This Thomas Friedman quote is too weird not to share

Thank you to the Media Research Center for "honoring" this quote:

The Audacity of Dopes Award for the Wackiest Analysis of the Year [First runner-up]
“Until we fully understand what turned two brothers who allegedly perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings into murderers, it is hard to make any policy recommendation other than this: We need to redouble our efforts to make America stronger and healthier so it remains a vibrant counterexample to whatever bigoted ideology may have gripped these young men....And the best place to start is with a carbon tax.”

— New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, April 21.

End of the Year Opinion Clearance:George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin

Here's my clearance give-away of items I haven't written yet:

Much has been made of a few brushes with the law that George Zimmerman has had after being cleared of both murder and manslaughter charges in the death-by-misadventure of teenage apprentice thug Trayvon Martin.  Has it occurred to anyone that perhaps it puts a man on edge long-term to be slandered and vilified by ignorant members of the media and self-seeking troublemakers in and out of government?  That it might make a man sore when he is falsely accused of racism in direct contradiction of the actions of his entire adult life (I've been there myself)?  Perhaps having your life threatened for months on end makes one a little jittery?  Maybe having your loved ones threatened makes you a bit cross?  Is it possible that an innocent man trying to do his neighborly duty might be irritated at being saddled with mountainous legal bills incurred while defending himself against absurd charges fomented by racists in the federal government?  (I'm talking to YOU, Eric Holder, and your slander brigade.)  It is worth noting that all of the charges that have been alleged against Zimmerman post-acquittal have been dropped.

Meanwhile the debate over Zimmerman/Martin rages on via Twitter, if you can call it a debate when the Zimmerman side has all of the facts, logic, law, and eyewitness testimony on its side, and the Martin side merely has the stuff (I suppressed a stronger word) in the previous paragraph.



I wouldn't be the Hermit Crab if I didn't mention this:  Has it occurred to anyone besides me that the reason that George Zimmerman thought Trayvon Martin looked like he might have been checking out houses that looked easy to break into was because he was looking for houses in that neighborhood that looked easy to break into?  If you think that's not possible, then you are ignorant of Trayvon Martin's past actions.

The EPA and Republican Sabotage

I've been calling for years for the EPA to be abolished and its functions moved under the umbrella of the Department of the Interior, because whenever you define the scope of a department or agency too narrowly, it winds up staffed entirely by fanatics.  If you'd like to know what I mean, read Alan Caruba.

I'm amused by the Democrats who claim the Republicans are sabotaging the EACA (Eliminating Affordable Care Act).  Wouldn't sabotaging this brutal, unworkable law be like a German U-boat torpedoing the Titanic -- AFTER it hit the iceberg?

Zero Tolerance for Zero Tolerance Nitwits

Are you as tired of children getting suspended and threatened with expulsion from school for harmless conduct like pointing their fingers and going "Bang", drawing pictures of guns, and even biting pop-tarts into shapes vaguely resembling guns (http://bit.ly/1aZYtfi)?  Does reading about 6 year olds being charged with sexual harrassment for kissing a classmates hand or hugging the lunch lady make you nauseated?  Me,too, and here's what I think we should do to start changing some minds and some policies.

I suggest that we start ridiculing the ridiculous.  The idiots who install these dam-phool policies and then implement and even try to defend them need to be mocked -- publicly, constantly, and everywhere they go.  It shouldn't be difficult to find pictures of these self-important numbskulls -- the Internet is a great source, and so are school websites, yearbooks, local news media, etc.  Put up signs all over town -- with photos and descriptions of what these imbeciles did to the innocent children in their "care".

No addresses or phone numbers -- that's not the goal here.  What we do want is for these twits to be mocked and laughed at for what they're doing to the schoolchildren.  Point at them.  Proclaim loudly what they do to innocent kids because they themselves don't understand or have forgotten what it is like to be a child with open emotions and an active, healthy imagination.  Laugh at them.  Laugh long and loud.  It's what they deserve.

They're bubbleheads with inflated self-importance problems.  It's a public service to burst the bubbles.

Are Conservatives never to learn to unite?

In 2008 John McCain won in the Presidential primaries because the moderates in the GOP united behind him, while the conservatives splintered their support between several candidates.

In 2012, Mitt Romney took on irresistable momentum in the primaries because he fought hard for the nomination, had the support of nearly all of the moderates (once Huntsman realized that his candidacy was a joke), and his conservative opposition was splintered the same way McCain's had been in 2008.

Now I read this from Jim Geraghty of NRO's Morning Jolt (edited only for foorm, not content):

"It's going to be nearly impossible to knock out Lindsey Graham in South Carolina as long as he's taking on three conservative challengers (Lee Bright, Richard Cash, and Nancy Mace) instead of one.

Are we trying to take the Republican's old "Stupid Party" mantle upon our own shoulders?

I'm tired of watching the conservatives in this country being out-thought as well as out-fought.

Some questions I'd like to ask Secretary Sebelius

My wife and I cannot have children for health reasons (and because of our ages).  Why should we be forced to pay extra in our insurance for maternity coverage?

My wife is entirely satisfied to be a woman.  I'm glad she is, too.  I am rather fond of being a man.  My wife endorses this opinion quite happily.  Why should we be mandated to pay extra in our health insurance premiums for elective sex change surgery?

The EACA (Eliminating Affordable Care Act) has always been opposed by the majority of the American people.  This country was founded as a representative republic.  When did it stop being "government ... by the people"?

