go into default, with the U.S taxpayer being the patsy.

Some of the most damning democratic demagoguing concerning the current Fannie Mae fiasco that has brought the financial markets to the brink (at least as alleged) occurred in a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee in 2004, with about eight minutes of the hearing (video) available on the Internet. The democrats actually tried to lynch the regulator who was trying to move them toward a resolution of the problem eventuating in the current mess. New York Representative Gregory Meeks actually made a jackass of himself in the process, is still on the committee, and should be forced to watch that eight minutes the first thing every morning. Indeed, everyone should watch Meeks's histrionics at least once to understand that buffoons actually make it into Congress.

Committee member Maxine Waters – still on the committee – seemed determined in 2004 to convince everyone that Fannie Mae Chairman Franklin Raines was superior to even the Oracle at Delphi and on a par with Michael the Archangel. Raines was finally forced out of his job because of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, but not until he had reamed the agency in less than seven years for a cool $91 million very golden parachute. Strangely, he's not in some federal prison…indeed, not strangely, he's an Obama financial adviser. Go figure.

For his part in 2004, member Barney Frank could find nothing wrong. Now, as chairman of that same committee, he's blustering all over the place and blaming republicans for not fixing something he helped destroy. Another former Fannie Mae CEO who reaped tens of millions of dollars is Jim Johnson, whom Obama picked, along with Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, to find his veep contender. Johnson, also messed up in a scheme at bankrupt Countrywide, had to quit almost before he was named. Ironically, Senator Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and also a presidential contender, reaped a windfall from Countrywide himself. Over the terms of his sugar-stick loans, he could make $75,000.

Senator McCain made the effort in 2006 to turn this thing around but he was unsuccessful. Now, he's being saddled with the mess just because he's a republican and George Bush is unpopular. The democrats have had the reins in Congress since January 2007 and they've done diddly-squat to rein-in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but Speaker/Grandmother/doncha-know Pelosi has been about as effective as a bear in hibernation mode. With venom spewing, she wrecked what was supposed to be a bi-partisan approach in a couple of rhetorical disasters featuring condemnation-worthy-of-the-electric-chair of George Bush, who inherited from her Clinton-gang the outgrowth of the fiasco remarked above in the Times article.

In the 2004 video, Frank was the only white democrat to see absolutely nothing wrong with the status quo, which was already devolving into dire straits. The others were blacks who must have had in mind making the Fannie Mae mess a racial thing, not unusual, though, ironically, the current House Black Caucus voted the recent "bailout package" down on the 30th, fearing, no doubt, that taxpayers in their districts were fed-up with being had, just as taxpayers nationwide have had it with the bumblers who call themselves statesmen and whose greatest effort is made toward reelection.

The current fiasco provides proof positive that no government in this country should ever be in charge of health-care. It's instructive that private insurance companies actually administer Medicare and spend the nation's money, not some government agency. Both the FMs should be abolished forthwith and only private lending agencies allowed to make loans to homebuyers. The combination of crooks both in and out of Congress bode only ill for any agency involved in disseminating money, including the Defense Department, and this Fannie/Freddy mess is the most transparent example that can be imagined to prove that fact.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark