Despicable Thuggery

This inscription is found as part of the WWII Memorial in Washington D.C.

"Earned our undying gratitude,"  I wish the current President of the United States and members of the Democrat Party could comprehend such words and honor them.

Instead today we saw a great injustice attempt to be perpetrated upon some of the rapidly vanishing cadre of WWII veterans.  69 years after many stormed the beaches of Omaha, Sword, Juno, Gold, and Utah and others stormed ashore at another place called Inchon some of those went to see the WWII Memorial as part of an effort called Honor Flight.

Veterans from Iowa and Mississippi went to the memorial today to find a very strange sight.  The normally open memorial was barricaded.  The excuse being it was closed due to the government shutdown.  These veterans showed they still had courage even though many are now confined to wheelchairs.  While Rep. Steve King and others launched a diversionary attack that distracted the unpaid Park Police, the veterans breached the barricades to see the memorial dedicated to their sacrifice and valor before they to finally joined their compatriots among G_d's Battalions.

I squarely blame the Democrats for this cheap and tawdry attempt to punish those who risked all to defend this country.  To attempt to score cheap political points by disrespecting these veterans' service.  To be respected, one must earn respect.  Today all the Democrats have earned is an even greater amount of contempt.

President Harry Truman is best know for a few turns of phrase.  But one that applies in this case comes from a citizen.  "Give'em Hell Harry!"  Lets give the Democrats Hell over this.

Drone Debate

Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY] just concluded an almost 13 hour long filibuster of the US Senate. This filibuster has delayed the confirmation by the full Senate of Brennan to head the CIA. The reason why Sen. Rand spoke, with able assistance for 13 hours, is very simple as he wants a simple answer to a very serious question.

Sen. Paul wants to know if the Obama administration, via the CIA that Brennan is nominated to head, is willing to use drones to kill American citizens on American soil without the due process of the law. Yes or no, that is all Sen. Paul wanted to know.

The response he got from Attorney General Eric Holder can be charitably called a 'maybe' answer. Two strawmen were brought out by Holder in his answer – Pearl Harbor and 9/11. There is a simple logical fault in using these two examples, neither attack was carried out by American citizens. Unlike Hassan Nidal at Ft. Hood or Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City.

In the case of Nidal and McVeigh, regular means were used to apprehend the killers. A routine traffic stop detained McVeigh long enough for them to connect the rental truck VIN to him. Nidal was bodily tackled and stopped in his killing spree.

So this administration wants a blank check to determine if an American citizen is an imminent danger. Without recourse to the American judicial system to rule if they have enough evidence to make such a finding. And then to send a remote control aircraft to kill that American citizen. Let me rephrase that, this administration wants to have the ability to assassinate American citizens on US soil without any oversight.

If you are not disturbed at that thought, just contemplate the government getting bad intelligence and sending out a drone on that information. Remember that wedding party in Iraq that American aircraft bombed by accident? Now imagine that happening on Main St in Peoria, IL – a drone fires a Hellfire missile at someone's SUV. Its noon in Peoria. The Hellfire hits and detonates, exploding the gas tank for good measure. Besides Betty Sue and her twin girls getting murdered because of bad information, how many people in the surrounding area just got killed or maimed also.

Now do you think armed drones over the US is such a good idea?

P.S. You may want to look up a movie from the 1980s called 'Blue Thunder' with Roy Scheider. LAPD is loaned a new helicopter. An armed helicopter that can also spy. Scheider's character Murphy finds out the organization supplying Blue Thunder has an ulterior motive of eliminating domestic threats. This administration is trying to replace Blue Thunder with something almost like a video game, just press the R1 on your X-Box controller to fire a Hellfire missile to blow up the target and get Achievement Points which is now a medal that can be worn between the Silver Star and Bronze Star.

Powell's Stance

When Colin Powell first thought of trading in his reputation as a winning general and run the office of President.  Way back in 1995.  Cartoonist is Dick Wright.  This cartoon can be found in the book "Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year : 1996 Edition."

