Let's get one thing straight right from the start. Sending more combat troops to Afghanistan does not mean that more Americans will die because more troops will be targets.
That tired old refrain is once again on the lips of every anti-military Democrat in Congress, and unfortunately the media laps it up like milk in a cat's saucer without ever questioning its veracity.
If it was true that having larger numbers of combat troops in any one location meant that more troops would die, then places like the Marine bases in Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, Camp Pendleton, California, and Army bases like Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Fort Benning, Georgia and Fort Hood, Texas, would be the scenes of unending blood baths since so many combat troops are stationed there. And don't give me that combat zone nonsense either.
Ever since 9-11-01 the entirety of the United States has been a potential combat zone. The only reasons we haven't had more attacks on military installations as well as the civilian populace is because the Bush Administration put the apparatus in place to keep tabs on potential terrorists and intercept them before they can execute their plots.
In Afghanistan we need more troops to put the hammer down on Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the people who brought us the 9-11 attacks in the first place. We will have more casualties if we have fewer troops in Afghanistan because we won't have the ability to eliminate both the fighters and their bases. Also, the terrorists will see through our weaknesses and launch more massed attacks against under-defended outposts and installations.
If we do not put our best equipped and best trained people into the heart of enemy territory where they can eliminate the terrorists and destroy their ability to plan more attacks and counterattacks, not only will our troops be vulnerable to emboldened terrorists, but our civilian populace at home also will suffer.
There also is another facet that should be remembered. The populace in any contested country will lean toward and support the side that shows the most strength and the most determination. If America and its allies want the support of the populace they damn well better show the populace that we intend to win, and help them build a stable and long-standing government that will provide long-term protection.
If we continue to waver and appear uncertain the populace will hedge its bets and begin helping the Taliban on an even wider scale.
To avoid this scenario U.S. Army General Stanley McCrystal, with support from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, has asked for an additional 40,000 troops. This force will give us the ability to expand operations right into the Taliban's front yard, and, if coordinated with the ongoing offensive by the Pakistani army on their side of the border, could deliver a crushing blow to terrorism.
But rather than acquiesce to the General's request, President Obama is consulting soothsayers, casting bones, reading tea leaves, and yes, "dithering" while our troops are caught in a no-man's land between military necessity and political maneuvering.
If General McCrystal says he can do the job with 40,000 troops then Obama should give him 60,000 or even 80,000.
Why? Insurance, that's why.
With 60,000 to 80,000 troops we would have a sufficient reserve force on scene, we would be better able to rotate troops into and out of the most dangerous areas, giving everyone a bit more rest than was the case in Iraq, while keeping a sharp edge of experience in our operational forces.
If we don't we can be assured that this birthplace of a generation of terrorist attacks will spawn yet more suicide bombers and extremist plotters and America will once again be the target.
Just today the news is reporting that passports and other materials related to the 9-11 hijackers who flew commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania were discovered in the possession of dead terrorists on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. There is no question that there is a direct link between those terrorists and their long-dead brethren who attacked the US.
So it is essential that President Obama listen to his military, and tune out the politicians, or before he can finish his first term, we will have been hit again. If we are attacked, no matter how hard his spokespeople try to blame it on George Bush, it will be Obama's fault and everyone will know it.
If we get hit again because President Obama did not give the military the tools to defeat these terrorists once and for all in that area, his legacy will be permanently set in stone as a weak-kneed, inexperienced, figurehead whose inability to make hard decisions led to the death of American citizens, at home and overseas.
It was a very nice and touching moment when the President went to Dover Air Force Base to stand in tribute as the bodies of Americans killed in Afghanistan were brought home for burial this week.
But photo ops do not win wars, and if the President continues to be indecisive, thus causing more American casualties, that photo showing him saluting the dead will become an Albatross that forever will be hung around his neck.
Sending people like John Kerry to Afghanistan for a military report on the situation is not helpful. Besides the fact that Kerry has no credibility whatsoever with the military or the veteran population, he simply doesn't the have real-world military experience to be considered an expert.
Kerry's abbreviated Vietnam tour has been shown conclusively to have been an all-out effort to get himself out of the war zone before he suffered any real injuries - and I don't mean slivers in his finger or pieces of rice embedded in his butt. Kerry's later association with communists and anti-American fake veterans should make his willingness to be part of any fact-finding effort suspect.
His motivations, his pro-communist agenda that resurfaced during the successful military operations in Iraq - that he opposed and now calls unnecessary - are more than sufficient proof that any information he delivers is tainted.
President Obama does not need a tidal wave of advice from every political hack from Washington to Chicago. He needs only to remember that battles are won by appropriate use of overwhelming force.
His generals are telling them what they need, bare minimum, to get the job done. He should respond by giving them more than they have requested, ensuring that our troops will never again be outnumbered and under siege at a remote outpost, with the enemy willing to suffer horrendous losses to win a public relations war in the US when there is no possibility of winning the shooting war in Afghanistan.
