Category → Government Of the People…
State of the Union speech: “I’m moderate!”
Obama’s State of the Union speech was meant to make him sound and appear moderate. Despite my enormous differences with Obama, I found a couple things I liked last night.
The best part was listening to him try to market his disastrous presidency to a skeptical nation.
Mr. President, you have a problem: You’re going to lose your election this November.
UPDATED: TSA Standoff = Control Over Liberty
As I write this, US senator Rand Paul is in a standoff with TSA agents in Nashville Airport.
Passing through a scanner set it off for some odd reason, probably a belt buckle or a pen, as has been my own experience, and when he sought to pass through the same scanner again, the TSA agents denied him that option and demanded that he subject himself to a full pat-down.
Correctly , Senator Paul declined to submit his free American body to such an enormous and unnecessary invasion of his personal liberty by the government, and he is now reportedly standing in the gate area, waiting to either pass through the scanner again or be granted access to his plane
TSA agents will not allow him to do either.
The situation is developing by the minute, but irrespective of how it turns out, this is one more example of how badly awry the TSA experiment has gone, and how necessary it is for the TSA to be dissolved and replaced by some pre-existing agency or government body. TSA’s culture is a a disaster.
Americans are a free people, and we deserve government employees who put personal liberty ahead of marginal gains in security, who put individual liberty ahead of personal power plays. Will Rand Paul become the Rosa Parks of the TSA?
UPDATE: Senator Rand Paul’s father, Texas Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul issued an on-the-money statement about how America is becoming, or has become, a police state, and that the TSA must be abolished. Additionally, many have pointed out that Article I, Section 6 of the US Constitution says “The Senators and Representatives…shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same….” In other words, TSA’s blocking of Senator Paul from reaching scheduled votes in Washington, DC, directly violates the US Constitution.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/constitution-united-states-america
What OBAMA really stands for
Here’s what O.B.A.M.A. really stands for:
Officiating By Appeasement Means Anihilation
Ostracizing Bibi Arabized Mediterranean Area
Overreaching Bureaucrats Abolish Middle Americans
Operationally Based Abdication Motivates Archenemies
Overregulating Business Always Mitigates Ambition
Operating Budget Allowances Misrepresent Assets
Overturning Barry Accomodates More Affluence
Party Endorsements Damage Freedom
Party endorsements are common practice in Pennsylvania. A vestige of the bad old days of smoke filled back rooms, where party bosses selected candidates to receive party support and favors, endorsements have come under fire in recent years.
The most compelling reason is that voters feel disenfranchised. Another reason is that endorsement processes appear to favor weak, moderate, wishy-washy candidates who do not stand on their own merits or strong personal character, but rather people who will do and say what they are told.
Feeling fed up with milquetoast candidates who seem to stand for nothing but being everything to everyone, increasing numbers of Republican voters are rejecting the party endorsement process.
Pennsylvania is one of the last states to do endorsements, and the effort to end it is from the ground-up, led by grass roots candidates as well as former elected officials now on the outside of the party. Rick Santorum and Sam Rohrer are two examples. Santorum is running for president, and Rohrer for US senate.
Governor Tom Corbett recently endorsed Steve Welch for the US senate nomination, but it may boomerang. Welch was recently a registered Democrat who apparently voted for Barack Hussein Obama. I met Welch, and he publicly denied voting for Obama, but like others in the room at the time, his disavowal seemed untrue to me and was met with great skepticism by the conservative activists in the room.
It’s likely that Welch will come under fire for this as well as his unclear positions on important policy positions. He does come across as a heck of a nice guy. But more and more conservatives want gritty leaders who will stick to their guns, and they reject endorsements that promote candidates like Welch.
My own wish is that the Republican Party not make any endorsements.
US Marine Snipers…Where’s the Beef?
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined US president Barack Hussein Obama in excoriating US Marine Corps snipers who appear to be faking urinating on dead Taliban terrorists on the field of battle.
Watching the clip, which was shot as though it were under cover, you can see that the Marines have their privates covered, an unusual circumstance in the field. They knew they were being filmed. Each one is going through the motions of urinating on the dead men, but none of them appear to be actually peeing. Nobody’s beef is showing, and no correlating wetness is seen on the dead terrorists. I didn’t see any streams, either.
The terrorists are wet, true, but it’s from their own blood, a situation that often arises when you fight with the US Marine Corps.
Sure, the symbolism of the faked act is brutal, but then again, the dead guys were trying to turn the Marines into dead guys, and they lost, Thank God. The whole situation is utterly brutal.
The symbolism of appearing to pee on your dead enemy may violate some code of wartime ethics written by a four-eyed nerd sitting at a desk somewhere far away from a battlefield, and that’s too bad. OK, mild verbal reprimands are due for that. Bad Marines. Don’t pretend to pee on dead enemies again, OK?
What’s odd about our own leaders’ criticism is that they didn’t mitigate their own brutal statements with something like “Our men are brave and constantly challenged by savages who use women and children as human shields, so while we regret their lapse of judgment, we also understand that they are in extreme life-or-death situations that none of us can imagine.”
