Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Putin does to Obama what Obama does to all the rest of us

Trying to follow the Syria thing. Brief outline:

A year ago, Obama,  AKA The Comrade, announced that he wouldn't involve the USA in Syria unless Syria used chemical weapons -- which have been banned internationally since WWI.

A week or so ago, videos and all kinds of stuff -- including a UN inspection -- indicated that Syrian dictator Assad has used chemical weapons on those fighting a civil war against his regime. NOTE: Among the forces aligned against Assad are groups from al-Qaeda and al Nusra (or something like that), whose aims are similar to al-Qaeda.

So the Comrade announced that he was going to bomb Syria to punish Assad for using chemical weapons. This was to be a small and surgical strike, and would not involve the US sending in ground forces or anything like that. And the USA otherwise would stay out of Syria's civil war.

Yeah, it's hard to not laugh. Like the US could just fire a couple hundred missiles from ships at sea (that we could do), and then just sail away (not bloody likely). I mean, the Japanese just dropped a few bombs on Pearl Harbor and then flew away. But as I recall, that wasn't the end of the conflict.

Personally, me and 63% of other Americans, going by the latest polls, don't want to do anything about Syria. Yeah, gee, it's a shame Assad is a murderous psychopath, but me and 63% of other Americans just can't see doing anything that would help al-Qaeda and al Nusra. We're just so unforgiving. Just because they blow up my buildings, kill 3,000 civilians, and cling to the concept of "pushing Israel into the sea" with the relentless bloody-mindedness of a pit bull attached to a mailman's ankle -- I and 63% of other Americans, just don't want to support al-Qaeda or al Nusra in any way.

Of course, there's Egypt and Libya, too, where the US feebly "led from behind" to topple murderous psychopaths in power -- only to see them replaced by different murderous psychopaths who, in addition to being power-mad, also want to destroy the USA and Israel.

So anyway, poor Comrade with his size 10 or thereabouts golf shoe in his mouth, threatening to bomb Syria and myself and 63% of the US population saying, "Hey, buster, I don't think so." We've got our own red line.

Even congress recognized the difference in opinion between the White House and the general population -- something they seem to find very difficult to do. They threatened to impeach the Comrade if he tried any such thing on an "authority" that is clearly not granted to him by the Constitution or even the War Powers Act. So the Comrade, with a sheepish smile, said he'd go ahead and allow Congress to vote on it (allow????) in order to make sure the country is solidly behind him. Which me and 63% of the population is not.

So Secretary of State "Give 'em Hell" John Kerry spouts off to somebody yesterday that the only way the US would call off the strike on Syria is if Syria gave up its chemical weapons -- which they wouldn't, he said.

 Bodybuilder and sportsman Vladimir Putin, the prime minister? president? of Russia, stepped up and said, "Why not ask Syria to give up its chemical weapons and get a multinational force -- apparently the UN -- take possession of Syria's chemical weapons and destroy them?"

Sounds like a plan. Except I do believe the US and others had made similar proposals in the UN Security Council, and Russia had always vetoed them. But now Putin says Russia will support them.

The UN Security Council was supposed to meet today to vote on this. About an hour before the meeting was to take place, the Russians submitted their proposal, which said, yeah, the UN or someone would clean out Syria's inventory of chemical weapons, when the US promises not to strike Syria.

While I might go along with that last bit in this situation, it also represents the USA abandoning a sovereign right. And I can't go along with that. And no country in its right mind would go along with that.

So Putin just did to Obama what Obama has been doing to the USA since he took office. That is, suggest what seems to be a reasonable proposal, and then attach it to provisions and covenants that no one in their right mind would agree to.

And the end result? If the USA refuses Putin's proposal, Obama looks like a bloodthirsty warmonger unwilling to compromise, and Putin looks like a dejected hero.

The Comrade has done this over and over again to his political opponents -- forcing them to reject things like incredibly stupid budgets and regulations that violate the Constitution. So the Republicans and anyone else who values political freedom must say no, must obstruct. And so the Comrade paints them as "they don't care about the poor," "they don't care about the environment." Etc. etc.

Looks like Vladimir Putin has quite a sense of irony. And apparently he's read Rules for Radicals.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

The Obama regime: All fall down

Well, Comrade Obama has suddenly changed gears on the Syria thing. He wanted to fire some Cruise missiles into Syria, or something, after giving them plenty of warning and allowing dictator Assad time to move political prisoners to the tentative targets as a sick kind of "shield." Then Britain refused to back us.

Congress is out on vacation. And individual congress critters have been arguing both ways.

Personally, I'm agin' it. Don't see that we have anything to gain here.

So now the Comrade says, well, maybe we should wait until congress comes back from vacation more than a week from now and let them have a vote on it. Perhaps to absolve himself of any guilt for this crazy idea. Then he went golfing.

So, exhausted and half asleep watching news reports on this last night, I got a sudden revelation about our fearful leader. It's kinda like... well, did you ever see a movie called Six Degrees of Separation? It's about this black guy, played by Wil Smith, who gets involved in the higher levels of Old Money Society mainly by studying their prejudices and mannerisms and copying them, thereby convincing them that he's one of them.

I remember one line where Smith advises another character about how to offer a rich person a beer. He says you ask, "Would you like a bottle of beer?" The Ts in "bottle" a little sharp. It actually sounds almost lyrical, like a line of poetry. And oddly enough, Old Money and their offspring bought all of this, at least for a time.

So Obama finds himself somehow at Columbia, a member of the Ivy League, surrounded by preppies who are very likely bending over backwards to assure themselves and each other that they aren't in the slightest racially prejudiced. Obama plays on that very well. Wonder how many times he asked people if they wanted "a bottle of beer." Apparently he himself wrote about this in one of his books. Black people shouldn't move too quickly, he said, shouldn't dress with their pants dangling precariously about crotch-level, or talk like former slaves from rural Alabama.

And Brain-dead Harry Reid himself noted that Obama is light-skinned and doesn't talk with a black dialect, making him qualified for the presidency -- according to Harry Reid, a thoroughgoing racist, apparently.

And the Comrade positively guzzled the way-left Kool-Aid. One of the Comrade's male role models when he was a kid was Frank Marshall, a marxist propagandist who also photographed and sold pornography -- some of it of Stanley what's-her-face, the Comrade's mother. Ol' Barry knew the drill, having been raised like a "red diaper baby." (See David Horowitz for a definition.. the children of the far-left.)

I don't think Obama ever studied and surely never learned anything beyond the commie-pleasing patter he picked up from earnest-yet-shockingly-naïve professors ensconced in the Ivy League. Another old saying goes, "Those who can't do it themselves, teach." And seems they kind of encouraged young Barry, who moved slowly in their presence, probably adopted a suggestion of a Boston drawl, and wore a belt.

And sure enough, this superficial bullshit has somehow catapulted the Comrade into the White House.

Perhaps in the beginning he did have an agenda. But he can't fail to recognize its failure over the last five years. America is slipping into third-world-nation status, like a stallion sinking inch-by-inch into quicksand. Obamacare is a total disaster.

Worst of all, Obama has no solutions or suggestions for any of this. His cabinet is an Ivory Tower housing nothing but pie-in-the-sky crackpot schemes hatched by an arrogant and untested band of academics. They don't know what the hell they're doing. All they can suggest is "Do more." Like Paul Krugmann, an asshole and buffoon of the first order.

The Comrade's not even a very good politician. He's forged no relationships with the people in congress, except momentarily to exploit them. And they know it now. All the Comrade really knows how to do is give speeches and campaign. Somehow that doesn't provide him with any clues about managing foreign and domestic affairs.

So he goes golfing.

He's an empty face. Corrupt Chicago pols saw him coming and set him up as a huge dupe -- their pathway to the White House. And one by one, they've abandoned him, perhaps realizing that the job requires a bit more than promising everything to everyone and counting on the greed and ignorance of many in the democrat party to carry them along. And voter fraud.

The thing is, the Comrade apparently doesn't have any real convictions. Hate to say it, he's more like the stereotypical shoeshine boy, a carefree pickaninny tap dancing and smiling up at passersby, trying to please them for spare change. He imagines that's how white people see him, he plays to that and he takes advantage of that.

But he doesn't seem to have anything else to offer.

Nothing, just "Would you like a bottle of beer?"








Friday, August 30, 2013

Obama evil or simply incompetent?

Just read a blog that was forwarded to me. The blog is apparently from the New Yorker magazine, written by a guy named Borowitz or Boroski or something like that. I want to think the whole thing is satire -- but it's really good satire.

The headline for the blog goes something like: "Obama says attack on Syria has no objective whatsoever."

Just like a little story on Fox yesterday reported that Madeline Albright, Secretary of State under "Can't Keep It Zipped" Bill Clinton, gave the go-ahead to attack the island of Grenada only after she'd been assured that the USA had no interests there.

The British have refused to join us in attacking Syria. Apparently only the French remain somewhat interested, but they've never been entirely reliable. However, do believe it was the French who first received and then publicized that video of dozens of dead bodies in Syria -- the result of Syrian dictator Assad gassing them indiscriminately. So maybe the French remain sympathetic to visiting some sort of punishment on Assad for his willy-nilly and illegal use of chemical weapons.

I don't think we should get involved. I've said it several times, we don't have a dog in this fight. Assad is a vicious psychopath determined to continue to rule his people with an iron hand, even if he has to kill all of them. (Apparently he doesn't see the irony in that.) The opposing "rebel" forces don't look a whole lot better since they include recruits from Al-Qaeda groups and maybe even Hamas -- not sure I read that report right, it was in teeny-tiny print.

