We are witnessing, via the excesses of the Obama Administration and the Democrats on the Hill, the largest and, by virtue of its size, least affordable spending spree by any government in history, sums of money so vastly beyond that which we have to spend that to say these people are overextending us would be a profound understatement.

The children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the present generation, as yet unborn, are becoming unwitting lenders in the financing of the great debt being generated, yet when their taxtimes arrive, they will no longer function as lenders, but as borrowers — through rendered-necessary and heavily increased taxes, it is they who will be forced to pay off both the principals and interest of the immense debt underneath which our incumbent, irresponsible liberal “progressive” leaders are in the process of burying them.

This collective “groundbreaking” expenditure is falsely packaged as a series of measures geared toward jump-starting our troubled economy. In actuality, it is a collection of temporary bailouts that will lead to other temporary bailouts as the supposedly bailed-out companies fail under the inept auspices of government direction and allocations of massive amounts of the current and future taxpayers’ hard earned lucre to liberal “progressive” political PACs, unions and Utopian causes — you know, those bureaucracy-generating ones, for which our political left is famous, that snowball over the years into expensive tragedies.

Hundreds of billions of dollars. The concept, even, of so much money is mind boggling.

That said, stop and think.

There are what? About three hundred million people in this country? And the Obama spending spree totals more than two million times that number?

Well, Barack, Pelosi, Reid and friends, how about this?

If you’re dead set on doing the socialist thing, why not simply bail out all Americans on a case-by-case basis? This one needs his irresponsibly assumed mortgage paid off, fine: pay it off for him. That one is un-or-underinsured in the healthcare department, pay off his hospital bills or open an account from which his health insurance premiums can be debited. This one’s homeless but wants to work and be independent, get him a small studio apartment, pay the bills and give him a few hundred a month to eat and commute on while he’s attending the trade school we’re paying for and then looking for a job. Etc, etc, etc…

Let those in need of assistance file for it, give them, say, a three month window and the carved in stone warning that the government is only going to do this one time. To process claims and disburse funds, hire qualified temps with an understanding that the job will only last three months.

Even if everybody in the country had a million dollar problem, three hundred million would be a real bargain compared to what they’re serving up now.

That, friends, is about as far reaching a compromise as I would make, were I in the position to do so.

*Offer extends only to individuals, not big corporations, and only to U.S. citizens.

Capable, visionary, ambitious people built the big banks, brokerage houses and automobile companies into the dynamos they have become. Let these same concerns now fix themselves, restructure, go Chapter 11, do whatever they need to do. Don’t nationalize these private sector businesses under the pretense of bailing them out. This is America, we don’t do that kind of thing.

Or at least we didn’t.

…when I look at the way things have come together for the worse in America, well…

Fannie Mae and other unconstitutional governmental (thanks, Democrats) incursions into the mortgage millieu snowballed, gradually gaining girth until we were looking at a voluminous downhill juggernaut that, very rudely, took the rest of the economy with it as it headed on down the hill.

Waiting conveniently at the bottom of said hill, we found any right thinking American’s worst nightmare — profoundly far left majorities in the House and Senate with the likes of a Barack Obama waiting to be sworn in as President of the United States (no, I’m not throwing rocks at the man, I’m merely making what I prefer to refer to as an astute observation).

We have foreclosures, we have failing banks and brokerage firms, we have failing auto makers.

We have the annual multi-billion dollar illegal immigrant problem, all those criminal aliens our political left, those same critters now running the country, want to legitimize.

At any rate, things aren’t looking all that rosy right now, and given the crock of shit stimulus package these people have dropped on us, they look even bleaker for the future.

Forget the AIG bonuses and all the rest of the stuff that’s making making the public’s blood boil; All the rage we expend on those picayunes — yes, they are bagatelle when placed beside the Big Picture, and they also help to distract Americans, to the joy of President Obama and the Democrats on the Hill, from those things that should be our primary concerns:

We are in the process of nationalizing the banks and other financial institutions, by purchasing their stock, which gives the government a “say” in the day to day affairs of these concerns.

We are being committed to programs that make children as yet unborn into unwitting moneylenders, only lenders with a twist — they will also be the debtors, paying back both principal and interest in the form of taxes.