Irrelevant Electoral College

Looking at the epicenters of blue in a sea of red from last Tuesday that handed so many Electoral College votes to Barack Obama even as Mitt Romney seemed to have won the popular vote, the natural question is what happened?  Well besides such things as St. Lucie county in Florida having 141% voter participation which hints at major voter irregularities.

Since 2008 there has been a serious push to make the President of the United States be selected by the popular vote.  That push was lead by many on the progressive-socialist side.  If that had been true on Tuesday we would be talking about President-elect Mitt Romney instead of a re-elected Barack Obama.

Which lead me to look at the map of the results.  At those masses of blue in a sea of red.  Like in past elections, states like California that might have gone red went blue due to population density.  Cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles nullified every bit of red.  Same in New York state, the deep blue of New York City outweighed the rest of the red state.  So both states went blue and all their Electoral College votes went to Barack Obama. 

Best way to truly prove what happened in California and New York is to look for large areas of blue but the states stayed red and gave their Electoral College votes to Mitt Romney.  Two such states are Texas and Mississippi.  Sparsely populated regions in both states went light blue to dark blue.  The more populated areas of both states went red.

This is how the Electoral College is supposed to work.  Each state being a battleground between the candidates.  To ensure each state has a voice and impact on the selection of a President.  But Tuesday it did not happen that way.

So what did happen?  This country has finally been defeated by Public Law 62-5 that was passed in 1911 and then made permanent in 1929.  Under House Speaker Cannon[R-IL] in 1911 the House fixed its size at 433 members plus 1 each for Arizona and New Mexico if those territories became states before the law went into effect in 1913.  In 1929, this law was re-authorized and made permanent by another Republican House Speaker Nicholas Longworth.

Public Law 62-5 fixed the maximum number of House seats and, until another state is added to the Union, set the maximum size of the Electoral College at 535 votes.  Even if Puerto Rico is added as a state, the 435 House seats will be re-apportioned among the 51 states while two more Senate seats will be added, thus raising the EC votes to 537.  Because the Constitution delegates to the House how it runs itself, there will be no change to that 435 number unless Congress changes it or another amendment is added to the Constitution.

The unexpected consequence of this law has, over the intervening decades, made the Electoral College a national popular vote by proxy.  When originally passed in 1911 California only had 11 votes [House + Senate seats = total EC votes] while Mississippi had 8.  In 2012 California has 55 votes and Mississippi only has 6.  So as the population densities migrated to major urban areas, the now limited number of EC votes also flowed there.  So it became possible to win the Electoral College vote by only winning in a limited number of states.

So where do we go from here?  Either we toss away the last bulwark against a scared voting populace and do away with the Electoral College to embrace a national popular vote.  Or the House is forced to add seats and thus re-balance itself and the Electoral College.

Judging by the Progressive Left's attempt to get a President elected by national popular vote or making each state apportion its EC votes according to the vote percentage each candidate received, I do not even think many of them realize what Public Law 62-5 did to the landscape of national politics.  Perhaps most have just assumed the House has always had 435 seats and never thought on it.  If this is true, then the Progressive Left is a very useful bunch of suckers.  And we truly no longer deserve a Republic.

Vote!

Today is the day.  Exercise your vote.  Let your voice be heard on where this great country needs to go.  So go out there and vote. 

The VP Debate

About last night's Vice Presidential debate.

Big Bird

Since Sesame Street and Big Bird are in the news, here is something I just whipped together.

Facebook's Floating Chair

So I wanted to log into Facebook.  This floating chair greeted me.  So is Facebook now in the tank for Romney?

Denver Post Mortem

Just a quick Photoshop but I think this sums up last night in Denver Colorado at the debate.

For Romney and Ryan

Day of Days?

Statue of Themis, Goddess of Justice

 Two monumental events might take place today in Washington D.C.  The Supreme Court might hand down their ruling on what is the Democrats' and Obama's signature piece of health care legislation.  The other will occur in the House of Representatives and their vote on whether the Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder is in contempt of that body in regards to Fast and Furious.