The American Liberal -- Thanksgiving dinner with a side of socialized medicine

I was reminded of the peculiarities of the modern American liberal when I read that the Obamabots were being programmed to take advantage of Thanksgiving gatherings to preach of the wonders of ObamaDon'tCare to their (presumably nauseated) family members.  Was this offensive and seemingly absurd?  Of course it was.  Was it probably counterproductive?  That one is harder to answer, and can remind us pf the kind of fanatics we are dealing with.

I didn't read the instructions given to the O-zombies, but I'm sure it was presumed that they would know enough to preach to the resistant -- those who weren't already attempting to sign their lives away (perhaps literally in many cases).  They might actually be able to convince some they spoke to, particularly if their traditional Thanksgiving celebration includes Wild Turkey.  They most likely would not lose any supporters, since they wouldn't be the ones being "pitched".  We see an exhortation to exasperating behaviour at a family dinner (which stopped being sacred in most families years ago).  They see a long shot with nothing to lose.  that's because they see life entirely differently than we do.

To us, politics is part of our life, along with our families, our careers,  our friends, our pastimes, etc.  To them politics is life -- the air they breath, their very reason for being.

Are they fanatics?  Yes -- but sane people have a long record of losing to fanatics.

From Corey James -- a Truly Historic Presidency

I don't actually know who Corey James is, but I never use other people's writings without attribution, and besides, this is a great list of appalling firsts that Prez B.O. has rung up.

 

Corey James wrote "Quit trashing Obama's accomplishments. He has done more than any other President before him. He has an impressive list of accomplishments:

First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

First President to have a social security number belonging to another man, from a state he has never lived in.

First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

First President to violate the War Powers Act.

First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.

First President to spend a trillion dollars on "shovel-ready" jobs when there was no such thing as "shovel-ready" jobs.

First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.

First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S. including those with criminal convictions.

First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.

First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.

First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation.

First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.

First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.

First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).

First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).

First President to fire an inspector general of AmeriCorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.

First President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists.

First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office.

First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.

First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

First President to go on multiple "global apology tours" and concurrent "insult our friends" tours.

First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayers.

First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.

First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.

First President to fly in a personal trainer from Chicago at least once a week at taxpayer expense.

 First President to repeat the Holy Quran & tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they "volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences." Then he was the First President to tell the members of the military that THEY were UNPATRIOTIC for balking at the last suggestion.

First President to side with a foreign nation over one of the American 50 states (Mexico vs. Arizona).

 

 

I simply MUST find out who Corey James is!

Lessons for the Tea Party I Labels, Research, and the NY26 Special Election

At least publicly, all factions in the Republican Party claims to revere President Ronald Reagan.  Very heart-warming, but rather inaccurate, at least if you define "reverance" as emulating his leadership techniques and strategies.  This is rather galling in the case of the Tea Party, which claims to be the intellectual heirs of the great RR, one of the two great Republican Presidents of history.  (The pachyderm party has given us several very good Presidents, as well.)  In many ways President Reagan would be appalled at the political ineptitude and arrogance of many in the Tea Party movement.

Being a surviving Young Reaganite (my first presidential vote was for RR, which is a happy reflection), I would like to point out a few instances when our Ron up in Heaven watched we capering clowns here below and shook his head deploringly.

(Before I continue, I wish to note that I will be mentioning Jim Quinn and Rose Tennant frequently in this post.  I do not do this because I consider them exceptionally "bad" - I do not - but because they are rather representative of TP opinions and actions, and because I listened to them on our outstanding regional talk show channel, WYSL in Avon NY before they were fired by clear Channel in what appears to be a naked act of partisan retaliation by the new EVP for Clear Channels political involvement, who happens to be former Senator and Democratic leader Tom Daschle's son.  I hope they find another gig soon.  I often disagree with them, but they host a popular show and deserve to be allowed to pursue their careers with being axed by a commissar.)

For all of their patriotism and enthusiasm, I have noted that TPers of all ages seem to share some less than desirable traits.  Since many of them are products of our public school system, many do very slipshod research.  They trust "heros" of the movement  like Ron Paul and Andrew Napolitano far more than they deserve to be trusted.  Do your own research, TPers.  Check sources based on original documents.

Many libertarians claim that several states reserved the right to secede from the Union when they ratified the Constitution.  Many other libertarians parroted these statements, and spread them far and wide.  It took the efforts of Claremont Institute Fellow Thomas Krannawitter to blow this theory out of the water.  By the simple process of actually reading the records of the various ratification conventions and the ratification declarations they produced, Krannawitter discover that in fact not one of the states had reserved the so-called "right".  (His book Vindicating Lincoln is reviewed here.)

I could pursue this further, but that's another essay for another time.  I'm concerned with errors the TP is making in the present.  After looking like an irresistible wave in 2010, many of their more recent efforts have broken up into a foam of recriminations against others an a total inability to detect, let alone correct their own mistakes.

 An ugly premonition of what was to come came early in 2011 when my own idiot New York State Republican congressman, Chris Lee, decided that being a Congressman made him attractive to women (after all, there had been the pudgy Mr. Magoo with a Jimmy Swaggart wig, Bill Clinton), and ignited a scandal that blew him right out of Congress.  Having learned their lesson from the DeeDee Scozzafava fiasco, the Republican Committee Chairmen chose Jane Corwin to run for the suddenly vacant seat in a traditionally Republican district.  The Democrats chose as their candidate a lockstep liberal from the Buffalo area, Kathy Hochul.  The choice should have been clear, since Jane Corwin had compiled the second most conservative voting record in either the State Senate or the Assembly.

