Constitutional Confusion in Honduras:Who's On First?

There seems to be more to the Honduran coup than meets the eye. The President of Honduras, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal on-line, was trying to change the constitution in an illegal manner. READ ABOUT IT HERE
A June 26th story read:

Government supporters began distributing ballots at 15,000 voting stations across the country, defying a Supreme Court ruling declaring Sunday’s referendum illegal and ordering all election material confiscated. President Manuel Zelaya had led thousands of supporters to recover the material from an air force warehouse before it could be confiscated.

The way I read it right now it seems to be a case of a chief executive exceeding his authority, the Supreme Court of Honduras called him on it and ordered the military which handles elections not to allow the illegal referendum where upon the chief executive fired the head of the military, so the Supreme Court ordered the military to remove him. The question is which part of the government are you going to honor? Another news story claims that 83% of the Honduran people side with the court against the president. Hmmm... seems strange that all the people complaining seem to be dictators ... except our president ... Hmmm... Tyranny Rising?

Shoddy Science? You Got that Right

A commentary on the brouhaha about the EPA suppression of an analyst's report calls the report shoddy science and I think with some justification, if for no other reason than that the author was not a climatologist. (To be fair this non-climatologist, Alan Carlin, has an undergraduate physics degree from Cal Tech. That's not chopped liver!) On the other hand the whole climate debate is dominated by shoddy science. Even the notion that we have an adequate database on-hand with which to make these earth shattering claims about climate is highly suspect. We only have temperature data ranging back to the mid-19th century and the surrogates (things like tree rings, ice cores, and other substitutes that may correlated to climate) reveal times in the past when it has been much warmer and much much colder. We don't have an adequate theory for any of that. So all the current furor over CO2 is at best speculative and not in any hard sense, science at all. So maybe the "shoddy science" is as good as the "alarmist science." My general mantra in all this is: "Show me the data." I don't want to hear a lot of nonsense about the sky is falling or the river is rising ... What I want is good hard data together with laboratory or external observational experiment that confirms whatever theories are being tossed about. So far it looks like smoke and mirrors.
Jonathan Hiskes, the fellow who condemned this particular analyst's report, is a Grist staff writer. I'm not sure what Grist even is so I googled it up and searched on Hiskes' name and dredged up a bunch of his other writings. No sign of his credentials, so if he has any it's not clear. He clearly has opinions. I think I'll take the opinion of a Cal Tech physicist before just bending over and accepting Hiskes' critique. The problem is that all this climate nonsense is 99% opinion and about 1% data and based on quite a lot of very tentative and shaky science. When things are dominated by opinion the whole thing becomes a game of "Who do you trust?" I don't trust ideologues with axes to grind. I trust data and well motivated theory that has been validated. Oops, not very much of that in this field. So I themed this piece with Aeolus who I first encountered in the Aeneid. Aeolus is the god of winds (i.e. a blowhard) so he's a particularly appropriate icon for this whole topic. It's mostly hot air, ur wind.

Playing Games with the U.S. Economy

Given this key to what is going on, we can all understand. It's a big game! After all, a crisis is a terrible things to waste.

The War On Work: Reality Trumps Bureaucracy

Some things just blow you away. I got pointed at this article by Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs." Check out the video. It's funny, it's deep, and it points an incredible lesson which we ought to reflect on as those who can't tell those of us who do it all the time how to do it better. Leaders without vision, especially vision of reality are not very much help. Reality Trumps Theory even when it's the Bureaucracy we call Gubment!! Check it out!

Thomas Paine, well sorta ...

Thomas Paine was a firebrand. I don't agree with all of this but the fellow who reminded me of it — I'd earlier distributed it — said: This guy's video on youtube has been so popular that Obama called him personally. He said that he was very disturbed with the video and invited him to the White House. Obama also said he wanted the White House to handle the Press and not to talk about the video or the White House visit. Is it true, I mean about Obama? I don't know, but it's certainly an excuse to send it around for one more spin.