Much has already been written on the health care matter.  How anyone can claim 2,000+ pages of legal mumbo-jumbo is in fact a single law is beyond me.  Especially when one of the supporters has to declare you have to pass it to find out what is in it.  If that does not strike one of midnight deals in done in closed rooms full of nefarious plotting, what will?

Now what a piece of work Eric Holder and because of the Executive Order issued by President Obama, this whole administration is?  All Rep. Issa wanted was any documentation relating to the time Justice appeared before the committee under oath and told a falsehood that had to be retracted.  It is true it's the cover-up that makes things worse.  If this administration had been honest and forthright after the murders of Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata we would not be in this situation. 

Because of seemingly boundless perfidy that screams out for redress, today we may witness the sword of Justice.

Update Saturday 30 June 2012. 

Well its been an eventful two days since the Supreme Court has handed down its ruling.  To say people are angry and overjoyed might be an understatement.  What the Roberts court delivered seems akin to Solomon actually splitting the baby in two.  Time will tell if what was rendered was truly wise but in the short term it has energized the Romney campaign and all who oppose the legislation.  It has turned the mandate into a penalty tax that Democrats now have to defend while recognizing the states can resist federal encroachment without suffering penalties.

As for Eric Holder, he was found in contempt by the House.  Seventeen Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in this vote of contempt so it's bi-partisan.  Many other Democrats, lead by Rep. Pelosi, had a conniption and walked out in protest, thus silencing their constituents voice.  And to show how Eric Holder does not think the laws of this land apply to him, he went on a Disney vacation after the vote.

Reagan, Berlin, and Now

In case anyone missed it because the media decided to worship their sun god Obama, yesterday was a special day.  Twenty five years ago President Ronald Reagan sounded the clarion call for freedom in what used to be West Berlin.  He demanded of Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"  Which wall?  Why the Berlin Wall of course, a gray concrete monstrosity that encircled West Berlin in an attempt to prevent people from escaping that paradise called East Germany.  Many paid with their lives in the attempt.

That day in 1987 is fondly remembered in countries of the former Warsaw Pact.  For example Poland and a guy named Lech Walesa struggling to free themselves from Soviet tyranny and dreaded visits by the secret police.  It told them they were not forgotten even when some in the free West, like the rioters in West Berlin protesting Reagan, wanted to forgot so they could 'normalize' relationships with the USSR.  The classic do not provoke the Russian bear least get eaten type.

Just a few years later, many Germans, East and West, were busily smashing those concrete walls with hammers.  And a market for bits of the Wall rapidly sprung up.  Pundits in the West declared it was the end of the Cold War.  One even bravely proclaimed it to the be end of history.

So where are we in 2012.  Obviously we did not reach the end of history that was predicted in those heady days.  As for the end of the Cold War.  Has it really ended?  Looking at things across the globe in objective terms, that answer is also no.

The USSR, the arch nemesis, no longer exists this is true.  Many of the countries it controlled with bayonets and bullets are no longer its satrapies.  But has the country that replaced it, Russia, given up the idea of global ambitions?  With Putin at the helm and supplying such rogue governments as Iran with the means of nuclear warfare along with its efforts to undermine US foreign policy, that answer most definitely is no.

That other communist super power of the Cold War, the Peoples Republic of China, still exists.  And its power and influence has grown whilst that of the USSR has waned.  Even if it's economy appears headed for the wall, the ambition and military might of this country can not be ignored as US re-alignment of its military posture towards the PRC shows.