At this point, however, a complication arose.  Jack Davis, another radical Democrat who had run for this same seat previously, decided to make another run as a third party candidate.  this should have split Hochul's vote, but Davis took advantage of a peculiarity in New York election law which allows a party which gathers enough petition signatures to obtain a line on the ballot to name that line anything they want, as long as the name is not being used.

Davis called his line on the ballot the Tea Party.

Here the real Tea Partiers fell into a trap.  Enough of them were not alert enough to look beyond the Tea Party name and look at the candidate behind it that they voted for Jack Davis (with whom they disagree on EVERYTHING) instead of Jane Corwin to enable Hochul to win the race.  this was despite the fact that the national Tea Party leaders hurried to Rochester when they realized what was happening.  They called a press conference to expose the fraud, which of course the local media studiously ignored.  Even so, Jack Davis had enough of a record that any conservative/Tea Partier should have been able to discover his real character with a minimum of digging.  Sadly, too many TPers did none.

After the election, TPers started calling locally-carried political talks shows to alibi for their laziness and their ignorance of Jack Davis. They claimed that Jane Corwin was another DeeDee Scozzafava, a liberal Republican unworthy of their support.  This was quite simply false.  They also berated the Republican chairmen for choosing a candidate instead of holding a primary.  Ignorance again, this time of the law - New York law does not allow a primary for a special election.

The Democrats learned the lesson of NY26 and the value of running a spoiler candidate under a false flag to split their opponents vote, and they demonstrated this in Virginia's recent governor's race.  The TPers and their cousins the Libertarians simultaneously demonstrated they have still not learned their lessons, either from NY26 or from last year's presidential electian, to which I will turn next.

 Next up: Mitt Romney, Gary Johnson, and What's in a Name?

The Crab signs on as Advisor to Israel -- First Entry

If I were an advisor to the Israelis, I would advise them to institute the death penalty for terrorism.  As it stands now, every terrorist imprisoned becomes an invitation for Arab terrorist hostage-taking and kidnapping.  What's worse, the Israelis lose these exchanges because they value the lives of their people more than the Arabs do theirs.  Thus they always give up more terrorists that they get back soldiers and civilians.  This is a long-term, slow-motion national suicide attempt.

My idea is that for every person killed or captured by the terrorists, one Arab terrorist should be executed.  This is in addition to the efforts to find and wipe out the kidnappers.  If you start winning the body-count war against violent terrorists, I'll bet they'll figure out that they are no longer playing a game with the cards stacked in their favor.

As for international opinion, of course they will vilify you.  They're doing that already, so what's to lose?  And for God's sake don't tell Obama; he'll warn his terrorist brothers.

Short subjects from the last living Reaganite (Me)

New York City has long been a baffling collection of boroughs.  During the "secession winter" of 1860-1, when the Civil War loomed, NYC Mayor Fernando Wood proposed that New York City detach itself and become its own republic.  This lead then-President Elect Abraham Lincoln to remark dryly that he had never before heard of the front porch proposing to set up in business for itself.

Things aren't a lot brighter now.  After having years of good governance under Rudy Giuliani, and then years of nannyish but tough-on-crime governance under Michael Bloomberg, the "greatest city in the world" has elected a thorough communist, Bill DeBlasio, to be its mayor.  DeBlasio is already declaring that the New York City Police, the greatest success story in the NYC revival, will have their policy weapons dashed from their hands, and that things will go back to the bad old days of the buffoonish David Dinkins and similar clowns.

The citizens of New York City have voted to become Detroit.  Maybe we were too hasty rejecting that independence idea...



Isn't a one-size-fits-all, mandated, fine-you-if-you-don't-sign-up federal health insurance plan sort of an odd thing to receive from "the party of choice"?  The "choice" offered under B.O.Care rather resembles that which Henry Ford used to offer his customers - "You can have any color you want, as long as it's black."  HHS Secretary Kathleen "the Reaper" Sebelius absurdly claimed while testilying to Congress that "for the first time", people will be able to go to one website and pick the health care plan that suits their needs.  Cruella, I do that every year when I sign up for my benefits.  My employer always offers 6-8 medical plans, 2-4 dental plans, vision coverage, and Health Expense Savings Accounts as well.  It's a pity you're a career politician -- things work differently out here in the real world.



New definition of futility -- making any member of the B.O. administration tesify under oath.

When he was running for the Senate in Nevada, when the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository was first being seriously proposed, Chic Hecht promised that if he were elected, "there will never be any nuclear suppositories in Nevada!"

Maybe so, but (or is that butt?) Obamacare is pretty close.

Pre-2012 Election Letter to a Young Pro-life Homosexual Man

(I wrote this letter to a 30ish homosexual Republican hating pro-life male I've known for many years.  I will keep his identity secret -- for now.)

My dear nephew,

Rather against my will, our relatives keep sending me what you write about politics on Facebook, that invaluable aid for finding the self-obsessed, the venomous, and the ignorant. I am concerned that you are unknowingly destroying your own reputation, and you should be concerned, also. If you continue to write in this way (meaning both content and tone), you may find yourself stuck with labels that a lifetime will not enable you to shake. I have been assured more than once that it is pointless to try to reach you with logic, as you're mind has made up by your self-perception. However, as a courtesy due to a relative, I will give it one try, and I promise to be far more polite than you have been in your published remarks. Make no mistake, anything posted to Facebook has been published, and there is no way to erase it.