Tyranny Rising

As I look at what has been going on since President Obama was elected the phrase "tyranny rising" keeps popping into my head unbidden. Here we have a callow, youthful, extraordinarily inexperienced president who seems totally full of himself. He speaks well, at least if scripted and the teleprompter doesn't fail, but doesn't seem to seek much counsel beyond an inner circle of persons whose background is at least troubling.

In the very short time he has been in office he has enlarged government spending in a wholly unprecedented manner. He has apologized for the United States to people to whom we have no need to apologize. He's been throwing Israel under the bus. He took credit for elections in Iran as if the elections were ever about anyone moderate and then when they were clearly cooked refused to stand up for a fair outcome.

He's pushing a nonsensical cap and trade scheme to solve a problem that very likely doesn't even exist, and he's trying to federalize all of American health care — good luck at getting timely and decent health care if he succeeds. And it is only June. Then when the economy tanks and government revenues sink (can't get taxes from people who don't have it) and the government "solves" the problem by printing more money, and the money inflates because there is so much of it chasing a shrinking base of goods and services. Then what?

We've already semi-socialized the American auto industry, and taken hostage a fair part of the financial industry. Where and when does it end? Do you really think it was necessary in the first place? What evidence do you have that any of this was truly necessary? A crisis is a terrible thing to waste and a very helpful thing to manufacture. When things start to collapse the government has to step in and take over, right? That makes sense ... or does it?

Does it occur to anyone that all of this can be and might very well be manufactured?
Tyranny rising might be exactly what it is. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." is a quote often attributed to Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine, but likely older and no less true for that.
Freedom isn't free. Watch and prepare.

Let's Do Something Stupid

You guessed it. We're going to have a grand ole time trying to swing the earth's temperature (in a way which may be deleterious actually) using a lever made out of a wet noodle that is applied to a fulcrum that only influences 24 parts per million of the atmosphere at a mind-boggling cost in bureaucracy and lost productivity. The only ones that can benefit from this are those who wish to impose their will on all of us regardless of whether it makes sense. Tyranny is rising and freedom isn't free.

What Obama Could Learn from Lincoln ... well sorta

The above quotes attributed to Lincoln were actually by a clergyman. (see below)
There is a list of ten statements beginning with "You cannot .. ." that are popularly attributed to Abraham Lincoln, (1809 - 1865) Sixteenth President of the United States. They sound so wise and so much like things he would have said that they are frequently quoted and attributed to him in print. This is the error I made thinking it pointed out Obama’s errors. They are:

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong

3. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.

4. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

5. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.

6. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.

7. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.

9. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.

10. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

But alas! Lincoln did not say these things. They were written in 1916 by the Rev. William J. H. Boetcker, a Presbyterian clergyman and pamphlet writer. In 1942, a group called the Committee for Constitutional Government gave out a great many leaflets entitled "Lincoln on Limitations" that contained on one side a real Lincoln quote and on the other side the 10 Boetcker statements. Boetcker was credited with his statements on the leaflet, but their proximity in print to one real quote by Lincoln, plus the title of the leaflet, led people to think that Lincoln had said the ten listed statements. They were repeated in many printed sources, and are still regarded by many as authentic Lincoln quotes. Carl Sandburg, Lincoln's most famous biographer, dismissed them as spurious.

Science Government Style

Open inquiry, peer review, sharing of results, data driven and not agenda driven — these are some of the aspects of real science. When the government gets involved they tend to go out the window. Budgets demand crisis to fuel the flow of cash and heaven help you if the science you do doesn't get the right result. Here we have another case of failing to provide an open forum and muzzling results that don't apparently play to the party line.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has muzzled one of its own senior researchers according to a story by Chelsea Schilling posted yesterday on World Net Daily. SEE HERE
Alan Carlin, a senior operations research analyst with the National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE) had his research results rejected from an internal discussion forum based apparently on the fact that they flew in the face of policy decisions already made. At least this is what he was told according to the article above:

"Alan, I decided not to forward your comments," he wrote. "… The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.

