The Herald-Leader Hatchet-Job on Sergeant Meyer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

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

An Arab Spring in Iraq Soon?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama Plays the Class-Warfare Card

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Cain & the Ironies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Prexy - 2011-Version

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

"Debate" as Circus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Occupiers...Ignorant or What?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Macho Entertainer or Humble Grunt?

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

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

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

Macho Entertainer or Humble Grunt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Penn State...Just Normal?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Penn State Affair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Tyranny - VETERANS DAY

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Bialek...a Fraud?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Whither Now, Kentucky Schools?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #5

From the office of the ChairWOMAN, 28 October 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Take Back the Country...Oh Yeah!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Libya, Uganda...Obama's Legacy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

"Debates" - Silly Drivel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Cain's Gimmickry?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sounds like gimmickry!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Hippy Autumn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so it goes.
Jim Clark