I have been informed that one of our family members gave you very sound advice, and it was "Don't be a jerk about politics." Very sound advice and very clearly completely ignored.

If you are going to be a success at political mud slinging, you are going to have to improve in a few areas. I have had considerable success in this field, so please consider my advice carefully. Otherwise, you will wear that deadly label "crank".

If you are going to insult the intelligence of Republicans (like your grandparents), you need to spell and capitalize correctly. Publishing phrases like "brain-dead republicants" will lead unkind people (some related to you) to postulate that the last brain-dead person you saw was in your mirror.

I add here as an aside that you should give thanks every day that you never tried to debate your late grandfather on politics. He would have done to you (speaking metaphorically) what a high-explosive bomb does to a daffodil.

More recently, I am told that you referred to presumptive Republican (note spelling) presidential nominee Mitt Romney as a "robot". This is juvenile name-calling, without point or punch. Does being neat and clean and having a ready smile make you a robot? Readers may end up wondering about your hygienic habits, or lack of same. Name-calling is seldom effective; it hurts your reputation more than your target's.

In your recent posts, you accused Romney of the usual, tired litany of supposed heartless policy goals -- meaning to end Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, ad nauseum. Are you aware that your preferred candidate, Barack Obama, cuts $600 billion (that is to say, $600,000,000,000) from Medicare as part of his Obamacare program? Can you produce one statement during the last decade by any Republican leader that they intend to cut the benefits of any of the three programs I mentioned earlier this paragraph? Please note that pledging to make the programs financially sustainable or pledging to eliminate fraud and waste in the program(s) is not "cutting". All three of these programs are going bankrupt, and will take the country with them if something is not done quickly. It could have been done relatively easily a decade or two ago, but now the holes are so deep that the task has grown greatly difficult. One of the parties has consistently blocked all attempts to make the programs financially stable and self-supporting. It wasn't the Republicans.

Returning to an older post, you seemed amused by the fact that 65% of Republicans who participated in a survey in (I believe) January said they would vote for the Republican nominee no matter who it was. Why should that surprise you? If you were to ask registered Democrats if they are going to vote for Obama no matter whom the Republicans nominate, I predict that you would get a percentage closer to 95% than 65%. I am depressed that only 65% of my party (if the poll is accurate, which experience tells me is not to be assumed) is unconditionally committed to voting against the most disastrous president in American history, and the first president who can be credibly accused of being a disaster for the country deliberately.

What I find most frustrating is that you proclaim your intention to vote for Obama even as you proclaim that you are pro-life. If you were not my nephew, I would perhaps content myself with wishing you all happiness in Jews for Hitler. Because of our family bond, I will address the subject more politely. Hard as I try to give you the benefit of the doubt on this matter, several disquieting theories present themselves.

The most obvious and perhaps the ugliest possibility is that you are acting from supreme selfishness. You somehow see yourself getting something from the re-election of Obama that is worth more than thousands, perhaps millions of dead babies worldwide. Are you aware of the fact that the Obama administration spent millions of dollars of taxpayer money (at a time when inconceivably bad economic policies have already pushed our budget deficits to world-record-shattering levels) to persuade Kenya to pass a pro-abortion constitution? At this point in his term, it seems pointless to point out that the expenditure was illegal, but I will all the same.

The above is just one item in a frightening CV when it comes to abortion. Keep in mind that as an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama was the only speaker against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which extended legal protection to babies who had survived an abortion attempt and were now completely outside the mother’s body. By all precedent, that baby would not only be considered legally a person, but indeed would be a citizen of the United States, with all of the legal protections that come with citizenship. Even radical pro-abortion groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America (who changed their name from the National Abortion Rights Action League when they discovered that that name was too honest) didn’t dare publicly oppose this act. Barack Obama didn’t just oppose it, he stood up and spoke AGAINST extending life-saving treatment to innocent American citizen babies, gasping for breath and struggling for life.

Since that day when he voted against the BAIPA, Obama has been trying to come up with some reason for his vote that sounds at least believable. His attempts (or ten of them, anyway) are available at http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2008/01/top-10-reasons.html.

Similarly, he opposed the national Partial-Birth Abortion bill, because he claimed that the bill did not include an exemption for the mother’s “health“. That’s “health” instead of health, because they are not referring to physical health. Pro-aborts like Obama want the “health” exemption included because experience shows that including such a clause in effect nullifies the law, since a pro-abort judge can always be found to grant the exemption regardless of the health effect alleged. Certain judges (well-known to the pro-abortion groups) will vote to take a babies life if the mother (or her lawyer) says she’ll be depressed by the weight gain that comes with a full-term pregnancy.