What do you call this? It's certainly not science. It looks like political policy driven outcome based propaganda support, or in this case denying hearing to findings that would not promote the preferred policy. Dishonest? Yes! Surprising? No! We should get the government out of the agenda driven science business.

Milton Friedman on "self-interest"

I don't suppose it is any surprise that capitalism is often characterized as the enshrinement of greed. As soon as you hear that you know that you're shortly going to be told how to do it better. But the history of the world shows no evidence of there ever having been a system that did it better, only systems that did it differently and generally with worse results. Freedom coupled with capitalism unfettered by oligarchical practices has shown itself time and again to offer the best hope for raising the most people out of abject poverty to a life offering the prospect of achieving excellence. The pursuit of happiness (or felicity) requires freedom and part of freedom is the freedom to enjoy the fruits of ones work.

Diversity is a code word for prejudice

Walter Williams, one of my favorite columnists generally dishes it out straight from the shoulder. That is one of the reasons I like him so much and his colleague (both economists) Thomas Sowell. Both seek the truth of the matter and then spell it out in no uncertain terms. Today's Williams' column titled: The Viciousness Of Academic Liberals nailed it once again.
When college administrators talk about diversity it is important to understand the code. The code is that some other criteria besides academic excellence is going to be used to grant admissions to people who wouldn't make the cut otherwise. Where I come from that's called prejudice and discrimination. They call it diversity.
Williams quotes an article by a former University of California regent named Ward Connerly which explains how Asian students are discriminated against because as one college administrator described them: Asians are "too dull — they study, study, study."
I suppose that's due to good parenting. My parents brought me up to "study, study, study" and they told me that if I excelled I'd be rewarded. What our betters the Academic Liberals do is turn that on it's head. Obviously we have to discriminate against those that are deserving to reward the undeserving. So the next time you hear about diversity understand the code. It means punishing excellence, and rewarding ignorance and indolence. Aren't we just so enlightened.

Shah's Son Addresses Journalists

The Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, summarizes the situation in Iran in a moving speech to journalists. CHECK IT OUT

Government Savings HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ...

Give me a break! The government is always lecturing us on how they'll make things better, save us money and all the rest. "High healthcare costs" is one of the mantras one hears all the time from the geniuses inside the beltway (BTW "beltway fever" is what most people call it — it's a form of delusional thinking practiced by those working for or working in government who don't get out much). In case you think the government health care is going to save you money, a sobering look at the trackrecord of Medicare should be illuminating. See below.

The reality? — More taxes, less service, more bureaucracy and red tape, more fraud and abuse and less effective health care. The farther the payer is from the receiver the poorer the health care. Count on it! I'm from the government, I'm here to help you! isn't called one of the 10 great lies for nothing.

Some People are Just No Good ...

In case you weren't looking the Pakistanis have 100 nuclear weapons or thereabouts according to military estimates made in 2000. Al-Qaeda leaders have plans for those nuclear weapons should they destabilize Pakistan. Friendly folks that they are their plans include using those things on the United States. It's not altogether clear why they think we're the ones that should be nuked? I suppose the sin of not approving of their desire to wipe Israel off the map and a certain unwillingness to accept that strapping bombs on your children to kill the neighbors you don't like is rational behavior might have something to do with it. CHECK OUT Al-Qaida's Intentions.

Being an unreconstructed imperialist, my tendency would be to apply the Roman solution which seemed to work on Carthage pretty well. At least Carthage never bothered the Romans again. This bunch are sheer insanity. We play around with them as if they are rational and it's just a little disagreement or they're just a different kind of criminal (read them their rights and get them a lawyer). But the reality is that they are not rational being rather more like rabid beasts with a propensity to attack and attack and attack.