There's no one I personally care to defend in Syria, really. Should we help to topple Assad only to help create the jihadist caliphate? Should we arm the rebels so that they can launch attacks on us a few more years down the road?

Military analyst Ralph Peters noted that both sides are our enemies and they're killing each other. So why should we interfere? I tend to agree.

But Obama said the US would not get involved unless Assad used chemical weapons. So now to assuage his own ego, he wants to entangle the US in yet another endless, pointless war in the Middle East.

Of course, engaging in Syria does assure that the US military will be kept overseas, and the conflict will continue to bleed US resources while achieving absolutely no useful purpose. The Comrade has promised to remove all US troops from Afghanistan, so perhaps he needs to find another black hole to throw them into.

Draining the US of its resources and crippling the military seem to be among of Obama's chief aims as president.

So is the Comrade only monumentally ignorant and incompetent? Or is he truly vile, relentless in seeking out and implementing ways to destroy the USA?

Don't listen to what he says. Watch what he does.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

PC as a political weapon

Haven't been blogging lately. The nation's going to hell in a hand basket, what more can I say?

However, came across something on Michelle Malkin's Twitchy site surrounding a video that apparently was posted by Russell Simmons, who's a black media mogul -- involved in all kinds of entrepreneurial communications things, including the music and cell phones industries. He's also a very likable guy.

Anyway, apparently he posted something called "Harriet Tubman's Sex Tapes" on YouTube. All about Harriet Tubman, forced by her master to have sex, turning around the situation and using it to compel her master to let her run the underground railroad. Russell Simmons said he thought it was funny.

A lot of other people were not amused. Though I never saw the video -- Simmons took it down by popular demand -- I think the concept is kind of disgusting. Rape was a very real thing in the days of slavery, and some black women slaves did use it to extract favors from ol' massa. The Garden District in New Orleans was well known as the area where white plantation owners housed their black concubines -- and the concubines's mixed race kids, as well. Or a woman field hand might regard sex with the massa as a way to get lighter duty inside the house. A sad and sorry way to improve your situation.

Anyway you look at this, it's pretty hard to put a positive spin on it.

At any rate, Simmons apologized for his insensitivity and took the video down. That wasn't good enough for some folks. One "Twit" posted something about how "the damage is already done."

That made me wonder, what damage? Has Harriet Tubman's reputation been ruined? Did the video prompt some extremely impressionable black woman to sell herself into slavery so that she, too, could try to manipulate her master?

What damage is done by harsh or insensitive or even insulting words?

When I was a kid and other kids called me names -- an apparently inevitable episode in every kid's life -- my mother told me to bear in mind: "Sticks and stones might break my bones, but names will never hurt me." I somehow associated that with the idea of being strong and self-motivated, and trusting my own judgment of myself rather than letting others define me.

Maybe naïve? It seems the democrats have seized upon some pretty convoluted "spin" to -- poof! -- magically turn shocking negatives into at least palatable neutrals. And some people buy it.

I'm a writer. I understand the power of words. You define an issue by the terms you choose to describe it and by the fact that you choose to address it all, and this lends to the issue your own point of view. There's no escaping that. That's why "objective journalism" is, for me, an oxymoron. The only way to be fair is to present the issues from all sides, from a range of perspectives.

And just because you attach one or another label to something doesn't change the nature of what the thing is. I could call tomatoes "feathers," but they'd still be tomatoes.

And I don't think Harriet Tubman's reputation has been tarnished by Russell Simmons' video. In fact, the whole thing blew back on him, didn't it? Judging by the outrage he inspired, I'd guess that he, not Harriet, has lost a few fans over this matter.

Anyway, just a thought. It's the difference between "Death panels" and "bureaucrats defining who gets health care and who doesn't." Oops. Not a good example. Or Hillary Clinton as "Our next 'historic' president" as opposed to "The Secretary of State who abandoned US representatives under terrorist attack."

Sorry. I guess my bias is showing.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Rule by law, not by man

I don't have time for this, but I just want to mention one thing in regard to the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin thing.

Those people who are requesting calm acceptance of the verdict, or peaceful protests for those who must protest, call upon the phrase, "Rule by law, not by man." But what the hell does that mean?

You don't have to look too far to find examples of "rule by man" in the United States. Prime example:

When slavery was legal in the United States, it was based on the notion that slaves weren't quite human, therefore, they didn't have any rights under the law. They couldn't vote, sit on juries, or otherwise partake of the citizen experience. They weren't protected by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights any more than the family dog would have been protected.

So what happened when slaves committed crimes -- or were even accused of committing crimes? I mean, they weren't fully human under the law, had no rights, so the usual constitutional procedures didn't apply to them.

In some cases - really capitol cases, involving serious felonies like murder -- the slaves may or may not be tried, but certainly they were executed. Here's a good case, of Denmark Vesey, a free black man who had a cabinetry business in Charleston, South Carolina, in the late 1700s -- but after the USA had won its independence. He was a free man, had never been a slave as far as I can tell. But he befriended many of the black slaves in the area and eventually planned a slave rebellion. He had gone so far as to recruit a real "army" of slaves from local plantations, and had apparently stored up some number of weapons they could use for the rebellion.

Alas, the night before the attack was to begin, one slave in Vesey's army went wimp and confessed all to his master. The arms, such as they were, and if they did really exist, were discovered. Other slaves who had agreed to take part in the rebellions were either fingered or confessed. So what was the outcome?

Vesey was tried -- he was a free black man, not a slave. He was found guilty and hanged with three or four slaves who had been fingered or confessed to being key leaders in implementing the scheme.

All the other slaves -- and there were hundreds of them -- were given over to their masters, for the masters to figure out what to do with them. To punish them or not, and how to punish them.

Vesey's outcome was "rule by law." He was a free man, after all, though it's pretty doubtful that, at the time, and he being a black man, he was regarded as deserving of all the rights of a white man. He was found guilty of inciting an insurrection and hanged. The outcome here was similar to what a few white people also suffered for "inciting an insurrection" in the slave South. Many Quakers among them, who tried passing out anti-slavery leaflets and even smuggled slaves out of the South. As a matter of fact, years later, South Carolina accused Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party of "inciting an insurrection." But that was the law in South Carolina.

By contrast, "rule by man" is what happened to all the other slaves who had been identified as taking part in the plan to rise up, and who had been returned to their masters. Their masters decided what to do with them. I've never seen any documentation that records what happened to them. The whole thing was regarded as their masters' private business and nobody else's -- though slave owners were fully expected to keep their slaves under control -- very seriously. A few cases exist where white slaves owners suffered some pretty dire consequences from their neighbors if they were too kind to their slaves.

So what were the usual punishments for disobedient and/or "uppity," and/or "criminal," and/or runaway, and/or simply "lazy" slaves? They were subject to a pretty wide variety of punishments, limited only by their master's imagination and willingness to inflict pain (though usually the master himself did not deliver the punishment. Often he got other slaves to do it.) Whippings were pretty common. A few old barns on old plantations in the slave South had "whipping posts," a convenient and customary place to tie up the slave for whipping. Cutting off fingers, ears, hobbling with irons, stockading -- all possibilities that have been used at one or another time or place.

In one horrendous case, recorded among the accounts in the 1930s WPA Writers' Project, a former slave told the story of the overseer on a plantation raping the wife of a slave. When the husband objected to his wife's rape, the overseer nailed the man's ear to a board first, and then cut it off.

A French woman, Martineau, attributed with establishing the study of sociology, toured the USA in the 1850s. While in the South, noted the social attitudes toward slaves and slavery. Interesting reading. One case she mentioned involved a slave who was apparently a notorious thief and rabble-rouser, being burned alive on the main street of one southern town. Martineau didn't state whether this was common or uncommon, but infers that it was a standard punishment used for certain types of behavior -- and apparently in cases where the slave was expendable. And burning alive seems to have been something the KKK also practiced, along with lynching.

All of this is entirely "rule by man." No interference from the legal system at all for the treatment of slaves.

There were few rules that defined unacceptable slave behavior. It was one of those "you know it when you see it," kind of things. Entirely up to the slave owners and his neighbors. Same for the punishments. The master decided. It was all up to him.

So when people take to the streets and riot, protesting the results of a fair trial -- a verdict that they feel is all wrong.... Well, would you prefer "rule by man?" Think about it.

Justice relies on facts. It isn't always a balm to console your emotions. Life doesn't always happen the way we want it to. Individuals are rarely as "good" as we wish they were, or as "bad" as we believe they might be. Justice can only be determined by the facts in evidence.

Grow up.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Land of the free, home of the brave?

In past years, I've tried to include some quotes, speeches, etc., about the USA that would be inspiring, or at least serve as a reminder of what the USA stands for.

But this year, I don't know.

It's just things like various levels and branches of government dictating what you can eat for lunch and how much health insurance you MUST have. How much personal income is "enough" for you. What you "should" study in college, and what you can use for energy and how much of it you "should" consume. It's things like that that make me question -- is this freedom?

Do we have freedom anymore?

I don't think so. I think it's almost beyond recovery, too. This kind of slavery is normal now. It's what we expect. And it's "for our own good."

It's the schemers and manipulators who've suppressed our freedoms. And I'm not talking about welfare cheats or fraudulent government contractors. I'm talking about politicians on every level.

The fact that we have a democratic system gives liars and con artists and psychopathic control freaks a marketing tool; they always say -- and may themselves believe -- that they do all they do for us. For the elderly, the children, the widows and orphans. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.

And how much of the funding they raise for taxation ends up in their own pockets, or in the private accounts of friends and supporters?