The truth of Vietnam, once again, is that the American military and its allies won every major engagement, annihilated both the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army and twice pushed the communists to the brink of surrender. Both times, they were rescued by political interference in the US and the result was the fall of much of Southeast Asia and the slaughter of millions of civilians by the communist hordes.
If President Obama wants to avoid a similar scenario in Afghanistan, that will be coupled with the certainty of further attacks on our country, then he must trust in the generals he placed there, trust in the troops they command, and give them more than they request. Otherwise, he most certainly will be labelled for eternity as having caused "another Vietnam"
As I type this article the entire baseball loving world is anxiously awaiting the word on whether the weather will cooperate and allow the first game of the World Series of Baseball between the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies to go forward tonight.
Will the storm that has been dumping rain on the northeast United States since yesterday move out before nightfall or will Game 1 be rained out?
I have one question. Who the hell cares?
Do is not bother anyone else that the third game of the World Series is scheduled for Halloween? Are the players going to don costumes, and carry little bags for their tricks and treats? Will they shower the fans in the stands with miniature chocolate bars and popcorn balls?
If the series goes seven games and we get some early snow, which by the way, we already have had here in the northeast, nearly a month ago, will they play in snowshoes? Or perhaps skis? Or toboggans? Can you put pinstripes on parkas or would that be a fashion disaster?
If one player turns in an especially good performance over the length of the series will the media name him Mr. November? Or Mr. Thanksgiving? Will a home run be labelled The Turkey Trot? Does anyone really care? Other than the residents of New York and Philadelphia?
Let's get this right up front.
IT IS FOOTBALL SEASON. BASEBALL ENDED IN SEPTEMBER - OR SHOULD HAVE!
There is no viable reason to play baseball in late fall. No matter what happens, even if one team sweeps the series, at least one game will be played in November. Why?
The fourth games of the series will be played Sunday, in Philadelphia beginning at 8:20 p.m. when the temperature will be headed straight for the cellar. Do you know why it isn't advisable to play baseball in the cold? Let's start with snapped muscles, torn rotator cuffs, especially with pitchers, pulled hamstrings and torn ligaments for starters.
Baseball players do way too much standing around to play in cold weather. Football players on the other hand, get lined up, squat, stand up, bend over, roll, tumble and run all over the field throughout the game. If it seems like their muscles may be getting tight, they get on a stationary bike on the sidelines and pedal to keep things warmed up.
But even in the best weather baseball players can stand around like statues for inning after inning if the pitching is going well. But do all that standing around in the cold, and their hamstrings will freeze like Popsicles.
Suddenly, the cold gets into the pitchers' shoulders and arms, the hits start coming and guys who had looked like Greek art forms for six innings are supposed to come to life with the utmost in speed and flexibility, literally in an instant. Good luck on that one.
I have to admit I WILL be watching New York at Philly on Sunday. But it will be the Giants at the Eagles at 1 p.m., not the Yankees at the Phillies at night. Sorry FOX, if there is a good football game on Sunday night it will take precedence over the b'ball broadcast. At least on my TV.
This is, after all, the mid-point in the football season. Week 8. The Giants got off to a great start 5 - 0, but now have lost two in a row. They need their number one fan to be there for them and I can't be distracted.
How did this happen anyway? The World Series I mean, not the Giants stall-out. I'll admit I have not been all that interested in baseball ever since the strike. Yes, I do understand that many of the current fans weren't even born then, but I also am a former baseball fan who once watched Mickey Mantle hit a home run off the monuments in Center Field of Yankee Stadium in 1961. I have my memories and they aren't about spoiled coddled millionaires who get dressed in opulent clubhouses, not old-time locker rooms.
Did you know that there were games in Mickey Mantle's career where he hit home runs from both sides of the plate and the Yankees still lost the game? But did he pout, and run to the media, and go on strike for higher wages? NO, he went out and played the next game.
So I don't know, nor do I care, when we went from the team with the most wins in the National League playing the team with the most wins in the American League. Now we have divisional playoffs, and round robins and odd-man-outs, or so it seems, and somehow, halfway through the football season, the sports channels are dividing their time between football and a World Series that should have been over a month ago.
I'll admit, I'm not really a fan of the pre-season exhibition games in the NFL either. It's bad enough to have training camp in August, what with the heat and all the equipment that football players wear. I think there is too much of a risk of injury to the players before the season even begins.
It seems that one way or another money is the driving factor in all these decisions and if there is a way to get the fans in the stands or in front of their TVs, then possible injuries either pre- or post-season will just have to become part of the scene.
Maybe I'm just not willing to accept all these changes that are made not for the sport, but for the money they generate.
I grew up playing baseball in the spring and summer, and football in the fall and winter. When the weather gets really cold you play hockey outside and basketball inside. That should be a law.
I admit that some of the most fun I ever had in the winter was playing football on frozen lakes in upstate New York. It was a blast and was probably more fun than playing football in the rain and the mud which also has its moments.
But baseball on Halloween? Baseball in November?
Baseball when there is a better than even chance of snow? I'm sorry there are just some things in life that go together - like meat and potatoes, beef stew and cold beer, or popcorn and movies. But baseball and November?