The nuclear danger is heightening as Iranians strive to get the bomb. Pakistan has scores of bombs that could be in danger of capture if things go badly. North Korea is supplying Iran and has detonated a bomb and is testing missile delivery systems.

The world is a very dangerous place and getting more dangerous by the day. We should take it seriously and stop playing patty cake.

Voices from the Streets

Brad Archer is a group manager who works in construction management. Like many Americans, he's been watching what has been going on in our newly elected government with dismay. How far we have come in a few short months, from dealing with an economic crisis brought on by irresponsible lending and speculation to an abrogation of our founder's principles as the Obama administration seems hell-bent to make the situation worse and seize more and more economic power. You can find what Brad wrote HERE
Here's just a taste:
The more I read about the freedoms that the founding fathers had given me, I begin to realize how many freedoms I have either lost or have never been bestowed upon my generation. I see more and more of these freedoms eroding away. I agreed to write a paper regarding these lost freedoms, but as I was formatting this paper, I realized that there are so many examples, it is hard to decide where to begin.

Where to begin? That is a fundamental question. One might want to adopt the Oxford method that I heard explained one time by: "Begin at the beginning, and then go right through to the end, and then stop."
Archer quotes Stanislav Mishin, a Russian writing for Pravda who says of the United States that capitalism is gone with a whimper, that we have dumbed down the population through a politicized and substandard education system that is based on pop culture, rather than the classics and we have destroyed our faith in God, and ...
Finally, Mishin says the final act in this collapse is the election of Barack Obama. Mishin states “His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history, but in the world. If he keeps this up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst, Zimbabwe”.
Remember that Freedom isn't Free!

Iran and North Korea: A Time of Testing and Crisis!

With the news full of trouble in the streets of Tehran and saber rattling coming from the lunatic tyranny of North Korea, it is hard to know what is happening and what position the United States should take.

Frankly, the existence of the Iranian state as it currently exists owes a lot to that nincompoop Jimmy Carter, who never met a tyrant he didn't like. The intervening years have shown us how stupid it was to have failed to give the maximum support to the Shah who was building a pro-Western democracy.

The usual prattle from the press makes it all sound like someone actually knows what is going on, when in fact it generally looks pretty confusing. The Iranians are claiming Western interference, which is a distinct possibility. I'm not entirely sure where the spontaneous expressions of solidarity came from in DC, NYC, and LA that were reported this morning. Perhaps it was the children of those Iranians displaced when Carter destabilized the region.

Meanwhile the Koreans are saying they'll launch a missile towards Hawaii. They're also saying we're plotting nuclear war against them because we reaffirmed our treaty relationship with South Korea. The insanity of some people seems to know no bounds.

These crises, which seem at least in part manufactured, may well be the proof that Joe Biden is a prophet. Obama would be tested he said. Frankly, Obama is being tested I think. Whether there is wisdom in his actions or mere expediency is something which will likely be revealed over time. So far he's seems a reckless and profligate statist bent on destroying the economy and bringing on a massive shift towards socialism. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. We live in the crisis driven presidency.

Sometimes the ACLU Gets It Right

I'm not a big fan of the ACLU. Most of the reason that I'm not is that they seem to be far more interested in causes that I think are not sound. They push the latest political correctness to the max. But I have to admit that sometimes they seem to get it right. The video below shows a bit about how it all started.