Very few politicians are in that business anymore to preserve and protect American ideals and the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. If we consider Pazzo Pelosi, Brain-dead Harry Reid, and anyone in the Executive Branch, you have to wonder if they have even a casual familiarity with the US Constitution. Instead, they go to Washington to "bring home the bacon." And I'm convinced many of them are simply power mad, or afflicted with some kind of Munchausen's Disease, where you cause pain so that later you can rush in and "heroically" rescue the victims -- by exercising more power over them and extracting more money from them. More regulation, less personal freedom.

Crazy.

Sad.

And people vote for this. Edward Gibbon in The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire:
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.

So go eat your hot dogs and apple pie and look at the fireworks. And just forget about everything else. It isn't there anymore, anyway,
 

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

When the going gets tough, Obama takes a vacation

Remember when Ronald Reagan was president? Actually, in the first year or so, I never saw such unemployment. I had quit a job and was looking for another. Employment agencies were standing room only. But then the economy went into an upswing with 4% growth or some ungodly number that we've rarely seen since.

Anyway, at the start, things were tough. The slogan became, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Meaning: Address the problem and fix it. Work harder. Stiffen your resolve.

Now, under the Comrade, the slogan has shifted somewhat. Here are some suggestions:
  • When the going gets tough, find someone else to blame.
  • When the going gets tough, stifle your critics... any way you can.
  • When the going gets tough, pretend it isn't true.
  • When the going gets tough, double down on your happy talk and buzzwords.
  • When the going gets tough, recruit the NFL and NBA to sell your programs.
And the Comrade's favorite:
  • When the going gets tough, take your family on an expensive African vacation.
As anyone who's not brain dead and who has even a slight exposure to the news must be aware, a number of really amazing scandals have erupted over the last couple months. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blowing off events in Benghazi, refusing to defend US interests -- and people -- she deliberately placed in harm's way. The IRS targeting conservative political groups for "special" scrutiny, delaying their ability to present another side in the last campaign -- and generally. The NSA revealed as collecting the records of just about every phone call and possibly email sent anywhere in the world, including those generated by US citizens and residents. The HHS soliciting funds and support from the corporations and organizations it regulates to try to sell socialized medicine.... And I'm sure there's more. Seems to be something vile and nasty under every rock inside the DC Beltway.

Of course, the Comrade had nothing to do with Benghazi -- he was practicing his blackjack game for his trip to Las Vegas and couldn't be bothered. Hillary apparently wasn't overly concerned, either. After all, she'd put a diplomatic outpost in an area that every other civilized nation had abandoned to jihadist terrorists. Probably didn't surprise her that those terrorists took the bait and killed the Americans. But then she fell down, she had a blood clot, she was leaving the State Dept. anyway -- wimp-ass traitor who I wouldn't vote for as dog catcher (I'm against animal cruelty). And what do you want to bet, the dems will nominate her for president in 2016, since they're blind and stupid and, hey, we haven't had a woman president yet. For liberals, political correctness trumps reason and logic every time.

Then regarding the IRS rats' nest, the NSA program, the impending disaster of Obamacare... in his own words, the Comrade has nothing to do with any of this. Hey, he was golfing. You can't expect him to keep track of all this.

Most recently, the Comrade backed himself into a corner with a poseur "red line" about taking action in Syria. After about 100,000 people have been slaughtered in a civil war in Syria, and al-Qaeda has taken up the cudgel against the current, murderously oppressive government -- and after the al-Qaeda faction has executed a Christian priest in Syria -- now the Comrade has agreed to send aid in the form of small arms. What finally pushed him over the edge? The killing of Christians? Good job!

Ed Snowden, who apparently ripped off numerous top secret intelligence stuff and is publishing it through WikiLeaks, finds himself a new and seemingly permanent resident of the Moscow international airport. After feigning attempts to hand over his info to Red China and Russia, he must be a bit disappointed that not a lot of people view him as a hero on the order of that Assange guy. I don't know, do nerdly geeks have to break into secret files to make a name for themselves anymore? Is that was makes them magnets for strippers? What I find most repugnant about Snowden is that he's apparently something of a glory hound, and that a "wolfish appetite for fame" is one of the things that drove him to do whatever's he's done.

But the Comrade isn't overly concerned about Snowden or US security either.

No, the Comrade goes to Goree Island in Senegal for a photo op of himself standing in a tiny cell, his back to the camera, wistfully pondering the unhappy history of slavery.

But the black side of the Comrade's family were never slaves. Never transported to Goree Island and points west. They might have labored under the Brits in colonial Kenya, but they were never worked to death in ore mines in South America or treated like farm animals in the USA. So... is the Comrade just displaying some sort of solidarity with other members of his race? I don't know, but it looks to me like he just wanted to have his picture taken. He just wanted to look "concerned."

Which, plainly, he isn't, given the reality of his circumstances. So much to do in the USA, and he goes to Senegal. Is Senegal a member of NATO? A trade ally? A key regional influence? None of the above. But it has Goree Island.

Then on to South Africa, where the Comrade sought an audience with Nelson Mandela. Mandela is basically a communist. I don't agree with his politics. But the man lived in solitary in a tiny prison cell for decades for standing up to apartheid. He became a focal figure in South African politics and served to drive that nation away from colonialism. He has earned my respect. And he's dying now. Leave him in peace. He doesn't need to be  hounded by a US president seeking a photo op and some sort of redemption for irresponsible half-assedness.

And while the Comrade's in Africa, perhaps he should take a run up to Egypt, where reportedly 17 million people are just now milling in the streets in front of the presidential residence there, trying to dislodge the Muslim Brotherhood's Morsi from office.

Hey, Comrade, why not help them? I mean, why not TRY to do something in the real world?

That would be a "fundamental change," wouldn't it?



Monday, June 10, 2013

White House chickens coming home to roost

What the hell has been going on in Washington, DC, for the last 4.5 years?

Apparently thanks to government stimulus spending, several agencies in the executive branch -- most notably the IRS -- saw a sudden influx of funding way beyond what they needed, so they thought really hard -- or as hard as they could -- and decided to throw themselves some major parties, with clowns and everything. Even performing as clowns themselves. What a hoot. Accountants and number crunchers in Spock ears. How amusing.

Unfortunately, the IRS, at least, recorded these rather pathetic and infantile events -- although they lost their receipts. OMG. Hey, call them every day and pester them about that, and demand that they come down to your office and let you go over their books -- only you don't make an appointments, so they'll just have to sit in your office until you get tired of playing Tetris and maybe have a cup of coffee to gin up your efforts to crucify them. And then run your calculator really, really fast and intimidating (I mean, to an accountant), and tell them they owe you a few thousand dollars more than they thought, by your figuring. And just make up all kinds regulations and complications as you go along. There's the ticket.

But apparently the IRS clearly understood which side its bread was buttered on, so it also decided to do whatever it could -- even perpetrate criminal felonies -- to keep this administration hanging on through a second term. Like, any groups applying for tax-exempt status with subversive words like "Constitution" or "Tea Party" in their names had to be harassed and hassled and kept on hold until the 2012 election was over, at least. Or, alternatively, the IRS felt it was useful to collect the names of the members and/or donors of these groups and pass them along to opposing organizations, like the Comrade's election campaign group.

Meanwhile, Eric Hold'em's behavior as head of the Dept. of (Social) Justice has continued illegal and despicable since the day the Senate approved him. No surprises there.

Congress: "We'll hold you in contempt!"

Hold'en: "I'm already in contempt."

Congress: "Well, double contempt! How's that going to look on your resume?"

Hold'em:  Flipping the bird. "There's still a few bodies I have to bury before I resign."

Oh, and the feds -- NSA? FBI? CIA? God knows -- weren't just collecting AP journalists' phone records, but EVERYONE'S phone records in the whole USA. They save them, too. They're all tucked in a vault somewhere, probably in the FBI's new high-tech facility in West Virginia, thanks to the relentless lobbying of the late Harry Byrd to bring prosperity to his state.

And the explanation for all of us?

Incompetence. Or national security. Take your pick. Personally, I find it hard to trust incompetent people with national security. I mean, you're likely to end up with your ambassadors being killed at their posts in hostile nations due to a blind adherence to a silly and Pollyanna view of the universe... but what are the chances of that actually happening?

The one thing that's important, the one thing to remember, is that the goal of terrorism is to destabilize a national government. You destabilize it, it topples, your comrades rush in with a plan to keep order -- and then you have a totalitarian nation.

So the 9/11 attacks didn't manage to really destabilize the USA's government -- or didn't go quite far enough to do so. So the Comrade will take care of finishing the job.

The thing is, any government has to be "legitimate" in the eyes of its citizens. Whether they willingly accept the government, or do so under pain of brutality and intimidation -- the citizens have to be willing to go along with a government's actions and policies.

A government is destabilized when it loses that legitimacy from citizens.

I think that's what the Comrade's going for, ultimately. I mean, he also seems to embrace muslim and every other kind of terrorist. Perhaps he feels an affinity with them; perhaps they share a common goal?

So, hey, we still have congress, and congress is largely pissed off. There are also the Tea Parties and many others who still believe in the USA's "better angels," that is, the US Constitution, etc.

I'm really so glad the Constitution is written down. That makes it possible to dump the corrupt and rotten terrorists -- those inside the government as well as outside -- but rebuild the nation.

Rule by law, not by man. Love it.

And I just wish the IRS would call me about... anything... just so I could take the Fifth Amendment.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Behaviorial dictates for Obamacare released

Don't know much about this, just saw it on the news, but it seems even though the feds are too incompetent to implement their unworkable insurance exchanges -- apparently preoccupied devising lies and cover-ups -- they have made time to outline a behavioral plan for American citizens. I mean, under socialized medicine, the federal government surely is going to tell us all how to live.