Man that sends chills up my spine. And not in a good way.
There has been something wrong with the media frenzy over the Swine Flu "pandemic" that is "sweeping the nation and the world" virtually since reports began labelling it as far more deadly than the "normal" seasonal flu.
I say there is something wrong because from the very first, the media reports neglected to compare the numbers of people with the Swine Flu, and those who had died from it, with the numbers who had the seasonal flu, and were dying from it.
I realize it makes a good story to create a worldwide health monster, give it a name and scare little children, the elderly and the gullible into lining up for vaccinations that supposedly will save them. But it is irresponsible to create hysteria over one disease, when it has far more deadly relatives that are causing far more damage.
As of October 23, approximately 5,000 deaths have been attributed to the Swine Flu WORLDWIDE going back to the beginning of 2009. I am not certain of that number because different sources give different reports. As you will see later in this column, the numbers themselves also may be inaccurate, especially those coming from government sources. But 5,000 total deaths since the Swine Flu hysteria began last spring is possible so I will err on the side of hysteria if at all.
However, the seasonal flu kills approximately 3,000 people in the US every month on average. That amounts to 36,000 deaths in the US every year from seasonal flu, and an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 every year world wide, depending on the severity of the outbreak and other factors.
In addition, the Swine Flu is generally a milder form of the flu, and there have been reports that up to a third of the people who have it never know they have it, according to the few news reports that address this issue objectively.
I realize that doesn't do anything to ease the pain of people who are more susceptible and come down with more severe cases, nor certainly for those who have friends and relatives who have died from the disease. I am not minimizing the danger of any kind of flu here but I am wondering why we have an international hysteria over a relatively mild form of an ongoing disease.
I also am wondering why the President of the United States is declaring a state of emergency for Swine Flu, when there is a much worse variety of the same disease creating havoc with the populace, and why there is an ongoing effort to convince everyone and their brother to get vaccinated with an unproven, minimally tested, and possibly dangerous vaccine. Particularly with the recent news that there is nowhere near the amount of vaccine available that the government promised earlier.
In his proclamation the president stated, "Given that the rapid increase in illness across the Nation may overburden health care resources and that the temporary waiver of certain standard federal requirements may be warranted in order to enable U.S. health care facilities to implement emergency operations plans, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in the United States constitutes a national emergency."
Overburden health care resources? How is that possible when medical facilities have been treating 100 times more cases of normal flu for years than the amount seen in the Swine Flu Pandemic? Seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people worldwide every year. So far the Swine Flu has killed 5,000 at most.
Again, I am not minimizing the impact of Swine Flu, but from the standpoint of national security and a state of emergency, what the hell is going on?
The federal government is way out on a limb with pushing this issue. Let's start with this comment. "Millions of Americans have reportedly been infected with what is commonly referred to as the swine flu." That came from The Hill.
From the same outlet we get "Thomas Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday that more than a thousand people have died as a result of the H1N1 flu virus." There is no indication that either of those statements are accurate.
On top of everything else, reports are surfacing that the statistics on the Swine Flu themselves are skewed. Take a look at this broadcast from CBS News on Oct. 21, just two days before President Obama's declaration of an 'emergency.' This comes to us via YouTube. (My apologies for the embedded commercial. If I knew how to get the coding out without losing the rest of video I would.)
One of the biggest curiosities about the President's emergency declaration, according to the news report announcing it, is that the government can waive privacy regulations for individual medical histories. Why?
If you go to the doctor's office, and are diagnosed with the flu, it already is too late for the vaccine, and even the anti-viral medications that can lessen its severity are only good for a limited time very early after the symptoms appear. So it is likely that unless you are in such a state that you require hospitalization, you will be sent home and told to go to bed, take aspirin for the fever, and drink plenty of fluids.
Why does the government need a waiver on your medical records for that? What exactly is going on with this? Is the real issue here not the flu, and not the vaccine, but a method to delve into individual privacy? Is this once again about the federal government taking even more control over our lives and putting average Americans again in risk of losing the individual liberties we take for granted?
Want to see the full list of items that the federal government takes away from the populace and gives itself in a state of emergency? Check this out. But sit down first.
http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title11/1135.htm
I have another video of the national guard being trained for riot control in the case of insufficient vaccines for Swine Flu. It makes the point that it is unlikely, considering the relative mildness of the Swine Flu, and the reluctance on the part of millions of Americans to be automatically injected with foreign and in many cases dangerous substances, that people will be rioting to GET the vaccine.
But they may be rioting to keep from being FORCED to get the vaccine.
This all may just be gross incompetence on the part of the federal government and an oversensitivity to government control on the part of millions of Americans. But it is worth watching, listening, and deciding for yourself.
Have you heard a single word about the California wildfires recently?
No you haven't and neither have I.
It isn't that they are smouldering in some inaccessible canyon someplace far from civilization and thus not newsworthy. No sir, they are out. Cold. Like the fireplaces at a Boy Scout campsite after the scouts depart.