Pretty outrageous when a person gets held up and interrogated for carrying around $4,700 in cash. Hello! — That's not even a large amount of money. But then having had my dad's money clip taken from me by these idiots because it had a tiny knife in it, I'm quite familiar with the kind of narrow minded lunacy that stops and strip searchs 80 year old ladies but gives Islamic wackos a pass because after all we wouldn't want to profile. Common sense is obviously not one of the requirements for hold these jobs.
If you want to hear the whole thing (aren't cell phones and other electronic magic helpful sometimes?) you can hear it by CLICKING HERE.
On Thursday, June 18th, the ACLU filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — See the article HERE
"On March 29, 2009, the plaintiff in the case, Steven Bierfeldt was detained in a small room at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and interrogated by TSA officials for nearly half an hour after he passed a metal box containing cash through a security checkpoint X-ray machine. He was carrying the cash in connection to his duties as Treasurer of Ron Paul’s Campaign For Liberty. Steven’s experience is part of a troubling pattern of the TSA transforming its valid but limited search authority into a license to invade people’s constitutional right to privacy."
This kind of zealotry might be admirable if it made any sense. But as it is, it constitutes unreasonable search and seizure and an invasion of the privacy of the traveler. So score one for the ACLU.

Whatever Happened to Personal Responsibility?

I was facebooking the other day and for some reason or other (it doesn't have to be much of a reason on Facebook) the topic of progress came up. Some people were of the opinion that we had progressed a lot in the past, oh forty years or so.

I grew up in the 1950s and I shared that in my experience we had mostly gone backwards. What I meant of course was that fear seems to dominate us far more than it did then, despite all the retrospectives about hiding under desks because we might be nuked. But we lived in a much wider world. We also weren't so propagandized by TV all the time. There were no police in the schools. Teenage pregnancy was not an epidemic. Of course it happened now and then, but in the absence of sex-ed and stimulating videos and the expectation communicated by adults that you were going to do it anyway so exercise safe-sex, here's a condom, here's a dozen. Well in our day the condoms were not on display and you couldn't buy one if you knew they existed if you were a high-school student. Mostly our idea of sex was getting kissed or maybe dancing closely. Is the new liberation liberating? I don't think so. We've stolen much of the magic out of growing up and we've even stolen the magic out of being grown up.

We also had rifle teams in the schools. One of my girlfriends was pretty funny looking lugging around her .22 rifle, one of those ones with the big heavy barrel for target shooting. Nowadays you get sent to the principal and expelled if you have a plastic key ring ornament that's a pistol. Then of course there are knives. We all had knives. A boy scout knife was standard issue for any teenage boy. We played mumbly-peg and whittled and opened things. Some of us had those fancy Swiss army knives with all kinds of special tools. Today you get suspended for having one of those things in your pocket. Did I mention fire crackers and cherry bombs? They were great fun.

My point is that we've not only not advanced, we've retrogressed markedly into a realm of mindless fear. I'm not sure why. I know I don't like it. It's borderline crazy. I could go on with discussions of leaf-burning for example. Everyone burned their leaves along the road. It was actually kind of nice. I always loved the smell of burning leaves in the Fall. My dad used to burn all the family trash in a little stainless steel burner out in the backyard. I might add for those who can hardly believe it, that we didn't live in the country. We lived in the suburbs and pretty much everyone did it. The leaf burning -- it was in Falls Church, Virginia in a ritzy neighborhood populated by high-end government workers and military officers.

So when I hear about all the progress we've made, I know it isn't social progress. Somebody is confusing having an ipod with progress. Technology marches on as we become more and more slavish to it and to the rantings of the media and the politicians.

Freedom isn't free.

Carter never met extremists he didn't like ...

Jimmy Carter is at it again, making out that somehow the Palistinian problem is Israel's fault. The reality is that it is more the Arab nations that have kept the Palistinians in refuge camps for generations just so they can continue to attack Israel. The hypocrisy of the left continues unabated as the Arabs ignore the generous offers Israel has made time and again with the single proviso that their right to exist be recognized. But the reality is that there is only one course that the Palistinians and the Arabs see for Israel, and that is death. Carter continues his hypocrisy which goes back all the way to Camp David.

Whatever Jimmy Carter touches turns into a disaster. He is best ignored as a hasbeen and the worst U.S. President at least in my lifetime if not since the founding of the republic.

What are they smoking ... ??