Now we have the $1 abortion surcharge mandate under Obamacare. As Steven Ertelt explained in Lifenews.com on March 12th:

“Nestled within the “individual mandate” in the Obamacare act — that portion of the Act requiring every American to purchase government — approved insurance or pay a penalty — is an “abortion premium mandate.” This mandate requires all persons enrolled in insurance plans that include elective abortion coverage to pay a separate premium from their own pockets to fund abortion.  As a result, many pro-life Americans will have to decide between a plan that violates their consciences by funding abortion, or a plan that may not meet their health needs.” (Complete article at http://www.lifenews.com/2012/03/12/obama-admin-finalizes-rules-1-abortions-in-obamacare/)

In ancient Rome, the conspirators who slew Julius Caesar all bathed their hands in his blood” so that they would all share in the guilt of the crime. Similarly, Nazi (the radical leftist National Socialist German Workers Party) SS Chief Heinrich Himmler gave a surprise speech to his fellow Nazi leaders telling them about the Holocaust, the horrible industrialized slaughter of Europe’s Jewish population. He did this to deprive every attendee of the “I didn’t know” alibi. Although it never proved of any value to Himmler, the speech led to deadly consequences when the National Socialist regime collapsed and it came time for guilt to be assigned and punishments to be meted out to surviving Nazis.

What the Obama-ites are attempting is arguably worse, as they, with the $1 abortion mandate and the contraceptive mandates (which includes drugs that can cause early abortions) attempt to force all Americans to share in the financing of abortion, and thus share in the guilt for this tremendous, horrendous crime crying out to Heaven. The Roman conspirators joined the murder conspiracy willingly, and the attendees to Himmler’s speech had joined the Nazi Party leadership. Today, the vast majority of pro-life Americans are fighting determinedly to avoid having guilt for the abortion nightmare assigned to them.

Since the infamous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 (I assume you’ve heard of it), over 53,000,000 babies have been slain in this country. (If you want to know why Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are going bankrupt today, you might consider this massacre of 53 million future wage earners and taxpayers.)

What could you possibly gain from BO’s re-election that could possibly be worth more than the lives of all of those babies?

A relative opines aloud (many others I’m sure opine silently) that your support for Obama is dictated by your sexual orientation. I personally have never been able to understand why so many of those of your SO (to save typing) see every issue through that prism, and often see things darkly. (I have some theories, which I will keep to myself because my purpose in writing is not to offend you.) If our relative is right, those of your SO are a remarkable subset of the American population. Consider:

They must not need jobs. The bizarre actions of BO and his merry band of Keynesians have given us a situation unknown in our history -- a recovery that features higher unemployment than that in the recession from which we have supposedly “recovered” from.

They must not drive gasoline-powered vehicles. When Barack Obama was inaugurated, the price of gasoline was under $1.90/gallon. It is now at or over $4.00/gallon, and fixing to go higher, largely because BO and his environmentally radical administration has done everything they can to strangle domestic gasoline production. From the Gulf Oil Drilling moratorium, which the administration has persisted with despite two court rulings that held that the President does not have the authority to unilaterally stop drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The EPA, headed by Obama-appointed radical environmentalist Lisa Jackson, pulled a filthy trick on Sunoco by allowing them to spend $2 million dollars on an off-shore oil drilling project well off the Alaska coast, and then stopping Sunoco from proceeding for a stomach-turningly spurious reason -- they claimed that Sunoco’s Environmental Impact Statement was inadequate because they had not considered the possible health impacts of a possibly necessary icebreaker on an Alaskan village 400 MILES AWAY! They also refused to allow construction of the Keystone Oil Pipeline from our friendly neighbor Canada, supposedly for safety concerns, despite the fact that the EPA has done a risk assessment on the project and declared it safe -- SIX TIMES!

How is it safer to ship our oil from the Persian Gulf from hostile nations in tankers? Have you ever known a pipeline to sink, run aground, or be hijacked by pirates?

Every time you put $40 in your gas tank, you are robbed of over $20. I resent it. Every American should.

They must not need to buy any products, be they food, clothes, or anything else. When fuel prices go up, transport prices go up, and inevitably retail prices go up. The administration so far, with the assistance of a (to put it mildly) friendly media, has managed to conceal the resulting inflation by omitting food and fuel from the official inflation rate calculation. The rest of America has been rather less successful in omitting food and fuel from their budgets.

They must not need affordable energy. The Obama administration is clearly attempting to destroy the domestic coal industry by imposing impossible and useless standards on emissions. Even those pushing these industry-destroying regulations can point to no benefits from the stricter standards.

The EPA is now trying to satisfy the watermelon environmentalists (who will help bankroll BO’s re-election campaign) by finding some spurious reason to oppose the rapidly expanding, wealth-creating, energy-price-dropping natural gas industry. Hydro-fracking has been used safely for over 6 decades worldwide, but now suddenly anti-fracking zealots are trying to claim that the process is dangerous. In fact they are transparently trying to cripple the American economy by crippling the American energy industry.

There are words that describe the people who are attempting the crippling. “Reasonable”, “honest”, and “Patriotic” are not among them.

Just this month, the Interior Department (headed by Obama-appointed environmental radical Ken Salazar) announced that they are “locking up” 100 million acres of land in Arizona. This land contains the richest uranium deposits in the country. Having crippled the domestic oil industry, the administration now appear to be “focused like a laser beam” on the domestic nuclear power industry.

When Obama made that declaration that his energy policy is “all of the above”, apparently he forgot to add “...except the ones that work.”