Or they might mention the savage acts regularly perpetrated by the Taliban on everyone around them, where getting peed on would be welcome abuse compared to what could be next.
But no, Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton did not offer any understanding of why or how our men, engaged in hand to hand fighting and subject to death at any second, might demonstrate their disdain for proven cowards like the Taliban.
The cowards here are Obama and Clinton, known anti-military activists who blame America for everything wrong on the planet. Sure, America has an interest in maintaining some semblance of a steady relationship with the government of Afghanistan, but given Afghanistan’s corruption and official day to day brutality, our troops deserved a spirited defense from their leaders, not immediate condemnation.
That’s my beef: With Obama and Clinton, terrible leaders.
Solyndra Scandal, Newsweek Magazine, and Mainstream Media Failure
Last week, Newsweek Magazine endorsed Barack Hussein Obama.
With the cover pronouncing Obama’s detractors as “dumb,” the magazine ignored the many questions and criticisms of Obama that Americans have, not the least of which is the Solyndra scandal.
Using a billion dollars of taxpayer money to enrich Obama campaign donors, the Obama Administration funded Solyndra with your tax money, knowing full well it was a no-go. Now, Solyndra executives are handing out bonuses , even as the company slips into oblivion. God forbid that they return to the American taxpayer whatever money they have left…and if neither the Obama Administration nor the mainstream media news outlets, like Newsweek, can criticize it nor find fault, then we have the greatest evidence of media complicity in American history.
Mainstream media complicity in covering up scandals in the Clinton and Obama administrations is well documented, and now we’ve got yet one more example today. Newsweek Magazine has no shame, and no pretense at being journalistic. Instead, Newsweek Magazine is completely dedicated to the promotion of one political party and one side of the political continuum.
We all have a shared dream
One of America’s greatest speeches, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” on the Washington mall, still inspires Americans.
The question is, who does it inspire?
In my opinion, the vast majority of Caucasian Americans are the audience today most inspired by King’s speech. They have fully accepted upon themselves not only words of King’s speech, but its spirit. It was that great majority that elected Barack Hussein Obama. Inspired by the opportunity to elect an American of color and prove wrong those who claim America is a racist place, Americans voted in Obama. The same Obama who, as Candidate Obama said he would change the dialogue on race, and who, as Candidate Obama, challenged long-held victimization identity in the black community, but who as President Obama has allowed the black community to languish in its self-inflicted pain, whose Justice Department advances anti-white racism by black racists in the name of defeating “racism.”
Mostly to its benefit, America is awash in black culture. White kids want black clothing, black music, black humor, black life partners, black sports players, black heroes, and black friends.
Americans elected a black president. America’s most conservative whites tried to elect another black president, candidate Herman Cain, who remained my top pick even after he stopped his campaign. Alan Keyes and Allen West remain political heroes to the most conservative of whites, who themselves are wrongly labeled as racists by black racists.
Racism is not a white problem today, it is a black problem, a result of an unwillingness by most blacks to accept that blacks have been accepted by the vast, overwhelming number of whites in America. By an almost universal unwillingness to either break out of ghettos and inner cities or reclaim them, to remain largely inactive where all institutions have failed, even the legendary black churches.
And I know this to be true, because I inhabit a largely white world, where the number of racist comments or experiences I witness can be counted on one hand year after year, after year, and because I inhabit a largely black city, where the problems of fragmented black family and community are played out daily on our streets to the point where I have long since lost count.
Black Americans, my fellow equal citizens, I say to you as a white American that you are as precious to me and to the vast majority of other “whites” in our great nation as are any other group of American citizens, and perhaps more so due to your longer presence here and greater sacrifices on our behalf. Skin color is irrelevant to 99.8% of white Americans. Culture, shared values, and the good content of character are relevant to 99.8% of white Americans.
American culture is the great equalizer, accepting all and any to its ranks, with the simple expectation that each citizen both appreciate and promote the America of its founding. The greatness of constitutional America is that it is designed to change, to improve, and having heard MLK’s call, arisen, and changed, it remains the greatest nation in the history of the planet. It is a place to be proud of.
Today, we are especially proud of one of our great American leaders, MLK. We all share the dream that his message will reach not only the intended white audience of 1963, but the black audience of 2012.
UPDATED: Tea Vs. Establishment Battle comes to Dauphin County
Aside from the epic power struggle over Lebanon County’s Republican Committee, and a smaller but equally strenuous 2010 battle in York County between 912 Patriots and entrenched Republicans, which ended in the summer of 2011 in favor of the Tea Party insurgents, Central Pennsylvania, and Dauphin County specifically, has not seen such a contest.
Until now.
Now, that open competition has fully arrived, and it may become open warfare. Oh sure, there have been some past skirmishes. The first skirmish involved former Dauphin County commissioner Lowman Henry being dumped in 2002 by the party in favor of a candidate the inner circle liked more; that planted a seed of factionalism.