The Times On-Line almost made me split a gut with the following:

There had been high hopes of an “Obama effect” in Iran, similar to the victory for a pro-western coalition in Lebanese elections this month in which Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed “party of God”, was defeated. Obama had said that what had been true in Lebanon could be true in Iran as well – “you’re looking at people seeing new possibilities”.
Earth to Obama ... if you think your aura influenced the Lebanese elections you are totally out of touch. You were throwing Israel under the bus and that makes Lebanon vote for a pro-Western government? Must be good stuff ... magic mushrooms or something. And you were hoping this fictitious effect would have influence in Iran. Wow! The depth of the foreign policy here is breathtaking. Maybe you should send in the clowns or offer the Iranians plastic decoder rings in their Cheerios. If it were not so pathetic it would be amusing, but we have to tolerate almost four years of this kind of nonsense. I hope we can all survive the experience. It might get even funnier. Maybe he'll go to Hogwarts and study the dark arts or more likely teach them.

Hypocrites on the Left

This Metroland cover from last year's Halloween issue is a telling reminder of the double standard and hypocrisy that emanates from the left. In some ways however it has it right. The left hates Sarah Palin (perhaps because they are scared that she might actually get leverage and that her plain sensible common sense values might "horrors" resonate with the American people) and they hate Christianity (which of course is one of the motivators of Sarah Palin and other people of faith. Moreover it seems quite appropriate to depict Obama as a vampire. He sucks the blood out of people. Currently he is sucking the blood out of the economy by generating record and unsustainable debt. He is sucking the blood out of the insurance industry and the health care industry as he prepares to transform American health care into a single payer (read "rip off") system and put it under the control of yet another government bureaucracy. Do we really need another? So I think the odd thing about this is that I think in a strange sort of way it accurately depicts the left and their fears. They are vampires that suck the lifeblood out of people and who hate the light, especially the light of common sense and Christianity. Hmmm... yup!

Global Warming Alarmism

TalkingPointsMemo.com recently published an article that issued this public appeal: "At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers?" The article accused "right-wingers" of blocking fixes to the problem of supposed "climate change" and stated that when "end of the world"-type events start to take place, "how will we punish those responsible?" according to Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com The author has since retracted his over the top rhetoric. MY SOURCE
Now frankly, global warming is a scientific issue in all its various dimensions. The reason that there are deniers, an unfortunate term intentionally coined by the global warming alarmists to evoke the emotional response commonly expected for holocaust denial, is that there is an awful lot of bad science mixed up in the claim. We're talking here about scientific disagreements. A good many good scientists are not impressed by the claims and the data and in fact a good percentage of the so-called data is cooked and has been demonstrated to be cooked. Moreover, the recent data points to global cooling at least over the next decade or so. So what's the big deal and why the emotional rhetoric.
The answer is simple. It's not a scientific issue at all. What it is, is a straight play for political intrusive power to impose controls, expensive, crippling controls, on the free market. The emotional rhetoric says it all. You don't have to stir up passions when you have the data. It's a crock!

Straight Talkers are Hard to Find

Christina Jeffrey is running in the fourth district of South Carolina in a Republican primary against a big-government moderate. Moderate, you know, Latin for Republicans who are slipping leftward. This lady is smart, articulate, and a real conservative. She deserves our support. I sent her a donation, you should to. DONATE NOW

The Hypocrisy of the Left

Apparently the Obama Justice Department is getting ready to beat the bushes for some other people to blame for the murder of the ghoul late term abortionist George Tiller. The major Pro-Life organizations have all been making the point that Pro-Life means they don't believe in killing people, neither very little people nor heinous butchers like Tiller who has murdered about 60,000 a good many of which were perfectly viable children capable of living outside the womb. In a particularly ghoulish move Tiller sponsored what amounts to religious rites for his victims to help the mother bond with her dead baby. Now I think the murderer of Tiller needs to be brought to justice, but I'm a whole lot more concerned about the murder of innocent soldiers serving the American people by rogue home grown terrorists. Where is the outrage about that?