Not a spark.
If you go to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection website you will see fire after fire after fire with the status notation "100% Contained."
Now, I have to admit, I thought it was due to the heroic efforts of all those firefighters who put their lives on the line and work past exhaustion to do everything they can to save homes, property and lives.
In fact, those folks are right at the top of my list of heroic people, seeing as how so many people in California build in dry scrub country - Southern California is actually a desert and the only reason anything grows there is because of all the water that is diverted from the Colorado River, which is why you always see dry scrub brush instead of lush forests.
So, the folks who work so hard to save million-dollar mansions that never should have been built where they are in the first place are very important to me because they exemplify service to their fellow man.
But then I found out that I was wrong. It was not those brave firefighters after all. It was our President, Barack Hussein Obama, mmmm, mmmm, mmmm.
I would never have found this out if it wasn't for the Internet, and even though many things I have found on the Internet that might not be considered flattering to President Barack Hussein Obama, mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, have been scrubbed, deleted and disappeared like a South American pro-democracy freedom fighter, this one stuck around long enough for me to get it to you here.
It takes a lot of work to get the truth out to people so we can make informed objective decisions about our future. Especially in the polling places next month.
Once you take a good hard look at our president and see that we have been misled into thinking that he is driving our country headlong into a communist gulag faster than Casey Jones holding onto a runaway throttle, you will probably come to the same conclusion I have arrived at.
Obviously I was wrong about our president and thus about all Democrat candidates across the country. Obviously he is far more skilled, adept, and capable than the numerous missteps ranging from the economy to government takeovers of our building, banking, automotive and medical insurance industries would indicate. Oh, and the misuse of the media, and the war on FOX News, and all the propaganda releases and this phony Swine Flu hysteria.
Those apparently are just warm ups, and mistakes are to be expected.
But when it comes right to down safety of life and limb, well, that's another story.
Unless of course, the video above is satire from an organization like Onion News Network via YouTube. But that wouldn't happen, would it? I mean, I can't tell the difference between this video and anything else that has come from the White House since Inauguration Day, so it must be real, and true, and honest, and forthright, and heroic.
Just like our President Barack Hussein Obama, mmmm, mmmm, mmmm. Right?
The most successful method of getting out of an ambush, aside from not getting into an ambush, is to turn to the sound of the guns and attack. As my Marine Drill Instructor told us in Parris Island, "aggression is the key to victory."
This is an especially helpful lesson for the Fox Network and its cable television news operations, what with the Barack Obama White House on the warpath. Apparently, FOX personnel, meaning reporters, anchors, weather people, producers, commentators, pundits, hair stylists, drivers, camera operators, sound engineers, support personnel, and receptionists have an issue with simply regurgitating White House propaganda, and instead ask relevant incisive questions.
You won't find that anywhere else in the American media spectrum, and the President is sick to death of actually having to explain himself to FOX, seeing as how he is the Supreme Ruler of the Earth with the exception of Europe (Old and New), Asia, South America, Central America, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, and North America north and south of the US border.
But other than that smidgen of the universe, Barack Obama is king, the United States (all 57 of them) are his castle and he is in charge. If he wants to spew propaganda and communist philosophy at will, he not only will do it, and his stooges not only will repeat it like mindless lemmings, the media better pass it along unchallenged too. Or else they'll get what FOX got.
What did FOX get for its blasphemes and malcontent? Well, everyone in the current administration, in unison, stomped their feet like Rumpelstiltskin, and then held their collective breath until they turned blue. I kid you not. They did it!
All across the media spectrum, but especially on the Sunday morning political talk shows, other alleged journalists, (no, wait a minute, strike the word alleged and replace it with wannabe,) tsk tsk-ed to their hearts content as the White House apparatchik sternly warned that they better not follow in FOX's footsteps if they know what's good for them.
And all across the media spectrum, the network, radio, cable and print jelly fish who have no spines or independently functioning central nervous systems, nodded in unison and mouthed "Oh, yes, Oh, yes," like the puppet chorus in the play Chicago!
The president and his puppets have been doing their best in recent days to let the entire network television-watching world know that they are upset with FOX. On the other hand, FOX has been playing the story for all it is worth and asking "What, Me Worry?" in a better than average imitation of Mad Magazine's cover boy, Alfred E. Neuman.
But more is needed. The administration commissars are showing the disdain for the American public that communists traditionally show for the peasants once the commies are in power. The peasants are promised the moon, but in a very short time return to being doormats, this time for their new bosses who won't simply repress them, but will shoot them if they vocalize their dissatisfaction.
But the Obama Commissars don't have the power they think they do. At least not yet. Even though they are attempting to systematically dismantle the free market system, they still have a long way to go.
In the cable television segment of the free market, advertisers hold sway. And advertisers are attracted, kept, and charged based on how many people are watching which outlets and which shows.
I would bet that one unintended consequence of the Obama Commissars taking to the networks to badmouth FOX is that more people are tuning in to FOX to see what the fuss is all about. Once they do, and once they find that FOX really does give both sides of the story as a matter of course, and its commentators are obviously not on the Obama payroll like their counterparts in the networks, print and other cable outlets, people are likely to stay tuned to FOX.