We are watching a liberal president and a liberal Congress allocate billions of dollars into the coffers of PACs and unions that support their leftist campaigns so that they’ll have these same funds on hand to donate to future liberal campaigns — this is nothing short of robbing all American taxpayers in order to perpetuate the careers of a few politicians who have little or no use for the letter of the Constitution. The most descriptive terms I can think of for this are Grand Larceny and Treason.

We are witnessing the greatest rape of our economy in history, trillions of dollars we neither have nor can afford to borrow being poured like water into bureaucracies, agendas and political programs that will lead us into the depths of economic tragedy as they expand and demand exponential expenditure increases, transforming the world’s greatest economy into the same pitiful class as those of any failed socialist country.

Returning to the top of this post,

I Dislike Sounding Like A Conspiracy Theorist, but…

Our current economic situation, much of it sparked by policies and bureaucracies forced onto/ into the private sector over the last couple of decades by the folks on the left side of the aisle, seems to have coincided rather conveniently with our having both a liberal run Congress and a liberal president at the same time, enabling the passing of the legislation that now threatens to transform our beloved country from the successful free market behemoth it has always been into the miserable, infinitely less free socialist state our miserable, shit eating, treasonous, Stalin loving liberals have longed it to be, their Utopian little minds unable to grasp the depths of the consequences they, themselves will have to bear along with those of us whom they are victimizing by sabotaging the capitalist republic in which we have been quite happy to dwell.

Concurrently, they have pursued the three agendas that are of paramount concern to any totalitarian government.

They attack belief in G-d, because belief in Him might stand between the citizens and their total devotion to the government;

They control and manipulate the media, using propaganda and selective reporting to shape public opinion and, as we’ve seen, even to elect a president!

I hate to say this, my friends, but it looks to me as though our nation’s internal enemies are winning, have perhaps already won, through a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.

By the time 2012 arrives, it may well be too late to reverse what the Obama Administration and the Pelosi/ Reid Congress have set in motion.

I dislike sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but…

…the wheels grind slow in Congress, but who cares, right? It’s only the taxpayer’s money that’s often flushed down the commode of politicians’ ineptitude.

Back on 28-October-2005, I posted this on the UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees ) quagmire.

If I was able to learn about it from sources totally accessible to the public, the rest of the media and, though it might have taken them awhile, the government surely knew what was going on then and what has been going on since at UNWRA.

However, they have not been at all diligent about addressing the Palestinians refugees’ expansion vs its cost on the backs of the U.S. taxpayer.

Here we are, over three years since I posted that article and five decades plus change since the scurrilously corrupt, incompetent U.N. agency began UNWRA.

Finally, now (all emphasis mine),

111th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. CON. RES. 29

Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the Near East to ensure that it is not providing funding, employment, or other support to terrorists.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 28, 2009

Mr. ROTHMAN of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. KIRK, Mrs. MYRICK, Ms. BERKLEY, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mrs. TAUSCHER, Mr. ENGEL, and Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the Near East to ensure that it is not providing funding, employment, or other support to terrorists.

Whereas the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established in 1949 as a temporary agency to provide relief services to Palestinian refugees and is the only United Nations agency dedicated to one specific group of refugees;

Whereas UNRWA’s definition of refugees includes not only the Palestinian refugees themselves, but also their descendants, resulting in a more than 400 percent increase in the number of beneficiaries from 900,000 in 1950 to 4,500,000 today;
Whereas since 1950, the United States has contributed more than $3,400,000,000 to UNRWA and is the largest single donor to this United Nations organization;

Whereas as of September 2008, the United States has already contributed $148,000,000 to UNRWA for fiscal year 2008;

Whereas UNRWA employs approximately 24,000 staff to care for a population of 4,500,000 registered refugees in camps located in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Palestinian Territories;

Whereas, in contrast, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the agency tasked with resolving refugee problems worldwide, employs approximately 6,300 staff to care for a population of 11,400,000 refugees worldwide;

Whereas despite the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) military disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and the 1993 creation of a Palestinian Authority that has jurisdiction over the Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, UNRWA remains the primary professional, medical, educational, and social service provider for Palestinians living in `refugee’ camps in the Palestinian territories;

Whereas according to UNRWA Report of the Board of Auditors for the biennium ended December 31, 2005, UNRWA does not track recording, deleting, renaming, or manipulation of financial information by staff members or volunteers, and therefore has no means of detecting the alteration of financial data or other types of redirection of UNRWA funding, leaving UNRWA unable to technically comply with section 301(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which ensures that no United States tax dollars support terrorism;

Read the rest of H. CON. RES. 29 here.