Maybe they should put Bloomberg in charge of that. It seems he doesn't have much else to do.

Under some piece of crap regulation or guideline or policy or blueprint, or some bureaucratic b.s. that's just come out, the feds are "allowing" insurance companies to charge up to 50% more for health insurance policies for people who smoke, are overweight, have high blood pressure, and other stuff, unless they participate in "wellness programs."

In other words, that 15-member Death Panel that sets the rules, has already begun to set the rules for the "proper" way to live.

Got one thing to say: FUCK YOU AND THE ASS YOU RODE IN ON.

Whatever happened to freedom? Personal liberty?

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

When Justice is corrupt, who you gonna call?

According to the Wikipedia dictionary:
hench·man
Noun
A faithful follower or political supporter, esp. one prepared to engage in crime or dishonest practices.
So let's take minute to look at Eric Hold'em's record as Attorney General and head of the US  Department of Justice. Or, as Hold'em seems to regard it, the Department of Social Justice {DOSJ).

Right out of the box Hold'em refuses to prosecute a member of the New Black Panthers who was standing at the doorway of a polling place in Philadelphia, waving a billy club and yammering on and on about "crackers" and "whitey." Hold'em couldn't see how that could be construed as voter intimidation. After all, a black guy was doing it, and to Hold'em, crimes against white people don't seem to count.

Then there was the so-called Fast & Furious operation, where at least three -- and possibly more -- agencies in the DOSJ were "encouraging" smugglers to get AR-15s and similar weapons into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Apparently this was so that the Comrade and fellow travelers could make a case for gun control in the USA. So Pelosi or Durbin could go, "My God, these weapons are ending up in the hands of Mexican drug lords!" But mainly all that resulted from Fast & Furious was two border guards being killed by Mexican gang members, as well as God knows how many Mexicans who might also have gotten in the gang's way.

Hold'em didn't know anything about this, except, possibly, it was something he inherited from the Bush administration. (Sound familiar?)

Then there was Gibson Guitar Company, which was more or less surrounded by armed, jack-booted law enforcement of some kind -- because Gibson was using imported rosewood in building guitars. Gibson had gone through the whole gnarly legal process to import the exotic wood, but it seems that just wasn't good enough -- not when the owner of Gibson Guitar was known to contribute to Republican candidates.

I understand Gibson was forced to cough up about $300,000.00 for not breaking the law in any way at all, and the company now is suing the DOSJ. Good for them. Hope they win big.

There's been a whole bunch of cases about trying Islamist terrorists in civil courts rather than by military tribunal. That's a legitimate debate -- whether you consider Islamist terrorism an act of war or a simple crime, like shoplifting or something. But really.... picking up a terrorist in Afghanistan or Yemen or someplace and reading him his Miranda rights. Really? Laughing so hard my coffee's shooting out my nose.

I'm sure I'm overlooking a few things, but let's get to the snooping on journalists thing.

It seems a couple years ago, someone -- apparently someone in the FBI, a DOSJ agency -- suspected that journalist James Rosen, from Fox News, was asking people in the federal government for information about North Korea's nuclear program. So the FBI got up a warrant under the 1917 Espionage Act, claiming that James Rosen needed to be spied on -- phones and emails tapped or snooped on somehow -- because he was: A.) subject to potential criminal prosecution (for spying?); B.) a flight risk (he's going to flee the USA with info about the North Korean nuclear program?); C.) I suspect mainly because Rosen is a highly-regarded investigative journalist who once wrote a very thorough and carefully researched and documented book on the Watergate scandal. And he works for Fox.

So Hold'em signed off on these accusations, endorsing them, and due to this, a judge issued the warrant.

Hold'em told congress last week that he never had anything to do with spying on journalists. What journalists? Are there journalists in the United States? Where? When did this happen? And in fact, in another case, when one of the DOSJ agencies wanted to snoop through the phone records of about 100 AP journalists, Hold'em recused himself and had a deputy sign off on it. ("Oh no, you're not getting me to take any responsibility for that one.")

But the fact remains, no matter why or how, Hold'em lied under oath to congress about the James Rosen warrant. As Judge Napolitano on Fox pointed out, either Hold'em lied to the judge who issued the warrant about Rosen, or he lied to congress last week when he said he had nothing to do with it.

And it's just a really weird coincidence how all the lies, dissembling, omissions of duty, bizarre interpretations of the law and everything else this blockhead has done, seems to support the concept of shutting down the opposition -- not even the opposition. Let's just say, these activities all point to keeping any truth or facts from leaking out about the operations of the federal government -- and actively penalizing any remotely possible political opposition. And I should add -- lying and covering up the really nasty stuff like Fast & Furious.

Now Hold'em says he has some kind of "creeping remorse" What the hell is that? Anything like "a thrill up your leg?" Or like Ted Bundy? "Gee, I'm so sorry I got caught."

This bastard needs to go home -- or better, to jail.

We do need law enforcement. We really do. But apparently the DOSJ is so busy strewing rose petals in the Comrade's path that it can't be bothered engaging in the pursuit of real justice. And I'm almost afraid to ponder what "justice" might mean to Eric Hold'em and the Comrade. Who knows what goes on in their heads? Fantasies of marxist policy under sharia law?

I've said it before -- you can't judge them by what they say; you have to watch what they actually DO.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

White House takes "Chavez approach" to media relations

Well, I hope Dan Rather and Chris Mathews are happy -- and Brian Williams and espeically Candy Crowley, who continues to labor at whitewashing White House activities. (Hey, Candy, have you checked? Your phones may be tapped. Or maybe you know they are, and that explains you.) They and many of their cohorts in the national media -- Fox News excluded -- have shown themselves so blindly supportive of this disastrous federal administration that the Whiute House has become completely unfettered in its efforts to control the news and apparently any information related to government activity.

Apart from appropriating the telephone records of apparently a couple hundred AP journalists and editors, the White House -- or the Comrade's henchman, Eric Hold'em at the Dept. of Social Justice -- also "investigated" James Rosen, Fox's chief reporter in Washington. They even "investigated" his parents' telephone records. And it seems that the subpoena they got for this should have assumed some kind of genuinely criminal behavior on Rosen's part -- completely unfounded on anything, and he was never charged with anything.

But wait!! When you illegally "investigate" Rosen, why not double your pleasure and take it to the to the next level? Why stop at one shady subpoena, when DOSJ also "investigated" phone lines throughout the Fox News organization -- all the way up to Roger Ailes.

Similarly, Susan Atkisson, a CBS (I think) news reporter who also criticized the White House -- or actually developed news stories to reveal the truth of its activities -- had her emails or something monitored and scrutinized by the DOSJ.

Puts me in mind of Hugo Chavez, the totalitarian dictator in Venezuela who recently died of cancer -- that his poeple claimed was given to him by the US ambassador there. (These so-caled progressive clowns, wherever in the world they are, believe anything.) When a news outlet in Venezuela protested Chavez's illegal and dictatorial practices there -- his election corruption, terrorizing the Venezuelan legislature, et. al. -- Chavez shut down newspapers that criticized him, along with a TV channel that didn't like his tactics.

For the Comrade, it seems Chavez's actions in Venezuela proved to be a "teachable moment."

Then on the IRS Scandal front, Lois Lerner, who headed up one or another division of the IRS, was summoned to speak at a congressional invesigative hearing today and pleaded the Fifth Amendment. That is, "I refuse to answer the question on grounds that it may inciminate me."

For the last several years, the IRS has been harrassing Tea Parties and other conservative activist organizations who applied for tax exemptions. And in at least one case, they even got OSHA and the ATF to "investigate" one small group that applied -- the group wanted to educate people on the importance of voting. OMG!!! How subversive can you get? Next they'll be driving people to the polls!!! Can America withstand such a violent onslaught?

Lerner was the IRS blockhead who knew the Inspector General's report on the IRS's illegal activities was about to be published, so at a news conference of some kind, she actually planted someone in the audience to ask her about the IRS targeting Tea Parties. She confessed to it and said, gee golly, so sorry about that. Like no one would notice, and certainly the public would forgive such a cute little transgresion -- of the US Constitution and everything this country stands for.

Yeah, Lois, no harm done! Glad to hear you're sorry! We understand. So hard to keep your filthy, lying face out of other's peoples' business. We all have these irresistible impulses to seize dictatorial powers. No harm done, except to 300 million US citizens -- and since they aren't the people in the White House, who really gives a damn?

And interesting for her to stand on the Fifth. That's another kind of confession, isn't it? Her answers may incriminate her? Well, she's a lawyer -- she said she was a lawyer, that's why she isn't good at math -- so she's probably painfully aware of the fact that she probably deserves 10 to 15 at Leavenworth. And hopefully, she'll eventually get it. She'll be abe to wave to Eric Hold'em across the prison yard.

Meanwhile, poor, pathetic Jay Carneybarker, who was actually at one tiume a professional journalist, is spinning so hard at the daily press briefings that he looks like Odette from Swan Lake.

That's it for now. And that's plenty.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Dept of (Social) Justice choses stupidest way to investigate govt leaks

I know it's hard to keep track of the scandals coming out of this White House, but one that especially pissed off the press was the fact that Eric Hold'em's Dept. of (Social) Justice recently seized two months of telephone records from Associated Press in Washington, I assume. The phone records were for hundreds of reporters and editors, and included even their personal phones and cell phones.

The Dept of Social Justice claims they were looking for a "leak." That is, someone in the government who was involved in a highly classified activity, leaked the information to aomeone at AP. AP subsequently -- before publication -- notified the feds that they had the story, and they even agreed to hold publication on it until they got a clearance from the government to go ahead.