The best action FOX could take then, is to welcome these new viewers with open arms. First attract them with new advertising slogans such as: FOX - Obama Loves to Hate Us!
Or:
FOX, The Un-Obama Network!
Or:
FOX, We Would Have Fired Walter Cronkite!
Obama's minions made it obvious this weekend that the flow of information for stories that don't require any serious legwork or journalistic abilities on the part of the White House Press Corps will dry up immediately if they don't heel and kowtow.
I ran into that situation once when the mayor of a city I was covering for the Hartford Courant didn't like some of my articles. He stopped giving me anything when I visited his office in city hall each day.
So I spent twice as much time down the hall in the office of his chief political rival - from his own party - and got twice as many juicy tidbits that turned into twice as many stories that the mayor liked even less than the ones he complained about originally.
See how that works?
I'm not saying Obama doesn't have any real power here. He is after all, the president of the United States at least until he renames us the Union of North American Soviet Alliances. He could make things easy on cooperating news outlets, like for instance, providing stimulus bailout funds for struggling papers like the Boston Globe which was miraculously taken off the For Sale list this week.
I'm not saying that the Globe actually got stimulus money, I just heard two guys speculating on that in the coffee shop this morning and I heard on the Rush Limbaugh show this afternoon that the Globe's parent company, the New York Times, is laying off 8 percent of its downtown newsroom workforce just before Christmas, so naturally I went HMMMMMM.
Not mmm, mmm, mmm as in the new Barack Hussein Obama National Anthem, sung by the Obama Youth all over America, but HMMMM. Just because the Globe is in Massachusetts doesn't automatically mean that it is engaged in some sleazy dealings, and I'm certain that if a government auditing team went over its books from top to bottom there would be a finding of no wrong doing.
But this speculation certainly shows what could happen if certain people were so inclined.
But back to FOX, I really mean it when I say they should charge. The entirety of the thinking American population is fed up with Obama, including huge chunks of the base that helped him get elected. If they are fed up with him, they are fed up with his propaganda too and looking for new outlets.
I suggest FOX. The FOX operation has a News Department, which went out of fashion in the networks decades ago, and it can do its own advertising along the lines of:
Less Obama - More News!
Propaganda - It's A Network Thing!
FOX - We've Got News!
The possibilities are endless and FOX should jump on them right away. Don't spend any time worrying whether a handful of correspondents will still get their handouts. If they have any real abilities, and the reporters I like the best at FOX have plenty of ability, they'll get the real news on their own without lining up to the White House tip trough.
Soon enough, Americans from coast to coast will realize the value of an independent news outlet and not only will watch it regularly to find out what is really going on, they'll probably come up with their own FOX NEWS ANTHEM.
The issue of race in America erupted again this week when national liberal commentator Juan Williams, a black man, supported conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh's bid to be a co-owner of the St. Louis Rams national football team. (For those who could care less about these matters, Limbaugh is white.)
Limbaugh was invited earlier this year to join a group of other investors who were preparing a bid for the team. According to Limbaugh he immediately informed the group's lead contact that due to his status as the pre-eminent conservative commentator in the country, there would certainly be controversy over him joining the group.
Limbaugh has said and written that he was assured that the investors were aware of his status as America's dominant talk radio host and that he would be a lightning rod for his liberal enemies, many of whom would love to see him eviscerated, drawn and quartered, burned at the stake, crucified, and otherwise eliminated. Supposedly Limbaugh's status didn't matter. Supposedly.
Limbaugh was right, and as soon as his name was leaked to the overwhelmingly liberal media, the firestorm began. The liberal media dispensed fabricated racist statements that were falsely attributed to Limbaugh a few years ago, and typically the outlets that printed or broadcast the accusations made no effort to check their accuracy.
These racist statements that were entirely fabricated, that Limbaugh never made, that do not reflect his real views on race, were nonetheless repeated exponentially by the liberal - Mainstream, State Run, Co-opted, In The Tank, Pro-Terrorist, Anti-American - media.
Immediately, professional race-baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, both of whom lay claim to the title "Reverend" but apparently are "ministers without portfolio" in that they are rarely seen in their tax-exempt "churches" wherever those "churches" may actually be, jumped on the divisiveness bandwagon demanding Limbaugh's ouster. (Oddly enough, had he succeeded, Limbaugh's contribution would have made him a "minority owner." God I love irony.)
Williams was drawn into it mid-week when he appeared on the FOX cable channel's O'Reilly Factor and supported Limbaugh. Opposing Williams was another black man, Internet host Warren Ballentine, who took the other side of the debate.
Williams got the best of Ballentine from the outset and Ballentine, his back against the wall and his store of relevant information exhausted, retreated to a pre-school intellectual level and retorted "Juan, you know what, you can go back to the porch."