If members of the U.S. Congress worked in private companies…

…arrived in my inbox a couple of days ago, one I thought I’d share.

A letter from the Boss To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a Back Story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You’ve seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I’m sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don’t see is the BACK STORY :

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you. My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn’t have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom’s for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn’t look like it was birthed in the 70’s. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, someday, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don’t. There is no “off” button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden — the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations… you never realize the Back Story and the sacrifices I’ve made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bailout all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds. Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why: I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don’t understand .. to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

It’s quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I’ll fire you and your coworkers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child’s future. Frankly, it isn’t my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I’m done. I’m done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

So, if you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about….

Signed, THE BOSS

A Big Hat Tip to B.J.S.

…the lefty (which is most of the) media is, despite a widespread dose of c-c-cold-d-d-d reality, still at it.

Temperatures have plummeted to record or near-record lows in 32 states this winter. On March 2, a global warming protest in Washington, D.C. was buried by nearly a foot of snow. And a new study warns that the Earth could be in for a 30-year cooling trend. Reality is not cooperating with the network news’ global warming theme, yet reporters are unwilling to even discuss the possibility that the Earth is cooling.

Global warming alarmists repeatedly link weather phenomena like tornadoes, hurricanes, ice melt, droughts and wildfires with global warming and the media embrace the stories. Yet, when cities or regions are buried in snow like the city of Chenzhou, China was in February 2008 there wasn’t a word about climate change in the cooling direction.

“It is being called China’s Hurricane Katrina,” NBC anchor Brian Williams said on Feb. 4, 2008. “… the month of blizzards that have brought it [China] to a virtual standstill. Millions have been stranded. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless.” Williams didn’t chalk up the devastation to global cooling, of course. That doesn’t fit the media’s warming narrative.

Read the rest of the article here.

James Hansen, a leading global warming alarmist, promoted a “civil disobedience” protest at a Washington, D.C. coal power plant March 2. The protestors claim that coal – and its carbon emissions are a cause of global warming. Hansen and his friends were greeted with 8 inches of snow, “strong” winds and below freezing temperatures.

Heh, heh, heh…

…one being about a country and its leader, specifically the leader, upon whom so many of our misguided, stupid, lefty toilet cake Hollywood buffoons fawn with the leg trembling worship of the garden variety MSM “reporter” drooling on the feet of an Obama.

I have a few personal reasons I won’t get into just now for despising that G-d forsaken country, one that would allow a Hugo Chavez and his commie goons to come to power to begin with, but what goes on there is a pure insult to all of humanity.

Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, rebuffed by voters in his previous attempt to become president for life, has now taken a giant step closer to his goal. A reported 54.4 percent of voters approved a referendum on Feb. 15 that would permit Chavez to run for re-election indefinitely. It was the sort of “election” we remember from the communist days — or see today in Zimbabwe. According to the Economist: “Public buildings and vehicles were plastered with pro-Chavez propaganda. State television and radio channels turned over almost their entire resources to promoting the campaign. And even the Caracas metro obliged passengers to listen to campaign jingles.” In 2007, opposition to Chavez’s power grab was led by students. But this time, Chavez ordered that demonstrations against the referendum were to be broken up “with a good dose of gas.”

Now, a triumphant Chavez declares, the way is clear to lead Venezuela to “21st century socialism.” We know what Chavez means by this. He has been implementing his socialism, which is barely distinguishable from Castro’s, since 1999. Freedom of the press is a memory in Venezuela. Newspapers and electronic media that opposed Chavez have been harassed. The 2004 “Law on the Social Responsibility of Radio and Television” requires all outlets to carry Chavez’s speeches in full, contains penalties for a variety of offenses and insults, and permits licenses to be revoked for a second offense. Globovision, a private 24-hour cable news channel, was recently accused of insulting Chavez. Pro-Chavez legislators have urged the attorney general to investigate. Meanwhile, thugs linked to the government lobbed tear gas canisters into the newsroom. RCTV, the second largest television channel in the country, was closed down altogether in 2007.