So now that I have offered evidence that the Cold War has not died but merely changed a few labels, what is the US doing to answer this challenge?  One I have already mentioned, the shift of focus from Europe to the Pacific.  There is also increased interfacing with countries being threatened by the PRC, except in one instance - the current administration has denied Taiwan 66 F-16 fighters.  Meanwhile the US Navy, who would bear the brunt of fighting for the US to assist allies and itself to keep the sea lanes open, is seeing its strength drop from a hoped for 313 ships to 'around 300.'  Aegis cruisers are being retired and $3billion DDGs of the Zumwalt class are simply too expensive.  Meanwhile the Littoral Combat Ship is being produced in two incompatible types.  US Air Force fighters are getting older while the F-22 has finished production and still waiting for the first F-35, which means the F-16 will still roll off the production lines.  Of course a lot of this procurement assumes Washington D.C. will get its act together before mandatory sequestration strikes the Dept. of Defense budget and guts everything.

So while the Cold War seems to be still alive though socialists are loathe to admit it with their constant harping it's over, foolishness and shortsightedness in elected officials in Washington D.C. still seems rampant.  So do not mind me if I am getting a pre-WWII in the Pacific vibe from all this.  Only firm clear leadership can sort out this problem before another Pearl Harbor is experienced

Science Fiction

Governor Luis Raoul Panablanco sat at his desk in the governor's mansion, the flags of Texas and the North American Union at his back to frame the picture, the Great Seal of the State of Texas above his head on the wall behind him.

...

At nine minutes, thirty-two seconds into his scheduled half-hour speech, he was saying:

"... as the proof that God is on my side is that on the very morning that I banished the Alamo mutineers into orbit, a sunspot appeared! The first sunspot in more than three years appeared in my hour of need! God has stretched out his hand to me!"

At eight minutes, fifty-five seconds into its scheduled flight, a cruise missile, stolen from the NAU Air Force, whistled down the street, bobbed over the fence surrounding the governor's mansion, rolled to miss a large oak tree, and crashed through the window and drawn drapes of the governor's office at 650 klicks per hour to explode a metric ton of high explosives where the governor's desk would have stood if it hadn't been moved to the other side of the room to accommodate the television crews.

In the event, the fact that the governor had moved his desk did him no more good than the fact he was wearing the best bulletproof vest on the market. The place of honor at his funeral was occupied by a hamburger patty of governor, bodyguards, and television crew.

-------------------------------------------------------
  pg 24-25. The Revolution from Rosinante. Alexis A. Gilliland. Del Rey. 1981

Meanwhile President Obama and his administration are going forward with drones over US air space.  For example the EPA is using drones to spy on livestock in states like Nebraska.

Democrats Go Birther

On Mitt Romney's father George.  This is just insane but it fits their little narrow narrative I guess.  How could George become President if was born in another country?  That is what they are asking.
The biggest problem with this attempt at misdirection is the central character in each controversy.  George Romney was born in Mexico but his son Mitt was born on US soil in Detroit.  With Obama, its his actual birthplace that there is a cloud of mystery since recent revelations show author bios were claiming he was born in Kenya as late as 2007.
As for the real reason why George Romney's aspirations to become President was thwarted, one has to do a little digging and to be an honest historian.  George Romney was shaping up to be a serious contender to Richard Nixon until he shot himself in the foot politically.  On Sept. 4, 1967 in an interview George Romney said he had been "brainwashed" by US generals in South Vietnam in 1965 to support that war.  He never recovered after that as citizens rightly worried about electing as President a guy who has admitted he was brainwashed.  Too bad in 2004 more voters did not do a similar thing when John Kerry claimed George Bush lied and basically out-smarted him on Iraq.

Leftist Civility

This is how some seem to define civility.  Notice they have a cartoon version of Sarah Palin who is putting a gun to her head.  Notice they toss in a disclaimer that they are not advocating that Sarah Palin should be assassinated, but I would say their picture belies that statement.  I find, you decide.

Fluke's Followers are Fools

The media circus abound the Obama administration and Catholic charities continues.  The Catholic charities have dug in their heels because the ruling threatens their very existence.  Democrats have tried to shift the focus from the threat of government diktat to it to be a threat to a right they hold sacred, access to birth control with the testimony of Democrat activist Sandra Fluke.  Meanwhile HHS, IRS, and other alphabet agencies involved in this effort have just issued a call for suggestions on how to improve/change this contentious issue.