Most important for you, in my opinion, is Obamacare’s orientation toward the elderly, the disabled, and the brain-damaged or otherwise disabled. Obama’s appointees have included zealots like Ezekiel Emanuel and Donald Berwick, who believe that doctors should only provide medical care to their patients if it is also good for “the system”. While Emanuel and Berwick have left their government posts (Berwick because his views and past statements were so extreme that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid informed Obama that Berwick could not win a Senate confirmation vote), their spirit lives on in the Health and Human Services, headed by Obama radical appointee Kathleen Sebelius, who recently publicly stated that the Obamacare health care regime (implication intended) will start saving money once the population starts declining. How cold-blooded do you have to be to see population decline as a financial goal?

Now that we know that the Obama HHS wants population to decline, we need to consider where they will try to cut what their ideological predecessors the Nazis called “useless feeders’. The obvious targets will be the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly. To these dehumanizers, each of these groups uses medical resources without adequately benefiting “the system”. To the continued massacre of the babies, we will add the massacre of the disabled (like our cousin Todd), and the elderly.

So I guess those of your SO don’t have grandmothers, either, do they, nephew?

Please consider carefully what I have written. At lot is at stake in the election in November -- both for the country and for you personally.

This would be a bad time to be wrong.

Quite sincerely,

Uncle Hermit Crab

PS I can back up every assertion I made here with evidence. Can you do the same with your assertions?

Diagramming liberal logic

Major premise:  Republicans and conservatives oppose ObamaCare because Barack Obama is black.

Minor premise:  Republicans and conservatives also opposed HillaryCare (very similar to ObamaCare) in 1993 and 1994.

Conclusion:  Republicans and Conservatives opposed HillaryCare because Barack Obama is black!

Pelosi clears the air of (one) Democrat falsehood

When I watched Democrat Minority Leader Nazi Pelosi tell the assembled media that if the House Republicans were going to pass their bill, she declared that they would have to pass it with 100% Republican votes, to me the key was that she declared it.  Apparently she was admitting that every Democrat in the House of Representatives represent not their district, not their constituents, but the House Democratic leadership.  No dissenters allowed.  No votes against the will of the commissars.  Zero!

If Americans knew how to listen to politicians, this would end the congressional careers of every Congressman in a "red district".  It is clear in my district, where long-term misRepresentative Louise Slaughter (the woman who wears formaldehyde as make-up) doesn't even bother attending town meetings and only appears in tightly controlled forums where her staff has the right to choose the questions that she will condescend to answer.

Just remember, you "my Democrat is okay" voters.  Barack Obama, Dead Man Talking Reid, Nazi Pelosi, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, et al didn't become Democratic leaders by accident.  Their fellow Democrats voted them into leadership positions, including "your Democrat".

Think about that.

Just another venomous liberal

Even when you're used to it, it's hard to believe the amount of sheer ceaseless hatred on the modern Left.  I recently participated in a fun hashtag discussion on Twitter.  The tag was #namesomethingmoresuccessfulthanObamacare or some such.  My contribution was "Roseanne Barr's Presidential run".

Of course, some nasty had to post "Sarah Palin's retard kid."  Leaving aside the fact that I thought they were against ridiculing the disabled, I responded "In what way can a beloved disabled child be considered a failure?"  Can you guess the brilliant, annihilating answer I received in response?

He responded "BooHoo".  I left off of the "debate" at this point.  Instead I tweeted to Sarah Palin herself and told her to ignore the vicious responses she received to her simple declaration that she was going to attend the Million Veteran March on Sunday.  I told her that I had Hillary Clinton on my side, and Sarah Palin were on my opponents', I'd be angry too! 

"One nation, under God..."

While I find it heartening that so many Catholic institutions have risen to the challenge of the Obamacare contraceptive and abortifacient insurance mandate forcing every Catholic institution that isn’t actually centered on an altar to offer these “services”, I am growing uneasy about the too-narrow grounds upon which they are basing their legal and Constitutional argument. I fear we are storing up trouble, the kind that can cost us the war even if we win this battle.

Of course it is wrong to force Catholic and other organizations to subsidize and in effect promote life-destroying technologies that violate their deepest beliefs. Of course the "exception" to the rule is drawn so narrowly that one pundit stated that Jesus himself would not qualify. Of course the "compromise" offered to indignant pro-life organizations (that they wouldn't pay for the morally repugnant services, their insurance companies would -- with the money they got from the pro-life organizations) was a transparent dodge and an insult to intelligence. Of course these organizations have the right and the obligation to oppose this mandate.

However, the true foundation of the right to oppose this dreadful imposition is being omitted in all of the arguments in court and in the court of popular opinion. We cannot afford the risk of leaving it unsaid, so I'll put it simply and clearly.

We do not derive the right to oppose this monstrous diktat from our membership in a Catholic organization, be it the Catholic Church, the Knights of Columbus, or any other organization. We are not given our rights by the government, or even the Constitution. We betray the founding of this nation under God when we think so.

We are children of God, and from God do we receive our rights of conscience! The founders of this nation knew this very well. It is not the purpose of government to grant us rights; it is the obligation of government to protect our God-given rights from the impositions of others, even if (perhaps especially if) those imposing are in the government.

By not pressing this argument of individual, God-granted rights, we risk allowing the idea that only groups of people large enough to battle other groups or the government bulldozer possess rights that our rulers are bound to respect. (I'm hoping that at least some of my readers were angered at seeing the word "rulers" in the previous sentence.)