Two years ago those rumblings erupted forcefully during the PA-17th Congressional District Republican Primary race, when traditionalists advocated party endorsements and the outsiders wanted an open primary, in the American spirit of “May the best person win.” That is, may the highest merit be rewarded with the highest accolades and well-earned support. No more skulduggery to edge out unwanted candidates and strong leaders by insiders whose interest is perceived by some to be retaining power and control.
In 2010, the outsiders prevailed in one way, with only one GOP Dauphin County group doing an endorsement (the Susquehanna Township GOP Committee). The other challenge came from a committee member, Alan, who unsuccessfully challenged party chairman John McNally for that chairmanship. Challenges are uncommon, and it was a second seed planted next to the Lowman Henry tree, or maybe it was fruit from that tree.
Soon after in 2010, those outsiders became identified with and then known as “Tea Party” activists. Their view was that they were merely seeking to return America’s conservative movement and Republican party to essential American traditions and principles. The way they were viewed by the established, inner-circle GOPers was with disquiet.
When the open insurrections began, no one thought they were more than disagreements between liberal and conservative Republicans.
Now, an open power struggle has erupted for the heart and soul of the Dauphin County Republican Party.
On the one hand are more conservative Republicans, feeling shunted aside and unappreciated, despite their significant sacrifices and hard work for the party. Some others had declared their interest in or intentions to run for certain seats, only to then find themselves carefully dissected from those seats in the new redistricting. Their own party did that dissecting.
Dauphin County GOP Chairman John McNally has declared his candidacy for the newly created and open state senate seat carved out of retiring senator Jeff Piccola’s district. York County businessman Steve Johnson has indicated his interest in the same senate seat. Johnson ran for lieutenant governor in 2010 among a slate of eight candidates.
UPDATE: Bill Seeds, a long time supervisor of Lower Paxton Township, is declaring his intention to run for the same senate seat, as is the York County Clerk of Courts. Each group is using the tried and useful divide-and-conquer method, as they cultivate new candidates from the opposing candidate’s county.
McNally has temporarily handed his chairmanship to Dauphin County commissioner Jeff Haste, with the expectation that McNally will re-occupy it if he loses to Johnson. However, long-time GOP activist and congressional candidate Toni Gilhooley has stated that she will seek the Dauphin County GOP chairmanship.
State representative Sue Helm is now challenged by a 26-year-old attorney, Jenna Lewis, who is endorsed by the GOP establishment, including much-liked Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico and her own father, Judge Lewis.
Susquehanna Township is a changing political landscape, where Helm, a well-known businesswoman, barely held onto her seat two years ago against Democrat activist Gene Stilp, of The Pink Pig fame.
Conservatives unhappy with Helms’ past performance now find themselves having to choose between Helm or the very young, inexperienced, and untested Lewis. Given that Lewis has the establishment wagons circling around her, the outsiders are quietly rallying to Helm.
What intrigues me is how the Tea Party began in Lebanon and Berks counties, when then-senator Arlen Spector spoke a lot of hogwash to fed-up American Joes. The Tea Party spread to Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Massachussettes, where Republicans swarmed rickety barricades manned by corpulent, unprepared Democrats.
Now what? With the Lebanon County Republican Party firmly in the hands of the pluralistic Tea Party, will Dauphin County go the same way? And if it does, will Perry County and Centre County follow suit?
Centre County is, after all, the home turf of state senator Jake Corman, known to many as the “Silver Spoon Senator” for having casually inherited his father’s former senate seat. Corman voted for the legislative pay raise and remains one of the very few elected officials upon whom rural Pennsylvania taxpayers have not yet sought revenge.
Like Perry County, Centre County is a deeply conservative region ripe for the same frustration and political dynamic that changed Lebanon County and has now landed squarely in Dauphin County.
Corman’s presence could be the spark that lights those other Tea Party fires.
Stay tuned.
Santorum Nails Ron Paul to the Masthead
Last night, presidential candidate Rick Santorum said the words that so many of us have long tried to find to describe why candidate Ron Paul scares us, rather than inspires us.
While Ron Paul’s domestic policies are mostly laudable and long needed, his foreign policy positions are literally insane. Crazy. Destructive and dangerous.
As Santorum pointed out, Ron Paul has had a lifetime of political activity where he has largely failed to advance his positions, whether through leadership or coalition building.
Were Ron Paul to be elected president, he would likely continue to be thwarted in those areas where he has little control, the domestic policy arena, but complete control over the military and Department of State. And that is where his views are most dangerous.
Were Ron Paul Commander In Chief, he would likely pull back American military assets from hard-won, long-time outposts across the world that guard America’s back. To Ron Paul, such bases, fleets, forces, and wings are evidence of America’s perfidy and overcommitted strength.
However, were America to do as Ron Paul desires, and dramatically reduce its overseas presence, an enormous vacuum would result, soon to be filled by America’s worst enemies.
Ron Paul is a scary man, and not qualified to be our leader. Thanks to Rick Santorum, we now know the words to describe exactly why.