Read Mona Charen’s entire column here.

Another item is the latest column by Ann Coulter, of whom I can never get enough.

Six months after America’s all-time greatest president left office in 1989, historians ranked him as only a middling president. (I would rank George Washington as America’s greatest president, but he only had to defeat what was then the world’s greatest military power with a ragtag group of irregulars and some squirrel guns, whereas Ronald Reagan had to defeat liberals.)

At the time, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. dismissed Reagan as “a nice, old uncle, who comes in and all the kids are glad to see him. He sits around telling stories, and they’re all fond of him, but they don’t take him too seriously” — and then Schlesinger fell asleep in his soup.

Even liberal historian Richard Reeves blanched at Reagan’s low ranking in 1989, saying, “I was no fan of Reagan, but I think I know a leader when I see one.”

Reagan changed the country, Reeves said, and some would say “he changed the world, making communism irrelevant and the globe safe for the new imperialism of free-market capitalism.” In Reeves’ most inspiring line, he says Reagan “was a man of conservative principle and he damned near destroyed American liberalism.”

Truncating a bit…

Soon after he took office, President Reagan famously hung a portrait of President Calvin Coolidge in the Cabinet Room — another (Republican) president considered a failure by historians.

Coolidge cut taxes, didn’t get the country in any wars, cut the national debt almost in half, and presided over a calm, scandal-free administration, a period of peace, 17.5 percent growth in the gross national product, low inflation (.4 percent) and low unemployment (3.6 percent).

Unlike some recent presidents with Islamic middle names, he didn’t run around comparing himself to Lincoln constantly.

I know I promised not to throw any rocks at the “recent president with the Islamic middle name”, but — wait, it’s not me who’s throwing the rocks, it’s… it’s… one of my favorite author/ columnists.

Anyway, the entire piece is a good read, so it would behoove any and all to take the time to read it.

And finally, I know this issue has been receiving its share of flogging in recent weeks and months (and years, though one would think, by the way the linked article puts it, that it has only been of concern for the last couple of weeks). Howsomever…it’s actually been an issue ever since liberal talk radio began to realize that no one wanted to hear their blathering, commie malarkey while Americans had and have their ears glued to conservative talk radio. According to the rules of a free market, the liberal dudes and dudettes had to be dropped because no sponsor wants to waste money running ads during a program that no one is listening to.

An Obama senior adviser has indicated that the administration is mulling whether the controversial Fairness Doctrine will get a new lease on life, according to a report in Broadcasting and Cable.

The now defunct Fairness Doctrine, if revived, could be used by a liberal administration to silence Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other radio talk show hosts, as well as much of the new alternative media. The doctrine required broadcasters to report both sides of controversial issues. The Federal Communications Commission dropped it in 1987.

And now…

“Senator Obama does not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters,” press secretary Michael Ortiz said in an e-mail to Broadcasting and Cable at that time.

“He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible,” Ortiz said.

Hmmmm, opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible sounds to me like a somewhat left-handed method of saying one doesn’t support the fairness doctrine but supports the fairness doctrine just the same. It would certainly be a pleasant change if these people would just come out and speak their minds, but heaven knows, telling the American people the truth about their actual intentions might receive a largely negative response.

Yeah, better to mince a few words than just say what you mean, you “progressives”, you…

Of course, Bubba weighs in:

Last week on a radio show, former President Bill Clinton announced that in his opinion something needed to be done to balance broadcasting.

How about broadcasting some patriotic programming, instead of left wing garbage put forth for the sole purpose of tearing our great nation down?

“Well, you either ought to have the fairness doctrine or you ought to have more balance on the other side,” Clinton said, “because essentially there has always been a lot of big money to support the right wing talk shows.”

Big money tends to support winners, Mr. Bill, at least smart big money does. This ain’t Utopia. In the competitive game of the free market, the losers have to work a little harder to run with the winners, and do so without a Mom & Dad government interfering on their behalf.

If you want the kind of government you left wing folks are trying to force on us, I suggest you abandon your plans and, instead, move here, where you’ll get exactly what you’re asking for, because the rest of us just won’t be having any of what you’re peddling.

To the rest of you, have a wonderful day, breathing the freedom laced air of America.