The genius of the founding of this republic, a genius that has at times worn perilously thin in the last 50 years was that an individual's God-given rights could not be taken away or diminished, even if the rest of the country were against him. In the classic movie Judgment at Nuremberg, Judge Haywood (played by Spencer Tracy) speaks of the value of "a single human life". Here in America, we speak of a single human's rights. While we must band together to defend our right to refuse to violate our consciences, no matter who insists that we must, our rights do not come from numbers. They come from God.

My ruler does not abide in Washington or Albany. My only ruler dwells in Heaven, and it is to Him that I will one day have to answer to. He tells me that life is the sacred gift of God, and is most demanding of my defending when it is at its most helpless. He tells me that His law is above all human law. He says that the unborn child in the womb, no matter the stage of development, is my brother or sister in Christ. He says that marriage is, and can only be, a union under God of one man and one woman. He says that I have rights from His grace, and not from the "grace" of any earthly master.

And I believe.

Other Brief Reflections on the Obamacare Mandate and the Future of Liberty

Isn't it odd that some lefty pundits say that chief Justice John Roberts “saved” the reputation of the Supreme Court by voting with the lockstep-left justices, but they see this decision, a decision that threatens to destroy whatever remained of the liberties that our founders fought and suffered to hand down to their descendants, as being perfectly legitimate even though the deciding vote was cast by the very same Elena Kagan who developed the strategy used in the oral (and most likely written) arguments? How can that be legitimate?

If (God forbid) the court goes on to have a 5-4 liberal majority in the future, and starts tearing down our heritage of liberty and the rights of the individual, do you suppose that the same pundits who today say that every 5-4 decision in which the lockstep-lefties are in the minority is a the decision of a bitterly partisan majority will accuse the Gang of Five of the future of being equally partisan, or indeed partisan at all?

This, of course, is a rhetorical question.

Contrary to what's being published now, I believe this dreadful decision will at last put an end to the naïve belief that the Supreme Court and the judicial branch in general will protect our rights for us, and that therefore we do not have to protect them ourselves. This belief should have died with the decision of the court on the McCain-Feingold free campaign speech strangulation law, when the majority of the justices sided with the politicians against the people. Funny – when I was young (admittedly a long time ago), we were taught that liberals believed in expanding free speech. This concept died sometime in the 1990s, as uber-liberal Alan Dershowitz noted when he wrote “In today's America, the greatest threat to free speech is not coming from the Right. It's coming from the Left.”

Give up that fantasy, lovers of liberty. No-one is going to defend the freedoms we have left for us. If we're going to reclaim our rights, or even defend the ones we still have, we are going to have to fight for them ourselves.

The liberal fascists (not an oxymoron – read Jonah Goldberg's book of the same name) must be giddy with this decision. At the beginning of this noble experiment in self-government, the federal government largely left its citizens alone entirely. As the decades went by, the reach of the national government waxed and waned, but didn't immediately grow into a leviathan. Libertarian legend says that Abraham Lincoln was the father of big government, but this is twaddle, as by 1872 (only seven years after the shooting stopped) the federal government had shrunk back to its pre-war size.

As America was drawn into World War I, liberal icon Woodrow Wilson began to expand the powers of the government at the expense of liberty. Censorship grew, and this time the controls on behavior did not all come off at the end of the war. It's a pleasing irony to think that Eugene V. Debs, repeat socialist Party candidate for President, jailed for interfering with the draft and the recruitment for the Armed Forces (jailed for making a speech!), was not released by Wilson, either at the end of the war or even at the end of his term. He would have to wait to be released by that supposed disaster of a Republican President, Warren G. Harding, who answered objections to Debs' release on Christmas Eve of 1921 by saying “I want him to eat Christmas dinner with his family.” Typically, the socialists who edit Wikipedia do not give Harding credit for his rather touching statement. They also do not give Harding credit for actually inviting Debs to the White House the moment he was released from prison, an invitation that Debs accepted. After meeting with Harding, Debs pronounced Harding a kindly gentleman.

Take note, liberals. Liberal icon jails citizen for exercising free speech, and conservative Republican releases him.

As the decades went by, the number of actions that became crimes grew exponentially. After this, in a trend that many of us find appalling, the concept of “hate crimes” appeared. Now not only were our actions suspect, but our motives and thoughts as well. Many, including this writer, found the new trend in law disturbing, for it has long been a tenant of American jurisprudence that it was the act which was the crime, not the motive. By “hate crime” logic, it can be more of an offense (leading to greater punishment) to assault a 24 year old homosexual bodybuilder that to assault an 82 year old asthmatic grandfather. Anyone who doesn't see this as a howling idiocy is an idiot themselves.

Not satisfied with the partial subjugation of the American citizenry, we now have the real purpose of the Obamacare law, and its true purpose. Having already criminalized (and thus controlled) our actions, our thoughts, and our motives, they now move to control our inactions as well. Don't buy a product our self-proclaimed rulers demand that we purchase, and pay a fine or go to jail. Presumably, if you resist like free people often do, and you will be shot. Once they establish that principle, freedom in this country is over. Perhaps forever.

The leftists will be in La-La-Lenin Land, though. Their dreams will have have come full circle – as a noose around our necks.

Easy explanation for the "Shut-Down" brutality

Many people are aghast at the brutality of the B.O. Administrations actions during this so-called "Shut-Down".  Open-air memorials closed and blockaded, elder Americans whose homes sit on federal land (of which there is all too much anyway), the shutting down of memorials on foreign soil (such as Normandy, which even Barry, who is notoriously ignorant of geography, should know is in France), even attempts to cut off recreational and fishing access to stretches of ocean -- all these seem brutal even for King Rat himself.  Why should they do such things?