About page 10 of that document something becomes clear, even though President Obama promised accommodations right now, HHS has another idea.  They will review and accept advise on this accommodation but any change will not happen until the expiration of the one year grace period which they call a safe harbor time.  Which can also mean these agencies could decide at a later date not to implement any accommodation. Perhaps after the November election which sees Obama re-elected or Obama sent packing.  It kicks the problem down the road while hoping everyone falls for the promise the controversial issue has already been taken care of.  This is the peril of administrative law, no Congress enacting the specific law while a cabal of bureaucrats decide to enforce a law of their creation.

But lets get back to Sandra Fluke.  She testified under oath to Congress that contraceptives costs for law students at Georgetown like her will cost $3000 during her whole time at school.  She says this a hardship.  Lets guess she will be at law school for the average three years.  That is thirty-six months.  Now divide the $3000 by 36.  The monthly cost then should be $83.34.  My question is, like many others, is why is this a hardship for Ms. Fluke and where is she shopping?  The costs for attending Georgetown are very expensive as this listing of tuition and fees show, perhaps she is tapped for cash. However as the Wall Street Journal article I link to shows she could have visited Wal-Mart or Target for contraception pills, spent about $150, and have enough pills for three years of frolic.  Ms. Fluke's grasp of costs seems a bit flawed which raises questions of what her billing practices will be when she is in the real world, unless she just wants to work for the government where it seems costs are never a factor.

Of course the worse thing about Ms. Fluke's testimony is the damage it does to the concept of female empowerment.  She is refuting everything Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox are singing about in this video about Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves.  It seems the song Ms. Fluke sings is "I Want Someone Else to Pay for Me."  She wants to be a kept woman, this time kept by the government and paid with other peoples money.  Yes she has come a long way, right back to dis-enfranchisement.

Kennedy Blarney

The most dysfunctional family in the United States continues to garner media coverage.  How dysfunctional you may ask?  Psychology Today put together a list of the top seven Kennedy sex scandals.  Go read them, it is shocking.  Then there was Ted Kennedy trying to collaborate with the USSR to destroy Ronald Reagan. But old Ted can justly claim he was just following in the family tradition, his father Joesph Kennedy Sr was a real piece of work in his rampant hatred of the Jews and love of German National Socialism.  Kennedy, after fleeing London as the Blitz petered out, was sacked by Roosevelt and replaced as Ambassador to the Court of St. James by John Winant.

That the Kennedy family continues to garner media coverage and thought to be representative of America can only be ascribed to the pushing of a false narrative.  It is a bundled package of smaller lies that hide behind the tragic assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, TX in 1963.  To point out all the failings and outright crimes of the Kennedy family is to endure the ceaseless tirade of being unfair to the slain President.  As in do you have no decency?  History cares not for decency when it records a leader's achievements and failures, Kennedy's greatest failure at the Bay of Pigs lead directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis because the USSR read Kennedy as weak after that failed invasion.  That is why the world almost vanished under multiple mushroom clouds.  Daley Plaza can't cover that up.

So where am I going with this recitation of the Kennedy family crimes?  Just the latest lambasting from the Kennedy Holier Than Thou pulpit.  Robert Kennedy Jr, being a Kennedy, is no stranger to the spotlight.  Oddly three days after filing divorce papers on his second wife, she was arrested on a DUI.  He campaigned for Rep. Dennis Kucinich in that man's losing primary run, Kucinich lost to fellow Democrat Mary Kaptur and he was not graceful in his concession speech.  Kennedy has also harangued about the danger of mercury in vaccines causing Autism.  Notice how many corrections are at the end of the article, including a gross inflation of a percentage.  For a less strident discussion, the FDA has a good precis including an incident in Australia in 1928 that gave rise to requiring a preservative in vaccines, out of 21 inoculated 12 died.