But the Dept of Social Justice was still, and probably rightfuly, concerned about who in the federal government is leaking classified information to the press.

So they did some undercover thing, maybe covered by the so-called Patriot Act, and seized all of AP's phone records -- without giving AP any notice. Bear in mind, even with prior notice, there's nothing the AP could do to change or falsify the phone records, which are held by the phone company, after all.

So Eric Hold'em, head of the Dept of Social Justice, says he "recused" himself from this whole thing because he could have been the leaker. He didn't sign the subpoena (if there was one) for the phone records. Eric Hold'em was apparently playing golf with the Comrade that day.

So anyway, this guy name Mike Baker, a Fox contributor, but also a former CIA agent, now owner of a private security company suggested an alternative way to figure out who's leaking without steamrolling over the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of the press.

Baker says that in a highly classified operation, as this one was, apparently, there might a dozen people in the government who know about it. So why not question and/or polygraph those dozen people about leaking -- rather than trampling on the rights and freedoms of about 200 journalists?

So the Comrade crows about how he's protecting 60,000 troops in Afghanistan and tries to justify this misconduct this way. Of course, he didn't really know anything about it until he read about it in the newspaper or heard about it on TV. Because he's right on top of things.

But, I'm sorry, the way the Dept of Social Justice conducted this "investigation" is kind of like what the IRS has been doing the Tea Parties who applied for tax exempt status. I mean, now the DOSJ knows everyone every AP reporter and editor contacted by phone for a couple of months. Everyone. All of their contacts and the reporters themselves have been compromised. Just like the IRS now knows who ever contacted the Tea Parties, donated money, etc etc.

And the AP was a big pal of the Comrade.

Wonder if they still are.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Obama the national mushroom

Wrote before in this blog explaining the mushroom thing. It was a little poster that was circulated among offices, usually thumbtacked to the wall over the Xerox machine. A cartoon of a mushroom with the caption: "I'm the company mushroom. They keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit."

So apparently the Comrade has become the national mushroom. They keep him in the dark and feed him bullshit... according to Jay Carney and the Comrade himself.

And naturally, the question that follows is: Who are "they?"

But maybe there is no "they" there. Maybe he's just an ignorant dolt who had no experience managing his way out of a paper bag, ever, in his whole life, and so things occurring beyond the Rose Garden just got away from him. Unless all this has happened on (somebody's) purpose, God forbid,.

Because it seems the Comrade has no idea what's going on the State Department, The Treasury, or the Department of Justice. And these are all executive branch. All part of the Comrade's charge.

So if he has nothing to do with anything those departments do, and he gets information about things like the criminal behavior of the IRS from network news programs, didn't have an inkling of what went on in Benghazi and just repeated the fiction nobody-knows-who fabricated, and never heard of the FBI spying on the press, exactly what the hell does he do all day?

Golf? I mean, even golf has to get a little tiresome after four and a half years. Tiger Woods isn't always available, and neither is Shaquille O'Neal. I mean, they have jobs to do.

So until we get some facts about the scandals blossoming in Washington DC alongside the cherry trees, I'll take the Comrade's word for it all:

That is, he's blind and deaf, indifferent to world and even domestic affairs, and doesn't give a good goddamn about what goes on outside the Oval Office.

I'm glad I didn't vote for him.

Monday, May 13, 2013

DC corruption worse than you even imagined.


Once upon a time, there was this guy named Martin Neimoller. Not sure who he was or what he did, except for a very well-known couple of phrases he wrote about Nazi Germany:

First they cane for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.
So things are getting interesting. So many scandals coming out of this regime right now, it's hard to keep up.

I still believe Benghazi is the worst -- the lies, yeah. But beyond the lies, leaving Chris Stevens, Glenn Dougherty, Sean Smith and Tyrone Wood just twisting in the wind. That's an unconscionable disgrace.

And now the IRS has admitted that for the past two years, or even longer, as various organizations have sought 501-4C status as "advocacy groups," because they qualify for certain tax breaks -- the IRS has been looking for groups with nanes that include things like "Tea Party" "Constitution," "9/12 Project" and so forth, and submitting them to special scrutiny. To wit, the IRS has asked these groups to hand over their donor and membership lists.

Kinda like the White House requesting that if you know anyone who really mouths off about the Comrade being a marxist commie bastard, send them the names.

Enemies list? I don't know. What do you think? Maybe the Comrade's just filling up a scrapbook of mementoes from his time in the White House.

But I'm sorry. That inspires me to buy an AR-15 while they're still available.

Additionally, Eric Hold'em -- chief of the Dept of Justice, who is to the Comrade as Stalin was to Lenin, has leaked today that the DOJ snatched up a couple months' worth of telephone records for AP journalists -- their office and home phones, and apparently even if they tried to use a phone booth or something.

Has the AP (Associated Press, founded in time to be around for the US Civil War), been unfriendly to the White House? I don't know. I don't recall any criticism, but then this White House has kind of a hair trigger when it comes to critism. If you're not sitting at his feet and actively peeling grapes, you may be audited.

And why talk about the AP thing now? Maybe to create some kind of chill effect, since the press is starting to awaken from their lovely slumber in Utopia and looking around for a few facts?

There she goes again, comparing the Comrade's regime to Nazi Germany and the USSR.

Yeah. But I'm afraid I haven't been wrong so far, have I?

Who's going to speak for you?

Monday, May 6, 2013

Bogart on Benghazi

Almost nothing the current regime has done struck me, personally, as so being as low as the Benghazi fiasco. They send Christopher Stevens and others out there in some very dangerous outpost amongst people who want nothing more than to kill the American Satan, and then refuse to defend him. The British had pulled out, for God's sake, and not much scares the British.

I've always found it rather touching, and incredibly honorable that the Marines have this thing about not leaving their dead and wounded behind.

But that's exactly what happened to Chris Stevens and those three other guys.

Worse -- to lie about it. Lie about it. "It Wasn't me. I know nothing. I did nothing. I heard nothing."

Honestly, what kind of scum are occupying this federal administration?

They weigh four human lives against their political fantasies and ambitions, and their ambitions are regarded as more important. Like, what? Hillary down in Chile going, "Hey let the sonsabitches die quickly. Just cover it up so it doesn't stand as a black mark against me."

Though I wouldn't have voted for Hillary Clinton two years ago because she is also a disciple of Saul Alinsky, now I'd rather see her at forced service in Benghazi. Despite Pazzo Pelosi's lobbying for Hillary for president. I mean, she's not "Pazzo" for nothing.

At any rate, with a new set of whistleblowers coming out about Benghazi -- and I've already read part of one guy's testimony from CBS -- he's Hicks, who was second in command in the State Dept. contingent in Libya, and was completely in charge after Chris Stevens was killed. He says he was on the phone that night to Washington and elsehwere, trying to drum up aid. So Washington knew all along what was going on. They just refused to help. To even try to help.

God forbid, perhaps they would have offended some bloodyy-minded muslim terrorist. 
And Leon Panetta once claimed this refusal for back-up and support was because he couldn't send the military into dangerous territory. Making me wonder if Panetta hasn't also dropped a few marbles over the course of his federal career. Perhaps he believes the military are just nice to trot out for parades on the 4th of July, like little wind-up toys?

At any rate, I've seen few things more offensive than Hillary Clinton's testimony in congressional hearings on Benghazi. This is her most outrageous statement, in aswer to Wisc. Senator Ron Johnson:
With all due respect, the fact is we have four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest? Or because of guys out for a walk one might who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It’s our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from happening again.
And how, you stupid bitch, how do you "figure out what happened" when you only lie about it to cover your sorry, incompetent ass?

So, anyway, this reminded me of a point Humphrey Bogart made to Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon. See, Mary was responsible for his partner's death. Bogart was, maybe, in love with her. She was counting on that -- assuming he would let her go scot-free. He called the cops instead. He explained:
I won’t play the sap for you… You’ll never understand me, but I’ll try once and give it up. When a man’s partner is killed, he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you might think of me, you’re supposed to do something about it. It just so happens we’re in the detective business. When one of your organization gets killed, it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it. Bad all around. Bad for every detective everywhere.
And that's about the best thing I've heard so far as to why the investigation into all the other "ass-clowns" in this administration should proceed. They're an embarrassment -- and a danger -- to the nation.

Obama regime : "Victory of hope over reality"

Watched Fox News Sunday, where Jason Chaffetz and another Rep., Stephen Lynch (D-Mass) "discussed" the everlasting Benghazi fiasco. Lynch fairly well agreed that the whole affair had been badly bungled by the White House, CIA, Secretay of State and Susan whatever -- the wool-over-her-eyes low-level factotum, appearing on the Sunday talk shows and lying through her teeth about the whole thing. (And the Senate wouldn't approve the promotion the Comrade promised for her loyalty, poor misguided moron.)

Lynch noted that the administration's fiction about what happened at Benghazi looks like "the victory of hope over reality."

Great line. And it seems to nicely describe the Comrade's regime all together.

I remember a while back, with Bill Clinton in the White House and DeeDee Meyers as his press secretary. Don't recall exactly what the issue was, she made some sort of statement and followed it up with, "We don't really care about the truth here," or something like that. She meant it as a joke. I don't think Clinton did -- and I don't think Hillary or the current White House does, either.

That's the strange thing about liberals. Or progressives -- as though changing their name signifies anything of any substance at all. But typical. All surface appearance, what a thing looks like. and they have no interest in going into any further analysis. Just do what you can to sell it. Lipstick on a pig and all that.