Well, it isn't just meanness, although that certainly is part of it.  The Demoncrats have to make these actions as painful as possible, not only because this way their RoboMedia will blame the Republicans no matter how clearly the tracks of the beasts lead to the Dems' lair, but also because if they made these cuts any way other than brutally the people would catch on to the fact that their country is in fact running not only cheaper but better without 800,000 superfluous federal employees looking for ways to make their lives costly, complicated, and down-right miserable.

Why, the American people might actually realize that non-essential operations of the federal government are functions that need to be shut down, and their employees need to find more suitable jobs, many of which involve paper hats.

(Quick quiz -- From what famous document is this sentence drawn?

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

I'll give you a hint -- this document used to be taught in American schools.  Don't let me down!)

Will St. Monica's Church become a Propaganda Organ?

In a church activities flyer I found in my church's bulletin, I read that St. Monica's Church in Rochester NY is going to show two environmental alarmist propaganda films in (presumably) their church hall.  As a Knight of Columbus I was distressed by this and wrote this email to the pastor, Father Raymond Fleming:

Dear Father,

I was distressed to learn that your church is beginning to show movies on environmental issues which are largely exercises in propaganda and dubious science.  Before you show the movie on "climate change", you ought to read

http://heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

Likewise, before you show the movie on the "deadly dangers" of plastics such as BPA, I suggest going to

http://thebpafile.blogspot.com/

Our church has credibility problems today, Father.  Lending church facilities for the propagation of designing lies cannot help us.  As Catholics, we are called upon to witness both to The Truth and the truth.  If we pass on misleading information about the latter, who will believe us on the former?

Sincerely,

David Williams
Knight of Columbus
St. Leo Council #9461

The movies scheduled to be shown are "Bag It" and "Do the Math".  I've been unable to find an accurate review of either of these films, which reminds us of the insidious dangers of films like this, which elude the attention of our heavyweights (like Marc Morano and Steve Milloy), so they creep unchallenged into our church groups and other small gatherings, sewing seeds of falsehood that soon grow into vines that may strangle our economy before we know it. 

Read your church bulletinm, including the inserts.  You may be appalled at what you find.

The Obamacare Mandate Decision is Null and Void

(I wrote this for my old TownHall blog in August of 2012, and since I still think it's pertinent today, I repost  it here.  I hope you enjoy it.  THC)

I read a report the day after the Supreme Court handed down its execrable decision on the Destroying Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act that Governor Bobby Jindal declared that Louisiana still will not bow down to this infernal law. I hope he sticks to his determination, and I hope the other governors follow his lead. This decision carries no moral weight, and does not need to be followed. I have been waiting for three days for some big-time conservative commentor to point out why this is so, but no-one has, so I will.


This decision is of no legal or moral force because Chief Justice John Roberts (the new poster child for Beltway Fever) was not the deciding vote.


B.O.'s Solicitor General Elena Kagan was.


In one of the most flagrant cases of stacking the judicial deck in American history, Barack Obama placed his own Solicitor General on the Supreme Court. It was a more modest strategic move than FDR's infamous court-packing scheme in the 1930s or Jimmy Carter's federal court expanding of the late 1970s (less famous than FDR's scheme, this nearly doubled the number of federal court judges – all appointed by Democrat Carter, of course). However, this scheme of Obama's took court-packing in a new, dangerous direction, for it gave him another solicitor in the chamber. Not only would he have his official Solicitor General making the case for this freedom-crushing edict, but he would also have his “former” Solicitor filling in the gaps and correcting the mistakes in the official argument. Anyone who heard the oral argument of the case knows that Kagan was still representing the administration, and not impartial justice. Several times Donald Verrilli seemed to be losing ground defending the indefensible, and “former” Solicitor General Kagan would get him “back onto the rails”. Many commentors claimed that it has not been uncommon for Justices to suggest lines of argument to attorneys arguing before the court. Perhaps, but it is not common for the person who had been tasked with building the argument to be presented to the court in the future to then be placed on the court to here and rule on the argument that they themselves actually built!


I am frankly astounded that the same pundits who argued that Kagan must recuse herself from any role in any case stemming from the Obama-doesn't-care law because she had held the Solicitor General post in the administration during that crucial period when the legal strategy for defense was being formed all seem to have suddenly forgotten her name now that the decision is here. They mainly have targeted Chief Justice John Roberts for his seeming cringing turnaround, and indeed there is much to be criticized in his decision. (His decision, that is, to please the Beltway mob instead of defend the Constitution, which is his sworn duty.) Roberts' decision is at least apparently honestly wrought, but Kagan's very involvement was corrupting from the start.


I urge the governors of the states that joined together to oppose this monstrous law in open court to follow Governor Jindal's lead and declare that since the court which decided this case was not legally constituted to hear this particular case, due to the taint of partiality on Justice Kagan, their states are not obligated to respect this decision, and that they will not.


The future of America may depend on it.

The Hermit Crab is Back

I must start again.  TownHall.com has dropped their user blogs, and for the third time in my years of occasional blogging I must start afresh.  The good news is that I am away from the squeamish blog posting program at TownHall, which wouldn't even let me call former Vice President Dick Cheney "Dick".

I'll start posting more soon, once I've figured this program out and think of something worth saying. 

I think I'm going to like it here.