In many quarters that is meant as the ultimate black-to-black insult. It means he was calling Juan a "Porch Negro" or an "Uncle Tom" - in other words a black man who forsakes his own race to bow and scrape to his white masters. It is obsolete, it is passe, it is irrelevant in modern America unless you are a professional race-baiter, and it had no place in an intelligent debate over a viable issue.
It was low, crass, gutter level and frankly, a stupid response. It was akin to saying, "Oh yeah, well your mother wears Army boots." But it was far below even that pre-kindergarten level doltishness. It was a vapid, knee jerk commentary that only showed the speaker can't hold his own in an intellectual debate on a national stage.
The liberal media, upon hearing this outrageous comment, immediately - went silent. I mean they shut up, not a peep.
But can you imagine what would have happened if a white man had made a comment like that to Williams? These same incompetent, unprofessional, libelous, lying, liberal media stooges who don't even have the integrity to make a REAL apology to Limbaugh would have been all over a white man in that situation like - well, bees on honey. (Thought I was going to say like white on rice didn't you?)
Williams was not cowed though. He staunchly repeated his defense of Limbaugh on Fox News Sunday this week, and good for him. FNS must be having a ratings bonanza with Williams this week - not to mention a spirited debate between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Karl Rove - following a dynamite appearance by Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn spouting non-stop common sense last week.
Two great shows in a row! I bet Barack Obama is rethinking his boycott of FOX.
But back to our original subject, could someone tell me how anyone is supposed to have an intellectual, goal-driven debate on the status of race in America when we are tainted with a media that lies, spreads the lies, and doesn't even admit it when caught red-handed? Then, these same propagandists won't report on it when the most outrageous, despicable racist comment that was actually made in all of this reporting on racist comments came from a man who apparently wants to be the next Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton?
(The term "red-handed" refers to being caught in the commission of a violent crime and having blood on your hands. It has no bearing on any racial or ethnic group that inhabited the land now known as America before Europeans got here. FYI.)
I have been alive long enough to know that race relations in America have come light years from the days of separate restaurants, drinking fountains and seating sections in bus stations. It also is evident to even the most casual observer that there still is much work to do.
But at least the laws have been changed, the playing field has been leveled, and if someone is held back from jobs, promotions, raises or business and educational opportunities due to race, there are avenues of appeal. These avenues did not exist when I was a child.
I have written here in the past that I usually do not agree with Juan Williams. In fact, I watch Fox News Sunday most weeks in part because I hope to see another chapter in the ongoing debate between Williams and Brit Hume. For political junkies that amounts to high theater, even though I hardly ever share Williams' point of view.
But that doesn't mean I don't like him. He is aggressive, he doesn't back off of his viewpoints - even if they do sound way too much like Democratic talking points - and he is obviously highly qualified to articulate the liberal position on most issues. (I had to laugh when one propaganda dispensing organization referred to him as a "moderate-liberal" commentator. Moderate? Are you kidding?)
But I was impressed a few years back when I saw a segment on Williams' daughters working in the Washington area collecting prom gowns so high school girls in New Orleans who had lost their belongings to Hurricane Katrina could get some normality back in their lives. His approach to parenting and the willingness of his family to actively help showed me that we have much in common even if we don't agree politically.
So I took it personally when I heard that racial slur aimed at Williams. I may get all worked up over his views versus Brit Hume's, but I still believe he is an honorable, decent man who should not have to put up with low-class gutter comments from offensive wannabes seeking a national audience.
During last year's presidential race, when Obama began to rise above the rest of the pack, America was tentatively treated to a superficial discussion of racial issues by a timid liberal media that supposedly wanted to have a meaningful conversation. But when you take a close look at the media, it is clear that the "liberals" really want to maintain the status quo, and this is proved simply by reviewing who gets the attention and which viewpoints get disseminated without even the most basic fact checking.
A REAL discussion on race? Here is exactly where it should start.
Black leaders, including those who have real churches and preach real Christianity, should stand up for and alongside Juan Williams and denounce the bigot who made such a vile statement to him. They should denounce Sharpton - who now claims he's going to sue Limbaugh for fighting back - as well as Jackson and any of their clones. They should point out that these hucksters are continuing to hold the REAL advance of racial relations in America at post-Civil War levels and that as long as they are allowed to hold center stage, not much is going to change.
When black Americans stand up to the hate mongers in their own ranks, when they acknowledge that their considerable advances in the past 50 years have come with assistance from white Americans, not to mention the 400,000 who died in the Civil War to end slavery, then maybe we can start on other issues.
But as long as reprehensible racist comments are allowed to go unchallenged because they were made by a black man rather than someone of another race, as long as sensible, intelligent individuals like Juan Williams are the focus of efforts to stifle their viewpoints from within the black community, there really isn't much hope for widescale changes. These are the dominant factors holding back progress in race relations in America, not fabricated racist statements that are used simply to punish political opponents.
As long as the current crop of bigots within the media, and those who use the media, are allowed to dominate our culture and our politics, as long as revisionist historians and commentators are allowed to spew their vitriol without challenge, then Americans of all races, across the political and social spectrum will suffer.