They have this view of things. They don't care what the world is really like or what human life, even, might require. They just pretend the world is the way they think it is.

The trouble is, it isn't.

For example, if they pass a few more gun control laws, that will prevent further mass murders and terrorist attacks. Hey, it's in their heads, no more guns. Voila!! No more guns.

I mean, do you suppose Dhzokar Tsarnaev or whatever his name is understood that he was too young to own a gun? Aw shucks, if he'd been better informed, this second Boston massacre might not have happened. He'd have to wait until he was 21 and had a permit, right?

Or I know, let's promote healthy eating by substituting carrot sticks for french fries at the public schools. Let's only offer kids milk or apple juice to drink instead of Coke or Pepsi.

With the result that many kids just toss out the cafeteria food, and if they can't bring anything they like better from home, then they sneak across the street to McDonalds or Wendys. Or they just go hungry.

Even democrats are now jumping ship on socialized medicine, and many congressional legislators have groused about opting themselves out of it as a group because they won't be able to pay for insurance for their staffs. Yeah... small business is facing the same dilemma. Go figure.

So the Comrade stands up and talks about how wonderful socialized medicine is, and most of it is already implemented, and people just love it!

Apparently he doesn't pay attention to anyone but a small circle of sychophants who kiss his ass and stoke his ego. Perhaps he goes no further than Blockhead Sibilius in his consultations. If he consults about it at all. More likely he just assumes it's totally terrific because it's part of the progressive canon. What could possibly go wrong?

Having failed to "part the waters" with his impassioned -- or at least energetic and arm-waving -- pleas for gun control -- I mean, the whole the thing failed and the public wasn't buying it. And his dire promises that the entire continental USA would somehow slip beneath the cold water of the oceans if the sequester went into effect. And the subsequent and continuing bitching and moaning about the unnecessary cuts in airport security and other actually spiteful and useless things he's ordered to occur with sequester -- the public isn't buying that one, either.

So in the face of the Comrade's recent failure to whip up support for his idiotic and destructive agenda, at a recent press conference, a journalist asked if he thought he was "losing his juice."

The Comrade, jolly old chap that he is, said, "Maybe I should just pack up and go home."

Yeah, Comrade. maybe you should. Maybe the USA would have a better chance of survival if you did. I'm talking real world here. I don't really expect you to understand.

Anyway, I started talking about how pie-in-the-sky the liberals are, and ended up with probably the first rational and practical suggestion the Comrade has ever made. Ever.

So, hey, dude, why don't you just pack up and go home?

"Victory of hope over reality" is not something we need right now. It's a nice way of saying the Comrade and his minions all live in some kind of fantasyland, which is something I've been claiming since he took office. His policies don't work; they've made everything worse, have slowed economic recovery and made it -- boots on the ground -- totally impossible.

He wants to erode our freedoms in the name of ... What, exactly? The progressive mantras. He belives the USA needs to be "fundamentally changed." He's got his head so far up up butt he's looking at his own tonsils most of the time.

And many people -- including the more perceptive democrats -- are finally figuring that out. Let's hope it's not too late for salvage.





Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Defending the separation of church and state

My second blog today. Feeling ambitious.

A long, long time ago, like in the late 1980s, I was talking to this very devout born again Christian and said something about being grateful for the separation between church and state in the USA. She said, "I don't think there should be a separation between the church and state. I think God's law should be THE law."

I was little taken aback by that.This woman was not really in the mainstream of organized religions, and I thought for sure she'd appreciate the legal protection of minority religions (and minorities in general) that the Constituion extends.

The thing is, she wanted a union of church and state if it were her religion running things.

Hmmm....let's see. What nation is notorious for uniting the church and the state?

Iran, perhaps? Egypt moving in that direction? Libya, maybe? Chad? Mali? Saudi Arabia? Yemen? Places where they cut off your hands for theft and stone you death for talking to strangers.

Here's why there's a separation between the church and the state, and why it's in the First Amendment, accompanied by Freedom of Speech:
  • When the government is also your religion.... oh dear, there's a horrendous way to start, no? Just smacks of something like marxist zeal, doesn't it? I mean, if you make it "secular."
  • When those who violate government regulations are "condemned to burn in hell forever and ever"... oh heavens, is there no way to express this in a temperate way?
  • When criticizing the government sets you up for charges of blashphemy... good grief, here we go again. Just sounds so extreme, doesn't it?

So maybe you begin to get the idea.

No accident I call this blog "The end of enlightenment." The era of Enlightenment, though it made tons of mistakes and was just bustin' with hubris, also ended 200 years of religious warfare in Europe -- and perhaps even including the Crusades, though apparently the Crusades are ongoing in some peoples' minds.

North America became something of a haven for groups of people persecuted by other groups of people -- Protestants against Catholics, Protestants against Protestants -- look it up. Once Henry VIII rejected the Holy Roman Church and established his own little religious empire, the floodgates opened for all sorts of smiting in the name of tiny variations in doctrine and/or practice, and the rampant breaking off the noses of the other guys' religious statues.

So we had Mary massacreing Protestants, and Elizabeth getting even. And Calvinists, and people for whom Calvinism was not brutal and self-loathing enough riding down on the Calvinists, and Huguenots who were pretty much slaughtered by.... somebody. And the Spanish Inquisition going after Christopher Columbus because he mentioned in his ship's log on a trip to the New World, that lights appeared in the sky arranged like a Minorah. Oh, my God, was he a closet Jew or what? Off with his heaed. And whoever it was who founded Rhode Island -- then promptly outlawed the practice of any other religion but his own. And spiders dangling over the fiery pit of Hell, and all that.

In Virginia, founded by the Crown and mostly loyal to the Crown for the most part, the planters got all pissed off about the "Parson's Pence." See, as a loyal English colony, settlements in Virginia had to have an Anglican parsonage. They paid for this with a tax on the goods (hemp, tobacco, indigo and the like) that they sent back to England. They wanted the tax to be a percentage of the value of their goods, so that if they had a bad year, the amount of the tax would go down to reflect that. But the Crown didn't like that idea. Anyway, it raised a big stink in the southern colonies, which were mostly agribusiness and not established by religious dissenters.

So when push came to shove over the Stamp Act and the tax on tea - and the repeal of the tax on tea, which actually sparked the Boston Tea Pary -- Adams and Jefferson, Madison, Hancock -- you know, all the Usual Suspects, decided -- Stuff it all. People can believe whatever they want. Like, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" and leave the rest alone.

So what does this have to do with Freedom of Speech?

Well, what do people talk about? Stuff they believe in? Policy issues? What's right and wrong?

If the government is God, can you speak against it/Him? That is, without being burned alive, stoned to death, beheaded, drawn and quartered, keel-hauled, imprisoned?

Yet I'm not condemning religion. (Yeah, LOL about the irony of that.) Religion -- or any set of principles and ethics -- provides individuals a personl foundation for making their own decisions and managing their own lives -- without the interference of government.

People need religion. And I'm quite certain the fact that America is such a religous nation, and always has been, is why it's remained relatively free for so long. Prior to Franklin Roosevelt and then Johnson's "Great Society," it was always the church or even non-demonomational religious organizations that provided charity, welfare, medical assistance for the poor, education for the poor, rescued women from brutal husbands, cared for orphans, and supported familes in poverty. So many fiery Victorian-era reformers demanding the construction of sewers, discouraging alcoholism and drug abuse. And they were rather more efficient than today's government bureaucracies -- even though it was these same reformers that launched the push to have their reforms inscribed in law.

In other wods, we didn't need no stinkin' nanny state. We had other resources. We still do. It's just that searching out and finding, and then publicizing and politicizing pockets of poverty and injustice has become a sort of state religion nowadays, as practiced by the Comrade and all his little cohorts -- Pazzo Pelosi, Brain-Dead Harry Reid, et. al.

If they can't find some downtrodden wreck in the USA to hold up as evidence of indifference and cruelty, they go hunitng overseas. And I think that's probably why they're so loathe to recognize that jihadists are a total mess and a threat to the world. the jihadists, in their view, are simply the next batch of misunderstood, discriminated against victims in a cold, mean world. I mean, this is the kind of bullshit they truly believe in. Be nice to the cutthrats and pirates, pander to their whims, send them F-16s and billions of US aid and they'll come to like and respect us.

The thing is, the jihadists have learned to "work the system." I mean apart from Saudi Arabia, who funds these guys -- the USA, through so-called "humanitarian" aid.

And I can say it's bullshit, and even prove that it is bullshit, because of The First Amendment -- free speech and the separation of church and state..

The fact that so many "progressives" -- including the Comrade -- don't like the First Amendment and often suggest it should be "corrected" or "protected" proves my point.

The fact that the Founding Fathers understood the importance of their own rhetoric... those guys were just amazing. They dug so deep, got so close to the heart of political matters, understood so well what government should and shouldn't do -- complete genius. Figured out how one tiny little rule could remake the whole world -- those guys were something else.

I miss them.

A mission for murder and destruction

Hate to say it, but I'm sick of hearing about the Boston Marathon, where two psychos, the brothers Tsarnaev, decided to blow up as many people as possible with bombs made from pressure cookers. I figured it had something to do with Islam from the start. Other people avoided making such claims, and crazy assholes like Michael Moore even suspected it was "right wingers." But the thing had the earmarks of some drunk-on-Allah crazy bastards with a bone to pick with human civilization.

I started out wondering why theTsarnaevs did this. They were from Chechnya, had been granted asylum here. The younger brother who, as it turns out, is the only survivor after an extensive manhunt to track these guys down, had scholarships for school and stuff like that. Their parents were professionals -- the family aren't like ignorant peasants or anything like that.