…and I will give our new president a chance, unlike the treatment by those folks to the left of things who came right out of the starting gate throwing rocks and various and sundry innuendo at the Bush Presidency before he even had the chance to be sworn in.

However, there are a few small bones I believe need picking, such as, of course, the debate, or lack thereof, surrounding the so-called “Stimulus Bill”.

Mr. Obama made great hay on the subject of promulgating a bi-partisan government, and was even caught on video, smiling a positive sort of smile, saying that he is determined to get the Republicans to work as a team with the Democrats.

That’s very nice, Mr. President, but unless I am being obtuse in my observations, the reality, as things are working out, is that in your lexicon “working together” means everybody towing the liberal line rather than the Democrat majority accepting and incorporating the input of the Republicans in the decision making process.

Even Pelosi’s ‘we won, so we rule’ attitude goes against the grain of your promises to maintain a bipartisan government.

Now, the “Stimulus Bill” itself is crammed with billions of dollars’ worth of partisan agendas that have little or nothing to do with stimulating the economy, not least of which is the billions earmarked for ACORN or the what? Half billion or so destined to combat STDs? As a commentator on FOX news this morning put it, there are some wonderful ideas packed into the “Stimulus Bill”, but quite a few of these don’t belong on the price tag of a bill whose goal is to revitalize our economy.

In the liberal tradition of a bi-partisan Congress, all Republican input is being completely ignored, shut out, etc, etc…

…so much so that the new president can’t seem to hang on to certain cabinet nominees who are endowed with consciences.

Well, how about a little spot-on input, then, from Ann Coulter?

It’s bad enough when illiterate jurors issue damages awards in the billions of dollars because they don’t grasp the difference between a million and a billion. Now it turns out the Democrats don’t know the difference between a million and a trillion.

Why not make the “stimulus bill” a kazillion dollars?

All Americans who work for a living, or who plan to work for a living sometime in the next century, are about to be stuck with a trillion-dollar bill to fund yet more oppressive government bureaucracies. Or as I call it, a trillion dollars and change.

I wasn’t what you would call overly thrilled at the new president’s appointment of Hillary Clinton as SecState, but he seems to have softened the blow on one hand…

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama’s chief Cabinet officer.

Since her designation:

Vice President Joe Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the inauguration, could not but send a signal to Clinton that he would conduct foreign policy in the new administration, leaving her in a backup role.

Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the Clinton years.

Former Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, negotiator of the Irish Peace Accords, was appointed to be the administration’s point man on Arab-Israeli negotiations.

Samantha Powers, Obama’s former campaign aide, who once called Hillary Clinton a “monster,” has been appointed to the National Security Council as director of “multilateral affairs.”

Gen. James L. Jones, Obama’s new national security adviser, has announced an expansion of the membership and role of the security council. He pledges to eliminate “back channels” to the president and wants to grow the council’s role to accommodate the “dramatically different” challenges of the current world situation.

Susan Rice, Obama’s new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she presumably also will have the same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy adviser during the campaign.

{to me, this sounds suspiciously like “Hillary, you’re butt’s finally out of the Senate and you’ve got yourself a bigger job title, now go sit in the corner and shut up” — heh, heh}

…but continues “business as usual” in the game of patty cakes with our avowed enemies.

{Need to scroll down a bit to get to the quote below}

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. I’d like to shift gears to foreign policy. What is your strategy for engaging Iran? And when will you start to implement it? Will your timetable be affected at all by the Iranian elections? And are you getting any indications that Iran is interested in a dialogue with the United States?

Obama: I said during the campaign that Iran is a country that has extraordinary people, extraordinary history and traditions, but that its actions over many years now have been unhelpful when it comes to promoting peace and prosperity both in the region and around the world, that their attacks — or their — their financing of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, the bellicose language that they’ve used towards Israel, their development of a nuclear weapon or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon, that all those things create the possibility of destabilizing the region and are not only contrary to our interests, but I think are contrary to the interests of international peace.

What I’ve also said is that we should take an approach with Iran that employs all of the resources at the United States’ disposal, and that includes diplomacy.

And so my national security team is currently reviewing our existing Iran policy, looking at areas where we can have constructive dialogue, where we can directly engage with them.

And my expectation is, in the coming months, we will be looking for openings that can be created where we can start sitting across the table, face-to-face diplomatic overtures, that will allow us to move our policy in a new direction.