Now that I have established Robert Kennedy Jr's questionable track record in the public and private square that shows he lives in a large glass house, here is his latest cheap shot of record.  Because Sen. Infoe is a skeptic and critic of man-made global warming, Robert Kennedy Tweeted a comment that would get Imus suspended and Carbonite to quit Rush.  He called Sen. Infoe a prostitute in the employ of the oil companies.  That is really discussing the heart of the matter there Robert, smear your opponent.  Did you call Joseph P. Kennedy II a dictator's prostitute when he got cheap heating oil from Hugo Chavez of Venezuela?  I bet you didn't. 

A Righteous Response

It did not take long for the Roman Catholic Church to respond to President Obama’s magnanimous, in his mind, compromise on his health care diktat.  In fact the rebuke was read from many pulpits this past weekend across the land.  And the rebukes keep coming out.  Today Rep. Issa in the US House is asking about it.

There is one grave problem with this compromise.  Yes it sounds like Obama has deftly threaded a needle to satisfy various constituencies.  The brutal truth is he has tried to deflect the gravity of the sin he is trying to force on people of faith. 

In the original version of his diktat, Catholic hospitals would be forced to provide birth control pills, condoms, vasectomies, hysterectomies, and pills like RU-486.  All of these items are anathema to Catholics of faith because they transform the act of bringing life and hope into this world into something purely made of lust and creating sterility in its wake.  Hence for any Catholic institution to comply, they would be committing a sin of commission.

The new version transforms this sin into one of omission.  According to Obama the Catholic hospitals no longer have to knowingly pay for all the above ‘vital’ medical requirements, instead the underwriters of the insurance policies would pay for them at zero cost.  The sin is still happening but now someone else is doing the sinful deed as Catholic institution are supposed to look the other way.

As for Obama’s tissue thin lie that the insurance companies will pay for all these items without charging Catholic institutions.  Does he think we are all morons?  It seems he does and those who have gone back into the Obama fold prove he can sucker some people all the time.  The fact of the matter is the people or institutions will pay premiums on their insurance policies.  It will be from these premiums that all those counter-life items will be paid for since insurance companies are not charities.  So we find ourselves back again committing a sin of omission, we are supposed to just look the other way while evil occurs.

So what Caeser Obama offers is just a difference of poisons.  One is overt and the other more subtle, both are still deadly to the soul.  We need to keep standing up and saying no to this administration.  When Obama is forced to blink and back away from all this, we must not rest.  We must keep up the pressure and roll back in its entirety the abomination Obama and others call ‘affordable’ health care.  This health care program allows four states and many friends of Obama to be exempt from.  While Democrats have been abusing the Commerce Clause, they have also abused the Equal Protection Clause.  These abuses and usurpations of power must be stopped least the tree of Liberty is renewed with the blood of patriots.  Most importantly we must do this before our collective soul is irredeemably blotted by these evil actions.

Post script – Obama pretends he knows Scripture.  So do the ‘religious’ who support him.  But I find it hard to credit their knowledge and faith when they so willingly serve a worldly master called socialism.  They will engage in many amazing feats of verbal gymnastics to dress up their aberrations as most holy writ.  As Obama proved when he replaced individuals performing acts of charity with a secular government acting as the arbitrator of who will get charity.  These are false prophets who shall wear millstones about their necks.

Sharon Bialek All Red?

Interesting that Sharon Bialek has credibility issues from inside CBS. At least that is the impression one gets from this audio from Bill Kurtis. So will this sink the Cain bid to be the GOP presidential nominee? Only if the three anonymous accusers actually come forward. If not, Sharon Bialek will just be another Anita Hill. Doing nothing to destroy an innocent man's career but thoroughly blemishing her own life.

I really love the snark about Gloria Allred. She could never escape a prison because she would run towards the spotlight.

Perry vs Obama

The above picture comes courtesy of Ed Rasimus at his fine blog Thunder Tales. Kept meaning to post it, but other stuff like Irene, Taiwan, and Libya interfered. Ed is right, a picture is worth a thousand words.