So, kind of curious. How do you wake up one morning and decide to start killing people? I mean, how does that become your mission in life unless you're Ted Bundy?

Apparently the older brother, who was killed while apparently trying to blow up even more Americans, was supposedly a devout muslim, and over the last few months, preached really hard at his younger brother to join him in the faith.

I'm sorry, but that "faith" is looking more and more like one of not much more than murder, death, destruction every day. I mean, does it have ANY redeeming qualities?

Well, I suppose there's the 72 virgins.

The more civilized muslims -- who anyone rarely hears from, not even a peep of shame or apology, though the world pretty much demanded the Pope apologize for pederast priests -- claim that Islam teaches peace. Apparently that's in the back of the book somewhere and most muslims don't read that far into it.

But if it does teach peace, then how come muslims keep blowing things up and killing people? In the name of Allah, mind you. I mean, if they were just run-of-the-mill mass murderers... plenty of those. But all these jihadists are shouting ally akbar or whatever as they shoot down everyone their bullets can reach (like that nutjob in the military), or like these Tsarnaev brothers, the latest wingnuts, dropping bombs next to children and smirking happily with their little secret, and no doubt praying to allah that the thing goes off and kills as many people as possible.

I just don't think the world can afford these people. They don't play well with others. And why, for Pete's sake, if they hate America so much -- why the hell do they come here? Why don't they stay in their armpit countries and bow and scrape towards Mecca in peace?

So these Tsarnaev brothers were killed/captured, but that's not enough. Now we've got to hear about whether the surviving kid is considered a common murderer or an "enemy combatant," the latter so that US security people can get information from him.

Here's the thing. I doubt this punk has any information. His big brother apparently proselytized a number of people -- including an American ex-wife who now totters around with a bag over her head, having converted to Islam. The big brother also reportedly had a Web site where he routinely published a bunch of jihadist, anit-American bullshit, like your average, every day loonie toon. I don't think the little brother knows much about anything. He just bought the image of being some kind of "freedom fighter." It redirected his life from efforts to develop himself into a human being. A lot easier than finishing school and actually working, starting a family and all that.

Yeah right, a "freedom fighter." Freedom to kill anyone who doesn't agree with you? Freedom to beat your wife and kill gay people, deny women education, and stone them if they dare speak to a man who is not their husband. Sound like "freedom" to you?

Sort of adolescent, really, isn't it? This all-consuming passion. Reminds me somehow of Judy Garland singing to a photograph of Clark Gable.Though I don't think Judy wanted to kill Clark.

I mean, these guys are like two-year-olds having a temper tantrum. If the only way your life has meaning is when you're the only human being left alive on earth, you've got some serious problems. "Control freak" hardly covers it.

So Bob Beckel, the token liberal at Fox, has suggested that the USA stop allowing muslim students into the USA. Sounds like a plan. I'd guess most of those admitted aren't really students anyway. They're just self- or otherwise-appointed murderers. I don't want them here, either. We don't have to actually import psychotic murderers. We have plenty already. I mean, I don't think that Holmes kid, with Joker fantasies, will we running around loose any time soon, either. Prisons serve a purpose, and it's not rehabilitation.

But if muslims in general refuse to be civilized, refuse to respect or even recognize the rights of other people, the world simply can't afford to have them around. They cause too much trouble -- and for no good reason. They seem to be causing enormous problems in Europe and don't respect the laws of the nations where they migrate. So perhaps the UN or someone should brick them into Iran or someplace and let them happily kill each other and leave the rest of us alone.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

"Over their dead bodies," or the Constitution dies for [somebody's] sins

We have this rather disgusting tradition in America when it comes to 2nd Amendment issues. I remember when that Brady guy was shot. Actually, it was during an assassination attempt directed at Ronald Reagan, and Brady very heroically stepped in the way. Reagan was shot anyway, but not fatally. Brady ended up with a bullet in his head and severe physical disability.

So his wife would routinely roll him out in a wheelchair and parade him around in front of the press and at rallies to advertise for gun control.

I always felt sorry for him.Thought he was something of a hero. But looking like a helpless, damaged wreck at the gun control functions. And felt doubly sorry for him, that his wife was so enthusiastlic about exploiting him in that way.

Then there was the so-called "trial" of Tim McVeigh, the guy who bombed the federal Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Not saying McVeigh was innocent, but the trial was a complete joke. Get a prosecutor in a wheelchair to awkwardly maneauver himself around the courtroom, self-righteouslessly interrogating "witnesses," most of whom turned out to be relatives of people killed in the bombing.

"Tell me, Mrs. Smith, how do you feel about your husband being blasted into jelly?" Or, "Did you have enough identified body parts left to bury or no?"

What this had to do with McVeigh's guilt or innocence, I don't know. None of those people knew a damn thing about how or why McVeigh committed the crime. They were just "misery props." "See how hurt they are? Don't you want convict somebody just to get even?"

The US mainstream news was so saturated with sympathy unadulterated by any thought and/or logic that I started reading the reports on the trial from European sources. The European press, slaves to socialism as they are, were rather appalled that the event proved to be a "kangaroo court." And they happily crowed about the shocking lack of any kind of intelligent standard in the American judicial system.

So now with this latest rash of mass shootings. Apart from hearing Michelle Malkin argue with the pro-gun control people in Colorado, I didn't really follow the anti-gun legislation that generated a bunch of new restrictions on gun owners in that state. But I'm quite sure the friends and families of survivors, and the survivors themselves, had an opportunity to talk to state legislators and explain in bloody detail all the horrors of that night at the movies, and how events have negtively and permanently altered their lives.

And now about the schoolkids shot in Newtown, Connecticut, and citizens of that town generously taking the time to volunteer to serve as misery props for the Comrade's tirades against gun ownership. Its' really kind of sad. That is to say, it's horrible -- horrible -- what happened with Adam Lanza going off and shooting the place up, killing those kids that had nothing to do with his twisted fantasy life. But I believe it's equally tragic that the parents and families of those dead would promote destroying the concept of individual rights just to be "doing something" about lunatics running loose among the population.

Nothing anyone has proposed so far would have prevented the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Nothing, except maybe Wayne LaPierre (NRA chief) suggesting the schools have armed guards.

And I think really how low, mean, cynical, and just generally vicious and unethical, for the Comrade to so cheerfully exploit those families' grief to promote his political agenda. Hey, Comrade, do you pack a tiny coffin to roll up onto the stage beside your teleprompters to gain support for gun control? Apparently his ideas aren't persuasive enough otherwise.

It would be probably more effective for the Comrade to address his staunch gun-toting supporters among the gangstah rappahs and drug dealers in the Inner Cities -- most of whom I doubt have or would even dream of taking the time for a background check or to voluntararily register their weapons. That's more the crowd to be filing off the serial numbers on their AR-15s and Glocks, no? Why doesn't he talk to them? They're much more of a problem than NRA members if you follow Chicago crime statistics. You want dead kids? Ride along with Chicago police on Saturday night.

It seems kind of stupid to me, that in the face of people being killed because they could not adequately defend themselves, to demand that no one be allowed to adequately defend himself.

Is this some kind of twisted variation on "turn the other cheek?" Like, "You killed my first grader, here's my kindergartner. We won't defend him, either."

It's based on this crazy -- can't say "logic" so let's call it "dialectic" -- that swears up and down that if you lay down your weapons, your enemies will, too. Does that work in the real world? Seems to me that if you render yourself defenseless, you only invite bullying and intimidation and worse.

So I'm just not getting the pro-gun control arguments, but then I value reasoned debate above Comrade-style cheerleading over the corpses of tiny dead bodies.

I guess I'm just not very susceptible to the notion of "collective guilt."

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Sibelius surprised the nation still rejects socialized medicine

Blockhead Sibelius -- sorry, I'm not sure what her first name is so I'm going with the descriptive -- who's in charge of grinding out tons and tons of health-related regulations that nobody will ever use, told a group at Harvard that she's "surprised" that the population, especially the individual states, are resisting socialized medicine.

What an idiot, no?

Doesn't anybody remember? Surely Sibelius doesn't. That bill only passed because so many senators were bribed -- like Senate Whore Mary Landruie from the Big Easy (figures), who happily acceptedd not $100 million, but $500 million for her vote for socialized medicine. And she was proud of it, (in fishnet stockings and a push-up bra, right?)

The Nelson moron from Nebraska, who was pressured into voting for the bill -- actually, it was rumored the White House threatened to shut down a big Air Force base in Nebraska -- only to have the Governior of Nebraska and hundreds of citizens publish lots and lots of statements disowning him, claiming they were ashamed to be associiated with him. I bet he has lots of fun when he goes back home, if he does. He's not running again, by the way. Why waste the time and money?

Then another jughead in Florida who voted "yes" because he got an exemption in the bill so that retirees in Florida could keep their Medicare Advantage -- the bill actually terminates Medicare Advantage for everyone else.

Dont' remember this? The disgraceful armtwisting and pay-offs? It just kills me when people say, "Well, it's the law now. Congress voted for it."

Congress -- and the rest of the nation -- had it shoved down their throats.

And NOT ONE REPUBLICAN voted for the bill.

So if you've conveniently forgotten all of this, maybe you do recall ol' Max Baucus on some kind of toot -- whether he was drunk or had just taken too muich Prozac is probably debatable -- whining on the Senate floor about how his eat-shit party would be stuck with the whole blame for socialized medcine, since NOT ONE REPUBLICAN voted for it.

Dontcha remember? It was a real show. Your senators at work. Whining like a bunch of half-assed, addle-brained babies.