There’s been a lot of mistrust built up over the years, so it’s not going to happen overnight. And it’s important that, even as we engage in this direct diplomacy, we are very clear about certain deep concerns that we have as a country, that Iran understands that we find the funding of terrorist organizations unacceptable, that we’re clear about the fact that a nuclear Iran could set off a nuclear arms race in the region that would be profoundly destabilizing.

So there are going to be a set of objectives that we have in these conversations, but I think that there’s the possibility at least of a relationship of mutual respect and progress.

Anyone who’s read this blog in the past knows what I think of Ahmadmanjihad’s respect for America, or of even the remotest possibility that we can sit down with him and his ilk and hold a mutually honest discussion leading to any kind of mutually honored agreements.

Notice how the Iranians waited until Obama was in the White House before they tested their new missile. You know, the one they claimed is meant to launch communications satellites but (ahem!) also confirms their capability of delivering a warhead not only into Israel, but southern Europe, as well.

On another note, I was watching an interview with John McCain on Fox, and he made a valid point regarding the conduct of the Democrats, now that they have a Democrat president to go with their majorities in the House and Senate.

He said that what the Democrats are doing now, as far as wielding their power, is not much different than what the Republicans did during the Bush Administration. He added that the GOP paid dearly for it in November, 2006. Now we can only hope that the Democrats pay the same price in 2010, as a response from voters on the price the taxpayer has to pay as a result of the “Stimulus Bill”, and that, G-d willing, we get a sweep of all three branches two years after that.

…, I have no intention of bashing our new president or even criticizing him until we see the end result of his works as POTUS.

However, I will do what one might call “semi-predict” the intended fruits of the incumbent administration.

First, as I mentioned in my last post, Mr. Obama has frozen all proposed Bush agendas pending “review” of each, rendering any prospective final legacies of the previous administration moot, including, unfortunately, bills effecting the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

Now, there’s this little nugget.

Vice President Joe Biden says the goal of a new White House task force is to raise middle-class living standards.

The goals of the task force are plums for the labor unions that supported Obama’s presidential bid. Those goals include:

– Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities
– Improving work and family balance
– Restoring labor standards, including workplace safety
– Helping to protect middle-class and working-family incomes
– Protecting retirement security

Yeah, I can see where the teachers’ unions and some of their fellow travellers might like the ring of those bells.

At the same press conference where he announced the Middle Class Task Force, President Barack Obama signed three several executive orders intended to “level the playing field” for labor unions in struggles with management.

“I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it’s part of the solution,” Obama said, prompting applause. “You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement.”

Hmmmm….

The three executives orders Obama signed on Friday will:

– Require federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.

– Reverse a Bush order requiring federal contractors to post notices telling workers they can limit their financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.

– Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses intended to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.

The White House Web site does not define the term “middle class,” other than to call it “the backbone of the country.”

They’re working fast, friends, and what I semi-predict is, within four years, the combination of a liberal Executive Branch with Democrat majorities in the House and Senate will change the whole enchilada of the American existence, and I mean irreversibly so unless, on the next go-round, we elect another Republican majority and President who will do what our last such combination shamefully neglected to do: Their jobs, which are based upon remaining loyal to their voter base rather than their miserable, negligence ridden careers.

Too Something Too Late

The $64,000.00 question is why now, rather than a few years ago? Like, when they still enjoyed the trust of their conservative constituency…

The unanimous vote by House Republicans against President Obama’s stimulus plan provided an early indication that the GOP hopes to regain power by becoming the champion of small government, a reputation many felt slipped away during the high-spending Bush years.

I’m tired of voting for politicians simply because they are Republicans, or because they are the “lesser of two evils”. I mean, are they? We lost the majority on the Hill in November, 2006 because they abused the confidence vested in them by conservatives. Now they’re doing the right thing, but will this continue if we manage to regain leadership of the House and Senate, or will they simply return to their previous complacency and fat, butt-sitting worthlessness?

I’ll tell you this much; By 2012, we probably won’t even recognize our social and political landscapes, but whose fault is that?

I blame our own Republican politicians for screwing the pooch when we had the best of all worlds at our fingertips.

Thanks, all, for your good wishes, prayers and comments after Wolf’s 6 Dec 2008 post.