If we want meaningful advances and true unity the bigoted commentary must be replaced by intelligent, honest discussions. Otherwise we will be having this conversation 50 years in the future and little if anything will have changed.
And that is a REAL discussion on the issue of race in America.
This came over the Internet via You Tube and it is worth sharing, especially with all the lies and deceit coming out of Washington.
What with "Health Care Reform" which is really just an effort to nationalize insurance payments so the thieves in Congress will have billions if not trillions more tax dollars each year to plunder, and the military getting screwed so Congressmen and Senators will have more money to 'blow' on cocaine, liquor and women, it is high time for a commentary from someone with a little "Common Sense."
Has it occurred to you, as it has to my son and many others in his generation, that the same conditions that spawned the American Revolution exist in this country again today? Certainly something worth thinking about.
Back in February I wrote that Michael Steele is my kind of National Republican Party Chairman. He stands up for what he believes, he doesn't hide out in his office, he gets out front on national issues and he lets Republicans from the rank and file to the highest levels of government know the party's positions.
Today, Michael Steele again showed why he is a great party chairman and would have made a far better president than the guy who currently sits in that office. After the Obamination called the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Barack Obama, Michael Steele stood up and stood out.
He called the award for what it was, a pandering bribe to the president of our country. I agree with those commentators who say it was an obvious effort to keep Obama from ordering our military into annihilating the Taliban in Afghanistan, which still wants to annihilate our country and our way of life - in addition to the rest of the world which is beyond complacent in its view of these terrorist extremists.
Mr. Steele said Obama lacked meaningful accomplishments. I agree. News reports quoted Mr. Steele as adding, "The real question Americans are asking is, 'What has President Obama actually accomplished?'"
Michael Steele
Steele also is quoted as saying it is "unfortunate that the president's star power has outshone tireless advocates who have made real achievements," and that Obama won't be receiving any awards from Americans "for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action."
I agree with that assessment too, and here's a reason why. News reports said the White House found out about the award at about 5 a.m. after a wire report popped up with the story. Then press secretary Robert Gibbs called the president a little before 6 a.m. and woke Obama to tell him he had won!
It's freakin' six in the morning and the president of the United States is fast asleep when I am already up and working? Are you serious? This guy is supposedly the top dog in the entire free world, the equal of any leader anywhere (which in itself is a step down from the Bush Administration) and he sleeps in on work days?
What kind of example is that for all the people that Obama is telling to stay in school, or go back to school, or work hard and get ahead? He tells everyone else what they have to do and he rolls over and hits the snooze button? The only thing that can get him out of bed is a fake award for non-existent successes?
And yeah, thanks to Mr. O we now have serious competition on the international scene and it isn't friendly and doesn't work in our favor. Remember when George Bush was president and the media always said he was the most powerful man in the world?
Not even 9 months into the Obama presidency and now the non-free world is our equal! How long before Russia and China start calling the shots on domestic policy in the US? Are they already? Could be, look at the stinking mess we're in.
It is now obvious that Obama was campaigning for the Peach Prize when he was hobnobbing with dictators and thugs, murderers, embezzlers, tax cheats and similar upstanding citizens of the world while simultaneously bad-mouthing the United States. What is it with these guys? Meaning Obama, Gore, Clinton, carter, and the other so-called American 'leaders' who are so worried that the scum of the earth won't like them.
I honestly think they all were the picked-on Caspar Milquetoasts of their high school and college classes who willingly gave up their lunch money to the playground bullies every day of their school careers so they would be "liked." I bet between them they got more wedgies and swirlies per year than they rest of the student body in their schools combined.
Earth to Obama. Fawning acquiescence didn't work then and it doesn't work in the world sandbox either. The big kids don't "like" you, they ridicule you. They see you as a patsy, an easy target. And anyone who stands near you is going to get smacked too. Which is why Britain, France and other countries are cooling off toward the US and cozying up to other alignments.
Is this your plan? Weaken the US internally and externally until even third world pipsqueaks will kick sand in our collective faces? I have an idea. Considering how much damage you've already done, why don't you resign now and at least give the Blue Dog Democrats a fighting chance in the 2010 elections.
Because your lap dog media types may be doing their best to push out propaganda at a record pace, but America knows what is really going on. Ignoring 1 million marchers in DC on Sept. 12 may have been a big laugh line for your and your ilk, but wait until Election Day 2010 and see what kind of laugh you have. Seriously. The boom will be lowered and you'll be standing right under it.
Peace Prize. For what? What is Obama's Peace Plan for the Czech Republic. For Poland? For Georgia? For the Ukraine?
Oh, right, you haven't gotten to that yet. Not enough hours in the day are there Mr. President? Here's a thought. Work til 10 p.m., kiss the wife, tuck in the kids, go to sleep and get up again at 5 a.m.
Shower, shave, have a quick but nutritious breakfast and get to work. It's called discipline. I'm sure you never heard of it before but there is this other thing called a dictionary. Try using one once in a while. It's an amazing tool.