And the population -- 57% opposed to passage of the bill.

Since the bill passed a couple years ago, public opposition to socialized medicine has hovered between 53% and 57% ever since. And it's trending up.

So to head-up-her-ass Pazzo Pelosi, who blithely commented, "We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it!" like she was entertaining her usual constituency of pot-smoking tree-huggers... Well, you stupid, crazy fool -- we're finding out what's in it and it reeking more and more every day. Stinking up the whole damn country. Quite effective in that way.

And Blockhead Sibelius is "surprised?"

Where the hell ya been, Blockhead? Maybe if you stepped your sorry ass outside the Beltway every now and then and acquainted yourself with the citizenry, you could save yourself the spike in your blood pressure.

She's "surpirsed," She's also quite obviously stupid. But then we could probably assume that. I mean, look who she works for.

She said she thought after the Supreme Coirt ruling, the US population would just lay back and enjoy it.

But we don't typically make very good rape victims, Blockhead.

And here's a suggestion for you -- shred that bill into confetti and use it to fill your empty head. That's probably the best use for it.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Obamacare going down

Very interesting news today. Apparently the federal government has decided that the medical insurance exchanges for small business (or something) for Obamacare won't be ready on time, so they've delayed implementation of Obamacare for another year. Pushing it back to 2015 -- after the next mid-term elections. And I hardly think that's a coincidence.

I wrote "the insurance exchanges for small business (or something)" might not be ready because I'm not exactly sure if that's what's holding everything up. It may be that the feds don't quite understand what's holding everything up. Businesses can't get any straight answers from the feds about what they're supposed to do, and there are still at least a dozen states that have refused to set up the insurance exchanges. They're free to refuse, in which case, the feds say they will do it.

Additionally, the US Senate -- at least -- has voted to repeal the tax on medical devices that is part of the bill. No less a jughead than Senator Al Franken, clown prince... or rather senator from Minnesota, actually stood up in the Senate and recited a litany of reasons that the tax would pretty much destroy any innovation in medical devices (evertything from rubber gloves to prosthetic limbs), and how the tax penalizes the successful firms in the industry.

I -- and thousands of other people in the USA, the reasonably intelligent among us -- could have told Franken that, and probably did, before he voted for the damn bill. So perhaps spending a few years in the US Senate and actually confronting the issues head-on has ground away some of his sharper socialist edges. Who knows. Quite possibly he's simply not as blankly ignorant as he was four years ago, but I'm sure he makes up for his revelaton about medical taxes with stubborn blockheadedness in other areas.

Also, I think it was Senator Mitch McConnell who issued a photo of a stack of standard typing paper about 10 feet tall -- maybe even taller -- the 20,000+ regulations that Obamacare has spawned so far.

Have to laugh,. It's just impossible. No one will be able to track or monitor any of this.

Many of the regulations that have been publicly discussed -- and not many have been -- seem to contradict oithers.

Doctors don't know what to do, and a recent survey done by Pew Research, if I recall correctly, noted that 60% of doctors now in practice plan to retire or otherwise leave their practices over the next three years. Not enough medical students are coming up to replace them.

Insurance premiums have been steadily rising. At least one government agency reports that insurance premiums will increase anywhere from 20% to 100% when Obamacare is implemented. Insurance couild run $20,000.00 per year for a family of four.

A big issue is that with Obamacare requiring that small businesses with more than 50 full-time employees will be compelled to buy the cadillace Obamacar health care packages or pay a penalty. No one's hiring because of that, and many companies are contemplating reducing workers' hours to less than 30 per week. And most would prefer to pay the penalty for NOT providing insurance than to pay for the insurance. They're not being mean or stingy, just trying to survive.

And because of the above, the latest estimates indicate that about 70 million people who are now insured will lose their insurance when Obamacare goes into effect.

And wasn't Obamacare supposed to solve the problem of soemthing like 30 million uninsured?

Hate to dance a jig while singing, "Ha ha, told you so!" But, you know, "Ha ha! Told you so."

Considerable hopes that this killer legislation will see repeal or piecemeal demise before it ever goes into effect. It's a crock of shit, pie-in-the-sky nightmare scheme and it's not surprising that it's not even remotely workable.

Ha Ha! Told you so!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Socialism failing in Cyprus... and everywhere else

In case you don't pay attention to these things, in Cyprus, a small island nation that Turkey and Greece have been fond of fighting over for centuries... Cyprus is bankrupt and for the last couple weeks, the Cypriot government has been debating simply stealing citizens' money from the banks to pay off government debts.

Apparently Cyprus banks are to Russians what the Cayman Island banks have been to Americans -- that is, foreigners, and particularly Russians, park their funds there. So Cyprus is bankrupt and now has plans to simply take 40% of the funds from accounts totaling over $135,000.00, and a smaller percentage from smaller accounts (I think. That might have changed.)

So the government just goes and sucks out all the money from the banks to pay its debts? Money from private accounts held by private citizens?

In 2008, Argentina went bankrupt and seized all the money people had in their private retirement accounts to pay its debts. And truthfully, the US government has raided Social Security. In effect, it's no longer a separate account held in trust for retirees. What is in the Social Security trust fund ia bunch of IOUs from the USA's "general fund.":

So, I guess this all answers the question: "Hey, you blockheads in government -- do you think it's YOUR money?"

And -- in case you haven't heard this one -- some silly twit academic in the USA is suggesting that the US government seize a percentage of the money US citizens have in their 401(K) retirement accounts. That's here. In the USA. Think about that for a minute..... Money you worked for. Money you saved. Money withheld from yor paychecks, maybe matched to some extent by your employer.

Gone to pay for studies of duck genitalia, shrimp on treadmills, and some silly crap about Chinese prostitutes. (The last probably the result of government types figuring the odds on their getting some incurable disease while on a federally-funded junket.)

To pay for some fat-ass government union member to sit in beach in Florida.like a dead, bloated  a manatee washed up on the sand? I mean, Let's face it, if the Comrade has his way, no one but union workers are ever going to be able to retire. Because all the rest of us are bailing out those useless assholes so that they can donate their union dues to the democrat party.

All your work. All your planning. All your future... gone. Becasue the stupid shits in Washington don't have even have half a brain to divide up amongst them. And even less courage.

It's worth repeating again, and again, and again -- government doesn't produce one damn thing. They do not make any money. All the money the government has IT TAKES FROM US.

So go ahead, vote for a few more pie-in-the-sky socialsts. See how that works out for you.

"The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples' money." -- Margaret Thatcher, who had to do a big fix on that to get England to continue stumbling along economically, and only to fall right back into the same hole, so it seems.

The banks in Cyprus have been closed for two weeks. They're supposed to open tomorrow, and the government has limited withdrawl amounts to $3,900.00 per account. They "suspect" there may be a run on the banks. Duh.... Maybe they're finally getting something right.

That hole in your mattress starts looking better and better, doesn't it?




Monday, March 18, 2013

The "Appalling Race," not my favorite show anymore

I used to love the TV show, "The Amazing Race." It's the only reality show I could even tolerate. Every series starts out with about a dozen couples -- spouses, brothers, sisters, friends, parents-kids, whatever -- who have to chase clues to get around the world. In order to get their clues, they perform various tasks, like eating weird food, jumping out of airplanes, bungi jumping, constructing replica offerings to the gods of various cultures, etc. Every show, they end up at some checkpoint, and the last pair to arrive is eliminated from the race. At the end, there's usually only three couples left, and whoever finishes first wins $1 million.

I loved the show because it goes to so many different countries and cultures, and through the tasks, the contestants usually have to participate in some way in that country's culture and traditions. Very cool, I thought. But there's occasionally little incidents. I remember one episode where a cabbie in Morocco drove one pair of racers to what proved to be an enthusiastically jihadist village and left them there. Apparently the show's producers had to hassle with the embassies to ensure the racers' safety and get them back in the race.

Anyway, tonight the racers went to Hanoi, Vietnam. The show has sent people there in earlier series. No big deal. Except....

The task they had to do there was to watch a little live show of singing and dancing, memorize a couple lines from the show, and go into an adjoining room and find a poster -- one of dozens -- that displayed the words from the song.

Well, the racers only heard the songs in Vietnamese, but a translation ran at the bottom of the screen. One of the lines went, "Praise to the glorious communist party!"

What? she asks to an indiffierent TV set. Another entertainment, The Manchurian Candidate, came immediately to mind. Also visions of US POWs in various places being filmed as they mouth kind words and swear loyalty to a varied range of vicious dictatorships -- their other alternative being torture and death. And, of course, Hanoi Jane Fonda playing house on an anti-aircraft cannon. Among other things.

I turned the channel at that point. Went to the show's Facebook page and like dozens of other viewers, left a message about how disturbing this episode was. And the others had watched the whole show. Stronger stomachs than mine.

I learned from them that after the racers got hold of the correct poster, they were sent to a crashed B52 that had been shot down during the war to retrieve the next clue. The shattered plane is apparently a memorial of some kind. (I doubt it commemorates the same thing to the Vietnamese as it does to me, however.)

And the at the end of the show, it seems the producers decided to replay the "I love communism" song over the ending credits. Nice touch, nicely adding injury to insult.

I'm really appalled. Some people at the Facebook page talk about how the show is intended for us all to experience other cultures, and after all, the USA "invaded" Vietnam and the Vietnamese have every right to hate us.

I suggest that people who want to "experience" Hanoi should consult Senator John McCain about his very extended stay there. And, gosh, he even arrived via a crashed USAF aircraft!

The show is produced by Bruckhimer Films, heavily sponsored by Travelocity.

I'm never going to watch it again.