I have been “cleared” to post a bit, as opposed to laying low while Wolf and his friends try to work out a permanent solution to a problem that has come up to CONUS from the hell hole I visited in late November (well, a small part of it was a visit, the rest was as a profoundly reluctant guest), in the form of some spooks who wish to pursue certain topics we never quite got through discussing to their satisfaction when I was previously in their clutches.

Theoretically, I argued, even if these miscreants know about Hard Astarboard, they can’t read a post and determine where it was posted from. I hope.

Safehouse-wise, newspapers, TV and radio abound, and luckily, one is not cut off from news, or, at least, from the dubious offerings put forth by the MSM.

I find it pretty interesting that our new president, Obama, is already starting to tick off some of those that rooted vociferously for him during election season. The Muzzies were vocal about the fact that he didn’t throw his all behind Hamas and condemn the Israelis for defending themselves by finally invading the Gaza Strip. I myself was surprised when he made remarks that people, referring to the Israelis, have a right to defend themselves, knowing that, along with Irreverend Wright, he has previously taken a strong pro-Hamas/ pro-Palestinian stance.

After the NYT railed against Camp Delta, down yonder at GITMO, as Torture Central and, in complete agreement with Obama, whom they worshipped as the true messiah during his campaign, believed the place should be closed down, well…

…now that Obama has ordered that the incarceratory complex there be shut down, the Grey Lady of the Left has this to say.

First they claimed that GITMO is illegally/illicitly holding all sorts of innocent, misunderstood, nice, right neighborly folks, mis-identified as terrorists/ enemy combatants, etc, now that their hero the Messiah is President and has decreed that GITMO be de-prisonered, they abruptly admit that Said Ali al-Shihri, a GITMO releasee, is a terrorist whose release enabled him to do further damage as such.

I foresee a lot of unforeseen turmoil between Obama and a whole passel o’ folks on his side of the aisle in the next couple of years, I think mainly because the new president is out to prove that he’s his own man and will attempt to do so by going against the policy preferences of his own side from time to time.

I agree with Wolf that we need to give Obama a chance, no matter what we think of him, his beliefs or his policies. He was elected by the majority of the voting public. The way the liberals went after Bush from the minute he was elected was both disgraceful and, to my way of thinking, just a bit treasonous, and I’d hate to think that any conservative, whom I would expect to remain a true American, would thus badmouth the chief executive officer of the United States of America. Leave that to the liberals, they have neither the grace, the maturity nor the class to behave like adults when they don’t get their way politically.

So I’ll just sit back and watch, and see how things develop as a result of the policies of the Obama Administration and its relationship with the Democrat majority in the House and the Senate.

The new president is already in the midst of reversing a whole slew of Bush Administration policies, and these include a few that are centered around the 2nd Amendment, such as the still pending legislature on the right to carry firearms in our national parks. Obama wishes that all still pending policies be put on hold for “review” by himself and his cabinet.

All this in less than a week. Hmmmm.

Wolf here.

Seth and his friends got themselves into a bit of a problem a couple of weeks ago, especially my old buddy. They were pursuing their quarry on the soil of a country whose government is not what you’d call friendly to the United States, and Seth got his ass caught by a garrison of dumbasses.

He was held in a stockade for several days and severely mistreated. Apparently, they wanted to know how he and his accomplices got into the country and who helped them. Seth, who is one loyal cuss (which is how he go into the jam to begin with), refused to talk and was, as they say, put through the wringer. Even after over a week of being given a pretty rough time, the most he’d tell them concerned their parentage and suggested interesting ways they might experiment with their own body parts, most of which were impossible.

Some people I once worked with and I went down there and rescued him — I’ve long owed Seth for taking some serious risks on my behalf a long time ago, so this was the least I could do.

He’s now recuperating in what we will call an “undisclosed location” while we figure out a way to get him home without encountering any official complications and while he gets himself back to his old healthy self.

No permanent damage, just a lot of bruising, contusions and other minor effects one encounters when colliding with rifle stocks, truncheons and knuckles, and is half starved for a week or so and kept locked up in a stiflingly hot, muggy cell. He should be back to normal, if we can call what he was previously normal, in a week or so.

All in all, a wonderful time was had by all.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go rest these tired old bones for a day or so.

Wolf out.