The hypocrisy of the left is so palpable. A young soldier is murdered and a second is gravely wounded and the administration is playing hooky. No statement from the president about homegrown terrorists or public launch of an investigation of why this guy was running around loose when he was on record as having traveled to Yeman, sporting a fraudulent Somali passport, and was transporting guns and Molotov cocktails and stalking recruiting stations. Is there any parity here? I guess the difference is that George Tiller was a generous contributor to the Democratic party apparatchiks. Yeah that's the ticket.

Tiller was 67 and a multi-millionaire from his abortion business. But Pvt. William Long was only a 23 year old patriot with his full life before him. If we're going to stir up an investigation, let's find out who these people are who are training indigenous terrorists to kill our young patriots.

The Family of Pvt. William Long Deserves An Answer

What is the Justice Department and Homeland Security doing about the murder of their son and the wounding of his companion?

More video from William Long's Father

Every Which Way But UP!

I was struck today by the article at the American Thinker site by Lloyd Marcus. The article is titled:

Obama's Attack on Achievers and Individual Rights

Using examples drawn from sports Marcus outlines the fact that excellence is a personal trait honed by commitment and dedication. It isn't an accident or a quirk of fate. It comes from hard, disciplined work.

The President doesn't seem to get it. Maybe being a community organizer and part of the vast left-wing liberal conspiracy doesn't teach those things. Marcus points it up not only using sports examples but drawing from his own experience growing up as a young black man and watching the hard work and commitment of his parents. Maybe that's something Obama didn't have either. Here's a taste of Marcus' message:

President Obama, the supposed "Great Unifier" uses his bully pulpit to divide Americans by proclaiming, "You have too little because THEY have too much". He vows to "Spread the wealth around".

Ponder this for a moment folks, like no president before him, our president, Mr. Obama traveled around the world on his "America is Too Successful and Arrogant Apology Tour". WOW!
I think he's right. CHECK IT OUT

Bang, bang ... You're Dead

A young soldier is dead and another wounded because this young man, Abdulhakim Muhammad, converted to Islam and developed a prejudice against the American military. That's of course an insane reason to randomly kill someone, but some things are hard to explain in logical terms. Muhammad had been under investigation by an FBI joint terrorism task force since returning from Yemen. Now what was he doing in Yemen? He was apparently jailed there at some point for using a Somali passport. Where did he get a Somali passport? Both of these reports from the AP wire sound like a finger print of someone being trained to be a terrorist. I don't know that was the case, but the facts as reported certainly sound suspicious. Americans newly converted to Islam going to places like Yemen and acquiring foreign passports need to be further investigated. Authorities are said to have recovered Molotov cocktails, three guns and ammunition from his truck when he was picked up for the murder of Private William Long (23) and the wounding of his companion Private Quinton Ezeagwula (18) outside an Army-Navy Career Center in a Little Rock Arkansas shopping center.
It's instructive to compare this young man with the young man from Kuwait who addressed the Republican Convention in Virginia on May 30th (see my blog for May 31st). What makes one man become a terrorist and another a patriot?

Intimidation at the Polls ... Case Dropped

An Investor's Business Daily Editorial describes a troubling decision:

The Washington Times reports that political staffers at Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department have trumped careerists and ordered that a complaint be dropped against three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense who used a billy club to harass voters in Philadelphia on the day of last year's November elections. ...

An interesting aspect to the case is that civil rights activist and former Bobby Kennedy aide Bartle Bull, working as an official poll watcher on the day, accused the Panthers of making themselves "an intimidating presence" in a sworn statement.

"In all my experience in politics, in civil rights litigation and in my efforts in the 1960s to secure the right to vote in Mississippi," according to Bull, "I have never encountered or heard of another instance in the United States where armed and uniformed men blocked the entrance to a polling location."

Case dropped!! Apparently voter intimidation is part of the change we've signed up for. Chilling!