If you look up "discipline" or "work ethic" you'll find a photo of Michael Steele. Emulate him. It will work wonders for you.
I was discussing the cost of a reasonable health care policy with some friends and family members recently and we concluded that an annual cost of $2,000 to $2,500 per person, meaning a range of $6,000 to $10,000 for a three- or four-member family, can pretty much cover whatever ails you.
If you are fortunate enough to have an employer who will share half or even more of that cost, you should take that into account before you complain about how tough things are at work.
In the ongoing debate over the federal government taking control of the nation's health care system - Oh yes! That is exactly what this is all about! - it has been noted repeatedly that the insurance industry is a big money maker. That is because on average most people who buy health care insurance take out less each year in medical payments than they put in through policy premium payments.
For instance, my family has payed out more than $75,000 in health care premiums in the last 15 years but we have used only a minuscule amount of that money in actual health care costs. Our last big hospital bill was 15 years ago when my youngest daughter was born. This even though we get regular physicals and on occasion have to make use of other medical facilities.
So the insurance industry has done well by us. In fact, the insurance industry does well by just about everyone who buys insurance. Actuaries run the numbers in their sleep and adjust the rates accordingly so they know exactly how much to charge each insured client to make sure they don't lose money on the transaction.
It also has been noted that 80 percent of the money spent on health care in the US goes to the elderly. That makes sense when you think about it because the elderly have more parts that wear out, it is more difficult for them to recover from injuries, and generally speaking they suffer from lower immunity so they are more susceptible to diseases.
Thus, if 90 percent of Americans - nearly 270 million and counting - are contributing an average of $2,000 annually to health insurance, but only 20 percent are incurring large expenditures, well, that's a lot of money in the bank.
But the Obama Administration wants to put an end to private insurance - Oh, yes it does! What do you think is going to happen when the government offers employers and individuals lower cost insurance policies?
The vast majority will switch over to the government program - which can be offered at much lower cost because every single American taxpayer is subsidizing it - just to save money. Meaning within a few years, the only program available will be the government program as private insurance companies fold.
Then, with the requirement that EVERYONE participate, under threat of fines or jail or both - if you don't know about this I suggest you do some serious research before you take a position - the US government will be the entity collecting the annual insurance premiums, from every single one of us.
If this b.s. law passes, which it probably will because the US Congress is peopled by unprincipled dolts and communist dupes, the current strategy is to have it go into effect in 2013. Supposedly this is so Obama can avoid the taxpayer backlash and it will be too late to unseat him as he enters his second term of dismantling the US Constitution.
By then, the US population will have grown enough so that even when you subtract the burgeoning illegal alien population, there will still be 300 million Americans who will be required to contribute at least $2,000 annually to support national health care. Please don't say "the children won't be required to pay." Their parents will. Corporations will. Somebody will. This plan is designed to make every single legal American cough up their share every year, one way or another.
If you do the math, you will find as I did, that this comes to $600 BILLION dollars each and every year that will be collected by the US Government just the way it now collects income tax, social security tax, and Medicare tax, along with a gazillion other taxes. $600 Billion in cold hard cash that will put dozens of insurance companies out of business, thousands of insurance industry workers out of work, and will succeed only in increasing the size of our bloated, inefficient, deaf, mindless federal bureaucracy.
And don't think for a minute that this bloated bureaucracy won't start looking for ways to "cut costs" even before the ink is dry on the documents creating it. If the elderly account for the biggest expenditures, then the elderly will be the first place the bureaucrats go to find savings.
First it will be easy and understandable procedures. A terminally ill 99-year-old who needs a heart replacement when cancer is the primary illness won't get that heart and few if any will complain because it makes sense. But when no one is looking the regulations will undergo review and revision and soon it will be hip and knee replacements beyond a certain age threshold, and then more of this and more of that. Pretty soon, we'll be killing our citizens faster than the communists, but no one will know because the dead will be old and what the hell, that's what old people do, isn't it?
And somewhere along the way Sarah Palin will be able to say, "I told you so," but she won't do it with any sense of satisfaction because this is one of those areas where she wants to be wrong and we'd all breathe easier if she was.
That's where we're heading. We can see it as clearly as a full moon on a cloudless night. Call it what you will, this will be a tax, it will end up in the general fund just like Social Security did, it will be bankrupt before it ever has a chance of being solvent, and it will be a tax!
If the government collects it, if it is mandatory, if you can be fined or jailed or both for not paying it, I don't care what they call it, a fee, a levy, even a premium. It is a TAX!
And we are going to be paying for it to the tune of $2,000 per year per person, at first, more later ... much more. But by then it will be too late. And among the first to be euthanized by this oh-so-efficient model of government in action will be the old fools in Congress who voted it in under the guise of social progress.
I don't know if it was Stalin or Lenin or even Tolstoy who coined the phrase, Useful Idiots. But it sure does fit.
600 Billion Dollars a year in new taxes, hidden under the heading of Health Care Reform, and "Useful Idiots" all over the country are buying into it like rubes at a sleazy carnival midway. Damn fools.
